PUBLICATIONS

New Zealand Tablet, 18 February 1915, Page 19

PUBLICATIONS

Round About Home: Irish Scenes and Memories. By Rev. P. J. Carroll, C.S.C. Ave Maria Press, U.S.A. 1 dollar net. 234 pp. There are few readers, we tiiink, who would not derive great pleasure and profit from this book of Father Carroll s. He seems to have caught the very spirit of rustic Ireland, elusive as it is, and to have given it tangible shape in these little sketches. Those who know the old sod cannot but read with delight these memories of the life which will be familiar to them, the life of the country districts of Ireland a quarter of a century ago. Their descendants who have not forgotten the Irish blood in their veins, and who wish to know what life was like among their forefathers, they, too, will read these pages with sympathetic enjoyment. And for others, the gallery of sketches forms a valuable and most attractive picture of Irish life, a picture which should do much good in supplanting the too-popular travesties of the Irish character spoken of by the author himself in the following terms: 1 One wishes there was some sort of Literary Holy Office to order burned some two dozen or so books on Irish life and character. One would dance with blessed glee round the funeral pyre.’ These little essays are so simple both in substance and in narrative style, that the reader wonders whether their charm actually lies in absolutely unstudied simplicity, or whether the author is the fortunate possessor of the ‘ars celare artem.’ Little bits of description here and there, almost perfect in their finish and charm, seem to point to the latter conclusion, bits like this: ‘ Here and there a star began to peep, the advanced-guard of the great army that very soon would, encamp on the wide acres of the sky.’ Father Carroll’s asides on the history of Ireland and the character of her people are always original and well worth listening to, and he is generously gifted with both pathos and humor. His characters are all human and convincing; they have their little frailties, but in them all, and through all the varied circumstances of their obscure lives, he makes r\s see the intense faith and the spirituality of mind, as well as the gentle kindliness, which distinguish the Irish peasant.

The Secret of Pocomohe. By Mary T. Waggaman. Ave Maria Press. 75 cents retail. 270 pp.

Like all the stories of this delightful American authoress, this little book is at once suitable for children and for their elders. Indeed, it would be a precocious child who would appreciate at its true worth the singular freshness and originality which pervades the story of the lovable little girl who brightens the lives of all around her. 1 Pat ’is the most fascinating of heroines, and her bright gaiety of heart serves to render all the more attractive her staunch adherence to the Catholic faith in the midst of difficulties and opposition. Would that there were more books like this, in which children are given such a human and attractive character, whose fidelity to principle they can admire, without being repelled by unnatural and priggish speech and bearing. The book is attractively printed and bound, and possesses a taking frontispiece of the little heroine.