LIBER'S NOTE BOOK

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2652, 24 December 1915, Page 9

LIBER'S NOTE BOOK

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. W.K., Petono.—You should get' ..The Diversions of a Naturalist" a t either Whitcombe's or Mackay's. J.S. (Hawera): As I have said before, I cannot undertake to identify poetical quotations. F. B. (Hastings) : Compliments appreciated, but your eulogy is too generous to quote. M.D (Wellington): "A Surgeon in Khaki" was reviewed in Dominion -. .last .Tuesday. An additional supply of copies is, I hear, expected by local .booksellers about middle of January.' The superstition that there is something specially to be admired in the German university system, and -the delusKin that, as a class, the German intellectuals were opposed to the war, dies hard.with _certain English writers. Thus I find William Archer, the draraatio critic and translator of Ibsen, writing: "Whence comes the amazin" delusion that identifies German culture with Kaiserism and -Kruppism ? It is the University of Essen we want to get at. For Gottingen, Bonn, Heidelberg, and Leiptsig we have. but respect and admiration. But sure- " j.,. 1s r * Archer who possesses the most "amazing delusion," for the war has produced" overWhelming evidence that the cause of' „ ,ensm and Kruppism" has from nojlass in Germany received a more whole-soiled support than from the j Herren Professoreri of the Hun universiS , Hardl >", -i V'-eek has passed by -Without some leading German scientist, philosopher, or litterateur publishing an outrageous denunciation of England. ,'s this class of German which went out of its way to justify and gloat over the Lusitania horrors. All through tho .war our bitterest-enemies have -been tound m those institutions for which Mr. Archer lias "nothing but respect and admiration. A more wrong-head-, ed,. misleading and inaccurate apology for the German intellectuals could not be. iouiid than that' which Mr. Archer has made public. Not even Bernard bhaw has produced a more mischievous utterance. But Archer belongs to that curious class of Englishmen who pride themselves being "cosmopolitan" in their ideas and views, and even ivJien their country is at war B eom to .take pleasure in discovering excuses tor the enemy,' 1 French papers of the first week in October record the death of that brilbant but somewhat eccentric "writer essayist, critic, poet, typical French homme de lettres, Remy do Grounnont. Dor; many years de Gourmont was a 'contributor •to -the well-known magazine • 'Le Mercure".' de France," : in jWhich periodical appeared his "Masques," a series of - almost .ferocious satires on the men and movements of his-day, and his "Promenades Litteraires. Only one, I thiuk, of his books has been translated into English This .was that curious fantasy, "A Nicht iri the Lujembovirg."' M. de Gourmont lived the life of a.modern hermit upon Vu . floor of l an old-house in the; Rue des Saints Peres, in the Faubourg St. Germain. His literary work had something, if not much, 'in the vein of Anatolo France. The war killed him just as the horrible events of 1870 400 ! for Tlieophile Gautier. .Those who, like "Liber," eiijoved the amusing sketches of naval life, ""Naval Occasions;" will be glad to learn that their author, Bartimeus,- is • publishing a second series, under the title "A Tall Ship."-In-the UniteS States, Mr. Edgar Beechor Bronson's stories of Western and-frontier lifejhave long enjoyed great popularity. To .'the majority of English and Australasian readers they are, I fancy, comparatively unknown. They are now, however, being issued in a Oheap edition, and should- find many interested readers in this country. From Messrs. Hodder.ahd Stoughton (per S. and W, . Mackay), I have received 'of Mr. Bronson's stories, ■ Rod-Blooded, or Tho Heroes of the Frontier," and "The Reminiscences of a Ranchman." Both books deal jnainly with the wild, exciting life led by tho earlier settlers in the far Western States, in the first years of. the groat cattle-rearing industry. Adventures with Indians, Mexican borrothieves, gamblers, and "bad-men" gen-erally,-together with other exciting episodes incidental to the. pioneer's life aro set forth in these storis in a highly .dramatic, and- interestins style. In 'The Red Blooded" are included a few stories, of adventure in Spain and Algeria, but the most part' .the background is. the wild and woolly West (Price Is. 6d. each). • ' ' — -