BOOKS and BOOKMEN

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16376, 25 June 1927, Page 11

BOOKS and BOOKMEN

I.OYE IN LONDON TODAY

OLIVER GOLDSMITH—THE MAN

AIR. ARLEN'S EPIGRAMS \MUSING NOVEL OF MODERN LIFE In his latest book, 'Young Men in Love," Mr. Alien is once more concerned with the lives of people who have sufficient money ami spare time to develop their emotional idiosvn-<-daisies to tho uttermost. If there is a moral to he drawn from this novel of modern Loudon life it is that, love is a hitter pain and that passion turns to dust and ashes. A number of diameters are introduced, but, the three who really matter are Venetia Vardoii, the daughter of a millionaire finiucior and her two lovers, the Rt. Hon. Peter Scrip, once a Cabinet Minister, and Charles Savile, a novelist. She does not love Sole, but lias become his. mistress because she is sorry for him, whereas she does come In love Savile, who, however, is sol tortured al the idea of Serle that hei easts her from him.

ECCENTRICITIES The book is full of Air. Aden's rather meretricious smartness, but, as in so much of his work, there is an underlying depth'that is half concealed by his extravaiigances and eccentricities. As usual he revels in aphorisms. For example: — Woodrow Wilson was a sort of filleted Cecil Rhodes; with vanity for vainglory, the vice of solitude for the vice of sclioolbnyishness, and an Empire of dreams for a dream of Emiiire. And these:—-

Vsaliel | one of the characters] treated conversation like a ricepudding; she left most of it. Savile made the common mistake of thinking thai Vsabel was insincere because she used insincere methods to get what she wanted. Lord Town lei gh 's parties were what is called "mixed." That is to

say, that everybody who was asked went and everybody who wasn't also pretended they had been, but wouldn't, go near the man's hospitality. Like all great men, he seldom believed what lie said, but he always believed in the reason why he said it. Mr. Arlen's work, indeed, lends itself to extracts because he always writes in a highly self-conscious manner and in that sort of knowing way which is very irritating at times, though very amusing at other times.

SUMMING UP AN ERA His description of English society of il generation a.go is a typical example of his manner of summing up an era in a few phrases:

To the present generation the musical comedy stage appears to have lost a little of that glamor that enchanted our fathers, our elder brothers, our elder statesmen, and our school days. There was a time when men went mad for love of the ladies of musical comedy. Madness was the mode, as in Russian novels. 'there were stories in those days when gentlemen wore silk hats at noon, of great passions, great jealousies, great bankruptcies, great mesalliances. In America they would, they do, make a fuss about it. Tn England we made a fashion of it. Dukes were quite often involved. One duke was so terribly involved that ever since he has never ceased marrying other people. Heirs to vast estates enriched the aristocracy of these islands by joining themselves in marriage to beauty, charm, and good .sense. It is true that the. Stage lost a few great ladies. But it. is also true that Society gained a few great .•'.dresses.

In spite of all the cheap qualities of Mr. Arlen's work and all his frequent absurd extravaiigances in character drawing, he has a real capacity lor dramatic situations and now and again a real capcity for creating an arresting figure. In this book, for example, the evolution of Savile from a fashionable youth about town into a strange, brooding man is powerfolly imagined. It is Savile, indeed, who really gives a vital interest to the volume.

IS OPT IM ISM OV BBDONE .' INDUSTRY HARMED BY FALSE IDEAS WHAT FARMERS DO NOT KNOW Mr. Lloyd and Mr. Austin, who in their previous work, "The Secret, of High Wages,' made such an important contribution to the economic problem, \have produce another work, "Capital for Labor," in the hop.- of forwarding the cause of peace and prosperity in industry. They think that the tendency of well-known people to be unduly optimistic is a dangerous one:— Certain prominent men—among them bankers —in recent public, utterances have done harm by attempting to allay any fears the public may have regarding the present position of British trade. They have taken every opportunity of using such phrases as "We have now seen the worst of our depression," "We have turned the comer," "We can look now to a steady but slow improvement in our trade." This kind of thing causes people to sink back into comfortable inaction. These gentlemen comfortably assume that the relations between Capital anil Labor are entirely satisfactory.

The figures the authors give fully boar out their contention that such optimism is very much out. of place :ii these times. Between ]i>23 and ]')2s the experts of Great Britain ami Northern Ireland only increased 2.;i per cent., whereas the exports of ('/.echo-Slovakia increased >3 pel cent., of Belgium 48 per < ent., of Italy •!.") per cent., and of Germany 38 per cent. £1,300,000 A DAY FOB FOOD On the subject of agriculture they write with a good deal of gloom, as • hey consider our whole system extremely out of dale. Ro loiig as We continue to fall iar behind the rest of the world in improvements in the production and distribution of food, so will more and more of this country be tinned over (o golf clubs for the entertainment of visitors from America and the Dominions. In 1926 we in this country paid no less than £401,000,000 fir .food we bought from abroad. That N to say, we spend more than £1,300,i'oo a day on imported foodstuffs. Vet they believe that salvation will come to agriculture when British faria rs get together and organise their industry properly. They also believe that in manufactures much could be dene by standardisation,

Following is the texl of Canon i'acke's a..i..tre.-s mj the Rotary Club this week on ihc subject of Oliver Goldsmith:—

l should like to be a professor of human nature. 1 have to say something of a man who, while being one of me weakest, was one of the most tovanic of maiuuiui. Others may .set before you the curiosities of commerce and trade, or the bewilderments of tiiiauce. 1 tike to hear all about tlio hones and stones of the world; of boulders and aboriginal apes; but my faculty, if I have one, is io study the strung!) human beings who pass before me. Here, then, is a most eccentric and most lovable man. J. cannot praise hint. J mast withhold my moral esteem and admiration, but 1 am afraid we shall have to find that Goldsmith had all those graces which, tike beauty of the body, ask no logic and need no introduction,, but somehow I hey win their way until we took

upon tuem much as we do a pretty woman —She is never out of season and never out of place, always welcome and never distasteful, except when she turns her-back to go. Tlio Shandyan theory about names influencing natures breaks down here. Goldsmith seems to imply ease and comfort,, and plenty and freedom from care; but what meaning has it when applied to a man who tnroughout life had but the roilhile.sf cmine,-! ~m ,nlli

gold. Neither he nor his family ever Had gold. Their hearts were in the right place; their brains anywhere. Oliver Goldsmith was one of that remarkable class for which Ireland has become famous—absentees. I don't know how this glorious country has never been able to keep her children, and I will not speculate lest there be too many Irish present. I want to take Oliver as he presents himself and try to understand him. The Goldsmith family were worthy people, in the best sense. The son of. a clergyman, as is so often the case of small means and large family, he may have fallen back on that "trust in Providence" which political economists do not take into account —that "When God sends a mouth, He sends the food to till it." Oliver repaid his father by immortalising him. He embalmed his father, not in Egyptian fashion by stuffing your parent in spices and putting him in a tomb with an ibis and a cat, but he put his father into his works; so that as long as the son is remembered—as long ;is the English tongue is spoken—so long, too, will the father be remembered. Have you never loved and laughed and wept with "the Man in Black" in "The Citizen of the World," the Preacher in "The Deserted Village," or Dr. Primrose in "The Vicar of Wakefield?" All wen; the Rev. Charles Goldsmith. Oliver was an ungracious child but he immortalised his father. "Passing rich on forty pounds a year," with a family of six, the vicar of Kilkenny West was promoted; to glory and the Rev. Charles was pro- I moted to £2OO per annum'. You could | not blame him if he said "The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away: Blessed be the Name, of the Lord." He went to Lissoy, which enthusiasts have endeavored to identify with "Sweet Auburn, Lovliest Village of the Plain." As a matter of fact, Lissoy was anything but a lovely village and if anybody "deserted" it, he probably had the best reasons for doing so. Dr. Johnson said that Goldsmith was a plant which flowered late; but Washington Irvine said lie tlowered early and came to fruit late, which is ratlipr a truer .statement, considered horticulturally. Oliver's schoolmaster was a Air. Byrne, a retired quartermaster. Ho believed in fairies more than fluxions and in ghosts more than classics. The most pitialde thing Oliver had was smallpox—in confluent form. Some of yon 1 know, are so grounded in commonsense, so steeped in philosophy, so lost in enlightenment that you say : What does it matter to a man whether he is good-looking or not?" Then you know little of life. Good looks have awful power. They save introductions. If you are good looking you need have no cards engraved, and you can go into any.society; but if you have a snub nose and have had confluent small-pox you will require a recommendation and a testimonial. Never say it is a small thing to be ugly. At every school Oliver was made fun of. He was called "the blockhead of the parish," "the fool of the neighborhood." Oliver Goldsmith had a very heavy burden to bear. He had a strange education.-. He says: My father loved all the! world and fancied that all the world j hived him. Great illusion! He was j taught that universal benevolence I what cemented society. "We were taught," he says,, "to give away J thousands before we had learned the! art of making a farthing." He was i marked for the church and went to ; Trinity College, Dublin. During his , last holidays he borrowed a hack and j he had got a guinea. He was a capi-! talis) and patron. At nightfall he! found himself at Ardagh, and asked j for the best house in the place, meaning "public house." A wag directed him to the finest gentleman's house in the place. Up rode Oliver, ordered his horse to be stabled, ordered supper and invited his landlord's wife and daughter. The owner of the manor was a humorist. Nexl morning Oliver called" for his bill and found out his mistake. This incident he rut into "She Stoops to Conquer."j His works are the reverse of his I biography. His life was one side of a medal and when he wrote it turned i

it over. He wrote beautiful things, but never practised them. He was a, "Sizar" al Trinity and hated his' menial position, lie had an ability loi write ballads, some ability to sing, and a fearful propensity to blow oil' steam on a flute, lie had, an uncle who helped hint, but he gave even his bedclothes away and .sponged on his, mother. He won an exhibition of i thirty shillings and got up a dance in I his rooms. The dons might have winked at that, but he didn't see itie fun of two males dancing together so he invited a likely girl or two. In walked his tutor, Air. Wilder, and knocked him down. He pawned a i'tiw books for a shilling ami weal to Cork. He lived for three days on that shilling—genius! His brother, sent him back to college and he look his B.A.—bottom of the list. He' went up for ordination but was plucked, because he turned up in red breeches. His uncle gave him S3O to go to America, but he got as far as Cork and spent it all. Then he went back to his mother and said: "And now my 'tear mother, having worked so hard to get back, L wonder you are. not more rejoiced to welcome me." Dean Goldsmith sent him to Edinburgh to study medicine. Ho preferred drinking whisky and singing songs to anatomy. He made op his mind to go to London. He got as far as Newcastle and was arrested as a Jacobite. At Sunderland he was arrested by his tailor and the boat, went without him. He finally got; to London, where the same story was reenacted—carelessness,■ gambling, debt. He then started a tour of Europe with a guinea, one shirt and a flute. The tour produced the beautiful poem "The Traveller." He .finds his way back to London and becomes an usher and writes for many magazines. I

Finally he got to a garret in Green Arbour Court, narrow, dirty, stinking. His landlady falls behind in rent and the bailiffs seize the husband. Oliver strips oil' Griffiths' clothes and sends them to his "uncle." He then meets a Dr. Percy who brought Or. Johnson to see him. In order to teach a lesson to Goldsmith, Johnson came neatly dressed. It must have been agony to do so. However, Goldsmith came out in all colors of the rainbow —peachcolored coat .and plum-colored const inuat ions, and Johnson had to regret having taught him to be a dandy to cure him of being a sloven. And now Boswcll appears on the scene. Was there ever such a trio seen in history?

A HOLE IN HIS POCKET.

He was standing in the street looking most dejected. Then his eyes brightened at the sight of a friend. "The very man!" he exclaimed. "Got a fill of tobacco?" "Yes, here you are. Help yourself. Never seen you on the cadge before!" "No. See that pocket?" he said. "Look at the hole! I've lost a pound note through there this morning." "Hard lines!" "Yos! By tlie way, you smoke a jolly good tobacco.'' "The best, old chap, the very best. It's Hears' Out Plug. Von can buy it everywhere now. It's only 8(1 an ounce. Sold, loose by weight." "That's cheap enough! Won't make n hole in niv Docket—what!"

Johnson big, ugly, half-blind,, noisy, ( dogmatic, overbearing. i'es, sayn ! Goldsmith, but only on the skiu. John jsoii represented Hnglnnd, though nol jmuch Jiko a rose; iioswcll {Scotland, {though unlike a thistle; and Goldsmith Ireland, i'oor Oliver, no richer, went to live with "Mis. Fleming. The bailiffs come it. Johnson .semis him jn guinea. lie at once buys a bottle jot madeira. lie then sells ''The i Vicar of Wakeiieid" for £OO. In 'this booh is (he greatest gospel of for'giveiiesa ever preached. Goldsmith's 'jnilueneo oh Goethe was marvellous. Shakespeare made .Schiller. Shakespeare and Goldsmith —what more can old Lngiund wan:, until New Zealand is ripe; What a lovely story that is of Oliver and Johnson walking to the 'Poet's Corner and, looking at the •greatest men God ever gave to the nation,, Johnson says: "Farsitan ot nostrum nomen miseebitur istir." "Perhaps our names may one day be mixed with these.'" -Goldsmith said nothing till he came to Temple Bar and saw an assortment of Jacobite heads displayed. He then repeated the Latin tag. Poor Goldsmith died when lie was 43. Burke wept: Joshua Reynolds painted no more that day; '■ Johnson grieved long. Such is a rapid outline of the man —always poor. always in debt, always cheerful, always generous, forgiving, merciful. Vmi may say I hope you are not going to praise him because you might induce some to imitate. You cannot! It is no use trying; you must be bom a Goldsmith to be one. lam thankful God sent Oliver Goldsmith into the world to teach by his life and writings that mercy, charity and slowness to auger, which through all his sad, miserable life, he never failed to show. I MR. KIPLING'S JUVENILIA

The Kipling Society, which has 300 members and expects to have 3000 very soon, is hoping to establish a central Kipling libraiy in London. Some idea of the treasures which might find a fit home in such an institution may be gathered from Cap-] tain Martindel's address to the so-j ciety at the Automobile Club on "Seme Less-known Kipling Writings." Captain Martindell mentioned that certain works by Air. Kipling had never yet been published. He quoted some of the author's less-known prose and poetry, and said that some of the verses, notably those from "Job's Wife" and "Thoughts of a Felon Awaiting Execution" from "Schoolboy Lyrics," were written at the age of 13. "Plain Tales from the Hills" originally comprised 39 stories. Ten were omitted from the published version, and two of these had not been published. Speaking of pirated editions, he said that one published in Santiago did not sell, and the publisher ultimately sold the copies at or. per kilo to get lid of them. / Ui\ had the mortification of learning later that a single copy of the same work brought at Sotheby's. j