A LITERARY CORNER

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVI, Issue 8178, 20 July 1912, Page 10

A LITERARY CORNER

(BY “LIBER.”)

Wisdom for the Week. Laws aro commanded to hold their tongues among arms; and tribunals iaii lo the ground with th« pcaco they are no longer able to uphold,—Burko, Alexander received more bravery ol mind Ijy the pattern of Achilles, than by hearing tho definition of fortitude. Sir Vhilin Sidney. Obligation is thraldom, and thraldom is hateful. —Hobbes. A man's wisdom is his best friend; folly his worst enemy- —Sir W. Temple. The scholar who cherishes the love of comfort is not fit to bo deemed a scho-lar.—-Confucius. Speaking much is a sign of vanity; for ho that is lavish in words is a niggard in deed.—Sir W. llaleigh. Every thought which genius and piety throw into tho world alters the world. Kmctrsou. In jealousy thero is more eclf-lovo than tovo.—La Rochefoucauld. Tho Real OLueon Victoria. So many !>ook» have been published having for their subject tho life and ceign of Queen Victoria that at first sight it might seem that Mrs Jorrold a '‘Early Court of Queen Victoria' (London: George Bell and Sons, per "Whitcombo and Tombs) were merely unnecte* sary bookmaking. Hut ouch an inlorenco would bo a grave mistake. Mrs Jorrold must bo congratulated upon having written an exceedingly bright and interesting book, a perusal ot which will remove many erroneous conceptions of Victoria's truo character. Tho author has, of course, gono to both GreVillo and Crocvey for much of her material, but oho has worked on her own iinee, and in its complete freedom from anything like gush, sycophancy, and false sentiment, her book is distinctly / refreshing.

A drawing ,bv Drummond. (Seo Mrs Jerrold's "Early Court of Queen Victoria.")

Tho Queen is shown not only as nMonarch but as a woman, a normal and distinctly fallible person, just as apt to bo governed by personal likes and dislikes, personal partisanships and prejudices, as the most humble of hor subjects. A special feature of the book is tho series of carefully drawn character portraits of the young Queen’s advisors, especially Lord Melbourne, whoso Ascendancy over his Monarch was so marked as to suggest, at ono time, a fear in not a few minds that tho elderly statesman would fain have bcoomo a Consort, and that tho Queen was, on her side, not much inclined to view tho idea with disdain. From the very first Mm Jorrold makes it abundantly clear that the Queen had a will and a mind of her own. She was distinctly inclined to autocracy, and keenly resented even tho best meaht advice when it jarred upon or clashed with her own personal desires. Mrs .Terrold’s book may shatter a good many illusions and sentimental traditions as to tho clever, strong-minded lady- who was one of tho most famous of British Monarohs, but as tho author says, it is better that the truth should bo known. At ono time, especially at tho time of tho second Jubilee, it was fashionable to paint Queen Victoria as a sort of terrestrial angel, but as time goes on, this estimate is gradually evaporating, giving place to a more accurate view of her character. Mrs Jerrold states that hef endeavour has been to "show tho young Monarch as she really was, surrounded by the somewhat cruel limitations of her time — * girl, frank, loving, truthful, and admirable in many ways, yot one in whom tho seeds of an undue pride had been planted and most earnestly fostered by those responsible—in spite of which fact, however, a person much more lovable than any counsel of perfection could possibly have producefl." An agreeable and distinctive feature of the book is its long gallery of portraits of famous statesmen, ladies, and others who were prominent at Queen Victoria’s Court during tho earlier years of her loign. Included among these are portraits of Lady Flora Hastings, and tho equally famous Mrs Norton, concerning each of whom the tongue of scaudal wagged at one time’ with painful freedom. Another interesting portrait is ono of King Leopold of the Belgians when quite a young man, from a drawing by Sir Thoimis Lawrence. I can warmly commend Mrs Jcrrold’s book to all lovers of what I may call tho anecdotic side of history. Travels Home. Too many well-to-do Now Zealanders periodically hurry away to distant lands on pleasure-bent, and yet leave the scenic beauties of their own country unseen. Mr George Fenwick, long and most honourably known in connection with journalism in Dunedin, has issued a little booklet, “From East to West and West to East" (Dunedin: ‘‘Otago Daily Times" Office), which will, I hope, make not a few of his countrymen who contemplate a trip to the Old Countrj ponder awhile ns to whether they had not bettor first make themselves acquainted with the glorious sceury of the less known parts of the South Island. Ur Fenwick describes a tour through South Westland, and writes most enthusiastically of tho scenic splendours af the West Coast generally. The' little hook, which is liberally illustrated, should prove a very useful guide. There is no attempt at fine writing, tho style being simple, direct, ami effective. A map. however, would have been a useful addition to tho little publication.

The Real Queen ... ria—Travels Near Home Wilkie Collins and his novels —A genius for story-telling Collins the Man —Anatole France on Pantagruelism Libers Note-Book—Some Recent Fiction, etc., etc.

Wilkie Collins anti His Novels. Wiif'ii. a few weeks ago, X read that a then lurHicoming number of "Tho Bookriiiii” v,;us l<> contain a special article on Wilkio Colli ii.-i, I sva.s moved, u» .v.mo m my readers may remember, to mniui.-ceuces of youthuil iiiereij di-ui'iilK, ivimt time Collins's famous story ••Armadale” wart appearing in tlie pages of the yellow-backed ''(.ornliiJlTlu-. week J have before mo tho June number of the English magazine which bir William Robcrt.-on Nlcoll Inns made. ,-.uch a power in the world of critical literature, and have read, with tho keenest interest, a long and agreeably mformativu article on Collins, by Mr Arthur Compton Ricketts. Air Xtickotts Is clearly a great admirer ot Collins rt work, whieii, by tlie way, won the admiration of such mie judges as Dickens, Thaekorav, Charles Keude, Anthony Trollope," Walter liesant, George Meredith, Swinburne —who .specially delighted in "No Ah me” —Thomas Hardy, and Tlmodoro VVatt.-Duuton. I Hank X have already told my readers how ‘'Liber, when a boy of fourteen, discovered the second or "middle volume of "The Woman in White,” and forthwith the world iva.s dull ami cold until tho first and third oi tiit> tomes could bo secured, and it id Jen away, for stealthy butdcdightful iumusul by candle-light. Iho »\pman in White” was a great lavonnto with Edward FitzGc raid, of Omar Khayyam” fame, and Thackeray, too, albeit disliking sensational fiction, had many kind words for it- Thomas Hardy, so Air Ricketts tells ns, in an article whicli all good lovers of Collins should paste in their copies of The Woman in White,” considers that in the Jailer novel ami in "No Namo” Collins was at his best, but art a rule, whenever—which, I confess, is rare—l happen across a latter day admirer of this Victorian novelist, it is “Tho Moonshine" to which preference is given. Tor myself, X shall never relax my allegiance to “The Woman in White.'’ Count Tosco, tho cunning viUaiu, with tin- doludingly pleasant manner, but a villain who planned cold-blooded murder the while ho smoked cigarettes and plaved with his pet white mice, is. to mo," at least, one of those unforgettable figures in fiction which fairly haunt the memory. “Ixurg John • Silver in ‘'Treasure Island,” the smoothspoken, eilky-tongued villain in Sheridan Lo Fa mi’s “Uncle Silas —a much neglected _ book —the jealous, unlovely spinster in-Balzac’s “Cousino Betti”; Nadgett, tho exposer ot Jonas Chuzzlcwit’s crimes; Morgan, the valet in. “Hendon n is”; and tho heroine —with her unmentionable profession—in Guy do Maupassant’s “Houle do Suit'”— these and a few others, who in my days of ephemeral literary glorifications, have gripped my fancy, might, perhaps, be forgotten, but Tosco tho Inimitable, losco the Great, will, to me, ever remain the same personified mixture of comedy and tragedy that ho was when, close upon thirty-five years ago,' I first made acquaintance with that engaging rascal. If only .for his creation of Tosco, Wilkie, Collins deserves to live, ami ho who has not rend “The Woman in White” knows not the true genesis of the latter day sensational novel.

Collins, the Story-Teller. It is fashionable nowadays, I know, to sneer at tho mid and later Victorian novelists, especially at Trollope and Collins. As to Trollope, i have written not a little in these columus, and need say no more to-day than that I regard him as a most faithiul and informative painter of educated middle class society of the Victorian era. Wilkie Collins could not do what Trollope did, nor could Trollope, had- ho wished so to do, have ever equalled Collins in his gra.-p of the more dramatic —sometimes, perhaps, melodramatic —side of that, to me, strangely interesting life of the Victorian, sixties to eighties.' But in his own way, a way so different in its working out,- from that of T roll ope, Wilkio Collins had this much in common with the author of the "Barcliester'’ novels, to wit, the special gift of story-telling. 1 am delighted to notice that Mr ificketts emphasises Collins’s “technical ‘dexterity us a story-teller." Mr Ricketts says: Coiiins was as careful about Uio clarity of his stories as was .Tennyson of his poems. Ho would have no scone, no character, that tended to blur the general effect. No novelist was more fastidious about tho logical presentment of his talcs than ho. Despite tho intricacy of many of his plots, rarely indeed are there any loose ends or superfluous characters. There are numerous by-ways, but all lead back into the higli road again. Thu complexities aro legion, but they have tho orderly disorder of an arabesque, not tho confusion of a tangled skein. This technical skill was not achieved in his earlier work. ‘‘Basil” is almost chaotic, despite its undisciplined power. It is first apparent in “The Woman in White"; it reached its height in “The Moonstone." “Tho Moonstone” is a niasterpieeo of construction: from tho impressive opening scene where the gem is shown in its splendid Eastern setting, through nil tho mazes of the story, down to its final recapture by tho Indians, there is not a scene which does not carry forward tho tale, not a -character that lias not a part to play in the solution of tho mystery. . . . No other English novelist can equal Collins in this. To find his peer wo must turn to Gaboriau and Do

Bo is "obey. . . . Murder looms seldom in liia stories: of fighting there is next to nothing; hair-breadth escapes interest him but slightly; uml out of the way occurrences are few tiud far between. Eschewing these things on the ono hand, and the psychological interest of tho character novel on tho other, it is surely a signal testimony to his power ns a literary artist that ho should hold us- with such unmistakable enthralment. 110 is a .master of dramatic innuendo; the Sterne of sensationalism. Ha can thrill you more by the posting of a letter, than most of his school can by a lurid murder. And His Mannerisms. After declaring that Count Tosco—“clear cut and distinctive” —is "worthy of Thackeray’s art, and for cleverness and esnrit deserves to rank with Becky Sharp.’’ and after noting, too, that ‘‘Lydia Guilt” (in “Armadale”) ‘‘is a singularly fresh version of the adventuress, considering .she was invented at a time when green-eyed Becky was all the rage.” Mr Ricketts continues: Clitics complain of Collins's characters that they are mere embodiments of tricks and mannerisms. “They are recognisable chiefly by their externals,” said one > critic, ‘‘they have no inner life.” Well, “who deniges of it?” This must of necessity be so where characters exist for the story and not the story of the characters. In characterisation of this kind, how is it possible to give colour and form without, the externalising process!' The crucial point, is not whether they are psychologically complete, but whether

a- they stand, they are alive. On Hie whole, I should unhesitatingly say. Ves. The old House Steward with bis touching confidence m “Robinson Gnisoe," as a prophetic hook, (he brilliant sketches ol the lowers Tedgyift, the easy-going, genial, though commonplace Allan Armadale, Alarion Haicombo and Magdalen Van stone, arc not easily forgotten. Dickens externalised, but few nowadays would deny .vitality to his characterisations. Collins lacked, of courts*, the amazing inventiveness of his friend : but lie had a good shave ot his power to actualise a character with a few touches. And, considering Hie complicated plots with which he dealt, the wonder is that he was able to touch so many figures into life and signiti- . cance. Wilkie Collins— Bibliographical. “The Woman in .AVhite,” "Tho Aluoiislone,” ‘‘Armadale,” and two or three others of Wilkio Colliu-s's novels, arc purchasable in sevunpenny editions, issued by Collins and other publishers—fill 1 particulars available at any good book simp, i’ersonally, I would prclei as did Hio gentleman mentioned by Macaulay in connection with a certain verbose historical work —"ten years at the gallcvs"—than ho condemned lo read Wilkin Collins “tout complot.” . As Air Silas U'egg said of the immortal “Decline and Tail,” "X haven't been quite through him lately.” Chatto and Windus, X .believe, .hold the full Collins copyrights and publish a decently printed edition—although from rather worn "stereos” —of all Collins’s novels. Altogether there are some thirty or' so of them, hut beyond those I have mentioned, the stories most worthy of serious attention by readers in this present year of grace are —well. say. "Armadale,” “Man ami Wife.” “The New Alngdalen," "No Name," “JazebcTs Daughter,” and “Aims or Airs.’'” All these can ho bought for a couple of shillings each. The following may he regarded ns the best of Wilkio Collins's works: “The Woman in White," “The Aloonstone,’* "No Name,”. “Alan and Wife” (in which Collins made a most ineffectual attack upon tho British craze for athletics), “Armadale” (in which occurs the famous character, Afiss Gwilt) “X’oor Alias Finch ” “The New Magdalen” (a dramatised version of this was produced in Wellington some years ago) '‘Frozen Deep” (in a dramatised version of which Dickens appeared), “The Law and tho Lady” (which ran as a serial in l,ontlon “Graphic”) “Jezebel’s -Daughter,” and “Aliss or Mrs?”

"The novelist vrho invented sensation," the author of “The Woman in White,”- “Tlio Moonstone,” etc. Dickens’s friend. (From a portrait, in the June ‘‘Bookman.”)

Wilkie' Collins, the Man. The writer of the “Bookman” article does not pay any particular attention to the personality ot 'wilkio Collins, beyond saying that ho was the son of a painter, and himself, in 1841), .exhibited a landscape at a itoyai Academy esnibition. Tno personality of tnc once famous novelist deserved, I think, more extended notice, ile was, for many years, a close friend of Dickens. ill: collaborated with “Bov.” in the authorship of more than one Christmas number, and it is an open secret- that ..the Collins theory of plot craftsmanship, phis the historical material provided by Carlyle’s “French devolution." was largely reflected in "A- Talc of Two Cities." Wilkio Collins was a frequent visitor at Dickens’s house at Broadstall's, and Forster’s “Life” of “Boz’ has many references to ill the Isle of Wight, at Boulogne, and Folkestone, in which the author ot "The Woman in White” was prominent. Wilkie Collins’s younger brother Charles Allston Collins, was, I may hero remark, the first husband of Dickens’s younger daughter. Miss Kate Dickens, now Mrs Perugiui. C. A. Collins, who died comparatively a young man, wrote a now half-forgotten but very-charming book, "A Cruiso upon Wheels." Both brothers were frequent participators in tho amateur theatrical performances in which Dickens so greatly delighted. In later years—he died in 1889—Wilkio Collins, who got the name Wilkie from his father’s old friend, tho famous painter, Sir David 'Wilkie, was, alas, a victim to a nervous disorder, and found solace, like Do .Quincey ahd Coleridge, in opium, i In Air Rudolf Lehmann’s “Reminiscences”—a perfect mine of good stories about Victorian literary and artistic celebrities—l find tho following reference to Collins: In his moments of good health he ' was a ready, amiable talker. . . . He had found laudanum most efficacious in soothing his excruciating nervons pains. Like the tyrant of old who, to make himself proof against being poisoned, swallowed a daily increased portion of poison, Wilkie had gradually brought himself, not only to be able, but absolutely to require, a daily quantity of laudanum, a quarter of which would have been sufficient to kill any ordinary person. Anatolo France—Pantagrueliste. Anatolo Franco is an ardent Rabelaisian—as wore, too, oh, strange combination, Oliver Wendell Holmes and Walter Bcsnnt—- and has recently, at the annual dinner of the Society of Rabe-laisian&y-how fitting that the laudator of la divine houtcille should bo honoured by a dinner—been discoursing upon the spirit of Pantagruelism. Says M. Tliibaud, otherwise M. Anatolo France: We shall not be true Pantagruelians until we shall be able to listen calmly to utterances that displease us. until we can suffer contradiction. Pantagruelism is a good doctrine; it keeps \us joyful, it appeases us, it fortifies us. It renders us happy and kind. It confirms in their optimism those who are already • optimistic, and it leads to optimism those who have turned their backs upon it. And wo cannot do better, perhaps, than to believe that everything is for the best in this world; not that things go well here os a rule; on the contrary, things generally go wrong, but we can at least colour them to suit our fancy. "We can at least colour them (the affairs of life) to our fancy.” Brava for the doctrine of self-reliance, of independence, of trno freedom. Every man makoth his own world, and let him, above all things, ntpke the best of today. for who' kiioweth, not oven my friend Mr Bates, what the morrow shall bring forth;' Rabelais and Omar‘Khayyam must surely be hobnobbing sonic-

where in the upper—or nether —world, for did not Omar, most unjustly, J shall always think, accounted a pessimist, write: Ah, fill the hoots it. to repeat How time is slipping underneath our Toot. Unborn To-ALorrow and dead u;stkuday, . Why fret about them if To-Day I*? sweet! “LIBER’S” NOTE-BOOK. Huskin for sevenpence! Reprint buyers should note tho appearance of sevenpenny editions (Everett and Co.) of Buskin's “Two Paths,” “Unto tho I>ast, “Sesame and Lilies” and “A Joy for Ever.” Cloth-bound, and quite decent print. Percy Fitz Gerald, author of so many books on Dickons, hooks in which there is much "vain repetition,” has perpetrated vet another volume on "Boz ’ — “Pickwick Kiddles and Perplexities” (Gay and Hancock, . Is). Fitz Gerald picks out several small mistakes in chronology, and so forth, perpetrated by the big iiuui. without any thought that some small-minded person would ever bother his brains with the dissection of mere trivial error. Hero is an instance: “How, after Mr Magnus had left the room to propose to his lady, and full twenty minutes by tho clock had elapsed, did Mr Pickwick contrive to fill up so long a time by ‘taking a few strides to and fro’?” Amongst recently issued volumes of “Tho Homo University Library” (Is 3d), the. following may be recommended as being specially good value: “Conservatism.” by 1/ord Hugh Cecil, AI.P.; “Buddhism.” by Mrs Rhys David; “The American Civil" War,-” by Professor Paxson (an exceptionally good survey of the subject); “X,audmarks in French Literature,’’ by O. I/. Strachey; and “Psychology,” by Professor W. AlcDougall. Professor Pollard's “History of England,” a study in political evolution, necessarily somewhat scrappy, hut is well worth fiftoenpence, if only as a guide to other and .more elaliorate historical works. Ono of the latest additions to tho already long list of New Zealand periodicals is “The Bowling World,” a weekly paper published at Auckland. AXacmillans announce a new "pocket edition," complete in twelve volumes, of tho works of Frances I’arkmaii, the historian, of Canada. I’ersonally I vote against all “pocket” editions (even in “limp leather”) of historical works. A history, to my mind, is Xiest read in an octavo, or a crown octavo, at the smallest. You can buy Parkman’s "Conspiracy of I’outiac” in "Everyman’s Library,” at lifteenpence a volume, in capital largo print. The volumes aro fairly dignified in size. A "pocket edition” was not wanted.

But Parkman is always worth reading. whether in ‘stately octavo or u “skimpy" pocket, edition. Conan Boyle is a great admirer of the American historian. whoso “Jesuits in Canada” is, says the author of “The Refugees,” “worth a reputation in itself.” “He is worth reading,” says Conan Doyle, "if it were only for his account of the Indians;” It was to Parkman, I may say, that * Robert Louis .Stevenson went for much of his American matter in "The Master of Ballantrae.” To these who would fain know more of the valuable historical work, and of the exceptionally interesting personality, of Francis Packman, I would commend a perusal of Mr Thomas Seccomba's valuable biographical; study and critical estimate of Parkman which appears as a preface to the “Everyman” edition of "The Conspiracy of Pontiac” and the “Indian War after the Conquest of Canada.” 1 Mrs Frances Hodgson ‘Burnett, ol •'Little Lord Fauntleroy”; fame, has written a now story, "The Land of the Blue Kiver,” which Messrs Putnam arfe publishing. By the way, not a few people, in the rush of "Christinas Books” last year, inay have missed Mrs Burnett’s very charming and decidedly original story, “The Secret Garden,” It was published by Modders, with some very pretty illustrations, at Cs, The June “Bookman” contains a special article on the works and personality of E. Temple Thurston, whose "Apple of Eden,” “City of Beautiful Nonsense,” “Garden of . Resurrection,” and other novels are so deservedly popular. Mr Thurston has thirteen quite wellknown books to his credit—and yet he is only thirty-two! The following information re the two Winston Churchills may bo useful to readers who keep a commonplace book. Winston Churchill, the American author of “Richard Carvell” and “The Crisis,” was born in St. Louis, November 10th, 1871, and is the son of Edward Spalding and-Emma Bell (Blaine) Churchill. Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was born On November Jmti, 187-1, and is the oldest sort of the late Lord Randolph Churchill and Lady Randolph Churchill, now Airs Cornwallis West, a daughter of Leonard Jerome.

SOME RECENT .MOTION

Mainly 'Light Comedy. Miss Lilian Turner’s “Written Down” (Ward, Lock and Co., per S. and W, Mackay) is a collection of. some fifteen or more short stories, each complete in itself, and .all, though rarely. possessing any specially distinctive note, decidedly readable. Miss Turner, like her clever sister, Mrs Curlewis. seems to specialise in the small joys and woes, the frivolities, follies, and worries and anxieties of young people, particularly newly married people. She has a very happy knack, of reproducing a domestic atmosphere without ever dealing in either the trivial or the sordid. Her realism is of a mild and “watered-down” type, but. in its way it is realism after all. “Written Down,” the title story, is a pathetic study of the life disappointment of two amiable young people, who wait, and wait, and wait for happiness, only to find that when it comes it is doomed to all- too sudden disappearance. In some of tho bush sketches the dull greyness of np-conntry life, especially for a well-educated woman, is suggested with restrained but none the loss unraista'keablc force. Blood and Thunder. Tho writer who chooses to disguise a well-known identity under the noin-de-plnme of Headon Hill is really an astonishingly industrious author. A master hand at the concoction and gradual unravelment of what seems, in the first chapter, to be a positively inexplicable mystery, he is ea’sily fiist amongst the many, British disciples of the school of Qaborian and Do Boisgobey. And, unlike those two famous authors of “detectives," he never seems to repeat himself. ■ "Mv Lord the Felon” (Ward, Lock and Co., per S. and W. Mackay) is Mr Hill's latest production. There is a certain staginess In the dialogue, as for instance: It is too cruel that you, my proud queen, should have to creep out and meet me by stealth, like a housemaid. After nil, the only objection to mo. is my comparative poverty, etc., etc. But in a novel of sensation, crime, and mystery, and the solving of the latter and the detection of tho former, the “plot’s the thing,” and rarely has Mr

Hill, a postmaster in his own particular metier, exhibited greater ingenuity in baffling his renders and putting them off the scent. A murdered Earl, his rascally son, a blackmailing old Major, a couple of beauteous, virtuous, and much persecuted maidens, to say nothing ot the usual “walking gentlemen” —all play their parts in the Zoylarrd drama, tho last act of which is really a capital bit of literary stage craft“Unconfessed.” It is a far cry now to the time when Maxwell. Gray made a mild hit with "The Silence' of Dean Maitland,’’ and since then a goodly number of readable, if not very notable stories, have come from her pen. Xu “Unconfossed” (John Long, per Whitcombe and Tombs) Maxwell Gray gives us a clever study of an avaricious small landowner, who cheats his brother out of the latter’s fair share of what should have been a joint inheritance. The two brothers Thearlo are almost Hardy-like characters and tho background is Dorset. The pictures of rustic life aro not over-detailed, and there is a pretty little incidental love story which affords welcome relief to a plot in which the interest is at times on the gloomy side. “Unoonfessed is tho best novel wo have had from Maxwell Gray for some time, and I can recommend it as a very readable story.

The clever yOung novelist, author of “The Apple of Eden,” “The Garden of Resurrection,” “Thd City of JXoautiful Nonsense,” etc., etc. (From a portrait in tho Juno “Bookman.”! .

Toujours La Revolution. Shall we ever see an end to stories of the Frcpch Devolution? I doubt whether wo shall, for tho period is so amazingly full of dramatic incident that a clever writer can always, by faking hero and there a bit of real history, fashion therefrom a really excellent romance. This is what Mr L. Scott Gillies must be credited with having done in his "Shadow of the Guillotine*' (John Long, per Whitcombo and Tombs). It is an excellent plat, tins entreo a la 11 evolution, nnd admirably adapted for consumption by readers who can enjoy « well ■written romance, packed with ‘dramatic episodes, with a very picttv and engaging -love story running right* through *it« three hundred and odd pages. Aristocrats, citoyen* ami citoyonnw, traitors, spies, aud scoundrels, gallant inou ami women, some unfortunate. some lucky, «U play parts in Mr Gillies* drama, and the curtain toils on a scene which every reader of the welMohl story should deem eminently satisfactory. “ Esther. n Tho moral of Aliss Jaeomb’e pathetic, story, ‘'Esther” (Heinemaiin, per George ..Robertson and Co.), is that it is not altogether a joyful thing for a woman, of education and wide mental grasp to. lie ti parson’s wife, more especially when the parson is tainted with priggishness—a much rarer thing, however, in the Thtter-day parson than many people imagine. Esther’s husband is a very good parson, but as a man be is but a poor yort of creature- Nevertheless, my sympathies go out more to tho husband than to the erring wife. Miss Jacomb has evidently spent much time and trouble in dissecting, as it were, a woman's temperament. But to a colonial reader, the general atmosphere' of ,bt. Veronica’s will iscem somewhat drab, (lin»v. and uninteresting. The novel has. I see, been Well reviewed in more than one leading English newspaper, but for niy own part I have found its interest somewhat tepid.

“A Change of Sex.” Charles Kinross is a name known, and favourably known, as that ot the anther of the singularly original and ■striking “Ballad of John Dunn. In "A Change of Sex” (John liong, per Whitcombo .and Tombs) Air Kinross now gives ns a novel winch probably would never have been written but for the previons—the now many years previous—appearance of Mr Anstey s Yice Veisa ” -It is a whimsical fantasy, cleverly elaborated, but neither George Howard nor Henrietta Thorneycroft come so near to seeming reality as did Bultitude pero et fils-

Prince Albert’s confidant and trusted adviser. (Ffom Airs Jerrold’s "Early Court Of Queen Victoria.’’) ~

Fairydom in the Bush. Mary Grant Bruce's "Timothy in Bushland’’ (Ward, Look and Co., per S. and \V. Mackayj' is an attempt to graft European fairy lore upon a stem of Australian • natural history. I am not too sure whether either European or Australian children —that is, if the tale be intended primarily for juvenile perusal—will appreciate Mis Bruce's rather laboured effort. Australian chil dren are far too matter of fact to be ‘‘taken in'' by the transparently thin device of creating a Bushland King and court of bushland animals, and the average English child has no idea oi the difference, say, between a "goanna’ and a bandicoot. Miss Bruce meant well, and her object in endeavouring to interest children in the curious wayi of Australian bush dwellers is laudable enough. But she was more natural and more effective in such pleasant stories ns "Males at Billabong'' and-"A Little Bush Maid"' - than she is in such a curious mixture of fairy tales and zoological lessons, os is her "Timothy in Bushland-"

“A Melody in Silver.” A pleasant little stud} - ot child life, child thought, and child fun and fancy, is Keene Abbott's latest book, "A Melody in Silver 1 ' (Putnam’s Sons, per George Itobertson and Co.) The least satisfactory feature of the book is the affected and, so far as the contents of the volume are concerned, meaningless title. The joy and tho pathos of motherhood are clearly well understood by the author, but the sentiment at times is just a little forced and the interest wiredrawn. The background is American, but there is no characteristic local colour. Quito harmless, and, indeed, not a little namby pamby. The Eternal Jew Question, “Low Lathen,” the author of “Anna Strelitz" (John Long, per Whitcombs and-Tombs), is, I should say, a woman. X am inclined to this assumption by the fact that many of the male figures in this long but interesting story of a young Jewess who deserts her faith seem to me not a little woodeny, whereas tho women stand out much more sharply and convincingly. Much of the action of the story passes in South Africa, where Solomon Strelitz, who, in London, years before, had married a Christian woman, by whom he had a eon whom he left in charge of a rascally brother, is a wealthy ostrich feather dealer. Almost morbidly attached to all the pride and prejudices of his race and his creed, Strelitz is heart-broken at the very idea of Anna s rejection of the Hebrew traditions._ The story soon develops a strong dramatic interest which is maintained up to tho end. At times a certain crudeness is noticeable, both in the development of the plot, and in dialogue, but there is much in the .story which affords food for thought, as to the aims aid aspirations of the latter-day Jew. I should like to toad a criticism on this book by, say, Mr Zangwill, and another by, say, ‘Trank Dauby.”