Literary Notes.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIC, Issue 13349, 27 July 1907, Page 1 (Supplement)

Literary Notes.

Running Water," by A. lv W. Mason. ' —The author of that Highly original novel, " The Four Feathers," has written a strong novel of adventure and intrigue as well as of character development, its action begins in the Alps, shits to England, and then back to tho Alps, and everywhere Mr Ma-son is on familiar ground, even to the mountain climbing, which is one of the delights of his leisure days. Only one on terms of intimate friendship with the Alps, could write such glowing, colourful pictures of their beauty and their fascination ; only a master of the pen could have made so grimly vivid and moving the finding of John Lattery in the crevasse of the glacier des Nantillons. " Running Water" is a story of unusual vividness and strength. It is interesting from the very opening to the end. (London: Hodder and Stoughton; Timaru: P. W. Hutton and Co.) " Rising Fortunes," by John Oxenham tells the ever-inte-rasting story of an upward fight with fortune. Two young Scotsmen, Adam Black, would-be author, and James Mac Alpine, artist, misled somewhat by a trivial early success, came up to London to beard Fortune in her den, and find her as coy and reluctant as most others. The story of their life in the great garret overlooking the river; of their ups and downs; of the straits to which they are put, and their ways of overcoming them'; of their bad times and good times; of the' things they had to do which they would very much sooner have left undone; of their many friends, and otherwise, in the literary and artistic worlds—all these are told from the nside by one who has had intimate personal knowledge thereof. The book is of absorbing interest, and permits the outsider many peep into scenes and matters not - generally known. (London: Hodder and Stoughton; Tmaru: P. W. Hutton and Co.) "The Man of the World," by Antonio Fogazzaro.—-The many thousands of Eng-lish-speaking readers of "The Saint" will look eagerly for this second of Fogazzaro's famous trilogy of novels. The author is frankly consistently Christian, and in each of his novels in turn he has depicted the ultimate triumph of the ideal aspirations of the soul over man's baser instincts. 'The Man of the World" is naturally of peculiar interest to readers of Fogazzaro's masterpiece, for it is entirely concerned with the earlkr .life of Piero Maironi, afterwards "The Saint." It is the story of a rich young man whose wife soon after their marriage becomes hopelessly insane. In this unfortunate condition, longing for love, he meets with a young and beautiful woman, who lias also made an unfortunate marriage, and is living separate, but not divorced, from a drunken husband. The tragedy of their love forms the chief subject of "The Man of the World." Jeanne Desalle is a Freethinker, and, under the influence of his attachment to her, Piero, once a pious Catholic and hy temperament a mystic, loses his Christian faith, and is on the brink of a great transgresson, when he is suddenly called away to the deathbed of his poor wife who has received her reason only to die, and in dying win him back to faibh. He shudders at th« thought of the sinful life he had been .about to lead, and is touched with heartrending pity for the afflicted woman whom he had in heart deserted, devotes all his wealth (which an .ancestor had perhaps unjustly acquired) to the relief of the poor, and disappears from the vkw of all his friends. So ends the second volume of the trilogy. When next we meet Piero, the victory is already his, he is no longer a man of the world but the Saint, the hero of the novel that- marks ah epoch in human history. (London : Hodder and Stoughton; Timaru: P. W. arid Col) ,:'""': '"Nearly Five Million," by Petfc Ridge.— In Ills' new volume of stories-Mr Pett Ridge returns once again successfully to the field in which he has won his reputation. He is the painter par excellence of the humorous and pathetc aspects of lower and middleclass London life. The stories contained in this book are classified into three groups. " Capture of Town" is a series of related stories which may be d-escribad as a young country clerk's progress in London. Under the. title, "Joys of Youth," Mr Pett Ridge gives us delightfully humorous sketches »f juvenile precocity and maternal folly, and ur the last section " London Streets," we have descriptive articles on' various types of London life that recall the manner of Dickens. (London: Hodder and Stoughton; Timaru: P. W. Hutton and Co.) /" The Great riot, by William Le Queux. —Mr Le Queux is perhaps the ablest and most popular exponent of sensational fiction in England, and his new story with its rush of incidents and swift transitions must take rank as one of the best he has written. As the Daily Mail observes : " There is never any doubt about Mr. Le Queux's method',, ha jumps in at once, and holds you from the outset." "The Great Plot" is certainly a most striking example of the author's extraordinary skill in plot, construction. The mystery is most admirably concealed and the secret only made clear in tlie last pages. Altogether the story is full of "go", and verve and there are no breathing places. (London: Hodder and Stoughton; Timaru: V. W. Hutton and Co.)

"A Shepherd of the Stars," by Frances Campbell.—ln reply to a recent enquiry an eminent critic named as the book of the year (1906) wliich had interested him most* " Dearlove," by Mrs. Frances Campbell, "a charming story delightful sketches of Guernsey scenery." . " Dearlove" has indesd been received by the critics and the press not only with enthusiasm, but with many predictions of a justly deserved and emphatic success. It has been dfscribsd as " a. very perfect little rhapsody of charm and affection." "a delight ful'pastoral," " a .story for all jaded, world-worn people to read and smile at and. wish they could take part in." Bv* "Dearlove" is not only a past friend of the r-eviewers, she has also won her way into the hearts of readers the wide world over, and has kept them impatisnt for a ne*w story from the pen of Mrs. Campbell. These readers do not know perhaps that Mrs. Campbell is an intrepid traveller, and 1 that in order to find the material for her new novel, " A Shepherd of the Stars," she lias dared to journey into the interior of Morocco and under "the powerful protection of the Royal-born Raisuli and his followers to live under canvas on the. Moorish hills. As was to be expected, Mrs. Campbell has had many strange experiences and exciting adventures, and, quite ana itfrom the story it'self— a- fascinating love •story of two young girls, written with i-at bright feeling and delicate touch fron", which none but the most cynical will <scape—she has dVawn an extraordinarily vivid picture of the Morocco of tho 'present day, of its people, its scenery, its wild, mysterous life. Altogether " A Shepherd of the Stars" is a unique book for one of peculiar interest, alike 8 to the novel reader and to those, who would learn something of a little-known land from one who has depicted it with a master hand. (London : Hodder and Stoughiou; Timaru': P. W., Hutlon and Co.) Prin'cipaJ Fairbaivn, in the course of an article in the 'British Weekly' on the late Tan Maclaren, says:—From Scott'sfiction one would ''never guc--s that annum his older contemporaries stood a peasant li!<" Unbelt Burns ; that amongst the men who were his» compeers and coevals Mere men like Mungo Park, the travsllcr, bom the same year "as Scott, and in Yarrow, just opposite Newark Tower, James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd; John Leyden, scholar arid

border pool; and that amongst his younger contemporaries ivere m-en like 'Xliomas Cai\yle--all peasant-burn, ami all significant of the .Scotch peasantry. While Jennie Deans must ever remain a. fine and, indeed, Hie lxst type, of Scotch lassie, yet the class from which Robert Burns, James Hogg-, and Thomas Carlyle were drawn, a class whose traditions lived in their very characters and blood, and breathed in their very being, is rsprovented in the fiction of Walter Scott only by a man .like Cud'die Headrigg, who has all the pawkiness and much of the humour of the Scotch peasant, bui none of the- splendid idealism and enthusiasm which willingly would surrender life for the saving of the world. Hence another mind that Scott's was needed in order to the more perfect presentation of Scotch peasant life ; and' thus to the gallery where stood Edie Ochiltree, Caleb Baldcrsfon, Mause, the- mother of Cud'die Headrigg, and such like, Watson, without attempting to rival the creative genius of Scott, placed the heroes and heroines of Drumtochty. I am not mnd enough to compare the two men; but Watson never dreamed that his stories were a complete miiror of Scotch life. They mirrored only the section he knew. But I think, for example, his old doctor not only inimitable, but faithful. It was our good fortune for years to be served by one who deserves to stand alongside him, and' whose devotion to both patients and profession has been to me a Ife-long admiration. And I should Ike to know whether a writer like Mr J. M. Barrie, who has testified to the kind of people he knew on the borders of Forfar and Perthshire, or one like myself, who, without the imagination of a fine writer, though with ample love "f his native land, would have judged John \VVson as did the hard critics, who bore down upon the sentiment of the "Kailyarl School," as they in their scorn named ii ? I well remember, when once a guest in Watson's house, remonstrating wi'ji i.ini about the name lie proposed to give to a collection of stories, He had then the proofs of the ' Bonnie Brier Bush' beside him, and I urged the kind of reasons against a fanciful title that would occur to a prosaic person like myself. But Watson flared up and • said : " This book would; never have been written but for my wife. In the title her share in the book is recog-. nised, and I print the verse from the old song to show that she is as white as the buds and blossoms that made the 'Bonnie Brier Bush radiant." At the Mildmay Library sale the raro first 'edition of Shakespeare's Sonnets, a very few pages of printed matter,! realised £BOO. Tolstoi's new book, 'The Way to Social Freedom,' which will first see tile light in Berlin, is said to be more drastic and ■revolutionary tlian anything else he has written. He recommends, it seems, a universal refusal of obedience to Government orders in Russia. After reading the reports on the Russian torture system, one is not greatly surprised at such a counsel of despair. Ninety-one years ago Charlotte, Bronte was born in the village of Thornton. She has been dead for more than half a centiv— and it is difficult to realise that,five months ago her husband, the Rev. Arthur Bell Nichors, was still alive. The celebrated portrait of his wife, painted by George Richmond, R.A., was by Mr Nicholl's will left to the trustees of the .-National Portrait Gallery. The, same trustees would appear to'have 'let themselves in' over the purchase of another alleged portrait of Charlotte Bronte. A fierce controversy on the subject has been raging between Mr Clement Sliort-er and Mr Lionel Cus-fc in the columns of The Times. The Savage is the oldest of the Bohemian Clubs in London; this year it celebrates its fiftieth year of existence, and Mr Aaron Watson, who has \been a, member of it for nearly half that period, has written a history of the Club which Mr Fisher Unwin is publishing. The book, which willcopiously Illustrated with reproductions of many of the interesting drawings and caricatures that hang on the walls of the 'Club, is full of amusing anecdotes, and has much to tell of the numerous distinguished men of literature, art, music, or the drama who are or have, been "Savages." Ma - Watson-s. medley of history, anecdote, and reminiscence will be supplemented by an original chapter that has been contributed by Mark Twain.