OURRENT COMMENT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14465, 6 March 1909, Page 13

OURRENT COMMENT

It is good news thai Willcie Collins is still popular in America, His Mew York publishers have brought out two editions ill less than six months of "The Woman in White" and "Moonstone." They are stories very hard to beat, and it is surprising that thoy are c.a little known among tlio younger generation in this country. "John Trevena," the novelist, lives on Dartmoor in a very secluded residence for all the year save for two on three weeks. He is not physically strong, and is thus completely barred out from the life of the town. Mr Trevena reads no modern books, but has a good classical library, and studies the nowspaiicvs carefully.' The death of Professor H. G. Seeley, the distinguished geologist, and palaeontologist, who wa& within a month of his seventieth birthday, has occasioned deep regret among all 'who studied with him iu his .special and favourite subjects. Professor Seeley devoted particular attention to the fossil reptiles, and as far back as 1861 he showed that the extinct toothless firing reptiles known to science as pterodactyls mark a. transition from living reptiles to existing birds. In 1893, under tho auspices of the Royal Society, he explored the Karroo formation of Capo Colony, and made the discovery of the extraordinary fossil known a£ Parciasaurus, an extinct reptile which he described as a transition between reptiles and mammals. In the sunitncr scientific outings of tho Geological Society Professor Seeley exhibited enthusiastic interest.

The. (loath is reported of Mr Arthur A'Bceketl, the well-known journalist, who passed away at the age of 64, following a serious operation. The deceased gentleman was n. son of Mr Gilbert A'Bcckett, the chief founder and first editor of

''Punch." and has himself contributed to the humour of the famous journal under the nom-tle-plnme of " Briefless, jnn." Air A'Beekelt edited the Glowworm, acted as special correspondent for the Standard and Globe. • during the FrancoHerman war. edited tlio Sunday Times, and once ran a. comic paper, an earlier "John Bull." He has been president of the Institute of Journalists, and is the author oi many works, and was, at the time of his death, a member of the council of the Newspaper Press Fund. Admirers of Mr Keorge Meredith will be. interested in bis estimate of the work of James Thomson, which Mr -Bertram Dobell quotes in the current "Bibliophile." Acknowledging receipt in ISBO ut""The City of Dreadful Night," the poet of ".Modern Love" thank.? the author for "this admirable and priceless book of verse," and proceeds: "My friends could tell you that I am a critic hard, to please. They say that irony lurks in my eulogy, i am* not iu truth frequently satisfied by verse. Well, I. have gone through your volume, and partly a second time, and I have not found the line I wouM propose to recast. I have found many pages that no other Ilnglish poet could have written. . . . I am in love with the dear London lass who helped you to the "Idyll of Cockaigne." You give a zest and new attraction to Hampstead Heath." Mr Meredith, born six years before Thomeou, who died in 1882, is happily in mid: health as permits his taking the air out of dcors even in chill January dave.

The division is steadily widening (remarks tho Pall Mall Gazette, between the two extremes of current literature, for while fiction, at the one end, is subject to all changes of fashion and the market, the other class seems to grow in seriousness and responsibility. The three most important spring publishing lists to hand contain nearly a. hundred works of authority in tho graver fields of interest, quite apart fi-.ai n>-ruly technical treatises, or re-prats .n-J turiruak like

'"Tlio Statesman's Year-book." We venture roughly to tabulate the announcements of three leading houses, as follows, merely with the reminder Unit there are many works which may be entered under two heads, like Ceneral Kuropatkin's ".Military Memoirs," or Professor Waldo Fowler's " Social Life at Borne in the Age of Cicero." Use- Longmillnn. mans. Hurray. Cracvsl History ..4 - 1:;' Classics ar.cl lilcrature 5 1 3 Soeiolony and politics "' 5 3 6 Science and art .. 3 2 4 Theoloav and philosophy .. .. I 15 10 Memoirs, etc .... - - 5 Fiction mew only) 3 — ifl Which reduces fiction (exclusive, of, reprints) to the healthy proportion of 12 or 13 per tent., and we could wish that this level were maintained in the lists all round the trade. Some recent articles in the Figaro lift the veil that has hitherto hung over the identity of another literary persona tie in the "hiconmie" to whom Prosper Merimee addressed the famous and charming letters.that were published won after his death andlliefall of the Umpire to which, in tin? peraim of the ill-fated Empress Eugenie, he was so firm a friend. The writer in the Figaro makes it plain Mint thi unknown lady was one Jenny Daequin, a young Frenchwoman of geed family, who, falling into comparative poverty at a. very early age, "went, out" lis a_ governess and became, companion to an English lady of title, in whose house she is supposed to have firet met Jlerimce. When about 30, she, inherited a small fortune, and thereafter led a quiet and respectable life, the literary • gift of which she at first gave- signs.in the shape of fugitive versification having apparently abandoned her upon her first acquaintancewith the great writer. In publishing his letters she probably look the wisest step she could, at once to conceal her own identity, and to prevent fliein lieing given to the world in too crude a, form after her death, instances of suppression, and even interpolation, being, as the Figaro shows, evident en every page. She ako left in her will directions to the niece who inherited her money to burn certain documents unread, and thus no doubt provided satisfactorily against the originals falling into less discreet hands. As soon as one mystery closes, however, another opens; for what wo now want to know is the authorship of tlio "Responses" to Merimee's Jotters, which appeared some years later. These were good enough to take in M. Emile Faguet, who has pronounced their writer to bo an Englishwoman of grace and refinement; but they were certainly not by Jenny Dacquin. (such, a forgery was almost worthy of Chatterlon, and argues no mean talent. That there will always be novels published a prediction which probably few would fear to make, and yet (asks a writer in the New York Times' Saturday Review) where aro the novels of the coming" reason? To paraphrase Villon's favourite refrain, "Where'are the iiovek of yester-year?" might be easily answered, Tlio classics of fiction appear to he very much with us just at present. Thus there is a. distinct and very noticeable revival of interest in many of the great names of the ji:>ct century union*; the favoured j'ovcts of the immediate present. During the past month or two, for instoncfi, there have been chronicled in these columns news of r, Dickens revival, a revival of Thackeray, Trollope, Wilkie Collins. Scott, singularly enough, has not been quoted among those of his generation who are just in-.v b'T'iin.) I, wave of enthusiasm among the reffltes of novels; neither Inthere been ;.n, iMrUcular mention of that trio of remarkable women whose undying romances were produced in the last century—.fane Austen, George Eliot, Charlotte Bronte. These are always read, of course—always will be read—is the dictum of lbs critics of to-day as of yesterday. But why the sudden increase of interest in the four authors, first named? And why is there a comparative dearth of novels promised for this season? Usually at this time the publishers have a host of new novels to announce for the spring

and HiinnOT; io-(hy their lifts nio occupied villi descriptions of now historical ivories; .l ; t;rary lnavayntphs, fcientilic studies, biographies, books of travel—the novel is conspicuously absent. That is it fact which is only too apjy.irt>nt in the ciiiTNit literary news—but its interpretation is f:i.r from b:ing an obvious one.,'