LITERARY

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 171, 21 July 1928, Page 2 (Supplement)

LITERARY

A- everyone could have guessed, the ! ea-y favourite this week has been j Shaw's "Intelligent, Woman's Guide to I Socialism'' (says the London "Observer" j oi June JO.i. in fiction the vote was for j Storm Jameson's "Farewell to Youth," or Denis Mackad's "Tales From Greenery Street. - ' 'Where are the novelists who know and dare to fell us, in a way that wc can believe, that the surprising thing j about us is not that we are very like | tho beasts, but that we are just a little 1 like God?" —Dr. C, A. Alirigton, headj ma-;er of Eton. I Mr. Baldwin said in a recent address j 'hat if he were cast on a desert island I and were allowed onlv one book, he I would choose the Oxford English DicJ tionary. He referred to Lord Oxford's i preference in a. similar situation—Balzac i (40 volumes—the Dictionary has 20). ; These, however, are not books but libj raries.

| THE ENIGMA OF SWIFT.

i j A "SAVAGE AXD UNHOLY" GENIUS. Nearly a hundred years ago the skull of Jonathan Swiit was dug up in Dublin, from a grave that bore the inscription, "Where savage indignation can no | longer tear his heart," certainly a curij on- epitaph lor a Dean of S*. Patrick's. If is this exhumation that gives Mr. Shane lx?slie rue title of his new sttidv. ! "The <kull of Swift." and the. starting i point of the book. The tragedv of Swift j is one oi the darkest in English letters, | and the darkness has corners which have i not been, and probably never will be, I penetrated. Critics differ as to his madness; they differ as to whether he married Stella; there are even llatlv contradictory accounts of his death. Of Swift's genius there is no doubt whatever. He was a great prose writer, so great that the highest compliment that can be paid to Mr. Bernard Shaw as an artist is to say that as a controversialist he has the finest style since Swift. Ho was a moralist and a mighty satirist. One of the foremost employers ( of irony, he has left a gigantic piece of irony to posterity; that his "Gulliver's ! Travels," which is a huge political j satire, should be lAiown to-day chief! v las a fairy story for children. Mr. Leslie i says of the book that "it is so clear that j a child may read, but so veiled with 1 personal and political allusions that the late Sir Norman Moore used to say that no man lived who could edit Gulliver and unravel the wealth of references, of which only the outstanding catch the ■searchlight of history." Swift's tragedv was that he made a hell of his own mind. Mr. Leslie thinks the explanation is that he had a heart but no soul. This, however, does not take us very far, for what exactly is meant by "soul?" It is more satisfactory to say,| ! as Mr. Leslie does, that he was domi-i j nated by hate, and surely Swift stands i J before us as a terrible example of the! ] results that follow the casting out .'f' 1 love. An "unhoiy and savage genius." ■ i John j lor ley called him, and other' i critics have used -tronger language. Yeti though he coil Id hale {iercelv. and write* with ineredib! inr.-ene.-s, he had, a-; : his relations with Stella -how, a vein! ,of tenderness. Mr. Leslie trace- mi I lively language that strange and storm\ , ; career from the household of Sir Wif- I f liam Tcnpl" to the deanery in Dublin. I I swift did much to bring peace to; Europe: was a forerunner of Irish j l nationalism : and gave Krmli-h literature ]an immortal book. Throughout he wa- : l.acrated by the vulture of hi- own j ; genius. Mr. Leslie points a remarkable j : picture of the man and hi- time— tulij t of black and uitirkv shadows and hi -h ! i lights. The book, however, suffer- from j I a fault all too common to-dav. It is] lover-brilliant and strained. Epigram is j | piled on epigram; far-fetched" image: j upon image; until the bewildered reader j j longs for clear and limpid prose. Mr.' | Leslie belongs to the school that seems j | to have a morbid horror of appearing to I be conventional. ' I

— j "THE MAN NAPOLEON FEARED*j i

i Greatly though the French Revolution j affected the course of history, few of the ' principal actors in it were men who '< commanded admiration. Perhaps Robc<=- ' pierre, the uncorruptible. that austere j figure, the embodiment of the Reign of I Terror, provoked respect because of his j honesty and singleness of y«ui pose. but j the others rather excite scorn and di~- I gust. Of these Fouche, whose life story ! is told i>y Nils For>-el| in "The Man Napoleon Feared'' (Allen ami Unwind. i« one of the remarkable. The j son iif a Breton sea captain, trained as i a school teacher, he took no part in the j early stag'-- of : Revolution, hut niter j being an acti'. • •■ember of <!:•• Revolu- j tionary Club his native town, Nante=. i lie was elected c- a nieinher for thai i pla>-e in t in* N at ional Convention. Here : he was at. lir-;. ontitrnt to play a moder- j ate part, bur nfrer he had voted for the s death of Louis XVI. he heo;ime !ii<.ft- and more allied with tJie e.\tremi-t~. Having assisted witii the betrayal of his ; allies, the Girondists, he Mas -eiu as a , representative of the convention (o {Insist in the suppression of the revolt in La Vendee and later to Cue captured city of Lyons, where he was one of those wiio commanded the terrible massacre , of many of its i«bel citizens. Later, on j hi* return to Paris. he joined forces with j Robespierre, onlv to betray him as lie j had done the Girondists. In all this | Fouche acted on a definite principle—l sel f-prc.-er\ at ion. TTe became Minister j of Police, and in addition to maintaining j law and order, his duty was to detect ] and overcome various plots, especially by Royalist*, against the established rule, but by his activities and his determined opposition to a reconciliation with the Royalists and an understanding with t'ne Church, he made many j enemies. and his olliee v.,-is nboli-iied in j 1 siij. By 1 >04. however. Napoleon was | foreed to reappoint him. and '.he greatest period "of his began. For six years he was ri->pon~ibh' for internal urdeT in j France, The Emperor dismissed hitu in j ISIO. but his shrewdness foresaw the end of Napoleon's grandiose schemes of conquest and he was quite prepared for the abdication in IS]-I. During the first restoration he played Great court to the Bourbons, hut when Napoleon returned from Elba Fowhe was again Minister of Police during "''The Hundred Days." After Waterloo he again directed in an underhand way the intrigues which resulted in the second Restoration. Reappointed to his old position, he did not hold it long. The reactionaries who obtained power diil not forget Fouche'"s odious past. His life had been one of many vicissitudes, hut through all dangers he had managed to keep his head. To the l?-t he believed in C e principles of the | Revolution, and whenever ho could worked tor peace as the only wav hv ] which those principles could be main- I ta!ned, I

J "I have always thought that Slav i'.ction was the perfect case for closing j iho Dardanelles." —Mr. Philip Guwlalla ; Sadness, sorrow, anil disappointment ■ urn tho themes of tlie collected short 1 stories by Mr. 11. ("J. Bates, issued by ! Jonathan Cape, under title "Day's End.'" ■ ! Perhaps happy people may escape the j gloomy influences, and some less happy ibe ci'eered by the thought that there j may fce many worse oIY tiian themselves. '■Kenya Calling." by Nora K. Strange j (Stanley Paul)., is a tale of an unhappy young widow who goes out to Kenya, and ultimately makes life a success. From a weak, useless woman, she develops quite nicely, which is just what i the author meant her to do. As one i .-uspcctcd quite early in tlio book, she i meet s a sufficiently silent man who ] wears lines of suffering 011 his brow, and i agrees to brighten his life. Those who ! "listen-in" will enjoy the various glimpses of life in Kenya, even if the j characters "come through" faintly. A young romantic in her teens was j once beard to say: "I like a book where ! they marry hall-way through and go j through their strife together." That | young lady would enjoy '"Dawn Beloved," jby Jean Devanny (Duckworth). There |is enough strife in the latter part to satisfy any' lover of such detail. The only catch for the young reader would be, of course, that she would not be allowed to read it, for Mrs. Devanny, with a similar realism displayed in "The Butcher Shop," has again wallowed. The early passages of Dawn Ilaliday's story telling of the lift- of the imaginative. intelligent child, and the description of Zealand bu.-h 1 it'e, are quite well d"iie. hut it is a nity that every now and rii'-n crude, methods are employed, it would be very discouraging, also, to believe that miners in New Zealand are so full-blooded as Mrs. Devanny would have them, and a wrong impression of backblocks life is created. Late English papers contain long and very eulogistic appreciations of Sir Edmund Gosse. Tin; great critic, however. had his momeiits of embarrassing asperity. Mr. Edward Shanks tells of this experience of Gosse's habit of expressing dislikes emphatieally: "1 found myself one afternoon sitting just in front of him at a performance given by the Phoenix Society. Next to him was a certain writer of my acquaintance whom I supposed that he must know. It appeared, however, during the first interval that they did not know one another, and therefore I said, in a low voice: 'Shall I introduce So-and-so to you?' 'Who?' asked Gosse, loudly. 'So-and-so,' I whispered, in some confusion. "Let me look at him first,' Gosse replied. And then, having turned in his seat and stared at the unfortunate creature for several seconds, he leant forward and pronounced in deplorably distinct accents these uncomfortable words: 'No, I don't think I want to meet him.'" Would such rudeness have been tolerated in a i lesser man'.'

SECRET SOCIETIES.

iiimi: tkagldii:-' and iii".\i(.ti'i:<. , Between reading- Mr. Herbert VivianV 1 "Secret Societies. Old and Now" < Thorn - ; ton Butterworth i and sjuing d"Wn to I review it; we came upon a divert inc ; passage in "J •'in o' London'- Weekly's" notice of nn .American book called '"The j Croat American Band-Wagon.'' in wliirh j thi- pa-sion for belonging to in'ilii 11 lt ! secret ai*d .semi-mystical is described, j "Man cannot live ~n bread alone—or j on a diet, of index liles and • routine," i tho author, .Mr. Charles .Mer/, write-. ■ The pioneer grandfather* of Mr. Babbitt j -dept. with a loaded musket at their side j or awoke in the morning to lind .in un- ; friendly redskin peering through the I window of tlie log cabin (-ays the re- | viewer). Now all i- changed, and in | sheer desperation, in the iinxiot.v to ; escape- from the monotonous sameness of ; street. auto-iilling stations and routine, i the American ot to-day has been driven | to manufacture romance, to plunder the | records of the Middle Ages in order to I supply programmes for weird secret j societies, to invent ghostly ceremonies by j which he may enthusiastically frighten | himself. There are in America, says Mr. j Mer/. eight Hundred secret societies with I 30,000.000 members. Half the popula- | tion carries a watcii charm and .1 counj ter.-igu. ! The tiiiriy millions ii;'-licit only lriem--1 hers of Imn.i I:• 1<- secret orders with .i ritual. llr include* members • \;i -t organisations i like I lie Woodmen and the Knii-'h; ; of j I'ythias and Hi" Odd Fellows mid tin: , Oil uirl iters of Rebekah, each ">r which earI ri»'s en its roster neire than half a ftiillion ; members. Ir includes the Maccabees, who j meet iii "Hives." ihe Ked Men who meet jin "Trilje<," the Prophets who inert in | "Grottos," the Watchmen who meet in "I-'erts." the staus who meet in "Droves," ] the Owls who meet in "Nests." and tli" I E;izl.-s who meet in "Aeries." It includes | those new Mild r:ipidly-grinviiiL' secret orders, j th" IleaV"r<. I.i*<u —, Serpents. Roosters, i Orioles, I leer, 'jeese, U-'ats and Bears. Jr j includes organisations- like the Moose, the i Foresters, Mod. rn Order of White i Mahatmns. and the <'oneatenated Order of j the Hoo-1100. the Shoik.i of the Mosque, the Iridescent Order of Iris, tin- Benevolent : Order ~f Monkeys, and the Hooded Ladies j of the Mystic Den. ' Mr. Vivian would have written a more readable book if lie had balanced his . seriousness with a little of this lighter : spirit. He is very learned and his book is packed with information about secret . societies in many countries. It is the , sinister side of such societies with which ho is almost entirely occupied, nnd of l the u hole body he has a low opinion. . "Tho secret society mind suffereth not i long, but seeketh to compare opinions, to I play the missionary with velocity and j violence: envietb. vaunteth itself" doth behavo itself unseemly, is easily pro- | voked, thinketh evil, rejoiceth in j iniquity, heareth aothing. believeth nothing, :s usually the anthithesis of chari ity according to St. Paul." Of its power ! to .shape political events he gives manv illustrations. Unfortunately Mr. Vivian's judgment is not equal to iiis knowledge. After reading his contemptuous referj ences to Mazzini and Garibaldi —educated j Italians, he says, are now free to conj fe.-ss "that the Kisorginiento is fit only j for the dust bin .of slimy rhetoric and j sugary bongs"—it is difficult to take him j seriously- a.- a judicial historian.

! BOOKS RECEIVED.

"The Realm of Essence," by George Santayana (Constable). '•The Triumphant Machine," by R. M. Fox. | "Tragedy," by F. L. Lucas (The Hogarth Press). "English Letter Writer#," by R. B. Johnson (Gerald Howe). "Kai Lung Unrtlls His Mat/' by Ernest Brains (Richards>. '•Through Beds of Stone/' by M. L. Haskins (Macmillan's). "The Sardonic Smile," by Luctttig- Diebl (Thornton Butterworth). "Oude in 1857," by John Bonbam. C.B. (Williams and >org-ate). "David Livingstone." by J. Finjen (Alien and Unwind. 'The Crimes of Cleopatra's Needle. ' l>> j J. M Walsh; "The Silver Greyhound." i Ly au;.iior iJohn Hamilton . "The Broken Marriage," by Sinclair Murray; "His Elizabeth," by Elsvytii Thane; ! 'Cancer," by J. Ellis Barker 'John * Murray).