A Literary Log

Southland Times, Issue 20903, 12 October 1929, Page 13

A Literary Log

ROLLED BY

IOTA.

ARTIST NOT LOVER. Charles Morgan attempted a very ambitious task in setting out to write ‘’Portrait iu a Mirror,” which from a quotation at lhe beginning which says a portrait should be “the image of one spirit received in the mirror of another,” becomes the reflection of Clare Sibright in the mind of Nigel Frew. As a matter of fact he does not quite achieve this, but what he does achieve is a reflective novel of great beauty and lasting moment whose objective failure is at least of a difficult ideal. Rather has he made Nigel Frew the mouthpiece of a positive self-portrait, so that the mirror reflects, not a likeness of Clare Sibright, but of the young boy-genius ardent in keeping faith with his art, eager to be understood, ready to read sympathy in people in whom it did not exist, creating ideals out of all proportion to the size of living—and managing to survive the turmoil of youth with these ideals intact, and himself a painter of note.

In 1875, at the age of eighteen, Nigel Frew, the third and youngest child of Godfearing parents of the English upper middle class, paid his first visit to an English country house, where an Oxford friend of his brother Richard had invited both young men, and their sister Ethel, a rebellious girl who chafed under the monotonous respectability which seemed as if it would terminate only in the inevitable oblivion of death. At this country place in Oxfordshire, the awkward, self-conscious boy suddenly comes upon Clare.

A trembling, not of surprise, but of wonder, shook mo from head to foot. It seemed that I bad known all ray life that I should find her here, that I had dreamed a thousand times of • drawing these curtains and feeling her laughter spring upon mo from my own shadow. Her dark, grave hair, swept, loosely back to an abundant eoiling, t’-o backward curve of her body' as she lauglieu, the fleck of light on her chit: upraised, the brilliant tension of her throat and breast—these gave her an ineffable air of speed, as if, drawn and suspended by high winds, she were driving a chariot across the sky and laughing as she passed. The wonder was that she did not vanish—that she was indeed woman with bare arms and shoulders that took my breath away. She was not unfriendly to me. Her laughter was of gaiety, intimacy, freedom, not of ridicule. I found that I was unafraid of her, but gazed without answering as if I had seen a vision.

Nigel eighteen, Clare twenty-one and soon to become the wife of Ned Fullaton. Nigel shy, tongue-tied; Clare bright quick-ton-gued, unconventional within the bounds of convention and social ease. At first he was content merely with the knowledge that he had discovered her. Supposing he was in love, ho felt no pain at the thought that she would soon belong to someone else. She, flattered undoubtedly by the obvious worship given her by one who even then was pronounced a genius and a “coming man” found in him a very pleasant occasional refuge. And Ned chafed under her restlessness. The night before Nigel went away he heard her crying and went to her, falling into a futility of persuasion for her to escape with him. "I heard you crying,” I said. “It was the thought,” she whispered, “of the ono precious, impossible thing slipping away for ever. Nigel. There'll never be anything like this for me again .Oh, my darling, I know that well enough. Don’t think I can’t sec.” “Listen,” I said. “Nothing has slipped away. There’s time yet. To-morrow ” “To-morrow?” she said, but I was heedless of the warning note of fear in her voice. He returned home to his studies in preparation for Oxford. She married Ned, and became the mistress of Windrush. For Nigel the months passed without relief or change from his heart’s agony—“in me there was no longing for the year’s .renewal.” But one day ot early spring, when the contrast between Nature’s increasing life and the death within myself had become unendurable, I went out alone and climbed a hill The living face of Nature, which hitherto had seemed to menace me, looked kindly into my isolated and frozen heart. More than ever was 1 solitary, but rny solitude took on a glory which it had never before possessed I felt myself absorbed in the open vastness of the universe about me. The agonies of particular memory and disappointment, the hurts to pride, all tho wounds of human intercourse that had tormented me were reduced to the proportion of the body which lay as a npeck upon the curve of earth; my spirit sprang up, marched with tho giants, took wings among the gods. The courage to create awoke in me 1 was identified with that day of sap and resurrection, and lay still with an emotion pouring from me which had in it the passion, but not the supplication, of prayer To this secret life, as if I had discovered a cloister of tho creative spirit. I dedicated myself, and stayed unmoving in bliss. Henry Fullaton, Ned’s father, one of the most fashionable painters of the day; persuaded his father that Nigel's work lay in the despised channels of art, and consequently he went to Windrush to learn all that Fullaton could teach him. Gradually he recognized in Clare Fullaton a passion of the flesh rather than of the spirit. But he took the bit in his teeth and went to Paris before it was too late. Three years later he returned to England on his first visit, his art recognized. But again he met Clare, this time of her own planning; finally her lust of the flesh found response in his own, but to their love’s demand there was no quittance in the flesh. “She had longed to recreate herself in the image of the girl I had loved—to be that girl, to give her to me. She had been able to do no more than love the man I had become.” He loved too soon; her love came too late. In the eyes of the middle-aged man, Nigel Frew, at the time of writing the book, it was better so. Morgan’s portrait work is good, with wonderful effective lighting. Nigel, the few brief strokes that comprised his family, old man Trobey, Ned, a particularly fine glimpse of Miss Fullaton, a relic of former days—these are all pictures to be remembered. Peculiarly enough it is the vision of Clare herself which is obscured and lifeless; so many words, yet nothing to knit them together to form a body. Possibly the explanation is that with her the author took too many pains. “Portrait in a Mirror” by Charles Morgan. Published by Macmillan and Co., Ltd., London. < i A GIRL GOES SLEUTHING. When Virginia Carew arrived in London ! for the first time with her father, she was : shocked at the change in Glenn Hillier, . whom in America she had always regarded in the light of an affectionate foster ; brother; That his extraordinary attachment : to a recently met county family was al- I ready creating comment, further puzzled i her, and when, at their first meeting, he i left her precipitately on receipt of a tele- | phone message from this Mrs Fenmore with | whom she saw him drive off, she was both i hurt and a little angry. That night at the i

theatre she met Mrs Fenmore, her son and (laughter, Pamela and Henry, and Glenn with them, and at once sensed the veiled antagonism of the undoubtedly attractive older woman. After her father’s return to New York she stayed on in London with cousins and she grew to expect that the few engagements Glenn made with her would not eventuate. Then, just as she had decided to refuse a long delayed invitation to the Fenmores’ country house, Glenn himself arrived and persuaded her to accept. On her arrival it became obvious that the fascinating Mrs Fenmore was using her presence towards her own ends, and Glenn's absorption in his hostess became more and more apparent. There was something inexplicable about their relations which constantly baffled Virginia, and Pamela’s open antagonism towards her mother appeared no more powerful than the latter’s underlying antagonism towards. Virginia. Later, Virginia went back to plead with Glenn to return to America where his genius for modern architecture would be recognized through his father's influence, but to no avail, though he was obviously suffering and overwrought. Mrs Fenmore found them before they were through, and made no effort to hide her annoyance. And the next morning she was found brutally murdered, and Glenn had disappeared. No one in England but Virginia believed that he had not committed the crime. He himself did nothing to try and clear himself. Desperation made all her senses alert, and her assiduous search for clues did not abate until she herself nearly suffered the same death.

I hope I have not revealed too much of the plot of “Water Weed,” which is Mrs Alice Campbell’s second novel, and the successor to “Juggernaut,” that excellent crime story published last year. To spoil the prospective reader’s interest in the story is far removed from my mind. The memory of my own enjoyment is still too fresh “Water Weed” is an absorbing tale, brightly and intelligently written, which further makes Mrs Campbell a writer worth watching. This is one of Hodder and Stoughton’s most successful new novels and from them I received my copy. A WESTERN COMEDY.

There is a new note coming into the cowboy fiction of America, and it is a good sign. The writers of these novels are getting away from the slapdash whooping of gunplay and are turning their attention to the high comedy of life, with the result that their characters appear more like human beings and less like Tom Mixes, strutting about under the yelled orders of movie directors. Max Brand has done something really worth while in “The Gun Tamer” because it introduces high comedy into the Western scene and so is more entertaining than the galloping romances and the broad farces of the past. In this story a gaily caparisoned fellow appears at the ranch of Colonel Mackay and Mary, the daughter, falls in love with him. The Colonel has come to have a very poor opinion of the mental equipment of his wife, but this shrewd little lady is the real heroine of the story, even if Felipe Consalvo wears all the harness of the hero. This magnificent Mexican swaggers through th,e story, but it is the Colonel's wife who lays him low and after discovering his real character sets about rehabilitating him because he is necessary to the happiness of her daughter. Brand has told his story with the eye of a humorist. I do not suggest that he is an uproariously funny fellow, but that he writes with a nice appreciation of the comedy of the scene, and sends the spears of his wit through the tinsel of the scene without in any way spoiling the yarn. His characters have a freshness about them that is vastly entertaining, and as he side-steps the obvious without effort he has furnished us with a story worth a ton of the olden style Western stories of gunning heroes and saddletrained heroines. “The Gun Tamer” is good stuff all through and it will appeal to people to whom the Western story has become boring. My copy from the publishers, Messrs Hodder and Stoughton.

TWO WOMEN IN LOVE,

In “Love Changes,” Ruby M. Ayres has contrasted two. women, the one worldly, the other an idealist. Barbara Stark told Pamela O’Hara on the latter’s wedding day that “love doesn’t last” but the romantic Pauline insisted that hers would. Barbara probably had good reasons for her declaration, and the story really shows how close she went to being right even in the case of O’Hara who for a time at least was the victim of Barbara’s wiles. Pauline and Barbara were close friends, but O’Hara's simple, confident wife did not waver in holding strong to steadfast love and she won out in the finish when O’Hara; escaping from Barbara settled down with her to a domestic bliss that appears to have no further risk of change. One is not certain, however, that the release of O’Hara to return to Pauline was due to his own or to Pauline’s actions, but rather to the lie told by the jealous Jerry Barnet, who wished to have Barbara for himself. There is more irony in “Love Changes” than one finds in the other Ruby Ayres' romances, and perhaps this gives the story more strength. It is not a long book, but it is well-knit and capably told. This is light reading, of course, but it has substance and some excellent dramatic touches, which are all the better for the restraint with which they are written. “Love Changes” is an excellent novel, published by Messrs Hodder and Stoughton, London, whence came my copy.

THE LATEs/rEALIST.

I would say that The Realist is now firmly established. The September number is the sixth, and it maintains the high standard set by the opening issue, and as the advertisement section is increasing one may be sure that its circulation is moving up steadily. It deserves to succeed, because it has liveliness without triviality and substance without being ponderous. In the September number H. G. Wells discusses modern Imperialism as exemplified by Lord Melchett and Lord Beaverbook, opposing to them the ideals of “William Clissold” and the Wellsian idea of the wider scope of international thought. Dr M. J. Bonn has an arresting article on Germany’s attitude to other countries, and there is an extremely interesting discussion of the unemployment problem in the Old Country which has some good points for politicians in this land. Bertrand Russell’s “How I came by my creed” is good meaty stuff, of course, and there is

much to disturb one into thought of Ramsay Muir’s “Can Parliament be made reprepresentative.” These are a few of the articles in a well-filled number. “The Realist” comes from the publishers, Messrs Macmillan and Co., London.

SAWDUST.

Some of Mr Bernard Shaw’s plays supply the inspiration for a volume by Miss Gwladys Evan Morris which Harrop announces Miss Morris has toured the world in the Shaw plays, and it occurred to her to set them down as fairy-tales or allegories. She has created an animal community for the purpose and called the book “Tales from Bernard Shaw told in the Jungle.” Mr Shaw has blessed it, saying, with a characteristic appeal to a classic related to Shakespeare, “I like Gwladys 1 Lambs’ Tales.” Francis Hackett has written in a biographical study of Henry VIII which he has appearing with Jonathan Cape. He presents the tempetuous,'selfish, most persistent husband England has ever had, as a real and passionate figure. The “omnibus book,” used for the writings of a single author as well as for those of several authors, is having a fashion with London publishers. Another one, of rather a particular interest, is promised by Ernest Benn, “The First and Last of Conrad.” It opens with his “Almayer’s Folly,” which Fisher Unwin’s readers “discovered” long ago, and with an "Outcast of the Islands." It continues and closes with his final though not, perhaps, his best stories, “The Arrow of Gold” and “The Rover.”