LITERARY.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 28, 1 February 1913, Page 14

LITERARY.

Messrs, Kegan, Paul and Co„ announce an important book on "The Theory of Evolution," by the Rev. Karl Frank, "S.Jwith a chapter on "Ant Cuests and Termite Guests," from the pen of Father Erich Wasmann, S.J., the eminent German biologist. The work has been tranlated from the German by Mr. Chas. T. Druery, and will be illustrated.

Mr. and Mrs. Laurence Irving (Miss M-ibel Hackney) have just arranged to dramatise Mrs. T. P. O'Connors new novel. ".Little Thank You." They realised its great dramatic possibilities immediately on reading the story, before the appearance of the very favourable Press notices, or tbe warm reception from the reading public. It will be a labour of love, as Mr. and Mrs. Irving have the same love and understanding of children and dogs as the author. Mrs. O'Connor really modelled "Jimps" upon

"Mop," the wonderlul Irving fox terrier, who already plays one or two "star" parts written for him by his master.

In "Odd Numbers," by Sewcll Ford (Laurie's Colonial Library), we have some further chronicles by Shorty McCabo. which are as original and amusing as those which in "Torchy" established Mr. Ford's reputation as a humorist of rare quality. There is so much shrewd knowledge of human nature expressed in a happy vein that the book is one abounding in quaint philosophy. The sketches, nineteen in number, present us with a portrait gallery representing types that might as easily be found in New Zealand as New York, but it would be less easy to discover an artist so capable of delineating them. "Odd Numbers" will be productive of many broad grins, and will add not a little to tbe gaiety of nations.

"The International Whitaker" contains, in an enlarged form, tbe statistical, historical and commercial information regarding the British Empire and foreign countries which we are familiar with in that standard book of reference,

"Whitaker's Almanac," without the local directory, which is of little interest to oversea readers. The book is divided into four parts, the iirst two describing the land surface of the earth, its divisions, ami the ethnology and religions of its inhabitants. The third part occupies more than three-quarters of the whole, and deals with each nation, its

area, population, ethnology, history, government, defence, education, finances, production and industry, trade, communications, centres of population, weights, measures, and currency. The fourth part gives a list of British and American diplomatic and consular representatives in foreign countries. There is an index of forty pages, which facilitates reference. Altogether this is a most valuable textbook for the journalist, legislator, and merchant, and all others who wish to keep themselves well informed regarding the progress of their own and other nations.

An essay on "Johann Winckelmann," by Walter Pater, which appeared in the

"Westminster Review" 40 years ago, has been reprinted in a sixpenny edition. In a few pages the life of Johann Winckelmann —destined to have so notable an effect on the writing of Goethe, though the two never met, Winckelmann being murdered while actually on his way to Goethe—is sketched, and then a criticism of his value to the world of literature given. The story of Winekelmann's life is itself quite thrilling—the giant brain impassioned with desire towards all things antique, art treasures, literature, and all else: Winekelmann's scorn of the teachers at the University of Halle, where his friends had hoped he would study theology, as they bad hoped of him at school, Greek in both places claiming him disciple; his unswerving devotion to learning that allowed him only four hours' sleep; his utilisation of sermon time on Sundays to read Homer; his baptism into the Roman Church for no other reason than to get nearer the desired Rome, where a possible post in the Papal Library was promised him; his writings, and especially the publication of the book be had so ardently desired to write, "The History of Ancient Art"; and then, suddenly, when honour, at last, after long barren and bitter years, had come to him. his murder by a fellow traveller who wanted the gold medals presented to Winckelmann at Vienna. "The aim of a ri<jht criticism," writes Pater, "is to place Winckelmann in an intellectual perspective, of which Goethe is tbe foreground. For. after all. be is infinitely less than Goethe: it is chiefly because at certain points be comes in contact with Goethe that criticism entertains consideration of him. . . . But that note of revolt against the eighteenth century, I which we detect in Goethe, was struck by I Winckelmann. Goethe illustrates that union of the Romantic, its adventure, its 1 variety. its deep subjectivity, with Hel- | lenism. its transparency, its rationality, 1 its desire of beauty . . . illustrates,

too, the preponderance in this marriape of the Hellenic element; and that element, in its true essence, was made known to him by Winckelmann."

"Pall Mall Magazine" for January is the first number issued by the new proprietors, Messrs. Uiffe and Sons, Ltd. It is the aim of the publishers to produce a magazine, intelligent, entertaining, and informative—in a word, the magazine of to-day. Stories, illustrations, and articles are well up to the high standard already established by this magazine. Among notable contributions are an article by Mr. Hilaire Belloc on current literature; an interesting paper on picture buying, specially dealing with the high prices given for old masters; an article on "Panama, City of Madmen." In the course of an excellent pen portrait of Mr. Norman Angell. "War Breaker." the writer gives the following description of the author oi '"The Great Illusion": —"Less than a year ago Norman Angell made his first appearance on a public platform. Those who were present on that Sunday afternoon will not readily forget the experience. The place was crowded; for there was much curiosity to see this wonderful new world-force in the flesh. At last he stepped forward, and there was a perceptible flutter of astonishment; the Great Man -was a small man ! the World-Force was a quiet, modest, reticent, unassuming individual! There were some who seemed to feel they had been imposed upon. But as he went on, unfolding his arguments in a quiet voice, it became evident that here was a giant mind at work, and hardly one present but, before the address was over, had come under its irresistible sway. He is no orator, if by oratory you mean flowing periods, impassioned appeals, soul-stirring protests. But if you would have close-packed thought unfolded to your listening mind, if you would have light flashed on to the dark spots of your understanding, and have what was I before obscure made plain, if you would I know sheer intellectual joy, hear him."

"The Lee Shore," by Rose Macaulay, is the book wbich won the £1,000 prize novel competition, and it is easy to imagine that after Messrs Hodder and S tough ton had decided to award such a prize they found no difficulty in bestowing it, for, whatever Miss Macau-ay's story lacks—and it grows a little tiresome in parte—it is steeped in originality and humour of no mean order. The life story of one Peter Margerison, for whom nothing went right from schooldays, when he rode on the crest of a wave which might bring such a boy anything, to that day when he was washed on to a lee shore where "the down-at-heels, limping, broken army of the Have-Note are not denied such beauty and such peace as this, if they will but take it and be glad. The lust to possess here finds no fulfilment; having nothing, yet possessing all things, and empty-handed iegion laughs along its way. The last, the gayest, the most hilarious laughter begins when, destitute utterly, the wrecked pick up coloured shells from the lee shore. For there are shells enough and to spare for all; there i 6 no grasping here."' It is a brave novelist who, knowing the universal appetite for honours that but increase for our hero and a happy conventional ending, knowing, too, the inexorable "from him that hath not shall be taken away even that he bath," yet dares strip the hero of wealth, health, love, friends, even good name. But does it all with such merriment and such sweet philosophy that none has excuse for being sad. It is an uncommon theme uncommon!v well set. '

The menace of suffragism has moved -Mr. Harold Owen, author of "Three Octobers," to devote a volume of 333 pages to a denunciation of the heresy and the heretics. This Mr. Stanley Paul has included in his Colonial Library. It will interest New Zealand readers to learn what an enormous number of evils and disasters, in the social, industrial, and political spheres might have happened from the gift of votes to women. Mr. Owen makes out such an excellent case; argues with so much eogenrv and consistency, and is evidently so (irmly convinced himself of all he says, that one really wonders that New Zealand has thriven politically and socially during all these years, and that women remain just as feminine and charming notwithstanding that they are expected to take an intelligent interest in the public men and the national affairs of the land they live in, and actually go into a polling booth once in three years to record a vote. Curiously enough, it is in England, where women have not the franchise, that they appear to become unsexed and resort to acts of unwomanly violence. Mr. Owen would find it impossible to see in these Dominions anything to parallel the recent exploits of educated women in England, whose grace and charm he is so anxious to save. A •pound of practice is worth a ton of theory, and a tour of the oversea Do- j minions, where woman suffrage.has been in operation for a long period, would probably relieve his mind and exorcise a number of bogeys with which he has, frightened himself, and apparently de- ] sires to scare others. Mr. Owen expressly mentions that he lias overlooked all reference to the operation of woman suffrage in Xew Zealand, Australia, Finland, and Norway, because "it is an affair of those countries and not ours." The omission was undoubtedly judicious, because it is apparent that Mr. Owen is not in a state of mind to deal with such a question judicially or with advantage to himself or his readers. The fact that he has shirked such an investigation, however, and preferred theory and a vivid imagination to a careful inquiry into the results arising from the actual working in communities of the system which he denounces, discounts very seriously Mr. Owen's claim to be treated as an authority cm the subject which he has undertaken to discuss. The book is chiefly remarkable for the prolixity with which theories are formulated which have already been so utterly disproved and discredited in practice that no one with any experience of woman suffrage could take them seriously.

"Following the Drum," by Horace Wyndhain |MeLros p » London), is a sort of who's who—though it has nothing to do with name-—to the life of a British soldier from the day an enterprising sergeant '•cops" him as a recruit, possibly lounging on a London Street, to the day he buys his discharge or decides, seven years' service past, to sign on for twenty-one years with a pension of 2/6 a day" for life after that if he's a noncommissioned officer. Not too pleased, it is safe to prophesy, will some of the ornamental units who decorate the various officers' quarters be with this frank exposure of the absurdities to which red tape can carry such a concern as the Army. But even they will be sensible enough to find the bright diary capital stuff. It abounds in good stories, in graphic descriptions of the few really exciting episodes that break up the general monotony of a private's life, and the ver3 T different routine ruling in foreign service. Of pathos there is unconsciously a good deal—enlisting in the first instance is somewhat pathetic, isn't it? — but the call of the drum is insistent, and soldier life at least makes a fine tale for readers. One of the chestnuts relates to the regiment's stay in Cairo, where, despite the regulation that only active orderlies with a fluent knowledge of English were to be employed to assist the military 6taff at the garrison offices, numbers who in no way kept to the regulation were to be found. Thus, the colonel of a battalion of the Middlesex Regiment, which had just arrived, is said to have dispatched a telcgra-m, ".Middlesex wants 1.000 rations- this afternoon." Instead of the rations, however, he received the following letter from an Arab cleTk: "Honoured Sir, estimable telegram to hand, but not understood. Male sex I know well: ditto female sex. Middle sex. however, not familiar. Please send specimen." Of the 6harp criticisms I tersely couched here are a few: — "Any man can learn to become a good shot if be is properly taught. The military system of (alleged) instruction, however, seems purposely designed to prevent a soldier developing into one except by a miracle." "Some chaplains, too, are. officers first and clergymen afterwards, and hedge themselves about with so much red tape and routine that they aTe quite unapproachable. The majority, however, are populaT enough." "The belief that the rank and file can ' only be depended upon to do their duty | when commanded hy "gentleman officers" is as cherished as it is ridiculous and snobbish. The real truth is, whether his j captain or subaltern is a "gentleman" or not is the last thing with which a ; soldier concerns himself. All he cares j about—and very sensibly, too—is that the officer under whom he 6erves should be a good soldier and know his work." "The reason why soldiers drink is because they have such uncomfortable barrack-Toc-os.