LIBER'S NOTE-BOOK

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2540, 14 August 1915, Page 9

LIBER'S NOTE-BOOK

The Clear Call, ■ A few months ago reference was made in these columns to some stirring war verses written by Dorothy M'Crae (Mrs. C. E. Perry), a well-known contributor to the Melbourne "Argus" and Sydney "Bulletin." Mrs.. Periy has now published a-second collection of war'poems. "The Clear Call, and Other Verses (Melbourne, George Robertson and Co.). The little poem celebrates the splendid achievements of the: Australians at Gaba Tepe,and'is a:simple and eloquent tribute to their gallant-ry. I quote the four last verses Thro', fires, of hell, the ridge was gained, .: . . i Thro' fires of hell,' the heights were kept;. : Australia's honour was maintained - ; 'As lighting, dying—on they'swept, r'. But ah I those creeping, piteous lines |■ Of ■ stretchers borne towards the shore, '. • . .Where wounded men made feeble sighs And-cheered' their comrades on once more. : | ;Who dreamed a, hundred years ago Our race so soon its spurs should ~ win? , The deeds they did -that day will show ' [What homes our men were nurtured ••• in. '-. ■ -- ■■ ..... Glad homes! Though some are sad to-day' . For those who will -return no more; Proud mothers, who thro' tears can v ' say: '-- , v - ,-•■ ■- -. » "Our sons helped Britain in tho ' war!" From another poem, "Tribute," I take'the following lines: — -, Killed at the front I; Glad sacrifice I ' Pride killed' the teairs in eyes. • Had he stayed sheltered in your arms, And'shut his ears .to war's alarms, Then lie had died' to' you, indeed; Biit >by his death he. lives; to lead v More -men -to: grea,ter victories. ' Oh, noble end! Glad sacrifice!: . . The, price of the- very tastefiuly produced; ',is-,a- : 6hilliSg^ ! Frank arifj[sß js . "erratic''''journalist, Frank' Harris, wlio once edited the "Fortnightly Review," ; and afterwards, for : a.. brief period,'-.the "Saturday Review," liut who -will be bettor 'known,, I'expect, 'to ino'st' of my. headers as the author of some clever short stories, is now ill New York, where he is : working }iard in the anti-British and pro-German interest. Harris left "England rather suddenly, as the result of; some contempt'of Court proceedings, and has now developed! into: a shamelessly open renegade and' traitor to his country. He 'has recently; written a book which, seems . to, out-Lissauer Lissauer's "Hymn of Hate" in the venom, of its references to Great .Britain and : ;.:the' cause of the Allies. \ Nevertheless, ;,he isdefended in the:,i;!'New. ,Statesman^'■ by that shameless; poseur; George* _Bern;ard Shaw, a sample; of. whose disloyal sophistry .may here be , . :; f . "The under-dog in a .fight has: I ' always had -Harris's. sympathy; he is. a. martyr to, pity. It may seem "strange to those "whose sympathies, are purely sensational that the sanguinary melodrama 'of Belgium should move him less the tragedy of-Germany, which has not yet reached its final act,'.' etc., etc. That .such -canting claptrap as this should' come from Shaw will not surprise .those who have: read his articles on the war, but that it should find SI ace in a decent English newspaper is ttlo short of scandalous. Those who, like "Liber,"'like good French novel, but who do not necessarily like it to be_ "naughtyi" must, have rejoiced not a little" to notice the otirious change which has .come t over-Frenoh fiction during the past'two or three years. This change,: a: decided change for the better, so many English readers will, think, is referred' to in a recent article, written by M. Jean Finot, for the Royal Society of Literature. M. Finot draws attention to what is a feature of the more recent French fiction,' namely, the -practical disappearance of "the one themo" that used to preoccupy so many writers and distress so many readers. -"French writore," says M. Finot, "roam to-day over a far wider field, and'apply their insight and inspirations to subjects other than tho. distorted home." And then M. Finot mentions such writers as Rosny, Lemaitre, Victor Marguerite, Maurice Barres, Paul Adam, and Octave Mirbeau as being "pre-eminent in this extension of scope, andl many othors less known, but of high merit, are following their example." Tie bare idea of Octave Mirbeau, the author ofi tho once famous or notorious "Memoires d'une Fille de Chambre," and "Le Oalvaire,"- writing in a style to be approved by Mrs. Grundy, is certainly rather staggering. But that a change has come—it began to ooraa long boforo the war—all who read French' novels know full well. As a matter of fact the average Frenoh nov-elist,-who formerly imagined, or affected to imagine, that the sexual passion was the one and only really dominant element in life, has now turned over that point of view to certain British novelists. It is a certain, class of Englisli, not Fronch fiction, tiat good paterfamilias lias nowadays to bo so careful of "leaving about."