LITERARY NOTES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4855, 20 January 1894, Page 2

LITERARY NOTES.

[from our own cobbespondknt.] London, Nov. 17. The litarary remains of that talented but erratic writer, James Runciman, will be published forthwith by Uawin, and entitled " Sidelights." Amongßt the new books of the present week are Eider Haggard's " Monfcczuma'a Daughter," which I expect most of! you have read in the Illustrated, Blackmoro'a " PerlycroßS," reprinted from Macvnllan's Magazine, and " The D >lectable Duchy j " Cornish ttorioa by Quilior Conch. The Btorieß which Budyatd Kipling haa written for Si Nicholas, are entitled " Rikki-Tikki-Tavi," " Tomai of the Elephants/' "Mowgli'a Brothers/' and " Tiger ! Tiger ! " Mowe:li, you. remember, is the hero of the remarkable foreat story, "In the Rukh " in " Many Inventions." Mrs O'iphant, who has the swoet strong face of her own " Madonna M&ry," spends the winter now on the Riverina. Her diligence continues phenomenal or, rather, by dint of regular and methodical work she can get through a great deal. In addition to at least a couple of novels and one serious work per annum, she does a lot of reviewing for Blacfavood's magazine and a weakly column for the Spectator. Mr Jerome Z. Jerome's new paper, ToDay, made its appearance on Friday without absolutely setting the Thames in flames. At a penny it might have lf knocked out" some_ of the "snippet" weeklies; but the prico of twopence haa been fatal to many far more pretentious prints. To-Day is* in my opinion, no particular advance oa Caisell^ Saturday Journal, which improves steadily ye3r by year. In "Six Common Things" the author of " Dodo" adopts the role of a^ man of sentiment. To his sympathetic eyes there is "infinite pathos" in moat o Pour everyday affairs. He listens patiently to the long and tedious annals of the poor, and— well, he commends himself for doing so. When Mr Benson feels so much that he quite forgets that he #ia feeling he may be successful in touching us. These stories, like Mr Kernahan's, are (though of a totally different school) insincere. . Mr Coulaou Kernahm's "Book of Strange Sins" is a work which struggles deeparately to be impressive. The author longs to set the reader shuddering, but, somehow, over all an atmosphere of artificiality hangs. Ohe fanciea one can hear Mr Kerrtahan hugging himself over the Btory called "Suicide," and chuckling "I flatter myself that's grim, deuced grim. "When I go in for being morbid I guess I'm a regular out and outer." However, you can yourselves soon sampla tho work. It is not expensive ai 3a 6d (2s 9d discount). Mra GL S. Raaney ia, I am told, an admirable writer of children's stories. I have not read any cf them, but I will try and believe it. Her novel, "Dr Grey's Patient," catmot, however, be called' good, or even passable. Most of the characters are either deplorable tipplero, or elee fiendishly enthusiastic abstain ere. The heroine's mamma's hair went white because, alas ! she had " taken to habits bo contrary to the refined thought of a true lady just to forget her eorrow." Nor ia the hero's step-father immaculate Once, " ifc was all too evident Marmaduke'a stepfather waa under the influence of liquor and ready to assume a bantering tone with his son." To a shameless request for a glass of wine, the virtuous Marmaduke witheriagly answers, " I keep none in the house and am not likely to send round the corner for any." He then rings tho bell and orders " milk and soda" for his parent. Mr John Arthur Barry, who has been at home seeing his volume of stories, entitled "Steve Brown's Bunjip," through the press, left per Ormuz last week, and will be with you at the same tiros ao this letter. The much-talked-of introductory poem which Mr Kipling has written to give his friend's book a " send off" is not a particularly bright epsctmen of our Rudyard's muse. Here are a verse or two.. There dwells a ■wife by the Northern March, And a wealthy -wife-is she : She breeds a bresd o' roviu' men, And casts them over the sea. And ao.me they drovm in deep water, And some in sight of shore, And the word goes back to the carline Wife, And ever sho sends more. » * * * * And some return in broken sleep, : And some in waking dream ; For she hears the heels o' the dripping jjliosts That ride the long roof -beam. * * ♦ » * Home they come, from all the seas, The living and th.2 dead. The good wife's sons come home again For her blessing on their heads. In celebrating the twenty-fifth birthdaj of Vanity Fair, the renowned "Ruffler"~ who out of the original staff has alone remained faithful — recalls the chorus d vilification which assailed the first of the "society" journals. After roundly abusing that type of intensely Conservative journalism, the able editor, "Ruffler," eays:— "Vanity Fair was an outrage upon the ideas of the able editor. It was met with aa outcry, as most reforms are. It wae brutal; it3 personalities were odious; it was un-English ; it could not live ; it must be suppressed. Never were pilgrims more loudly hooted at, more blatantly reviled, But Vanity Fair haa livad, and it was not suppressed. People abused it roundly; but they all read it and ueed it. * * * The pilgrini3 refused to bo howled down ; they resisted persecution, and they have prevailed. They invented a new things and no better proof could be of the excellence of their invention than that really nourishing condition of those imitators who have had the enterprise to borrow sufficiently of their wares." An interesting volume of autobiography to tho3e who in their youth revelled it "The Life Boat," "The Lighthouse," "Deep Down," "Fightiag the Flames," and a eoore of similar entrancing tiles will be My R. M.-Ballantyne'a "Personal Beminiscences," published in an inexpsnDive little volume by Nisbet and Co. Mi Ballantyne's plan has always been tofounc his fiction on solid fact. He began life a! a cadet of the Hudson's Bay Company and there wrote hia first book, " Tru Young Fur Traderß." Later on "The Lighthouse " (unquestionably Mr Ballad tyne'a be3t and mo3t successful story) wa; the result of a month's residence on Bel Rook Lighthouse. For "Deep Down' the author personally sampled life in the Cornish mines, and whilst writing " Fight ing the FJame3" he spent hours each daj at stations of the London Fire Brigade Mr Ballantyne is now an old man, yet he turns out his annual treat for th< youngsters sb regularly as ever. " Th« Walrus Hunters" ia the name of this winter's gift book, and I am bound to aaj both inaide and outstdo it looks most attractive. " A Prison Princess " (whioh ran througl Caßßell'a Saturday Journal for severa weeks) ia founded by Major : Arthui Griffiths oa a legend of Millbank, whiol sets forth that a thief who, when arrestet swallowed a number of priceless pearls ant diamonds, managed to hide the booty ii her cell. In the present story tho heroin* —a Russian Princess who ran away with i raaoally swindler — is arrested as her hus band's accomplice and imprisoned. I fellow-convict entrunts her with the aecra of the hidden treasure (tho origins annexer thereof having departed fo another world), and she duly finds it. Th discovery, however, leach to nothing bu troubla, and the talo ends (rather unneoeE sarily) unhappily. I am now rending another intereßtin work by Mojor A. Griffiths, viz., hi reminiscences and experiences aa a ga< governor at Gibrnltar, Chatham, Millbanl &c. The book (in two bandsome volumes is entitled " Secrets of the Prison House, and contains capital stories illuatratin the extraordinary dexterity, ingenuity an resource of tho criminal conviot. A Gibraltar (an "old Ings'" prison treachery was punishable by death, burglar named Shotton once managed 1 smuggle tobacco into the prison* How 1 did it neither the governor nor the warde; could imagine till he wag betrayed by Spanish half-caste he had ill-treate Shotton discovered the traitor, and ewer to kill him. Peseta (the semi-Spaniard

in an agony d; teat implored the governor to separate them effectually. Major Griffiths did so, placing one in a quasry at one end o£ the island, and the other in a I quarry at tho other. Shotton tried every i device he conld think of to get near teseti, I but the authoritieH baffled him. Months passed and hie lusb for revenge Beerael to . have died out. Saddenly, one day, ! Shotton made a bolt from his party, aa t they were returning to the pmon. A strict Beatch was instituted, but When f nipht fell he was still at largo. The > governor was nob much distressed. To geb away from the precincts he knew to , be impassable. Shottoa would he caught I next day. This in effeob ba6p©aed, font } nob quite in the manner the Major anti- [ cipated. Nest morning as the convicts bound for Windmill Hill marched ' along the road, Shofcton, who had been ia ' hidirg above burst out and fell t.pon tho r hapless Peseta. With a fragment; of rook | he brought hia viofcim to tho ground, and . before help could come, had all but battered out his brains. His re-capture did ' not in the least distress the man. Ho had j elated his thirst for vengeance, and ac--1 cepted aa extra five years as reward cheer- » fully. Pe?eta recovered, to exist rather ( than live a poor maimed brotcendown Wretch.