LITERATURE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3613, 12 June 1923, Page 68

LITERATURE.

LITERARY NOTES. A Great Literary Scotsman.— The reading world has experienced a great loss in the death of Sir William Robertson Nicoll, long a great force on the side of high standards in thought and literature. His paper, the British Weekly (of which he became editor in 1886) has been for English people the chief organ of enlightened and progressive Nonconformist thought and the favourite paper in thousands of households where serious views of life were held and literature honoured. To many, perhaps, Sir Robertson (Nicoll is most familiarly known by his pen-name “Claudius Clear,” with which he signed his essays in the British Weekly. It is a matter of deep regret to many readers that the familiar name has now disappeared from the pages of the journal. As journalist and man of letters Sir Robertson Nicoll’s activity was prodigious. The greater number of his readers probably knew him only or mainly as editor of the British Weekly, the “Claudius Clear” of its pages, the author of collected essays published with the same pen-name and of a. few other books. But since 1891 he was also editor of the Bookman, and he also edited the Woman at Home and some other journals. It is the British Weekly, however, that has most clearly borne the stamp of his personality, and through which he wielded the widest influence. A Liberal in politics, he also stood for liberalism and sane progressiveness in the sphere of religion, while in literature, too, his sympathies were wide. And this liberalism was joined to the best typical qualities of Scotch character —sobriety of thought, shrewdness, energy, tenacity, and love of things of the mind. These qualities he inherited from his father, the Rev. Harry Nicoll, minister of Auchindoir Tree Church, in a remote Aberdeenshire parish, from 1843 to 1891. In ISCB his son published a short and most interesting biography of him, entitled “My Father, an Aberdeenshire Minister.” Dr H. Nicoll must rank among the world’s greatest book-lovers. Though his income never reached £2OO, and often was much nearer £IOO, his frugality and tenacity of purpose enabled him to accumulate a library of 17,0C0 volumes. And this was no mere book-collector’s acquirement or like the carelessly ordered library of an unliterary rich man; • every volume represented careful choice and was known and valued. The frugality and perseverance which enabled the poor [Scotch minister to amass such a library was signally displayed in his college career—about 1830. His son records that during the session of 20 weeks he had to subsist on the total sum of £4, with provisions sent bv his family. He rented a garret for Is a week, did with very little fire, and lived mainly on bread and cheese, with treacle and water for a beverage. Yet he retained health for a long life of strenuous activity as schoolmaster, minister, and student. But though he overcame poverty so successfully, he held it to be a great evil. No text, says his son, was more frequently on his lips than this, “The destruction of the poor is their poverty.” In his preface to his father's life, Sir W. R. Nicoll refers to Mr Gosse’s remarkable record, “Father and Son.”. He himself was brought up in a religious atmosphere, similar to that of the Gosse household. But he was not oppressed by it, for his father believed in the practised freedom. He read Francis Newman, Renan, Strauss, Golenso, and other writers on the sceptical side, and placed no hindrance on his children’s reading them. He made no inquisition into their views, and was averse to controversy. Utterly without literary ambition himself, he bequeathed his love of books and his industry to his son, who united to them the talents and ambition that have enabled him to play such a full and manysided part in the mental life of his time. Besides his collected essays, “Letters on Life,” “The Day Book of Claudius Clear,” and “The Round of the Clock,” Dr Robertson Nicoll published a book on Emily Bronte, a life of lan Maclaren, “The Problem of Edwin Drood,” and many works on theological subjects. We may expect that writings which have not yet appeared in book form will shortly be edited and published.

Adverse Criticisms on Tennyson. —- Fortunately there are always a large number of readers whose preferences in literature are unswayed by fashion. Hav ing once read a literary work and found it good, they do not trouble, because it is superseded by temporary favourites or even because it is belittled and sneered at by critics of the day. Thus the older generation of well-read people continue to value Tennyson, caring not that it is the fa.shion to run him down as limited, insular, and conventional in thought, following conventional ideas of beauty in his art. wanting reality, and, in short, wholly negligible by enlightened moderns. There is, of course, a tendency for any writer who has been very highly praised in his lifetime to be unduly neglected owing to the rise of new writers and changes in thought and taste. But why should Tennyson of all the great Victorians be specially singled out for contempt ? Browning is very much less read now than 20 or 30 years ago; but he is neglected merely, not flouted and sneered at. The main reason for this concerted attack on Tennyson probably is that in thought and art he embodied law, order, beauty, purity, and harmony, against all of which the spirit of the age is in revolt. Preferences in art and literature are intimately connected with prevalent social and ethical views. As this is an age of lawlessness in the political, social, and ethical spheres, so is it an age of lawlessness and anarchy in art. And, of course, it is very easy to earn a cheap literary reputation by attacking and deriding honoured mimes.

Browning himself was somewhat of an anarch in _ art if not in morals, which may explain why modern literary lights and their imitators do not fall foul of him. They are content to leave him alone. For long the two great names Tennyson and Browning were bracketed together, and it was held difficult to say which was the greater. Some lovers of literature would prefer the one and some the other, in accordance with their own individuality. But the consensus of educated opinion was that Tennyson excelled in the essentials of poetry as distinct from other forms of literature, while Browning excelled in depth and range of thought, in dramatic presentments of life, in variety and vigour of style. Tennyson, indeed, is not pre-eminent as a. thinker. He struck out on no new lines .cf thought, any more than he revolutionin art... But how many of our valued poe.s (setting aside a few great names) have been great thinkers? Which of the mosu praised of tne new poets makes any approach . to being a great thinker? Thought, is conspicuous by its absence in the brief poetical flights that represent the achievement of most poetical writers of to-day. The Times Literary Supplement of April 12 has' a first-page article entitled “For and Against Tennyson,” which sums up the case in a fair and judicial spirit. It is written apropos of new books by adverse critics of Tennyson. The writer says: “The truth is that both these critics [Harold Nicolson and Hugh I’Anson Fa asset] are so much obsessed by their dislike cf the Victorian age that their unfairness to Tennyson as its representative becomes almost grotesque, and may well help to promote the reaction in his favour. Of the first 230 of Mr Fausset’s 300 pages there is scarcely one that has net some sneer at Tennyson’s insincerity, shallowness, or cowardice. . . . Neither (Mr Nioolson) nor Mr Fausset seems to realise that either their attacks upon Tennyson are good against still greater names or they are not good at all. Why should Tennyson not be influenced by his age? Why should he be required to escape its faults any more than Shakespeare is required to escape the verbal tight-ropings of the sixteenth century, Milton' the grimness of the Puritans, Shelley the crudities of the revolutionary epoch? Why should it bea crime in Tennyson and not one in Shakespeare to prefer conjugal love to love of another kind ? Why should it be a crime in Tennyson and a virtue (highly praised by Mr Fausset) in Keats to wish to be a ’benefactor of mankind’? Why should ‘ laborious and careful revision ’ suggest a doubt cf Tennyson’s ‘ sincerity,’ and produce no such result in Virgil or Milton ? Why should it be wrong in Tennyson to make notes in verse of natural effects which struck him, while the preliminary sketches of the great artists are the treasured possessions of our galleries? 'Why should Tennyson be attacked for borrowing his plots, when Shakespeare, Racine, and the Greeks scarcely ever do anything else? Why should it be ridiculous in Tennyson to wish to possess and use ‘ temperance, soberness, and chastity of soul,’ the very qualities which Sophocles desired above all others? . . There is a larger point raised by those books, and especially by that of Air Fausset. He seems always to confuse poetry with philosophy; indeed he often seems to suppose it to be a philosophy, whereas it is an art.” And as a poetical artist Tennyson stands supreme among Victorian poets, and towers above Georgian ones as the Alps over mere hills. Like Virgil, of whom he wrote the phrase, he is a “lord of language.” As such he holds a secure place in English literature, above the reach of passing fashions. “Shall not loveliness be loved forever?” Notes on Some New Books.— In January last died Frederic Harrison, latest lingerer of great Victorian writers, at the age of 91. As an exponent cf Positivist philosophy, a publicist, and an essayist, Frederic Harrison over a very long period of years filled a conspicuous place in the thought and literature of his time. And he continued writing to the last, retaining in a wonderful degree mental vigour, freshness, and receptivity. A new volume of essays from his pen is now published by Fisher Unwin, price 10s 6d net. This volume, entitled “De Senectute,” is a reissue of 12 of his latest articles, and he was correcting the proofs just before his death. As a writer of English prose Frederic Harrison takes a high rank. He had no mannerisms, nothing obtrusive, but his style is distinguished by lucidity, vigour, and grace. An appreciative review in the Times Literary Supplement says of the essays contained in this volume: “Together they make one of the best books that Mr Harrison ever published, and as faithful a memorial of the writer as could be devised. Serener judgments can hardly ever have been formed by a nonagenarian; nothing in any of them, except the length of reminiscence, suggests extreme old age.” Spiritualists and others concerned with modern spiritualism will be interested in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s account of his recent spiritualistic tour in America, entitled “Our American Adventure,” and published by Plodder and Stoughton at 10s 6d net. The volume may be expected to contain a good deal of observation and comment besides reports of his lectures and seances, and Sir Arthur has literary gifts to make any of his books attractive. Admirers of Rider Haggard’s romances will welcome the appearance of “Wisdom’s Daughter,” announced as the last of the tviology tolling of “She-Who-Must-Be Obeyed.” It is published by Hutchinson at 7s 6d net. Messrs Hutchinson also publish at the same price a novel by Ellen Thomeycroft Fowler, whose “Concerning Isabel Carnaby” and some subsequent novels had such a run of popularity over 20 years ago. The title of the present novel _is “The Lower Pool,” and it is narrated in the first person by a lady who was young at the time of Isabel Carnaby’s history. Miss Fowler is a pleasant and sparkling

writer, though her fondness for epigrams is rather excessive for some tastes. Two volumes of the poetry of the late Alice Meynell are issued by the firm of Burns, Oates, and Washbourne. One, “The Last Poems of Alice Meynell,” contains poems which have not hitherto appeared in book form; its price is 3s 6d net. The other, at 6s net, contains the whole of Mrs Meynell’s poetry, including the poems in the above-mentioned volume. Poetry-lovers will welcome the publication of the entire poetical works of a poet of such rare charm as Alice Meynell at a price that puts it within reach of those who can spend little on book purchases. Though .Dice Meynell is known chiefly as a poet, she is quite as remarkable as an essayist. Some of her essays are perfect prose poetry, and, like her poems, they are distinguished by spirituality of thought and grace of expression.