NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 11907, 7 March 1902, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Maxim Gorki, the. Russian novelist, who has suddenly come to the front, has simultaneously attracted the attention of the critics and the police. The former «lre enthusiastic over the appearance of a new novelist of genius ; the latter have forbidden the man of genius to enter the precincts of St. Petersburg, or Moscow, or Yalta. It is a great combination of distinctious for a self-educa-ted man of 32 ; and it is worth while to take a glance at the Bitter One's career. His real name is Alexey Maximovich Pieshkov, and he is the son of a journeyman upholsterer who married his master's daughter. The list of the occupations which he followed before he became a writer, is differently given by different biographers; but all the lists are remarkable. A collation of three lists shows that the Bitter One (that being the meaning of his pseudonym) has been in turn a bootmaker's apprentice, a designer's apprentice, a cook's apprentice, a woodcutter, a baker, a vendor of kvass, a hawker of oranges, a lawyer's clerk, a gardener's help, a railway porter, a stevedore, and an employee in some unascertainable capacity in the railway works at Tiflis, It was from the cook that he imbibed his taste for letters. The cook's sphere of usefulness was in the galley of a Volga steamer, and his library included the works of authors so various as the elder Dumas, Ann Radcliffe, and John Stuart Mill. Having read these books, Gorki presented himself at the University of Kazan, believing that instruction was given there without fee or reward. It was when he discovered that, this was not the case that he became a baker. His next literary patron was the lawyer, Mr. A. T. Lanin, for whom he wrote letters, who gave him good advice, and introduced him to a debating society of " intellectuals." He threw up his clerkship to become a tramp, and wandered, in this capacity, as far as Bessarabia on the one side, and Tiflis on the other. It was at Tiflis, when he was working in the engineering shop, that he got his first short story published in a local paper. Other short stories were toon printed in more influential quarters. Maxim Gorki "arrived " on short stories as distinctly as did cither Maupassant or Mr. Kipling. 'Though his first short story only appeared in 1892,

and his first book as recently as 1898, fafc name is already a household word from Warsaw to Vladivostok, and he has, a* we h*v» seen, attracted the unfavourable attention of the police* Why? The casual reader i* this country must certainly find it difficult to understand why the police have ever troubled their heads about Gorki. He is coarse, but he does not overstep the boond iries of reasonable decorum. lie is a pessimist—an extreme pessimist, from the perusal of whose works you rise feeling as though you had l>eea crushed by a roller; but pessimism is not generally regarded as « criminal or even a political offence. Russian conditions, however, are peculiar, and the Russian novelist is not like the novelist of any other country. He is the one man who has a fair chance to dodge the censorship, and say the things that those in authority do not" wish to be said. He does not of course, say them outright and openly. But he practises the fine art of saying one thing and meaning another; while the Russian' novel-readers. on their part, practice the fine art of reading between the lines. The police, perceiving this, try to limit Gorki's influence by condemning him to vegetate in remote country places. He has broken no law, but he has made himself obnoxious and mere obcoxiousness is still a punishable' l oliencc in Russia. In the Rail Mall Magazine for February, Mr. George Stronach, M.A., gives a loeU exposition of the various arguments in support of the theory that Bacon was the writer of the plays attributed to Shake*, pere. Discussing the "Lives" of .Shakes, pere, he writes: —"What are all the 'Lives' of Shakespere but a mass of conjecture? As Mr. Asquith recently put it : i " Few things are more interesting to watch than the attempts of scholars and critics to reconstruct the life of a man at one* so illustrious and so obscure as the grettttt of our poets. Ihe case of Shakespera pt%* sentg, perhaps, the strangest array of diffl. culties and paradoxes in the whole range of biography,' and Mr. Asquith ackaow. ledges that the work of a Shakespere bio. grapher is 'not so much an essay hi bio. graphy as in the more or less scientific use of the biographic imagination.' Steevens the iShakesperian commentator, wrote the ' Life' in a few lines : ' All that is know* , with any degree of certainty concerning .Shakespere is that he was born at Strai. ford-on-Avon, married and had children there— to London, where he com* menced acting, and wrote poems and playr returned to Stratford, made his will, died, and was buried.' And this is the • Complete Life' of the greatest literary genius ever born into the world! Well might Schlegel say of the commonly-ac-cepted 'Life' of Shakespere: 'It is a mere fabulous story, a blind and extravagant error.' The" "real and secret 'Life of Shakespere—and Bacon— yet to appearsay some Baconians. Others will have it that this 'Life' has been published ia 'The Bi-literal Cypher of Sir Francii Bacon,' over which* Mr. W. H. Mullock is so enthusiastic. I, for one, don't believe it. ' Good Baconians won't have these silly 'cypher' stories at any price." "

Pekin, according to an interesting teW graphic despatch in the London Times, is very much herself again— city seeming more crowded and busy than before th* upheaval. In many respects the Times correspondent considers the outlook mosfe, encouraging—the attitude of the. populace is respectful and friendly, the Viceroy, Yuan Shih-Kai, is acting with decision ami energy, and the Chinese Government* by inflicting exemplary punishment on the murderers of native convert* and missionaries, have " given heart and confidence to every Christian in the province." With regard to the restoration of Tientsin ami the railway from Pekin to the Chinese, i the correspondent declares that all impartial opinion supports the Chinese demand, • which he anticipates will be conceded. As regards the metropolitan officials, whom, he pronounces above the average, he strongly deprecates the disposition to attack \ung-lu, the most • powerful' of all, as a Boxer . leader Yung-la, whose daughter has been betrothed to j the „ Emperor's brother, thonrf undoubtedly suspect in the past, istthnAr supported by the friendly Viceroy?, the 1 tone of the despatch is quite unexpwtefc 1 optimistic, though the writer deplores tfo continuance of the old method of sending ; men of no influence or standing to represent China abroad. Finally, he regret* that China will be so inadequately represented at the Coronation, the envoy being a son of Prince Ching, a duke of the fourth degree, without personal distinction and quite unknown. .In a word. ; though the officials are civil, the r.ititedo of the Court remains ccntemptuouslv indifferent. * . '•;