LIBER'S NOTE BOOK.

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3154, 4 August 1917, Page 11

LIBER'S NOTE BOOK.

A Bulwark Against Germany. In view of the conference reported this_week as having been held at Corfu to arrange a future consolidation o* the Southern Slavs in a Greater Serbia/ an which Herbs, Cronts and Slovenes would bo merged under the Karageorgevitch dynasty, fiio appearance of Professor Bogumil Vosnjak's book, "A Bulwark Against Germany: The Fight of the Slovenes, tho Western Branch of tho. Jugo-Slavs, for National Existence" (London: George Allen and Univin), is opportune and welcome. The Slovenes are a nation of about a million and a half in umber, infiaoiting the Austrian provinces of Carinthin, Styria, Carniola,, and tho Aus-trian-Illyrian littoral. Much of this territory is mountainous, and in their passionate love of freedom Iho Slovenes flnve much in common with the Swiss. 'ITio author, evidently a man of great historical erudition, reminds i:s that from the beginning of tho Middle Ages down to present great war, the v.-estornmost section of the Jugo, or Southern Slavs, have waged a bravo struggle against German Imperialism. He pleads-that in the Jugo-Sliiv freedom of the future tho Slovenes shlfll have a fuTI part, and elaborates at some lougth and most convincingly lug argumont that the establishment of a strong Jugo-Slav State would i prove a useful .bulwark against' .German

aggression in .the Balkans and the"Mittfl Europa" project generally. He is oieai-iy anxious that Italy shall not territorially benefit in the regions inhabited by his race. The book, which is accompanied By a large and very useful map, shoujil be read by all who arq students of tue Balkans question and its future devoJopment after the war. (N.Z. price ss. 6d.) Tho Master Problem.

"God prosper this book for the bettering of humanity" is the closing and impressive sentence of a brief foreword, by which the Bishop of Birmingham prefaces Mr. James Jlarchant's book, "The Master Problem" flxmdon: Stanley Paul and to.). Mr. Marchant is a director of ■the National Council of Public Morals for Eace Begcneration, and Secretary of tiio National Birth-rato Commission. His book is devoted to a consideration of that venerable, but, alas, ever-present problem, the Social Evil, and is of a most exhaustive character, being amply "documented," and setting forth facts and figures which deserve tho most serious consideration of all who are interested m the moral and physical welfare of the i j, race - Jlr - Marchant gives ' a ghastly picture of tlie whit slave traffic, especially as it is carried on in the United States and in South America, and exposes the utter futility of the onco much-vaunted "regulation" system. He also sets forth the preeent state of the • law as to prostitution and .venereal disease, and ends by an eloquent and wellreasoned plea for a more- earnest consideration of tho ovils arising from immorality. Mr. Harohanfs is one of the most exhaustive works on the subject which have appeared for some time past. Stray Leaves.

New Zealand Stevensonians may bo interested to hear that Graiiam Balfour, Stevenson's nophew, and official bioBTapher, has been, knighted. The "real Stevenson" ho did not give us. .' Sir Sydney Colvin might ,give it, if he liked, but the probability is, that btiiig now well advanced in years, he will never add to those interesting "introductions" he wrote for the "Letters." Sir Graham Balfour has been for some years a leading official in the British Education, Department. Another Stevenson item is the winning of the D.S.O. by Lieuten-ant-Colonel A. M. Balfour, a cousin of R.L.S., and a grandson of the Dr. Lewis Balfour, so long the Minister of Colinton, a, name very familiar to those conversant with the record of the novelist's childhood.

A prophet has no honour in his own country. 1 read in recent Home papers of tho stoning of Mr. Stephen Gwynn, M.P. for Galway, by a crowd of Sinn Fein members. What an extraordinary country is Ireland. Here is a man, an educated Irish gentleman, who has devoted his whole life - to "-xtolliug, in verse, and prose—and what graceful and beautiful verse and prose!—the beauties of Ireland, and the virtues and wrongs of the Irish people. • There is no Irishman of to-day ot whom the Irish people should be.prouder, and to wham,, they should be more grateful. Gwynn's books, "Highway and Byways in Donegal and "The Fair Hills of Ireland," his monographs on .Robert Kmmet and Tom Moore, are worthy, of being considered Irish classics. All his life ho has latsoured, at great self-sacrifice of worldly interests, for the' Home Bide cause. And yet he is "stoned" by tho Sinn Fein. No doubt his "high qlfenco and misdeamour" was .that in 1915 he joined tho Leinster. Regiment as a private, and, later, was appointed lieutenr ant in the Connanght Bangers.

In honour of the American Alliance, the . June "Bookman" (Hoddcr and Stoughton) has special articles on Henry D. Thoreau, the Concord philosopher, poet, and naturalist, and William Dean Bowells, the "Dean of American Letters" he has been called. Thureau is best known to English readers by his "Walden, or Life in the Woods." Attention was first drawn in England to the book by an article by George Eliot, which appeared in the "Westminster Review" of January, 1856. Thoreau was a disciple and friend.of Emerson, who had a high opinion of his writings. Mr. C. E. Laurence's article on Howells !s mildly interesting as'a literary appreciation, but a few biographical details might well havo been added. Howelle is in hie eighty-first year, and only recently published a novel, "Tho Leatherwood God," of which the American Press epoko very highly. ' But, as with Mr. Henry James, his ber-t work was done in middle age. Some rtf his earlier, and quite short, stories, such as "A Chance Acquaintance" and "Their Wedding Journey," are well worth reprinting. His best long novel is, I consider; ''The Rise of Silas Laphatn." I am .surprised that Mr. Laurence's article raakes.no mention of Mr. Howells's two most delightful books on Italy, "Italian Journeys" and "Venetian Days." They were written when the author was American Consul at Venice, and are as readable to-day as when 'they were .first published. Home papers received last week chronicle tho death of Miss Jano Barlow, author of "Bog Land Sketches," "Irish Idylls," and other sketches of Irish ps*sant life and character, written in a simple and direct but charming literary style. Miss Barlow was to Ireland what Barrie and lan M'Laren were to Scotland in the nineties of tho last century. Some of her earlier work appeared in tho "British Weekly," whose editor, Dr. —now Sir William—Robertson Klcol, gavo, it may be xemembered, Barrie a helping hand. Her father was vice-pro-vost of Dnblin University. , A writer who is always popular with the fair sex, Muriel Hine, has just published a new .story, "Autumn," with John Lane. It is well reviewed in the Homo papers. Miss Hine is, it may lie rcmemberecT, the author of "Earth" and "April Panhasard." Tho late Mr. Edward Thomas, to whose dealth I alluded a week or two ago, was not generally known as a poet. He had written, it appears, not a little verse since the war began, -under the nom de pluino of Edward Eastaway. Some of his work appeas in the "Animal of New Poetry for 1917," recently published by Constables. In T. W. Croslund's "Collected Verse" is included "Tho Diners," one of the strongest satires yet written en tlie wellgroomed, self-indulgent, young EuglisL shirker. Crosland has a stinguig; pen, as those who remember his Outlook Odes published in the "Outlook' a few years ago, will agree. From his sennet *Tllo Ass," which is In. the same strain as the much-quoted "Diners," I take the following lines:— "Clicerfullest wight! It is his conetant whim To beam on Fate. All that he aeks is love, A salad, a glass of wine, music that charms, A book, a ■ friend,: and "the blue sky above"— And underneath, tho everlasting aims Of them that toil and groan and bleed for him." • ■ English papers report the death ol Mr. H. tfcilding Hall, whose fascinating boor- o:\ Burma, "The Soul of a People,' achieved much popularity. _ Last year ho wroto a siiigularly beautiful book on tho war. "For England." He was for many years in the Indian Civil Service. Just' before his death, Mr. Hall had completed a now work, "The Way of Peace, in which ho endeavours to reveal the "true soul of England." ■ ; A notable addition to Nelson's Library (Is. 6t1.) is a, volume of "Self-Selected Essays," by Augustino Birrcll. Mr. Birroil .lias picked out what ho considers the plums , from his now famous books of essays, "Obiter Dicta", (two scries), "Men, Women, and Books,' r.nd "Ke? Judicatae." Booklovers of slender purse should welcome tho selection. As a statesman, Mr. Birrell may or may not have been a failure. But as an essayist, on literary subjepts,. ho is easily, first "■mongst modern, English .writers.

SOME RECENT FICTION "Sage-Bush Stories." "Sage-Bush Stories" (Eveleigh Nash, per Whitcombe aud Tombs) is the title of a collection of nineteen short stories, mainly dealing with life in tho Western states of America and British Columbia, trom the pen of that always vifiorous and popular, writer, Mr. Frederick Niven. ihose who only know Mr. Niven by those two fine novels, "Ellen Adair" and "Justice of the Peace," will find, to their delight, that Mr. Niven is just as much at home amongst the cowboys, eheepranchers, and miners of tho "wild and woolly West" as he is in latter-day Edinburgh and Glasgow. Drama, sometimes tragedy, is agreeably jostled in these lively yarns by some excellent comedy,' and the buoyancy and the vigour of the stories are most engaging. Partners of the Night. Lovers of "detective" fiction of an even more than usually sensational character, would do well to speculate in a copy of Mr. Leroy Scott's "Partners of the wight (Eveleigh Nash, per Whitcombe and Tombs). The scene is laid in New York, the leading character beinc a clever young deteotive who runs foul of his chief, the latter secretly in league with a band of criminals of varied accomplishments in evil-doing. Piquancy is added to the story of young Clifford's long, and for a time seemingly hopeless, task of exposing official corruption and rascality, by the introduction of a love interest, the young lady being the daughter of a peculiarly audacious, if amusing, scoundrel, and hie partner in several big coups. All tremendously sensational and ' improbable, but none the less highly exciting. "The Man Market." "The Man Market," by Mrs. Gertie S. Wentworth-Jaines (Werner, Laurie, Ltd.), deals with the experiences of a young married couple who get oa well enough until extravagance brings about squabWas and a separation. The husband is a peculiarly selfish, and, in other and far worse directions, objectionable creature, a "beauty man," who lives on money borrowed from more than middleaged ladies of the ultra smart set. I confess I can scarcely understand how the wife, although herself a vain, selfr indulgent, and by no means admirable, oharaoter, could bring herself to forgive.' him and consent to a reconciliation. Much of the story is in tho very worst possible taste, a fact of which the author 'herself appears to be quite unaware. Asa picture of tho idle, empty life led by the parasites of modern English society, tho story has, however, some merit. (Heviews of other novels held over.)