LITERATURE and LIFE

Otago Witness, Issue 3886, 4 September 1928, Page 72

LITERATURE and LIFE

DAFFY DOWN DILLY.

• Daffy Down Dilly has come up to Town ” (How does it run?) "In a yellow petticoat and green gown.” Spring has begun. Clad in her splendour, she comes willy nilly Early each year, "While her bold trumpeters tell Piccadilly, “ Daffy is here! ” Into the shops of Old Bond street she rustles, Gay little shade. "While, in the wake of her, laughingly hustles Each pretty maid.. While, from their baskets by corner and square, Trumpeters, blowing and growing, declare—- “ Daffy Down Dilly, Down Dilly is there!” She was a leader of fashion and fancy (I read the rhyme) When pretty Janet and Elspeth and Nancy Chose in their time Dimities homely and taffetas stately, Meet for their days: Daffy Down Dilly, walking sedately, Led every craze: While, from their ranks in the garden or green. Trumpeters each to the other would lean, Heralding Daffy Down Dilly the Queen. Still, every Spring, when the shops arc displaying AH of their pride, Daffy Down Dilly comes carelessly straying Up to your side. Whispers, “ That model is simply entrancing, So is that hat! And, oh ! my dear, don’t you see yourself dancing Girdled in that?” Trumpeters herald the dawn of the year, Tempting and singing. “ It isn’t so dear I Daffy Down Dilly, Down Dilly is here ! ” Though you may say you have not met the lady, . Yet she knows you : Prudes may declare that she sounds rather shady, That is quite true— She is a shadow, who flutters and poses Shop-fronts among, Bidding you hasten to gather their roses While you are young! While her gay trumpeters cry, “ Dilly Down, Daffy Down Dilly has come up to Town. In a gold petticoat and a green gown! ” ■ —Barbara Euphan Todd, in the Spectator.

ON AN ENGLISH SPRING.

For there is nothing more to say Of England’s daffodils Since Wordsworth seized their substance for his verse, Stealing our thoughts away Before we ever saw these gold-drsnched hills, Or ever watched the spring’s progression turn Earth’s counterpane from gold to hyaclnthine blue. And Shelley's been before us to coerce The songs of skylarks into singing wonls; Wo only stand and feebly years . » . Beneath a trilling canopy of birds, Chafing at the restraint That chains us wingless to the leas, Till summer brings the cuckoo’s soft complaint. The hedge-bound squares of meadow too Have antedated us by centuries. They do not boast, —they only fling Their single age-old trees Aloft into the high, cool spaces where Air currents meet, yet cling About their earth-embedded feet, to keep them there. Trees that a moon or two ago Stood in slim silhouette, Black tracery upon a yellow sky. Shake now their shady locks over the lazing herds And in their turn defy Our pitiful and evanescent words. Poets’ hearts would break if they could not eject The burden of their rapture so ; But we, the timid circumspect, Find beauty far too poignant to be borne. Overwhelmed with longing and regret We find in it a personal disaster, Knowing we must admit our spendthrift selves forlorn Before what we have never learned to master. Love, let us, clinging closer, faster, Help one another try to be content With constancy of purpose and a wise intent. That—leaving beauty, which is vaster— We. may at last so strengthened be That we have fortitude to endure ecstasy. —Caroline Allen, in Scribner’s.

DAFFADOWNDILL HAS NOW COME TO TOWN.

Tennyson’s “ roaring moon of daffodil ” (a phrase suspected to have been coined for the sake of its sounding vowels) dawns again. * * 4 - How well loved is the daffodil is shown by its names, most of them like sweet symphonies. Some say that daffodil is a corruption of asphodel, others that it is from the old English, aflfodyle, “that which cometh early.” Quarles in his “Emblems” calls it the “gilt-bowl daffodily.” It is hard to forgive Milton the phrase, “ gaudy daffodil,” though he also used daffodillies, bidding them fill their cup with tears. To. strew the laureate hearse where Lucid lies. An old name was ch al ice -flower, for as Parkinson remarked in his herbal, “ The cup doth very well resemble the chalice that in former days with us and beyond the seas is still used to hold Sacramental wine.” Gerard spoke of the power of the roots to glue together great wounds, but Parkinson said that notwithstanding whatsoever old Gerard’had written he "knew

of none who applied the roots for any grief; these are flowers to be esteemed alone for beauty.

There is a memorable passage by Marvell, opening with “ I am the mower Damon,” of which it has been well said that into it all the simples and the sweets of all the still-rooms would seem to have been pressed and compressed: — On me the morn her dew distils Before her darling Daffodils; And if at noon my toil me heat, The sun himself licks off my sweat; While going home the evening sweet In cowslip-water bathes my feet.

Michael Drayton has a delightful ballad telling how one Batte meets one Gorbo, and asks: — Gorbo, as thou earnest this way By yonder little hill, Or as thou through the fields didst stray, Sawest thou my Daffodil? And Gorbo answers, he had indeed met the bonny lass: — And all the shepherds that were nigh. From top of every hill Unto the valleys loud did cry; “ There goes sweet Daffodil.”

Io return to the name, one conjecture is that it stands for “Dis’s lily,” and is associated with Pluto carryin Proserpine to the infernal regions, a fable remembered by Shakespeare in his song of daffodils taking the winds of March before the swallow dares.—John o’ London’s Weekly.

BOOKS OF THE DAY.

AN OUTSTANDING BOOK OF VERSE. Blue Magic.” By Mania Service. Decorations by Alison Grant. Dunedin: Whitcombe and Tombs. In an appropriately sympathetic foreword Mr C. A. .Marris says: — “Blue Magic ” is the most different book of verse New Zealand has yet produced. It is not concerned with “ local colour.” It is the first elfin pipe heard fluting in this south-flung land of ours: an oaten reed whence issues a stream of thin sweet music from the realm of fancy. Which shows that Mr Marris is himself something of a poet. His estimation of the poetry in “ Blue Magic ” is sound P.Pd. tullv merited, however, and that justifies his judgment. Some years ago the writer of this renew read the poem which gives this dainty little book its name, and the lines merited the conclusion—here is poetrv. ihey are imaginative, highly so, indeed the author confesses “ My imagination always did run away with me ” —but poetry without imagination is merely verse, and sometimes very poor verse. Let us take a few lines from the poem:— Temple of Twilight on a lonely hilltop Tak2'n 6rS of . pal ® opal leaning on the sky . . Take my soul, lying in the blue-black grasses Burn it with blue flame, for to-day I du Let ° n bod£2' ng Pr ‘ CStS bear my withered EyeS hoods—- Vith Wonder ' neath their azure Le Cimnt th^m” 3, in their frailness, Cnant the Blue Magic of the sacred woods. 01117 torches— kneSS a “ d the burp t-°ut n „?” ly th T . blue paU of the lonely sky— Old £ th e siglung round the shrouded figure Only the wraiths of starlight drifting Deatl1 ’gras d ses a , sUepi “ S in the ,on S blue Into the Twilight Temple—hush ! he passes. There is imagery and beauty of language poetry. Critics there may be who will say that the theme is morbid, but the lines were written by a girl in her teens and morbidness is not for such, bueh happy lines as “Shadows” quite disprove any suggestion of that kind. Shadows are beautiful things ’cause T O Un°der h a em w danCinS a “ d the ground .< kt? r a .,Y ee ’ wee sycamore tree. “Silver end Ca , t - Ch y ° U ’” 1 Said tO the elf. ~‘V® r and slippery ” (this to myself) Hopeless and hoppity, come here to me.” He fled broke Ugh my fingers and Quivered and Into dancing—the way of all fairy-made folk hands. 187 fl “ gerS and two There are poems on flowers and trees, an< J P. recious stones, stars and clouds, and there are longer and mop ambitious pieces based on the long a«o chA° o t a ” «T ,d t - lie Lady ” “ The Gi P°sy G hos ,f’ Imagination,” “The Change hng Elorne the Lady,” “ The Raven Robber, and “Legend” are the longer assays in verse, and each displays merit in the shorter poems, however/ there is rare charm, and each one is in its par tieular way quite a gem. For instance, The Rose :— ? tbe h ea rt of a rose— Who knows ? faint and velvet she grows, Full blowing or budding her petals close, one Is so secret—a bee Cannot see. And even the wind cannot tell Very well. Or take “ Stars,” and note the perfect 'rhythm in the long lines and the dainty and elusive quality iu the shorter ones:-4-

Cupid lost his arrow in a round lake in the moon. Kneeling where the grass grew cool To kiss his shadow in the pool. And he wept and hung his head Where the poppies stood up red ; And clouds locked the moon in shadow bars.

A water maiden, sleeping where the blue sky breezes croon. Waking, found the arrow there Tangled in her golden hair, Where the pale moon daisies grow. She returned the shaft, and lo ! Cupid’s laughter broke . . . his tears were stars.

There is enough to show the quality of the verse written by this young Dunedin poet. Several other equally good poems are in the book, and though there are flaws in some of them what would the reasonable critic expect? Surely not a book of some 40 poems without a blemish from an author so young. The book is an achievement, and as such we wish it well.

A word of praise is duo to Miss Alison Grant for the decorations. From the first, which adorns tiie blue cover, to the lady trumpeter they are artistically appropriate, and those" which illustrate certain of the poems are firm in line and true in execution. They add indeed a further charm to this delightful little book, and reveal talent which deserves encouragement.

THE ROMANCE OF AN ISLAND. “Dust.” -By Armine von Tempski. (Cloth, (is net.) London: John Murray.

£ ’ Dust ” is another glowing novel by the author of “ Hula.” Miss von Temo ski has spent her life on the Hawaiian Islands, and knows how to impart to her story the colour and fierce beauty necessary to reality. She has written an adventure tale big with achievement in which the life of Europeans and Americans in unfamiliar surroundings is por trayed with great skill—and an absorbing love story into the bargain. Saxon Kingsley, a boy of 23, “ with a red, fighting face and "eyes as blue as Arctic ice,” is taken away from the humdrum office in which he is clerking to undertake the work of managing the deserted island of Kahoolawc. The office is offered to him by Milton Feveral, who has been commissioned by his brother Albert to see that Saxon takes the job. He is to be given a minimum of money on which to make good. Saxon, after taking a look at the place, decides that he will accept the position. He wishes, however, to be under no obligations to Albert Feveral, whom for some unknown reason he hates. Hence he accepts his money only as a loan. Milton can sense a feeling of real antagonism directed against the’ boy by Albert; but he cannot understand it.

Albert’s son, Charlesworth, a splendid and highly-bred young man, is in love with Noel Huntington, Milton’s lovely ‘ adopted” daughter. She returns his affection. But after she meets Saxon she is distressed to find that she cares for him more. Saxon, knowing nothing of this, sets out to take up his duties at Kahoolawc.

“ Blown by the wind, trampled down to the hard-pan by over-stocking, the crimson wreck of an island sprawled in the fierce blue sea, gaunt and worn out.” But Saxon conceives a passionate love for it, and in company with Murakami, his Japanese overseer, and five servants begins at once to put it to rights. Then he comes one night upon a band of smugglers who are evidently using the place as a store for opium. In his struggles with them he is badly shot.

When Murakami goes to Milton for help, Noel insists on accompanying the latter back to the island to see how much she really cares for Saxon. The pair find that thye love each other, but Saxon is haunted with the thought that bis caring for Noel will be a tragedy for Charlesworth. They decide to go to the mainland and see what can be done. Now comes an astonishing revelation. Saxon is Albert Feveral’s son, hated because Albert, having committed bigamy, he is legitimate while Charlesworth is not. Albert has sent him to Kahoolawc hoping that he will be involved in the smuggling trade, and so deported. Here, then, is a pretty mess: Two brothers, both very fond of each other, are in love with the same girl. AL’he outcast is really the rightful heir; and yet, for the sake of the suffering it will involve, he cannot lay claim to his title. How the tangle unravels itself makes absorbing reading. The main interest of the book, apart from its dramatic love story, lies in the description of Saxon’s life on the island, which, bit by bit, he saves from being blown away by the mighty trade winds of the Pacific. All that has to do with the island is well told—the characterdrawing of faithful Murakami, the word pictures of the scenery of the place, the work that managing it entails,'and the' smuggling, and the atmosphere bf . sincerity and realism which the author has managed to create about it. , ' j ' ;

Around Albert Feveral are the weakest spots in the book. He is made too violent, unbalanced and puerile in comparison with his two sons, and the scene where he aids and abets the opium smugglers to capture Saxon is childishly melodramatic.

The last chapter is a triumph of description and power. The picture it gives of a tropical tidal wave, when the floor of the ocean seems to have risen and tilted sideways, is astonishing, and it provides the only note on which the story could legitimately have closed. A very worthy romance. LOVE AND HORSES. “ Luck’s Pendulum.” By Colin Davy. (Cloth, (is net.) London: Constable and Co., Ltd. For those who like descriptions of racing, steeplechasing, hunting, and all the other forms of sport in which horses play a part, and where special terms and language are employed, here is the very book; and for others who are ready to indulge in a healthy, solid love story, romantic and well told in every detail, the same book is to be recommended Colin Davy has written a very readable novel in “ Luck’s Pendulum,” and keeps the attention right through. It tells how Michael Squire, a trainer of racehorses, becomes engaged to Nina, the daughter of Squire and Mrs Carey. Michael has led the usual noisy life of a man, and sown the usual amount of wild oats. But he tells Nina he has never hurt a woman nor yet really loved one, except herself, and she is satisfied. One of his friends is Lord Henry Kent, whose wife, a lovely woman named Fay Derbyshire, previously married to a drunken brute, is dead. Harry, as he is called, is a Jonathan to Michael’s David. When the earthquake takes place in Japan, Michael learns that all his money is lost in it. He says he will not marry Nina until he can make some more, and takes his work with horses —training, riding, and selling—more seriously than ever. But after a race meeting at Henley they are together again, and Nina realises how dear is the affection they share. A few days later, looking through an old scrap book, she reads that Michael once figured as the co-respondent in a revolting divorce case, and all her faith is broken. To tell more would be to spoil the story for readers. The “ horsey ” scene.”, arc very well done, and give a convincing picture of the well-bred, sporting public of England, while the love story—in eluded in which are laughter, dreams, disillusionment, recklessness, pain, and finally, after a case of true renunciation reconciliation—is equally appealing. THE MOTION PICTURES. :: Celia’s Career.” By Paul’ Trent. (Cloth, (Is net.) London and Melbourne: Ward, Lock and Co., Ltd. Celia Craven is chosen to go over to America in the motion picture industry just after her marriage to Mark Layton the writer, who, although taking the matter pretty badly at first, finally sees that it will be for the best. She “ makes good ” to such an extent that she becomes a star, and is wooed by Brian Forsyth, one of the heroes of the profession. She remains, however, faithful to Mark.

Mark, in his efforts to write, has ruined his eyesight, and finally, aftei many adventures, goes to live in a boarding house, where a Mrs Francis ano her little daughter Cicely live. Th? three become great friends, and when her mother dies Mark adopts Cicely. All this time Celia has been working hard, and no news of her husband’s plight has been allowed to reach her lest she refuse to continue, and so spoil the film. When she is ready, however, her manager suggests that they return to London for their next picture, and here she finds Mark, blind but hopeful. The story finishes in a fairy-tale way. Mark leaps to fame with a film story in which Celia and Cicely receive star parts, and a famous physician having mended his eyes he is able to live happily ever after. All the other characters receive joyous endings, too. RUGGED MEN. The Firm Hand.” By Harold Bindloss. (Cloth, 6s net.) London and Melbourne: Ward, Lock, and Co., Ltd. Mark Crozier, whose brother Jim mysteriously died by falling over a quarry, is working for his mate Isaac when he meets Bob Wellwin, a Canadian. Mark wishes to join forces with the brother of his fiancee, Madge Forsyth, in an engineering business, but he lias no money, and his uncle, influenced by a miserly wife, will not lend him any. So, suddenly desiring to find a man named Turnbull, who ought to know something of Jim’s death, he goes with Bob to Canada, where he receives work in a forest. When Turnbull is located he has nothing to tell, so Mark returns home. His aunt dies by falling out of a buggy, and confesses to her husband, and Isaac dies soon afterwards and confesses to Mark:

Jim was not murdered, but really did fall over the quarry, and the money, the expenditure of which had baffled Mark when going over his brother’s books, had been given to a sweetheart. Isaac leaves Mark a large inheritance in his will so that he can marrv Madge. Bob marries Madge’s friend", Floral Ihus at the end all is well with everybody. A “ PHONICS ” STORY. “ The Little Old Man.” By B. J. Roberts. (Paper. Is net.) Melbourne and Sydney: Lothian Pub: lishing Company Proprietary. Ltd. I here is always room for a book that breaks new ground, or that marks a distinct advance in method, or that, patently and incontestably, meets a felt need. Just such a book is this production of Mr B. J. Roberts, for it docs all three. Around the varied adventures of the little old man is woven a story which every child will want to have told and retold, and afterwards to spell out for himself. Better still the story is so developed that with every fresh" instalment the child is happily introduced to a new letter, and gains practice in its use. And, best of all, it is brightly illustrated by the author himself, with outline sketches which the teacher or pupil can complete in paint or pastels according to the one completed illustration which has been printed in colour as a guide in the opening'chapter of the story. The book should make an instant and wide appeal. As a supplementary reader, as a series of graded exercises in phonics, and as a provocative of really educative effort at free periods “ The Little Old Man ” should win an assured place for itself in the schools. INTRIGUE AT MONTE CARLO. “Full Passionate Mood.” By Nellie Tom-Gallon. (Cloth, 3s (id net.) London: The Diamond Press, Ltd. Denis Reay is standing at a gamingtable in Monte Carlo when he notices a dissipated-looking English boy try to rob one of the players. His quiet" glance sends the boy from the table. Later, Denis finds him tied up in the garden. Coming away from untying the youth’s bonds, Denis meets a Greek, Pericles Doresa, and his wife Maddelena, who seem curiously upset when he mentions what he had found. Next day, attending a law court from curiosity, Denis hoars the same Greeks accusing an English girl of stealing a ring. When, however, they see Denis, they withdraw the .charge. Denis, on a sudden call, returns to England completely mystified. A relative, Arthur Carlin, invites Denis, and his sister to dine with him, when he introduces them to his fiancee, Christine Etheridge. To Denis’s surprise it is the English servant girl of the Monte Carlo court scene! She pretends not to recognise him, but later confesses it is she. Denis wonders if he ought to tell Carlin about it. They all go to Monksburn, Carlin’s beautiful residence, where, Denis is surprised to find, the Doresas are guests. He is furious with Christine, accusing her of underhand tricks. But she will not tell her fiancee anything about it. Then, one night, Denis sees, climbing into Chi istine’s room through the window, Che young Englishman who had tried to rob the player at Monte Carlo, and. convinced that Carlin is the victim of some unscrupulous band of thieves, he tells all to him. Carlin”, however, will not believe. In anger he sends Denis away. Next morning Carlin is found shot. There follow an interesting inquest scene, in which Denis is suspected of the crime and Christine confesses to having committed it, a return to Monte Carlo, where the Doresas, the English boy, and Christine are again in conjunction, and a time of revelations when all things are explained, and what had seemed evil is found to be good. The tale ends in a “ full passionate mood.”

BY THE AUTHOR OF "THE SHEIK.” “ The Lion-Tamer.” By E. M. Hull. (Cloth, 6s net.) Lond. n: Eveleigh Nash and Grayson, Ltd (per Dymock’s Book Arcade, Sydn-y.) The author of “ The Sheik ” has written a much saner, less sensational, and more wholesome book in this the latest product of her pen. The lion-tamer Juanson, of a dancer mother and an unknown father, is one of the chief members of Marqueray’s Mammoth Circus. He is strong, virile, and good, with a goodness which is the outcome of many early years of dissipation and unpleasant experience Unlike some of Miss Hull’s former heroes, he looks upon self-indul-gence with disgust. Pauline (called Paul) Ricardo is the daughter of a hulking brute, Who, in charge of a fine collection of Arabian horses, is the personification of cruelty. It is while she is sleeping in the stall of Satan, one of the most vicious stallions, in order to escape from her father’s hands that Juan finds her. In pity he befriends and cherishes her. There is in the troupe a beautiful woman—Madeleine, the trapeze artist—who is in love with Juan. Juan repels her advances, but when she learns that he is interested in Paul, Madeleine makes her plans. Juan marries Paul in order to keep her free from her father. His treatment of her is noticeably different from that of the Sheik for his lover, and P&ul is

happy. Then she disappears, as rumour has it, with another man. Much happens before Juan finds her, and is able to take from her the love she now feels for him. The story gives a good idea of circus life, and makes clean, vital reading. How Juan discovers his father, how he fights with a mad lioness and is almost killed, how Paul rides Satan in the devil dance, and how Madeleine falls from her trapeze, are a few well-drawn scenes in a tale for which, comparea with some of her previous work, Miss Hull is to be heartily congratulated.

BOOKS AND BOOKMEN.

Christabel Pankhurst is writing a memoir of her mother, the famous suffragette leader, who died recently. * . * * Lunacharsky, the Commissar of Education in the Russian Soviet, is translating all Anatole France’s work into Russian for publication by the State. * * * Bonn Byrne, who met with so tragic death while motoring a short time ago, left behind him the MSS. of two novels. One of them is already in the printer's hands. A. * * * > Eugene O’Neill is going to Russia, to see a production of his play, “ Lazarus Laughed,” by the Moscow Art Theatre. He is at work on a new play called “ Dynamo.” * * * Five railway truck loads of paper were required for the first American edition of Aloysius Horn’s second book, “Harold the Webbed.” * * * In the late. Robert Keable’s library, consisting of- no fewer than 2000 volumes, there were only six novels! One of them was the late Donn Byrne’s “ Messer Marco Polo.” * * * It has taken Mr Ernest Bramah no less than fourteen years to write his three famous “ Kai Lung ” books. Mr Hilaire Belloc classes them among the great masterpieces of our time. * * » “ Tarka the Otter,” the book which won for Henry Williamson the Hawthornden Prize, was written and rewritten no fewer than seventeen times before the author was satisfied. * * * Miss I. A. R. Wylie, the novelist, nowadays winters in New York and spends her summer in England. She has recently been holidaying in Spain, where she completed the MS. of a new novel entitled “ The Silver Virgin.” She is a native of Australia. * * * Ardent Dickensians are likely to be shocked this autumn when a biographical novel, called “ This Side Idolatry,” appears. It is an iconoclastic study of Dickens, written by Ephesian, Lord Birkenhead’s biographer, and a son of the late Mr T. H. Darlow in collaboration. * * * Alec Waugh has changed the title of his forthcoming novel from “Alien Corn” (which had already been “bagged” by Compton Mackenzie) to “ Nor Many Waters.” The new title is apparently a quotation; but who knows its source? * * * M. Andre Gide, the distinguished French author, who is now in his sixtieth year, did not know a single word of English till he was forty. He taught himself, and has since then made some exquisite translations of Shakespeare, Joseph Conrad, and Walt Whitman. * * * The most sensational announcement for the autumn is that a new book by Mr Lytton Strachey will be published in November. “ Elizabeth and Essex ” is the title, and the Virgin Queen is the main object of study. » * * Thornton Wilder, author of “ The Bridge of San Luis Rey,” and Gene Tunney, the world’s heavy weight boxing champion, are coming together to Europe for a walking tour. One of their plans is to stay for a time in Lamb House at Rye, where Henry James used to live. * * * Mrs G. D. Greenwood, author - of “ Gloaming, the Wonder Horse,” has received through the Governor-General the following message from his Majesty the King : — Government House, Auckland. Dear Madam, —I am desired by the Governor-General to inform you that advice has been received by his Excellency to the effect that the King has been graciously pleased to accept a copy of your book entitled “.Gloaming, the Wonder Horse,” and that his Majesty commands that an expression of thanks be conveyed to you. His Majesty desires also to congratulate you upon having written so interesting a record of this famous horse.—Yours faithfully, (Signed) A. C. Day, Official Secretary to the Governor-General. Mrs Greenwood’s book has had such remarkable sales here and abroad that it bids fair to establish a new New Zealand book record. * * * The editor of the London Sunday Express, answering a critic who had asserted that Longfellow was no poet, declares that he was “ the Henry Ford of poetry,” who reached all the people, but “ never wrote a line for the expert, the critic, or the connoisseur.” Perhaps (comments the editor of the Boston Christian Science Monitor) that is why Englishmen have accorded his name a place in Westminster Abbey—in “ Poets’ Corner.”

Twenty-seven years ago Joseph Conrad wrote of Dr Bridges, the Poet Laureate:— R. Bridges is a poet. I’m damned if be ain't. There’s more poesy in one page of ’’ Shorter Poems ” than in the whole volume of Tennyson. This in my deliberate opinion. And what a descriptive power! The man hath wings—sees from on high. It is the real thing—a direct appeal to mankind, not a certain kind of man. It is natural beauty—not would-be beautiful notions. I love him.” * * * Elliott O’Donnell has written many books about ghosts, spooks, apparitions, and haunted houses. His experience in obtaining the material for these has provided matter for yet another, to be called “ The Reminiscences of a Ghost Hunter,” which ought to be distinguished by- creepiness on every page. Some of the most notable of Mr O’Donnell’s psychic encounters have been with eleinentals —shapeless horrors which are much more horrible than any of the more conventional ghosts that never go haunting without their traditional equipment of sheets and chains.

A portmanteau play-book is the latest specimen of the kind promised us. The volume, entitled “ Great English Plays ” will be edited by Mr H. F. Rubenstein, an authority on the drama, and will include, in some -1200 pages, no fewer than 25 plays-r-all unabridged—ranging from Heywood and Kyd to Oscar Wilde and Henry Arthur Jones. Shakespeare is excluded, but other authors whose work will provide specimens for this survey of the drama inelude Marlowe, Dekker, Otway, Congreve, Oliver Goldsmith, and Sheridan. The price of this monster play-book will be only 8s 6d.

The original manuscript of “Alice in Wonderland” will not be tucked away on some dark library shelf. Dr Roseno xJ 1 ’ wko bought the manuscript at Sotheby’s in London for £15,000, has resold it to “ a famous American collector,” who has purchased the manuscript to dispiay it to the public and give Alice s admirers an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the forms in which their heroine’s adventures first appeared. The manuscript will be first placed on public display in the main entrance hall of the Philadelphia Free Library. After a short stay there it will travel to other parts of the country, and may even return to England for a visit. <• -r ™anuscript is said to be insured for £05,000.

* * # , F°J T , th ? cond tilne Ita] y has had ? 1 . e . 1 . Bo °k Day,” and this year the initiative taken by publishers and writers to encourage the buying of books proved successful. In every Italian city, large or small, special stands were erected ni the principal square, and there books of all kinds and dealing with the most varied subjects, were put on sale at much reduced prices. The crowd, mostly composed of young men and women, showed the greatest interest in these fairs, and it was noted with - satisfaction that the works of young authors had a sale exceeding all expectation. In Rome the tan was of an imposing character: the stands were erected in the Piazza Venezia, and the progress of the sale was witnessed by many public men, including the civic authorities.

* * * School children of Liverpool (England) recently celebrated with pageantry the unveiling of a Peter Pan statue in Rnrri? A’ 10 Cl^’ S Pai ’ k ' S ’ Sir JailleS Ba rr>e, the creator of “ The Boy Who to°p d f Up ’” Seilt a Pegram nnl/^ er ’ m e^ aVe to ’ da y> if for the only time. Take care the Lord Mayor do . es r Ot ,x find you out- For heaven’s sake don t grow when they remove your swathing sheet.” Among the messages sent by carrier pigeons from the park was one from Peter Pan to Sir James Barrie, which declared, “Wendy loves her new home. We wished you were here. We have put Jimmy Hook in the lake where the crocodile is. Our love and kisses.” The statue is a replica of the famous work by Sir George Frampton in Kensington Gardens, London.

At Sotheby’s a few weeks ago, £B5OO was paid for a copy of the First Folio Shakespeare, 1623. Although it had a good impression of the Droeshout portrait, it wanted the leaf of verses by Ben Johnson and four other leases in the body of the volume, and there were, many other minor imperfections. In' other respects it was a sound and clean copy. It will be remembered that the Carysfort copy was bought by Quaritch’s, in 1923, for £6100; this was sold last year privately to Mr A. Edward Newton of-Philadelphia, at £lO,OOO. Then, again, in 1922, the Burdett Coutts copy fetched £B6OO in the open market. Both these were not only perfect copies, but in extremely fine condition, and, judged by the price just paid, are now easily worth £20,000 each. The original published price for this book was about £1 a considerable sum of money three centuries ago.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

In the Scotsman for - August there is some very good reading matter. Glasgow’s Pageant at Garscube, Britain’s Step-bairn, the Gi’ein Hand, Reel-rail Raivelins, and Scots News and Views are among the articles in the issue, which is lavishly illustrated from photographs. r

In the Strand magazine for August are the conclusion of “ Sapper’s ” exciting serial, “The Female of the Species,” and a further,-." Case ” from. H. Ashton-

Wolfe’s “Crime Book”: “ Chundah Lal at Bay.” The fiction is of a high quality. P. G. Wodehouse contributes “The Reverent Wooing of Archibald”; F. Britten Austin, “The Storm’?; E. Phillips Oppenheim, “The Doubtful Guest”; and Charles Rideaux, “Paid in Error”; while Roland Pertwee’s “ That State of Life ” is outstanding in its originality, pathos, and humour. The articles in the issue include “ Great Bowlers of All Time,” by Colonel Philip Trevor, C.8.E.; and - Great Men and Their Clothes,” illustrated from photographs.