NOTES

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 33, 23 August 1923, Page 30

NOTES

The Simplicity of the Dove

It is not always that the children of this world display the cunning of the serpent. A few days ago there was a sale on in an island south of the equator. Looking in the window when passing by, we noticed a set of four volumes advertised as,

“Reduced from 15/- to 9/-.”

That was, considering the books themselves, rather attractive. However we looked again, and read in plain letters and figures on the wrapper,

“Published at 2/6 a volume.”

Considering that the retailer probably bought them at 1/10 a volume, when brand new, the gilt wore off the bargain as w r e gazed.

“ Ponjola ’’

A new novel, by Cynthia Stockley, is Ponjola.: It is also her best. That she can writ© has already been demonstrated by previous works. She has imagination and the gift of creating atmosphere. But in many ways Poppy and The Claw were tawdry, melodramatic, and perhaps amateurish. With a prejudice begotten of this opinion, the pages of Ponjola were perused last week, and with every page the prejudice waned and at last was gone. Not The Dop Doctor, not perhaps The Story of a South A frican Farm, bub Ponjola, should we select as the best novel of Africa yet written. Mind, it is not a Sunday school story. It is a book, about men and women living in an outpost of civilisation, where the refinements of life are few, and where human nature is less likely to be tamed, at least to respect for convention. As strong meat is not food for all, a strong book is not always good reading. But, remember that a book that deals with the ugly facts of life is not a bad book: if it were the Catechism would be a bad book. It is the manner in which the treatment is conducted and also the aim in view, or the intention, that make the difference—that is, of course, presupposing that the book is not obscene. Ponjola is not obscene or even, suggestive, but it deals with some of the seamy sides of life, and for this reason, to anticipate the condemnation of people who might take both narrow and wrong views, the little digression we have made may be pardoned. This novel is one of the finest and sincerest things in the way of fiction we have read for a long time. It is a notable advance on the author’s previous work. There is restraint, power proved by restraint, - wonderful local color, clever characterisation, and—if you want a moral lesson in your novelintensely real painting of the temporal punishment of dissipation. Examining it from all points of view, the verdict remains the same : it is a great novel. Probably it will stand for Africa as high as Kim stands for India. And Kim (much as we dislike Kipling) is the novel of India.

“ Oiseaux de Tempete ”

Some day, when your reading of Paul Bourget, or Henri Bordeaux, or Rene Bazin goes on so smoothly that you are beginning to think you know all about French, take up a romance of the antarctic seas— Oiseaux de Tempete, by Louis Frederic Rouquette,— and your complacency will receive a salutary shock. For instance, in the chapter, “Des Voix Sur La Mer,” we read:

Aux-dessus du gaiUard d'arriere, sur la dunette, accoude au hois poll de la galerie, je regarde Notre Davie de V Aventure filer, leg ere sous le vent et inon esprit vogue, pareil au navi-re. . . Et Vamour du matelot pour son navire eclat e font d coup dans ces vers : v J

O see how well our good ship sails. “Oh, regards comme noire vaisseau est beau sous les voiles. . •

y ■ Fire, vire, vire, gentil galant . A la bosse, hale tout et encore uru coup ! Deux homines sur la vergue de misaine. Coupe les rabans, fats tomber la voile en avant. Hale en has a tribord. Le lof hardiment d hord. Hale derriere a I’ecmcte de la misaine. Deux homm es sur la grand’ vergue. Fans tomber la grand’ voile et le hunter. , , En haul les gahiers ! Hisse Vartimon. loffe ! Prende garde d I’embardee. Tiens haul la barre. Comme cela.

Easy, is it not? On page 96 w 7 e read : Vous ne sauriez croire Vemotion indicible qui a etremt ma gorge lorsque, pour la permi'ere fois, j’ai vn se lever au-dessus de moi “les etoiles nouvelles ” cheres an poete. , Quand la Grande Curse nous a qwittes, quand Cassipopee et Andromeda, le Gygne et le Belter, et t(fates les Pleiades, da Zenith sont passees an Nadir, c est la, sensation la plus potgnante qui ait jamais sourbe man dme.

Sous le signs de Capricorne est-elle meilleure, c.ette nine tourmentee ? Je tie so is, metis die se rejouit d V instant meme de voir monter an del les astres inconmts. Le Paon, VOiseau de Paradis le Sagittaire, io Phoenix, la Parade on le Cameleon et la plus belle par mi les plus belles ... Celle-ci ... la Croix

du Sud, dont les dlx-sept constellations guident desormais noire route.

That is all plain sailing. We quote it only because it recalls what the astonishment of the early voyagers must have been when they saw rising and soaring into the heavens those wonderful stars of the southern skies, some of which were to them but legends, while others were wholly unknown and unheard of. Our beautiful Southern Cross seems to have received its name from Amerigo Vespucci, at the beginning of the sixteenth century. It was also described in letters by the Florentine, Andrea Corsali, who says that no other constellation in the sky can rival its beauty. Dante speaks of the four stars which glorify the southern sky, telling us that they were never seen by mortal eyes since the days of Adam and Eve. From the sixteenth century onwards the sky was gradually mapped out, and the new discoveries were often given the names of beasts and birds and legendary animals. Thus, in old maps, we have the Centaur, the Wolf, the Dog, the Dove, the Archer, the Argo, the Hydra, the Crow, the WaterCarrier, and so on. In view of the infallible tone of

some pseudo-scientists of our day, it is worth noting that scientists long ago held that there were no lands in the South capable of supporting living beings, because there were no stars above them to pour down their influences on earth! '