Our Book Causerie

Is there a booklover, whose first bookshelf (containing half-a-dozen, or, maybe, half-a-score of favourite volumes) has grown bulky and overflowed with the passing years, who does not feel the thrill of that old-time gratification, the pulsing of that verdant enthusiasm, as he recalls the pleasure the possession of those books brought him? His bookshelves to-day may be many, long and high, and the tally of his literary treasures total four, or even five, figures; nevertheless, if he be a true bookman, he will confess that that small collection of his callow youth-time—cheap though the books were—brought him more real joy than all the volumes, however costly and famous, he has since added. This feeling remains, though with the passing years one's vision has widened and one's tastes have changed. There may be an added satisfaction in the case of those whose choice of books was wisely directed. Some booklovers will be sceptical of this last. In them the hunter instinct was still strong, and they were fain to seek and find for themselves. And such will tell you that, to them, as to the hunter, half the pleasure lay in the seeking. Happy they who have the leisure to seek, and the luck to find!

In this work-a-day world, with its multifarious duties and interests, the majority of men and women have little or no time to seek. In their case a guide is a pre-requisite. There are book-sellers, no doubt, who, if appealed to, will tell a prospective book-buyer that a particular volume enquired about is “no good,” or “not worth the time it takes to read it.” Such booksellers are the exception. Enquiry generally brings the reply that the bookseller has “not read the volume” referred to, but that “the author has a reputation,” or that “the reviews, so far, have been very favourable.” The cautious booklover, in such circumstances, does not buy. He knows that the average bookseller lives to sell books, as many books as he can, and to sell them at a profit.

The reviews of books in too many of our newspapers to-day are mere puff pars supplied by publishers and eeked out to “a couple of sticks,” or a quarter of a column, according to the importance of the volume, the reputation of the author, or, often, for some less worthy reason. We do not say, with Byron, that “Barabbas was a publisher,” or that he was a book reviewer, and that in these degenerate days his tribe has manifestly increased; but we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that day after day new books are boomed as masterpieces, and new authors acclaimed as possessed of consummate skill, and, in ninety-nine cases in the hundred, both statements are mere mendacities. Sometimes these “reader” paragraphs are advertisements paid for by the authors, who, unfortunately for the buyers of their books, are possessed of more money than merit. Under such conditions, to be guided in the choice of one's books by an independent critic is “great gain” in time and money saved, and in the sum total of pleasure derived from the books bought. This is so, perhaps more so, even in the case of those to whom the reading of books is merely a diversion, a mental vagrancy. Let it be understood, then, that the writer of these notes has no consideration in commending or condemning the books dealt with in “Our Book Causerie,” other than that of seeking to guide readers to a wise choice. Though unbiassed, he is not infallible. He does not expect that his verdict, in all cases, will be accepted as “the last word,” but, insofar as estimating an author's inventive genius, or skill of craftsmanship, his judgments, if not always wise, will never be other than honest.

Posthumous Fame.

Most railway centres, if not all, have their local libraries. Some of these are comparatively up-to-date. I wonder if even the most up-to-date of them have added to their fiction department one of the late Mrs. Webb's novels? Unfortunately for Mrs. Webb she began to publish her books when the Great War was at its worst, and although, first, “The Golden Arrow” (1916), “The Spring of Joy,” and “Gone to Earth” (1917) were comparatively well received by the critics, the distractions of the world conflict out- page 30 weighed their words of somewhat subdued praise, and it is questionable if Mrs. Webb received for her three books sufficient to pay for the paper and ink used in their production. Such result, after three trials, seemed to dishearten her. During the next two years she did not publish anything. In the third year, however, she once more tempted fate, publishing, in 1920, “The House in Dormer Forest,” but with a like result. Then, after another gap of three years, she unblished “Seven for a Secret.” Although the critics quietly approved her their praise was not sufficiently loud to the active attraction of the reading public The following year she issued “Precious Bane.” Although in this, unfortunately, the last novel, she touched high water mark, the public, not knowing did not rush to buy the volume. Nevertheless it sold steadily until the first edition was exhausted. A second edition followed, and it too, was soon sold out. Then a third edititon was issued, but the book reviewers did not it worth special mention! Two years aftter its first issue, Mrs. Webb was awarded the Femina Vie Heureuse Prize. This encouraged her publisher to offer her liberal terms for her next book, and she at once started to write it. When this new novel, which was to be entitled “Armour Wherein. He Trusted,” was about half completed, she suffered a nervous breakdown, and destroyed the manuscript. She began again, but before she could finish the story she died. And when she died the literary world did not seem to be cognisant of its great loss. Mrs. Webb seemed utterly forgotten. So the days and months passed until, at the Royal Literary Fund dinner, in April last year, the Right. Hon. Mr. Baldwin, the Imperial Prime Minister, referred to Mrs. Webb as “a writer of genius strangely neglected.” The fickleness of the press was never better made manifest than in the case of Mrs. Webb. The morning following Mr. Baldwin's eulogistic reference to her work, the leading London literary journals and newspapers vied with each other in the use of superlatives in describing her achievements. All Mrs. Webb's books are worth their room on your library shelves—especially “Precious Bane”

“Above me trees unnumber'd rise
Beautiful in various dyes…”—John Dyer.
Railway excursionists sailing up the world-famed Wanganui River, North Island, New Zea land.

page 31 (which is her best), and “The Golden Arrow.” Get them.

One word more. Mrs. Webb was also a poet but her volume of poems failed to find a publisher. A minor poet, doubtless, but most of her verses are above the average, and are now included in the collected edition of her works, issued by Jonathan Cape, London. Among her poems we find the following lines, which form an appropriate close to the foregoing remarks concerning their author:—

This would have pleased her once. She does not care
At all to-night.
They give her tears, affection's frailest flowers
And fold her close in praise and tenderness.
She does not heed.

A Great Anthology.

“Great Poems of the English Language,” compiled by Walliace Alwin Briggs (Harrap, London). Here surely is a volume of English verse which gives the lie to those captious critics who assert that it is impossible for an anthology to be both comprehensive and select. To fill fifteen hundred pages with poems in the English language, of which it can be said that not one poem included should have been left out, is surely something of an achievement. If it has a fault at all it is in its too select selection of the older poets. One is not far through its pages before he comes to the great Scots poet, Burns, and the poets of his day and generation, which might give the uninitiated the impression that there was little poetry written worth while prior to the latter half of the eighteenth century. Had Mr. Briggs been a little less generous to living poets, he would have found room for several Old World poems, which we think ought not to have been left out of a collection as authoritative as this undoubtedly is. Others may prize the volume all the more because of its sparing indulgence of the older poets and its open-handed liberality towards those of more modern times and of the present day. If the selections from Burns are the compiler's own selections, unaided and unguided by some person or persons from North the Border, we must congratulate him on the excellency of his taste, and also on the quality of his critical acumen. Of course every discerning reader will find some particular poem missing that he would have liked to have seen included (we confess to missing more than one), but that does not in any way detract from the merit of those that are included. A number of the best of the old ballads are given, which greatly adds to the value of the volume. The book sells in New Zealand at twelve shillings and sixpence. At double the price it would still be cheap.

Railway Workshops Bands.
Members of the combined bands of the Lower Hutt Workshops and the Maintenance Shops at Kaiwarra, at the recent railway picnic at Maidstone Park, Wellington.

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“Hear ye not the hum
Of mighty workings?”—Keats.
(Government Publicity Photo.)
State Hydro-electric Scheme. The picturesque setting of the dam at Mangahao, Wellington Province, New Zealand.

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“And it's oh! for the rush of the shining track,
And the whirl of the leaping wheel.…”—C. Quentin Pope.
(Photo. W. W. Stewart)
A typical Suburban Train on the New Zealand Railways.