LITERARY NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2649, 21 December 1904, Page 89

LITERARY NOTES.

— Mr Kipling's new volume of stories, ••Traffics and Discoveries," derives inspiration from many soi*ree-s. "The Captive," reflects the views of an American inventor, Unwillingly drawn into the fighting line, on the British methods of conducting thG Boer war'; "A Sahib's "War" presents the point of view of a sikh soldier on the same "^operations ; while a third 1 story, with a South' African setting, shows Tommy Atkins's .attitude towards the accusation of "barbarous .methods."

— - IThafc Mr Charles Marriott was at first greatly -under the influence of Mr George Aleredith!s -manner of expression was afiling regrettable, but not incurable. In "Genevra" (Methuen), we are glad to see tiiat the -young author -has definitely found a. style for himself. He is at once more restrained and more .convincing. This tale of two untamed natures, laid with great de•criptiye power in the untamed Cornish land,- .is .a fine .piece of work. If comparison were needed, we should now turn to Mr Thomas .Hardy xather than to Mr Meredith. -Mr Marriott .has, we hope, a future. — Field. -" ~ -"

— Lord ZRosebery, writing to a friend on fee a^ecenSy-published "Letters" of Lord Acton," says: — "I read 'Acton's Letterstwice. They aTe -remarkable as the- remarks of a .historian on -history as it -unfolds itself before -his eyes, and are, -of course, full .of learning aid full o£ merit. Moreover, his eulogy -of Mr Gladstone is in a high and xaie -strain of eloquence. Everywhere, indeed, they are striking, -and' there is not a ' word to- skip. The .book -deserves to .lire. in _ a jplaoe in the shelf beside ' Bishop XhixlwaU'B Letters.! " . — Fiona MacLeod ias a new -book in press, .and, as usual, the announcement .has provoked .more than one allusion to the impossibility .of identifying zfchis conspicuous figure in the -latter .day "Celtic movement" Tfith anybody personally -known -to the commentators on literary -things. W-hereupon ■he sends to the Daily Telegraph a note tearing :no address, running .as follows : - ••Will -you-permit me to say -that as is -no mystery -(beyond the privacy I have ever -sought to maintain,- and have a right to ask to be -respected) as to the authorship of my forthcoming book, 'The Winged Destiny,' and *of its predecessors, there is neither necessity nor •courtesy," in the -use of the inverted commas when you nae .by quoting -my name,-* nor in -fche implication that Jam any other .than, — Tours very truly, Fiona "jtfadeod?" " — -Since the author's Tights .of "-Paradise I«ost," .were purchased for „'£23, and" Goldsmith Bold "The "Traveller" tfor £20, there have been many fortunate speculations on the .part of, let -us iope, discerning *publishers. According to -a -correspondent of the Manchester -Guardian, .more " than one popular modern novelist has commenced hk -career with -a publisher's -bargain. J3Venty-one .for' instance, bought "tbe.Jßritish lights- of Miss Beatrice Harraden's first fluceeesful -novel, "Ships "That Pass in the JSight-2" Mr"F. Anstey, we are'further -told; sold ibis "^iee "Versa" -outright *or ,£2O. Mr Rider Bag>gard sold -the entire rights in "King Solomon's Mines,"?' the ' seok which made 3iis -name, to Messrs Gas- i •ell for dESO. .Miss Helen Mathers apparently took -a modest -view 'of 'the chances of her ' first lor she is said -to have" preferred a lump sum of £31 10s to an offer of half the profits on "Comin' Thro 7 the -Rye:" In ' each of tliese _ -cases -the -puKlisliers after'iwards voluntarily • jnade a -more or less con- ' Sidemble addition *to -the author's profits in j iiie -form of -a 'bonus. i ~ As .the memoir of Aubrey de "Vere, which- Messrs Longman will issue this autumn, records in some fulness the Irish. -■poet's intercourse with, and' his on, the, -work— of "Wordsworth, Bro-wning, and ITennyson, the tribute of a living rpoet to Aubrey de <Vere is not without interest." Thus wrote Mr William Watson 10 years •go in his sonnet -to -the Irish bard: j Jfot jnirie .your jnysiic creed; not mine, in j " sprayer - , j And worship at the ensanguined Cross to ; .kneel.; — . - \l But when I mark your faith, how pure and fair, How based on love, on ■passion for -men's weal, i My mind, half envying what it cannot share, Reverses rfihe reverence which -it cannot feel. ' The value -of the memoirs will be enhanced '• hy the inclusion -of some unpublished letters j from Cardinal JSTewman. . > I - — In spite of .all that 'has "been said by = people~of a materialistic turn 'to the effect 4ha<t =unagmation;- "ideality, and romance -are '< file- enemies of our sanity, imagination, { ideality, »nd romance are >not the 'enemies! ©f our -sanity. Men do .not 'go mad through') poetry; they .go mad -.through -the lack ofj poetry. '^Onry one poet .whose name -occurs • to me Teally -wont ~mad, and he went -mad ] logic— Oowper. Men jgo mad ) through :a> fixity of vision upon pr-ecisply j those details and crude limitations which poetry tendfe to "float in larger waters, to i lathe in nobler lights. Men go mad because j they think they are going to lose all ' their money. Men go mad because -I they think they are.- predestined to hell. Men ' «o mad they think they are heirs ! ' -to a dukedom. Men go mad because they ; think their neighbours are in some kind of sordid conspiracy against them". Above all, men go mad! because they believe they are "^cing mad; •because their minds are poisone3 with paltry physical science. ' Toetry tells mankind to lift up their eyes i •to the lulls and forget such stagnant modernities.— <G. K. .Ohesteron, in the Illustrated London Newa.

-~ History, says The Times, holds a couaiderable place in the literary programme' prepared ; for jjhe autumn season— especially to books on the House of Stuart. Mr G. M. Trevelyan's "England Under the I 'Stuarts was to have been pub- j iished early in November. . "James I T and James VI," by Mr T. W. in Goupil's -Fine Art i 'jSeries, is expected this • month. There is, ! .too, an expensive book by Mr Allan Fea,' entitled 'Memoirs of tne Martyr Eing: jßeing a Detailed: Record of the -Last Two 3Tears of the Reign of His Most -Sacred Majesty, King Charles the First." Mr Allan Fea continues his studies over the.' *sign -ol Charles H in an illustrated edition of "T1& Menioirs of Count -de Gra- j mont," which he is -editing for Mr Grant ! Hiohards. Charles II is also dealt with by ! Miss Eva .'Scott— author of the life of i "Rupert Prince Palatine" — in a volume ' ■which Messrs Constable are to publish under ! *he title of " The .King in Exile," giving *he lives of the King's adherents as well 88 tue story of his w.anderjngß. This Trill

] "be appropriately followed by "The Adventures of King James II of England" — which Messrs Longmans promise — written oy the author of " Rochester and Other Literary Rakes of the Court of Charles II," and other anonymous works. — There is no more painful sign of modern "hustle," says the London Globe, than the ever-decreasing lease of life allotted to novels nowadays. An interesting interview with a publisher in a monthly magazine which devotes itself to the fortunes of books, shows what an expert thinks of the matter. "Few people," he says, "realise how short the life of an average book is. Fifteen years ago you could count on its existence for two or three years. Now three books out of every four are as dead as mutton in three months." No wonder, with these facts staring them in the face, that modern writers are apt to scamp their work, and to take to the manufacture of short stories for the magazines, as both easier and more profitable than the planning and writing of long novels. Yet there is a small section of the public which prefers to read books after the first demand for them -has ceased. Hazlitt, it may be jemembered, mentions in one of his essays that he preferred his books when they had become, as it were, mellowed 5 . There is something soothing and restful about reading a book which has been forgotten by the multitude. About the newly-published novel, with its bright -cover and crisp -.pages, there is an air of unreality. It is somehow more like an enlarged magazine than a novel. It is only when the cover begins to .grow duller that the interior begins to grow more interesting.