LITERARY GOSSIP.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19138, 22 October 1927, Page 13

LITERARY GOSSIP.

It is reported that Katherlae Mayo's "Mother India" has produced a greater sensation in London than any other book coining front America in .recent years, not excepting "Babbitt" and "Elmer Gantry." It has been the talk of the town, and has becomo the sub-iec-t of editorials as well as reviews. The "New Statesman" describes it as "certainly the most fascinating, the most depressing, and at the same time the most important and truthful book that has been written about India for a great deal more than a generation." In the "Westminster Gazette." Mary Agnes Hamilton, who is fa? from being an apologist for the- British raj, says that, since She read it, she has been able to talk and think of littlo else. No criticisms of tho book challenge its facts; the dlily attempt to break their force is a reminder that they do not tell the whole story. Lord Mcston, a former Governor of tho United Provinces, while admitting that the evils Miss Mayo exposes are widespread and deep-rooted, thinks her indictment too sweeping. S. K. Ratcliffo —who, ns a foHher editor of the '.'Calcutta Rtntcsiriah," has a first-hand knowledge of India—remarks thttt if she had known more, or could have freed her mind from its chief obsession, she would have realisett that there was a hopeful other side to the picture.

On the other hand Mr J. A. Spender says that it is "no more possible to draw an indictment against 200 millions of people in the East than in tile West, and those who try it should bear in mind that the East finds almost as many uhm6anihg and repulsive practices in the West tts the West does in the East;" Mr Slender adds that, before We begin to judge, we should bring into account the cumulative testimony of tlibusa-nds of Europeahs who have lived among . Indians and have borne witness to their many virtues, tie suggests that, if her social problem is seriously to be grappled with, India needs intimate Indian institutions in which the best of her people ( many of whom now take no part in public life, will be brought into local and ivillage government and bring their civilising influence to bear at close range.

Those who have hot quite forgotten Thackeray. 'Will welcome in the " English fievicw-,*' this rcniihder- of old Ms: ' .. . . HOUSEHOLDfeUS. b¥ iiuMiitj KENT.

At 13 (uow 16) Young street, Kenßin|ton, Thackeray made' a home t ftr his . chlldreni 1846-54. He wrote "Vanity Fair," "Ksmoridj" etc;, in this hbuse\ Eighty years ago it stood Ih a quiet nelghbburnodd: Marked already with the grace Time dan tglib a dwSlling-place— Waiting with a .frletfdly .air To receive a childish pair. AH its treasures, new arid old. Should be theirs to have and hold: Surihy rooms and Windows wide, And the vine that grew outside; . Cushioned seats for reading-nopks, "Punch" and "BoV 1 and "Christinas Books." Lotß and laughter, work and ease,' Blossdih on the. orchard tredls .... From the first the children's part Was tb fill their father's lieaVt (Those who called him '.'cynic" then Wbf-e hbt skilled In reading men). Auns femetribdred all ,hfer days Tender counsel, mirthful wayß; Uharlty and Humour fehowh In his life—and made her own. * * * ! Orbwded; too, the house mutt be With immortal company. , "Jeames'* himself, is at. the door, And about, the polished flodr Move the dancers, great and small, Guests at Mrs Parkins' Ball; Partly Jos'i and worldly-wise BSpky with the downcast eyes; faithful Dubbin who cbuia wait Eighteen years to win hi§ mate— Gentle souls who nab! lib share ... In the trafflck of the S*Kir ;•. . i There are Steele and Addison Froih an older feensingtbh; Esmond, grave and .dignifiedi eatrlx In her youthful pride; Men of honbur, tfriiicely rak£, Those who give and those who tal:e. Wits and floats meet us hbf6; Passion, pity, courageY fearOnly shades, but keeping still . Vital forms of thought aha Will: (Jreatures of a writer's mind - I ' Hblft the hotise he left .bfehihoV

In the September "Century Magazine'' Frederick Adams Woods Writes eh "Oily Words," meaning thoreby such Words as Theodore EooseVelfc called "weasel words,'* or words which, as Mr Woods piits it, "imply a little more than they actually state: they are both true and false in a single breath." In justification of his own tefffi fdr SUtih words, the author says:

.It Would seeni that Words of this class are better described by' calling them . "oiljr Words'' than ''Weasei * ■frords." .. The latter phrase suggests sneaky little words, and is hot suitable for all dt them. Borne of these words stich fte "freedom," "liberty," '•union," "independence," and so 'forth ate used to stimulate heroic actibn, but all arc oily. Tfc«!y Mb difficult. ia handle. They alip through the fingers like the long; thin fish Of thjee letters of a cross-word puzKl^

From a review of a book of verae by the Negro poet Countee Cutlen: It is stif ely ho disparagement to assert that a Writer is the poet of a race, for Walt Whitman Was one and so is William Butler Yeata, but' there is a cul-de-sac* into which the free mind of the poet should not be driven. That cul-de-sac does not contain the universal gestures of a groping humanity, but the peculiar emanations of a specific people. The great national poets transcended it, Homer for instance, being aa universal as he was Greek. Countee Oullen, because he escapes this cul-de-sao so often, speaks as much for the younger era 6f goetS in America as he does for the negro. "Lines to Our Elders," for instance, gives an idea of his metal.

You too listless to. examine If in pestilence of famine Death Tutk least, a htlbgry gimm Gnawing on you like a beaver On a root, while you trifle Time away nodding in the «un, Careless how th* shadows crawl Surely, up your crumbling will, Heedleis of the Thief* footfall, Death's, whose nimble fingefs rifle Your heartbeats one by weary one,— Here'* the diffet*nce In our dying: You go dawdling, we go flying. Here's a thought flung out to plague you Ours the »lea«urt if we'd lierer Burn completely with the fev*r Than go ambling with the ague.