LITERATURE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2913, 12 January 1910, Page 86

LITERATURE.

BOOK NOTICES. "Great Heart Gillian," by John Oxenham. London: Hcdderand Stoughton. Dunedin : R. J. Stark and Co. Illustrated. R. J. Stark and Co. Illustrated. (3s 6d, 2s 6d.) Once more Mt Oxenham takes us amid scenes and people with which lie is familiar, but which are somewhat unfamiliar to the rest of the world, and doubtless all the more attractive on that account —the Channel Islands and the neighbouring coast of Brittany. His last two novels treated of the island life; "Great Heart Gillian" takes us to the mainland —the wild, rock-bound coast ot Bretagne, where, as in Cornwall, the great Atlantic rollers have torn the land to pieces and left great granite teeth, bare, black, and hollowed, to withstand the encroachments of the waves of the wild west. Here in prehistoric times the Druids made their last retreat, and here amid the "ghost stones" of their ancient temple, the reader is introduced to the hero and heroine of the present romance. Derek Kerval is a fisherman of unusual parts and character, a man among men ; and Gillian is just a girl, whose greatness of heart and dauntless courage, proved by time, were tber in the making. Gillian is a most attractive personality, combining all the sterner virtues with an exquisite gentleness and tenderness of character, and those graces of person and manner which are generally described as "ladylike." These are, in her ease, a "harking- back" to unknown parentage, for Gillian when a tiny babe is rescued from the sea, the only survivor of the crew and paissengei's of a big steamer, completely wrecked in Lost Souls' Bay. Here we will hasten to add that in this story Mr Ox&ahaim has had the courage of his opinions, for though Gillian's noble birth is more than once hinted at, and certain relics are preserved to prove it, if necessary, the claim is never made, she hercelf refusing to make it, and electing to lead the "simple life," of which we hear so much and l see so little. The story is long—nearly 400 closely-printed pages, —but the interest is well sustained, and the details of peasant and fisher life, of the benign influence of M. le Cure, etc., cure told wth a. most' engaging simplicity. The stirrings in Gillian's heart and the call to a wider life, though interpreted by the author as atavistic, are common to most girls, who when in perfect health and strength ''.naturally long for a wide sphere in which to exercise their budding faculties. Derek goes away, fishing on the coast of Newfoundland ; the other lad.s of the village do not attract her; the inevitable gentleman artist appears, captivates her fancy, and marries her exit of hand. Then follows the awakening, and Gillian's return to her old home. So far the story is somewhat hackneyed in conception, but now the plot thickens and becomes more 'original. Derek returns from shipwreck and a sensational rescue, quarrels with Gillian's worthless husband, who skilfully engineers a "disappearing trick." " Derek is convicted of the murder, and condemned to the galleys. Now Gillian shows her courage and the greatness of her heart. She knows that Derek is innocent, and with her babe in her arms she sets out for Paris to obtain the Emperor's pardon. Almost at the outset she is robbed of her money (painfully collected by the good old Cure), and instead of turning back resolves to walk the whole distance. It was the. year 1870; France was even then in the throes of her great war with Germany, and the enemy were already on her northern frontier. From this on Gillian's story is enthralling. Site travel* from village to village, helped by the kindly peasant folk, and especially the priests, to whom her own Cure has given her a general letter of introduction. Arrived in Paris, she finds the Emperor gone to the seat of war. She follows him there, is present at the burning of Bazeillas, and an eye-witness of many other terrible incidents; is protected by the ambulance corps, and joins the band of nurses for a time ; but, ever persisting in her quest, tracks the fallen Emperor from place to place, and finally comes up with ln'im on the eve of the great historical meeting at Bellevue. Here she finds her way into his presence, and the "fallen star," in the midst of his own ruin, finds time to give her a few kindly words and an official pardon, which is, of course, not worth the paper it is written on. But all ends well, as a romance should. Derek is proved to be no murderer, since Gillian's husband is slain by another hand during the siege of Paris, and his body recognised by many old acquaintances. So "Great Heart Gillian," her babe, and her faithful lover return, to the quaint, wind-swept Breton village, to the neighbourhood of the haunted "ghost stones," and to the faithful ministry of the old paptor, to whom they are indeed as "his children returned from the dead."

"The Bluffshire Courier." By Pentland Piele. London: Blackwood and Sons. (3s 6d, 2s 6a.)

This is a lively humorous story of the western Highlands; of the doings of a serious-minded, gentle-hearted young woman; and of the rise and progress of a country newspaper, the Bluffshire Courier. The idea, of exploiting a newspaper for other than strictly commercial ends is by no means original, but Mr Pentland Piele's treatment of the subject is both novel and amusing. Miranda Ross—whose very name advertises her origin—is the grand-daughter of an evicted crofter of a superior type. The crime which drove the old man from his ancestral home and sent him, his widowed son, and mothej4cs«jgr and child to America ej%;£d in great material prosperity, yet to

the last the old man grieved" for his lost paradise, and poured the tale of his wrongs into the girl's sympathetic ear. When father and grandfather are both gone Miranda, young, good-looking, and an heiress, goes to visit the shrine of the old man's devotion, and finds it part of a deer forest, the gentle beasts grazing around the ruined walls and moss-covered stones; the hearth cold, the hedge beaten down, the whole place lonely, desolate, forsaken. To the girl, brought up in all the traditions of Highland patriotism and its passionate land-hunger, this visible witness to the truth of the old man's story, apparent proof of the cruelty and injustice of landlord and factor, of human beings driven from their homes to make room for "beasts, first sheep, then deer," has a most powerful effect. To her, as to the Jews of old, the country which had sheltered and enriched had ever been "a land of exile." She was a Highlander, and gloried in the name. In coming to Scotland she had come "home," and her wish was to "help her own people" : not her immediate relative®—of those she has none.—but "her people," her father's clan': first the natives of Bluffshire, and then of the Highlands, and to constitute herself their champion, to right their wrongs generally, but especially in relation /'to the land question. "When a young woman, brought up with the unconventional ideas prevalent in America, wealthy, and just of age, takes any such practical notion into her head she is not unlikely to carry it out." Miranda buys .a pretty little house in the neighbourhood of GrimbuTgh, the capital of Bluffshire; .establishes herself there with a pleasant middle-aged friend, and looks out for opportunities. They are not long in coming: the Rev. Mr M'Bride, the Free Church minister, soon sees and seizes his chance. With the ardour of an enthusiastic but ill-balanced mind lie throws himself into the lady's schemes, and fans the flame of her wrath. It is through him that she learns that the local paper, the Bluffshire Courier, is for sale, owing to the recent death of its proprietor and editor. "You should acquire it," he says. "Anyone in possession of that paper might make it the humble instrument for vast.good in the Highlands. It circulates among all classes, and in particular reaches those rarely reached by any other newspaper. The press 'is the mighty lever with which to move the world. Even with such a humble instrument as this Bluffshire Courier, if we cannot move the world we may move this county. With it Ave could stir up the Highlands and islands of the west til] they ring with the story of our wrongs." Miranda buys the paper. Now comes in the humorous side of our story. Up to this point everyone has been in deadly earnest. Miranda, believes in the wrongs of her countrymen and in her mission to right them. M'Bride is an . ill-balanced but real enthusiast, who had long desired "an organ" through which he might voice his peculiar and ever-changing views. Neither of them knows anything about newspaper work -and the business details connected with it. Many of the following •chapters read like pages out of Mark Twain. Bv all the flaws of comraon sense the Courier should have come to grief, and. indeed, the- fair .proprietress is heavily mulcted in an action for damages, "together with other incidental expenses. But Miranda is rich and in earnest; a capable editor is found to take the work in hand, and Mr M'Bride is relegated to a more purely clerical sphere. Then Miranda is introduced to some specimens of the hated landlord class, including the Duke of Bluffshire and his family, and before she knows what is happening her extreme views are modified, and she discovers that there are landlords and landlords, and that there is something to be said on both sides of most vexed Questions. The exaggerated statements of the Free Church" minister, the sanguinary nature of his journalistic efforts, the laziness and improvidence of the people she is trying to help, the obvious self-seeking of the members of her own party, are cleverly contrasted with the virtues and vices of the opposition. It is not so much that one side is better, purer, more disinterested than the other as that both are human, often wrong. and sometimes right; generally selfish, occasionally heroic. A contested election, in which the "people's candidate" proves himself little better than a- windbag, opens the lady's eyes still wider. She becomes not less" patriotic, but less narrow-minded, and less inclined to believe in hastily-applied panaceas to deep-rooted sores. In the end she retires from the active control of the Bluffshire Courier, which once more becomes "a perfectly free and independent paper," not merely "an organ," and em'plovs "her fortune to restore the fallen' fortunes of a great historic house. Was this, then, the empty end of everything, or was it but another beginning? Dark shadowed night closing in unon all the eager aims of earlier life, or the dawn of a brighter working day radiant with faith and hope?" Mr Piele's book is an admirable picture of present-day conditions of life in the Western Highlands; it asks many poignant questions and gives room for much' thought; but the method is never didactic, and no solution is. forced upon the reader, unless it be that "there is nothing so human as human nature." It is a. real story, and not a disguised sermon, and the author's strong sense of humour and vivacious style give charm to a plot which is neither sentimental nor sensational.

"Peeps in Many Lands: New Zealand." By P. A. Vaile. London: Adam and Charles Black. Cloth; 12 full-page illustrations in colours; Is 6d net.

This is a cheap and wonderfully got up colour book, in which most of the illustrations (by P.< and W. Wright) are real gems, but unfortunately the letterpress does not equal the pictures. Mr P. A. Vaile is best known as the author of "Modern Golf" and other books of sport, ÜBd Jw is a famous tennis flayer, but he

is not a literary man in. the best sense of the word. The publishers' note announces "a series of little travel books for little readers, meant to give children a glimpse at the scenes and customs of their own and other lands." Mr Vaile's method of fulfilling this order is to give little scraps of mediocre and second-hand information, interspersed with ridiculous little stories, some of which —such as that on page B—are certainly not edifying to young people. Of "the boys of New Zealand," he informs us that "they are bigger, stronger, and more self-reliant" than their English brothers, speaks of their aptitude for games, and their "bad pronunciation" ; of "the girls," he says that they "spend most of their life in the open air, play well at games," are "quite at home in the ballroom." have a vote, pronounce their vowels a little better than the boys, and "that it would be hard to tell the well-educated, well-bred New Zealand girl from the English girl of the same class, were it not for a greater air of decision and strength, a certain added force that strikes the observer, and possibly in some eases a little less repose." In the chapters devoted to "country life" lie enlarges on "motors, carriages, billiard tables, evening dress," and the like; "good wine, good cigars, and cultivated ladies wbos one would feei pleased to take tc supper at the Savoy." In the few pages devoted to "The Bush" and "New Zealand Scenery" we are told that " 'forest ' is a word never used in New Zealand." Two shrubs are described as "poisonous" ; one or two creepers are named We are also told that "the Bowen Fall is 600 ft high" and Mount Cook 12,349 ft: "that the Sounds district is very moist." and so on. Of the position of the "working mar" Mr Vaile declares: "Were I an English workman), and did I know as much of New Zealand as I do, I should get there if 1 had to swim." But for himself he says that be prefers to live in London. Why? Because in New Zealand "it is too easy to succeed in mediocrity. There I never feel that 1 want to work; here (in London) I never feel that I want to play. There I always played; here I work day and night—and count it pleasure." From which we gather that the volume before us waswritten in New Zealand and not in London.

LITERARY NOTES

A new library, the intention of which is to furnish the modern citizen with some sort of working philosophy, is projected by Messrs Gav and Hancock, under the title, "The Art of Life Series." Among early volumes will be " Things Worth While," by Thomas Wentworth Higginson. and " Where Knowledge Fails," by Earl Barnes

The new—and thirteenth—edition of Oscar Wilde's "Do Profundus" contains the passages which were withheld from the first 11 editions. It contains also the letters written by Wilde to his literary executor. Mr Robert Roes, from Reading Prison, and the letters on prison life written after his release.

One of the oldest living contributors to the CornhiU Magazine, which has just issued a jubilee number, is the Australian novelist, Rolf Boklrewocd, who in private life is Mr T. A. Browne, now in his eighty-third year. Articles and sketches from his pen appeared in the Cornhill as far back as 1865. Rolf was writing stories in the- Australian weeklies for 20 years before he captured the English novel-read-ing public with " Robbery Under Arms." Mrs Manning-ton Oaffyn, who has just published a novel with the curious title " Whoso Breaket.h an Hedge," first attracted notice as the authoress of "A Yellow Aster" —a story that was much talked about at both ends of the earth. Mrs Cafiiyn lived in Melbourne for some years—her husband practised as a physician in a fashionable suburb of that city —and Melbourne folk thought they recognised real personages in some of the characters of "A Yellow Aster."

One of the most important works on Messrs Putman's autumn list is the " Life of 'Johann Sebastian Bach," by Sir Hubert H. Parry, Bart. It is described in its sub-title as " The Story of the Development of a Great Personality," and the author explains in his preface, that it has been his design to write a survey of Ba.oh's life-work and a study of his unique artistic character for those who require something simpler and more condensed than the admirable but- very voluminous standard biography of Philip Spitta. Four years ago it was humanely decided that the paupers at Woolwich Workhouse should be- read to for two hours nightly. At first the experiment was a brilliant success: but now (says T.P.'s Weekly) the reading is regarded l as one of the tasks of the day. The most thrilling romances, the most baffling detective tales, the most enthralling stories of adventure, left the pauper listeners dull and listless. They yawned at Rider Haggard, suffered Co nan Doyle in gloomy silence, and were indifferent to the charms of Wilkie Collins, Dickens, Harrison Ainsworth, Captain Marryat, Clark Russell, Rhoda Broughton, and Mario Corelli.

xvir Edward Hutton has now finished the herculean task of editing and annotating- Crowe and Cavaleaeelle's " History of Italian Painting." The work has been enormous, involving the consultation and' quotation of gome four or five thousand books, essays, reviews, and bollettini. The vvoi'k of every scholar and art critic of repute in Europe has been laid under contribution. The third volume, completing the work, deals with, the Florentine, Sienese, and Umbrian schools of the> fifteenth century. It is now in the press, and Messrs Dent hope to publish it shortly. —■ " It is somewhat strange that one of the most remarkable books recently published, Mr William de Morgan's novel, ' It Never Can Happen Again,' is not obtainable at any of the London libraries," says the Daily News. " These establishments, it appears, have all declined' to order copies from the publishers, the reason being, we understand, that they have (decided not to purchase works of fiction which, exceed fe. Mr de Morgan's novel is in two volumes, published at 10s, with, of course, the usual discount allowed to the public; but even these terms are evidently not considered sufficiently moderate by the libraries; hence the present boycott." Further particulars of Ms Xhonias

Hardy's forthcoming volume- of verse show that trie title "Time's Laughing-6tocks " gives the key (says the Westminster Gazette) to many of the poems. Some of the stories are founded oti fact; , one of these, "The Tramp-woman's Tragedy," is n narrative full of that deep pathos of human misery which the author knows ■■=:> well how to portray. Ir " Tho Curate's Kindness," which also appears in the first section of miscellaneous poems, wo have an example of mistaken compassion. " Love Poems of Past Days " form one distinct division of the volume; another section comprises " A Set of Country Songs" ; and the book concludes with a selection of "Pieces Occasional and Various." "The Aberdeen Doctors" is announced by Messrs licdder and Stoughton for early publication. It is a series of seven lectures by the Rev. D. Maomillan, D.D., delivered under the Hastie Foundation in Glasgow University. The first lecture deals with Dr Hastie himself; the five subsequent lectures have as their subject the Aberdeen doctors who were the most distinguished theologians of their day, and one of them, I>r John Forbes, Professor of Divinity in King's College, is universally admitted to have been the greatest theologian his country ever produced. The concluding lecture deals' with the question of union between the Episcopal and Presbyterian, but especially between the two great branches of the Presbyterian Church in Scotland, as it presents itself at the moment. ■ —A curious but very interesting benefaction is Mr Rockefeller's gift of £200,000 to finance a campaign against the hookworm in the southern States of America. Dr Charles W. Stiles discovered the hookworm (says Harper's Weekly). It is one of the things that has kept the southern " t poor-white- " poor. It is the .cause of the ' lazy disease," the victims of which show extreme reluctance to exertion of mind or body. They have no energy ; their mental processes are slow, and their physical movements listless. , Some of them besome clay-eaters. They complain of having no blood, and dcee themselves with iron filings and vinegar and with patent medicines largely made of alcohol. Dr Stiles investigated their plight, and found therm to bo beset by " hook-worms" (uncinaria), hairlrke parasites about an inch long, that fasten upon the walls of the intestinies, and live on their victim's blood. It was found that these worms could be driven out. by a cheap and simple remedy (thymol and Epsom salts), and it was .computed that for about two million dollars the disease could bo extirpated in, the south. Mr Rockefeller has satisfied himself by expert investigation that the hook-worm is worth fighting, and he has offered to a competent commission half the money enough to begin the fight. What purports to be the true story of Carlyle's Bible-raading at family prayers is told by a correspondent of the Saturday Review on the authority of the late Provost Swan, a pupil of Carlyie's. Carlyle often came and lived with the provost, for he had a great regard for him. Provost Swan was a bachelor; ocrfiequently no h-cstcEe was in the house. He was a very devout and good man, and a respected elder in the Free Church. He always had family worship in the morning and evening, which. he generally himself conducted, unless some minister was his guest. The provost asked the great philosopher if he would read, a chapter to those at worship, who generally consisted of his servant and any guest that might be staying with him. After a little persuasion Carlyle took hold of the big, old family Bible, and proceeded to Tead the first chapter of Job, and. got so interested he nead on chapter affce'r chapter, un£il he came to the sixth verse of the sixth chapter, "Or is there any taste in tho white of an egg." He them stood up and shut the Bible, etating, " I never knew that was in the Bible before," and walked out of the room to his sanctum to. enjoy his pipe, leaving tho good old provost to finish his devotions. —So great is the output of books during the London publishing season that works by new or comparatively unknown authors run some risk of being still-born. An instance of this is quoted in the Author, where tho actual numbers sold' of a book are said 1o have amounted to less than the number of favourable press notices. This does not prove, as tho author of the book seems to think, that reviews ao*e or no use in selling a book, but that some further means of bringing it before the eyes of the purchasing public are necessary. Another correspondent in the same issue suggests the founding of a large depot or store in a central position in. the West End of London (to commence with) where books could be seen and ordered. Many years ago the late Dr Peter Bayne, a well-known journalist, started such a depot in the Strand, but it did not " catch on." Messrs Smith's bookshop in that neighbourhood essays to perform the same function, but what the Author's correspondent has- in mind is not exactly a bookshop, but a bookstore, to which the publishers would esnd their becks for exhibition., paying for the space occupied. The books would be sent on the sale-or-return system, a commission being paid to the keener of the store when a sale was effected. —We have amongst us at the present time perhaps some six purely imaginative writers whose work may be profitable to study in the effort to discover whether there exists any school of conscious literaryart in England to-day. For, ostensibly, there is nothing but a formless welter of books without any tendency as without.any traditions or aesthetic aims. Of these six writers, three —Mr Henry James, Mr Joseph Conrad, and Mr George Moore—we may regard as being wholly concerned with their art, as belonging to the school which represents tho main stream of the current; of European literature, and' as having no external considerations for anything but; their individual presentations of life. We have Mr Galsworthy, whom we may regaud as belonging technically to the same school, but as falling short o.c ultimate/ preoccupation with his art. And! we have two imaginative writers who, not artiste in the strict sense that they have any canons of art by which they work, yet by virtue of personalities attractive or unusual carry on in the typical English manner the traditions of the insularly English novel. These are Mr H. G. Wells and Mr Rudyard Kipling.—English Review.