Part 37 (1/2)
What we have always marveled at is Balfour's capacity for mental detachment. In the first year of the war he found time to deliver, extempore, the Gifford lectures, and in the next year he published ”Theism and Humanism.” It is said, of course, that he had a great gift for getting or allowing other people to do his work in the war council and the admiralty; but that does not entirely explain his br.i.m.m.i.n.g mind.
”There is a fine old man,” as one of our readers reported his Irish gardener as saying of A. B. ”Did you know Mr. Balfour?” he was asked.
”Did I know him?” was the reply. ”Didn't I help rotten-egg him in Manchester twinty-five years ago!”
Col. f.a.n.n.y Butcher relates that the average reader who patronizes the New York public library prefers Conan Doyle's detective stories to any others. Quite naturally. There is more artistry in Poe, and the tales about the Frenchman, a.r.s.ene Lupin, are ten times more ingenious than Doyle's; but Doyle has infused the adventures of Sherlock Holmes with the undefinable something known as romance, and that has preserved them.
The great majority of detective stories are merely ingenious.
Col. Butcher says she uses ”The Crock of Gold” to test the minds of people. A friend of ours employs ”Zuleika Dobson” for the same purpose.
What literary acid do _you_ apply?
Our compliments to Mrs. Borah, who possesses a needed sense of humor.
”If,” she is reported as saying to her husband, ”if it were not for the pleasures of life you might enjoy it.”
A librarian confides to us that she was visited by a young lady who wished to see a _large_ map of France. She was writing a paper on the battlefields of France for a culture club, and she just couldn't find Flanders' Fields and No Man's Land on any of the maps in her books.
A sign, reported by B. R. J., in a Cedar Rapids bank announces: ”We loan money on Liberty bonds. No other security required.” Showing that here and there you will find a banker who is willing to take a chance.
The first object of the National Parks a.s.sociation is ”to fearlessly defend the national parks and monuments against a.s.saults of private interests.” May we not hope that the w. k. infinitive also may be preserved intact?
A missionary from the Chicago Woman's Club lectured in Ottawa on better English and less slang, and the local paper headed its story: ”b.u.m Jabber Binged on Beezer by Jane With Trick Lingo.”
Young Grimes tells us that he would like to share in the advantages of Better Speech weeks, but does not know where to begin. We have started him off with the word ”February.” If at the end of the week he can p.r.o.nounce it Feb-ru-ary we shall give him the word ”address.”
”This, being Better English week, everyone is doing their best to improve their English.”--Quincy, Mich., Herald.
Still, Jane Austen did it.
BETTER ENGLISH IN THE BEANERY.
Waiter: ”Small on two--well!”
Chef: ”Small well on two!”
Tip.