THE LATE MR ANDREW LANG

Auckland Star, Volume XLIII, Issue 215, 7 September 1912, Page 14

THE LATE MR ANDREW LANG

A MASTER OF LITERATURE. NOTES AND REMINISCENCES. Ytm ask «nn. 'Fresher, .who tt Iβ Who rihymee, researches and reviews, Who sometimes writes lite Genesis •A'fid Romcdmes for the "Dally News"; Wiho Jests In words that angels use. And is most solemn with most slang; fWJio's -who—who's which— whk-h Iβ Whose? Who can It be but Andrew Lang?

Bo wrote an anonymous ballad singer in the "Oxford Magazine," and in a few lines hit off with accuracy and wit one of the most engaging personalities of the time. For Andrew Lang was one of the prodigies of literature. In mere bulk few men who have ever lived have written so much; but his work was far from being distinguished by balk alone. It was various, affluent, scholarly, abounding in many of the qualities of good writing, lie was poet, novelist, critic, folk-lorist and historian, journalist and biographer, bibliophile and sportsman. Nor is this list a simple fhdication of the forms which he gave to his almost unexampled industry; yet in nothing that he undertook did he fall to the common level. He was never a drudge, nor a dryasdust; at his lowest he was distinguished by the fascinating graces of his style; at his best he did not fall far short of genius. Born at Selkirk on March 31, 1844, Mr Lang was of Scotch parentage ou both sides.

Educated at Edinburgh Academy, at St. Andrews University and at Balliol College, Oxford, in 1868 he was elected to a Fellowship at Merton, and thereafter literature claimed him for her own. Between 1880 and 1890 books flowed from the pen of the author oil subjects ranging from pure literature and folklore and primitive religion to the byways of bibliographers and the goKsip of the time. Delightful, too, was Mr Lang's translation of "Aucassin and Njeolette," and the collection of fairy-tales—'The Blue Fairy Book" and others—that came to be a feature of the Christinas publishing season. In "The Book of Dreams and Ghosts" was shown Mr Lang's interest in the occult; while his "Making of Religion" and "Magic and Religion"—written in connection with his appointment as Gifford lecturer (he was the first of them) at St. Andrews—saw him continuing his speculation and research on the deep questions of life. "The Monk of Fife" was a notable novel, as Mr Lang's Life of J. G. Lockhart was a notable biography.

THE LATE MR. ANDREW LANG. Andrew Lang took to the printed page well nigh as instinctively as a duck takes to water. "About the age of four," he relates, "I learned to read by a simple process. I had heard the elegy of Cock Robin until I knew it by rote, and 1 picked out the letters and words which compose that classic till I could read it for myself. ... A nureery legend tells that as a child I was won't to arrange six open books on six chairs, and go from one to the other perusing them by turns. N*o doubt this was what people call 'desultory reading,' but 1 did not hear tho criticism till later, and then too often for my comfort." Between Lang and Robert Louie Stevenson there was a great depth of affection, which Imd come into being when Lang read "Ordered South," nnd was instantly "sealed of tho tribe of Louis, an admirer. .-. devotee, a fanatic." When Lang first lirarri from R.L.S. of the perm of Dr .lekyll and .Mr Hyde, he said, in the words of another, "This will never do"; but it was to him that Longmans sent tho manuscript of thp famous story, in a *ry commonplace drawing-room, as he said, he began to read it at 10.30 one night. Arriving at the place whore L'tterson, the lawyer, and the doctor wait outside the doctor's room, he threw down the manuscript nnd lied. "1 had no taste fur solitude any more." Most people who have read the story have felt like that.

The late Mr Lang was troubled with a strong imagination, even when of very tender years. He used to tell a story in illustration of this. For years the utterance of the word "peradventurc" was unthinkable to him, so thoroughly was his youthful mind convinced that if he s:iid "peradventure - ' the darkness Would cover him.

A few years ago Mr Lang was lecturing at one of the London "Settlement Centres," and was duly entertained at dinner first. His hostess began making apologetic remarks about the soup. "Don't apologise, Mrs Blank," said Lang dryly, adding, after a significant pause, ''I've dined here before "

On one occasion this year Mr ].a.nc wa.s the guest of a Scotch professor at a university where lie was {riving a lecture. Mr Lang had to leave early in the morning, nnd breakfast, was ordered for nine o'clock. At 8.30 a maid announced that Mr Lang's clothes could not bo.found anywhere. His host went to aid in the search and found Mr Lang sitting up in bed, wearing his monocle, and through it spying out new linos of investigation. As a last resort his host went downstairs to make sure that his children had not. hidden the missing garments, when the maid announced that the crisis was past. While Mr Lang was in his both she had found his suit foklej up under his pillow. At breakfast he explained that he had put his garments there before going to bed because the ■ pillows were not quite high enongh.