BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

Evening Star, Issue 19664, 17 September 1927, Page 14

BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

VERSES THE SINGERS. Sing, crickets, in the dusk, About my caravan, Sing loudly if you must, Sweet if you can. Sing from that sandy sod Where briers grow, To hide your little homes Not proud but low: Sing where small roses wild, Whose petals fall. Rise sweetest in the dark Not seen at all. Sing for this summer’s day, Grown warm and long. Sing for tho very joy There is in song. Sing to tho saffron sky, Streaked red, and soon, When it has failed, sing on To the pale moon. Sing in that scented night Invisibly, And as you always do, Sing cheerfully. —Monk Gibbon, in the ‘ Spectator.’ ELUTIN’. Laird, mony a year I’ve bidit here I’ this hoose; an’ I’m sweir, Gey sweir to be leavin’. No I Tin no grievin’, Maybe juist heavin’ Whiles a bit sigh At sayin’ guid-bye To the sheep and the live An’ twa-threo men An’ the hamely glen An’ my but an’ ben. There’s a hole i’ the thack I’ll allow, an’ a crack 1’ tho wa’, front an’ back. An’, Laird, it’s your will I’m to flit intil A hoose yont tho hill. It’s a braw hoose, nao doot, But it’s hard ruggin’ oot An auld tree by the ruit. My liert’s here i’ the glen W'i’ thae twa-three men. . . Gin’t’s your will, Laird, amen. —Thomas Shaiif, in the ‘ Observer.’ THE SORROWFUL WAY. It was upon a Friday our Saviour took the road . And heard the rough shouting and felt tho sharp goad, So footsore and so weary, the Cross lor His load. He knew the grief that cobble-stones can bring to tired feet, Ho knew > the dust of walking, the parching thirst, the heat, Tho gay, cruel voices, tho cold eyes or the street. The Cross was there ahead of Him upon Mount Calvary, He might not rest or linger beneath a tree, ~ , , , Nor hear tho litLle waves that plash about Lake Galilee. Dumb, goaded forward, struck with sticks, 1 wonder did Ho weep For those who travel footsore, oxen and sheep, , For these, too, have a tryst with death that they must keep. I wonder did Ho pray for them, companions of His grief; He who would share His Paradise with the poor Thief. Will He for beast as well as man otter relief? Then every Thursday morning lilt up your heart and pray For limping feet and beaten hides which pass that day. God’s poor gentle creatures who wnlK the bitter way. From market square to butcher’s shop there is a weary space; _ The journey ends at last in a sorry Oh! 'pray’ God havo them in His sight ' and mercy’s grace. ’tY, M. Letts, in the ‘ Irish Statesman.’ AMERICAN ENGLISH USUALLY HOT ORIGINAL “The average American speaks bettor English than the average Englishman,” wrote a recent American correspondent of the i Spectator. This is both true and not true. It is true, ii that correspondent means that American is freer from dialectical peculiarities than English; and it is not true if he wishes to convey the impression that dialect is not good English. Dialect is good English, and often of the veiy oldest kind, though it may not happen to be literary English. This, however is too large a question to be raised now. , No tears need bo shed for the poor down-trodden American language, -oi on analysis it will bo found to spring from the purest sources. Very many of what wc in England arc pleased to call Americanisms are simply dialectical or old English words, and are to be found in use to-day on both sides of the Atlantic—in Boston (perhaps) on tho ono side, and in the English counties on the oilier, whose tradit'onal tongue has not yet boon spoiled by the ugly standardisation of the Council School. Let ns take a lew examples of so-called Americanisms and see how they fare. “Back and forth” (lor which literary English chooses to say “to amt from”) is in use in Lancashire and Scotland. Dean Inge lately deplored tho creeping into English of wliat ha called tho hideous Americanism * back of,” but it has only crept homo again, for in Northumberland they still say “back o’ the engine-boose. Ibo American sometimes prefers to say “chipper” for lively or cheorluJ, and so does tho man of Sussex. And to make a man chipper the American chirks him up, and so they do in Lancashire, and so did old Philemon Holland when he wrote of “ a horse rider cheering and cherking up his horse. All over provincial England and Ireland people speak of a deck of cards, and 1 believe Shrewsbury simp windows still advertise “decks of cards lor sale an announcement that would bo a.s easily understood by poker players in the 'Middle West as by Shakespeare. Tlie American who uses that boautilul word fall (for autumn) would be perfectly intelligible in Devon, where yon hear them talking about getting the thatch on the stacks before the tall rains come. Sure for certainly is as common and as old as the lulls in the British Isles as in America, and right now ” is as good Scotch as it is American. “Tell him good-bye,” says the American, and so might a Devon man, who also, when ho heard Sam Slick using to for at, would recognise a.kmsman. Essex to-day says “ I don’t want you should come,” “that pig cost me most all of £3,” “ I count I was some vexed,” “ altered a piece,” and speaks of “a little ole world” and “a nice mess ” (of food)—all “ Americanisms.” America is said to have recently sent our motor cars the word parked, but 500 years ago Langland was writing “ Among wives and widows I [Wrath]

A LITERARY CORNER

An American angler gets his gut casting lino all snaned up in the bushes, which recalls the Somerset saying, “Like Hicks’s horses—all of a snarl.” “Take mo away some place,” writes the American novelist Dreiser in purest Scotch, but Dreiser should not be allowed to corrupt his language by writing “ anythin" that Clyde had personally contacted here,” and should be shooed away from hideosities like “motivate” and “the mentating section of his brain.” When an American speaks of a crazy man as out of his head, he would strike an answering chord in the heart of a Yorkshireman who was “almost oot at head at the news he’s gotten,” and the use of the old-fashioned gotten would be an additional link. Universal both in America and in the English counties to-day are the Americanisms brash (careless), feazo (disconcert), mad (angry), shoat (pig), daffy (“a-picken’ at his cooat quairo and daffy-loike” they will say in Worcestershire), “a whole raft of reasons” (in use from Ayr to Kent), and if Tennessee says “ It’s a right man’s ways off,” Somerset says much the same. Then there is the word guess, but on high authority wo have it that “ guess has been used in England in every sense in which it is used in America, where, however, special applications have lived on when they Jiave died out in the Mother Country.” So far from these and many other words being Americanisms, they are the purest English, and to this extent America is preserving parts of a language which on our side tends to die. America, too, claims the right once nourishing in England of inventing ingenious and telling compounds. What could bo better than money-burners, or glue-foot for slowcoach? And how telling are the metaphors of “ possum’d the count” (from the prize-ring) or of a lady who, having cut another in the street, is said to Have “ passed her the pickled pig’s foot.” But there do exist difficulties about the American language, however staunchly _ true it remains m other -ways to English originals, as when we find Mr Sewell Ford writing, “'l’he event-card is on the blink, and I’m a bunky-doodle boy.”— M. J. C. Meikt/IvToiik, in the ‘Spectator.’ fifty years a poet SiR WILLIAM WATSON Sir William Watson’s first-published poem appeared fifty years Hence this year he completes his half-century of song, and an attempted estimate of his work may, to the student of poetry, seem appropriate. He came to lame with ‘ Worthworth’s Crave and Other Poems’ (1890) (writes Mr Coulson Kernalian, in the ‘Fortnightly Review’), and in the course of an exhaustive appreciation, referring to his poems on the sea, -Mr Coulson Kornahan says:— Here are linos on a seabird: Lone loiterers where the shells, like jewels, be Hung on the fringe and frayed hem of the sea. Ho shares Swinburne’s passion for the sea, but Swinburne had tho_ brine at tho point of his pen, not in bis blood. Ho knew the sea only as seen from tho shore or from the deck of a Channel steamer. Ho told me that n Channel crossing was liis longest voyage. Watson Ims several times crossed the Allan Lit! where, as ho sings in his ‘Storm in .Mid-Allantic,’ .■ , . never a wave repeals another, But each is unlike his own twin brother, Each is himself from base lo crown, Himself alone as lie clambers tip, Himself alone as bo crashes down— When the whole sky drinks of the sea’s mad cup. And down in a vale of the sea, between Two roaring hills is a wide, smooth space, Where tho foam that blanches the ocean’s face Is woven in likeness of filmiest lace, Delicate, intricate, fairy-fine, Wrought by the master of pure design— 14 Storm, the matchless artist, lord of color and line. Watson’s ‘Hymn to the Sea’ is, h a tells us, by . . . a tarrying minstrel, who finds, not fashions, bis numbers— Who, from the commune of air, cages the volatile song. Hence bo tenches on other subjects than tho sea, as when he sings of youth: Youth, irrepressibly fair, waives like a wondering rose, or of ihc spring ami tho dawn: When, upon orchard and lane, breaks tho white foam of the Spring: When, in extravagant revel, tho Dawn, a bacchante up-leaping, Spills, on the tresses of night, vintages golden and rod. But tho poofs exulting ecstasy and exaltation in Iho Sea that breakest for ever, (hat breakest and never art broken, as anthemed in long, surging, Atlantic rollor-likc lines, cannot bo conveyed by snatched quotations from a pnem occupying six pages in ‘One Hundred Booms,’ to which I refer the reader. Those who thus turn to the poem will find that Watson projects the shallow of man over bis subject. Both man ami tho sea fret and chafe continually, and with like result—hut the parallel, though finely, even greatly drawn, is overlong. CRITICS AND AUTHORS AN ANCIENT QUARREL A pretty quarrel is raging in the columns of the ‘Daily News ’ between those ancient enemies, the critic and the author (writes “Alpha of the Plough,’’ in the London ‘Star.’). It began with a broadside from Mr A. A. Milne, who, of course, represents the authors, and who accompanied his broadside with an ultimatum which, in effect, demanded that the enemy should surrender out of hand and promise never to do it again. Mr Milne disclaimed any personal grievance in the matter, and one can accept the disclaimer all the more readily because few authors in our time have wandered down a more agreeable primrose path of popularity, both with tho public and the critics, than “ A.A.M.” With him it lias been roses, roses all the way. And justly so. But while ho has no personal grievance, Air Milne has a gene_J ■■ t n-riUna-

and ho illustrates his “ grouse ” by the treatment of the play 4 The Village,’ which Mr Baughan, in the 4 Daily News,’ condemned as a feeble imitation of 4 The Fanner’s Wife/ and Mr Hubert Griffith, in another paper, declared to be better than 4 The Farmer’s Wife.’ One thought it was hilariously funny, and the other thought it wasn’t funny at all. One thought it was true to life and the other thought it wasn’t.

And Mr Milne asks whether it is just or reasonable that the fate of an author who has spent laborious months in conceiving and developing a work of art should be at the mercy of a profession which can produce such diametrically opposite The conclusion he seems to arrive at is that the critics should be cashiered, and that their job should be handed over to plain reporters, who would tell what the play was about, how the villain wove his coils and bow the virtuous heroine escaped from them, and would leave the public in peace to form its own judgment as to whether tho play is good or bad. There are few callings more wearing to the nerves and more deadening to the mind than that of criticism. Those of us who go to the theatre occasionally to be amused and read books because wo like them and have nothing more entertaining to do are tempted to 'ook upon the critic as having one of die choicest cuts at the joint of life. He has a play or a concert every night, or half a dozen new books to- read every week, and all his work consists in the delightful task of telling the public what lie thinks about them.

Could there be any task more enviable? In fact, there is no task more exhausting to the spirit. The freshness and zest which are the breath of good criticism are hard to keep in the unceasing routine of new plays and uw books, seen and read not for pleasure but as a duty, and if Mr Milne had suggested something like a Sabbatical year for critics, during which they neither saw a play nor reviewed a book, be would have made a proposal which, however impractical, would be desirable.

But his views that critics should he abolished because they do not all say the same thing or like the _ same productions is nonsense. Criticism is not an exact science, but a matter of personal opinion. It can never be more than that. It may be a good opinion or a bad opinion, ill-informed or well-in-formed : but it must always be _ governed by the personal tastes, feelings, disposition, outlook of the critic. Jeffreys was a sound critic, but his 44 This will never do ” to- Wordsworth stands against him. as evidence that even the best of critics may go amazingly wrong. Pepys was a very intelligent playgoer, but he could see nothing in 4 Midsummer Night’s Dream ’ but a “ silly play.” Johnson was an encyclopaedia of critical wisdom, but ho could describe a stilted passage in the 4 Mourning Bride ’ as the first passage in the “whole mass of English poetry.” Criticism has always been like this, and always must be so—a matter of occasional 44 bull’s-eyes ” and occasional “ outers.” But that does not make it the less entertaining or the less useful. We road the criticisms for what they are worth, and out of the clash of opinions there emerges a collective view which represents substantial justice. NEW) BOOHS INCREASING NET PROFITS. Tho dragon of “overhead expenses” wbicli persistently flops into the counting houses of business men great and small and laps up tho biggest proportion of tho delicacy called “ profits,” which the worried manager or proprietor has more or loss carefully gathered and put by, forms the chief figure in the nightmare that disturbs tho sweet dreams of those whoso life work lies in the realm of commerce. Therefore, a book just published by the Cornstalk Publishing Company dealing with this momentous question and giving concise and common-sense directions with a view to lightening the toll which the dragon takes will bo. welcomed. This book is entitled 4 How To Make More Not Profit/ and it is written by Herbert N. Casson, who is editor of the ‘ Efficiency Magazine/ a successful business man and an acknowledged efficiency expert; and the subject matter is so succinctly yet so clearly and convincingly set out that it is not only business managers and proprietors who would enjoy and benefit by the reading of it, but likewise everyone who has any interest in tho noble art of making a living. With American dash rather than with British deliberation, Mr Oasson proceeds to “shake up” everybody, from the managing director down to tho messenger boy. And tho satisfactory thing about it is that bis arguments and admonitions arc so soundly based that neither tho director nor the boy could justifiably or effectively “ answer back.” And so tho author goes on, deploring the spoon-feeding methods which are undermining tho present generation and the “ ca’ canny” practices, not only of the workers, but of many of the “heads”; warning shopkeepers and others against tho development of “ingrowing” businesses, against the retention of “drags,” and against the introduction of an atmosphere of gloom or antagonism. Instances are quoted of the damaging effect of making or stocking too many varieties of certain lines, of having "too manv managers, of imagining that more authority is management, and of being too proud to learn from one’s employees. Ho urges employers to so handle their .staffs that enthusiasm for the business and not resentment against authority will result, just as bo points out to employees that “ team work ” is tho right and ptopci thin" —in short, lie calls upon both sides' to “phiy the game,” quoting Henry Ford’s methods in support Ot iiis contention that by so doing both sides will benefit financially and in every other ivay. Biib Mr Casson is not merely an ureer and a warner; he is a constructs critic, and tells how Britain’s threatened displacement in the world of commerce may be averted and bow profits may be increased. It comes as something of a surprise to the ordinary render, by the way, to learn tljat “there arc very few profiteers in any line of trade or commerce. More than half the merchants are struggling, not to make big profits, but to make any profits at all”: alsp to learn that big businesses are invariably less profitable than small ones. In the second half of bis book Mr Casson sets out clearly and in detail his method of organising a business so as to increase net profits, and, after reading the volume from cover to cover, one feels fit and ready to become and remain a “ new broom, to sweep everything in the business world' clean, and, with the co-operation of a happy and contented staff, to produce a balance-sheet that would make one’s bankers and one’s shareholders, to sav nothing of the Commissioner of Taxes rub their hands in glee. Tho practical, clean-cut, common-sense tone of the work makes it worth far more than tho modest published price. Our copy is from Messrs Whitcombe and

‘MONTMARTRE.’ 4 Montmartre ’ (by M. Jean EmilcBayard), is an intimate and vivacious history of the artistic and Bohemian community which sang its songs, read its verses, and painted its pictures in the cafes and cabarets on the hill overlooking Paris, in the days before Montmartre bad become the pleasure garden of the Parisions, and of English and American tourists. In tho earlier pages of the book M. Emile-Bayard deals at length with each of the principal cafes which ilourished at Montmartre at that time. The second part of the book is composed of reminiscences by the more celebrated artists and men of letters who did much of their_ creative work, and a good deal of their rather bitter criticism of the work of artists of other schools, over glasses of beer or absinthe at the “ Lapin Agile,” or the “Chat Noir.” Though the Bohemianism of Montmartre may seem foreign, and even a little incomprehensible, to us English, one cannot but admire the spirit of comradeship, and devotion to a common artistic ideal, which bound together the members or the various coteries, nor can one but regret with M. Emile-Bayard, that modern Montmartre is famed chiefly for mere vulgar roysiering and jazz. The book is tastefully illustrated by Lucian M. Gautier, and translated by Ralph Annington and Tudor Davies. We thank the publishers, T. Fisher Unwin, Ltd., for our copy. NOTES It is almost uncanny to read that Canon F. R. Evans, who has just died, was “the original of Tom Tulliver, in 4 The Mill on the Floss.’ ” It would be no more surprising to hear that tho original Mr Boffin was still among us, for 4 Our Mutual Friends ’ was published in 1864, and 4 The Mill on tho Floss ’ in 1860. Canon Evans (who was tho novelist’s brother) cannot have been more than seventeen when the book appeared. Mr Wells can never take any holidays, bank or otherwise, or ho would not write so many books (says a writer in the ‘Observer’). ‘Meanwhile’ must be bis sixty-sixth, for there are already sixty-five down to his name in ‘Who’s Who.’ Forty of them are works of fiction; twenty-three works of history, economics, and personal exposition; and there are two “game” books for children. His first— 4 Select Conversations with an Uncle ’ —l cannot place, it was published in 1895, but never seems to appear at Sotheby’s as Mr Kipling’s rarities do. Presently Mr Wells will have more space in 4 Who’s Who ’ than anybody else; though one cannot promise him that honor in perpetuity if Mr Edgar Wallace thinks of collecting bis contributions to the newspapers.

Mr J. A. Stewart, who a few years ago wrote a life of Robert Louis Stevenson, to the great annoyance of admirers of R.L.S., has completed a novel with Stevenson as the hero. It will be entitled ‘The Cap of Youth/ and it will be largely based on a love affair which Stevenson bad as a boy with a Highland girl named Katie Drummond.

Mr Wickham Steed writes in the ‘ .Review of Reviews ’ concerning the chief character in a hook which has created a ,sensation in Europe and America: —Some of my readers have wondered whether Jew Suss, or Joseph Suss Oppcnlieimcr, was an historical personage. There is no doubt on this point, though how much there may ho of fact and how much of iiction in Herr Feuchtwanger’s story I cannot say. Within the past fortnight an English correspondent has sent me an antiJcwish book called ‘The Riddle of the Jew’s Success,’ by E. Roderich-Stolt-iieimer, of which the second edition, published in German in 1913, has been translated by Mr Capel Pownall. After disparaging references to various famous or infamous Jews it says: “Of kindred spirit to these Jewish ‘statesmen ’ was the notorious ‘ Demon of Wurtembcrg,’ Suss Oppenhoimer (hanged 1734).” This may bo taken as additional evidence of the “historicity ” of Jew Sues himself, and it is unlikely that Isaac Simon Landauer and Rabbi Gabriel are entirely children of Herr Feuchtwangor’s imagination.

John Macdonald is the author nf ‘ Memoirs of an Eighteenth-Century Footman.’ Ho belonged to a family once well to do, and was known as “ Handsome Macdonald.” He gives us the story of the early days of the umbrella in England;—“ At this time (1775) there were no umbrellas worn in London, except in noblemen’s and gentlemen’s houses, where there was a large one hung in the hall, to hold over a lady or gentleman if it rained, between the door and their carriage. I was going to dine in Norfolk street on Sunday. It rained; my sister had hold of my arm, and I had the umbrella over our heads. In Tavistock street we met so many young men, calling after us: ‘ Frenchman! take care of your umbrella,’ ‘Frenchman, why do you not get a coach, Monsieur? ’ My sister was so much ashamed that sho quitted ray arm and ran on before, but 1 still took uo notice, bub answered in French or Spanish that 1 did not understand what they said. I went on so for three months, till they took no further notice of me, only ‘How do you do, Frenchman? ’ After this the foreigners, seeing me with my umbrella, one after another used theirs—then the English. Now it has become a. great trade in London, and a very useful branch of business.”

Another extract from Macdonald’s journal;—“About this time Mr Sterne, the celebrated .author, was taken ill at the silk-bag shop in Old Bond street. He was sometimes called 'Tristram Shandy,’ and sometimes ' Yorick ’ —a very great favorite of the gentlemen’s. One day my master had company to dinner who were speaking about him; the Duke of Roxburgh, the Earl of March, the Earl of Ossory, the Duke of Grafton, Mr Garrick, Mr Hume, and aMr James. ‘John,’ said my master, go and inquire how Mr Sterne is today.’ I wont, returned, and said; ‘1 went to Mr Sterne’s lodging; the mistress opened the door; 1 inquired how lie did. She told me to go up to the nurse. I went into too room, and he was just a-dying. 1 waited ten minutes; but in five he said: “Now it is come.” He put up his hand as if to stop a blow, and died in a minute.’ The gentleman were all very sorry, and lamented him very much.”