The Blue Review, 2

7/27/2019 The Blue Review, 2

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The Im printMay 17th, 1913

A B RIEF SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF WOOD-

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J U N E C O N T E N T SPage

Joachim Am ong the Sheepcotes By S. Spencer FrontispieceYasm in By James Elroy Flecker 77 T h e En d of the Lonely King By No rm an Boothroyd 78 Lines Spoken at the Opening of the Birmingham Repertory

Th eatre By John Drinkwater 79 M illie By K ath erin e Mansfield 82 An ger and Dism ay By J. D . Beresford 88 A Fre sh Start in M usic By E . J . D en t 97 Epilogue : I I . By Ka therine Mansfield 103

C H R O N I C L E S O F T H E M O N T HThe Thea t r e :

Caps, Bells and Legs By Gilber t Can nan n o Th eatre s in the Air By Joh n Drin kw ater 113

Poetry By Lascelles Ab ercrom bie 117T h e Novels By H ug h W alpole 123 Gen eral Lite rature By Fran k Sw innerton 128 F rench Books :

A Classical Revival By Joh n M iddleton M urr y 134 Recent Fre nch Novels By X . M arcel Boulestin 138

M usic By W . Den is Brow ne 141 T h e Galleries :

M r. Max Beerbohm 's Exhibi t ion By Edw ard M arsh 143 Independants and the Cubis t Muddle By O. Raymond

Drey 146 Drawings by G. S. Lightfoot, J . D. Innes and Frances

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Joachim Among the Sheepcotes By S. Spencer


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YA S M I N

A Ghazel

How splendid in the morning glows the l i ly : with what grace he

throwsHis supplication to the rose : do roses nod the head, Yasmin ?

Bu t w hen the silver dove desce nds I find the little flower of friendsWhose very name that sweetly ends I say when I have said

Yasmin .

T h e m orn ing l ight is clear and cold : I dare no t in tha t l igh tbehold

A whiter light, a deeper gold, a glory too far shed, Yasmin.

But when the deep red eye of day is level with the lone highway,And some to Mecca turn to pray, and I toward thy bed, Yasmin,

O r when the wind be neath th e moo n is drift ing l ike a soul aswoon,And harping planets talk love's tune with milky wings outspread,

Yasmin ,

Show er dow n thy love, O bu rnin g brigh t ! Fo r one night or th eother night

Will come the Gardener in white ; and gathered flowers are dead,Yasmin .

J A M E S E L R O Y F L E C K E R

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THE EN D OF THE LONELY KING

They brought h im down f rom KharmadinBeyond the narrow mountain pass

That leads again to MuriasAll pale, and worn, and deadly thin,And covered with sweet-scented grass,

U po n a lordly palanqu in.

They set him on the si lver bed(The silver bed that seemed so small

Among the pil lars of the Hall) .No sound was heard : no word was said,As secretly they worked the pall

With shining moons of si lken thread.

The hours dragged heavy in their flight,Yet none paid heed unto the King ;

There seemed no air of sorrowingAs in the feeble candle-lightThey toiled at their embroidering

With eager hands throughout the night .

They shed no tear : they prayed no prayer,Nor gave the King a benison ;

But when at last the pall was done,They covered him with heedless airAll silently ; then, one by one,

Crept out, and left him lying there . . .

N O R M A N B O O T H R O Y D

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L I N E S S P O K E N AT T H E O P E N I N G O F T H E B I R M I N G -H A M R E P E RT O R Y T H E A T R E , F E B R U A RY 1 5th , 1 91 3.

To you good ease, and grace to love us well :To us good ease, and grace some tale to tell

Worthy your love. We stand with one consentTo plead anew a holy argumentFor art is holy. We, to whom there fallsThe charge that men may see within these wallsThe comely chronicle of comely plays,You, who shall quicken us with blame or praise,Desire alike but this, that here shall springSuch issue of our labour as may bringFresh laurels to the altars that have knownService of men whose passion might atoneFor worlds than this more fai thless, men whose namesAre very lifeaye, swift and urgent flamesOf living are they. These are over usTo lighten all our travel : Aeschylus,Euripides, the Sophoclean song,And Aris tophanes who captured wrongIn nets of laughter, lords of the Attic stage,The fourfold Greek dominion ; and the ageOf nameless poets when the hope beganTo quicken from the blood of EverymanInto the splendour of Marlowe's kingly lustOf kingly life, the glory that thieves nor rustCan ever spoil, whose name is manifoldFord, Massinger, Dekker, Webster aureoledWith l ight of hell made holy, Middleton,Chapman, Beaumont and Fletcher, aye, and one

Whom even these the lords of beauty's passionMight crown for beauty's high imperial fashionIn classic calm of intellectual rule,Ben Jonson. Sirs, I am nor wit nor foolTo speak in praise of him whose name is praise,

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Whose word is on the forehead of the days,Shakespeare, our master tr ied and proved how well ,Mortali ty 's immortal chronicle.

Under the warrant of these men we sail ,And theirs whose later labour these might hail ,Congreve and Otway : the Good-Natured Man,Proud tat tered Oliver : Dick Sheridan,Who played at passion but free-born of witPut scandal out to school and laughed at it ;These few that stand between the golden ageWhen poets made a marvel of the stageAnddo we dare to dream it?an age that stirredBut yesterday, whereof the dawning word,Spoken when Ibsen spake, and here re-setTo many tunes on l ips untutored yetFor speech Olympian, albeit pure of will,Shall ripen into witness that we stillAre countrymen of those glad poets dead ;The seed is sown, the barren days are sped.

And they who sowed, are sowing ? He, beguiledBy who shall say what envious madness, Wilde,Misfortune's moth and laughter 's new wing-feather,Remembering now no black despiteful weather :Hankin, and he, the cleanser of our day,Whose art is both a Preface and a Play,And he who pities, as poets have pitied, lifeOf Justice reft, so driven and torn in Strife,

And one who cries in Waste some news of man,And one who finds in the bruised hearts ofNanA nd Pompey tragic and old yet timeless things :And that dead Playboy, and his peer who singsYet of Cuchulain by the western sea

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Opening of the Birmingham Reper tory Theatre

Of these is sown the seed that yet shall beA heavy-waggoned harvest , masters mine,Gathered by men whom now the immoderate wineOf song is making ready.

In these wallsLook not for that light trickery that fallsTo death at birth, wrought piecemeal at the willOf apes who seek to ply their mimic skill :Here shall the player work as work he may,Yet shall he work in service of the play.Nor shall you here find pitiful release

From life's large pressure, nay, but new increaseOf l ife made urgent by these master-menWho are our captains. Life, and life againTragic or brave, free-witted, gentle, signedOf beauty's passion or the adventurous mind,Or light as orchard blossom, motley wearBut life's wear alwaysthat shall be our careAnd all shall surely follow. What may beHereafterto the heavens, to us to see

No will transgressing on the poet 's wish,T o you to jud ge the m eat before the dish .May you that watch and we that serve so growIn wisdom as adventuring we goThat some unwavering l ight from us may shine.We have the challenge of the mighty lineGod grant us grace to give the countersign.

J O H N D R I N K WAT E R

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M I L L I E By K AT H E R I N E M A N S F I E L D

MILLIE stood leaning against the verandah unti lthe men were out of sight. When they were far downthe road Will ie Cox turned round on his horse and

waved. But she did n' t wave back. She nod ded h erhead a l it tle and ma de a grima ce. N ot a bad y oungfellow, W illie Co x, b u t a bit too free and easy for

her tas te. O h, m y word ! it was hot. En ou gh to fry you r hair !Millie put her handkerchief over her head and shaded her eyeswith her hand. In the distance along the dusty road she could seethe horseslike brown spots dancing up and down, and when shelooked away from them and over the burnt paddocks she could seeth em stilljust before her eyes, ju m pi ng like m osq uito es. It washalf-past two in the afternoon. The sun hung in the faded bluesky l ike a burning mirror, and away beyond the paddocks the bluemountains quivered and leapt like sea. Sid wouldn't be back untilhalf-past ten. He had ridden over to the township with four of theboys to help hunt down the young fellow who'd murdered Mr.W illiam son. Su ch a dreadful thin g ! A nd M rs. W illiamson left allalone with al l those kids. Fu nn y ! she couldn ' t think of M r.W illiamson b eing dead ! H e w as such a one for a jok e. Alwayshaving a lark. Willie Cox said they found him in the barn, shotbang thro ugh th e head, and the young English " joh nn y " w ho 'dbeen on the stat ion learning farming disappeared. Fu nn y ! shewouldn' t think of anyone shooting Mr. Will iamson, and him sopopu lar and all . M y wo rd ! w hen they caugh t that young m an !Wellyou couldn't be sorry for a young fellow like that. As Sidsaid, if he w asn 't stru ng u p wh ere wo uld th ey all be ? A m an likethat doesn' t s top at one go. There was blood all over the barn.A nd Willie Cox said h e w as tha t knocked ou t he p icked a cigarette up

out of the blood and sm oked it. My wo rd ! he m us t have be enhalf dotty.Millie went back into the kitchen. She put some ashes on

the stove and sprinkled them with water. Languidly, the sweatpouring down her face, and dropping off her nose and chin, she

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Millie

cleared away the dinner, and going into the bedroom, stared atherself in the fly-specked mirror, and wiped her face and neckwith a towel. She didn' t know what was the matter with herself

that afternoon. She could have had a good cryjust for nothingand then change her blouse and have a good cup of tea. Yes, shefelt like th at ! Sh e flopped do wn on the side of the be d and stare dat the coloured prin t on the wall opposite, " G arde n Party atWindsor Castle." In the foreground emerald lawns planted withimmense oak trees, and in their grateful shade, a muddle of ladiesand gentlemen and parasols and l i t t le tables. The backgroundwas filled with the towers of Windsor Castle, flying three UnionJacks, and in the middle of the picture the old Queen, like a teacosy with a head on top of it. " I wonder if it really looked likethat." Millie stared at the flowery ladies, who simpered back at her." I wouldn' t care for that sort of thing. Too much side. Whatwith the Q ueen an ' one thing an ' ano the r." Over the packing casedressing-table there was a large photograph of her and Sid, takenon their wedding day. Nice picture thatif youdo like. She wassitting down in a basket chair, in her cream cashmere and satinribbo ns, and Sid, standing w ith one hand on her shou lder, lookingat her bouquet. And behind them there were some fern trees, anda waterfall, and Mount Cook in the distance, covered with snow.She had almost forgotten her wedding day ; time did pass so, andif you hadn't any one to talk things over with, they soon droppedout of your m ind. " I wun ner why we never had no kids . . . "She shrugged her shouldersgave i t up. " Well ,I've never missedthem. I wouldn' t be surprised if Sid had, though. He's softer thanm e . "

And then she sat, quiet, thinking of nothing at all, her red

swollen hands rolled in her apron, her feet stuck out in front ofher, her little head with the thick screw of dark hair, drooped onher chest. " Tick-tick " went the kitchen clock, the ashes clinkedin the grate, and the Venetian blind knocked against the kitchenwindow. Quite suddenly Mill ie fel t fr ightened. A queer trembling

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started inside herin her stomachand then spread all overto her knees and hands. " There 's somebody about." She t iptoedto th e door and peered into the kitchen. Nob ody the re ; the

verandah doors were closed, the blinds were down, and in thedusky light the white face of the clock shone, and the furnitureseemed to bulge and breathe . . . and listen, too. The clockthe ashesand the Venetianand then againsomething elselike steps in the back yard. " Go an' see what it is, Milly Evans."She darted to the back door, opened i t , and at the same momentsome one ducked behind the wood pile. " Who's that ," she cried,in a loud, bold voice. " Come out o' that. I seen yer. I know whereyou are. I got m y gun. Com e out from behin d of that wood stack."Sh e was no t frightened any mo re . She was furiously a ngry . H erheart banged like a drum. " I ' l l teach you to play tricks with awoman," she yelled, and she took a gun from the kitchen corner,and dashed down the verandah steps, across the glaring yard tothe other side of the wood stack. A young man lay there, on hisstomach, one arm across his face. " Get up ! You're shamming ! "Still holding the gun she kicked him in the shoulders. He gaveno sign. " Oh, my God, I believe he's dead." She knelt down,seized hold of him, and turned him over on his back. He rolledlike a sack. She crouched back on her haunches, staring, her lipsand nostrils fluttered with horror.

H e was not m uc h m ore th an a boy , with fair ha ir, and agro w th of fair do wn on his lips and chin . His eyes we re op en,rolled up, showing the whites, and his face was patchedwith dust caked with sweat. He wore a cotton shirt andtrousers with sandshoes on his feet. One of the trousers stuckto his leg with a patc h of dark b lood . " I can't," said Millie,

and th en, " Yo u've got to ." Sh e ben t over and felt his hea rt ." Wait a minute ," she s tammered, " wai t a minute ," and she raninto the house for brandy and a pail of water. " What are you goingto do , Millie Evan s ? O h, I do n't k now . I never seen anyo ne in adead faint before." She knelt down, put her arm under the boy's

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Millie

head and poured some brandy between his l ips. I t spil led downboth sides of his mouth. She dipped a corner of her apron in thewater and wiped his face, and his hair and his throat, with fingers

that trem bled . U nd er the d ust and sw eat his face gleamed, wh ite asher apron, and thin, and puckered in little lines. A strange dreadfulfeeling gripped M ill ie Ev ans ' bosom some seed th at had neverflourished there, unfolded, and struck deep roots and burst intopainful leaf. " Are yer coming round ? Feeling all right again ? "The boy breathed sharply, half choked, his eyelids quivered, andhe moved his head from side to side. " You're better," said Millie,sm ooth ing his hair . " Feeling fine now again, ain 't you ? " T h e p ainin her bosom half suffocated her . " It 's no good you crying ,Mill ie Evans. You got to keep your head." Quite suddenly he satup and leaned against the wood pile, away from her, staring onthe g rou nd . " T he re now ! " cried Mill ie E vans, in a strang e,shaking voice. The boy turned and looked at her, still not speaking,but his eyes were so full of pain and terror that she had to shuther teeth and clench her hand to stop from crying. After a longpause he said in the little voice of a child talking in his sleep," I ' m hu ng ry." H is l ips quivered. She scrambled to her feet andstood over him. " You come right into the house and have a setdown m eal ," she said. " Can you walk ? " " Yes, ' he wh ispered,and sw aying he followed her across the glaring yard to the v era nd ah .At the botto m step he paused, looking at her again. " I ' m notcoming in," he said. He sat on the verandah step in the little poolof shade that lay round the house. Mill ie watched him. " Whendid yer last 'ave anythink to eat ? " H e shook his head . She cut achunk off the greasy corned beef and a round of bread plasteredwith butter ; but when she brought i t he was standing up, glancing

round him, and paid no attention to the plate of food. " Whenare they com ing back ? " he stam m ered .At that m om ent she knew . She stood, ho lding the plate,

s tar ing. He was Harr iso n. H e was the Engl ish john ny wh o'dkilled M r. W illiamson. " I know who you ar e, " she said,

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very slowly, " yer can' t fox m e. Th at 's who you are. I m usthave b een blind in me tw o eyes no t to 'ave kno wn from thefirst ." H e ma de a m ovem ent with his han ds as tho ug h that

was all no thing. " W hen are the y com ing back ? " An d shemeant to say, " Any minute . They ' re on their way now." Insteadshe said to the dreadful, frightened face, " Not till 'arf past ten."He sat down, leaning against one of the verandah poles. His facebroke up into little quivers. He shut his eyes and tears streameddown his cheeks. " Nothing but a kid. An' all them fellows after' im. 'E don' t s tand any more of a chance than a kid would."" Try a bit of beef," said Mill ie. " I t 's the food you want. Some-think to steady your stomach." She moved across the verandah

and sat dow n beside him , the plate on her knees. " 'Ere try a bit ."She broke the bread and butter into l i t t le pieces, and she thought," They won't ketch ' im. Not if I can 'elp it . Men is all beasts.I don' care wot 'e 's done, or wot 'e 'asn' t done. See ' im through,Mill ie Evans. 'E 's nothink but a sick kid."

Millie lay on her back, her eyes wide open, listening. Sid turnedover, hunched the quil t round his shoulders, muttered " Goodnight, ole girl ." She heard Will ie Cox and the other chap droptheir clothes on to the kitche n floor, and the n their voices, andWillie Cox saying, " L i e dow n, Gu m boil . Lie down, yer l it tledevil ," to his dog. The house dropped quiet . She lay and l istened.Lit t le pulses tapped in her body, l istening, too. I t was hot. Shewas frightened to move because of Sid. " 'E must get off. 'E must.I d on ' care anyth ink abo ut justice an ' all the rot they'v e bin sp ou ting to- nig ht," she thou gh t, savagely. " 'O w are yer to know w hatanythink's like till yer do know. It 's al l rot ." She strained to the

silence. He ought to be moving. . . . Before there was a soundfrom outside Will ie Cox's Gumboil got up and padded sharplyacross the kitchen floor and sniffed at the back door. Terrorstarted up in M illie. " W ha t's tha t dog d oing ? U h ! W hat a foolthat voung fellow is with a dog 'anging about. Why don't 'e lie

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18/86

A N G E R A N D D I S M AY

A Fo otno te on the W rit ings of H . G . Wells By J. D . Beresford

MR. W IL L IA M W A TS O N believes in Dickens bu tnot in the future of the novel; he has credited theformer and discredited the latter quite explicitly inthat new collection of his " T h e Mu se in Ex ile."Dickens is presented as a fighter, and the nature ofhis belligerency is formulated in the couplet : " He

did not fight to rend the world apart, He fought to make it onein mind and heart ." I suppose the same thing might be saidbyhimself, at leastof any propagandist whose temperament wastoo mild to face the alternative of the sword. We see the magni

ficent excuse of the C hu rch " m ilita nt," th at description wh ichwas once so perfectly justified, but has no application to theincredibly padded gloves of the modern ring. The truth is thatM r. W atson's statement is absu rd, a me re sentim ental trifl ingw ith ideas. If I fight my en em y I have one of two objects in view ;either I desire to silence any further expression of his for ever, orI desire to convince him that I am the better man and that hehad better not contradict me in future. I am not fool enough tosuppose, however, that my thrashing of him will make him one

with me in mind and heart. I know perfectly well that his objectwas the same as mine, and that if I had been beaten, I might haveknuckled und er, but I should not have adopted his accursed heresyin the secret places of my mind.

T h e whole fallacy arises from the sentime ntalisation of the w ord" fight." D ick ens was no fighterhimself, and he could not portraythe fighter. His ideal was the sweet-tempered, flabby propagandist,whose weapon was the model of his own virtuous l ife. Dickens'sonly notio n of a hypo crite was of on e wh o covered a secret vice by aprofession of virtue and hu m ili ty. W hen h e attem pted to draw a realfighter, he always assumed that the person was mad.

Let us descend, for a moment, to a consideration of thatmaligned and temperamental woman, Mr. F. 's aunt. I confess withjoy that I share her contempt for the precocious, do-my-li t t le-best

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T h e first of his books which nu dge d m y attention was " T h eWheels of Chance." From one point of view, i t has l i t t le bearingon the subject of this paper. It is touched by the Smiles tradition.

Hoopdriver's potentialities are those of the old disciple ; the bestwe can expect from him is application to study, he is an indeterminate dreamer with no capacity for iconoclasm. The same thingmay be said of his expansion, Arthur Kipps. Both are studies ofthat undeveloped man who once appeared to their creator as himselfhimself at sixteen or so. W e find a little passion in th esetwo quite lovable little me n, bu t it is only a weak explosion ofhesi ta t ing temper.

With " The Invisible Man," however, we have a clear sightof the tru e Berserke r. Griffin com es before us a com plete antithesisto the Kipps typethe union is a later development. Griffin is aselfish anarchist. Wrapped in that cloak of invisibility which wasto serve him, he hoped, so much better than the wolf-shape ofthe Norse legends, he is bent on self-aggrandisement. As hedevelops, the lust of killing grows upon him, he is one againsthumanity and he dies fighting the world, his hands clenched, hiseyes wide open, and his expression one of " anger and dismay."And always as I read that last wonderful account of his career,I forgive him for his obsession with self, for his pig-headednessand his ultimate futility. The form of him returns to visibility inmy imagination as it returned to the sight of that little foolishcrowd about him, glowing with those two fundamental emotions," anger and dismay,"the very elements of man's revolt againstimprisonment in the flesh. These are transcendental things ; andthey are for me in this connection the basis of study. I take themnaked and titanic as two essentials of the artist ; while I admit

not without a faint regretthat they are not the only essentials,and that they represent but two aspects, however well marked, inmy image of Mr. Wellswho, by the way, is quite unknown to meexcept from his works. . . .

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Anger and Dismay

precedence, and only defeat and death could bring dismay. Butwhen the Berserker is transformed from beast to artist, it is dismaywhich represents the generating emotion, and i t seems to me that

it is of a type which is possible only to those who have the powerof withdrawal from their surroundings. This elemental dismay ofwhich I speak now, for instance, is of a type quite other to thatfelt by the sentimental Charles Dickens. His preoccupation withinjustice of the Squeers pattern, had the peculiarly human qualitywhich comes from intimacy with the world of men. He battereda little feebly perhapsat the heart of humanity, but always hekissed the gods' feet.

Mr. Wells has had the power to stand aside from these pre-occupa tions, and I quote a passage from " T h e W ar of the W orl ds,"which has always appeared to me as certainly representative ofphase s of his own ex perience . " At t im es ," he w rites, " I sufferfrom the strangest sense of detachment from myself and the worldabo ut me ; I seem to wa tch it all from th e outside, from som ew hereinconceivably remote, out of time, out of space, out of the stressand tragedy of it all."

The penalty imposed for the ecstasies of this abstraction, is aretu rn to dismay, and thence to angerpartly, may be, at the cursedspite which has saddled him with the recognit ion. The world ofthose far imaginings is such a fine place, that the immediate pre-sentation of the world as it appears, strikes the dreamer as a fierceimpo ssible horr or . He sees all too clearly that he is im priso ned , an dif he were of the prim itive Berserker type he wou ld en d in red r age,amuck among the unspeakable futilities of our present life. Butthe artist is confined by the necessities of his temperament, he isconscious before all of the urg e to create rath er tha n to destroy .

In brief moments of madness he may flap his hands wildly andcry out, " Oh ! let us do something, for Heaven's sake, dosome-thing to alter all this " ; bu t pre sently th e old com m and willcompel him once more, and he will settle down with little spurtsof passion and impatience, either to create a picture of the thing

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he desires, or to display his own vision of the repulsive thingw hich the mass of m ank ind accepts as the b est of all possible wo rlds .

I t is these spurts of passion and impatience, symptoms of the

transcendental dismay and anger of the spirit, that have evokedthis tentative analysis. I find them mirrored in the persons of Mr.W ells's stories : in Lew isha m 's attack upo n th e sheep-facedParkso n ; in G rah am , the sleeper, wh en he is in the " SilentRoo m s " ; in the tim e-traveller w hen " he raved to and fro,screaming and crying upon God and Fate " ; in Bedford (anotherBerserker) blindly killing the Selemites ; in Capes smashing glassin his preparation room ; in George Ponderevo and Remington,though somewhat more restrained ; in other characters too nu

m ero us to instance ; and finally with a grow ing difference inTrafford. I have picked out my examples haphazard as they haveoc cur red to m e, bu t I believe that ther e is hard ly a novel or arom ance by M r. W ells in wh ich the signs of this prim itive angercannot be discerned, while I cannot recall (to mark my earlyantithesis) a single tru e instance of the same passion in all thenovels of Dickensthe nearest approach to it is in the portrait ofMr. F. 's aunt. . . .

I am laying stress on this contrast not because I wish in any wayto belittle the genius of Dickensfor whose work I have a greatadmirationbut because I wish to thrust a part icular dist inctioninto prominence. I t may seem that I have indicated the dist inctionas that between the fighting and the merely propagandist spirit ,but the thing goes deeper than this. As I see it , indeed, it is adifference between two fundamental attitudes of mind, betweenthe spirits of acceptance and rejection, between worshipping,idealising the past and glorying in the possibilities of the futu re.

M r. W ells, if my in duc tion is a tru e on e, has little or no respectfor the past. His war is not against individuals but against convention s. H e comes out of the transcendental , a brig ht unp rejudiced spirit aghast at the dull prejudices of our civilisation. Hesees our futi l i ty, our indolence of mind, our blind leaning upon

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tradition, and it may be that his first impulse was to explain in afew clear sentences the mistakes under which we are labouring,to make one definite statement so incredibly convincing that the

world would at once recognise its stupidity.That impulse, indeed, is the primitive urge of genius. The

remedy proposed is of less importance than the great desire torecon struct . I t was in this that Nietzsche was m agnifice nt; whilehis disciples (including Strindberg) have failed, in as far as theyhave adopted only the critical premises and neglected the con-structive deduction.

But neither M r. Wells nor any other pro ph et, however insp ired,can build until he has persuaded mankind to clear the site, and inthe present case I see a life work devoted to that magnificent task.H is meth od s may be divided broadly into tw o categories : acriticism of the present building and an exhibition of the newelevations.

T h e first category m ust be subd ivided. U nd er one head fallsall tha t is m erely analysis of existing c on diti on s, all tha t criticalattack which ad m its the stereotyped respon se, " Have you anythingbe tter to offer ? " U nd er th e othe r with wh ich alone I prop ose todeal, our civilisation is shown by romantic means to be ephemeral.The assault is shifted from the convention to the individual. Theendeavour represents the at tempt to persuade complacent, bigoted,un thin kin g m an that his civilisation is im pe rm an en t, to lift himmomentari ly from his contemplation of his surroundings and givehim wider vision.

M any of Mr . W ells's rom ances fulfil this purp os e. As I think ofthat list of books, I remember first how they gave me the delightof living in a changed world, and secondly how they led me to

understand that all life, as I knew it, was open to criticism; that itwas a pha se in evolution, and no t, as I h ad once believed, essential,ordained and stat ic. Th ose books (I may instance more part icularlythe " Food of the Gods," " The War of the Worlds ," " The Firs tMen in the Moon," " The War in the Air," and cer ta in shor ter

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stories, l i f ted me from my contemplation of my immediate sur-roundings. While I read I gloried in the freedom of moving innew worlds. This uplif t ing was due to my author 's gif t of presen-

tation, and if the effect produced had been no other than this, Im us t have w ritten dow n these rom ance s as a failure. If, for instanc e,Mr. Wells 's romances had been of the same quali ty as those ofJules Verneto whom he has been so foolishly and purblindlycomparedI should have come back to earth unaltered. I shouldhave had the new experience of exploring air or water in an un-known machine, but I should have had no new sight of the worldfrom the outside.

In the case of the five books I have mentioned, the effect uponmyself was perm ane nt. I had be en led to look dow n upo n the w holemachinery of civilisation from outside. My habit of thought withregard to life was broken. If I did not believe in the possibility of,say, such a discovery as H erak leop horb ia I V ., I did very trulybelieve henceforward in the essential instability of society.

( I t may be remarked that I have omit ted " T he T im e M ach ine,"and " The Sleeper Awakes " from my list. I have done so becausethese two books vary quite definitely in intention and method.They do not break but develop ; they are in no real sense con-s t ruc t ive . " T h e Sea La dy," " T h e I s land of D r. M oreau ," and" The Wonderful Visi t ," I have omitted for other reasons. Theyare more nearly allegories of the older type, and while I do notfail to perceive the essential allegory of " The Food of the Gods,"the constructive intention of that work places it in the other cate-gory. If Mr. Wells had written only the first five romances men-tioned in this interpolation, he might with some slight show ofreasonableness have been likened to Jules Verne.)

I see that I have laid myself open to a charge of egotism inthus laying stress upon the effect which these books have hadup on m y own min d. But I have adopted the f irst person deliberatelybecause I have found that the majority of readers have read Mr.Wells 's romances as they might have read those of the ordinary

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auth or ; and so have come back to earth unch ange d. An d wh enI consider this amazing blindness and engrossment in personalaffairs, I suffer a reflex of that primitive dismay and anger. I desire

fiercely to expound and am brought back to that realisation whichled me to this long parenthetical explanation, and examination ofcategories.

For we are confronted with the extraordinary difficulty ofopening men's eyes. I have touched briefly on the method of thefirst category, and the second I must dismiss briefly. This ex-hibition of the new plans is to be found in such books as " TheDays of the Comet ," and " A Modern Utopia ," but i t appears tome that men will not seriously regard the new until they have

become dissatisfied with the old, and that they turn from thesepictures of a brighter future with the com m ent, " Very pretty ,no doubt, but we have to live in the world as it is."

I see that this imaginary remark directly contradicts the spiritof that earl ier reply I put into the mouth of mankind, namely," Hav e you a nyth ing b etter to offer ? " b ut the co ntrad iction isnot mine. In my opinion mankind as a whole is as I have thusdrawn it. I find both remarks perfectly characteristic of the sametype. Both arise from a failure to look out, from the elementaryinabil i ty to withdraw momentari ly from the immediate pressureof life. . . .

So I returnperhaps by a personal exampleto a defence ofthat " anger and dismay " with which I began. I have heard thesefine passions criticised, and I am up in arms to exalt them. I amwilling to beg the question that they are effects and not causes, butI f ind that that assumption in no way weakens my championship.For I know nothing of prime causes, and I believe that admissionis implicit in all that I have written here, as I believe also that theunthinking adoption of a cut and dried cosmogeny is responsiblefor much of the blindness which Mr. Wells has so valiantlyat tempted to cure .

All that I have so feebly and curtly attempted to champion is

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the militant spirit that lies behind all that has been expressed bythese various books, combining so many methods, of Mr. Wells.To me the purpose of them is not many but one. I am conscious

of man tr iumphant in thought, battering not al together vainly atthe feet of the gods. I see man regarding the limitations of theflesh with anger and dismay.

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A F R E S H S T A R T I N M U S I C By E D W A R D J . D E N T

MU S IC is in the melt ing-po t, we are told now aday s.W as the re ever a time when this could not be said ?The great upheavals associated with the names of

M onteverd i or Wag ner may be perhap s consideredto h ave b een exceptional ; twe nty years ago, saybo th revolutionaries and reactionaries, there w as

peace and tranq uillity, steady progre ss and obedience to soun dtradit ion. Yet a reference to Dr . W . H . Ha do w's " Studies inModern Music " (second series, 1895) will show us that in thosedays it was necessary to make an elaborateapologia for the audacities and originalities of Dvorak, a composer who appears nowto be rem em ber ed only by an occasional am ateu r perform ance of hisch am be r-m us ic. If we are conscious of a state of flux at this m om en t,the cause is to be sought elsewhere. The real change that has takenplace in the last twe nty years is the eno rm ou s deve lopm ent ofmusical intel ligence in this coun try. T h e general pu blic is m oreinterested in music ; it is even beginning to be interested in itsyoung English composers. This interest has to some extent raisedthe standard of their w ork. Tw en ty years ago the youn g Englishcomp oser was an obedient and in dustrious lad who tho ug ht i tthe highest of compliments when his teacher in a moment ofcordiality said that his work quite suggested Parry or Stanford ;and far away in the distant heavens shone the star Brahms, whomall were told to worship, though none could ever hope to imitatehim . T he you ng composer of to-day seems m uch m ore determinedto be himself a nd him self on ly : if he is told th at his work s hav e aflavour of V aug han W illiams or D elins he feels quite rightlythat that is not what he is aiming at, however deeply he mayadmire ei ther musician. His teachers are consequently beginningto find out that the old methods of teaching composition will notlast much longer, and the problem of finding new methods is anextremely difficult one.

Teachers of composit ion tend to fal l into two groups, whichwe may call the academics and the modernists . The results of

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their instruction may be observed at any concert where our youngcomposers ' works are performed. If we except the few who showa really strong individuality of their own, the crowd of the second-

rate ei ther goes on writ ing well-constructed sonatas and symphonies of the Brahms period and even earlier, or it gives ussym phon ic poem s and " fantasies " which sound very m od ernat first, but which after a few years time, if not sooner, areseen to consist m erely of a string of journ alisticcliches borrowedfrom the foreign composers in vogue at the moment.

It is the teachers of the second class who constitute the realdanger to our national music. The work of the second-rate academic is so dull that there is no risk of its having any influenceon the public, and the first-rate pupil of an " academic " schoolis pro bab ly th e be tter, if he is a real gen ius, for th e careful train ing .As long as pupils are taught to think logically in terms of music,they are safe, and to grasp even the externals of academic sonata-form requires a certain amount of musical reasoning. The modernist does not teach his pup ils to thin k in s ou nd s. Son ata-form ,he says, is obsolete, and he may very well be quite right on thispo int. But has he any cons tructive princip le to pu t in the placeof it ? If one can judge by such results as come to a hearing, heapparently has not. The general rule given to the young composerseems to be that he must let the shape of his work be determinedmerely by the story chosen for illustration, and that logic maytake care of itself, as long as the orchestration is effective, that is,as long as the orc hes tral effects sou nd sufficiently like tho se w hic hhave been made familiar to the writers by Strauss, Debussy orStravinsky.

The tendency of the age, we are told, is towards orchestral

music. Pure l ine, say the modern cri t ics, has had i ts day, and thefuture is to express itself mainly in term s of colour. For th e furthe relaboration of this thesis the wo rd " Post-Im pression ism " willbe found very useful. Ha ving no knowledge wh atever of theart of painting, I must apologise for being compelled to restrict

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A Fresh Start in Music

myself to the technicali t ies of music. Helmholtz adopted the wordKlangfarbe tone-colour as a G er m an equiva lent of timbrequality of tone ; but I see no reason to suppose that the function

of "tone-colour " in music is therefore identical with that of colourin painting. The survival of the word chromatic is proof thatmusicians of an earlier age had completely different views on thequest ion.

We must not be misled by false analogies and picturesquephrases. When cri t ics tel l us that modern music depends mainlyon colour, they simply mean that they themselves are satisfiedwith music that presents certain varieties of quality of tone,obtained ei ther by combinations of orchestral instruments, or

possibly even by combinations of notes sounded simultaneouslyon one instrument. The rapid complication of the mechanicalresources by which m usic is m ade a udible has in fact dazzled m anypeople so completely as to make them forget the absence of thatlogical sense of continuity of thought which is the only foundationof true music.

This tyranny of the instrument forms the subject of an interest ing paper by Ferruccio Busoni in a recent number of theGerman weekly, Marz. The art icle bears the t i t le Neuer Anfang," a fresh start." If a young composer writes as he feels, his teacherwill be sure to tell him that he does not know-how to write for theinstruments. " Look at the scores of Wagner or Strauss," he willsay, " and learn from them how to score effectively." The result,says Busoni, is that every modern orchestral work presents uswith the same complex of soundsthe violoncellos always trembling with exuberance of emotion, the horns making the most oftheir natural hesitance of at tack, the hautboys always breathlessand embarrassed, the clarinets always ostentatious of their volublefacility. There is no room for originality of thought, it is crowdedout by the necessi ty of conforming to the conventional moderntechnique. Beethoven, a lmost a lone among modern composers ,ignored the requirements of the ins t ruments , and made them play

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w hat h e wis hed . Poor old Beethoven ! say the teach ers of com position ; he was deaf and had no idea of orchestration.

" The born creator of the future," continues Busoni, " will first

of all have to face the responsibility of setting himself free fromall that he has learnt at school, all that he has heard at concerts,all that is reputed to be " musical " ; and when he has clearedhis mind of all that is unnecessary, he will have to bring himselfinto a state of ascetic and devout concentration, which will enablehim to listen to the secret voice within him, and ultimately toarrive at the further stage of communicating this message tom a n k i n d . "

All this is perhaps less revolutionary than it appears at firstsight. We are to give up considering the technique of instruments,and simply write abstract music, indifferent to the means employedfor translating the signs into sounds. Beethoven's posthumousquartets, I imagine, show some sort of attempt to work on the linesindicated. But the Giotto of the musical renaissance, as Busonicalls him, will have to be a very much greater man than evenBeethoven, and we may be pretty certain that his contemporarieswill have a proportionately greater difficulty in understanding him.In the meanwhile, what can we ordinary mortals do towardstu rn in g B uson i's advice to som e sort of accou nt ? It is useless toset about finding a Gio tto, bu t we can at least try to pre par e theway for him. The main thing is that we should concentrate ourattention on thinking musically, or grasping the principles ofmusical logic. We must learn to insist on truth and sincerity in theworks which are put before us, we must learn to refuse all that ismerely formal and traditional, all that dreary waste of artificialart which charitable critics describe as " very musical "the sad

equivalent of what in literature is classed as " scholarly verse."This does not mean that we must burn all our classics, still lessthat we should throw in our lot with the party of programme-m usic. I t is the writers of prog ram m e-m usic, mo re tha n any others,who have fallen victims to the tyranny of the instruments. Let us

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A Fre sh S tart in M usic

learn all we can from the classics, let us love them if we will, butlet us beware of reverencing them. Moreover, if we are going tostudy the classics, let us study them widely (not confining our

attention solely to Bach, Beethoven and Brah m s), and study the malways with a critical eye, never accepting any work as greatmerely because i t bears the nam e of a great m an.

In the case of composers, a good case may be made out for amore restricted investigation of the music of the past. Verdiadvised his pupils to take no notice whatever of modern music.They were to work hard at fugue-writ ing, probably in a rathersevere style, and to study no classics apparently, except Palestrinaand Marcello, the latter as being the best possible model for thedeclamation of the Italian language. The selection of these twocomposers ( the English reader may substi tute Byrd and Purcellif he likes) shows us that Verdi realised the same essential pointwhich underlies Busoni 's counsels of apparent anarchy. We canperfectly well afford to make a bonfire of all our instruments, forthe best of all instruments will still be left to usthe human voice.

Even if we keep our instruments, i t is undoubtedly on singingthat al l musical education must be based, whether for the ordinaryamateur or for the Beethoven of the future. No one can enter fullyinto the understanding of music unless he can feel every musicalidea from the point of view of the man who first conceived it andused his voice to express it . T h e exp erience of contro lling ou r lu ngsand vocal cords is the best possible training, if rightly planned, forthe perception of the rhythmical continuity of sound which isthe basis of m us ic. Voices have their limitatio ns, we are told ; bu thave we considered what we might have achieved had we fromthe days of Jubal devoted as much physical labour to singing as we

have done to playing instruments, and as much intellectual energyas has gone to the development of speech? All ins t rum ental m usic ,except in so far as it is derived from the primitive tom-tom, isoriginally an imitation of singing, and it is barely two hundredyears since the artistic supremacy of the voice began to be con-

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tested. I t is the last hundred years that has brought about thedisastrous virtuosity of the orchestra, the perfection of instrumental mechanism which has made the ins t ruments less human

and personal in their expression in proportion as they havebecom e more e laborate in their technique. T he pr imit ive hautboy ,for instance, was the nearest approach that its maker could contrive towards an imitation of the human voice ; the modern hautboy claims a separate individuality, and has stultified its improvement in fluency and in accuracy of intonation by an exaggerationof its characteristic deficiencies. Music has to be written for itwhich will draw attention to i ts being a hautboy and not any otherinstrument, and in this way the si tuation has gradually arisenthat it is the over-development of mechanical facilities which isblocking the composer 's way to real originali ty. For the present,i t is probably in the sphere of chamber-music that we may hopefor some attempt to make real progress. The str inged instrumentsare less tyran nical, they a ppr oach m ore n early to the ideal of anormal type of musical sound which can be utilised (as Beethovenshowed) for almost any idea which the composer wishes to express.The str ing quartet is almost the only form of music that has hadan absolutely continuous history for two hundred years. Debussyand Ravel have found it as satisfactory a medium as Scarlattifor the expression of pure musical thought. It is often said thatm od ern condit ions are not favourable to i ts de ve lop m en t; bu tthe fact remains that the most modern composers, even if theyemploy the form but rarely, do at least continue to make use of it ,and that section of the public which is seriously interested inmusic continues, though in small numbers, to l isten to them. Untilwe have recovered the use of our own voices, it seems that it is

from writers of quartets that we may most reasonably expectnew departuresdepartures that are really new, and that willlead along a road from which there need be no turning back.

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ran over to the window and opened i t wide and leaned out. Downbelow in the avenue a win d shook and swun g the trees ; the scentof leaves was on the lifting air. The houses lining the avenue were

small and white. Charming, chaste looking l i t t le houses, showingglimpses of lace and knots of ribbon, for all the world like countrychildren in a row, about to play " Nuts and May." I began toimagine an adorable little creature named Yvette who lived in oneand all of these houses. . . . She spends her morning in a whitelace boudoir cap, worked with daisies, sipping chocolate from aSevres cup with one hand, while a faithful attendant polishes thelittle pink nails of the other. She spends the afternoon in her tinywhite and gold boudoir, curled up, a Persian kit ten on her lap,

while her ardent, beautiful lover leans over the back of the sofa,kissing and kissing again that thrice fascinating dimple on her leftshoulder. . . . when one of the balcony windows opened, and astout servant swaggered out with her arms full of rugs and carpets t r ips . With a gesture expressing fury and disgust she flung themover the railing, disappeared, reappeared again with a long-handledcane broom and fell up on th e wretched rugs and ca rpets. Bang !W hack ! W hack ! Bang ! T he ir feeble, pitiful jigging inflamed herto ever greater effort. Clouds of dust flew up round her, and whenone little ru g escaped and flopped dow n to the av enue b elow, like afish, she leaned over the balcon y, shaking h er fist and th e bro om at it .

Lured by the noise, an old gentleman came to a window opposite and cast an eye of approval upon the industrious girl andyawned in the face of the lovely day. There was an air of detachment and deliberation about the way he carefully felt over themuscles of his arms and legs, pressed his throat, coughed, andshot a jet of spit tle out of the window . N obo dy seem ed m ore surprised at this last feat than he. He seemed to regard it as a smalltr iumph in i ts way, buttoning his immense stomach into a whitepique waistcoat with every appearance of satisfaction. Away flewmy charming Yvette in a black and white check dress, an alpacaapron, and a market basket over her arm.

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I dressed, ate a roll and drank some tepid coffee, feeling verysobered. I thought how true it was that the world was a delightfulplace if it were not for the people, and how more than true it was

that people were not worth troubling about, and that wise menshou ld set their affections up on n oth ing smaller tha n cities, heavenlyor otherwise, and countrysides, which are always heavenly. Withthese reflections, both pious and smug, I put on my hat, gropedmy way along the dark passage and ran down the five flights ofstairs into the Rue St. Leger. There was a garden on the oppositeside of the street, through which one walked to the Universityand the more pretentious avenues fronting the Place du Theatre.Although autumn was well advanced, not a leaf had fallen fromthe trees, the l i t t le shrubs and bushes were touched with pink andcrimson, and against the blue sky the trees stood sheathed in gold.On stone benches nursemaids in white cloaks and stiff white capschattered and wagged their heads like a company of cockatoos, and,up and down, in the sun, some genteel babies bowled hoops with adelicate air. W hat pecu liar pleasure it is to wand er th rou gh a strangecity and am use oneself as a child do es, playing a solitary ga m e.

" Pa rdon , Madame , ma is voulez -vous " . . . and then thevoice faltered and cried my name as though I had been given upfor lost t imes without number; as though I had been drowned inforeign seas, and burnt in American hotel fires, and buried in ahu nd red lonely graves. " W hat on earth are you doing here ? "Before me, not a day changed, not a hairpin altered, stood VioletBurton. I was flattered beyond measure at this enthusiasm, andpressed her cold, strong hand, and said " Extraordinary! "

" But what are you here for ? "" . . . n e rves ."

" Oh, impossible, I really can't believe that."" I t is perfectly true," I said, my enthusiasm waning. There isnothing more annoying to a woman than to be suspected of nervesof iron.

" Well, you certainly don't look it ," said she, scrutinising me105


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She pu t her arm over the back of the be nch and crossed her legs." W hy do you persist in deny ing you r em otions ? W hy are you

ashamed of them ? " she demanded.

" I 'm not. But I keep them tucked away, and only produce themvery occasionally, like special little pots of jam, when the peoplewhom I love come to tea."

" Th er e you are again ! Em otions and ja m ! N ow , I ' mabsolutely different. I live on mine. Sometimes I wish I didn'tbut then again I would rather suffer through themsuffer in-tensely, I m ean ; go down into the dep ths with the m , for the sakeof that wonderful upward swing on to the pinnacles of happiness."She edged nearer to me.

" I wish I could think where I get my nature from," she said." Fath er and Mo ther are absolutely different. I m ean they'requite normalquite commonplace." I shook my head and raisedmy eyebrows. " But it is no use fighting it. It has beaten me.Absolutelyonce and for all." A pause, inadequately filled bythe sly, laughing water. " Now," said Violet, impressively, " youknow what I meant when I said I came here to forget."

" But I assure you I don't, Violet. How can you expect me tobe so subtle ? I q uite unde rstand that you do n' t w ish to tel l m eunti l you know me better. Quite ! "

She opened her eyes and her mouth." I have told you ! I mean not straight out. N ot in so m any

w ords. But then how could I ? But w hen I told you of m yemotional nature, and that I had been in the depths and sweptup to the pinnacles . . . surely, surely you realised that I wastelling you, symbolically. What else can you have thought ? "

No young girl ever performs such gymnastic feats byherself.

Yet in my experience I had always imagined that the depthsfollowed the pinnacles. I ventured to suggest so." They do," said Violet gloomily. " You see them, if you look,

before and after."" Like the people in Shelley's skylark," said I.

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Violet looked vague, and I repented. But I did not know howto sympathise, and I had no idea of the relative sizes.

" I t was in the sum m er ," said Violet . " I had been most fr ight

fully depressed. I don't know what it was. For one thing I felt asthough I could not make up my mind to anything. I felt so terriblyuselessthat I had no place in the scheme of thingsand worstof a ll , nobody w ho unders tood m e. . . . I t may have been wh atI was read ing at the time . . . bu t I do n't think . . . not entirely.Sti l l one never know s. Do es one ? An d then I me t . . . M r. Farr ,a t a dance "

" Oh, call him by his Christian name, Violet. You can't go onte ll ing me about M r. Far r and you . . . on the he igh ts . "

" W hy on earth not ? Very well I m et A rthur. I think Imust have been mad that evening. For one thing there had been abother about going. Mother didn' t want me to, because she saidthere w ou ldn ' t be anybody to see m e hom e. An d I was frightfullyteen. I must have had a presentiment, I think. Do you believe inpresen t imen ts . . . . I don ' t know, we can ' t be cer ta in , can we ?Anyhow, I went . And he was the re ." She tu rne d a deep scarletand bit her lip. Oh, I really began to like Violet Burtonto likeher very much indeed.

" Go on," I said." We danced together seven times and we talked the whole

t i m e . The music was very slowwe talked of everything. Youknow . . . about books and theatres and all that sort of thing atfirst , and thenabout our souls."

" . . . . W ha t ? "" I saidour souls. He understood meabsolutely. And after

th e seven th dance . . . N o, I m ust tell you th e first thin g h e

eve r said to m e. H e said, ' D o you believe in Pa n ? ' Qu ite quie tly.Just l ike that . And then he said, " I knew you did." Wasn' t thatextra-or-din-ary ! After the seventh dance w e sat out on th elan din g. An d . . . shall I go on ? "

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" H e said, ' I thin k I m us t be ma d . I wan t to kiss you andI le t h im."

" Do go on ."

" I simp ly can 't tell you wha t I felt like. Fancy ! I 'd neverkissed out of the family before. I meanof coursenever a man.And then he said : ' I must tell youI am engaged.' "

" Well ? "" W hat else is the re ? Of course I simply ru she d up stairs and

tumbled everything over in the dressing-room and found my coatand went home. And next morning I made Mother le t me comehere . I thought," said Violet , " I thought I would have died ofs h a m e . "

" Is th at all ? " I cried . " You can 't m ean to say th at 's all ? "" W hat else could th ere be ? W hat on ea rth did you exp ect.

How extraordinary you arestaring at me l ike that ."And in the long pause I heard again the little fountain, half

sly, half laughingat me, I thought, not at Violet.

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C H RO N IC LE S O F T H E M O N T HT H E T H E AT R E By G I L B E RT C A N N A NCaps , Bells and Legs

IT is extraordina ry how scattered are the impressions to begot in the theatres of Londona good piece of acting here,a colour there , a witticism or two in a no ther place, a tu nein another. When you disentangle them you will find alwaysthat each moment of pleasure came by accident and existedentirely apart from the general intention. T he re is a com edy

at the Lit t le Theatre by a new and rather skilful writer, a Mr.Vansit tart , who dons the cap and bells and j ingles them for acouple of hours, during which and to their accompaniment, acomic drama ought to have started, reached i ts cl imax, and cometo a close. But, though there was a company of very competentactors on the stage, nothing was heard but the accompaniment,so that I was constantly reminded of an undergraduate neighbourI once had who evolved an unvarying accompaniment of C, Eand G in waltz time for every tune that happened to stick in hisunmusical memory. Impossible when he played, to dist inguishanyth ing b ut his thud din g a ccom panim ent. . . I t m ay be saidthat, as a critic, I have no business when witnessing a play to goback over the years to undergraduate memories. In the theatre,drama can hold my attention (and, I believe, everybody else's)and I can think of nothing else when it is presented on the stage.When it is absent, my faculties are not engaged, and any wanderingidea can creep into my head. (That this happens to other cri t icsis shown by the comptes rendus in the newspapers . ) That Mr.Vansittart 's cap and bells played the old C, E and G refrain isregrettable, but, having tested my power to respond to drama with

Hamlet at Drury Lane, I refuse to believe that the fault was moremine than the author 's . I wish him well , and pass on to recordother disappointments .

The new American Revue a t the London Opera House has agood illustrated-paper kind of poster of aMerveilleuse lady, which

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has only had an effect on me in one place. There is a certain wallin a main thoroughfare which proved too small for its length.The bill-sticker, concerned only to fulfil his functions, and caring

nothin g for anatomy , has folded up the botto m third of the p icture,so that the lady's leg, attractively revealed by an aperture in hergown, grows out of her waist. This fascinated me, and when Isaw the Revue I found that this poster gives a truer idea of theperformance than i ts more fortunate duplicates do. At the LondonOpera House the ladies' legs do grow out of their waists, or, atleast, such is my impression. They have a great many legs, butevery attempt I made to count them was baffled, for they werefor ever on the run, running out of nothing into nothing, aimlessly,without purpose, wi thout humour, wi thout zes t . There was oneperiod whe n I tho ug ht I should achieve my reckoning, bu t sudd enlysixteen legs disappeared into a pool of water and I had to beginagain, and before that I had been put out by the entertainmenttaking a sudden plunge into Max Reinhardt 's Arabian Nights,so that I was forced into a curious contemplation of two pairs ofmale legs. Till then I had decided that the purpose of the entertainment was to display a large selection of female legs, but whenI was presented w ith these fourtwo w hite and two stained brow nmy ideas were upset and I was set wondering why four malelegs should be enough for the female public of London whilefor the male public an unascertainable num ber should be necessary.This problem is st i l l unsolved, though i t remains interesting.There was no effective humour in the display, very little musicalability, no romance, no intelligence, hardly any of the qualitieswith which in musical comedy and English revues the appeal oflegs is salted. Here, bluntly (and most expensively) was the stage

used to satisfy that element in human nature upon which Mahom-med founded a vision of Paradise. Less efficient than the OneProphet, the Americans responsible for this " colossal success "have bungled their use of their material and give the impressionthat female legs grow out of the female waist. Perhaps my friend

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the bill-sticker had seen the show and had been horrified into anaccess of honesty, for certainly his is the only poster that gives acorre ct idea of the new R evu e, and it rema ins its aptest criticism.

A wicked spirit of irreverence almost drives me to wish thatthere were a few pairs of legs in Strife. Respect for the play andits author however win the day. The back-cloth of the speechscene in Strife is a picture of Welsh hills. These and the actionthat takes place among them call back to the mind that there arewinds in the world, winds and foul weather and a hard living to begained, harsh facts from which our townish huddling away leadsus to take a dull delight in caps and bells and legs. To read theword Strife and the name John Galsworthy in the list of playsis to be braced to new hope. To attend the play is to have thecomforting assurance that here at least is one man in the theatrewho will not fawn upon his audience, or leer at it , or mewl at it ,or strut before it , but one who to the best of his ability will interms of the theatre set before his audience the facts that havestirred his emotion and by his art lead them into sharing hisfeeling, his desire, his warm perception of the forces that playabout and through human action. He is an upright man that willnot indulge in showman's tr icks, nor mental tr icks, nor make anyappeal save through his art and the legitimate use of the machineryat his disposal. It is rather his sense of law and order than hissense of just ice t ha t will no t let hi m allow his conflicting forcesactually come to grips, and makes him state rather than reveal,deal with types rather than characters. That must be granted him.I t is in his attitu de, in his essence. Wh at is so valuable is tha t w ithinits scope his art is admirably disciplined, economical and effective.His is a stern wistfulness that is the most telling antidote to caps,

bells and legs. These also are good things, admirable in their place,but, if they are not used in terms of the theatre they are as distasteful as any other raw material, as distasteful as Mr. Galsworthy'semotions would b e, if he were ever slovenly enough to d um p the mdown on the stage, without moulding them into form. Really the

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whole problem is resolved into a question of the right use andthe wrong use of the theatre. Caps, bells and legs are every bitas good as wistful emotions if they are rightly used. The perform-

ance of Strife at the Comedy reveals an efficiency which is not tobe found at any other theatre, except, perhaps, on a lower level,the Royalty. What a fortune that man will make who discoversthe right use of legs in the theatre! Stravinsky and Fokin arevery near it .

T H E AT R E S I N T H E A I R By J O H N D R I N K W AT E R

M R . G O R D O N C R A I G ( " To w a r d s a N e w T h e a t r e , " D e n t ,21s. net) has produced a beautiful book, and in that he justifieshimself. If we com plain tha t it fails in its prim ary inten tion weare ungracious, for the gift of a beautiful book can in no case bejust cause for complaint, no matter how capricious its servicemay be. The imaginative reader of great dramatic literature isaccustom ed to create ideal pe rform ances in his m ind , a visionaryconduct of movement and conflict that is unimpeded by thethousand embarrassing circumstances of the theatremechanicaldifficulties and mishaps, the personality of the actor, the enormousproblem of investing the complicated and delicate piece ofmachinery which is comprehensively called the stage with thefreedom and elasticity of art. And he will, too, often set this idealperformance against an ideal background without considerationof t ime and spaceof the theatre 's walls . This background Mr.Craig does much to realise for uson paper. These designs, withtheir admirable economy of detail and their stirring suggestion of

height and distance cannot but leave our imagination the richerand more apt for the creation of those performances that outrunall the possibilities of theatrical device. Mr. Craig has dreamt well,and for this we are grateful. It may be said here that his new bookis not greatly concerned with th e opposit ion to words as the prim ary

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medium of drama that found an advocate in the author 's " Artof the Theatre," and there is no present necessity to disputeMr. Craig's denial of poetry on the stage. Many of these designs

are made for accepted masterpieces of poetic drama, and whateverthe designer 's quarrel with the spoken word may be in general ,i t is not laboured here. Nor are we disposed to pay very muchattention to the text of this present volume ; Mr. Craig is not agood writer either in style or temperament. His prose is constantlyapeing the ease of the conversational stylists, and always failing tocatch their secret ; i t is rather l ike M r. New m an or M r. M ontagu eon stilts, the fine lissomness of gait that is natural to themturning to awkward condescension, as who should walk a littleway with Tom and Dick, poor fel lows. There is , moreover,scarcely anything in these notes that was very much worth sayingrather an irritating wagging of the head with an " I could anif I would." So that dismissing the book as telling us but little ofM r. Cra ig's views of the who le art of the the atre and findingannoyance rather than pleasure in his writing, we are left withthe bare designs themselves, which are indeed the soleandample justification of the vo lum e. W e wish that the y had beenpub lished in a folio without any trapp ings, bu t since their m akerdecided against this we are not disposed to quarrel unduly withwhat we take to be an indiscretion. These designs are full ofimaginative beauty, and no one can look at them without realisingthat Mr. Craig is one of the most gifted men of his time. He has,as we have said, dre am t finely an d cleanly ; the im agination isnever dissipated into mere fancy. But Mr. Craig calls his book" Towards a New Theatre," and i t is at this point that the realtrouble in his work begins.

A g reat play does no t necessarily nee d th e stage to prov e itsgreatness, but it is certain that the dramatist can only achievehigh mastery of construction by knowledge of, and in terms of, thetheatre. I t is questionable whether, apart from this gain, the art istcan secure any profo und and lasting pleasure from w ork in the

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theatre, but , however this may be, every art ist who has anyexperience of such work knows that whatever the theatre may ormay not b e , it canno t possibly be a place of dre am s. Life in a theatre

is a life of continual conflict with immediate and practical difficulties on the stage, a daily compromise of ideals with necessity, ofdreams with stubborn physical facts. The supreme virtue of thetheatre is that it is the one instrument by which it is possible tomake great art popular, and i t is an und erstan ding of this condit ionthat is drawing so much of our best work to-day into its service.But the theatre is definitely a place in which to do and not todream. Mr. Craig gives us a design for the last scene of the firstact of Hamlet. It is extraordinarily impressive and really quickens

our perception of the poet's mood. At the back of the stage is thefigure of a m an ; beh ind him rises a great squ are-c ut b lock ofbuilding ; measuring this from our figure we find it to be sixtyfeet high, and the sky goes up above it. We do not see the fullbreadth of the scene, but measuring that part which is visible bythe same standard we find it to be seventy-five feetninety feetif we allow a small margin on either side. It is, as we say, undeniab ly im pressive, b ut w ill M r. C raig pu t it on a stage for us ?We have another design : a dark flight of stepsthirty-five stepsas nearly as we can cou nt the m ; a foregro und of per hap s ten feet.On the steps is the figure of a woman, an isolated point of lightin the surrounding darkness. Mr. Craig sees much emotional valuein th e des ign, and so do w e ; will he pu t it on a stage for us ?It does not help us to tell us that he is working towardsa newtheatre and not th e new theatre. The fact is that there is not theremotest possibility of a theatre in which these designs could betranslated into terms of the actual stage. You cannot have sixty-feet high buildings with the sky over them on the stage, and if youcould you would have a stage that would be useless for everythingbut pantomime. And you cannot l ight a single f igure withoutl ighting a surrounding space. At least , you cannot do these thingsin the theatre that is already beginning to announce again that i t

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will have its own passionate and vigorous life, whatever might bedone in the th eatre towa rds which M r. Craig tel ls us he is pointing,saying gaily that it is also a mountain. Of course many things might

be done in or on a mo untain , bu t that is another ma t ter. Th e youngtheatre to-day is in fierce opposition to a misconceived and whollyunpoetic principle of stage decoration. Mr. Craig, more perhapsthan any man living, might lead and inspirit it in a struggle thatme ans a good many bru ises ; or he may quite justly absent himselffrom the theatre altogether and continue to achieve admirabledesigns which will feed the imagination but not the stage. If he isto do us the former service he must show us how to work in clothand wood and l imes and electric bulbs, remembering that thepeople who are willing to have their imaginations stirred and topay for the adventure will not f i l l a mountain ; that the theatre,in other words, insists before everything else that the artist shalloppose himself to practical difficulties at every turn and that heprove every dream upon the stage as he goes along. It is not surprising that many artists, realising these severities of the theatre,refuse to bow to a discipline so stern. If Mr. Craig confessed himself to be of these, nobody could blame him, and his art wouldlose nothing. But it is useless to tell us that he is pointing theway to achievements in the theatre which even hehimself, by hisown witness, can yet do little more than see dimly in rapt ecstasy,and at the same time ignore the perplexing but inflexible conditionsthat the theatre imposes on i ts servants.

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POETRY By LASCELLES ABERCROMBIE" Thou hast made me endless, such is thy pleasure."

IT is ha rd to keep clear of the critical Kin g C am bys es' vein w henone has to write abou t Rabin dra N ath T ag or e 's " Gitanjali "

(Macmillan 4s. 6d. net .) . " Thou hast made me endless . . ."Yes , that is the danger. It is, I suppose, one of the paradoxes ofaesthetics, th at po etry , w he n it ach ieves a perfect formalitywh en form and impulse are inevitably relatedhas the power

of causing a notable sense of complete liberation from all theformality of consciousness : " T ho u hast m ade m e end less."Life can get nothing better than these moments ; they belong toDio nysu s. But they are " unex pressiv e." Th e m aking of greatpoe try is a transform ation of D ionysu s into Apo llo ; b ut th ereading of great poetry is a transformation of Apollo back intoD ion ysu s. A nd Dio nysu s untran sform ed is still less the god ofcriticism than he is of poetry. He is, however, the god of KingCambyses ' vein, which, as a good European, I am bound to detestabove everything. As a precaution against himto give him timefor settling down into the everyday formality of thoughtI shallspeculate a little about the significance of " Gitanjali " outside ofart. For Tagore's work belongs to world-politics as well as topoetry. As I read his own exquisite prose translation of his songs,I seem to have jum pe d right over that formidable clash wh ich is ,or ought to be, at the back of everybody's mindthe coming clashof East and West ; I seem to have landed magically in its sereneand t riu m ph an t conclusion . All the great original civilisations ofthe world (including the one on whose bequests we are still living)have resulted from the East fusing somehow with the West.And always i t has been the East that supplied impulseDionysus,the West that supplied formApollo ; for the result ing tr iumph

of vitality, each was as necessary as the other. Now this seems tome exactly what has happened afresh in " Gitanjali ." The bookis no t only nob le p oetry ; it is a new civilisation. T hi s is w hy itis so incomprehensibly surprising. When one is talking of poetry,Dio nys us and Apollo will always com e in very conve niently as

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figures of speech ; that is how I was using them just now. But in" Gitanjali " they have become gods once more. A profound im-pulse from the East and a masterful formality from the West have

joined together to create a new perfection of conscious life.T h i s , at any rate, is how I read the book. And there seems no

do ub t that it actually is a join t pro du ct of East and W est. R abi nd raNath Tagore's family has long been conspicuous for its efforts toEuropeanise India, or Indianise Europe, whichever you prefer.H is father took a great par t in establishing the Brah m a Sa m aj,an eclectic theistic religion which appears to have deliberatelyattempted to compound the formal thought of the West withIn di an sp iritual intuition . I believe it has had an imm ense influence.But the real result of the Bra hm a S amaj is in the songs of Rab ind raNath Tagore, which have penetrated the whole of Indian l ife.I may be hunting a chimaera ; but really this seems to me extra-ordinarily significant. Compare these songs with almost any otherEastern poetry, and you will see what I mean. Eastern poetry,however, m eans for m ost of us, I sup pose, Fitzgerald 's O m ar ;and the com parison he re will no t be so striking . Fo r F itzgerald" tampered," as they say, with his original : in fact, he turned itinto a Eur opea n poem . Read a l iteral translation of Om ar, andyou will see tha t Fitzge rald gave to his original ju st th at w hichis so noticeably supreme in " Gitanjali " : he gave it form. ButHafiz will show how Tagore differs from typical Oriental lyrics.No one can miss the puissance of impulse in Hafiz ; but I imagineth at m ost E uro pea ns w ould agree that it is impo ssible to readHafiz with any comfort, not even in a reading that so admirablysuggests the external form as Walter Leaf's translation. Whatdisturbs us is the complete lack of internal form agreeing with the

ex tern al. Orienta lists, of cou rse, adm it this ; they say Persia npoetry (and it is evidently true of Eastern poetry in general) getsits unity and only professes to get it , from an extraordinarily strictexternality of form : the spirit within the poetry is " free." Thatis m erely to say, the sp irit is shape less ; an d as long as G ree ce

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lives in Europe, we are not likely to be satisfied with shapelessspirit, however shapely the substance may be. A more familiarinstance, dou btless, wou ld be the Canticles ; and their pu rpo rt

is very close to that of " G itanja li." T h e inspiratio n of the Canticlesis as sublime as anything in poetry ; but it is utterly shapeless.I t is ungov erned ; Dion ysus has not contrived to tur n into Apollo.

An d that is just what h e has co ntrived to do in " Gita njali ."I certainly should not compare the inspiration of this book withthe depth and splendour of the inspiration of Hafiz or the Canticles.It does not seem, like theirs, a rage from the very heart of life.It is finer, more delicate, more wistful, decidedly less profound.But al l the same, compared with modern European poetry, i tamazingly seems to have behind it the pressure of vast reservoirsof vitality. No doubt this comes from the immense force of Indianreligion. T h e thin g is, how ever, that this elemental kind of in-spiration has been mastered into complete formality as shapely andexquisite as any thing in the whole range of Eu rop ean lyric ; and ,I think, considering the facts of the milieu in which " Gitanjali "originated, we may truly call this formality Western. But whetherthis be so or not, it makes Tagore's poetry of the same nature asthe poetry of Sapp ho or Simonides, W ordsw orth or Hein e ; andhere is the amazing thingthis without ceasing to be altogetherOriental and Indian. The translation of " Gitanjali" gives us, ofcourse, no notion of the external form of these songs ; but it mustcertainly be something beautiful. Beauty of external form by nom eans com pels the spirit within to be shapely : it m ay easily be" free ," or shapeless. Bu t " soul is form and doth th e bo dy make " :when the soul is formwhen thought and mood have suchsuperb shapeliness as they have in " Gitanjali "the body cannot

refuse obedience to it.It is possible tha t the Brahm a Samajand by tha t I m ean th e" con tam ination " of East and W estm ay b e responsible forTagore 's noble mingling of mystical aspiration with a profoundand delighted acceptance of life. But probably this is simply the

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result of T ag or e's genius ; for my sticism in E ur op e has alwaysbeen just as inclined to deny life as mysticism in the East. In anycase, the quali ty is one of the chief things in what Mr. Ransome

would call the " kinetic " of the bookin what it sets out to say.Bu t I shall not attem pt the futility of describin g w hat " Gitanjali "is like. In the bounty and glow and simplicity of its imagery, it isas if it discovers vitality itself. But it is more than a deep fluxof vitality ; it is vitality dari ng to hold itself in a su pr em e co nscio usness . The forces of its inspiration have made themselves intolucid formality, like the forces that build crystals ; and thereforeit is poetry that can as easily and as equally speak of strange andremote experiences of the spirit as of the divine lusts of the senses.Just because, I believe, it promises a new civilisation, but promisesit in the old way, in another fusion of the spiritual energy of theEast with the mental formality of the Westjust because of this,it is poetry which once more achieves the condition towardsw hic h all po etry is for ever strain ing : it is a perfection ofconscious life.

Well , I hope I have avoided King Cambyses ' vein ; I am notquite sure. But I shall have no difficulty in keeping clear of it forthe rest of this article. Not that " Gitanjali," as an earnest of futurewonders, need make us desperate about the present. We are notdoing so badly ourselves ; after Tagore's Indian dream, we neednot cry to dream again. Indeed, if we had several books like Mr.D . H . Law rence 's " Love-Poem s " (Du ckw orth 4s . 6d. net) , Ishould certainly have to say that we are doing astonishinglywell . But, thoug h M r. Masefield's " D aub er " (H einem ann 3s. 6d.net) has appeared in book form, Mr. Lawrence's poems standby them selves, am ong recent boo ks, for justifiable da ring .

" Dauber " seems to me the least successful of Mr. Masefield'snarratives ; chiefly because only a rattling good story could justifya poem of such length, and the story is a very poor affair ; it isfalse in psychology and false in sentiment. The hero's death oughtto have been significant; bu t I canno t help suspecting that M r.

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Masefield, having turned his hero at last into a decent sort of chap,killed him because he did not know what to do with him. Evenso, however, there are several pages of incomparable description,

and continual lightning flashes of splendid phrasing. But I do notlike having to praise Mr. Masefield only for the ornament of hispoetry . I cannot f ind m uch to say either about M r. Hew lett 's" He len Redeem ed " (Macm illan 4s . 6d. n et) or Mr . W illiamW atson's " T h e Mu se in Ex ile." Since M r. Hew lett published" Ar tem ision," his verse seems to have been trying hard torecapture the qualities which enabled that delightful book to dosomething considerable towards the poetic re-creation of Greeklegend. One cannot but admire the determined Hellenism of this

confirmed romantic. Only in one poem in this latest book of hisin " Gn atho " can I f ind an ything comparable with the keenphrasing and vivid conception of " Artemision." The rest is whatyou might expect from the industry of a romantic trying to be aHellenist . Of Mr. Watson's " The Muse in Exile " (Jenkins 3s. 6d.net) I will n ot say a ny thin g at all ; I have too m uc h respe ct forM r. W atson's past . Miss Emilia Stu art Lo rim er 's " Songs ofAlban " (Constable 3s. 6d. net) is another book I must pass by.Her writing is evidently quite alive ; but I find it difficult to enjoypoe try wh ich I cann ot u nd ers tan d ; and th ere is very little of M issLorimer 's which I can unders tand.

So I am left with Mr. Lawrence's " Love Poems." There isnovelty here ; but the right sort of novelty. It is poetry realisingthings afresh. If " realist " were not a word abominably misused,i t would be the word for Mr. Lawrence's poems. I do not carevery much for his rhythms ; their daring seems to be really a fearof being conventional, though sometimes, as when he uses monosyllabic feet, they are obviously effective :

" To ha'e gone an' given his white young fleshT o a wom an that coarse ."

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the " bit ter-sweet impracticable add er." But M r. Lawren ce hasan admirable power of l iberating the concealed meaning of words,and an equally admirable power of unexpected but truthful

association. These lines give an instance of both these qualities :" a grey pale light like must

That settle

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