LITERARY GOSSIP

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1536, 7 August 1901, Page 27

LITERARY GOSSIP

Lieutenant-Colonel Edward Gordon, of the New Zealand Militia, is about to publish, through Messrs Greening and Co., a book entitled ‘‘Some Heme I ruths re the Maori War, 1863 to 1869.

have it on the authority of Mr Mortimer Mempes that Hr Conan Doyle is not particularly proud of his famous creation, Sherlock Holmes: Why, Sherlock Holmes was merely a mechanical creature,” he exclaimed, “not a man of flesh and blood —and easy to create because he was soulless. One story by Edgar Allan Poe would be worth a dozen such.” Curiously enough (adds Mr Mempes) in real life the Doctor has no capacity for detecting anything, and he was quite amazed at my “cuteness” in discovering a missing dot on a V.R.I. stamp.

of th© least known of Kipling’s ballads, “The Rhyme of Three Captains,” in connection with the death Sir Walter Besant. The poem is founded on an actual incident in the early career o the author and b e gius thus : At the close of a winter’s day,

Their anchors down by London Town the three Great Captains lay. And on© was Admiral of the North from Solway Firth to Skye, And one was Lord of the Wessex , coast and all the lands thereby, And one was Master of the Thames from Limehouse to Blackwall, And he was Captain of the Fleet —the bravest of them all. Their good guns guarded their great grey sides that were fifty foot in the sheer, When there came a certain trading brig with news of a privateer. The allusions are to Wiliam Black, Thomas Hardy, and Sir Walter Besant respectively. The trading brig is Kipling, and the privateer an American firm of publishers whose action with his works roused him to indignation.

Mr Rudyard Kipling’s latest ballad, “Bridge Guard i n the Karoo,” is an advance upon “The Absent Minded Beggar,” but it is not The Wizardry of words that is Mr Kipling’s inheritance —or has been acquired by him —is in evidence, but there are one or two things that seem to need mending. The opening verse is in his best manner :

Sudden the desert changes— The raw glare softens and clings, The tacking Oudtshoorn ranges Stand up like the thrones of kings.

We are not so content with the next: Ramparts of slaughter and peril Blazing, amazing—aglow ’Twixt the sky-line’s belting beryl And the wine-dark flats below.

“Blazing, amazing,” “belting beryl,” and “wine-dark flats” do not seem inevitable combinations. We are not quite sure if tbe double use of the word “click” in a later verse is justifiable ;

W© hear the Hottentot herders As the sheep click past to the fold— And the click of the restless girders As the steel contracts in the oold.

Mr Kipling implies that the sound made by sheep passing to tlie fold is the same as the sound of steel contracting. We dare not disagree with such an expert, but it sounds rather improbable. There is no I metallic ring, so far as we can remem-

ber. in the sound of sheep walking. In the following verse we suspect a comma has crept in by mistake at the end of the second line :

And the monstrous heaven rejoices, And the earth allows again, Meetings, greetings, and voices Of women talking with men. “And the earth allows again” is not very poetical. Why, too, should the monstrous heaven rejoice? And why “monstrous ?”

Another interesting case under American law was that of a bookseller suing an association of French publishers for violating the law against monopolies by refusing to supply him with books on the ground that he had given more than the regulation rate (20 per cent.) of discount. The bookseller lost the case, as the court held that ..books could not be classified as ordinary merchandise.

Mrs Paget Toynbee, says “The Athenaeum,” has had the good fortune to discover, in private hands, the originals of th© letters (about 800 in number) addressed by Madame du Deffand to Horace Walpole between 1766 and 1780. The majority are in the handwriting of Wiart, Mdme. du Deffand’s amanuensis, but several were written by Madame du Deffand herself in the wonderfully clear, large, round hand which she contrived to writ© after she became blind. Mrs Toynbee hopes to publish a comjdete edition of the letters, considerably more than half of which have never been printed. Miss Berry’s edition, published nearly a hundred years ago, consisted of selections merely, representing only 348 letters.