LITERATURE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3395, 9 April 1919, Page 53

LITERATURE.

BOOK NOTICES.

"Uncensored Celebrities." By E. T. B&y- ---■ mond. London: T. Fisher Unwin.

(Cloth; overseas editionj 7s 6d.)

This is a collection of csitical studies of some 30 or 40 prominent public men., including the Prime Minister, Mr Asquith, Mr Balfour, Viscount Grey of Fallodon, Lord Milner, General Smuts, Lord Northoliffe. Mr Winston Churchill, Sir Edward Carson, and many others whose personality looms large in the public eye at the present time. Mr Raymond is well informed as regards the private and family history of has subjects. He has wide political knowledge and a witty pen. He has undoubtedly written a brilliant book, but he does not give the impression of attempting to be brilliant at the expense of his subjects. His aim is to be impartial, and his judgments are generally sound. Perhaps the most interesting of his biographical sketches are those relating to Mr Lloyd George, Mr Asquith, and Lord Grey. In the first he gives a fine illustration of the effects of environment and education on a strong character that has missed the discipline and training, as well as the varied knowledge, imparted by a college course, and missed, above all, that inexplicable "something" which generally goes with such training, and which we define in the word "gentleman." But Mr Lloyd George was not without education in the best sense of a practical knowledge of life and its realities. "In America a politician thus raised and instructed would feel no sort of handicap, and nobody would feel it for .him. If he did not know one set of facts, what matter? There are too many facts for one man to know. Education of any kind is to the good mode and place of education matter little. But in this country it is different, and the hall-mark of 'good form' can only be obtained in a certain prescribed way. Of course, all this is arrant snobbery, but it carries weight nevertheless." It ie one of the difficulties with which Mr Lloyd George has had to contend, and its effects cannot be discounted. It accounts to some extent for what Mr Raymond calls his 'empirical type of statesmanship," adding, "He does not look 'before and after,' but only about him. He stands in small awe of precedent, principle, and doctrine; he is always readier to experiment than to think. No man has less sense of the continuity of human things. For him. the present tick of the clock has all the dignity of the eternal. He. is a man of action, yet there is in him something .of the poet; he has a touch of the true Promethian fire, and only when he is very tired does the coin from his phrase-mint sound tinny. He ha® a knack of saying memorable things on trivial occasion, as well as trivial things on some memorable occasions. . . . The fever of doing, the

gust arid passion of perpetual motion, the revolt against passivity are in. his _ very blood. His poor acquaintance with history and literature are less the consequence of lack of opportunity than of his innate dislike of hard study. He is in a. sense indolent through excess of energy. "What can be done at a sitting he does as well as most men; but he quickly tires of monotonous occupation, and of repose is a change of effort. ... The more passionately he advocates a policy the less he can be trusted to carry it to its logical conclusion." One of the finest traits in his character is "a hatred of the more theatrical forms of oppression," as was seen in his attitude towards the Boer war. His fine oratory receives full recognition, especially in those speeches "addressed straight to the British people," of which his famous war speech affords an excellent example: "We have been living in a sheltered valley for generations. We have been too comfortable, too self-indulgent, too selfish, and the stern hand of fate has scourged us to an elevation where we can see the everlasting things that matter—the. great peaks that we had forgotten of Duty, Honour, Patriotism, and, clad in glistening white, ♦he towering pinnacle of "Sacrifice pointing like a rugged finger to heaven." Mr Asquith' is, of course, the antithesis of Mr Lloyd George, but he finds a very sympathetic chronicler in Mr Raymond, and one who does ample justice to his fine qualities of mind and heart, as well as his natural advantages of births and training, and it is when speaking of Jowett's admiration of his clever pupil that we have one of the author's witty sketches: " Jowettry was the philosophy of getting on in its most dignified guise, a sublimated opportunism, in which worship of the mam chance was robbed of its grossness and made a fit faith for a scholar and & gentleman. It is in 6uch sidelights that Mr Raymond is most happy, and there are very few pages which do not give opportunity to his sarcastic touch and strong sense of humour.

"The Lilt of Life." By Zorah Cross. Sydney: Angus and. Robertson. (Cloth; 55.) Zorah Cross, whose " Songs of Love and Life' secured so phenomenal a success little more than a twelve-month ago, is once again before the public with another volume of verse, showing that her poetic (repertoire <is by iio means exhausted. The sensuous and passionate charm of the earlier poems now gives way to a quieter mood, and, having shown the world the secrets of a woman's passionately loving heart, she now goes a step further and admits us into the holy of holies—motherhood, revealing the hopes and fears, the pains and triumphs of the woman whose love takes on incarnate form. Her sonnets have, as usual, a lyric force and freedom rarely found in that difficult form of expression, but which Miss Cross manipulates with as much ease as skill. One taken almost at random must serve as an example j In Babylin tihey built a massy tower To search the stars for some account oi time.

Sweeping the heavena with their «y<* sublime, Tho bold astrologers watched hour by hour, Death mocked their errogtunce and way to power, Dust were their destinies: but, Love, w» climb, Mingled with magio in our marriedl prime, To the etar regions that no fears o'eriour.

Dust is that ground on which we build to God, Month after month, the living tower «• mould: But Wisdom lighting all the window* wrought, Glimmers on ■valleys of the heavenly sod And en the stairway with Hie dreams enscrolled God strives in us to reach His highert thought. The name poem r " The Lilt of Life," if a bright, sparkling , bit of varied of which the central thought la: Thari is no death. "Death is dead." Only; life remains. O, love, who brought my 60ul to me, Gome join the dameing witchery. We reach the sum/mat of our dreams Above the valley* and the streams, With blue-belle ringing, Andl see beneath us far below Meadow on> meadow toss and blov Eternal green of field and hill Leading to greener beauties still, Where the blue-eyed day and free Sings her carol lullingly, * "From all have cold and darkness fled For Death—Death is dead."

"With pips and flute and singing reed Crying the end of death tliey speed.

Fox nothing 1 now is left to die And out of gravea and! tombs asl-eei> Happy children laughing leap Shouting: "Life has come to stay All the happy, happy day." We do not like Miss Cross quite so -well in blank verse, and we found her long poem, " Man and Woman," which treat* of the problems of feminism, decidedly •wearisome. /_"