THE WRITER'S WAY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16189, 26 September 1914, Page 12

THE WRITER'S WAY.

The death was recently announced of Mr Stanley Portal Hyatt, whose last published book, "The. Old Transport Boad," Mr Melrose issued this year. Mr Hyatt had led a strenuous and adventurous life, the story of which he told in his " Soldier of Fortune" (Werner Laurie). For some time past he had been in failing health, but his amazing reserves of energy and indomitable will kept him hard at" work almost to the last. Latterly lie was engaged on a serial for the Daily Citizen, and his literary agent, Mr Leonard P. Moore, writes : "He stuck to his work on the Daily Citizen serial with simply astounding determination, writing the story with his own hand up to the last two instalments; then he wired to me to send down a stenographer, and 1 received the copy for the last instalment on June 24. He died on the 30th." Jt is not often that the writer of a "best, seller" is accorded the honour of a centenary celebration. An interesting instance, however, of prolonged popular regard for the author of a not particularly vital book is furnished by Mrs Hcnrv Wood, who was born in .Worcester, England, 100 years ago, a fact that her fellow townsmen have been recognising with an appropriate memorial and its attendant ceremonies. "East Lvnne,'' the literary success upon which Mrs Wood's fame is founded, appeared morn than half a century ago. Its dramatic quality was immediately recognised, and the novel promptlyappeared in numerous stage versions, some of which hold the boards to-day. •' East Lvnne" was rather more melodramatic than the present taste cares for in its fiction, and it is this defect that probably accounts for its decreased popularity as a novel. Its initial vO'jue. however, was extraordinary, and extended not only to this conntry and England, but to the Continent and even to the Orient, where it was translated into various tongues, as well. Mrs Wood followed nn her great success with two novels. " Mrs Haliburton's Troubles" and "The Channings,'' both of which were weli received, but are now almost forgotten. Her best work from a | literary point of view is to be found in

th-.i.Johnny Ludlow" tales. which appolled anonymously in tin; Argosy, <i magazine of wliicli k!k; wa.s ji;•(>-jirietoi-, in 3868, arid which wer;' sub-i'cjui'iitly printed ' in two serifs of three volumes <>ach. -Mrs Wood was a siicees.cfiil portrayer of the Knglish middle claw-; life! of her period, and as a skilful weaver of plots she i.s i ranked with W'ilkie Collins. Iler jiiiblished works, many of them ap|X'aring ill j three volumes eae'i, include over 40 lilies. The poems of Rsihindranath Tajwre have 5 made so strong and wide an appeal to lovers of poetry licit a biography of this . gifted singer of India should easily line! a weleome. Such a biography, with an "appreciation of Tagore's poetry," is furnished hv an anonymous writer whose book comes from the Madras publishing house of Nateran Company. Iridi-rs literary i ideals, her views of life and art are so different, at least traditionally, irom those peculiar to the Western World that a ; main feature of interest, regarding Tagore involves the ipiesiion, " llow hns he succeeded in making his appeal as a poet, intelligible to ns?" As sketched by the present biographer, however, Tagore reveals a decidedly cosmopolitan intellectual life. He studied law in Kngland, and members of his family—which is, by the way, one of the oldest and mo: t influential of the Bengali—had visited that country before him, and have distinguished themselves besides as philosophers, artists, and members of the Indian civil service. Like many another poet, Tagore began to write verse almost as soon as he could write anything. His life, successful as it has been outwardly, has been darkened by personal sorrows and misfortunes—experiences that his biographer believes have tinged his poetry with the religious and philosophical feeling peculiar to it. Today, at the age of 52, he is the founder and teacher of a large open-air school at Bolepur, the fame of which is scarcely confined to India. In spite of his familiarity with the peoples, customs, and literature of the Western World, Tagore is an ardent patriot, a believer in the future literary greatness—and it is perhaps on account of his enthusiastic labours for the intellectual renaissance that he sees dawning npon his country that his work and his art awaken so strong a response among us. Bearing the memorable case of Jarndyce versus Jarndyce in mind, it is interesting to learn of the intimate connection that the author of " Bleak House" had with the Court of Chancery. The incident forms the theme of a- book by an English solicitor, E. T. Jaques, who, under the title "Charles Dickens in Chancery" (Longmans and Co)., tells of the famous novelist's experiences a.s a litigant in the court that eight years later he satirized so mercilessly. Dickens's writings were always subject to the plunderings of literary pirates in the days when the copyright law was neither so adequate in its _ provisions nor so rigidly enforced as it is now, but as a rule the victim treated these depredations with contempt. On one occasion, however, he rebelled. In 1844 Parley's Illuminated Library, a penny periodical that lived on what it could filch from popular authors, produced "A Christmas Ghost Story, reoriginated from the original of Charles Dickens, Esquire, and analytically condensed expressly for this work." Of course it' was 11 A Christmas Carol" that was thus " reoriginated ]' and " analytically condensed," and Dickens wrathfully appealed for protection to the Court of Chancery. The defendants declared that they had made "very considerable improvements " and " large additions " to the original work, and, moreover, argued with charming inconsistency that their production was not, in any degree, an imitation of " A Christmas Carol." Dickens won his suit without much difficulty, but not " one farthing of the costs " was ever paid by the defendant. Unfortunately—or is it fortunately? —for the present generation no copy of the "reoriginated" "Christmas Ghost Story is in existence —and so Henry Hewitt's " carol or song," and the " and poetry" of the "paper marked B" are lost to an admiring posterity. Mr Gelett BuTgess, whose satirical' brochure "Are You a Bromide?" has not only become popular in the smart set, but has added a new epithet to the language, was in August in London, ostensibly on business but really on his honeymoon. Shortly before leaving New York he was married to Miss Estelle Loomis, who is herself a well-known contributor to many American periodicals, and is at present writing a series of theatrical stories for the Century. Mrs Burgess was fomerly an actress.' She is publishing next spring her first volume. " Her Him Book." Some little time back Mrs Burgess lived in London for a year, and became a regular contributor to the Sketch and the Queen; his " Bromide " essay was, in fact, originally published in the latter. He is the author of several novels, but in the Unted States is the particular friend of children by reason of his " Goop" books, which have become nursery classics. He is before everything else, however, a satirist, and his " Maxims of Methuselah '' and "Maxims of Noah," with their shrewd sayings on the foibles and failings of woman, and their humorous, ironical analysis of feminine psychology, enjoy an enormous vogue on the other side of the Atlantic. He has another satirical volume ready for publication this autumn, a dictionary of " words you have always needed," which will bear the unassuming title of " Burgess Unabridged." Oliver Onions—the name is his by birthright—the young English novelist who is the author of " Gray Youth," studied art in London and Paris and afterward eked out a precarious living in London by doing any sort of art work that would turn a penny. He is still in his thirties, but has been declared to be " one of the half dozen men who count to-day as writers of English fiction." ; Hall Caine does his day's work of writing in two hours, before breakfast. The rest of the day he spends in recreation and thinking out the story upon which he is at work. He usually spends three years upon a book.