LITERATURE AND ART.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 12016, 12 July 1902, Page 4 (Supplement)

LITERATURE AND ART.

An edition of Southey's ever-popular life 'of .Nelson is to. be included in Isbister's Coronation Library. * , A new volume in "The Story of the Nations" series—a history, of " Mecliieval Rome, 1073 to 1600," by, Mr. William Miller, author of "The Balkans''.; in the same series, and of "Travel and Politics 'in the Near East"— be issued shortly , by Mi.\' Fisher Unwin. - ■ v; ; ■ ■ • j' A new edition of Mr. Charles E, Norton's prose rendering of . Dante's " Divine . Comedy" will be published immediately by I Messrs. Macmillan. i The whole work has undergone laborious revision; and is now i issued in three volumes—-".He11," " Purgatory,'' and "Paradise." /. • To the majority the Royal Academy remains what it always has' been, • a heterogenous collection of . episodes' of life, more or leks real, seen through ' another's eyes. It. is a stationary; biograph, and all of us (even the superior person) have a frank or sneaking liking for the episode picture.-— Academy. . Mr. Amery,; : the. editor of the Times History' of the War, . whose slashing ' and unmeasured condemnation of " General Buli ler is the leaning topic of conversation in literary and ; service circles, 'is ; assistant foreign editor of the great daily, and acted as director- of - its eight vrar correspondents, with headquarters ;in Cape Colony. . Dickens (says 0:0. .in. the Sketch) : still . holds; the premier position in popular favour, and a new edition of his woj'ks seems one of the safest of publishing enterprises. I 'hear that there :is to appear shortly an is-' sue, to be known as " The Biographical Edi-: ; tion," which will contain new • prefaces to ieach novel, dealing with the* circumstances under which it was written, the originals of the characters and places, etc. " Wistons," the first book in Miv Fisher Unwin's First Novel "Series, has been such a success that there has been a natural curiosity as to its authorship. " Miles Amber" was, of courso, a "noni de guerre," and it can now be stated that it stands for Mrs. Cobden Sickcrt, a daughter of Richard Cobden. His mother, as Mr. Morlev tells us in the biography, bore ;; the gracious ; maiden name of : Millicent; Amber, and there was a " Miles'' in the Cobden family. ' To anyone in search of a really uncommon book, let me recommend (says " 0.0.," in the Sketch) Mr. Hillaire Belloe's "The Path to * Rome." ; Mr. Belloc is altogether a remarkable young man. There is something very near genius in his historical works on' Danton ; and Robespierre, and in this new volume of travel-sketches there is a touch and temper strangely reminiscent at times of "It.L.S." " The Coming Unity: The Problem of the Churches;" by the Rev. Alfred J. Harvey, vicar ;of Shirehampton, is the title of a new volume to be published immediately by Mr. iElliot Stock. The same firm* announces " The True Ground of Faith,'.', five sermons preached !in Bangor Cathedral by the Rev; R.' S. Mylne; and "The-Harvest of . the Soul," a treatise on the Christian doctrine of ; future reward ; and punishment, by the Rev. R. L. Bellamy, vicar of Silkston. —j... -In Tschaikowsky there is none of the quieting of thought.' The only healing for our nerves lies in abstract thought, and lie can never get far enough from his nerves to look calmly at his own discontent. All those wild, broken rhythms, rushing this way and that, are letting out his secret all the time: " am unhappy; and I know not why I am unhappy; I want, but I know not what I want." • In the most passionate and the most questioning music of Wagner there is always air; '.Uschaikowsky is suffocating. It is himself that he pities so much, and not himself because he shares in the general sorrow of the* world. To Tristan and Isolde the whole universe is an exultant and martyred sharer in their love; they. know only , the absolute. Even suffering does not bring nobility to Tschai-kowsky,—-Arthur Symons.