LITERATURE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2915, 26 January 1910, Page 82

LITERATURE.

LITERARY NOTES. | Father Hugh Benson is the iauthor of "A Mystery Piay in Honour of the Na- , tivity of Our Lord," which Messrs Long- ' man are just publishing. Messrs Blackie have in. preparation "A J New Shakespearean Dictionary," containing , a complete glc&sa.ry to the plays and poems, j Each word is explained in its several meanings, with illustrative quotations. Sir Edmund C. Cox, Bart., is the author of "My Thirty Years in India." Sir j Edmund went to India to be a tea-planter, j but finding it was "no catch" took to j schoolmastering. Later he joined the police j force, and finally became Deputy-inspector-general of Police. He had many, interest- | ing experiences. The book is published by . Messrs Mills and Boon. j The question to which we always re- : turn in discussing the novelists of that great age is the question of their dura- j bility. If their monuments survive intact j they will dwarf those of almost every other | era in. literary history. Insensibly, it , might appear, we are coming to reaike the , extreme improbability of this being the ' case. The attraction of the Victorian age. for these C3'clopean structures will oro- j bably become more and more unintelligible. -The Times. j Harper's Magazine has attained its six- j tieth year of issue. W. J. Curtis and Donald G. Mitchell (Ik Marvel) were the . earliest regular contributors to T/ba magazine, in which some of the best work of Louise Chandler Moulton appeared. Mr j W. D. Howells, who is responsible for the "Editor's Chair," conducted the "Editor's Study" pages during the period IEBS-91, and . in Harper's 'first appeared some, of the best work of Mrs Humphry Ward and MiThomas Hardy. Mr Arthur Burell is responsible for "The Shorter Bible," the authorised version of the Bible arranged and edited, for , tli© use of schools and for home read- j ing. The abridgment, which is published! , by the Messrs Dent, has not been niadia j in the interests of any section of Bibl#» I lovers or Bible critics. The editor AMI simply omitted the less-known books *©s> passages and such parts as are not inex- f trieabiy bound aip with the main flow of the Bible story. j Every day the idea grows among experts that arts and sciences flourished in Egypt and Babylonia at an age hitherto considered prehistoric; and as the actual world is panting after the anticipations of Jules Verne, so also may we live to see the day when the wonderful events re- j corded in Dora Langlois's book, "In the Shadow of Pa-Menkh," may be found to have their roots in actuality. The story is published' by Messrs Sampson Low, ! Marston. and Co. (Ltd.). _ f An important work in two volumes is "Fifty 'New Japan," compiled by Count Sbigenobu Okuma, late Prime Minister of Japan and Minister of Foreign Affairs, f,nd published by Smith and Elder. Its object is to preserve an authoritative account of the development of the Japanese Empire during the 50 years that nave elapsed since the ratification of its first treaties with the outside world, and to make the present condition of the country more widely known and under stood, both at Hom« and abroad. Putting aside "Old Mortality" and "Harry Richmond," it would be difficult to find a more brilliant opening than that of "Pendennis" in -the whole round of English fiction. The first part of "Pen- j dermis" is surely the best, as might equally , be said of "Esmond" and of_ "Hamlet." j But here and in "Vanity Fair" Thackeray is at least master of the. situation until the end of the story. In, most of his other "larger books he is on a roundabout, and the starting and stopping-place alike seem to be determined by a mechanical orchestra.—The Times. That . there is a decided tren'dl towards the ethical just now is proved by the success of an extraordinary book, entitled "The Son of Mary Bethel," pub- j lished in the form of a novel. It is really , the life of our Saviour, with the scene , laid im Vermont and the characters of the New Testament narrative named in similarity, and, in some instances, actually j alike with those of the Bible. Such a book j might easily offend, but this one is written | with su.eh evident earnestness :>f belief and purpose, and contains such a beautiful philosophy of l|fo that, only the most bigoted could cavil at it. It is an extraordinary book. The author is Elsa Barker, and the publishers are Chatto and Windus. Our time is singularly barren of creative achievement in verse. It is not by any means barren of poetic feeling. The new great peets are yet to come, but nobody with a vivid sense of his own age can j fail to be conscious that there is a new i and vital poetry, as it were, in the air. ! Faint stirrings of an enlarged romantic ! impulse are very discernible in the imagi- j native writings of the time, short as they ! inay fall of powerful expression. In cer- I tain lyrics by John Davidson, for example. ' we have noted —with all the flaws and eccentricities —an indubitable aroma of dis- J tinetively modern poetry. We could mention a dozen writers (most of them in , prose, it is true; but this does not affect! cur argument) who reflect, however weakly ' or obscurely, an imagination which belongs quite characteristically to the present epoch.—Saturday Review. j The ever-growing mound of books about Dickens, with Forster's very solid "Life" as basis, shows no signs that the \ last book has been added to it yet; one rather pities posterity if the next 40 years are destined to see even half as big an output as that of the years since 1870. The old principle of the cairn on the moun-tain-top, with every admirer of the dead toiling up the slopes with his single stone to cast on the heap as a tribute, may have been all very well, but in some cases the cairn threatens to become so exceedingly miscellaneous and unsightly in character as to lose the simple dignity and impressiveness that should mark such a memorial. One begins, . in effect, to doubt whether it is possible to say much that is useful about Dickens that has not been said already.—Westminster Gazette. Never, perhaps, have the highest human emotions, the exultations and the agonies of the human spirit found such utterance as they found through Shelley. All their tumult is still in them as they pass into his verse, and yet the noise and fury of their storm have to our delighted wonder become a divine harmony of music. Nevar was ivric flight so swift as SbeUey's.

so heavenly high, so daring 1 , so triumphant. Never—it is the poet a strength as well as his weakness—are we borne so utterly beyond and above the _ ".owthougbtcd cares" of this earth as in the supernal ecstasies of "Adonais" and the lyrics of the "Prometheus." There is no English music like his except that played on Milton's organ; and there it is not thac the music is richer so much as that the instrument is one of greater power and compass. In that escape of the spirit w,h ; ch is ''"' special prerogative of music Shelley i alone. No poet in all the world is so -itireiy unintelligible to thos9 whose life is a thing of the body only.— The Times. /- Robert Hichens wields a practised pen. His sentences delight the reader who can appreciate terse English and the epigrammatic style. His latest work, _' Bella Donna" (Heinermann) is his best. This is as it should be. His Bella Donna is beautiful indeed, but greedy with a passion for material things, money, luxurious surroundings, beautiful clothes, carriages, jewels, amusements. An idealist, on© of these men wiho "are born to defend lost causes, moved by some se.sret chivalry that Wince their reason," finds her, and devotes h-s life to her, at firs* from pity, afterwards from love. He marries her, and the history of their married life occupies the two volurros of the book. With infinite art She holds him, until he falls in love with Mahmoud Baroudi, bMf Greek, half Egyptian, an extraordinary human study. There is abundant drama in this novel, and the author knows exactly how to present it. There is not a dull page in the two volumes, even though, here and there, a slight flavour of the guide-book is permitted to creep in. But the -.intensity of the situation, the union of this souled, degraded woman possessing every exterior refinement, with the quixotic, pure-minded Armine, is absorbingly interesting until the moment when she herself throws off the mask and leaves him, only to be rejected by the man to whom she offers herself. The most .remarkable feature of a very remarkable book is the character:«a*j.;n of the Jewish doctor, Meyer Isaacson. *-*-AIl the symptoms of world-weariness fir the contrary notwithstanding, Thackeray's heart was eternally young. The club window was not really bis lookingglass. Disbelief in. goodness was with him more transient than belief. There was in. him always a susceptibility to a being compounded! of kindliness and chivalry, humility, and self-sacrifice, which he dubbed a gentleman—the antithesis of snob. His worst characters are better than, they appear superficially. Rawdon'e dog-like devotion to his dishonoured hearth. Becky'ri sheer pluck in persisting in the game oi bad luck, suggest sparks of better things. Old Wigsby himself at heart is a pure idealist. Thackeray drew better than he knew. We do not believe that "Euii is good, truth is batter, and love best of all" merely because !he tells js so ; and indeed he is far too fond of using his pocket handkerchief in the pulpit. The artist, not the moralist, makes the truth prevail. It is his characters —by whom lie lives (just as his great rival does) —■ who convince us in the end that Thackeray's inner nature was unspotted by the world. That an infinite need of loving renders man divine, that the transparency, of a fine nature is august—most of all in misfortune —that human tears cam_ efface many blemishes, and that pity is own sister to fortitude—these are some of. the things, at any rate, that Thackeray learned! and, having learned, knew most decisively how to put into action.—The Times. —Mr lan Hamilton tells in the Corn- ■ hill Magazine of a merry little dining club which the .late Lord Salisbury nicknamed the "Hug.hligc.ns" after his youngest son, who was one of that small but select body. Every Wednesday (ha writee) we ■used' to dine together, and eachi member (we were five) invited one or two guesta Once assembled, they found themselves in a veritable Palace of Truth, where friend and foe were .criticised with uncompromising candour. On one occasion, when we were entertaining a young minister, who had just received his promotion, we all deplored the fact that he had thereby lest caste as a man of independent thought, only fit to be described as a "stipendiary echo." The phrase then coined is now in common circulation. Perhaps the moat memorable of our dinners was one in 1901, after a heated debate in the House about the detention in South Africa of a journalist named Cartwryrht. In the oouree of the discussion the "Hughligans" were divided, some supporting and the others denouncing the 'Governments of. the day. In the evening Mr Chamberlain was our only, guest, and I well remember him saying, almost before we had sat down to dinner, "Why on earth don't you .young men join to force some big question to the front, such as a reform of our Fiscal System and Preference for the Colonies ?" He then proceeded to develop the idea at some length, and a few years afterwards he reminded me that this was the first time he had ever mentioned "Tariff! Reform" insidto the walls of the House of CbmimonsIt was on the same evening that he asked whether the "Hughligans" had a motto; in a 'moment Hugh Cecil replied, "Yes: 'Purity, Parsimony, and the Persian Gulf " —referring to the subjects which were especially interesting to Winston Churchill, Percy, and himself. "Oh!" said Mr Chamberlain, not having forgotten our attack on the Government a few hours before, "I should have thought it was 'Profligacy, Personality, and the Press.' "