"A RUN OFF THE CHAIN."

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 15, 18 January 1930, Page 2 (Supplement)

"A RUN OFF THE CHAIN."

PROFESSOR WALL'S ESSAYS OF TRAVEL. A. volume of travel essays by Professor Arnold Wall is very welcome. Professor Wall has been Professor of English at Canterbury College for thirty years. He is one of the most gifted poets writing in this country; -though he is English,, he is included among New Zealand writers. His hobby—an appendage to a very busy professional life —is New Zealand plants, and of late years he has tramped our mountains, as a botanist and lover of the open air, and written on these subjects. Last year we published a. vigorous article by him on the intrusion of exotica on to Rangitoto. Two years ago Professor Wall paid his first visit'to Britain since he; left it to come to Christchurch, and he contributed a series of articles on histrav&s to' the Christchurch "Press." These have now been collected, under the title of "A Run Off the Chain," and published by Whitcom.be and Tombs. They are' cordially commended as the fruit of a scholarly, observant and athletic mind in an athletic body. Professor Wall keeps in middle age a physical condition that many a younger man will envy. In one day in Yorkshire during this trip he and an old companion of New Zealand tramps did a 30-mile walk, including three peaks.. They lunched at a village "in the company, of sundry motorists whose bulging waistcoats and flabby cheeks told their own tale." His love of moor and mountain, his knowledge of what grows there, and his keen eye for natural beauty, are some of the qualities that make him a delightful guide in the pages of this book. Birds of the' ocean, tea-planting in Ceylon, Fascism and village life in Italy, the beauties of Florence, the English countryside, Derby Day, fishing and farming in Norway, the Highlands and the Scilly Isles, are some of his subjects. The style is unusual. One is conscious of restraint and even of a matter-of-fact quality, but that quality has its charm. Sometimes, as in the description of historic spots of the Highlands, it is eloquent. We may pick out for special mention the remarks on Fascism, the delightful picture of Floren'ce —Professor Wall's appre-ciation-of Italy should be read by all who are interested in the mother of arts —his impressions of England's countryside after an absence of 30 years, and the fine capture of atmosphere-in the Highland chapter. Very interesting, too. is his description of the Scillys, the first land sighted by many New _ Zealand pilgrims to Home, the islands in whose warm climate many New Zealand plants have been cultivated. There is also a chapter on the cultivation of these plants in Britain. So much has been written about the spoiling of the English countryside in this age of change that it is comforting to read that Professor Wall found it beautiful in change and is "fall of hope for the future of rural England." Such an unusual book deserves a large sale, not only for its merits, but for the encouragement this will give to other gifted New Zealand observers to publish their impressions of the great world. ! - \