LITERARY COLUMN.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIV, Issue 66, 14 September 1907, Page 13

LITERARY COLUMN.

«- NEW BOOKS AND NEW EDITIONS. "When Half-Gods Go." By Jessie Ainsworth Davis. London : AVilliam Blackwood and Co. Miss Davis's novel of fivo hundred and seventy-five pages recalls a period when a diligent novel -reador could read the whole year's fiction — when new books were few, authors more leisurely when "skipping" was unknown, and readers wcro usually ro-rcaders also. There is the same slow development as in the novels of a bygone day, the same fancy for resting by the wayside or wanderingk into byways; the same lovo of quiet meditation, the same temptation to bo didactic. The change in the generaj'-run of fiction which has taken place in less than a century is comparable to that of the old pedestrian or equestrian journeys with the furious speed of the modern motor. But as tliei'o are still a few who prefer the staff and knapsacks, and they have their reward j so there are those, and their judgment Is not to be despised, who lovo the spacious methods of an earlier day, more especially when, as in this case, tho atmosphere and surroundings are modern. Our author takes her [ motto from Emerson : — "Heartily know : When half-gods go, the gods arrive," and she tells tho life-story of a Highland girl, one Janet Douglas. Many characters come into tho story j all are well denned, and to none would an outline do justice. At first sight, some might find fault with the extraordinary imprudence with which the heroine, a girl of sixteen, rashly places herself in a position by which, had the circumstances become known, her reputation would have been hopelessly compromised in the judgment of the world. Sha was only sixteen, but had showed so much maturity of judgment that, in the face of the fact that she had wise friends whoso counsel was available, her indiscretion seems almost incredible. But if men and women were always consistent — if the wise were always wise and tho foolish invariably foolish — tho world would bo very different, and there would be little scope for the novelist. It is moro difficult to realiso that tho girl should have allowe.d many yeais of afterlife to be shadowed as if tho act of impulsive folly wan a crime — oven when sho knew that it would ever remain a seeiet unless revealed by herself. Still, as a psychological study, Mary is deeply interesting, and her morbid conscientiousness is a quality characteristic of people with strong affections and an imperfect grasp of rootprinciples. Her first lover, the "halfgod," who holds the secret, dies; and even then sho allows the old memory to keep her long apart afrom one whom she knows is worthy. Dr. Paget., her guardian, is a line figure, and so is Mary's faithful old Scottish nurse. Tho character of the heroine's father, narrow, selfish, intolerant, who had made the round of the creeds, with each change becoming more certain that ho alone had the true light, is strongly and consistently elaborated. The story is full of keen observation and quotable sayings. Thus, says Dr. Paget :— "A fault once committed is done with, and regrets are wasted upon it. Its only ethical value lies in a reminder of a, weak point in tho armour which must bs guarded in future ; also it should teach us charity. It can only do us real harm if it paralyses future effort by .1 too acute sense of unworlhiness." And again : "Kespcct is not tho tribute we yield to perfection ; but the feeling that is called out by the struggles of a brave soul tp do tho right." Says Willoughby, another of the leading figures : "The friend wo prize most is tha one who is most resolutely blind to the weakness of our nature, and who calls out all that is best in us by refusing to sse anything but the best." Hero is a reduction of tho author — familiar, but well put : "Life, of which wo mean to make so much, out of which wo make so little — life, of which tho lessons must be learnt afresh by every soul that enters upon it, for whom no hard-won exporienco of another will ever suffice : in which mistakes if inexpensive are punished as seriously — often more seriously — than any sins." • Sometimes, even in moments of intimate confidence, the characters speak as if they were on the platform. It is hard to realise that Willoughby in the first rapturo of the knowledge that his affection is returned, should make an oration of twentythree lines, one halt of -which consists of a sentence in which he says, inter alia, "that enthusiasm has burnt itself down to thn level of indifference ; that strenuous endeavour to force personality upon environment has gradually subsided into a policy of easy acceptance or avoidance." It is too suggestive of Sydney Smith's anecdote of the Scottish couple "sitting out a danee — as ho passed ho overheard the young lady remark : "That may apply vara weel to luve in the aibstract." Perhaps little too diffuso for so hasty an age, Miss Davis's book is nevertheless a strong one, and a good one — a book for readers, not "sltippsrs.'' Tho Native Companion (Melbourne) for August begins its second volume It opens with # an impressionist sketch of Venico by Randolph Bedford, and a short story by Louis Eissou, "The End of the Pilgrimage," the central feature of which is a little reminiscent of "The Light that Failed." Mr. E. J. Brady, tho Australian minstrel of tho sea, has a swinging "Homing Chantey," and Edward Dyson has a story of a church, a wig, somo small boys, and a fish hook, in the American stylo of humour — tho outcome being that the hair of an elderly man "turned coal-black in a singlo night." "The King's Caravan," by E. J. Brady, of which the oponing instalment is promising, is tho account of a wagon tour far into tho unknown north ana west of Australia, "away from tho geography and the guide book," on which tho writer started in 1899. "An Office Deielict," by Bumncr Locke, is a bright littlo Gkctch. There is much good matter in the magazine ; some also that is not at all good. Suss's decorations just miss being artistic They lack soul, and therefore do not rise above tho level I of tho "symbolic"' illustration to a pill advertisement. Bernard O'Dowd liau the narrowest rango of any Australian versifier. Ho scolds on a jarring jew'sharp of one string, and eonUibutes an utrubiliuus sonnet. From the Department of Mines wo have received a copy of its third Bullotin of the Geological Survey, "The Geology of tho I'araparu. Subdivision, Karartiea, Nelson," by James Mackintosh Bell, Dncctor, assisted by Ernest. J. H. Webb and Edward De Courcy Clarke. Tho volume comprises 111 pages of letterpress, besidc-8 twenty-six plates of iliustiations from photographs, repror.onting mineral-bearing country, hydraulic sluicing and other mining operations, and suctions of rock Bhowing tho structure enlarged by microphotography, also fourteen maps and three sheets of sections. It is produced in the thorough and careful stylo characteristic of tho department, and the Government Printer has done full justice to tho work. Tho Voting Man's Mairnzino for September keeps up its standard. Wo hope thut the mistake of paging advertisements continuouoly with text M-itl bo concelecl in the next volume «s it sjioils the magazine for binding. The number opens with all illustrated u'.-cuuull of the Uunedin

Sailois' Horn?; Dr. L. Cockayne contiibutos an article on the New Zealand Ti, the "cabbage-tree" or Cordyline— the fhst of a series of articles on common indigenous plants. ('Ti,"' by the way, is often mis-appliej to the "toa-tice" of the settlors, ths nalivo manuka, undci the notion that it is the INIaoTi name of the shrub.) Miss M. 11. M. King, M.A., Invercargill, writes appreciatively of Winston Churchill as a novelist, and the Rev. James Aitkcn contributes an appreciation of "Westward Ho !' Th& cxtiacts from Amciicuu contemporaries aio of little meiit, containing buch phi uses as "iusi'le of six months," and empty talmageous rhetoric : "It takes only a thimbleful of biains and a heart the fiizo of a penult to find fault." The local contributor do better work than this. The writing of "The Moving Mouth," in the Young Man's Magazine, makes a giave, aand, wo think, unwarranted charge against English humorists. Ho says : "Of couran, there is a great deal of difference between English wit and American humour. English wit is almost invariably cruel to everything it touches, whilst American humour mostly consists in a series of playful exaggerations." The charge against English humorists is simply amazing. Every country, of course, has its gutter journalism, the resource of literary redelicts, but the critic we quote can scarcely had had such in mind. American exaggeration does not striko the Briton as funny, b\it as simply foolish. American humour is largely of a primitive typo — all tho popular comic pagers, for instanc?, have to colour their cartoons after the fashion of nursery books. It is al6o irreverent in its flippant treatment of such matters as accident, disease, crime, aiid death* Even tho Puritan "Max AdelSr"' is not free frqm this blemish. Any comparison of English with foreign political cartoons — svon with those of Australia — would be sufficient to refute the calumny that "English wit is almost invariably cruel to Everything it toaohes." English wit, English humour, English satire, are the kindliest and cleanest on earth. "If you care for a pleasant, leisurely book, starred here and there with striking phrases or with those sentences that make you wish to stop and challenge the nutbor — to have it out with, him in friendly discunsion and get to the bottom of his thoughts — you will oiljoy 'The Unknown Isle," " says the writer of tho clover and interesting London Letter in the African Monthly. • The Unknown Islo is, of bourse, England, and Madame Pkrro de Coulcvain is the author. "The writer describes tho lifo of the upper and upper-middle classes in Wimbledon villas and Tudor manor houses, Avith abundance of picturagque detail, soms humour, and a great deal of sympathy. Sho takes ths English character on its best side, but her judgment*, are often shrewd and pointed as well as benevolent. She is struck by tho 'strength, patience, apd kindn-sss of tho English lower classes,' and not less by ths loyalty which sees in tho Sovereign the emblem, of national honour and unity. "The only country," sho writes, "vi which it is good to bo a queen or a dog is England, and in saving this I mean to pay tribute to its joyality and its humanity." The point of the title is, of course, in tho fact that French people, gcneially speaking, have fefoe most preposterous ideas about the English and their ways. It seems to be laigoly taken for granted by our neighbours that we are- an immoral as well as a hypocritical race. j