BOOKS AND BOOKMEN.

Evening Star, Issue 12067, 12 December 1903, Page 10

BOOKS AND BOOKMEN.

'The Children Who Ban Away.' By Evelyn Sharp. London: Macmillan and Co.

A delightful story of a girl of fifteen, who with her brother, aged six, ran away from a comfortable home in London under a fancied grievance, to the equally beautiful manor house of a Miss Cecilia, who acts as Lady Bountiful to several neglected though apparently well-to-do euj.dren. The adventures of the youngsters on their way, their entry at dead of night into what was to be their new home, the fun and quarrels of the school, the introduction of some thoroughly boyish boys from the Monastery, and their doings and talks and games make up as pleasant a volume about children as ore i.-ould desire. Few present-day writers can do this sort of story better than Miss Sharp. She has an intense sympathy with her subject, a warm appreciation of a'child's greatness as well as a knowledge of its weakness, a love for boys and girls that is pleasant to find in these days of sex problems and childless marriages and female psychologists— falsely so called—and a literary style that is brightened by humor and deft touches of character. Her children are children, not, perhaps, those of the poor, but such as one would meet in any home where the natural exuberance of their years has been modified by careful home training in manners and speech. There is a moral, too, but so fineiy indicated as never to unduly obtrude nor become offensive, as is too often the wav with moral stories.

The ' Evening Star' serial stories are carefully selected, and it will be pleasing to those of our readers who enjoyed the story in these columns to learn that ' Sarah Tuldon, the Woman Who Had Her Way,' by Orcne Agnus, is meeting with big success in its volume form, three editions having been called for in as manv weeks. Most of th» literary and popular Home papers accord ' Sarah Tuldon' very high praise. We notice: "A great achievement" ('Spectator); "Best novel of the year" ('Morning Advertiser); " The pick of the bookstall" (' Vanity Fair') ; " This really great novel" ('Country Life'); "Worth "a dozen more pretentious novels" ('Daily Chronicle'). The Czar has written a series of verses under the pseudonym " Olaf." They are (says a message from Berlin to the 'Daily Express") extremely pessimistic, the tone betrayiug the author's intense unhappiness Mind deep despair. The Grand Duke of Hesse has set them to suitable music, and the whole makes a weird and melancholy song, 'flie song is published by a Darmstadt firm. The following is a rough translation of two of the verses. In the orieinal it is said they are expressed in exquisitely poetical language. The second verse runs— My happiness was born at night, And succored in the gloom; My pleasures have dissolved in flight, Heart-stricken at my doom. The third verse reads— My soul strives blindly for relief—Chilled, as by drifting snow, By donbts which scoff at the belief Of finding peace below.

It appears fiom the biography of Dr John Brown, author of 'Bab "and His Friends' (published by Black), that. Mrs Brown once asked Thackeray: "Why did you make Esmond marry that old woman?" "My dear lady." was his answer, " it was not I who married them. They married themselves."' One may be permitted to question the justness of Mrs Brown's taste. Esmond's "' dear lady" was not old when ho married her. unless under foity be old. and as she married my Lord Castlewood when a child of seventeen or less, she could hardly be more. Xo one would call Lady Randolph Churchill "old"' when she married young Mr West, although she must have been nearly ten years older than Lady Castlewood. It is not years that constitute woman's charm.

The author of ' Rab and His Friends' once came in for high praise from Dickens At a dinner oiven to him in Scotland, Diekenssaid that the thing which had first given him a strongly favorable impression of the character of Scotsmen was when, during an outbreak of eholca at. Chatham in 1832. every one of the English medical men fled from the place, and only a young Scotsman stuck to hLs duties. It turne'd out that the young Scotsman was none, other than Dr John Brown, who happened to be sitting opposite to Dickens at the table. Dickens, when he heard this, went round and shook Dr Brown bv the hand.

The ' Blackwood Magazine ' writer " Sigma"' has a high personal estimate and admiration of Thackeray. He recalls " the most chivalrous utterance that. I suppose, ever emanated from n man of letters.'' Dickens told a friend tint he could see nothing to admire in one nf Thackeray's novels, then being serially prodnced, and the friend, who knew both authors, with friendship's " damned good-naturedness," reported the opinion to Thackeray. It must have rankled deeply, hut all the comment Thackeray made was : " I am afraid I cannot return the compliment, for there is not a page that Mr Dickens has written which I have not read with the greatest delight and »d----mirnrion."

Mr S. R. Crockett., m his earlier years (write? Mr Robert Darr, in the 'ldler'), visited London, and was invited to lunch by a publisher who at times imagined be was very poor, and became stringently economical. In Mr Crockett's presence the publisher was to suggest tie Hotel Cecil a.« Ihe scene of the lunch, whereupon Mr Barr was to propose they should go to one of the foreign restaurants in Soho, which would be orach cheaper. The plot succeeded, but there is; one Soho restaurant which is appallingly expensive, and it was there that Mr Ban- engaged a table. When the publisher saw the bill lie turned ashen pale, scribbled on a leaf of his note book, and passed it under the table to Mr Barr, requesting Idm to "pass £5 to me under the tablet and keep on talking to Crockett, so he won't see what you are doing." Mr Barr happened to have £5. and passed it. He thought at the time it was a good joke on the host, but now he " has his doots," as the £5 was never refunded.

A touching account of the last moments of Elizabeth Barret Browning is given in Mr Henry James* s 'Life and Letters of William Wetraore Story,' the American artist, who lived many years in Rome. " She talked with him 'Browning), and jested, and gave expression to her love for him in the tenderest words; then, feeling sleepy, and he supporting her in his arras," she fell into a dose. In a few minutes, suddenly, her head dropped forward. thought she had faintei, but she had gone for ever. After death, he told me. she looked like a young girl; all the outlines rounded and filled up, all traces of disease effaced, and a smile -m her face so living that they could not perinade themselves for hours irrat she was really dead." The title of Mr James's work is 'William Wetmore Story and His Friends. From Letters. Diaries, and Recoilections.' It is published by Blackwood. '

An interesting iite?ary relic, says the Birmingham ' Post,' has come into the possession of the Department of Printed Books in tie British Museum. It is a piece of poetry of 310 lines by Oliver Goldsmith forming a rough draft of 'The Traveller, or a Prospect of Society.' which, was published by J. Newbury in 1765. A comparison of this draft with the first edition of 'The Traveller,' which contains 416 lines, shows that eighty-seven lines in tie draft reappear in 'The Traveller,' with alterations, two lines (the fifti and sixth.) are omitted, and the remainder arc unaltered in their wordhig, though arranged in an entirely different seouenee.

Tlve fiscal contagion has effected all classes. It has reacted tie music hall, it has diverted the writers for comic papers from eternal variations on the motier-in-law theme, and I hear of two eminent novelists who are about to introduce the topic into political novels. ' Liverpool Post.' Mr Kipling is being appealed to for a poem which shall strengthen tho hands of those who arc trying so hard to awaken women to the cruelty they countenance by wearing birds in tieir hats The London milliners' windows adorned for tie win-

ter season are as bad as ever.—' Manchester Guardian.' ' ' * Most people have read the famous epitaph sent to Robert Lowe, afterwards Lord Sberbrooke, by one who was not an enthusiast over some of the taxes Lowe, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, had found it necessary to impose. Many men would have slung the lines into the fire. Lowe, on the contrary, enjoyed the fun of turning them mto Greek and Latin, in which task, it seems, he had the assistance of Gladstone. Thus ran the original, borrowed, apparently, from an ancient tombstone: Here lie the bones of Robert Lowe; Where he's trone I do not know; If to the realms of peace and love, Farewell to happiness above; If to a place of lower level, 1 can't congratulate the Devil. One cannot agree .with William Watson's ideal of patriotism, but one must admire his" manner of expressing it. We have previously published an impassioned verse in which he pours out his wrath on England for her policy in the Boer War, but the following, though not welcomed when first written, may at this hour be accepted without much demur. It is a eulogy of the Empire's late opponents in South Africa: Unskilled in Letters, and in Arts unversed; Ignorant of empire; bounded in their view By the lone billowing veldt, where they upgrew Amid great silences j a people nursed Apart—the far-sown eeed of them that eret Not Alva's sword could tame: now, blindly hurled Against the march of majestic world, They fight and die, with, dauntless bosoms curst. Crazed, if yon will; demented not to yield Ere all be lost! And yet it seems to me Thev fought as noblest Englishmen did use To fight, for freedom : and no Briton ha Who to such valor in a desperate field A knightly salutation can refuse.

And this is his analogy and warning to that august mother of Empires in the North. era Sea. The poet is speaking of Rome : She asked for all things, and dominion such As never man had known. The gods first gave; then lightly, touch by touch,

O'erthrew her seven-hilled throne. Imperial Power, that hungerest for the globe,

Restrain thy conquering feet. Lest the same Fates that, spun thy purple robe Should weave thy winding-sheet. ■

Our correspondent, writing on October 30, supplies these items:—

There is evidence of undoubted literary alHlity in 'Life's Counterp6int,' by Lily Perks, but a lack of skill in constructing ;i readable romar.ee. It is a love, story, or rather a series of love stories, closely interwoven, and the authoress essays to show how human endeavor may have to meet at every turn the buffed ings of relentless fate. But the plot of the story is rather strained, lacking both force and consistency in ita development. The delineation of the leading characters is disappointing, although amongst the others one or two more robust natures are revealed, while as regards the womenfolk, none of the portrayals are accentuated with sufficient depth of feeling. On the other hand, the work displays a good style, terse, clear, and graceful, and the reader cannot fail to note hew the authored frequently enters—though somewhat. irrelevruirly--into ilie higher regions of philosophic thought, and display;' an acquaintance with intellectual ideas and conceptions much abeve the stan-urj-d of revealed by the average writer of modern fiction. It is nor- improbable that as an essayist or historian Mis," Perks might achieve that success "which has so far eluded her efforts in the realms of fiction. One of the latest contributions to the flood of controversial literature on the fiscal question is a reprint of ' Sophisms of Freetrade and Popular Political Economy Examined,' by the. late Sir John Barnard TJyles, Puisne Judge of the Court of Common Plea*. The hoot-; was written half a centiny ago, and made n stir at the time. Within two years it went through eight editions, then it seems to have suddenly faded away from public notice. Twenty year? afterwards the eighth edition, slightly altered, was reprinted, but it attracted'little attention, and soon lapsed into oblivion. Tho present editors:. W. S. Lilly. L.L.M.. and CS. Davis, 11.A., confers to haying come upon the volume- accidentally, and marvelled that they had never heard of it. before. The text of the eighth edition is reprinted as being worthy of special attention just now r . and the editor" contribute an introduction in which th> present economic position of England is examined,, an.) the system of free imports vigorously condemned. To the Artistic Crafts series of technical l-aiidbor k=. edited by W. R. Lethaby. has been added a book on 'Wood-carving;— De?ign and Workmanship.' by George Jack, with drawings by the author and other illustrations. The author gives a concise but lucid exposition of his art in it? simplest and its most elaborate forms, and the student is encouraged and shewn how to gradually work out for himself a natural and reliable manner of expressing his thoughts. In regard to chip carving, the author notes that, its development may be traced to a source in the barbaric instinct for decoration common to the ancient inhabitants of Xew Zealand and other South Sou islands. The perfection of precision and patient repetition which it? st.vage masters displayed elevated their work to the dignity of a real art. "It is difficult." adds Mr Jack, "to conceive the contradictory fact that this apparently simple form of art was once 4 Le exponent of a struggling desire for refinement on the part, of fierce and warlike men, and that it should, under the influence of polite society, become the. all too easy task of aesthetically - minded schoolgirls." The handbook is admirably printed and bound, and the illustrations are particularly good.