"JUST OUT"-BOOKS WORTH READING

Ladies' Mirror, Volume I, Issue 1, 1 July 1922, Page 30

"JUST OUT"-BOOKS WORTH READING

A Re-view of Current Literature

THERE is nothing under the sun so vagrant, or so masterful,, as the mind of man. Fix your thoughts for one fleeting minute upon one topic —and, when the sixty seconds have elapsed, jot down the alien ideas which have, entirely in defiance of your own strong will, elbowed your chosen subject into the background. Start a little train of thought, and it runs along smoothly for a brief spell, when along comes another idea, decides to use the same track, and instantly the first is a hopeless wreck. The newcomer is having its airing when you realise that it, too, has been side-tracked in favour of some third goddess. And so it goes on; fancies, conceits and ideas jostle each other through the convolutions of your grey matter, absolutely defiant of your own desires, but from their very presence indicating personal interest. Of just such vagabond thoughts has Richard King made up his latest book entitled "Below the Surface,' published by John Lane, Bodlcy Head, Condon. Whitcombe and Tombs, Auckland. The author is an artist, a thinker and a philosophernot making a display of learning or seeking to dazzle the reader by abstruse or recondite passages. He chats away about such topics as are in everybody's mind, letting his fancy play around them as he strikes off some illuminating fragment of thought, and luring the reader from page to page. "These essays are," he says, the minor thoughts which are rarely expressed, save in the intimacy of friendship, or evolved spontaneously as we sit dreaming over the fireside." A serene tolerance combined with a very real sympathy with life's misfits, and the "poor brave things" of this world runs through the essays. Mr. King does not suffer fools gladly. He has no patience with selfishness, with cant, or with idleness. "To be a worker, that is the only education which deserves the name. For with independence comes self-reliance, selfexpression, the power to take one's place, however humble that position may be — the ranks of those whose labour is adding a modicum to the struggle of humanity to reach the gods." He has pierced through the crust of things, and has reached the thing that matters, when he says in "Life's Barbed Wire," "For me there is only one real law, and that law is to do unto others as you would they should do unto you"—a rule, that should be emblazoned in letters a yard high on every church, every school, and every public building in the land. In "Hot Water-bottle Joys" the writer becomes delightfully human. "And who shall deny the happiness of a long winter evening over the fireside with a book, a dog, and 'Thou,' knitting, without necessarily talking." "The Seance" is an essay which must prove enjoyable to those who were not carried away by Conan Doyle's latest infatuation. "The. medium," he says, "was very tall, she was very fat. and she wore a green satin evening- dress. Round her neck, hanging as far as her knees in front, was a necklace of such magnificence that had the pearls been real. I would have written straight off to 'The Daily Mail' to tell the editor that I had discovered the missing Russian Royal Jewels. Her coiffure spoke that axiom which says. 'Though gold may lose its lustre, a good "transformation" endureth for ever.'

He has infinite sympathy with the mother bereft of her soldier son, and the widow seeking to bridge the abyss which separates her from her loved one, but he is pitiless towards the sordidminded cheat who poses as a medium in order to dupe these unhappy ones. "Mrs. Grundy" naturally comes in for a good deal of notice. Instead of being dead, as is popularly supposed just now, he proves her deathlessness .by vivisecting the poor old dame with merciless scalpel. The reader will linger over the essay on the. burial of the "Unknown Warrior. Much has been written on this theme, but little that can approach the delicacy of this—"into the well-nigh sacred soil of the Abbey was laid to rest, not the greatest in the land, but the humblest, the simplest, the least known 'hero of them all. Although we shall never know his name, we shall always know the ideal he stands for in our hearts. He stands for all those unknown sacrifices, those daily acts of kindness, of sympathy, of understanding, those acts of heroism in humble life, which, if there be a Roll of Honour up in Heaven, make such heroes stand high upon that list." "I like to think of him in the night, when the roar of London is stilled — sitting, for example, side by side with Henry V., whose body was also brought from France — each one. comparing notes with the other, each one righting his battles over again. And then I like to think that some time in every day, say- at the fall of twilight, his spirit Hies back again to that humble home which 'out there'' seemed a palace to him—just because it was his home." "The Clicking of Cuthbert," by P. G. Wodehouse. Whitcombe and Tombs. A gentle humour pervades these golfing reminiscences told by the oldest member in the Clubhouse overlooking the Green, and they add in no small measure to the reputation of the author of "A Gentleman of Leisure," "The Girl on the Boat," and "Jill the Reckless." The love story of Cuthbert 'Banks is but one of a number of delightful episodes in which prowess on the links wins the fair and blushing maiden. There are golfers of all kinds, from immature Vardons to the hero who had dreamed of walking up the church aisle with some sweet plus two girl on his arm, and at last awoke to find himself married to a wife who con-

fesses on her honeymoon to having deceived him. "I have never played golf in my life, I don't even know how to hold the 'caddie/" How she redeems herself later makes pleasant reading for the golf enthusiast. Not the. least entertaining story in the hook •is "The Coming of Gowf," which has been deciphered by the author from Babylonian inscriptions on half a brick and a couple of paving stones. King Merochazzer, of Oom, was disappointed in love, and stood sombrely surveying his garden when he saw a small bearded man with bushy eyebrows, and a face like a walnut, placing a small stone on the gravel and make curious passes over it with his gardening hoe. The king was greatly intrigued, and made enquiries. The kind-hearted Vizier standing by gave the explanation. "It seems a hard thing to say of anyone, your Majesty, but he is a Scotsman. One of your Majesty's invincible admirals recently made a raid on the inhospitable coast of that country at a spot known to the natives as S'nandrews, and brought away this man." "What does he think he's doing? ' asked the King. "It is some sort of savage religious ceremony, your Majesty." The book is full of genial hu-mour-a pleasant anodyne after the daily newspaper, crammed as it is with the. restlessness of politics at home and abroad. BOOKS WORTH READING "Last Days in New Guinea," being further experiences of a New Guinea Resident Magistrate, by Captain C. A. W. Monckton, F.R.G.S., F.Z.S., F.R.A.I. John Lane, London; New York, John Cane Company. "The Hope of Europe," by Phillip Gibbs. William Heineman, London. "The Men in the Twilight," by Ridgwell Cullum. Cecil Palmer. Condon. "To Him That Hath," a novel of the. West of to-day, by Ralph Connor. Hodder and Stoughton, London. "Love and Diana," by Concordia Merrel. Selwyn and Blount, London. "Rich Relatives," by Compton MacKenzie. Martin Seeker, London. _ "The Street of a Thousand Delights," by Jay Gelzer. Mills and Boon, Condon. Our copies are from Whit combe and Tombs Ltd., Auckland.