THE CHARM OF SIR JAMES BARRIE

Manawatu Times, Volume 60, Issue 196, 21 August 1935, Page 16

THE CHARM OF SIR JAMES BARRIE

MAN WHO MADE A “LITERARY SHRINE” OF THE LITTLE SCOTTISH TOWN OF KIRRIEMUIR WHERE SOME OF HIS STORIES ARE SET

g AERIE (Sir James if you will) onco said, through one of his characters, that the greatest charm of London was that you could eat penny buns without peoplo turning round to look at you. That may bo ono of its charms. But is it its greatest? To some its greatest charm is that you can wander on to Adelpni Terrace and rub elbows with the author of “Peter Pan" without his paying the slightest attontion to you, especially if tho day bo mild and ho is particularly caught with tho charming viow of tho Thames which is to be had behind tho iron railing, writes Mr Walter W. Cunningham. To see tho Thames, Barrio docs not need to step on to tho terrace. His flat overlooks it, and ho has so many windows that observers looking up from the street have been heard to remark that he must have the best view in London. Yet ho lives on tho edge of a great world of traffic, for the Strand is within earshot, and tho gardens of Kensington, which he found interesting enough to weave into ono of his most delightful tales, aro only a fourpenny ride away. There are really two Barries. Tho ono you see losing himself in tho traffic on tho Strand is a jaunty littlo man, with a quick step, and a head not unlike that of Lloyd George. At any rate, so thought Lord Riddell and Robertson Nicoll, and they both had ample opportunity to observe him. Ho is modest in dress, not overcareful about his habiliments, and shy. Particularly is he shy of the Press. And for good reason. The Press never knew quite what to mako of him. So its giants made him a target. Which probably explains his aversion for interviews.

his “Auld Eickt Idylls,” “A Window in Thrums,” “Tho Littlo Minister,” “Margaret Ogilvy,” “When a Man’s Single,” “Sentimontal Tommy,” “Tommy and Grizel” and “Tho Little White Bird.” His books had an immediate success. They found a cordial reception not only in Great Britain, but also in tho United States and tho Dominions overseas. Tho result was that a crop of imitators sprang up overnight, and for years they wero known as tho Kailyard School. Those who havo come to know and liko “Jess” go back again and again in imagination to tho littlo window out of which sho looked for 20 years at the world as if through a telescope. Nor do they forget easily tho humour of Tammas Haggart, who contended that no humourist should be expected both to make the joko and see it. Is the Haggart -who went on the platform during an election campaign to heckle tho speaker, and who paused in the middle of his question to take a drink out of tho speaker’s tumbler, likely to disappear from the shelves of fiction? Then what is to bo said of Tommy and his friends, or of tho sclioolhouso in tho glen, or of the “Dovecot” where the teacher was so fond of tho flowers in her garden that she had a notice board erected, which said appealingly: “Persons who come to steal tho fruit aro requested not to walk on the flower beds.” Recent commentators on Thrums (Kirriemuir) and its people have been prono to remark that tho characters -which Barrie describes no longer aro to be found there. To some extent this is true. Tho generation of which ho wrote found its living in the hand loom, not in tho power loom which has succeeded it. Tho motion picture has wedged its way in, and tho oldfashioned Saturday night has gracefully taken its doparturo with a firm conviction p that it was out of tho mood of the time. - Yet tho types which Barrie so charmingly depicts are still to be found on the fringes of Thrums. In ono village about five miles distant from Kirriemuir I recently came across a woman of a generation gono who preferred to cook her dinner on tho old iron grate, with its crane and hobs, and iii a kitchen with an earthen floor rather than on the modern stove which her-child-ren, now grown up, had so kindly installed to save her unnecessary labour. As for Barrie’s plays, the world has rendered its judgment in their continued popularity. Yet, in tho beginning, they met with a mixed reception, ono friendly critic venturing to predict' Barrio would never succeed as a playwright. Needless to say, ho has since reversed his opinion. But Professor William Lyon Phelps of Yale

University was moved to superlatives. Ho said:— "J. M. Barrio is tlio foremost Englishspeaking dramatist of our time, and his plays, taken together, make the most important contributions to the English drama sineo Sheridan. .. . He has the intellectual grasp of Galsworthy, the moral earnestness of Jones, tho ironical mirth of Synge, tho unearthly fantasy of Dunsauy, the consistent logic of Erviao, tho wit Ox Shaw, Ihe technical excellence of Pinero." Some of his plays, it is true, are now seldom seen on the stage, particularly his earlier efforts, but there are still audiences, keen, appreciative and plentiful for “The Little Minister," "Quality street,” "The Admirable Crichton," "Peter Pan," "What Every Woman Knows," "Tho Old Lady Shows Her Medals,” "Bear Bratus," "Mary Bose," and "Shall We Join the Ladies?" Barrio onco said he wrote plays because the plums wore there for the picking. That, of course, could only have been in jest. The stago merely gave him another outlet for his genius. As an essayist he proved his mettle in, among other writings, "An Edinburgh Eleven," which still finds a public avid for its contents. Nor is lie loss happy in another unsuspected realm. That is in tho journalistic world as a teacher. The revelation has come through 11. G. Wells, who has just confessed that it was Barrie who'turned him on to the path of successful free-lance journalism. Wells for years had been seeking rare topics. Tho higher lie shot tho more often ho missed the wark. Editors did not want material of that kind. So Wells learned from Barrie to lower his mark. A passage in Barrie’s “When a Man’s Single" had impressed Wells. It taught him that editors did not want beginners’ views on politics and reflections on art, and theories of life, for tho very simple reason that their readers did not want them. "An editor tosses aside your column about evolution," he said, through one of his characters, ‘ ‘ but is glad to bavo a paragraph saying you saw Herbert Spencer tho day beforo yesterday gazing solemnly for 10 minutes in at a milliner’s window." It is too early yet to determine the place of Barrie in tho literature of modern times. That much of his work will survive is conceded by many of his commentators. Critics of tlio drama still find his elusivo pen a baffling study and.in the end arc generally forced to resort to the inadequqatc though common description of his writings as whimsical or wistful. From what source does his elusive charm spring? Thatsis the object of the latest literary inquiry. The poems of James Hogg, the Ettrick shepherd, have been examined, and a slight hint found of a tale which resembles in some small degreo the plot of "Mary Bose." But the genius of Barrie remains. Genius may uso tho props of literature but tlio product of its thought is unassailable.

This is the Barrio in person, tho man, groivn up, who presented himself in tho editorial room of the Nottingham Journal in 1883 ready to begin his literary career as a leader writer at the humblo salary of three guineas a week. This is tho Barrio whose heart went out to London when the editor of tho St. James’s Gazette encouraged him with his sketches of Thrums, an editor who, no doubt, influenced him later in life to write that, if you would succeed as an author, first get an editor who believes in you. This is the Barrie of fact. The other is the Barrie of fancy. Seldom is he out of the limelight. Either his “Dear Brutus” is entertaining adults in ono end of London, or his “Peter Pan” is winning its way to the hearts of children in the other. Or if the stage be dark, the critics aro certain to turn tho light upon him in a speculative discussion as to whether the next play he produces will depart from the lines of “Mary Rose” or once again weave a web of mysterious fantasy. Fiction engaged the pen of tho Barrie of fancy up till the year 1902. In the period preceding that year ho had produced