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Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18536, 5 April 1930, Page 14 (Supplement)

Ralph Connor, the author of “The Sky Pilot” and “The Doctor of Crow’s Nest,” has gone back to the border warfare of the war of 1812, in his last novel “The Runner”, which is a rapidly moving story of the troubles in North America over 100 years ago. Many of the great historical figures of this struggle, such as Chief Tecumseh, Winifred Scott, Dearborn, and Commander Perry, move in this verile story with its picturesque background of wind-swept forests, against which Mr Connor traces the loves, hates, and thrilling adventures of the sturdy pioneers.

Mr Hugh Walpole, speaking at Carlisle, said that at the age of 45, after writing books for 20 years, he had a sense of desperate disappointment. According to a wireless talk which he gave, Mr H. G. Wells, who was 20 years older than himself, had reached the age when he passionately desired to rid himself of himself. Mr Walpole agreed that the supreme lesson of life was to learn how to despise and discard one’s abominable personality. He | felt that the original creative impulse j looked back on 22 or 23 books, and he , was always fresh and strong, but one’s personality was always the same. “You desire to get new ideas," said Mr Walpole. “You get tired of v/riting about curates. You hate curates. You want to write about lions and tigers. When you finish you think you have created a splendid tiger. You show the book to a friend, and he says, ‘This is the I best curate you have ever drawn.’ |Mr Walpole added that he found himself living in a period which was rushing with ferocious speed to every kind of discovery about the outside of man, but was more perplexed about the inside of man than at any period in the last 1000 years.