In An Easy Chair.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13957, 17 July 1909, Page 3 (Supplement)

In An Easy Chair.

BOOKS AND WRITERS. One hears the East a-calling in the eight siiOtf stories by the author of " Liii Sing," which form the contents rf this volume. One does more than that,- for one feels the taste of the Far-. East in the stories, the flavour, without a doubt, an appreciable tang which could only come irom a writer who has the atmosphere of what lie writes. _ He knows his Chinaman in Hong Kong, and he is equally at home on "India's Coral Strands," as one of the tales is entitled. "We have, too, a Japanese note, and all through the usual elements of romance—love, character, study, and what not —were deftly mixed. English renders who remember £ "Lni Sing" with interest should get the present fragments from the same Eastern anvil.

Miss Clare Benedict gives us in " A Resemblance " ten tales which, if somewhat undistinguished and immature in treatment, are certainly written by one who/ recognises the proper nature and scope of the short sWy. All of them, unlike so many of the ordinary magazine reprints, differ in much more than mere length from the usual novel. They seize on the single incident—generallymore or less dramatic —leaving antecedents and consequences severely alone —and each story illustrates an idea or implicitly, points a moral. Three certainly of the tales, for example, Tave as underlying theme the attempted re-v'-tt against the humdrum to which all of us feel driven at one time or another, happily frustrated or made unnecessary by an illuminating denouement which sheds a new and comforting light on existing conditions.

The disadvantage and difficulty of f' •» epistolary method of telling a story are illn c trated in " Someone Pays." The anthor, Mr Noel Barwell, is a new hand, who shows so much running that we shall watch for his next essay with anticipations of something exceedingly good. " Someone Pays "is itself ' a very good story. The correspondents who develop it are made to display themselves in their letters with much humour and finesse. Rut there are cnine five-r>nd-twentv of them, and their numher would in any case he rather, distracting for the render. Tn t''>s pnrticn'or rase it has the braver defect of dissipating the attention which it ought to hare horn the author's chief aim to concentrate, upon the tragedy of Emilv Stork. That is the story. The snhsidiarv interests are treated with strong and trenchant satire, the author showing a great denl of discrimination in placing his bred hnt, a tragedy being the theme, the verv excellent" of Miesr several parts tend= to weaken the effort of t.he whole. That it is not snoiW rntirr-lv, and that "'Sememe Pays " remains ■» very n"tf>hl-->;fir=t. nnvnl, ore reasons for off"".*'g Mr-"Barwell- our hearty eongratulations.

j„ "Tn« Show GH." hy Max P"mherton, Mr Henry Gastonard. of Borde.'»nT" an London, left t"e hulk of his rnnsiderah'e fortune to his only son, Tarry, with one condition attached. If at the age of twrntv- fi ve the vonng man were not earn?"? five hundred a vear h-r his own efforts, the fortune was to he forfeit. At twontv-five, no r n ?>der needs to h-» assved. the c«->n-d r tion was fulfilled. A ll this Hnrry's storv with a little hv-rjlav. introducing into it pn 1 reusing poor worm the l?"v. Arthur hcii'-pro-e.|piT>t;vn to t' ,a r-s.-hofnd nnd his fh>hty wife, nuaintlv call™! Martha, hut does net influence ire ' dev"!omr>ont. Mi™, the show "ill. is fr» nivot c>i whir 1 ' it turns. Harry, pliving artist at h«fere settling down to earn the<:e l>«idreds. sees her at the Fe*e d« Xeuil'v. saves her from the scandal of the .studios and the knives of the apaches, and finally marries her, still wrapped in a mvsterv as she is. Now follows its tale of murder and ahduction laid in Orleans and Pans and Hampstead, and told, like the exciting prennptial adventures referred to alreadv, in a series of letters passing mainly hetween our hero himsfrlf and Paddy O'Connell. a simple, wild--Irish-man from County Wicklow, who knows no guile, not even when he meets it writ"large and loud in others.

The sketches in " Ole Luk-Oie's " volump "The Green Curve,".were ori«inally .written, the author tells us for the entertainment of soldiers. They might nuite well hare heen designed as tenets for the Peace Society, for thev paint " War—red War " in such lurid and terrifyir.pt colours ns to make one feel that peace at any price is the rnly possible policy for a sane man. The obiect of" the hook, we take it. is very much the same asj that of the writer of "' An Englishman's Home " —to make smng Britons realise what war actually means and to rouse them to'the necessity of making themselves ft to" defend their country.. In one of the strtries. "The Limit." vr> catch n {rlfmnse, through the ex-cs of a poor devil who has heen fighting his hardper f«r weeks, of inst such a family as i=- hem" represented nt Wyndham's:— "I was dreaming about mv brother. D'vou know what he'll likely he'doing now? He'll 'nve knocked off work, perhaps watched some foothill. hnd his tea, high tm,— and will he "ninnr off to a music-hall. He will }.fivo~stiek somebody else for the nnce of a ticket: he always did like somebody ol*e to do tho naying. M the hall he'll «ing patriotic songs with the best of the"-: then more dri-ks—«o"-e----one eke paving, mind you—though he s r-irivu" good P'onrv pow—nnd t'i"ii tlie \->t;-"-l AntVi... That's my bother Cod bl-ss 'ini' and that's what he's' doing f< r his country while you and me are King worn-out and lousy on a dumi-heao." There can be no doubt of the great f- rce and sincerity of thes" sketches. T, icy have already attracted considerable . attention in ■••'Blaek'wood's Magazine," in which ten oifj: of the eleven originally appeared; and thev were well worth republishing in honk" form —more especially at this particular moment when the questions with which' they deal are in everybody's mind.