BOOKS and AUTHORS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XIV, Issue XV, 13 April 1895, Page 342

BOOKS and AUTHORS.

A LITERARY CAUSERIE for COLONIAL BOOKBUYERS and BORROWERS. BOOKS marked thus (*) haue arrived in the colony, and could at the time of writing be purchased in the principal colonial bookshops, and borrowed at the libraries. For the convenience of country cousins who find difficulty in procuring the latest books and new editions, the 'BOOKMAN ’ will send to any New Zealand address any book which can be obtained. No notice will, o' course, be taken of requests unaccompanied by remittance to cover postage as well as published price of book. It is requested that only those who find it impossible to procure books througn the ordinary channels, should take advantage of this offer. The labour involved will be heavy and entirely unremunerative, no fees or commission being taken. Queries and Correspondence on Literary Matters Invited. AU Communications and Commissions must be addressed ‘THE BOOKMAN,* Graphic Office, Auckland. *

Introductory— The Bookman

Under ordinary circumstances, I am neither a nervous nor a self-depreciatory person. Like the majority of my ac-

Explains. quaintances—like the majority of mankind, in fact —my private estimation of myself is in all probability several degrees higher than that in which I am held by my friends. But I confess when the editor first showed me the title he bad chosen for my book-chat, I was not merely nervous,but very distinctly self-depreciatory. It is one thing to consent to scribble a couple of columns or so of garrulous gossip on one’s pet subject — books — and quite another to find oneself contracted to furnish a literarv cawAerte. I feel bound, indeed, to offer a brief personal explanation, even at the risk of being thought tiresomely egotistical. One wishes to start fair, as children say. It has frequently struck me that though reviews of new books and magazines appear from time to time in our New Zealand papers, they appear at the wrong time. They are, in most cases, written at the time the book is first published in London. Now as we are all miserably aware, a fine or a successful book seldom arrives in the colony for months and months after publication, long long after the reviews are forgotten, as if they had never been read. Who has not suffered the disappointment of asking for a book of which they have just read a glowing review, only to find it cannot be got for three months, and this, as everyone with even the slightest experience of New Zealand booksellers will tell you sadly, usually means six. The average reader is not methodical enough to make a note of the title and author of a book which has been well reviewed in the Home papers or by a London corres pondent, and consequently is entirely ignorant of what to ask for at the library or the book shop. The advice of the bookseller or the librarian is usually asked. Naturallv they recommend ee rything with absolute impartiality, or more likely still push the books that ‘ go ’ least rapidly.

The eagerness with which a book is ‘ rushed ’ at the libraries once its name becomes known convinces me that a column or so of book chat, including straight, honest, and brief reviews of books procurable in the colony at the time of writing, will be received with interest by many, and will be found, in the words of the advertisement man, ‘to fill a long felt want.’ This is why I gladly fell in with the suggestion of the Editor that I should take a column or so of the Gr aphic for a gossiping article on books. Now I find myself set down to write a literary causerie. All I can say is that ‘it was not so nominated in the bond.’ I will, as every man must when he talks on a subject he loves, be plain and simple of speech. I shall use every endeavour to merit the title of a literary causerie, but remember, I do not claim that it shall be more than a gossip on books by one who loves the subject.

• Bonnie Brier Bush.' «

Those who, like myself, have for many moons undergone a weary course of ‘ New Woman ’ novels, will derive keen and ex-

quisite pleasure from lan MacLaren's ‘ Bonnie Brier Bush.’ The very name of the book seems to promise a freshness and fragrance, welcome indeed after the unwholesome odours of ‘ Yellow Asters ’ and the unpleasant atmosphere which surrounds ’The Heavenly Twins,’ * Superfluous Women,’ and the rest of them. We have been told that it was as necessary that such books should be written as that foul and revolting sores should be laid bare in the surgical ward of a hospital. The analogy has never appeared to me a happy one, but as it has been pretty generally accepted, and indeed admired, let us admit it. Well, we have seen the sores,

and very unpleasant it was, and now it is time to go back to the fresh air and sunshine, where the men are not all diseased, nor the women all in revolt. And it is a very pleasant, a very beantiful world to which Mr lan MacLaren introduces us. We are amongst those quaint, kindly, humorous Scotch folk with whom, thanks to Mr Barrie and Mr Crockett, we have made so many delightful friendships of recent years. The pathos, the sly humour, the purity of spirit in the stories which are here told, are with few exceptions equal to Mr Barrie at his best, and there are occasions, and not infrequently, when lan MacLaren strikes a chord which vibrates and thrills us as even Barrie never has and never could do. The humour is not so frequent ; it is perhaps scarcely as fine as that of Mr Barrie, but in pathos the disciple is greater than his master. The ‘ Bonnie Brier Bush ’ is situated in Drumtochty, a village like unto Thrums, and Domsie the Dominie, the doctor, Marget Howe, Drumsheugh, fascinate us as did and do the never-to-be-forgotten friends we met there for the first time. ‘ Dum-iie,’ a story of those who took an interest in the life—the brilliant life—of ‘ A Lad o’ Pairts,’ and ‘ //<< Jfi/Acr* Sermon’ seem to me the finest things in a book of fine things. I shall not attempt to give outlines of either these or any of the other stories. They could not be treated that way. To attempt it were Vandalism. I will, however, allow myself one extract from ‘ Domsie ’ :

Drumtochty give it=elf to a ‘ beerial ’ with chastened satisfaction. partly bee nine it lay near to the sorrow of things and pait y because there was nothing of speculation in it. 'Ye can hae little real pleesu-e in a merrigo,’ explained our gravedigger in whom the serious side had been abnormally developed, tor ye never ken hoo it will end; but ther-’s nae risk about a " beerial " ’ It came with a shock upon townsmen that the cerem >ny began with a ' service of speerits.’and that an attempt of the Free Kok minister to replace this by the reading of Scrip’ure was resisted as an'innovation.’ Yet everyone admitted th st the seriousness of Drumtoch y p irvailed and sanctified this function. A. tray of glas-es was pared on a tabe with great solemnity ly the ' wr’cht.' who node no sign and invited none. You might nave supposed that the circumstance had escaped the notice of the company, so abstracted and unconscious was their muint-r. had it not been that two graven images a minute later are standing at the table. ' Ye ’ill taste. Tammas.’ with settled melancholy. ‘Na. ra : I've nae incleenition the day: it’s an awfu'dispensation this Jeems. She wud be barely saxty.’ ' Ay. ay. but we mann keep up the body sae long as we’re here, Tammas.’ • w'e-1. puttin’ it that way. a'm no sayin’ but yer richt,’ yielding unwillingly to the force of circumstance. ' We're here the day and there the morn. Tammas. She was a fine wumman—Mistress Stirton—a weel-livin’ wumman ; this ’ll be a b end. a m thinkin'.’ ' She slippit atf sudden in the end : a’m judgin' it’s frae the Mtiirtown grocer; but a bed/ canna discreemiuate on a day like this ' Before the glasses are empty all idea of drinking is dissipated, and one lias a vague impres ion that he is at church. Il was George Howe's fuoeral that broke the custom and closed the ‘ sert ice.' When 1 came into the garden where the neighbours were gathered, the ‘wricht’ was removing his tray, and not a glass had been touched. Then I knew that Di umtochty had a sense of the fitness of things, and was stirred to its depths. Many people, myself amongst the number, have an intense antipathy to goody-goodv literature. If, as maybe, the title of His Mcther's Sermon, one of the stories I have mentioned, has caused some of these to shy, let me at once reassure them. There is no line of goody goody in the book. It may, and will be, read with equal pleasure by ‘ those who have lived ’ (which usually means lived ill) and those whose hearts and minds are still unspotted. It is a book that one hopes will be widely read out here. I cannot understand or believe that anyone could read it without delight, and I am sure such a book cannot fail to elevate even the most careless mind And this is something when the tendency of books is rather to debase than elevate.

‘ The Green Carnation ’

It is, perhaps, somewhat late in the day to attempt a criticism of that colossal piece of impudence in book form, ‘The

Green Carnation.’ But though the book has been published many months, and though most readers of the papers have probably read the comments of London correspondents at the time of publication, the book is only just becoming easily procurable in New Zealand book shops. It is without exception the most wonderfully impudent, most daring bit of writing it has ever been my lot to see. It is, of course a skit—an exaggeration of the modern woman novel, only in this instance it is the modern man that is the hero, or rather men, for there are a pair of them. From cover to cover the book is crammed with exaggerated specimens of that species of epigram associated with the rame of Oscar Wilde. The book is often witty, but the wit is more often than not in disagreeable, not to say execrable taste. Reggie and his friend Amarinth are, of

course, caricatures. As the only presentable character in the book remarks to the hero when he proposes—they are the representatives of a cult—she says :— * Let me call it the cuk of the green earn ttioo. I suppose it may be called modern. To mn it due ms veiy t-1 ly and rather wicked. If you wou.d taku that hideous ->en flower out of your coau not becau-e 1 asaed you to. but bec*iu*e you h uel it huuesUy. 1 might answer j o.ir question differently. If you could forget what you cad art, 11 you couui see life at all with a straight, uutraiuiue.iud vision, if you couid be like a mm, instead of nice nothing at all in h mven or earth except that dyed flower. 1 might pern *ps care for you in the right way. But your inind is artificially co.oured ; ii comes from the dyer s. It is a green carnation, aud I want a natural olossom to wear in iny heart.* Intensely smart, and occasionally really clever, the book is one which will be read with avidity. It frequently disgusts, but though one often feels inclined to pitch it into the fire, one does not do so until the last page is turned, and even when one has done so with a * Pah !’ of disgust as the last paragraph is scanned, one is glad after a moment or two that it is not yet cold enough for fires, and hauls it back to hand it to a friend. It is not unclean—as the New Woman books are; it is simply irresponsibly wicked, and talks in a strain that is neither wholesome nor yet pleasant, even in jest. Take, for instance, the following conversation between the hero and Amarinth :— Reggie helped himself to a gIa«R of champagne. A bright spot of red nad appeal el on of nis cue«K.\ and uis blue uegan to sparkle. Arc >ou guiug t > get drunk 10-uignt, E 3 me/’ ne anked. * You are so spieudiu when you are druun.' * 1 have nut ddcideu ei.ner way. -1 ue» er do. 1 let it come if it will. To get drutiK deliberately is as ioo.ian as to gel sober by accident. Du you kuo.v my bioineri vv nun he is not tipsy, n« is invariably oliud soutr. 1 often woader the pu.ice do net run him io.’ *Do they ever run anyone in ? I thought they were always dismissed iruni the fuice if they did.’ * Piobab.y mat is so. Tue expected always happens, and people in aUuHori<y are very expected. Oneai ways kuuas tnai they will act in <iefia-.ice of Lhe law. Laws are made in order LUat people in aucnoriiy may not remember them, just as marriages a.e made in order Lhal th; Divorce Court may not play about idiy. Reggie, are y on going to make t his marriage ?’ * 1 don l know,’ said the boy, rather fretfully. *Do you want me to? * 1 never wantanyone to do anything. And I should bedelighted to continue not paying for your suppers. Be&.dcs. I am afraid that marriage might cause you to develop, and then 1 should fuse you. Marriage it a sort of forcing-house. It Lriugs strange bins to fruit, and sometimes strange reuuucb tions. due renunciations of in image are like white lilies —b.oodiess, impurely pure, as anee.iiic as lhe sou< of a virgin, <as cuid as cue face of a corpse. 1 shuu d be afraid for you to marry. Reggie! So few people have sufficient strength to resist the preposterous ciai ■ s of orthodoxy. They promise aud vow turee things—is it three things y»u promise and vow m matrimony, Reggie? -and iney keep tutir promise. Nothing is so fatal to a personality us the keeping of promises, um< ss it be Ceiling the truth. To lie fiueiy is an art, lo tea Lne truth is to act according to Nature, aud Naiure is Lhe first-of Philistines. Nothing on eann so aos nute.y middle-class as Nature, bne always reminds me of Ciemeat scull’s articles in the Daily telegraph.. No, Reggie, donut marry uuiess you have Lhe strength to he <* bad Husband.’ * 1 have no intention of being a good one.’ Reggie said earnestly. His blue eyes looked stiaugeiy poetic Under tue frosty gleam of the electric light, and his straight, pate yex.ow nair shone like an aureole rounu the he id of some modem sainr. He was eating strawberries rather peiu antly.as a thud eats pills, and his cheeks were now violently Hushed. He looked younger than ever, aud it was difficult to beiieve that he was nearly taeniy-five. The book is one which may—which probably should —be read by the students of modern literature. It is, as I have said, intensely smart, and its impudence, irreverence, and its fund of /fa de siecle epigram are not likely to be eclipsed. But I would urge any modern young woman who reads it not to let the volume find its way into the hands of an old-fashioned, innocent-minded mother, or even father. It would doubtless cause anyone of old-time views considerable pain. a new edition of George Eliot’s works at half a crown per volume will be commenced next month by Messrs Blackwood and Sons. This issue is to be known as the ‘ Standard Edition,’ and will be printed on antique paper, and tastefully bound in buckram cloth, with gilt tops.

Bonnie Brier Bush.’ lan McLaren: Hodder and Staugnton. 6s. Postage, 6d. * ' The Green Carnation.' Robert S. Hichens: Heinemann. 3s. Postage, 4d.