NEW ZEALAND REMINISCENCES.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 11493, 28 January 1903, Page 5

NEW ZEALAND REMINISCENCES.

TO THE EDITOK OF THE FKESS. Sir, —Your remaiks in regard to my pamphlet on New Zealand and Natal, appearing in "The Press," of October lltli last, have laid me under a debt of gratitude, and the more so from the fact of your having made my work the so'.e subject of one of your eminently brilliant "beading Articles." You also have my thanks for that you have so far responded to my request for dispassionate criticisms of my initial plunge into literature, as to point out its defective style, general faultiness, and incompleteness—sue>h being adUnitted features of the book. Your hints as to the wisdom of my adopting better materials and improved style, and of my enlarging the scope of my essays in future literary operations, will serve as a valuable guide in the compilation of my "second edition," cxHitemp'lated ttt some future time.

Your selection of "samples" of my book for quotation in your review thereof, is certainly calculated" to create favourable anticipatory impressions upon the minds of my Canterbury friends of a- former generation, and, the present ■one, who desire to rake up old memories—some sad, others the reverse —of "long, long ago.' . Whilst, by same of your remarks, kindly enc6uraging me to repeat my literary venture, as I may possibly do, though on a larger scale than formerly, you propound the question, "Am I compelled to write my reminiscences and publish them?" This query, being evidently suggested by that occurring in the interesting anecdote connected with the early French Imperial days. To. this, I reply, in the graceful language employed in your quotation.— "J* ne suis pits oblige d'ecrire mes reminiscences, mais certes, au contraire, e'est tin ceuvre d'amour."

To your observation to the effect that I should have had at my command ample good materials for my book, "had I chosen to avail myself of them," I may remind you of the fact that I had to cany my memory back 50 years at least, and to a, period anterior to the celebration of the settlement's second anniversary, not to mention the author's iinnrature age at the time; all being circumstances calculated to account for scarcity of available material for the work in question.

Apropos of your comment upon my reference to the Professor's paper houses at Christchurch, wherein you speak of my having "tortured myself with unnecessary doubts and misgivings," 1 fear I cannot lay claim to such heroic self-sacrifice as voluntarily undergone "torture"—either mental or physical, would seem to imply. — Yours, etc., C. STRICKLAND MACKIE, Bye, October 27th, 1902.