LITERATURE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3293, 25 April 1917, Page 62

LITERATURE.

BOOK NOTICES. "The "Wards in War Time." By a Red Cross "Pro." . Edinburgh and London i William Blackwood and Sons. (Cloth, 3s 6d.) This is a lively, sympathetic presentment of life in a military hospital. It bears every mark of truth and reality, and scarcely needs the author's assurance that the sketches "were written day by day in the scant moment of 'off duty.' " She fir .her assures us that, "although the characters and names are fictitious, all the incidents have actually occurred, and the conversations have been faithfully recorded." Like tho patients of whom it treaiSj this book is decidedly cheerful and optimistic in tone. It dwells on the lighter and more humorous side of hospital life, drawing a decorous veil over those sterner events which lie at the back. Our" Pro." loves rather to dwell on such comic incidents as are connected with the. patient's very natural desire for extra and forbidden foods, and the little tricks that secure "chicken diet" or an additional "bottle of stout"; the accidents that attend too zealous participation in " washing up," " cleaning brasses," on the part of the patients—for it is to be remembered that these apparently uninteresting tasks may become quite sought after under certain circumstances, and as signs of growing convalescence. Again, the men are of many nationalities, of differing ranks in civil life, and in the army range from full private to sergeantmajor ; thus it follows that there are many types, dialects, and opinions as between Kitcheners and Regulars, English and Irish, Socialists and Conservatives. Then again, two at least of the patients have a passion for practical jokes, in and out of season. Of course, these are all small things; some might consider them unworthy of record; but they are straws that show how the wind blows, and they give a delightful and intimate glimpse of 'a state of things in. which we axe all deeply interested at the present time. The inner working of a large military hospital is here laid bare, and we hear not only of patients, but of staff nurses, probationers, orderlies, ward-maids, and other officers, and among these there occur many humorous and pathetic incidents pleasantly chronicled by the open-eyed "Pro.,'!- who in her final chapter declares :

In courage and generosity the British soldier is unsurpassed. Day by day there is abundant evidence of both in the wards. Little incidents unmentioned, almost unheeded at the time, show the sturdy -worth of the rank and file of our new armies. It is the little

things that make up life in hospital, and it is the little acts of kindness,

such as giving up the most comfortable chair to a more seriously wounded comrade, or sacrificing an afternoon's pleasure to wheel a helpless invalid round the grounds, which are in reality deeds of purest generosity. . . . Nor does the British soldier's- courage aver fail. It is not a courage of the lips, boasting of what he has done or will do. On such subjects he is strangely inarticulate. Deeds that have won the D.C.M. are mentioned only under the pressure of direct questioning" in the baldest of words, and dismissed as soon as possible. " I happened to be lucky, you see." . . . Day by day in hospital pain is borne in silence with unflinching courage.- No better testimony could be paid to the British soldier's bravery than the chance remark of a staff nurse fresh from the wards of a civil hospital. Towards the close of her first afternoon she turned to the probationer and said: "Do you know, nurse, it strikes me as strange. I have been here all afternoon and nobody lias asked for anything and nobody has complained. In civil hospitals patients are wanting°things all day long. ' Yet, but a few months ago, these men were civilians, too. What is the power which has changed them and taught them how to endure and conquer pain ? . Only one fear seems to fill the mind of the soldier, and that is the fear of being left behind. "I suppose I shall go back to the depot," said one patient as he was leaving on furlough, "but. I shan't be able to stand it for long. I shall volunteer for the front for the third time. I hate going back, but I can't bear being cut of it."

House-room." By Ida Wild. London: John Lane ("The Bodley Head ") (Cloth; 3s 6d.)

The West Country of England is a fascinating hunting-ground for the historian, the archaeologist, and the novelist, and in Miss Ida Wild's new novel she contrives to give a most delectable picture of this ancient region, centring the chief interest of the tale round " Menna's Stone " —"a huge, solitary stone, bolt upright some 20ft out of the ground, sft broad, 3ft thick, and thridden some 4ft or sft from the top with a circular hole 15in in diameter." It is said to date from Roman times, from Druid times, from the Stone Age, from Atlantis. Who Menna was cannot be determined : his camp and his stone are all that we have of him. " The stone is of igneous rock, scarcely weatherworn. It is almost black. Its regular form and its position are as striking as its enormous size. It must be buried as deep again to have withstood centuries of storm, frost, and earth-changes without toppling, The hole, or thrill, or drill, as it is variously called, looks east, and it is supposed that another stone some Bft or lCft high once stood due west of the large stone, from which station the sun could be seen rising exactly in line with the thrill at some sacred season of the year." Endless legends circle round the stone, and it has an extraordinary influence on the heroine's life and history. " She grew strong and happy" by living near the stone, and always returned to it in times

of trouble or sickness. "Her honest belief was that the stone healed her. It had been the object of worship for many centuries and many peoples, and was oharged with some spiritual power on which she could draw. She grew well beside it. She had secret communion with the spirit which she found within the stone.'' The story, worked out on these lines, is extremely interesting, with more than a touch of mysticism. It will be read with pleasure, for Miss Wild's powers of suggestion are remarkable.

"Citizen to Subaltern." By Captain A. W. Hutchin, General Staff, Australia. Sydney; Angus and Robertson. (Boards, Is 6d.)

This little volume is designed to indicate to the ambitious young soldier some of the main essentials of leadership in war. It does not give the details of -trigger-pressing or any other military exorcise, which may'' bo learned from training-manuals. It aims rather at training the mind than the hand of the young soldier. Its chapters are named " Ambition," "Leadership," "Discipline," "Training Principles." "The Art of Instructing, 1 " "The Soldier's Work," "Regimental Duties," and "Customs of the Service." And eac'i of these subjects is treated of in an exhaustive and practical manner, and at the same time with a wide outlook concerning the capacities and limitations of the human materials with which the would-be leader of men has to work, and the self-education that is necessary before any man can hope to lead and guide Iris fellow men. An Australian general, who has served with distinction in the present war, says: " The noblest moment of life is when, having trained your men for the great hour of conflict, you leap from the trench, call to them 'Come on,' and they come." Such is the keynote of Captain Hutchin's book, and its watchwords are—Character, Knowledge, Ambition.

" Their Lives." By Violet Hunt. London : Stanley Paul and Co. (" Empire Library "; 3s 6d, 2s 6d.)

This sarcastic novel, while treating primarily of the lives of the three young daughters of Mr Henry Radmall, the noted pre-Eaphaelite painter, gives a clever presentation of the transitional period of the later yeaxs of the last century, including several thinly-disguised sketches of some of the notabilities of that period, including, Holman Hunt, Oscar Wild, Mr Gladstone, etc. This is pre-eminently a novel of character. Human nature, as portrayed by Miss Hunt in this book, is not .an attractive thing. With the exception of Henry Radmall himself, there is not one .of the dramatis personaa who is not actuated throughout by the lowest motives, while the three young heroines are old in intrigue and secretiveness. Their total absence of tenderness arid sympathy with their parents and each other; their direct methods of "going for" a thing without shame or : self-reproach, give the reader's finer sensibilities a distinct shock. The three girls ai'e young, handsome, and well endowed by Nature and education 5 but their greatest pleasure is to snatch , advantages, and particularly lovers, from each other, showing an amazing skill in sly tricks and innuendoes. When the second daughter marries first, her senior, though still beautiful and in her early twenties, is consumed by jealousy, and the bride herself shows a greed and cunning in securing presents and other advantages that are absolutely repulsive. " Most of the great novels of the world are unpleasant." We ' cannot pronounce Miss Hunt's book to be " great," but it is certainly "unpleasant." LITERARY NOTES. —Mr W. Dean Howells, the well-known American author, celebrated his eightieth birthday on March 1. —Mr Frederick Palmer has written a volume continuing the record of his experiences with the British army in France and Flanders, from the point reached in his earlier book, "My Year of the War." In the cew volume, "With the British on the Somme," he has another great story to tell of the work done in preparation for victory.

The appearance of another instalment of the Oxford English Dictionary reminds us that, however slowly this great work was issued in its earlier stages, it now goes on steadily and regularly towards completion. It is many years since the first volume was published, but now it is within measurable distance of the end. The more it is used the greater is the sense it creates of its thoroughness, and the deeper becomes the regret that Sir James Murray, who laid its foundations and carried through many of ite volumes, was not spared to see its completion.

The head of the well-known firm of Hodder and Stoughton has passed away in Mr Thomas Wilberforco Stoughton, who died recently. Mr Stoughton was the eldest son of that eminent Nonconformist historian, the Rev. Dr John Stoughton, with whom Dean Stanley and other distinguished men had a warm friendship. Entering the publishing world as a young man, Mr Stoughton became ultimately the partner of Mr Matthew Henry Hodder in the firm of Hodder and Stoughton. He was a keen man of business, though unobtrusive in the life of Paternoster row. Mr Stoughton had been in weak health for some years. He was 75 years old, and died at his home on Betilah Hill, not far from the house whore Charles Haddon Spurgeon lived. The old library at Bury Hill, Dorking, owned by Major it. W, Barclay, was sold at Sotheby's recently, and some very high prices were realised. The block book of the Apocalypse (printed in Holland about 1455) was purchased by Mr Quaritch for £950, and he gave £6OO for an editio princeps by Lactantius, printed in Italy in 1465. A very rare Caxton, "The Booke of Caton" (1483), went for £3lO, having been purchased in 1823 for under £3l at the Erie Stoko Park sale, when Mr Watson Taylor's collections were dispersed. Bury Hill has been the residence of the Barclays for considerably over a century, and the grounds are noted for their lakes, pinetum. and observatory. The deorlaras, planted in 1828. are eaid to be the tallest in England. . In his recently-published book "Pencraft" Mr William Watson tries his expert hand at a broad definition of the literary

art in general. Ho contends that poetry js not a kingdom "to bu annexed in a casual way," and the "ungirdled and slattern Muse" offends him. , .Hero is ono paragraph which presents his 'views sharply i 'ln every art but literaturo, and in every department of literature but poetry, it is commonly taken for granted that before the artist sets out to interpret for us tho enigma of the universe, he should have solved tho humbler problem of how to use in a workmanlike way the tools ho works n P° c(:i 'y alono is a fumbling inefficiency and dexterity in the handling of tho- tools not only permitted, but even in some circles applauded; not only applauded, but even viewed as presumptive evideneo of the more spiritual gifts, if not as conferring an actual Warrant Or certificate of such endowments. In a shoemaker the habit of making shoes reasonably well 13 not thought a more insuperablo bar to profound or impassioned vision than is tho practice of making them villainously ill) but m a verse-maker the tendency to make versos" which conform to accepted standards of shapeliness would appear to be regarded by many as a fundamental disqualification for any luminous insight into life or nature, while such insight is looked upon as something to bo quite naturally predicated of one whoso work defies all metrical morphology and even refuses to submit to tho indignity of scansion." The late Mr lid ward Tom Fricker, tho editor of the Australasian, who graduated as a journalist in the Qtago Daily Times and Witness office, was a first cousin of Sir Horeward Wake, of Courteen Hall, Northampton, England. The Wake baronetcy is one of the oldest in England, dating back to 1295, tho family being descended from Horeward the Wake. The barony passed to tho Crown in the person of Joan, the Fair Maid of Kent, wife of Edward, the Black Prince. The present baronet; Sir Hereward Wake, is the son of Mr Fricker's aunt-, who was the eldest daughter of Mr Henry Fricker, of Southampton. . Mr Fricker, after gaining some experience in journalistic work, contributed short stories to the Witness Christmas Annual in 1884- and succeeding years, and occasionally to the ordinary issues, and was in charge for a number of years of tho Theatrical columns, besides contributing occasional articles and notes. While his dramatic criticisms were marked by fairness and impartiality, his incisive writings were occasinally resented by theatrical managers in charge of companies below mediocrity. On one occasion the manager of an opera company which did not "catch on" in Dun-, edin, met him at the entrance to the dress circle and refused him admission. As a rule, however, his' criticism .was welcomed as helpful. He held the opinion that it was to the occupants of the pit that one had to look to ascertain public feeling with respect to the merits of a. piece. Mr Fricker's friends in Dunedin hoped that when he removed to Melbourne he would find time to devote more attention to general literaturo j but as promotion came his responsibilities increased, and his newspaper work held him captive. Mr Fricker leaves a widow and four grown-up children —two sons and two daughters. One of tho daughters is in charge of the children's page of the Australasian. A curious account of the career of John Cassell is given in Henry Vizetelly's Reminiscences, published in 18S3. Cassell first came prominently before the public in the later 'fifties, during the agitation against the Paper Duty. He became* a familiar figure at meetings all over tho country, and had previously become known on temperance platforms. Cassell often related in his speeches how he had been a carpenter and an abandoned drunkard* in his early days, had more_ than' once appeared before London magistrates, arid had finally been saved by taking the pledge. "H-3 commenced his business career m a coffee house with funds supplied by his teetotal patrons and made money by selling a beguiling mixture of coffee and chicory at a low price, which would not have been allowed after the Adulteration Act was passed. He then started as a_ bookseller and publisher in Belle -Sauvage Yard, and brought out the "Popular Educator" and similar productions. Cassell was financed by Orompton, of Bolton, a retired, manufacturer, and the business became a large one. After some years the accounts were carefully overhauled, and the results were so unsatisfactory that Crompton sold the whole stock to Potter and Galpin, the printers, and retired with a loss of £40,000. Cassell had- carefully advertised his own name on all the numerous cheap periodicals, so the purchaser of his business wisely took him r into partnership, and tho popular publications which he had introduced were pushed with infinite energy. The result) was the successful career of the firm of Cassell, Potter, and Galpin. J. F. Smith's popular stories raised the weekly circulation of the London Journal to over half a million copies, and those were the days of the Paper Duty. Cassell secretly tempted Smith away from the London Journal when he was in the middle of a story for that periodical. He suddenly closed the story by blowing up all the principal characters on the steamer on which they yero passengers. The proprietors of the Journal at once applied to Pierce Egan, jun., another writer of sensational tales, and he managed, by a series of miracles, to rescue tho characters, and it was carried on again for several months with unabated success.