THE INTENTIONAL CRITIC.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20086, 15 November 1930, Page 13

THE INTENTIONAL CRITIC.

''■ r " : 1 • tM Mihor had sueit, - this statement as as nthiefl oi murderer to in detective novels), the haa do in his eircui||| Plwipfir tilt tfport which is that R'jMlßlpaffthji image of war without Wwffissuik Mily twenty-five per cent. huntsman has to ■ Imaginary Converitated that is whether I one ledst worthy not to consider; dUtho wrUer eXtoasntftry an Axiom la other spheres mM&BSmW & n ddmir- * gftrdMßf grows not that w -i HnHMpmqf to nednea this admirabsardity. Mr Kdgar ■ tueteoda perfectly tmi to do, far more '' Hetirt* when Hpi fnt ''Hyjwrion," which mwwtiirfaetbry. Are - that one of Mr ttierft I* ft tHling |HHnld|(!k'6o«Hi net seem to occur HHBnartcM of the "intention and ■■pieettliM of etitieism, tf school wttpport of two or three mgmmr iodm* in coatemporary Hb tkat .it ja not Always * fa - great, author ttu •been

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ality, any determined character"; how, then, We may add, should they -iTavc intentional ''.This I know," Charlotte Brtrate declared, "the writer who possesses the creative gift' owns some- . thing of which ho is not alwaya a master —something that, at times, strangely wills and works for itself." l'he writer is me'rbly the "nominal artist," dictated to "by something deeper than his intellect: his intentions fljf ti> the winds. And this surely should give pause to the Intentional critic; he is. faced by a harder problem than he supposed. Having fled from the job 'Which is much -too much /like hard work, and in which it is bo easy to make a fool of yourself, that of judging, of having values of your own, of bßing widely versed in the subject you propose to dare statements about, he has hoped to play a safe and easy ■parlour game. Suppose the game does not turn out to be so easy, nor so safe, as he thoughtl Suppose this also should be too much like hard work, and, worse Still, too- much like responsibility, what will ho do then? The chances : are that ho will "ignore what it i» all about, arid continue to play his' parlour, one had almost said nurBery, game. And why should he not* Then it no reason whatovor why he should not? "ljuf let him usurp the place of the critic.

A writer ift the "tidncion Mercury" i'eoently discu«ss€<l Thornton Wildef'S supposed Alienation from tha "true American tradition" by his culture and sensfe for the language, and galled it "art absurd but a ©OtiiiHiOn fallacy'':' "We forget too easily that, aa author tie Ametldan note pervades even tho best An;''* I ■ eon writing; of If We remember, Still, With the flicker of the filirig before our irtiagiinlHop, the Hcrcnm of the Maxophoiitf in Oiir ell-too'cofpofeal Qftfs, And I'rCihib'tloti Oil 6Ur minds, we are aat Able to disentangle it id often AS we should, for it bAS a soft musical quality. We are confuted, when we Are not misled, by insistent appearances, And da not Always stop to consider tliit ikj-scrapefs «nd bootleggers and loud unlettered Mayors Guite misrepresent the total Of AtneHea. Those vigorous Writers, Mr Dreiser And Mr Lindsay, nil question of talent set Aside, Are hnrdly as representative An the more admin Mr Arilnttoir Rtil'itison cnti M?ss Wl'lft Cather. In fact, NdthAniol Hawthorne's iriinualtng accents have httd tadfd reAl influence on hit countryman than the greater, toleed of Poe end Whitman, Although these have inspired a large proportion of the Writers of Europe for nearly a hundred years. In a recent Tract issued by the Society for Pure English, of which Robert Bridges was one of the founders ancl guiding spirits, his daughter, Elizabeth I>aryush, writes on the possibility of ft universal language: Everyone who h&S had trt «a&k« 'himself understood by s foreigner who knows very little English wiU have realised how one dan instinctively strip one's speech almoet bare of idiom, in order to avoid misunderstanding, and how easy it is to do this when treating only of practical nftatters of fact. It is unlikely, also, that differences of pronunciation would cause any serious difficulty. The advocates of a universal language dd, however, generally overrate the easiness of learning it. Because most of the schemes hitherto proposed ara made up chiefly fcf Latin and other Bure«eAti roots, they present therefore but little dlfflonity to educated Europeans, 16 whom several of the«B lan wages are already futnil'jr; no 6ticli facility -would be experienced, m nonEurppeans. Again, the fond hope of some authorities, that the connexion which bo Houbt existed between primitive speech and natural - gesture could serve as a basis for »• univerSAlly . comprehensible Modern lAnguAge, 1* merely fanciful. (One Wight AA well seek to frame a system of suburban by-laws on the theory of the natural rights - of w»nI) Nevertheless, a stood ca«6 can certainly be wade out for the adontlon of An artificial universAl language. To raise « noturAl one to this position would m*ot*e two srreat disadvantages: the IJ>»>?u*b« in question would suffer Inevitable degVftdAtlon. and would moreover be too idiomatic end Irregular to be well suited for the purpose.

The international Arthurian Congress. attended by representatives •of learned societies in England, the United States, France, Holland, and Germany, concluded a week's session at; I'iuro on August 80th without hairing arrived ut a definite decision aa J > the authenticity or otherwise of the Arthurian legends. There was no- agreement-even as to whether such a person aa Arthur ev«r existed. Professor Mary Williams, of Swansea, identified him with King Henry 11., and Viscount talmoutli deolar«d that whether the great story was true or not the challenge of .Arthur and his knights was as trud to-day as it was 1600 years ajp». ,' , The moat startling event of the week was the rejection by Mr Henry Jenner, strand bard of the Cornish Goraedd, and president of the congress, of the idea that Tintaael was the of Arthur. There was, he said, no mention in Doomsday Boole of any cftstle at Tintaa:el. nnd the present riuns were probably those of ft biulaing erected by Earl ttichard m the thirteenth- centuryv * x< ?ept perhara^ the foundations of Saint Ulyet 8 chnpe!, Mr J. E. S. Arrowsmith, in the "London Mercury," does not join in. tho applause of Thomas Wolfe's. "Look Homeward, Angel." ' He says tartly that ' * those who cannot .tell chalk from cheese Imagine that they have been reading another 'Moby Dick, . when really they have been: reading a modern Spasmodic, whose most nearly eloquent pages shrivel into nothing when set against one of the hot blasts of D. H. Lawrence, who, with all his limitations, wrote with passionate urgency out of his genuine self." Mr Walter Smyth, of Christchurch, has had his fourth novel produced by Mills and Boon, L«iiid!ffti. It is called "Wooden Hails," and is e romantic mystery Btory set in the timber milling country of the West Coast. The book has now awlved New Zealand. Writing of Hazlitt's tomb in the churchyard of St. Anne's Church, Soho, rt correspondent of the, "Manchester Guardian" says: "The gravestone, which has a turgid and pugnacious inscription that cannot be read owing to the plants around it. is.enclosed a -Very ugly little. .Victorian, cast-iron railing which accords ill with the resting place of an artist and a man of taste." .