The Bookshelf.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLV, Issue 25, 21 December 1910, Page 54

The Bookshelf.

By

DELTA.

> BOOKSHELF FEUILLETOJL From Bunyip Land. FROM George Robertson and Co. we have just received a dainty little booklet of poems by Henry Tate, entitled “The Rune of the Bunyip.’’ The “Four Grotesques” that precede the ordinary poems of the booklet are insanely clever and felicitous in their nomenclature. We think Mr. Tate at his best in "On the Dandenongs,” “Dido,” “The Prisoner at the Rar,” “Wireless,” and “The Candle.” Here is a verse from the "Dandenongs,” which breathes the true poetic spirit and delights by its melodious flow: — “Here the sweet air I.ies in soft folds upon the breasts of earth— Wave upon wave of loveliness unveils, Hut rocks and sky are bitter at the dearth Of you. The reft wind wails, The luted bracken—where the world song sails Sobs its remembrance. “The Prisoner at the Bar” is a very fine poem, which we strongly recommend to students of criminology. So good, indeed. is this poem that we, in spite of limited space, cannot refrain from liberal quotation. Finely sympathetic, keenly introspective and divinely just, is Mr. Tate's conception of the non-lia-bility of the criminal born with partly atrophied brain and foredoomed by relentless fate: — “To some fine sense of fitness dead, An alien in an alien throng: A shrinking eye in a bullet head. A tortured heart with defiance fed, A dizzy sense of wrong! The units of his sin are cast In dire and gloomy scrolls; Some plasm ic flaw in aeons past, A fate remorseless, fell, and vast, That scourged a thousand souls. Was printed on him ere he drew The first sweet breath of life. Blind forces helped his ends to hew. Forgotten sins his honour slew lire he began the strife.” Mr. Tate pays a splendid tribute to Wireless telegraphy. Here are twelve lines of it: —- “I am the voice extended. That rides upon the wind, For knowledge and for succour From mind to waiting mind. No murderous thought begot me. No blood is on my head; No will that is not wilful (Shall strew my path with dead. And if you fail to put me Where Death is always by, The screams of drowning comrades Will haunt you till you die. Superbly mendacious these last lines, but they will pass. Mr. Tate's reputation as a maker of good verse is too well established to need our assurance that some his verse is very good indeed. New Books Just Received. Among a delightful parcel of 'books lying on our table awaiting review, we take leave to mention six of more than uncommon interest. First in point of importance is "Home Life in America,” Iby Katherine G. Busby (Methuen). We have so often had it Impressed upon us that there is no home-life in America that we are quite anxious to get at the book, which is splendidly illustrated. Next is "The Day’s Play." by Mr. A. A. Milne, a noted contributor to “Punch.” 'Then "The Exception,” by the brilliant author of “Little Devil Doubt,” amt “The Golden Silence,” iby those evergreen writers C. N. anil A. M. Williamson. Both the latter volumes are from the house of Methuen and Co. Then there are two Macmillan novels. Gue is < ntitled “Alongshore: Where Man and the Sea Face One Another,” ami is by that greatest of authorities on longshoremen. Stephen Reynolds; and the other is named "The Human Chord,” and has been written by Algernon Blackwood, the author of the inimitable “Jimbos’

The Current "Bookman.” The October “Bookman,” recognising the signs of the times, has divided its appreciative honours between Mr. J. M. Barrie, of “Peter Pan” fame, and Mr. A. E. W. Mason, who is also a notundistinguished playwright. Mr. Granville Barker has been entrusted with, the writing of the former, and Mr. St. John Adcock with the latter. Mr. Barker’s article, which takes precedence, is splendidly illustrated with scenes from the “Admirable Crichton," “Quality (Street,” “Peter Pan.” ete. Mr. Granville Barker’s article deals purely and simply with Mr. J. M. Barrie as a dramatist, and we should think that no man in England was better qualified to undertake the task. Mr. A. G. W, Mason's New NovelAccording to Messrs. Hodder and (Stoughton, Mr Mason's new novel, which is entitled “At the Villa Rose,” is as mysterious and as exciting as any of the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, but it is much brighter and much more romantic.

An Outspoken Novel. Messrs. Hutchinson have published a new novel iby Mrs. Baillie Saunders, called "The Bride’s Mirror.” It is the story of a self-willed aristocratic maiden, who spurns marriage with one of her class for an unrealised union with a /famous and militant socialist. The scenes are laid in Mayfair and Stepneyand it seems pro'ljable that the downright outspokenness of the book will raise a storm of protest from readers who do not share its opinions. Mr. Chesterton Again. Mr. G. K. Chesterton is writing a book on William Blake. The Dickens Stamp. The design for the Charles Dickens’ Testimonial Stamp is shown in the current number of the “Bookman.” The frame work of the stamp is a .fitting setting to the oval of laurel leaves in which a splendid portrait of Dickens is set. At the top of the frame are the words “ATribute to Genius,” at the foot of it so a facsimile of that signature beloved i>y all Dickcnsians. On one side is Centenary, on the other Testimonial. The colour of the stamp is not mentioned. Recent Additions to the Nelson Shilling Library. “The English Constitution,” 'by Walter Bagshot; “In India," by G. W. Steevens; and “The Alps from End to End,” by

Sir W. Martin Conway, are recent additions to the Nelson Shilling Library. WThy a Parson Went Hungry. “I was refused food because I was a Christian. This actually happened to me at Jaworzno, a village in. Galicia, just across the Austrian frontier. And if it be asked how they knew I was a Christian, the answer is, by the way my hair was cut. All the ' Jews of Galicia wear earloeks in obedience to the verse in Leviticus, which says, “1 hou shalt not round the corners of your heads.’ They saw my hair was cut in the usual way, and so they refused to serve me.”—"Walking as Education." by Rev. A. N. Cooper. Headley Brothers. That Villain Shakespeare. Under the above title Mr. M. H. Spielmann has effectually routed Sir Edwin Durning-Laurence, Bart., who has written a book in which he claims to have ■Shown incontestable proof that ‘‘Bacon is Shakespeare.” Sir Edwin Durning-Laurence. says Mr. Spielmann, after two and a-balf colunms devoted to ironic and trenchant criticism of the book, is the victim of his own obsession, and true Baconians will regard without regret this monument of childish, misguided and wrong-headed ingenuity. With more space we could expose it more completely; but perhaps we have

done enough. Taking into consideration that Mr. Spielmann has not left Sir Edwin a leg to stand upon, we should think it is enough. Ignatius Donelley has much to answer for.

REVIEWS.

Max : By Katherine Cecil Thurston. (London: Hutchinson’s Colonial Library. " Auckland: Wildman and Arey. 3/6.) Those readers who know anything of the underworld of Baris, aiid especially that portion of it in which the demimonde live and move and have their being, will be astonished at the skill and vivid imagination Mrs. Thurston has shown in her realistic presentation of Montemartre by night. “Max,” like “John Chilcote, M.P.,” is the story of a masquerade, in which a Russian princess, twice betra.ved by the little god love, determines to throw off the handicap of femininity, and, disguised as a boy, sets out to Paris to study life as lived in unashamed nakedness, with the ulterior view of substituting the artistic for t'je merely domestic career, hoping by this to prove herself superior to the claims of sex. Reaching Paris safely, she, by the aid of one Edward Blake, a chivalrous Irishman, who, though he scents a mystery, utterly fails

to discover her sex, takes up her abod* on the heights of Montemartre, and together they see life. For the denouement of this clever masquerade, which we unreservedly recommend to our adult readers. we refer them to the book, which, as a human document, ranks above “John Chilcote,” and is immeasurably more fascinating. > The House of Serraville : By Richard Baghot. (London: Methuen and Co. Auckland: Wildman and Arey. 2/6 and 3/6.) Mr. Baghot’s theme is a topical one, since anti-clericalism is a burning question on that part of the European Continent that has suffered most by being overrun with clericalism. Mr. Baghot, like Mr. Joseph Hocking, loves to expose the methods of the Scarlet Woman, and certainly “The House of Serraville” is a terrible indictment against Roman Catholicism. It is dull. too. Yet we do not doubt but that Mr. Baghot will find admirers, and he knows his Italy. We are indebted to Messrs. Methuen for our copy of “The House of Serraville,” which will be caviare to the Hocking cult.

Astray In Arcady By Mary E. Mann (London: Methuen and Co. Auckland: Wildman and Arey. 2/6 and 3/6.) As descriptive of the beauties of Nature, this book is beyond all praise, but as a picture of rural life, it is far from pleasant reading. In “Astray in Arcady,” Mrs. Mann has returned to her chronicles of Dulditch. a year’s record of whose rural life is mercilessly set forth in its pages. There is no doubt whatever as to the rare fidelity of the pen portraits, the quality of the whimsical or ironic humour that interlards the book’s pages, or the shrewdness of the observation that has gone to its making. But the sketches lack shading, and the sympathetic treatment needed for perfect artistry! Nevertheless, in spite of these defects, we enjoyed the book, and recommend it as being entirely felicitous in parts and interesting all through. We have received our copy from Methuen and Co.