1932-02-09 — Page 7

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1932.

SUVIG

BAD TEMPERED POETS

IF THEY WANT TO WRITE SATIRES, WHY DON'T THEY FIND. SOMETHING WORTH ATTACKING ?

(By J. B. Priestley.).

Poots have frequently been shouts with rage at the quarrelsome fellows.

very There were thought of literary week-end parties tremendous feuds among the Eliza or poetical dinners. They seem to bethan dramatists. The age of me very light subjects for such Dryden and Pope was an age of heavy-weight satire. If Mr. Cump elaborate literary quarrels. Even bell does not enjoy these functions the Romantics, divided as they were he should be what the rest of us by political opinion, could rage do, namely, plead a previous engage- against one another. Nevertheless, ment or the pressure of work. it seems to me stupid that so many Young poets are not compelled by; of our younger poets now should law to be the guests of poetessea be so deplorably bad-tempered. They and eritics they dislike. spend fur too much time abusing one another. Some of them have apparently decided

to live by ex- hibiting one another's dirty wash- ing.

The gloomiest party I ever was ut was a party given by a poet mainly for other posts. We stood about in a dim-lit room, sipping sour hock. Everybody looked sus- piciously at everybody else. Not a laugh

was heard. There were Bavage whispers in corners. Never have been in a room so charged with hate. Apparently each poet thought that he and his one or two friends had been lured into a house crammed with charlatans. You would have thought that the Muse was lying dead upstairs. (Perhaps she was). Since then I have never sought the company of these happy children of song. I like a little good temper after dinner.

I do not know what injuries cer- tain fellow poets have inflicted upon Mr. Campbell, but you would Imagine from his furious ол-

slaught upon them that they had stoned him through the streets. His attack is too clumsy and bludgeon- ing to be really deadly, but be maula them in the most offensive manner, outraging decency in his stride. His offence is all the more inexcusable, to my mind, because I do not feel there is behind it the wide and impersonal indignation of the genuine satirist, but only piquel and petty spite.

Cafe Squabbles.

That, in fact, is the trouble. These bad-tempered poets of ours] who turn satirists, instead of using their wit and wealth of imagery in the service of humanism to attack the spawning tyrannies and idiocies of this world, merely ask us to take aides in some squabble of a small literary coterie. It is hale-in-the- corner satire, simply a row in a cafe. When Byron retorted savagely upon Southey he did

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LORD BADEN-POWELL EXPOSES

MODERN BLACK MAGIC

Luck Chain Letters Must Stop.

A FRESH OUTBREAK.

3,000,000 Boy Scouts to Smash an Evil Myth.

me

to

in evidence, and a few lots chang-fresh outbreak of the chain-letters torn up every one of them.

Lord Baden-Powell, following a scores of chain letters, and I have ed hands.

suparatition, issued a warning to "The writers of all the 3,000,000 members of the know I tear them up, but seem to these letters Boy Scout movement, urging them take a delight in neatering to smash for ever' the black magic with them. I shall continue of the twentieth century,

break every chain I can, ignore their threats of calamity.

"Calamity, bosh! I have never had any bad luck as the result of have been exceptionally lucky in breaking a chain letter. I think a good many things.***

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Sellers.

Benguets, $11. Cementa (Comb.), $17.60. Hong Kong Ropes, $16.

A MYSTERY MESSAGE.

Gold Expedition Broken Up.

གངས་ ཞེན།་

+

In A Bad Way. Poetry is at present in a bad way. Never, I suppose, since there was such a thing as English Literature

Hus further disaster followed the romantic' 'search for the mystery has poetry received so little atten- tion from the public as it is receiv-least see Southey as the apologist Lasseter's Reef, in Central Austra-

¡lia? ing now. It is not bought, not read, not discussed, as it used to be. So far as we are living on poetry at all, we seem to be living on our capital, A young poet in these days has a

very poor time of it; he might almest us well set up as a cross- bowman or a lute-mender. On this excused some

may be

Baine

This means, however, that young poels are now companions in dis- tress. They are all in the bout. But instead of seeing them pulling for the shore together, we frequently find them hitting one an- other on the head with the oars.

of a rotten political and social sys- tem, and not merely a a fellow poet According to a message received, the expedition has broken up, while still on the border of Central and

whose had once anubbed him at a party.

He has just received his twelfth chain letter this year. It instruct- ed him to:-

"Make nine copies, and send this chain on within twenty-four hours of receiving it. Woe to you if you take this as a jest and do not pass it on, and so interrupt the chain of luck. Misfortune upon misfortune will overtake you."

But the letter followed its fore- runners to the wastepaper basket, and still Lord Baden-Powell con tinues to enjoy success and happi- ness.

The chain letters superstition is one of the most dangerous of modern times. Sensible people can ignore them, but they have brought misery to neurotic per sons who have broken the chain and then allowed the fictitious "curse" to prey on their minds.“

...

Silly But Harmful.

and I

against the writers of these let- "Stern action should be taken

celving them frequently suffer ill- ters, because hervous people re- health; TRAI

letter is the silliest, and yet it can "Of ali superstitions, the chain be one of the most harmful.

"A woman recently committed suicide through fear of the cons8- quences of not carrying out the Instructions contained in a chain letter." je seg s

The letter just received by Lord Baden-Powell was stated to have been started by a street singer in Italy in March last year, and to have circulated all over Europë.

"I do not treat the letter as a Mr. Bernard Shaw and Chalia- jest," said Lord Baden-Powell, "Ipine are claimed to be two of the treat it as a gross impertinence eighty "links" said to have been and a nuisance. I have received formed in the chain."

HUSSAR OF THE

SKIES.

Y DOOW

Aeroplanes His "One

Idea in Life.

"Evidently Hale wanted

some-

The magistrates ordered him to pay three guineas costs.

"We are satisfied," remarked Mr. Wigan, the chairman, "that there was 'no felonious intent, and that it was more or leas a prank."

A charge of tampering with air- craft, which was preferred, was drawn, and the police did not pro- ceed with charges of stealing the

if poets feel in the mood for in-Western Australia, within perhaps thing faster than a horse, and airplane, oil, and petrol.

150 miles of the elusive reef. dulging in savage satfre, why can't they take a good look at the world.

Several members of the party, it and then attack something worth at-is stated, are returning to Hermans This will take them perhaps tacking? There are whole Hindenburg.

ists.

I notice

Chelsea and

instead of being in the hussars should really be in the Air Force," made this plea at Woking Police Mr. Harry Hunt, defending,

officer's servant attached to the

ground, he bud temper. It is not amusing/ burg Lines waiting for these satir three weeks by camel, so that no Court when Trooper Charles God- when you create

that Mr. Perey early news of them is likely unless Frey Hale, aged nineteen, an something, with Aweat and blood, in agony and Wyndham Lewis seems to be Mr. they erect an aerial. exultation, only to find everybody Campbell's hero. Now Mr. Wynd-

Meanwhile, the directors of the yawning in your face. (That must ham Lewis has the gift of brilliant Central Australian Gold Exploration 11th Hussars, was bound over on a charge of Aying and piloting too, shows this Company, in Sydney, are meditating be why some contemporary versi- raillery, but he, flers avoid the sweat and blood, and same fault. He has no sence of sending a triple-engined A. N. A. without a certificate and licence. get their own yawns in first).

proportion. He will write a gigan-

'plane, in an attempt to save the

Mr. J. Catley, secretary of the tic satire to score off five people in situation. Whatever has happened!

Brooklands Aerodrome, said that three in Paris, and they say, the search will go on.

on December 11 a Gypsy Moth conducts mere cafe squabbles in This latest wireless mesage from machine landed and the occupants public as if he were leading the last the party was so cryptic that the

had lunch. They found that the cruзnde.

directors have no knowledge of the machine had vanished later. A Good Novelist.

cause of the trouble.

Stanley J. Carver, engineer fitter Meanwhile, the sensible public, that "Bob" Buck, the resoluto bush-stated that Hale was employed at

However, the fact appears to be at Brooklands Flying The latest exhibition of poetical which does not care tuppence about man-leader of the expedition, is the school from March to Novem- School, bad temper and there have been these squabbles, but knows that it several this year alone-is provided

la living in a world in sad need of carrying on with most of the adven-ber 1929 and again later. He was by Mr. Ray Campbell in "The mending, eagerly awaits some satire turers, while certain others, includ-there without pay and in exchange Georgiad."

Mr. Campbell is

ing the two government geologists for his services he received Instruc- young South African poet, whose dwindled to a mere trickle. The Apparently the 20 camels of the ex-

The stream of new books has now of West Australia, are returning. tion in flying. gusto and command of a gorgeous Autumn season is over. But there pedition (assuming that those are in a statement to the police Hale Superintendent Gooby said that sense of imagery, seen at their beat bave been a few Interesting fast-still alive) have been shared. In "The Flaming Terrapin," very minute arrivals. Chief among the

said that he was walking round' quickly attracted attention. He was novels in a first novel, "Without My

the aerodrome on December 11 considered almost at once what

another remarkable chap-looking at some of the machines. reviewers, in a mysterious Cloak," by Miss Kate O'Brien, the ter has

A machine landed and he helped to and rather sinister fashion, like to villa." I never saw her play, and romances in the history of kold-jairplanes.".

author of the play "Distinguished of the most extraordinary draw it into line with the other

some

2

call "a writer to be reckoned with." Bad Temper. "The Georgiad," in rough and energetic rhymed couplets, might be called a satire, but it could also be called an explosion of bad temper and an orgy of bad taste. Here are a few lines of it, chosen with one eye on the law of libel:

But cursed be poctesses, thin or

fat,

Who give these dinners of eternal

chat,

Where knife and fork dissect the

latest plays.

And criticism serves for mayon-

· naise;

Where of the Hawthornden the

latest winNCE *****

Is served as joint or sirloin of the

And, succulent to busy tongues as

* pork, MED NJ

that is real satire.

In

that

any Case it appears

added to

been

A MOTHER'S MEMORY.

one

WHAT SCHOOLS SHOULD PRODUCE

Fourteen Essential Points.

come in for severe criticism once In a Home newspaper, schools

tains, that few boys can describe again. One correspondent main- the simplest matter lucidly-either verbally or in writing-or marebal facts in logical order. the

He gives

following fourteen points, which an ideal curriculum must produce, and adda, that such'a wanted and help to restore the country's prosperity. curriculum would give what'' was

1: "Quick thinkers.

2. Power of expression in speech

and writing.

3. Seriousness.

4.. Energy and capacity to work

for long hours.

5. Accuracy.pn

6 A good knowledge of at least;

one modern Language.

7. A fair knowledge of Latin. BA good standard of mathema- Shetics.

9. Shorthand.

10.

so cannot say what sort of dramatist seeking in Australis,

"With no one about I started up she will make, but she seems to have been designed by Nature to be a

the airplane and took off," the really good novelist. She writes

statement continued. "My idea well; she can create character; abe Recognised Kidnapped Daughterway and dew into some low-lying was to fly round Tidworth and back has an eye for a scene and a period.

again, I was following the rail- 11. Her story la of a comfortable Roman Catholic family in Ireland In the

After Five Years.

clouds. When I came out of 12. the clouds I followed the railway middle of the last century, and out A birthmark on the body of a line and circled couad Winches 13. of this (to me) most unpromising young Arab girl, who was kidnapped

tör "ge & novel that can be enjoyed at leisure,ponsible for her restoration to her added that later he found the material she has created a good fat for domestic slavery, has been res- The Inspector said that Hale Anybody who wants a solid piece mother at Esta, in Upper Egypt petrol gauge was low and he decid- of historical portraiture should get The child was seized by kidnaped to land. This he did, and be a welcome change from those his years ago, affice when nothing had up the Brooklands Flying School hold of "Isabella of Spain. It tapers in a busy street of Eana five covered the machine up. He rang forical biographies, recently in But one day the mother chanced was. He bad received eight hours

been seen or heard of her fashion, that are neither history to pass down a narrow lane in the flying instruction, and had dever and told them where the anaahine nor fiction, but mostly impudence: Its author, whoever he is, knows town, where she encountered as flown solo before.

Arab woman, closely veiled, leading

"A Bit Bumpy.J Hale gave evidence and Mr.

important; he knows what to do the expression of the girl struck Hunt asked a great deal, and what is equally young girl along. Something in with his knowledge. It takes its place beside Mr. Guedalla's her, and the mother followed the one ides in life?

air to ahovel in a disreputable one desire quarter of the town,

Suffers the martyrdom of knife

and fork | Duke" and Mr. Campbell Will There a great deal of it in this son's "Nelson" in this sea etrain, In which Mr. Campbell | gallery of historical porti

WAGE LIMITATION IN RUSSIA to prosecution as

they disregard

The ord

She told the police of her

picions, and the girl was

by the tall tale mark on her The woman alleged to

napped the girl is now

iting her

The

to be

14.

A good knowledge of the his- tory and geography of all im. portant countries.....

A knowledge of the world's important literature

grounding in several branches of eclence.

A good knowledge of Chris tianity and some knowledge of

Good appearance.

other religions;

SAY YOOKELEELY.”

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