BOOK NOTICES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13519, 16 February 1906, Page 7

BOOK NOTICES.

''Kipps." By W. 0. Wells. London: Macmillan and Co. (3s 6d, 2s 6d.) It is a far cry from "The Island of Dr Jlorcau" to a " Little shop of all sorts" at New Romnoy: from tho extreme of fantastic literature to an absolute realism only redeemed from sordidness by its touch of humanity. How Mr Wells has managed it wo cannot tell; it is like an inverted transformation scene in a theatre, but the machinery does not creak, and there is no sign of effort. Early in -the book wo have a telling description of tho "middle-class academy," with its souldestroying atmosphere, compounded of "stuffiness and mental muddle," including countless pictures of "sitting 011 creaking forms, bored and idle; of blot-licking and tho taste of ink; of torn books, with covers that set- one's teeth 011 edge; of tho slimy surface of laboured slates; " of undeserved punishments; of insufficient food; "dreary walks when th? boys marched two and two; unfair, dishonest fights, miserable defeats and victories; " of Sundays, "terrible gaps of inanitv—no work, 110 play." Then follows the Folkestone Drapery Bazaar, where, in accordance with the " national bias towards private enterprise and leaving bad alone," Kipps, at 11 years of age, is indentured to a man who teaches hiiv nothing but " a list of lines, how to tie up parcels, to know where goods were kept, to hold bis hands extended on tho counter, to practise servile obedience to a large number of people," etc. He was not taught to buy or to sell, or the meaning of tho things he handled; and the sordid details of the life, the badly-cooked food, tho bedroom (shared with eight young mnn; the ignorance, I he squalorj the bodily exhaustion, the mental inanition! How did ilr Wells learn these things? How, indeed! Perhaps in the same way that Dickens learned the story of David Copperfield and other details of lower middle-class stultification. Such was the environment and atmosphere that went, to "the making of Kipps," and the vessel thus " marr'd" never regains its form. Is this the lesson the author wished to teach? If so, it is well done. Of Kipps's parentage he himself knew nothing, hut later in the book he inherits a. large sum of money—£26,OCO,—and finds plenty of persons ready to teach him how lo spend it. To himself the sum seemed endless. "He had no sense of proportion. A hundred pounds went to his horizon. A hundred pounds seemed to him just cxactly as big as any oilier large sum of money." How lie spends it ; how he falls into the hands of sharpers of all kinds; how he hies to become a "gentleman," and as one step engages himself to "a lady," who, in the endeavour. to form his habits ;uul manners, tries to change him from a simple fool to a fnll-blown snob. All this is told in excellent English and with bitter sarcasm; and here the reader is irresistibly reminded of Warren's "Ten Thousand a iear." But Kipps is not a snob. On the title page he is described as "A Simple Soul." This is exactly what he is. In tho end his so-called friends deprive him of his money; but lie returns to the love of his boyhood, the friends of ■ his youth, and opens a book shop with .the sago remark, "You keep a shop and the shopll keep you." To which conclusion ho adheres even when the most Dickensoniau character in the book, Chitterlow, the actor-playwright, scores a succcss and returns some borrowed money, "x shan't never give up this shop," said Kipps. "You get a shop, and you come along in a year's time and thero it. is. But money—look how it comes and goes. There's 110 sense in money. Yon may kill yourself trying to get' .it, and .then it comes when you ami looking. Therc'6 my 'riginal money. Where is it now? Gone!" And the " Simple Soul," mystified with life and lire's problems, passes out of the ken of the reader, leaving a" dozen suggested but. unanswered questions which "never reached the surface of his mind," never took to themselves'"substance or form," but looked up at him, as they look at us, "as the phantom of a facc might look, out of deep waters, and sink again into nothingness." "Kipps-" is a book that makes one think. "A Servant- of the Public." By Anthony Ilope. London: Methuen ' and" " Co. Dunedin: Whitcombe and Tombs.. (3s 6d, 2s 6d.) Superficial as the dividing principle seems to be between one small scction of society and another, the difference is great to the persons so divided and does "make of the individuals so affected different inner as well as different outer creatures from what they would have been had they occupicd different- places in a different class." Such at least is tho contention of llr Anthony Hope, and in the clever glimpse of modern life presented to us in "A Servant of the Public" this theme is accentuated and dwelt upon, all the chief characters being greatly influenced and wrought upon by external circumstances. It is, however, open to doubt whether the change is so great as Mr Anthony Hope would have 11s believe, and whether all these persons arc hot really faithful to their original trend. Willi young people especially it often happens that the needle of inclination appears to oscillate for some time before it settles down with its point to the pole. This oscillation is repeated at intervals, but always with a trend in the same direction. And this is really the case with most, if not all, of Mr Hope's characters. When the leader opens the book most of them are in a state of oscillation; when ho closes it- most of them have settled down to T.-hat- was really in each case inevitable. 'The mercantile conservatism of the Muddocks, taking different forms in each member of the family, was never strong enough " to throw off the ribbons." The spirit of_ trade had begat so keen an appreciation of money that even Alice— though at one time it eeemed possible to her—could not escape the trammels of use and wont. Lord Bowden's conservatism is of another type—tho type of the born, aristocrat,—but his effort to escape is foredoomed to failure, and ho too returns to tho shackles which he once appeared to be on the point of throwing off. Ora Pineent, the flighty, fascinating" brilliant actress, is also true to her own volatile nature, and 111 spite of excellentintentions to the contrary can never control her affections or keep her engagements. Ashley Mead alone suffers himself to bo diverted from his course and brings the ship of his life 011 the rocks; yet he too acts as any psychologist would have foreseen, for 110 alone is of the true modern type, slightly degenerate, halfhearted. content, with all his sweetness, amiability, and chann, to be moulded by circumstances rather that' to assert his rights, and "by opposing end" his difficulties. A little morn exercise of virile force and Ora would thankfully have acknowledged her master, a little less and lie would not have acknowledged that "his life had dolie its uttermost.' 1 So that in the end lie too does what- he must rather than what- ho .would. Hut in spite of what seems to us a curious misapprehension, Mr Hope's book is intensely interesting. Character and conduct are alike carefully analysed, many of the conversations are brilliant, and'the pictures of upper middle-class society in its matiy subtile divisions and subdivisions ore true to tho life, while tho whole is lightened

by occasional flashes of irony nnd delicatehumour as if the god-in-the-car woro slyly making fun of tho whole show. "The Secret of Popularity."- By Emily Holt. London: Methuen and Co, Dmiedin: Whitcombe and Tombs. (Cloth, boards; 3s 6d.) This book "has been written for tho especial benefit of those men and women who wish to be liked and admired aiid aro not." The class to whom Mrs Holt addresses herself is a fairly numerous one, and is chiefly composed of those persons who, without, ally serious moral vice, fail to "get on" with their contemporaries. To them the fair authoress gives suine good advice 011 how "to say and do simple, graceful, and gracious things." But alas! the art of simplicity and ot grafo is largely a question of training and heredity, and we fear that 110 book learning can impart that charm of manner which Bulwer described as "the best thing in. tlio world." Still Mrs Holt goes some way in analysing this charm and showing its constituent- parts, dwelling on sucli subjects as " Clwrm in Conversation," "A Graceful Correspondent," "The Woman Admired by Men," "A Popular Neighbour," "The Successful Hostess," etc. Nor do the ladies have a monopoly of attention, for there is a good chapter which many of the sterner sex would do well to study entitled "A Bachelor and a Gentleman," based 011 Thackcray'6 definition, "What is it- to be a gentleman? It is to be honest, to ho gentle, to no generous, to he brave, to be wise, and, possessing all these qualities, to exercise them in the most graceful outward manner." i'ho author's final words 011 the treatment of servants contained in the essay entitled "A Gracious Mistress" are also worthy of attention, and if the advice therein contained were more generally followed it is possible that we might hear less of "The Servant Difficulty." "Ethical Religion." By William MacIvintire Salter. London : Watts and Co. (Paper, 6d.) A collection of lectures given, for the most part, before tho Society for Ethical Culture of Chicago, comprising such subjects as " The Ideal Element in Morality," "What Is a Moral Action?" "The Basis of the Ethical Movement," and other similar subjects. Tho whole is intended to give its readers "courage to fight- with the evil and contend for The good," and to nourish the hope that "thero is butone outcome of the course and evolution of things—namely, the victory of the good."