THE WORLD OF BOOKS.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19150, 5 November 1927, Page 17

THE WORLD OF BOOKS.

HALF HOURS IN A LIBRARY. '

(SPICULLT WBirrßK »0» TE« TBH9.) By A. IL Gbiklikc. CCXLIL—ON SWIMMERS AND SWIMMING (2). From Swinburne to Meredith is not a long step, but while Swinburne and swimming naturally go together, Meredith scarcely sugests the open air life. Yet the older man had a keen appreciation of the gifts and genius of the younger. In a shrewd study of the life, genius, and teaching of Meredith, thc French critic, Constantin . Photiades, cites mauy instances of a close friendship between the two writers. lie quotes Meredith as saying:—

_lt is tho custom to be enraptured by tho verbal flights of imagination of my old friend Swinburne. Good. But there is another hidden 6plendour, and one which oi;ght to bo revealed to the public; it i 9 his daring flow of Ungunge. What a torrent of boiling lava. Do you like the translation of "Omar Khayyam" by Fitzgerald ? Yes. That is good. The plastic seductiveness of that work fully justified its immense success*. I relish to the full the rhymes of Fitzgerald and his beautiful plaintive harmonies, withal so mysterious; but how can one approve his pessimism? "Omar Khayyam" is the vogue t-o-day, and I know it only too well; but it is necessary to have 'food more nourishing, more invigorating, for the children o£ earth However, let that pass. In 1850 I was with some friends at Copsham Cottage, near Kahcr, and on a certain afternoon, in full view of all, came Swinburne brandishing a pamphlet which resembled in the distance_a Pietistic or Method'-st tract. He lookfd like an ecstatic visionary. Perhaps we shouh.l have feared a religious invocation from him, hart we not been well aware of his religious beliefs.

All this is preliminary to and leads up to the, pojnt of the story. "When Swinburne came near," continued Merer dith, "he began to recite in a highr pitched voice the beginning of that splendid paraphrase which he had just discovered. His enthusiasm infected us and so much so that the shades of night found us still undor the trees reciting those voluptious and musical verses. Upon our return after dinner, Swinburne sought for something upon which to write; and then, under our eyes, in one attempt, he composed the poem ']j&ns- Veneris,' the most perfect in our language." Meredith aa poet is not so well known as he is as storywriter, in which respect he resembles Thomas Hardy. I cannot discover that Meredith ever wrote a poem about the sea, much less introducing the theme of swimming; ho sang rather of the of earth. There is a passage, pr rather,* a chapter, in "Lord Ormond and His published in 1894, called "A Marine Duet," which contains a description of a, famous swim which had most m,omen|pfls consequences. The basis of that story was the career of Charles Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborough, a brilliant and hotheaded soldier, who served with distinction, especially in the Spanish War, bwt who fpll into disgrace with the authorities owing to his arbitrary action in the field- Not until a few years before his death did he acknowledge that he had married Anastpsia Robinson, a well-known vopalist, about a dozen years earlier.

In the novel the twp chief characters are named in the title and the prinr cipals in the "Marine Duet" ' are Matthew Weyburn er Matey, and

Aminta Farrell, or Browny. Matey, out for an early morning sail and swim in the yawl Susan, his attention " W as attracted by a diminutive white tent of sentry-box shape, evidently a bather's, quite as evidently a fair bather's. He would have to walk on some way for his dip. He remarked to little Collett that ladies going into the water half dressed never have more than half a bath. His arms and legs flung out eontempt of that kind of bathing, exactly in Atatey's well-remembered way." The story proceeds:

Half a mile off shore, the Susan was put about to lap her sails, and her boat locked with the passengers. Turning from a final cheer to friendly Matthew, "VV'cyburn at the rudder, espied one of those unenfranchised ladies in marino uniform issuing through the tent slip, A plain look at her, and a curious look, and an intent look, .fixed her fast, and ran the shock on his heart before he knew of a. guess. She waded, she dipped; a, head across tho .breast of the waters was observed; this ono of them could swim. bhe wa3 msiking for sea, a stone's throw < -if tho direction of the boat. Before his v.its had grasped the certainty of possessing them, fiery envy and desire to bo alongside her set his fingers fretting a:, buttons. A grand smooth swell of tho waters • lifted her, and her head rose to aee the world. She sank down the valley, where another wave was moulding for its onward roll; a gentle scene of Weybum's favourite Sophoclean chorus. Xw she was given to him—it was she. How could it have been any other. He handed his watch to little Collett, and gave him the ropes, pitched coat and waistcoat on his knees, stood free of boots and socks, and singing out, truiy enough, the words of a popular cry, "White ducks want washing," went ovor and in.

Matey and had been friends at school; separated by Aminta's marriage to Lord Ormond, this meeting in the sea was a surprise and a delight. "81io soon had to know she was chased. Sho had seen the dive from the boat and received an illumination. With a chimkle of delighted surprise, like a blackbird startled, she pushed seaward for joy of the effort, thinking, she could exult in the imagination and escape up to the moment of capture, yielding then only to his greater will; and she meant to try it. The swim was a holiday; all was new, nothing came to her as the same old thing sine© she took her plunge; she had a sea mind, had left the earth mind ashore. Tho swim and Matey Weyburn pursuing her passed up, out of happiness, through the spheres of delirium, into the region where our life is where wo would hav9 it be, a homo holding the quiet of the heavens, if birfc midway thither, and a home of delicious animation of the whole frame, equal to wings." The novelist continues:—

Ho drew on her, but ho was distant, and she waved an ami. The ehout of lier gleo sprang from her: ''Matey." He waved; she' heard hia voice. Was it her name? Ho was not so drunken of the sea as she; he had not leapt out of bondage into buoyant waters, into a youth without a blot, without an aim, satisfied in tasting the dream of the long felicity. A thought brushed by her: How if lie wero absent? It relaxed her stroke of arms and legs. He had doubted the saH sea's rapture, and he had shackled its gift of freedom. Sho turned to float, gathering her knees for the funny sullen kick, until ahe heard i him near. At once her stroke was renewed vigorously; she had the foot of her pursuer, and she called, "Adieu, Matey Weybiirn!"

Meredith repays careful reading, if only for the abruptness of his phrasing; his alleged obscurity is not nearly so prevalent as is generally supposed. "One of Our Conquerors" is perhaps tho worst example of this peculiarity, and it was deliberately written vto puzzle the critics who had found.fault with other of. Meredith's novels. By comparison ''Lord Ormpud and His Aminta" is clarity itself, as the continuation of the narrative goes to illustrate:—

Her bravado deserved a, swifter humiliation than he was able to bring down on her; she swam bravely; and she was divine tq see ahead as wall as overtake. Darting to the closo parallel, he said: ' "What sea nymph sang me my name?" She smote a pang of her ecstasy into hiqi: !'Ask mine?" "Browny."

They swam; neither of thein panted; their heads were water-flowers that spoke at ease.

' "We've run from schopl; 'we won't go back.'' "We've a kingdom." '-Here's a big wave going to be a wall." "Off her rolls." "They're no waves; they're sighs of the deep."

They had a .spell of steady swimming, companionship to inspire it. Branny was allowed plapo a little foremost, and b|ib guessed not wherefore in her flattered emulation. They stopped their talik—for the pleasure of tho body to bo savoured in the mind they thought; and so took Nature's counsel to rest their voices awhile.

Although Browny was bound for France in the Qhannel swim for freedom, she was riot allowed to achieve her goal. "France, next time." he said, "we'll face to the rear." His words fastened the heavy land on her spirit, knocked at, the habit of obedience. Her stroke of the arms paused. She inclined to his example and hes set it shoreward. They pwam silently, lugh, low creatures of the smooth green roller. He heard th.e water song of her swimming. She, though breathing •equably at the nostrils, lay deep. The water shocked at her chin and purled round, the underlip. He had a faint anxiety; and" not so sensible of a weight in the sight of land as she was, ho chattered by snatches, rallied her, encouraged her to continue sportive for this once, letting her feel, it was but once and had its respected limit with him. So it was not out of the world." Tho conclusion of tho episode is eminently Meredithian: — She began toi think her muteness lost lier the |)Ioom of the enchantment, robbing her oi'her heavenly frolic lead, since frignp; Matey resolved to be as eminently gopH in salt water as on land. Was he unaware that they were boy and girl again? —rshe, washed pure of the intervening years, new born by the blessing of the sea; worthy of him here —that is a swimmer worthy of him, his comrade in salt water. She shook off her briny blindness, and

settled to the full sweep of the arms, quite silent now- Some emotion or exhaustion from the strain of the swimmer's breath in speech stopped her playfulness. The pleasure she still knew was a rocqllection of the outward swim, when she had been privileged to cast away sex with the push front earth, as few men will believe that wonien. beautiful women, ever wish to do; and often and ardently during the run ahead they yearn for Nature to grant tliem their short holiday truce. But Aminta forgave him for bringing earth so close when there was yet space of salt water between her and shore; and sho smiled at times, that he might riot think she was looking grave.

George Borrow was a splendid swimmer. John Murray, the publisher, tells a story of Borrow*s prowess in the water. Walking in the country one day with Robert Cooke (Murray's partr ner) with whom he was on ivery friendly terms Borrow suggested a bathe in the river along which they were walking. Borrow, having stripped, took a header into the water and disappeared. than a minute elapsed and as there was no sign of his whereabouts Mr Cooke became alarmed lest he had struck his head or become entangled in the weeds, when Borrow suddenly reappeared, a considerable distance off, under the opposite bank of the stream, and called out. "What do vou think-of that?" In iSS2, when Borrow was living at Great Yarmouth, he performed an act of bravery which was chronicled in 'The Bury Post," the writer of tho paragraph being presumably Dr. Gordon Hake: — IXTREPIDITT. Yarmouth jetty presented an extraordinary and thrilling spectacle on Thursday, th.e Bth .instant (September, 1852), about one o'clock. The sea raged frantically and a endeavouring to land for water was upset and the men were engulfed j'n a •wave some thirty feet high and struggling with it in vain. The moment was an awful one, when George Bor row, the well-known author of "LavenirroV and "The Bible in Spain,'' dashed into the surf and saved one life, and'through his instrumentality }he' others were saved! We ourselves have known this brave and gifted man for years, and.daring as was this deed, we havo known "him more than oiieo toi risk Ms life for others. We are happy to add he baa sustained no material injury.