MR HALL CAINE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1802, 19 September 1906, Page 25

MR HALL CAINE.

Following is the text of “Observer’s” nineteenth letter to “eminent men ” in “Public Opinion,” of August 3:— Sir,—This week, when Miss Marie Corelli once more takes a record public by storm, it seems to me to be but the barest justice that we should not forget our alternative genius. Hence 1 select this particular occasion to address a few remarks to you. It has been said that the world hears nothing, of its greatest men. \ou will agree with me that the converse is not necessarily true, nor is it a proof of insignificance when we hear much oi and from a particular individual. \V lien you are not writing an inordinately long novel or play, you punctuate existence with obiter dicta, which keeps green the world’s recollection or Hall Caine’s eminence. You are no: a master of brilliant paradox like Bernard Shaw, but you say tiling's which arro-.t attention, as when you told the Americans some timo ago that you would sooner be a novelist than a millionaire, and that the modern code of honour of

a gentleman embraces three principles —to live expensively, cheat in business but never at cards, and always to lie in defence of a woman. To congratulate you on your esoteric know I edge would be .supererogatory. Hue where did you learn these tlungis? I have never quite been r ; bio io make out whether you art' regarded as attempting to steal Miss Marie Corelh’s thunder, or whether she is considered to steal vours. Where a Marie Corelli does not fear to tread I am at’least saie in saying a Hall Caine may safely insist on walking. Miss Marie Corelli has given its “The Treasure of Heaven.” It is vour turn now. Presumably vou have ready "The Pleasure of Pa raclise,” or some such subtle'variant on her latest effort. Of cour.-e, you have had one great advantage. You aro not merely a novelist. You have written a guide-book, which is always a useful thing to do when imagination needs stimulus. Guide-books are either a .deadly dull rechauffe of ’common knowledge and tradition, or they are highly imaginative efforts never properly appreciated until one has fallen a victim to their allurements. A compendious small guide of yours to "Tuo Little Manx Island” has saved at least one person* the trouble of a voyage across the Irish sea. But you did yourself a wrong by preventing anyone from coming to see you on your own right little, tight little island. We go to Stratford-on-Avon to get a glimpse at one or both of your great rivals: why not go to the Isle of Alan to sec Won? Your grizzly locks and picturesque Shakespearian posing appeal to genuinely poetic and artistic souls. Their admiration was rendered complete last winter by that glorious effort in self-re-servation. “The Prodigal Son.” It only needed the composition of that play to show the really astonishing resemblance there is between Air Thomas Hall Caine, of Greeba, and the late AllWilliam Shakespeare, of Stratford-on-Avon. For those of us who failed to detect the resemblance, there was, it is to be feared, a disposition to indulge in absurd jokes and ridiculous critical depreciation at your expense. It was, I suppose, due to my efforts recently to grasp the leading characteristics of your genius that I had nightmare in the shape of a vision of dreadful— Caine. Dante was out-Dante-d. I saw an indescribable whirl of scape- , . goats, Manx cats, poisoned dogs waltzing in inextricable confusion, with bondsmen and deemsters and sons of Ha gar skating in ghostly garments amid bleak Icelandic mountains covered with snow—like a bath-bun with sugar, ’if I may humbly venture to imitate one of your beautiful similes.

Let it not be thought that I do not admire your genius. Even Miss Marie Corelli cannot beat you in your ability to minister to the mawkish emotions, and make the reading and play-going public take you at your own estimation. You know all the moves in the game; you know the cash value of hysterical sentimentalism. You know how to drag the red herring of a sickly religiosity under the Philistine nose; you are a master of all the old melodramatio fustian and clap-trap. You are happier at the business in the noyel than in the play, and I anticipate with* some anxiety the appearance of your next drama. Are you not running seme risks of spoiling a good market by appealing to the public from the boards? It has been well said by a great man that‘every occupation is capable of being made a trade or an art. Yours is a trade, and if you would take my advice you would keep to it. I cannot hope that ■ you will, because there can really be no choice between the allurements of Mr Arthur Collins and the simple admiration of yours very truly.