NYDIA.—It is not wonderful that a “first attempt,” especially as you have “never learnt how to set down music,” and are only sixteen, should be full of mistakes, too many to specify. It is absolutely impossible for you to hope to succeed without seriously studying the rules of harmony. At the same time we should judge from your pleasant and modest letter that such study would be by no means thrown away.
A correspondent directs our attention to the fact that “foolscap,” concerning which a question was lately answered in “Study and Studio,” is a corruption of the Italian _foglio-capo_, a folio-sized sheet. The error is an ancient one, for from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century the water mark of this size paper was a fool’s head with cap and bells.
B. E. M.—1. We are constantly mentioning Reading Societies in this column. Try the National Home Reading Union, Surrey House, Victoria Embankment, London, or write to Mrs. Walker, Litlington Rectory, Berwick, Sussex.—2. Do not try or wish to “become pale.” Sufficient exercise, and strict attention to clothing and diet, are the best cure for a faulty circulation.
A LINCOLNSHIRE GIRL.—1. The lines you quote,
“Howe’er it be, it seems to me ’Tis only noble to be good,”
are certainly by Tennyson, from the poem “Lady Clara Vere de Vere.”—2. The allusion,
“Her who clasped in her last trance Her murdered father’s head,”
is to Margaret Roper, the daughter of Sir Thomas More. This devoted daughter obtained possession of her father’s head after his execution, kept it in a leaden casket, and left directions that it should be buried with her. For the whole story, see THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER for February, 1898, where we answered the question at length.
BLUEBOTTLE.—The reference you quote is probably Professor E. Curtius, a distinguished German authority on etymology.
A. N. D.—1. The lines (which you misquote) are as follows—
“Oh, wad some power the giftie gie us To see oursel’s as others see us! It wad frae monie a blunder free us And foolish notion.”
They are by Robert Burns, and you will find them in any edition of his poems.—2. Write to the office of THE BOY’S OWN PAPER, in which magazine “The Bishop and the Caterpiller” first appeared.
FLORENCE is very sorry, but circumstances have occurred which unfortunately prevent her from opening a correspondence with a little girl reader of the “G. O. P.” as she wished. Among the many readers of our paper, perhaps someone else will kindly volunteer.