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x ¢ % ; , x, . p THE DAILY BRITISH WHIG 1 SATURDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1932, HRISTMAS BOOK SUPPLEMENT "MR. EAST, MEET MR. WEST" By Robert Stead, Author of 'The Homesteaders," "The Cowpuncher," "Dennison Grant," and "Neighbors." HT PE The story is told of two English-| rather than with a serious annuofa- zr = pre THE SEASON'S BOOKS I | DELIGHTFUL (Continued from Page 21.) who hides his identity under a nom, solored neice, a dashing girl with copper-strings. As the action of the story ||| mr ---- 1 hair and an {impertinent proceeds, the first girl shows that she = When she arrives in the town stillgloves him, and he is torn in de plume. He Has lald the .main|chin. scenes of the narrative in the Geor- gian Bay region, the first writer, so far as I know, to exploit this dis- triet as a fleld for romance. |The plot centres round buried treasure, planted on an island In Georgian Bay In the days of the old regime. . The hero finds not only gold but a fair maiden on the island in ques- tion, and after many adventures, which keep the reader in pleasant suspense, wins both. Judy of York Hill--by Ethel Hume. (Thomas Allen). A story for girls in their teens. It describes the jolly life led by Judy and her companions at York Hill, a Canadian boarding-school. This nar- rative is not only entertaining but elevatng, and wll no. doubt have a large circulation among school girls. The Timber Pirate--by Charles Christopher Jenkins. (McClelland & Stewart). A hair-raising story of adventure among the pulp and paper makers in the mountain fastnesses back of the north shore of Lake Superior. The timber 'pirate carries out the orders of a mysterious master-mind known as J. C. X.--a power behind gigantic business enterprises. The Bells of St. Stephen's--by Marian Keith., (McClelland & Stew- art). Once more this novelist of the manse introduces us to a group of old Scotch-Canadlian characters. The background of the story is a prosper- ous church in an Ontario town. The heroine is Mary, the minister's to keep house for her uncle nothing short of a commotion Is caused in church circles. The Dust Flower--by Basil King. (Hodder & Stoughton). As far as style goes, this is easily one of the best novels of the season. Basil King has invented a most un- usual plot for his new story. His hero, jilted by his lady love, goes out V. P. LAURISTON Author of "The Twenty-First Burr." I A AAA AAA A AA, and makes love to the first woman he meets, a stranger to him, poorly edu- cated and living In poverty. She is the dust flower. He resolves to edu- cate her in order to bring her up to his ownstatus of refinement. ~ Al- though he learns to love hér, the first girl still tugs at his heart (Canada's First National of Kingston. | CENTENARY OF CHARLES SANGSTER | { Poet--He Was a Native | a) By Bara H. Stafford. : + This Is a very interesting year in the history of Canadian lterature, for ft is just one hundred years ago that Charles Sangeter, our first by tional poet, was born in Kingston Ont. His father was employed in "he navy yeird, at Point Frederick, His paternal grandfather came to Canada . With the United Empire Lolayists, His mother's father was born in one of the Booteh settlements on Prince Edward Island. As a youth of nine- stasn, Charles Sangster served in the loyalist forces In the rebellion of 1887. He wal engaged at Fort Henry in the manufacture of cartridges. He developed a taste for writing. in(his early twenties and became editor of a #mall paper, the Courter, in Am- herstburg. We next find him back ia Ms home town as proof reader on ingeton A In, 1866 Sangster published his rst book, which contained the de- dve Canadian poem, "The St. iwrence and the Saguenay," and a mber of lyrical pieces. A year red in Montreal Charles 's wonderful dramatic of "Ssul," and about the time one of tho first books of nder McLachlan, who, at a when poe!s could not be Cana- n, pure and simple, was known as "Canadian Burns." A year later n, in England, published his n of Species," and, Tennyson, but recently obtained recog- on as a great poet, his poem of | "Maud." 14 1860 Sangster appeared again with another book of poems con- tining "Hesperus" and "Into the dH EH 893. ne when it was very diff- a Capadian, and when all wanted to be som be chres, And speak prophetic their sleep." meanings in In the '"'Happy Harveriers" a pastoral impression is produced with singular delicacy: "Soft-feathered twilight, peering through the maze, Sees tho first star-beam pierce the purple haze; Through all the vales the vespers of the birds ward with their herds; wain ened grain, As the swarth builders of the pre- vious load Returning homewards autumn ode." sing their The following is suggested by "In- dian Bummer": "And then the Indian summer, bland as Juna Bome Tuscarora king, seer, Algonquin the pipe Of peace upon the ancient hunting grounds; The mighty shade in spirit walking forth To feel the beauty of his native woods v Flashing in autumn vestures, or to mark tribes Wending towards their graves, Few braves are left; Few mighty hunters; fewer stately chiefs, Like great Tecumseh fit to take the field." One of the most beautiful poems Charles Sangster ever wrote was in praise of the wren. This naive lyric has such a quaint sweetness tha: a child will delight in it, while there Js also that something in i which Is distinctive of a iustured and manly babit of thinking. I prefer it to some of hs more ambitious efforts. These verses bring back with them the cheerful sunlight of sixty years ago: The Wren. Early each spring the little wren Came scolding to his nest of moses; We knew him by his peevish cry,-- He always sang so very cross. His quiet litle mate uld lay Her eggs in peace and think all day. He was a sturdy little wren, »And when he came In spring, we knew, Or seemed to know, would grow To please him, where they always grew, Among. the rushes, cheerfully; But not a rush so straight as he. the flowers All summer long that little wren Would chatter like a saucy thing; And in the bush attacked the thrush Then on the hawthorn perched to sing. . Like many noisy little men, Lived, bragged, and fought that little d wren. j Rents in Corsica. Or Huron chief returned to smoke The scanty remnants of the scattered | mind, being unable to decide which lone he should marry. A sudden tragedy frees him finally from his | inhibition, and, strangely enough brings happiness to all three. The Twenty-first Burr.--By Vie- tor Lauriston. (McClelland: & Stewart), A clever mystery story. A strange telegram, an unidentified hand- print, the unexplained past of Adam Wainwright, the ghostiike "man in| an irrepressible chauffeur, a of tiny burrs-- | gray," strange collection (these and several othér factors con- | tribute a more than usual complex | ity to the plot. i | -- Rangy Pete. -- By Guy Morton, | (McClelland & Stewart) { A cowboy story of the far west, | with an original hero who has the | {shrewdness of a David Harum and { the humor of a Happy Hawkins, Carnac's Folly.--By Parker. (Lippincott). Sir Gilbert's last two stories were not up to his usual standard, but with this novel he is once more seat- ed in the saddle. It is already high on the list of big sellers in the Unit. joa States. It will probably seem a | Sir Gilbert trifle melodramatic to Canadian i readers, but there is this to be sail | for it that its author has returned to his homeland for scenic setting and subject matter. It is a romance af- ter the style of "The Seats of thé Mighty." The Poisoned Paradise.--By Rob- jert W. Service. (McClelland & Stewart). Robert Service is now living In Paris™ He has spent several winters | at Monte Carlo, and has chosen that wicked spot as a background for the first novel he has written for several | iyears, Hugh Kildair, the hero, af- | ter frequenting the gambling hell for |a time, meets Professor Durand, { who persuades him that he has an | invincible mathematical system hy {which he can ruin the casino and | pay off part of France's national | debt. He employs Hugh as a body { guard and the story proceeds to da- | | geribe fights. and murders forthe pos- i session of the new system, the hold- |up of the casino, and thrilling man- Nelghbors--By Robert J. C. Stead, | (Hodder and Stoughton). ""Neighbors' is the story of Frank { Hall and Jean Lane, neighbors in Cheer the young shepherds home- | childhood in a little Ontario town; | Elbert Hubbard's home town--some { neighbors again, fifteen years lata, And the stout axles of the heavy |OR adjoining homesteads thirty -or money in three years to take a trip {more miles north of Regina. This Is Creak "neath the fulness of the rip- {a vivid and faithful story pieture 52 [['m forty-six years old and I belong the building of a homestead com- munity, in pioneering days when Re- F. P. GROVE Author of "Over Prairie Trails." gina was still a shack town. Mr. Stead went through the homestead. ing experience hei when he was a small boy Th Manitoba and he writes from first-hand knowledg>. In this volume he has injected a good deal of humor and has prodnc- ed what might bo called an idyll cf Saskatchewan. Fis story lacks com- plexity but its defect in this respect is partly made up by its chafming descriptions. Salt Seas and Sallor Men.--By Frederick Willams Wallace, €Hod- der and Stoughton). This and a companion volume, "The Shack Locker," are collections ot short stories of the deep-sea fish- ing fleets of Canada's Atlantic coast. No more faithful or varied tales of seafaring adventure in Can- adian waters have ever been publish. ed. Mr. Wallace is himself the sm "of & sea captain and in his. you'h served befors the mast, rounded the Horn, and worked for years in the fishing ships off the banks of New- in these stories, interesting informa- tion, and sufficient adYenture to ab- 80h the most jaded reader. God's Green Country--by Ethel M. Chapman. (Ryerson Press.) Somehow Canadian novels exhibit a tendency to deal either with the wilder aspects of our national life or with city conditions. Very intre- quently is every-day lite in the ag- ricultural community considered to possess much romance. Miss Ethel M. Chapman has stepped into this hittle-touched field and has shown that it does possess a world of ro- mance. In her story she presents foundlacd. There is plenty of humor rien, feltow-passengers through the | South Seas, who were wrecked to-| | gether on an uninhabited island, the | 1sole survivors of their unfortunate {ehip. The difficulties of a situation] {at best gontewhat embarrassing, were { increased by the fact that -they had (bet been introduced. On the long {journey from England an introduc- {tion no doubt could have been ob- | {tained. had either troubled to take | ithe, inittative but the golden oppor- | tunity was allowed to slip by, and | {now they found themselves strangers | in a strange land. The predicamen® | was one to test their training and | | traditions, but they emerged from | {it with the conventicms unsullied. By | {9 sort of unexpected understanding | (one took the northern end of the is- | | A Sr | | R | | | | | | ROBERT STEAD | Author of "Neighbors." | land and the other took the southern jand so the long years dragged by. | So matters progressed----if matters | may be said to progress when they do {not progress--until another wreck joccurred, and an American was cast | | up upon the sandy shore. Ile imme- {diately encountered the occupant of ithe northern half of the island, and |burst into language appgoximately like this: : "Well, for the luva Mike! Look | who's here! How do, Robinson Cru- | soe! Glad to make your acquaintance. | I thought you died when I was a kid; at least, I never heard of you since. [A fellow has to advertise or he soon | finds himself both ends of his own rrocossion, don't he? My name's | Hawker, Moses Hawker; I'm a gar- jage man at East Aurora--you know, i {burg, I'll say--and I made enough {around the world, and here I am. tion of principles; to catoh your in- terest, Mr. Reader, you understand, and so perhaps enveigle you into reading something quite good for you, but which you would on no ac- count read if it were not presented with a vaudeville introduction. You must have noticed this practice in the opening paragraphs of the maga- zine articles you read; it is a stand- érdized item of lterary bait, so to speak. Well--) It is peculiarly the business of authors to Introduce strangers to each other; to bulld up, in them, new friendships, and so to establish those bonds of sentiment 'upon which all nust rely to hold a somewhat pre- carjous sociely together. It was be- fore the annual convention of the Canadian Auth6rs Association in Ot- tawa this apring that the Rt. Hon. 8ir George E. Foster sounded a note that might well be heard and hark- ened in every home in Canada. He spoke of authors as interpreters--as those who make the people of one St part of the country intelligible to the 1 people of other parts of the country, cr of other countries--and empha- sized the need there is for just such interpretation in a dominion such as ours, Tho supreme tragedies of history, no less than the minor irritations of everyday iife, arise, fur the most part, out of lack of understanding. They are ashes of disaster, heaped in memory to the absence or Incompet- ence of interpreters. They are mile- posts of misunderstanding. Tha combats of life, graat and .small, are rot so much the collision of irrecon- cillable principles as they are the clash of prejudices. Understanding of one's neighbor is the only cure for prejudice, the interpretation is the only 1neans of understanding. How much this understandmg is needed in Canada only the' wilfully thoughtless can fail '0 appreciate, To make the voice of Nova Scotla ar- ticulate on the great plains; to inter- pret the Western freedom and pion- eer force of Alberta to the habitant of Quebec; to porirey the life of On- tario so that it may be understood and appreciated in British Columbia, and to breathe the a*mosphere of the Coast through the Prairie Provinces; above all, to touch the sympathies of class for class and creed for creed as can be done only through 'he chords of a master literature--sure- ly this is @ work of statesmianship and nation-bullding not less import- ant than that which falls to the lot of any other class of citizens. It may presumably be held of equal rank with the building of railways, the establishment of industries, the phy- sical subjugation of the wilderness, Itc the Rotary Club and the Masons land my wife's a Methodist and [| {guess I look like a Baptist, eh, you | |cld alfalfa patch? Well, shake on it, | We'te likely to be here for quite some | time, and we may as well get ac- quainted, Whatta Y' got for neigh- the creation of the machinery of law, finance, and government. And it is the work of the Canadian author. I do not say the Canadian author has done all this, but I do say unless the Canadian author does it it must remain updone. Unless the Canadian bors? Any humans, or just some of cur 'mutual ancestors?" Of course it was no time until, | acting as a general go-between, he had brought the two Englishmen to- gether, and, as the conventions had | been observed by a formal introduc- tion, they forthwith became fast friends. Indeed, the Englishmen had 5 much more in common with each other than with the American that the garage man from Fast Aurora was In danger of becoming a rank outsider and expariencing himeelf the isolation from which he had rescued them. He turned out io be some- thing of a bore, and a horrible egot- ist; and it was only a very real ap- preciation of the great service he bad done them which caused the two friends to continue to treat him as a member of their community. The story Is, of course, a carica- ture. Truth, expressed in simple terms, is usually not sufciently strik- Ing to command an audience in this blatant age, and the truth-teller must needs take on some of the bolsterous- ness of his competitors in the clamor for the public ear. (That is why 1 begin this article with an incident, author can introduce Mr/East to Mr, West, and, trifling a little with their weaknesses With their virtues, bring them to understand each other as, I am afraid, they do not always under- stand each other; unless the Cana- dian author can do this I know of no oné who is likely to accomplish it. Buch, then, is the place which the author, occupies in serious nation- building. Whether he occupies it creditably or otherwise depends not only on hig literary skill and his sin- cerity of purpose, but upon his audi- ence. If his audience appreciates the service he is rendering, and {ir it shows that appreciation | practical way, the Canadian a r can be counted on to do his share, What 5 a practical way? Let me suggest: There is 'more joy im the Canadian Authors Association over tne humble individual going into a book-store and buying a book by one of its members than over ninety and nine prominent citizens singing "0 Canada" at the Canadian Club---and filling their bookcases with imported publications, life at one of our typical agricultur- al colleges and follows her hero from the school through the dimiculties and joys of an agricultural repre- sentative's job, ENGLISH FICTION. , This Freedom by A. 8. M. Hutchi- son (McClelland & Stewart). The outstanding Engiish novel of the year. Can a married Woman have ®& business career and still do her duty by her husband and children. This is the theme of the book. In developing it Mr. Hutchinson deals with the very much chénged aad changing conditions of home lite, of married life, of social life, and part- feularly with the way in which thes. changed conditions are affecting the lives of children. "Tell England" by Ernest Ray- mond (McCleiland & Stewart.) A romance of glorious youth. In two episodes: school and the war. The story of the life of three boys, carried through thelr school days, to war time and experiences at Gain- poli. This remarkable novel has 1ved as a chaplain in the British army brought fame to its author, who ser- during the war. It is the best story of school lite in England since "Tom Brown's School-Days." The latter halt of the book gives a very fine picture of the war ia the Gallipoll region. This story is Mound to be- come a classic of the war, for ft breathes an noble idealism. "Spinster of This Parish" by W. R. Maxwell (McClelland & Stew art). Anothjony Dyke, a big virile explor- er bursts into the Mfe of a young English girl, who fs living in & mid- Victorian atmosphere, with the ef- fect of an exploding shell. After al. series of events leading up to a cris is, told as only Maxwell can pleture it, this seemingly ill-assorted coups defy convention and leave England for a venturesome expedition into the Andes in search of a store' of sap- phires, This is a remarkable novel from the pen of a writer who fas Stood at the top of his profession for years. "Peregrine's Progress" by Jeffery Farney (The Ryerson Press). This, Mr. Faranel's twelfth novel, (Continued on Page 23.) and foibles as well as |, - GIFTS FOR ALL New Books: . by Famous Authors CANADIAN ----ee General KATHERINE HALE Canadian Cities of Romance FREDERICK PHILIP GROVE Over Prairie T. MORRIS LONGSTRETH The Laurentians JESSIE ALEXANDER Encore $1.50 LOUISE MASON e Hone, $1.50 BY THE ROAD BUILDER $s The Dettias of Britain and America $2.00 REV. ARCHDEACON ARMITAGE The Story of the Revision of he Canadian Prayer Book REV. EDWARD JOHN STOBO The G of this Robe REV. F. A. ROBINSON Mastered Men LAWREN HARRIS Contrasts DILLON WALLACE het Story of Grenfell of the REV. ALEXANDER R. GORDON Stories from Judges & Samuel J. W. MACMILLAN, D. D. Happiness and Goodwill Fiction JOHN MURRAY GIBBON $2.00 $2.00 $3.50 $2.50 $1.76 $2.00 $1.50 $1.25 $1.35 $2.00 The King's Arrow © $2.00 CHARLES CHRISTOPHER JENKINS e Timber Pirate VICTOR LAURISTON enty First LUKE ALLAN 3 Bun e Return of Blue P L. ADAMS BECK 8 Tete The Key of Dreams tion The Ninth Vibra ROPER. Wo SERVICE e Poisoned Paradise ONOTO WATANNA MARIAN RET GEO. C. F. PRINGLE G. MURRAY ATRIN The Captive H ARTHUR ST) NCER The Prairie Child CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS In the of TH GUY MORTON | bo lime Rangy Pete ISABEL ECCLESTONE MACKAY Driftwood JEAN BLEWETF ean Blewett's Poe: MARJORIE PICKTHALL - Clare Gone as VIRNA SHEARD . » Ballad of the Quest J.E. WETHERELL. BA. Later English Poems THOMAS O'HAGAN, PAD. | Collected Poems wee ENGLISH en A. 8. M. HUTCHISON This Freedom- If Winter Comes ETHEL M. DELL of his Life The Desire ROBERT HICHENS December Love ws e w of the East RICHARD DEHAN : The Just Steward HUGH WALPOLE The Cathedral ARNOLD BENNET . + Lilian $2.00 $2.00 0 $2.00 $2.00 $2.00 $2.00 $2.00 $1.76 $2.00 $2.00 $1.75 Home $1.75 $2.00 hr $1.50 $1.50 $2.00 $2.00 $2.00 Mr. Prohack E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM CHUMS [03 Shai fir st ond stone cnuMS $2.00