BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 175, 18 April 1908, Page 12

BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

VERSES NEW AND OLD. NATUEE'S EQUITY. • Out in tho open come .with mo, The wind sweeps o'or the hill, • The Spring in sunshine's panoply .- Contends with Winter chill. Old Winter, though his/time bo up, . • 'Neath dark clouds, hurls his snow; Ecpulsed his hail and blinding sleet; , bpring emiles and bids him go. ' ■ Through the dim woods, return with me; . "A truce," the snowdrops sing, "The rearguards of the .Winter, we, Tho outposts of the Spring." ■,\ . A.-, AL -. • THE LINER. When the proud dawn, with flaming ohariot- ■: wheels • ■ ■ . And dappled steeds,, pursued ner bridal way Bound the enclouded Orient, till her light ' . - Shone .full on crimson portals widely thrown To let her in, , the stately liner came _ Threading'the shadowy harbour,, outward bound. Slowly she crept until the sboal-buoyß bound Her Hack' no morefar down, on shining ■- . ■ wheels . /Strong hands were laid, as.one by one there ... .came . . -From the high bridge quick signals that .her way : .Was clear; each great ralvo open, wider ' thrown i - Drove the huge cranks, and urged her toward the light. ■ ■ ■ • Past the red cliffs that' took the morning light, ' Past the broad river and the- harbour's bound,' .. .. • ' Past where, like some grey waif, abandoned, thrown To the v- hoarse waters,, one lone seagull •whcols, ; . . - She sped; and from the spindrift of her way : Tho level sun wove rainbows as he came. . . 'j ; : Day after day she flew; the wet fogs came • . In' spectral - vapours, feathery _ and light, And dimly-gleaming rods ■: their: fugal way - -Swung stubbornly and' slowly, checked and «■.■■■ .- boun<}; : ■' ; : ■ On the hot platforms men controlled their wheels ■ ■ 'i And to each dial .vigilant looks-were thrown. • Upon her decks by savage. storm-winds ■ • ■ ■ ■ thrown ■ ■ .. ■ Billows adventured, seething as they came, .While back and forth spun , tho twin steer- , v -ing-wheels / ■■■ j As though the watchful captain saw the ■' light Of that far haven-whither he was bonnd; ' v;. And . still' 1 she foamed.', along her, charted, , way. .r , Until at last, by many a snnlit way : .Where fragrance on the . languid air wa6thrown - : Of spice and sandalwood, no longer bound :: By rocky coast ormist or 6torm, she camo .Racing to countries where the.heart.is light .And life runs dreamily on silent wheels. - , The sea-bird wheels once more around her way, ■. ■■'..: ' ;■ Bold in tho light. To , harbour safe she '• carae; .'; : So, ropes , were thrown,' and the great ship .. was bound. , ' ■ —" Pall Mall Gazette." CONVERSATION AS A FINE ART. ■ The gift of ; articulato speech was; probably , / the first thing'that, distinguished man from the rest of the animal creation,, and to this ■; dav -it .remains: tho highest expression and . only 0f.,, all his other attributes; Tho written letter and tho. printSi book, ■, • like; the- steamer' and .the standardised loco-' :■■■■ motiyo, were' only tho artificial extension and reduplication of tho primitive and essential wonder, • ':<■ - ...

"Heaven first made letters for some wretches . ■■-■/aid, _ ■■■■ . ■ , . Some banished lover, or some captivo maid.". . The first stationary ongine was ari'"incipicoW " Lusitania " ; the germ of ' ! Hamlet lay . against the .palate of the first savage who uttered a sentence that rose above the mere. ■; expression of crude desire.; Tongues were made-before letters; English, of a .chemical 'treatise or money article purports .. to be,. in its; own arbitrary fashion', phon- , . v etical, ' and oohtains. at . least- an implied re- ■ . ferenpe spoken word : it is noteworthy that the Chinese, tho most taciturn-and least progressive nation in the world, .employ ideographs instead of phonetics." Our notions ofj style _ are implicitly;' based- upon the literal .; i meaning of ' tho; word language ; the .eye un-. oonsqiously appeals to the ear and the lungs

• consciously .appeals to,-tJio ear and the lungs in, condemnation' of . a breathless, : mono- . -tonous, or unmelodious sentence; and:poetry, in: its. formal aspect, simply represents' an Attempt to -attain an. assthetic perfection of speech. "Lariguago," says Emerson,is fossil poetiy." He /refers;- to the - content rathor than the form of. poetiy; yet' poetry,' in its most primitivo: N serise, was meirefy sublimated 1 -It-was conversation rid of. irreleyancies and (.following- an ideal .coarse; towards a definite end. , - The bards were listened to merely because they were the - best talkers, becaus6 they said what nearly every 0:10 really wanted to say.- They were jtho intelkctual delegates of;the tribe;;-, and when they were "silent or: absent, democracy ■ reasserted itself, arid every 0110; talked as well as . ho ! possibly, could.' African travellers tell,lis of the remarkable hum that fills, the first watches of the night, in a native Village, when, - the labours'of the day., over, and the mind refreshed by thopafternoon'siestaV' the recumbent inhabitants join in a symposium of narrative, gossip, . wit, and' melody, and the : ; most difbdent mind lightens, like the glowworm, in the friendly arid confiding darkness". high' civilisation is one which'.aims at , tlife : : j- restoration 'of 'tho' elect savago qualities of : : urbanity; expansiverie&s, and rurialfectod art-, »try, been"lost or eclipsed in the : jnwrmedkto stage of barbarism: a du Delfand \ salon wr a studio forenoon' has more in common - with a Kaliir symposium than with a. first-class. smoker in, tho morning train, or the averago dinner party in' Suburbia. The apostlo of the art-of conversation has ; b heavy • and disheartening task before him, .in Britain: Ho is like ri missionary (preaching Christianity in ,1 country'.where adultery .:: is a virtuo, murder • a * and self- , abnegation •> a 'deadly ' sin. His shrewdest , - homo-thrusts leave scarcely a dint on the , fire-proof safe: of pride wlieroin tho Briton jealously preserves his most patent and most .1 deplorable, defect. To talk well is by. many ~ : intelligent .people, regarded ps a ' moral weakness,* and, indeed; a\ social crime;, while, there i -■ aro those who consider it the height of good : . breeding to descend from , ringing'eloquence v on the platform : to semi-inarticulatenoss in • tho drawing-room, and to pass from convorso with the mighty dead in the library to the exchange,of stale yams with tho.livmg in the . , srnoke-room. I'ho latter had cu-stoni, from . which British inertness, or affectation, has not .been able to shake itself free; owes its introduction' to that arch-barbarian, Walpole, who maintained that a certain subject was- the only one that appealed equally to all his male guests. Not' a.- few British hostesses pay a . like; delightful 'ooihplinient to their guests; by the'discussicm of anything above .golf, foreign ;hotels,. or/ the previous night's ; play. To-lauhch a gdnerail idea in such a company -; is like throwing a bomb in tho -streets of St. Petersburg; while to tho luek- - less wight who hangs on to a thomo after the ■ of the regulation five minutes allotted (for its* exhaustion, the attitude of the'com- . ; pamy is that of the niilitiainari who, being taxed three times by his officer, with, not having shaved that morning, . exclaimed indignantly, "It's a bloomin', argument yon'ro • ,wantin'!" French companies, on the other hand, delight in a ,"blcoimn' argument," con- • .-"dusted:;in the right spirit, soasoned with wit • and with tho. various ; personalities, of the .speakers, and tempered by the' tactful umpireship, of.the-hostess ; "and the-Anglo-Saxon .visitor,, accustonled to sneak away from a . party fared-and' dissatisfied, finds to, his astonishment that he has been marvellously entertained with the pages of the phonographic album, to which - even he himself has been-warmed into contributing some autographic, lines. ■ 1 ' . To do ourselves justice, there' are not - wanting British coterics in which the French ideal of conversation—a sequence of sentiments, personal opinions,, and impromptu i witticisms, strung on a chain of general ideas ■—is honestly aimed at,* tho non-arrival of tho drawing-room balladist• unlamented, and a;

resort to, bridge or spin-the-plate uncontemplated. But that the art of conversation is generally neglected in this oountrv is curiously evident in the,different relations, bore and in Franco, between the writton and the spoken languages. French conversation is literature in the making; "il narro bicn " is tho oommon praiso of one ivho tells a story clearly; and a novelist has only to keep his oars and eyes open in a drawing-room to collect all; tho social; garnishment of his theme.' Hero, to pass from life to bookland is like flying up to.tho moon; the very laws of lingual griavity are altered; and with on the one hand a spoken language which is o nullification both of personality and intellect, and on the other a written speech which by severance from tho roots of street and market has . become almost purely ideographic, tho novolist flounders between unconvinoing sensationalism and unrevealing dulnesa, in a swamp where even an Ibsen eould hardly have found , his feet. To plead for an amelioration of such conditions seems' almost like proposing a change in tho national- character.,, But it really does not. involve so much.' It only proposes an emancipation of tho national character from the unworthy fetters of boorishness, slovenliness, and suspicion, laid upon it by tho pseudo-puritanism of the'seventeenth century and the sly huckstorism of the manufacturing period. Why should the citizens of the greatest Empire in history be ashamed to give frank vocal expression to their personalities by a'clear and resonant enunciation, an artistic and effective impromptu rendering of the richest, .noblest, and most expressive language in the world? —" Glasgow Herald."