KINDLY POETS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 83, 8 April 1933, Page 1 (Supplement)

KINDLY POETS.

ENGLISH SEEN BY A SCOT.

A BRILLIANT STUDY.

(By CYRANO.)

Mr. Ogilvie observed that Scotland had a great many noble wild prospects.

Dr. Johnson : I believe, sir, you have a great many noble wild prospects. Norway, too, has noble wild prospects; and Lapland Is remarkable for prodigious noble wild prospects. But, sir, let me tell you, the noblest prospect which a Scotsman ever sees Is the high road that leads him to England 1

There have been many variations on this original theme. Barrie played on it in the first act of "What Every Woman Knows," where the brothers agree to send John Shand to seek his fortune in England provided he will marry Maggie. Stephen Leacock says the Scots don't want Home Eule, or Swaraj, or Dominion status—they merely want England. I should say that Scots—even when they are running Church and State in England —aTe more critical than appreciative of the English. I may be wrong; I pretend to no great knowledge of the literature of Scottish comment on England and the English. It is obvious to any observer that the two nationalities often strike sparks when they meet. But I do knowthat I have just read a book, presumably by a Scot, presenting a Scottish view of England and the English, and it is such a remarkable piece of work, so bright in its style, so brilliant in its wit, and in the balance so Highly appreciative of the best things in England, that I feel I must draw attention to it. Celtic Critics. It begins with Donald Cameron, a young Scottish officer, being thrown into the company of a young Welsh officer named Davies during the war. Davies is a London publisher. He tells Cameron that he has been studying the English and he thinks a book ought to be written about them. The more he studies them the more he is bewildered by their inconsistencies. They are the kindliest souls in the world, he declares, but if they see anything beautiful flying or running they'rush for a gun and kill it. Under the English code you may do anything you like to a fox or a stag, but if vou set up and justify bull-fighting, look out! Davies says he doesn't understand the English, but he loves them. He has a theory that all their "queerness and oddities and incongruities" arise from the fact that fundamentally they are a nation of poets, though "they'd be lurid with rage if you told them."

Cameron thinks he would like to write a book about the English, and he and Davies agree to meet in London after the war and talk it over.

After the war Cameron goes back to his father's Aberdeenshire farm. Then his father, singer, violinist, scholar, bon viveur, but poor farmer, dies, bidding Donald fetch a piper, from the Gordon barracks at Aberdeen to play a Cameron lament, and reminding him that his snuff-mull was carried at Culloden. Donald goes off to London to seek his fortune and study the English. The theory which the Welsh publisher has advanced, and Donald finds justified by his own observations, is, of course, not new. It was propounded a few years ago by a famous Belgian poet, and before that by English, writers. Nor is

that friendliness which Davies considers the other foundation of the English character, a new discovery. What makes the book so notable is not the originality of its discoveries, but the originality of the search. Cricket and Literature. Donald Cameron comes to London to study the English, and falls into adventures as funny at times as those of Mr, Wodehouse's heroes. He goes to a country house and is "made up to" by a beautiful film star, who sat Ibeside him on a sofa and drew up "her quite well-shaped and million-pound legs into a position that complied with the rules of decorum, and yet at the same time wrecked the peace of mind and concentration of an Anglo-Indian major-general across the hall, who was desperately trying to create three no-trumps where God had only created two." Ho makes the acquaintance of one of England's leading poets and editors —Mr. Hodge, who is obviously modelled on Mr. J. C. Squire, to whom, by "the way, this book is dedicated—and is at once roped into play cricket. Mr. Hodge and friends are delightfully described, though as one who knows something of Mr. Squire and his team of "Invalids," I protest that the description of the village cricket match is far too much of a burlesque. Mr. Hodge, with his John Bullishness, his humour, his mixture of sport and literature, is meant to stand for the typical Englishman. He employs Donald as a reviewer and sends him a work of several volumes on Buddhism and Donald rushes to the editorial office to explain that he is totally unfit for such a task: "Why?" demanded Mr. Hodge. "Because I—l—know nothing about the Buddhist religion," faltered Donald. "You will by the time you've read those sis volumes," replied Mr. Hodge grimly, putting on a grey top-hat and going out.

This, too, is not in the Squire character, and it illustrates the danger of putting living people into books. Three-parts of the characterisation may be true, but the other part may be something the author adds; how is the reader to distinguish between the two? The fault of this book is that it is too much of a burlesque. It is as if Mr. Wodehouse had gone into partnership with Mr. Philip Guedalla. ' It is extremely funny in places, as in the description of the League of > Nations at work (Donald goes to Geneva as private secretary to an English delegate), and the working of the English political system. The Geneva chapter contains pages and pages of brilliantly-written cynicism, the English being depicted as supreme artists in.diplomacy, who wor k by preserving balances, but in the end Donald has to admit that things were done that affected the whole world. An equally severe shock awaits this logical Scot (the Scots, of course, are more logical and realistic than the English; that is why they get on eo well with the French), when he takes part in an English election. Both candidates (Conservative and Labour) talk transparent nonsense, but nobody seems to mind. The Labour candidate promises to limit incomes to £400 a year and raise the "dole" to £4 a week. But, like his opponent, he angles for the Liberal vote. The Irony of Sport. However, who can say exactly what is farce and what is not, in the lives of this amazing people? Donald is shocked by a newspaper poster, "England Overwhelmed with Disaster," and sees a man grab a paper, glance at it, exclaim-"Oh,

God!" and reel drunkenly away. Jt is only Test match news.' But Mr. Neville Cardus has described just such an incident in real life—how when they awaited news of a critical match in Australia, a total stranger snatched his paper from him, utter an exclamation of despair, and vanished in the fog.

These chapters of fun and bubbling satire are, I think, written in this style deliberately, to be foils to others. Donald is depicted as not understanding, but the reader understands. The irony is at its sharpest in the hunting scenes. There gorgeously attired plutocrats behave insolently to the "yokels" (including Donald, a spectator), and after digging out the fox throw it to the hounds, but a moment later one of the horsemen thrashes a gipsy with his fists for kicking a horse, and the whole bunt is white with fury at this cruelty to an animal. This all takes place during a visit to one of tlie least changed parts of rural England, where Donald stays with a delightful landowning family in an ancient home, and sees the landlord system at its best. Many of the names in a village war memorial are the same as those in the same village s roll of bowmen who went to Agincourt. Donald goes to an old inn, talks with its frequenters, and hears the opinions of men nearest to the soil. One old man quotes Shakespeare without knowing it. And the general opinion is that the war was a mistake. We should never have fought on the same side as the "Frenchies," who are lingland's traditional enemies. The Heart of England. This is a beautiful chapter, this description of the Vale; of Aylesbury and its characters, the tribute of a lover and a poet. I can imagine owners of this book turning to this again and again for its limpid prose and its discriminating affection. The ■ loveliness of the best of rural England breathes gently from the pages. But even this fa surpassed in beauty of writing by the wonderful last chapter on Winchester and its surrounding country. There, in the ancient capital of England, and to-day the most inspiring of English country towns, the author surrenders himself completely to his imagination -and his love of England. In Winchester are glories from Alfred to "the proud magnificent sweep" of the inscription in the memorial of the Great War, and one of them is Jane Austen — "the little old lady of College Street, who commanded no armies and attacked no religions, .who was burnt at no stake and married no prince, whose life added no faintest ripple to the waves and storms of England . . . who is, alone among mortals, loved by all and hated by none . . .'" But Jane, dying at 42, can hardly be caled an old lady, can she? The book ends with Donald lying on St. Catherine's Hill above Winchester, and seeing before his eyes a pageant*of English history, as typified in an "absurd host of kindly -laughter-loving warrior poets." These pass and leave behind "the muted voices of grazing sheep, and the merry click of feet upon hill, and the peaceful green fields of England, and the water-meads and the bells of the cathedral."

Surely no more beautiful tribute of the kind to England baa ever come from beyo.nd the Tweed, or, indeed, from anywhere.

[ '"England, Their England," by A. G. Macdonell (Macmillan and Co.).