LIBER'S NOTE BOOK.

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 187, 27 April 1918, Page 11

LIBER'S NOTE BOOK.

Stray Leaves. I have to thank a correspondent (C. C. Bagiiall, Prtlmcrslon North) for a copy of "Jacobite Loyalty," by W. G. Bliiikio Murdoch. Detailed rcfereiicc when spacepermits. The long-promised collected edition of Leonard Merrick's novels and short stories, which was understood to be in preparation before (he war, is now being published by Hoddor and Stoughlon. Each vofomn will have an introduction by some well-known writer of tho day. thus tho opening volume of tho scries, "Conrad in Quest of His..Youth, will havo an introduction by Sir J. M. fliirric. Other volumes will have prefacca by Sir Arthur Pincro, W. J. Locko.. H. G Wells, W. D. Howolls, Maurico Hewlett, Neil Muuro, and Sir William Robertson- Nicol. Leonard Merrick s lino work is not, I fear, eo well known in New Zealand as it ought to be. Two or three of his wotks have been republished in seveupenny or nincpenny editions, but most of ihem are quite out of print. And vet Ihev aro delightfully vivacious in style and "most entertaining generally. I hopo the now edition may not bo priced 60 high as "to render it inaccessible to the everyday book buyer of moderate means. Those of my readers who nro interested in the so-called Celtic Renaissance and in Irish literature generally, should note the appearance: of Mr. John J-;glin-ton's "Ansflo-Ifißli Essays," published by the Talbot Press, Dublin.. Eglinton is ono of Ihii most aciito thinkers and stimulating of writers, and his appreciations oi Yeiils, Synge, and other wellknown Irish poets aro by no means indiscriminating. The samo publishers anhouncb a volume of poems by Seumas O'Sullivan-'dolicate fantasies of Georgian Dublin," and a book of "Connacht Stories," entitled "Waysidcrs" by the same clever young writer. . By the wnv, a friend who is specially interested in latter-day Irish literature, wiirmly commends a book entitled "A Miinstor Twilight," by Daniel Corkery. At a sale of autographs held at Sotheby's early in February over two hundred letters written by Dr. Johnson to Mrs. Thrale (afterwards Mrs. Piozzi) were disposed of at good prices. Tho pathetic letter in whioh Johnson upbraided the widow Thrale for marrying Pio>.zi, whom ho regarded as a worthless Italian ad ; venturer, broiight £$t. A letter of 12£ pages quarto, dated "Skie, Sept. 21,1773," arid describing the writer's wanderings in the Hebrides with Boswell realised «£7G. John Milton's signature as witness to an indenture on vellum of the postnuptial settlement of his sister Anne brought JBSS. Sumo Thackeray letters realised big prices. In ono Of these, dated 1850, Thackeray wrote to William Ritchie (who afterwards married Anno Thackeray): "I am coining money .at. present at tho rate of half ah (Indian) Advocate-General, say, .£SOO or £000 a month. I get .£6OOO for my next book. Cock-a-doodle-do! The family is looking up, isn't it?" This letter cost its purchaser ",£25. ~ Professor Dowden's copy, ono of tho only two or three known, of Shelley s "Refutation of Deism," 1814, was among the duplicates recently sent by Mr. H. h. Huntingdon to auction in New York. It realised 3150 dollars (MM), an astonishing price even for a very rare Shelley pamphlet. The only other copy to-in pear in the auction room was one which realised JC33 at Sotheby's in May, 1892. In his "Life of Shelley" Dowden tells us that ho picked up his copy in Dublin "on a moving hand-cart of books, it is additionally interesting from the fact that it has the namo of "Maty lettered on the side. From this Dowden concluded that it was Shelley's gift to Mary Godwin. (<TT Mr B. ■¥■ Benson's latest story. Up and Down," is a war novel, written in the autobiographical form of a diai-y. Hutchinson's, who pnblish the book, also announce a new book by Mr. J(, «. I Campbell, in which ho continues the advoXes of our old friend Spud Tan - son, by this time Sergeant Spud lamson vfc. A war book of a very, differKind is 'The Third Year m ho Littlo House," bv Agnes and hgerton Sstle, unifonu with hbeir "Littlo House in War Time." SOME RECENT FICTION ; _- | "The Treo of Heaven." So far Miss May Sinclair's latest story '"111,0 Tree of Heavou" (Uassell and to., per Whitcombe and Tomte) niitst I» u«l- ( judged flio best novel of the English spring publishing Season. Any HUS ») tho author of "The Divine tfiw u d "Tho Creators" is always worth lt.iuing, but in "The Tree of Heaven Miss Sinclair touches high-water mark. As n, description of pre-war England and English social life—tho life of the upper middlo class-it ranks, in my mind, almost level with tho much-discussed Mr. Dritling Sees It Through." There may not bo in Mis., Sinclair's style that pinvocativenesa, that almost ovor-acuto sensing of tho spirit of a period, those brilliant verbal etchings ol men, and women which make some ol Mr. Wells's books and somo of their characters remain indelibly fixed m tho reader's memory. Miss Sinclair s methods are her own. Sho elaborates more than docs Mr. Wells. She loaves less to t,ho imagination. But her detail is never tedious, nor is it ever negligible. It may seem to be so at times when a reader wants to "got on with the story ; but when the end is reached ono sees that oyAor eowniogly unimportant (.touch is a.-

necessary component of tho wholo rich mosaic. "'Tlio Urco of Heaven" is tliu story of a family of well-to-do London suburbanites. When it begins Anthony Harrison, the husband, is thirty-five; his wife, Frances, a little younger. Tho wife is tho more intellectual of the two. She has almost a romantic temperament, is a. day-dreamer, ami a wholly delightful woman. The Harrisons have lour very charming children—three boys, Nicky, Michael, and John, mid one daugnter, Dorothy. The Harrisons are not commonplace people by any means, butwhen the story begins they are steeped in a deep satisfaction with life, begotten of a good income, happy domestic relations, and tlio peaceful quietude of life generally of tho luter Victorian poriod to which the parents belonged. They read "Tho Times" Hid kept themselves fairly well informed as to what is happening. "Not (as Miss Sinchir says) thai anything did happen, except strikes; and even then, no sooner did the features of tlio strike begin to feet dramatic than they wero instantly submerged in the flood of conversation that was let loose over them. • • . Iter (Frances's) imagination refused to picture nny end to this state ot thing's, 'fhero would just be more speeches and niore strikes, and still more speeches, going on for ever and ever at home; 'while foreign affairs and tlio Kritish Empire went on for ever and ever, too, with no connection between tho two. lines of sequence, and no likeness except that both somehow went oh and on. Gradually, as the children grow up, the wife's outlook broadens. She dislikes changes, and new ideas, or rather, I should say, distrusts them, especially where the children are affected. But she has to face them, nevertheless. Nicky, the brilliant eldest boy, goes to Oxford, disappoints his parents troni n worldly point of view, and finally marries an absolutely unmoral woman and has to divorce her. Dorothy plunges into the Suffragist movement. Michael, who becomes a Futurist poet, is a distressingly wayward youth, w.ith an' over-developed ego which makes him view the world from a persistently combativo and jaundiced outlook. And then tho war conies; and the poor mother, like so ninny thousand others, is fairly "snowed under," first by anxiety, later by poignant grief. Nicky goes to the front, ''makes good," and is killed. Michael, always a wilful individualist, talks of art and literature and thoir pre-eminent importance to everything else, even to tho tragedy of Europe, but he, too, at last enlists. And he, too, alas, makes the final sacrifice. Nothing in this fine book is finer than the description of Michael's mental exaltation when once the real verities of life—and death—aro revealed to him on tho muddy fields of Flanders. Jolni, to whom his mother's heart goes out so lovingly, is left. But, as the story closes, John also goes. I wish I could give'my readors nn idea of the exquisite wav in which MTss Sinclair describes the' developments of ivhat I would call the soul relationship between tho Harrison children and their parents. That relationship, is over changing. As the children cease to be children and attain adolescence, there is a change. When full manhood is reached there is yet andthor variation. When they marry or form attachments there iB often more than a mere modification; there is something akin to a positivo revolution in the relationship. And as the children change, so the parents must ohango with • them. For the awful thing aboui your children was that they wero always dying. Tea, dying. Tho baby Nicky was dead. The chi/d Dorothy was dead and in her place was a strango bi? girl. Tho child Michael was dead and in his place was a strango big boy. A>id Frances mourned over tho passing of each ago. You could no moro bring back that unique loveliness of two years old, of five years old, .of soven, than you could bring back tho dead. . . . Sho did not yet know that the mother of babies and tho mother of boys and girls must die if the mother of men and women is to lie horn. But the time camo when poor Frances had to realise the fact, and nothing in tlio' book is more beautiful than tho story of how that new comprehension works out. Tho book is rich in minor portraits—tho wife's wastrel brother, and a number' of aunts and other relations, social friends and acquaintances, who all moro or less nffect tho progress of tho family life. Incidentally there Aro bril-1 liant sketches of modern movements in politics—the Suffragist agitation is responsible for somo exceptionally interest, ing studies in ferninino psychology—and in art and literature. . The Trish movement and (ho South African War aro also introduced ns factors in the life history of the family. Always the viewpoint is original and the comment thought-pro-voking. "The Tree of Heaven" deserves to rank with "Mr. Britling" and "Sonia." I am not so sure that it is not tho best story of the three. By all means read it.. Reviews of Jeffrey Farnol's now story, "The Definite Object," and other novels !aro held over,