NOVELS OR NATURE?

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 283, 22 April 1913, Page 5

NOVELS OR NATURE?

A HEART-TO-HEART TALK.

RIDER HAGGARD SPEAKS OUT.

By Cable—Press Association—Copyright. Sydney, April 21.

Speaking at the Journalists' Association supper, Sir Rider Haggard said he would -not recommend any youn<* man to take up the practice of writing. It was a heart-breaking trade. The very greatest names of the generation were quickly forgotten; therefore he was prond to know that the books he wrote thirty years ago were selling better to-day than when they came out. Condemning the base books, which, he was sorry to say, were mostly written by women, who, if they quite understood what they were doing, would turn off the tap, he declared that nothing was easier than to write hooks of that sort. He could undertake to write a book to sell by the hundred thousand, and yet avoid the law, but not for a million pounds would he do it.

Explaining his reasons for turning farmer, he said that there came a time when he was not satisfied with turning outj fictional and imaginative matter, when he thought he would like to do something practical in the world, something to affect those who followed. He therefore resolved to devote himself to preaching to the peoples of the world that their safety lay upon the land. If they deserted the land for the cities so surely would they bring upon the world the realisation of the prophecy of their own doom.