BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

Evening Star, Issue 20316, 26 October 1929, Page 21

BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

VERSES THE DREAMS OF MAN Our dreams surround us with great wings, Beating about our hearts till wo Grow certain of deep hidden things That have life in eternity; We only glimpse their form between The spell of waking and of sleep— Time when the vast unseen is seen And shadows tryst with shadows keep, And every shadow is a plan Foreshadowing th© fate of man. They aro the guardians, theirs the hand That guides our hearts, as guides the wind ; , , Rain-laden clouds o’er sea aud land Without their vision we are blind. They time the movement of each age, Strike down' the dead leaf from its branch, , And they can loose the bands that cage The earthquake and the avalanche. '* They are the shapers, we the form; The sand that scatters in the storm John B. Seton Peacey, in the ‘ Observer.’ FLOWERS What favourite flowers are. mins I cannot say— . , ’ . My fancy changes -with the*.summer s Sometimes I think, agreeing with the That mv best • flowers are those tall apple trees, Who givx. a bee his cider while in And keep 'me waiting till their apples Sometimes I think the columbine has Who bangs her head and never looks the snn , , ~ Straight in the face. And now the golden rod , Beckons me over with a graceful nod, Shaped like a sheaf of corn, her ruddy DrinkT'the sun, dry, and leaves his splendour thin. Sometimes I think the rose must have And h then a the lily shakes her golden dice . Deep in a silver cup, to win or lose. So 1 o-o on, from columbine to rose, From Tnarygold to flock, from flock to thrift— Till nothing hut my garden stones are left. ... i ■ i But when I see the dimples in her face. . All filled with tender moss in every DltlCC** " Ah, then I think, when all is said and done, , , My favourite flower must be a mossy stone! _W. H Davies in the, ‘ Observer.’ THE CHOICE OF BOOKS READING FOR RELAXATION AND RECREATION The following are extracts from an address on ‘ The ‘Formation of Literary Taste ’ delivered by Mr J. F. Roxburgh, M.A., head master of Stone Scuool, England:— We English have always been a great reading people. It was in Englan first that authors were able to live on their earnings. It was lopes prem boast that he was ‘ above a P' ltl and we all know the story of I)i John son and Lord Chesterfield. These men were able to dispense with patrons (though it cost them a hard struggle), because there was already an educated public in England anxious to read books and willing to buy them. Dr Jolinson was able to sell the MS. -of Goidsmith » • Vicar of Wakefield ’ and keep the author out of a debtor’s prison, because there was a reading public waiting for just such a book and because that reading public was already served by enterprising ' booksellers who knew what was P good and were ready to take risks. The great publishing farms of to-day •re the successors of the booksellers ol the eighteenth century, and you and 1 are the successors of the people who first read ‘The Vicar• ot Wakefield and ‘ llasselas ’ and ‘ The Rape of the Lock.’ Dr Johnson, thanks to Ins pen and his public, managed to avoid starvation in the eighteenth century, ami in our day Mr Edgar Wallace also, thanks to bis typewriters and his; public, has managed to keep himself decently clothed and fed. ■ As part of the English reading public vou and I have a great tradition behind us. By reading and buying books and by patronising those peculiarly English institutions, tho circulating libraries, you and 1 have been engaged for nearly 2UU years in tho beneficent task- of keeping talented authors out of the workhouse. Of course, the Americans, with their vast numbers, vast wealth, and vast appetite for informa tion and amusement, have now left us far behind, but >ve English still remain the greatest readers of new books in Europe. It is true that we do not read our own old classics as much, as the French and Germans read theirs, 1,-.- j. vye demand new books every year in almost unimaginable quantities, and both authors and publishers see to it that our demands aro satisfied, fen thousand six hundred and twelve new books were published in England last se on© advantage of reading so much is that, owing to. tho quantities the publishers produce, we in England get our evervday books on better paper, in bet* ter type, and in stronger bindings than people in other European countries do, end in mv opinion a good woman and a good book are both tho better tor being well turned out. But are our books good books? The publishers givi us well-produced books because wo read voraciously; do the authors give us good books because we read discriminate ingjy T am thinking chiefly of recreational hooks—books which wo read not as a matter of business, but as a matter of pleasure, and I want to remind you that there are two kinds of recreational literature. The’ one kind gives you real recreation-that is. new mental health: and the other gives you mere relaxation —that is, mere mental rest. The difference is this: the one kind cannot be enjoyed without effort. You have got to exert yourself in order to understand it and enter into the emotions which it describes of reveals. The' other) kind makes no demand upon

A LITERARY CORNER

the reader, requires no expenditure of emotion and no elfort,of mind, and provides amusement or. distraction tree, gratis, and for nothing. There is an immense salo for books of this kind in England just now. You can sec them piled high in their gay paper covers on every bookstall. They ,n ° s *'W describe people too good (or too bad) to be true,, and more than halt of them deal with murder and sudden death. Thev are very cheap, too, ‘or the most part, and cheap in every sense. Thev cost littlo to buy and nothing to read, and they cannot have cost their authors much to write. Now, I am not going to pretend that there is no place in life for books or this kind—for rclaxational books. Indeed, if they are kept m their place they may bo of great value. For tired and worried people, for people making long journeys, lor people who cannot get to sleep at night, for people just starting on a holiday they are admirable. And, above all, they are admirable for people who have got influenza. But they have their dangers. They aro a littlo like chocolates—eat too many and you won’t want solid food and a little like alcohol—once you start taking it you may be unable to stop To read nothing but “thrillers” is like living on . cocktails —not good for the health. Don’t live on cocktails, whether liquid or literary. Take one occasionally at a suitable moment, but don’t make that your staple rei.Vshment.

Well what arc we to read? Among books that are of serious value and cost the reader some cflort ot mind or. spirit, how are we to make a choice. To begin with, I think ono should apportion one’s reading reasonably between fiction and mionnative literature. By informative literature 1 mean books which, though not technical enough to bo students’ books, «o definitely exist to give information. Alter all, if one is going to be of any use in, the world or to have an opinion ot any value one has got to know something about immense numbers of subjects which ono was never taught at school —subjects which only experts can know a great deal about, but which everyone can know a littlo about. When you have acquired some information on such subjects you will assured!v find that your mind will bo able to uso it to illuminate, explain, or adorn some of the experiences you meet with thereafter. Now, information, when vour mind has used it, turns (tor you) into knowledge. And knowledge is an essential ingredient both of happiness and of wisdom. It is also, by the way, an aid to self-respect, and I should like to remind you that Bacon said; If a man read little he had need of much cunning to seem to know that he doth not.”

It used to be considered that one’s first duty as a reader of fiction was to have read tho great nineteenth century novelists, especially Scott Dickens, and Thackeray. After them ono might go on to George Eliot or the Brontes, or go back to Jane Austen. But wo do not live in the nineteenth century ; we live in the twentieth, and our first duty is to become acquainted w’ith the literature of our own time. Personally (alwavs excepting ‘ Pickwick’) I find Dickens intolerably sentimental, Thackeray intolerably moral, and Scott suited only to long voyages or long illnesses. (I do not myself read detective stories when I have influenza; they send up ray temperature. But Scott is so calm, so majestic, and so remote from life that doctors recommend him tor reducing the rate of the pulse ) I am much more interested in what is being written to-day, and 1 do nut forget that if the reading public of he eighteenth century had restricted themselves to seventeenth century authors Tope,-Goldsmith, and Dr Johnson would have starved to death. Tho authors who aro writing to-day have a claim on us as our contemporaries, but they have a still bigger claim on ns as being the authors of remarkably good books.

They seem to mo to be of two main types. Ono typo is restless, combative, and self-torturing. Its chief inspiration is the fast-weakening reaction against Victorian morality, and its chief aim is to make the reader lace the facts of life, its mistake, to my mind, is the belief that the facts of life are necessarily ugly facts. They are not. Some of them are ugly, and we must face up to those that are. But on tho whole human life is a lovable thing. It may ho pathetic, humorous, futile, tragic, or absurd, but it is lovable all the time—human by definition and by experience, but Godlike too by the mercy of God. If a writer shows only what is squalid and base in it his picture’ is false. Do not be so loolish as to think that a book is a great book becouse it is an ugly book, or that because a novel is ignoble as a representation of humanity it must therefore be meritorious as a work of art. 1 do not believe you are in danger of’ thinking that, and, in any ease, time and th© whole movement of thought are against the “realists”—as they call themselves. Always distrust a man who tails himself a “ realist’’—whether ho is a French politician or an English author—and it is wise to be a little circumspect about “ idealists.” too. Both the idealist and tho realist believe that their dreams are true, but the idealist dreams ot heaven and the realist of hell. Distrust them both —but especially the realist But there is another typo of author writing to-day, and another type of book being published. Its . inspiration is a reaction against tho noisy literature of ugliness, and its aim is to let the reader quietly enjoy the .taste ol life—of life as it really is, infinitely various, but always lovable. I do not need to commend to you Mr Galsworthy, who writes on last century with an art that belongs to this. You know Conrad, of course, and I hope you know Mr Tomlinson, who has so many of his virtues and so few of his faults. If you have not read ‘ Galiions Reach ’ I envy you —you have a delightful experience m front of you. Then there is Mr Walpole, who docs not always write on Barchester themes, but has given us ‘ The Dark Forest in ono mood and ‘Jeremy ’ in another There is Mr Mottram, and if you like something farther removed from everyday things you can enjoy the fantasies of Mr David Ganlett and the delicate perfection of his' ‘Lady Into Fox.’ ff you want something more fanciful still (here L am leaving fiction behind for a, moment) and are tired of your. Lewis Carrol and your Stevenson, you have the ‘ Pooh ’ books of Mr Milne, and Christopher Robin's garden of delight ful verses. The. country is full of men who are looking at life quietly, humorously, and sympathetically, and writing of it with consummate art. And not this country only. Willa Gather is an American, aud she writes of how

Death Comes for th© Archbishop 5 with a mastery of English rarely found in England. Thornton Wilder’s ‘ Bridge of San Luis Roy ’ is, I believe, the best book 1 have read since tho war, and ‘ The Cabala ’ is not unworthy of it. __ Begin, then, with the novels of today. Do not end with them, but begin with them.' We are moderns, and we must be modern-minded, looking forward as well as back. Find out who are the best authors writing to-day, and <ret hold of their works. Borrow them ff vou can. buy them if you must. To 'hire them is, perhaps, best of all, and the next time a kindly relative asks yon at Christmas what present you would most like say “ A subscription to ‘The Times’ Book Club or to Mudies, please.” I have not yet spoken of poetry, and I cannot speak of it with the same confidence. I should like to say that modern poetry is as good as old poetry, but I can’t. It may be, but I can’t personally believe it is. As a reader of poetry, I find myself in a pitiable state lam too young for Tennyson and too old for Mr D. H. Lawrence—and not nearly clever enough for Dr Bridges. I comfort myself with the reflection. that great poetry is rare in every age, and that in the 15,000 books of verse produced in this century you could not expect on the analogy of other centuries to find more than half a dozen pages that will be remembered after the writers are dead. I shall be of no use to you as a guide among the poets of to-day. I love some of the things that they have written, but they took a terrible lot of finding among the rest, and I have now got tired of the search. I feel that the modern poets are clearing the ground for someone greater than themselves. They have broken the tradition of jingle which dominated English verse for fifty years; they have broken the tradition of poetic remoteness and taught poetry how to deal with real things. But the result of their liberating work will not be seen till someone great enough to use the new liberty is born—and that time has not vet. come.

Meanwhile I, personally, am going back to the past, in fiction 1 advised you to begin at the end. In poetry i advise you to begin at the beginning. If you know Greek, read ‘ Sophocles ' and ‘ The Anthology ’ in the original. If you don’t, then read a good translation of the ‘lliad.’ Then go on through Latin, if you know it, to Milton, and from Milton go back through the Carolines to Shakespeare. Then go on again with a leap to Keats anti Shelley, and Wordsworth. After that 1 can neither guide nor follow yon, unless yon would care for a trip to France and a visit to Racine. Hugo. Gautier, and Heredia. • You see that I am no use to yon in this department. I need more guidance than I can give. But let me just say this: Without a love of poetry a man is only half a man. He has missed an irreplaceable experience, like a man who has never heard birdsong or never seen the sea. Read poetry, therefore, -and if you are wise yon will try to read only what is good. Make it' your business to educate your taste and train your, ear so that when the great poet," who is surely due to corne, appears, yon may recognise his voice and follow him to the realms of beauty and passion which ho will help you to explore. KATHERINE MANSFIELD A few points from Professor Ramsay’s discerning address on Katherine Mansfield, given before the Historical Association;— The. love of ancient Mother Earth became a chief part in her religion. Like Thomas Hardy, she saw human beings also as but one product among others ot sun and earth; nence the sophisticated, over-civilised, intellectual human types with which she became familiar in London got more and more-on her nerves. She was intrigued with them, and could mark them down for satiric purposes; but she escaped with relief back to her reminiscences of an earlier and simpler life. Katherine Mansfield is by no meams purely a product of New Zealand, but she retained indelibly the marks of her early New Zealand environment, and , thankfully acknowledged as the best factor in her life that she had not been city bred. Of modern writers Mrs Virginia Woolf is perhaps the nearest in spirit to Katherine Mansfield. There is the same lightness of touch, the same power to find significance in little things, just as the black tracker collects’ evidence from the displacement of a twig here and a leaf there of the passage of some fugitive where a white man would see nothing. The fleeting impressions which make up the most of the mental .life of ordinary people Katherine Mansfield was apparently in the habit of fixing distinctly and rendering into words. She is fond of chronicling her dreams—e.g., ii her journal and letters. The impressionistic manner of 4 Prelude ’ would no doubt appeal to Mrs Woolf. Pity is perhaps the vital factor in Katherine Mansfield’s outlook on human life. One critic, J. B. Priestley, declares her outstanding quality to be an infinite charity. But that is only a half-truth. There js irony generally as well as pity-—ironic mockery of insincerity and pretension as well, as pity for suffering. This formula of irony mingled with pit}' applies to a large number of her stories. The normal shallow world of the foreground is shown for what-'it is by contrast with the sombre background of real life, with its inevitable measure of real suffering. Katherine Mansfield is a notable figure in New Zealand history. Her writings seem to me to be of a kind that readers of English literature will not willingly let die. It is a great misfortune that she did not_ live to reach her full stature, to attain a full personality. For she never quite lonnd herself/ Wc have phases of a manysided nature in her books rather than a completely harmonised character. She had not had time to win her way to a clear philosophy of life like Conrad or Hardy or Anatole France. She must rank lower than such as these. Her work is slighter. But Katherine Mansfield also has her niche;, a place that belongs to her alone, and which is due to her foi more than one reason—the perfection of her style in the first place, and perhaps in the second place her understanding of children. It seems to me that the best of her work is inspired by New Zealand memories. These New Zealand stories are less hackneyed in subject matter, intrinsically fresher, and moi;o vivid than the_ stories which she drew from her experience of other lands and peoples.

THE FRENCH AT AKARGA Mr •T. ■ Lindsay Buick writesIn my recently-published book, ‘ The French at Akaroa,’ which you so fully reviewed at the time, of its publication, I printed certain references to Charles Meryon, the French artist. Among these were some letters • written bj Meryon to his father while he was a junior officer on board the French coivetto Le Rhin, stationed at Akaroa in 1884, and a footnote on page 264 detailing a list of Meryon’s Akaroa etchings. . The letters I found in an article entitled ‘Charles Meryon, a French Artist in New Zealand,’ written by Miss Dora Wilcox (now Mrs Moore, or Manly, New South Wales), and published in ‘ United Empire,’ an English magazine, of October, 1921. The letters were, I now understand, discovered by Miss Wilcox in the British Museum, translated by her, and published as part of an appreciation of Meryon and his art. The footnote was, I find, portion of another article written by Miss Wilcox and published in the Press some years ago. I regret exceedingly that the reference to Miss Wilcox and her work in connection with Meryon at the foot of page 264 is not.sufficiently explicit, and that through an unfortunate oversight on my part I did not fully acknowledge my indebtedness to Miss Wilcox and ‘ United Empire.’ It was my intention to do so in the Bibliography printed at the end of the book, in which there are some ninety-six references, but when this was prepared, the articles written by Miss Wilcox as well as ‘ United Empire ’ were inadvertently omitted. I bavo already expressed my regrets to Mrs Moore at my failure to do her justice in this connection and my intention to do so at the first opportunity. I have also asked the Literary Supnlement of the London ‘ Times ’ to publish an acknowledgment similar to this, but as I understand that Mrs Moore still feels very keenly upon the matter I am .asking you to assist me in further according to her and to ‘ United Empire ’ that measure of recognition to which they are entitled, and which they did not receive at the time and in the way I intended they should. NEW BOOMS MYSTERY NARRATIVES Captain Louis Patrick Bowler (“Rooinek”) has already found favour as a writer of African mystery stories, and his latest collection of narratives, published in book form under the title ‘African Nights,' still more (irmly cements his sound reputation. Obviously Captain Bowler has actually lived through many of the adventures of which he writes, for in a style simple, yet incisive, he delves deeply into native life and customs, scorning anything that is unwholesome, but making no demur about recapitulating eerie anecdotes and legends. Moreover, there are many humorous incidents, and some of the descriptive passages are exceptionally well treated ‘ Afri-. can Nights ’ is rich in freshness and interest—power very seldom found in modern adventure books. It should appeal to young and old alike. The author himself is a seventy-seyen-year-old veteran pioneer, self-admittcclly a rolling stone, and in a final paragraph, full of meaning, he issues a sane warning to the wanderer who would follow in his footsteps. The publishers of the hook 'are Messrs Hurst and Blackett, Ltd SUCCESS IN BUSINESS From the Cornstalk Publishing Company, Sydney, we have received four books on success in businesSj by Herbert N. Casson, editor of * Efficiency Magazine’ (London). As a result of years of experience in many and varied spheres of business life, the writer can offer much sound advice to all aspiring to success in this direction. Written in a happy vein, Mr Casson’s business axioms must certainly prove helpful and encouraging. The writer evolves a new business psychology. He holds that a man is not successful, if to rise to the top. he has sacrificed his happr ness; he must love his work whether it be his daily “job'’ at the office or his home-building. To all ambitions and energetic young men Mr Cassori’s quartet, ‘Men at the Top,’ ‘Twelve Worst Mistakes in Business,’ .‘The Axioms of Business.’ and ‘Success and Happiness ’ can be warmly recommended. BRILLIANT SATIRE ‘Molinoff.’ by Maurice Bode] (Duckworth). When poverty compelled Count Ivan Moljnoff ; one of the remnants of Rnssain artisocracy, to take a position ns a cook in a Touraine Chateau the way was paved for quite a lot of trouble, and some delightfully amusing situations. He was so gay and debonair a follow that, unaware of his profession, all the neighbours, members of the old French nobility and millionaire alike, fell over each other in the quest for the pleasure of his company. The complications that ensued and his novel method of solving them are delightfully told in this • brilliant satire from the pen of Maurice Bedel. It is a witty story, and the author does not spare his subjects in a malicious picture of life as it is jived on the quaint hanks of the Loire, now that the old seclusion has been invaded by jazz and cocktails. His sketches of the old French nobility are remarkable delineations, and the hook is written in such a pleasing style as to .make it one of the most enjoyable novels that has come this way for quite a while. Our copy conies from the publishers. STORY FOR GIRLS ‘ Di-Doublo Di ’ is an excellent story for girls. The authoress is Constance Mackncss, .who has written a number of hooks of a similar typo that have met with much success. She is an Australian, and that land of laughter and sunshine is her happy, hunting ground The scene of this story is a girls’ boarding, school, and the chief character is a pupil “lean and freckled and healthy, happy-hearted, but undisciplined, with an unusual amount of general knowledge, and an unusual ignorance of many things' a thirteen-year-old is expected to know.” The authoress tells her story briskly in a way that will appeal to the youthful mind, and she shows herself expert in characterisation. Pupils, mistresses, relatives, and friends all have their parts to play_ in this comedy of modern school life. The Cornstalk Publishing Company, Sydney. are the publishers.

Some of the ancient manuscripts and books in the famous Vatican Library are cracking, owing to the intense dryness of the Italian atmosphere. Electrical engineers have come to the assistance of librarians.. and a device has been put in which keeps the air just damp enough, not too damp and not too dry. In this way it is hoped that the valuable books will be kept for centuries longer.

NOTES Miss Iris Wilkinson, who writes under the pen name of ‘ Robin Hyde,’ is a New Zealand poet whose work is quirked by delicacy and grace. A collection of her verse, entitled ‘ The Desolate Star,’ is to be published in November Before her death last April Mrs Flora Annie Steel had completed her autobiography, which will appear with Macmillan as ‘ The Garden' of Fidelity. ■ 1 Mrs A. S. AI. Hutchinson, wife the novelist, who is just publishing his new novel. ‘ The Uncertain Trumpet,’ is the author of . a book for children called ‘Little Fairy Daydreams.’ She writes under her Christian names of Una Rosamond. Sir Charles Wakefield has presented to the British Ambassador in Japan 200 books of Shakespearean interest, for distribution among the students of English in Tokio University. ’ Dorothy Bonn Byrne, the widow and literary executrix of Donn Byrne, the Irish novelist, who was killed in a motoring accident last year, will sign a limited edition of her husband’s last novel. She is the author of a number off plays, which have been very successful on Broadway. More than 2,000 persons, headed by the Mayor of Asheville (North Carolina) and members of the. Harris family, gathered at Calvary Episcopal Church, Asheville, where a bronze tablet was dedicated to the memory of. Joel Chandler Harris, of _ ‘ Uncle Remus ’ fame. The gathering included a delegation from Eatonton,. Georgia, Harris’s birthplace.

Twenty-two leading authorities, including such diverse writers as Archbishop William Temple, Professor Gilbert Murrav, Sir Frederick Kenyon, and Dr James Moffatt have contributed to ‘The History of Christianity Sn athe Light of Modern Knowledge,’ a critical survey of the growth of Christianity from its beginning to the end of tht World War.

Shakespeare had not art? He was had by art; compelled and held by it. And by that holding and compulsion we get a vision of what art is: not a system, not a set of rules which perchance Aristotle might teach us, or an other Greek, hut a changing, .growing form-compelling power that is individual, but at its greatest expresses an age. This was the great ago of English, never repeated in its aggregate of colour, wealth, diction, and power of words.—Henry Chester Tracy, in KngHsh as Experience.’

Something new for the fostering ot literature has been announced by the ‘ Criterion,’ the quarterly journal edited by Mr T. S. Eliot. A plan has been worked out .by that journal in co-opera-tion with tour Continental reviews which it is hoped will result in discovering excellent unknown talent and in giving it to the world. The editors of the journal will be a jury “to decide on the merits of unpublished fiction of suitable length submitted to from each’of the five countries in turn.” The story whicli is chosen for publication will bo translated into the other four languages and published ot the same time in each country. The four Continental reviews are. the ‘ Nouvelle Revue Francaise,’ the ‘ Rivista de Occidente ’ (Spain), the ‘ Nuova Anthologia ’ (Italy), and the ‘ Europaische Revue,’ representing German countries.

Having heard a rumour that Dr Bridges, the Poet Laureate, was about to ‘‘ publish a new poetic masterpiece,” a representative ot the London ‘ Sunday Express’ repaired to the_ poet’s home at Oxford with the object of learning the truth. This is what he wrote; —Airs Bridges received me. We talked about,the weather, and I gently led the conversation to the subject of my mission. “Is Dr Bridges writing a new poem?” I asked. “1 do not know,” replied Airs Bridges. “1 will go and ask him.” 1 waited, tense and .listening. From the room above me I could hear a deep bass rumble. Even at that distance it sounded decisive and short. Thor was thundering! Airs Bridges came buck. “ I am sorry, but he says ... lie says that he has no message for you.” You may be qualified to make Scotland Yard's Big Five a Big Six, but I doubt your ability to penetrate Dr Bridges’ study or to persuade him to answer a question when he docs not wish to do so.

There are no greater bores in the world (says Air Stanley Baldwin) than those who ask: ‘‘What is the best book you have read lately?” and “ What book bas helped you most?” He always warns to answer as the man did who said; “The book that helped me most has not yet been written.” The Dunedin Athenaeum Bulletin, No. 3, is to hand. It is as interesting as its predecessors, which is saying a good deal. From it we learn that the following were the popular works of the month, as revealed, by the calls on the Athenaeum shelves;—Fiction; Deeping’s ‘ Roper Row,' Krussnolf’s ‘ From Double Eagle to Red Flag,’ Priestley’s ‘ Good Companions,’ “ Gentleman with a Duster’s ” ‘ Plain Sailing.’ Alorris’s ‘ Brother ton,’ L. J., Aliln’s ‘By Soochow Waters,’ B. Reynold’s ‘ Affair at the Chateau,’ Springer’s ‘ Dark River,’ Wadsley’s ‘ Flood Tide,’ Wentworth’s ‘Pool Errant,’ Wallace’s ‘Red Aces,’ Lorimer’s ‘ Aloslcm Jane,’ Tuttle’s ‘Alystery of the Red Triangle,’ Cecil Roberts’s ‘ Pamela’s Spring _ Song,’ Seltzer’s ‘Pedro the Magnificent,’ Berkeley’s ‘ Poisoned Chocolates Case,’ Gregory’s ‘ Rapidan,’ L. Rea’s ‘ Six Airs Greenes,’ Woclehouse’s ‘ Summer Lightning.’ General literature; ‘Adventures of Ralph Rashleigh,’ Joan Lowell’s ‘Child of the Deep,’ Lowe and Porritt’s ‘ Athletics,’ ‘ Daisy Princess of Pless,’ Noble’s ‘Fight for the Ashes,’ Sherriff’s ‘Journey’s End,’ Doris Booth’s ‘ Mountains, Gold, _ and Cannibals,’ Lowell Thomas’s ‘ Raiders of the Deep ’ and ‘ Sea Devil,’ Lamb's ‘Tamerlane,’ Dilnot’s ‘Triumphs of Detection.’ Morton’s ‘ln Search of England.’

British newspapers have given some attention to the bicentenary of the death of Sir Richard Steele, the coadjutor of Addison in the production of the ‘ Tatlor ’ and the ‘ Spectator,’ who died on September 1, 1729. The ‘ Weekly Scotsman ’ recalls Steele’s visit to Edinburgh as one of the six ‘‘Commissioners for Forfeiture.” He invited all the beggars and poor people of the city to a great feast. The host presided at the top of the festive bowd-j passing the toddy with a will. Before long ins queer guests forgot their natural shyness, to the great delight of Steele, who rejoiced unreservedly in the flow of natural wit which ensued. Apart from the very real happiness of feeding so many hungry fel-low-creatures, he had garnered, he said afterwards, enough material for a whole comedy. _ In 1718 Sir Richard made a second visit to Scotland. . For the occasion lie occupied a house let by Mr James Anderson, By December, 1718, the happy-go-lucky Commissioner had been and gone, characteristically omitting the formality of paying his rent of £lO before departure. For this,’ Anderson, with many apologies, finally drew on Jura for the money, which must have been paid, as Steele proposed to take the house again a year later.