AMONG THE BOOKS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14220, 17 November 1909, Page 9

AMONG THE BOOKS.

Vert few men are afraid to die when the point comes.Family Doctor.

Novels are written in prose, and many writers think that the chief virtue of prose is to be prosaic.Times.

We all, it is said, have many acquaintances, but, not a friend : among them. The age of friendship is past.

" The world,is full of people with good hind sight. What we want is a few more people with good , "foresight.— Dix. , 'v.-- ~' *. ■';.'" ; ;.'...

I h?d rather see the portrait of a dog that I know than all the allegorical pictures they* can show :me in [ the i world.— Dr. Johnson. - • '■; ' >-.-■ "

Rousseau's passionate revolt against the disease of society" would scarcely have been possible if ;he • had not-shared * the disease.—-Edward Cairdi v "•',':•

The aesthete who holds that only beauty is good as an end comes near ( the truth", because beauty is one of - the few . things : that are good as Athenaeum.

No critic will ever formulate any theory or write . any impassioned prose that shall, enable lukewarm devotees of culture and taste to ; tell good art from bad.— Tyler. ' ' ; r _

'- You cannot drill a nation into patriotism, but, if _ you .are not careful, you may. succeed in. drilling;; a good deal of ", patriotism out of -a. nation.— Monkswell, in Fortnightly Review.

. - Some writers. are great by their power of* self-expression they distil themselves in a book, and give away all their secrets. A 1 small man can produce ,a great book if he knows how to put almost the whole of himself into Times.

Optimism is, in a way, a splendid asset in the game of golf, and the man'who commences every encounter with the confident belief that. he . is i going to prove successful is a happy„ individual. Hilton. 7

When life is peaceful '. and there are no > frets \ and troubles \ people 7 often look younger than their actual; age but; with ' prolonged worry. or fatigue 7. or wearing troubles one needs the elasticity ■of youth and its powers of recuperation. Rosa N. Carey. : ., -. y' % :.:■■ • v. - .-■ ,■■:■& .7.

Learning, is 7 not to be tacked to the mind, but we -must,fuse and blend them together/" not merely giving the mind a slight tincture, but a thorough and perfect dye and if we perceive no evident change and improvement, sit ; would be better to leave it alone learning is a dangerous j weapon; and apt to wound its master if it be wielded by a feeble hand, and *by one not well acquainted with its use. — Montaigne. "■-' ''.'-'..."

Poetry can 7 better dispense with opinions than fail to touch the soul ! 1 -... . . in a word, that its sovereign faculty, is imagination, that "power to provoke the return *, of lively 'impressions ; made upon the sight and other senses in combinations inexhaustibly new, to quicken and humanise ideas, by endowing them with the properties/of animate beings, the loss of which had been this most conclusive disability of «the classical ; de-cadence.—--Francis : YVon Ecclesi • . v

, Men often -accuse; women of being less 1 sentimental than they are, as if our* sex 'did not early discover that over-much sentiment in. our case is 7 dangerous to Bur, peace. The male poet ; may 7' wax rapturous; over Chine's eyebrows or Sylvia's fairy .foot but, a' woman,; even a poet, would be laughed at if she wrote verses about the shape of Willoughby's leg or the curl of ; Alphonso's moustache. . Propriety demands that she confine her admiration, however ! warm, -within the limits of , generalities.—"|ldsaline„" in Black and White. .''■'*.'"'.--

At a- time when the libraries . overflow with very\ perishable , fiction, when the novel itself appears yto be in a, state of transition. -. it was perhaps risky for a new writer to go to -actual life .for his characters, plot, and atmosphere and to offer no startling,, sensational sops; to the many-headed one. This- is what Mr. J. .. E. Patterson did ■ - and did not do:; in his ; '."Fishers .\of7', the* Sea;" he has done 7it again* in.- "Watches by . the • Shore," and 7 impenitently declares that he will continue to do it, so long as he can find in contemporary lifethat which, interests him and' J is "worth writing about. .By. the way, some Church of: England clergymen have written to the • publishers testifying" to the ' fidelity with..., which "Watchers by the • Shore" portrays: longshore life on the Suffolk coast, and the vicars of- Aldeburgh and Gorleston have been preaching on the lessons of the book. Being descended partially v from farming stock, r his 'interests are pretty , equally 7 r divided between " land cultivation, seafaring matters, and human nature in general. Hence, he is now busy upon a farming novel, and has chosen a part of the Essex coast as ' a locale.— "Bookman."7