CURRENT LITERATURE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18577, 8 December 1923, Page 4 (Supplement)

CURRENT LITERATURE.

NCKKES ON NEW BOOKS,

by critic. la it right to rifle Tutankhamen's tomb! Have the gods shown their displeasure by killing one excavator- Will his successor get off free? We hear these questions, but we heel them as we heed old superstitious; and the treasures 'P.®* forth from the tombs. It is a baffling question whether the relics of the past, be they sepulchres containing gold and gems, or ridden heaps with ancient chards, should provide knowledge for this generation; bub man is ever seeking knowledge, and research work goes hand in hand -with exploration atfd excavation. THE ROMANCE OP EXCAVATION. "The Boraaince of Excavation ''—•by Ronald Masters, (Lane, London).—Quite a necessary book giving to those who hare not access to oert-ain literature, and to the great museums of the old world, or to those younger ones who yet are ignorant of tie gradual building up, stone bv stone, of the mass of knowledge kn&wn as Egyptology. A child can read this book and discover how a soldier in Egypt with Napoleon's amy, drove his pick into the soil to see if a rock which he had struck were large or all. He quickly discovered that the rock was of no great size, and in a few minute® it was lying clear at the bottom of the trench. Glancing idly at the stone, the Frenchman noticed that it was covered with strange characters. He cleaned the surface, other men might have thrown it aside. He possessed intelligence and the curious stone was added to the booty of the French. That stone, unearthed in 1798. was the piece, of black basalt now in the British Museum, which gave, after ■rears of almost heart-breaking endeavour on the part of Dr. Young in England, and Champollion in France, the key to Ancient Egrprian writing. Again, Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon-, had moved ab»ut 70.000 tons of rubble without finding a sign of a tomb. The quest way almost given up. They restarted a few yards away. Again, blank. Jusi one more day, and if nothing turned up, stop it -2 Before the end of that one day, the step which ultimately led [the excavator to the marvellous tomb, was unearthed. Flinders Petrie sought for years. He dug in the earth with his bare hands, carefully disinterring every shaped thing. Where a French scientist had worked for four years, he set his diggers to work. He found pots turned on no potter's wheel, shaped and fashioned by hand alone. He found the hitherto unknown names of four of the ancient kings of Egypt, adding fifty centuries to the five thousand years set as the limit of civilisation in Egypt. One day his native diggers cast casual glances at. a jar—for his orders were that directly anything was touched be must be called to personally unearth it. But Flinders Petrie was able to inform the world that this was a Cretan pot. Was then the civilisation of Egypt founded on a far older civilisation which came from Crete, that little island in the Mediterranean. Romance? Read of the soldier RawImson, -who spent years deciphering carved inscription:; in Persia. Over five hundred years,. 8.C., that great king Darius, had an account of 'his campaigns engraved on this rock in Persia. A full length portrait of the monarch, receiving some prisoners captured in his wars was carved. the rock cut sheer away to the foot of the cliff, and ail brushed over with a sort of yellow vansish. Its secret, a varnish that will endure frost, hail, rain, and sun for twenty-four centuries, is still unpaired. But who could have believed that armed with thick, sheets of paper and accompanied by a little Kurdish boy, a British soldier would solve a problem that siad bafiSed 'many scientists? So steep was the rock that no hold could be found. - But the boy wormed his way, dug in a peg where soil had stayed, attached a rope, rwung himself, after repeated failure!;, over the abyss, drove another peg into the soil, making with the rope a cradle. Sitting m this he went all over the rock with sheets of damp paper, to take the impressions. In ten days, Rawlinson possessed the first complete copy of the cuneiform inscriptions at Behislon ever held in the hands of man. For years now he laboured without a clue to help him, and totally unaware that other men had wrestled with these difficulties, and that others were working at tbs cuneiform language. He wrote his boolr, which astounded the scientific world. He was thought to have invented the reading. But a cylinder of clay was later unearthed in Mesopotamia —copies of it were given to four men who had learned to read cuneiform writing, among them Riwlinson. ICacE translation told the same story of Tiglathpiliser, the •same names and dates. David Masters., with true appreciation of the romance of it all, gives outlines of the world's great treasure buried so long ago; and gradually unearthed by the patient hands of excavators."

A NATURE BOOK. " Muteship irtth Birds"—by A. H. I Chisho.lm (Wbitcombe and To mbs, Christchurch). —The author, who occupies a very high place in Australian ornithology, has given a very complete record of his rambles in the Australian bush—rambles undertaken with a view to study bird life. He records various incidents^—little things perhaps, but of interest to everyone who loves nature. Writing of birds which flutter off their nests and drag themselves along the earth when danger threatens, be says: " none is a more consummate actor than the yellow-tufted honeyeater. Slipping out of its dainty cradle suspended in a sapling, this pretty tragedian will go tumbling and fluttering along over the roughest of ground, beating its wings disfcressedly and screeching meanwhile as hough in mortal agony. So soon, however, as the uninitiated or indulgent visitor is drawn from the danger zone, the tragedy gives place to comedy; the actor shakes its little tail in the .shelter of a friendly tree." He and his friends have produced beautiful little . photographs to illustrate the book—pictures of dainty wild birds in their chosen homes—a nest among the blossom of an apple tree, swaying in the tree tops, in the fork of the branches, one even in an old kettle. The letterpress is a very simple account of the various phases of bird life; its phraseology is for young ana old. The writer is always actuated by an affection for his task. A preface is written by C. J. Dennis of " The Sentimental Bloke," in which, among other complimentary remarks, he _ tells that it was Mr. Chisholrr's articles which first caused him to take an interest- in bird life, GIST BOOKS FOR THE YOUNG, Or. looking over the Christmas juvenile publications one's first thought must surely be " How lucky to be a child to-day!" Wo have travelled far from the old days of moral but dull and badly-printed books which were then thought good enough for young eyes." The house cf Cassell is responsible for the usual annuals, " Chums " and "Little Folks;" for younger children, "Tiny Tots " and two books specially suited to •.'.he colonies ;— The Australian Boys' Annual," land " The 'Australian Girls' Annual." From Ward. Lock and Co., come a jollylooking child's look, " The Sunshine family," by Ethel Turner and her daughter Jean Curie wis, as well as a story teach Beyond," by the latter alone. ' IM V ,° ug ! 1 . chea P> editions, of "The v>ret?[tv an j " Tanglewood Tales," if illustrated, are published by BlLo,- , an Unwin, Ltd. Annual^ fo" 'T?t?l' B Implication includes ami "Boys" ® one "Children" One 8 i? odcr c n in , character Blackwell), an j , ,°y Street" (Basil contributors '"hick " ,h, «l Mare, Bui. {&_' « Walter ■i' la man wiU show thit V i l llrence Hous " with pleasure by ■« a-,^° k wiU he read ups too." and «.rkiriv ' etl and grown - it to read will wlr .?,% ° n who has -tsimeeliout huom, thl h " Ber , ° m the UuaJ ** hum P that i, black life.'

FLOTSAM AND JETSAM.

BX n.F.C. The " Jawry" of the Garden. Basil, Rocket, Valerian, Rue - (Almost singing themselves they ran) Vervain, Dittany. Cnll-me-to-you Cowslip, Melilot. Rose of the Sun. . . • Indeed our fathers of old had excellent herbs and excellent names for them, too. But the tremendous growth in modern times of the garden cult, accompanied by the ransacking of the world for new specimens and the hybridisation of existing varieties, has produced a truly terrible pseudo-classical gardening jargon. Even the flowers known to our fathers of old are seldom called by their ancient names. Cherry Pie has turned into Heliotrope. Antirrhinum has displaced Snapdragon. Tho homely Columbine is now the ruffling, long-spurred Aquilegia. A primrose by the river's brim is Primula vulgaris to the Peter Bells of the horticultural societies. It is hard to grow lyrical over an eschseholtzia or a dimorpotlieca Pyrethrum gvpsophila, schizanthus — no, they cannot be said to sing themselves in fact, as someone pointed out recently, substitute the names of diseases, and few but close observers would notice anything wrong. As for instance My beds of doubles pneumonias are not doing well, but I have a beautiful border of yellow malaria with anaemias drooping over it. Along the front I mean to sow anthrax which, with a mass of scarlatina behind it, and tall spikes of blue melancholia at the back, will make a charming colour scheme.

The Blighted Bean. Literature recognises definite social grades among tho flowers and vegetables. Some are honoured guests within its realms; others can never hope to obtain tho entree. A pumpkin in a poem is as unthinkable as a -coal-heaver at court. But with otters the reasons for exclusion are not so obvious. Why, says an American writer, do we respect some vegetables and despise others? The bean is a graceful, confiding, engaging vine; but you can never put Deans into poetry, nor into the highest sort of prose. Corn, which in my garden, grows alongside the bean and, bo far as I can see, with no affectation of superiority, is, however, the child of song. It " waves "in all literature. Think, too, of the disparagement conveyed by the phrase " not worth a bean." j However, it requires some sort of' intel- ; lectnal ability to estimate the number of beans in the well-known mathematical problem, and " old bean" may be regarded as a term of affection, though of a somewhat patronising and contemptuous variety. As for the " highest sort of prose," surely it would be difficult to get. higher than " Jjick and the Beanstalk." However, it has been left for the Irish poet, W. B. Yeats with all the reckless courage of his race to introduce tho despised plant into his dream home at Innisfree. " Nine bean rows will I have there," he boldly declares, and by the aid of those magic bean stalks may ho reach the haven of his desire! Soma Epigrams. As Seneca once remarked, " Whatever has been well said by anyone belongs to mo"—and so, no doubt, to my readers. Samuel Butler (the modern one) also is responsible for an ingenious defence of literary borrowing. " Appropriate passages," he says, " are intended to be appropriated." With such support I, need make no apology for quoting the following _ epigrams. There is no connection of ideas between them; they are linked only _ by their supreme neatness. The first might serve as an epitome of a novel by Wells, Bennett, or Galsworthy. They eat and drink and scheme and plod, And go to church on Sunday, And many are afraid of God Audi more, of Mrs. Grundy. F. Locker-Lampeon. The second reveals Dr. Johnson's love for Britain's better half. Had Cain been Soot, God would have changed hi* doom. -•>-,• . ]*?ot forced him wander, but confined mm home. i The third and fourth are ' anonymous. Beauty is -worse than wine: it intoxicates both, the holder and the beholder. He that surrenders When he is in the •wrong i« wise; he that eurrendere when he is in the right is—married; but he also 'is. wise. '