LITERATURE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17823, 3 January 1920, Page 2

LITERATURE.

NEW YEAR DELIGHTS.*

SOME BOOKS WHICH REMAIN.

By Constant Reader.

One of tho joys peculiar to the New Year in New Zealand is the opportunity to linger over the books which remain and to delight in them accordingly. In the Homo Country tho publishers keep their eyes fixed upon Christmas, anil books are hurried out by tho hundreds to catch tho season's trade. Only a comparatively small selection of these books reach the dominion before tho end of tho year, and consequently como dribbling out in ones and twos and threes, mail after mail, thus stretching out the interest almost indefinitely, and at the same tjrae permitting the literary digestion do its perfect work. Ihe books which remain, with a few notableexceptions, do not 1 include fiction; the novels for tho most part may. be classed as books which pars in a night. Of the former class, the publishers' lists afford a fine variety, and hold promise of much delight for 1920, which is an yet in anticipation.

As yet the new books of essays by that never-failing friend, Mr E. V. Lucas, entitled "The Phantom Journal," has not made its appearance, and the same may be said of such provocative titles as "Mountain Paths," ' by Maurice Maeterlinck; '•Essays on Art. by A. Clutton Brock; "Heartbreak House and Other Plays," by 0. Bernard Shaw; "Irish Impressions," by G. K. Chesterton; "Books and Their Writers," by S. P. B. Mais; and "Enjoying Life," by \V. N. P. Bartellion, author of that much discussed volume "The Journal of a Disappointed Man." On the other hand half a dozen or so of dainty delicious volumes have reached these shores, and a few reflections thereon, the outcome of a'first handling, may serve as a guide to would-bo book buyers who make their purchases for nil time, and not merely for tli© purposes of the pissing hour. 1.-A NEW BAIN. "Dearest Frank,—l have just laid down your lovely Fairy Tale with a sigh of delight; it's the host thin.? you have done; it's perfect, a very gem; the most delectable literary morceau I've ever inhaled. Whether it's a translation or a creation is your secret; the thing- is a 'gem of purest ray serene.'" This letter, dated October 17. 12-08, is one of thirteen of his mother's old letters, printed by Mr F. W. Bain as appendix to that memorable volume "An Echo of tho Spheres," a book which incidentally gives a good deal of insight into the character of Mr Bain himself. An earlier letter of the series makes a contrast, between the writer's " old jrouty fi.jgc-r*" and "your shapely and unsoiled 'digits.' " an obvious allusion to "A Digit of the Moon," Mr Bain' 6 first hook, with which he at one and trio same itiine entranced and mystified a large and appreciative public. Who that has one© read it can ever forget the account of th? creation of woniiia with which Rasakosha entertains the King at ihd opening of the story, or how the appeax - anc> on the title page of the words "Translated from tho Original MS." completely myttifitd the learned officials at the British Museum, so that they solemnly placed the book in tho Oriental department? It was in. 1898— more than twenty years ago —that "A Digit of the Moon" first appeared. Since that time Mr Bain has placed twelve other Hindoo stories to his credit; and of the latest story, " Tho Substance of a Dream," it may truthfully be said that it has all the litei-ary graco and peculiar charm of the first. It is dedicated to "The Inexpressibly Gentle Genius of My Own Mother," that mother whom he has. striven to immortalise by "rescuing from oblivion" the "Echo of tho Spheres" contained in her poetry. Mr Bain's introductions—liko those of Mr Bernard Shaw—are always worth reading; and in tho introduction to ."The Substance of a Dream" the author lifts a corner of the curtain which concealed the mystery and source of his inspiration, so completely, that even his own mother was fain to wonder whether her son's stories were "creation or translation." Mr Bain tells all that it is necessary for the reader to know when he writes:—

And since so many people have asked me questions as to the origin of these stories, I will say a woi-d on the point here. Where do they come from? I do not know. 1 discovered only the other day that some believo them to have been written by a.woman. That appears to me improbable. But who writes them? I cannot tell.. They como to me, one by one, suddenly, like a flash of lightning, all together. I see them, in the air before me, like a little Bayous: tapestry, complete, from end to end, and write them down, hardly lifting the pen from tho paper, straight off "from the MS." I' never know the day before when one is coming: it arrives, as if shot out of a pistol. Who oan tell? They may be nil but so many reminiecen<!es of a' former bit th.

As to the theme of Mr Bain's new book it may be described in his own words: "The 1 Substance of a Dream' is half a love Btory and half a fairy tale: as indeed every love-story is a fairy tale. Because, although that unaccountable mystery, the mutual attraction of the sexes, is the very essence of life,, and everything else merely accidental or accessory, yet only too often in the jostle of the world, in the trough and tossing of the waves of time, the accidental smothers the essential, and life turns into a commonplace instead of a- romance. And 60, like every other story, this little story will perhaps be very differently judged according to the reader's Bex." This introduction is one of the cleverest essays on man and woma,n—why man is man and woman, woman—that has ever been put on paper, and the story is a brilliant variant on the essay. " A woman is a weapon, designed by the Creator, who generally knows what He is doing, to fascinate the other sex; that is her essence and her raison >( d'etre: tie woman who does not do it is a failure." "It is man himself, her accuser, who is very nearly ■ always to blame. His intelligence as compared with her own is clumsy; he does not realise the unfathomable gulf that divides her nature from his own." In a passage of rare beauty Mr Bain tells how a spark of illumination on this oomjplex subject of s?x came from "the two things that mean most to me, a sunset and a child. ' As the sun went down, there poured from a thin bar of cloud "a long cascade, a very Niagara of golden mist and rain." And the child, after (razing spellbound at the gorgeous sight exclaimed with a little sigh, " Daddy, why does the golden rain never fall here? Our rain is only common rain." To which he said solemnly, " little girls are the reason why." But she didn't understand. Oscar Wilde has somewhere written: " There is a good deal to be said in favour of reading a novel backwards." To anyone to whom the books of Mr F. W. Bain are untrodden ground, there is room for a uniqu? experiment; start to read him backwards. Begin with "The Substance of a Dream," and work right back to "A Digit of the Moon," and the new year can scarcely fail to be of the happiest and best. IT—A NEW WILDE. Seeing that virtually everything traceable as the work of Oscar Wilde has been published—with the exception perhaps of the stolen manuscript of " The Portrait of Mr W. ll."—it is perhaps a misnomer to call "A Critic in Pall Mall" a "new" Wilde book. Yet in the first number of Mr J. C. Squire's new literary monthly the London Mercury—a periodical which aims at being the guide, philosopher, and friend of all " who are intelligently interested in literatm-e, in the drama, in the arte and in muiiic"—a review of the book opens with this sentence : " This volume tippears, rather regrettably, with no indication of how it came into existence, how Wilde wrote the essays of which it is composed or who chose them for republication, and on what principle." Too often, alas, the book reviewers in reputable Homo journals give evidence of the absence of adequate equipment on the part of the re-viewer. It is surely not eufhaient merely to have read the book under review; it is equally essential to have some knowledge of the author, and his standpoint and career. The veriest tyro in matters relating to Oscar Wilde ought to know—in fact, it is plainly printed on the back cover of the wrapper—that "Hie Critic in Pall MeiJl" is ono of the volumes in a uniform edition of Wildo's works, which in its tarn is founded on

• (1) "The Substance of a Dream." By F. W. Buin. London: Mcfiinen ami 00. (58 net.) (2) " A Oritio in 'Pall Mail." By Oscar Wilde London: Mcthncn and Co. (6s 6d net.)

(H) "The Collected Poems ol Lord Alfred Dohrliis." I/ondon: Martin Seeker. (7s net.) (4) " Reviiard the Fox." By John Masefield. London: William Heinemanu. (6s net.)

(5) " Some Diversions of a Man of Letters." Bv Ivlmnnd Gosec. London: William Heincmnnn. I fill net.) \f,) " Selections frcm Swinburne" (6s net-) and " Contemporaries of Shakespeare." By A. C. Swinburne (is 6d net). London: William Heinemann.

tlio limited edition do luxo .published more than 10 years ago. "A Critic in Pall Mall" carries the sub-title "Being Extracts from Reviews and Miscellanies," and a reference to the volume '"Reviews" in the do luxo edition show Hint tho new hook is in main », reprint, with some omissions arid condensations from that volume. Robert Ro.w's introdi'ction supplies nil tho information essential to tho subject:— Wilde's literary reputation han survived «o much that J think it proof against any exhumation of articles which he or his admirers would have preferred to forget. As a matter of fart, I believe this volume will prove of unusual interest; some of the reviews are curiously prophotic; some are, of course, biass.d ■ prejudice hostile or friendly; others are conceived in the author's wittiest and lisppicst vein; only a few are colourless. It should be remembered, however that at tho time when most of these reviews were written Wilde had published scarcely any of the works by which his name has become famous in Europe. ... From these reviews ■which illustrate the middle period of Wilde's meteoric career, between the aesthetic period and the production of "Lady Windermere's Fan," we learn His opiniori of tho contemporaries who thought little enough of him. That he revised many of thaso cminiona, notably those that are harsh, I need scarcely say: awl after his release from prison "he lost much of his admiration for certain writers.

The bulk of the reviews included in this little volume appeared between the years 1877-183!) in the columns of tho Pall Mall Gazette, Tho Irish Monthly. The Dramatic Review, and Tho Woman's World —in the last-named during th'.> thne when Oscar Wilde was its eduov. It is of the utmost interest to recall Wilde's verdicts on Pater, Swinburne, William Morris, W. B. Yeats. Henley, and other of his more famous contemporaries, to say nothing of his opinion on literature in general. The book will make a strong appsal to all students of Wilde's life and . work having moro than a passing interest, for tho general render. The " Sententin»" which form the concluding section of tho book, furnish more or less brilliant examples of Wilde's gift of epigram and repartee. lII.— A NEW ALFRED DOUGLAS. Bearing in mind tho vindictive spirit which of recent years Lord Alfred Douglas has evinced towards Wilde and all his works, it is' a little curious that the issue of a now Wilde volume should synchronise with the publication of "The Collected Poems of Lord Alfred Douglas." Just as the poetio reputation of Oscar Wilde rests largely upon "Tho Ballad of Reading Gaol," so will Lord Alfred Douglas's claim to be a poet be founded on ' The City of the Soul," published in 1899. In that notorious book, "Oscar Wilde and Myself," Lord Alfred Douglas writes: — Two things have always to be remembered—first, that during our friendship, whether despite mo or otherwise, Wilde did undoubtedlv produce the best of his plays and the finest of his poems, indeed, the only poem that is likely to live; while, during the same friendship, I, for my part, produced the bulk of tho poetry contained in the "City nf the Soul." There is nothing in any of the work produced by Wilde during the timo that we were together of which he need be ashamed, and there is nothing in the "City of tho Sold" of which T need be ashamed. On tho contrary. Wilde's reputation, in so far ns it is a mw'v literary reputation, has been largely built up on the work to which I refer, whereas it is largely by my own work during that period that I - shall • stand or fall as far as posterity is concerned.

These "Collected Poems" cover the period l 1890 to 1919. In the course of an egotistic essay on poetry placed at the end of the book Lord Alfred Douglas says of the sonnet that "it has always been my favourite instrument of expression in poetry," and he affirms "that no other English poet, with the exception of Rossetti, has devoted so much laborious work to it." _ It is useful to study poems and essay in the light of the change now coming over both the form and tho .spirit of poetry. As a master of poetical technique, and especially of tho technique of the sonnet, Lord Alfred Douglas ranks high, hut again and again he polishes until little but the perfection of polish is left. An extract, from the essn.f will servo to show where Lord Douglas stands: — Good poetry is made up of two thingsstyle and sincerity. Both are requisito in equal degrees. As against this proposition we have two main _ heresies, which, roughly speaking, take in all the bad poetry which is being constantly held up to our admiration bv our self-styled critics in tho Morning Post and elsewhere. There is the "art for art's sake" heresy, which upholds style at the expense of sincerity, and there is what I shall denominate the anti-formal heresy, which because its exponents cannot acquire or will not take the troublo to acquire the technique of poetry, claims that 6trict forms and rules in poetry are inimical to it, and may, or should, be broken whenever it suits the "poet" to break them. The real poet repels both these heresies with equal force. The average alleged poet of to-day wobbles from one heresy to the other. Occasionally, and by acoidant, he may stumble into writing a good poem, and 'this accounts for the rare oasis of poetry which occasionally rewards the weary traveller through the arid desert of rhymed or unrhymed verse which spreads its dismal expanse all round us. Nowadays we have the phenomenon of an enormous, quantify of fcadi. poets writing interminable reams of indifferent verse. There is not a good poet among the lot, but from _ time to time one or other of them writes a good poem by accident.

From this ultra-orthodox poefcio standpoint Lord Alfred Douglas declares "the result is that never before in the history of English literature has poetry sunk so low"; and he waxes furious over a nation which "can seriously lash itself into enthusiasm over tho puerile crudities (when they are nothing worse) of a Rupert Brooke." It may be conjectured, however, that Lord Alfred Douglas's protest will pass unheeded, since for good or ill the new poetry is at the flood, and a wide and ever-increasing publio is tuning its ear to its strains and yielding to its influence. At the same time, this volume of "Collected Poems'' can be commended to students of style in poetry, although tho general sentiments expressed are hopelessly out of date. IV.—A NEW MASEFIELD. Mr John Masefield, as poet, has run the gauntlet of some severe critioism in regard to faulty versifying, subject matter, and the use or mis-use of tho English language generally. The fact remains that he is the most widely read and most frequently quoted of all the living poets, and that many of his shorter pieces will remain as among the gems of the English language. His latest story in verse " Reynard the Fox," or the Ghost Heath Run, thus ranks as a literary event, and already it has been styled as one of the best—if not quite the best—of tho writer's longer poetic efforts. Mr Masefield's poem inevitably recalls another notable description of a hunt—namely, John Davidson's "Runnable Stag," but it is a longer and more sustained effort. Davidson's poem is a stirring bit of description, but it concerns only the stag from first to last. With Mr Masefield whilo Reynard is undoubtedly the hero of the piece, he is made the occasion of the introduction of a panorama of personages more or less closely connected with the hunt itself. Indeed Mr Massfield's method in this poem has been compared to that of Chaucer in "The Canterbury Tales," and the pictures presented are equally vivid. Did space suffice the poem is ono which readily lends itself to quotation; but while it abounds in fine passages the occasional descent to commonplaces and the pot-shotting style of rhyme which marred the poet's previous work is still in evidence. In his inequalities, as in other thin if s, Mr Masefield follows the tradition of Byron, a poet whom ho resemblse in more ways than one. It, is safe to sav that " Reynard the Fox" will considerably enhance Mr Masefield's already considerable poetic reputation, and that this story in versr» will have a gP3at vogue, and this especially amongst the sporting fraternity to whom it cannot fail to appeal. It should bo mentioned that in parts the poem is quite "Masefieldian," and that when occasion demand a spnde is simolv called a spade, which is true "sporting parlance." V.—A NEW EDMUTNTD GOSSE. Mr Edmund Gosse, although horn in 1849. can scarcely be called a survival. Ho remains a link between the Viotorinn and tho Georgian eras. On that account, apart from its other outstanding merits, his latest volume, " Some Diversions of a Man of s Letters,'' possesses most attraction for all who make a-_atndy-of the trend-of

literature and speculate concerning its probable course in the future. In his youth Mr Gosse was a rebel. Readers of " Father and Son," will recall his rebellion as a lad against the ultya-ovangelical teaching of the time. His "Northern Studies serves to emphasise the fact that ho was amongst the first to introduce to the British public the literary masterpieces of Sweden and Norway, thus paving the way for the onrush of Ibsenism. As a young man he worshipped at the shrine of Swinburne, and was among the brave band who offended the susceptibilities of the good Queen Victoria, and to-day he stands as the greatest living authority on all things Swinburman, the poet's biographer and editor of his posthumous writings. In his more mature years Mr Gosse became acquiescent and respectable, and his doom was sealed when he became librarian to the Houso of Lords.

The essays in his latest volume show Mr Gossa at the parting of the ways, and this is especially manifest in tho chapter on "The Agony of the "Victorian Age." He retains his old abhorrence of early Viotorianism yet, while slightly sympathetic with the writers of the new school, he hesitates to accept all their eccentricities and extravagances. In the two ccsays on "Some Soldier Poets" and "The Future of English Poetry," Mr Gesso toys himself open to tho criticism which the late Professor Churton Collins levelled against his manual on "Eighteenth Century Literature," that he wrote without knowing his ground, and consequently was scarcely accurate either in his facts or his judgment. Nevertheless, those essays which deal with such familiar subjects as Shakespeare, Sterne, Poe, Lytton, the Brontes. Disraeli, and Thomas Hardy have a delightful verve and freshness astonishing in a who has already done so much in this direction. VI.—TWO NEW SWINBUItNES. Mr Edmund Gosse, in conjunction with Mr T. J. Wise, has placed all Swinburnelovers under a deep debt of gratitude in the issue of a new volume of "Selections" from the poet's works. The only selection hitherto available was one made by WattsDunbar in 1887, which, consisting of the pieces that appealed to him personally, omitted much of the best tho poet wrote. Tho now selection is thoroughly representative of the finest of Swinburne's sea poetry, his poems of childhood, and his too little known

patriotic pieces. Thus in a handy pocket volume is contained tho cream of the poet's collected work. The issue of this book is calculated greatly to enhance Swinburne's popularity among- lovers of poetry. As a preface to the second volume of "The Works of George Chapman" is an essay by Swinburne, hitherto not available in separate form. This essay now forms the pie?e de resistance in' a second Swiuburne volume, edited by Messrs Gosse and Wise, entitled "Contemporaries of Shakespeare," which supplements the poet's other writings on tho period. In addition to Chapman, tho volume includes essays on Marlowe, Beaumont and Fletcher, Massenger, Day, Davenport, and others. To Shakespearean students this volume should prove invaluable.