LONDON LITERARY GOSSIP.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1189, 14 December 1894, Page 10

LONDON LITERARY GOSSIP.

From, Our Own Correspondent. London, November 3.

The authorship of the “ Imitation of Christ," which has been, and still is, oftdisputed, forms the subject of an interesting introduction supplied to a cheap and yet most delightful edition of that work just issued by Methuen and Co. This is printed by Constable oil hand made paper, in old English type, wilh red initial letters and titles, and illustrated with five designs by C. M. Gere, the binding being red buckram. Price, 3s 6d. Dr Farrar rejects the hypothesis that Thomas A. ICempis wrote the “Imitatio." Where, he asks, could the simple old monk who lived all his days in monastic seclusion have got the knowledge of human passion and weakness, and of the world generally, which we find in the “ Imitatio." Dr Farrar attributes the book to Jean Le Chartier Gersen, the famouß Chancellor of Paris, born 1363,

died 1429. “He was promoted to this great position before the age of 30, and, struggling against Popes and Councils, and monks and Kings, became the stormiest champion of a stormy time. His life rang with combats and contradictions. Living in the perilous days of Azincour, and of the Great Schism--in the day* when a maniac was King of France (i e , Charles VI.) and a monster Pope of R >me (John XXIII ), and when a nation paralysed alike by foreign invasion and domestic misery was equdly impotent to restrain the furious excesses of the

nobles under the DuUe of Orleans, or of the butchers under the Duke of Burgundy, we find him in politics now a Burgundian, now an Armngnae, refusing to pay taxe3 to the Cabochiens, and hiding himself from their fury in the vaults of Notre Dame. In Church policy we find him now denouncing in burning language the autocracy of Popes, and now accepting the humblest orders

of monastic obedience." In religious controversy he is at once the burner of B uss and the model of Savonarola—at one time urging the “cruel mercy" of executing the Wycliffo of Bohemia,-at another using language which caused him subsequently to be denounced as a precurc-o- of the Reformation. Finally, when all his life seems to have culminated in one long failure, the great Chancellor takes obscure refuge in a Tyrolese Monastiy of Celostine monks, and there passes his last days in humility and submission. It was

uu ciua nine vjruratju —accorumg 10 jjr Farrar—wrote the “Imitiatio." Records show that he sought only just then the society of little children, “leading them with him to the altar, that they may uplift; their little white hands with the prayer,; ‘O, my God, have pity on thy poor servant, Joan Gerson.’" Thomas Hammerken, or Kempis, on the other hand, was the son of peasant parents, and entered an Augustinian monastry at 19, living there in peaco until he was 92. We are told he was a gentle and retiring man, that his life was singularly uneventful, and that he was helpless anywhere safe in the study or convent. Could

such a one possibly have written an immortal book which appeals to one most powerfully because of its subtle understanding of poor human nature ? 1 trow not. “To me," says Dr Farrar, “the quietude, the resignation, the self-repres-sion, which breathes through the ‘lmitatio ’ derive their chief human interest, and are, in fact, redeemed from unreality from the fact that they sound like the echo of accents which once rang wi h passion, though now they are curbed into humility—like the hollow and far drawn murmurs that follow the detu-

meecence of a storm. They sound like ‘ some miserere ru"g from mighty grief.’ They do not read like the submission of a monk whose whole nature has been dwarfed and starved by flight and sheher from the agitations of the world, but like the self-renunciation ! of a man who has passed through bitter experiences, and has fouud the dewy twilight of the moriastry an infinite relief to eyes which were aching with the dazzling glare of earthly greatness." I take it for granted you all know the ‘ Imitatio ’ in some form or another. Like Plato and Shakespeare, Milton and Marcus Aurelius, it is one of the greatest of all great books. I like, myself, to read a brief chapter just before turning in at night. The wise and gentle woida of this modiseval monk, who has discovered the secret of peace, round off the day restfully, and divert one’s thoughts from the storms and stress of the struggle for life.

The success of Barrie’s “ Window in Thrums," and Mrs Francis’s “In a North Country Village," not to mention Jane Barlow’s “Irish Studies," has 1-d to' a multitude of mediocrities, producing Village Idylb. Fortunately only a selection of the best get beyond the publisher’s reader. One of the most able of Barrie’s imitators is a Liverpool jPresby terian divine, the Rev. Juo. Watson, M.A., of Sefton Park Presbyterian Church, who, under the pseudonym of “ lan Maclaren," has given us a rivid series of sketches of Scotch village life in Drumtochby. The book is called “ Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush," and contains four tales of rather unequal merit. The first, which must be pronounced much the best, tells the pathetic story of “ Domsie,” the village schoolmaster’s favourite pupil, Geordie Howe, a “ lad of pairts," whose parents (poor farm folk) and friends make great sacrifices in order that he may go to the University,,' and become a minister. Geordie more than fulfils his teacher’s expectations, and it is a braw day at Drumtochty when the news come 3 of his almost unheard of double triumph. ’ But, alas ! George has overworked on starvation Scions, and in the hour when he seems to have won all, phthisis seizes upon the poor lad. The chapters narrating “ How we carried the news to Whinnie Knowe," and “ A Scholar’3 Funeral," are quite equal to anything Barrie has done, and do not miss either “ Hi 3 Mother’s Sermon," or “A Highland Mystic.” “Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush," though barely out a week, has already run into a third edition.

A series of Border sketches called “ Broomieburn,” by Jno. Cunningham, is also well spoken of, but I have not read it yet. Miss Jane Barlow, too, has another volume of Irish peasant life ready, called “ Quality,” and Mr Walter Raymomd means to do justice

to the villages of the West in “Somerset Idylls."

I The new one volume Tennyson just issued by Macmillan c *ntain3 the late Laureate’s comp'ete works (including all his plays). “Crossing the Bar" fitly closes the volume. Twelve years ago the complete one-volume Tennyson was thought a marvel of cheapness at 7s 6d. Now “ Tit esias," “ Becket,” “ The Cup," “The Falcon," “ Tho Promise of May," “ Demitir,” “ CEnone,” and “The Foresters '* have been added, and clearer type and better paper are used. I confess I have a predilection for either the pocket edition, or the slim green original issues of Tennyson. A guinea will purchase the former, and there is also, of course, the beautifully printed tenvolume edition of 1888, at2i 6d a volume. Original issues vary in price, averaging, perhaps, about 3s 6d a volume secondhand, if not first editions. Folks who cannut afford Tennyson in any of these forms will welcome Macmillan’s single volume at 7a 6J.

One of the most interesting boys’ hooks I have as yet come across this season is “ Kilgorman,” a story of Ireland 1 in 1798, by the late Talbot Baines Reed, who died from overwork in 1892. The title of the ta!e gives a sufficient notion of its plot which—you boys may take my word for it—brims with incident. Bat the feature of the volume that will attract g< own-ups most is the memoir of the deceased author. Mr Reed was a cockney, educated under Dr Abbott, at the City of London School, and it was presumably there he gained the knowledge of boy life he subsequently made such good use of in The hoy's Own Paper. His first opportunity came when, in 1882, after writing a number of short papers for the 8.0 P., the editor entrusted him with a serial. This was a capital tale entitled “My Friend Smith.” From tint date till' he died Mr Reed had always a story running in the magazine, of which, indeed, he presently became editor, llis best were “ The Fifth Form at St. Dominies,” and “The Willoughby Captains,” but all were sound, healthy literature. Unfortunately it takes a long time for a writer of juvenile books to make any mark on his age. In 1892, after ten years’ hard work, and when his name had become a household word to our-boys, we ourselves were just hazily beginning to know Mr Reed. Then he died, and readers and proprietors of the 8.0. P. mourned him sincerely.

One is so accustomed to Mrs Molesworth’s delightful children’s stories being illustrated by Walter Crane, that a fresh hand naturally does not please us as well. “My New Home," lam also of opinion, will not prove the favourite some of its predecessors have done, though it is a pretty story of a rather commonplace type.

Everybody will—without any telling—buy Conan Doyle’s “Under the Red Lamp," so I need merely say that it con tains several capital tales nob previously published in the magazines, as well as some old favourites. One or two, notably “The Third Generation" and “ A Medical Document,” are very gruesome.