LITERARY.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 144, 19 June 1926, Page 22

LITERARY.

Miss Letts, authoress of "Songs From Leinster," a book of verse which has had a considerable sale, has compiled a further volume of poems in similar vein under the title "More Songs From Leinster." Mr. Murray will issue it shortly.

The great Lord Elgin, who took the famous marbles to England, had a very talented wife, who saw much vivid hfe while her husband was Ambassador at Constantinople in the late eighteenth century. Lady Elgin's letters have now been arranged for publication.

Viscount Haldane's new book "Human Experience: A Study of Its Structure," has, just been published by Mr. John Murray. This is a more "popular" philosophical work and is meant for the general reader. It contains investigations into problems of the deep order which to-day are perplexing in practical life.

Jonathan Cape have several important publications in hand for the near future. Among the books which will be ready soon are "Abraham Lincoln," by Carl Sandburg, two volumes (with a full-length portrait of Lincoln up to the time he was elected President); "Samuel Drummond," by Thomas Boyd (an epic of the soil—the story of a man working upon nature which he loves, to win her to yield prosperity to him and his family)*; and "Modern American Poetry," by Louis Untermeyer (now in a revised and enlarged edition, and containing 480 poems of 133 poets).

L. Noel's "A Riff -Bride," is very thoroughly up-to-date, being a romance of the Riff during the fight between Spain and the Moors. Not altogether wildly improbable are the rapidly succeeding adventures which befall a party of overcivilised English people in the hands of the horsemen of the Riff mountains. How a London girl arrives there, and how she passes through alternating nightmares, and dreams of love and passion, and how at last she captures the man she, only too literally, has hunted, form the story. Published by Stanley Paul.

Entirely unconventional is'the postwar novel of M. H. Welsby, "Growing Up" (Methuen). It is an account of the life and doings of a party of "advanced" young English folk of the educated class working in the British division of the Allied Relief Committee in Paris. There is an unexpected amount of cocktail and beer consumption, considering the characters are employed by the State, and an unusual freedom of action and associations. The heroine is a discontented young agnostic, who, after sampling such pleasures as a post-war Paris office, marries a young man, much too good for her. who meets her whilst he is playing in a jazz band. This is not a "sex novel," but the hard recklessness of the modern young woman is fully demonstrated. Apart from the banjo man of the cafe band, there is no character in the story for which we can express any liking. There is no observable plot, and the tale runs on quite naturally, as if compiled from a diary. The descriptions are remarkably good.

"The Goat Without Horns" is not a very inviting title for Mr. Beale Davis' last novel (Stanley Paul), but as a story of life, adventure, and revolutions in Haiti, it is excellent; indeed the bulk of the book contains so many thrills that it would make (perhaps has made) a well-arranged serial. Mr. Davis, in his search for effect, ha:, however, overdone the description of a Voodoo dance; which becomes mere burlesque. African races are the best of scouts (even the Australian aboriginal shelters his mystery dances within a ring of watchers), and it is safe to say that no European has ever penetrated a native cordon, or, if so, has never been permitted *o Sev the religious ceremonies in fiilL. No self-respecting Voodoo man would share in such nonsensical pantomime as Mr. Davis imagines. The dance, and the sleeping draught administered by means of the prick of a rose thorn, spoil what is otherwise a good plot and r amusing story. There are readers who wUI believe anything, but it is not art t ridicule a hing <->ne does not understand.

Mr. Pett-Ridge knows his London with the intimacy of a lover, and he writes of its people with a grace and charm which compensate for any improbability, of situation and characterisation. But in his latest novel "Ernest Escaping," he has definitely deßerted the line of probability, entering the region of pure farce. The old humour is there, but it has broadened until it has reached the stage of crudity, with consequent loss of the human appeal which characterised bis earlier work. The story deals with the adventures of a youth .named Ernest Langbam, a grocery clerk who seeks safety from nia many love affairs in flight. He earns his living as a waiter, a man of all work, a footman and a bookmaker's clerk. The adventures he encounters provide plenty of opportunity for lively fun and for clever characterisation of Cockney types, but the reader can see the mechanism all too clearly, and never for a moment does he lose himself in the story. Mr. Pett-Ridge is capable of much better stuff. Methuen are the publishers. A WAYFARER IN ALSACE. One of Messrs. Methuen's "Wayfarer" series of guide book' has reached us. It i. distinguished by an introduction by the Earl of Derby. Something of history, much of political import, and more of description, have been included by tbe author, Mr. B. S. Tbwnroe. The photographs are, in themselves, an invitation to travellers to visit the country described, that much-fought-over territory of Alsace. The average Englishman knows little of this part of France (so recently German, and now restored to its original owners), and in the Alsation •costume of fancy dress balls and the "Blue Alsatian Mountains" song, has been content to believe he knows all of a part of Europe, containing to-day two millions of his friends, that there it, any necessity for knowing. A country of legend, poetry, and romance, sturdily refusing since 1870 to become in spirit a part of Germany and destined, had the Germans won the Great War, to become a Prussian State. We wonder if "A Wayfarer in New Zealand," even without the introduction of an English earl, will ever find its way into Messrs. Methuen*b list? To quote from the volume, "It Is best to keep as tranquil as possible in misfortune, and not to be vexed or resentful, for we cannot see what good or evil th:_e is in such things, and impatience does not, in any way, help us forward; also because nothing in human affairs deserves serious anxiety, and grief stands in the way to hinder the self-succour that our duty immediately requires of us."

There is something of the restless flow of modernity in Acten Sevrez's hundred poems gathered into a volume by G. P. Putnam's Sons, and entitled "Men Call It Love" after the introductory stanza. Miss Sevrez does not believe in reservations. She tells the tale of human life and love as she sees it, with frankness and spirit. She does not see it in any very new light, however, in spite of her emancipation, and some of her verses I are obvious. There is, however, an impetuosity which carries the reader along, and some of the love stories in miniature which she tells are very well done. The reactions of the feminine mind are cleverly interpreted, and here and there are verses of real power, while others have subtlety and charm. Her summary of the cosmos in "Love's Merry-Go-Round" is somewhat reminiscent of Omar the Tentmaker. "Hurry along, if you want a ride for your ■ money! It's Bbort, but sweet, and gay and fantastic and funny; Hurry along! you're but one among the many. And the next generation Is waiting to pay its penny! So make the most of Love's wheeling merry-go-round— It's all there Is—and you'll soon be underground. "Faith and Success," by Basil King, and published by George Allen and Unwin falls a little between two stools. There is not quite faith enough to please the orthodox, while the success theme is too slight to exhilarate those minds that desire inspirational sermons on how to obtain a million pounds—and deserve it. As a record of a man's somewhat simple endeavour to reach the cosmic heart of things, this book may please some minds, but what puzzles tbe reviewer is the struggle needed to discover certain truths which have been clear to him during his allegedly long church-going. As an instance he is troubled by the impossibiity of loving the Creator with the same tenderness that he gives a human being near to him, but a Catholic child could have told him that the two affections belong to different orders, and ! are not comparable. As an instance of ; moral success to which he attains is f bis discovery that he has no right to' bitterness because roligious organisations have "done little for human brotherhood." - His business ■is to begin the brotherhood himself, and then comes a further illumination that it is with his literal brother or parents that he must begin. This is an excellent lesson I in an age in which the forsaking of fathers and mothers is sometimes the only commandment readily obeyed. That the author finds his material pros-. pects improved by his greater faith is satisfactory, though explicable to the I psychologist by the unconscious training in concentration and perserveance which that search for faith certainly occasioned. Pyrrho, by Bartram Tollinton (Williams and Norgate, London), is the son of a wealthy Alexandrian shipowner, who lives in the third century-after Christ. Early he is troubled by spiritual matters, and amid a multitude df gods and religions, he makes it his life mission to discover the truth. Parted from the wife intended him by his parents—the lady early becoming a convert to Christianity, he secures a position as one of the secretaries of the Emperor Severus. Here he meets the votaries of many gods, including Festa, a preacher of gnosticism. Later be is accused Of complicity in a plot on the emperor's i life, but the evidence of Festa saves his head, and he is restored to favour and goes with Severus and his army to Britain, where it is pleasing to note, our rude forefathers gave the Romans the very deuce of a timet ending with the death of Severus and the departure of the invaders, who leave sixty thousand dead as the price of their campaign. Finally returning to Alexandria, Pyrrho revisits the great Mend of his youth, Ben Omar, the bookseller, and discovers < that this learned Jew has been converted to Christianity. He also discovers that the lady of his first love has met Festa, ; who has, strangely enough, made her way to Alexandria, and it is not un- ' natural, after this progress, that Festa ' should renounce her gnosticism and find' security in Christianity—nor that! Pyrrho should follow her example and at ; last find the truth for which he has for > many years sought elsewhere in vain. ■ The novel is interesting for its accounts • of early Roman history, but it could be i told in a quarter the space if it were not for its interminable arguments on religion and philosophy—well enough in : their way for those who care for thej ; study of such subjects, but wearisome as*; a twice told tale to those who read novels for recreation. , A COLOURFUL RUSSIAN. It was Wodehouse, I believe, who, in a light mood, described the average' Russian novel as long, dreary conversations for a hundred and fifty pages, in the hnudred and fifty-first the moujik kills himself. Such a satire would not, of course, apply to these eight stories by the well-known author, Nikolav Gogol, published under the title of "Evenings on a Farm near Dakanka," which are full of action, and if the interest to an English reader sometimes flags here and there, this is due perhaps to a certain over familiarity with tales of Russian peasant life in general. For our minds the humour is too sordid, the gleams of sentiment too few. These tales of Gogol, however, are full of descriptive and colourful passages, which must be fascinating in the original, and j which do not lose more than is inevitable in the able translation of Con-1 stance Barnett. The tales deal largely with village life, its amusements, fairs, dances, dress, with here and there a well managed excursion into the diabolic. Such for instance is "Christmas Eve," wherein a blacksmith enlists the aid of the devil in order to get a pair of the Czarina's slippers to*please the village beauty. Needless to say, having obtained his object, he saves bis soul j by giving the evil one a good hard kick, for in Russian literature the i peasant ameliorates his own servile con- j dition by having one personage to deride and outwit, namely, Satan him- j self. Another, "4 Terrible Revenge" is, told in a more stately and romantic style. The tales are supposed to be narrated by an old beekeeper, who i compares the present with the past.' The work is published by Chatto and Wlndus, and here and there the translator has put a footnote, a tiresome addition ff used too frequently. Here, however, it is only occasionally necessary.-as-when, during an original description of a witch in the air, there is mention of a" face "narrow, like a German's." It is then right to explain that "in these districts," everyone is called a German who comes from a foreign country, even if he be French- j man, Hungarian or Swede,