BOOKS AND BOOKMEN.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 16666, 26 September 1914, Page 7

BOOKS AND BOOKMEN.

A BOOK OF THE DAY

"An Epicure in Misery”— and Spite. F ew people. 1 am afraid, read ■Rnlwer Lytton s novels nowadays.. although some of them, notably "The Caxtons ” and " Night and Morning, ar6 wor th a good bushel of latter day novels. In his own day, however, Bulwer Lytton was a novelist whose nnnularitv at one time bade fair to challenge ■ that of Thackeray and Dickens A popular novelist, a Cabinet Minister, a recognised leader in the fashionable world, Lytton’s life ought to have been a fairly.: happy one. The fly in his ointment was his domestic happiness. Concerning this much has already been written, so much, indeed, that the somewhat sordid subject might well have been considered exhausted. This, however, is not the opinion of Mr S. M. Ellis, the editor ■ of "The Unpublished Letters of Lady Bulwer Lytton to A. E. Chalon, R.A.” (London: Eveleigh Nasli). Chalon was a famous portrait painter and was a life-long friend of the unhappy lady whose correspondence with him is now published. Bulwer Lytton, a young son and dependent mainly upon his journalistic work and novel writing, was married to Rosina Doyle Wheeler, a very beautiful Irish girl, in August 1827. The husband was but twenty-three, his wife two yea*s his senior. For the first few year's they were tolerably happy, but both were extravagant, and eventually, when Bulwer’s mother stopped her allowance, and the young couple began to realise the impossibility of living at the rate of £'3ooo a year on an income of £SOO, they began to quarrel. The husband needed quiet and solitude for liis incessant imaginative work. His wife resented his preoccupation and absences. From irritability on both sides developed an irreconcilable en.mity. The wife accused her husband of shocking physical violence, and after a' time a separation was agreed upon. Then matters would improve, the quarrel would be patched up for a while, until a new quarrel disrupted tho menage. A final and decisive separation was agreed upon in April. 1836. Henceforth, says the editor of these letters, " it was implacable hatred and a combat a outrance, and both vied in abuse and persecution of each other.” The wife then began that wandering life which lasted for some years until she finally settled down at Taunton. She was undoubtedly both a prettv and a witty woman, and it is pitiable to read of a life of such promise being wrecked. By the letters to her friend the portrait painter, it would almost seem the lady became slightly mad on the subject of her husband’s alleged cruelty and persecution. In one letter she avows herself "an epicure in misery,” hut after a perusal of this book one cannot help coming tp the conclusion that she far more truthfully merited to be called- ' ‘ an epicure in spite.” She was assuredly a past mistress of the art of “slangwhanging,” and her morbid dislike and distrust of anyone, -man or woman,, who was a friend of her husband, became in time a positive monomania. In many of the letters there is much witty, shrewd criticism of English society and the " lions ” thereof , but the dominant tone is one of sheer spitefulness. " Our Selfish Little Queen.” The fact that her husband was received at Court, despite all his wife’s pro- - tests, seems to have been the first cause of tho letter-writer’s frequent abuse of Queen Victoria. In February, 1855, she writes: —"To-day is the anniversary of our little selfish Queen’s wedding. How I wish Prince Albert would celebrate it by biting her very untempting cheek till the blood. streamed down her (as that ‘ ornament ’ to the English Cabinet, Sir Liar used to do mine), giving her a vigorous kicking into the bargain; sending her children off to Germany or elsewhere away from her ... and, above all, stealing every penny of her money which she so dotes upon ; and then, perhaps, she might have a little human, feeling for other women, which now she lias not, as lately, for appearance sake to . her vicious Hypocritical Court, she insisted upon the poor Duchess of Wellington continuing to live with her disgusting brute of a ; legal tyrant.” _ . I Elsewhere, the amiable Rosina dubs the. Queen " Prince Albert’s dumpy, idiotic-looking frau,” and says:—" How disjgusting are the daily puffs about the Queen inspecting the poor wounded soldiers from the Crimea; but you do not hear of her saying one kind word to them or of her giving them anything.” An American Portrait. The Lyttons were living in great! style when they were visited, early in 1835, by the American journalist, N. P. Willis, who wrote in the New York i “ Mirror ” :—" An . evening party at | Bulwer’s I arrived too early, and j found Mrs Bulwer whiling away an ex-! pectant hour in playing with 'a King Charles spaniel that seemed by his fondness and delight, to appreciate the excessive loveliness of his mistress. As far off as America I may express even, in print an admiration which is no heresy in London. The author of ‘ Pelham’ is a younger son, and depends on his writings for a livelihood, and truly, measuring works of fancy by what they will bring (not an unfair standard, perhaps), a glance round his luxurious and elegant rooms is worth reams of puff in the quarterlies. He lives in the heart of the fashionable quarter of London, where rents are ruinously extravagant, entertains a great deal, and is expensive in all his Habits, and for this pay Messrs Clifford", Pelham and Eugene Aram (it would seem) most ex- , cellent bankers.” j The compliment to Mrs Bulwer’s lore-, liness did not, however, prevent Lady Lytton, later on, dubbing the American "Snob Willis,” and accusing Him of having cut out of the second edition of his "Pencillings by the Way” Ml complimentary references to her; this, so the lady would have, because her husband. "Sir Lear, had a great objec-, tion to his wife noticed in print.” ! The Gore House Circle. Lady Lytton never tired of abusing! the Gore House circle, the D’Orsays and their literary and artistic friends.

TREASURES OF THE SHELVES. (By " LIBER.”) / Give a man a pipe he can smoke, Give a man a hook he can read; And his home is bright with a calm delight Though the room be poor indeed. —James Thomson.

SOME RECENT FICTION.

j "A Knight on Wheels.” lan Hay, the author of those amusing novels, "A Man’s Man,” "The Right Stuff,” and “ A Safety Match,” gives a capital story in "A Knight o-n Wheels ” (Hodder and Stoughton, per L. M. Isitt, Christchurch). Mr Hay has never created a more likeable hero than Philip Melclrum, tho orphan lad who, after living for some years with an uncle who is a professional "beggar-letter writer,” and a past, master in that doubtful art, is befriended by an eccentric but warmhearted literary man, who sends him l to a public school, and aftenvards assists him in starting a business life as a motor-car expert. Those who know Mr Hay’s earlier novels, and have delighted in his whimsical humour, will find in Uncle Joseph, the I woman-hating " beggar-letter writer,” iin Falconer the artist, and Julius Mablethoi'pe the novelist, three characters fully equal in their capacity for affording amusement to the reader to any of. their predecessors. Uncle Joseph is worthy of Dickens at his best. As for the lore story of Philip and Peggy, it is one of tho freshest and most charming that I have come across in recent fiction. " A Knight on Wheels ” will assuredly he widely popular when once its fine quality becomes recognised as it deserves to be. Mr Hay, as .an ex-public school master, is never more at homo than in liis studies of school life, and both the masters and the boys of Studiey are the real tiling. Upon tho “ways that are dark. and tricks that are vain ” of a certain class of motor-car salesmen Mr Hay is quite disconcertingly informative. But it is Uncle Joseph, tho suave, polite, well educated, resourceful and amazingly impudent old rascal, who will be best remembered of all the .many diverting characters in this admirable story. "The Lost Tribes.”

Canon Hannay, or, to give him liis better known nom de plume, “ George A.. Birmingham,’’ is, I am afraid, writing too much, and as a result his fun is nowadays just a trifle forced. Nevertheless it is impossible not t 6 laugh, and that right heartily, over j some of the incidents in his latest

For Lady Blessing ton she reserved lien choicest billingsgate. "Mo&salina Blessington ” was quite a favourite expression, the chief crime of poor Lady Blessington apparently being that she was closely associated with Lytton’.'literary friends, "tho chiefs of the clique, Sir Liar, that brute Forster, Fonblanque, Dickens, etc.” Concerning Lady Blessington she tells a story far too highly Spiced to give in this column. It is difficult to believe such •a scandalous story to be true of a lady who was received at Court, and at whose house Thackeray, Dickens, Landseer, Maclise and so many other men of decent family life, were frequent visitors. But once a woman was seen with "Sir Liar” that was enough for Lady Lytton. The unhappy "L.E.L.” (Letitia Landon) is vilified in the correspondence quite as badly as poor Lady Blessington, and Mrs S. C. Hall .8 called "that prize Ox of Periodicals.*” ‘' Pecksniff ’’ Hall. *

It has long ago beeu understood l y Dickensian? that Samuel Carter Hall, the first editor of the “ Art Journal,’ was the original of "Pecksniff,” at least so far as his unctuous style of speech was concerned. The fact that Hall knew Dickens, who was a staunch friend of Bulwer’s. was quite, enough to secure liis condemnation by Lady Lytton. “ That noodle, Hall,” she calls him, and adds on one occasion, “That man Hall, were ho not so disgusting an escroc (swindler), would be too ridiculous. At the time I knew them, Mrs Pecksniff ('Maria, my love!’) used to produce a book and a btxby every nine months, both of which were invariably buried the following week—the former in oblivion, the latter in a garden that Pecksniff then possessed, fitted with little homoepathic tombstones.” It is quite in accordance with. Lady Lytton’s fixed idea that she lived only to vilify her husband and her husband’s friends that she tells her correspondent to “remember that whatever I write to you or to anybody else, about that Infernal Clique and its Triton of the Humbugs, Sir Liar, is not private, and confidential, hut public and diffusive.” Tho last two adjectives are, I may add, underlined. An Election Episode and its Sequel.

In 18'8 Bulwer Lytton was appointed Colonial Secretary in Lord Derby’s Administration, and had in consequence to seek re-election at Hertford. Here was an opportunity which the redoubtable Rosina could not allow to pass unused. She at once made, up her mind to publicly denounce " Sir Liar ” and “Sir Coward” to the electors. She walked to the hustings, " putting the people aside with her fan, ’ and saying “My good people, make way for your member’s wife.” She addressed the crowd, abusing her husband, and the Press, drew a lurid picture of her husband’s offences, and alluded to her own wretched financial position. According to her own account the "coward” "bolted from the town and left them all in tho lurch.” Perhaps under all the circumstances it was the wisest thing he could do. The sequel to this extraordinary affair was that Bulwer Lytton was goaded into the folly of trying to have his wife declared insane. She was indeed for a few days an inmate of a private establishment for the mentally, deficient at Brentford, but public opinion backed up by the Press, the very Press the lady was always so fond of abusing, soon effected a release and she left with her son for Franco.. Unr happily the same “ incompatibility of temper ” that cursed husband and wife seems soon to have sundered mother and son. Whatever the cause, Mr Lytton suddenly left his mother at Luclion and returned to London, and the pair never met again although the mother lived for twenty-four solitary years longer. Last Years.

The last years of' the unhappy woman’s life were passed amid sordid conflicts on financial matters. She passed away in March, 1882, having survived her famous husband by nine years. According to the editor of these letters "she was the victim of malign circumstances, her nature was warped by affliction, and she never had a fair chance of happiness.” To some extent this may be true, but to me it is impossible to read the letters and come to any other conclusion than that there was a natural kink.of cantankerousness in Lady Lytton’s nature and that the husband was just as much to be pitied as to be blamed. The book, which is well printed and handsomely produced, contains several interesting portraits of Victorian celebrities mentioned in the text. (Price 12s 6d.)

story, “ The Ten Tribes ” (George Bell and Sons, per Whitcombe and Tombs), the leading character in which is a wealthy American widow, who suddenly descends upon the peaceful, not to say dull, little Galway village of Druminawonu, and soon has tho inhabitants, especially the Anglican vicar, her relative, the Rev Mr Mervyn, and the Catholic priest, ■ Father Roche, all agog with excitement over her project of “boosting” Druminawona as the homo of the Lost Ten Tribes. How the voluble Mrs Dann attempts to persuade the two clerics into supporting her project of running a Miracle Play, with tho Druminawona peasants as actors and actresses, and of "boosting” an ancient spring in the place as a "Holy Well,” tho water from which is to be bottled—with a picture of Father Roche on the labels! how she acts as a matrimonial agent to her niece and to a stupid but good-hearted Irish servant maid; how, in the long run, through failing in her Miracle Play and Holy Well projects, she conquers even tho all-powerful Catholic bishop—all these and many other curious and amusing happenings at Druminawona are narrated by the author with all the old vim and some at least, if not all, the old spontaneous humour which won so wide a public for “Spanish Gold,” "General O’Regan” and other of George A. Birmingham’s earlier stories. “ Tho Lost Tribes n is good fun all through, .and between the lines there is much shrewd comment upon Irish questions and problems of the day. , Two New " Americans.” Two readable' American novels, recently published by L. C. PGge and Co., Boston (Christchurch, Gordon and Gotch), are “The Rose of Roses,” ty Mrs Henrv Backus, and "Miss Madolyn Mack. Detective,” by Hugh C. Weir. The heroine of Mrs Backus’s story, Toni Kroger, is a German girl (whose mother was English), who- is a. Kaffeehaus singer in Bremen. There she attracts the attention of a young architect, of German birth, who is on a visit from New York. Ho pities tho girl and pays her passage to America. Her equivocal position as Conrad Questenberg’s' “ companion ” might have led to evil, but he girl finds a. ptauneh; friend in ait honest old German pastbr. who is travelling by the same boat adn who discovers that'his own son, Philip, now dead, had been engaged to Toni, but that the girl, fearing the young man’s clerical career might be ruined by his marriage, had broken off the match. The good-hearted minister constitutes himself the girl’s guardian, andthe story ends with her marriage, to Questenberg. The chief attracion of tlie story lies in its pictures of German family'life. Tho lady detective is by this tim© no novelty in latter-day fiction, bub Mr H. O. Weir must at least . bej credited with displaying some originality in the class of crimes, the perpetrators of which are hunted down so promptly and so cle.verly.by his heroine. A lady reporter on a New York daily acts as a "Mr Watson ” to the feminine prototype of Sherlock Holmes. One of the stories, " Tho Missing Bridegroom.” is reminiscent of one of Do Boisgobey’s clever yarns in the _ same style, but the American story is far crisper in tlie manner of its telling*. Those who take delight in " detective ” fiction should he more than satisfied with Mr Weir’s book.

" Captivating Mary Carstairs.” Let it be said at once that although Mr Henry Snyder Harrison’s novel, " Captivating Mary Carstairs,” (Small, Maynard and Co.; per George Robertson and Co.), is hardly up to the standard of the same author’s "V.V.’tJ Eyes,” and still less to the high-water mark of that excellent novel, " Queed,” it is a lively, amusing effort, which is decidedly worth reading. The novel was first published, pseudonymously, in February, 1911, although planned as far back as 1901. It describes the adventures of live young. New Yorkers, men of means and leisure, who go up the Hudson River to a small country town on the hazardous mission of " captivating ” or kidnapping a young and pretty girl, whose father has long been separated from her mother, and whoi lias been denied access to. the daughter, for whose affection he pines. Incidentally, the two adventurers find themselves entangled in a struggle which is going on in the little riverside town between a "graft” party and some, would-be reformers, and the story rapidly develops into the record of a series of exciting incidents, in which Miss Carstairs sometimes plays quite a secondary part. The plot is complicated by one of the adventurous pair of “ kidnappers ” falling desperately in love with the young lady upon whose person he has had designs, and' a second, and for a time most mysterious, influence is that of an old gentleman, who outwits tho "kidnappers ” and eventually turns out to be the girl’s own father.. Tho conclusion is all that the most romantic loving reader could desire it to he. The, story goes with a swing from first -tot last of its three hundred and odd pages, and manes very good reading.

"Wild Justice.”' F ranees Clare’s "Wild Justice” (Andrew Melrose, pal' George Robertson and Co.) is a story whicn leaves a somewhat unpleasant flavour on the palate. It deals with the love story of Antony Bellairs, an ex-politician, who, upon inheriting a valuable pro-

party in Ireland, has retired from parliamentary life, and a. young Irish girl, Paula Markham. Bel lairs is a married man, a fact which has not prevented the handsome and unprincipled Countess of Ckell falling in love with him, and him with her, and later on is equally ineffective in cheeking his deep passion for Paula. The Countess is sep aside, and the scorned woman, by the aid of a rascally Anglo-Indian officer ,learns of a scandal in poor Paula’s life and makes it known. • Exactly how the story ends I will .not'say, save that both Antony and Paula deny themselves the happiness which the man at last considers should be theirs. The fates are against poor Paula all through, but more than one reader of the story will agree with me that Mrs Bellairs is deserving of much more pity than apparently the author is inclined to show her. “The Marriage Contract.” A recent addition to Hutchinson’s Colonial Library (per Whitcombe and Tombs) is “ The Marriage Contract,” by Joseph Keating, which deals very frankly and very cleverly with the problem of .whether the husband of a deeply erring—a deliberately unfaithful wife—a husband who refuses to turn away the sinner from' his house, is compelled to forgive her everything. Delia Quest behaves abominably to her husband, a Welsh land and coalmine owner, and certainly deserves to bo divorced. The husband, however, allows her to remain in his house, but treats her as a stranger. To all her pleadings he remains deaf, and finally the sinner attempts to take her own lifo and that of lieC child. The husband then comes to the rescue, and forgives. The story is one which will provide much discussion. English Country Life.

Two new stories of English country \ life, recently added to Hutchinson’s . Colonial Library (per Whitcombe and Tombs) are “ The Bale Fire,” by Mrs 1 Hugh Fraser and Hugh Fraser, .and , “Tansy,” by Tickner Edwards. The , first-named story has for chief figure . the young wife of an elderly country gentleman who, becoming involved in : financial troubles unknown to her hus- [. band, is blackmailed by a rascally fellow, but is saved from moral and social ruin by a kindly American Senator and his sensible,, good-heart-ed daughter. A readable if hardly a , notable novel. , Mr Edwards, the author tf • “ Tansy,” will be remembered as the ■ writer of that pretty story of English \ south country life, “The Honey ' Star.” In “Tansy” ho takes us again to the South Downs beloved of i Kipling and Hilairo Belloc, and i gives us a well written story of country life, in which a shepherd plays a s leading part. The heroine, a woman • of great strength of character, is built somewhat on the linos of some ; of Thomas Hardy’s figures. The whole story is replete with a quiet, convinc- • ing charm. As an observer and i chronicler of the simple, unconventional life of the Sussex village folk, 1 Mr Edwards has to-day no equal. ; ABOUT INSECTS. ■ Insects have never received as much attention .from human beings as they . are receiving now. The microscope and the camera have brought people into close acquaintance with these i little creatures of the field the i “ childrc)n of the summer,” as the • poet calls them—and publications dealing with their life histories seem to be I without number. One of the latest is • “Marvels of Insect Life,” a largo : publication in twenty-five parts. Part ■ 111., which has been forwarded to this i office, if it may be taken as a. fair sample, shows that the object is to supply popular accounts of different members of the natural order in which insects have been placed. Evidently special attention lias been paid to the surprising characteristics of the species dealt with, but in some-cases the life histories from the eggs to the emergence of the imago, or perfect insect, are recorded. A good deal of space is given to the interesting spider-hunting wasps and their attacks on spiders. The daddy longlegs, which is _ familiar to ( every child, also receives much attention. No New' Zealand insects are included in the list.- A somewhat serious defect in .the scheme of production is the fact that this part both begins and ends in the middle of a sentence, making it doubly incomplete in itself. There are many illustrations. Some of these are good photographs and sketches, but they have not been reproduced as well as illustrations in recent works published in this Dominion. As each part is offered to the public at 7d, however, it is hardly fair to expect as good workmanship as in a more expensive publication. (London, Hutchinson and Co.; Christchurch, Whitcombe and Tombs.) “ STEAD’S REVIEW.” The “Review of Reviews” appears this month under the new name .of ‘ ‘ Stead’s Review'. ” This m agazine was founded by the late Mr W. T. Stead. His son, Mr Henry Stead, who has charge of the Australasian edition, considers that the time has come to indicate the nationalising of the “ Review ” by giving it a new' name. Several new features are to start with an early number, hut the present one is naturally largely devoted to articles dealing ivith the War. “The Menace of the Zeppelin discusses the possibilities of the existence of a great German air fleet. Another article points out that Australia will have to find no less than £11,000,000 more this year than last, and asks how this huge amount is’to be raised. A description is given of the work of the Red Cross, and it is shown how private endeavour assists the ipilitary authorities in caring for the wounded. Herbert Brookes strongly disapproves the issue of paper money to meet the financial needs of the States, and sets forth his reasons in a paper entitled “ Federal Finance.” Kaleidoscopic Europe tells, in .map and story, of the great changes in Europe since the tenth century. A summary of the events of the _ Franco-German w r ar of 1870-71 makes informing reading.