New-York tribune., 1901-12-06
L" REDDING UP.'
THE REWARD OF OvERHAULING NEG
LECTED LITERARY RECEPTACLES


Andrew Lang. in The London Morning Post
A celebrated author often AYERS in his journal
that process is so tedious and distressing as
that of ''reddng up He meant the effort to
get kind of order into his papers when
going from his town his country house. AS
he quite the man TO misay cheques for
large amounts, and he had enormous cor
respondence. he must have made rare discover
les. No doubt there are orderly people who
have the right place for everything and can
always lay their hands on what they want For
my part possessing bureaus with many draw
ers, big and little. toss everything into some
hole or other, and doubtless this is the usual
practice of the learned. Then ''redding up time
comes, and matters buried and forgotten stare
you in the face.
First, there manuscripts which the con-
fioing neophyte has sent, under the impression
that one has time to read a drama from New
Zealand and lyrics from all quarters and short
stories and long AS the neophyte rarely
puts his name and address on his manuscript
these things accumulate reproachfully.
Then there letters from people who have
seen ghosts and dreamed dreams. For example,
here is a lady who is travelling alone in a
railway carriage abroad. To her enter for
eigner, nationality unknown The foreigner is
too enterprising; in terror the lady opens her
Bible at text full of promise. Looking up she
sees-an able bodied Anglican clergyman in the
carriage, where she has been alone with the
wicked alien. Terror of wicked alien, who also
sees the robust clergyman, The train stops at
a station: the ticket collector does not the
parson. The young lady, rescued by the ap-
partition. flies to the shelter of a carriage for
ladies only It is a nice tale, and is also told
by Wesleyans of a minister attacked by rob-
bers. while Anglicans tell it of a bishop SINH
larly beset. Perhaps these stories are true, but
the ladys tale excited my sceptcism.
Many such MSS. turn up especially wondrouS
narratives from missionaries about savage
magic and spells and charms that kill you in
extraordinary ways. Then finds, in print
too, and il scientific journal the story of the
Berbalangs of Cayagan SUlu, isle north of
Borneo. They cannibals, and disengage their
astral bodies which eat peoples interiors
The writer has them thus engaged: they
did for a friend of his. The statements are
tough" Huckleberry Finn said about The
Pilgrims Progress But in an excellent work
by a Swiss missionary on the Ba Ronga, a tribe
near Delag goa Bay, one comes the same myS-
terous kind of cannibals The missionary how
ever had not the spiritual cannibaiS at
their ghastly task. the British layman did.
Next find q copy Of an unpublished account
of Riccio's murder, written nearly forty years
later by an equerry OF Darnley's, who was pres
ent at the scene. He happened TO be in France
when Darnley himself was murdered. Then he
visited Italy and the Grand Turk and Spain.
and came TO England about 1910. when James l
put him into the Tower. So there he wrote this
and other accounts of how he saved Queen
Marys life b.. dashing aside a pistol and a
dagger which were aimed at her. and how for
many years. he worked for her cause in Europe
But he does not say what 1 happen TO know.
namely, that when, in 1fo2, there French