NEW BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20494, 12 March 1932, Page 13

NEW BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

♦— TWO HOGARTH LETTERS. (i) A Letter from a Black Sheet;, By Francis Birrell. (il) A Letter to W. B. Teats. The Hogarth Letters, Nob. 5 and } B, 30 and SX pp: The Hogarth Press. (1 - each.) j; The two latest pamphlets in tho i, Hogarth Press series of Letters, which we have previously welcomed, are s models, the one of easy but pungent i social and political criticism, the-other • of literary appreciation. Mr Birrell ! addresses liis letter from an imaginary ' isle of no illusions to liia eomplacont, * conservative English relatives at Middle march, after a holiday spent with them , in exasperating and being exasperated, ; He found them stuffy, provincial, "all tied up in snobb.ery, my dear John," t fussing about the conventions of an "inconceivably antiquated society" while business goes down hill. So [ much gentility, so little thinking, so dangerous a supremacy of the type produced by "the mingling of the territorial aristocracy with the commercial middle-class," and lacking the best qualities of each. Eighty years ago the Brasseys and llie Petos would have got round the Bolsheviks; to-day the Englishman has bungled his chance of reconstructing Russia. Once England led the world, not only in big, constructive effort, but even in elegance and art; now, "except for Lytton Strachcy, certain sorts of motor engines . . . and gramophone records, we have hardly set the pace in anything since the athletic boom of the early twentieth century.',' Scotch tweeds and English cutters, of course, still hold their eminence; but why do the English factories not learn the uses of the expert designer and artist —as Joseph Thorpe asked last year? Instead of making this effort, "the Tories simply clamour for tariffs, so that you can ail go about dressed in Empire sackcloth." And where, to-day, are the Richardsons, the Byrons, the Dickenscs, the Constables, the Turners, who released the springs of art in Europe—the psychological French novel, Pushkin, Dostoicv•ski, Corot, Monet? If anybody is audacious enough to think aloud, the blankets are thrown over him. Why be so susceptible to the flatteries of a politician like Stanley Baldwin, aimed "so terribly, so unconsciously, and so highmindedly" at the most dangerous English weaknesses? Why tolerate, and feel, his "precpsy public-school shabby-genteel contempt for America?'? Why have the worst hotels in Europe, instead of, as once, the best? Why botch the rebuilding of London? ' Why make such a deplorable entry into the Arts Deeoratifs Exhibition in Paris? Why such dear and out-of-date doctors? Why so much bad education? —"Your morals, your taste in colour, most of your novels, your historical information, even your scientific chit-chat are all so damned antiquated." And it isn't because English brains are in ferior, but because somehow they lack the freedom and the encouragement to work. An intellectual rule of Europe which lasted for a century and a half has been exchanged for an inferior status: "Foreigners are beginning to treat you as a kind of inferior Americans." It is easy to resent all this, and perhaps not very hard to refute somo of it; but such irritants are wholesome and necessary, and Mr Birrell's ii the sharpest since Arnold's "Friendship's Garland." Its unbreakable poiiit, of course, is the same: the protest against a complacent anti-intellec tualism. The ghost of Armiaius will sigh its assent. . Mr Strong's letter to Mr Yeats ought not to be so briefly referred to as it must bq; for it does more than anything we have yet seen to make clear tho genius of the greatest living English poet, especially to make clear what is generally unrecognised—-the steadiness and the "extent his advan<,<! > £rom th,! earlr, enchanting period of Tomance, through his middle period of deliberate, severe self-discipline, to what Mr Strong beautifullv calls "a second glory, a period of Avork "surpassing all that you had done before": Thore is, in the poetry of your later period, ,n content, an WW?* 1 ' 0 *- * tiastion and a sure control which is not to be matched in any poet of >'°" r of mine. It is contemporary « transcends its time. It is c, ye has all the vißOur coarseness could have given it. It is inteileotual. hut its blood hot. It is full of anger, yet holds perfect equilibrium. It mocks, but Keeps its dignity. A magnificent arrogance, your response to "tho fascination of what s difficult." informs it all. It is wise, without wisdom's chill. There i# no poetry to match it: and. but for a certain occasional obscurity, it is a model to any artist m the craft of words. In tho sureness of this growth, and in its nature, Mr Yeats's history recalls Shakespeare's. Mr Strong writes also extremely well about the poet's plays and about his prose, its "great flexibility, astonishing force, studiod architecture, and noble music." The- autobiographical, critical, and philosophical writings are not well known; but if Mr Strong's Letter finds the audience it deserves they will at least become better known, with the later poems. DOGS(i) Sir Walter's Pog?, ?7 B- Co°k. With Four Illustrations from Portraits ajid a auhouetto, Grant wd Wnway, Edinburgh. «2 pp. (2s 6d net.) (ii) Little Black Doe- By Chapman and Hall. 102 PP- < 7B 6d net.) ; Sir Waiter Scott is" t-lie groat dogI lover of literature. All his hooks me full of dogs, his life was built round them, and a great deal of it lived for them. It is proper, therefore, that Mrs Cook should begin by qupting his letter to Maria Edgewurth; "T have some- - times thought of the final cause of dogs having such short lives, and 1 am quite satisfied it is in compassion to tho'human race; for, if we suiter so m losing a dog alter an acquaintance of ten or twelve years, what would it bo if they were to double that time?" it was even his love lor 'logs that told tho public who tho writer of the Waverioy books was, for although it was pointed out that "the unknown author must be a Scot, an antiquary, a bibliomaniac, a poet, a man of mv,and a lover of out-door sport,'' the real discovery was the fact that be s must be also "tho Wilkie of dogs,' and therefore none other tlian the author of "Marmion," "The Lay ot the Last Minstrel," and '-'The Lady of ] tho Lake,'' Mickey, the hero of this hook, is j of no particular breed, but his master | calls him a cross between a black bear < and a black fox. He is sensitive uivl i intelligent, faithful (except for occasional lapses- in love), and ho seems i ansious to do- We are told of | his likes and dislikes, his joys and i sorrows, hisgames, adventures, terrors < (thunderstorms, blasting, crackers nnd 1 gun-fire), because Mr Herrick Mievps ■ that there} is nothing commonplace in 1 these things if tliev are sympathesi- i eally felt and revealed, In \ tind'he is o University Professor—he is 1 convinced that dogs differ greatly in | linguistic capacity, and hi* psyehalogi- . cal speculations in this field are inter- J eating, whatever value wc attach to 1 them. 1

) PRIMA DONNA. Evensong. A Novel. By Beverley Nichols. Jonathan Oape. 414 pp. ill - Nichols might lay his hand upor. lu's heart, if he could locate it, and swenr that this book is not "about" Melba; and readers might still swear that lr£la. is Mclba "all over" —meaning that anyone who cares to may trace . all sorts of correspondences between | the career, the personality, the mannerisms, of the one and of the other. But ; the trouble is not worth taking, while i "Evensong" is decidedly worth read- > ing, for its own sake. Irela at the close of her career is an astonishing figure, ' unwilling to quit the stage, yet tortured by every sign of her diminishing ' power, to hold it. She is grasping and ■ tyrannical, much too shrewd to be easily deceived by others, so inordinately vain as constantly to deceive herself. She shrinks from old age, and from whatever warns her that she is old, yet lives - among the echoes and reminders of triumphs' past. She is a mistress of brazen i publicity but as a figure of increasing loneliness becomes pathetic.. She is still warm hearted enough to feel generous and tender impulses, but has grown too selfish to yield to them, at least without beating down the cost to herself or without a motive that transmutes good metal to base. And she is still a great artist, though haunted by comparison with her own greater yesterday and jealous fear of a younger singer's approaching greater 10-movrow. The story of One of her farewell opera seasons in London is brilliantly told, from its first announcement to the close, though the Epilogue, a newspaper announcement (in identical terms) of another farewell, is perhaps a rather obvious and trivial piece of cynicism. The second thread in the story is supplied by Irela's 'niece Pauline, whose faithfulness and affection she tries very high and loses by the selfish trick which was to hold them; and this is neatly wound in. It supplies, for instance, the admirable section in wheh Irela remorsefully decides to do something handsome for Pauline—to give her a good present Cat any rate from her third best jewelbox) and to settle an allowance upon her—and then whittles at her generosity until she has saved herself all but j a remnant. Her mind made up on this, she goes to bed convinced that she has been "lavish . . . but still she felt that she could, afford to be lavish. No, not 'afford' . . . but though she could not afford it, she would do it." And she retrieves a little niore, before going to sleep, by making a pencilled note that Pauline must pay for her own laundry. Though this is the loftiest praise, Mr Nichols has done something in these ten pages that is not shamed by comparison with Chapter 11. of "Sense and Sensibility." They develop the theme of Irela's meanness too elaborately for quotation; but a few airy bars from another place show how artfully Mr Nichols touches it: "What was the reply you" wished to send to this cable!" the asked. "Was it . . . 'touched by your thought'?". "No, darling, it was m>V replied Irela, sharply. "It was . . .' 'touched thought'." "Oh;" Pauline still looked a little doubtful. "Whatever do yon say 'Ohl' like that for 1 Isn't 'touched thought' enough? Why should I throw money into the arms of the post office by putting an extra 'by your'?" Then she added, with more energy than grammar. "Who else's thought could I be touched by?" "I only thought it sounded a little brusque." Irela moved impatiently up and down on her seat. • 'Really, darling, I must ask you to allow me to be a judge Of that, I've been sending 'touched thought' cablegrams for ..." She was going to say "forty years," and then changed it to "long before you were horn. Jfobody has complained yet." "Evensong" shows that Mr Nichols has ceased to be a young man and begun to grow. STUDIA SACRA. The Prayer of Seashipl By the Bev. B. J". Simpson. Longmans, Qr«h and Co. - (2s 6d net.) Outlines of Teaching Sermon; for. a. Tear. George Alien and TJowin. (Ss net.) The Bible and its Background. 37 0, h. Dodd. George Allan and Unwlri. (2s 6d net.) Inner light! A Devotional Anthology. Gfeorge Allen and tTnwin. (3s 6d net.) '"The Prayer of Sonslrip," by the viear of the weU-knowij London Church of St. Peter's, Craoley (gardens, ig a study of the Lord's Prayer fi'Qin a particular standpoint, the Sonship of Christ. Its purpose is to take ""that thought of son ship to God, which meant everything to pur Lord, and to apply it not only to our religion, but to life as we actually know it today," The result is a series of afresh and interesting studies of the clauses of the Lord's Prayer, in the course ot •which most of the great problems of religious thought arid practice are briefly discussed The book should, « s the Bishop of London says in hj§ preface, help its readers to a stronger and, mare reasonable faith. The volume of sevnion. outlines, which i? warmly lomtncudcd by the Archbishop of "York. is the work of ft clerical sub-committee dealing with adult religious education in the diocese of st. Albans. There are in all thirtythree outlines. five on grounds of belief in God, four introductory sermons on the* Old Testament, twelve on the I'ife of Our; Lord, und twelve on Wf® in Christ. I It was a happy decision of Dr. Dodd to publish the lectures he gave last. year for the 8.8.C, on the history 0* the Bible. Two questions are dealt with: How did the books of the Bible oonie to be written, and how did they c-om© to form a canon? With the ease of the competent scholar, Dr. Dqdd tabes us through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, describes simply and clearly the characteristics of the different books, and briefly discusses the special problems of each, It is an interesting and illuminating little book by a reverent critical soholar. What strikes on© first about "Inner Light." described by its half-dozen compilers as a devotional , anthology for reading in the family circle, is the amaaing number of people from whose gardens the flowers nave been culled* Yet there is no suggestion of incongruity. nor anv hint of conflicting loyalties. The selections, in prose and verse, vary in length from d.poge to half a line. Their keynote is quietness and confidence. v life of a liberal. auctions and Recollections. By Sir Alfred E, Pease, John Murray. 304 pp. US" net.) Sir Alfred Pease, whose father was a Whig manufacturer, went to the Commons in 1885, voted with Gladstone on Home Rule, denounced the Boer War, and gave up polities when he found that Asqnith ''had taken Mr Lloyd George and Limehouse .to his bhs6m." His book is therefore an unofficial history of the Liberal Party and is .tho more valuable because N his frankness is never disturbed by a sense of humour, 11 ig epitaph on the Liberals is excellent ? "They were for . Liberty, with a big L, for toleration >' and for justice, but, they never confused inequalities with injustices and never desired to see administrations come iind g<> by chance'naajorities or by the chnnging hnmoura of millions of uninformed voters.'' Sir Alfred Pease has an artless way* of condensing periods of history into a few lines without realising that he is doing I*o. After the Boer War Lord Onslow offered him an administrative position in the Transvaal. Pease asked what his Out- ' i«s would be and was told, "Oh, very light,: .vou will just rid« about and : he a father to the people."

MORE ABOUT RUSSIA. The Secret Dossier. By Vladimir Orloff. Translated by Mona Heath. George G. Harrap and Co., Ltd. 274 pp. (8s 6d net.) I > Orloff became prominent in February , of 1929 hen ho was arrested in Berlin and charged, on the evidence of H. R. , Knickerbocker, an American journalist, of trading in (forged anti-Soviet ' documents. According to his own story ho was an examining judge under the Tsarist regime and had much to ! do with espionage cases. On the outbreak of the Revolution he escaped to 1 Poland, but later returned to Russia | and, under an assumed name, became a Magistrate, in which capacity he was I able to save the lives of "thousands of White Russian officers." "Then," to quote the publishers' introduction, "came the dramatic scene when he was i by the President of the Tejicka, who had actually once been a prisoner on trial before him- and had been sentenced to hard labour in f&i- ' beria. Orloff was betrayed, but escaped to Finland." The incident, like many others in the book, may or may not show that truth is stranger than fiction A SURGEON'S MEMORIES. Unorthodox Reminiscences. By Blr George Turner. John Murray. 339 pp. (15s net.) Sir George Turner averages about four unconnected anecdotes a page for over three hundred pages, so that reading him is like driving over cobblestones. . Nevertheless, if the anecdotes pali, it is because of their quantity rather than their quality, for Sir George Turner tells a story well, with just the right flavouring of malice. He had a nodding acquaintance with most of the people who made the 'nineties what they were, and his impressions of men like Oscar Wilde, Herbert Spencer, and Hienry Irving are interesting mainly beoause of his curious angle of vision. It must be regretted. however, that the author did not find it worth while to write a more ' coherent account of his association with Lister, and of his experiences of pr®Listerian surgery, for that part of the life >s of more than passing interest. As it is, the early struggles of Lister and the dr6ll sayings of the flight porter seem to be regarded as of equal importance. CARfaED CITIES, Italian Cities: Florence, Milan, Naples, some, Venice. By A. S. Botkin. The Card Guides, I: Blkin, Mathews, and Maifrot. ■ (3/6 net.) This is the. first package or small portfolio of a series of card guides for tourists in Europe. Information on transport, accommodation, th« history of each city, and the objects of interest • is very well arrauged and can easily be traced through an index. It is limited, of course, to and those who have jio time for more, or at kast desire to begin with them and to be systematic, will find the cards very convenient, particularly so if they dislike carrying a book about with them. At the "beginning of each day the tourist can sort out from the portfolio the card or cards for his programme, and so carry his in his waistcoat pocket. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. "Bridge At a Glance: Auction and Cantract.'* By Edward C. Russell. Published and distributed by the Liggett and Myers Tobacco Co.. through S. Jacobs, Dunedin. * 'The Machine.' * By H. E. Holland. Xht ■ Olart* 990k Shop. , ' 'The Economic -Drift-'' By Oswald Gardner JFerouon and. Osborn. jm. The "Faish and Practice" Series (tw booklets). God and ths Universe, Modern Faith, Modern Discipleship, Public Worship, The Sermon <w tym ataant, The use of Leisure, What Do Ton Think of Sex? Marriage, Gambling. T««hin* Bellgion to Children. The B.P. Magasine. Special' Sydney Harbour Bridge number, with many beautiful illustrations.