NEW BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 20316, 15 August 1931, Page 13

NEW BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

j THERE WAS A CHILD. J I Thalassa. A Story of Childhood by the , Western Wave. By Mary Trances McI Hugh. MacMillan and Co., Ltd. ! ! I here are days when the light and i the air reveal a new world, magically clear. There are landscape paintings in which the quality of the artist's vision belongs to such days--like Vcrmcer'ft "View of Delft," for instance. Mrs Alcllugh's of her childhood in Ireland have the same beauty, distinct, luminous, exquisite in every gradation; an enchantment, and yet —the reality; what was, what is, what is immortal, tiers was an unusual childhood: spent near a fishing village on the Atlantic coast of Ireland, and nearer to ''the long ago'' than to the rising thunder of rebellion. But Mrs Mcllugh's recollections belong to all childhood before tlicy belong to a strange land, and they are full of familiar, awakening voices. She has only to tell us that "meal-times and bed-time were cruel interruptions, however much our eager little bodies asked for food and sleep," and we find ourselves smiling at this sweet impatience, this haste to live, which was our own. She litis only to describe the delight of going home with Mrs Tully for tea, and it is ours again, bringing the relish of unordinary food, the thrill of being enug in a cabin, incomparably snugger than any house. And when Mrs Tully made soda-bread on the griddle, it was always strange "that underneath should invariably taste like underneath, and top like top, although both were cooked in exactly the same way." Of course it was strange; and who is insensitive to the reminder of such delicious myst cries.' While the .vc(..nd side was baking, Tully made the tea and .Mrs Tally laid, the table, and in a few minutes we were nil seated hap* pily around it, taking our wonderful meal by the light of the tire and a tin paraffin laniD which hung on tho wall, with a reflector behind it doubling its boat-shaped flame. So easily Mrs Mcllugh lights the tin lamp again. Or what can more truthfully, touchingly, or humorously revive the profound earnestness of childish joy in "work," and the hurt and disillusion to which it is exposed, than her account of the hay-carrying? Wo had stolen away to the TuUvs, . and luund Tom carrying loads of hay on his back to some animals in a licld behind his cottage. Of course, wo at once decided to help him, nnd made him give us three little ropes, so that we, too, could carry "gavawls" of hay up to the field. There followed a heavenly hour. Tully cut down quantities ot liav from a cock besido his house, laid his long rope on the ground, folded in two, the fold making a loop; laid a great bulky load of hav nearly as tail as himself across the doubled rope; pressed down the hay, and l,r(,T.!;lit the two looso ends of rope over it, and through the loop at tho other side . and then hoisted the whole on to his back, and walked off with it. We three did exactly the same with our small ropes; and the "result was that again and again up to the field went a very big man with a very big lor.d of hay on his back, bent double and walking heavily, almost hidden by his burden; and in I'iis footsteps,_ walking with a port, of sailor's roll in imitation of lin, lurched a very much smaller bundle of hay: and in its footsteps, still lurching imitatively with widespread legs, two bundles of nay smaller still. It chanced that while we were so happily engaged, all the grown-up peeP' 6 went for an afternoon stroll on tho cliffs. Looking across a field they saw ,the strange sight of a big bundle of hay moving slowly up from the cottage, followed by throe smaller ones. Curiosity drove them to investigate further, and they discovered Tully and his satellites. The sight plunged them into speechless and immoderate laughter, which deeply chagrined us. AVo huffily defiisted from our labours, and went home meditating on the stupid and senseless manner in whirh grown-up peoplo. interfered with both | onr amusements and our work. And after : that we somehow did not seem able I a-ain to join in the Tullys* business mtlJ , quite such happy -wliole-heartedness. What is the best, thing In this abundant? In one J>ii|d, perhaps, the description of Quealy the travelling butler or of the wonderful Biddy O'Gorman; in another, perhaps the description of the autumn flight of the swallows, which closes "GO: As the first birds became distant specks • against the blue, those last on the fence mario themselves the tail of tho departing host. Smaller and smaller they grew, fainter and more far away; they became dust on the horizon; they were'gone. * The days of childhood are as fugitive; and it is impossible to admire too gratefully Airs Mcllugh's remembering art, which expresses the beauty of their summer and tliyir retreat, POPULATION. The Japanese Population Problem. By W. B. Crocker. Allen and Unttrin, 10s 6d net. Ada's Teeming Millions. By EUenne Danncry. Jonathan Cape, 10s od net. These two authors set themselves to elucidate the same question: when will j the graphs of increasing . population and decreasing availability of tooa supply intersect? Although no one luts succeeded in attaining to P 1 ®" ' photic exaetitudo in such calculations : iu respect to any country, since new threats constantly urge human bemgs 1 to discover new ways of economic aci- : justment and temporary escape, this . Malthusian problem is of special urgency in Japan. Italy alone among : European nations, faces a similar situatiou. • , . , , i ; Mr Crocker has been fortunate in obtaining access to many official re--1 cords of statistics ordinarily unavai- ' able to foreign investigators. \Vitn ; their help lie has lwou able to make a penetrating analysis troni which - derives tho followina eoncusio s ln the next generation, twenty millions will bo added to the population oi 1 Japan. Agriculture (nee) cannot be extended sufficiently to provide for > this increase. Even now, Japan has : to import fifty million bushels per annum. So great istliepressure - the soil of tlio country that ah'tady ■ tho phase of diminishing returns w ' beginning to show itself. , 'h? " c ,f collapse of the standard of hvtng has hitherto, been .'icc-<now-sive sericulture among t '. llt . 11 VS e f + _ ing farmers But natural silk is ing heavy competition from 1,10 ray . on industry and this is likely tc> bo in tensified. Even without this, the eco nomic stability ot Japan hanra on ,i very slender thread-tlie silk stockings, and the abdl > America to pay for them. Ihe j - States takes 94 per cent, of all tftc raw silk 'export, and this ,t ® l " l| cor ° prises half the total value of all ex ports from Japan. In return, Japan - imports raw cotton, winch -s exported to Asia as yarn and cloth. These cotton goods pay for the which must be imported. ' Mr Crocker argues, must find c-s «n----sive new markets or many t. ' twenty millions of new population _ • starve. The only alternative-ami it is one favoured neither by _ superior-clan instincts of the rank tilo nor bv tho Government—is o-yen--1 sivo emigration. Mr Crocker thinks that Japan may meet the coming crisis bv wide nationalisation or industry in order to eliminate Tvast9 ' or bv some severe interna! discipline ot till the social orders —simitar to a state of siege—on file lines of the ruieisu svnthesis of Italy. . Monsieur Deanery is iu genera! agreement with Mr urocker iri regard to .Janan. IV't lie i's -nv«-> t to include China, Cochin-China, and ; India. I'l an ndmlrnblv ;pst'i' n^ 1 and well-balanced book he takes stock of the economic and political mechan i«tns of these countries, hut. wisely allows fhe reader to his own '-onelusions as to what all this will mean for the West. If the two books are ■ read together, tho problem of Asia's i teeming millions is brought into bet- - tor focus than eouid be obtained from leading one only.

| WHAT IS POETRY? ; [ The Nature of English Poetry. An Element - ary Survey. By 1. S. Harris. With - a preface by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch. i J. M. Dent and Sons, Ltd. (5/- net.) Mr Harris, docs a difficult thing | very veil. lie explains "simply and. straight!y '' —as fcjir Arthur ; Quiller-Couch acknowledges—what is fundamental in poetry, consequently what a just appreciation will discover and interpret and how a reader may cultivate a tinner ami more sensitive taste. Poetry. Mr Harris says at once, is "the most powerful and pleasing kind of speech'': a generalisation which might lie dangerously developed. But his chapters on rhythm, sound, (he flavour of words, and musk are admirably sane and admirably illustrated. Whenever he touches more or less technical matters, he preserves, what many writers lose, the vitality of the facts. There are certain, disadvantages in the use of such a book as a class-text; but teachers who value .Mr Lamborn's '•Rudiments of Criticism" will gladly put this beside it on their desks. Even if they have lately found Mr I'. It. B. Lyon's "Discovery or Poetry," they will be wise to think it better to have both than to choose between them. Many individual readers, long past their school days, will iind in Mr Harris such a guide to poetry as they have wished for. TRAVELS IN ARABIA. Alarms and Excursions in Arabia. By Bertram Thomas. Allen and Unwin, Ltd. (15s net.) This is not yet the story ui the g,ital .journey completed by Mr Thomas live months ago. It is the story of three ,smaller journeys—and two "alarms" —that liiado that other journey possible. Perhaps, too, to the average reader it is a more interesting book than the traverse of the Rub 'al Khali will be as a simple narrative - if that is how -Mr Thomas presents it; for he has; of course, had a great deal more liberty than will be permissible when he Vails into line behind bin-ton, Doughty, and l.'algrave. In the first ol nis alarms Mr Thomas is engaged in hunting down the Sheikh Bndr bin Rumaiyulh, the ''Old Man of the Marshes" in Mesopotamia who remained loyal to the Turks and was not captured until nearly a year alter the Armistice. In the second, he is a political officer in Shatrah, and it would perhaps have been his las: alarm if we bad not already by 1920 entered the aeroplane age. But the most important section of the book is devoted U> the travels in and about -the SouthEastern corner of Arabia in the territory, ami sometimes in the caravan, of the Sultan of Oman. He is now not merely carrying out a political mission, but observing and describing and experimenting, and there is not one page on which lie has not something fresh to say. It is a case of a man still young who finds every day an adventure. He is interested in everything—in the Arabs most of all, and alter them perhaps in their camels, but there is nothing around or above or below that does not get attention in his notebook: the shifting sands, the hot springs, the marvellous though often abandoned aqueducts, the slaves, the locusts, the gardens, the food, the medicines, the flowers, the beards, the superstitions, the quarrels, the jokes, the discipline, the administration of justice. Jt is a happy life and a happy book, arid if anyone wants to know what a good horse looks like he should turn to page 265. i ADAM BARFOOD. The Pastor of Pos;gsee. By Gustav Prensseii. Trans, by Katherine G. Potts. George G. Harrap and Co., Ltd. Frenssen is not a writer adapted either by age (he was born in 1863) or by temperament and force of mind to close with the problems of national downfall and reconstruction. So much of the charm of "Otto Babendiek," for instance, translated last year, was that of a recapture of the fragrant, still past, that it was startling to discover its contact with contemporary life and events, and it semed much less real in that than in the apparent retreat from them. To some extent "The Pastor of Poggsee" justifies the same comment. The first 180 pages or so, depicting Pastor Adam Barfood in his Holstein village, seem almost dateless, and the outbreak of the Great War is almost an irrelevance. The reader wants to go on watching this strong and simple man, at work in his own way, not while the foundations of the world are recking; but because Prenssen knows his Holstein village and villages with affectionate intimacy, and never leaves these limits. Nearly every touch in this long account of a pastor find his parish during the War and beyond is convincing and moving; and the drama of trial, collapse, confusion, and change there is as significant as if the stage had been wide as the Empire that,was vanishing. Barfood is -the symbol of the humble strength that survives, an admirable and lovable character on whom Frenssen lias spent immense carc and wasted none. A RUSSIAN DIPLOMAT. * Glimpses of High Politics. Tho Autottfrsraphy of N. V. Tcharykow, Self-owner, Ambassador, Exile, with a ro"word b y Sir Bernard Pares. Allen and TJnwin (16s net). In his autobiography, "Glimpses of High Politics," Mr N. V. Tcharykow tnrows a new light on tho origins of Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina."' Describing the immense enthusiasm in Moscow for the Serbians and the Montenegrins in tho war of liberation against the Turks, he mentions that Tolstoy made the hero of his novel, Vronsky, set out from the Capital to join tho Serbian forces as a volunteer, in 1876. After fifty years, he thinks, the truth on which the story of Anna and Vronsky was founded may be divulged: I knew personally both "Vronsky" and "Karenin," and it was by mere chance that X did not meet "Anna." The "Oblonskys and the "Shtcherbatskys - ' described by Tolstoy I found still living in Moscow, where the author and his family were also living, in a distant quarter of the city, whither only specially attracted or privileged people went. The skating-rink in tho Zoological Gardens, on which "Kitty" and "Levin" met, was still tho same, though less fashionable. As told in Tolstoy's novel, a brilliant ofneer of a cavalry regiment of the Guards meets in Moscow Anna Karenina, the clever, attractive, and very womanly wife of an aged St Petersburg bureaucrat, and falls in love with her. The passion is mutual. After a ; thrilling accident at the Tzarskoc Selo races and an attempt at suicide on the part of Vronsky, he and 1 Anna leave together for abroad. They cannot marry because Karenin refuses from religious scruples to cousento a divorce. He takes of his and Anna's little son, ivliile a_ daughter is born lo Vronsky and Anna. Ultimately \ ronskj, having retired 'from his regiment, tires of doing nothing, and, perhaps, in some measure, of Anna. She believes him to be contemplating marriage with a girl he goes to see in tho neighbourhood of Moscow. Mie goes to tho railway station from which \ ronsky usually starts and throws herself under a pafslng train. . r , , Th»; inner Mory oi \ ronsky s ana "Anna's" lives is perfectly true, hut. its outward circumstances are ?o camouflaged to make the dramatis pcrsonae abl* I happen to know that tho occurred, not in the military and bureaucratic society of St. Petersburg, but abroad between tmo Russian diplomats. X do cot consider myself free even now to give the real names of the actors in the drama, though both "Vronsky" and "Karenin are long since'dead But "Anna" may be still alive, and the daughter of ronsky and •* nna is very probably now living. . J. made the acquaintance of "Vronsky" in 1881, dur.nj one of his visits to St. Petersburg on leave. He was advancing successfully m his career. He was a tall, good-looking, elegant younj man with a black beard, small, but full: a man" well-gifted, and. socially speaking, 'itelligent, but rather flighjy. "Anna" did cot, tjtre-v *welf nr.<ler * twin, fHeem?d her

'passion by sulTeriiis: for ten years more fron; her painful and illegal union witn *'\ron6ky lill at last "Karenin ' was persuaded consent to a ilivorc-. X*hc marriogo tnei took place in a lSussiau Church abroad, when '' Vronsky'' w.'is appointed bead of a dipl' l iriatio mission. Thr ln.>t time I met binwas in at Unu-h in tlic Russian Em bsssy in Pans. Uy that time Tolstoy's hero had become :> stout, grey-haired old man slid very Mipcrstitious—he absolutely refused tu sit JoMii at tabic when thirteen were present; tho wife ot one of the secretaries had actually to be at the last moment to come io Innch, vliich made n? 311 half en hour late. lint "Vronsky" had by tha' time reached the blue ribbon of a diplomat!' career. As l.) "Karenin,"' immediately after loiiu* -'Anna'-' lie abandoned his diplomatic func lion.s and became one of our good provincial governors. Many of Tolstoy's readers have iu'ofessed to discover a certain resemblance between "Karenin" and Pobedonostzeff, the Procurator-General of the Holy Synod and the e\il, reactionary genius of Alexander 111. A* ' it was through the medium of Pobedonostzef that Tolstoy came to be excommunicated by tlie Russian Church, it has been supposed that Tolstoy purposely graced his "Karenin" with "comic ears" and an unfortunate mar riage. The real "Karenin," in fact, ie .-tumbled Pobedonostzeff, whom I also knev. only to the extent of being tall, and, in lif youth, slender. "Karenin" was a deeply religious mar. liked by everybody, of n noble soul, and h lover of children. Hi* Eon, as Tolstoy say? remained with him, and was later employed in tho Civil Service in tho Russian province-. But "Anna" wns never replaced in "Ksre nin's" heart and life. He. liked to gather around him in St. Petersburg. once a weeh on Tuesdays, promising yours men. and hhelped many of them to develop their scien tific and artistic talents. He died on age<i and honoured senator. M r Tcharykow'a boo;: is well en titled "Glimpses of High. Polities.'-'* He wns :t class-fellow of Isvolsky, ami Inter became his Assistant "Minister in tin; Ministry for .Foreign Affairs. Tcharykow wa.- a remarkably broad iniudecl man, -whose recollections of his youth and education ia Scotland and at the St. Petersburg Lyceum are scarcely less interesting than those of His military and diplomatic career. The latter enabled him to write with a close insight. into the Austro-Russian negotia tions about Bosnia in 1876 and into the later crisis of 190S-9. He presented a memorandum to the Emperor, at that time, urging that there eould be a, good understanding between Kussia and Germany, only if Germany undertook not to encourage further Austrian aggrandisement in the Balkans. Tcharyko-.v's account of the emancipa tion of the serfs, from the point of view of a liberal landlord, and of the EuasoTurkish compaigu of 1577, iu which lie took part, are admirable passages in the record of an admirable life. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. Modern Home Cookery and Electrical Guide. Including a Selection of Cookery Eocipes Especially Prepared for Electric Bange Users. Second Edition, Bevtsed and Enlarged. Whitcombc and Tombs, Ltd. (2s (3d.) In addition to the recipes, approval of which is registered in the issue of a second edition, this little book contains mut.'h useful information and advice of a more general character: for instance,' on the care and use ot electric r-inges and other electrical appliances in the home. ThO Island of Terror. By "Sapper." Hodder and Stoughton. Prom W. S. Smart. Another Jim Maitland story, equipped with a very devilish and strong dwarf, a heroine in distress, and a South American island full ot perils and horrors and buried treasure. The mixture is strong and good. Portrait of an Airman. By Philip ArnaJl. John Lane, The Bodley Head. A first novel, in which the descriptions of an airman's traiuing and fighting are realistic, and those of nis love affairs raw and occasionally ridi- ! culous. Whispering Bange. By Ernest Haycoz. Stanley Paul. Through Whitcombe atti Tombs, Ltd. In a story abounding in alarms and -pursuits, shooting ana burning, the "brave mysterious hero "and the callous rustler both love the boyish but charming Eve Leverage": but anything is credible in the "Wild West. Winged Victory. By Norman Leriie. Thomas Nelson and Sons, LtA, An entertaining and occasionally thrilling story which combines- the interests of war-time spying, flying, and romance. Moor Fires. By E. H. Yocmg. Jonathan Capo. (5s "net.) One of Miss Young's novels,; in the very neat collected edition justified by her sudden but belated popularity. It might as reasonably have been started by "Moor Fires" as by ''Miss Mole. Tlte "Eeminiscences of Lord Kilbracken," lately published, contain an excellent summary of Gladstone, whose secretary he was for two periods: As a man Mr Gladstone, was ia a claaa bv himself. He was ah extraordinarily good man, hut I think I may have known otter* as good; his intellectual -gifts wera wonderful, but for pure intellect I nav® known others whom X should place as higo. if not higher. What differentiated him from, the rest of the huuiau race was, first, the combination of these qualities Tyith w*® stupendous driving power of which I nava. spoKen; second tho stern and effective control which hs maintained over this mighty force; and, third, the amazingly serviceable quality of his mind, which w»« always at his command, always rose to the occasion, and unfailingly supplied him with an endless flow of thoughts, arguments, and words upon any toi)io under heaven with which he had to de.'il. Lord Kilbracken believed 'lot Gladstone was not a good Party leader, that politics were not his natural choice or congenial to him. On the subject of Gladstone's humour he says something that agrees closely with Lord Balfour's opinion: , It was commonly said that Mr Gladstone was deficient in the sense of humour, but tbia cannot be said without large reservations. A senae of humour ha certainly had, but it was rather capricious and untrustworthy; lie thoroughly enjoyed a. joke, but the jokes that he enjoyed were not the best ones, and jokes which everyone else enjoyed sometimes failed to appeal to hun. It was noticeable that the best hiunoroua passages always occurred in his most spontaneous speeches; the more carefully his speech was prepared the less likely wa# it that any attempt at humour would be successful. It is certain that ho often movea th-; House to long and hearty laughter, and that in private lite, il he was among ms own family or with intimate friends, he could be exceedingly amusing, playful, ana full of fun. But the fact is that he was apt, whether in private or public, to be too much, and too earnestly interested in tho subject of conversation to be inclined to treat ik, jocosely or even humorously. Lord Balfour's judgment was this: I remember loan !Morley telling me (it in bis pre-Gladstonian Jayß) tliat Gl*dhumour was like "grinning through a horse collar." It may not have contained the raw material of ?ood talk or good literature, but, with all deference to John Morlev, it was certainly excellent debating. It, turned the laugh, if not the argument, against his victim ; y it was spontaneous, Provoked bv the occasion and suited to it. Though it was sometimes cruel, the cruelty was never premeditated; it was. therefore, rurelv resented by the House; and if it Stemed "• little flat as reported in the mornpaper?, what then? Such Paruamemarv horseplav, be it good, or bad, has, how-n-er, no legitimate place in civilisea conversation, and we may be sure that Hr Gladstone, outside tlin House of Commons, ii.'\er made a l-utt of any man. If the long: and successful practice of public oratory in anv wav marred his lightness of touch, « wa? not that he ever misused his gifts of Parliamentary ridicule, but that hj« sometimes over-used his methods of Parliamentary exposition. Trifles, so it seemed to his younger frientis, were opt to be treated like questions of State, seriously, even solemnly, and in u hitrh moral key. The village of Orawlev.. Hampshire, which Thackeray described in "Vanity Fair," calling it '-Queen's Crawley," has lately come up for sale. Thackeray often stayed in the village.