LIBER'S NOTE BOOK.

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2805, 24 June 1916, Page 6

LIBER'S NOTE BOOK.

XiHa Professorial Humorist, taieilatest collcction of Stephen Leatoclc's humorous sketohes,' "Moonbeams from\the Larger Lunacy" (John Lane; per .Gollm and Co.),'contains some good fun, although perhaps, here and there, the mote may bo a triflo forced. Still, on the whole, the public has again good reason_ to be grateful to the learned au-thor-for is not Mr. .Leacock a profesM'Gill University, Montreal? —for liis satire is always good-natured, and ho would be indeed a dull soul who did not appreciate the author's wholesome. and pleasnnt humour. To more than; one of the skotches in this latest collection of sketches allusion ■ has already been made in this column. Specially amusing is the author's clever skit on the literary tastes of certain sections of tho reading public, and liis "Spoof: A Thousand-Guinea Prize Novel." is an excellent and telling satire on the main characteristics of tho average "bestseller." There is, too, somo capital fun in "Afternoon Adventures .it My Club." particularly in "Tho War. Mania of Mr. .links and Mr. Blinks," tho two club "war experts." ■ Who docs not know the club "war expert"? Says Professor Leacock of his friends Jinks and Blinks:— 2 think I liked best the wild excitement <jf thoir navar battles. Jinks gencr-

[ally fancied himself/a. submarine, - .and. Blinks noted the /.part' :><>f .. a, first-class battleship. Jinks', would pop .his perißcopo out of the water, take.'a'look at. Ijlinks merely, for tlio; fraction of a second, ■ and then, like* a flash, -would dive under water. Again , and . start' .firing- torpedoes. He fxplaihed. that; ho carried, six. But he was never; quiok;- enough, for : Blinks. One glimpse-of liis periscope miles ond miles away.was enoUgh. Blinks landed liim a contact: shell in the side, sank him with all-hands, and then lined his j'ards with men and cheered. I have known Blinks' sink,. Jinks -at.two-miles; -six- miles, and once—in the <-lulr billiard room just after the batllo of the Falkland, Islands—he got him fair and eauare at ten nautical miles.' : Jinks, of course, claimed that lie. was not sunk. He - had' dived! He was -two-.; hundred feet: - under water quietly smiling at Blink's "through his periscope. In fact, tlio; number of things that Jinks had learned to-. do • through his periscope passes imagination.. But, "what I 'noticed chiefly about the war mama of Jinks and Blinks was their splendid indiffleronce to slaughter. Theyhad Bono, into the war with a grim xcso- ™' 10 i u to ' figllt ;t ollt to a finish. IfBlinks, thought to. terrify Jinks by threatening -to burn London,: he litt-lo knew his ™>n. ~AII right-,"., said . Jinks,. taking a fresh light for his ;cigar, "burn : it! By fio, you- destroy,!, let us say, two million of my 'women ' and children! Very ' good: Am I injured by that?. No, sir..You merely .stimulate. me to recruiting."

• - Moonbeams' from' tlio Larger. Lunacy" is well worthy a place on the same shelf which contains "Literary Lapses," "Sunshine Sketches from a Little Town," and others of Professor Leacocli's earlier and capital books, jla- a dispeller of tho "blues," a dose of leacock is . almost ejual to one of Jacobs's amusing waterside yarns. Stray Leaves, - The May "Bookman". (Hodder. and Stoughton) is a Charlotte Bronto Centenary Number. Katherine Tynan writes on "The Real Charlotte." The articlo is somewhat "twaddly." Such highlycoloured sentences as " 'Jane Eyre' lives ■ in my mind like a quivering and a passionate -flame; like a red rose,"' greater and more beautiful than any rose ever was yet," would, I fancy, have been little to the taste of : Charlotte Bronte, and when Miss Tynan belittles the father! of the famous Haworth trio, the-Rev. Patrick Bronte, as being "no bettor and uo worse than the other, early .and midVictorian fathers, who, like cuttle-fish, exuded a fluid, inky black, which darkened their atmosphere," she displays a most lamentable ignorance of the real character of the head of the Brorifco family. There are some interesting illustrations to the article, but the latter, regarded either m a critical or a biographical study, is pitifully poor stuff.

Talking about Charlotte Bronte, I have received a pamphlot, published at the offices of the Dunedin "Evening Star," reproducing a long and ably written centenary article in the author of "Jane Eyre," written by Mr. J. R. Sinclair, formerly a much esteemed member of the N Legislative Council,, Mr. Sinclair's .article is agreeably informative, land is immeasurably better written than' that by Miss Tynan in the "Bookman." Those of my readers who are interested in the Bronte sisters and their works should make a point of procuring a copy of Mr. Sinclair's article. My own. copy I am pasting in at the end of Mrs. Gaskell's famous biography, which already contains two interesting' letters to "Liber" from Mr. Clement I£. Shorter, who is <ui admitted authority on the Brontes; and who frequently' publishes, in his always readable ..."Literary Letter" in" London "Sphere," new arid : interesting 'facts about the .author ot V'Jano Eyre", and her sisters,. ~ ..J; .. .

, A curious fact, hitherto either ignoredor suppressed by Wordsworth's biographers, is . brought to light in Professor' M'Lean's new and most exhaustive 'study of the famous "Lako Poet" and his works.; Those .who,have - read-Dorothy' Wordsworth's "Diaries" have often been puzzled by a mysterious person frequently ■mentioned therein as a certain • "Annette," from whom letters were recoived or to whom others were written. I now learn, from Professor Harper's book, that ."Annette" was the daughter ,of a French' Royalist, with whom Wordsworth -was in love, and by whom he had a daughter named Caroline.! It was quite a common thing,- in - my youth, to hear people deploring the fact that Byron and Shelley had contracted, irregular alliances, and it was the fashion with the goody-goodies of the period to point to Wordsworth as ft model of all the moralities. Alas, alas, "Daddy" Wordsworth, so it now appears, had also his little love affairs.. After all, lie was but human. But you.will find nothing about Anr.etto—;ui<i Caroline—in Professor Knight's biography of Wordsworth, long the accepted authority on the poefs. life, nor in ' the monograph on Wordsworth, written..by the late F. W.H. Myers, in the "English' Men of Letters' Series."