OUR OPEN LETTER-BOX.
Violet wishes to know the author of two verses beginning,
"It is in loving, not in being loved,"
"The heart is blest."
We cannot find them among Dr. Bonar's "Hymns of Faith and Hope," though Violet suggests they are by him.
Briar Rose asks for a book of recitations containing "The Little Hero" and "The Sioux Chief's Daughter."
We have two answers to "Lennox." One is from "C. J. Hamilton," who complains of her misquotation, and gives George Macdonald's lines as follows:—
"Alas! how easily things go wrong.
A sigh too much, or a kiss too long,
And then comes a mist and a weeping rain,
And life is never the same again.
Alas! how hardly things go right.
'Tis hard to watch on a summer's night,
For the sigh will come, and the kiss will stay,
And a summer night is a winter day."
"Bertha" sends us "the whole of the poem" as quoted in a book entitled The Everyday of Life, by the Rev. J. R. Miller, D.D. To the verses already transcribed, which we ourselves recognise as the only ones from the pen of George Macdonald, she also adds that quoted by "Lennox" and another.
"And yet how easily things go right,
If the sigh and the kiss of the winter's night
Come deep from the soul in the stronger ray
That is born in the light of the winter's day.
And things can never go badly wrong
If the heart be true and the love be strong;
For the mist, if it comes, and the weeping rain
Will be changed by the love into sunshine again."
It sounds to us as if these two verses had been added by some over-zealous friend, but we may be mistaken.
"Ninette" (Budapesth) asks for an English book containing "The Song of the Shirt" (Thomas Hood), and also "Somebody's Darling."
Assandune asks for a recitation, "The Tired Mother."
We have also two answers to "Ethel Rimmer." The poem by Christina Rossetti beginning
"When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me,"
is set to music by Malcolm Lawson, and appeared in the Strand Musical Magazine for 1895, vol. 1 (June number); suitable for mezzo-soprano; so says Clara J. Nicholson. "Wymondhamite" says that the lines have been set by Arthur Somervell, and published by J. and J. Hopkinson, 34, Margaret Street, Cavendish Square, W., price 2s. nett. "Wymondhamite" asks, on her own account, for six lines by Helen Marion Burnside, enshrining the following ideas in a birthday wish: "She commends her friend to the love of God because her own is too weak and too finite, and winds up with wishing her as much earthly prosperity as is good for her."
Irish Shamrock inquires for a cheap song-book in which she could find the song, without music, "Kate O'Shane," by Luiley; "Ellen O'Leary," and "Dermot Astore." "Cast thy bread upon the waters," we may inform her, is not from a hymn, but is a line from the Bible: Ecclesiastes xi. 1. The whole passage has been set to music.
Soldier's Daughter informs "Kate" that there is a poem on Kate Barlass called "The King's Tragedy," by Christina Rossetti. Guided by this hint, we have ascertained that "The King's Tragedy" is by Dante Gabriel (not Christina) Rossetti, and is to be found in the collected edition of his poems. The Queen called out to Kate, "Bar the door, lass," and she thus obtained her name. Perhaps this poem may be the one required.