ALICE MEYNELL.

Otago Witness, Issue 3195, 9 June 1915, Page 76

ALICE MEYNELL.

By F. J. B.

AN APPRECIATION.

Alice Meynell is one of those rare writing women who contrive, without undue noise and bustle, to give the, world an original and personal interpretation of life. Hers is an art apart—one that does not make its primary appeal to the multitude; but she is, as one of her learned critics has put it, “ happier in observing than in speaking.” Her first verse was published in 1875 under the title “ Preludes,” a little volume illustrated by her sister Elizabeth, who afterwards became Lady Butler. Her youth was spent in Italy, her father, T. J. Thompson, superintending her studies. This first book attracted little attention, though one of the sonnets was warmly praised by Ruskin. In 1877 Alice Thompson married 'Wilfred Meynell, and from that date she contributed regularly to the National Observer, the Pall Mall Gazette, and the Saturday Review. Her “Poems” (1893), including the earlier “Preludes,” brought her before her public. And since then she has published numerous prose essays, “The Work of J. S. Sargent” (1903), and she has edited, among other works, “ The Poetry of Pathos and Delight,” of her intimate friend Coventry. Patmore. The Meynells were the first to publish the work of Francis Thompson. Indeed, one cannot doubt that had it not been for their kindness and interest in this “ waif of the London streets ” the most wonderful mystical poetry of our age would not have been written. We feel that the rights of women are, to a certain extent, vindicated by such women as Alice Meynell, for while many are struggling blindly for such futile thing as the vote, she has contrived to think and write, whilst living the sane home life of the normal woman. There can be no question in this case of ” the place for women is the home ” in the sense that is usually given to this platitude. The world would indeed be the loser if Mrs Meynell had not given us those rare “little sermons” as William Sharpe has called her essays. In the short series “Women and Books” .she has reinstated in our regard some un-fairly-treated women of literature —Mrs Steele and Johnson’s maligned wife, who have been so easily blamed by a male posterity. She has a clear and simple style, a certain, fine restraint. It is neither baffling nor unusual, but rather we have the simple interpretation of life through the eyes of a poet, who is above all a woman. There is a sense of “ stilled singing” in the essay “The Rhythm of Life ” —an undercurrent of rhythm in her prose that is as constant as she sees the recurring vicissitudes of life to be. Sorrow coming on us is beginning its outward journey to return in its good time. A more comforting thought than the “this, too, shall pass away ” that the wisdom of an ancient king devised. Joy leaving us but to return afresh. Sorrow returning but to .give us a further opportunity of patience and forbearance. Poets, too, are subject to this “periodicity.” “Few of them,” she says, “have admitted the metrical absence of their muse. For. full recognition is expressed in only one way—silence.” To her there is something crude in the loud laugh by which we are wont to acknowledge our sense of the ludicrous. It is not that we are a hearty people, hut a people sensitive of our sense of humour. So we have a noise as the outward sign of inner mirth ! Yet it would hardly do to ban all laughter, I think. The fresh and joyous laugh of a child is music all too rare. There is whimsical humour _ in the essay “ Ceres’ Runaway,” which opens the new edition of these_ essgys. The idea of our municipality hot in chase of Ceres is delightful indeed. Our city fathers have teen right good sprinters, and the erring dame has been strictly exiled without the city boundaries. As a staunch colonial, one can hardly agree with Mrs Meynell’s views as set forth in the essay’ “The Decivilised.” She sees something corrupt in the thought that wo should bring to literature anything that is new. “ He promises the world a literature, an art, that shall be new because his forest is untracked and town just built.” “The untracked forest” may hot have such an influence on art

as the knowledge of a glorious past or the_ accumulated refinements of an older civilisation, but the environment will have a definite influence on the creator of art. That is undeniable. Had Synge stayed abroad and not returned to the primitive life of Galway, would he ever have expressed himself so exquiitely in tire language of his people? Neither can* one imagine Walt Whitman writing his virile verse amidst the ruins of some ancient palazzo. Or Henry Lawson composing sonnets in a Belgrave drawing room ! There is a certain fineness in Mrs Meynell’s work. It is more noticeable in her prose, for her poetry often has a deep spiritual significance, and perhaps may be traced to an Italian influence. It is a view of life that has more to do with its refinements than any of life’s basic elements. For instance, in her essay on “ A Point of Biography,” she laments over the visible deaths of the great, and makes a poetic comparison with their deaths and the unseen deaths of multitudes of birds. We see these birds living, their journeying, their mating, but we never see them die. Yet there is something so colossal in the death of a great man, the most titanic thing of a life, be. it ever so famous, that refuses to be hidden. The poetic aspect reigns in the essays “The Colour of Life,” which she sees to be “ old rose and ivory,” and in the wholly delightful “ Hours of Sleep.” In the moment of awakening even the most prosaic must feel something of tho glamour of the external world, something of the inner light of vision. “ Never to have had a brilliant dream and never to have bad any delirium would be to live too much in the day.” Children have these long hours that should be fdven to sleep, but are spent in breathless wideeyed dreams of some fair city that lies just beyond the hill, that checks their mortal vision. She thus interprets the exquisite, illusive landscapes of Corot: “In some landscapes of his earlier manner, he has the very light of dreams, and it was surely because he went abroad at the time when sleep and dreams claimed his eyes that he saw so spiritual an illumination.”

Of her poetry Francis Tnompson says : “ It is poetry, the spiritual voice of which will become audible w r hen ‘ the high noises ’ of to-day have followed the feet that made them.” It is this “ spiritual voice” in the sonnet “To a Daisy” which made its appeal to Ruskin : Slight as thou art, thou art enough to hide Like all created things, secrets from me, And stand a barrier to eternity.

And I, how can I praise thee, well and wide

From where I dwell—upon the -hither side ? Thou little veil for so great mystery, When shall I penetrate all things and thee, And then look back? For this I must abide

Till thou shalt grow and fold and be unfurled Literally between me and the world. Then I shall drink from in beneath a spring, And from a poet’s side shall read his book. 0 daisy mine, what will it be to look From G-cd’a side even of such a simple thing. A refutation of the votaries of “Art for Art’s sake.” What can a daisy be save a symbol—a barrier to eternity. And “ Renouncement,” of- which Rossetti said it was one of the three finest sonnets ever written by woman: I must not think of thee; and tired yet strong, 1 shun the thought that lurks in all delight— The thought of thee —and in the blue heaven’s height, And in the sweetest passage of a song. Oh, just beyond the fairest thoughts that throng This breast, the thought of thee waits hidden, yet bright; But it must never, never come in sigtfit; I must stop short of thee the whole day long. But. when sleep comes to close each difficult day, When night gives pause to the long watch, I keep, And all my bonds I needs must loose apart, Must doff my will as raiment laid away,— With the first dream that comes with the first sleep, I run, I run, I am gathered to thy heart. It is not poetry that appeals to the multitude. Present-day verse to be popular must be more human, more democratic —qualities that attract in the poetry of the admirable John Masefield. I have quoted these two sonnets as they are exquisite examples of the intellectual restraint of Mrs Meynell’s style. It was doubtless these and the “ San Lorenzo’s Mother ” that caused her name to be mentioned among those which were selected for the Poet Laureateship. But it is doubtful if she would have received the honour, the unrest among women being such as it is. There is unusual pathos in. “ San Lorenzo’s Mother.” In less skilful hands one feels that there would have been an excess of weak sentimentality.Mine eyes were veiled with mists of tears When on a day in many years One of his order came. I thrilled, ■ Facing. I thought, that face fulfilled. I doubted, for my mists of tears. “ I doubted for my mists of tears.” A restraint that shows not only the true poetic vision but the skilled craftsman. Among the later poems, “The Lady Poverty,” “ The Modern Mother,” and “ The Crucifixion ” have the beauty foreshadowed in her earlier work. Take this : But over the abyss Of God’s capacity for woe He stayed One hesitating hour; what gulf was this Forsaken He wont down, and was afraid. The poet touches the sublime with faint and wondering hands.