Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 5

Authors and Books

page 35

Authors and Books.

An article on New Zealand by Professor Strong, which appears in Good Words, closes as follows:— « There are certain spots in the world whose memories haunt one like one's shadow—more in fact that one's shadow is in the habit of haunting one in this dingy clime. And of all the places which have the most sovereign power to cast sunshine on the memories of its sunny self, I can think of none more potent than New Zealand. And New Zealand has the very extraordinary property of causing all who once set foot on her shores to pass beneath the indescribable spell of her witchery. I never met anyone who, having tasted life in his new island home, would consent to change his home. It is very hard to analyse this magic power of the beautiful gem of the antipodes, and to say what is the particular point that makes New-Zealanders feel that their land affords them a pleasure unfelt before, and even yet scarce realized. Switzerland has loftier peaks and fairer towns, Tyrol may boast prettier outlines, Scotland has her classic heather and her brown hillsides, Norway historic memories that linger in her winding fiords; but having gazed at and fancied myself in love with each of these sirens in turn, I am ever drawn back to my ideal beauty—New Zealand. Nature does not often play the prodigal; to New Zealand she has given all her charms, and keeps them fresh and imperiously beautiful as Cleopatra's. »

It may be troublesome, and at times cause delay for artists or authors to gain some exact knowledge of the subjects they paint or on which they write, but the trouble would be well repaid. The London Echo writes: « Some may perhaps remember that the late Mr Frank Buckland one or twice examined the summer exhibition at the Royal Academy, and found the fish and the fishing pictures nearly all wrong. Mr Buckland being a good-natured naturalist, with some regard for his own peace and quiet, desisted from this practice when he discovered how distasteful it was to the angling and fish artists. It is in a less indulgent spirit than a Belgian horticultural review points out that Eugene Sue descants upon an impossible cactus which flowers in the open air in the depth of winter; while Georges Sand introduces us to a blue chrysanthemum, Jules Janin to a blue pink, and Victor Hugo to a Bengal rose which has neither spines nor perfume. Among other like examples of botanical heresy, Paul Feval is credited with an evergreen larch, Balzac with a climbing azalea, and Alexandre Dumas with a black tulip. Further, our contemporary The Gardeners' Chronicle notes that within the last few days we have been told on this side of the Channel of a chrysanthemum which apes the rose, in consequence of growing side by side with it; while a writer in Notes and Queries not only treats the Victoria Regia as identical with the common white water-lily, but considers it to be the lotus of ancient literature and symbolism. »

The following fine lines are from Robert Buchanan's poem, « A Tale of the Unseen. »

Between the Dead and the Living the veil of the glamor lies.
But softly it melts asunder, just as the Spirit flies.
Wait by the bed of the Dying, wait till the last sharp breath,
Then sit in the silence, watching the eyes that are closed in Death.
؟Thinkest thou all is o'er, now thy heart stands still for fear?
Nay, something stirs in the silence! —listen, and thou may'st hear!
Thou art closed around by the glamor, its darkness covers thy head,
But something walks in the chamber, and looks in the face of the Dead!
Wait for a little season—be patient yet for a day—
Before the breath of thy going, the veil shall dissolve away;
Thou, too, shalt stir in the darkness, no man dreaming thee nigh,
And look on thy worn white raiment, before they put it by!

A new and interesting magazine in fifteen different languages, entitled Pantobiblion, is to appear at St. Petersburg early this year, and agents have been appointed in various parts of Europe. It is to be « the most original and striking monthly in the world, » and is designed as an international bibliographical directory of the world's scientific literature. The scheme is one of the most ambitions in modern journalism.

Lovers of Ruskin will be gratified to know that a fine edition of his poems is to appear early in 1891. It will be in two volumes, containing 320 pp. each, with about twenty-five plates by the author, never before published, illustrative of places mentioned in the text, facsimiles of two poems, and an early letter to his father. The special edition, large post quarto, will be published at three guineas; ordinary edition, quarto, thirty shillings; and post octavo edition, with facsimiles only, ten shillings.

The editor of the series of « The Queen's Prime Ministers, » could not have put the biography of Lord Beaconsfield into better hands than those of Mr J. A. Froude. No biographer can be successful who is not to a great extent in sympathy with his subject, and Mr Froude has this qualification; yet he is by no means blind to the shortcomings of his hero. Incidentally, he betrays somewhat pessimistic views as to the tendency of democracy in England. The book has all Mr Froude's charm of style—it deals with one of the most remarkable and picturesque figures of the present century; and the biography is simply and clearly narrated, with just so much of political and historical matter as is necessary to the delineation of the central character, is more fascinating than a romance.

Not quite nine years have passed since the death of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, pre-Raphaelite painter and poet; and his collected verses are now published, in a neat and accessible form. No student of nineteenth-century poetry can overlook Rossetti. There is a tone of sadness, morbid at times, in his verse, and—as in his paintings —some affectation of the methods of a bygone past; but there is not only the unmistakable poetic gift, but passages and entire poems of singular power. Bossetti was sadly misjudged by Robert Buchanan, in his celebrated article on « the Fleshly School of Poetry, » published in 1871—a criticism not uncalled for, but in which Rossetti, strangely enough, was specially singled out for rebuke. Ten years later, Buchanan realized his mistake, and in dedicating to him his novel of « God and the Man, » prefaced it with some verses to his fellow poet whose « honored head, » pure purpose, blameless song, and sweet spirit he commends. But the sensitive nature of the Italian had been sorely wounded; already his heavy bereavement had shaken him; his failing eyesight caused him gloomy apprehension; and his friends consider that the fierce attack, so unjust so far as he was concerned, greatly deepened the gloom into which he fell. Insomnia took possession of him; to obtain relief he called in the aid of chloral, a more evil spirit than the first that plagued him; and in 1882, in his fifty-fourth year, he passed away. We do not think that his poems are as well known as they deserve to be, and no single passage can give an idea of his powers. We quote a characteristic sonnet, the motto of which is Rev. vi., 9, 10:—

Vox Ecclesiœ, Vox Christi.
Not 'neath the altar only,—yet, in sooth
There more than elsewhere,—is the cry, « ؟How long? »
The right sown there hath still borne fruit in wrong—
The wrong waxed fourfold. Thence, (in hate of truth)
O'er weapons blessed for carnage, to fierce youth
From evil age, the word hath hissed along:—
« Ye are the Lord's: go forth, destroy, be strong:
Christ's Church absolves ye from Christ's law of ruth. »
Therefore the wine-cup at the altar is
As Christ's own blood indeed, and as the blood
Of Christ's elect, at divers seasons spilt
On the altar-stone, that to man's church, for this
Shall prove a stone of stumbling,—whence it stood
To be rent up ere the true Church be built.

Mr Richard Heath, in the December Leisure Hour, gives a very interesting sketch of two authors, whose works are much better known than their personality. He writes:— « Could you have had a peep into that estaminet on the heights of the Faubourg St.-Denis, you would have seen two men as unlike in appearance as any pair could well be. One, Italian in aspect, with a great mane of hair, but otherwise not remarkable; the other a thorough Teuton, with a long oval face, high forehead, and very bald, dressed in the old Alsatian costume—plush breeches, colored waistcoat, flowing coat with metal buttons, big shoes, and a great Alsatian felt hat. The first, Alexandre Chatrian, ci-devant glass-maker, schoolmaster, and finally railway employé and novelist; the second, Emile Erckmann, one time law-student, finally novelist, sawyer, and small landowner. This forty years or so partnership commenced about 1848 at Phalsbourg in Alsace, the scene of so many of their stories; the good genius who brought them together being the professor of rhetoric at the Phalsbourg College, M. Perrot. They were both fugitives from the occupations in which their parents had placed them. Chatrian, then about twenty-two years of age, had not only learnt the ancestral art page 36of glass-making (his family being one of those brought in the seventeenth century by Colbert from Italy into France for the purpose of nationalising that industry), but he had been sent to Belgium to perfect himself in the art. However, the longing for a literary career had seized him, and, throwing all up, he returned to Phalsbourg and supported himself by teaching. Erckmann, four years his senior, was a law-student at the Ecole du Droit in Paris, but working in it with so little heart that he took five years to pass his examinations. Meanwhile he had spent most of his time at the College of Prance and the Sorbonne, and had already published something … Few lives are without their tragic side, and Erckmann-Chatrian's career is no exception. After more than forty-years' frienship, their partnership, so fruitful of good, ended in a very sad manner. About two years ago the health of M. Chatrian began to decline, but in a way not easy to understand in its first stages. It proved in the sequel that form of mental ailment in which the sufferer believes himself persecuted, and it took the turn so often seen—the man most loved becoming the object of suspicion, opposition, and calumny. The saddest part was that neither they themselves nor their friends seem to have been aware of the true state of things until the estrangement became public. In this state of mind the sufferer talked and wrote against his old friend until a young man who was warmly attached to Chatrian wrote an article in the Figaro, which, among other things, charged Erckmann with a want of patriotism in living in Germany. This charge was probably the reason which induced M. Erckmann to bring an action for libel, as it certainly tended to destroy his credit with his countrymen. When the case came on in the Courts of Justice in Paris, it appeared that Erckmann lived in Alsace because the doctor said it was necessary for his health to live in the air in which he had passed his childhood, and in proof of his entire want of sympathy with the conquerors of Alsace it was stated that he had never learnt to speak their language. But what, of course, best cleared the whole matter up Was the statement made by M. Chatrian's counsel concerning the state of his client's health. The Court gave M. Erckmann heavy damages against the Figaro and against the author of the article. M. Chatrian did not long survive the trial, dying on the 3rd of September last. ؟Who does not sympathise with this tragic close of a friendship so unique and so prolific of good to others? »

Edna Lyall, the authoress of « Donovan » and other semi-religious novels, is described as a woman of about 30, who has considerable means apart from the earnings of her novels, which have a prodigious sale. She spends much of her money on charity, and bought a peal of bells for her brother-in-law's church with the proceeds of her first novel. She declares that every one of her books is written with some high purpose kept steadily in mind, and she says that Kingsley and Whittier are her literary favorites. She shuns publicity, and recently asserted that « women can do more lasting service to the country by helping their children to face facts patiently than by speaking at public elections or worrying people for votes. » Her real name is Ada Ellen Bayley, part of which she has transposed into a pen-name.

A satirical writer has been dilating upon the advantages of a bad memory. It is always a good thing, he says, to a bad poet. He finds his mind full of fine thoughts and fancies, which make him feel proud of himself. Not remembering that they are the fine thoughts and fancies of other poets, he naturally imagines that they are his own, and makes free use of them accordingly, and thereby acquires the fame of an original bard among the section of the public that is blessed with memories no bigger than his own. Then, too, the benefits of a bad memory to a man who is fond of reading can scarcely be over-estimated. It at once makes his small library as inexhaustible as that marvellous pitcher of water from which everyone might drink as much as he required, and still it always remained full to the brim. He may read a good novel or a good poem and enjoy its beauties to the utmost; but in a short time he has quite forgotten them, and can take up the same book and read it again with as much delight as if he had never read it before. This is a joy in which the man with the good memory cannot indulge. The exquisite pleasure one feels in reading some of our best books for the first time he can enjoy but once. If he takes up the book a second time he too clearly remembers the whole plot and how it will end; it is stale and unprofitable to him; it has lost its gloss of newness, and he marvels at the delight it gave him when he read it before. But to the man with a bad memory the book never becomes stale; he can always read it again after a short interval and renew his former raptures over it. He is a happy man. For him the rose never loses its fragrance. He eats his cake and has it, in spite of the proverb, and will continue to eat and have it as long as he lives.

Mr Frank Ridson has collected nearly a hundred old songs of the border counties which he believes to be unpublished, and which, with their tunes, he will issue through Mr G. P. Johnston, of Edinburgh.

The series of books published by T. Fisher Unwin, « The Story of the Nations, » is meeting with deserved success. The idea is a good one, and well carried out. We have here no second- and third-hand bookmaking, by ignorant compilers, but a series of handy volumes by specialists, who, in some instances, as in the case of Professor Vambery's « Hungary, » have produced the first work in the English language on their special subject. The latest volume of the series, the twenty-seventh, is by Susan Hale, and gives the history of Mexico. The book is bright and readable throughout, with a few Americanisms of style. Thanks chiefly to the insatiable spirit of destruction animating the old Spanish conquistadores—whose atrocities the author touches upon very mildly—only very fragmentary records of the early history of the ancient Mexicans remain. The chief interest of the book lies, we think, in the later chapters. The writer gives a very clear and impartial account of the brief reign of the unhappy and deluded Maximilian. Of the future she writes in a hopeful strain. « The darkest days of the Mexican Republic are now over. Its members have learned sharp lessons from adversity; they have suffered everything that their own headstrong conduct, their vainglorious ambition could bring upon them…. Out of all these troubles they have bravely emerged, and now take their stand, heavily weighted still, indeed, with the burden of past mistakes; but young, full of promise, with all the elements surrounding them of a possible great future. The future must depend for the most part on their own exertions. »

We do not know the origin of the following little fugitive piece, which cleverly hits off some of the most recent solemn quackery of science:

The doctors of this era are inflated
With the morphologic mystery of life,
And the biologic questions now debated
Originate most devastating strife.
We can murder or can culture the bacillus,
We can shoot the micrococci as they fly;
The germs of typhoid fever cannot kill us,
With the antiseptic lotions we apply.
Bacteria we know are protoplactic,
The saprophytes eat carrion like crows,
While leucocytes with attitude gymnastic
Assist our wounded surfaces to close.
With laryngoscopy lenses we examine
Every ulcerated gullet, and we spray
The i-so-meric pto-maine-pro-py-lam-ine,
Which frightens inflammations all away.
If the pulmonary structure be invaded
By the tubercle-bacillus, then we smile,
For phagocites will never thus be raided—
They're conquerors and cannibals the while.
When these scientific laws are universal,
When the doctors all this knowledge can apply,
Then the subject needs at present no rehearsal,
Mankind upheld by science cannot die.

The verses would form a tough exercise for a spelling bee.