LITERATURE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2892, 18 August 1909, Page 82

LITERATURE.

"The Mystery of Frances Farrington," by Elizabeth Banks. London: Hutchinson and Co. Dunedin : J Braithwaite

and Co.

(3s 6d, 2s 6d).

Miss Elizabeth. Banks is known to the public as "The Newspaper Girl." because of her previous book, "The Autobiography of a Newspaper Girl" in which she recounted her different experiences in the effort to obtain "copy" for her newspaper ; to which end she embraced for a short time many different occupations — euch as flower-girl, domestic servant, assistant in Various shops, and so on. The lady's present venture is a light, bright, readable novel of modern American life, which, however, is not without its purpose, that of "showing up_" the criminal procedure in New York, which seems to be greatly in need of reform, since it would appear "tha* the District Attorney's office, instead of trying to discover truth makes it a business to convict, as though the number of convictions, no matter how obtained, were a .matter for congratulation." Especially ie this the case with regard "to "circumstantial evidence by means of whicl" many absolutely innocent persons have been wrongfully condemned for crimes of which they were completely innocent." Miss Banks invents a strong case to support her opinion : that of a woman (Frances Parrington) who mysteriously disappears and whose murder is assumed (the drowned body of a totally different person being taken as proof). On such evidence, or rather lack of evidence, a strong ca?e is made out and pressed home against authoress Margaret Allison, who had merely invented the name and person of Frances Farrington as a nora de plume under which she might write and appeal to the public in different form from that already associated with her name, which is that of light comedy. She feels that .she has creater power fov serious literary work i which does not obtain recognition, as no editor credits her with being" other than a comedienne. "Frances Farrington'' as an English visitor to New York is immediately appreciated, hei work accepted and highly paid for, while that oi her creator (Margaret Allison) sinks into a secondary place. Here, H^aan, Miss Banks scores a point and giv-es a useful lesson ; and it is, of course, the lesson contained in the old adages, "Give ? dog a bad name and hang him" and "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" The tale in which these two morals are daintily and convincingly drawn is< itself a delicious touch of comedy, and we have _6eldom read a better and more amusing scene than the one in which Margaret is indicted for the murder of her own alter ego, every trifling incident of her careeer, ~ even the follies of schoolgirl days, being wrested from their true value into a sinister meaning of criminal intent, against which her whole life of generous altruism is not allowed to weigh one iota;, Margaret is an unusually sensible and charming heroine, as well as a very attractive woman. She lias for -i lover a clever and successful mining engineer, whose early career is spoiled by a false accusation unduly piessed home. His danger turns his sweetheart's attention to the great risks attending circumstantial evidence, especially as employed in the District Attorney's Court, N.Y., which seems to resemble that of tbe Public Prosecutor in France rather than anything with which England and her colonies are acquainted. -As usual in American 6tories the "almighty dollar" plays an important part in this tale, the enormous Ptims accumulated by the popular novelist and her engineer being altogether fabulous. We wondei whether the "Newspaper Girl" has herself found journalism so profitab'e. Does this explain the enormodus literary output of the present | time? Are writers anl publishers alike seeking not that <vhieh is good and true, but merely that which will "sell" ?

"Side Tracks and Bridle Paths," by Lionel James (Intelligence Officer). London: William Blackwood and Sons.

(3s 6d, 2s 6d.)

This series of sketches and stories is ■well worthy of the author of "On the Heels of De Wet." Many of the sketches are so short that they resemble sudden illuminating searchlights, which reveal a startling fact and are gone ; others are more caiefully detailed and worked out. Of the former -we would instance "On the Road to Stellenvosh," and of the latter, "With a Car to the German Manoeuvres." As the title would sugest, most of Mr James's tales have for their background some out-of-the-way and little-known spot ; this is especially the case with the first part of the book, which deals with Tabriz, in Persia, a place almost unknown until the late disturbances ir that country, where the author was pent in pursuance of his bu?ines> as an intelligence officer, and wh*re he contrived to ama*s a great deal of interesting information, given in the present, volume in the form of racy sketches and spirited narratives. After Persia tlie story-teller takes us to other countries, and v,e find three admirable Indian tales, ouite KipJingesque in their vigour ; and others treating of Russia, South Africa, Germany, Turkey, even England. All are capital reading and realistic to the last degiee.

"How to Make a Hundred Break: Billiards Made Easy," . by John Roberts •with "BilHardda." London: Simpkin, Marshall, and Co. (Paper, Is.) The fame of Roberts, the great- 'billiard champion, will doubtless ensure an enormous success for this useful HUle volume, which, beginning with a few sample practical words on "the art of .break-making," proceeds to give detailed rules and practical directions for the same. "Thousands of persons." says Mr Roberts, "play billiards all their lives without knowing how to make a br?ak. and this is why they never become good players. They

can make plenty if individual strokes, bat the one stroke is enough for them ; after that the balls may go where luck takes them." But that is not billiards, and Mr Roberts very clearly shows why it is not, and how the mistake may be remedied and "a hundred break" effected "without calling into requisition a single stroke beyond the cue power of an oidinary player." He then explains in detail the position th-e balls should occupy — illustrating the same with diagrams, and clear, minute, written directions, which include such subjects as "The Important Red Ball," "The Next Stroke," "Hints on Half-ball Strokes," "The Key to Billiards," "Our First Cannon," "The Pace to Find the Pocket," "The Top of the Table Game," etc. He chows that nothing is really "easy" at billiards, that "players must neveT grow careless and take liberties with the game." "Billiardia," of course, contains many good stories in which Mr Roberts himself figures as actor or object, one of which gives a typical American address in his honour whdeh was expected "to cast a never-fading halo round the recipient's declining years" ; while another tells of "the record stroke of my career," a fancy stroke, "to make a cannon on a ball placed in a. hat about loin from the cushion." i Tbe stroke was made with old balls, and by extraordinary luck the cue-ball broke the object ball clean in half, which -was, of course, a-coep>ted as an intentional ' "double event." Mr Roberts was entreated to repeat the stroke, but pru- , dently replied' that he "never made that particular stroke more than once in. an evening." The volume ends -with some valuable hints on "The Future Government of Billiards," and gives "25 good reasons why the present Billiard Association ought to be ashamed of itself" ; suggesting many radical improvements and reforms. j

"A Critical Outline of the Merchant of Venice and Julius Oesar," by Janetta M. Hornsby, B.A. (N.Z.), "A.R.C.M.

(Lond.). (Paper, Is.)

These notes "were compiled especially for the English Class at the Technical School, as some assistance to those preparing for the set work of tbe University, Senior Civil Service, and Teachers' C examinations for 1909. They are published in the hope that they may lead to a closer and more intelligent study of the text, by bringing into prominence a few main points of interest." This outline may be useful, but it seems to us exceedingly bald, and more suited to the capacity of juniors than seniors. However, Miss Hornsby, as an educationalist of position, being the principal of Cabaragh House School; Nelson, and instructress of Senior English in the Technical School of the same place, should know best, and we are therefore willing to take her word 1 for it ;, but when Miss Ho_msby draws upon her imagination so far as to institute a resemblance in character, etc., between the Portias of the two plays under consideration, then we must frankly oonfese that we fail to se« "in the bright, intelligent, loving Portia of Belmont the girlhood of the high-souled, loving, faithful Portia of Rome." Tbe comparison appears to us to be altogether irrelevant and baseless, the similarity of name being distinctly misleading. A real insight into the meaning of tbe two plays should have gone much deeper. A statement of this kind cannot be called "critical," and may prove misleading when papers are in the hands of unimaginative examiners.

LITERARY NOTES.

— This year Notes and Queries attains to its sixtieth birthday. This "diamond jubilee" of a useful an<' valuable periodical may be said to be fitly commemorated by Mr John Collins Francis in his "Notes by the Way," published by Mr Fisher Unwin. — "Theodore Rcosc-veh : Dynamic Geographer," 16 the witlc of an essa*- by Mr Frank Buffington Vroomon uhich Mr Frowde is about to publish. The book is l-aied on a leoiure weently delivered to the School of Geography at Oxford. Mr Vrooman considers that Mr Roosevelt has> introduced a new era in world politics, and a new day for rational, ethical, and constructive democracy.

— Captain Mahan is following up his books on the sea. with a work of an entirely different character. It is entitled "The Harvest Within,' and is descr'bed in the sub-title as "being thoughts on tho life of a Christian."' The underlying thome of the book is "the mystical relation of the individual iife of the Chiistian man and the corporate life of the Christian Church to the Life of God in Joeus Christ."

— The death is ai.nouncod at Roxbury. Massachusetts, of Dr Edward E\ ere tt HaJe. the veteran man of letter*, in the T'nited ?tat&s, aged 87. Born at Boston in 1822, the son cf Nathan Ila!e, of the Boston Daily Advertiser, lie wrote much for his father' 6 newspaper, ami became an authority on Spanish-American affair- From 1856 to 1599 he wa- widely known as uunn=ier of the South Congregational (T'liitarian) Church, Boston, ai.<l lie \\a« latch chaplain of the United Staffs Senate. Some of his tale such as '"Tho Man Without a Country," "In His Nams,"' and ''Ton Times ()ni is Ten" — had an enorniou- five ulation, the la^t two stimulaiinrr tho foundation of Lend-a-Hand Club*. He edited the Lend-a-Hand Record, and al*o a voiunw of documents from the Public Recoid Office and British Museum illustrating the history of Raleigh's first colony (1860). Other books of his were " Franklin in Franc " (1886), "James Russell Lowell and Hit- F) ien<lr>" (1899), "Ralph Waldo Kmor-on." and "Memories of a Hundred YeaiV (1902). —It is now discovered that the new publishing competition is being carried too far. In tome cases novels «ue being leprinted at the cheap rate before their fir-t editions (published at' from 4s 6d to 6s) have been cold out by the booksellers. .So the eevenpenny novel, if not killed outright, will have to be subjected to a severe time Emit, which will preclude its issue until several yea re after publication of the original edition. Whether the change will restore favour to the more expensive issues of fiction is very doubtful. Mr Heinemann is one wlho thinks it v. ill not. Speaking at the annual dinner of the Associated Booksellers, he says that 'n

future fiction will have to be published at prices varying according to its length, and to some extent also according to the standing of the writers who produce it. "Publication," he declares-, "must be more economically honest than it is at present.'' Under existing arrangements a new 6s novel may contain as few as 40,000 words or as manj' as 300,000. It may be the work of ripe experience, oi "the slipshod writing of young ladies who can afford to spend £50 or £100 on the production of a few hundred copies of their foolish vapourings." He agrees that far too many novels are being published, and that the few good ones are being buried under the mountain of rubbish. But, like many other observers, he knows there is no roal remedy.

— "The author of 'The Sands of Pleasure' and 'When, the Tide Turns,' two admirable novels of great literary distinction and charm. :"s in America, and has frankly been telling the Americans what he thinks of their fiction,'' says, the Glasgow Evening NeAvs. "He does not greatly appreciate the American novel; it does not begin to compare yet with the English one. Asked who " were his favourite English novelists, Mr Young replied — 'Among the younger men, H. O. Wells and John Galsworthy. But Galsworthy, though he has an abundance of talent, is not a writer ]/ure and simple He is a sociologist. Me has independent means, and devotes his iuooxne to sending families to Canada, and uses only his royalties from his books for himself. Mrs Ward? Of course, Mrs Ward writes what the ma6eea wish to read. May Sinclair has not done anything of not? since "The Divine Fire." Mrs Ulyn? But why mention her? She is a society woman who writes books that will cause talk — but we were speaking of literature, were we not?' Mr Young's interviewer, by the mention of the names of those three ladies, gives a clua to what America, thinks is of importance in present-day English notion." — We are to have a new life of Sterne. Again the author comes from, one of the American universities, Professor Wilbur L. Cross, of Yale. It is probable that Sterne's appeal will always be to a comparatively limited circle. He is of the authors whcee faults are at least as obvious as their merits, and whose faults are of a singularly discouraging kind. But with those who know how to taste him he has a place not granted to greater men. Himself a very literary and derivative author, he has a peculiar charm for those whose tastes are bookish, and if he stole a good deal from literature he has paid a good deal back in authors so alien from him as Marryat and Robert Louis Stevenson. For certainly there was nothing "of the shorter oateohist" in Laurence fckerne. We find that from the current writing of the hour references to Sterne and his characters have almost been eliminated. The author of the "Ingoldsby" Legends" could parody "Tristram Shandy" currente calamo with the assurance that th© "works of the late Mr Sterne" were familiar enough to everybody to give- point to the jest. In, the middle nineteenth century academicians found it as popular to paint the Widow Wadman. as anyone ir Shakespeare. Of che visitors to this year's Academy, how many know the story of Mrs Wadman's courtship, or the sorrows of Lefevre, or the oath of Uncle Toby? — In a notice of Mr W. •). Oouper's book, "The Edinburgh Periodical Press," 1 the Athenseum saye that the first volume, which covers the period between 16*2 and 1711, is naturally the more interesting, as it deals with the beginning and early history of the press in Edinburgh. The first ildinburgh newspapers were merely reprints of London papers, but the capital soon began, to provide for itself; and, according to Mr Couper,- no journalistic enterprise was shown elsewhere in Scotland until the appearance of the Glasgow Courant in 1715. It is just possible, states jhe reviewer, that Dumfries anticipated Glasgow, though Mr Couper does not give it tho priority. Evidently the Dumfries Mercury has escaped his attention. An Edinburgh gentleman has a fragment of the twelfth issue of this print, which, though undated, is proved by its contents to have been published between 1714 and 1718. At any rate, after the Glasgow paper of 1715, "Edinburgh was again without a rival until the Glasgow Journal was started, probably about 1741, and the Aberdeen Journal in 1748—whichlatter is the 01-deet existing Scottish new-.-paper" It is interesting to note that, of the Edinburgh periodicals that began publication before 1800, only three survive; while of these the Edinburgh Gazette of W9Z has alone retained its original name. Several, like the Caledonian Mercury and the Courant, reached a good old age; the former may still be said to live in the Scotsman.

— The. references to Burns's connection with the Edinburgh press should be noted. It has bean asserted that. Burns was seen in periodical print before the first edition of his poems appeared in 1786; but contemporary periodicals do not show anything known to be his before the publication m the Caledonian Mercury, December 19, 1786, of the "Address to a Haggis." Mr Couper, pays the Athenaeum, i* wrong in his surmise that ••Tarn o' Shanter" first appeared in tho Edinburgh Herald of March 18, 1791. Burns, in his letter of February 28, 1791, to Dr John Moore, writes: — "I do not know, tir, whether jou are a subscriber to Groe-e's 'Antiquities of Scotland.' _ If yon are, the inclosed poem ('Tarn o' Shantcr) will not be altogether new to you." Mr Couper is a clergyman of the United Fiee Church of Scotland, and many years ayo he conceived the idea of furnishing a complete record of all the diurnals that issued fiom the hand, of Edinburgh printers up to the beginning of the nineteenth century. It was a ta^k requiring patient and laborious research, and has been performed wiili much skill and ability

—In an article on "Hay-making"' in a conteinpoiaij appears the following: — The most, memorable fetory of love in the hayfield i- aLo the saddest. It ie that beautiful btory which Gay wrote, which Pope f-tole, which Thackeray admired, and of which no familiarity can forbid the quotation. The lant day of July was the date of tli^> catastrophe, and Gay'e version of tho story, told in one of hie letters, was this : "I have just passed part of this hummer at an old romantic seat of my Lord Harcourt's, which he lent me. It overlooks a common hayfield, where, under the shade of a haycock," sat two loveis— as constant as ever were found in romance — beneath a spreading bush. The name of the one (let it sound as it will) was John Hewett; of the other, .Sarah Drew. John was a well-set man, about five-and -twenty ; Sarah was a brave woman of 18- John had

for several months borne the labour of th*d<ay in the same field with Sarah ; when she milked it was h<s morning and evening charge to bring the cowb _to- her pails." Their love was the- talk, but not the scandal, of tin? whole neighbourhood ; for all they aimed at wa the blameless possession oE each other in marriage. It was but this very morning that be obtained her parents' consent, and it was but till the next week that they were to wait to be happy. Perhaps this very day, in the intervals of their work, they were talking of their wedding clothes; and John was now snatching Bevera 1 kinds of poppies and field flowers to make her a present of knots for the day. While they were thus employed (it was on the last of July) a terrible storm of thunder and lightning arose, and drove the labourare to what shelter the trees or hedges afforded. Sarah, frightened out of breath, sank on a haycock; and John (who never separated from her) sat by her side, having raked two or three heaps together to secure her. Immediately there wast- so loud a crash as if heaven had burst asunder. The labourers, all solicitous for each other's safety, called to one another; those that were nearest our lovers, hearing no answer, stepped to the place where they lay. Tthey just saw a little smoke, and after, this faithful pair — John, with "one arm about his Sarah's neck and the other held over her face, a 6 if to screen her from, the lightning. They w-ore struck dead, and* already grown stiff and cold in this tender posture. There w«6 no. mark or discolouring on their bodies — only Sarah's eyebrow was a little singled and a small spot between her breasts. They were buried the next day in one grave."