THE BOOKSHELF.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 85, 11 April 1931, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE BOOKSHELF.

NEWS AND REVIEWS. NEW ZEALAND WORK. VARIED REMINISCENCES. On page one "Cyrano" reviews a book about "Ifs" of history, to which several well-known writers contribute. After several years of triumphant and mysterious existence, "George Preedy," the distinguished author of a number of historical novels and plays, has at last been identified. "He" is Miss Marjorie Bowen, the well-known writer of much historical fiction, and "he" has had two new plays produced' in England in one week. One of these, "General Crack," promises to be a great success. Marjorie Bowen, who is to continue to write assiduously under both her pen-names, is actually Mrs. Arthur L. Long. Professor Garrod, in recalling a ■ war variation of the National Anthem: — Lord, grant that Marshal Haig, May, in no fashion vague, Victory bring; gives us one of those black pearls of price that have a casket all to themselves (says a writer in the "Observer"). After all, as an example of desperation in rhyme, it is no worse than a late Laureate's:— Winter is gone, and spring is over; The cuckoo-flowers grow mauver and mauver.

NEW ZEALAND VERSE.

MR. C. R. ALLEN'S DISTINCTION. Mr. C. R. Allen, our blind writer, who lias won a reputation as a story-teller and a playwright, has also considerable gifts as a poet. "Darley Steps and Other Verses" (the Authors' Press, London) takes its name from a narrative ill rhyme that is marked by indefinable distinction. It k a story of steps on an English river, and a beautiful girl who used them, and a haunted and hunted stranger from the South who kissed her and then stabbed himself in the very shadow of his pursuing enemies. Mr. Allen conveys impressively an atmosphere of beauty and tragedy. We can see and hear the river hurrying past "at its task of chastity," and feel the innocent loveliness of the girl. "The Singing Heart" is another lengthy poem of power. "In Hoc Sigiio" is an elegy suggested by a memorial window in Wanganui Collegiate School; in sentiment and expression it recalls Newbolt:

Far, far away, in some soft English glen, Through the long dusk is heard the nightingale. Here in this land of loose-limbed, emiling men, Clamorous creek and pastured hill and dale, Bell-birds are tolling by a swift streamside. From Mr. Allen's shorter poems we may quote "Security" as a sample of his quality: The little sleeper turns. An open pane Gives to the muted city. By the sill Straggling and thirsty woodbine drinks her All Of long-deferred and bountiful night rain. The summer garden whispers a refrain Of full appeasement to the swollen rill. Slackens the shower on the leaves until The heavens give rumour of the starry wain. Below his chamber on the parquetry lie hears the quick scrape of his father's . chair. A warm, spent pipe is emptied, and a key Turned in a glazed book-cabinet with care. Then comes that earnest of security, A firm step set upon the wakened stair. A reprint has been issued by Fine Arts (N.Z.), Ltd., of Mr. T. Chamberlin Chamberlin's "Songs From the Forests of Tane," with the addition of some excellent etchings of bush scenes by Mr. Trevor Lloyd. These little verses breathe a deep love for the New Zealand forest and lake and stream, and the etchings strengthen their effect. The book is printed as poetry should be. Two small volumes called "Memories," published in Auckland, testify to the widespread desire to express feelings in verse. Mrs. Mary Archer Whitcombe's booklet is mostly occasional verse, on such subjects as the loss of the Titanic and the death of Richard Scddon. Mr. Rae E. Wallace has been moved to song by those general objects and moods that affect men and women in every generation —the skylark, the dying day and the whimpering wind.

RUSKIN COLLEGE.

There are two points of special interest in "Memories of Sixty Years," written by Henry Sanderson Furniss, Lord Sandereon, and published 'by Methuen. One is his triumph over the disability of almost complete blindness from birth, and the other his connection with the Labour educational movement. The book is a record of a full intellectual life, lived amid exceptional difficulties. Young Furniss went to Oxford and was particularly interested in economics. He was asked to join the staff of Buskin College-in the early days of that institution for the education of the wage-earner, and he became head of it. The picture of the college under that eccentric Dennis Hird is instructive. Hird had been a clergyman, but became a militant atheist, and he encouraged that section of the students who thought that working class education should be confined to instruction •- in Marxism. This was not the view of Furniss. Discipline did not exist; Hird was called on to resign and he became principal of the new Labour College, which was, and still is, uncompromisingly Marxian and hostile to all forms of "capitalist" oi* "bourgeois" education. "There are many men and women," says Lord Sanderson, "who regard education simply as a means of learning a creed and how to preach it. But such people form an unstable foundation for the building of an educated democracy. As a rule they know nothing but the creed they have swallowed, and they are incapable either of defending it or of refuting other creeds that are plausibly presented to them. Few things in my experience as a teacher of working men have been more depressing than to see clever ami promising young men turning their J backs on education, refusing to think for j themselves and being content to become propagandists in the wild hope of finding a short cut to the millennium, among a people on the whole olow to move, conservative in outlook, and rooted in trr.'lition." This story of a busy life especially valuable to those interested ii: the adult education mov£iwnt. u i

NEW NOVELS.

ROSEMARY REES' AMERICAN TALE. The heroine of the latest story by the New Zealand novelist Miss Rosemary Rees, is a New Zealand girl, and the happy ending is staged in her own country, but most of the action takes place in the United States. When the story opens Jane is in London lodgings without a penny to pay her rent and it is no use appealing to her people in New Zealand, who are hit by the slump. At this moment she is offered a curious position as companion to a blind American, business ma®, and goes to the States with him. There we are given vivid descriptions of American social life, including the eajse with which drink is obtained. Jane's employer, indeed, has become blind through drinking wood alcohol. He treats Jane badly, for he flaunts her before his mistress (he also has a wife) as an acquisition. In spite of this Jane finds pity turning to love, bofc she refuses to be a party to an illicit relationship, and goes back to her struggling folk in New Zealand. There the America* turns up as a good fairy, and all ends happily. Jane is described by an English reviewer as a prude, but if to be unwilling to fall in love with a married man is prudish, let prudishness be encouraged. "Sane Jane" the book is called, and sane she is. It is a brightlywritten story and contains some clever characterisation. Chapman and Hall are the publishers. Since Pett Ri<l»e died six months ago, "Led by Westmacott," which has just reached us from Methuen'sis probably the last that the world will receive from this gifted and lovable writer. It will not rank with his best, but it gives us glimpses of those qualities of quiet humour and shrewd observation that made Pett Ridge one of the ablest painters of London life. There is hardly any plot in "Led by Westmacott." It is the story of the life of a middle-aped business man after his retirement from the city. Westmacott likes to run things, and with sly humour Pett Ridge tells how he does it and how in his endeavours to make the,suburban village in which ho lives more progressive, he sometimes "puts his foot in it." Westmacott is a pompous ass, but we like him. Pett Ridge loved his fellows, and in this, as in other tales of his, the satire is kindly.

We have had authors ingenious enough to bring all their characters to-gether-in a ship, in a hotel, on a desert island, and so on, but Mr. Denis Mackail has gathered his in the seclusion of a London square, and has imagined them much more closely related and more interested in each other than is usually the case with neighbouring residents in London, who sort themselves rather by class than locality. Denis Mackail's humour and philosophy, keen observation and kindly criticism make "The Square Circle" (Hodder and Stcroghton) a very pleasant literary companion.

AUSTRALIA AND CAMBRIDGE.

LIVELY REMINISCENCES. "I enjoyed reading this book because it is written by a real man." With these words Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch commends to the public the personal reminiscences of Steve Fairbairn, the wellknown athlete and rowing man. Fairbairn attained such fame at Jesus College, Cambridge, both as an oarsman and a rowing coach, that he entitles his book, published by John Lane, "Fairbairn of Jesus," on which Sir Arthur remarks: "There seems, if I may say to, just a little too much of a claim here. Cranmer and Laurence Sterne and Coleridge have, after all, in their turn and in various ways, stood for some other aspirations of this venerable house of learning." But it is safe to say that by raising his college to the head of the river mid keeping it for so many years in its pride of place on the Cam, Fairbairn did more to add fame to that venerable house of learning in the eyes of the undergraduates than any of the trio mentioned by Quiller-Coucli. It was not only on the river that Steve Fairbairn won fame. He was a good cricketer, a footballer, a runner, and also a keen shot and a good horseman. The book abounds in good stories of every kind of sport, and personal reminiscences of famous performers. He tells of a batsman who was given, "Not out, stumped" by one umpire, while the other gave him "Out, bowled." Another 1 cricketer, a famous runner, raced a ball delivered by a very slow bowler, and actually got to the other end first. Naturally, as an Australian, Fairbairn has a lot to tell about horse racing. A horse, which was not intended' to win, once started in a field of two. Theother horse won easily, and when the trainer afterwards was asked what would have happened if the other horse had fallen, he replied that his horse's rider had orders in that case to fall off immediately. The last chapters in the book deal with life in the Australian bush. There are numerous instances given of fortunes made and lost in a short time through the blessings of rain or the curse of drought. One farmer sold a very fine property for £60,000 because of drought. Then rain came and the same property was sold six months afterwards for £220,000, and a few years later a quarter of the property brought £250,000. The reminiscences will appeal to lovers of sport in all its forms, and they reveal a wonderful sense of humour and fellowship, and that healthy outlook on life that comes from the open air and the comradeship of games.

BOOKS RECEIVED.

Death Walks in Eaatrepps, by Francis Beeding; Trail of the Skull, by Gavin Holt; Mr. Carrington, by Dora Barford; Spanish Lover, by Frank H. Spearman (Hod-der and Stougliton). Tumult in the North, by George Preedy (John Lane, the Bodley Head). Day to Day Pamphlets: The Horrors of the Countryside, by C. E. M. Jo ad; What We Saw in Russia, by Aneurln Bavin, M.P., E. J. Strachey, M.P., and George Strauss, M.P.; Life as We Have Known It, by Co-operative Working- Women, edited by Margaret Llewelyn Davios, with an introduction by Virginia Woolf (Hogarth Press). Above the Dark Circus, by Hugh Walpole (Macmillan). Salute to Cyrano, the Further Adventures or D'Artagnan and Cyrano, by Paul Feval (Longmans, Green and Co.). The Stroke of One, by R. A. J. Walling; A Sop o' Moonshine, by John MacCatlum; The Trail of the Black King, by Anthony Armstrong: Tapestries, by Wiibelmlna Stitch; The Journeyings of Selina Squirrel, by Dorothy Burroughes (Methuen). Painted Butterflies, by Mrs Patrick MacGili; The Silloroft Case, by J. C. Lenehan: Man! Where Am I? by Nina Oldlleld; The Deputy for Cam, by Roy Vickers; Headlights on Contract Bridge, by George B. Hervey (Herbert Jenkins). The Shell Manual for Power Farmers (Shell Co.). The History and Art of Change Ringing, by Ernest Morris (Chapman and Hall). Qolf Clubs and the Empire: The Golilng Annual (C. 'Jlouolier Corporation, Ltd., London).