BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

Evening Star, Issue 20688, 10 January 1931, Page 19

BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

VERSES THAT “ VERY BEST " I* the rose the best of all sweet flowers ? Nay, but the violet, too. Is fragrant, and the lotus red Has a glorious hue. Is the setting sun the loveliest sight ? Nay, but the early dawn Is beautiful. The moon shines bright - When the sun is gone. Is a wise and powerful ruling king The greatest man on earth? Nay, but the humble lowly man Also has his worth. There’s no such thing as “very best,” Whatever we may say, For each thing in this glorious world Is- good in its own way. —Padmini Satttiianadhan. MY FIRST LOUDON FOG ' The lamps burn with a blurry gold in the daytime, . And the high noon is become a. pearlcold morning- , , . '{Three o’clock in the New Zealand hayCattle ’looming in the half dark, farmers yawning). No one can tell beyond these misty veils . Whether there be a long Australian Or flannel flowers under tall bluegums, and a stream. . . Even where the city’s noise (for tho illusion fails) Cannot bev taken for a river s roar. Wren’s ugly, churches turn to a graceful dream;, • Modestly through tho dreamy light St,■Clement Dane’s Aspires when all is quiet to caress (For she would have it otherwise, sho St, Mary-le-Strand’s white virgin wistfulness . —Geoffrey De Montalk, in ‘Poetry; Chicago.

HILAIRE BELLOC AS POET A critic has recently' reminded us that Mr Belloc has just.turned sixty. A good age, and well employed, when we consider the fruits of Mr Belloc’s thirtylive years of writing. For no man surely can hack with more pride upon work that has always been honest and well done, loyal to a constant ideal, courageous and sincere, and not infrequently of a high degree of beauty. This was a happy reminder of an anniversary if it sends a few more readers to a good writer and a clear thinker, and a man who, though in a few things wide of the mark and partisan, is yet worth a, dozen of his more popular contemporaries (writes Richard Pennington, in the ‘Bookman’). To speak of Mr Belloc here as a poet simply may seem strange to some to whom he is memorable chiefly lor the excellent prose of his essays or for such exhilarating books as ‘The Four Men and ‘The Path to Rome.’ There have, moreover, been other manifestations of his protean spirit; there are the; political novels, the biographical studies, the rfiilitary histories —and how well Mr Belloc can describe a campaign in its essentials, arid what a suggestive book is ‘ Warfare in England ’!—there are the children’s hooks, and finally a most entertaining ‘ History of England, though it strays to dubious conclusions at times. But these things are more or less of the present day and ephemeral. What is more certain of enduring fame and likely to carry Mr Belloc’s name to posterity is the poetry; yet it is probably true that this has received the least recognition of all his work. Whv this should he so it is difficult to say. His poetry is not obscure or esoteric or “new” in any unpopular way. It has, on the contrary, the happy characteristics of closeness to tradition and a firm basis upon logical thought. It has also a certainty of utterance and a clarity of form that are admirable, and with these, a lovely rhythm all its own, and that power of intense suggestion that great poetry alone possesses, , Soirie, remembering his partly French descent, have found foreign influences in his work. It may he that the frequent perfection of form —too often riot an English trait—suggests the French clarity of mind. But his poetry, the best of it, is essentially English. .Of the, immortality of some of the poems there is no doubt. Again and again, scanning one’s shelves of modern poets, one takes down the tall blue volume of ‘ Poems and Sonnets ’ to find the beauty of some of these pieces assuring, in this age when so much in poetry is unsatisfying. The epigrams for example have the perfection of Laridor’s finest work ; some of the sonnets have a lovely vehemence that Brooke momentarily captured and Wordsworth at his best achieved; while there are lyrics as pure in melody and exquisite in execution as those of the Elizabethan and Caroline poets. And there is, too, a satiric humour that plays over soir-vof the pages and gives us a kind' of verse too rare in England, yet poetry in spite of the fierce intent. Several of the poems have become too well known in anthologies to need quotation, such as ‘ The Smith Country,’ ‘The Birds,’ ‘Ha’nacker Mill.’ But the fine sonnets are generally not anthologised and go the more widely unknown therefore; for as Mr Graves complained in his sparkling petard with which he sought to destroy the popular anthology (‘A Pamphlet Against Anthologies’), whfen a little of a man’s work is put into an anthology tho reading public generally content themselves with that _ and do not search out his other writings. Here, however, is one sonnet that has not to my knowledge been bagged by the compilers:—

But oil! not lovely Helen, nor'the pride Of that most ancient Ilium matched with doom. Men murdered Priam in his royal room And Troy was burned with fire and Hector died. For even Hector’s dreadful day was more Than all his breathing courage dared defend. The armoured light and bulwark of the war Trailed his great glory to the accustomed end. He was the city’s buttress, Priam’s ■ son. y ■ The soldier born in bivouac praises great

A LITERARY CORNER

And horns in double front of battle won. Yet down he went: when uuremembering fate Felled him at last with all his armour on. Hector: the horseman: in the Scoean Gate.

There are other lovely ones; the sonnet on frozen winter; on Rome; that one on Sleep, with its lulling sestet: — Above the surf line, into the night

breeze; Eastward above the ever-whispering

seas; Through the warm airs with no more watch to keep. My clay’s run out and all its dooms are

graven. 0 dear forerunner of Death and promise

of Haven. 0 my companion, 0 my sister Sleep. Simple; perhaps not pleasing to those strict fanatics of the sonnet to whom 'anything not Miltonic is not worthy of the name; but how lovely, how accomplished ! Of this graceful and finished verse Mr Belloc is a master. There are those stanzas in the Dedicatory Odo that begin, in an abrupt change from tho humour of

And One (myself I mean—no less), Ah!—will Posterity believe it— Not only don’t deserve success, But hasn’t managed to achieve it,” with the lines: I will not try the reach again, I will not set my sail alone, To moor a boat bereft of men At Yarnton’s tiny docks of stone. . . Finally there are the epigrams, that may prove the most enduring of all his work. Landor wrote much, but ‘ Gebir ’ is forgotten and few read the ‘lmaginary Conversations’; but bis epigrams have lasted and are remembered by men the world over. So it may Jbe "Posterity will forget the political novels, tho history and much of the essays—though some of these _ are worthy of preservation—and cherish a few lyrics and such epigrams as these:

ON A SLEEPING FRIEND. Lady, when your lovely head Droops to sink among the Dead, And the quiet places keep You that so divinely sleep; Then the dead shall blessed be With a new solemnity, For such Beauty, so descending, . Pledges them that Death is ending. Sleep your fill—but when you wake Dawn shall over Lethe break. . • TEfE STATUE. When we are dead, some Hunting-boy will pass And find a stone half-hidden in tall grass And grey with age; but having seen that stone (Which was your image), ride more slowly on. Wo may end with another: When I am dead, I hope' it may be said: ,“His sins were scarlet, but his books were read.” He need have no fear for his poems—they always will he. MR BALDWIN ON ENGLAND Mr Wickham Steed, in his ‘ The Real Stanley Baldwin,’ makes a picture of a “ plain, blunt man,” as Mr Baldwin has described himself. Nevertheless there is a vein of poetry in Mr Baldwin, and some of his speeches are good literature. This, for' instance, will touch the emotions of every Englishman who reads it;—

“ To me, England is the country, and tho country is England. And when I ask myself what I mean by England, when I 'think of England when 1 am abroad, England comes to mo through my various senses—through tho ear, through the eye, and through certain imperishable scents. 1 will tell you what'they are, and there may be those among you who feel as I do. The sounds of England, the tinkle of tho hammer on the anvil in the country smithy, the corncrake on a dewy morning, the sound of tho scythe against the whetstone, and tho sight of a plough team coming over the brow of a hill, the sight that has been seen in England since England was a land, and may be seen in England long after tho Empire has perished and every work in England lias ceased to function, for centuries tho one eternal sight of England. The wild anemones in the woods in April, tho last load at night of hay being drawn down a lane as the twilight comes on, when you can scarcely distinguish the figures of the horses as they take it home to tho farm, and, above all, most subtle, most penetrating, and most moving, the smell of wood-smoke coming up in an autumn evening, or the smell of the scutch fires; that wood-smoko that our ancestors,, tens of thousands of years ago, must have caught on the air when they were coming home with tho result of' the day’s forage, when they were Still nomads, and when they were still roaming the forests and the plains of the Continent of Europe, These things strike down into the very depths of our nature, and touch chords that go back to the beginning of time and the human race, but they are chords that with every year of our life sound a deeper note in our innermost being.”

POETRY ON THE RADIO “ Within the last few years a miracle of mass intelligence has made it possible for listening to poetry to become again a universal jot,” said Dr John Masefield, the Poet Laureate, speaking at Edinburgh. “ Broadcasting has made it possible for a speaker to roach thousands of people at thousands, of miles. If only the broadcasting people could work with the poetry to create an art of poetry adapted for broadcasting, that art of poetry might come to life. It might be made one of the most remarkable schools of poetry that has been for centuries. If the broadcasting people could be made to work with poets and find out what kind of poetry is the best for broadcasting, it would bo found that narrative is the best. The demand for narrative is like the demand for bread. We are the people who ought to see to it that the new narrative poems that are made should be spoken beautifully, so that people who hear them may go to their beds and lie awake, feeling all night long how interesting it is to hear poetry spoken by a beautiful voice right into the heart.”

OLD AND NEW BOOKS A LAMENTABLE HABIT A protest against the lamentable habit, even among those who study serious literature, of reading almost nothing but books of the day is made by Bishop Gore in ‘ The Philosophy of tho Good Life.’ He says; “To read the books of the day ministers, no doubt, to the extension of knowledge and to the intellectual curiosity which desires a succession of fresh excitements. But ;t does not commonly minister to the establishment of stable convictions of life. Yet behind all the changes in tho human outlook and all the developments of knowledge, which produce sharp contrasts between different epochs, is there not such a thing as the permanent manhood, the fundamental man, with his instincts, passions, appetites, reason, imagination, will—with his ideals, struggles, failures, realisations? Do not the pleasure and profit of reading tho 4 classical ’ literature of other ages than onr own lie just in this—that it forces upon us tho recognition of this unchanging manhood—which was and is and is to be? We shake hands acres sthe ages as well as across differences of nationality, with brother man, and among brother men with the Great Man who stands for all time, not as infallible indeed, hut as an evei’-enduring witness to something essential, if the worth and progress of humanity is to be maintained.”

NEW BOOKS BRITAIN'S BIRDLAND ‘ Rambles in British Birdland,’ by Oliver G. Pike, F.Z.S., F.R.P.S. (Herbert Jenkins Limited).—This is a fascinating book, indeed. It contains twelve chapters, each dealing with interesting members of the feathered inhabitants of Britain’s woods and rocky coasts. The naturalist, to be successful, must be a man capable of taking infinite pains in his work. The patience and labour involved in Mr Pike’s observations here recorded and of his companion in his expeditions (Mr Edgar Chance) are prodigious. One of the nipst arresting chapters in the book is that dealing with the cuckoo. We all know that this bird passes its parental duties on in a light-hearted way, but comparatively few people would be able to describe its methods. This Mr Pike does in a manner definite and authoritative, and his assertions are quite contrary to what has been the general belief. For nearly 2,000 years, he says, tho accepted theory was that tho cuckoo carried her egg in her beak to the nest that she had selected and deposited it there, but it was left to Mr Chance to upset this belief. After several years of the most careful' and intense field work ho was able to prove that when the cuckoo was ready to lay she visited the various nests that she had marked out, sat upon one about every second day,'and laid her egg in the ordinary way. This news came as a bombshell to tho scientific world, and was vigorously combated, but'Mr Pike set to work to obtain a living record witli his cinema camera , “ and on five separate occasions had tho satisfaction of filming tho cuckoo as she arrived at various uests, and I obtained a series of photographs which showed beyond all shadow of doubt that the cuckoo lays her ogg into tho nest.” According to the author, the cuckoo invariably selects a nest which contains oggs. As she leaves it after laying she takes one of these eggs of tho builder of the nest with her, and eats it at her leisure. Seeing the cuckoo so often with an egg in i her bill gave rise to the older belief, tho impression being that she was taking an egg laid by herself to tho chosen ne,st. There is much more in the book about this strange bird, with its antisocial and profiteering habits. The young cuckoo not only ejects in an amazing way all the legitimate occupants from tho nest, but keeps its fosterparents exceedingly busy in satisfying its varacious appetite. The other chapters, if not revealing such extraordinary characteristics in bird life, deal with the lives and habits and haunts of other feathered creatures that are only found in unfrequented places. These include the black-necked grebe, the fulmar petrel, the buzzard, tho Kentish and ringed plovers, and the raven of the mountains. The illustrations, which are beautifully done, are from photographs taken -by the author. THE OPERA IN ENGLAND OP particular interest to musicians is ‘History of tho Opera in England.’ a booklet by Captain George Cecil, the well-known musical writer and critic. In this little volume Captain. Cecil traces the development of the operatic movement in England since tho early days, speaking with authority of the successes ana vicissitudes that attended the efforts of various enterprising impresarios. Of this subject he has: an extensive and illuminating knowledge. There are many amusing anecdotes in this publication. But tbo personal comments of the author are well worth study. He does not bandy words in oxpressing his opinions, many of which are caustic. One may or may not agree with those opinions, but they are all very interesting. Captain Cecil disapproves strongly of tbo movement to establish a national opera in England. Such an institution would he very desirable, but _in practice _it would _ hardly he feasible. Intelligent musicians will readily subscribe to his views on this subject.

* TWENTY-FOUR HOURS ’ A new novel by Louis Bromfieid, entitled ‘Twenty-four Hours,’ is hardly one that can be recommended for inclusion on the shelves of discriminating libraries. The story deals with the Jives of some of the members of New York’s high society, and although it is more than possible that such events, as thosj chronicled have occurred in the past, are occurring at the present time, and will occur in the future, their telling does not make for the edification of readers. Actually the story is of only twenty-four hours’ duration, and' no doubt that accounts for the title, but it delves into the past history of the characters, and therein lies the scandal. Cassell and Co. Ltd. are flic publishers.

A DELIGHTFUL BOOK ‘Old Eko’s Notebook,’ by Nathan Spielvogol (Angus and Robertson).— In a preface to ‘ Old Eko’s Notebook it is stated that there arc many besides school teachers who will J'ead this book with interest and pleasure, and it must be confessed that one cannot help a feeling of disappointment on reaching the last page that so delightful a book has come to an end. Old Eko is a thoroughly lovable character—a philosophical Australian pedagogue, whose two most pronounced traits are his desire to help the lame dog and his great love of flowers. The author himself states that Eko is not entirely a fictitious character, but that as the book progressed Eko got beyond the author’s control. Still, the fact remains that old Eko is the facsimile of many a dear old teacher who may have “ missed the bus ” by examination standards, but who, judged from the human standpoint, is a much more successful figure than the men who may have measured up with the examination snccosses of their brilliant pupils. Old Eko is the head of a bush school, and his sympathetic outlook where the duller pupils are concerned endear him to the reader. _ His experiences with the visiting inspectors, parents, school committee, young but promising teachers, and so forth make most enjoyable reading, and his altogether iremarkahlo _ knowledge of human nature and his quick perception and judgment of character are sufficient to show that old Eko is not the failure he himself would have one believe. These brilliant sketches originally appeared in a teachers’ journal in Australia, and now that they have been collected in book form they should be in the hands of every teacher and all who love to read of the experiences of the pedagogue with the children in the schoolroom. This hook deserves a wide sale. Onr copy comes from the publishers. LIGHT AND BRIGHT lu ‘ Belinda Tries Again ’ Richard Starr strikes a happy note which should appeal to those who appreciate the light fiction associated with holiday reading. Belinda is a charmingly unsophisticate I herone who, when jilted by the man to whom she is engaged, reacts to the resultant circumstances in a mamio. productive of many romantic situations and incidents. There is nothing solid about the story, but the author has kept it quite free from modern smartness- of a banal nature, and in some chapters they psychology of the individual Ijas been investigated with marked effect. Moreover, the book is brightly written, ami the plot once touched upon is not without a certain power to hold the interest. Our copy comes from the publishers, Messrs Herbert Jenkins Ltd.

NOTES A’special ‘ Book Week was held throughout the dominion of Canada from November 1 to 8, under tho auspices of the Canadian Authors’ Association. One of the defeated candidates in the recent American elections was Mr Upton Sinclair, the novelist. He was the Sociaiist candidate for the governorship of California. Mr Rudyard Kipling headed a deputation last”month to request the British Government to preserve Hadrian’s Wall from decay.-The story of the old-Roman wall is told in Mr Kipling’s ‘ Puck of Peek’s Hill.’ ./ Mr Thomas Norton Longman, whose death at the age of eighty-one is announced, was until his’retirement some time ago head of the publishing firm of Longmans, Gi'een, and Co. He was the fifth Thomas Longman since the firm was founded in 1(24. Mr Gunnar Gunnursson, who was the guest of honour at a recent dinner of tho P.E.N. Club, is a young Icelandic novelist. As there are only some 200.000 Icelanders in tho world it is difficult to make authorship in that language pay, so Mr Gunnarsson now writes in Danish. Miss Berta Ruck, whose new novel, ‘ Offer of Marriage,’ appeared recently, has gone to Berlin to gain local colour for her next book. Miss Ruck’s husband is also a well-known author—Oliver Onions, whose 1 The Open Secret ’ was recently published. His real name is George Oliver. Lalla Rookh, the heroine of Thomas Moore’s poem named after her and published in 1817. was the supposed daughter, of Aurungzcbe. Emperor oi Delhi. She was betrothed to the Sultan Ahns of Lesser Bucharia, and on a journey to Cashmere fell in lovo with a young Persian poet, who turned out to be the sultan to whom she was betrothed. Dr H. R. H. Hall, keeper of the Egyptian and Assyrian antiquities at tlio British Museum, whose death is announced, was the author of numerous books ou archreology and kindred subjects. lie took part in many arclucological expeditions, and in 1919 was in charge of the excavations at Ur of tho Chaldees. Mr Denis Gwynu, who has written a book called ‘ The -Life and Death of Roger Casement,’ is a son of Mr Stephen Gwynn. Ho has had access to tho diaries left by Casement anti to all the records of tho court proceedings. Mr Gwynn is also engaged on the official biography of John Redmond.

Tho Australian Literature Society is offering a prize of £5 5s for the best ono-nct play submitted for competition, and a prize of £2 2s for the play considered next in merit. The society is also offering a prize of £3 3s for the best short story, and another of £2 2,s for the best short story by any writer who has not had a story published. A new infant prodigy is announced. Lord Lonsdale has written a preface to the life story of an Irish hunter, entitled ‘ Tally Ho,’ hy Moyra Charlton, which Messrs Putnam are publishing, with illustrations by Lionel Howard. The story was begun hy Moyra. Charlton just after her eleventh birthday, and finished thirteen months later. ‘ Dickons and Democracy ’ is the title of a new hook by Mr Cumberland Clark. It coissists of a. series of studies of the Dickens novels as tracts for tho times ho lived in, and prints from a transcript of a Dickens manuscript on ‘ The Condition of the Working Classes.' It.does not take a Very profound student of Dickens from ‘ Sketches by Hoz ’ to ‘ Our Mutual Friend ’ to realise how deeply Dickens's sympathies wore bound up with poverty and social suffering. An experiment, in which ho examined 1,000 funny stories written by London school children and 1,500 written by children in New York, was described by Dr C. W. Kimmins at the Cambridge Summer School. Dr Kimmins found that there wore more references to Dickens in the American papers than in the papers from London children. “ They love Dickens far more in America. than they do in England,” ho added.

‘ Stcinhauor, the Kaiser’s Master Spy,’ is an autobiography. He was an adopt in disguise, but, he tells us, “ one day, while down at Chatham having a look at things in general and, as I imagined, effectively disguised with a false heard, whom should I run across but William Le Qmx, who had more than a nodding acquaintance with most of the spies in Europe. He at once warned the police, and ,1 had Melville (of Scotland Yard) on my track forthwith.”

When the last mail left London sums ranging from Is to £IOO, amounting to more than £1,400, had already been received by the committee of the Sir William Watson Testimonial Fund, following the appeal issued on behalf of the oldest living English poet, who is lying ill in Bath. Among the most prized letters received from subscribers to the fund was one from a labourer who is now in receipt of the old age pension. Ho enclosed a shilling, and in his letter expressed a wish that he could have made it more. It was his tribute to a great poet whose poetry, he wrote, had helped him in his struggle with life.

‘ The Gladstone Papers,’ published by Cassell, consists of edited selections from the collection of letters and other records handed to the British Museum by Mr Henry Neville Gladstone as a gift from himself and his deceased brother, Viscount Gladstone. The editor has rescued the title, but unfortunately not the text, of a poem written by Gladstone at the age of eight years on “a most miraculous and providential escape from being killed by a madman with a hatchet.” A curious memorandum was found among the later papers; In it Gladstone says:—“ 1 do not know if it has happened to any other man to be so contemptuously or severely censured as myself by such a number of persons undoubtedly able, conspicuous, and distinguished; above all, so remarkably diversified. . . .” He subjoins a list, and adds; “Nothing, one would incline to say, could have united such a body of independent witnesses as this, except that what they said was the truth.” Afterwards he drew up another such list, of which he remarks that it is curious that it “ should not contain the name of any one of my political opponents.”- The names are, as he wrote them:—Lord Shaftesbury, Mr Fronde, Mr Carlyle, Sir Francis Doyle, Mr Swinburne, Pope Pins IX. (officially), Mr Reeky, Mr Ruskin (who altered), Dr Hook, Mr Goldwyn Smith, Lord Grey, and Archbishop Magee.