"Won't you please read 'The Tewksbury Road,' Mr. Masefield?"
The poet looked amazed, then puzzled, and at last said with a hesitating desire not to offend "these singular Americans": "Ah—er—I—ah!—would be charmed to do so—really—but I've just read it!"
Professor Alfred Noyes, the English poet, it is known, likes very much to read his works aloud to his friends, and at Princeton, with so many young men under him, he is usually able to gratify this liking to the full. The other day Professor Noyes said to a junior who had called about an examination: "Wait a minute. Don't go yet. I want to show you the proofs of my new book of poems." But the junior made for the door frantically. "No, no," he said. "I don't need proofs. Your word is enough for me, professor."
HE—"I tore up that poem I wrote last week."
SHE—"Tore it up? Why, that was the best thing you ever did."
The little agricultural village had been billed with "Lecture on Keats" for over a fortnight. The evening arrived at length, bringing the lecturer ready to discourse on the poet. The advertised chairman, taken ill at the last moment, was replaced by a local farmer. This worthy introduced the lecturer and terminated his remarks by saying:
"And now, my friends, we shall soon all know what 1 personally have often wondered—what are Keats?"