CURRENT LITERATURE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18547, 3 November 1923, Page 4 (Supplement)

CURRENT LITERATURE.

NOTES ON NEW BOOKS. ''< . \ fix came. ' One of Che most difficult things in Jiterary art is to write a study of the ■works of a man, yet living, utill writing. To place before tho public a fair estimate of tho artist's work, without •undue praise and without hurt to the temperamental sensitiveness of the subject, is no light matter. " As summed up by ."Dr. Johnson, a critic is "a man skilled in the business of judging of literature; a man able to distinguish the beauties and faults of writing;" in the second place it means, "A snarler, a carper, a caviller." We may leave the second definition out of consideration, and perhaps add only this that by his criticism of a, living author's work, the critic's personality may bo very often judged. Certainly this is true when he makes his summary of a great writer's mind. THE ART OP THOMAS HARDY. M The Art of Thomas Hardy "—by Lionel Johnson and J. E. Barton, (Lane, London) —"Remembering how it is held ■upon all hands a. difficult and delicate thing to write about Che works of > a living writer, I have but brought to these essays tho best of my thought and knowledge." So wrote the author over twenty years ago; and recognising the fact Chat Hardy has won many fresh laurels since that time, the house of Lane decided to make An addition to a book long out of print and always eagerly sought after by Hardy enthusiasts. Hardy did not publish poetry until 1898, when ha was himself fifty-eight years of age, and he has driven to €ho world since then so much good poetry that now, in his eightythird year, he is regarded by many as not only our greatest living novelist, but also as our greatest living poet. '"From long and frequent converse with the works of any favourite author, we often" wrote Lionel Johnson, "grow to thinking of them under some symbol or iCage. This is my vision of Mr. Hardy's ■works :—A rolling down country, crossed by a Roman road; here a grey standing stone, of what sacrificial, ritual origin I can but guess; there a grassy barrow, with its great bones-, its red brown jars: its rude gold' ornaments, still safe in earth; a broad sky burning with stars; and a solitary man. It is of no use to tuna away and to think of the village farms and cottages with their antique ways and looks; of the deep woods, the fall of €ho woodman's axe, the stir of wind in the branches. . . . They are characteristic scenes, but not the one characteristic scene. That is the great down by night, with its dead in their ancient graves, and its lonely living figure .... The scholarly workmanship of Hardy recalls the large manner of our early . masters in English prose : those masters of the rich phrase, the elaborate cadence, the liberal and golden eloquence. For taw most part, Hardy delights in the r v mense resources of our traditional speech; without wandering into new paths, he knows how much strength and beauty spring from the simplest words, wellchosen and well consorted by the historian's discrimination. Hardy abounds m fine simplicities; and while his happy tarns and phrases do not startle us into a surprised delight, disproportionate to their importance they fill us with a continual pleasure," So wrote Lionel Johnson of* Hardy's prose, and bo might be have written to-day. To his fine judgment is added the latter half of the book, as done by the hand of Mr. J. E. Barton whose concise but- thorough study of the postry of Thomas Hardy must wring approval from many a literary enthusiast. "No writer," he states, "has excelled Hardy in the power of convincing us that he writes from acperience. We feel that poetry is for him a mode of being, rather than a trick of utterance. The surface of his verse is obstinate,, knotty, close-grained it admits "the latterly disease of self-consciousness, but his inborn hatred of cant or moral rhetoric gives to all his utterances the stamp of something fundamental. Hardy is a democratic poet, in bo far as his poetic psychology disregards all class distinctions ; but like ail great poets, without exception, he is an individualist. In the matter of popularity, his poetry falls bctwisen two stools. It will never make headway with the domestic circle nor be quoted at tea-meetings. On the othe • hand it makes no appeal to the propagandist type of intellectual, so numerous to-day. It is written for those readers who love poetry because they cannot resist it.

Tho combination of these two so excellent studies of a great writer's genius has made one of the best "literary" books that we have.

MODERN FICTION.

"Madge Hinton's Husbands"—by Margawjt Baillie Saunders {Hutchinson, London) —From very ordinary every day materials, Mrs. Baillie Saunders has made an attractive well-written novel. Her types are representative, peculiar to .the great cities of the world, and more especially to London. She takes us first to a house of the class so typical of London, one of those residential boarding establishments where alcohol is sold, and winch ha 3 an atmosphere quite unlike the usual hotel. The house has a " manageress," whom we should call an office clerk, inasmuch as she is bookkeeper more than anything ojse. Returning one day to her duties, Miss Cookson is in time to see a Mr. Hinton, a boarder whose rent is in arrears, being evicted. He is ill, and therefore the " manageress" rims after him, rescues him from possible suicide, brings him back, sees him put to bed, and announces her engagement to him. When he is better she marries him, and he fills a position of inefficient handyman, known as Miss Cookson's husband. After awhile she decides that they had better have a home, especially since his elder brother has died, and " Scuddy" is " heir but one" to a baronetcy. At the funeral of the head of the family, a Chinese wife 'claims Luard, the present baronet, but he refuses to acknowledge the English legality of the marriage. From this side; issue complications of Chinese revenge begin. Accidents happen. Meanwhile Jefferson Hinton, an elder cousin, is pleased with Madge Hinton's pluck and practical eommonsense,, He finds work for Scuddy. But the young man is given over to riotous living, shared with his brother Luard. Luard's death makes him the baronet; but he is spirited away while in China on business for the firm, which is a "tea" concern. When he has •shown no sign for nearly seven years of being alive, Jeffers persuades Madge to marry him. and she becomes the popular wife of this respected magistrate, Sir John Jefferson Hinton. -Now we are introduced to Limehouse opmm dens. The day comes when the magistrate has to try certain unsavoury SS Among th witnesses is Ah Hin, a ffiX7?- ? e is as Scuddy E £8"n Madge has to do some n£' Bft lnS Ut fe C,arria ? difficulty reStad not fc™ sev^ n y ears °* deseriHheT The C f on l ple^d - Whose ™ fe %J&* I rem fn tefe *? *' loses •„;, ' ." scuddy g e f, g }j ls «W travelling i„ ?£ mag 6 and is officii etc 4ra th s soe on ;"T; ,y i a rnost mercial traveller 477™ gar I Com days, had desired £' ° m , the hot el who Stt£& Ma dge, but finds, happiness in «JSrL- ask her - He £ Hinton family £ d w s° »«*>«> of the readable story bf tv* l iff* a i good, ia a very fiian &* the / 6nt 4iew - and attractive

FLOTSAM AND JETSAM.

BY H.F.C. ■'' Novel" Diseases. In second-rate Victorian fiction,tho subject of illness was handled with (shall we say gentleness and extreme care. True, the heroine rather frequently fractured an arm or even a leg, limbs anc hearts in those days being, it would appear, equally brittle. If, however, one contrived to preserve her bones intact, she was not yet out of the wood; there was always the risk of ''brain fever," a curious" disease, quite unknown to th 3 medial faculty, and not to be confused with meningitis. This fever left the brain no weaker than beforefor obvious reasons, &ome will sav; its main effect was upon the soul; the heroine rose from her couch purified and enobled, able in fact to face with equanimity the prospect of a long life to lse spent in the company of the hero. In disease,, the Victorian novelist seldom ait below the belt, but occasionally tho hero would fall a victim to typhoid fever. This was a. rare chance for the heroine to show, without any fatiguing hospital experience, the qualities of a bom nurse." She used to move lightly about the sick-room, ' sometimes bending over the sufferer to administer grapes and jelly as ho moaned in delirium. If, in spite of this treatment, he managed to escape perforation, he would lie, during the long days of convalesence, watching her " with his heart in his eves," wondering (poor fellow what he had done to deserve such nursing. Modern novels are not like this. Some, for instance, of W. B. Maxwell's books are not so much novels as pathological studies in which very little is left to the imagination. Symptoms, sensations, and ' treatment are 'all scrupulously accurateRomance is sacrificed to realism. We have exchanged the pleasant country bedroom for the atmosphere of a hospital ward, and, after all, the reek of iodoform make* a poor substitute for the scent of new-mown hay. A Decline and Fall. If brevity is the soul of wit surely the heart of humour is spontaneity. When the fun that, once gushed forth, fresh and bright requires an elaborate pumping apparatus to produce a feeble trickle, it is a sitjn that tho well is nearly dry. These sad reflections are reduced by reading "My Discovery of England," Stephen Leacock'a latest book. For some time one has suspected that all was not well with the Canadian humorist. A hint of strain was observable in " The HohenKollerns in America;" the effortless ease of his earlier manner had disappeared. This does not mean that Mr. Leacock is not occasionally funny, but there is little doubt that the spring is running low. Much of the humour is forced; there is a fatal tendency to repeat earlier successes. Tho spontaneity of the thing, in fact, has gone. The professor has turned professional. Worst .sign of all, he is beginning to take himself seriously and to resent criticism. He is reported to have denied indignantly that his humour is exhausted. On the contrary he asserts that he can go on for years. Perhaps so, but can his,readers do the same? A Forgotten Poet. To how many people to-day does the name of John Clare signify anything? The son of a poor labourer, he left school (in 1800) at the mature age of seven, after which we hear of him as an under gardener at a great house, studying Thomson's " Seasons " in his spare time. His later career was somewhat chequered; he associated with gipsies, and afterwards, when working at a limekiln was discharged " for wasting his time in scribbling." His only book (Poems, descriptive of rural life) was published in 1821 and had a good reception. But he seems always to have been a square peg in the round hole of life, and though the Marquis of Exeter (and other patrons!) secured him the princely annuity of £45, he actually, as one biographer gloomily remarks, " wasted it in speculation," instead, we suppose, cf purchasing one of the stately homes of 'England. Ho ended hi*, life in a lunatic asylum m Northampton (1864). A recent edition of his works includes a poem, hitherto unpublished, called " Songs Eternity " which is unforgettable in its haunting and delicate charm :— Mighty songs that miss decay, What are they? Crowds and cities pass away Like a day. Books axe out and books are read; What are they? Years will lay them with the deadSigh, sigh; Trifles, unto nothing wed, They die. . Dreamers, mark the honey-bee, Mark the tree Where the bluecap tootle-teo Sings a glee Sung to Adam and to EveHere they be. When floods covered eveiy bough Noah's Ark ' Heard that ballad singing now: Hark, hark. Tootle tootle,, tootle-tee Can it be Pride and fame must shadows be? Come and see — Every season own her' own; Bird and bee Sing creation's music on; Nature's glee Is in every mood and tone Eternity.