Literary Views And Reviews

Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24535, 7 April 1945, Page 5

Literary Views And Reviews

■ VoNFESSIONS of a -rationalist

; ?. --oedally Written for "The Press.”) i ■ [By F. SINCLAIRE.] ' ' Ppeisoa is king”: I had just tranijwSTthat maxim from one of the and was airing it a-little my friends, when one of them to my notice a > recent proof one of our modern Mr John D. Rockefeller (junior) Pheen letting the cat out of the ; ’ ** ind giving us all an intimate View [ t hitherto secret places of .his ; -T The greatest thing in the world,/ ’ to this eminent authority, ' which he calls. Lpve'-with ’ letter. Not but what he be- ■ vf-w!also in several other edifying Such as the dignity of labour i: capital). “He would,” was I 'CTishtly oblique comment of a SS&Tto whom I communicated this Rockefeller’s allocation: -P®Lf any of my readers is in search he had better read no furl do not deal in that comS i return brazenly and dog■ijjf to my text- I refuse to be sideis king.” My text was chosen i {hP hope of placating and reassurL mother type of reader. I mean austere critics who have Jieen SaWn'2 their heads sorrowfully «ihgslsaid lately on the subtot of rationalism. Reason is king: ri it for the third time, and l aVn I Sv at all times to subscribe that Kind great commandment of the asSu*®!. am--are none of us. nowadays betters in absolutism, and the kingship to accede to Reason is also, I take ■ » a umited monarchy. The king is ’ trflimd’-'td-listen to his advisers, and ISdrees are valid only with their Smnce. To put the matter less Savely, the appeal to reason is ifi seasonable; but the . findings rfreawn are valid and fruitful only g their right context. of Mystics- . example, the maxim I am By text. I quote it from 'He who' would rise, above ys the same philosopher in inatherißWOe,. “falls outside it,” Sound Suianat? doctrine, surely! But the «H^^tS : V-ill hardly claim Plotinus spirit;- Even, those who, Bflm’have little more than a with that writer, as one of the fountain-tS'of-European mysticism. And it 7, &#at' mystical context that his must be read and infilled'’ The Part must be reflated I to mwholt. There alone it is. signified' -Else-it sinks to the level of should be able to quote Wh’fifc, aphorism from such a source surprise no one whp is at all, - Miliar; with the Jives and writings ttWVWiPts and mystics; ‘ I- think -it te George Tyrrell who described S jjpbU ;‘Bs a mystic with art incurVolfairean mind. He was fair from ’befog’singular in that spiritual equips rtoaf-’His Wbrds might -almost, serve ' » a'rough-and-ready description of SalayVlSal type- If I were .required sjdwhpfle a small anthology of ration-, s Jfißgf believe I could doiit'quitq well .j myself'tp the literature nr even to our own jgculfer,treasury .Of English prose and ; poefry. For the present I -must conmmyself with a few random illustrations; , No good rationalist, I suppose, deals lauch in visions. But there nave been times when the visionary has claimed and received much consideration,, and the question of the genuineness and tignificance.nf visions has been*seriiusly debated.' In' the course of such «; debate, one disputant maliciously ’reminded his hearers that among the, -visionaries must be numbered Balaam’s fas. One can imagine the laughter and epplause which would greet that sally If from a modern, debater, Actually it came from one Bonaventura, a • canonised saint of the iCbjffch. Another’ party to the debate dismissed visions as “childish toys” or iVorse! He was the saint now generw. known as St.. John of the Cross. i«t another tentatively diagnosed ssions as symptoms of indigestion. Mire applause.) -This last suggestion came from thaVgregt-souled womail of eur English-Pddt' writes: ‘ - - : f^^'neyW ; 'Wdertbbk/to-know death with love ifiouid have to do;' VjVet though she cannot tell you why,’ ■ ; 'JShe con love; arid -’she; can' die. , Saint Teresa, too, like her brother tfpts, had her Voltairean moments. ?But her greatness rests (precisely on .things “she neVer undertook to know;” oh l heroisms conceived and achieved Jhe cannot tell you why.” “ "Spiritual Is Most, Rational’* ’ And now, having begun to quote -from niy proposed anthology, I am ' embarrassed by the wealth of material -before me. There is St. Paul, for ex.ample, 'who had rather speak five Words with his understanding than B,OM “in a tongue”; who will pray With his spirit indeed, but also with ha understanding. Or there is the ; German mystic) Eekhart, telling us aal the final- appeal must always be "to the 'deepest part, of my, being, arid .that’- is‘ my.. reasbn.” ; Or. • turning /abruptly tq another :tune and place, .•■-there are the great sentences ,scat- ■ tered thickly-about the writings of that Poud- of? English writers of the seven-Wenth-.century known as, the ; Gam- , bpdge.-Platonists. “It ill becomes tis,” JsW.one of them, “to make our. intel- . actual faculties jGibeohite3”.;.’and again; I oppose not spiritual to rational,-for : wntual is most rational.” “Reason in “an,.j’ says another writer of this §®up, "is lumen de lumine, and , light . “owing from the fountain and Father or Lights.” And as for our English P° e «. I dare not begin to quote. But ;joust not end without at least one ‘Herence. Expounding his doctrine imagination, Wordsworth de•wlbes that faculty as “reason in its most exalted mood.” I hope I have said enough to prove w my. rationalist critics that I, too, am ? nationalist in my own way. That get all the rationalism I need tocn sources as I have been inffleating; And with this advantage, mat here I find it in'what I have its right context. Here is the 01 common sense, of intelligence common honesty, put to itd right ijs right proportions. Salt is W?| e > I |'the salutary cold douchje I, re “. to our over-heated and P^- ed /F imagination, to our Wishful -thinking and seductive senti- .‘ (j by teachers who do not ask “8 ro spend purlives % in the cold bath.

ARTHUR SYMONS

an appreciation note on Arthur Symons, cC -" [Desmond McCarthy], ' if?Sv?.'s2 t *' e “Sunday Times” of'Januthose ™ one book may be added to WflcahrS °2 ed their s P* la l S'S*s Symons''s long list. It is Buws of Several Centuries" (1915). Sytncns. critic, essayist, poet, SSek ng Hi“ ied the l« e ° f ™ i ll 5. importance has been thouoi? ■ u dunng the last 30 years, nineffiL whosoever wrote about the has never failed to note it. deed man of finest, sensibility, inPerind°i< e u SO ,- sensitive that at one *cured °Ti! u fi. Ilfe h>s reason was obsbouu'ioiw 31 happened. I think, round .'iWnti ~® 08- • When he recovered he Indik cur i ous account of that inter■*diti««r madness for me when I was diseJ™Li«j lfe J a . nd Letters.’” He had and interpreted, long before %e^SJ g i. gene . ratlon who ignored him, writers whom they adored: S«d. Mallarme, Beaudelaire, Lank “ e had been for years the channel of communication beiiench and English men of let>2s*l® as the modems were con-’taeni-I, T ? ee “The Symbolist Moveflf i»!»u e critic, and also a translator t. • s “Studies in Prose and *,J£v ‘Romantic Movement in Sg“Sfi Poetry,” contain first-rate teiT-.®,- ar, d his essays on painters §£,^‘ c . ve yy sood things, notably awuouse-Lautrec to Rodin.” He was ipateose critic, bent on not merely

BOOK OF THE DAY

BRITAIN’S INDUSTRY Secrets of Industry, By Lewis C. Ord. Allen and Unwin, IGO pp. a Britisfr'-production expert whose qualifications can be read in the appointments he has held in the United states, Canada, and Australia, has written this book . with a patriotic motive: to apply the precise and practical tests of efficiency, as he knows them,-to Britain’s industries, and to show, as clearly as he can, what must be corrected, or abolished, or introduced if post- war ( conditions and-their demands ate to -he successfully met,' 1 It ’is not to .be gainsaid that Mr Ord’sanalysis -as disturbing. He exempts s°me industries (including cotton,which: is surprising, ’ and shipbuilding, which, is not) from his criticism;" but exceptions leave it a wide' range, and deep significance. This significance is derived chiefly from -thi following points: that British, orgamsatiii®* maintains too high a ratio of nonproductive to productive workers; .that;:lt has neglected in its wages policy the great importance of the home market; and that the between-wars protective policies of tariffs and of trade agreements to maintain prices and profits have checked the pursuit of productive efficiency. One quotation must suffice: Nowhere are great industrial efficiency and low prices more necessary to British industrial success than in .the steel in-, tfustry; It..vitally affects other industries' •whose success largely depends on the price at which they buy steel,f-Yet this British Industry . . . has led the way In trade associations, price agreements, rings, and cartels. . . . In an industry where volume is important, rather more than 200 British companies shared between them less work than was handled by. .the United States Steel Corporation , atone. -Where efficiency in steel making l Was vital to the nation, where volume was necessary to the greatest efficiency, they wouldnot let the unfit die end let the fit go on to greater efficiency and volume, they, kept prices so high and the volumb; split up so Ismail by trade associations that the weakest, the least efficient, .could live and make » profit. ; : Speaking (‘as - an industrialist to Indus* trialists-and as a citizen to citizens:** Sir George Usher in his intrqdUetlon, says that tb\s is a boqkthey,ought to read and consider. So should politicians. AT A GLANCE BRITISH LIFE . Messrs’Longmans issue for the British Council several new pamphlets. A valuable addition to the British Life and Thought, series is No. 20. *a survey of British Industry by Mr G. C, Allen. Brunner Professor of Economic Science in the University of. Liverpool. In the Britain Advances senes. The Crew Were Sayed (by Charles Vince) is a lively account of the Life-boat service, men, boats and gear, and exploits; and- Youth and' Th§ Land (by L. F, Easterbrook) describes the Young Farmers' Clubs,' which, with .their, 50,000 members', represent one-of the most vital of British youth movements. Both these pamphlets ate very wpll iU lustrated, as, also is Thomas Burke s The English und Their Country, the first of a series which is planned,to inelude Scotland. Wales, Ulster, and so on. 1 .", .. 0 f : ;.

PEAC6 Mr Lionel Curtis, editing the speeches of ; Lord Ldthiah as Ambassador in .Washington, was impressed, by his view that the .democracies-could reach security only in 4 collective organisation, submitting ’ "lieir sovereignty to it “under the reign of a single constitutional law.” In The Way to Peace (Oxford University . Press. 98 pp.) Mr Curtis fully develops this thesis., Its political philosophy opens to readers very clearly the objections to that which prevailed in the form of the Dumbarton Oaks agreement and its avowedly “realistic” : compromises between , anarchic sovereignty and the imperatives of the-rule of 1 law. ( * MENANDER -

Gilbert Murray, adds to his list of translations, -valuable alike to Greek, scholars and to readers who have no Greek, 1 a translation of the "Epitrepontes" of Menander; a translation- of. the surviving fragments, rather, round*’ e3 out to completeness by artful “stitching”. and invention. The Arbitration (Allen and Unwin. 125, pp;) has peculiar interest to-day; when, the civilisedworld ,is' riven by war as .it jwas^'-wnM' MfenOnder wrote, ironically- reflected; and laughed. , ■ , V . v„ LENT BOOK The subject of the Archbishop .of Canterbury’s Lent Book for 1945, by the Rev. David G. Peck, was suggestejLtp him by the Archbishop (Dr. Temple) himself. Living Worship (Longmans. 88 pp.) “throws light on what worship is, on the elements in our corporate life which cut off ordinary pepple from the worship.of God. and on the changes that are necessary if worship and me are again to a living unity. This summary is from an editorial note by Canon A. E. Baker. CZECH POETS , The Progressive Publishing Society prints Mr Frederick Ost’s Three Essays on. Czech Poets .(54, pp.). They are Vrchlicky (1853-1912),, studied m comr parison with- the German humanist, Lessing; F. X. Saida (1867-1937); and Petr Bezruc (1867-). .The interest of. these papers js less that of literary •criticism, per, se, then of a: literary approach to. the study of Czech national culture and its struggle for democratic 'Autonomy. : ,

AN^^TISM ; M.P., will convert few anti-Semites with her- Falsehoods and Facts About the Jews (Gollancz. 16 pp.); but she will do what is as useful, if not more so. She will steady and inform against prejudice, rumour, and sheer falsehood the potential anti-Semites who “don’t believe everything! hear, you know,” but lend ear and lip to a good deal of it.

HOW TO MAKE— Mr W. Lee’s Toys From Scrap (Useful Publications. 74 pp.) is intended not only for those who will make toys for use in their own homes but for those who will market them. Some good general advice on pricing, materials, tools, and general methods is followed by detailed instructions, with drawings, 'for 20 toys, some simple, some complex. TORY-TWEAKING

“Cassius,” now identified as Michael Foot, continues as a pamphleteer,of the Left to exhibit the pungency that made “Guilty,Men’’ deadly and "The Tria,l_ of Mussolini’’ arresting. In Brendan and Beverley (Gollancz. 78 pp.), he dramatise? certain embarrasshients, that Conservative propagandists will encounter in pursuing a. traditional line 1- of party defence.

AUSTRALIAN INDUSTRY • The Institute of Public Affairs, Victoria, whose industrial committee drafted the document, has issued a statement of post-war policy for Australian industry, under the title Looking Forward (Robertson and Mullens. 72 pp.). Comments on the related functions of the State and private enterprise in the economic field are well balanced.

General Smuts’s ’Plane Struck by Lightning.—General Smuts’s Ayro York aeroplane was struck by lightning on the flight to the Empire Conference, states the Press Association. The crew were temporarily blinded, and the radio and electrical equipment were put out of action. General Smuts’s personal pilot, Colonel Plat ; Nel, who knows the route ‘well! decided to fly on, steering by compass. . The daxnage was repaired at Kisumu.—London, April 4. '

defining, but also transmitting his feelings about art. This method (Pater’s, Swinburne’s) was not in favour during the last half of his life. Nevertheless, he will be read and robbed in future. I honour him myself much than most critics, and his love of beauty in all the arts was deep. He was absolutely disinterested.