LITERARY NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2823, 22 April 1908, Page 81

LITERARY NOTES.

— '"Captain Spink, and other Sea Comedies," is the title of a new book by Mr Mor'ley Roberts which Mr TJnwin is publishing m his Colonial Library. "The Call of the South," a -new volume of Pacific tales by Mr Louis Becke, is also appearing m the same series, together with ""Galahad's Garden," a novel by Mr G. B. Burgin describing the adventures of a young Englishman m America. — "Father Alphonsus,'' by Mr H. A. Hinkson, is a sympathetic but realistic story of the trials and temptations of a young ipriest who has taken orders to please his parents, after successfully combating "the manifestations of the natural man" which have arisen m him. Things go well with him until the death of his favourite brother. Then m his grief he turns to the sympathy readily offered him by Mrs Lambert, an English lady, who though a protestant has been attending the church of Father Alphonsus with her Catholic husband. Her husband is killed m an accident, and this forms a mew bond of sympathy •between the lady and the priest. The novel . turn mainly on the struggle between the priest's love for her and his sense of -duty, and has a tragic denouement. The book is just being issued m Un win's Colonial Library, — 'We have a certain prejudice against books entitled "How to Collect . . ." They suggest a -short and easy way of mastering the difficult study of some branch of art, with a view, not to the greater appreciation of the art, but to the avoidance of being swindled when making purchases. We have no doubt that a number i of peojß-» '^.uy them -with this objeot, and '■

it is no more than common justice that most of them should learn m time how true fc is ■ that a little ■learning is a .d.im?.ercns thine For there is only one way to eclioct. and that is io 'cultivate the trained «ye aiiu the trained h.-.nd which como from the genuine love of the £"• and a careful examination of gocd examples. — "Eycnins . Standard. — The ro_ciic death of Sir James Knowlcs, founder, proprietor. a~d editor of the Nine- • tee nth Ceiitury r.nd After, creates a 'distinct blank m English literativrcl -Probably no magazine m the English language ever had a more distinguished bod.' 1 ' -of contributors than the well-known monthly, and for more , than a Quarter of a century it has numbered , amongst its writer- aili that was most eminent m British politics, .art. literature, and Ecieno-?. Sir James nnjoyed numerous triumphs as an editor, but -perhaps there is none m respect jo'f which he found more satisfaction than the mannor^-in which ho outwitted cer lain clever folk when -it became necessary to change ihe name of his periodical. The Twentieth Century and all other likely titles ha<l been registered m anticipation that he would be compelled to purchase one br other of tbem. The' Nineteenth Century and After was a 'solution which the shrewdest had not foreseen. Like Thomas Hardy, the famous novelist. Sir James Knowlcs started life as an .architect. — Home time ago Lord Kosebery de r livered m Edinburgh an interesting" and characteristic address, tho substance -of which has been printed m the North American Review under the title "Bookiahness and Statesmanship." There would appear .to be a natural antipathy .between the bustiinp-, ea7cr. slert l : fc of politics and the life of books. "Yet,"' says -Lord Rosebery, ''Mr Gladstone, who rode the 'whirlwind and directed tho storm of politics, was bookish to an extreme degree." Ec was m no sense a bibliomaniac; he cared nothing for first editions, broad margins, preciosities of .print ; he bought&ooks rnerelv for what they contained. "No one .could have seen him -reading m the -'Tcmrile of ■Peaoe. as he signifioantly called his tetudy, and have -deemed it possible for -him to "have been happy iri any other capacity." The little treasures of his" youth he always carefully preserved; a -.olassio or ''two that he had cherished ■ from . hi* old 33t-on days, and a book given to him by Hannah More. — Because Mr H. '6. "Wells, the .well--known novelist ard socialist, chooses to enioy the money he earns., he has been taken to task by some of those who consider that, all who preach Socialism -ehould liv m the slums. He has .replied to .his critics thus: "It is quito true," he writes, "that I live m my own house, with servants (four, t<> he exact, and a gardener), on fair and pleasant terms. I take holidays abroad. -But my chief luxury is Socialism. This has cost mc m" time and energy, "m ■ damaged sales fo- my, books, -a lose m th" last four years cf at least £2000. . . 1 want everybody to have =at lervu .as^muoti ease, leisure, and freedom as T have -myself, and .that is why lam a Socialist. Irsee nc sense at all m making .myself .and my wife -uneornfortahle and inefficient, cutting myself off from association with any but ih. impoverished class, and.riefciner the , Hves p,nd education -of ihy children -'by igoing tc live m some infernal slum or other at ? pound n. week or So. What poswible srooc wonld thai, do? I don't believe m an-yon* living Hko that. Why should I set a -bad example?" — Though an author hcomes famous by his hest, work, Jie .generally owes his first recognition and most of bis oajaiilanits .with his contemporaries to work that^ k only his second best, or even his worst. Is Wordsworth's "Ode -on Immortality," even now. so well known as. his "We >ar« Seven?" r>r Tenmyeon ! s '^Ulvpses" such c common -_a.vourite a«* : his "jV_av -Queen"^ "It is Never Too li»te to M«nd" .made Reade pqpular. but .it is "The Cloister and the Hearth" that makes him famous: and I have a suspician that people will remember Mr Hall Oainc's "'Manxman" anc "Deemster" asrain when they forget his "Etrrna.l City" and his "Christian." M: E. Fv SBenson is inevitably "the author di 'Dodo.' " localise it was "Do.do." one not "The Angel of iß&in," or "Paul." <oi "She 'Challoners." that, had the boom.: ii was "Dodo" that wa6 the ra<rc of a season, wi+A everybody buying and reading wt talking about it.: "Dodo" that has had th? largest «=ale and has done more than p./tr\ of Mr Benson's other books to make but! -popular, and y*>t it is nearer to heing -She worst than i!he best of them. — Londor -Reader. — Although it is^ some years since Mt Nat Go-.tld left Australia there .are thousands -of his Benders who remember him ■well, not Alone for his writings, -but <hi account of his . interesting- ,poreonalify. iJie held a uniflueposition m Australian journal' ism. He had a wonderfully facile pen. and wrote on almost every subject, with a freedom of thought .and a love of truth that, endeared him to so many rpeoplc. Coming to Australia m 1884 -his "first ensracement was as chief reporter on the Brisbane -Daily Telegraph. He went to Sydney three years later and ioined *he Referee. Later he accented the editorship of the Bathurst Daily Times, .and it wa6 while so engacred that he wrote his first novel, "The Double Event."' From Bathurst he returned to Sydney -and resumed his place on the Referee. -As "Verax" he was known all over Australia. His writings have not deteriorated, tor it is a well-known fact that his reputation as -a sporting writer stands unrivalled the world over, but especialy in_ Australasia. Tbe best sportsmen who visit England always 6ee him, they have not forgotten him. and as they read his books the* remember with gratitude the man who foujtht for the public, sometimes "playing a lone hand" m dome so. -He has hie reward, he has earned his crown, for his publisher, Mr John Long, with whom he has a many years' engagement, unhesitatingly states that the sales of his novels exceed five million copies. Mr Nat Gould's biography will be worth reading if he can be induced to write it. — Mr Thomas Hardy has completed "The Dynasts," his great epic of the Napoleonic war period. It is a wonderful piece of work — a bird's-eye view of the «reat drama by one poised on high. And while the writer soars above his subject to gain his point of vision, yet he has memory 'for the details which that view-point would . not supply. He can / see (observes The Times) Napoleon's Russian army aa " A dun-piled caterpillar Shuffling its length m painful heaves along;" but he sees that the heaves are painful, and he remembers that the caterpillar ia composed of men, "tattered men like skeleton*." men with "icicles dangling from their

'hair that, clink like glass-lustres as they walk." mon who sob like children ov burst 'into raving son c's oi madness wl en they 'c; ir.-i f iat Their ;E npcror has descried them • — rill' ihe 'i'ros:: -stills The:_i into eternal M.^nco as 'hey crouch exhausted round theii 6---':K- five. He fees the field .of Waterloo Ii':o a map with tho litt'e flaps on it; but he overh-^aBS .Na. oleon's thoughts as ht- stands m the -wcod of Bos*u alone after all is over. -M.u'i:- Louise's eo'.:s and the Prince Fc'gent'* oaths aro as loi.d m his .ears as the cannon of .Lcipzie:. Mr Ha-dy -seems to have presented, Skilfully outlined, all the persona ,for whem apaeo .allowed and dramatic ■need demanded -character, even st-he nameless mother of a namekss :.girl .Who Jell m love at the Duchefis-of Brunswick* ball, and the vicar 6f Durr.ovcr, who was only 'to speak -twice and "to spit twice, are as roundly human as could 'be. Thore is 0,119 unquotable remark of Wellington's after V-Jtioria which -seems to .bring tlie whtde man before the reader m a flash. And there is one touch on the ificld of Waterloo wtiich faithfully reports a well-known curt ev«cbange. Wellington goes m the direction of th* hussars with Uxbridgc. A cannon-sho < 'hisses past. "Oxbridge (starting) — " "I have lost my leg, by God I" I Wellington — "By God, and have you ! I felt the wind o' the shot." A passage of tremendous power fixes the horror- of the grand army's retreai from Moscow : — ' ■ Angel I. Harassed, it treads the trail by which it came To Borodino, field of blocdshot fame, Whence stare unburied horrors beyond name I Angel 11. And so and thus it nears Smolensko's Wilis, And, stayed its hunger, starts anew its crawls, Till floats down out white morse!, which appals. What has floated down from the sky upon the army is a flake of snow. — Writing of Anthony Trollope and his novels, the "Reader m his Easy Chair" says: — I am particularly pleased to see that the Trollope revival continues. Fifteen years ago, when, to all appearance, he was as dead as G. P. R. James, I became a Trollope enthusiast, and wrote a rash and! eugolistic article m which I predicted^ thafc ; he would yet come into his own. Most:' of the cheap reprints now include some ofl. his novels ; he wrote about fifty ; some o . * the minor ones, such as "John Caldigate,"-; ..rare. '.uncommonly good; T believe only one of them is dull and jpcor, and that is* "The Fixed Period," m whicb.. adopting tho, idea of J-lassinger's "Old Law," he anti-' cipated Professor Osier, and gave us a worldf m which ■all men were painlessly put tcVdeath .at shcty. I advise overy young .autho..": to read Trollope's /Autobiography, but noi' : to imitate his methods of work.. ->H$ i. very frank ' on the business, side/of it aI. .J presents, an account of his receipts; ;a,ndlj tells ycu that ho made m all by literature , something near £70,000. The years Ibetweeni. the writing, of this autobiography «.nd his-! ddath, how-eyer, thrqught -him m aboihij another, £20,000 V'-ahd^sesßing that he died!; at' sixty-seven " aiid *difl mot commence bis career as a novelist until he -was forty.) one feels 'that ihe was scarcely overdoing it when he saiid that he. looked upon this -re- j suit ''as comfortable, but not splendid." j Mr Lewis Melville writes interestingly or* j Trjsllope m the current Bookman, and!) justly claims that "he has, with masterly; : -skill, left for future ages a well-nigh per-! feet picture of clerical and lay society imi' the English counties during the 'fifties anc.) sixties' of the (nineteenth .century.". Mr -Melville thinks that only a dozen of 3?rollope's novels, including the six gjreat Barsetsh'ire stories, show him at his best, 'butt he does not put in' his list the Phineas* Einn books .nor "The Way vwe -Live Now," ■which are, to my thinking, at least as good as anything Trollope ever <wrote.