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THE CHINA MAIL.

A WALK WITH THACKERAY,

Mr. Edward Wakefield describes in the "Nineteenth Century" a walk which ke took Thackeray in the novelist's latter years. "Soon after starting on our walk towards town Thackeray asked me what I was reading, and whether I had any settled habits as to books, I said I generally kept two books going at once, one light and easy, a novel or some thing of that sort, and the other more serious. I told him I was then absorbed by Harrison Ains- worth's Jack Sheppard,' with its wonderful illustrations by Cruik believed." and truth can never shank. Thackeray said, "That's

BOOKS

WILLIAM BLAKE AND

MANKIND.

reninin at the bottom of the well, The gloss over mijuny, deceit, and crine of one generation is ripped

on by the next; witness the period of Queen Mary' of Stols, Queen Bladeth, am James 11.. To any reader of the history of this paried, movereignty receives, its wternal quieux, and sympatny goes out to the incredible and crazy idea of one being responsi- be for the universe..

If science is the economy of thought, then poetry worthy of the narņic is an exact science, Iri the poetry of Wilham Blake, us with other and etter known poets, there is much that may have been left out with advan- tuge. But, as we cannot have good without ev. light without darkness, sweets without sours, Truth tong us that there is no hills without valleys, even the funny; m the growth or a coun- level of Blake becomes the neighty the England the period above of lesser singers and stumbiers may be, translated as that time in the quest of the absolute. Ifis when the nation was emerging poetry is but the scattoning of from its criminal or savage state, thought, his lyrical utterances

when men murdered each other but ine dropping of pearls, his over a bit of bread, When we thoughts are réyelations on the edme to the age or Blake-man- book of life, and any student will kind, our one man, is just realiz be repaid, not in the guld of muring that it can balance on two chants, by a serioca exammation! Jega. The whippings from Vo of the philosophy of this many-taire, the discoveries of Newton,

wikied artist.

.

Like an creators of values, he did not gain immediate accepit ance. If we view mankind as one man, it would seem that the appearance of a gemus n any age, is that age trying to express itself completely and with finality, Again, if we regard niankind as clay, the genius is one who will try to make the cky in his own image. Political systems, ethical systems, religious systems are. simply the expression of a hand- ful of men sometimes of one man, and the converse of "God making. man in his own image" may approximate more nearly to the truth. The wisdom or other- wise of the masses gaining this information may be of pragmatie; interest to a few who stutter and

mumble in mitres and rustling alk; "but truth can never be told so as to be understood and not be

the alumination from Locke, cure mankind of the rumblings in his stomach, and we mnd that Blaxe makes itanic entort to impose mis standard of value on that which has survived the dark ages of superstition, and the sojourn an Jerocity anu crime. Adoption in that age or the fork and pocket handkercher may have naa mure to dù with sweet sanity than the fufhtigalichs of St Thomas Browne, and the invention of the candle may have given more light for our one man, mankind, then the bonfires at Smithneid.

THE PELICAN CHORUS.

EXTRACTS

Dangers of Marriage.

SATURDAY, MARON 12PN.

SHAW AND SQUEERS.

How dreadful to be singled out as a wicked schoolmaster! But It was not Squeers' fault, nor was

¿ THE GROWTH OF A NOVELIST.

than to remain so. No author can It is easier to become popular

take the public by surprise a Dickens has depicted. In his second time. A novel that has reminiscences, C. W. Copu, R.A., some freshness of fable or style, relates a conversation he once though it be in some ways crudo had with a Yorkshire coach driver and in no way great, may do the whose duties took him up and trick once; but if an author fol- down the Great North Road. He lows this with a succession of described how the coach at vaca-books in a too-similar vein.... tion time was filled with hearty, nothing but a sprightly repetition healthy, jolly looking boys who of that same morning freshness, peppered the passers-by with pen which was well enough when the day was new, his public begins to yawn and go away. A juggler,

Edward Lear's most masterly work does not lie in the classical withinonschae verse, nor yet in those

"Married life is very difficult delightfully futile sketches by for an author. He has to be faith. menns of which he illustrated his ful to one woman and encouraghe in actuality the tyrant whom books of nonsense, Rather is it

ing to perhaps a score of others. to be found in that series of ballads which, for whimsical fancy About the only exciting thing in nd deliberate abandonment of all a novelist's life is finding types reasonableness, stands matchless especially if he's married. Then and supreme, the very negation type-finding rises to the fascina- of the rationala.of things..

The finest of these builds is tion of big-game hunting. They certainly "The Pelican Chorus," live dangerously-the married although its excellence does not authors. A man can't always be lie so entirely in the domain of putting his wife into his books. nonsense as in the setting of the If he does she begins to resent it. quality of nonsense in picturesque I know a case where the wife surroundings. The chorus itself, retaliated and wrote novels about whintsical though it is translates her husband. The revelations, what ought to be Pelicanese into were positively hair-raising. a kind of pidgin-English, which "Faithful Philanderers by Basil one can easily imagine to be the Macdonald

Hastings. (John nearest approximation in human Long.) 78. 6d. not. language of the thoughts and Wilde's Retort. emotions of the pelican. There "A minor poet complained to is, in fact, as the reader will Oscar Wilde that he failed to get readily comprehend, a strong re-recognition because there was a semblance between the personal conspiracy of silence against him. appearance of the pelican and the You should join it at once," quaint words of the chorus, and said Oscar."--"Myself Not if it is the expression of the un- Least," by "X." seen self, then the natural his- Robinson Trousseaux. torical truth of the chorus is

"Marringe isn't a lottery-it's obvious:

a great White Sale.

a fine sort of book for you to read! Why, Ainsworth ought to Le hanged for writing it, and Cruikshank ought to be shot for illustrating it. It is nothing but a glorification of crime and villainy, and I believe it has made more criminals than any other book of our time. It is all the worse for being so well writton, and for the extraordinary power of the pictures. I call that the lowest degradation of genius and art. Those fellows ought both to be ashamed of themselves." I con- tended that the state of society in the book was so different from our own, and the scenes and time were so remote, that it could not do much harm; and I reminded Thackeray that in the end the were duly strung up at Tyburn. hero and all the other bad people whilst all the good people were happily married, or otherwise re- agreed that it was so.” warded. Thackeray laughed, and

.

that "the profound annity of his inspiration is proved by his never having, no matter how great the contrast between himself and the blind men and women about him, pronounced himself to be chosen and set apart alone among men.' The poet himself only allows his disappointment to be mildly ex- pressed in a couplet-

Ploffskin, Pluffskin, Pelican jee! We think no birds so happy as we! We think so then, and we thought, Plumpskin, Ploshkin, Pelican !

30 still!

Yes, when Lear tells me of the assembling of these impossible birds on their "long bare islands

of yellow sand." I am convinced

"And I know who is sold. "I can still remember the tre-

tine's trousseau. Every female mendous business it was buying the fine-linen portion of Chris-

of her acquaintance seemed to be making or buying her something that would be both useful and, if you only knew, ornamental. But after a few years there is-if I am to believe her statement--- pleasant verse or not, it is quite bits of ribbon and a dozen hooks that, whether they sing this nothing left. Nothing but a few

and it is an oversight on the part obvious. Christine goes forth to obvious that they ought to do so; and eyes. The next step is of nature if they do not. But I

in the matter.

the great While Sale at Robin- am somewhat at a disadvantage son's and comes home with a great I cannot speak white parcel and a great white 'perience of pelicans is confined to with authority, because my ex- -bill. And. I-great white man those at the Zoo. They certainly pen and sign an enormous che

that I am-whip out a fountain did not quote Lear. But what

of "Squeers" school, and the shooters. These were the pupils original "Squeers" sometimes

William Shaw kept a boarding school at Bowes, and it was from him that Dickens drew his character. Why he should have been so grosaly caricatured it is a little difficult to determine, but accepted it would appear that if the coach driver's narrative is Shaw had the first laugh" at Dickens.

accompanied them..

"I tell you, Sir," he said, "why Mr. Shaw's school was singled out by Mr. Dickens. Mr. Dickens had his information from a dismissed usher. Dickens wrote to Shaw and asked to inspect his

the parlour. Shaw came in, and school. He went with Cruik shank, and they were shown into

said, 'Follow me, gentlemen.' He asked them to go through the hall to a side door, bowed, and shut the dour behind them. They were in the road!"

when he has exhausted his little

repertoire and finds the plate coming back to him almost

empty, can roll up his acrop of carpet, walk around the corner, and in another street collect a old conjurings are new, but no different crowd to whom all his

writer can attract a fresh public for each frean book he produces

his only way is to keep sure hold on his first, readers and add to them, and this he cannot do unless he matures in his books as he does, or should do, in him- self: His public is all the while, growing older, and the pathos and humour and general outlook on life that satisfy a young man or a young woman will rarely make the appeal to them when they arrive at maturity. The humour that tickles you to-day will scarcely move you to a smile

question, "if it had been me, see-

"Well," continued the coach when you have lived, enjoyed, driver in answer to Cope's further worked and suffered for another

have prepared the boys in their you to pleasant tears jars upon ing Dickens came hostilely, I'd this; the pathos that once melted decade or so in such a world as

best clothes. I'd have been very perlite, and I'd have taken them seems but shallow, youthful senti- you when you re-read it now and up and down and into the garden mentality; what you had used to until they were well tired; and think a dashingly romantic inci and have a little refreshment, an! and seems tinsel unreality. You then I'd have asked them to stay gent or character bores you now

boiled fowls, and a cut. of nice growth of your favourite novelist York ham, and I'd ha' made them does not at least keep pace with comfortable; that's how I'd ha' your own, you naturally pass on done. heard tell of Squeers school then, "David Copperfield" been aimply We should never have and leave him behind. Hed no, no," he added.

another "Oliver Twist," Dickens Perhaps, after all, we may ex-would have been but the novelist cuse Dickens for his vivid pen- for an age, and that not the Shaw is Shaw, and Shaw we are picture. Squeers is Squeers, and middle-age. told was "excellent company."

I found them blind: I taught, would you expect of creaturesque."-"One at a Time," by R. S. I'd ha' giv'n them a couple of have been growing up, and if the

thern how to see; And now they know neither

In 1757 our physical man has tired of reaching out for physical things; curious thoughts flash across his brain; and we reach the springtime of heralded by the birth of William Blake, Comparisons arise at once when we examine the asser-sky, tion made by Mr. W. B. Yeates

introspection,

themselves nor me.

·

The birth of William Bluke was philosophy is as significant and an event; his fiery, yet humane enduring as the plough in the

--Willan Repton.

that live in a paddock? And now Hooper. (John Lane.) 6s. net.

come to think of it, I noticed that, each of those curious guests of the Royal Zoological Society, did wear the absorbed expression catch some thought which has peculiar to people who want to just slipped the memory..... The l'elicans at the Zoo are sad birds, and now I know why-they

are trying to recollect "The Peti can Chorus," which dangles in grasping-point. their memories just beyond

-Holbrook Jackson, in "Southward Ho! and Other Essays."

A. St. John Adcock,

in "Gods of Modern Grub Street."

SCENES FROM A THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS

FRO

Lights Out

FROM THE BROADWAY STAGE SUCCESS

MANN PAGE AND PAUL DICKEY

STAR CAST

ETHEL CLAYTON

IN HER TREMENDOUS ANSWER TO THE BUANDES QUESTION.

Can A Woman

Love Twice?

TREMENDOUS photodrama that tells the stirring story of "a glorious woman who decélyed for the Bake of her baby boy, and who repented for the love of the man she had deceived.

Final Show TO-DAY

JANE NOVAK

in

DIVORCE"

The Smashing Drama of

Hearth

The story of a Disillusioned

Wife and Mother-

The Greatest Human Docu- ment Ever Screened-

SUNDAY 2nd

GLADYS WALTON

The Delightful Little Star in

THE

TOWN SCANDAL

WORLD THEATRE