BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

Evening Star, Issue 18173, 13 January 1923, Page 10

BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

VZBSES. FANCY’S KNELL. 'When lads were home from labor At Abdon under Cko^ A man would call bis neighbor And both would send for mo. And where tho light in lances Across the mead was laid, There to the dances I fetched my flute and played. Wenlock edge was umbered, And bright was Abdon Burf, And warm between them slumbered The smooth green miles of turf; Until from grass and clover Tho upshot beam would fado, And England over Advanced tho lofty shade. The lofty shade advances, I fetch my flute and play: Come, lads, and learn the dunces And praise tho time to-day. To-morrow, more’s the pity, Away we both must hio To air the ditty, And to earth I. —A. E. Honsman in ‘Last Poems.’ THE LITTLE BOAR The little road goes winding down By Larkmoad to the sea, Between the steeples of the town That peal so joyously— Tho little rutted, crooked road That never seemed to care Who walked or rode or boro a load, Or who was hero or there. But oh, the tall ships and the proud Were not so far away— Their sails were white as drifen cloud, Their passing sharp with spray 1 The little road has kissed Hie sky Where earth and water meet, Where the grey sea birds wheel and ■ cry And winds are salty sweet. The little road' has brought the world Back to ns from the sea; But, though a thousand sails be furled, It’s lost the world for me! Leslie Nelson Jennings. DR HASTINGS’S PINE LIBRARY. Dr James Hastings, 'the famous editor of dictionaries, who died recently, had a very remarkable library at Aberdeen, which Dr Robertson Nicoll describes in the ‘British Weekly.’ “It is said in the 1 Free Press' that when Dr Hastings resigned his country church and came to Aberdeen his library numbered oven then some 30,000 volumes. Ho had a hue house in Aberdeen, which was adjusted to Ids needs. The apparent ease with which tho machinery worked was wonderful.

“He had a hand of very able secretaries, who came to their work at regular hours each day, and ho apportioned their labors scientifically. He was very kind to his staff and very prompt to recognise exceptional gifts among them, as ho had tho pleasure of doing in various instances. But he got through his work, and managed his business ou, the most business-likct principles. Ho never seemed to have any difficulty in finding the kind of assistants whom lie required. “This library of Dr Hastings is well described in the ‘Aberdeen Journal’ by Hastings’s own minister: ‘ His library was his pride, and no wonder. I suppose it must be one of the finest private libraries in the country. One room was full of the rarest and costliest editions of classics. Another held nearly as much treasure; while the lobbies, attics, cellars, and every hole and corner wero packed with carefully-arranged volumes on every subject. Dr Hastings w r as a real bookman. Ho loved their insides and their outsides. Not theology only by any means. Smollett had as glorious a drees as Gibbon.’ ’’

“Those who knew him—tall, ruddy, buoyant, and full of vitality—little expected so sudden and early a call. No man of our generation has move honestly served the Christian religion and ministers of all churches. His name is a household word, and his work was his own—devised by himsolf and done in sheer love of truth and teaching,” says tho ‘Methodist Recorder.’

“ ‘The greatest servant of Bible scholarship iu tins generation ’ was the description applied to Dr Hastings some time ago. Ha has also been teamed ‘ the greatest eraeycloptcdist of tho age.’ In these respects Ids fame stands Jug'll today, and it may bo still higher in future generations,” writes Shon Campbell in; tho ‘Christian World.’ “His death ho mourned in churches all over the Eng-lish-speaking world, for there can scarcely bo a minister who is not using a ‘ Hastings ’ every week.” ; EIGHT GREAT POEMS. A few years ago somebody .published a little book called ‘The Best Poetry.’ It contained (in a matter of 240 pages) the following complete poems: (1) Gray’s ‘Elegy.’ (2) Milton’s ‘l/Allegro’ and *IT Pcixeeroso.’ (3) Coleridge’s ’Ancient Mariner.’ (4) Keats’s ‘fcvo of .St. Agnes.’ (5) Fitz Gerald’s ‘Oaimr.’ (6) Tennyson’s ‘ In Memoriam/ (7) Rossetti’s ‘Blessed Damozcl.* (8) Shakespeare’s ‘ Sonnets.’ The ■volume is now out of print, but tho whole of the pieces are readily obtainable, and I should 'be prepared to halt© ray stand on them as a groundwork for the formation of a very sound poetical taste. They may ho read with tage in tho order given above. Thoro is really no limit to tho beauty in them, and when you have onco laid hold of it you will ho under no anxiety to run. l after Ella Wheeler Wilcox or ‘The Doughboy Kipling,’ or even the 'burning and shining! tapers of the ‘.lawj’uiu School.’ —T. W. H. Crosland, author of ‘The English Sonnet,’ in tho ‘Sunday Chronicle.’ NOTES. Mr Philip Kerr, formerly secretary to Mr Lloyd George, contemplates writing a book oni Christian 'Science, which ho has been studying in tho course of his recent stay in America. The works of Oscar Wildo continue to enjoy an undiminished vogue in Frames. It was not so long ago that ‘.Do Profundia ’ figured in an examination syllabus there, and now a French composer, M. Jacques Ebert, has written a “ poemo symphoniquo ” on tho themo of tho ‘ Ballad of Reading Gaol,’ which is shortly to be performed at the Concert Colonne—tho Queen’s Hall of Paris. Under the title of ‘ La Ballade do la Geole do Reading,' this poem of Wilde’s was ably translated some years ago by M. Henry D. Davray, in collaboration with the author, who had, of course, am admirable command of French. Wo have received a copy of ‘ Humor' for November. Jfc is well named, for tho selection of jokes, stories, and sketches from tho world’s host humorous publications make it a bright and bubbling paper. Gerhart Hauptmann, tho Gorman dramatist, who has just completed a poem on the Great War, was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature oa his julbile© day. Starting his caroep as a if aim or, ho loft the plough for tho palette, then turned from painting to science, and finally, at just half his present age, “dropped into poeitry.” Ho has been compared with Ibsem and Galsworthy. With tho appearance of an intellectual parson, Hauptmann remains a cliild of tho folk and tho fairies. Mr Joseph Conrad has adapted for tho stage his novel, ‘The Secret Agent,’ that ironic story of Nihilists, bombs, and miscellaneous detection. Eleven parchment sheets of at least two codices of tiho ‘Divine Comedy,’ with, valuable illuminations, -have been discovered in the archives at Chiavari by Professor Valle, of the Ginnario Colombo, -$4-Gawa»

A LITERARY CORNER.

Half-a dozcmlbiographies-of’jporiPlNorth-telifte are announced 1 . Ono fey Mr Max Pemberton, which will probably bo called "The Intimate Life of Lord Northoliffe,’ will be published by Hodder and Stoughton. Apportion ol it is now appeanirg serially in an American newspaper. Mr Pemlbeiton know Lord Northcliffe intimately in his younger years, and the friontWhip lasted to the end. There will bo another ‘Life of Lord Northcliffe/ by W. H. Wilson, a member of the staff of the ‘Daily Mail,’ and this will deal -with Lord Northdiffe’s public career. Yet another will bo called 'Flashlights on Lord Northcliffe/ by Mario Connor Leighton, who saw a great deal of Lord Northcliffe during the years when she ,was contributing to ‘Answers.’ An American ’writer, recently in Germany, reports that the German booh stores aro practically bare. The leading dealer in English'’ books in Berlin haq given up buying hooks in Berlin, except on prepaid orders, based on the exchange value of tho pound. The German intellectuals, the chief buyers of foreign books, depend mostly on small salaries, which now haws a purchasing power barely onesixth of their pro-war value, and cannot afford to buy them. The authority above referred to adds! “The publications of Germany have a sad appearance in contrast with the work of tho past, which has always been, noted for its artistic elegance. The paper is cheap, and does not take tho illustrations as formerly. Tho binding is mostly of cardboard, instead of cloth, and such editions de luxe as aro published can be bought only by the profiteers or Schiobors, as they aro called, who are said to buy their libraries by the yard and not by the volume. In order to send books from Germany to the United States ono must have an export permit, which it takes several days to obtain, and in addition pay 2CO per cent, above the price charged here to tho ordinary' purchaser for use in Germany.’’ Richard Middleton, tho post, committed! suicide in 1911, in his thirtieth year, at Brussels. An interesting volume Killed ‘ Richard Middleton: Tho Man and His Work,’ from the pen of Mr Henry Savage, draws a poignant picture of a Bohemian life of a grim kind, and the author quotes Middleton himself to show that he led an unhappy boyhood: “./Esthetic butchers made the market hideous with mosaics, of tho intestines of animals, as if the horrors of suety pavements and bloody sawdust did not suffice

. . . I saw tho greasy, red-faegd men with their hands and aprons stained with Wood . , . tho masses oi entrails, the heap of repulsive hides; but most clearly of all I saw an ugly, sad little boy with a satchel of books on his back set down in the midst of an enormous and hostile world.'” hew books. WITH O. HENRY IN PRISON. A POIGNANT STORY, ‘Through tho Shadows With 0. Henry.’ By Al. Jennings. Forwarded by T. Shaw Fitchett, Swanstou street, Melbourne. 0. Henry, as a writer of short stories, is enshrined in the hearts and memories of millions of readers throughout tho Eng-lish-speaking world. Few literary men have been talked about and v,mitten about more than he since his death some ten years ago; but it has remained for AL Jennings, a pal, an ex-convict, and a pardoned outlaw, to lay before us the most vivid, heart-stirring picture of 0. Homy the man that it would be possible to conceive. It has long ago been revealed that 0. Henry (or Will S. Porter, an his real name was—he took the name 0. Homy after returning to tho weald) was imprisoned for five years on a charge of embezzlement. That ho was morally innocent is now generally conceded; but he served his sentence, and it was during those “years in hell” that he came, through blood and tears, into his own as a writer. What those years in prison under the then existing conditions meant to a proud, sensitive man can bo imagined after reading the book under review’, which, is no ordinary, uninspired with footnotes and index and “list of publications," but a human document in every sense of tho word—a document saturated with the agonies, tho hopes, the fears, the friendships, the brutalities, all the horrore of tho life within the walls of the Ohio Penitentiary, and all tho fine things as well, for acts of friendship and self-sacrifice were not wanting, oven in hell.

“GAN YOU LEAD ME TO A DRINK!”

But Al. Jcnninga knew Bill Porter before the two met in the penitentiary. Their original meeting was in Honduras, and was characteristic. Jennings was a fugitive from justice, and had travelled l to Honduras in a ship laden with smuggled Three-star Hennessey. The water gave out, and he and others went ashore to get a stock. On the porch of the American Consulate sat “an ample, dignified figure in immaculate white dudes. He had a largo, nobly-sot head, with hair the color of new rope and a full, straight-glancing grey eye that .noted without a sparldo of laughter every detail of my ludicrous make-up.’’ This was Bill Porter, and he led Jennings to a now drink; also to a new life, for the two linked up and formed a friendship that lasted a lifetime through many and deop shadows. Later Jennings saved his pal from the stiletto o! on infuriated Spanish don ; hut they are subsequently compelled to part company. When the marshals eventually captured Jennings and he received a lifo sentence, ho was sent to “ the pen,” and there, to .his astonishment and joy, he met Porter again. BLACK HORRORS OP GAOL. Thera follows a description of life within the prison walls. Harrowing for the meat part, with its Hoggings and its coarseness and its general hcartlcssness, but with an occasional lifting of the shadows, especially in tho later stage of 0. Henry’s stay, when the formation of the secret “ Itacluao Club” and other scncmcs for the meeting of kindred spirits let a little light into tho darkness. It is difficult to believe that tho brutalities so ruthlessly described hy Al. Jennings can Lave been possible in a civilised country, but they hoax the stamp of truth. Heartrending indeed is the story of Dick Price, who “novel 1 had a chance.” A prison career, beginning at eleven years of ago and ending in an habitual criminal’s lifo sentence, with inconceivably inhuman conditions, under which bo was forbidden all intercourse with the outer world, oven in the matter of a book or a paper, he “had on eternal hankering to hear from his old mother. It whipped him ceaselessly. Ho wanted to know if she was alive; if she had to work as hard as before ; if she thought of him.” Jennings managed to get word for him. The broken old mother came, but “ the law ’’ would not allow him to soo her. Eventually came his chance, as lie thought. He was promised a pardon if ho opened a safe in which were secreted tho papers of a runaway bank official. Ho did it, after filing his nails down to the quick to enhance tho sensitiveness of the fingers so that he could detect the “combination” of tho lock. But tho Government went back on its promise, and Dick died in prison without over seeing the old mother. This incident gave 0. Henry the idea for one of his greatest stories, ‘Jimmy Valentine.’, Wore grim and ghastly are the episodes relating to Ivan Maralatt, tho “prison demon,” and to “the kid,” a pathetically boyish figure, who suffered tho extreme penalty for a crime of which he was afterwards proved innocent. 0. HENRY THE FAMOUS. Bill Porter, released at last, almost immediately became famous in Xcw York as 0. Henry. And later his friend Jennings obtained a pardon, and tho two meet once more, and were together off and on until 0. Henry's marriage, after which Jennings hia belcipit Wj&k

Thera are many stirring episode? jj|f: JenniWa own life. Born in a snow neaps (while ms mother and four ymipg potherri wore fugitives from the Union soldiers who •were raiding Tennessee, he led a hard life, 'and, wrongly accused! of a robbery and hunted by the marshals, he plunged into orirao. But tho main interest in the book centres in Ida association with 0. Henry, “who,” says Jennings, “liked men. hut loathed their shams.” “The freemasonry of honest worth,” ho adds, “ whs tho only carte -blanch® to his friendship. Porter would pick his companions from tho slums as readily as from tho drawing rooms. He was an aristocrat in his culture and his temperament, but it was an aristocracy that paid no tribute' to the material credentials of society. PSYCHOLOGY OP MEMORY. 'Remembering and Forgetting.' By T. H. Pear. Forwarded by the publishers, Mesa's Methuen and Co., Ltd, Tho author of ‘Remembering' (T. E. Pear, M.A., B.Sc.) is professor of psychology in tho University of Manchester, and is well qualified to deal with the subject of memory. As a matter of fact, the book under notice is founded on a series of lectures upon normal and abnormal memory delivered by him to an audience of medical practitionors, now information obtained since tho delivery of the lectures 'being added. Though the work necessarily deals with tho subjects largely from a scientific point of view, they are by no moans treated in a dry-as-dust manner. Who is not curious, for instance, regarding the origin and psychology of dreams? This phase is inquired' into and discussed in an intensely interesting way, tho chapters concerning tho .study, the mechanism, and tho analysis of dreams being as compelling as a well-written story. Amongst the matters dealt with in tho chapter on ‘ How Wa Forget’ is that of the forgetting of .dreams. It is ivcll known that dreams which are remembered, and even recorded, bv the dreamer on awakening are soon afterwards entirely forgotten. This and other facte are analysed and theories thereon expounded. But the volume is full of similar absorbing topics, as instance the chapter on ‘Tho Apparatus of Remembering ' and those on tho unusual phenomena of memory, such as “ colored hearing ” and “number forms.” So that not only students in psychology, but tho average thinker who likes to probe a little beneath tho surface of things, will find ‘ Hememherinsr and Forgetting ’ a bode that will afford them a good deal of pleasure while at the same time widening their knowledge. ■YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY.’ ‘Yesterday and To-day,’ by Ralph Nevill (Methuen and Co., Ltd.), is a typo of book-that is extremely popular just now. It has the personal touch, and deale with people and places in tbs Victorian ago in a light and happy style. Art, politics, literature, tho stage and society, a vd, the personages; who were prominent at the time are’ all discussed in an interesting and intimate way, and, what is not always the case, with an entire absence of malice. Ho comments freely and with considerable humor on liie manners and customs of tho time, and contrasts them with those of tho present day. ‘‘ Feminine costume in tho immediate past was rarely becoming to its fair wearer. The fashion of muffling up the neck, of big sleeves, voluminous and lengthy skirts, together with hats perched at all sorts of unbecoming angles, now seems positively ridiculous. Nevertheless, every fashion seems quite reasonable in. its time: even tho hideous dress-improver or bustle excited It tie adverse comment when every woman wore one.” Ho is by way of being a philosopher. Ho says: “As a matter of fact, as far as human intelligence, which is of necessity finite, can, divine, mankind appears to move within a circle tho limits ’of which it is never allowed tx> pass. . . . The great mainsprings of human energy and endeavor remain iho same throughout the ages. . . . Tho love of power, the love of woman, and the love of money remain the meet powerful incentives in the modern world, as they were in the past.” The author resents tire increasing tendency to impose further restrictions on individual liberty. Ho remarks! “It is all very well to say ‘ this shall not be ’ when uncontrollable forces decree tho contrary. Certain legal prohibitions, though pleasing or profitable to those who draft thorn, arc, owing to the nature of things, bound to bo ineffective. Humanity cannot Ire dragooned into virtue.” The Puritans, with their “thou shall nols,” are anathema to him, and ho discourses on this aspect of life with much vigor, condemning whole-heartedly the multiplication of laws and rogulatione and comparing the methods of the English in this respect with certain nations on the Continent, particularly tho French. The changes that have enme over London during tlie last fifty years aro described in a very interesting way, and much information is given relating to tho old-fashioned ■hostelfice and chop-houses in odd parts of the city.- Taken together, tho book is a chatty, informal, record of customs of ft bygone day in two great cities (London and Paris) contrasted with life in. the postwar period, and, as can be imagined’, tho comparison is nob altogether to tho advantage of tho present day. ‘ROMANOS OF THE REDWOODS.' This is ono of Stewart Edward White's **blazed trail” stories. It contains much adventure, much humor, a great deal of romance, and a little tragedy. Tho chief characters are one Grinstead (an American king of finance, who is quite unscrupulous, in tho manner of his kind), Boss Gardiner (his accomplice and l second in command), Buxton Grinstead (a daughter _of the JPiralo Chief and a goddess), Siramins (an English chauffeur), and Larry Davenport (author and Grinstead and ids party aro journeying in the wolds of Northern California among the redwoods. Their car breaks down. Davenport appears in a curious-looking old car of his own. A great storm is approaching! he lakes charge of affairs and makes the party sate mid comfortable. Owing to the elate of the roads after the heavy rain they arc held up for days- During their enforced stay Davenport explains that ho has invented ft power-revolutionising battery j lie has already run his car 1,100 miles without recharging 1 . Ho is afraid to put it on the market for fear of the effects it will have on tho trade and commerce of the world. The Pirate Chief determines to possess it. Davenport, _ idealist and lover of mankind, who is guided by “ the Great Intelligences, ’* determines that it shall not bo used in tho wav proposes, and ho has Burton Grinstead as an ally. The curtain rings down on a note of tragedy, but with love triumphant. Stewart E. White .has a good reputation as a novelist. ‘On Tiptoe’ is one of the best things he has done. Our copy 3« Bom Whitcoro.be .and Tombs, Ltd, CLEVER DETECTIVE STORY. To the general reader there is always a peculiar fascination about a well-written detective story. In ‘The Pit-prop Syndicate/ written by Freeman Wills Croft, and forwarded to us by Messrs Whitcombe and Tombs, the author has given something more than tho ordinary story of mystery. Ho not only gives a. most absorbing puzzle, but also puts a conplo of amateur detectives (in which position tho reader might imagine himself) to solve tho mystery. And the mystery is a deep one, too. ]t ‘quickly has the reader guessing why pit-props ’are being sent from France by the syndicate when the same can be imported from other countries at a reduced rate. If brandy is being smuggled, how is it being done, and how can it be associated with the’ importation of pit-props for use in coal mines? Why are the works of the syndicate so carefully guarded, and, most important of fill, who murdered one of tho syndicate’s members, and what was the motive of the crime? For months the amateurs endeavor to find tlm clue to tho mystery, but at last, are forced, to take it to the professionals. It takes all tho skill and initiative of an experienced detective to get ‘to the bottom of the mystery. At last everything is ready, and the not is spread to capture the wdiolo gang. But they aro not so easily caught, and checkmate the detective’s grand move. However, ho moves quickly, and -effects the capture of all the miscreants, on the eve of their sailing for a, foreign country. The store is well conceived mid cleverly handled, and arresU the attention till the iabte&MAk