(c) 1945, Times NewspapersDoc ref: TLS-1945-0310             Date: March 10, 1945

116 . THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT SATURDAY MARCa ,lO. 194{

The Hogarth Press ':':::::;1_ , f~winl hoole. (or eorJy publication

* LOVING -by HENRY GREEN gs.6<1. Henry Green has been called .. a novelist who in many respects is .without a rival." The scene of his new book: is laid in a castle in Ireland during the present war. By the author of Caught , onc'of the outstanding fiction successes or 1943.

* NUNWEU SYMPHONY by C. ASPINALL OGLANDER

probabk price ISS.

This is the story of Nimwell. an eState in the lsle of Wight, where theOglander fami ly has lived for nearly nine hundred years, told by the author of Admiral's Widow, with extracts from the many fascinating letters.. diaries, and other papers of the fam ily. JIII,strated •.

* THE PROBLEMS OF LIEUTENANT KNAP

by JIRI MUCHA 8s.6d.

This is a book of closely connected short stories which describe thespiritllai oddity of a young Czech officer during the present war. Some of them have already appeared in New Writing, where they reteived appreciative attention from the critics.

* NEW WRITING AND DA YUGHT VI lOS. 6d.

The next number of this very successfu l -and welr~known book-periodical, edited by John Lehmann, of which the last issue was heavily over-subscribed, wiH conta in contributions by Edith SitweH, Stephen Spender, C . V. Wedgwood, George Seferis, Henry Reed, and many olher authors both British and Foreign.

CltooJt Ji"gurlll Books

e_

l?AITH B ,\.LDll'IN WHITE MAGIC

Ss. 611. net (LauMarch)

PIIYLLIS U 1UIBLEDOl\"S

outJIla lMiing ,u('teN

WINTER TOGETHER (2nd impression in preparation)

Ss. 6d. net

RUDUIENTS OF AIRCRAFI'

RI~OOGNITION by ERIC WILTON

fully ilIuttrated

A beginner'~ book of aircraft recog­nition. (Late Match) 7s. 6d. net

~IEnCHAN'l' SlIIPS 1945 EDITION

edited by E. C. TALBOT-BOOTH

The • Jane' of the shipping world. (111 preparolioll). £3 3s. net

Jane's All the ll'ol'ld's

AiI'craft Edited by

LEONARD BRIDGMAN A complete Record of Aeronautical progress throughout the world durin&:

the past year. 1943-44 Editioo. £3 35. net

Jane's Figbting Ships

Edited by FRANCIS E. McMURTRIE THE NAVAL ENCYCLOPAEDIA

1943-44 Edilkto. £3:1s. net

TillS STEELED AGE

FAItH IN A CHANGED FUTURE SMOKE AFTER FLAME. Poems by aAL SUMMERS. STORMY H:ARVEST.

Poems of Peace and War. By STANLEY SNAITH. THE AXE IN THE WOOD. Poems by CLIFFORD DYMENT. Dent. 3., 6d. each.

Here are · three attractively produced little volumes in . which ihe losses of war economy have been skilfully turned by the publisher into gain. One is by a poet whose verse has not previously appeared in book. form and who is indubitably" a find," Mr, Hal Summers writes with a free-flowillg informality which at first seems almost casual, but which on closer acquaintance is found to possess that best, firmest and most flexible order which spri ngs from an in tegral act of expression . As his poem addressed to John Dowland shows. he lnows full well the difficulty of resolving the hardness and tenseness of this steeled age in song:-Is there for such sorrow aod love, Dowland , a tune In your book? Heavy is it for lute 10 lifl ? .Yet must we make our wem of it and on the duoe Of this century SCatter our $ea._thrift. He succeeds in wedding an original lyrical impulse to the matter, ro often forbiddin,g and unrhythmic of to·day, an'd in infusing speech­rhythm and even a conversational. tone with form and pattern. This is the more remark­able because he is in the best and deepest sense a moralist who in six short stanzas can argue, wi th Pla to 's shade, the case for the equality o( " Reason and Sense," .. those two pearls engendered in One shell," or in "The Town " make town-plan ning a par~ble of creation . Therefore the new town and the old must be Inextricllbly one: there's no escape, No fresh start with a wilderness to shape, O.nly a patIent altering and Ilmending, A strong inf.t1lible straightening or IKnding, With a love for what is and is not that is unending. But the didactic note is seldo m so explicit. He is a suggestive, a stimulating moralist because he is so much more, akin in that to the" burn­ing, heretic" cherry tree of which he writes: -

It glows wrth a white heat of argument, An eloquence or flowers Crying in the wilderness, Repent And turn from your despa irs.

Such a cry sounds again and again in hi s poems, as he listens to ., hobel Baillie singing Kayd n " or shakes oui, with the .. shining ?lind, Ihe listless flags of a irt or strains with an imprisoned spaniel at a window to be out with

all things coming and going Freely, and swiftly living and swiftly dying.

It ~unds in the sudden peal of merriment of . a child at dead of night or on a wild misty

moor and even in Piccadilly, But there is

dark.ness in his verse as well as light, the sick.­ness of the present as well a.s fa.ith in a changed future when ~en

Will sense the cure of na ture And know their kind delivered From Ihe iswe of blood for ever.

There. are bombs and balloons to catch bombers, secn through the eyes: of a child, and despair in the small hours and d-eath anatomized in an X .. ray photograph-

And sitting wi th the collar-bone The breast-bone will condemn the heart

:Zn~~h~a~~: !~ ~gv~~~~lt d:~ert And CUt the cornstalk lies on land And dark the houses in the street And no more mischief in the hand And no more- error in the feet.

Occasionally, as in .. Out of the Wild Un· civilized Bracken," his ·verse runs too loosely or slips into ungainly phrasing. But generally imagination, intelligence and moral sensi­bility are fused in a fine f ullness and span·

taneity of expression. Mr: Snaith explores a narrower kingdom,

that of the natural world caught in the fine focus of a devoted sensibility, "It is the order of the ea rth" he cherishes, to quote his awn words, o r again , wrenching a line from its context, "one must look deep in Nature's heart." His phrasing is as precise and indi­vidual as his seeing,-as for example when he writes of snow and fros t-

So deep that tranOt: of winter That by the s,hallows of the stream l -+1eard The liquid anvils forging spike and splinter.

If he errs, it is in a tendency to lose Ihe creative impulse in the concentrated ingenui ty with which he elaborates it and th is is fel t in the" awkward biUer music" of some of his war poems too, But how exactl y and also livingly he can capture nalure's moments is welt exempli fied in such poems as " Birds in the Flax,"

Mr. Clifford Dyment practises economy as a verse-writer too. but he is a more subjective poet and the economy is too often that of pre­cise une..vocative sta tem'ent. Perhaps his best ve rses are those in which a religious impulse compensate$ (or the insufficiency of a lyrical one, .. Brother Ass," for example, or .. Saint Clare." His verse is always d irect and simple, with a simplicity that has been made, not merely given, and capable of an epigrammat.ic terseness, But his verse tends as yet to be too much bounded by the conscious ego.

ON SEA AND SHORE SEA POEMS. Chosen by MYFANWY

PIPER. With Original Lithographs by MONA MOOR E. Muller. lOs . 6<1.

The series of anthologies called" New Excur­sions into English. Poetry" to which Mrs. Piper con tri butes this volume is not devoted to gen~ral representation of what has been -written o n chosen topics at one period and ano ther bu t to personal preference. Within the space ava ilable anythi ng else, however valuable in its own way, would be almost impossible to achieve, And since certain masterpieces-as in this case" The Ancient Mariner," Keats's sonnet on .. The Sea," or the stanzas in the second book of " The Faerie Queene ., which gave Keats the vision of "'sea·shouldring whal es "-are in every hand, the selector may well invite in their places others from th e neglected corners of our poetic libra ry.

Mrs. Pipcr has chosen more than eighty of •• the best poems or parts of poems Ihat describe the sea (and seaside) or il/ustrate it in its relation to humanity "; she begins with Chapman's t ranslation of the Odyssey­Ulysses fighting: his way to the land- and ends wi th Flecker's lyric" The Welsh Sea," A difficulty which she poi nts nut in her imagina­tive task. is what aU who read Shakespeare would expect: ,. The sea is a persistent and recurring image but man y of the most moving lines about it have been merely casual iIIus:traM tion ·or metaphor." With laudable inde­pendence of judgment she brings in one or two pieces of some length, Hood's "Storm at Hastings" and Edward Young's queer ode on ,. Ocean "; and though these are not wholly poetical they have flashes of greatness to light up the subject. Sometimes the quieter colourists have their opportunity; and next to William Blake's vision of celestial light on a morning of splendid sun upon the Channel, William Holloway'S little sketch at Por tland distinguishes

black nets upon the sunny 'ridge Whence ffl:lnr a boat at intervals is launch'd , And wing'd wlth oars: then mack-'rel shoals arr ive, Dark'ning the deep, the seiners shoot a.way ... For the variety of sea-poetry which Mrs. Piper has been able to command it is example enough to mention H.a rdy·s m ighty myth .. The Convergence of the Twa in " or De Tabley's nature'poem and love-poem, too , .. The Churchyard on the Sands."

This is an anthology where the poet ry of (he feehngs predominates, and an obsolete or an uncertain touch is not taken as rea son to

exclude what has stirred the editor's memories and impressions of the sea, If tbis is a limita- .. tion, it is the right one for the occasion. The book, like its companions in the series, has a Jure beyond that of the text; it contains sixteen coloured lithographs, ranging in topic from the lay town perched above its litde beach and bay, and the stubborn, unblossom-

. ing trees on the edge of the shee r coast, to the terror of tempest and the nearly lost fo rm of the brig in the tornado. These are altogether a study of sea and shDre as beautiful as they are uncomplicated.

THE INDEPENDENTS FOSSETT'S MEMORY. By CHRISTOPHER

HOLLIS, Hollis and Carter. 95.

Robert Fossett was the Somerset squi re in ­vented by Mr, Christopher Hollis as a means of trying out some original ideas. He was very unexpected an d independent in his way of thinking, and very strict in hi s sense of his own duty. Though he had no fa ith in the necessity for the present war, or even in its rightness, he went on active service when he was well over the age of conscription, and was killed in the defence of Calais. In the new book Fossen's memory is preserved by his wife's brother, "disguised in unifo rm" in a Whitehall job, who shows that in himself and in others the spirit of Fossett is still at work. It is a spirit o( intellectual and emotional sinceri ty, and of common sense.

Peter Ha rtington -Smith is not so down· righ t and mettlesome a man as ·Fos!tClt was ~ indeed, he is now and then over-apologetic, and the whole book is more cautious, But he was a good listener and an honest think.er, and he makes an adntirable medium for puHing us in touch with the other people, his own young children, his sister ana her children, his friends and enemies in London and the rural people in Somerset. His own path in the book. leads from agnosticism to all undefined form of Christianity. The way takes him, as Mr. E. A. Cox's charming picture on the wrapper prmnises, through some happily · described scenes of the life on the farm which Mrs. Fossett has taken up in exchange fodife in the Manor House. One excellence in Peter HartingtonMSmith is his skill in quoting from the poets, English and Latin. Quotation is seldom so fresh and so apt as his.

IlJustTated in colour and black ondwhite

FAITHS OF MANY

LANDS By E. ROYSTON PIKE

Written for children in a vividly picturesque style, combining reverence and understanding with a scrupulous regard lor facts, this book describe! the: main beliers and pnlctic:es not only of Christianity but also of Islam. the religions of India and China. the Parsees, and the Jews. Attractive sidelights are given on each religion'S background of 'history and .bioaraphy.

as, 6d. net

C . A , WATTS & CO. LTD. 5 " 6 Johll$oh'$ Ct,. Fleet Street, E,C."

ALL UIPORTAN'l' BOOI{S

can he pUrchased -on publication from

TIlE TIM.ES BOO Ii ' CLUB

-THE TIMES BOOK CLUB Booksellers, Librarians, Stationers

42, WIGMORE ST., LONDON, W.l

The Creator .f Modem Greece VENizELOS .y DOIlO$ A1.AST05

CI'"<JWII '~o. 116 PPo Cloth 1116

;.r;,::.II'}j~;rC,,;dE:;:;I~z;;:::,~ti~'{~e8rs-&r! ·~-;~~ mark.bly 5lll'ii;htCorward narrllive, with no psycho-

~~e~bcu~gNlcali~n .• J~cR~r~S'r;.~~n: §~":;S"rAlutos' admirable VENIZELOS , • • Few tluillen can compele wilb this 'Iudy by dash­tiSht 0{ thi. Crelln , . , Here il l detective non' written in the fans oC hi s tory, the lhJ"ellU DC its solution in the hands or rite "no- God."- Nllri. oOld Q*,m~.,

LUND, HmIPHRIES & CO., LID.

READ Y MARCH 15th

A Limited Edition of THE SHRAPNEL IN TOE

TREE . Poems by

FLT. LT. THOMAS FASSAM 280 copies only printed on

Q;ind-made paper 8/6 net

by THE HAND AND FLOWER PRESS

6, CEDAR AVENUE, COBHAM, SURREY

FEAR OR SECURITY?

By Z. Grabowski

An essay on spheres of influence and their danger and a proposal for a saner solution of the European problem.

MaxLove Publishing Co., Ltd, 5/- net.

D1SnmunoN : ORBIS (LONDON), 9,NEW OXFORD ST, LONDON, w.e.l.