LITERATURE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3510, 21 June 1921, Page 62

LITERATURE.

BOOK NOTICES. ; Ballads of a Bohemian. By Robert W. | Service: i. 1 isiier L'mvrn, London. I Mr Robert Service is known by four previously published volumes of verse: ! '• Songs of a Sourdough,’ and “Ballads of a Cheeeliako," ’ dealing with Canadian life; "Riiymes of a Rolling Stone, and ' renymes oi a Red-Cross .Man. Bis easy swinging measures, Iris choice oi tiieiiies that appeal to the ordinary man, have made linn one oi the most popular oi recent verse vvritcis, and have won iiiin the title of “The Canadian Kipling.’’ “’The comparison is nardiy fair to the older and greater poet. Mr Service Has all Kipling's ease and fluency, much of ins power of picturesque and lorcibie characterisation. Bat ne nownere attains the tiue poetic vision shown by ivipimg in ‘’The Derelict-’’ ami come other poems. Nor has no Rip ling’a originality of tnoaght and strong individuality of expression, v\ o seldom fail to recognise a \ci..s oi Kipling’s, while Air bcr\ice is, vigorous as limy are, might be tire work oi ocher writer-. On the other hand Mr Service has a broad : and gcaiaihumanity that we alien iirsi in 1 Kipling, and this, with ins facile vigorous measures, fully accents for ins popu--1 iarity. The present \oiun.e is divined into four books, of which the first thiee ’ deal with experiences of Bohemian life in Paris, where the author lived for someyears before the war. The fourth contains poems on many themes and ni many moods, but all treating oi war scenes and experiences. Some are of poignant tragedy, as “L-es Grands M utiles’ —tde three young soldiers surviving, one with both legs snot off, one blinded, and one 1 so frightfully disfigured that, rather than be a horror to his wife and child, lie allows it to be thought that he has perished. Some aie over insistent on the physical horrors of the battlefield ; yet it i may be well for those who have stayed at home to show in fullest detail the frightful and loathsome realities of war. V ery 1 rarely a note is struck of hope in some : reality beyond the shattered lives and ; frustrated purposes that close the earthly prospect. | Bach -did a something grander than ever he dreamed to dio; I And as for the- work unfinished, all will be i paid their due; j The broken ends will be fitted, the balance j struck will be true. j The Parisian poems are very various in ! subject. Many give vivid pictures of typi- ; cal Bohemian figures, absinthe drinkers, j poor artists, and all the flotsam and jet- ! sam of city life. But some give simple | domestic pictures, or voice a healthy ; optimism, as “The Contented Man” and | “The Joy of Little Things,” one of the ; most pleasing pieces in the volume. ; “Teddy Bear,” in its simple pathos, re- ! calls Eugene Field's “Little Boy Blue.” Throughout the volume pieces of descriptive and explanatory prose are interwoven with the verses. The closing piece voices the joy of return alter the war to the natural delights oi human life : j So. I’ll be free to writs and .write, And giro my soul to sheer delight Till joy is almost pain, | To seek, for beamy everywhere, I To make- each day a- living prayer ! - That life may not be vain. | To sing of things that comfort me, The joy in mother-eyes, the- glee Of little ones at play; - Tire blessed' gentleness of trees, Of old men dreaming at tlie-ir case Soft afternoons away; Oi violets and swallows wings, Or wondrous, ordinary things’, in wolds of every day. j “Love’s Anvil : A Romance of Northern Russia.” By V. ],. Dmitrieva. Translated from the Russian by Douglas Ashby. London: Stanley, Paul, and Co. The term romance is rather inappro- | priate, “Love’s Anvil” being a simple and | naturally-told story of Russian student [ life, with nothing romantic in the ordij nary sense about it. A preface is con- ] tributed by .J. A. T. Lloyd, who gives, i some particulars of tlie authoress. About j the eighties or nineties of last century ! Valentina Dmitrieva vjas a medical J student in Petersburg, where she was one i of a band of young people zealous for j political liberation and popular reforms, j Sorneof her best fiends paid the penalty j of their political propaganda by imprisonj meat for periods of 20 years and over, j The authoress, after visiting some of the i famous universities of Western Europe to j enlarge her medical knowledge, returned i to Russia and began to contribute to some Russian periodicals which stood for advanced Western thought. Later on. through the persuasion of her friends, she began to publish books, which were I warmly received by the “intelligentia” of tiie day. A friend who is quoted testifies [ to her great personal charm. Since the j war and the revolutionary upheaval she j has been lost sight of. | The boo]; is notable as embodying the ! idealism of Russian natural national char - ! acter in its purest form. It has no plot i and no definite love story, though its j heroine is loved by two men, and might perhaps, had her life lasted, returned the ! love of one. But the love on the anvil | of which her heart is broken is love for nil the human beings of her world. She ! must love all with whom she is brought i in contact : she must help and do good to all in need, without thought nf ghe : sacrifice to herself. She ask.-, no return. but she cannot live in an atmosphere of I ill-will and suspicion : in this she is chilled I as if “instead of a human heart there lay j in her breast, a piece of ice.” “Oom- | otchka,” to call her by the diminutive pet j nickname by which she is known among | her fellow students, comes from the, coun- | try to enter the Medical Faculty for j Women in I’cteisburg, where she has been | for some time when we meet her. But j she seems to do everything rather than j study. The human interest with her is j too strong to allow room for the scientific. ! She is always running about the city,

working for some cause or more often for some needy person, collecting money, getting up entertainments, aiding others in a hundred ways, going short of food and clothing herself. For cheapness she would dine off cabbage soup and bread in a working men’s- restaurant, and there she meets a worker of . quite different type from the rest, who has, in fact, come of clerical stock and been educated for the priesthood, but has found this vocation uncongenial, has entered the ranks of the workers, and is occupied with ideas of social reshaping, bhe aids him in establishing a workman’s library, looking out cheap books, begging gifts from people able to give books. The other man who loves her is an artist burdened with the care of a mother and a blind brother, so that he has to do unworthy hack work for a living instead of devoting himself i to compositions that might deserve to live. | He has the Russian ids atom, but also the I Russian fatalism and in. tin. One great j pit lure he does naint. “A Christian Mar- ! tyr,” in which the love and flip sufferings ' of Gcinoichka find representation. But n ither her life nor her death can inspire him with purpose to live as she would have had lion live. “I’ll live all right-, live to eat :-:H e't in live. Why should | I be ashamed? I’m not the first and I shan't be the last. I’ve emitted a iiame, j and it’s gone out . . . and amen.” J here is the Slav impulsiveness and inj stability too in the character of the felloej student who slanders (I om otchka, ard j later, in a fit of remorse, takes poison, I and. being brought round and assured the ; injured girl’s forgiveness, at once regains ! her good spirits with no more thought ot the wrong she has done and the suffering i she has caused. Another student, Gom- | otchka's “pair,” a strong and fine cbaracI ter, is drawn by Gomotchka’s influence ! out of her over-absorption in scientific in- ! tcrests. and brought into sympathy with her fellow men and women. Both as a stu-dv of Russian life and a pathetic human story “Love’s Anvil” possesses unusual interest.