1934-08-06 — Page 9

LITERARY NOTES

CARLYLE'S SNEERS CORRECTED

Valuable Work Of Reference.

FASCINATING DETAIL

("The Age of Reason."

Professor

the

R. B. Mowat (Harrap, 68.) As

a companion volume to Game author's "England In the Eighteenth Century" this book will be extremely welcome. It is widely comprehensive, and yet concise. I will be useful as a work of refer ence, white remaining readable as a factor of entertainment.

The information which is pro- vides is various, precise. lucid, and stimulating. Short biographies are offered of such diverse figures as Casanova, Cagliostro, Benjamio Thompson, Buaneval, Count Rum- fort. Theodore Neuhof, Joseph II,.: the Duke of Brunswick, Catherine II., and the Duke of Baden. Cur- ious fuels are given regarding eighteenth-century torture, enlight- ened. despots. the galley system. taxation, travel, expenses, meals,

Yet and pastimes.

the hook achieves a more serlons and effec tive purpose.

Professor Mowat is admittedly Influenced by the analogy which ex

He Ists between 1792 and 1914. regarits both dates as marking the end of a certain phase of haman su clety. He recognises that the faults of each phase have been ex aggerated by its succeeding phase, while its virtues have been dispar- axed.

THE CHINA' MAIL, MONDAY, AUGUST 6, 1934.

Hollywood and the movies have no allure for Herma De Hal- vany, 19-year-old member of the social set in Vienna, who has been aclected as the most beautiful woman in Europe by a group of beauty experts, in a convention in Vienna. She has received numerous offers from the stage and films, but has turned all of them down with the assertion that she prefers marriage to the

spotlight.

WHEN HAZLITT WAS

IN LOVE

Life Of The Great English Essayist

A SLAVE OF VENUS

The Fool of Love. By Hesketh Pearson. (Hamish Hamilton, 108. Gd.)

Aparenthesis on the title-page ex- plains that Mr. Pearson's Holly- wood title conceals "a life of Wil- liam Hazlitt." Few who read ono of the greatest English essayists will have regarded him as a slave

of Venus. But Mr. Pearson's pri- mary object is to show that the sour element in Hazlitt's personality sprang less from his disappointed lambition to become a great painter,

his incessant writing for money, and his unlucky rubs with literary friends, than from his hopeless de- aire for romance.

The flaw in the standard bio. graphy of Hazlitt, by Mr. P. P. Howe, lies in its discreat circum- vention of the "Liber Amoris" epl- sode. At 43. Hazlitt fell madly in love with a lodging-housekeeper's daughter, who rather heartlessly. kept him on tenterhooks, and finally proved a slut. In a period of bitter disillusion, Hazlitt published the story as the "Liber Amoris." Most critics have agreed with Crabb Ro- binson's extravagant sondemnation of a "nauseous and revolting" book, Mr. Howe left his readers to Judge the "Liber Amoris" for them- devotes selves, but Mr. Pearson nearly half his book to a paraphrase and analysis of the story. The epi- sode is obviously too important for casual dismissal, but its significance is insufficient for it to occupy such eminence in Hazlitt's biography. Mr. Pearson's excuse would no doubt be that he has written not a "life" of Hazlitt, but a revelation of an im- portant and neglected trait in Haz- Sevently North. By "Taffrall"litt's character. the light on which (Holdder and Stoughton. 78. is almost entirely shed by the "Li- Gd.)

ber Amoris." But all the same, it Pictures and Politics. By Arthur This admirable tale of the sea is is disconcerting to find that he is Pillans Laurie. (International much less a work of fiction than a more concerned with the number of Publishing Company, 39, Im-stern record of reality. Judd Park times Sarah Walker tolled in Haz As a secondary motive he desires)

perial Buildings, Ludgatecircus, er, skipper of the Arctic Moon, no-litt's lap than with giving an ade- to demonstrate how we have tended,į

E. C. 63.)

minally fictitious like his trawler, quate account of the essayist's liter since the Industrial Revolution,, ja

Dr. A. P. Laurie, who is an ex-belongs to reality, and the most in-ary life, aubstitute quantitative for qualita-

¡pert on the technical methods of teresting, episode in the book, the far in very short space; "the Lover" tive values, and to show how serious and how wise were the more civilis. the Old Masters. remarks in these rescue of the Hounslow, off Bear is given too much room.

reminiscences on Island, has been frankly taken from ed standards of the period with very interesting

the many and ingenious devices of life. which he deals.

He endeavours, therefore, to read- just the value of the eighteenth cen tury, and to resque that epoch from: the unjust and perhaps superficial}- sneerings of Carlyle. And he tries

to show how, "the survival of thei old European system, based on clas sical culture, the Christian religion, and individual freedom... de pends on the question whether we can-eliminate war from Europe's civilisation."

The Age Of Balance

AN ART EXPERTS |

WARNING

Ingenious Devices Of Forgers.

"FLOURISHING INDUSTRY”

art forgers, who carry on, he says, l'a flourishing industry,"

He looks back upon the eighteenth |

The

century "as an age of perfect bat) ance between man and Nature." as an axe which is not merely the ideal "playground of the mind." but should furnish an example of intal) ligent moderation.

One of the most striking mani- festations of that balance is the "Rane cosmopolitanism" of the cen- tury as contrasted either with the diseased nationalism of our present] age or with its ineffective and sub- jective internationalism. It is not merely_the_charm_of_the_century. which appeals to him, it is its mo deration. Its serenity. its confidence, its tolerance and its ideals.

STERN RECORD OF REALITY.

Readable Novel By "Taffrail.”

"Incidents

of this character,"

wrote an authority in a Government He has had much experience, too, office, displaying the national in- declares, in his particular line, atinet for under-statement, "make one feel that the poor old British "the childish innocence of in-race cannot be entirely down and Capt. Dorling's "Seventy surance companies, banks

North," as a such people. Anyone in London!

whole. amplifies this

and

out,"

**

"The Man" is acounted

BAFFLING MURDER

MYSTERY.

Ingenious Solution, To Thriller.

can buy a lot of dud pictures, in-register of achievement and endor Death of a Banker. By Anthony sure them for a large sum with-ses the official tribute. It is worth

a hundred sea yarns out the insurance company look school and is a hundred times more ing at them. and then borrow readable than most of them. from a bank on the strength of a fire-insurance policy. Then set the plctures on fire, refer the bank to the insurance company, and retire with a nice sum of money which he has not to repay."

"Verminous" Shells

During the war Dr. Laurle was

Wynne. (Hutchinson. 78. 6d).} record of another of Dr. Eustace of the old There is plenty of mystery in this

Hailey's investigations, but perhaps| the most intriguing mystery of all is why murders are so often timed to take place during large house- parties. There are murders' In real {life-too-many of them and there are also house-parties, but these frites seldom, if ever, synchronise.

Once away from the house-party,

A WEEK-END OF ADVENTURE,

Entertaining Novel.'

Its Intelligence has been attacked chairman of the Chemical Commit Week-Erid Ticket. By R. Denne Mr. Anthony Wynne's story is un-

on the ground that it failed to fore tee of the Munitions Inventions De-

ог

Waterhouse. (Arrowsmith, 7s. hackneyed and very exciting. It in baffling until the end, and the sold- tion is ingenious.

Lois was 42 and very attractive:

nee or to provide for the industrial partment, a little-known branch of 6d,} revolution; Prof. Mowat indicates the Ministry of Munitions, and the that, had it not been for war. the tells of some extraordinary Inven- even her rather too elegant aon at eighteenth century could well have tions that were submitted. "rationalised" industrialism from the start. Yet it is in its "sane cosmopolitanism" 'that he finds throughout the man Intellectual justification. He ascribes the san- ity of that cosmopolitanism to thei fact that the eighteenth was "in the main a literary century?" that "The Republic of Letters" was a reality in Europe, and that the leading figures of the age went a long way to real ise in practice a solidarity of cul ture and society.

Balliol called. her lovely. In the "One ingenious man suggested country, where her devoted but in- Alling shells with fleas infected articulate Bawdon-Crawleyesque with bubonic plague, which husband bred large black pigs, there bursting would scatter the flean was little scope for that attraction. over the German trenchés, An-But when rest-lessness sent her for other man had read in an elemen- ja long week-end to London. It was tary text-book on chemistry that a very different affair. There were lodide of nitrogen, while harm-riotous parties and a romance that leas when wet, explodes to the swept her into temporary foreget-

His book is not merely fascinat-

ing in detail, but stimulating in its general thesis. It is a book which can be read either lightly or ser lously, and in either case with satis- faction.

SIXTH VOLUME OF LIFE

OF CARLYLE

lightest touch when dry. He fulness of Rawdon, respectability therefore suggested opening bar- and large black pigs and all. bers' shops in the neighbourhood Then came the dawn of Tuesday

of German_munition works and and the end of adventure—and of a the hair of the munition workers most agreeable sparkle. spraying icdide of nitrogen on very entertaining book that has a

under the pretence that it was a hair lotion.'

Rather tantalisingly, Dr. Laurie

STEFAN ZWEIG'S SHORT STORIES.

New Collection.

Kaleidoscope.

By Stefan Zweig (Cassell, 7s. 6d.).

In the hands of Stefan Zweig the short story is not just the using up,

of an idea too frall for any other employment. It is a work of art. detailed and complete. Here are 13 of his best stories, collected toget. her from various books. They are of varying lengths because they have not been written to fit a maga-

HIGHLAND HUMOUR. zine. Each has been given the

|body it required. All are to be

hints of war serrets that he can- Chronicle Of A Quaint heartily commended.

not reveal One of these referen- ees. concerns special machinery ac- tually brought from Germany dui- fing the war and installed in a Bri-

tish factory on war service.

Character.

Hamish By J. J., Bell, (Maray

Preas. 78: 6d).

COMPANION TO THE “BEDSIDE BOOK”

There is mystery, too, in his note Mr. Bell delighted us many years Mr. Arthur Stanley, whose "Bed- The monumental life of Thomas about, the Pomeroy hullet, which go with his. Wee MacGregor of side Book" has sold some 80.000 Carlyle, which Mr. David Alec Wil was invented for anti-aircraft pur-Glasgow and Clydeside generally. copies, la completing for Victor son carried to five volumes for poses. Testa were conducted with Now he gives us a chronicle of a Gollancr a companion "Fireside Routledge, is about to be completed the greatest secrecy, but, despite all grown-up Scottish "character." Book." He seeks in the new an- with a sixth, done by Mr. Wilson precautions, a bullet of this type Hamish, a railway porter in the thology, as in its predecessor, not MacArthur. It shows Carlyle as was found on the barrow of a dealer West Highlands, the "Sage of Chelsea" full of years; In scrap metal.

Hie "antive only to be a guide to reading, but wisdom and honour.

aluggishness was exceeded only by a friendly companion in the choice Dr. Laurie is outspoken on some his peeaimism," and those two ele- of it. aspects of war-administration, and ments in him, afford Mr. Bell capi- (*****) his account of the muddle when rea: tal material for odd and humorous Rumour of Heaven" is the title pirators were called for following situations. The setting is Sloeburn, a novel which she of a novel by Miss Beatrix Lehmann the first, gas: tacks-is a trenchant

a village whers life rims in leisure of Napoles which Methuen is publishing talece of writi

channels.

And Stoughton will

Baroness Orczy recently finished

Spy Hodder

blish.

.1.

2.

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6.

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8.. How thoroughly is the beer matured?

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