THE BOOKSHELF.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIII, Issue 4, 28 July 1909, Page 46

THE BOOKSHELF.

( b y

DELTA.)

* Daphne”: or, Marriage a la Mode : Mrs. Humphry Ward. (London. New York, Toronto, and Melbourne: Cassells and Co.) THIS hook is a seathing indictment not only of the American marriage and divorce laws, but an animadversion on international marriage laws in general. “ When shall we see some comity of nations in these matters of international marriage and divorce?’’ cries Mrs. Humphry Ward; from the bottom of her heart it is patent. The suggestion that is embodied in this cry i» far worthier of the consideration of an international conference than any peace conference that was ever convened. For, in the non-amendment of the laws of international ma triage and divorce lies more menace to the peace ami happiness of nations than in the most dangerous projectile ever invented or launched by man. And Mrs. Ward is to be heartily congratulated upon a book that is an epitome of sound sense, feasible suggestion, and profound understanding of a subject that is exciting the attention of the whole civilised •world. An outline of this doubly tragic Ft<ry is necessary in order to convey to Gur readers the iniquity, and the farreaching effects of the marriage and divorce lav/s of America, as at present mal-administered, and the inadequacy of English law to deal with cases like the example furrished by Mrs. Ward in ‘‘Daphne.” Daphne Floyd is an American of Irish-Spanish extraction, who prides herself, however, on having inherited nothing from her parents except their physique and their enormous wealth. But readers ; will distrust her judgment in this, as in other matters, as the sfcofry proceeds. Daniel Floyd, Daphne’s father, had been a lumber king of immense wealth, and of boastful mercurial disposition. His marriage had been part of a trade bargain on a chance visit to Buenos Avres.

For twenty years Daniel Floyd had leased and exploited, had ravaged and destroyed, great tracts of primaeval forest In rhe northern regions of the Prairie State, leaving behind him a ruined earth and an impoverished community, but building up the while a colossal fortune. lie had learnt the arts of municipal ‘bossing” in one of the minor towns of Illinois, and had then migrated to Chicago, where for years he was rhe life and soul of all the bolder and more adventurous corruption of the city.. A jovial, handsome fellow!—with an actor’s face, a bright eye. and a slip* pery hand. Daphne had a vivid, and. on the whole, affectionate, remembrance of her father, of whom, however, she seldom spoke. The thought of her mother, on the other hand, was always unwelcome. It brought back recollect ions of storm and tempest:-of wild laughter, and still wilder tears: of gorgeous dresses, small feet, and jewelled ringers. At the time this story opens, Daphne had met ami plunged violently in love with Koger Barnes, a well bred, extraordinarily handsome but almost penni-le-s, Englishman. Roger Barnes had drifted to America, chiefly at the insistence of his mother. Lady Barnes, and hi uncle. General Hobson, on the offchance ot marrying a rich heiress, and so redeeming his fallen fortunes. After a somewhat -torniy courtship, Roger and Daphne marry. Before his visit to America Roger had been engaged to a sort of cousin, who had, however, jilted him immediately she had heard of his reverse of fortune. Though Roger had ceased to care for this worn it before he married Diphno. he had not been particularly in love with Daphne when he had proposed to her. Tut he vowel to himself that he would be a good husband to her. That he kept his part of the bargain, as far as he was permitted, the sequel of the story will show. Book second opens three years after the marriage, land finds Roger and his wife and their baby girl (Beatty), now nearly two and a half years old, about to settle down at He-ton Park, Lady Barnes’ ancestral home, which had been repurchased with Daphne’s money. Here Daphne’s purseproud and arrogant propensities come into play, anti Heston Park, in Spite of Roger and Lady Barnes’ protest, undergoes a restoration that im-

proves it out of all recognition. Daphne manages, too, to set the whole county by the ears, and actually outbids the great lady of the county in her own draw-ing-room, on a first call, in the sale of a piece of china, on which she knows the Duchess has set her heart, and for which she herself has no particular fancy. With Archdeacon Mountford, a very straight-laced pillar of the Anglican Church, she will persist in discussing and defending American divorce laws. Then, having become acquainted with Roger’s former fiancee, who is now married, and who, in justice, we confess, does her best to bring Roger to her side, and to make Daphne jealous, she develops suspicions that all is not as it should be between Roger and his late fiancee. So she sets Beatty’s nurse to spy upon him, and a chance meeting between the two, in which Roger foolishly takes Mrs. Fairmile’s hand in token of forgiveness, is regarded as damnatory proof, and Daphne determines to apply for a divorce. An interesting example is afforded at this juncture of the way evidence is collected for divorce purposes. Some time before Daphne arrived at the decision to divorce Roger, she had been reading a great deal about a woman’s duty to herself. The duty she owed her husband, her child, her kindred, her friends, and the community at large, was as nothing to the duty an extremely intellectual, and above all, a moneyed woman, owed to herself. This was the nourishment she fed her mind upon in order to justify the step she meant to take.

All forms of contract — in business, education, religion, or law—suffer from the weakness and blindness of the persons making them—the marrrage contract as much as any other. The dictates of humanity and commonsense -alike show that the latter and most impoitanf contract •should no htpre be perpetual, than* any of the others.’’? - - -- ' Again:— • ‘.‘Any covenant between human beings that fails to produce or. promote human happiness, catmot-in the nature of things be of any force or authority; it is not only a right but a duty to abolish it.’’ And a little further:— “Womanhood is the great fact of woman’s life. Wifehood and motherhood are but incidental relations.’’ Specious reasoning this, but just the sort of argument that appeals to the Daphnes of life. Daphne returns to America, there + o make the necessary residence, to entitle her to apply for a divorce. She takes Beatty with her, to Roger’s extreme grief, as his happiness is bound up in the child. The divorce is granted, leaving Roger at the age of 30 unable to marry again and beget legal children, because in English law he is just as surely married as though American courts had never pronounced the decree absolute. He is advised to go to the colonies and free himself there on the ground of desertion. But Roger is an Anglican, and will not. For the history of Roger Barnes’ steady deterioration, which is precipitated by hearing of Beatty’s death, and of his return to sanity and clean-living, and of Daphne’s failure to find happiness in selfdevelopment. though she tried every avenue, and of her effort to atone for the wrong she had done Roger, we refer our readers to the book. Of the purpose of this book we cannot speak too highly. One in twelve is the percentage of marriages dissolved in America. Women are sail to be the chief seekers after divorce. An English priest, writing on this subject, says:— They claim to be the superiors of your men, to be more intellectual, better-man-nered. more refined. Marriage disappoints or disgusts them, and they-impatiently put it aside. They break it up. and seem to pay no penalty. But you .and I believe that they will pay it!—that there are divine avenging forces in tl:e very law they tamper with- and that, as a nation, you must either retrace some of the steps taken, or sink iu the scale of life. That separation is sometimes advisable and justifiable we admit; but the fundamental basis of the marriage laws of all countries, civilised or uncivilised, written or unwritten, are on the side of the indissoluble nature of the marriage tie. Mrs. Ward has inserted more than the thin end of the wedge of suggested reform into the cankered root of Ameri-

can divorce law, and it only remains with those Southern States that hava retained all that was best in English rule, and those citizens of the United States that have ever placed love of country before love of self, to drive it home. Overlapping the motif of the book is a running commentary on woman’s unfitness for the suffrage. Few women, we think, realise the enormous power already weilded by femininity, and they too often forget that man is born of woman, and that it is their special privilege to mould him, body and soul. We find her arguing the point of whether she is not entitled to compete with him in the fields of medicine, jurisprudence, art, science, and in the seats of educative, municipal, and parliamentary council and debate; but we never hear her clamouring for the right to dig coal, fell timber, climb ladders, enforce law in our gaols and streets, venture on stormy seas, weild swords and manipulate guns, or the thousand and one disagreeable tasks that man, by reason of his superior strength of physique and nerve, has set himself to perform, leaving to women the cultivation of the gentler arts and graces of life, and rewarded if she does but smile and pin upon him her gageScrip from George Meredith's Wallet. George Meredith’s works, so little appreciated during his life, have leapt into a popularity which transcends that of Swinburne’s, and every paper or magazine with any literary pretension is ringing with plaudits of his lately discovered genius. Here are some gems from “Sandra Belloni”: — •(1) “Man is the laughing animal; and at the end of an infinite search the philosopher finds himself dinging to laughter as the best of human fruit, purely human and sane and comforting. So let us be cordially thankful to those who furnish matter for sound, embracing laughter.” ; . (2) “He eould pledge himself to eternity, but shrank from' being bound to eleven o’clock on the morrow morning.” . - ‘ (3j “He was her slave again-. For, here was something, absolutely hjs own. His. own from the roots:: from the first growth of sensation. Something with . the bloom,on it; to which noj, other slinger cqUld point and say: ‘There is my mark.’ “.(And, ladies, if you will consent to be likened to a fruit, you must bear with these observations, and really deserve the stigma. If you will smile on men because they adore you as vegetable products, take what ensues.)” (4) “All of us are weak in the period of growth, and are of small worth before the hour of trial. This fellow had been fattening all his life on prosperity; the very best dish in the w'orld; but it does not prove us. It fattens and strengthens us just as the sun does. Adversity is the inspector of our constitutions. She simply tries our muscle and powers of endurance, and should be a periodical visitor. But, until she comes, no man is known.” .In “The Old Chartist,” Meredith glimpses the millenium: —- “For human creatures all are in a coil, All may want pardon. I see a day when every pot will boil Harmonious in one great Tea-garden.” In “Diana of the Crossways,” Meredith’s attitude towards and championship of the new woman is shown, and also his attitude towards England, which was not always a friendly one. The quotation marked (3) affords a minor example of Meredith’s involved style, which makes it so often impossible for any but the initiate to grasp his meaning. (1) “Only I say with mv whole strength—yes, I am sure, in spite of the men professing that they are practical, the rich will not move without a goad. I have and hold—you shall hunger and covet, until you are strong enough to force mv hand—that's the speech of the wealthy. And they are Christians. In name. Well, I thank heaven I’m at war with myself.” . . . “At war with ourselves means the best happiness we ean have.” (2) “What a woman thinks of woman is the test of her nature. She saw their existing posture clearly, yet believed, as men disincline to do, that they grow. She says that ‘ln their judgments upon women men are females, voices of the present (sexual) dilemma.’ They desire to have ‘a still woman, who can make a constant society of her pins and needles.’ They create by stoppage •

volcano, and are amazed at its eruptivrt* ness. ‘We live alone, and do not feel it till we are visited.’ Love is pre* sumably the visitor. Of the greater! loneliness of women, she says: ‘lt is due to the prescribed circumscription of their minds, of which they become award in agitation. Were the walls about them beaten down, they would under* stand that solitariness is a common hitman fate, and the one chance of growth, like space for timber.’ ” (3) “His method of conveying hij opinions without stating them wasf famous. . . . Our England exposes al sorry figure in his Reminiscences. H< struck heavily, round and about him, wherever he moved; he had by nature * tarnishing eye that cast discoloration.” Of the power of printed matter fof good or for evil, Harry Richmond ia made to declare: — (3) “Things printed can never bd stopped. Our Jorian compares them t<* babies baptised. They have a soul front that moment, and go on for ever!” BOOKSHELF NOTES AND SHORT REVIEWS. Dickens has had the distinction conferred upon him of having a dictionary; compiled all to himself as a guide t<J his works. The book’s compiler is Mr. A. J. Phillip, and it has been published by George Routledge and Co., at thd reasonable price of 8/6. Many of the Dickens’ characters being drawn from real life makes this dictionary doubly, interesting, as, wherever passible, information is given as to the real identity of those individuals whose peculiarities, idosyncrasies. vices, or virtues made them fit subjects for caricature, denunciation, or appreciation by Dickens and his illustrators. From a toast book which is said trt be having a wide circulation in we cull the following specimens, and ini the interests of peace, rejoice that th® volume in question has emanated from a New York, rather than a London publishing house. To the non-lover of the emancipated woman, the following toasts will be as caviare is to the palate of the epicure:—To Woman—the bitter half of Man!' Woman —She needs no eulogy: She speaks for herself. Here’s To the light that lies In Woman’s eyes And lies, and lies, and lies. Woman! The Morning Star of Infancy, the Day Star of Manhood, and the Evening Star of Old Age! Bless our Stars, and may they always be kept at a telescopic distance! Macmillan and Co. are issuing a series of ten volumes—attractively bound in cloth, and printed in clear type upon India paper at the remarkably low, price of sevenpence. The list includes;! The Forest Lovers, by Mr Maurice Hewlett; Elizabeth and Her German Garden ; A Roman Singer, Mr Marion Crawford; Diana Tempest, by Miss Cholmondeley; The House of ’Mirth, Mrs E. Wharton; Misunderstood, bv Miss Montgomery; The Choir Invisible, by Mr James Lane Allen; The First Violin, by Jessie Fothergill; A Waif’s Progress, by Miss Rhoda Broughton; and-John Glyn", Mr Arthur Paterson’s exciting story’ of life in a London slum. We have received of this issue, from Macmillan and Co., Diana Tempest, and there is nothing left to us to do except to express our admiration of the enterprise and liberality of this old established firm who are evidently determined to placb really sterling literature within the reach of those readers whose taste for good fiction so often exceeds their purchasing capacity. We wish the Macmillan! Co. every success in their new venture. From the “Book-Lover” we learn that Kipling is issuing “With the Night Mail,” an aeroplane story which he has partly re-written since it appeared in the magazines. It is quoted as a dollar booklet, and I suppase we shall have it all in good time. But he surely makes a mistake in pitching his story as in the year 2000 A.D. Compare the advance now made since 1820. and it seems more than likely that 1950 will see “the limit” reached in flying, evert if wireless telegraphy has not entirely abolished the art of letter-writing long before forty years have passed.

A, Lapse of Memory : Agnes Littlejohn. (Sydney: J. A. Packer, Printer and Publisher, Castkreghetreet.) This collection of short stories, simply and naturally written, by the author of “The Daughter of a Soldier,” will be cure of a welcome from those who often find it difficult to cater for youth in the matter of wholesome reading. The premier story, from which the book takes its title, has stirred in us pleasant memories of that isle “where every prospect pleases,” and where, at least, if /‘vile,” we found “man” picturesque. Our copy of this book has been received through the courtesy of its publisher, 2dr. J. A. Packer. Jeanne of the Marshes: Phillips Oppenheim. (London: Ward, Lcck and Co., Limited.) Mr. Oppenheim’s versatility, and ths Tate at which he can produce really sterling melodramic fiction, never fails to strike us as something uncanny. But we are never really satisfied with his villains, as they have a trick of repenting. In melodramic fiction we prefer a faultless hero, and a villain whom we like to convince ourselves is even worse than he is painted. We had just begun to Utterly dislike and execrate the villain and the villainess of this story when they (began to develop symptoms of a heart and conscience. And so we were bound to pity and forgive them, which is all very well for Mr. Oppenheim, who has taken upon himself the responsibility of their creation. But it is bad for the moral, and tantalising to the reader, who has had his appetite whetted for a somewhat lurid denouement. Nevertheless, Mr. Oppenheim’s admirers will declare that this book is better than “The Long Arm,” which is high praise indeed. Our copy has been received through the Courtesy of Wildman and Arey. Priscilla and Charybdis: Frankfort Moore. (London: Constable’s Colonial Library.) When Mr. Frankfort Moore wrote “The Marriage Lease,” we corceived that he was but burlesquing the late George Meredith’s suggestion of a “ten years’ marriage lease.” But in “Priscilla and Charybdis” he has again returned -to the charge, this time, we fear, in sober earnest. And when Mr. Frankfort Moore is in earnest he is very, very dull, just as when he is amusing he is very, very amusing. Mr. Moore is evidently obsessed with the idea that the late Mr. George Meredith’s mantle in the matter of martriage reform, and as the champion of the emancipated woman, is going to fall upon him. But it will not, as it is a great many sizes too big for him. And if he persists in trying to wear it, he will find himself hopelessly entangled in its too voluminous folds. Mr. Moore, as the author of that delightful story “A Grey Eye or So,” and “The Jessainy Bride,” was an author who was always interesting, amusing, and often brilliantly epigrammatic. As the hurler of invective against ecclesiastic law, and the creator of a heroine who not only’ outdoes “the Woman who did,” but also “the woman who didn’t,” Mr. Moore only succeeds in making himself an apostate, and ridiculous. In short, the book is prosy’, inchoate, inartistic, and wholly unconvincing. In “Priscilla and Charybdis” Mr. Frankfort Moore does but manipulate puppets, who dance to the discordant music of an instrument that is out of tune with the infinite. The Vicissitudes of Flynn: Bart Kennedy. (London: George Bell and Sons.) In a series of delightfully humorous sketches, Mr Kennedy, as Flynn, has, we think, given us in part the story of his struggle up the ladder of fame. We have Flynn as a bachelor, struggling for existence on a fourpenny meal one day, and next day as the guest of a duchess, masquerading in a borrowed dress suit. iWe also find him absolutely out of funds, and, with a very slack waistband, walking five miles to obtain a supper, only to find that his host was a fruitarianvegetarian. As a benedict, with a jewel of a wife, we find him getting into difficulties with the tradesmen, dodging bailiffs, piano on hire men, “meeting many strange, good and bad men and women by the way, and acquiring a wide philosophy of life that Inakes his strong character only’ the mellower and more lovable.” A description Of Paris, and of life in London in its less taaluonable quarters, makes exceedingly

vivid and varied reading in a narrative that has not a superfluous sentence or a dull line from beginning to end. It is consoling at the close of the story to find Flynn at the end of his vicissitudes and indulging in the “flesh pots of Egypt.”

The Necklace of Parmona: L. T. Meade. (London: Ward, Lock and Co., Limited.) Mrs Meade’s plot turns upon the fortunes of a necklace, the possession of which is said to determine the luck of the noble Neapolitan family of the Parmonas. How this necklace came to be in the possession of a girl who was onlyhalf a Parmona, and how this noble, but decidedly piratical family try to steal the necklace from its rightful possessor, and how this is prevented by the dreaded “Camorrista,” forms the plot of a took that is less ghastly- than is usual with the majority of this author's essays into the realms of sensational fiction. We are indebted to Messrs Wildman and Arey for c.tr copy of “The Necklace of Parmona,” which would seem to be as undesirable a possession as the Box of Pandora.

EPIGRAMS FROM NEW BOOKS. A Woman of No Importance. Twenty years of romance make a woman look like a ruin. But twenty years of marriage make her something like a public building. Women are pictures; men are problems. If you want to know what a woman really means, look at her, but don’t listen. Sentiment is all very well fop a routonniere, but a well-tied tie is the first serious step in life.

Women as a sex are sphinxes without secrets. America is a paradise for women; that is why—like Eve —the American women are so anxious to get out of it. ft. is absurd to say that there are neither ruins nor curiosities in America when they have their mothers and manners. Men always want to be a woman’s first love—women like to be a man’s last romance. All men are married women’s property; that is the only true definition of what married women's property is. One should never trust a woman who tells you her real age—a woman who will tell that will tell anything. One should always be in love—that is the reason one should never marry. Men know life too early, women too late. American women are wonderfully clever in concealing their parents. A husband is a sort of promissory note -—and woman is tired of meeting him. The secret of life is to appreciate the pleasures of being deceived.

Fink Purity: Gertie De S. WentworthJames. John Milne. May, 1909. 6/. Always speak to a waiter in a language that isn't his own, and he's bound to get you what you want. Besides, I hate getting snubbed by talking in bad French and being answered in passable English. Woman—like Ireland —is an impossible factor to settle. Man is only an adjustable fitment belonging to the universal scheme—at all other times he is a pivot. Every man who is a bachelor must be perpetually congratulating himself on his

own wisdom in remaining what he is. Men lose everything by marriage; it seems so absurd to spend part of their income on someone else, w hen they could spend it all on themselves. Tears may be merely and technically drops of fluid secreted by the lachrymal gland, but they are actually God’s most beneficial and healing lotion of mercy. 111-luck as a rule is a special perquisite, only belonging to people who are in urgent need of good luck. V\ hen a man closes his eyes, not for the purpose of slumber or protecting his optics from any undue glare or illumination. it may be assumed that he is thinking of a woman who is more to him than any other woman has ever been—for some time, at least! No woman ever loves ajiy man without hating him as well. Women are all mad on some subject—some of 'em on every subject. Your good-form gentleman, whose life is spent in masking his emotions, is a beautiful “breedy” British product, but if sometimes he would let himself go to the woman he loves and who is his wife, the consoler (who always lurks, ardent and emotional, in the background) would have a very poor- chance of success. Standing on ceremony is better than standing on banana skins. Emotions, like luck, are managed on the see-saw principle. And there is no doubt about luck, so much so that the experienced psychologist will feel more cheerful when he is down than up, for the simple reason that anticipation of the “coming-up” time, which is bound to follow the present “down” time, raises his spirits to a blissfully high level. When all’s said and done, and argued and contradicted, man's need of a woman is infinitely less than woman’s need ot man.