BOOKS AND BOOKMEN DISASTROUS DELUSION

Evening Star, Issue 22448, 19 September 1936, Page 23

BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

DISASTROUS DELUSION

VERSES JANUA VITAE 'And as the cock crew those who stood before The tavern shouted: “Open, then, the door.”—Omar Khayyam. Open the door and enter. It is Spring. Catch as you pass the breath of flowers forgotten Since in the dusk the Autumn leaves lay rotten. Mavnap we sought - forgetfulness, who cling To words instead of old realities. Catch as you pass the perishable portal Rumour of skies and cadences immortal. Led by false lures yet have we word of these, ,What time we storm the citadel of fear, And seek diversion in the raree-show, The screaming ring. The lintel is as low ■ ' As we may choose to make it. Year by year We court futility and name it life, Or raise a flimsy fortalice to fend The howling vulgus off; but in the end We seek the herd. Open! The hour is rife With nameless fears and nameless old desires. - Open the door and set the curious stage, The old unthinking hunger to assuage. Let’s bear the latest cry. The old song tires; But even as beyond the waiting hush Of some chance wayside garden we are driven, - _ Word ot another, opening door is given This latest Spring by the unwearied thrush. «—C. R. Allen .{Dunedin). MY GARDEN Visit my beautiful garden! Behold Wonderful splendour of nature serene! Glorious begonia and grand marigold, Tallest of hollyhocks heighten the scene. Lovely lobelia-and colourful phlox, Common geranium, refreshed by the rain. Stately delphiniums and strange four-o’-clocks, Fanciful pansies are in. my domain. Lovers of beauty, come into this bower! _ View the wistaria, in springtime array. Hail the azalia, the bloom of the hour. Gaze at my wattle and gather a spray. Here is the lily: the purity-plumed,_ Emblem of chastity, tender and fair. Velvety violet, roses perfumed. Bloom in profusion, to mellow the air. Tiny forget-me-nots, never forgot; Evergreen ivy, in glossy attire, Scented carnations and sweet mignonette, Canna, in scarlet dress, freely admire. Visit my wonderful garden! Why not ? Heaven is blessing this sanctum of mine. Come with the sunrise, when, over the . lot, Dewdrops are sparkling—a mantle divine. . —E. Elsinore, in ‘ Sydney Morning Herald.’ JAMES HOGG CENTENARY TRIBUTES BY BUCCLEUCH AND SCOTT FAMILIES Tributes to James Hogg, known as the Ettrick Shepherd, were paid on "August 13 at a centenary ceremony ; at the poet’s statue at St. Mary’s Loch. The Dowager Duchess of Buc--c-leuch, mother of the Duchess of Gloucester, laid a wreath of heather • : on the statue. Lord William Scott, ■ M.‘P., alSp represented the Buccleuch ■ family’• which was closely connected with the poet; his father was born on Bowhill Estate. Major-general Sir Walter Maxwell Scott; of Abbotsford, who was the principal speaker, said he was there as the oldest surviving descendant ot ■.Sir Walter Scott, who was Hogg's friend and counsellor. It was fitting that Bowhill and Abbotsford should be represented at that eeremonv. iWhen the statue was unveiled in 1860 Donald Bain, the piper of the 42nd -Regiment who piped the Highlanders up the Heights of Alma, had played airs the words for which Avere written ’by Hogg. After referring to Hogg’s mother, from -whom the poet got his love of verse. Sir Walter Maxwell’ Scott said that Janies Hogg was the Peter Pan of the Borders. The general public—at any rate in * Britain—is beginning to regard the shelves of public libraries as filled entirely with encyclopaedias, according to a London librarian, who said recently that his library receii-es - about 3,000 telephone calls a year on “ general knowledge ” questions. These included recently:—“The total number ot families in Great Britain?” “What swimming bath first had artificial waves?” “What is the scientific method of measuring the cephalic index? ” One man asked for “ some- j thing about the Tooting Common excavations.” The librarv shelved him ' some books about that London suburb ivith the entertaining name. “ Xaw.” ,hc said, in disgust “ Not Tootcn KaliBicii- • • Tooten Kalun'en, the .Egyptian Pharaoh.’i

NEW BOOKS * THE RED CENTRE ' MAN AND BEAST IN THE HEART OF AUSTRALIA. ‘ The Red Centre: Man and Beast in the Heart of Australia ’ is a notable book written’by H. H. Finlayson, who is the honorary curator of mammals in the South Australian Museum. This is a popular and scientific description of that part of Central Australia enclosed within an oblong bestriding the boun-i dary of South and Western Australia. The book is written with first-hand knowledge and undertsanding, gained during a 10 months’ exploration, of the region described, and with that lucidity which is the first requisite of a scientific style. Professor Wood Jones, of the University of Melbourne, pays a warm tribute to Mr Finlayson’s work. He says that no living man has done so 'much in rescuing from oblivion, those sparse but interesting mammals that still inhabit Central _ Australia as has Mr Finlayson. This scientist has no story of thrilling dashes through the desert in high-powered cars; he has no delusions that his feet are treading where no white man!s foot has trod before. But every word he tells is of the real thing—the centre that he knows with familiarity; the animals of which he has a monopoly of knowledge; the aboriginals, and that “ strange and undefinable attraction that the Dead Heart always has for those who have known the heat of its days and the cold of its nights—npd the stars.” This is a book that will be of value to the scientist and the layman whoso interests pertain to all fields of knowledge and are not concerned solely with his own affairs. A feature of the book is a splendid map with much detail of the country described. The publishers of * The Red Centre ’ are Angus and Robertson, Sydney.

A little known page i» the history of white settlement of the Pacific—the disastrous attempt of the Marquis de Rays to found a French Empire on New Ireland—has been written by Mme Josephine H. Priau, a daughter of one of the dupes, many of whom perished, in ‘ The Phantom Paradise.’ Following the Franco-Prussian War and the still more terrible days of the Commune, many Frenchmen were fascinated with the picture of a fair and prosperous new land so vividly painted by the Marquis. Of Port Breton, at the southeastern end of New Ireland, then in the Bismarck Archipelago, and now in the mandated territory of New Guinea, de Rays visualised a wonderful future for the colonists, who were promised rich land at two francs an acre. Remarkably, he had never seen the island —and he never did see it. By the end of 1879, £200,000 was estimated to have been subscribed, and in September of that year the three-masted Chanderuagore slipped out of Flushing, the French and Belgian Governments having done their best to stop the expedition, on her voyage to Port Breton, with 150 colonists aboard. Four months later, after a hazardous journey, the ship dropped anchor at Port Breton, which was destined to be the grave of men, women, and children, as vessel after vessel deposited its human cargo on its malaria-infested shores, there to be attacked by disease, starvation, and cannibals. The only arable land was a very narrow strip, and the colonists who were left isolated when the Chandernagore again slipped away, were unable to make known their plight and to prevent others from sharing their fate. In a graceful narrative style, Mme Priau tells the story as a coherent whole. It is a sad story of victimisatjon, of abandonment to death, and of indomitable courage and tenacity of purpose on the part of the survivors. The Marquis was not allowed to go scotfree. and his treachery was exposed in court. He received four years’ imprisonment on _ charges of homicide through criminal imprudence. This king without a crown ” died on July 29, 1893, one of the greatest aristocratic scoundrels of the last half-century. The Phantom Paradise,’ which is published by Messrs Angus and Robertson, is a remarkable story of a most tragic and almost incredible episode in the history of the South Seas. Of all the spots in the Islands, the Marquis selected the two places for settlement where failure was inevitable. Of Mme Prjau s book, it may bo truly said: Truth is stranger than fiction.” BERNARD NEWMAN'S LATEST * s ® ernar d Newman a great espion- ? ge + . nia l l a great leg-puller? That is the inevitable question on reading Gennan Spy his narrative of the story of Ludwig Grein. Newman’s . k .» W x S a sensation. He still protests that Spy ’ was fiction, yet in the next voice defends its authenticity Newman is annoyinglv paradoxical, and although he goes 'to considerable length in explainihg how Grein s story reached him and his checking ot the many details, we do not know', frankly, what category to place him in, “To safeguard mvself against any misrepresentation. I have asked the publishers to produce this work as a novel,” he writes in a engthy foreword. “If a book published as fact turns out to be fiction, then have a legitimate complaint. But if a book published as fiction is actually fact, then no one can grumble.” That is all very well, but f° r n , nc °f the many thousands who will read ‘ German Spy ’ and revel in its mystery and thrills, are anxious to know the real truth. ‘ German Spy ’ is one of the most exciting secret service stories ever published. The adventures of Grein are glamorously adventuresome, and few readers' who start the story after dinner will o-o early to bed. Be it truth or fiction, ‘ German Spy ’ is thrilling. Gollancz is the publisher and a review copy comes from Whitcombe and Tombs.

A LITERARY CORNER

IH COBB’S HEYDAY Will Lawson, who wrote ‘ The Laughing Buccaneer ’ a few years ago, has gone one better with • When Cobb and Co. was King,’ a breezy, and tensely exciting saga of a company whoso name was for nearly three generations a household word in the farspread homes of Australia. While the’ story is essentially fiction, it is based in part on events in the life of Frank Smiley, president of Cobb and Co.’s Old Drivers’ Association, who started driving at the age of 16. Other incidents worked into the plot are taken from actual experiences in the days when the famous coaching firm was opening up the country in the days of the gold rushes and bushrangers. Lawson’s hero, Buster White, is a wonderful characterisation. Jn this story, Lawson writes with more facility, colour, and incident than in his earlier novel. Thrills succeed thrills, and the other episodes are all absorbingly human in their interest. The name of Cobb is so well known in New Zealand that the novel has especial interest here. Its freshness and lively style are as attractive as its action. Angus and Robertson are the publishers. • A READING OF LIFE 1 ‘ A Reading of Life ’ is a hook of essays from the pen of S. 11. Lysaght (Macmillan and Co.). It contains nine essays entitled ‘ First Outlooks,’ ‘ A Reading of Nature,’ ‘ Beauty and Truth,’ ‘ Love and Sex,’ ‘ The Individual,’ ‘ Good and Evil,’ ‘ Old Age and Death,’ ‘ A Reading of Poetry,’ and ‘ Our Island World.’ Mr Lysaght is a scholar and an author of note, his previous work including plays, dramas, essays, and poetry. Reading and thinking people are concerned not merely to live and follow their daily routine. They wonder what is beyond the veil. They see the mystery of life on this planet and are puzzled as to its meaning. The. reflections of an author of repute who is also a philosopher will bo read with pleasure by those who are in pursuit of the absolute._ The author concludes the last essay in his book on this high note: —“ There are moments of illumination in which he (man) feels that his lineage is older than the earth’s, and his spirit greater than its embodiment; when, instead of concluding that every ideal, every purpose, every inspiration of the life he has held will ultimately perish’with the earth’s fabric, he can believe that all the good things the earth has shown him, all things that inspired his devotion, have an eternal significance?, and abide in the treasury of a Divine spirit of which human love is a part.” 'A FRESH DEAL* A cleverly-conceived and well-con-structed story is provided by E. W. Sayi, the author of many other excellent novels, in ‘ A Fresh Deal,’ published by Messrs Hutchinson and Co., London. The story concerns the life of a young girl, working for her living, who unexpectedly comes into a fortune. Brought up in poverty’s hard school she has learned the value of money, and the fear of falling a victim to a fortunehunter makes her keep secret the fact of her inheritance. She refuses publicity, and believes, when she is wooed in marriage, that she is sought for herself alous. It is, however, revealed to her on her honeymoon that the truth had leaked out earlier, and her love is put to the greatest strain in the months that follow, during which time, and later, she is compelled to subscribe to her own despair while watching the whittling away of her fortune. It is only poetic justice, however, that happiness comes to her through the love of a good man, the author handling this portion of her theme in convincing style. The characters are well drawn, and the interest is maintained throughout. Our copy comes from Messrs Whitcombe and Tombs Ltd. •MURDER FOR A WANTON 1 Those who favour fast-moving American stories with an abundance of killings, graft, and extraordinary methods of detecting crime, should find much to their liking in ‘ Murder for a Wana story by Whitman Chambers, published by Messrs Ambrose Melrose Ltd., London. The theme concerns the receipt by four members of a wealthy family, the Lampiers, of threats of death. In this family, torn by unnatural discord and hatred, death first strikes Ludlow-, the smug, craven heirapparent ; then Lennie, the drunken black sheep; and finally the old, crippled head of the family, Aaron, the possessor of a fortune. A young newspaper man, Ernie Hymcs, usurps in American fashion the prerogative of the police, and solves the puzzle of the three murders. He thwarts an attempt on the life of Lorraine Lampier. with whom he has fallen in love, ami this highly-coloured story ends on a note of romance. Our copy comes from Messrs Whitcombe and Tombs Ltd. THE CATTLE TRACK The acceptance of J. J. Hardie’s ‘The Bridle Track’ in serial form by the ‘ Bulletin-’ is u sufficient guarantee of the quality of the novel now published by Angus and Robertson. ‘ The Bridle Track.’ which was featured by the ‘ Bulletin,’ brings hack the spacious and not so distant clays of Queensland droving before the advent of the motor truck. The story is obviously written by a man with an intimate knowledge, through experience, of all branches of station life and the track that winds from New South Wales to the Northern Territory.

Mr Warwick Deeping lias taken Anningsley Bark. Ottershaw, near Cliertsey, the bouse in which Thomas Day wrote that famous moral story, 1 Sanford and Merton.’

THE ETERNAL TRIANGLE ‘ Nothing-Irredeemable,’ by D- G. Waring (.John Long), is a novel, based on an old theme, written in an entertaining way. Sir Desmond Loughlin lost his fortune, health, and the love of his wifo because of bis love for Ireland.- Derelict, bo crossed to England, and found lodgings with his batman’s widow on the Old Kent road. A spoilt society girl tired of her mode of life, determines to see how the poor live, and by chance takes rooms in the same house. The developments, which can be imagined, are described convincingly. The character drawing is good, so the result is a tale above_ the average. Our copy is from Whitcombe and Tombs. ‘THE CORPSE IN THE CRIMSON SLIPPERS 1 'The Corpse in the Crimson Slippers ’ (Hodder and Stoughton) is by that well-known writer of mystery tales, 11. A. J. Walling. In this instance the choice of the title is not a happy one, for it gives a wrong impression of the nature of the book. True, a man is found dead in his dressing gown, wearing red slippers. It is supposed to be a case of suicide, and the coroner’s jury returns a verdict to that effect. There is no further horror. The author’s aim is to follow up a suggestion by one who was present at the inquest that it was not suicide, and he produces a satisfying detective tale. Mr Walling is one of the few presentday mystery writers who take trouble in the construction of their plots and in the delineation of character. ‘ THE HOUND OF HEAVEN ’ DRAMATISED VERSION IN LONDON A dramatised version of Francis Thompson’s poem, ‘ The Hound of Heaven,’ was given in the Albert Hall on May 16 last. The production was by members of the Grail —a modern girls’ youth movement —everyone remaining anonymous. The poem itself was recited by a chorus of 75, conducted with the utmost skill. Thompson’s poem is, of course, very short, the hulk of the performance consisted of passages introduced from the various august sources to underline (rather heavily) the religious atmosphere and meaning of the poem. Music as well as grouping and lighting played an important, if not an altogether consistent, part, Psalms 138 and 136 were sung in plain chant and with beautiful effect; there was a Bach sarabande to usher in the Heavenly Host; but principally much “ conventional ” grandeur and mysticism on the organ. Certain tableaux were wonderfully effective (says the London ' Observer’), though there seemed something restless and prodigal in the lighting as a whole. What could not fail to be impressive was the dignity and sincerity of the performers, one and all. NOTES A small silver snuffbox that belonged to Byron was sold in London recently for £27 6s, and Burns’s sugar tongs fetched £5 ss. A study of George Eliot by an American professor of English, Miss Blanche Colton Williams, is due from Macmillan’s. It contains a number of unpublished letters.

Among literary treasures sold in London during recent weeks was an autograph letter from Aubrey' Beardsley—who illustrated some of Oscar Wilde’s work—to Mrs Leverson, and refers to Oscar Wilde, then in Reading Gaol. “Poor dear old thing,” writes Beardsley, “ I am writing to him this morning. I suppose letters reach him all right.”

At a recent reception in Paris held in honour of visiting American students, M. Andre Maurois was offered an American doughnut, which he politely declined. “ Don’t you like doughnuts? ” asked an American girl. “ Partly,” said M. Maurois. “ What part, then? ” the girl insisted. “Oh!” said M. Maui’ois, “I am awfully fond of the hole in the middle.”

The MS. of ‘ George end Sarah Green,’ a narrative comiposeci by Dorothy Wordsworth at her brother’s request, has just been published in-full by the Oxford University Press. The Greens lost their lives in a snowstorm in 1808, and de Quincey was moved to write an account of the disaster—very different from Dorothy’s!

M. A. Novikoff-Priboy, whose book, ‘ Tsushima,’ has just been published, is one of Soviet Russia’s most popular writers. This is his first book to appear in English. At the time of the Battle of Tsushima—an important naval engagement during the RussoJapanese War of 1905—he was paymaster’s steward in the Oyrol, one of Admiral Rozhestvensky’s squadron.

It is interesting to recall that the unofficial literary agent who first tried the English market with Kipling’s work was Sir Jan Hamilton, an old friend of Kipling’s early days in India, who offered Kipling MSS. fruitlessly to London publishers. The incident is brought to mind by the sale of a Kipling autograph in London. It is a poem he wrote for members of the Mounted Infantry Club, written by Kipling in manuscript, and running to seven stanzas, each with chorus. In the summer of 1930 Sir lan Hamilton invited Kipling to attend a dinner of the Mounted Infantry Club in the following year. Kipling accepted the invitation, but mistook the date, and failed to appear. The manuscript poem was sent in expiation.

A publisher has literally received “ royalties ” from the sale of books in the shape of mattresses, pillows, life-jackets, and tire ship’s log from the old Royal yacht Britannia. The gentleman in question is Mr Lane, of the London publishing firm of Allen Lane, rvho, with the profits from the first year’s sale of the Penguin series of sixpenny reprints, bought a nineton cutter—which he christened the Penguin—and partly furnished her with these effects brought at the sale when the furnishings of the Britannia came under the hammer. The sixpenny edition of the Penguin books celebrated its first birthday on July 29. They have sold 3.000,00 copies, and used Up 0000 tons of paper in their making. Incidentally, the best seller in the scries are Dorothy Saver’s ‘ Bcllona Club.’ Margot Asquith’s ‘ Autobiograoby,’ Beverley Nichols's ‘ Twenty-five,’ Liam O'Flaherty’s ‘The In form or,’ and Mary Webb’s ‘ Gone to Earth.’ This shows that the public who buy sixpcuuies have discrimmating taste.

A. E. HOUSHAM MORE POEMS TO BE PUBLISHED “ Good-night, Ensured release, Imperishable peace, Have these for yours.” These lines are inscribed on a stone set in the north wall of Ludlow Church in memory of A. E. Housman, whose ashes were interred under the north wall. They were taken from ‘ More Poems,’ the collection of verse not to be found in ‘ A Shropshire Lad ’ or ‘ Last Poems,’ which Mr. Laurence Housman has made and which Jonathan Cape will publish. To his brother A. E. Housman left the responsibility of deciding which of his remaining poems should be published (writes a correspondent of the ‘Observer’), It is, as Mr Laurence Housman explained to me, a double responsibility, for while ho is anxious to include nothing which might hurt his brother’s reputation, he feels that it would be hard for lovers of A. E. Housmau’s poems to be deprived of any, as he puts it, “ however minor in character, which are nob inferior to others—also minor in character—which have already been published.” DIRECTIONS IN THE WILL, “ I direct my brother,” A. E. Housman wrote before he died, “ to destroy all my prose manuscripts in whatever language, and I permit him, but do not enjoin him, to select from my verse manuscript writing and to publish any poems which appear to him to be completed and to be not inferior to the average of my published poems; and-1 direct him to destroy all other poems and fragments of verse.” “ My brother had himself no desire,” said Mr Laurence Housman, “ to add to his two selections, ‘ A Shropshire Lad ’ and ‘ Last Poems.’ But the wishes of the many who hoped for a further volume became acceptable to him in his last years. Therefore I feel hound to interpret his instructions as syninathetically as possible. “ I know onlv too well that if he had made this third selection he wonld have erred on the side of severity. Still, there is only one finished poem across which he has written ‘ Not good.’ Therefore I feel that he meant me to use my judgment freely about all the others.” In ‘ More Poems ’ will be found the verses which A. E. Housman wrote in 19°o, * For Mv Funeral ’: 0 Thou that from Thv mansion Throned) time and nlace to roam, Dost send aboard Thv children, And then dost cell them home. That men nnd tribes and nations, And all Thv hand hath made. Miv shelter them from sunshine In Tbine eternal shade: We now to peace and darkness, *nd earth and Thee restore. Thv erea+nre that Thou madest, And wilt east forth no more. Like some of ‘ Last Poems,’ several of the poems now to he published date from the ‘Shropshire Lad’ period, and it _is evident Mr Laurence Housman thinks that many of them belong to the Terence series, expressing through the mouth of that imaginary character the turbulent and changing moods of troubled youth. THE “ILL-TREATED.” “My brother once explained,” he said, “ that very little in ‘ The Shropshire Lad ’ was biographical. In the new collection only a few of the poems are directly personal. Some are poems dealing with youth written when he himself was much older. They show the lively sympathy he had, as he wrote ‘ for all ill-treated fellows,’ and particularly for the young. He was grieved that ‘ the laws of God and man ’ are not kinder. Their unkindness explains a great deal of the anger and bitterness of his verse.

“ I shall be to give a fairly accurate chronology of most of the published poems, although many of them are not dated. The dates of several can be inferred from their order in a set of four closely-filled note books which I have been instructed to destrov.

Those who regret my brother’s wish that so much of his manuscript should be destroyed may like to know that there are no fragments or unfinished poems of outstanding quality. A few beautiful phrases and some single verses will have to be sacrificed. But I have felt it right to keep a few which seemed to have a completeness in spite of their brevity, “ Luckily, although so much of what I should call work-shop material has to go, I shall be able to give one example of how my brother worked, how he altered phrase or rhyme until he was satisfied. There are two complete variants of_ one poem, with no indication of which he preferred. I have a slight preference myself, but that is no reason Why others should not enjoy the interest of deciding for themselves.”