The Library Corner

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 20150, 19 May 1928, Page 1 (Supplement)

The Library Corner

By

“Bibliophile”

‘‘Some Books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and sonie faw tc be chewed and digested.”—Bacon.

IN THE BUSH.—A tale of adventure in the New South Wales bush by two young scamps who got lost is “The Rond to Wiilgew'ong. ’’ Instead of keeping to the recognised way to the township, .Joe and Bub decide to try one of their own, and plunge into the bush, where they get hopelessly lost and are for days together without food, being saved by a native who teaches them how to snare animals and birds. A bush fire also starts, and it is Billy, the native, who again saves them by racing them to a pool, and plunging into a stream of water, instructs them to keep their heads under while the flames raged over them. Adventures follow in quick succession. and, when, after several weeks’ search, they are found at last, it is a pair of very bedraggled, emaciated youngsters who return to regular meals and civilisation. My copy is from the Cornstalk Coy., who published the book. 4 * HONOUR OR DOLLARS. ’ ’—A rousing little book which does one good 1o read on account of the high sense of honour and duty pervading it. is the one just published by Angus and Robertson, of Sydney. It is entitled “Honour or Dollars/’ and prefaced with a vigorous article by Professor Tucker, Melbourne I'liivurgives a series of addresses, let ters and opinions of a large number of distinguished Americans concerning the moral obligations of the States to her former allies in the Great War. The leader of the cohort of earnest, high minded Americans, who do not like to see their country in the role of Shvlock, is Mr Frederick Peabody, the eminent New England lawyer and. with him. are ranged, bankers, senators, pro lessors, army officers from General Pershing downwards, and really all the cream of genuine purely American society, all of them vehemently calling tor the complete cancellation of the loans made by the United States to the Allies. This little book is full of earnest demands that the Republic should repay her debt to the nations that saved her, by wiping off the slate all the loans granted to them. Aly copy is from the publishers. REFLECTIONS. “The.. Philosophic Punter —he conceals his jiroper name—who gives us his reflections in the dainty little volume he calls “ What I Know” has a pretty fund of humour On tap, and turns the flow on in its pages. He pictures hirnself as a professor of philosophy visiting the Sydney racecourse for the first time, at Advanced middle ago, and he describes his bewilderment at the scene, his ignorance of how to put a pound or two on a geegee, and the wonderful kindness of so many to enlighten him as to which horse to back. The fact that he lost on each occasion did not at first prevent his astonishment at the trouble these strangers took on his behalf. As the years go on however, our professor gets wiser, and we find him at, the end the discoverer of a system by which the winner can always be spotted. CONRAD.—Under, the. title. “The Illusions of Joseph Conrad.” in the April number of The Yale Review. Wilbur Cross presents a study of (’onrad, the man, as revealed by his work. Despite the fact that Conrad’s mind was “inclined to dwell on the hard lot of mankind,” Mr Cross maintains that he was neither a pessimist nor a cynic. Regarding Conrad’s use of the word illusion, Air Cross says: “Conrad’s use of the word illusion all through hi s novels may be easily misunderstood. In one place or another he wrote of faith, hope, love, faar, pity, ambition, patriotism, all our affections and all our ideals, even our perceptive and reasoning faculties, as if they were illusions. His going to sea, he said several times over, was an illusion. But he did not mean by the word what Schopenhauer meant by it. His was not a doctrine of negation. So far as he thought his philosophy out. it was akin, in its broad aspects, to the idealism of Berkeley, according to which' the world is a creation out of the images of the mind. In that sense the word is an illusion, though a \ ision perhaps. Conrad would say. of ‘remote unattainable truth, seen dimly/ Like Don Quixote every man wanders through his own peculiar realm of illusions. There are the illusions of the faithful and the faithless, of the compassionate and the hard hearted, of the generous-minded and the miser, of the lover or the patriot, and so on through allthe characteristics that distinguish one personality from another. Their illusions may give joy or sorrow, turmoil or rest; in Conrad ’s summary, ‘they can make life and death appear serene, inspiring, tormented, or ignoble.’ There is nothing inherently depressing in the philosophy of illusions. Let it be granted that happiness rests mainly on unfulfilled dreams and desires, with the enrol I ary that fulfilment is always attended with some loss and often with complete disenchantment. The wise man asks of furtune a new shuffle of the, cards and starts in immediate pursuit of another illusion, keeping up the chase until confronted by the last inevitable illusion—where he must stop. Such a man may bo forever happy in his illusions. To Calderon the life of man seemed to bo a dream. For all that the living world still remains, to quote Conrad again, ‘a spectacle for awe, love, adoration, or hate, if you like. . . . never for despair. ’ And of the business of the novelist, ho continues: ‘T would ask that in his dealings with mankind ho should be capable of giving a tender recognition to their obscure virtues. I

won’.] not have him impatient with their small failings and scornful of their errors. I would not have him expect too much gratitude from that humanity who.-e fate, as illustrated in individuals, it is open to him to depict as ridiculous or terrible. I would wish him to look with a large forgiveness a-t | men "s ideas and prejudices, which are by no means tin l outcome of malevolence, but depend on their education, their social status, even their professions. ’ ’ ’ ON COLLECTORS.—The’ hobby of book collecting has suffered some smart raps lately in the English Press (according to 11. W. Horwill in the Manchester Guardian). E. B. Osborn, in the Alorning Post, publicly rejoices that nearly all the first-printed copies of famous books must have been read to tattersand have therefore escaped becoming prizes for the bibliophile. “The professional book collector,” he says, “to whom •condition’ is an all-important consideration, is really a parasite living on those dead-and-gone possessors of books who did nut lake the trouble to read them.” Another literary critic challenges the claim of the book collector to be a 44 bookman. ’ ’ The true bookman, he maintains, must love both the outsides and the insides of books, but he must love the insides more, ami “your collector of first editions,’’ ho flatly assorts, “is no more a bookman than your collector of Arnold Palmer calls attention in “'l’he Sphere” to a further distinction that is often overlooked. He reminds us that thanks to the enterprise of publishers in issuing popular reprints, there is hardly such a thing in England to-day as a rare book. There are rare editions; but the books themselves—■ an y good book of any ago or country —■ can almost always be found in cheap and handy form. Meanwhile, the book sales which the collector’s hobby has brought into existence incidentally serve the useful purpose of bringing to light unknown or little known facts of literary history. Who was the father of the serial novel? That question would be a poser for many well-informed students of the development of the author’s profession. The answer is supplied by the catalogin' of a sale at Sotheby’s next, month, at which another batch of books from the Holford Librarv will come under the hammer. One of the lots consists of six months’ issues of a journal called the “London Post.” dated 1719-20. Its main feature was the serial publication, of part of a novel entitled “Robinson Crusoe.” which had appeared just before in two volumes, and had gained in that form a. popularity which the enterprising editor of this paper hastened to exploit in his own interest. The Lomlun Post was issued three times a week, and Defoe’s serial ran in it for a year .in longer or shorter instalments, according (he pressure of news at the time. The editor introduced it as. i n his opinion, “a just History of Fact” and of great “Importance as well to the Diversion as to the Instruction of the Reader. ’ The way now seems clear tor some researcher to discover what lenos Defoe obtained for granting permission to reproduce his tale. One may doubt, indeed, whether he got any payment for it at all, as in those days the law of copyright must na\e been m a rudimentary stage. REMINISCENCES.—I have receiv Od from Mr. Richard Wrdderspoon. of M anganur, a copy of u little book from his versatile pen—“ Beds 1 have .Slept n,—and Others,” which will ho lexiewel in next Saturday’s Chronicle. LONDON’S TASTE.-” Following yic the books in popular demonrl in Lou^ u in (be middle of March- Fic-t.on.-lan Hoy’s “The Poor Gentleman (Hodder ami Stoughton); humas Burke’s “East of Mansion House ((asselli; Somerville and toss s “I rench Leave’’ (Teinemann) ; Sarah Gertrude Millin's “An Artist in the Family” (Constable,. Alisuidlaneous.— “Films of the Year” (“The Studio’’); Hilaire Belloc’s “Many Pities” (Constable); “Love Letters of a, Husband” (Cassell); Marjorie Bowen's “Sundry Great Gentlemen” (Bodley Head). ODDS AND ENDS. An excellent b< >k is “Chinese Ghouls ami Goblins.” G. WilloughbyAleore, the author discusses the Chinese i.ha ut Soul. Good and Bad spirits, Dragons. Monsters, Magic, Divination, Ancestor-Worship, and the like. I n».er the title, “The Book of Catherine Wells, H. G. Wells presents the stories and poems written hy his wile, but never published while she lived. hi his preface—he can never have written anything more sincerely felt, more plainly beautiful—he explains how some reticent, secret part of her nature came to write them. Airs Flora Annie Steele is now in her eighty-first year and has some thirty volumes to her credit, but. she still wields a vigorous pen. Her new novel of India. “The Burd-on,” is biding published shortly. Two more volumes of Mr John Lane s tastefully produced Helicon Scries are Alilton’s masterpieces “L 'Allegro and 11 Penseroso,” ilia.:tiate.l- by Peggy Northcole and Matthew Arnold’s “Forsaken Mermen,” ami bis perennially popular “The Scholar G’,sy/' the latter with several quite notably fine woodcuts by Annabel Kidston