LIBER'S NOTE BOOK

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 152, 16 March 1918, Page 11

LIBER'S NOTE BOOK

Balzac, Dumas, and Scott. In the course', of Lord Morley's 'Reminiscences" it is related that Mr. Asquith, when .taking part in a discussion ns to what author onn would take to a "desert island," declared for Balzac. I yield to no one in my admiration of the colossal genius to whom we owe the "Comedic Humaine," but I am afraid that Mr. Asquith would grow very weary of Balzac were his literary sustenance and recreation confined to that author. For my own part, although I am glad I have road nearly all the most notable of Balzac's novels, he is not an author to whom I would turn very readily nowadays. "Lc Pere Gonot," "La Cousino Botte," "Eugenie Grandet," "Lo Cure do Tours" —thoso are all really great novels, novels which display Bnlzac's almost uncanny talent of penetrating the innermost workings of the human mind. But Balzac's cold, almost cynically unemotional analyses, end, with mo at least, by becoming terribly renellant. Give me rather the gay, geiiial humour of Dumas. My tastes in literature are far too eclectic for me ever to bo> :t "ono author" devotee, but the "desert island',' test would bo far less trying with, say, tho D'Artagnan and Valois romances than with the realism of Balzac's masterpieces. Eveii so devoted a Balzacian as Professor Georgo Saintsbury has had to confess that with increasing ago ho has found Balzac almost unreadable, whereas the groat English critic's allogianco to Thackeray —ho re-reads "i'endennis" and "Th'o Nowcomes" every year—has not abated ono iota. For my own part, in thoso days of world turmoil and tumult, I am pinning my faith, in tho way of a literary nepenthe, to—Scott! On a recent holiday I happened across a copy of "Tho Antiquary," dusty and dirty, left in a boardinghouse smoking-

room by someone who no doubt preferred Le Queux mid Philips Oppenheim, and picking it up in a sparo halfhour, w£s soon reading the fine old story with so intense a delight that "Lights out, sir, please," three hour* later found me still entranced. Since then I have re-read "Quentin Durward"—almost, if not quite, as good as Dumas!—" Hob Boy," and "The Heart of Midlothian," and found in all three an unfailing resourco against ennui. No Balzac for mo on a desert island, with but . a "one author" allowance. Balzac was a great genius, but ho had no humour—he is too cruel an analyst of weak human natuie to win affection. One can admire his work—nay, admiration is fairly compelled—but, to Jive with, give mo Scott or Thackeray or Dickens.

For tho Bookman's Scrap Book. I mako a point of copying out any now "book-verse" which iin»y appear in tho magazines and literary uowspapers. Two recent finds are by Clinton Scollard, an American writer, and by Ralph Hodgson, 0110 of tho best of the English minor poets of the day. Mr. Soollard's verses are entitled "My Library," and run as follow:

Upon the west my library 6bould look, And through the boughs of ancient applo trees

Bearing in .May the burden of the bees, I Bed sunset gleams should rest on shelf and bookParchment or vellum,-and with cushioned crook, A settle thero should be dccp-Mlt for ease Before a cavernous hearth whence harmonies Of warmth should shine pn every shadowy nook. 'i Here should come Chaucer in his gaberdine, And vagrant Villon clad in guise to suit, Twinkling Boccacio, Rabelais with his grin, Dante, grave-browned, Petrarch with pensive mien, While Marlowe should with Shakespeare saunter in, And 1 Parson Hoi'rick thrumming on his lute.

Space limits forbid the quotation of Mr. Balpli Hodgson's "My Books" in full. I select the. follow'inu; stanzas as exemplificative of tlie quint charm and sly humour of the pciem: ■When the folks have gone !o lied, And the lamp is burning low, And the fire burns not so red As it burned an hour ago, Then I turn About my chair So that I can dimly soc r > Into tho dark corners where Lies my modest library. Volumes gay and volumes grave, Many volumes have I got; ' Many volumes though I have Many volumes have I not. I have not the rare Lucasta, . London 1G19; I'm a lean-pursed poetaster. • Or tho book had img been mine. . . . Near the "Wit's Interpreter" (Like an ancient Whittaker, Full of strange etcetera), "Areopagiticn," And the muse of Lycidas Lost in--meditation-deep Gives the cut to. Hndibras, Unaware tho knave's asleep. . . . Whero lies Coleridge, bound in green, Sleepily still wond'ring what He meant Kubla Khan to mean. In that early Wordsworth, Mat. - Arnold knows a faithful propStill to subject-matter leans, Murmurs of the loved hill-top, Tylield tree and Cumnor scenes.

The poem closes with a hiv;!i tribute to Shelley, "moro than all tlio others mine." I may add that Mr. Hodgson's poems have recently been published in a collected edition in one, volume. Whether the above verses are included I cannot say.