BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

Evening Star, Issue 19758, 7 January 1928, Page 15

BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

VEHSES AN OLD FACE. Many a wild, adventurous year Wrote its splendid record here; Stars of many an old romance Shine in that ironic glance; Many a hideous, vital day Came and smote and passed away: Now this face is ripe and glad, Patient, sane—a little sad. Friend to life, yet with no fear Of the darkness drawing near; These so gallant eyes must see Dawn-light of eternity. See the secret vision still High on some supernal hill; 'Tis a daring hope I hold— To look like this when I am old. —L. M. Montgomery, in the ‘ Commonweal.’ PROMISE. Grey skies, And the earth asleep. Snow< lies Sandal deep. And who shall sing From the far hill Of the vagrant spring That tarrieth still? But the bare woods Have wrapped in quiet Last year’s waste Of the wind’s riot; And who shall say _ The spring’s asleep When violets lie Sandal deep? —Gwen Clear, in the ‘Elder Sister and Other Poems.’ MR BERNARD SHAW “ MESSENGER BOY OF THE NEW AGE M “This much I know, lookingat life at seventy—men without religion are moral cowards, and mostly physical cowards, too, when they are sober,” saws Mr Bernard Shaw, in the Christmas ‘ London Magazine,’ in an interview recorded by Mr George Sylvester Viereck. “ Civilisation cannot survive without religion. It matters not what name we bestow upon our divinity— Life Force, World Spirit, Elan Vital, Creative Evolution—without religion life becomes a meaningless concatenation of accidents. I can conceive of salvation without a god, but I cannot conceive of it without a religion, . . • “Evolution is a mystical process. Darwinism, a mechanical doctrine, destroyed religion, but gave'-us nothing in its place. It gave an air of science to moral and political opportunism and to struggle-for-life militarism. It engulfed Europe yesterday in the World War. “ I am not merely a gadfly that stirs men to think,” Mr Shaw says later. “My work viewed as a whole Is constructive. I have laid a brick or two of the groundwork for a new gospel: “Every day every preface I wrote conveys a message. lam the messenger boy of the new age. If you piece the various messages together you will find an astonishing unity of endeavor, often, I admit, disguised and embroidered. “ The preface to ‘ Androcles and the Lion ’—the preface, mind, not the play —is mv testament on Christianity ._ But ray magnum opus in that line is my preface on the religion of Creative Evolution to Back to Methuselah. “ All my prefaces are important, especially the preface to ‘ Major Barbara.’ The preface to ‘ Major Barbara ’ is my testament on poverty. The preface to ‘ Getting Married ’ is my testament on marriage. “The preface to ‘Cresar and Cleopatra ’ is my testament on genius. ‘ Heartbreak House ’ is my ’testament on the’war. My social gospel is contained in my new hook on Socialism.”

FORMER POET LAUREATE # KING'S FREE CRITICISM When it was suggested in the Commons that in regard to one office, that of the Poet Laureate, the holder might be held to have retired for good on the demise of a weater of the Crown, in which case the post might well he abolished, Lord Salisbury regarded th© matter as entirely for the King’s decision, says Sir Sidney Lee, in ‘The Reign of King Edward VII.’ The King, who had no great opinion of the then Poet Laureate, Mr Austin, wrote on the point on March 26, 1901, as follows:—“I always thought that Mr Austin’s appointment was not a good one, but as long as he gets no pay it would, I think, he best to renew the appointment in his favor. . . . The appointment was made by the Prim© Minister.” On November 3, 1901, the King sent Lord Salisbury some verses by Mr Austin, and call Lord Salisbury’s attention to the “trash which the Poet Laureate writes.” V Ten months later, in September, 1902 —continues Sir Sidney Lee—the regius professor of history at Cambridge, Lord Acton, died. The Prim© Minister, Mr Balfour, proposed as Lord Acton’s successor Admiral Mahan, the American writer on naval history. The King promptly pointed.out that the appointment of a foreigner would prOve unpopular, and suggested Mr John Motley. M.P., who, although not a historian, was a biographer of distinction. After hearing Mr Balfour’s objections the King withdrew Mr Motley’s name, while still objecting to Admiral Mahan’s, but declared himself ready to appoint Mr Lecky or any other British subject of the requisite competence. In the end Professor Bury, who was professor of modern history in Dublin University, Was appointed.

A LITERARY CORNER

DISRAELI—A HEW VIEW “ One by one the great _ Victorian figures are being remodelled in the new fashion of portraiture, but none of them has been happier in his biographer than Benjamin Disraeli. M. Andre Maurois has a peculiarly vivid gift for this kind, of work, and it is a gift that makes of Disraeli an especially congenial subject,” writes Mr Arthur Waugh, in the ‘ Daily Telegraph.’ “For M. Maurois has the touch of the novelist, the romantic, the imaginative interpreter of kingdom of dreams; and whole career is like a story from a fairy-book, incredible though true. M. Maurois pictures the old man, in the last years of Jus life, ‘forced by his sufferings into silence and immobility,’ looking back upon the days of the years of his life,’ and wondering if there was any tale of the Thousand and On© Nights that could match his own for picturesqueness and improbability. l At last I nave made my dream real,’ he could say; and it had been a dream of prodigious magnitude.” SHAKESPEARE & COMMON SENSE “The dreary, unprofitable, and interminable discussion as to the_ ‘ real ’ authorship of the dramas which still continue to be published and performed under the name of William Shakespeare has at last produced a really interesting and readable volume,” says a 1 Sunday Times’ reviewer. “M. Georges Connes, who, if the easy and flowing style of this translation by ‘ a Member of the Shakespeare Fellowship ’ affords any criterion of ms literary form, is a very lively and charming writer, has accomplished this feat simply by giving a succinct and lively summary of the arguments by which various critics have proved that Shakespeare was not Shakespeare at all, retraining from any criticism of the various theories. “ M. Connes sums up the matter with a pleasant liveliness and excellent good sense in his concluding paragraph:--‘“There is no Shakespeare problem, there never has been a Shakespeare problem, and there never will be one as long as all the true and competent specialists continue to agree in thinking that Shakespeare is Shakespeare. There is a Shakespeare problem, there has been a Shakespeare problem, and there will continue to be one so long as a man of good faith thinks has thought, or will think that Shakespeare is not Shakespeare. As for me, I have given a year of my life to the study of this controversy, and 1 am convinced that it is vain. I shall not, however, think that I have wasted my time if I have persuaded anybody io do the really important thing with refard to Shakespeare, which is to read is works.’ ” CHESTERTON OH R.L.S.

“ On the birthday of Robert Louis Stevenson,” writes “ Commentator,” in the ‘ Liverpool Post,’ “ which passed almost unnoticed a few days ago, I picked up and read the new volume m Mr G. K. Chesterton’s Intimate Biographies, which happened to he t!io volume called ‘Stevenson.’ I read it with great pleasure. “Apart from the,exhilarating effect which reading Chesterton always makes on my mind and from the astonishing cleverness with which some of his points are made, by pleasure derived chiefly from the fact that here was a knight come to champion Stevenson against the several people who have been writing ream S about Stevenson to prove that he is not worth writing about, or pungent critical articles about him to demonstrate that the subject was unworthy of any intelligent person’s attention; with the implication that men like Henry James and William Archer and James Barrie and Edmund Gosse were all befooled by one who was no more than a vain poseur, “ I have never yielded to this modern’attempt to depreciate Stevenson. I hay© too much reason to be grateful to him. If the men who can smile a supercilious smile at that frail figure propped up in bed coughing blood and writing brave English prose were half as big men as he was there might be more hope of the rising generation being wisely guided by their favorite writers of fiction.”

NEW BOOKS THE COLOR BARRIER _ ‘The Forbidden Woman ’ is no objectionable sex story. The title is misleading, although it would conlmand notice on the bookshelves. ‘ Th© Forbidden Woman ’ is a powerful novel of a color barrier, a theme seldom used by novelists. Frances Mocatta has a forceful style, and ‘ The Forbidden Woman ’ . provides much food for thought. In New Zealand the color question is wisely left latent, but in America the barrier is raised against the mixed castes. In some States special trams are provided for the negroes and quadroons to travel on. th© barrier is a shameful monument to the iniquity of the pioneers of America., who shanghaied th© negroes from their dark homes in Africa, and with the whip and heavy fists and boots forced them to toil in the plantations of the Southern States. Dissolute white men intermingled with the negroes, and today there is spread over th© world a race of quadroons and octaroons. These people of mixed colors are_ unfortunates and are barred from society by the faults of their parents. That is the material on which Frances _ Mocatta works in ‘ The Forbidden Woman,’ in which an alluring ocbaroon, legitimate daughter of a wealthy whit© man, forces her way into the home of an English noble and takes her vengeance on those white people so proud of their color. ‘ The Forbidden Woman’ is splendidly written, and the story is best described as compelling of thought and powerful in its human studios. Herbert Jenkins is the publisher.

G. A. BIRMINGHAM ‘ Good Conduct,’ by George A. Birmingham, is a series of short stories dealing with the saiiie irresponsible Eerson, Virginia Tempest, as_ told by er friend, the newspaper editor. Besides being exceptionally original, the stories are light and highly amusing. Virginia has many escapades, and is full of wholesome mischief as it is possible for a young girl to be. Even at Oxford her originality was too much for the authorities, and she was ‘ sent down.” Our copy is from the publishers. Messrs Methuen and Co. (London).

* GUILTY in-' The popular demand by a large and intelligent section of readers nowadays for stories of mystery and crime is admirably met by Mr Sefton Kyle, who never asks for the imagination to be stretched too far in the solution of the puzzles he presents. His latest novel ‘Guilty, But ’ is an engrossing story, well written, cleverly constructed, and with an ingenious and uncommon plot. A young lady witnesses a murder, but no one believesher story, which is attributed to an hallucination. A crafty lawyer, who is interested in the handling or a large fortune which seems likely to go to the girl’s lover, has hereon veniently sent to a private asylum. But when a body is found and when the young man is unjustly accused of the murder her friends realise that her story was more than hallucination. How a clever girl friend effects the escape from the asylum, clears the name of the young man, and _ brings the guilty parties to book provide exciting and absorbing reading. The publishers are Messrs Herbert Jenkins and Co., Ltd. JEPSON AT HIS BEST Edgar Jepson has an innate style of telling a story—a flowing, smooth style, entirely free of all striving after effect. That is why his novels are so delightful. The latest from his pen is ‘ The Splendid Adventure of Hannibal Tod,’ and between the covers _are packed several hours of happy reading. Hannibal Tod is a splendid fellow who believes in doing everything splendidly. Between his busy hours of selling rejuvenators to tottering old men Hannibal collects jade. With one jade collector, a girl, he becomes involved in a Chinese mystery. Although the yellow men almost have Hanniabl cornered, he wins through to retain the desired emerald and the girl. ‘ The Splendid Adventure of Hannibal Tod ’ is quite a thrilling story, having, also, plenty of romance, but the natural way Edgar Jepson tells it makes the tale is highly commendable. Messrs Herbert Jenkins are the publishers, and have forwarded the review copy, 4 VESTAL FIRE*' ‘ Vestal Fire,’ by Compton Mackenzie, is disappointing. As a novel, it fails to impress, and as a masterpiece of wit and style—vide the wrapper—the wit is negligible and the style is oppressive. It is no doubt cleverly written, and at times the reader’s interest is held and there is an expectation of a good story, which, however, is never realised. The end is better than the beginning. Messrs Cassell and Co. are the publishers. TALES OF HIGHLAND FOLK ‘Gorry,’ by Isabel Cameron (Angus and Robertson) .—Those who know ‘ The Doctor ’ will be anxious to read 1 Gorry,’ by the same writer. It consists of eight short stories, the scenes of which are laid in Highland glens. As in her earlier book, the authoress portrays with sympathy and understanding the lives of the hill folk of Scotland/ Poverty has been-their portion, and, because of the circumstances of their lives all down the centuries the people have had to bear more than their share of sickness and sorrow. Generosity and self-sacrifice are virtues that, shine among the hill folk, as well as independence and strength of mind. The characters in this book are drawn with a sure band. We have the kindly hard-working doctor, the Minister who is torn between his doctrine of the elect and his human impulses, and all the folk who wrest a hard living from their little holdings. The authoress, too, excels in her descriptions of the picturesque countryside.

• THE EYE OF ABU ' Alan Dare has provided a thrilling adventure story in ‘ The Eye of Ahu,’ fraught with excitement from cover to cover. The central figure is Dr Phenuit, a mystery man, the incarnation of evil,, who is endeavoring to obtam possession of a golden tablet, on which is inscribed a secret left by the priests, who had survived from the sunken continent of Atlantis. He tracks down Maxine Reeves, the daughter of the intrepid explorer, who discovered the tablet. Dr Phenuit’s machinations to secure the tablet, Maxine’s thrilling adventures, her capture and the exciting consequences, and the successful efforts of her lover and his friend to circumvent Phenuit provide the writer with ample scope for a good story, in which he shows great imaginative and descriptive powers. The publishers are Messrs Herbert Jenkins and Co., Ltd. NOTES ) Lord Jellicoe writes a preface to a volume of naval reminiscences which Commander Capper has appearing with Faber and Gwyer. Miss Rosemary Rees, the New Zealand authoress and actress, has written another novel of New Zealand Hie, entitled ‘Wild Heart.’ It is appearing as a serial in London, and will lie published in book form in March. The eighty-third birthday celebrations of the Poet Laureate, Dr Robert Bridges,, recalls a story of his visit to America some years ago. When besieged by the reporters who boarded the steamer on its arrival he scornfully declined to be interviewed. The uncrushable gentry got back on him, however, for next day he was confronted by a staring headline in one of the New York papers: “King George’s canary refuses to twitter.” A contributor to ‘ Passing Show ’ (London) is not surprised to learn that Mr Edgar Wallace, writer of many storms of mystery, employs the dictaphone extensively in the making of his iicti6n„and also that his secretariat includes a champion stenographer who has won gold medals for speed. Mr Wallace has been known to turn out 80,000 words- in six days.

“It is great fun writing detective stories,” said Mr G. K. Chesterton, author of the popular Father Brown series, to an American, S. J. _ Woolf, who describes the interview in the ‘New York Times Magazine.’ “Detective stories,” he continued, “ are a sort of game to me, and I have often started out with one idea, and, before I have finished, I have made an entirely innocent bystander the guilty party. The real way to do them, however, is to forget that you are writing a detective story at all. ’ Just start out with certain facts; a murder or other crime has been committed; a number of people are involved; you, no';'more than your reader, have any idea as to the guilty! party. Then go ahead and unravel the crime, as if the problem were actually put up to jroo." i

, It is said that the younger customers of London booksellers are asking a good deal for old diaries and old memoirs. This is interesting, because dqring the years since the Great War a very modern literary note has, as Mr Rudyard Kipling said about' the three-volume novel, been thought “the only certain packet to the Islands of the Blest.” The stream of old and new memoirs is running very full

Deprived' of his throne in the Portuguese revolution of 1910, King Manuel (says the ‘ Sunday. Times’) has devoted himself ever since to the unassuming role of a book-lover. At present he is supervising in person the publication of a catalogue, in two volumes, of his splendid library at Fulwell Park, Twickenham. He has, perhaps, the finest collection of early Portuguese books—from 1439 to 1600—in the world. Many were carried away to safety when he flew in his Royal yacht from the revolutionary, capital. He did not, even in that crisis, forget his loved volumes. The size of his library may be gauged from the fact that the catalogue will comprise 2,000 pages, with more than 700 facsimile reproductions of woodbuts, titles, and colophons.

The “Gentleman with a Duster,” in * Pomps and Vanities,’ shows that from the earliest ages man has felt “ the world” to be dangerous. Long before Christianity wise men taught that to realise the truth of existence it was necessary to retire from a much simpler world than ours. The author of ‘ Pomps and Vanities ’ follows this- clue down the history of mankind, and examines it in the light of modern psychology.

The diary of a voyage round the world exactly a hundred years ago will be issued by Messrs Longmans in a volume entitled ‘ The Voyage of the Caroline to Van Diemen’s Land and Batavia in 1827.’ edited, with additional matter, by Ida Lee (Mrs Charles Bruce Marriott). The diary, was written by Mrs Rosalie Hare on board her husband’s ship, the Caroline, which had been chartered by the Van Diemen’s Land Company to carry settlers and live stock to Tasmania, but afterwards continued the voyage in the interests of the owners.

It is good to hear of the probable acquisition of Oakwell Hall, Birstall, as national property (says a ‘ Daily Chronicle ’ writer). It is a delightful old place, pleasantly situated, with traditions going back through Tudor to Norman times. In addition it is famous as the original of “Fieldhead” in Charlotte Bronte’s ‘ Shirley,’ Birstall there figuring as “ Briarfield.” The last time I saw the hall it still preserved the interior note of “pinky-white” and the panelling to which Charlotte alludes. But, though I scrutinised every diamond pane, I could not discover that one on which it was alleged the great novelist had scratched her name.