LITERARY NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2133, 10 January 1895, Page 42

LITERARY NOTES.

Sardou's royalties last season from the Fren ch perf or mancas alone of" Madame Sana Gene " are said to have amounted to £12,000. His yearly income from the foreign rightu to hie plays is said to be about £18,000, which would give a grand total yearly income of £30,000. His country place at Mary-le-Roi, which was a royal residence purchased from the French Government, cost him £16,000. He has a villa at Nice, and an apartment in Paris.

Mrs Tynan-Hinkson has contributed an article on " The Poets cf the Bodley Head " to the Outlook, and ir eludes Mr Norman Gale among them. The tribute of a gifted poetess to a gifted poet is not likely to be overdone, so we may extract Mrs Tynan-Hinkson's appreciation, which extends, it will be scan, beyond the man's work to theraan himself : — •• Norman Gale io the Watteau of poetry. He sings of shepherdesses, of brooks and flocks and birds, as daintily as a bullfinch could pipe it. His poetry has rather tha sweetness of gardens than the austerity of the country. His country is an Arcadia where it is summer all the year long, and Lubin i 3 ever young and in love, and sin and rheumatics are never found below the redtiled roofs — a kindly convention, one fears. Mr Gale is as unlike bis work as possible. He is over 6ft in height, with the great limbs of an athlete, and a pleasant, kindly face. He is rather more in love with football and cricket than with the muses. It is his pride that he has had every bone in his body broken at football ; bat he looks not a penny the worse." In answer to the question "Is 'Trilby' a moral story?" the Outlook says editorially o£ Da Maurier's now famous novel : — " The drawing of Trilby's character is morally untrue. In life, innocence is not retained after virtue is lost. And oharacter drawing which is morally untrue is never morally wholesome. The story of * Trilby ' is ancient Gnosticism done into modern dramatic form — the story of a pure soul untainted by 9, polluted Ufa. And Gnosticism

is false. To the question then, Is • Trilby ' a moral novel ? we reply in the negative. Its moral standard is a purely conventional one — that of the social code of honour. The eternal sanctions of righteousness, which are never ignored in the greatest works of the greatest artists, are wholly lacking. Religion is never referred to except in its most conventional forms, and then only to be satirised — perhaps we should say travestied. It is true that the story exalt 3 all the social virtues except one. But for uncbastity in woman it inspires rather the condonation which comes of comparative indifference than the forgiveness which comes of a pure and pitying love."

Mrs Helen Davis (Mary C. Rowsell) is, her colonial friends will be pleased to learn, about to publish another novel. It is entitled "Angus Murray," is just completed, and goes to press immediately. It is to be a three-volume novel, and is on colonial life. Those critios who have seen the MSS. say it is better than any previous work this popular author has published. Her drama, " A Life Policy," will probably be taken on at one of the London theatres early this year. Mrs Davis, though a native of Tasmania, spent many years of her life in Maoriland, and readers will be pleased to learn that her novel " The Friend of the People" has received the most favourable notices at the hands of the English press. Of it the Academy says : — " The French Revolution is a theme of which we never tire, and which of itself invests with an interest the productions of the poorest writer. The author of • The Friend of the People ' is, however, not at all a writer of this sort ; her narrative is composed with commendable care and due regard, to scenic effect. Many incidents in the book are drawn with a remarkably skilful band, and at every turn we meet with the terribly real and imperishable characters who played their part in the most ghastly of the world's tragedies. Above all, the pale-faced, meagre little man, with whose name the Terror ia chiefly associated, in his blue coat and nankeen pantaloons, stands out upon the canvas, and imparts to the picture a life-like reality."

"The Scottish Songstress, Caroline, Baronees Nairne," is trie title of an elegant little book of 63 pages that will appeal to the lovers of Scottish song all over the world. This monograph by her great-grand-niece Margaret Stewart Simpson, published by Oliphant, Anderson, and Ferrier, of Edinburgh, is (says the Glasgow Citizen) creditable to the head and heart of the aut.hor, if it be not at times slightly transcendental It reflects the just enthusiasm of a woman for the memory of a richly-endowed relative, one who never blazoned her talents abroad, but who rather Bought to let her verses reach the world, and touch the world, without the world, knowing who had written them. If Mrs Simpson's narrative should be somewhat lacking in concentration, it is, nevertheless, invariably appreciative, and always interesting. Lady Nairne was a painter as well as a poet, and the sketch of " The Auld Hoose o' Gask," where sh« was born and wbere she ultimately died, which forms one of five illustrations in the volume, is from her pen. Though not yet half a century dead, for the date is only 1845, she was seven years younger than Burns, and therefore but five years older~than Walter Scott. She was thus the contemporary and survivor of both, and though she never attained the literary distinction of either, it was not because she lacked the true poetic fire. As the writer of this pleasant book happily indicates, the mnse of Lady Nairne flowed rather like a placid brook between the two impetuous torrents. As Burns wrote " Scots wha hae " to the tune of " Hey, tuttie taitie," and nrade it the most martial song that any country can boast, so did Lady Nairne write " The Land o' the Leal" to the same air, and melted countless thousands to tears. There is an absolute and unconquerable pathos in that song, as there is in the " Rowan Treß " at Bonekeid and the " Auld Hoose " at Gask, of which, and of the people in it, Bhe pathetically wrote that " Oh I whiles we greet to think we'll hear nae mair." In contrast with these come the Jacobite foeling of "Charlie is my darling," the humenr of the "Hundred pipers," and th 9 practical, comnion-sens6 of " Caller herriti'," which last a certain Scottish community, animated by distinctly utilitarian aim?, has adopted as its civic hymn. Mrs Simpson strikes the key-note and sums up the whole matter when she says, " Amid the ardour of youth, the sorrow and trials of womanhood, the sting of lost motherhood, with a coronet or without it, courting no applause in her gifts as in her songs, making her own maxims and following them, she has left for us, in the closing years of tbis century, words that touch our hearts and tune our voices, because into the humanity of the woman was .breathed the inspiration of the Divine."