CURRENT LITERATURE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18565, 24 November 1923, Page 4 (Supplement)

CURRENT LITERATURE.

? NOTES ON NEW BOOKS. BY CRITIC. . ■ Numerous ideas pass muster as opinions, and few are those who stop a tri mark. Analysed, many are* ' be ut once demolished. But in ' the Britisher is a V™™-} o™*0™* indifferently accepts and as y passes on the current platitudes _of the day. Tho world was ever suspicious of originality and brave new thou have a long mile to travel before familiarity blunts their sharp edge and passes them their importance worn, |' fl ' often spent, into the speech that is flung from lip to lip. Cast your mind back to the days of war and reflect how ' nia "> hundreds of people nsed exaciUy tlia same expressions with regard to the cause and the effect of the tragic mghtmax^ What has been said since of the League of Nations? One author holds the view that if we only sifted our thoughts and said what wo meant, we, the people, could prevent any war. We all go on. politicians and mere householders, repeating unoriginal statements to the effect that to have peace we must prepare for war, etc. A State follows up the remarks by measures of defence, etc. etc. This man holds that the day will come when scientists will refuse to lend their brains tor thrt discovery of armaments, and artisans their hands "for the manufacture of them. th E PROBLEM OP ABMAMENTS.

"The Problem of Armaments »—by A. O. Knock (Mac mill an, London). Some of A. G. Knock's statements are worth quoting. " It. would seem, of recent years that the human race is coming to regard the production of appliances for killing as its chief work. It is accepted by manv that there is no real euro for, *r escape from, the tangle into which the human race, by its own free will, has been drawn. But can it be true thahumanity has arrived at a point in its history where it is shorn of intellect, ot power, of will, to tackle this pressing problem of armaments? The Covenant ot the League of came in _ for obloquy, condemnation, or patronising advice on its ideals, instead of the real active assistance and moral support which if deserved at the hands of all truo lovers of peace and progress *>)' thousands they lie on _ tho ocean floor to-day—battleships, cruisers, liners, trading vessels, colliers, hospital ships, the humble fishing boatsunk by gun-fire, mines and torpedoes, often without warning. The list alone is appalling— and men of navies and merchant ships; gallant fellows, young and strong, for whom death came too soon. . . . The problem of armaments embraces the whole of the chemical industries of all countries. Past or future war chemicals merely invcivo actual commercial processes for some stage in the production of commercial organic chemicals such as dyes or the numerous articles required ■in phar-

m rie Creation of Fear in other nations has reached a stags when it becomes almost an ar£ ... with the advance of civilisation go almost invariably two things—liquor and weapons. . . . The prime error is that safety depends upon the comparative helplessness of neighbours, instead of upon their kindliness ; upon strength, instead of neighbours' "<«od will. . . . Even a ebqft era of enlightened self-interest would see Europe on the way to become , a fruitful, prosperous and happy continent, suitable for its intellectual and industrial majorities, instead of .a series of armed camps, with industries chained down,-, or hampered by the ceaseless production of armaments. . . "There is one silent, permanent'witness to the foEy of perpetual arming:: it is the sight of the war £rave 3 m their sad thousands and hundreds of thousands " visible memorials, said His Majesty King George, " which, will eventually serve to draw '' all people ' together in sanity and self-control." . . Do not let us give way to the tendency of to-day to pooh-pooh what some may • describe as " goody," or "sentimental," or " all that nonsense about, goodwill, etc." Upon the human adoption, of goodwill as -a practice depends the future of the problem of armaments. . ' v.- "If once," said Vis- ] count Grey of Falloda,. "we . could get nations to believe that there was goodwil l on the part of each towards the other, all the international . difficulties .'wool d disappear. ... Let us beware pi suspicious tempers, of undue readiness _to take offence. For this personal and individual work is the beginning of all widespread movements. . . This question of disarmament is the key to every other."

TRAVEL AND ADVENTTTEE. " The Cruise of the Dream Ship "—by Ralph Stock (Heinemann, -London).— best book yet written about a round-the-world trip in a small boat. The owner of the " Dream Ship" .is a writer; and .he.. ..ha? explained ; with „. clarity how to manage this navigation with very little xnon ;y. In his Own'T/case, he wrote stories f-Ud his sister , went ;i . 515 "usef til '* maid" * to -an ' exacting . invalid of religious and . parsimonious tendencies, . > Hie •" then ': purchased his boat for £300,. --Again :no capital, so ho became a, fisherman, catching and selling fish. Three weeks cf navigation study with an old retv.-ed mariner, am'.of! they went, and had a very pleasant time—the writer of short stories, his sister, and their friend, their combined capital only • one hundred pounds. Panama Canal dues nearly proved thur undo -, ng, but in the hick of time, a cable arrived announcing the sale of a story to the film. The Gall • pagos Islands • chapter makes interestir. ;, reading; one - rarely hears of themth' Marquesas, the Paumotu, ' Tahiti, thiFriendly Islands; where, in jest, he named a preposterous sum of his boat and found to his horror that he had sold his ship. " I have never been so miserable in my life." From this, many a fruitless search for a reasonable boat at a low price. Ha confides in his readers that he has at last found her. He gives practical "advice to dreamers for the prospective dream ship the world over," going into every detail. This book will inspire many voung men to seek freedom, where Ralph Stock found it so very easily, lor a" period, at least. ' . . ' _ „ ««Yet: The Memories of a Happy Dog " —(Bell, London.)— The happy dog is an 'Airedale,. belonging to a naval officer. For four years he saw servioe with his maste.' in the • navy, and ' during the war •an • afterwards, became quits famous as collector for charities. His experiences took him to South' Africa, where he describes his friendship with " Snowball," a black servant.- Incidentally the story, put into the mouth of a dog. is an object lesson on how to treat dumb animals. " A Woman's . Impressions of German New Guinea "—by Lilian Overill.—(Lans, London). — graphic narrative, whose main impressions are those of the hospitality of the Samoan wives of Germans, who owned plantations in New Guinea, d the cannibalistic _ practices still indulged in by certain natives, and of the insecurity of woman even in the plantation homesteads. Perhaps the authoress believed everything that she was told; probaUy she was told truth. In any case she had very kind friends there who took her about on adventurous and even dangerous journeys, and she found that German New Guinea was. very far from civilisation when it came "to accommodation houses and travelling away from the plar;~ tm' estates.

THE FAMILY ANTIPATHY. tt } Us t admit that mv future wife's irwfwi nofc 1 Te ?' y The father pass over *v times, the mother we'cE ?'. He held 'tw brother is half a deserter : order to vent ?^ lnK>Tl ° the brother "Nor cm C,l" re r n ', n -, aversion, f tractive to gtriLctar* -» anu ye ver : certain intolerance of \t, feel ;> rot so bad w } ler But they're Perhaps all famili™ r/ All yon have to ft! to .?* a ® ti P at^etic. | |fe. . his parents and you a ft person with voice, his • *«»,• everything at that hi* fact, belongs up to a c«ttb him, " 4»° rfc of family <3o" ,> ♦V*fche belongs to thn ' a feehnc

FLOTSAM AND jetsam. ■RY B.V.C* Nature-Study and the Humorists. Life for the Nature-lover stems to consist. of a series of thrills, but he. is singularly unsuccessful in communicating his raptures to his more materially-minded fellow-creatures. • , Such Philistines consider the pleasure of picking the first- primrose to bo vastly over-rated the call of tho cuckoo leaves them cold.

As otephen Lea-cock remarks, "If any of my friends has noticed a snowdrop just peeping above the edge of the turf, will lie mind not telling- me? If one of them has noticed that the inner bark of the oak is beginning to blush a faint blue-red, would ho mind keeping it to himself? If there is any man that I know who has seen two orioles starting to build a nest behind his garage, and if he has stood rooted to tho ground with interest, and watched the dear little feathered pair fluttering to and fro, would he object to staying rooted and saying nothing about it?" .

Consider, too, the sad case of Eleanor Stringham, who, so "Saki," tells us, had sent to the library for "By Merc Chance," the book which everyone denied having road. But instead of this sho received "By Mere and Wold," and when one had been prepared to plunge with disapproving mind into a regrettable chronicle of illspent lives it was intensely irritating to read " the - dainty yellow-hammers are now with us, and flaunt their jaundiced livery f'.om oven,- bush and hillock." Besides, the thing was so obviously untrue; either there must be hardly any bushes or hillocks in those parte or tho country must lx> fearfully overstocked with yel-low-hammers. The thing scarcely seemed worth telling such a lio about. .

Readers of "The Unbearable Bassington," will remember the gushing lady who interrupted a sacred game of bridge with descriptions of spring-time in the country, " with apple-blossom everywhere."

"Surely only on tho apple-trees." said [Lady Caroline, coldly, and the Naturelover hurriedly trumped her partner's ace.

The Charm of Conversation. Those gloomy creatures who see perfection "in every century but this, and every country but their own," delight in telling us that conversation is a lost art, but when we probe into matters for ourselves to find that the so-called brilliant conversationalists -of earlier times were merely masters of the art of monologue, and in these Bolshevistic days autocracy is not popular even at the dinner table. But if we understand by conversation a lively interchange- of ideas then, according to the satirists of the early 18th century, the art was equally "lost" in those days. For ;n Swift's cruelly clever "Collection of Genteel and Ingenious Conversations, according to tho most polite mod? and method now used at Cous-i. and in the Best Companies of England," we find the same old repartees, the name old platitudes and the same old anecdotesyes, and trotted forth with the same air of complacent satisfaction which marks their production to-day. As witness the dialogue at the dinner table when the conversation turns upon the sirloin of beef. A tactful young lady inquires the origin of the name, to which her host replies; "Why, you must know that our King James the First who loved good Eating, being invited to Dinner by one of his Nobles, and seeing a large Loyn of Beef at his Table, lie drew out his Sword, and in a Frolic, knighted it. Few people know the Secret of this." That last sentence is inimitable.'

Anecdotes—Their Use and Abuse. "Fined for cruelty to anecdotes. The accused was- charged with working two old anecdotes to death. He pleaded guilty, but stated that they were all he had, and that many equally old were still doing good work in pulpit and parliament."

In a more enlightened era reports of this kind will.no doubt appear in the police rews, hut at present the offender goes free, and the sad spectacle of good stories— their anecdotage—cruelly mutilated and ill-treated by their owners, still confronts us at ©very turn. Storytellers are many and various. There is the man who relates the bewhiskered chestnut about a Scotchman, an Irishman and an Englishman 1 . This may be! called the national joke; it is certainly a national disgrace. Then we have the type of whom Browning was "probably thinking when he wrote his poem about April. At any rate the choice of the month is significant. He is the man who tells his tale twee over

Lest you should think he never could recapture • The first fine careless rapture. The chief difficulty about anecdotes is this : The making of them is governed by a law called Economy of Invention. There are but few original stories in the wrrid and of these (an American profe -.or has remarked) only- one can be told ».o ladies.