LITERARY.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 276, 20 November 1926, Page 22

LITERARY.

That Joseph Conrad was a lovable ] man but difficult to live with, is clear from his wife's book about him. This is what happened when his eldest child was born: "Conrad was wandering | vaguely among the beds of the kitchen garden. Suddenly the heard a child cry, ' and approaching the house where Hose,. the maid, was at work —'Send that child away at once, it will disturb Mrs. Conrad!' he shouted. "It's your own child, sir.' tho girl answered indig- j iinntly." \ In "Spanish Acres" (Hodder and ; Stoughton) Hal. G. Ewarte write© '"man size stuff." The ''gun play - ' in the linal chapters ie rather (suggestive of a lirework display at the conclusion of an ] entertainment, but villainy mu«st ho: reproved, and villiane somehow destroyed, and powder and load has been the usual roughly picturesque method since cowmen clashed with ehcep men, and both have done things unworthy of the beasts they drove or herded. Professor Gilbert Murray was recently appointed to the Norton Professorship of Poetry at Harvard University. The chair was established in memory of Charles Eliot Norton, a famous member of the Harvard faculty, the translator of Dante, editor of Carlyle's letters, and friend of Puiskin and many other great Victorians. Dr. Gilbert Murray is the first holder of the professorship, which in tenable for one year. When will we hive a chair of poetry in Xew Zealand? We will have to work up to it through separate chair* of literature. "Kip van Winkle Goes to the Piny" is a title not fully demonstrating the truth, for Mr. Brander Matthews (for fifty years we have heard his name given without the "Mr.") has never been even temporarily unconscious of affairs theatrical. His book contains an enormous amount of information about the staire. For him, "the play's tho thing," and everybody interested in stage plays, acting, actors and actresses, and the history of theatrical progress in America and Europe can spend many hours travelling in Mr. Matthews' company from 1S(»9 to 1924 and never know a dull or uninteresting minute. This is a publication of Scribner's and is a worthy companion of similar books by English actors and critics which are already upon your shelf. Fresh, bright and amusing is Mr. Sisley Huddleston's "Mr. Raname," a romance and light fantasia of Paris as Parisians know it. Eccentric, abnormal, quaint, are most of his characters, yet each one a force in his particular environment. For no special purpose we are taken into the artistic circle, and observe the light-henrtedness of intellectuals even when in poverty. The dancing girl, and two others, appear only to give the touch of femininity without which few .stories are complete. Mr. Htxldleston hna the surest touch when writing of affairs literary and journalistic, which, as he is a correspondent of the London "Times," is not surprising. The book is gay and inconsequent, but none the less informing. It begins and ends in the air, it comes out of nothing like a fairy wraith, and is more a collection of unconnected incidents than a continuous story. The love of a newspaper correspondent for the young dancing girl is the string upon which the unrelated incidents are threaded. (Published by Thornton Butterworth.)

i ONE OF THE DEBITS.

Rudyard Kipling's poem, "The Vineyard," included in his latest volume "Debits and Credits," has drawn unfavourable comment not only for its "taunts across the sea," but also for its liberties with the laws of rhyming. The poet is an old offender in this respect. A "Pall Mall Gazette" critic once called attention to his vagaries in "Recessional": And Rudyard, It is hardly fair, On ns, who pay our school board rate. That "dies" and "sacrifice" you Rlr, And "lord" and "word" do porpetrate. A poet ought to "cot the soose" Who'd rhyme the verb "to use" with "loose." And All the world over, nursing their scare, Sit the poor fighting men, broke In our war*. provoked from "The Daily News" the retort that All the world over, writers of "pars," Wonder what Kipling will next rhyme with "wars." In "The Vineyard" Kipling excels himself: So he swiftly made his own Those last spoils he had not won. Producing from the "Manchester Guardian" the cri de coeur: Now what do you think he's gone and done? He rhymed "own" with "won"! 1 really think that takes the bun.

A HUMBLE HELEN.

Sally was so amazingly beautiful that' all men stared at her, and most of them fell in love. In a different station of life she might have launched a thousand ships, but she was not the wife of a i Menelaus. She was the daughter of an i English grocer, a godly man named' Pinuer, to whom she became an iutoler- : able embarrassment. Sally's extraordi- '■ nary loveliness brought men to the shop, j but Mr. Pinner knew men, so he hid himself in a village. Unfortunately the. village was near Cambridge, and one day a student came in, saw Sally standing on a ladder in the shop, forgot himself in a blasphemous ejaculation of wonder, and within an incredibly short space of time carried her off as his wife. Pinner i was only too glad to get rid of this flaming clanger within the proprieties. Y r et the only thing flaming ill Sally was her beauty. She was thoroughly good and quite dull. She strewed her "aitches" about and had no brains worth mentioning. She didn't love Jocelyn, but she was quite ready to do what she was told. Her young husband and his mother 6et about educating her, always exposed to the danger that worried Pi-.ner. How Sally ran away from a regime that made her miserable, and how she stumbled into an artistocratic circle, form a large part of a highly diverting book. The author of "Elizabeth and Her German Garden" and "The Caravancrs" has no superior, and perhaps 110 equal, in telling a story like this in a vein of light comjedy. The idea of a humble-minded, unintelligent, but really kindly girl who has such beauty that wherever she goea business is suspended, has possibilities of humour of which the creator of the Baron makes delightful use. The wit of the book is astonishing, the satire as bright and keen as a good sword; they would be perfect if this "Elizabeth" were hot quite so fond of what we may call the bedroom atmosphere. The style is a sheer delight, and nearly every paragraph has something to provoke the deep chuckle, which is a finer tribute than the loud laugh. "Introduction to Sally" (Macmillan's) this book is called. From the title and the ending we foresee that more of Sally will be told. It will be interesting to know *TZ «**. g?t? on to Cambridge society

I "Kipps" has not exhausted all that can be written about the drapery trade. S. Andrew Wood uses a shop as a jumpingoff place for the chief characters in the j novel "Cinderella All Alone" (Herbert Jenkins), which is an entrancing book for girls. Youthful readers of this novel will long for an opportunity to get behind ■ a ribbou counter and await adventures ' stieh as befell the heroine of this story. ' "Audacity, audacity, and again audacity," is a belief which will carry a presentable girl a most amazing distance along the road of romance, and Mr. Wood's heroine has no more fun than she j earns, until the owner of the business i leaves her in charge of his fortune, which |is a little uncommon as between junior ! assistant and proprietor. However, if novels were "truth, the whole truth, and nothing but truth," or probabilities, what would young women do for in--1 spiration and dreams V i Miss Gertrude Dunn goes to unholy lengths in her novel "Unholy Depths'' (Thornton Butterworth), when she quotes instances of men, long since dead, returning to Earth in spirit form and ! becoming (by seduction) the fathers of I earthly children. Spiritism can, \>y iin- ' plication, be made to appear responsible for much that is mysterious, but to saddle them with responsibility for illegitimate children is as unfair as it is unwise ' to provide this new excuse for what the women of Cornwall call an "accident." The authoress has written an otherwise thrilling ghost ston r suited to the English Christmas season, and has made great use of the ample material supplied by spiritist literature, including an old legend unearthed, years ago, by no less a scribe than Sir Walter Scott. If Miss Dunn has any belief in mediums and "manifestations" she can baldly bo comfortable in mind after publishing so gross a libel upon her earthbound acquaintances. We shall watch with interest for the first affiliation case in which a spirit of the air is "called upon to contribute," etc. (Personally, we prefer I lie ■ hijruMsby Leaends" lighthearted huMorous methods of using hypothetic.i data.) The merging of a vaporous lover into a real and solid earth-man is well done. j The art of story-telling has not im- \ proved with time, and as there is no modern music to equal that of the great masters, so there is nothing recently ! written equal to or even nearly approaching the stories of ancient days. Kmily James Putnam (with the assent of Putnanis, publishers) has issued a series of short stories built upon the foundation of translations from the Greek of Hero- ; dotus. The stories of this ancient author ' are models of compression and clarity. I There is uo superfluous sentence, and the reader is given credit for intellect and , imagination. Miss Putnam, perhaps i because she knows her modern world, baa extended, filtered, and reconstructed several of the old tales, and may possibly believe that she has improved upon them. This is a matter you can easily decide for yourself, for in "Candaule's , Wife, and Other Old Stories," a transj lation from the Greek is followed by the Putnam edition in each successive story. We have long resented the American treatment of classical music and its conversion into "jazz," and the ribald translation of the Bible into "newspaper English," and we hope that ! Emily James Putnam's refined attempts Jat improving upon Herodotus will not I result in a flood of Yankee defilements lof ancient literature.

THE NABOBS OF MADRAS.

Mr. Henry Dodwell, who was for very many years in charge of the Records Office of Madras, has, like Julian Hawthorne, used his spare time to good purpose. Soldiers, civil servants, and all professional persons, more especially AngloIndians, and those who have any liking for Indian history during the rule of John Company, will be charmed by Mr. Dodwell's account of that period. In his book, with the above title (published by Williams ahd Norgate) there are chapters devoted to the affairs of separate professions, the padre, the military officer, the surgeon, and the merchants, Indies, and servants, cadets, and rank and file, with detailed attention and a criticism that is as gentle in character as it is fascinating in style. "Lives, Loves, and Tribulations of the Nabobs" (as sub-title of the book) in practice includes their good and bad deeds, errors and misunderstandings. To read Mr. Dodwell's work is to enter a new and ! strange and almost wholly-forgotten society, to rejoice with those that rejoice and weep with those who weep, although the people rejoiced and wept as long ago as 1750. There were many who went to India because England had no use for them (dumping grounds of human failures are not now as numerous as they were) and India had less difficulty in absorbing them than forcing them to return. One Governor writes Home from Madras of the misdeeds of "unwanteds," "more particularly one person, the most incorrigiblest wrech as ever I knew who has lately been guilty of such a piece of insolence as is not to be parallel'd, whom I have at this time under confinement." Of one of the padres it is written in the Records, "A very lewd drunken swearing person, drenched in all mariner of debaucheries and a most bitter enemy , to King William." Said to be known was I this parson, as the "drunken toss-pot," j who held the cure of Madras ill 1006 or thereabouts. Well, "the evil that men : ; do lives after them," and some of it j makes amusing if sad reading.

BOOKS RECEIVED THIS WEEK.

" The Fourteen Thumb* of St. Peter." By Jotce M. Nanfcivell. (Murray.) " Queen's Mate." By riiillip Macdonald. (Collins.) Burned Evidence, by Mrs. Wilson Woodrow; Putnam. The Voice of the Murderer, by Goodwin Walsh Putnam. Rip Van Winkle Goes to the by Bran I der Matliews; Prribner?. I Crook James, by Netley I.ticis : Stanley Paul Smoke Rings, by William Cane; Stanley I Paul. I Camp and Chancery In a Soldier's Life, b> General Sir Leopold Swalne; Johii Murray. The Beloved Physician, by McNear Wilson; John Murray. Commercial Education, by Sir Williair Ashley: Williams and Norgate. Banking, by Walter Leaf; Williams and Norgate. Christianity and Unrest (a symposium) Allen and Unwin. A Grasshopper and Other Stories, by Antoi Tliekhov; Stanley Paul. King Goshawk and the Birds, by Eimai CTDuITy; MacMUlan and Co. The following are through Whitcombe and Tombs:— "The Footsteps That Stopped." By A. Felldlngr. (Collins.) ■■ Cross Trails." By Herman Whit taker, I (Collins.) " Complete Change." By Alex. 3. Philip ! (Collins.) "80-Peep's Bumper Book." (Cassell). 11 New Zealand Girls' Annual." (Cassell.) " Cassell's Children's Annual." (Cassell.) The following are through Champtaloui and Edmlston: — "The Moving House of FoMldo." Bj Cnarles Chadwlck. (Cassell.) "Unquenchable Fire." By Joan Sutherland. (Cassell.) " A Ten-round Contest." By Ronald Camp , bell. (Cassell.) >» Monsieur." By fisftsgp cfi&aUfc- JSgjglfe,