Archive for the 'Literature' Category

The Golden Ball

I used to carry happiness Like a golden ball, I had to walk so timidly For fear I’d let it fall. But someone snatched it from me And threw it to the sky – Now my arms are empty There’s none so brave as I. Elizabeth Hollister Frost Source: The Outlook, May 23 1928

Bibles by the Million in 1926

Of all the books in the world the Bible still has the largest circulation. At the recent 111th annual meeting of the American Bible Society it was announced that the circulation in 1926 was 9,917,361 copies, an increase of more than a half-million over the preceding year, making a total circulation under the auspices of [...]

1922 Poem on US Trade

THE romance of unfamiliar place names has been felt and exprest by many poets. Here is a lyric that dedicates it to the supposedly unpoetical theme of export trade. The Public Ledger (Philadelphia) gave it currency first, but our curtailed version comes from The World’s Markets (New York): MERCHANDISE By MILTON HAYES Merchandise! Merchandise! Tortoise-shell, [...]

A Poem from 1921 – The Flying Fish Sailor

THE salt spray drips from every line of these verses which Punch, forgetting Irish troubles and Washington conferences, regales himself with, perhaps, after the manner of the old Greeks in their exile, to remind himself that he is still John Bull: THE FLYING-FISH SAILOR (Old Style) BY C. F. S. “The Western Ocean rolls and [...]

Star Spangled Banner 1921

“LET US ALL SING THE LAST VERSE” SO MANY COMPLAINTS have been raised against the “Star-Spangled Banner” as a national anthem that a new suggestion for its use is always welcome. A writer to the New York Herald points out that the last verse of the hymn, rather than the first, expresses American feeling and [...]

Nathalia Crane Child Poet 1925

A POET AT TWELVE NATHALIA CRANE IS CALLED “the twelve-year-old poet of Brooklyn.” Of course she can’t hold that title long, but her present guaranty is found in two volumes of verse and an election to the British Society of Authors, Playwrights and Composers, of which Thomas Hardy is president. Her first volume, called “The [...]

Edith Thomas Woman Poet 1925

WHILE ONE STAR IN THE CONSTELLATION of women poets is rising, as noted elsewhere in this department, another went to its setting. Miss Edith M. Thomas, whose verse appeared on occasions in our poetry page, died September 12 at the age of 71. Miss Thomas had for some years been connected with Harper’s Magazine, and [...]

Thomas Mann – Nobel Prize Winner for Literature 1929

Thomas Mann’s achievements stretch over a quarter of a century. The Macon Telegraph prints a succinct account of Mann’s life, with a few words of comment: “Mann was born in Lubeck, June 6, 1875, and during his school days in a North German gymnasium he did not distinguish himself particularly in scholarship. He was interested, [...]