The Bookshelf.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVIII, Issue 11, 11 September 1912, Page 45

The Bookshelf.

By

DELTA,

FEUILI.ETON. The Making of Newspaper*. Behind the Scenes. THE average reader receives his daily newspaper or journel wet from the press with little cealii Bation of the enormous amount of strenuous mental, artistic, literary, imaginative, mechanical and manual effort that is daily swallowed, up in the inaking. illustrating and printing ot their favourite newspaper, journal, or magazine. iNever, perhaps, has the etorv of what strenuous and painful (effort goes to the making and issuing of a great London daily been so realistically told as by Mr. Alphonse Courlander in ‘his “Mightier than the Sword.” It constitutes a splendid, if a tragic, record lof the working lives of the numerous body of men and women engaged in the production of a great newspaper. It tells of their struggles and ambitions, their failures and successes in the mysterious world of the ‘Press. Here is a (graphic picture drawn by Mr. Oourlander, of (Fleet Street, that Mecca, as well as that Waterloo, of many a literary and journalistic aspirant, “Th© interior of the grey building was an unexplored mystery for Humphrey (Mr, Courlander’s hero). He passed along the corridors by half-opened doors, (which gave a tantalising glimpse, into the rooms beyond, where men sat writing. These were the sporting rooms, where the .sporting editor and his staff worked at tilings quitg apart from the reporters. Nothing seemed to matter to them; the greatest upheavals left their room undisturbed: football, cricket, racing, coursing, and the giving of tips (were their main interest, and though a king died, or was declared, they still held their page, the full seven columns of it, so that they could dhronicle the sport and the pleasure. The sporting men and the reporters seldom mingled in the offices; sometimes I>ake, the isporting editor, nodded Ito (those he knew coming up the stairs. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man, with a heavy face, and the appearance of a clubman and a man of the world.

The Process Department. (’lose to the sporting room was a strange room lit with an extraordinary pale blue glare. Humphrey, satisfying Ills curiosity, prowled about the building one evening, and ventured to the 'door. The men who 'were there did not question his presence. ’l’hcfy just looked at him and went on with their ijvork. (hie of them, in his shirt-sleeves pnd a black apron, was holding a black, square of glass to the light, from which something shining was dripping. A pungent smell of iodiform filled Humphrey’s nostrils. He knew the smell; it was intimately associated with the (recollections of his youth, when ho. had dabbled in photography with a. iowprived camera, using the cistern room at the top of the house as a dark Toom. And he. saw that another man Was manipulating an enormous camera, that moved along a grooved base. This, ho knew, was an enlarging apparatus. and 'ho realised that hero they were piaking the blocks for “The Day”—transferring a drawing or a photograph to tedpper or zinc plates. There was something real and vital about this office, Wkere each day was active with a dif-

ferent activity from the day before; where each room was a mirror of life itself.

The News Department. ■Next door to the room where the blue light vibrated and flared intensely iio fc/und a smaller room, where two men sat, also in their shirt-sleeves, taptapping at telegraph transmitters. A cigarette dangled loosely from the lips of bach man, and neither of them glanced at the work of his fingers. They looked always at the printed proof, or the written copy, held in a clip before them. This was the provincial 'wire room. They were tapping a selection of the news, letter 'by letter, to Birmingham, where “The Day!” had an office of its own. Humphrey noticed with a strange thrill that one of the men wa.s (sending ,through .something that he himself had written. Sob-editorial Sanctum.

Downstairs in a long room, larger than the reporters’ room, and just as utilitarian, the. sub editors sat at two broad tables forming the letter “T,” Mr. Selsey, the chief sub-editor, sat in the very centre of the top of the “T,” surrounded by baskets, and proofs, and telephones, and, at about seven o’clock every evening, his dinner. He was a gentle-mannered man, whose face told the time as clearly as a clock. From six to eight it was cheerful; when he began to frown at was nine o’clock; •when he grew restless and spoke brusquely it was eleven; and when his hair was dishevelled and his eyes became pnxious it was eleven-thirty, and the struggle of pruhing down arid rejecting the masses of copy that passed through his hands was at its climax. At one o’clock he was normal again, and became gentle over a cup of cocoa. Humphrey was never certain whether Mr. tSelyey approved of him or not. ’He had to go through the ordeal every evening of bringing that which he had written to him, and to stand by while it was read. It reminded him of his school days, when he used to bring his exercises up to the schoolmaster. Selscy seldom made any comment —he read it, marking it with a capital letter, indicating whether its fate would be three lines, a paragraph, or its full length,

would be rescued by one of the subeditors, who saw that the paragraphs, punctuation and the sense were right, cut out whole sentences if it were necessary, to compress it and added a beading to it. Then it was handed back to Selscy, who glanced ;M it quickly, and threw it into another basket, whence it was removed by a boy and shot through a pneumatic tube to the composing room. The sub-editors’ room was the lieart of the organism of “The. Day” between the hours ot six in the evening and one in the next morning. 11l throbbed with persistent business. The tape machines ‘clicked out the news of thq world in long strips, and boys stood by them, cutting up the slips into convenient sizes, and pasting them on paper. The Telephone Room. The telephone bells rang, and every night at 9.30, Westgate, the leatherlunged sub editor disappeared into a telephone-box with a glass door. Humphrey saw him one night when he happened to be in the room. He looked like a man that was about- to be electrocuted, with a band over the top of his skull, ending in two receivers that tilted closely to his ears. llis hands were free sp that he could write, and through the glass Humphrey saw his mouth working violently until his face was hoi with perspiration. He was shouting through a mouthpiece, and his words were carried under the sea to Paris, though no one in the sub-editor’s room could hear them, since the telephonebox was padded and noisc-propf. And Humphrey could see his pencil moving swiftly over the paper, with an occasional pause, as his mouth opened widely to articulate a question, and, again he felt that delightful and mighty sensation of being in touch with the bones of life, as he realised that somewhere, far away in Paris, the correspondent of “ The Day,” invisible but audible, was hailing the sub-editor’s room across space and time. Six other men sat ar the long table that ran at right angles to the top table, and Selsey was flanked by Westgate (who dealt with Paris) and To* hill (who did the poli.e court news) —the stub of a cigarette stuck on his lower lip as though it were some strange growth. The Spell of it All. This sub editor’s room held him spell bound as none other did. It was the main artery through which the lifeblood of “The Day” flowed, lie saw the boys ripping open the russet-coloured enve-

lopes that disgorged telegrams from islands and continents afar off; he si.v the sorting out <vf stacks of tissue pap r covered with writing, “flimsy" inatwl'n! t copy —from all the people who lived b. recording the happenings of the moment ; the stories of people who brought law suits, who were born, married, divorced; who went bankrupt ; wh > died, who left wills; stories of actor who played parts; of books that we.e written; of men who made spe: cites; o’ banquets, of funerals. The little grubby boys were handling the epitome of exist cnee, and this great volume of throb bing life was merely paper with word; scrawled over it to them It was only in after years that Humphrey li’mself perceived the significance and the meaning of the emotions which swcllc I within him during those early days. At the time he glanced right and left, down the long table, where the sub editors bent their heads to their work, and It * saw this man dealing with city news, making out lists of the prices of stacks and shares, and that man handling the doing of Parliament, something moved him inwardly to smile with a great rri Imunded pride. He was like a recruit who has been blooded. “I, too, am part of this,” he thought. “And this is pari of me.” A Novel Subject far Po&tical Expression. There is an “Ode to a Skylark” an:: also “An Ode to a Nightingale” which are two of the most exquisite things la English poetry. There are also minor odes that have been addressed to sweet bird songsters. We also recollect a piece of exquisite prose that constituted an epic on salmon. But a “meditation to a dried haddock” appears to be unique in the annals of poetry. Appended is some not indifferently good verse addressed to that succulent member of the finny tribe that is so familiar a dish on English breakfast tildes. It is to be feared that the poor poet must have been sitting up over late the night before; imbibing, and partaking, perhaps not wisely, but too well, of the flowing bowl, and the aristocratic lobster, or the porridge-fed Co! cheater. Here is the jneditation, the graceful rhytlim of which is worthier of u more ideal subject: “Oh, full of bones and yellow as the sand That bounds thy native element, the sea! Victim of what inscrutable decree Wert thou pursued with tuts mil brought to land, Until at last, presented now to mo.

Thou dost appear —excuse the simile— A leathern fish indifferently tanned! "I raised the cOvor with expect.tnt thrill. Forgetting it was Tuesday, and behold! Not Sunday's sausage fragrant from the grill. Nor Monday’s scrambled eggs, all white and gold, But only thou, more unattractive still To-day. when I am late and thou art cold! ** : ~ Hansard Watt. Some Hubbardisms from the June *• Fra." Kxervbody is entertaining when he writes about himself, because he is dis cussing a subject in which he is vitally interested -whether he understands the theme is another thing. Satire is a giant wasp playing in and out of the mouth of a sleeping clown. It is the humour which stings. It is n Medusa with mischief in her eye. It is part Puck, and part Mephistopheles; find it is sometimes Isaiah. But it is never Jeremiah. because it never is guilty of feeling sorry for itself. When you accept a present you have dissolved the pearl of independence in the vinegar of obligation. Life is everywhere, and it is al! on? Life; we are particles of it. Al aids idea of God is the pattern ha makes for himself: when he has attained it. it expajids and moves ahead a peg. Wholesale condemnation is usually a subtle form of flattery. No man is in such danger from strong drink as the man who has just sworn off. To be famous is to be slandered by 'people who do not know you. REVIEWS. A Man from the North: by Arnold ißennett. (London: Methuen and Co. Auckland: Wildman andArcy.) Though it is fourteen years since this book was first published, this is the first time it has fallen into our hands for perusal and review.’ And we like lit very much indeed; more so, in fact, /than Mr 'Bennett’s more matured work, though this story, as all his stories do, falls short of being perfectly ideal. But it is very human. To say that ‘’A Man from the North" is purely autobiographic would be perhaps to overstate the truth. But it is far too realistic not t<» be pronounced as largely autobiographical. The hero of the story is one Bichard Larch, a native of one of the ‘‘live towns” that Mr Bennett has made So famous. who goes up to London in the hope of gaining a reputation as a •writer. Having in the meantime to live he enters the ofli’ce of a firm of lawyers as clerk. Here he soon rises on account Of his .business ability ami general trustworthiness. But, though he *woos the goddess that presides over literary fame, ho fails to win her ear, and in the end he woos and wins a commonplace wife, and settles down to the smug of a fairly well-to-do business in an. This is but a very poor outline 'of a story of which the interest does but increase with each .succeeding chapter. Whether Mr Bennett's hero would, lender any circumsta lives, have .succeeded in becoming a writer will be a moot point with most reivders. To us ihe moral of the story would seem be that the man who seeks to win fame must not be hampered by feminine influence. This novel was originally published by Mr John Lane in 1898. But since Mr Bennett achieved fame, it has been thought well worth reproduction, land .since March of this year it has num into a second edition. Messrs (Methuen acquired the volotiial rights bf publishing this new edition. “A Alan from the North" is* decidedly a book that must not be missed. Tante : By Anne Douglas Sedgwick, (London: Edward Arnold. Auckland: Wildman and Arey.) *‘Tah(e,” which is in its third edition, ?s a remarkable study of the artistic temperament.* Madame von Marwitz is n pianist whose* genius is so transcendent that »lie has taken captive the musical Jjeiyt df the whole of Europe. Travelling in Madame von Marwitz’s (rain is Karen Woodruff. a iNorwegia.ll girl, whom jMadanie von Marwitz has adopted, and !whd, in common with most of that great artiste's int,iniat.es, can see no (lay, ?. 11 /l^ 1, in London Karen piatuiges to win the love and upproba tiori ot one Gregory Jardine, w*lio intiuctively dislikes and mistru.sks !Mad-

a me. and is not diplomatic enough to hide that mistrust from Karen’s guardian. ißut for purposes of her'"own, Madame von Marwitz gives her con-ent to KarenN marriage with Jardine, and the story hereafter is concerned with the methods used by Madame von Marwitz to separate the married lovers. But the story must be read, for though the plot is light. •’Tillite” is a veritable triumph of characterisation. The Prelude to Adventure : By Hugh Walpole. (London: Mills and Boon. Auckland: Wildman and Arey J Like Mr Oliver Onion’s ‘’According to the Evidence,” Mr Walpole’s task has •been to justify a murder committed by an undergraduate of Cambridge on the ground that the murdered man is a men ace to society at large, having openly boasted, not only of having ruined a woman, but of being guilty of other base things toward.- society. Now, in this story, as in Mr Onion’s, the weak point is that the murderer was antipathetic towards his victim from the beginning of their acquaintance, and so the act could not by any means, even if ■such action could be justified, be held justifiable as being an act of retributive justice. And while we concede that Air Walpole is a distinctive and a splendidly descriptive writer and that bis pictures of I versify life are absolutely correct, we class the book as mischievous, and the more so since as in Mr Onion’s .story if may lead indiscrimhiating readers into apotheosizing private vengeance as public justice. The psychological novel is rarely pleasant

reading. Mr Walpole's description of the ‘’Craven” home tilled us with nausea. ‘Can anything normal or wholesome come out of this? we queried as we read. Imagine, if you can, a young, i efined girl, flushed with the delicate rapture of a first love, condoning. when he first makes confession, the fact that her lover is a murderer, nay, glorying in the fact because it gave her a chance to prove how much she loved him. The whole story is morbid and nauseating,* the more so on account of its diabolic, plausible ingPomander Walk: By Louis N. Parker. (London: 'The Bodley Head. Auckland: Wildman amt A rey.) To turn from ‘‘The Prelude to Adventure” to ‘'Pomander Walk” . is to emeige from the dark, tortuous labyrinths of .modernity into the safe, flowery. old fashioned paths of seldom •io he really despised convention. “Pomander Walk” was, in the years of Trafalgar, set on the banks of (he Thames, clo.-e to Chiswick. Parallel with this ‘.’W alk.” stood,six, house's, the architecture of which is known as Queen Anne. Now the very name of •Walk” is reminiscent of powder and patches and silks and brocades and high gentility. Bui though this was not actually“the powder amt patch period before alluded to. the name was still sq high sounding as to have frightened siny but the most genteel front occupying the once beautiful old houses on Pom ander Walk. Not that the “Widk” was not kept as spick and span as tin* ago of tin* houses permitted, for- did not the King of tin* Walk, Admiral Sir Peter AntrubiK, insist, and matvrialljr

assist by lending his man Jim, upon keeping the ‘‘Walk’’ as trim as his late (piaiter-deck. Now, it can very easily? be imagined that, isolated a.s the inhabitants of Pomander Walk were from the rest of their kind, they must agree to live either as one happy family or very much the. reverse. Well, they chose the happy family wav, and Mr Parker has woven a very pretty' old world romance indeed about the dramatis personae of this dainty ami entertaining comedy. ’’Pomander Walk” is. in short, the most restful story' that has passed through our hands for many a day. And although the story i.s mostly sentimental it is sentiment of the most wholesome kind, amt pre-eminently human besides. My Lord the Felon: By Headon Hill. (London: Ward. Lock..and Co. Auckland: Wildman and A rey J hough we have a strong distaste for stories y»f "My Lord rhe Eldon” type, we confess that Mr Hill’s book held our rivet ted attention from -tart to finish, for- like most melodramatic stories it is very' strongly human and satisfactorily moral. Lord Zoylaml in his youth deserts his wife and child, and as the years go by repents his dastardly art and would make amendment were it possible. But though hr discovers that his wife is dead, he fails to dis’covrr any trace of his child, a iboy. Years after, hr surprises and holds at bay a burglar in the act of burgling a safe at Zoyland Castle, and

while closely sefulinising the features of his prisoner, whom he has covered with a revolver, ho discovers upon his forehead the identical birthmark his own child had borno at its birth. He then and there acknowledges the burglar as his long-lost son, and proclaims him as heir to the Zoyland title and estates, blaming himself alone for the disgraceful profession his erring son had adopted. The rest of Mr Headon Hill’s thrilling story' is taken up with a recital of this burglar heir’s villainies after he becomes Viscount Keilp.ith, whi’.li include theft, abduction, murder, and brutalities and social soh’cisms innumerable, so innumerable, indeed, that the reader will breathe a sigh of relief when the villain is done to death by villain number two of this truly gruesome story, which is as highly improbable as it is clever in conceptioir. But Mr Headon Hill has long enjoyed an immense popularity as a liniMied weaver of thrilling and intricate plots.