Is This “Y.Y.”?

Evening Star, Issue 23527, 16 March 1940, Page 3

Is This “Y.Y.”?

There ere not very many literary men, end women whom one wishes greatly to meet in the flesh. Rereading that, I find it en ungracious sentence and hasten to explain that this reluctance i*. due less to non-appreciation of their charms than.to a' painful consciousness of iny own limitations. This shrinking, from the society of the great and the brilliant may perhaps he due to egoism; looked at in the light of cold reason, it can be caused by nothing else than a dislike of appearing more of a tool than Nature has already achieved. let, I foci privately convinced that,-whereas there must be many, brilliant people who would be intolerant of my mediocrity, there may be others who might tempt, it for a brief space to blossom into a temporary brightness. Is it not merely, human to prefer the lattei?shall, for example, never cease to regret that I had not the joy and privilege: of meeting Winifred Holtby. Yet I have never wished to undergo the aiming ordeal of an interview with her .friend, Vera Brittain, despite my very great admiration for this lady. It is just, I suppose, that Miss Holtby was always so kind. One has but to read her letters to know, what one always suspected, _ that her every goose was a swan. Miss Brittain, oh the other hand, has always, impressed perhaps quite erroneously—as a brilliant' and critical' person. Egoism prefers the genius that is a little blind, a trifle prejudiced in favour of lesser folk. ■ , ■ Coming nearer home,T always wished for the opportunity to know our own Robin Hyde; and now, alas! I .shall never meet that clear flame of spirit that burnt itself out too soon. But I am grateful that I can say that I knew dear Jessie Mackay, and, some day, I feel sure, I shall be very proud to tell my grandchildren that 1 can count John Guthrie among my friends. In spite of tjie handicap of being born.a Npw Zealander and of having dared to write of his native land, this young man hae - accomplished much, and will do far more. But, before I become too personal for, popularity, I had better write of the man of whom I have been thinking all morning. I should very much like to, meet Robert Lyhd, that incomparable “Y. Y. ” of the ‘ New Statesman,’' that author of several charming collections of essays. And why, incidentally, do so few people read essays? Why is.it so hard to obtain Robert Lynd’s work at the library? “People don’t seem to like essays or short stories,” my librarian tells me. Well, they are missing a great deal. A short story or’an essay per? feotly written is a rare gem, the greater? for its self-imposed limitations. However, I shall nag at my patient friend until I have persuaded the library to purchase the latest Robert Lynd and the'latest Professor Murdoch; both have produced timely volumes for the last Christmas market. Yet it is Lynd whom I want to meet. Murdoch, it is true, approaches him nearly and is one of the'greatest light

Written by MARY SCOTT, for the * Evening Star.’

essayists of our day. Moreover, he is nearer home; it would not be, perhaps, so difficult to meet the professor of an Australian university. Still, my preference remain obstinately for “ Y.Y.” It uiust be because he is such an extraordinarily human person. Never was there a more self-revealing essayist, never one less of an egoist. Ho displays himself—or rather his faults, for, like all great men, he is content to leave his virtues to take their chance — and does it all so casually, so deprecatingly, without one excuse, one hypocritical pretence at future reform. We know all about his untidiness, his unpunctuality, his mediocrity at sport, his detestation of boredom and of business. It is these very failings that make us want to meet him so much. It is an ambition nnlikely to be gratified. I am certain that he is no self-advertiser and but the most elusive of lions—nor could I ever claim any prowess as a big game hunter. But, after all, it doesn’t much matter. I have a few of his books and therefore possess a friend. Thousands of his readers must feel the same. That is the charm of a genius at once intimate and elusive. It is also the result of a sense of humour that makes us exclaim a dozen times in 20 pages: “ I know just, what he means; I’ve laughed so often at just the same silly things. “ y.Y.’s ” sense of humour is that rare kind that laughs freely at himself but gently and always' deprecatingly at others. I have been rereading an old essay of his upon happiness and have paused several times to rejoice at finding all I have felt so long expressed so much better.. “Y.Y.” is charming when he congratulates himself on all his negative happiness ”; in other words, he is so glad not to be so many things—not a clergyman, not a business man, not a dustman nor a working man, a bombthrower or a dictator. I grasp ms hand across the ocean when I hear that It is my notion of Purgatory to have to. listen day after day to speeches, even if every speaker were a Demosthenes. As for business: “I have the'greatest respect for many employers, but the best of them seem to lead punctual, clock-work lives and. to be slaves of telephone and typewriter.” I don’t think I have ever seen a photograph of “Y.Y..” yet somehow in my mind is recorded a picture—perhaps a fanciful one —of tins shy, kindly, unapproachable humorist. 1 fancy that he is tall, lank, untidy; that he sits at his desk—to which ho invariably comes a little late—with long legs twisted and smoking an unaristocratic pipe, . I am sure that he is shy and a trifle inarticulate, that he writes spasmodically and at times with unwillingness and 1 many curses. However, I may be-all wrong. He may be short, rubicund, stout, with twinkling eye and a jest lurking in the lines about his mouth. lam afraid that J. shall never know, for, even if I were able to pursue him to Heet street, J. am sure that “Y.Y.” would _ shun, a woman' journalist like the devil. And so 1. shall keep my picture. Perhaps it is just as well.