NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14210, 5 November 1909, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

■ RUSKIFS LITERARY METHODS. The Pall Mall Magazine has been fortunate enough to secure for its October number an article of the very greatest literary interest, "The Story of a ; Great Literary Undertaking: The Editing of the Works, Life, and Letters of John Ruskin." This article is written by Mr. E. T. Cook, who, with Mr. A. Wedderburn, has. just completed the "Library Edition of the Works of Ruskin," in nearly 40 volumes. " I have been for many years living, as it were, behind the scenes of this pageant of style," writes Mr. Cook, " a pageant, I may remark in passing, which is as full of variety as of splendour. I have been poring over Ruskin's manuscripts, and admitted, through his diaries, notebooks,- and letters, Ito all the secrets of his literary workshop. What, I may be asked, are the secrets? I suppose the truest answer would be to say that there are none. ; You may analyse a style into its component parts as systematically as you like, you may i trace;- -label, and collate as diligently, as you can; and you "will * Be" Ii tile nearer. in > the end, than in the beginning, to the secret of a great writer's charm. and power. The essential features are those which underived and incommunicable. The style is the man. - There were two daily tasks, I find, which Ruskin seldom omitted. He rose "with the sun, and before breakfast he made notes of a few verses of the Bible discussing with himself the precise force and meaning of every word,' exactly as he tells us in ' Sesame' to dp with; all our serious reading; and then he took down his Plato , and translated a passage from the Repubor the ' Laws.'. J:; If the notes in' the library edition do nothing else, thev will, at any rate, have impressed upon students of Ruskin the constant use he made of the Bible. It colours alike his thought and his style, and is ingrained in the texture of almost every piece he ever wrote. How beautifully clear, how instantly impressive he can be! His style is now pellucid and simple—as in ' Prajterita,' the simplicity being combined with the most exquisite art /in conveying each shade and nuance of, meaning. And now, it is grandly • sonorous, fitting its thought and passion to the exactly corresponding language, in , which every . word is right and contributes something to the effect of the whole. What was the secret of his style? Here, again, I cannot tell you. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou nearest' the sound thereof, but cans't not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth; so is everyone that is born of the spirit.' To follow Ruskin's methods would not enable a man to rival his style, unless he also were born of the spirit. But Ruskin himself would have said, I think, what he reported Turner as saying, I (know of no genius but the genius of hard work.' The search for ths right word, for the fitting sentence, was often long, and paragraphs and chapters were written over and over again before they satisfied him."

GERMANY'S INTELLECTUAL LIFE. " Germany is renewing its youth in the magic cauldron of an economic spring. To this are due the peculiar. features of the people's development,'' writes Dr. Broda in the International.- "The population of the Empire is increasing by a million annually. The question is how to create. industrial openings for this army of individuals marching to labour, and -: the only means , of salvation lies , in intensifying the industrial character of the Empire and in increasing the number of oversea markets. Amid the pressure of masses little room is left for private individuality, human beings have to crowd together for wholesale, collective labour German trade and " German industry, like the German army, must do its work by the intimate co-operation of all its" parts. On the other hand, the rapid growth of large cities and the infinite expansion of productive forces have led. in many respects to economic and intellectual arrangements resembling those in America. Beside these two great tendencies resulting from the striving for political power and scientific expansion, a third intellectual tendency,, but timidly displaying itself, may easily be overlooked, however full' of promise it. may appear for the future; It was not born on German soil, but in the kindred nation of Norway. Ibsen is its leader, and in glowing preached the gospel of the full development of individuality, the free unfolding of all intellectual powers, the ruthless investigation and criticism of all existence and the. unprejudiced search for ..truth. Ibsen's plays &re demanded again and again on every German stage, *"';" The "influence which they have. gained over the modern playwrights of * the Empire and over- the rising generation of Germany is extremely great. At '"his" side stands his almost equally « famous . ■ countryman, \ Biornsen. Through them and their numerous ! Sol-.

lowers the German nation has been' '~ ; '< meated with a spirit of ov ema «Ji£ i truth, which scornfully expose* the wSf hypocrisy of eocial life, " and preaches . ideal of .uncompromising, MependsaS This doctrine has many pointe in cwS' with Nietzsche's idea*. ' Both proclaim^ - ideal of unfettered personality. But whi*' Nietzsche and his pupils 6ing ,0f forL; - through which the individual rises supers 4 to weakness, Ibsen demands the victory f ' pereonality over everything thai is ba«r ' the individual ego, and the more fufl '• ripened nature 01 the nation, but without , the ■ oppression of the < neighbour. W more the German nation drinks from th proffered goblet of mental refinement ft > sooner will it find its proper relation again'. to the rest of the nations." - ■--■"", •' -(.ff i; .;.