LITERARY NOTES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6668, 14 December 1899, Page 3

LITERARY NOTES.

("Canterbury Times/) LONDON, Oct. 21. Sir Wemyss Reid, whose farewell address appears in the current " Speaker," has been a hardworking journalist ever since 1860, when, as a lad, he joined the " Newcastle Journal." From Newcastle he drifted to the editorial chair of the " Preston Guardian," and in 1867 became London correspondent of the "Leeds Mercury." Three yeais later Reid was appointed editor of the " Mercury," a billet he held with considerable distinction for seventeen years. In 1890 Messrs Cassells made him their manager, and the " Speaker " came out. It was designed to humble the " Spectator " to the dust, but somehow missed fire. For one thing the "Speaker" was opposed in its early days by the " National Obsei~v-er," a journal which ' (^fough we didn't know it then) boasted a galaxy of coming men on its staff. Sir Wemyss only discovered Barry Pain and Quiller Couch, otherwise his staff were not remarkable. Of late years, : too, the paper seems to have lost all "snap." The " Speaker " must long have been a financial failure, but it is understood the Radical Party make up to Messrs Qassells the annual deficitsA "Daily News" 'interviewer hss been cross-examining Sir Wemyss anent the famous journalists of his* younger days. The list he gave is distinctly interesting. In answer to the question, "who impressed you most?" Sir Wemyss said promptly, "Delane,' of 'The Times.' He was in many ways a-nj ideal editor. Writing very little himself, perhaps only a> note a week, he yet dominated every department on his paper. He gave his leader writers such full instructions about the lines they were to take that they were but littlef more than the pens of Ms thoughts. Night by night he" remained at the office till the last, seeing the paper to bed (to use the old-fashioned phrase), and examining the first copies printed. He would collect, alter, interpolate, till every column of the paper was moulded as he pleased. He would hold everything back to hack and change one little paragraph ' which did not satisfy him. Many a time, early in the morning, have I, met him in Fleet Street, walking home from the office. Amongst leader writers my old friend James Macdoneil stands -first-, lie and I were boys together, and I was one of the pall-bearers at his funeral. Forceful, cultured, dear, he was a really great writer. In London journalism two other names come up, men who have passed out of- the newspaper world, though they are still alive. Frank Hill stands out as the efficient, all-round writer. Mr Leonard Courtney was a great leader writer, though he seemed sometimes too apt to lecture his readers from a platform of lofty superiority, and too aloof from the weaknesses and ills of common humanity. Turning to provincial journalism. Alexander Russell, of the ' Scotsman,' comes first. He was the editor who was nob afraid to take his coat off at his work. I suppose nowadays you are too superior to buckle to in your shirt sleeves? Russell influenced modern Scotland as, perhaps, no other man has done. It Mas he whom, by his ceaseless attacks on clericalism in its worst forms, released Scotland from being a priest-ridden lwad. Rugged, bluff, unconventional, he dominated his paper, and through it led Scotland. Amongst other names the provincial journalism one must not forget Henry Dunckley, ' Verax,' of the Manchester 'Examiner.'" It is quite a mistake to suppose — as the belated discoverers of Ambrose Bierce are assuming — that this remarkable American journalist's "In the Midst" of Life" ,was overlooked when it first came out. On the contrary, Mr Henley, Mr Courtney and many smaller reviewers were greatly struck with the power and ghastliness of the tales and said so. I myself wrote of it to Australia and New Zealand, quoting an t-x---cerpb from " The Man and the Snake," which should have aroused the mast lethargic reader's curiosity. Also, I have frequently in the last six years referred to the book. I do not know whether Bierce* s name may, in consequence of this, be familiar to you, but I do knew that in England not one man in a thousand ever heard of him. Like poor George G-issing, Ambrose Bierce is constantly on the brink of "booming," but it never quite conies off. Robert Barr did his best to set his countryman going recently, but Mr Bierce himself was trying; would not be "interviewed," and slanged his innocent publishers. That he is v gentleman of many parts and not a> few corners, may be gathered from the epitaph he recently wrote on Senator Stanford, the railway king and greatest personage- on the Pacific Slope — Here Stanford lies, who thought it odd That he should go to meet his God; He looked until nis eye 3 grew dim For God to hasten to meet him. The present Bierce " boomlet " is being run by a very young gentleman on a halfpenny evening paper, who, having just discovered the author of "In the Midst of Life," hails him as the greatest exponent of terror ever known. As an instance he quotes the " Watcher by the Dead " as typical of Bierce. But 'tis not nearly so horrific as " The Man and the Snake," " One of the Missing" or "The Coup de Grace." The " Watcher by the Dead " begins in this way : Three San Francisco doctors are discussing fear — " the superstitious awe with 'which the living regard the dead," as Dt Helberson phrases it. Dr Harper offers to find a stranger, one Jarette, who doesn't know fear — who will pass the night locked up in a dark room in a vacant house with a corpse. The next scene shows us Jarette in the death chamber, and the author traces the nervous tension of his mind until suddenly he hears soft footfalls. Helberson and Harper come round early next morning to see-the result. The "corpse" was, in fact, Dr Mancher, the third man, who had agreed to play the part. The two are uneasy. Harper says that if Mancher has " risen from the dead " Jarette would kill him* As they reach the house a man with staring .eyes and snow-white hair comes dashing down the stairs through the crowd and vanishes. Upstairs ■ the police officerhas just found a corpse — dead two hours. Doctors Harper and Helberson realise that Jarette has turned on the supposed corpse in his terror and murdered him. They take the next boat for Europe. Two years later comes the climax. The two doctors mee4> in New .York— not Jarette, but Mancher with the snow white hair. He had "come to life :> to frighten Jarette, and the shock had been fatal. He changed clothes with Jarette, put kirn in the coffin, and then had to wait till the police broke in. At the close of the conversation his condition is revealed in a telling line " I am high supreme medical officer of the Bloomingsale Asylum ; it is my duty to cure the superintendent." The " Coup de Grace " describes the sensations of an unlucky young officer who finds himself forced in the interests of m«rcy to kill a comrade: on the field of battle. After a pathetic farewell he closes his eyes and thrusts his sword through the moribund. When he opens them. again- he finds his deadliest enemy has been watching the entire proceedings. v "The Man and the Snake" describes the fascination of an English tourist by a huge snake which he wakes up to find gazing into his eyes. The hour upon which the Tennyson copyrights lapsed had hadly stmck before the market was flooded with cheap reprints of "In Memorianij" etc., commencing with a re-issue for one penny in Mr Stead's series of mutilated masterpieces. I have not looked at the latter to see if the good man . has laid sacriligious hands on the poem of poems. One would not dream of (suspecting even him of such philistinism, but for that awful New Testament "in modern English!" But an individual who could countenance, and partially perpetrate a literary crime like that might do anything. Still, I somehow fancy Mr Stead has left "In Meinoriam" alone. Dents and Methuens are both bringing out dainty cheap editions. Such luxuries have no attraction for me. "In Menioriam" would hardly seem " In Mesioriain" if I didn't read it in the worn old brown edition (the tenth), published by Moxon, in 1861. Once I was offered a first edition for two pounds. Alas ! I hesitated, and was lost, or rather it was. The owner sent it to Sotheby's, where it was knucketi down to a , bookseller for five pounds. <