FIRST NOVELS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 171, 21 July 1928, Page 8

FIRST NOVELS.

SCHOOLBOY MEMORIES. "Cyrano's" recent article on Mr. Baldwin's speeches in "Our Inheritance," and the Prime Minister's tribute to Sir Walter Scott, sent one's memory flying back to the very first novel of school days. Our country school, a hundred miles south of Auckland, had been given that rare bird in those days, a schoolmaster with some enthusiasm for books, and about the first thing he did was to induce his committee to establish a school library. The master, and not the committee, fortunately, had the choosing of the literature. Well I remember the excitement when we were served out with our first "story books." There was no "Little Henry's Bearer," or "Harry Tracey's Reward" among them. (How I despised the Sunday school brand of book, even at that tender age!) My very first book from the treasure shelves was "The Monastery," which I suppose was about as suitable an introduction as any to Scott, seeuig that I was led up to oneafter the other of his novels until "The FanMaid of Perth" and "Waverley" crowned the wonderful pile. "The Pirate" and "The Antiquary" came second and third, then "Old Mortality," and it is the figure of Old Mortality that comes most clearly before me to-day when I recall Scott's characters. What a delight it was, how I devoured those very first novels! For the first of all I could not wait until I reached home that memorable day. I read the first Chapter with rtie book on the pommel of the saddle, and pretty well all the five miles of the ride home was at a walking pacc, much to the surprise of my roan pony, who was not accustomed to anything slower than a gallop when he had a boy on his back. And when "Ivanhoe" came it was just as enthralling. I remember the peculiar pleasure the opening chapter gave me, like the opening of a door into a new world. It would be too much to say that I had an eye for good literature in the raw. j-outhful years; my pleasure was inarticulate; I only knew that it was a new and altogether delightful thing, quite apart from the action of the story. And then came a series in which there was 1,0 skipping of pages, as one had to do with Scott' when his characters became over-garrulous. One soon learned that judicious art of skipping. There was nothing of that needed for "Hereward the Wake" and "Westward Ho." Kingsley did more for the human boy than all the Sunday schools in the world. "Tom Brown's Schooldavs" came next, or thereabouts, but "Tom Brown at Oxford," when I reached it, seemed an anti-climax. For Dickens I never could feel much enthusiasm then, in my ignorance, I suppose. I was in that mental plane when, like the "movie" audience of to-day, I "craved action." Kingsley gave us that, and so did Captain Mayne Reid, = and when Manville Fenn s "Silver Canyon" came out it opened yet another wonderful corner of the world. Really it is years since I looked at anv of Scott's novels, though "The Lady of the Lake"" is often enough opened, but the very sight of Ivanhoe' or "Rob Roy" brings back something of the old thrill. By the way, there was a yellowback edition of Scott in those davs and there was a perfectly splendid Highland chieftain in full fighting costume on the front cover of "Rob Roy." And moreover, and by the way again, the very last yellowback novel i have seen was Stevenson's "The Wrecker" when it first came out. The yellow board cover boro a picture of the tragic brig lying stranded on Midway Island. That yellowback "Wrecker" of mine, if the longago borrower would only return it, would be quite a treasure to-day, or at any rate a curious relic ! in binding. I As for "Treasure Island." it came too late to J enable me to recapture the early thrill. Scott and Kingsley, and somewhere in their wake Fenimore Cooper and Captain Marrvatt (though I read Michael Scott's "Cruise of the Midge" before Marrvatt) still hold the heart of the" boy who began with "The Monastery." But I suppose I'd turn first to "The Naked Truth" or "The HardBoiled Virgin" to-day for relaxation. Really, one must keep somewhere up near the times. ' —J.C.