Books

Radio Record, Volume II, Issue 25, 4 January 1929, Page 13

Books

THE PATHWAY.

Henry

Williamson

"THE earlier books of the winner of the Hawthorndale Prize will be remembered for graceful and beautiful expression of love of the open road, 2 consummate knowledge of field and hedgerow, and the birds and beasts that haunt their remote loveliness. Moorhen, water-rat, tiny wounded creeping things that have no champion, are as friends of his heart; while in "The Beautiful Years" he wrote poignant and illuminating analysis of the ambition and outlook of a little lonely country lad. The latest book of this sensitive and brilliant member of the younger literary school is the story of an ex-sol-dier, who, after mud, grime and cruelty of the war years, finds haven in an old Devonshire country home, and the gentle mate of his heart in the spirit-ually-endowed Mary Ogilvie, that charming heroine, who mothérs and protects all that come within her ken. The character drawing is quite excellent, we meet types of people we know and like; and incidentally, when necessary, in physical matters there is no mincing words, and a spade is to the author just plain spade. Incidentally there is much lovely talk of the ways of nature on land and sea. Manifestly the inspiration of the novel is a love’ of all created things, & poignant sympathy with sorrow, and a passionate pity for the fate, "red in tooth and claw," that overtakes the helpless, while at times there are flashes of insight and _ description worthy of that great nature lover and magician of the written wérd, W. H. Hudson himself. For example: "The dawn! The higher ground of the next field grew darker, and the sky above the hill-line glowed with pale yellow, making the distant trees of Windwhistle Spinney. black and distinct. Above the primrose bar light

from under the earth’s rim, flowed to the starry zenith, with a startling loveliness. The sun was remote; yonder was the light of the world, while he, an aspiring mortal, stood in the dusky field and looked at the Morning Star, raptured to the lips, Mother of Keats’ spirit, of the world-free Shelley, the broken-winged bird that was Thompson, of Jeffries, who was a leaf and a feather and the sea." The air of unrest that permeates a post-war world is not absent, and the book ends on a note of sorrow in the drowning of the visionary and dreamer, whose ideals had crashed around him. R.U.R,