THE BOOKMAN

Evening Post, Volume XCIX, Issue 121, 22 May 1920, Page 15

THE BOOKMAN

"The Gay-Dombeys." By Sir Harry Johnston, with preface by H. G. Wells. London : . Chatto and Windas. (Dymook's, Sydney.) A second Australasian edition of this •entertaining work has been piled for. Sir Harry himself describes it as "a story compiled from letters, diaries, newspaper cuttings, suppositions, recollections,' oral information; and the impressions of the late Sir Eustace Morven." Mr. Wells describes it as "one of the best first novels I have ever read"; but in his preface it is to be inferred that he doe& not know exactly how to place the book. For the benefit of those who have not read it, it may be'described in parts as iindoubtedly autobiographical. Ii aisa contains many .wonderful word pictures of Africa, ail the work of a master. But the chief interest in the work, especially to readers of fifty and a little over, lies in its review of liien and affairs in England from the early 70's to the great war —for the fictional Sir Eustace goeia down in a torpedoed African liner off the Canary Islands. Many of the persons who were prominent in the public eye from 1873 to 1914 are referred to by Sir Harry under exceedingly thin disguises, for no one can help recognising the originals and the places to which Sir Harry gives names that in no way mask their identity. His idea is to curry on the Dombey family, from Walter Gay and his beautiful and beautiful-natured wife Florence. They are introduced as iji ,1887, aged 70 and 63 respectively, entertaining friends at dinner in Onslow Gardens. Other Dickens names are introduced into "The Gay-Dombeys," and there is even an acknowledgment of Anthony Trollope in a reference to BarChester. . ;

On cannot help identifying Eustace Morven with Sir Harry himself, and in this way gain a clear insight into the British Imperialism of the Jubilee period of 1887. It is all most fascinating to read about and to reflect upon, especially by those whose memory of those times is still ' fresh " and green. In some respects the eighties and nineties, the quarter of a. century before the war, were glorious times, notwithstanding that Ihere were also many things that the war has shown to have been wrong, and weakening to national life and character, and to British prestige abroad. Sir Harry brings them all—-eciod and bad—before his readers, who, if they are middle-aged, will no doubt regret that there is not more of the book. It is not without a pang that such readers realise that the wa.r has swept away in a night, as it were, much that made England no attractive! much, too, for all that Sir Harry sometimes treats it lightly, that made England really great. At any rate, if it were at one time in the fryingpan it cannot be said at present that it is out of the fire. It is difficult to understand why he has' dragged- into his bonk from its' voluntary obscurity a religious denomination with which he was evidently at one time intimately acquainted. He has ao full a tale to tell, and hetells it in such, an attractive way, that his giving prominence to a people who do not dosiro publicity, and do not seek it, could well have been dispensed with. ' Reference has been made to Sir Harry Johnston's word oicturos of West Africa-. They are wonderful. Here is one of them, taken at random :—

As we came ver.r slowly up stream against the current: on a sandbank in midstream lay a nest of large crocodiles sprawling over one another and basking in the =:m. Close to tiiem, daintily preening themselves, were clustered saddle-billed storks and other storklike birds, with curving yellow lieaks. In thft middle distance, both on a sand island and sandy beach, were enormous hippopotami asleep in the siiu. The river in raid-st'-eam was full of hropos, their- bodies hiilf-stib-m'erned— yawning, blovinc, iham-fiirkting. with their gleaming tnsks, 'baby .hippos riding on the backs of their mothers—and great hull hippos strolling en shore to feed among the rsod beds. The river seemed blocked with hippos. On one side a. feathery acacia spread its green branches glistening with white thorns and terved as a perch for quite a. hundred egrets—white herons—whilo the smaller twies that hung over the v.-utsr had many a weaver bird's nest depending from them. In and out of these grass receptacles (marvellously woven) like conch thella .11 shape, flew and fluttered black and. gold and brawn anil fiam"-coloured vreavcr birds. Even ! to such a detail as the butterflies, that delighted to settle .on the yet sand iind Mick —they were scarlet, or iridencect biut-Rrsen, grass green, black" and -white, brown and irmuve, blac'< und oranre, laveno'er ami nale green, purple-black, with one white spot or black trimmed with emerald. . . We went no farther, because above this point the river is Inhabited by some unknuivu tribe that shot poisoned arrows indiscriminately at all comers, and desired to make friends with no stranger, • But there are dark episodes of African life to which. Sir Harry makes alkisicn, orgies of man-eating, horrible practices, and disgusting rites —nightmare scanes, yet sober facts. "The G-ay-Dombeys" is exceedingly full of meat for the reader, and, although it is an advantage fcr the reader, yet it is not essential to the enjoyment of. the work to have read "Dombey and Son," and other works of Dickens.

Interest in Samuel Butler, author of "Erewhon," having been revived, attention iV again turned to his "Alps and Sanctuaries," from which the following description .of Fleet-street is taken:—"l know of nothip^in any foreign city equal to the view down Fleet-street, walking along the north side from the corner of Fetter Jane. It is often said that this has been spoiled by the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway Bridge ove^r Ludgate HOI; I think, however, the effect is more imposing now than it was beforo the bridge was built. Time has already softened it: it adds greatly to the sense of size,', and makes us doubly aware of the movement of life, the colossal circulation to which London owes so much of its impressiveriess. We gain more by this than, we lose by the infraction ot some pedant's canon about the artistically correct intersection of right lines. Vast as is the world below the bridge, there is a- vaster still on high, and when'the trains are passing, Die steam from the engine will throw the dome of St. Paul's into' the clouds, and make it seem as though there were a commingling of earth and some far-off mysterious place in dreamland."

The family of the late Mr. Joseph Chamberlain has entrusted *Vlr. J. L. Garvin, editor of the' Observer, with the task of writing his biography.

"Spoon River Anthology" of Edgar Lee Masters, of Illinois, has been re- •' issued. The following epitaph, "The Circuit Judge," is taken from the collection :— Take note, passers-by, of the sharp erosions Eaten m my head-istone by the wind and . rain— Almost as if an intangible Nemesis or hatred Were marking scores against mo, Bat' to destroy, and not preserve, my memory. I in life was the Circuit Judge, n. maker of notches, Deciding cases on the points the lawyers scored, Not on t!ie right of the matter. 0 wind and rain, leave my head-stone alone, For worse than the anger of the wronged. The. curses of the poor, Was to lie speechless, yet with, vision clear, Seeing that even Hodd Putt, the murderer. Hanged by my sentence, Was innocent in soul compared with