LITERARY AND THEATRICAL GOSSIP.

New Zealand Times, Volume LVII, Issue 2546, 26 June 1895, Page 4

LITERARY AND THEATRICAL GOSSIP.

From Our Special Correspondent. London, May 3. The best compliment I can pay Mr Guy Boothby on bis new novelette in the dainty Iris Library, is that the Work is not unworthy of Stevenson. "A Lost Endeavour” must bo pronounced much the most powerful and artistic of the South Australian books. Just as " A Marriage of Esther” was better than his earlier stories, "A Lost Endeavour” is superior to “A Marriage of Esther.” I must confess I was prejudiced against him to begin with, and inclined to scoff at the pretty tale of Kipling having advised the young colonist to adopt story-writing as a career. Well, the laugh is' now on Mr Boothby’s side, for the mentor’s advice has been fully justified. Perhaps, by the way', for the benefit of suspicious persons, I had bettor state that my conversion has been brought about entirely by a perusal of Mr Guy Boothby’s books and not by intercourse with that celebrity or by the consumption of liquid refreshment at his espouse. I do not know the S.A; novelist, and till recently I did not want to know- hinii Unjustly enough I thought all his wares were in the window, and that ho was unduly given to self-advertisement. Now one sees the past through somewhat different spectacles, and (permit mo to let myself down gently) I am thinking of trying to interview' this indubitably coming man. “ A Lost Endeavour" is the story of ttto human derelicts a mail and a woman who meet together on Thursday Island at a moment when both are as nearly as possible morally and physically in extremis. First of all the man saves the woman and then the woman saves the man. The latter is dying of consumption, yet learns to Ibto his nutso, and to his amazed joy she returns his affection. We are beginning to hope the wretched Garfitt (as ho chooses to call himself) will bo permitted to die in peace when tragedy intervenes. The strange pair are married, and very happy for a few weeks. Then a stranger arrives at the Island, and it is soon apparent that he has a hold over Mrs Garfitt. How the tale ends it would be unfair to indipato. The little book costs 2s 6d net, and is very daintily got up. Mrs Patohett Martin’s translation of the famous “ Chiffon’s Marriage ” forms the second volume of the Zoit-Geist Library of Messrs Hutchinson and was published on Monday last. It contains a photo of the author “ Gyp ” (La Comtosso do Martel), and a fac-sirailo of her handwriting. The latter would seem from its huge size to have been executed with a hop-polo. Poor old Toole has abandoned for the present all idea of ro-appoaring on the stage, and Rutland Barrington will take his part in “ Thoroughbred ” when the little theatre in King AVilliara street reopens next week. Haddon Chambers’ successful “Johu-a-Dreams ” was revivedat the Haymarkot last night, when Mrs Tree played Kate Cloud. The lady who has attained such popularity of late years in middo-class Scotland as Annie S. Swan is now the wife of Dr Burnett Smith, a London medico. She was brought up in Midlothian about 12 miles from Edinburgh, and most of her youthful acquaintances and surroundings figure in her books. Michael Maitland in “Maitland of Laurieston” is admittedly her father, and her mother was lovingly limned as the Mistress of Lintlaw in “Carlowrie.” Miss Swan, or, rather, Mrs Burnett Smith, has now boon writing] 17 years, yet is still quite a young woman. " Sheila ” she thinks, her best book. It was written at Amulru, in the Highlands, and is perfectly true to life. Over “ The Lost Ideal,” the author expended infinite pains, but it had not a quarter of the success of “ Homospun,” a short story knocked off during a summer holiday, of which 50,000 copies have been sold.

All the worst faults, as well as the brassy brilliance of the National Observer under W. E. Henley, are now to bo found in the New Review. Fortunately, however, wo are only called upon to road the latter once a month. In the April number you may remember a superior young man disposed to his own satisfaction of lan Mao laren and S, E. Crockett. In the May ibsuo Mr Vernon Blackburn bludgeons William Watson, John Davidson, R. do Gallienno, Norman Gale and others. For no contemporary minor poet lias he, indeed, a word of sincere praise, save Mr Francis Thompson, an obscure Bodley Hoad bardlet, whom few outside a tiny ring of specialists know anything about. Mr Blackburn's style is “ hue and largo” 5 one can't say a word against his manner* But his matter consists of destructive hyporcriticism and cheap sneers. To find too much fault with Davidson and Watson would be to give himself away. Yet it is plain that in neither can his blind eyes see virtue. Le Gallienne, Mr Blackburn flatters himself, ho can “ dispose of in three lines." Well, X do not myself think great things of this writer's verse. But it's honest Work, that thousands understand and enjoy. Can as much, I wonder, be said of the lucubrations of the Henley-cum-WMbley gang ? ( “The Vengeance of James Vansittant” relates the punishment which overtakes Diana Chartoris when, to lift her family out of a slough of money troubles, she maaries Maurice Vansittant, a moral and physical weakling, but the heir of a millionaire. Hardly is this sacrifice consummated than, through a combination of circumstances it would spoil the story to indicate, Maurice finds himself a beggar, and Diana discovers shehas been defrauded. The

blow falls specially heavily as the girl loved a man now rich who could have done for her relatives all the wretched Maurice promised to do, and made her happy into the bargain. Fortunately, Diana's moral fibre is really fine, and she makes a gallant and successful effort to do her duty by her husband. How it is received I leave you to discover. A new novel entitled “Old Mr Tredgold by Mrs Oliphant commences in the June Longman’s, and the same month will see the beginning of Bhoda"Broughton’s “ Scylla or Charybdis ” in Temple Bar. In the May Young Man note an interesting article on Mr Quintor Hogg’s magnificent philanthropic, religious, and educational work at the Polytechnic. On the books of this institution there are now 15,000 members and students, and it is almost as difficult to secure entrance to some of its clubs within a club as to bo put down for the Travellers’ or tho Badminton. ' At present 3500 young fellows are attending tho afternoon and evening classes, 500 of which are held between Monday and Saturday, Mr Hogg, who was an Eton boy himself, believes intensely in the moral influences of games and athletics. ,1s he very truly says, “ A follow who keeps himself in good . training for athletic exercises cannot bo morally bad. That is what I want to get people to see.” Tho Polytechnic has always been worked on this principle, neither religious nor educational matters being permitted to usurp tho proper periods for physical oxeroiso. Tho Young Man also contains a very fair article on Ibsen by W. J. Dawson, and some observations on sensational preaching by Dr Parker, which aro more pertinent than most of that fearful Philistine’s deliverances.

In an interview with Mrs Hodgson Burnett in the May Young Woman, tho genesis of “Little Lord Pauntleroy” is related in rather fuller detail than we have seen it before. It seems that while Mrs Burnett was recovering from an illness, her son Vivian’s quaint, childish chatter with Mammy Prissy, the household black cook, and other servants and visitors amused her even more than usual, She took to musing how he would comport himself in tho society of a Conservative English nobleman. Then she thought: I’ll write a story about him. I’ll put him in quite a new world and see -what he’ll do. How, she reasoned, shall I bring a small American boy into close relationship with an English nobleman —irascible, conservative, disagreeable? He must live with him, talk to him, show him his small unconscious republican mind. Then came the idea of a son of a younger son separated from his father because he had married a poor American beauty. Tho intermediate heirs must die out, and the boy of the mesalliance come into tho title. Then Mrs Burnett decided that Vivian should be he—Vivian with his curls and his eyes and his friendly little soul. He should be Little Lord Something or another, and finally it was Little Lord Pauntleroy. An old black auntie’s estimate of the young original deserves quotation. “ Dat chile,” she said, “he suttenly ain’t like no other chile. T’aint jest that he’s smart, smart as they make ’em. Its sump’n else. An’ he’s tho fren’liest little human I ever seed—he suttenly is.” Mrs Burnett wrote “Little Lord Fauntleroy” in six weeks. It took the civilised world by storm, remaining to this day the most popular book of its school save perhaps “ Little "Women.” Mr Vivian Burnett, now a young man of IS at Harvard, has, as the original of tho little lord, endured lionising to an unendurable extent. In England such a position would have been trying. In America it amounts almost to persecution. People write to him for his autograph, pester him with idiotic questions, and introduce him to their friends as Lord Pauntleroy. No wonder the poor boy groans at the very mention of his prototype. Lady Gwendolen Cecil, whose ghost story in a recent number of •Blackwood excited approving comment, is the author of the clever but grim satire entitled “ The Curse of Intellect,” recently published by the Edinburgh firm. Lord Salisbury’s youngest daughter has evidently inherited her full share of the family brains.

The manuscript of "White’s u Natural History of Selborne ” was sold for £204 at Sotheby’s last Friday,when a fair set of the four folios of Shakespeare fetched £416, the third, which is the rarest and was a fin© copy, realising .£2BO. ■ A first edition of " Bobinson Crusoe ” (all throe parts) was knocked down for £72; the Tennyson " Poems of Two Brothers/' .£ls; “ Vici&sOf

Wakefield ” (first edition), .£56; and Milton’s “ Poems ” (first edition), .£l2. Forthcoming books include a novel by Hon Mrs Hennikor (sister of the LordLieutenant); “Othello’s Occupation,” by Mary Anderson (not Mrs Navarro); “ The Heart of Life,” by V. H. Mallock ; Hollingshead’s, “My Lifetime,” and " The Convict Ship,” by Clark Russell,