BOOKS AND THEIR WRITERS

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17350, 15 May 1924, Page 10

BOOKS AND THEIR WRITERS

NOTES BY "THE REVIEWER"

Lecturing on Thackeray at Cam bridge recently, Sir Arthur QuillorCouch emphasised the importance of his Anglo-Indian origin, also the dcso lation that overtook his domestic life This “ clean-living English gentle man,” eo domestic by instinct, va driven by the anguish of his hearth “ into the waste of clubland.” Sir Arthur said that “ those who accused Thackeray of being a snob (even under his own definition) should in fairness lay their account that he came of people who. commanding many servants, supported the English tradition of rule and dominance in a foreign land. That he belit-ved to explain Thackeray in greater measure than he had generally been explaind or understood. Thackeray, a social delineator or nothing, never quite understood the roots of English life, or of the classes ho chose to depict. The melancholy which ran through all his writings—the melancholy of Ecclesiastes, vanity of vanities, all is vanity—was drawn by origin from the weary shore of the Ganges and brought in the child’s bloo 1 to them over the sea.” Although there is a considerable output of books in Russia, the Press there is a State monopoly, and. accord ing to a “Daily Telegraph” correspondent, a “ Bookshop of Authors ” has been established in Moscow for tho sale of books in manuscript. Russian authors, unable to get published under the Soviet regime, are. copying their books with their own hands, sometimes also illustrating them, or getting them illustrated by distinguished artists. All sorts of paper, including useless bank notes, are utilised for this purpose, and the books are bound in sail cloth or birch bark. Novels, poetry, belles let tres and studies in art have thus been issued, anil P. Muratov, a writer of European reputation, is said to be now producing the third volume of liis *‘ Visions of Italy.” One is not told at what price these books are sold, but f they are not almost prohibitively expensive the authors can scarcelv b© making a livelihood from them. Alluding to the great abundance of books of reminiscences, a writer in the “New' Republic” says:—Almost bv common consent a man who has reached the age of sixty may feel free to sot down his reminiscences. The major part of his career is over and the tenure of life is uncertain. He mav now write with more assurance, or atleast confidence; and lie may expect to bo heard with greater deference, or at least patience. Yet men of sixty, each intent on exhibiting himself m his own dav and circle, have become rather oppressively numerous.

ONE TO SCOTLAND YARD. “ When Paul Cursitor was arrested for the murder of Janet Chrystal he had hardly a shilling in the world. ... I therefor© stipulated with the solicitors who desired to brief me that I would undertake the defence only on condition that they would obtain from the prisoner a signed statement that he would write down liis experiences and sonsationsj not necessarily a confession, from the day of the murder to the day of his arrest.” So the cheerful and callous nonmoral individual whom Mr Headcn Hill introduces in “ The Narrowing Circle ” tells in detail how he arranges a really “ impregnable ” alibi. It certainly looks fairly copper-fas-tened, but—there’s always a “but” in these matters—the arrangements for tho shooting of Jane join the ranks of “ the best-laid schemes of men and mice,” and that’s why Colfax, K.C.’s services are requisitioned. Paul enjoys showing the Scotland Yard man over the scene of his exploit, because he has a perverted sense of humour ; his enjoyment is not lasting. There is quite a lot of guessing to be done by anyone who feels prematurely inquisitive as to what cracks the alibi. (London : Herbert Jenkins.) NOTORIOUS LU OR ETTA’S NOTORIOUS BROTHER. “ The wretch may never have seen Cesare snap a horseshoe in his fingers, nor yet have seen Oesare decapitate a bull at one stroke of a spadoon, but of the awful strength that could accomplish such feats as those he had now the fullest and most painful demonstration. The murderer was a big fellow, of stout thews and sinews, yet in the grip of that lithe young rnan his strength was all turned to water. Ho felt, as if the iron pressure of Cesare’s fingers were crushing his wrists to pulp, were twisting his elbows out of joint. He came howling to his knees, th©n caught his nether bit in his teeth to repress another howl. .. . He looked up with fearful eyes into the Duke’s face, and found jt- calm-—horribly, terriiically ealm—betraying neither anger nor exertion.”

Along with that herculean strength Cesare Bergia possessed one of the shrewdest brains of the Italy of his time, or. perhaps, of any time. “ Agabito kept it to himself that he

sometimes thought his master possessed all the guile and craft of Satan.” And as he treated Malapiero, who tried to murder him, so Rafael Sabatini shows in “ The Justice of the Duke,” he treated every person whom he found cause to regard ns an obstacle in his path. It would b© difficult to find an individual whose cosmos was so entirely composed of ego as was that of the Duke of Valeutinois and Romagna, son of Pope Alexander VI., who had been accounted in oarlv life the handsomest man of his day,

“of a beauty of countenance, it was said, that acted upon women as the lodestone upon iron.*’ That beauty Cesare had inherited. “ but refined and glorified by the graces of Madonna Venozaa de Catanei, the Roman lady who had been his mother.” And Cesare had with him men who did their best to equal their clever master. The story of Ferrante’s jest discloses such a one ; it supplies too the poisoning business without which no story of Borgian times would be complete. Grim these st-ories are, yet they are not lacking in very human touches. “ Lavinia’s hand stole over Angelo’s where it lay upon the coverlet. Ho raised his eyes to hers.” A worth v,liile romance. (London ; Stanley, Paul and Co., 3s fid.) EVERGREEN DOROTHY. “It is a romance of a romantic and picturesque period: a period when men often slew each other for the love of a lass and when many a dark deed was done and many a victim of jealousy, greed or hate languished secretly in dungeon depths, for the law was lax, the country sparsely populated, and communication between place and place difficult.' Thus Mr J. E. Pres ton-Muddock in the. f.r,©rp fo his “ Sweet Doll of Haddon Hall,” in which he has endeavoured wi ; .ii * access, to introduce the atmosphere £o Derbyshire, and the habits and manners of the people who lived and , sinned, ami prayed, and died, in ;k w

early years ol good Queen Bess’s ] reign.” The heroine Mr PrestonMuddoclc has chosen need only be named to conjure up dreams of romance. and he tells well the story of how sweet Dorothy Vernon, who claimed descent from kings, eloped with her lover John Manners by night, thereby taking the first step in starting a prophecy, tho truth of which is yet to he tested. “ When Iladdon Hall shall be no more. Tho Dukedom of Rutland will become extinct, For with Haddon their wealth oamcWith Iladdon their wealth shall go.” When the old tombs in Bakewell Church were opened in 1841. ‘‘notwithstanding that Sweet Doll of Iladdon Hall had lain in her coffin since 1581, the hand of decay had left the splendid hair untouched.” Dorothy’s fame will apparently outlast the house of Rutland. (London: John Long, 25.) TARZAN LIONISED “ What means this, Cadj?” demanded La angrily, approaching rapidly towards him across the clearing. Sullenly the High Priest rose. “ The Flaming God demanded the life of this unbeliever,” he cried. ‘‘ Speaker of lies,” retorted La, “ the Flaming God communicates with men through the lips of his High Priestess only.” And much more to similar effect. Korak, the Golden Lion, Jad-bal-ja, Kraski, Manu, Tarmangani, Deeth, Kuma, Esteban, Owaza, are some of the dramatis personae in Mr Edgar Rice Burroughs’s ninth Tarzan story. “ Tarzan and the Golden Lion,” and when one says that the adventures of the new well-known ape-man here recounted do as much credit to the vivid imagination of his creater as any of those in previously recorded sections of his history, little more need be said. When Flora Hawkes discovered in Esteban Miranda. a person of heroic size and perfect physique, the type of individual she wanted for a shady scheme hatched in her cunning brain, she forgot to reckon with the chance of his beingjealous. “If I thought that you loved one of them I could cut his heart out.” So the gold-hunt in the country of the Waziri may be expected to provide some interesting happenings. And it fully realises expectations before Esteban is found in a cannibal village gloating over a fortune that he is deemed never to utilise while Tarzan, lucky as usual, wins the gold and Jane. (London: Methuen, 3s 6d.)

‘‘THE TWAIN DID MEET.” “ He caressed me as only he could caress, with the lightness of a bird and i with the wildness of passion, with ; ardour and softness combined, with a i touch that sobbec} through one’s veins with fire, that burned one’s body with desire, that raised to the very heights nad flung to the very depths. Oh! my lover who is dead, I • wonder who taught you those ways.” Possibly she has not that wonder ‘‘on her own,” the lady, “ ?” who gives what purports to be her frank autobiography in “ East and West, The Confessions of a Princess.” And she probably did not know w r hen at the early age of seventeen she married a Burmese Prince, Mindoon, that she was not intended to be as lucky as the soldier in Kipling’s “ Mandalay.” She certainly found her “ bloomin’ idol made of mud ” as far as faithfulness to her was concerned, for, attractive butterfly though she was, the Prince, while calling for the Star of his Destiny et hoc genus omne, certainly did not confine his amorous attentions to her; he was in fact the lover of her mother, who engineered the match. However, in the midst of the inevitable tragedy —there are numerous stories illustrating the evils of marriages of this type —the lady had the consolations of being a Princess, and possessing beautiful dresses and jewels to set off her Irish attractiveness. And “ with all his faults, she loved him still ”! Also she met during her comet-like career quit© a number of notables, Tennj’son, Oscar Wilde, Parnell among them. The intimate pictures of life in Ireland and at the Burmese Court afford evidence o’f the story being a real confession ; Sup-yaw-lat, Theebaw’s fam- • ous Queen, is a prominent actor in the I drama (by the way, when she appearj ed in .* Mandalay ’ she boasted an “ i ” | before the ‘‘yaw”). A characteristic ! and amusing .Eastern story of a con- | summate liar and rogue.’ says K/ay. ■ “is told in an Appendix.” (London: Jarrolds, 7s fid).