BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 996, 10 December 1910, Page 9

BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

•; ; VERSES' OLD AND NEW, :■ :;.;; '.-'-," -ST..JOHN viii.,:G. ■".,-■' . The troubled dust ■ '■ ;, Torn from, the stolid world: . -.:■:■ Sleepless as lust. ; : ■ -Rain-sodden, tenipest-Uurlod; Hating its lowly toth, . : And-beating ghost-wings to arise Jbrom. its scornful mother, .the Earth, io the laughter of watching skies ... • '.He-.wrote in it—God who knew -'■■■'■ ™° drear J'-sickness of things, ;. , ■*£* straining to reach the blue -. .With.broken and bloody wings. ... : ? id i■ He_ « ven Hcr-gropo in a sudden dark. -, . .And scrawl in the dust—a question mark? . "..—T.P.C.W., in the "Westminster Ga- : -. fcette." ;. '. -.:'.'.;'-, :" THE ORIENT. : ■ .(From the French of Albert Samain— :■ /'.,. -.;■ ..■■ ; ; (1858-1900.): . ■•■ {tife is a flower I scarcely breathe, 'for ." ■ . ■ -pain • . - ; '. : . .. ■ vis ever earthly perfume after a while. • My fnncy.is Queen of the Enamelled •"' Isle, ■ .... I know men go, and that the hour is vain. Hy-delicate joys are made of porcelain, •' . To keep them whole I use much cans ';■' .and guile; . . '■ . .'■.. . :•■ ; '■ ■', And my yellow tea's blue steam bears . , ■ many.a mile ..•-.-■ ■' -In .scented, flight my "sorrows from mv .:- brain.. '. ■ -. . * j Mive - in.Ta pink kiosk in Wonderland, .. . .And.all day long see from my window- : . '•,- ; frame ; ' . - ■ . . . ■■ - . \ .';■ The golden rivers in blue landscapes, and, i royal Poet robed in purplo dye, - Iwatch,my revery, a butterfly, . .■.'Tlit round the flowery fan from which ■ it came. .' . ■• ■ , . ~ . ~•... —Translated by J. Bilhell. ' ■■'.'■■ {.'■'■-.. . ..colotjrI; - • ■•■'■'. •• Ihe lovely things that I have watched ;-.unthinking, . , ; -. : ■ __ ■ .Unknowing, day by day, ■■■ ■ - That their soft dyes had steeped my soul in colour ■ . . . , ... ; That will .not fade away: ; Great,saffron sunset clouds; and larkspur distance; . i ' ■!• And miles of .fenceless plain, And hillsides golden-green in that un- . -. earthly; . .-: , ' .. ■Clear shining after rain; JAnd nights of blue and pearl; and long, ;:'. smooth beaches "■"./'- Yellow as sunburnt Tvheat, Edged with a. line of. foam, that creams . and hisses. '...-. ' '. . Enticing weary feet— If I am tired, I call on these to help me To dream—and dawn-lit skies, ■ i : '.Lemon £nd pink, .or faintest, coolest lilac, : i'loat on- my soothed eyes -. :■ . '■-■ ■ And almond-trees in bloom; and olean- . ders; ; - . . ■ . ■ :. ■ And then a purple sea Of plain-land gorgeous with • a', lovely - ■ ■ poison, • ' . . ">• ( ; . Tke : evil-Darling pea. ' .". And emeralds, and sunsot-hearted opals. And Asian marble, veined .With scarlet firo; and cold green jade ■ an " moonstones ; ■ , . - - .Misty and azure-stained '■''■■ There is no night so black but you glow through it, _■.-.. ■■■'■"' - There is no morn so drear ": 0 Colour of the World,'"but I can'find ~-;■ ': you- . .•■"■•.' '-. ■■-.:.•:;..: . . l '"-" Most tender, pure and clear. i. ..Praise be to God Who gave this gift of ■ colour :■■•-.'. ■'..-' Wkich/who shall seek shall find; •:■■, Praise be to God Who gives me. strength- :-,- 7 .to hold it ' ~.-.■.: . ■■-. ~■ x : . ~ .;• Though I were stricken blind;..';;"/;. ; -—Dorothea: Mackellar, ..in tW'-i'SMc'tP ■■--■■ -tor-", -.-■-,. - " V '-■",■■• :.', ■ ; ----^/: : : '.■■■■■ . : . . THEMES.SAGE OF AGE. I come to yoli'to sing of happiness, ~.. Which many years.l sought for in-my. -. ';•.'■'.' £oul- '.:..■,-■■. .■-."..- : As though it were some philosophic ..-■■■-■ .goal: . '.' I foundit not, tut,only emptiness., . And then I sought for pleasure in tho , .-.•' press . ; . ,' Of those.delights no creeds or thoughts ; . control, - ; . : ; . :The heat of cymbals, and. the foaming bowl, . And, living madly,. knew content. still ■' , .less. . /,. • .••'■•.• -.■■-. let happiness was hero at hand for me ■■"■■"■;■: ''iS.-?? 0 , I .*, 11 ? ? ven contours of my room- ■ With light just'flowing from- the «ober '■■ -.' ..-• ■ north— • ';. ' • . ■ ■ •".. > ■ • . ' And on the wharves where solemn i- steamers loom, . ■ • ; ; -ip^- B } l , t £ eir .!?3" st<!l 7 of going forth . r:. ; io taste the sullen splendour of the sea. ;:; ■-.; ■ —Frcdegond Maitland.in "ThcNation." ;-,,;,. MOEITURUS.;te' SALUTiT, , - .'. Blackbird,' whose music, is liquid rest.' .-•■■■ Ponr me a draught of your flawless de- '."■ _i." light; • , . :, ' -■-.. Heron, blotting the saffron;west, ' •■■'■:■ ,"??" mc - for me,-be your lonely flight; •■ And, straight from the lands of old ro- _ Kingfisher, clad in that elfin blue, .Let me behold you gleam and glance, .."■ For'soon I must tako my leave of you. :'i, ■■Poplars, whisper to me'your vows, • '.'.ieU me;the way of the wind's caress; ■',■■-. .Beeches,- unbind your noblo brows, . jShake over me each billowing tress;..Woodland pools, with.your pensive smile, . , . And woodland flowers, shy, sweet and ■•■'.-. ■ true, -. .■■•'•■ Lend me your virginal eyes a while- ; For soon I must take my.leave oi you. Green grass be charitable to me ' ■ ;1 hough I bend the spears of your pati- . ~ ' ent host, Teach mo your large passivity, .- Since I, m turn must lie iihdermost- :, But.you, Brother Wormlet, go your way NoMeavetaking'lies Iwfore us two . For we must be housemates manv a dav ; And soon I must make my bed with you. —Anna Buuston. .MR. ASQUITH ON STYLE. .On .October 25,. -Mr. .Asquith delivered .his lectorial. address to the . .'Aberdeen, University/. Wp quote a : portion, of it:— But genius apart, there is much to l s ? ,d ,, for tho °'d university ideal of the all round" man, not tho superficial smattoror who knows' •something ■ about,everything and much about no° : thing, but ono who has not sacrificed -. to the pursuit of a single dominating . . interest his breadth of outlook, the ' ;zest Riid rango of., his intellectual curiosity, his eagerness 'to know and ...... • to 'assimilate-; the best that has been ■■'.-■' and is being, thought and written and ~ said 'about all the things that cither "'contribute fo tho 'knowledge or .'enrich .the lift of man. But if a certain width ■'■■;■ of rango is essential to the reality of academic culture, it is equally true that.in external form and expression it is or ought to be marked by precision/ aptitude, .harmony—by tho qualities, in V a word, Which combine to mako up what we call:'stylo. In all artistic productions there are thrco. factors—tho sub-- ■'- joct, the form in which it is presented, and the vehicle by which; the presentation is efFcctcd. In each of the . separate . arts —painting, sculpture,' ■■ ■'. architecture, music—the particular vehicle controls and limits, or ought to control and limit, tho choice of.suhjoet. .; But given appropriate subject and apt vehicle—and there is nothing in which' tho insight of- genius is better . tc-stod than in tho making of the two - —-it Is the ffirmativo capacity of tho : ; artist which determines the 'value of tho product. That sounds like a plati- :.; tude whcji wo. arc talking of tho lino arts, hut" it is 'strange'hmv rnrojess of fiinii even highly-oduca , ted people show thotrisolvos .in the commonplace every- .'■; d;iy acts of speaking and writing. A riuiti.:'dfi.il of .tho slipshod and prolix etiili wliich wo aro compelled to read or to lislfln to is; nf course, born of 1 ; shew .idleness., When, as so oft<ui

.happens, a man takes an hour to.say what might'.have been as well or better said in twenty.".minutes, spread over, twenty pages what could easily havo been exhausted ill-ton, tlio ofl'cnco in a largo majority of cases is not duo so ■much to vanity or to indifference to tho feelings of others as to the inability or unwillingness to tako pains. And the uncritical' world, just as it is apt to mistake noise o'f utterance for firmness of cliaractcr, lias an almost invincible tendency to think that a writer or orator cannot bo eloquent unless he is also diffuse. In my opinion it ought to be regarded as ono of the serious functionr, of a university to inculcate tho.-importance, and to cultivate- tho practico of stylo. Eoniember that in tho English languago wo havo received as part of. our common-, inheritance tho richest and most flexible organ of expression among living tongues. I say nothing for tho moment "of poetry, which may bo classed, among the arts. But there is no department of tho prose which wo all havo'to speak'and write every day of our lives for which our literature does hot. provide us with a wealth of models and ' examples. There: arefashions in stylo as in other things which have : their day, exhaust themselves, and cannot bo.revived. No one, for instance, would; nowadays set himself, deliberately to. copy tho manner of; Archbishop Craiimer, the first, great writer of English prose, .or of Sir Thomas Browne, with his magnificent organ of many notes, or of Gibbon,' who stands in solitary splendour as the head of: our. writers of history, -or of Do Quiucoy, with his curious and sonictimes irritating medley, imaginative, critical, discursive, but a master who has rarely been surpassed in tho manipulation of the English, sentence! The classical reproductions may bo useful as an cxerdse. -It was resorted to, if I remember .■ right, in his yoivtli iby tho most accomplished practitioner in tho art of stylo that Scotland has produced in our time, Hobert Louis-Stevenson. But; tho: man . who wants to . writo or speak' .English will go to the great authors whom I have- just named, again - and again, not to echo their cadences or to mimic their mannerisms, not merely, even' to enrich his own vocabulary, but to study the secret of their music, to learn ■ how it. is that with them laniguage becomes tho. mirror of thought, to master stop by step the processes by which these cunning artificers in words forge .-, but of them phrases, sentences, paragraphs, and gjvo to each its proper place and function iu tho structure of an immortal work. (Cheers.). But/further, it is not enough that a university should teach its students to eschew narrowness in the range of-their intellectual interests and slatterliness in speech and writing. ■. ■. ■ A SWINBURNE MORALITY. There has just baeiv republished "Tho Children of the Chapel; , '' including "Tho Pilgrimage of Pleasure," a Morality by tho late Mr. Swinburne. The'"London Times" prints this rcviow:—T .. '..-''■ : ' ' This book was first published in 1864,' but the share which was taken in it by.Swinburne is now for tho first time disclosed. It is a story about those Children of the Chapel Eoyal of whose ■ competition Shakespeare complains in a famous passage in "Hamlet." - Mrs. Leith tells us that her cousin, Algernon Charles Swinburne, was staying at her father's house when she began to write it. "Ho took the greatest-interest in it, finding historical details for mo, correcting anachronisms, 'suggesting or amending . names, cos■jturncs, 'and incidents.- In short, not a was written.; ~;wjth6u,t'.! being ircad by him, not an episode worked out advice/ Finally, ho nrq*p'oscd, sinco the .'Children', were to "act ; a play, that he should himself writo a "'Morality' for them." . t : ,' ; Swinburne, like Mdrris, had a wonderful, power of. imitation; but both of :them, being men of original genius, knew quito well when they were .imitating. This Morality may bo' compared with "The Masque oLQueen. Borsabe," which' was.published iu the.first vqlumo of "Poems and Ballads" ; but it is more of ;a Morality than "Queen Borsabe" is a masque. In many passages it imitates the style of medieval moralities very closely, but evenjn these tho Swinburnian manner peeps; out hero and there. Hero is a speech made..by" ■Youth in. reply to the good advico ■ of Sapience :■.-.'■ ■ .

Away.from ine, thou Sapience, thou ; ■■' noddy, thou green fool! . What ween yo I be. as a little child in school? : •■'-.■"•'■ Ye are as an-old crone that mowcth by a fire, ' 1 '.A,bob with a chestnut is all thine' '■"'■ ; heart's; desire. .1 am in mine habit like to Bacchus the . . high' god, . I reck not a rush of thy rede nor of thy rod. ■ . Here in. the last line but one we hear tho voice of. the young Swinburne, and we can see the hand of-tho author of "Poems and Ballads" in tho whole management of. the Morality. He seoms to take much moro pleasure' in writing, speeches for Youth and for Vain De-

light than for Sapience and Discretion; and even when Life preaches wisdom 'to Youth he.preaches liko the Chorus in "Atalanta." , Bethink thee, good . Youth, and- tako \ Sapicnco to thy wife, For but a little while hath a man . delight of Life. I am as a flariio that lighteth theo one hour; •■ She hath fruit enow, I have but a fleeting flower. . . When Youth tells of tho pursuit ' of pleasure, the poet almost to forget the game ho is playing' and to speak for himself. ; We have gone by many lands and many grievous ways, • And .yet havo wo not found this •Pleasure all these days. ■ > Sometimes a lightening all about her . have we seen, ' A glitteriiig of her garments among the fidldes greeu; . Sometimes the waving of her. hair, that is right sweet) . A lifting of her eyelids,- or. a shining . -. of her feet. The' beautiful loose rhythm hero makes ono wish that Swinburne had been moro influenced 'by medieval ■ verse. Tho chief defect of his versification is a regularity of accent i that tends to become mechanical. In fact, ho treats accent as, Ovid treated quantity: But iu this cxerciso ho proves that he understands all tho beauties of an irregularity perfectly suited to the sense; and it seems strange-that ho should not have experimented seriously in these metrical effects.

Death enters at the end.of ,the picco and talks pure Swinburne— When your hearts aro cxnlted with laughter, and kindled with lovo as with fire, . Neither look ye before nor after, but . feed and arc filled with desire, Lo, without trumpets I come; .without ushers I follow behind; And the voice of the strong men is ' dumb; and the eyes of the wiso men arc blind. Here and in all the long speech of Death that follows the poet seems to turn with relief from the. medieval to the biblical influence, as if ho wore tired of make-believe. The whole piece is!a very interesting document. It shows us how vast was Swinburne's knowledge of literature and what a command he had of different means of expression; but it also tells us which of tho many models that he studied were to affect him permanently. Ho was a Pre-Raphaelite only by a chance and for'a little-while. Ho had not, like Morris, a lasting passion for the Middlo Ages. Ho did not wish to live in them or to: recreate them; nor was their music native to his tongue. . Like Shelley, ho was too lyrical to bo a romantic poet at all. , He did not try in liis

poetry to build up a world of his own, uutniado it almost as independent of circumstances us pure music. „ V. 1 . 0 "lorality, as Mrs-. Loith says, will bo found complete in itself, though necessarily cut up' and dovetailed into the story." . That story is worth reading lor its own sake. It tells us bow n- little boy aged ten was kidnapped and taken to ha ono of tho Children of the Chapel Royal, and how ho.camo to ba known among thorn as the Golden Treble. Mrs. Leith maker, us believe it all as she .tells it; but she insists a little too much upon the. constant floggings which the poor child endured. Her moralising now sounds old-fashioned, and wo cannot but wonder whether Swinburne approved of it all. Perhaps ho tcok it for granted; but it is amusing to think that tho author of "Poems and Ballads" collaborated in a book which contained passages such as this— Idleness was Arthur Savile's great fault; not lazy, but heedless idleness • an'-idleness which made any kind' of application, anything liko work that did not fall in with his present fancy distasteful to him. His father often spoke gravely.to him about it, telling him that he was old enough now to correct himself of, the fault, for he was ten years old; old enough to go about his taslcs becauso it was his duty to do so, even if ho did not liko it'at tho moment. ■ But, after all, if people- then were too serious, we are too frivolous; and theirs was the.better fault. There- is good sensein this passage, and it would probably, interest children much more than silly jokes about naughtiness. •'LITERARY" PLAYS. , Mr. C. E. Montague recently read a paper on "The 'Literary' Play" to the Manchester branch of the. English Association. .. Mr. Montague said that what he wanted to do was, first, to look at a few different senses in which the word literary" was .commonly applied to plays.; then, to set askio as much as we might of what was quito loose, or shallow, in any of these uses of the word; and their to try whether, from all ,that was left, we could pick out any ono use.of it which might, if it were kept to, holp us to think clearly and T coherently. • . When a,..play was called literary'it was, as- a rule, implied by tho speaker's tone, that it was much the better for boiug.so, or elso that it was much tho worse. In the way of praise you found, for example, Mr. Henry Arthur Jones declaring that the lasting value of any way, wus-."jc exact proportion to its literary qualities," and a very different dramatist, Mr. Yeats, making it his warmest. commendation of a new play that it was "literature." On the opmsite side you' found -Mr. Sydney Uruiidy saying: "How many, a sound aud stirriug play has held an audience nrmly in its grasp'until—thud! down conies a chunk of.. 'literature , like a brickbat." And so competent a critic as the late H. D. Traill had said: "Of every drama, as wo moderns understand the term, it-may, I hold, be affirmed that, though some of them may, and Uo. contain great literature, they are, to the extent to which they are literary, un.'lramatic, and, to the extent to which they are dramatic, unliterary." In some of these cases .tho word "literary" was used to -denote faults in plays...which would be just as bad faults iu any other kmd of writing , . Clearly it meant, in some'cases, simply turgid, or overornate, or too far removed from living speech., Ihe currency of an alternative phraso for "talking liko'printed books," viz., talking like'.play-actors," expressed the fact that this defect liad always been, at least as characteristic ol drama, as'.of any non-dramatic kind of writing. ' .. -.-,■■ ' We might also dismiss pretty quickly some other- applications of ■■ tl3e> word literary to faulty dramatic. :,writiiiVV liey were applications which; ■■ though' they did, certain measure of 'right-ness, not go very deep.' Thev did not raise any- point of 'fundamental and irreconcilable- difference between ilramatic and non-dramatic writing, mill took, as a typical case of such ciilterence the scene after tho murder in Macbeth," and pictured a competent manager reading "Macbeth" as a now Play, approving' tho exchange of hurried; shuddering little questions and answers that are- gasped out by Macbeth and Lady Macbeth when he comes out to her after murdering Duncan, but striking.out as undramatic tho famous passage on sleep which follows. And .mill 'asked, Would not tho manager hayo been right? Well, that contention seemed to invite two lines pf comment, One was to dispute mill's theory that these longer speeches wore undramatic at all, arfd ™} >t to dispute his implied theory that all drama must be not only aii alrair of action" but an affair of physical action so rapid as to make sustained speech unnatural during its course. The other kind of .dramatic dialogue, the rapid half-lmos/or abrupt, jagged utterances of ono or two words, all much mixed and kiieaded up with visible action, was not literature. Tho truth of ■this assumption tho writer of tho paper disputed at considerable length. One was even tempted to say (ho went on) tliat in some ways a perfect play was not only literary but in a certain sense more literary than most of tho other iorms. of literature.

To sum the matter up, plays seemed (-'{!'■. Montague- said) to be currently called literary either in the sense- that they were written well or that they were written badly. Those condemned as literary might again bo subdivided into those that were specially ill-written for stago presentation and those that wero bookishly ill-written altogether. And, again, the plays that were commended as literary might ho subdivided into those that were felt to be specially wellwritton. for the stage and those that, while they contrived to exist on the stage, also satisfied critics of Traill's

way of thinking that they were worthy of a higher life as bound books. So that a "literary" play might mean a play wholly bad to read and to see, or a play wholly good to read.and to see, or a play good to read but bad to sec, or even a play bad to read but not quite bad to see. In fact, the distinction between literary and 'dramatic was ono of those distinctions that seemed very real when you thought lazily, but diminished 'until they almost vanished when you thought more vigorously. It was in that respect liko the distinction between knowing a thing theoretically and knowing it practically; wo all used that sort of antithesis and took for granted, in a slipshod way, that theory and practico wero a pair of natural opposites, though a careful thinker would tell us that if we know a thing theoretically hut did not know it practically then we really did not know its whole theory, and that if we knew it practically but did not know it theoretically then we did not really know its whole practice.- Such, almost exactly, war, the distinction between literary and dramatic quality in a play. If one's own conception; of literary quality and of dramatic quality wero weak and confiis3(! the distinction was a gaping wide one. If by literary quality, we meant bookishness and by dramatic quality we meant staginess, the antithesis between them might easily he striking. But in

proportion as one examined and defined more exactly one's own conception of literary excellence on one side ami of dramatic excellence on the otlier, ono found the assumed contrast to be fading away into nothing. Just as' knowledge of the theory of a thing almost ceased to he distinguishable from knowledge of its practice so soon as wo began really to mean "knowledge" when we said it, and not merely "semi-know-ledge," 'so literary merit and dramatic merit might cease to seem to,us to ho in conflict at all if we could only clear our own minds of the last trace of slovenly thinking about tberu.