SHORT STORIES.

Digger (Invercargill RSA), Issue 4, 9 April 1920, Page 16

SHORT STORIES.

VANITIES OF THE GREAT. Although Swift probably fneant whai i he said when he penned the couplet — What poet would not grieve to see Ilis brother write as well as he? and, unforunately the jealousy of genins is proverbial, the Dean, himself as vain as any man, was throughout his life generous in his public admiration of his great contemporary Pope. Yet both men were not only vain of their writings, but were absurdly proud of the most trivial accomplishments wliich occupied their leisure hours. Pope spent more time and laborions thought designing the gardens ar i grotlos of his Twickenham cottage tban on the production of his "Essay on Man" or the translation of Homer. Friends who came to discuss the maichless wit of the polished verse would be bidden to admire Pope the horticulturist and remain dumb on the merits of the poet and satirist.

THE PRIDE OF SIR WALTER. Scott in his Abbotsford home is a case still more to the point. The Waverley . novels witli their two million wcrds, hun- ! dreds of full-drawn characters, and abj ounding wealth of detail in scenery and comment, form a monument which even a gxi might be proud to have created. But P;r Walter would not even own to their authorship, until it leaked out- and all knew that the country squire, who seemed occupied the liveiong day in managing his estate, playing with his bounds, and riding to the hunt, was the writer aboutwliom all the world was specuiating. Then wcrshippers of literary genius having made their pilgrimage to the shrine in the joyous hope of a peep into the penetralia of imaginative creation, would be prcudly shown by the autlior of incompaiable Jennie Deans the stucco and plaster and sham Golhicisms of Abbotsfori House, the pride of Sir Walter's heart. DICKENS, TOO. Forst-er tells us that it was the dearest delight *of Dickens to express his person - ality not on the printed page, but in the strut and fret of an hour in amateur theatricals. As one visualizes the imposing figure and mighty intellect of ihe great novelist contorted in the effort to dehneate this character or that for the diversion of a handful of lookers-on, one is reminded that a genius after all is but a man, with a gocd deal of the child still surviving. Vanitas vanitatum, wrote Thackeray, sighing over the sins of humanity ; yet himself was absurdly vain of his sketclies. He was deeply hurt at Dickens's rejection of his offer to illustrate oue of the latter's books, failing to realize that his power emphatically lay in the pea and not the pencil. But the classic example of the vanity of authors is un-, doubtedly Lord Byron. Whatever our opinion may be now of his poetry, it is indjsputable that at the time of its production it had an immense vogue, and there was considerable justification for the poet's self-eongratulation. All who knew the man, however, record that pride and rank and conceit of his personal appearance easily surpassed his satisfaction in his poetical powers, and that he • even boasted more of having swum the Heiispont than of all the cantos of "Don Juan." Decide not rashly. The decision made. Can never be recalled. The gods implore not, Plead not, solicit not ; they only offer Choice and occasion, whicli once being passed , Return no more. Dost tbou accept the gift ? — Longfellow. We often ascribe to fate what was merely amounted to following the line of least resistance.