A Literary Log.

Southland Times, Issue 19099, 17 November 1923, Page 9 (Supplement)

A Literary Log.

(BY

“IOTA.”)

THE BOYS OF UNDER-LONDON.— i As the city extends the country is absorbed j and in the changing conditions boys are i reared and educated until they pass into the great struggle and beget a new generation. Stephen Graham in his first novel has tackled this subject and has therefore given us what is virtually a study of youth and a novel of locality. UnderLondon is obviously one of the subjects of the great city and doubtless those who have lived in London could identify the streets and places which the author has but thinly disguised. These points to the colonial reader are of minor importance. Essentially we have here the chronicle of the boyhood of several boys on the frontiers of the city, where the green fields are being destroyed by the march of brick and macadam roads. The author’s aim seems to be to show the difficulties which beset the boys in such a neighbourhood, the manner in which their ambitions arejj thwarted. They are in blind alleys and the chance of rising is exceedingly slim. These lads of the middle class pick up much of their education on the street and unofficial playgrounds where the spirit of adventure leads them into all sorts of exploits characterised by their elders as mischief. Stephen Graham for the most part writes without the slightest trace of heat. He is an impartial observer to all intents and purposes until we come to the close of the narrative, when his hand is disclosed —he is hostile to these conditions which turn the tide leading to fortune away from their reach. The boys he takes are typical of thousands of others who make old England and they finish up not as adventurers like their great forefathers but ■ behind office windows: The boy who was meant to be an explorer —became a commercial traveller. The boy who was by instinct a soldier — fought his way in a bank. The boy who was meant to be an engineer and span mighty bridges—to-day sells machinery and spare parts. One boy had the pluck to take great risks, to be a Livingstone —he is a clerk in an insurance office. Another boy was meant to be a great naturalist and collector —he collects rates. And the. hero, the hundred-per-cent. boy, sits in Embankment Buildings. There is a tide which leads to fortune, but he sits watching on the embankment, and never a ship comes in or sails beyond those horizon bridges to take him to the world. Graham has taken five or six boys from the crowded streets and through them he has shown us the great problems centring on the middle-class boy raised in the closehuddled homes of a great city. These noys are wonderful material. Deep down in these streets of London, says Graham The children roll about and play, and are truly full of boundless possibilities, if their parents and school masters and ministers and friends can put them in the way. Do but watch them as they tumble along the alleys. They are the stock of Old England, full of a marvellous vitality. It is the purpose of an absorbing study of locality, to draw attention to the richness of their material, but the author has another shaft in his quiver—he has given us a sketch of boy life which has few superiors in the language. The action of the book opens in the nineties and virtually it closes in the 20 years following the conclusion of the South African war. An epilogue is added to clinch home the sociological argument, but the main action has ceased. The boys are tremendously alive—real. At no stage does one come across the hand of the author guiding them—they romp and revel in life and move forward bravely as real boys. There are adventure? with purloined bottles, brave doings on an island, chases through the streets and excitement attendant on incipient legidopterology. How well Graham has pictured the school life of a boy, the unofficial influences which mean more than all the lectures, impote or cane in driving a boy to profitable effort. Divorced from the special interest it must have as a study of a city’s expansion, “Under-Lon-don” is still a great piece of work because it reproduces, with an accuracy possible only to the imaginative writer, the realities of life circling about a boy. There are do extraordinary types, no abnormalties, and yet from the outset there is an allabsorbing interest in these men in the making. In his closing lines Graham may state a justification for English eyes when be says Many will ask why this chronicle has been made. What does it matter what happens on Under-London, High street and May Village? . . . Well, I have thought it worth while, because Dolly has begotten Dolly and Dennis has bebotten Dennis, and Under-London is begetting Under-London all the while. And if Under-London knows little of itself, the upper world knows less. That is unnecessary for a New Zealand audience because it knows Fred Masters, Dennis, Dolly, Bill Brass, Mathias, Bertie Parswell, knows them all. Why, with but Flight changes these boys are all to be found in Invercargill. This means that boys are boys pretty much anywhere; the influence of their environment discloses their handiwork later in life. “Under-London” is published by Macmillan’s, London, whence came my copy which will go on my shelves as a book to be prized. Graham, the author of that remarkable study of English tradition, “A Priest of the Ideal,” has done great things wit?, his first novel. THE WILD WEST.— Although “Nameless River” by Vingie E Roe is highly improbable it should not be condemned on that count. The stories of the Wild West may be divided into two classes: Those which are improbable and those which are not 100 per cent, thrill. In the real west where cowboys ride and have their being life is probably fairly humdrum, but no reader of fiction would tolerate a story which pictured conditions of that sort, and so Vingie E. Roe, whoever he or she may be, is fully justified in going for thrill rather than truth. The Wild West has been exhaustively worked by American fiction writers, and it is something of an achievement today if a fabricator of yarns of this field can introduce novelty. Vingie E. Roe has done this. In “Nameless River,” presumably in New Mexico, we have the stfiry of the strenuous efforts of a band of rustlers to drive Nance Allison out of the district. These cattle thieves are led by Kate Cathrew, a picturesque woman of astonishing malignancy and power, whose operations were daring and effective. The thieves worked havoc with the Allison family, but the heroine, Nance, opposed them with a quiet courage and verses from the Psalms, weapons which sustained her long enough •o secure victory for her at the last mom-

Invercargill, November 17, 1923. ent. The story moves with quick action and will undoubtedly appeal to readers of Wild West fiction. “Nameless River” is published by Cassell, whence came my copy through McNaughton’s. A GOOD MAN.—A book that has run into seven editions commands respect even though it be of modest dimensions and so one takes up “The Doctor,” by Isabel Cameron, with interest. This little sketch of a fine old minister is dedicated to Dr. G. H. Morrison, of Wellington, Glasgow, “and in happy memory of his Thurso Bible Class,” so that one is tempted to see in him the original of the principal figure of the book. Doubtless those who know the Old Land might pierce the thin disguise without much difficulty, because it is obvious that the writer has drawn from life and has done very little, practically nothing in disguising retouching. The story is that of a noble character, a devout man equipped with shrewdness, with a good sense of humour and immense generosity of heart. In these lines, written by a partisan hand it is true, we see a fine minister in Dr. Lindsay, and one is the better for having come in contact, even though the eyes of a third party, with such a fine man. “The Doctor” is published by Angus and Robertson, my copy coming through McNaughton’s. DOWELL O’REILLY DEAD.—By the death Dowell O’Reilly at Leura on November 5, literary Australia loses a fine prose writer. During his fifty-eight years of life he mixed literature with politics. He was the author of a book of short stories, titled “Five Corners,” which contained one of the best pieces of literature written in Australia, “Twilight.” Many of his stories, of which, however, his output was small, show a clever satirical Merrick-like touch. “Tears and Triumph,” a remarkable work, was an even more outstanding piece of imaginative prose, with a delightful philosophy disguised in an appealing story. Dowell O’Reilly was a brilliant talker, with a highly original mind. In the Casual Club, a literary and artistic confraternity, which met fortnightly for over a decade, he was one of the most regular members, and all matters of art and literature captured his interest. The son of Canon O’Reilly, he was educated at the Sydney Grammar School, of which he became master for 11 years. He entered Parliament in 1894, as member for Parramatta, and he moved the first resolution in favour of womanhood suffrage that was carried in the New South Wales Parliament. Defeated in 1898, he joined the staff of the Commonwealth Taxation Office. He w r as twice married, and leaves a widow', a son, and a daughter, the wife of Dr Dark, of Katoomba. Two months ago he became seriously ill; and only last week his wife took him to the mountains in the hope of a recovery. He died early on Monday, leaving behind the affection and the admiration of his many literary and artistic friends. NEW POE PLAY.— That a first edition of a work by Edgar Allan Poe should make its appearance in 1923 seems almost incredible, yet that is precisely what happened when the Edgar Allan Poe Shrine of Richmond, Virginia, recently published the play “Politan.” Only half of this play was published during the poet’s lifetime. The rest remained in manuscript. The main part of this manuscript is in the Pierpont Morgan Library, and it is through the kindness of Mr Morgan that the Edgar Allan Poe Shrine has been able to publish, for the first time, the entire play. Thomas Ollive Mabbott, assistant in English at Columbia University, has edited the play, and many other Poe specialists have contributed in one way or another to the preparation of the notes which accompany the text. The first edition is strictly limited to two hundred and fifty copies, of which only two hundred are for sale and these were snapped up promptly. Requests have been received from France for permission to translate and publish the drama in that country. SHAKESPEARE DOMINATING.— EngIish dramatic literature is, of course, dominated by Shakespeare; and it is almost inevitable that an English reader should measure the value of other poetic drama by the standards which Shakespeare has already implanted in his mind. But, after all, Shakespeare himself was but the product and the crown of a particular dramatic convention; he did not compose his plays according to an ideal pattern; he was an Elizabethan, working eo consistently according to the methods of his age and country that, as we know, he passed “unguessed at” among his contemporaries. But what were these methods and this convention? To judge of them properly we must ' look, not at Shakespeare’s masterpieces, for ! they are transfused and consecrated with - the light of trancendent genius, but at the I average play of an ordinary Elizabethan playwright, or even at one of the lesser works of Shakespeare himself. And, if we look here, it will become apparent that the dramatic tradition of the Elizabethan age was an extremely faulty one. It allowed, it is true, of great richness, great variety, and the sublimest heights of poetry; but it also allow r ed of an almost incredible looseness of structure and vagueness of purpose, of dullness, of insipidity, and of bad taste. The genius of the Elizabethans was astonishing, but it was genius struggling with difficulties which were well-nigh insuperable; and, as a matter of fact, in spite of their amazing poetic and dramatic powers, their work has vanished from the stage, and is to-day familiar to but a few of the lovers of English literature. Shakespeare alone was not subdued to what he worked in. His overwhelming genius harmonised and ennobled the discordant elements of the Elizabethan tradition, and invested them not only with immortality, but with an immortality understanded of by the people— Lytton Strachey, in Landmarks in French Literature.

SPLINTERS. — “April Sowing,” by Miss Rosemary Rees, is finding appreciatory critics. The Daily Mail says it is refreshing to find New Zealand as the scene of a novel, for it is the Dominion most neglected by story- tellers.

George Russel (A. E.), Irish philosopher, poet and economist, is to be the editor of the revived Irish Statesman. The Irish Homestead, which Mr Russell has edited for so many years, is to be merged with the Statesman. Another member of the staff will be James Stephens, author of “The Crock of Gold” and of “Deirdre,” recently published by Macmillan. Even a lawyer may smile in the court sometimes. Outside of the court he cannot refrain from doing so when he reads “Cross-examination,” Police Court tales of Maoriland, by F. W. Shortland, late of

Taumaranui and Cromwell —now far advanced in years. Efforts are being made in Russia to reestablish copyright for authors, which was abolished in 1917. It is proposed to fix the guarantee for a period of ten years except in the case of photographs, copyright for which will be granted for only three years. An “Encyclopedia of Australia” is announced by Angus and Robertson of Sydney. It will be in two volumes about the size of Chambers’s Encyclopedia. Arthur W. Jose is the editor. Robert Keable, author of “Simon Called Peter” and “Mother of All Living,” is to return shortly to England from the South Seas, where he has been making a long stay. It is rumoured that his next novel will be a sequel to “Simon Called Peter.” E. Keble Chatterton, who wrote “The Mercantile Marine,” has been a yacht owner since he came of age, and a practical sailing man longer than that. When he graduated from Oxford at the age of 20, he decided to devote his life to the study of naval history. He was appointed to the British Admiralty in 1917 to assist in writing the official Naval History of the Great War. Among Mr Chatterton’s earlier books are “Sailing Ships and Their Story” and “Q-Ships and Their Story.” Mr Lloyd George’s book, “Is It Peace?” which is announced for immediate publication in London, will be published in America as soon as possible after that by Doran. The title of the American edition will probably be “Where Are We Going?” The book deals with the present situation in Europe and the problems arising from it. Bell and Sons of London is reprinting Wheatley’s full text of Pepy’s “Diary” on india paper, bringing the set down to three volumes and making it almost as compact as the famous Oxford Edition of Boswell’s “Life of Johnson.” The Saco Rives in Maine (U.S.A.) is to be the last resting place of the ashes of Kate Douglas Wiggin. It was on the banks of this stream that many of her happiest childhood days were passed, and there are many loving references to it in her posthumous autobiographical volume, “My Garden of Memory,” which Houghton Meffin is publishing.