BOOKS and AUTHORS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XV, Issue XXI, 23 November 1895, Page 642

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, of 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 through the ordinary channels, should take advantage of this offer. The labour involved will be heavy and entirely unremuneratiue, no tees or commission being taken. Queries and Correspondence on Literary Matters invited. AU Communications and Commissions must be addressed THE BOOKMAN,’ Graphic Office, Auckland. , , One can very well understand the sad * ■ Memoirs |of J spirit in which Mr Caro undertook to the Late Percy . . write a memoir of his son, the late Percy Herman Caro. Herman Malcolm Caro, and also that it was no little consolation to him to record something of the brief life of a youth of whom any father might very justly have felt proud. Parents, we know, are invariably apt to think a little too highly of their favourite children, and death kindly magnifies the virtues of those it takes away from us ; but the estimate the author of these pages expresses of the ability and character of his son has been so freely endorsed by all who knew the young man that we are not inclined to question its correctness. This young New Zealander—he was born at Waihi Crossing, in South Canterbury—appears to have been as remarkable for goodness of heart as he was for keenness of intellect; and it is very probable that had he been spared, he would have brought distinction on the colony. He was distinguished in his school career in New Zealand, and at Cambridge signalised his entrance to the University by being the only freshman of his College in that year who passed his ‘ Little Go ’ with triple honours. His subsequent work at the University prove him to have been a youth of rare parts, but he was prevented from turning his talents to their full account by the weakness of health, which eventually resulted in his death at the early age of twenty-four years and ten months. During his residence in England he appears to have impressed a very large number of his acquaintances by his ability and fine character, and it was with the sincerest sorrow that these heard of his untimely decease in America on his way back to his home in New Zealand.

•Th H s l' r om Messrs Longman I have received * e ° USe a new edition of Weyman’s House of the of the Wolf. Wolf. Most readers of fiction will already be acquainted with this admirable story, which I believe was the first of this author’s to attract public attention. There is no English writer at the present time who has a stronger and purer style than Mr Stanley Weyman, and none who has earned through hard work a greater right to the success he has attained. What it cost him to achieve that mastery of his instrument so strikingly evidenced in a ‘Gentleman of France,’ and other of his more recent novels may be gathered by the curious from an article which appeared in a recent number of The Idler, but the dominant suggestion of his style is—as is the case with all good art—of something not made with hands. 1 am sometimes asked to recommend books for boys, which shall, while possessing the requisite amount of thrill (without which there is no boy), be desirable also on account of their literary merits, and my choice usually alights on Stanley Weyman. The atmosphere of his books is one of adventure, the tone as pure as the most ardent moralist need desire. For the older reader the charm is even more pronounced. To him the strength and beauty of the style will make a pleasurable appeal, and he will follow with unflagging interest along the deviations of narratives as vigorous and picturesque as are to be found in modern English.

There is nothing new in The Story of » • The Story 6 J Chrestine Hochejort. The heroine is of <>t Christine type with which Mrs Humphrey Rochefort. Ward has familiarized us in ‘Marcella.’ She is beautiful asa matter of course, she is sensitive and enthusiastic, and—as a necessary corollary—ignorant. Her enthusiasm, while it does not exactly bring about the ruin of her husband, tends to that result. At the outset and through the brief period of her passion for a youthful reformer of anarchist leanings, Christine naturally despises her husband. He is a chocolate manufacturer employing a large number of bands, who through the efforts of the young reformer are induced to go out

on strike and finally to burn down the factory. In the end the anarchist is murdered by his disciples, and Christine makes up her mind that the chocolate-maker is not such a bad fellow after all, and having shown indifference towards him throughout the book, she confesses to loving him on the last page. She felt the tremor that shook him as he folded her In his arms, and heard the thrill of passion in his voice when he said, * At last! Christine, I would die for your love ; my darling, my darling.’ As their lips met in the kiss that consecrated the beginning of their new life, Gaston again touched the mountain height of ecstasy, but for Christine it was the first supreme moment. The device of a marriage in cold blood warmed into passion after a lapse of eighteen months or two years is one which apparently possesses peculiar attraction for the lady novelist, as witness the lucubrations of the the author of * Molly Bawn.’ The Story of Christine Hoch-fort is readable, and the plot is skilfully worked out. There are many passages of much excellence, and few or none with which one is disposed to find fault. Though it covers no new ground, it goes over the old very pleasingly in a more or less new way. ‘Memoirs of lhe late Percy Herman Caro, 8.A., L.L.8.. Cantab: By his father. * ‘The House of the Wolf,’ by Stanley Weyman: Same Library. ’ ‘The Story of Christine Rochefort,' by Helen Choate Prince: Same Library.