BOOKS AND BOOKMEN.

Evening Star, Issue 11707, 16 November 1901, Page 3

BOOKS AND BOOKMEN.

‘ ihe King’s Secret.’ By Richard Henry Savage. London: G. Beil and Sons:. Dunedin ; Whitcombe and Tombs. This professes to be a story of Sweden in the reign of Charles XV., and opens immediately prior to the outbreak of the Franco-German War-. Although not destitute of a certain qnalny of descriptive power, nor wanting in interest, it is too verbose, inflated, and profuse in style and j matter to carry the reader successfully through to the end. Tales seldom do that open with a. couple when they are in their first youth and conclude with the marriage of the couple’s own children. ft requires a ma-ster hand to maintain an interest in the fortunes of any one family to such a degree, and Mr Savage’s is not a master band. We have whole pages of such writing as the following : “It. was midnight, in gay Stockholm, the Venice of the North! The deep hell of the Riddarhohn’s Kyrka had sounded the solemn hour long before two men, seated alone in the Privy Council rooms of the Royal Palace, had finished the careful scrutiny of many complicated papers. Tlio vaulted mom was silent, and no sound reached them from the adjoining chambers of the Seraphim, the proudest society in Sweden. Not, even a single attendant lurked,” etc., etc. “Calmly inscrutable. Count Charles Lassen sat in Ms father's palace. Par away in the Chateau Axelstrom the capricious countess was still wrapped in a ‘reve <lu bal,’ while the councillor awaited Uric’s dismissal by the monarch. . . .” “‘Yes!’ doggedly answered the beauty, sick at heart with tho crushing load of cares descending upon her in an avalanche. . . .” “ Fifty thousand crowns will maintain us for the whole season. With this 1 can fence her in so that you will be the one ami inthne de la maison. . “ Soul-haunted by the beauty of tho dark sorceress ... a thousand dark premonitions possessed him. . . .” Gay Stockholm a gilded circle scattered afar in the blaring summer days bv

Malar’s castled shores, and it was 1 merry in. the glades of Gripsholm. ...” “‘Madman!’ haughtily cried Christine, wrenching ntrself loose,'‘you seek an exElanation of the mystery of my life? Learn onor from your brother! Ask him, and ■he will give you the lie!’ ” “ Before the astonished soldier could repeat his wild words he was left alone with the sighing night winds.” “ Leaping down the marble steps, he sprang into the first carriage.” “‘ To the station ! For life and death,’ be sternly said, as the frightened coachman ladled his horses.” ' "Hall an hour later "Countess Christine started as she stood, pale and silent, in the Queen’s retinue,” “ Across the low valley rang out the warning blast of the locomotive, as the King s reckless messenger sped away in, the silent night,” There are, as we have said, sheets of this sort of thing—in fret, the hook throughout is written along these lines. We have exclamation marks and notes- of interrogation, capital letters :md snappy paragrapbs, combined with lightning changes from Sweden to the United States, in the same chapter, and other peculiarities that by no means add to the pleasure of the reader. Thu author of ‘My Official Wife’ ought to lie able to do much better than he has in his latest book. Tli ere are numerous printer's errors in tlie present edition, dozens of words being wrongly spelt, punctuation marks misplaced, and once or twice au entire line transposed. These things should not be. ‘Erewhon Revisited.’ By Samuel Butler. Grant Richards, Loudon. By many of the younger generation of colonials who knew not Mr Samuel Butler, o{ Mesopotamia, New Zealand, his satire ‘ Erewhon.’ which, of course, is ‘ Nowhere ’ transposed, and which made such a stir in the literary world in 1872. may bo as yet unread. Mr Butler has now given them a chance not only of perusing a revised edition of this delightful whimsicality worf Into rank with Gulliver's travels, bub also of sequel ‘ Erewhon Revisited; Twenty \ ears Later, both by the Original Discover i the Country and His Son.’ The quality of ‘ Ercwboii Revisited ’ may be judged from the fact that ‘The Times’ devotes to it a column of large type, and declares that it has more life and individuality in tire characters and a central idea, while its ironv and humor, though nowise inferior in quality to that of ‘Erewhon,’ are more purposeful and less disguised. It is, says ‘The Times,’ more obviously a polemic against supernatural religion, a plaidoyer on behalf <-f that ‘more advanced wing of the English Broad Church ’ of which Mr Butler avowa that, be has never ceased to profess himself a member. . . . The novelty and the cnann of the book consist, not in its veiled theological polemic, but in its vivid narrative, in its life-like verisimilitude, in its irony, in its satire, in its quaint and whimsical humor. To say that in these respects it is a worthy sequel to ‘ Erewhon ’ is to give it lugh praise, and quite enough to recommend it to all judicious readers.” The central idea of the book is that Mr Higos who with the daughter of his host in Evewhou left the country in a balloon on the pretext (bat he was going to persuade tho air-god worshipped by the Erewhonians to terminate the drought, after tho death of his wife returns to Erewhon. There he finds that ins miraculous ascent into the barrens has been made the basis of a new remrion. His reappearance disturbs the professors c.f the new faith, and the questions arise whether he should he executed as an impostor or the story of his return glassed over with fictions, so as to.destroy all belief in his identity, and what effect on the pew religion either course will have. The adventure eventually costs him his life, and he tells Jiis experiences on ids return to his son in the rare lucid intervals of a shattered mind. That tale the son relates, with tho addition of his own experiences, dirrin iT a visit ho subsequently undertook- to' his mother’s native land. Mr Butler’s conception of Broad Church religion is expressed in this passage : “ Our religion sets before ns an ideal which we ail cordially accept, but it also tells ns of marvels, like your chariot and horses, which we most of us reject. Our best teachers insist, on the ideal ar-d keep the marvels in the background. If they could sav outright that our ago has outgrown them they would say so. but tins they may not do ; nevertheless, they contrive to let their opinions he sufficiently well known, and their hearers are content with this. "

I ‘Love Idylls.' By S. R. Crockett. Lon-' don: Jolm Murray. Dunedin: Whitcombe and Tombs, ! Whatever may be ottr opinions as to the speed with which Mr Crockett turns out his : work, cm one thing his many readers can I always rely—the intensely human and natural spirit in which it is presented. His , men and maidens, lairds and hinds, lords , and lasses, arc not puppets who nun c mechanically and speak artificially. We i feel that though such individuals may never perhaps have actually lived, there is i no reason why they should not, as their i language and actions, their likes and dislikes, their comings and goings, arc like ; unto those of the men and women wills 1 whom we are acquainted. ■ Pathos aiul ■ humor, mirth and earnestness, light-hearted, j cleao-soolod jollity and frolic charactcrh-e j the majority of his personages, whilst the j more disrcjmtable and undesirable are rarely i overdone and always paid out before the 1 end of tire book in a manner satisfactory I to our sense of justice and wholesome dc--1 testation of the mean and miserable. I ‘Love Idylls ’ (old and new), it is un- : necessary to say, arc just what their mime implies—tales of affection -and honest passion not immured with pathos and many masterly touches of the deeper chords in ! our being. They afo stories that can be j read by all and enjoyed by all. The first j and longest is a delightful story of the i young Pretender, although this precious specimen of the Stuart house does not appear personally upon tiro scene, and thej lovo of a Well-known Scotch noble who has faded with his cause, for a dainty lowland j lassie, the daughter of a stem, covenanting, | grim-visaged laird, and it is one,, of the j best of its kind, being simple, lifelike, and | natural. But lovers of Crockett will doubtless read and judge for themselves. 'At this late hour praise iu his case is, largely,, superfluous.