The record-union., 1899-06-25
Literature and
Literary Workers.

iUtut UUthVSVs
Pail Malr' pronounced pei meD
comes from pale MALE, an ancient
game supposed to have been played on
me present site of Pail Mall by Nor
man monks, by whom it was introduced
INTO england, says the Pail Mall Bull
ietln. The observant Pepys, in his
FAMOUS diary, makes mention of 1t
mus; April 2, 1861. Into ST. James
fark, where I saw the Duke of York
plavang at Pelemele, the first time that
ever saw the sport"
The copyright Of Balzac's books will
expire next year, and it is believed
lnat the sales of contemporary modern
notion will be affected by the appear
ance of cheap editions of the stories OF
the Coincide Humane
New Orleans Times Democrat: 'sYou
remember Kipling wrote two entirely
different endings to The Light That
Failed" said a warm admirer of the
gifted Anglo Indian I'm the first he
marries the blind hero to- his selfish lit
tie sweetheart, and in the other he
makes her jilt him and sends the poor
fellow to inferential suicide. Well,
friend, who is also friend of Kiplings
publisher, tells me an interesting story
of those two widely divergent fnales,
and, whether true or not, the thing IS
good enough to repeat. Not long after
the original appearance of the novel
Kipling was on a railway train, accord
ing to the yarn, and happened to notice
a couple in an adjoining seat. They
were evidently husband and wife, and
the man was stone blind He looked
frail and ILL., and his affection had so
intensified the ordinary discomforts Of
travel that his temper was on a wire
edge From one end Of the journey to
the other he grumhed and complained
necessarily, but the woman bore his
murlnurings with all the patient tender
ness that a, mother might exhibit tow
ard a petulant baby She was contin-
ually doing little things to make him
more comfortable, soothing him, cheer
ing him up and guarding him against
annoyance. Time and again he re-
pulsed her with downright brutality,
but her temper never ruff1ed for an In
Etant, and that night the observant au-
thor declared to some friends that he
had made a great mistake in his new
romance No SUCH ferocious egotist as
Maisie, he said, could possibly resign
herself to the companionship of blind
man. A sacrifice of that sort called
for qualities of elf-effacement and
sef-abnegation which she did not pos
sess, and without delay he sat down and
rewrote the last four chapters of his
book. To my way of thinking. he vast
ly improved it, although dare say the
original ending was better suited to
the popular palate"
1.-THE present map Of Europe was
traced in blood" says Joseph McCabe
in his trenchant little book called Can
We Disarm?" He shows the horrors
which have produced the present quiet
and the horrors into which it may be
again transformed. Yet he does not
believe that the Peace Conference now
in session can accomplish the end for
which it was organized He accepts
the conditions as they are, studies them
frankly and honestly. At bottom he
is an optimist, however, and he hopes
for an Improvement of the existing
difficulties
The critics are sorely puzzled to dis
cover whether Bernard Shaw writes his
Perfect Wagnerite" in q humorous
vein or not. Some Of them take the
book very seriously and others treat 1t
as colossal joke; and at all OF them
Mr. Shaw sits and chuckles. Taken
in either way, however, the book is
diverting enough, and the discriminat-
ing reader will discover that 1t contains
both humor and depth. Mr.. Shaw
thinks too deeply to be entirely super
fetal. and he has much too brilliant a
wit to be always solemn.
Many books have been written about
the experience Of a granger in a large
city. but 1t has remained for Ann De-
voore to create a new type OF country
man and a new kind of experience.
eOliyer Iverson' is much too clever to
be the traditional farmer and much too
charming to lose hold of ones interest.
His first four days in New York con-
tain material enough for manifold ad-
ventures and he himself teaches quite
as much as he learns. He is alert for
any new experience and equal to any
situation. A more original and spark
ling little story it would be hard to find.
Notes and Queries: When gram
marians come across expressions in the
Greek or Latin classics which do not
square with the rules. they call them
not bad grammar, but good idiom; and
I do not see why English idiomatfc con-
structions should not be treated with
equal respect The following are a Few
more classical examples of the con-
struction indicated above:
'sThose kind of objections."-Sir +.
Sidney, Defense Of Poesie."
These kind Of knaves." - king
Lear" IL, il