MR JOHN FOSTER FRASER.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9632, 26 October 1909, Page 5

MR JOHN FOSTER FRASER.

Mr John Foster Fraser will arrive in Masterton to-morrow, from Pal • j merston North, and will give his illustrated lecture "Across Siberia and a Dash through Manchuria," at the Town Hall in the evening, when the Mayor will preside. The second and final lecture "Amercia Up-to-Date," will be given on the following Thursday evening, when Mr C. E. Daniell j will occupy the chair. Th 3 vivid im- i pressionist description of his travels ( in forty six different countries, his experiences with their peoples, his thoughtful appreciation of their problems, and his anecdotes of their celebrities, have won for Mr Fraser Foster a position in the world of letters equalled by few contemporaries. In attempting to explain his popularity Mr Foster Fraser has renounced any personal credit for going to the "founts of English undefiled." Beyond reading the Bible and Shakespeare from cover to cover, he has not, to use Stevenson's phrase, "played the sedulous i ape'" tu any great, writer. Very ' early in his literary career he learnt chat the majority of readers like bright descriptions and anecdotic reminiscence.l, arid immeasurably prefer incident :o argument. This has real.'y been the secret ot his successes as a man of letters. The box office for the two lectures is now open at Mias A. El. Rive's, Queen Street.