Books and Their Writers

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16985, 8 March 1923, Page 4

Books and Their Writers

gg Notes by "The Reviewer”

I THE PYREINN CAL LYRIST, j It isn’t everybody who has time t- • ! read even all the best poetry, even >f I he knew where to find it a-H. I is isn't everybody who wants to iV id even all the best poetrj’. However, if he fails to make the best use of such opportunities as come his way ho is missing something that to many is ■.no of tbe great pleasures of life. In his “ Shakespeare to Hardy ” Sir Algernon Methuen supplies an excel lent opportunity of becoming atleast acquainted with selections of the work of one hundred and thirtyeight writers of lyrical verse. As Mr Robert Lynd says in his introductory note, Sir Algernon Methuen has added another to the number of good anthologies. “ There is luckily no such thing as a perfect anthology. Anthology is a confession of taste, and no J wo critics (not even critics of supremely good taste) would choose exactly the same poems for an anthology any more than they would grow exactly the same flowers in i I garden.” ‘‘The anthologist,” he goes on to say. “ must make his own con- | fes ion of taste, and .his taste is. after all. the more interesting to ”s I because it. does not- coincide at every point with our own.” As does Mr Lynd, some readers of this anthology will probably find included poems j they do like, and will miss poems ! they deem worthy of inclusion : hut, } with him too, they will, probably agree ■ that it is a “ delightful garden ” j J into which the editor invites them, j a»id will he duly grateful for the in--1 vita tion. Tlie work of choosing sej lection for an anthology is very difficult. Sir Algernon Methuen refers in the preface to some of these difficulties. For example: “ A few authors have been unwilling to allo.v their best pieces to he given. There seems to be growing up a fear j that inclusion in an anthology mav i have a prejudicial effect on the •volume from which the piece is token. I 1 feel sure, on tlie contrary, that it i will send the reader in search of | other poems by the same author ” ! One is inclined to agree with the { editor. “ The arrangement of the j poems, is alphabetical. It is easy for reference, and it permits, in fact, necessitates. pleasing surprises and contrasts : “ comes next the Bible. Kipling treads on Lamb and Rosette on Sassoon.” (London : Methuen and Co.) HE DIDN'T KNOW. “ His very gait seemed needlessly emphatic*. He rather stalked than walked, and his family followed him with a curious sort of stillness and meekness, as though propitiation and humility had become the habitual attitude of their minds.” That’s the first introduction wc got to “Tlie Tyrant of Tylecourt.” and it lays a foundation for the story that Mrs Everett Green tells of the careers of Squire Quayle and his family. The sample given at the outset of tlie Squire’s method of (handling his household is more than sufficient to account- for his youngest daughter’s attitude, and that is merely the start of the trouble. A pleasantly written record of doings and sayings important to the dramatis personae, hut otherwise unimportant except for the unobtrusive moral. (London : Stanley Paul). “EVEN AS YOU AND I.” It has become the fashion—even in ! Christchurch it is not unknown—to dabble with what used to be dismissed a; the unknowable. The upsetting of standards caused by tlie war is probably one of tlie main causes of a great unrest that will not .be satisfied until it has done its best to probe into everything on, over and under the earth ; the inmost recesses of our bodies and our minds are being explored. We are not satisfied ~ with knowing that so-and-so is abnormal,

we must find a label in psychology for that particular abnormality, and physical research has become a commonplace without the mysterious attraction of psychical ditto. Perhaps it’s more soul-satisfying to tackle problems there isn’t much ehance of your solving than to devote your energy to attempts to solve the ordinary problems of this sublunary ox istence—you are at any rate less likely to be proven wrong in your theories. However. if any man’s inan’s studies are going to lead to the discovery of anything tending to increase the sum of human happiness, such studies should be encouraged. And some day, somewhere, practical benefit may be derived from psychical research. That’s why one credits Dr T. M. Mitchell wholeheartedly for the work he has put into his “Medical Psychology and Psychical Research.” This book deals with those branches of medical psychology that have thrown most light

on Hypnotism, Hysteria and Multiple Personality. The greater part of the contents has already appeared in ! the form of papers contributed to the j Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research during the lasi fifteen years; tlie new material deals mainly with tlie question of Multiple Personality. J)r Mitchell discusses in elaborate detail examples from his own experience of time-appreciation bv somnambules. The conclusion he is forced to is that “in the present state of knowledge th 3 difficulties to be inct with in connection with the appreciation of time by somnanibules are of such a nature as inevitably to entail, on any Hypothesis, a considerable residium of- unexplained phenomena.” Then there is a study of V. Hysteria, in which “ concurrently with the revelation of the emotional shocks that had led to disintegration of personality. Milly’s health recovered. ■‘Vlilly v;as the hysterical subject under review.

But 1 must add that, all through the later period of treatment, as at the beginning, suggestion was employed. . . Very likely from the Freudian point of view tlie analysis was incomplete. but I had attained my end. and Milly became to all appearance a norj j mil healthy woman. And .so she re. : mains.” Which is all to the good and | shows the operator not oblivious of the ’ | human element in the business. Dr 'I Mitchell proceeds—“ The problem of ! occupies such a prominent place in the stuck- of hysteria, assumes still ' ! greater importance when wo come to consider these forms of disintegration . which are commonly described under I :

the- name of double or multiple personality. The essential feature of this condition is the oecurre ice in one individual of two or more phases of cunscions life, each o: which shows the characteristics of personality, yet differs so much ivom the other in important respects that it seems to be the manifestations oi' a different personality.” Most of us have observed instances of words or actions spoken or done respectively that were so totally at variance with what we considered the real personality of the individual that we felt inclined to believe he or she could not have been normal ; we may even have found ourselves wondering at our own behaviour. And everybody knows the case, of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. If you follow Dr Mitchell in his thesis on the Doris Fischer case —“ a story of dissociated personality, more fully reported than any hitherto recorded and in some respects unique. Dr Prince’s record occupies over thirteen hundred .pages’ you will have the scientist's version as well as the. novelThat is the concluding paragraph—“ v.c may therefore regard the unity of consciousness revealed on introspection as being conditioned by the spatial continuity of neural eleand by a psycho-physical threshold. above whien only is the functional activity of these elements effective in | this respect. Multiple personality of the simply alternating type may be due to structural or functional discontinuity or dissociation of neural systems. Those of the co-conscious or hypnotic type may be due to the existence of different threshold levels at which conscious processes arise. One unitary soul may persist behind all dissociations of consciousness, but it will be unable to appear as a unity and its manifestation's may be fragmentary und discordant. Its unity will be masked by the imperfection of its instrument.' - And perhaps n.ost of us who di.shke leaving the solid earth will feel inclined to leave it at that. Which, as has been hinted, is not by any means to deny to Dr Mitchell the credit of having written most exhaustively, logically and ilhimmatingly on a subject in which the vast majority of mankind is in a condition similar to that of •Tack Jones in Chevalier’s song. Dr Mitchell has helped towards reducing tlie number of things still missing in Horatio’s philosophy. (London : Methuen and Co.) DOESN’T FOLLOW SOLOMON. Since Mr A. S. Neill introduced us to the Dominie we have always been pleased to meet that very unconventional. individual though we may not always agree with his views on a variety of subjects, particularly Education. That Mr Neill’s radical ideas on educational matters did not meet with the approval of tlie authorities was proved by the dismissal of the? Dominie. But dismissal apparently merely made him determined to put his ideas into practice. So now the Dominie is found in “ The Dominie/ Abroad ” setting up an international scfiool in Germany ; incidentally en route to Hellerau, a suburb of Dresden, where the school is to be, Mr Neill observes much and comments interestingly on what he observes ; in fact the impressions made upon him by German persons and German things will probably win for tlie Dominie more attention than his theories about the proper way to educate youngsters or nis accounts of his attempts to put those theories into practice. And when you discover what—by admission—his notions are, you don’t wonder at their being found unsuited to tlie North of the Tweed. “ Tt is impossible ” lie says’ “ to find a staff that will agree absolutely with my views of education, and it is as well that it is so. A school must have conflict; the children must have all possible attitudes to life placed before them. My ideal staff would be as follows: Socialist with Bolshevist leaning. Roman Catholic, Ascetic with hate of tobacco, drink : fox-trots, and Charlie Chaplin ; gentleman who thinks psychology a disease; and Jady who believes in original sin.” Of course you musn’t take this seriously but, that allowed, the Dominie’s divagations from the orthodox are startling enough. The leit-motif of the Dominie’s opera is that the child h to be allowed to do practically wh vt he or she likes; if he

or sho doesn't like mathematics then he or she may “ send mathematics to Timbuctoo.” And the pupils must he analysed and treated psychologically : the Dominie gives considerable attention to psycho-analysis and Freud. Quotation would be—in fact lias already been—unfair,, but it is difficult to lesisl the remark made in speaking of the case of Armstrong the solicitor-poisoner,-I have absolutely no doubt that Armstrong was unconsciously doing a religious act when he put arsenicin his wife’s food:” and further on ■ Embezzlement js purely religious also.” One is surprised that the Dominie omits to suggest benefit of clergy for the embezzler! One will be more surprised still if any parent who reads this book attentively fails to learn something he either didn’t know or wasn’t conscious of knowing even if it doesn’t happen to he the information the Dominie is attempting to impart. (London; Herbert Jenkins.) •

HUMOROUS AND HUMOUROUS. Any man with a fairly developed sense of humor or humour should during fifteen years’ experience as a commercial traveller up and down New Zealand see sufficient- to enable him to entertain those who have not been as fortunate. Mr E. Dimmit,, the author of “ Samples from a Commercial Traveller’s Note-Book ” has had that opportunity ; he a limits that in his opinion “ there is no better school for the study of human nature ” and in this little book ho presents “ the garnered experiences of fifteen years of commercial travelling. A large number of amusing stories in which horseplay frequently figures, a number of episodes of the old times, and anecdotes si non very ben trovate, the Samples are in short, whatever has appealed to fine Who Passed and he has thought worthy of noting. Tlie re is ample material here, and. as a maiden effort, this little book deserves welcome (Nelson; E. Pimant, P.O. Box 5-1.)