THE BOOKMAN

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 559, 11 January 1929, Page 14

THE BOOKMAN

Reviews & Notes

Have You Read Th is ?

Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch-Proiessor of English Literature.t at Cambridge, recently chose for "The Daily Mail" a series of short passages, the "purple patches" of English prose. It is hoped that the series, reprinted here, will pleasantly refresh the memories of some and stir the fresh interest of others. MONNA LISA WALTER PATER. —“Th« Renaissance.** Muller Pater (1839-1801; spent the greater purl of his life lecturing cn philosophy at Oxford, where he was a lellow of Hr asenose Collette. Ills mind was steeped in Plato and Platonism colours all his works, lie was the author of a number of philosophical and criticul writings, of which "Hepaisconce Studies ” and the philosophical noocl -‘Marius the Epicurean,' 1 ore the best known. llis style is academic, but has a veiled opalescent beauty not quits like anything else in English prose. THE PRESENCE that thus rose so strangely beside the waters is expressive of what in the wa>a ot a thousand years men had come to desire. Hers is the head upon B\hich all “the ends of the world are come.” and the eyelids are a little weary. It is a beauty wrought out from within upon the flesh, the deposit, little cell by cell, of strange thoughts and fantastic reveries and exquisite passions. Set it for a moment beside one of those white Greek goddesses or beautiful women of antiquity, and how wr they be troubled by this beauty, it! illicit the soul with all its maladies has passed? All the thoughts and < xperience of the world have etched in i moulded there, in that which they hav of power to refine and make expre iv e the outward form, the animalm of Greece, the lust of Rome, the reverie of the middle age with Us spiritual ambition and imaginative « es, the return of the Pagan world, the sins of the Borgias. She is older than the rocks among which she sits; like the vampire, she has been dead many times, and learned the secrets of the grave; and has been a diver in deep seas, and keeps their fallen day about her; and trafficked for strange webs with Eastern merchants: and, as I.eda, was the mother of Helen of Troy, and, as Saint Anne, the mother of Mary; and all this has been to her hut as the sound of lyres and flutes, and lives only in the delicacy with which it has moulded the changing lineaments and tinged the eyelids and the hands. The fancy ot a. perpetual life, sweeping together ten thousand experiences, is an old one; and modern thought has conceived the idea of humanity as wrought upon by, and summing up in itself, all modes of thought and life. Certainly Lady Lisa might stand as the embodiment of the old fancy, the symbol of the modern idea.

OF N.Z. POETS

SOME NOTES AND COMMENTS NO. 6 ROBIN HYDE Writing recently in a New Zealand daily paper, a critic, whose injustice was due probably to nothing more vicious than ignorance, announced that he had found no work which gave him liope for literary performance of value: in the Dominion. Wailing the dearth of Miltons, he made the pleasant admission that the work of a young man named Robin Hyde had engaged his vagrant attention, and he suggested

that “Mister” Hyde was worth watching. The signature of Robin Hyde to both prose and verse has grown familiar to readers of New Zealand and Australian periodicals, and as the disclosure of Robin Hyde’s identity has been made once at least, there is no reason why it should not be made again. “Mister” Hyde is Miss Iris Wilkinson, a young Wellington writer who has made astonishing progress during the past two years. Making her bow with a modest series of original trifles, she has developed into one of the most promising New Zealand writers. Miss Wilkinson has gained confidence, and now has mastery over her medium. Where she once experimented, she now performs, and there is a delightful personal impression on all her work. Unlike many women writers who shine for a time and then flicker to obscurity, she has been able to combine facility in writing with vigorous thoughtfulness. She has a genuine philosophic turn and. allied with it, the power ro spin music into her verse. So. with the poet’s equipment complete, she has set out upon her spiritual questing, and found many thiii.s of which she has sung sweetly. Sensitive to the pain of life, and richly imaginative, she is able to write tellingly of common experience, and yet charge it with beauty of which she alone lias the alchemical secret. Whether it is the flying emotion of the moment making its impression on her, or whether it is a gay or sombre thought, the property of all. she endows it with a vague and subtle beauty hers alone. Behind imagination's

rioting there is always a steady bal* ' anciug stream of thought, and it is j the presence of this thoughtfulness ] that makes her work significant instead of. merely pretty-pretty. She has power, the power is growing, and the labour of the next few years will bear rich testimony to her gifts. Her faculty for endowing a familiar situation with original beauty is shown in “Hospital”:— In that white, unending wall Little d war fifth echoes dwell — Who would think that things so small Could so mock a man in Hell f If I sag the smallest thing — If one ghost escapes my brain, All night long, they sit again, IV’ hispering — whispering. Say I, “She is walking now Where the branches, bending low, Flake with apple-bloom hex' brow: Why should she, the swift, icalk slow? She fot’got so long ago That carved heart upon the bough! Go your ways, youth-sandalled feet — Half, perhaps, remembering Lad's love, in the twilight sweet — But a man’s a stronger thing I All night long the echoes leant Whispering xcords that xcere not meant. So it goes on, ending exquisitely with these verses: All the little echo-men Scream with laughter. Whisper tag Small metallic voices ring Till the moonstone blue of morn Cradled in dark pines is born And the day is here again — Thank God for the lips of pain! In “Wayfarers,” an old tale is told —but how sweetly: So the roads part that shall not meet again, And yours burns white to purple hills that glow Against the sunrise, lustre-peaked with snow. Mine in wood-quietude goes wandering — It leads to nowhere. But the blackbirds sing And all the pines are scented after rain. Emerald-dark, the light hangs quivering — Dreams are the masters here of xcaxidex'pain. You, xcere a poor companion. Did you guess How xnany bxirdevs I had borne for you But that the fingers of yoxir loneliness Thrust xis apart T Perhaps you never knew. ... And now, the dark-tressed pines will hide axcay Hills, and hill-goers. I can only pray. Miss Wilkinson’s pictorial power a’;d strength of image are shotyn in “The Circus”: — It is night—All the great, grave stars are silver-spangled Like a circus girl who dances to a Gipsy tune, And the big broxen hands of a riding xcind are tangled In the mad yellow xnane of the tigertaxuny xnoon — And shadows are the panthers, with the velvet-padding feet — Cling together, you and I, lie still fnd hold your breath! Bxit the wind cracks his whip, and the wind’s laugh is sweet, And the stax's are silvex' bars on the black cage of Death. And night is a Columbine, and that young slender beech Is poor Pierrot, who dreams upon the twinkle of her toes With his dark xjoung boxighs a-whisper, “She is out of reach V* But she breaks off a spray of stars and flings it like a rose. He has caught hex' to his breast — oh, the night's skirt is blue , And warm starlight loves them in their secret-shadowed glade, Fox' Tier scent is all of lilies, her eyes are . bracken-dexc — Ah, children, yon and I! We forget to be afraid. Simple beauty and integrity are shown in “To-night”: Come to-night, ft'iend, Now I axn weary, xioxv Laughter is at axi end. Coxne when green twilight Ripples around one, cool. Cool as the xnooxi-chilled xvaters Of a mountain pool. Quiet in quiet dusk , Rcxnembex'ing quiet tliixigs. While the blue night goes past On shadowy wixigs — Scent of bi-own wallfloxvers, Velvet with rain. And trees joining friendly Fixigers across a lane, And a bird's voice breaking in ecstasy. And the shuffle of leaves On the xcalnut tree. Oh. x/ou who are dead, Come soft, through this darkened hour: | Help me to love again Stax'light and scent and flower. These are no more than glimpses of the exquisite work that “Robin Hyde” has done, and many of her poems are too long for quotation. She has taken bold flights, but always when she | comes home there Is star-dust on the striving wings. lAN DONNELLY. NOTE Robin Hyde’s poetry was introduced to New Zealand readers through The Sun, to which she is a frequent contributor. She also writes for periodicals, including “The Bulletin.”

We wish we could show you what Mr. Shepard has done with Cambridge (or Rutland or the Isle of Wight), but that you must find out for yourselves. “Mr. Punch’s County Songs.” Methuen and Co., Ltd., London. Our copy from the publishers direct. Still Gc-ing Strong Is there any subject which Mr. G. K. Chesterton is not prepared to serve up as au attractive literary dish, with a sauce paradoxale of his own creation? Another volume of his essays, bearing the rather appropriate title, “Generally Speaking,” has just come from the press. These essays appeared originally in the “Illustrated London News.” In them, he writes of Detective Novels (and wlio better qualified?). on the Englishman abroad, oil Poland, new capitals, the pillory, Buddhism, sentiment, flags, carols, domestic servants, pleasureseeking, archaeologjc Holland, leisure, funeral customs, R.L.S., “Edwin Drood,” Good King Arthur, and Prohibition. What gloriously mixed fare! The next volume will probably contain essays on zeugma, xylography, myopia, opopanax, Ethel Dell, free love, ejnpysema, chianti and saxophones. It’s all in the day’s work with Mr. Chesterton —and his essays are never less than informative and never without the brilliant flashes that have (along with his prodigious girth) given the word “Chestertonian” to the language. “Generally Speaking.” Methuen and Co.. Ltd., London. Our copy from the publishers direct.

Nobel Prizewinner

What Australia Can Do Australia has produced many brilliant short-story writers in its short day. Most of them have contributed their bes* work to periodicals such as “The Bulletin.,” and work, thus published, must of necessity be ephemeral. How much that is worth preserving is lost, daily, in newspapers, and weekly, in magazines! Old files embalm these brain-chilfciren of our best writers, but old files are inaccessible as a rule. It is good to see that Miss Nettie Palmer has gathered together a collection of excellent Australian short-stories, each steeped in the atmosphere of the country. They are reproduced chiefly from “The Bulletin,” and demonstrate the talent that Australia possesses in this phase of literary achievement. Henry Lawson, the big figure of Australian letters, is represented by “A Double Buggy at Lahey’s Creek.” Veteran Randolph Bedford has an amusing and typically-Australian tale, “The Language of Animals.” * Bernard Cronin contributes a slice of life entitled “Silhouette.” Vance Palmer’s “The Brigadier” is a rattling good yarn. Zora Cross, with “Long, Long Ago,” paints a picture that, with a Continental setting, might not unreasonably be claimed as a Maupassant gem. There are tales by Katherine Susannah Prichard, Cecil Mann, Jack McLaren, Dowell O’Reilly, Myra Morris, J. H. M. Abbott, and others. Miss Palmer has made a very clever selection from the vast field at her disposal. The book is definitely one to place on an easily-reached library shelf. “An Australian Story Book,” selected by Miss Nettie Palmer. Cornstalk Publishing Company. Our copy from Angus and Robertson. Ltd., Sydney. All Is Vanity Leila, the mysterious and beautiful creature in “Vanity Under the Sun,” has something of the world’s great courtesans about her. She passes from lover to lover with a complete disregard for their feelings, swayed only by the desire for a new adventure. Perhaps Dale Collins, author or “Vanity Under the Sun,” did not intend to make Leila his -central figure, but she takes command of the imagination, leaving Sir George Emmet, alias Louis Kingsclere, in the background. Sir George sought to bury the past when he escaped from the ruins of Yokohama following the ghastly earthquake which wrecked the city. Taking an assumed name, he fled to [ndo-China, where he found the beautiful Leila indulging in a flirtation which quickly gave place to an infatuation for the stranger. They wished to know nothing one of the other. On their wedding day they agreed to bury the past and sail for the South Seas. But Leila’s ghost, a former lover, disturbed the idyll. As she disappears with still another lover, Louis Kingsclere decides that the past cannot be buried and hurries back to England—and tlie family he had left behind. “Vanity Under the Sun” is an excellently told tale. The narrative moves along swiftly and surely. Mr. Collins, who is the author of “Ordeal,” has proved that he can weave romance into tales of seas and ships. “Vanity Under the Sun.’’ 'William Heinemann, Ltd., London. Our copy comes from Dymock's Book Arcade, Sydney. “The Spectator” In July, 1925, “The Spectator,” of London, celebrated its centenary. And after 100 years of crowded life it shows no sign of arterio-sclerosis; no vestige of any complaint attributable to senility. One of the most dignified of the world’s newspaper productions. ' The Spectator” is rich in traditions

and, as with “The Times,” provision has now been made to preserve the continuity of the periodical by seeing that "it shall never be sold in the open, market to the highest bidder, apart from other considerations.” Sir Wm. Beach Thomas has written a history of “The Spectator.” Except for one brief interval, he points out, four minds (two of them working as one) have j guided the paper for the better part of a century: Rintoul, Townsend-cum-j Hutton and St. Loe Strachey. Mr. ' Evelyn Wrench took over the propriei torial-editorial control in 1925. The j evolution of “The Spectator,” the i characteristics and methods of its I great editors and references to their | comments on the great events and perj sonalities of the Victorian era—social, ! political and literal's- —add interest to ! Sir William Beach Thomas’s informative monograph. The work is illustrated by four wood-engravings, by H. Brooke, of the four famous editors, and by reproductions of wood-engrav-ings by George Cruiksbank which appeared in “The Spectator” in 1828, illustrating an article on the murder of Maria Marten; a murder, by the way, which still makes Its periodical appearances in our magazines and is almost as popular, with the men who “wield the scissors,” as the story of the famous Hope Diamond, a very hardy annual. “The Story of ‘The Spectator’.” Methuen and Co., Ltd., London. Our copy from the publishers. Joyous Verses One of the most exuberant versifiers of our time, Captain Harry Graham, may claim to be the legitimate heir to the crown of Sir William Gilbert and the sceptre of the Rev. R. H. Barham, of Ingoldsby Legends fame. Captain Graham, who fathered those pre-Wode-house, and perfect, noodles, Reginald Drake Biffin and Lord Bellinger (or was it Lord Bellinger’s son who was the noodle?), has issued many volumes of light verse, including “Deportmental Ditties,” “The World We Laugh In,” and “Verse and Worse.” In “The World’s Workers,” his newest, he provides us with rhymed portraits of the millionaire, the actor, the composer, the stockbroker, the sportsman, the governor, the specialist, the journalist and the traveller. And what facile rhyming and what spontaneity of humour. Let us tell you of the sad story of the Hollingsworths who had governed a slice of the Empire in the East where . . . Latlu H. -would lay foundationstones of Women's Institutes Or. at some obscure hill-station. Found asylums for deaf mutes, Practising her Hindustani On the local Maharanee. But, oh the monotony of county life after vice-regal splendour: Still, though ceasing not to mourn, from Damn till eve, o’er past concerns Till they reach that distant bourn from Which no Hollingsworth returns, Proud they sit (in Harold’s study) With their heads unboived —but bloody l And when we add that each pen-por-trait is illustrated by Fougasse we need say no more in recommendation of the book. "The World’s Workers.” Methuen and Co., London. Our copy from the publishers direct. Art In Australia There is no need to question the growth and the virility of the art movement in Australia, where a national pride in the work of Australian artists is manifested to a surprising degree in a country that is, after all, still an infant when we think of the centuries of tradition that lie behind art in the countries of Europe. But if evidence of the health of art in the Commonwealth were needed, we have it in plenty in the December issue of “Art in Australia, which is devoted to a review of “The Art of the Year” on this side of the world. Representative work from each of the States is reproduced. The colour prints —as usual, perfect —-include a study, “Nasturtiums in a Black Vase,” by Hans Heyseh, striking modern concepts by Roi de Mestre and Roland Wakelin, a nude by Mildred Lovett, of Tasmania, a charming water colour, “Morning, Wentworth Falls,” by John D. Moore, George Lambert’s fine portrait of Mrs. Murdoch, and a Margaret Preston flower study. There are mauy fine woodcuts and lino-cuts reproduced. some of the mural work of Napier Waller, mordant cartoons by Will Dyson, pencil portraits and drypoint studies —an amazingly diverse collection of remarkable quality. Mr. William Moore, who recently tdured New Zealand, writes a review of art in tlie Dominion in which he says that we are “on the verge of a big revival.”

This section includes reproductions of work by Richard Wallwork. H. Linley Richardson, Harry Clark (woodcuts), Archibald Nieoll, Elizabeth and Cecil Kelly, Eve Poison, Viola Macmillan Brown, M. E. R. Tripe, Stephanie Vincent, Francis Shurrock. A magnificent record of a year’s activity in ai-t. “Art in Australia.” December edition. “The Art of the Year.” Our copy from the publishers, Art in Australia, Ltd., 24 Bond Street, Sydney.