BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 125, 19 February 1921, Page 11

BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

(By

Liber.)

Give a man a pipe he can smoke, Give a man a book he can read; And his home is bright with a calm delight Though the room be poor indeed. —James Thomson.

BOOKS OB THE DAY THE EGYPTIAN AND PALESTINE CAMPAIGNS. “Sir Archibald Murray’s Dispatches.” An important contribution to the history of the Egyptian and Palestine cam- ■ paigns is to hand in "Sir Archibald Murray’s Dispatches” (J. Al. Dent and Co.; per Whitcomb© and Tombs). The dispatches do far more than convey an ade. quote idea of the splendidly useful "spade work” which was done by Murray. They throw much new light upon events which hitherto, owing to the censorship, have been shrouded by a veil of mystery or have been grossly misrepresented and misconstrued. Amongst the dispatches now published are many which are given publicity for the first time, being distinguished by blue ink • marginal markings. They establish the fact that from the very outset the. War Office woefullv underestimated the obstacles and difficulties which the Egyptian Expeditionary Force had to encounter. When he arrived in Cairo. Murray was confronted by a state of military and official affairs generally which was almost chaotic. He was called upon to defend the canal and to build up rhe force to which, later on, was allotted “ie task of ciriving the Turk not only out of file Egyptian desert, but out of Palestine. Murray lost no time in- clearing up thf* tangle. Tn his first dispatch we find him writing: It was not. until the end of February (1915) that the last units of the Dardanelles Army reached Egypt. Every da.y for over tnx weeks shiploads of puna, animals and transport, were arriving at Alexandria, and Port Said. The components of this mass had to be disentangled and forwarded to their nron°r destinations; old units hod to li" rerreanieod. new units to bo created, brigades, divisions, army corps to be re-formed. Units were incomplete in every respech—none .nad any transport, training was very backward. Yet. before May. 31. t, mass of fully-equip-ped'troops w as sent to other theatres. . . . The dispatches now published give for t!he first time full details of the fighting in the desert, the struggle round Katia, and the advance, after the victory at Romani, upon Gaza. It is here shown why the Turks were able to slip away from El Arish, and how perilously approaching failure were some of the cavalry engagements which followed. There is also much useful information as tio the campaign on the Western Egyptian frontier, where the fanatical Senussi gave the British commanders so much cause for serious concern. Tn the fourth dispatch is given a description of the two battles of Gaza. Sir Archibald now prints in full a very important dispatch in which he emphasises his previously and frequently-made demand for more divisions before an invaslbn of Palestine could be undertaken with any reasonable chance of success. The War Office reply is here published, making it! clear that in London purely political considerations were allowed to outwe:gn military requirements as laid down by the expert on the fighting ground. Both the dispatch and the reply have long been the, subject of rumour and gossip amongst ".those who were cognisant of the "inside track” history of the Palestine campaign, but they are now for the first time made available. Their publication, in all fairness to a commander who was blamed for a lack of success which ’he himself had foreseen and actually predicted, must greatly modify and alter more than one judgment on the campaign generally and in particular Sir Archibald Murray’s personal share therein. With the disnatches are issued, in a separate poriifolio, a ■ number of excellent maps of Egypt and Palestine, the results of the .fine tonogranhieal survey and aerial photogwrnby carried out hv the Egyptian Survey Department and the military cartographers References to the "dash and gallantry disnlayed by Iho New Zealanders who took part in t'he campaign are numerous. The main volume contains valuable sketch maps showing the positions of fihe British troops at the Battle of Romani, and there are several excellent photogravure portraits. No New Zealand public library should be without a copy of Sir Archibald Murray’s dispatches. (Price, 405.) "Allenby’s Final Triumph.”

Tn a volume entitled "Allenby’s Finnl Triumph” fCnnriahle and Co.: ner Australasian Publiriiin" Co. and Whitcmnbe and Tombs). Mr. W. T. Massey, official correspondent of the Tjondon with the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, concludes the story of the Egyptian and Palestine campaigns which he had previously deal*’ with in part in his boohs "The Desert Campaigns” and "Dow Jerusalem Was Won.” The special feature of tlm final and triumphant campaign in Palestine, here described so ably and dispassionately, was the employment of large bodies of cavalry. Mr. Massey is, however, careful to remind his readers that the success achieved by the cavalry was in part at least, due to the skilful employment of infantry, artillery, and the. Air Force. Throughout the'campaign, the various forces were kept in well devised a.nd most effective co-operation, the importance of tlm work done by the quartermaster-general’s department in keeping up regular supplies to an army which had to make rapid movements over desert and rocky country from which very small local supplies were obtainable being rightly emphasised by the author. Mr. Maeser is insistent upon the importance of the airmen’s part in the campaign. The roads were so bad and the forward positions were so rapidly changed that road transport of the petrol reoutred was often quite impossible. Petrol and oil were carried in spare aeroplanes for upwards of one hundred miles, and aeroplanes even took forward the supplies needed by the farriers. The friendly Arabs wore most enthusiastic over the "war birds.” Says Mr. Massey:—

When the Arabs at work near Deraa wr.ro n-otttnff agitated over enemy bomb?ne and two of our fighting planes went over to aton the trouble our HandleyPage travelling as a sort of lorrv bus. carried pilot, observers, two mechanics. 216 gallons of petrol, some 201 b. bombs, and other stores. Its arrival aroused extraordinary interest among the Arabs, who, pnpfntr mnu. after nwn all_nt from if, end the of rts large car of petrol and bomba, ran their hands over every part of the machine they could touch, exclaiming in high glee; "Now wo have see” the biggest war-bird in the world." The Arabs like to .touch everything that, is now to them. They will feel the buttons, wa.r-ribbons. and badges of rank on an officer’s uniform, though they uridom betray their surprise at anything. Sometimes, however, they cannot concent their n stontshment. When one or onr ’nlanes landed in Arabia, the Arabs crowded round it to satisfy themselves, by touching every part, that their eyes did not deceive them. Their usual stolid demeanour was maintained until the pilot took from the machine a, packet of sandwiches. when they cried in amazement. "Look, it eatsl" Mr. Massey traces tho final campaign through each stage and describes tho wrecking of ths Turkish forces, when, harassed continually by tho deadly bombing of the airmen, deprived of recourse to their rear supplies, and enmeshed in

the trap into which they had been driven by the cavalry, they practically ceased f to exist as an effective army. Mr. Masnay's account of the splendid achievements of Allenby’s army Includes, ns was to bo expected, many warm encomiums upon the unfailing energy, gallan-

'try, and patience of the Anzacs, and New Zealanders will read his account of the part their sons played in the campaign with justifiable pride. The author pays a special tribute to tfio ability as a commander of •General Chaytor. Ono of the most interesting chapters is that in which the author describes the occupation of Damascus, his account of how the keen traders of the bazaars did a big deal in the English «£5 note, (he value of which the Germans had done their worst to depreciate, being very amusing. Turkish paper collapsed to 15 per cent., and was ndh readily accepted at that. Says Mr. Massey: There were thouiands of pounds of it lying about in the A.bana gorare, where the Australians had wrecked r- ♦yain. ana the Australians had such, pro all reparci for it that a trooper who had left a ragged girl holding his horse outside an hotel while he tried to uurehase a loat of bread from the proprietor, gave her a Turkish £ICO note as a gift. Somebody asked him if he know what ho was doing, and he replied: “Oh. vw. It may do the kid rr ood. Arvwn.y I don’t wart it. I picked up a bucketful.” The child ran away tn spread the report that our Army was full of millionaires, and the traders certainly put an exorbitant price on any* thing a soldier wanted to purchase. The book contains a large number of interesting illustrations from photographs, and included in the appendices is a useful list of each and every unit of the forces employed in Ithe last phases of the campaign. The three books ■written by Mr. Massey constitute a most interesting and valuable - record of the Egyptian and Palestine campaigns, and should find a place in every library where attention is paid io the history of the Great War. LIBER’S NOTE BOOK Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson. When in Samoa a few months ago "Liber” met more than one person who had known the late Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson, and had much to say that was interesting to a Stevensonian concerning that somewhat eccentric, but, by all accounts, very fascinating personality. Those who would learn more about Mrs. Stevenson than is recorded in the novelist’s delightful "Letters,” the four volumes of which, in the latest edition, constitute a rich feast of information on Stevenson and his household at Vailima and elsewhere, are advised to spend ton shillings upon the recently-published "Life” of that lady by her sister. Fanny Van d© Grift Sanchez, which I have just added to the modest collection of Stevensoniana on my shelves. Stevenson was very happy in a marriage which his -parents at first regarded with no great-fav--our. Ten years before he died he wrote: "My marriage has been the most successful in the world,” and a success it remained right up to the last, as all will agree who have read the letters written from Vailima to Sir Sidney Colvin and other English correspondents of the exile. The lady was ten years his senior. She had made her first-marriage at seventeen, and it had been a ghastly failure. Stevenson met her first at the little village of Grez, near Barbizon, where tea then budding novelist had gone to stay with his cousin Bob, the artist. Mrs. Sanchez tells us that he afterwards admitted “that he had fallen in love with his wife at first sight, when ho saw her in the lamplight through an open window I” Three years later -he married her at Monterey, in California. He was then an invalid, and very poor; how poor, readers of the letters written from San Francisco at this period of his life know full well. He told a friend "when she married me I was a mere complication of cough and Irone,” but she nursed her invalid husband back to something like decent health, amidst those Silverado Woods of which he has written so delightfully; and, later on, Stevenson "pere,” having made his son a substantial yearly allowance, and the novelist having concluded a profitable contract with his American publishers for a series of letters on the South Seas, they sailed away on the Casco for those "happy isles of Eden,” ’midst which they were to roam for some time, and from which the husband was doomed never to return to his much beloved native land. Mrs. Sanchez relates in her book a enrious and pathetic episode in Mrs. Stevenson'e life:

While they were in San Francisco Mrs. Stevenson had a strange and dramatic meeting with Samuel Osbourne’s , second wife, a ciuiet. gentle little woman whom he married soon after his divorce from Fanny van de Grift. Within a. year or two after the marrta.ge. Osbourne mysteriously disappeared, never to be heard of again, and his wife draggod cut :> pitiful existence at their vineyard at Glen Ellon, in fiOnoma County, honing against hope for his return. Finally her faith tailed and when she met Mrs. Stevenson in San Francisco she fell on her knees before her ano burst into bitter weeping, savin?: “You were right about that man and I was wrong!” She was then taken in to .see Louis, and the t;vo women sat hand tn hand by his bedside and talked of the trouble that had darkened both their lives. Both Mr. and Mrs. Stevenson, Self, greal compassion for the unhappy woman and did what they could to relieve her financial needs. I must not occupy much further space with regard to this’ book, which all who have a. set of Stevenson’s works, especially tho "Letters,” on their shelves, should not fail to acquire. I must find room, however, for the inscription on the memorial tablet to the wife on the novelist’s tomb at Mount Vaea. It runs as follows:— Teacher, tender comrade, wife, A fellow-farer true througn life. Heart whole and soul free, The august Father gave to me. Mrs. Stevenson survived her husband for over twenty years, passing away, at her home of later life, at Santa Barbara, in February, 1914. Her cremated remains weire taken to Samoa by her daughter, Mrs. Isobel Field, formerly Mrs. Strong, in the spring of the following year, the casket being cemented into one end of the novelist’s tomb, Under the wide and starry sky. where it hart been liis wish to be laid. The Late Olive Schreiner. .Tn a recent issue of the "Manchester Guardian” some interesting particulars are given of the earlier career of the late Olive Schreiner, to whom, and to whose famous book, “The Story of a South African Farm,” allusion was made in "Liber’s Note Book” a week or two ago. It. appears that Olive Schreiner was born ip Basutoland in 18G2, her father being a German Lutheran missionary, and her' mother an Englishwoman. Her famous book was written at an early age, the opening chapter being' written when the author was only fourteen. It is said that her father stood, in part at least, for the German, but that Miss Schreiner always denied that there was anything of herself in that strange but pathetically beautiful character, tbe girl Lyndall. When Miss Schreiner took her mnnuscript to London she had great difficulty in inducing a publisher to accept it. Eventually it fell into the hands of George Meredith, then acting ns reader for Chapman and Hall. Meredith induced the author to make extensive alterations in the ptory, which was published by his. principals, and nt once caused gre.it dismission in English literary circles. Miss Schreiner was a remarkably gifted woman, and her marriage to a South African farmer, Mr. Cronwright. was a great surprise Io her friends. The marriage was a. very happy one, but the couple had the sad experi- ;

onco of losing 'their one child, who died shortly after its birth.

Stray Leaves. English reviews of Max Beerbohm’s latest, book "And Even Now” are extremely laudatory. It is a wonder no publisher has given us reprints of those earlier books of "the incomparable Max,” "Works,” "More,” and "Yet Again.” Perhaps the cleverest thing Mr. Beerbohm did was his volume of Christmas stories supposed to be written by popular writers. There were some screamingly funny parodies in that book. "A Christmas Garland” is the title. A son of the Hight lion. Augustine Birrell is a member of a newly established firm of second-hand, or, as they are called nowadays, -antiquarian,^booksellers.. If heredity counts for anything, he should be a fffirewd judge of rare books, for his mother was a daughter of the late Frederick Locker Lamnson, who owned the famous Rowfant Library, and as for his father’s bookishness arc there not t'h© delightful essays on "Obiter Dicta,” and "At the Sign of the Bodleian” (o bear witness? In his recently published "Memoirs of Life an'd Literature,” W. H. Mullock tells the following story about Bulwer Lytton:

lie (Lytton) was in London; and she (Lytton’s wife, from whom the novelist was later aonarated) having been left .in the country, had written to propose joining him. lie at onoe replied begging her not. to do so. but to lea,ve him a little longer in philosophic solitude. "When 1 heard thatI’—so 1 ’—so she confided to a friend —“I set off for London immediately; and there I found him. with Philosophic Solitude, in white muslin, on his knee.” Sir Philip Gibbs has taken over th© editorship of the "Review of Reviews” (tho English edition). He is said to have enlisfiod the assistance of several writers of eminence, and hopes to make his periodical n power in the land. It is not, it is said, to be conducted "on narrow nnd partisan lines.” "Claudius Clear,” in a recent "British Weekly,” has an article on what M.l’.'s ought to read. He recommends a reading course, which would include the "Letters of Junius,” all Burke, the letters and- biography of Sydney Smith, Lord Maeanlav, John Stuart Mill. Bagehol, Goldwin Smith, Bright’s Sneech.es, and in novels Disraeli’s ‘'Sybil” and Anthony Trollope’s jxilitical stories. English papers describe the recentlypublished ".Viitobiography of the Late Andrew Carnegie” as an exceptionally interesting work. There are many amusin'' stories. One is of a society lady of ° Boston (famous, in the States, for "culture”) who was visiting a friend in Chicago. Asked by a leading citizen one evening what had charmed her most in Chicago, she graciously replied: What surprises me moit Jr 1 . 6 *’ 6 of business, or your remarkable rteielonment materially, or your grand residences. it is the degree of culture and refinement I find here. , The response quickly camo: On, we are jusll dizzy on cult out here, you bet. Some of Ithe new American vers lib.ro is fearful -and wonderful stuff. Here is some of the "new poetry entitled by the poet himself "Sample : Ontiinism is an hygienic beverage From Boston, invented bv Emerson. Vnist and wilful rrocodil*. . J. J. Rousseau muddies the Evian water. • • . I ( 'pur«im O my charming little road to the The above is from "The Dial,” Chicago a- periodical which vised to be of quite ordinary sanity in literary matters. Nowadays l it <?eems to favour the bizaue and impossible. SOME RECENT FICTION "The House by the River.” The central motif in Mr. A. P. Hebert’s "The House by the River (Methuen and Co.) is decidedly gruesome. A young antler, happily married to a charming woman, in easy ■•••orldly ciimninstances, and with a rapidlv rising »eputntmn in the literary world, returns his Thames-side suburoan home after n social evening at a friend s house. In hostess i® famous for her cunnmglycom pounded cocktails, and unfortunately for Stephen Byrne he takes one too manv There is an- exceedingly pretty housemaid in the Byrne menage, and Stephen" carried away by the unwonted stimulant and in a spirit of sheer gaiety rather than of amorousness, tries to kiss her The girl resists and threatens to scream. The horrified poet prevents tho

scream, but, alas, the pressure on poor Emily’s neck was too firm and too prolonged—in one tragic moment a docentliving husband, a model of respectability, a fashionable poet, and a- man with a host of friends, finds himself" a. murderer! Such is the opening scene in what becomes for the unfortunate poet—and a friend who arrives Just as the girl has expired—a long and awful tragedy. T here is yet another tragic death scene befoie we part company with Stephen Byrne, but it would be unfair to tho author to disclose the full plot of. an exceptionally powerful story. Mr. Herbert’s character sketches of the suburban society of which the Byrnes are members are sharply and cleverly drawn, but it is as a psychological study that "The House by the River” is most remarkable. There is something almoet uncanny in the author’s dissection as it were of the murderer’s mental and moral make-up. "The Spider Woman.” Would you sit down to a positively Gargantuan banquet of sensation? jj eo, you are. hereby commended to turn to the pages of Mr. John Goodwin’s novel, "The Spider 'Woman” (Herbert Jenkins, Ltd.). Tho story has many of the characteristics of the old-time “penny awful,” and has been, I should say, written with a primary view to serial publication, tor each chapter seems to contain a new sensation, as is the way of such fiction which is read in weekly instalments. There is a cunning and diabolically wicked adventuress, who combines crystalgazing and hypnotism with robbery and even poisoning. Also, there is an equally vile male ally, a foreigner, who helps the wicked Salome to send to prison, and almost to the hangman’s noose, a cleanminded young Englishman, who ■ scorns her- passionate love. Also, again, there is a charming, but, for a time, most pitifully ill-used young lady, whom the persecuted’ hero fondly loves. In the emi villainy is vanquished ana virtue is triumphant. "The Spider Woman’’ must surely be on the "movies” by this time, for it lias a thrill to almost every page. "Johnny Kelly.” Those who enjoy American humour will find plenty of entertainment in Mr. Wilbur S. Boyer’s "Johnny Kelly" (Houghton, Mifflin Co.; per Australasian Publishing Company and Whitcomb© and Tombs). The hero is the son of a New York policeman. By an accidental disarrangement of school _ districts Johnny finds 'himself in a school which is mainly frequented by the children of the so-called upper classes. Johnny, however, is possessed of great natural shrewdness and insatiable ambition to bo a leader first ot boys and later on of' men. The story ot his escapades, his small iovs and occasional small sorrows makes uncommonly good read’ng. He ends up by becoming Vice-Presklent of tho "New Amsterdam Bovs’ Republic." and winning a muchcoveted nrize •for having sold the great ent number of Liberty Bond.®. This rpdheaded young Trish New Yorker is really a very delightful creation, and it is to bo hoped that the author, who knaws tho "human boy” so well, will give us a sequel in which the inimitable Johnny Kelly may put in a reappearance. . “A Son of Courage.” "A Son of Courage.” by Archie P. M'Koshine (Toronto, Thomas Allen, per Whitcomb© and Tombs), is a story of rural life in'a pioneer settlement on the shores of Lake Erie, the period being that of the early days of the Canadian oil industry. There is a mystery wit’isome strongly dramatic developments, a very charming love story, and many welldrawn character sketches of the roughmannered, but shrewd and kindly-hearted settlers. A pleasantly-told, unpretentious, bu'; none the less wholesome and agreeable story.