BOOKS AND BOOKMEN.

Evening Star, Issue 14631, 29 July 1911, Page 10

BOOKS AND BOOKMEN.

| ‘ The Major’s Niece.’ By George A. Birj mingham. London :G. 801 l and Sons. |, Ballymoy, Ireland, is 20 miles from - a railway station, and on that account dear to the Government official, from the Lord Lieutenant down, who is seeking the refit cure or wants, complete change. Mr Birmingham peoples it with some delightfully typical Irishmen. There are Major Kent, a bachelor, of Portsmouth Lodge; Father M'Cormack, the parish priest; Mr Doyle, the hotelkeeper; Mrs O’Hallorah, the major’s housekeeper; and the Rev. J. J. Meldon, curate to Mr Cosgrave, 'of the Church of Ireland, and owner of a white dog, which sleeps on the foot of hia bed and rejoices in the name of Maher-Shalal-Hash-Ba2 (meaning “ Rending and Destruction ”), the Hebrew for convenience being shortened among friends to Baz. The Rev. as the major calls him, is the hero of the 300 pages of fun and high spirits and horse-play—all free, however, from the taint of' vulgarity—that make up the book. k.The plot is of the simplest. The major informs J.J. that he has had a letter from his sister in Australia, whom he has not seen for 20 years, advising that she was coming to Europe for a. holiday, and that she intended sending her daughter Marjorie to stay with him for a tew weeks. “My dear J.J., what am I to do with the girl? I’m not accustomed to girls. I am constitutionally unfitted to deal with them.” Before J.J. has finished with the major he (almost) convinces him that ho is an exceptionally fortunate man, that Marjorie, of whom neither of them knows anything, is a beautiful and accomplished society young lady of 19, compels him to issue invitations for half a dozen parties, to order finery from the drapery store, arranges for her to present an address to the Lord Lieutenant on his corning visit to Ballymoy, and then proceeds to spread the glad news—with additions—from one end of the township to the other. J.J. is not a liar, but he is gifted with an imagination and a facile tongue. Nothing abashes him; he is equal to any and every situation, and when the real Australian Marjorie arrives he, without turning a hair, remarks quietly to his friend ; ” It’s a pity, major, that you led us all to expect something different.” Still, it is J.J. who saves the position, tackles Marjorie’s mother, of whom the major is mortally afraid, and sensibly makes the beet of everything. As a matter of fact, the real Marjorie proves more likeable than the creation of J.J.’s—that is, the major’s —fancy would have.

MATTHEW ARNOLD APPRECIATED. The author of ‘ Collections and Recollections ’ has recently recalled how Matthew Arnold, in 1873, wrote to his sister as follows; I have a curious letter from the State of Maine, in America, from a young man who wished to tell me that a friend of bis. lately dead, had been especially fond of my poem, ?A Wish,’ and often had it read to him in his last illness. They we’-e both—the writer and his friend—of a class bio poor to buy books, and had met with the poem in a newspaper. In the poem the speaker is contemplating Death, and rejects the common con eolations of a deathbed : Trine none of those: but let- me he. While all around m silonoc lies. Moved to the window near, and sec Once more, before my dying eyes, Bathed in the sacred dews of morn The wide aerial landscape spread— The world which was ere I was born, The world which lasts when I am dead ; Which never was the friend of one. Nor promised love it could not give, But lit for all its generous sun, And lived itself, and made us live. Here let mo gaze, till I become In eoiil, with what 1 gaze on, wed. To feel the universe my home ; To have before my mind—instead Of the sick room, the mortal strife. The turmoil for a little breath The pure eternal course of life, Not human combatincs with death 1 Thus fooling, gazing, might I grow Composed, retrtvvh <i, ennobled, clear; Then wilting let my spirit go To work or wait, elsewhere or here 1 THACKERAY. Tiro ‘ L'ornhill’ for July commemorates its first editor, Thackeray. Meanwhile, the daughter of David Matson sends to the Juno number some curious reminiscences and 'lottara. Masson as a young man wrote a paper for the ‘ North British Review ’ on the two novels of the moment—- ‘ Penderuiis ’ and ‘David Copperfieid.’ Ha had letters from both authors, and Thackeray is to be remembered because “he spoke so enUiutiasticailv about Dickens.” And years later Masson had a hurried note on Christmas Day, 1863, a,-king for au article. on 'Thackeray’s death. There was a postscript: “The bearer will walk about the country til! you tell him to return for copy." Masson sat down at, his house in Finchley road to write of Thackeray on that Christmas Day. And late at eight the parlormaid Inked in rather scared and said to Mrs Masson: “Please, ma’am, the devil has been sitting' hy the kitchen fire the whole evening, and cook says hadn't she bettor give him a hot supper now?’’ So the hoy had the Dickens Christmas fare while Maaaon was writing of Thackeray's death.

The Benchers of tho Middle Temple celebrated the memory of Thackeray's residence as a. student of the Middle Temple by a dinner, ft was in 1831 that the future author of • Vanity Fair’ took chambers in No. 2 Brick court. More than 50 y>m earlier the same rooms had been occupied by Oliver Goldsmith. Thackerry afterwards referred to tliis in his ‘ English Humorists ’ “ I have Been many a time in ihe chambers in tho Temple which wmo his," ho writes, “and passed up tho staircase which Johnson, ami P.urkc, and Reynolds trod to see their friend, their poet, their kind Goldsmith—tho stair on u hich tho poor women sat, weeping bitterly when they heard that the greatest and most generous of men was dead within tho black oak door." SHAW AND SHAW I.SMS. Horne breezy bickerings have arisen between Mr George Bernard Shaw and his biographer, Mr Henderson, as appears in a letter from Mr Shaw- published on May 2. Mr Shaw said in this letter, which was published in the ‘ Morning Post,’ in reference to Mr Charles Webley’s review of the book : The book has been reviewed on the assumption that I road the proof-sheet, and am therefore responsible for everything it contains. This is not the case, though I must add that the fault is, mine, and not Professor Henderson's. He strove to make mo road my own life in manuscript, and strove in vain : 1 had had enough of it whilst living it. To this Mr Henderson replied as follows : The time for correct ions n; during the manuscript period. ... I had no reason to believe that Mr Shaw had not examined tho entire manuscript. . All tho information to which Mr Shaw takes exception was gained from himself at first hand, either in conversation or by letter. In another passage of his letter Mr Shaw wrote :

The bosk is ' already attracting a stream of American pilgrims to a house in Osnaburgh street in which I never lived, and which, as I guess, was photographed by Mr Alvin Langdon CoLurn in preference to the right house (for I really did live in Osnaburgh street once) because it reminded him of the subject of one of Whistler’s Chelsea lithographs. Mr Henderson made the following rejoinder : If Shaw does not know his early home from a “ ginger beer shop ” how should I know any better? I grieve for the discomfiture of my fellow-countrymen who are wasting their incense at a false shrine. The paucity of the number of Shavian devotees in the United States is doubtless explained by the fact that they are all burning caiKlJr* at the