NEW BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 20198, 28 March 1931, Page 13

NEW BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

BLAKE'S LABYRINTH. On the Minor Prophecies of William Blake. , By Emily S. Hamilton. J, M. Sent and Sons; Ltd. (15a net.) (From the Literary Supplement of "The Times.") . Miss Hamblen is a literalist. Blalce is, in her eye, a prophet not merely by his commanding originality but because, as indeed he claimed for himself, he was supernaturally led. Therefore every careless-seeming word he writes has somehow to be endowed with its solemn message of revelation. Treating only- of the symbolic works and leaving Yala, Milton and Jerusalem for later investigations, she. has devoted nearly four hundred pages to her close-packed commentary on the shorter books; arid the explanation is not only longer but more laboured than the text. Of "Tiriel" she writes that it is generally spoken of as one of the easiest of Blake's poems to understand, I have found no other so baffling . . . The clue evaded search for nearly four years, and even after discovery its application was only clear when all the other minor prophecies had been interpreted. Alas! The only passage in the book .which she expounds convincingly is the one which most people understood before, the passage beginning \ Why is one Jaw given to the Hon and the patient oxi The rest of her twenty-page unravelment, gives us a series merely of involved and ingenious plausibilities, with no clear dominant thread, The fault;is mainly with her method. Can it hav<3 been suggested to her by that unlucky utterance of the Master? I musti create a system, or be enslaved by another Man's! She has thought it necessary to work out an independent key to the symbols, not consulting any of Blake's previous annotators. True, she has ransacked every source of wisdom to which she supposes him to-have had access,' but her- views are very narrow; how could she expect them to be anything while i\she refused to acquaint herself with the significant; results of others' researches.? The name of her fellowcountryman, Mr Foster Damon, does not occur in her index, though ho gives her work hiß blessing jin an introduction. Nor does she mention M. Denis Saurat, who might have been specially useful to her, with his wide reading and cool eye for a fact. Scholarship, we remember h|m to have observed in a recent volume, will arrive by degrees at a complete understanding of Blake, but only by the work of several generations of commentators. It is rather by her faith than her works that MißsHamblen counts in the slow advance; and if the advance is slower than it need be, it is perhaps because faith like hqre is still too commonly indulged. Blake Criticism is confused by a fog of-worship in which the ghost of prophecy still Btalks unlaid. The complete understanding of. which M. Saurat writos will never bo a complete'justification. Far from it. It may fairly be claimed that Blake's cosmogony and • psy- , chology, his symbolic identification of | inner and outer, and the general onj'* i line of, his philosophy of art and life ] are understood completely now. Our ( failure is the accurate diagnosis of his absurdities. : And indeed it is a problfcfn, how a genius of'Btffch profundityand Are could have admitted so much , childlike credulity and literality, and ■ how so much love and tenderness were | reconciled with an arrogant self-centred: j nesjj so deeply ingrained. When Blake claims to be Milt6n reincarnate, the critic usually smiles and takes the passage metaphorically. But it is no smiling matter, as books like Miss Hamblen's show. - Her exegetic&l method is based on a belief (which Blake shared' with her) that mankind was once in possession pf spiritual, truths now lost, but that from time to time certain singular individuals see these hidden things ana signify their knowledge to one another in, a secret code. There are books, the Bible is one of them, in wluch all that , is recorded, with over? name of every place and person, has its allegorical reference. Add to this that our,world is so constituted that whatever happens in one time and place has vital correspondence with whatever happens m every other' time and place, and the way is wide for every kind of extravagance. Even so we havp our surprises:— Reader! lover .of book#, lover of heaven And of that God from whom all things are Who'in* 5 Mysterious Sinai's awful J£ve ' To mpin the wondrous art of writing gave. Why «< cave "1 Why -' 4 Sinai" f Well, in the first place, "cave" is jn^in-

stinctive, the sub-conscious, the mind s. cave. Then Sinai, if we translate it ; into Greek, is syn, together, and aia, earth: "the earth tak*n all together"; and the earth, in the ancient symbolpgy, is* the instinctive. "Clearly, then, the meaning of Blake's line . is, that when -the instincts act together harmoniously they respond to the demand of mind for an of their meaning in articulate speech. "Clearly" is good; but there is another point. Sinai and symbol are really the same word; For bolos means "earth" as well as aia (Miss Hamblen possesses a very accommodating lexicon), and "after further consideration of Blake's method of building up. his symbols, I think we shall believe that the singularity did not escape him.'' Miss Hamblen is a philosopher beniused by Blake and occultisin* We feel that shfe is everywhere true to Blake in spirit, but only very occasionally have we felt that their extravagances were amalgamating. PROM A MILL IN NORMANDY. Between the Blver and toe HUls. A K«mandy Pastoral. By Sisley Huddleston. George G. Harrap and Co., JM, (12s 6d net.) ■ Mr Huddleston begins his book with a letter to a friend, a "letter from my mill," which reminds him at once of the enchanting, sentimental humorist who wrote from a mill-house, sixty years ago; and he even finds himself telling a story very like that of Dau* det's Maltre Cornille, who continued to send away sacks of flour from his mill long after the farmers had ceased to give him any grain. A mystery, this, to: the villagers; the mystery of pride concealing defeat, for when the villagers searched the mill one day when Maitre Cornille was absent, they found it empty, but for a few sacks of plaster, which he had loaded up on lus donkey and carried out. as if for delivery every evening, and then brought secretly home again. Mr Huddleston s mill had belonged to just such another obstinate. When the farmers began to sell their wheat to city dealers, and it went to the great electric factories, he would riot give in; he would not agree with his sons that the miU could no longer nourish its man, and_wnen they left him he lived alone and idle. But when they came to visit him, hO; would keep them out of the mill Itself, and presently retire to it, on w plea of having so much to do, and bustle about, sing mightily^nd come out again covered with white dust. There was nothing to do. lie scraped along! on his savings, to the last- The stream rushed down the forest, as before, butitturnedthe mill-wheels no longer; and then Mr Huddleston" came t0 A t . live, to observe countryside and people, to sentimentalise, and to write this agreeable book. l ; Thfi book* perforce "will Sftn on ta. Ss®. In city pent. *om% of the odours "the veAh of the of and or -wind* between the river and the hills and TWI tell you of the piccolo P"t> e ® .ia l' fetes, of the Mayor and the r.r&p»-,>d J »»■ thAT were told to me; anu 1 win tew _y»» oi the deep thoughts of e s« y hVtwee» come to me. living mjr simple We between " tho river and " the hills; apd It "Jj v«n will find quiet entertainment and nnp*? sumptuous teaching in this book h ljj^ J shall write in my poaceful village by tl»* Seine. * This ia not writing: fthat of the practised journalist, whohas learned to tune his words to *h» occasion, in imitation of first-class writing on similar occasions. -Put we oirference, even when it is detected, QOflS not extinguish pleasure. Whether Mr Huddlestono is describing a landscape ©r the village musicians, nmrket ;day ; or the church, the making of pebble «OUp or the sitting of the village council, the listener settles comfortably in chair. Yet he is restless. It to impossible not to envy Mr his tenancy of the mili And the mpny usually good photographs in the boo* make envy deeper, ' MORE BARRY PAIN." More By lamp 3P«te. M introduction ty dsn. T.,. Werner Xawls, X>td. I" net.) In this book the versatility -of Barry Pain is much more fully honoured than it was in tho collection called "Humorous Stories," It oontains "In a, Camir dian Canoe," hia earliest* work, published in 1891,' and;previously contributed to the "Granta"; "The OctaVe of Claudius,'' 'much shore mature and' compact work; "The Memoirs of Can* gtantine Dix,"one of the best contn? buttons'to thp literature of roguery; "The Exiles of Faloo," in which probed to deep and aa surelyMUto lu« as he. wuld~<i9ep and surely enough, almost, to justify Mr Noyes'a «omp»nsoq with ne Maupassant; and Exchange,of Souls," a fantasy which ; twenty years have not shaken to p , © < s#s. Undoubtedly he was a true humorist, and there- are few pages in' thiß collection that do not «how it ; bat they show that he had the imagjinatjon and the' seriousness without which a writer who-only "makes fan" grows .tiresome, „and wear®; thin, He. '• character whole ot WW: twirls; he wrote admirable | he picked out precisely jfrom the world those iractiona or it whiCh at any given moment sign thendives .indelibly -on, the memory, and discarded the Vest; he never over-woriced .any triok,' he never under-worked any material ; and ho was a scholar, whose scholarship reveals itself not in learn? ing's weigjit of hand, but in,-the light: ease of its touch ] There is a wealth 'of entertainment in this volume, for about a quarter of tho standard price,; book by book. > 1 '* N -• • J ' THE SKI SPOBT. jJownbUl Skl-EftCtoS. By Oeorga Allen and Vnwto. XAd, (Qs net; . The popularity of the ski sport in the Dominion has Isprung up only recently, but the realisation of the qoal: ity of the grounds. that exist at out alpine resorts, "together with the provision of means „by which, can reach otherr, promises a further development l of * interest as time, on.' So far most New Zealand ski-era are beginners. This book is meant for those who have already gained a cot* degree of skill in handling their ski, but who wish to increase their ability by the discipline of ski* racing. ' The writer, who" is an expert, has won a great number*of important European events, -and his book covers wlioje field of ski-racing, from the special type' of equipment needed, to the little point* which may. make all. the difference between defeat and vie-' tory. Of special interest in Kew Zealand at present are his chapters on the organisation and supervision of nil types of races, including slaloma. The information glfen here unwell- setooutt t aud should prove invaluable. to the secretaries of winter, sportscltibßandto, others, who firo bound to snd the task of "arranging races on their hands. The b£ok ii llliistrated by * »n»b«r «< «*• eellent photograph*.

' A GOOD ROMANCE. Milord and I. By "Anthony Richardson; John Itiit, Ite Bodltj' Head. No reader will have to wait as Jong as SaDuhy Metier did for the explanation of the bond between him and his master; but though the secret of the plot is open very early, the- story loses nothing. Sammy begins as Lord Harriford's stable-boy, becomes his, personal servant and companion, and goes with him on the long quest that , ended . at the Convent of Our Lady of Sorrows. This, their return,, the break-up of Lord Harrifard's nature, afld the decline of Penhayes are well drawn. One of the best' things jn the Ixmk is the Bcene when the arrival of Sammy and liis master interrupts Nevilles roisterous dinner-party; but tnougn everything is well managed, .eVen the resurgence of Lord" Harriford's. powor in the tragedy at the close, many readers will enjoy best the many pages which have the sweetness and vigour of the country in them. Mr Richardson writes well, in a manner caßs the early romances of Sir Arthur (filler-Couch. THE VOYAGER. August. By Pansy ' Fakenham. Duck"worth* Buckingham, in Dryden's satire, crammed his days with experience, And in the course of ona revolving moon Was chyjnist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon. The hero of Lady Pansy Lamb's novel falls Short of this speed and versatility; but in a single summer he explores his susceptibility to feminine influence,: and reaches, as he thinks, the calm of immunity; what Sophia calls "the-retreat of forty-six spiritual years." But she warns him that it may be "merely a respite," and his last before a helpless plunge "into the vortex.''? Sophia is right. In an TV. logue, three years later,,the voyager—a peculiarly reluctant an alarming prospect.- He will be walldug with Ida- in the garden,, sitting on the bench in the phade-r ■ I would ask her the name of those flowers, but the Would neither know nor me, -, Bo back - *r«s Would come to personal topics, sue would force me.: t« concentrate, 'on her appearance and the new vQtl of jnwcnlftcfilice she.had somehow thrown oyer it. only to ray eyes she was transformed! The idea. I might be falling in love,,wit l.ber »uddenly filled me with horror. Both' oar Uvea were emotionally-- otfipty, & things that to her at lwt wm intolmbi* and thja evening .bow helpless I baa felt. J*e» sides, turned out *0 differently from what one expected. ■ ' »-.r i. v-". ' ■' ) "• The characters are only paper shapes, but they> are neatly cut and patterned. A NOjBLE HORSE. Tornado Boy. By. Atoma* .o. Htakle. Chapman and Hell. ,Ab readers of "Black Storm ' will remember, Mr Hinkle writes remarkably well about- horses. This story of Tornado Boy, a blue colt with white Blocking legs, which..ho says i* "based on a real character," is full of exciting incident. Tornfedo: Boy is picked out by McDougal—also an historic as a colt of rare promise; but he is "rustled,and then follow adventures on the prairie, in the desert, in a terrific cattle stampedej until he and McDougal are -together again. J'Wa is hour estfer '"writing .and better reading" than many mors "literary" novfete. acknowledgments. The School Idea, Ancient and Modern. Aa ™ S««y on the Place of Schools to 01*11- - isation arid on tbeJLr preMnt &nd Puapttanß. By Valentine Puis. Allen and TJnwln. (6s net.) . " Mr.Davis's is a, very l good- amount of 'the" (modern growth of education, with retrospects to ancient times, from which he briiigs back again the theory l of education for leisure, tdo often and too easily forgotten in days hag-ridden by economic aims and needs. , Dream, SjmUn JBJ Wright. George -ChHssrap im: 1 -■ 1 * The magician sends .Marguerite ster H back-|n dream ft niillioa y<strs, then sends Stephen Crauleigband his ■ister, joinder w the wm* Tic thxw oio terrible d&jfctU# aftef jreiqendotta adventures in'the 'pre*;) historie World; but when they life again in London the love :of Jlar» gueriW-Bita and Stephen-Stele m mi* broken. f t "SCowfl «• ■ sSipST JRUna - «uP»wn>V Ts" wfe) ' -7he Mastes-of SempttU Pflssid*mfe<®f the Boyal Aerpnautical Society, written'* useful non-technical about aViation, dealing pri>afc,flfl4, air-touring, aii»spo*fcl big, the development of ( theftpertijsMfo dusiry, -the Imperial importance sf: fcg* atitfn, and other ftvpysU pt whi<?h the ordinary man can and shows thoroughlyOwßderstfad;/""'' ' The *y *.a ■ . - emotional story ?f* On her death" Julie herself to hetf*step*brother Boy, whose weakness and selfishness gave her a poor) return for Her,<l®votion. When she w in h<wp|taV remorse seat climb -» tower which he knew wowd fall with him;';., \ The most "bofcuti£ul i »nd wNt dU#gwe* ■ able' girl in the United States and Prince Dantwini, a .noble Venetian, are the Kathajrinie and Potnxohio of a bold» ly written nowl. <SI ni 1 * * Slnz'e Oftstte. Br Vexwas K. PwOaUg*. and Xenerteco- <*s ®d.) The -Oastle was named from being fchei first two-Storeyed building in the town. Doctor 'MoKensie lived to one half of it, with his four daughters and a sonj the Kingsleys and their family \n the. other. Gitls will enjoy the story of their mingled fortunes. . "to the Bsc's Sends. By Cedl Chamyaia t. wrw ,x<»wrte. Wi A vigorous story set in Burma. _ A junior officer.in the Indian Civil Srrviee returns after inany years to his old district, whea the past rises up agaiast h|m, and threatens to- meek lus v and happiness'. • . -' '• / .inquiries, mostly jocuiar, have been made of the publishers concerning Calvin B. Hoover, whose book, "The Hfe! of Soviet Enssia," haslately been published, says an exchange. The name seems too Presidential to be anything bnt a'pen-name, bpt it Is the real thing. Calvin Bryee Hoove? is Professor of Economics in Duke University, North Carolina, and hia father was John Calvin Hoovpr, of Illinois. A "Temple of "Poetry," where poetry societies may meet and young bards find an, audience, has been uxged in 1 • London by I*ady Keeble. Her aim ,w to "conquer EngUnd for poetry and put poetd bock, on their, jwgertwa. "a» natioiml Lady Keamb e jpl®» calls for a plain oak .hall nolding no more than persona an^" furnished ' .with low-divans and armchairs. ' Aropg the wottld be shelves of poetryAlcove* would be sofc aside for epoolal poets and personal , .. , 1 '/t. .r. .'. ... . > i.' .A Vi'i.-A .Ju\lJ-. Xlf.l, !rA."