NEWS AND NOTES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 15056, 27 July 1912, Page 4 (Supplement)

NEWS AND NOTES.

At the famous trial, Whistler v. Buskin. one important witness was not called. Leighton, for it was he, would have figured well in the bos, and might have scored a point for "Jimmy," but on the morning of the trial he received a Royal summons to Windsor on other business. This is but one of the very many interesting little episodes which Mr. Way recalls in his " Memories of James McNeill Whistler," issued by the Bodley Head.

Mr. Archibald Hurd is an authority upon naval affairs, whose opinions gain weight from their entire freedom from the cheap methods of the alarmist and sensation-monger. Messrs, Chapman and Hall are getting ready for immediate issue a volume bv Mr. Hurd, to be entitled The Command of the Sea." which seeks to show, quite dispassionately, how we stand in relation to the navies of foreign Powers.

. I Only on the rarest occasions does genius descend from lather to son. Hartly Coleridge was as truly a poet as his more distinguished father, and there have been! other examples. It was interesting to see a little while ago thai a grandson ofJ Tennyson's had assumed the role of nove- J list with much success, and now we are informed that a son of lan Maclaren has written under the pseudonym of "Harris Tweed," a promising Sook, entitled "Knickerbocker Days," which Mr. John Ouseley will publish. Books have been divided into two classes : books of information and books of power. Books which neither, give information. that is the material for thought, nor power, that is inspiration to thought, are useless except as entertainment. And reading which neither confers useful information nor new access of intellectual power is useless reading, except as it gives needed rest. It is often said that we are a reading people. That- proves nothing. Are we a thinking people ?— Lyman Abbott.

Mountaineering is one of the most fascinating of hobbies. > When once it grips thoroughly there is no shaking it off, and no desire to. To be lost at night on some Alpine peak, or even, say, on our Sea Fell, is an experience not easily forgotten. Four men know the poys and risks ofmountainteering better than Professor Bonney, and he has written much on the subject. His latest book, which Fisher Unwin will have ready soon, deals with this, but more particularly tells of the nature and formation of the Alpine chain. It is called "The Building of the Alp?."

A portrait of Sir Harry Johnston, th« famous explorer, administrator, and writer. as an Admirable Crichton, drawn by Sir Henry Lucy in his " Sixty Years in the Wilderness,'' appears in the June Cornhill. Sir Harry Johnston, we read, is a man of diverse parts. If he had not given himself up to a life of adventure ans administration, he would by this time have been a Royal Academician. If be had devoted himself to mti?ic *ie would have reached a high position. Had literature been his sole mistress, he would have been in the front rank of authors. As it is, he has written successful books, plays tho piano with masterly touch, and has his pic- : tures hung on the line at Burlington House.

The Author regrets to notice that some of the American publications are adopting the practice of paying for literary work onlv after publication, and not upon acceptance practice -which, writes Mr. W. P. James, prevails to an extent in England also. The Author goes on to express the opinion that "failing publication within a reasonable time of acceptance, the author would be entitled to payment, despite the rule of the editor of the magazine." If the Author means that in such cases, and in the face of express notice to the author by the publisher or editor of the terms and conditions of payment, the American Courts would frive judgment in favour of the author, I think it would be more satisfactory to have the proposition more explicitly stated, and supported by the authority of American legislative enactment or judicial decision.

What shall we say of the amazing Chesterton? says Everybody's. Ho is a schoolboy laying traps for his master. Sometimes the general public is the butt of his practical jests, sometimes the thoughts that occupy the sagest minds. He is' an elephant performing the tricks of a monkey—but an elephant's feet are destructive. His crowning offence is irreverence, and his crowning virtue that he succeeds in being lovable. He takes a puppydelight in shredding the conventions to atoms and then scampering off to escape punishment. His age and bulk are out of harmony with his employments; the most astounding thing about him is the fact that he is a householder and married. With Gargantuan gravity he talks nonsense which trails off into wisdom. The problem he presents is that of Ophelia; he keeps us wondering whether he is only feigning insanity.