NEW PUBLICATIONS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVII, Issue 144, 19 June 1909, Page 13

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

"Felix Stone." By Alice and Claude Askew, authors of "The Shulamite," etc. London : George Bell and Sons. This is the strongest book by these accomplished authors that we have read since "The Slvulamite," the one that usually stands at the head of any enumeration of their works. In the present story the interest gathers to the dramatic situation at the end of the second chapter, where Felix repudiates the wife he has not seen for years, and she vanishes, dazed and brokenhearted, into the fog. Yet he was not naturally cruel. Leaving for America after a boy-and-girl marriage in secret, his letters had been unanswered ; returning with wealth he had sought her vainly, only to find at last, as he supposed, her tombstone, and he had grieved over her for seven years. Now, by the irony of fate, he had just become engaged to a lady of wealth and fashion, and is suddenly confronted by what seems like a spectre from the tomb. So he yields to temptation. Next day he learns that she has been found by the police wandering distracted, having lost her memory. He secretly arranges for her support at an institution, and, conunits bigamy. But he finds ho has' married a loveless one^ — one whose affections, such as they are, have been bestowed elsewhere ; and Dorothy, the real wife, when she recovers her memory, keeps up the appearance of forgetfulness that she may not betray him. The story is carried to its close with consummate art, and Felix pays for his sin the penalty of many years of unhappiness. ' ;ere are no impossible incidents in the narrative, and the interest never flags. Some of the characterstudies are unusually fine — none more so than that of the surgeon, Arthur Westall, whose unlucky fate it is to lovesuccessively the two women Ston<* has married ; and it is his paying court to Dorothy, supposing her to oe single, that precipitates the crisis of the story. Botli men pass through the fire — in each case cleansing fires ; and though there is not the conventional • "happy ending," there is at least the prospect of happiness for the characters in whose iortunes the reader is led to take so genuine an interest. "Sweet Isabel of Narragoon: A Romance." By Lionel Laggir-1. London : Greening and Co. . Limited. (Whitcombe aud Tombs). As a /'romance" this novel is weak, ill-constructed, and sadly lacking in originality. The characters are the stockiest figures of melodrama ; this devices by which the happiness of the lovers is deferred through three hundred pages are all of the most familiar type. We are ashamed of the hero, supposed to bo a gentlfctiaii, -who flies to drink and bad language at the touch of disappointment, and we scon tire of his friend Peter with his strange oaths and his perpetual "Egad!" All the incidents, including the principal character^', own love experiences, are discussed by them at great length, and with a curious lack of reserve; _ even "sweet Isabel'" herself sees nothing indecorous in conversing quite openly with her lover on the subject of certain low vices to which his rival is addicted. The whole colloquy compels the leader to estimate the characters very differently from the author's intention. By the way, we take the writer to be a girl who has had little actual experience of life, and has devoured much sentimental fiction. With all its cardinal faults, conspicuous as they are, the Look "contains work which is remarkably good — altogether disproportionately good for the impossible and commonplace story. The author, incapable of studying life and character, has the eye of an artist for nature, and an i nusual power of creating "atmosphere." Veteran authors, who have drawn the bushman in his hut and the sheepfarmer's family at the homo sta-' tion, with all the reality of life, might envy this new author his (or her) power of recreating the Australian scene—the bush by night and day, the cattle-farm, the axeman's camp. One sees, as in a kinematograph, the hills and wooded gulli&fc, the rocky ravines, the creeks overhung by fronded tree-ferns, and vocal with the notes of birds ; the natives, too, are Irue to life. Only when the characters begin to talk does all the' illusion vanish. The skill in the setting is the more remarkable when we remember that it is not the Australia of to-day, but of the early forties, before tho gold discoveries^' that is represented. And, so far as we can judge, the period is faithfully depicted. Surely the young author has sat at the feet of some veteran, some old grandfather who "knew Melbourne when it was a village," and absorbed his reminiscences of the* brave days of old! If "Lionel" could only study men and womea instead of the puppets of the j'ellowback and the stage, he might yet accomplish a "romance" worthy of the name. "The Green Curve : and Other Stories." By Ole Luk-oie. London :, William Blackwood and Company. Those who fail to recognise the quaint pseudonym of the author, have presumably forgotten the fairy-tales of their childhood, and can borrow their children's copy of Andersen. "The Green Curve" is thus criticised' by an able hand in the Contemporary Review for May :—: — It is a pleasure to welcome a new v riter of individuality and distinction, especially at a time when the short storj seemed to have run its literary course. The author of these military stories, who, for obvious reasons, writes under a pseudonym, strikes a new note, and a true note. That his intense realism owes something to Mr. Kipling and more to the Russian realists is perhaps true, but the debf is one of form. A conscious didactic purpose inspires nearly all of these eleven stories of the stricken field. The underlying motive of them all is the terribleness of war, not its heroism or its nobility or its brutality, but simply its terriblenes3. The author fully realises all that can be said for or against war from those other points of view, and illustrates them amply ; but his theme is'the terribleness of war waged with all the scientific resources of civilisation He misses, perhaps intentionally, that war is less bloody while it is more terrible to-day than in any past era. The slaughter at Cannae has, in percentages, no modern counterpart. Taken as a whole, these stories make the mind revolt — with quite a new kind of revolt — against the horrible fact of war. This impression is the composite effect of a series of pictures that show ub almost every aspect mid every coming aspect of modern warfare. The effect is produced with a skill and a command . of technical detail that we cannot praise too highly. One is glad to close the feoolc, for its coverb contain what we would fain believe to be a horrible dream, but which we know only ton well to be true. But each story has its special didactic purpose. "The Green Curve conveys the old lesson of Browning's "The Statue and the Bust" : And the sfn I impute to each frustrate ghost Is— the unlit lump ar.d the ungirt loin. Though the end in sight was a 'vice, I say. In this story the commander of a besieged city, against his bettei judgment, refused to throw out to the enemy the civilian population, with the result that all was lost. "If you choose to play" the bloody game of war, ifc must be played as Napoleon played it, as -"Old Rule of Three" here played it

in the second part of the brilliant story "The Point of View." These two stories, in fact, supplement each other. In eacb case we see the terrible sufferings that either success or failure in war entaile. To the commander in the field these things must be but incidental things which leave the judgment unaffected. The stories entitled "The Second Degree," "The Kite," and "The Joint in the. Harness" drive home tho fact that this author is never tired of driving horne — the fact that thinking power, mental resourcefulness, and ceaseless watchfulness are all in all in war. In the last resort success in war does not rest upon force, but upon brainpower, supplemented by heroism. "Mole warfare" and "The Joint air the Harness" bring out the heroic side of war with touches that have something Homeric in them. "The Limit" is a sketch that brings before us in quite a new way the reaction that actual war creates in the mind of volunteer-civi-lians, and shows us the sordid side of battle in a fa&hion that sets the heart aching. The future will doubtless give us more work from this writer's pen. One may, therefore, anticipate that he will develop in certain directions. He is still rather hampered with detail, and his style will no doubt become crisper md less familiar and colloquial in pas-, sages that have nothing to do with colloquy. But there is no doubt that we have here a new writer with a new message. It is interesting to watch the didactic in art coming back to its own again afer long years of foolish misconceptions about art for art's sake. "Offerings." 'By John Christie. Dunedin: Otago Daily Times and Witness Company, 'Limited. ■Mr. Christie's poetic effusions have long been familiar to readers of the Otago Witness, and the selection he has now put forth in book form will, we think, be welcomed. The author has a worthy place among our minor poets ; he is free from those defects of rxme and rhythm which effectually exclude from consideration co much casual verso not without poetic feeling; his touch is light and graceful, and his note sincere. We prefer the shorter and more casual pieces, where the spontaneity is the principal charm. Few can deal in masterly fashion with the profounder themes; did not even Wordsworth, in his most ; splendid ode, get just a little beyond his depth t In our column of verso to-day wyew y e have quoted ope of Mr. Christie's little pieces, a fair average specimen. Tho brief verse of dedication to his departed wife strikes us as very truly and tenderly " expressed ; but where it stands it is in place, like a choice blossom in a rose-garden — it does not seem to be there to be plucked. "The Angel of the Earthquake," and "With Joy in Arcady." By Frank (Morton. Glolbourne : The Atlas Press. The aocond of the sketches in this neat little book appeared two or threa years ago in an Auckland magazine; the introductory lott«r wo think we have also seen somewhere in print. "The Aagel of the Earthquake" has internal evidence either of having been very lately written or brought up to data. Ifc is briefly a story of an earthquake that wreck/bd Wellington in 1910, and upset the eoci%l order ; of a. strong man who took Ihe helm, ,and of tho reformation of society that followed. The author spares us no .horrors, and incidantnlly gives us (once again) his idea of the Asiatic. In his Arcadian idyl — one of the best pieoes of literary work, perhaps, from the artistic sidfe, that he has published — we have another of his. Utopias — in f a«t, the two give a pretty fjiir idea of the naw heaven' anJ the novr earth as ho would reconstruct thorn if he hftd the power. H» finds the imagery of the ApooaJypee useful in picturing his Elyeiaa fields. Mr. ■Morton cLogs ' not take himself seriously enough to be gravely criticised. He would, we fanoy, scarcely venture to maintain that he has given anything approaching a true picture of tho &ocial, political, or religious life pi the community. Concerning hie vision of perfect bliss, it is a community on the model of the Monks of Thelema, finding its sole occupation in self-indulgence, with an Anacreontic scorn of wisdom or responsibility. As for tho earthquake, he makes no attempt to show how it was the means of regenerating tho community. ' The immediate effect of such a disaster, as he vividly enough describes, is an outbreak of all lhat is worst in a community, and some kind of vigilance committee would become necessary. But there is no instance of such an institution serving more than a temporary end or serving any purpose in elevating public ideals. The book is never dull — it may make some readers angry, but it will give them something to think about. " Local Government la Boroughs : Being a Reprint ol the Statutes Relating to Municipal Corporations." Edited (by permission) by William Joliffe, Law Draftsman. Wellington : Ferguson and Hicks. Printed "by the Government Printer, in the exact stylo of typography of the official statutes, an unobservant reader might at first fail to see where the editor's work came in, especially as Jth& title page claims no more for this useful volume than to be * reprint of certain statutes. But I the preface, unassuming as it is, indicates that it ie no mere reprint, and scrutiny confirms the fact. In this wellbound book of nearly four hundred pages may be found the essential parts, and the essential parts only, of thirtytwo Acts bearing upon Borough Councils and the duties of their officers. A.I i first sight, the Acts might seem to bo printed verbatim, and so they are, in so far- as not the slight est change is made ! in the text of the portions cited. But frequently passages in smali type may be found interpolated. Sometimes thn passage is a schedula inserted exactly where it is needed, instead of being relegated to its usual place at the end of the Act. Thereby the editor hns saved the trouble of a printed reference and needless turning over of leave's each time the clause is consulted. Again, look up a' passage — the first to hand, "The Rating Act, section 98." It is only four lines in length, providing that certain alterations in the valuation rolla may be made unJer a specified provision in section 9 of the Valuation of Land Act, 1908. Tho readers have no need to look up laGt year's statutes, nor tho Consolidated Statutes, * nor even to txirn to another Act, -for the section — twelve linos of small type and introductory note, is appended to the clause, exactly where it is wanted. More than this — the de-partment-made law — those elusive Regulations by Order-in-Council buried in big volumes of the Gazette twenty years old or more, perhaps : who does not know what loss of time and turning over of old volumes is necessitated in looking these up ! Turn, then, to the Municipal Corporations 'Act, section 153 — again the first to hand. Subsection (2) (m) reads simply : "To sell the surplus spoil of streets." Butthen follows the small type annotation, not a footnote easily overlooked, but in the midst of the text : — "Regulations (Gazette, 1902, p. 1058) provide as follows :—": — " and the whole four regulations, occupying thirteen lines, follow. Bound volumes of the Gazette are costly and occupy vast space ; files are bulkier still, and rarely fit to handle on account of ancient dust. But, having found the file and "batted" it — how often is the very number or sheet required found after all to be missing J There is m>

such disappointment here. But more remains. Turn back to (c), same section. It has regard to the minimum width of streets, and three lines of small typefollow — an important decision "In re Selwyn County— s, N.Z.L.R., C.A., 163." The borough clerk with average facilities may have the Consolidated Statutes, perhaps — he may have a file approximately complete of recent Gazettes, and an old odd volume ot two; but he certainly has not access to a law library, and might not readily find his way about in it if he had. But Mr. Joliffe, as we have seen, has supplied even this need, so that really this single book, for its special subject, answers the purpose of a large library, and is arranged with the maximum of convenience for reference. Occasionally the note is an .original comment of an illuminating kind by the compiler. As regards legal decisions, only the more important have been embodied in tli3 work. "Sparing reference," says the editor, "has been made to case law, for the reason that full consideration of the numerous decisions bearing on the matter would have necessitated a volume twice the size of the present — the one subject of bylaws, if fully treated, would warrant the production of a book to itself." The assistance of Messrs.. J. O'Shea, City Solicitor, and J. Christie, of tha Law Drafting office, are gratefully acknowledged by the editor. Last, but not least among the merits of this work, must be reckoned a comprehensive analytical index, containing nearly fafteen hundred entries. The book is published (cloth) at a guinea, the price to be raised after '..he end of the month