BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

Evening Star, Issue 18785, 8 November 1924, Page 15

BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

VERSES. ANA IDLE FRANCE. (Died October 15. 1924; aged eighty years. It is said that his last words were: “So this is death!”) “So this is Death that waitsJor me,” The Master said, and smiled to see The shadowed form that softly came With healing for a year-worn frame 5 "So this is Death—so let it he.” Oh, turner of the golden key, Oh, sage of tender irony. Whose fading voice made last acclaim: “So this is Death!” Thou art exempt; Death’s harsh decree Rinds lesser men, hut thou art free. Thou passes!—true, but still thy name Shall light the ages like a llame, And none shall dare (o say of “So this is Death!” S. Ei-t-iorr Napikr. OLD ANCHORS. They have served their part. I*or them the storms arc done, And the long slops lies sunken or ashore. Shackle and shaft lie pitted in the sun, Here, on the junk yard floor. Here the worn iiukos. now red with flaking rust, Take hold no longer on the harbor bed. The stale wind wetives a coverlet of dust, To icll what days arc dead. No more the diiviug brine shall wrench the stocks That oow are given io (he gentler rains; And long-forgotten arc Urn ocean shocks That tried the stubborn chains. When, heedful of the hidden rocks and spits, The. ironmasters’ faith was justified, Till, to the groaning of the windlass bills, The tempest broke and died. —George Sterling, in ‘Literary Review,’ ICELAND AS A LAND OF BOOKS. Mr Newman Flower gives an interesting glimpse of Iceland and its people in the ‘Sunday Times.’ “ All'lho while the minds of these people are timed to the progress which their geographical position so often denies them. There is not a laitway cm this island, although it is one-third larger than Ireland; scarcely any roads; but there arc few more mentally efficient people in Europe. They study tho politics of the world in the'minutest detail. One man .1 met not only has a library of 5,000 volumes in Icelandic. and a corresponding equipment of foreign books, but he has every Blue Rook" sent out from England -so that ho may he up to dale in his political knowledge of our land. They know every moveon our political hoard as surely as if they lived under the shadow of Rig Ben. Rome of them might have been horn with the Dawes report as a heritage from under the family hearth. “ Here in the capital there are only 20.0G0 people, hut they support three daily papers, eight weeklies, and heaven knows how many publishing-houses pouring out honks. Where do those hooks go? For sometliirig like eight mouths in the year the island is in the. dark. The people read. Vast quantities of English, American, and Scandinavian books pour in and are absorbed. They soak up books as a. national food.

“These people are Vikings of the sea and the soil. You see the Viking in their faces. They trade by the sea, arid have done, so through the centuries, though well aware that the sea will claim every man of their house eventually. Yet they have no fear of the sea, for the life of Iceland is her fish.

“Is Iceland behind the regime of the world? Consider. In 1930 she will have had a Parliament for 1,000 years. A few years ago wo began to change our clocks to summer time; she has been changing hers in summer for 1.000 years. The great Icelandic writer, Mr Norcla.l, showed mo a piece of fifteenth century manuscript and said: ‘lf 1 go out into tho road and show this manuscript to any boy ho can read it. Can you do that in England?’ The language on this lonely island is so pure, her records so complete, that to get the history of Scandinavia one must go to the hermit of the Atlantic for it. In her cold -sons she lias been aloof and thinking through the centuries. Her national library contains 100,000 volumes in her tongue and 20,000 manuscripts, and her language has never altered. All Euiopean change has lett her unchanged, onlj watching and learning.” DR JOHNSON’S BIRTHDAY. CELEBRATION AT LICHFIELD. ’Tho 215th anniversary of Dr Johnson’s birthday was celebrated a.t Lichfield icccntlv, 'when Mr Percy K. Mathesnn, Fellow and senior tutor of New College Oxford, succeeded Mr Cecil Harmswovt-h as president of the Johnson Society, and gave an address on ‘ Dr Johnson as Traveller. Earlier in tho day the mayor H r •!. ■ Hridgeina.il) placed a laurel wreath on Johnson's statue in the Market place, and formally opened two upper_ rooms m the house of his birth for the display of additional objects of Johnsonian interest including a collection of engravings lent try Mr Cecil Tildesley, of Penkndge. -U a supper in the evening at tho tjinkihail the toast of “The Immortal Memory of Dr Johnson” was honored m silence. Proposing the toast of “The Johnson Society ” Mr Cecil Harmswovth expressed Ins conviction that the society was rendering a great service to literature in its presen ation of the memory of the- greatest man that city had yet produced. ISAAC WATTS’S TOMB.

“ It is a very proper thing that the Free Churches are combining to renovate the tomb of Isaac Watts in Bunh.l! Fields/’ says the ‘ Star. It has been so much the fashion to laugh at the hymnwriting doctor and his devotional rhymes that his achievement as a poet has never been adequately recognised. ‘‘Nothing is easier thaw ridicule, for there is a big public so anxious to grin that the scoffer can. always depend on a wil mg audience whose applause will persuade him that ho is a wit. But even the things tho scoffer icm at. thing* hko Lei dogs delight to bark and bite, and How doth tho “little busy bee.’ though they were naive to the point of banality, must have some stij/f of poetry in them, or how comes it that they abide so tenaciously in our memory ? , “That is a thorny nuestion; but who can deny that the autlior of the hymn ‘ 0 God, onr help in ages past ’ was, in that one work alone, a groat poet? I'cw poems have moved Englishmen all the world over to deeper or finer emotion. To Nonconformity especially it has been a nobis source of inspiration, and Is on comfermists do well to hallow bis memory. CONRAD’S EXPERIENCE OP LIFE. Joseph Aynard, analysing Conrad s work, says in tho ‘ Debats ’; The special 'gift of Conrad is his experience of life. He began wilting late, and after an extraordinarily adventurous life, a very romance in itself, which gave him tho detachment that makes gieat creators. Tho more a writer has lived, the more his experience has become enriched, only when he has not written too much: too hurriedly coined, that experience ta.kes on the impress of what others have already clone. “ Novels can be written in studios, hut only after a previous experience, arid Balzac’s method of work can only be explained by the fact of his ardent youth.’’ Then, talking of Conrad’s Slavonic gift of analysing, Aynard says: "At tho very time when Russian (novels began to become popular in England, Conrad presented in an English form a psychology more subtle, more Shakespearean, too, in the representation of the instability of characters, of the hazard of life, than the classic, English novel. He thus approaches the plane ‘Of Hardy and Meredith in their efforts to intellcctualise

A LITERARY CORNER.

ANATOLE FRANCE AND DUMAS. Commenting on the centenary of Alexandre Dnnms, the son, and addressing himself directly to the memory of the French writer, Anatoio France recently wrote in tlio ‘Figaro’; “I must tel] yon, Al. Alexandre Damns, that there is someone in your family whom I place higher than yourself, and it is not father. Indeed, your father was a prodigious man. He came as a good giant bringing a great many toys to the poor children that we are. Ho was bright, lie was kind, he consoled men with beautiful stories. Ho was a vast and candid soul. But you knew bow to endow your words with a gravity that be never attained ; bo amused 1 me, you educated mo. 1 owe to you more than to him, this is why I set a higher price on yon.

“But the greatest of the Dumas is neither he nor you—it is the son of the negro, it is your grandfather, General Alexandre Dumas do la Pailleteric (born from a negro and a Frond) settler in Haiti), the victor of Mount St. Bernard and Mount Genis (in crossing tbe Alps at (lie brad of Napoleon’s army on their way to Italy), tbe hero of Brixen. He risked his life sixty times for France, be was admired by Bonaparte, lie died poor. .Such a life is a masterpiece to which nothing can be compared. It is lucky to descend from so great a man. lam tempted to believe that the power of work, the absolute frankness, and the love of truth of the third Alexandre have to do with that of the first one.” THE EVERLASTING TESTAMENT. For thousands in all the churches the chief literary event of (he autumn will bo the publication of the earlier part of Dr .Mofl’att’s translation of the Old Testament (says the ‘British Weekly’). Bather's ‘Old Testament,’ as far as the Song of Songs, was printed in 1525-24, almost exactly 400 years ago. The Old Testament, in French, by Lefcvre D’Etapies, appeared a, year or two later. The sixteenth ccnlury was the .age of solitary transla.fors, who put their whole energy into the sacred task. Vvo do not mean that Luther, for instance, worked without the aid of learned friends ami critics. But the main burden and responsibility lay on him, and the New Testament was translated in three months during bis exile on bis “I’atmos,” the Wartbnrg.

Erasmus, whose Greek Testament lay on Luther’s (able, was in the main a. solitary worker. The same may he said of William Tyndale. whose ‘ Ne v Teslarneul ' fixed the style and tone of the English Bible, and supplied, as .Mr A. \V. Pollard has said, the substance and body of all later Protestant renderings of the hooks on which he labored. If Tyndale had not been lured away from the house of the English merchants at Antwerp, where, jie was living in enmparative security in 1555, he would have been Dr Aloffatt's true predecessor. for he had made considerable progress in the translation of the Old TVsia.ment. Imprisonment and rnartrydom awaited him at Vilvorde. In the preface to ‘Genesis,’ in his translation of tlio Penlateueh, printed in 3550, Tyndale lolls of Vis re j eel ion by Cuthhert Tmistall. Bishop of London, in whose, house he had hoped to carry on hi? learned studios. “ Alv lorde answered rue, his house was full.” As there had been no room in the inn at Bethlehem, there was no place amid the bishop’s thronging courtiers for the young scholar whose ehief credential was a speech of Isocrates translated from the Greek. Provided with £lO by a generous London merchant, Tyndale set out in 1524 for Hamburg, where lie completed his ‘New Testament’ in peace. Aides Covevclale. so far inferior to him in learning, worked under the patronage of Cranmer and of Henry VIII. Before and after the sixteenth century translations nr revisions of the English Bible have been made Ingroups of scholars. “The light of (he everlasting? testament,” of which Tyndale wrote, will burn more brightly because of Dr Aloffatt’s work. NOTES. At, the request of the Gordon Alemorial Committee in A'elhonrue, the ‘ Arens ’ is appealing for £,2,5C0 for the erection in (he city of Alelbourne of an equestrian statue to the memory of Adam Lindsay Gordon. A collected edition of the works of Air 11. G. Wells is (o he put out hv. Fisher Unwin. It is limited to 600 sets,’and the price per set will he 28gs. Air Wells lias coniributed introductions to this “Atlantic Edition.” It is related that after Dickens had visited the Great Exhibition he wrote to a friend: “It is a dreadful thing to ho obliged to be false, but when anybodv savs: ‘Have you seen so-and-so?’ I sav : ‘Acs,’ because if I don’t T know lie would explain it, and I cannot bear that.” AC Abel Doisye writes of England and English poetry in the ‘ Nouvelles Bittern ires’: “Thai, country, which is supposed to be practical.' industrial, and somewhat reserved in its legitimate pride, happens to he at the same‘time the most lyric in the world. The keen, adventurous. and 1 proud race who have been able to build and maintain the most colossal empire ever known in the world, could accomplish sueh_ great things because to the instinct of domination they added an enthusiastic ami active mysticism, none other than a deep sense of poetry. lienee the great religious struggles which shook (he country. Beside the tierce figure of Cromwell stands the powerful voice of his secretary, Milton, tlio man who conceived a human Patau. It is through a religious exaltation that the Pilgrim Fathers of the Afayflowcr set (heir foot upon the American soil, bringing the future soul of the United States,”

Seven hitherto unpublished letters hv Keats and live unpublished poems are incorporated in a now biography of the poet hv Afiss Amy Lowell, announced by Air Jonathan Cape. The author, who ’bases her work chiefiv on tier own valuable collection of Keats's material, clears up a number of hitherto obscure points and redates some of the poems. Extracts arc given from the recently-discovered letters of Fanny Brawne, and fresh light is thrown on Keats’? iife and work from certain new letters from his brothers and friends.

Dr Hagberg Wright, one of (ho most able as well ns one of the most learned of librarians, lias proposed the preparation of a yearly list of 600 books, which are to be the best books of each particular year (says Arthur Pendcnys in ‘ John o’ London’s ’ Weekly ’). The theory of “ best books ” is an idealistic one. In practice it rarely works. Such lists may reveal a wide knowledge of books, but they show little knowledge of human nature. The accom-

plishcd student quickly discovers the books he requires, and that without outside help, and the less accomplished student seems to prefer, and almost insists upon, “ muddling through.” Effectually to help a person in his choice of books requires that you should know much of the condition of his mind and aims.

Some of tbe stories in Lord Willoughby de Broke’s ‘ Memoirs ’ illustrate the manners of Disraeli’s magnilicoes with a fine and opulent humor. One of these magnificent personages fit for the family solicitor to investigate the finances of bis household with a view to economising. The solicitor made suggestions—e.g., that the employment of both an Italian and a French pastrycook was unnecessary. “Hang it all!” was the reply, “a fellow must have a biscuit!” A parallel to this story is that of tbe younger son, who said: “I alwiys live up to my income, even if I have to borrow money to do it.” Messrs Hodder and Stoughton propose to publish a number of books on wireless. Volumes by Mr J. S. Ileith (general manager of the 8.8. C.), Mr Eckerslcy (the chief engineer), and Mr Burrows (director of programmes) are on the list. Miss Sheila Kaye-Smith, novelist, was quietly married at Si. Leonards, London, a cable message states, to the Rev. Theodore Fry, formerly curate of St. Leonards, who is the son of Sir John Fry, a former Mayor of Chester. She will continue to wi'ite under her maiden name. Which of onr novels best reflect what modern novelists are doing, or trying to do? Mr Walpole, in a selection of twenty, answers the question in a letter in the ‘ Bermondsey Book,’ the quarterly review published by Mr Cecil Palmer. Omitting Mr Hardy and Mr Kipling, Mr Walpole’s choice is ‘ Esther Waters ’ and ‘ The Lake ’ (George Moore), ‘ Lord Jim ’ and ‘ The Nigger of the Narcissus’ (Conrad), ‘The Forsyte Saga ’ (Galsworthy), ‘ The Old Wives’ Tale ’ and ‘ Cla.ybanger ’ (Arnold Bennett), ‘ Tono-Bungav ’ and ‘ Air Polly ’ (11. G. Wells), ‘The Three Sisters’ (May Sinclair), ‘Jacob Stahl’ (J. I). Bercsford), ' Nocturne ’ (Frank Swinnerton), ‘ A Passage (o India ’ (E. M. Forster), ‘ Sons and Lovers’ (D. IT. Lawrence), ‘Black Diamond ’ (F. Brett Young), ‘ Green Ajrple Harvest’ (Sheila. Kayo-Smith), ‘ The Voyage Out ’ (Virginia" Woolf), ‘ Dangerous Ages ’ (Rose Macaulay), ‘ The .Death of Society’ (Romer Wilson), ‘Antic Hay’ (Aldous Huxley). General Swinton, first official “Eyewitness ” in France during the war, originator of tanks, and author of the most brilliant war stories of recent times, ‘The Green Curve’ and others, is still busy preparing material for Air Lloyd George’s lung-promised hook on the war. For (his purpose he is examining the vast quantities of official documents containing the real secrets of the war, now .stored in the cellars of the building used by the Imperial Defence Committee.

Miss 0. F. Gordon-Cumming, who died at Grieff, .Scotland, last month, in her eighty-eighth year, was one of the most (ravelled women of the nineteenth century, and her hooks did much to diffuse a knowledge of countries of which most people were ignorant. She made her first venture in foreign travel in 3868 by visiting her sister in India, and saw much that was worth seeing, including (he Himalayas, recording her experiences in her first hook, "From the Hebrides to the Himalayas.' Four years later she visited Ceylon, which she described in ‘Two Happy Tears in Ceylon.’ In 3875 sbe accompanied the first- Governor (Sir Arthur Hamilton Gordon) to Fiji, spending some weeks at .Sydney on the way. and Inter visiting New Zealand. ‘At Homo in Fiji ’ describes her two years’ residence in the islands, ami ‘ A Lady’s Cruise in a French Alan-o’-war ’ her visils to Tahiti, Tonga, Samoa, am! California. She also wrote hooks on China and Japan. In 1804 she published an autobiography, which is full ol interest. She was a good skotchcr ui black and white.

The autobiography of Sir AT ilham Beach Thomas, the well-known author and war correspondent, is on the way. It is petted that the hook will contain .si t interesting things about Lord Northelmc and (.he methods of the Nnrthdiffe Press.

In an article in the 1 Temps ’ called

‘ Authors and the Sea,’ Jean Bonvdeau points out that: “For a country, half of whose frontiers arc maritime, France has not produced a great number of literary works with the sen as sole background, la. French literature, can it not he said that, as the principal character of a. book, the sea comes a long wav alter the earth. The two most important literary frescoe* of the last century, those of Balzac and Zola, include no novel dealing with the sea. With most of our greatest lyric writers —with Lamartine. A’igny. Musset- - His sea never takes first rank: and it would probably have been the ease with Victor Hugo had rot (lie circumstance of his exile transported his genius to a. lonely island between sky and sea for many years,” “One must admire (he courage will) which in these, days of offer lack of rel'cence the family of George MacDonald should have agreed to destroy a iikiiiuscript by him of 320,000 words.'’ writes C.K.S.. in the ‘ Sphere.’ “ Ihe story was called ‘Seekers and Finders.’ Dr Mac Donald seems to have been guided by ‘ my best, of friends. Ernest Rhys.’ in withholding it from publication and burning if So I suspect that it was Dr MacDonald’s best book, ami may have revived his reputation had it been published.”