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Soon after left-wing British Author J. B. Priestley and his archaeologist wife Jacquetta arrived in Australia last month for a ban-the-bomb peace conference, they decided that they did not like being Down Under at all. About to leave Australia last week, J.B. was still smarting about the reception they had received: "We were cold-shouldered and treated as if we were lepers." Why? "Political cowardice." Details: "I don't like the political atmosphere of Australia. It doesn't smell right to me. I am not a Communist. My wife is not a Communist. We have never been Communist. I am less Communist than [Australia's External Affairs Minister Richard G.] Casey because I don't believe in secret police and he does." Clearing his throat, he added: "Until this political atmosphere is cleaned up, I could not advise any public-spirited man of any intellectual level to come to Australia."
On the eve of her 80th birthday, Manhattan's spry Patroness of Arts Eleanor Robson Belmont was hailed by the Metropolitan Opera, got her hand kissed by Opera Manager Rudolf Bing, a gallantry that drew a hearty laugh from Opera President Anthony Bliss. It was close to the 25th anniversary of the Metropolitan Opera Association, which Mrs. Belmont founded in order to bring great music to millions. After a ceremony in Bing's offices, Eleanor Belmont was presented to the Met audience between acts of a Saturday matinee performance of Manon.
Notified by Yale University that he is the school's oldest living graduate, football's Grand Old (97) Man Amos Alonzo Stagg (Yale '88) mulled over the matter for a moment, then wired back to New Haven: "Thanks for your good telegram telling me of the distinction which has befallen me. I shall try to behave myself for the rest of my days so that dear old Yale will not suffer."
The Euphemian Literary Society of-little (507 students), 120-year-old Erskine College (which is most of Due West, S.C.) gave an honorary membership to onetime Erskine Man Erskine (God's Little Acre) Caldwell, who is named after Erskine's founder, Ebenezer Erskine. The honor is even rarer than a Nobel Prize in literature. Only other honorary Euphemian: Confederate General Robert E. Lee, who was elected to the society in 1868, failed because of ill health to come by and get his diploma. But nobody around Due West can now remember why Lee was so saluted.
Showing up in Stockholm to get his Nobel Prize for literature (value: $42,601.96), left-leaning Italian Poet Salvatore Quasimodo, 58, sounded more as if he came to be tried rather than honored. He praised the Swedish Academy for its "nonconformist" decision to give him the prize, snarled at those in the West who had said that he did not deserve it. Quasimodo pooh-poohed the Soviet oppression of Hungary, lashed out at Western publications that had hinted that he was a Red. Said the new Nobelman: "It is said that I am proud, conceited, and difficult to understand. The truth is that I am loved by the people."