LIBER'S NOTE BOOK.

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 229, 15 June 1918, Page 11

LIBER'S NOTE BOOK.

A New Irish Writer. "The Bookman" warmlv commends a collection of Irish stories, ''Ballygullion," by Lynn Doyle, whose -excellent slory, •"ilr. AVitdridge," may be remembered by my readers. According to "Th& Bookman" reviewer, who says that Lynn Doyle, in his directness, recalls Synge, without, however, Synge's "iufalliblo note of gloom," "just how the book came to be written is one of the best stories in the book." 'f lie rustic story-teller and the town reporter, whose head was not strong enough to carry a mixed cargo of champagne and whisky, and to strer a motor bicycle at tho same time, meet, and the superior townsman promises to "fix lip", the stories told him by_ the countryman, Pat Mnrphy, and itiis is Pafs reply: "Divil a fli. Te'll just put thim down a,3 I tell tliini to ye. There come a man here -wanet, an' got two or threo cracks av the eounthryside, but lie only spoiled thim. Botwcen cuttin' out .this to keep thim ginteel, an' puttin' in that to give tliim a tone, whin he had done they •wero naytlier wan thing nor another. There's no use Btickin' in big lons collesc words in pluin counthry people's crack. It's like puttin' a cloth palch on a pair av cordlniroys." Doyle lia3 been .styled an Irish Barrie, but in few of his stories is there that quaint whimsicality of humour which is the special and peculiar "Barrie touch." Cunninghame Graham. Uunuiiiguiuuu Graham's vigorouslywritten siictcnes of luc in Morocco, ajgeuuiui, flpain, and—is lie not a itighlanaer niinseit ?— m the liightunUs have been discovered at last uy Aanerican roaacis, and a complete new edition of Ins nino volumes is Ming issued by a. New. York linn. To many discerning New Zealand buokmon tliesu stones ami sketches have long been «. source of delight. Most of the volumes can now be had in Duckworth's ".Headers' Library" at Is. (id. net (English μ-ice). A Scot, of Spanish birtli on the mother's side, an aristocrat l>y blood, iui advanced democrat of his own thought and will, the Uu-d of Arduch is a strange combination. He fought for free speech with William Morris and other Socialists in Trafalgar Square, in the days when ao many English men of letters wore Socialists. But he is a Loyalist of tho Loyalists, loathing the Hun «s much as he loathes a man. who is cruel to a horse. To-day, or at least recently, he was engaged in buying remounts in the Argentine, with which, country and Paraguay his acquaintaneo is, lilce that of Ilr. Samuel AVeller, jun., with London—"extensive and peculiar." L' you do not know Cunninghame Graham's books, ibuj- one and try one, siy, "Progress," "His People," "Charity," or "Faith." Ho is one of tho most original of writers; frank, fearless of Mrs. Grundy, brimming over with, admiration and enthusiasm for lost causes and the oppressed, and loathing' the sordid commercialism which is so rampant the wide world over in these days. I know of no more stimulating writer. South America, .Morocco, and, in a loss degree, Spain, he makes known to the non-travelled reader as Kipling has made India, known. Ho has written his last book he tells us, but this 1 cannot and do not like to believe.