LIBER'S NOTE BOOK

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3185, 8 September 1917, Page 11

LIBER'S NOTE BOOK

A Dozen Readable Old Novels. In theso days when good new novels are few and' far between 1 wonder why more book buyers do not turn, to some.bygone favourites. Most of these can be purchased in cheap editions. Tho other day, being asked by a friend to recommend a dozen good old novels—going far enongh back, to avoid the probability of their having already been read—l tciitured upon the following selection:—John Sheridan Le/Fanu, "Uncle Silas' : Wilkie Collins, "The Moonstone"; Besaut and. Rico, "Golden Butterfli"; Henry Seton Merriman, "The Sowers ; Bulwer Lytton, "Night and Morning"; Charles Keade, "The- Cloister and the' Hearth. Anthony Trollope, "The Small House at Allimrtnn"; Marion Crawford, "Sarracinesca"; Arnold Bennett, "Tho Old Wives Talc"; George Borrow, ' Lavengro ; Thomas Hardy. "Far From the Madding Crowd"; Henry Kingsley, Ravenshoe. It is a queer jumble. I admit, an* it is quite possible that the. reader who rejoices, say, in Lytton's "Nlfht and Morning" may jib at "I.avengro, and that he or she 'who found escape from wnr weariness in Wilkie Collins's Moonstone" would fail to perceive the homely ■charm of Trollope. Personally I am blessed with a taeto so eclectic that each and every one of the books on the foregoing list gives me almost equal pleasure. What astonished me, however, was to find that my friend, who is a poshve ""orger" of latterdny fiction, and regularly haunts the book shons'on 'steamer flays" when the new books are put on the tables, harlread but one of the books on my list. That, to do him credit, was j Charles -Reade's masterpiece, the hnest historical romance, to my way of thinking, in the English language, Esmond alone excepted. He had, however, never read a line of Wilkio Collins, and yet he devours the "detective" notion of the day; he knew not Thomas Hardy, although he has Toad Eden Philpotts: he had not even heard of "Tho Golden Butterfly" or '/Ready Money Moruboy ; he hae yet to make acquaintance with Henry Seto'n Memnmn. and Marion Crawford, who in the Sarracinesca series mate: modem Italy such a reality to us. What a splendid Teserve of auiet pleasure ho has in store! There is no need tor him and thousands of others to'Vio eternally craving for the "latest novel when the past cah furnish such a rich stock of delight. I do r.ot say that all the novels in mv list would coma under the headin" of "great fiction." They-do not; but for the most part there are'few novels of to-day that ran better serve to dispel that ennui which sooner or later comes to. most of us. Tho list was hastily jotted down. Upon second thoughts a, totally different and a much hotter one might easily be'compiled, but I give it for-what it is worth. It 13 undesirable to carry out tho Hazlittkn maxim of always reading an old book when a new one is announced, but undoubtedly tho craze for fiction "hot from the press, so to speak, may be-carried to extremes.

"When My Ship Comes In." I am always fond of adding to my. collection of verses which sing the praise or book-collecting and the pleasures of reading. My moat reeont find, which 1 have copied .out for the benefit of my readers,' ia an extract from some verses entitled "When My Ship Coma? In' which. I find in a, little volume of poems; "Some Verses," by "F.S.,' published at half-a-croym by Messrs. Sedgewick and Jackson. Some- of the vorses are in the Calverlcy vera, and the author has clearly t a great gift iorparody. Hero is the extract:— One room I'll "have that's'full of shelves For nothing but books; aud the books themselves • . Shall be of the< sort that a man will chooso If ho loves that good old world γ-erusk: The kind of book that you, open by chance • , . . To'browse on the page with a leisurely glance, ■ . Certain of finding something now, Although you bavo Tead it leu times I don'rinean books like "Punch" in Or all the volumes of Notes and.QiierBut those whe'rein, without effort, your Fall where the favourite passage lies, Knowing the page and exact position--1 It's'never the saino in another editionThe Vicar of Wakefield, and Evelina, Elia, The Epoiet, Emma, Utriona, Fuller and Malory. Westward Ho.! And the wonderful story of-Darnel DeAnd taak Walton, and Gilbert White, Mid ploys and poetry left and right No glass doors, and no "fumed oak : Plain deal and fumed by myself with

Stained/if at all, to a pleasant brown, AVith ledges and places for putting books And* "there I'll sit by a blazing Ing. With , a sweet old briar and a glass or An/read my Pickwick, Poiulonnis, Huck Finn ' . ■ , Cosily therc-wlien my ship comes in. Stray Leaves. Germany's impudently deliberate lying as to Uio causes of Hie war continues to be mercilessly exposed. An elaborate inrniirv intn tiio circumstances which led In fiprniiiiiT's declaration of war iiwunst Franco'is 1.0 be published by Messrsllodder and Rtoughton under llin I Ho "Tho Lio or tho 3rd August, 1011. Iho author of iho book, who' remains anonymous, bas been rivwi access to confidential documents in the possession of the French Minister of War. proving Baron von Sc-hon'B allegations that Germany's declaration of war was justified, by hostile ads of France on the frontier to 1m a deliberate falsehood. Statements, in ho pnemv Tress nro aha oiiotcd to show that Baron von Schon's allegation? were reproduced at the time throughout face Amongst Iho many EiirHsli' journalists and authors who liuvo laid down the pen lictnko up Iho sword in Hip good lieht. for libnrtv, iTuth, and juetice is Mr. C L Graves, the wMI-known member of "Mr Punch's" stuff, and author of several clover bonks of humorous versehis "llawarden Tlovnco" is- really n lassie in the difficult art of parody. Mr Grave, has just m.blishyd a hltln volume of verse-"War's Surnrwes.'The tone is mainly. humorous but a sterner.note is sometimes struck. ■ Inns in "Tho Soldier Scholar,' Mr. Gi.ues writes:

I've spent four months in oamp with- men, And never onco regretted jOininE: Tho sword is mightier llinu the iieii Of tho?e who cultivate phrase-coining; And if I had l«n lives to Bive. Par sooner would I risk tho eiviHE Ot ov'ry one of them than lira. And lose all reasons for my living. It is some time now einee we had a. now book, either of verso or jrose, from tho graceful pen of Mr. Austin Dafcson. A new collection of oaajs V the author of "Kißhteonth Century Vignettes and its many delightful successors in the same genre, should, thorofore, be welcomed. The new volume is entitled, A Bookman's Budget." . The author a modest description of his latest production is "tho disconnected and possibly contradictory commonplace boot ot a journeyman o£ letters. ■

Tho'lute Lord Acton to mi industrious letter-writer, tuid n volume of Gcleistiona from his correspondence, to l>t> pnblished shortly by Ixnigmiiir's, bliouUl afford Eouio pleasunt rending. Tlioro aro suro lu bo quilo a number of books on tho now fiimoua Kussiiin EoTolution. Ono of the earliest of llio.se will bo from tho iwn of a brilliant young American journalist (of Kussinn-Juwish extraction), Isaac Marcosson, vho was present nt Pefrogrnd (iiirinjj Uip. Bevolution, of which ho gives a iirst-hand study. Sir Arthur Quiller Couch ("Q.") hna written a short biography of Arthur John Butler, iho famous Dante scholar, who dted in 1910. Butler vns an ardent Gladstonian, and a prominent proBoer. Ho had an almost: porsonal hatred of "Dizzy," recording in his diary on the day of tho great, blatesnian's death (April 10, 1881): Probably no man of our lime did moru harm to English politics; rather, 1 think, from a cynical contempt for all English ways of thought than from any bad disposition, lie was probably a Jew, or rather it nnt'an. at heart, to the end of his days, and far more. Asiatic than European, lie dial with one hand clasped hy two poers v.hom lie had created, and tho other by a quack doctor. . . . His last intelligible words were: "1 am overwhelmed."