FROM Bookstall and Study.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18585, 10 October 1928, Page 5

FROM Bookstall and Study.

Mr Rafael Sabatini has just completed a new novel dealing with the conflict between England and Spain in the time of Elizabeth. T*S ft 25 At the sale at Sotheby’s of Sir Edmund Gosse’s library, a copy of Rl L. Stevenson’s “Father Damien,” published in Sydney, 1890, with a long letter of four pages from the author to Gosse. brought £los. Rebecca West, replying to Arnold Bennett’s criticism of her new book, says, “The poor old chap has no approach ; he knows nothing.” His virtues “are those of a very good solicitor’s clerk.” Invited to become honorary president of an American Shavian Society, “an asylum for the sane,” Mr Bernard Shaw replied through his secretary: “Mr Shaw desires me to say that an asylum for the sane would be empty in America.” Shakespeare’s wanderings abroad have been made a subject of deep study by Professor Lefranc, of the College de France- who will shortly publish a three-volume work on his discoveries. According to Miss Rebecca West, “Charles Dickens wrote because he was a snob, who, when he was the world’s darling, could blush if he was reminded that a kind old gentleman had given him a half-crown tip twenty years before.” Mr Rudyard Kipling has promised the British Empire Marketing Board that he will help in the preparation of the scenario of one of their films which is classed as “of general Empire interest,” and he has thereby succumbed to the attempts to lure him into the motion picture world. Samuel Bytier, author of “Erewhon,” is to be launched for the first time on the reading public in Germany in 'a translation of all his works by Herr E. Herlitschka. The German title of “Erewhon” is “Jenseits der Gerge.” The Germans are fond of Shaw, so perhaps will take very kindly to the writer v. * m Shaw himself has described as his mentor. 66 ft SC A biography of Samuel Gompers, late president of the American Federation of Labour, will be written by Prof. Row land Hill Harvey of the history department of the University of California Appointment of Professor Harvey was made by the federation at a recent meeting in Washington. His selection by the federation was on the basis of competence to write an authoritative and disinterested history, it;was stated, ft w ft Mr George J. Keating, of New York, has added to his collection of Conradiana all the. original letters written to the novelist by his wife. He has also become possessed of Conrad’s ship master’s certificate, and all his discharges as a seaman. Mr Keating has commissioned a number of very well-known English writers to do special introductions for the original MSS. of Conrad novels, which he owns. A catalogue de luxe of the Keating collection is in preparation. ft ft ft The famous flagstaff with its royal crown, which for two centuries surmounted the tower of St. Olave’s Church, Tooley Street, London, has been presented by the proprietors of Hay’s Wharf, the owners of the site, to St. George’s Church, Borough High Street, the original of Charles Dickens’s “Little Dorrit’s” church. St. Olave’s tower will cease to be a landmark on the south side of London Bridge, as it is in course of demolition. ft ft ft Louis Tracy, the novelist, who died recently, began his career on a newspaper at Darlington in 18S4, and then went to India. Returning to London, he became associated with Lord Nortficliffe and at one time owned a substantial share in the “Evening News.” Had he possessed business acumen he might have died a millionaire, but he forsook newspaper work and wrote novels instead. Since 1904 he had published more than thirty—mostly “shockers,” but all written, with skill and wide knowledge of the world, ft . ft » The Irish Parliament has under consideration a Bill which proposes to set up a ceusorship of literature. The censors are to have the right “to prohibit the sale or distribution of any book, newspaper, or periodical which, in their opinion, is indecent or obscene, or which tends to inculcate principles contrary to public morality.” 55 ft ft No man. after, or—indeed—except, the first true democrat, Defoe, accomplished so much towards the triumphs of th© modern newspaper as Leigh Hunt. He r*e\ T er wrote only -to please or amuse; above all, not to please those who might be able and willing to reward silence or praise. . As at once servant and guide to the people he had given himself to help and defend, he would utter no thoughtless word, repeat no idle gossip:—R. Brimley Johnson.

The late Austin Harrison, when editor of the English Review, had a keen eye for the writer of promise. He brought off a memorable editorial coup when he published John Masefield’s poem “The Everlasting Mercy.” It occupied about half one issue and produced a literary sensation. In a remarkably short time copies of the number containing it were at a premium. Masefield at the time was better known as a novelist than as a poet. ft ft ft

According to an American jour r nal the formula for literary success ; s as follows: —Take the square root of ability and determination, divided by laziness; add good fortune multiplied by the patience of editors; subtract postage and typewriter ribbons; extend endurance to infinity; multiply the dividend by the economy of one wife carried to the nth power; divide among x children and y creditors; borrow 5 dollars and put the net balance in a bank, if you can find one to open an account for 49 cents.

When we come to write anything more formal than an invitation to lunch, we are driven back to the Bible or to Shakespeare, or even to Chaucer, says the “Morning Post.” We do not—heaven help us! achieve the beauty and strength and simplicity of such models ; but wc copy them wittingly or unwittingly, according to such powers as we may command. And, however badly we may write it, we cannot fail to discover in the English language a rhythm and flexibility which make clearness tolerably easy and beauty not impossible.

Critics who sit in judgment on the works of others give hostages to fortune, They should be wary of tempting fate by writing books themselves. One whp. wasn’t is Fredik Book, the doyen of Swedish critics. In consequence he has been the centre of a pretty storm in Stockholm literary circles recently.

He wrote a novel called “Summer Memories,” his first essay in fiction and not a very good one either. Whereupon all the writers who for years have had to put up with his bitter attacks on their books pounced in great glee

upon his own poor effort. The critic has had a very bad time of it. His friends were reduced to the defence that if the book wasn’t a masterpiece it was. at least the work of a master!

The fourth book of Arthur Waley’s translation into English of the Genji Monogatari, or the Tale of Genji, has come frpm the press, and is as well received in Japan as its predecessors. The Genji Monogatari, written about 1000 A.D. by a court lady of old Japan, is one of the longest novels on record and undoubtedly deserves to rank as one of the great novels of the world. Bits of it had appeared in English translations, principally in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, before*Mr Waley undertook the gigantic task of translating the whole, a work which will occupy six volumes in English.

“Language, the use of words, their derivation and structure, their history and meaning and divers applications through the centuries, seems to me to be, perhaps, the most interesting study in the world,” writes Miss Rose Macaulay in the “Daily Herald.” The most readable book in English is, I think, the ‘Oxford Dictionary,’ with its 12 enormous and too-weighty volumes, its many pages devoted to tracking one word from its birth through its early development and current uses, with illustrative quotations from all periods for each use. Yet even this dictionary does not, of course, get anywhere near exhausting the subject of words. Language is so fluid, so like an ever-rol-ling stream that bears its words along, slipping out of sight and hearing even while we watch, that books should be written about it all the time, catching it, so to speak, at each ripple of the stream. There is room for a long pamphlet about every word.”

Even during the lifetime of Thomas Hardy, if you took a seat on a charabanc going westward from Bournemouth, there was usually a guide who kept shouting through a megaphone to the passengers all sorts of infoimation about what he called “The ’Ardy Country,” writes Mr Robert Lynd in “John o’ London’s Weekly.” On one such occasion, on the way back from Lulworth Cove, I remember the .guide’s pointing to*'a certain lane and tell us in a deafening voice: “Ladies and gentlemen, up this little lyne to the left is the cottage w’ere ’Ardy wrote ’is fymous novel. ‘Aw’y from the Maddeneen Crahd.’ ” He had got the name slightly wrong, and I do not know whether he was any more accurate in the rest of his information, but the number of things he told us about 'Ardy and his characters during the journey afforded evidence at least that Hardy had made a country-side blossom with new associations as no other modern novelist has done. His charac ters are now a part of the legend ol Wessex, equally with its greatest historic inhabitants.

The decision .of Mr Sidney Webb to retire from the House of Commons recalls the fact that he was once an income tax official, and attempted, with quite unsatisfactory results, to collect an income tax from Robert Browning. The poet wrote that if bothered, by any more demands for income tax he would pack up and go back to Italy to live.. Tradition has it that this threat sufficed, and he lived in England in peace thereafter. It’ was Sir Walter Scott, however, who surpassed Browning's achievement. When a demand for income taxes was made on him in 1813 Scott refused to pay on the ground that, just as a harvest of timber was not subject. to the property taxes because it represented thirty years of labour, the profits from a copyright ought not to be taxed, because they might easily represent the labour of as many years. Remarkably enough, the Treasury upheld this position, and ruled that literary work should pay no income tax at all.

The Croydon (Eng.) Libraries Committee, in a recently issued report alludes to the effect upon literature of the gramophone, the cinema, broadcasting and the motor-car:—Certain feature? of the reading of the general public are worth notice. One is the effect of wireless, the cinema and the motorcar, all of which it was prophesied would reduce the use of books. The contrary has been the effect, at least so far as wireless and the cinema are concerned. Both have given great impetus to the reading of books, which in many cases had become moribund. An effort is made to provide every book recommended through the microphone, and a private wireless set is used at the central library in order that broadcast literary lectures may be checked for the purpose. The cinema of recent years has filmed, not always faithfully, it must be confessed, many of the greater classic novels, such as Hugo’s “ Notre Dame ” and Tolstoy’s “ Resurrection,” and has revived works of lesser rank like “ Ben Hur ” which were popular forty or more years ago. Invariably a demand for the original boqk has followed which may be called enormous.

The dictionary on which the French Academy of the forty “ Immortels ” is working is to be limited to two volumes, and is not to contain more than 29,000 words. This has aroused comment in view of the Oxford Dictionary of recent completion carrying 400,000 words in its score of volumes. Is the English language, therefore, more than ten times as rich as the French? Not at all, reply the French. The English have admitted almost every conceivable word, including some obsolete ones, whereas the French have chosen to keep none but the most irreproachable. As one writer cleverly put it: “ The English dictionary is a mine of information; the French dictionary is a criterion of good taste.” On the subject of French words, as to whether this or that new one in current use shall or shall not be admitted, these Immortels remain the sole and final judges. They are arbiters against whose decision there is no appeal. The French incline before this compression of their language out of respect for the scholars, writers and generals composing this august body.

The Germans are particularly eager to learn about the modern literature and art of other peoples, and in few countries are translated, and even read in their own language, so many books of foreign authors of the present day as in Germany. Thus the Society of Foreign Students in Berlin invited Konstantin Fredin and Nikolai Nikitin, two prominent Russian writers of, the younger generation, to read from their works before an assembly of writers, students, journalists—and Russians. Fredin chose a chapter of his story “Transvaal,” describing the life of a man swept to the surface by the revolution. He read it in German in his deep bass voice likened by some to an <-«rgan. Nikitin, the younger of the two. read in Russian a story about the t; fe .in a small town. Arnold Zweig the -well-t-nown German author, finished the official part of the evening with « chanter from hjc book, the “ Conflict About the Soldier Grischa.” At

MAIN STREET. Morning. Old men a’ setton* on the traders’ stoops Drinkm’ in the sunshine, Like turtles on a log; Barefoot boys a* chasin' after wobbly hoops, Racin’ down the sidewalk With a barking dog. Noon. Farmer’s boss a’ dozin’, fetlock deep in dust, Hitched to the pickets Before the grocery store, Beside a battered auto, flanks all red with rust, Singin’ of the conquered miles With a merry roar. Night. Elm trees a* rustlin' in the evenin’ Every leap a little harp Strummin’ some soft tune; Steeple bell a' callin’ humble folk to prayer Up the sweet grass pathway Beneath the slim young moon. —Charles Grenville Wilson, in “ Christian Science Monitor.” the same time Andre Germain lectured on five French authors, Duhamel, Bloch, Halevy, Gide and Philippe Soupault, at the University of Berlin. The “ Saturday Review ” offered a prize for a poem in the manner of Robert Herrick, addressed by a modern swain to his flapper. Competitors were required to forget that Herrick was a parson, and think of him rather as an enthusiastic motor-cyclist, aged 22; while Julia smokes cigarettes and has an Eton crop. The following, by Mr Lester Ralph, won the competition: Bid me to sing, and I will chance Some N egroid melody; Or bid me dance, and I will prance. If tightly held by thee. Bid me to drink, and I will drink Cocktails of potency Would make the hardiest toper shrink. Such drinks 111 drink for thee. Bid me to kiss, and I will kiss Thy lip-stick quite away. Don’t bid me work; though even this I’d do for thee, some day. Bid me to drive thy sporting car. I’ll tread in ecstasy Upon the Juice, till near and far The police shall leap for thee. Let winds derange my Marcelled hair, My Plus-Fours flapping free, Three lines of serried spikes I’d dare. Or, crashing, die with thee. ft ft ft John Harvey, in his book, “ Wit! the Legion in Syria,” gives a graphic account of his adventures with the French Foreign Legion. Fie is ver\ bitter in his description of the average legionnaire, and calls the Legion “ the cut-throat’s sure asylum,” while his :omrades in arms are “ blackguards, murderers, thieves, crooks, thugs, and iegenerates.” Although they worked from 6 a.m to 4 p.m., the soldiers had a certain amount of pleasure:—

“ Apart from drinking and * love making,’ the favourite diversion wat gambling. Poker, banker, ‘ slippery Sam,’ and similar games of sheer exiting luck were the favourites. The owner of a dilapidated roulette whee' lid well, too, until the habits of his machine were discovered.

“ There were some who devoted prac tically every spare moment they had to the feverish wooing of the goddess of Fortune. Often in an evening a man would lose not only every franc he possessed, but his pay for weeks to come. Some would bet on every pos sible occasion—on the number of men who would receive a slash with a whip at riding drill—on a race between a couple of lice. Several of the players were more skilful than straightforward Arguments and fights were matters of course.”

“ In Damascus we were more or less in touch with civilisation, and news papers were available. It was glorious to get hold of an out-of-date English paper and read it from beginning to end, advertisements and all. It was like a breath of fresh air to learn that Hobbs was still making centuries and Steve Donoghue still riding winners. I confess to stealing one of those papers and carrying it about with me, reading it in my odd moments until I knew it practically by heart. To me it was the greatest literature in the world.” After this episode, John Harvey spent eighteen months in prison for desertion, until released on the intervention of the British authorities. He had been captured when only a few hundred yards from a British encamp ment. Describing the prison, he writes:— Arab mothers tell their children that devils live in Damascus citadel. I be lieve them. For centuries untold tor tures and hideous horrors have been going on behind those grim walls, endowing those ancient stories with a malign personality. None can escape that fetid spirit. To glance at the place is to shudder; to live within it is hell. The devils of the citadel transform men into ghouls, lusting for blood and human agony. I had read and heard of the Inquisition, of the rack, the thumbscrew, and the " boot.” I had congratulated myself on living in an enlightened age when such things were impossible. In Damascus citadel I had evidence of my own eyes to prove that these horrors exist to-day. We were brow-beaten and bullied. The slightest offence, real or imagined, meant a slash with a whip. Our food consisted of the coarsest bread, watery soup, and stinking horse flesh. What was left was given to the Syrian prisoners, who were treated even worse than we were.

WHO HATH A BOOK. Who hath a book Has friends at band, And gold and gear At his command. And rich estates. If he but look, Are held by him Who hath a book, Who hath a book Has but to read And he may be A king, indeed. His kingdom is His inglenook. All this is his Who hath a boo' —Will— D. Nesbit. « « 32 Nowhere else can we find so lively and humorous a panorama of eighteenth century English life as in the novels of Fielding, writes Mr Gerald Bullett in “T.P.’s Weekly.” Accom-

panying him from village to village, from tavern to tavern, we find his England to be a rowdier and more dangerous England than this of ours. Travel is difficult; footpads lurk in the hedges; the administration of summary justice is hopelessly stupid and cruel and corrupt. These pages, so full of life and bustle, teeming with fights and disputations and adventures, are presided over by the robust humanity and shrewd irony of the author. Fielding, like Shakespeare, views human life with a large toleration, looking leniently, even amusedly, on the minor sins, which are of the flesh, and reserving the sharpest barbs of his irony for spiritual sins such as meanness, malice, and cruelty. Fielding had an acute critical sense and he knew—as Dickens, for example, with all his genius, did not—how to organise a novel, how to present a teeming variety of character and incident in a shapely form. His stjde is adequate to the demands made upon it.. He attempts no fine writing except in the mock-heroic style; his love-scenes are for the most part per iunctory; his most characteristic vein is irony. He set out to create, and did create, a new kind of English fiction, the comic prose epic. “Joseph Andrews” is his first work in that kind, a kind of which he, the inventor, remains to this day the only master.

It is courage, enterprise, and a more human humour that the vounger English literature needs,” writes Mr -lugh Walpole, in the “ Dailv Express.” “ This sense that literature can only be great when it is understood by a small group of chilly intellectual persons has got to go. We want some young adventurer to attempt once, again an epic, some voung novelist to forget his reserves, to throw over the fear of being called sentimental, and to give us his novel with at least twenty living people in it.

" There is a great new public in England, a greater public for literature than there has ever been in England before, but it needs some kind of encouragement and cheer. Kipling when he. wrote * Kim,’ Masefield when he wrote ‘ The Everlasting Mercy,’ Bennett when he wrote ‘ The Old Wives’ Tale,’ were one with their public, and yet never lost for an instant their intimate contact with art.

“ Art in England has never been at its finest remote from the English people—Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Richardson, Fielding, Scott, Jane Austen, Thackeray, Dickens, Stevenson —so the list goes on. We are at this moment intellectually afraid of taking risks, afraid of mockery because we are not clever enough, shy of sentiment, terrified of tasks that are bold and audacious. “ I driqk to the . young man who is at this particular moment busy on the eighth Canto of his Epic, on the third volume of his two hundred thousand word novel.”

Babies’ Bodies in Parcel. A tramway conductor residing at 73, John Knox Street, Glasgow, recently made a startling disclosure in the close at that address. When leaving the close he noticed a brown paper parcel lying at the foot of the stairs. At that time he paid no particular attention to it, but when he returned an hour later he was surprised to find that the parcel was still there. Along with a lamplighter, he opened it, and was horrified to discover that it contained the bodies of two newly-born children. The bodies were removed to the mortuary at the Central Police Station, where an examination showed that the bodies were those of two newly-born female children. One of them was wrapped in a white towel and part of a newspaper and the other in a piece of cloth and another newspaper.