LITERARY NOTES. (FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT).

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 423, 27 November 1889, Page 3

LITERARY NOTES. (FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT).

The new^sorial in the "English Ulna- j trated "' will be by no less a person than the Earl of Lytton, and is entitled " Ths Ring of Arnasis." if I remember rightly "Owen Meredith"' once before essayed a novel and it was not successful. "His Obher Self," the new "shocker" by Mr E. J. Goodman (author of " Too Curious 'and "Paid in His Own Coin"), is an ingenious tale of a magic mirror and a selfish man, on similar lines to several of F. Anatey's whimsical stories. Unfortunately, Mr Goodman has not Mr Anstey's lightness of touch, and, in consequence, the narrative drags somewhat. It is, however, a readable shillingsvorth. Tillotsons, I understand, find that the novelist who really goes down besfc with the average reader of newspaper fiction is Miss Doia Russell. She has written I don't know how many stories — over half a dozen certainly • - for the syndicate, and (like Charlocte Braeme and the " Family Herald "), time does not seem to wither nor j custom stale her infinite popularity. Miss Russell's latest serial bears the pleasing title of "Jezebel's Friends," and tells the old, old stor.y of an immaculately unselfish heroine sacrificing her love, and marrying a man she hates, in order to save an utterly worthless bister's good name. There is not a new idea nor a novel suggestion in the whole book. If there were, this sort of fiction might not be as much read. I fancy devourers of such stuff as " Jezebel's Friends " have to be pretty well able to guess what's coming. "Roland Oliver," the short tale by Justin McCarthy just published by Spencer Blackett at a shilling, is quite unworthy the author of " Camiola" and " Dear Lady Disdain," and must, I should think, be an early attempt resurrected from some forgotten drawer. Ib is the story of a weak, selfish, and generally unworthy husband married to a noble and beautiful wife. For some time the latter adores her objectionable spouse, and shuts her eyes strenously to his many vanities and weaknesses, but a fit of mad and senseless jealousy finally reveals the truth. The little book is quite readable, only not up to Justin McCarthy's ordinary level. Cassells will publish Stevenson's " Master of Ballantrae " in November, and have also in preparation a new story by " Q." (Mr Couch), entitled "The Splendid Spur; being Memories of the Adventures of Mr John Marvel, a Servant of King Charles 1. ," which, it is to be hoped, will be some improvement on that melancholy piece' of humour, "Troy Town." Talking of humour, by the way. reminds me of Marshall P. Wilder's "People I've ' Smiled WWi." One, not unnaturally, perhaps, expected great things from this book. The merry little deformity who wrote it hns again' and again made us shout with laujrhter. This lasfe'scason, indeed, he was to be found everywhere. H.11.H. smiled, and Marshall P. Wilder became the fashion. I fully anticipated

his book would teem with good storied. It does nothing ot the sort. A balder, more uninteresting narrative I have seldom come across. Thefew samples of hia yarns Wilder doesgiveusarethemostdepressingchesnuts. Here are two of the best. An old darkey who was fishing had a little picsaninee, standing beside him. The small chap somehow managod to stumble 'and fell into the foaming bide. The old darkey instantly dived aftei r him, brought the child' to land, squeezed him out, and stood him well in the sun to dry. A clorgyman ' who witnessed the occurrence then came up. " <i!od bless you, noble fellow, 1 ' quoth he, " you saved that boy's life." " Well," eaid the venerable niggei, " I didn't do that to save his life ; lit had my bait in hh 'pocket." The iollowing is said to be one ot Lionel* Brough's yarns : — A man was advised -by his doctor to take great care of himself. "You must," said the medico, "get to bed early, eat more roast beef, eschew stimulants, go to the coaside, and smoke just one cigar a day, 01" >on won't live. " A month later the patient returns, looking bettor. " Ye?, doc," he said, " I followed your advice to the letter. ,1 went to "bed early, ate lumps of roast beef, eschewed liquor, went to the seaside, and took threat care t)f mysolf, buc that one cigar a day nearly killed me, for I never smoked before. - 1 Wilder attributes > the follow ing "Irishman's toast to an Englishman" to I Farjeon. It runs thus : " Here's to you as good as you are, and here's bo mo as bad as I am ; but. as good as you are and as bad as I 1 am,' I'm as good as you are bad as I am." In proposing the health of the' Hon.. Eclwaid Everett (a cultured Bostonian) at tho Beefsteak Club years ago, the artist Story exclaimed,. " Here's to learning when Ever-it grows !"' Upon which Everott interrupted: "I amend. Here's to learning ; whenever it rises it grows, but never above one Story." Really neatj wasn't it ? , If you have not already got it send at once to the nearest booksellor's for Jerome K. Jerome's " Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow." The book is not' a new one, in fact, the legend "Thirty-fifth Edition" on the copy before me, shows it must have quietly obtained conspicuous success. I confess to having constantly seen it on the bookstalls, bub till the same author'^ " Stageland" set us all off laughing, 1 never somehow i'elfc curious about "Idle Thoughts." Once one does dip into this delightful book, what treasure trove one tinds. The best paper of all I think is "On Being in Lo\e," though those "On Memory," "On Being Shy," "On Being Hard Up," and "On Being in the Blues" are also admirable in their way. At times Mr Jerome's writing reaches a very high level indeed. What for instance can be better than the^ following passage on the subject of melancholy : — George Eliot speaks somewhere of "the sadness of a summer's evening." How wonderfully true the observation is. "Who has not felt the sorrowful enchantmont of those lingering sunsets ? The woild belongs to melancholy — that thoughtful, deep-eyed maiden who loves not the glaie of day. It is not till "light thickens and the crow wings to the rocky wood," that she steal.s forth from her groves. Her palace is in twilight land. It is there she meets u&. It is there she take? our hand in hers, and walks beside us tluough her mystic realm. We see no form, but seem to hear the rustling ot her wings. E'en in the toiling hum-drum city, her spirit comes to us. There i& a sombre presence in each long, dull street ; and the dark river creeps ghost like, under the black arches-, as if bearing some hidden secret beneath its muddy waves. In the silent cotfutiy, 'when the trees and hedges loom dim and blurred against the using night, the bat's wing Huttcrs in our face, and the landrail's cry rounds drearily across the fields, and the &pel! sinks deeper in our hearts. We seem in that hour bo be standing by some unseen deathbed, and in the swaying of the elms we hear the sigh ot dying day. Sadness reigns. A great peace is around us. In its light, our cares of the working day grow smajl and trivial, and bread and cheese — ay, and even kisses — do not seem tho only things worth striving for. Thoughts we cannot speak bub only listen to flood in uponus\and, standing in the stillness under earth's darkening dome, we feel that we are greater than our petty lives. Hung round with those dusky curtains, the world is no longer a mere dingy workshop, but a stately I tern pie wherein man may worship, and whero | at" times, in the dimness, hi& groping hands | touch God's. I Another stoi^ I can strongly recommend ! is May Kendall's " Such i& Life," o onei volume novel, published- at six; shillings. , I This lady achieved some success last year with a series of sketches, entitled " From a Oaneb," but "Such is Life" shows far more ability. It belongs to the same class of fiction — in the main thoroughly healthy and wholesome — a? Miss Rosa Couchette Careys books, but is much cleverer. Often, indeed, the characters talk positively brilliantly. There is no plot in the strict sense of the term. \Ye are simply interested (and very much interested) in the commonplace everyday fortunes ot a hard-worked London doctor's family and their friends— characters vivid, lovablp, and in the main true, to life. Miss Kendall has evidently seen a good deal of hospital work, and her description of the two young delicately-nurtured girls left to grasp j single-handed with the horrors of a couple of crowded small-pox wards (the other nurses being stricken down and outside help unavailable) is alleged to be founded on fact. An under-current of sadness and a sort of resigned pessimism runs through the story, but Miss Kendall writes so brightly few are likely to notice it. By all means read " Such is Life." The annual volume of the " English'lllustrated Magazine," just published, compares on the, whole very favourably with the issue's of a year or two back.' The engravings are not so good, perhaps, as they used to be, and the general articles lack popular interest, but there ia plenty of good sound fiction. Crawfords " Sant Ilario " I have already commended to you, and this volume also contains " Jenny Harlowe," a characteristic sea story by Clark "Russell ; " The Best Man," an exciting novelette of ranche life in New Mexico, by Arthur Pater&on ; and " The House of the Wolf," by Stanley Weyman, besides numerous short .tales. Altogether, a cheap book at 7s td. Your readers may be interested to learn that " Richard Mutimer," the Socialist working man hero of George Gissing's really great novel, " Demos," ,was in the main drawn from John Burns, the leader and organiser in-chief of the late successful strike. Gissing heard Burns lecture pretty frequently, inveighing, of course, against capitalists, etc., and the idea occurred to him— "how would this very clever man, with his chss inetincts and prejudices, and his Socialistic theories, probably act if he were himself, by some accident, to inherit a large .fortune?" The notion took hold ot the novelist's imagination, and he set ,to work to solve the problem lationallv, by the light of hi? own experience." of the working classes. Tho result' was, "Demos" was admitted (even by those who copsider Gissing unduly pessimistic) 'to be one of the most lucid and powerful expositions 'of j class differences that have appeared of late 1 years.

Several ot Charles Kingsloy's copyrights being on the verge of expiry, Macmillans have resolved to be beforehand with the cheap publishers, and will commence on the Ist prox. re-issuing a sixpenny edition of his WjOrke. 'the same iivin announce a3s 6d edition of Clarion Crawfords works and the following new no\ els :— " John Vale's Guardian," by I). Christie Murray; "A Reputed Changeling," by Charlotte Yonge ; I and "The Heritage of Dedlow iMar&h," by Brot Hart*. The opening volumes of Sampson Low's " Queen's Pi'inie Ministers " series of 2s 6d biographies will bo "Lord Melbourne,"' by Dr. Dvlnclcley ;- " Lord Palmerston," by Lord Lome ; "Mr Gladstone," by (I. W. E. Russell ; and "Lord Beaconslield," by J. A. Froudo. The last-named is the only one likely to excite much notice. " Lord Elwyn's Daughter,'*' just added to the "Family Herald's" (Is) storyteller series. is?, though published anonymously by Mrs H. Lovebt Cameron, the well-known novelist. Et seem* harmless sort of stuff of the description readers of Mr Stevens" periodical' like. -:i ,^ The " Athenreum " this week contains a highly eulogistic notice of " Francis and Franc9s," the whimsical story of a dual identity, which I described to you when it appeared first some' months ago. Bound in cloth -ati 5s the little book wouldn't sell, but re-issued in' paper at 2s it seem to be going a bib. < Tho author is now announced as " H. Edwards," which I'm afraid doesn't convey, much, l^o (or she) is nevertheless Arrowsmith's most fortunate " find " of late years. Since Farguts 1 r death the Bristol publishor has'not bcealllcky. . 1 much Wgreb £#°hear of the uritim'ely death of Miss Amy Levy 1 , bhe clever young Jewess w-hbse extraordinary stoi l^, _"KeH-* ben Sachs*" • attracted, so much attention, six months ago: She was only 27 and vory bright and*piquant, but things went wrong somehow. An unfortunate love affair blighted her life, and made even literary success mere dust and ashes Latterly the poor girl overworked herself, and brainfever brought on the end. The note of sadness that runs through " Reuben Sachs '* will be easily understood. A cynical newspaper correspondent suggests that some one should write a sequel to Mrs Burnett's. "Little Lord Fauntleroy," called "Big Lord Fauntleroy," in order to show what an objectionable person that phenomenal child grew up to be. There are certainly interesting possibilities in the idea. J. M. Barrie will this week commence a series of humorous papers in the " British Weekly " on "My Honeymoon Abroad." The new volume of Casf- ell's "Saturday Journal," which commences with next week's number, will contain, among other matter, a serial story ' by Jno. BerwickHarwood called " Lady Egeria," a sensational'novel called " Jack Gordon, Knight Errant,'' by Barclay North, and a series of '* Tiue Stories of Dark J>eeds," by William Westell. - ' Walter Besant has once more agreed to write Arrowsmith's annual. His new novel, "The Bell of St. Paul's," will be published next month. It is an admirable piece of work, and most interesting.