BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

Evening Star, Issue 19764, 14 January 1928, Page 16

BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

VERSES JANUARY. The first fair mouth! In singing summer’s sphere She glows, the oldest daughter of the year. All light, all warmth, all passion, breaths of myrrh, And subtle hints of rose-lands, come with her. |: She is the warm-live month of lustre—she Makes glad the land and lulls the strong, sad sea. The highest hope comes with her. In Iter face Of pure, clear, olive color lives exalted grace; Her speech is bcauly, and her radiant eyes Are eloquent with splendid prophecies. —Henry Kendall. GOD’S GARDEN. Very old is God’s garden, Very old is the earth, Envisioned its secret Of death aud birth. Very old is God’s garden, Wo know not when He began His sowing Of the hearts of men: To he ploughed and harrowed By love, by hate. For immortal gardens Predestinate. There shall come a spring, When no man knows, When shall wake the iris, When shall wake the rose. Each in his own appointed place, For a day, for a year, for an teon’s space. Very old is God’s garden, And we know not when He shall gather in harvest Ihc hearts of men. —Sylvia Y. Orne-Bridge, in ‘ America.’ EAST AKO WEST SHAKESPEARE AND OMAR DID THEY SHARE THE SAME PHILOSOPHY ? When Fitz Gerald with his translation of Omar Khayyam had brought Persia close to every heart, the thought did not cross his mind that a Persian scholar would amply repay the debt by rendering Shakespeare in Persian (writes Sirdar Fakbal All Shah, in ‘John o’ London’s Weekly’). The present Persian Minister at the Court of St. James’s, who has just arrived in London, is that scholar upon whose brow rests the honor of paying the cultural tribute of Persia, by giving the Persian-speaking peoples a masterly translation of Shakespeare—that greatest singer known in English literary history. FUNDAMENTAL SIMILARITIES. But why should a Persian, loving Omar as only a Persian can, select Shakespeare for rendering into his language? The explanation is simple. The philosophy ot great art is one and the same in all climes and all ages, as can he well attested by comparison of the ideas underlying tho work of the world’s chief poets. Thus, their distant periods and environments notwithstanding, the resemblance between tho philosophies of William Shakespeare and Omar Khayyam is neither superficial nor fortuitous, but arises out of that deep and almost supernatural instinct which has always been the concomitant of noetic genius of the first rank. Indeed, tho mental likeness between Omar and the Bard of the Avon can ho substantiated by scores of passages almost identical in thought aud sentiment. The central idea, animating both ot those masters of thought aud verse is, indeed, the impermanence of humanity, its evanescent and temporal character. Man is the sport of grim and relentless Fates who treat him as a puppet, an image to be broken for their pleasure. Says Macbeth: — Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more; it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. Could anything bo closer in thought to tho first part of this than a quotation from ‘The Rubaiyat.”?— For in and out, above,.about, below, ’Tis nothing but a Magic Shadow-show, Play’d in a Box whose candle is tho sun, Round which we Phantom Figures come and go. NOTES OF DESPONDENCY. Man is indeed clay, mere earth, say both tho Eastern and the Western singers in their deeper notes of despondency. Imperial Caesar, dead and turned to Might stop a hole to keep the wind away, says Shakespeare, aud again and again Omar refers to man’s earthly origin. But there is a solvent for man’s woes and sorrows—wine, the grape. Go, suck the subtle blood o’ the grape, Till tho high fever seethe your blood to froth, And so ’scape hanging; trust not the physician, says Tirnon of Athens to the thieves. And Timon has a peculiar affinity with Omar. He prefers “the desert to the sown,” he espies the folly that lurks in all things worldly, even if he is by no means so sadly jovial as the Persian philosopher and anti-philosopher. And hero we have the likeness between Shakespeare and Omar well defined. Both are indeed anti-philosophers, unfriends to all systems of conventional thought. PALSTAFP ami OMAR. And who is more like Omar than Falstalf, the drinker with tb« thinker’s brain, tho Bacchus with the mind of a Rabelais? “If sack and sugar he a fault, God help the wicked. If to be old and merry bo a sin, then many an old host that I know is damned.” Wisdom is, indeed, the constant butt of both poets. Says Omar in a wellknown quatrain;— Why, all the Saints and Sages who discussed Of the Two Worlds so learnedly, - are thrust Like foolish Prophets forth, their Words to scorn ' Aro scattered, and their mouths are etopt with dust. Which is practically what Shakespeare exclaims when he writes: — There is enough written upon this earth To stir a mutiny in the mildest thought And arm the minds of infants to exclaim.

A UTERARY CORNER

But it is not so much in word or phrase,\ but in general tendency of thought and spirit that Omar and Shakespeare are akin. Indeed, Omar’s notion that the world is a mere puppetshow and that nil that is beautiful within it must at length come to an end is echoed in Shakespeare's lines:— Golden lads and girls all must, Like chimney-sweepers, come to dust. WEARY OF THE WORLD. Perhaps the circumstances of life ia the times and environments in which Shakespeare and Omar lived may have given them a similar outlook. At the Persian Court, as at that of Elizabeth, gross favoritism was rife, vice was enthroned in high social circles, and “patient merit” was ignored. Perhaps this sufficed to make these poets disgusted with mundane affairs regarding them as paltry and undistinguished. But, be that as ft may, Shakespeare in a manner partly enfranchised himself from this crude and anarchiacal philosophy, although he never seems altogether to have outsoami it. Rarely docs he display that whole-souled and fervent trust in the Almighty cause of all things which Goethe, Dante, and Chaucer constantly exhibit. Omar, on the other hand, runs the whole gamut of blasphemy, and recks not, convinced that Fate is a blundering demon, and that no wisdom inspires the First Cause, if Shakespeare hints more than occasionally at some such state of things, and even says so now and again, lie still hesitates a doubt. And a doubt in his world was equal to wholesale renunciation in ours. Yes, Omar and Shakespeare have indeed much in common. Like Hamlet, Omar is more than a little “mad.” NOBEL PRIZE-WiHHER ITALIAN WOMAN NOVELIST There is much gratification in Italy, writes the Rome correspondent of the Loudon ‘ Observer,’ that the Nobel prize for literature has been given this year to Grazia Doledda, who is Italy’s leading woman novelist. A few months ago she would have had to nm the gauntlet with that veteran authoress the late Matildo Serao, though as a stylist and in the matter of form she ranks higher. Like ail the .Italian novelists of _ yesterday and to-day Dcledda is regional in her art, and loses some of her magic when she attempts portraiture further afield. But a limited sphere has not made her provincial, partly because her art is ou big lines, and partly because her own “ sphere ” happens to ho Sardinia, a veritable little world of its own. Her first book, ‘ Anirno Oneste,’ was published in 1893, when she was about twenty-one. Ju spite of her literary success, Signora Dclcdda’s chief interest is her home. Her civil name is Madame Naclosani; she was married to the barrister Nadosani in 1900. She holds that women should never bo allowed access to politics and other public affairs. In an interview Delcdda said: “Authors should devote close study, not to other ages or extrinsic forms, but to their own ago and to common people’s feelings, sentiments, dailygossips, and all sorts of trivalities. All these things ultimately unite in creating history, and authors should utilise them. Look at Dante. From innumerable trivialities in Firenze, small enough to bo one day’s sensation, but too important to be written in history, was created the unsurpassed ‘ Divina Comedia.’ The secret about Dante was that he didn’t pose as supercilious toward his own age, but lived as a creature of that age. If anybody is, Dante is a true realist. He is peculiar to his locality, peculiar to his age, peculiar to his,race. “To-day trivialities are just as interesting as they were when Dante lived, only dependent on seeing eyes and listening ears. When a new literary genius comes he will, out of his own age, create new eternal work in no regard inferior to the 1 Divinia Comedia.’ The world’s new great literary genius comes ho will, out of his own age, create new eternal work in no regard inferior to the ‘ Divina Comedia.’ The world’s new great literary work must not be stamped by internationalism, but he based on national soil.” • THE BOUND TABLE 1 The December number of ‘The Round Table ’ has something to say not only' about the main problems of Europe, but also those of the Pacific and India. It begins with an inspiring article on ‘ The Commonwealth.’ It sets out the principles upon which our system of government is based, and, in the writer’s view, it is the noblest yet conceived. The hope of world peace is indeed bound up, he believes, with it. In the next article, ‘ Germany and Geneva,’ an Englishman in Germany describes the present state of feeling in that country, and contrasts the German attitude at Genova, as he found it there last September, with our own and that of the French. He also suggests an explanation of Hindenberg s Taniienbcrg speech. Finally, after a review of the history of the League s attempt to get an agreement on disarmament, he tells us the opinion at which he has personally arrived, as the result of a long stay in Central Europe. The third article, ‘Further Reflections on the Industrial Situation,’ continues an analysis that was begun in the September issue. ‘The Reforms and Hindu-Moslem Bitterness ’ comes sixth in the list, but it is certainly in the first rank for interest just now. _ A Statutory Commislson is to advise in 1929 sir to whether a further step is to be taken towards self-government, and it has already been constituted. The. next article is called 1 Honolulu,’ and deals with the ‘ Institute of Pacific Relations.’ , , „ We next have the usual account ot what has been happening in Great Britain during the quarter. The subjects this time are the fortunes of the Con-, servative Party and Labor’s abandonment of extreme for moderate measures. A witty article from Ireland, ‘Events in the Free State, follows. Two questions which have been occupying the attention of the Permanent Mandates Commission at Geneva, the Samoan and the South-west African, are described from. the dominion standpoint, and there is an article about the relations between French and British in Ontario. Another that will make a special appeal to the constitutional students is an account ot the relations between the Commonwealth of Australia and its component States, which a Royal Commission is just going to investigate.

SODn CHALLENGED DETERMINED TO FIGHT It is 100 years ago since Sir Walter Scott arranged with his friend, William Clerk, to stand as his second in a duel with Genera! Gourgaud, who had been one of Napoleon’s attendants at St. Helena. As it happened, the duel did not come off, but the arrangements made by the novelist are a lively reminder that authors had sometimes to stand by their writings with their pistols. It was tlie publication of sonic of his letters in ‘ The Life of Napoleon ’ that annoyed Gourgaud, and reports in the French papers announced that ho was taking tne road to Scotland to demand “ satisfaction.” Scott evidently thought it absurd that ho should have to defend at the pistol point something ho had published in all good faith. “ ft appears to me,” lie wrote in his journal, “that what is least forgiven in a man of any mark or likelihood is want of that article blackguardly called ‘pluck.’ All the fine qualities of genius cannot make amends for it. We arc_ told the genius of poets, especially, is irreconcilable with this species of grenadier accomplishment.” But the writer determined to stand against the soldier, nor did all the alarming reports about Gourgaud’s skill as a marksman shako his resolution, lie declared, though perbops not seriously, that ho would use a pair of pistols taken from Napoleon’s carriage. “If I were capable in a moment of weakness of doing anything but what mv honor required,” ho said, “I should die the death of a poisoned rat in a hole.” , , , Perhaps the fiery Frenchman had not reckoned on such a spirit. At any rate he never reached Scotland—much to the relief of Scott’s family. NEW BOOKS ‘ BRAOHIOPOD MORPHOLOGY AND GENERA' Manual No. 7 of the New Zealand Board of Science and Art has just been issued under the name ‘ Brachiopod Morphology and Genera (Recent and Tertiary,’ obtainable from the Government Printer, Wellington, or the High Commissioner for Mew Zealand, the Strand, London, at tbo piicp of Fs (postage, 6d). As its title indicates, the book is not written for the man in the street, but to the specialist and to the student of geology, biology, or past life in general it is invaluable, and has been long wanted. That is because it -is written by Dr J. Allan Thomson, director of the Dominion Museum, Wellington, and presents a compact but exceedingly full and modern discussion of the subject, with his usual clarity and care for detail. Dr Thomson has given intensive study to the subject for twenty years, and has not merely an exhaustive knowledge of tho New Zealand forms, but a worldwide reputation for his writings in general. He discusses tho work of others with authority, 4 but more than this: his own researches and his utilisation _ of every modern method and conception make his book no rehash of the older manuals, but a mine of new facts and ideas. Several important changes in classification are introduced, and numerous figures accompany the clear definitions of the various groups and divisions. The first third of the book is concerned with tho morphology of bracliiopods in general, and a very full discussion is given of their variation and development from every point of view. A welcome detail is the explanation and illustration of the terminology employed by modern writers on brachiopods. There is an interesting section on the burning of fossilised specimens to make visible their interior characters; a tabular arrangement of the occurrence of the Australian tertiary forms (contributed by Miss Crespin and Mr Chapman. of the National Museum. Melbourne), and finally a very useful regional bibliography, and an index of technical terms and systematic names. One or two of the names adopted by Dr Thomson for the species and groups might bo disputed, but this is a minor point in view of the general excellence of the work. No one interested in bracliiopods can afford to be without this latest manual. Bracliiopods, or “lamp shells” (so called from their resemblance to a Roman lamp), are to-day a subject for tho specialist, and are much less familiar to the ordinary person than are their near relatives—the molluscs—such as the clam and whelk. They have, geologically speaking, had their day. Though extremely abundant and varied from tho earliest times of which we have fossil record down to almost tho appearance of man on earth, they have now dwindled to comparative insignificance. There are only eight living New Zealand species altogether, and of these only three aro at all common. These three are often found on our beaches, two of them being pinkish red, the other black* But in contrast to this, in Miocouo times in New Zealand, certain limestones and greensands are found so crowded with these shells that the individuals are almost touching. They are usually very gregarious, and differ from ordinary shells, in that they grow on a stalk, which enters through a hole in one end and supports them upside down in the water. Thus they cannot move about like the cockle or periwinkle, but depend on currents set up in the water for their food. The largest Now Zealand species is a fossil one about Sin long, and is the only ono wbich occurs also in Australia; it is very curious in that its beak curved over so much that when full grown it touched the opposite valve, and must have cut the stalk clean through. This rather reminds one of some old boars, whose tusks grow so far round that they re-enter the animal, and sometimes cause death.—H.J.F. ITALY UNDER FASCISM Signor Mussolini has brought Italy very much before the eyes of the world. His acts and his policy are vigorously denounced from the outside, for many writers and speakers see in him an enemy to all those ideals of democracy that have been so assiduously cherished in the last 100 years by those who come under the general heading of social reformers. ‘ Italy To-day ’ (Herbert Jenkins, Ltd.) is a book that will abundantly repay perusal. The author is Sir Frank Fox, a well-known journalist of wide experience. In the early days of the Australian Labor Party he edited the Australian ‘ Workman,’ so that it is reasonable to suppose that his sympathies aro with the cause of the_ people. He has spent a considerable time in Italy, and be writes dispassionately, with the evident desire of presenting a true picture of the country. He asks in his introduction; “What results have been achieved P What is the true na-

ture of Mussolini? What is likely to be the future of Fascist Italy? These are the questions on which I shall give some facts and venture some opinions, the former correct so far as I can safeguard, the latter honest so far as prejudices permit.” Then he plunges into his subject. Giving first an historical sketch of the country, he proceeds to explain the position of Italy to-day. He writes of Fascism in theory and practice, in its relation to popular governments, in its foreign relations, on labor, finance, religion and morals, and tne Italian colonies. All phases of tho country’s activities are covered. One conclusion that the author comes to is that Fascism has brought to Italy economy and efficiency of administration in public and private enterprise. “It has already achieved wonders; it will, if undisturbed, make Italy one of the most formidable competitors in the world.” ‘ Italy To-day ’ is an interesting contribution to a subject of great interest, and it should be read by all who are following tho developments in the great experiment that is being made under Mussolini’s guidance. TWO FIRST HOVELS There have been from time to time publishers who have made a speciality of first novels, though whether they have continued in this altruistic course I cannot say. There is always a sentimental interest attaching to a first novel. It is somebody’s clarling, and may portend a career. I have before me two first novels which issue from the house of John Lane. They are written by tho winners in l'J23 and 1926 respectively of a 'competition which is an item on the syllabus of the Panton Arts Club, whose festival of arts and letters is attracting growing attention as tho years proceed. Mr Carr-Geun, who is a director of the Bodley Hoad, undertakes to publish the work which gains tho medal in the competition for the best hitherto unpublished novel, should it reach the required standard. Both ‘John Barbara,’ by Kathleen 0 Brien, and ‘ Vain Aclveuturc,' by Kathleen Gibberd, reach this standard, though they aro widely differentiated books. ‘ John Barbara ’ is essentially a postwar novel. Its title is explained in tho prologue, wherein it is set down how Naomi, orphaned and deprived of her man through the war, returns from the new avocation she has found for herself as a clerk in a London city shipping firm, to the homo she has made for herself in a London suburb. This “third floor back,” or its equivalent, contains some of the furniture which has been salvaged from the old home after the debacle entailed by tho war. Listless and dispirited, Naomi lets herself into her room, ana then it seems she is aware of a presence. It is tho old life, as it were, returning to her in essence. ‘ John Barbara ’ is an embodiment of old friends and associations. The spirit is compounded of the masculine and feminine elements that have met to her happiness in the old days. The story is simply tho tale of picking up threads. Naomi Lister, the city drudge, dares to lay hold on life again. Blie makes new friends, and though tho marriage of the best-beioved of these seems to set her back momentarily into the former unhappy groove, one is led to expect that Naomi has made a permanent escape from tho thraldom of Moloch. It is an impressionistic novel, depending upon atmosphere rather than action, and makes one think of an unsophisticated and unembittered Rose Macaulay. ‘ Vain Adventure ’ is the kind of book to delight a reader who is still upon the sunny side of Joseph Conrad’s “shadow line.” The genre is familiar enough. Since Mr Keblo Howard wrote ‘ Tho Smiths of Surbiton ’ we have had many such accounts of the “ hombely joys and destiny obscure ” of middle-class English families. The story of the Carthews begins in this vein, and develops later into au interesting picture of modem feminist Oxford. George and Anno make a runaway match at tiie outset, but this Gretna Green atmosphere is dissipated by the arrival of their one child, a girl on whom the name of Mary is bestowed, because it to her mother one of the names which do no predispose their bearers to some kind of classification. George and Anne inhabit a well-to-do house and garden in the region of Epping Forest. George goes to the works every day, though what ho does there we are not specifically told. The book is not a romance of industrialism but of domesticity. Its title is justified in one of the last pages. Mary, whose career from kindergarten to school, and from school on to Sommerville House, Oxford, is t-old with a nice choice of detail, loses her mother just ns her career at Oxford is coming to a close. It, is a terrible blow to her, and robs her of all zest for tho adventure of living. The devotion that exists between mother and daughter is depicted in a manner which is refreshing to follow, in a day when abnormality alone seems to provide the majority of novelists with inspiration. _ Mary considers her mother’s selfless life, and realises that the great adventure was not the elopement at the dawn of her womanhood, but the acceptance of the hum-drum facts of life, and her loyal carrying out of duties as wife and mother Anne’s sense of alienation from George and their joint adjustment of themselves to_ a life without glamor is cleverly indicated. Both these novels may be guaranteed as antidotes to pessimism.—C. R. Alien. NOTES Arnold Bennett has decided to call his new novel ‘ Tho titrango Vanguard.” Miss Roraer Wilson, the is writing a life of Emily Bronte for Collins ‘ Tho Key of Life ’ is the name of Francis Brett Young’s new novel to be printed early in 1928. Robert W. Chambers, tho American novelist, has a story appearing with Cassell, under the title, ‘ Beating Wings.’ Bernard Shaw has at last finished the long promised ‘ Intelligent _ Woman’s Guide to Socialism.’ It will be published soon. Blackwoods are publishing a volume of travel and unusual experiences in Central America by Cyril Dawsou, under the title ‘The EJnsivo Trail.’ Mr John Boon, who has been prominent in London journalism for more than forty years, is publishing his reminiscences with Hutchinsons, under the title, ‘ Victorians, Edwardians, and Georgians.’ The death has occurred at Penybryn, Carnarvon, of Mr Uriah Evans, the well-known Welsh novelist and the oldest member of the Welsh Eisteddfod. Ferdinand Ossendowski, author of 1 The Breath of the Desert,’ recently published by Messrs Allen and Unwin, is now in Rumania, having just retured from the unexplored regions of Central Africa, near Lake Tsad. He proposes to visit India in due course. It is a long time since we have had a novel bv Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch. He is putting the. finishing touches to a new tale. I used to be prejudiced against “ books for children,” and perhaps not altogether without reason; for the oldfashioned books for children were often written down to children, with an intolerable air of grinning condescension; like the old-fashioned speaker addressing a group of young people. “ How sweet it is, my dear boys and girls, to see your bright, upturned faces,” etc., a, remark and an attithde that nauseated a normal’ child.—William Lyon Phelps, in ‘Scribner’s.’

Sir Alfred Mond discusses ‘industry and Politics’ in a work so entitled, published by Macmillan. It is based upon his great experience of English business and industrial conditions, and thus it has a note of autobiography and a note of history. The book opens with au introduction in which our national affairs are examined in a large, general way. It then goes on particularly to such subjects as ‘ Socialism—What it Really Is,’ and ‘ Why Socialism Must Fail.’ Other chapters are concerned with ‘The Post Napoleon Era,’ ‘Canada and Empire Policy,’ ‘The Unemployment Problem,’ and ‘ Why I Joined the Conservatives.’ Mr John Masefield is to give us another of his famous adventure stories in ‘ The Midnight Folk,’ the story of a boy who lived in an old house that had been the home of one Captain Harker, who was reputed to have hidden near his home treasure stolen from Santa Barbara Cathedral. A work of very great importance to people interested in international affairs is now being compiled under the auspices of the League of Nations Institute of Intellectual Co-operation. This is to be nothing less than an international ‘ Who’s Who ? ’ Biographies of tho leading men and women of the world, eminent in various fields of thought and activity, aro being collected at the Palais-Royal, Paris, under the editorship of Mr Robert Wilberforco lately attached _ to the News Department of the British Foreign Office. The first edition of this work of reference will contain between 15,000 and 20,000 biographical notices, and the whole thing is to be published by a Chicago firm. Messrs Stanley Paul announce for immediate publication a popular edition of Commander F. A. Worsley’s story of the 1926 British Arctic Expedition, ‘ Under Sail in the Frozen North.’ The book, it is remarked, does the heart good, telling of the irrepressible spirit of our race and of a seaman’s love of his ship. It should make an acceptable present to any boy in his„ ’teens. All the illustrations, maps, and scientific reports aro retained, and this fact, coupled with the reduction in the cost of tho volume, leaves librarians, who have not already done so, no excuse for not adding this breezy classic to their shelves. Some weeks ago Lord Riddell opened in tho Central Reference Library, Walworth road, London, an extremely teresting exhibition. It is a collection of books illustrating four and a-lialf centuries of printing, and the exhibits rango from a fourteenth-century MS. Psalterium to the London School of Printing Year Book for 1927. Southwark, of course, has always been an important printing centre. This wonderful collection was made by Mr Thomas A. Gilbert, chairman of tho Books Selection and Faraday Memorial Sub-committee. In the foreword to the catalogue Mr Gilbert naturally_ regrets that lie is able to show a reprint only of the Shakespeare folio of 1623, for Southwark was, after all, Shakespeare’s spiritual homo. Sir Edmund Gosse, in his ‘Leaves and Fruit,’ thus epitomises George Gissing’s character; “In every capacity it was Gissing’s fate to do himself less than justice. He was thought to bo sullen when he merely lacked the power to communicate his sympathy. Ho was, in fact, a very gentle, sensitive, and appreciative mind, tied fast to a temperament the most unfortunate that could have been devised.” The big memorial event of this year is the Bunyan Tercentenary, which falls duo about November 30, and already books about the inspired tinker aro beginning to appear on editorial tables. Tho most ambitious scheme, however, is that of the Religious Tract Society, which has sanctioned the issue rt the first 100,000 copies of a sixpenny edition of tho ‘ Pilgrim’s Progress.’