LIFE AND LITERATURE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19221, 9 January 1926, Page 4 (Supplement)

LIFE AND LITERATURE.

A PLEASANT MEDLEY. Sincerity, compassion, lofty patriotism, aristocratic prejudice, lovo of literature and lack of pedantry—these are tho keynotes of the Hon. Stephen Coleridge's " Digressions " (Mills and Boon). As_ tho title suggests, the book contains articles of various lengths upon topics as unrelated as " Queen Elizabeth," " False Quotations," " The Ancient City of Bath" and " The Apotheosis of Murderers." Admirers of his earlier books, especially of the series " Letters to My Grandson " will welcome such digressions as " On Paradox," " On Words" and " On False Quotations." Pleasantly discursive, never dogmatic, yet not afraid to refuse homage to a popular idol such as tho " Verbal Acrobat," Chesterton, ho dissects with gentle ruthlessness some of tho latter's epigrams: " Friendship must be physically dirty if it is to be morally clean." i have | never, remarks his fastidious critic, found I it the least necessary to be dirty in order to secure and cement and retain friendships, and I am quite certain that my friendships have been morally clean. " Straight lines," says Chesterton, " that are not parallel must meet at last." This is only true, replies Coleridge, if they happen to lie in the same plane, and as they may lie in an infinite number of possiblo different planes the assertion as made is wildly inaccurate. His views on spiritualism are in accord with Kipling s, and, in " Lord Blank Raised from the Dead," he spates his conclusions thus: " Those who are doing the work of the world, who are striving to reach some worthy goal over the bogs and pitfalls of life, struggling forward with eyes fixed on the distant hills of God, will not stop to listen to the twaddle of a futile ghost in a flannel coat and a pitch-dark room. . , There Is no power nor glory in what purports to reach those who attend 6ittings in darkened rooms from . the spirits of the J dead; and where nothing can be proved, if a choice is to be made, I prefer the ancient faith to fJ the modern credulity. ff\ His aristocrat prejudices incline him to lament over the departed glory of the j city of Bath; when * that city was " the acknowledged centre ij of rank and wit and fashion, the home of intrigue, the scene of elopements ... before democracy had clothed gentlemen as waiters . . , when Jr rank was gorgeous, precedence the breath of life and its art the ' nice conduct of a S? clouded cave'." / In this mood he is certainly dut of tune with most colonial readers and it is a relief to turn to "A Wonderful Human Document " where his warm humanity. j rages at the wanton , cruelty of man to ( man (and to woman), ' and " Alas for Mary Morgan!" the true I record of how, in \ 130S, a lovely village ' girl was hanged at the cross-roads for the murder of her infant child. " Then to tho bar of man's • judgment was she brought; and where Vt was the man who |n betrayed the poor *■" child for his plea- I sure, abandoned her for his convenience and prompted her to slay the evidence of what she dreamed was love and found was insult? Was he at her side to share, before the world, her agony and her shame, or was he at home upon his knees in the anguish of remorse ? No! not there, but upon the Grand Jury that found the true bill against the girl sat the father of Mary Morgan's child." Altogether " Digressions " is a lovable book, another product of a mind which despite some foibles and prejudices, is essentially noble and righteous. •"N