THE BOOKSHELF.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 147, 24 June 1933, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE BOOKSHELF.

NEWS AND REVIEWS. UNIVERSITY JUBILEE, MEDICINE AND TRAVEL. On page one Sir Arthur Eddington's new* book, "The Expanding Universe," is the subject of a special article. "Cyrano'' writes on the Edmund Kean centenary. The Jews have stood by the graves of all their oppressors in turn. —Dean Inge. I am doubtful whether a high standard of living can be any substitute for knowing how to live.—The Hon. Harold Nicholson. QUEER HEAVEN. POVERTY ON £000 A YEAR. An introspective widow, forty years of age, surrenders her whole estate (except a minute portion) to her only son upon his marriage, and herself marries a crippled returned soldier, for whom she has a "deep spiritual love." These two live in a mean, small, cramped, untidy' cottage, with broken furniture, and great lack of conveniences and comfort. Tliey are extremely poor, having only twelve pounds per week between them (relief workers, please note), and they are unable to stop leaks in the cottage roof, or repair the kitchen sink for lack of means. Their food is roughly prepared and the plainest, and the mutual spiritual love appears to suffice all demands of happiness. This is the basis of "Building Heaven" (Collins), by Evelyn Pember, who can write charmingly, even of such a "plot" as this. Her character analysis is professionally psychological, but she avoids any temptation to be humorous, and the deadly seriousness of her characters, even when most irrational, forbids a smile. The soil is thankless; the son's wife modern to hardness; the crippled soldier always "in the' clouds"; his sister, a woman with a "kink" and an absent husband; even the cottage "char," who makes more mess than she clears up, is unpleasantly "odd." There is not a sensible domestic animal to comfort the reader who would escape the prevailing atmosphere of queerness. Physical love, with a dash of the spiritual, surely provides better material for building an earthly heaven, if there is no more than a cottage and twelve pounds a week to keep it going, than the love of "higher thoughts" which despises earthly comforts, and is almost too indifferent to normal life to undress, and dress, and sit up and take notice.

A.U.C. JUBILEE BOOK.

A NOTABLE COMPILATION,

As nil epilogue to the recent jubilee celebration* in Princes Street, there arrives "The Golden Jubilee Book of the Auckland University College, 1883-1933,'' a delectable volume that looks as well as it reads and reads as well as it looks. It does not claim to be anything like exhaustive of all the activities, vicissitudes and successes of a college that started in a hovel and did not achieve, until 43 years had passed the palace that was its due; the scarcity of money in this iron time has curtailed this record, as it affected the scope of the jubilee celebrations themselves. Within 90 pages, however, Mr. E. H. Blow, the editor, and his assistants, have collected much interesting matter, which will valued especially by all connected with the college. Not only arc the main facts of college history set forth, but there is a very pleasant allowance of reminiscence. Mr. E. 11. Bowell, the survivor among the staff to-day of the original staff of 1883, describes the difficulties tinder which scientific teaching was eairied on at first. Professor F. Sinclaire, now of Canterbury College, contributes a delightful appreciation of Professor de ' Montalk—"the little old gentleman who kept his dignity and his gentleness and gaietv, through so many years of exilo, and plaved the man to the end." There arc contributions, too, by students now abroad, linking Auckland with Oxford and Yale. Mr. A. B. Thompson's history of the Students' Association is a bright record of the social side of the College, and many a name crowned with distinction crop's up in it. This, one hopes, will be expanded, suicl in future more caxe taken to provide material for the historian. Short biographies are given of „ number of distinguished students, and though this is necessarily limited and is regarded by the compiler as o"ly_ t-h R beginning of a more complete list, it is of great interest and gives some idea of the College's achievements. The number of students in prominent positions abroad is remarkable. A complete roll of honour is also included. There arc a number of attractive pen drawings of the buildings that have housed tlio College, and excellent portraits in the same medium of Sir Maurice O'Rorke, Sir George Fowlds and Dr. T. W. Leys. The book, which comes from the pres* of the Students' Association, is a beautiful example of the printer's craft and will he valued ns a work of art as well as an admirable record of the College's first lialf-ccntury.

OTHER NOVELS. A young Englishman, intending to enter the "Church, contracts a liaison on the eve of his marriage, which, under the circumstances, cou'd not be expected to bring him happiness. In the end he finds happiness with this second woman, whom he has always loved. The plot is not new, and if "Trundle Square fMetlnien) pleases it will be because of its carefully detailed description of middle-class life in Brighton, a section of societv that is removed from the waterfront and its holiday-makers and has its own affections and jealousies. Mrs. Henry Dudeney's latest is a Dutch interior sort of novel, and will please many who like this sort of analytical realism. "His yellowish features writhed into a chaotic mass that looked as if it had been hacked. Only foam at the white working lips. 'You bitch'!" "He fell across her, growling like a tiger, clawing her back and shoulders." fair face took on the hard sheen of marble." , "Tho Bugatti shot high 111 the air, spun round twice and hurtled into bushes by the side of the road."

"Poor swincs." Bv printing hundreds of pages of this sort of stuff on delicately-tinted green paper of good quality, and printing every few pages in italic type, the publishers (Rich and Cowan) have endeavoured to add interest to a would-be thrilling but useless and objectionable "cocktail" society story, "Rush Hour," by James Cleagh. But the tinted green paper that these enterprising publishers arc using for some of their books is welcome to the eycis.

THE POET'S MIND. " PASSIVE AND INVOLUNTARY " PROCESS. In his lecture at Cambridge Professor A. E. Housman (famous as the author of "A Shropshire Lad") gave one of the most interesting confessions on record of how the mind of the poet (or at least one poet) works (says a writer in the London "Observer"). The process of making verse is, he finds, "rather passive and involuntary," and generally in liis case associated with being "rather out of health." His lines generally come during a walk. To quote the report in "The Times":— I happen to remember distinctly the genesis of the piece which stands lust in my lirst volume. Two of the stanzas—l do not say which—came into my head, just as they are printed, while I was crossing the corner of Hampstead Heath between the Spaniards Inn and the footpath to Temple Fortune. A third stanza came with a little coaxing after tea. One more was needed, but it did not come: I had to turn to and co,tnpose it myself, and that was a laborious business. I wrote it thirteen times, and it was more than a twelvemonth before I got it right.

That system, though erratic and uncomfortable, certainly follows the tradition of the Muses: ladies so fickle that they have been called by worse names.

It appears that the practice of poetry even brings a complication into Professor Housman's shaving:—

Experience has taught me, when I am shaving of a morning, to keep watch over my thoughts, because, if a line of poetry strays into my memory, my skin bristles so that the razor ceases to uct.

Per' aps fortunately, the afflatus is not so common that Sheffield need trouble to invent special blades for tlio excitable chins of poets.

Probably most of the world's poetry has been composed in the act of walking (it is doubtful whether motoring has quite the same effect). That was the Wordsworth and Tennyson method; and the results compare favourably with

"The Epic of Hades," which Lewis Morris wrote while travelling on the Underground (old style, sulphurous). Macau lay devised the "Ballads" while walking furiously through the streets of London, and Matthew Arnold found rhymes among the Swiss precipices. It may be because walking in the poetic, manner is so unsafe to-day that most modern poems are written at desks; perhaps that is why thev are so like invoices.

" JUNGLEMANIA." A DOCTOR'S ADVENTURES. Those who remember the interviews that Dr. Arthur Torrance, an American member of tho great body of international medical research workers, gave pressmen in Auckland some months ago will not the surprised by the contents of "Junglemania," which Angus and Robertson have published. Few men have had so varied experience of fighting disease in the wilds. "Junglemania" is a book of adventures among dangerous animals and equally dangerous men. The doctor is evidently eager to make each hair on his. readers' heads stand on end, and never hesitates to add the extra adjective which puts the coping stone on the horror of an alarming event. He has sought excitement as much as any scientific end, and such incidents as would stir the normal calm of a club smoking-room, he has put in a form easily remembered for repetition. Here the traveller, who travels only in imagination, may meet lions, tigers, elephants, snakes and savages without leavi.ig his comfortable armchair, and go with this rather excitable doctor into all manner of "tight and learn how to escape from them. Dr. Torrance has always a good word for the natives, and good advice for the missionary. The doctor's fights with insects were not the least informative of his skirmishes with wild Nature. With justification, he a*ks those who travel the world "with laughter and gaiety" to thank the tropical doctor. "We have done our work so well—l do litrt mind boasting about it—that in these days there is practically no danger of disease for tourists along the routes of tropic travel." Incidentally, Dr. Torrance in Africa had "Trader Horn" for a guide.

NEItVUS THE ENEMY. SOME CHEERFUL, ADVICE. : The study of the interaction of mind and body is a subject of much interest and two American women doctors have written a treatise.for popular reading, entitled 'Outwitting Our Nerves'' (Angus and Robertson). They estimate that three-quarters of human illness is due to fear, imagination, and lack of understanding. From cold feet and dyspepsia to the most serious sickness they have successfully treated scores of cascti. by suggestion, and sometimes by simply showing the patient a supposed relationship between the illness and some childish memory, or some hidden disappointment. They make the mistake of placing reliance upon remembered dreams, so far-fetched a method of diagnosis that it can be disregarded by less enthusiastic people. 1 There is no doubt that of the many medical guides for home reading this is one of the most likely to be'productive of good to all nervous readers, especially to those having the care of the young. The chief attractions in the treatment of illness by force of personal will are that 110 outside advice is needed, nor expense involved, and 110 medicine is required. The women doctors say that an order given by the mind to tho body is sure of being obeyed in all but purely physical ailments, and picture a world where there shall be no depression, no worry, and 110 pain not being the result of injury. Some of the prescriptions are humorous. For cold feet, you arc directed to throw away your hot water bottle, for headache, you are to think of something else, and for indigestion to eat three square meals a day of anything which happens to be at hand. Of course, in some cases, outside suggestion is essential, as a will already oppressed by weakness requires support of reinforcement. The book is written by women for women, and tlieicfore all sex matters are fully, yet discoetly, discussed. There is a light and cheerful tone throughput, unusual in semiscientific literature, and we can only suppose that Josephine Jackson and Helen Salisbury —the authors —are examples of the gay spirit obtained by commanding the body by direct orders from the "subconscious self."

BOOKS RECEIVED. The Mind in Daily Life, by R. D. Gillespie, MD , M.R.C.P., D.P.M., Physician for Psychological Medicine, Gn.v's Hospital; Try Anything One®, by Frank Clune; Twelve Years in the Foreign Legion, by Kx-Serg-eant A. n. Cooper (Angus and Robertson). The Brighter Buccaneer, by Leslie Charteris; Dover-Ostend, by "Taffrail"; Mark of the Paw, by Gavin Holt; Tom Tiddler's Island, by J. J. Connington (llodder and Stoughton). Every woman's Guide to Beauty, by Joan Sarsfleld; The Producer and the Players, by Edward Lewis (Allen and Unwin). The Face of Death, by Mark Gault; The Green Lantern, by Augustus Muir (Metliuen).