Reviews Part 37

Cowards ever will be slaves!

is to be sung to the tune of Rule, Britannia! the old melody of The Vicar of Bray is to accompany the new Ballade of Law and Order--which, however, is not a ballade at all--and to the air of Here's to the Maiden of Bashful Fifteen the democracy of the future is to thunder forth one of Mr. T. D. Sullivan's most powerful and pathetic lyrics. It is clear that the Socialists intend to carry on the musical education of the people simultaneously with their education in political science and, here as elsewhere, they seem to be entirely free from any narrow bias or formal prejudice. Mendelssohn is followed by Moody and Sankey; the Wacht am Rhein stands side by side with the Ma.r.s.eillaise; Lillibulero, a chorus from Norma, John Brown and an air from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony are all equally delightful to them. They sing the National Anthem in Sh.e.l.ley's version and chant William Morris's Voice of Toil to the flowing numbers of Ye Banks and Braes of Bonny Doon. Victor Hugo talks somewhere of the terrible cry of 'Le Tigre Populaire,' but it is evident from Mr.

Carpenter's book that should the Revolution ever break out in England we shall have no inarticulate roar but, rather, pleasant glees and graceful part-songs. The change is certainly for the better. Nero fiddled while Rome was burning--at least, inaccurate historians say he did; but it is for the building up of an eternal city that the Socialists of our day are making music, and they have complete confidence in the art instincts of the people.

They say that the people are brutal-- That their instincts of beauty are dead-- Were it so, shame on those who condemn them To the desperate struggle for bread.

But they lie in their throats when they say it, For the people are tender at heart, And a wellspring of beauty lies hidden Beneath their life's fever and smart,

is a stanza from one of the poems in this volume, and the feeling expressed in these words is paramount everywhere. The Reformation gained much from the use of popular hymn-tunes, and the Socialists seem determined to gain by similar means a similar hold upon the people.

However, they must not be too sanguine about the result. The walls of Thebes rose up to the sound of music, and Thebes was a very dull city indeed.

Chants of Labour: A Song-Book of the People. With Music. Edited by Edward Carpenter. With Designs by Walter Crane. (Swan Sonnenschein and Co.)

MR. BRANDER MATTHEWS' ESSAYS

(Pall Mall Gazette, February 27, 1889.)

'If you to have your book criticized favorably, give yourself a good notice in the Preface!' is the golden rule laid down for the guidance of authors by Mr. Brander Matthews in an amusing essay on the art of preface- writing and, true to his own theory, he announces his volume as 'the most interesting, the most entertaining, and the most instructive book of the decade.' Entertaining it certainly is in parts. The essay on Poker, for instance, is very brightly and pleasantly written. Mr. Proctor objected to Poker on the somewhat trivial ground that it was a form of lying, and on the more serious ground that it afforded special opportunities for cheating; and, indeed, he regarded the mere existence of the game outside gambling dens as 'one of the most portentous phenomena of American civilisation.' Mr. Brander Matthews points out, in answer to these grave charges, that Bluffing is merely a suppressio veri and that it requires a great deal of physical courage on the part of the player. As for the cheating, he claims that Poker affords no more opportunities for the exercise of this art than either Whist or Ecarte, though he admits that the proper att.i.tude towards an opponent whose good luck is unduly persistent is that of the German-American who, finding four aces in his hand, was naturally about to bet heavily, when a sudden thought struck him and he inquired, 'Who dole dem carts?' 'Jakey Einstein' was the answer. 'Jakey Einstein?' he repeated, laying down his hand; 'den I pa.s.s out.'

The history of the game will be found very interesting by all card-lovers. Like most of the distinctly national products of America, it seems to have been imported from abroad and can be traced back to an Italian game in the fifteenth century. Euchre was probably acclimatised on the Mississippi by the Canadian voyageurs, being a form of the French game of Triomphe. It was a Kentucky citizen who, desiring to give his sons a few words of solemn advice for their future guidance in life, had them summoned to his deathbed and said to them, 'Boys, when you go down the river to Orleens jest you beware of a game called Yucker where the jack takes the ace;--it's unchristian!'--after which warning he lay back and died in peace. And 'it was Euchre which the two gentlemen were playing in a boat on the Missouri River when a bystander, shocked by the frequency with which one of the players turned up the jack, took the liberty of warning the other player that the winner was dealing from the bottom, to which the loser, secure in his power of self-protection, answered gruffly, "Well, suppose he is--it's his deal, isn't it?"'

The chapter On the Antiquity of Jests, with its suggestion of an International Exhibition of Jokes, is capital. Such an exhibition, Mr.

Matthews remarks, would at least dispel any lingering belief in the old saying that there are only thirty-eight good stories in existence and that thirty-seven of these cannot be told before ladies; and the Retrospective Section would certainly be the constant resort of any true folklorist. For most of the good stories of our time are really folklore, myth survivals, echoes of the past. The two well-known American proverbs, 'We have had a h.e.l.l of a time' and 'Let the other man walk' are both traced back by Mr. Matthews: the first to Walpole's letters, and the other to a story Poggio tells of an inhabitant of Perugia who walked in melancholy because he could not pay his debts.

'Vah, stulte,' was the advice given to him, 'leave anxiety to your creditors!' and even Mr. William M. Evart's brilliant repartee when he was told that Was.h.i.+ngton once threw a dollar across the Natural Bridge in Virginia, 'In those days a dollar went so much farther than it does now!'

seems to be the direct descendant of a witty remark of Foote's, though we must say that in this case we prefer the child to the father. The essay On the French Spoken by Those who do not Speak French is also cleverly written and, indeed, on every subject, except literature, Mr. Matthews is well worth reading.

On literature and literary subjects he is certainly 'sadly to seek.' The essay on The Ethics of Plagiarism, with its laborious attempt to rehabilitate Mr. Rider Haggard and its foolish remarks on Poe's admirable paper Mr. Longfellow and Other Plagiarists, is extremely dull and commonplace and, in the elaborate comparison that he draws between Mr.

Frederick Locker and Mr. Austin Dobson, the author of Pen and Ink shows that he is quite devoid of any real critical faculty or of any fine sense of the difference between ordinary society verse and the exquisite work of a very perfect artist in poetry. We have no objection to Mr. Matthews likening Mr. Locker to Mr. du Maurier, and Mr. Dobson to Randolph Caldecott and Mr. Edwin Abbey. Comparisons of this kind, though extremely silly, do not do much harm. In fact, they mean nothing and are probably not intended to mean anything. Upon the other hand, we really must protest against Mr. Matthews' efforts to confuse the poetry of Piccadilly with the poetry of Parna.s.sus. To tell us, for instance, that Mr. Austin Dobson's verse 'has not the condensed clearness nor the incisive vigor of Mr. Locker's' is really too bad even for Transatlantic criticism. n.o.body who lays claim to the slightest knowledge of literature and the forms of literature should ever bring the two names into conjunction. Mr. Locker has written some pleasant vers de societe, some tuneful trifles in rhyme admirably suited for ladies' alb.u.ms and for magazines. But to mention Herrick and Suckling and Mr. Austin Dobson in connection with him is absurd. He is not a poet. Mr. Dobson, upon the other hand, has produced work that is absolutely cla.s.sical in its exquisite beauty of form. Nothing more artistically perfect in its way than the Lines to a Greek Girl has been written in our time. This little poem will be remembered in literature as long as Thyrsis is remembered, and Thyrsis will never be forgotten. Both have that note of distinction that is so rare in these days of violence, exaggeration and rhetoric. Of course, to suggest, as Mr. Matthews does, that Mr. Dobson's poems belong to 'the literature of power' is ridiculous. Power is not their aim, nor is it their effect. They have other qualities, and in their own delicately limited sphere they have no contemporary rivals; they have none even second to them. However, Mr. Matthews is quite undaunted and tries to drag poor Mr. Locker out of Piccadilly, where he was really quite in his element, and to set him on Parna.s.sus where he has no right to be and where he would not claim to be. He praises his work with the recklessness of an eloquent auctioneer. These very commonplace and slightly vulgar lines on A Human Skull:

It may have held (to shoot some random shots) Thy brains, Eliza Fry! or Baron Byron's; The wits of Nelly Gwynne or Doctor Watts-- Two quoted bards. Two philanthropic sirens.

But this, I trust, is clearly understood, If man or woman, if adored or hated-- Whoever own'd this Skull was not so good Nor quite so bad as many may have stated;

are considered by him to be 'sportive and brightsome' and full of 'playful humor,' and 'two things especially are to be noted in them--individuality and directness of expression.' Individuality and directness of expression! We wonder what Mr. Matthews thinks these words mean.

Unfortunate Mr. Locker with his uncouth American admirer! How he must blush to read these heavy panegyrics! Indeed, Mr. Matthews himself has at least one fit of remorse for his attempt to cla.s.s Mr. Locker's work with the work of Mr. Austin Dobson, but like most fits of remorse it leads to nothing. On the very next page we have the complaint that Mr.

Dobson's verse has not 'the condensed clearness' and the 'incisive vigor'

of Mr. Locker's. Mr. Matthews should confine himself to his clever journalistic articles on Euchre, Poker, bad French and old jokes. On these subjects he can, to use an expression of his own, 'write funny.' He 'writes funny,' too, upon literature, but the fun is not quite so amusing.

Pen and Ink: Papers on Subjects of More or Less Importance. By Brander Matthews. (Longmans, Green and Co.)

SOME LITERARY NOTES--III

(Woman's World, March 1889.)

Miss Nesbit has already made herself a name as a writer of graceful and charming verse, and though her last volume, Leaves of Life, does not show any distinct advance on her former work, it still fully maintains the high standard already achieved, and justifies the reputation of the author. There are some wonderfully pretty poems in it, poems full of quick touches of fancy, and of pleasant ripples of rhyme; and here and there a poignant note of pa.s.sion flashes across the song, as a scarlet thread flashes through the shuttlerace of a loom, giving a new value to the delicate tints, and bringing the scheme of colour to a higher and more perfect key. In Miss Nesbit's earlier volume, the Lays and Legends, as it was called, there was an attempt to give poetic form to humanitarian dreams and socialistic aspirations; but the poems that dealt with these subjects were, on the whole, the least successful of the collection; and with the quick, critical instinct of an artist, Miss Nesbit seems to have recognised this. In the present volume, at any rate, such poems are rare, and these few felicitous verses give us the poet's defence:

A singer sings of rights and wrongs, Of world's ideals vast and bright, And feels the impotence of songs To scourge the wrong or help the right; And only writhes to feel how vain Are songs as weapons for his fight; And so he turns to love again, And sings of love for heart's delight.

For heart's delight the singers bind The wreath of roses round the head, And will not loose it lest they find Time victor, and the roses dead.

'Man can but sing of what he knows-- I saw the roses fresh and red!'

And so they sing the deathless rose, With withered roses garlanded.

And some within their bosom hide Their rose of love still fresh and fair, And walk in silence, satisfied To keep its folded fragrance rare.

And some--who bear a flag unfurled-- Wreathe with their rose the flag they bear, And sing their banner for the world, And for their heart the roses there.

Yet thus much choice in singing is; We sing the good, the true, the just, Pa.s.sionate duty turned to bliss, And honour growing out of trust.

Freedom we sing, and would not lose Her lightest footprint in life's dust.

We sing of her because we choose, We sing of love because we must.

Certainly Miss Nesbit is at her best when she sings of love and nature.

Here she is close to her subject, and her temperament gives colour and form to the various dramatic moods that are either suggested by Nature herself or brought to Nature for interpretation. This, for instance, is very sweet and graceful:

When all the skies with snow were grey, And all the earth with snow was white, I wandered down a still wood way, And there I met my heart's delight Slow moving through the silent wood, The spirit of its solitude: The brown birds and the lichened tree Seemed less a part of it than she.

Where pheasants' feet and rabbits' feet Had marked the snow with traces small, I saw the footprints of my sweet-- The sweetest woodland thing of all.

With Christmas roses in her hand, One heart-beat's s.p.a.ce I saw her stand; And then I let her pa.s.s, and stood Lone in an empty world of wood.

And though by that same path I've pa.s.sed Down that same woodland every day, That meeting was the first and last, And she is hopelessly away.

I wonder was she really there-- Her hands, and eyes, and lips, and hair?

Or was it but my dreaming sent Her image down the way I went?

Empty the woods are where we met-- They will be empty in the spring; The cowslip and the violet Will die without her gathering.

But dare I dream one radiant day Red rose-wreathed she will pa.s.s this way Across the glad and honoured gra.s.s; And then--I will not let her pa.s.s.

And this Dedication, with its tender silver-grey notes of colour, is charming:

In any meadow where your feet may tread, In any garland that your love may wear, May be the flower whose hidden fragrance shed Wakes some old hope or numbs some old despair, And makes life's grief not quite so hard to bear, And makes life's joy more poignant and more dear Because of some delight dead many a year.

Or in some cottage garden there may be The flower whose scent is memory for you; The st.u.r.dy southern-wood, the frail sweet-pea, Bring back the swallow's cheep, the pigeon's coo, And youth, and hope, and all the dreams they knew, The evening star, the hedges grey with mist, The silent porch where Love's first kiss was kissed.

So in my garden may you chance to find Or royal rose or quiet meadow flower, Whose scent may be with some dear dream entwined, And give you back the ghost of some sweet hour, As lilies fragrant from an August shower, Or airs of June that over bean-fields blow, Bring back the sweetness of my long ago.

All through the volume we find the same dexterous refining of old themes, which is indeed the best thing that our lesser singers can give us, and a thing always delightful. There is no garden so well tilled but it can bear another blossom, and though the subject-matter of Miss Nesbit's book is as the subject-matter of almost all books of poetry, she can certainly lend a new grace and a subtle sweetness to almost everything on which she writes.

The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems is from the clever pen of Mr. W.

B. Yeats, whose charming anthology of Irish fairy-tales I had occasion to notice in a recent number of the Woman's World. {437} It is, I believe, the first volume of poems that Mr. Yeats has published, and it is certainly full of promise. It must be admitted that many of the poems are too fragmentary, too incomplete. They read like stray scenes out of unfinished plays, like things only half remembered, or, at best, but dimly seen. But the architectonic power of construction, the power to build up and make perfect a harmonious whole, is nearly always the latest, as it certainly is the highest, development of the artistic temperament. It is somewhat unfair to expect it in early work. One quality Mr. Yeats has in a marked degree, a quality that is not common in the work of our minor poets, and is therefore all the more welcome to us--I mean the romantic temper. He is essentially Celtic, and his verse, at its best, is Celtic also. Strongly influenced by Keats, he seems to study how to 'load every rift with ore,' yet is more fascinated by the beauty of words than by the beauty of metrical music. The spirit that dominates the whole book is perhaps more valuable than any individual poem or particular pa.s.sage, but this from The Wanderings of Oisin is worth quoting. It describes the ride to the Island of Forgetfulness:

And the ears of the horse went sinking away in the hollow light, For, as drift from a sailor slow drowning the gleams of the world and the sun, Ceased on our hands and faces, on hazel and oak leaf, the light, And the stars were blotted above us, and the whole of the world was one;

Till the horse gave a whinny; for c.u.mbrous with stems of the hazel and oak, Of hollies, and hazels, and oak-trees, a valley was sloping away From his hoofs in the heavy gra.s.ses, with monstrous slumbering folk, Their mighty and naked and gleaming bodies heaped loose where they lay.