There is magic in the woods on Midsummer Day–so people tell me. Titania conducts her revels. Let others attend her court; for myself I will beg to be excused. I have no heart for revelling on Midsummer Day. On any other festival I will be as jocund as you please, but on the longest day […]

A good many years ago I had a painful experience. I was discovered by my house-master reading in bed at the unauthorized hour of midnight. Smith minor in the next bed (we shared a candle) was also reading. We were both discovered. But the most annoying part of the business, as it seemed to me […]

Wellington is said to have chosen his officers by their noses and chins. The standard for them in noses must have been rather high, to judge by the portraits of the Duke, but no doubt he made allowances. Anyhow, by this method he got the men he wanted. Some people, however, may think that he […]

Of the fruits of the year I give my vote to the orange. In the first place it is a perennial–if not in actual fact, at least in the greengrocer’s shop. On the days when dessert is a name given to a handful of chocolates and a little preserved ginger, when mac�doine de fruits is […]

My first introduction to Lady Nicotine was at the innocent age of eight, when, finding a small piece of somebody else’s tobacco lying unclaimed on the ground, I decided to experiment with it. Numerous desert island stories had told me that the pangs of hunger could be allayed by chewing tobacco; it was thus that […]

I have been reading a little book called How to Write for the Press. Other books which have been published upon the same subject are How to Be an Author, How to Write a Play, How to Succeed as a Journalist, How to Write for the Magazines, and How to Earn œ600 a Year with […]

On those rare occasions when I put on my best clothes and venture into society, I am always astonished at the number of people in it whom I do not know. I have stood in a crowded ball-room, or sat in a crowded restaurant, and reflected that, of all the hundreds of souls present, there […]

This is a jolly world, and delightful things go on in it. For instance, I had a picture post card only yesterday from William Benson, who is staying at Ilfracombe. He wrote to say that he had gone down to Ilfracombe for a short holiday, and had been much struck by the beauty of the […]

The latest invention on the market is the wasp gun. In theory it is something like a letter clip; you pull the trigger and the upper and lower plates snap together with a suddenness which would surprise any insect in between. The trouble will be to get him in the right place before firing. But […]

It is when Parliament is not sitting that the papers are most interesting to read. I have found an item of news to-day which would never have been given publicity in the busy times, and it has moved me strangely. Here it is, backed by the authority of Dr. Chalmers Mitchell:– “The caterpillar of the […]

Yesterday I should have gone back to school, had I been a hundred years younger. My most frequent dream nowadays–or nowanights I suppose I should say–is that I am back at school, and trying to construe difficult passages from Greek authors unknown to me. That they are unknown is my own fault, as will be […]

Life is full of little problems, which arise suddenly and find one wholly unprepared with a solution. For instance, you travel down to Wimbledon on the District Railway–first-class, let us suppose, because it is your birthday. On your arrival you find that you have lost your ticket. Now, doubtless there is some sort of recognized […]

My friend Mr. Sidney Mandragon is getting on. He is now one of the great ones of the earth. He has just been referred to as “Among those present was Mr. Sidney Mandragon.” As everybody knows (or will know when they have read this article) the four stages along the road to literary fame are […]

It is nineteen years since I lived in a house; nineteen years since I went upstairs to bed and came downstairs to breakfast. Of course I have done these things in other people’s houses from time to time, but what we do in other people’s houses does not count. We are holiday-making then. We play […]

A paragraph in the papers of last week recorded the unusual action of a gentleman called Smith (or some such name) who had refused for reasons of conscience to be made a justice of the peace. Smith’s case was that the commission was offered to him as a reward for political services, and that this […]

Let us consider something seasonable; let us consider indoor games for a moment. And by indoor games I do not mean anything so serious as bridge and billiards, nor anything so commercial as vingt-et-un with fish counters, nor anything so strenuous as “bumps.” The games I mean are those jolly, sociable ones in which everybody […]

Our thermometer went down to 11 deg. the other night. The excitement was intense. It was, of course, the first person down to breakfast who rushed into the garden and made the discovery, and as each of us appeared he was greeted with the news. “I say, do you know there were twenty-one degrees of […]

I find it difficult to believe in Father Christmas. If he is the jolly old gentleman he is always said to be, why doesn’t he behave as such? How is it that the presents go so often to the wrong people? This is no personal complaint; I speak for the world. The rich people get […]

Samuel Butler made a habit (and urged it upon every young writer) of carrying a notebook about with him. The most profitable ideas, he felt, do not come from much seeking, but rise unbidden in the mind, and if they are not put down at once on paper, they may be lost for ever. But […]

CHARACTERS KATE CAMBERLEY.CYRIL NORWOOD (her lover).DENNIS CAMBERLEY (her husband). This play was first produced by Mr. Godfrey Tearle at the Coliseum onSeptember 8, 1919, with the following cast: Dennis Camberley–GODFREY TEARLE.Kate Camberley–MARY MALONE.Cyril Norwood–EWAN BROOK. THE CAMBERLEY TRIANGLE (It is an evening of 1919 in KATE’S drawing-room. She is expecting him, and the Curtain goes […]