The Library Corner

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19864, 11 June 1927, Page 13 (Supplement)

The Library Corner

By

“Bibliophile”

•I ;■ Books are to be tasted, others tq £ be swallowed, and some few to be chew? ed aq.4 .digested.”—Baqon.

?•NORTHWARD BOUND.’’ I (By ROSIN A FILIPPI. Cassell and Co., Loudon). There are some unconventional features about this well-written story. Maisic, born in the Highlands near the castle of the chief of the MacThunes, is left a penniless widow with three children. She abandons the hospitality of her uncle’s house at Wimbledon, determined to walk to Scotland, and on the way meets with a wandering minstrel, who turns out lo be the MacThune --becomes a vagabond by chaic* in order to enjoy the freedom of the road. Him she marries at Gretna Green, though she knows that before he met her he had al least four sons, .but no wife. The curtain falls on a reunion of Maisie and her family by hur first husband, in an inn near Havre, kept by the mother of a fifth natural son of the wandering minstrel. “GOBLIN MARKET.” (By H. DE VEBE STACPOOLE. Cassell and Co., London). This author can be depended upon to turn out good sluff, and in this book he gives us a human story, albeit one of which some people will not approve. It tells how while subconsciously bored by the inanities of middle-class existence (his wife has an income of £2,00u a year), and all too consciously worried by a business on the verge of collapse, Anthony Harrop is given “a good lime’’ after business hours. This whets his appetite; he goes to a night club where he meets a young and delicate girl, Lucy Gray. Lucy falls ill; Anthony pays the doctor, and when the girl recovers he whisks her off to the Isle of Wight, where he often visits her. Discovering the intrigue, Mrs. Harrop goes to the island, bent on adjusting the bad business in the best possible way. Finding that Lucy is dying she acts so as to prove the greatest comfort alike to the girl and the erring Anthony. Lucy dies, and Anthony, resorting to an overdose of sleeping draught, follows her into the unknown. “BOLD BENDIGO.” (By PAUL HERRING. Sampson Low, Marston and Co., London, per Robertson and Mullens, Ltd., Melbourne). Tom Sayers was probably the only prize fighter to attain to the distinction of appearing on a tavern sign, but Bendigo has been made the subject of a ballad by no less an admirer of the noble an of self defence than Sir A. Conan Doyle: “Bendy’s short for Bendigo, you should see him peel, “Half of him was whale bone, half of him was steel.” Adam Lindsay Gordon, in his young days, expressed his admiration of anyone who “Like Bendigo, could fight, “Or, like Oliver, could ride.” Bendigo has now found his way into fiction as a young man in ‘ ‘ Bold Bendigo,” a romance of the open road by Paul Herring, a Nottingham author, lu “Bold Bendigo” the author has created a romantic love story attended with jealousy between mother and sweetheart; although lhey never meet, the mother’s instinct senses the other wo-, man all the same. It is a story of ceaseless action, with thrilling descriptions of most, if not all, of Bendigo’s pugilistic encounters, well known characters of the old prize ring weaving in and out, but it is the human interest and the lure of the open road that counts. Bendigo was one of a set of triplets, nicknamed fcJhadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Abednego was shortly abbreviated to “Bendigo” and under th?s name he fought his way to the chain pionship of England. Curiously enough, the town of Bendigo, Victoria, lakes its name from this prize-fighter, the story being that one ot the shepherds on the station property comprising Bendigo was “handy with his fists” and was nicknamed “Bendigo.” The creek where he had his shepherd’s hut was Bendigo’s Creek and so named. It is within tho recollection of many people that when the name of the city of Bendigo was changed to Sandhurst the inhabitants would have none of it and it reverted to Bendigo. “THE REVOLT OF ASIA.” (By UPTON CLOSE. Cornstalk Publishing Coy., Sydney, per Angus and Robertson, Ltd., Sydney). The revolt of Asia against the white man has been a favourite theme with many writers for forty or fifty years past, and each one of them has predicted the submergence of the Caucasian beneath floods of “perils” of various colours, such submergence to take place any time from one to twenty years ahead. “Upton Close,” the pen raino of Josef Washington Hall, an American traveller and writer, is the latest to discover the Asiatic menace and he appears to regard the find as an original ope. In the above book he sets down the impressions gathered by a tour through the sea-coast territories of Asia and by conversations he had with divers people therein. His conclusion is that “the revolt of Asia has come; the white man’s world dominance is al an end.” The British, in particular, are to be booted out of the Asiatic continent, “and one gathers that, he hopes America will find herself able to pick up a few toothsome crumbs in the resultant mix-up. The book, however, is a well-written, and interesting one, with

nueh cor•ect im v.malion; and Wnite it treats the iiibject rather superficially and conains a good deal of unsound judgment, t is nevertheless one which students cf his particular subject will find useful. CONTRACT BRIDGE. By ROBERT F. FOSTER. Cornstalk Publishing Coy., Sydney, per Angus and Robertson, Ltd., Sydney). “Contract” is the new development n the game of auction bridge and <s stated to be increasingly popular in Britain and America. The book under notice is claimed to be the first completely devoted to “contract.” It gives the system of scoring, the new rules, ind full and explicit instruction on the fame, and should be found invaluable iliko by the beginner and by the expert. BYRON’S LETTERS. ' A curious list could be drawn up of the books asked for by men at the front luring the great war. Mr. V. 11. Collins had a request from a friend in France to send him a good edition of Byron’s letters in one volume. There was no such collection in existence. Lord Erule’s edition of the “Letters and Journals” was in six volumes, and this was too much for any man within sound of the guns. There was nothing for it but to collect from Lord Erule’s work, Sir John Murray’s and others, such letters and extracts as would provide a running commentary on- Byron’s life. The world knows that his seven years of exile in Italy made him a voluminous writer, and also that, as few men do, Byron loved correspondence. Fortunately his early celebrity as a writer led many of his friends to preserve the letters they received from him. From the viewpoint of style Byron’s correspondence takes rank as among the best in the language. Many of the letters were written hurriedly, and their contents extend over a wide range of subjects, and, as Macaulay says, they are free from stiffness and awkwardness. In his journal, as well as his correspondence, wc find plenty of vivacity and even boisterous humour, though it must be admitted that he suffered from a constant tendency to depression. The desired one-volume edition of his letters is now published and will be welcomed by many. It’s title is “Lord Byron in His Letters,” edited by V. H. Collins. The frontispiece contains a very fine photogravure portrait reproduced from a picture in the possession of tho Baroness Burdett Goutts. Mr. Collins has done his work well, he tried to trace and give references wherever possible, and although an evident admirer of the poet writes with perfect frankness about his limitations. For example, he reminds us that Byron never expected “that anything he had written would live,” thought poetry was not his true vocation, did not believe he had a capacity for friendship, and as Ruskin said of him. had a general instinct for never doing anything he was bid. Passionately he lived and passionately died. The arrangement of the letters is chronological, beginning with those written in the school and college period, and ending with Greece (1823-1824). Readers will turn naturally first to those written to his mother. Although her method of bringing him up had all the faults natural to her character, fickleness and excess alike of violence and tenderness, he writes to her from school with great affection. At a later stage he admits that he and his mother did not agree like lambs in a meadow, but confesses it was all his own fault. Naturally a good deal of space is given to Byron’s courtship of Miss Milbanke, their marriage, and the separation, which sent him out of England, never to return. The whole miserable business, so elaborately discussed aud explained by friend and foe, is touched upon by Mr. Collins from the day it happened until the new edition of Byron’s grandson’s “Astarte” was published in 1921. The precise nature of the charges on which Lady Byron lgparated from her husband has never yet been made clear. His affairs with Clara Clairmont and the Countess Guiecioli are presented from the simple historic standpoint. The countess seems to have been the only lady who ever did him any good. THE MAGAZINES. The June number of “Life” contains the articles of the American Judge, Ben Lindsay, on “The Moral Revolt,” and one gathers that lhe publication thereof has caused controversy among the readers of the magazine, some approving while others voice their disapproval in no uncertain terms. Much of what he says is sound, but, somehow it does not ring true. Perhaps a partial explanation may be that he is disAmerican ideas aitl American sex psychology from a purely American standpoint. If what ho says be true, then lhe conclusion cannot be avoided that many American men and women have queer ideas of marriage. Perhaps the truth is that he is discussing only the class—mostly of Eastern European extraction, apparently—which finds its way into his Court. Certainly one would hesitate to adjudge Americans as a whole as belonging to thq same category as Judge Lindsay’s “cases,” nor are some of the conclusions he arrives at applicable, even in the thousandth degree, to New Zealanders and Australians. In addition, the June number contains the usual good budget af stories and articles, and is quite up to tU