LITER'ATURE and LIFE

Otago Witness, Issue 3754, 23 February 1926, Page 78

LITER'ATURE and LIFE

FOUR CHILDREN. As I lay qmelly in the grass, Half dreaming, half awake, I saw four children barefoot pass Across the tufted brake; The sky was glass, the pools were glass, And not a leaf did shake. The autumn berries clustered thick, Seldom I met with more; I thought these children come to pick, As many picked before; Each had a long and crooked stick, And crown a of ash they wore. But not one berry did they take; Gilding, 1 watched them go Hand in hand across the brake With sallies to and fro. So half asleep and half awake I guessed what now I know. They were not children, live and rough, Nor phantoms of the dead, But spirits woven of airy stuff By wandering fancy led, Creatures of silence, fair enough No sooner seen than sped. —Robert Graves, in the London Spectator. VOICES. To Janieg Lane Allen. “1 should like the memory of my life to five out the sound of a flute.’'—The Choir nvisible. I am not dead, I think, But all unlessoned where the dead should know, For every pipe that plays is still the link For thought to come and go! The lyre strings are dear, And bring me to a halting place of dreams, That every convoy takes'down every year, And every ghost redeems. And all the organ tones Of ancientry still pass my narrow door, And I march with the chords one longer owns When longer heard before! And harp by harp I keep, With falas that the day and night have sung, Unto immitigable things of sleep, Unto vales ’•estrung. But oh, the flute to me Brings the abiding-places of the past As close—as close— as shipwreck to the sea, Or flesh to dust made fast! —Virginia Stait, in the Lyric West. BURNS’S FORERUNNER. AND “ELDER BROTHER OF THE MUSE.” A FERGUSSON MEMORIAL FOR ST. GILES CATHEDRAL. THE GIFT OF A NEW ZEALAND SCOT. By Robert Hogg. (Fob thb Witness.) How many New Zealand Scots are familiar with the poems of Robert Fergusson, Burns’s “Elder Brother of the Muse?” Not many, Psc warrant. As Robert Louis Stevenson declared, Robert Fergusson has been “most unrighteously fbrgotten.” Yet he is worthy of remembrance, not only because of the spur and inspiration which his life, fate, and verses proved to his renowned successor Robert Burns, but because of the intrinsic merit and distinctive note of his own song. The only memorial to Fergusson in his native city, ay, in all broad Scotland, is the stone which Robert Burns, at the cost of £5 10s, caused to be erected on his grave in Canon gate Kirkyard, Edinburgh. Three years ago the writer stood beside that grave, and read the inscription (written by Burns) carved upon that stone: Here Lies Robert Fergusson, Poet. Born September sth, 1751. uieu October 10th, 1774. No sculptured marble here, nor pompous lay, No “stoned Urn nor animated Bust”: This simple stone directs pale Scotia’s way To pour her sorrows o’er her Foet’s Dust. The year given as that of Fergusson’s birth is wrong. He was born in 1750, and when he died he had but completed his twenty-fourth year. Not a long term in which to make one’s mark in any walk of life, no matter how well fitted, fashioned, and prepared. To the son of a poor father—to whom twenty-five shillings a week would have meant affluence—a boy with a love for learning, it would have seemed impossible. Yet Robert Fergusson, be.ore his death, was hailed as “the Laureate o* Auld Reekie!” His songs were being sung, and his poems recited throughout the whole countryside. This, if it brought him fame, unfortunately did not also bring him bread. It secured him entry into the convivial clubs of the time, at which he was welcome, not only on account of his fame as a poet, but on account of his ability as a vocalist. His constitution, weakly from birth, and always undernourished, was not equal to the calls made upon it at such gatherings, and it is not surprising that, when he met with an accident which injured his head, and led to his being taken to a mental hospital, he succumbed after • few days’ delirium. When Robert Fergusson began to write he, like all Scots writers of hie time, wrote in English. Subsequently, however, he wrote as he spoke—in the

hi otitl Doric—and this distinguished him from liis contemporaries, and secured for him the worship of Robert Burns and all true lovers of Scots song since. The remark of Robert Louis Stevenson that Fergusson had been “most unrighteously forgotten,” has already been referred to. That he, too, admired Fergusson “by ord’nar,” is evident also from the following statement which he makes in a letter to Craibe Angus: “I believe Fergusson lives in me. I do. But ‘tell it not in Gath’!” Burns tells us that he had decided to give up what had been called “the profane and unprofitable art of poem making” when lie met with Fergusson’s poems, and “strung anew” his “wildlysounding lyre with emulating vigour.” Burns repeatedly refers to Fergusson. He calls him the “bauld and slee,” and in his “epistle to W. Simpson, Ochiltree,” he exclaims with bitter and biting reflection: 0, Fergusson! thy glorious parts 111 suited law’s dry, musty arts! My curse upon your whunstane hearts, Ye Enburgh gentry! The tythe o’ what ye waste at cartes Wad stowed his pantry! Later still he wrote: 0, thou my elder brother in misfortune, By far my elder brother in the Mnse, With tears I pity thy unhappy fate. When he learned that Fergusson’s grave was unmarked by any memorial, Burns wrote to the churchyard managers, asking their permission to erect the stone referred to above. Here is his “petition”: -“Gentlemen, —I am sorry to be told that the remains of Robert Fergusson, the so justly celebrated poet, a man whose talent for ages to come will do honour to our Caledonian name, lie in your churchyard among the ignoble dead, unnoticed and unknown. Some memorial to direct the steps of the lovers of Scots songs, when they wish to shed a tear over the “narrow house” of the bard who is no more, is surely a tribute due to Fergusson’s memory; a tribute I wish to have the honour of paying. I petition you, then, gentlemen, to permit me to lay a simple stone over the revered ashes, to remain an inalienable property to his deathless fame.” The managers, “in consideration of the laudable and disinterested motion of Mr Burns, and the propriety of his request,” granted permission. Subsequently Mrs Williams, the widow of the distinguished painter of “Views of Greece,” etc., left a bequest, the proceeds of which are applied to keeping Fergusson’s grave in order and repair. On the back of the stone the kirkyard managers caused the following legend to be cut: “By special grant of the managers to Robert Burns, who erected this stone, this burial-place is to remain for ever sacred to the memory of Robert Fergusson.” Burns always unstintedly acknowledged his indebtedness to Fergusson. His biographers tell us that he exaggerated such indebtedness overmuch. But who is the better judge? The man who-pegs out a rich claim, even if he die leaving only the message, “The gold is here,” surely has placed his successor to that claim under great indebtedness? Such was Fergusson’s service to Burns. The latter revelled in the earlier poet’s Doric lilts. He tells us they showed him where the treasure lay, and it is not too much to say that to that happy accident—Burns’s chance meeting with Fergusson’s slim volume of verse—we owe much that is best in Burns, and that Scots is not only a written but a spoken tongue to this day. Much of Burns’s verse, in idea, style, and phrasing, is based upon poems by the earlier and younger poet. His “Cottar’s Saturday Night” recalls Fergusson’s “Farmer’s Ingle.” His “Holy Fair” is modelled upon “Leith Races.” Many other instances could be given. As already said, Burns frankly acknowledged his indebtedness to Fergusson. Few writers on literary criticism ever refer to Fergusson, and those that do, simply hint that his name is remembered only through the kindly deference paid him by Burns, and that his poems are dead and never sought for. This is not the exact truth. Though our erudite literary mentors know nothing of Fergusson, it is wrong to assume on that ground that he is altogether forgotten. Publishers do not issue books for fun, especially books of dead Authors, and it is a fact that Fergusson’s poems have been issued since his death in more editions than those of any other Scots poet, with the excepion of Scotland’s laurelled three—Burns, Scott, and Hogg. Indeed, though Fergusson’s writings have been unfairly neglected by literary critics, it is true nevertheless that a new edition of his verses has been called for, on an average, every five years since his death. Despite this last evidence of the hold he still has on admirers of Scots verse, there is, as yet, no memorial to Fergusson in Scotland, save the stone erected over his grave by Robert Burns.

It it* liere that New Zealand comes in. l The Hon. James Craigie, M.L.C., has been an ardent worshipper at tho shrine of the Horie Muse since his laddie days. He has lectured on Burns and Scots song from the North Cape to the Bluff, and among his many gifts to Timaru, not the least important is a statue of Scotland's darling bard. Some time ago we mentioned to Mr Craigie tliat no memorial to Fergusson existed in Scotland. Mr Craigie at once acted. He wrote to the Burns Federation anent the matter. After correspondence with the federation, Mr Craigie offered to defray the entire cost of a memorial to Fergusson in Edinburgh. Arrangements have since been made for the erection of tlie memorial in the Moray Aisle of St Giles Cathedral, near to that of Edinburgh's greater Ilobert Stevenson. The bronze medallion of the poet, which will be a feature of the memorial, has been executed by Mr J. Pittendrigh MacGillivray, E.S.A., LL.D., the King’s sculptor for Scotland, who is also known in Scots literary circles as an able writer in the vernacular. It is hoped that the memorial will be ready for unveiling by the next anniversary of the poet’s birth, and that the donor, the Hon. James Craigie, will be able to be present on that auspicious occasion. It is pleasing to be able to add that in recognition of his enthusiastic work on behalf of Scots vernacular verse, the Burns Federation unanimously elected Mr Craigie an honorary president of that organisation, the highest honour it is in its power to bestow.

BOOKS OF THE DAY,

RED BKIN AND PALE FACE. “ The Vanishing American.” By Zane Grey. (Cloth, Bs.) New York and London: Harper and Bros, (per Kobertson and Mullens, Melbourne). The vanishing American of Mr Zane Grey’s last story is the North American Indian, who is gradually being edged out by white settlement and destroyed by the evils that white civilisation brings to primitive peoples. Nophaie, the central figure, who personifies the tragedy of his race, sees that the lingering remnants of it are doomed to die out or be absorbed in the dominant white race. Nophaie, who belongs to the Nopahs, a pastoral and nomad tribe, is at seven years of age stolen by a band of white horse stealers, and falls into the hands of a party of sightseeing travellers. A wealthy woman of the party is interested in the handsome Indian boy, and takes him to Philadelphia, where he is given a good education, and, as he grows up, earns fame as an athlete. As such he attracts the notice of Marian Warner, a college graduate who lias trained as a teacher; they become acquainted, and a strong attachment grows up between them. But Nopliaie feels drawn to his own people, and at 25 years of age he returns to them to live as an Indian. ■ From his old home he writes to Marian, asking her to come out to the Indian reservation and assist him in working for his people. He explains his position to Marian: he belongs in part to both races, and so is at one with neither; he feels that marriage is not for him. Marian goes west to his wild mountain country, roams over it with him, sees the Indian in his own haunts, and then goes to teach at a mission school. Mr Zane Grey allows that there are good missionaries as well as bad, but he has chosen to show the evil that is done by bad ones. It is to be hoped that his picture of an Indian reservation and school as “ run ” by Morgan, the head missionary, and his German satellite Blucher is extreme. No Government supervision seems to be exercised to prevent maladministration and see that missionaries' and teachers are of a stamp to do good work. Indians, it seems, are compelled to part with their children to be brought up in the schools; and the picture given of this one shows harsh and even brutal treatment and other abuses. One particular instance of the evil tyranny of Morgan brings out all the savage inherent in Nophaie, and only Marian’s influence restrains him from murder. Mr Grey gives an interesting representation—perhaps rather idealised—of the blended Nature worship and mysticism which forms the Indian’s religion. The deepest part of Nophaie’a tragedy is that he has lost this spiritual heritage of his race, while he rejects the professed beliefs of Christendom. When America enters the Great War Nophaie sees a great opportunity for uuiting the men of his tribe in a common aim, leading them to show their best racial qualities, and earn the respect of the whites. But all his efforts secure only a small number of recruits. He enlists himself, earns distinction, and is invalided home shortly before the armistice. He returns to a people impoverished by the fall in prices for their wool and the loss of their best land, and then the influenza plague descends onthem. He is himself stricken, and, recovering, he rides away into the desert alone. And in a vigil before Naza Boco, the (peat natural arch revered as a god by his tribe, illumination comes to him; he realises immortality and the imminence of God. All human differences are resolved in tins intuition, which leaves no room for fear or hatred; and the lost act of his Ilfs is to save Morgan and Blucher from the vengeance of exasperated Indians. Mr Zane Grey is at his best in depicting wild scenery and human life away

from the restraints of civilisation, ami the setting of this story gives his powers full scope. The grandeur and savagery of the scenery, with its brilliant colours of many«hued rocks and its atmospheric splendours, are vividly painted. The phraseology is sometimes awkward, and now and then obscure, and the average reader may find that Nophaie’s reveries and soul-searchings are too much elaborated ; blit, then, to other readers these and the Nature descriptions may make special appeal. PIRACY UP TO DATE. “Marie Halkett.” A True Story. By Robt. W. Chambers (Cloth, 7s 6d net). London : T. Fisher Unwin. The modern development of American smuggling, known as “bootlegging,” must as ordinarily carried on, provide adventures of a sort to be tunied to good account in fiction. But the “B!a k Flag,” which figures sensationally in Mr Chambers’s new story, is a smuggler craft turned pirate. It is authoritatively reported to the United States Government that the “Black Flag” preys upon weaker members of the blacklegging fleet taken at a disadvantage, robbing them and sinking then in true pirate fashion with their crews aboard. “And if there were any survivors—they are crooks, Mr Secretary—and crooks don’t squeal. They just wait to get even in their own way.” Yet the United States officials have not been able to secure formal evidence of her nefarious activities, she sails under the flag of San Salvador, ostensibly as a private yacht, and when the revenue cutters have boarded her everything has been found in order. Coincidentally with the direction of suspicion to the “Black Flag” comes the mystery of the murder of a seaman whose body is found in a spot frequented by bootleggers. The xdice suspect a young and attractive woman, Marie Halkett, of the crime. The first chapter introduces the hero, Rudolph Grey, fifth Secretry of the Treasury of the United States, as he is entrusted by the head of his department with the task of tracking the elusive Marie. The duties of the third assistant, we are told, are miscellaneous, those of the fourth are nebulous, and “ it were perhaps cruel, unusual, and inhuman treatment to precisely define the functions and duties of the fifth assistant Secretary of the Treasury of the United Staes of America.” Evidently they are of a nature to allow of an indefinite absence on amateur detective work. Rudolph Grey has seen a photograph of Marie Halkett, and is convinced that the owner of the engaging countenance portrayed cannot possibly be guilty of tne deeds laid to her charge. So he undertakes his mission in hopes of proving Marie’s innocence, and is already more than *faalf in love with her before he comes in contact with her. A long and exciting narrative of adventures is begun by Grey going with a friend to Marie Halkett’s house in the country. She eludes them, and leads Grey on a will-o’-the-wisp search, in the course of which he is doped at a sham curiosity shop, the proprietor of which is concerned in the bootlegging traffic, and taken on board the ‘‘DogStar,” where he is tended by Marie. Before the narrative has progressed very far the reader discovers that Marie has a reprobate brother who- is startlingly* like herself, and infers that a desire to shield this brother accounts for her being secondmate on a bootleggincr craft, and for everything else questionable about her. The culminating thrill of an exciting story is a fight between the “Dog-Star” and the “Black Flag,” in which the pirate vessel, with Marie’s brother aboard is blown up by Grev’s gunfire. Marie’s adventures end with the establishment of her innocence and her marriage to her true knight, Grey. A THORNDYKE STORY. “The Shadow of the Wolf.” Bv R. Austin Freeman. (Cloth, '7s 6d net.) London: Hodder and Stoughton. The “Wolf” is the Wolf Rock lighthouse, close to which, in the obscurity of a thick fog, Varney shot and threw overboard the bully wlio was holding him to a career of crime for his own benefit. Most detective stories begin with a murder, the circumstances of which are shrouded in mystery, and the reader follows the efforts of investigators without knowing whether or not they are on the right track. Here every detail of the crime is told in the first chapter, and the interest consists in seeing how skilfully Thorndyke discovers evidence and builds up a theory of the murder exact in all particulars. Dr Thorndyke, who has figured in several previous novels, is a medical jurist versed in physical science, and a genius both in observation and in inductive rensonipg. To follow him building up his evidence is a stimulating intellectual exercise. We know from the commencement of the story that Dan Purcell, moneylender and bully, was controlling partner in a banknote forging enterprise; that lie supplied the paper, and forced Varney, an expert lithographer, to do the printing. But when THorndyke is called upon by the widow of tl|e dead man and her lawyer to discover whether Purcell is dead or absenting himself for his own purposes, he knows nothing of the criminal conspiracy which brought about Purcell’s murder. We are shown Varney at work forging letters in Purcell’s handwriting and counterfeiting postmarks in order to make it believed that Purcell is alive. And we admire the acuteness with which Thorndyke detects peculiarities in writing and marking that prove these are not genuine. And so we continue following Thorndyke as he seizes on each bit of evidence and fits it into its place. Lack of common detective-novel interest, of mystification, and surprise is more

than compensated by the satisfaction of watching an outsider hit by hit discover what has been plainly shown to us. There is cliaracter interest, too, iu the story, and the reader will sympathise a good deal with Varney, as Thorndyke could not help doing. All the careful precautions Varney has taken to conceal his crime turn into evidence of it, until under the “.Shadow of the Wolf” lie is confronted with the dredged up skeleton of the corpse he had so carefully weighted, and seeks the readiest way of escape from the murderer’s doom.

PIONEER LIFE IN WEST TEXAS. “The Wind.” Anonymous. (Cloth). New York and London: Harper Brothers (per Dymock’s Book Arcade, fcfydney). This is an unusual and arresting story. I here is no definite plot; merely a narrative which reads like a bit of real life history; the interst lies in the realistic vividness with which char ’.cters and their surroundings are presented, and the special originality consists in the way in which Nature is shown, not as merely affording a stage for human action, but as a controlling force. “The wind was the cause of it all,” so commences the story, the wind was the cause of the tragedy of Lettv, the eighteen-vear-old girl who left her old home in a lovely Virginian village for t-he desolate West Texas prairies. In West Texas, it seems, the winds blow almost unceasingly through the seasons, fierce and icy cold in the writer, less vehement, but persistent and parching through the summer. And every now and then a fierce “norther” swoops down, blackening the sky before it, or a cyclone, whirling up the sand and bilging death to everything in its path. Civilisation, says the writer, has lessened the wind’s force to afflict. Buildings, plantations, and fences check their violence, cultivation bands the sands with \ getation. The early pioneers, dwelling in hastily-built shacks or frame houses on the open prairie without roads, without assured water supply, without any of the alleviations of prospc- us settled districts, ' new the full terror of the winds. And it was women who suffered from them e me, . The winds robbed women of their beauty, parching their skins, robbing eyes and hair of their lustre, wearing their nerves, aging 'hem prematurely. “And the sand was the weapon of the winds. It stung the face like bits of glass, it blinded the eyes, it seeped into the houses ’through closed windows and oors and through every ack and crevice, so that it might make t’ *. beds harsh to lie on, might make the food gritty to taste, the air stifling to breathe.” To many nervewracked women like Letty the wind became a personal enemy, the more terrible because invisible. Left a penniless orphan by the death, after a loop iliness, of her mother, Letty goes to live with a cousin who had settled many years previously in Texas. The- change from the ease and refinement of her former life and the beautiful country she has known to her cousin’s rough pioneer home is trying enough, but it is the jealous hostility of her cousin’t wife that drives her into a hasty marriage with a struggling settler—this and her terror in a night of fierce wind storms in w' loh Lise Hightower appears as a defender. Neither her husband’s devotion nor Letty’s recognition of his good qualities can overcome the unsuitability of the marriage, but it is the cruelty of nature that prepares the way for utter tragedy. Drought persists for a year and a-half. Lige, like other settlers, sees his cattle pine and die from want of food and water. When the drought has already long endured, many of the cattle are driven loiig journeys* inland in the doubtful hope of finding pasturage to keep them through the drought: those whic 1 - cannot be got away perish in slow misery. In essential features the terrible picture drawn will doubtless stand for droughtstricken districts of Australia. The close of the story leaves us pitying Letty and her husband equally. But a little of the brighter side of the pioneer’s life is given along with its hardships and its catastrophes; and bright and dark portions alike are shown with the same convincing naturalness. . The book is one to remember, and to justify good hopes of a literary career for its author.