BUSHIGRAMS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2289, 13 January 1898, Page 52

BUSHIGRAMS.

By Gtjy Boothby.

London, Melbourne, etc. : Ward, Locke, and Co. Danedin : Braithwaite's Book Accade. The title has originality if not beauty of sound. It is something to be even a lktla original in these days when " O'a, that mine enemy would write a book 1 " has lost its point. The3e " Ba3higrams " are not, perhaps, so redolent of up-ountry atmosphere or rustling with forest murmurs as

one might expect, but they are instinct with human nature. Some of the stories we may cave read before — as " For Official Recognition " and "The Carious S;ory of an Aide-de-camp" — but bound together with many others equally good in that pleasant terra cotta cover we have become so familiar witb, " Bushigrama" constitutes an excellent antidote for a dull hour. Mr Boothby has one grsat and charming quality in our eyes — be. loves to paint the portraits of good women, clever women, beautiful women ; t the tenor, of his writing is clsan, ' healthy, and wholesome. His good women are not all uninteresting fools ; his bad woman are not all- brilliant enchantresses — in' fine, there is an excellent probability about his characters in these short episodes, and a strong bold painting of the local "colour. The Government House set, the Potts Point aristocracy, the denizens oE the back blocks, from " remittance men " to suadowners — all have their representatives in " Bushigrams." Humour, a little satire, a keen observation are elements more noticeable than tenderness or pathos, and tragedy is only the occasional caviare to whet the appetite which might flag.