LITERATURE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3002, 27 September 1911, Page 86

LITERATURE.

BOOK NOTICES. "The Honourable Peggy," by G. B. Lancaster. London: Constable and Co. (3s 6d, 2s 6d.) In a subtil and charming way that reminds one not a little of mack's "Strange Adventures of a Phaeton," the clever New Zealand lady who chooses to veil her personality under the nom de plume of "G. B. Lancaster," gives us, in " The Honourable Peggy" a powerful story of human life and' motive, and of the love that ennobles all. She sets the same in an ever-moving panorama of changing landscape, sun and shade, beautiful and majestic scenery, shot through and through with history, reminiscence, romance, and legend;" all that makes the real charm of an old country and which is never so fully appreciated as by "a child of the Outer Lands," who yet recognises himself as the heir to all that has gone to the making of the great country which he still calls "Home." Such a man is the hero of G. B. Lancaster's new book; and, seen thus through the eyes of a strong and virile colonial, who has been in many tough places and fought hard for standing room and a bit of bread; whose mind is hard and rough and bitter, with little inner sense of honour and no faith in man, but who yet nourishes a vein of romance, an artist's eye for beauty, a hero's understanding of heroism, and an outcast's hunger for peace, the Home Land assumes a new' beauty and dignity which almost amounts to consecration. In the character of Wylde the author attains art enormous success. He is, so to speak, the flower of all those strong men who have appeared in her previous pages, and given virility to "Jim of the Ranges," "Altar Stairs," "Sons o' Men," etc. They were depicted in their chosen environment at the outposts of Empire. Wylde as the prodigal son, not of a family but of a race, is suddenly recalled from these wanderings and introduced to his heritage. He is thus the fairy prince, the hero of song and legend, who comes to his own in proportion as he is able to grasp it, taking his kingdom by violence as he recognises his power to take it. the dramatis porsonee of this striking story are four in number —the colonel, his step daughter, his two adopted sons. The colonel, ' a fine, stern, tender-hearted old man with a passion.for making human experiments on great lines and endeavouring to solve iuch problems as: "Did luxury and opportunity cause a man's finer instincts to blossom or to stultify? Would a free life coarsen his aims and morals? Would a sheltered life cramp them? Was the virility born of the icugh battle for existence a more powerful factor in a life than the knowledge born of all the arts civilisation could give? And did these outer influences make much difference to the inner man after all?" The colonel's step-daughter, the Honourable Peggy Bouchier, the apple of his eye and a perfectly delightful young person, and the two young men — Surrey Guest and Wylde—-the objects and result of the colonel's greatest experiment. Twenty-five years before this story begins —and four or five years before Peggy was born —they were thrown into the colonel's hands by circumstances. "Surrey, born of good English stock, son of a man whom the colonel had loved, and who had died beside him on the Arghanistan border'; and Wylde, taken from a Winnipeg gutter, half-clad and wholly abusive, and yet vital with a native individuality which had forbidden the colonel to leave him to his fate." Surrey he had received into his home and brought up as his adopted son: Wlyde had been left in the hands of a Winnipeg solicitor with instructions to "hammer him straight and make a man of him." When the story opens Wylde has just come to England, and the colonel has informed the two young men —both equally indebt?d to his benevolenc'c —'that he will leave all that he possesses to the one who shall prove himself most worthy of it: and by way of tests—to learn in a few months what would ordinarily take many years to discover—he announces his intention of taking the three young people for a long motor tour through Southern England, Wales, and Scotland. The wisdom of this scheme is abundantly proved by the result. Surrey is a charming man of the conventional type, clean, large-limbed, perfectly groomed, delightful to look on, with perfect manners and a high sense of honour who has done "few things that ho was ashamed of and fewer still of which he had cause to be proud" ; whose sin was that of "the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin" : who put off all disagreeable things until "to-morrow." "He was in debt, but that troubled him not at all. To-morrow he would bo the colonel's

heir. To-morrow he would tell Peggy that he loved her. To-morrow he would really begin to mug up for his next exam.,'" and so on. Wylde was "a descendant of that mighty brood which England has bred and sent out to home where it would, and he had gained a new force from a new land, and the will of new ages was written in his bleed. His spirit was awake in him, keen, sharp, alert, as the sting of salt spray." He was a man of force and power and magnetic virility, whereas Surrey's easy life of small aims and small evils had left him half-hearted, "naked of initiative or resource." Such were the two contestants, and their trial was well designed. From the first 'Surrey pales before his rival. One must drive the car, and it is Wylde who learns the mechanism and is able to manage her with knowledge and accuracy. One must lay out the route and carefully plan every detail from day to day. Wylde does this. Gradually they all lean on him. Again, if the journey is to'be really enjoyable, the conductor must know something of the history and romance attaching to the country through which they go Wylde studies this half through the night, not that he may impress the others, but that he may really "know." Surrey "can't be bothered." He has scan it all before, it is "not worth while." On Peggy, as the primitive woman, in spite of social training and veneer, the essential masculinity of Wylde has its certain effect. She loves Surrey ; she has been brought up with him. and looks upon him .as her own. She is not blind to his faults, but in her loyalty she tries to hide them, and to spur him on to the effort which she knows to be so essential; but in his fatuous folly he refuses to follow her - lead or take her hints; he calls her "a sweet baby," and sinks himself into a slough of ease and false security, certain that she will marry him, and that he will inherit the colonel's wealth. The awakening is a rude one." Surrey himself alienates Peggy's, tender affection; and, with the sure instinct of a noble woman, she soon sees the true manhood that lies under Wylde's rough exterior. It is the old story, "We needs must love the highest when we see it." Peggy sees it. The colonel sees it. And in the end Surrey himself is magnanimous enough to acknowledge it: " 'I won't tell you that I consider you my equal,' he said quietly, 'because in some .ways you are my superior. ... I have wasted my powers. I have "lost what seems to me just now the only things I have ever cared for, because I am less of a man than you are. . . . My honour was weaker than yours.' " This is an exceptionally fine and powerful story. It shows great progress in the study and delineation of character and in the writer's own powers of self-restraint. It is a shop lesson, and one much needed, of the true uses of "the outposts of Elmpire." Its only fault is excessive length. The setting of history and romance, so delightful at first, falls naturally into the background as the human interest accumulates, intensifies, and: draws nearer to the great climax, and then the impatient reader gets a little weary of the most interesting description's, and begins to "skip," intending to return later on when he has "skimmed the cream." ■ It would have been better if, after the groat scene at Kingussie, the tour had come more quickly to an end ; but- this criticism is, in itself, a compliment, as it shows the dramatic power of tlh© author and the masterly manner in which she works up her climax so that the reader is impatient of a moment's delay, and feels that he mnst satisfy his curiosity at any cost. "The Honourable Peggy" is one of the few books that, when it is finished, you feel as if you could turn back and read all over again, and enjoy it more the second time than the first. And we feel that It is one of the few modern books that will "live" because of the essential truth that is in it. " Horses of the Hills." By Marie E. J. Pitt. Melbourne: Thomas C. Lothian. (cloth, gilt, 3s 6d.) There are passion and pathos and a real poetic flavour about these " songs of a wilding Australian harp," which will earn for the writer an assured place amid that band of Australian poets who are so bravely leading the van of our colonial literature. The name-poem is a spirited and inspiring lilt of the " white sea stallions " and their kindred " of the snows," sweeping over the hills when the winter is past and calling to their comrades, " Come home, white steeds, come home." Like most Australians, Mrs Pitt loves and understands horses, and perhaps touches her highest point in the fine verses " Ishmael " and " The Rebel," in which the free, untamed, unridden " horse of the hills " is the theme. But it is the sympathetic touch of the warm human heart which flames up at the thought of wrong or injustice wrought on those that cannot speak for themselves which will probably be the most widely appreciated. In " The Destroyers " she voices a strong protest against those women—-white-handed, soft and fair, Who kneel at the shrine of fashion, their watchword "Never spare " Who send their messengers from " the Poles to the burnt Equator," to tear from " the shuddering brute creation " the " glories " they would wear. Not less scathing are the lines on " The Heathen of To-day," who send forth the " Juggernauts of Trade " to feed the " altars of Black Competition while the people's veins run dry." In " The Keening " the author voices suffering of yet another class: — We are the women and children, Of the men that mined for gold. Heavy we are with sorrow, Heavy as heart can hold; Galled are we with injustice, Sick to the soul of lossHusbands, and sons, and brothers, Slain for the yellow dross. They mined like gnomes on the "faces," They choked in the " fraefceur " fumes, And your dividends paved the pathways

That led to their early tombs. "tej With Death in the sleepless night-shifit . « They diced for the prize ye drew: And the Devil loaded the pieces— But the stakes were held by you. We are the women and children, Of the men ye mowed like wheat: Some of us slaves for a pittance— r_ Some of us walk the street. jfc Bodies and souls .Ye have scourged us, «P Ye have winnowed us flesh from bone s But. by the God ye have flouted, We will come again to our own. Almost all Mrs Pitt's verses are a long • way above mediocrity and deserve a place on our shelves and in our memories.