LITERATURE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3097, 23 July 1913, Page 78

LITERATURE.

BOOK NOTICES. “The Silence of Men.” By H. E. Prevest Battersby. London ; John Lane, “The Bodley Head.” (5s fid, 2s 6d.) Mr Battersby's books are always worth serious consideration. He is one ct the few modern novelists who take account of the business of life as well as of its pleasures, and hold that the noble ideal of “Duty,” at whatever cost of personal sacrifice, is still the true motive power of the best type of Englishman—the men who made, make, and keep the Empire. John March is such a man: one of hundreds scattered all over the British possessions; “Wardens of the Marches”; minor officials acting as Residents in Native Courts; captains of small bands on frontier outposts; military men who do civilian’s work; civilians who take up sword and rifle, when needed. Men who never say. “It is not mv job; let someone else do it” ; but throw themselves at once into the breach with the stern determination to carry all before them, not for their own sakes, perhaps not for the sake of their country alone, but for that high ideal of responsibility and duty which has made England what' she is. These are the men of “the dominant race,” by whose might the adjective has been gained, by whom its prestige is maintained; and without whom its “dominance” would soon become a thing of the past. When Englishmen as a whole learn to prefer pleasure to duty our land will be doomed and its rapid decadence will be near at hand. These men of Empire are always silent men; partly from habit because they live so much alone, but more from the natural self-independence which makes them what they are. As a rule they know little of women, and avoid them as much as possible; but they fall an easy prey to the skilled huntress. Mr Battersby divides his book into two parts —“The Silence Imposed” and “The Silence Imposing.” In the first we see John March in his typical environment, the little native State of Rathor, acting as “guide, .philosopher, and friend” to the Maharajah; suggesting and carrying outworks of philanthropy and progress; planning canals and railways, administering justice, and—when necessary—organising and superintending relief works. Helen March keeps house for her brother, and is the ideal Englishwoman in India, standing by her men folk and taking hard things patiently and cheerfully. To them enters Lynne Ashburton, a ship acquaintance, wlio early marks down the reticent soldier as her prey. Lynne is a very attractive, and a very subtle young person. “She was incapable of passion, but she could feel a sentimental fervour which she mistook for it.” Her tenderness is no pretence ; but it is a short-lived flower, and fades quickly when confronted with the real difficulties and discomforts of the position. So long as she is the centre ot John’s attention she is content, but she soon becomes bitterly jealous of his high 'deals and his obedience to the call of duty. Again and again she pits her feeling* against bis principle, and always to suffer defeat. “I ask you not to go just for my sake. It’s so lonely here without you. and this weather makes me feel wretched, and I don’t know how I shall live, expecting every moment to hear that something dreadful has happened to you. Do stay.” A request which he knew not how to answer, the more so “because it was one which in India no wife would dream of making. Hie acceptance by her man of every sort of danger being in the commonplace ordering of their Jives.” But Lynne cannot understand or endure the seeming neglect, and though she is secretly married to March (circumstances rendering this action necessary), she runs away with a frivolous, impecunious young lord Ling, lier .choice being rather “ a counsel of despair than one of cupidity,” since lie was the only man available. March borrows a motor car and tries lo cut her off at a cross station, driving all night through a desolate and unknown country and arriving at the station in time to receive a telegram entreating his immediate return, an insurrection having broken out, and two Englishmen killed. Once more he is confronted with the choice between duty and desire, and once more there is no hesitation. Ho watches the express train bearing the runaway flash past him, unstopped, and quietly returns to the post of danger and of duty. Thun is the “Silence Imposed.” For Lynne, careless of bigamy laws, marries Lord Rupert Dorrington, and sends John notice to that effect. Years after, these two meet again. John is still held by his vow of silence, and poses as a bachelor. Lynne tries to bend him to her will, but it is too late; she is powerless to touch him. Then falls the bolt from the bine. He falls in love with another woman, and she returns his passion. How this difficulty is surmounted. John March still maintaining the “silence” to which he is pledged, shows Mr Battersby *s rare skill as a storyteller and introduces us to another “silence,” almost as heroic as that of March. I he story is a fine piece of work and well worth reading, As wo have said, it touches a much higher note than is usual in the average novel of the day. It shows some excellent character-drawing. It breathes the real atmosphere andfspirit of the Indian frontier. Many of the scenes are most powerful and thrilling: tlie.se include a hoarhunt and the night drive already referred to Mr Battersby is an idealist and an artist. His stvle is vivid, powerful, and picturesque. “The Silence, of Men” is a book to read and remember. • ‘The Mormons.” Bv Winifred Graham. London ; Hurst and Blackett (3s 6d. 2s fid.) Winifred Graham has taken a prominent part in the anti-Mormon campaign carried on for the last two years in England. Her works of fiction on the subject having been widely read, she now desires to sin e that real history lies behind her

fictitious characters, almost every incident in her Mormon novels being founded on fact. Her present volume contains a short, concise, and popular history of the “movement,” showing how it originated, and letting in countless sidelights on a very interesting topic. Commencing with tire preparation and discovery of the mythical “Golden Plates,” describing the shameful “Meadow Massacre,” and “The Handcart Pilgrimagge,’ she continues her history of “The Latter-day Saints” down to the latest date of modern Mormonism, showing how Prussia has taken the lead in driving them out of that country and how Sweden has followed suit, and ending with the impassioned entreaty: “Prussia has given the lead in stopping this gruesome traffic in young women, under the dastardly cloak of religion, by expelling the procurers from her country. Will our Government take this matter in hand? That is the cry of those who really understand what this movement means. If not, the people themselves must join hands to drive such ‘white-slave’ traders from our shores, and so crush out the poison in their midst.” “The Caliusac Mystery.” By K. and H. Hesketh-Pritchard. London : Methuen and Co. Melbourne: G. Robertson and Co. (3s fid, 2s 6d.) The “mystery” is not of a very profound nature, and the expert novel-reader knows all about it even though he is not taken into the authors’ confidence. But, as a novel of character. “ The Cahusac Mystery ” certainly merits a high place. Very careful and sympathetic observation has gone to the presentation of the characters of Malcolm Cahusac and the two women with whom he is in love. Malcolm is young, well-bred, well-born, physically strong, but roo highly strung. The mystery surrrounding his father's tragic death “ gees on his nerves,” to use a modern phrase, and in his efforts to disentangle it it becomes one of those obsessions which might lend a weaker mind into an asylum. It makes Malcolm moody, taciturn, unwilling to accept love and sympathy when offered to him. In the two women we find the opposing types which are most attractive to men. Alice Laneeley is gentle, sweet, clinging, unselfish, craving for love and the permission to spend her all in the service of those she loves—she gives her whole fortune to a spendthrift brother and is willing to sell herself in marriage with the same object. Lorrie Madeeson, on the other hand, is a strong woman, able to support, encourage, and nerve a man for the battle of life, capable of strong passion, absolute devotion, steadfast endurance. Alice’s weakness is her strength; it appeals to all the protective instincts in man. Lorrie’s strength is her weakness ; it blinds her lover to the true tenderness beneath. The contest between these three forms the real interest of the tale and is admirably described. “Golden Vanity.” By Maisie Bennett. London: Mills and Boon. (3s fid, 2s fid.) This is a novel by a new author who has the power of creating a plot apd working it out to. a dramatic climax, and of showing us many bright and life-like glimpses of men and manners on the way. It is, in brief, the story of a girl—Jea.n nette-—orphaned by disaster, and brought up in a charity school of the most unpleasant type, where everything is done to repress and crush out the individuality of the children, but where Jeannette, thanks to her finer nature, is neither crushed nor brutalised. A fire in the institution transfers the child of 14 to a branch building already overcrowded, whence “a place” is quickly found for her. This is the first step on the upward ladder. Jeannette proves herself a faithful friend and nurse to her employer, and after many trials and troubles, many vicissitudes and pull-backs, she fights her way to success through the medium of the stage. Fate sends across her path in early womanhood a man whom, as a boy, she had played with in stolen moments at the orphanage. Donald Scott has developed into a rising author and man-of-letters, with a vivid imagination but an instinctive recoil from the seamy side of life. Urge! by/a feeling of sympathy for the class from which she has herself risen, and the dramatic instinct for truth in delineation which can only come from actual experience, Jeannette urges her lover “ to reconquer his world, handicapped by the poverty and social obscurity that he has never known.” He is vouim enough to accept the challenge, and strong enough to win through the test, finding in the process many things hitherto undi earned of in his philosophy. Jeannette, until his return” is left with the cold comfort of a theory carried out, and to the empty, “Golden ‘Vanity” of her dearly-bought success. She realises that she has gambled with, and perhaps lost, her happiness. and looks forward with trembling uncertainty to the success or failure of the great experiment. The scenes of the book”are chiefly laid in London, and the minor characters belong to tlie theatre or to the “ mean strtels ” of the city. 1 he first part of the book has an atmosphere of glitter and glow and laughter, giving place in the second part to the chill, grey light of iindec-oratcd reality that shrouds the land of poverty and lost hopes. In the end the brighter touch returns, and the two young people who have tasted the hardships and stern realities of life are permitted to wander for a time “among the lilies” in the “Land of Romances.” “ A Runaway Ring.” By Mrs Henry Dudenov. London: W. ifeinemann (3s fid. 2s fid.) The setting of this novel, partly in a village near the South Downs, in Sussex, ami partlv in an old-fashioned house in Highbury, affords the reader a series tf pictures * of upper, middle-class, conventional family life such as this author de liohtn in, and delineates to perfection. Mrs Dudeney is always safe for a good story, not only well written but eminently readable. She wields, on occasion, a

caustic pen, and yet never uses her book ao a mere vehicle for personal diatribes. Consequently her readers are always sure of entertainment, with a due proportion of edification. In her new novel she simply leveals the violent contrasts and indulges in a severe satire upon certain types of English society. When Fanny Floate, aged 20, and her putative aunt, Frusannah, Bohemians by instinct, are brought into company with Ninian Baigent, a handsome, selfish solicitor, and his family—consisting of a mother and several sister's —there is bound to be a clash of temperaments. Especially is this so when at he back of the situation there is a deceased canon, a High Churchman, who had taken vows of celibacy, the reputed father cf Fanny, though it is ultimately proved that he only assumed that position in order to shield Fanny’s mother, her actual father being a Roumanian duke. Th's, however, is only a small part of the tale, which includes many entertaining episodes. Mrs Dudeney writes in a dashing stvle, humour and satire being blended with healthy sentiment and an honest horror of shams of any and every kind, albeit her diction is sometimes disfigured bv faults and vagaries of construction that are inexcusable in so experienced a writer. LITERARY NOTES. Mr,Percy Fitzgerald, the last survivor of the band of contributors to Household Words and All the Year Round, under the editorship of Dickons, is writing a book of personal recollections of Dickens himscif and others associated with him, including Bulwer Lytton. Charles Reade, John Forster, and George Augustus Sala. The book will be published within a few months. Under the title._ “A Revolution in Books,” Messrs Williams and Norgate have issued a very interesting 32-page booklet giving an account of the foundation of " The Homo University Library of Modem Knowledge ’’ and a description of tbs 70 volumes so far issued in this very fine educational collection. The booklet is supplied free on application to the publishers, and contjjins a scheme of co-ordinated reading that should prove of value to students. Miss Ethel Caraie, author of “ Songs of a Factory Girl,” who started her career as a half-timer in a Lancashire factory, has written a novel of working-class life, entitled “ Miss Nobody.” The story deals with the adventures of Carrie Brown, a working girl of Manchester, and endeavours to hold the mirror up to reflect the life of the struggling labour world both in town and country. , - An interesting book issued by Mr Werner Laurie is “The Log of a Rolling Stone,” by Henry Arthur Broome. The author describes his apprenticeship to Punch a nil wood-engraving; Fleet street celebrities ho met—-Sala, Du Maurior, Grniksliank, and others; —his yearnings for the ‘’blue water” and life abroad. Later ho joined the Capo Frontier Armed Mounted Police; was wounded in the Gaika war; became a clerk in the Government Railway Engineer’s Office in Capetown, and went to the diamond fields as a transport rider. Afterwards he played many parts in India, Now Zealand, Australia, South America, and other countries. There have been many references to the late Lord Avebury as an author. The most popular of his books is “The Pleasures of Life.” It is long since nearly half a million copies either of Part I or Part II wore sold in the English edition, while there have been some 40 foreign editions. Almost equally well known, perhaps, is "The Use of Life,” which has been translated into pretty nearly every language. "The Beauties of Nature” has enjoyed a circulation of well nigh 100,000, and is stiil in great, demand; while such volumes as “ British Wild Flowers, Considered in Relation to Insects,” “ Flowers, Fruit, and Leaves,” *’ The Origin and Metamorphoses of Insects,” “Ants, Boos, and Wasps,” have achieved an enumeration in ■■thousands,” attained by only a few of our popular novelists. The eclipse of Ruyaid Kipling is made the subject of comment in a review of the Bombay edition of his works in the Literary Supplement of The Times. The eclipse was due to his political poems which “anthemed the nation into Imperialism and the Boer war.” The British public, says the writer of the review, did with his poems “ the only thing the British public can do with poems—make a po'icy of them.” Then the policy fell, and Kipling fell with it; so completely that his reputation is only now beginning to recover from the fall I “Stalky” made things worse, and “The Islander ” completed the debacle. One wonders what Mr Kipling himself now thinks of some of his po'itical verso written when tiie hot fit of Imperialism was heavy upon him. Poets are not safe guides to follow when a national crisis has to bo faced; they are too sentimental. Mr A Duncan-Johnstone, in “ With the British Red Cross in Turkey,” tells that among the wounded at Ali Bey, Lake Chekrnedje, where they had fixed up a hospital in a “shaky” farm, was one Mukhtar Bey. leader of a Volunteer regiment of Circassian Horse lie- continually mourned the death of his horse; but the pipes always cheered him up: “ Old Mukhtar Bey and I became very friendly, and when lie heard that I came from the Scottish Highlands (.'aimed kinship, as ho came from the mountains of the Caucasus. We used to have long talks in French. . . . I remember one day he told mo how much he admired our foreign policy. 1 But,' I said. ‘wo have not got one.’ Ho answered: ‘ Oh, yes, a very fine one: England always appears to be asleep, ind.fforent to everything, hut while the nations quarrel she stops in quietly and occupies a place which she never gives up again. lie give as an instance the British occupation of Egypt and Cyprus.” “ Other Da vs." by Mr A. C. Bradley, arc some RtU’hy impressions, chiefly founded on the experiences of the author’s father, Dean Brad lev, who was once an assistan t master - under Dr Arnold. They reconstitute the Rugby life of the period, help to show Dr Arnold as lie really was. and throw fresh fj.rht upon the various attempts which have Deen made to identify the dramatis persoiue in “Torn Brown.” The only identifieation which Mr Bradley admits to he accurate is that of Cotton, afterwards IVshop of Calcutta, with the “ young master who gave Tom -nich excellent advice before going' up to Oxford on the day of the Marvlebone match.” He denies that : “fiend Ea-i was Hod-on. of Hudson's Horse, and concludes that “the most humorous hallucination of all ” was that which saw in Arthur " a pen portrait of Stanley, who was actual'v a Follow and tutor of his colat Oxford, and not a Rugby boy at

all in Hughes’s time!’ Nor will he allow —here echoing, of course, his father’s voice —that Arnold himself was the “ sanctified prig” depicted by the majority of the historians of education. Arnold, in fact, did, and allowed, many things at which contemporary pedagogues would be 'shocked. For instance:—“On one occasion, when a Grand National Steeplechase was held at Dunchurch, Arnold did way with ‘calling over ’ to enable the school to see it. A yulgus was set in the fifth form on the subject, and here is a fragment of the poetic fire it kindled: —‘Lottery primus erat; Nana (The Nun) secunda fuit.’ ” There arc- several good stories of Marlborough also in Mr Bradley’s recollections. Not the least pleasing (says The Times) arc those which relate to the selection of hymns _by the school organist for J ho evening services in the chapel, attended, as a rule, by the members of the visiting team. The great W.G., for example, played a match at Marlborough in the plenitude of his glory, and was bowled, for onec.in his career of victory, by a schoolboy’s first ball. \V hereupon the choir was inspired to sing a song of praise, containing the boastfully significant line:—“The scanty triumphs Grace hath won.” On another occasion two Marlborough bowlers named Stone and Mood played signal havoc with the wickets of a visiting eleven from Cheltenham; and the choir celebrated the occasion by singing the appropriate couplet The heath-en in their blindness Bum: down to Wood and Stone*. LITTLE JACK HORNER IN VARIOUS MODES. E. Lyndon Fairwcathor, aged 17 years, contributes the following to T.P.’s Weekly : It is a well-known adage that it is not what you say, but the way you say it which really matters. This is a rather humiliting fact when wo consider that babies and sages ofttimes utter the same truths, only the latter use a more complicated phraseology. I propose to illustrate this bv means of a well-known nursery rhyme which runs as follows : Tattle Jack Horror Sat in a corner gating his Christmas pie. He put in his thumb •And pulled out a plain And said “What a good boy am I!” This is certainly simple enough to bo uttered by a very young child, but I mean to show that the theme would not have been unworthy of some of our greatest poets. Tennyson.— For instance, suppose Tennyson had thought lit to introduce the subject of LittH Jack Horner into his “ Idylls of the King ” the passage might have run somewhat as follows: —- And so the lad, in simplest garb arrayed, Reposed hini in an angle of a wall Upon a wooden bench of rustic form. Jack Horner was hi* name, and oft-times he Reclined upon this selfsame bench, and muse]. But now he held, supported on his knees, A dish of goodly fare, wherein he t ought With nimble thumb, the fairest of the fruits. And having found, he drew it forth anon And quoth aloud, with perfeet courtesy, “Good sir, 1 am an honest lad withal.” Wordsworth.— Lot us now listen while Wordsworth tells us the same story: I sew a little cottage lad Who in a conn r sate; His happy face it made me glad— A Christmas pie he ate. “What is your name, my little boy?” “Jack Horner, sir,” said he; Kis face lit up with childish joy In sweet simplicity. He put hi, thumb within the p:« In search of pleasant fowl And said, when ha bad licked it dry, “Kind sir, I'm very good.” Kipling and Burns. — Might not. our present-day iwct, Mr Rudyard Kipling, have expounded the same idea in the following linos?: you can sec Jack Horner siltin’ in the corner of the kitchen With his little dish of pnddin’ on his lap; If the dish you try to collar, then you bet your bottom dollar That you’ll find be ain’t indulging in a nap; For he shoves his little thumb in, when he hears a person coinin’, And he picks the biggest plum that he can see: And be makes this observation on the present situation : “Guess yon won’t find no one else as good as me.” Robert Burns might have written like this : Jack Horner there, the bonnic lad, Sae fa’ o’ joy and pleasure, A wee bit ashet maks him glad— He’s earin’ at his leisure. The noo he pu’s a plum awa’ And then he taks auitlur An’ says, “We’re nae tae bad, at a’, The pie an’ me thegither.” Milton and Omar Khayyam.— Since we are in the land of supposition let ns suppose that the mighty Milton had condescended to describe the doings of Jack in ” 1/Allegro” or "11 Pcnseroso”: Come, hgiivenly muse, and sing to me In ioneslof passion, pure and free. Jack Honor was the knave yclept, Who to a corner hiding crept; And. like the guests in Circe’s power, Consuming, spent a pleasant hour. From Christmas pie of goodly bus He drew a plum, widen shone anew As though from far Hesperldcs It took the apple’s power to please. Then to Jove’s altar loud he oi r ied : “I too am good. Lot plums abide!” The next effort is'"with abject apologies to Omar Khayyam and his immortal “ Rubaiyat ” : Happy the jad Mack Horner is bis name), Who follows no: the mi-tv path of fame, But seizes what the moment oilers him, Xor questions where he goes, nor whence be came. Some youths refuse the puddings of the day \ n( l wait for Christmas cakes in fine array; But hark the answer: “Fool, why dost thou wait? T’uv mother’s going to give tbo-e cakes away.” So’Jack lifts not his protests to the sky. But draws a plum from out the present p:c. And. tasting of the goodly fruit, exclaims: “I’ faith, a good philosopher am I.” Shakespeare.— The versatile Shakespeare might if he had wished have placed the following soliloquy into the mouth of Hamlet: A pie I A Christmas pic, and naught beside— That’s scarce a dish for princes, nw so rare But I should ask some relish to’t; But stay! That was the dish Jack Horner ate, what time Ho lodged upon the corner scat, and plucked , With thumb in dish, the over-luscious plum Which he consumed thereon. To taste, to eat, To eat, perchance to choke!—Ah* there’s the rub; For who can say the plum may not call up Th: thousand natural ills that flesh is heir to? Yet Horner ate, and having eaten, still Pi on nu need himself contented with himself. I Thrice happy man, that thus proclaim? himself Kc slave of conscience, but is justified In his own eyes! ’ 1