NEW BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 13906, 3 December 1910, Page 7

NEW BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

A NEW ZEALAND NOVEL. "The Heart of the Bush," a new j story, by Edith .Scarle Grossmann, i presents a curious contrast with the | work of another New Zealand novelist, j G. B. Lancaster, who also deals with back-country subjects. If Mrs Grossman's outlook is Colonial, it is also ex- ! ciiisively feminine. '"The Heart of the Bush" might easily have been entitled '•The Heart of a Woman." Aorangi's j white peak may be 'iiovering at noon j like a lovely spirit far away,' , but- al- j ways we look at it through the eye's of a young woman, whose dainty frocks and dainty ways are an essential pa-rt ot the story. Adelaide has returned to her father's house in New Zealand after ten years of education and travel, and one delightful and triumphant season in Lonuon. She is already halteugaged to Horace Brandon, a young Englishman, who regards her as a highly acceptable adjunct to lnmselr and his family, and to society. O nly Adelaide returns to find the CeMmal wildness about her, "primeval, beckoning, calling." In the heart of the bush she sees things wild and g*o~. tosque, lovely and strange, and all dimly remembered. "Oh, the bush, the bush, the homeland of her infancy I Just for a few rapturous moments her spirit flew straight back into childhood. Oh, the flutter of little wings, and the bird-calls never heard through the long years, and, oh, the deep, dear, darkness with even the sky shut outl With such child memories, thcT© recurs the thought ot a child ilove —a bush idyll between a little girl of U-n and a boy of sixteen, nowgrown into a bronzed and bearded man. to whom she must be coolly gracious, &inco he is her father's manager. Dennis MacDiarmid, whoso manners are rather more barbaric than seems necessary, soon becomes a formidable rival to the Englishman. '•Judged by every civilised standard, Horace Brandon was incomparably the finer of the two, but he would have been most incongruous amongst the mountains and the clouds where Dennis was quite at home. He was ' a son of the soil, , but there was something pleasant about that—soil of this great, free, fragrant land." From this point tho interest centres upon tho repulsions and approximations between two very unlike beings, who have set off together along the flowery lanes of courtship into the. everyday world of marriage. Adelaido's hard moments came, when "all the exquisite habitations of art were crumbling away from her, and just then the only substitute seemed a wooden house where people washed and machined and cooked." The bush honeymoon was over, and Dennis studied uninteresting handbooks about animals and crops, and read tho farming columns in the big weeklies. Often men came to see him who talked "of cows, of cream separators, of cargoes, and of carcases, and of other deadly things." The book represents very graphically a woman's attempt to reconcile the prose with the poetry of daily life. How she fared in this undertaking is told in a style that varies agreoably from poetry to prose. A touch of humour, too. is more evident th*an is usual in Mrs Grossmann's work. When Adelaide's father heard of the engagement, for instance, "not being in lovo with his manager, he could not understand why Dennis should inspire that 6ort of emotion." Then we are grateful for the assurance that " an owl, like the editor of a morning paper, dozed and dreamed of wisdom all day till tho evening woke him up.' r But the bush descriptions are, in general, the most charming feature of. the volume. Many passages will set townsfolk dreaming, and make far-away New Zealanders homesick for "tho whispering of dark loaves, and the trembling of slight ferns, and tho falling of little waters." (London: W. Sands and Co. Christehurch: Whitcombe and Tombs. 3s 6d). FRENZIED~FINANCE. "A Life for a Life," by Robert Herrick, author of "The Common Lot," is a novel of quite the modern American type. Tho horo, Hugh Grant, is a country boy, who comes up resolved to' wrest fame and fortune from the town. The story moves thenceforth in. an atmosphere of "frenzied finance." Hugh secures a position in a bank, and bank clerks, according to Robert Herrick. see an extraordinarily seamy side of the great business of money-making. 11l the end the moral appears that at this sort of thine: it is better to fail th-in to succeed, fhere is an occasional modest gleam of romance, but on the whole this is a strenuous, argumentative volume, not to be recommended for a summer holiday. (London: Macmillnn and Co. Christehurch: Whitcombo and Tombs, 2s 6d.) ROMANCE AND WAR. Those who prefer Mr Robert W. Chambers in light comedy may be disappointed to find that "Ailsa Paige m a return to the romantic-historical novel. It treats of the American war between North and South, and of the disturbance occasioned thereby in many homes and many love affairs. There is a hero who will certainly please the girl readers, since he is desperate, disinherited, and in love at first sight. Tho heroine is still more attractive, in her crinoline gown of rosy muslin, "bouffant and billowy, a pink flower in her hair." A sub-heroine, Celia Craig, is another taking figure, although we perhaps have too much of her '"'southern drawl." It almost takes an American to appreciate conversation printed with never an "r." But Mr Chambers has produced a readable book enough, with excellent local colour, if not quite of the same bright wash he bestowed upon "Some Ladies in Haste" or "A King and a Few Dukes." (NewYork and "London: D. Appleton and Co. Christehurch: Whitcombe and Tombs, 3s 6d.) "THE OSBORNES." Mr E. F. Benson's "The Osbornes" is a whimsical study in characterisation : a collection of entirely successful sketches of the individual. In this case the play is not the thing—it is players that are worth while. "The Osbornes" are as loveable a pair as ever lived to enjoy a huge fortune made out of hardware and electroplated objects of ugliness. They were never worried by the thought that they were lacking in a sense of the: aesthetic. Their son Claude (despite the fact that he could never overcome the habit of speaking of men as "superior," and calling women "handsome ladies,") marries into the aristocracy. "But not even his wife's friends can altogether spoil him. He remains always such a son as his father deserved to have. His wife is a good little woman, most delightfully feminine. Her mother has a plentiful poverty, a wintry smile, and a son whose virtues almost equal the sum of his faults. Incidentally there ie an uncle Osborne, with much money, lumbago, and a serviceable philosophy. Each of the characters is entirely

human. Most of them are well worth knowing. The story moves slowly and ends as" well as a etory could. "J 1 " 1 it is ended, the render realises that lie has enjoyed a sermon preached on t!.at excellent text, ' True hearts nre more than coronets." (London, I*. Belt and Bons, Ltd. Chnstchurch, Whitcoiube and Tombs, 3s 6d.) THE COMPLETE VILLAIN. | To thoroughly appreciate "Horace Danby. Adventurer.'' all the possibilities must bo forgotten and the pro- j liabilities cast aside. Then a coiv.un j amount of excitement can bo gained, for this is almost the last word and final utterance in sensationalism, i *>«> ! hero, like the young Mcndes, has all , I the vices; nor has he any virtues, in his youth they flung him from tho Royal Navy for card-sharping and killimi a man" in a duel, that was hushed I up. The reader sees him first in a I Portsmouth nothowe. where ho and I two other disreputable-; «re concocting a plot whereby they shall purchase a condemned British destroyer, and go pirating amid the pearling luggers of Thursday Island. The deal goes through." and the unholy trinity of rascals make their headquarters at Port Kennedy. Thursday Island. which shares with Suez and Baku the unenviable reputation of being the worst town in the world. There they ram and sink pearl luggers, drowning dozens and amassing loot. A Japanese girl turns traitor, and, under Chinese instruction, fills the ram of the pirate craft with guncotton, turning her into a huge bomb. Danby is blown tip, but floats to bo saved by an American sailing ship, and eventually reaches San Francisco, where -he is received by the Best families, robs the men by cardsharping, and adds the basest treachery to his othar crimes. In the end lie is in process of being reformed, when the great earthquake ends it all. Horace Danny was, in the language of the street, fit for anything, "from pitch-and-toss to murder"; Xini, the Japanese woman, is a fit accomplico for him. Captain Herbert W. Platts has achieved a hero who is in the first class of all-round, desperate, despicable villainy. It is not every man that can paint a character wholly horrible. (London ami Chrietchiirch, Whitcombe and Tombs). . PITY AND LOVE. Miss Rhoda Brouahton's new book, "The Devil and the Deep Sea," opens with a scene in the garden of a Riviera hotel, in the off-season. Mr John Green is lying a shattered wreck in a long invalid's chair, while Miss Susan Field is searching her soul for a clue to a possible solace for her mental woes. The helpless invalid appeals to hqr compassion (and perhaps is suggestive of a change of thought), so she enters into talk with him. He is morose, savage, nervous, barely x>olite. But Miss Field doesn't mind that; she perseveres, and, naturally, comes to love him. Affection proves its own punishment, in, her case. Presently sho learns that he, who talked of motor smashes, is an ex-footman. He is gono before she has time to demand an explanation. Equally naturally, they meet again, and ho is forgiven for his deception. This sweet charity ii all the easier for her, because of the horrid secret; —not regarding her own past—which is jil■ways in her mind. Its nature Miss Broughton discloses in the last chapter, where they question each other as to whether it would be possible for them to share their futures. Miss Broughton leaves the answer to the readec Apparently sho could not make up her own mind. A few incidental characters stroll across the pages, giggling or chattering as they go. The best (though scarcely a life-like study) is an "Australian" girl, whose- betrothed is subjecting her to a course of almost elementary education, but keeps lier at hotels instead of leaving her in the schoolroom. (London, Macmillan and Co, 2s 6d). THE ETHEL TURNER "ANNUAL." As to many boys in the sixties and seventies Christmas would not have seemed quite perfect if it had not brought a new book by It. M. Ballantyne, so to many girls in these days there would be something lacking in a Christmas which passed without a new book by Ethel Turner. She has never quite recaptured the "first fine careless rapture" of her earlier work, such as the "deyen Little Australians," and "The Family at Misrule," but then -Miss Alcott, with whom Mrs Curlewis is compared with such wearisome motonony 3 never did anything quite so good as "Little Men." And the worst that can be said of "Fair Ines," Ethel Turner's latest book, is that it is not quite equal to her best. It yet remains a story of character-' istic charm and brightness. Its heroine is one of those delightful Australian girls whom the author constantly sets ns examples before her yoiing fellow Australians, und her life with her invalid artist father and her two love . affairs are dealt with as sympathetically as any reader could wifih. The author is always on the sido of romance, and one knows quite well what, will happen when Ines has to make her choice "between a rich middle-aged squatter and a young man with no money to speak of, even though the latter has served a term of imprisonment. Happily for the reader's feelings, the reason for the young lover "doing time" is so noble that he quite deserves the. happiness that conies to Jam. (London: Hodder and Stoughton. Christehurch: "Whitcombe and Tomus. 2s (3d.) A CIRCUS" STORY. American story writers have familiarised, us with the prominent part that the travelling circus plays, or used to play, in the rustic life of the States. In "The Rose in the Ring" Mr George Barr McCutcheon introduces us to one of these circuses, with whose kindhearted people the hero, David Jenson, a young Virginian of good family, seeks refuge from tboso who would arrest him for the murder of his grandfather. He is enabled to elude them by being hastily dressed as a clown and sent into the ring. Braddock, the owner of the circus, a whisky-soaked wretch, is under the domination of a rich Virginian colonel of no morals, who has designs on Braddock's wife. The latter is a singularly fine character, a woman of gentle birth, who is expiating the folly of a runaway marriage with Braddock, when he was a decent young fellow, by a life of misery, relieved only by her love for her daughter Christine, tho "rose in the ring." Xo one "versed in the ways of ' the romantic novelists, and of Mr McCutcheon in particular, will believe ior a moment that David committed the murder of wliich he is accused, nor will doubt that he is to fall head over ears in love with Christine. Both these things happen as a matter of course, but many other things happen lxrfore the reader reaches the necessary happy ending. Mr McCntcheon writes freshiy and vigorously, and describes life in a circus company and among the circus people with a good deal of power. David is a somewhat conventional "gentleman of Virginia," but Braddock and his wife, "Artful Dick," a pic!vpocket of almost supernatural dexterity, and Joe Grinaldi, the old English clown, aro excellently drawn. The story moves briskly from beginning to end and gives the reader no excuse for laying it aside. (New Y T ork: Dodd, Mead and Co. Christehurch: Fountain Barber, and Simpson and Williams,. 3s 6d.)