Books and Bookmen

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 17, 27 April 1907, Page 41

Books and Bookmen

her MAJESTY’S REBELS: Sydney Royse Lysaght. (Macmillan and Co., London.) Mr. Lysaght/s new novel, “His Majesty’s Rebels,” may be likened to a game of skittles, such an adept is he in the art of setting things up in order to knock them down again. Regarded, either from its sentimental, social, or political point of view, it is, though highly illuminative of the tactics of the propogandists of Home Rule, decidedly unpleasant reading in parts. On the one hand we are given a sordid intrigue—to call it a love intrigue would be to libel love —between what we presume the author desires to be regarded as the. hero (“Michael Desmond”) and the most dominant feminine character of the book '(“Corinna Temple-Cloud”). On the other hand, we are given the details of the propaganda of those Irish politicians known as Home Rulers, Land Leaguers, and Nationalists. Now, it has always been claimed that however unreasonable the demands of these several agitators were, the same pure motive (patriotism) animated them individually. But, after reading "Her Majesty’s Rebels,” the reader will exclaim, “God save Ireland” from her political agitators, and we might add from her Lysaghts, as dilineators of her oHme Rule propagandists, so discreditable a type has he shown us, in the persons of “Michael Desmond” and "Regan,” the Irish-Ameri-can Home Ruler. In a prefatory note the author “hopes it will be clear’ that no attempt has been made in the character of Desmond to suggest a portrait ot that great National leader, Charles Stewart Parnell, thougn there are many points of resemblance; but admits that there is a historical basis for the structure of the story.” The history oi the structural basis is so like and so fresh in men’s minds that the question s sure to arise as to whether tne author, in choosing such realistic, modern “structural basis,” has not been guilty of a social solecism of the gravest order. Calculated to wound the feelings of the living, and to prejudice the cause of Home Rule. But one thing Mr. Lysaght has made abundantly clear, granting that his pictures of Ireland and its people are faithful (which may be safely assumed, so natural are they), and that is, that the common people of Ireland do not want Home rule. He says: —

Tile majority of the people took far less Interest in the political question which they were called together to hear discussed than might be supposed. They had no personal enmity to the landlords, no private conviction on the subject of rent; but perhaps iu no other country in the world could a crowd have been eolteeted which was so united by the bond of national sentiment. The political questions of the hour were unimportant details; they were agreed on these because their leaders were agreed; but the true bond of their union was the love of their country — the inborn national spirit which had been nursed in the memory ot old wrongs and old honour, and had been aroused to new vitality under the leadership of Michael Desmond. If the landlords were unpopular it was not because they were unjust In their dealings, but because they stood aloof and looked coldly on national aspirations; and if the Crown was little loved, it was not because it represented the oppression of England, but because it was an absentee power, unidentified with tile hopes of Ireland. This is the feeling of the Irish people, and only in exceptional eases or in times of excitement does it surge into the violence and Impatience of all authority, which in England is regarded as its normal condition.

The character of Desmond is not the Only character of the book that the author has constructed out of the personnel of Parnell’s contemporaries. “Connor Desmond” still lives and serves Ireland, but eschews Parliamentary strife. The Prime Minister, too, whom Desmond Mrverted, has gone to his last rest. There •re several other portraits that can be recognised by anyone who remember*

the political representation of those days. A striking example of agrarian outrage is furnished by the author. Under the no-rent system, any man renting a house or land from which a non-paying tenant had been evicted, was first warned to quit, and if he were non-compliant he was killed. Desmond, who was lawyer as well as politician, actually defended —knowing him to be guilty of this murder, and a great villain to boot —a man who had murdered a small tenant farmer, whose only crime was paying his just rent. To make matters worse, the murdered man’s wife (“Mary O’Reilly”), had been seduced by Desmond when a youth. Later in the story Mary O’Reilly indirectly causes the murder of Desmond, by “Costello,” the murderer of James O’Reilly, and the end or the sordid story is reached. What Mrs. Lysaght says Ireland wants may be found in the following extract: —

Let our people see their King or Queen, and no sign of disloyalty shall mar the greeting. Establish a Royal Residence at Dublin Castle, aud there shall be little for the timorous to fear from a Parliament on College Green. Give us a Prince or Princess of Ireland instead of an Englisn official, and we may forget much contempt aud neglect. Her Majesty’s Opposition lights agginst the Government of the day: her Majesty's rebels fight for the right of governing themselves under her.

A precedent for a reigning prince is not wanting in the annals of English history. That Edward, designated Longshanks, gave Wales as ruler a Prince of the blood royal, and in so doing conciliated the Welsh people, with the result that the principality became an integral part of England. But what Ireland wants is self-control, religious freedom, internal thrift, freedom from political agitators, and these she will never have while her politicians are men who have (like Desmond) a private grudge to satisfy a thirst for notoriety, an empty purse to replenish—in the name of patriotism. Apart from the invidious portraiture, and the abominable intrigue between Desmond and Corinna Temple-Cloud, for which intrigue there is not the slightest reason except to intensify the “structural basis,” ine book is both instructively and entertainingly written. But the reader’s hero will not be the authors. DELTA. ♦ t ♦ THE BELOVED VAGABOND: William J. Locke. (John Lane, The Bodley Head, London.) “ The Beloved Vagabond ” is one of those books that are at once a delight and an education to read. No more fascinating narrative has ever been given to the reading public. The reader will find himself travelling in delightful company from London to Paris, where he will revel in turn iu the Vie de Boheme as lived in the Quartier Latin, and the life of the aristocratic Boulevard Malesherbes. From Paris he will tramp, vagabond fashion, first to Chartres, then by devious byways to Longwys, then south to Italy, wintering in the Eternal City, where he may become acquainted with everything of interest that lies on its seven hills, and breathe the exhilarating air of the broad Campagna. Leaving Rome, he will journey northward to Savoy, making a short stay at Chamberg for the purpose of witnessing its quaint wedding customs. Then to Aix-les-Bains, that Mecca of gouty invalids, and thence to Buda-Pesth, where, if he have the inclination, he may join in the National Csardas. Back to Paris to the Salon and the Conservatoire des Arts, then to rural England and les convenances, and finally to La Haye, in Savoy. The story opens where Gaston de Merac, beloved vagabond, genius, and philosopher is acting as president of the “ Lotos Club,” a club much affected by those spirits who, while unconventional by na-

ture, are forced by circumstances to live in highly conventional surroundings. the proprietary of the club changing hands. Paragot, after a highly sensational and unusual valedictory meeting with its new proprietor, leaves London to make the grand tour that is to complete the education of his protege, Augustus Smith, a waif he had purchased from his gin-sod-den mother for half-a-crown. Singularly enough, Paragot finds in Augustus, or “Asticot,” as he has new renamed him, exceedingly' promising material, and expresses his intention of converting him into a scholar and gentleman. After many days and sundry adventures, they reach La Haye, in Savoy, where an incident occurred which altered the tenour of their lives and introduces a feminine element into their entourage. Resting at a roadside inn, a strolling fiddler, accompanied by a girl carrying a zither, came in sight. The girl was greatly' concerned at the loss of some money that had been entrusted to her to pay the railway charges to Chamberg, where next day they were to play at a village wedding. Suddenly the old fiddler is seen to fall, and Paragot, rushing to his assistance, finds that he is dead. Discovering that the girl (Blanquette) is both penniless and friendless, Paragot constitutes himself her guardian, proposing to take the old fiddler’s place at the wedding next day. Blanquette accepts with gratitude, and after the wedding expresses her intention of becoming a fille de brasserie, which mode of life Paragot declares to be social and moral extinction and entirely unpermissable. So Asticot is provided with a tambourine, and the trio set out for Aix, where they are lucky enough to get an engagement to play in the public gardens there. To these gardens one day came Joanna. Comtesse de Vcrneuil, "the lady of the adorable feet,” and for whom Paragot has become a social outcast. Explanations follow, and -Joanna discovers that the ten thousand pounds paid to Gaston de Merac by the Comte de Verneuil was not the price of his withdrawal as Joanna’s accepted lover, but the price of the salvation of Mr. Rushworth (Joanna’s father) from social and financial ruin. The Comte dies, and Paragot announces to Asticot and Blanquette his intention to marry Joanna and eturn to respectability. But the old shackles arc too firmly riveted, and Paragot, to Joanna’s secret relief, though she would never have confessed it. gives Joanna her freedom, and returns to Paris and the Vie de Boheme. Shortly after Paragot marries Blanquette, and, returning to La Haye, becomes a peasant farmer, and, to quote the author, “ brings up the only child of the marriage in the fear of God and the practice of land surveying, thus proving the late Mr. Matthew Arnold was hopelessly wrong when he declared ' that miracles do not happen.’” The authors delineation of the character of Paragot is magnificent. Paragot as vagabond, poet, fiddler, philosopher, painter, and lover in turn is an inimitable creation and eminently lovable. Nor is a moral lacking. The story of the wandering is told by Astieot, who becomes painter, scholar, and gentleman. He says of Paragot: “ Men have spoken evil of him. I burned to defend him, and I burn now, and that is why I propose to write his apologia, his justification." An apologia was not necessary. Paragot’s existence is justified a hundred times in the course of the narrative, which sparkles with wit and epigram from cover to cover.