BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

Evening Star, Issue 16197, 19 August 1916, Page 3

BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

'W. M. Hughes, the' Strong Man of Ans"tralia.' By Stanhope W. Sprigg. London: CL Arthur Pearson.

Tlie above is an interesting outline of the career'of that wonderful little man who, as Mt Bonar Law has said, in spite of his physical handicap, has eo ._ conspicuously impressed his personality "upon the people of Great Uritam, and his policy upon Imperial statesmen. The above contaiiiß many inspiring. paragraphs from the speeches which gave the Prime Minister of the Commonwealth Ms unique reputation during liia recent stay in the Mother Country.

' The Main Trail.'. By Henry Oyen. London : Hodder and Stought-oiL

The contents and the nature of the above may be gathered from the preliminary summary which the publishers are obliging enough to furnish: —Shadows of the northern tamaracks, a log cabin's vellow light along, the trail ahead, the laughter of husky lumberjacks, the twang of a banjo, shuflling feet. A sneaking figure among .the rattling ice-sheathed eumao bushes' as a spy from the rival lumber company looks over the day's progress. The howl of «. distant wolf. A hurrying sloigh with a girl dear-eyed-and laughterKppod, sitting beside a" gruff old "man. Then a young man, tall yet broad of shoul dei-j a city nun with tho virility of the athletic field, swinging in on sliding skis, his cheeks aflame with the cold and his eyes alight with love as he sees the sleigh.

' The . Dreadnought of tho Darling' and 'On -the W r ool Track-' By Captain C. • E. W. Bean. London: Hodder and Stoughton.

At an hour when the name and the fame of Australian troops on the field of battle are everywhere being extolled, it is well that the public should have other and more intimate opportunities of learning something of tlie Australians as' they are in their daily livesi in' the heart of their own great Australia. And no newspaper narrative cr book, perhaps, can better perform tilds service than do tho above admirable reprints of articles that originally appeared in the Sydney Press, written from first-hand knowledge and experience by Captain C. E. W. Bean, who has since made a reputation as one of tho most attractive and accurate of war correspondents. In his preface to 'On tho Wool_ Track,' the author tells us that he was instructed by the proprietors of tho 'Sydney Morning Herald' to describe the wool industry irom any point of new which he chose. " The wool industry," ho says., " turns out wool and meat and tallow and glue and cold cream, and many other things. But the most important things it turns out are men. And so the articles dealt with men. They followed down the long wool track from the paddock to the loom, the industry which is the chief training of Australians, n'ostly through the country .where that life id most typical." In a prefaotory note to 'Tlie Dreadnought of the (river) Darling,' Captain Bean says that in ' On tho Wool Track' he _ found it necessary to discard many of his most interesting memories of visits to the back country, because they coidd not possibly be referred to the wool industry. Henc-e the second, but quite independent, book. One feels, one knows, much more about the real Australia - than one did after reading these welcome volumes-

'HAMLET* AT ELSINORE.

_ Under the- auspices of the Authors' Society an open-air iuemori.il performance of ' Hamlet,' in honor of the Shakespeare Tercentenary, took place on June 24 at. the Kronborg Castle at Elsinore. It was the greatest dramatic event in the history of Elsinore. There were over 200 performers, inchi'dinj! singers, actors, and a chorus from the Theatre Royal at Copenhagen. The King and the Royal Family and a distinguished company wore present. The scene was appropriately laid on the very spot where Shakespeare made Hamlet wander nightly between the old mosscovered bastions and the ancient fortress walls.

Tlie famous troupe of actors hired by Hamlet arrived in realistic fashion, dusty and tired by the journey on the countryroad, carrying their parcels arid decorated with the green leaves of spring. This scene m the gloriously fine evening was wonderfully effective, "and poetic. ' The Royal actor, Xieolaj Xeikndam. who took the part of Hamlet, and Mme Moltko, who took that of Ophelia, achieved an extraordinary success amid this exceptionally beautiful and realistic scenery. The play was preceded by a prologue written by M\ Helgo Rode, brother of the Minister of the Interior, and after this 31. George Brandes, the famous critic and Shakespearean 'expert, delivered a. lecture in honor of the poet. The music was specially composed by M. Ca.rl Nielsen, and was played and by fioloists from tho Theatre Royal. 'The entire performance was arranged and stage-managed bv M. Johannes Nielsen, the stage director of the l'heatre Roval.—Renter.

THE MOST IMPRESSIVE SHAKE SPEARE MEMORIAL.

What is the most impressive memorial of Shakespeare in the world? At a Shakespeare discussion in London the claims of many Shakespeare monuments were argued, but in the end it was generally' agreed that the most impressive to the imagination is really a dirty little white tablet in the western wall of the Post Office telephone building in Bell Yard, near Doctors' Commons. This tablet is inscribed with these words:— " Upon this site formerly stood the Bell, Carter Lane, at which Richard Quiney wrote the letter to William Shakespeare dated 25th October, 1598. This is the only letter extant addressed to Shakespeare, and the original is preserved in his birthplace. Stratford-on-Avon. This tablet was placed by leave of the Post-master-Genera], 1899." Is there any other genius in the world, asks the ' Manchester Guardian,' great, enough to make a place memorable oecause some unknown man had sent- from there a letter to him? Thus in our Shakespearo like a sun that makes a little piece of broken glass in an obscure corner shine like a gem.