Big Game - A Story for Girls
Vaizey Mrs. George de Horne
English
We will print you a perfectly bound paperback of your selected title and send it to you at your nominated address
Below is a summary of Big Game - A Story for Girls
Big Game
A Story for Girls
By Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
________________________________________________________________________
A charming little book. The son of the family aspires to be a poet, much
to his father's annoyance: he ought to have a proper job in the family
firm.
His sister hits on a plan to get his work published, which would be a
step in the right direction, one that might help to change the father's
mind. She discovers that the editor of a poetry magazine always takes
a holiday in a very remote hotel in the Scottish highlands, so she books
a holiday for them in the same hotel.
The woman who runs the hotel hates women guests, and isn't very polite
to most people, but they manage to charm her, and get her on their side,
until one Sunday they make the fatal mistake of going to the wrong
church. That eventually passes over. Meanwhile Margot, the heroine,
has been wooing the poetry editor. They go fishing together, and one
day they go for a long walk in which the weather turns nasty. Margot
catches pneumonia and is very ill.
They get back to their homes in London. Margot's lover turns out not to
have been the poetry editor after all, yet somehow young Ron finds that
one of his poems has been published. How this happens is revealed in
the last chapter. An average length book, probably more for girls than
for boys. N.H.
________________________________________________________________________
BIG GAME
A STORY FOR GIRLS
BY MRS GEORGE DE HORNE VAIZEY
CHAPTER ONE.
PLANS.
It was the old story of woman comforting man in his affliction; the
trouble in this instance appearing in the shape of a long blue envelope
addressed to himself in his own handwriting. Poor young poet! He had
no more appetite for eggs and bacon that morning; he pushed aside even
his coffee, and buried his head in his hands.
"Back again!" he groaned. "Always back, and back, and back, and these
are my last verses: the best I have written. I felt sure that these
would have been taken!"
"So they will be, some day," comforted the woman. "You have only to be
patient and go on trying. I'll re-type the first and last pages, and
iron out the dog's ears, and we will send it off on a fresh journey.
Why don't you try the _Pinnacle Magazine_? There ought to be a chance
there. They published some awful bosh last month."
The poet was roused to a passing indignation.
"As feeble as mine, I suppose! Oh, well, if even you turn against me,
it is time I gave up the struggle."
"Even you" was not in this instance a wife, but "only a sister," so
instead of falling on her accuser's neck with explanations and caresses,
she helped herself to a second cup of coffee, and replied coolly--
"Silly thing! You know quite well that I do nothing of the sort, so
don't be high-falutin. I should not encourage you to waste time if I
did not know that you were going to succeed in the end. I don't think;
I _know_!"
"How?" queried the poet. "How?" He had heard the reason a dozen times
before, but he longed to hear it again. He lifted his face from his
hands--an ideal face for a poet; clean-cut, sensitive, with deep-set
eyes, curved lips, and a finely-modelled chin. "How do you know?"
"I feel!" replied the critic simply. "Of course, I am prejudiced in
favour of your work; but that would not make it haunt me as if it were
my own. I can see your faults; you are horribly uneven. There are
lines here and there which make me cold; lines which are put in for the
sake of the rhyme, and nothing more; but there are other bits,"--the
girl's eyes turned towards the window, and gazed dreamily into
space--"which sing in my heart! When it is fine, when it is dark, when
I am glad, when I am in trouble, why do your lines come unconsciously
into my mind, as if they expressed my own feelings better than I can do
it myself? That's not rhyme--that's poetry! It is the real thing; not
pretence."
A glad smile passed over the boy's face; he stretched out his hand
towards the neglected cup, and quaffed coffee and hope in one reviving
draught. "But no one seems to want poetry nowadays!"
"True! I think you may have to wait until you have made a name in the
other direction. Why not try fiction? Your prose is excellent, almost
Back