A DISCLAIMER.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
Sin,—May I crave space to correct an opinion which has been expressed in several notices of my book, "The Edge of Circumstance," and which was also hinted at in the review which appeared in the Spectator of January 14th ? Your reviewer says : " Mr. Noble has not disguised his indebtedness to the author of McAndrew's Hymn,' The Mary Gloster,' and Bread upon the Waters.' " His following sentences, however, take away all the sting of the suggestion, and I thank him for it. Still, Sir, others have not been so generous. The Morning Post is an instance of this. " We should be very much surprised," says its reviewer, "if the author, Mr. Edward Noble, could assure ns that McGrabbut, the engineer, was not named McAndrew in a previous existence " ; and that, with your permission, I should like to deny. For his benefit, therefore, and for those who suggest it less broadly, I here state that—to my shame, doubtless—I have never read " McAndrew's Hymn" or " The Mary Oldster." Also, that it was not until after I had written the verses with which I preface my book—i.e., in March, 1899—that I read Mr. Kipling's " Bread upon the Waters." Those verses I called "Sinners of the Sea" ; but they were not published, and they formed the basis of the story which I then began to write. One review quotes those verses as Mr. Kipling's. It says : " One of the kind of which Kipling has written,
'A tramp is a queer confection of all that's nasty an' cheap, Put up for an Owner's delection while the Boord o' Trade's asleep."
Well, of course, one feels the honour of being coupled with a writer whose works are so universally admired ; but I should not like to say that Mr. Kipling would feel exactly lifted by the versicle which is attributed to him.—Thanking you for the very generous notice you have given my work, I am,
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