Author of King’s Quotation Revealed

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 306, 28 December 1939, Page 6

Author of King’s Quotation Revealed

DID NOT RECOGNISE HER OWN WRITING United Press Association—Dy Electric Telegraph—Copyrigh t. Received Wednesday, 10.10 p.m. LONDON, Dec. 27. The 8.8. C. revealed that the author of the King’s quotation in his Christmas broadcast is Miss M. L. Haskins, who wrote it as an introduction to a volume of verses privately printed and circulated many years ago. Mias Haskins is a novelist and poet living at Crowborough and was employed before the war as a tutor in the London School of Economics. She listened to the King’s broadcast and said: “The quotation sounded familiar, but 1 did not immediately recognise it was from my own poem.” She explained how she wroto it, adding that the poem containing the quotation is called “God Knows.” Miss Haskins confessed that she only vaguely remembered tho circumstances in which the lines wero written. “It was before 1934 and I believe I was in tho West Country when the inspiration came to me.” An earlier message stated that his Majesty’s quotation baffled literary men, who were unable to trace its source. It was reported from Court circles that his Majesty chose the quotation himself. Ho did not reveal the origin, and those in Court circles searched vainly after the speech was first drafted. The Press Association said that the King himself did not know the source of his quotation. He did not find it in a book, but came across it reccntly. He was so struck by the words that ho decided to incorporate them in the broadcast. Tho quotation read: ‘*l said to the man who stood at the gate of the years: ‘Give me light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’ And he replied: ‘Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than the known way. * ’ ’