BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

Evening Star, Issue 19143, 9 January 1926, Page 14

BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

VERSES. THE HOUSE WE BUILD AT LAST. How small the house wo build at. last! How strangely altered is our pride; One darkened room is all wo ask, No garish light on any side; One narrow bod for perfect rest, One bed.—thoro is no other guest! Wo build it safe, for use, not show (All our vain fancies are outworn), The roof is very plain and low, Wo have no care for praise or scorn; Wo learn such perfect taste at last, When all our vulgar pride is past! We have no care of those who come No fear that they will smile or jest. At our small solitary home, Or say that this or that wore best; For in our city, each and all Build very quietly and small. Wo have no restless love for change, No wish to climb, no fear to fall; N.) craving for the new or strange, No rude, unseemly haste at all; Wo’vo learned the perfect grace of rest, Wc’vo learned that silence is the best! The storm may rave, the storm may cease, Or kingdoms sink, or kingdoms rise; It never breaks our perfect peace, Whato’er befalls beneath the skies; Our lowly house, and narrow land Are safe "from envy’s cruel hand. Ah, yes! the home wc build at last Is "better far than all the rest, What, though the vanity is past ! What, though wo have no pleasant guest! Wc have forgotten quite to weep, And learned to bo content, with sleep. —Francis Sinclair. POETRY, The rhythmic boat of restless waves That chafe a lonely shore; The star-set sky, serene, unchanged By malice, greed, or war; The poignant notes of birds that call When daylight is no more— These arc God’s poetry! The tuneful brooks that babble by In cvcr-youthful mirth; The breeze that bends the rip’ning grain And cools the sun-warmed earth; A thousand other little things Of deep, intrinsic worth— These are God’s poetry! The poor, weak words that fain would bo Interpreters of earth, sky, sea— Frail words that flounder hojmlossly And faint, and fade, and ecaso to be— These are Man’s poetry!

—Verna Lovcday Harden, in the ‘Now Outlook.’

ATTACK m ‘‘G.B.S ” A SLASHING DEHUKSIATIOH A slashing denunciation of Mr George Bernard Shaw is made by Mr Henry Arthur Jones, the distinguished dramalie author, in a little volume entitled ‘ Mr Mayor of Shakespeare’s Town. 5 Mr Shaw- was the chief guest at the Shakespeare festival at Stratford-on-Avon last April, and the book is in the form of a letter to the mayor of that town “ solely in his official capacity as chief trustee and custodian of the national traditions and sentiments that aro bound up with the memory of Shakespeare.” . Air Jones emphasises that:—. “ I havo no personal malice against Mr .Bernard Shaw. Deep and just anger, deep and just indignation 1 do feci, and with righteous and sufficient cause. But ] have no ground for personal spite or rancour against him, nor do 1 harbor any. I am sure M.r Shaw knows that.” Beginning with tho question of Mr Shaw’s qualifications to ho tho guest, of honor at the Shakespeare festival, Mr Jones quotes Mr Shaw’s own expressed opinion of Shakespeare “ With the single exception ot Homer, there is no eminent writer, not even Sir Walter Scott, whom J despise sn utterly as I. despise Shakespeare when 1 measure my mind against his. . . . It would positively he a relief to me to dig him up and throw stones at him.” To do honor to Shakespeare a man should have a feeling of fellowship and kinship with him in his passionate love for England. Therefore, says Mr Jones;—. “ J cannot but suppose, sir, that_you and your follow-townsmen were entirely ignorant of Mr Bernard Shaw’s history when .you invited him. There is no other conceivable explanation of yotir offering him honor and welcome on such an occasion.” “SPITTING RIDICULE.’.’ Mr JoueYs principal indictment relates to Mr Shaw’s attitude during tho war, and a great portion of the book deals with some of Mr Shaw’s activities in those fateful days. “During tho first battle of Yprcs I was in Mew Yorlc. . . . There in Flanders was our thin, broken line of soldiers straining beyond endurance to stop the Germans trom breaking through to tho Channel ports. . In that hour of England’s desperate extremity your honored guest at Shakespeare’s feast, was spitting ridicule and slander upon your country and damming back the gathering tide of American sympathy with our cause. Think of it, Mr Mayor of Shakespeare’s Town! Think of if!” Dealing with Mr Shaw’s statements in his lately published ‘ Table Talk ot G.B.S.’ to his biographer, Professor Archibald Henderson, Air Jones quotes the following passage :

“1 did not let myself go till the war was over, till the election in 1918— when I had a great oratorical campaign. After a speech of mine at Stourbridge a soldier said to me: ‘lf I had known all that in 1914 they would never have got khaki on my back.’ My reply was; ‘That is precisely why I did not tell you in 1914.’ ” xVlr Jones comments at length on tins and other statements. He says: “Mr Shaw says that in the early stages of the war patriotism compelled him to hold himself in, lest ho should say something that would weaken the national morale. Ho wanted to speak out. but he would not say aught that might injure tho cause of England, Not ho.” “ 1 T could not say very much.’ Hear that now. Mr Mayor of Shakespeare’s Town. Conceive what, grievous rigors of construction must have tightened round Mr Shaw’s vocal passages at the only moment in his life when he found that ho ‘couldn’t say very much.’ “0 the illustrious Now there’s a dear lover of England! There’s a sweet lover of England! 0 noble repression of meddlesome loquacity! 0 tongue-tied martyr! 0 muted, withered, denuded, unrecognisable wraith of Shaw. “And concurrently, while ho was inflicting silence upon himself ho was pouring out columns of abuse of England and her motives in entering tho war.” Mr Jones accuses Mr Shaw of “ encouraging and fermenting” the strikers during the great railway strike of 1919, and of the statement to the United States a week or so before the jypfhign-ton, Naval,. Hj^aiiu3inoUibr-/Aop-i

A LITERARY CORNER

forenco that “ Lloyd George, then supreme in England, was preparing lor war with America.” “ Let a hostile movement be started against “England on any pretext in any part of tho world, and Mr Shaw will sanctify and approve it. . . . So, if he lives till ho is as old as Methuselah, shall ho still be found backbiting England. “Yet lor the vilest, cruellest, most malignant, most murderous tyranny tho world has ever known, Mr Shaw has nothing but sympathy, admiration, praise, and support.. Ho hails Lenin as the greatest, statesman of Europe, and has no doubt that his statue will ho set up hero by the side of Washington.” ENGLISHMEN AND INTELLIGENCE. As a contrast to Shakespeare’s “ 0 Noble English!” “On, On, You Noblest English,” Mr Jones again quotes Mr Shaw as follows- “ It is only the English that require more than the normal life to attain wisdom. The Scotch, Irish, and colored races already possess it. The Englishman alone has not an adult intelligence.” Of this Mr Jones has to say:— “He will be at it. As a blowfly returns to settle upon some wholesome body and will not bo brushed away, so docs Air Shaw return to settle upon tho fair name of England and putrefy it in the nostrils of the world. _ 0 we poor dolts and noodles of Englishmen who havo given tho world its loftiest poetry and its richest literature! 0 we poor dullards and underpates who havo made for mankind their greatest discoveries and inventions! 0 wo poor loobies, and boobies who havo been the chief wrestlers and conquerors of the secrets of science! 0 we poor numbskulls and hoddydoddies of Englishmen who havo given' canons in wise government to all nations, and have humanised and civilised a quarter of tho globe! “ Hoar him, hoar him, Air Alayor of Shakespeare’s Town. Hear Mr Bernard Shaw proclaim to the world that wo Englishmen who have done all those things for mankind have an intelligence that is lower than that of the colored races whom we have ruled and raised and redeemed from savagery. “ Now would you have believed that if Air Bernard Shaw hadn’t said it? These calumnies are gross as a mountain, open, palpable. . . . But is there any calumny against England and against Englishmen, is there any sinister word or charge against England that Mr Shaw will not publish? ...

“ Do von say. Air Alayor of Shakesspeare’s" Town," 'that I exaggerate the significance of Air Shaw’s appearance as' your honored guest, when I plainly denounce it as a national disgrace?” Air Jones reverts to the Shakespeare Festival: — “ Within tho last few days I have visited tho Town Hall where tho sacrilegious farce was acted. A pungent acrid smell . . . pervaded the banqueting room, mingled with_ overpowering guests of sickenign egotism. 1 held mv nose and came out quickly. Until the place has been thoroughly clqanscd, and ,tho fragrant memory of Shakespeare restored to it, will not every lover of Shakespeare and of England who shall enter that room stop his nostrils and make haste to escape from those malodorous fumes? “As a, farther assurance to intending visitors, it might also ho well lo circulate extensively the fact that your hospitality to Air Shaw was given inadvertently and in complete ignorance of his antecedents. . . . AVill yon not arouse yourself, Air Alayor, to do what you may to purge your town?” HANS ANDERSEN RELICS. INT E RESTJNfI~ENH I BUTTON IN BERLIN. Somewhat belated, owing to the difficulties of getting the material together, a Hans Christian Andersen exhibition was opened in November in tho dignified building of the Prussian State Library, Unter den Linden, in honor qc this year’s fiftieth anniversary of Ins death', ft is an exquisite little collection of intimate things gathered from Danish and German friends, besides editions of Andersen from the, earliest date to tho present sumptuous German ‘ Lnxu.s-Ansgaben 1 (states the 1 Observer’). Germans, of course, are renders ot Andersen’s other work besides the fairy tales, but it is manuscripts and sketches illustrating those which form tho principal part of the present show. Here, are things as various as Andersen’s matriculation certificate and his. passports, and a letter from his “ friend and faithful reader,” Charles Dickens, wishing lie wore in England, and apparently writing after a visit from two Danish baronesses —“ charming baronesses they were, too, and I took them to my bosom with all honor, 10ve,,, and gallanTwo rooms are reproduced—one a corner of the living room, with hat and stick lying over the table and an old portmanteau and several nairs ot boots strewn about as though the owner had just returned from a journey; tho other shows Andersen’s writing table, bookshelf, and wa-stepapor basket, together with many well-worn personal belongings. There is so much tender sentiment in the little room that the lock nf ereyish hair cut from the dead man's nead and sent to a. Gorman lady, attached to a visiting card, can bo forgiven. H must have been lent in the same spirit as tho little leather hag found, after death, on his breast, containing a letter from Riborg Yoigfc, the girl who did not marry him.

MEW BOOHS AIR AVELLS’S LATEST. In ‘ Christina Alberta’s Father ’ Air 11. G. Wells has certainly come back to the modern world for a setting, but his purpose is still to impress upon us how much bettor this modern world might be if we were, not snob weak and conventional mortals. He makes some of his characters express views to this effect, and there is a good deal of Wellsian common sense in their remarks, Christina Alberta, for instance, declares that “ roost people are evasive ’; they are always not saying tilings because they weren’t said, and not doing things because thev weren’t done. They just run about being as far as possible somebody else until they died.” Christina Alberta is really tho outstanding character in the book. She is a modern young woman with decided opinions and beliefs, and is a source of anxiety to her unfortunate father, who, however, turns out to he not her father at all. Poor, pathetic little Mr Preemhy! Ho comes into the story as the husband of Airs Preemhy, an efficient and managing body wlio runs Preemhy and tho Preemhy laundry while her husband does a lot of dreaming and speculating upon the lost continent of Atlantis and other prehistoric happenings. Death liberates him from the managing wife, but Fate plays sad tricks with Preemhy. who gradually becomes obsessed with the idea that he is Sargon, the King of Kings, and eventually finds himself in a. lunatic asylum. Rescued therefrom bv an irresponsible, illogical, but soft-hearted young journalist, he con-

of tho store, which ends with Christina Alberta on the verge of marrying the undecided, iriUA’ionsiblo young journalist, If .she, dZ marry him there would be good material for the story of bis moulding, for Christina Alberta would certainly make nr break him. The book is interesting, as most of Mr Wells’s hooks are; and one finds lots of homo truths to grasp. Our copy is from Messrs Wbltcombo and Tombs, Ltd.

The thirteen love episodes in the life of Slavia, Princess Kartaradye, are told by Clare Sheridan in ‘ The Thirteenth,’ published by Messrs Duckworth and Co. (London). Twelve of the stories arc told by the beautiful princess to an Englishman who becomes the thirteenth, but thirteen is an unlucky number, and the finale is unexpected. The stories are vivid, and have A Turkish background. The princess served as fif soldier in a Cossack regiment during the war. and saw life as a man, and had lost all her (deals, The author easts convention aside. The stories are fearless, not crude. Told with a wealth of color, no exception can bo taken to them. A pictitre version of ‘Captain Fly-by-Night,’ by Johnston M'Culley, would suit Douglas Fairbanks to perlect.ion. There is the daredevil captain who is an export with the sword and a tempestuous lover. The action of the story fakes place in California when Spanish rule held sway, and thrilling incidents follow each other in fast array. Romance and revolution are uTterwoyen, and the gallant captain, whoso identity, fortunately or unfortunately, is cor»fused with a notorious adventurer and gambler, plays his part with daring and skill. The story is excellently written in a pleasing style, and is out of the ordinary run of romantic novels. ‘ Captain Fl'y-by-Niebt ’ will appeal to the most jaded" novel reader. Messrs Herbert Jenkins, Ltd. (London), are the publishers, and our copy is from that house. NOTES.

The professor of English literature in Edinburgh University has awarded the James Tait Black memorial prizes for 1924 to the Rev. W. Wilson, author of ‘ The House of Airlic,’ published by Mr John Murray, and to Mr E. Mi. Forster for his novel, ‘A Passage to India,’ published by Mr Edward Arnold. Upon Anton Chekov, the Russian author, Tolstoy had an extraordinary but a fluctuating inilncnco. In his ‘ Lcttors on the Short Story, _ the Drama, and Other Literary Topics,’ recently translated, ho wrote: “Since I have quite given up smoking 1 have been free from gloomy and anxious moods. Perhaps because I am not smoking Tolstoy’s morality has ceased to touch me; at the bottom of my heart I take up a hostile attitude towards it, and that, of course, is not just. I have peasant blood in my veins, and you won’t astonish me with peasant virtues. _ From my childhood 1. have believed in progress, and I could not help believing in it, since the difference between the time when 1 used to be thrashed and when they gave up thrashing me was tremendous. . . • But Tolstoy’s philosophy touched me profoundly, and took possession of me for six or seven years, and what affected me was not its general propositions, with which 1 was familiar beforehand, but Tolstoy’s manner of expressing it, his reasonableness, and probably a sort of hypnotism. Now something in me protests, reason and justice tel! me that . . there is something greater than chastity and abstinence from moat. War is an evil and legal justice is an evil; hut it does not follow from that that L ought to wear bark shoes and sleep on the stove with the laborer, and so on, and so on, ...

It was with the very deepest regret that we received in this office news of the death of Mr T’. Anderson Graham, for so many years the brilliant editor of onr contemporary, ‘ Country Liio ’ (slates ‘ John o’ London’s Weekly/). Mr Graham retired from his position some, months past, but continued to the end to attend the office and to write his admirable criticisms of contemporary literature. One of his last works in this direction was to write a delightful review of Lord .Riddell’s ‘More Things That Matter.' His judgment was remarkably sane, and ids powers of expression in critical writing were unusually forceful. In a more practical direction his weekly notes in ‘ Country' Liio ’ on current events delighted a wide and cultured audience. A Northumbrian, Jfr Graham was a close Iriond of Viscount Grey of Fallodon, and shared that statesman’s interest in country things. He could road poetry more effectively than any man I ever knew, and his skill as a chess player was remarkable. The literary world will miss a striking figure. His Majesty the King, the Prime Minister, Mr Thomas Hardy, and many others have sent messages to the ‘ Saturday Review,’ which celebrated its seventieth anniversary in handsome style, with articles by “ G. 8.5;.” and “Max” (says the London, ‘Sunday Times’). Journalistic fashions have changed mightily since 1855, when the ‘ Saturday ’ was founded. Then it was edited in a sumptuous apartment in the Albany; the editor, like the editors of fiction', really was almost unapproacin able; and a private brougham was constantly kept in waiting for the staff, who used it for business or pleasure with a fine impartiality. Sir Edmund Ciosso, who began to contribute to, tho ‘Saturday’ in" 1873, tells in tho birthday number 'tho story of how Philip Harwood, then editor, was afraid to publish his article on ‘Peer Gynt,’ fearing it to be a hoax, as “no ono seemed to have ever heard of this Herr Ibsen.” One of tho most famous contributors to the ‘ Saturday ’ was Lord Salisbury, then Lord Robert Cecil. Other celebrated members of the staff were the historians Freeman and Fronde, John Morlcy, Harcourt, and tho great jurist, Sir Henry Maine. Tho founder, lieresford Hope, had no great ]ove for either Harcourt or Maine. When, as he put it, thev wore enticed over to the ‘ Cornhill ’ by Thackeray, “ like tho jobber he is,” Beresford Hope took a malicious pleasure in reflecting that. Harcourt had had no fewer than thirty-six black balls when he sought election to the Athenaum.

The famous Library of the Faulty of Advocates, in Edinburgh, passed the other day from their ownership to tha.r. of the Scottish nation, and the first meeting of tlie P.oard of Trustees of the National Library of Scotland has now been held. The new career ol usefulness was pleasantly inaugurated, ior it was the privilege of Mr Hugh P. Macmillan, K. 0., at the opening meeting, to present to the library a birthday gift in the shape of the ( copy of Burns’s poems presented by the author to his Edinburgh flame, “ Clannda ” (Mrs MaeleboseL The volume had been purchased by a Scottish gentleman from its former owner, who agreed to part with it only on the condition that it should find a place in the national collection. This edition is tbo second Edinburgh edition of 1793, in two volumes, which had been bound up as one. There appears on the half-title page the inscription “ A present from tbo author,” in “ Clarinda’s ” handwriting, and it contains three manuscript corrections ift-thejaaetis handizatiga,

Many travellers knew Merridew’s library at Boulogne, the closing of whicn is announced. The library was visited, by numbers of distinguished people in all walks of life. Among the more recent were Joseph Conrad, the novelist, and Genera! Wilberforee, who was British commandant of the town in the war. In earlier days Thackeray, Dickens, Browning, Wilkie Collins, and Henry Irving were frequent visitors to the library. Merridew’s was the oldest English library in France. The origin's! LJerridew was born at Coventry, England, where bis father and grandfather had been booksellers.

A prize of J.OUOdol lor the best adverse criticism of its new book. ‘ Profits,’ is offered by the Poliak Irtmudation for Economic Research, of Newton. Mass. The hook presents a strong criticism of the existing economic order. The authors are eager to find out the worst that can be said against their theories. The authors are Mr "William Trufant Foster, formerly president of Reed College, and Mr "Waddill patchings, formerly president of the Central Foundry Company and of the Sioss Sheffield Steel and Iron Company, and now a member of Goldman, Such, and Co., and a director of numerous industrial corporations. The judges are Messrs Owen I), young, chairman ot the Board of Directors of the General Electric Company; Allyn A. j ming, ot Harvard University, president ot the American Economic Association; and "Wesley 0. Mitchell, of Columbia University, former president of tho American Economic Association,

An interesting and important piece of Stcvensonia has just been acquired by Gabriel Wells, the New \ork dcaloi in rare books and autographs. The letter was written in answer to a newspaper man who asked Robert Lours those three questions;— (1) "Which of his hooks he liked host P (2) Which of other writers he liked best ? (3) What books bad most influenced him as a writer P The text of the letter in reply follows With Mr Stevenson’s compliments, (1) ‘ Kidnapped ’ and ‘ Catriona,’ because they convey nearer to what J have meant to do than any other. (2) ‘ Redgauntlet,’ ‘Ron Roy,’ ‘The Antiquary,’ and ‘Guy Mannering ’; ‘ Our Mutual Friend ’ and ‘ Martin Chuzzlewit ’; ‘ Esmond ’ and ‘Vanity. Fair’; ‘The Egoist,' by George Meredith. (3) Runyan, Hazlitt, Bit Thomas Browno, and ■ Shakespeare, Henry James. Ronmvr Loins Stevenson. Will yon be so obliging as to send me tho article P R.L.S.

Two interesting literary birthdays hare just boon celebrated. That veteran critic, Professor George Saintsbury, has turned eighty, and was the recipient of hearty congratulations from his numerous friends. The Poet Laureate, Dr Robert Bridges, is actually a year older. But, even so, he is able to give us a new book of charming verse. It is curious to recall, as a paragraph in the ‘ Glasgow Herald ’ states, that one of the first to recognise the genius of Dr Bridges was Robert Louis Stevenson, dead these thirty years. Sir Sidney Colvin relates how R.L.S. came to his house one day and insisted on reading to Lady Colvin passages from the first volume of Dr Bridges’s poems, declaring that a new genius had_ arisen. Lady Colvin listened rather indifferently, and R.L.S. was moved to one of his characteristic outbursts: “My God!” he cried “I don’t believe you like them”; whereupon ho threw the book into a corner of the room and walked out of the house in a rago. To he sure, ho apologised later for his conduct, hut he never failed to chaff Lpdy Colvin about her indifference to the glory of a rising star.

In tho West Riding of Yorkshire, about throe miles from Tadcast.or (writes Miss Evelyn .Porter, in the ‘Landmark’), is situated, the tiny village of Hcalaugh. With its neat, gar-den-fronted cottages and, ivy-covered church, Hcalaugh is typical of any English village. Here it was, more than two centuries past, in one of those thatched cottages, that the original Darby and Joan of almost legendary fame actually lived! The Darbys were well-known people round Tadcastor in those days. Most of the family were well-to-do farmers or blacksmiths. Nothing remains of tho original buildings except the present harness room, which used to be tho shoeing-pia.ee, and the washhouse, which was once the smithy. Of tho lives of Darby and Joan little or nothing is known beyond the fact that they loved each other, and were phenomenally happy. Eroin youth to manhood, and manhood lo old ago, life flowed calmly, sweetly, surely. Perfect peace and contentment wore theirs, and in tho white flower of a blameless life they found happiness.

Tho writer concludes by rjuniing the ballad from tho pen of Philip, Lord Wharton, Hero are some of the lines: Old Darby, with Joan by his side. I’ve often regarded with wonder. No beauty or wit they possess, Their several failings to cover; Them, what are the charms, can yon guess, Tliat make them so fond of each other ? ’Tis the pleasing remembrance of youth— Tho card Garments which youth did bestow; The thoughts of past pleasures and truth, The hast of all blessings below. Those traces for ever will last. Nor sickness or age can remove, For when youth and beauty are past, And age brings the winter of love, A friendship insensibly grows, By reviews of such raptures as the.sa, The current of fondness still flows, Which deepest old ago cannot freeze.