A Literary Treat.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 3522, 16 May 1905, Page 2

A Literary Treat.

1 AN EVTINMNG WITH e 'f THACKERAY. f AN Dr, A CONTEMPLATION OF f '* ‘ “ VANITY FAIR.” Somewhere we remember to .have seen tmM readers were,, stigin.aj.ised, ! b,y evari such supposedly learned persons ’ p college dons and professors as m^ ( I idlers, and that their occupation meant' y, xtoa fusion of 4d©»sy and*' 1 something worse, .It, was said to be the “ ne plus ultra of intellectual idle- [. ness, this reading of books, and something worse,” said drip, “ it comes next * to what the AmeriOjuVs cal! whittling.” > The modern readejTiV depicted as a kind of satiated fool, who “ requires bis author’s ,bop(<; ! as he I paper leader, or his clergyman’s p e f'9^- u qtof be the ecifo Jnvn , r’sehtiiibenfs.”*' All ha wants'is to be • amused and tickled with quietness. , Happily it is not jfjm. busyjWqrkecs jvho i can be accused' of this intellecttial ; > whittling,’fof the rekdeVs contemplated 1 have, we are told, recourse to books s that they may escape the terrible ennui i of society ; that in educated (sic), rich, high-class, and intellectual (sic).circles, no one cun talk or interchange an idea. Reading is to them. u. refuge from tabdium vitae-—tiresomeness of life —the irksomeness of herding (save the marl:) wit,h thqir fellow-mortals. .This rn ty nbt be complimentary to books, or to. 1 authors, but’ it has, sad to say, the ; ; merit pf' being' truth.- Novel' reading to-day is ton often merely a species of .intellectual, dranqdriuking.v or, ;-tof use anotjier expression, a kind,of,American whittling.' But reading, even-of such a des'cripHqn as this, is, as one w'rltbr haS observed, an hriddyhe j if eases the , .mind into forgetfulness, andsiirVes' as fat does ip the body, to give warmth , ; >nd at the same time to ease off the ! . vvear ; and. tear pf .life.. .It.isan accusation—the world is so gratefnjmflsqold as the days of Pope that , j : "Pepsive poets painfu} vigils keep, . ■ Sleepless-’themselves 1 * to.'‘ give thenreaders sleep.” : F’’ ’ , Bdt 'sleep is’ a very desirable, .thing; ! 'rind'sh long as hovels'give its no base land'inean ‘iiniges, no iucUeineriiS' jo vice,! and the sleep is not feverish arid .exhaustive-, instead-<of refreshing,’ we ‘ will thankdhem. .VVe have, all .of us, however, seen how a r.omaptic incident Cfiri.iie'act upon the minds of ,those ’of a flqd’s brearuieS who have to purchase 'daily life 'by daily toil,' but whose souls ’-are. just as'valuable as arebthose of ■ the languid upper (sic) classes who flee ,to reading: to escape the bore of being alive: and pf ,being hoped by their friends —counterpart", and reflections ; and we may be sure that if .the mere dwelling upon the pleasant episode of a porir Spanish lady’s marriage with a |! newly made emperor [Emperor Napoleon 111 of France and Eugenie) saved the work girls of Paris, from suicide by giving them hope, how much , more may it be said that the whole history of the Mysteries of Paris,” , of. Rudolph and Rigolette, of Victor Hugo’s “ Ninety-Three,” and of Dumas's “ Monte Christo ” kept whole parishes, 1 cities,, pay pourttrieq peaceable and 1 thoughtful. With novels, as with men, i we jiear oi the evil they do, hut we. i cannot, from' ihc nature of things, hear ; ,ot |he gpod.' - We aretjfud,every dfjty of 'boys’who do some petty 'theft and , whose boxes contain sensational and harmful literary (!)'t» ash;l but we hear no statistics of the. corollary to be deduced from the aj-gument—the proportionately greater amount of good resulting from, the enornniisly larger quantity of gopd; IHefa'tnni produced. As an ending ‘to’ tins exordium, how- ( ever, it may-he-•remarked that the f capacity to assiindateiniiot undoubtedly influence the amount ,of i pleasure and ‘ of lasting.benefit which ye mgy derive f from quiet draughts from, the goblet of t ‘•literary 'refreshment. The, man, 'or i wonm'n, who catch'ps the Spirit' uf his T rinfhor's theme, and can in. his tarn r interpret this nl md to others,' is alnnsr, , one may say. on an equality witn Inn creator of the fiieme. Who, amongst 8 Us has not read a'verst and thrown it *1 aside as meaningless, and |hen,. haviyg il llieard the saiue lines feat! or Sung by { some one possessed of poetic feeling a and cmnoreheusion, has apostrophised himself as a very clod, as devoid of trie finer sensibilities' of Nature as a de nzen of the slimy depths of (he mighty ocean? Not so, we think’, the gent lo-

man who so completely engaged the .attention of an , appreciative audience at the Masonic Hall. Foxtcai, on Saturday evening. To Mr Alfred H. Burton, the Grand Master of the Masonic fraternitv ot New Zealand, belongs a keen insight iiito human nature and a power of.interpreting that human feeling, whether fresh iroin ..Nature’s handiwork or from the printed page, that is vouchsafed to few, mid should therefore be doubly prized by those whose privilege it may be on some rare occasion to sit spell-hound at the exhibition of the wondrous gift. Deep feeling for the sadness of tragedy, a ready grasp of the incisivcneps ot satire, and keen appreciation of hUmour,; all does Jvfri, Burton possess,.ind sat silently attentive during his. recital of extracts frpra Thackeray’s wonderful work “ Van;ty Fair” were to put it weakly, indeed. It was the deep breathlessness of enchantment, as might be experienced by a child on

faring s. t . ' I .0 tales of the I ■“ Av.ii)r.-i'i .N-ghrs VvitfT. •dnrnent.-;." read to him ; th-uiglu-pr-r-ciolv not on<pr l '.,had n •; rrod if me inimitable ‘ » r- d;v’.i:)r f. I).- h net]). B«ok\ Snarpe, or the angelic sweetness o. Amelia Sedley, or the varying qualitie of other characters in the jtjook; no: one. ’wa venture 'to say, but ’was as tounded so much had been missed ii his or her reading. Silence, deep and ‘sustalned-f-except when, on some ran occasion, the lecturer brought out tht sparkling merriment that lay hidden in some humorous passage, a ripple o : laughter swept over his auditors, only j to be immediately hushed by his lapse into a delineation of pathos or an e < { ciirstoa into theturbulency of outrage, j honour or high-spirited devil-tnav-ca e : good-humour—marked the n->.idifi; ' throughout, .and tpin this, what.: could i be more truly indicative of appreciation? A striking personal!! v, a voice j so perfectly under control whether in 1

he fieice language of the sfrotftg'raau’as anger woman's 'agonising cry of despair, or the gentle pleading such as= might only fall from the lips .of a» Amdia Sedley, a complete loss oi self in the theme of Ins discourse, — all these combined to make Mr Burtou’s audience feel that they had indeed been-enjoying n literary treat,and (hat when he closed the pages of and-remnned his seat they 1 had* suddenly deprived of snmejbjng they ‘fentld ill do _ Without.* Then did their pent-up feeling find vent in an outburst ’bf appl&nse as spdutaneously’liearfy in its integrity as ever favoured any public speaker on the stage. In moving a hearty vote ofthankslo the lecturer, .W A. 1). Clemett made reference to felt, he was sure,the literary exposition they had heard, and trusted t,bat they might all be.able, in the days ,to come, to'so order their live* that when the ■ end came something good would remain to bear testimony , tbit they had lived; that they might, in very fact, leave footprints on the sands of time.

in seconding this motion, Mr Jobnr Stevens spoke of the extreme pleasure* he.had experienced in listening to the* able.lecture. To his mind there \ver« two classes of-rnen whose -works' 'were-' impoitaut factors in the development of anali mal life. —the ailthor and the poet. Hut on an equal plane aiyfth these two was the man who could interpret them ; he who could malcetheir works really .understood by' Yheir fellows.: Mr Stevens said he Ihoright he could not better express bis thoughts,than by reciting two,, verse*, the,first and the last, oi that masterpiece of a great personal friend of his—h'e rlderfed to Tom Bracken'* (applaud) poefm "'Not' Understood.” He looked forward to the time when men wcnildfunderstand bet ter, and in closing rmterated.bis pleasure at being accoidednthe nohotit of seconding th«

This was crimed fry abblamation, and Mr Burtan having briefly replied, moved 'fhe usual riomplifnept to; the chairman (Mr Alf, Fraser) and the gathering dispersed’. ’ ■ 5