BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

Evening Star, Issue 20061, 29 December 1928, Page 14

BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

A LITERARY CORNER

VERSES A GREAT ADVENTURE. In his own' dear Arden, Shakespeare, On a signal night in spring, ."Went adventuring and met with New words to sing. And the silver moon was peering Through the black of branching trees; And the moment was for William Eternity’s. He had sought this place of wonder Since the first hour he was man, When the perfect name for woman He knew was Ann. And he found the tree of heaven Where are nested magic birds, Where the green leaves are for healing . . . And birds are words. [Then ‘Enchanted,’ ‘Willow,’ ‘Wild Sea,’ And a thousand others flew From a depth of things forgotten, To live anew. In the great heart of the poet, Knowing death was not to be, When he offered Ann a music For you and me. —H. Armel o‘Connor, in ‘ U.K.’s Weekly.’ A HYMN. .0 God of earth and altar, Bow down and hear our cry, Our earthly rulers falter, Our people drift and die; The walls of gold entomb us, The Swords of scorn divide, ■Take not Thy thunder from us, But take away our pride. From all that terror teaches, From lies of tongue and pen, From all the easy speeches That comfort cruel men, From sale and profanation Of honour and the sword, From sleep and from damnation, Deliver us, good Lord! Tie in a living tether The prince and priest and thrall, Bind all our lives together, Smite us and save us all; In ire and exultation Aflame with faith and free, Lift up a living nation, A single word to Thee. G. K. Chesterton. YOU KNOW MY METHODS, WATSON

THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES

There are sonic imaginary characters which step out of the books where they began life and assume an independent existence. Some —but not many Most of those now roaming about the English imagination were created by either Shakespeare or Dickens. Neither ’Hamlet nor Mr Micawber is dependent on the plot in which ho first occurs. They both—andOTMs is the real test -—have come so far out of their books as to seem fair game for any writer .who dares the adventure, just as anyone who has the audacity may make Napoleon the hero of a play or a novel. HIS ONLY .MONUMENT. To this small band we must add the figure of 'Sherlock Holmes (writes Edward Shanks in ‘John o’ London’s (Weekly’). This is not a matter of literary criticism; it is a matter of plain fact. Sherlock Holmes alone of all characters of fiction in the, last quarter of a, century has walked out of his book and inhabits the world. He has had hitherto no monument, save a railway engine bearing his name, that rims in and out of Baker street station. Now there is a more restful tribute to his memory in an “ omnibus ” volume of ‘The Complete Sherlock Holmes Short Stories.’ It is astonishing how much this book contains, and that not in bulk alone. (But also in bulk.') It contains fifty-six stories and runs to over ■1,300 pages. It contains as well Qvo human beings, as real to us as many that we meet every day and much more real than most we read about in the newspapers—Jack Hobbs, say, or Sir Baldwin. Two 1 say—for Dr Watson, faithful in this as in all else, has intrepidly followed Holmes out ol the book and blunders about in our imaginations, as loyal, courageous, dunder-headed, and sentimental as ever he was on the printed page. LIVING CHARACTERS. To have created two such persons is no mean feat, and it is in itself a sufficient defence to all the charges made by superior persons against Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s style. He docs not, it is true, use English in the manner of Walter Pater. Neither did Dumas use French in the manner of Flaubert. But both Dumas and Sir Arthur have achieved some of the most important ends to which prose may be put;' they have told good stories and created Jiving characters. 1 doubt whether a nicer choice of words would have helped either of them one halfpennyworth in the business. Dumas is, I think, a just comparison. The reputation of his heroes N rests on boasting that is not empty. But the things they boasted of are not so appropriate for a modern hero. Physical courage based on physical prowess is not quite as impressive in nineteenth century London as in seventeenth century "Paris. Holmes has indeed both qualities in abundance, but they are not those of which he boasts. One finds him in true D’Artagnan vein on different ground, in such a conversation as this:— “You then went to the vicarage, waited outside it for some time, and finally returned to your cottage. ’ • “How do you know that?” ‘"“I followed you.” • “ I saw no one.” ; “That is what you may expect to see when I follow you.” These are Holmes’s great deeds,, by which we really remember him, often as he may bo assaulted by roughs in the ordinary course of the day’s routine, and drive them off wjth no worse injury to himself than a barking or the knuckles.' These, and his other exploits, his feats in the way o( drug taking, his monographs, o.n the different kinds of cigarette ash and on the Polyphonic Motets of Lassus, his queer habits, his liking for a dramatic effect, , are what make him an heroic figure, not human certainly, but real and alive enough on his own plane. ■ 1 .As for, Watson, it-is easy to see how £ood lie is by comparing him with the

colourless person who relates the exploits of Poe’s Dupin'. He was begun, no doubt, purely as a piece of mechanism, as a screen on which Holmes might project himself. But he soon came most startlingly to life, flow vividly we see him when he is left to entertain an anguished client, while Holmes pursues his mysterious researches* alone: — “In vain I endeavoured to interest him in Afghanistan, in India, in social questions, in anything which might take his mind out of the groove.” WATSON'S HEABT. It is no less easy, witli a small 'use of the imagination, to see him going his rounds in that practice which he was always so ready to abandon lor a few days" to his accommodating neighbour. His manner was always more magisterial with his patients than with Holmes, from whom, besides, he gained some reflected glory and a good many simple tricks ot innocent bluff. He was too solid and valuable a figure for anyone to resent those occasional absences from which he returned possibly with a good story, or, if not, with a most delightful air of importance and mystery. And he had qualities of heart ; there is something genuinely touching in his devotion to Holmes, and in the rare, treasured glimpses of Holmes’s devotion to him. These are admittedly the two great figures of the epic. What has not been so often noticed is the vigorous life of so many of tho persons whom thov encountered in their adventures. Almost all of Holmes’s clients and enemies are real and visible as soon as they begin their brief appearances on tho stage. They are sketched, it is true, in a few bold lines, but they have always enough verisimilitude to play their short parts, THE UNTOLD STORY. Holmes has retired and Watson must by now be thinking of selling his practice, for which he will get neither too much nor too little, bub a just and substantial sum. 1 do not know what now can call them from the obscurity to which their creator has scut them. We can only hope that there may he yet another attempt to destroy Holmes’s papers, and that he will carry out his threat and give to the public “ the whole story concerning the politician, the lighthouse, and the trained cormorant.”