By the 'Frisco.

New Zealand Illustrated Magazine, 1 December 1900, Page 233

By the 'Frisco.

Fhom " Alien."

«\W UTUMN, with its russet and 11 brown, is with us. In Euglaud 1 1 this is a beautiful time of the $j\ year : the great forests are *&> tinted red and yellow above, \ and a carpet of fallen leaves ' is spread between the tree c '*'$ trunks woven by Nature's loom in warm tones ; the wisteria on the house fronts is redder by several shades than the brick over which it climbs, and in the gardens the chrysanthemum riots in every glowing shade, warming the dull green of the lawns, and burning their fire at the foot of the giant oaks, and ash which partially stripped of their summer garments show their twisted old limbs. From the sea and rivers night mists creep up and blot out the landscape, obliterating colour, and making the sunshine of the morning but a memory of warmth and light. The evening fires are lighted, yachts are berthed for the winter, late sportsmen begin to talk of "Town " and the new plays. Ladies consult the fashion journals of velvets and furs, aud the everyday women ask the price of coals. Autumn in England corresponds to that hour of the day which Longfellow describes as "between the dark and the sunlight." Sunlight has gone, and frost has not come on, and during the transition period, folk have not quite settled down in contentment to face the long night of cold, and shut out the lingering day.

The shops themselves are in this intermediate stage ; garments of new style and warm colour are there for the brisk purchaser who has decided what she wants and in what form; but among the "autumn novelties " a last rose of summer in the shape of a hat or skirt blooms alone among its rivals in the less fashionable localities, but in all the Vox.. U.— No. 16.— 1 f,

shops a blaze of colour seems to warm tho pavement; the side the windows are on. London in the autumn, about fivo o'clock in the evening, has an attraction and charm seen at no other time. A month later it ia, perhaps, enveloped in fog, but just now as the evening closes in there is a dry browny haze that tones down its ugliness, and softens the outlines of spires and domes. In the streets, lamps and windows aro lighted, and myriads of people, glad to bo homo after wandering, throng the streets, many with the sea tan still brown on their cheeks, important, bustling, determined to get along as Londoners chiefly are.

There has been " much of a muchnosa " about the books of this season. The Qateless Barrier, by Lucas Malet, is among thoso that will be read.

After the first few books it is much if a writer keeps his standard, those writers at least who work for bread more than fame, because of a necessity the " common task " loses for the one who performs it much of its fascination, and no man can be strung to a pitch of enthusiasm three hundred and sixty-five days out of a year, and keep out of the lunatic asylum, any more than an orator could always speak, or a musician always sing. The mechanical process of transcribing thought and painting pictures in ink is so slow that much force is naturally lost in the mental effort of retaining the scene till it is partially produced. The writer of Bed Pottage spent three years over the task, rejecting and re- writing till it pleased. No wonder each word tells ! But to the mass, finished style is lost— very few journals will serialise pure literature undiluted with melo-draraa. This accounts for the falling-off of many writers of distinction— the serial is disastrous to style,

and the serial considerably adds to a writer's income, the leading journalspaying hundreds, sometimes thousands to a name. But the greater number of -writers, who cater to the public from day to day, work long hours for moderate incomes. To see a crowd of tired faces be present at a writer's dinner ! Faces full of character many are, some beautiful, but all showing more or less the signs of strain. The Women Writers' Clubs have with the autumn resumed their Friday afternoon tea parties. These clubs are by no means show places, but meet a long-felt want of women journalists and others whose work brings them to the city. There are scores of women engaged upon the countless journals, and at the clubs are writing-rooms and diningrooms where they can work in quiet, and get a comfortable meal in semi-private, for the strong work some of them produce does not come to life on buns and tea. On Friday afternoons the members are permitted to ask their gentlemen friends to tea, and usually there is a crush, and the mere woman gets a glimpse occasionally of one of those awesome personages who perhaps sent her into a heaven of delight — or as the case may be — plunged her into a fit of despair with a first review.

The Master Christian has brought the most scathing criticism upon Miss Marie Oorelli. The columns of The World of October 3rd are devoted to it. .The boyManuel (who is supposed to represent Christ, and who' denounces the Pope, and the great organisation of the Catholic Church, in the scene where the lad stands on the steps of the Pope's throne) has offended. The World says :— " He may be intended for a guardian angel of some kind, and let us hope ho is. That may pass for bad art, no worse. But the name . . .

seems to suggest that he was intended to bear another and more awful moaning. The benefit of the doubt may be given . . .

For to every reverent spirit in the world the thought is blasphemy. All the world should know now that the life of the Roman Catholic priest, I dare say, is, on the whole,

a model of devotion and self denial. And these are the men whom Mario Corelli takes on herself thus insultingly to contemn. . . Let us admit there are bad priests to bo found in places. Likewise bad novelists, and very bad ones too. . . . The author of this Master Christian might at least have the Christian-mastery to remember what but a few years since Manning was doing here iv England for her much-taiked-of poor. . . Now France, we learn, has steadily lost everything— honour, prestige, faith, morals, justice, honesty and cleanly living. Her men are dissolute, her women shameless, her youth of both sexes depraved, her laws corrupt, her arts decadent, her religion dead. ' What next can we expect of her?' asks the Evangelist. Well, it's rather difficult to say. It is almost as much as can be fairly expected of one nation. As for the Italian, he cares for nothing but his money and his skin, and sacrifices to them all that is beautiful and sacred ... so saith the Corelli oracle. . . Actors and statesmen come off, with the new Evangelist, equally well. She has a Socialistic Anglo-American hero of the lofty Master Christian sect, who begins by turning actor for no special reason except that he may feel to the core his sordid uncleanness, and repulse the painted drabs called the ladies of the stage. Really we can't all kill our fathers. (This man's father is a priest whom he attempts to shoot). . . After all, such an all-round knowledge of the Tree of Evil does look like inspiration. . . As for actresses painting, ho.w can they help it ? I have even known drawing-room drabs, and charming women, too, who have painted sometime. . .

What particle of Christ," Herman Merivale, the reviewer, asks in conclusion, " is there in this ' Master-Christian teaching ?' Miss Marie Corelli talks as if she were by special appointment blowing the Trump of Doom for an expiring world of sin. A mistake of one letter, is it not ? It may be the Trump of Boom, after all."

A new novel by Louis Becke is to be published in 1901. This announcement of a work by the author of By Beef and Palm,

and other stories of wild life and adventures in the South Seas, will undoubtedly be of interest to the reading public. Hitherto Edward Barry : South Sea Pearler, has been the longest and most sustained of Mr. Louis Beckc's works ; but the new book, which, for the present, the author has entitled Tom Breaehley, will contain about 90,000 or 100,000 words. it is something more than a novel : it is a fascinating and extraordinai'y narrative of adventures by sea and land, told by the hero himself, written in the simplest language, and yet holding the reader from the very beginning by its dramatic force, and readers of By Reef and Palm will have a treat in store for them in lorn Breaehley. The hero does not attempt to disguise his own shortcomings, or palliate the part he takes in certain very tragic occurrences in the North Western Pacific before there was such an official as Her Majesty's High Commissioner exercising his functions in those wild seas. From the outset, young Breaehley, without inherent wickedness, is handicapped by his environment and strange associations, and his susceptibility to female beauty proves his frequent undoing, till the ennobling and elevating influence of one young girl saves him at last in a measure. From the shores of Australia, away from the rough life of the Queensland goldfields, we are taken to the South Seas and California. We are shown the horrors of the Kanaka " labour trade " — a synonym for slavery — the habits, mode of life, and morals of the white trader, and the strange, incredible and dreadful customs of some of the native tribes of Micronesia, with whom Tom Breaehley lives as one of themselves. Then we are given a picture of social life in San Francisco, clear and vivid in its truthful colouring, and culminating in a terrible tragedy. Yet although the reader will be held breathless by the starry grimness of many of the episodes in the book, there are some intensely humourous situations, particularly in that portion of the book which narrates Breachley's connection with a French colonising expedition. In brief, Mr Becke

has surpassed all his former work, good as it is, by this extraordinary, yet truthful tale.

The following is a synopsis of Four Ounces to the Dish, by T. McMahon :— -"A tale of Australia and New Zealand, full of advonturo, with incidents of murder, mining, bushranging and Maori witchcraft, while there is a strong love interest throughout. The story opens with tho discovery by Harvey Marsdon of a murder in Melbourne ; he is arrested under suspicious circumstances, and sontonced to penal servitude for life. His fiancee, Jean, is prostrated by this, and goes with lior people on a sea voyage, duriug which she is wrecked, and the party, in the ond, lands at Golden Coast, New Zealand. Hero we have an account of lifo in a mining contro, and a stirring affray with the Maoris. Jean is blinded by a lightning flash. She now meets a man called Dixon, a rascal, who is also a dabbler in Maori magic ; ho discovers that she can write, and makes money by selling her stories and saying they have beon rejected. Harvey now escapes, and under the name of Graham, resumes his place in tho story ; Jean, of course, does not recognise him. Dixon defeats a chanco of Jean's sight boing restored to her by an operation by bribing the doctor to say it is useless ; ho also becomes, engaged to her ; she, thinking Harvey lost to her for ever. Tho bushranger Watson now comos on the scene as an associate of Dixon's, and the pair in conjunction commit many crimes, both for gain, and to get inconvenient persons out of tho way. Harvey's dearest friend is murdered, and ho himself has some dreadful experiences in a bushranger's cave. Finally Watson is captured, and to avenge himself botrays Dixon's crimes. Dixon has in the meantime at last got possession of a wonderful Maori cure with which ho goes to Melbourne, and heals people, gaining an amazing reputation. He has also abducted Jean. Eventually he is caught, Jean is rescued, and it transpires that Dixon did the murder for which Harvey was imprisoned. Jean regains her sight, and all ends happily.