THE WORLD OF BOOKS.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18473, 29 August 1925, Page 13

THE WORLD OF BOOKS.

HALF-HOURS IN A LIBRARY. (specially written roa "the press."} By A. H. Gbdhjuo. CXXVIII.—ON LAURENCE HOUSMAN. It was "Trimblerigg"' that suggested Laurence Housman for subject; also the fact that while belonging to the same period Mr H-ousman presents so striking a disparity from Arthur Symons. lam only half-way through Trimblerigg ' and it is a book which calls for careful reading; thus I am not yet prepared to give an opinion. According to the publisher's "puff" on the flap of the jacket, "It appears to b© the life of a very celebrated Free Church Minister, who veiling his identity moves across the page under tho name of Mr Trimblerigg." According to the publisher Mr Housman claims "verbal inspiration" for the story, "an inspiration so strong said compelling that he has actually written it against his will." Mr Trimblerigg has as characteristic a Jekyll and Hyde dualism and "Though the spiritual alterations are swift and startling, no change of outward appearance takes place."

At once my mind went back to a book by Laurence Housman published seven years ago, entitled "Th« Sheepfold'' and described as "The story of a shepherdess and her sheep and how she lost them.'' The book -had for frontispiece a portrait of the heroine and underneath Alice Meynell'a» wellknown lines:

"She walks, the lady of my delight A shepherdess of sheep."

The hook is not so much a story as an actual biography, being founded on the life history of Mary Ann© Girling, the originator of a sect called "The People of God," but popularly known as "The Shakers." Marv Anne Girl*, ing was born in 1827 in the parish of Little Glenham in Suffolk, but in the story she becomes Jane Sterling, born at Mutton-in-the-MarsK in 1820. With such slight alterations- Mr Housman's narration follows closely the outlines of Mary Anne Girling's life, and as a study of the narrowest kind of evangelical religion it compares most favourably. with the "Mary Leo" of Mr Geoffrey Dennis; that remarkable study of JPlymouth Brethrenism. Laurence Housman has an uncanny gift of reconstructing scenes from the real life of the past. In a little book' called "Echo do Paris" he has put into dialogue form a scene in the career of

great horsemen and "stickers" to bucking horses.

E. R. Guinness and H. H. Pitman were cadets at Otaio in the Thomsons' time.

Like so many of the old squatters, the Thomsons were hit by hard times, and high rates of interest in the 'Sixties. About 1867, they sold eighteen thousand five hundred acres of their country with 10,000 sheep for £IO,OOO, to Colonel T. "VV. White and Jam.es Self. This country, which was afterwards known as the Sherwood station, ran from the. Studholme's boundary to the Makikihi, and from the sea to the foot of the hills. .White and Self did not remain long at, selling to Chsu-les Perring and Harry Parker, for whom H. H. Pitman managed'. Perring and Parker had been' at; Cambridge together. Pitman's shepherd for some years was Alexander Elliot, who died a few years .ago, the owner of Elfin Bay station, on Lake Wakatipu. Perring and Parker made some seven thousand acres of their run freehold, and it in 1878 to R-. H. Rhodes, who cut it up and re-sold it the same year. There was a great deal of dispute over the commission on the mle to Rhodes, as the firm that acted as Perring and Parker's agents was foand to have a large interest in the purchase. ' , The Sherwpod .homestead now belongs to Jaines Meehan, of Timaru, and is let to John Linton. Otaio station was bought .in May, 1868, by Teschemaker brothers and Le Leslie Thomson had died of yellow fever at Panama, on his way to England, and Andrew went Home m 186b, only paying a short visit to New Zealand afterwards. For about thirty years he ran the Cowes Regatta, and he is still living hale and hearty in London. James Elliot Thomson, the remaining brother, began life again with Benmore Station, on the "West Coast Road, and afterwards had Akitio, on the East Coast of the North Island, and the Carleton,' near Oxford. ihis brave old pioneer died only a year or two ago in Timaru. . The Teschemaker brothers had just sold Haldon, in the Mackenzie Country, which they had taken up in 1857. Frederick Teschemaker was for many years a member of the House of Representatives. n 9 The Teschemakers bought le Cren. s interest in the station A time it consisted of 17,000 acres of freehold. 22,080 acres of leasehold, antl carried 21,C00 sheep. The price « £191.000. On Frederick Teschemaker death at the end of the session in Thomas Teschemaker became «>l owner. Some years aiter u> g run, Teschemaker and le , C^FV^, hl^of the Mt, Nimrod country worthy, of Pareora. Tho country *ad never been stocked. Orbell, Pitman, and seme neighbouring shepherds had once tered it, however, and got about 300 wild sheep off it, and some wild cattle. T. Teschemaker managed the station himself for many vears, eventually lining the management over to ms p > John C. Thierens, who was with him from 1876 until 1898. He is bow one of the representatives of the Zealand and Australian Land Com P a at Home The last manager was George Young, the present manager oi Wilden, in Otago. „ ■ flirv About the beginning of the «ntury, Teschemaker began selling , 80I J* the land, and in 1908 he nce hold run to Carlisle Studholme, sance when it has been worked with Kanv ruaand Pentland Hills. It was trans ferred to the present owner, J. • Meehan, in 1917. Teschemaker had paid rent to the Government fro to 1908', over fifty years, which is, believe, a record. After the sale of the leasehold com try he went on with the freAo tion until 1916, when he pold 5000 acre —the whole place except the homesteaa and five hundred acres —to the u ment. He sold the homestead a year afterwards. He died in 1919, a the last of the old squatters, » though none had had greater strugg > he was luckier than most-of tnem, that he lived to see his pluck, o prise, and hard work well rewarde . Several important freehold prop ties were originally part of the run. The Martins and Q umn „ 3 i"® perhaps the oldest settlers. ®P » Bank, which has been so long the p perty of the Johnstone family, Bankfield, were formed out of it, an Bonrnedale was bought by Cna . Bourne when. Sherwood was cut up. John Macfariane is the present owner of the Otaio Homestead. ITo be Continued.}

Oscar Wilde, which perhaps throws greater light'upon the personality of that unhappy genius than sill the biographies which hare been written about him. Mr Housman declares that while the events happened twenty-five years earlier, the dialogue "has a solid basis in fact" and that he himself '"was it participant in the conversation which as here recorded, is but a free rendering of what was then actually said." The present revival of interest in Mr Laurence Housman's writings is due to the publication four or five years ago of a series of political dialogues which because of their homeliness and evident sincerity have won much favour, 'these were ''Angels and Ministers: Four Plays of Victorian Shade and Character" ""Possessions: A Peep Show in Paradise"' and "Dethronements; Imaginary portraits 01 political Characters done in dialogue."' The Dethroned in this latter book were Charles Stewart Paxaell. the Dethroned 'King' of Ireland: Joseph Chamberlain, Ex-Minister and *Mnu of Business ; and Woodrow Wilson, Ex-President of the United States. li was the author's original intention to incorporate 'Echo De Paris' in with 'Dethronements,' but he writes :—"I was warned by a good authority that if I did so the interest of my commentators would be largely diverged from the political theme to the personal; there was also a certain objection to including in a set of purely imaginary dialogues another which was so largely founded on fact. I decided therefore to let the other''Dethronement' stand alone in its first appearing a.s different in kind from the rest.'*

The orily book I know which bears any resemblance to "Dethronements" is Dr. John Dora-n's "Monarchs Retired From Business," first published in 1857, and which if brought up-to-date to-day would furnish much interesting reading. Hut Mr Housma.n may fairly lay claim to having in his Dialogues irsvented a new kind of dramatic biography. He gives his view of things at the same time introducing a personal touch when he says:

The Victorian era. has ceased to bs a thinj of yesterday; it has Income history; and the fixed look of age, no longer contemporary in character, which now grades the period, grades also the once living material which went to its making.

With this period of life those who were once participants in its lit® can deal mora intimately and with more verisimilitude! than can tho?e whoso literary outlook comes later. Ho can write of it as no sequent generation will find it possible, for we arc bono of its bone and flesh of its flesh; and when we go. something goes with us which will require for its reconstruction, not the natural piety of a returned native such as I claim to be, but the cold calculating ait of literary excursionists whose domicile is elsewhere. Some time ago, 'before Mr Stmo'ney had made the name of Victoria to 1 ©sound as triumphantly as it does now, a. friend csked why I should troublo to resuscitate these Victorian remains. My answcT is because 1 myself am Victorian, and because-the Victoriaiiism to which I belong is Jiow passing so rapidly into history henceforth to present to the world a colder aspect than that which, endears it- to my own mind. The bloom upon the grape only fully appears when it is ripe for death. Then, at a touch, it passes, delicite and evanescent us the frailest blossoms of spring. Just at this imoment the Victorian age has 1 that bloom upon it—autumnal, not springlike—which in the nature of things cannot last. That bloom I have tried to illumine before tim© wipes it away.

Laurence Housman was horn in 1865, and the characters he introduces into his dialogues are real to him in a way that the present generation cannot possibly imagine." To anyone looking back to the .'fifties and 'sixties, the figures of Queen Victoria and Mr John Brown, of Lord Beaconsfield .and Mr Gladstone have become household gods. As such they are faithfully limned by Laurence Housman, in a masterly fashion only possible to one who has served a long apprenticeship to the arts. "His interests are many," "Says Mr Lewis Hind, "play-writing, fiction, art, craftsmanship, poetry, woodcuts, fairy tales." The same, writer adds:—

Laurence Housman has published many books, and I suppose that the :nost .popular, the most suoceeeful, was "An Englishwoman's Love Letters," issiied anonymously in 1900. This sensitive and sentimental book issued anonymously led the critics a pretty dance. For weeks gpeeses at the authorship were made in the literary journals, and all sorts of people had to deny that they had written "An Englishwoman's Love Letters." Then one day a student of modern belles lettrea brought into the "Academy" office an article proving; through citations from other books by Laojrence Housman, that he waa the author of the confessions o£ this lcrveMpped Englishwoman. That ended tho quest. Laurence now acknowledges the authorship of this pretty'book. i

It must bo remembered that before he began to write Laurence Housman! was an artist and illustrator; he belongs to that group of vhich S. 11. Sime, Aubrey Beardsley, Charles Condor, and Charles Ricketts formed so conspicuous a part. Laurence Housman is entitled to special recognition because he alone of the "Men of the Nineties"—with the exception, perhaps, of Francis Thompson—opposed the frank Paganism cf the "Yellow Book" school by a strain of genuine Christian Mysticism. In hi* book ou "The BeardsTey Period" Mr Osbert Burdett makes pointed reference to this characteristic, connecting up Laurence Housman with the Pre-Raphaelites:-

Like Eossetti and William Morris, Mr Laurence Housman was not content with one art—he wrote not only poems and fairy tales, but made charming drawings for them, and designed boak-platea and covers and title pages, so that his volumes are delightful possessions, which link the 'nineties to the 'sixties by carrying on the same vradition. In the poems a casuistry of feeling, devotion, and disillusion are found together, so that we are forced, despite the,art displayed, to see in the devotion moatlv an seethetc motive. An interesting collection could be of the devotional poetry that has been written by sceptics, and were it undertaken I think that Mr Housman's volumes would be laid under heavy contribution. It is only because the current is now setting in another direction that "Spikenard arid "Green Arras" do not attract more readers, for the devotional poems in these books convev, fometimes exquisitely, the emotion of belief and the page" Ilke the .deoorations overflow with an intricate and learned fancv. "Spikenard" begins bv emoting two lovely verses from George Herbert, and if Mr Housman's poems miss his runner's simplicity, it may be because no . rrftC t an unsophisticated censant can believe now as simple-minded f oll < >*- lieved! three and four hundred years ago.

It may be as-one critic, declares that in the first decade of his literary life Laurence Housman "was not among authors popular at the lending libraries " but, if so, it surely stands to his credit- It may also be true that "oetry was obscure "-and so as■ Brown- ? >g_and because of its mystical oualitv '' distasteful to English rcadUrs " A similar criticism has been applied to Francis Thompson, with whom Laurence Housman has much in common. Everyone will remember the wave of popular appreciation which attended on all Thompson's writings shortly after his death. Laurence Housman's first volume ofverse < Green Arras " came out in 1896, and his most iZt volume, "The Heart of Peace," dated 1918. That favourite anthology, "Poems of To-day," contains just one sample of Laurence Hous'<l verse taken from Mendicant Rhymes" published in 1906. It is mlted "Annus Mirahilis, 1902, and tte test stoma is worth quoting:— So email, with'ill its mika of sin Is to the grey-winged bud, A cuckoo called «t toeohia Ino Tjast April; in Soho *m heard He niiss»l-Uimali with throat of glee, W nighting»!<* ai Battel

ABO-

There are four or five of Laurence Housman's poems iu the "Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse}" but for the most part he has been neglected by the anthologists. In his efforts' to gain the ear of the public he has ventured into the field of fiction, his novel proper being "A Modern Antaeus" (1901), "Sabrina "VVarham" (1902), "John of Jingalo" (1912), and "The Royal Runaway" (1914). He has recently republished a volume' of fantastic tales called "Gods and Their Makers," which originally appeared in 1897. His versatility is amazing, and he excels in the sort of fairy story in which children delight. In that capital Children's Annual, "Number' One Joy Street," there is a charming story called '' The Open Door.'' It is, however, as a dramatist that Laurence Housman has come to later fame. Every theatregoer and not a few play-reading circles are grateful to him for "Prunella, or Love in a Dutch Garden," that charming little fantasy which he wrote in collaboration with Mr H. Granville Barker, and his nativity play, "Bethlehem," has many admirers. Among others of his dramatic efforts may be mentioned "Little Plays of StFrancis," '"Ehe Wheel," "The Death of Orpheus," "Pains and Penalties," and "The Chinese Lanteirn," whilst under the title "False Premises", he has published five one-act plays in "The British Drama League Library." All through his life Laurence Housman has been handicapped by the fact that he is constantly referred to as the brother of Professor A. E. Housman, author of' The Shropshire Lad," with whom he is continually confused. Which reminds me of the' story told of Abraham Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, father of the famous musician, who used to describe himself by Baying: "Formerly I was the son of my father; now I am the father of my son."