The Moving Finger

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 11, 19 May 1911, Page 6

The Moving Finger

"The Moving Finger whites; and having writ, moves on. , ' Anatole France's story, "Penguin tsland," is a delightful and scintillat,.ng satire. Every chapter is ravishing. The di&cussion which takes place in Heaven as to whether or no the Penguins should be given immortal souls is divine irony. So is the picture of a Premier who, every time he got into trouble, arrested five, &even, eleven, or fourteen Socialists —and is kept on top. Grimly cynical is the author's record of "Future Times." The book is virtually a sweep of world's history. * * * "1 have sometimes had at one and the same time in my two hands the gloved and white hand of the upper class, and the heavy black hand of the lower class, and have recognised that there is but one man. After all these have passed before mc, I say that Humanity has a synonym -—Equality ; and that under Heaven there is but one thing that one should tow to—Genius; and but one tiling that one should kneel to—Goodness." —Victor Hugo in "Things Seen." * * ■* Jack London says he wrote "The Iron Heel" for Socialism. Other books he writes for money. Talking with a friend who had' the privilege of perusing the manuscript of Ixmdon's story, "Martin Eden,'* we learnt that the book was largely autobiographical. This enchanoes the interest in it. But "The Iron Heel" '—excluding "The Jungle" is there any modern book so powerfully and vitally true; has any title been so correctly coined as expressive of capital's cruelty and dominance ? "The Iron Heel" —we had"almost written Hell—is a story of imminent revolution as seen by the historian of eeven hundred years hence- * *» * * Barr McCutcheon can tell a good yarn. That's all. He's shallow and groovy. He treads no new tracks, discovers no fresh motives. Yet he is one of' America's leading and most popular novelists, with an output approaching the sensational. If you desire merely entertainment—legitimate enough in its place—McCutcheon will carry you along interested and forgetful. You'd read him in much the same mood as you'd visit a variety show. For •train, reading we picked up the successful "Graustark" th© other day, and coon found forgetfulness in following the adventures of Mr. Grenfell liorry, as he, ma<lly in love, chased from continent to continent the elusive and irritating princess introduced as Miss Guggenslocfcer. O that familiar iMystery!—She lias done service since writing began and reappeared in the voluptuous "Three Weeks." Of course, in "Graustark" she isn't Miss Guggenslocker at all—and you knew it at the outset if you weren't born wooden—but eventually shapes as Yetive, crowned head of a. foreign principality. And this effort of Lorry's to get the girl he loves fills some 460 pages, in none of which is there an arrestive phrase- _ or original thought. It is the colloquial commonplace wedded to the perenially interesting. No wonder liovo laughts at locksmiths. She is the elemental ruler of an, elemental universe. * * * SOWING THE SEED. tFrom the German.) Two travellers happened to be passing through a town while a great fire was raging; one of them sat down at the hotel saying: 'It's not my business.' But the other went into the tumult and amongst the raging flames, rescuing many people from burning. W"hen he returned., tired and weary, ■hie comrade asked him: 'And who bid thee risk thy life in others' business?' He said : 'The Fire-fighter who bade mc bury the seed that it may one day bring forth increase a hundred fold.' 'But if thou thyself had been buried in the ruins, what then ?' 'Then I should have been, the seed.' * * * ««rS Cila -Jf c Bello ° lias written a book on h, £ art £, System" in colla-boration with Mr. Cecil Chesterton. In this book the secret collusion between the two front benches is demonstrated, ~-.u it is shown how they have captured the control of Parliament. The method of their recruitment and the close ties between them are described, end their reliance upon secret Pnrtv Fnnds, largely obtained by the sale of honours and of legislative jKrwer, is made manifest. The book con el ml op with an examination of certain snirrirested remedies. * * * An extremely intercstinsr let tor on "The Gospel of Robert Iyoiv'.s-St^- r>i-

son" was given by Rev. W. KingscoteGreenland ("W. Scott King") to a crowded audience in the Hall of the City Temple, London. Stevenson, said the lecturer, had a Greek imagination, a Scotch conscience, an English love of action, and a French love of beauty. He was one of the very few great Victorian stylists— the magicians of words such as Ruskin, Cardinal Newman, James Martineau, and perhaps Walter Pater. Withal there was something elfish about him. His one deficiency was his inability to draw a woman. His two great passions were his love of tho sea and his love of Scotland. With regard to his religion, he instinctively resented the theologian's propensity to run the cast-iron paling of a logical definition round every spiritual or theological truth. Stevenson teas rather than had his rehVion. The two secrets of his charm were (1) his interest in himself, which compels our interest in him, and (2) the child in him, for., like Peter Pan, he "wouldn't grow up." Paying a high tribute to his unavailing courage under incessant sickness, the lecturer said Stevenson chose to be an optimist, and optimism was the most expensive of all creeds. You oould set up as a pessimist with doubt and d<^ - pair as your two main* "lines" on an outlay of about 3s 9d ! His genius was dramatic, and akin to this was the strong element of the preacher in him. Perhaps no lay preacher, except Carlyle, was so often quoted in the pulpit. He was gifted with both sight and insight. His work, "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," was one of our finest examples of psychological fiction. Hβ never confused his moral values; ho never "cracked up" virtue—ho lit it up. He dared to make virtue charming and truth lovable. He was an instinctive traveller, the only man who had ever fallen in love with a turnpike road, while no one hud ever written the philosophy of the road as he had done. Summing up, the lecturer declared the gospel of Stevenson to be a gospal of sympathy, appreciation, and tolerance^—a gospel of healthy-mindedness and happiness.