10
BOOKS
MR. CONRAD'S NEW.
NOVEL
THE CHINA MAIL.
have boon different." Similarly the author has some father' straight things to any about our political activities in Persin and our support of the Zionist movement.
which follows is convincing as far Al-Rashid, Coeur de Lion and Mustapha Komst. And, if France ∙as it goes,
It was good that the Hafiz, to mention a few names at had not thus abandoned her former great novelist of sailing ships should random. There is a pall of ronince ally, leaving her to oppose the bave pictured at last, if only in. a and glamour, cast over such tawns advance of the victorious Turks fish, the greatest sailor. But is thoas Damascus, Baghdad, Jerusalem, alone, it is reasonablo supposi novel, in the main mere network Tyre and Nineveh, and they exist in tion that England's attitude toward of incidente? It is enved from being our minds as towns of splendour the French occupation of the Ruhr just that by the creative vision in and riches unlimited, until we would each trait of the land and set, and actually visit thom. We have gain. dill more by the unfolding imits of ed our ideas from the Bible and human character, Arlette is beauti-ancient-histories, but above all from fully drawn. Her change from a The Thousand and One Nights.. shadow-haunted crenture to un-in-The human mind always custe a tensely living parson, as she red hale over the past, but when we see ponds first to Payrol's calm and these places to-day we are some thon comes fully awake in her what disillusioned. For the modern passion for Real, is subtly conveyed traveller, in place of the glories of and brings two fine scenes of reveln- past days, the luxury and colour of tion. The very least of the chamc- life, the jewels, the painted ceilings ters, down to Peyrol's vague and of cedur., the bangings of white, guilelees henchman and a cripple green and blue fastened to silvar who appears only twice, are indivi-rings and pillars of marble, the dualized. And so are the English, purple of Tyre, and of Caliphy die with a stroke or two. But the old rover is the pillar of the book and bears it up, with a humorously sagacious case, on his broad should еTB.
But that
jonsing riches with myal hand, are chiefly found squalor, flics, heat almost unbearable, sandy wastes, religions wranglings and tribal feuds. Here and there, however, are stretches of very fertile country producing oil, corn and wine in abundance, while the doines of some mosque, golden or tile covered, the ring of a Greco-Roman temple, or the gardens of Telan remind us of the past.
Major Powell writes vividly and enthusiastically and he is not lack- His ing in a sense of humour. account of the Persian workmen is worth quoting. The performance never varied. The man at the top of the ladder would sing out, in what he fondly believed to be a melodious tone, Brother, in the name of Allah, toes me up a brick, whereupon the ene below world | mack his compliance with the ro quest by chanting, 'In the name of Ged, behold a brick, U my brother," I have often heard bricklayers in America invoke the name of the Deity, but they used it in quite another sense."
-H. DO T. P. [By Camel and Car to the Pea- By E. Alexander cock Throno. Fowell.. John Long. 15/-]
L
THE AUTHOR IS RESPONSIBLE.
SATURDAY, JANUARY" 267-
PICTURESQUE CHINA
Architecture-Landscape-Life of the People A Journey through twelve provinces
by
Ernst Boarsohmann
$13-50 per copy
This profusely illustrated work will be föhnä to be very interesting and artistic for those who know their China and for others also to whom this great and beautiful country is as an unknown land-
KELLY & WALSH, LIMITED.
CHATER ROAD.
Peyrol bocnitise the whole manner and physique of him, and the very ground he trends on, are felt with a In fact, after tangible vividness. The Rovor. By Joseph Conrad. being transported there by the book (Fisher Unwin. 15, 6d. net.) for it few hours on a November day, Mr. Conrad's story, a remark we begin to share his nostalgia for on the wrapper awares ut, is in to the sun-baked, salted earth which Bongo historical; and the letter of had been in his bones from child, that statement is quite true. But bood. We know, as if we lived
Mr. Conrad, certainly, has writ it is no less true that the author has there, this lonely swell of ground Inid his course for the past, dipping on the peninsula between Toulon fen greater things than this; but under the horizon line beyond and Hyères, where the ene is among his recent books it stands out which, for us, lies history. Of the fixed, the farm, the rough hillside, for the speed of movement, and no two brood highways which convey the expanse and indentations of the less for the impress of its truth to Peyrol, you may the romance of atmosphere the one. And when, for a minute now human nare. generally travelled by Mr. Conrad and then, the action shifts to the conceivably think, is idealized, too
With the advent of British and removes as to a distance of place. English sloop, nntpost of Nelson's benignunt for his past.
takes very high ground when he overcome the difficulty. His new The other, which he has chosen squadron, which is hovering off the sense of the passage and effects of French influence in Syria and
Bays:When I am writing 1 in play is a wonderful performance "hare, measures its allurgent not const to watch, one still has the time which Mr. Cuntad knows how Ambia, a new era of prosperity was by mileage but by a journey into crise of viewing it, and imagining to achieve is well applied to tho promised, but Major Powell tries
Mr. A. S. M. Hutchinson has habit these people-or they inhabit Let me not fall into the tmp of time. What has omorged from it is the blockading fleet beyond the case of the rover. One feels, too, to show, in what a precarious state not the full-dreas and detail of alkyline, from those same lew rising the rational composure with which is its realisation. He writes of our written un extremely interesting me. I do not know how these things exaggeration. The Queen of Corn historical novel. It is that sub acres. The dotached, queer group he has gone through an amazing political ains and mistakes frog preface to a popular edition of "This happen, nor profess to know any-wall is not, and does not affect to tilized past, through the aroma and of people at the farm becomes life. He remains sudden and sung the standpoint of an American, and Freedom" in which he explains the thing about the art of writing what-be, a work in the grand style; bere the intuitive touches, which comes familiar in the same way. There is of hand; and even in his last sell here probably many of his rendersiden of the novel and incidentally over-and they tell me what it is is not The Dynasts over again. It alive in Rob Roy," or The the miserable Seevola, its nominal devotion there is room for other feel- will disagree with him. Neverthe refers to the relations that exist that is troubling them and I just is a trifle, if you will, a dramatic Trumpet-Major, or even Tre-owner, once a buveur de sung in the inge, such as indifference to mere less he writes as a man, represent between him and the characters that put it down. Do you, when a man interlude in ano act, deranged, as Bure Island." For as Mr. Conrad's Toulon massieres, and now a piti-living and a grim joke uponing another point of view and never be creates. It will be remembered 18 come to you for sympathy, stop the author modestly affirms, a6 a sea-rover, Peyrol, settles himself able but still dangerous nomotie.. English captain. It would be traur bitterly. It is always wise to know that in "If Winter Comes Mark in and tell him what he ought to play for mammers. But it has with his big clost and bis money. There is Arlette, daughter of the to say that Mr. Conrad siraplifies, what other people think of us and Sabre would have avoided all subse have done; or when a woman, character, which is exclusively Mr. weighted waistcoat at the lonely Royalist couple who had owned the retreibering the while those depths the author is decidedly cynical over quent trouble if he had obtained similarly besel, comes to you with a Hardy's, a freshness and liveliner the thumvirate of British puppet, furnished lodgings for the unfor confession and with what her con- entirely its own. We take, for. inrmhouse "in a manner of spouk firm and were butchered under ar, under the firm.odtime. He shows ing for over, we can scarcely help eyes at Toulon, where the child was the ideal not an obscuring the real,nders Hussein, Abdullah and tunate young woman whom he be- fession means, stop ber and desire instance, such a lytic as the follow think you do not; and I, Let's meet again to-night, my thinking of Bill Bones arriving as forced to witness and even share in but as inhabiting it. So Payrol hasFeisal, and he sees in the story of friended instead of taking her into her to tell you what it does not ing, sung by Tristram to the harp; a permanent lodger at the Admiral days of massacre which are still a classic strength which puts him, the Musopotamian unddle" the his own house. Aluny critics have can?. Benbow. But that is for contrast more present to her than actual like the old scan of the Narcissus, cause of much of the recent mis asked why on earth Sabre did not when I am writing, do not. more than likene; the two men things. Scovala, who brought her with the best in Mr. Conrad's gut understanding with France, It is adopt this obvious common-sensical listen. I transcribe." This is to and the stories are as different as homie, has never dared to make her lery of sailors. It goes deeper than a curious fact that in Britain's proceduro? Mr. Hutchinson answers claim reality and actuality for the an shaken policy in Mesopotamia and Arabia that "Mark Subro never thought of Hutchinson characters equal to the Mr. Conrad is from Stevenson. his wife. Iter aunt, rigid and silent, roinace and meats
is to be found the key to the interit," and be udis: "All my chare reality and etuality of the world. Mr. Conrad, who can be simpler if bears old tragedy in her handsome hold upon reality.
national political situation inters in all my books nover do think They may be, but, to use na Amer he likes thon Stevenson, has more face; and even Lieutenant Réal,
Europe. It is a far cry from the act as, critically judged, they canism, it is "some claim. complex depths even in those who comes out there for quiet, and moments; and genial se his creation then for service reasons and other THE PEACOCK THRONE. gris to the Kuhar, but it cannot be ought to have thought or seted. denied that the happenings on the They do as they do, right or wrong, is, pleasure is not a more decisive reasons is a guarded, shadowed
one have bad their repercussion in because they are what they are and element of it than wisdom.
character. Peyrol spreads a kind of The new story is a straightforwatchful sanity over all thin, while
the other. Had England not placed can no other." an obscure Arab prince, an avowed ward Conrad. The rover's past is the threads of action and passion
enemy of France, on the throne of more chequered than mysterious neet in the lientemat
State designs and private emotions
Iraq, thereby menacing French and Mr. Conmd himself tells us all we need know. Portaps telling is interweaving make an honestly
rule in Syria, France would not banlly the word for that recon thrilling tale of action, with the
have concluded a treaty with the siructed life of the man which floats glint of its time. The sen chase,
Turkish Nationalists and would not up en naturally that we are, as it ending in the destruction of Peyrol
have withdrawn her troops from the Dardanelles after the annihilation of were, inside him.
It shows how and his treasured boat, is a worthy oxmorete the art is; we are "inside" "clinas; and the glimpse of Nelson
the Greek urmica in Asia Minor by
Major Powell gives us an account of a journey he made, not without excitement, danger and some through Syria, Arubia and Pensia, lands full of historical and religious importance to the West and a great part of the East. Possibly for many people "the East" is not India or Chinn and Japan, but the lands of Christ, Mohammed, of Moses, Cyrus, Omar, Semiramis, Harun
This is all vory well, but a critic The is perfectly justified in suggesting that the character would not have
as has occurred to many noted in Mr. Hutchinson makes him net. or, people in the case of Mark Sabre; if he did act in Mr. Hutchinson's way, that he would be a fool. Mr. Hutchinsou, as a matter of fact,
THOMAS HARDY'S NEW BOOK.
You
Famous Tragedy of the Qucen of Cornicall. A Play for Mym- iners. By Thomas Hardy. (Macmillan 68.),
Fair,
Let's meet unseen" of all;"
And then the evenfall! The day-god labours to his lair,
living late, O lily-rose,
O form of Fantasis,
When torches waste and warders
doze,
Stool to the stars will we! "While nodding knighte carouse at
meat
And shepherds shamble home, We'll cleave in close embracemente
.-sweet.
"It may be eney to be a genius|
A honey in the comb 1 at twenty-four, but it is hard at eighty-four," writos Dr. Edmund The passage of years is absolutely
"Mr. Hardy, our inentini- powerless over such talent as this,' Gosso. able veteran, however, coptrives to adds Dr. Gosse.
000000
HAL ROACH
PRESENTS
Harold Lloyd
@
IN
Why Worry?
HIS LATEST SIX REEL
Pathecomedy
TRADE
MARK
AMERICA'S BOY OF JOY!
He Touched Your Heart In Boy"!
He Cured Your Ills In "Dr. Jack"
Grandma's
You shrieked At "SAFETY LA.
Now Hell Tickle You Pink With His Red- Hot Romance.
Here Is Something Different Again; A Roar, A Riot
The Boy's A Wonderf
Fe'll Wave Away Your Weary Worries
With His Latest, Fast, Funny, Furious Farce.
PLAYING UNTIL YOU STOP WORRYING
EXIT WORRY I ENTER MIRTHI
Hero Harold is A Rich-Sick-Sheik! With His Nurse and Pill Carrier Goes To South America For Health. -
Hero Mests Giant. Giant Has Toothache.
Lloyd Pulls Tusk.
Giant Becomes Valet.
Bing-Zip-Zowie, A Fierce, Fiery Revolution Breaks Out.
What Sheik Does! How Giant Fights |
Why Nurse Loves, Will Make You Ache, Shake and Quake With
Laughter.
TICKLING THE TOWN PINK.