THE READER'S COLUMN

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 154, 16 November 1912, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE READER'S COLUMN

(By James Woi'Ui\y).

NOTES. Tilt) New Zealand Time* of .November 2 reproduced horn the Sphere a portrait of Mrs. Clotliii tie Graves, known to the reading public as "Richard Dehan," Hie. brilliant authoress of two very striking novels, "The Dop Doctor" anil "Between Two Thieves." The latter we eoniment upon to-day. Everyman's last forty volumes are a varied and brilliant lot. Among them we have D. G. Rossetti's poems, dray's poems and letters, volume 11. of Tennyson, Cobbett's Rural Ride, Sterne's Toistram Shandy and Newman's Apologia. The iirst volume of Lloyd George's biography by J. Hugh Edwards is attracting a tremendous amount of attention at Home and is being favorably reviewed by most of the authorities of the literary world. Another work that is bound to have a considerable circulation in political circles is entitled "The German Emperor and the Peace of the World," if only for its introduction, written by Norman Angel, author of "The Great Illusion." Numbers 50 to CO in the Home University Library are a good lot of titles. Those that attract me most are "Great Writers of America," by Prof. Trent and J. Erskine; "Ethics," by G. E. Moore; and "Warfare in England," by Hillaire Belloc. Hodtler and Stoughton have just published the novel by John Sandes, which took second place in the firm's £IOOO prize recently. John Sandes is an Australian, and should secure further literary laurels for the island continent. XEW NOVELS. *"The Harvester," by Gene StrattonPorter, author of "Freckles," "The Girl of the Limberlost," etc. (London: Hodder and Stoughton). Gene Stratton Porter is the most recently famous author, whose name we may add to the already long list of splendid American novelists who have made their works of keener interest by choosing a settled locality for the background of their stories. Among those who have already done this with conspicuous success are Winston Churchill, John Fox, jirar., Harold Bindloss, and Stewart White. And the three stories we have of the Limberlost are not one whit behind the tales of the blue grass country or the Columbia forests. The Harvester's life story is not unusual. He is the fine product of an equally fine mother, who sacrificed her all in giving him the clearest and cleanest conception of life as it should be lived by every man. Some of us have still faith to believe that despite the overtime worked in the divorce courts, and the popularity of the fast story, there is among the Anglo-Saxons on both sides of the Atlantic—yes, and in these fair lands, too—a really sound core to the body politic which tends to guide the nation into paths of righteousness and cleanliness. And such is due to mothers like the Harvester's. "The Harvester" is a name given in derision to a young man by his fellow farmers, because lie leaves his farm in comparative neglect while they clear and plough theirs. In reality he is cultivating the natural herbs of the locality for their medicinal qualities and gathering and marketing them to the wholesale chemists. He studies his business with all enviable thoroughness until at last he is able to give valuable hints and information to the members of the medical faculty assembled in convention. Living alone in the scented pine forest, with nothing but his books, his herbs and his dog for company, he one night dreams a dream of perfect love, and there is imprinted on his mind the form of her who is to make his life happy. Forthwith he leaves all, as it were, to follow after this ideal. How lie finds here, in the person of a poor young woman who has narrowly escaped the great tragedy of our great cities, marries her to save her from a tyrannical and miserly uncle, and seeks afterwards to gain her love—is the part which the reading of the book itself will only unfold. It is told in a delightfully simple fashion that goes straight to the heart. We are glad that literature is enriched by the portrayal of such a wholesome character as "the harvester." •"Between Two Thieves," by Richard Delian, author of "The Dop Doctor." (London: William [leinemann—l9l'2) This is a great book. There are books which seem to lie run off like penny-a-line jokes, clever in their way. but without need of any great study of individual or of history. hi this book we have both the student of history and the student of human nature. The varied and thorough study of Continental affairs, manners and customs of half a century ago which "Richard Dehan," who, by the way, is a lady novelist, has. made and used in the preparation of the tale under review is enormous. And the long story, which runs to seven hundred and eighteen pages, Hows on with the ease and fluency only possible to a writer with a thorough grip of her subject. In the opening chapter we are introduced to a paralytic old man who is being wheeled through the steep street of an Alpine village by an attendant Sister of Charity, who for the moment is relieving the German nurse. In the brilliant glow of the sunset hour two tourists —a Liberal member who lias, hurriedly left Westminster to snatch a quiet week end on the Continent, and his wife —are promenading. As they pass the invalid's chair the lady remarks to her spouse, i think that white-haired old man . . . has the most noble, spiritual face .1 ever saw." With the characteristic manner of our modern members of Parliament, a contrary opinion is advanced in a somewhat cynical tone, and our budding under-secretary adds: "Your saintly gentleman is certainly a very interesting and remarkable personage. His name is M. Hector l)u----noisse. He is the natural son of the first Napoleon's favorite aide-de-camp, afterwards Field-marshal Dunoisse (who did tremendous things at Aboukir and Anstcrlitz and Borodino) and a lady of exulted rank . . . who ran away with iltinik" After the lirst chapter has given us the right perspective, chapter two carries us back over half a century, and we commence wil.li the life story of this paflielic old invalid. In reading it we move I'l'om one scene to another—now in ;i Parisian academy for sons of the nobility, then walching Ihe scoundrelly transactions of a smug British army contractor; again lo the battlefields, which are again as I write being drenched with Itliii):!. The pictures of domestic conditions in the British army which I'oiighl. before Sevastopol are realistic in the extreme, and one's heart goes out to ■ losluia ami \elly in their distress. Kverybody who professes to read Ihe best new hooks must not pass (his best novel of Ihe season. ("Our eopii's I'm 1 review are from the U.K., New Plymouth).