NEWS AND NOTES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume L, Issue 15269, 5 April 1913, Page 4 (Supplement)

NEWS AND NOTES.

." Tra Teerob and Othrb Sfoiwi3, ,? ' .by Archibald Marshall ; (Methuen, London), is ( a collection of readable short stories mostly dealing with English country life;

Among recent publications in Long's Colonial Library are: "The Turn of the Tide,*' by B. Penley j and " The House of /Uie Other World," by Violet Tweedale.

"Thei Ware by George Pleydell Loadonlii tells \ the story of a crime and its gradual unravelment. The central figures are Ware, young and .wdman, torn between deep/ passion and high ideals, and her rays terious •murder and;;ito;-consequences hurl the Woman into the overwhelming drama of life. '/;/■.'•■.

A new novel by O. N. and A. M. Wil* Hamson London) / is " entitled ".Tba Love Brats," The heroine of, t^a story, the Brincess di Serena, beautiful and ; : ypu«g,:.'iia|b.;jfor America to visit Califoraia, her father's native land.- She reaches New York and' is plunged - into an adventure of which 'Nick Hilliard, a young Californian, isiUie hero.-/ All iincoascioasly she becomes the ** love pirate " who," takes Hilliard : from .fcho Spanish woman -who'adores hiui.• | ;: T^.; ; .i;berc^;--through a^ land jealousy leads at length"/to a happy /'/.'.'"/■/

I ■■' ■ : '.''; i '.. ■•..' '. . . j "TheJJudgmentt t House," by Sir Gilbert Parker^ethuenV:'London)^:deals : . : with-Ufa in England at .the time of the Jameson Raid, and shifts to. South Africa in the time of the war. It shows most powerfully his knowledge of the human heart and all those tragedies and comedies of existenw which lie far beneath the surface of experieace. With what is claimed to be a greater knowledge, and an equally greater sympathy than he has hitherto shown, he bares the truth of a woman's life, :F^rditt s»'[ first -'pßge ; to>|^!-iai%. ; tli» I book moves with dramatic interest, and! arresfesg tauthfulaesa. ""''"'■' ■'*"''.'/'' ■ , ". : -'■•■''•'' ■ '//;/./ '■■■.-■ ' I One na«d not {according to Mr. E- J.j bo wfialtby to have beautiful things about one. It cannot, ho says, (in j his new book, "Colour in the Home"),! be too firmly impressed on the minds of i aß—child, student, or artisan alike—that beauty is not a question of cost. In fact,! there should be no. difficulty in convincing any intolligent being that;■ there . is ;»& necessary conilict between beauty and utility, but that, on the they are;; rightly considered, one and the same thing. There is no reg;Son why the household utensils, or furnituro.of the mechanic or cottager may not be as truly beautiful in form as the finest the silversmith and the cabmetmaker are capable of producing. Let it always be remembered that simplicity is true beauty, that good form and proportion are better than enrichjaani.. ' . ;/','.

Mr* Maurice Drake, whose important folio oa English Glass Painting has just beeii published, has made ; : an interesting > discovery, regarding Robert' Louis Steveni;aon. On reading the 'VVailima Letters" I hd noticed that in 1835 .Stevenson had been I ill, and was in that year staying at Exeter. ;';Mr'. : Sir Sidney Cblvin, [and /Sir Sidney was able to trace that ; Stevenson had lived for some time at an Bxeter hotel. On /searching the hotel j visitors'; hocfe Mr Drake discovered an ' entry in. B; L. S.'a handwriting between ; Senteiaber 9 and 14, 186t>, iruiming as : foltowsr—r* 1 ! cannot leave\thls house with!oui;Ratifying to the of all in it. jlf it ever yiw ill«f ortune to be ill at lan inn, be sure it is the New London. J**laaa of the three floors ot tho hotel were j sent to Mr, Lloyd 'Osbourne, who/was j..with R; Li' S, at the time of his illness. and the roosn -was identified as ■ No. 16 lon thdflrs* floor. / Mr. Drake designed a [ panel di stained glass, and this has been i placed ia the window, with aa inscription, Icoaimemoraiive oi Steverisoa'a viait.' '-".' : -'/'/■'■ "■' '''".' ; ,'". : -'" : "''-;' r '« -? The freemasonry of sex which has natu* rally come into' being M ;■■* oountry where women'"'ielfe compelled to organise in self. defehic»;;is excetlenty portrayed in Mr. Marmaduk© Pickthall'a book, ■■ "Veiled Women. V The scene is- an;■/Egyptian harem in the "seventies/' and the descrip* tioa is of the impression made by the inmates oh an English governess, who has married a pasha's son ■—-"'Their freedom from the aentimental mists of Europe helped this feeling j -and so did their bold vision of existence, blinking nothing. The potential cruelty, which lurked behind their gentleless, subdued her } the way j they talked of death habitually made her feel a timid child; . . .. The world of ' women was, she found, a great republic, j with; liberties' extending to the meanest ! slave, and' something of the/ strength i whicn comes of solidarity. Unless in : a i jealoao fury, no woman ; would inform ! against another, bond or free; nor fail to ! help \ her in the hour of need. They had ! their shibboleths, their customs, rites, ceremonies,' even; their courte of. jus- | tice> independent of the/world of men," t"• *.S . "'' ■'•-,_.,

j When the Austrians were marching on Naples in 1821 to crush" the, ill-concerted, i premature Liberal movement* which inI deed collapsed like/a pricked bubble at j their approach, Byron writes : "Letters i opened? To be sure they are, and that j lis the reason why I always put in my > I opinions of the Austrian scoundrels. There j 'is. not an Italian who loathes them more j ! than I $ and whatever I could do to scour j Italy and the earth of this infamous/ oppression would be done con araore." And j doubtless had the Neapolitans shown fight he would have thrown himself into the; struggle; but the revolution flickered out tamely enough, Byron, like his brother-, bard Moore, must have turne<l away in •scorn and disgust from the spectacle of a recreant people and army fleeing before. I their foreign invaders without striking a [blow. Full justice has in many cases been j rendered to the literary merit of men of ■ whose private/, lives wo know little and b.caro lees, whom we. by no means wrong by ignoring outside the i world of letters- But j this onesided view is by no means appli-: cable to Byron, whose brief career was as eventful as his writingß were varied,- who was a man of action'as well as a man of letters, who united much practical good sense with poetical imagination, who closed a chequered/existence in translating into action his sympathy with- the oppressed, in realising Borne of his noblest aspirations. It is to this side of Byron's character that scant attention has been drawn; it is to these noble" qualities of the naani it reveals: that justice should be rendered by the geneial public. ':' .■ '■'■" • ■' ''■ ' ••' ' ■ : -' : ;"•''■'■■■ . I