LIBER'S NOTEBOOK

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 103, 25 January 1919, Page 11

LIBER'S NOTEBOOK

, ENGINEERS,, Feathe'rstbn Strest, WELLINGTON

"Frazar of the Golden Bough." Tho November "Bookman" (Hodder aud Stoughton) contains a delightful article by C: E. Lawrence on "Frazer of tho Golden Bough," otherwise Sir James Frailer,'the great authority on primitive folk'-.loro and the origin of religion. Many Neiv Zealand' bookmen, I liavo no doubt, like "Liber," possess a copy of 'th'e' origiiial edition of that wonderful study of mythology and folk lore, '.'The Golden Bough," in .the ,original two-volume edition. The work has been, gradually supplemented by the author's further and more detailed studies, until it now runs into twelve stout volumes, published by Macmiilan at 10s. each. A costly work,., but one I sorely covct. Mr. Lawrence draws attention to tho extraordinary rniige of Sir James Frazoi'V literary -'interests;-- -They are not, ho says, -

limited even to the wide department of science which. Sir James has made his own;'the history of 'Greece and the elaborate mythology of Kuypt; savaijo customs, beliefs, and languages; Totemism, Fetish worship, and Taboo; the evolution of the idea and fact of kingship, Oriental religion, and social anthropology, the study of comparative ethics, the influence of .superstitions on the growth of institutions,' -the amazin.'.' powers and ceremonies of witchcraft aud other magical practices; the tyranny .of the Kvil Eye. It needs 110 addition to this casual list to emphasise the extraordinary stores of "resource' and. energy and patience of research that have gone to the service of ' anthropological science and tlie 1 infinite I fund and possibilities of the results, lintthat is,, after all;, only- a 6ingle 'aspect of the interests' of the . sage of. Brick Court. One of Sir James Frazer's earliest books was "Passages of the Bible Chosen for Their Literary. Beauty and Interest"; the latest, to aovear in this, autumn, is a ,worlc on tho "Folk-Lore of the Old Tcatamont."- (.....

. Mo .is also .n. great authority oil the eighteenth century,, and lias edited two volumes of selections from Addison's Kssays . and "William -Cowper's Letters.' Sir James • Frazor's London residoiice is in the ' Temple, whore- he occupies chambers in Brick 'Court, where Oliver Goldsmillr lived. Stray Leaves. The Him was always : tlie ":Banie. The abominable deeds committed by the .Germans in France and Belgium during the Great War had- their parallels in the days of Frederick the Great. "Writing to the "Times" Literary Supplement, the lady author who uses the noiii de plume of "George I'aston" says : "I"hare just been, readnig 1 ho Journal kept by tho first Karl of Malmcsbury during his visit to Berlin in 1707. Apropos of Frederick the Great's recent victories, lie. observes ■ Though the last war gives frequent proofs of his abilities as a Kenrrnl, yet it does not' of Ilia- humanity. - lij Saxony lie himself entered a- house of Count Bruhl's; and with his - cane ' becau the pillaging'of It, by ' breaking a nicr-glass, and Etood by afterwards, to bod' tliat his men did riot leave luiythinc undeslroycd. Perhaps his avarice might lend him to all. this, as all the pillftgi' of theso houses was.sont to Tlerlin.' where lierhnns, by selling their furniture, to Jews. etc.. lie got. 20,000 crowns for what ,wa». as it stood; worth 200,000. Tho Hohenzollcrns of the present day evidently wish to'live up to the traditions' of tho family." I confess that when -I read somo time ago, that Mr. Edwin Pugli was writing a ninv book on Dickons, I imagined that everything worth saying 'about the Immortal Bon had been said, and that it was high time'tho Hood-of Dickensiana which „was. specially noticeable at the time of the Dickeiis Centenary, in 1912, ,

came to an end. Judging, however, by the English, reviews.of his book, "The Dickens Circle," Mr. Pngli seems to.havo produced a : very useful supplement to Forsior's official biography. It is clear that Dickens,'.with all his faults of vanity and irritability, was a very lovable man. lie nuorrolled, it is true, with Thackeray, but the cjuarrel did evedit tbaii 'L'liaekera.y, tvlto undoubtedly went toi> far in his pettifogging sqtiabble with EdTninid Yates, whicli eventually forced the latter's resignation, from the Gai'rick Club. But it is good, to remember that Dickens's personal friends ineluded such men as Lord Jeffreys (who," by the way, begged the novelist "not to kill Little Nell") and Walter Savage T/andor, that "old ,lion" whoni lie amiably caricatured as Lawrence-Boythoni in "Bleak House," and who was notoriously not an easy man to get.on with. Other friends were. Douglas Jcrrold, of "Punch"; Stansfield''arid John Leech, the artists; Browning, Hans Anderson, Dean Stanley, and last, but. not least, grim Thomas of Chelsea. Carlylo, Mr. rugh- tells us, first met -Boss- .at tbo Stanley in 1840, and wrote of- liim in his "Diary":—

.ire is a fine jitl.'jp fellow—Jloz, I tliiiik; clcar, bhie, intellipcnt eyes, that Ihe arclicS large, protrusive, rather loose month: face of the ■most extreme mobility; 'which ho shuttles about —eyebrows, eyes,' mouth, and all-in a very sincular manner while Surmount them with a looso coil of commoncoloured liniV. and set it on a- small, compact figure, very small.' and' dressed o la d'Orsay rather than well—tliia is Tickwick. For tho rest, a quiet, slirnwd-look-inp little fellow, who seems to nuess pretty well what he is and what others are.

Dickens was. not' always quiet, as Mr. Pugh sliows .us bv his account ,of a ; dinner "party, at. which "Boz" and itis future biogra-plier and always 'most faithful, friend,-Forster, had a terrible row Later on. when I ]x>ssoss myself of a copy of: Mr.. Pugh's book, I hope to give mv reader's some 'of 'its tit-bits.

. The late Emile Faguet, of the French Academy, was probably.the finest.literary critic that. France has produced since Sainto Beuve. Fasuet's. studies of two of the greatest of Fronch. novelists, Balzac and" Flaubert, liavo 'now been issued in English' translations by Constables.

"SOME RECENT FICTION. "Tho Apostle of the Cylinder." ■ .In "Tho Apostle of the- Cylinder" (Hodder and iStoughton, per S.,and W. Mackay), Mr, Victor Rousseau'gives us a curious, if somewhat disturbing, picture of socioty.- as it may bo. a, hundred, years hence under a Government which employs tho latest scientific devices in'its '.maintenance of a.- social tyranny- based apparently upon tho lines of what is roughly called : Bolshevism. When tho story opens, the hero, a young biologist,, is engaged, ill company with a mysterious)'saturnine, but brilliantly gifted, German Pole named LaziirolF lii'assisting an eminent British 'scientist-.-, in research- work. Lazaroff, who is, 'of courso, the villain of the piece, lias invented a curious cylinder, a sort of freezing chamber. Ho experiments with irisects.aPd'aiiiinals, and proves that ho can suspend their animation for a - considerable timo. and thon restore them to their ofd activities. By an ingenious though, dastardly trick lie gets tho hero into one of tlieso* cylinders, and "bottles" him 'up, as it wci-o,'for a hundred'years.' A beauteous young lady, the great scientist's. daughter,, who . has . refused to marry the . plotter,-is- similarly incarcerated. A hundred years later tho hero,'by tho effect of some mysterious chemical action, "wakes up," and, escaping from - his prison .house, is taken by the peoplo for an escaped "defectivo.". The author.tJion proceeds to.-give a muchrdetailed■: scription of a. new England ' subject to the rule of a mercilessly tyrannical Government. '...It" is by no moans a. pleasant affair, tins scientific Bolshevikism which M'. Rousseau depicts with so much ingenuity, and few readers of the book will there bc\ who will Hot rejoice over the downfall; at' the hands : 'of- a new Messiab, of the baleful. Lazaroff who, liko Hidor Haggard's fanious witcb Gagoola in "King Solomon's Mines," has discovered a'means of indefinitely prolonging his evil existence, and who now, under the name of- Samson, is tho cruel tyrant before whonv all England bows; .The denouement is elevorly worked out, but many readers may share my amusement at the idea, of a Russian army defying Hanson's.awful Ray Rods, the . "last word" in , the .destructive weapons of the future,-and restoring pence and Christian beliefs to the sorely distressed Britain.'.' The author is very bitter against the ougeiiists, and his tirade against divorce, which he calls "the shameful privilege of a small caste." and places in the' Very forefront of the evils of the present day system, is moro am'usiiig than convincing. Hero.and there the reviewer has found the .author's scientific terminology somewhat too recondite, but as a whole the narrative, is very planijibly, as it is certainly very, effectively, set forth.