“KATHERINE MANSFIELD.”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20586, 8 December 1928, Page 17

“KATHERINE MANSFIELD.”

PUBLICATION OF HER LETTERS.

(Fhom Och Own Correspondent.) LONDON, November 2. H letter!) of Katherine Mansfield ” issued in two volumes by Messrs Constable and edited by J, Middleton Murry, | will doubtless be reviewed locally in the Dominion. But New Zea- ! landers may be interested to see excerpts from some by the reviewers here. Under the heading, " A Rare Artist,” The Times comments! “ How good these letters are! How brightly vivid, how keen their vision and how continuous the awareness they express, ■ * . . Katherine Mansfield had always the gift of portraying a scene or ant incident to perfection in a few happy phrases, and 1 in her letters it served her well. She was never trivial, because her pen trans--, formed even her trivialities to something 1 sometimes lovely, sometimes amusing, always readable.' For matter she had only to walk along ’ a street or look out. of her window; but her impressions and comments are always relevant to her circumstances' or her mood. These ! 600 pages of letters give a very complete account of the last 10 years of 1 Katherine' Mansfield’s life! They were ! scarcely happy years. Fate ordained that the greater part of them should be lived away from her home, her husband and her friends, usually, abroad and in increasing ill-health. . . . The letters express all moods, from the despondent to the hilarious; there were certain times, one feels, when she had to laugh to preserve her sanity. These painful moments are few,-and in fact" grow rarer-as disease gains upon her; she hasf not much, all things considered, to say about' her illness, and when she does complain it is usually because she cannot do more or . better work. {3he, was a brave ‘ woman.' As a writer she took herself seriously, not so much for what she had done as what she felt it in her to do. The sense which is apparent in these pages of a profundity deepening to a fine placidity marks the development of pne of the rarest artists i of our time to a point the topping of. which, in essence .if not in obvious ■ achievement, places her in the company of those great ones whose names she continually invoked.” , ' A SENSITIVE HIND.; Mr Arthur Waugh, in the Doily Telegraph, considers that it will always he an open question whether we ever dp true service to a .friends’s memory by publishing private and intimate corre- , spopdeuce. _“ In every such case the editor has-to ■ divest himself of personal association, and assume the attitude of the man-in-i the street. He has to blunt the edges | his affection and sharpen his-sense of, humour. It is no easy business. Every Uvc correspondent has a way of catching the spirit of the recipient of his letter; j little secret jests peep out of the narrative, private grumblings will not be misunderstood, the presiding spirit is taken for granted, and the accidentals are discountedi -But with the general reader | is changed. Every complaint | becomes an- evidence of temperament, every: sentiment seems" sentimentality, ; and what to the privileged correspondent was r a blameless jest is suddenly smirched with the coarsi thumb of vulgarity. Misunderstanding lia inevitable, however much it may be deplored. ’ . . . If these letters are to be read sympathetically all these disillusioning influences must be borne ip niind. Otherwise, it is difficult to accept complacently her tormented dissatisfaction “ with the world around her, and her chafing disgust alike with French and English. . . . That is not the, Kathcriuc Mapsfield of. the iliinjitahle short stories, ths, flßßfgly s.ensj-v tlve and s.« ipathetlc observer of so many twisted characters.lt is a sick woman,’ weary of ■ Her burden. -Is it altogether kjpfi to expps? to an ip-, discriminating public? The question must be faced. , '. .. And yet, in spite of all lots’ and hindrances, there remains a sound-and memorable residue of true, sincere, and often poignant sentiment in these letters, the revelation of a nervous, sensitive, but.'essentially courageous ■ temperament, Hep littje pictures of, scenery and character in the by-ways of Paris; her" amusing anecdotes of the misadventures pf life in exile; and her swift reflections upon the problems and mysteries of human suffering, are intensely real and arresting.” - 1 SPIRITUAL HUNGER, Mr Richard Chutch, In the Spectator : '‘The trouble about Katherine Mansfield is that it hurts to read her. She has only to let fall' a casv/il sentence, in a letter, and the person who receives it is pricked by some poignant reality. She is a sort of John Keats with an added feminine minuteness of intuition and sensibility. She thinks through the pores of her skin; such exquisite and tender .thought, too, as though the Daphne pursued and tormented, by Apollo were strayed, through fear, into our modern world, still sun-dazzled, still indolent after his caress, yet with a,; knowledge bred of metamorphosis. This rare creature is a puzzle to the everyday mind with which one usually estimates the ebbing and flowing tide of humanity that flows round the shores of life; There is a stark cleanliness about her, no sour and stale sentimental reserve; and she creates round her—so one may judge from her writing—an atmosphere as of sunlight shining, on clean linen, and filling large airy rooms, and, glinting on plates of grapes and apples. ' She pours opt her personality, and it is like delicious water caught in goblets whose sides are misted with the coldness. She seemed to be incapable of stating an idea abstractly, in the detached syllogistic way which gives rise to theories, systems, policies, and bureaucracies. She must always particularise, changing the mood, the idea, into a clear image moulded and made vital by her five senses.

“ Her acute intelligence soon made her aware that in these five she had an abnormally strong equipment ’ with which to achieve her aim. That aim was to become a trustworthy' and economical artist; one who could deliberately organise the overwhelming chaos of substance and event which made up the world around her. This purpose was a ceaseless passion with her, tormenting her, forcing her to a body-destroying vigilance. that no doubt assisted the disease i which cut her life.short. She read, thought, watched, always with this purpose in the forefront of her mind. It ordered her life; and her personal hopes and loves and desires were subordinated to jt. That it made her suffer is certain, for the very vitality which gave it birth also t made her susceptible to the most piercing emotions. ■She was a great lover of her fellow mortals, and therefore a great hater of those who tended to shatter her ideals of a right humanity. Infinite tenderness made her long for children, for someone on whom she could lavish all the riches of her nature. . . . ‘ Oh, I want life! I want friends and people and a house. I want to give apd to spend.’ "There we see the artist training her eye, hand, and memory, even in the moments when she is writing to an intimate about masters nearest to her heart. ■ Throughout the two volumes this effort is apparent; the careful descriptive and evocative writing, the choosing of the right epithet and image. Breaking through that impersonal effort is the cry of the individual, the woman demanding the fruits of womanhood; leisure, brooding maternity, material ministry to beings, whom she might passionately call her own. But her genius, conspiring with the demon of disease, denied her these things; and one feels that she died of spiritual hunger, resigned, noble—but starving, Mr Mid-