NOTES.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 473, 3 April 1909, Page 9

NOTES.

With the current number of the. "Lono I,Hand" completes its second year, and -Mr. Frank Fox completes the term of his editorship, giving place,_ it is understood, to Mr. Arthur Adams. Tlio contents of this number aro of the avcrago quality. C. A. Jeffries continues his articles'oll "Our Unfinished Commonwealth," discussing the problem of a liorth-and-south transcontinental railway line.' Ho favours the.: immediate building of tbo Oodnadntta-Pine Creek line, as being. easy to build, and of enormous value for' defencc purposes. There are a good many stories, by T. Carnett, Edward Dyson, H. M. Green, and others—some of them daubily and untidily illustrated—and an abundance of-verse, most of it of very poor quality. Victor Daley's "Woman" is musical and strong, and Bernard O'Dowd has a ballad in a simpler mode than he usually affects. Hugh M'Crae has a good poem, but the other verses are of 110 value. Good items are Beatrix Tracey's "Explorations in Amusement" and J3. J. Brady's new chapter of "River Rovers. I '' In tho list of contents tlio "Public Good" article is given as "Beauty's Aids," but tho article printed is' a much-needed exposure of tho character of some of the wine-bars of Sydney. It is to be hoped that tho new editor of the "Lono Hand" will give somo attention to the "Art and Letters" section of the magazine. This section has always been very short, and, sometimes, as in tho current number, very poor stuff.

'Why English Does not- Simplify her Spelling" is what Mr. Max Eastman Undertakes to explain in the February number of the "North American Review." Professor Skeiit's blunt explanation from tho' simplifying- side is : given in one of his pamphlets : — J'l'hav lcrnt to spol." Mr. Eastman, writing as a moderate conservative, says that 'tho Reasons are aesthetic. This is what tho "Academy" has been saying very ferociously Mr. ' Eastman is more frivolous, but also more gentle. His article, which bristles with puns and other small iokes, is perhaps more entertaining than instructive, but it/undoubtedly expresses what is lurking at the back of many a simple mind—that tho words look prettier as they are. The usual appeal of this argument is ad inisericordiam 011 behalf of our poetry, and there is a good deal of force in the appeal. But Mr. Eastman; adduces one very unfortunate examplo:— " ' ."Season of -mists and mellow fruitfulness," "Seson of mists and mello fruitfulnes."

Opinions will differ, of course, but is the second form really uglier than tho first? If looks aro to count, it has a Chaucerian complexion, of which Keats would havo been tho last to complain.

. In. a letter to the "Daily News," Mr. f.-Eteiiry W. Lucy tells a tale of the unblushpirates of America, Ho latolv received from the United States a bundlo of ,newspaper cuttings' containing •.choice - bits from "'fho Cornhill" property which seemed to be going. the round of' tlio American press. To his-surpriso ho found they wero quoted from a magazine published in Boston, U.S.A., entitled '-The Living Age." On inquiry. ho discovered that from tho publication in "The Cornhill" of the first chapter ; .of'i"Sixty Years in the Wilderness" tho work' : monthly -"cohve'yed/" J "rts'wiso : "American publishers call it, to the columns of the Boston magazine, where it is presented .as a special, contribution. Ho wroto to the editor suggesting the observance of the.ordinary practice of sending a chequo to the -starving author. The lengthy, effusiveiycourteous reply (he says) is in the sublimity of its conception almost payment in full. It turns out that it is the.'author, not tho editor,, who is under in the matter. "In 110 instance that wo can 'recall," the editor writes, "has any English author complained of our reprinting his articles from an English periodical. More than once wo have had request for such reprinting, or expressions of pleasure becauso of. it. We havo not felt that we injured-any writer by increasing tie circulation of his contribution's and oxtending his reputation among American- readers." Mr. Lucv thinks this explanation "suggests tho impulse of the magnanimous pickpocket who has appropriated tho handkerchief of the passer-by, and who, by way of striking a mutually satisfactory balance, goes about his social circle extolling the quality of the material and the good taste displayed in choice of colour." It appears from the "Daily Telegraph" that recently a friend questioned Mr. George Sleredit'h concerning some favourite lines of his own. He quoted: "Full lasting is the song though he The singer passes; lasting, too, For souls not lent in usury, The rapture of the forward view." An article appears in tho last number of tho "Edinburgh Review" entitled "A School of.-Irish Poetry." The chief writers dealt with are Mr. W. B. Yeats, the. leading fig-ure-amongst them, Moira O'Neill, Padratc Colum, and A.E. Other developments, says ;tho writer, may follow, but.none will represent more faithfully the Celtic gifts of emotion, imagination, and phantasy. Several quotations are given to show tho characteristics of the school. Here is a stanza by Mr. Yeats:— "I will ariso and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping, with low sounds, by tho shore; While X stand on tho roadway, or on the pavements grey, I hear it iu the deep heart's core." The following is a verse by Etlina Carbery :— "I bared my heart to the winds, and mv crv went after you— A brown west wind blew past, and the east my sccret knew; ' . A red east wind blew far to the lonesome bogland's edge, And the littlo pools stirred sighing within their girdling sedge." The "Song of Red Hanrahan," by Mr. Yeats, is placed by the reviewer in the first rank of Irish art: — "The old brown thorntrees break in two high over Cuinmen Strand, 1 Under a bitter black wind that blows from tho left liana; Our courage breaks like an qld tree in a black • wind and dies, But we have hidden in our hearts the flame out of the eyes Of Cathleen, tho daughter of Houlihan." That there is a strain of freshness and unconventionality in this Irish poetry will be generally recogniscd. Mr. G. K. Chesterton had some interesting things to say about ".Journalism and Propagandism" to tho Grosvenor Club tho other day. "Journalism," said Mr. Chestertoll, "was in itself an extraordinarily interesting profession, and possibly in this particular crisis of our history inoro important than literature. ''-Unless lie was much mistaken, what the present ago would more and more require w'as violent and ncutc controversy. There was a "great deal in the position of the literary man that "'made him averse to controversy. If there • wero any gentlemen present ijho remembered ' the movement of art for art's sake he should like-to remind them that tho original literary work that had been done by' people of what ho might roughly call his generation— that was to say, of tho more vigorous period of oarly old age—had been done by people who wero violently provocative, violently dogmatic, aud almost entirely propagandist.