1933-07-03 — Page 5

Page

MONDAY, JULY 3, 1933.

LITERARY NOTES

A PILGRIM IN EUROPE

Wise & Wistful Mr. Hergesheimer.

THE CHINA MAIL.

THE BEST SELLERS

poser's works.

Berlin. By Joseph Hergesheimer. | criticism

(Cassell. 75. éd.).

"Brahms," by William Murdoch the primitive instincts of even the (Rich and Cowan, 15s.). Biography |most civilisted of the company, and analysis of the great com- The idea is not new, but its treat- ment from an entirely new An impressive honest study of angle. Perhaps the author's ex- a man at once generous and jeal-perience in younger days of livina ous, shy and confident, sensitive to in a hut on the seashore and fish- but courageous in the ing and shooting for his food lends face of setback, with a great capa-to the realism of his book The dust-cover of "Berlin," by city for friendship. Joseph Hergesheimer, is a trifie An unswerving devotion to the mia-leading. A very red Berlin two Schumanns took precedence glares from a mottled white back over any of his own affairs. ground like the skysign of a night It may console many to read that club, and it suggests an author Braims fell asleep while listen- who sprays his ideas like machine-ing to Liszt playing his own, com- gun bullets among a crowd of liter-positions on the occasion of his ary pleasure-scekers.

first visit to Liszt,

Rut Mr. Hergesheimer is not like that. There are night clubs in his book

the

odd volumes

the machines he

Ben Traver's Manor.

BURNS FAMILY APPEAL

Unpublished Letter Read By Premier.

KING'S DONATION TO`R.L.F.

METHODS

SUMMER

OF SOCIAL SAL

STUDY

Sidney and Beatrice. Webb, Lord and Lady Passfeld have written a book on "Methods of Social Study," The Prime Minister, presiding at which has come from Longmans, 143rd anniversary dinner of the Mfr. D. C. Somervell, in a review of Royal Literary Fund, held at the Webbs latest book, quotes The indefatigable Ben Travers Claridge's Hotel recently read an Shaw, who said, thirty years ago: has taken a manor house at Har unpublished letter written to the "He who can, does, and he who can- penden to be near Elstree, where committee of the Fund in 1796, ap-not, teaches. This quotation, he he works on the films of his pealing for help for the widow and says, is emphatically not appropri books,

children of Robert Burna.

ate to "Methods of Social Study." Mr. Travers was a flying in- Mr. MacDonald quoted the letter The Webba sets a high value,| structor daring the war, and taught as an example of the Fund's asse-Mr. Somervell says, on the techni Ivor Novello to fly, but after the Ciation with some of the most discal skill of lawyers in extracting war he swore three things-never tinguished names in literature. The relevant facts by examination to ride on horseback, never to own text is as follows: a car, and never to go up again in

as airplane. He now never misses

Dumfries, Aug. 30, 1796. Gentlemen, being unacquainted

excused.

NOW

"We always rejoice," they s27. to find lawyers on a committee of which either of us is a member, even an inferior lawyer being a better instrument for an oral in- quiry than the most distinguish- ed Intellectual who is not a prac- titioner in the art of eliciting facts from spoken words.".

Slot Machine Books. One imagines that the alot ma chines for books in Germany will Having considered the thirty-be victims of Hitlerism. A friend five kinds of coffee it is possible to order in Vienna (for the Berlin of of mine who apparently had more a daily ride, and keeps several wit the laws of your benevolent It would be a pity not to committed, il presumed, will be

institution, any informality the title actually includes Munich, money than sense amused himself cars. Budapest, and Vienna), Mr. Her when over there a short time age complete the sequence.

A Thriller. gesheimer let his mind wander to by trying all

To you. Gentlemen, this applica-} "Death Comes at Night," by Ken- 35

which came across. are the monuments of his own li- The selection was limited to the neth Ingram (Philip Allan, 79. Gd.). tion is made on behalf of the widow and children of the late Robert of futility books of two authors-Edgar Wal- A country house, a professor "mur- Burns. terary past. A sense came upon him. And in this frame juce for England and Pittigrilli dered by an injection of an Eastern

The Improvidence of genius is Blood on the Deck. By Jack Mc-| of mind he considered the things for Italy. A surprising absence poison, the theft of part of a manu: proverbial; and, to the list of men

Laren (Harrap. 78. 6d.). about him, as a man unwilling to of national spirit. Pittigrill la script. Which would you back in of genius, by whom pecuniary st praise the past but not able to dis- the most popular Italian author piecing together the clues-the teations have been neglected, the Most books about the ses fall in- charge a convincing enthusiasm at whose "Mr. Pott" met with such police, an amateur lawyer-detec name of Robert Burns must, ün-to one of two categories. In the tive, or simple intuition? Each of fortunately, for his family, be add one the interest is fictional; in the the three gives you a run for your ed.

other technical. In the one money in this cleverly constructed} He has left a widow and five can admire the author's imagina» mystery.

sons: the eldest, about nine years tion, and in the other his know. of age, is pursuing the Classics, ledge.

the noisy new life, around him.

Artist Who Knows His Trade. Mr. Hergesheimer is more than a good writer. He is an artist who knows his trade inside and out. He came to Germany, so he tells us. to make arrangements for pu- blishing his books in Germany.

But while one eye watched his German publisher, the other was cocked wisely and wistfully over Central Europe.

Success.

*

you

A Royal Life. "William the Conqueror," by Lucie Delarue-Mardrus (Hurst and Blackelt, 12a, Gd.). Even a dunce

Bulgaria's Aberdeen. could probably hold his own with "Where East is West," by Hen-there and is deemed, very justly, a "Blood on the Deck" combines the best if asked what 1066 stood rietta Leslie (Jarrolde, 218.). Is boy of extraordinary powers; the both. Jack McLaren sailed for.

But how many people know there anywhere other than Bul-youngest is posthumous-about an cabin-boy in a three masted-bar- waything about William himself?garia where you can acquire bro-hour after his father's body was re-que from a 'port near Adelaide, This tempestuous person is put thers and sisters so easily, or the moved for interrment, he was born! South Australia, to Port Elizabeth, into a novel, translated by Colin knots in your handkerchief when; For Mrs. Burns, belpless and in South Africa. He was 17'and he Shepherd. Homesick child at the you meet a priest?

need, the humanity of the public is knew nothing of the sea, and it is

a vibrant

21 a

He ambled from cafe to cafe and French Court, arrogant young Gabrovo, the Aberdeen of Bulat present operating; the sum of with the adventurous weeks of the from cabaret to cabaret; and all Duke of Normandy, defiant and aen-garia, gives points to the latter in £160 is already subscribed, and it is long voyage that he deals. the while the lacrimae rerum pur-sitive about his parentage, adoring the matter of tall atories. Its proposed by Mr. Burns' friends and Here is a fertile field for thrill- seed him, dripping gently on his

husband, domineering father. inhabitants are reputed to serve their committee to form another ingmarrative, and there is, indeed, joy. The effect is curious; and it

of with volume

unpublished pieces a commandable, variety of episode. is distinctly pleasant. It gives the powerful king, he emerges from a the dogs' dinner in dishes

per-looking-glass at the bottom to make found in his repositories: to this pook a savour of aristocracy that mere date into

the amount of food appear greater; volume his life, written by a res- to persuade horses that they are pectable literary character, is to be eating green grass by providing prefixed; and upon the favourable them with green spectacles; to cuteception of this work (the copy- and one woman survive the attempt of the cats tails to prevent them right of his other volumes having by Professor Ferrars to annihilate from holding the doors open

been long age sold) and the gen- The gradual breaking|long and letting in the cold air.

erosity of the public his family the world.

must now depend. down of artificial barriers releases Aberdeen can't beat that!

is not commonly found in its kind'sonality. and which will please those who

know that Hitlera come and Hit lers go but the world, and Germany wags on for ever.

Home Of His Ancestors.

It occurred to Mr. Hergesheimer that Germany was the home of his ancestors, and one day in Munich he visited an out-fitter +after a raspberry syrup, a cigar and the pleasant air had conjured the blues). He emerged with clothes "suitable for mountains," a pair ofį short brown leather breeches laced at the knees, accompanied by green suspenders of a special local kind, i "with a band across the breast em- Į broidered with a stag and edel- weiss."

With these went white stockings: flowered with green edelweiss, heavy shoes and a liner shirt "with

Lord of Life.

The Lord of Life," by Neil Bell (Collins, 7s. 6d.). Eighteen men

ROSEBERY BOOK TREASURES

Bought By Fits And Starts,

HOW RARE LIBRARY WAS ACQUIRED

too

+

BRITAIN'S 15,000 BOOKS

More than fifteen thousand books

David Garnett has succeeded R. Ellis Roberts as literary editor of The New Statesman and Nation...

were published in Britain last year. There was an increase in political writing. These political books Such are the circumstances in which Mr. Burns has left bis part hare been more in demand, an im- portant bookseiler has told, me, jaer and offspring! LIGHT AND SHADE IN men, to receive a simple narrative kind.

It is sufficient for you; Gentle than books of almost any other THE SOUTH SEAS. of this nature, and to have pointed jout real objects for your philan- The Real South Seas. By R. Rey-throphy must be the apology (for nell Bellamy. (John Long, the trouble now given you) of, 155),

Gentlemen, your obedt, and very Four years in the South Pacific (humb. servt., have led M. Bellamy to write this

T..White. book; it contains much of historic Mr. MacDonald, who was pro- interest about the many islands Posing "Prosperity to the Royal Li- round which romance has been so terary Fund," remarked that the The axiom that the "corner-stone thickly woven, and the chapters list of those helped by it was "prac- voluminous tall," upon all of of any gentleman's library" should describing the flora and fauna of tically a Scottish list." Among which was worn a Loden jacket be a fine first edition of Homer's the region are excellent.

the noted names, besides Burns's with staghorn buttons. Mr. Her-works printed at Florence in 1488 kesheimer put on this garb in the was faithfully followed by the late beauty of the forests and the awe--the Ettrick"

Mr. Bellamy has captured the widow, he mentioned James Hogg Shepherd, "who room of his hotel and sallied forth Earl of Rosebery, whose collection inspiring glory of the submarine taught the wandering winds to anxiously, A couple of soldiers is to be offered at Setheby's on June gulls and grottoes of the coral sing," and John Galt. came to the salute and he knew all 26-30.

strewn waters. As an offset to Recalling that during the past was well.

Apart from the Homer, however, this sheer delight he very vividly ten years the grants from the Royal He tells of these quaint happen. Lord Rosebery added to his books describes the life that haunts the Literary Fund had averaged be ings with a small smile which is by fits and starts. half wry and Pennsylvanian and

waters--fiha that in every sense of jtween £4,000 and £5,000 annually, One day he would give a few the word are as poisonous as it is the Premier said that the present half Oriental in its fatalism.

shillings for an ordinary work possible to conceive. There isworld distress was not a class af- do not learn a great deal either

which interested him, and then also the sea-serpent, and the author fair. Literary men and women and about Berlin or Central Europe,

pay £3,000 for a real literary says he has seen it:

miners were over-whelmed in the but we like Mr. Hergesheimer oven treasure.

"At least 60ft in length....it same tragedy. more than ever before.

a

We

WHEN THE GERMAN FLEET COLLAPSED,

Again, he would often walk into Quaritch's or some other firnf's of- fice after a big sale and buy "slab" of books.

Д

In this way he annexed a very rare first issue of the first edition,

was holding its heads 4ft of 5ft Miss Rose-Macaulay, responding out of the water, and behind that to the toast, pleaded for a revival coil upon coil of its back appear (of the old custom of patronage of ed above the surface, exactly as literature. it is portrayed fh the old charts Mr. Horace Annesley Vachell also and maps."

responded.

•

New Light On Outbreak of the Authorised Version of the There are still unexplored pat- It was announced that the King

Of 1917.

English Bible, 1611, (which had ches in these islands tracts of had sent 50 guineas to the fund, been bought by Alfred Quaritch in country, often smaller than an En- and that the total subscribed in res-, Formerly, thore was much mỹ-| the first Buth sale on Nov. 21, 1911, glish county, with an interior al-ponse to the 143rd anniversary ap stery about the sudden collapse of at the unaccountably cheap price of most totally unknown to Euro-peal was £2,200. German sea-power in 1918. Facts £164; a copy of the first Gutenberg peans, although white men have in-

in

W

Bible having fetched £5,900 on the habited the seaboards for thirty were hard to obtain, but the long:

NEXT CHANGE bibllography in "Death of a Fleet, same day.

years or more. Inland lie great AT THE CENTRAL.. 1917-1919," by Paul Schubert and

Disraeli Volumes.

gloomy forests-impenetrable jun- Langhorne. Gibson suggests that Most people, however, will be gles wherein tropical diseases and material is accumulating and the wondering how the library reflects sometimes hostile natives. He in close investigations of the authors Lord Rosebery's political predilec-wait for the unwelcome visitor.

no partisan spirit have pro-tiona. Even more than the remar-}|--- duced the fullest account so far of kable manuscript of "Vivian Grey,” this little treasure had belonged to this strange series of events. written by Disaell when 21. Lord Bir Robert Phillimore (1810-85), The book throws light on the Rosebery valued that presentation who first proposed Gladstone as a little-known outbreak of 1917, with copy of Disraeli's "Life of Lord candidate for the representation of its formation of sailors' unions as-George Bentinck,” inscribed, "For ¡Oxford. Letters from the states- sociated with a Socialist organina-Dalmeny in remembrance of a man's son, Lord Gladstone, in reply These two to Lord Rosebery's inquiries as to tion in Berlin. This mutiny ap-walk at Raby, 1865,". parently was speedily quelled, for a future Prime Ministers met, one a the book, are inserted. hot-tempered ringleader broke statesman of 61; the other an un- The Disraeli portion contains also! loose over it petty quarrel before der-graduate of 18, and they talk the set of pathetic letters which plans had been perfected. ・・・ Along ed and talked on politics,ut the wrote, when 27 on the death of with the obvious causes of disaf- In 1881 Lord Rosebery bought his closest friend, William Mere- fection-scanty food, war wearl-from Lord Beaconsfield's executors dith, who had accompanied him on neas, inactive life in harbour the the copy of "the first edition (1867) his Eastern tour when he was pre- authoră, stress also the gulf be- of Milton's, "Paradise Lost" which paring bis novel, ““Tancred” f tween officers and men that widen the elder statesman always kept in Another very remarkable dossier dened as the old, trusty lieutenants Dresden cabinet,

is the correspondence between the were being transferred for sub-| “As for Gladstone, Lord Rosebery Duke of Wellington and the beauti- `marine, commands, saw. Lo it that he acquired that ful young religious zealat, Miss M. To these causes was added in the “pocket Dante" which Disraeli's - A. Jenkins, beginning. In 1884, momentious mutiny of 1918 the de val used to carry about with him, when the Duke was 65 add the wo- pression--spreading byer the fleet and filled with marginal- pencil man 30, and enduring, until 1851, through the knowledge that the notes on every – piga. Originally the year before he died.

war was lost.

The HAL NAKED TRUTH

LUPE

OLD

NOW ON

7

THE WING ON CO.

HONG KONG BENEVOLENT SOCIETY.

The Committee of the above Society would be most grateful if those interested in its work would kindly send in their donations or subscriptions.

Money in urgently needed and funds are very low.

No amount is too small and will be most thankfully,

received by the Hon. Treasurer.

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