OUR LITERARY CORNER.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 13876, 29 October 1910, Page 7

OUR LITERARY CORNER.

SOME -MEMORIES OF BOOKS.

(Br W.D.A.)

(special** wnr-iEN ron "'-he piiess.")

'•1 am enjoying -.Solomon Crabb' ex- , tremely; Solomon's capital adventure with the two highwaymen and Squire Trecothick and Parson Yan.o; it is as good, 1 think, »~ anything in Vlos-ph Andrews.' 1 have just come to tho part where the highwayman with tho black r-ii-rh over his eye, has tricked poor Solomon into his place, and the squire and the pars-m are hearing tlio evidence. Barton Vanco is splendid. How good, too, is old Mrs Cra-b mvl the i-oastguardsinan in tho third chapter, or her delightful quarrel with tho s<-xton of Seaham; Lord Conybeare is surely a little overdoc.i but 1 don'- know either; he's b_ch d—d fine sport; do you like Sally Barn.-? I'm '" * ovt ' with her. Conitablc Muddon is as good as Dogberry * and Vergo3 put together; when he takes Solomon to the cage, and the highwayman gives lum Solomon's own guinea for his pains, and kisses Mrs Muddon, «nd just then up drives Lord Convbeare, and instead of helping . Solomon, calls him all tho rascals in Christendom—o Henry Fielding, Henry Fielding! Yet perhaps the scenes at Sea ham are the best. But I'm bewildered amon_ all theso excellences." So wrote R.L.S. in the year of grace, 13__, in one of those inimitable letters , in which he threw tho reins on the neck of his fancy, and lot it bear him : where it would. For 'Ah, that it should bo so,' the "'Eight books of j ar. unfinished novel, 'Solomon Crabb,' by Henry Fielding," are but a figment i of Stevenson's ingenious brain. After all, when one comes to the [jroot of tho matter, its the story with 7 plenty of actitfn that has tho grip. Tho / maker of phrases has his place, and '"■ yields his pleasure, but givo mo for a teller of tales tho man who writes because he must, nnd whoso mind is so *' stored with "moving accidents by flood and field" that ho could not bo dull even if he would. There is some lingering trace of the ".ision splendid," which is youth's best gift, in the heart and he;. of every sane and wholesome man. it is but thinking back in an odd hour of loisuro, and the old delights awake in memory, and wo savour anew tho freshness of the early world. And what a keen joy it was when, tho pains . of learning to read freely once happily passed, wo set out on our first question in tbe field of letters! How many years is it- since I havo _oen a book bearing tho magic name of , Frederick Ger stacker ? Caramba! nioro than a quarter of a century. Yet in waking dreams I can still wander under his magic spell among the gorges of.-the Rocky Mountains as they used to be in the adventurous days when trappers and miners carriod their lives, too insecurely, in their own strong hands; or visit some old sea- i port nestling at the fov. of the Andes, where "Spanish sailors with bearded lips" divido their careless hours between mad pleasures on the shore, and reckless piracy on the high seas. One . misty fragment of a tale rises beforo < mo as I write, and I see onco more with tho excited imagination of fifteen tho banted pirate swimming for his life through the waters of a hay teeming isrifch .sharks,- -H._ -with tho boat, of his pursurprs. His speed surpasses 1 that of a torpedo boat, his dives and gyrations under water those of a sub- '■ murino, but as he rises for a breath to tho surface, his black-bearded faco, with the bleedin_ gash of a cutlass stroke across tho brow, showing ghastly in the moonlight, a little middy, mad with tho fury of the chase, i starts in tho stern-sheets of a boat and fires point-blank. Caramba 1 the • J urate sinks from view, and the boy alls back with a sob upon the thwarts. ' ''It-was the first human blood that he and ever shed!" Amid all tho forgotten - books that i F«vr. in swarms from- the cheap press °{ *o« day, .1 look in" vain for those of Frederick G«rßtackor: and in vain, too, for 'The Smuggler/ by G. P. R, ■Tame., with its resplendent nabob, its. , . «_*coantry runs of smugglers by ■ ' night, intercepted by -preventive men ' and -bold" dragoon-, and all the rattle _Mhe harness, the clanking of the c-alif, -the clashing of the steel— <

~ , "_... and twenty ponies ■ - -Trotting tr___jjh the dark—• - Brsady for the Parson. -> 'Baccy, for the Clerk; . ' Lacoe for a Udy; letters for a spy, J—_ -watch the wa'J, my d-xlingß, while the . gentlemen go by." too, is "Reuben Davidger," that .glorious tal. of the sailor-boy's among the Dyaks of the Archipelago, which ran as a ■eral (how many years ago?) through the .pages, of the "Boys' Own Paper," tnen. a small octavo weekly of modest Jog-"* 11 "*- but worth its weight in Js_t *K- rha P ß »* is better to leave "SSi 813 th ese in the haunted twii_E ° f - h ? ppy memory, for it is a parions n_k to re-read in maturity We books that dazzled one in youth. S„ f e . tor ,Sf t tha * Mendid tale £t£l» gst^n s ' "The Gentlemen Advenw»m —the v*ry nam© is epical—and fc.L 8 _r r r accom P an y in S them through _^n reud i ne P erils * J I{, ft all C0 L m Pe"ed by dire neces3u«* tho übseii ce of the closing «_&' . escs P»ne> a jolly-boat- from ; m some Spanish fortress, and •_._?* _ th ? opeu soa fanning their K f bv ; M l d% fin( | infi thair P ro ß«>ss ♦S_-S. * a harncrde of booms! For SSft E" 5 . loft thorn thf!re ; _iS« yCars J- was tantalised with {fcumg uncertainty as to their fate. SS'JZLT* er,i ! 10Ur * I Jit u P° n the -So^ plp .°7 and ?™W"»J- to a foolish SK'. s , ha l, " reel illusion that £V» - _ a . ,a . tcd mo trough life. It C e uff n! t'»»8 to write; but "The duSl - Wve «twrers" is simply— 80Dle bookK one has better _»r_?A. '. W - S n,v happy fate in Si 3 "?,,, °, hyp iH northern fishing that ! th S dia,Pct of *he »" B% th Vel3 ha , <l 1 "° ? cnovs S tkl r ch _ ol ' now happily passed St n ra cf. b °. ° f -»rßo.te,r craws, in» «i.)F -• s , pd a WIS(> wononiv. sow- ■«, With tne hand instead of with the - i'/t yeste,in'tho w P 1 "' I «•-■ first adventure wd on '? pys ' ? nd h ™ l "»<•* «" *■*-" ._-~?T h ' n with 'Abated la ,vmy£l gh CVi V voh - ni <' I could •**of Sir W_.l'' / W!,S , S «I«I of the *• feas Zjfr, rom that tinip - and ilri-17 *i ,ost Ins ma K ic spell. ■«? S e th? at Ither1 ther ? COtt - » ith ' tu-ariv x.r, ° arch angel, cut off un- " ?!?_£"' L ° B ' , aild , ' rhc Cruise Pitted. Th,. ?<Vi' i a d ™ntur* ever d ™Cth«mak T '. S< I recall but «-___- °}2 01 Ben J- v a " f l < 'Pun e h-'/ e &™ duc i loll in the pages the ovor k lrt ■' Tc:n Cringle/ Car "*er glow! f ß '. ,s , a ' wok that A*™- Bam- of j Pau „ (!oli * l - °nd C-Ptain tl._ obcd and Don Ricardo, SiW 1 "' nd Littl « Ree-v gwd to hve with. And all tfte

ORIGINAL AND SELECTED MATTER.

NOTES ON BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

wild fun and frolic r.. +„„ i 1 -n- . Iml'.n lifr. rn-l._ 0t tho °1<- « est iiid.un nif makes n v.i„_ i. _ with the decorous d^afr ant , C ° ntraSt vonlioi-ality. What «\- * mo *\ rn <on 7 ~..„...,_.. ; P ro,i;A v not of tropical tho book' One grows dizzy with thr. i,,7 . _ flower. . and blinded with *.* SC ° nt ° f !.!■."_ ot cflon- -7- h tllo gorgeous r.ia.7 o cf.lou, as one reads, for like hi;, mediaeval nanir-sil-n ir■ '_. ,7was a veritable Si' Ml ° hael bC ° U Then thero was Mir. i™. „-.t t • immortal. __d "I .U... .-unple,-' books that iff conceived in the olfef Sin^ol Smollett, might make the "fori of any humorist. The "0 !);I litv Ball" too, one can only cease to Mtu-h ' t Sd n ali" 0 CCiiSCd t0 la "S h '« 80S But sometimes I was lo sa hapny in my troves. I still remember wth respect, not untampered with awe the portentous bulk ot Miss Jane Porter's "bcottish Chiefs » a work in SJ which I failed to endure to the end And still worse was my l uc k when I wasted a too rare half-crown on a story by James Grant (was it "Tho Captain or the Guard".-) attracted by the lure of a picture cover presenting to mv eager view a gallant Highlander with broadsword, dirk and target, and in the back-ground his merry men arranged for desperate fight, Read it I could not. though my appetite for fiction was almost unappeasable, but I learnt from it dimly a lesson ir. style and vaguely grasped the unfathomable gulf that yawns between the journeyman work of the literary hack and the finished work of tho perfect craftsman I learnt, too, l, v thai bitter oxircr ience, that he who judges by appearances in ales no righteous .'Udcmont, or, in more homely phrase, that it is not the part of wisdom to tako the book by the cover.