LIBER'S NOTEBOOK.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2181, 20 June 1914, Page 11

LIBER'S NOTEBOOK.

"Platform Monologues" (TV C'.Lothian, Melbourne) is the title.of a collection of public addresse'sV-'giveii'most-J ly to semi-academical audiences, by Professor T. G. Tucker, Professor of Classical Philology in the University ■ 'ofMelbourne. Their common object, says the author, has been to plead tho cause of literary study at a time when that study as being depreciated and discouraged. They attempt, too, what must always be a difficult task—the crystallizing of the salient principles of literary judgment. In the opening lecture, "The Supreme Literajrv Gift," the highest gift of the writer is defined. It "is to make his words and their combinations not clover, not dazzling, not merely lucid, but to make them, by their meanings, their associations, and their, musical effects, exactly reproduce what ho thinks, sees, and feels, just, in the special light in which ho thinks, and sees, and feels it." In other addresses tho author compares "Hebraism and Hellenism, discussed the Principles of Criticism; as applied to Mr. Successors of Tennyson" (John Davidson and William Watson); and' discourses learnedly and agreeably'upon "The Making of Shakespeare," ''Literature and Life," and "The Future of Poetry." Professor Tucker is never pedantic and often takes a refreshingly personal arid original, view of the' subject dealt with. (Price, 3s. 6d.) . ' i Professor Tucker is also the author of "Sappho"—a "Lecture delivered before the Classical Association of Vic T toria," and now published in book form by T. C. Lothian, The author ruthlessly sweeps away somo of tho many myths which have sprung up.as to the position and work of the famous female poct-philosonher of .the lovely isle of Lesbos, and says that "tlie Greeks would never have sot heri on such a-pedestal if she. had been tho poetical maenad who seems to exist in tho mind of Swinburne,.when he writes of her, in that vicious exaggeration of phrase which he too often affects, as— ' LoveV priestess, mad with pain and , ]oy of song; Song's priestess, mad with joy and pain of love. ' : The author also denounces "that false notion of Sappho constructed by decadent Greeks and refined upon by the vice of the Romans" as bein<* quite unfounded by historical fact. "{Price 2s. 6d.) "Handicapped," by David Lyall (Hodcler and Stoughton; per Wbitcbniho and Tombs;, is a collection of stories and sketches describing the splendid rcscuo work done in London and other large, cities of the Old Country by the Salvation Army. The various incidents recorded in this, book aro vouched for by the author as having been only slightly altered transcripts from real life. One rises from a perusal of Mr Lyajl's simply, yet eloquently, worded stories with a renewed feeling of roverenco for the faith which inspires tho Army ouicors, whoso motto il is that no matter into what depths of misery and degradation a human being may havo fallen, he or she is never beyond hope of redemption. "Melton and Homespun—Nature and Sport in Prose and Verse," by J. M. B. Durham ("Marshmau") and R. J. Richardson (George Bell and Sons; per Whitconibo and Tombs), is 'a collection of racily-written stories and sketches of various kinds of sports in the Old Country, South Africa, India, ,and Canada. Many of them have appeared in tho columns of "The Field," "Country Life," "The Illustrated Sporting anil Dramatic News," and similar wellknow.. English sporting newspapers and magazines. All aro essentially readable, for the authors arc not only keen "sports," of considerable and 'muchvaried experience, but have I ho knack of telling their yarns in an exceptionally bright and breezy way. Sensational runs in tho hunting Shires, records of otter hunting, and wild fowl shooting in the fens and marshes of the Eastern countries, alternate with very readable reminiscences of life, in tiit; Transvaiil and South Africa generally, of fishing andshootiug iu Canada, and

mountaineering in tho Himalayas. Ineluded in the volume aro several sots of verses agreeably reminiscent of tho late Whytc Melville's efforts in a similar direction. Tho authors aro not only ardent sportsmen, but aro also, so "they prove in several chapters, keen and appreciative observers of the beauties of Nature. Thoro is a healthy, open-air flavour about their yarns which should j specially appeal to all lovers of hunting, shooting, and other outdoor sports dear to tho Englishman's heart. Some spiritedly-drawn illustrations aro contributed by R. J. Richardson. Tho long-overduo new volume of Bernard Shaw's plays was to bo published late last month by Constables. It will contain threo plays: "Misalliance," "Fanny's First Play," and "Tho Dark Lady of the Sonnets:" The volumo will also include two prefaces, the first on "Parents and Children," in which a'ro sot forth the views of "G. 8.5." on family life; the second dealing with various points of Shakespearean interest and controversy. A succeeding volume of plays will include Shaw's "Androcles and tho Lion," "Pygmalion." and "The Great Catherine." An English translation, by Mrs. Wilfrid Jackson, of Anatolo Franco's latest novel "La Revolto des Anges," is to bo published by John Lano very shortly. A tnmblc-down old building on Tower Hill, London, identified—mainly for tho benefit ot gullible Americans —as tho original of houso (in "Tho Old Curiosity Shop"), is, 1 read, now being demolished. For mairy years past American and colonial visitors to London have been in the habit of visiting a so-called original of "Tho Old Curiosity Shop," in Portugal Street, near Lincoln's Inn Square. As a matter of tact, chore is not an atom of evidence to support the theory that the shop in question was ever specially noticed or visited by Dickens. Years ago Charles Dickens the Younger described the place as "a vulgar and impudent fraud," and the late Frederic Killon, Percy Fitzgerald, and other Dickeflsian authorities have-said much the same thing. But tradition is hard to kill. Only the other day a friend, now in London, sent "Liber," as a \"Dickensian curio," a view of the bogus "Old Curiosity Shop." \ Algernon Blackwood, the author of that curious but clever novel, "John Silence," and, later, of that singularly charming story; "A Prisoner in Fairyland," has had a diversified career. Educated at a Moravian school in the Black Forest, ho went'to Canada when a young man of twenty, and had a brief experience of farming. Next followed an equally brief experience as editor of a Methodist magazine, after which ho started and lost money on a dairy farm, and then drifted to New York, where he was reduced to posing as a model. At last he got a berth as reporter on tho Now York "Evening'' Post," but tho salary was so meagre that ho and two other young Euglishinent lived three' in a room, cooking on a gas stove and often eating nothing but dried apples and raw rice. Some adventures out West followed, and then, after a new and happier experience of-New York journalism, Mr. Blackwood returned to England in'lß9B. It was not, however, until 1905,' being then engaged on a "dried ntilk business,"'that he turned'his attention to the writing of fiction./ Angus Hamilton, the well-known war correspondent (a_son-in-law_ of Piuero, tho playwright) was in his- chambers ono night, and getting interested in ono of Blackwood's manuscripts (a ghost story), carried it off "to a, publisher, and a few months, later a volume of similar stories was published. Then camo "The Listener" and "John Silence," and later 0n,,.-that' curiously. - story, "Jumbo," wliioh, by the way, was offered to _ fourteen different publishers before"" it. was finally accepted. Since then Mr. * Blackwood's literary career has been ono of almost uninterrupted success. Many of his stories have Switzerland as a background. In nearly all there is a strong suggestion of 'the supernatural. Cecil Rhodes was an omnivorous reader.' In his recently published "Cecil Rhodes, tho Man and His Work," Gordon Le Sueur,, at one time Rhodos's privato secretary, says that Rhpdes was specially fond of history and biography. "Besides his favourite Gibbon . . . Plutarch's Lives wore a source "of never-ending pleasure." Bryco's "American . Commonwealth," Milner's "England in Egypt," and Mahan on tho "Influenco of S6a Power," were read and re-read. Ho had a few of Thackeray's works at Grooto Schur, but did riot caro for Dickens. Ho said that he was not interested in tho' class of pcoplo Diokens wrote about. Kipling, of course, ivas a great favourite with Rhodes. In Elizabeth Lee's "Memoir of 'Ouida'" (Louise de la Ramee), just published by Fisher Unwin, it is stated that William Allingham, the poet, who saw her when she was living at Florence, described her in his diary as "dressed in green silk, with a clever, sinister face, her hair down, small hands and feet, and a voice like a carvingknife." Twenty years later as pungent an observer was impressed by her "tallowy skin, her straight black hair, red nose, her decollete gown of blue glistening silk, covered with lace resembling a curtain, the skirt very short to display her beautiful feet, cased in blue satin shoes." And oven that faithful witness was not of her own sex. A "Times" reviewer says that "Ouida's" "Friendship" split half Florence into quarters." "Liber" may be mistaken, but, if he remembers aright, Rome, not Florence, was tho background in "Friendship." "Ouida" was, it appears, born on-New Year's Day, 1839, at Bury St. Edmunds. Her father was a witty, unprepossessing Frenchman, who managed to teach his native language in the schools of Bury St. Edmunds and to remain "mysterious." He -would disappear for months at a time. Not even Mme. Ramee knew her husband's pursuits. It was all guesswork, and guess-work suggested "secret 'societies," Romance, then, though a little dubious in kind, watched over "Ouida's" cradle. She was precocious. At twelve she was already a politician, a scorner of Lojiis Napoleon, an ardent free-trader. At fourteen she wrote a history of England, and fell in love, not once, but as often as the tinder of her heart was enkindled by tho faintest spark of masculine kindness. This lean, lanky girl in a crinoline was already a devotee of nature, with a passion for dogs and horses. Her human sympathies were more or less restricted to one sex. When "Ouida" had reached her twentieth year, she contributed to Ainsworth's "Miscellany," her first story, entitled "Dashwond's Dog, or tho Derby and What Came of It." From Miss Lee's book I loarn that Whyte Melville, no mean judge of fiction, considered "Puck" "a first-rate, firstclass, first-flight novel," and Lord Lytton commended her style, She had no small opinion of her own work. Of "The Massarenes," in my humble opinion one of tho most vulgar and stupid of her novels, she wrote to her publisher that "ho would find it worth a thousand 'Trilby*.' " Which it certainly is not. "Ouida" is, I fear, but little lead nowadays, and, truth to tell, much that sho wrote is not worth reading. But she loved dogs and children, and "Puck" and "Two.Little Shoes" should make us pardon the extravagances and inanities of "Stratmore" and "Tricotrin," and the tawdry melodrama nf "Under Two Flag?." "Ouida" died at Florence in poor circumstances, ami almost, friendless save for her four Jfaitb- . ful dogs,