COMMONPLACE BOOKS.

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

COMMONPLACE BOOKS.

"THE POOR MAN'S LIBRARY."

AN AUSTRALIAN'S COLLECTION. ] Most of us, I suppose, would like to j possess in a handy form a collection of all the quotations in prose or verse which have, from time to time, struck us as being either Beautiful, interesting, or suggestive, and the fact that, speaking generally, wo do not possess anything of the sort except in the sketchiest and most inadequate form is due simply and solely to laziness. The almost intolerable! labour of copying out extracts, says a recent writer on this subject, can only be avoided by the drastic use of the scissors; and there are few who can afford the luxury of mutilating their copies of the best authors. Failing, then, an anthology of our own, the next best thing is to buy a compilation made by another, for even where taster and preferences clash, the resultant sparks will serve to illumine the subject. In "My Commonplace Book," (Macmillan and Co.), by J. T. Hackett, we have a compilation all the more interesting to the untutored colonial because it is -..'lade by an Australian and an amateur in literary matters. The book, as Mr. Harkctt. is careful to remind us, is not truly an anthology. It is, as a commoplacc book should be, a volloGtion of (reminders made by a in mi who cannot afford an extensive library. This accounts for the rather refreshing omission of mdfct of the beautiful but hackneyed ''gems of literature " which, reprinted in many a cheap edition, are within the reach of even a poor man. * But tho author (or compiler), though modest as to his literary attainments, has the courage of his convictions, and does not hesitate to express his own opinions even where, in doing so. he runs counter to the accumulated weight of tradition and scholarship. * An instance of this quiet tenacity will be found in the long note upon Greek literature and art. . His revolutionary ideas upon the subject recall those of a far more audacious iconoclast in " The Outline of History," while Stephen I Leacock, under the mask of humour, also seeks to disparage both tho dramatic and epic poetry of Greece.-v.. t i Very few of the extracts are taken | from modern authors, owing partly to j the exigencies of copyright, but more

particularly to the author's intense admiration for the " seventies and eighties " which he regards, with undoubted justification, as a most- eventful period in literature, science, and religion. In order to ; arouse interest as a human document the commonplace book should reveal a definite bias on the part of the compiler, and the present book is certainly not lacking in this respect. The King Charles' head in this case is Psychical Research- and quotations bearing upon it are accompanied by long notes, showing that it is a subject very near to the author's heart. Fortunately, however, this obsession lias not obscured his sense of humour, as the following extracts will prove. The first is from " Selected Lectures," by Sir John Bland-Sutton: "An ostrich in the menagerie at Clifton swallowed a Book of Common Prayer, and died soon afterwards. I)r. Harrison examined the bird and found the remnants of the book. Nearly the whole had been destroyed, but the Thirty-nine Articles were intact; even an ostrich found them indigestible." -As Mr. Hackett demurely "remarks, "This statement could pot be reproduced in a serious work, if it were not vouched for by so eminent an authority." The second, from a little-known parody by Lewis Carroll, tells of the tribulations of Hiawatha, a travelling photographer, in his efforts to take the pictures, severally and collectively, of an unpleasant family who end by abusing him for his failure to—make ' them . beautiful. But my Hiawatha's patience., Hi« politeness ami iiii? vntienceUnaccountably had vanished. And lie left that happy party, Neither did ho leave them slowiy, With the calm deliberation, Tho intense deliberation Of a photographic artist. But lie left them •in a hurry. Left them in a mifrhty hurry. Statins that he would not fctand it; Statins: in emphatio laneuacre What he'd be be<fore /he'd stand it. Thus departed Hiawatha.