NOTES

New Zealand Tablet, 19 June 1919, Page 26

NOTES

* Thackeray Concerning the first-rank writers of English prose there is always some difference of opinion .among the critics. Although not read universally, and by no means so great a popular favorite as Dickens, there is almost unanimous agreement about the great merit of Thackeray’s prose. Personally we put him before Dickens even as a story-teller : but that is a matter of taste about which it is idle to argue. As a writer of good English it seems unquestionable that Thackeray is easily first of the two. "'Nobody in our day, I should say, wrote with such perfection of style,” was Carlyle’s verdict on Thackeray. Frederic Harrison’s praise of him is unqualified; “This mastery over style —a style at once simple, pure, flexible, pathetic, and graceful— places Thackeray among the very greatest masters of English prose, and undoubtedly as the most certain and faultless of all the prose writers of the Victorian Age.” Henley pronounced Thackeray to be the master of one of the finest prose styles in literature: “Gentle, yet vigorous; adorably artificial, yet . incomparably sound ; touched with modishness, yet informed with distinction ; easily and happily rhythmical, yet full of color and quick with malice and meaning ; instinct with urbanity and instinct with charm—it is a type of high-bred English, a climax of literary art.” All this praise refers to his style. Many critics find fault with him for looseness of construction as a novelist; but there are others who put him on a pedestal even as a maker of fiction. Lafcadio Hearn describes him as “the greatest of all English novelists, the very giant of the art of novel-writing,” and he compares the vividness of Thackeray’s characters to that of Slxakespere’s : “What distinguishes Thackeray’s work from all other novel-writing of the century, except Miss Austen’s, is the quality that distinguishes Shakespere’s characters in English drama. They are really alive

and to make a character really live is the greatest feat of which human genius is capable.” ■ • Manning * ‘:"' “G > - In a recent issue of the Month (Loudon) John Ayscough gives us some interesting reminiscences of Cardinal Manning. The Cardinal’s opinion on the. literary merits of the Douay Bible is worth recalling: “He was reading the Douai Version, and he praised me for saying that its inferiority to the ‘Authorised Version,’ from the mere point of view of beauty, seemed to me much exaggerated, and chiefly due to habitude and custom. “ ‘Most of those who abuse the Douai Version,’ I suggested, ‘have become so wedded to the Authorised Version by old use and custom that they could not suffer any other translation, and so they fall tooth and nail on the English of the Douai, which is not always inferior. It seems to me that “because a man shall go into the House of Eternity” is much more beautiful and poignant than “because man goeth to his long home.” ’ “ ‘So it docs to me. 1 cannot say that “Esau roared out with a great cry” is more beautiful than “Esau cried out with an exceeding bitter cry,” but I suspect it is more characteristic of Esau. . . . But some of our. converts never leave Oxford behind when they set out on the iter Roman n in. ’ ’ Exactly the same thing was said about himself at times. For instance: “He thoroughly admired General Booth’s aims, and particularly the dragging of religion out into the slums from its clinging to the sanctuary in the churches, and the preaching of ‘Faith without fringe.’ Many years after the Cardinal’s death 1 quoted this to a mosteminent French Ecclesiastic, who thought it splendid. ‘ onil Out! 1 'oil a- re t/ii'il font ott.c nuns dr* ritesfa. foi sons i/o/ofi.<.' S. “To a most reverend Italian prelate T also quoted it, but his comment was different; “ ‘Manning! Yes. A most sincere man, and full of zeal. But always a Protestant. No doubt he was in invincible ignorance.’” Here is an interesting comment he made on certain verbose Lives of the Saints, in Italian: “They are mostly divided into chapters, each of which deals with some special virtue of the saint, such as ‘The Gratitude of the Saint.’ ‘Such,’ it will say, ‘was the singular gratefulness of our saint that even for the slightest service from the most insignificant person he would invariably express his sense of gratitude were it at table or abroad in the city.’ Which probably means that he said ‘Thank you’ if anyone passed him the salt.” Newman If you are not one of those persons who cannot read anything better or higher than the latest novel turned out by a modern mediocrity you ought to have at least a few of Newman’s works on your book-shelves. It has been said more than once in this column that the art of writing good prose is a matter that one must learn by the study of the masters. And to no writer can we go with more advantage than to the great English Cardinal whom John Morley crowned with the high praise that he was the most winning writer of English that ever existed. It may well be that such books as the Grammar of Assent ,or The Development of Christian Doctrine are too deep for the ordinary reader ; but surely we all have intelligence enough to read Loss and Gain and the many volumes of Essays and Historical Sketches with profit and pleasure. Thank goodness it can never be said that Newman is a popular writer;, for popularity is the mark of medi- , ocrity. Yet for those who want to keep their eyes on the stars instead of on the earth popularity will always be a danger signal.

Newman as a Poet ,' Some critic once said that The Dfedm of Gcrontius came near being " a very; great poem. If that

means anything it is. that it is a really greatpoem/ only that the critic was afraid sto ( say so. For. it is one of tho laws of ;: criticism (with > few exceptions) to .follow the beaten .track* and: to say what the public want 'to hear. Therefore < with all due. deference .to the critics we may be assured that Newman was a great poet, and that he wrote many very good poems, apart ; from The Dream of Geroniius. . , His prose reveals .that he had the vision. Even in the Grammar . of : Assent, which is usually regarded as a dry treatise, , for our part we find passages: that awaken responses in our aesthetic sub-consciousness as surely as the sight of the sea bathed in the long glories of the moon, or that unspeakable and indefinable impulse from a vernal wood which Wordsworth alone could interpret for us. Those whose hearts have been stirred by the beauty and pathos \of the dedication of the Apologia, and who love that glowing tribute to his friend, Ambrose St. John,, will appreciate these lines in which Gregory tells of his affection for Basil what time they were schoolfellows in Athens:— . ■ " V ' : r

Mai/ I not boast how in our day we moved A truest pair, nob without name in Greece; Had all things common, and. one only soul In lodgement of a double outward frame? Our special bond, the thought of God above, And the high longing after holy things. And each of us was bold to trust in each, Unto the emptying of our deepest hearts, And then we loved the more, for sympathy Pleaded in each, and- knit the twain in one.

The story of the friendship of the two saints of olden days is as beautiful as that of Jonathan and David: and no less was that friendship between the Cardinal and his brother of the Oratory which touched so deeply poor George Eliot's lonely heart. We may be pardoned for thinking that the following little song deserves remeinbsring too:

/ wander■\bi/ that river's brink. II Inch circles IMut.o's dear domain; I feel the chill night-breeze, and think (> f J"!!* which ne'er shall be again.

/ count the weeds that fringe the shore, Each sluggish wave that rolls and rolls; I hear the ever-plashing our Of Charon, ferryman of souls.