A LITERARY CORNER

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVI, Issue 8190, 3 August 1912, Page 10

A LITERARY CORNER

(BY “LIBER.”)

Some Service Memories-—The Reminiscences of an Army Surgeon—“ The Theatre from \Vilhin —Quite a Jolly 800k —The Barclay 800m —A New Beaumont and Fletcher —All About the House Fly—Some Recent Fiction —Four New “Americans” and Some Others, etc., etc.

SOME SERVICE MEMORIES. I cu-u strongly recommend to those my ruulors wuo eiijoy a book of miiitai} renuniacoijoeti, an exceptionally mtwfchiUig work of this cJiU«. ju.it paoUshod, to wit, the M Service .Vicuionw" ol MiigyuuGoueiaJ Sir A. I>. llouio, V.C., JC.U.I., eUUed by Lietrt.-Colonel Cinuitn 11, Aid-' vilio, of the Royal Army MeuicaJ Coip», jtiwi pubimhod by Edward Arnold, Loudon. it is a book which should hud a place in the Library of every gariii-en Oiub, for it gives an inside view ul wai. tind is full of interesting and valuable information ujxm some of the inost notable campaigns lii which the British army has been engaged- There is an old raying that the oidooker sees more of the game than does the actual participant, and an army doctor, if an intelligent and observant man, may often describe an eog-aguniont more accurately and in a much more interesting way, than the man in tho lighting line. How often it happens that tho medico himself gets into the thick of tho light can bo seen by tins excellent book of Sir Anthony Homo s. Tho memoirist, born at l>uubar in IbJG, W&6 gazetted an Assistant-Surgeon in tho Army Medical Service at twenty-two, and served for ft year or two in tho West Indies and in Nova Scotia, proceeding to tho Crimea in August, Ibal. His Crimean experiences included service in tho held, before Sobastopol, and elsewhere, and in tho Scutari Hospital. He has, of course, much to say on tho health of the allied farces, and ho notes tho curious fact that whilst the deaths from disease amongst tho British troops woro at first, much m excess of those in tho Trench troops, as time wont on, tho Trench deaths, from dieeuee of one kind and another, increased enormously, whilo tho British death rate from tho same causo as marKcdiy decreased as tho war proceeded. FROM THE CRIMEA TO INDIA. In tho spring'.of .W 57 Surgeon Home embarked for China, touching at tho Capo and eventually reaching Anjer Point, in tho Straits of Sunda, where tho captain of the Himalaya received orders to make ail speed to'‘Singapore, there to coal, and thence to go to Calcutta ‘ All tho white people iu India have been killed; you are to turn about for CaJoutta- and get there aa fast as tho ship oaa carry you.” Arrived at Calcutta, the troops woCo.eont up country at once and the young surgeon now went through one of tno most varied and exciting ex porienceo of his professional career. He was with the Lucknow Relief Force, and witnessed tho fighting in and round Lucknow; was for a time with the Oudh busld Force, and witnessed tho famous relief of tho long-beleoguerod Britishers in the Residency. Of tho gallantry of tbo troops and their officers Sir Anthony gives a most readable account, an account almost as vividly picturesque as that of tho late Sir William Howard Russell in "My Diary During the Indian Mutiny. * It was for an act of conspicuous gallantry —"for persevering bravery and admirable Conduct in charge of the wounded men left behind when tho troops under Major-General Havelock forced their way into the Residency of Lucknow on September. XBs7"—that Surgeon Homo received tbo much coveted V.C.. LATER YEARS. From India, once the worst of the Mu iny wue over, the surgeon returned bo but in 1860 was off again to China and took part in the famous march to Pekin. Hater on, he served in Canada, visiting Washington in 18(12. and was for a brief period, in 186-1, on service in New Zealand Prom New Zealand back to "India was the next move, end then back to England tnoo again in 1868. Ho served under Wolseley in Ashanti, and later still, held important positions in Cyprus, and yet again in India, Anally retiring from the service in 1886. at the age of sixty. His record is one of which any man may well be proud, but as is so often the case with men of his type, his narrative is characterised by a most praiseworthy modesty and self-effacement. It is a narrative which contains many excellent stores, anil not a few exciting battle pictures. The editor adds chronological and other notes which add not a little to tho historical value of the work. QUITE A JOLLY BOOK. Ono wants a lively book or two these dull, dismal, rainy, depressing days—books not too exacting of attention and thought, books in which the lighter, tho humorous side of life is uppermost. Such a book is the shilling volume of ‘'Theatrical Caricatures, or, tho Theatre from Within," published recently, by that enterprising firm, the Now South Wales Bookstall Company (per Whitcombe and Tombs). ■lt is a volume of pictures, by the well-known ‘‘Bulletin” artist, Harry Julius, and "impression." by Claude McKay. Very often the ' pictures" have nothing to do with the impressions, and even more frequently the impressions blissfully ignore the accompanying pictures. But both yams and Illustrations ore bright and vastly amusing. I dearly love a good caricature, and although, it is many a long day since I was wont to hobnob with tho "mumining” fraternity—and sisterhood—it "does mo proud," as the late-lamented Harry Poker used to observe—"to meet in Mr Julius’s black and whites such once wellfcnown acquaintances as Titheradgo and Kingston, ."Sweet Nell" Stewart, the over plump but ever-jolly Maggie Moore —how vas you, Lizzie Stofel? poor dead- • and-gone George Lanin: and that pocket compendium of clever fun-making little Percy. Here, in this book of Air Julius's, aro nil these and scores —nay, hundreds — of others from the good old George Rignold days to tho days of ‘‘Our Miss Gibbs," and the lean, lank, and Baoyertz—criticised Irving. In his yarns Mr, Claude McKay runs tho whole gamut of "showdom” from grand opera to the circus—and although some of his stories are of tbs chestnut variety, many are new and all are most amusing. Whnt a collection for an "Orphan" or a "Savage" to take away for a week-end, with a view to blossoming forth at the next torero as a rival, say, to tho genial Marks Marcus of that ilk—ns a raconteur. One of Mr McKay’s stories should make purchasers of "Caruso Records" ponder a little. It is by no means the best yarn In the book, but, to grnmaphone owners and "records" buyers, well, cela donne a penser.

On a visit to Berlin. Mr George Mnsgrove ran Into nn Italian tenor he hod had in nn Australian grand opera

company. The singer confessed to being in financial straits, and begged his fare to Milano. A week or two after this meeting Mr Musgrove happened to be in Berlin again, and chance had it that the tenor was among the few in the str**et to greet him. ‘'Hello." said Mr Musgrove, "T thought you were going back to Milan ?’’ “Now. 1 remain here—two, tree week. 1 hava gooda engagement by the gramaphona company. Much a moneta 1" "But," Mr Aiusgrove asked, "how can the gramaphono company pay yon ? Nobody knows yon. How can they sell your records?" '‘Ah, I understand," said the tenor, grasping Mr Musgrovc’s perplexity on

the commercial aspect of tho deaL "Un tiil* gramaphoua, my voice ver-ry much lilia Caruso. I makea Caruso records!” Moral, beware of Caruso records, if made in Germany!’’ You can spend a shilling on (ho J ulius-McKuy production hi complete confidence as to getting good value. THE BARCLAY BOOM, A few weeks ago X greatly offended a lady friend, wlio is a keen admirer of Mrs Florence Barclay’s novels, by objecting to certain features in that popular writer's latest stoiy, ‘•Through taa J-ostern Cato.'' A boolisullor friend in Wellington was also good enough to tell mo that i had displeased quite a number of his customers, who, 1 am glad bo know, upon lus authority, wore tegular readers ol “The Literary Corner, by what these good peopte were pleased to consider ' Liner’s" "most unfair notice" —how I loathe that word "notice 1" —of Mrs Barclay's latest descent into the sentimental sugar pot. But it is consoling to "Libor" that, when ho opeua ‘"i'he Sphere” for Juue let and turns to Mt Clement K. Shorter's ‘‘Literary Letter,” in tha/t admirable periodical, he finds that a gentleman who Is in the very front rank of English critics should have picked out for special objection precisely the same feature which your humble servant at this far-away end of tho world found so distasteful in ‘‘Through tho Postern Gato.” Thus Mr Shorter:

1 am not quite so sure of the innocence and harmlcssless of my second story, Mrs. Barclay's -last masterpiece, "Turough tho Postern Gate: a Romance in Seven Days" (G. P. Putnam). Hero wo have an uncomfortable combination of religiosity aud sexuality that .is to mo extremely nauseating. Each chapter ends with a text, “The evening and tho morning were tho first duv,” “Tho evening and the morning were the second day," and so on. The subject is (that oi a woman of thirty-five made love to by a youth of twenty-five, and we have the youth declaring that ho will win her in seven days, which he does. We see no reason why young men of twenty-five should not marry women ten years their senior if they fall in love with them. There is just a little danger that the man of fifty may not feel quite so happy with the woman of sixty or she with him. but that ia nobody’s business but the happy couple's. But somehow the thing distinctly disagreeable la a story. Thackeray has this situation in "Esmond. Yet I was glad once to hear Lord Rosebery say that it was not a pleasant aspect of Thackeray’s great story. With Thackeray it was in any case redeemed by the quality of style. A master in literature may do whal a flabbily-fluent spinner of words may not do, and I count “Through tho Postern Gate” an exceedingly unpleasant book although a million people may glory in its crude sentimentality. The tragedy of it is that all this gushing sentimentality passes without protest. So much does our generation worship success. In “The World" newspaper a week or two ago was an article upon Mrs Barclay. Taa writer tells us that "she has taken life’s harp and smitten with surpassing tenderness just those chords, of sympathy and sentiihent that never fail to make their appeal.’ Let us call it a jew’s harp and pei haps the criticism is sound enough. But a taste for this sort of book is fatal to literature. It"is not as some critics have absurdly supposed a question of realism and idealism. We have had many idealists who have produced great books—these are not of the number. The only good thing X can say about Mrs Barclay—who, apart from her books, is I am told a singularly charming woman quite unspoiled by success—is to congratulate her upon her fidelity to one publisher. Her work was first brought to light by Mr Georgo Haven Putnam, of New York. She has had the good taste as well aa tho good sense to stick to him.

A. NEW BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER Far too few people who Eke good books —I mean real books, not the American “best sellers," and the Elinor Glyu and Hubert Wales Tophet-deserving mullock which passes with too many New Zealanders for literature —know how many excellent editions, well edited, well printed, and published at quite a. reasonable price, are issued by the Cambridge University Press and its Oxford rival, the Clarendon Press. ' The C.U.P. is just issuing, 1 notice, the final and completing volume of the now edition of Beaumont and Fletcher, in the Cambridge English Classics series. This edition was begun by the late Arnold Glover, it must be now some seven or eight years ago, and has been completed by Mr A. R. Waller on the lines originally laid down. The volumes are handy in size and light in handling, and cost 3s 6d each net. A complete Beaumont and Fletcher for thirty-five shillings, free from any foolish Puritanical expurgations and equipped with notes which are really helpful and not, as are so many notes, a mere exhibition of pompous and useless pedantry, 'should come to students of the Elizabethan drama as what Artemus Ward called a "sweet boon.” I would feel inclined to speculate myself were it not that at the sole of that good old Wellington bookman’s, Mr C. W. Benbow’s, library “Libor” “splodged" eighteen shillings on a queer old calf bound (somewhat .worn, alas, at the hinges) set of Beaumont and Fletcher in ten volumes, printed by one J. Sherlock, Bow street. Covent Garden, in 1778, close upon a hundred and thirty-five years ago. There are half-a-dozen quaint copperplate engravings in each volume, the typo is large and clear, and—so far as my linr.ted knowledge of the subject permits me to judge —the notes are all that the overage reader needs. Of course, if you want a folio Beaumont and Fletcher, as did Charles Lamb —do you remember Elias* quaint story of how he and his sister pinched and saved in order to buy a B and F. folio?—you must, nowadays, give quite a good round sum, say, JJIO to .615, even for a "fair” copy. But the Cambridge Press editon is infinitely better for reading purposes, and after all. books are not printed to be merely looked at. Give me. as Dr Johnson said, a book "I can take to the fireside and hold in my hand.”

BEATRICE HARRADEN’S NEW BOOK Beatrice Harradeu. who made such a hit some twenty or more years ago now with that clever but rather morbid story

"Shi ;>s that Pass in the Night," has a two-shilling novel out with Nelson's. "Out of tho Wreck I Rise.” Two good, but from a worldly point of view, rather stupid women, devote themselves to a tepid sort of male creature, and save him from himself—and other people. Scene, partially in I/ondon, partly in

SOME WELLINGTON STORIES.

Switzerland. English reviewers so far give an impression of ''fair to medium.”

There are some readable Weilingt (stories in tho recently-published. "Dm. »f Frances Lady Shelley. LB7-18 i ' (Murray). Wellington had a decided •tendresse, all in quite a most platonic, and proper way, for the diarist—-some of the great duke's tondresses were the very reverse of platonic—and at Paris, after tho entry of the Allied Sovereigns, Lady Shelley was a member of the great man's most intimate circle. By day she accompanied him to all the great reviews in Hie presence of tho Allied Sovereigns. He called her his aiderde-camp—she rode his chestnut mare, by his side or by that of the Tsar, her hardly less fervent adorer. ’One day the Duke made her mount the famous Copenhagen, the horse he had ridden at Waterloo; another day, for hei benefit, he formed up the t-oops into hollow squares as they were t the battle, and she hud a fleeting ion of the field. Or they spent the ornoon at Euggieri's, a public place of insure, and the Duke filled the saddle horse in a niurry-go-round, while she vuug round Inside a swan. Every ev uing ho fetcucd her and book her to the opera or tb State balls, or, otteno’ to Talleyrand's or to Lady Castlereagh's or to Mine. Cranford's salon. Usually they talked, sometimes they danced. “Miss Rum bold began to piay a polonaise, and the whole party jumped up. 'The Duke took my hand, Mine. Cranford led, and we danced ail through the house." Paris at this moment presented a scone of unparalleled brilliance; Emperors and Kings were common sights riding past with their iridescent retinues; Wellington was the centre of all things, a Sovereign among Sovereigns. But it was at home, in intimate intercourse, that Lady Shelley got hot best impressions of him. >ln general conversation he listened oftoner than he talked unless his own subjects were in question, but in private ho spoke to her with uncommon freedom

T hope to Odd," he said one day, "that 1 have fougnt my last battle. It is a bad thing to be always fighting. While in the thick of it X am too mucu occupied to, feel anything; but it is wretched just after. It is oune impossible to think of glory. Both mine and feelings aro exhausted. I am wretched oven at the moment of victory, aud I always say that, next to a battle lost, the greatest misery is a battle gained." . . . Tho expression of his face, which was lit up by an intensity of feeling, gave those simple words an, eloquence which went straight to the listener’s heart. X was that listener.

"It is experience” [he said another time! "that gives me the advantage over every other officer. Nothing new can happen to mo, and I always feel confident that I shall succeed. The troops feel the same''confidence in me. For that reason I firmly believe that

if anything had happened to me at Waterloo the battle was lost. I told

Lord Uxbridge so. . . . Soon after a ball hit him. It must havo passed over me, or my horse! But tho finger oi God was upon me." Curious, is it not, how this finger of God idea is hugged to the heart by so many great souliers? The rascally but brilliant Marlborough firmly believed that the Almighty had v him under His special protection. Much the same thing is said of Clive. Wellington firmly believgd that he was similarly favored; and I ofeiieve that 1 have road something to the same effect about "Bobs" in his "Forty-one Years in India." But how about tho "finger of God" and the rank and file? ALL ABOUT THE HOUSE FLY.

Your latter-day natural history expert is, first and foremost, a specialist, and it is surprising fiow interesting he can make the study of even the smallest and seemingly most insignificant or animals, birds, and insects. For instance, John Murray publishes 'quite a stately volume. entitled "The House Fly—Disease Carrier," an account of its dangerous activities, and of the means of destroying it. • The author is a Dr Howard, an American entomologist of repute. )r "Times" critic, in tho ever-readable Literary Supplement (J une 13th) does not seem to think that Dr Howard has added very much to the information already given on the subject of the house fly by English scientists, but nevertheless tho critic in question writes a column and a half review of the book. What is to me the most curious, albeit somewhat terrifying, information given by Dr Howard, has reference to the amazing, tho positively astounding prolifioity of the fly. Here is a brief extract from "The Times" article: The three kinds of fles commonly found ia dwellinghouses have similar or identical histories. The female deposits from 120 to 150 eggs at a time, and may repeat this performance as

often as four times in a season; a prolifioity which, if unchecked, would leave little room for other forms of life upon tho earth. The eggs are deposited. by choice, in horse-dung, but, when that is not available, in any description of excremental or decaying refuse, in which the larvae bury themselves aa soon as hatched and on which they feed until they assume the pupa stage. . The complete insect. emerges in ten or twelve days, more or less according to temperature and other external conditions, and requires about ten days more in order to become sexually mature. Dr Howard gives a calculation of prolifioity based upon the hypothesis that all the eggs are hatched and all, the larvae come to ma-

turity, and shows that, under these conditions, a female surviving the winter and depositing 120 eggs on April 15th, might occasion the issue, on the 10th of the following September, of 5.598.720,00.000 of adult flies, of which one-half would be females. The actual prolificity, in tho presence of the favourable conditions afforded by large collections of decaying refuse and by moderately high temperature, is enormous; and the means of controlling this prolificity may be summed up inthe single phase "effective scavenging.” Wherever • flies - are conspicuously abundant, decaying refuse will be found in similar proportion •in the vicinity, and its removal will usually be sufficient to abate or terminate the nuisance.

A week or two ago I recommended those of my readers who delight in a "creepy" book to turn to that Tate Bram Stoker’s "Dracula," which you can buy nowadays for fifteenpence. Apparently the cheap edition of this famous "vampire" story has caught on with quite a and much larger ■ public than greeted its appearance a few years ago. for I ee that already over ten thousand copies of the new cheap edition - have been sold.

_ Added to "Liber’s" list of curious titles! "The Solemnisation of Jacklin," A novel by Florence Farr.

John Murray advertises ''a unique book by the youngest author in the world”—''Behind the Night Light," the "By-world of a Child of -Three." etc., etc. Poor little beggar! What next may not expect. How about "The Philosophy of the Pap-Bottle," by a Babe of eight months ? or, "Cradle-Crooning," by Little Elsie, aged two?