BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

Evening Star, Issue 19517, 26 March 1927, Page 13

BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

VERSES BY SEVERN’S BANKS. Quo voice is from the homeland and the hills, One voice is from the grey unrestful sea. Here where at dusk the tingling silence thrills I linger companied with memory; Hearing at times the boom Of the far fog ship sounding through the gloom; At times the cry of nightbirds, and the sigh Of slumberous waters high. 0 crying from the bygone and the known—--0 murmur from the hidden and mystic deep To which we pass alone Through paths of sleep—■ 1 canno| hear you clear; Earth’s dust is in mine oar, The distant voice is muffled by the near. I stand As on a fronticrland Of things that with a step shall be revealed. The hitherside of regions mist-con-cealed ; Yet still it sccms_ There must be instant waking from my dreams ■ When it shall be That the unheard is heard, the unseen appear— The message that I almost hear, The vision that I almost see. —Arthur L. Salmon, in the ‘Observer.’ OUR SPAN. A gleam upon a silent sky O’orspreading; faint and wan— Uncertain—then, a lapswing’s cry Against a crimscjn Dawn! A splash of rain, a whirl of cloud, A wind that fails; too soon A glare; a rushing, seething crowd Of wants and wishes—Noon! A sinking sun, a rising moon; Calm stars imbrued with light— To some, a curse; to some, a boon; God’s gracious gift of Night! —D.R.B.M. A GREAT HOVEL CHARLES READS’S MASTERPIECE ‘ The Cloister and the Hearth ’ is Charles Kendo’s greatest work—and, I believe, the greatest historical novel in the language. . , . There is portrayed so vigorous, lifelike, and truthful a picture of a time long gono by, and differing in almost every particular from our own, that the world has never seen its like. . . . As one

reads it, one feels in the very aUnosphere of the century; one breathes the air just before the Great Dawn of Learning and Religion; it is still twilight, but the birds are twittering already on the houghs; it is a time when meu are weary of the past; there is uq freshness or vigor in the poetry; aljthe tunes are old tunes. . . . In his chamber the sclio!ar_ asks whether the newly found Greek is not better, than all the ecclesiastical jar-

gon. . : . Them is uncertainty everywhere; there is the restless movement which goes before a change. There is, however, plenty of ordered activity in certain directions. Soldiers fight, and great lords lead armies; there are court ceremonies at which knights feast and common^ people gape; prentice lads go a-wandering along the roads; with them tramp the vagrant scholars. ... A fine, picturesque time. ... . All this . ■ . and more—is in ‘ The Cloister and the Hearth ’; not described, but acted. The reader who knows the literature of the times says to himself as he goes on: “Hero is Erasmus: here is Froissart; here is Descamps; here is_ Coquillart; here is Gringoire; hero is Villon; here is Luther.” and so on, taking pleasure in proving the sources. The reader who does not know, or does not inquire presently finds himself drawn completely out of himself and his own time; before ho reaches the end he thinks like the characters in the book; he feels like them; he talks like them, this is the general effect of the book; but, besides, there runs through it the sweetest, saddest, and most tender love story ever devised by wit of man. There is no heroine in.fiction more dear to me than Margaret. ... I do not suppose that by these ie marks one can add anything to the reputation of Charles Reade, or tor tile admiration with which the Englishspeaking races regard his works. . . . One can only say that he stands in the first rank, and that he stands alone- One can only say that this great writer—there is no greater praise—paints women as they arc, men as they are, things as they are. What we call genius is first the power of seeing men, women, and things as they are—most of us, being without genius, are purblind—and then the power of showing them by means of “ invention by the grafting of “ invention ” upon fact. No man has shown greater power of grasping fact and of weaving invention upon it than Charles Reade.—Walter Besnnt, in the Introduction to ‘ The Cloister . and tho Hearth.’

SALE Of THACKERAY LETTERS HIGH PRICES REALISED In the final day’s sale at the Anderson Galleries at New’ York of the autograph collection of Mr A. C. Goodyear, of Buffalo, two series of Thackeray’s correspondence brought nearly 30,000 dollars. Messrs Rosonbacli and Co. bought both. Tho first collection, comprising thirtv-ono letters from Thackeray to Mrs Jane Octavia Brookfield, five to her husband, six U'oin Mrs Brookfield, and several original, sketches sold for 14,500 dollars. The other collection, the socalled Thackeray-Perry Elliot letters, thirty-four in all, is closely related to the Brookfield correspondence,. In those letters to Miss Perry and her sister Thackeray told_ of his love for Mrs Brookfield and his bitterness and sorrow after his break with the Brookfields in 1853.. Thackeray's manuscript lecture on Swift, partly in his own handwriting, and partly in that of his daughter Anne, brought 5,750 dollars. A letter of Keats to the Misses M. and L. Jeffrey sold for 5,500 dollars. Messrs Roscnbacli and Go. paid .5,800 dollars for Charlotte Bronte’s manuscript preface for the second edition of ‘ Jane Eyre,’ which she dedicated to Thackeray, 6,900 dollars for Charles Lamb’s commonplace book. The total realised for the Goodyear collection was 155,703 dollars.

A LITERARY CORNER

THE AMERICAN KOVEL ENGLISH NOVELIST’S ANALYSIS. Miss Rebecca West, lecturing recently for tho P.E.N. Club on the American novel, was amusing and often suggest'vo in her rapid generalisations and her slashing criticisms (says the | ‘Manchester Guardian’). She made a protest against tho way in which English critics reviewing American books judged them entirely by their approach to European standards. That was the very worst way to do it.' All that was good in American fiction camo ■ from America itself. The new generation of writers, when they found it impossible to copo with American conditions, and sought refuge in Europe, got nothing of value from it. _ In her references to Theodore Dreiser, Sherwood Anderson. H. L. Mencken, Edi.fi E'er-' her, and Fannie Hurst, she emphasised the difficulties that inust bo faced by writers creative or critical in a country without traditions and compounded of many nationalities. Sho selected > lor criticism Theodore Dreiser's ‘ American Tragedy,’ a book altogether lacking Ju invention, founded on a real tragedy, and quoting verbatim from the reports of a trial, and from letters written by the real people. It was all either quoted from newspapers or original, and atrociously written, but it was a curious titanic effort. Dreiseiy would, she said, have been at homo either in Germany or Britain, with their backgroundii of traditions, but ho found himself in a country where there were no traditions at all, and turning to something in real life that seemed to sum up the conditions around him, ho crammed it all into tho book. Miss West thought Sherwood Anderson the most interesting of all writers. ‘‘ You get absolute beauty from him; ho is extraordinarily like I). 11. Lawrence — both have an enormous amount to say, and the greatest possible difficulty in saying it. Anderson’s novels aro a mixture of crass absurdity and extraordinary genius. Ho is a man for whom one can predicate a brilliant and distinguished future.” Willa Gather was, perhaps, tho most perfect ivriter in the United States at tiro present time. Edna Ferber was described as “a woman of enormous talent, who has written isolated passages of pure genius, full of insight ami imagination, but who shackled herself with old traditional plots, afraid to trust herself to work out new formulas.” This criticism was also applied _to Fannie Hurst. In fact, most American writers were hampered by a strong inferiority complex, so that they would not trust to their own sense of values. But they had magnificent material to work on. PUBLICITY UP-TO-DATE Mr W. B. Maxwell, chairman of the Society of Authors, told an amusing tory in a recent address: — “Some authors aro clever about publicity. Others are feeble or stupid. An American publisher told me that he had an eminent English author who was a master of tho art. The author was in New York for tho production of a book, and he kept asking the publisher; ‘When do you want mo to begin P’ The publisher replied, ‘Not vet. I don’t want anything till I toll you. Probably not till the clay before publication.’ Then, when the appropriate moment came, he sent a note to the author, That same afternoon ho read on all the _ newspaper head linos, ‘Dangerous accident to eminent English author.’ “The author had nearly been run over on the elevated railway. He was njured far from fatally. Indeed, he had strength to grant about thirty interviews to reporters, violently denouncing the elevated railway as a disgrace to tho city of New York. He said he had always regarded it as a disgusting eyesore, and now it had nearly killed him. . But ho _ said he would freely have given his life if he could be sure of getting nd of it. He called upon the great American nation to abolish their elevated railway. 11ns created a storm throughout the length and breadth of tho United States. The eminent author’s name was on a bunclrcd million lips. My friend the pubUsher said this was just what _he wanted. But I have thought it might have been more than he wanted, iho interest of the hook, one might have feared, could hardly stand up against tho interest of tho railway.”

SOmE SEHSOfi APHBRISihS Mr Geoffrey Mad an, in an article in this month’s ‘ Cornhill Magazine ’ _ on Arthur Benson’s ‘Notebooks,’ gives “ the following scattered aphorisms ” : Wordsworth is a quarry of splendid things; I always think his lines ‘And many, love me; hut by none Am I enough beloved ’ profoundly human. Who was ever enough beloved? That is the strength of religion, that it gives people the sense of being enough beloved.” “The aesthetic problem. Perhaps St. Paul points to the true method: ‘ neither likeness nor unlikencss, but a new creature.” “Vulgarity is a curious thing. It doesn’t mean that one has no reverence, but that one reverences the wrong things and the vote of the majority most of all. It is a passionate belief in the merits of average.” “Some people’s idea of good conversation is when talk flows freely all the time, but neither party can remember a word that was said afterwards.” “ Boys only show gravity when you talk to them of serious faults, or when they talk to you about athletics.” “Some people never live their life at all, only stay with it or lunch with it.” “You ran mould the character through the intelligence, hut not the intelligence through the character.’’ “ The doctrine of Omnipotent means that humanity is waging a sham fight against tho powers of ev.l ” DIOKEHS'S BACHELOR HEROES Miss Peggy Welding, tho novelist, took the side of tho bachelor at a debate, ‘ That All Dickens’s Best Men Were Bachelors,’ organised by tho Dickens Fellowship, at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon street, London (reports the ‘Daily Mail’). Miss Webling interpreted tho words “ best men ” to mean the greatest creations of Dickens. “Many of his best characters would have liked to be married, but as they were presented to us they were bachelors.” Miss Webling said; “Mr Pickwick was a bachelor—because he was a great student of humanity and had gone very deeply into the subject Another humble philosopher, Mr Tony Weller, who seriously doubted whether it was worth going to so much trouble to learn so little, advocated ‘ pison ’ as the best thing for tho lovesick youth contemplating marriage. In the ‘ Old Curiosity Shop ’ one of tho principal characters is called throughout tho hook ‘ the single gentleman.’ • Tom Pinch is another character who stands out as a hero among bachelors.- Wnile in 1 Domhey and Son ’ we must think of the immortal Captain Cuttle ns a bachelor.”

n BOOKS NEW ZEALAND PLANTS. Gardeners, amateur and professional, are becoming increasingly; Interested in ■ the cultivation of the indigenous plants I of this dominion. It is a movement in the right direction. The rose, the daffodil, the carnation, the pansy, and other flowers that have been handed down ■ the years will still retain their accustomed places in the garden. _ Our “ natives ” will in no sense be rivals, but auxiliaries. There is room in most gardens for the plants and flowers of both hemispheres, and in the near future those who take horticulture as a hobby in any serious way will have at least a native corner. Many of our native trees, shrubs, and plants are more curious than beautiful, but there are a considerable number which produce flowers that are really _ lovely. What Dm average man wants is a reliable guide to keep him on his way. This will be found in ‘ Plants of New Zealand.’ by R. M. Laing and E. W. Blackwell, a third edition of which has just been issued after having been Jong out of_ print. It is not, however, a gardeninrr book in the ordinary sense of the term. Methods of cultivation are not included in its scope. ‘ Plants of New Zealand ’ is written from the botanical point of view, with our plants classified and described and illustrated by very fine plates. The book has been revised and brought up to date. In the preface it i.s explained that the attitude of botanists towards many problems lias altered much since the original edition of the work, and it has been the aim of tho authors to endeavor to reflect that attitude in the pages of the book. When tho work was first issu,ed it was explained that, though our flora is one of the most interesting on the.face of the earth, there were very few who had any real acquaintanceship with it. This ignorance was attributed to the inaccessibility of tho literature dealing with the. subject. In this work an endeavor was made to give an account of our native plants that would be intelligible to everyone. Tho authors succeeded in their aim, and a most valuable publication was the result. The book is clearly printed, tho arrangement and classification arc admirable. In parts the book has been rewritten, and it. reflects the most recent views on the subjects of species, tho evolution of plants, and tho origin of tho Now Zealand flora. Tho illustrations, which are numerous, have been done with remarkable fidelity. Tho book is a reliable guide, and will be found invaluable to everyone interested in New Zealand flora. Our copy is from Messrs Whitcombo and Tombs, Ltd.

‘ Events and Embroideries ’ is another little book of essays by E. V. Lucas. This author has the seeing eye and the gift of recording in a very attractive way everything that , comes within his vision. He is a man who is enormously interested in life in the past as well as the present. Hence ''e writes with ease on tho events that have hapepned in the centuries that have passed, as well as on phases of life to-day. Customs and inarmors, tho town and the countryside, people and houses, birds and beasts, books and pictures are all described by bis facile pen. Ho writes in an, easy, conversational way that is very entertaining. We got no books from him now such as ‘ Over Bemerton’s ’ and 1 Mr Tuglciside.’ yet ho cannot bo anything but interesting. He contrasts tilings ns they were ip other days with modern conditions, mostly to the advantage of the former. ‘ln the Careless Seventies,’ one of the essays in this book, ho naively confesses: “ Some day I must settle down to compile a list of the things that are now better than they used to be, so tired am I of marking only deterioration. Surclv there must be some improvements.” Our copy of ‘ Events and , Embroideries' is from the publishers (Messrs Methuen and Co.).

NOTES Pho guests of honor at a recent dinner given by the Old Playgoers’ Club were the original ‘Three Men in a Boat’—Mr Jerome TC. Jerome, Mr Carl Hentschel, and Mr George Wingrave. They have been friends for over forty years. Mis? G. B. 1-tcrn, one of the cleverest of the younger novelists, has written ‘Tho Dark Gentleman.’ This is a story of dog life from the point of view of the dogs themselves Mr Noel Coward, who is himself a dog lover, says of the MS. that lie believes it will prove to be a classic of dog literature. The coming novel by Annie Swan 1 whoso early fame was assisted by a post card about 1 Aldorsyde ’ from Mr Gladstone! covers the war period, but is not in tho ordinary sense a- war hook. It deals with tho spiritual developments of some people during the years between 1914 and 1918.

Two modern authors are to enjoy the distinction of seeing their works in collected editions. Messrs Macmillan are preparing to issue the works of Mr Eden Phillpoits in that form, and Messrs Hutchinson will put out the first six volumes of Mr Frank Swinncrton’s collected works this summer.

Mr Stephen Graham is an enthusiastic knight of riio road. In ‘The Gentle Art of Tramping’ ho takes his readers on foot through Palestine, tho Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Rockies, and at the finish of the journey he writes ecstatically: “Know how to tramp and you Know how to live. . . .

If you would have a portrait of Man you must not depict him in high hat and carrying in one hand a small shiny bag. nor would one draw him iu gnarled corduroys and with red handkerchief about his neck, nor with lined brow on a high bench watching a hand that is pushing a pen, nor With pick and shovel on the road . . . But most fittingly you will show a man with a staff in baud and burden on his shoulders, striving onward from light to darkness upon an upward road, shading his eyes with his baud as ho seeks his way.” It would be interesting to know how many of the owners of motor cars who read his hook will respond to Jits appeal. _ The official story of the British Arctic Expedition of 19‘20 will be published by Messrs Stanley Paul, tho title being ‘Under Sail in the Frozen North.’ Tho author, who was joint lender of the expedition, is Commander F. A. Worsley, D. 5.0., 0.8. E., R.N.R., a New Zealander by birth, who has been at sea since ho was fifteen. In 1913 he was captain of the Endurance, Sir Ernest Shackle-ton’s ship, and when she was crushed in the ice it was Commander Worsley who navigated an open boat in that historic hit of seamanship which brought tho survivors safely to South Georgia, a journey of some 800 miles. During the war Commander Worsley commanded two “ mystery ” ships, a gunboat, and a monitor. He won his D.S.O. by ramming a submarine and capturing her skipper. He is the very man to tell the story of an Arctic expedition,‘which, to use the title of one of its chapters, “sailed where ship had never sailed.”-

The death is announced from Warsaw of Mikhail Petrovitch Artsibashev, the celebrated Russian novelist, who was born in 1878.

The Burns tradition has had a shock this year (says the ‘ Observer ). In Loudon it was Mr Drinkwater who proposed the Immortal Memory; and in Edinburgh “the dinner was entirely teetotal,” and Professor Grierson remarked, justly, that the occasion required careful steering among the poems.” One trembles to think of other possible innovations. What ie the vegetarian for haggis P Button Gwinnett, an English colonist in North America, who fought a foolish duel, would have died unknown but for the accident that he was one of tho Signers of the Declaration of Independence. And now, through no merit of his own, he has again come into prominence, for in December, -at the Anderson Galleries, New York, a one-page docunient, signed by him, sold for £3,700, wiping out every other record in tho Old and New Worlds for what really amounts to an autograph signature The previous “record” is believed to be £5,100, paid by Mr J. Pierpont Morgan at an auction sale at Leipzig on May 3, 1011, for the famous letter written by Martin Luther to the Emperor Charles V., dated April 28, 1521, two days after his departure from tho Diet of Worms.

Books are still suffering, like tho rest of us, from tho aftermath of Christmas' (said the ‘ Observer ’ of January 30). Bub the call of this week has ' 'cn emphatically for Trollope in all shapes and sizes—irom sets of tho Barcheshire novels to little old volumes in Bell’s edition and the World’s Classics. This unusual interest has been rouscd < by Michael Sadleir’s ‘ Trollope: A Commentary,’ and bis book, or course, goes as well as tho best. The other book in request, though for a few days there are no supplies to meet the demand, is the extraordinary German novel, ‘Jew Suss.’ It came out in the autumn, but is only now being recognised for the remarkable book it is.

There is no doubt that in Mr A. A. Milne, whose books were easily tho best Kellers in London during the recent holidays, Lewis Carroll has met with his most serious challenger, and collectors have been quick to appreciate the fact, for the price of Milne “ first editions ” has advanced amazingly. They are said to have an advanced value by reason of the fact that the first editions were not large, as success was problematical. The best hooks nowadays for tho amateur to collect would appear to bo not those of tho famous authors like Kipling and Hardy, but the books whose success could have by no means been foretold, or those which tho-subsequent work of an author has made important. Of the books of yesterday, Masefield’s ‘Salt Water Ballads,’ Do la Mare’s ‘ Songs of Childhood,’ Houseman’s ‘ Shropshire Lad,’ and Sheila Kaye-Smith’s ‘ Tramping Methodist' keep on advancing.

Messrs J. M. Pent promise us for this spring season nothing less than a Pcpva of Renaissance Florence. Nay, much more. While our Pepys- only annotates a decade or so, the forthcoming work, never before translated into English, is the private view of a century. ‘ A Florcntino Diary ’ is composite. The chief author, Luca Landucci, fells what he saw and > heard through two marvellous generations from 1450 to 151(5. Savonarola, for instance,_ is shown as he appeared in everyday life. But Landucci is continued by an anonymous writer up to 1542. A handsome, form is promised, and the text ensures lasting attraction. John Galsworthy’s new homo in Sussex lies at the foot of, Bury Hill, a few miles before reaching Arundel, while Littlehampton and Bognor are not much farther. Ho used to live in Well Walk, Hampstead, one of the very nleasnntest spots in the London area. His house was close to John Masefield’s and Sir Gerald du Manner's, while in the same road was an inn kept

the popular cartoonist “ Stnibc.” A new life of Michael Bruce appeared on the eve of Burns Day. Burns, who was Bruce’s junior by thirteen years, was a great admirer of his work. It is ninety years since the fierce controversy arose' as to whether Bruce or his friend Logan wrote,the wonderful ’Ode to the Cuckoo,’ which Burke pronounced “the most beautiful lyric in the language.” The author of the now life, Mr John Outline ■ Barnett, has no doubt whatever that Bruce was the author of ‘ The Cuckoo.’

The Original MS. of Mr Thomas Hardy’s ‘ The Return of the Native,’ in the possession of the late Clement Shorter, has been bequeathed to the Library of Trinity College, Dublin. It is worth probably £1,600.

Several English novelists have within recent years written novels, or a series 1 of novels, which study families over several ■ generations.' Mr John Galsworthy’s ‘Forsyte Saga’..and Mr Arnold Bennett’s ‘ Five Towns ’ novels are, perhaps, tho most striking instances. Mr Compton Mackenzie has , recently finished for Cassell a story which is a psychological study of a family through successive generations. , It is entitled ‘Rogues and Vagabonds,’ a title suggested, perhaps, by tho fact that it has a theatrical, element. The ultimate heroine is Letizia, who_ becomes a comedy star and marries a peer.

In March ‘Life’ magazine Judge Lindsey—famous in two continents — writes the second of a startling series of articles entitled ‘The Moral Revolt,’ based on stories told him by men and women in the Confessional of his , Chambers. Fierce arguments will bo ' aroused by these articles—for the judge deals with the utmost candor with such subjects a.s ‘A Dor’’,' Sex Standard?’ *ls a Wife Property?’ ‘Can a Man Love Two Women?’ ‘The Unwritten Law,’ etc. ‘Life’ is also rich in stories and articles by noted authors.

| There is living iu London an old lady ; who, ns a girl, waited on Charles Dickens. She is Mrs W. Ireland, and she and her husband hare just, celebrated tho sixtieth anniversary of their | wedding. Just previous to her marriage Mrs Ireland—thou Miss Elizabeth Barrett.—was a maid in the family of : Air Moet, of wine-trade fame. Mr Meet ; was then living close to Trinity square, in the Miuories, and Mrs Ireland states that “Mr Dickens often came round in the evening for a chat, as ho tvas on very friendly terms with the family.” Sometimes Dickens took dinner with the family, and Airs Ireland still has vivid recollections of one evening, when, in her zeal for cleanliness and order, she took away a bottle of wine j that had been brought specially from ' tho cellar, and carefully polished off I every speck of dirt and cobweb. “ I got a scolding for that from Mr Moet,” she said, “though at the time I didn’t know why. Air Dickens was ever so nice about it, and did his best to appease Air Aloet, saying that it didn’t matter—he wine would taste just as good.”

In ‘ The Life of Jenny Lind,’ which the “ Swedish Nightingale’s ” daughter has just written, we read that she was a great philanthropist as well as a great artist, and that it was the religious side of her character which led her to abandon the operatic stage for oratorio and concerts. “ The Duke of Wellington,” we are told, “ was one of her ardent admirers, and seldom missed an opera night when she sang. He occupied a box next tho stage, and always arrived in time to see the curtain go up. To anyone less engrossed in her art it might have been disconcerting to lie addressed by name, with an inquiry for her health, whenever she made her first entry for the evening.” Ghopin. describing in a letter one of these occasions, when Queen Victoria was present, tells how “the Duke of Wellington, like an old, faithful dog in a‘ cottage, sat in a box below.”-