THE TEMPERED MIND

New Zealand Listener, Volume 25, Issue 633, 17 August 1951, Page 12

THE TEMPERED MIND

A TIME TO LAUGH, and Other Essays, by F. Sinclaire; the Caxton Press; 12/6.

(Reviewed by

Walter

Brookes

T is not an easy task to review a writer when one is an enthusiastic member of his band of followers. I know that there will be many who will be with me when I frankly admit that I am at a loss to think of anything to say against these essays; and I can only hope that the author will not think me an indolent or unctuous critic. There may, indeed, be those who do not find here enough vehement support of socialism or private enterprise or the glories of the profit system or the wrongs of the working class; and even those who would maintain that the language of the man in the bar room or on the street corner would give a stronger tone of realism to what is said. Again I take comfort in the thought of the large number who appreciate Professor Sinclaire’s writing when I say that the essay should deal with matters of immediate topical or controversial interest only so that they may illustrate observations on the more lasting social and personal concerns of men and women. Moreover, the essay is a form which must bear the marks of scholarship, wide reading, and reflection-more so, I should say, than poetry or the novel. And its language should reflect this character. It is the product of what Bacon has termed "civil times," and today, it must be admitted, it is a less popular form than it has been in the past. Professor Sinclaire’s easy and graceful manner of writing, his turn for presenting facts and points of view which are overlooked in our haze of conventional and ready-made thinking, and the cheerful and gracious air which characterises his work are well known. I shall try no harder to praise than to find fault with these essays. I find it more convenient and telling to quote the observations of a reader who had casually taken up his book and laid it down to remark: "You read these because you like them and not because you ought to. They are clever, but not too clever; you find well-turned phrases but no showing off." Such artless and spontaneous praise should please any essayist.