LITERATURE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18802, 3 March 1923, Page 16

LITERATURE.

THE PERSONAL EQUATION * LORD NORTHCIJFFK AND MARGOT ASQUITH. Bt Constant Reader There is no more interesting Inquiry than the influence of the personal equation in matters of high moment affecting the destiny of nations and tho dominance of race*. As an aftermath of the Groat Wax there hag been poured' upon the world a torrent of literature embracing memoirs, reminiscences, revelations, and autobiographies, shedding a flood of light upon tho origins and conduct of that tremendous conflict. In all such writings the personal equation necessarily plays an essential part, and nowhere more prominently than in a couple of recently published volumes—“ Lord Kortholiffe: A Memoir,” by Max Pemberton, and “The Autobiography of Margot Asquith: Book II.” Mr Pemberton frankly admits that bis memoir - is only a partial portrait, and is in no sense presented as a complete estimate of, or as offering an impartial judgment upon. Lord Northdiffe. “This memoir of my friend Viscount Northclifi'e,” he wrires, “seeks to sfr.-v him os I knew him. With tho controversies of his later life I have little to do. . . . I have endeavoured to speck chiefly of the friend arid tiro man —to ma a great and beloved friend; to all, I believe, a very remarkable personality and a very great patriot, who rendered imperishable services to his country, and who never will be by his countrymen forgotten. Mr Pemberton also prefaces tho chapter “Lord Northcfiffe in Ilis Office ’ with the remark: “Although I lived with Lord Northcliffo until his twenty-fourth year, and saw him constantly afterwards, his later \ years had for me a personal rather than a business association. For that reason I have asked one of tho friends of that time, who spent 21 years at Carmelite House, to give a sketch of the groat, journalist at work, aral the following chapter is the result.” This unnamed writer suras up iiord NortboKffe’s career in a sentence when he Buys: “Printed matter was the deadly sere, oiis business of hia life, and seemed to , monopolise the whole of it.” Not for him were the ordinary relaxations awl recreations which vary the fives of other men. He was a newspaper man and a newspaper proprietor from first, to last, and bo ordered his habits accordingly;— Lord Norbhcliffe believed wliolly in the efficacy of bedtime, early in and early out, for the refreshment of his weary nerves and brain. Ho retired to rest at 9 o’clock, nor did I ever hoar him say that he suffered from insomnia. On, the contrary, ho told me —and that was wit.un 15 months > Ids death —that ho was fast asleep by 19 o’clock. He was an early riser. By 6 o’clock be was up and immersed in the morning papers, his oven included. In summer time he would do this, the most serious work of the whole day, in the open air.

On cue occasion Lord Northcliffe canned off his employee late one night, to his homo in Sutton Place to discuss some Coronation articles. This was in the summer of 1901. The sequel was a characteristic line: —

It mnst have been just after 3 a.m. as wo reached the front door, and. there was dawn in the sky. We had a drink together - in the small drawing room. My host, in the act of pouring me out a whisky and soda, gave mo a. momentary fit of shivers l>y saying, pleasantly; “You look after the fourth-page articles ” now, don’t you? There are one or two points I want to say about them.” Then, m reaoonse to a look, doubtless, of urgent inquiry, he added, ‘‘No, not before bedtime. Wo will keep business until the morning.” In the morning, before breakfast, I was wandering along the upper landing when my host called to me through the open door of hip dressing room. He was in his shirt-sleeves and brushing his hair. A copy of that morning’s Daily Mail lay. on an oval table in the centre of the room. Ho pointed to it with one of his hairbrushes, making some observation about its contents which I cannot remember. I thoughtfully took the opportunity of pointing out that the Taft Vale judgment leader which it contained was from my pen. “Did you write that?” he said. “Very good—very good.” ' Ho finished dressing. “Anyhow.” he woimd.' up as he went down to the breakfast room, “it’s a good little paper.” i As the years went on and the number of newspapers controlled by Lord Northcliffe increased,'he found it in:possible to sustain the attention to minntire on which he set snch great store. “There was the Evening News, some months older (under the Harmsworth regime); then the Daily Mail; and presently the Weeldy Dispatch arrived to complete the bundle which, with the Overseas Mail, now forms the property of the Associated Newspapers (Ltd.). The attempt to apply the same microscopic attention to ail four productions, to say nothing of the weekly and monthly publications from the Amalgamated Press, was bound to fail. I believe he tried, even after he had become principal proprietor and in political _ and domestic control of The Times. And I think it was these efforts, persisted in to the last, which exhausted his nervous energy and contributed to bus death at an age when his friends, who grieve for him, had still hoped there was work for him to do.” Both Mr Pemberton and bis journalistic collaborator place great stress on the part played by Lord Ncrthcliffo in May, 1915, in what has been dubbed the “shells sensation.” This is described as “the most critical period of its history Carmelite House is ever likely to experience,” and it is affirmed that “Lord Northcliffe in publish; dug the attack almost exactly as no had written it, knowingly risked the destruction of everything he had built up in bis business career.” Mr Pemberton declares: “We had the lamentable spectacle of great soldiers weeping in Lord Norlhcliffe’s presence and begging him 10 save them. And ho ■knew that ho could only save them and his country by some tremendous upheaval which at any rate must shake his own fortunes to their very foundation.” The statement in regard to the lack of high explosives published in The Times was followed on May 21, 1915, by a leader in the Daily Mail. “The sensation which followed upon these publications,” says Mr Pemberton, “is still fresh in my mind. Germans upon the Stock Exchange burned the Daily Mail and the Baltic and other Exchanges hastened to imitate this fatuous proceeding. ■. . Lord Northcliffe himself believed that possibly he had ruined both his papers and his future. He was calmer than I ever remember to have seen him, and quit© confident about the future. ’The Cabinet,’ ho said, ‘is attacking me, because it must do so. Some of them at the same time are thanking me on the quiet and telling mo how pleased they are. Whatever happens to me personally does not matter, but if we do not get high explosives the Huns will beat us, and that's the whole story.’ ” The influence of the personal equation is strikingly evident when the same incident is referred to by Mrs Asquith, who throughout the second volume of her Autobiography, which covers the period 18961918, strongly champions her husband and especially defends his Prime Ministership during the difficult days of Ihe war. In Chapter IX, dealing with “Tlfe Coalition,” Mrs Asquith writes: In the year 1915, the recurring failures of our Offensive and want of proper coordination in the General Staff, provoked adverse criticism of the conduct of (he war. The silence, so conspicuous in 1914, had disappeared, and the patience of the public was ebbing. It was at this moment that the lie that einketh was spread. “Wait and see”- a phrase originally uttered as a threat by my husband in the House of Commons —was taken up by a group of influential -newspapers, and quoted on every occasion as meaning apathy and delay. It is not difficult to perceive the prejudice thus created in the minds of men and women whose brothers, sons, and lovers were being killed in a conflict that touched cur shores; and it gave a great opening in self-seecking men who fancied that if they were in the position of Prime Minister things would bo very different. Iff years of War the Press if it desires to inflame the rabble-raisers has powers which it possesses at no other time, and in criticising the patriotism, one must make allowances for the disappointment of Correspondents who were not o'ilv severely censored at home, but wore forbidden to go to the Front. The irritation thus produced was shown by a stream of abuse, and a deliberate desire to alarm the public at the expense of the Prime Minister. •It is an easy matter to frighten people. By gazing at a chimney pot you can collect a crowd in a street; by shouting

“PireV* you can kill people in a theatre; and if 20 or 30 papers mate daily that the v> ar Office is incompetent, flic Foreign I Mfice misled, ami tho Prime Minister asleep, they will be believed. A certain air of authority was given to this abuse, as these papers, having received private information of Cabinet decisions before tho decisions could roach

any of (be Allies, were able to announce

that they had foresial'ed the Prime Minister and to congratulate themselves on

hastening up his “wait and see” methods. So persistently was this campaign pursued that several donkeys wrote, signed letters to The Times praising it for its Gud-like prescience. I also had my social and political enemies, and will quote what 1 wrote in my diary- at that time: — [From 'My Diary, 1915.] “The D ss of W and others continue spreading amazing lies about me and mine: they yould be grotesque )f they wore not so vile. “Elizabeth is in turn engaged to a Gorman Admiral or a German General; Henry has shares in Knapps; I feed x russian prisoners with every dainty and comestible, and play tennis with them at Donnington Hall—a place tho very whereabouts is unknown to mo. ■‘Those private fabrications are not only circulated but believed, and had it not been for my receiving £IOOO for a libel action which I took in the Law Courts against the Globe Newspaper, the whole of our thoughtful Press would have published them. As it, is. they mutter incantations about the ‘Hidden Hand.’ ‘Apathv in high places,’ etc., and like Pilate ‘wdling to content the people,’ Barabbas is released. “I am told by John Morley and other

students of History that no greater campaign of calumny was ever conducted against one man than that which has been and is being conducted against my husband to-day. When I point out with indignation that someone in the Cabinet is betraying secrets, 1 am counselled to keep calm. Henry is as indifferent to the Press ns St. Paul’s Cathedral is to midges, but I confess that I am not! and I only hope the man responsible for giving information to Lord N will be heavily punished: God may forgive him; I never can.”

These extracts will sufficiently indicate the point of view adopted by Mr Pemberton in this Memoir and by Mrs Asquith in her Autobiography. In the great woild upheaval of 1914-1918, the press and the Prime Ministers played prominent parts, and these two books are illuminative of tho weight and influence of the personal equation in so far as Lord Northcliffo and Mr Asquith were respectively concerned. Read together they give an inner history of the war period which, when allowance is made for certain prejudices, is remarkably enlightening and decidedly informative. The historian of the future is likely to make use of both these volumes. „

GEORGIAN POETRY.t THE FIFTH VOLUME. Br Constant Readbb. “There was a general feeling among the younger poets,” writes “E.M.” (Edwurci Marsh) in his "Memoir” of Rupert Brooke, “that modern English poetry was very good and sadly neglected by readers. Rupert announced one evening, sitting halt-un-dressed on his bed, that he. had _ conceived a brilliant scheme. lie would write a book of poetry, and publish it as a selection from the works of 12 different writers, six men and six women, all with the most convincing pseudonyms. That, ho thought, must make thorn sit np. It occurred to me that as we both believed there were at least 12 flesh-nnd-blood poets whose work, if properly thrust under the public’s nose, bad a good chaiK-e of producing the effect ho desired, it would be simpler to use the material which was ready to hand. Next day (September 26, it was) we lunched in my rooms with Gibson and Drink-water and Harold Monro and Arundel del Re (editor and subeditor of the then Poetry Review, since renamed Poetry and Drama), ajad started the plan of the book which was published in December (1912) under the name of Georgian Poetry, 1911-1912.” The success of that first volume of “Georgian Poetry” exceeded the wildest hopes of the small circle of poetry promoters, and it is a success which has continued. Not only has that first volume gone into edition after edition until it has reached a total circulation of 16,CC0 copies, but, it has been followed by a second, a third, and a fourth volume cavering the poetry of 1913-1919. To-day a fifth volume —“Georgian Poetry, 1920-22,” comes to challenge criticism, and in a prefatory note to this latest, book “E.M.” says: “The first volume seemed to supply a want. It was eagerly bought; ihe continuation of the affair was at once taken so much for granted as to he almost unavoidable; and there has been no break in the demand for the successive books. If they have won for themselves any position, there is no possible reason except the pleasure they have given.” It has been charged against, the “Georgian Poetry” books that they incline to cliqueism. Against such a charge “E.M.” enters a “mild protest,” and soys: “It is natural that the poets of a generation should have points in common; but, to my fond eye those who have graced these collections look us diverse as sheep to their shepherd, or the members of a Chinese family to their uncle; and if there is an allegation which I would deny with both hands it is this: that, nn insipid sameness is the chief characteristic of an anthology which offers—to name almost at random seven only out of forty (oh ominous academic number!) —the work of Messrs Abercrombie, Davies, de la Mare, Graves, Lawrence, Nichols, and Squire.” In the 10 years which have elapsed since the issue of the first, volume of “Georgian Poetry” a large number of verse anthologies covering much modern poetry have been published. The characteristic of “Georgian Poetry,” ns compared with the majority of other anthologies, is that each volume is confined to examples written and published within a specified two years; the five volumes constituting a progressive record of a decade of verse. Obviously the selection reveals the personal tastes and prejudices of the compiler, who, however, disowns the pretension which he found attributed .to him ‘‘of setting up as a pnndisl or a ponti or a Petroniuo Arbiter.” Tn justification of the the contents of this fifth volume, “E.M.” adds: — The ideal “Georgian Poetry”—a book which would err neither by omission nor by inclusion, and would contain the best, and only the lies! poems of the best, and only the best, poets of the day—could only be achieved, if at all, by dint of a Koval Commission. The present volume is nothing of the kind. I may add one word on my aim in selection. Much admired modern work seems to me, in its lack of inspiration and its disregard of form, like gravy imitating lava. Its upholders may regret that, much of the work which I prefer seems to them, in its lack of inspiration and its comparative finish, like tapioca imitating pearls. Either view—possibly both—may be right. 1 will only say that with an occasional exception for some piece of rebellionsnes, or even levity, which may have taken my fancy, I have tried to choose no verso but such ns in Wordsworth’s phrase: The high and tender Muses shall accept With gracious smile, deliberately pleased. These remarks illustrate the altered opinion in regard to modern poetry which the past 10 years have brought about. In 1913 readers of the first volume of “Georgian Poetry” were being introduced lo a, number of new poets whose names were scarcely known, and there was keen discussion as to whether the verse of Wilfrid Wilson Gibson was entitled to rank as poetry. To-day, with the fifth volume, poetry lovers arc warned against the excesses of the vers-libro enthusiasts. The poetry of Edmund lilunden is acclaimed, whilst, “The Hundred and One Harlequins” of Bachcvorell Sitwell is correspondingly derided. As illustrating the other side of the question, “The Chapbook” for January, 1922 like “Georgian Poetry,” a “Poetry Bookshop” publication in,a survey of literature in 1922, after affirming that “the poets of our day look backward to the great silences and sweet security of the past or turn in horror from the prospect of war and famine, according to their ternporatmem. and capacity for intellectual honesty,” comments as follows-: Two books that have been published this year typify each, respectively, the states of mind contrasted above: “The Shepherd,” by ‘Edmund Blunden, and “The Hundred and One Harlequins,” by Sacbevercl! Sitwell. The first has been much praised, and awarded the Hawthornden Prize for the best book of the year, prose or verse; Ihe second has been almost ignored In- those most concerned in the

direction of public taste. This is because literature is judged not by its measure of creative imagination but. by the depth of its conformity to type. Mr Blundcn uses the common imagery of Kmrlish poetry. How often have wo not hoard of winds sobbing, or of rain “gleaming silver on the verge.’’ Gray,' Collins, Clare. Blomfield, and Wordsworth. . . . How many ghosts

rise an the bidding of his words! Mr Sitwell, on I lie other hand, has transformed and subordinated the same natural imagery to the seinl.ilLa.ting purposes of bis own visionary mind. Lire Mr Blnmlen, be is unable to face our presentday world, but instead of creeping bade over the tree-tops and seeking consolation in die bosom of his ancestors, he takes refuge in the sparkling region of bis own imagination. We feel confident that the seed of the poetry of the future lies m Mr Sitwell’s rather than hi Mr Blundell’s verse.

“The Chapbnok” to the contrary, the fifth volume of “Georgian Poetry’’ ignores Mr Sitwell, but prints no fewer than six examples of Mr Rlunden’s muse, all taken from ‘The Shepherd,” all the more notable since it is Mr BUmdon’s first appearance in “Georgian Poetry.” It is typical of tho times that Mr Blnndcn should select as a subject for a sonnet “The Poor Man s Tig" :

Already fallen plum-bloof stars the green And apple-boughs as knarred as old toads’ backs Wear their small roses ere a rose is seen; Tho building thrush watches old Job who Tho bright-peeled osiers on tho sunny fence, The pent sow grunts to hear him stumping by, And tries to push the bold and scamper thonoo, Bnt her hinged snout still keeps her to tlie sty. Then out he lets her run; away she snorts In bundling gallop for the cottage door, With hungry hubbub bogging crusts and oats, Thou like the whirlwind bumping round once more; Nuzzling the dog, making the pullets run. And sulky as a cliild when her play’s done. Six other poets make a first appear unci in this volume—Richard Hughes, William Kerr, Frank Prewett. Peter Qucnnol, and V. Sackville West. Mr Hughes is a pool who Ims essayed drama, as witness ‘The Sister’s Tragedy,” a play in the Grand Guignol style. Of his poetry four examples are given—all from “Gipsy-night,”_nnd they show- charm and versatility. In ‘A agrancy ’ he paints a pretty picture: A robin flashing in a rowan tree, A wanton robin, spills his melody As if he had such store of golden _ tones That they wore no more worth to him than stones: . The sunny lizards dream upon tho ledges: Linnets titter in and out the hedges, Or swoop among the freckled butterflies, Mr Hughes is playfully poetic in “Poets, Painters, Puddings" : Poets, painters, and puddings; these three Make up the World at it ought to be. Poets make faces And sudden grimaces; They twit you, and spit you On words; then admit you •To heaven or hell ±sy tho talcs that they tell. Painters are gay As young rabbits in May; They buy jolly mugs. Bowls, pictures, and jugs; Tho things, round their nocks

Arc lively with checks. (For they like something red As a frame for the head:; Or they’ll curse you with oaths, That tear holes in your clot lies (With nothing to mend them You'd best not offend them.) Puddings should be Full of currants, for me; Boiled in a pail, Tied in the tail Of an old bleached shirt; So hot that they hurt. So huge that they last From the dim distant past

Until tho crack o' doom lift the roof oil the room. Poets, painters, and puddings; these three Grown the day as it crowned should bo. One of the most attractive pieces in the book is Mr Martin Armstrong’s “Miss Thompson Goes Shopping,” which read aloud is very effective; although some will prefer the same poet’s “Honey Harvest.” Mr William Ken- sounds a soothing pleasing note, and the eight examples of his verso will repay close study. There are fire and force in many of Mr Frank Prowctt’s lines, notably “Voices of Women” and “Come Girl and Embrace.” Mr Peter Quermell makes music, something after the fashion of Swinburne, but among the newcomers Miss Sackville 'West certainly takes the palm. Her “Saxon Song” is a virile piece of work, while “Sailing Ships” rivals Masefield. Perhaps ihe lines entitled “Evening” will carry the favour of tho majority. It is a little gem of its kind: — When little lights in little ports come out, • Quivering down through water with tie stars, And all the fishing fleet of slender spars Range at their moorings, veer with tide about; When race of wind is stilled and sails are

furled, And underneath our single riding-light The curve of black-ribbcd dock gleams patchy white. And slumbrous waters pool a slumbrous world ; —Then and then only, have 1 thought bow sweet Old ago might sink upon a windv youth, Quiet beneath the riding-light of’triith. Weathered through storma, and gracious in retreat.

Jhe changes of ten years are strikingly reflected in the fact that of the poets represented in the first. Georgian poetry book only seven survive in the fifth volume, and of these Mr Davies gives nothing quite so characteristic as “The Child and the Mariner, nor dees Air de la Mare achieve anything so haunting as “The Listeners.” Gn the other hand, Mr D. 11. Lawrence’s contribution to the fifth book, “Snake.” is ou‘ a higher level of poetic excellence than “The Snapdragon” of the first book. Among more recent recruits Messrs John Robert Graves',' Robert Nichols, Edward Shanks, J. C. Squire, and Francis Brett Young are nil well represented, and Mr J. D. C. Follow, whose “The Temple," was a feature of the fourth volume, has four poems in the fifth volume, all good. The lines ‘‘On a Friend who Died Suddenly Upon the Seashore” are the best: Quiet he lived, and quietly died; Nor like the unwilling tide, Did once complain or strive To stay one brief hour more alive. But as a summer wave Serenely for a, while Will lift a crest to the sun, Then sink again, so he Back lo the bright heavens gave An answering smile; Then quietly, having run .His course, bowed down his head, And sank ummumuringly, Sank back into the sea The silent, tho unfathomable sea Of all the happy dead.

A study of I his fifth book of ‘-fleorgian Poetry ’ goes far to substantiate the statement' made with tho first volume, that it was “issued in the belief (hat. Knglish poetry is now' once again putting on a now strength and beauty," and that it may “if it is fortunate, help the lovers of poetry to realise that we are at the beginning'of another ‘Georgian Period’ which may take rank in due time witli the several great poetic ages of the past.”

ft is indeed a happy augury that alike the survivors from the first volume and the newcomers in this fifth book can say “We are seven."

BRIEF MENTION. + After the lapse of a hundred years (he wntmgs of William f.ohbctt are again attracting attention. Reprints of his" “Knwlisli Grammar,” his “Advice to Young Men," and his “Rural Rides” have boon issued within Ihe last few years; but it has been left for a newly-established firmMdsrrs Chapman and Dodd—to include in their “Abbey Classics” a, reprint of “A Year’s Residence in America.” a book which, published in London and in Now York in 1818 and in 1819 readied three editions. Gohbett kepi a journal during his two years' residence in America, and this journal, together with some papers on agricultural and other subjects, ho published chiefly as a guide to emigrant, farmers, his own farm in particular being depicted in glowing terms. There is much in the work which will appeal to prosent-dny readers,

} fl) “A Yoir’s Bosidenee in Amr-iirii/' By William CoMn'ti. Ornamented by Martin Travorp. : Chapman and Cmld film Abbey Classics). Sydney: The Australasian Publishing Co. (:?) “ Somo *>f An Average Man.’’ By llinhard Kins. I/uidon : .John Kane. Pun♦*ili*i : Wiiiicoinb.' and Tombs. <fis.) (J) “ The Martyrdom of Smyrna and Pastern Christendom. M By Pr KysirnnehoF (Eronomos. Itondon : Creorge Allen and Unwin, (7s fid net.) (4) “Three Hundred Hint? on Modern Poncing.*' By Kdward Scctt. London: George Allen and Unwin. (ds fid not.) * (n) “The Harmony and Unity of the Kingdom of God.” By John Contra. Melbourne; Hutchinson Proprietary Co. not.) '

filled as its pages are with genuine humour and keen lr.it Kindly criticism. The reprint ia in pocket form, and the type is consequently small but clear and not unduly trying to the eyes. In the coarse of a capital introduction Mr John Freeman says:— "A Year’s Residence in America.’’ is a favour.tc hook among the growing admirers of William t'nbbctt, mainly because it is so pleasant in its anto-fcio-graphy. Did George Borrow learn from him that trick of displaying, enlarging, and discoursing upon his prejudices and opinions, which is so characteristic cf both? “A Year’s Residence” is full of

(-’ebbed—iho homely man, the romantic, (lie satirical, the eloquent, the curt. Pigs lead him to Rousseau: that scurvy root, the potato, is involved with a denunciation of Shakespeare and Milton ; parsons, like placemen, are distinguished by his scorn; Arthur Young ia but a religious fanatic, bribed by £6OO a year- and Penlham becomes little Mr Jerry Bentham. an everlasting babbler. He pleases himself with the praise of American hos-

pitably, regretting that it had died in England under (ho extortion of the taxgatherer. and slill more delights himself with the beauty of American women. But his heart is still in England; ■‘England is my country, and to England I shall return. I like it best”; to which country, he says, - ‘I always have affection which I cannot feel towards any other

in the same degree, and the prosjwrity and honour of which I shall, I hope, never cease to prefer before the gratification of all private pleasure and emoluments.”

From William Cobbett to Richard King is a sudden but healthy transition, a leap of one hundred years. Mr Kitts- belongs to to-day, as his contributions to the 'i atler and Eve continually testify, and at intervals he collects sonic of these contributions and makes a book of them. The latest of these books, all of which are highly popular, is called "fvinie Confessions of An .Average Man,” defined as “just a plain Nobody, one of an immense crowd of Nobodies, whose value is only to be found in the aggtogato, and who as an individual counts as practically nothing.” The confessions cover a wide range, from “Drivelling” and ‘‘Loneliness” to “Moral Education by Excess” and “On (letting into Society,” a collection of light essays, clever, amusing, and with a certain philosophy of life behind them which claims attention. The reason win- Air King’s books are so popular is explained in such an essay as the one entitled "The Dullness of Doing it. Now, ’ suggested by the man who has hung in his bedroom the adage “Do Tt Now 7 .” and who “really and truly does try to live ill) to it.” In contrast Richard King says

1 too have my own pet adage, though* 1 do not hang it opposite my bed, tor the sinrple reason that 1 find a greater spiritual comfort in a cup of tea. I too follow it implicitly, except when a qualm of conscience sends me fleeing along the Right Road for just about ten minutes, It. is this; “If it’s nice, do it now. If it's not do it to-morrow: who knows but you ir.iv die to-day 1” . . . To do what you shouldn’t do occasionally maloes the moment when you have done what you ought to do seem so wonderful. But “do” it now” always refers to the things you should do but don’t want to, and in those who follow- the adage relentlessly—well haven t you noticed that their hearts hold no particle of joy, either for themselves or for others? It is their “reward”; it is also their punishment.

That the Turks are firm believers in the doctrine of “Doing it now” is proved by a book entitled “The Martyrdom of Smyrna and Eastern Christendom.” which, compiled by Dr Lysimachos (Economoe, presents “a pile of overwhelming evidence, denouncing the misdeeds of the Turks in Asia Minor and showing their responsibility for the Horrors of Smyrna.” Recent happenings in Turkey render this narrative of great importance, o.nd the compiler sums up the evidence, by writing:

A city looted and set on fire, women and maidens violated, innocent- people murdered, a saint tortured and 1 martyred, thousands ami hundreds of thousands of homeless refugees have brought an action against the appalling criminals. "For Iheir trial a special court is being summoned. Truth, eternal truth, indomitable truth is presiding over it. « ’iho world’s conscience is sitting in the jury box. Let us call the witnesses to the bar. They arc ail for the prosecution, none for the defence I Listen to their overwhelming evidence ! It amounts to a formidable and unanimous verdict of ‘‘guilty.” Listen. .The Turk is guilty ! He can-

not oven plead extenuating circumstances. “Three Hundred Hunts on Modern Dancing,” by Edward Scott, exactly describes this booldet. The author aims at “ good style in danoing and the avoidance of the vulgarities and excesses which tend to bring modem dancing into disrepute. Attention to these hints may be recommended and especially to aspirants after both recreative and theatrical dancing. There are those who not only believe that religion is the sole hope of the world to-day, but who would narrow down the remedy to their own particular brand of religion. Of such ia Mr John Coutts, who adds yet another to the numerous pamphlets Ke has this latest hearing the formidable title “The Harmony and Unity of Ibe Kingdom of God as Revealed to Mon in Experience, Philosophy, Science, and Religion.”