NEW PUBLICATIONS

New Zealand Tablet, 22 June 1911, Page 1165

NEW PUBLICATIONS

Duty. Twelve Conferences to Young Men. dßy Rev. William Graham. New York, Joseph Wagner. The scope of this work is indicated by the following summary of contents : Meaning and Source of Duty; The Limits of Duty; Conditions of Duty Law; Outward Rule of Duty, and Its Administrators Conscience; Inner Rule of Duty; Its Sanction; Our Duty to .God; Duties to Parents; Duties. to Church; Our Duties to the State; Personal Duties (Soul); Habits of Duty. ‘ Good conduct,’ said Matthew Arnold, ‘is nineteen-twentieths of life.’ We have heard a good deal about ‘ rights ’ in this generation: it is about time a little more prominence was given to the correlative idea duty. In spite of the dryness and unpopularity of the subject, Father Graham has succeeded in making his ‘ Conferences ’ -clear, crisp, and interesting from start to finish. Written in a scholarly style, the work will naturally make its appeal more particularly to the educated and the thoughtful; and it should find a wide sphere of usefulness amongst seminarists, members of Newman Societies, etc. Catholic students who-happen to be taking moral science as part of their university course will find Father Graham’s volume most helpful as a supplement to their text-book on ethics. Cloth, 75 cents. Father Damien. An Open Letter to the Rev. Dr. Hyde, of Honolulu, from Robert Louis Stevenson. [With a statement by Mrs. Stevenson.] The Ave Maria Press, Notre Dame, Indiana. The reasons for the re-issue of .this famous ‘ Open Letter certainly the finest piece of invective of modern timesand the special features of the edition now under review, are thus explained in the preface to the volume: ‘ The constant demand for the far-famed “Open Letter” in durable rather than dainty form, but more especially the reiterated assertion that Stevenson regretted this production and would have recalled it had recall been possible, are the raison d’etre, of the present reprint. An American author of some repute has had the hardihood to declare in one of his books that “Stevenson did not really believe what he wrote, neither did he intend to write v&hat he did. . . .* Stevenson could not have been honest at heart when he wrote his letter to Dr. Hyde.” It is well, perhaps, for this worthy that the pen of the man whom he thus defames is now powerless. Feeling sure that some day when “in his resting grave” the defender of Father Damien would need to be defended himself, we took care several years ago to secure from Mrs. Stevenson a statement regarding the “Open Letter to the Rev. Dr. Hyde.” In answer to our inquiry as. to the truth of the assertion, so often repeated, that her husband regretted the letter, and that before his death his opinion of Father Damien had undergone a change, Mrs. Stevenson entered an indignantly emphatic denial, which is presented on another page. This testimony, we think, should forever settle the matter. . . . Mrs. Stevenson’s letter is in our possession. It will further enhance the value and interest of the present edition of Stevenson’s powerful apologia to state that it is an exact reprint of the original issue, now of extreme rarity, which has a few corrections in the writer’s own hand. The “Open Letter” was first printed in a small pamphlet of thirty-two pages, at Sydney, N.S.W., on March 27, 1890. Many

editions of it had been published before Mr. Stevenson’s death, and it is worth recalling that he persistently refused to accept payment from any source for this defence of the Apostle of Molokai. He once wrote to a London publisher; ‘ The letter to Dr. Hyde is yours, or any man’s. I will never touch a penny o,f remuneration. I do not stick at murder ; I draw the line at cannibalism. I could not eat a penny roll that piece of bludgeoning brought me.’ To this explanatory preface we have only to add that the work is brought out in faultless fashionbeautifully printed, and got up in dainty and tasteful, but at the same time most durable, form. There are other editions of the ‘ Open Letter ’ at present on the market, but none with the special features enumerated above; and the state-

ment by Mrs. Stevenson of itself renders this easily the most important edition extant. We heartily recommend every reader to become a buyer; and we would impress on purchasers to make sure that they get the Ave Marie Press edition. Beautifully printed, and bound in buckram, 30 cents. - , v . '