Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1908-02-08
DAVID MASON.
Four Great English Novslists wore
His Pupils In Literature

Tho man who taught English ntera-
h,,e to four great English writer's hop-
ert Louis Stevenson, j M. Barrie .. L.
crockett and DR.. John Watson pan
Maclaren,. has just died in Scotland.
u,s name was David Mason, ana
writer in the Milwaukee Sentinei gives
a short history of Professor Massons
life and comments upon the iour La
NOUS pupils. To quote
All these novellsts studied at Edih-
ourgh university. where PROFESSOR
Mason occupied the chair OF EngiiSn
literature from 1865 to 1895. Steven
con and Barrie were members OF ms
classes in the early seventies "hne
among other pupils were william Arch-
- tho dramatic critic, and Lord Rose
berry. ,. tho
OF all these. however. perhaps tne
, ono who bears the deepest testimony
, TO Masson's influence Is ). M. nai,ie'
3 who once declared that he mace up his
e Mind 70 90 In for literature one Gay
!, ,yhen he saw the professor rummaglns
/, ovor secondhand bookstall with sl'-
n zoo IN hank notes bullying out OF his
u pockets. o.o,p ~
y whimsical thumb nail sketch" OF
e his old pedagogue by Barrie Is wolen ,
2. ouoting. 1t comes in series OF recoi'
n Iact,ons OF the novelists college days.
:" the "EJinburgh Eleven" ana Is Us ioi-
n, Ioye. "Masson always comes 10 my
lie memory first knocking nails INTO us
dosl, or irving to tear the gas Dracke'
e from its socket He said that the Danes
Mt scattered over England, taxing suon
IN hold as a nail takes when IL Is uri,eN
ne into wool For the moment he saw hlS
at dosk Turned into England: he wniriee
or -, Invisible hammer In the air, ant
he 1ou,p II came Oh the desk Win
or crash No one who has sat under Mas
is son can forget how the Danes nancy
themselves upon England. IL wa
nd when his mind CROPPED for an mag
ne thot no clutched the bracket. He seem
,rs oh 70 tear his good things out Oh 4
rst silence oyercame the class; some wer
II Fascinated by the man. Others tren
adj HE'D for the bracket. II SHOOK sroai
on Oh and yielded. Mason sald aho'n'
OF % the things that made his lecture
to- literature The crisis had passed, an
a everybody breathed again"
to II was In 1895 that this rugged pi
est trrpsoue literary veteran, so long
an familiar figure in Edinburgh s'ree'
RESIGNED his chair to live out MS ua'
dis IN ret,rement. He had been called
fea- tho university thirty years Defore
han succeed the famous ballad schois
nse Professor Aytoun, and twelve years
he eco that he had taken the vaca
his Mace of the poet Clough as profess
~ English at University college, l..
tive don At nineteen he was editor Vi
,oga rolIo,ous magazine in Aberdeen,
saks hirthnlace. and at twenty-five, Wien
zach ,,ont down TO London, he was one
ines tho host known magazine writer's
ears. Scotland. Before he became =
fessor he was the first editor Vi W
millan's Magazine, which, curlou
enough. has issued Its last hu"
burc ond has died with Its first gr
the editor. H.. cor,
,eror 1t was In these Gays 'ha' 80
one one Of his intimate FRIENDS wa
" a him not to fritter away his talents
lear little things, but to concentrate u
,tory on something big. The result Vi
door was his mastery Life and Times
Milton" In six volumes, the 3
turb. work of his life, which occupieu
10 do tbe leisure Of twenty-one years. \
PRAY. brilliant Is the smaller Life OF =
terton" and the fourteen volume
,eant tion OF De Quincey's works, tue
nance come of a long and intimate lrlenu
when with the famous opium eater,
life he contributed to the Engllsn
outY, Of letters series. There are many
20 OF nle in Great Britain today VINO
that in "Davie, real, Kihoiy . ?,
NC OF Edinburgh has lost her most III
plain gulshed citizen.