BOOKS AND BOOKMEN.

Evening Star, Issue 13090, 24 October 1908, Page 4

BOOKS AND BOOKMEN.

Bate Flame/ By Percy Barron, -twden: Rudder and- Houghton. Dnny ,odiff: R, X Stark and Co. v ; -.Tj&e publishers’ puff preliminary—over Mr Andrew Lanjp and others wax pmdigtuuti and facetious, but which will outtheir satire and exposure—says of above that it is “a fearlessly written ttomande of modern Ireland that will bo a A revelation to many English readers.” We .are jljraid that. this somewhat overstates ; the rase; Readers of M. J. P. M'Carthy’s ' Irish histories, or romances, or slanders—according to the individual standpoint—will not be very much astonished at anything f Mr Barron has to tell. Our objection is ; that he has spoiled the makings of a good story by introducing incredible episodes and making his puppets dance more strangely ■ than these creatures generally do. The root idea is excellent, and his first few chapters are the best in the book. He I seeks to draw an Irish family who have !been nurtured on tho past wrongs of Ireland until they are obsessed with the on© idea—■ hatred, intense and bitter, against England and Englishman. These old wrongs of ( a brutal age color their ideas, narrow their I' outlook, and regulate their lives. Any r crime or plan or incident that trill help to humiliate the sanguinary Saxon is welcomed and supported even to the point of financial ; bankruptcy and the sacrifice of life. A young Englishman in Germany meets on© of the two last surviving male representatives of this family. The Irishman gives rein to his tongue and insults the Englishman. A duel follows, and Erin’s champion j is killed. The tragedy is intensified when I 1 we leant that the Englishman’s sweetheart [ is the cousin of the slain. Tho beautiful I' Kathleen adores Jack Bullen, but her uncle i compels her to swear, over the grave of tho dead, never to pause until she has found [. her cousin’s murderer and wreaked ven--1 geanca upon him. Here, then, we have the | foundations of a capital story. On the one hand, tho gospel of hate; on tho other, the ; gospel of love, with a fitting Romeo and , Juliet to call the tone. Unfortunately, ; both characters and story fail us wofully. The lady mixes in high society, becomes tho J rage, and flirts abominably. 'The iticn and | women she meets are to bo met in any novel one takes up, and aro just as unreal ■■■ and irritating. The hero establishes great electrical works on the site of tho scene of an old eviction, builds up a city of ten thousand souls, founds a hospital and free library, but errs badly in engaging a doctor for his skill rather than for his religion. The result is hatred on the part of the parish priest, tho burning of tho library, and an ' attack on Bullen, who is only saved from an angry mob by tho priest on cond : tion 1 that Bullen quits the country, bis lady-love, his reputation, and bis work. Bullen does these things and goes to Australia (which 1 is, we are twice told, 7,C00 miles away), while the fair lady—but there, of tho no’nsense of novelists there is no end. Why will authors make their figures so destitute of. common sense? Of the truth of the character of Father O’Darrell wo are not competent to speak. There aro good priests and bad priests, only O’Darrell is ; meant to bo a good one. That hatred of | England, when that hatred is nourished by | constant brooding on the savageries of tho || past, may unfit the individual for all raff tional converse, we can well believe. We ! have frequently noted similar effects from similar causes iu the sphere of religion. Possibly, too, a-priest may be found whose sense humor, if not of honor, is not sufficiently keen to restrain him from figuring as the villain in a melodrama. But°Mr Barron does not bring conviction. We cannot think that things were or are so. He makes the further charge against tho priest that he will not read the burial service unless it has been paid for, the result being that “ hundreds of bodies are every year dropped into the earth without the priestly words that are too expensive a luxury for the poor.” Again, we plead ignorance on 1; these,matters. Our concern is more partiI cularly with the use Mr Barron has made I of his material, and we think ho has not e. done the heat with it that might have been done. * Green at Greyhouse; a Tale of Adventure and Mystery at a Public School.’ By ' S. Wane® BeU. London: Hodder and Stoughton. Dunedin ; R. J. Stark. 1 and Co. It is, wo, think, apity that the above tale was not made solely one of adventure | at a public school, and “ the mystery ” left ont - mystery is the weakest and the ij- “Mt satisfying of the whole. If rings fate, (; and adds nothing to the interest of the | narrative, while its dramatic ending is melo•i d f am f 01 tile crudest sort. Mr Anthony Jr- Hopes Bontauki’ has got into the modem [i. n .°™l the frequency and irrelevancy of King Charles’s head in Mr Dick’s memo- ■ c* * that Air Smith of Greyhouse & School, athlete and good fellow, should be J; made heir to some Balkan principality, in order that he may be a fit mate for ’the beautiful Miss X©icester, the head master’s daughter, is stretching the probabilities f overmuch. Anyway, would a young Eng. i; Bsh lady be “fitted” on a throne? °Apart from this, Charlie Green’s adventures at j- Greyhouse Public School aro admirably and entertainingly told. The boys are human and | likeable, and, for the most part, healthv. : Occasionally on© is apt to think that a few , bounders have got among them, and that | “ licking ” is carried to an excess, but we recall that they aro boys, in their own world fighting their own way and liv : mr !K np to their ow ncode. Mr Bell’s story I’. vrill give both pleasure and profit to all U ™*° a g Plain tale of schoolboy ji life told by one who writes from the inner f, side. | ‘Gotty in Fun-in Parte.’ By A. E. Cop;i ping. London: Hodder and Stoughp ton. Dunedin : R. J. Stark and Co. •j Gotty is the captain of tho fishing smack ■;i Betty, whose crew consists of the owner ii a gentleman amateur and tho narrator of Qptty’s adventures and opinions—and a '• friend who acts as mate. The trio, boldly daring, leave Deal for furrin parts, tho port of call being Calais. They en- ; counter the usual mishaps on sea and'land, on all of which Gotty has observations—i shrewd, humorous, and otherwise—to offer. Wo cannot confess to any great enthusiasm over the wanderings of th© Betty and her companions as set forth in nineteen chapters. Tho talents and tales of Mr Jacobs and Mr Pett Ridge, of which, wiflyXnlly, we aro reminded when perusing Captain Getty’s opinions and sentiments, have spoiled us for pything short of real : gemns in this line. However, with an •i easy chair, a pipe, and an indifference to more thrilling “literature,” one can smile ,;! through a chapter or two without diffij cutty. f ANOTHER VIEW OF LAFCADIO HEARN. - Dr Gould, Hearn’s one-time friend and A medical adviser, has written a volume of fi reminiscences and opinions on that strange « and gifted being which has been sliurpTy •: criticised by many critics. The turn of his views of Hearn as a man is to bo found sj; in such words as “To have character is to ;f ( control circumstance; Hearn was always its |- slave. Except in on© particular, the puri| suit of literary excellence, Hearn had no ij: character whatever.” As a young man—k and be changed little except to become | more self-centred and more concentrated . Upon his work—ho was “uneducated, friendf> lass, without formed character, with a lot | ct heathenish and unrestrained appetites, crippled as to tho most important of the senses, poverty-stricken, improvident, of ■! peculiar and unprepossessing appearance and t manners, flung into an alien world in many | ways more morbid than himself.” This, and the whole book, is only a way I of saying that Heam was put mto the I cauldron of life in order to produce certain books and nothing else. In his best bcoks, In nearly all bis work after he matured, there is nothing lacking. As a social man he was a mass of faults. He was no scholar. He knew nothing well, neither language nor science. He could not speak jtp his children and wife in Japanese. He cared not for poetry—except some Longiellowand Tennyson. He had no aims, no CQX6S, 60 long as he could indulge his flesh

and wnto; -That his throat was not cut the ■world at.-largo must rejoice, though a few may have cause to regret. He lived, as we have said before, to this <Jnc end, that he might produce certain books. It was in them that all his ardor, his devotion, his sense of duty was spent. He wrote like an angel and lived like a rat. —A Bashful Creation.— Dr Gould tells us many things that confirm and intensify the view of Hearn which ’ Mrs Wotmore’s book gave, together with many such details as that the 1 Commensal ’ ! Cincinnati discharged him for seeking a | license for an open marriage with a colored j woman. A story that will surprise no-. ; body is told of him on an evening when ha ; was to whistle tho songs of “ Two Years in the French West Indies ” to a lady, in order j that she might write them down: — “When the fatal evening arrived Hearn j and I went to the lady’s house, but as wo | proceeded hia part in our chatting lapsed 1 into silence, and ho lagged behind. Ai- , though lie finally dragged himself to the : foot of the doorstep, after I had rung tho ; bell, his courage failed, and before the door ! was opened I saw him running as if for ! life, half a square away.” I j It was to thiii timid sensualist with a I power of words tliat Dr Gould “ gave a soul.” It is Hearn’s own phrase. Under ; Dr Gould's roof the writer first experienced home life, and from Dr Gould’s lips ho learnt “that intelligence, purpose, and benej licence lie behind biology.” “ Above all,” ho continues. “ I demoni strated the existence of Duty, ‘ Stem Daughter of the Voice of God,’ not only in ; the abstract, but in concrete live?, in social and historic exemplifications, and that only by means of men and women who obey conscience is social and historic progress brought ■ about. . . . Fully and freely Hearn acknowledged the vision, and ueveo afterward could he be wholly the same as he had been before.” MR ANDREW LANG AND LITERARY CRITICISM. From an article by Mr Lang in the ‘ Morning I’ost ’ we take tho following chatty and humorously-veiled slating of modern publishers and their wares. It is written apropos of an article by Mr Thompson in ono of the American reviews, lamenting the absence of criticism as an art , in America. “The advertisements of the novels of j pushing publishers, at home, are preans, dithyrambs, anthologies of hallelujahs selected from reviews. The critics, like the blessed in Paradise, are occupied solelv in singing hymns ot praise to Mr A., Mrs* D., and Miss C. I sincerely hope that this monotony of eulogy proceeds from the ‘ intellectual candor’ of the critics. But if this be so I share Charles Lamb's phrenological eagerness ‘to feel their bumps.’ How gan they find so many masterpieces, how j are they enabled to exude all this sweet enj tknsiasm about ephemeral trash ? “ Mr Thompson supposes that without the 1 critical enthusiasm of the reviewer the publisher of the critical journal would not get the advertisements of the publisher of the books. It may be my blind patriotism . which prevents mo from observing this sequence of cause and effect in some, at least, of our serials. Mr Thompson talks of ■‘The Silent Bargain’; all books (or all novels) are puffed, and advertisements automatically flow in. They would not flowin if a large percentage of the novels were tomahawked, as a large percentage deserves to be. But the result is that the chorus of eulogy is distrusted ; that the reviewers are not read, or are read ‘ with distrust and exasperation.’ ro that they fail to ntimulate public enthusiasm. Meanwhile the critic too-often ‘is certain, whatever his rank, to dodge, to soften, to omit whatever he,fears may displease the publisher on whom he depends.’ | “In the days when I wrote many reviews 1 we were allowed to say, in all cases, just what we pleased, saving the laws of our country in the matter of Libel. Publishers, says Mr Thompson, ought to welcome frankness in reviewers. They used to get it, it abounded ; in fact, there was tco much pepper in the cream tarts. Now there is j too little! The publisher, says Mr ThompI son. ’should stop sending out. as literary (notes, thinly-disguised advertisements and irrelevant personalities.’ and photographs of no bodies ‘in affected poses.’ The publisher who docs these things—it is not only in , America that he does them; —will not cease j while he gets editors to publish them. I Mrs 8., author of the much-talked-of ‘Serena’s Misfortune,’ is not more Remarkable for her dating use of the psychological scalpel, and frank contempt of the so-called decencies, than for her taste in the collection of early Victoiian horsehair chairs and late Staffordshire ware. Exhausted by her prolonged toil in the composition of | Serena's Misfortune.’ Mrs B. is now seeking mental recuperation by golfing in the Dolomites. Me present a photograph of Mrs 8., in the finish of her swing, concerning which Andrew Kirkcaldy has been heard to say that ‘he never saw the like o't on St. Andrews links.’ This is tire kind of thing, and certainlv ‘the publisher should stop sending it out.’ ” COUNTED IN MILLIONS. Over seventy millions of books were borrowed from the public libraries of England during the past year ; and nearly a million people every day use the reading rooms invariably attached to the libraries. Obviously one of the most interesting subjects in regard to public libraries is that of novels. These institutions have a great responsibility in this direction. Some time ago it was stated that public libraries keep a collection of sexual novels “ under tho shelf.” While this is untrue, it is quite true that many libraries will j not issue all books to any and every borj rower. Some of the old classics are quite as bad as, in one way, although they are immeasurably superior in another to, the modern problem novel. There are certain books, however, though the works of frontrank novelists, which should not be given to boys and cirls to read. W 7 hat, then, should the library do? | A GRAND DAUGHTER OE JOHN ! FOSTER. The Roy. R. M'C'ullough, of the Baptist Manse, Mitcham, South Australia, writes to the editor of the ‘British Weekly’ as follows;—In your issue of June 4 Claudius Clear, in an interesting article on John 1 osier, says that the great essayist and Ins children lie buried in Downend Churchyard. Mention is made of only two daughters. Tn 1890. when 1 was pastor of the Hobart Tabernacle, a young widow who kept a small greengrocer'll shop remarked to me one day that her grandfather was a Baptist minister. I n-sked his name, and she replied; “John Foster.” 1 inquired if that was the famous writer. “Yes,” she answerd, “he 1 did write some books.” On further inI quiry, I found her mother, John Foster’s j dangler, wan living in Hobart. I went to see the old lady, and had an interesting conversation with her. Her intellect was becoming feeble, but she was able to tell me a good deal about her father. •She had his portrait and some of his books. She said she left home early and had spent the greater part of her life in Australia. She was living with a married son, who was employed in the printing office of the ‘ Mercury.’ She must be dead now. Unfortunately I have forgotten her name, but it "could easily be obtained. Her daughter was Mrs Anderson. She has been married a second time and removed to Victoria. The son is probably in Hobart still. A literary problem periodically debated by lovers of Moliere has been the identity of that famous type of Alceste in the great dramatist’s ‘Le Misanthrope.’ The plausible suspicion that the character was suggested by the Marquis de Montausier, Marechal de Camp and Governor of Colmar under Louis XIII., and later the preceptor of Lonis XIV., would seem to be henceforth beyond all doubt in consequence of a curious discovery made by M. Leon Lefebvre during his recent examination of the Colmar archives. He has found a voluminous correspondence exchanged between the marquis and town officials, and ho noted in the Governor’s letters several passages virtually identical with wellknown verses of ‘Le Misanthrope,’ He concludes that Montausier was Molicie’s model. The demonstration of his discovery, is to be found in a study published in the ‘ Correspondent,’ under the title ‘Le Drame de I’Amc Alsacienne au Dix-Septieme Siecle.’—‘ Times’a ’ correspondent.