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Sir,-Finding ourselves on Sunday in
Ditchling-on-Sea, without any literature, we were driven
to rely upon memories of our favourite authors. We forward our summaries
for the benefit of
your readers who may sometime find them- selves in a similar situation.
K. M. AND B. H.
MR. BART KENNEDY.
A grim day. Too full and pregnant swelled the sky. I looked out
of the window. In at my
room. Struck a match and kindled my pipe. With a sort of bloody
anger-fist clenched over
knotted hand bones, I dreamed of the world. The world as it is.
This place. This stewpot of
Fine Endeavour, this melting-pot of Rancid Waste and Fever. Ants.
On the floor I observed
the greenish whiteness of my Sunday newspaper. Like black ants the
letters swarming. I
looked deeper. I saw buildings where these ants fashioned this greenish
whiteness. I saw the
sweat pour from their wizened bodies into the oily maw of the machines.
I heard in the clanging crying of these automatic monsters - hand-fed
by them - the crying
clangour of the inarticulate. Then deeper. And all over the world.
Little figures - ants again -
yes, strangely ants - sinking their contorted vision - pen - digging
in public offal. I plunged.
And this greenish whiteness became significant - flew like the flag
of England - with a dry
crackling over my red thoughts.
I looked out of the window. I opened it. I was passionately sick.
MR. G. K. CHESTERTON.
There is a broom-stick in my garden. The bristles shining yellow
as ripe corn, and observing
from the wadded chair of my Sunday musings the long, pure, unbroken
line of the handle, I
appreciate, for the first time, most fully and completely, the charm
of the witches’ progress -
the fascination of broomsticks. Magic in this clean and intimate
weapon by day, those yellow
bristles turn a dull gold at evening time and change at nightfall
to a thick, mysterious
darkness. I find myself regretting my complete abandon to my English
dinner, and I long to
leap from my wadded wrappings and straddle the broomstick for the
one, great, simple
adventure. For it seems to me that adventure can only be sought
after in the near
consciousness of very beautiful, homely things. Things which have
felt the good grip of our
hands, watching and guarding us as the crucifix the fingers of a
little nun telling the shining
length of her rosary. I want to combine, and call “sister”
the broom sweeping the untroubled
glory of my Bickensfield hillsides with that plaintive swishing
down the London area steps of
my lighter - my very much lighter - so my friends tell me - youth.
I protest that the one is as
romantic as the other. . . . A new broom sweeps clean is fine enough
to scroll the spring
heavens and thrill the soul with rare, mysterious unity of thought
as a barrel-organ grinding
out a Catholic chant in a half-forgotten street at evening time.
MR. RICHARD LE GALLIENNE.
Like country children in starched pinafores, soberly and a little
tearfully gathered together at
Sunday school, the pansies star my garden walks. There is long grass
in the orchard, lush and
thickly green . . . . it swings in sombre rhythm. And over the grass
fall the frail, shattering
petals of apple-blossom. . . . April Showers came into my study,
with a blue ribbon dropped
from the amber curls of Shining Feet. She said : “Darling,
do I disturb you? ” and as I kissed
her, she drooped her fragrant bosom over my shoulder. I answered:
“For your dear question, I
shall read you my poem.” April Showers clapped her hands.
Lush and thickly green,
Ah ! why must I think of graves !
Of lovers that might have been,
Under these swinging waves.
My sad soul could not rest
Till April knocked my door,
Leaning her delicate breast
Over me - as of yore.
She cried - “ Beloved, see
The apple-blossom fall
Like angels’ feathers a-free
From winter‘s barren pall.”
From the room above we heard Shining Feet cry out as though in
pain. She put her finger to
her lips, subtly smiling. . . . Little Feathers! Little Shining
Feet! . . .
MR. ALFRED AUSTEN.
Droop ye no more - ye stalwart oaken trees,
For mourning time is spent and put away -
Red, white and blue unfurls, the morning breeze
Bring leaves-strew leaves for Coronation Day.
And thrill along your mighty, crusted bark,
King George, our Sailor King, goes to be crowned,
Your limbs have nursed his navy-the long mark
Of his wide Empire by your arms is bound.
Bud roses! scatter at the matron feet
Of his proud consort, Mary, all your bloom.
Let Englishman the bronzed Colonial meet
In brotherhood-and weave upon the loom -
Of this great Empire stronger, deeper ties -
Ties that shall hold 11,000 miles.
Perhaps in some far Heaven of the skies
Edward the Peace-maker looks down and smiles.
MR.EDEN PHILLPOTTS.
As usual I was out and about the moor. It ran up misty to the skyline,
only the delicate
morning petals glimmering between green blades, at the tip of each
which a dewdrop ready
to flutter its opalescent upon my umbrous boots . . . and wave upon
wave now rising, foaming
away like very sea to the empyrean . . . with a shadow where the
signpost white and stark on
the road below the red-roofed farm led the eye towards Burryzizzer
lying like a maid amid
the heather . . . the meaning - of the familiar and yet . . . .
I saw a gleam of rounded whiteness
. . . nay, creamness, milkness . . . . something-a sensation of
approaching primevalness.
Then I saw that the woman was trying to feed a child which lay
cooing and slapping her
magnificent breasts. She made no movement though I approached as
the crow flies. “Tell me
your story,” I cried. “Fear not; your history will be
sacred to the public.” Her great, round,
deep, shining, hard eyes searched mine and I blinked, sorry for
her. The woman always pays!
StilI she said nothing, but mechanically buttoned up her dress.
“Ah, don’t,” I cried; “don’t let
a mere accident embitter thee so. Thee knows we’m all frail.
Confide, poor toad, in me, a
stranger, but almost a woman myself. Tell me the fellow’s
name and I’ll write a book about
him un he’ll marry ’ee or thou’lt have his blood
in the end.” Still those luscious lips were
sealed. She lifted the child and rose at last, and I saw my next
story vanishing. However, one
of the old ones with new names would serve (I know my hydropathic
public). Suddenly she
dealt me a sounding box on the ears. And I recognised her hand.
She had done the same thing
twice before. “Tha’ll feel Tom’s boot if thee
stops here a minute,’’ she murmured, and went
towards the farm.
MR. ARNOLD BENNETT.
In Pottinghame High Street, at seventeen minutes past three on
a certain Sunday in the year
of our Lord eighteen hundred and ninety-five, the fine dust was
stirring. It was round, grey,
piercing, sandy dust that rose and fell with precocious senility;
for the month was June, and
June is early for dust. Out of one of the vacant-looking, but actually
swarming, two-storeyed
houses that run monotonously up one side and down the other, a girl
leaned. She threw out
faded flowers, violets and a wallflower, and disappeared. Her bedroom
expressed a character
at once original and passive. The neatness of enforced nonconformity
ruled her collars and
shoes, but a bright blue petticoat, frilled with dyed lace, betokened
a side of its owner’s
’nature, perhaps unsuspected by Pottinghame, perhaps never
to be suspected by Pottinghame,
perhaps better never to be suspected by Pottinghame. or Pottinghame
is a town whereof
someone said somewhere that its influence and its decree were unique.
Once a
Pottinghammer, always a Pottinghammer. Let Pottinghame pronounce
benediction, the
Pottinghammer went blessed : but let Pottinghame pronounce malediction,
the
Pottinghammer went cursed. And
the influence aforesaid of Pottinghame upon the Potting hammer lasted
just as long. Tinker,
tailor, be you, gentleman or novelist, a Pottinghammer never gets
away from
Pottinghame.
The family of the Luke Pilders were below awaiting Susan’s
advent to pour out tea. The little
parlour bore curiously that same distinctive touch as above signified
by the output of stiff
cuffs and dyed lace. No house in Pottinghame could be complete of
course without. . . .
(To be continued until 1950.)
MR. H. G. WELLS.
So we stowed Biology and got to business.
“Why not ? ” she asked.
“Affairs,” I replied, laconically. She understood, and
moaned a little. My heart-strings
creaked - a man’s heart-strings.
“Damn! ” I burst out. “Do what you will with me.”
So we stowed Biology and got to business.
“England ! ” I snarled. “Pah - England will have
to do the best she can without me. You’re
my England now, curse you, bless you.”
She fell at my knees, clinging, weeping, smiling: “God ! “
The epithet seemed to be torn out of her. I wondered. . . .
“You won’t expect too much, Anthelesia ? ’’
“Only three girls and three boys.”
“Curse the expense,” I said.
So we stowed Biology and got to business.
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