BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

Evening Star, Issue 19026, 22 August 1925, Page 13

BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

VERSES. THE OLD INN SIGN. (1824.) : Tho roadway has a flinten face And breath is like a steam, While loud and taut upon the trace Comes on tho cantering team. For at my inn the coaches stop, Tho fares they stay to dine, When horses’ hoofs come clip-a-clop, | Clip-a-clop, clip-a-clop s ' Before the old inn sign. Now fctcli your fagots in, good lass! I Good ostler ; fetch your hay! I And let tho tune in comfort pass ■ While man and horse delay. ' For cheerless is the coach’s top And heavy is the load, When horses’ hoofs go clip-a-clop, Clip-a-clop, clip-a-clop Along the frosty road. . . . For welcome is the coach’s stop, And bravely shall they dine, When horses’ hoofs coma clip-a-clop, Clip-a-clop, clip-a-clop Before the old inn sign. —“ Bambino,” in tho ‘ Bookman,’ Lon- - don. ‘IF DOUGHTY DEEDS MY LADYE PLEASE.’ If doughty deeds my ladye please, Eight soon I’ll mount my steed; And strong his arm, and fast his seat, That bears frae mo the meed. 1 I’ll wear thy colors in my cap, Thy picture in my heart; And ho that bends not to thine eye Shall rue it to his smart. Then tell mo how to woo thee, love; Oh, tell mo how to woo thee! For thy dear sake nao care I’ll take, i Tho’ ne’er another trow me. If gay attire delight thine eye, I’ll dight me in array; I’ll tend thy chamber door all night, And squire thee all the day. , If sweetest sounds can win thine ear, These sounds I’ll strive to catch; Thy voice I’ll steal to woo thysell, That voice that nano can match. Then tell mo how to woo thee, love; Oh, tell me how to woo thee! For thy dear sake, nao care I’ll take, Tho’ ne’er another trow mo. But if fond love thy heart can gain, I nbver broke a vow; Nae maiden lays her skaith to me, I never loved but you. For you alone I ride the ring, ’For you I wear tho blue; For you alone I strive to sing, | Oh, tell me how to woo! ■ Oh, tell me how to woo thee, love! Oh, tell me how r to woo thee! For thy dear sake, nao care I’ll take, | Tho’ ne’er another trow mo. 1 —Robert Graham of Gartmoro (173597). CONRAD’S TALKS. Mr Walter Tittle, American artist, recalls in New York ‘ Outlook ’ sayings of Conrad which were made in conversations when he painted the great novelist’s portrait not long before his death: | “ What do I think of 1 Tho Rover ’?” ! His head was plunged into his hands, and he sat for a moment in an attitude of deepest dejection. Returning to an erect posture, he seemed to recall himself from tho melancholy train of thought that my question had occasioned. “‘The Rover’? Well, I’ll toll you —I have not yet made up my mind about it. It worries me. It is going wonderfully well both here and in America, and the reviews have been excellent, but I cannot come to a satisfactory conclusion about it myself. I cannot decide if it is one of my best works. Perhaps I shall know later. It may be ' the best of tho lot, but for the moment I am very much at sea about it. Which is my best hook? Again, I don’t know. They are all so different. I can never resist tho temptation to experiment, and can never write in the same way twice. ‘ Nostromo ’ is ray biggest canvas, my most ambitious performance. Perhaps it is the best. Ido not know. Dickens and Thackeray always wrote in a consistent style. They had established methods, and one book resembled another, so that comparison is possible. This is not the case with me. With each effort I want to try something now. This makes immediate comparison very difficult, almost impossible. “‘The Rover’ is hardest of all for me to judge, naturally, ns it is the most recent. What an amount of labor it cost me, and labor under such difficult conditions! I had to stop repeatedly because of illness; I wrote the thing at least eleven times. And I never use a stenographer ranch; the work must be done so largely by hand. I can dictate the first rough draft, and then begins endless rewriting. The labor of it fatigues me so; I hate to write! 1 do it only when an idea comes to me so strongly that I cannot resist it. Otherwise it would bo impossible for me. I write when a story demands telling so ! strongly that there is no further pos- ! sibility of postponement. lam not_ a literary man. Literary men can write , about anything, often with equal facility. 1 am not one of those clever and accomplished people. ... “ Artists, and even photographers, have a way of smoothing me out and making me look too nice and polite, I see that yon are going to represent mo as tho rough old seadog that I am. There is nothing smooth about my face. Feel my temples, how deep and narrow they are; now my cheekbones, and see how they project. And feel how my head broadens abruptly over the ears; the back of my skull is nearly circular. Now my chin, feel how rugged and prominent tho bones are. Paint mo to look as I am—an old pirate with hooded eyes like a snake! You laugh? Well, I was virtually a pirate once. I commanded that filibustering ship in ‘The Arrow of Gold,’ you know, and was nearly captured many times.”

Tho Earl of Rosebery owns, among his other literary treasures, the manuscript of a story known by the name of ‘Lady Susan,’ which Jane Austen wrote-about the year 1805., The manuscript, unlike those of her ‘ Sanditon ’ arid ‘ Tho Watsons,’ is not a draft but a* fair copy, free from correction and erasure. Lord Rosebery has lent it for a new collated edition of ‘Lady Susan,’ which tho Oxford Press is to pubilsh at once. 'Tho volume will he welcome to Jane Austen lovers, as being an accurate edition, for that could not he said about the first edition which appeared in 1871.

An American statistician lias compiled a list of Best Sellers’ for the quarter century since 1900. The “American Winston Churchill is at the top. Of English authors, W. J. Locke and E. Phillips Oppenlieim are high up in the list, but H. G. Wells ranks only thirtysocond, and the late Joseph Conrad only seventy-seventh. The name of Rudvard Kipling,is (Slot included at all. The late Anatole France, writing on Dickens: “I am fond of Dickens. He is a very ’ good visitor. He is often compared to his disadvantage with our Daudet. That is _ not my opinion. Of course, Daudet is charmingly, but he lacks depth. ... Dickens’s work, on the contrary, is of social importance. It insinuates a moral into the plot. And then he has the feeling of his dignity as a writer.’-’

A LITERARY CORNER

NEW BOOKS 'THE ROMANCE OF EMPIRE.' 'The Romance of Empire,' by Sir Philip G'ibbs (Hutchinson and Co., London).—This is a new edition specially revised and enlarged by Sir Philip Gibbs himself. The building of the Empire is a great romance, and in this book that aspect of our development is sot out in a scries of vivid pen pictures. The author begins with the discovery of the Now World by Columbus and the many voyages of discovery that followed, in which the men of Bristol City and of Devon took such a prominent part. Political and economic developments are eschewed, and attention is directed to the mighty deeds of our soldiers and sailors and other adventurers who, with a fine carelessness of danger and death, established down the centuries the outposts of Empire. The first part of the book is devoted to the exploits of the English sea rovers on the Spanish Main, including Drake's astonishing voyages, the shattering of the Spanish Armada, and the breaking of the power of Spain; and Sir Walter Raleigh's dream of empire. Next the early English settlements in North America are described. In this picture we have the Pilgrim Fathers, the redskins on the war path, Puritans and Quakers, the struggles of the early colonists, and the story of Acadia—incidents in which are told so tragically by Longfellow. This phase is important, because it was the beginning of the end,of French domination in Canada. .It leads naturally to the events [connected with the conquest of Canada, j and particularly to Wolfe's exploits and the fall of Quebec. Sir Philip Gibbs gives a particularly interesting sketch of the character and work of tins heroic soldier. The loss of the American colones, though a story romantic in itself, is read with a sense of irritation and regret at the folly of a king and his vacillating Ministers. The occupation of India runs hand in hand with tragedy, in which the finest qualities of :,the British race were exhibited in their highest degree. Romance is still the keynote when tho author writes of the discovery and occupation of Australia, but his narrative is now free from the harrowing element inseparable from any intimate account of evonts in India, [for tho sword and rifle are discarded I for the _ prospector's pick and shovel. [Sir Philip Gibbs then passes on to this dominion, dealing with tho historical aspect from the time of Captain Cook's first voyage. It is well done, though marred by one or two misprints which grate such as "Mount Earnshaw " for " Mount Earnslaw " and " Yon Hoost " for " Von Haast." The latter part of the book is devoted to South Africa, the history of which is crowded with incident, in the struggles between Briton and Boer and white man versus black. The last chapter is entitled ' The Empire and the World War,' in which the author concludes with this opinion: "With its immense natural resources, _ its wide spaces needing the labor of virile men and healthy s women, its immense powers of development, it holds out a groat promise in the future for the British race if they keep their old qualities of character—their courage, their spirit of adventure, their love of liberty, their sense of fair play, their cleanness of heart. It was by these qualities,'mainly, that the Empire was built up. By them we shall hold it and give an example to tho world off a League of Nations loyal to the civilised code and obedient to international law for the sake of world peace." Our copy of ' The Romance of Empire' is from Messrs Angus and Robertson, Ltd., Sydney. PINERO'S PLAYS. Even those who go only casually to the theatre know something of' Sir Arthur Pinero's work-. Habitual playgoers know it well. He has been an outstanding figure as a dramatist for more than thirty years. Who has not seen at least one of the following plays:—'Dandy Dick,' 'Sweet Lavender,' 'The Amazons,' 'The Second Mrs Tannuernri'.' ' T!i<> Voim-i'i 1 '- ™■'•- smith,' 'The Benefit of the Doubt,' ' The Gay Lord Quex,' and ' His House in Order 'p Wo do not see much of las work to-day, uuioruuiatoiy, but mat is not because of any decenoraaun i.t quality. The reason is to be found in tho fact that the public taste has swerved in tho direction of musical comedy, and the drama is neglected. The last of Sir Arthur Pinero's plays staged in Dunedin was 'His House in Order,' on the occasion of the visit of Mr Boucicault and Miss Vanbrugh. In tho days of tho Brough and Boucicault Company the people of this' city saw and enjoyed many of Pinero's plays, and these have left an impression that will remain. 'Enchanted Moments' is a. little book that should bring back those days. Mr R,. 0. Blackmail has hit upon an original idea. He has embodied in tho volume copious extracts from the author's plays, his aim being to interest _ in particular the younger generation in ivories of such varied and exceptional brilliance. 'Enchanted Moments ' will thus serve a double purpose. Sir Arthur Pinero's work is suitable for a book of this kind, and Mr Blackman has made his selections with care and discretion. Our copy is from Messrs Angus and Robertson, Ltd., Sydney. A GALSWORTHY PLAY. In 'Old English,' by John Galsworthy (Duckworth and Co., Ltd.), we find epitomised the traditional courage of the English race. That is the key to the play, for Sylvanus Hoythorp (nick-named "Old English") goes down fighting when he might have saved himself by compromising. Heythorp is a Liverpool company director and chairman of the Inland Navigation Company. The concern is not doing very well, and we have the picture of Old English presiding at tho annual mooting of the company, which is attended by various dissatisfied shareholders. Though he himself is in a hopeless position, Old English, by sheer courage and assurance, dominates tho position. Further, he forces through a proposal to purchase four ships for £60,000 from another company, he himself receiving a secret commission in the event of the deal <■< ming off amounting to £6,000, which he proposes to settle on the widow and two children of his illegitimate son. One of his creditors hoars of this transaction, and proposes to .nake it profitable to himself. Old English defies him, and the curtain conies down on the only obvious note of tragedy in the play. It is a fine piece of work. The dialogue is witty and the characters sharply defined, and the theme is well maintained, and Old English, unafraid and unrepentant, goes T o his death, when well in the eights, a* the result, after a good dinner, of what might be called an oyerdose of champagne, sherry, port, and old brandy.

‘ Jugged Journalism,’ by A. B. Cox. This on the cover of a volume forwarded to us by the publishers (Herbert Jenkins, Ltd.) promised something worth while; something that would dissipate the melancholy wrought by the dripping of rain from the caves and set our midriff dancing iu tune with the bright flame in the fireplace. Investigation brought ample fulfilment of the promise. and as wo read we chuckled, and, reading on, chuckled some more. Ihe book is composed of a series of lessons ” on the art of writing short stories and essays and such. And those who had never written for publication —or, at any rate, never got anything they wrote published—equally with those who have achieved success in that direction, will bo tickled with the humor and moved to admiration by the clever satirical touch that .pervades the book. Some of the “ lessons ” have been previously published in ‘ Punch, but they are well worthy of reperusal; while the new ones which have been added are right up to the old standard. ‘ Jugged Journalism ’ is a clever book and a delightful one, and the enjovment of reading it is enhanced by a series of thirty-two illustrations by George Morrow.

‘ Selected Poems of Brunton Stephens ’ (Angus and Robertson, Ltd). ■—James Brunton Stephens, a Queenslander, was one of Australia’s e.ilier poets. He is not much read *o-day, but he will always be remembered by that noble patriotic hymn which be wrote in 1887, ‘The Dominion of Australia : A Forecast.’ The first and last verses read : ■ She is not yet, but he ■whoso car Thrills to that finer atmosphere Where footfalls of appointed, things, Reverberant of things to be, Are beard in forecast echoings Like wave-beats from a viewless sea., Hears in the voiceful tremors of the sky Auroral heralds whispering: She is ni S h -'” * . * So flows beneath our good and ill, A viewdess stream of Common Will — A gathering force, a present might, That from its silent deaths of gloom At Wisdom’s voice shall leap to light, And hide our barren feuds in bloom, Till all our sundering lines with love o’ergrown Our bounds shall be the girdling seas alone. It was by his lighter verse that Stephens was best known. Though he did not get the Australian atmosphere in the way that the most modern poets have done, his work, apart from its undoubted merits, is interesting, as contrasting the earlier literary work of Australia with subsequent developments, and no doubt the writers of today owe something to him for his ideas. No collection of Australian books would bo complete without some examples of the wmrk of Brunton Stephens.

‘ Best Indian Chutney.’ _ by “Afghan,” is a collection of stories of India—white and black. It is to be regretted that the author has written under a nom de plume, as by these stories ho (or is it she?) may be ranked in the Kipling class. _ As with Kipling, this author knows his India, knows its customs and native life. Ho has evidently scon beneath the surface, which the ordinary tourist or sojourner in India is not able or not allowed to do. *KW ‘native must bo known a long time, and his confidence must be gained before lie admits a sahib to his thoughts and his ways. The stories are admirably told, and, apart from Kipling, are outside the usual run of talcs of India. The author has a graphic, descriptive style, and gives full rein to it in these pictures of Indian life. No one story can bo picked out as being better than the others, as they all deal with dilferent aspects, conditions, and incidents. Messrs Herbert Jenkins (London) are the publishers of tin's entertaining book, and our copy comes from that house.

‘ The Lint House Alystery,’ by Nancy and John Oakley (Messrs Herbert Jenkins, Ltd.), is a traditional mystery story. It fulfils the two chief requirements. These arc a brisk narrative and i wcil-constructcd plot. The authors, indeed, have been particularly successful in maintaining the mystery till the end is reached, and the reader is kept guessing all the time. It is safe to say that very ffcw indeed will succeed in solving the problem before the authors place the key into their hands. The theme is the disappearance of Gilbert Tarrant, a millionaire. The only clue is a telegram to him from Lint House, Lymingwold, which is uninhabited. Investigation at this house reveals the body of a murdered man, but no sign of Tarrant. Arnold Glynno and Tarrant’s daughter Patricia are most concerned in the disappearance of the millionaire, while Glynne’s friend, Kelham, a Scotland Yard man, is trying to find the identity of the dead man and his murderer. NOTES Some of the troubles of a publisher’s reader are told in ‘Nash’s Magazine’ by Mr J, D. Beresford, the novelist, who some years ago was employed by a publishing-house in examining manuscripts submitted for approval. Mr Beresford bad the misfortune, which falls to many editors, of meeting the woman-writer whose unsuitability for authorship is equalled only by her assurance. He says: “Once I was so far interested in some touches of real cleverness in an otherwise unpublishable novel that I invited the author to come and see me. She turned out to be a woman on tire shady side of fifty, as fluent with her tongue as with her pen; and I discovered that I had released a spate, first of spoken and later of written language. She, too, had written plays, and many novels, which poured in upon mo after this first sign of encouragement, not one of them on examination worthy of five minutes’ consideration.”

Stephen Crane’s ‘ Rod Badge of Courage ’ made an impression as a picture of what a great war might mean to the fighting man, as well as an artistic impression. Since the war of 191418 Crane’s book has certainly become something of a war classic, and Heinemann, ' who originally issued it, have published-a new edition with a preface by the late Joseph Conrad. “It delighted soldiers, men of letters, men in the street,” says lie; “it was welcomed by all lovers of personal expression as a genuine revelation, satisfying the curiosity of a world in which war and love have been subjects of song ever since the beginning of articulate speech.” Mr Hilaire Belloc lias embarked upon a history of England from the earliest time to the present day. He has completed the first of four volumes to which it will run, and this volume will appear soon with Methuen. It deals with Pagan England and Catholic England to the end of the Dark Ages—that is, from the landing of Julius Caesar to the Battle of Hastings. Mr Belloc says the main object of his work is to emphasise, what no regards as an, historical truth, that'the chief social and political phenomena of national history axe religious, not matters of race, and, still less, matters of history.

A copy of the first issue of the first edition of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ brought £3BO at Sotheby’s recently'. Only six copies are known. Lewis Carroll, the author of ‘ Alice in Wonderland,’ was in real life Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, a mathematical don. He sent a copy of ‘ Alice ’ to Queen Victoria, who, in acknowledging receipt, said she trusted lip would not omit to send her his next publication, to which she looked forward with pleasurable anticipation. The author did as requested, and in due course Queen Victoria received a copy of his next publication, which happened to be a disseij+a+inn on ‘ Conic Sections and the Binomial Theorem.'

When Mr A. S. M. Hutchinson took for the title of his new novel 'The Increasing Purpose ’ it was pointed out that the American novelist James Lane Allen hal already used the title.. Mr Hutchinson has resolved to call his new book ‘ One Increasing Purpose.’ This makes the title a quotation rather than an allusion to Tennyson’s familiar lines in ‘ Locksley Hall ’: — Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs, And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns. ,

Mr Clement K.. Shorter (for once) has startled the literary world by declaring in the ‘ Sphere ’ that Miss Amy Lowell, the American poet, was killed by the English reviews of her ‘ Life of Keats.’ Letters from Miss Lowell, written between the date of publication and her sudden collapse following the Boston dinner given in her honor, convince Mr Shorter that there is no room for doubt. Naturally^Miss Lowell was distressed by the way iu which the ‘ Life ’ was received in England, and especially by her failure to command the approval of two or three loading men of letters; but Mr Shorter’s belief is not shared by those who know the facts. The New York ‘Literary lieview ’ says that Miss Lowell was a victim of hernia, from which she had suffered for some time. When the final and fatal attack came on she was all read.y to start for England, and only cancelled the arrangements when told by her physician that it was not safe for her to be out of touch of a surgeon specialist, even for half an hour.

Few people among the thousands familiar with 1 Land of Hope and Glory’ know that Air A. C. Benson, who died recently, wrote the words. The president of Magdalen, in a letter to ‘ The Times,’ recalled the following conversation: —When I said to him some years ago I would give a good deal to have written it, he replied very modestly: “There’s not much in it. It was made by Elgar’s music.” I said: “I agree with the last part of your statement, but not with the first. Not even Elgar would or could have made it if it had not been so good in itself.” In another letter Air Herman Klein told the story of the coincidence by which words and music wore brought together:—The tune that the whole world knows to-day already existed as the trio of Elgar's ‘ Pomp and Circumstance ’ march, and there it would probably have remained, “ unhonored and unsung,” but for the fact that Dame Clara Butt one day asked the composer to write a song for her with a refrain like that. “But why not that very tune?” was the reply. Then it was that A. 0, Benson’s poem was laid under requisition, and to the inspiring words m the ‘Coronation Ode,’ which fitted the wonderful refrain, were added the other stanzas of the song, which wc now know as ‘ Land of Hope and Glory.’