Books and Persons; Being Comments on a Past Epoch, 1908-1911 Part 3

Mrs. Humphry Ward's novels are praise-worthy as being sincerely and skilfully done, but they are not works of art. They are possibly the best stuff now being swallowed by the uneducated public; and they deal with the governing cla.s.ses; and when you have said that you have said all. Nothing truly serious can happen in them. It is all make-believe. No real danger of the truth about life!... I should think not, indeed! The fearful quandary in which the editor of _Harper's_ found himself with "Jude the Obscure" was a lesson to all Anglo-Saxon editors for ever more! Mrs.

Humphry Ward has never got nearer to life than, for instance, "Rita" has got--nor so near! Gladstone, a thoroughly bad judge of literature, made her reputation, and not on a post card, either! Gladstone had no sense of humour--at any rate when he ventured into literature. Nor has Mrs. Humphry Ward. If she had she would not concoct those excruciating heroines of hers. She probably does not know that her heroines are capable of rousing temperaments such as my own to ecstasies of homicidal fury. Moreover, in literature all girls named Diana are insupportable. Look at Diana Vernon, beloved of Mr. Andrew Lang, I believe! What a creature! Imagine living with her! You can't! Look at Diana of the Crossways. Why did Diana of the Crossways marry? n.o.body can say--unless the answer is that she was a ridiculous ninny. Would Anne Elliot have made such an inexplicable fool of herself? Why does Diana Mallory "go to" her preposterous Radical ex-M.P.?

Simply because she is tiresomely absurd. Oh, those men with strong chins and irreproachable wristbands! Oh, those cultured conversations! Oh, those pure English maids! That skittishness! That impulsiveness! That noxious winsomeness!

I have invented a destiny for Mrs. Humphry Ward's heroines. It is terrible, and just. They ought to be caught, with their lawful male protectors, in the siege of a great city by a foreign army. Their lawful male protectors ought, before sallying forth on a forlorn hope, to provide them with a revolver as a last refuge from a brutal and licentious soldiery. And when things come to a crisis, in order to be concluded in our next, the revolvers ought to prove to be unloaded. I admit that this invention of mine is odious, and quite un-English, and such as would never occur to a right-minded subscriber to Mudie's. But it ill.u.s.trates the mood caused in me by witnessing the antics of those harrowing dolls.

W.W. JACOBS AND ARISTOPHANES

[_24 Oct. '08_]

I have been reading a new novel by Mr. W.W. Jacobs--"Salthaven" (Methuen, 6s.). It is a long time since I read a book of his. Ministries have fallen since then, and probably Mr. Jacobs' prices have risen--indeed, much has happened--but the talent of the author of "Many Cargoes" remains steadfast where it did. "Salthaven" is a funny book. Captain Trimblett, to excuse the lateness of a friend for tea, says to the landlady: "He saw a man nearly run over!" and the landlady replies: "Yes, but how long would that take him?" If you ask me whether I consider this humorous, I reply that I do. I also consider humorous this conversational description of an exemplary boy who took to "Sandford and Merton" "as a duck takes to water": "By modelling his life on its teaching" (says young Vyner) "he won a silver medal for never missing an attendance at school. Even the measles failed to stop him. Day by day, a little more flushed than usual, perhaps, he sat in his place until the whole school was down with it, and had to be closed in consequence. Then and not till then did he feel that he had saved the situation." I care nothing for the outrageous improbability of any youthful son of a shipowner being able to talk in the brilliant fashion in which Mr. Jacobs makes Vyner talk. Success excuses it.

"Salthaven" is bathed in humour.

At the same time I am dissatisfied with "Salthaven." And I do not find it easy to explain why. I suppose the real reason is that it discloses no signs of any development whatever on the part of the author. Worse, it discloses no signs of intellectual curiosity on the part of the author.

Mr. Jacobs seems to live apart from the movement of his age. Nothing, except the particular type of humanity and environment in which he specializes, seems to interest him. There is no hint of a general idea in his work. By some of his fellow-artists he is immensely admired. I have heard him called, seriously, the greatest humorist since Aristophanes. I admire him myself, and I will not swear that he is not the greatest humorist since Aristophanes. But I will swear that no genuine humorist ever resembled Aristophanes less than Mr. Jacobs does. Aristophanes was pa.s.sionately interested in everything. He would leave nothing alone.

Whereas Mr. Jacobs will leave nearly everything alone. Kipling's general ideas are excessively crude, but one does feel in reading him that his curiosity is boundless, even though his taste in literature must infallibly be bad. "Q" is not to be compared in creative power with either of these two men, but one does feel in reading him that he is interested in other manifestations of his own art, that he cares for literature.

Impossible to gather from Mr. Jacobs' work that he cares for anything serious at all; impossible to differentiate his intellectual outlook from that of an average reader of the _Strand Magazine_! I do not bring this as a reproach against Mr. Jacobs, whose personality it would be difficult not to esteem and to like. He cannot alter himself. I merely record the phenomenon as worthy of notice.

Mr. Jacobs is not alone. Among our very successful novelists there are many like him in what I will roundly term intellectual sluggishness, though there is, perhaps, none with quite his talent. Have these men entered into a secret compact not to touch a problem even with a pair of tongs? Or are they afraid of being confused with Hall Caine, Mrs. Humphry Ward, and Miss Marie Corelli, who anyhow have the merit of being interested in the wide aspects of their age? I do not know. But I think we might expect a little more general activity from some of our authors who lie tranquil, steeped in success as lizards in sunshine. I speak delicately, for I am on delicate ground. I do, however, speak as a creative artist, and not as a critic. Occasionally my correspondents upbraid me for not writing like a critic. I have never pretended to look at things from any other standpoint than that of a creative artist.

KENNETH GRAHAME

[_24 Oct. '08_]

It is a long time since I read a new book by Mr. Kenneth Grahame, but the fault is his rather than mine. I suppose that I was not the only reader who opened "The Wind in the Willows" (Methuen, 6s.) with an unusual and apprehensive curiosity. Would it disappoint? For really, you know, to live up to "The Golden Age" and "Pagan Papers" could not be an easy task--and after so many years of silence! It is ten years, if I mistake not, since Mr. Kenneth Grahame put his name to anything more important than the official correspondence of the Bank of England. Well, "The Wind in the Willows" does not disappoint. Here, indeed, we have the work of a man who is obviously interested in letters and in life, the work of a fastidious and yet a very robust artist. But the book is fairly certain to be misunderstood of the people. The publishers' own announcement describes it as "perhaps chiefly for youth," a description with which I disagree. The obtuse are capable of seeing in it nothing save a bread-and-b.u.t.ter imitation of "The Jungle Book." The woodland and sedgy lore in it is discreet and attractive. Names of animals abound in it. But it is nevertheless a book of humanity. The author may call his chief characters the Rat, the Mole, the Toad,--they are human beings, and they are meant to be nothing but human beings. Were it otherwise, the spectacle of a toad going through the motor-car craft would be merely incomprehensible and exasperating. The superficial scheme of the story is so childishly nave, or so daringly nave, that only a genius could have preserved it from the ridiculous. The book is an urbane exercise in irony at the expense of the English character and of mankind. It is entirely successful. Whatever may happen to it in the esteem of mandarins and professors, it will beyond doubt be considered by authentic experts as a work highly distinguished, original, and amusing--and no more to be comprehended by youth than "The Golden Age" was to be comprehended by youth.

ANATOLE FRANCE

[_29 Oct. '08_]

I obtained the new book of Anatole France, "L'Ile des Pingouins," the day after publication, and my copy was marked "eighteenth edition." But in French publishing the word "edition" may mean anything. There is a sort of legend among the simple that it means five hundred copies. The better informed, however, are aware that it often means less. Thus, in the case of the later novels of Emile Zola, an edition meant two hundred copies.

This was chiefly to save the self-love of his publishers, who did not care to admit that the idol of a capricious populace had fallen off its pedestal. The vast fiction was created that Zola sold as well as ever! One Paris firm, the "Societe du Mercure de France," which in the domain of pure letters has probably issued in the last dozen years more good books than any other house in the world, has, with astounding courage, adopted the practice of numbering every copy of a book. Thus my copy of its "L'Esprit de Barbey d'Aurevilly" (an exceedingly diverting volume) is numbered 1424. I prefer this to advertis.e.m.e.nts of "second large edition,"

etc. One knows where one is. But I fear the example of the Mercure de France is not likely to be honestly imitated.

If Anatole France's "editions" consist of five hundred copies I am glad.

For an immediate sale of nine thousand copies is fairly remarkable when the article sold consists of nothing more solid than irony. But I am inclined to think that they do not consist of five hundred copies. There is less enthusiasm--that is to say, less genuine enthusiasm--for Anatole France than there used to be. The majority, of course, could never appreciate him, and would only buy him under the threat of being disdained by the minority, whose sole weapon is scorn. And the minority has been seriously thinking about Anatole France, and coming to the conclusion that, though a genius, he is not the only genius that ever existed.

(Stendhal is at present the G.o.d of the minority of the race which the _Westminister Gazette_ will persist in referring to as "our French neighbours." In some circles it is now a lapse from taste to read anything but Stendhal.) Anatole France's last two works of imagination did not brilliantly impose themselves on the intellect of his country. "L'Histoire Comique" showed once again his complete inability to construct a novel, and it appeared to be irresponsibly extravagant in its sensuality. And "Sur la Pierre Blanche" was inferior Wells. The minority has waited a long time for something large, original, and arresting; and it has not had it.

The author was under no compulsion to write his history of Joan of Arc, which bears little relation to his epoch, and which one is justified in dismissing as the elegant pastime of a savant. If in Anatole France the savant has not lately flourished to the detriment of the fighting philosopher, why should he have spent years on the "Joan of Arc" at a period when Jaures urgently needed intellectual aid against the doctrinarianism of the International Congress? Jaures was beaten, and he yielded, with the result that Clemenceau, a man far too intelligent not to be a practical Socialist at heart, has become semi-reactionary for want of support. This has not much to do with literature. Neither has the history of Joan of Arc. To return to literature, it is indubitable that Anatole France is slightly acquiring the reputation of a dilettante.

In "L'Ile des Pingouins" he returns, in a parable, to his epoch. For this book is the history of France "from the earliest time to the present day," seen in the mirror of the writer's ironical temperament. It is very good. It is inimitable. It is sheer genius. One cannot reasonably find fault with its amazing finesse. But then one is so d.a.m.nably _un_reasonable! One had expected--one does not know what one had expected--but anyhow something with a more soaring flight, something more pa.s.sionate, something a little less gently "tired" in its att.i.tude towards the criminal frailties of mankind! When an A.B. Walkley yawns in print before the spectacle of the modern English theatre, it really doesn't matter. But when an Anatole France grows wearily indulgent before the spectacle of life, one is inclined to wake him by throwing "Leaves of Gra.s.s" or "Ecce h.o.m.o" (Nietzsche's) at his head. For my part, I am ready to hazard that what is wrong with Anatole France is just spiritual anaemia.

Yet only a little while, and he was as great a force for pushing forward as H.G. Wells himself!

INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY

[_3 Dec. '08_]

The judgments of men who have the right to judge are not as other judgments. According to Mr. Yeats "the finest comedian of his kind on the English-speaking stage" is not Mr. George Alexander, but Mr. William Fay!

And who, outside Dublin, has ever heard of Mr. J.M. Synge, author of "The Playboy of the Western World?" For myself, I have heard of him, and that is all. Mr. Yeats calls him "a unique man," and puts him above all other Irish creative artists in prose. And very probably Mr. Yeats is correct.

For the difference between what informed people truly think about reputations, and what is printed about reputations by mandarins in popular papers, is apt to be startling. The other day I had a terrific pow-wow with one of the most accomplished writers now living; it occurred in the middle of a wood. We presently arrived at this point: He asked impatiently: "Well, who _is_ there who can write tip-top poetry to-day?" I tried to dig out my genuine opinions. Really, it is not so easy to put one's finger on a high-cla.s.s poet. I gave the names of Robert Bridges and W.B. Yeats. He wouldn't admit Mr. Yeats's tip-topness. "What about T.W.H.

Crosland?" he inquired. At first, with the immeasurable and vulgar tedium of Mr. Crosland's popular books in my memory, I thought he was joking. But he was not. He was convinced than an early book by the slanger of suburbs contained as fine poetry as has been written in these days. I was formally bound over to peruse the volume. "And Alfred Douglas?" he said further.

(Not that he had shares or interest in the _Academy_!) Of course, I had to admit that Lord Alfred Douglas, before he began to cut capers in the hinterland of Fleet Street, had been a poet. I have an early volume of his that, to speak mildly, I cherish. I should surmise that scarcely one person in a million has the least idea of the ident.i.ty of the artists by which the end of the twentieth century will remember the beginning. The vital facts of to-day's literature always lie buried beneath chatter of large editions and immense popularities. I wouldn't mind so much, were it not incontestable that at the end of the century I shall be dead.

MALLARMe, BAZIN, SWINBURNE

[_17 Dec. '08_]

The Mrs. Humphry Ward of France, M. Rene Bazin, has visited these sh.o.r.es, and has been interviewed. In comparing him to Mrs. Humphry Ward, I am unfair to the lady in one sense and too generous in another. M. Bazin writes perhaps slightly better than Mrs. Humphry Ward, but not much. _Per contra_, he is a finished master of the art of self-advertis.e.m.e.nt, whereas the public demeanour of Mrs. Humphry Ward is entirely beyond reproach. M.

Bazin did not get through his interview without giving some precise statistical information as to the vast sale of his novels. I suppose that M. Bazin, Academician and apostle of literary correct.i.tude, is just the type of official mediocrity that the Alliance Francaise was fated to invite to London as representative of French letters. My only objection to the activities of M. Bazin is that, not content with a golden popularity, he cannot refrain from sneering at genuine artists. Thus, to the interviewer, he referred to Stephane Mallarme as a "fumiste." No English word will render exactly this French slang; it may be roughly translated a practical joker with a trace of fraud. There may be, and there are, two opinions as to the permanent value of Mallarme's work, but there cannot be two informed and honest opinions as to his profound sincerity. It is indubitable that he had one aim--to produce the finest literature of which he was capable, and that to this aim he sacrificed everything else in his career. A charming spectacle, this nuncio of mediocrity and of the Academie Francaise coming to London to a.s.sert that a distinguished writer like Mallarme was a "fumiste"! If any one wishes to know what is thought of Mallarme by the younger French school, let him read the Mallarme chapter in Andre Gide's "Pretextes." In this very able book will be found also some wonderful reminiscences of Oscar Wilde.

Speaking of the respect which ought to be accorded to a distinguished artist, there is an excellent example of propriety in Dr. Levin Schucking's review of Swinburne's "The Age of Shakespeare," which brings to a close the extraordinarily fine first number of the _English Review_.

Dr. Schucking shows that he is quite aware of the defects of manner which mark the book, but his own manner is the summit of courteous deference such as is due to one of the chief ornaments of English literature, and to a very old man. "A Man of Kent" (_British Weekly_), in commenting on the article, regrets its timidity, and refers to Swinburne as the "howling dervish" of criticism. This is the kind of lapse from decorum which causes the judicious not to grieve but to shrug their shoulders. Probably "A Man of Kent" would wish to withdraw it. I trust he is aware that "The Age of Shakespeare" is packed full of criticism whose insight and sensitiveness no other English critic could equal.

THE RUINED SEASON

[_24 Dec. '08_]