LITERATURE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2895, 8 September 1909, Page 80

LITERATURE.

"A Young Man Married, 1 ' by Sydney C. Crier Lcndon Hutchinson and Co Cunedin : Braithwaite and Co (3s 6d, 2*= 6d.) Mr Sydney Grie-r is an author who must be reckoned with. Every one of hi* Vo!cs is worth reading, and "A Young >lan itarried" 1^ no exception It, takes v- at once into the midst of an interesting his.orical period, and touches on those high political problems which are never long absent from this author's mind. The peTiod is that of the later stages of the Peninsular War. beginning with the fall of Badajoz and ending with the battle of Vittoria. The Spanish setting iei c all that <xuld be desired; it is absolutely realistic, yet has that touch ot romance which everything Spanish appears to arouse. The glimpses of camp life, of stricken fields, of guerilla fighting in odd corners; of the misery, the suffering, the waste of human life and human emotion which follows in the wake of war ; and then, again, the noble deeds, the occasional heroLsm, to which it also gives Tise — all these are touched in with a hand, and at once grip the atte..tion of the reader, giving him ill a series of pictures just" that intimate relation of details which, unknown to himself, enables him to grasp and recreate the position. The "young i»:nn" who^e hasty marriage forms the enrx of the etory is an English officer with a bad record and a thousand faults ; bit tender-hearted, brave as a lion, and capable of passionate devotion, Arthur Cmnamond foils in love at first sight with Donua Rosita d^ Lara, <i high-bred Spanish girl, whom the fortune of war has thruet or-, the un-nilhns guardianship of Major M'Cann, his senioi officer. When Lord Wellington hears of this undesired addition to his force* he commands M'Cann either "tc «end the girJ away at once" or "many her off. find a husband for. her, heme fire-eating fellow that will know how to protect her and himself, or you'll have the whole army fighting duels about her when she begins to feel her n iwer — find her a husband by this day week or send her back to Lisbon with the invalids." M'Cann cannot find it in his heart to s«.id the girl away alone and unprotected. Lieutenant Cinnamond advances his suit, is at firfit refused, because of his unsatisfactory record, but ultimately wins the lady's consent and that of his command in^ officer, and the pair are mariied almost ou the battlefield. Rosita forms an ideal soldier's wife : ehe follows iwr husband everywhere, put-> up joyfully with all the annoyances and discomforts of camp life, io cold and wet and weary and hungry, but never out of temper. She has always a smile and a pleasant \vord for her bridegroom Arthur tries to keep her out of danger, but that, of course, is impossible. On one occasion she is actually "under fire," for having made her way to his fide, in spite of all obstacles, Arthur finds it "too late " to send her away, and the Brigadier bids her stay. She is soon in the midst of the fight, a unique position for a woman, and one for which she is by no mean'- prepared. For Rosita the rush was a nightmare of wild faces grimed with powder, gleaming bayonets in furious hands, the solitary figure of a French officer firing a gun straight into the advancing English when all his men had fled, shoute, cui'f-es, screams, blood. Then came a moment's breathing-space, and then frantic yells. Arthui seized bei rein and dragged her aside. The crumpled British line was facing to its left, and the front Tank men were kneeling, and out of the smoke burst the farms of men and hordes rushing straight upon the bayonet^ — a charge of French cavalry. It seemed a.s if nothing could reeds-t that onslaught. Rosita shut her eyes and prayed. A blood-stained tabre was raided over her head. Tne Frenchman realised the truth as her terrified eyes met his, and with a tremendous effort he deflected the blow he could not check. The sabre grazed the back of Rosita 's hat and shore away some hairs from her horse's tail. 'ifille pardons, mademois.elle/ cried the rider as his horse swept pa6t." Nor are Rosita's dangers confined to those arising from her legitimate enemies. Her noble family consider themselves so much outraged by Tior marriage to a foreigner and a heretic that they refuse to consider it a marriage at all. They demand her return, and endeavour tc compass i* by entreaties, bribes, threats, plots and schemes of all kinds. Secret societies lend their aid. Arthur Cinnamond is entrapped, and barely escapes with his life ; Rosita is carried off and hidden in remote mountain fastnesses, where her husband, owing to the exigencies of his position, cannot immediately follow or trace her. She is upon the point of being immured in a nunnery, where she could never have been discovered, when one of her relents and connives at her escape. After long delay and many exciting and hairbreadth adventures the married lovers meet on another battlefield — Vittoria, — where Arthur lies among the wounded, apparently bleeding to death. Rosita reaches him in time. She eends her companion for help, spreads her shawl c^er the | wounded man, lays his head on her knee, and waits. He wakes, sees her face, and murmurs, "This, then, is ter.ven," after which the tide of affairs changes. Amid, the spoils of the battlefield Rosita I finds a paper which places hex family in her power. The tide has now turned ; but she is merciful, demanding nc more than due recognition of her husband and her marriage, and a pardon ior all those who had helped her to escape. And so the Spanish girJ is justified of her hasty marriage, and never repents the day on which she chose "tent, and horse, and sword, and the road towards God's gate."

"Lyrics at Leisure," by Dorothy Fiances M'Crae (Mrs C. E. Perry). 'Welbourne : Thomas C Lothian. (Stiff vvhit-e paper : Is.) These Lyrics are full of simple charm.

They are short, generally from two to six stanzas, and touch lightly, yet with true poetic feeling, on most enbjects of common life and interest For our own part we like those best which treat of childhood and motherhood, slumber eongs ' and lullabies, "little sleepy heads" and ! treasures of "shining Cape-flower g^'d." Wouldet don a girdle, wear a crown, A splendid obain to deck thy breast? Thy feet are eet in gold look down Wh»t wealth is tbme from east to west! God scatters gold upon the grass, But men (so dull of heart and eye) Oft tread it underfoot and pass; May we prove wiser, you and -I. Very sweet, too, are the touches in such pathetic lines as those to "Old Letters," "Love-ways," '"To-night," "The Old Spinnet," "Maidenhair," "'The Face," and "In the Shadow " Tha last conveys our meaning so perfectly that we quote it in full to show its delicate elusive charm: — Bless me befcre I sleep, I»»y your swset. hand Lightly upon my foair, Close to my bedside stand (Yourself a. prayer). I Heart's dearest, do not weep, Do not deinismct Pate to prolong my sbarie Of time. Oh.! understand, Death's Life, if you are there. Mm Perry has a light touch «nd & true poetic instinct. In such verses as "White i Clover," with its haunting refrain, we ; have the exact word for all prolonged waiting, "benumbing," and, again, in "The I Rosary" we have an apt comparison between the symbols of prayer and of life — Blue and grey, and red and gold. (Sun and rain^ and wind and dew.) Few Life'c beads, and swiftly told, Faith. deceit, and false and true. Blue and grey, and red and gold, Faith, deceit, and false and true, Vain -the story — trite and old — Rases, h-eartease, violets, rue! Blue and grey, and red and gold, All th« Koss.ry is through. And we rest beneath the mould 1 — Gold and' red, and grey and bhie! In the lines entitled "Homsskk" many an exile's heart will echo the cry— 0! Land of gold and burning bhie, I'm crying like a child for you! Mrs Perry's verse ie simple in the best sense of that much : abused word, but it touches a true note. "Mr Opp." By Alice Hegan Rice. London : Hodder and Stoughton. Dunedin :R. J. Stark and Co. (3s 6d, 2s 6d.) Mrs Alice Hegan Rice has written one book,^ " Mrs Wiggs of the Cabbage I Patch," which was to a great extent original, and immediately caught and held the public fancy; and she has written another tale, " Lovey Mary," nearly equal to the first. Her later efforts, however, have never touched the high-water mark of the first production. Mr Opp, I though a cheerful, pleasant, and optimistic person, does not possess anything like the " grit" of Mrs Wiggs. The optimism of the latter is genuine and well based, that of Mr Opp is a mere illusion of selfesteem and "swelled head." He is illprovided by nature and education for the I different roles of speculator, promoter, i reformer, and editor, which he assumes i with daring impudence, and the reader is constantly aggravated by his assumption of knowledge which he does not possess, j Although his ignorant self-assertion is j partly redeemed by the genuine kind- • ness of his heart, shown to all sick and afflicted creatures, and his absolute devotion to his half-witted sister, Miss Kippy, it is impossible to help wishing that a little self-knowledge had been added to these good qualities. The book has many telling scenes, such as the one in which the village scandalmonger, seeking for Mr Opp's supposed secret of financial success — which, by the way, is conspicuously wanting, — finds him helping the little sister to fit a dress on a large china doll, and that other in which he leaves the banquet assembled in his honour that he may soothe the same little person. But the situations are, as a rule, strained, and the spontaneity of Mrs Wiggs and Lovey Mary are entirely wanting, the difference being that while the two women believed in human nature 'generally, Mr Opp believes chiefly in himself. "For Mr Opp, it must be confessed, was given to violent intoxication, not from an extraneous source, but from too liberal draughts of his own imagination. . . . Each successive enterprise loomed big with possibilities, and before it sank to oblivion another' scheme portentously significant had filled its place. He saw life as a succession of crises, and through them he saw himself moving, now a shrewd merchant, now a professional man, again an author of note, but oftenest of all a promoter of great enterprises, a financier and man ot affairs." It has often been said that women have no sense of humour. Mrs Hegan Rice is a distinguished proof ot the error of that statement. "Mr Opp," like all her other books, is pervaded throughout with the keenest possible sense of the ridiculous, and it is plentifully sprinkled with smart sayings, as in the whole description of Miss Jim, who was " by theory a spinster and by practice a double grass widow," because, being capable and self-supporting, " she attracted the ne'er-do-weels as a magnet attracts needles " — this not because ot her own charms, which were conspicuously absent. " But it was her clothes that brought misunderstanding, misfortune, even matrimony, upon Miss Jim. They were sent by the boxful by a cousin in the city, and the fact was unmistakable that they were clothes with a past. The dresses held an atmosphere of evaporated frivolity : flirtations lingered in every frill, and memories of old larks lurketl in every furbelow. The hats had a jaunty list to port, and the coloured slippers still held a dance within their soles." It is characteristic of this lady that as boon as her circumstances improve she buys herself "' a tailor-made dress and a hard bowler hat," and for the first time leels

"at home " in her clothes. We close this ' notice with the optimistic words of Mr Opp concerning his fight with Life and Fate :—": — " What the fight is concerning, or in what manner the General is a-aim-ing to bring it all correct in the end, ain't, to my conclusion, a particle of our business " — which is to fight manfully under all circumstances. And so we leave him, " passing out of sight, with the sleet in his face and the wind cutting -through his finery. He whistles as he goes, such a plucky, sturdy, hopeful whistle as calls to arms the courage that lies smouldering in the hearts of men."