Chapter L: M. Hastings (6)

Mr. Bourne has written a beautiful and sensitive little book about his grandfather, and his own memories of his grandfather's village. It has in it that deep and still appreciation of English country and of the ways of English peasants, which is so common to all who know and love them, and so very rarely expressed. It has the quality of Jefferies at his best, and of Mr. Hudson too. The scenes which he evokes--the broad green spaces, the silence, the interminable round of tasks, the handling of the earth and its store--will never come again in the places of which he tells us. Farnborough, Frimley, Camberley, Yateley are suburbs of London, over-run by the spawn of Aldershot and the railway. Nowadays one must go further afield to realise the presence of Saint Use; and a term seems to be set even there. It is not that, in the Roman poet's phrase, _Nos patriæ fines et dulcia linquimus arva_: rather that those fair fields are flying further from us--as well they may, seeing what we make of them. Such a book as Mr. Bourne's will be treasured hereafter for the sake of the quiet beauty and homely virtues which it records, but very much also for the tenderness and fidelity with which it does its work.

POLITICS AND ECONOMICS

COAL MINING AND THE COAL MINER. By H. F. BULMAN, M.I.Min.E., Assoc. M. Inst. C.E., F.G.S. Methuen. 15_s._

NATIONALISATION OF THE MINES. By FRANK HODGES, Secretary of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain. With Foreword by the Right Hon. J. R. CLYNES, M.P. Leonard Parsons. 4_s._ 6_d._

Mr. Bulman is a mining engineer who has been a colliery manager and a director of colliery companies, and he has a wide knowledge of the subject. He has much of interest and value to say about the getting of coal, the technical processes and the machinery, the work of the miners and their dangers. But he does not confine himself to these matters; he deals with many of the controversial questions that are exercising the public mind at the moment. His book was written unfortunately--or fortunately--before the Coal Commission, as he puts it, "commenced its novel proceedings," and his allusions to the evidence it took and the reports it issued are confined to a note or two here and there. There is no doubt, however, which side he is on. Though sympathetic enough to the miners, he has plenty of hard words to say of their Trade Unions. He deplores the prevalence of ca'canny, of absenteeism, of the aggressive spirit shown towards the employers. Over Government interference he waxes very bitter; many of the rules and regulations imposed on the management for the safety of the miners rouse his ire, whilst the Minimum Wage Act he regards as utterly mischievous, since it "encourages the indolence which is so prominent a characteristic of human nature." The longest chapter in the book discusses in considerable detail--and with many attractive plans and pictures--the housing of the miners. Mr. Bulman thinks that it is very unfair to throw the blame for bad housing conditions on the colliery owners, who, he says, have done more than most employers to provide houses for those they employ. But many, we think, who have read the evidence given to the Royal Commission, whatever may be their views on the proper method of running the coal industry, will find themselves at issue with Mr. Bulman on that point.

Mr. Hodges makes a direct and ably-reasoned appeal for the nationalisation of the mines. He is, we think, at rather needless pains to disclaim "politics" in his book. His main emphasis is certainly on the economic aspect of the problem; but he cannot avoid being "political" in the largest sense. He exposes, with a good deal more stress than Mr. Bulman, the wasteful methods of coal production by the 3300 British collieries operated by 1452 companies, and subject to the "dead-hand" of 4000 royalty owners, as well as its wasteful methods of consumption at the collieries and further afield. He discusses the decrease of output, the main reason for which he will by no means admit to be the naughtiness of the miners. And he directs the notice of the unhappy general public to the fact that we are faced at the same time with a decline in production and a large increase in profits. What, then, does Mr. Hodges want? He sees "no other remedy except that of National ownership of the entire industry, with joint control by the full personnel of the industry and representatives of the whole community." The miners, he avers, are as much opposed to bureaucracy as the most extreme of "anti-nationalisers." Both the Sankey scheme and the original scheme of the miners ("The Nationalisation of Mines and Minerals Bill," which is printed as an Appendix to the book) guard against this. The State is to own the industry, but the machinery of Pit and District Committees and a National Mining Council would mean management by those engaged in the industry, together with representatives of the consumers. This last part is important, for the Syndicalist idea of the "Mines for the Miners" is, in Mr. Hodges' view, antisocial and "repugnant to our communal instincts." Nor will he allow that there is any substance in the fear that the initiative secured by private ownership will be lost. If this initiative really exists to-day, it will be increased a hundredfold, he argues, when scope is given to the brain-workers who are responsible for the running of the industry. Altogether the book is one which is worthy of the most careful study by nationalisers and anti-nationalisers alike.

SOCIAL THEORY. By G. D. H. COLE. Methuen. 5_s._

It is a commonplace of our sceptical and disillusioned age that all our cherished institutions are in the melting-pot. The old economic order is tottering; the finger of scorn is pointed at the hollowed principle of Parliamentary Government. Eager reformers preach Democracy and yet more Democracy. But the discontented citizen finds himself getting ever a larger portion of the shadow of Democracy and ever less of the substance. To him in his perplexity comes Mr. Cole, offering a new social theory, to explain the causes of the evil and its true remedy. What is wrong, he asserts, is the false doctrine that endows the State with sovereign attributes and makes it supreme in every sphere. His treatment of Leviathan is drastic. He is not merely for curbing it, nor, on the other hand, for its complete destruction. What he wants is to deflate the monster, so to speak, and reduce it to the status of a decent domestic animal with a carefully limited sphere of usefulness.

The democratic society which Mr. Cole foresees will be a co-ordinated system of functional associations, guilds of producers, co-operative societies of consumers, and many others. The State will no longer be sovereign, it will merely be one of those associations, confined to its own specific functions. For each function in society there must be found an association and method of representation, and for each association and body of representatives a function. "Representative democracy," as we see it to-day in a "single omnicompetent Parliament," is a mockery; for "no man can represent another man, and no man's will can be treated as a substitute for, or representative of, the wills of others." This does not mean that Mr. Cole denies the validity of all representative government, only that he wants it put in a truer form. And that form is functional representation. The elected representatives of the future, of whom clearly there will be many--and "Why not?" says Mr. Cole--are not to be mere delegates, but each will have a more limited rôle, subject to more constant and closer criticism and advice from their constituents and, in the last resort, to "recall" by them. It is in this functional organisation that Mr. Cole centres his hopes of social and economic peace and progress, of political justice, of liberty and happiness for the individual. It is a theory that is open to criticism at several points, and no final judgment of it can, of course, be passed on the basis of this book. But Mr. Cole at least argues his case very clearly and trenchantly, and he has made a notable contribution to political science.

THEOLOGY

FIRST CHRISTIAN IDEAS. By E. C. SELWYN. Murray, 9_s._ net.

The late Dr. Murray was of that type of scholar which England produces to perfection, and of whom Dr. Abbott is our most notable and distinguished example. An untiring patience, a close attention to detail, a rather over-dogmatic manner, and at times a simple felicity are the chief marks of the school. In this posthumous volume Dr. Selwyn continues his argument, advocated in previous books, that the writers of the New Testament were familiar with the Septuagint rather than the Hebrew, and that a great deal of the New Testament is _Midrash_--that is, hortatory comment--on Old Testament stories. That he proves this thesis it would be too much to affirm; but he certainly strengthens his case by the careful handling he gives here to selected passages, especially the narratives of the Infancy and the Temptation. At times one meets sentences in which one recognises the old headmaster rather than the student. For instance, "The origin of the term Mass is Mazzoth, the cakes of unleavened bread, and no other etymology is worth a moment's consideration"; but generally Dr. Selwyn's points are made carefully, modestly, and carry conviction. This is especially true of a really startling piece of exegetical translation in Chapter III. The upholders of the Helvidian view that the brethren of Jesus were the children of Mary are fond of quoting the phrase of St. Luke, "She brought forth her first-born son." Dr. Selwyn, with a simplicity that seems unaware of its force, removes this argument in the following passage:

Here we may notice two points which show his [Luke's] close
observance of Scripture. The first is one that opens a just complaint
against R.V., which renders "She brought forth her first-born son"
(τὸν υἱὸν αὐτῆς τὸν Πρωτότοκον {ton huion autês ton Prôtotokon}).
Luke is not speaking of uterine children of Mary, but he is declaring
a solemn title, on which St. Paul had already dwelt. The title is
based upon Ps. 89--"I will make him my First-born, higher than the
sons of the earth." Which renders the Greek best, the R.V. or "She
brought forth her son, the First-born"? There can be no question.

It is unfortunate that Dr. Selwyn wrote an extremely unattractive style, and is singularly unmethodical in the arrangement of his material. We have little doubt that this and his other books will be pillaged by popular preachers and theologians who have none of his scholarship. After all, such a fact is not an unworthy conclusion to the life of a great schoolmaster, who belongs to a profession which is fated to give ideas to those who will but rarely admit or even remember their source.

PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS. By EDWARD CARPENTER. Allen & Unwin. 10_s._ 6_d._ net.

No one would deny the correspondence between much of the theology and ceremonial of the Christian religion and previous creeds. What significance is to be attached to that correspondence will depend on the bias of the student. The Christian historian will see in the facts of anthropology evidence that Christianity is a natural as well as a revealed religion, and that its claims are greatly strengthened just because of pagan premonitions. The sceptic may be inclined to dismiss all Christian refinement of older myths as so much rubbish, of which the world must be rid before it can live coldly in the bleak light of a scientific materialism. Anyhow, there seems little advantage in anyone writing elaborately on the subject who is not a scholar. Mr. Carpenter is amiable, occasionally interesting, more often merely garrulous, but he seems to have no claims to scholarship, nor, what is ever fatal, to be able to estimate the value of previous scholars' works. One instance will suffice. He names the few eccentrics, Drews, Robertson, Bossi, Jensen, who deny the historicity of Jesus Christ; calls it a "large and learned body of opinion," and adds that "a still larger (but less learned) body fights desperately for the actual historicity of Jesus." The statement is really absurd. Not to mention orthodox scholars, Harnack alone could swallow his "learned body" without feeling discomfort.

His own method shows too great an eagerness to produce parallels at all costs. He notes that many gods, Dionysus, Mithra, Osiris were born in caves; Jesus Christ was born in a stable. But why call a stable an underground chamber? The facts are twisted to suit his theory; indeed, the whole book reminds one of those strained allegorical treatises which were common in the Middle Ages. The principal flaw in his book, as in all similar essays, is that he never approaches the records of the different religions, to which he is comparing Christianity, with a hundredth part of the severity he applies to Christian documents. He does not even discuss the age of manuscripts, a question of the first importance in the problem of religious origins. How many religions can show pre-Christian manuscript authority for the traits which, in the absence of that evidence, we may have believed were borrowed from Christianity itself?

ANTHROPOLOGY

MAN--PAST AND PRESENT. By A. H. KEANE. Revised and largely rewritten by A. HINGSTON QUIGGIN and A. C. HADDON. Cambridge University Press. 36_s._

What are the chief natural divisions of mankind, and how did they come to be formed? Such is the specific problem of ethnology, and it is one on which the whole body of the anthropological sciences may be said to converge. In a sense physical anthropology--that is to say, the study of the bodily characters of man--has the most direct bearing on the subject. The members of the human family are distinguished by marked differences of physique, which are clearly to a large extent the product of heredity. On the other hand, adaptation to environment must tend to confine each variety to the most suitable area; so that geography, in the specialised form known as anthropo-geography, will be required to help the argument out. Moreover, the history of culture, as variously comprising ideas, institutions, arts, and languages, provides important evidence of those movements and clashings of peoples whereby our ever-shifting balance has been maintained between the forces making severally for a differentiation and for a fusion of types. Nor is it enough for the ethnologist to keep his eye fixed on the existing distribution of these types over the wide surface of the globe. His outlook as it turns towards the past must embrace a tract of time even more formidably wide, inasmuch as we can never hope to explore it as thoroughly. Altogether, the speculative problem is as baffling as it is alluring. On the practical side, too, there is the question to be faced how far civilisation can afford to experiment in the direction of race-amalgamation--whether, in short, physical diversity is or is not compatible with moral unity within the kingdom of man.

Dr. A. H. Keane, for some time Professor of Hindustani at University College, London, was born in 1833 and died in 1912. He was the only Englishman in post-Darwinian times to attempt a grand synthesis of the facts relating to the origin and interrelation of the main human groups. In _Ethnology_ (1896) and _Man--Past and Present_ (1899) he put forward what is in effect the same theory--one to which he adhered for the rest of his days, as may be gathered from his article on Ethnology in Hastings' _Dictionary of Religion and Ethics_, published in the year of his death. This theory amounted to a vindication on evolutionary grounds of Linnæus' genealogical tree of the human family, with its four branches, the Æthiopian, Mongolian, American, and Caucasian. Keane postulated that these primary groups were independently derived from a common primeval ancestry, first the negro family branching off, then somewhat later the Caucasian and Mongolo-American splitting out of the main stem. Thereupon he brought geography into play, supposing each type to develop in an isolated "cradle-land" where its fundamental characters became fixed, so that no subsequent intermingling could wholly obliterate them. Nor is it for him simply a question of physical differentiation. There are mental and moral peculiarities likewise that go with the race, and these are reflected in markedly divergent outgrowths of culture. On the strength of these assumptions it was possible to construct a highly systematic account of mankind in the mass. For the big differences were taken as established at the outset once for all; whereas the myriad smaller differences that actually distinguish the peoples of the earth were regarded as mere aberrations from these primary norms.

Twenty-one years, however, of further discovery do not confirm this bold explanation of the genesis of human diversity, but even militate against it in a negative way, in so far as some of Keane's most trusted proofs are shown to be invalid. The great antiquity, for instance, of certain fossil men found in America turns out to be by no means so certain as he was ready to believe, and the claim of the New World to rank as an area of primary characterisation is correspondingly weakened. Again, a great deal more is now known about the racial types of Pleistocene Europe, and their multiplicity is hard to reconcile with the view that in early times a given geographical province would foster a single well-marked variety. Thus, so far as regards the prehistoric evidence, the bottom is pretty well knocked out of the theory; and thereupon the genetic significance of the attempted classification of types disappears, unless a new theory of origin can be substituted.

Now to attempt such a reconstruction of the whole argument is a task which no editor as such could well undertake, for he must in that case assume responsibility for every word that appears, the original author being reduced to a mute shade in the background. On the other hand, if the explanation of the present heterogeneity of mankind has become more difficult than ever, the description of it may be improved by incorporating the results of the latest field work. Hence the questionable pedigree is withdrawn; but the list of the surviving members of the human family is carefully revised. A systematic appearance is imparted to the catalogue by dividing up the groups according to the nature of their hair. This leaves Keane's classification almost unaltered in its surface appearance, since his Æthiopians form the woolly-haired division, his Caucasians the wavy-haired, the only difference being that the Australians who count as wavy-haired must now come across from the negroids, of whose characters they otherwise appear to possess a share. As for the Mongolians and Americans, since both alike are straight-haired, they need no longer be kept apart. It is a clever feat of substitution, yet is one that is of little use to the student of the evolutionary problem. The systematist gets on very well with hair as his differentia until the question of development is raised. He thereupon finds, first, that to relate present types to former ones is impossible by this means, since prehistoric skulls have lost their hair entirely; secondly, that the interrelations of present types are not made any clearer, since no one has worked out the effects of cross-breeding on the hair of the offspring. Thus it is a scandalous fact that despite the copious interbreeding of whites with woolly-haired negroes and straight-haired aborigines in America, no trustworthy data are available from this or any other quarter in regard to the physical results of such miscegenation. Is waviness of hair a pure or a mixed form, or sometimes one and sometimes the other? Our authorities do not seem to know; yet, so long as the matter is left undecided, relationships based on similarity of hair can have no genetic significance.

Another consequence of the suppression of the theory of a radical division of the human stocks brought about by their development in isolation is that the assignment of a special kind of mentality to the different races loses most of its point. This never was a very convincing side of Keane's work, for he seemed to lack the delicacy of touch needed in order to bring out the subtler shades of meaning in primitive religion, and hence could hardly do justice to the surest diagnostic of the mental life. As it is, one is inclined to smile at the drastic characterisations of peoples that survive, without the excuse of a genetic explanation, in the revised text. Thus the former edition summed up the Papuasian as "even more cruel than the African Negro." This goes out in the present edition; but as we read immediately below that the Tasmanian, another branch of the stock, was "far less cruel," we have lingering doubts about the Papuasian character as regards the habit of "seeing red." Without altogether denying the possibility of an ethnic psychology, one may ask what scientific basis is provided for one here. Whether Keane was right or wrong, he did mean that temperament went with ancestry. But the present work does not intend us to deduce a man's morality from his hair; so that the bearing of mental traits on the problem of classification can no longer be regarded as essential.

In conclusion, it is only fair to state that no pains have been spared to secure the utmost accuracy in the statement of facts. As an ethnology the book may be disappointing, because it amounts to an admission that Keane's original attempt to construct a genealogy of the human race outran the evidence. On the other hand, as an ethnographic conspectus it will be very serviceable to the student. The idealist, too, who is in a hurry to establish a uniform civilisation for all may here come upon a useful reminder of the actual diversity of mankind, though he may console himself with the thought that, as Heracleitus long ago observed, "opposite friction knits the world together."

SCIENCE

SCIENCE AND LIFE. By FREDERICK SODDY. Murray. 10_s._ 6_d._ net.

This is a collection of addresses and articles indicative of the author's activities as a chemist and as one of the leading figures of Aberdeen University. A proportion of the addresses may be grouped together as representing successive expressions of one leading thought, the social advantages which may accrue from an intelligent application of the method and results of scientific research to the utilisation of natural sources of energy. "Scientific research is capable of raising the general standard of life, without limit, by the solution it affords of the material and physical problems that prevent progress"--this is one of Professor Soddy's chief themes. The disadvantage, largely inherent in a collection of such addresses, delivered to different types of audience, is that, instead of having before us a clearly reasoned and cumulative treatment of the problems involved, we take up the matter afresh, from a slightly different aspect, in each separate address and run over very much the same ground, at one time as a member of the Independent Labour Party, at another as a member of the Aberdeen Chamber of Commerce, and so on.

There is much overlapping, and a certain feeling is aroused that we are not much further than we were in the preceding address. Nevertheless, the problems which Professor Soddy handles are of such importance that, while we regret that he has not judged fit to embody the matter of several of his separate addresses in one consecutive essay, we believe that it is right that his opinion should be placed permanently on record. Besides these addresses on the place of science in society, we have two popular expositions of the march of science, in which Professor Soddy has himself made such notable advances--one on the Evolution of Matter and one on _Radioactive Change_. The views on the transmutations of the elements, which attracted much attention in the daily Press, are not, of course, new, but the account is remarkably clear and affords an excellent summary of the present state of the science of radioactivity, which can be understood by the average reader. Elsewhere in the book, both in separate articles and in addresses, there is much criticism, of more or less parochial interest, of the administration of the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland.

A TEXT-BOOK OF HYGIENE FOR TRAINING COLLEGES. By MARGARET AVERY. Methuen. 7_s._ 6_d._ net.

This little book has apparently been written chiefly to help students at training colleges through their examinations, and suffers from many of the usual faults of cram books. The information is scrappy, and the style so condensed that in many parts the book reads more like a series of notes than a connected treatise. A more serious fault is that the scientific information is not always correct--for instance, the examination of recruits and pensioners during the war has disproved the common assertion that the cause of short sight is reading small print, doing fine sewing, and so on, and has tended to show that excessive physical exertion of certain types, such as lifting heavy weights, is in many cases the inducing cause. This is a point of importance to school teachers, as short sight is aggravated by many of the physical exercises now in vogue. In other cases, the most recent work is not quoted. But the book is largely redeemed by the very sane way in which wide social topics, such as temperance and eugenics, are discussed. The latter subject is handled with a desire to get at the facts, uncoloured by prejudice, which is to be commended, and Miss Avery seems for the time to get away from the haunting thought of the examination syllabus. The book will appeal to all interested in primary school education, for it contains a good deal of information as to actual conditions in various centres.

HERSCHEL. By HECTOR MACPHERSON. Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. 2_s._ net.

This short biography is the latest addition to the "Men of Science" section of the series "Pioneers of Progress" now being published by the S.P.C.K. It gives an excellent little account of the life of the older Herschel, and, necessarily, tells us something of his devoted sister Caroline, probably the first woman to do work of importance in the exact sciences. A poor German musician, who left--some say deserted from--the band of the Hanoverian Guards to come to England, Herschel built up for himself a considerable position in the English musical world before he turned his attention to the science in every branch of which he made magnificent advances. His theory of the stellar system opened a fresh field for observation and speculation; his studies of Saturn and Mars gave us our first detailed information about these planets; he discovered Uranus--loyally named "Georgium Sidus"--and binary stars, and contributed important observations in every department of observational astronomy then known. His theory of the sun, if ludicrous in the light of our present knowledge, was the first attempt at a general treatment of solar problems. Considering the small size of the book, Mr. Macpherson's treatment is remarkably comprehensive, and provides a graphic and sympathetic sketch of the life and works of the great astronomer.

DISCOVERY. A Monthly Popular Journal of Knowledge. No. 1. January, 1920. 6_d._ net. No. 2. February. John Murray.

This new periodical appears under distinguished auspices, the trustees of the deed by which it is maintained being Sir J. J. Thomson, Sir F. G. Kenyon, Professor A. C. Seward, and Professor R. S. Conway. The object is to give a popular presentation of advances made "in the chief subjects in which investigation is being actively pursued," and it is announced that the articles will be written in plain, simple language. An imposing list of writers who have made or promised contributions assures us that they will be authoritative. The purpose of the promoters of this journal is worthy of all praise, and the articles in the first number range over a wide field of interest, and include _The Secret of Philæ_ (Professor Conway), _The Modern Study of Dreams_ (Professor T. H. Pear), and _Discovery and Education_, written by the Master of Balliol, with his usual forcefulness and insight. While paying tribute to the spirit of the undertaking, we venture, with some diffidence, to offer the opinion that in many points the paper might be much improved by more informed editing. In the first place it does not seem that any clear idea has been formulated as to the class of reader to whom appeal is to be made; every author appears to have a different standard of erudition in view. For instance, is it assumed that to the average reader of the _Times_, say, the vocabulary of Dr. Slater Price's article on _Smoke Screens at Sea_--chlorinated hydrocarbons, kieselguhr, thermite, oleum, and so on, offered without a word of explanation--is plain, simple language? This article might have been written for professional chemists who want to know what chemicals have proved suitable for producing smoke screens; that on _Sound Ranging_, on the other hand, with its forced breeziness, reads as if intended for a school magazine. The make-up is not very attractive, not vastly superior to that of the average parish magazine. The single illustration which adorns the pages is a crude and amateurish pen-drawing far better omitted, if nothing better could be found. In short, the paper seems to suffer, at present, from lack of policy as regards public, and lack of high standards as regards production and illustration. We have no doubt that experience will rapidly rectify these minor points, and we sincerely hope that the paper will find its public and develop its sphere of usefulness.

BOOK-PRODUCTION NOTES

By J. H. MASON

The _Gazette du Bon Ton_, now beginning its third year, is so extraordinarily clever that it sets one thinking about the typographical importance of magazines. It is in them that typography is seen at its liveliest, and it is a pity that after a comet-like career we frequently lose sight of them. Why do not British publishers and printers establish an exhibition hall on the lines of that at the Buchgewerbehaus in Leipzig? The exhibitions should be varied, not permanent, although there should always be an exhibition connected with this all-important group of trades. The book-production of one nation after another, their magazines, their book illustration, their types and posters, their paper, their colour printing and newspapers would provide ample material. Printing in its many forms is an almost omnipresent element of our lives, and for this reason the forms it takes are more important than the much-canvassed forms of modern pictorial art. In the series of exhibitions there should be one of magazines, particular care being taken to include those with a limited circulation, or those which were experimental and ran only for a short period. Gordon Craig's _Mask_, the _Neolith_, the _Hobbyhorse_, the _Manchester Playgoer_, the Russian _Apollon_, the _Imprint_, the _Game_, are just a few that occur to me as certainly not well known, and yet they are all suggestive attempts to deal with magazine typography, format, paper, and illustration.

The _Gazette du Bon Ton_ would certainly be included in such an exhibition or section of an exhibition. Its two most important features typographically are its type, a revived old style based on a design of Nicolas Cochin, and its coloured illustrations. Three sizes of type are used, in the _Avant-Propos_ a large 18-point, and in the body of the magazine 14-point and 10-point (I give the nearest equivalents in British sizes). The 14-point is an excellent choice, both in point of weight and scale. I should prefer using it all through the magazine to form a stable background to the very varied illustrations and the capricious choice of initials and captions. The fine line illustrations of page 10 are too light to keep the page together as they are meant to do. The drawings were probably made without being tested by comparison with the strong line of the type. The illustrations, in black with one or two flat tints or full colours, give a real colour value that is never obtained by the three-colour process. Take any book illustrated by this process and test it by comparison with these _Bon Ton_ colours, and if the colour sense has not been vitiated by a wrong standard for coloured letterpress illustrations--such as oil paintings--the superiority of the flat colour will be obvious. Even the chiaroscuro block prints are capable of very pleasing effects, a hint of them appearing in the tail-piece on page 4.

The "_Gazette du Bon Ton_ continuera d'être ... le lieu où les couturiers et les peintres collaborent pour composer la silhouette de leur temps." That sentence from the _Avant-Propos_ sums up what I have to say of the type, the illustration, and the work as a whole. The large type attracts attention at once, it spreads itself a little--a shade wide--it slightly emphasises its idiosyncrasies (see the y with its terminal serif, or the s, or the capital G, they have the very accent of our own time); it is elegant, but not content with elegance; it is on a good model, but perfection, the golden mediocrity, is felt as constraint; it attains--reaches something a little _outré_.

NOTE.--Last month I inadvertently wrote Luckombe for Stower, although the latter's _Printer's Grammar_ was on my table at the time.

BIBLIOGRAPHIES OF MODERN AUTHORS

ROBERT SEYMOUR BRIDGES (Poet Laureate)

_Verse_

POEMS. Pickering. 1873.

THE GROWTH OF LOVE. Poem in Twenty-four Sonnets. 1876. [Reprinted with omissions and additions, 1890.]

CARMEN ELEGIACUM ROBERTI BRIDGES: IMPENSIS EDUARDI BUMPUS. 1877.

POEMS. By the Author of _The Growth of Love_. Bumpus. 1879.

POEMS. By the Author of _The Growth of Love_. 3rd Series. Bumpus. 1880.

PROMETHEUS, THE FIREGIVER. Drama in Verse. Daniel Press. 1883. [Reprinted by Bell, 1884.]

PLAYS: NERO, PALICIO, ULYSSES, CAPTIVES, ACHILLES, HUMOURS OF THE COURT, FEAST OF BACCHUS, Second Part of NERO. Bumpus. 1885-94.

EROS AND PSYCHE. Poem in twelve measures. From Apuleius. Bell. 1885. Again Revised 1894.

THE FEAST OF BACCHUS. A Poem. Privately printed, Oxford. 1889.

THE SHORTER POEMS OF ROBERT BRIDGES. Four books. Bell. 1890. [Frequent reissues, the later have five books.]

SELECTIONS OF THE SHORTER POEMS OF ROBERT BRIDGES. Contemporary Poets. 1891. (Edited by A. H. Miles.)

ACHILLES IN SCYROS. Reprinted. Bell. 1892.

HUMOURS OF THE COURT. A Comedy and other Poems. Bell and Macmillan. Copyright for America. 1893.

ODE FOR THE BICENTENARY COMMEMORATION OF HENRY PURCELL AND OTHER POEMS. _The Shilling Garland._ Elkin Mathews. 1896.

POETICAL WORKS. Smith, Elder. 1898.

HYMNS FROM THE YATTENDON HYMNAL. Daniel's Private Press. 1899.

NOW IN WINTRY DELIGHTS. A Poem with a Note on Prosody. Daniel Press. 1903.

DEMETER, A MASQUE. Clarendon Press. 1905.

AN INVITATION TO THE PAGEANT. Ode. The Oxford Pageant Book. 1907.

POETICAL WORKS, excluding the Eight Dramas. Clarendon Press. 1912.

POEMS WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1913. Privately printed by St. John Hornby. Ashendene Press. 1914.

IBANT OBSCURI. An experiment in the classical hexameter. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1916.

ODE ON THE TERCENTENARY COMMEMORATION OF SHAKESPEARE. 1916.

_Prose_

ON THE ELEMENTS OF MILTON'S BLANK VERSE IN _PARADISE LOST_. Clarendon Press. 1887. (Revised, with additions, 1893.)

ON THE PROSODY OF _PARADISE REGAINED_ AND _SAMSON AGONISTES_. Clarendon Press. 1889.

JOHN KEATS. A Critical Essay. Privately printed. 1895. [Originally published as Introduction to the _Muses' Library_ Keats.]

MILTON'S PROSODY AND CLASSICAL METRES IN ENGLISH VERSE. W. J. Stone. Oxford. 1901.

ON THE INFLUENCE OF THE AUDIENCE. Vol. 10, Shakespeare's Works. 1907.

ON THE PRESENT STATE OF ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION. English Association. 1910. (Reprinted, with three plates, 1913.)

ESSAY ON KEATS. Revised in _Poetical Works of John Keats_. Hodder and Stoughton. 1916.

POETICAL WORKS OF JOHN KEATS, with Critical Essay. Clarendon Press. 1916.

AN ADDRESS TO THE SWINDON BRANCH OF THE WORKERS' EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION. Clarendon Press. 1918.

THE NECESSITY OF POETRY. An Address. Clarendon Press. 1918.

ON ENGLISH HOMOPHONES. Oxford. 1919. (S.P.E. Tract No. 2.)

He has also edited the Poems of R. W. Dixon, Digby Dolben (with Memoirs), and Gerard Hopkins.

ALICE MEYNELL

_Verse_

PRELUDES. 1875. H. S. King.

POEMS. 1893. Lane.

OTHER POEMS. 1900. Privately Printed.

LATER POEMS. 1902. (Printed in U.S.A.)

POEMS. Burns & Oates. 1913. [A Collected Edition.]

POEMS ON THE WAR. 1915. Privately Printed.

A FATHER OF WOMEN AND OTHER POEMS. Burns & Oates. 1917.

_Prose_

THE POOR SISTERS OF NAZARETH. 1889. Burns & Oates.

THE RHYTHM OF LIFE AND OTHER ESSAYS. 1893. Lane.

THE COLOUR OF LIFE AND OTHER ESSAYS. 1896. Lane.

THE CHILDREN. 1896. Lane.

LONDON IMPRESSIONS. 1898. Constable.

JOHN RUSKIN. 1899. (Modern English Writers.) Blackwood.

THE SPIRIT OF PLACE AND OTHER ESSAYS. 1899. Lane.

CHILDREN OF THE OLD MASTERS. 1903. Duckworth.

CERES' RUNAWAY AND OTHER ESSAYS. 1909. Constable.

MARY, THE MOTHER OF JESUS. 1912. Medici Society.

ESSAYS. Burns & Oates. 1914. [A "Collected-Selected" edition.]

HEARTS OF CONTROVERSY. Burns & Oates. 1917.

She has also written Introductions to numerous reprints.

She has also selected or edited the following: Poems of _T. G. Hake_; _Extracts from Samuel Johnson_ (with G. K. Chesterton); _Poems of J. B. Tabb_; _The Flower of the Mind_.

DRAMA

THE THREE SISTERS (_Tchekhov_) COURT THEATRE
MEDEA (_Euripides_); CANDIDA (_Shaw_) HOLBORN EMPIRE
PYGMALION (_Shaw_) ALDWYCH THEATRE
THE YOUNG VISITERS (_Daisy Ashford_) COURT THEATRE
JOHN FERGUSON (_St. John Ervine_) LYRIC THEATRE, HAMMERSMITH
MINIATURE BALLET--RUSSIAN MINIATURE
THEATRE DUKE OF YORK'S
GRIERSON'S WAY (_H. V. Esmond_) AMBASSADORS

The list of plays which I have selected from those I have seen during the last month is not without interest. It contains one play which is not Tchekhov's finest work, but which nevertheless has no rival among the others on the list, and it was performed for exactly one afternoon by the Art Theatre under Madame Donnet. The plays next in merit--Euripides' _Medea_ and Shaw's _Candida_--were given by Mr. Lewis Casson and Mr. Bruce Winston at _matinées_ at the Holborn Empire for exactly one week each. Shaw's _Pygmalion_ and Daisy Ashford's _The Young Visiters_ may be expected to run--the former in proportion to its merits, the latter in no equality at all, either with its notoriety or its charm--for a couple of months. At a considerable distance comes Mr. Ervine's _John Ferguson_, a play which, if considered by the side of those I have already named, must be ranked very low, but if considered with all those I have not named--now being played at London theatres--must be ranked as respectably good, neither very much better nor very much worse than the average West-End theatrical entertainment. For _John Ferguson_, like _Tea for Three_ at the Haymarket, is an entertainment, only it does not make you laugh; it entertains you as a street accident does--a very bloody street accident. Finally--leaving out the Russian Miniature Theatre, which is really Ballet--we come to _Grierson's Way_, the resuscitated by-product of Mr. H. V. Esmond. Here we come to a play that--if, as our tabulation almost suggests, plays run in inverse proportion to their merit--should run for ever.

Of Tchekhov's _The Three Sisters_ I shall not attempt to say much. Like all Tchekhov's plays, it must be extraordinarily difficult to act, and I did not think that, on the whole, it was acted very well, although Miss Dorothy Massingham (Irina), Miss Helena Millais (Natasha), Mr. Tom Nesbitt (Audrey), Mr. Leyton Cancellor (Chebutikin), Mr. William Armstrong (Kuligin), and others made praiseworthy and not altogether unsuccessful efforts to present the characters they were playing. There was also something very plausible and real about Mr. Harcourt Williams's Vershinin, and Mr. Williams has a great advantage in his voice. It was the production rather than the acting that was at fault, but, inadequate as it may have been, it could not prevent the extraordinary force of the play making itself felt.

There are some people who would call Tchekhov a realist and _The Three Sisters_ realism, but it is Mr. Ervine in _John Ferguson_ who is the realist, if by that one means reproducing on the stage as closely as practicable what might be happening off it, with the action and language rendered as faithfully as possible. It was probably Mr. Ervine's knowledge of this fact, and the serious deficiency which it indicates, that made him introduce the village idiot to talk about "wee" stars, and give the audience what is always the realist's idea of a little poetry. As a man of letters, and not a mere theatrical hack, he knows of the utter barrenness of the photographic reproduction method in art. He probably knows also that it is not even enough to select, that the artist must create. Unfortunately this is just what the mere intellectual, the merely clever man can never do, and when he is clever enough to know that he must make an attempt at it he produces something like Mr. Ervine's village idiot, something that is borrowed and extraneous to the real matter power of the play. The poetry, the creative power of Tchekhov, on the other hand, is immanent and infuses the whole conception of _The Three Sisters_. So true is this that when we saw the play in the auditorium of the Court Theatre we felt that it was our lives we were watching, our destinies we were seeing played out; and this in spite of the fact that every detail of the scene was strange, every custom unfamiliar, and the wealth of local colour such as to produce a sensuous impression as strong as music.

Nothing extraordinary happens in Tchekhov's play. The characters meet, talk, fall in love, part, die in the casual way in which we all do these things--the actual events in Mr. Ervine's play are far less usual, just as a street accident is an occurrence less frequent than afternoon tea; but the whole play is an imaginative expression of the inner feelings of three human beings--the three sisters. It is extraordinarily imaginative, that is the point I want to make, and it is useless to ask me why it is imaginative--that is Tchekhov's secret. You never feel this is what actually happened three hundred miles from Moscow in the year 1892; you feel, on the contrary, that this never happened at all, but that it is what goes on inside us, millions of us, all the years of our lives, although it may never or very rarely come up to the surface of our consciousness and fill us with the spiritual agony of _The Three Sisters_. In Mr. Ervine's play, on the other hand, although, as I have said, the actual events are in themselves of less common occurrence, we meet with something that we feel certain must have happened yesterday and will happen to-morrow, and its significance, somehow, seems to be _nil_. What artistic or spiritual significance has a collision in the Strand between a taxi-cab and a lamp-post? Whatever significance it has, it is that kind of significance that Mr. Ervine's play possesses.

If _The Young Visitors_ had been produced by that Russian Society called Zahda, or by the Russian Miniature Theatre, it would have been hailed as a wonderful masterpiece of bizarre and original art, and all the young freaks of London who frequent the Russian Ballet and sneer at Gilbert and Sullivan would have flocked to see it and talked of nothing else for months. As it is a product, however, of the despised English--the English who have produced the greatest imaginative literature of the world--and as also it has the misfortune to have been in its book form enormously popular, there is little likelihood of its being adequately appreciated. I must confess, however, that by the side of Mr. J. V. Bryant's production of Miss Daisy Ashford's _The Young Visiters_, the productions I have so far seen of the Zahda Art Council, which includes men of ambitious mind, and of the Russian Miniature Theatre have been distinctly _jejune_ and unexhilarating. _The Young Visiters_ is the later Victorian world looked at from the eyes of a child. It is, therefore, a fantasy, and the note of fantasy has been admirably struck in the stage production. Those who have read the book will naturally imagine that it is spoiled upon the stage, but they will be wrong. It is even conceivable that some--there are such people--who have not liked the book will enjoy the play immensely. They should, at all events, not let any distaste of the book's vogue prevent their seeing the play, if they have the opportunity. They will be rewarded by Mr. Harold Anstruther's marvellous presentment of that wonderful creation Bernard Clark. He is a masterpiece in costume, voice, gesture, and make-up, and I expect I shall have to wait a good many years before our Russian friends give us anything comparable for excellence with him. Another perfect--the word perfect is accurate--presentment is Mr. John Deverell's Earl of Clincham--the earl who thought that the glories of this world were but "piffle before the wind." Mr. Lawrence Hanray's Procurio is also perfect. I have never used the word perfect about any acting before, so there is obviously some magic about _The Young Visiters_ to have three parts played perfectly. I wish I could say the same of that delightful person Mr. Salteena. Mr. Ben Field's effort is by no means without merit, but he does not satisfy our preconceived notion of what Mr. Salteena ought to be, as the others do for Bernard Clark, Clincham, and Procurio. Nevertheless, as we get more used to Mr. Field's Salteena we get more satisfied with him. We never, unfortunately, became satisfied with Miss Edyth Goodall's Ethel Morticue, clever as Miss Goodall undeniably is. Miss Goodall's Ethel is sophisticated, Ethel was not. The Prince of Wales at the Levee was excellent, and the Duchess's singing of _Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay_ superb. It was an inspiration to think of it.

Of Mr. Esmond's play, _Grierson's Way_, I should say no more if it were not that it has been praised by the same critics who have written of the "filth" of Dryden's _Marriage à la Mode_. Those of us who pride ourselves on a somewhat catholic taste, who can see the good points of a revue, a musical comedy, a melodrama, a farce, and a tragedy, who find that, although we may prefer Webster, Dryden, and Tchekhov to Shaw, and Shaw to Arnold Bennett, and Arnold Bennett to Oscar Asche, we are none the less able to be amused by the Pounds sisters in _Pretty Peggy_, and to enjoy Alfred Lester in _The Eclipse_--those of us, let me add, who do not turn scarlet at the sight of a bare back are still--strange as it may appear to the pharisaical and the prudish--not without moral sense. And _Grierson's Way_ is a play that offends _our_ moral sense. It is, I would venture to add--using the word with its true but not its current popular meaning--a thoroughly immoral play. That is to say its ideas are false, its sentiment slobbery, and thoroughly rotten with the rottenness of bad fruit. It is worth discussing the play because so few people know a bad thing when they see it. They judge by externals, not by the spirit, for the simple reason that it is so very much easier. Their idea of morality is like that of the old lady who overheard her gardener say "Damn" and said "What a bad wicked man!" and dismissed him, although he was an honest, good-hearted fellow, to put in his place a smooth-tongued, insincere rogue who cheated her for the rest of her life. Of course it served her right; men and women have no excuse to throw up the task of feeling and thinking after real righteousness and beauty in Art or Life for the easy rule-of-thumb method of judging everything by rote or formula. No doubt it is terribly difficult for many of them to feel either beauty or ugliness, good or evil, but without that sensitiveness of the intelligence they can never hope to criticise the productions of the human mind. The foot-rule, whether it is a rule for measuring "damns" or split infinitives, or rapes or murders, or the number of bare backs in a play, is useless for measuring its artistic quality, and a play can have no other quality, provided its murders are not real and its indecencies not practised before our eyes.

In _Grierson's Way_ we have the story of a girl who is loved by a middle-aged bachelor who has a maundering delight in bad music, and also by a once famous violinist, who has lost an arm in an accident, and now is a doddering drunkard, who talks of Art and his soul in the approved manner of the sentimentalist who does not realise what an offence his sickly, insincere slobber is to any profoundly-feeling, austere, and clear-brained artist. The girl has fallen in love with an Army man of the conventional novelette type, who is already married; she is about to have a child by him when she gets a letter from him to say that he is going away and will never see her again. The middle-aged bachelor offers to marry her as a way out of the difficulty; she accepts. The man she loves returns, his wife having died, and the husband, at the instigation of the violinist, commits suicide. The curtain falls leaving this creature expressing with sickly gusto his opinion that the dead husband will now stand for ever between her and her happiness. This account of the play's theme can give no idea of the false sentiment, the maudlin splutter of fine words, and the melodramatic rant with which the play is loaded. Miss Cathleen Nesbitt strove to preserve some personal dignity in the foul mush of words that flowed from the invertebrate jelly-fish around her, but nothing she could do could redeem the play, which is, frankly, disgusting.

DRAMATIC LITERATURE

PROBLEMS OF THE PLAYWRIGHT. By CLAYTON HAMILTON. Allen & Unwin. 7_s._ 6_d._

This is a book by an American critic, and it ranges over almost the whole field of dramatic art. Although it consists mainly of articles reprinted from American magazines, it is on a much higher general level of intelligence and taste than we are accustomed to expect from work of this kind. Mr. Hamilton discusses all the modern English dramatists, and, although he is not free from his countrymen's tendency to exaggerated praise--for instance, few English critics of reputation would endorse his opinion that _Hindle Wakes_ is "a great work"--yet he is far from being undiscriminating, and his criticism of Mr. Shaw and Mr. Galsworthy is penetrating and fresh. Mr. Hamilton has the great merit of thinking for himself instead of merely repeating the current catchwords of the day. He is not afraid to argue that Henry Arthur Jones and Pinero are finer dramatists than Mr. Bernard Shaw, but, on the other hand, he can appreciate Mr. Chesterton and Lord Dunsany. Again, he is full of ingenious suggestions on the subject of dramatic construction, but he is far more conscious of the foolishness of dogmatising and laying down hard-and-fast rules than such a good critic even as Mr. William Archer, to whom his book is dedicated. On the subject of American plays, as represented by the work of Mr. George M. Cohan, he is scathingly severe, and that is a good omen for the future of the drama in America.

W. J. TURNER

THE FINE ARTS

AUGUSTE RENOIR

Renoir is admired by almost all schools of taste, both conservative and radical, and naturally each school endeavours to claim him as its own. The impressionists, for instance, emphasise his adoption of the impressionist palette, his studies in the manner of Monet and Pisarro, his general preoccupation with atmosphere and sunlight; the anti-impressionists point out his deviation from the stippled technique, with its juxtaposition of the colours of the spectrum, his increasing interest in form and composition as contrasted with atmosphere, and his own disclaimer of adherence to the naturalistic principle: "Avec la Nature on fait ce qu'on veut et on aboutit necessairement a l'isolement. Moi, je reste dans le rang"; also the famous reply to the question, where one should learn painting: "Au musée, parbleu!"

The reflections upon art of even the greatest artist are not necessarily correct, and though an artist preaches one theory he may actually practise another. Nor are these brief and pithy utterances of Renoir's altogether unambiguous. In order to appreciate the real meaning of any statement of theory it is necessary to bear in mind the opposite view which it is combating. We cannot infer from Renoir's objection to the indiscriminate realism of the later impressionist doctrine that he was in favour of Cubism, for Cubism was not at the time under discussion. Nor does his reference of students to the old masters (_au musée_) imply in the least that he would abolish painting from nature. There is, in fact, not the slightest need to read into Renoir's simple, somewhat irritated replies any abstruse semi-metaphysical meaning. They will bear a very normal interpretation, which seems to me to be not only the true one, but also the truth. Renoir did not believe in the chaotic and uninspired painting of anything and everything, nor in the pretended complete severance with tradition and the past. He knew that the study of the old masters had assisted him in giving expression to his emotion, and he left the matter at that. Actually all his life long he painted from nature, and it is said that he hardly ever worked without a model. Indeed many of the intellectualists have been compelled to class Renoir as a "naïf," who was content with the unmediated charms of the external world, and never aspired to more deliberate abstract construction.