BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

Evening Star, Issue 18021, 15 July 1922, Page 10

BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

VERSES. THE KING’S PILGRIMAGE. (By Rtoyabd Kipling/ in ‘Tho Times’). Our King went forth on pilgrimage His prayer and vows to pay_ To them that raved our Heritage And cast their own away.. . And there was little eliow of pride, Or prows of bolted steel, For the doan-swept oceans every Bido Lay free to'every keel. And the first land he found, it was shoal and banky ground Where the broader seas begin, And a pale tide grieving at the broken harbor month Where they worked the Death Ships in: . And there was neither gull on the wing, Not wave that could nob toll Of tho bodies that were budded in tho life-buoy’s ring That slid from evi’dl to swell. (All that they had they gave—they gave; and they shall not return, For- those are those that have no grave where any heart may mourn). And the next land he found, it was low and hollow ground Whore once the cities stood, But the man-high thistle had been master of it all,' Or tho bulrush by the flood;. And there' was neither of grass, Nor lone star in the sky, But shook to see some spirit pass And took its agony. And the next land he,found, it was bare and hilly ground Where once the bread-corn grew, But the fields were cankered and the water was defiled, And the trees wore riven through; And there was neither paved highway, Nor secret path in the wood, But had borne its weight of the broken day, And darkened 'neath the blood. (Father and Mother they put aside, and the nearer love also— A hundred thousand men who died, whose graves shall no man know). And the last land ho found, it was fair and level ground About a oarven Stone, And a stark Sword brooding on the bosom of the Cross Whore high and low are one; And there was grass and the living trees, And the flowers of the Spring, And like lay gentlemen from out of all the seas That ever called him King. (’Twixt Nieuport sands and the eastward land where the Four Red Rivers spring, Five hundred thousand gentlemen of those that served the King). All that they had they gave—they gave— In sure and single faith. There can no knowledge reach their grave To make their grudjre their death, Save only if they understood That, after all'was done, We they redeemed denied their blood. And mocked the gains it won. BURKS’S LETTER FOE AUCKLAND LIBRARY. Dr T. W. Leys, Auckland, recently wrote to tho mayor of that city intimating that an original letter by tho Scottish national poet, Robert Burns, had been purchased in London by Mr Moss Davis at the sale of tho collection of rare autographs and literary documents of the famous publisher, Henry G. Bohn, and that Mr Davis was sending it, enclosed in a suitable case, as a gift to the Auckland Public Library. In his letter to the mayor Dr Leys said: “ Manuscripts of this character give distinction to our library, and I aan sure that this addition, which is a particularly fine example of the poet’s handwriting and prose style, will be specially appreciated by all lovers of the Scottish national poet.” The gift is additionally welcome as an evidence of the continued interest of Mr Moss Davis m the city where ho spent so many years of his active business life. The letter is as follows; “To Mons. James Smith, Mauchline. “ Monday Morning, Mosgiel. “My Dear Sir,—l went to Dr Douglas yesterday, fully resolved to take tho opportunity of Captain Smith; but I found the doctor with a Mr and Mrs White, both Jamaicans, and they have deranged my plans altogether. They assure him that to send mo from Savannah la Mar to Port Antonio will cost my master, Charles Douglas, upwards of fifty pounds, besides running the risk of throwing myself into a pleuritic fever in consequence of hard travelling in tho sun. On these accounts he refuses sending me with Smith; but a vessel nails from Greenock tho Ist of September right for the place of my destination. The captain hi her is an intimate friend erf Mr Gavin 'Hamilton’s, and as .mod a fellow as heart could wish. With him I am destined to go. Where I shall shelter I know not, but I hope to weather the storm. Perish the drop of blood of mine that fears them! I know their worst, and am prepared to meet it. “ I’ll laugh and sing and shake my leg As king’s I dow. “ On Thursday morning, if you can muster as much self-denial as to bo out ot bed about 7 o’clock, I shall see you ns I ride through to Cumnock. After all, heaven bless the sex! I feel there is still happiness for mo among them. “Oh, woman, lovely woman! Heaven designed you To temper man!—we had been brutes without you! “ Ror.ERT Burns.

A GREAT SCOTTISH LIBRARY. The Faculty of Advocates in Scotland recently offered the famous Advocates Library in Edinburgh to the nation as the basis of a national library for Scotland I’ a reply, dated March 7, Mr Munro, the Scottish 'Secretary, expressed the Government’s regret that in the present state ot the national finances it is not practicable to proceed with the transference to the Slate of the ownership and management of the library, towards the upkeep of which, however, they offer a 1 grant, subject to the consent of .Parliament, of £2,000 a year. This offer has been accepted by the faculty on the understanding that the existing men l " , ties of access to the library enjoyed by I the public are continued. | Founded during the reign of Charles 11., the Advocates’ Library is a prized Scottish national institution, and it is estimated to contain at present 725,000 books, pamphlets, manuscripts, etc. The library has the right, under the _ Copyright Act passed in Queen Anne s reign, of claiming a copy of every book entered at Stationers Hall. , , . , j The treasures of the library indude the I Scottish MSS., among whioh are most of 1 the original authorities regarding the hisI tory of Scotland. Included also are many I charters of Scottish kings, from the time i of William the Lion, and the Bull of Pope John XXII., authorising the anointing and coronation of Robert the Bruce and his successors as Kings of Scotland. Among the other literary and historical examples are the manuscripts of Fordun’s ‘ Scotishronicon,’ Wyntnun’s ‘ Chronvkl, Barbour’s ‘Brus,’.and Blind Harry’s ‘Wallace.’ There are also early MS. of Scottish verse, the MSS. of ‘Marmion’ and ‘ Waverley,’ and autograph letters of Bums. Scott, Lockhart, Stevenson, CarIvle, Ruskin, Boswell, Adam Smith, and Hume. There is a beautiful thirteenth century Bible described by Ruskin in his lecture on pre-Raphaelitism; a magnificent copy of the ‘ X)e Civitate Dei ’of Augustine, written and illuminated in Paris about 1503; and the Psalter and Hours illuminated for Eleanor Do Bahun, daugh-ter-in-law of Edward HI. The Faculty of Advocates have spent over a quarter of a million in the formation, maintenance, >Mid administration of ..tha, library..

A LITERARY CORNER.

NOTES. The secret and mysterious life-history of the World’s! most noted short-story writer, : 0. Henry, is at last beinjr revealed. Under the title of ‘Through the Gates of Hell I with 0. Henry,’ A. Jennings, tho comj panion of 0. Henry during five terrible ;years in gaol and, “on the dod'go” from ; the -police in Mexico, tells tho story. This moving and dramatic talc from real life j begins in ‘ Life ’ for July. Tho New York ‘Times’ says: “It is a fundamental ! human document—terrible, ghastly, shocking in its revelations of naked human passions; moving, pathetic in its portrayal i of the redemptive forces of chastisement, |probation, and pardon.’’ July ‘Life’ is also rich in other features. j Sir John Graham .Balfour, tho cousin and | 'biographer of “R.L.5.,” has presented l to ' the Robert Louis Stevenson Club, Edinburgh, a copy of ‘Tho Hanging Judge,’ written by Stevenson and his wife in 1887, -one of the rarest of all Stevenson relics, : Tho hook, which consists of sixty-eight separate leaves printed on one side of'the j paper, and inscribed “for private circu'lajtion only,” is from the press of Messrs ,U. and R. Olwk, Edinburgh, and it is recalled that Stevenson's instructions were i for the printing to ho “in ns villainous a style as possible to suit the character of the play.” At times a good deal is heard! of the enormous America.!! sales of novels b’ English writers, but in the list just issued of the ten stories which sold best in j America last year only one Englishman I figures, and he lives! in the United States. Here is the list: ‘Main Street,’ Sinclair Lewis; ‘The Brimming Cup,’ Dorothy j Canfield; ‘ The Mysterious Rider,’ Zane Grey: ‘The Age of Innocence,’ Edith iWharton; ‘The Valley of Silent Men,’ J. 0. Garwood; ‘The Sheik,’ Edith M. Hull; ‘A Poor Wise Man,’ Mary Roberts Rinehart; ‘ Her Father's Daughter,’ Gone Stratton-Porter; ‘The Sisters-in-law,’ Gertrude Atherton; ‘The Kingdom Round the Corner,’ Coningsby Dawson. The halfdozen best sellers among other books wore these: W. Wells's ‘ Outline of History ’; two books by Mr F. O'Brien about the South Sea; ‘ The Mirrors of Downing Street,’ Mrs Asquith’s Autobiography, and,iur Lansing’s account of the peace negotiations in Paris.

Tennyson was the grandest and most fully representative figure in all Victorian literature (said Dean Inge in a recent address on the Victorian Age). Lot those who were disposed to follow the present evil fashion of disparaging the great Victorians set up in a row good portraits of Tennyson, Charles Darwin, Gladstone, Manning, Newman, Martineau, Lord Lawrence, Burne-Jones, and, if they liked, a dozen lesser luminaries, and ash themselves candidly whether'men of this stature were any longer among us. Since the golden age of Greece no ago could boast so many magnificent types of the human countenance as the reign of Queen Victoria. Tennyson’s leonine head realised the ideal of a great poet. The longevity and unimpaired freshness of the great Victorians had no parallel in history, except in ancient Greece. Tennyson was now depreciated for many reasons. A generation which would not buy a novel unless it • contained some scabrous story of adultery,and revelled in the “realism ” of the man with a muck rake, naturally had no use for the 1 Idylls of tire King,’ and called Arthur the blameless prig. Of the novel, the palmiest day was in the fifties. The main cause of the decay since, he believed, was the pernicious habit of writing hastily for money. If they consulted Mr Mndia’s catalogue they would find that there were several writers, whose names they had never heard, who had to their discredit over a hundred works of fiction apiece. The great novelists had generally written rapidly, rather too rapidly; but such a cataract of ink as these heroes of the circulating library spilt wae absolutely inconsistent with even second-rate w'ork.

Sir James Denham, the poet-author of 'Wake Up, England!’ brings to the present generation all the graciousness, charm of good manners, and cultured leisure of a past age in his diverting ‘ Memoirs of the Memorablo ’ (Hutchinson). Of King Edward’s love of accuracy and eagle oye for anything that was wrong, two characteristic stories are told. “ A little friend of mine was Para of Honor to Queen Victoria, and whilst awaiting Her Majesty’s appearance for a Drawing Room, King Edward, then Prince of Wales, noticed that the boy had omitted the correct adjustment of the shoulder knot, and, turning to him, said: “Tell them at home to look after you more carefully.” On another occasion at Eton ho noticed the son of a member of the Court, and told him to brush his hat. Before going away he gave tho boy a sovereign, and told him to buy a new one. It was at a small luncheon party in Grosvcnor square that Sir James heard Gladstone say a fine thing. “ There had been talk of vitriolic vituperations ."Inteiy rioting to and fro. My memory,’ said Gladstone, ‘ has no room for the venom of ineonsiderablcs.’ ” Gladstone, it ie recorded, was a glutton for amassing knowledge. Lord Frederick Hamilton, author of ‘Vanished Pomps of Yesterday’ and ‘ Here, There, and Everywhere,’ has written the following letter to a friend in America:—“ I will frankly own that I had never attempted to put pen to paper’ on my own account until I was well past my sixtieth year, although I had sat for eleven years in an editorial chair. I occupy rather tho position of a monthly nurse in good practice, who, after ushering into the world a whole horde of other people’s children, suddenly determines at sixty years of ago to become a mother herself. It amused me, I confess, quite enormously writing these hooka, bub in rny most sanguine moments I had never' anticipated that anyone could be interested in reading them, I am now (greatly daring at sixtyfive years of age) writing a boys’ hock; detective stories, full of revolvers, spies, steam engines, and airplanes. It is great fun writing them, though for boys every technical detail must be absolutely correct. As they are written for British schoolboys they will! not appeal to the American public.” Giving consideration in tho ‘Fortnightly Review’ to Mr John Galsworthy as dramatist, Mir W. L. Courltuey says that lie finds in play after play of Galsworthy a single note’—tho defenoo of the idealist. “He is perpetually on the side of those who suffer in the thoroughfares of life, either because of their own peculiar idiosyncrasies or because faite has been liard to them in putting them inte positions in which they are not at home.” Tho characters, adds Mr Courtney, axe full of interest, but often in effective; yet Galsworthy is so adequate a craftsman that he deceives us many times into believing in their reality. At other tinies his plays dealing with men in violent relation to one another, or women suffering under tho injustice of hard social conditions, change from being plays of men and women into dramas of impersonal forces. MEW BOOKS. George Robey’s After Dinner Speeches.’ Published by Grant Richards. Forwarded by Whiteombe and Tombs, i George Robey, nearing tho end of a long and successful career as a vaudeville and revue artist, has taken to writing books. Numbers of people in that and other walks of life have been in the position to do tho same, U sud have done it. , It is a terrible temptation. Anyway, George has already put two or three volumes through the press, and now comes a third. It is entitled ‘George Robey’s After Dinner Speeches.’ In running through the collection one wonders whether all these old, familiar friend? were originally George’s creation. If so, they have enjoyed a large circulation amongst tho dailies, weeklies, and other papers of tho Englishspeaking world. It is also, wo venture to assert, a very considerable time since wo first read many of them. However, there i is immor in them all, though in tho major-

ity of cases it is of that obyipus typo demanded by vaudeville audiences rather than the subtle wit that is enjoyed better in a less dusty atmosphere. Still, there is the mellowing influence of a presumably good dinner to bo considered, and doubtless, if we heard George Robey holding, forth in that environment, we should ignore the chestnutty flavor and laugh with the rest. And, after all, it is remarkable how many people pass over unread the joke columns of the papers. Ti it were" otherwise, the stage comedian would more often receive what •is populaily known as “the bird.” Therefore those in search of suitable yarns to tell at tho next dinner, or smoko concert, or lodge night may find just what they want in George Robey’s book. There is plenty of cheery fun for purely reading purposes, too. NOTES ON NOVELS. ‘Lanty Hanlon.’ By Patrick Mac Gill. From the publishers, Herbert Jenkins, Limited, London. Lanty Hanlon, self-styled a _ drunkard, a sot, and a swindler (a description that is over-honest in its truthfulness), is a tragic and a strange hero for what the publisher tennis “a comedy novel.” Christened with whisky in lieu of water because the beadle had none of tire weaker liquid at hand at the time, Lanty appears to have absorbed a love for that spirit, and, despite periods, of strict abstinence, the weakness manifests itself, and effectually brings to nought various schemes which ho launches, and which are always successful up to a point. For Uiic big Irishman is a born organiser, as welt as a born drunkard and a born swindler. .Moreover, he arises from each setback as fresh as ever, and is not the least bit perturbed by the rapidly alternating situations between the pedestal and the ditch which ho occupies. Lanty is not a loveable character, for one can "Scarcely admire him for'prodigal and indiscriminate, scattering of his ilj-gotte.n gains; but he is undoubtedly clever, and, in other circumstances, might have been tho great man which his young henchman (and_ the chronicler of the story), heddy MadMonagle, imagined him to be. There is comedy of a kind in some of the other characters, but it is rather tho rough comedy of the byre and the sty, and through it all runs tho meanness of the ground-down poor, the readiness_ to, steal, and to traduce the man who fails, while cheering him and partaking of his bounty in the days of his success. Mr Mac-Gill has succeeded, with that directness _of stylo for which he is noted, in placing before his reader's an arresting study of the lower-class Irish, and has thrown still another beam from his searchlight on the sordid surroundings of the poor. His writing has obviously been dominated' by that purpose, and, though there is a certain grim and grimy humor about tho hook, it can scarcely ho classed as “ a comedy novel,”

‘Adam’s Rest.’ By Sarah Gertrude MiUin. W. Collins, Sons, and Co., publishers. Forwarded by Whit com bo and Tombs. Mrs Miilin deals with the color question in South .Africa in this, her latest novel, and it plays a large part in the story. Adam’s Rest is a South African township, and the doings of its inhabitants on the fringe of civilisation are interesting, but pathetic at times, There is not much of a story in the book, but the pages portray vividly all sorts and conditions of life in South Africa. The “poor” whites, the ignorant Kaffirs, the diamond diggings, and,.above all, the effects of the color line are described in the authoress’s clear and readable style. The early childhood, the youth, and the married life of Mariam Lincoln, the heroine, aro_ passed in Adam’s Rest and the surrounding district. During her life-time the township is affected first by the Boer War, then by the Great War; but after each excitement has passed the inhabitants settle down to their usual routine, and take the heat, the flies, and the Kaffirs for granted. The materia! for a rattling good book is there, bvt the writer has not made the best of it. ‘THE BOUND TABLE.’ The ‘ Round Table ’ (Juno number) considers that Genoa has amply justified itself, adding that it is Mr Lloyd George who has primarily to be thanked for this result. One of the- most conspicuous remaining obstacles to the full consummation of its purposes is identified as “ the impression of essential dishonesty, suggested by the whole record of the Soviet Government.” Tchitcherin may sign _ and seal an agreement, but “no quo is likely to feel groat confidence that it will ever be executed.” (This phase of the situation is emphasised in a separate article tracing the history of Russians Communist experiment, where it is laid down that, for the promotion of trade, “there must he confidence in the organisations which carry out transactions on behalf of • Russia..”) Other questions dealt with in a masterly way relate to Ireland, Egypt, and India. There will also bo found' among the dominion articles matters of special interest.