A LITERARY LETTER

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVI, Issue 8124, 18 May 1912, Page 10

A LITERARY LETTER

(BY "LIBER/'). The "Fasting Cure." Too late.for notice this week, bat well meriting the extended attention I will try to give it next Saturday, ie a littlo booklet, "A Plea for Health Reform," which comes to mo from Mr Lloyd Jones, of Wanganui. To-day all 1 can do is merely to acknowledge receipt.

Concerning Knoblauch, P.W.M. writes as follows: Dear “Liber,” —In your notes regarding Arnold Bennett’s “Milestones," you hardly give his collaborator full measure. Knoblauch is the author of "The Pauu," produced by Paversham in New York at the beginning of lust year. However, lie will bo better known by his "Kismet," which served as a vehicle for Oscar A echo from April, 1911, to tho date of his leaving for Australia in January last. Surely the author of ono of the dramatic successes of the year is worthy of a larger crumb. Upon the above my only comment must bo that I am not a walking encyclopaedia, aud that whereas I try to keep fairly well abreast with current literature, 1 am not much interested in the latterday ''drama, Wherefer I welcome E.W.M/s informative note. I wish 1 had other correspondents who would take the trouble to correct my errors—alas, they must be many—of omission.

The Australian Book Buyer. I welcome very cordially the appearance of a new literary journal, "The Australian Book Buyer," a copy of tho April, and presumably tho first number of which has been sent me by the publishers, Messrs George Kobertson and Co., of Melbourne, a firm long and most honourably , connected with the publishing and bookselling business in Australia and New Zealand, and now more actively enterprising and prosperous than ever. Although to some extent, and necessarily so, paying special attention to works of which tho publishers hold the Australian distributing rights, tho "Book Buyer" contains an astonishing mass of information about new books generally, and is specially valuable to book buyers in that it gives so many exemplificative extracts. Portraits Of popular authors and reproductions of illustrations from new books agreeably diversify tho text. Tho price is only a penny a month, which is amazingly low considering tho fact that the periodical consists of nearly thirty quarto pages. "Liber” has promptly registered himself as a subscriber. The yearly subscription (post free) is eighteenpence.

The Whitewashing of the Borgias. I have read quite a number of laudatory reviews of Mr Itafael Sabatini’e Co?aro Borgia,” in which at least two members of a family notoriously associated with tho most villainous crimes' are presented in quite a new light. Mr Sabatini cannot completely whitewash tho Borgias— that wore impossible—but he docs seem to have succeeded iu proving, from contemporary and trustworthy records, that Cesaro Borgia was a man of great personal courage, and that much of tho evidence upon which ho has been held convicted of tho most atrocious crimes was very largely circumstantial and frivolous. Some of the stories in which Cesar© plays the principal role are very horrible,- but tho family had powerful and unscrupulous enemies, and ho was probably no worse than many of those upon whoso authority ho has been hold guilty. For instance, an attempt was made upon tho life of Cesaro Borgia’s father which is so diabolical as to be worthy of a most ferocious act of vengeance. Yet Cesaro, when he got the alleged culprit in his power, pardoned his enemy —she was a woman. The Countess Sforza-Kiario sent a letter to the Vatican. This letter, before being enclosed in a hollow cane, was infected with poison. There happened to be a loathsome infectious disease in the city of i’orli about that time. So the letter was laid upon the body of a man suffering from it. Tho letter was intercepted, and tho plot discovered. Also, if wo turn to the chronicles of the period, poison-rings wero a usual possession, and their use by no means confined to, the Borgia family. Indeed, tho term "Suspicion of venom” was as usual a formula at an inquest as our own phrase "Accidental death.” The worst crime attributed to Cesare, says an English reviewer of Mr Sabatini’s book, was that of lho murder of his sister, Lucrezia, for whom he had a profound affection. When Lucrezia was eighteen she was married to Alfonso of Aragon, who was a year younger than herself. Two years later the young husband, who was now the father of a boy, was wounded by assassin* upon the steps of St. Peter’s. Ho recovered so far that his enemies found

it necessary to strangle him in bed. The story got about that Cesare, filled with jealousy that a husband should como between him aud Lucrezia, had hired murderers, as did Macbeth. And Lucrezia herself, a lovely, golden-haired girl, with all tho luro of Spain added to the smouldering charm of Italy, was sho a victim of these murder tales? Wo cannot know. Whether tho beautiful lips of Lucrezia and the heart of Cesare were venomous, or whether tho poison lay rather in the tongues of their accusers, remains a mystery. Another is that of tho death of Giovanni Borgia, Duke of Gandia, Gonfalonier of tho Vatican. Like all mysteries, the crime was laid at Ccsaro’s door. Having slain his brother-in-law it was only natural, said public opinion, that his brother bo tho next, and for tho same reason. Cesare and Lucrezia were inseparable, so Giovanni must have made a third, when two aro company. True, it was not an age wherein life was eacrcd. Personal courage this Borgia did not lack, for Mr Sabatini recounts how, at a full-fight held in Borne—tho Spanish tanromaehia having been introduced from Napies, where it flourished under the Aragon dominion —Cesare went down into the arena, and on horseback, armed only with a light lance, ho killed tiro wild bulls. But the master-stroke he reserved for the end. Dismounting, aud taking a double-handed sword to tho sixth bull that was loosed against him. ho beheaded tho great beast at one single stroke, "a feat which all Borne considered great." Mr Sabatini's book is at present somewhat expensive, but no doubt a cheaper edition will be published later on.

Pepy* Up-to-date. Some years ago ono of the "Punch." men—was it not Percivai Leigh?—wrote some amusing imitations of the Pepysiau stylo of gossip—"Mr Pips: His Diary,” was the title. Someone has revived the idea in the columns of London "Truth," aud gets off the following amusing references. to the snfiragottes and the recent appearance in court of some of the win-jk>f-amashing lunatics;—"l to Bow street this day, where, I am. told, tho organisers of these wild women are to be indicted for conspiracy. But all the forenoon was taken up hearing charges against the rank aud file; soe't was after 2 post meridiem cro the ringleaders were brought into the dock—to wit. Mistress Petlucfc Lawrence aud her man, MiMrcss Take, and Mistress Pankhurst, beta these two looking mighty sick and jaded, see that they had to be furnished with chayrs; and I cold not but feel sorry for tho poor misguided old things. But the fayr Christabel was not there, and I learn have not yet been apprehended; which did disappoynt mo sore; she having a shrewd, saucy wit and a readie tongue withal; soe had promised myself a pretty entertainment, and divers breazy passages betwixt wench and bench. But, Lord! To see Mistress Pankhurst weeping and clinging to the dock rail, the while she did hysterically demand legal facilities for the preparing of her defence; and mightily ill-used she was when the magistrate told her this was noe concern of his, bnt must arrange it herself with the prison governor. Then, she persisting, did order her, albeit with all gentiluesse, to be removed, which she appeered to deem a tyrannicall outrage. Yet an she will assume tho man’s part, must expect the man's Shrift; the poor old dear being now to learn that she cannot have it both ways." Upon tho fact that Miss Christabel Pankhurst was missing when tho police went to arrest her this twentieth century Pepys comments very facetiously:—‘‘To the Club, where all the talk is of the elusive Christabel and distinct anthentiok versions I heard of her present place of hiding; to wit, that she (i) is disguised in ja. parlourmayd’s cap aud apron at "a house in Prognall-gardens, Hampsted; (ii.) have crost the Channel to Dieppe in, tho habit of a Little Sister of the Poor, with badge, beads, and breviary all complcat; (iii.) have taken temporary advantage of a misleading Glory-Be coat and skirt and Hallelujah bonnet, and now singing Sankey's hymns at a Salvation Army mission in the Borough; (iv.) have shorn her head and taken service in, Harley street as a buttons; (v.) is eoping chinns os lather-boy at a penny barber’s in Wanning ; (vi) have been smuggled nway to Liverpool in a poultry crato, labelled, 'Live ducks, with care—this side «p/ "

The Poles And the Motor Car, Filson Young, whdso point of view is generally fresh and thought stimulating, and whose essays in tho “Saturday He. view” are quite the best feature in that once-famons journal, nowadays 60 sadly fallen from its old high estate, sees something to regret as well as to admire in the feats of Peary and Amundsen, on the score that tho great mystery which ■ has been an incentive to adventurous explorers for hundreds of years is now gone. For a similar reason he thinks that the loss entailed by such an invention as the motor car almost balances the gain. “W© have the convenience of rapid travel” (ho writes), “but tho old, quiet sensation of journeying from place to place on horse or on foot, adventuring every hour into strange scenes and new lands, and feeling that wo were doing a great thing and living an exciting life—all that has gone. We dart over a hundred miles of road that w© have been over so often in the same way that we think we know it off by heart, although, in fact, we neither see it nor know it- I have had great joy and pleasure in motor cars, but I would forego it all if I could get back for myself and for others tho things that the motor car has taken from us. And, similarly, who twenfy years hence would not give hack the glory of having discovered the Poles for tho glorv of having them still to discover? It is impossible to help wondering what will be loft for tbe human race when one by one all Natures little shy secrets are wrested from her, and all the veils are torn from life, and when the world thav we once thought so wonderful and miraculous lies all explained before ns, its last mysteries accounted for, and Nature

all reduced to, law. Human nature, so far as wo know, does not change, and therefor© there will always bo this deep-ly-implanted thirst and quest for the unknown; but. what will bo left unknown, except death aud whatever lies beyond it

Edep Philpotts in a New Role.' Tho detective story, which attracted even the author of “Tho Broken Eoad” (Mr Mason has now written two stories after tho approved crime-mystery type), lias now got a hold on Mr Eden Phiipotts, so long faithful to tho farmers and peasants of Dartmoor and tho Cornish and Devonshire fishermen. Mr Philpotts has, I read, written a mystery story entitled “Tho Th«po Knaves,” and his background is no longer Dartmoor, but that eminently respectable and just a trifle commonplace London suburb called Ealing!

Hugh Walpole’s Stories. Hugh Walpolo may not bo exactly what is known as a popular novelist, but he is a writer worth the notice of all who esteem, really clever fiction in which the psychological element is prominent. A year or two 1 recommended Mr Walpole’s curiously entitled novel, “Maradick at Forty,” to my readers. Next followed “Mr Perrin and Air Traill,” in which the leading note was somewhat morbid, but which contained a remarkably acute analysis of the petty ambitions and jealousies of the assistant masters at a big English proprietory school. For this second novel I did not care very much, but I notice it is being warmly praised by a writer in a recent issue of “T.P.’s Weekly,” who apparently takes it for quite a new book. Mr Walpole's third novel is “The Prelude to Adventure.” Judging by a highly appreciative review In “Tho Times” Literary Supplement, it' is a novel much out of tho ordinary: Says the reviewer: “One dark misty afternoon, early in Michaelmas Term, Olva Duh.ej.of Saul’s,

MRS BLANCO WHITE Miss Amber Reeves, daughter of tho lion. W. P. Reeves, ex-High. Commissioner for New Zealand), author of a novel, “Tho Reward of Virtue." which is warmly praised by leading English reviews. (From a pencil drawing reproduced in tho April “Bookman.”J

Cambridge, kills Carfax of the same college in Samiet Wood. Tho two have been schoolfellows of old; to Dime Carfax has always stood for ‘everything that is rotten,' and the knock-out blow he deals him, though quite unpremeditated (the result of .a sudden spasm of indignation at a callous seduction), has the weight of years of antipathy behind it. Ho kills him, and from that moment tho pursuit begins. Not the pursuit of tho ‘hounds of the law.* Not a trace of suspicion, seems likely to attach to him, and Carfax, though popular, as brutal characters of tine physique often, are, is the kind of man to be soon forgotten. But as soon as over tho deed is done he feels the pressure of an Immanent God urging liim to confess. He resists it with all the fortitude that is in him, and there in fairness to Mr Walpole wo leave it, just hinting that tho conception of the whole tense struggle as a ■prelude' is never for an instant lost sight of. It is a fine theme, finely executed. Above tho tremulous high-strung note of the human leit-motif wo hear the deep encompassing swell of a Divine overtone, inexorable, merciful."

Si non e vero, etc. "■An Interested Header" writes to the "Publishers' Circular" as follows: — After reading several of the incidents in tho “P.C.," in regard to the humorous side of book-selling;" I thought perhaps it would interest some of its many readers to know that a young man walked into a bookshop, kept by a maiden lady in the "Delectable Duchy," and asked, in a most mysterious voice if he could get a “revised virgin" there! Needless to say, he was promptly supplied with a copy of the ‘’lievised S'ersion."

Jeffrey Parnol, tho author of that excellent novel, "The Broad Highway," and of "The Money Moon," which was not excellent, has written a third story, to be published shortly, entitled "The History of an Amateur Gentleman." Hevcrsing tho usual rule, the successful play. "A Message from Mars,” has recently been "novelised” (this hideous but useful expression I owe to London World"! by a Mr Lester Luvgan, assisted by Mr Richard Ganthony, the author of the play.