BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

Evening Star, Issue 17543, 24 December 1920, Page 11

BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

THE SUNKEN CITY. Glitters no scale or any fin Between, these blind basaltic wails; The broad weed waves about within The water of the pillared halls. ' And here the old crustaceans Crawl patiently across the sand With twisting eyes that turn askance, And ixgly pincers that expand. Light's essence in the gloomy sea ..Through, opal strained and emerald Tusges the spread anemone, And pearls of milk and rings of gold. But in this watery depth no more Shall sunlight break the sunken dusk, ; Nor vagrant beam of stars explore | The secrets of the city's husk. j And when the climbing tentacles I Of some sleep-swimming octopus j Disturb a ruined temple's bells I - And set the deep sea- clamorous, j The ships that ride a league above . i _ Hear not those drowned chimes, nor know j That where their great propellers move Atlantis lies a league below.

—Edward Davison, St. John's Collego, Cambridge, England, in 'New York Outlook. «

THE FIRST? AUSTRALIAN PAINTER. 'The Life of Conrad Martens, the Man and His Art.' By Lionel Lindsay, bydney: Angus and Robertson. The series of volumes of 'Art in Australia, which reveal a phase of life in the youngest contiuent of which we should never learn'from Lawson's verses or "Rolf Boldrewood's " novels, or from official year books, might fitly have begun with this- memorial. For Martens was the iatner of Australian—landscape painting, an art that has achieved more in the Commonwealth, despite the more* pressing claims m a new country of material development, than most people can have- recognised till this series of publication's ! made it evident. .That Australian painters have wrought so well as thev have done must in no small measure be attrii buted to the example and sound precepts [ ot tnis first master. I Conrad Martens, as Mr Lionel Lindsay describes him in what amounts to a fairly full and admirablv discriminating biography, was well fitted both bv study and the earnest temper of his mind to be wlfat he must often have t'ouud it discouraging enough to be, " the pilgrim father of art at the Antipodes." His own style was formed upon sound masters. Especially he learned much from Turner. The son of a Hamburg merchant, settled and married in England, he was born, in London in 1801, which is genuine antiquity for Australia, and had painted a good deal in England before some breath of adventure took him to South America. There, in 1852. he met with the Beagle, employed on the survey of Patagonia and Terra'del Fuego, which Darwin,'who was the naturalist of the expedition, has made famous. The Beagle had just lost through ill-health : the services of its topographer, and Mari tens was appointed to the vacant post. The sketches which he made of South ■American forests increased • his facility with the pencil, and he became sufficientlv a friend of Darwin to write banteringly to hirr, thirty years after, en the ' Orisrfii of Species' when it was" published. "But," he adds, "in a letter which is reproduced here in facsimile. "I must apologise, for I suppose you don't laugh .at nonsense now as you used to do in the Beagle, or, rather, I suppose nonsense does not come in your way. Well, that was a jolly »'cruise, and I hope you have been well and happy ever since." Leaving the Beagle, after a two years' stay'with her, Martens found his way to Tahiti, and (he sketches which he made there were the basis of numerous water colors, painted afterwards, which Mr Lionel Lindsay does not value. The exotic, he points out. is not suited to painting. " The word may evoke a picture ; the painted picture will" be but a_ theatrical set scene." But a painting, j reproduced here, of the" Bay of Islands, as Martens saw it in 1835, has both pictorial I,and historical value. j In 1835 Martens arrived in Sydney, j which was to be his home for 'the re- ! rrainder of his life. It was a small town | then of 15,000 inhabitants. Soldiers and i convicts were conspicuous elements. The i general atmosphere could hardly have been less encouraging to ,an artist; but the harbor, which Martens was • the first to paint, was* as beautiful as it is to-day. The chief settlers had built stately homes, moreover, on no bad models, and were proud to have those painted. Martens ha-d pupils, also, who came to him because painting for girls then was an "extra" of education, whether they cared for it j or not. It was a precarious" struggle, how-! ever, to make ends meet, till fie hit on the device of making, some time in the forties, a view of the harbor,.which he sent to London to be lithographed. Such work -could not be done then in Sydney. The partially colored prints were wrought upon by Martens till they had the effect of original water coloris, and, selling at a guinea, they helped out his revenue till the progress of the city in ten years caused the view to become out of "date, when a new one was printed with the same success.'• He made many excursions to the country in search of material for his brush. ""Grace, balance, the feeling for line, a just eye for the pictorial planes, a delicacy of touch in skies and distances, these (Mr Lindsay writes) are the characteristics of Mantens's art. His love of Nature was untiring. He was too welV bred to '"show og' in her presence, for. his mind was grave, and self-respecting:, and (shall I add?) perhaps a little cold. He had a sense of the hieratic relations of _ the parts of a picture." A sort of painter Wordsworth one imagines him. " His indefatigable pencil has left such a treasury of drawings that no history of j our first century in New South Wales "and I Queensland would be complete without -them. His sketch hook could neveT have been far from his hand, and the flying pencil that, ministered to the calm eye left little to record once it ha-d harvested its view." In this book are more than thirty of the oil and water paintings, admirably reproduced in colors, with nearlv as many drawings. They confirm the high praise which Mr Bindsay' gives to the work of an artist who, he- believes, if he had remained in England, would have "left a name high amongs£ the water eolorists of his day." Martens died in 1878, after i holding for fifteen years a Government appointment, which must have lessened the financial anxieties of his later life. The book which is published now as a memorial of him is one that no art lover of the Antipodes would willingly be without. DEAN SWEETS VISION. Did Swift foresee tbe Einstein theory? Mrs E. M. Kelson, writing to ' The Times Literary Supplement,' says: "No doubt many know that Dean Swift, in the voyage to Laputa, described the two satellites of Mars some ISO years before they were discovered. He gave the times ol: their rotation as ten and twenty-one and a-half hours, while they really are seven and a-half and thirty and a-half respectively. Not by any means a bad guess. But few are aware that he foresaw that a new theory wonld displace that of the Newtonian gravitation. This is what he puts into the mouth of Aristotle, whom a Laputan, skilled in necromancy, has raised up: ' . . . The vortices of Descartes

were «eqTialiy to be exploded. He pre- v dieted the same fate to attraction, 'whereof the. present learned are such zealous assertory. He said that. new systems' of Nature fere but new fashions, which would -vary in every age; and even those who pretend to demonstrate them from mathematical principles would flourish but a short period of time, and be out of vogue when that was determined."

a 'LITERACY CORNER.

A YEAR'S READING. STUDY. OF HISTORY IN FICTION.' There must be many people past the age when study is -easy of renewal who would welcome a course of fictional reading capable of giving them some acquaintance with the various phases of' ancient and modern history and the epochal events in the world's annals. Such a course is sketched in the list appended—a selection made many years ago by a distinguished critic:

Whyte Melville's ' Sarchedon,' indicating very realistically the • state of ancient Assyrian and Egyptian civilisation, and taking up the story of the human race as concluded in the Biblical history of the Hebrew theocracy. Lytton's '" Last Days of Pompeii,' Whyte Melville's 'Gladiators,' Wilkie Collins's ' Antonina,' James's ' Attila,' covering the rise of Christianity and the decline of the Roman Empire.

Lytton's " Pausanias,' for Greece. The same author's 'Harold' for a fine picture of the Norman Conquest and the root differences between Saxon and Norman. • .

Scott's ' Ivanhoe,' showing the origin of the future people of England, the ,slow coalescence of Saxon and Norman.

James's 'Forest Days' for a picture of Henry 111., the great Simon De Montfort and the rising splendor of Edward I. ' Agincourt,' by the same novelist, for the conquest of France, the heroic days of Henry V.

Scott's 'Quetin Durward,' affording a vivid picture of the beginning of the triumph of tho French Crown over the nobles.

Lytton's ' Last of the Barons,' a true chronicle of the first rise $6 power of .England's middle and trading classes. in ' Leila, or the Siege of Granada,' by the same author, is a full account of tho overthrow of the Moors in Spain and the rise of the great Spanish Dominion ; while in '•' Piienzi,' another of Lytton's works, is explained the complicated political situation in feudal Italy, and the relations of Rome as a temporal power to Europe generally.

The reader will find in Charles Reade's epic romance, ' The Cloister and the Hearth,' a splendid medium for gaining a thorough insight into the domestic habits, customs, and manners' of the people of medieval Europe. Reverting to England, lie need read only James's ' Darnley' to gather a very just idea of Henry VIII. and the great Wolsey; and, turning momentarily to the East, he will find in Beaconsfield's ' Alroy' a lively picture of the Caliphate in its decline, and the last attempt of the dying chivalry of tthe Hebrews to restore the ancient kingdom of Judah. Then the Crusades are well in .Scott's 'Talisman '; the same romancer's ' Kenilworth ' will paint vividly enough the portrait of Elizabeth and her " spacious times " ; and Chas. Kingsley's ' Westward Ho' gives instructive insight into the early days.of the Spanish settlements in, the West Indies. George Eliot's ' Romola ' for the Italian Middle Ages politics and conditions of life: James's ' Arrah Neil' and Scott's ' Peveril of the Peak' for the times of Charles I. and Charles 11. respectively; Thackeray's ' Esmond ' and Lytton's' Devereux! for a picture of England in Queen Anne's days; Fielding's 'Tom Jones,' affording a just idea of town and country life among the middle classes in Georgian days ; Buchanan's ' Shadow of the Sword,' with its grim pictures of Conscription under the Napoleonic regime; Meadows Taylor's ' Confessions of a Thug,' supplying an, interesting sidelight on conditions in India some thirty years ago ; James Payn's 'By Proxy,' setting forth something of the life of China.

This list brings us to a fairly modern period, beyond which our purpose need be pursued no further. If the reader will make a New Year promise to undertake the course, it will prove not so frasrile a vow as most of the seasonable variety, for. having embarked upon it, the student will find the intrinsic interest of the romances named so compulsive as to make his task an enthralling one. And if he "has rend carefully he will have at command, when the series-is completed;, a store of historic information encycplopsedic in its range. NOTES ON NOVELS. David Lyall has written many readable novels, but it is doubtful if" anything better has come from the same pen than 'The Loop of Gold.' It is a post-war story, and relates the consequences of a war wedding. ' The Taming of the Shrew' would have made an excellent title for the book.' Jack Sherston, son of a prosperous expert merchant, ancl grandson of a landed proprietor, enlists in the first burst of patriotic fervor after the outbreak of war. He marries, after an acquaintance of three days, the pretty and attractive daughter of a Brixton tradesman. -He goes to Mesopotamia, does his .dangerous and wearisome job to the best of his ability, but returns to London after the armistice, still in the ranks and without a decoration of any sort. His wife in the meantime has received a clerkship in a Government office. She lives in a flat with a. cirl friend, and she receives good pay, and is asked to dinners and theatres by one of the " bra6s hats " in her office, she is having a good time. The arrival of her husband, after a long absence, undistinguished and with no money, is anything but a welcome event, particularly as she learns that heT husband's father has had reverses in business as a result of the war, and has just enough left to keep ♦himself and his wife in the barest necessities. Her husband is demobilised, and, being without means and prospects, domestic differences quickly arise. He looks in vain for work in London, and as his wife has no time for failures the position becomes acute, so that one morning, without notice, he walks off on_ the Portsmouth road in search of a living. He is a man of grit and fine character, and makes good ; and as his wife, though selfish and pleasure-loving, runs a straight course, the way is opened up for a satisfactory ending. She goes through a fiery trial, however, and has to walk the road of humiliation. There are some excellent characters in the book. Out copy is from Whitcombe and Tombs, Ltd.

Stories of the Wild West are in constant demand. They deal with, elemental things, and when well told appeal to a large number of people who, living in towns, yet long for the wild, free places and the virile men and-women who live in them. Among the mo6t popular of the purveyors of this kind of fiction is B. M. Bower, and in 'Rim o' the World' we have an engrossing mountain story •which, should meet with wide appreciation. The scene of the story is in Idaho, and deals chiefly with the activities of a few " bad" families, among whom are the Itorrigans. The present generation, however, has moved with the times, and Tom Lorrigan and his wife from the Eastern States are in many re-* spects quite different from the- Lorrigans of earlier years. Aler. Douglas, Tom Lorrigan's nearest neighbor, is a hard-headed, unyielding Scotchman, who is bitter againrt the "thieving Lorrigans-" He accuses some—unjustly, it may be added—of stealing a "spotty yearlin'," and the smouldering embers are fanned and the feud blazes out again. Complications come when a eon of Lorrigan's falls in love with the daughter of Douglas. As can be imagined, there is plenty of incident in the book I and not a little humor. Our copy is from Whrtcombo and Tombs.

Detective stories appeal to th.e male mind, and an author who has the capacity to- present these in a readable form is bound to meet with success. He must have good descriptive powers, and he must create criminals of more than usual nerve and ability.. His sleuths must be detectives who stand on a high plane, and they must be made to follow, until the dramatic moment arrives when the culprit is unmasked; endless paths that lead mto a blind alley. The Man with the Rubber Soles' (Hodder and Stoughton,) London contains all these necessary points. It

is a mystery- tale, written after the war, 1 describing an attempt made by the enemies of England to bring into disrepute the country's credit and to depreciate the currency. - In a tale of this kind it would be ,unfair to attempt to give an outline of the plot. All one can say is that Sir Alexander Bannerman, the" author, has written a. convincing story. The mystery holds to the end, and the reader is kept in a state of suspense' right through. MRS'R. L. STEVENSON. ' The Life of Mrs -Robert Louis Stevenson,' by her sister, Mrs Sanchez (Chatto and Windus, 12s n.), is the one book that had yet to be written around a great love story. The romance of Stevenson's marriage is no untold tale, but there were still details to be added and misunderstandings to be removed. Mrs Sanchez refers in this biography of her sister Fanny to "the many strange tales that appeared from time to time concerning her' ; to judge from the account lately given in these columns of the American version of Mrs Asquith's autobiography, strange tales about the Stevensons' married life are still recounted. A portrait such as Mrs Sanchez has painted with real, though unobtrusive, art is the best way of clearing lip misapprehensions. Unkindly legends will hardlv survive this book.

The noblest, perhaps, of Stevenson's tributes to his wife is that conveyed in the lines:

Trusty, dusky, vivid, true, With eyes of gold and bramble-dew, Steel true and blade straight The great Artificer made my mate.

The reader of Mrs Sanchez's opening chapters will find these words coming to mind- again and again, for they seem almost to lay bare the hand of the great Artificer preparing Fanny Van De Grift for the rude yet high task that lay before her. She was descended from two of the oldest families in the .United States; on her mother's side, the Keens, she could look back to an ancestor, Joran Kyn, who was comfortably settled on the Delaware River when Penn landed in America, and on her father's side the family records told of a Jacob Leendertsen Van De Grift who lived in Pennsylvania hjpth'e seventeenth century. As became the wife of the author of 'Treasure Island,' Fanny Van De Grift always insisted firmly on a rather tenuous tradition that the Keens had intermarried with the family of the great Captain Cook ; and, to. be sure, there was a John Cook Keen in their annals who wedded that ''sweet Kitty '' Weaver," Fanny's own grandmother, whose death, so they said, came of her walking in the snow in little red slippers that set off the charm of her feet. Fanny inherited the j Cinderella feet and the vanity of them, and no doubt it was some recompense for , being brought up not much more luxuri--1 ously than Cinderella herself. Here is her own account of her early life at Indianapolis, where she was born in 1840: " Our life in the backwoods father was in the lumber business) was simple and natural. . . . We raised our own food and made our own clothing, often of the linsey-wolsey woven by the women on then" home-made looms. We breakfasted by the light of a tin lamp fed with lard, 4 o'clock being a not unusual hour, dined at noon, supped at 5, and went to bed with the chickens. . . . We little girls wore pantalettes to our ankles, and our dresses were whale-boned down the front, with very long bodices. Wo had wide, fiat hats trimmed with wreaths of roses and tied under our chins. We wore low neck 3 and short sleeves summer and winter. I was thin, but very tough."

An excellent training for the fierce battle with the wilderness and the jungle in the Vailima days that were to come!- And' there were other lessons of no less value in the following years on the Pacific slope —riding, driving, shooting, facing the dangers of the road and the mining camp. Above all, there was the initiation into i motherhood and sorrow in her first unhappy marriage with Samuel Osbourne, the brave but reckless adventurer whom in the end she divorced. It was the distresses of her married life that brought her to Europe with her children in 1875, and so we reach the tale of her first meeting with "• R.L.S.'Vin the village of Grez, in Fontainebleau Forest. The artist colony—it was just their way—resented the arrival j of strange ladieJ in the village, and sent Mr R. A. M. Stevenson ,to Grez to reconnoitre. " The choice of scout was scarcely a wise one, for ' Bob' Stevenson, as he was known to his friends, instantly fell a victim to the attractions of the strangers—who, by the way, were utterly unconscious thas they were regarded as intruders—and so he stayed on from day to day. After waiting for some time for the return of the faithless emissary, another (Sir Walter Simpson) was sent; but he, too, failed to return. Then Robert Louis Stevenson set out to look into the mystery. ... It was a soft, sweet evening, and the doors and windows were open ; dusk drew near, and the lamps had just been lit. Suddenly a young man approached from the outside.- It was Robert Louis Stevenson, who afterwards admitted that he had fallen in love with his wife at first sight when he saw her in the lamplight through the open window." Fanny Osbourne married Stevenson with no illusions as to the battle that lay before her*in protecting her husband's health, helping him to mend his fortunes, and guiding and stimulating his literary work. Indeed, she underrated her own powers and resourcefulness, believing at first that she would within a few months be a widow. A letter she wrote at this time to her mother-in-law, who had not vet seen her, shows her frank and noWe humility:—" Please remember that my photograph is flattering; unfortunately all ohotographs of me are; I can get no other. At the same time Louis thinks me, and to him I believe I am, the most beautiful creature in the world. It is because he loves me that he thinks that, so I am very glad. I do so earnestly hope that you will like me, but. that can only be for what I am to you after you know me, and I do not want you to be disappointed m the beginning in anything about me, even in so small a thing as my looks." Humility is the giver of insight; she is not blind, though infinitely tender, to the foibles of her husband. In a letter from Davos she writes:—" Louis has long boots and is very proud of them. He said himself that he looked like ' Puss-in-boots,' but was much hurt because the suggestion was received as a good one. He thought we would say: 'How ridicnlous! Why you look just like a.brigand!'" How much Stevenson really owed to his wife's relentless castigation of his books it is interesting, though perhaps profitless, to speculate. "No one but myself " he says in a dedication, "knows what I have suffered, nor what my books have gamed, by your unsleeping, watchfulness and admirable pertinacity." "What a thing it is," is her verdict, "to have a, man of genius to deal with! It is like managing an over-bred horse." This home criticism can hardly have gone without friction. The first draft of 'Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde' went into the flames because of it. Yet Stevenson seems to have felt that, on the whole, her guidance was right. He knew what she had done for hm, and, in the words of his stepson, Lloyd Osbourne, quoted here: " Just as* he had leaned upon her for help, comfort and advice for so many years of his life' so it was at her feet that he sank in death.when the last swift summons came "

The English novel, about which we used to be all so happy, has fallen on evil days, and, except for. Miss Sinclair and one or two devoted women, nobodv seems -to 'think it worth while to 'maintain its drooping standard, writes D. Willoughby in the 'Outlook.' Mr Walpole, finding that .bis "and -DostoeVßkq's Russia has ceased to exist, has carried his search for simplicity into the ntrrserv, and made a boy of eight his hero. Mr Mackenzie, conscious that intellectual undergraduates would no longer recognise the\portraits he once made of them, has decided to fathom the mentality of the chorus girl, and has here, perhaps, discovered a type that no cataclysm changes. Mr Beresford, one of the most promising writers of six years ago, still promises, but Mr Forster appears to have abandoned creation for criticism, whilst- Mr H. D. Lawrence, who as a novelist was worth almost any two of his generation,' prefers to be one of our thousand best poets. Meanwhile, tie most optimistic reviewer has d&mpsed no' new star. «*,

Mx William Heinemann, the publisher, who died lately, left, subject to two bequests and -a life interest to relatives, half of his estate as a gift to the Royal Society of Literature for the establishment of a •foundation or "-scholarship fund. This, is designed for the recognition of literary work of real value, i.e., "those,classes of literature which are least remunerative." In his now book, 'Contemporary Portraits,' Sir Algernon West relates that Sir Robert Meade, former Under-Secretary for the Colonies, was shocked at the way executions were carried' out at Malta, and sent for tie executioner, who at the tinre was Marwood, to' consult him on how some improvement could be effected. Marwood was most enthusiastic in favor of what he called "the long drop." "Why," said he "Mr Peace was a little man, and I gave him the 'long drop,' and 'e passed hoff like a summer's heve." Another good story is one which Lord Welby used to tell with great delight. A man on duty at a level-crossing was ordered to open his gates by an equerry of the impatient Kaiser, wh.o4 was then stopping in the neighborhood. " Kaiser don't have no power over me," he said. "I'm a. Southwestern signalman." In two books lately published by Methuen there is the same story. In the delightful 'Verena in the Midst,' by E. V. Lucas, it appears in this way: "A travelling friend tells me that outside the gate of the Misericordia in Osaka, Japan, is the notice, the meaning-of which is clear after a moment's examination, 'The Sisters of the Misericordia harbor every kind of disease and have' no respect for religion.'" In the 'Life and Letters of Lady Dorothy Nevill' the story is thus relatojt: " One of the institutions in Romes wishing to proclaim its toleration, had the following appeal posted np at its entrance:—'Appele to the Charitable. The Brothers, so called of Pity, solicit alms for the Hospital. They harbor all kinds of diseases ,and have no respect for Religion.'" A correspondent of the <'Spectator' writes directing attention to the similarity of the anecdotes, and asking, " Can any of your readers tell me if there is a common source for these stories, or if there is an order of Brothers and Sisters of Misericordia who all over the world have this motto over their gateways-T" By Mr William Heinemaim's death the world of letters, as well as the publishing trade, loses a remarkable figure. The ' Saturday Review ' says : He combined scholarly tastes with a particularly acute business instinct. Enemies accused him of a fausse bonhomie which his friends called geniality. He is said to be the only friend of Whistler's who never quarrelled with that erratic genius. One can but admire that adjustibility of temperament—or, as some would say, breadth of outlook—which made it possible for him to be Whistler's friend and yefc continue to pnblish the works of Sir Hall Caine.. During recent months, in order to relieve his failing eyesight, he learned to read Braille type. Indeed, he found time to do many things, an-d if he wrote only three books, it was, I perhaps, because none of them was greatly successful.

Sir George Kekewich, formerly Secretary of the Department of Education in Great Britain, has written a record of his experiences and observations in "The Education Department and After.' He recalls the regime of the Tftike of Devonshire (whom he heartily disliked) as Minister of Education, and while doubting whether the Duke had a sense of humor, relates an anecdote which proves that he had. "He was discussing Sir J. GoTst's proceedings, and wondering whether any inducement worthy of his acceptance could be offered him to transfer his energies elsewhere. I suggested that< a colonial governorship would be tempting, ' not one of the £2,000 places, but a £4,000 one, such as Trinidad or Jamaica.' Said the Duke slowly and deliberately, not moving a muscle of his face, ' I cannot imagine that the Government would offer Sir John Gorst the governorship of any colony that they desired to retain.' "