LITERARY GOSSIP.

Press, Volume L, Issue 14889, 31 January 1914, Page 9

LITERARY GOSSIP.

Mr H\ A. Vachell, who"contributes the in.roduction to one of the volumes in the new Waverley edition of the works of Dickens, confesses frankly his inability, to make any attempt to elucidate "Edwin Drood.f He thinks it is tolerably safe to. affirm that the. mystery will remain mystery to ninotynine readers out of a hundred .-—"Probably to most of us the mdst poignant emotion inspired by the novel lies in the fact that it wiw th. last work of his genius. I was a child when 'Boz' passed away, but well do I remember tho thrill- that quivered through mo when my nurse said solemnly, 'Charles Dickens is dead.' That same day" she gave to mo a cheap coloured photograph, which I still possess, and in a simple way she made mo understand —for at that timo I had not read a lino of hi»—that a great man had been taken from us. I doubt whether she had ever heard of the mighty Thackeray but she loved Dickens because she had read him." Sinco then Mr vachell has heard cowboys and rough minors talk of tho author "with that same rare affection for the man " i

, As to the world-wide love and enthusiasm for Dickons, "which time haa increased rather than diminished," Mr Vachell writes:—"Somo years ago returning to England from America I happened to wander into Westminster Abbey upon tlio morning after landing. tf V *_ al _. f v my fe »°*_*ssengers were n the Abbey and two of them had brought wreaths to lay upon the grave of a man who had been dead more than a quarter of a century! Shakespeare »part one wonders how many wreaths are brought to the tombs of other English writers." When Mr V_che?l hoars clever young m. n exclaiming, "I can t read Dickens," he thinks of these wreaths and what they commemorate: that ardent interest in and for others, that divine sympathy with the poor and oppressed, that loving. wisdom which « qnfte diffwwfc fro_T_ie__l_l __ Au .V^Tt! 10 wisdom wherewith tho Child of Nazareth confounded the Jearneti Scribes in tha Temple. ..."

Professor Gilbert Murray justifies the inclusion ot his new volume on "Euripides and his Age" in the "Home University ittorary —a series ma_tly occupied by subjects commonly recognised as important to great masses of people at the present day—by pleading that Euripides is of special interest to our own generation (says Mr W. P. James in the "Evening Standard"). He is, ho tells us treated almost as a personal enemy by scholars of orthodox and con-formist-minds, defended and idealised by champions of rebellion and the free intellect. He has been compared with Ibsen. He ha., in his mind, says Professor Murray the samo problems as ourselves, tho same doubts, and largely the same ideals; he has felt the samo

desires and indignations as a -great, .:: number of people at tho present day, - especially, young people.'.. '• ~ Professor Murray suggests a further parallelism which will bo less palatable.. to the new generation (Mr Jo toes continues). He says that Euripides, though in reaction against tho preceding age, was still essentially of that age; and so wo, while in reaction against the Victorian age, aro . still essentially Victorian. It is rather a solemn thing to bo reminded that Mr . Bernard Shaw. and.even Miss Christa- ' bel I'ankhnrsc are essentially Victorian. Well, we hope tho young people will take Professor Murray's advico and t-oad Euripides. It is always saint-'----ary to view modern ideas in a classic mirror, and review them by its* ancients reflection. But as a rule, tho young peoplo prefer the old heresies from tho newest prophets, and are likely to tako Ibsen or Mr Shaw, or whoever, tho new prophet may be far moro seriously than a wilderness of classics. It would not do to force tho parallel between Euripides and Mr Shaw. Euripides was, before all things, n poet. Mrs Browning, in a very unfortunate phrase, spoke of "Euripides the human, with his droppings of wnrm tears." That would not describe Mr Shaw's literary character very closely. Mr Shaw is the least human of dramatists, and instead of the dropping of warm tears yon get tho crackling of ironic laughter. I' speak, of course, of r.he playwright, not of the man. Personally Mr Shaw is no doubt . like all tho other well-meaning anarchists, the. gentlest and leiiderest of* human creatures. X With tho publication of "Balder tho Beautiful," Dr. J. G. Frnzer has'com-., pleted his groat study iii niagic and religion, called "The Golden Bough," which is now contained volumes, namely "The Magic Art and tho Evolution of Kings" (2 vols.), "Taboo and the Perils of tho Soul" (1 vol.), "Tho Dying God" (1 vol.), a Adonis, Attis and Osiris" (1 vol.), "Spirits of tho Corn and the Wild" (2 vols.), "Tho i Scapegoat" (1 vol.), and "Balder' tho Beautiful" (2 vols.). _ In tho prefaco to tho latter the eminent anthropologist says:—"l cannot dismiss-without some natural regret a task which r has . occupied and amused mc at intervals for many years. But the regret -is tempered by thankfulness and hopo, I am thankful that I havo been able to conclude at least one chapter of the work I projected a long timo ago. I am hopeful that I may not now be taking a final leavo of my indulgent readers, but that, as I am sensible of littlo abatement in my bodily strength and of nono in my ardour for study, thoy "wiH bear with mo yet awhile if I should attempt to entertain them with fresh subjects of laughter and tears drawn from the comedy and, tho tragedy of man's endless quest for happiness and truth." Mr A. Stanley Deaville has contributed an articlo to the "British Columbia Magazine" on "Tho Later Phase of f the Casco," which has hoon lying in Vancouver Harbour, being fitted up for the great exhibition at San Francisco. This is the yacht for which R. L. Stevenson paid £2000 in 1888, and sailed on Juno 28th from San Francisco to the South Seas, with his wife and stepson, Mr Lloyd Osbourno, his mother, and a servant named Valentine Roebe. Many of tho letters printed "In tho South Seas" were written on board, also part of "The Master of Ballantrae." The schoncr was dismissed to San Francisco after tho arrival of tho party at Honolulu, at Christmas, ,1888. The old salt who showed tho Casco to ' ' Mr Deaville said that many tourists and such like people had examined her staterooms, cabins, and saloon, ,- "though," he added, "for the life of mo I cannot see what they find so blamo curious about hor. ' She's been a rare old tub, cost nearly seventy thousand dollars to build, she did, sir, her with nuthin' but mahogany and toak and sichlike in her make-up, and she's aa good as new to-day, sir, and a blame sight better than many a ono thoy builds nowadays. . . .There was a litrychap named Stevens, Louis Stevejm. if I remember right,- as. took? her-down into the South Seas in '88; wrdto books he did—rtovils, they call, them, and I . , have heard as he wrote poetry." No relics of Stevenson, unless an empty medicine bottle, wero found on tho - yacht. ' ', . The publication of the'new edition of the complete "Poems of Arthur' Hugh. - Clough, with an introduction, includ- • ing a brief memoir, by Mr Charles Whibley, will recall to hot a few the • diverse estimates of .dough's verses by". v two representative poets- (says- -the "Westminster Gazette")*. §winburno -~ pronounced the author of "The Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich?'■ simply a had* poet; whilo Russell Lowell, regarded, tho _ 'Bothie' 'as one of the most charmingl - books ever written.' "We have a foreboding that Clough . . . will be though* a hundred years hence," wrote tho American poet "to have been, the truest expression in verse of the moral and -_ intellectual tendencies, the doubt and ". struggle towards settled* convictions, of the period in which hei lived." Clough, it will also bo remembered, i».., the subject of Matthew Arnold's "Thyrsis," held by somoto be. "one of! the finest tributes of passionate admira-J . tion'to the dead in the English la_»! guage." In tho last of - 1 Arnold's, lee. , tures, "On Translating Hope.," thero is a memorable panegyric o n Clougi_ in which ~this passago occurs: , * "In the saturnalia of ignoblo per-' sonal passions of which ' the" struggle) for literary success.in old and crowded l communities offers so sad a spectacle," he never mingled. He had not yet .traduced his friends nor praised what he" despised. Those who knew,him welt had tho conviction that, even with ' time, these literary arts would never bo his. His poem of which I spoke beforo -. ('"The Bothie") has somo . admirably Homeric qualities—out-of-doors fresh* ness, life, natural, buoyant rapidity. Some of the expressions in that poem— 'Dangerous Corriovreckan; . . Whero roads are unknown to Loch Nevish' —- come back now to my ear with the true Homeric ring. But that in him of. which I think oftenest is the HonieriO simplicity of his literary life." Gabriele d'Annunzio, th© Italiafl poet and novelist, 'declares himsolF sated with a life of. pleasure, and an- . nounces his intention to put an end to himself within two years. "That," ho informed a friend, "will allow jnstf sufficient time to establish tho fame of the drama I am now completing. I, shall die in a manner that will maka the whole world wonder. . . I shall change info a sweet vapour and mingle with tho whole universe. I-shall bo volatilised into infinite molecules, I shall'never rot'in.a common grave. My dear sir. can yon imagine- Gabriele d'Annunzio buried with a first-class Parisian funeral; . with tho hired i mourners and Mack feathers? Never! Believe mc, I shall die in an interest- j ing manner." D'Annunzio**-announce- j ment as to the mode of his death has j given rise to sonic controversy among his disciples and adorers" arcing the public generally. By what abstruse classical method is -he going to change himself qniekly and gracefully into a sweet vapour? It Ha. been suggested that ho .might accomplish his purpose by being .consumed in a tremendous furnace, but this would surely bo too gross.and- inartistic an end for tho > ' author of "11 1 .acere." Perhaps ho may have it in his mind to'follow tho example of the Greek philosopher Empedocles.' and plunge into' the burning crater of the volcano iEtna. This is an idea which is being widely entortnined among the admirers of the poet ivParis; others, again, sceptically see it this announcement of the poet's onls a ruse to gain extra notoriety foi himself, and anticipate that he will live to he n quiet,'respectable, elderly gentleman, living on the.inebmo of bis - plays and poems.