"JUST OUT"—BOOKS WORTH READING

Ladies' Mirror, Volume I, Issue 3, 1 September 1922, Page 32

"JUST OUT"—BOOKS WORTH READING

A Review of Current Literature

TTHE vast spaces of North America -■- arid its wild forest-clad interior form the present-day inspiration of a large company of fiction writers. And they are wise; for the stirring call of the wild, of the snow-clad ranges crowning the forest-covered hills and of the great mysterious rivers that draw so irresistibly to adventure—sometimes to death, itself a Great Adventureall these abundantly contribute to the magical charm of the out-of-doors book. To the shut-in town-dweller such a book means a country holiday brought to his fireside admirable tonic and a mental stimulant. These draughts of nature, these sparkling breaths of mountain air alert with the sharp tang of scented hill-shrub and mountain pine, and musical with the far-off cry of bird and beast, this divine spirit of wild life concentrated within the two covers of a book, form a most soothing mental anodyne in these days of strained and stressful wealth-seeking. In all these books the human interest in the foreground of the story takes its colour from the setting. Courage, endurance, and . robustness generally characterise the hero and heroine of these tales of the out-of-doors, and the reader closes the book with a sense of exhilaration and a quickened interest in nature and human nature. "THE Everlasting Whisper; a Tale J- of the Californian Wilderness,” by Jackson Gregory. Hodder and Stoughton, London. The giant redwoods of California, mountain sierras crowned with snow, their sides clad with mighty pines and cedars, fragrant scents, skies of vivid blue; these are the setting or the story of Mark King and Gloria. He is a man of the open-air world —an explorer, to whom adventure comes natural. In a stern battle against the forces of nature, allied to the savagery of certain men, he shows an almost superhuman courage. Then, when victory is near, he is stricken down to the gates of death, whence he is retrieved by Gloria, the story of whose regeneration and development from a citybred, fashionable, and somewhat superficial girl, into a self-reliant and courageous woman is admirably told. The plot has an element of novelty, and the book is wholesome, robust and virile. “TZ'ING —of Kearsarge,” by Arthur -“• O. Friel. Andrew Melrose, Limited, London and New York. This is another book of. the out-of-doors school. In it the interest centres around a varied assortment of human types — of them of outstanding attractiveness save one, and she is sweetly fresh Una among the wild creatures that cross her path. Donald King, the New Yorker, affluent and elegant, suddenly discovers that instead of being the happy husband of the beautiful woman he married only " three years previously —he is only an angle in the triangle which involves his wife. In spite of his culture, the primitive man in him takes possession and moves him to sudden and direct action. Having avenged his honour, he has to fly in order to escape arrest for murder. The mountains call to him as a hidingplace, and in order to escape arrest he follows the best traditions of the American tramp by stealing rides in the freight cars. Although a novice at the gamehe was better accustomed to a first-class seat in a draw-ing-room car —he is most successful in dodging both death and the train conductor. As a matter of fact, the bitterness caused by his wife’s betrayal has

robbed him of any desire to live; so, of course, fate conspires to keep him alive. And when the rough journey and semi-starvation have done their worst, fate sends a couple of tramps —the real —who break his head previous to robbing him and leaving him half dead. He wakes to consciousness a week later to find himself in bed, and on the way to recovery. There is a beautiful maiden— Miranda—and there is a Caliban. The latter has built him a hidden lair far in the forest, and his one desire is to steal Miranda from her home. There is some gruesome fighting, some shooting, some thrill-full escapes, and the curtain falls on a situation that the reader will enjoy finding out for herself. “nPHE Return of Alfred,” by the -■- .author of “Patricia Brent, Spinster.” Herbert Jenkins, Limited, London. A railway strike and a passenger stranded “somewhere in Norfolk” on a dark rainy night are answerable for a long chain of happenings that surround the unconventional arrival of James Smith at a country house. Owing to his resemblance to the son and heir, who has been missing for five years, he is instantly identified by the butler and the old nurse as Mr. Alfred Warren. He very naturally denies being anybody but just James Smith; yet the loyal old domestics refuse to be convinced. It does not take Smith long to find out that the heir had disappeared under a cloud, and it only adds to his embarrassments when both butler and nurse decide that the poor young Mr. Alfred must have lost his memory. He is treated with the greatest consideration in the household, but outside he feels the bitter enmity of the villagers on account of some misdeed of the missing man. Marjorie Standard, a beautiful girl with a mind of her own, adds to his difficulties, for she, too, persists in thinking he is the lost Alfred. The situation grows in complexity, and just when it be comes utterly impossible, it suddenly clears, James Smith’s character is vindicated, and the tragic end of Alfred Warren is revealed. “'C’UROPE in Convalescence,” by -*- J Alfred C. Zimmern. Mills and Boon. London. This is a masterly attempt at a general survey of Europe as she has been left by the Great War. Although it has scarcely yet receded far enough into the past to enable us to get a true perspective, we can obtain a tolerably clear idea of the situation as it appears to-day. Mr. Zimmern summarises the happenings and cross currents of politics that have held sway over Europe and the Allies since 1814, and the story is instructive and illuminating. ~

He shows where the politicians have failed, and points out that the restoration of the nations must be preceded by the establishment of mutual confidence and justice, which alone can form a basis of enduring understanding. The social and national streams that for the last two generations have flowed into separate channels will then, he says, be united. Progressive leaders in the field of politics will in the future seek to maintain the tradition of responsible self-government. In the economic sphere they will find means for solving the industrial dilemma of. the modern world—how to maintain a good life for the producer as well as a good life for the consumer. They will find out how to render the vast apparatus of modern industrialism, and the comforts, conveniences and necessaries which it involves—compatible with a life of dignity and self-respect, of inner freedom and true happiness for those ' who earn their livelihood by hand or brain. In other words, what the world needs are men of vision. They alone can rescue civilisation from the present-day slough of materialism and wealth-seeking, and substitute a spiritual basis. We need a new sense of unity such as the Churches have not yet given us. We need a new sense of kinship with those sections of the human family who have refused to bow the knee in the temple of material progress. We need, in short, a new impetus towards the realm where moth and rust do not corrupt. The author’s great hope lies in the younger generation, in those men who have learned on the battlefield to appraise things at their true value. In their strength, as in their loneliness, and in their memory of sacred hours and friendships, they will use the lives that have been given back to them to restore —to a world that is so sadly in need of it. Mr. Zimmern concludes his survey of “Europe in Convalescence” on a note of higher hope. “Europe, the Mother Continent,” he says, has not yet run her race or finished her achievement. Scarred and suffering, destitute and pauperised, and humiliated, she keeps both her pride and her ideals, and. deep in her heart, too deep as yet for utterance in a language that others can understand, she bears the promise .of a future which will cause men to reverence her, even in her adversity, not merely as the source and origin of civilisation, but as its pioneer.” OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED. “Success,” by Lord Beaverbrook. r>, i. ,: n i „ i T A Niamey jrdui emu , Ivoncion. “Tell England.” A study in a generation. By Ernest Raymond. Cassell and Company Limited. London. Our copies are from Whitcombe and Tombs Limited. Auckland.