BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1204, 12 August 1911, Page 9

BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

VERSES OLD AND NEW. i. J ; GLORNY'S WEIR. At Bight when tho world was sleepy antl : still I'd wake, maybe, in tho depth 0' tho . dark And think of tho river below tho hill, That flows so fast by the ruined old mill, Never a sound besides would I hear But the water roaring at Glorny's.Weir. I'd think'to myself howidays would come . soon, .'.•'.''. The waterhens wake • and the wagtails stir, . ...■>-■ Tho kingfisher. Hash in the light of the .noon. v From the willowy bunks of Knockma.rooti,,— ;-.'.' But through tho'day you could scarcely hear The voice of the river at Glorny's Weir. I'd wake in.the depth 0' the dark, maybe When the friendly voices of day. wero still, But'the river would lift its song for-mo Down from the mountains off to the sea, And glad was 1 in the nighf to hear Tho roar of tho waters at Glorny's.Weir. '—W. M. Letts, in the "Westminster Gazette." ■' ' THE LITTLE. GHOST. Dread, High yew hedges flank the flowers, and .border An old,, smooth lawn where, fashioned ■ grimly stiff, Two knights—in close-clipped ■ box—keep ancient order, ■. . . O'er shaven dragon, hound ■ and hippo--1 griff; ' . ' And there, • When the June, air ■ At dusk is cool and fair, And the great roses strengthen on their stalks, Down the long path, beset tyith heaven-scented, haunting mignonette, ■■ ■■ . The gardeners say, .A- little grey . Ghost-lady walks! I haven't seen her, haven't heard her ■• legend, Polo-little, shade,'-only the rumour tolls That 'tis her wont to wander to tho hedge-end, And vanish near the.Canterbury Bells; And So " I do. not know What sends her to and fro— Murder, may bo, or broken heart, or gold. I like to fancy 'most That she is just some little lady's ghost Who loved hef flowers And quiet hours In Junes of old! . , ... ■/• —"Punch." "LA CASINA." 'A'little house where only dwarfs might dwell Or elves come in to frolic; a house as fragile as a dreamLa Casino.! Tct on its walls' these real red rose■showers swell The flood of. mingled : fragrance, and through this mauve wistari stream I have seen Her Wave one small hand from out tho porch ■ at me, Have seen her warm eyes' searching that bade-mo; tell to he its tale— Beatina! .. * , The ringrdoves chant; some magic lulls tho sea; '■■'■~ • . . The distant heights rank round us—a vast ; encirclement, a pale . ; '_" Blue, arena.' ' ; The.lizards.sleep; their suits with sunlight gleam; Abovc i us in tho azure the heavy-laden date-palm .towers; . Brightly greener The fruit grove shines, while' tawny "hilltops seem jasmine, / "' La .Casina!' ' ' .. -j'.. ; . -Georgette Agnew. . .'/' .'MABEL. She ■slumbers bytho moorland stream 11. fLr tho brown stone fast; into that sleep no dream shall come. No murmur of the past. Utterly cold she's grown to me, hne careth nevermore; Though I bo plunged in deepest sea, Or cast on furthest shore. So-quick she .was-to note each tone At every mood.to' : 'start; Now death hath -turned her into stone, And-marbled, .all her, heart. , -Stephen Phillips, in the-"Westminster uazette. ' .

ON BEGINNING AN ESSAY. Nothing is' harder than to begin an essay.' Indeed, thore are thoso who will toll yon that tho whole art of essaywriting' lies in the neat construction of tho. first half-dozen sentences. That perhaps is an extreme view, hut the dictum is non>3 the worse for a little heightened colouring. For it is true that a fair beginning may 'carry off even a weak essay; and the best of essays finds it hard to livo down a clumsy beginning. For bettor or worse, its" fate is settled by its opening sentenced. ' You can tell from tho first puff of 'your pipe if it will Bmoko cleanly and cqblly to the end. So with an essay, you know at once whether or no it will take-your fancy. Nor is the success of the first sentences less important to the writer than to the reader, as all who have essayed know well. If those sentences are neatly put upon paper, if they run smoothly and have caught the writer's meaning, ho will pursue his, way with that zest which is the great secret of essay-writing. You may plod your Way through a longer work, but an essay, if it is /.to. give'any pleasure in the reading, must' carry the manifest appearance of having given pleasure in the writing. ■ ■ . ■ There are essayists—Mr. Chesterton is the most notable example among modern writers—who believe in startling their readers at tho outset .with some smashing paradox or other extravagance. As it were, thoy hustlo ;him into tho essay. But these'are the methods of' the controversialist. The truo essay-writer is more gentle. tempts his reader forward. Ho will give him .something a little whimsical for a start to catch his fancy, and so lead him on. If ho is well advised, he will make his opening sentences as crisp and simple as may be. The essay should bo clear and tranquil and flow smoothly for a start; later on, when the reader is well upon his voyage, it may tumble and riot a little if it will.

Hazlitt, the princo among essay-writers, knew'well how to begin an essay. Some, famous examples of the art may bo gathered; from him. The beginning of "Tho Indian Jugglers" is the best known and most quoted, but "On Going a Journey" is that which conies nearest perfection :~ "One of tho jdeasantest things in the. world is going a journey; but I like to go by myself; I can enjoy so- . cicty in a room'; but out of doors, naturo is company enough for mo. I am then never less alone than when alone. 'The fields his study, naturo was his book.' : I cannot see the wit of walking and . talking at.tho same time; when lam in tho country, I wish to vegetate like the coiinhv. I. am not for criticising hedgerows ami black cattle. I go out of town 'in order to forgat tho town and nil that is in it." Indeed, that is not near perfection. It is perfect. It is clear and simple as could lie. Of the first dozen sentences, not one is two lines in length. Yet they run smootlilv. They tempt the reader forward • 'lie could not stop even if ho would. They pleasantly stimulate him; tkiy set him anticipating what is to come. For they lio in perfect balanco between what might offend by being commonplace, or startle by being extravagant. An essnv which begins like that may do what it* likes with its render. . Another cs=ay which opens in the same perfect fashion is Stevenson's "Walking Tours." It was written very much under the influence of Hazlitt, indeed clearly with an eve upon this essay of his, "On Going a Journev," from which it quotes. Much nf it might have been written bv Hnzlitt, or by n voungcr and more elfish Hazlitt than'Hazlitt eTer was:-

"It must not bo imagined that a walking tour, as some would havo us fancy, is merely a better or worso way of seeing the country. Thero aro ' many ways. of seeing landscape quito as good; and none more vivid, in spito of cauting dilettantes, than from a railway train. But landscape on a walking tour is quits accessory. He who is indeed of the brotherhood docs not voyage in quest of the picturesque, but of certain jolly humours—of tho hope and spirit with which tho march begins at morning, and tho peace and spiritual repletion of the evening's rest." To.have read that is to be in a jolly humour at onco. If there is.anything iii it.to which exception can bs token, it is tho phraso "canting dilettantes." Thero is an irritable quality in that which is out of place. Setting out upon a walking tour in/a jolly humour, one should'find it impossible to be annoyed even with tho wicked people who do not sharo ono's opinions. Each of these beginnings'has this .supremo quality, that it gives ' you at once the.writer's point of view. From the start you and ho are on a complete understanding. Thero is no need for more explanation.. If you agree, you go on comfortably together. If you disagree, you may part company. But you cannot accuse him later on.of having inveigled .you into the essay on false pretences. Lamb is above the rules which guide lesser men. None could write a complex sentence as sweetly , and lightly as he. He can use parentheses as freely as other men use epithets. There is no one of his essays which begins more charmingly than the "Praise of Chimney-Sweepers," yet its first sentence runs to a.lengthy paragraph of itself. It! too,, is perfection in its way; but a perfection:which other essayists.may well -hesitate,- to attempt. One does not, at first thought, turn to tho "Edinburgh"-Reviewers in •search of examples.' For the works of these portentous 'essayists do not' so. much . b»gin as have "introductory paragraphs." Macaulay, for example, is not conspicuously successful in r the beginning of his essays. He'starts-m-oro.. than onco with the uninteresting statement that the book under roving has given him pleasure. But reading'Mnc'nulay'ia like swinging, a ve-y heavy pendulum'. It is difficult until the pendulum is .moving'by lits own momentum. There aro two: and only two. "ononinss'.' in llacaulay's essays worth tho quoting:—

"Th? work of Dr, Ntir<"! has filled us with astonishment similar to that which Captain Lemuel Gulliver felt when first ho landed in Brobdinenag and saw corn' as hi?h as the oaks in the New Forest, thimbles as largo as buckets, and wrens of the bulk of turkeys. The whole book, and every compon°iit part of it, is on a gigantic srale. The title is as long as an ordinnrv preface; the prefatory matter . wouM furnish out'an ordinary book; l.and the'hook cojifaitis-asmuch reading as an ordinary library." In its way that, is perfectly written, well calculated to tickle the' fa'ncy_ .of the reader. The other. "Hi* bednning of the essay on the ill-fated Montgomery, is no less, admirable:— . "The wise men of antiquity loved to convey instruction under the cover of ; ap6loiue; and though-this practice is generally thought childish, we shnll make no apology for adopting it on the present occasio'n. A which has bought eleven editions of a poem 1 by Mr. Robert Montgomery mnv well. ; oohdcscnud to .listen to a fable of ■ Pilpay." ! Tt is worth noting that Macaulav and Macvev. Napier, the editor of the "Edinburgh "Rwiew," had smne discussion upon that paragraph. Napier, apparently, would have had it omitted, and have /pluncred straight into th" fable. Mac-inlay ruled that this wo"ld have "had rnth«r too flippant a look," and wisely kept his first sentences as they stood. A moro siipe«sfnl beginner of an essjv' jmnn« the "Edinbiirsrh" Reviewers was Lord Jeffrey. He dashed into W« sublets in a very spirited fashion.. F" "This will never do-" addressed to Wordsworth, has become famous; but it must yield to H\" es=av on Byron's "Sardananalus." The whole of the opening nnssagaof that'es*>y is admirable, nnd ;^-| 3^ l^gJ £ ' r^ ap P i i y s "It must be a .more difficult thin? to write a good p'av, ore'ven a good !-. dramatic poem, than !.TSO-had.—imag-■"•■ined.''- >~<-'■ - "" ; ,~- vr-v--■'■;.. After that no. one would hesitate to read ""Among Thackeray's lessor sketches there are two deliuhtfnl example?, in the light and whimsical manner, t.hoirVThackcrav for the most part runs to too great length in his opening sentences:— "It has been said, dear Bob, that I have seen the mahogany of many ' men, and it is with no small feeling of pride .and gratitude that I am enabled to. declare also that T hardly remember ,in my 'life to havo had abad dinner'." .... . ' ■'.'•

So.'fG'reat aad Little Sinners." But bettor, still is t.hfi bcirmni.ns .of that amusing, little satirl-in Thackerays perfect mannor of extravn.wnce-:'A -Brighton Night Entertainment" :— "I have always had a taste for tho wcond.mte in life. Second-rate postry. for instance, is an uncommon deal pleasanter to my fancy than your great thundering first-rate epic poems. And from the moderns let us take two:"Havin" spent an hour in the enmpanv of a°book entitled picture ParapxirdiS' Thinps Seen in Everyday Life Sined and Illustrated.; I am one ' of the best informed men in England, capable of talcing my place Tilth distinction at any dinn-r-tab o and devilish well worth sitting by. J: or 1 know if not all, very nearly all. Tt miKht be Lamb; as'a matter of fact t feMr. Lucas. And tHen «m from that pleasant essayist, Mr. G. S. Street."It is all very well to denounce superior people.-but I im,inclined to hink that inferior people are, on the whole, a more serious inconvenience. All these have the pleasant. tomptinK quality which the opening of an essay should have. Each at once puts the rodr on Rood terms with himself and wX he writer. For .the reader will feci certain that the-writer,, having, set it down.has paused to read it oyer with an approving chuckle, and then has hnrnnl on P vTth added zest. And that « the -spirit in which essays should be loth written, and read.-"Spectator.

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