BOOK NOTICES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14684, 18 November 1909, Page 2

BOOK NOTICES

"Open Country: A Comedy with a Sting," l'y Maurice Hewlett. London : Macmillan and Co. (3s 6d, 2s 6(1.| "A Sting!" A whole hornet's nestwould be more like it. For here, under the guise of n harmless tale of the Open Bond, Mr Maurice Hewlett preaches his Philosophy of Life and 1 his Cult of Woman. The philosophy is nut original—far from it. It' there could he Mich a thing as an original philosophy it would take generations to accustom people to the idea. Mr Hewlett takes n scrap here and there, burrowing from Kpicteltis, Marcus Aurelius, Plato, "The Levantine," as he culls St. !'aul, and many other sources, creditedor nncrodiied, themselves ihe product of still older thought. Ami the result he puts into the mouth tor. to be more tonrate, the pen) of John Maxwell Senhouse. the, peripatetic philosopher to whom he introduced us in ''The Halfway House," and who was then busily employed in making gar-dens all over England, introducing exotic plants into mutable situations, looking after them from time to limo unlil they were quite at home in the new habitat, where they would remain to delight the unsophisticated and to puzzle and confound future, liotanist-s. The Cult of Woman is of unknown antiquity, probably antedating all known religions or lying unseen at their bass as the worship of "The Queen of Heaven," "The Queen of Love," or "of Pity." But it is to the Greek Artemis that Mr Hewlett pays his vows, and he finds her embodied in the beautiful Sanchia Perceval, the fair, pure, wise, daughter of a London merchant. Her he declares to he too good, too noble, too pure for the base purposes of life tin which lie appears to include wifehood and motherhood), and' he dofs not scruple to expose her, unwarned, to the machinations of a married man who has allowed the opportunity for divorce to pass, declaring that he does not wish to " drag his ancient name through the mire," but who has no scruples regarding the name or personality ii the fair girl he professes to love and' has not the manhood to leave. It- is a sordid ending to an otherwise fine story, ami Mr 'Hewlett does well to draw the veil abruptly, dedaring emphatically the obvious falsehood, of which all history shows the fallacy,, " that no harm ever yet fell on a good woman." Indeed, the conduct of every one concerned—the parents, the friends, the avowed lover, of this pure young girlis most extraordinary. Each and all fail isignally in their obvious duty. It is impossible to excuse them, and Mv Hewlett does not attempt to do so. " A girl must be taught or guarded: generally both." Sometimes the gradually expanding experience of life does the work; sometimes -more direct warning is needed. Woe to the mother who says, like Mrs Perceval, " I can trust my girls," ancl yet takes no pains to explain the nature of the trust: as well trust men to carry open lights in a bomb factory without explaining the nature of the work carried 011 and the inevitable risks. Some years a;;o Mt Thomas Hardy tried to show this ill his " Tets of the D'Urbervilles," but his methods were 11 little too crude and outspoken for the testhelic readers of the period, and earned for him more blame than praise. Mr Maurice Hewlett is more subtle. Ho does not carry out his lesson to the bitter end; but the moral is the same—teach, or guard, or both. The iffliocence that is ignorance is 110 protection from the wiles of the human heart or the eccentricities of bomb -manufacture. Much of -this story is told in the form of letters. Senhouee and Sanchia meet under very unusual and romantic circumstances. The man lives "in a tent of his own stitching," which ho carries about in a " tilt-cart drawn by a lean Rosinante," owning only what he can so carry, earning his food as lie goes along, "never more than five shillings a week," by painting a little picture or writing an article. He is nevertheless a constant though fitful reader, "an excellent Grecian," who never attempted his degree, but walked from the university one fine morning leaving all his impedimenta behind him, and embarked at once on the wandering life which forbade his remaining more than a week in one place. Circi'mstances bring about between these two a warm friendship; that on the man's side soon ripens into love—the unpractical love which looks on Sanchia as 100 pure and too sacred for things of this earth, which lifts the young girl 011 to a pinnacle of -wisdom and saintliness, a niche in the shrine of the greiit Temple of the Gods. Senhouse's letters form the greater part of the book. They are brilliantly written and bring out- the line character of the man as nothing else could. They treat of philosophy, poetry, Nature, art, life in the abstract, but they say little of life in the concrete: beautiful ideals such as one would expect from the prophet of the Open Country, but little practical direction for the days of storm and stress, and 'though -Senhonse implores Sanchia " to send for him " whenever she wants advice, and she obeys, he is of very little use to her when the time of trial comes. Of his philosophy it is impossible to speak fully or even to give a clear resume in the space at our disposal. We content ourselves, therefore, with a quotation giving some of his views on love and marriage:— Marriage is not the happy stale. •_ ■It is not, and it cannot be. as it is irow ordered; for the notion of possession of property has onlered in and vitiated it. It has poisoned the nature of man and degraded the conscience of woman. Women are no 1 , it may be, angels before marriage: it is certain they should not be property afterwards. But by virtue of a legal contract they are technically so, and man is so made by tradition and pronencss to possess t-hai 110 will consider the woman eo even against h'is own judgment, even despite his own honour; and the moment, lie believes himself secure of ■her lie will cease to serve her. Now, to lovo a woman is not only to desiro her: much more it. is to be allowed to serve her. The better part of, loving is the need to give, not the desiro to l'cceive. 11l a perfect union of hearts and bodies the rivalry is not who shall get, but who shall spend, -the more. There should be tro cud to that noble strife. Nor will there be 011 the woman's part. , ■ It is natural to a woman to mate natural to a man to master. Hut unless we curb that brute instinct in the mail there can be 110 real happiness for the wotnair. ■ • • I will not marry as th 0 law now stands. I will not- enslave anv woman. . . . So to treat the woman m whose eyes I have seen heaven, to whose heart I go for peace, is lo insult me by the supposing that I can so insult her. . , . What's to bo done, 1 then.' 1 have nothing to suggest. Theie are signs that the accursed old system 'is breaking Dp-signs 011 all sides. . , The time may be coming. It won t be yet. You and I shall never see it . .It ls doubtless necessary that there should be frequent crncifictions It seems lo be (he way of tho world A nnn to whom the truth is blazed as clear as 110011, tilled to the lins with his revelations, goes into the market place 'r fi ' 1 c ° nlos /tic storm upon him. H e falls, battered, bleeding, with gla7ed eyes. . Having slain him, tCv lear.ll that he was a god. Up -roes a. st-ltuc and Ins words are read as |ospel Thats how we get on in this quaint world climbing to tho stars on the heaped bodies of our heroes and sages. Might he not- have added goddesses?

" Sonnets and Lyrics." By Roland Powell. , Dnnedin, Christchurch, etc • Whitcombe ami Tombs. (Paper,' 2s.)'' .Air Powell's verses are pleasant reading, >3:o>r4«ing, as 119 himself puts it, "the first lyrical prompting* of. a passion striving to attune itself to the rhythmical harmony of the Spirit Beautiful in Nature." He lias chosen that- difficult medium, the sonnet, as his chief form of «:prc*<io», and uses it with excellent effect, though occasionally the necessities of vhvme lead hint into -awkward or hackneyed expressions. Most of these sonnets are without special dedication, and enshrine some phase of Nature. We especially liked the one beginning— Before the whitening stare were dim and dead, Ere yot- the misty silence of the sea Uprose, and left the shadowy coastJine free, From dreamy couch unto this hill I

The one beginning "Art though a man?" is also to he commended. The " Sonnets to a Thrush " are harmonious, and these pvohahlv show Mr Powell at his best. The lyric poems lack spontaneity and thai touch of passion which would, alone redeem tliem from the commonplace; for lyrics should he love lyrics if they would touch the heart: they seldom appeal to the imagination, and still more rarely to the intellect: hut we Hud a pleasant exception in the lincii—

If from the life of tears that- seems so vain, On.; p'-.'a'l of purest crystal should romum: If in God's crucible thou canst behold One tiny beauteous bead of royal gold: If from (lie wasting brilliance of the rose, Its scent and colour in the seeds repose: Can'st. Thou still dream that life is vain?— All. no. Nor in the worst can'st ever think it eo. A longer piece in ■ blank verse 011 tho subject of " Eventide " has much to commend .it 10 the careful reader. Nevertheless, when all is said, .Mr l'owell is not yet a poet. Our own opinion is that poetry has not yet become a real thing to him. He woos the muse half-heartedly, as one who has led an untrammelled dilletante life, who Iras never yet really "lived" iu the fullest seiwe, and the cry for expression is not yet insistent. lie must " learn in suffering" what he " would leach in song." When that day comes—if it ever docs—he will lie the first to smile at his own youthful effusions, l'octrv. like all true arL, is a lutwl taskmislress. She must have all: nothing less contents her.

" The Pageant ol English Poetry." Oxford University Press: Henry Frowde, (Cloth, 25.)

This collection of 1150 poems and extracts from 300 authors is well named. It is indeed a " pageant" 011 song, embracing all the best known names in the roll-call of English poets, -and a few notso well known. 11 any anthologies havo been collated, and the present editor ' gladly acknowledges his indebtedness to earlier gleaners in the field." But lie has exercised his own judgment throughout, and never been content without consulting the earliest or most authentic sources. And the result is so far satisfactory that it is scarcely possible to turn over the pages in search of some favourite verse and find that it is not included. The period covers-600 years, and the work of living poets has not been included, though Henley, Whittier, Longfellow, W. K. H. Lecltv, and others, who have but recently passed from among us, find an honoured place. The poets appear in alphabetical order, and the titles of their poems ars also printed in alphabetical order of first lines. At the beginning of the book there is a list of authors, giving their full names and the dales of birth and death where known. At the end are two indexes, one of first Jines of the poems, in which authors are indicated 1 ; and the other a subject index, in which <an attempt has been made at classification. The anthology is very complete, admirably got up, and excedingly cheap.