AN AUTHOR IN HIS WISDOM

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 196, 16 May 1936, Page 25

AN AUTHOR IN HIS WISDOM

Autobiography of Henry Nevinson “Fire of Life,” by Henry W. Nevinson (London: James Nisbet, in association with Gollancz). This outstanding autobiography is a condensed version of Mr. Nevinson’s “Changes and Chances” series of three volumes. It inspires to* a reading of the longer form, for, as John Masefield remarks in his short but wholly delightful preface:— No better autobiography has been written in English in the last hundred years. Mr Nevinson has been in touch and often in'friendship with nearly all the great men and women and rousing movements of the last fifty years. As a young man he saw the aged. Carlyle and listened to some of the last of Huskin's lectures; in his maturity he combated slavery abroad and the wrongs of women at home. Now, in his wisdom (as we will call what follows his maturity) he sees his causes victorious, the slaves free, the women voting. . . . Probably few men have had more chances of being knocked on the head in the cause of liberty. Certainly no man with such a noble record to set down has had the charm, the wit, and the graceful irony which make this book so delightful and will make it memorable in time to come. In these four hundred-odd pages, packed full of colour, incident, comment and detailed description of famous men and women,, it is difficult, in fact impossible, to pick out highlights. The record of a long, brilliant life moving in its intensity, leaves the vital interest centred in the character of the author through whose eyes this passing page of history is seen as a whole. Mr. Nevinson is not one of those who, in an attempt to find out what it is all about, are content to stand aloof observing, commenting and philosophising on the bewildering pageant of human existence. Rather is gathered the impression of one who has plunged deeply into the not always clear waters of life, of a soul purified by experience not abstinence. Childhood and youth so often sentimentally painted in the clear, bright colours of care-free innocence become by his hands touched with dark suggestion, periods of self-conscious uncertainty, and sensitive misery “illuminated for us by all manner of strange and wandering lights . . . but new stars also and the constellations to which Ulysses set his helm.”

So we pass this with youthful admirer of Sarah Bernhardt “up and down the railings of the Parc Monceau, where she then lived, carrying a big bunch of violets which I had not the courage either to leave at the door or to throw into the kitchen window”; to social work, and the name of Samuel Barnett, to travels in Germany and a meeting with Ruskin, whose earlier beardless appearance' he has described so well; to Decademe and the inevitable accompaniment of Oscar Wilde’s name; to mention of W. 11. Grace, Kropotkin, Shaw, Samuel Butler, Olive Shreiner. Gordon, Gray, Thomas Hardy, Buller, Kitchener, Tolstoi, Mrs. Pankhurst, H. G. Wells, Roger Casement and Ramsay MacDonald, to give a few of the varied assortment of names indicative of this extraordinary writer’s wide enthusiasms and activities. • With all of these, and innumerable others, Mr. Nevinson has been “in touch and often in friendship.” He has felt with the ecstasy that is pain the beauty of ancient Greece, has seen 1 that country and others in the throes of war and slavery, has lived through the horrors of the Great War and the sorrows of its aftermath, and.now “in his wisdom” looks back on it all. An interesting drawing of the author by Sir William Rothenstein forms the frontispiece to “Fire of Life,” a title inspired by Walter Savage Landor’s well-known poem “Finis.” PSYCHOLOGICAL DRAMA “Christina,” by Claude Houghton. (London: Heinemann, 7/-). As a writer of what have come to be called psychological novels, Mr. Claude Houghton remains pre-eminent, in spite of the many worthy rivals who have entered his particular field. He has a most original mind, and with it a dramatist’s power of setting down his creative 'ideas in an extremely effective manner. Occasionally his originality has led him to explore beyond the common experience, and one or two of his books in consequence have not had all the popularity they deserved. In his new novel, however, he is back on perfectly familiar ground dealing with a dramatic situation.well within the scope of the average reader. His theme is based on the discovery by a man of a series ot letters written by his wife before her death to some anonymous lover. Peter Brand, the husband, is at once consumed by an overmastering jealousy of the unknown man. He had loved his beautiful wife, Christina, for ten years without ever understanding her, and his deep grief that death should have robbed him of her is completely overwhelmed by the thought that she was never his to lose.

.Mr. Houghton handles the plot with rare skill. He builds up a convincing and powerful portrait of Brand possessed by the determination .to discover the identity of his wife’s lover, and lie ends the book on a forceful and ironic climax. One of the minor characters is particularly memorable, the broken-down, genteel Dan, who is in every way an effective foil to Brand. HOW AUTHORS LIVE The greatest, work of fiction, said Sir. Cecil Roberts in a recent address, is the story, as published in the Press from time to time, of what authors’ make. He believes there are somewhere around 4000 novelists to-day—-presumably in Great Britain —bub 3500 of them are not making more than £2OO a year out of their novels. He estimates the income of the average novelist as from £l5O to £2OO. He was discussing the subject one day with Sir Philip Gibbs, who mentioned that he once read in a paper that he (Sir Philip) made £30,000 a year. He almost fainted. Of course it was nonsense, and if you took the nought off it would still be nonsense. According to -Mr. Roberts, the author who can afford to run a RollsRoyce maintains it not hy his books but by profits from outside sources. Very occasionally, if a book has had a big enough success, a film company will buy the title, bub not the book. He could himself go to see the film of ono of his last books and get a plot for the next. Or, perhaps, a newspaper rings you up and wants an article, and, if your books have been successful ic will pay a fairly hig figure for the article. That is how authors live.