The sun., 1912-08-04
SOME NEW BOOKS.
The Work Of Andrew Laus.

II ia true that the work OF !A,urow Ian
does not properly come under the headin &
Of this department The nearest to a
New Book" ut least the nearest that
counts, ia The Maid Of France" which
bears date Of 1919 The earliest 10 the
Ballads and Lyrics of Old France, which
bears date Of 1872 Bet ween them IL n
series Of titles which constitute a por-
tentous bib,iography We may repeat
upon Lang the Johnsonian epitaph upon
Goldsmith: There WAS hardly any KIND
Of writing which he did not touch. and ne
touched nothing which he did not adorn
The productivity Of the high class British
journalist is a standing wonder TO his
fellow craftsmen in other lands: but An
drew l.angs fecundity was 4 marvel IN
his own country. The gibe Of twenty
wears ago that he was not writer but
syndicate was plausible then. and Is plaus-
ible still. To look over the serried list of
titles ~ his books in the fine type OF the
Brjtish who's Who" is to be impressed
At once with the writer's endurance and
with his versatility. and for many. per-
hape for half Of these forty years. the
books were "by-product.' The author
Of them was a worISng journalist. q leader
writer for daily paper. constant con-
tributor to a weekly paper These ephe-
merides or hebdomadaries do not appear
in an authors photography but all the
same suffice to engross the working time
OF most literary journalists.
l.angs facility excited the admiration
of the most hardened newspaper man.
who will recount to you the rapidity with
which he would dash on articles At his
club. running in Latin or . Greek quota
tion without stopping to think or TO raise
his pen from the paper. He himself
chronicles. with something like awe. q
feat Of copy making reported by Edmond
About Of Alex andre Dumas: how At the
age Of IS and a. 3 o'clock in the morning
Dumas excused himself on the ground
that he had three feuilletons and play
to write before breakfast. and how.
coming down to breakfast, NJ. About saw
the four packages made up for mailing.
One may suspect that they had been
mostly written beforehand and that the
romancer had INDUCED little harmless
vanity in pretending tha, they were all
still to write. lut MIR. Lang himself
was . great improvisa.ore. 1t is no
wonder IL incredulity that one man could
put out all the work to which his name WAS
aigned took refuge in the syndicate the
ory. Dumas was avowedly the manag-
ing director of fiction factory by means
Of which he Was able to produce his twelve
hundred volumes. but until late in life
Lang did all his work with his own hand
and apparently without even the assist
ance Of q stenograplle and this under
. physical disadvantage which makes
the total Of his output all the more WON
derful. since in the preface TO the "Meid
Of France" he incidentally describes him
self a. -an author whose eyes were never
Of the best"
In his later historical work it is true
that he had the assistance OF collab-
orators or rather Of collaboratrices. to
one Of whom he gives the main credit
for the volume on The King Over the
Water" that is to say the old Pretender.
James. the father Of the young Pretender
Charles Edward. As to the greater part
Of his work it might he said. as Tha:k-
cray. under the mask Of "Pendennis."
confessed about his own early work.
that he was "a hack. a hack naturally
fast in pace and brilliant 10 action" But
the gifts Of brilliant improvisatore do
not include the gift Of continuance. AZ q
rule what is easily written. even II 1t be
easily read. is also easily forgotten.
The question that 10 raised upon the
death Of such a famous copymaker TO-
What residuum Of the literary journalism
= likely to endure and to be recognized
- literature? In 80 far as such residuum
likely to owe it's permanencs to the spirit
OF scholarship which informs ii. The
spirit OF scholarship il opposed to the
spirit OF journalism. Lang hss an edify-
ing confession Of how he. for his pur,.
managed to keep his literature separate
from the varied and tumultuous Journal
ism to which 50 niaay OF his writings.
even though bound up between covers.
evidently belong l, was by mainte eining
= standard. and that standard h. found
in the classics. To have mastered Greek
even il you forge, 1t, is not to have wasted
time. II really is an educational and
mental discipline. The study is 80 severe
that it needs the earnest application OF the
mind The study is averss to indoient
intellectual ways: it will not put up with
= there or thereabouts. any more than
mathematical ideas admit OF being made
to seem extremely plausible. He who
writes and who may venture TO offer him
self az an example is naturally Of most
alovenlv and slatternlv mental habit.
H. ia his constant temptation 10 scamp
every kind OF work and TO say it will do
we'll enough He hates taking trouble
and verifying references. And he can
honestly confess that nothing in his eX-
perience has 80 helped in q certain degree,
to counteract those tendencies g the
labor Of thoroughly learning certain
Greek texts-the dranatists. Thucydides,
some Of the books OF Aristotle
II is interesting TO note that Lang did
not always resist his besetting and -jour-
nalistic" temptations. This is most nota-
bio. however, in his early literary work.
The pleasant book on Oxford" is a collec.
tion of magazine papers. Of which. there.
fore. he presumably read the proofs al
least twice Yet in this we find such slips
as makinG'the same remark on two sucoss
sive pages about Anthony Wood. OF mis-.
calling "Grandcourt" in George Eliot.
Daniel Deronda' Grandson; worst o
all In quoting that Oxford was the HON.
Of impossible causes" The misQuota
ton served Matthew Arnold rightly
enough, for he vas himself reckless ant
" Ia v,,iao,,ot hut II n. ,,.