BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 852, 25 June 1910, Page 9

BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

VERSES OLD AND NEW. ' THE BREAKING OP THE BOWL. (The Death of tlio King.) sThe smith achieves the bowl, the golden bowl, Iho sculptor graves, and the mysterious talo Of the dim ages gleams upon tho gold. While in tho curve, a darkness till tho sun Fires its dull purple, sleeps tho wine. The chain Enns / from the treasure house, .across tho wheol, The ever-grinding wheel, and in the: sun Th' artificer, is twisting from the fine And golden'filigree .new links for old. On the white road beneath an olivo tree Tho palmer lingers, dropping bead by bead— •'A prayer, a life—along tho silver cord. Tho bowl is broken, the bowl beautiful! And the wine sinks into the hungry earth; The cord that held tho rosary is loosed And the told beads are scattered in the dust; While from the passing chain a filament Slips flashing, and the links are whirled aside. .Where goeth man? 1 The candle on the wall ■Burns with a steady ray. Cometh a wind— Where in that whelming blackness is the flame ? , • . ' —C. A. Dawson Scott, in. London "Nation." • THE SHELL. And then I pressed the 'shell Close to my ear • And listened well, And straightway liko a bell i Came low and clear The slow, sad murmur of far distant j . B&ls, 1 Whipped, by an icy breeze Upon a shore "Wind-swept and. desolate. : It was a sunless strand that never boro The footprint of- a man, , ' ' Nor felt the weight Since time began • Of any human quality or stir Save-what tbe/dreary winds and waves incur,. - • / ./ ' And in the waters was the sound Of lobbies rolling round, ; For ever rolling with a hollow sound. And bubbling sea-weeds as the waters go Swish-to and fro . Theirs long, coljd tentacles of slimy gray. There was no day, . . Nor ever "came a ; night ' " '• Setting the stars alight . v'. .To wonder ( 'at the*mooni ' .Was twilight' only' and -tho frightened croon, Smitten to whimpers, of the dreary wind 'And waves that journeyed blind — And then I loosed my ear—o, it was sweet To hear a cart go jolting down .the street. —James Stephens in "Insurrections." MARK TWAIN. The New York "Nation" .has a good article on Jlirk Twain: There \is one form of injhstioo to which the fame of Mark Twain lias unwittingly been subjected before this, and is in dagger of being increasingly subjected. It consists'in saying, a.vso many people have fallen into the habit of saying.,;'that of .all- his ;works only. "Tom .. .Sawyer"' .'-and- "Huckleberry Knu'., are likely :/to bo long remembered.', In. this-there, is no intention to' Blur ,at the sum total of the great humourist's achievements. On the contrary, such well-meaning people be--, lieve they are laying the highest tribute at his feet when they, declare that, in the history of Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, Aunt Polly, and Jim, Mark Twain has created something more than laughter', he has created "literature." Yet the implication clearly, runs that "Innocents Abroad," "Roughing It," "Life on. the Mississippi," and "Following the Equator," with their half a thousand pages' each of loud and robust merriment, constitute something that- is not quite literature. Is it inevitable that men should, at. bottom, have a certain contempt for thoM) who make them laugh heartily? - When the, tears of mirth have dried upon one's cheeks, the. suspicion rises tliat, perhaps, there was something coarse in .the voice that wailed from out of an Italiaai bathtub for soap, "s-o-a-p, auap, s-o-im), soap, s-o-u-p, soap. 1 don't know how you niggers call it, •but 1 want it." •

01. this -kind of school-girl propriety,' tms uneasy feeling that tho ' "best" people do not consider it good form to laugh loud, we are all more or less unconsciously tho victims. But it is one thing to assert that after a man gets on in years be learns to prefer the humour of lilia. or Thackeray to the humour of Mark Twain,, and it is another thing to assume that tho humour which is broad and loud cannot live. Go back and you find horseplay and that loud laugh which Goldsmith mistakenly assumed to be a monopoly of the vacant mmd, in' Sam Welier, in Fal-, staff, in Saucho Panza. iii Panurge, and in the "Clouds." '-'Literature today will endure laughter if it is boisterous enough to be described a* Hoi meric; and yet, - if we remember correctly, tho first recorded gale of Homeric laughter broke out in the circle of Olympian gods at the sight of a lame divinity limping across tho celestial Hoars. -Because the humour of "J oni Sawyer" and "Huckleberry I*inn" is more gentle and insinuating than that cf "A Tramp Abroad," it does not lollow that we are to bo ashamed of the broader appeal. If universality of appeal is any test of merit or of the chances of survival,- we caniiot brush away the half-dozen heavy volumes over which the witblc world has laughed.

Mark Twain had tlio.gifts that nearly always go. ivitli hearty' laughter—tho capacity for divining between what is real and what is sham, and the capacity for tears. Most people, if, they were asked to say what was Twain's crudest performance, would not hesitate very lorn.' before naming "The Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court." The humour here is certainly of the broadest kind, the. learning displayc-d is not profound, the point of view is far froir unprejudiced; Yet in that book, Mr. William Deal. Howclla finds Twain's "greatest achievement in the way of a greatly imagined and symmetrically developed romance." The same pen that depicted the . first setting out of tho Tioss in search of the Grail, itching in his armour and with no means of yetting at the handkerchief that is tucked away in his helmet, has drawn, in his British peasants under King Arthur, as bitter, and as agonising a picture of human degradation, of human misery, and of human cruelty, as we can remember anywhere. iAnd of tears of a greater kind he is also the master. Mr. HowcHs is very near the truth when lie says: —"The ultimate achievement, the last poignant touch, tho most exquisite triumph of tho book is the return of the Yankco jfSa his own country, with his look across

tho gulf of ages at the period of which he had been a part and .his visifiu of the sixth century woman ho had loved, holding their child in her arms-" Tliero is a page of Mark Twain's autobiography in the "North American Review" in which the laughter and tears seem to us even more characteristically blended. It is the story of a preacher who, as ho ascended the pUlpit one Sunday, was told of tho death of his dearest friend. Toucliingl.v Mark Twain narrates how iho unhappy clergyman strove to go through his routine, while the tears welled from his eyes. He did not omit tho sermon. It was.one of those interesting sermons, Mark Twain tells us —and here wo quote, from memory only—"of how Enoch begat Shem, and Shcm begat Moses, . and Moses begat St. Peter, and St. Peter begat Deuteronomy, and Deuteronomy begat"— This is Mark "Twain in his truest, most compelling mood. Tho "Autobiography" was on the whole an unsuccessful work, but in such examples as that we have cited, or in the story of the dog whom Mark Twain, then a reporter starving in Washington, stole and returned to its owner for the reward,', thus supplying himself with _ money without deviating from t'he path of honesty, we have the essential, the permanent.Mark Twain. Among American humorists Mark' Twain stands supreme. He has in abundant measure, what the fathers rarely have, the gift of creative spontaneity. From Washington Irving to Mr. Dooley it has been the humorist's habit and method to poke fun at something or'to be funny over something; but that something must actually be there—whether it be Knickerbocker pride or Birdofredum Sawyer. Take Mr. Dooley, who in wisdom and comic power stands easily second to Mark Twain. The'sage of Arclicy Road must always have a kernel for his remarks, some topic of the day for him to vent his humour on.' It might be Dreyfus, or the cost of living, or General Miles's uniform, but the outside stimulus is there. But Mark Twain is' self-suffi-ciont. He bubbles fun without provocation. Sir Sagramour Le Desirous is satire as others, might have written it, but the panoplied knight's overthrow by the Boss dressed in circus fleshings and armed with a lasso _is creative humour. So are the classic tears shed at the, tomb of Adam. So is the hairraising. ascent of the Jungfrau through a telescope. So is that famous mockancestor of Mark Twain's who came over with Columbus, and, in spite .of the fact that he had come on board with a pair of cotton socks marked E. G. and a handkerchief marked L. P., landed, his baggage ill three trunks and a crate. , Broad humour this; yes, but elemental and enduring. , And what finally distinguishes Mark Twain from the crew of our modern humorists and makes, him one of the great traditions' with Dickens and Babelais and Cervantes, is the fact that lie wrote in a classic tongue and not in a dialect. If the Dutch or Irish or Yiddish flavour is. a help'to humour, then it is a sign of Twain's greatness that he- attained: his effects without that aid. It is rare that of a humorist's stylo it should be. said not only that it .was good, but that it'was thoroughly rational. "He writes English'," says Mr. Howells, "as if it were a primitive and not a' derivative language, without Gothic or Greek or Latin behind it, or ' German and French beside it. The result is the English in which the most vital works of English ture are cast'.' It is the Abraham Lincolnian word, not the Charles Sumneriau; it is American, Western." THE PRICE OF NOVELS. The six-shilling novels which has recently been threatened (says' tho "Standard"), will take a fresh lease of life—that' is, if authors and publishers' generally accept the conclusions arrived at by the sub-committee of tho Society ; of Authors and; adopted by tho Committee of Management. These conclusions are the result of months of inquiry amongst authors and booksellers, and are strengthened by tho experience of Mr. Heinemann in changing the price of novels issued by him.

The • evidence collected by the subcommittee from authors was overwhelmingly in favour of adhering to the sixshilling novel. Fifty-five writers were approached, of whom 47 were opposed to a reduction of price and eight were in favour. The replies from 243 booksellers were more varied.

The booksellers believe, say the subcommittee, that a larger sale would be obtained tor a new copyright novel of 'the ordinary length at Us. or Ha: net than for one at 6s. subject to discount; that the , issue of a new novel at tho lower rate would damage the chances of an author desiring to.return to 65.; and that the bookselling trade would make as much or more under original issues at the lower prices. But the opinion is by no means unanimous, tho minority replies being substantial in number. Tho fourth question was answered from such various points of view that the bookselling trade as a whole* may bo said to have no opinion. The conclusion'most generally expressed was that for the selling of fiction to be a remunerative business to the bookseller, it was necessary for him to be able to sell at a profit of at least 25 per cent. .

The sub-committee conclude by finding that novelists would be unwise to allow themselves or their agents to enter into any contract to lower the initial price, but to maintain six shillings as the standard price of issue of new fiction, save in special cases. It is incidentally remarked in the report that" ono author wliosfe book was published at a higher price than six shillings,- but in two volumes, met with ionsiderablo success, ,and this despite the refusal of the libraries to supply it. BAD POEMS ABOUT ITALY. Versifying about scenery is a modern pastime, and for all the poets she has bred since writing 1 vegan it is not more than a hundred years since Italy began to have her beauties chronicled in song. Since Byron And Shelley made 1110 mode, however, our poets have been busy, and there is now hardly an acre of the classic ground that misses its hymn of praise. So, at least, one would gather from the collection "Skies Italian," .which Miss Ruth Shephard Phelps has gathered to help the inarticulate traveller on his way. "Every traveller to storied spots," as the advertisement on the. wrapper rightly says, "has been teased .by the lialfrecolleetion of somo literary association, has striven to quote Browning in Florence or Byron in liavcnria or Longfellow at Amalii." Now that he has collected for him in a book the lines his memory refused to cope with, tho traveller will probably be teased in another fashion and bo moved to wonder how much bail poetry has been written about Italy. Tho line things—and they are many—and an admirable and judicious system of arrangeriint fail to mitigate the i-.sseutial dullness of the book. Not all the ringing,'full-blooded splendours of Browning, or the sad solemnity of Shelley, or tho music of Swallows (lying hack to the south, To the sweet south, to the sweet south, thai came from the soul of Christina itossetti can atone for the empty dreariness of tho lucubrations, that fill the spaces between. Part of it, no doubt, we must lay >to the door of , Byron, lor it is common, when a areat

man has taught his generation new joys of feeling and sight, that lessor people should follow and strive to express emotions which they have learnt at second-hand as if iht-y came straight from the original and authentic source. Hut middling pootry about Italy cannot all be explained as imitative liyronism working on the stuff that produced tlio real article. There are some kinds of scenery, not perhaps those with the most subtle and haunting effects, which call up easily and inevitably "romantic" associations. Primary colours, as makers of salmon-flies know, are very good bait, and the charm of Italy is of the strong and insistent kind which goads even iho most prosaic traveller into a juggle with magical names of places and a fine frenzy of lyrical phrase-making. It is a pity that so many of these unknown sightseers who'have come back with a bundle of verses in their portmanteaux forget that, though emotion may lie so strong as to reject proso as a medium, there is a third course open besides prose and pootry —silence, which is in nine cases out of ton the wisest choice. But perhaps'the' collection of their writings may furnish others, stiil to go southward, with the metrical expression their imagination longs for, and wo shall bo spared fretli compositions in the future.—"Manchester Guardian."