Chapter C: K. S. M (4)

This is a pioneer volume to a complete edition of Ben Jonson's works, projected by Professor C. H. Herford and Mr. Percy Simpson, and its excellence is such that it is fervently to be hoped that we shall not have to wait long for the companion volumes. When these appear nothing more will be needed, and it will be possible for the ordinary person to read Jonson without floundering hopelessly among the maze of queries which the text at present available raises, and which its paucity of notes does nothing to explain. Mr. Simpson's admirable introduction deals with the quarto and folio texts, the date of the play's revision, and the general question of the portraiture of humours. It contains some excellent criticism of Jonson's revisions, and Mr. Simpson comes to the conclusion that Jonson began preparing the folio edition in 1612, and his reasons are, on the whole, convincing. There are sixty pages of notes.

SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE. By ARNOLD BENNETT. Chatto & Windus. 3_s._ 6_d._

A writer of Mr. Arnold Bennett's eminence and great sagacity would be the last person to expect us to take this play seriously as a contribution to dramatic literature. Although it is a play of modern life in the most colloquial prose, it has less reality than the wildest and most phantasmagoric drama of the Elizabethans. We may not expect Mr. Arnold Bennett to create for us an imaginative world of his own in which there is an inner and satisfying truth, but we look to him to mirror in his own peculiarly brilliant fashion a part of contemporary life with that precision which has so often delighted us. There is nothing in this play that could not actually have happened, but it is impossible to believe in it as it is happening. Mr. Bennett has not visualised his people intensely enough; they are mere puppets borne along by the machinery of the play. This machinery is from the theatrical point of view effective, and it leaves the creation of the illusion of life to the flesh and blood of the actors, so that on the stage the play may have an effect which it can never have when read. The play, of course, has absolutely nothing to do with sacred or profane love; no hint of the tremendous reality of love in any sense appears between its covers.

W. J. TURNER.

THE FINE ARTS

Group Making and Group Breaking

There is a distemper prevalent amongst artists of to-day. I refer to the mania for group forming. We are told by grave scientists that we carry in us the germs of various diseases; the latent microbe is in our system, apt to be shaken into active life by some unforeseen circumstance. Artists, it would appear, have the germ of "group making" inborn in their systems; less quiescent than other microbes, it awaits the often trivial cause for its activity--in some cases too much fame, in other cases the gall of unnoticed mediocrity. Given, then, one or other of these causes, a series of events is set in motion.

Mr. Maguilp gathers round him various fellow-brushmen of whose work he approves and, if he is wise and is conversant with the recipe of group making, he will exclude from the number any one who will be likely to offer serious rivalry to his own position; he may also luckily procure someone who can make play with the quill as well as the brush to boost him and his band of worthies with the public. A manifesto is next issued in which the faithful band begs to be entirely dissociated from any form of art movement prior to its own, and its members present themselves purged from original influences, risen like several phœnixes from the fire. They offer, so to say, a firm breakwater to the untiring waves of mediocrity. Good! After a few exhibitions of their united work the brothers may be considered established and perhaps not unnoticed by the critics. But now, mark the subtlety of the evil genius which haunts artistic circles, the group begins to think of self-aggrandisement. "Let us have other members, let us enlarge, let us, in fact, become (fatal word) representative." But these good men do not really mean "representative," their exact intentions are rather to increase their numbers by a process of eclecticism. Alas! The most carefully selected members may develop different ideas after their election. What trouble might not be averted if we could see the mental condition, as it were, of every chicken's egg through the shell; to emphasise this point, however carefully you choose your cabbage there may always be a slug in it. So, in this little band, which has now become a "group," there are already forces of unrest, as the papers say. The stages of dissolution from this point are very rapid: the undesirables multiply, they question the authority of our original worthies, they manage to introduce other undesirables, and on all sides there is mutual suspicion and distrust of each other's motives. "I fear he intends to swamp us with the work of his followers," or "He intends to try and get control of the Group" is whispered round. Then the rot sets in. One member, for convenience A., refuses to show in the same room as B., as if the mere presence of the latter's work would corrode the gilt on his frames. Another disagrees with the gallery, a third has been maliciously hung. Worse follows, for one of our original friends secedes and forms another group, drawing others away with him: fresh manifestos are issued, and all original ideas revised, "We shall burst upon the public," and so on, _da capo al fine_. The public! What do they think of it all, does it interest them; do our friends, the artists, fancy that their petty strife is watched with eager anxiety? Surely to the public this formation and dissolution of groups must be as puzzling as were the military categories of the war. A layman, having once become accustomed to one artistic movement, has his attention diverted to another; on refixing his attention to the first he finds it split up into other formations. He is as a man watching a parade of soldiers, he sees each battalion form and reform, wheel and turn, flaunting the while their separate banners as they march, a bewildering kinetic display. Samuel Butler used to wonder why curates could not be hatched fully fledged in surplice and gown, without the troublesome prelude of ordination. Could not artists be allocated at birth in a system of unchangeable groups? Now all this lamentable state of affairs is largely due to "cliquishness," and in a lesser degree to an inherent distrust of each other which all artists seem to possess. There is also another contention which hampers them in their deeper divans. One man regards the exhibition of pictures as a purely business concern, whereby he hopes to sell his work; another man imagines it to be an opportunity of displaying, for the education of the uncultured, the results of his own deep inspiration. The possible difference in their position may be that the former has to live by what work he sells, the latter has very likely a private income. If, for the sake of convenience, we introduce our alphabetical friends again, B. will despise A. for what appear to him to be mercenary feelings, while A. holds B. in contempt for amateurishness. Of the two I prefer A.'s idea because, once he has carried out his painting, his next idea (a very sensible one too) is to sell it; while B. affects indifference and thinks A. has been calculating his possible assets between his brush strokes. This idea is neither just nor relevant. What can be done for us all? We all want to sell our pictures; what need is there for pretence, and why are we at the mercy only of a few members of the "intelligentsia"? After all, I suppose group forming is in a sense a protective instinct against the dealer, though the results are so inadequate. What then is the alternative to group making, the remedy for group breaking?

At the back of my mind I have visions for the future. A huge emporium for pictures, run on business-like lines, and on a scale which will put Mr. Gattie's warehouse scheme completely in the shade. Here each artist may have his work shown in his turn, not one or two isolated pictures disseminated among the exhibits of fifty other artists, but each man's work hung in a group that all may see his development, note his improvement, and criticise his faults. Why not a Selfridge Emporium for the pictorial arts? "Woodcuts, Madame, fourth floor." Orders for drawings and paintings and sculpture might be received, and commissions for decorations undertaken in any possible style. Then imagine the satisfaction of procuring a Lewis or a Nevinson in the Bargain Basement: and the sales! "Things _were_ cheap!" as Little Tich says, especially after the failure of the spring shows.

Mr. Nevinson's Exhibition at the Leicester Galleries

I do not imagine that Sisyphus in Hades ever wantonly let his stone roll down to the bottom of the hill after his laborious ascent, yet this is what Mr. Nevinson appears to have done in his passage up the incline of artistic endeavour. The simile is perhaps not quite applicable because, to be just, his work has seldom shown outward evidence of great stress: perhaps it were better if it had. He seems to have reached with extraordinary ease a position in contemporary art which was entitled to our respect. We are grieved then, rather than angry, to see his descent from that position. If this is his Peace work then give me his War pictures. I suppose we are all conscious that reconstruction is very slow in realising our anticipations; the business of changing from war to peace makes this inevitable, but Mr. Nevinson seems to have rushed, over-hurriedly, from one to the other. I think he has not considered reconstruction enough, for his outlook at present is chaotic and rather vulgar. This might be excused on the ground that he was pulling the public's leg, but the diversion is worn rather threadbare now. There are a few exceptions in the show, and moreover his colouring remains good, even shows improvement, and no one can deny his skill. "See," he cries, "how versatile I am. I have catered for all sorts of people!" Yes, but _what_ sort of people? No, we would speak more in sorrow than in anger; as Ruskin addressed Millais in his decline--"If Mr. Nevinson were to paint nothing but apricots for four years, etc...." But we feel sure his relapse is only temporary.

The London Group

The eleventh exhibition at the Mansard Gallery does not differ greatly from previous exhibitions. Probably most people have ceased to expect any great surprise, pleasant or otherwise, though there may be still a few who mount by lift to the gallery with the feeling rather of an airman approaching some planetary _terra incognita_. I was assured the other day by a candid friend that "your" London Group was as dull as the Academy. This uncomfortable sort of person must give us a moment's heart-searching, but I think nevertheless that the London Group still holds its own pretty well amongst art exhibitions of to-day. With these hopeful feelings uppermost let us examine the works displayed for our notice. The absence of Charles Ginner's work is to be regretted, and the rather alarming tendency of some artists to fasten on the characteristics of other artists' work and mould them rather obviously to their own use is more marked this year than formerly. I feel sure that several of the members will have to try and throw these ingenious people off their trail, for it is disconcerting to the highest degree to find the plagiarist out-doing the original worker at his own job. One would have thought that Mr. Gertler's apple painting was the last word in that line, but some people appear to differ and you will find many feeble echoes of these rare fruit and many paintings also of the chipped corner variety _ad nauseam_. I do not really know to whom most sympathy should be extended: to Mr. Gertler for his apples, to Mr. Fry who is very hotly pursued by his admirers, or to the landscape painters who, I think, might almost seek the assistance of the patent law. Mr. Bomberg has returned in great force, and his _Barges_, No. 31, is indeed an earnest of further excellence; all his paintings have distinction. Mr. Dickey has presented us with a very fine effort in his _Kentish Town_, a careful and refined painting, very beautiful in colour. Mr. Gertler's paintings at the Goupil Gallery are more interesting than his exhibit here. No. 36, _Still Life_, by Mr. Coria, is a painting of note, despite its cold flatness of texture. The exhibition deserves more detailed criticism than space permits. There is great character in the two paintings of _Caledonian Market_, by Therese Lessore, whose exhibition at the Eldar Gallery is now open. Mr. Duncan Grant's pleasant _Farmyard_ painting should not go unmentioned, and there is other good work by A. P. Allinson, Mrs. Bashford, Keith Baynes, Ethelbert White, and Bernard Meninsky.

ARTISTIC PUBLICATIONS

THE LIFE OF JOHN THOMSON OF DUDDINGSTON. By R. W. NAPIER, F.R.S.A. Oliver & Boyd. Price 42_s._

This is a vast book. Besides the usual foreword and introduction there are six chapters in which Mr. Napier most anxiously assures us that Thomson's evangelical labours and lack of artistic training in no way interfere with the exercise of his genius. This seems a little unnecessary; for we are quite ready to take him on his merits. Then comes the biography proper, and there are also five indices, a three-part appendix, and six separate catalogues of his work, besides numerous illustrations, etc. All this immense labour and care over an artist who I think was not a very significant figure among British painters. Perhaps he was overshadowed by his contemporaries Turner and Constable. He was not free, it appears, from the landscape tradition of Claude and Poussin, which he applied to his own Scottish scenery, and there would also seem to be a strong influence of Richard Wilson in his work. For all this, I think we may call him a "great little man," and Mr. Napier's book will be most valuable to the student of the history of British art.

JOHN NASH

MUSIC

THE BEECHAM OPERA

The season of opera in English at Covent Garden, which opened at the beginning of November, offers a programme of unusual interest. _Tristan_ and _Prince Igor_ are its oldest classics; Mozart, so it is rumoured, is being held in reserve for a special season of his own. The list contains hardly a single work that is not either a masterpiece or at least a novelty. Wagner is represented only by _Tristan_ and _Parsifal_, Verdi by _Otello_ and _Falstaff_. Except for a few Puccini operas on Saturdays, the commonplace popular operas that are obliged to form the backbone of every continental opera-house's repertory have been struck out altogether. It is certainly to London's credit that for so uncompromising a choice the response of the public has been enthusiastic.

As long as Sir Thomas Beecham was fighting the battle of English opera with dogged persistence and unstinted expenditure of material in the face of apathy and indifference, and possibly the hostility of vested interests as well, there was a very general feeling that his courage and high idealism should not be hampered by a too searching criticism of his performances. The Beecham opera has by now become an established institution, and it is inevitable, now that it has taken possession of Covent Garden, that it should be considered in a more impartial spirit. It need not fear comparison with the imported opera of the summer season. It has made its own high standards; but it follows that its performances must be judged in general by the standards of its highest individual achievements.

The present season has so far been something of a disappointment. Several of the operas to be seen have been given over and over again in the provinces if not in London. In the case of an absolutely new opera insufficiency of rehearsal may be pardoned; but it is not a sign of good management when the performance of stock classics is allowed to become slack and indifferent. Sir Thomas has not been seen very often at the conductor's desk, and this is the more to be regretted, since he has a most remarkable genius for pulling through a performance which in other hands would be always trembling on the verge of disintegration. He has very little sympathy with singers, it seems. He always tends to regard the orchestra as the main thing, and the singers as mere adjuncts to it, so that an opera under his beat might easily become a symphony with voices _ad libitum_ unless, as, for instance, in _Trovatore_, the composer has understood voices and written for them in such a way that nothing could ever dominate them. Mr. Goossens follows in the steps of his master, but with less genius. The performance of _Falstaff_ was instructive on this problem. Compared with that in the other Verdi operas, the treatment of the orchestra is so complex as to make it almost symphonic in character. None the less, it is an opera in which the voices must lead and the band accompany, for if this is not done the work at once becomes patchy and formless. It requires, in fact, that the singers should have a strong symphonic sense, should feel themselves all parts of a continuous vocal _ensemble_ which must be kept going not by the conductor but by their own co-operative efforts. The orchestra can then accompany, and it must also play its part with a sense of vocal expression and individual personality. This is the real difficulty of _Falstaff_. As it was, the singers had little or no feeling for _ensemble_. I use the word in a large sense, meaning not merely the passages where several voices are singing simultaneously, but all those in which the phrase of one voice is answered directly, or even at some bars' distance, by another. Mr. Goossens did his best to hold the singers to a steady beat, but he allowed the orchestra to get very much out of hand. Mr. Percy Pitt has probably suffered too much from the old conventional Covent Garden routine. He lets the singers do more or less what they like, and allows the orchestra to play Wagner and Rimsky-Korsakov as if their music were no more interesting than that of Bellini and Donizetti. The one salvation of the opera season will be Mr. Albert Coates, who, even considered merely as a concert conductor, is in a different category from any of our English conductors. He adds to this a real knowledge and understanding of the stage, and a personality which has the quality of being able to get the best possible work out of every single person under his control. That quality is as rare as it is important.

The stage-management of the season has been, on the whole, good. _Falstaff_ went with plenty of activity and comic business, if with nothing else. Indeed, there seems to be a pretty general tendency to romping, which might well be put under restraint. Romping may pass with some audiences as a substitute for acting, but it can never, even in English opera, quite take the place of singing. Singers, it must be frankly admitted, are the weak point of the Beecham company. Covent Garden, partly by its own acoustic properties, partly by its traditions, which no one who enters the house can quite forget, shows up vocal deficiency only too severely. Sir Thomas Beecham possesses only one really first-class operatic artist--Mr. Frederick Ranalow. He is a real actor, equally at home in comedy or tragedy, and always a real singer. It is because he is a real singer, singing all the time, that one never misses a single word that he says. He is a musician with a large understanding of the deeper things of music. His Falstaff forms a continuous line; as King Mark he makes what with most singers is a tedious recitative into a perfect song of rare beauty. Mr. Frederick Austin is a good second; but whereas Mr. Ranalow is a singer who is also a musician, Mr. Austin is a musician who also sings. Of the other male singers there is not much to be said. Some have voices, some can sing, a few can act and throw their words out. At the best they may in certain cases do remarkably good work in one or two special parts. Among the ladies the most interesting is Miss Sylvia Nelis. At present she is little more than a singer. As a singer she goes on steadily improving, in accomplishment of technique, in diction, and in quality of tone; indeed, there can be little doubt that if she continues at her present rate of progress she will from about 1970 onwards be annually enrapturing the Albert Hall with _Home, Sweet Home_. As an actress she has a good deal to learn, but with her intelligence and undoubted capacity for hard work there is no reason why she should not develop in this direction. Sir Thomas Beecham has hitherto confined her almost exclusively to _coloratura_ parts; it would be well to give her a chance in some part that required bright and vivacious acting rather than vocal agility. Miss Agnes Nicholls has worked so hard to become an operatic actress that one regrets bitterly the non-existence of the Beecham company in the days when she made her first appearance. As it is, she has obviously sung too often in oratorio. That is the great fault of English singing. It has only two styles (apart from the ballad concert style)--oratorio or Gilbert-and-Sullivan. Neither of these will take a singer through _Falstaff_. Miss Nicholls did not happen to be in her best vocal form that evening; but her acting was surprisingly good--indeed, she was the only character on the stage, except Mr. Ranalow and sometimes Mr. Percy Heming as Ford, who gave one a real impression of a Shakespearean character. Miss Rosina Buckman has also improved, but is very unequal in different styles. As Isolde she sang with a firmer sense of rhythm than before, and if she did not act very convincingly, at least looked--in a black dress with a long white veil and a small crown--a figure of so queenly a dignity that it was not surprising to see Mr. Mullings as Tristan keeping a respectful distance even in the most passionate moments.

Stravinsky's _The Nightingale_ was the nearest approach to a novelty that has yet appeared. Evidently it had been very inadequately rehearsed. The performance fell far below the level of the Russian production at Drury Lane in 1914. Miss Nelis as the Nightingale seemed to be the only singer who was certain of the notes to be sung, and almost the only singer who was taking the opera seriously. Stravinsky's music is a good deal less bewildering now than it was five years ago. The first act has a good deal of beauty: so has the third. The second seemed merely bizarre--but the performance did not do the composer much justice. A modern opera of such intricate difficulty ought to be staged properly and conscientiously or not at all.

There has not yet been time since the end of the war for foreign artists to visit England in the large numbers which were inevitable five or six years ago. Yet even though the givers of concerts are at the moment almost exclusively natives of this country, or foreigners who have definitely made England their home, the scarcity of concert halls is being very acutely felt. Almost every day there are three concerts at the Æolian and Wigmore Halls, and when operas begin at 7.45 or earlier, music-lovers have often to choose between their first act or their dinner. What is to happen when travelling conditions become easier and the annual foreign invasion reaches its full tide?

A new and very attractive series of Sunday evening concerts has been inaugurated at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, under the direction of Mr. Arthur Bliss. The programmes have been generally of a simple and informal character, with a liberal admixture of seventeenth and eighteenth century music, either for chamber combinations or for what may be called a chamber orchestra. Designed originally to supply the artistic needs of the Hammersmith neighbourhood, these concerts have, as a matter of fact, attracted a great many of the habitual frequenters of the more central concert-rooms. Mr. Bliss intends to continue his concerts after Christmas, and has announced for performance several works, both modern and ancient, which are of exceptional interest.

The Patrons Fund, originally founded by Sir Ernest Palmer, has resumed its concert-giving activities, but on new and much improved lines. Instead of giving performances of new English works at public concerts, the programmes of which contained nothing else but the music of unknown or almost unknown composers, it is proposed to hold a series of semi-private rehearsals in the hall of the Royal College of Music, at which the works selected are tried over and properly studied, as far as is possible within the limits of a single morning. The first of these rehearsals took place on November 13th, and it was very generally agreed that the new system was an undoubted improvement on the old. One could not help feeling that the atmosphere was both more friendly and more genuinely critical. There is undoubtedly a very strong feeling among all lovers of music in this country that the young British composer deserves far more encouragement than he gets, although it must be admitted that the young British composer is actually getting a great deal more than he did twenty or thirty years ago. Rehearsals of this kind are also of great educational value to the representatives of the Press, for in the struggle for publicity it is not always the most serious and genuinely original composers who receive the most attention in this period of violent and natural reaction against the overcharged emotionalism of the last generation.

EDWARD J. DENT

SELECT LIST OF PUBLICATIONS

ART

A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE, JERUSALEM. By GEORGE
JEFFERY, F.S.A. Cambridge University Press. 10_s._ 6_d._

SMALL COUNTRY HOUSES OF TO-DAY. Second Series. By LAURENCE WEAVER.
"Country Life." 25_s._

THE CALIPH'S DESIGN. By WYNDHAM LEWIS. "The Egoist." 3_s._

ROBBIA HERALDRY. By ALLAN MARQUAND. Princeton: University Press.
London: Milford. 42_s._

MODERN WOODCUTS AND LITHOGRAPHS. By British and French Artists.
Edited by GEOFFREY HOLME. With Commentary by MALCOLM C. SALAMAN.
"The Studio." 10_s._ 6_d._

BELLES-LETTRES

AVOWALS. By GEORGE MOORE. Werner Laurie. 42_s._

OUTSPOKEN ESSAYS. By WM. RALPH INGE, C.V.O., Dean of St. Paul's.
Longmans. 6_s._

THE PHILOSOPHY OF CONFLICT. By HAVELOCK ELLIS. Second Series.
Constable. 6_s._ 6_d._

IRISH BOOKS AND IRISH PEOPLE. By STEPHEN GWYNN. Dublin: Talbot Press.
London: Fisher Unwin. 5_s._

ROMANCES OF OLD JAPAN. By MADAME YUKIO OZAKI. Simpkin, Marshall.
30_s._

THE EMBROIDERY OF QUIET AND OTHER ESSAYS. By M. HARDY. Skeffington.
4_s._

PATRICK H. PEARSE: STORYTELLER. By JAMES HAYES. Dublin: Talbot Press,
2_s._

SOCIETY FOR PURE ENGLISH. Tract No. 1. Preliminary Announcement.
List of Members, October, 1919. 1_s._ Tract No. 2. On English
Homophones. By ROBERT BRIDGES. 2_s._ 6_d._ Clarendon Press.

SHAKESPEARE AND THE WELSH. By FREDERICK J. HARRIES. Fisher Unwin.
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LITERARY STUDIES. By CHARLES WHIBLEY. Macmillan. 8_s._ 6_d._

MOMENTS OF GENIUS. By ARTHUR LYNCH. Philip Allan. 10_s._ 6_d._

SELECTIONS FROM A. C. SWINBURNE. Edited by EDMUND GOSSE, C.B., and
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SOME SOLDIER POETS. By T. STURGE MOORE. Grant Richards. 7_s._ 6_d._

BUCHANAN, THE SACRED BARD OF THE SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS. By LACHLAN
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WHAT IS MAN? AND OTHER ESSAYS. By MARK TWAIN. Chatto & Windus. 7_s._

UNHAPPY FAR-OFF THINGS. By LORD DUNSANY. Elkin Mathews. 5_s._

DONNE'S SERMONS. Selected Passages, with an Essay. By LOGAN PEARSALL
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THOUGHTS IN MIDDLE LIFE. By GODFREY LOCKER-LAMPSON. Humphreys. 3_s._
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THINGS SEEN IN LONDON. By A. H. BLAKE. Seeley Service. 3_s._

SEVEN SPIRITUAL SONGS (of Shakespeare's time). Words and Music by
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AN ESSAY ON COMEDY AND THE USES OF THE COMIC SPIRIT. By GEORGE
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BOOK AUCTION RECORDS. Edited by FRANK KARSLAKE. Vol. 16, Part IV.
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IMPRESSIONS THAT REMAINED. Memoirs by ETHEL SMYTH. In two volumes.
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MEMORIES OF A MARINE. By MAJOR-GENERAL SIR GEORGE ASTON, K.C.B.
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BEN JONSON. By G. GREGORY SMITH. (English Men of Letters Series.)
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THE STORY OF GENERAL PERSHING. By EVERETT T. TOMLINSON. Appleton.
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MISS EDEN'S LETTERS. Edited by her great-niece, VIOLET DICKINSON.
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PATRON AND PLACE HUNTER (Bubb Dodington). By LLOYD SANDERS. John
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JOHN REDMOND'S LAST YEARS. By STEPHEN GWYNN. Arnold. 16_s._

A CHILDHOOD IN BRITTANY EIGHTY YEARS AGO. By ANNE DOUGLAS SEDGWICK.
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CLASSICAL

THE AJAX OF SOPHOCLES. Translated by R. C. TREVELYAN. Allen & Unwin.
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THE ICHNEUTAE OF SOPHOCLES. Edited with a translation by RICHARD
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DRAMA

THE SPOILED BUDDHA. A Play in Two Acts. By HELEN WADDELL. Dublin:
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SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE. A Play in Four Acts, founded upon the novel
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RED OWEN. By DERMOT O'BYRNE. Dublin: Talbot Press. 2_s._

THE FIGHT FOR FREEDOM. A Play in Four Acts. By DOUGLAS GOLDRING.
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FICTION

THE MASK. By JOHN COURNOS. Methuen. 6_s._

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THE POWER OF A LIE. By JOHAN BOJER. Hodder & Stoughton. 7_s._

THE PLOUGH. By MARY FULTON. Duckworth. 7_s._

A SERVANT OF REALITY. By PHYLLIS BOTTOME. Hodder & Stoughton. 6_s._

CATHERINE DOYLE. By ANTHONY M. LUDOVICI. Hutchinson. 6_s._ 9_d._

TALES THAT WERE TOLD. By SEUMAS MACMANUS. Fisher Unwin. 6_s._

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SEVEN MEN. By MAX BEERBOHM. Heinemann. 7_s._

RESPONSIBILITY. By JAMES E. AGATE. Grant Richards. 7_s._

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MRS. MARDEN. By ROBERT HICHENS. Cassell. 7_s._

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TALES OF A CRUEL COUNTRY. By GERALD CUMBERLAND. Grant Richards. 7_s._

TRUE LOVE. By ALLAN MONKHOUSE. Collins. 7_s._

THE TWO-STRINGED FIDDLE. By G. E. MITTON. Murray. 7_s._

BERRINGER OF BANDEIR. By SYDNEY C. GRIER. Blackwood. 6_s._

THE BUILDERS. By ELLEN GLASGOW. Murray. 7_s._

THE LOST DIARY. By _Horace Bleackley_. Eveleigh Nash. 7_s._

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THE LONDON
MERCURY

_Editor_--J. C. SQUIRE _Assistant-Editor_--EDWARD SHANKS

Vol. I No. 3 January 1920

EDITORIAL NOTES

The first whole year of peace has ended, and it is natural to throw a backward look upon its literary production. It is certain that to the historian it will be a year in which various tendencies continued to act; it is possible that his eye, in long retrospect, will observe in it the appearance, the sudden appearance, of new literary developments and important personalities. But it is, as a rule, only in long retrospect that such portents are recognised as such; and though we think that during the year certain movements which have been for some years in existence have been continued, that there are drifts which are easier to perceive than to analyse, we cannot persuade ourselves that 1919 added more than the normal amount to the existing volume of good English literature. It was, in fact, as a literary year very much like one of the war years. Perhaps it should properly be regarded itself as a war year. The principal physical factor which, in our present relation, operated during the war was the absence on service of the great majority of those young men who would have been beginning to write. These were, with rare exceptions, precluded by sheer force of outer circumstances from literary enterprises of a sustained kind; and, as most of those who survived have left the Army within the last year, we could scarcely expect so soon as this to find them producing large and ambitious books. It may also reasonably be argued that the war-atmosphere still prevails. Peace has come--and it has not yet come universally or conclusively--not suddenly but with the slowness of a northern dawn. Problems from which even the most self-sufficing mind cannot escape harass the intellect and weigh on the spirit of the civilised world. We are not yet in a position to estimate post-war literature, for we have not yet got post-war literature.

* * * * *

The opinions of intelligent men may differ to some extent as to which were the most remarkable novels of 1919; that they were very few is, we conceive, a matter of general agreement. Of the older novelists, Mr. Conrad produced in _The Arrow of Gold_ (a work begun long ago and recently completed) a book which, though not among his masterpieces, was worthy of him. Mr. Wells, in _The Undying Fire_, a modernisation of the Book of Job, wrote an imaginative, an exciting, and an eloquent book. It was much better shaped and trimmed than has lately been usual with his books, and, for the first time since he abandoned scientific romance, he concentrated entirely on doing what he can do better than other people instead of trying to do what he cannot do. The other elder novelists did nothing that was unexpected and little that was good; and their successors have not appeared. A Fielding or a Dickens is a rare product; but we see no young novelists of whom it can be predicted with any assurance that ten years hence they will occupy places such as are now occupied by Mr. Wells and Mr. Bennett. It seems certain that they will not be found amongst that pre-war group whose merits Henry James examined with such generous consideration, whose defects he indicated with such delicate diffidence, in a famous article which "betrayed" rather than stated his alarm, even his pity, for the English Novel. There have been a few books which have attracted attention by their qualities of construction and detail or by touches of original genius; but of most of their authors we could not be sure that they will become even habitual, much less great, novelists. The book which more than any other appeared to us to be notable, both for its workmanship and for its imaginative power, was Mr. Joseph Hergesheimer's _Java Head_--and Mr. Hergesheimer is an American. It was not so good a book (we think _Java Head_ was the earlier written) as _The Three Black Pennys_; but the two books are certainly the work of a born novelist. Miss Romer Wilson, whose _Martin Schuler_ (1918) was a vivid, vigorous, and original book, published another, and a dull, novel, _If All These Young Men_, the subject and setting of which offered less scope to her peculiar gifts: but she is clearly capable of doing something surprising. Miss Dane's _Legend_ was a remarkable technical achievement; and Mr. Cournos's _The Mask_, Miss Macaulay's fantasia, _What Not_, and Mr. Brett Young's _The Young Physician_ were all, in their degrees, notable for a poetic quality.

* * * * *

Mr. Beerbohm's _Seven Men_ could scarcely be classed with novels. It was Mr. Beerbohm's best book, than which those who appreciate him could pay no higher compliment; but Mr. Beerbohm is an artist who stands outside contemporary movements, literary and other, and one of whose charms arises from that very detachment. "W. N. P. Barbellion's" _Journal of a Disappointed Man_ was a full and poignant record which will probably continue to be read in a narrow circle as Marie Bashkirtseff's memoirs are read; his posthumous essays, _Enjoying Life_, are even more convincing evidence of what their author might have done had he not been stricken by disease. Amongst works of critical and miscellaneous literature those which will continue to be enjoyed, or--in some cases--used, are Mr. Festing-Jones's _Life of Samuel Butler_, Professor Gregory-Smith's _Ben Jonson_, Mr. Gosse's _Diversions of a Man of Letters_, the late George Wyndham's _Essays in Romantic Literature_, certain books on the old Drama (Swinburne's _The Contemporaries of Shakespeare_, and Mr. J. M. Robertson's study of Hamlet especially), and Miss Ethel Smyth's _Impressions that Remained_. This last is one of the best autobiographies that have appeared in our time, and Dr. Smyth during a long and active life as a composer has been nursing a rich and racy English style.

* * * * *

The department--it is difficult in making such a summary to avoid the language of the catalogue--in which life has been healthiest has certainly been poetry. Several of the best and most promising of our living poets published no book in 1919, but what is incontestably a revival has continued. Several poets of established reputation have done better work than ever before. Mr. Hardy has published little, but his _Collected Poems_, now published, establish once and for all--and, old as he is, he belongs as a poet to this generation--his right to a place among the great poets. Mr. Masefield's _Reynard the Fox_ is as certainly his finest book, as Mr. Herbert Trench's play _Napoleon_, whatever its defects on the stage, is Mr. Trench's. There is the largeness about this long and ambitious piece that there was about some of his earlier and shorter poems, and supremely in his _Requiem of Archangels_. Mr. Binyon's _The Four Years_ was a collection of the verses its author had written concerning the war. It contained several poems made beautiful by the straightforward utterance of a noble and suffering spirit. Mr. Yeats's _The Wild Swans at Coole_ it would be affectation to describe as equal in interest to his earlier volumes, but there were one or two lyrics in it which would adorn any anthology of English verse; and in Mr. Kipling's _The Years Between_ there were also flashes of genius. From Mr. Yeats and Mr. Kipling, however, we do not now expect the unexpected. It is in the hands of the young that the immediate future of our literature lies. The most notable volumes by young poets have been (we are tempted to add Mr. Waley's _More Translations from the Chinese_) Mr. Brett Young's _Poems_ and Mr. John Freeman's _Memories of Childhood_. But in periodicals and anthologies there has appeared much new and genuine work. A great deal is to be found in the fourth volume of _Georgian Poetry_, which was reviewed in our last number. Mr. de la Mare's latest poems show that his thought is steadily deepening, whilst he is losing none of that delicacy of music and beauty of phrase that made his early lyrics as lovely as any in the language; and both Mr. Sassoon and Mr. Nichols have done work which makes their future a matter for profound curiosity. Scattered about in other volumes there have been many single good poems: and it is the characteristic of a prolific lyrical age that a few good things are written by many men. We would mention as especially interesting, in that it is one of the few long successful narrative poems of recent years, Mr. Aldous Huxley's _Leda_; the myth was difficult and dangerous, the versification often ungainly, but the poem contained passages of great strength and beauty. We may add finally Captain Scott-Moncrieff's fine translation of the _Song of Roland_.

* * * * *

We used the term "a lyrical age." Opinions may and do differ as to the number and quality of good short poems that have been written in the last ten years, but that the prevalent tendency amongst the most intelligent young men is to write poems, and short poems, cannot be disputed. The paucity of good novels, and especially good novels by young writers, is not entirely to be ascribed to the fact that during the war many of those who might have written, and may write, good novels were not in a position to write books at all. The deflation, temporary perhaps, of the Novel has been proceeding for some years; the absence of even tolerable new novelists has been too nearly complete to be attributable to the peculiar war conditions. The novel of "psychology," the novel of minute observation, the propagandist novel are still produced in quantities; but the best literary brains are not going into them. The drift towards poetry was noticeable before the war; the war accelerated it. It is not a mere matter of change of fashion, of a form being worked out and becoming tedious--though we do, in fact, believe that the next revival of the novel will see a new development of the novel. It is a matter of a change in attitude towards life; a return on the broader emotions; a desire to acknowledge and praise the things men love and find beautiful rather than to labour at analysis and at speculation--not to mention sophistry. It is mostly lyric poetry that men are writing; and it is one of the results of the war, which has intensified our awareness of the old familiar things around us, which were in a sense threatened for all, and the loss of which was imminently before millions of individuals, that much of it is poetry of the English landscape and especially of the English landscape as a historic thing.

* * * * *

Long poetical works, large essays in the poetic drama, are complacently manufactured by mediocre writers in most literary epochs. But it is commonly remarked that in this age men of genius, and particularly young men in whom genius is suspected, are mostly content with "short pieces." It is rash to theorise about such things, as the wind has a way of blowing where it listeth. No one can desire that men should systematically force themselves to literary undertakings which are uncongenial and towards which they feel no inner impulse. If a man agree with that poet who--acutely conscious, it may be, of the nature of his own talent--said that no good poem should or could be longer than a couple of hundred lines, he will serve no useful purpose by manufacturing large patchworks in cold blood. The presumption that any long work is better than any short one by the same hand is made by those (we are referring to intelligent men) who do not go to poetry for the quintessence of poetry, the thing peculiar to it: it is from those that we hear most insistently the demand for works on the large scale, and the complaint that modern writers mostly insist (these are the stock, if unjust and inaccurate, phrases) on writing sonnets to their mistresses' eyebrows and carving peach-stones.

* * * * *