LIBER'S NOTE-BOOK

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2693, 12 February 1916, Page 9

LIBER'S NOTE-BOOK

The Late Stephen Phillips.

Recent Home papers contain many interesting articles 011 the late Stephen Phillips and his poems and plays. One of the most interesting appreciations of Phillips is by Holbrook Jackson, in "T.P's Weekly." Those of' us (says Mr. Jackson) who can remember the ascent of Stephen Phillips's star of poetry into the liigh 'firmament of enraptured applause) havo not yet ceased to regret its all too sudden eclipse. Pootio hope never ran higher than it did when Mr. Elkin Mathows sent forth, in 1597, that thin grey-backed pamphlet labelled " 'Christ in Hades,' by Stephen Phillips." The critics for once were in accord; they fell over each other in acclaiming a new poet. Comparisons ran high. The great names of Milton and Keats were dragged in; and when, a year or 60 later, the poetic drama, "Paola and Franccsca," appeared, there was 110 limit to the enthusiasm. The earlier critics had exhausted all exalted comparisons save one, and the enthusiast was not lacking for long who 'would boldly link up the new poet with Shakespeare. The die was cast —alas, for criticism—alack-a-day for poetry. It was the first act in the tragedy of Stephen Phillips, the Poet.' The last act closed but yesterday with the production of the uninspired "Armageddon." Surely it was a man who died last week, not a poet. Phillips's Finest Poem. Mr. Jackson considers "Christ in Hades" ti) have been Phillips's finest work. When, says Mr. Jackson, he wrote "Christ in Hades" he dealt with a theme which. has held the imagin action of our race from the dawn of that faith which should, but does not, bind together all Christian peoples. Countless generations have wondered over the phrase, perhaps the most' arresting of all . phrases in the' New Testament, "He Descended into Hell." Theologians, without number, poets of many times and places, have striven to expound those words, each in their several ways; and although Stephen Phillips attempted a task which only the greatest have succeeded in surmounting, ho acquitted himself 66 well that the generations to come will read his poignant lines and feel that they understand something more of the heart of darkness. "Christ in Hades" is the fugue of' unsatisfied desire, of unfulfilled hope and wizard desolation of souls that nave not found anchorage. I know of no poem which succeeds so admirably in the creation of quiet impressiveness. Christ passes through Hades in silence. The mournful denizens of that place are made to declare their sorrows. by the . wonder' and curiosity of ,His presence—for they know not the" mission of their strangely placid visitor. ; They, attempt to satisfy their " hunger for'news-of the living world by pressing him for" intelligence. The poem is. so well-knit that its real magic may.. scarcely be conveyed by quotation. And one may'nOt'say .which is the more ..poignant incident; in .this symphony o£;anguish, ,Wetherj.it: be, the woman whb:niistook?CTrisi-fdr\some : newly-arrived man-seeking his beloved, or the young man who "broke in : on her with eager' words".:. . Seo how we live along exhausted. streams, ■ . Eluding forests, and dispersing hills;' Oh, but I gloried and drank and wept . and laughed! . ..'... . Give me'again great life! ; To dare, to enjoy, - To explore, never to tire, to. te alive, And full of blood and young, te risk, to love! .: • ' f . : The bright glory of after-battle wine, The flushed recounting faces, the stern ; hum Of burnished' armies, thrill of unknown seas! One may nut, I say, distinguish between these high-wrought emotions which are so expressive of human experience. Francis Cribble on the Huns. . . j. Francis Gribble, the well-known Tflriglish author,' had the misfortune to be in Germany when the war broke out, and was interned for many months at Ruhleben. He was released in Sep--tember'last, and in the current "Nineteenth Century" gives us some impressions of his life in Hunland. He does not tell us much about life at the camp itself but he gives a clearer picture of the state of mind of the average German than I have yet seen. The famous "Hymn of Hate," for instance, "may represent the fixed ideas of Tirpitz and Iteventlow and Triefcschke's 1 most' ardent disciples, but it does not represent the fixed ideas of the average man who reads tho" "Berliner Tageblat." In his case the song .represents a wave of feeling which passed and now tends'to diminish pari passu with the increase: of the ; anxieties and sufferings of; the people. We at Ruhleben saw it wax and wane." The prisoners' at Ruhleben know a good deal more about the progress of the war than their guards suspected; but by what means some'of the correct news arrived Mr. Gribble "must not say" just yet. Ship-board \ Society. Here is a smartly-drawn little picture of ship-board society, from Stella Benson's clever novel, "I Pose""The general geniality whose rule only lasts for the first three days of a voyage was reigning supreme. Young.men were making advances to young ladies, with whom they woiilcl certainly quarrel in forty-eight hours' tinio, and young ladies were mocking behind their hands at the young men they would be engaged to before land was reached. The priest with an appearance of sugared condescension, was showering missiles upon the bullboard as though they were blessings. (And they were misdirected.) The inevitable gentloman who has crossed the Atlantic. thirty times and can play all known jsamns ■with, fatiguing perfection was straining like a greyhound on the leash towards the quoits which mere amateurs were usurping. Captain Walters, who has a twin brother on every liner that over sailed, was brightly collecting signatures for a petition to the captain concerning a dance that very evening." A Dominie's Log. There aro some good things in "A Dominie's Log," by A. S. Neill. Of schoolboy "howlers" we have had, perhaps, a surfeit, and not a few readers have tho suspicion that the best of them aro concocted rather than genuine. Mr. Neill, however,, vouches for the truth o't' tho following yarn of a "howler" and its sequel:—Tho inspector was rather "ratty." "Here, boy," he fired at a sleepy youth, "who wrote Hamlet?" Tho boy started violently. "P-please, sir, it wasna me," he stammered out. At this point "Liber" was inclined to cry a chestnut, a palpable chestnut. But Mr. Ncill's sequel is original and amusing: "That evening tho inspector was dining with the local squire. "Very funny thing happened to-day," he said, as they lit their cigars. "I was a little bit irritated, and I shouted at a boy, 'Who wrote Hamlot?' The little chap was flustored.

'P-please, sir, it wasna me!' he stut- j tered." The Squire guffawed loudly. I "And I suppose the little devil had i done it after all!" he roared. : Another of Mr. Neill's yarns relates ] to a professor who was lecturing on i astronomy to a village audience "In 1 seven hundred million years, my friends," he said solemnly, the sun will be a cold body like tho moon. Thero will bo 110 warmth 011 earth, 110 hgnt., no life—nothing." A chair was pushed back noisily at the back. of the hall, i and a big farmer got up in great agi- ; tation.. "Excuse me, mister, but hoo 1 Jang did ye say it wud bo till that hap- . pened?" "Seven hundred million years, : my friend." Tlio farmer sank into his chair with a sigh of great relief. "Thank Goad!" ho gasped, "Aw thocht ye said seven million." Stray Leaves. Anything and everything about General Sarrail, the Allies' Commander-in-Chief at Salonika, should bo of interest to New Zealanders, since it is fairly certain that some of our mon from Gallipoli are taking part in the Macedonian campaign. A pen portrait of Sarrail is given by Charles Dawbarn in his "France at Bay." "Sarrail's conduct at the retreat from Mons was," 6ays Mr. Dawbarn, "soldierly and full of resource, and ho certainly contributed to the success in the Marno. He wears a greyish beard, which, with his clear, ratlier prophetic, eyes and lorehead, give him a striking resemblance to lienri Quatre,' the Bearnais. But his physical resemblance has not reacted 011 his character; il n'est pas plus monarchists pour cela—in fact, he is a good Republican, one of the few .Republicans, so rumour says, in the French higher command." ■ The unusual run of literary talent in tho famous Bonson family has often been noted,- but few perhaps realise that it has been by 110 moans confined to tho triumvirate .of brothers, one of whom, Monsiguor Hugh Benson, has so recently died. "The practice of authorship has run in my family to a quits extraordinary degree," . writes A. C. Benson; in his new volume, "Escape and Other Essays." "In four generations, I believe that some twenty of my blood-relations have written and published books, from my cousin Adelaide Anne Proctor, to my uncle, Henry Sidgwick." And referring, moreover, to his father, the late Archbishop of Canterbury, Mr. Benson says that "though ho. had great practical gifts of organisation and administration, he was very much of an artist at heart, and would have liked to be a poet." . . Mrs. E. E. Cuthell, whose life of George Keith was recently published by Stanley Paul and Co. under the title "The Scottish Friend of Frederic the Great:, The Last Earl Marischall," is now engaged in writing the life of his brother, Field-Marshal James Keith. Messrs. Groaning. and Co. will have ready shortly in their Lotus Library Series of translations of Continental authors, "Madame Bovary," by Gustaye Flaubert, "Salammbo," by Gustavo Flaubert, and "Sapho," by Alphonse Daudet. " , I' learn from the New York '.'Times" that the curious story entitled "Me," recently published by Mr. Fisher Unwin, is the work of Mrs. Winnifred 1 Eaton Babcock, whose pen name is Onoto Watann'a. Sho is tho daughter of an English father and a Japanese mother, and was born in Japaii. One of her novels, "A Japanese Nightingale," ' has been given as a play in New i'ork. She married a journalist, which ac- > counts for' the knowledge of American journalism which, as. I recently stated, ■ is the chief attraction to me of her new story. .