IN BOOKLAND

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 22 January 1927, Page 18

IN BOOKLAND

Wbon “Anatolo France on i’untouJties,” by .1. ,J. isrousson, was. publisher lasi .sear certain passages* were omitted. These are now included in

"Anatoie Trance and Mrs. Urunoy,' a pampnlet by John Pollock, just plion-sued by t..te cay me Press, L<muon.

Miss j{. M. Garnett, in her ‘•♦Samuel But.er and His Family quotes from a journal kept by Butlei s sister May: Then to see the old aunt ol' 93, so innrrn, so blind, so deaf and helpiess, and yet s-o alive. Her interest in Mr. Gladstone- ana his sufferings mid been so great tnat it became quite an anxiety lest it .should be too much for „er. Jo me s>he said (knowing that 1 had been biought up with,Conservative tendencies), “My dear, i am almost afraid to ask you, but von were sorry ior Air. Gladstone, weren't you!- 1 You cio feei we have lost a great man.-' i am so afraid that you tnink more tnat lie cud some wrong things.'’ Having reassured her, sue said, “1 think oi nixn most of all its a great Christian man —a great churchman also, but Christian before all. 1 am so glad that i have always been so iond ©» nis tivmn, 'Bock o-f Ages.’ • * * * *

Mr. M. A. Noble, who recently wrote ‘The Game’s the Tning,” has. just completed an account of the Australian tour of 1926, which Cassell s, will have ieady early thie year, under the title of -Those Ashes: the Australian Tour of 1926.”

The Chief Librarian at Leeds reports a revival .of interests in poetry and the drama. Among recent poets Walter de la Mare is in greatest demand, closely followed by 3. E. 'decker, J. C. Squire, and Lascelles Abercrombie.

Mr. Frank Bose, :M.l\, for fifty years a member the Engineers Trade Union and author of ‘‘Our Industrial Jungle,” is an authority’ ou folk lore, especially that of Lancashire. Tnirty years a working engineer, three n years a journalist, he went back to his bench during the war.

Benvenuto Cellini is thus described by Mr. Henry Wilson in his_ introduction of Dent’s recent publication of the life of the great Florentine artist : •‘Lawless beyond belief, he invokes the law in his own defence. Contemptuous of the rights of others, he is a stickler for his own. Clever as a bag full of monkeys, he :is- often unconsciously stupid. Innocent- as a wondering child and a remorseless murderer. ... A gross materialist yet full of superstition. Full of piety and religion und vet revengeful.” * * * *

In ‘‘The Map that is Half-unrolled” (Long), Mr. Alex. E. Powell describes how great is the use of the di uni in Central Africa. For the native it is “a gramophone, an orchestra, a radio, a teiegraph, a telephone in one.” The drums spread news with almost miraeu. ioii s celerity. Belgian victories in German East Africa “were common gossip among the natives in the market places of every river town before they were known to the Governor-General at Boma.” The native drum, indeed, was the iast sound that the author heard when he left that Dark Continent towards which year after year ue is so persistently lured.

Father Ronald Knox contributes uu introduction to a history of the Inqui sition, “from its- establishment to the great schism,” which Constable announces. The author is Mr. A. L. Maycock, who discusses mediaeval heresy and the methods adopted to combat its propagation. Heresy was both a crime in the eyes of the estate and a sin in the eyes of the Church. Consequently there* grew up, on the one hand, a great system of secular legislation which prescribed death as the legai punishment for heresy, and, on the otner hand, an ecclesiastical tribunal —the Inquisition, whose function was to determine what was heresy and who was heretical. “The Inquisition,” says Mr. Mayoock, “was one of the most interesting phenomena in history—l have attempted to make it not only interesting but intelligible.”

Mr. William M’Fee was a chief engineer in the Cunard service. He is now an American citizen. Mr. M’Tee is the author of some fine novels and essays, has been in London studying at the British Museum the subject of Frobisher, on whom he is to write for the “Golden Hind” series of monographs on great discoverers, now being edited by Mr. Milton Waidman. Headers or Christopher Morley will remember. that that writer has a great arlmi ration of the work of M‘Feo.

Mr. Thomas A. Watson, who was associated with Alexander Graham .Bell in the invention of the telephone, ban had published “Exploring Life,” by Messrs. Appleton. Mr. Watson tells of the many trials and difficulties which had to be overcome before this invention could be launched. Incidentally he ielates his experiences as a shipbuilder, and, by way of contrast, as an actor in Frank R. Benson’s Shakespearian company, with whom he travelled through England

This extract from Mr. W. Jacobs’s “Sen Whispers” might be said to be the theme of Lear reduced to its lowest terms: “You can’t lern people, it ain’t to lie done. Even experience don’t lern people. One chap I‘ know used to save ’is money in a little tin money-box. The box was so full of sixpences he was thinking of getting another, when ’is wife’s brother lost ’is job, and didn’t get another .till the box' was empty. He’s saving up agin now for wot 'e calls a rainy day. He’ll get it all right, and somebody else’ii tot the money.’

Major F. E. Yerney writes at length in his H.K.H.: A Character Study of t’-e Prince of Wales,” 0a the sin ; n the Prince’s fondness for dancing. He says : “The Prince has a penchant for dancing, but no passion for it. Intrinsically, it leaves him cold. The human contiguity of the dance floor, however, its utter informality, and its lighthearted inconsequence attract him. Modern dancing supplies a physi-al and mental demand arising out of the strain of his work and the nature of iii.s daily life. Normally his nervous system i- so constantly on the stretch that it has become nearly a physical impossibility for him to enjoy an evening of ina tion. To relax fully lie must do something. . . . One hears an awful lot of chat about the Prince’s keeness for dancing pitched sometimes on a note of disapproval. . . . Tt is my h-one.st opinion that the Prince’s penchant for dancing i-s one of his rent assets in fulfilment of his duties 10 the British Constitution. It enables him to meet and mix with ail classes of iris father’# subjects, of both sexes, on an ordinary human footing, in a uersonal contact which is not possible hv any other means that would leave the respect for his office unimpaired. It establishes a link of mutual understanding, the power of which is diffi-

cult to estimate. , . ~ Hall _ a dozen dances in a district inspire more honest affection for the Prince, and all that -he stands for in the common im agination, than do fifty speeches.”

“The Englishman is all right ashmgas he is content to lie what God made aim, an Englishman, hut gets into trouble when he tries to he something eise. ...There is no nation on earth that has had the same knack of producing geniuses. ... It is that power omaking homes, almost peculiar to out people, and it is one of the sources oi this greatness. They go overseas, am. they take with them what they learned at Home: love 01 justice, love of truth, and the broad humanity that is characteristic of English people.’ - Mr. Stanley Baldwin, in his hook “On England,” * * * *

••High” (.says an exchange) is an, m.ciesting instance of the economical ,vay in which vve use the same word to serve a dozen different purposes. ll can be used with quite distinct meanings—of a- building, a nobleman, a. fish, a church, a crime, a tea, a polish, a musical note: we can speak of high spirits, high feeding, high explosives, •ven (whatever it may mean) highfalutin. Surely an accommodating word!