LITERARY COLUMN.

Evening Post, Volume LXX, Issue 37, 12 August 1905, Page 11

LITERARY COLUMN.

NEW BOOKS AND NEW EDITIONS " Saints and Savages : Tho Story oi Five Years in the, New Hebrides." By Robert, Lamb, M.A. With illustrations by Julian R. Ashton. London: William Blackwood and Sons. On many grounds this handsome volume will appeal to New Zaalanders. This colony has always been intimately associated -with tho New Hebrides mission, and 'the distinguished author is a native of the colony. His intention, he tells us, is " to give a glimpse of tho ilieathen 'a_ they were ' ueon by the writer, ... to underhand in a measure" how they lived and what they lived for, ... of the forces, good and bad, now at work, which are fast sweeping away every vestige- of what once was." "The oook," ho explains, "is the oatcame of an effort, during a period of illness, to weave as simply as possible tho "incidents and experience of these five years .into a 'readable story." He has adopted an original -method — one which seems to us to justify itself, " •though it has many disadvantages. He has given what is practically 'his autobiography in the form of a sto-y which is fiction to this extent — that it takes unavoidable liberties with names and localities, yet is trut/h inasmuch as his enables the author to convey important and i rital facts that, for personal reasons, could not otherwise have been hero recorded. "In 'the field of anthropology," "he says, " nothing has been attempted, beyond * little prospecting," and the student of Tace problems —language, ancestry, mythology — will find little to help him. The same remark applies to Mr. Julian's pictures of natives, which are 'too sketchy and " impressionist. " 'to be of value. Dr. Lamb is gifted with strong practical commonsense, and seems to have been in much closer sympathy with the native people and more tolerant of their " heathen. " "ways than 'fcha average missionary, but the evangelist, of all men) is always the least likely to penetrate the mysteries of such religion as uncivilised !olk possess. In his work among them tha teacher is always at a like disadvantage witn George Primrose, who 6aw a iprospectivo fortune in teaching English to the children of Holland, forgetting that a knowledge of ths Dutch language was an important preliminary. The native belief seems -to be a form of spiritism, and thsre afe images and figures, generally of stone, supposed to possess supernatural powers, which are used for divination. One of these— *a most extraordinary phallic emblem — is figured. It is not of any mineral native to the island, and is extremely ancient. The dim ideas of the future life held by the natives resemble those of tho old mythologies. The dead are pale, bloodless, and joyless, and are sometimes seen as ghosts ; there is a " bad place " for tho wicked, who live on offal and aTe tormented by fiends ; "in the gardens of the blessed there are gardens and plenty of good food, and a chief is a chief still, and <the souls dance and feast and sing together. But no man wants to die, for the life is dim and sTiadowy." Those dying in infancy "go to the pleasantest place of all, where flowers abound, and red-leaved shrubs and scented plants and scarlet -blooms, and the vi'laga is bright." The records of mission life and work, of ■native character, of the- vicissitudes of island life, are intensely interesting, and there is a thrilling account of the terrible volcanic eruption at Ambrym. '"An Island Love Story." By George Griffith. - London :G. Bell and Sons. The author of "A Honeymoon in Space" has descended from the aerial regions, to the Pacific Ocean, and we have here a stirring romance of the early sixties, the scenes being laid chiefly on board the Austral, a "black-birder" and at Burgwyn Island, where the worst kind of slavery prevailed, and where the local ruffians plotted the assassination of the "inconvenient missionary" who had contrived to

be shipwrecked on the reef, finding no other way of penetrating the mysteries of its iniquity. There are two lovestories in tho novel, but the heroine, Yooniy, is freely idealised. That a European girl could grow from childhood to womanhood retaining all tho refinement and culture of civilised life, with no aid save from her father's books, and no associates save uncivilised Polynesians, is not in accord with experience. But on the subject of sea and island life in general the author seems quite at home, and his account of a South Sea cyclone is an exceptionally fine piece of descriptive writing. "Yvette, and Other Stories.", By Guy de Maupassant. London : Duckworth and Co. From the preface, by Mr. Joseph Conrad, we infer that these stories are posthumous works of the celebrated French novelist, and that they now appear for the fir&t time in English. Unrivalled as Maupassant was in some respects as a storyteller, he laid himself open to the charge to which so many of his fellowauthors and dramatists are susceptible — that deeming the seamy side of life to be the special field of art, they," in effect, libel their nation. There are ten stories in this volume, and the first, "Yvette" is nearly as long as the other nine. The characters are chiefly social butterflies, superfine in dress and demeanour, shallow, unprincipled, and corrupt. The principal character is unreal — evolved, apparently, like tho German scientist's camel, from the author's "inner consciousness," and the story, as a whole, is scarcely adapted to the "young person." Cieveras the other- slight sketches are, they are as a rule painfully sordid. For instance, a fisher-boat 'is at sea. The j brother of the master accidentally fouls his arm in one. of tho ropes of tho heavy | trawling-net, nnd it cannot be released. A sailor raises his knife to cut the rope, but tho master will not allow him to do it, as the net would be lost, and the arm is crushed to a jelly, and is roughly amputated. It is an old notion in France that Englishmen sell their wives, and, in fact, have a wife-market in Smithfield. The most humorous sketch in the volume, however, has reference ' to such a transaction in a French village.' The pig-deal-er bargains to sell hie wife to the innkeeper at the rate of £80 the cubic metre. To fix the value they hit upon the Archimedean method. The good lady, unaware of the bargain, was instructed to fill a butt with water, and when she found herself unexpectedly immersed, naturally inferred \kab the two men intended to drown her. Making her escape, she fled to the priest and. made coinjrtiint, while they were measuring the "displacement," with the result that they found themselves charged with atI tempted murder. "Miss Harriet" is intended to be affecting, but the sentiment throughout is forced and artificial. The i lady is an elderly English spinster, ' such aa we are informed abound in Continental hotels. She belongs to a quite familiar species — the gaunt form, the wide and shapeless hat, the open lips, the enormous front teeth — they have all been gradually evolved by the Anglophobe artists of Charivari, but are as fabulous as tho chimera. "When she came back to the farm after hours of walking along the coast, battling with the wind, her long corkscrew ringlets were often out of curl, and hung as if their springs had been broken." "Swathed in her plaid shawl, with an inspired look, antl •with teeth bared to the wind, the Englishwoman gazed at the great sun," etc. The little story closes with tragedy, but is too unreal and unconvincing to move the reader. ■Methuen's -Standard Library. Edited by Sidney Lee. In sixpenny volumes. London : Methuen and Co. There is no more encouraging sign of the times' than tho multipli'-ation of cheap and neatly-printed editions of the world's great, classics. Nearly every prominent publisher is now issuing such a series, and .the leading houses vie with each other in producing the maximum accuracy of text and beauty of form compatible "with the published price It is not conceivable that capital would be

so freely invested in these series if they did not meet a public demand, nor is it likely that books no intrinsically valuable and attractive in form are purchased only for 6how. In the prospectus of the present series, 'Messrs. Methuen stato that the needs of students, as well as of ordinary readers, have been borne in mind, and that soundness of text | has been tho first consideration, and completeness has been also attained where possible. Ths comparatively small size of the volumes nllowa oE subdivision, so that an author's masterpiece may in many cases be obtained separately from his other works. In the casa of Milton, for instance, the first volume contains " Paradise Lost," and the second " Paradise Regained" and the miscellaneous poems. | Shakespeare's -works are to occupy ten j volumes, of which tho first has been issued; Gibbon's great work will occupy seven volumes. The size is crown octavo, the number of pages vary from ono hundred to three hundred ; and tho edition in stout papeT is published at sixpence net, in cloth, at one shilling. Works such as " Tom Jones," occupying two volumes, .may be had in double volumes, if desired, in either 6tyle; and Shakespeare is to be issued in five double as well as ten single volumes. Tho books sent to us, including the "Pilgrim's Progress" and the first volumes of Shakespeare, Bacon, (Milton, and Goldsmith, illustrate both styles, and quite bear out the publishers' recommendations of the series. Among other authors represented are Plato, MaTCUs Aurelius, Marlowe, Ben Jonson, Sir Thomas Browne, Fielding, Burke, Bishop Butler, Locke, Keats, Chatterton, and Jane Austen. "The Balance of Trade." By H. W. Segar, Professor of Mathematics, University College, Auckland. (Re- ! printed from the Transactions of the j New Zealand Institute, vol. xxxvii., 1904.) In this paper, read last year before the Auckland Institute, tho author deals with certain persistent fallacies regarding the "balance of trade," including the delusion that the excess of imports over exports is represented by an equivalent withdrawal of gold. As a matter of fact, there is no discoverable ratio between the two items. During 18841902, he points out, the annual excess of imports of merchandise into the United Kingdom averaged £180,000,000, but, her excess of export of gold never reached £5,500,000. Instead of the misleading phrases, "favourable" and "unfavourable" balance of trade, he uses the terms "positive" and "negative" ; either of which may, according to circumstances, be favourable or the reverse. Regarding our own colony, he says : — "Were it not for the continued borrowing, the excess of exports would supply much food for reflection. During the period of sixteen years, 1887-1902, New Zealanders have produced an excess of exports of £33,000,000. This represents fairly what they have produced, but not enjoyed. The sum amounts to about £50 per head of the average population for the period. During the same period the public debt of the colony has increased by £20,000,000.- Thus, the result of the New Zealanders denying themselves the use of thirty-three million pounds' worth of the produce of their industry during sixteen years has been merely to prevent the colony getting into debt by more than £20,000,000. It 'follows that during this period the amount due annually to residents abroad, chiefly for interest on loans and profits on investments, has averaged about £3,300,000,' or over £3 a head of average population, and £15 per family. This is the result of what has been, I believe, in the main, a perfectly sound policy." The paper is illustrated with diagrams.