“Choir invisible,
Whose music is the gladness of the world,”
is the great company of heroic departed souls who have done work for the sake of mankind: their “music” is the added happiness of humanity which their efforts have secured. We think, as you suggest, that your explanations mean much the same thing. This fine poem will repay close study.
A Queensland Girl.—What prettily painted note paper you send us from your distant home!—1. The competition you speak of is over.—2. Your writing is admirable, distinct, well formed, and most pleasant to look at and to read.
Olive Cambus.—It is not necessary in writing for the press to leave any extra space at the top of foolscap paper. It is better to leave a margin on your left hand as you write. The sheets should be fastened together in the top left-hand corner, not by a “clip,” but by a paper-fastener that goes through a hole pierced in the sheets; any stationer will sell you a box. Foolscap is, we think, preferable to sermon paper. The great matter is to have your MS. perfectly distinct and clear to read, and only to write on one side of the page.
MISCELLANEOUS.
Yum-Yum.—It is quite possible that the pain over your eye may proceed from a little congestion, if in the hollow over the ball of the eye. Perhaps your spectacles are unsuitable, and there should be a difference between the two glasses. There is often a different focus in one eye from that of the other, and the left one may be overstrained. We advise you to consult an oculist or a good optician, to test the sight of each. We are glad to give our correspondent “Seaton Devon” the benefit of your information respecting the song, “Please have You seen my Dolly?” It is (you say) composed by F. W. Lancelott, and the words are by E. Cympson. The publisher is F. Pitman, 20, Paternoster Row, E.C.
Miserable.—We are never told in the Bible that “to those who do not marry He will give a rich reward.” No such thing. But during those terrible persecutions, already begun, and to continue subsequently to St. Paul’s time, women unmarried and without children were in a preferable condition to those who had them. Of course, to marry without a very special bond of affection between you and your husband, would be not only a bar to any happiness, but also very wrong; and to marry without suitable means to support and educate a family must entail much suffering, mental and physical. From what you say of your feelings, and that you only “care for him in a way,” you would act wisely in declining his offer. You say “the thought of living unloved unmans me!” We hope you have no pretensions to manliness!
March Girl.—Hares are said to be specially wild in the month of March, and thence has arisen the term, “Mad as a March hare.” According to Dr. Brewer, the name “Neddy” was transferred from the little low cart for which donkeys are employed in Dublin, to the animals themselves. And the meaning of the term as used for the cart refers to the jolting which results from the lack of springs, and makes those who drive in them to nod perpetually. These, or a much similar description of cart was also termed a “Noddy.”