LIBER'S NOTE-BOOK

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2781, 27 May 1916, Page 11

LIBER'S NOTE-BOOK

Somo Stevensoniana. . In a recent issue of "Tho Scotsman" are given some interesting particulars of the sale, in New York, in February last, of the third and concluding part of the oollection of autograph letters of Kbbert Louis Stevenson, which belonged to Mrs. Salisbury Field, of Santa Barbara, California, who inherited it on tho death of her mother, Mrs. R. L. Stevenson. The fraud, total of the sale -was than ■£16,250. Many of the letters were addressed to Stevenson's father and mother, and some of them aro not to lie found in the two. volumes of: "Letters to liis Family and Friends," edited by Sidney Colvin.' As a staunch admirer of Trollops, especially the Barsetshire Novels, I am specially interested in a. letter written by Stevenson from Paris in February, 1878 (ho was then 28, and acting as private secretary to Fleming Jenkin, who was a juror at the International Exhibition held at l'aris in that year. Do you know who is my favourite author-just now?' How are tho mighty fallen! Anthony Trollope. I batten on him; he is nearly wearying you, and yet he never does; or rather he never does, until he Beta near the end, when he begins to -wean you from lilm so that you'ro aB pleased to he done with him as yon thought you would be sorry. ... I have just finished tho "Way of tho World"; there is only ono person in it, no, there are three—who are nice: the wild American woman,. and tw» of tho dissipating young men. . . . But what a triumph i 3 Lady ■ Carbury,!, That is real, sound, strong, ißenuine. work: the man who could do that if he had the courage might have written a fino book, etc. As a matter of fact, in "Tho Way of the World" Trollope is very far from his best., As a Scot and one to whom the. peculiar admixture of clerical and coun-try-house society which is v,o cleverly described in, say, "Framley Parsonage," and "Barohoster Towers," would necessarily bo uncongenial, Stevenson might not have cared for these latter stories, but to me they are, ,'n their own tray, just as valuable memoircs pour , servir for the social history of Victorian Kngland ■ as wore, say "The Newcomes" and "David Copperfield." In "Tho Way "J of the World" Stevenson may have had ! the bad luck to strike "a poor Trollope." lint even there he had to admit I'rollopo's fine grasp of character, when lie cared to trouble himself to take .-.'■ a! pains if clothe his puppet with the ■•'■"ibiniice of reality. Three years later, id a letter from pfatz; where, having bi-on lo America in the meantime and morried, >>~v.«n c on bed John Addingtou Symorids i..* iinighbour and friend, ho mentions tho II !U.:|if\''y sum which ha received for I "Virsinibas Puerisqu/s,-".. to many Stev-r-'iS'.in admirers one of the best of - his : "I only got," he writes, ".ten for 1 . ir. Puer.' I could take Paul (Kegan ! pan!. the publisher), and knock his head Dljaimt the wali." But of cwirse Stevenson nod been paid, and .vrell paid, for I'l.v 'r«>iyv un their original appearance in "Cornhill JJi.lsn7.ille." fhoti edited by Th.'idc'-v.'iy'K t.\ Mr; after-'n-urd:- Sir Leslie Stephen, an J !a(nr on he I't'.'i'i'.'eri rcT'Jsir lviyaUk*. which must, t-Me ssgwcite, have ti-.sdo up 3. sub. rlfrti.il -i!i.ou:it. In ai'-vV'r lett^r, this time to Ms ry.otfi•-•r, &<• /nr-ii' 'o;i- thai h* is 'Vn-'ini? 'CUri&m jlttrlowo' with 'nli !he pleasure ths -.vorld, ... It is the cleverest

book in some ways that can bo imagined, and deals with so many absorbing problems from different points of view." Herein Stevenson was m agreement with Macaulay, but personally I favour Omar Fitzgerald's opinion •on Kic'hardson's noveta, namely, that they are only readable when they most liberally condensed. Despite Montaigne's dictum as to the folly of attempting to condenso the oontonts of a good toot, Fitzgerald tried his hand on Richardson's masterpiece. In one of his looters, to. his friend John Allen, he wrote: The piece of literature I really could benefit posterity with, 1 do believe, is an edition of that wonderful and eKirrnvatrng "Clarissa Harlowe," and this X would effect with a pair of scissors ■ only. It wonld not bo too- lone as it. is, if it were oil equally good, but pedantry comes in, and might, I think, bo cleared away, leaving tile remainder one of the great original works of the world 1 in this line. Lovelaco is the wonderful oha-racter, for art, and thero is some uratid tragedy in it, too. And nobody reads it! . . . As a matter of fact, Fitzgerald commenced an abridgment of the novel, but gut tired of tho task and gave it up. To most people Stevenson's opinions on Scott's novels will be more interesting, than his criticism on tho chef d'oauvro of eighteenth, century sentiment. In a letter from Hyeres, in ISS-1, ha says, inter alia: , Has Davie never read "Guy Jfonncrirs," "Eob Boy," or "The Antiquary"? All of which, are worth three "Vi'dnrlays." 7 think "Kenilworth" better flum "tl'svpr. Icy;" "Nigel," too, and "Quf-ntin Uu;-. ward" about as good. But it shows au na piece of insight to prefer "Wavufley." fe it. is different, end though not quite- coherent, better worked in parts than almost any oth-T; surely more carefully. It is nndoniable that the love of tho slac-dash and thn shoddy 'grew upon Scott with success. Perhaps it does on many of us. ... However, I in Patrick Walkor'a phrase, for an old condemned damnable error!" . . . Those who avoid (or seek to avoid) Soott's facility are apt to be conr.i ni.cJl r ftw>4nlap'««4 tortarirc their style to get in more of life. V And to many tho extra significance' docs not redeem the strain. . ' My final quotation shall be from a letter to his father (ratten from Bournemouth in 1885), in which Stovenson makes pathetic allusion to Carlylo-.— Yes, Carlyle was ashamed of himself as few men have been; and let all carpers look at. what he did. :' Ho prepared all. these papers for publication with his own hand; all his wile's complaints, all the evidence of his own misconduct. Who else would have done so much? Is repentance, which God accopis, to h<vve no avail with men? Nor even with the dead? I, have heard too much awinst tho thrawnj discomfortehle dog. Dead ho is, and we may be Elad of it: but he was a. better man than most of us, no less patently than he wos-a worse. To ftll the world with whining is against all my viows: Ido not like impiety. Bnt-bnt— there are two Bides to all things, and the old scalded baby has his: noblo side.—l am, etc. ' ; '

Old Favourites. Tho next compiler, of an. anthology of book verse, verse in praise'of 'books and reading (two excellent collections of this kind of verso have already appealed in William Roberts's "Book Verse" anil Gleeson White's "Book Song") siwuld not fail to includo a poem entitled, "When My Ship Comes In,"- which- appears in a little volume, "Some Verse," written by Mr. P. Sidgwick, and published by the firm of Sidgwick and Jackson, of which the author is a member. The book has not yet reached New Zealand,- but a por--tio-j of the poem is quoted l>y Mr. C. K. Shorter in a recent number' of "Tho Sphere": One room I'll have that's full of shelves For nothing but books; and the books • themselves . Shall be of tho sort that a man Trill choose 'If he loves that good old word, PERUSE: The kind of book that you open- by chance To browse on the paje with a leisurely . glance, . Certain of finding something new, Although you have na.-d it ten times through., I don't mean books like "Punch" in series, Or all the volumes of "Notes and Queries"; But those wherein, without effort,' your

eyes Fall where the favourite oasraKe lies, Knowing the page and exact positionIt's never the same in another edition!— "The Vicar of Wakefield," and "Evelina," "Elia," "The Egoist," "Emma," "Oatriona, Fuller and Malory, "Westward Ho!"

And the wonderful story of Do.niel Defoe, And Izaak Walton, and Gilbert White, And plays and poetry left and- right! '

I wonder how many of the good folkwho gobble up novel after novel haveread ten lines of the "Natural History of Selborne," or one of Walton's "Lives," still less have even a Ijoiving acquaintance with the "Worthies" of quaint old Fuller, or the Arthurian romances -if Malory? The Rcnuine book-lover, as apart ; from tho insatiate devourer of fiction, is, I fear, a fast disappearing. Bpecies. And_ yet there are still "left a, few of the faithful. Loafing lazily under the .trees in the pretty little park at Queenstown a few months ago, I suddenly heard a voice declaiming somo stately verse. JW people there are 'nowadays who cultivato the good old habit of reading aloud; fewer still are there who would dare to do so in a semi-public place. But there are esceptions to every rule, and for •me this particular esception ivas alike so surprise-laden <ind delightful that I let the enthusiast finish (it was an extract from Keata's "Sleep and Poetry,") the lovely lines commencing: "What is mors gentle than a wind in summer?" that were beinc declaimed, and forthwith affronted all convention, and introduced | myself. A-delightful gossip on books and men was the result.