FROM HARDY'S NOTEBOOKS

Evening Star, Issue 20061, 29 December 1928, Page 14

FROM HARDY'S NOTEBOOKS

“The little impressions of life sot down in Hardy’s notebooks, and here first printed, reveal his observation,” writes Mr Newman Flower in the ‘ Daily Telegraph.’ “They are little cameos cut in words. Here is one written after uhree months’ illness in bed:— “ 1 Incidents of lying in bed lor months. Bkin gets fair.; corns take their leave; feet and loos grow shapely as those of a Greek statue. Keys get rusty, watch dim, boots mildewed, hat and clothes old fashioned, umbrella eaten out with rust; children seen through the window are grown taller.’

“Or take again this;— “‘After being in the street. What was it on the faces of those hoises Resignation,. Their eyes looked at mo; haunted me. The absoluteness of their resignation was terrible. When afterwards .1 heard their tramp as I lay in bed, the ghosts of their eyes came to me, saying “Where is your justice, 0 master and ruler?”’ “ ft is in these things that you find the real Hardy, the soul of him hurt by the suffering of man and animal. To my mind this book reveals the thoughts that were secret to himself, as if one had sat with him in his room at Max Gale and he bad spoken of his mind, of the violence of tho small things, and tho frequent insignificance of the great.”

MORE GOOD PEOPLE THAN BAD”

Gene Stratton-Porter was a bestseller, and the ‘ Life and Letters of the Late Gene Stratton-Porter, compiled by the novelist’s daughter, Airs Jeannette Porter Meehan,' will bo welcomed by her many admirers. It tells of her life and her methods of work, and the biographer uses her mothers own writings as far as possible. Hie following was found among Gone Strat-ton-Porter’s papers:— “ This reduces my formula tor a book to simplicity itself—an outdoor setting of land in which I have lived until, as Mary Austin expresses it, 1 know ‘ the procession of the year. Then I peojile the location with the men and women who live there, and on my pages write do- their story of joy and sorrow commingled as living among them I know it to be. This is tho secret of any appeal that my work may make. , “ And 1 want to say tor such people as I put into books, that in the plain, old-fashioned country homes where 1 have lived, I have known such wealth of loving consideration, such fidelity between husba and wife, such obedience l in children, such constancy to purpose, such whole-souled love lor friends' and neighbours, such absence of jealousy, pettiness, and rivalry, as my city critics do not know is in existence. , . “ I never could write a historical novel, because I want my history embellished with anything on earth save fiction. I never could write of society, because I know just enough about it to know that the more I know, the less I wish'to know. 1 have read a few ‘ problem ’ navels, and they appeal to me as a wandering over nasty, lawless subjects and situations of the most ancient type, under new names. There is nothing remaining for me but the woods, and tho people I meet there. “ For 'every bad man and woman I have ever known, 1 have met, lived with, and intimately known an overwhelming number' of strictly clean, decent people, and upon the lives of these 1 base what I write.”

' The events of ten years ago give particular interest to a book (which is to be published this mouth by Allen and 'Unwin) on ‘The Hohenzollerns,’ by Hubert Eulenberg. Here we shall perhaps be abe to trace, down a long line beginning with a fifteenth-cen-tury Burgravo of Nuremberg, those characteristics which ■ came out _so clearly in tho once-boastful Kaiser Wilhelm and made him start the war which lost him his throne.

NOTES

Aloysius Horn, the Gold Coast trader who became an author, was presented with a ear and chauffeur by an automobile company on his return to Johannesburg. Ho now says ,he wants to attempt a. speed dash from tho Cape to Cairo. Dr Charles Gore, tho former Bishop of Oxford and author of many ecclesiastical books, who is now in his seventy-fifth year, is editor-in-chief of ‘ A New Commentary on Holy Scripture,’ which was to bo ready on December 1.

A hundred years ago a convict was transported to New South Wales for burglary. What ho suffered, what such punishment- meant to him and the thousands of others who suffered it, and how far-reaching an effect the transportation system had on tho history of Australia is told in an extraordinary book, ‘ The Story of Ralph Rashleigh. ‘ John o’ London’s Weekly ’ says that if ever a book deserved to bo described as a human document it is this one, which, with an introduction by Lord Birkenhead, will be published by Jonathan Capo. j The Connell of the British Academy has awarded this year's Rose Mary Crawshav Prize for English literature (value .£100) to Miss Enid Wclsford, English lecturer at Newnham College •ind" university lecturer in English at Cambridge, for her book on Ihe Court Masque; A Study in the Relationship between Poetry and the Revels’ (Cambridge University Press). The prize is awarded annually to a woman of any nationality for a meritorious work on a subject connected with English literature.

The death of W. L. Courtney, removes an honoured and accomplished personality from Fleet street. Until four or five years ago his towering figure, heavy features, and drooping moustache were’ familiar' to most newspaper men, but lately he had lived m retirement. In the ’seventies (he was born in 1S50) he became a Don at Oxford, after a short term as bead master of a school at Bath, .and ho showed characteristic courage in IbbU, when a married man and a lather, in turning Ins buck on. n scrioliistu career and entering Fleet street. Since ISIM he had edited + he ‘ Fortnightly Review ’ with distinction, and he was for manv vears a leader writer and critic on the ‘ Daily Telegraph. Ho wrote many books on literature and philosophy, and three years ago published ins reminiscences under the title ‘The Passing Hour.’ Ho was keenly interested in the stage, and with the late Arthur Bourchier founded the O.U.D.S.

I see that Sir James Barrie has accepted the presidency of the Royal Scottish Corporation, and is to preside over its annual dinner (says John o London’s Weekly’). The special significance of this announcement lies m the fact that Sir James has never before held anv such official position, juul that until recently he could not be persuaded even to speak in public, die will bo called upon to do a good deal of speaking in bis new office, and no doubt ho will do it extremely well. All who have read his inspiring address on courage and his more recent utterances on cricket and Mary Queen of Scots, will rejoice at the prospect or following him more frequently in their morning paper. The corporation is an old one, and is one of the biggest charities ol its kind in jMigland. Among its many activities is the control of the Royal Caledonian Schools near Loudon.

The following list of “ best sellers wns compiled fi'oni information supplied by a number of well-known booksellers last month: —Fiction: J. Storer Couston’s ‘The Jade’s Progress, ’Jean Rhy’s ‘ Postures,’ Aldous Huxleys ‘Point Counter Point,’ Conan Doyles ‘ Sherlock Holmes Sh t Stones. -Miscellaneous; ‘Letters of the Itmpress Frederick,’ Susan Buchan's Sword and State,’ Lord Birkenhead s More Famous Trials,’ Lord Morloy s On Resignation.’

‘ Judith Silver,’ Mr Hector Bolitho s second novel, will bo published in London and New York, in January, and copies should arrive here, late in February. ‘ Judith Silver ’ is not all New Zealand, for the action moves to Pans and London, but Mr Bolitho has chosen ouo of the quietest corners ot New Zealand for the opening ot his story—the little town of Karangahake, once the famous mining town, near to tho Thames. ‘ Judith Silver is the story of a New Zealand boy, bred in Karangahake unci then sent to Cainbridge° for education and London for the great lessons of life, but a seveie and unconventional theme is woven into tho book, for tho second character is a father whose insanity centres about his thumbs and tho primitive instinct to choke. This introduces a murder story. But the main purpose of the book is to idealise the Roman Catholic conception of marriage and to advance the theory that love is not a relationship between human beings, hut a divine gift which must aways involve God. That it is a Trinity and that love without continual religious consciousness is sin.