LITERATURE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3006, 25 October 1911, Page 87

LITERATURE.

BOOK NOTICES. ."Lilamani : A Study in Possibilities." By Maud Diver. London : Hutchinson and Co. (3s 6d, 2s 6d.) In spite of Kipling's dictum that East and West can " never meet," Mrs. Maud Diver is daring enough to hold, and partly to justify, an opposite beiiet. We say "partly," because in spite of the excellent case made out in her new novel "Lilamani," the situations and principal characters are alike unique—a conjunction of circumstances and personalities m every wav exceptional. The story is that of the" marriage of a beautiiul, high caste Hindu girl with an Englishman of rank and character equal to her own : the flower of two races—individually free from prejudice, and yet inheriting in a marked and superlative .degree all those beliefs and observances which have built up the whole subconscious race-nature during countless generations. The author does not descend to compromises; she does not Anglicise her heroine or make a cosmopolitan of her hero. Lilamani (the name to be pronounced " Lee-la-mun-nee, signifying "Jewel of Delight") is the absolutely typical Hindu wife of. the highest caste, purdah for generations and aßsolutely free from any of those leanings towards Western freedom of which we have heard in many recent books. Her desire is literally "to her husband." He is her lord and her king, her "lord of lite. The Indian creed places " the woman, spiritually, higher than the man, because she alope is capable of conquest oi self for others." At the sa.me time it teaches her as the logical conclusion that it is her first dutv to " serve "—" that to accept service and devotion at her hands the greatest honour you can pay her." Therefore it is her great delight to spend and be spent in the service of those she loves. Such is the core of the Indian woman's credo (the " lamp hidden i.n her heart"), by the light of which many perplexities are " made plain." Mrs Diver does her utmost to elucidate this point of view in the object lesson of her heroine's personality, all pure Eastern of that high type of which Sita the great national epic, the Bamayana, is the example set before every Hindu wife as her ideal of attainment. Needless to say, such a wife requires an ideal husband, who is supplied in the present tale by Nevil Sinclair, heir to large estates and an English baronetcy, but also an artist and a poet to his finger tips. Hitherto Nevil has been an idler — too many-sided, with too little call to exert himself, " cursed by the ready-made income, plus family records." His real genius, inherited from his mother, and his most winning type of the artist temperament are waiting for an inspiration. The inspiraton comes with Liliamani, and he fulfils himself in his wife, receiving the greatest of all gifts, self-expression at her hands. But this result is not attained without suffering. The ideal of the Hindu wife, who lives only in her husband, requires for background the Hindu home life of "the inside," with its thousand interests and occupations, it 6 abundantly filled hours of domestic work and service—which is not accounted drudgery —religious duties, ceremonial visits, etc., which leave few idle hours, and little time for ennui and getting into mischief. So long as the honeymoon is spent in the warmth and solitude of the lovely Italian lakes, where Lilamani acts as her husband's model and constant companion, all is well; but when Nevil's father dies and he is called home to represent his family and take possession of his own, changes come. The conventional English life, its strange freedom, its curious society manners and customs, shock the susceptibilities of the Eastern girl, puzzle her will, and confuse her issue of right and wrong. She shocks and is shocked. The reader cannot but feel for the conventional " sister Jane" who stands for all the proprieties and resents "the marriage of the head of the family with a native,"' and the probability of the succession of " halfcaste sons," and for other less strenuous but equally narrow-minded persons who fail to understand " the beautiful Eastern love-bird," which no transplanting will convert into " an English barn-door fowl." In spite of his artist nature, Nevil cannot entirely understand the suffering of the exotic nature so suddenly transplanted into an alien soil. Her devotion to him personally serves to blind his eyes, and liis love of the bracing climate of his native land prevents his realising its inimical effect on his " child of the sun." Fortunately, his eyes are opened before it is too late, and he acknowledges not only his indebtedness to his beautiful and devoted wife, but his determination not to be out-done by her in self-sacrifice, but to give to her as freely as she had given to him. From his heart he assures her : " Once I shrank from the idea of a son handicapped by the stigma of mixed blood. Now —you being his mother—l refuse to admit the stigma. I see him as one who will have the strength of his handicap, as one doubly endowed with the best that two great races can give—the spirituality of the East, the power and virility of the West. One whose destiny it may be to draw these mighty opposites nearer together by his own intimate love and understanding of both. . . . And for your sake, and for the sake of all your inspiring love has given me, I promise never to grudgo India her share in the heart of my son."

"Winding Paths." By Gertrude Page. Sydney : William Dymock. (3s 6d, 2s

6d.) Below all its persiflage, lively incidents, and sparkling conversation, Gertrude Page's new novel, "Winding Paths," hides a deep, strong, esfrnest protest; on behalf of working women all ovei the world, but chiefly in Loiids:> With true understanding she dwells on the grey monotony, the laok of interest, the v.n.nt of sympathy in their lives. With gt;-u----ine enthufciaem the speaks of their cvar-

age and patience, their efforts to be bright and cheerful, and to " make the best of things." She draws a vivid picture of the return " home " of a poor music teacher to a dingy flat where "no one cares," and the woman prepares her own meal with no desire to cook or to eat it; without the will to live, but with a strong courage that will not permit her to die until the appointed time comes. Another woman—a Government clerk this time—returns from work to nurse a dying brother, and spends half .the night by his bed of pa.in, driven back to the office in the morning to earn a pittance to support both, yet deeming herself more fortunate than her house mate, inasmuch as she has some one to work for, and is not contemned to " the loneliness and lovelessness which are the supreme curse of a woman's life." Here, too, we meet the successful actress who has fame, success, money friends, amusements, gaiety, but has paid for them the price of a woman's worldly triumph—innocence and true love. The pure-souled, courageous heroine, Hal Pritchard, secretary and journalist, is an ideal woman's woman. She is able to see the best in all, and to take care of herself under any circumstance. She never judges, but is broad-minded enough to accept the facts of life and make allowances for different temperaments. A friend " made for adversity," and yst a delightful and stimulating companion at all times and under all circumstances, Hal always tries to " play the game " of life with directness and singleness of vision, accepting none of those excuses on her own behalf which she is willing to extend to others. Hal Pritcha.rd is one of the most satisfactory heroines that we have met for a long time. Her gift of repartee and good-natured sarcasm is inimitable, and the conversations between her and her friends—chiefly those of the opposite sex—are really sparkling, and often brilliant. Mrs Page's men are not quite so satisfactory as her women. It cannot be denied that Alymer Hermon is a prig; Sir Edwin Caithie, a cad; and Dudley Pritchard, a bigot; but that is just because two of the three are a little "too young," and the complex nature of the politician is of a type with which few women have sympathy or understanding; for one thing he voices the truly British prejudice against the woman worker, and fails to see the duty of the State to ameliorate the condition of the future " mothers of the. race," or to realise the fact that it is stern necessity rather than choice which often compels a woman to turn out into the world and seek a living for herself and others. "It is useless to cry out to such a woman that work and competition with men is unbecoming to her; she must work and she must compete, and, seeing this, it is surely time the British Government accepted the fact and took some definite steps to secure her welfare," to give her better conditionfs of work, better pay, shorter hours, less cruel competition. It is easy for "successful, comfortablyplaced elderly gentlemen " and " clever, intuitive, charming lady-novelists to harp upon the theme of home women and the home sphere, and the infinite superiority, in their own eyes, of the gentle, domesticated- home woman." Most working women have no choice in the matter, and the "rapidity with which a vacant place in their ranks is filled, and the numbers waiting for it, is surely sufficient proof, to say nothing of the pitiful conditions under which many cling to their posts." Mrs Page is not a rabid Suffragist, yet she adds to her simple statement the undoubted fact: "If better conditions for working women can only come through woman's suffrage, then woman's suffrage must surely come, because, whether British legislators care for the good of women or not, nature does care, and as the race moves forward she will see that her working women are protected." "Winding Paths" is a long and very full novel. It is crowded with characters and incidents. Three love-stories are brought to a more or less successful issue. Laughter and tears chase each other through the pages. There is sorrow and suffering, irreparable mistakes and plitfalls that might have been avoided; but, as in real life, all these struggles and failures make for character, and the strong men or women are those who have greatly dared and greatly suffered, but found courage to mount "on steppingstones of their dead selves Uo higher things."

" Benno, and Some of the Push." By Edward Dyson. Sydney: N.S.W. Bookstall Co. (Paper, coloured cover ; 16 illustration's by Norman Lindsay.

Of the "16 stories contained in this work the greater numbci have appeared in the Sydney Bulletin, which is a guarantee of their value. The style is broadly humorous, for they are really a continuation of the popular " Fact'ry 'Ands" stories which have proved so acceptable to many readers, and, like their predecessors, they are well calculated to while away an idle hour and provoke genial laughter. According to his own judgment, Benno is "a fair bonza," and generally manages to " get even " with his opponents.

"Gentleman Jack, Bushranger." By Don Delaney. Sydney: N.S.W. Bookstall Co. (Paper, coloured cover, 4 full-page illustrations. Is.)

The love of adventure will never cease so long as young blood flows in the veins of the British youth, whether bred in the Homeland or in the colonies, and of all forms of adventure those that may be included under the head of bush-ranging are not the least attractive. Mr Don Delaney is well aware of this fact, and his story of " Gentleman Jack" is all that could be desired in this line, and will be read with breathless interest by those who love the Robin Hood type of romance. LITERARY NOTES. Mr Thomas Hardy is revising bis novels for an edition which will appear in America, and no doubt also in England,

and which will have specially-written profaces.

next year—the great novelist was born on February 7, 1812—Messrs Thomas Nelson and Sons arc issuing a new edition of the works of Charles Dickens, price 2a each volume, handsomely bound in blur, cloth, and with all the original illustrations. ' Pickwick Papons," "David Copperficld," an 4 "Nicholas Nickleby" arc the first three volumes to appear. Miss Lilian Whiting, the American essayist and critic, has written a book on the ' Brownings and their lives and art. She has arrived (says the Chronicle) on our side of the Atlantic, and is to spend September in Venice, a city which sho kK-cws and loves. While she is in Italy she will visit Mr Robert Barrett Browning and his, cousin, Miss Elizabeth Barrett, at Asolo, some 30 miles from Venice. William Dean Howells has divided his summer between Kittery Point. Me, and Europe. He expects to reach Spain eventually, a country he has not visited for years. It is possible that this _ trip, like many earlier ones, may result in a book or travels. All his writings are at last being collected into a complete edition. During the last year he has written two books, ynd one of them, "My Mark Twain," Is likely to take its place among the best. The critic of the San Francisco Sun hits out straight from the shoulder in the following notice og a new book : —"One wonders at the temerity of a publishing house which ..lares to offer to the public 'The Strugglers,' by Uno Upton. It is the most hopeless and utter trash from beginning to end, and is not worth the paper upon which it .is n-rinW. J* i# ayidently the work of some amateur who wished to see himself in print. The book has not one •good point '" Messrs Methuen and Co. announce a new novel by Miss Dolf Wyllande, "The Unofficial Honeymoon." She has gone to Polonesia for her setting. The book is a study of the effect of extraordinary circumstances upon two totally different characters; a man and a woman, the sol-e survivors of a wreck, on a desert island. They are also bringing out a new novel by Miss S. Macnaughten, entitled "Peter and Jane," the eoenes in which are laid in the Argentine Republic, the plot dealing with the finding of a man who has been missing since infancy. Still another lady novelist, Mrs George Norman, will publish, through them, "Delphino Carfrey," which sh© describes as "the story of a young woman of the great world—the story of her soul and of her life, of what she valued and what sho threw away." An extremely active literary woman died at Kelso, Scotland, a few weeks ago in Miss Anna M. Stoddart, the only daughter of Tom Stoddart, the " Angler Poet of the Tweed." She was 74 years of age, and had been practically all her life a member of a literary set. For a time she lived! in London, and there taught and wrote much. Her works include the "Lives" of her close friends, Professor Blackie, Mrs Bishop (the traveller). Mrs Pease Nichol, and Miss Hannah Pipe She also wrote biographies of St. Francis of Assisi and Sir Philip Sidney; and a monograph on Jacopone da Todi. She was preparing a life of Paracelsus at the time of her death. Mr Justin M'Carthy, who is engaged in bringing his "History of Our Own Times" up to date, will also publish shortly a book of "Irish Reminiscences." .Though Mi- M'Carthy left his native city of Cork before he was in the thirties, his life was much linked up with the political fortunes of Ireland,. and at the age of 80 he still retains a Cork brogue as fresh as though he had left the city but yesterday. As an active participant, says the Daily News, in the struggles which led to the downfall of Parnell, Mr M'Carthy should have something interesting to say about the personal side of the quarrel, and that generosity which characterises all his judgments is sure to prevent him from offending- the susceptibilities of any party in Ireland. The question of the status of the short story in public taste has been raised by Mr Wells in the preface to "The Country of the Blind, and Other Stories." The present age" he considers—-and I am bound t) agree with him—inferior to tho last decade of the nineteenth century as an appreciator and producer of short stories. It is not easy to say why this shouid 1 be so, but the fact is plain and obvious. People do not like short stories with any subtlety or pretensions to literature. They prefer •a simple yarn with a thrill, or what is known as a "heart interest" : above all, it must end prettily and happily and soon. Readers of short stories abhor temperament, psychology, atmosphere, and other qualities dearly beloved of the literaryminded person. The result is to be seen in the vapidities of the popular magazine story, frankly written to pattern and for cash—an unabashed commercial product, and not good even on its own lines, when compared with the similar products in the American magazines. The Rev. Thomas Phillips, of Bloomsbury, who has been on a literary tour to the United States, has been giving th-e British Weekly some account of his wanderings. He spoke with enthusiasm of the royal names of Boston. "For producing such a galuxy of great men," he said, "there has been no place to equal it except Athens. Think of Emerson and Longfellow, Hawthorne and Holmes, Lowell and) Whittier, Thoreau and Alcott, Channing and Parker, Phillips andi Sumner—all living about tho same time. ... I asked a lady student from tho west, who rather sneered at Boston, 'Tell me what other city has produced so largo a number of great men as Boston.' Who are the men produced by New York?' She answered, 'Oh, New York has produced no one except Teddy, and Teddy is 90 par cent, a Westerner.' " All the shrines in and! about Boston were visited by Mr Phillips. "It was," he says, "delightful to go into Longfellow's study and see his books and desk, just as hie left them. There were the stairs along which the grandchildren in ' The Children's Hour' came down to pounce upon him like Indians; there- was also tifio arm-chair made from the wood of 'the spreading chestnut tree,' and presented to the poet by the school ohildren of Cambridge.'* Special interest attaches just now (when Italy is deliberately assailing tho Moslem power) to Dr Duncan Macdonald's newly-published book on "Aspects of Islam." The author believes that "if the <B8B«*l S&5&&OA! pf the masses of Isiam is raised an dthe facts of the life of Muhammad become more widely known, a tremendous overturning will be inevitable." Already many educatedl Turks and Egyptians ar« not far from throwing Mam

overboard. A great change is taking pliJco in Islam itself:—"lts attitude just now is far more conscious than it ever was before. It is no longer developing and advancing, or slumbering and mouldering, at any rate following its nature in happy unconsciousness; but its back is at the wall, and it looks upon an order of things, hostile now. not only militantly, but, what is far more deadly, economically. This situation Islam hag realised, and is realising more and more widely with every year that passes It is not only the young men in the cities who arc facing a new future. In the villages and even in the recesses of the desert itself the consciousness is awakening that all is not well with the People of Muhammad They all know how Arabi Pasha was crushed at Tel-el-Kebir, how the Fulani Emirates went down, and how, in these last days, the Mahdi and his rule have been swept from the Sudan. It has gone ill with militant Islam, and when Islam is not militant it dreams away its life in slow decay." —■ Next to the French Revolution, tht. largest output of romantic fiction must probably be credited to the '45. While, however, the former is steady, the latter is somewhat spasmodic: sometimes there is almost a glut, and sometimes there appears to be neither demand nor supply. For quite a long time, in this sense, "The Fair White Rose" has so far "faded In the garden where it grew" that Mr Halliwell Suteliffe's new novel, published by Fisher Unwin, has. in addition to its other merits, the freshness of a revival. Mr Sutcliffe has taken for his them® the innate, unreasoned loyalty, reckless of all things save Faith and Honour, which led men straight, and, with their own full knowledge, to ruin, exile, and Tower Hill. It is not only his theme, but his inspiration—he writes with enthusiasm for the men, and for the l women too, who suffered with them or for them: almost for their cause. His principal character is one Rupert Royal, who, despised, and even self-despised, as a mere scholarly dreamer, proves himself a hero by force of that sarnie Faith and Honour, and, if we must add, of Love also—well, novelists have not boen bold enough to_ dispense with the conventions of their art,* and the heart of Nance Demaine was as worth the winning as the cause was worth trying to win. As to how the cause might have been won, Mr Sutcliffe is much too hard on Lord George Murray—whom he persistently calls "Lord Murray" —for the retreat from Derby. That was the sole hope of saving the little and da.ily dwindling force from certain annihilation: it was the crossing of the Border that lost the cauG3 of the White Rose. At any rate, he has entirely spoiled the true story of Flora Macdonald by giving it a sentimental turn. Miss Annesley Kenealy's new novel, published by Long, does not shirk the presentation of the soul-disturbing elements of real life: It is, in fact, so plain-spoken that those who care merely for romancD a.nd reticence in their fiction should leave it severely alone.. We are face to face with mcdlern men and women,- and are shown pictures of life as it is lived. The novel, though tractarian in tendency, is not "preachy." It illustrates the need for casier divorce-, for eugenical reasons, in the case of James Miller —a man chained by the wedding-ring to an irreclaimable dipsomaniac; and in the life-story of the "heroine" Madeline we have a powerful text in favour of the economic independence of women. The book is of unequal quality. There are pages of brilliant conversation put into the mouth of Lord Alan Ashton and his smart society set, and there are the delightful and quite unexpected, epigrams of. the Wise Old Lady which enliven the narrow provincial and Grundyish circle to which Madeline belongs. On the other hand, Madeline's sentimental rhapsodies over her lover (when at long last she experiences a spiritual as well as bodily mating) are monotonous and inartistic. gives an insight into the social life of those engaged in constructing the Panama Canal. One of the characters, in describing the life, says:—"lt's even harder on the women folks, for they can't findi anything to kick about, so they fuss with one another and with us. They have clubs, you know, to improvo things, but there s nothing to improve. We had a social warover a button. One clique wanted a club emblem that would cost a dollar and a-half. while the other faction were in favour of a dollar button I tell you it was septus. Then, too, we're all tagged and labelled like cans of salmon with the price mark on—we can't four flush. You can tell a man's salary by the number of rockingchaiTs in his house, and the wife of a fellow who draws 1800dol a year can t asso-, ciate with a woman whose husband makes 2500d01. They are very careful about such things. We go to the same dances on the same dates, wo dance with the same people to the same tunes by the same band, and when we get offl in some corner of the same verandah in search of the same old breeze, which we know is blowing at precisely the same velocity from the usual quarter, our partners tell us that Colonel So-and-So laid 427 more cubic yards of concrete this week than last, or that fiteam shovel No. 23 broke the record again by 80 yards. It's hell!" Do you blame him? No, indeed. But when Anthony asks him why ho doesn't quit, his answer is characteristic for all that, "Quit! What for? Good Lord ! Wo like it.' " Miss Cynthia Stockley, in "Virginia of the Rhodesians," shows, as in "The Claw," how well she knows that country. This book gives us in seven chapters, purporting to be seven short stories, the Btory of several years' existence in Rhodesia, of Virginia Chanbrooke and Gayer Waybrant. Virginia lives part of the time with her brother and his wife in the small _ town of Salisbury in Mashonalan-d. and is in the very thick oi the colonial life. The people are of the armv and the diplomatic and civil service, and remind one of the characters in some of Kipling's pictures of Indian social life. The people who are not attached to any branch of the service a.ro rather questionable men and women who, you may be sure, have something queer in their pasts or they would not choose tlie life on the frontiers of the British Empire. The time of these adventures is before the first Matabele war, in the days of Rhodes, and life was not all peace and calm. The natives were dangerous and constantly threatening attacks on the small towns, and frequently a man whom all knew well would be killed on some little expedition. Ths social life was much the same then as fi3s3, filled for both men and women, with flirtations more or less serious, and frivolities which are empty, and unsatisfying. Virginia's character develops in this atmosphere, and one scarcely wonders at her cynicism and worldlinesa.

Then, too, she had the misfortune to fall "in love with a man who was in love with a woman who was in love ■with someone else who was dead." This state oi mind makes Virginia very unhappy and even reckless, so she goes down into Durban for a change, and there meets Anthony -Sumare-z. This whirl is dealt with in a chapter entitled "'Wild Oats' and 'The Way of a Serpent on a Rock.' " At tho end of this—and really it is only an accident that saves her—tho real romance of the story happens and Virginia finds herself. The book is well written, and filled with little epigrammatic turns and twists, almost quotable; it is well worth reading.