SPEED IN PROSE AND POETRY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3830, 9 August 1927, Page 74

SPEED IN PROSE AND POETRY.

The invention of the motor car must certainly take rank amona the greatest triumphs of modern civilisation (says a writer in John o’ London’s Weekly). It his annihilated space ; it has brought happiness to thousands of peopjg; it has transformed the face of the country. Here surely is a theme for the poets.

And, indeed, the motor car is not without its laureate. So long ago a 5,1903 the laie \A. E. Henley hailed its advent in nis “Song of Speed”: — Speed— Speed, and a world of new havings j Red-rushing splendours Of Dawn ; the disturbing Long-drawn, tumultuous Passions of sunset ; And. thesA twain between. The desperate, great anarchies,’

The matchless serenitudes, The magical, ravishing. Changing, transforming Trances of Daylight.

In a vein somewhat more sophisticated Mr Gilbert Frankau describes a ride in a motor car through the southern suburbs: Had you a soul that night, stout car who bore Your crazy masters past the dark-yew

hedges? Were they alive, your sensate tyres that shore Their flattened tail along the grassy edges. That veered and checked and swerved their headlong travel, And forced the square-treads bite the shifting gravel? ....

Your guardian chassis shunned the Vanguard’s frisk : Loyal and true, you held the slippery track ; Skated the dread curve of the Obelisk ; Hurtled up New Cross Hill; and brought him back To where Big Ben’s illuminated disc Shone fourfold welcomeness against the black ; Found him his flat; and rested from your labours, Amidst the gossip of your garage neighbours.

There is an excellent description, too, of a motor car ride through the darkness of early morninor j n “ Marriage of Harlequin,” the recently-published novel of Mr Frankau’s daughter, Pamela.

Those industrious and entertaining collaborators, C. N. and A. M. Williamson, may be claimed, however, as the pioneers of the motor novel. One recalls in particular “ The Motor Chaperon ” and “ Set in Silver,” the latter of which, under the guise of fiction, is a joyous record of a motoring tour in England. Readers of M r Aldous Huxley’s novel those Barren Leaves,” will remembe the chapter which describes, with a wealth of detail, a motor ride in Italy. The following passage reveals the author at his best:—

They drove past the house on the water, where Byron had bored himself through an eternity of months, out of the town. After Pontedesa the road became more desolate. Through a wilderness of bare, unfertile hills, between whose yellowing grasses showed a white and ghastly soil, thev mounted towards Volterva. The landscape took on something of an infernal aspect; a prospect of parched hills and waterless gulleys, like the undulations of a petrified ocean, expanded interminably round them. And on the crest of the highest wave, the capital of this strange hell, stood Volterva —three towers against the sky, a dome, a line of impregnable walls, and outside the walls, still outside but advancing ineluctably year by year towards them, the ravening gulf that eats its way into the flank of the hill, devouring the works of civilisation after civilisation, the tombs of the Etruscans, Roman villas, abbeys, and mediaeval fortresses, renaissance churches and the houses of yesterdav.

Another celebrant of the motor car in fiction is Mr Dornford Yates. There can hardly be any novel of his in which a catdoes not figure almost as a character. Jonah and Co.” contains an amusin' l episode in which Barry Playdell, while driving through Abbeville, felt unable to turn to the right.

“ The trouble,” he explained, as we plunged into a maze of back streets, “ I’ve only got two hands and feet. To have got round that corner I should have had to take out the clutch, go into third, release the brake, put out a hand, accelerate, sound the clarion, and put the wheel over simultaneously. Now, with seven limbs I could have done it. With eight I could also have scratched myself—an operation, I may say, which can be no longer postponed.” He drew up before a charcuterie and mopped his face.

In ‘‘A Ride on a Comet”—one of the many delightful essays in that delightful book, “ Gifts of Fortune,” Mr H. M. Tomlinson is less concerned with the things seen from a car than with the emotions of the man inside it. The very title is an indication of the author’s point if view.

Once we alighted on earth, just brushing it in a swoop on the upslope of a hill, and then rolled up gassily in a great light. It was then that instead of flying luminous streaks I could see stones and clouds, rooted trees and hedges growing where they stood, and they all looked like hand-painted scenery of limelight. We reached the hilltop, the smile beside me gave a demoniac hoot, and we shot into space like a projectile, falling sheer to the nether stars. My hair rose on end in the upward rush of wind. I had had about enough of it. If we hit another body in the sky larger than ourselves. . .

Finally, it remains to be noted that the motor car has proved a veritable godsend to the writer of detective stories. Crime is to-day a much more expeditious affair than it was in the time of Emile Gaboriau, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle must have often regretted that Sherlock Holmes lived in a pre-motor period. The car is as vital a necessity to the “ mystery ” novelist as to the kinema producer. In-' deed, there can be few novels of this class which fail to make mention of some car alternately panting and purring outside a mysterious house.