LITERARY NOTES

Evening Post, Volume XC, Issue 92, 16 October 1915, Page 16

LITERARY NOTES

The assumption of British nationality by Mr. Henry James which we recorded last week has been warmly welcomed. "If Englishmen were asked to say who was the greatest living romantic writer in the English language, their votes, we imagine, would be pretty evenly divided between Mr. . James and Mr. Thomas Hardy," says the Westminster. "Mr. James, as all who know his work are aware," says the Telegraph,- "is in the field of literature the subtlest, closest, and sincerest observer of human conduct. His attitude towards us, and the judgment that he has formed about us, are expressed in his most characteristic manner in an essay entitled 'The Question of the Mind,' which is issued in pamphlet form at the price of one penny by the Central Committee for National Patriotic Organisations." "The great mass of bad writing is produced by people who have nothing to say, and who therefore can use neither the language of ordinary talk nor the language of emotion and thought," says The Times. "What they do use is an imitation of the latter, because they wish to convince themselves and others that they are expressing emotion or thought when they are not. Thia imitation, unfortuna-tely, is very catching, and is often caught by people who have something quite simple to say, and who therefore become unable to say it. Writing when it is artless is very easy ; when it is art it is very difficult; but when it is neither it is impossible." "Belgium died for Europe. Not only was the soldier sacrificed, for the nation, the nation was sacrificed" for mankind. It is a sacrifice which is, I think, quite unique even among Christians, and quite inconceivable among pagans." — G. K. Chesterton. As a literary critic, Lowell's ability is being questioned^ even in the United States. One of his own countrymen, Mr. J. J. Reilly, has written a book to show how poorly equipped he believes Lowell to have been for the function of a writer. The Athenaeum, commenting on this book, says: — "Mr. Reilly unrelentingly and exhaustively examines his claims, and with patience and determination finds him wanting cm almost every count. It was a work which only a fellow-coun-tryman could have undertaken, and whether it was necessary to undertake it, or whether, now that the work is done, it will bear fruit, probably only a fellow-countryman could tell. Perhaps it would have been kinder to leave Lowell's criticism to the inevitable verdict of Time's Court, where its long-windedness and mechanical vivacity would have laid all subtler questions to rest. As a critic Lowell undoubtedly is dull, and, though we can believe that he has the other faults Mr. Reilly attributes to him, there was something of supererogation, we think, in pointing them out so systematically." fThe Prussian cult of Attila and "Hunnism" has reminded a correspondent of The Times of a passage where, in his "Diplomatic Reminiscences," Lord Augustus Loftus records an observation of Bismarck's: — "Why, after all, Attila was a greater man than your Mr. John Bright. He has left a greater name in history. The Duke of Wellington will be known in history as a great warrior, and not as a pacific statesman."