LITERATURE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3662, 20 May 1924, Page 68

LITERATURE.

BOOK NOTICES. “Crotchets. A Few Short Musical Notes.” By Percy A. Seholes. (John Lane.) Tills volume contains 54 short essays collected from the Observer, where they iirst appeared, So»ie are for the musician, or at least demand fair acquaintance with musical technique and history; but the greater number may be enjoyed by anyone interested in music. Such are the three essays grouped under the headings “Youth and Music,” “Colour and Sound. and “Shakespeare’s Music,” and the essays under the heading “A Few Suggestions upon Popular Music.” Mr Seholes pleads the importance of music in education. Ail children should have the opportunity of having their musical faculty developed, and when a boy chows a musical bent this should be indulged despite the school claims that may seem to crowd music out. “The boy wants to learn music and you hesitate. Why? Expense? Or you fear it will take his mind off his other studies.' Or it may interfere with his games ? The last of these fears you may dismiss without further waste of time. In no school nowadays is anything whatever allowed to interfere with games. As for ‘ his other studies,’ education is a matter not merely of learning this subject or that, but of developing the soul, and if your boy s soul cries out for music dare you deny it to him?” On the other hand, neither boy nor girl should be made to learn music if this is against the grain ; the teaching given to them will be wasted. The author pleads for variety in the choice of musical instruments. Music is not synonymous withe the piano. When there are several young people in a family to learn music, it is enough for two to devote themselves to the piano, while others may with advantage take to the violin or ’cello. The author puts in a plea for the introduction of the gramophone into national schools that children may become acquainted with really good music. The essay on Shakespeare's music may be commended to the attention of Shakespeare students. So far. Mr Seholes says, very little attention has been paid to the use Shakespeare made of music in his plays. Songs and strains of music are very frequently introduced, and Mr Seholes maintains that they are not incidental embellishments, but constituted for Shakespeare “a vital part of his dramatic scheme ; an element upon which he relied to help him out at moments when speech and action were insufficient.” Shakespeare employed music in connection with the supernatural element—witches, fairies, apparitions—and in scenes of emotional intensity. “Music and madness go together, music and love, music and healing, music and death.” Tie employed music where modern playwrights rely on staging and stage devices to produce an effect and awaken the desired mood in the audience. In his time plays were performed in dayl-iglit on bare stage with next to no scenery. He needed music to produce the atmosphere of glamour, mystery, or emotion that modern dramatists and stage managers rely on scenic effects to produce. “Moreover, Shakespeare had in his theatre an audience to whom that appeal through the ear might be safely made. England in those days was intensely musical; music was then loved and practised amongst all classes. I do not admit that we are nowadays (as is so often charged against us) an unmusical people, but I think nobody can deny that the emotions of the average Elizabethan were more susceptible to the musical appeal than those of the average theatre-goer of to-day.” Mr Seholes defends the public against the charge of preferring bad or poor music. This is often accepted because there is no opportunity of having something better. But many popular times are not bad, but good. “Pack up your troubles,” with its cheery words, helped to win the war. It is a good tune, and so is “Tipperary.” When the people seem to prefer bad music it is because of some good element in it. He quotes the experience of a lady musician who teaches music to the blinded soldiers at St. Dunstan’s. She says : “I find that the popular airs which appeal to them are the best ones of what they hear; the ‘ rubbish ’ they will have nothing to do with, so that our tunes are few in number. As much so-called popular music is published, it is just as well to note how much of it is rejected by the untaught ear of a musical man, who judges and chooses only by his ear without association of any other sort.” People may have bad music thrust upon them and accept it without pretest, but it does not follow that thev demand it. “Triend, You Are Late.” By Alice Herbert. (John Lane.) Mrs Herbert’s title is given in a quotation from Anatole France, where t.lve ccrtesan Thais says, in answer to one who offers her “ the unknown love,” Friend, you are date. I know all love.” In “Heaven and Charing Cross,’ and two or three other novels Mrs Heroevt has shown herself possessed of manv qualities of the novelist’s art m high measure, in particular of a brilliant s 'vie. Her dialogue is particularly taking; perhaps her people talk a little too cleverly, yet the talk is differentiated according to the class and individuality of the speaker. Here the talk of die halfeducated little Cockney, Lily, : s as pointed and witty as that of the cultivated Maud, but still true to type. Mrs Herbert is a writer whom one cannot imagine writing an uninteresting novel. This one is highly interesting, and it is also irritating and unconvincing. Like many women novelists of to-day, Mrs Herbert, seems much concerned to s' ow woman as before aught else a creature of sex instinct and impulse. To make

her illustration of this thesis as telling as possible she creates a line type o° young woman, reared with all the advantages of culture and refinement, and then she shows her as completely at the Percy of physical sex attraction as the most primitive savage woman or any girl ul low mentality reared in the slums. J> nd to leave nothing wanting to prove her case, she makes the two men who stir her heroine emotionally just the Cud ol beings that one would expect to altogether antipathetic to a girl of tier type and traditions. Maud Farell who, with her mother, has been made poorer by the war, supplements their income by working as a . jerk in a business office. One of .her ...unites is the Lily at ve mentioned, and 'tie description to the enduring iTiend.-nip which glows up between these two young women, so different in class and up-imng- • ing, is the pleasantest thing in the hook. Another associate is tuc vulgar, coinmonniindt cl young man with whom, but for a favouring change of circumstances, Maud would have been invoi .ed in an ignoble amour. Her employer seeks her in marriage. 'This means material ; iosperitv for her mother and herself, -nd she warmly esteems and likes him. ! here union is exclusively one cf the higher human sentiments and emotions, it may be noted that Maud lias been racier noticeably wanting in tile mateimu instinct : she has rather disliked children, and the possession of a child of her avu lias formed no part of her dreams. Later tiie maternal instinct does assert itselt. After 'a period of satisfactory ..apytuess Maud unfortunately meets a Bohemian young journalist—a man of some talent, but “ a poisonous cad and rotter, as in a moment of self-insight ho terms liirr.seh. From their first meeting he dominates Maud emotionally. After a brief struggle she explains her feelings to her husband, who acts with great generosity. Tneir marriage is annulled, am d Maud weds Taffy Lambert, fully aware that she has every prospect of wretchedness with I an. He neglects work, they fall into poverty. Maud has to undergo a life of serdiducss and all kinds of humiliation. Lut her courage in battling against them, and holding to the very poor bargain she has made, win the reader’s respect and dnii ration. At last, finding that laity is accepting money from her former husband, Maud leaves him to earn an independence for herself and her child. But great and varied as her provocations have been, she dees not break with Taffy utterly, but promises to go back to him if he can learn to stand alone. j.-j.aucl is, on the whole, such a line cnaracterso o-enerous, sincere, and free from r.etti ness; of evevv kind —that the weak side of her nature strikes one with a painful sense of incongruity. The picture of her debasement is disconcerting, but i .iconvineing. “Damned: The Intimate Story of a Girl.” Anonymous. (Stanley Paul and Co.) The novel with the above attractive title comes out in a paper cover adorned with a gay picture of a nude feminine figure apparently clinging to some rocky prominence with what may be meant for flames shooting up around her, but looking over her shoulder with a delighted smile at the green and blue serpent, with protruded fiery tongue, that rears its head behind her. The book appears with the announcement printed on the back that “ this strange story of life and death ” is now showing on the films, which is what its style would make one surmise. The story opens in hell—a modernised, Americanised hell, with electric lighting where his Satanic majesty—a most unimpressive personage—sits on a throne, “ imposing in its effect of onyx and gold, and ref resiles himself with fiery liquors imitated from the strongest concoctions Of pre-prohibition American bars. He and his myrmidons make free use of American colloquialisms and slang; evidently the author hails from America. “Ho I Know New York?” says his Satanic Majesty, “I who -invented it!” The heroine, Dolores Trent, just arrived in the iower world, is commanded by Pluto —as he chooses to be styled —to” provide entertainment for liis (.curt by relating ter history. This she is supposed to do, but it is the novelist who tells her Gory, in the third person and in ordinary films.torv style. In substance, it is a familiar enough tale of a. friendless girl struggling for a maintenance in the midst of the temptations of a great city, and ending in her killing herself and her infant bv gas poisoning. Every now and then the narrative is broken off for Satan to make comments, and for the reader to be reminded of the heroine’s situation as a disembodied spirit awaiting judgment. The finale is somewhat lurid, but Dolores, more fortunate than when on earth, eludes the wiles of Satan, and is freed from his domination. “ A Brilliant Season.” By Nat Gould. (John Long.) For some reason that isnot apparent this novel is priced 7s 6d. while Nat Gould’s other novels are being brought out in similar form by tHe firm of John Lory at 2s 6d. It is an animated .story of racing life in England, with an exciting plot, and the customary love interest interwoven —all in Nat Gould’s best vein. “ The Golden Spur” A M idem Romance. By J. S. Fletcher. This volume is one of John Long’s reprints of popular novels published in excellent form at the price of 2s net. J. 8. Fletcher scored a great success by “ The Three Days’ Terror,” published a number of years ago, which combined the quasi -religious motive, with more ordinary attractions of plot and sentiment. His mini crons other stories incline to melodrama. In the present story there is a 1-antiful and distressed princess of a

hliputian German State, named -vmavia, who owns a priceless amethyst, as wonderful as the Koh-i-noor; there is mystery and conspiracy, thrilling incidents and some horrors.