LIBER'S NOTE BOOK.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1836, 23 August 1913, Page 9

LIBER'S NOTE BOOK.

Held Over. I am obliged to hold over a review of some recent additions to Williams and Norgate's "Home Unive%?ity Library" until next week; also, some notes on the Borrow celebrations at Norwich. Domett, Browning, and New Zealand. : Amongst the many interesting letters to Robert Browning wliic-h figured -in the catalogue of the sale of Browning's books, letters, and curios recently held in London wore some letters from Alfred Domett, the "Waring" of Browning's poem, tho author of "Ranolf aoid Amohia, and, last but not least, Premier of New Zealand in 1862-1863. Some of 'these Domett letters are offered for sale in a catalogue issued by i Francis Edwards, the well-kuowi London bookseller, and throw some interesting sidelights on Domett's political career in, and his opinions of life in, New Zealand. In one, a six-page quarto-sized letter, dated Nelson, August 20, 1816, Domett writes, infer alia:—". . . The] other day Grey made mo the offer of o. seat in the Counoil—a man whom I should be happy to work under, if I could, for I think there i 9 something of the hero in him. I refused —though declaring (as he asked me) that I had none of the. same objection I had to sitting there with Fitzroy— solely on account of the • expense. Afterwards I thought it a foolish proceeding not to risk the money for it, and so eaus®d him to know. Tho Wellington would-be s I believe blame me greatly for consenting to sit—the idiots! because 'representative gov.' is not given them. . . . Meanwhile • . . you knock me down into self-dis-gust that one cannot do something . too oneself! But we cannot all go to Corinth •-so we come to New Zealand—which is next door to goinj* to the Devil," etc. Eighteen years later, to be exact, on May G, 1864, Domett writes to Browning from Auckland. .The following extract is specially interesting:—". . . You may judge w"hat a stir of old , feelings and emotions was suddenly caused in nie.wlien one sunny afternoon, I think in 1857, in Nelson, I was turning over for the first time the pages of your 'Men and Women, just received from England,, and Upon your unmistakable allusion or rather 'apostrophe' to myself. . . It was like a flash of light piercing l from the upper World down into the God-abandoned glooms of.our Infernal 'bolge' w'hero one lay lo9t for ever in a life-in-death or death-in-life —worse than death But my feelings w'ere after of course a gusu of surprise and satisfaction to find myself etill so kindly remembered by yoti> etc. Mr. Edwards prices each letter at <£3 10s. Slightly Involved. I am always keenly interested in studies and criticisms of Balzac's marvellous work, "The Human. Comedy," and tamed therefore with pleasurable anticipation to a four-column review, whicli appeared in a recent issue of "The Times" Literapr Supplement, of Emile Faguet's new study of the great French novelist and (his work, which has just been added to that admirable series, "les Grands Ecrivains Francais." I confess, however, that never in an English journal have I noticed a literary style more-complicated, more difficult to wrastle" with, as Bret Harte's miner said of tho first baby on a certain Californian goldfield, than that of tho ■writer of "Tho Times" article. Here is d samplo sentence:—

"So it was then that his huge feli: city, to re-emphasise our term, was in ■his state of circulating where recognition and identification didn't so much await es rejoicingly assault him, having never yet in all the world, grudged or at the best suspected feeders as they were at tho board where sentiment occupied the bead, felt themselves so finely important or subject to such a worried intention." •

Talk alxrat Meredithian complexity and entanglement of ideas and phrases. Surely even' in "One of Our Conquerors" it would be difficult to find a "tougher" passage than the, above. In the now far away days when "Liber," for Ms sin 3, _was 0, member of tho pedagogic fraternity, ho used to "wrastle" with the problem of teaching "analysis," a ghastly waste of time, still, I regret to see, perpetuated in our schools. I should like to give the Inspector-General, of Schools "Tho Times" sentence, and some others from the same article, to "analyse," and see what ho would make of them. . John Davidson and His Work. Frank Harris, one of the most brilliant of English essayists of the present time, is, it is understood, at work on a critical study of John Davidson. Mr. Harris was a personal friend of the poet, and his book should be deeply interesting. What is meat wanted, however, is a collected edition of Davidson's poems and poetical dramas. Most of tho earlier •volumes are out of print, and first.editions bring big prices. Davidson's work is too little known to readers of to-day. There is some fine stuff in his "Fleet Street Eclogues," and others of the slender, tastefully printed volumes which, fifteen years .ago, were published by Elkin Matthews and John Lane. A New History of France. Hilaire Belloc, wliose fine studies of Danton, Robespierre, and Marie Antoinette have proved him to have such an intimato knowledge.of French history, is to publish, through Chapman and Halls, a general history of the French people, which is intended to do for France what J. R. Green's "Short History", did for England. Since Mr. Belloc decided to quit tho political arena, his literary industry, always great, has been something' astonishing. Ho writes essays, and poems,/topofpraphical studies, and historical, monographs, to say nothing of amusing stories, and whatever lie puts; his. hands to is eminently readable. Even Andrew Lang displayed no greater versatility, or a greater avorage of exctdlenco in his work.' An Illustrated Macaulay. A well illustrated Macaulay has long been wanted. It is interesting, therefore, to ' . note. that Macmillan and ' Co. announce for publication this autumn, an entirely new edition of Macaulay's famous history, to be edited'by Charles Harding Firth,' Professor .'of Modern History at Oxford. Tho now edition is to be in six volumes, superroyal octavo in siiie, uniform with tho illustrated edition of Green's "Short History of tire English Peo-ple." The edition will contain no fewer than 900 illustrations, including 43 in colour. Tho prico will be 10s. Gd. ner volume. Macmillan's bfloks aro always beautifully printed, and their Illustrated Macaulay, if as well got up as their library edition of Green's famous work, should be a handsome and really notablo production.

,Th» Next Everyman Batch. Many and various literary tastes are appealed to in the forthcoming new batch of "liveryman's" Library. I am glad to tee Mr. Dent is giving us more Dostoievsky, whoso "Poor Folk" and "The Uumbler" are included in one volume. A third volume of "Ibsen' 9 Plays,", including "The Pretenders," "Rosinersholrn," and that biting satire, "The Pillars of Society," will be welcomed by those who possess its two predecessors, and although, personally, Rousseau's "Social Contract" does not appeal to me, it will doubtless find many readers. A welcome addition will be the fifth in. tho series of "Everyman" atlases, "A Literary and Historical Atlas of Africa and Australasia." Swedenborg's "Divino Lovo and Wisdom," hitherto not in' easily procurablo work, is included,-and believers in homeopathy, if. any thero be nowadays, will be interested ir. "Hahnemann's Organon of the Batinnnl Art of Healing." To other votanoa in tho now batch I may alludo onl a future'occasion. E

0. Henry Redivivus,

"Sixes and Sevens" was understood to be tho last of tho 0. Henry books proper, but there should bo a warm welcouio awaiting a volume entitled "The Rolling Stone," in which have been gathered together a fow of Air. Porter's earlier stories, nqt hitherto published in book form; a number of his letters—ho was as witty iu his correspondence as in his stones —some verses, a. collection of humorous drawings, and last and not least, a selection of articles from his little paper, "The Rolling Stone," published in the author's youthful days at Austin, Texas. Everyone who has read and enjoyed the wonderful short stories to be found in tho eleven volumes of 0. Henry's works, will be curious to see "The Rolling Stone." The long-promised biography of 0. Henry will, it is understood, not bo published until early next year. The Death of Kit Marlowe. Alfred Noyes's "Tales of the Mermaid Tavern," which ran serially in "Blackwood's," and are now republished in volume form, contain many picturesque studies of the merry company which met at the hostelry, mado lamous by Ben Jonson. Here is an extract from the poet's description of the last scene of all in poor Kit Marlowe's riotous life. It is that "lithe young Mephistopheles," Nash (a brother dramatist), who speaks: I saw a yellow claw Twisting tho dagger out of that frozen hand ; I saw his own steel in that yellow grip, His own lost lightning raised to strike at him! I saw it flash! I heard the driving grunt Of him that struck! Then, -with a shout,

the crowd Sundered, and through the gap, a blank

red thing Streaming with blood, came the blind

faca of Kit, Reeling, to me! And I, poor drunken I, Held my arm wide to him. Here, on my breast, With one great sob, he burst his heart and died. . . . The virility of Noyes's verse is undeniable, and his "Mermaid" tales will probably.enjoy as great a popularity as did that fine poem, "Drake," by the same author. Bow Bells—as Heard by Alfred Noyes. Talking of Noyes's book I see a "Bookman" r.eviewer selects "Flos Mercatorum," in which the old Clerk of Bow Church retells the old old story of Dick Whittington, as being tne besc thing in "Tales of cne Mermaid Tavern." Here is an. extract, which I reproduce for the special benefit of London-born readers of this column: — Uierk of tlie Bow Bell, four-and-twenty prentices, All upon a Hallowe'en, wo prithee, for our joy, Ring a little turn again for sweet Dick Whittington, "Flos Mercatorum," and a barefoot boy!—

" 'Children of Cheape,' did that old Clerk , answer, 'You will have a peal then, for well may you know,- .. All .the bells ot'-londdtf 'i'femember . Richard Whittington . ,-Wheu they hear the voice of the big Bell of Bow!' ...

Whittington! Whittington! 0, turn again, ..Whittington, Lord Mayor of London,' tie l)ie bell began: 1 '-Where was ho born? 0, at Pauntley in Gloucestershire, Hard by Cold Ashton, Cold. Askton,' it ran.

" 'Flos Mercatorum,' mourned the bells of All Hulbwcs, 'There was ho an orphan, 0, a little lad alone!' 'Then we all sang,' echoed happy St. Saviour's, 'Called him, and lured him, and. made - him our own.

" 'Told him a talo as he lay upon the hillside, Looking on his home in the meadowland below!', 'Told him a tale,' clanged the bell of Cool Abbey; 'Told him the truth,' boomed the big Bell of Bow! ' The "Bookman." The July "Bookman" (Hodder and Stoughton) is a Sterne number. Brofoseor George Saintsbury contributes an excellent appreciation of Sterne's work, adding many personal details of interest to admirers of the author of "Tristram Shandy" and "The Sontimental Journey." The accompanying illustrations arc numerous and intcresitng. Catherine Tynan has an excellent article 011 Mrs. Meynell's poems, of which, by tiko way, a new collected edition, in 0110 volume, lias recently been published, and other articles deal with Trevelyan's "Lifo of John Bright"; "Novelists oi' Promise," by Edwin Pu£h; "The Romance of Reporting," by J. Keighley Snowdon, etc., etc. The "Bookman" easily maintains its preeminence amongst the purely literary magazines. It is a. wonderfuil sixpennyworth. The Point of View. In modern • war books how much depends upon' the writer's personal' point of view. -Thus Seppings Wright, the warartist,in his "Two 1 ears Under the Crescent," says:— "He (tho Turk) may bo .described as brave, unselfish, hospitable, generous, .as well as pious, gentle, and chari"table; he is, ■ at the sumo time, a ■ gentleman in every sense of the word. ... . It is with great regret that I have been compelled to record the reverses sustained by a really noble and generously-disposed nation." Now let us see what Mr. Noel Buxton, M.P., author of "With the Bulgarian Staff," has to say of the Turk:— "On the battlefield, he (tho Turk) with personal and national safety depending on his alert attention, spends his time in mutilating a wounded enemy. Ho wastes cartridges, beforo tho fight, in shooting women and children.. Sometimes, when succoured by the enemy's doctor, the wounded Turk turns and kills him." It would be interesting to know what Hr. Buxton thinks of tho Bulgarians as recent cablegrams have described them and their doings.

] A Curious Selection. In a little book, "Outlines at Victorian Literature," just issued by the Cambridge University Press, Professor Hugh Waller givai a list of thirteen "great modern books of travel." The professor begins with fivvj of Cleorg'o Sorrow's books—liardly to bo considered, I should have thought, 03 strictly Ira vol books, and then gives tlio following eight books: "The Voyago of tlio Fox in Arctic Seas," by Sir Francis M'Glintock; Miss Amelia lidwards's "A Thousand Miles up t'ho Kilo"; Livingstone's Missionary Travels in South Africa," Stanley's "How I Found Livingstone," "Through tho Baric Continent," and "In Darkest Africa," Speke's "Journal of tho Discovery of t'ho iNile," and Sir Richard Burton's "Pilgrimage to El Medina!! anr Mecca." A vory ])oor list, in "Liber's" opinion, for it includes no work, dealing with the exploration of Central Asia, nothing on South America, and nothing on Australasia, and tho Enr East. If tho rest of this Cambridge professor's guido to Victorian literature is no better than Ills selection of the best works of ' modern travel, it must be a very worthless production. 1 How Heine Rebuked a Rothschild, i "The Romance of the Rothschilds," by Ignatus Ualla (Nash), is largely a ibookmaking elfort, but there are soms good stories hero and there. Thus, of

Nathan Rothschild, it is told that ho said to his friend Buxton:

"Sometimes, to aiuuso myself, I givo a beggar a guinea. He thinks I havo made a mistake, and, for fear I should find it out, off he runs as hard as ho can. I advise you to give a beggar a guinea sometimes. It is very amusing."

Another story relates to Heine's acquaintanceship with Baron James, the liothschild of Paris:

"Baron James was conducting a largo financial transaction, and he gave a very choico dinner 'in honour of tho bankers who were staying iu Paris. Heine was not invited to the dinner, but, when one of the guests at table expressed a wish to meet the poet, Rothschild replied that it could easily be managed. He wrote a few lines on a piece of paper, asking Heine to come and take coffee with him. A footman took the note to Heine's house, and returned with this reply to the baron's invitation: 11. le Baron, I usually take my coffee where I have had my dinner.'" Thackeray as an Artist. .Mention of "Phiz" and his illustrations of Dickens's books reminds nie of a fact which is, I think, not commonly known, which is that when Seymour committed suicide and Dickens was looking round ior a possible successor, Thackeray, then a young journalist, who had just lost a big slii>3 of his small fortune on an illadvised newspaper entei-priso (tho "National Standard ') applied to Dickens for the work. Many years afterwards the author of "Vanity Pair," rising, after Dickens, to respond to the toast of "Literature" at a Ikiyal Academy dinner, said, in the course of his speech:

Had it not been for the direct act of my friend who has just sat down, I should most likely have never been included in the toast which you have been pleased to drink; and I should have tried to' be, not a writer, but a painter or designer of pictures. That was the object of my early ambition, and I can remember that when Mr. Dickens was a very young man, and had commenced delighting the world with some charming, humorous works, which came out once a month, this young man wanted an artist to illustrate his writings, and I recollect walking up to his chambers in Furnivall's Inn with two or three drawings in my hand, which," strange to say, ho did not find suitable. . . . This disappointment caused mp to divert my attention to a different walk in life. . .

Wliat an excellent thing it was that Dickens did not. find those drawings suitable, tor otherwise we might never have had "Vanity Fair," "Esmond," or "The Neweomes." Tliackeray was a great novelist, but he was assuredly a very inferior artist, and in his later years ha would, witJi feigned pathos, aumit the fact himself. Writing to Edmund Yates, when that gentleman was editing a shortlived magazine called "The Train," Thackeray said: "You have a new artist, I see, on 'The Train.' I have been looking at his work, and I have solved a problem. I find there is a man alive who draws worse than myself." All the same—again the force of early associations—l wouldn't give a threepenny bit for an edition of "Vanity Fair" which did not have Thackeray's carelessly-drawn but quaint little vignettes at the beginning of cach chapter. But I am glad that Dickans "turned down" thoso "Pickwick" drawings of the future novelist.. Baudelaire and Poe. "Blackwood's Magazine" is too highly priced (2s. (id.) to reach a very big public, but those who can see "iiaga" at a public library have always a treat in store in the monthly article headed "Musings Without Method," which, so I believe, is from the pen of Sir Herbert Maxwell. . In the March issue, the '"Muser" devotes a good deal of his space to discussing the work of that, eccentric French genius, Baudelaire, whose influence on Swinburne, especially during .the latter's earlier literary career, was so .'powerful.; Baudelaire, on his part, was. 'strangely influenced by Edgar Poe, and set himself the task of making a translation of all the American's stories. For seventeen years the author of "Les Pleura du Mai" devoted himself to this task, and when death overtook him he had left undone only a few. stories and a few poems. Baudelaire, was no doubt somewhat of a poseur, bitt, says the "Mu6er" of "Maga," "even though he be not acclaimed by the multitude, even though he be neglected in a sullen jealousy by the professors of literature, he will still find an audience fit, but few. Ho will still be read by all who love poetry for its own sake." The Blackwood articlo

should be read by all who are interested in either Poe or Baudelaire, or both. Those who cannot read Baudelaire in the original may bo interested to know that many of. his best poems appear in an English translation in one of the handy litle volumes of that well-edited and useful series, Scott's "Canterbury Poets" (Is. Gd.). William Watson's Latest Verse. In William Watson's latest book of poems, "The Jlnse in Exile," are some telling lines on "The Centenary of Dickens":— 'A knight on whom no palsying torpor fell, Keen to the last to break a lance -withHell, • . And siiil undimmed his conquering weapons shine; On his bright sword no spot of rust appears; "Anu still, across the years, His soul goes forth to battle, a.nd in the face Of whatsoe'er is false, or cruel, or base, He hurls his gage, and leaps among tlie"spcars; Being armed with pity and love, and scorn divine, Immortal laughter and immortal tears. In tho samo volume, there is an impassioned piece of political partisanship, "Ulster's Reward"—l expect Sir Edward Carson has by this time got it off by heart, as a useful tag to his speeches— and, as might have been expected from tho poet who apostrophised tho last Sultan as "Abdul the Damned," an outburst of exultation over the victories of the Balkan Allies:— Enough, if hands that heretofore Laboured to bar His road, Delay henceforward evermore The charioteers of God, Who halt and slumber, but anon With burning wheels drive thundering on.

A South African National Anthom. A South African National Anthem has been composed by a yo.ung lady, Miss H. 0. Pagan, a nurso in the Modderfontein Hospital, who won the first prize in an ode competition set (>y the Rhodesiau Eisteddfod, an institution, bo I understand, much 011 tho lines of our Competitions Society. The anthem runs:— God bless and keep our land! When foes against us stand Do Thou with righteous hand Our strength maintain. God bless each heart and homo In town and veldland lone, And those in wilds unknown Protect, sustain.

Lest wo should tend in vain Our herds, our flocks, and grain, Send Thou in season rain With bounteous hand. Bless with Thy love and fear Statesmen and pioneer. Draw Thou in mercy near Our chosen land! There were competitors from South Africa, Great Britain, Australia, and The Advantage of a Good Thing. Once there was a prosperous niuiiiifacturer who had mado his s!ake by handling an cvery-day commodity at a small margin of profit. One morning the representative of a large concern dealing in guaranteed securities camo in to sell him some gilt-edged municipal bonds that would net a shade under 5 per cent. "I'll have ti> look into the proposition very carefuly," said the investor, as he tilted himself back in his jointed chair. "I must have the history of all previous bond issues under the same auspices. Also the report ot an expert as to possible shrinkage of assets. Any investment should be preceded by a systematic and thorough investigation." Having delivered himself of this signed editorial he dismissed the bond salesman aud went back to his morning meal. The noxt caller woro a broad sombrero, leather leggings, and a Bill Cody goatee—

also the hair down over tho collar. After lowering tlio curtains, ho produced from a leather pouch a glistening nugget which he had found in a lonely guich near Death Valley.

The careful business guy began to quiver like an aspen, and bought 10,000 shares at 2 dollars a share on a personal guarantee that it would go to par be-fore September 1.

Moral: It all depends on the bait. From "Knocking the Neighbours," by Georgo Arte.