ALICE MEYNELL.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 133, 7 June 1930, Page 1 (Supplement)

ALICE MEYNELL.

A DAUGHTER'S EXPLANATION

WHAT POETRY MAY MEAN.

(By HILDA M. HARROP.)

One of the great joys of "being in London is the possibility of coming into contact with people about whom one has read for years.. During the winter months a host of famous writers gives addresses and lectures which in most cases can be attended by ordinary members of the public 1 . There can Jbe no question about the influence of this personal'contact on those 'who receive it. To hear a'poet giving his own poems often means an entirely different interpretation of well-loved passages.

The life of Alice Meynell has recently ibeen written by her daughter, , and Foyle's, the well-known booksellers,i,recently gave us an opportunity-of hearing the latter's own account of her mother. When Miss Viola Meynell appeared, I (thought.to myself: "Here is a daughter with a personally ■ of , her own—not a mere shadow of her famous mother." (The impression was. due partly to, her quiet, restrained, yet decisive, bearing, and partly to the Bohemian' frock she wore—wide stripes of coral and green, with narrow ones of black and gold, ■tiny puff sleeves and a high waist. As she talked the impression I. formed of her greatly deepened. , ■She.began by telling us that to Alice foremost a'lover of poetry. So much did literature mean to her that she actually needed less comfort in life> less food, less sleep - than the ordinary Human being, and correspondingly she .felt less concern for the ordinary amenities of life. The intangible things of life w6re to her the most real, as they had been to her mother before her! She burst into passionate weeping for the loss which Shakespeare's death had meant to the world and to herself. - All through her life Alice Meynell felt'the all-pervading influence of, Shakespeare; she might know nothing of her own relatives, aunts and cousins, : but she would speak of Shakespeare's heroines as if they were in the next room; they formed part of her inmost life. ; '

But her literary .judgment was not idiosyncratic. She loved Coventry Patmore before his general recognition, and she admired Swinburne less than most jof his contemporaries, hut on the whole Ishe found herself more or less ih agreement with general opinion. She had no patience with excessively modern movements or with people'who longed to he original. She was a sound critic, with an independent eye on the centuries.

Poetry's Supreme Quality. : Poetry, being so much a preoccupation with her, she tried to determine why she loved it. Finally she decided that wildness was the supreme quality in poetry. Miss Meynell said that "wildness" is in itself a peculiarly difficult quality to define, as there are no synonyms for it, but it is the magic, remote lfeeling in poetry. Her mother was afraid (that the mere presence of the word "wild" might deceive her into thinking ithat the quality itself was_ there. She 'gave as the finest example in all poetry (of wildness that passage from "The Merchant of Venice": On such a night stood Dido . • • Miss Meynell said that there were two snares to avoid —two things that iape being wild, fairies and opium, fairies do not of themselves possess this quality, though it is to be found in Tennyson's line: "The horns of olfl&nd faintly blowing"; and though opium probably helped Coleridge to achieve wildness in Kubla Khan one has only to think, say, of the effect of opium on Addison, to realise that it is Coleridge and not his opium who was wild. ' Then Miss Meynell dealt with the ambiguity in Ben Jonson's lines: - But might I of Jove's nectar sip I would not change for thine.

Alice Meynell could not see any ambi-1 guity, but considered that the poet had said just the opposite of what he meant, and even when correspondents wrote to her, pointing out the" ambiguity, she replied with some asperity, in anger, rather than argument, .maintaining her view.; Miss Meynell admitted, however, that, though brought' up. on her. mother's interpretation, she herself dould now see 'both meanings. She placed the lines as an example-.of ambiguity comparable to that picture, of Millais "The Prodigal Son," where the: two figures are . locked together in such a,<way that j either head might belong tb.- either body. Miss Meynell said that her mother never, gave .herself the' satisfaction of seeing wildness in her own poetry, and "as the simplest are the most suitable for reading aloud, she chose some of those exquisite short poems by which Alice Meynell is best remembered — "Renouncement," "Parted," and perhaps loveliest of all, "The Shepherdess." As Miss Meynell read to us we felt ourselves in touch with. a. very beautiful spirit. '