A LITERARY CORNER

New Zealand Times, Volume XLII, Issue 9794, 18 October 1917, Page 8

A LITERARY CORNER

(R.A.L.) ■ THE ECONOMIC ANTI-CHRIST.” Rev. W. Bllssard M.A. (G. Allen and Unwin. Rusk in House, Museum street, Loudon, W.C.) This book’s design is in one respect daring. Leaving the defensive, attitude which most Christians seem to regard as most becoming, this olenc rides at tho world with a rush, bristling with facts and. figures. II hat has Christianity done for the world? Rubbish! IVhat has the world done to spoil Christianity? That is tho point. It is not Christianity that is on its trial—ho seems to say as ho rides out of his peaceful study in his picturesque Kentish vicarage, with spurs just about to dig in—it is tho world, lou see in the gleam of his eye, as It were, that tho usual crowd is there in iront of him, the Devil and the Flesh being close to their pal, quite within striking distance.

Presently he is off, straight for Hie evil group of three, galloping with tao measured stride of the pulpit, and it is not long before his weapons are clattering about them. Tho course othe combat clears a spaco around tho champion, and into that spaco he drives tho loader of the enemy, the Economic Anti-Christ, for the world to look at before ho gets sliced mto quivering bits. The political economy of our time, with its commercial shibboleths, its survivals of Attests, its grievous wrongs to Labour, its absurdities of land tenure, its powerful patent machine for making the rich richer and fewer and tho poor poorer and more numerous, and its sa-crca books expounding to- the votaries or “Culchaw” the laws according to the profits of progress under the inspiration of Mammon, the meanest spirit that fell from Heaven. That is the Economic Anti-Chnst w®o has interposed between practical Christianity and tho world. He will, after tho war, be dethroned, because blood will have cleared the air for justice, and truth, and charity among men. In the meantime the wel V“ ls ' posed man who wants to help in that betterment cannot do better than follow -tho handling our champion g'™ 3 to this Economic Anti-Christ, to the justification of Christianity with muoh help to the builders of the new earth of the vivid Lloyd Georgian imagination. “THE IDEAL NURSE.” Dr Chas. Morcier. (Mental Culture Enterprise, 329, Holbom, London, W.C.) A most interesting and valuable treatise of practical advice to the nursing profession. A lecture originally addressed to nurses who- pi'actise in mental hospitals, the author has republished it without alteration for tho sake of that part—the greater—of it which applies to the nursing profession general* The advice is simple. Do things with your hands. Don’t dream them while poring over test books got up for examination purpose, some of which you do not want to know, some of which you cannot understand and much that you never will learn if you live a thousand years. Do things with vour hands and keep on doing them till you can do them perfectly. Help your hands, with your head ; arrange for all yoUr work .perfectly beforehand so that when it has started it shall not stop for lack of necessaries. Never forget that the best basis of nursing is charity, as tho Apostle defined it in those glorious passages that Ivavo inspired men and women for all the ages of Christendom; “Charity slifforeth long, and is kind; charity envieth not,” etc., and realising the perfection of duty add the two indispensable qualities of sympathy and capacity and you have the perfect nurse. Very interesting is the historical contrast of to-day with a century ago. Then tho brutality of tho social system was extended to the Bedlams. A people that flogged children unmercifully, degraded its soldiers and sailors with tho abominable practice, hanged men, women and children for paltry offences, and permitted the horrors of tho transportation system—a people like that was not likely to he tolerant of the insane

The tortures endured hy these poor creatures were incredible. Details the lecturer spares us, but with one story ho lights up the lurid horizon. The authority is the late Dr Paul, for a great part of last century treasurer of “The Retreat,” the well-known mental hospital of York. George 111. before his death in 1800 was out of his mind, and under restraint in one of the palaces. Two keepers wore allotted to him, men of experience in this kind of work, and of a loyalty to bo thoroughly trusted. Dr Paul, who knew one of these men in after years, asked him one day what happened when the old King was troublesome. “Wo knocked him down as flat as a flounder,” tho ex-keeper said in the calmest of tones, quite undisturbed by any suspicion of wrong-doing. If such was tbe treatment of the highest personage in the land, what could tho rest expect when falling into mental trouble?

Nowadays how different. Only murder is punished hy death, and as for flogging, that is abolished and the outcry the newspapers make when the soldiers go without jam for tea is tremendous.

A bright, valuable, littlo hook, most useful to every nurse, and not ‘without merit for home reading.

“CARNATION CULTURE.” Elma Denham. (I. Wyatt, 318, Little Collins street, Melbourne, Victoria.) The books stops off as the “Australasian Catechism of Carnation Culture,” and with the foreword that it has been compiled from actual experience. It there is anything that anyone, can conceive as to bo known about the carnation, its cultivation, and the many varieties of this beautiful flower, ho , will find it all in those pages. ' “DOREEN. ,T C. J. Dennys. (Angus and Robertson, Sydney, per IVhitcombc and Tombs, Wellington-) A truly welcome volume is “Doreen,” being the continuation of the story of “The Sentimental Bloke.” That nook was the story of tbe courtship, and. incidentally, the reformation, of the “Bioko.” It ended with the marriage and just the beginning of _tho married life to show what the novelists seldom atempi, how those lovers must be happy for ever after. This one plumps into that happy married life six years after that strange, original, and most beautiful beginning. Hero is the scene into which the story plumps. It opens a poem styled “Washing Day,” as fresh, and original, and fragrant as anything this fine Dennys pen ever did: The little gipsy vi’lite. they wus peepin’ thro’ tho green As she conic walkin’ in the grass, mo little wife, Doreen. The sua shone on the sassafras, where thrushes sung a bar. —The ’ope an’ worry uv our lives wus yellin’ fer ’is Mar. — I watched ’er cornin’ down the green; the sun wus on ’er ’air— Jist the woman that I marri’d, when mo luck wus ’oadin’ fair. Tlho poem sticks to washing day, but wand-.rs from the washing. The purpose is to show how this strangely assorted couple can never quarrel, try they ever so hal'd- The ‘ ‘Bloke’ ’ is taking advantage of a delicious Australian day to take a spell. There be is, seated on the fence • rail overlooking the proceedings, enjoying a reminiscent mood. Doreen, with her mouth full of olothes-pegs and her arms encumbered. with “washing,” wants some wood cut. She also wants to convey to iho “Bloke” her sense of outraged maternity. Tbe “Bioko” beeps his axo sharp; the axe has been leit about, and “Tbe ’ope an’ worry uv our lives” has meddled with its edge, to his disadvantage. “The gtove-wood’s low,” she mumbles, ‘‘an’ young Bill ’as cut ’is thumb. Now, it weren’t no giddy love-speech, but it seemed to take me straight Back to the time X kissed ’ey first beside ’er mother’s gate. The “Bloke” won’t take the hint. He just weaves it into his pleasant daydream. An’ wet’s a bit uy stove-wood count, wiv paddioks grinnin’ green. When a bloke gits on to dreamin uv the old days an’ Doreen — . Tho days I thort I snared a saint; but since I’ve understood I ’ave wed a dinkum woman, which is fifty times as good. Doreen sticks it (She pegs another sheet sez, “The stove-wood’s gittiu’ low.”) The “Bloke” soothes himself with philosophy. ’Tis the thrushes ’oo ’avp tort mo in their choonful sort o’ way That it’s best to take things singin as yeh meet ’em day be day. Fer I wed a reel, live woman, wiv a woman’s ’appy knack Uv torkin’ reason inside out an logic front to back. An’ I like it. ’Strath I like it! Fer a was doll in a ’ode, She’d give a man the flamin’ pip an longin’s fer to roam. Some lines more, and Doreen . . . sez, so sweet an’ dangerous, “The stove-wood’s giftin’ low.’’ Doreen makes her little remark, but it only makes him say. An’ I’ve sort o’ studied wimmin—fer I’ve met a tidy few — An’ there’s times, when X wus younger, when X kids meself 1 knew. But ’im ’oo ’opes to count the stars or measure up the sea, ’E kin ’ave a shot at woman, fer she’s fairly flummoxed me • • • (“I’ll ’ave to ’avo some wood,” she sez, an’ sez it most perlite An’ secret to a pair uv socks; an’ jams a peg in, tight.) And so it goes on, until I ’eaves me frame frum orf the fence, an" grabs me little axe; But, when I’m ’ar£ way to the shed, she stops mo in me tracks. “Ycr lunch is ready. That ole wood kin easy wait a while.” Strike! I’m marri’d to a woman . . . But she never seen me smile. This poem is a gem of humour and light, descriptive touch, with the strange dialect perfectly handled positively into music. There are others, especially one called “(Possum,” which shows the “Bloke” taken ill and compelled to submit to treatment. But these exirates show how Dennis is still going, and we need only add that the rest are of the same quality. “GXjsi~ BLOSSOAIS.” May Burke. (Angus and Robertson, Sydney, per Whitcombo and Tombs, Wellington.) Tho daintiest little brochures—there are two—these, with the most charming of quaint illustrations, many of them in colour, making the blossoms into babies. Here is the key: On all the big Gumtrees there arc* Gum-Nut Babies. Some people s-eo them and some don’t; hut they see everybody and everything. Possibly that’s how their eves have grown to big. Thus introduced, we get tho whole story of these Babies, with their thoughts, their adventures, their delightful childish ways. Whoever could •have learned so much about these extraordinary little people? You wonder, and wonder, and smile, and smile, and you revel in the fresh imagination and the dainty imagery. And the illustrations—you see them hanging on in hurricanes, quite at home, teasing all slow-going creatures, whom they never harm, for they “love all the world,” taking care of motherless young birds, consoling Mrs Possum, who has lost her little one, astride on the beak of a kookaburra, looking into tho bird’s sinister eyes, and enjoying her laugh, for the laugh of “Mrs Kookaburra is a little cynical” i.‘'cynical” is delightful), “but, then, she eats so many snakes”; cornered by lizards, sleeping on the edge of a long, stiff gum-leaf; in all sorts of wonderful escapades. There are also gum-blossom babies, which have a book to themselves: Gum-Blossom Babies are much harder to find than Gum-TCut Babies. They aro more timid, being girls, and are generally clustered together in their homes on the tops of tho trees. And these are also the subject ol

much delicious imagination, and the most delightfully quaint pictures, drawn like the others in most masterly fashion. They are, it appears, ‘'found in the buds—the lids lift up, the petals unfold, and the baby is tossed out into the arms of the expectant little mother” ; and as they grow tnoy wear thick round caps, which, when they fall, and they always fall cm their heads, protect them, so that they don’t get hurt. “When the moon is very full, the Nuts take the blossoms to some far-off tree, and there toll them of uncommon things and doings.”

If you doubt, look at the picture, It is most convincing and delicious. Even against your will you must believe.