THE READERS' COLUMN.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 September 1915, Page 6

THE READERS' COLUMN.

(By James Wortley).

CURRENT FICTION. •"The Midlanders," l>y Charles Tenney Jackson. Indiana: The Bobba-Mer-rill Company. (Per A. S. Brooker). J'he Btory of a girl who is kidnapped (Mm a foundling home in New Orleans, taken by two old veterans of the south to their homes in the woods of the Missisaipi; afterwards attached to a family of poor whites, and finally to become the much advertised beauty of the State, *ll provides an entrancing background into which the author introduces the life of the country in the, Middle West. Social distinctions among men have ever provided many a jolt and jir between families that might otherwise have got along with mutual esteem. Mrs. Van Hart does not long hesitate to put Aurelie wise on the subject of the ham the girl is 'doing her (Mrs. Van Hart's) son by permitting his love. Simple and loving, Aurelie determines to leave Harlan rather than be a stumbling block, in his path to fame and position. Her action in so doing tangles a skein that gives us very intimate toadies of the life of the country, and of the solid elements that make up the rural communities of like America of to-day. Moreover, Mr. Jackson writes with the easy and firm touely of a master craftsman. His characters, are living people, pulsing wi,th hqman passion and individuality. "A Texas Banger," "by William MacLeod fiaine. New York:- G. W. Dillingham Company. (Per A. S. Booker). This story brings forcibly to mind the tales of ,Rolf Boldrewood. It is a vivid ' picture of frontier life in the early days /of the settlement of the proverbially wild State of Texas. The events move with the rapidity of a picture There is plenty of "gunning," and the ladies prove as quick with their fingers on the trigger as the most seasoned cattle raider in the story. To the lover of literature the most attractive part of the book is the foreword in wlUcb the '• Mloraring lines, by Arthur Chapman, an American poet, are quoted: "No loop-holes now are framing Lean faces, grim and brown; No more keen eyes are aiming .To bring the redskin down. The plough team's trapping jingle Across the farrowed field, And sounds domestic mingle Wfccre valor hung its shield. But every wind careering Scenes here to breathe a song— A. song of brave frontiering—- * Saga of the strong. NOTES. Mr. G. W. Hornung, the well-known novjiiist, and a nephew of Copan Doyle, has lost his eldest son at the front in Flanders. lieutenant Hornung was only just twenty, and had left Eton after a very brilliant scholastic career. He was •bout to enter Cambridge University v *hen the war broke out. A. C. Swinburne's biography by Mr. Edmund Gosse has been completed and is in the hands of MaoMillan. The firm have, we understand, decided not to public the book until after the war. This is very probably a very wise decision, in view of the transcendance of the war over every other question. That it will be well received when it does appear goes without saying. Nt> more qualified biographer could have bad Swinburne's life in hand. The Waverley Book Club are publishing a reprint of Dr. Alex. MacLaren's book on "The Psalms." The price is 3s 6d. The original edition, of which this is an exact replica in printing and Binding, was 15s. , R . w - Chambers' new story, "Atimlie," has just been published by Appleton's. A copy has not yet reached us. In one of the recent Oxford pamphlets Sir Herbert Warren, Professor of (Poetry at Oxford, discusses the effect of war upon poetry." Sir Herbert tells us that Longfellow's "Santa Filomena," which was a tribute to Florence Nightingale is a poem worthy to rank with Tennvson's "Charge of the Light Brigade." Of the war songs he considers "Maryland, my Maryland," and "Jtfhn Brown's Body" among the best and typical of North and South in the American Civil War. American files tell us that G. H. Perlis' "The Campaign of 1&14 in France *nd Belgium" las been delayed in publication in that country because England would not permit the export of the copper plates, and the book has had to wait while the publishers manufactured pbeir own. - Snpert Hughes' new book, "Empty Pockets," BSs just been issued from the pew of Harper Brothers, Mr. Hughes' nooks We magnificent, but the general wtion reader doss not take to tbem. They are not, foe one thing, ouite long jenortfli. ~'