BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1623, 14 December 1912, Page 9

BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

VERSES OLD AND NEW,

THE MONTENEGRINS;

They rose; to whero their Ecvriin eagle sails, They kept their faith, their freedom, on the height, j Chaste, frugal, savage, .arm'd by day and night Against tho Turk; whoso inroad nowhere scales •. ■. Their headlong passes,- but . his-footstep fails, ; And red with blood the Crescent reels ' .from fight ; ~ « : Before their dauntless hundreds, in prone y; By 'thousands down the crags and thro' ■ . tho vales. ... ■ 0 smallest among- peoples! rough root • • throno . Of Freedom I wsxriora beating back' the swarm ■ Of Turkish Islam for five hundred years, - :• Great Tsernogora! never sinoe thine own Black ridges drew the cloud and brake the storm . J123 breathed a race of mightier mountaineers. * —Tennyson, 'AUTUMN IN. THE ISLANDS. After tie wind.in'tho wood. Peace and the night; ' After the bond and the brood, Flight. ~ , i. .After the height and the hush \ : i:i Where the wild hawk swings, Heart of the earth-loving thrush. Shaken with wings. .}■: After the,bloom, and the,leaf 4 !: ; Rain on tho nest; ; ; After the splendour and grief, ' Rest.After the hills, and the far Glories and gleams, Cloud, and the dawn of a 6tar, . j . And dreams.' i ; i: —M. L. C. Picktliall, in the "Atlantic -Monthly." , ' . : . THE ORIGIN OF LIFE. In the beginning?— Slowly grope we back'. : Along the narrowing track,- : , : . Back -to' the deserts of. paleV . prime, v t »: : • : TJi£ mire; i'tlie 'day, the'lßliihe: ,\fi i !ind then . . . what,. Surely eomothing.-less; ' - V i ' Back, Joatk, to'Nothingnfel . , \ Jou dare-not-halt upon the'dwindling 't way i , j: There is no gulf to stay •• '• * •• •... Your/footsteps .j» : the/la'sti":'Gfi ; back'iyou). *" must !>.' ' 'v r > s Far, far, below the dust; ';'.. / > | Descend,. .'descend!. Grade. by ' dissolving' . I grade; .. ''. >■.' We follow,.unafraid! V; ; -i ■ ' (Dissolve,''dissolve this moving''world '.of- \ men ''i'!v.;S- --; I. . . Into thin air—and, then?., . t O pioneers;- 0-warriors of.-tHe';Light ' ;■ ■ t . In that abysmal;'nightiv:>J: J-' -. !. .Will you- : -liave''"couriigeHheii .tt. rise and I tell . ' ' •' ; Earth of this miracle?' \ '.Will you have courage, then, to tow the '•/ head, . .. V Aixd. '•''•"Out r*tnj&s' arose our I thoughtlr.f : »,-, ': ' This, blank abysmal Nought ; ',Woke, -and-'-brought " forth 1 that lighted . ' .- City street, . Thpw. towers, that armoured fleet?" . ; V.When y'ou 1 have .'seen 'tlibse vacant primal ' ' • skies .' c ; : ■ ' Beyond :the centuries, ' ■ Watched the pale mists across their dark-. ness flow, , A's/in a lantern-flhow,,, -, .; Weaving; by merest "chance," out of thin, air, . Pageanfa/of upraise .and prayer; ( ;.Watched the;.greaphills like.iclouds arise ,- and'set,:•• .--:~.c :tv. ; , 4 ... iWhen'you '£ave seen, as"a sh'adojr passing ■*' away;;; .- v..-. ■'' ' - ' One'child clasp hands,and pray; •When vou have: seen emerge from- that; dark mire ' " ■: One : martyr, .'ringed ■ with fire; ? Or, from that Nothingness, by special grace, . . i One woman's love-lit faco, .. . ' : Will'jrou have courage, then, to front that law ; ■ ' '. (From which your sophists draw Their only, right to -flout one human creed) . That nothing' can procoed— Not even tbought, nor even love—from .; less, .- • Than-its own. nothingness? Tho.law. is yoursl you waive your pride, .. - . And- kneel.'where" you denied? The law is' yours I ' Dare .you''rekindle, tlien,,.. !< Oni 'faifH; for faithless men, !lnd say you', found,. 1 ,- on- that '-dark road you trod, ■s In'the-beginning—^GOD.?-. • i 1 —Alfred Noyes, ..in the./Daily,Mail." EDWIN DROOD'S FATE. '[A contribution : to the discussion of a . fascinating mystery is the interesting investigation of the fate of Edwin Drood, by Sir William Robertson Nicoll, who proves himself a literary detective of no mean capacity. -His conclusions 'are,, broadly speaking, those of Mr. Cuming Walters; but he supports them by fresh arguments, l not all of value, but some of; them. ..decidedly forcible. Those 'conclusions.are, 'it.will be remembered, that Drood.>ll3 really dead, murdered by Jasper,. and'.-that ithe -.crime .was to have .been' brought-home 't'o Jasper/by Datch-' 'ery, who was Helena Landless in'disguise. There are two Mmain ill the way of this'-'identification ' of- Datchery. The first, is chronological, and is met by the suggestibn, .-first-made by-,Professor Henry' J ackson;'accepted by Mr: Cuniing Walters, and now adopted by Sir William Robertson,.Nicoll;..that the chapters, as we have them, are not printed in the order, in which Dickens, intended them to be placed'.' The second is ■/ Andrew Lang's objection that the idea of the disguise was a far-fetched improbability, utterly unworthy of Dickens—"the idea," he says, "of : a bad sixpenny novel." That liiie of argument Sir William Robertson Nicoll characterises' is " "inept"; and it certainly seems to us to confuse criticism of fiction with criticism of detective methods. In real life Helena Landless, disguised as. a "buffer," would have imposed on' no .one, and consequently would . have discovered; no thing; .but Dickens's!' imagination' never; confined itself '; within the of the.'probabilities.' The conventions;of fiction allow' such things to happen. -Dickens'may-'very "possibly, as Sir y Willian( Robertson Nicoll suggests, have taken a hint in the matter from Wilkie Collins, whose methods of. mystification he admired. . In deciding what was 'Drood's. fate, the latest investigator is-.-largely.'-.guided- by "external tion of ids b(K)k..is''that > Ke'i^:^jriiefii» : to and discusses the.-evidenqe,' : ; butf aiso' prints it. Forster-eipressly.'slates.jthat the theme, of the : .been, "tho murder of a.' n-ephewi' by; his imcle." . Mrs. Pevugini ment ster 'mf.'morj-, his/ memory. was, a food :bne, r :;.and l)ick'!;ns.'Ti;as.''no'fe.iin-.the. haoit says," "My cl ared that : hV had .heard jf rom- li is - fathcr's- , th'atVfidwini ' les DickebsplfiS^Sdii^r, tised Joseph -Hat t§n':' (though"',the - play'-.was hot produced)£ort was dead,S^?steld»;;Hattpn' ; to i he-.knbw how tho' have;ended..,/Dickens's illusttat6r. ; ;.Sir (Lufe' Fiid«'.'as he ■ stofe-rt- our;. owii columns'in ! 1905,'•!wis;!.tHi/recipient of a ' similar confideiicS/a: a; direction 1 to represent Jaspar.' as;.wearing.;'a'.necker-. chief long , ',eh'ough : to!''go; twioe round' his neck.. - • Ho secret?" I assul'ia *ld[tn •' ; tha'tiJi6;6ouid''i»ly. on me. He the'il.- • have the double neck-tie! - It.isfinecfesary, for-Jas-per sti-angles 'it."'.The eiternal testimony-'^'iibnld^'Ki^ly' bs stroßger. The only e|Jp'ctive Jf/tcfc"; to'' placed in opposition to it is-'a ; picture,-.in which Drood appears to nave corao to . life again, included in Charles Collins's design for tho wrapper; hut oritica have differed so widely* as to ch« significance of that picture that no inference, ran safely ibe drawn from it. Some further deductions are_ deJiyod by Sir William Robertson Nicoll.

from an-examination of the proofs in the Forstar collection; proofs from which Dickens had deleted sundry passages which I'orster restored. Conditions of space prevent us from even summarising thesa arguments; but they are cogent, and will repay careful study., The book is an acoeptable. anil ingenious addition to. an interesting controversy.