The Book Shelf

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XX, Issue 162, 28 June 1930, Page 9

The Book Shelf

THE FOREST OF FONTAINBLEAU There are no birds in the forest of Fontainebleau, Wingless and songless the miles of the slim, dim trees; Down, far down, the charcoal waters filter and flow— But the doings of kings and queens are deeper than these. They are vanished, vanished for ever, the foolish, the beautiful dears Who laughed an empire down from behind a fan, Who lightly flung their blossoms of beauty down the years Or minuetted the dirge of a mountain clan. They are vanished, vanished forever, the brave, preposterous kings, Who tapestried rooms, and gilded the chambers of time With brilliance of battle, turned roundel or sonnet in duellings. Blew fortunes away in bubbles, and died in a rhyme. < —Geoffrey Johnson, in the Nation find Atheneum. WORDS Words are like the little streams That seek the calling sea, Resounding down the shores of Time, Unbridled, swift and free. No mortal power stays their course, Nor turns their force aside As day by day they take their way To swell the heaving tide. The bitter words of discontent, The words of angry scorn, Sweep down to that dark sea of gloom Where pain and strife are bom. The thoughtless phrases of the day That fall from careless lips Are. ruinous as mighty seas That founder valiant ships. Bnt like the song of silver streams The kindly words we say Pass down into a golden shore And gladden all the wav. Unceasing in their fruitful quest They lift the heart with cheer, And with a radiance divine Cast beauty far and near! —H. Reginald Hardy. THE KITTENS’ BREAKFAST She slides around my ankles, smooth and sleep, A gray fur body of affection meek. With appetite my breakfast tray she sees, Looks un at me and leaps upon my knees, Her purr unthinkably intense, Waiting her recompense, “Is Kitty hungry ?” Now expectantly She sees me break the bread, waiting obediently, A soft .vibrating statue on my knee. I hold the small blue saucer out to her And watch her feast, continuing the purr. “How do you do. it, Kitty, bite and chew And kw that velvet rolling running too?” Now for the milk. At each wee lap The bobbing saucer gives my knee a tap. ' “Still hungry?” Liking much to feed Out of my hand, as if it soothed her need I give her bready crumbs from it—and more— Then place her curling body on the floor • From which she gazes up upon me still, Epitome of mute good will. —Florence Anderson ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ MAKING LIFE CHEAP Dean Inge, preaching at St. Stephen’s Church, London, criticised the tendency of popular authors to give a false conception of human nature in these modern times. “To-day.’’ he said, “nearly all the writers who are most popular give us a verv grey world, plenty of sordid lite, and mean conduct. These are described without indignation, as if human nature were just like that. “There is no nobility about any of their characters. The whole effect is that of a much poorer thing than real life as most of us know it. Re have been unfortunate if we have not known in our own experiences more noble characters than can be gathered from all the works of our most popular novelists. . “Tile effect of much modern writing must be.” he continued, “to make young readers hold themselves and other people cheap. That is one of the worst dis-services which we can give to ourselves’and each other. “Human nature is capable of rising to great heights of feeling and sinking to terrible depths, but it is not truly painted in grey drab colours.” ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ THE PREMIER AND BOOKS “You can own much and possess nothing. Many a pauper with the indefinable nualitv of taste is far richer than the peonle who own the greatest amount of things.” said Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, nt Manchester. “It is a problem of use.. A book is paper, printing binding. You must bring to it the touch of the vital mind. A library not used with appreciation and taste is a charnel house, and books merely arranged in rows on shelves nro like the coffins of distinguished families placed in their shells in vaults. “Money has never yet been wasted on libraries. A hook is like the widow's cruse of- oil; von dip into it again and again. tind the contents remain exactly what they were. Investment in books is a capital investment, the capit.nl of which never undergoes wa*tug« fi

THE M.P.’s ILLUSTRATION “We are bound to prop up the social fabric while rebuilding is taking place,” writes Dr. Salter, M.P. “The illustration I use to my own people in Bermondsey is that of the reconstruction of the borough electric fighting station. “This generating station was old and unsatisfactory, and its equipment was hopelessly out of date. The building needed replacement and the machinery required to be ‘transformed’ to a different type. “Yet all this work had to he carried out without interference for one moment, dav or night, with the supply of current to the houses and factories of the district. “Anv stoppage would have meant grave disturbance of the industry and life of the area. While some walls of the station were being demolished, others were strutted and shored and supported for the time being. So with the reconstruction of the social system. So with parliamentary legislation dealing therewith.” ♦ ♦ * * BARRIE AND WOMEN Sir James Barrie celebrated his 70th. birthday by presiding over the 140th anniversary dinner of the Royal Literary* Fund. His speech was widely reported, but the following on his women characters, when other authors’ “Jills’’ are remembered, is significant just now when unnecessarily unpleasant books are being discussed. Sir James said:— “I am not bringing any charge against women in general—ladies, how could your godfather do that? it is at most a charge against 70 of them, the 70 women, yes. and children and fairies, who between them have done tor me by coming into niy works absolutely uninvited and giving themselves qualities the very opposite of those with which I had labeded them. “That is surely the most comic word in an author’s vocabulary. The heroine, of course, is the worst one. Very obedient until she gets into your, book, but you are a lucky writer if in a week thereafter you know her by sight. You may have taken the greatest pains with the woman, and then find her being quite civil to her father “It’s heart-breaking. You meant ter to be a real woman. Those were the women in my note-books, stem exposures of themselves, Jill tho Rippers. It would iscarify you to hear what I intendecniny Jills to divulge about their rhythms. But did they do it? No; they disregarded me and remained—respectable. ’ ’ BARRIE'S FIRST LODGINGS. Later Sir James gave tho following reminiscence:— “I searched out the first lodgings I had ever had in London —in Bloomsbury, at this corner. No. 6. I even found my old table there and the hole my feet hadi made in the matting. There once more I settled down in the old blissful way to fight it out with the stars. I think the days and nights that followed were the happiest of my life, except, perhaps, the other days and nights I had spent in the same place. “You know the feeling — so many of you dears know it. The shabby room, as the night advances. becoming smaller and hazier and kindlier, the inkpot hoping to goodness it won’t give out, the candle stealing closer to help your poor eyes, all of them on your side, all peening at your pages and whispering. ‘You are doing it this time—listen to the nightingale,’ and all readv to drop a lodging-house tear when it turns out to be a sparrow in the morning.” * ♦ ♦ * IN OTHER WORDS—“Break Glass. Pull Knot). Wait Engine,” is a glorious example of plain speaking,” writes Mr. H. T. Stretton in the “Times.” “Your in-come-tax clerk would probably have worded it thus:— “ ‘ln the event of information having come to the knowledge of any person or persons with regard to a fire having broken out, or in any way lieing, according to such information, said or thought to have broken out, the person, or persons, to whom such information shall have or may have come, shall summon the assistance of a fire engine by pulling the knob, .said person or persons having broken the glass through which said knob may be observed but the existence of which unbroken presents an obstacle to the pulling thereof, the latter action to take place subsequently and in no case previously to the farmer, whereupon, and as a result thereof, the fire engine thus summoned by the action or series of actions on the part of the person or persons aforementioned, shall be awaited by tfie said person or persons whose action it was, and by no other, at or near the spot where the action or actions before described as having caused or having been intended to cause the arrival of tho tire engine were carried out or otherwise executed, and in no ease elsewhere, such waiting to be subsequent to and not in advance of said action or actions.’ “This is not funny. Hundreds of men are engaged in this species of circumlocution and millions of others are paying for it—through the nose.” TWO CRICKET PARODIES

“Other and larger minds might have found inspiration in the. day and the scene,” writes “Cricketer.” “How for example, would Thomas fe’-irdy ’-avo treated a great cricket

match? Perhaps Hardy's account would have been in the following strain

“The place. Old Trafford, was one of those sequestered spots where may usually be found more meditation than action, and, not infrequently, more listlessness than meditation. Dipper and Sinfield, as they went out to bat, had no remarks to make to each other, and they uttered none. “Hardly anything could be more isolated or more self-contained than the lives of these two, walking here in the lonely hour of noon, when grey shades, material and mental, are so very grev. And yet their lonely courses formed no detached design at all; they were part of the pattern in the great web woven bv the law o; averages then and always controlling the goings-in and comingsout of all mortal cricketers in both hemispheres. “Or .perhaps George Meredith could halve risen sujierior to my barren theme:— “Hammond, leg-before-wicket?— has anbody ever noticed that he has a leg? Usually the leg of tho modern batsman is ever before you. obscure it as you will, dressed degenerately in pads of breadth and length, inordinate unvaried length, sheer longinquity staggering the heart, ageing the very heart of the bowler at a view. Most cricketers have their legs, we have to admit. But what are they? “Not the modulated instrument we mean—simply legs for leg-work, legs of an Emmott Robinson. Our cavalier’s leg—our Hammond's —is the poetic leg, a valianee, a leg with brains in it, soul. Yet he was ‘legbefore.’ traduced by a trick they ken of at Sheffield. ... “Poor playthings of parodies, maybe, but they have landed me to the end of my column I” * * * * SOME BALDWIN PHILOSOPHY Mr. Stanley Baldwin, the exPremie’r, had a notable day when ho delivered an oration on the occasioif of his installation as Chancellor of St. Andrew’s University. Amongst other things, Mr. Baldwin said:— “Can we not say that knowledge is relative in this respect, that alleged facts tend to be displaced and disproved by tho emergence of new facts, wlkereas wisdom, which is of the spirit, and is indeed itself the spirit in which knowledge is applied, is absolute ? “Knowledge is the acquisition of tho Hows and Whys of things, and therefore is apt to be unrelated. Wisdom in herself is continuity. As so oftei happens, you have an eternal truth in an old saw, ‘Knowledge comes, but Wisdom lingers.’ “You may have vast knowledge but little wisdom, as you may have much wisdom but little knowledge. Wisdom is hard tc detine, but you are always awara of it when you find it. and vou instinctively stand hat in hand before it. ‘Knowledge and cleverness (I am never very clear as to the meaning of that word) interest and amuse, but who does not know the thrill with which you chance from time to time on one or two lines, perhaps some half-dozen words, by some singer three thousand years ago, how thev strike 1 back across thn ages with all tho wisdom nf mankind learned by sweat and blood when Earth was young. THE CORRECTIVE OF WISDOM. “Pray above all things to be delivered from that surfeit of more knowledge which in the conduct of affairs entrusted to us and in the ordering of our inner lives brings unfaith and confusion. Let us correct tho irreverence of mere knowledge by the innate decency ot wisdom. “I suppose it is natural when an elderly man attempts to point out the road to those who come after that he is apt to urge on them the practice of those virtues in which ho himself is most conscious of his own deficiency. The essential virtue, if you are to make anything of your life, is Diligence; it does not matter what word you choose if you understand what you mean by it. Concentrhtion, industiy, hard work are all synonymous. or, if you like to draw on the vocabulary of the street, ‘plugging’ or ‘sticking it’ will give you the essential meaning with less elegance but more vigour. “Diligence seems so commonplace that when wo see a great accomplishment of learning, of discovery, in statesmanship, in what you will, we are always inclined to attribute it to genius, to good fortune, to any thing and everything except that very power of concentration and continuous work which is its very foundation. And this belief is sometimes fostered by a human weakness not unknown amongst those who have dazzled the eyes of their own contemporaries. “There is a temptation to make men believe that your success is due less to that capacity efor work which is to be found in eveij position of life than to some innate superiority which has predestined you from the beginning to do, in a fit of absence of mind, as it were, what can only he accomplished by others, if indeed it can be accomplished at nil, by the unceasing labour of a lifetime. THE ULTIMATE TEST. “There is one unfailing source to which wo can go when we want truth, common sense, wisdom. Let mo remind you of Dr. Johnson’s answer to Bogwell on the subject we are considering. They were speaking of literary composition, and Boswell asked him very naturally whether one should wait for the favourable moment. for the afflatus, before beginning to write. ‘No, sir,’ said Johnson, ‘ho should sit down doggedly.’ And that is how all the work best worth doing has been and will be done. There are no short cuts. “The life of the mind is a search .for truth and a conflict with error. Error is external, hut also — and this is more dangerous—internal. Tn the acquisition of truth, error ha's to bo discovered and expelled. THE STRAIT AND NARROW WAY “Tho difference between the trained and the untrained mind should show itself in the capacity to discover error in however specious a guise it may present itself, to look for it in the least suspected lurkingplaces, and to find truth independently bv the use of our own faculties. This is the strait and narrow way to wisdom which many seek but not all find.”