CURRENT LITERATURE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVIII, Issue 17853, 6 August 1921, Page 1 (Supplement)

CURRENT LITERATURE.

NOTES ON NEW. BOOKS.

BY CRITIC.

If we could only have .gathered the stories of all the pioneers 'who came in the small sailing ships of the early days of the nineteenth century, what an intimate history of recklessness and courage, of hardihood and endurance, of impatience and resignation had been ours! Very, very few of those old tales have come down to us; some are still lying behind the wondering words of old people; some are still to be had in rough manuscript. Had Dr. McNab lived but another 20 years he would have obtained such old testimonials as are still to be had. Meanwhile we have to content ourselves with the history of the second generation, and every one of us should make it his business to record whatever authentic stories we hear of the gallant struggle made against conditions that were none too favourable. Men who broke in sheep country, orchard land, dairying pastures, cropping paddocks are men "who, perhaps without knowing it, laid fine foundations for the Dominion. A SHEEP RTJN. " Tutira — A New Zealand Sheep Station "—by H. Guthrie-Smith (Blackwood, Edinburgh).—Four hundred pages, and large ones at that, make a handsome volume; but one is fully repaid for reading this one. There is a good deal of humour in the author's story and a fine! fund of exceptionally close observation of j natural phenomena. Mr. Guthrie-Smith was no canny business man, intent only on turning Tutira pastures into bank | notes. He faced and endured a struggle i which would have daunted a hundred men in the same situation. Tutira fell to his lot after adventurous predecessors had been forced to leave it. For years afterwards, not only were wool and sheep low in price, but his land was intractable, his aspect cold and wet, his errors many. Imagine being glad, not for one season but for many, to get 9d for a sheep and then having to manoeuvre the money out of the buyer! The latter bought them to feed his pigs; no one else would buy them. Fern to eradicate, then a wilderness of manuka; the constant worry of seeing English grasses wilt and disappear; the triumph at last of the native Danthonia and blue grass! i A very pleasing and useful part of the I story of the sheep station is the minute I record kept of new arrivals in the shape of birds and plants. He recalls the soli-1 tary goldfinch which visited him in the summer of '83. " Shearing was in progress; my duty as, a woolclasser obliged me to be in the shed before five. At that early hour, in the scrub close to the woolshed, the bird was noted, and there he remained for six days about the same spot. . . Just one year later I was again wool-classing, again walking shed-ward a few minutes before five in the morning. No scrub had been felled in the vicinity of the shed; the clump of manuka, and tea-tree remained as it bad been. Now, however, where one goldfinch had been observed, a pair had taken possession of the locality. . . . For several seasons a thin wedge or narrow spearhead thrust itself more deeply into the run. Then at once the goldfinch became extraordinary plentiful, enormous flocks tenanting every part of the eastern run. Lastly, normal conditions prevailed As the soil became thistle-sick, the superabundant food supply of the species began to fail. In fact, just as the bee diminished on Tutira with the disappearance of white clover, so the numbers of the goldfinch declined with the vanishing thistle." He noticed also the coming of the minah, a small number of which had been liberated in *77 by the Hawke's Bay Acclimatisation Society " Cunningham and I. by "84, had built a cottage and provided ourselves with a married couple to look after it and us. One day in November—the docking of lambs was later in those times^—we were breakfasting about nine, after a long morning's work, when Cunningham drew my attention to a solitary bird crouched up against the netting of the henyard as if endeavouring to chum up with the fowls. It was a solitary minah. Next morning it was gone. A year later, when we were again docking our lambs, a—or, as I have always believed, the—minah reappeared. As before, it was crouched on the ground close to the wire netting, exactly at the spot where Cunningham had seen it 12 months previously. Its whole appearance was that of a creature desiring association with some living thing. . . . The homestead in those days was a bare square of wood, in a bare paddock. There was no shelter, there were no trees, there were no alien birds."

The same attention to detail which was shown by the author of "The Mutton Birds," written some years since, is evidenced in every page of this interesting book. Mr. Guthrie-Smith has a most positive talent for writing in such a manner as to interest others about the prosaic building-up of a station. He knows when each weed came first there; he has studied the geology of the countryside; he has learnt the history of the Maoris who once lived in this part. He is lenient and patient with his Maori landlords; he can laugh about the vicissitudes, especially the financial stringency of early days on Tutira. He yet can envisage the joy of those years since. " To make a fortune by the delightful labour of your hands—to drain your swamps, to cut tracks over your hills, to fence, to split, to build, to sow seed, to watch your flock increase, to note a countryside change under your hands from a wilderness, to read its history in your Merinos' eyes. I declare that in those times to think of an improvement to the station was to be in love. ... A thousand anticipations of happiness rushed upon the mind—the emerald sward that was to paint the alluvial flats, the graded tracks up which the pack team was to climb easily, the spurs over which the fencing was to run, its shining wire, its mighty strainers; the homestead of the future—oh, those were happy days with no cares, no fears for the future, no burden of personal possession, when every penny that could be scraped together was to be spent on the adornment of that heavenly mistress." The illustrations, by Miss Beatrix Dobie, add value to the story, following carefully and accurately as they do, the author's personal ideas.

FICTION. " The Love of Prince Rameses " —by Anthony Armstrong (Stanley Paul, London)—is a "dream" novel in which a young invalided soldier recounts his former life and advenrures in ages past, he being then a prince of Egypt. " Love's Anvil "—by V. I. Dmitrieve (Stanley Paul, London).—A typical Russian story citing the life of a young medical student. She is verv popular: her prodigal generosity makes for her many friends at her college. The interplay of character is vivid : the recital is impressionistic, ending, as much Russian work does, in tragedy. " Ellen Levis "—by Elsie Signmaster (Houghton, Nifflin, Chicago).—A clever and convincing novel detailing tho incidents in the life of a child, reared among a peculiar religious sect. Realising at last that she is being intimidated, her father, a doctor, removes her from the influence of her maternal relatives and undertakes her education. Her brother declares for the others with their warped views, and leaves his father's house- Dr. Levis dies suddenly, and Ellen, hating the life thrust upon her by her brother and his wife, goes to the city, and to earn college fees she becomes a housemaid in the home of Dr. Lanfair. a friend of her father. Mrs. Lanfair is falling into insanity, and until her removal Ellen's identity is not discovered. Then, to compensate for his neglect. Stephen educates he well. The love thread woven through is delicate, and the whole story is powerful and artistic, revealing the author as a fine writer, with clever insight and skilled presentation of American Ufe,