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Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 190, 12 August 1931, Page 5

Mr W. B. Yeats was recently awarded an honorary degree of D.Litt. of Oxford University. A bronze plaque bearing the inscription : “ Enoch Arnold Bennett, novelist and playwright,..was born here, May 27, 1867,” is to be placed on the house at the corner of Hope Street and Hanover Street, Hanley, where Mr Bennett was born. Two old friends of O. Henry, Messrs Davis and Maurice, have written a biography of him which they call “ The Caliph of Bagdad.” They give it this title because O. Henry himself was fond of referring to New York as “ The Little Old Bagdad on the Subway.” The two authors helped him to sell his stories, and spent much time with him travelling round New York in search of new material and adventures. Mrs Maud Diver, who has written a novel called ‘‘ Ships of Youth,” was born in India, and has made it the scene of most of her books. Her father was Resident in a small native State in the Himalayas. She was sent home to England at an early age, but later returned to India under the care of Mr Rudyard Kipling’s mother, who was going out with her daughter. Mr Guy B. H. Logan, in “The Classic Races of the Turf,” relates how the Derby of 1879 was notable for the fact that Lord Tennyson, the Poet Laureate, backed the winner, Sir Bevys, and for purely literary reasons! The poet was somehow persuaded to visit Epsom on this occasion, and was taken down in his host’s coach. Naturally, he knew nothing about the horses and cared as little, but he was, strange to relate, the only one of the party to back the winner! He put £5 on Sir Bevys at 20 to 1 and won £IOO. Asked to explain how he came to fancy so indifferent a performer, he told his friends that the name had attracted him. “ Sir Bevys,” he said, “ was the name of the hero of one of my early poems! ” “ We should realise that if we do not ‘ like ’ a book that has become a classic, the fault is more likely to be in ourselves than in the book,” writes Mr A. C. Ward in “ Foundations of English Prose.” “ A classic is not just a book that think we ought to like, and try to make us like. Classics are books that have given real and intense pleasure to multitudes of people for very many years, sometimes for centuries. Shakespeare, Milton, Pepys, Jane Austen, Lamb, Dickens became classics, because people loved these writers’ books and found in them something permanently satisfying. A new novel may perhaps seem much more interesting than a classic, but books are similar to friends and acquaintances.” “ A peculiarly innocent lady at a country-house auction was deploring the death of the old squire and remarking what a loss the break-up of his estate would mean to the neighbourhood,” says the “Yorkshire Post.” “ Her friend, viewing things in a more philosophic light, congratulated her on the purchase at a modest price of a valuable set of books. 4 Yes, only seven pounds! * exclaimed the lady. ‘But then there was one volume missing. And do you know?’ she went on ingenuously, * it is one I borrowed just before the old squire died. I have it at home now, so the set will be complete. Isn’t that lucky? ’ ” Young people’s taste in reading is analysed in the annual report of the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust. “ The most widely read books in both boys’ and girls’ clubs are works of fiction.” it is stated. “ Tales of adventure, detective and school stories, seem to be the most popular in boys’ clubs, the favourite authors being Buchan, 4 Sapper,’ and Edgar Wallace. “ The girls’ clubs vary in their reports on the most popular volumes, but the list is headed by Warwick Deeping’s 4 Sorrel and Son.’ In one girls club Shakespeare is the most widely read author. “ Though it must be admitted that there is still a large demand for light fiction,” the report adds, “ many readers, who had previously been satisfied with the cheapest type of sensational stories, are gradually being led to appreciate better literature.” When the census was taken in England last month a temporary exhibition was opened in the museum of the Record Office, Chancery Lane, London, of 44 specimen ” census returns of past generations. Charles Dickens gives his age as 29 and his profession as 44 gentleman.” Catharine, his wife, is registered as 26 years old, and the household consisted of the four children, four female servants, and one man-servant. Thomas Carlyle entered himself in the census of 1841 as “author”; but in 1851 he put himself down as “ man ot letters.” De Quincey entered himself as “ writer to the magazines but was quite at a loss to describe the occupations of his three daughters. Finally, he thought of a suitable periphrasis, bracketed the three names, and wrote slowly opposite to the bracket: 44 These are like the lilies of the field; they toil not, neither do they spin.”

The critic must be well informed, because it is not enough for him to bury his nose in the book or poem he is estimating; he must bring to it something that is not there and so connect the river of interest with its sources and with the sea to which it flows. He must have variety of method because literature is so various, and everyone likes variety. And he needs above all an engaging personality compounded of brains, fancy, good humour, wit and friendliness. The reader is his guest and has a right to be entertained. Enjoyment is infectious and it is for the critic to infect the reader. Hepworth Dixon, when he was editor of the old “ Athenaeum,” used to give this instruction to his reviewers: “Be just, be generous, but if vou do meet with a deadly ass, sling him up.”—Wilfred Whitten. THE TRUTH ABOUT WRITERS. “ There isn’t a single writer I know, or can even call to mind. Who writes because of inspiration, or a Message, or anything of that kind. We simplv write because the thought of bankruptcy fills us with terror. And all of us, in youth, committed the serious error Of begetting families, that we now have I to clothe, house, and nourish—. So that, really, is what causes genius to flourish.” —“ E.M.D, ' in 44 Time and Tide.” 1

“ Imperial Palace,” the last novel to be published by the late Mr Arnold Bennett, is fo be made into a talking film. Mr P. H. B. Lyon, the Rector of Edinburgh Academy, who has just been appointed headmaster of Rugby School, is the author of several books, including “ Songs of Youth and War,” and “The Discovery of Poetry.” He won the Newdigate Prize in 1919. No man practices so well as he writes. I have, all my life long, been lying till noon; yet I tell all young men, and tell them with great sincerity, that nobody who does not rise early will ever do any good.—Dr Johnson. ♦.* ».♦ A week of homage to the memory of Senor Vicente Blasco Ibanez, the Spanish novelist whose anti-monarchist views led to his exile, is being organised at Barcelona. 35 35 35 The following description of one of China's problems is taken from “Asia’s Teeming Millions,” by M. Dennery, a French writer: In the valleys and river-mouths, on the little rice-fields pieced out into mere patches, swarm such a mass of human beings as can scarcely breathe. It is an affecting and heart-rending sight to see whole families on their tiny farms, passing their days in exacting toil, in cultivating, with endless efforts, a small patch of rice, peas, beans or potatoes which a single peasant could quite easily raise by himself. 35 35 35 “ Why should the oldest boc.ks be the best?” writes Sir James G. Frazer, 0.M., in “ Garnered Sheaves.” The reason, I take it, is simple. The principle of the survival of the fittest applies to books as well as to men. Bad books perish, but good books survive, because the world will not willingly let them die. Therefore the older a book the stronger the testimony to its excellence. The greatest force in the world is thought; the best thought of humanity is enshrined in books.” From the “ Life and Letters of Edmund Gosse,” by the Hon Evan Charteris:— Gosse had been staying at Rye with Henry James, who told him that some actresses staying at Winchelsea had desired to see him and had come over to tea. “ Were they pretty?” Gosse asked. James replied, “ Pretty! Good heavens! ” and then with the air of one who would be scrupulously just, he added, 44 One of the poor wantons had a certain cadaverous grace.” t*J K K “ Golden Mists,” by Cecil Adair. Published by Stanley Paul and Co., Ltd., London. (Copy from Whitcombe and Tombs, Ltd.) The latest novel from the pen of Cecil Adair has all the elements of a firstrate melodrama—the war-wrecked hero, the masterful villain, the beautiful damsel, affianced but unhappy, a house full of priceless antiques, and last, but not least, an eccentric and somewhat sinister old man. The scene is laid in Africa, where the hero has gone as secretary to the eccentric one, and where the damsel is languishing and lamenting, principally because of an engagement into which she has been forced. However, the tangle so carefully created by Mr Adair is dexterously straightened out by the same hands, and all ends well on a note of wedding bells and true lovers’ knots.

“ The Good Earth,” by Pearl S. Buck Published by Methven and Co. Limited.

The writer of this story is the daughter of missionaries to China, and has spent all her life there, except for a time spent in getting her college and graduate education at Randolph-Macon College and later at Cornell University. Mrs Buck now lives at Nanking, and has taught at both the University of Nanking and the Government University under two national regimes.

The story tells of Wang Lung, a Chinese peasant who has more than the usual industry an dpatience of his race. The good earth is everthing to him; it feeds him, clothes him, warms him—even. houses him, and he is determined to extend the small farm at every opportunity. We first see him on his wedding day, ■when he goes to the house of the Great One to claim the slave Olan whom his father has arranged he should have in marriage. With persistence and industry, and aided by his big-bodied, plain-looking wife, he accumulates a small hoard. He knows that one year of every seven will be a year of famine, when money will buy much land. Eventually he becomes the big farmer of the district, but he suffers hardship, privation and famine rather than lose one yard of the earth.

Throughout this book one is reminded in every tiny piece of detail that the author knows the people and conditions of which she writes. The wedding day, the arrival of the firstborn son, the dreadful famine conditions, the gay stage of the concubine, and the intimate insight into the habits and customs of these people, represent work of outstanding merit and ability. The author writes so graphically that the reader finds himself transported from his present surroundings: he smells the good earth, feels the warmth of the sun, and sees the shooting crops. The characters, so different from other novels of China, are not merely Chinamen. They are thoroughly human and live in the memory. The story is correctly described as a work of genius. It is written in irreproachable style, though some may consider the dialogue a little plain-spoken at times. But the author is far too much of an artist to speak of the lady of easy virtue in terms which her characters would not appreciate. This book should undoubtedly prove one of the outstanding successes of the year.

“ Elfinstorm,” by A. M. Westwood. Published by Hurst and Blackett, Ltd. Copy from Whitcombe and Tombs. Vivienne Neale is half-French, halfEnglish and wholly impulsive. Having known enough of straitened circumstances to appreciate all that money means, one would think she would have appreciated her charming millionaire husband. But, unfortunately, a fit of temper following a grave misunderstanding on her wedding day had resulted in her running away from her husband. But one cannot run away on one’s wedding day without consequences as Vivienne found out many times before her tangle was straightened out.

Mrs Westwood makes a very fine story o fthis material, an especial feature being the excellent characters she has chosest.