THE POETRY OF BILLIARDS.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXII, Issue 8805, 6 May 1907, Page 4

THE POETRY OF BILLIARDS.

How Stevenson Plays. The world fades away like cigarette wreaths as L watch’ Stevenson making poetry with his cue. I am soothed by the fluent ease'of the artist. Here is a man whose mastery over brute matter is absolute. The three balls are his helots. They obey him silently, or all but silently, with ivory whispers and kieses and feathery wisps of sound. I mutely worship this magician, who makes these spheres move in obedience to bis will. Thus move the planets on the billiard table of infinity. Thus tolls the earth, thus swerves the sun, thus swoops the moon. This quiet, keon-eyel man has discovered the secret of motion and gravitation and all the mysterious forces that lead the electrons in their i predestined waltz. Brain and fingers ' and cue and balls are one with the ■ inviolable laws of the universe. I 1 fall to studying this necromancer. Ilia face is an epitome of concentration. It has the sharp swiftness of the hawk in its fine angles and curves. It is nervously sensitive in | every feature. It is vividly alive I with serene vigilance. His lithe I limbs move with sinuous grace to ;and fro. He is a living nicety, an inca nafco precision. Even when he i crawls with one leg along the edge ~i the table there is no awkward violence in his posture. I am amazed at the apparent ease ;of his feats. There is no evidence oi difficulty overcome. He bids the balls to go and they go, to come and they come. Their woven paces seem to be controlled by some will within themselves. They twistand swirl as it they wore living things endowed with volition. Once a bill seems to have erred, and a gasp of regret issues from the deluded spectators as it passes its target. Then it strikes the cushion and recoils and flicks the ball it had evaded, and the spectators laugh in seif derision.

1 At times the interminable caresses ‘of nursery cannons grow monoto- { nous, and one is narcotised by the I display of perpetual artistry.’ I But now and then comes a donb'o I baulk. With infinite care the wizard J places Ins ball, and sends it z’g--5 Z 2ggisg all round lha table. As it [ nears its goal his quick eye moves 1 with it, and as it screws in a de- | Jicious curve oft one b?-l! and off ibe I other, his glance seems to swerve | with it in a kind of visual harmony. I It is the poetry of billiards.— | James Douglas, in the London j Leader.