BOOKS-OLD AND NEW.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 173, 20 January 1912, Page 8

BOOKS-OLD AND NEW.

(By James Wortley). BOOKS TO GLADDEN A SUMMER HOLIDAY. It is striking the number of city folk who, when holiday-making, think they are going to revel in the country, but, in reality, take, unwittingly though it be, every precaution to avoid , a knowledge and an enjoyment of what is really rural. Few there be who forsake the beaten track of the "tripper." The sea? side must be visited with thousands oi other people—the mountain in a comfortable car on a properly laid roadway; and the sea—we will let the matter rest here, for I confess to liking it better from the deck of an ocean liner than a timber scow. Some of these folk, however, are conscious that the essence of enjoyment—the real thing—the "ego," 6hall "we say, of country life has passed them by. If among my readers there are those who wish to get into closer touch with life away from the crowded haunts of man, let. me recommend a perusal of any of the following books before taking their holiday:—"The Forest," fcy Stewart White; "The Cruise of the Cachelot," by F. T. Bullen; Stevenson's "Travels with a Donkey"; White's "Selbourne," "Afoot in England," and "The Purple Land," by W. H. Hudson; "The Bible in Spain" (Borrow); "Tales 1 of the Pampas," by William Bulfin; "The Great Lone Land," by Butler. If these do not beget a love of Nature and Nature's ways, then I think it -will foe : useless to Tead further in the books that might readily be added, to this list.. SOME RECENT FICTION. •"Mother Carey,"'by Kate Douglas Wiggin. (London, Toronto and New York: Hodder and Stoughton, 1911).

In these days of hurry and bustle, when we are all too busy organising for the regeneration of mankind, and the proper conduct of things politically and municipally, to have any time for the cultivation of friends in but our own household, the production of such a book as "Mother Carey" comes like showers upon a thirsty land. We already owe to Kate Douglas Wiggin a charming girl in "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm," and now to the debt is added the picture of an equally charming mother. Mrs. Riggs, as the author of "Mother Carey" is known in private life, is a writer who has come very rapidly to the front in recent years, and it speaks well for the sound morals and responsive heart of the English-speaking peoples that this writer has now a circulation of well over two million copies of her works. The first seventeen years of 'her life were spent in New England—"all the years that count most," she calls them. Changes in the family fortunes determined Kate Douglas Wiggin to study thoroughly the kindergarten system of teaching as a means to a livelihood. In the revelation we have to-day of her knowledge of child character, it must have been a happy choice of profession. We here get a key to the combinationwhich has been able to give to the world some of the most delightful studies of children ever written—life in an ideal home and, later, the scientific study of child nature.

"Mother Carey" is a work that you cannot summarise. To every reader it will bring the recollection of his own mother, and the truth of the picture it gives of the Carey family will be tested in the light of the reader's own home life. Only the most miserable recluse has not met Peter, the "love" of the family, who was always in his childish way so comically practical. Nancy, on the threshold of womanhood, who thrilled "whea we gave 'Esther, the Beautiful Queen,' in the Town Hall" would find her counterpart in New Plymouth to-day. (We have ourselves known several). And the "Yellow Hpuse at Beulah"—is there not back of each mind some such delightful locality with all those things that made it home ? My own is now twenty-five years away. But in the mind it stands on the hill, bathed in the everlasting sunlight of happy memories. At New Year we always cut the hay,' and the time we had at stacking it was only equalled when the pig was killed in June. Then the bladder was blown upland the clothes-line made a good goal to kick over. Hungry, we enjoyed mother's mince and pork pies. So did others, for they were famous the countryside over. But the great day occurred when father brought home the "duckiest" pony you ever saw, with a foal, too. (In the next book Mrs. Wiggins writes she would be well advised not to kill off "father" in the second chapter). And there were many other days of "shouting" delight, just like those at Mother Carey's "yellow house." If the reader would live all over again the happy memories of his childhood, then spend a,few hours with Mother Carey and her chickens at Beulah.

"Mary Midthorne," by George Barr Mc-. Oatcheon. (New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1911).

Mr. McCatcheon must be, by now, well up in the list of "best sellers," and it is wonderful for a writer to produce novels with such unfailing regularity, and yet maintain the pith of keen humkn inter-' est that mark all his works. In "Mary Midthorne" we are taken to a quiet New England town—a one-man show in which Horace Blagden, the banker, is that one man. He is a smooth, smug, stonyhearted man, who owns the newspaper, the parson, and, in fact, everything and everybody in Corinth. The only persons who do not kow-tow to him are the ancient mariners at the "Home for Aged Seamen," and these, secure in a pension, express themselves with sarcastic gusto about the great man of Corinth. Eric and Mary Midthorne are children of this banker's erring sister, and at a very early age are left orphans. In keeping with his official character of a Christian man, but more because of the money they inherit, Blagden takes these children into his own family. The villain of the book is supplied in own son, Chetwvnd, who proves himself a veritable rake. The story, which is one of everyday life, quickly reaches a period of enthralling interest with the characters at adult age, and dire enmity between the cousins. Mr. and Mrs. Blagden throughout are intensely jealous of their nephew's and niece's strength of character. In the ultimate work out of the story, their pride is brought low by the scandalous conduct of Chetwynd, and Horace Blagden, "the" great man of Corinth, is softened in heart, and seeks to j gain the real friendship of his one-time foes.

*Books reviewed have been received from Messrs Brooker and Keig, booksellers, Devon street.