LITERARY NOTES

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 23, 27 January 1923, Page 17

LITERARY NOTES

Received: ''Hound of the .Road," By Mary Gilmore; "Auction Simplified, by H. B. Bignold; "The Wilderness, ' by Amy Eleanor Mack; "Australian Boy Scout's Hand-book,"- and. "Pigs and Their Management," by H. W. Potts, all from Mr. Norman Aitken, Wellington.

"The Story of the Holy Communion" is a manual for communicants in the Presbyterian Church, prepared by a Committee on, the .Book,of Order, and issued by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Australia; it ia published by Angus and Robertson, Sydney, and a copy is received from Mr. Norman Aitken, Wellington. The explanation of the Saorament is iii plain language, easy for the young to understand, . and it should be. acceptable to the adult churchman. 'Passages from the Scriptures and from Shorter Catechism are used in making the story clearer. The little manual should prove most helpful to .clergy and laity in understanding the importance of the Sacrament, in the Church and to the individual. . .

"Whimsical Walker," a famous clown of Drury Lane, has published his life story, under, the title ,of "From Sawdust to Windsor Castle." Whimsical Walker appeared at Windsor by Eoyal command. . Though admitting that clowning is now "little better than . a thing of shreds and patches," he is full of confidence. "If a poll of the realm," he says, "were taken .on the question of retaining or abolishing the harlequinade, the result would, be, an overwhelming majority in favour of the clown and liis acolytes." He owns to a difficulty in •' providing harlequinades to-day:— "Where are the clowns t<J come from? Clowns, like poets, are born, not made. The taste must be in one, and ft is not against you if yoii bave not been, blessed with beauty. Grihialdi would have b*sh nothing without 'his mirth-provoking face. The same may be said of comedians,' but there is a difference. The comedian personates many characters, the poor clown has but one. The comedian has all the advantage of an eccentric dress, of an eccentric, make-up; the clown can have only bne costume, and red and white paint obliterates all his facial play. Moreover', whatever natural talent he may possess for fooling, it is not of much good unless he has had the training, and has started young."

Messrs. Fisher Ijnwin Imve published a posthumous work by. Sir Algernon West, ' entitled "Political England: A Chronicle of the . Nineteenth ; Century, told in a letter to Miss Margot Tennant." The manuscript, which seems, to have been written in .'IB9Q, was found among Sir Algernon ■ West's papers after his death. Mr. H. Shand, his private secretary at tile time, explains in a foreword which he Has contributed _. to the book, that the chronicle was written at tho suggestion of Miss Margot Tennant (now Mrs. Anquith), and,her eUtew, »» i result of a disiiiisMoh Upon the subject of the ignorance deployed Jty meat geq-

iple regarding events in the times imrae- : diately preceding their own. The narrative deals briefly with the principal of the nineteenth century • up to :1880, interspersed with personal remin-iiscences,-and incidentally revealing thewriter's devotion to Liberal r-and to Mr. Gladstone.

The second Marquis of Salisbury, who ■in Mifl-Victorian days preceded his grandson, ths present Marquis, as Lord President of the Council, practised an original method of circulating his poems. -In a letter thanking Lord Abraham Hayward for the loan of some books Lord Clarendon wrote: "The late Lord Salisbury used to secrete a good deal of poetical matter of'the same kind, and to secure its circulation by stuffing printed copies of his verses into the great-coat pockets of visitors at Hatfield, and by .himself throwing them into all the market carts. Among other things he wrote ta poem on a journey, to Weymouth, of '"which I remember:— Into the Antelope I pop, - And eat my fowl and mutton chop. Lord, how the folks did stare To see me travel in a chaise and pair.~ If the lines are a fair sample they go to show why the peer had so much difficulty in disposing of his verse. "Men Like Gods," is a nsw book by H. G. Wells, first published in serial form in Itho United States. This nsw novel by Mr. Wells marks, apparently, his abandonment of venturee into the reaJjEc of history and political philosophy and a return to his earlier romantic methods., The book, if one may glean from the first instalment, 13 & forecast of history two thousand years from now. Mr.. Wells has taken adventure of the best sort and compounded it with the most advanced: (.peculations on science and morals. , ■' . ' " i

Dom Cuthb'ert Butier, -who juit recently resigned the Abbacy of Downside, has been engaged for twenty years upon an important work which Messre. Constable have m the Press. It is called Westerr Mysticism,'.' and seeks to set forth "the true inwardness" of mystical philosophy from the point of view of the. enlightened mystic himself. The author ako offers a systematic study of the ideas and', teaching on contemplation and the contemplative life as held by St. Augustine, St. Gregory, and St. Bernard.

A history of the Hudson's Bay Company, the oldest business organisation in tho world, is to be written by Sir William Schooling, of London. Sir Wiiliam has ;iuot returned to Winnipeg, the company's headquarters, from a tour of V/estsrn Canada, where he interviewed pioneer settlers and traders and obtained valuable documents and letters for his history. The history will be in three volumes, probably, and will require two years to complete. This is evidently to be something more elaborate 'than the handsome volume published on the 2Soth anniversary of the company, ar.fi fully reviewed in "The Post."

Dean Inge's new volume of "Outspoken Essays," to be published at once by N!vlessrs. Longmans, contains a "Confessio Fideo," in which the Dean arrays the articles of his personal faith' and gives reasons foi" its credibility. Other papers deal with the State Visible and Invisible, the Idea of Progress, the Victorian Age, the Dilemma of Civilisation, and Eugenics. The last-named essay urges the need for counteracting, by rational' selection, the racial deterioration which is the inevitable sequel of the failure c-fj national selection.

Mr. Coulson Kerhahah is a man of letters of _ many and diverse, gifts; alike as novelist, biographer, and critic he has produced, some of the most significant of contemporary literature. Mr. Thornton Butterworth has now in the press a new book by Mr. Kernahan, which presents him both as a critic and an anthologist, The , volume is called "Six Famous 1 Living Poets," and the poets* considered are Mr. Maurice Baring, Mr. John Drinkwatei", Bj[.r." Rudyard Kipling,,, Mr. John Masefield, Sir Henry Newbolt, and Mr. Alfred Noyes. Mr. .Kernahan not only criticises each of these writers with sympathy and judgment, but he includes so many quostations from their writings that his book may be considered a sort of appreciative | introduction to their work. He is also to include a series of striking portraits of hi 3 subjects.

lit view of the fact that Mrs. Asquith remarked during her last visit to the United States that she did riot like American women because they asked such intimate questions, it is interesting ito note the following excerpt from Mr 3. Patrick Campbell's "Mjr Life and Some Letters" :— "The^ first tirie I met Mrs. Margot Asquith I' was very young. I iwent to tea with her shortly after Pat's return from Africa. She pulled .me down on a coach by. her side, and said: "Tell me, dear, tell me, I aia to be j trusted, are you happy with your husband?' For some reason or other, for quite a long time I thought this the funniest thing that had ever happened to me. I always felt sure Margot Asquith, did I know her well, would peel my skins off one by one quickly and put a well-made crust of her own upon me.' Life io too short for peeling off crusts arid.rearranging ones-skin!"

The .following interesting passage- occurs in "The Adventures of a Lecture Tour," by Sir Philrp Gibbs:—"Then there was a young lady of the flapper age whb came striding into my robin after a somewhat alarming knock. at the door, which startled me out of a brief nap and brought me trembling to my stocking feet. She desired my autograph in her birthday album, which she had started with Jack, DeiflpSey'sl She looked fit ale with frank-eyes in which I saw disappointment. 'I wouldn't have taken you for a war correspondent.' she said. \I know that in her imagination, she had pictured me &3 a husky feik>A.V well, over six foot fodr, with ox-like shoulders. I was sorry she had caught me in my socks. I look tatter in my boots."