BOOKS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 7542, 20 April 1886, Page 4

BOOKS.

"I dream away my life in others' speculations. I love to ;iose myself in other men's minds. When I am not walking, I am reading; I cannot sit and think, books think for me." Thus Lamb in his delightful "Thoughts on Books and Heading." But even Lamb, with his omnivorous voracity for books, discriminates^ There are books which are books, and books which, are no books — biblia and biblia a-biblia; amongst the latter, all those' volumes which "no gentleman's library should be without "— Hume, Gibbon, Robertson, and others of the solemn fraternity. In our " Books " column we are not going to retain Lamb's distinction; for are therenot many worthy folks (ourselves among the number) who can relish a book that is no book—Gibbon for instance, or Stone's Directory ? always, of course, stopping short at the "draughts-board bound and lettered on the back "; and in some libraries perhaps even this volume is not the least frequently used. The fact is that the definition of what a book is shifts with the reader. Some readers are exclusive, and think the world contains but few books; whilst others are catholic enough in their tastes to look with affection on any collection of printed matter between two boards. To them "a book's a book although there's nothing in it." Now, if the fancy takes us, we mean to notice a book, even though it should happen to be no book, on the chance that what interests ourselves is sure to interest somebody else; and we shall commence with a writer most of whose books are books.

Tiresias, and Other Poems.- By Lord Tennyson (Wise, Caffinj and Co.).—Of late years on opening a new volume by Tennysoa we have grown to be afraid of finding it written in dramatic form; so that on broaching the neat little volume in green cloth—the Laureate's owti familiar livery—we were agreeably disappointed to find inside a collection of undramatic poems quite in hia old style. The volume is dedicated to his " good friend Robert Browning," and opens with an address to another old friend—old Fitz. It contains in all 13 poems of different lengths and of varied "quality. "Tiresias" sings of course of the "prophet old" of Thebes, and has that Greek atmosphere which Tennyson knows how to throw round such poems as Ulysses and Tithornus. The powerful poem of the volume is, to our thinking, " Despair," with which readers of Tennyson are already familiar—for it is not published now for the first time; one hears in it the deeply tragic note of Rizpah. Nor are dialect poems wanting; for the Northern farmer finds his counterpart in the wary Northern spinster who thanked God she had never listened to " Sweet 'arts," but had kept her " two oonderd a year " from the mercenary clutches of her admirers:

Faythur 'ud say I wur ugly as sin, -an' I beiinfc not vaiun; But I niver wur downright liugly, thaw aoom *ud a thowt ma plaain, An' I wasn't so plaain i' pink ribbons, ye said I wur pretty i' pinks, 'An I liked to 'ear it, I did, but I beant sich a fool as ye thinks; Never wur pretty, not I, but ye knawed ifc wur pleasant to 'ear, Thaw it warn't not me as wur pretty, but my two 'oonderd a year. One would have said that the Irish brogue would have been dangerous ground to tread upon; but "To-morrow" is a pathetic story told in what will seem excellent Irish —at least to those who don't know better. We had thought the "Idylls of the King" series fairly finished; but in the new volume we find an introduction to " Merlin and Vivien" called "Balm and Balau"—quite in Tennyson's epic vein. The only poem we could have wished left out of the volume is the " Charge of the Heavy Brigade," which reads like a parody of the poet on himself.

Mr Max O'Rell's The Dear Neighbours (from Wise, Oaffin.and Co.) would almost persuade us [by its bumptious tone that the author had been raDked for years with the first litterateurs of the day. It must be said for the book, however, that it gives some hours' very amusing reading. Without being always accurate or impartial, it is caustic and smart, and is free from that objectionable coarseness—almost amounting to brutality — which characterised the author's second work, "Johu Bull's Womankind." He opens his address to the reader by remarking that " people very often speak ill of their neighbours, not out of wickedness, but merely out of laziness"; this probably on the assumption that it costs less trouble to speak ill than to speak well of one's neighbours; and it is the ostensible object of Mr O'Rell's book to remove certain misconceptions which the French and English nations have of each other, but which they are too lazy to remove for themselves by taking the trouble to know each other better. The genuine " brutal Briton " will probably for a long time to come continue to think one Englishman equal to three " f urriners," notwithstanding the v.-".-j charming of Anglicised Frenchmen like Mr O'Rell. We donot believe that the Briton of " sweetness and light" (if there be such a Briton) really underrates any virtuous citizen merely because he does not live on the west shore of the English Channelnor can anyone believe (unless he is obliged to do so by the necessity of writing a. book) that the English newspapers are in any conspiracy to ignore the virtues of France. But though Mr O'Rell may fail in his ostensible object of binding England and France closer together, he has done that for which we may perhaps be equally thankful—he has written a bright, witty, and altogether clevisr book; light

enough to take up after dinner without impairing digestion, and lively enough to cheat you for once out of your 40 winks. Mr O'Rell collects a number of curious instances of how English usage is the direct oppo- • site of the French in language and manners. The Englishman leaves his watch with his uncle; the Frenchman leaves his with his aunt; the French cure is the superior of the vicaire. The Engish curate and vicar reverse positions. In France the coachman keeps to the right; in England to the left. The English publish is the French editer, and the French puhlier is the English edit. The fatuous Englishman gratuitously adds an "s" to Lyon and Marseille; the. Frenchman retaliates with Londres and Douvres. In England you " get wet to the skin"; cross the Channel and you "get wet to the bone." In France you are vulgar if you sound your " h's "; in England you are vulgar if you don't. It is bad form to address Miss Bull as simply " Miss "; in France, on the contrary, in addressing Mademoiselle Grenouille, it is a solecism to add the surname. When a Frenchman means to boast, he depreciates himself; when an Englishman wants to boast, he does it. In a French book the index is at the end; in an English book, at the beginning. The Englishman celebrates the anniversary of the Crucifixion by making holiday—in "knocking down cocoanuts;" the Frenchman observes it with fasting and prayer. On the anniversary of Christ's triumph over death the Frenchman reioices, whilst the English people are plunged in solemn silence. The contrast made by Mr O'Rell between the two languages is equally effective with that between the customs of the nations, and more to the advantage of the French. "Every educated Englishman is able to read French more or less easily; yet there are not in all the United Kingdom twenty English people able to seize the delicacies of French prose—that light, subtle, sparkling, artistic medium in which you can say anything, touch upon the most ticklish subjects, without fear of offending the most delicate ear. Now, how. is this French prose judged in England ? Why, something after themannerof the street Arab, who cries out ■ on beholding the Venus of Milo: ' Just look; she's no clothes on. That's a good 'un '.' Take a volume of M. Gustave Droz, if you like—that is to say, a sample of our most graceful, coquettish, and lightest literature. Put it into English, and you will obtain a muddle—half-coarse, half-stupid, without any kind of flavour or perfume; the aroma has evaporated. Translate such prose into English! As well try to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear." So much for the downright brutal English tongue, which calls a spade a spade, and which cannot make indelicate suggestions without offending delicate ears.