BOOKS AND BOOKMEN.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10301, 4 November 1911, Page 8

BOOKS AND BOOKMEN.

"«3K THE Vklls.kWs ** MORE ABOUT AUSTRALIA. There is no end to the making of books about Australia. The latest author to stake a claim on the big continent is Mrs E. M. Clowes, who has x>roduced a volume under the title of "On the Wallaby through Victoria" (Mr William Heineniann), and she has worked it to some advantage. The author is not a colonial by sentiment. She makes the appalling suggestion, to quote as an illustration, that members of Parliament should be paid "in proportion to their former earnings and their status in life," since " that would be the fairest thing and ensure the best class of man." But the " foreigner " can be pardoned lapses of this kind, and Mrs Clowes is such a kindly critic and writes, in such a pleasant, chatty style that the Victorians will not quarrel with her. She really likes the Australian workman. " He has many little ways that at first rub every atom of your fur in the wrong direction," she says. ''He is bumptious, he is cocksure, he is condescending; ' 1 don't mind if I do' is his one form of accepting any proffered favour, while a shrug of tho shoulders and the 'My troubles!' are his response to any advice or sympathy you may offer. But he is also essentially clean, in other ways apart from those I have mentioned. Besides this, he does not cadge for tips; indeed, he more often than not resents the offer of money. "What's that forP' he will ask, with a glance at the proffered coin that makes you blush to your very boots." For woman workers, both the bachelor girl and the charwoman, the writer has the warmest admiration. "The appearance of all working women in Melbourne, of whatever class, struck me as far superior to what I remember in England." Once again _ the writer is impressed by the self-reliane< and independence, the kindliness and the gift of taking life cheerfully when occasion offers. Help is always forthcoming if the need of it is known, " They will nob leave yon a ehred of 'character, but they will literally strip themselves in other ways that you may be clothed!" Mrs Clowes disagrees with Mr Foster Fraser on many points. She says that his charge of " slackness " and a lack of virility must have been established from observation of the worst city types. She considers it unfair to refer to the number of illegitimate children, and to "say nothing at all of the splendid measures that are being taken to combat this great source of misery." When she turns to Australian politics she flounders badly, but her comments are always interesting and colonial at any rate will not be misled by her errors. She writes a chapter about literature and art and tells her readers a little about country life. This book represents, on the whole, n merely superficial study of Australian life/ but" it is eminently readable. Mrs Clowes tells many good stories, and she has gathered into her pages the sunny freedom of colonial life. The illustrations are attractive.

" TALK OF THE TOWN." Most of us are inclined to regard a book of essays as a mere collection of pages covered with dry reasoning and many long words, but in " Talk of tho Town" Mrs John 'Lane has written eighteen chatty articles about a variety of subjects, from clothes to camels, and her philosophy is airy enough fox a shady hammock on a summer's day, when wise reading has no charms. Mrs Lane does not trouble herself with deep thought or overmuch analysis, but skims gracefully over her subjects and presents her views brightly. Her blending of sense and sound with sheer frivolity is- usually interesting. In "Talk of the Town n one may find entertainment and a few surprises. In one essay she makes a bid for equality, and pleads that the same standards of criticism should be applied to woman's work and to man's. " Call it work, and not woman's work," she adds, although later in a hurst of confidence, 6he confessed: "To be honest, it would be a very noisy world indeed if the men clamoured with the same vehemence a~; some women for the recognition of a good deal of rather inferior -work. It must be acknowledged that we women do not belong to the humorous sex." Again, pleading for equality in criticism, she says: "It is so much more satisfactory to he honestly and vigorously damned than to be dishonestly and faint-heartedly praised." In commenting on " The Tyranny of the Past" Mrs Lane boldly asserts: "We are suffering from a superlatively- high standard of mediocrity, so high, indeed, that one could wish, for a change, that the past would be obliged to read the present." . . . Have we not charming stylists, original hnmoriets, dramatists destined to immortalise modern life, poets who would have been called great had they been so lucky as to have lived in the past?" Th© essayist gives a keynote to her viewpoint in that article: she is modern. "Talk of the Town " is published by the Bodley Head (Cliristchurch, Messrs Whitcombe and Tombs).

"THE LIFE EVERLASTING." Miss Marie Corelli's introduction* should be left unread by the reader of her novels, since her preachings, born of unrestrained egotism, are only a little less irritating than is her punctuation. But armies of her admirers have acquired this bit of knowledge for themselves, and they will turn eagerly to the first chapter of her new book, "The Life Everlasting" {Messrs Mcthuen and Co. Ohristchurcn: Mr L. M. Isitt). The new story is told bv a young woman who has experiences recalling •'Phra the Phoenician," and A. P. Sinnett's "Karma." Visions of the past show her that an extraordinary man she has met and loved has moved through previous incarnations with her. loving hut always separated. In order to fit herself to Ee his mate, she goes into a retreat under a Master* in a' lonely monastery, and there she encounters' strange terrors—shapes and flames, the contracting chamber and the abyss. The tale proceeds through devious courses to a strange conclusion, and the most confirmed reader of the Corelli novels will have to admit that some portions of the orations and treatises are mere jumbles of words. But there are lots of thrills to be got from the pages, and already "The Life Everlasting " has secured a wide circle of readers in Britain. The moral of it all is that there is no death. " What is called bv that name," says Miss Corelli, "' is merely a shifting and re-investiture of imperishable atoms." Evidently the author has been reading a little elementary science.