LITERARY NOTES

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 38, 13 August 1921, Page 15

LITERARY NOTES

In a-tolrann review of "Tutira," The Times pays Mr. H. Guthrie-Smith » compliment by remarking that he "would be an, admirable journalist; he possesses the journalist's"" gift of making a good story out of the apparently commonplace without the defect—so often ascribed to journalists—of making it at the cost of truth and proportion. With him tho point of the story is the condiion brought about by the slow and inexorable processes of nature faithfully observed. It is inevitable that he ihould Vfrite at some length, because Beeing—as he does—striking effects in causes that are not striking, he must unravel these last patiently to make them intelligible." The reader's interest never flags, though it does not depend on hia familiarity with technical details. "To read this book carefully is to acquire the illusion of possessing something of the writer's intimate knowledge of the parcel of land he owns— and of that of the whole of New Zea-knd--for what he gives are concrete illustrations of nrocesses a* .Work over the whole Dominion."

Newspaper women are William M'Fee's pcfc abomination. In' the preface to "An , Ocean Tramp" he writes; Their equipment is trivial and their industry' colossal. They present a marvellons combination of unquenchable cn j thiisiasm and slovenly inaccuracy. They needs must love the highest when they see it, but they are congenitally incapable of describing it correctly. They produce an incredible quantity of daily and weekly matter far the grass. They Wheedle cortunissionE out of male editors by appealing t to their Bex, and write siprijghtly articles, on ■'-'Bachelor ftM*

and their Ideals" and "The Economic Independence of the Married Woman." They demand political power without intending for a single moment to assume political responsibility. Their days are about equally divided between catching a husband and achieving what they describe as "a scoop."

A new name has been found for the dressing of booksellers' windows. "Book Post" explains that luring readers to. a book store is simply a form of editing. The hardest class to interest is that of the non-reading public, v we are told. These people may be arrested by novel arrangements of the wares, with plenty of attractive "jackets" to decorate the background. A main who would not deign to glance at an orderly row of shelves may be lured to the window wherein an inverted pyramid of books 'seems on the point of collapse.. But there the problem of the horse and the water comes in.

Enril Cammaerts has written a history of his native Belgium, covering the period from the Roman invasion to the present day. /

A de luxe edition of 0. Henryana, limited to 377 copies, has been issued by Doubleda'y, Page, and .Co., of New Yorki It is a collection of stories and verse which have never before appeared in book form, and contains, among,other interesting fragments,-the "Crucible/ a lyric originally intended for musical comedy, but which was crossed out of the 6nal copy' of the manuscript.

A South Overman correspondent sends this melancholy note to The Nation and the Athenaeum:—"On the night of sth May, Alfred H. Fried, the pacifist and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, died in a hospital in Vienna at the age of 56. He was in great poverty. Owing to the low value of Austrian money and his unpractical idealism, he had lost the remains of the sum he received from the Nobel Society in 1910 as a reward for his labours in the cause of international peace. An Austrian by birth, he returned to Vienna from Switzerland at the end of last year, homeless, poor, and despairing. 'Through the president of the Journalists' and Authors' Society, who. issued an appeal on Ms behalf, in the papers of Vienna, a single room was foumKfor him. But he' Was unable to continue his work, for he needed space for his library and documents. 11l and broken-hearted, he entered the hospital, where he has just died." -

The Honolnlu Star-Bulletin Publishing Company will bring out-shortly two editions of "Roosevelt: A Book of Tributes," one for sale in Hawaii, and one for the mainland. Among contributors are: Lord Bryce, Edith Wharton, Rudyard Kipling, E. A. Robinson, Robert Bridges, Arthur Guiterman, Herbert Hoover, Lyman Abbott, and several others.

In "Death and Its Mystery," Oamille Flammarion, the noted French astronomer, set out to establish positive proof of survival. He says: "In order to establish if the soul survives the body we must first find out if it exists -in itself, independent of the physical organism. We must therefore establish this existence on t,ho scientific basis of. definite observation and not on the fine phrases and the ontological arguments with which, up to the present, the theologians of all times have been satisfied. . . The following pages are to prove that there is in man something besides what , can be seen, touched, and weighed; that there exists in the Ismail being an element independent of the material senses, a personal mental principle which thinks, wills, acts, which manifests itself at a distnee, which sees without eyes,, hears without ears, discovering the future before it exists and reveals unknown facts."

The Pulitzer prize of £250 for the best book of' the j»ear on American history has been awarded Admiral Sims -for his work, "Victory at Sea;" published by Murray.-