LITERARY.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 76, 29 March 1924, Page 18

LITERARY.

We referred at length In our editorial columns the other day to "The World Struggle for Oil," by Pierre I/Epajmol de la Tramerye, translated from the French by C. Leonord Lease. It is not necessary to accept everything the author says in order to appreciate the value of this industrionsly compiled volume. That value lies mostly in its documentation. The whole of the world's oil industry is reviewed, and the author deals clearly with the importance of oil, the growing demand for it, and the international perils involved in the scramble for oil fields. Allen ana Unwin are the publishers.

Kecent English papers contain a good deal of interesting information about the education and literary tastes of the now Prime Minister. Mr. Mac Donald was trained by a Scottish Minister, who guve kirn a thorough training in English, Latin, Greek and mathematics. Mr. M»el>onald has kept alive his interest i* the classic*, and is said to be one of the few men in the House who could use an apt quotation from Horace or Virgil. Mr. C. V. G. Masterman, an old friend of Mr. Mac Donald's, fays he is probably the best rtad Prime Minister of modern times, and the one with more books and writings to his credit than any other.

"Few men of letters havo taken kindly to political life in the House of Commons. Many have tried it; most have found the atmosphere unsympathetic. ,In view of Mr. Hilaire Belloc's caustic observation on the matter, it is not a little surprising to read that a move is on loot to approach J. C. Squire with a view to his standing at the next election as Liberal candidate for the Brentford and Chiswick Division of Middlesex. Mr. Squiro is a notably versatile man, but it would be distressing to see his literary genius cramped by the exigencies of "the Parliamentary life." So says "John o' London's Weekly." We cordially agree. Generally speaking, the proper calling of literary men is literature, and literature is jealous of rivals. We have a warm admiration for Mr. Squire as a writer and a man, but wo do not think he would serve the world so well as an II.P. as he does as a poet, critic, and editor. There is also Mr. H. G. Wells, who has tried more than once to get into Parliament. Surely Mr. Wells was designed by Providence to entertain and instruct us, not to make our laws.

In "Deep McadowH" (by Margaret Rivers Lanninie, Chatto and Windus), there is much clever revelation of character, and a particularly clear and penetrating insight into human weakness and error, but there is only one attractive personality. Perhaps the authoress wished us to see all her ' puppets as "awiul examples," and derive benefit from learning what not to do, or say, or be. Commencing with an ill-mated couple—a hard, sardonic husband, void of all sentiment, and a wife, weakly egotistical and romantic, demanding love and pleasures ac a right—she shows us how a home may be maintained and children borne without love or a sense of duty, the husband claiming, and the wife yielding, in the name of the matrimonial contract. Unfaithful in fact the husband; unfaithful in spirits and inclination—baulked by circumstances, virtuous of necessity—the wife. After many years of this, a legacy gives tho wife her "freedom," and at a time when her husband is facing the greatest sorrow of hie life, ehe leaves himl The plot evolves with a naturalness which is convincing and attractive. For those readers who have much patience with character analysis, ana more sympathy with materialism than with goodness, "Deep Meadows" is both interesting and instructive.

A pleasant volume of Terse comes from Invercargill. The author, who prefers to hide his identity under the word "Southerner" has a true lyrical gift, and writes short poems—many of them only two or three verses long—on the things that commonly interest the lyrist—trees, and youth, and love, and the sea, and song. "Southerner" has learnt what many never learn, how to economise in words, and though his lyrics do not rise very high, they attract by their simplicity of expression combined with their agreeableness of thought. He has a love for trees.

A tree Is not a lonely thing. It has the sky for mate, And wears, to meet the minstrel spring, Green robes of queenly state. And there is this dainty two-verse poem: Grey Is the world outside. Nothing to give it pride, Save one green tree. Ono green tree crooning loir, A lonely thing; Tall, rugged, coloured bo, It means the spring.

This is how he sees Stewart Island: There are great scaa that flutter to the coast. As some giant sen bird Hpent; There's a green bushland that has no other boast. Than that it clothes content. And all about the Islets studded ape. They lnugb bacl* at the sen, IWhile out beyond the big ships battle far, Into Immensity.

Fragrant and wholesome -winds blow through this little volume of sincere and competently written verse. The publishers, the Craft Agency Co., Invercargill, are to be complimented on its format.

The publishers of "A Century of Excavation," by James Baikie, F.R.A.S., (Religious Tract Society), could not have chosen a more fitting period for its appearance. When Lord Carnarvon and Mr. Howard Carter announced their latest discoveries, the public, already familiar with place-names, immediately took a deep interest in all that was reported from Egypt. Professor Baikie has condensed the history of Egyptian aritiquarian research up to the present time into less than 250 pages of large clear type, and at almost any page the book can be opened with the certainty of finding something which interests and tempts the reader to turn the page and continue reading. The chapter devoted to tie Pyramids will probably prove to be tie most popular, because the mystery which, in the average mind, surrounds those gigantic monuments is exhaustively dealt with and explained. The illustrations are numerous and interesting, giving an admirable idea of Egyptian art, ,from ornaments and wall paintings to the ruins of the great columned temples. "We owe to Egypt," says the author, "the first book, the first building, the first ship, the first statue, the first romance, the first relief, and the first picture, in the modern sense, of which we have any knowledge; and if some of these anticipations are crude and primitive, and show but little sign of the wonderful development of which the future was to prove them capable, yet it is only due to this pioneer nation to remember that it is to her that we owe the seed which has borne so manifold a harvest."