LITERATURE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17068, 28 July 1917, Page 2

LITERATURE.

A CAUSERIE *

By Constant Reader. luR MAIS AND THE MODERNS (A). A book profacod by a lengthy quotation from Mr Ralph Hodgson's "Song of Honour ' —one of the poems in respect of W ? * u fcccivcd the Polignac Prize, —-which has. on its first page a reference to Kichard Middleton, 011 its second page mentions Maselield, and which brings in incessantly names and titles as well known iis Boyd Cable, Charles Garvice, tho " Thirtynine Stops," Geoffrey Farnol, " Dead Yesterday," " Daddy Longlegs," Hugh Walpole, Conrad, Compton Mackenzie, Walter de la Mare, Drinkwater, D. 11. Lawrence. J- I}- Beresford, "and tho rest of the new ' r.J s sure 'y something to be reckoned with. Ihe name of the novel is " April's Lonely Soldier," and tho author ie Stuart Petre Brodie, Mais, M.A., an enthusiastic educationalist with original ideas, author of a number of school manuals, a contributor to several journals of tho front rank on educational, literary, and athletic subjectssome of his essays and sketches have been collected in volume form, —who, besides his Public School in War Time." has also a novel called " Interludes" to his credit. The outstanding feature of these' two really remarkablo novels is .the familiarity they reveal, on the part of the author with well-nigh everything of note that has been published within the past decado. Thus people who believe that nothing worth while has been written since the time of Dickens and Thackeray, Browning and. Tennyson, should steer clear of Mr Mais, for he will only prove a vexation and an annoyance. The others, who for the past 10 years have been drinking at the wells of modern literature, tho work of living men and women, will be delighted to discover all. their favourite writers praised or criticised according to the standards set forth by Mr Mais. There are several things about " April's Lonely Soldier" and its companion volume "Interludes." which render these books of cspecial interest. The first, is the astonishing frankness ■of the author. He has a great gift of vision, and lie is not afraid to tell tho truth. . Ho has style and force and freshness besides his amazing frankness, and the result is a picture of Britain at the time of the awakening and after, which, while it may not always pleaso, is extremely arresting. Lieutenant Hugh PeteTS, a subaltern in training at Aldershot, who has just suffered a severe love disappointment, inserts in the "Personal" column of The Times the following advertisement:— Lonely subaltern desires correspondence with member of opposite sex; witty, cheerful, intellectual, pretty. This attracts tho attention of Miss April Treffry, a quite up-to-date young woman, recovering from ah interlude with an artist, who proved faithless; and tho book consists of a series of letters, between Miss April and her lonely soldier Hugh, in which almost everything under the sun pertaining to modern life and literature is discussed and thrashed out. Tho result is an enter tainment in. modern men, women, and manners which, if before attempted, has never. been bettered. As nn example of tho discussions the following may serve— Hugh is writing 1 to April:—■ War rouses all our worst qualities: all that is animal and brutish in man then comes out; wo have gono back about a thousand years* in our civilisation since 1914 Look at our attitude towards women. We were all fighting for her right to be treated no longer as an ornament on the mantelpiece, of a peculiarly brittle nature, but as a co-mate and fellow, in oxilo, and now—well, I wish you could hear tho average subaltern talking about the girls he keeps in London. There are not many tea-girls at 9s 2d, a week now— but just in proportion as they are waxing richer, so are the women of to-day waxing more extravagant They still envy the girl who gets her daily joy-rid" and superb frocks, her dinners at the Rifcz, and her independence of time. Thero are tens of thousands more "daughter* of tho game" since tho war began.. Nearly every man. after some timo in camp, seems to find woman a necessity, not Tier companionship only, hut physically, too. T don't nuTto see how it is to be prevented in the present cirO'lmstencrs. Most of our men know that their time is short. Thev want tr> squeeze everv atom of en cut of life while they've p-ot it. Wh»t I object to is the promiscuity of it all.

This picture is all the more serious and startling because drawn by a man who regards ''schoolmastoring'' as far the most important work a_ man can bo doing at this_ moment for his country, everyone else having forgotten the future altogether; and a man who clings to the theory of the "Salvation of tho raoe through the teaching of English." Here is another characteristic outburst from one of Hugh's letters:

Will peace ever come? For the sake of the saving of some remnants of hope for the future of this country it must come eoori. What I mean is that, after , the war, unless the young men who have fought take the reins into their own hands we shall again bo plunged into an even worse war with some other oountry, owing to the damnable silliness of old men. We have always been ruled by old men, men who have had "experience;" that is to say, men who have lost all ideals of love, goodfellowship, or tho possibility of any higher sort of life than that whioii we now live. Only tho youifg men oan save us, only the young men who aro now cm the field of battle know that war is simply effete, ridiculous, a retrograde step, wjiioh puts back all chances of making good in any way but the material. These young men aro being killed off day by day; only our newspaper writers are left.' What a prospect for the future welfare of England ! In almost every letter there is a sly satire, an acute literary judgment or scathing criticism on some aspect of social or political life. And running through tho narrative is the golden thread of a delightfully unusual love story. All this makes "April's Lonely Soldier" a book to come back to again and again. :

With "Interludes" Mr Mais enters upon a more ambitious task. He takes the samo social England in time of war, with its manifest inconsistencies and hypocrisies, and tho same literary background among the moderns, and 1 endeavours to show "what a man constituted like Shelley would have made of his life had ho been alive in 1917." "I have tried as honestly as I could," writes Mr Mais, "to show what misery is caused by those unhappy men who search hungrily, selfishly for personal comfort and the appeasing of that craving which is common to us all." "Interludes" is a book to make men and women think. It should bo avoided by all who dislike to face the facts of life; it ought to be read by all who fear tho future. Mr Mais is a man to be reckoned with in the field of fiction, and readers able to appreciate "April's Lonely Soldier" and "Interludes" will be on the watch for other stories from tho samo gifted pen.

THE MAN WHO SAW (b). In his lost volume of verse, entitled "Tho Man Who Saw and Other Poems Arising Out of tho War," Sir William Watson pens a fine panegyric cm Mr Lloyd George, whom tho poet describes as " the man all eye and hand, fhe man who saw, and grasped, and gripped, and held." Tho quality of the poem may be gathered from the following extract: — And now Out of that land where Snowdon night by night Receives the .confidences of lonesomo stars, And where Carnarvon's ruthless battlements Magnificently oppress the daunted tide, Tlioro comes—no fabled Merlin, son of mist, And brother to the twilight, but a man Who in a time terrifically real Is real as the time; formed for the time; Not much beholden to tho munificent Part, In mind or spirit, but frankly of this hour; No faggot of perfections, angel or saint, Created faultless and intolerable; No meeting-place 6f all the heavenlinesses; But eminently a man to stir and. spur Men, to afflict them with benign alarm, Harass their sluggish and uneager blood, Till, like himself, they are hungry for the goal; A man with something of the craggineis Of his own mountains, something of tho force That goads to their low leap the mountain streams.

* A. " April's Lonely Soldier " and " Interludes." I>y S. P. 13. Mais. London: Chapman and Hall. i.4s< Gd oaoh vo'.nme.) n. " Tho Man Who Saw anil Other IMeiop Arising Out of .the War.'.' By Mr William Watson. London s John Murray. (3s (id not.) 0. " Getting Together." Bv lan Hav. '.Vow York i Doubled*!/, Puge, and 00. (2i Gdl)

AMERICA AND BRITAIN (c). i A little book which it would do every J New Zea.lniider good to read just now : s> lan Hay's " Getting Together." For several ' months the author of '• The .First Hundred Thousand" was commissioned by th«. British Govamment to travel the United States and locturo upon war topics, with the view of enabling American audiences to understand the British attitude. In all probability much of America's action at the present time is due to the stimulus provided by that lecture tour. Tliis useful little book contains lan Hay's statement of tho case for Britain and America " getting together," and it is based upon the trutn that " practicaUy everyone in this world improves oil closer acquaintance. The people with whom we utterly fail to agree are those with whom we never get into close contact." There has been in this dominion a considerable prejudice against America and the Americans which a per lisal of " Getting- Together" may help to dispel. Sir William Watson cherished simiprejudices, and expressed them in a series of sonnets which at the time created discussion; but ho testifies to his present point of view in some eloquent lines entitled America Once More " : This, this is the America that we knew! Not she whoso armour against hell was roams Of ratiocination; who in streams Of moet invincible ink was lost to view; But she that once her golden clarion ■ blew At Gettysburg; she on whose forehead gleams The unvanquished Morn; tho America of our dreams— Of these immortal dreams that yet are true. O change not bade to marble, mightv brow! This human wrath is more majestic far. Man needs thee, and our cause, being Man's, is thine. Thy place is with the great who know not how To falter, .though their night be without star, i And their vast agony without anodyne. ODD ITEMS. Mr Hugh Walpole's story, "Maradick at Forty * has been issued in a shilling net edition. The latest volume in "The Writers of To-day series is by Mr Stephen Gwynn, and. is devoted to Mrs Humphry Ward. .< r, 1 ' 1 Habindranath Tagore's new book, Personality," consists of the lectures he delivered recently in India, and constitutes a call from the East to .the West. The pc,st's "Reminiscences" are also in the press. , A second part of tho "Diary of the Great War," by Samuel Pepys, Jun , is announced for publication. The scene of Mr Jcffery Farnol's new novel, "The Definite Object," is laid in ienth avenue, New York, and it is said that tho author acquired his knowledge of the vernacular when, not being over-pros-perous, he dwelt in that district several years ago. The hero of the story is Geoffrey Ravenslie, millionaire, first-class fighting man, good comrade, and very perfect gentleman all in one. What is said to be the best "War Anthology " yet published is " The Muse in Arms, .containing a selection of poems written by soldiers, sailors, and flying* men at the front, including such men as Julian Grenfell, Robert Nicholls. Willoughbv Weaving, Herbert Asquith, F. W. Harvey! and many others whose works have not before been published.... ® rv,n e's much-discussed novel, Changing Winds," is dedicated to the memory of Rupert- Brooke, the title being taken from the poet's sonnet, "The Dead. ' It is tolerably certain that Gilbert f'arlow in the novel is Rupert Brooke, and that the novelist, who knew ihe poet intimately, has drawn a fine imaginary portrait of his friend. Mr Isaac Don Levine has written a story of the Russian Revolution, which brings,the history of that mighty and far-reachin" movement right up to date. The chapters devoted to Nicholas 11, to his Court, and the Dark Forces, to the amazing monk, Rasputin, with his sinister and unbounded power; those that tell of the growing ten sion between people and Government, of the treacheries of Protopopoff, Sturmer, and the Czarina, and of "the fyrowim?

Mr Isaac Don Levine has -written a story of the Russian Revolution, which brings,the history of that mighty and far-reaehin" movement right up to date. The chapters devoted to Nicholas 11, to his Court, and the Dark Forces, to the amazing monk, Rasputin with his sinister and unbounded power; tnosc that tell of the growing ten sion between people and Government, of the treacheries of Protopopoff, Sturmer, find the Czarina, and of "the growing strength of the Duma, are "breathlessly interesting. Then, following what in any other jountry but Russia would have been incredible events, comes tbo actual revolution. Rasputin dead. ProtopopoF almost insane. The Czar imbecile in his biindness and the autocracy thundering down to destruction and utterly incapable of realising the fact. The last tremendous scenes are told with spirit. And what of the Czar? When it is all over he is told, and this is what he reolies:

Well, thank God, I will go to Livadia. If the people want it I will abdicate. I will go to Livadia to the gardens. I am so fond of flowers. And this was " the man who had caused his country more suffering than any other Russian ruler since the davs of Ivan the lerrible. '