READERS' COLUMN.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 180, 8 January 1915, Page 6

READERS' COLUMN.

(By James Wortley.) NEW NOVELS. '"The Butterfly," by Henry Kitchell Webster, author of "The OJiosO (lirl," etc.; New York, D. Appleton and Co., 1914. (A very substantial butterfly, in the person of a world famous dancer, is the heroine of this brightly written st&ry. In the course of her Hitting about from - Petrograd to Pittsburg', and New York to Jlilan, she rests for a moment at a little old university town juot outside .Cl£(cago. Here she captures the attention of a reputedly staid professor. Naturally his devotion to Claira is a topic for much comment in the village, and the naive manner in which the professor, for it is to him we are indebted, tells the tale, is humorous in the extreme. Some very curious situations are evolved, and quite contrary to expectations, not only do not injure the professor's reputation, but enhance it in a very marked degree. *"The Walls of Partition ," Kiorencd Barclay. London and New York: 0. P. Pitman and Sons, 1911. Like the "Butterfly," this is a pleasantly told tale, and possibly quite weighty enough to while away the tedium of a. railway journey, even if it cannot be added to the library of great literature. It is sugary, almost to repletion. There is rather a tiresome hero, -whose very keen sense of the "right" is altogether too, keen, and it keeps him apart from Mpfcwiy loto right to the last page. Steele is introduced to us upon 1 hi* rutarn to London after self-imposed exiio of many years. He stops out of the boat train into the thick fog at Charing Cross station to find the bookstall placarded with a flaring announcej ment of his latest book, for Steele is a ; brilliant author. Ten years before he | had been foully slandered to his fiancee j by a woman who wished to win him for i herself. His pride prevented him ofl'erj.ing any explanation, an explanation ■which he, in his innocence, considered I should not have been required. Such ■ a lie given ft start had never been j -caught, and though Madge still loves I him, and because of that love, is willing I to humble herself, as she thinks, to ] -win him bael<, Ire will have none of her ! on that basis. Occupying, quite unwittingly, the adjoining flat to his love, she sees him come and go for some time before they meet. Impelled by love to once more hear him speak, she rings him upon the telephone on a cleverly thought pretext. Not knowing who is at the I other end of the wire, ho is anxious to j speak again to the one whose voice rc--1 minds him of happier days. The trying part of the plot is the strenuous wrestling with his conscience as to what he should assume, and Rodney':i pride takes a lot of throwing. We r.re not sure if it is a clear fall when the bout is over, but the author would not be true to the reputation of Florence Barclay did she not make a satisfactory ending. It is what readers invariably I leok for

I "'The Eyes of the World," by Harold Bell Wright, author of "The' Shepherd of the Hills," ''Tlie Winning of Barbara Worth," etc., ■ Mr. Wright's name upon the title page, will make any book sought after. Indeed, the preliminary notices of this 1 novel inform us that already over five million copies of his books have been aold. This is a colossal total for so young a writer, even in these days of much booming and big editions. " We frankly confess to a disappointment I in his last book, ani welcome a return f to his best form in the book under re* > view. This will easily rank alongside ■ "The Shepherd of the Ilills." The book is modern in theme and original in conception. It deals with the pure ideals of a genuine artist, and the deliberate attempt of a wealthy society woman to debauch those ideals. Mrs. Thaine stoops low in seeking to make Aaron King represent her in his picture as she is not, and because she is unsuccessful does lier best to wreck his career. MakI ing a virtue of necessity Mrs. Thaine poses as a model of propriety, sets herself volubly against short skirts and low necks, but when Aaron King is engaged to paint her portrait, tlie keen eye of tlie artist sees the fulcity of her position, in. the voluptuous gown which is so modelled as to set in relief tlio sensuous body. In the course of the story we are taken to the mountains at the back of the millionaire autumn resort in Lower California. 11. •!•<■ there is a good deal of gun play. This seems inseparable from an American mountaineer story, but the whole events which have so happy a termination are so easily anil naturally related that one does not notice the abnormal situations which sometipies develop. A story that will hold the reader from co v er to cover, and from which he will return to his work-a-di'.y world refreshed ami cheered.

NOTES. Tlio following lines written by James Russell Lowell, the one time brilliant ambassador of the United States at St. James, might have been written of the present Emperor of Germain'. It is a curious fact that the greatest lovers of peace have written much of the most stirring poetry on war:

blind, lie will not let His doom part from him, but must bid it stay. As 'twere a cricket, whose enlivening chirps He loved to hear beneath his very hearth. Why should we fly? Nay, why not rather stay And rear again our Jfrra's crsmiW.il i walls, Not, as of old the walls of llebes were built, By minstrel twanging, but, if nee:! should With the more potent music of our swords?''

TO "K. OF K.," (Kitchener of Khartoum.) O man well tried in mmn and field "I is ehvn to (I'.ee our rhhteo'.K -.word to wield. TYrn to eoni'i!.'!!"], Llev great of men Shov u ; th" rav to 'Horv again. VN :■ know thee v.'ell, there is no need to ask Whether or no thou canst fulfil the task: Thine is the might to break the foeman's power: To fee we tru-f. la this our darkest hour. Leslie I). C'oekefl'ill, in The Bookman. *Boo!;s for review supplied by A. S. Brooker, The Ti.K. Bookshop, Devon Street.