BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

Evening Star, Issue 19020, 15 August 1925, Page 14

BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

VERSES. AMERICA TO ENGLAND. Stand, thou great bulwark of man’s liberty 1 Thou rock of shelter, rising from tho wave, Solo refuge to the overwearied bravo Who planned, arose, and battled to bo free, Fell, undeterred, then eadly turned to thee— Saved the free spirit from their country’s grave, To rise again, and animate the slave, When God shVIl ripen all things. Britons, ye Who guard tho sacred outpost, not in vain Hold your proud peril! Freemen undefiled, Keep watch and ward I Let battlements bo piled Around your cliffs; fleets marshalled, till tho main Sink under them; and if your courage wane, Through force or fraud, look westward to your child I G. H. Bokeb (1853). AT GIBRALTAR. I. England, I stand on thy imperial ground, Not ail a stranger; as thy bugles blow, I feel within my blood old battles flowTho blood whose ancient founts in theo are found. Still surging dark against tho Christian bound Wide Islam presses; well its peoples know Thy heights that watch them wandering below; I think how Lucknow heard thoir gathering sound. I turn and meet tho cruel turbaned face; England, ’tis sweet to be so much thy son I I. feel the conqueror in my blood and race; Last night Trafalgar awed me, and to-day Gibraltar wakened; hark, thy evening gun Startles the desert over Africa! n. Thou art tho Rock of Empire, set midseas Between tho East and West, that God has built; Advance thy Roman borders where thou wilt, While run thy armies truo with His decrees. Law, justice, liberty—great gifts are these; Watch that they spread where English blood is spilt. Lost, mist and sulliea with his country’s guilt. Tho soldiers life-stream flow and Heaven displease. Two swords there are: one naked, apt to smite, Thy blade of war; and, battledstoried. one Rejoices in the sheath and hides from light. American I am; would wars were done! Now westward look, my country bids Good-night— Peace to tho world from ports without a gun I G. E. WOODBERRY. A CHOICE OF SONGS. In faith and food and books and friends Give every soul her choice; For such as follow divers ends In divers lights rejoice. There is a glory of the sun ('Pity it passoth soon I), But those whose work is nearer done Look rather towards tho moon. There is a glory of the moon When the hot hours have run, But such as have not touched their noon Give worship to the sun. There is a glory of tho stars, Perfect on stilly ways; But such as follow present wars Pursue a noon-tiao blaze. There is one glory in all things, But each must find his own Sufficient for his reckonings, .Which is to him alone. —Rudi'auii Kipling (1925). " A.G.Q. ” ON BARRIE. Sir James Barrio is tho subject of tho latest of “ A.G.G.’s ” articles in the 1 Daily News ’ on 1 Men and Women of To-day.’ “ Barrio is not so much a man as a myth, a fable, a fairy tale, a midi summer night’s dream, a creation _of moonbeams, a beneficent sprite peering from behind bushes in Kensington Gardens, and disappearing in the arch of a rainbow,” writes Mr Gardiner. “ The personality of his friend and neighbor across tho way is as emphatic as a time-table; but Barrie is as shy as a fawn, as fleeting as a vision. Shaw’s nama is defiantly blazoned on a brass plate at No. 10 Alelphi terrace; but no directory,' no telephone book will disclose the secret of the dweller on the other side of the street.

“if you want him you must inquire for him at Kirriemuir (which is pronounced Thrums), and Kirriemuir is a long way off. And even at Kirriemuir you would probably not get on his trail, for ho fogs the scent of his movements with the cunning of a creature of the woods. “ His attitude to life is that of a half-sorrowful, half-playful _ revolt against the hard facts of existence. The child comes into the world trailing clouds of glorv from afar and doonieu to see that glory ' fade into the light of common day. The wonder passes, the rainbow loses its magic, the vision splendid dies awmy. “ Most of us accept the eclipse and settle down happily or unhappily to the realities and activities of a matter-of-fact world. We leave the Golden Age behind, and are so busy with our buyings and sellings, our ambitions and our schemes, our loves and our hates, that we forget that wo once dwelt in Arcadj, where dreams were true and beautiful visions plentiful. “ But Barrie refuses to forget Arcady. He will not surrender the Golden Age. Ho moves on the journey wrth reverted eyes, for ever trying to rcaptura and hold the glow and glory of youth. Like his groat countryman, his song is to the refrain of ‘ Over the Seas to Skye ’ j Give me the sea, give me the sky, Give me the sun that shone; Give me the eyes, give me the soul, Give mo the lad that is gone. “It is this yearning for ( .the irrevocable, this passion ,to keep the glamor and wonder of the child vision fresh and unsullied amid the coarse contacts of the disillusioning world that is the secret of his pathos and of the poignancy of his appeal. “ For in the heart of the most worldly of us there is still a reminiscence of Arcady, still a faint echo of the lad that is gone. ... “ From the mass of plays with which he has delighted his generation it is safe to say that two of his ventures at least will sail the theatrical seas till tKay run dc?« ‘ Peter Fan - has all

A LITERARY CORNER

the characters of an immortal, and it j is not easy to conceive a time when 1 ‘The Admirable Crichton’ will not bo treasured as one of the deathless things of the drama. I “It may be that other fruits of his! art will survive the tooth of time; [ but in these two plays assuredly are enshrined a rare and beautiful genius that is imperishable. Ho is an enyi- ; able man who goes down to posterity' with such gifts of gracious tenderness and sweetness, of laughter and tears. “ And wo may rejoice that we have been privileged to share posterity’s luck and to see Barrie play hide and ; seek with the angels.’ Long may ho live to look sadly on while M'Connachie flings plum stones at Bernard | Shaw’s windows in tho Adelphi.” j

DID BOSWELL MAKE JOHNSON?; “Did Boswell make Johnson?” was 1 the subject discussed by Sir Charles ; Russell and Mr Edward Shanks, author and poet, at the London School oi Economics. j Mr Augustine Birrell, K.C.. who jn’o-'

sided/said that although Johnson had not been dead 150 years he was already a legendary character, and the chief source of information about him was a book which was a good deal more talked about than read. (Laughter.) The best way of finding a story that people had never heard before was to go to Boswell’s 1 Life of Johnson.’ (Laughter.) Possibly one reason why Mr ; Shanks had a marked dislike for tne doctor was because of the way John-] son cut the tails of distinguished poets j in his 1 Lives of the Poets. (Laughter.) I Might it not be said that the worse the poet the better he was treated by Johnson? (Laughter.) Sih Charles Russell said the claims of Johnson ivere solid all through. The dictionary, though now superseded, was the basis of all subsequent dictionaries. Byron’s judgment upon the 1 Lives of the Poets ’ was that it was “ the finest critical work extant.” But apart from all literary claims, tradition would! always hand down the name of John-; son ns that of the sturdy champion' of live Christianity who had the courage to act ini to his opinions in: his daily life. He was the best type. of “John Bull.” If Boswell had not written the biography of Johnson some- 1 body else would have done so, for never; was there richer material. If Boswell’s; hook had its proper title it would be | called ‘Life of Johnson, by Johnson, < assisted by Boswell.’ Mr Shanks said Boswell not merely perpetuated Johnson’s fame, hut in very large part he invented Johnson himself. “The bleating of the kid attracts the tiger.” Boswell was the self-constituted kid, and tied himself to a tree and bloated in order that Johnson reveal himself. Johnson not only led Boswell in conversation in the i way lie would have him go, but he revised tho conversations. The Life '■: was devoted not so much to putting upon paper a faithful memory of the great man, but to putting on paper: a typical figure. The whole thing was an elaborate assumption for the purpose of artistry—a sort of lyric on the English race. Mr Birrell, closing the discussion, said he had a great love for Johnson,, but ho also had a shrewd suspicion that i if he had mot the doctor he might have altered his opinion. Laughter.) He! never thought Johnson was a typical' Englishman. Being himself a Scotsman, ho did not think sufficiently well of Englishmen to believe that. (Laugliter.l He had no doubt that Boswell “ doctored the doctor ” —(laughter)—represented artistically Johnson’s conversation as taken down at tho time. People talked of him ns being a great talker. He (Mr Birrell) once met Carlyle, one of the greatest talkers of modern times, on a steamboat, and never beard him open his mouth—not even when a cattledrover asked him for the loan of a lead pencil, and he had to unbutton about ten buttons on a long coat and unbutton a Cardigan jacket underneath, in order to find a stump of pencil, and then button up again. (Laughter.) Certainly, but for Boswell's ‘ Life,’ Johnson would not have occupied the position in our minds be now did, or been so famous a character all the world over.

NOTES. Mr Lewis Spence, whose ‘ Problem of Atlantis’ aroused fresh interest in the sunken continent legend, has written a striking book on tho origins of the American civilisations, which is to be published under tho title of 1 Atlantia in America.’ The author puts forward fresh and important evidence of the existence of Atlantis, which he links up with tho cultures of the Mayas, Mexico, and Peru, thus approaching the problem from an original angle. There is an old Scots story about a young hopeful with a very large head, of which his fond mother said, “ It’s' a grand head to wag in a pulpit,” Whereupon tho more cynical father observed, ‘‘Aye, and it would be a grand head for a goalkeeper.” I thought of that tale when I read that Aaatole France's brain has proved to be of less than normal weight (states a writer in ‘ John o’ London’s Weekly ’), It is actually 400 grammes lighter than the average weight for a Frenchman of ordinary size—and Anatole France was a tall man. Thackeray’s brain, on tho other hand, was very much beyond the average weight, a quite abnormally large mass of grey matter. So it seems that the size of a man’s head proves nothing. It is the quality and texture of the stuff inside that matters a good deal more. It was observed in the case of Anatole France, as in that of Gambetta, that the convolutions of tho brain were much more complicated than is usual. According to Mr Hilaire Belloo In his new book, ‘The Cruise of the Nona,’ the two best living prose writers are Sir Edmund Gosse and Dean Inge, " for they write on subjects where they have much to say, with the use of no words other than those needed for such expression, and they put those words invariably in the right order.” Miss Sheila Kaye-Smith, who has Jived in London since her marriage, though she has not deserted Hastings and Sussex, is setting about a new novel. Her ‘ George and the Crown,’ recently reviewed in this column, has already sold fully 20,000 copies, it is said. Thus it equals the success of her ‘ House of Alard,’ which ran through 27,000 copies in six weeks, and eventually ft will probably outsell that story. Admirers of ‘ Lorna Doone ’ will be interested in a sketch in Mr Claude Luttnell’s ‘ Sporting Recollections of a Younger Son, of Sir Nicholas Snow, of Oare, a descendant of John Ridd’s neighbor, Farmer Snow. The Sir Snow of whom Sir Luttrell writes hunted tho Exmoor fox hounds for sixteen years. He was much annoyed with It. D. Blackmore for putting his ancestor into ‘ Lorna Doone,’ and also making a fool of him, and in the end the novelist apologised. On one occasion Mr Snow tried to beat the record of Parson Fronde, who caught 315 trout in one day in the moorland streams on his property. He got within fifty of the record,

Miss Edna Ferber, whose novel _ 1 So Big ’ has been awarded tho Pulitzer prize of l,ooodol, says that she compelled herself to write at least 1,000 words of tho book each day. This was also Jack London’s invariable habit. A full-length biography of W. T. Stead, who went down with the Titanic, has been written by Mr Frederic K. Whyte, and will bo published in two volumes. This will replace tho short biography written by Stead’s daughter not long after his death. Pierre Louys, the French novelist and poet who obtained wide fame with his novel ‘ Aphrodite,’ a picture of Alexandrian morals at the beginning of the Christian era, died last month, aged fifty-ftvo years. His delicate, decadent work was characteristic of a French literary school of the nineties, which, exercised a strong inlluence ou several English writers of tho ‘ Yellow Book ’ period. Louys was a great nephew of the Duo d’Abrante, a great-great-grandson of Napoleon’s surgeon, Babatier, and brother of a former French Ambassador to Russia. ' At the ago of nineteen he founded the review 1 La. Conquo,’ to which Swinburne, Leconte, De Lisle, Heredia, Verlaine, Mallarme, Maeterlinck, and Moreus contributed. Of his ‘ Aphrodite ’ (1896) it is said that 850,UUU copies were printed, not including translations, and of the many dramatic versions one is firmly established in tho repertory of the OperaComiquo. Louys married the youngest dauguter of Heredia, tho poet aud academician.

The only thing Swinburne ever “ organised ” was a dinner to celebrate the anniversary of Lamb's birth. Edmund Gosse tells how the poet, in 1815. came to town, settled ail details, and suli’ered no iuterierence. The guests met in an old-tastuoued Soho hotel, and the “ coarse, succulent dinner' ' was presided over by Swinburne, beaming “ over the table like the rising sun.” The dinner over, came the reckoning. “ Uur shock was the bill ■ —portentous 1” wrote Mr Gesso. “ Swinburne in ‘ orgautsing ’ had made no arrangement as to price, and when we trooped out into the frosty midnight there were live long fanes of impecunious men of letters.”

hew people know that the late Sir Rider Haggard based the personality of “ Ayesna ” on a real person. This was Majaji, the native centenarian queen of a groat Kafir tribe in the Woodbush Mountains of the Northern Transvaal, an aged ruler alleged to possess many wizard powers, and who after a rebellion, surrendered to the late General Joubert in 18131. "Sew BOOKS England has had some great essayists, and there are a lew writing today who are in the front rank. Uf a. \ . nucas, Hilaire Belloc, and G. K. Chesterton are tne bust known, and meii' oooas are widely read, inis cannot be said of the older authors. Stevenson is stiff popular, but lie is amongst the modern men. The eiguteouth century was rich in individuals who brought the art or essay writing to a high standard, but their leisurely style does not appeal very muon to tue majority of the readers of to-day. in ‘ Essayists, Rust and present,' a practical method has been adopted which makes an introduction to lauiuus essayists easy, in a small and attractively-bound book Mr J. 13. Priestly, bunselt a writer of distinction, has presented a selection oi English essays. The book includes two or three Iroiu each ol the following writers:—Steele, Addison, tawitt, Johnson, Goldsmith, Lamb, Hazlitt, _ Leigh Hunt, Thackeray, Smith, it. L. Stevenson, Lucaa, Belloc, Chesterton, and Robert Lyud. Mr Priestley's introduction is an interesting and adequate piece of work. This- book is one ol a senes called the Fireside Library, and they will bo appreciated by the book lover. The publishers are Messrs Herbert Jonkius, Ltd.

1 A Choice of Songs ’ is a little collection from tho verso of iludyard ■Kipling. it contains thirty poems. These were selected by Mr Kipling himself, and they are representative of the poet’s work. Mr Kipling has written c..s an introduction an entirely new poem, and this naturally adds considerable importance to the volume, it is also entitled ‘ A Choice of Songs,’ and is published among the verses at tho top of this column. The collection includes some of Kipling’s best-known poems, such as 1 Recessional,’ ‘ Puck’s Bong,' and ‘ The English Flag,’ but there are many notable absentees. Notwithstanding its obvious limitations, it is an attractive little volume. Our copy is from the publishers, Messrs Methuen and Co., Loudon.

‘The Counsel Assigned,’ by Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews (Angus and Robertson, Ltd.), is a companion volume to ‘ The rerfect Tribute,’ and it is by tho same author. It is a little story from Abraham Lincoln’s life. A buy of fifteen, dressed in poor, homemade clothes, with a conspicuous bright head of golden hair, was led into a country court room by the sheriff. The lad was charged with murder, Ho was the only son of a widow, who was desperately poor. The prisoner had no counsel. Lincoln, then almost unknown, appeared in tho court, and at his request was “the counsel assigned.” It is a moving story. The boy’s parents had befriended Lincoln in days of adversity, and ho had come to repay his debt. The prisoner was acquitted, it is a moving story, and another tribute to the greatness of Lincoln’s character.

Ben Travers, who wrote ‘ Tho Cuckoo in the Nest,’ ‘Rookery Nook,' and other scintillating books, has given us still another of similar typo entitled ‘ Mischief.’ It is a chucklesomo, Puck* inspired story, in which a wayward young wife, peeved at her middle-aged liusbaud’s pedantic ways, determines to show her independence, while, of course, keeping to the middle of the road or thereabouts. Naturally, is a young man available, also a relative with a cottage in the country. But they reckon without a certain “managing” sister-in-law who sets out to save the situation. A number of others are drawn into tho salvage corps, so to speak, and a highly diverting tangle results. One can imagine the invisible Puck turning somersaults of delight, for instance, when half a dozen or so of these folk who are indulging in the popular pastime of minding other folks’ business meet at the cottage to find the young couple fled, bub the hitherto sedate brother-in-law in bed with a sprained ankle and a supply of brandy; the only other occupant being a perfectly respectable young lady, who, surprised in her bath by the invasion the purists, finds shelter in the invalid's room, there to bo discovered, betowelled, but nothing more, by the horrified busy bodies. ‘Mischief’ is a book which,_ while threatening every now and again to—well, slip off the straight and narrow, remains “quite all right”; wo peep around tho corner expecting to be made blush, but find it not quite. It is all delightfully Puck-likc and pleasantly tantalising. Our copy is from Messrs jyhitoombe and TombSj.Ltd,

Tho humor of the negro of the Southern States of America is distinct from that of almost any other race, and none knows better bow to put it effectively into cold print than Roy Octavos Cohen, whoso latest collection of short stories dealing with the entertaining “ cullud pusson ” is just to hand from tho publishers (Messrs Holder and Stoughton, Ltd.). To those who have read ‘ Como Seven ’ Mr Cohen will need no introduction; they will merely cry “We want ‘ Sunclouds ’ ” —this being the name under which this latest bunch of negro fun has been Having procured ‘ Sunclouds,’ they will read of and enjoy the adventures of those queerly-named colored folk, Floriau Slappey, Albino Ward, Septic 'Sims, Premium Fog, Mallissee Cheese, and the rest. Mr Cohen has the knack of getting his characters into apparently hopeless tangles and then amazing and amusing us by the simplicity of the twist with which he straightens things out. There’s Archibald Johnson, for instance, who creates for himself a comfy job as manager of the Do Unto Others Orphanage (established by the Sons and Daughters of I Will Arise), only to have matters complicated by his newly-acquired wife, Queen Esther Johnson, springing a surprise upon him by supplying five “ orphans ” as the nucleus of the new institution, these being her children by a former marriage. This difficulty is got over by the suppression of the facts regarding relalionr ship; but the fat threatens to be once more in the fire when the ox-husband (divorced) turns up, and demnds a cushy job as the price of his silence. It w-jiild spoil everything if we told hiw l awyei Chew got Archibald out of the sc’ape, so we won’t do it. Mr C bon gi/is an intriguing twist to tho titlas cf Ins stories—‘ The Birth of a Notim,’ ‘The Wild and Woolly West,’ ‘T be Spider and the Lie ’ being three.

‘The White Trail’s End,’ written by T. Y. Ziekurch, is a virile tale > f the frozen north set in grim, relentless winter among the myriad creatures of the wild who go their way in paths where only Indians and a few white settlors penetrate. It is a story of a pioneer, Stewart, who fights to the bitter finish the grasping encroachments of a lumber and mining company, whose outpost, Black House, lies right at the end cf the white man’s trail. How Stewart outwitted them and won over the woman whom the company had sent to persuade the settlers of the happiness of tilling land provided by the company instead of working on the rich mineral land which the company wishes to secure is described in a virile manner. The book is published by Messrs 'Redder and Stoughton, London.

In ‘ Buckskin Pete ’ Mr A. G. Hales has given another of the rugged out-of-doors stories which have made him so deservedly popular in this class of fiction, Our yojung hero, Buckskin Pete, and his friend, Bert Masterton, incur the enmity of a rascally sheriff and his gang, who endeavor to outlaw them to conceal their own crimes. The book is brimful of exciting episodes and hairbreadth escapes, of adventures with the Indians, and of a charming romance. A feature of the book is the virility of the portraiture. Mr Hales himself has had as adventurous a career as any man, and can create the right atmosphere to make a story of this kind racy and entertaining without running riot in his descriptions, as so many writers of this class of work are prone to do. Messrs Hodder and Stoughton are the publishers.

Margery Land May is inclined to mar a brilliant story by the introduction of too much quoted poetry and smart play with staccato words and phrases. The style adopted by the author of 'To Him That Knocketh ’ can be overdone, and there is an inclination for her to err on thr«, side. Still the reader cannot but help admiring her versatility and standard of execution. The story itself is the usual “ sex problem,” but it is dealt with in such a manner that places it far above the ordinary ruck of novels which have this theme as their subject matter. It is a story of unrequited love and its consequent effect upon the lives of four people, but death and divorce play their allotted parts, and happiness rules supremo. The various characters are splendid studies, and constitute one of the strong points of the book. Although the setting of the story is in America, the author has kept clear of anything approaching Amencanese. 'To Him That Knocketh ’ requires careful reading to get.the full enjoyment out of it, and the reader will be amply repaid by doing so. Our copy is from the publishers (Messrs Hodder and Stoughton, London).

‘ Mrs May’s Lectures ’ (Herbert Jenkins, Ltd.) is by Thomas Le Breton, the author of 1 The Confessions of Mrs May ’ and other books dealing with tho K'dlosophy of this entertaining person, rs May is a typical Cockney, with all the humor, combativoness, and good nature of her class. Her wqrds of wisdom relate to friends, husbands, landladies, love and marriage, shopping, scandal, and many other things. On the subject of marriage she is an authority, and she has certain rules which she applies to her own domestic affairs. She is always for the middle course. “ There's more ways ®f quieting an ’nsband than throwing your flat iron in ’is teeth.” Mrs May is eloquent on this subject. She closes the chapter thus: “There are other duties of wives, but the main thing is never ’it a man when Vs sober; be kind to ’im when he’s got any brass, and when 'e 'asn’t send Tin out to find some, for the standard o’ living ’as gotter lie raised—for ladies.” These extracts are fair samples of the humor that fills the book.