BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 484, 17 April 1909, Page 11

BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

1 J VERSES NEW AND OLD. . THE,LAKE ISLE OP INNISFEEE. ' I. will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of day and wattles made; • ' Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee, • ' And live alone in the bee-loud glade. , Arid I shall have some peaco there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from tho veils of the morning to , where tho cricket sings; There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a / purple glpw, j Ana evening full of the linnet's winge. I will arise and go now, for always night and I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; , ~ While I stand on tho roadway, or on tho pavements grey, I hear it in the deep heart's core. —W. B. 'Yeats. j • v , ON-EXPECTING SOME BOOKS. To-morrow they will come. I know s How iich their sweet contents are, so Upon their dress let Fanny play— i Will it be blue, red, green, or grey? Sweot Books "that I havo oft heard named, And seen stand up like blossoms framed, through ..many a common window shown— When I was moneyless in town; . But never touched their leaves, nor bent 1 Close to them and inhaled their scent. .' They'll''come, like Snowdrops to a Bee That, tired,of ompty dreams, can see ' Eeal flowers at last.. Until this time, How on the threshold of my prune, i I did not guess jny poverty:' That none of these rich books, that lie Untouched on many a shelf—save when A housemaid, teaming of young men, A'nd musio, sport, and dance, and dress, Will bang them for thejr dustiness— * That 'none of those were in my caro; 1 To-mbnow I will have them here. I Well do I know .their value; they Will not be purses found, whioh may i Be full of coppers, nails, or keys— They will not disappoint/ like these. 0, may their coming never cease! 1 May my Book-family increase! Clothes, pictures,'ornamonts of show, i Trinkets and mirrors—these caa go Outside, that all my Books may be ' Together in v one room with me. ' —William H! Davies, in ""The Nation.' , THE LATTER-DAY PROPHET. "No one reads Ruskin now," said one of the leaders of artistic circles the other , day, and very likoly she was right. If she had ' , shared the misfortune of being born thirty years earlier she would have lain at Buskin's feet thirty years ago in a lodse blue cloak and a shimmer of fluffy hair; But time . has been kind in'keeping her for a later day when she l may. find more beauty in,a foggy mudbank than'mitlKrAlps, and in. a motor's cfceam than in all the stones 'of Italy. To be born late is an advantage that defies attack, end every year's revelation begins by quietly obliterating the last. ' It is magnificent, this procession of continually advancing splendour, always''reaching forward with unsatisfied longing for change, always dropping behind rt what once was thought so dear, strewing its path With a litter of outworn affections. To be sure, there is something a little pathetic about it too, at all events to the affections thus outworn. And in this,oaso there seems a - peculiar pathos that the i leader of artistic have uttored'her easy.condemnation just on tho ivery day when, after many years of faithful-and-.ungrudging labour, the final volumes of the great Library Edition of Ruskin's works were ready to appear. Thoy appeared last Thursday, and the noblest memorial , that devotion and selfsacrifice have ever raised to a Master is now complete. - Mr. Geo. Allen, Ruskin's disciple, friend, and publisher,"who designed this great and final edition, is no longer here 'to' rejoice in its fulfilment.'. Bpt,tho. editors'; -Mr. ■E. T. Cook and Mr.;Ale'xan'der'Wedderb'urn, can look back' on 'having accomplished a work almost unequalled, we suppose, in ,the history of i scholarship, whether wo regard .its difficulty, its labour, or Hβ success. It' is sometimes J the way of genius to be greater than its work, and there was about Ruskin's personality a living soul',whose influence Went further than anything he wrote. But in these 37 volumes is encased as in a shrine all that is-tangible in the life-work of one of the strangest ■ and most conspicuous men of genius that England has produced, and ono of the most influential upon our national oharaotor, no matter how much the vogue «f artistio oircles may affect to disregard him now. Influonoo is an unconscious thing, and many who feel it mosrfc are not awaro from -whom it comes. But ihoro are some left who upon the course of years" littered Vitb. fading reputations can still approach ■Oils shrinoin gratitTid© aliko to tho builders snd to tho noble spirit .whom , it oommemo- , tates. The last tffo rolumes contain, a'l selection from RtntaVa lettors—a Bokdion raining ( to peroral hundred, perhaps to & flronwid. / or two, for RtjsMh was eopiouß in loltcr•wTlUng as m everything ho. did. only ■wish the iwQ.rfloro volumes had. been added p> aa to include tho answeis. Then wo tmouM have had a ploture of nearly all last century's leading tnonght and art, Aa it is, though letters do not make a biography, being often ionly the expression ef passing moods and usually w-riHen to please or to discuss Borne easnal interest, still wo can i follow in them' the career ana, to pome exi tent, mind of/'a man who touched last ' eentnry'a life' at j some of its moat vital points and profoundly affected thorn, \Ve are i first takeft baek to the w«3l-t6'-do middle | plaes, family of days when Queen Ylotorja ' ■was playing with her dolls—4i typical family ' except far |h© father's strain of something s like geiiras in ,Britioal appreciation. We see fhora all gathered on a suburban hill —pious end ev3Bg«hcal, reading , the Biblo persis-1 iently from aid to end, but not esoluding ' ether literature of the best kind, liking Pope, and "even "admitting Byron with some ' hesitation. We see them setting. , out upon their holidays in the family«. coach, with a joyous senso of cha'ngo and advoirture such ,« as no motor over equals. Compared to the mother, .as Ruskin confessed, he and his father ilways appeared '■ rather profane a'ncf rebellions characters, and in ono of hor leti , tors, written to .her son when ho was 60, there is;.'a touch *hich .unconsciously, noveals (the nicety and pious trustfulness of hor nature. ' "I havb had some experiwico of ono of i your large grasshopper!, sho writes, "and jbavo no desire to havo anything, more to do | rrrrth such acquaintance. I dtsiiko the insect tribe altogether, except as they excite, rny , .deep reverence towards tho Life' sustaining ' them." - . ..' . From such breeding, which people, under forty can no longer understand without a difficult effort of imagination—from such decent and profoundly solemn breeding, as always in the eye of a loving though overwhelming Power, Ruskin, acquired the reverential nvind that oan find no subject' for scorn or jest in, beliefs, though knowledge has outworn them. What he. said of self in politics was truo of Mm in higher things tnrtn those: "Bred a Tory," ho writes, 1 "and gradually developed .into an indescribable thing, certainlv not a Tory.", Or again, ' "I am a Conservative by instinct,*-loving old things because they are old, and hattng now things merely because they are new." ■ It is thts reverential love for the beauty or the past, this pious consideltition for tilings that oifr fathors have told us>, which distinguishes him amonpc the great leforming spirits of his age. It is true the ago was deeply touched by the same reverential honour for encient nobleness. We havo but to think ' of Nowman in rolvgion, of Carlyle'in literature, or of the Pre-Raphaelitcs in art, to see ■ bow profound that feoh'nfc was among the finest minds. But in Ruskin'it reached a passionate yearning. , that surpassed all tho ethers in regret and in the sorrowful indignation that embittered his existence. For on all wdes, in roligion, in common life, and in art, he saw the remains bf ancient beauty crumbling away together with the boliVfs that gave them birth. ' When ,tho present • writoT met him oUce in ' Savoy, Rnskin was contjuua-Hy' lamenting that the snow was no longer so pure and deep on, Mount Blanc as in his .youth. It may have been true or not, but tho profound regrot with which ho said ifc , was caused by the disappearance of many other things more important for man's I -"jjirit than the snow'upon Mount Blanc.

This reverential melancholy marked him early. Some years before he was thirty he wrote to his father from Pisa:— ; "..I do'believe that I shall live,to see the ruin of everything -good and great" in' the world, and have nothing left to hope for but the fires of the judgment to shrivel , up the cursed idiocy of mankind." But more effectual, : though not less tormenting, than these haunting regrets for the beauty of vanished time was the'spirit continually questioning why .the present was thus growing in hideousness. That questioning spirit was part of the man's peculiar, accuracy'. and. depth of vision. There was nothing he did not see. Till he spoke, he appeared to be all.eyes. Behind everything visible he saw something else again, and then something else, just as in opposite looking-glasses the reflections' go to infinity. .'■"■•ln tie commonest things it., was always, the same.'Going toone of his Oxford lectures, ho saw-a little girl wearing her mother's old ; boots. "Why does a little girl-wear'her mother's old boots?" he kept asking, and.the question led him through all modern society to the.limits of the universe. Or again, in walking among mountains, which he loved perhaps more passionately than any form of beauty, he would suddenly ask, '! Why is .ground at an angle/of 40 anything better than ground at an angle of ;30—or' of 20-Hjrof ; of nothing' at all?" 'And so the question.would take him back and back by suptlo analysis'.to'.the ultimate"'problems, of life. -.; •" . ■ . _. 'It was the same in" literature; and that is why, in spite of his extraordinary admiration of '-••" Aurora.Leigh " in these letters, he,was one of the keenest arid most enlight-t ening critics of a great age in criticism'. But, above.all, it was upon the new social copditions of the time that' this questioning 'spirit was turned. In'a truthful analysis of his own nature which/he sent to ; Henry Aclarid, when he was nearly 40, he writes :— " I am forced by precisely the. same instinct to : the/consideration;of political, ques-tions-'that '.urges: me' "to examine the laws' of architectural or niountayi forms. /I cannot ; help doing 5 so; the questions suggest themselves to me, and I am compelled to work them, out. I cannot rest till I'have got them :cloa'r.".-' : ;■;'•;, " ;■" ■'. .;■' '.''■'■'■''. -/ ■;.'" ■ ; And it is'in this.sphere that his'spirit'of unresting question has had its/widest influence: .Perhaps we see the first definite beginning of that influence ,when. he/gave evidence in 1860 before a Parliamentary Committee on Public .Institutions. He ihus describes the' scene :—r ■ '.;■ .'. ' /. "You would have been amused at seeing some of their faces as I got out, in repeated and clear answers, my hatred of competition. At last, on. my'saying finally that all distress mainly came from; adopting for a prin-ciple-the straggle of man with: man, instead of thd'help of. 'man by man,! Sir Robert Peel burst, ont with: '.' ' Most, extraordinary:sentiments, ,1 must say,' Mr'.. Ruskin;' V ■'/•,.' : /',As;.before/ it .needs a strong . offort/of imagination to call up the age when all Raskin's sentiments, on economics as on art, appeared ' most' 'extraordinary.; to the leaders of thought and to all educated and commercial: people. Suoh: sentiments, as that the worfcmaii is of more value than the and ■ that' art ii; worthless as'long as life .is, hideoiu, , have'now become/the common currency/ of /thought, /arid . .few remember the startled ■ indignation .■/ with: • —'. '* '/"■' ■; — whibli<'•( they;■:'. •first '' ?were" '!'■(" . : ; ■'/'■;/' : ;greeted./..Stilli;.it_is .not'so;: ■.//' l ;-//;; ' very..'long. thirty "•' years—since\the commonest, , , criticism'.; : .ori ; Riiskiri ' was ; - that he. was perfectiy/rigbt ' . as long as he stuck to art . -.and:'.-left economics -alone, ' and it ; ; is. strange to thin! how- exactly ■ : :that '"• criticism ; hasiifOTv ;been reversea.'/, ':,', :■'.'.' ':'-, Dr. Brown', once called/.llusldn ; ,"a/ E stray..", .angel , ly/hq : .has ,'singed, his .' wings'' a ''little/ and tumbled. 7 " : into,,' ; .cur''"sphere;:-' He'^hais';..: all; the arroganc3, : insight, ■ unfeasonablehcss,;and .spiritual sheen, of .a celestial."; . 'It?is:.a, ; triie! description,', for-.,,•; in ;'all'his [life, one is. conscious: of ! ai violent' ahdi'paithetic '. disharnjprij>[!> l be.tween , - 4 himself.. , and; the , ,' ..world around, him. : He was con-, sciousvof it; himself,; and'it ,„; Jwasjihe cause qfjthemelarir \-{, 'choly 7 .that '"■' ' pervadecl ' his , '■'. Highest joy; and: ..hie 'ten-.:.-. deresf. humour.' ''This; work-, . ing.; in'■; a> way contrary ;to one's ■'• whole , nature;"., he y wrote' to the! Brownings, l ".tells ;uponvone .at: last:—. :, my own pleasure ■I should be collecting stones . and . mosste,'.. drying and ticketing them—reading scientific books—walking all day long .in" summer—go:jng,to; plays, and what not, in, winter—never writing nor. paying : a,.. word—;rejoicing' ■'.' tranquilly/ or' intensely in piotiires, in music, in plea- ' santfaces, in kind friends.". r\ . .;., ■■His glory was that, sur- ... ~, : rounded by. "the evil of ttiie ; ; present world, ho cirald /I'ot' ——— '■ —- : accept 1 that angolio life.; Singularly conscioun jiof jpaelj , ; beauty,. he, could not" let ; thq past :blina him to,the hideonsriess" in which it }iad issued,' nor could "the passion of his indigiia' tion, allow him ,to rest-in thosp calm and; exquisite havens where lie would be.—"The Nation.!'; .'.;':'■■, ;, / ;.■ /.;■/.;: -. ; ■:'■ :; ' : On thjs page ire give a , seleeftion from Swinbnrne'e: poema, chosen'to, give .some idea of thegreat range.iof hl3p'qotry, Thoilo.vors of the poet wffi be sent back to thoir volumes by the newa of ;hb'death; and many Deople' -who .do not know his poetry well will be j anxious io extend their octpaintanqe with it/. The eo?t ef his varieua works is unfortunately .rather high—the pis-velumo edition ef his peema; priced; at £2'2s, jn New Zealand,- eosta enly ■eneJeutth : ." ef the separate volumes. The volume of'eelectiena issued by Ohatto is net"; dear, ;but' the adof the peet;generally; cenaider it a very unsatisfaatory seleetien, • A much better- anthology,,and.a cheaper one,;has been issued by Cremwejlj.ef New afeTk, ' ••■'■ : /