BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

Dominion, Volume 15, Issue 30, 29 October 1921, Page 11

BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

v (By

Liber.)

Give a. man a pipe he can tmoke, Give a man a book he can read; 'And hit home is bright with a calm delight Though the room be poor indeed. —Jamxs Thomson-

. .BOOKS OF THE DAY '“The Making.of An Optimist.” Mr. Hamilton Fyffe, author of “The Making of tin Optimist” (Leonard Pareons, per Whitcombe and Tombs), is ,an experienced and distinguished) British journalist —he was at one time editor of a. London daily who during the war Meted 'as official correspondent in 'various countries foil tho “Daily Mail." Jle now confesses that, his pre-war conceptions of international relations were entirely wrong, end there dropped away fitim him also during the years ha studied , "tho misery and desolation of ' war, its blasting effect upon character, its stupidity, and appalling bad management,” hie old, comfortable belief that latter-day civilisation was a success. .To-day, he is, apparently, an advanced Socialist. He has no faith in the capacity of ..kings and l rulers and statesmen to bring happiness to the. world. Jf he has nothing but scorn for the exKaiser and for Berchthold he can be equally contemptuous when _he refers to leading French and English statesmen. I quote from Mr. Fyffe’s appraisals of the character and personality of three British statesmen. First, as to Sir Edward Grey:— Unfortunate Edward Grey I Weak and without any general ideas of foreign policy, a Liberal without Liberalism, consenting to evil traditions and worn-out diplomatic formulae, loading his name with obloquy as one of the authors of the wave . . • • His fellow-Liborals overcame his reluctance to take office by persuading him that he was indispensable to the nation. They, believed in him because they were entirely ignorant of world politics, and because he could look as if he knew all about them. From the moment of his becoming Minister he was a disaster,, yet he was never found out by the House of Commons, and is still spoken about with respect. Few understand what schoolboy conceptions of the world and its peoples that noble brow i>.d those deep-set melancholy eyes conceal. . . . Grey was just a muddle-headed. 111-instructed, well-meaning English gentleman. unfit for his position, tad quite unable to break through the poisonous not of intrigue and diplomatic custom in which European foreign relations were enmeshed.

Poor Mr. Asquith cornea in for nearly («s severe a castigation.:— j Mr. Asquith’s policy was, as usual, to '“wait and see’; that is not, unfortunately, n gibe, a cheap, sneering 'score' in school boy language—lt is a perfectly accurate description of the method preferred by 11 politician whose indecision braught disaster upon his country and upon the world. A lawyer-politician, capable, clearheaded, but with the marrow of his brains weakened by the long yjars of forced study over briefs, and, without a spark Of statesmanship, Mr. Asquith was unable to shape events by any ’policy of his’own. He had to let his policy, the policy of Britain, be shaped by events. He drifted. . . . Only let him bo hemmed in bo that only one way was open, and he would follow that course manfully to the end, -But-so long as it was possible for him to avoid the discomfort of coming to a decision, ho drifted. Because he drifted, Armageddon raged. . Upon Mr. Lloyd George, the author ,is scarcely less severe. When Mr. Fyffe visited England in 1916 he found Mr. Lloyd George, who alone had heart- . eued and stimulated people by his speeches, was still working overtime to make them believe that the increased production of- shells resulted entirely from his .magicianship, and, owing to his unfamiliarity with business methods, was letting the Ministry of Munitions be run in a most extravagant fashion, -and with far too little consideration for Labour. A writer who in his lasts chapters, talks so much about the importance of ,Christian principles governing tho con-’ duct of a country’s affairs, may well he reminded that misrepresentation can scarcely count among tho Christian virtues. Mr. Fyffo accuses Mr. Lloyd ln . common with tho other Allied statesmen who attended the Paris Conference, -of deliberately and dishonourably breaking faith, alike with President Wilson and with Germany:—■ They agreed to be. bound bv Mr. Wilton# ’conditions, laid down in his address and his Fourteen Point's: many of those conditions they broke, and admitted their dishonour by their pettifogging attempts to’ explain tho fractures away. ... As toon as Lloyd George found the pledges had given inconvenient he broke ■through them. "Now they are down,’’ he taid gleefully, "we can do as wo like." Mr. Fyffe gives no reference to any document or report in substantiation of his quotation, and I for one refuse to believe the British Prime Minister was ever either cynical or foolish enough to Bay, any such thing. 11l his final, chapters, "Not the Letter", and "If Love is God,” the author pleads for a universal cultivation of the. New Spirit, -a spirit of mutual self-sacrifice by every man for the benefit of his fel-low-man and for a world-wide acceptsnee and following in deed as in word of the spirit of Christ’s teaching."'Were this possible, and Mr. Fyffe holds that it is possible—and more than merely possible, that it is actually if gradually coming into force-then all will yet he well with tho world. So mote it be. (Now Zealand'price, 165.) A Book for Cricketers. i To the shelf on ■ which repose Mr. "Plum" Warner's, reminiscences, the"Ranji” book, and that delightful chronicle of old-time cricket and cricketers, Sir, E. V. ’ Lucas’s “The Hambledon ’ Men," should now be added "A Few fihoTt Runs," by Lord Harris (John Murray;', per Whitcombs and Tombs). .Lord Harris’s cricketing recollections carry him. back a good fifty years and more. He gives his readers some interesting . reminiscences of cricket at Eton and Oxford, and then passes on ,to gossip upon such famous players as W. G. Grace, 0. I. Thornton, Shaw, Jupp, and Humphrey, and many others. There is a special chapter on Kent cricketrfrom 1871 to 1889, and an account of the author’s cricketing experiences in Canada, the United States, Australia, -and India. The book contains numerous excellent anecdotes, many of which are now,, whilst others belong to the chestnut variety, but are none the worse for the retelling. Here is a yarn illustrating the : Wonderful accuracy of Willshor's ’ bowling:

T saw him and C. I. Thornton twice ret Harry Jupp out in the following way; 11l those, days playing under the leg was. fashionable, and Jupp did it regularly. It, was a useful, hut very dangerous, Stroke, ias one might be very badly injured trying it, though I do not remember ever being hurt myself, and I used it till quite lato in my career. It had superseded the draw, a much safer stroke in my opinion, except to a leg-break bowler, but only used in my recollection by old Tom Hearne. Thorndon was at short leg, and, ball by ball, crept closer find closer, until at last, anil without Jupp knowing it, he was crouching down •o low that his outstretched hand oould nearly touch Jupp’s pads At that mo-ment-rno sooner mark you—Willsher bowled "the" hall: Jupp cocked up his leg. and the ball dropped off tho I,at into Thornton's. outstretcKed hand. Remember, O scentical ones, if you please, that I saw this done twice, so that it was no fluke. The confidence of the fieldsman in tho bowler’s accuracy is tho best evidence of the latter. Lord Harris thinks that batting has not improved very much in tho past ten years. In discussing latter-day fielding, he bears testimony to tho great improvement in wicket-keeping. The system of having three men in the shortslips is. he considers, a very useful innovation, especially with a swerving bowler. Ho sometimes doubts, however, especially on hard wickots, whether the short ship theory is not overdone, and whether two short and another long, about fifteen to twenty yards from tho wicket, might not bo more efficacious. Lord Harris gives some interesting reminiscences of Spofforth, “the Demon. Bowler,” whom he considers tho cleverest bowler the

LIBER’S NOTE BOOK

game has ever known. The wonderful proficiency in fielding of the Australians he attributes to climate. The book, which is in every way a most readable addition to cricket literature, concludes with "a few warning notes for young cricketers," the final maxim being, “To all—don’t play for yourself, play for your side." A portrait of the author on tho occasion of his playing for M.G.C. "fifty-one years after his first appearance at Lords (in the Eton and Harrow match, 1868)’’ is given as a frontispiece. Cricketers one and all who read "A Few Short-Kuns” will, I am sure, vote it ‘a very jolly book.” (N.Z. price, 155.) In Lighter Vein.

A popular feature of tho Children s Corner in the well-known London newspaper, “The Daily News," has long been a series of very humorous sketches by J. F. Horrabin, dealing with the escapades and adventures of a little boy, a- British, prototype of the American Buster Brown, named Japhet. Mr. Horrabin’s sketches, with thoir accompanying very humorous letterpress, have been collected: in a little volume entitled "The Noahs on a Holiday With Japhet” (Cassell and Co., per Whitcombe and Tombs). Japhet and his brothers, Shorn and Ham, are very droll creations, and Buster Brown’s famous canine chum, Tige, is here represented byj an equally amusing little dog called Fido. Both juveniles and adults can get a heap of fun out. of Mr. Horrabin’s clever drawAnother humorous booklet is "Sport In a Nutshell," by the late Colonel Bogey, edited by C. E. Hughes and illustrated by Fred Buchanan. The humorous side of many branches of sport, notably golf, cricket, football, and tennis, is here presented in a very ingenious way. I quote from the golf section:— The rune received a temporary check when Wolsey laid Henry VIII a stymie on the Links of Matrimony, and the aurust’ monarch stormed the round with the exclamation, "Tutt me no putts. Henry was', however, bitten with the fever. He arranged no fewer than six matches on those links Two of these he halved (on Tower Tlil’J. Since that time the game has prospered, though its nature prohibits much in the way of progress. Where the golfer starts he leaves off. It follows that all members of Parliament play golf, and the Parliament Handicap la the only legislative measure which has never been denounced by the links-eyed Guttn Press. But in spite of this. Intellectual patronage, few golf clubs have made history. ' Bather the reverse, indeed, for every golfer re* joires in a good lie On the other hand, a- number of pin yers have made geography to the extent of alterin'* the contour of large districts of the earth’s surface It is this fact which Is referred to in the current phrase, "The Iron entered into his soil.” . . .

Mr. Buchanan’s illustrations are just as amusing os are Mr. Hughes’s quips.

Stray Leaves. Literary Paris is excited over the refusal'of the Ministry to allow "the publication of .the) remaining (portion of Edmond de Goncourt’s "Journal” until 1925. He died in 1896, and left instructions that the second part of his "Journal” was Hot to be published until twenty years after his death. The MS'S, is under lock and key in the National Library, and a Paris newspaper lias begfman action to compel the Chief Librarian- to give access to the diaries in accordance with the testator’s-inten-tion. Personally I have never been able to fihare that enthusiasm for the writings of Mrs. Gene Stratton Porter which, so We fire told, inspires such a huge public in America. To me their excessive, saccharinity lof sentiment is almost nauseating. .But a great many of my readers,, I know, do not agree with me on this point,-and will be glad to learn that the popular author has nearly completed a long new story. The title is ' "Her Father’s Daughter." Tho scene is laid in Southern California, and the publisher’s puff preliminary informs ms that the story will specially delight lovers of nature fiction. I, too, like "nature fiction,” but it is the "nature fiction” of writers like Mr. W. H. Hudson. Did you ever road his "Purple Land” and "Green Mansions”? Sarah Bernhardt has acted many parts in her time, not all of them on the stage. She has been an artist and a sculptor, and now she has turned novelist. The title of her story, shortly to I appear in'Paris, is "The Idol of Paris.” An English translation is to follow.

D’Annunzio’s Fiume adventure . must have been a splendid advertisement for tha new complete edition cf tho Italian litterateur’s, works, which has just been published in Rome in forty volumes. A few years ago the English translations of some of his novels, as published by Heinemann, had a fairly large sale. But they were far too erotic in subject and audacious in treatment to appeal very strongly to English tastes. . An interesting relic of Captain Cook turned up at a book auction held at ,Sotheby’s rooms towards the end of July. This was an imlportant MSS. of a work written by Cook, namely, “Arithmetical Trigonometry’ and "Arithmetical Dialting” (1763). Messrs. Quaritch, the famous antiquarian booksellers, paid ,£260 for.the MSS, which extends to 97 pages folio and contains elaborate and beauti-fully-drawn diagrams whicji bear out tho statement in the "Dictionary of National Biography” that "Captain Cook might; under other circumstances, have proved himself as eminent as a surveyor as he actually did as an explorer.” Cook, it appears, was also something of a versifier. for- on the first page of the manuscript he proclaimed his authorship of the work in two verses.

In "John o’ London’s Weekly,” Mr. Sidney Dark is good enough to inform a hon-inquisitive public as to the books he "can’t read.” Dickens he still likes, but' of Thackeray ho can only read "Esmond.” Chacun a son gout, hut my preference in Thackeray would rather go. to “Vanity Fair” than to that care-fully—over-carefully—compounded 18th century pastiche “Esmond.” As for "Pendennis,” it should be read by every young journalist. It gives tho Fleet Street of the Victorian forties just as Philip Gibbs’s “Street of Adventure” gives tho Fleet Street of the later nineties. Mr. Dark says ho “cannot read Scott, or George Eliot, or Trollope.” Well, all I can say is that I am sorry for him. “The ’ Antiquary,” "Adam Bede,” and tho Barchester novels of Trollope—without these on my shelves I should account myself quite unhappy. John Masefield, the poet, dabbles in poultry farming. Tie now describes himself, I read, as “n maker of books, poetry, and chicken runs.” By tho way, if any of my readers havo any early Masefields, my advice is to hang on to them. They arc steadily going up in value. Tho little paper-backed first edition of "A Mainsail Haul,” published at the modest "bob” is, I notice, quoted at J 23 3s. in a recent London catalogue. Writing in "The Editor,” Mr. W. I. Georges, tho well-known novelist, says: "I cannot stress too much that tho manufactured short story, though quite merchantable. i» never a good story. By a manufactured storv I mean that the writer deliberately thinks: 'T will write a story about tho French Revolution,’ and then collects n certain number of stick characters, two Revolutionists (one good and ono bad), one fair aristocrat, one gallant aristocrat, ono abbo, some

htTsos, a guillotine, and a miniature of Mario Antoinette. This miniature, in that typo of story, generally serves to furnish tho title; the story can then be called ‘The Black Locket* or ‘The Eyes of a Queen.’" SOME RECENT FICTION “The Brimming Cup.” It is a significant proof of the gradual but marked improvement in American popular taste in fiction that Mrs. Dorothy Canfield’s latest novel, “Tha Brimming Cup" (Jonathan Cape, per Whitcombe and Tombs), should have occupied, for some months past, the second place—Mr. Sinclair Lewis’s “Main Street” stands first—in tho list of “bestsellers” in tho United States. , For, like "Main Street,” MJrs. Canfield’s novel is of an immeasurably superior artistic excellence as compared with the sloppily sentimental or crudely melodramatic stuff which in the past has received tho patronage of the “big public.” In "Tho Brimming Cup” we are presented with an entirely original variant of what has been stvledi "the eternal triangle” motif. Tho heroine, Marise Crittenden, a woman of superior education and real, not merely fictitious, culture, is the wife of a good average evqry-day American business man, who is immersed in the details of a lumber enterprise. Crittenden is a very fine fellow, but he does not make sufficient allowance for the possibilities of ennui arid discontent which come to a woman whose daily life is one of unremitting and monotonous domestic labour. Tho inevitable third factor appears in the person of Vincent Marsh, a wealthy New York visitor to’ the back-woods, where the Crittenden menage is "located.” Marisa fights hard against an infatuation which, in a woman of her type and age, is specially dangerous. She. fights against it, but it grows on her, and, when she discovers, or thinks (quite erroneously) that she has discovered that the husband, whom she has hitherto regarded os tho soul of commercial honour, has been guilty of an act of sordid meanness, not to say criminal treachery to a neighbour, the tempting blandishments of Marsh come very near succeeding. Then, however, comes a gnawing at the wife’s conscience which makes her hesitate at taking tho fatal plunge—into an elopement. The hesitation is fatal to Marsh’s plans, for in the interval tho wife discovers that' she has singularly misjudged her husbandl, that the supposedly mean action was, in reality, one of self-sacrificing benevolence. Still, Marsh’s influence over her being temporarily dominant she is in grave danger, but by an audacious manifestation ' of courage and sincerity she lays the whole problem before her husband. Ho—this is tho specially original touch in the handling of a time-worn -theme in fiction—leaves the woman free to,choose between the other man and himself. And the husband wins. •

Such is, ns I am aware, a. somewhat bald and insufficient nummary of Marise Critte,ncten’s problem and how she—and her husband —solved-it; 'But, for want of space it must suffice. As to the literary artistry displayed in the story, it is quite 'beyond such praise as could here bo Set forth. Marise Crittenden’s attitude to her environment is probably,'lf we only knew tho facts, that of thousands of American wives whose husbands become so immersed in business details as to lose sight of tho great truth that love is life, and that the love of a good woman needs watching carefully Jest it fade away and die in nn unsympathetic .and soul-destroying environment. "The Brimming Cup” is, in many ways, a very, remarkable and beautiful story. It is good to know that such a story, 'so truly artistic, so instinct with' the modern spirit, can actually achieve almost as wide a popularity as tho cheap melodrama of writers like Zano Grey or the over carefully concocted sentimental banalities of Harold Bell Wright. There is good - hone for the future of American fiction when a story snnh_ as "The Brimming Cup” can be a “best: seller.".

An Irish Story. "Tho Waiting of Moya" (Hutchinson and Co., per Whitcombe' and Tomba) is a pleasantly told story of Irish life by Dorothea Conyers, whoso "Strayings of Sandy" and ether novels have been so popular. The heroine, an orphan, devotes herself to the thankless task of housekeeping for a miserly uncle, whom she suspects of having deeply wronged her dead father. Slio is vilely treated by the uncle, but eventually discovers Ins secret, and rebuilds her brother’s broken fortunes, winning, too, the love of a very jolly young sportsman. As is ■usuaT’ in a Rforothea Conyers storv. there are some lively sporting incidents and much wholesome fun. Ths briskness of the action, the freshness and vivacity of the dialogue combine, with a strong dramatic interest of the plot, to make the story most readable.