FROM . . . Bookstall and Study.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18470, 23 May 1928, Page 14

FROM . . . Bookstall and Study.

Aloysius Horn, whose first volume of reminiscences has been a “ best-seller ” tor some months, has a second volume ready for publication. The prize offered by a French literary committee for the best English novel by a woman writer has been awarded to Mrs Virginia Woolf for the story entitled, “To the Lighthouse.” Mr Hugh Walpole also considered this to be the best novel published in 1927. k s In the opinion of the London “ Spectator,” the two outstanding books of 1927 were Winston Churchill’s “ The World Crisis” and Colonel Lawrence’s ** Revolt in the Desert.” « » . . . A literary dispute is raging in Pans. Zola's son and daughter have been refused by the Academie Goncourt access to the hundreds of letters written by Zola to the Goncourts. The Goncourts authorised the publication of their memoirs twenty years after their death, but the Academie deferred publication further to avoid pain to persons still living. . An American literary paoer has been discussing who is the greatest figure in contemporary English letters now that Hardy is gone. The choice falls on W. B. Yeats, and this was the reasoning process: “ George Moore isn’t in the running; he writes as good prose as Yeats, but then, Yeats is a poet too. Masefield is nrobably as great a poet as Yeats, but he cannot match Yeats’s beautiful prose. Yeats’s * Autobiographies ’ is a lasting piece of work.” a Lord Ernest Hamilton, who will be remembered for his three excellent volumes of reminiscences, has written a detective story entitled. ” The Four Tragedies of Memworth.” “Subject to the correction of expert bibliographers of detective stories,” says the publisher, “ we believe that here is something not before attempted in genre.” By that is meant a complicated mystery of three murders and two murderous assaults which deliberately are not cleared up by the author. x Mr Frederick Arnold Kummer recently had the doubtful pleasure of reading his own obituary notices. He had been severely ill at his home in Baltimor-f and in some way a report was spread that he was dead. The “ New York Times Book Review ” unkindly suggests that possibly an imaginative reporter thought Mr Rummer had gone to headquarters to obtain material for his new book, “Ladies in Hell,” to be published soon. “Black Majesty,” by John W. Vandercook, has been chosen by the Literary Guild in America as one of the twelve best books of the year. It is the biography of Henry Christophe, who was born a negro slave and died an emperor; he freed Haiti, defied Napoleon Bonaparte, amassed a fortune, and ruled his kingdom with an iron hand. Mr Vandercook has written the first complete biography of the black emperor. A picture of the boy Kipling in "Stalky’s Reminiscences,” by MajorGeneral L. C. Dunsterville:— Kipling must have been a difficult youth. The ordinary boy, however truculent, generally quails before the malevolent glance of a notably fierce master. But I remember Kipling on such occasions merely removing his glasses, polishing them carefully, placing them on his nose, and gazing in placid bewilderment at the thundering tyrant, with a look that suggested, “There, there. Don't give way to your little foolish tantrums. Go out and get a little fresh air, aqd you’ll come back feeling quite another man.”

x x x “D’Annunzio has finished his role in the literary life of Italy.” These words were uttered by Mussolini to Johan Bojer when the latter, during a recent visit to Rome, was the Duce’s guest. According to Mr Bojer, Mussolini further said: “D’Annunzio was Tl Conzone,’ the poseur, the juggler with grand and fine words; he was the representative of degeneration. Italy of to-day has no use for such persons. We want poets in harmony ■with life, a healthy poetry which does not kill the wish to live, but strengthens it. This new poetry shall emerge within the next ten years.”

X X X At a recent sale at Hodgson’s, London, £320 was given by Mr W. T. Spencer for a fairly clean copy of the first edition of Fanny Burney’s “Evelina,” three vols., 1778. The last copy sold, according to “Book Prices Current,” was in 1925. when Mr Spencer gave £65 for one. Some years ago Mr A. L Mumm purchased from a bookseller in the neighbourhood of the Elephant and Castle copies of the first edition of T. L. Peacock’s “Headlong Hall,” 1816 and “Nightmare Abbey,” 1818, both inscribed by the author. The price then given for the two works was 15s. In Messrs Hodgson’s sale they fetched £27 and £3l respectively. A first edition of Bernard Shaw’s “Plays, Pleasant and Unpleasant,” 2 vols., 1898, sold for £l9 10s—the pages of this were mostly unopened. *.• j 5 Mr Edward Lynam writes in the ‘Observer’ in conclusion of an article on the New Oxford Dictionary: In the past the English language has gained two or three words and lost at the rate of one or two every year. The rate of gain and loss is now much higher. Since the world has grown smaller, we have gained many scientific and foreign words, but because time also has dwin died, we have lost many that were worth a thought. While the spread of a literary sense of humour is forcing some good Anglo-Saxon words out of use, the mechanical and scientific apparatus which now form a great part of, our outer life are bringing in an era of modified, democratic Latinity. The old speech, though it served George Eliot well, will hardly serve us. The scientific and analytic spirit of the day, which takes too little for granted, has made words derived from Greek and Latin fashionable with English writers, while the imposing language used in commercir! advertising must eventually affect the vocabulary of the general public. X X X Facts relating to the past, when they are collected without art, are compilations; and compilations, no doubt, may be useful; but they are no more history than butter, eggs, salt and herbs are omelette, writes Lytton Strachey in “T.P.’s Weekly.” That Gibbon was a great artist, therefore, is implied in statement that he was a great historian; but what is interesting is the particular nature of his artistry. His whole genius was pre-eminently classical; order, lucidity, balance precision—the great classical qualities—dominate his work; and his history is chiefly remarkable as one of the supreme monuments of classic art in European literature. XXX The sudden death at Nice, just before Christmas, of Serge Sazonov, Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Czar’s Government from 1909 to 1916, gives point to his reminiscences, “ Fateful Years.” book is the last of the "Apologias ’

written by leading statesmen who were in charge of European policies at the outbreak of the war. These, with the many official documents which have now been opened to the world, provide most of the material for the really impartial book on the responsibility for the Great War which has yet to be written. X X X “ Letters of a Jewish Father to his Son.” By Ben Eliezer. (John Murray, 10s 6d). “ Look round you at the rising generation with its ignorance of everything Jewish, see its youth drifting, ever drifting, from your people's literature and language. Cannot you realise that not one of these will be able to read the language which you so love, and what right have to to hope that your son may be an exception, that he may be the oasis in the wilderness, barren of all Hebrew growth?” The fear that the younger generation of the Jews, growing lax in the use and study of their national tongue, should cease to appreciate the beauty and glory of Hebrew letters, to the gradual failing of the fountain of spiritual and artistic inspiration, seems to have actuated the author in the writing of these*”” letters.” They deal with Jewish life and national questions, their mode of education, aspirations and associations with the rest of the world, and especially with Hebrew literature. They reveal that in every branch of art, literature, and sciemc. the sons and daughters of Judah are helping to build “ structures of glory for strangers.” The author finds the justification for the present Zionistic movement in the lofty ideals of Judaism. “ Divorced from Judaism, Zionism is erroneous and worthless. . . . When Judaism has no higher value for universal culture, when the Jewish state has no great mission to realise, a lofty human idea which must be sought and found in the depth of Judaism, there can be no motive or justification for our national movement.” To preserve the spirit of Judaism the Hebrew language and literature must be retained by the people. We read in every page the longings of the Jewish father over his son, the doubts and hopes of the parent, steeped himself in the national literature and tradition, yet seeing the drift of the rising generation towards denationalisation.

Although these essays are of varying literary worth, they are touched throughout with exquisite charm. In such chapters as Of Reading, and Of Studies, the sound advice of Ruskin and others is reiterated. The Decay of the Jewish Home reveals tendencies general in modern life. The home should be “ a shrine for the restoring of tired souls,” where there is “ perennial comradeship, the precious sense of ‘togetherness’.” A Fore View is a piece of amusing cynicism, for the author is far too idealistic ever to be contemptuously cynical. Though Numie prophesy that “ the rich, as of cld, die of boredom; the poor of starvation,” the chapter ends on a prayer tor beautiful, clean lives for the Jews and humanity at large.

But the bulk of the book is taken up with sketches of the lives and works of Jewish writers, in some cases little known to the non-Jewish world, and in dealing with some of these the author is at his best. All that is written is written with consumate sympathy. “ And often at night, when comes the quiet hush before the birth of stars, when only the moon shines palely, caressing the earth, and there steals on the cool evening breeze the murmur of song and music, it seems that my ear discerns an undertone, which in my soul I feel to be the lone crying of some of those solitary, wandering voices, seeking rest and a singing place. And the burden of their notes is ever thus: * Alas! The shekinah is in exile “ The Ruler of Baroda.” An account of the life and work of the Maharaja Gaekwar. By Philip W. Sargeant, BA (John Murray, 16s). Observers of the trend of events in India will not fail to be interested in this biography of one of her most pro gressive princes. The present Maharaja Gaekwar was lifted suddenly from the life of a humble peasant boy to rigorous preparation for the task of administering the affairs of a leading Indian State, and of carrying out many vital experiments in the exercise of his powers as his Highness Maharaja Sayajiroa 111. The steady perseverance and intense efforts of the ruler of Baroda in the welfare of his State may be looked upon as both a moral and physical achievement in the face of accepted traditions: moral, because, though an orthodox Hindu, his tolerance for other religions, and intolerance for anti-social .sanctions in his own. made his co-re-ligionists look upon him as a heretic; and physical because he, like the majority. of Indians, lacked the bodily stamina for arduous and prolonged effort. The actual illhealth of himself and members of his family forced him to absent himself frequently, and for long periods, from Baroda. Among the many reforms which he instituted in his state were: the abolition of the purdah system, permission for Hindu widows to re-marry, prevention of infant marriages as far as possible, the brealc-up of the caste even to the extent of admitting “ Untouchables ” to the Legislature, compulsory primary education for boys and girls alike, and the establishment of colleges for advanced education parrir larly on the practical technical side The Maharaja’s views on the position of Native States and the relation of the Indian princes with the Central Government are interesting in the light of present-day developments. As regards the sore point of the extension of democratic principles in India, he says, “ The people are not in the mass educated up to such a point. Those who talk so much about popular government are not ‘ the people,’ but a small class of literates. The masses take no interest in the matter, and, so far as direct suffrage is concerned, would not trouble to vote unless compelled to do so.” He points out that in British India the Government has succeeded in interesting certain classes in politics, but has left untouched great sections. It has thus upset the balance of functions on which the life of Ancient India was founded. In effect, pure democracy is not suited for India. It is doubtless a very suitable government for Utopia. Philip W. Sergeant's biography of this remarkable man, Idealist and Realist, i« a vindication of the loyalty and goodwill of one who has sometimes suffered from the unmerited calumny of people of hastv judgment. X X X In Mr Algernon Aspinall’s “A Wayfarer in the West Indies ” is a chapter headed “With Nelson in the Leewards.” Here Nelson married the widow of Dr Nisbet, of Nevis, in March 1787. and after mentioning this Mr Aspinall continues:— “ It was in this harbour that Nelson had his memorable dispute with Captain Moutray, Commissioner of the Dockyard, as to who was senior officer on the station. This dispute was soon settled by Nelson ordering the Commissioner’s broad pennant flying from the maintop-gallant masthead of H.M.S. Latona, to be struck. To show,

however, that he bore Moutray no illwill, he dined with him that mght and the two became fast friends. . . A similar argument on the same spot thirteen years later—in 1798—was atlended with fatal results. Lord Camelford . . . claimed to be senior officer during the absence of Commodore Fahie, of 11.M.5. Perdrix. As such he gave an order to Mr Peterson, ‘first’ of that vessel, to patrol the harbour cn the night on which a ball was to be given . . . Peterson, claiming that he was Camelford’s superior officer, refused to obey, and went to his quarters to dress ior the ball.” The outcome of this quarrel was that Camelford shot Peteison dead. He was tried by court-martial and was honourably acquitted. Six years later Camelford was killed by Captain Best in a duel near Holland House, Kensington. At a recent conference of the Durban and District Sunday School Union held in Durban, South Africa, an interesting address was delivered by a clergyman, the Rev Mr Craig, on tfye subject of “ Literature for the Young.” Mr Young said that the sacred word stood pre-eminent as a library in itself. Above and beyond the ~*-eat truths for which it stood, it also held first place as a literary factor, being a well of English undefiled, on which account men of letters in the universities made selections for reading just as anvone read general literature. The Bible was now issued in sections, and selections were made according to the average age capacity of the child. For general reading and instruction he recommended books of heroes of the right type, books of travel, books of noble adventure with pure ideals, such as missionary enterprise, the explorer’s courage and devotion, poetry of an uplifting character. There was, he said, a wide field from which the youth of to-day might choose.

Mr Avram Yermolinsky tells an interesting story in his “Turgenev: the Man, His Art, and His Age.” of the conferring of the degree of Doctor of Civil Law upon the novelist at Oxford in 1879:

He had been made much of at Ox ford the previous year, when he was the guest of Max Muller. The scholar was rather doubtful as to whether it was proper for him, as a regius profes sor, to entertain a man who had publicly shown disrespect to Her Majesty the Queen. In the summer of 1876, when the papers were full of the Bulgarian atrocities, Turgenev, spending a sleepless n'ght on the train between Moscow and Petersburg, composed a fantasy in verse which held up to scorn Queen Victoria’s pro-Turlcish policy The ladies at Windsor are playing the then fashionable game of croquet under the eyes of the Queen, who is horrified to see the balls turn into blood ied heads. Retiring to her castle, she finds the hem of her gown soaked in gore, and implores the rivers of England to clean it, only to be told by the poet that no waters will wash out the stain # of that innocent blood. “Croquet at Windsor,” as he called this execrable piece, though barred by the censorship, was widely circulated, being recited even at the parties of the heirapparent, and was translated in German, French and English. Not, be it noted, that Tugenev was swept off his feet by the wave of patriotism which seized the country on the eve of the Russo-Turkish conflict. Indeed, deeply as he felt for the Bulgars; he was one of the few people who were out of sympathy with the Avan. When Turgenev visited Oxford, feeling against Russia was still running high in England, and he feared that there might be some unfriendly' demonstration against him as a Russian But nothing untoward occurred:—

James Bryce, the Regius Professor of Civil Law, who introduced Turgenev to the Vice-Chancellor of the University, is said, by the “Oxford Joxirnal, 1 to have spoken of “Mr J. Turgenev’s wonderful genius, which was shown in his romances and his descriptions of Russian life, which has led to the emancipation of the serfs.” At the same time a like honour was conferred upon John Ruskin and Sir Frederick Leighton. Turgenev's broad shoulders carried the gorgeous gown with dig nity, but he could not help a private chuckle at the notion that he was now a doctor of law —he was a little hazy as to whether it was common or natural, and, as a matter of fact, it was civil law —he who was unable to transact the simplest ordinary business.