LITERARY.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 25, 30 January 1926, Page 22

LITERARY.

Shaw Neileon, whom some people think the finest Australian poet, -was last heard of at Orange, N.S.W., contemplating a burr-cutting job at Dubbo. Neilson is a farm labourer, still tackling hard toil at 54. Besides his serious work, he has written many humorous pieces. HHE SAUCEPAN OP THE CENTURIES. Down In the kitchen a tired-out maid Is greasy and worried and* badly paid. This' is a photo that soon must fade. ■Washing the saucepan:—this la the source Of gloom, and sorrow, and mad remorse. •Twill make her hands and her whole life coarse. Trouble Is brewing; this Iβ the malt*; This Iβ the cause of the sex revolt. The age is ripe for a somersault. Next to Maeefleld's "Gallipoli," Capt. Weldon'e "Hard Lying" (Jenkins) ie probably the most striking account of that memorable campaign. He relates "with painful realism the landing as seen from the sea, and is, after inspection ashore, able to give details pathetically minute and new to the public. A thousand thousand books could not add one undeserved honour to the troops whose successes were bitterly gained and tragically wasted. Captain Weldon was part of a far flung spy system, and he invests with romance the work of scouting secretly and in disguise, 'by supported "agents." The book is in every -way admirable, and holds the reader's attention throughout. Capt. Weldon is delightfully impersonal, but he did many brave and thrilling things, some of them over and beyond his fair share.

Lucille Van Slyke, in "Nora Pays" (Methuen), has not made the most of an excellent plot. A modern mother, "fed up" with married life, leaves her home and three little girls, who are thereafter brought by their father. The runaway mother "makes good" in business, and fifteen years later, when a widow, returns to the deserted home and again meets her three daughters. Here is material for a heart-searching story, but it is ultra-modern in treatment, and no character wins our respect or affection. Even an up-to-date Traddles fails to "grip." However, the intention is good, and the story is quite ordinarily readable.