IN THE LIBRARY

Northern Advocate, 24 September 1927, Page 9

IN THE LIBRARY

THE IMMORTALS. I One of the oldest sermons in the ] world spares a sentence or two in its | exposition of the vanity of all things i to arraign the injustice of fame. The subject has always been a favourite with critical and humorous minds. It has now been laid'upon Miss Mary Borden (says the London “Daily Telegraph”) to develop it in a new and disconcerting way. We have been educated to respect the authors whose-renders are high of brow, to smile at those who please tho million. Miss Mary Borden—and her manner must be called pugnacious—has no sympathy with tho literary snob who! spreads the tradition that what is' popular cannot be literature. But this is not stating the case of those who distrust the popular verdict' quite fairly. The point they take is that the popularity of a book is little or no evidence of its literary merit. This Miss Borden will find it very difficult to deny. Martin Tapper was enormous ly popular. Mrs Henry Wood sold her tens of thousands. But no future will ever believe that these most respectable authors wrote literature. It is none the less true that a best seller may be a good book. \ FASHIONS IN FAME. Scott and Dickens sold like hot cakes. Neither was ever in the best .repute among the highbrows. This may be interpreted as an argument for the suggestion with which Miss Miss Borden tries to make the flesh of* culture creep. ‘‘How do we -know that when our bones are dust P. G. Wodehpuse may not be accepted as the amusing humorist of the twentieth century, giving more pleasure than Hilaire Belloc or G. B. Shaw?” A suspicion is in our minds that neither Mr Shaw nor Mr Belloc would like to be classified as an amusing humorist; but we feel sure that Miss Borden intended no guile. We do not pretend ta guess what posterity will think of those eminemt men, but precedent suggests that it will not take them at ..their own rvaluation. There is no law of probabilities in literary fame. A man may be a mighty influence in his own day and but little accounted of in the next. How long is it since Buskin was the inspiration of aspiring youth? Our young intellectuals have never read him. There are men not yet in their dotage who took Carlyle for a seer. He seems to say nothing to the rising generation. The time was when it was the mafk of the highest brow : to bow down before Meredith. No young person in the movement now would admit the possibility of reading him. To be sure, there is nothing of author* ity in these revised judgments. The .first, impressions may have been, fight after all. There are fashions in fame. But. upon the great problem whether Mr Wodehouse or Mr Belloc or Mr Shaw is the true immortal our speculations throw no light. “I •shall dine late,” said Landor, “but the company will b(? of the best.” But his popular contemporaries still have the greater honour.

LITEIfARX NOTES. i - Gaston Lcipux, the French novelist, left a story which John Long is to publish in English, under the title, “The Son of Three Fathers.” • * • • The poems of Anne Qountess of Winehilsea, originally published in 1713, have been edited by Middleton Murray for re-issue by Jonathan Cape. * # * ♦ Mrs. Alfred Sidgwiek, whose “Sack and Sugar” was a successful novel of the autumn, has just finished a new one which Collins publishes. The theme, the atmosphere, and the treatment were all suggested to her by a single sentence in one of Mr Wells’ books. She disagreed Avith this sentence, began to think over the reasons and consequences of her disagreement, and so the story grew and came to be written. The scene of it is Cornwall. * . • m., Sir Edmund Gosse has a new volume of literary essays and reviews, appearing, and he calls it “Leaves and Fruit.” In some cases the papers are appreciations of writings by old authors, in some cases criticisms of writings by new authors. Heinemann, who announces the volume, has two others coming by J. >O. Squire and Judge Parry. Mr Squire’s is “An Arbitrary Anthology” of yerse, which obeys the title and covers much ground. Judge Parry’s is a* account of a “Cheap Trip to Fairyland,” entitled “Butter Scotia.”

(BY “THE BOOKMAN.”)

| A NEW DICKENS DISCOVERY. GOPPERFIELD’S HEADMASTER . <\ j IDENTIFIED; | “Doctor Strong’s cogitating manner was attributable to Ms being always, engaged: in looking for Greek roots. . with a view to a new dictionary, he .. •had in contemplation. * : - “ Adams, our head-boy, had made a ■calculation of the time this dictionary • : would take in completing, on the doc* I' tor’s plan, and at the doctor's rate of“ ~' going. He considered that it might be done in one thousand six hundred >. forty-nine years,” • 1., I “David Copperfield.” ' j It is a curious fact that we have ha/i" - v to wait until 1927 for the identification of the original of David Copperfield *s amiable schoolmaster. This good man, " Dr Strong, pf Canterbury, was in actual life (states the London “Daily; f, Chronicle”) the, Rev. J. Birt, M.A., pf ; Christ Church, Oxford, pnd formerlya priest-vicar of Hereford Cathedral. He was a headmaster of the King’s School from 1816 to 1852, and died .in' 1847 at Faversham, where he was buried. That Birt was the Dr. Strong who, , •taught David is asserted by the Rev*' ! , S.* Gordon Wilson, a Fellow of tljp/'Royal Historical Society, in a. chajrip-. / ing little guide for pilgrims, “Cantflßv;v v bury, and, Charles Dickens’ ’ (Canter;-” bury Chamber of Trade). Mr compares the personalities of . Strong;';! :• and Birt, showing that Strong Birt in, every littlp detail 1 and i(Rosjn-J . , crasy. ~ We know from Dickens’s .moving, • pages of thp matrimonial sorrow* thaj, 1 came into Strong’s life:— . , ' “He had not yet been ipaiy%d>..l3r months to the beautiful younghad seen in the study, y.fcom= he. ’ - married for love; for ska ha.d^n^.%' ,A sixpence and had a world; of ‘latiops ready to swarm the •of hpuse an.l home.’I’’ 1 ’’ i One of these poor, relations, . Janjkyvf Mai don, a eoasim. ineffectually-' tempts to Diajkt, love to her, bujt shg i / confines in her husband, aacb all is The true history of Dr Birt eonfoyn?"''!; ed a t not dissimilar story, for toriap says:— . 1 '(V “It is likely that his leaving Carter* 4 >■. •bury, was connected with" a‘. very; circumstance affecting .hia dtomeatib; 1 - happiness. His wife was a eleven accomplished woman . . , , hut * V' adapted to fulfil the duties of a ‘master’s wife, and she. evepjsially sorted Kim.” r< • “ When Charles Dickens ]J‘ ing material at Canterbury for tjj[e. Jp';' ■novel which, as* the great master self tells us, was of all his books ■one he liked the best,” concludes Mr 1 Wilson, “the memory of ,thio,; j‘C^ 4 l|g Birt’s) .unfortunate alliance was freslj in men’s minds, and the ist, in his portrayal of Dr made use pf the facts.” :■ ■ ——-' ■* vs NEW B.L.S. LETTERS. . ‘ ■ , ' _ •.AJv .! r WHY STEVENSON MADE 'W. : . HENLEY A PIRATE. ' ' mm — r *’ * ”. AjlSii ; Tito purchase of the. historic publish- jJ ing house of Cassell’s, founded by John ■ ] CaSsell nearly a century Newman Flower, was concluded-xn‘‘Ri>fe : . 4 don recently. Mr Flower bought” the ordinary shares in Cassell andfrom. Sir William Berry and Mr, J. Go* mer Berry, and as the preference capital is about to bo redeemed, ‘Mr /;* Flower becomes the owner of /all' the shares in the company. Coincident , , with, the announcement of the sale of ithe company, Mr Flower made knoVn ’* the contents of some hitherto tinpub* lished letters by R. L, Stevenson. • was Cassell’s that published V island.” ■, ■ ■■' ; ■ mmimrn ‘ 1 JOHN SILVER, PIRATE.’ *’. ; £ «• “ Stevenson, wanted to call f-Ttea*. sure Island.’ ‘John Silver, Pirate, ’■ ’■* Mr Flower said to a “Daily Mail” reporter. “How he came to write the. . story he related in a letter to W. E". _ Henley -written in August, 1881, He said: —‘I am now on another lay, the moment, purely owing to Lloyd* atep-son, Lloyd Osbourne) this ona; .n0W;.../j see here, “ Tho Sea Cook of HdSawH^'-' , Island: A Story for the Boyf ;*.*>• this don’t fetch, the- kids, have: gone rotten since my day.' n , ' NO Later he ‘ Two, have been tried on' Lloyd,’with success. ... No an, story; Lloyd's orders;- audAyho to,obey? It’s awful* fop, boys »* you just indulge the pleasure q£ heart, that’s all; no pressure;' straip. ’ ’ . . “Another, iuterpsting thing not yet (tfj»e* add,ed ( ' ;^®^ Flower, “is that Stevenson John, Silver id Hen%, whp •vraa-vegfe to’ Henley:—‘l wills fossiop. It was the slgßt ,ed strengthgot Johb Sllvfer. an any- pthpr;; qaality least like maimed maul' sound, was - B ; J: W- Wfr :^ffliSriTfiiß