A LITERARY LOG

Southland Times, Issue 19514, 13 May 1922, Page 11

A LITERARY LOG

ABOUT BOOKS ANoOoOKMEN

(By

"Iota.")

Invercargill, May 13, 1922. 1$ Hanging Pictures Dangerous?—Mr Desmond had been married twelve years, was thoroughly domesticated and during the latter end of Queen Victoria’s reign a picture fell from the wall of his house. A nail had come out. Mr Desmond proceeded out at once, clothed in workmanlike attire, green baize apron, shirt sleeves, a hammer sticking out of his pocket, and the twisted nail to be used to measure the new and larger nail he required from Tenterley’s shop a little distance away. That night his wife and family were concerned about his absence and they were more concerned when subsequent days found him still absent from his home. Search brought no result, except the knowing sneers of the cynical; Mr David Desmond had disappeared as swiftly and completely as if the ground had opened and greedily gob-, bled him up. Fifteen years later, on the anniversary of the disappearance (why was it necessary to fix on that day?) a big elderly man came to the house where the widowed Mrs Desmond and her grown-up children lived and were having dinner. He walked into the dining room “broad and heavy, grizzled, lined, bronzed, roughened in some indescribable way that yet did not conceal the fact that he came of gentle stock.” Here was the very'antithesis of the vanished Mr Desmond standing in the dining room inspecting the flabbergasted family. You are quite right it was really David come back. In this way Nino C. Boyle leads up to the story in ‘‘What Became of Mr Desmond,” a “mystery” novel of unusual parts, peopled by characters drawn with a sure hand, and passing through incidents which, while never strained, make a telling dramatic sequence. It seems that when Mr Desmond went paddling off for the longer nail, Teresa Gervase, “young, audacious, alluring, her foreign expressive face twisted as if in pain.” was seated in the doorway in the Old Tower nursing her leg: she had hurt her knee. Desmond helped her down the stairs into a dark roughly furnished room, lit by one candle. Desmond comforted her, and made a little love to her. Suddenly she said: “Haven’t I got pretty knees?” Desmond, horrified at the infamy of the way in which this girl was trying to lure him from honour and loyalty, turned and made upstairs. At the top Desmond remembered being confronted by someone, who smote him heavily on the head, and then he found Tere?a nursing his battered head. He also fovr.d that he had been struck by the father of one of a gang of receiver* of stolen goods—Teresa was a member—who had mistaken the mild Des- I mond for one Craves who used to be her lover. The son of Desmond's assailant, fiUlie Johnstone had murdered Craven and when he saw Desmond, who resembled Johnstone's victim, there were dramatic consequences. Johnstone screamed and died and it was the death of this man which enabled Teresa and a “big man” to spirit Desmond out of the country on a ship and keep him out of the way. Desmond lived with this desperate “vamp” but all the time he hoped for freedom to return home. “The death by -violence of the ruffian who helped Teresa keep her stranglehold on his life, reduced the witnesses against him to one; and memory of his home, the home he had lost, the wife, the babiea, stood out in clearer and yet clearer relief-clean, pure things, to recover which he vainly and pantmgly struggled.” Nina Boyle's story is base a on this strong framework, but its real merits are displayed in the description of Desmond’s return to his family, a stranger returning to a family of strangers, to children who shrank from his coarsened fibre and were incensed by the little mannerisms which were the expressions of his regard for his wife fifteen years before, to a wife who is bewildered by the mystery that surrounds his disappearance and his return. The story has its subsidiary incidents, the interests and ideas of the children and these are handled with a fine sense of dramatic values. “What Became of Mr Desmond” is a novel which eclipses the author’s work “Out of the Frying Pan” in every way. It is a ‘thriller,” but a great deal more and I have no hesitation in saying that it will be popular. Miss Boyle is to be congratulated on the technical ingenuity she displays in telling a story in which the use of suspense plays a big part. “What Became of Mr Desmond” is published by George Allen and Unwin, London.

Who Is To Blame?—The Saturday Review, which is now conducted with great spirit by Mr Filson Young, publishes ,a very out-spoken article entitled uncompromisingly, “Dirty Work.” The paper deals with the book of short stories, “I Have Only Myself to Blame,” by Princess Bibesco (daughter of Margot Asquith), and points out its serious significance. It finds in the stories by Princess Bibesco “a lack of reserve, a mode of handling things usually considered intimate, that must disgust the least fastidious, a nastiness of which well-conducted errand-boys would be ashamed; an attitude of mind, in short, that it is extremely difficult to characterise.” The critic examines them, not from the standpoint of morality but that of ordinary taste, decorum, respect, and observance of those restraints which civilisation imposes if we are not to return into anarchy. Marriage is sensualized and vulgarised and painted in its most sordid details. Instances are given in detail.. Chastity is regarded as an “exploded theory.” The Spectator discusses the subject more slightly, but with equal firmness. The Spectator gently says: “No development is possible from these stories. They are indiscreet up to and beyond the limit allowed by the conventions even of this indulgent age.”

Magazines Aplenty.—One morning waiting on my dish I discovered a goodly-sized bundle of magazines, the latest that have come to hand for distribution by Gordon and Gotch. The Harmsworth Home Fashions for March follows its popular course, and is up-to-date in all ita departments. A crochet jumper of attractive design caught my eye, so that I decided, if I were a croehetter, I would follow the instructions in this periodical and gain me a pleasing bit of attire. Weldon’s Ladies’ Journal for April is bursting with styles to please the women folk—and the men. All the standard features are there, and in addition there is an art supplement devoted to the latest Paris and London modes. The photogravure picture of Princess Mary and her husband is one of the most attractive portraits of the couple I have seen. Free patterns and transfers for bead embroidery, sections devoted to hairdressing, knitting, crochet, housework and cookery go to give this popular periodical an all-round quality. Weldon’s Bazaar of Children’s Fashions contains early spring styles for the tots and is therefore calculated to assist many mothers in the solution of the most difficult problems that confront them—the dressing of children. Coming to less technical fare I take up first the London. Sir Basil Thomson, K.C.8.. begins in this number. “Leaves from the Diary of a Prison Governor,” dealing chiefly with Dartmoor. Sir Basil Thomson retired recently from the post of governor of this prison, which he had held for many years and he knows how to make the most of his interesting subject. By the way, he was at one stage acting Prime Minister at Tonga, being recalled from there to take up a deputy-governor-ship of a British prison. Signor Marconi on the = future of the wireless, fiction by John Buchan, Hugh Walpole (a delightful comedy with a pup in an important role). Pett Ridge, Muriel Hine, Stacy Aumonier and G. B. Lancaster prorides varied entertainment. The illustrations are devoted to Japan and to the stage production of “The

Fun of the Fayre,” which seems to be a hotch-potch of “Sweet Nell,” with ultramodern trimmings and gorgeous dressing. The Grand for April starts off with Gilbert Frankau’s story “The Understudy,” an interesting exploit of this always interesting writer. Edgar Wallace concludes his serial “The Gambling Girl,” but Beatrice Grimshaw’s “Conn of the Coral Seas” continues. Richard Washburn Child, Marjorie Bowen, A. G. Greenwood, Arthur Hornblow, and Douglas Newton are also represented. The illustrated section deals with stars of the film and stage. The Yellow Magazine is young and rigorous. The latest issue is dated February, but in fiction magazines the dates on the covers don’t matter. The Yellow Magazine goes in for popular fiction, with any amount of thrills and is actually the mate of the Red Magazine. Douglas Newton has an excellent piece of work in “Single Darkness,” a whirl of excitement. “The Remittance Man,” by John Haslette Vahey is another good story and Lean recommend Wallace Irwin’s “Through Hell for Him.” The Red Magazine for March 17 marks the beginning of “Charles Rex,” a series by Ethel M. Dell, the central character of which is Saltash, who is known as “Charles Rex’* because of his royal ways and the suspicion that there is royal blood somewhere in his ancestry. Saltash saves a little hotel boy from an Italian and takes the lad to sea with him. I strongly suspect that the boy will turn out to be a girt but that’s the author’s business. Owen Oliver, A. E. Ashford and J. Russell Warren also figure in this issue with readable yarns. There is a new Limehouse story by Thomas Burke “The Song of a Thousand Years” in the March issue of the Premier Magaine. It is short but effective. The Premier is great value, as one can see from some of the names in the Contents: G. B. Lancaster, Albert Payson Terhune, Victor MacClure, Hugh Kennedy and Valentine Williams. The Wide World for April gives goodly fare. There is a fine thrill in Colin C. Clements’s account of the siege and fall of Urfa in Mesopotamia when 500 Frenchmen held out for sixty days against thousands of Mustapha Kemal Pasha’s rebel Kurds in 1920. An icecavern in the Austrian Tyrol, one of the most remarkable caves in the world, a good ghost story with a touch of reality about it, a reminder of “Lord Gordon Gordon,” who fifty years ago nearly brought about an “international incident” between U. .A. apd Britain, and the adventures of a “Film-Hunter on the Amazon” constitute some of the attractive features. My Magaine for March is education for the kiddies in the most popular form. Adults can also find much that is valuable and entertaining in its instructive pages. Two Views of “Henry V.”—J. Middleton Murry in The Nation and Athenaeum discusses some of Mr J. M. Robertson's bold bad criticisms of Shakespeare’s “Henry V. and in the course of his talk gives us two opinions of the play taken from his own note-book, entries made in the course of reading Shakespeare’s plays aloud in the order of their composition. The notes are interesting:—

August Bth, 1921. “Henry V.” On the whole this is the very dullest of S.’s plays. Henry has one or two fine speeches; but as a character he is absolutely wooden. He indulges in a wanton war to get a country that doesn’t belong to him, and then has the impudence to make a speech comparing the happiness of a peasant with that of a king:— But in grosß brain [th® peasant] little wota What watch th® kins keeps to maintain the peace. Whose hours the peasant best advantages. The first scene is utterly deadly: the funny men are too boring for words. There remain: the wonderful account of Falstaff’s death; some of Henry’s speeches, not for their dramatic, but their poggffi beauty; Fluellen’s comparison of Harry of Monmouth with Alexander of Macedon; and the talk of Bates, Court, and Williams. And of Henry’s speeches, “0 God of Battles!” is feeble. Fluellen is a decent old bird, but oh! how boring! Henry is not a patch, for character, on Hotspur. The speeches of the chorus are quite inferior. To me they are very doubtful Shakespeare. Altogether “Henry V.” .needs to be thoroughly blown on—a piece of hackwork if ever there was one. "Henry V.” January 81st, 1922. It’s queer how I ehop and change in my opinions of S.’s separate plays. When I read this aloud in the summer I thought it vastly over-estimated; to-day, I once more think it’s very fine indeed. I think the chief influence is reading aloud. Read aloud, H, 5 is inferior to H, 4 Pt, 2 as H. 4 Pt. 2 is to H. 4 Pt. 1. But CrispinCrispian is a wonderful, an amazing speech. Old men forget; yet all shall bv> forgot. . . . It’s no use saying patriotism can’t produce superb poetry; it’s rare, it’s rash, but when it comes off, it grips your very p.p trails Problem in Dramatic Dialogue,—The dramatist’s writing task, which looks so simple, is the most difficult of all. He must use exclusively the speech of others, never of himself. And we must believe that those others are speaking, each in his own tongue, each out of the depth of his own experience, his own unique personality. . . . Yet, from the speech of these others we must overhear—from their speech and not through some cheap derice of raisonneur mouthpiece—the dramatist’s judgment, understanding, compassion, faith. Such is the fundamental creative problem of dramatic dialogue. There are lesser ones. How little speech, in mere quantity, can the dramatist give! Discussions that rise towards a culmination in human fates take weeks, months, years. These millions of words the dramatist must sum up in a few hundred. But the few hundred must have the effect of the millions. We must feel that all necessary speech has been spoken. We must feel that each speaker in the drama has stated his case before that eternal judgeless bar—his whole and sufficient case. Good dramatic dialogue is like a blueprint that must yet seem to us to be the finished house; like a thin symbol that must never let us suspect it is not the thing symbolised itself. You will not write good dramatic dialogue on a week-end trip. • You must listen to men and women. You must listen with the ear and the heart and the mind. Then, perhaps, in long vigils of a high awareness’ of mortality it will be given you to write the word that will express your creatures and their struggles with the world and your deep sense of the meaning of those struggles and a dramatic scene will be born. —The Literary Review of the New York Evening Post.

Some Chips.—“A Comprehensive Treatise on Inorganic and Theoretical Chemistry,” in two volumes has been published by Longmans. It is by J. W. Mellor, who graduated from Otago University in- 1902 with the degree of D.Sc. Dr Mellor’s design to provide an accurate work of reference for all chemists. These two volumes are the first part of a work which will run to six or seven volumes. Commenting on the work the Spectator says:— “We can. only add that Dr Mellor’s treatment of the subject, wherever we have tested it, is as lucid as it is exhaustive and that the book is exceptionally well printed and suitably illustrated. Chemistry is incessantly and rapidly advancing, but. we imagine that this great work will be a standard reference book for years to come.” Heinemann’s have published “Wild Justice,” a new and revised edition, with three new tales, of Lloyd Osbourne’s famous book of South Sea stories. Mr Osbourne, • who shared the long years of exile in Samoa with his stepfather, Robert Louis Stevenson, gained there the intimate, knowledge of the people and the island atmosphere that gives these stories their vivid accuracy. In General Townshend’s book, “My Campaign in Mesopotamia,” the following paragraph appears:—“Owing to the Gallipoli expedition, the Turkish losses were so great in that operation that it is no exaggeration to say that their forces were so emasculated that they had no real strength left, rigorously

to counter-attack our advances in the secondary theatres of Mesopotamia and Palestine.” Gallipoli campaign, April 23, 1915, to December 20, 1915; Townshend’s campaign, April, 1915, to April, 1916; Palestine campaign, April, 1916, to October, 1918. ' The story of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s last expedition was to have been published in England by Cassell. These publishers have now made arrangements to issue the account of this last trip, which will be written by the Boy Scout on board the Quest. The first woman publisher in England is Mrs Eyre Macklin. The “Westminster Gazette” says of her:—“She is not only a successful publisher, but the first woman in England to have purchased a business and seriously taken up publishing as a career. It is now over a year since she bought the business of Messrs Mcßride, Nast and Co., changed ita name to A. M. Philpot, Ltd. (she was nee Philpot), and, assuming full control, began the work of building up a house. In a lengthy review of the Hon. G. M. Thomson’s “Naturalisation of Animals and Plants in New Zealand” the Spectator describes it as a “learned and fascinating book which will become a classic of acclimatisation.” The reviewer says “one does not need to be a biological expert in order to appreciate the merit and profound interest” of the volume written by the veterah New Zealand naturalist. In no other country can the problem of acclimatisation be studied with such precision. Note is made of Mr Thomson’s remarkable conclusion that he knows of no definite permanent change in any introduced species despite many earlier assertions to the contrary. “Captivity,” by Leonora Eyles (author oof “Margaret Protests”) was published by Heinemann’s at the end of March. With its message of hope, its merciless exposure of certain social evils, and its beautiful story of devotion and sacrifice, it is expected to be one of the great novels of the year 1922. “The Snowshoe Trail” has been published by Hodder and Stoughton. Edison Marshall’s first book “The Voice of the Pack”—a romance of strong adventure in the Oregon Woods, was issued in 1920 and in 1921, was followed by “The Strength of the Pines,” dealing with an Oregon mountain feud. Both of these fine, primitive novels met with instant success and now comes “The Snowshoe Trail” a story of love, peril and hate amid the frost-bound northern snow trails, and perhaps the greatest book of all. Edison Marshall, who is only 27 years of age, was born in a log cabin on the Illinois frontier. The son of a “Forty-niner,” his ancestors going to America from England before the revolution—fighting in every war and moving west as far as there were any trails to follow—appear to have been of an adventurous breed. Educated at-the University of Oregon, young Marshall worked as en editor to several small papers of Oregon. But his heart is in the open; he has lived much out of doors, and his fondness for adventure has often imperilled his life. He knows his territory thoroughly, and these stories of the great spruce forests amid the northern reaches of the Selkirks and the bitter snow trails of the British Columbian wilderness are full of atmosphere—vital and gripping. John Masefield, poet and dramatist, has received the LL.D honour from the University of Aberdeen. The 500-dollar O. Henry Memorial Prize for “the best abort story written in 1921” has just been accorded to Edison Marshall for his story, “The Heart of Little Shikara.” The plot is laid in India.