AMONG THE BOOKS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 14302, 23 February 1910, Page 9

AMONG THE BOOKS.

The ; highest levels of •'. refinement and intelligence are to be found to-day among the middle class.-—World.. ; :.

■ The first thirty years of a . man's ' life are nearly preliminary; of a woman's—final. Golden ■; Aphrodite," by Winifred ■Criepo. '• , - ."

; It must be obvious to the , merest tyro that if ; Germany had wished to annex Holland; she could have done so over and over -Nineteenth . Century.,

; I have seen a snake with its head smashed to pulp, with' its tail 'wriggling,'.and there is just as much life in thie Budget' as that, and no more.—Sir Gilbert Parker. ' -

Short cuts to knowledge in the shape of thought and wisdom primers, books of ; extracts,v.: and anthologies—are. being much overdone. In the last . respect slavish imitation is Athenaeum. ".

Among the articles. with which Cassier's Magazine begins the new 'year may be mentioned av paper by Mr. Wilson upon the natural resources of New Zealand, showing the great wealth of the Dominion, not only in gold :• and in : agricultural resources, but also in.. coal, r timber, and other;.materials.'.-.'.'.

Lists of the hundred best books and. the hundred;best;pictures. may.suit the -needs of .publishers, and attract the passive and sheepish among the public ; but : they are delusive and disconcerting, for every man's best must be decided: by himself.—Daily Chronicle. -,

' Togo to America is : to go back a century in civilisation. The manner :of ■ living in America to-day is.simply .that of two centuries ago,' complicated with '.certain developments ;of industrial - brigandage peculiar, to the twentieth century.—, G. Bernard Shaw.

:' A • curious "; custom used; to accompany an Anglo-Saxon betrothal. After the giving of the ring, the father gave the son-in-law one: of his daughter's'shoes, with 'which tho son-in-law hit his wife on the head, to teach her subjection ! - Later on a more moderate (?) castigation was suggested, and .three-blows with a broomstick became, the custom !—" The Months of the Year," by the Rev. Pembcrton Lloyd. - .'

Of the three writers ~who open the literature, of the; modern world. Dante, Petrarch,; and .'Boccaccio,: it •is . perhaps the last who has . the greatest significance in the history "of ; culture,, of civilisation. Without the profound mysticism of Dante or the extraordinary J sweetness ; and perfection of Petrarch, he was more.complete than either of them, full at once of laughter and humility arid lovethat humanism which in him alone in his day was really a part 'of life.—-Edward Hutton.. ~

Twenty years or less ago " advanced" novelists were treating the public to just the kind of protests against poor Mrs. Grundy that our playwrights 'are ; now ventilating against poor Mr. Red ford. Publishers, libraries, reviewers, and. readers were cowed into abandoning their old-fashioned scruples. And the result ? Liberated genius. has not noticeably bettered * the work of/ Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, or Meredith; but. a hand ul, of men and women writers'have so abused their ; liberty that already reasonably • tolerant, readers - ' are demanding a. censorship, that had not been necessary since the Star Chamber.'—Evening Standard. ':■'. : . ■ ' ') :, .

, The yoar 1909 will .. probably be ; most notable, as the one in which . man took to the air, and thus made a'great, step-forward in his conquest of Nature. ;■ -At 'this time last year man's; power, 'of flight in the air was a .proved, possibility "and no more. Today it is a practical fact, and workshops 'all over the world are busy in hatching-out strange birds of ■ steel, and wood and canvas, which can be wakened.to winged life by man's power : over their .throbbing engines. Bleriot's feat in crossing. the Channel in an" aeroplane was the most dramatic incident of the quickly-rushing record of aviation in 1909. .". It is barely six months old, yet today it already ranks with the commonplace. Globo. *

I remember once being in. the studio of a great painter. He was at work on a portrait which for personal reasons I had been asked to criticise.- After We hud discussed the, .picture, 1 -he had taken.; up his palette and brush, and whs adding some little touches. As he did this, he began to talk first about the.methods, and then about tho aims of art. 'Tie spoke- as if almost ..unconscious of the presence of an auditor, in very simple, . spontaneous . language, as though he wore thinking aloud..-' He suddenly broke off, H with a half-blush, and said, " These are some of,the.thoughts that come into my head, as: I stand at my work: I am ashamed to trouble you . with them"— and ' I could not induce him to resume. That, was, I felt',, a real essay in the making. Iliad seen the very telegraphy of the brain at work, the unseen soul' at its business of thought, and ■ I felt, too. as I reflected, that I -had understood 'it; all perfectly, as I could not have understood ,a technical; treatise; for the real stuff of thought is simple enoughit; is the learned mind:that complicates- and embroiders. The .theme itself matters little—the art" of it, lies in the treatment.— 0. Benson, in the-Coinhill M.ai/' 'bo. :.,.;.-