Books and Bookmen

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLI, Issue 19, 4 November 1908, Page 49

Books and Bookmen

Day* That Speak : Evelyn Goode (London: Ward, Lock, and Co., Ltd.) Comparisons are said- to be odious. But no comparison can be drawn between Miss Goode’s style, and that of the charming Australian writers whose names have beeome a synonym for all that is pure and wholesome in young folk’s literature. Miss Goode will never become popular in the sense or way that the Turner’s have. For in Miss Goode’s book there is a depth which has not as yet been touched by the Turner’s. Indeed, so great is the dissimilarity between the two styles that comparison is impossible and unfair. In “Days that Speak,” there is much that will lie unintelligible to very youthful readers. But older folk will thoroughly enjoy a book ■which it is plainly evident has been written by one who loves and has studied children to practical purpose. The imitativeness of children is shown, and also their receptivity. Their sense of justice and their strong sense of the fitness of things, and their straight w T ay of arriving at eorreet conclusions, owing to their being untrammelled by convention, is noted. As is also their endless questioning as to the why and wherefore of everything under the sun which is looked. 1 upon by older people as so annoying, and nearly always disposed of frivolously, equivocatirigly, or untruthfully. Somewhere we have been told by some writer lately that there are numberless books written which tell people what they are not to do, or what is incorrect, but few that tell-people what to do, or the correct way to do it. But the eorreet way to answer children's posers is indicated by Miss : Goode in the following extract from the book: “ ‘Mother, why- did God start the-world if it’s all to be ended?* Mother had stood-si-lent under all the probing questions. Silence was very often the only answer she had to give. Far was it from her to assume knowledge of things beyond human understanding; to hinder the searching speculations of these fresh young souls with platitudes. Often upon her lips were those words which are used oftenest by the world’s wisest, ‘I do not know.’ ‘I do not know, my little girl. There are many, many things I do not know any more than you do. Only this, that God has made the world beautiful to help us to be good, and we'll find out everything someday.’ Small had left his mother’s side again, and was meditating upon the hereafter of the dead rabbit. ‘I aspec’ he has be waked up in his heaven by now!’ he said, hopefully’. And mother did not contradict him, having no authority?’ The above is a fair example of the good things with which •this book is crammed, from cover to cover. Our copy of this exceedingly welcome contribution to the literature of Australasia, has been received through the courtesy of Messrs. Wildman and Arey.

Paradise and the Perrys: Lilian Turner. (London: Ward, Lock and Co., Limited.) However much we may wish that the Turners would go farther afield for material for their increasing popular stories, so that by change of venue they could acquire a greater versatility, we can never sufficiently admire the perseverance with which they preach the gospel of Australasian resourcefulness. It would almost seem impossible, according to these authors, to create a situation that an Australasian would not be equal to. And truly we are a resourceful people—of necessity. The title is felicitous and illuminative, the particular Peri—but not the only Peri of the book —being the alternately optimistic, or pessimistic ‘‘Theo,” who reminds us of that lovable tomboy “Jo,” of" Little Women.” Only we never wanted to smack “Jo,” while we fairly itch to smite, and, indeed, annihilate "Theo” at times. "Addie” and “Mavis” we love, but we have only a qualified admiration for the volatile “Enid,” while Mrs. Perry is a splendid, but not an uncommon. type of fjie Australasian gentlewoman, "Harvey” is a type that is becoming far too uncommon, owing, we think, to the greater independence of Australasian women, which, until rightly understood and perfected, will tend to unbalance the major-

ity of men. But all the book's characters are naturally drawn, and could be cited as typical of the best Australasian, who is resourceful, energetic, intelligent, and frankly independent. But it is too bad that the possible taint of insanity should be shifted from the strong “Harvey” to the poor, frail “Joek” : —and concussion of the brain, too, to make matters worse. Fie! Lilian Turner. But, despite this injustice, the book is one to conjure with because it is not only wholesome, but suggestive, inspiring, and helpful. And we would like to see a copy of it in the library of every Sunday and day school, and on the bookshelf of every English-speaking boy and girl throughout the world. Our copy has been received through the courtesy of Messrs. Wildman and Arey.

Wroth : Agnes and Egerton Castle. (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., St. Martin’s-street.) Jn these days of apathetic indifference a lover of the calibre of the “Mad Wroth” of this superlatively written narrative is as rare as the “rara avis.” And no more vivid conception of the havoc that can be wrought in the heart and mind of man by passion, profligacy and revolt against law and order or of the cleansing and recuperative power of idealised love, could be conceived than that furnished by this story, which recounts the profligate history and subsequent conversion, of the wildest of the wild Wroths, who, for generations, had made the countryside in which their estate lay ring with the knowledge of their mad doings. Hurley Abbey, formerly called Lady’s Grace, had been a gift of Henry VII. to “Amyas Raby” (the founder of the House of Wroth), and was one great religious houses that-had been despoiled by that so-called--zealous reformer. But though Henry had taken rich toll of Lady ? s Grace, it was still arich gift, so extensive and sp valuable was the demesne that lay about its beautiful and venerable walls. But successive generations of dissolute Rabys and Wroths had so impoverished its revenues that at the time of the succession of the Wroth who is the hero of this story. Hurley Abbey and its revenue had dwindled into insignificance and ruin. The present holder of the honours of Hurley had succeeded his grandfather. This personage had substantiated the family traditions by quarrelling with his only son; and, when the latter had Hung him a final defiance by wedding a city heiress, had taken a characteristic revenge. He had laid waste the fair lands he could not alienate. Fur miles the father’s anger had written itself hideously upon hill and plain. According to custom, the pious founders of the Priory had chosen its site with an eye to beauty as well as material convenience. The woods that sheltered their game, the rivers and ponds that held their fish, the fields that grew their coin, the meadows that fattened their cattle, were all as goodly to the eye as they were prodigal in return. In the space of half a year the whole land-scape was mutilated. Every tree was levelled. It was a spite that absorbed an incalculable sum. In his frenzy. Lord Wroth had not paused to make bargains for his timber, and the available lalxmr of the countryside was employed at the work of destruction from dawn to sunset. Vast batt a lions of trees lay where they were felled; dealers were paid to remove the encuinberance from park and avenue. And in the end my lord was robbed of the satisfaction of his illegal revenge. He had been in mad haste to strike, but there was a power swifter still than his wrath. The heir’s -seeming apathy was one morning explained by a business-like courier from the city. Young Wroth was dead of a pernicious fever and had not oven heard of his father’s reprisals, fhe «*ity merchant took the opportunity tn hint something of his intention to bring an action in the interest of the minor, his infant grandson, but this intention was never carried through. Whether from the effects of the thwarted rage er of belated remorse, whether prematurely worn out by the violent passions that had rent him ah bis life, it would be hard to say, but Lord Wroth was that day seized with a stroke—the country folk cabled it a judgment. For twenty years of ever-deepening imbecility he lived on in the midst of the desolation he had wrought—a body without a soul, dead yet alive, a fairly apt example for the superstitious of the curse of Hurley—once lady’s Grace. When he passed at last, unmourned and nnhonoured, a truthful chronicled might well have deserHnut him as the most notorious of a notorious hue, had not his young successor bidden fair to outdo him. From the spring of 1813 to Ihe fwll of 181(1, George, fifth Lord Wroth, had reigned it Hu Hey; and, short as the Uiue was for the diet in< tloin he wad already known from eud to cud of the country as Mad Wroth.

In order to prepare the reader for the very ingenious tangle of affairs that follow before the hero's .fortunes reach lull tide, it must be explained that Wroth’' rich city grandfather had left him an i.uniense fortune, conditional on hi- marrying before he reached the age uf 25. Now this condition, seemingly easy, was a condition that Lord Wroth, who had been disillusioned too often by the fair, ami in his case the too often frail sex, could not bring himself to contemplate, much less fulfil. And so matters were at a standstill, though the time was short. So short, indeed, and so desperate were the state of Lord Wroth’s finances, that Mr Minehin, Wroth's man of affairs, became convinced that unless extreme pressure was brought to bear upon Lord Wroth, nothing but complete ruin and social extinction awaited the last scion of this noble and ancient house. In the meantime, Wroth had formed an ideal that had driven him to introspection and had half-resolved to become worthy of this ideal, and his grandfather’s money might become a stepping-stone to its realisation. But Wroth found that his ideal was not to lie realised. And after a greater bout than usual of debauchery, he caused' it to l>e placarded all over the Pantiles at 'Fun bridge Wells that on such a date, and in such a place, he would interview intending aspirants to the honour of becoming Lady Wroth. Among the fashionable -crowd staying at the Wells was “Countess Juliana Mordante,” a lady of English birth and parentage, who had married an Italian count, who was now dead. Also staying at the Wells was “Peggy Beljoy,” Juliana’s fo-ter sister, and until latterly a dependent. Peggy Beljoy, now a variety actress and dancer, was as frail as she was fair, which is saying a great deal. And Peggy determined, for ignoble reasons, to become Lady Wroth, while Juliana Mordante, though, she knew Lord Wroth’s past, was equally determined to marry him because she loved him, and wished to achieve his soul’s salvation. Gorgeously attired. Peggy took her way to the inn where Lord Wroth purposed to make his choice. Juliana, heavily veiled, attended too. But, because of Wroth’s behaviour in the choosing, she remained unveiled and almost unnoticed. And Lord Wroth chose Peggy. To recapitulate how Juliana substituted herself for Peggy at the altar, after extorting from her a promise of secrecy, and how Peggy turned this to account after the ceremony, Lord Wroth remaining in ignorance of whom he had really married, as he deserted his wife directly after the ceremony, and how on Wroth’s discovery of the fact that Juliana (the lady of his ideal) was at the Wells and free to have married him, would be to exceed the space allotted to this review. But after a long and severe probation, during which the principal performers of this half tragic comedy make their exits and their entrances in splendidly dramatic style, Lord Wroth's passion for Juliana merges into the love that almost passes man’s understanding, and becomes a fit mate for as perfect an ideal of womanhood as could inhabit a m terial world an dsurvive. “If Youth But Knew,’’ “French Nan,” and “Incomparable Bellairs” are but as water is unto wine by comparison with this strong virile book, which intoxicates, enthralls, absorbs, interests, saddens, and uplifts in turn, while the glimpses it gives of Paris under the English occupation, and of Florence under the regime of the last of her Grand Dukes, are profitable both from an historic and a sentimental point of view. One of the most beautiful acts of the book is the restoration by Lord Wroth of the Church of Lady’s Grace to its pristine beauty and use. For to desecrate consecrated ground is, as in the case of the wild Raby’s and the wilder Wroth's, to invite disaster and doom. The principal scenes of the book are vividly ft nd realistically depict'd, especially the Tenebrce scene, and wo close the book with unfeigned admiration, both for the very high ideals it has lieen our privilege to con template, and for the originality of its subject. Our copy has l»een received from the publishers, Macmillan and Co. DELTA.