LITERATURE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3015, 27 December 1911, Page 86

LITERATURE.

BOOK NOTICES. "Spinners in Silence," by Rachel Swete Macnamara. London and Edinburgh : W. Blackwood and Sons. (3s 6d, 2s 6d.) "The Spinners in Silence" are, of course, the Fates; and of them it has been written, "We know not whether they laugh at our tragedies or weep at our comedies." The story which is here told is . charming, dainty, fantastic, largely compact of dreams and of the long, long thoughts of youth, and it is wisely dedicated to "the Understanding .Person," who may be able to interpret the dreams and read between the lines, or rather beneath them, for the text is really a palimpset, the charm and the mystery lying in the half obliterated manuscript of the first writing. The scene of the story is laid in Brittas, wherever that* may be. Some people think in Ireland, but the author and the "understanding" reader know better. It is in that land, "east of the sun and west of the moon," where a man and a maid may grow up in unimagined purity and be neither foolish nor ignorant, nor afraid. A dream land of Arcady. Of course the witchwoman comes to trouble the dream with her "measured paces" and "waving hands" ; her fatal knowledge of evil and disbelief in good. She comes from the sea—flotsam and jetsam of a wrecked yacht,—and some think her to be a true woman and others know her to be a mermaid seeking for a soul. Pitiless and self-centred, as are all the Undine tribe, Mareotis stretches her hands towards the Dreamer, whose personality charms, while his innocence torments, her. " 'Do you never talk sense?'" she asks. And he illudes her, answering with some quaint conceit or dream-fancy, which she cannot understand. Then she turns her eyes, "deep and still and black, like bog-pools," upon him, and all at once he knows '-'how easily a man might be drawn into those depths and drowned. To his higher nature she made no appeal; he had no spiritual need of her; they owned few common meeting-places, fewer common mutual comprehensions. Yet the fascination which exhaled from her, subtle, as if distilled from the flower of all femininity, enveloped him in a compelling twilight of attraction—a twilight lit by strange moons, and scarlet and purple blossoms. It was an allurement of the senses only, and of this he was quite aware. He felt angry with himself for experiencing it, and strove against the spell with the impulse of a clean, wholesome nature." And because of his pure life the struggle is successful, so that the temptress is compelled not only to own her defeat, _ but to accept it with a strange humility. "'You live on fancies,' she said; 'but you have clean hearts, and white souls, and ideals; and though I sometimes g'*.impatient with you, you've taught me things since I came here. Tell me truly, have I harmed you? Have I injured you in any way? Have I done you any harm?' " And the girl who thinks that the witch-woman has stolien her lover answers bravely, " 'No. I hurt myself. It's a long tumble from first place to second.'" It is impossible to give in a few words the real charm of this book. It is illusive, but strangely insistent. It has all the spell of early summer i,i a fairy-land. The tang of the sea is in the air; the scent of a thousand flowers rioting in the sun; the wide spaces of a great wood; the tangle of sweet-scented underbrush; the crisp turf at the cliff's edge; the song of sea-birds and landbirds, and the cooing of doves. All are there, and a thousand other country sights and sounds. And the pipes of Pan, and the vision of disappearing' Dryads, and the strange woman from the sea; and behind all the "Silent Spinners," weaving, weaving, splicing, cutting, laughing, weeping; and all those other classic fancies with which poets have played from the beginning of the world, translating them into folk-lore and fairy tales, which none but the initiated can ' understand. And withal the storv is intensely human with its glamour of first love, its pang of _ parting, its childish power of "make believe, ' and its strong undercurrent of righteousness, purity, and the charity that sees no evil. " 'lf you peered into the dark corners of the world you would only see what was pitiful and sorrowful. You Avould not even see that the corners were dark.'" In this, surely, we have the secret of the love which redeems, being "of purer eyes than to behold iniquity." Even the witch-woman from the sea, whese soul is so rudimentary, catches this strange infection of righteousness, and with "a glow of exaltations gives royally what is not hers to give," and yet shall not "the intention of that gift" le counted as "against the futility of the action." It may be that "the Spinners" alone are responsible, but mortals still like to dream of free will. When the strange woman has gone, having done her work, the two that are left find their way into that land which "no man can enter alone" and listen to "the oldest and most wonderful language in the world . . . the language of the lark, the stream, the wood dove. Mareotis was torgotten. There was nothing more to think of. . . • Time was not. . . . Past

pangs, tremors, doubts, self-denials were swept away on the wings of understanding. They nassed hand in hand through 'the high rose hedge of Paradise."'

'Miranda Stanhorae." By Mrs Mactier. author of ''Hills of Hauiaki,'' "<tc. Auckland: The Brett Printing (\>mpany. (3s and 25.)

This is a story of Auckland in the .early days, and will there-fore be full of interest to most colonials. Miranda and two sisters land in Auckand in 1863 with the intention of starting a school for girls. They are well equipped for the work, being of good family and well educated. They have introductions to the Governor and the Bishop, and are most kindly received. Their early experiences are not very trying, and thev soon marry. The two elder sisters many well; but Miranda is tecs fortunate : her husband is a hand--0^ 1 ' dissi P ated > ill-tempered, and selfish. She has many painful experiences, the most thrilling being that of the Te JV.ooti massacre in Terra-ora Bay, from •/u J£* ? nd ller two Kttle boys escape with difficulty. Stanhope thinks "thev are dead, goes to Icnga, and marries again. Miranda, glad to be rid of him, supports the children by keepino- a little shop He returns penitent after the death of the second wife, and Miranda forgives him, but he speedily gets into fresh troubles, and 13 finally killed in the eruption of larawera. Miranda is a sweet and gentle woman, whose many troubles only add to her charms, her personality, and the picture of Auckland in the old days; tfc * troubles with the Maoris, the risks and dangers to which the pioneer settlers were often exposed, form a real'stic narrative of a period which is already almost forgotten, and will certainly interest many readers.

Captain KLek, a Romance of Marseilles " By W. F. H. London : Watte and Co. (da net.) [Reviewed by "Dinomis."] Judged as what it purports to be—a romance, —this literary aspiration Jmust be sot down a s an effective failure. The story of a,n English family temporarily settied m Marseilles, it reads at the outride like the diary of a smug, self-satis-hed, and offensively respectable person <■>■"„ isswci witn tne iooa of nis own importance. There is a governess—Martha bv name,—the heroine of the piece, and very reminiscent of East London melodrama is her characterisation. As for the rest, of the people who figure in these pages, beyond the fact that they all talk in a marvellously stilted way, they can hardly be e aid to exist as other than names. The prosy utterances they give forth are pedantic, stodgy, and dull to a degree. In between the reader is treated to banal trivialities about missed breakfasts, slight colds, and descriptive and reri&ctive passages of surprising ineptitude. Quite superfluous French words and phrases are sprinkled over every page in a manner that could not fail to irritate the average reader. The plot is invertebrate. The scene shifts to London, then to Egypt-, and, later, to Italy, where Martha dies of la grippe, melodramatic to the last. The truest word that can be said of the whole production is that the second half Of the book is much worse than the first. The narrator, while posing as an exemplar of English middle class piety and morality, in one passage tells how he and his wife found that Martha had hictden away her husband's letters with baffling secrecy. It never seems to have dawned upon the author's mind that to poke and pry. in a young woman's room seeking to find and read her letters was in anyway an outrage upon honour or decency. .Nowadays many romances issue from the press because the vanity of their authors is efficiently backed by the stuffing of their purses. We can hardly imagine a publisher so lacking in discrimination as to take the risk of producing an effort like "Captain Klek" at his own cost. It is only right to say that in this case the publishers have done their part in turning the book out in the excellent style that is usual with them.

"Brave Citizene." [By F. J. Gould, author of "The Children's Book of Moral Lessons," etc. London: Watts and Co. (Is net.) [Reviewed by -•'Dinornis."] litis little book, we are old, is intended to be used as a lesson or reading book for schools, and its primary object is to inculcate a love of peace. Mr Gould's several volumes of "Moral Lessons" are exceedingly well adapted for such a purpose, and are so used by the thousand in the Board Schools ,of England. But "Brave Citizens" is even better adapted to be given into the hands of the child itself—whether boy or girl. The author has long since niastered the art of telling a story in the way to interest, charm, and instruct the eager young reader. The many tales of pioneering achievement, personal heroism, large-hearted charity, and noble self-sacrifice in many countries and in all kinds of spheres of life, are full of great and worthy- appeal to the better side of our common human nature. Lifeboat .and lighthouse building; episodes of exploration, in Australia especially ; slave-freeing in the Southern States of America; lumbering in Wisconsin; the Red Cross League; the triumphs of the plough, of irrigation; cable-laying on the ocean floors; and a hundred other matters all skilfully and charmingly treated in such ways that the great triumphs of head and *heart and hand stand forth with irresistible fascination. Towards the end is a series of paragraphs—one for each country—" Salute the Flag," which could be used with capital effect as the ground work of addresses to senior boys by school teachers or masters. But, indeed, every page of the book might well be turned to account as a brightening and humanising leaven to the arid dough of the average school curriculum. Mr Gould was for many years a school teacher himself, and an'active and esteemed member o c . the School Board of Leicester. Several of his works of kinds kindred to the present have been translated into various languages for educational purposes, an edition in Hindustani for use in Indian schools being the latest to have this honourable distinctioa given them.

LITERARY NOTES. The Bodleian Library (Oxford) sold its copy of the first folio edition of SnaJtespeare for a few shillings when the second edition was published, and 250 years later they had to pay £3OOO to get the same book back again. What a wonderful year it lias been for books is perhaps best exemplified by the lists in the New York Times, where, under the heading-of "A Thousand New Books of the Autumn," actually a thousand titles are given of recent and forthcoming publications in all branches of literature. .. -r- The average novel —that is to say, a story of ordinary attractiveness, written by a man who may be fairly well known—circulates to the extent of five hundred or a thousand copies in a country with millions of readers. The number is more often nearer the lower than the higher figure.—Academy. A remarkable family record is set forth in Colonel Arthur Doyle's volume "A Hundred Years of Conflict," which comprises biographical sketches of "the services of eix generals of the Doyle family." It is said that a Court official, who had made a mistake in sending out an invitation, excused himself by saying, "Thcro are so many- -Sir Doyles,' I never can distinguish between them." "In that case," the King replied—it was George IY, by the way —"it is just as well that they have taken good car© to distinguish themselves.!' —ln his volume "Masters of English Journalism," Mr T. H. S. Escott refers to the Junius letters and Philip Francis, and says that "Abraham Hayward told me in the last year of his life that the first Lord Holland, who gave Francis his start in official life, had bequeathed evidence of one kind or another which should satisfy all 6ane persons as to the impossibility of Philip Francis having been Junius." This testimony fully accords with that of C. W. Dilke, who devoted much time to the study of the question,- as well as the conclusions of Mr Frascr Rae. —■ "I am told by the booksellers," writes C K. S., in the Sphere, "that one novelist who has attained to great and unbounded popularity in the past is having a. very bad time indeed, the huge sales of the paet not being- repeated—at least, not to anything like the same extent—with this writer's latest novel. The novelist in question has for some years not sent books to the reviewers, but I doubt very much if that course will be repeated when the next. novel appears from the same pen. I anticipate that the novelist in question will then come to the wise conclusion that it is much better to be attacked in the newspapers of the day than to be ignored." —Mr Harold Begbie has just written a remarkable book on India. It is "a study of the peoples of India, with particular reference to the collision between Christianity and Hinduism." It is a companion volume to Mr Begbie's "Broken Earthenware," of which no fewer than 160.000 have been fold. It is called, "Other Sheep" (Hodder and Stoughton) from the words, "Other sheep I have "which are not of this fold." This-is how India impressed Mr Begbie. "It is as if humanity had chosen Europe for its line of inarch and made Asia its perpetual camp of rest, as if the West represented the creative weakdays of mankind and the East its everlasting Sabbath."

Literature to-day, roughly, can be divided into two sections. The first—of course by far the larger—consists of a vast weight of formless printed matter, madeup of collections of dead and stale words. A profound gloom enfolds us thinking of or wading in this awful welter of human energy. The second class consists of a comparatively small but clearly a growing, body of more fastidious work by, not perhaps creative, still cleA-er minds, rather superficial it may bo, seeming-good, not actually good, g-littaring Avith the false shine that cheats these who were born to be cheated in these matters; ©till glittering—which no doubt is something.—Saturday Review.

A contributor to the Author has" discovered that a Society for the Protection of Authors was founded as long ago as 1735. Authors themselves were not members of the society, which was instituted for their benefit by noblemen and gentlemen, who suscribed two guineas annually in addition to an entrance fee of ten guineas. Their purpose, as defined by themselves, was, "To assist authors in the publication and to secure to them the entire profits of their own works." That is to say, they published books, but took no fees for doing so. They were amateurs, however, engaged in trade in competition with professionals, and their enterpriso was unsuccessful. The society was wound up in 1749, and the balance in hand (£2O 12s) was presented to the Foundling Hospital. Bovnc" published by Martin Seeker, Mr Mr Demetrius Charles Boulger presents a history of Irish affairs during the four years following the Revolution, of which the Battle of the Boyne was the principal event. The book opens with th.e flight of James II to St. Ger mains, and closes with the peace of Rvswick. Much new material (says the Westminster Gazette) preserved in the collections of the French War Department, and bearing on William Ill's Irish campaigns, has been utilised by the author. Macaulay. according to him, appears to have consulted these historical documents in a perfunctory fashion. Be this as it may, Mr Boulger claims to have presented a new aspect of the work of the French allies of James and the behaviour of the Irish soldiers. The latter portion of the book deals, among other matters, with lite formation of the Irish Brigade and its first Mr Sidney Low, in a volume on De Quincey, gives a quantity of interesting chat about Coleridge, Limb, Christopher North, and others. Lamb and De Quincey, wo are told, were men of principle who agreed to take a great deal of wine (port!) "during dinner —none after it." Indeed, "after'it" Lamb fell ..-sleep. By his own acconni De Quincey did not go on with the port, but sat and watched the Endymion, whose slumbers were reckoned beautiful by manv observers. As for De Quincey, asMr Low writes, "he perceived that his opium-eating was a first rate literary asset, and he made the most of it." He made too much of it; he was always harping on it, and, in truth, it did much for him, gave him a cachet, and excused that lack of practical things in which be, not hypocritically, outuid Harold Skimnolo without Harold's mean hypocrisy. There "were dreams to sell," and _ to tell, and Do Quincey bought them with opium at a great price, and lived his vagrom, toilsome later life in the strength of them. At Edinburgh he began to blososom as a, talker about 4 o'clock in the morning. His health did not suffer from his habit, apparently;

in youth' he could walk with Christopher North, who, reaching- a loch 14 miles from home, walked back for his fly-hooks, returned to the loch, and walked home after fishing-. In old age De Quincey could still walk down younger men, and much of his best literary work was done after he reached the age of 60. Mr Low thinks that he exaggerated the completeness of hie collapses; he was heightening the colours of his autobiographical romance. Probably he did not "lose all power of systematic thought and regular study." Probably he never possessed the si.