NONSENSE NOVELS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1180, 15 July 1911, Page 9

NONSENSE NOVELS.

Although Professor Stoplien Leacock, of 'the M'Gill University, Montreal, is, in his leisure time, tho wittiest of living American humourists, and the author of bravura pieces known to lovers of fine humour in all countries, thero aro probably only two or three people in Wellington who possess his. priceless "Literary Lapses." Tho Professor,-who, by the way, contributed a paper on Imperialism to cue first issue or u.iiE Dominion, nas found time, in the intervals of his serious labours, to produce another gay littlo book; Nonsense Novels.". Copies havo liot yet reached the Dominion, but we hud it reviewed in tho '".Spectator." M hat Professor Leacock lias done (=ays the "Spectator") is to take different types of novels—e.g., detective, psychical, romantic, "kailyard," anticipatory, etc and to apply the solvent of Jiis burlesque method. ' iiis aim is primarily to divert and not to instruct or satirize, but incidentally there is a good deal of satir-j embedded in his light-hearted folly. Thus in "Gertrude,- the Governess," the feudal aristocracy are subjected to an irreverent criticism which must cause the author of "The Patrician" to wince. Wo ore introduced to a tall young man "whose long aristocratic laco proclaimed his birth, and who was mounted upon a horse with a face even longer than his own," and the rigorous time-table of the English country house is pleasantly ridiculed in tho following catalogue:— "Life at the Taws moved in the ordinary routine of a great English household. At 7 a/gong sounded for rising, at 8 a horn blew for breakfast, at 8..'i0 a whistle sounded for prayers, at 1 a (lag was run up half-mast for lunch, at 4 a gun was fired for afternoon tea, at 'J a first bell sounded for dressing, at !).1"> a second bell tor going on dressing, while at !).30 a rocket was sent up to indicate that dinner was ready. At midnight dinner was over, nnd at 1 a.m. the tolling of a bell summoned the domestics to evening prayers."' Tho mental ingenuousness of those who traffic in the supernatural, again, is happily hit off in this senter.ee from tho 6tory entitled "Q":— "At the moment when Atiiierl.v spoke of tho supernatural I had been thinking of something entirely different. The fact that lie shouid speak of it at the very

instant when I was thinking of thing else, struck me as, at least, a very singular coincidence." Then, in "Caroline's Christmas," a burlesquo on the sentimental melodrama, satire'is mingled with absurdity iu tho pictut'o of the distressed farmer iu moments of perplexity turning for consolation to Euclid:—

"Anna, with the patient resignation of her sex, sat silent or at times endeavoured to read. She had taken down from the little wall-shelf Banyan's 'Holy Liviug and Holy Dying.' She tried to read it. She could not. Then sho had taken Dante's 'Inferno.' She could not read it. Then she had selected Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason.' But sho could not read it cither. Lastly, sho had token the 'Farmer's Almanac' (or 1911. The books lay littereed about her as she sat in patient despair. John Enderby showed all tho passion of an uncontrolled nature. At times ho would reach out for the crock of buttermilk that stood besido him and drained a draught of tho maddening liquid, till his brain glowed like the coals of the tamarack fire before him. 'John,' pleaded Anna, 'leave alone tin; buttermilk. It only maddens you. No good ever came of that.' 'Aye, lass,' said the farmer, with a bitter laugh, as ho buried his head again in the crock, 'what caro I if it maddens me?' 'All,.John, vou'd better be employed in reading tho .Good Book than in your wild courses. Here take it, father, and read it-and she handed to him the well-worn black volumo from'the sheif. Enderby paused a moment'and held the volumo in his hand.. He and his wife had known nothing of religious teaching in the public schools of their day, but the first-class non-sectarian education that tho farmer had received had stood him in good stead. 'Take the book,' she said. _ 'Read, John, in ■this hour of affliction; it brings coni' fort.' .Tho farmer took from her hand the well-worn copy of Euclid, s 'Elements,' and laying aside his hat with reverence, ho read aloud: 'The angels at the base of ah isosceles triangle are equal, aud whosoever shall produce the sides, 10, the samo also shall be equal each unto each.' The fanner put the book aside. 'It's no use, Anna. I can't read the good words toriight.' He rose, staggered to the crock of buttermilk, and before his wife could stay his hand drained it to the last drop. The wording of. s<.rfe sentences in the foregoing passage may jar oil sensitive readers, but there is no gainsaying the effectiveness of ' the underlying ridicule. But" the best example of Professor Leacock's talent for combining cnticisw with burlesque is to be found in the last of these nonsense novels. "The Asbestos Man," in which the deadly monotony of Utopian romances is most happily, exposed. The dreamer awakens in Broadway to find the mecha'uical Millennium in full swing. Death has been practically eliminated, and Nature conquered by the final victory of Man and Machinery. But this conquest involves a host of attendant consequcuoc?. There is no war, no illness, • 110 work or commerce, food boin«T needless and all variations of climate obliterated. This last achievement has been brought about by turning tho forces of the weather loose one agaiust the other and altering the composition of tho sea. And there aro no fashions, overyono being clad in everlasting asbestos s'uits. The dreamer, having noticed that all tho figures on the strsets looked alike, was prompted tn ask whether women had also been eliminated:—

" 'Oh, no,' answered the Man in Asbestos, 'they're here just (he same. Somo of those are women. Only, you see. everything has been changed now. It all came as part of their great revolt, their desire to bo like tho men. Had that begun in your time?' 'Only a little,' I answered; 'they were beginning to ask for votes and equality.' "That's it,' said my acquaintance, '1 couldn't think of tho word. Your women, I believe, were something awful, were they not? Covered with feathers and skins and dazzling colours made of dead things all over tl;em? And thev laughed, did they not, and had foolish teeth, and .at any moment they could inveigle you into one of those contracts? Ugh!' ho shuddered. 'Asbestos,' I said (I knew 110 other name to call him), as I turned on him in wrath, 'Asbestos, do you think that those jelly-bag Equalities out on the street there, with their ashbarrel suits, can be compared for one llioment with our unredeemed, uniformed, h'eaven-created,'ihobble-skirted women of tho twentieth century. 1 ' Then suddenly anbther thought flashod into mS* mind —'The children, I said, 'where are the children? Aro there any?' • 'Children;' he said, 'no! I have never heard of there being any such things for at least a century. . Horrible little hobgoblins they must have been! Great big faces, and cried constantly! And grew, did they not? Like fungusos! I believe they were longer each year than they had been the last, and •' I rose. 'Asbestos,'l said, 'this, then, is your 'comins' Civilisation, your millennium. This dull, dead tiling, with the work and the burden gone out .of life, and with them all the joy and the sweetness pf it. Tor tho qld struggle —mere stagnation, 'aiid in plawof danger and death, tho dull monotony of security and the horror of au unending decay ! Give me back,' I cried, and I flung wide my arms to the dull air, 'the old life of danger and stress, with its hard toil and its. bitter chances, and its heartbreaks. I see its value! I know its worth! Give me no rest,' I cried 'Yes, but give a rest to the rest of tho corridor!' cried an angored voice that broke in upon my exultation. Suddenly my sleep had gone. I was back again in the room of my hotel, with the' hum of the wicked, busy old world all about me, and loud in my ears the voice of the indignant man across the corridor. 'Quit your Waiting, you infernal blatherskite!' ho was calling. 'Come down to earth,' I came/'