BOOKS NEW AND OLD.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 140, 9 December 1911, Page 10 (Supplement)

BOOKS NEW AND OLD.

(By .lames YVortlcy)

}\ith the advent of the easement curlam and art fashion it has become equally the fashion to d.vry the present-day !"'vi'l, to .say that the time spent in ! '!••* reading is wasted, that its tone is lowering, ami contact with it in anv shape or torm enerating to the moral and mental libre of man. And the question naturally arises, -'Will this attitude •stand analysis?" To my own mind, it must be _ answered with an emphatic negative m the general sense, though when one comes to matters of detail there are both pros and cons. To begin with, it is largely hypocritical. I have known men who will write impassioned articles against the habit read three blood-curdling novels a week, while the precept and practice of others in the matter of doubtful books is bv no means on a 1 fours. The logic of a clerical tnend of mine appears sound. I was invited to visit a local bookseller's and look over a selection he and others had made for a new country library Taking up one of Xat Gould's, I said, "Is this your choice?" "Yes," he said; "the folk we are buying for are many of them young fellows who have to acquire the habit of reading. They will make a start with such a book and will then be more likely to take up with the masterpieces.

lor myseli, the reading of Gilbert Parker led me to Butler's "The Great Lone Land" and Fenimore Cooper at hfteen resulted in my study of Parkman s of the Pontine" at thirty. Then, too, conditions of publicntion are different to-day to what they were a century since. The spread of £«cation has enlarged the reading public a thousandfold. What was then the accomplishment of a few is to-da? .the habit of all. If nothi else,Tman ma,i S i S | dail P aper - Thfnan'edncSS man had read everything-to-day while having a smattering of what is lilerl r the' 1S t0 Jt t0 kee P abreast sublet P " bhCat rV on ° ne J articul <" subject. So a hundred years ago every reader was an educated man, and ipso acto a judge of literature. To-day, Z jo. As with an accomplished musician the poor instrument is rejected. Then poor books got no chance; but now, when so many read who have no knowledge, formLVw et fof iU - made .books \ £vo fft ments With P«>Ple who ect Th 6ar /°/ tiUt Which is P er " icct. J. he present-day novelists deserve our sincere regard for the high standard attamed and maintained in an age wen everything can find a market, 1 s I°PPV VOrk is not recognised by the multitude and is accepted equally "th and sometimes before, faithful c aftsmanship. Conditions of life also have altered our relationship towards novel re d The grea . cr i M jg set has led to much reading being done £™« i f aH,l " ent 'v ai,d tiIUS J ustifT the perusal of many books that, if study and improvement are the only aim, would not be permitted.

*"The Long Ro ]i» hy Jf Johngon _ (London: Constable and Co., Ltd..

There .ire books and books. Some are like ferry boats. Your interest in the characters they portray is fleeting, like tnat of your contact with travelling oo.npnnmns of a day. Tt can fcan-cly b < cl.gmhed by the term acquaintance. Other bonks are like ocean liners. Your readmg of the book is like a lon- and pleasant voyage, during which vox make nte-long friends, in whose welfare von are ever often keenly interested in Nothing may crop up about one of them, but you say, "I know him; we travelled from -to « To this latter category belong "David Copperfield," "Vani " The yewc °mes," "Peter Simple, Westward Ho," and a host of others My own latest addition to this list ,s "The Long Roll." It is a great book, dealing with the earlv portion of the American Civil War. and extends to the huge (for a novel) total of fins closely-printed pages. And there is not a dull one in the lot. The whole of (he incident* given are made to centre around the charming love story of Richard Cleave and Judith Gary. The story, however, is only one of the parts of the book that interest, for immediately the book is opened one is following breathlessly the fori lines of the men in the Confederate ranks. Every local and national hi-torinn—and there are many—of these stirring times must have been laid under tribute to compile the mass of information given. But Miss Johnson gives it in a style of her own, and she herself must be not least of the many authorities. The intense human interest that pervades the whole narrative leads one to suppose the author must have lived if. over and over again, m the recital and re-recital at many a firesido. by those who actually partook in the campaign. There is a tragic portrayal of (he horrors of war in all their naked reality. We see men killed, wounded, in hospital, convalescent, starved, cold (even frozen)— pien -in every attitude and stage of agony. But there are also men doing and making the best of things. There are women, too. knitting comforts for those at the front, mending, nursing, feeding, and others who '•'nobly stand and wait." We get vivid pictures of every class that went to make up the Virginia of that dav. •'The Long Roll" is a book that will live in the memory. *Our copy for review was kindly supplied by Brooker and Keig, booksellers. Devon street. '