AMONG THE BOOKS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14208, 3 November 1909, Page 9

AMONG THE BOOKS.

There is some reason to fear that abstention from opium-smoking in China is leading to other forms of indulgence, such as injections of cocaine and morphine, and even alcoholism.—Times.

Wealth has noblo uses, but it. has also a hynotising power which stills the conscience and makes us oblivious to tho fact that the greatest product of a political system is not money, but high-minded, self-respecting, and altruistic men.—Century Magazine.

This is a poison bad world for the romancer, this Anglo-Saxon world; I usually get out of it by not having any woman in it at all, but when I 'remember I had "The Treasure of Franchard" refused by a family magazine as being unfit for family reading, I feel despair weigh upon my wrists.—R. L. Stevenson.

Lord Beaconsfield» said that a nation could only be governed by one of two means, tradition or military force. France, which has broken with tradition, is governed by the army. Great Britain, which is fast breaking with tradition, is governed by the Cabinet and the Pease battalions.—Saturday Review.

The curse of this life is that whatever is once known can never be unknown. You inhabit a spot which, before you inhabit it, is, as indifferent to you as 'any other .spot upon earth, and when, persuaded by some necessity, you think to leave it, you leave it not it clings to you— with memories of things, which, in your experience of them, gave no such promise, revenges your desertion.— ley.

I now understand why the Greeks were such great poets; and, above all, I can account, it seems to me, for the harmony, the unity, the perfection, the uniform excellence, of all their works of art." They lived in a,perpetual commerce with external nature, and nourished themselves upon the spirit of its forms. Their theatres were all open to tho mountains and the sky. Their columns, the ideal types of a sacred forest, with its roof of interwoven tracery, admitted the light-and wind ; the odour and the freshness of the country penetrated, their cities.—

We are all in a way suffering from suppressed originality. This is probably why we feel vindictive towards now ideas and new things and new personalities, when seen for the first time. Every new thing might hive been invented by us. Every unique person is what wo might have been. We don't like it because we dimly realise that, after all, originality is not necessarily the strange thing; it is the familiar thing. We are always realising this, and we admit it every time we wclcomo a new invention with the familiar words—"How simple! Why did no one think of this before?"—Holbrook Jackson, in Black and White.

I have never fancied myself to be a man of genius, but had I been so I think I might well have subjected myself to those trammels. . ... There are those who think that the man who works with his imagination should allow himself to wait till inspiration moves him! When I have heard such doctrine preached 1 have hardly been able to repress my scorn. To me it would not be more absurd if the shoemaker were to wait for inspiration or the tallow-chandler for the divine moment of melting. ... I was once told that the surest aid to the writing of a book was a piece of cobbler's wax on my chair. I certainly believe in the cobbler's wax much , more than the. ia£niratiQja.-=rAn.th,Qoy. ~Ii:b11qd&.