VIEWS AND REVIEWS.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2001, 7 March 1914, Page 9

VIEWS AND REVIEWS.

A Turgeniev Revival. When, a few yoars ago, Heinemauns published translations of.several of Turgeniev's'best novels, the sale, I; believe, was not very extensive. _ Latterly, however, thorp has been a distinct revival of interest in Turgeniev's work, to my mind'much preferable to the gruesomo, and sordid studies by the much belauded Dostoievsky, now so popular with English readers. Two, I think, of Turgeniev's novels have already appeared in "Everyman's Library," and I notico that another. "Liza," is to be included in the new batch. Apropos to Turgeniev, who lived for many years in Paris, where, he was a friend of Zola, Flaubert, Alphonsc, Daudet, and other famous French writers of the Second Empire period, there is a queer story told of his selfishness, in Jladamo Heritte Vinrdnt's recently published reminiscences. Jladamo Viardot writes: '•Tiifgeniev's daughter, who had been living at our houso for a long time, was to be married, and after that event he intended to set up in a lino house of his own in Paris and enjoy his golden liberty. Till then ho was to live with us. His daughter married, but Turgeniev stayed on, and never mentioned his departure. My parents waited, thinking he would remember his plans of his own aciord. Instead of that, lie hocaino more exigent. One room wa3 no longer enough. .He required three, and my father gave him a whole suite of four rooms on t-lio second floor, on couditmu that he paid a yearly sum for

his board. He lived in our house for over thirty years, and never paid a farthing." This is an extraordinary . and almost incredible- story, for Turgeniev was. a wealthy man, enjoying a large private income, from estates in Russia, in addition to earning, largo sums by his books. An excellcnt.sketch of Turgeniov with a clever appreciation of his work as an author, appears, 1 may say, in Henry James's book, "Partial Portraits," ■ under the title of "Turgeniev and His Circle."

Exit Mulvanoy. An American interviewer has recently succeeded in getting soriio good copy out of Iludyard Kipling. "Where is Mulvaney ?" asked the interviewer, fishing for a tip as to the possible resurrection of that hero of £ipling's old Indian yarns. "There, was no hint of flippancy in Kipling's reply.. . . . "Mulvaiiey is dead—l think. . , . yes," ho said, "to the best of my memory, I might say, Mulvancy is dead. Tho last mental picture- I had of him was-on the edge of a cut in India, where ho was directing a gang of coolies building a railroad extension. 'There is no doubt that he was a bit seedy and down at heel. So I am sure that if lie has not already passed away, ho soon will, and Dinah Shadd will bury him.". "No, ho cannot como back," he went on, after, a few seconds' pause. "It won't do, you know.' A character is born in your thought, and grows, and is developed, and takes on virtues and vices,, and becomes old, and tneu—well, just fades away, I take it." And that 1 is tho way with Mulvanoy. I couldn't revive him—l.could only galvanise him. He would bo a stuffed figure—with straw for bowels and glass balls for eyes, and tho people could see. the strings I pulled him with. No, he is gone." ..... ,

The Bi-Ccntenary of Lawrence Sterne. , Clever Edmund Gosse contributes an interesting article, with the above heading, to tho January .number of tho "English- Review." Whilst ' paying due tribute to "My Uncle Toby," whose portrait Hazlitt declared to be "one of the finest compliments ever paid to .human nature," Mr. Gosse holds "Tho Sentimental Journey" to be Yorick's chef d'oeuyre. ■ • Sterne began by. filching what Bagehot (a humourless individual) described as Kis "uncouth saurian jokes," from Burton Rabelais, and the naughty but diverting "Mover do Parvenir," of that littleknown writer, Beraldo de Vervillo. But as he continued to write ho relied, says Mr. Gosse, "moro and more exclusively on his own rich store of observations taken directly. from human nature. In tho adorablo seventh volume of "Tristram Shandy," and in "Tho Sentimental Journey," there is nothing left of Rabelais except a certain rambling artifice of style. Mr. Gosso cleverly picks out Sterne's whimsical trick of deliberate ■ irrevalence Hero is a bit of the soundest, truest criticism on Sterner I have ever read: — "Sterne kept a stable of prancing, plump little hobby-horses, and ho trotted them out upon every occasion. But this is what makes his\books the best conversational writing in the English language. Ho writes for all the world exactly as though he were talking. at his ease, and wo listen enchanted to the careless, frolicking, idle, penetrating speaker; who builds up for us nonchalantly, with persistent but- unobtrusive touch upon touch, the immortal figures, of Mr. Shandy, My-Undo Toby, Corporal Trim, Yorick, the Widow. Wadman, aud so many more." Do I hear someone ask, "Who reads Sterne nowadays?" My answer is—a great many more people than is sometimes, imagined. .Olio wise and learned New Zealand Judge never 'travels,' I-'have been told, without a copy of' 'Tristram Shandy" in his bag, and, judging; by. tho new odi£ions„of. "Tho.,.Sentim v eutel,pournoy" which aro . constantly "appearing, "that work, though probably not amongst :tho "best sellers," must-have a, goodly band of admirers. Personally, I have always thought Thackeray .was too .hard upon Yorick in his' "Eighteenth Century Humourists." Mr. Gosse's tribute, by no means unqualified, seems tome much irioro just.

Thomas Hardy as Poet. Although a new long novel seems too much to-hope .for, the veteran author of "Toss of tho D'TJrbervilles'.: ("Tho Changed Man,", published recently, was merely a!, collection' 'of' short stories, some of which were published as far back'as fifteen or twenty years ago), Mr. Thomas Hardy still continues to follow tho example of tho immortal Silas Wegg/and to "drop into verse." His latest poetic outburst is enshrined in tho "Saturday Review"- for January 3, and deals with tho false judgments of: history. !The titlo is "Tho .Plaint of-Certain Spectres":—

"It is not death that hnrrows'us," they lipped, • i "Tno'soundless cell is in itself relief, Tor life is an unfenced flower, benumbed, and nipped At unawares, and at it» best but brief." The speakers, sundry phantoms of men gone, Had risen like filmy flames of phosphor dye* As if tne palest of sheet-lightnings shone •' From the .sward near me, as from a nether sky. > And much surprised Was I that, spent and dead, . Thev shouid not, like the many, be at rest,' ■ '••'■: But stray as apparitions; hence I .said,\ "Why, having slipped life, hark you '. back distressed? "r

among the few deaths set not free, The hurt, misrepresented names, who come At'each year's brink, and cry to History To do them justice, or go past them dumb."'

"\Ye\are stript of rights; our shames lie unredressed, . Our deeds in full auatomy. are not / shown. ,;•■■ , Our-words'in morsels merely are-'ex-pressed On- the Scripturr.d nagc, our motives blurred, unknown."'

Then all '-tlies-e shaken, ill-writ visitants =.lied ■'■.'. Into the vague, and left me musing .'. thorn, ' /•-, . ~ On fames that well -might instance what they had .--aid, "Until the New Year's dawn strode up the air. . .

Liber's Mote Book. The second of the "Bookman Extras," a series which made so excellent a start .with a collection of Stcvonsonia, is to be published very shortly and will ho devoted to' Dickens. It will include, as far as possible, a complete portrait gallery of tho novelist, photographs and drawings of places associated with his life and works, colour plates of Dickens characters and -scenes by Frank Reynolds, Hugh Thomson, and other living artists, as well as examples of tho older illustrations and literary contributions by Bernard- Shaw, Chesterton, William Do Morgan, Jerome K. Jerome, B.'W. Mat is, and others. Wise peoplo will order this "Dickens Number" in advance.

Tho never-ending flood of Shake-' speareana continues unabated. A French lady, the Countess do ChamIjrun, is about to publish an entirely new "Study on the Sonnets." The title is "The Sonnets of Shakespeare: Now Light and Evidence." Tho author claims to bring fresh evidence to hear upon tho identity of "the dark lady and tile fair youth," asiwcll as on such much-debated questions as Shakespeare's relation to tho Essex conspiracy, and the poet's religion.

. Rudolf Eucken, the famous philosopher of Jena, has many-readers in New Zealand. One Wellington bookseller regularly stocks his works, for which thiic is, he tells me,' a steady

sale. A new volume of Jsucken's "Collected Essays" (in an English translation) is shortly to be published by Fisher Unwiii.