Page:Famous Single Poems (1924).djvu/296

 the late Irving Bishop, the thought-reader, while visiting in London, happened upon a little volume of poems by Sarah Doudney. Among them he found “The Water-Mill,” and at once accused Miss Doudney of stealing General McCallum’s poem. The matter was immediately taken up by a friend of Miss Doudney, Mr. William Isbister, of Isbister & Company, the publishers of Good Words, and a meeting was arranged at which Mr. Bishop and Miss Doudney were present.

“A copy of the Churchman’s Family Magazine, containing ‘The Lesson of the Water-Mill,’ with an illustration, was shown to Mr. Bishop,” Miss Doudney writes, “and he quite satisfied himself that I had written the poem before Mr. McCallum’s lines appeared. But we could never explain the course which Mr. McCallum followed in appropriating and altering my poem.

“The Churchman’s Family Magazine was edited by the Rev. Frederick Arnold,” Miss Doudney continues. “The volume in which my poem appeared was kept by me for a long time, but was afterwards sold among other books. However the proofs of authorship are doubtless retained by Mr. Isbister.

“We have never been able to ascertain the origin of the proverb, but have heard that it is Italian. I saw it first in a child’s scrap-book