LITERARY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXV, Issue 217, 10 September 1904, Page 10

LITERARY.

I In unveiling a memorial tablet to Robert Louis Stevenson in St. Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh, recently, in the presence of a large gathering representative of arts and letters, .Lord Kosebery paid eloquent tribute to the memory of the famous author whose bones are mouldering in the grave of fai'-off Samoa, but who yet lives on in his works Speaking of the tablet, which is of bronze with a life-size ngure of R.L.S. in bas-relief, and is the work of Mr Augustus St. Gaudens, the American sculptor, who wa.i an intimate friend of Stevenson, Lord Rosebery referred to it as "that rarest of all achievements, the memory of a man of genius by a man of genius." And yet, added his lordship, "this memorial will not be in my judgment the true and permanent memorial of Robert Louis Stevenson. Taht memorial will be in the school that he has founded, in the infinite number of readers and almost idolaters of his works that exist throughout the world, and last, but not least, in that magnificent edition of bis writings, so beautiful in outward shape and in inward substance, that remains an almost tmparalleled memorial of a great man of genius' And yet it is well that we should have our memorial here. Is it not a pathetic thought that this Scottish genius, so pre-eminently Scottish, should have laid his bones, not in the Lothian* that he loved so well, but in the far distant islands of the Pacific. There seems something anomalous iv that; and yet genius is world-wide, and wo should not grudge to Samoa that it holds the remains of Robert Louis Stevenson. For long yeare to come those who love these Lothians will come with reverence to visit the memorial 1 unveil today."

'•The Never-Never Land," by the late Mr Wilson Barrett (Methuen's Colonial Library), although not attaining any very high standard from a literary point of view, is an interesting story. It opens with a dramatic picture of a drought-stricken district of Australia. Here the dissolute heir to a great English estate dies miserably, after exacting from a friend who greatly resembled him in personal appearance a promise that for the sake of the ne'er-dC-well's mother and sister he would personate him in England. Received with open arms, theimposter finds himself in a network of difficulties. He falls in love with his supposed sister, is menaced by the worthless wife of the real heir, and altogether becomes landed in an awkward fix, from which he is ingeniously extricated to the satisfaction of all the parties who establish any claim upon the reader's sj-mpafhies.

"The Perils of Sympathy," by 3Sina Stevens (Unwin's Colonial Library), is a pretty little story. A girl struggling- for success as an artist comes into contact with a young Indian Civil servant at a quiet English wateringplace. A comradeship arises which merges into love on the girl's part, but does not pass the bounds of friendship on the side of the man. He goes to India, is stationed at a depot where his predecessor in office dies, leaving a half-caste girl to his care. This ward he promptly transfers to his English friend to be educated, and when she returns, a beautiful but shallow, selfish minx, falls in love with her. She jilts him on the eve of their wedding and makes a degrading marriage, which re-

suits in the husband kijling her in a fit of jealousy, leaving a baby, which her discarded lover again takes charge of, and coolly passes over to the care of the devoted artist. Finally, he is brought to realise his own selfishness and the girl's self-sacrifice. Incidentally, some well-drawn pictures of Indian life and society mark the course of the narrative.

"A Consummate Scoundrel." by Guy Boothby (Bell's Colonial Library), is a melodramatic yarn of the "shilling shocker" type. There is the poor and worthy hero, the villain* who does him out of his heritage by forgery, a secret society, a beauty in distress, a smart detective, and the accessories appropriate to th's type of fiction.

"The Voice in the Desert," by Pauline Bradford Mackie (Methuen's Colonial Library), gives a vivid impression of pioneer life in one of the thinlypeopled Western States of America. Mr Lispenard. a scholarly clergyman, becomes side-tracked in a village on the border of a vast desert. He is fascinated by Nature's solitude, while his wife longs for civilisation. As in "The Story-of an African Farm," the interest of the book centres chiefly in the impression made upon I he reader's mind by a picture of life essentially primitive; and perhaps the highest praise that can be bestowed on the book is the remark that its author has succeeded in producing n readable novel -with the meagre materials furnished by a Western village community.

We presume the reading public is not yet tired of the nauseous problem of marriage and sex, or the flow of novel dealing with this theme would be checked. In this class may be placed "The Fool Killer," by Lucas Cleeve (Unwin's Colonial Library). The hero ine, after being sr-andalously unfaith ful to a devoted husband, marries n man much younger than herself, who speedily tires of the yoke and makes ardent love to a young girl. Presumably the lack of morals in the prui cipal characters is intended to convey some moral lesson to the reader, but the perusal of a good many pages of no particular interest fails to make

fthLs lesson—assuming that one is suggested—at all obvious. "The Kingdom of Twilight," by Forrest Reid (published in the same senies), is another study in temperament and sex. which leaves an unpleasant flavour in the mouth, that is not redeemed by any very stirring movement in the story. It i 3 difficult to imagine that anyone can derive any real entertainment from a laboured attempt, extended through three hundred tedious pages, to play upon the gamut of emotions of a neurotic boj-. Miss Mariß Corelli is leaving , the paths of controversy in her new novel, the title of which is "God's Good Man; a Simple Love Story." The novel, which is one of considerable length, is more on § the lines of "Thelrna" than any book which MLss Corelli has written since the publication of that atory. It will T>e issued by Messrs Methuen in August.

We are told that there is a revival of interest in Charles Reade's novels both in England and America. from the vigour of his "purpose" writing, and his powers as a sensationalist, it is true, as the "Academy" observes, that few men have seen deeper into the heart of womankind than the author of "Griffith Gaunt," "Christie Johnstone," and "The Cloister and the Bearth." The suggestion that Reade should be included in the "English Men of Letters" series is a good one.

At the opening of the Frances Power Cobbe bookroom at Barbouth, Sir Lewis Morns spoke in praise of poetry, the greatest glory, of our literature," and inclined to deplore "the insatiable thirst for fiction" that characterises the readers of to-day. Mrs Flora Annie Steele was present, and took up the gauntlet on behalf of the novelist.' She admitted, however, that fiction might vulgarise life by a wrong treatment of S the "eternal topic of matrimony." But' if this subject were rightly treated fiction might have a distinctly educative function.

The fact that a few, c very few, historical novels worth reading have been published fairly recently has induced a number of authors with very poor qualifications for their work to set about writing historical novels. In connection with this, it is interesting to note that the "Revue dcs Deux Mondes," in an article apropos of Mr Jonathan Nield's "Guide to the Best Historical Novels and Tales," examines the question of the historical romance. In an English epitome of the article in. the "Revue," it is said that the writer rather jibs at Mr Nield's pronouncement that a novel is an historical one when the author introduces into it dates, persons, or events which one can identify without hesitation As a lact this definition, if taken strictly, would lead to our inclusion in the category of (say) "PendenmV and "Barnaby Rudge." He evidently thinks it rather unfair, too, that Mr Nield should only put in his list 22 books of Dumas, as against '20 of Miss Everett Green and •28 of the late George Henty; but in an American writing, primarily for our cousins and ourselves, it is difficult to see what else he could expect. What really staggers him is that of all the book's in-Mr Nield's catalogue only 15 are of earlier date than 1814, and this leads the reviewer to opine that it i≤ the great increase of historical research which has brought some knowledge of past times within the reach of all, 4nd has thereby made it possible for the average writer to reproduce, with mere or less truth, the life of almost any picturesque period. There is no doubt much in this, and it anay be s-aid that the article, on the. whole favours the view often expressed by some critics that the future is to the historical novel, and that before very long the n> tion-reading world will tire of reading, in the words of Bret Harte, '"how Lord Augustus said this, and how Lady Blanche she said that." The number of combinations-possible —and probable —hi the circumstances of daily We, has (so the critic of the "Pall Mall Gazette" thinks) nearly reached its limit under the persevering efforts of the ladies and gentlemen who turn out their two or three novels a year, ana if one wants really striking pictures one must get back to history. lhe worst of it is that, as the reviewer notes not all figures in history are picturesqe, and the critic mentioned supposes it is true that no novel has ever been written with Louis XIA'. lhe ideal heroes of romance, he thinks, would be people like Caesar Borgia or Don John of Anstria, and perhaps their time will come when the patrons of the circulating library are educated up to them.