AMONG THE BOOKS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14250, 22 December 1909, Page 10

AMONG THE BOOKS.

Dickens believed no more in Mr. Pickwick, Jonas Chuzzlewit, Quilp, Ladv Dedlock, and the rest, than 'does the boy who is • inventing ghost stories, or stories of adventure, believe in the spooks or pirates he is describing for the horror and edification of his schoolfellows in the dormitory. v He delights in them, of course. Every thud of Wegg's wooden leg, every drop of "shrub" consumed by Stiggins, every grin of Mr. Carker (who used a full set ot blue-grey whiskers), gave their creator an dcute imaginative joy. It is that impression as of someone who is "making up as he goes on" that gives the peculiarly youthful charm to the reading of Dickens. It is,' perhaps, a more artistic pleasure than the pleasure of recognising life, or of admiring literature. One does not stop to think it is -unlike life. One knows it is unlike anything, and that is its great fascination, and the reason why we read on to the end, as we read on to the end of.; the story of "Jack, the Giant Killer."— Frank Richardson, in the Westminster Gazette. . '

: Much is said in Mr. Richard Edgcumbs's " Byron : The Last Phase," of the intimacy with Shelley, and the writef" is anxious to make 'it clear that Byron did not share Shelley's' atheism: —Byron recognised Shelley's frankness, courage, and hardihood of opinion, •' but was not influenced by him so much as was at that time supposedly his friends in England. In writing to Horace Smith (April 11, 1822), Shelley begs him to assure Moore that he had not the smallest influence over Byron's religious opinions. If,l had, I certainly should employ it to eradicate from his great mind the delusions of Christianity, which, in spite of his reason, seem perpetually to recur, and to lay in ambush for the hours of sickness-and distress. "Cain" was conceived many years ago, and begun before I saw him last year at Ravenna. How happy should I not be to attribute to myself, however indirectly, any participation in that immortal work! Shelley appears to me to be mad with his metaphysics, said Byron on one occasion to Count Gamba. " What trash in all these systems! Say what they will, mystery for mystery, I still find -that of the Creation the most reasonable of any."

Although Handel wrote so much and so quickly, it was practically always from the heart, and one may feel pretty sure that it is the form in which his operas were cast which has caused them to be shelved. For this in some measure ; one feels taste of the audiences of the day was to blame. The fashionable crowd who cared ultimately only for • the individual charm of the singer (much as is the case to-day) had -riot the perception to realise the structural weakness or the lack of dramatic continuity. In the case of the oratorio things were far different. Mr. Streatiield, in his biography, of Handel, contributed to Messrs. Methuen's "New Library of Music, points but." that there was a moral force behind the great middle-classes lately awakened by Wesley, who " had opened blind eyes and unstopped deaf ears, hud lifted England from its slouch of sensual depravity, and made it capable of understanding the noblest outpourings of human genius." For such' a spirit the more serious treatment of the oratorio was entirely fitted: its extensive use in the chorus alone would sug-gest-that the poiat of view was that of the music and its expression rather than the indulgence of the vocal fancies of a Faustina'or C'uzoni.—Pall -Mall Gazette.

That the Carlyles were an ill-assorted couple no one could deny. Shs was a highly-strung, nervous woman, very quick, able, and impatient, disappointed with her married life and her position, jealous of the admiration which Carlylo received at the hands of all admirers, especially of one or two women, whom she found very unsympathetic. That Carlyle adored her there is little doubt. He loved her with all the rough, passionate power of his nature; but he was a peasant in manner and character, and lacking in all the little outward signs of devotion and affection which so manywomen exact, and the absence of which they resent most bitterly. Mrs. Carlyle found herself tied to an irritable genius, who was sensitive at every pointdeeply devoted to her, but absolutely incapable of translating that love into the language which she craved and longed far. I remember her once saying to me in a bitter way, "Mv dear, whatever you do, never many a philosopher;" and that was the key to the enigma— woman always hungering for proofs of the devotion in which the whole of her daily life was wanting. In her way she ' was quite as much a queen in her immediate circle as any of the women whom ■Carlylb admired, and of whom she was jealous. She held her own intellectually with all the cleverest people of the day, and no Sovereign ever presided over her Court with greater authority and command than did Mrs. Caryle. After her death their, former misunderstandings and little differences were exaggerated by her husband, causing him for the rest of his life the most "poignant anguish. That, she loved him and admired him passionately he realised better than anyone eke; but the bitterness and remorse which he felt were accentuated by' his nervous, sensitive temperament, and his grief was intensified by an everlasting' self-reproach.From Lady St. Helier's "Memories of Fifty Years."