A LITERARY LETTER

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7847, 8 July 1911, Page 12

A LITERARY LETTER

(BT “LIBER.’’) “Vanning” and "Vanners.” Van is short for caravan, and “Vanuers” is a e.onvenieut colloquialism for people who find pleasure—or hope to do .so—in’ touring through England, playing “at gipsies,” in a caravan such as is used by pedlars aud minor’“show people.” Clever Keble Howard, he who, as "Chicot” of "The Sketch.” weekly amuses a good many thousands of people all the world over by his witty causerie.s on Something. Anything, orNothing, as Air Hilaire BeUoc would say, has turned tho “vanning” craze to account in his brightly written book. “The Happy Vanners” (London : Cassell and Co.; Wellington: S. and W. Alackay), the record of a trip in which took part a "Writer, an Artist, a "Duchess, and some other good folk, experiencing misadventures, amusing and otherwise, but, on the v.-hole, having what our American friends would call “a real good time.” The story reminds me, hero amt there, of tho late William Black’s “Adventures of a Phaeton,” aud, curiously enough, seeing the record is of a journey, of Jerome K. Jerome’s “Three .Men in a Boat.” Air Howard writes gracefully and wittily. That ho can very happily hit off the modern young man —aud the modem young woman—all who have read those amusing stories, "Love in a Cottage” and “The Smiths of Surbiton,” will join mo in cheerfully testifying. In “Tho Happy Vanners’ he is as entertaining ns ever. Tho fact that the “Vanners” find their way to — and at times lose it—in Shakespeare Land, makes the story additionally interesting. Air Howard's wit and humour are admirably supplemented by Air Raven Hill's sketches, many full-page in size, others agreeably diversifying the text. As a black aud white artist, Raven nill ranks very high, and his work hero is specially attractive. I can personally testify to the value of “The Happy Vanners’’ as a fireside companion on a wet Sunday.

A New Zealand Book. Werner Laurie announces as nearly ready an illustrated bonk, entitled "VViUi the Lost Legion in. New Zealand.” by Colonel G. .Hamilton Browne ("Maori Browne”), late commandant in the Colonial Forces. "Though cast in the form of a romance the nook contains,'’ Rays London "Times,” "the author's reminiscences of tho wars in New- Zealand from 1866 to 1871, which eventually pacified the North Island, and were fought by the colonial irregular troops throughout.” The Author of "Tho Virginian.” Tho "man who wrote 'The Virginian,’” as an English journal once described Mr l Owen Wister, has a big host of admirers in New Zealand, who will bo glad to know that Mr Wister's new story, “Members of the Family,” will shortly bo on salo in Wellington. It is, 1 hear, somewhat in tho nature of a sequel to "Tho Virginian,” and. describes many episodes in tho life of Le Moyne, whose escapades did so much to enliven that entertaining book. A Famous Scots Artist. . John Lavery, tho contemporary of Sir John Guthrie,- and by far tho ablest member of what has been called the Glasgow School of Painting- (a. school to which our good old friend "Jimmy” Nairn, belonged), is" to -ba' honoured by a special monograph, tho author of which, Mr Shaw-Sparrow. recently wrote an elaborate study of Frank Brnngwyu. Lavery is not a Gldesca man by tjiith. Ho was born at Belfast, a'city of which it bus been said-, that it. possesses fi\ hundred (more or less) churches, hut no art gallery. ,- Lavery's pictures arc hung at Munich, Dresden-,- Venice, Brussels, and elsewhere on the Continent, but ho has been a persona ingrain with the British Royal Academy. : .Cipling’s School History. One of the few advantages of being rich is that ono can buy * spilling cigar or tipple a twenty-year-old port without feeling pangs of conscience about th. Claims of a large, alfcctionatc, and deserving family. Also, a mere detail, one ■nay buy editions do luxe, instead of the" common or garden variety of volume. Thus, were I a., millionaire, eleven a quarter-millionaire, I would rusu away to order the Swanston Edition ot ‘ K.iv.S.”—26 vols. at 6s—or the New Biographical Thackeray which Smith Elders iuo publishing in some twenty-fivo io. thirty volumes. And assuredly I woiuii not leave out of my next order to my booksellers the special quarto edition of the “School History- of England,” by Kudyard Kipling and C. It. Fletcher, which tho Uxfoul University Press is bringing out. Tne ordinary edition cos.o, six shillings. What the de luxe affair: will run -into I cannot say, but it is ici contain forty extra illustrations by a. Ford, and have wide margins. It may seem a silly thing, but 1 nearly like a wide margin. ■“Chatterbox!” 'No man capable of speech ever loved silence more than did Von Moltke.- Mr llodgett’s just published book contains n comic story in illustration of th.s taciturnity. Moltke and his aide-de-camp sat in a railway carriage when a brother officer entered and uttered a fewfriendly and respectful sentences. Moltke merely" nodded; then the threo fell imo a profound silence, and kept it for an hour. Then the officer, reaching his station, alighted,"and 'ventured, as he saluted, to say*"Adieu.” Whereupon tho field marshal said to his aide in a tone of disgust, “Chatterbox!”

The Thackeray Centenary. Tho Thackeray Centenary, concerning which I. shall have not a little to say when the proper time arrives, was, t see, celebrated —in advance —tho other dav bva meeting at which Lord Eosobery iV said to have • delivered a more than usually eloquent speech. Thackeray is very much to the fore just uow. In the “Cornhill" for June, Miss ITora Masson writes on tho relations between Thackeray and Dickens, and 1 notico in London “Graphic,” of May 33rd, a well illustrated article on Tnaokeray’s Connection with the Temple. Tnoso who are interested in Thackerayann should watch tho English papers of tho week after next. The Thackeray Centenary is due on the 18th, and is cure to evoke a crowd of articles in the Homo papers. There are those, I know—and 1 pity them—who avow that- they cannot “get through” “The Newcomes,” "Vanity Fair,” dr “Pendehnis,” but personally 1 am of Andrew Lang s opinion: 1 I may lose love of. ball and bat (It Is not likely, but I may); I am quite old. and stale, and flat, But one thing Time cant steal, and that Is my regard for Thackeray.

Wynken de Worde’s Curious Legacies. Mr C. W. Tinckham writes to the "Publishers’ Circular”: "A few days ago I found in an old MS. book a printed ■dip giving particulars of the will made by the famous Wynken de Worde, who, in addition to being a type-founder, was a printer, publisher, and stationer- Ho died in Loudon in 1544. I though it 'might interest some ‘P.G.’ readers. In this curious will appears the following bequests:—For tithes forgotten, 6s Bd. Item: To the Fraternity of Our Lady, of which I am a brother, 10s, to pray for my soul. To my maid, A 3 in books. To Agnes Tidder, widow, 40s in books. To ."Robert Darley. A 3 iu printed books. To John Barbanson, CDs in books and 10 marks. To Hector, my servant, 5 marks sterling in books. To Wisliu ‘los iu printed books. To Xowcl, the bookbinder in Shoo Lane. 20s in books, io Simon, my servant, 20s in printed books. To cvcrvonc of my apprentices, A 3 in printed books. To John Butler, late my t servant, AO in printed, books. To my

servant, James Ganor, in books, 23 marks. And forgive John Bedel, stationer, all tho money he owes me, etc., for executing this iny will with James Ganer, and that they, with tho consent of tho wardens of the parish, of St. Bride’s, purchase at least 20s a year in or near tho city, to pray for hit soul and say mass. To Henry Papwell, stationer, JM in printed hooks. To John Gouge, forgive what lie owes me and At. To Robert Copland, 10 marks. And lo Alard, bookbinder, my servant. JXi 15s Id.”

H. G. Wells—Autobiographical. 11. G. Wells has been airing afresh his old grievance,! against those critics wno either deliberately, or as the result of bourgeois prejudices, slated so severely Ins “Ann Veronica” and “The New ivtncheavelii.” neither of which books.l like, but to which it is simply absurd to apply tho adjective erotic. But. his tilting against the critics, whoso hides are verbially rhinoceros-like, is not bait' so interesting as the autobiographical uUcheM, in the article he. has recently contributed to Mr Bart Kennedy's new penny weekly, "The View.” Here is an interesting excerpt, which, by tho way, discloses tho genesis of certain oxiieri■nces related, fictionally, in "Love and ..Ir Lewisham” : "Then I toiled tor years to become either a biological invesligatoi' or a teacher. I set my face sternly against tho sort of work I do now, and which even, then attracted mo .most, bemuse I thought it a. mere unprofitable indulgence of tho mind, I hammered at tho doors c£ school and laboratory for a chance —for half a chance—for just a little bit of a. chance to givo my life to these things. I did not understand that both these worlds,are ruled by academic cliques; that I should have enter"d cither only to live a life of embitter.wl obscurity. I should have spent my days in hampered, suppressed, or unre-cognised-researches, and in attempts to ventilate highly specialised grievances, lived, indeed, like a man swearing with Ins head in a hag. But my Good Luck in ib? usual disguise of misfortune intervened, and one day, as I ran down Villiers street with a bag of Tock specimens I had been showing to a class of candidates for the London Bachelor of Science degree, I -coughed and broke a blood-vessel. Thereby 1 was stretched cut, it seemed,'a broken and ruined and almost penniless young man, and as I could-do nothing else I wrote, and in a vear found myself free to live anywhere and write as 1- liked, twice as prosperous ,03 I had ever been in my life before. ’ An American Critic on America. A recent addition to Methuen’s capital “Home Life” series is "Homo Life in America.’' Tho author, Katherine G, Burbey, is an American lady, lint there is no great flourishing of the Stars and Stripes in her book. On the contrary, if English critics were to write of certain American institutions as Mrs Busbey has done. I guess and calculate there would be some weird screeching from the ruffled Murkan Eagle. I notice, in particular,' that Mrs Busbey bears , out and confirms what William Archer wrote of tho "poor white h-agh” of the Southern States, and especially with regard to their children, whose condition, she says, is a blot on Uncle Sam’s shield. Her account of them, indeed, recalls Mrs Browning’s "Cry of the Children," for she remarks ;

They have answered the call of the factory owner in the South's industrial revolution., n.nd crowded about the manufacturing nucleus, living in rabbit-warren .stylo too . insanitary and indecent for the negro to accept. Babies of six rears old are set to work under terrible ‘conditions, and their advocate concludes her appeal for them with the touching words: Ono cannot look at a child of the poor white class of the South without sinking to one’s knees before' Uncle Sam in petition for a universal child labour law.

Mrs Busbcy endorses tho testimony of her ‘own coloured cook that “black nigger chilluns ain’t never ben so happy sence dat war,” for they too are pressed into thu service of the juggernaut of industry; tho little creatures, who in the old days used to tumble about their master’s estate like happy little animals, now louring into the mills and toiling all day with their elders at tasks for beyond their strength.

Stray Leaves. George Allen and Co. announce a took on “The Advantages of Hereditary Rule,” by A. C. Sutherland, M.A. The author’s object is to “show the tyranny and corruption of Democracies.” Of course such things have never been known in connection with the peerage. Copies of Conan Doyle’s latest collection of stories, “The Bast Galley,” are now on sale in the city. They are mainly historical in subject. One, "The Marriage of the Brigadier,” is reallv a line story, but for the most part the tales are, ‘in no wise notable.

Homo papers speak well of Mr? C. W. Earle’s "Memoirs and Memories.” Mrs Earle i.s the author of that delightful book. ‘Tot Pourri Horn a Surrey Garden.”

Another volume of Gilbert’s plays has been added to Chaftoß excellent tones, "The St. Martin's Library." Ollier additions' to the same ‘■cries are iwo volumes nf Geoigc Macdonald's poems and a. further instalment of McGarthy s ~l s" tory of Our Own to 1801. "Bunch” is shortly lo have a strong'? backed rival, for which, so the story gees an I’xccptioiiallv strong staff of artists and writers' has been encaged. "Punch” is still strong pictcnally, hut no to the letterpress it seems to grow more vapidly silly every year. Yet another book on M Metier. This time Frank Butter, an authority .on etchings, is the author, and Grant Richards < tho publisher. The best book I know on the eccentric lint gifted “Jimmy” (outside (he monumental biography by tho PeiinctlG jis Walter Sickert’s monograph, in' Duckworth s Library of Art—(2s Gd.) “The Power of the P-tticoat” is the title of a new novel by Mrs Henry Tippett. Meredith 'ist, T read, becoming more popular in -Germany-.- I can qu’.te undersiaiul a Teuton cujoy ‘ll3 Meredith s lonrr tautenco*. Personally I find some of Uiem rather trying. Taking up "One of Our Conquerors”-the other, day, I came across a sentence thirty-seven lines in length. T have on several occasions recommended Duckworth’s "Readers’Library” as specially good value, I note that W. H. Hudson's "Purple Laud” has just been added to tins excellent scries. These who like a thoroughly fresh travel book should sample this 'fine storv of life and natural history in a South American forest.

E. M. Forster, author of that remarkably clover novel, "Howard’s End,” .is publishing a collection of short, stories under ttio odd title, "Tho Celestial Omnibus." , -A first cousin to an aeroplane, I suppose. Smith Elders announce, a collected uniform edition” of Mrs Humphrey Ward’s novels, to be called "The Westmorland Edition,” in fourteen volume®, at is Gd, Tho pi-ice is far too high. Maud Diver, author of “Candles in the Wind,” "Colonel Desmond, V.C., ’ and other good Anglo-Indian stories, has written a hew story, "L'lamani.’ Hutchinsons are the publishers. A novelist on the "slim figure” craze. Thus Dion Clayton Calthorp in London "Daily Mail”; "You and your silly sex have just about come to the craziest moment of your silly lives. When I look about me 'in the street there doesnT ecem to be one woman loft with a figure fit .to be tho mother of -children. You look like a lot of elderly schoolgirls Wh.o’vc been left out in the rain.” Mr Calthorp once wrote a big book on, "Costume in AH Ages.”

SOME .RECENT FICTION

CBST “LIBER.”) "Tho Valley of Regret.” It was a thousand pities, both for himself and his charming wife, Betty—especially for his wife—-that Edward Cbarteri», partly through heredity, partly as the result of other forces, twisted vine leaves too generously around his hroW. I'or Charteris was a real good fellow, an fond, and the story of his downfall, as told hv Miss Holt in “The Valley of Regret’’ (London: John Lane), makes sad rending'. Once, however, the tippling “hubby" is consigned to seven years' residence at Dartmoor —he had slain a most unsavoury Semitic person and got off with a verdict of manslaughter—the real storv begins. It is that of tho emancipated Betty, and a big brawny doctor—with a past—and a' Ritualist parson with an ingrained taste for slum work. Miss Holt treads boldly, and yet gingerly— the seeming paradox is not uncommon in fiction —on somewhat delicate ground. But tho end, though perhaps not such as to satisfy tho ultra-senti-mental reader, is a triumph of artistry. Miss Holt is to be congratulated upon an- unusually successful first appearance as n novelist. “Sam’s Kid.” Sam is a trifle more than a middle aged bachelor, who, with a partner David Grier, a younger, handsome man, “runs” a “bone mill” in a South African township. Sam.has in his charge a girl, Coin. the daughter of the woman he i;ad loved, who had been wronged by a scoundrel named Streeton. Tho deserted mother dies and leaves Cole to Sam’s tare. Grier, under his real name of Hnrland. fights with and kills Streeton—but neither Sam nor Cole know this. The “kid” comes to Sam’s farm a mere girl from a bom-ding school, but rapidly develops into womanhood. Thereupon commences a powerful drama, played out against a picturesque South African upcountry background. How- poor Coie, (he sport of a cruel Fate, saves believer bv the sacrifice of her own virtue, how Sam, the trustful, the loyal, is rewarded, and how the villain of the piece is duly punished, X have

not space to tell in full Elemental passions race through the pages of Miss Young’s stirring and pathetic story, a story which is full of ficsu, picturesque, local colouring, and replete with vigorous life. ‘‘Sam’s Kid” (London: John Lane) is immeasurably superior to Gertrnde Page’s much-boomed South African stories. Mark it ’’Must” on the nest order you send to your bookseller.

“The Socialist Countess.’’ Mr Horace AV. C. Newte essayed an excursion into what T. may call Zolaism in his "Sparrows,” an almost repulsively realistic story of London life, and his “Calico Jack,” in which the baser sort of music-hall .professionalism was pourtrayed. shockccl not a few. In his “.Socialist Countess” (London : Mills and Boon; Wellington: AVhitconibo and Tombs) the dominant note is of satire. There is not a little of Mrs Jelivby, of “Bleak House” fame, in Jane Lady Dcrwontwatcr, who rushes headlong into a wholesale espousal of Socialism, without in the least understanding tho possibilities of such a union, and it is only naturol that her daughter, an immature ex-school girl, fresh from a Continental convent, should enthuse over a 'picturesque Comrade who, in private life, is a mechanic. Hence a love-story, and, as the old lady said of tho carbuncle, “complications.” Mr Newto writes with both sympathy and humour of what ho has seen and known of Last End life. “Very readable” is “Liber’s” verdict on Mr Ncwte's latest story'. SHORTER NOTICES “Kapak.” A wild, weird, delightfully impossible yarn is Mr Crawford’s “Kapak” (Edinburgh: AVm. Blackwood and Sons). Kapak is a descendant of the Incas, and dreams of driving the Spaniards and halt-breeds out of the South American republic of Torridor. His plans aro backed by a Jewish financier—for personal and financial motives bien entendn —and opposed and eventually thwarted by a keen witted Spnnish-American and an adventurous Englishman. Air-ships, volcanoes, and supernatural phenomena ail plav their parts in a wildly improbable but vigorously told story. "Kapak, tho Man of Destiny,” is not a little theatrical, even stagey, but Grevillc. the Englishman, is a wed-drawn character, and the dapper little Don, with bis unfailing tact and coolness, reminds mo of u type which tho late Henry Seton Merriman was so successful in depicting.

“Mac’s Adventures.” .Miss Jane Barlow's Irish stories and sketches are always welcome, and “Mac’s Adventures” (Loudon; Hutchinson and Co,; Wellington: Whitcombo and Tombs) should prove just as popular as were “Irish Idylls” and "Boglaud Studies.” Mac Barry is a thoroughly “human boy,” a first cousin of Torn Sawyer the Great, and the stories of his exploits and adventures, of his small joys and sorrows, and of the parts he plays in the comedies —and dramas —of his grown-up friends, relatione, and ' acquaintances, make very pleasant reading. The late Mr Swinburne was one of Mac’s admirers when some of these now collected stories were appearing in the magazines, and the book is inscribed to bis memory. “The Essence of Life.” ; A lively Irish girl, Verona Glenavoy, is tho heroine of Mi’s Alexander’s "£s sence of Life” (Loudon; John Long; WellingtonWhitcomb© and Tombs) Verona, who has a spendthrift father, has never known a mother’s care. After her debut in London society she is loved by a middle-aged man, who, • alas, has long been the ’slave of an netress-adven-lurcss. Madame, Dnfresnc, Imagine his position when he discovers that ,Verona is the daughter of Madame, who' is the Icng-missingiLady Glenavoy. Mrs Alexander adds a noble lord or two and a heap of other people to assist-,in the complication of the situation, for the final outcome of which I must refer my renders to tho novel itself. “The Recluse of Rill.” A trifle long-winded, but not a little above tho general -average in current fiction, is Mr W. IV. Henderson’s story, "The Recluse of - Rill” (London: John Murray; AVcllington; Whitcombo. and Tombs). The Recluse is a country gentleman of modest estate, who is trustee for his sister’s children. A thoroughly good fellow, ho speculates and prospers, speculates again, and loses, first his own money, then a few thousands, which ‘.orally, if not exactly legally, ho is bound to hand over to his wards at a certain date. He determines to retrench, "cuts the painter” from his quiet, comfortable homo,, and deliberately conceals his love for a very charming girl. Then to Switzerland, where he writes a novel, and to Egypt, whore he performs deeds’ of valour, on tho occasion of an Arab rising. In the long run his financial difficulties disappear, and he returns, to England a hero. to. meet his wards unashamed—and to win tho hand of his ever-trusting and faithful Violet.. I can recommend "Tho Recluse of Rill” .to all who enjov an unscnsational story pleasantly told, with some clever character drawing.

“The Luck of the Napiers.” Our old friend, “John Strange Winter,” must have written a good sem-j of novels since eho first made a hit with “Bootle’s Baby,” but there is assuredly no falling off, either in power of invention or mere story-telling skill in her latest effort. “Tho Luck of . the Napiers" (Loudon: George: Bell and Sons; Wellington: Whitcombe and Tombs). It is a treasure story, but fortunately unn.arred by tiresome detail. The interest lies far more in the characters than in tho plot. That the Napiers deserved their luck all who read this agreeably written story will, I feel sure, most cordially ajtfee. There arc some smartly satiric hits at the vulgar rich, so blatantly prominent in England nowadays.

“The Bourgeois Queen of Paris.” ’Tis France in the sixteenth century, France of Henry of Navarro and the Guises, a France that was a prey to the rival Catholic and Protestant factions, that Miss Janet M. Clark has chosen as tho scene of a well-written historical novel. "The Bourgeois Queen of Paris” (London: Greening and Go.; Wellington: Whitcombe and: Tombs), and a very fine, stirring, fascinating romance it is. Tho influence of Dumas, aud Stanley Wcyman. is there, and I faucy I see traces of burrowiugs in that fertile field of plots, “Les ITistoriettee,” of the witty and not always too discreet court chronicler and inveterate gossip, Tallcmant das Reaux. But wherever Miss Clark may have found her material she has employed it to right good purpose. The story is packed with exciting adventure and complicated intrigues, and there is also some “mighty pretty lovemaking,” as Mr Samuel Pepys was wont to write.

"People of Popham.” Those who read aud enjoyed that amusing and. charming book, “The Professional Aunt,” will need no recommendation from me to turn to a new series of sketches by Mrs George Wemyes, "People of Popham” (London : Constable and Co.) Christian Hope, the young lady who so wittily describes her friends, relations. and acquaintances, and the people of Popham generally, for our edification and amusement, is a brigbtwltted cicerone, who bits off the various characters very cleverly and very humorously. By the end of the story the reader cannot fail to respect, as well as to like, the heroine, and as for tho children in the story—and they are not a few—they are, one and all, delightful. It tho story has a fault it is perhaps that at first the stage is a'trifle crowded, but one soon settles down to a complete understanding of bow the various interests are interlocked. Jane, otherwise Miss Somerset, Christian’s housemaid and general factotum, is a special success. There are some excellent illustrations by Balliol Salmon.