LITERATURE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3168, 2 December 1914, Page 77

LITERATURE.

BOOK NOTICES. “A Girl’s Marriage.” By Agnes Gordon Lennox. London: John Lane, Bodley Head.” (6s, 2s 6d.) The main object of this book is an earnest protest against the ignorance (miscalled innocence) in which many girls are brought up, and which renders them unfit to cope with the elemental facto of life. Two examples are here set before the reader, neither of them of the type generally brought forward as warnings ne., the self-supporting girl clerk, typist, governess, servant, etc. Both girl 3 in Lennox’s story make their painful experiences when under “proper protection —tffe one in her father’s house, the other m that of her husband; and yet one of them can say emphatically: “I think of writing a book. I shall call it ‘Eye Openers,’ by ‘ One Who Knows.’ 1 do not know who will publish it, because it will be in very, very plain language. And I shall send a copy of it to every girls’ school and public library in the kingdom. It is not only my own experience that 1 would record. It is that of scores. ot others that one comes across. Look at Daisy. Just because her fool of a father kept facts wrapped up in cotton-woo, There must be hundreds of other cases like hers. Look at Bessie Davis that girl at the Glebe Cottage—sent to service in a fast house, and now returned a damaged article, her character gone for life. I told Mrs Davis that the fault was hers, not Bessie’s, and sue looked so surprised. I asked her if ter rus band did not explain to his son a little abSft the machinery in the pumping station before leaving him there, and she said of course he had. lh ® n asked if he would not have been to blame if he had not explained it, and the bov, through ignorance, had come to grief. * She had to agree. So 1 said ‘ Well Mrs Davis, you are just as mud to blame in not having cantoned Bessie. Yon sent her into quite as dangerous a place as an engine room, without warning her or explaining things. Yet, when she gets hurt, you call her all sorts of names and wonder how she can be your daughter, though all the time the fault lies with you, because you did not prepare her for the position you put her into. • • • When people are made to sign contracts or any binding documents without understanding what they are doing, i is ' called ‘ coercion,’ and a means of escape is provided. Yet an unfortunate girl is allowed to sign a life-long agreement ■without realising in the least what sue is doing; and when she does find out and kicks over the traces—to set herself free, —it is she, poor innocent, who is blamed and her guardians who get off scot free. I would make such cases punishable by law, and I believe half the divorces would be stopped. The story into which this serious indictment is woven is bright, lively, an “ f x ‘ ceedingly well told. There is nothing tragic or mournful about it, nothing prurient or objectionable in any way. The sufferers in the two sample cases are encouraged to overcome the results of their painful experiences and become happv wives and mothers. But the lesson, though delicately put, is never lost sight of. The interest of the tale centres round Fav Beaumont and her three brothers—all considerably older than herself, —their love affairs and marriages. Fav is a charming, elusive creature —a veritable Xjndine, who finds perfect content in the company of her “brethren,” her horses, and her dogs, and does not see how any girl in the world can desire more. “No one could love me better than I love you, she says to her brother Patrick. I like brother-love better than husbandlove, and I’ll not ask for anything better than yours all my days. ” When her eldest brother marries, Fay consoles herself by asking her favourite, Patrick, to promise that he will never marry, and when remonstrated with declares: “Pat never will want to marry. He has promised to live with me until we get old, old people; and then we are going to try and die on the same day 7, and be buried together in the same grave.” Of course, Pat wants to marry when the right woman appears. At first Fay refuses to see this, and when convince'd against her will, rushes into a hasty marriage with a man to whom she is indifferent, and he, failing to understand her, and deeming her aloofness merely- the shyness of an ordinary girl, shocks her into immediate revolt and a serious illness. Later on the unsatisfactory husband is killed in a motor accident ; and in due time Fay conies into possession of her woman’s soul, and tbs man who has had enough patience and devotion to awaken the sleeping beauty comes into a rich inheritance. The four love stories are skilfully designed and contrasted, and the result is an eminently readable tale, which we can warmly recommend to those for whom it is specially 7 intended— namely, all mothers and daughters of a marriagable age. “The Orley 7 Tradition.” By Ralph Straus. London: Methuen and Co. Melbourne, etc. : G. Robertson and Co. 3s 6d, 2s 6d.) The Orleys are an old noble family—once, in feudal days, powerful barons, lording it over a whole countryside; nowliving quietly in their beautiful home in Kent, good landlords, good sportsmen, good fellows generally. The highest ambition of an Orley when at school is to be captain of games; later on he may enter the ax-my or navy, if the examinations are not too hard. He does not aspire to the learned professions, literature, or the fine arts. Through generations he has kept the type of brain and body which his ancestors brought from the Far North —a body strong, seasoned, muscular, virile —the body of a Viking,—and a mind to match, easily acquiring and retaining all details belonging to sport, to real or

mimic warfare, to the rule and physical betterment of tenants and_ friends, but utterly incapable of assimilating or appreciating languages, literature, or modern culture. “Clean, ‘white’ men, but fools, every one of ’em.’’ Such are the Orleys, and such is their tradition. Many persons —especially the godparents of the young heir—are not satisfied with this. They want to make John Orley a scholar or a politician, a philosopher or an artist, and the accident by which the young man breaks his leg and becomes for some time an invalid gives them the opportunity which they seek. So long as John is well he is faithful to the family tradition; when he becomes a cripple and can neither ride nor play games he becomes miserable, depressed, and abnormal. His suppressed energy seeks a new vent. He pines for action; he must do something. This is the opportunity of the anxious friends. One gives him a political training, others an artistic one; others, again, introduce him into fast society and the company of immoral ■women. John’s character, temper, and aspirations deteriorate. False to his nature and the traditions of his race, he flounders, like a drowning man. Then suddenly the trouble in his leg begins to mend; he recovers the use of hi limbs, and with them his normal health, strength, and virility, his love of games and country life, and the whole “ Orley Tradition,” and the pseudo-artistic and political fervour drops off him like a borrowed cloak or the obsession of a dream. He was altogether finished with those clever London people whom he had never properly understood. Indeed he did not know what he had seen in them to attract him. He would go straight home, live with his father, ride over the downs, play golf with, and marry, Marjorie Grant.” So the story ends as it began; but to those who know how to read, it conveys more than one. excellent lesson, chief among these being the fact that a wise man knows how to accept his own limitations. - LITERARY NOTES. Those engaged in the book trade in London are plucking up courage after suffering a terrible collapse of spirits on the outbreak of the war. They are now inclined to believe that there will be a greater demand than ever for books. A new daily paper —the Daily Call — “a penny paper for a halfpenny,” has made its appearance in London. In form and “make-up” it resembles the Evening Standard. The programme and policy are, it seems, concentrated on the country’s need of a strong army; in consequence, the matter consists almost exclusively of war news, stories, and comments, but without the usual “strategist” articles. “The Times History of the War,” in four volumes, will he specially printed on a superior paper to that used for the weekly parts issued in England. In addition, an exhaustive four-page index will bo included with each volume, and a special map, in colours, will be included as a supplement in Volume I. These features will bo exclusive to the volumes, and will not bo issued with the parts. A limited addition will be sold in Australia and New Zealand on an extended subscription plan. The volumes will be procurable bound in full leather and in half-leather. Mr T. Shaw Fitchett, Melbourne, is the agent for Australia. Sir Thomas Barclay, in his recent book of “Recollections,” states that the entente has removed many misconceptions and many delusions which arose from the confusion of morality and conventionality. French character, too, has undergone change:—“‘What,’ I recently asked a distinguished French friend who had spentsome time in England, and has a tendency to admiration for everything English, ‘do you regard as the keynote in English character?’ He had no hesitation —‘Frivolity.’ Wo are to a Frenchman ‘ a frivolous people ’—we who used to apply that qualification to the French.” Sir Thomas tells how Lord Lytton once asked Lord Dufferin what he thought was the source of his success in conducting intercourse with Eastern princes. “My glass eye,” said he. “When I had anything serious to negotiate, I fixed them with the glass eye and watched them with the other.” He may, of course, have meant his monocle, adds Sir Thomas, who also describes the effect of Lord Dufferin’s odd right eye upon himself When ho spoke to you he dropped his monocle and fixed you with a steady gaze which made you feel as if you were giving away to one whom no human sympathy would move. When you had finished what you were saying he would go on watching you with the same steadiness as if he were listening now to what you were thinking. Yon would wobble on the thin planks on to which in your confusion you had stepped; and then in the uncomfortable silence you would say something you did not intend, and Dufferin seemed to bo waiting for that.” Professor Baldwin Spencer, of the Australian Anthropological Survey, has found in the centre of that continent a number of tribes that believe in reincarnation. It is stated that their notions in that respect tally with those of the intellectual native races in India —a belief that has been carried into Western civilisation under the name of Theosophy. In one or two tribes along the Roncr River a curious totemic system was discovered. Among those people a man must marry a woman of a particular totem, but the children take a totem different from that of either of the parents. For example, a man of the Rain totem must marry a woman of the Paddv-meclon Kangaroo totem, and their children are of the Euro-Kangaroo totem. Again, a Porcupine man marries a L’zard woman, and their children are Bats. Everywhere, too. among the tribes visited, the women and children believe that the sound of the hull-roarer is the voice of a great spirit who comes to take a wav the boys when they are initiated. Professor Bpeneor says ho did not find among any of the tribes a trace of anything like a belief in a Supreme Being.