THE READER'S COLUMN.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 188, 28 December 1912, Page 6

THE READER'S COLUMN.

SELECTED EltOil THE CHRISTMAS VERSE, ASLEEP AMOXO lIIS TOYS. (].!y James Worfcley). j I found my babe asleep among his toys, A quarter-liour I'd missed his jocund noise And wondered what so quieted tlie lad, Saying: "He's never still unless he's bad. But when I tip-toed in—love's stealthy spy— A touching picture met my doting eye: One hand lay 011 the engine of his train, The other grasped a tiny aeroplane: Upon his face a world—old look of care— Mankind in miniature lay dreaming there! I lifted him and hugged him to my ■breast. Kissed -him, and laid him gently down to rest Upon a couch. The weary limbs relaxed, The puckered brow, with wondering overtaxed, Released its troubled frown; and with a sigh Of deep relief he slumbered on. While I, With murmured words of choking tenderness, Smoothed his warm cheek, his hands, his wrinkled dressDid all the things we love-mad parents do— Old, old caresses that are never new. Sometimes the.great, kind Father of us all, Noting,we make no answer to His call. Tip-to'eing in to where we've been at play . Through all the hours of our allotted I day, I Will- find us mid our playthings, fast asleep, Our toys about us in a tumbled heap, Each weary hand upon a trinket laid— Some phantom hope born in the marts of trade. I Then, in his arms, the cares our hearts I _ possessed . I Will yjeld their place to sweet and dreamless rest. I —Strpkland Gillian, in the Ladies' I Home Journal.

1 NOTES. Dent's are iissuing during the coming year a'twelve-volume encyclopedia at a shilling] a volume, and uniform with their Everyman's edition. Miss ,L. M. Montgomery, the writer of that popular riovel, "Anne of Green Gables,'' iS having her new hook, "Chronicles of! Avonlea" published by Sampson, Low, anjd Co.: Miss'-Montgomery was recently parried to Rev. Ewan Macdonald., Presbyteridn. minister at Leaksdale, Ontario. The November number of the Bookman is largely devoted to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, whose new book, "The Lost World,'! we reviewed two weeks ago. Mr. llaillle: the Very popular-librarian of the Wellington City Library, has for years excellent work in the development of reading am6ngst 1 children-,; by the very fine department which is conducted for them in the Council's library: His latest idea, to ibs>ue sets of books for the use ;of schools; ensures suitable books getting ! into the -hands of children, and some sprt of systematic oversight of what they read. <lt might well be copied by' ptlier>'libraries with ! advantajge to future income from as these {•hildren grow ''quickly • to be regular subscribers.

SOME R-BCEXT; FICTION. •"The furn3tile,'J -by A. E. ;W-. Mason, author of "The Four Feathers'," • etc.' (London, New ;Yptk and: Toronto: Holder and Stonghton) For ,man who has written such a magnifiqejit stnry as '"The Four Feathers" to risk his reputation by giving lis a of ttiodern politics is a brow 'thing, tb,.do, but Mr. Mason has not himselfspent several years witliin the Walls ,oi Sf. Stephen's for nothing. He gives'us apt only a. gppd politip t il novel '■but fa. that ,rivets, the attention from cover to cover by its clever psyehplogical studies. Cynthia Glanville is a baby in- Valparaiso at the time of the great.' earthquake, when her mother; is killed.; iHer,father, one of,those younger, sous . wlio have,. left England for. her countryjs good, abandons his infant daughter on tile' turnstile entrance to a home for waifs and strays near Buenos Ayres. ! In an early chapter we meet Cynthia; again as a young woman, adopted into jthe family of a wealthy English settler, j Iler father, grown more scoundrelly a till, comes to Mr.' Daventry's estaneia; as a casual harvest hand, and recognises his daughter. With a view of living upon the unholy profits of <v forced ijfe of shame, the brute attempts to claim her. Frightened at this, Cynthia's foster parents' flee with her to England. The father is shortly afterwards killed in a drunken quarrel, but the girl does not know this, and lives for years in a state of fear that she will be followed by this unnatural man. Meantime Mr.' and Mrs. Daventry, well' stricken in years, go the way of all flesh. Cynthia, now very lonely indeed, marries: Captain Raines, M.P., on the frank Understanding that on her part there is no love, but a wish to provide a natural 1 protector. Raines on his part sees in Cynthia not a loving wife, hut a clever woman who has the personality and foresight, as well as wealth, to advance his political ambitions. The story deals with the gradual unfolding of their natures!. For a time the husband, by the narrowness of his outlook and poverty of. ideal, disappoints the high-toned nature | of the wife, but he ultimately casts aside the hollowness of much of the political life, and turns again to his earlier vocation as an explorer. Many of the characters portrayed are very thinly veiled, but this does not in any v.ay detract from the merit of the book. The insight into the way in which early training and association mould our after attitude towards every phase of life is well pictured in the following quotation from the book:—"As a boy he (Devenish. the Cabinet Minister) had always to walk in the road, and he has- not forgotten it. . . . Raines had shown a shrewd insight into a complex character when he coined the phrase. Devenish was the son of a small, struggling tradesman, in a town surrounded % land which was carefully preserved. Therefore he was chased out of the woods and oil' the grass. The gamekeeper was his enemy, and an enemy always at hand. To feel the turf beneath his feet he must use. stealth like a criminal. He had lived in a good grass country, and all the share he had of it -was the dust kicked up from the road by the wheels of carriages. In his boyhood lie had brooded over his exclusion, and through the hard struggles of his youth his thoughts had been raucorous." Another interesting study in the book is Mr. Benoliel, one of Cynthia's trustees, a now prosperous Londoner, who is a self-educated .Tew. ■whose youthful home was the hinterland of Morocco. Mr. Mason has added another gem to his coronet of famous novels. , i

*"Tlie Beacon," by Eden Phillpotts, author of "Children of the Mist," etc. (London: T. Fisher Unwin). The day of the "happy ever after" novel as far as many of our English ' writers are concerned, would seem to be eclipse-i for a while by another kind.

Tn this latter the hero and heroine get married in a second or some early chapter, and spend a number of years in the painful process of finding as many foibles of character in each other as is possible, and becoming as miserable as can be in consequence. There is a disappointing absence of tliaj, .wholesome love of man for maicfj and maid for man, which is blind to the little imperfections, and smothering the blemishes in overwhelming fondness for one another. To that newer style which we somewhat deplore belongs "The Beacon." Elizabeth Densham is a London barmaid, but a splendid fresh-minded high-souled girl withal, Born in the country, at twenty-three she has a strong desire to return to it, and we are introduced to her just as she is leaving for an old-world hamlet in Devonshire. There she is very soon the centre of attraction, and marries eventually one Charlie Trevail. Much of the book is concerned with her attiI tude towards another who seeks to win her love, and the painful indecision and difficulty she finds in making a choice. Mr. Phillpotts gives us some very fine sketches of English village life. Those who know it recognise the touch of a master hand, The book is decidedly above the average,

k at l r Married," by the author of The Lady of the Decoration." (London, New York and Toronto: Ilodder and Stoughton). By those delighted thousands who read 'The Lady of the Decoration," a further instalment of letters from Japan will be greedily welcomed. The story which these letters tell us is practically the same as that of the "Geisha" opera. "The Lady Married," returning from a visit to Japan, meets a- taking Eurasian girl on board, who is going out to live with her uncle, a keeper of a tea-house. Our correspondent, well versed in' the customs of our little brown ally, knows full well the fate which is intended for her young friend <by the courtly old uncle, and determines to keep an eye open. In many cabin confidences Sada has spoken of Billie, who is out West. Quite in the old-fashioned way, Billie turns up at the psychological mpnient—the situation is saved —and happiness reigns supreme. The letters keep well up to the standard of "The Lady of the Decoration," and follow iri natural sequence. *Our copies for review are from the B.K. Bookshop.