The Wooden Horse

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 323, 7 April 1928, Page 19

The Wooden Horse

jin Occasional Column

And with great lies about his wooden horse Set the crew laughing, and forgot his course. — J. E, Flecker .

A BRIGHT red cover, instead of its usual yellow, marks “The London Mercury’s” hundredth number, Mr Squire leaving it an open question whether the cover symbolises },j3 blush of modest pleasure at having survived so long or the wild inteniion of painting the town red. Well, Mr Squire has little to be ashamed of and much to be proud of. More than eight years ago he launched the “Mercury” as a monthly devoted to litera,ure and allied arts —surely a ship launched on perilous seas; but it sails very prosperously on. Perhaps almost too prosperously. Perhaps some trace of that smugness, that self-satisfaction which provokes the Sitwell laddies to put out their well-bred tongues and «all rode of the most polished

brand, has really infected the god’s wise vivacity. Who borrows his title from the wing-footed one must be careful not to tread with too solemn assurance of right. He, above all, must not put lead in his boots to tramp the corridors of literature the more resoundingly. It is just suspicionable that “The London Mercury” is sometimes dull, when it is dull, because it pays excessively conscious regard to certain selfassumed duties as literature’s missionarj', custodian, priest, and Supreme Court judge. If these duties appear to be carried out by contributors as often as by Mr Squire, or oftener, the contributors undertake them in a special sense as “Mercury” contributors, knowing that it is the proper instrument through which to express themselves to such and such an evangelistic, guardian, sacerdotal, or judicial effect; they do so under Mr Squire’s favouring nod, while the Sitwells stroll by talking loudly to each other about “the Squirearchy” and laughing in a ribald superior manner, fit to bust. Most of this is due to the fact that the "Mercury” really does occupy a unique position, the responsibilities of which it has both created and admirably satisfied. There is, there always is, another side to success, often a ridiculous or contemptible side. Neither of those adjectives can be stuck to the “Mercury’s” tail. But a little, too, is due to the fact that the "Mercury” has been loyal to a small group of contributors, whose frequent writings have not invariably been good enough to prevent a doubt whether kindness or judgment admitted them, and loyal, also, to one its earliest institutions —the printing of long, critical re-estimates of great dead writers. This is a useful and necessary work; but these reestimates—like some of the estimates of distinguished living writers —have not invariably been good enough to prevent a doubt whether they were admitted by the front door (“Now h ere’* something worth saying.”) or by the back (“Come on! We’ve got *o say something.”). Mr Hugh Walpole remarked the other day on the “Mercury’s” rather Monotonous repetition of signatures and sympathies. There was truth in he observed. But It is a more important truth that, though nearly pvery "Mercury” reader is vexed, from time to time, or impatiently riffles its fnges, he won’t cancel his subscription: for he knows that he gets there *'hat he cannot easily do without and cannot easily, if at all, get elsewhere. And how often it happens that he finds a contribution so extraordinarily ?ood. among many good ones, that the jovulsion of feeling is almost painTo renew at three times the subscription rate would be the pleasure of remorse. Let us see how many we can remember in three jninutes: there was Max Beerbohm’s beautiful “William and Mary”; there * as Walter de la Bere’s essay in Parody of Belloc—who was “de la Bere”?; there was Montague’s story Another Temple Gone”; there was Dame Ethel Smyth’s account of the infected* well at her country cottage and JJ & e r playing her Mass in D before Queen Victoria and of the Empress Eugenie and the Queen in exquisite battle of courtesy against courtesy; l .;o re a Chesterton essay on Rhyme”; there was somebody’s deiici°us story of the escaped parrot and us pursuit through the bedroom of the charming but shockingly unmarried couple next door; there was a long by George Moore, quite enchantthere was A. P. Herbert’s “Two gentlemen of Soho”; there was a bjst-rate and just appreciation of W. Jacobs, by J. B. Priestley; there fas an excellent paper on the Trolio Pe country; there was a hundred *f°re good things—(Yes, yes, all right: “there were a hundred good more.” then. The point is that WAS.) So now Mr Squire is celebrating his “Mdredth birthday. He has got "Brel Capek, C. E. Montague, Sir t-dmund Gosse, Walter de la Mare, Gll d G. K. Chesterton, with others, to r «lebrate it with him. The Capek r-O- is a striking success; the Monone is a perfect example of his K ‘Qd of success, which first carries away and then leaves one perched n «asiiy pa a doubt. This story con-

tains a new phase of Montague. The same inability to break out of the surprisingly narrow limits of his emotional attractions and repulsions, to escape himself, at least to guard against his weaknesses, yes; but now, and markedly, a new ingenuity in using those weaknesses as props and stays of his story! For brevity’s sake, let minor illustrations serve. Mr Montague has a weakness for “beautiful” writing. In this story he betrays it by carefully shaping a good, colloauial idiom for the character, who is supposeu to ten the story—and thee forgetfully letting him drift by degrees into the idiom of Montague the essayist, of the admired passages of

“Disenchantment” and the more doubtfully admirable purple patches of his novels. So far, nothing new; but he cunningly turns his weakness to account by creating another character, the hero Jimmy, to whom, we are instructed to believe, this shining speech is natural. Thus Mr Montague has it both ways: when the narrator spouts poetry, that is, when Mr Montague indulges his weakness, he excuses himself either on the score of the moment's rare inspiration or of his remembering Jimmy’s golden phrases; and when Jimmy spouts poetry, that is, when Mr Montague properly lets himself go, then we are to remember that this is Jimmy’s special brand of talk, the unforced verbal flowering of his nature. “You see,” says Mr Montague’s narrator, “how he spoke —with the bare phrasing of people who love a thing too much to talk slops about it.” But that is not in Mr Montague’s best vein of tactful apologetics. Another of Mr Montague’s weaknesses (and charms) is his habit of absorbing into his prose, and making them gleam there, poetic reminiscences and quotations. He does it well; but he tends to overdo it. Jimmy does it in his talk. When Jimmy is dead and we sadly look over his little collection of books, we are told that some of them had “got built into his mind and shone out now and then through his talk, as you may have noticed.” Yes. We had noticed. And we notice how cunningly Mr Montague slips out of his habit and fits it on Jimmy.

Mr Squire once wrote a book called ‘Tricks of the Trade.” He might in-

clude as a new one Mr Montague’s playing Esau-and-Jacob with his own characters.

Still, one never reads Montague without saying “Thank you” to him. Nor doesn't one never read “The London Mercury” without not being grateful for it. not by a long chalk. Thank-you and congratulations, Mr Squire. J. H. E. S. P.S. Myself: I want to print a poem in Latin. Conscience: No more wallowing in classical morasses. That was agreed on. It is hoggish. Myself: But in a P.S.? Conscience: No! Myself: And in very small type? Conscience: No! Myself: But it is a Poem Against Motor Buses. Conscience: That alters the position: entirely. I hope this is a very powerful composition? Myself: Thank you. It was written by A. D. Godley when Motor Buses first began to infest Oxford. It is in the severest degree anti-petrolytic. Conscience: Pray let me hear it. Myself: I will. What is this that roareth thus? Can it be a Motor Bus? Yes, the smell and hideous hun Indicat Motorem Bum. linplet in the Corn and High Terror me Motoris Bi: Bo Motori clamitabo Ne Mot ore caedar a Bo Dative be or Ablative So thou only let us live— Whither shall thy victims flee? Spare us. spare us, Motor Be! Thus I sing; and still anigh Came in hordes Motores Bi, Et complebat ornne forum Copia Motorum Borum. How shall wretches live like us Cincti Bis Motoribus? Pomine, defende not Contra hos Motores Bos. Conscience: Is that all? Myself: That, is all. Conscience: It was a good poem. Myself: Indeed, Godley.