LITERATURE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20086, 30 April 1927, Page 4

LITERATURE.

MARK TWAIN. AND THE MISSISSIPPI. Bi Constant Rxadzb. The cabled account* of the terrible devastation wrought by the floods in the Mississippi Valley should sot everyone reading Mark Twain, and especially his “Life on the Mississippi.” It was from “the great Mississippi, the majestic, the magnificent Mississippi, rolling its milewide tide along shining in the sun,” that Mark Twain derived his world-famous pseudonym. The incident is worth recalling. Mr Bixby, the pilot, was at tne wheel:—

Mr Bixby pulled the cord, and two mellow notes from the big bell floated off on the night. Then a pause and one more note was struck. The watchman s voice followed, from the hurricane deck: — “Labboard lead, there, Labboard l&ftd ** The cries of the leadsman began to rise out cd the distance, and were gruffly repeated by the word-passers on the hurricane deck. “M-a-r-k .... M-a-r-k three . . . Quarter-lees three • . . Half twain < . . Quarter twain . • . M-a-r-k twain. . . • As a preface to his book, Mark Twain quotes from Harper’s Magazine, of February, 1863, an extract which, read to-day, gives a good idea of the extent of the Mississippi Valley, now inundated by the river's destructive waters. It is headed: “The Body of the Nation”:— But the basin of the Mississippi is the body of the nation. All the other parte are but members, important in themselves, yet more important in their relations to this. Exclusive of the lake basin and of 300,000 square miles in Texas and New Mexico, which in many aspects form a part of it, this baem contains about 1,250,000 square miles. In extent it is the second great valley of the world, being exceeded only by that of the Amazon. The valley of the frozen Obi approaches it in extent; that of La Plata comes next in space atad probably in habitable capacity, having about eight-ninths of its area; then comes that of the Yenisei, with about seven-eighths the Lena, Amoor, Hoang-ho, Yang-tse-kiang, and Nile fiveeighths; the Ganges less than half; the Indus less than one-third; the Euphrates one-fifth; the Rhine one-fifteenth. It exceeds in extent the whole of Europe, exclusive of Russia, Norway, and Sweden.. It could contain Austria four times, Germany or Spain five times, Franca six times, the British Islands or Italy TO times. Conceptions formed from the river basins of Western Europe are rudely shocked when we consider the extent of the valley of the Mississippi; nor are those formed from the sterile basins of the great rivers of Siberia, the lofty plateaux of Central Asia, or the mighty sweep of the swampy Amazon, more adequate. Latitude, elevation, and rainfall all combine to render every part of the Mississippi Valley capable of supporting a dense population. As a dwelling place for civilised man it is by far the first upon our globe.

Mark Twain begins his book with a chapter on “The River and Its History,” following this with another chapter on “The River and Its Explorers,” both of which make good reading at the present time. “Seventy years elapsed,” ha says, “after the exploration, before the river’s borders had a white population worth considering; and nearly 60 more before the river nad a commerce. . .. . The river's earliest commerce was in great barges, keelboate, broadhorns. They floated and sailed from the upper rivers to New Orleans, changed cargoes there, and were tediously warped and poled back to land. . . . By and by the steamboat intruded. Then for 15 or 20 years these men continued to run their keelboate down stream and the steamers did all the up-stream business, the keelboat men selling their boats in New Orleans and returning home ae deck passengers in the steamers. But after a while the steamboats so increased in number and in speed that they were able to absorb the entire commerce, and then keelboating died a permanent death." " I now come,” continues Mark Twain, "to a phase of the Mississippi life of the flush times of steam boating, which seems to me to warrant full examination —the marvellous science of piloting as displayed there. I believe there has been nothing like it elsewhere in the world.” He goes on to point out that when he was a boy there was but one ambition among the boys of the village of Hannibal, Missouri, where he was brought up—viz., to be a steamboat man. “We had transient ambitions of other sorts, but they were only transient. When a circus came and went it left us all burning to become clowns; the first negro minstrel show that came to our section left us all suffering to try that kind of life; now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good God would promote us to become pirates. Those ambitions faded out, each in its turn; but the ambition to be a steamboat ,man always remained.” With the outbreak of the Civil War the occupation of pilot was ended, but in the interval the river had given up to Mark Twain all its secrets, which he has told to the world in “Life On the Mississippi ” and “ Huckleberry Finn.” As an appendix to the former story, Mark Twain reprinted from the New Orleans Times-Dcmocrat, of March 29, 1882, an account of a voyage through the inundated regions of the Mississippi Valley. It is worth reading, as drawing a parallel between the great floods of today and those of 45 years ago. An extract of two from this account may enable the reader to picture the vast scene of devastation which so large an area of the Mississippi Valley now presents:— One does cot appreciate the sight of earth until ho has travelled through a flood. At sea one does not expect or look foj it, but here with fluttering leaves, shadowy forest, isles, housetops barely visible, it is expected. . . . After a run of some hours Block River was reached. Hardly was it entered before signs of suffering became visible. . ... _ From this point to the Mississippi River, fifteen miles, there is not a spit of earth above water, and to tho . westward for thirty-five miles there is nothing but the river’s flood. ... To add to the gloom, almost every living thing seems to have departed, and not a whistle of a bird nor the bark of a squirrel can be hoard in this solitude. . . . At thirty miles above the mouth of Black River, the water extends from Natchez on tho Mississippi, across to the pine hills of I.ousiana, a distance ol seventy-three miles, and there is hardly a spot that is not ten feet under it. . . People were in a condition it was difficult even for one to imagine. The water was so high there was great danger of the houses being swept away. It had already risen so high that it was approaching the eaves, and when it reaches this point there i s always imminent risk of their being swept away. Already twenty-five hundred people had received rations from Troy, on Black River. . . The water was now eighteen inches higher than in 1874, and there was no land between Vidaloa and the hills of Catahouls.

A GEOLOGICAL TEXT-BOOK.* A NEW EDITION. Professor James Park’s “Text-book of Mining Geology,” originally published twenty years ago, has gone into a fifth edition and tho author has taken advantage of tho continued demand for the work to revise and rewrite much of the matter, with tho result that it now appears in an en larged form, with close upon a hundred illustrations. In particular the chanters relating to tho principles of ore formation have been re-arranged so as to include the latest vi ws on the subject, and this has involved much rewriting. Another new feature is the attention directed to the announcement made by German scientists, that the gold content of sea water is far smaller than that given by earlier investigators. “As a result of the work,” says Professor Park, “of SQCO samples collected from many seas and different depths they found that at the most

• 44 A Text-book of Minin" Geology, with Sections on Mine Examination and the Geology of Petroleum. Por the Use of Students and Prospectors.” By James Park. With 91 illustration*. Fifth edition. PeTOtten and enlarged. Londoni Charles Qrlffln & Co., Ltd. (13s net.)

the gold content was only a tenth of that previously reported. ... It is interesting to note that observations made last century seemed to show that sea water was the world’s greatest store house of gold, and according to the writers who supported the views that veins originated by lateral segregation, was a possible source of the gold contained in veins traversing marine sedimentary rock.” This new edition of a work which is invaluable to students and prospectors, includes section* on mine examination and the geology of petroleum. In its enlarged form it* value has been proportionately increased. RECENT FICTION. A REPRESENTATIVE SELECTION. I.—THE CUSTOMS OF OLD CHINA. First novels have a freshness and verve very often denied to the more practised hand. At the same time they evince weaknesses that are absent from the work of the professional. In “Sun and Moon” Mr Vincent Gowen illustrates both these points. He displays an intimate knowledge of the manners and customs of Old China, his plot is original, and his characters live, but, about halfway through, the story begins 1 to drag, and is only saved from failure by the tragic interest attaching to the fate of Nancy Herrick. Edward and Nancy were the children of Timothy Edward Oliver Herrick, who, going out to China as a young man, had a brilliant career in the Imperial Customs. He married a beautiful English girl, but, after four years of happiness, his wife died, stricken down with cholera. Herrick, stunned by the loss, went into seclusion, living in a house in an obscure hutung of the Tatar city in Peking. He took unto himself a Chinese wife and several concubines, and with an ever-increasing family around him he experimented u. bringing up his two English children on the_ Chinese plan and imbuing them with Chinese ideas. Herrick essayed to live the life of a Chinese mandarin. “He had discarded western clothes, western ways, discarded his British nationality, taken to a moderate use of opium, and now passed his time between an erudite searching of _ the Buddhist scriptures and the composition of severely classical poems.” The story resolves itself into an intimate study of the development of these two children under these unusual conditions, and particularly of Nancy. Herrick is an exceedingly well-drawn character. Alarmed as the years went by • over the ultimate fate of his English children, he allowed himself to be drugged, partly by opium, and partly by _ the allurements of his youngest concubine, into a somnolence of which Nancy’s fate was the outcome. Accepting the dictates of her father _as supreme, according to Chinese tradition, Nancy is fated to marriage with a Chinese youth,_ amid all the ceremonial with which traditional China invests such a marriage. “Sun and Moon” is a story to be studied at the present time, casting as It does e flood of light upon the real China and revealing the essential difference between Eastern and Western thought. 2.—A SON OF THE SOIL. The success which accompanied the publication of “Sorrell and Son” is hardly likely to be repeated in Mr Warwick Dceping’s latest story, “Doomsday” (Cassell). The theme of a son of tho soil has been well worked of late, until the man who roots his affection in tho land he owns to the rejection of all else that lifo offers, begins to pall. Arnold Furze is_ a man of this sort. After the war he invests all his savings in his farm, called “Doomsday,” and_ ho has laboured there without intermission for five years when the story opens. Mary Viner, daughter of a retired couple, living in the neigh bourhood, attracts Furze’s attention._ Mary, who is the household drudge, falls in lovo with the-man, but dreads the lifo on the farm and the long laborious days. Mary longs for London and a gay life, and, repulsing Furze’s advances, she goes' to live with a married sister in a fashionable London suburb. It is inevitable that Mary should sicken of the hollowness of society and return to her lover, who patiently awaits her return. _ Mr Deeping does his best with the situation ho has created, and the story is quite worth reading. 3.—RELIGION AND SEX. When Mr Robert Keablo wrote the “Pilgrim Papers” from South Africa he was almost entirely concerned with religion. That was before the war. When six years ago ho wrote "Simon, Called Peter,” he was almost entirely concerned with matters of sex. That was after tho war. In “Lighten Our Darkness” (Constable),, Mr Keablo mixes up religion and sox in a way which shows to what an extent his early religious training has been affected by subsequent developments. Tho African mission of the Papers reappears and the sympathetic treatment of tho simple monks, the tender-hearted bishop, and tho child-like native converts makes the best feature of the story. The hero is Richard Thurstan. n Roman Catholic missionary in South Africa, who, because of conscientious difficulties, has renounced his priestly orders. Thurstan is called upon to combat tho fleshly lure of Lady Ann Carew, who is divorced from her husband; and after a delirious few weeks of happiness, pictured in the seductive manner Mr Kcable is so well able to paint, Thurstan mots his end. m an aeroplane smash. Tho conversations between Thurstan on his deathbed and the priest who is summoned to administer the last rites, lend a didactic flavour to the story.

4. A SENTIMENTAL JUUKivai. In “An Old Man’s Folly” (Cassell). Mr Floyd Dell sets out to show that there is as much real sentiment among the >oung people of to-day as there was in the looked-down-upon nineteenth century. It lias of coui'se, to be taken into account that Americans are notoriously sentimental. Mr Nathaniel Windle had followed the unsentimental career of a traveller in corsets and pa-tner in a wallpaper business, but he cherished the memory ot romance in his youth. He had a cousin who was a poet and a friend called Ada with whom he had once spent a wonderful afternoon. Christopher and Ada had both Kone out of his life, but when he retired from business he endeavoured to recreate them in the persons of Ann Elizabeth and Joe Ford, the girl a Socialist, and the man a newspaper reporter. Windle takes these two to his heart and watches their adventures, especially when, as members of a peace society in wartime, they came under the ban. In the end, old Windle dits, happy in the knowledge that Ann Elizabeth and Joe are married, with children. The author’s idea seems to be to show that in the long run every aspiration and ideal succumbs to the routine of everyday life. S.—THE POWERS OF DARKNESS. Mr Oliver Sandys describes his novel “The Sorceress” (Hurst and Blackett) as “The Tale of a Vamp,” and most certainly Carla Roberts answers to the description. Carla is a beautiful actress, but possessed of uncanny powers, being apparently able to make things happen by the exercise of her will. An idyllic romance is proceeding between Nick Linquest heir to a baronetcy, and Gw-en, the playmate of his childhood, when Carla intervenes and, deciding to marry Nick, carries her will into effect. Carla next falls in love with Nick’s half-brother, Bertie Hillyard, and, having subdued him to her will, she proceeds slowly to poison her husband. Gwen, however, comes to the rescue, and with marvellous intuition discovers Carla’s guilt. Carla takes her departure, and is eventually killed in a motor, accident. It is a melodramatic story, but not without merit. 6.—A REGULAR THRILLER. “We are going to make an experiment most interesting—an experiment wttich HU be of great value in the science of atomic energy, concerned with the laws of vibration, in so far as they govern the human physical body. We have reason to ! olicvo that this pong, so ancient, made by the magicians of a dead, but in its time, supremely advanced clivilisation, is capable of disintegrating the atomic structure of a man’s bodv bv the sound it produces when it is struck.” In this strain, Steiner, a German, the tool of Manderson, addresses Sir John Perrin ns the latter, bound hand and foot, awaited a terrible death at *ho liands of two fanatics. The while Sybil, the girl he loved, was an unwilling spectator ot the terrible scene. In “The Death Gong” (Ilarrapb Mr Solwyn Jopson tolls how Sir John Perrin found himself in so perilous a plight, and how he miraculously escaped. The story is sot in Tunis, and the death gonig is reputed to have boon used by the priests of Quen-Ki-Tong, three thousand vears ago to kill their enemies. It is a most thrilling story, which will hold the reader breathless to the last page. 7—AN INGENIOUS IDEA. A young man of 26, Alan Beckwith ly name, ii “down and out” jn an American city. Outside of America it would be im-

possible for the thing to happen that Mr Ootavus Roy Cohen put* into his story, "The Iron Chalioe” (Cassell). Andrew North is the “King of the_ Underworld,” and with him Alan enters into a strange compast. North insures Beckwith’s life for a hundred thousand dollars, on the understanding that in thirteen months’ time Alan is to commit suicide, when the money will revert to North, through the medium of a woman whom Alan is to marry. They are to live together as man and wife to avoid all idea of oollusion. Given these improbable promises, and the story excites interest. It is capably written, and whatever may be thought of tha morality of the plot the novelist at least contrives a happy ending. B.—A RAILWAY CONSTRUCTION YARN. Outside of the Western States it would bo difficult to find such characters as goople Mr Kmart Kinsburn’s story, ‘ The loss of Camp Four” {Hutchinson). Chet Fanning, orook and flashman, SpookMule Paxton, captain of industry,_ and his daughter Iris, and the gang of “stiffs” who go to New Mexico with a railway construction gang, belong to a type familiar to visitors to the “movies.” Paxton is the victim of a conspiracy aimed at his financial ruin, but Fanning discovers the plot and exposes the ringleaders at ftTo risk of his life. Of course he is rewarded with the hand and heart of Iris. There are some exciting situations, especially when Iris is on the point of pressing the electric switch which all unknown to. her, will start an explosion sending her lover to his doom. Of its kind the story is well done.

9—BLUE JEAN BILLY AGAIN. Reader of Mr Charles W. Tyler’s previous story may remember that Quality Bill’s girl and Robert Wood, the detective, were rescued from imminent death and destined to marriage and happiness. The new book “Blue Jean Billy” (Hutchinson), is dated two years later, when, owing to the death of hfr husband. Blue Jean Billy Is once more on the warpath against organised society. Since all the wealthy people in the novel are such unmitigated scoundrels every sympathy will be felt for this daring beautiful pirate in her predatory career, which is pictured appropriately. The book, moreover, is a Liberal education in the language of the New York underworld. 10.—MARVELLOUS MONKEYS.

In the interior'of China, if Mr Maxwell Carson is to be believed, there is a marvellous tribe of monkeys, superhuman in their sagacity, and worshipping a weird deity. Farrar’s daughter Enid had loot her Gance, who had disappeared into the interior and had never been heard of. Receiving a spiritualistic message to the effect that Gerald was not dead, Farrar and his daughter venture in search of the lost one. They are captured by the monkeys and taken to a wonderful city over which the weird deity presides, and of which the high priest, a clever Chinese, is the presiding spirit. The «/ the captives are horrific and hair-raising, and the high priest’s lovely daughter endeavours to play a lone hand to her undoing. The donoument is os startling u it is unexpected, but all ends happily. This is the theme of “Monkeys of Hai Tu” (Hutchinson).

STANDARD SERIES. THE LATEST ADDITIONS. One of tha latest addition* to Nelson’s “Teaching of English” series it the third Cart of ‘‘Pattern ir“oetry,” which, compiled y Mr Richard Wilson, is described as “A book of Ixmger Poems from Geoffrey Chaucer to Francis Thompson.” These are “pattern poems” in the sense that thev provide a touchstone for other verso which claims to be poetry. They commence with Chaucer’s “Pilgrims” and end with the “Hound of Heaven,” proceeding by way of Milton’t “Nativity,” Dryden’a “Alexander’s Feast," Pope’s “Rape of the Lock,” Gray'e “Elegy," Goldsmith’s “Deserted Village,” Coleridge’s “Ancient Mariner,’’ Burn’s “Cottars Saturday Night," Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey,” Keats’s "Ode to a Nightingale,” Shelley’s “Adonais, - Tennyson’s “Morte D Arthur.” Browning s “Abt Vogler,” Arnold's “Scholar Gipsy," Rossetti’s “Blessed Damorel,” Swinburne's “Swimmer’s Dream,” and ofher poems. So splendid a selection within tha compass of a handy pookot volume is * boon to the student and lover of poetry. As an introduction to all that is best in English poetry it should prove invaluable. Another new volume in the same aeries is “Scot’s Narrative Poetry” consisting of abridgements of "The Lay of the Last Minstrel,” “Marmion.” and “The Lady of the Lake.” Soot as a poet has been too much neglected of recent . years, mainly because of the length of his pieces. These carefully made abridgements, the work of Mr A. J. J. Radcliff, should servo a useful purpose. . , To their “Reading Practice books Messrs Nelson have added Parts 1 and 2 of “Works and Workers” by Mr Arthur O. Cooke*; each part being suitably illustrated. The readings are classed under such headings as “Workers Who Feed Us, “Workers Who Shelter Us,” and “Workers Who Warm Us.” Each of theee sections is subdivided. For instance “Workers Who Clothe Us” comprises the flax-grower, the silkworm rearer, the weaver, the shoemaker, the needlemaker, and the hatter. Tims in the reading course the entire wor d of industry is passed under review clearly yet simply. , To their “Modern Studies” series Messrs Nelson have added four French books “Colomba,” by Prosper Merrimee; the “Lettros do Mon Moulin,” by Alphonse Daudet; a book of “French Short Stones, from Balzac to Anatolo France; and “La France Laborieuse,” the work of a number of writers designed to make the reader familiar with the vocabulary of French trade and industry. All these books are carefully edited and annotated. These Nelson books range in price from lOd to 2s 6d per copy. It is good news that Messrs Williams and Norgato are making additions to their wellknown Homo University Library. One of the latest volumes deals with “England Under the Tudors and the Stuarts,” and is the work of Mr Keith Feiling, of Christchurch, Oxford, who introduces his subject by saying: "The two centuries stretching between 1485 and 1688 can never become indifferent to the people of England, for in them modern England was made.” After pointing out that the change from the Middle Ages was accomplished with startling rapidity. Mr Feiling draws another striking contrast: “The people who carved out for themselves so. deep a niche of glory, and for their posterity so great a fortune, were few in number and limited in resource. Forty millions perhaps, was the utmost revenue that could be raised in 1688; the population of England and Wales, which in 1485 was about four millions, was even now—in 1600 —not more than five and a-half, or one million, perhaps, of fighting ago” A second addition to the Home University Library deals with “Trees,” their structure, architecture, roots, and root systems, and ’their course of life. Chapters are devoted to the trees of Britain, and to some of their enemies, and the book concludes with an interesting essay on “The Forest.” The author is Dr Macgregor Skene, lecturer in botany at the British University. The price of the Homo University volumes is 2s each.