THE BOOKMAN

Evening Post, Volume XC, Issue 147, 18 December 1915, Page 16

THE BOOKMAN

"The Sentimental Bloke." By C. J. Dennis. Angus and Eobertson. This is the love story (in verse) of a "barrer man," a member of Melbourne's "coster society." The author has endowed his very rough hero with that lover temperament which has been expressed in glowing immortal words by a number of great writers. But the passion of the "Sentimental Bloke" is told in the slang of the tap-room, the street coiner, the racecourse, the boxing ring, and other places where such coster "sports" congregate. The work is bright and clever, and it is clean, but this reviewer rather regrets that the world-old romance of the ways of a man with a maid in springtime is expressed by a talented writer in "push" parlance. Alas, for Cupid! It is comparable with the action of a. whimsical artist who would put aside the respectable colours and use grease-paint for the picturing of Madonna. Slang which comes trippingly from the pen as it does from Mr. Dennis's can have it admirable uses, but there is one critic who would much prefer English for the wooing and winning of a maid. However, it is. highly probable that the larger circle of readers is available for the present form of the book. A "Sentimental Bloke" makes a direct and strong appeal to large numbers who like a skilful use of slang by an adept, whether the theme is a dogfight or wooing, the death of Napoleon or the knock-out of "Bill the Bull."

"The Bainbow Trail." By Zane Grey. New York and London: Harper and Brothers.

This is a romance in which the hero has to find his heroine among Mormons, and there are many stirring adventures before the two young folk come out "hand heart-fast in hand" into a land of peace and one-man-one-wife. The principal character, Shefford, after he has failed in an ecclesiastical career, rides bis horse vaguely into the lenely land, "tho stained and pleated border of Arizona, the broken battlemented wilderness of "Utah upland." He had designed a mission for himself; there was a

"haunting secret" to be brought to light —the secret which has the heroine in a rainbow mist of mystery. So forth he fares into the Wild. He found a solitary outpostr one night, 'and listened to the wind —"This was a lonely, haunting wind, with desert hunger in it, and more which he could not name. Sheflord listened to this -spirit-brooding sound while he watched night envelop tho valley. How black, how thick the mantlo; yet it brought no comforting sense of close-folded protection; of walls/ of soft sleep, of a home. Instead there was the /eeling of space, of emptiness, of an infinite hall, down which mournful wind swept streams of murmuring sound." The story is well told; it is bright, and clean throughout.

"The Angel of the Desert." By Silas K. Hocking. Ward, Lock, and Co., London and Melbourne.

Silar K. Hocking, author of such wellknown books as "A Modern. Phai-isee," and "In Self Defence,"- has written a, well-told and exciting story of adventure in "The Angel of the Desert." Tho plot is laid chiefly in the desert plains of Egypt, and chiefly concerns the adopted daughter of John Henderson, a distin gnished and enthusiastic Egyptologist, who spent the winter of every^ year on the banks of the Nile, deciphering hieroglyphics and directing explorations. During one of these expeditions, John Henderson, who was.accompanied by his wifs snd baby daughter, was attacked by 1 band of Bedouins, and all perished save the baby, who was afterwards found by some good nuns, asleep in a cornfield. For many years the child was sheltered in the Coptic convent of El Ta-vra, and because of her English fairness she was called by the Arab people the angel o£ the desert. When the child,had grown lo yoimg womanhood; fate took a hand in. the person of Stanley Wendale, and Egyptologist, and the heir of John Henderson, who discovered the girl in her convent fastness. But before Wendale could make the necessary arrangements to send her to England, an Arab sheik, Ben Abed, who had long cast coveteous eyes on the girl, abducted her. Many and exciting adventures befall Sophie and Stanley Wendale thereafter,, but in the end the machinations of the sheik nd other bad people are defeated, and th© two find peace and happiness. The story is well, told, and the interest never flags from start to finish.

"The Wonder Book of Empire for Boys and Girls." Ward, Lock, and Co., Ltd., London, Melbourne, and Toronto.

"The Wonder Book of Empire for Boys and Girls," edited by HaTry Golding, is a remarkably interesting production, and will doubtless be welcomed with delight by children the world over. The book takes the reader to the uttermost parts of 1 the British Empire, and most interesting glimpses are obtained of many countries and their denizens, including India, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland, South Africa, and, indeed, every corner where the British flag is flown. Two most interesting and informative chapters are devoted to Australia and New Zealand. The many beautiful illustrations ara a. feature of the production.

"Th© Elementary Forms of the Religious Life : a Study in Religious Sociology." By Emile Durkheim, Professor of the Faculty of Letters at the University of Paris (translated by. J. W. Swain). London : George Allen and Unwi'n.

This book, which was published soon after the outbreak' of war, was written before the Kaiser's Huns gave their lessons m Christianity as made in Germany. The work' was complete befor& the world witnessed Germany's Gottstrafing, kulturing. and Hymn-hating (or hate-hymning). No Soubt, if a second edition of the volume is issued, the , author will_ have a chapter or two on the German interpretation of the Scriptures. The publishers' note indicates the features of the booK thus : —" By a study of the most elementary, forms of the religious life which we know, Professor Durkheim attempts €o throw some lightupon the na-ture of religion in general. In the course of this study of its origins ■wo are led to see the profoundly social character of religion; it is characterised by that which is sacred,' and this is shown to be that wKich is pre-eitiiis^ntly, social. The second part- of the- work is' devoted to a study of the primitive cult a,nd to an exposition of its social meaning and importance. Going further, M. Durkheim points out tfie religious origin of the other great forms of' social activity, and in particular of philosophic thought. Even the categories of thought themselves are, as he shows, of religious and consequently of social origin." This is a comparatively modest summary of a ftook which embodies yews of patient, diligent research arid brilliant thought by a master mind.

LITERARY NOTES

Just before the war. Lord Dunsany discovered a new poet in an Trish peasant, Francis Ledwidge, who had been a farm labourer, and later a scavenger of the roads of his native County Meath. "Songs of the Fields," Mr, Lcdwidge's

first volume, is to be published shortly with an introduction by Lord Dunsany.

Lord Macaulay as a hymnwright began almost in the nursery. A few years back a hymii of his, written before he was eight years old, was published, and this was only one of many dating from that period. Nor were these his only lrterai-y activities. At the age of seven he began a compendium of universal history, and at eight actually completed a treatise designed to convert the natives of Malabar to Christianity

"Writing," says Mrs. Gertrude Atherton, the novelist and feminist, "is a woman's job. Men ought to do things, not write about them. When a man does nothing but write, his hands get soft, and his character, too." Mrs. Atherton once nearly fell in love with a man who was a writer. But a thought saved her in time, she confides to an interviewer. "I thought, 'Good heavens ! x the man does, nothing -but sit on a three-legged stool and write little stories all day long and peddle them about to the magazines ! He might as well be crocheting!? So I promptly recovered." One would rather be an admiral, or a trapeze performer, or a king, or a champion pugilist. And, thanks <to the feminists,' the day is coming when men will be rescued from writing and all the other arts, and from intellectual exertion generally. These things will be attended to entirely by women. The poete, the painters, the sculptors^ the philosophers, the lawyers, the archiiteats, the scientists, -will all be women. Wits are unmanly. In the days to come we shall despise the man who thinks. We shall be taught to estimate Plato and Shakespeare and, Darwin as the weak, unnecessai'y schoolmiss creatures they were; the nest generation will curl a lip. at Newton and Milton as mollycoddles.

How many of us could say off-hand who James Whitcomb Riley is, and wherein his fame consists? They know him well in Indiana, U.S.A., and ho is famous as a poet in the best of. ways, for the children of that State—indeed, of the United States—love him; so much, in fact, that on one Christmas Day he received 5000 letters, and his juvenile adorers constantly send him appreciative messages. Mr. Rile'y's birthday being on 7th October, the Government of Indiana decreed that it should^ be observed as "Riley Day," and Collier's, alluding to this signal honour, quotes ,some of the letters which the poet has received of late. One of them contains perhaps the neatest compliment imaginable. "I'll tell you what, Mr. Riley," writes a little child: "I was glad to learn that you was living, because I thought all poets was dead." Another says: "My birthday is October the 9th; wo are almost twins, ain't we?" As Mr. Riley was born in 1849, this is rather a wide shot. He began his career as a journeyman sign-writer; from that rather uninspiring trade he progressed to a troupe of travelling players, provin" as valuable to them as Nicholas Nickleby was to the company of the immortal Crummies, for he touched up their plays, wrote their songs, and no doubt could have composed a drama to order round a "real pump and two washing-tubs," as did Nicholas, had the opportunity occurred. Poetry claimed him, and he has no reason to regret it.' for he received from the American Academy of Arts and Letters their ■ gold medal in 1912. His best reward, however, is his secure place m the hearts of the children.