A LITERARY CORNER

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 11293, 19 August 1922, Page 10

A LITERARY CORNER

(R.A.L.) ON LIFE AND LETTERS.' Anatole France. (John Lane, The Bodley Head, London.) This master has lately been put on the Index, and we read that there has been a run on liis works in oonsequence. He certainly lhas written books whiah any church would declare “verboten” as the Germans used to write in their cities habitually before the war, but, according to Lord Noi'thcliffe, never write at all now. And there are certain passages in some of his works of the nature which Theophile Gautier had in his mind when to account for something he himself had written he used to say: “But I don’t ent ‘tartines’ for the young person.” Tills volume certainly deserves neither the Index which seeks t-o. bury, nor the explanation which makes matters rather worse. Here are thirty-three delightful essays, light, elegant, graceful, penetrating, sympathetic. They wander discursively through biographies, the folk songs of France, Chinese tales, philosophies, and pages of history in the pleasantest way. There is .one about Saint Joan of Arc, a gem of poetic sympathetic beauty, written, to explain the devotion of all France to the maid, who did such wonders for her people, making us realise that the ingratitude for the neglect of her in ber days of trouble is a thing long P® s *- Another gem is a monograph on bt. Catherine of Siena, which, with the Joan tribute ■will surely make the recording angel shed tears of joy enough to wash out, or at least lighten the black print of his name on the Index. All these essays are charming not as charming as in the original Drench. of course, for no translator!* ever achieved the impossible. But these are very well presented. “SHADED LIGHTS (ON MEN AND BOOKS)." Selected from “Peace of Mind” and “Serenity.” (A. Melrose, London and New York.) The title gets the character of these reprmts. The essays handle all their subjects delicately. They advise suggestively of reading hooks, without prosy hardness of detail. They indicate characters of men and women quite satisfactorily without either harshness <Sf outline or much contrast of light and shade; and they deal with great literary reputations tenderly, bordering the lines of criticism without overstepping. For example, no lover of Scott or Dickens will feel hurt when he reads why the first is neglected while the second keeps his vogue, although a certain candour is exercised with regard to both. The most etrik--2f the essay in which Froude’s Curlylo” L held up as a great biography, exjacltly in: essentials what such i ought to be. The most faithful reader of Carlyle will be induced to forget any bitterness he ban felt towards Froudc—a bitterness which time is healing fast, by the way —when he has read this author's sketch of the life of that not-well-mated pair. For he will agree with the author’s illuminating decision. “Thereafter” (after her death) “his life was spent m remembering his love and. her excellence. ‘Poor Jeanniel’—Yes, no doubt; but poor Carlyle, too!” That poor Carlyle, too,” sums it up justly for all the world, for all time. In another essay he has much to say about the authors of the past, whose lives are perennially interesting, and who will all be written about. They are very notable, and very few.” He illustrates, mentioning Shakespeare, Bacon the Shelleys, Byron, Leigh Hunt (“a kind of classio because of his association with greater men”), and the Carlyles; who in their lifetime were the most interesting literary couple in London, and since then have held first place.” “AN AUSTRAL GARDEN." Donald McLachlan (selector). (G. Robertson and Co., Sydney).Some thirty extracts from os many authors are here, and all are good reading, some superlatively. It is a proof of good selection. Mr McLachlan has done liis work very well. A companion to his anthology of Australian verse it is, and he styles ' it an “anthology of Australian prose.” And it is very good prose we. get amongst as we read. Of course. Marcus. Clarke is first contributor, with of course from “For the Term of his Natural Life,” the immortal book heading the Australian list, and unequalled. Henry Kingsley comes very near, better perhaps in literary classification, but in lighter vein though not strange to tragedy, with an excerpt from that great book “Geoffrey Hamlyn.” There is a fine characteristic extract from the old Pakeha Maori’s “Old New Zealand,” giving our Dominion a unique position in the anthology* for there is none like it. G. B. Lancaster, too, catches the eye, and Dean Fitchett, with a fine study of Captain Cook, “the man who gave Australia to the Empire.” Henry Lawson is to the fore with about the best humorous story that was ever penned soaith of the Line, quite good literature in good, plain, terse, simple style, that catches points and outlines with remarkable freshness. Julian Thomas, the famous “Vagabond” of the “Argus,” has a place. _ Ethel Turner is not left out, neither is Louis Beeke. But it is useless to mention more. While saying that the anthology is large, it is right to add that there should be enough stuff unnoticed lying about in libraries for another volume. This one as well worth having, though only a “school edition.” "DERELICTS.” W. J. Locke. (John Lane, The Bodley Head, London.). When a hook of Looke’s comes out it takes the world of readers by storm. When the storm abates, an astonished world is revealed, amazed by the prodigious output of this author. Twenty-four romances stand to his credit in the publishers’ lists, and all with success written over them in unfading characters. Humour, pathos, constructive power, masterly analysis of character are his equipment, and he has the gift of story-telling, without which all such equipment avails an author nothing. The side-splitting “Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol,” the tragedy of “The Red Planet,” the manliness of “The House of Ballingar,” the dreamy beauty of “Simla Maris,” these and all tbe others are handled with a lightness of touch that makes them perfect workp of airfc. This on© falls into line just easily. “The Derelicts” is a noble story grandly told. It is the story of a young man who falls through weakness, gets into prison, and faces the world forlorn. How he is helped by a woman, how he wins through in spite of the apparently impossible—all this is told with, groat power, and you realise that only the author’s belief in the best in human nature enables him to finish his task of description. You realise it all the more by reason of the many

powerful dramatic scenes of love, sorrow, and renunciation which, adflurably presented as they are, make up liis story. There are scenes of London life, colonial life (South African), and clerical life in an English cathedral town. Th© figure that dominates is one of the most charming, delicately limned, gracious female figures of recent fiction. “UNCLE MOSES.” Spolon Asch. (Fisher Unwin, London). A fine New York story. A Polish Jew goes to America, prospers, sets up a great factory, and brings nearly all th© people of his native village over to work for him, sweating them in merciless fashion, ruling them as “Uncle Moses.” Keeping them enslaved he lives the life of such as he in New York —vicious, showy, vulgar. (In his old age he' falls in love with a young girl, the daughter of one of his countrymen in slavery to him. He forces her to marry him, and presently hie life falls into tragedy with madness at the end. A most powerful story, relieved by much humour to which, the main situation lends itself. “THE MUCH CHOSEN RACE.” Sydney Mosely. (Stanley Paul. London, 31, Essex street, Strand, W. 0., 2). A hook of a motive, questionable as to its taste, not its tactfulness, for it has none. The author thus speaks for himself: —“It would seem that the fables about the Jews include some of their alleged virtues os well as their vices. The old idea about Jewry must bo brought up to date. This is indeed one of the chief reasons why I have written the book.” It is a book of diatribes, of a flippancy supported by stories ill-natured, unredeemed by any spark of wit. and all of hoary age. A truly detestable hook.

•‘THE HAPPY FOOL." John Palmer. (Christophers, London, 22, Berners street, W. 1.) The Fool is because he lived in a Fool’s Paradise. Only at first, for being a. fool he makes everybody about him miserable until he himself ends in utter misery. He meets you as a brilliant young Oxonian and is rather taking. But his story only shows how many blunders of deep tragedy a young fool who is attractive to women can make in the hands of a clever author. It is a powerful study of character with a wholesome moral. "THE WOMAN AND THE PRIEST.” Grazia Deleda. (Jonathan Cape, II Gower street, London (translated by Mary Steegman) (per Whitcoimbe and Tombs). This book is described by the translator as unusual, but the theme is common enough in fiction and drama. A strong psychological study it is, with an ending as sombre as a Greek tragedy, in a fine setting of remote Sardinian life. The thing about it which is unusual in fiction is that it is the story of a temptation that failed. "THE HAMPSTEAD MYSTERY." A. I. Rees and I. R. Watson. (John Lane, The Bodley 'Head, London.) A detective story true to such type as (has been made familiar by .the popularity of Sherlock Holmes. On the one hand it is free from the easy assumption of certain recent French detective stories; on the other it does not approach the strength of the older masters of whom Gaboriau is the type. It is very ingenious, with a good deal of criminal court work veiy well done. The mystery can be described as ‘‘The dissolute judge, and who murdered him?” The question is answered by a most dramatic scene in the Old Bailey with a leading K.C. in the dock facing a charge of murder.