BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

Evening Star, Issue 14308, 5 March 1910, Page 9

BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

'The Gateway.’ By Harold Regbie. London ; Dodder and Stoughton. Dunedin : B. ,T. Stark and Co. Mr Begbio adds to a clear, vigorous, and exprensivo stylo, and a thorough knowledge N of the political and social life of England during the past thirty years, a deeply religious spirit. He is' not tho only wellknown novelist who introduces and discusses Christianity in his novels, but he is one of the few who knows wherein Christianity consists, and who faces the reewrtant problems bravely, and discusses them with reverence and sincerity. He never descends to cheap sneers and showy invective, and ho has a remarkably penetrative insight, into the shams and hypocrises that pass current for Christianity. To Mr Begbio the Christian religion and tho Christ "'life are the things that count in this world, ami in many a vivid and striking sentence he makes the reader see what lunnaaitv is with, and what it would ho without them. It is, too, the chief ilnn m of his manner of presentation that can test its truth. Ho does not roly upon mere appeals, cither to the emotions nr intell'vt, nor does he base his reasoning upon tiie Church as an organised and visible in titntion. But. ho does believe ;n Christ us sufficient and competent for the salvation of mankind, and he docs believe in conversion, the new birth and repentance, although possibly 1 1 Its connotation of these terms might not pass muster m a theological seminary. Nor is he_ satisfied to take on the role of the apologist. His is not a negative attitude. He carries his argument across the border into the very heart of the enemy’s country. Social reforms and legislative oops are futile unless prompted, dominated, and guided by religion. ‘M'ne needn’t read history to believe that all the unselfish work of the modern world is being done by religious pedplo . . . religion is the only rational and intelligible explanation of the universe,” and so on. These arc the underlying strata, the bases of-Mr Bcgbie’s arguments, as they are set forth by Rhys Jenkins, a retired schoolmaster. Ifor Lyddiatt. rector of tho village of Monnow. and Victoria Manning. And over against them wo have n restatement of the many-ccntmy-old cries of tho materialist and atheist. Possibly the average devourer of light literature will skip tho religious pages, or think them tediously discursive, but it is in these that Mr Begbie’s strength and attraction lie. Ho writes serionslv, and ho writes well. Life, means something, and it holds something for each and all to do. There arc mysteries, perplexities, and numberless unanswerable questions. But life is, and it can only justify itself and differentiate itself from that of tho beasts that perish by its treatment of religion; not a religion of forms and ceremonies and vestments, but a religion that is “a freer and spontaneous expression of the soul—not a labored and difficult conformity to the intellect of authority.” Apart, however, from its spirit, ‘ The Gateway ’ is interesting as a story. It opens with its brief, almost brutally, comprehensive touches, and retains the reader’s attention until tho close. David Fiddian is tho son of an out-of-wqrk engineer, who had been wearily tramping for days looking for a job, and of a girl of eighteen who died in child-birth in the stable of a wayside ale-house. Tho man had he been given a fair or even a bare chance would, in all probability, have become a decent ciizen and a credit to the Mate. The death of his wife and the demon of unrest and the dislike of work, to which his forced pilgrimages gave rise forced him down and kept him down. He developed into a rogue, a vagabond, ami a gaol-bird, and the impression left in that existing social and industrial con- i ditiom in England are to-dav creating such men by the thousand. The baby is adopted* by a kind-hearted, well-to-do, middle-aged" lady. Miss Pizey, who unwittingly trains him tip to bo a prig of the most' pronounced type. She confines bis reading to Maria' Edgeworth's ‘Moral Tales,’ taboos Shakespeare as namelessly impossible, and will not let him attend a public school nor indulge in the ordinary games and sports of the average boy. The wonder is how David after seventeen years of this sort of training is able to save himself front intellectual, spiritual, and physical suicide. However, he does pull through, and we get quite to like him before be leaves ns. Victoria Manning, the only child of the American millionaire who rents the huge castle in the neighbourhood, Ls the foil to tho son of the stable. One has everything, the other nothing ; one has parents whose only idea of education is to spend huge stuns'of money in gratifying every conceivable whim ; both are unhappy and'both aro shockingly brought up. Vet each tomes to tho same gateway over whose portals the words aro writen " What seek ye?” and each has to enter and seek his and her answer. Neither fabulous riches nor ignominious poverty makes or mars tho soul. Character and personality are born of our own mental and spiritual development, and the answer what we aro ■ and shall bo rests with ourselves. A MODERN NOVELIST. A decree of restitution of conjugal rights was petitioned for by Mrs Elsie Hueffcr against, her husband. Mr Joseph Leopold Ford Hermann Maddox Hucffer. author and journalist. The suit was not defended. On behalf of the petitioner Mr Lo Bas said that the marriage took place in May, 1894. at the registry office, Gloucester. Mr and Mrs Hueffcr went to live near Hythe, Kent, and there wer two children. In 1907 they came to London, where the respondent desired to live, but after about six months Mrs Hucffer was obliged to return to the country on account of her health. Since then "the couple bad never lived together, although in 1908. when she was very ill, the respondent came down to see her.' On the last occasion upon, which she saw her husband the petitioner tried to persuade him to return to her permanently, but in July last ho sent her a message through a tlu’rd person saying that he never intended to live with her again, adding that it was only duo to her that she should have the custody of tho children. The matter was placed in solicitors’ hands, and in answer to a letter from tho petitioner the respondent again replied that he would never return to her. The petitioner, who stated that she resided at Aldington, Hythe, Kent, bore out her counsel’s statement, and His Lordship granted a decree of restitution with costs. Mr Hueffcr is a philosophical sentimentalist and an idealistic writer of more than ordinary merit. His private life, however, would appear to furnish an ironic comment on his "art.” NOVELISTS IN A HU Bit Y. A large amount of present-day storywriting shows neither insight into character, nor knowledge of tho world, nor a decent technical equipment for any sort of writing at all. Human life certainly cannot see itself reflected in it, and would gather but a very garbled version of its own story from it. It shows, indeed, little but a feverish desire to be “topical” at all costs, and a hasty attempt by its ant horn to launch their ventures, where possible, upon some passing wave or other of public interest. Tho writers we have in mind all show this haste, litis frenzied rush to get level with tho passing hour, though it bo but with a catchword; and meanwhile tho immutable facts of life which should bo their study remain unobserved. They have not even time to know the details of their mis en scene. The stage and the studios aro perennial subjects of interest to outsiders, and are therefore' much in favor as backgrounds: it asks, one would think, but little trouble to find out what these safe cards are really like—superficially at all events. Yet we find descriptions of theatres where the footlights are on the wrong side of the curtain and the prompter on tho wrong side of tho stage; and—through the introduction of a woman novelist, of course —we recently made the acquaintance of an ■undraped model who. until she moved, could not be distinguished from a marble statue evgn by woman in the same room.—‘ Saturday Review.’ “ WHAT IS A LIBERAL ?” “What ie a Liberal?” \vm tho subject, of ono of tho few Bonnets that Browning wrote. Browning, in common with others of “ tho butt minds of. the Liberal party,”

had been asked to explain “ why ho wne a Liberal,” and tho answers received, eotno in prose and some in verso, wore published in .1885 by Mr Andrew Roid, Browning’s sonnet is as follows; An Answer. (To the question : Why am I a Liberal?) “Why?” Because all I haply can and do All that lam now, all I hope to bo — - Whence comes it save from fortune sotting; free Body and soul the purpose to pursue. God traced for both? If fottors, not a few, Of prejudice, convention, fall from me. These shall I bid men—each in his degree Also God-guided—bear, and gaily too? But little do or can the host of ns : That little is achieved through Liberty. Who, then, dares hold—emancipated i thus— Sis fellow shall continue bound? Notl, Who Jive, love, labor freely, nor discuss A brother's right to freedom. That is “ Why.” IMPROPER BOOKS. Recently at the Boif street (London), Police Court, before Sir A. De Rutzen, Harry Sutton, director of the Hygienic Stores, Limited, Charing Cress road, appeared to an adjourned summons which culled upon him to show cause why an order should not be made for the destruction of 272 copies bf an obscene publication entitled ‘Droll Stories,’ by Balzac. The magistrate said he had read a catalogue which had been issued by tho defendant's company, and he noticed it was stated that minors, asylums, ami schools were not supplied. That threw a flood of light on the matter. To his mind a more foul or filthy black spot had not been found in London for a long time, and the police had done uncommonly well in bringing these proceedings. Mr Crawshay, for the defence, said that his client had not read the book. Ho sold it because it was being sold at some of the principal shops and was also contained in the catalogues of some public libraries. The magistrate made an order for the books to be destroyed, and awarded £5 5s costs. The above case not onh- illustrates the need that exists for a clean sweep of many of tho ehelvcs in the bookstalls, shops, and libraries, but it served to illustrate the perversity of a stamp of reader who sees nothing nasty or pernicious in any book if it happens to have a great or well-known name attached lo it. In tho present instance a gentleman named Undo S. Myers wrote to ‘The Times’—that last refuge of indignant moralists and those wiio arc not moralists —ns follows: Anent the question as to what binaries may permit to circulate or not, may 1 call your attention to a decision in one of the police courts reported in your issue of to-day as regards one of Balzac’s very best-known works? It is quite, possible that its translation into English may have been evil in intent, and have produced what your report tails " an obscene publication,” but that the original work by Balzac should, umkr any circumstances, be suppressed for anybody 1 think shows how hard it would bo leave this matter of public censure in private hands. Tho retort was prompt, decisive, and to all but Mr Myers and bis allies crushing. A correspondent wrote from the Royal Societies’ Club as under: Referring to Mr Lindo S. Myers’s letterin your columns of to-day concerning Balzac’s ‘ Droll Stories,’ it will be interesting and timely to quote Buskin’s comments upon them, all tho more so as he was University Professor of Fine Art at j Oxford. In ‘Time and Tide,’ p. 59, lie writes of those stores: "Nothing more witty, nor more inventively horrible has yet been produced in the evil literature or in the evil art by man; nor can I conceive ic possible to go beyond either in their speciality of corruption. The text is full ox blasphemies, subtle, tremendous, hideous in shamelessness. . . ." Mr Gossc, Mr Anthony Hope, Mr Lucas Mulct, a section of the Press, and their male and female aiders and abettors undertook a big task when they, in the interests of “art,” impertinently iilllnncd that the normally healthy man and woman could not tell tilth when they saw it. and were likely to ban Darwin’s ‘ Origin of the Species ’ as well as modern versions by modern authors of ‘The Decamcrosi’ front tho 'circulating libraries. A REPRESENTATIVE PROTEST. Tho Conference of Representatives of London Societies Interested in Public Morality, composed of representatives of the following societies : —Church of England Men’s Society, Social Purity Alliance, Friends’ Purity Committee, Young Men’s Christian Association, Alliance of Honor, Society for the Rescue of Young Women ami Children, London Female Preventive and Reformatory Institution, the Church Army, White Cross League, the Salvation Army, London Council for tho Promotion of Public Morality, National Vigilance Association, and the Southwark Diocesan Association for the Care of Friendless Girls—whose headquarters are in London, placed on record recently their hearty thanks to tho Circulating Libraries’ Association for combining to prevent the circulation. of immoral, objectionable, and unhealthy books professedly treating of the sex problem. Dealing, as they have to. with tho effects of such hooka upon the young of both sexes, they feel that by such action the Circulating Libraries’ Association have earned tho gratitude of all true citizens interested in tho betterment of the soriiil and moral life of the nation, which for several years has been seriously menaced by the. growth of an undesirable' realism in works of fiction. This Conference not only welcome the efforts of the firms interested, but place thmeslves at their service to assist in any way possible the good work thus inaugurated for tho suppression of this most objectionable class of so-called literature. The friends and admirers of the poet Paul Verlaine recently visited the Balignolles Cemetery in Paris in order to lay flowers on the poet's grave. At the annual luncheon which followed this pious pilgrimage Hie treasurer of the committee for the erection of a monument to Paul Verlaine, M. Alfred Vallette, of the ‘ Mecnro de France.’ announced 'that the monument would probably be unveiled during the current year.