A LITERARY LOG.

Southland Times, Issue 18816, 8 May 1920, Page 11

A LITERARY LOG.

( ABOUT BOOKS & BOOKMEN. ) (By “lot*.”) ■ May 8, 1920. A Lovable Poet.—Scattered here and there amongst us you will meet people who know "something of James Whitcomb Riley, probably the best-beloved of America’s poets. In these days when the poets are trying their best to upset all the rules, make ; new ones and then, upset them, it is a pleasure to turn away and go back to these .homely unprepjntious rhymes, which have in. them - ; a deep love of Humanity am! a tender and searching eye for its little weaknesses. . 'Riley 'is known to his own people, especially the great solid body of the nation, but , he probably cries in vain for even a passing glance from the ultra .moderns who .are busily . engaged in inventing, new emotions for life. Riley, however. k> sure of (his audience. .Whcretver there are simple- honest people—what the American wouki call "Jest folks” —he will find readers . and once those people have read his “Little Orphant Annie,” who tells about the “Gobble-uns” that ‘‘get you if you don't watch out,” or ‘"The Raggedy Man” with his' wonderful stories about “Uncle Squecrs” and other people they will never desert him. . I am tempted to say these things that many people must know, because there has come to me one of a series of re issues by Grosset and Dunlap of Rileys poems. The one 1 have is Child Rhymes;’’ but the other volumes will be equally valuable ip their own way. Riley is a poet, for reading aloud before a tire, and he is simple and noble always, even in his more humorous efforts; he is a poet that I strongly recommend to adults and to children as a means of getting a friendlier view of life. My copy caste from Hyndman’s, ♦-O-e-O-o-At the Saleroom*.—ln January some Kipling items were offered for Bale at auction. They were formerly the property of J. Nicoli Dunn, who was once managing editor of the “National Observer” when W. X Henley was its literary editor. The author’s proof of “Cleared”, which was printed in the Observer and subsequently in "Barrack Room Ballads,” with Kipling’s corrections and alterations, and some by Henley, brought £66. The holograph ms. of “Fussy Wnsay” cut in half for compositors, was bought for £SO. First editions of Steve.ruon’s “An Inland Voyage" (1878). ‘‘Travels with a Donkey” (1879 > and “Virginibus Pue.riaqoe” (1881) were also sold in January. The first named brought £22 and the other two £l6 10* each.

A Lost Manuscript.—Colonel T. E. Lawrence, the young Oxford graduate who played such an important part in the Arabian revolt against the Tarks, has lost the manuscript of his life story. For some time the leading editors in London had been trying to induce Laurence to tell his wonderful story of bow he rawed an army of 200,000 Arabs and led them. But Laurence was as shy of publicity as be was of the decorations which a grateful country wanted to bestow upon him and which he succeeded in evading until some time after the close of the war. It seemed that the incurable modosty of this young man would prevent the world from ever obtaining a first-hand amount of hw histone achievements; but some friend at last persuaded him to set down in writing his life-story, which must be eteily the most romantic individual narrative of the war. He wrote it —and now be has lost it! Just lost it. Laurence left the manuscript lying on the sent of a Great Western Railway carriage in which he had been travelling. By the time he had noticed his loss the train had gone and since then nothing has been beardf of the manuscript, Tt was all in Laurence’s and he has no copy! It.may he that the finder is so engrossed in the reading of it that it has not occurred to him to dgoover the owner, assuming thatt ho is ignorant of Laurence’s identity. Perhaps, as Carlyle did under a similar calamity, he will take up his per. and begin all over again, and a hundred years or so hence somebody rummaging amongst some old papers will come across the lost manuscript which will be bought up by an American collector for ■» fabulous sum.

Hornung as a Poet.— The w has done dome strange things, and amongst them t the revelation to us of the author oi ■'■‘Rafflek’ as a poet. In 'The Young Guard, '* K. W. Homung appears in this tinasual role. It is a dim book published isy Cora't-ahle and Co., con tad rung various Jyar verse that the author had published hi newspapers, periodicals and school magirdnes. In these verses Homnng rings of JEe heroism of youth in the war and he discloses his .attatode in the opening lines 'Consecration’^: And w? who wither where we grew. And nerw shed but tears, As children now would follow yon Through, the remaining ynars; Tread in the steps we thought to guide. As firmly as you trod; And keep the name you glorified Clean before men and God. J fie i? for the Public School boy, it can be •een all through and it does not need the few older verses like “Forerunners” and "Uppingham Song” to rovoal the fact. “The Old Boys” and “Ruddy Young Ginfer” show it and so does ‘The Ballad of Ensign Joy,” a dramatic effort of the boy officer who weakened in the face of a gas attack because he thought of his young wife and of the baby be had not seen, and then recovered and won back in. dare devilry until death took him. And the foet sees the result in But Brrrryntrude’s training a splendid • ■ boy Twenty years younger than Ensign Joy. On balance, a British gain! The verses are afl interesting, without rising tr. great heights, and they make pleasant reading. Mr Hormmg has done what may he called newspaper verse of quality and that is a tugger compliment than it. appears to hr. My copy came from the Australasian Pohlushing 00. of Sydney. WiWa ax a Critic.—Writes a contributor to the Bulletin; —-A review of Oscar Wilde's "A Critic, in Pall Mali” (B. 4/3/ *2O l quotes as one of thr book’s epigrams ft description of Meredith’s style as “chaos illuminated by brilliant flashes of lightsing.’’ But this is merely one of those examples of wit which Oscar produced t- from the recesses of a good memory. A hundred years before Wilde wrote thus, in “The Decay of Living” Voltaire had dear ribed Shakespeare’s tragedy as chaos illuminated by a hundred shafts of ligrt.” A few discoveries of this kind assisted me to lose the enthusiasm for Wilde I once \ endeavoured to conceive as a protest Against the confusion "'of morals with art.”

Some New Puwli cations. —R. B. Cunningham Graham c- Is well known from tons; brilliant sketches of life in South America, Morocco and Spain, and he is tberciorc ,-ure of a welcome for an important biographical work “A Brazilian My-tic, Being _ the Life and Memoirs of ArtoiLio L unseiihero.” Conseiihero, whose name is still famous throughout South America, has been described as “the last of rhe Gnostics.” Surrounded by kindred spirits dressed, in deer skins, he passed his life on horseback seeking adventures, and defied the Brazilian forces for* many years, until ho was eventually slain, with nil his little band. If Mr Grahame’s. new book is as readable as that eicolicn*; historical monograph. “The Last of the Conquistadores,” published’ some tea years ago, if should be well worth buying. • • • (lie Hansen, the Mayor of Seattle, wtc fought ihs- I.W.W. force? and won, h-'Mi published "Americanism vnnma Bold) »• v'ki-un:” which should be interesting. Sir Harry ;• Johnston; who gave us “The Gay-Dor)ihv’.s." hj • sequel” to “DotnF gyt

and Sen,” has pursued this method of carrying on the good work of others in “Mrs Warren’s Daughter,” a novel that sets out as a sequel to G. B. Shaw’s play, “Mrs Warren's Profession.” It is published by Chatto and Windus. '1 wonder what Shaw will have to say about it! “Prelude,” by Beverley Nichols, is a story of public school life in Britain, but it is regarded by the critics as something not quite so good as Waugh’s “The Loom of Youth.” “Comrades in Captivity,” a roeorr* of life in seven German camps, by F. :W. Harvey, is a recent work from the house of Sidgwick and Jackson. “Realities of War,” by Sir Philip Gibbs, is now available in New Zealand, tn this book Gibbs becomes a critic and ieUs us some of the things be could not get past the Censor during the war. Two more volumes of Anatole France’s works have been added to the edition of his writings published by John Lsne “Earners," by the Hon. Lady Byng, is one of the latest additions to Holtfcn and Hardingham’s popular fiction, in cloth covers, at two shillings net. It is .a story of English society, depicting its' conventional outlook on life, and thA; narrow environment in which a large section of the women folk spend their days.. An interesting addition to Mr John Murray’s two shilling net edition is “The Wages of Virtue,” by P. C. Wren. It is a vivid picture of life in the French Foreign Legion in Algeria. This corps is famous for its reckless bravery, and the land of mystery in which they serve supplies a romantic setting for a story of wild adventure. E. V. Lucas is visiting Japan, returning to England by way of India. An interesting travel book should bo the outcome of the. trip. In Methuen’s Spring List, India, the announcement is mode of a new novel by Lucas. The title is “Verona in the Midst: A Kind of a Story.” Like ‘The Vermilion. Box” and that find and as some of hr think, best of Mr Lucas’s stories, “Listener’s Lure,” it is told in letters passing between the principal characters.