Books to Read and Books to Keep

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12507, 24 July 1926, Page 12

Books to Read and Books to Keep

f. Reviews by

R.A.L.)

A WOMAN'S TRAVELS With several good novels to her credit, Elinor Mordaunt feels sometimes a prey to wanderlust, and goes a-travelling. Wild places have her preference, and wild people With the first she copes with tho active energy of an athlete, and the second ehe studies, undismayed by lack of language or by evil reputation. And the animated, breezy, fine descriptions .die gives in “The Venture Book” (the Bodley Head, London) are on the same level as her courage and enterprise. New Guinea, Tahiti, Tonga, Samoa, Fiji, and other islands of the Pacific she has made familiar to us in this “venture book” of hers. We feel with her the urge of the tropics, we are amazed at her feats of travel under the burden of ill-health and bruised limbs, roughing it in schooners, riding on horseback through the back Fiji country, negotiating precipitous ranges, fording swollen rivers, sitting a solitary white woman among the savages of tho Fiji hinterland. And she cornea back with clear-cut narratives and a style of undiminished crispness to tell us all about it. Mutinous native boatmen do not turn her from her defined itinerary, and tho swarms of insects, from the mosquito downwards; havo nc» effect either on her spirits or her self-allotted tasks. Is she nearly drowned in a spate, is she in imminent peril of shipwreck, is sho fainting for lack of food ami sleep, is she bored stiff by stupid savages—all these things make her turn out good “copy,” which can be read with pleasure bv the busiest or the most weary of readers. She likes the great Conrad, she tells us• sometimes she falls into imitation of nis characteristic style. One narrative she retails of a shipwrecked mariner. It has the dark mystery of Conrad, it is steeped in the terror of a thousand eyes observing you in the depths of forests, it sots you in the front of impending calamity —just as Conrad always does-—and it ends quito tamely, just, as Conrad sometime* docs, after harrowing preparation for dark terrors. Her “venture book” is pleasant reading, and adds to the general knowledge of tb© world considerably, more especially of the dreadful history of many cannibal islands in tlie days when their cannibalism was a ferocious reality. MODERN VERSE At the Bodley Head much verse has seen the light, and many readers have been illuminated, pleased, and instructed thereby. Someone once described the Bodley Head as “a nest of singing birds.” “The Book of Bodley Head Verse” is a collection from their songs. J. C. Squire contributes a foreword, in which he tells us much of the beauty we are to find in the carefully selected pages. Francis Thompson, Maurice Baring. Lascelles Abercrombie, Sackviile West, Alice Meynell, Stephen Phillips, Richard Le Gallienne, A. C. Benson, and many more too numerous for mention, make their appeal thus introduced. The editor, J. 1\ Priestley, explains his views on selection, and his judicious critic, Mr Squire, tells how well room has been made m the anthology for certain known writers who deserve to be known better. The editor has had almost to confine himself to the poems published by the Bodley, but- he has been able by permission of publishers who have published some of the best of the Bodley men’s work to make a good representative showing. The volume is a useful and pleasant addition to the list of anthologies. YOU RICH MEN If you have gathered money through business, and intend to gather more—don’t! Instead, give tne younger men in your employment full responsibility and devote yourself to social service. This, in brief, is the “message” which Edward W. Bok addresses to businessmen throughout the world in a vastly interesting book, “Dollars Only.’’ (Cornstalk Company, Sydney; per Whitcombe and Tombs, Wellington.)

Edward Bok’s own life story is well known. Six years ago, at the age of 56, while holding a lucrative editorial post in one of the wealthiest publishing firms in the world, he retired. He retired from the publishing company, but not from work. His services to the public since then have been continuous and varied. And now he says to all businessmen who are as he used to be: “Come in, the water’s fine.” Mr Bok has discovered, in the United States, “a distinct and widespread movement among successful men to give themselves and their means to an extent that is nothing short of astonishing.” He gives scores of instances, and his list, which he declares is lamentably incomplete, will impress every reader. One of the most striking instances is that of Mr Herbert Hoover. In 1914, at the age of forty, Mr Hoover divorced himself from money-making interests and accepted the chairmanship of the American Relief Committee in London. He is now Secretary of Commerce. “As a mining engineer, he had practically the field within his grasp, and he could easily have been a wealthy man, just as be could now, when offers of incomes of six figures a year are a common oecur'renoe. The services of no single man in American public life are in such constant demand by the largest corporation. But for elevffn years ho has waved them aside.” Mr Hoover is but oue example in hundreds that the author mentions. Such men, he admits, are hut pioneers; it is to the others, the ones who hesitate, that he addresses his book. He makes out a strong case, and he presents it with admirable clarity and force. “Business triumphs make poor memorials of men,” he says in one chapter. And, after describing the satisfaction of the man who is helping, his fellows, he remarks: “As for the man himself, it will be a rich' experience for him to get acquainted with his soul before it leaves his body.” “In lire w<* are paid, in happiness, for the service that in liffc we give. That satisfying- inner happiness never kernes, however, to n man who devotes his life to dollars onlv.” Mr Bok’s account of the social service done by wenlthv Americans in every State of the Union is possibly the most- valuable part of his book. Tt will dissipate from many minds dll' idea that ALL Americans are “out for flic dollars”. Amon*' the men ho name*® some of the greatest arc Jews. “It is difficult to match them rvetdv with fTiristians of eq.r.l idealism,” says Mr Bok.. No man or woman will think the time wasted that he spends in reading this hool:. As for the Rotary clubs, they should fir.o every member who doesn't know ft thoroughly. .

f lievnr knew ;>nv man in mv life who could not hen i another’s m miul'Uuu's. perfectly like a Cln i d i-qi. —J’ope.

ESSAYS “Essays of Yesterday and To-day” is the title chosen by the authors for two distinct volumes now to hand from the firm of Harrap. Allan Monkhouse gives us essays in criticism, David Grayson essays on. life. The first is a guide, blazing trails, and often cutting tracks for the use of his friend, the other is a poetic preacher who carries inspiration for us as he soars | high in the empyrean. Mr Monkhouse’s difficulty is tho enormous growth of the literary forest of his pilotage, and the many natural paths that lie within its shadows. Mr Grayson’s difficulty is the immense height he has attained beyond the

1 power of most of his readers to reach. : The first difficulty, of course, is the 1 difficulty of laying down any system of criticism agreeable to all or under- * standed of many. Tho second is presented by human nature, which always I is prone to recognise the best and follow something else. But both little volumes are readable. Mr Monkhouse, ■ out of much writing rather technical, blossoms into magnificent reviews of r noted books, so masterly as to tempt ; readers to seek them out, and re-read 1 them with the light of inspiration showing tho truth in them. Mr Grayson lias done the same for certain lives. Two delightful books, one for the pleasant improvement of our culture, ; the other our hold on life. . , « » EDUCATION OR CATASTROPHE? Lothrop Stoddard sees in the progress of scientific achievement a danger to civilisation, if not to humanity. At tho rate we are going, with education of the masses loitering hopelessly in the .rear, it seems to him possible that tho world will not bo able to handle properly tho mighty extension of knowledge and power piling up as it is to-day. If net, the end of civilisation and "humanity may be expected in due course of scientific improvement. It looks a little like paradox. He asks us to take warning by another great progressive episode, that which produced the Renaissance, which did not, he contends, flower in the flourishing manner contemplated by the leading minds of its time.. Erasmus, who then preached toleration to the various schools of thought, and advised reasonable methods of settling differences, failed, and the world is what it is to-day. While progress has once more reached the pace of the Renaissance, and is, indeed, exceeding it the minds of men are imperfectly instructed—for, as he says truly, very few people understand the great things they are, through scientific thought and attainment, enjoying—the question arises of whither the world is progressing. It is the old question: “Quo Uadis?” “Shall our present transition of time,” he asks, “with all its unparalleled possibilities for g9od and for ill, culminate in a great civilisation, or in a great catastrophe?” Mr Stoddard hopes for the best and greatly fears the worst. He gives good reasons for both, and at times, partiuularlv when he is dealing with the fundamentalist movement in the U.S.A., which has given us the Dayton controversy with its dramatic intolerance and fierce passion, seems to incline decidedly to the pessimistic side. In his hopeful moments he says, confidently: “Assuredly the scientific spirit is applicable to every phase of human activity—that spirit of impartial observation, tireless research, unprejudiced deduction, and tolerant cooperation. which to-day characterises the true scientist, and which alone has made possible the vast extensions of knowledge that have occurred in recent times. Wc have but to continue and amplify this spirit and these methods, to ensure even greater results than those which have thus far been attained.” Nothing could be simpler in theory. In practice there is the difficulty that men will not, and for the most part cannot, cultivate the scientific spirit. Thev are a prey largely to ignorance, prejudice, crass conservatism, and ether defects, which neutralise the scientific method and set up popular prejudice for straight thinking. His advice is to educate public opinion in manv ways, among them the compilation” by scientists of some popular scienco encyclopedia to do the sort of work that Diderot and the Encyclopedists did for the world in their time. But we know that the Encyclopedists whatever good they did— and they did much—by the publication of much useful knowledge, did not bring about a vast, unanimous mass ot' opinion about very many things of the world. Moreover, their is difference of scientific thought. Well ns the author argues about the methods of making the world safe by extension of knowledge, and of the' right ways of admiring Knowledge, we believe that if the .future depends upon his earnest advice the world wdl manage to save itself lroni disaster in tho future as it has done in the past. The advice will no doubt bear good fruit, but, alter all. tho world has, on the average sense, enough to come in out of the rain. The hook, “Scientific Humanism” (.Scribner and Sons, London), is eminently worth reading, and every reader will thank its author for opening his eyes wide to the present state or the world. Therefore every one should contrive to obtain a copy to study closely in his leisure hours. ANNOTATIONS The Julie iosue of "Concrete and SI eel’’ contains much valuable information of interest to the building trade an Wallicfl interests. The use of concerto, .steel, and other modern building mntrrinls is Incoming morn in evidence every day, so that a publication such as tiie'nne under review has a real practical interest, mure particularly so ns it covers the field so near to ns in Australia, as well as in New Zealand. Articles in the June issue concern I lie big underground railway in Sydney, Hie steel works of Aust.r.lia, concrete in road const met o n, coiomclo tiou-c- o lot linnirrt, and many other interesting feat urea.