THE BOOKMAN

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 607, 8 March 1929, Page 14

THE BOOKMAN

Reviews! ISotesj

Have You Read This? Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, Professor of English Literature at Cambridge, recently chose for “The Daily hi ail" a series of abort passages, the “purple patches" of English prose. It is hoped that the series, reprinted here, will pleasantly refresh the memories of some and stir the fresh interest of others. THE AGE OF CHIVALRY IS GONE EDMUND BURKE. —"Rfflfctiom on the Revolution In Edmund Burke (1729-1797), cn Irishman by birth, practised at the English bar and sat most of his life in the English House of Commons. Though he never held any higher office than that of Paymaster-General, he was the philosophical brain behind the Whig Party in the first half of George lll.’* reign. He transformed the basis of the party from a system of family alliances and vested interests to a reasoned political creed. As a political pamphleteer he stood in the first rank , and he. is the greatest orator in the history of Parliament. IT is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the Queen of France, then the Dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in; glittering like the morning star, full of life, and splendour, and joy. Oh! what a revolution! and what an heart must l have, to contemplate without emotion that elevation and that fall! Little did I dream when she added titles of ■veneration to those of enthusiastic, distant, respectful love, that she should ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace concealed in that bosom; little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of tnen of honour and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. —But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, and calculators, has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever. Never, never more, shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom. The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise, is gone! It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honour, which felt a stain like a wound, which Inspired courage while it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil, by losing all its Crossness.

A Poet Against A Background Of Gasometers (Written for The Sun.) YES, I quite agree with those who think that the use of a bizarre and ‘'modern” style is not an absolute patent to greatness. Bad free verse is nearly as bad as good alexandrines. But scattered about among the baying practitioners of “modernism,” there are a few really great artists; and Jules Romains is one of these. When I rang him this morning he asked me to come half an hour earlier than he had said in his letter, and proceeded to tell me that the taximen hare difficulty in finding the street. So I hastened: “Oh. I’ll come in the metro, I'm too poor to use taxis!" Whereat his voice across the wires: “Ah. e’est parfait!” The quarter where he lives astontshed me. The house itself is good enough, but, upon the Buttes Chaumont, it is surrounded w-ith all the picturesque squalor of a Parisian workers’ district, and the street gate had to be unlocked by a servant girl after I had rung a bell. The interior of the house is interesting and characteristic, and certainly shows no signs of poverty. The spacious and comfortable double studio is adorned with everything from period furniture to cubist paintings, including one of himself against a background of two gasometers. A holy water stoup so tickled me that I simply had to ask him if it were a piece of modernist mockery fas it seemed). “Pas du tout —e’est uh bdnitier populaire de la periode de la Revolution.” The conversation fell to two main subjects. One was the stupidity of publishers in general, and of English ones in particular. The fact is that I have just translated that adorable book. “Les Copains.” and in it there are certain little offences against English taste. He remarked that the book Is highly popular among the students of all countries, especially Switzerland, where he was invited to a fete held in his honour, and Czecho-Slo-vakia. I agreed with him about the attitude of a certain section of the English public—"C’est idiot.” We also discussed the title of the book, "Les Copains,” and he was astonished that there was no equivalent word in English. He seemed to favour my project of trying to introduce into English the Australian and New Zealand word “cobbers” which translates exactly “copains.” The other subject was life in the New World. He found America interesting. but he was very glad to get back to Europe. He was glad he belonged to the Old World. Seeing that I am now very glad I do not, I asked his reasons. “Oh, life in America,” he said, “is powerful, but unhappy: the street seems only a highway from one factory to the next." I parried this by saying that until I left my country for the first time I did not realise that there is a very real feeli SS Jn_ the heart far the lat>.d where

o.ie is born. “Oh, no, my feeling isn't patriotism/' he protested. “I like other parts of Europe as well as I like France. It is a question rather of a manner of living, of problems of happiness. In America the way is

straight, and clean, and uninteresting. In France every little shop is amusing.*’ Where in America were the delicate forces of life to play? The better class of Americans to-day were saying the same thing: he had American friends who said to him “fairo fortune en Amerique; la en Europe.” So I asked if he included London in Europe. Yes, he loved London: there is an abyss between London and New York. At this point I ventured that our part of the New World, the British Dominions, had perhaps a little of the European charm, especially New Zealand, which I told him is “only too Britannic.” He displayed an eager interest in the conditions of life in Australia and New Zealand, and was puzzled by the existence together of high wages and low cost of living. I quoted the experience of myself and Douglas Glass. We tried to buy silk canoe shirts in London. Most of the shops had never heard of such a thing. Even Harrod’s (by appointment to her Majesty) had none in stock! And in the end the price was double that in New Zealand. Yet the wages of a New Zealand shop assistant are twice those of a. London ditto; and there is the freight and duty. After his surprise was over, he said: “We in Europe have the centuries on our backs.” He asked so many questions T began to have hopes he might settle in Christchurch! —Especially when I told him (and it is quite true) that the music in our cathedral is far better than that of Notre Dame de Paris.

I proudly boasted that Paderewski had coofided to me his preference fqr New Zealand over Australia, but remarked that Sir lgnace had poor houses in Australia and good ones in New Zealand. “And that,” said Jules Romains, “is certainly a sign. After all Paderewski is perhaps the greatest executive artist alive, and they .should wi sh to hear him.”

A GEORGIAN

Returning to "Les Copains," ha thought I ought to interview the publishers personally, and argue with them the case for the publication of this charming “Conseiller de la Joie et BrCviaire de la Sagesse Facetieuse,” which he thought would appeal mightily to the young people of Oxford and Cambridge, not to mention London. If the book does triumph over the bourgeois rules and find a publisher, I heartily recommend all New Zealand bellelettriens to read it. I told him I had tried to imagine his appearance from his books. Certainly it does not sort with the poetic character as does the appearance of other great poets; but he is just what one would expect from his droll and beautiful books. He is a droll, neat, French bourgeois (though he says he i 3 “not a bourgeois, but a refined peasant”), has dark hair, is rather stout, and quite pleasant to look at. But then the French poets have not that tradition of beauty that attaches to the English branch of the “proud old lineage.” GEOFFREY DE MONTALK. 10 Rue de la Harpe, Paris, 16711/28. BOOK THAT WAS LOST DUMAS DISCOVERY Recognised as one of the greatest authorities ou the waitings of Dumas the Elder, Mr. F. W. Reed, of Whangarei, has secured a manuscript collection of articles on Garibaldi written by Dumas. These articles were presented to Garibaldi by the author, and their final resting place will be the Auckland Public Library, to which Mr. Reed has bequeathed his magnificent Dumas collection. Although Dumas manusript now makes infrequent appearance on the markets, an important discovery has been made in England by Mr. R. S. Garnett. He has secured possession of a manuscript never before published, and the work which is being translated, will appear in England this year. It will be published in France shortly afterwards. The manuscript, consisting of 50,000 words, records the incidents of a schooner cruise made in IS6O. Dumas, on the schooner "Emma,” left Marseilles on May 9, voyaged to Genoa, where news of Garibaldi’s landing in Sicily was received. The "Emma” w-ent on to Palermo, and Dumas joined up with Garibaldi. He accompanied the liberators throughout their campaign, chronicling the stirring history of those days, becoming, for practical purposes, a war correspondent. It so happened that the book he proposed to write when leaving Marseilles was superseded by a more vivid theme, but now Dumas lovers are to have an opportunity of reading the book that v'as originally planned.

Books Reviewed OUTWARD BOUND. IT IS a little difficult to classify th* volumes of J. M. Dent and Sons’ “Outward Bound Library,” now numbering four. They are meant to be & little different from travel-books, a little different from guide-boks—to give travellers and emigrants and their friends an adequate idea of the new life, an English life, tliat is pulsing in various parts of the British Empire. Add to these requirements the differences between the various communities described, and tack on the varying ways in which the writers of some of these books look at their Job —and then, if you can, find a comprehensive description for them.

The two latest volumes in the series are far apart in subject and treatment. Gladys Peto, author and illustrator of the book on Malta and Cyprus—very interesting colonies — starts provocatively by saying that she detests all books of travel and accounts of life in foreign cities. That, of course, may be because she has not read the really good ones. Her own contribution contains some information useful to people who wish, to go to Malta and Cyprus, and gives some idea of the life of English folk in. those places; but there are many trivialities in it, and the background is very shadowy. The illustrations are of the pretty-pretty kind so often found with fairy-tales and other books for children.

Workmanlike, comprehensive, and up-to-date, Kathleen Us3her’s “The Cities of Australia” is informative without being “heavy”; and it has sufficient historical background to make Australian cities and the life in them understandable to the people for whom these books are meant. There are many bits of vivid description. The book is up-to-date enough to contain mention of the trans-Pacific. flight of Kingsford Smith and Elm. The illustrations, by d’Auvergne Boxall, have a touch of the severity of an architect’s plans, but they are a welcome change from Gladys Peto’s. Our copies from the publishers. “Unfinished Symphony.” To everyone with even a remote idea of music and all that it stands for, “Unfinished Symphony,” by Graham Sutton, will make an instantaneous appeal. The book itself is a symphony of life written with an understanding that leaves a definite impression. Pagan youth in strange settings is its foundation, and one follows with interest and sympathy the life of Terry Garth, son of a music-hall artist and his grand opera wife. Monsieur Guillaime is a fine old character who brings an old-world flavour of music into the book. Then there is Danny Slane, an embittered young man who finds a brief flash of happiness with TeriT. A book well worth reading, this. "Unfinished Symphony.” Graham Sutton. Cassell and Co., Ltd., London. Our copy from the publishers. Back To Hell. Mr Maurice G. Kiddy, who has also written “The Devil’s Dagger” and “The House of Faith,” tells in his latest book the adventures of Captain Wetherby, a young officer of the Regency period, who quarrels with Beau Brummell himself, and is accordingly doomed to a period of service in the Martello towers that had been erected to frighten off the Frenchmen. The story is quite well told and quite interesting; but it is surely time that novelists gave this Black Mass and devil-worship business a rest; or, if it seems to them so fascinating, let them set their stories in Hell, where the Black Mass will be believable. It is too easy to have blood-curdling events happening when the Devil himself is being worshipped and is presumably at hand to frighten anyone who will not sell his soul to him. There is, of course, a love interest, and everything comes out right in the end, except for the people who were so fond of Satan.

“The Watcher in the Wood.” Maurice G. Kiddy. Hutchinson. Our copy from the publishers. Better Than It Looks.

Despite its not very attractive title, “Family Group,” Diana Patrick’s new novel, is a brilliantly written and entertaining study of half-a-dozen people of different ages and characteristics. Headed by a father who is a clerk in a warehouse, whose five gifted children are employed in various ways in the city, the family is discontented with its position, though happy enough in itself. With the coming of fortune and an estate to the father the children are enabled to travel and enjoy themselves in the way of leisured people; but the happy harmony that existed before has melted away. How it is restored and the loose threads drawn together forms the surprising climax of a cleverly developed plot. “Family Group.” Diana Patrick. Hutchinson, London. Our copy from the publishers. “The Passionate Frucre."' Brought up in an academic atmosphere, and a slave to convention, Clare Wallace was quite content to view life fro/i her lofty pedestal of respectability. It was in the sunny clime of Italy that she discovered that, despite herself, her barriers of cold aloofness offered no protection. Here it was that she met and succumbed to romance in the guise of Domenico Sjdvester, an Italian artist. But marriage to a man whose mode of life differed so vastly from her own did not fit in with her scheme of things, and she returned to England, only to find herself forced into a loveless alliance to still the voice of scandal. Things took rather an unusual turn, and it was only after her faith had been tested to the utmost that she realised that her first love was her last love. Such, briefly, is the theme of Helen Eastwood’s “The Passionate Prude.” In many ways it is an unorthodox novel, and is decidedly interesting from cover to cover. “The Passionate Prude." Helen Kastwood. John Long. Our copy from the publishers. A Mixed Marriage.

Written in a nervous, restrained style, “The Llanfear Pattern,” by Francis Biddle, reveals a new and promising talent. The book, dealing with Philadelphia society, is one of manners and a return to the old school of pre-war days, in that.it does not deal

witli sex and synthetic gin. It is the story of the influence of family tradition upon Carl Llanfear, descendant of a conservative family of bankers, lawyers and trustees, its members of individual and often eccentric character. It is to the more or less patterned life of these people that Carl Llanfear brings his Italian bride, who accepts the standards of life laid down for her while her husband eventually revolts from them. One can certify this took sound and well worth reading.

“The Llanfear Pattern.” Francis Riddle. The Richards Press, London. Our copy from the publishers. Frank—Very.

! Fervently trying to be the most cyni- : cal cynic who ever dissected political methods, motives, and morals, and, equally, wedded morals, methods and motives, Mr Eliot Crawshay-Williams, in his latest effort, “The Donkey’s Nose,” while often quite effective, is Inclined to overstress. While mocking the very things that he holds up for inspection, he none the less contrives to make his own work partake of some of the qualities that he professes to reveal. “Hectic” is hardly a strong enough word to use in describing the passages of doubtful nature which abound in the book. His Eve remarks at one stage that it has become unnecessary to learn French, since the modern English novel possesses all the qualities associated with Gallic romances; this “Donkey’s Nose” itself runs perilously close to being a novel of that certain sort. Enough. It deals with “Society”—hateful term! —and asserts that few husbands or wives are faithful and it ha 3 lots of funny morality and shocking frankness about it. It will probably sell well. “The Donkey's Nose.'* Eliot CrawshayWilliams. Melrose. Our copy from the publishers. A Favourite Petticoat. In these days the blackening of saints and the whitewashing of sinners has developed into a fine art. Particular attention has been given to the dames holding the stage during the corrupt reign of Louis XV., when France had become a hotbed of intrigue and dissipation. In the eyes of Mme de Hausset, Pompadour ranks as “one of the most admirable women of all time.” Charles J. Mansford, in his “Petticoat the Second,” attempts similar service to her no less famous, or infamous, successor in Louis’s graces, Madame du Barry. To draw the picture of a wholly charming, guileless young woman, surrounded by villainous influences, he has to strain many a point of historical fact. But he succeeds well, and readers not oversqueamish and prepared to accept his tale easily will find it entertaining. “Pettiest the Second.” Charles ,T. Mansford. John Long. Our copy from the publishers. Poets' Corner

DIVISION | Written for The Son.] If it were nothing but some sheer abyss Opened between us; if some icy sea Whose sword of waters clove ’twixt kiss and kiss But kid your garden’s dreaming face from me, I should have faith and parting would have end — I think our feet would cross on rainbows } , friend. For Love knows patient ways of building strong Bridges and stairs. Love flies with secret wings. Love's shining wind shakes cities with a song, Swirls wet pink blossoms round bewildered kings; But there is more to master: all that long Pageant of ghosts, in stained and tattered dress — The swift, mistaken word, the unmeant wrong, The pride, grown harsh at last for loneliness. ROBIN HYDE. Willing ton. O. WIND. BLOW SOFT (Written for THE EUN) Blow soft, blow loud, O wind in the apple tree, Where the heavy branches bendenfolding me. O wind, blow soft, blow loud in the apple bough. Though pale bloom like a shroud falls thickly now. For yours is music deeper than the heart may know Before the silent reaper takes this brief snow. And all things lovely else, and closets all Where ring no passing bells, nor blossoms fall. A. R. D. FAIRBURN.

BOOKS IN DEMAND AT THE AUCKLAND PUBLIC LIBRARY FICTION “HERE COMES THE LADY;’ by M. P. SJiiel. “STONE DESERT” by Hugo Wast. “CASE OF SERGEANT GRISIKA,” by A. Zweig. "MARY OF MARION ISLE," by 11. Rider Haggard. "THE PRISONER IN THE OPAL," by A. E. W. Mason. "THE NEW TEMPLE” by Johan Bojer. "DESTINY BAY," by Donn Byrnne. "AMERICAN TRAGEDY," by Theodore Dreiser. "FORSYTE SAGA," by John Galsworthy. NON-FICTION. “ PLAY-MAKING” by W. Archer. "THE BRONTE SISTERSby E. Dim.net. "BOLSHEVISM, FASCISM, AND DEMOCRACY,” by Francesco Nitti. “THE FRENCH AT AKAROA,” by T. L. Buick. "ALONG THE ROAD," by Elsie K. Morten. "ON MEDITERRANEAN SHORES,” by Emil Ludwig. “COLLECTED POEMS,” by J. Freeman. “DIPLOMACY AND FOREIGN COURTS,” by M. Buchanan. “LORD GREY \AND THE WORLD WAR," by H. Lutz. "AFTER THIRTY YEARS,” by Viscount Gladstone.