1933-09-18 — Page 5

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MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1933.

LITERARY NOTES

IN W. W. JACOBS COUNTRY

Bright Reading Of Life

On The Thames.

DOCKLAND YARNS

Below Bridges. By Peter Belloc.

(Constable. is. 6d.)

By SIR JOHN SQUIRE. Like father, like son." is a maxim which usually applies to a great many things.

craft of writing.

but seldom to

Bort of book which would

by a

the

HOWARD SPRING'S

THE CHINA MAIL

Guide to New Books

Cry Haroc! By Beverley Nichols.)

(Cape, 78, 6d.).

Rose

A Sordid Theme. Sweetman. By Miss Storm Jameson in "No Bloom. (Hutchinson, Time Like the Present" deplored Gd.)...

THE LAST SIXTY

YEARS

Agreeable Book of CALDBECK,

Agreeable Book Of CALDBECK, MACGREGOR & CO., LTD.

Reminiscences.

Ursula Life's Enchanted Cup, 1872-1933,

7.

By Mrs. C. §. Peel: "(The Bod- ley Hend. 12s. 6d.)

war

HAVE MUCH PLEASURE IN ANNOUNCING A

SUBSTANTIAL REDUCTION

IN PRICE OF THE FAMOUS SHANGHAI

UNION BREWERY BEER

per case of 4 doz. quarts $22.80 ́ duty paid.

per case of 6 doz. pints $21.85 duty paid.

the laxity of her fellow-writers. Rose Swbetman was the daughter The author of this agreeable She sees clouds of death and of a Jewish father and an English book of reminiscences admits that destruction closing in on thejmother. This is the story of ber much of life "is pigeon ple which FURTHER world and would have them up relations with various men, none of consists almost wholly, ́ ́of bear." and doing, sounding the alarm, whom married her.

Her own record, Sowever, is any- There was Craye Watts, to begin thing but stodgy, and she can look fortifying the front of peace.

Well, here is one writer, at any with. When Rose was without a back gracefully to the days when rate, who has done all that she job he employed her. Then she set the crinoline was a near mémory. could reasonably demand. Mr.up a little flat of her own—"a blue Her activities have been endless, If an author's son writes the as-Nichols's books, I believe, have door into peace and Crays Watts ranging from editorial chairs to a fashionable hat shop, from social sumption, as a rule, can safely be an enviable circulation; and in came to visit her.

"Cry Havoc!" he lays before the "He was, it seemed to her, the man reform to varied phases of made that he will write a dwindled, great body of his readers his she placed on a plinth, because he work, and she can throw the same never view of the war menace. He has had helped her when all the world zest into a chance meeting with an have been thought of bad there not for a long time declared himself was against her. The idea of giv-lex-barmaid in a railway carriage as we a pacifist, and here he modifies ing herself to him did not seem to the description of a hunt ball. been a father to ape. Here

Her plunge into literature im have an exception. Mr. Hilaire that attitude only in so far as to wrong or sinful. It seemed to be

admit that he can conceive him the only way in which she could marked by the guidance of no inaa Belloe's heart should be gladdened gelf fighting "in an international give in return."

a mentor than Arnold Bennett:

I entered his room one dar with on article. He took it. read a few sentences, then look ed up at me. He leant back in his chair and bis limba stiffened,

as happened when his stammer. overcame him. "W-w-why do you not 1-1-1-learn to write?" he inquired. Probably by then I was earning considerably more than Mr. Bennett. but I had the sense to know that I could not write and that he could........Presently, "Did you not learn grammar?" "I think I know the difference between a verb, an adjective and an adverb." He sighed-ne, it was a hise rather than a sigh. He hissed with exasperation: "You must learn, and I certain- ly shall not try to teach you. I know a Miss So-and-So who might be able to give you lea BOD."

son who has written an ad-army, in an international cause, In the common-place world that mirable book which, though it is under some commander appoint you and I inhabit, a woman given a job shows her "gratitude,” if inspired by a love of adventure, ed by the League of Nations."

Mr. Nichols has assembled his gratitude indeed be called for, by tough thinking. good

wine facts with patience and present- doing the job as well as possible: and the sea equal to his own.jed them with the attractiveness but not in the glamorous world of is written with entire independence we expect of him. I call this an Miss Ursula Bloom. and no trace of infection from his important book and a courageous highly infectious style.

It is not surprising that Rose

with book; because, with all our talk Sweetman, blessed' or cursed and easy readiness to admit that these excessive notions of what Fact and Fiction.

war is a shocking thing, most of gratitude demands, drifts from man Loudon River has produced no us are afraid to raise hand or to man. and is finally left penniless stories like these since Mr. Jacobs voice in public.

in a Mediterranean port with a elicited, or invented. his immortal Granting that war is the Dago contemplating her undoubted and slimiest of snakes, we sit like charms and licking anticipatory yarns from night-watchmen captains of barges. Mr. Belloe's paralysed rabbits before its open chops. Clearly he is going to offer differem from Mr. Ja-jaws. Now open they are this her the price of dinner; and, with- cobs's: his narrators are bos'ns book makes clear-a book grim- out question, she will be grateful

from the South Sear en-ly dedicated To Those Mothers again. gineers back from rom-running in whose Sons are still Alive." Chlea. hardy East-end publicans,}

types are

back

ancient skippers

ships. and all the

full-rigged ก

miscellaneous The

gangsters, burglars

and

plain

New Light On Drugs. Hundredth Man,

By Cecil de Lenoir (Jarrolds, 10s. fid.).

population of Dockland. Including

stories are

Tale of Two Lives. Name of Gentleman. By Bar- bara Willard. (Howe, 78. 6d.).

Miss Willard chooses to work in Ta humble sphere. The two brothers

Whoever taught Mrs. Peel how to

man in a hundred who make the backbone of her book write, or how not to write, failed

and that the facts had been no, to cut at its roots.

the other a driftar from this small

Wallace B Nichols." (Ward,

clothes policemen. But the gener Only one al atmosphere, is recollection, is who succumbs to drugs can hope are Felix and Oliver Gentleman.(to make her dull, very much like that of Mr. Jacobs's to be cured. Mr. de Lenoir was One of them becomes a hairdresser; stories; and atmosphere of mingled the hundredth man. joviality, gallantry, conversational. Here he tells us all about it: employment to that.

Oliver, the hairdresser, ie the New And Old In Poetry. waggery, and ingenious roguery, how he fell and how he was punctuated at frequent intervals cured. The book gives much splendid brother, the man of dash by pints of beer.

information about the unedifying and initiative, the ready taker of The Gates of Beauty. Compiled by I know not how far Mr. Belloc's lives of drug victims, the organ-all that the world offers to ruthless

founded on fact, but isation of the traffic, and the charm. Felix is the down-trodden, Lock. 7a. 6d,) they read as though they all were, work of the police in attempting to his brother, bit by bit, all that cording to the Italian: dictum, an- self-sacrificing giver, surrendering It translators are traitors, - a6- might have made the world for him thologists are only too often open a tolerable place,

Miss Willard is determinedly un-more frequently attacked for the to the same charge. And they ars sentimental and unsensational. Sho

simple reason. that even if every traces the winding of these untm- English country gentleman dia | portant lives with geographical ne think that he had a right to tran- curacy. She is to be congratulated slate Horace avery one of us is an jon keeping herself so firmly in hand: anthologist at heart. But Mr. but her work would gain in interest Nichols is no trailer in this attrac "The Black Mountain," by Alan if is jog-trot were allowed an occa-tive anthology of English poetry far the moneys due, he had better fillgarth (Ivar Nicholson & Wat-sional gallop: if she could consent which ranges from Chaucer to to see life not as a dead-flat canal George Meredith and from Shake- turn into a whole-time short-story; son, 78, (d.)

A powerful and moving story but as a stream which has now and wrller,

I suspect, though, that be actual-threading its way through the maze then its rapide and cascades. But speare to Walter de la Mare.

Indian that is a matter for her own artistic always to your liking. How could You may not find the selections ly heard it a public-house, and of Bolivian politics. An also that he is much more internet-witch doctor and a wealthy Bolf-Integrity, which is considerable,

you? But you will find everything vian alternately managed the edu-j

here at least an approach to the cation of Patriclo. of unknown pa rentage.

more dressed up than was neces- sary to produce rounded narratives. Most of the stories are almost too) good and surprising to have been, made up; if Mr. Belloc, for exam-! ple, invented the story of the four} sympathetic sailormen who found the Bailiff at their landlady's and nailed him to the floor by his! clothes until he signed a receipt

ed in fact than in fiction.

After Closing-Time.

THE BEST SELLERS

gates of beauty, Mr. Nichols has

always the sense of continuita:

The eternal serge

Of time and tide rolls on, and

bearn afar

Our bubles; as the old burst,

new emerge,

Life Among Gypsies. Turquoise. By A. Roy Latch, He writes well and naturally;. A trifling incident in his youth (Houghton, 78. Gd.). but he writes, in his own person, was responsible for his passionate A sentimental tale in which the very little. For almost the whole sense of justice. The greater his men tend to have clean-cut hand- book comes from the lips of others, contact with white civilisation the some faces and the women to be very w sailors in slack hours and publi- greater was his desire to champion good. "The face," we read on the салн after closing-time. Byron the persecuted Indios. A crescen-]first page, "was pleasing but with-

Lash'd from the foam of ages; said of Keats that his Greek godsĮdo of spiritual growth with a sigut-out any distinctive characteristic."

while the graves spoke “much on they might havejúcant vilmaI.

Most of the people in the book are

Of empires heave but like some been presumed to speak;" Mr. Bel-

Eastern Romance.

rather like that. But if you want, loc's narrators, likewise, talk in

passing waves, ** "The Dripping Tamarinds," by as the "jacket" says, to be "taken

That is the the most lifelike manner; wo for-Cecil Champion Lowis (Wernerjaway from the mad rush of cities ronic manner; the compilar

rejected By- hua get, an we rend, that we are not Laurie, 78. ed.).

and the money-grabbing of in-room for all manners, including actually sitting in the fo'c'sles and Young Ninian Fendle went out worse than read "Turquoise," which Edith Sitwell:

satiable financiers," you might do the accepted manner the taverne, and listening to the to Burma to carry

on the tradi...i very mon themselves,

tion of the family. He intended to keeps you in the country, among "You could a knocked me down take root out there, and to make gipsies and caravans, and introduces with a raw egg when he told me his career there. Fate upset his you to lots of people whose hearts that" that cannot be Mr. Belloc, schemes.

are in the right place...

it must be Joe the bos'n, who once

A jealous husband misinterprat-

Jane, Jane.

Tall as a crans,

of Miss

The morning light creaks down

Well, the Indifferent surge will doubtless dull the surprise of even this challenge to posterity, but, for

most of the contents of ""The Gates' of Beauty."

sailed in a ship entirely lined with fed Ninian's friendship for his wife. smuggled apirila. "They had a and a jealous stepdaughter added cook on that trip who was hell's to the complications. Romance in TENDENCY FOR LONG many a century it way well spare own use. He couldn't hoil water:"the East and West.

that cannot be Mr. Bellos, it is de-

finitely Ben, the retired sailorman,

Tragedy On The Land.

NOVELS.

GOOD WRITERS,

landlord, and "copper's mark." "Fat "Children of Ruth," by Marvin New Priestley Romance. bloke he was," said Joe, "and no Jutton (Cranley and Day, 70. 6d.).|| more a sailor than the Duke "of Much Is written of the romanes) Wellington." That is the sort of of the soil. Here is the reveres of finished a new English romance, to

Mr. B. Priestley has recently EPICURES USUALLY thing that can be heard in any law the medal. The Nobles and their which he is giving the title "Wan- fun, but that authors, scratching fellows came of yeoman stock. The der, Hero." It la shorter than the their heads over their desks, would soll, to them, represented the focal Good Companions, but quite a give their eyes to think of, BATAN point of existence.

The whole book is like life, and

long as the standard English| They were the victims of the de- the better part of life. "If you pression which has swept the farmi among our novelists to return to the novel. There is a tendency generally

words:

aro, oft. for adventure, go for it ing community like a pestilence story which runs to about 100,000 head down," says, one" character: Crippled by taxation, their familles that is the spirit of the book. hungry and sick, the fins! blow caine in eviction from their cot-

NEW H. G. WELLS BOOK

itages. A terrible tate,

ZA

[Bkeleton In The Cupboard.

-- ""Translate No Further" Dorothea

Busnell (Grayson, 7/0); ->

A young woman, le translating

Mr, H. G. Walla's new book!!! Ho book on heredity. She disse

Shape of Things to Come will be that her husband's father has "published this month by Hutchin-mitted murder. In gr

Bon Mr. Wells's mul

Outline of World H

john" trades, the ras

ng hdsband's Vapaki

the Twentiath And Twenty drst and the father 27

Centuries E

fght between Zes

New Books On Wine And Dessert.

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