MARGINAL COMMENTS
By ROSE MACAULAY
WHO, I wonder, are those stirrers of storms in tea- cups who devote themselves to picking up the words which drop from the lips of public utterers and telephoning to a string of persons unknown to them to ask their opinion of what has been said ? -The telephone rings ; a voice out of the great inane remarks that it is the Daily speaking, and what does one think of what such an one said yesterday concerning such a matter ? One replies that one has not, in point of fact, given the affair a thought. I believe the correct formula is " I have nothing to say," but one has not always the presence of mind to remember this. It occurred last week that the Convener of the Presbyterian Youth Welfare Council observed (in what context I know not, but I assume in that of the welfare of youth) that he knew several illiterate and ill-informed young females who could neither spell nor punctuate, but had, despite these handicaps, written novels. His acquaintance with these young persons seems quite his own affair, and, without even seeing photographs of them, one does not know whether to congratulate or condole with him. Yet it was on this that we were many of us asked to comment. The only comment that occurred to me to make was that the young ladies no doubt got their printers to deal with their spelling and stops, so that everything probably came out all right in the end. Their I remembered that I had nothing to say, my caller agreed. not to quote me (a promise he subsequently forgot) and retired into that vast inane from which he had so strangely and touchingly emerged. I do not suppose that the others' whom he rang up said much more than I did. But what a column, what a " storm of controversy " he succeeded in working it all up into next morning ! What strange fantastic tales he must have told over the air if he actually elicited even half the remarks he set down ! Or was every one really as dull as I was, saying only " It does not seem to call for an answer" ? It is, one supposes, part of a " Special Correspondent's " task to give those deft touches and expansions to unexciting utterances that secure them a place on the page of a newspaper. One cannot believe that this telephonist, with the best will in the world, was actually able to work up excitement in any one but himself on such a stale topic as illiterate and inadequately-instructed novelists. These have al- ways, like St. Paul, known how to abound ; but it seems scarcely worth a clergyman's while to deplore them, and certainly worth no one's to deny their existence.
As to whether there are more ill-instructed lady than gentlemen novelists, that seems a matter of trifling moment, and would need a long and careful telling of heads to discover. There are, I am told, rather more gentlemen novelists altogether ; but I dare say the pro.. Portion of eccentric orthographists, random ptinctuators, and know-littles, may be higher among ladies. Steele, entering Mrs. Cornelia's parlour and finding her daughter perusing some verses, " at first sight could not guess whether they came from a Beau or a Lady, but having put on my Spectacles and perused them carefully, I found by some peculiar Modes in Spelling, and a certain Negli- gence in Grammar, that it was a Female Sonnet." Though, I am sure, Females have improved in Spelling, Grainmar and Sonnets since 1713, there is still, no doubt, room for further improvement. The Reverend I‘fr. England should induce his young novelists to attend the Youth Welfare centres, and receive beneficial instruction there. But I hope he will not, while imparting technical correct- ness to their style, quench their ardour. These misspelt, unstopped, ungrammared, tales of romantic adventure, like those one used to scribble under the nursery table—have they not their place in a world where- any printer can put the spelling right ?
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