BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

Evening Star, Issue 14529, 3 December 1910, Page 3

BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

‘How She Played the Game.* By Lady Napier of Magdala. London: John Murray. Dunedin: It. J. Stark and Co. A prettily-told story, with some rather good character sketches, wherein. Jean Maxwell, of Muirtown, is left, beautiful ; and nearly penniless and an orphan, at j the age of twenty-two. As she cannot possibly live on the little over £IOO a year I that has been saved to her out of the j family wreck, she has to take a place, or I situation—Lady Napier, on behalf of her 1 heroine, rebels at either of these terms as companion, at £BO a year, with a very vulgar, typical, wealthy widow of the stamp novelists delight to depict. Whvy she must accept this class of work in preference to any other is not clear, except it is that she quite wrongly imagines she cannot lake anything else. Jerry, with whom she is j in love, she will not marry because mar- ; riago would spoil his career. _ Jx> she becomes companion to Lady Price, goes to Cannes and Florence with her, and submits with what grace she can to the customary indignities of the position. Experienced novel readers will not need to be told that she is constantly being recognised oy grand ladies, who speak to her on a footing of affectionate equality, while her overdressed, envious mistress is sublimely ignored. A very handsome and 'c;y wicked Italian nobleman —as bankrupt in pocket :us he is in character—and his equally unprincipled married muter luniisn the nearest approach, to the melodramatic clement that the story contains. Jean--the pure, the gracious, the .uloiable—-■•■-i'’ tall virgin with Lie red gola n:iir (red oi “ carrots,” as Lady Price angrily calls it. continues the fashionable color for heroines), wins safely through tit last to tier title and her own Jerry, with Jots of money. Lady Napier knows Hi.; y. o: ’’ l ‘ ! of which she write:-;, but .it diffeis lithe, j if at all. from the tame wmjd as we have it ; from scores of others. It rami'- a pity. I though, that she ha< allowed herself m mar lu-r narrative with a quite unneccisaiy and inaccurate oathuist against “ this unpatriotic Government ” and _ “ blaunl demagogues, whoso one wife. to keep ! office’ at -all c.isis." A ho it. absurd, j after t;u definite :v setting of the -period <:J time. u> add in anodic';- chapter: “The i years sped away . . . uie Juggernaut of time rolled on.” On (he wnom. a pleasant. readable, healthy novel. ‘ Th--> Fortune limiter.?.’ Hr Violet Jacob. London : John Mnrrav. Dunedin : 11. j J. Mark and Co. Thirte -n shcit floi'ie.s occupying pome I 550 pages, of which the lirct, that give-" its name to the hook, fills 500. Four only ! am n-v, the balance having appeared at j different times in. tlm nuges of the 'Fa!; I Mall.’ 'The \V. -n.-n ' Homo,' ‘The Cornhiii,’ and <-tii;.-r magarine-s. The scene of .some is n. England and some abroad, and touch on tne super natural. All are agro.-ably told, and pas:; an horn- or two pi. asantly. I ‘Tai-.v of the ’! enem---;'By Helen Pin!!- ! noU-s. L-:m<ion ; .iolm Murray, Dnn- [ coin ; Whiteonib-- and Tmnbs. The above also .-outains thirteen short stories, which do u«e., however, as 'he title might lead the reader to nil or, tell anything alioiit New York ■ London lodging-holies. Mr Fhiilpolm’s tenement-.; are on'bis beloved Da.rtnnx.M-. Herein the year 1806. iio tells u.s, a topographical survey of the Uounty of Dm on set forth how tho improvement and cultivation of the Forest of Dartmoor would afford innnincr able opportunities for the beneficial exercise of industry and capital, l.nfoi-tn-natoly. he cldc, many took this advice, and there t-oraa:,,- up numerous tenements in the more sheltered river valleys and hollows of the wilderness. In addition to those there, were already upon flic moor several venerable homesteads, dating back from Tudor times, and out of the old and the new Mr Fhiiipotts has weaved a story of tragedy and pathos a ml humor around each. ‘Astray in A ready.’ By Mary E. Mann. London : Methuen and Co. Dunedin : Whit-combe and Tombs. Possibly the above is more or less autobiographical. A doctor's widow who is an author of repute so! lies down for a yc.-v in Dnldiloh, Devenshir--, and pi of esses herself charmed with the place, and delighted with the change troni the city. She- amuses herself and keeps her hand in by writing letters to her dear friend Hi Id red (a widow like herself), and her dear son Cl cor go (in India). These get all the gossip, scandals, bits of characters, hopes, comments, and feelings that are going. For a mother .she has strange wishes for her son. .Most mothers like their boys to i have a girl to theme-elves, but this mother j wants her boy to marry the widow—and a | widow, too, whom bo had known and I cared for as maiden. Happily lloorgo lurI better sense a.nd finer taste, and /gently ! but firmly tells his dearest mother that ' ho is bringing homo his own girl from India to see her. Then she goos back to Iho town and its fieshpots. Her early enthusiasms are dulled, and sho turn' glsdly to the miles of slimy slrcets that men call Ijondon. We think Mrs Mann Las done more attractive woii; than tills. ‘The Romantic P.aad.’ By Guy Rawlence. London.- T. Fisher Unwin. Time: George 111. Scene: I/oiidou. Salisbury, and Poole. Dramatis fx r.-oc.e : A fiushionablo flirt, the handsome hero, who games, drinks. and (iglits. am! can always put bis hand in his pocket and draw out guineas ; a miserly father, a brutal squire, a faithful servant, an innkeeper, a, pert chamber miss; and fort-bo altogether lovely and peerless Dulcinen del Toboso a. certain Julia Vane, of Fovea't Cbamberlavm' Manor, known to tho reader only for three rartfi of tho book as- “ Wild Will,” toe {taring and mysterious highwayman, the knight of Hit? romantic road, -who bus spread consternation, throughout Wiltshire and Dorsetshire. Tho story tolls bow S'lr Michael H tun ton, sick of London follies and London damsels, determines to si:lk in Devonshiro for a month or two until the fit has passed ; how ho meets tho fair unknown, whom he had seen but once and for a few moments only in I.o:idon. at an inn ; how he follows her up, how elm doffs her woman's attire and dons that c: “ Wild Will”; how she robs him :r;d wounds him ; bow he finds her in the- solitary manor; how bo wooes her, meets the coarsanimal who is his i-ival, also the despicable father ; and, in short, how he has !o fight to save her from tho fate her own weakness hau brought upon her, from marrying the squire, -and from her untoward ruvromnlings. All this hao been told in varying styles and ways from time immemorial. Every nov-i reader h.u; me i, them. There is nothing, therefor;.', that is new about the material and little that ta fresh in ther dishing of it up. .S-lill, an novels go, it is breezy, vigorous, and bright, and tiiceo take one far. THE AUTHOR OF ‘RAH AND HIS FRIENDS.’ It was truly said by the ‘Eclectic Review’ that “a man can scarcely hope for immortality by nosscsshn; the- mnio of John Brown, but ho may walk clown to posterity with tolerable individuality by the epithet of Subsocivm Brown.” “ Hone Subsedvm,” or, as ho preferred to call them, “ Bye-Ho ms,” first appeared in 1858, but long before that date Brown had been at work, or rather at play, with his pen. Ho started as an art exilic; he was ono of the first reviewers to acclaim Ruskin’s ‘ Modern Painters,’ and so begana series of studies ou all manner of subjects biographical, artistic, literary, social —which ran, chiefly in the ‘ Scotsman,’ for upwards of thirty years. Some of these papej-s, including ‘Rab and His v Friends,’ were collected in his fii-st book of ‘ Hono Subsecivre ’; which was followed by a second in 1861, and a third in the year of his death, 1832. Of the papers included in 1 Hone,’ by far the most popular was ‘Rab and His Friends,’ first published as a pamphlet, which made, its author’s name famous, not only in Great Britain, but in the colonics and tho United States. It is indeed an exquisite idyll of Scottish peasant life, nnsurp.-mved iu tenderness and pathos ; but, of course, there is no room for quotation here. Next to ‘ Rab.’ tho. paper wieh excited meet inhutmb ‘ Marjorie Fleming,’ tbs story

of a child precocious in goodness and clevcninss, to whom tho great Sir Walter turned for refreshment and exhilaration when ho found the task of writing 1 Waver let’ ’ hang heavy on his hands. —His Sturdy Christianity.— In a letter written in 1864 lie made a double protest against Renan's ‘Vio’ and Newman's ‘Apologia.’ “I am so glad I was grounded in historic Christianity in my youth, and am almost mechanically screened against these fellows and their guns and shells, their torpedoes and mines.” In a less challenging mood, he wrote on the death of Thackeray, to whom both as man and as author he was devotedly attached : “ God grant we all get good by tills, and indeed by everything! For that, after all, is the thing. Are we bettor or worse now than wo wore a while ago? Are we ripening, or withering, or rottening?” And where could one find a more perfectly evangelical sermon than ic contained | in the closing paragraph of his ‘Plain I Wonts on Heal Hi, addressed to Working I 1’coplo’? : Good-night to you all, big and : lit Lie, young and old: and go home to i vour bcckido. There is Nome One there | wailing for you, and Hi;- Son is hero ready j to take you to Him. ... I need not , say mure. You know what I mean. You i know Who is wailing, and you know Who ; ;1, is that stands beside you, having the likeness oi the Bon of Man. Good-night! ■ The night eoniolii, in which neither you ' nor I can work—may wo work while it- is dav ; whatsoever thy hand iiiidcth to do, i do'it with thy might, for there ie no work j or device in the grave whither wo arc all I us Inis idling; and when tho. luglit is I sjxmc, may we all cater on a healthful, a j iiappv, an everlasting To-morrow.” Wo I could not fashion a more suitable farewell ( j Pi ihia “ beloved Physician.” j 1 THE CHARLES DICKENS TESTI- j I MON 1 A.L. | The October nnodxir of tho * Strand ■ i Magazine’ announces that Iho Dickens : I Testimonial Stamp will shortly be I .in sale. The. purchase of this . stamp, which was first suggested by an | I article in the ‘Strand iiagasdno’ of An- | j rust. is. lo enable admirers of Dickens to ; j miv what tlie author of the scheme has J 1 '.■ ailed “deferred royalties” to tho do- j seendants of Hie novelist. “A committee,” j iiie • Strand Magazine,’ now araioimoee, J has been formed of inihieulhil persons, ! whose names and whoso example should be i a. guarantee te the world that what it is desired to do out of gratitude to Dickens’s memory will duly no earned out. Tide ; Iliekcr.s Testimonial Committee, under wliote auspices ihc stamp will be if.sued, : comprises the following acceptances up to 1 dale: - Loul Roacbery. tho Lord j Chief Justice (Lord Aiviv'etenu), Lord Hu mini ni. Si; John Duncan, Sir John I Haro, Sir W. Robert.-.ui Nieoil, Sir George ! Riddell, S;r Adolph d uck. .'U-asrs Harold Beyhie, Hilaire Belloc. M.F., Hall Guliio, 1 G. K. Lheatei ton, W. L. Counney, Walter ! Crane, William Davie.., Frank Dicks ?c, it.A., Robert Donald, IVny Filzgoiaid. Tom Gallon, Edmund Go.se, JL Rider Haggard, Hildebrand H-.i-rniiiwoith, tV. . j Jacobs. Andrew Lang, tiio Hon. H. W. Lawson, J. M. Lo S.igv. Auliur M/u-iLoii, Briton Riviere. it..A., Clement. K. : Shorter, iSol/iiia.n J. Solomon, 11.A., J. A. ' Spender, S;. Loe RVraeiicy. Theodore \\ r a.i.t.s-J luul.on, Arthur Wacqli. and Sir Frank New nos. The .stamp wifi-be distributed by Hu- pmprieiois o: iiie ‘Strand Magazine’ without oilier profit Lhan tho . eoiieeiaueness of having a,-.si.sUd iu a I .sterling cause.” LORD BYRON’S .SL'PERSTITION. j Hearing of the death of a friend, ids j lotdehip said;—“ 1 was convinced something very unpleasant hung over me last . night. I expected to !u:ir that somebody j I knew was dead ; to it turns out ; who [ can help being siipenililinus? Scull lie- j iieve.s in second sight; Rousseau tried j whether he would bo damned or not by aiming at a tree with a- .stone; Goethe j trusted lo the chance cl a knife's fitxiking j iiie water whether lie wa.s lo succeed in .sumo undertaking ; Swite placed tho sue- j ass of his life on iiie drawing a Lout ho I had hooked out of tho water. Several ex- ! traoidiuary things have happened ou my ; birthday; so (bey did to Napoleon; mid a : more wonderful eivcninsiaiiee still occurred 1 lo Marin Antoinette. At my wedding, i /something wbisp-.-ted me that I was sign- | mg my death-warrant. At (lie last | iifOincnt I would have retreated if I could have done &.>. I am a. great believer in : presentiments. .Socrates’ demon was no | fiction; Monk-Lewis had his monitor, and j Bonaparte many warnings.” i