BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

Evening Star, Issue 14414, 9 July 1910, Page 9

BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

‘ The Illustrious Prince.’ By Phillip Oppenheim. London: Hodder and Stoughton. Dunedin; R. J. Stark and Co.

Mr Oppenheim. has written an exciting and entertaining story apropos of the Anglo-Japanese alliance, Japanese-Ameri-can relations, and compulsory military service. He begins well, and in a sensational story, where detectives, police, criminals, high officials, and lovely women are the main ingredients, to begin well is probably more than half the battle. Wo have the silent, reserved man who emerges from the hundreds of passengers aboard the Lusitania, as that famous steamer glides into Liverpool Harbor, paid on production of a brief note secures the captain’s instant attention, and a trip ashore when cveryono elso luis to stay aboard. Ihis same person next asks for “a special to London, and after the customary amazement and pooh-poohing, secures it. Then follows a description of tho railway journey through tho Black Country, tho absolute certaintv that no one is aboard the special save the solitary passenger and four officials, the arrival at Euston, the discovery of the traveller, sitting over his correspondence, slabbed to the heart, dead. All this is legitimate enough, and interest is intensified when a young American, riding in a taxi-cab through Regent street, and bearing on his person a duplicate of the document that was taken from the murdered man, is found strangled when the door is opened for him to alight. the clearing up of these crimes is tho story of the book, and in the course of their unravelling wo aro introduced to ‘the Illustrious Prince” Maiyo of Japan, whom we nuite early suspect as tho actual murderer, the U.S. Ambassador; the Prime Minister, the Homo and Foreign Secretaries, Inspector Jacks, an American commercial representative and secret agent, and a Miss Penelope Morse—an American who prefers to live among the English aristocracy, ihe author, we think, is under the impression that in Miss Penelope Morse he has drawn a charming woman. We think he fails lamentably. A woman who is made to pose as a liar shortly after her first appearance and as so callous to the horrible fate of two men she had known, and with one of whom she had been on terras of friendship, that she participates in .dances and suppers a few days later, _ will not appeal to the normal reader. Miss Morse and Ladv Grace —the daughter of a duchess —both throw themselves at the Illustrious Prince, and either of them would marry him if ho would have her. Miss Penelope Morse, in fact, actually goes down on her knees entreating this Illustrious Prince to fly when she learns that he is (“Guilty or not, I do not care”) tho author of these cold-blooded, horrible crimes. Country, donor, maidenhood are flung to the winds, so long as this supreme monster saves his own wretched carcass. One revolts at this sort of thing, and revolts still more when the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary of Great Britain, duke, duchess, heroines and all accompany this illustrious prince of murderers to London, accept gifts from him. and tell Inspector Jacks to believe the sacrificial lying of one of the Illustrious Prince’s underlings, and to remember that advancement as often .follows passivity (if timely) as activity. Most amazing of all, perhaps, is Mr Oppenheim’s obvious unconsciousness of the immorality of his teaching. He really believes that because his Illustrious Prince committed murder not for his own bub for his country’s sake, that his crime ceases to be execrable, and he has no glimmer of apprehension that Miss Penelope Morse is a distinctly repulsive person. Our modern novelists having let go the sheet anchor of their_ mighty prcdecossois, are hopelessly groping and floundering in a chaos of anarchy and materialism. Tho only man who speaks sense—Charlie somebody—is promptly ignored, and his precious fiancee, Miss Penelope Morse, tells him that if ho ever again says that the Illustrious Pritice is what she knows ho is, she will leave him at once and for ever! And the Prime Minister and the duchess and the rest murmur their approval, and poor Charley mumbles out his apologies. Apart from this truly deplorable lack of ability to estimate moral values, Mr Oppenheim tells a good story, and his views, as expressed by Prince Maiyo, on England and Englishmen are piquant if somewhat overdone. It never seems to occur to our up-to-date journalists and yam-spinners that the England which they depict and represent is not one that manv of ns would care to die for.

‘ The Mystery of tho Green Heart.’ By Max Pemberton. London : Methuen and Co. Dunedin ; Whitcomb and Tombs. Mr Pemberton also has tho unravelling of a mysterious death for his theme, and he too moves in very high society. The hero is the hero of the schoolgirl’s dreams, aged thirty-seven, handsome as Byron, rich beyond the dreams of avarice, accomplished. scientific, the inventor' of what so far - is a profound secret, for.which Governments «ro contending, that shall abolish war from the earth, large-hearted, good, adored, etc., etc., etc. His name is Prince Maurevale, and as the events here, narrated happened in the summer of 1908 he is presumably still alive. We do not place him, mid wo do not believe in him. But Mr Pemberton, who knows the social world, knows also how to tell a murder story with an ease and a grace that are born of long experience in his waft and of exceptional abilities. The trial scone, which occupies a chapter of sixty pages, is excellently done, and can be profitably road fur its strikin'* character sketches and ite - kilful manipulation of the evidence, which is so presented that the reader is on tho tenterhooks of suspense from first to last. ' The Double Abduction.’ By H. K. Bloxham.. ■ Love and the Aeroplane : A Tale of Tomorrow.’ By John Sandes. Sydney : X.S.W. Bookstall Company. _ Each of the above tells of lawless passions, of cruel deaths, and marvellous escapes. Had one selected tho four books mentioned in this column with prior knowledge of their contents we should not think it worth while to mention- that all of them are concerned with much the same plots and doings. Taken at haphazard from a pile of a dozen or more novels, it is at least curious to -find, alike in London and the Antipodes, that tales of animal passions and brute desires and horrible doings exorcise so great a fascination for the novelist and inferentially for the public. We are afraid, however, that neither of the Antipodean productions approaches the Homo article in literary grace and finish. Mr Bloxham and Mr Sandes are as crude and unfinished as the- baekblocks to which they introduce us. Their heroines talk after the manner of the women in cheap melodrama, and they are as impossible from the standpoint of their personal charms as they are from their maimer of expressing themselves. YOSHIO MARKING. Reviewing ‘A Japanese Artist in London,’ bv Yoshio Mark Luo, our London correspondent writes that never did any record lay held of our heart in a surer, wanner way than this, and its very artlessness stamps Iht book with a fine literary style. With the writer—and his whole story is true—we live every adventure, cvocy little joy (how infinitesimal, yet how charming in his eyes!), every experience. It is doubtful whether any Englishman could have written in Japan, for the Japanese, such a book on themselves as Mr Markino has done for the English in this, and ft ith such kindliness, courtesy, candor, and real understanding. - The humor is irresistible, and the brave spirit that even* turned such a bright face to starvation puts as plucky a pen to the recital of ; t now. The pathos of heroic poverty has never been more shown than m the proud disregard of it.

“At ray starving time,” ho tells us in one chapter, “ I called on ‘ Harper’s Magazine,’ at Albemarle street, several times. The manager said: ‘ You most be getting on quite prosperous. You look always so happy.’ How lucky he had no X-ray apparatus to see my empty stomach!

“My pocket began to be dead silent again," be says In another place. / “Oh, I forgot to mention that I had only two broken socks at this time. I used to wash one pair in my washstand eweay morning before I went out-." ,

“I tried not to move quickly, as that made- me still more hangry." Tho offensive mother-in-|p.w long' ago become obsolete as an asset of fiction, and Mr Martino’s story will do much to remove the stigma that has so long rested on the British'landlady, whom, according to himself, he has much reason to idealise. “ Without their noblest conduct I could not enjoy life to-day,” he says. . ( “His wife” (one landlady) “was only thirty-two or thirty-three, very jolly, and an extraordmarily kind-hearted woman. She used to come into my room every dav, when I was out, and brush my clothes, and make order inside of my drawers. ■ First time in my life since I left homo that, my socks and underwears were mended!” “My last penny was gone then, he says again of his life in Kernel Rise, "and I got into debt. with the poor landlord. 1 was too sorry for them to take meats there, so I did nob come back for luncheons. I used to drink water from fountains in the streets. It was my only luncheon then; my landlady knew that. Every morning when I ’eft the horse she used to say to me: ‘Come back for meals, and please don’t starve yourself.’ ” , “How could I accept these kind words from such ?. poor woman? It was only heartbreaking to me; and she also said to me ‘Good luck to-day’ every morning, and she was waiting me in the evenings to hear ‘happy news.’ It was awfully duncult for me to enter into the. house after fruitless lasks all day, because she was such a sympathetic woman, and she often showed me her tears and said: ‘ Never mind about your debts to ys, but I am so sorry for your own hard life,’ ” “So often I wanted pome good news, more for her sake than for my own, just to sec a smiling face of this kind-hearted woman. Nevertheless, things were still going on harder and harder upon me.” Another time he intends to change Icdggiugs in Milner street, and join a friend: “ I came back to my place in Milner street and told the landlady I was going to remove on the same day. She was so astonished, and explained to me it was the English custom to give one week’s notice. Here I learnt another lesson of English life. I felt myself a savage, and was ashamed so much that I could not control myself for a long week to wait, so I gave a full-week pavment to her and said ; ‘ All the same, I shall go.’ She would not accept that. She said : ‘ Give mo only half of that, as you did not know our custom ’; and she told in© with moisted eyes that she would miss me very much. In tact, I had quite a comfortable life there. She had taken cate of me very kindly. It was my pleasure every nitrlit when I came inside to find a hot bottle in my bed. I was quite sad when I shook her hand for good-bye.” Of the writer himself Mr Douglas Sladen’s preface gives a lightning sketch: —“He is as incapable of thinking himself better than the humble as he is of considering himself inferior to the great; at the present moment he shares his heart between tlie Cabinet Minister and a shoemaker.

YosKio Markino is more like a spirit than most of the spirits clothed in human liesh which we call human beings. At houses whore he opens his heart to tho ’ninates and feels intimate, he flutters in, bubbling over with news and excitement—he always has news, even if he has met them an hour ago—he counts his friends, as it were, to see if Diey are all there, gathers each to himself with some little private personal touch, and then sits down on the floor as he was taught to do when he was a tiny mite in Da! Nippon. His unselfishness, his chivalry, his warmth of heart, recall all one has read of Die Bushido of tho Samurai class, to which he belongs, in the ‘Tales of Old Japan.’ . . .”

Of himself the artist save:—“ Analysis of my life? Discouraged? Very often. Disappointed? Always. Spoilt? Very much by John Bulls and John Bullesscs. In short, I have always been mentally pleasant and financially unpleasant. But I am told Try my elder English friends that my financial unpleasantness was all through my own fault.” His quaint expressions are very fascinating. “What should I do throwing away all nay friends like this? That is why I said the best way is nut to have any business matters with my English friends. . . As long as no business is concerned, they a : l are perfectly darlings!” “Let the crowds push me to and fro—l call it a human bath. In this human bath I always work out mv -ideas. And if lam left quite alone, I feel too miserable to do anything. I am in mad love of London.” “ This world is full of the disgusting odor of selfishness, arid there arc many poor, weak-hearted victims who are made unconscious of this odor, and nover come back to life again.” “When those ancient Chinese philosophers’ names were mentioned my heart was so deeply stricken with joy as if one was told the name of a woman to whom he devoted his love. Indeed, Laotzc, Confucions, and Mencius am my very best sweethearts in this world. I do not worship them as gods, but I heartily love them as mv elderly brothers."

“Just latch* I passed the under-passage from the South Kensington Museum to the District Railway Station. The passage is curved at the bottom. There is an ilhvminated lettering ‘To the Railway Station. Keep to the Right.’ And, moreover, there is an index'pointing to the right as if only the lettering alone were not enough. Why* there is no other way! One who comes to this way is obliged to go to the right. Then what for is this? This is simply Briton, and I love it.”

SHAKESPEARE’S BIRTHPLACE. Mr .Sidney Lee, presiding over the annual meeting of the Trustees and Guardians of the National Permanent Memorial of the Bard of Avon on May 7, said that the record of the pasttwelve months showed that the number of visitors, which a little declined in the ' previous year, owing as was thought, to the distractions that a London exhibition offered the country, had resumed that upward course which had characterised their recent annals. In spite of the dismal weather of tho past season, • the total number of last year’s visitors, 43,510, exceeded tho previous year’s record by 4,616, and only fell behind their topmost figures, 44,213, which were reached in tho year 1907, by 703. They had to compete, as things were, with tho London baits for pleasureseekers, but he had good hope that their average attendance, which seemed now to have settled down to a point well above 40,000 persons, would before long rise to 50,000. Visitors came to this national and permanent memorial of Shakespeare in steadily-growing numbers from all quarters of the globe.—(Hear, hear.)

■ Lord Curzon, in seconding the motion, said that, to his mind, it had always seemed a very sound instinct of mankind to conserve with great care and reverence places where great men were born, and lived, and died. It was by no means an idle and a morbid curiosity, such as they saw too much of in the life of the present day, which prompted them to do, this, nor was there any element of scntimcutjJ hero-worship about it.—(Hear, hear.) What they were really doing in regarding and reversing the birthplaces and livingplaces of''great men was to add to. their own knowledge of the circumstances and surroundings which, moidded their characters, and, if they were writers, in all probability influenced their writings.— (Hear, hear.) When anyone who knew anything about Shakespeare came to Strat-ford-on-Avon he saw in the room in which Shakespeare was born, in the streets in which he walked, in the surrounding country scenery, which influenced his phraseology, and his whole outlook of life, something which gave him greater width of knowledge, greater depth of comprehension, greater sympathy with the Master whom they all revered. ... So far as he knew, viewing the matter only as a trustee, reader, and student, every single discovery that had been made, every addition to their knowledge that had been acquired, had added sharpness to the identity and the individuality of Shakespeare as a man, a poet, a consummate genius, and had justified them in regarding with supreme contempt the fantastic imaginings which had been allowed to collect around his name.—(Hear, hear.)