TRUTH ABOUT AVAR,

Grey River Argus, 9 November 1920, Page 2

TRUTH ABOUT AVAR,

Denunciations of the evils of war I are often identified with the workers, but it is seldom that one of the professional classes outside labour ranks candidly tells the truth about it from tho standpoint of th e educated person. One such, however, is Mr. Middleton Murry, . the editor of the "Athenaeum," one of England's best writers and the most penetrating of modem critics. Throughout the war he wa s writing in "The Times Literary Supplement," the "Nation," and the Atthenoeum,V articles which, though they were unsigned, those who admired them came to recognise easily enough. He has collected them — or most of them — into a. handsome volume worthily produced by r Cobden Sanderson, under the non-committal (title "The Evolution of an Intellect"ual." If he 'had t o particularise, Mr. Murry would choose .a. title indicating that, his essays were a study of dissillusion. Like some, be wns hopeful in view of the professed objects of Britain in entering the w;*r, 'and, like most of us, the war w»s for him a revelation of the extent to which npble ideas can melt away, and be replaced by policies miserably lgno- ' ble. In essay after essay, lie finds himself returning to the frightful ' truth expressed by Duhemel in his "Vie des Martyrs," A human; being suffers always «in his flesh, and that i s wliy war i s possible." The i ■ dreadful explanations of this truth, as ! applied to a: consideration of the late ' war, are acuteTy felt by Mr. -Murry, and although in his misery he may | 1 overstate them, yet we forget the overstatement in the presence of l.is i honesty and courage. The war wa?s Ifor him a defeat of imagination, a::d j he finds after it . nothing good, f r little that is good, excepting a stoical, conviction that men are imperfect, and that the illusions ate gone : "The gain is at best precarious ; more probable, ;*t \s imaginary ' What we* have lort stands hrm and lives. Let us take, the Stoic part and declare that death conieth soon' or late, even though we know thab the part ill becomes us who find no less fascination in a» life ni which the' gold has dimmed to grey; let us hold fast to the one unshakeable facir that never before in the. histoi'y of the world* has a mass of evil been nakedly manifest. For pain is the one undubitable evil that we all know. Nothing cani obliterate the mountain of suffering which hag been, endured, The millenium itself could not compensate for it ; not even if the pain had been; voluntarily sought, and so far as deliberate will could secure it, gladly pn.-lured. Even witM these rew there was the moment when the fiercest will failed" before, the hod.ily agony. And of the whole how many were there who suffered willingly? No glorious future, no splendid purpose aciiieved canj ever justify these hecatombs of pain t . They are . adamant and elemental ; they canno£ be resolved iftto anything other than themselves, naked, unforgettable evil. Therefore, when resignation has slowly scattried its balm upon wounded memory, when determination has steeled itself to shape %he world anew, we should still make heard our una-

vailing cry that the yfears and the pain of the years should be blotted out."

He is a seeker after ti'uth, clear-

headed, passionate, disillusionpd, and

undaunted — truth, ins politics, in life, or in letters. While his book will reveal a very materialistic mind, it will perhaps have , a wider

fertilising effect upon the students of politics than those .in other classes, yet all those who are

eriously concerred with the present and future of literature will find help, light, and guidance inj these essays. The present day novel he thinks is poor, unreal, and - shallow, andj' he doubts whether the novel will be the form in which the harmony of a wisei' future will be expressed. He deals

with the Russians, and that he is right in his preference for them, i and that men are coming to drift al- \ ong in the direction) in which Mr. Murry knows he is going, is made evident by the. hunger and thirst of English people fof the great novels ot the continent. The Russians were am>on g ; the firgt people to see the futility and error of the war, arjd they have now taken a stand that will command for them from among all classes in other lands a growing interest as •'the years pass,