BOOKS AND BOOKMEN.

Evening Star, Issue 13102, 7 November 1908, Page 4

BOOKS AND BOOKMEN.

■Egy* >- v "■■■ .■ »■■■ ■ SPifJl®’ jPmsoer. * By Morire Gmid. LonWSa*** Hodder and Stoughton, Dunedin: ?';". R. J. Stork and Co. ' We bore read at least one good story ;-D/ QfflWrd, but were disappointed in . The Pursuer’ is hardly more yttSß a shocker brought perilously up to plte—-how perilously wo leam when we that the Anglo-Rusaian Agreement, t*sdch was signed on September 1, 1907, Is |Sj£»k«n of in the past tense before Colonel Rimer’s hairbreadth escapes commence. ';PerhaDo it is unkind to note trifles of this wrt, but one cannot help wondering what Bert of on audience novelists have in their mind’a eye when they set down incidents that cannot well have happened if time counts for anything at all. Mr Gerard gives us the usual ‘splendid specimen of ir«nhood (agsd thirty-five), and tho usual marvellous specimen of tender and accomplished womanhood (aged twenty-five), who play out their very, very simple story to on accompaniment of diabolical Russian •fleers,' Greek counts, fascinating countesses, energetic Foreign Office attaches, herculean Arabs, and the mysterious country of Ruahia (i.e., Southern Morocco) for the background. Now, Ruabia is being ex plotted in the interests of tho aforesaid Russians and Greeks, and the gallant colonel has the task of unearthing and exposing them. For a mart who knows so much be acted somewhat foolishly —of coerso, had he not done so there would have heenj no story—but by tho time wo roach page 300 the marriage license is in sight, and, aa money ia absolutely no object, the magnificent pair bid fair to settle down to a country life where “ the sun was shixnng gloriously, and the tide, phosphorescent, Breaking with white foam at their feet.” A clean story, running on ordinary lines, and of ordinary merit, I * Tangled Wedlock.’ By Edgar Jepson. London: Hutchinson and Co. Dunedin : Whitcomb© and Tombs. The latest craze in novels of the sensuous and shameless stamp lias artists for its heroes Mid their models for its heroines. A book of this class got tho Christchurch booksellers into trouble; Andrew Lang has recently poured contempt upon a sunilaT essay in “ literary art,” and now Mr Jepson offers similar unsavory matter. We have no hesitation in dismissing it with mere acknowledgement. | TOLSTOY’S JUBILEE. j Dr C. Hayberg Wright, who was deputed to visit Yasnaya Polyana to present Tolstoy with the congratulatory address that had' been signed bv eminent Englishmen, writes to ’The Times,’ in part, as follows: I found a oruiet family circle round tho breakfast table, not a stranger staying in tho boose, not a sign of birthday festivities, except a few flowers in the centre of tho table, and even these might be said to have only an every-day appearance. I walked about tho grounds for a little, and then at eleven o’clock I was summoned to sea Tolstoy in his room. Ho was lounging in an arm-chair, looking great in his weakness. His face lit up with a kindly snulo and with a benign and spiritual lock. “You have grown older and grercr.” be said to me, “sine© you were here last” ‘‘Yes,” I said, and reminded him of tho long four hours’ walk which he took with me some years ago. and how tired I was after it, and h© smiled again, and said ha could not do that now. And then he asked rn© to show him the address and signatures from his English friends, which he understood I had brought over from England. Greatly touched'by Mr Corse's holograph letter and the printed address, he tarred over tho pages of the signatures, and asked mo to point out to him those names which would interest him most. It would he invidious to mention these which struck j lum. but ho was evidently much astonished by the variety of people—professors of law, ! and vegetarians, novelists, critics, actors, and fan© disciples of his own. “This is a vexy precious mark of esteem, very, very pleasant to me/ 1 Tolstoy said. “It is well indeed to receive such demonstrations on one’s eightieth birthday; if one received them at thirty one would really imagine oneself to be a person of some importance. I thank you most sincerelv, and I thank all my English friends for this mark of sympathy.’ _ And he lay back in his chair. 1 and said: “I am quite well, but I am feeble. Thank them all for me.” “I am rather nervous and tired to-day,” he added, and must not talk long,” and, dismbaing me with a friendly shake of the hand, he asked me to spend the day with his family, : and he would see me again later. j —The Family Circle.— j ' I left the room and joined the family • circle, with whom I spent the afternoon and evening. Telegram?, addresses, and letters poured in all day. By the time I left, which was eight in the evening, thev bad reached over 1.000. To enumerate or give an idea of their contents would be impossible. Suffice it to say they arrived from every part of tho world, some with hundreds of signatures, others anonymous, all bearing testimony to Tolstoy’s genius and fame.

I think the two which I would single nut as being the most touching would be the address from th© Single Taxers of Australia, who are followers of Henry George, and one from the waiters of a music hall in Moscow. The latter is one of the most feeling addresses I have ever read. “Of course,” runs one sentence from those waiters, who serve the fast and fashionable men of Moscow, “wo are far from following the ideals ret forth by you, but wo rejoice in the thought that we are beginning to learn a little of your teaching. a"ml otic of ‘men’ (‘man’ is tho name given to a waiter in Russia) wo arc becoming human beings, who have a consciousness of God and are striving towards eternal truth.” This address Tolstoy told us was the one ho valued most.

The address of the Single Taxers of Australia was much on tho same linos. It is beautifully worded and a sincere expression of sentiment.

W© dined at 6 p.m., a goodly party of twenty. Tolstoy himself was wheeled into th© daring room and ate his dinner with ns. vW© drank his health quietly, and after dinner one or two of us had a little talk with him. During my short chat after dinner Tolstoy asked in© about Bernard Shaw, whom h© had recently been reading. He inquired as to his age, as to his brains, his views on lifo and thoughts, whether I knew him personally, and if ho was an Irishman, ad many other questions, some rather difficult to answer. Then everyone settled down to read or play, Tolstoy himself playing a gam© of chess with a friend. Dr Wright says that in St. Petersburg the book, print, and confectioners’ shops were full of signs of Tobtoy’s birthday, but th© further he travelled the lees he saw. In Moscow there were no indications, tho Governor having issued a most stringent order prohibiting every outward approach to recognition, either in shop, press, factory, or school. DEATH OF “LUCAS CLEEVE.” The death is announced of Mrs Georgina Isabel Kings cote, better known as “Lucas Cleeve,” the web-known novelist. “ Educated in tho school for scandal; has had a chequered and varied career ” —so the dead novelist once summed up her life, and the sentences fitly picture one who was as unorthodox as any character of her imagination. A daughter of tho late Sir Henry Drummond Wolff (whom she predeceased by a few weeks), a fanner British Ambassador to Spain, and an ally of Lord Randolph Churchill, sho married Colonel Howard Kingseot©, and had three children. Latterly she had resided on the Continent. Her literary career was marked by a remarkably prolific output. So rapidly did novels com© from her pen that her nom-de-plume, “ Lucas Cleeve,” began to figure too frequently in the book lists, and sho adopted fresh names. Work under four new pseudonyms was planned for the present year, and she had hoped for an annual output of at least eight new novels. Working at this pace it is hardly to bo expected that any great literary results would b© attained, but it is generally conceded that had she written less, and taken more time, she might have reached a high standard. MorW than one London publisher has in his safe MSS. from her pen that will appear in duo course under one ar other of her nome-de-plume.

- She had- tho -knack oLvnatiffg a novel to' [ catch the craze of the moment. Her 1 ‘Woman Who Wouldn’t,’ for instance, followed hard on the heels of- Grant Allen’s touch discussed ‘ Woman \Vho" Did,’ and ‘ Tho Real Christian ’ was her attempt to take advantage of tho popularity of ‘Thq. Christian’ and ‘The Master Christian;-’, Other books from her pen include ‘Lazarus,’ ‘ Epicures,’ ‘Th© Monks-of dire Holy Tear,’ ‘Plato’s Hand-maiden,’ ‘Blue Lilies,’ ‘ Eileen,’ ‘ Our Lady of Beauty/ ‘ ’rhe Dreamer,’ ‘ Tho Secret Church;’ ‘ Sel- - ‘ The Rose Geranium,’ ‘ Her Father’s Soul,’ and ‘Duchinka.’ On her return in 1903 from a lecturing tour in tho United States -she published | The Anglo-American,’ in which an amusing story appears to illustrate her horror of tho “new woman”:—“After my lecture ‘ Mere Woman,’ in which I mentioned that it was absurd for a woman to Fay she could do without men, while she corld not cross the road without a policeman, the policeman at the comer of Union square cam© up to me, and told mo that my lecture had been read at all the police stations, and that I should never ivant for an escort so long as I was in Now York, which turned out to be the case, and every morning there was one availing at the corner who would gravely escort me through the traffic. HAS COWPER HAD HIS DAY? A hundred years ago there was no poet inoro greatly admired than the author of Ihe l'i;,;k.' He was the favorite poet of Jane Austen, as Johnson was her favorite writer in prose. “We have got Boswell's ‘ Tour to the Hebrides,’ ” she writes, “ and are to have his ‘Life of Johnson’; and as some money will yet remain in Burdens hands, it is to bo laid out in tho purchase of Cowper's works.” In the little rectory at Steventon Jan© would listen to her father reading to tho assembled family lengthy selections from ‘ the 1 ask and ‘fable Talk.’ and when the family have moved to Southampton, we find her writing of he.r garden there: “T could not do without a syringa for the cake of Cowper's line.” 10-day. in response to an appeal to place the Cowper-Ncwton Museum (Bucks) on a substantial basis, wealthy England gave £3. where £2.500 was asked. Have Englishmen forgotten the gentle met. the author of ‘John Gilpin.’ and of the Olnoy hymns, which include ‘God moves in a mysterious way' and ' Hi>k, mv soul lit is tiic Lord I It seem? preposterous to think so. ‘John Gilpin' .rone would keep his memory gnun. though many of us share Mr James I’ayn > feeling toward? that famous story. A voting woman, sitting next Mr Payn at dinner, got cu tonSdenti;d terms with him—as people were apt to do with that kindly and generous-hearted man. Act she had to pluck up her courage fo confers that rhe could not laugh at John Gilpin’s adventures. “Between vou and me,” remarked Mr Payn, “I myself find them terribly lioring.” Still, John Gilpin lives. 'Hie strange thing is that the man who wrote ‘John Gilpin’—the man who on either accounts must be placed among the wits and humorists—is generally regarded as a inad, dull, heavy gentleman in a nightcap. The portrait hi which Cowper wear? what appears to lie a nightcap is, like the world, too much with us. It has bitten deeply into our brains. AVe cannot awav with it. It lias become a sort of nightmare which drives us to regard Cowper with a jaundiced eye. Could the facts be gathered, we believe it would be found that tho miserable subscription total is largely due to the predominance of the nightcap. Tho letFon should be taken to heart.' Poets should take from it a warning against eccentricity in dro?s. Or, at Hast, if they wish to drew? queenly in their ordinary goingv-oiit and comings-in, they should have .1' brush-up and a correct suit whenever their portraits arc taken. OLD AND NEW FICTION. An American critic remarks that “if wo were considering the fiction, the histories-, and the inteiprctative esrav. before tho middle of the Nineteenth Century, we should find very little to even (sic) suggest such an inquiry, and tho little we might hud—say in Addison and .Steele, in Lamb, Hazlett Hii.) —would Ire so different from our new literature, so allied to an older order by formal elegances or rhetorical devices of style, an to be hardly pertinent to our immediate purpose.” If fids means that our writers before 1850 were not masters of prose—that Walton. Swift, Fielding, Raleigh, Cowper, Pope. and Lady Mary Worlloy-Montagu, and so on, were not “ artists in prose ” {though they know not tho phrase)—we can only marvel at the' Critic. If tho meaning is that our rnoncm prose literature superior in stylo to Jill the prose classics in the English language, we must admire the selfconceit and naked ignorance of this representative of tho up to date. He goes on: “It would not occur to any critic to sneak of the art of the Wavcrlov Novels.” It would not have occurred to Scott, bat what term would the up-to-date critic employ in speaking of the merits of the Waverlcy Novels, for I presume that he is hardly yet so lost as to deny to Scott creative power, humor, observation, and imagination? Even of Mbs Austen’s power it is written that “ it may be called art, but it is a poor species of that old art which depended for its effect upon false similitudes-.” The moaning of tho second half of the sentence is evasive, but tho critic obviously thinks that old art must be bad art. I hen he come? to what is really good, because it is really up to date. “When we speak of the art of Thom is Hardy, of Conrad, of Hichens, we mean something quite different. . . .” I hero is no doubt about that! Tho art of Conrad and Hichens H an art of which I cannot speak, 1> -cause I am unacquainted with the masterpieces of these men of gon*s; but if it resembles the perfections of Miss Austen’s woik f am very much mistaken. It is pretty plain that what the up-to-dato critic really wants i- not humor, obrervation, tenderness, fancy, but whatsoever “fruits of the spirit are not- limited, as to their nature or their scope, by the narrow definition imposed by puritanical or any other aibitrary judgment as to what is the chief end of man.” Now, no great writers of fiction, from Hcmcr to Mice Austen, have been “limited by puritanical judgments as to what is the chief end of man. 1 ' But they have thought some things right and other things wrong ; and, from Homei; to Shakespeare, have deliberately loft some nauseous facts of human nature out of their picture of life. Perhaps Ihe New Art (winch alone is genuine) mns-t lie applauded for in difference "to morality and for neglect of decency. If that be the idea,, the old ait of the world is bail indeed, the fact is undeniable. We must think not more nobly of Homer, iShakcvpcare. and Scott than Mr Shaw—perhaps with a humutous intention—profe.‘scs to do. However, Ido not pretend to know what the critic means; probably he does not know himself. It is incredible that he should think the newest hooks better than all the great literature of the past, or seriously propose to erect Moots Conrad and Hichens on pedestals high abate liud of I* lelding One only soi-a that the critic is intoxicated with new win©; or rather with the email beer, that poor creature, of th© moment.—Andrew Lang.

The prize for the longest sentence ever ■written may fairly be awarded to the elder Dumas, who probably holds a further record for fertility of production. In the eovonth of the twenty-nine volumes which compose the •Impressions de Voyage’ there is a sentence describing Benvenuto Cellim which fills three pages, or 108 lines, averaging 45 letters apiece. The sentence is broken by 58 commas and 60 semicolons ; but as it contains 195 verts and 122 proper names, the reader is somewhat bewildered before the end is reached. The exuberant Alexander wrote be for Mr Frdorick Harrison had enunciated that writers should “avoid more than twenty or thirty words without a full stop, and not put more than two commas in each sentence!” In honor of the marriage of Eobert and Ellen Barrett Browning on September 12, 1846. a novel festival service was lield at the Browning Hall, Walworth. Several of the members of tho Moody-Manners Opera Company attended ami sang the ‘Love Songs’ of the poet and poetess, to the great delight of the congregation.