MELLOWED ORTHODOXY
FRAGMENTA ANIMI. By
Richard
Lawson
Whitcombe and sTombs
PROFESSOR: LAWSON isa real scholar. Better still, he has a truly humanistic love of letters, and his favourite writers have become as familiar to him as his garter. Some )of his obiter dicta are fragrant with experiénce. To quote one example: : There is always a sorrow in life. Excitement obliterates it for a time, but it returns sooner or later. Prosperity shuts out the sight of it for a time, but it returns again. For alleviation of sorrow there is no panacea in the support of society. For nations and mankind as a whole there is no way. of life of a purely materialistic kind that has ever escaped’ the final gulf of oblivion. (continued on next page)
(continued from previous page) | On the whole, however, Professor Lawson’s thinking has pursued an ultraorthodox course. One does not deny him conviction: on the contrary, he is of the stuff of which true believers are made. But in an essayist (think of Hazlitt) one looks for independent acuteness of insight; or (think of Lamb) for an originality all the more engaging because it is wilful; or (think of Bacon) a unique sagacity expressed in diction both rich and pithy; or (think of Addison) a turn of style that reveals the personality of the writer in every paragraph. Professor Lawson’s writing and thinking possess hone of these highly individual qualities. He is sure of his ground and in his reading has trenched it with a will; his mind to him a kingdom is but it has not explored -adventurous frontiers nor added to it new provinces; He has gained a wisdom for himself that is available to all readers who go to the same sources. He says of Shakespeare: "Yet it is, a mistake to be so idolatrous of his talent as to forget that he too, like the glorious orb of day that he loved, has his spots." The judgment is true. But it savours of vain repetition. In estimating Milton and Carlyle he likewise keeps to the middle of the main stream of accepted opinion though an addict of Sartor Resartus warms to him for remarking that "he (Carlyle) will come back into
his own."
F. L.
Combs
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 485, 8 October 1948, Page 24
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377MELLOWED ORTHODOXY New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 485, 8 October 1948, Page 24
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