BOOKS & WRITEES

Timaru Herald, Volume CVII, Issue 16477, 23 February 1918, Page 2

BOOKS & WRITEES

VERSE IF ENGLAND DIED I (An American Tribute to England!). ."What if old England "Wer-o'to die to-night ? The wolves would gather round 'her bier, Tc-morow they would slaver here. TJio Bulgar, Turk, send forth a cheer, It Eugiand died to-night. The Kaiser's swbrd would hack its way From Kiel to Colon and Bombay,, And dark enshroud the dawning day It England died to-night. Democracy, where would it be? Tossed on a wild, unguarded sea, Tiia sport of etvil destiny, If England died to-night. Brave France and Allies, what their fate? And'we, alas! prepared so late? Where could you find a saviour State If England died to-night? What of the little peoples then? "What of their liberties, and when? ■ "Where should we find the conquering men j If England died to-night? | "What of the aims of German peace.? "When would the horrors of war opase? When from the victors come release If England died to-night? Tli ink of the panic and the fears, Tlio brutal deaths, the endless tears,. Tho world fall'n back a thousand years, If England died to-night. "Why, if our Eneland Were to- die to-night, H:r chilciren true would meet tho test) And, gathering from the east and west For freedom, * ihey would give their be*t, If England died to-night. —I. Levering Jones. THE IMPORTANCE OF THE READER. (By Barry Pain, in thte "Westminster Gazette." There may be many people to-day who admire intensely the novels of Sir Walter Scott, and read them with enjoyment. There are probably more in whom admiration has survived interest, just as ritual survives religion. Tbey consider his works should be in every library, but they aever'take down the volumes from the shelves. And there are many who say boldly that they cannot read Scott, and that he bores them.

From this it may foe deduced that tho literary tastje.of this generation is wrong, or else that Scott was not a good novelist. Either deduction would ho absurd. The enjoyment of a book ' depends on a sympathetic collaboration between the reader and the writer. Sympathetic collaboration between the typically modern people and Scott is not possible for several reasons. Modern complex psychology finds the Simplicities of the early nineteenth century dull and wearisome. An intimate realism is demanded of tlio novelist now which was not donKnided! then. If you write of a country in which you hnve never been, and of a period iu which you have not lived, and shackle your plot with the chains of history, the most you oan hope for is to avoid gross blunders by patient research. You will never get the atmosphere of intimate realism in that way. Tho modern writer keeps his plot plastic and subordinates it to character. If he does go back to thedays of knights and tournaments, he , takes a twentieth century psychology with him. Between Sir Walter Scott and the modern young man there is a temperamental gulf; sympathetic collaboration is impossible. I do not think readers realise enough how very much their enjoyment of a book depends upon themselves. "When Smitht says, "I have no use for Georga Meredith," he is not criticising Meredith; he is with merciless frankness criticising Smith. And when Meredith wrdto to Swinburn: "It seems tlhiat I am never to touch the public purse," he was modestly assigning a failure to himself that he should have assigned to tbe public. His books wero a.s gco.l then as they are now, but there was : hot so much sympathetic collaboration i for them then. Nothing enrages the prosaic mind more than fantasy, and i the same fantasy may be loved by a I mind of another type. Headers are of | importance to tho author commerciallv, I and they knoiv it; but they aro of more I importance to him artistically, and , they do not know it. The writer labours to produce a certain group »f effects. But on what is he to procsuc<3 those effeots? On the reader's mind. The writer who can keep the average mind in view will produce average work, popular, and in that sense successful. The writer who Sannofc keep the average in view, and is only interested in a divergence from the average, will perhaps produce finer work, hue it will not—for some time, at any rate —be popular. Quite possibly, unless cricics of authority do evangelical work for it, it will never be popular. Pepys thought "Midsummer Night's Dream" "tho most iusipid ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life," and Napoleon said that Shakespeare was beneath contempt. Horace Walpole—who was less of a connoisseur than any man

who ever tried to play that part—declared that "Tristram Shandy" was "the dregs of nonsense." William

Windham thought the "Vicar of "Wake-

field" "a most absurd book, witln hardly anything to Carry it through but the name of the author." Thackeray's publishers sent back his books and asked him to make them shorter. No author has ■ever pleased all readers. It would also seem that the sincere expression, of an croneous opinion is better than a fervent assent to that correct judpment whirh is not really your own.. Insincerity is a necessity of

daily life, but in all matters-connected with letters insincerity is death. Contrast the last chapters of the"Agricbla" of Tacitus with the last chapters of Oscar Wilde's "Do Profnndis." In both ■the prose compels admiration. But one hits the note of sincerity and tho other lias not. One is deep organ music, and Tho other tinkles. And that necessity for sincerity is felt as much in the lowor literature as in tho higher. Pictun.' for a moment tho worst typa of popular novelist. His philosophy is cheap, pretentious, and mistaken. His characterisation is feeble. His plots are frantic and impossible. His soutimenc i-f treacle. Nothing' is true in his books, and nothing is pathetic—except the count: relief. Ho has no style and his grammar lias got holes in it. But lie has secured the groat basemen* public. He has a six-figure circulation and tla> affluence which is its concomitant. How has ho got it? Very largely by sin;' rity—because ho. can writ.c that kind of thing, and really menu it, and j really like it himself. Picture now the i liovdist who is an artist. He has seen tin- six-ftguro circulation and; the affluence of a. writer who, he knows'perfectly well, is his inferior. And, because ho coverts the affluence, Ire says that he will write just oneibook like that. Ho will lower himself. Ho tries —and invariably ho fails, and ho fails because he is not being sincere. You will not capture the great basement public or any other public with your tongue in your check. The artist may be quite willing to sell his soul; but he wilt never find a market.

And sincerity is as essential in the reader as in the writer. It is ail very well to sneer at the great, basement public, but. it is a sincere public. It never reads a book-review. It has no superior airs. But it makes its own choice, and it collaborates - with, its "chosen authors with the goodwill 1 and the free imagination of a child. Just as the child ploys eagerly with the shapeless rag-doil that it has made for itself and rojeots ' the elaborate and expensive article of the shops, so this sincere, if lowly, publi&; rejects the preaib artists and chooses "the" sorriest duffers. But out of the rubbish that tho duffers have provided for it it caii make sple.ndid dreams, andi great ambition, and real solace. One may wish for it finer perceptions, greater knowledge, more culture. But it is infinitely superior to those dirty hypocrites v who —to get themselves a reputation for a culture which they do nob possess—buy the complete edition of Meredith and flaunt it on their bookshelves, but never read it, and are powerless to appreciate it.

The importance of the reader's Collaboration is strikingly shown in tho case of the duffer with tho six-figure circulation of a basement character. An effect has been produced which is considered to ba worth money, and money is paid for it. But the readers do most of the work, and tho author takes as much of the mowey as the publisher thinks he can spare." Give one of the duffer's books to a cultured reader, and the only effects produced will hi weariness and irritation for which one does not willingly pay. The •silly game of compiling a list of the Hundred Best Books has ceased to amuse. . Speaking absolutely, there are mo good books and no good readers. I moan that no book is good for all readers and no reader is good for all books. What we do have occasionally is the perfect relation between the, book and , tho reader—when the writer is giving jusfc the required stimulus, and \ the reader is giving just the inquired sympathy. AVben we have this relation, occurring between one book ami "a great number of readers wo are accustomed to speak of its author as a bestseller, or a genius, or a mountebank, or something of that kind. The phrase will vary according to the taste of the speaker, but will generally bo exaggerated.

I think that authors do appreciates the importance of the reader but that the reader does not. The- author meets people Who would not be for him good readers. Ho knows it. He does what he can to prevent them from reading liis books; stating either that they are "intended for quite yoiing girls or else that tl'ey are boycotted at the libraries —whichever he thinks will be effective. And occasionally the author me«ts people who would be perfect readers for lw'm. He knows that too. Nothing but modlesty and thriftiness prevents him giving them presentation copies fervently inscribed in his own hand. Tbx> good critic is seldom a good reader. The good critic has an increased power of enjoying what is right and of suffering from what is wrong. But the suffering is increased far more than the enjoyment and tihiere are more opportunities for it. There are even mistakes in this article.

LINKS WITH CELEBRITIES. DEATH OF. FELIX MOSCHELES. The death is reported from London of Felix Moscheles,, tho portrait painter. Ho was a son of Ignaz Moseiie.es, tho distinguished pianist and composer, and tho lifelong friend of Felix Mendelssohn, utter whom his son was narced. "When Felix Moscheles was born, Mendelssohn sent his father a letter of congratulation, headed with a pen-and-ink drawing representing a diminutive baby in a cradle, surrounded by all the instruments of the orchestra. Tho baby was christened at St. I'ancras Church, and Mendelssohn a?t'ed as godfather. Charlotte Moscheles, | bis mother, was related indirectly to ! Heine, who addressed to her one of his lyrics.

Felix was educated firsfc at King's College, and was then s?nt to Hamburg and Karlsruhe. His childhood was spent amid a -charmed circle of literary and artistic celebrities, who included Mendelssohn and Dante Gabriel HoFsetti. Later he studied art in Paris, where he made the acquaintance of Du Matirier, with whom he struck up a friendship. Settling in London, he and Du Mauricr formed ,a merry circle with Stacey Marks, Poynter,' Whistler, and Charles Keeno, and con- | sorted with other famous people. I Moscheles had already begun to inI forest himself in the question of inter- | national arbitration and universal peace, a subject upon which he had :m ' interesting conversation with President ' Cleveland during a visit to America in jthe 'eighties. He crossed tho APantic with Henry Irving and KHen Terry, I carrying a useful introduction from B.obert Browning, one of his earliest ■ friends and a constant visitor at his ' stud : o. Mosolmles was President-, „f the International Arbitration and Peaet* Association.

THE DOWAGER LADY LAWRENCE. The Dowager Lady Lawrence, C.T., widow of the lirst Lord Lawrence, Vii'eroy of India from lbGi to 186.), died at Kenley, in her 98th year. Sho was a daughter of tho Rev. Richard Hamilton., of Culdaff, Donegal. "When the Indian Mutiny broke out Lady Lawrence's house became the refuse for families whose position was considered to be in danger. L:idy Lawrence retained all her faculties to the end of life, and her eyesight in extreme o'.d age remained unimpaired. Her most iitting-'epitiaph, and that' which she herself would hare preferred to any ot.li.rr, may be found in her husband's testimony: —'-'My wife has breu to me everything that a man could wish or hope for.' 1 BYRON'S GRANDDAUGHTER. A correspondent of "Th« Times"

writes:—A distinguished and: well-be-loved personality-has just passed away in the person of Baroness Wentworth — bettier known as Lady Anne Blunt. It is now half a century sinoo she and her brother, Lord Wentworth (afterwards second Earl of Lovelace), attracted much interest in London society as grandchildren of the poet Byron. A few still" remember h)er charm as a. girl; Her face, with its exquisitely delicate features, dark brown eyes, and expression of high intelligence and warmth of heart, was attractive at all ages. Her figure was small but made, and though simple and unassuming as a child, glue had a gentle, old-fashioned dignity of manner which was all her own. An additional charm was the softness of her voioe in speaking- It will be remembered that this attraction ia recorded of her famous grandfather. Slip learnt drawing from Ruskin. Her gift for sketching was unequalled, especially as regards horses, and the rap ; dity of her pen-and-ink drawings could never have been guessed from their minute perfection. An architectural drawing done by hor at the ags of twelve was hung in the -Royal Academy. She was a first-;-lasS chess player, niatbemaitieian, and lingu-'sfc, being a most distinguished Arabic scholar. Sho bad much knowledge of rausic, and " had been a friend -of Joachim. Sho was a remarkable longdistance runner until shlo dislocated her knee on one of her desert journeys. Medical help not being at' hand, she continued to ride for weeks with her swollen and useless leg supported by the foot in a rope tied to her waist. At tho age of 77, sho could still vault on to a .horse unassisted, and while in the prime of her strength habitually rodo a buck-jumper, which, afterwards "put down" the crack Australian roughrider of that day. Perhaps this was her proudest achievement. To her stoical endurance of pain and hardship, her asceticism and se-f-saori-fi.ee, she joined a light-hearted) gaiety, a delightful humour and lavish generosity and loyalty of nature, togertib.ee with fathomless sympathy for the sufferings and weakness op others. In 1869 the married : Mr Wilfred Blunt, the poet, and rode (the only woman in the cavalcade) with her husband through the wildest parts of. the Mesopotamian anidi Arabian ■ deserts. Her last years were TOainly lived in Egypt. ... : " , -,.; -., '■'■

T. Russell Sullivan, whose "Journal" has just been published . in America, includes in it an account of James Russell Lowell's funeral, at which Holmes, Curtis, Eliot, . Norton, and Howells were among the-.pallbearers. "The trees rustled against the openwindow in the gray light of a very dull day," ho writes, "until suddenly, just at the end, there came a burst of sunshine through the leaves." Four years later Mr Sullivan dined with Aldrich, the American poet, and the latter showed him his valuable collection of manuscripts and letters. "After swearing me io secrecy, be took from its hiding place an interesting document—Lowell's epitaph by himself, written in th.9. author's hand on a drawing of a tombstone, and b3g-inning: "Here lies that part of J.R..L.,

Which hampered him from doing well."