LITERARY.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 168, 15 July 1916, Page 14

LITERARY.

"The little Lady of the Big House" (Macmfllan) is the most un-Londonesque title that one could imagine. It sounds like a, serial in a woman's fashion magazine. It is, however, the title of the latest 'book from the virile pen of Jack London. Molla Bjunstedt, author of " Tennis for Women" (Doubleday-Page), and champion of every tennis match eho hae entered, is a Norwegian masseuse by profession, and she does massaging half the year and wins tennis matches the other half. The British censor hae suppressed Mary Roberts Rinehart's war book, "Kings, Queens, and Pawns" (Doran), on the ground that it contains information of value to the Germans, but Mrs. Rinehart firmly believes that the reason for its suppression is that it contains an interview with Queen (Mary. Mrs. Elizabeth Cooper's name should be Drusilla. She's the author of "Drusilla with a Million" (Harpers), and ehe has just returned from a long trip to Cuba in time to start out with her husband on a leisurely jaunt through South America. There is now "The Book of Italy" (Stokes), edited by Raffaelo Piccoli, under the auspices of Queen Elena. Among the writers who have contributed are John Galeworthy, Sidney Lee, and Gilbert Murray, ami among the illustratore Sargent and Pcnnell. The late Mr. Henry James, the famous novelist, whose will was proved recently, left property of the value of £8,961, including personalty of the net value of £6,543. The testator leaves the portrait of himself by Sargent to the National Portrait Gallery, and if not accepted by them, then to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. In an interview which John Burrongha granted not long ago to an eastern jourinalist, he said: "Whitman is the greatest poet America has produced. He is great J with the qualities that make Homer and the classic poets great. Emerson is more precious, more intellectual. Whitman and Kmerson arc our two greatest poete." A modern Robinson Crusoe is Alpheus Hyatt Verrill'g " Marooned in the Forest" (Harper's). When hin upturned canoe, ns well no hie guide, disappeared down the rapids, a young man foundhimself thrown upon his own resources for food, shelter, and the discovery of a way oat to civilisation, with a " hand ! kerchief and a email penknife as his only assets. How he got out makes the etory. In Miss Norma Lorimer's new novel, "The Gods' Carnival," published by Stanley Paul and Co., the scene of the story is laid in Taormina. the beauty spot of Sicily, which Miss Norma Lori- ; mer knows so well and describes so vividly. The passionate love story, as it unfolds, law l>are the elaborate maj ehinery by which for twenty years Ger- , many sought tr> re-rivet the chains of I Teutonism on Italy. Stanley Paul and Co. announce for early publication "A Gentlewoman of France," by Rene Boylesve. This novel, which has been crowned by the Academy and has run into many editions, is of ! unusual quality, and is singularly unlike j the typical French novel, now fast growj ing out of date. With quite remarkable j insight, M. Boylesve has shown us the . subtle movements of a woman's mind, i and heart and soul. A young French gentlewoman makes a. marriage of convenience and then meets her affinity. A ■ poignant soul drama ensues. At the conference of the English Association, Mr. Walter do la Mare, discussing the question of the effect of the i war on the production and reading of literature, viewed from the author's I point of view, remarked that it had been to poetry that people had turned for an assurance of comfort. The war might have disfigured and saddened life, but it had, at all evente, shaken it out of its sleop. Men were writing books to-day with a deeper eolace and more vivid impulse. Books were being read with a finer insight, deeper judgment. ', love, and understanding, and a renewed sense of reet and refreshment. In a packet of Swinburne's letters, sold at Sotheby's, the object of one letter is to request that no copy of the second series of '" Poems and Ballads " be sent to the "Spectator," in consequence of "their deliberate neglect to acknowledge" and their " repeatedly persistent resolution to ignore the existence of previous publications," etc. In another letter he remarks: "I think the world must be coming to an end when the ' Pall Mall ' ami ' Spectator' unite in praising a book of mine." The letters as a whole cover a considerable variety of literary topics, but Swinburne seems happiest, remarks the "Times," when he is denouncing " the blunders of those printers." The Rev. R. J. Campbell, in his book ,: With Our Troops in France," writca simply and with enthusiasm of the religious side of the Army in France, and the record of hie three visits to the front is food for serious but happy reflection. Writing of the part played by the clergy in the war, 'he says:—"lt is officially stated that there are not leee than eaxty thousand priests serving with the belligerents on all fronts —and this exclusive of the priests of the. Eastern Church serving with the. Russian forces and the thousands of ministers of all denominations serving with the Protestant troops of Great Britain and her gallant sons from beyond the sens." He then describee some of the field service* —one in particular, held in. a half-nrmcd church within the zone of fire, with wounded men "in rows upon etraw along tho nave, chancel, and aisles." A cavalry captain, with clinking epuve and gheathed sword, strides in. He is the priest, come to celebrate Mass and ehrivo the dying. Of our hospitals ho 'Writes:—"Whatever may bo said wf onr inferiority to the Germans in other material waye, wo can certainly beat thran in ihe efficiency of our military lujspital organisation, and this on tho testimony of German prisoners themselves. Wo loavo tne French out of sight. . . . What fe "fcli o mutter *wjtn tho GcTroan eynicni Sα not want of skill, but want of heart They aro seiontiilo enough in all conscience and up-to-da*e in their methods, but their surgeons aro cailone to their own wounded, let alone onra-; €hey havn no tendorncae to eparo for anybody," The beet thing ho finds about them Is their uho of the hypodermic syringe, with wMoli iwery Gorman eokiksr fe iprofidecL- . . j

"The Half-Priest" is the title of Hamilton Drummond's new novel, which Stanley Paul and Co. publish. It is a novel of the daye of the BoTgiaa, and the main interest of the story turns on the unscrupulous use made of a woman's devotion and self-eacrifice. "I can never remember when I did not write," says Rachael S. Macnaroara, author of "Drifting Waters" (Putnam), "or rather, to be accurate, I used to compose little rhymes before I could ■write, which my elder sister used to jot down for mc." She wrote desultorily for magazines without a thought of becoming a novelist exclusively until her first book wae accepted within a week of its receipt by her publishers, the Black woods, of Edinburgh. Stanley Paul and Co. announce for early publication "The Neapolitan Lovers," by Alexandre Dumas, now translated into English for the first time, with- an informing introduction by Mr. K. S. Garnett, an expert in all that pertains to the writings of Dumae. This romance was written by Dumas after he had accompanied his friend Garibaldi through the campaign which resulted in the conquest of Sicily. He threw his whole heart into it, and looked on it as one of his best works. "Because of Miscella," by A. W. Marchmont, ie the story of a dual personality—one man being so like another that even persons familiar with the two make mistakes in their identity. One is a rascal, and the tool of two roguee who are robbing his unsuspecting uncle, and the other is an honest man, who becomes acquainted -with the conspiracy through confidences given to him, but intended for hie double. The chief incidents of the novel relate to the measures taken to defeat the machinations of the swindlers, and in these operations a very charming lady takes part, and becomes herself exposed to serious peril. The | scenes are laid in a provincial town and London. Our copy is from Caescll and Co., through Wildman and Arey. Mr Welhs , new etory, "Mr Britling Sees It Through," begins quite delightfully in the "Nation" with an American visitor, an English "celebrity," and an Essex j village. There is, as yet, no war, though it is understood that the novelist will rater on show how the war has affected the spirit of the nations. There are many titbits of the purest WeUsiaii philosophy about ruling claeeee, and Oxford, and electricity. Here ie one: — "But our peculiar bad luck has been to set a sort of revolutionary who is a Tory mandarin, too. Ruskin and Morris, ■for example, were as reactionary and anti-scientific as the dukee and the j biehops. 'Machine haters. Science haters. I Rule of Thumbitce to the bone. So arc | our current Socialist*. They've filled this country with the idea that the ideal automobile ought to be made entirely i by the hand-labour of traditional crafts-1 men, quite individually, out of beaten I copper, wrought iron, and seasoned oak." PLEASURES AND PALACES. 'By PRINCESS LAZ.VROVTCH HItF.BELLANOVICII (Eleanor Calhoun) ; Eveleigh Nash Company. Tliie very entertaining volume of rcmi-! nibcencea, by a talented American lady, who married a Serbian prince, gives personal impressions of many notable people in England and on the Continent. The author was born in California, but in curly womanhood went to London, I where she achieved considerable euccefs | !on the stage. Under the wing of Mr*. Lowell, wife of the American Ambassa- j diir. she obtained access to the very best I society, and came into personal contact with King Edward and Queen Alexandra and other royal personages. Among men of eminence in art, literature and the dramatic profession, she has stories to tell of Whistler. Browning, Victor Hugo, Onorge Bernard Shaw, W. T. Stead, Zniigwill, ITcnry Irving. Coqnclin, and i various other European celebrities. Her i life in Paris, where she appeared with I success in leading dramatic parts, gave j her many impressions of the| French people, and her experiences are described with freshness and vivacity. In the course of conversation with Browning on one occasion the poet expressed surprise at the number of Browning societies in America, and upon being assured that this was evidence of appreciation, he dryly remarked, "It isn't very flattering to think you can't be understood without the aid of organised effort." When travelling to Mazlomerp on a visit to Mr. and Mrs. Bernard Shaw, the author fennd herself in a second-class compartment with Lady Dorothy Nevill, with whom she was acquainted. "' Do tell mc who (you're £oing to," queried the old lady. 'To Mr. and Mrs. Bernard Shaw,' T answered. 'How interesting But— ain't he a shocloin' Socialist?"' On arrival at Hazlemere station, Lady Dorothy was met by a maid with an umbrella, and the author remarks: " I conldn't help smiling to myself as 1 drove up the winding road in thte 'shockin' Socialist's' comfortable trap, while the Tory Lady Dorothy could be seen. far down the hillside, trudging , through the mud and rain, carrying her "net of little parcels, the maid holding some other packages and the umbrella." Margot Tennant, now the wife of Mr. Asquith, is described as " the liveliest I person I met in London. She wae thought to be the original of Benson's ' Dodo. , People sadd then that she would be sure to marry a Primp Minister, or make one out of her husband when the time should come for her to 'dwindle into a wife,' as Con<rreve's fascinating ' Millament,' her forerunner in some degree, expressed the ultimate catastrophe. Miss Margot Tennant was small, slight, supple anri graceful, and a devotee of the skirt dance, in which, as a professional dance.-, she might have earned fortunes had not Fate decreed that she should be born with a silver spoon in her mouth. Many were the stories told of this vividly vivacnoup creature coming down to London with the expressed intention to live her life in the great world, and get amusi»raent out of it, of h<er determination to carry all the strongholds, and how she attained those purposes by cheer force of bewitching and original personality, using iwit which ventured to aftdaoity upon occasion, making bets, and winning them, to dance with the wariest of foreign emperors, and so forth." The airthor was present at a. spiritualistic seance upon the (invitation of Mr. Stead, t-.» observe the clairvoyant powers of a Mrs. Bnrehell. "It is humfluitinsr to record"," she says, "■that, notwithstanding the distinguished character of the assemblage, the most abominable bad iraiiYicTS jutsviulcd. Titters and iromcsvl miirumis were only half suppressed." The clairvoyant's first attempts to deperibo the contents of sealed envelopes veto at first a failure, bnt Bomo of her snhecqneirt manifestations of psychic power aTO described as remarkable. The title "Pleasures and Palaces" is a not inappropriate name for this attractive description of- society ia flra late-Vic-