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New Zealand and English Letters
Many Famous Visitors .

(By Arthur O'Halloran.)

The Dominion has welcomed famous soldiers, scientists, musicians, explorers and a not inconsiderable number of men closely connected with English Letters during the past sixty or seventy years. With few exceptions, however, the literary luminaries we have had the honour to welcome to these shores have given little subsequent expression in their work of their observations and contact with us. It is true, Kipling in his “Song of the Cities,” remembered Auckland, and sang her beauties in his “Last, loneliest, loveliest, exquisite—apart.” In one line, perhaps, Auckland's beauty will never again be so epitomised.

It is also reputed that Kipling laid the scene of one of his stories in New Zealand. Domett, who came to the colony in the early days, became not only one of the minor Victorian poets, but one of our early Premiers. One of the earliest of our distinguished literary visitors was Anthony Trollope, who stayed with Sir George Grey at Kawau Island. Samuel Butler came to New Zealand in his mid-twenties and bought sheep country in Canterbury. His sojourn on the wild isolated run at “Mesopotamia” was certainly marked by definite literary output. He contributed freely to the Christchurch “Press.” The letters which he wrote home to his father were published (Book of the Canterbury Settlement). From a letter written later by Butler's father, it appears this little book by his brilliant and fearless son was the only one he ever acknowledged to have read. Such was the bigotry of the times, or at all events in such atmosphere as Butler was brought up—an English vicarage. Up in his lonely little farm-house facing the mighty Southern Alps, Butler, by the light of his kerosene lamp, first read Darwin. His vivid, fantastic imagination was stirred. At night as the winds swept down the mighty ravines his questioning spirit — his brilliant brain—began to bring reason and imagination to bear on “superstition, myth, and ritual.” In his brain were born the germs of that strange fantastic theme that was to ultimately develop into “Erewhon,” which has been described as “the finest piece of satire since Swift.” R.L.S. came to New Zealand on more than one occasion, passing through from “Valima” to Sydney. One can imagine him browsing among Auckland's then limited bookshops searching for “something new.” Rupert Brooke was here in 1912 or 1913, at Christmas time. He is reputed to have found Auckland “smug,” but enthused much over “strawberries and cream.” Alas, his laughter, his dreams were soon to be no more! Masefield, the poet laureate, and Galsworthy, were both in New Zealand, the latter about thirty-five years ago. And last, heralded, “featured” and lionised as all Shavian visits of the latter years, came George Bernard, the one and only Shaw. But we all remember his visit. We have been pretty fortunate in the matter of literary visitors, but if we want to see our own hill and dale, the streets we know so well and the folks we rub shoulders with, portrayed with deft artistry, with the sure hand of genius, we must turn to the pages of our own Katherine Mansfield, New Zealand's neglected genius.