BOOKS
STUDIES IN LITERATURE.
Year by year the presses of the world are pouring out a dood of booka, some mediocre, some "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing," and then among them unheraided-comes at rare inter- vals a book like this little volume of Studies in Literature; almost lost among the flood of other work, and yet, so intrinsically fine, that it creeps into the hearts of jaded readers and turns them into lovers and friends. It is dangerous to prophesy of immortality for any- thing in this ephemeral age, but since each period adds something to our great classic literature, it may be that this little volume will be one of those looked upon by future generations as one of the great books of our time.
It is a thought provoking book. For all its learning and its wis- 'dom, it suggests to your mind; rather than states, and sends the imagination on adventurous jour neys, rather than lets the reader stumble along as best he may in the wake of the author,
Then there is the paper on Swinburne. In it he makes the triumph and the pitiful decay of story of the genius and the
all that was most vital in the poet into one of the most moving and heartrending tragedies one can remember. It is a picture as true as it is terrible the picture of the very soul of a man whose life had been no more than a lamp for the fame of his genius, and whose ultimate tragedy was, that when the flame leaped and died, the lamp continued cold and dark till death shattered the useless thing. It would have been so easy for a man of Sir Arthur's learning to have written a pedantic treatise on Swinburne as a great English poet, but it is the triumph of this book that in every instance you see the living breathing maz behind the achievement, and it is his crowning glory that he makes the reader see it too,
And this is the reason that I venture to prophesy that when bigger books are forgotten, this little volume may be treasured by generations to come because it has the human touch, because in spite of great learning, and exquisite English, it never for one moment loses touch with the vital things of life.
C. L. Y.
Series). By Sir Arthur Quiller Couch. Cambridge University
ress. 58. net.]
Here is no pedantry at all. Sir Arthur Quiller Couch has his finger on the throbbing pulse of humanity all the time. Take, for instance, the picture of the Roman Colonist in his villa in Britain in (Studies in Literature. (First the fourth century. In the hands of most learned men, how dull this would be! Here it is a delightful and homely little sketch. We seu him, helped by his daughters, planting his garden with violets, or sitting by his fireside for better warmed than many a master of modern country- house" while he unpacks his parcels sent from Italy, which he still calls "homes," as our own colonists overseas speak of Eng- land to-day.
PATRICIA OF PALL, MALL.
"Quite a readable novel, but calling for no special conuent Interesting characters are intro duced, but, almost without ex- ception,
BITS FROM BOOKS,
THE CHINA MAIL.
Just Like Him! "That is so like a man! I believe you wil regard women's passion as something like electric light, to be switched on and off as you want The Ladies of Lyndon, by Margaret Kennedy. (Heinemann.) 7. 6d.
|
The Servant Problem.
REVIEWETTES.
THE APRIL NUMBER OF THE
STUDIO.
SATURDAY MAT. 81. 1924.
NAME-PLEASE
Such a sweeping indictment is (I wonder what author he had in
sarely unkind.
One glance at those novels so
his mind!)
vividly glowin' Dispels the idea that it's Marjorie
Bowen
take
"The Able McLaughlins." By Mar-
[The ex-Headmaster of Eton garet Wilson (John Long, 7s.
recently referred to the miserable Ed.).The Scots can make a
The astonishing thing about thepiffle" turned out by a famous lady living anywhere; and in the Studio is the number of really good novellat.l prairies during the American illustrations the publishers ca. allord Civil War the McLaughlins Work included. Foremost among to give and the wide range of Art prospered with their butts, the illustrationg come some wonder bens and bannocks. Barbara fur etchings by George Gobo. (La Flation.)
Ferguson, however, gave Viator Hugo's House, Le Pont "How about dinner, Gordon?' Wally McLaughlin a rare dunta apation, an old-world bridge of Angela, seizing the propitious
when she said to that robust awe-inspiring massivity and a study instant, raised a languorous hand edition of Wee McGregor, "I of trees awaying to the fury of the to press the little jade bell-push canna live in a stye.”
blast against a background of old- above her head; and almost Im-"Debrett's House of Commons and world cottages that look as if mediately a silent man-servant' Judicial Bench.” Dean and hurricanes would be powerless parted heavy, dragon-scrolled cur.
Son, .208.).-A book indis- against them, Old Houses at tulos to reveal, in the other half of
pensable to everyone who fol-Dinary' is a strong Light and Shade the sitting room, a small, Intimate
lows political and legal affairs. study and 'Boats at Chioggia' Is ha who'd depreciate Mies Netta hammered silver containing caviar. Hie Lady Secretary" By John dinner table already candle lit and
Even Resignation Honours are forceful marine one. garnished with two dishes of
And a million bosoms with aager cluded in this vade mecum.
would swell
ly cooked and as exquisitely The short dinner was exquisite. served." Gerald Granston's Lady, by Gilbert Frankau. (Hutchinson.) 78, 6d. net.
Max's Marriago.
"Max was married, said Mrs. Neville (his half-sister) to a very i charming and pretty girl. Max
I
ent through the ceremony beauti- faily, as such a dandy would, kiss to the blushing bride. omitting nothing, not even the first could not help telling him how proud I was of him, and now, I said as we were all leaving the church and the bride was getting late the carriage, 'I must say good bye, dear Max. Suddenly his marvellous self-possession broke down; frantically he seized me by the arm: You're not going to leave me alone with her, he cried, and when I replied: 'Indeed, I am he looked at me reproachfully, muttering: it is hardly decent
Contemporary Portraits, by Frank Harris. Fourth Series (Grant Richards.) 10s. 6d. not.. Chipped from "The Square Ega.
20
It doesn't take me two minutes in the morning to do my hair,' sald Sparrowby. So I should imagine, retorted René. 'Isn't there proverb, "A fool and his hair are soon parted.","
editor of a paper devoted to white "For three weeks I was assistant mice. The devotion was all on one side"
"Marrying isn't in my line, I dislike the idea of wives about a house: they accumulate dust."
asked the colonel. You had a cold
"How is your cold, Mr. Trevor? before we went to Worcestershire. That one went long ago, answer I've got There is little plot".
are over-emphasizeded Trevor gravely
-O.T. [Patricia of Pall Mall by Curtis Yorke. John Long Ltd.]
another one now, which is better, thank you."-The Square Egg, by H. H. Mauro ("Saki"). (John Lane.) 7. 6d.
Love in Bohemia, a best- seller novelist and a charming amanuensis are the ingredi- ents of an agreeable Carter book.
L. Carter (John Long, 7s. 6d).
The First Night. "The nice thing about a First is at the theatre at all. It is just a Night is that no one really foels he jolly family party, broken up by long periods of acting, in the course of which most of the aud fence are prevented from talking to each other. The very programme girls betray a certain social ex altation, not usual in their profes- sion, and murmur, There is so charge to-night, with all the pride ot a hostess. Only the dramatic critics know very well what they are about, poor fellows."-The Man About Town, by A. P. Herbert, (Heinemann.) 78. 6d. vet.
Spacious Days! "You should see my lodging! John and I have a bridal suite, the grandest you ever saw, all done in lavender silk, with great bunches of lilac and lilies of the valley. The bed in my room is as large as Dolly's parlour at Bramfield. me. They were spacious days- Louis Quatorze, so Cynthia tells four people could easily sleep in it without discommoding each other."
They often did, said Mrs. Cocks, in an interested voice. something of a crowd is quite a This notion that even two are modern idea. I was reading the life of Mdme. de Montespan the other day, and it struck me forcibly what much what sociable habits they had."-The Ladies of Lyndon by Margaret Kennedy. (Heinemann.) 78, 6d.
landscape radiant with light, and Watervalour work is represented by Mr. Redforth's Richmond, a Mr. F. Taylor's In Soho,' a bril- liantly coloured fruit stall, with the flowing lines of the purchaser's cloak in the foreground. "The watercolour is to the eve what the lyric is to the ear. Both may have the slightest subjects, but it is the workmanship and the emotional value of the treatment in each case which give pleasure."
Turning to the sister Art of Sculp
work is all too short but has three ture, the Study of Mrs. Mallwod's fine illustrations the Mills of God, a symbolic head from
terrifying the Canadian monument, and the Archangel, a figure designed for colossal reproduction as the roof supporting external pillars of a domed calbredral. Dignity of repose here is very marked and the treatment suggestive of Egyptian Art."
th
And breathes there a reader of
-fiction who dares
To disparage the works of Mias
Ruby M. Ayres? While weak in the head and
deficient in spirit
Syrett
If,
aspersions were cast on Miss
One has only to say it to treat as a
Ethel M. Doll!
base myth
The fact that the author is Miss
Sheila Kaye Smith- For the tales of the Baroness I am
a glutton, And wager a hat that it isn't. Von
Hutten!
Some scribblers there may be who
"perpetrate muck; '
Ruck! But certainly Berta is out of the
When he talks about "piffie," I In case he's accusing Miss Marie
shake like a jelly
Corelli!
"...
I can't guess who she is, so I own But piffe there is, and it's some
myself beaten;
imes moth-Eton!.
FAITHFUL PHILANDERERS.
Faithful Philanderers is a clever story centered round four main characters, and is quite out of the exta-ordinary type,
the first article, which is a skilful Commercial Art is dealt with in and well-deserved appreciation of the masterly akill shown in. Mr. Fred. Taylor's railway posters. York, Antwerp, and Whitby are ordinarily attractive, while Silloth and Redcar well fulfil their purpose. Other illustrations deal with the work of the Pre-Raphaelite, Mar- tineau, the pupil, of Holman Hunt. Thero is a clever study of the aude by James Grant, a realistic study of ing sketches by Coussen's of a may- a blind man and by Eckmart amus
ter printer of etchings.
Most noteworthy in the illustra- tions of the Fine Art Society is a Bne character study by AJ. C. Bryce, and in the Women's Handi Mr. Peacey and spoons by Miss crafts pottery by Miss Crofts and Sandheim.
An artfully designed paved gurilen by Percy Cane is the subject of several illustrations.
countries we learn that Spain as From Notes on Art in various
produced few landscape painters,
Arthur and his wife Cicely who never had much fondness for cach other, had each a lover of their own. Arthur loved Vanessa Cicely, Eustace. This peculiar tangle is solved by the author in a very pleasing manner.
(A.G.F.P.)
[Faithful Philanderers ← Basit Macdonald Hastings-John Long 7/6]
and something of the Italian Teligious There are also a lithograph, a sculptor. Catori.
by Japanese children, reviews and Jinxut, a pen-wing, models made a note saying that the special Spring Number this year will be mainly con- Israele. cerned with the work of Josef
-N. B.
A REVIEW OF A RHYMER.
****" The Call of the Canyon,”
By Zane Grey.
יין
(Hodder and Stoughtou.} There comes to Arizona A New York Butterfly,
The thrills to test Of life out West,
And then to flutter by:' And, pretty, fragile, useless
thing,
Tako wing
Out there in Arizona Her man has settled down, No more, for him The idle whim
And glamour of the town, For him the voice of Nature and The land.
Poor Butterfly is broken.
Not on wheel,
Nor yet heart-broken.
Tho' she saves her skin, She's broken once for all.
Truth to reveal, She's broken in.
R. W.
HARDY STANDS ALONE.
Hardy is, and will remain; a great and lonely figure in our literature. It is possible to trace the descent of almost every other writer, to name the artistic in- fluences that went to his making
but Hardy is without litterary ancestry; Dickens and Thackeray, Tennyson and Browning, had forerunners, and have left success- ors. We know, as a matter of lact, what porridge John Keats had, but we do not know that of Hardy Like every faster," he unwittingly founded a school, but none of bis imitators could imitare Him
except superficially, and already the scholars are going home, and the master will present- ly be alone in 'his place apart. His style is peculiarly his own; as novelist and poet he has worked
always within his own conception he has worked within the scope of the universe as consistently as
of Wessex, and "within that circle and bounds of his own kingdom
none durst walk but he❞—A' St. John Adcock, in "Gods of Modern Grub Street."
1
MARIE PREVOST
IN
WARNER BROS.
Classic Of Screen
THE
BEAUTIFUL
AND
DAMNED
A SUPER-FLAPPER PHOTOPLAY in 7 PARTS Fitzgerald, in this Warner Brothers Production shows in particular two young people-Anthony and Gloria-of natural charm and beauty, cast upon this shin. ing sea and floating toward that awful whirlpool that may do worse than kill; it may destroy the soul and leave only ́ the body. This he does with such brilliance, with so effective a succession of scenes and incidents, that fleeting society, in all its glitter and colour, is brought before the very eyes of the audience. Through the medium of a fascinating story he reveals a algnificant phase of modern life hitherto unrealized.
IT IS AN EVENT. A SENSATION, AN EPOCHAL MASTERPIECE. DON'T MISS IT!
WORLD THEATRE
Last show to-day.
CINEMA CHATTER.
Schie from BRASS" Warner Bros Production
NEW FILM STAR DISCOVERED work lies entirely in European
By Carl Laemmle
"THE DANCER OF THE NILE.”
Romance Revealed In Discovery of Tut-ankh-amen's Tomb.
When Rider Haggard foremost author of exotic stories of anti- quity, created" such world-read classic "King Soloman's Mines" and "She," he little thought that even his own fertile imagination was to be surpassed by an actual mystery-drama of life enacted before a startled world, in, the Luxor Valley of Kings. Here, after years of scientific research, Lord Carnavon, devoted Egypto- logist, discovered. the jewelled tomb of Tut-ankh-amen, one of the greatest of the Pharaohs, and mysteriously lost his life in the discovery.
The entire civilized world wrangled over the question as to Whether this was a visitation of the curse of the Pharaohs” or the bite of an insect. Neither scledice, nor superstition, how- ever, has beefble to explaini away this death that struck in the dark of the resplendent vaults, when the natives have since named ""The Tomb Of Terror."
WORLD THEATRE
The Most Madera & Coolest Picture House Des Voeux Road Central,
Sunday, 1st to Tuesday, 3rd June, GLADYS WALTON
in
THE GIRL WHO RAN WILD
I LOVE YOU
·GLADYS VALTON - INT
THE GIRL WHO RAN WILD! A UNIVERÉAMATERASTION /
"The Girl Who Ran Wild" will present Gladys Walton at this theatre to-morrow in an adaptation of Bret Harte's widely read story, "M'liss," a tale of California in the palmy days of '49.
Thrilling action and an appeal-` ing love drama, are promised in this latest Gladys Walton starring vehicle. Directed by Rupert Julian, who also prepared the Harte story for the screen, ** The Girl Who Ran Wild" is said to be, an especially appealin Version of "M'lisy, "
Yet, undaunted with that fear- less spirit of his pioneer, fore- futhers, a famous American. Howard' Cortar chrries on the work of the grent adventure; the uncovering of the innermost slurines whose secrets,...when productions. A "mantines idol" of divulged, are expected to revolu- the screen in several countries of tionize our knowledge of this Europe, he was practically an period of ancient history, and re- as might be, by his vivid story of suddenly born out of the womb of The "cast of players in the unknown quantity" here ont veal even more extraordinary love and treachery that had the post, ins nesulted in the "Crooked Alley," is interesting Carl Laemmie, president of the facts about that barbaric civilizatifcatened the dynasty of Tut-magnificent proddiction which he from different angles. This is the Universal Pictures Corporation, tion, which in many respect rivals ankh-amen. The deciphering, of has titled "The Dancer Of The picture which will be shown at the brought his over from Europe, our own. World-Theatre soon.
the complicated Egyptian figures Nile." several months ago. This role in First, there is Laura La Plante "Crooked Alley is his first imcious and invaluable relics that accomplished, to bring them to stition, in so naming his picture, Aside from the wealth of pre- and symbols had been one thing. Mr. Earle is guilty of super- in the leading feminine role, a girl partant part in an American pic have been already found, are the life on the screen, however, pre-for he believes it will bring him whom Universal has been training türe. Of fair height, extremely historical records of the life of sented almost insurmountable good fortune to retain the original for big things the past two years. athletic build and blond com-Tut-ankh-amen and his queen, and obstacles, but the thought of put-description of the fascinating She has played leading feminina plexion, he has the type qualifica- these thousand-year-old pieces of ting the breath of modern motion Arvis; however, if the oxcellent parts in "Out of Luck" and "The tona necessary to become a papyrus, with their figured picture realiam into a story reports of the pre-reviewers are Ramblin' Kid," Hoot Gibson favourite.
hieroglyphics, reveal many amiiburied in the dust of centuries, so correct. Mr. Earle has nothing to specials.
Tom S. Gulse, venerable characing secrets of this powerful ruler: gripped Mr. Earle's imagination fear-not even a single insect bite Then there is Thomas. Carrigan, ter man; Al Hart, of western among them the true romance of that he entered into the project of adverse criticism! "The Dancer who has achieved a lasting reputa fame Sidney Bracy, of "MerryArvia-described as The Dancer with intense-entbublage Accom of the Nile is described a tion for consistent ability on both go-Round," and many other play. Of The Nile."
panied by a staff of experts, he magnificent production. With stage and screen He portraye ers of genuine note have principal This intensely human dotu visited the Valley of Kings, and Carmel Meyer enacting the "Boston Blackdie,”.
ment was brought to the attention finally returned to his studies colourful role of of William PS. Earle, the noted with invaluable data. Mr. Earle's dancer, and supported by a dis- Arvia, the motion picture director, whoso directorial genius coupled with tinguished er at of players, includ artistic senas was atirred, as well his intense enthusiasm to faith ing June Evidge and Malcolm
nique story, MacGregor
Owen Gorine, who plays the Crooked Alley is Jack Boyle's Juvenile leading role, comes in for story, originall called "The
measure of attention. His past Daughter of Crooked Alley!
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