IN BOOKLAND

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 28 August 1926, Page 18

IN BOOKLAND

From “l’oems” by Mr Vernon Knowles: — Into the wide-thrown arms of Night The passionate sun has leapt to rest'. . 0 slender, silver, secret one! Here arc my arms/and here my breast. What need has Love to call and call? Surely there works a special sense That tells the loved the lover waits And turns all to magnificence? This is the moment! Where are you? Deepens the dusk: immense in size The wakened peacock of the night Spreads out his tail of silver eyes. New Beauty walks abroad the ways; But what is Beauty rill you come? Beauty will bow down at your feet And song itself, ashamed, be dumb.

Admirers of Sir Rider Haggard’s stirring tales have been gratified to learn that the novel by him, “Treasure of the Lake,” now announced for posthumous publication, tells more about the adventures of Allen Quartermain and his Hottentot servant, Hans, in the forests of Central Africa. . The story was written many years ago. * # «s if if That prolific novelist, Mr. Si'ias K. Hocking, in his 77tli year, has a new novel in hand. He has .stipulated with his publishers that it shall be completed at leisure. * * * * “My Life and Times,” by Mr. Jerome. K. Jerome, is announced by Hodtier and Stoughton. Mr. Jerome, who began life as an actor; gives a picture of the London of GO years ago. • * * * * * ■ nTr. Owen Rutter has been engaged in what lie calls “the gentle pastime of dog hunting in English verse.” The result is “Dog Days,” a collection oi verses which “have been selected because they are dog poems, not because they are poetry.” There are many poems expressing a sure and certain hope of an eternal resurrection of favourites. One reads: I think old Charon punting through the dark Will hear a sudden firiendly: little bark; And on the shore he’ll mark without a frown A flap-eared doggie bandy-legged and brown He’ll take- you in, since watermen are kind. He’d scorn to leave my little dog behind.

Great changes are taking place in the “Doone” country and Oare parish, immortalised by R. D. Blackmore in iiis Exmoor romance, “Lorna Doone ’ (savs a Daily News writer). • Lorna Docme’s farm at Malmesmead, which us visited annually by thousands of tourists,, including many Americans, is being offered for sale owing to the breaking up of the Oare estate Oare Manor, of which “girt Jan Ridel” was overseer, and, as the book. adds, well able to write his name, lias already been sold, the pmrehaser being .Col. R. E. Negus" The desolate Doone Valley, which was the rocky stronghold of . the outlaw Doolies, is also to be sold, together with Bagworthy waterslide. The Devon and Somerset ~ Staghounds are raising a fund to enable them to purchase some of this land.

Queen Elizabeth, who is usually unpopular to-day, both in history arid in fiction, was an. expensive guest. Sir Charles Oman makes this clear in his “Castles,” a new book descriptive of 8p castles in the British Isles. The Queen presented Kenilworth Castle to her favourite, Dudley Earl of Leicester. On one occasion : The Queen stopped 19 days in the castle, and the mere maintenance oi the establishment is said to have 'Cost Leicester £IOOO a. day. There was one. continual round of masques, plays, tilting. athletic sports, morris dancing, State ceremonies, and miscellaneous pageantry. Elizabeth had ail the flattery she could desire. At her entrance aloiig the narorw road across the dam she was saluted bv the Lady of the Lake standing with attendant nymphs on a floating island, and Mrs. Apollo. Neptune, and Bacchus gave her appropriate gifts. On. later days she was diverted by dances of “salvage ua en , ’ fireworks, Italian tumblers, Latin orations, bear-baiting, and a play on the not very cheerful subject of the massacre of” the Danes on the day of St. Brice in 1002. Altogether Leicester was supposed to have spent the sum, incredible in his time, of £IOO,OOO on these 19 days of various delights.

Air. W Orton Tewson, in the New York livening Post, tells a diverting story of Gabriel d’Auuunzio. The Italian poet, it seems, had a goldfish for a pet, and he grew very much attached to 7t. Having to leave home for a time, lie asked a friend to look after the goldfish during his absence. The friend agreed. Unluckily, the fish, died suddenly, and was thrown out with the garbage. Several days later the keeper of the goldfish received a telegram from the poet inquiring after the health and welfare of the goldfish, and adding that he (d’Anmmzib) had a premonition that all might not be well with his pet. A reply was sent to the effect that the fish had just given up the ghost, or whatever it is that goldfish give up. Back came another message that a special casket be made to hold the pet’s remains, and that it he interred at a certain spot near a favourite tree. The goldfish was goodness only knows where by that tiyie—certainly past recovery. Not wishing to cause the poet unnecessary pain, tlie friend, in desperation, procured a sardine, had a casket made, buried the sardine at the .spot indicated by the poet, and put up a marker to its memory, all in keeping with d’Antiunzio’s instructions. In due season the poet returned home. There was a sad meeting between him and his friend. After the details of the pet’s death and burial had been recited, a pilgrimage to the grave was made. Upon reaching the spot d’Anti unzio, much moved, prostrated himself and kissed the earth that covered the —sardine. Then lie delivered an elegy . * * * * *

Mr. Richard de. Gallienne. in hie book “The Romantic ’9o’s,” sketches a scene which was witnessed daily in a Christiania cafe: Punctually on the stroke of one, there entering the doorway was the dour and bristliiijr presence known to all the world in caricature—caricatures which were no exaggeration, hut, as in the case of Swinburne, just the man himself. The great ruff df- white whisker, ferociously standing out all round, his sallow, bilious face, as if dangerously charged with electricity f the immaculate silk hat, the white tie, the frock-coated martinet’s figure, dressed from ton to toe in old-fashioned black broadcloth, at once funereal and professional, the trousers concertinaed, apparently with dandiacal design, at the ankles, over this highly polished

hoots, the carefully- folded umbrella, all was there apparitionally visible before me; a forbidding, disgruntled, tight-lipped presence, starchily dignified, straight as a ramrod; there he vas, with a. touch, as I hinted, of grim dandyism about him, but with no touch of human kindness about his parchment skin or small, fierce badger eyes. He might have been a Scotch elder entering the kirk. As he entered, and proceeded with precision tread to the table reserved in perpetuity for him, and which no one else would have dreamed of occupying, a thing new and delightful—to me, a mere Anglo-Saxon —suddenly happened. As one man, the whole cafe was on its feet in an attitude of salute, and a stranger standing near me, who evidently spoke English and recognised my nationality, said to me in a loud but reverent aside, “Thai; is our great poet, Henrik Ibsen.” # / * * * *

Mr. Rudyard Kipling recently returned to England from the south of France, where he spent the winter, bringing with him the manuscript of a new book, “Debits and Credits,” which will be published sometime in September. It will contain seventeen poems hitherto unpublished in book form and a number of stories. Among the poems included are “The Changelings,” “The Vineyard,” “Late Came the God, ’ and “The Supports.”