Behind the Emperor’s box at the Coliseum, where the performers assemble before entering the arena. In the middle a wide passage leading to the arena descends from the floor level under the imperial box. On both sides of this passage steps ascend to a landing at the back entrance to the box. The landingforms a bridge across the passage. At the entrance to the passage are two bronze mirrors, one on each side.On the west side of this passage, on the right hand of anyone coming from the box and standing on the bridge, the martyrs are sitting on the steps. Lavinia is seated half-way up, thoughtfully trying to look death in the face. On her left Androcles consoles himself by nursing a cat. Ferrovious stands behind them, his eyes blazing, his figure stiff with intense resolution. At the foot of the steps crouches Spintho, with his head clutched in his hands, full of horror at the approach of martyrdom.On the east side of the passage the gladiators are standing and sitting at ease, waiting, like the Christians, for their turn in the arena. One (Retiarius) is a nearly naked man with a net and trident. Another (Secutor) is in armour with a sword. He carries a helmet with a barred visor. The Editor of the gladiators sits on a chair a little apart from them.The Call Boy enters from the passage.The Call Boy.Number six. RetiariusversusSecutor.The gladiator with the net picks it up. The gladiator with the helmet puts it on; and the two go into the arena, the net-thrower taking out a little brush and arranging his hair as he goes, the other tightening his straps and shaking his shoulders loose. Both look at themselves in the mirrors before they enter the passage.Lavinia.Will they really kill one another?Spintho.Yes, if the people turn down their thumbs.The Editor.You know nothing about it. The people indeed! Do you suppose we would kill a man worth perhaps fifty talents to please the riff-raff? I should like to catch any of my men at it.Spintho.I thought——The Editor[contemptuously]. You thought! Who cares whatyouthink?You’llbe killed all right enough.Spintho[groans and again hides his face].!!!...Lavinia.Does the Emperor ever interfere?The Editor.Oh yes; he turns his thumb up fast enough if the vestal virgins want to have one of his pet fighting men killed.Androcles and the Lion
Behind the Emperor’s box at the Coliseum, where the performers assemble before entering the arena. In the middle a wide passage leading to the arena descends from the floor level under the imperial box. On both sides of this passage steps ascend to a landing at the back entrance to the box. The landingforms a bridge across the passage. At the entrance to the passage are two bronze mirrors, one on each side.
On the west side of this passage, on the right hand of anyone coming from the box and standing on the bridge, the martyrs are sitting on the steps. Lavinia is seated half-way up, thoughtfully trying to look death in the face. On her left Androcles consoles himself by nursing a cat. Ferrovious stands behind them, his eyes blazing, his figure stiff with intense resolution. At the foot of the steps crouches Spintho, with his head clutched in his hands, full of horror at the approach of martyrdom.
On the east side of the passage the gladiators are standing and sitting at ease, waiting, like the Christians, for their turn in the arena. One (Retiarius) is a nearly naked man with a net and trident. Another (Secutor) is in armour with a sword. He carries a helmet with a barred visor. The Editor of the gladiators sits on a chair a little apart from them.
The Call Boy enters from the passage.
The Call Boy.Number six. RetiariusversusSecutor.
The gladiator with the net picks it up. The gladiator with the helmet puts it on; and the two go into the arena, the net-thrower taking out a little brush and arranging his hair as he goes, the other tightening his straps and shaking his shoulders loose. Both look at themselves in the mirrors before they enter the passage.
The gladiator with the net picks it up. The gladiator with the helmet puts it on; and the two go into the arena, the net-thrower taking out a little brush and arranging his hair as he goes, the other tightening his straps and shaking his shoulders loose. Both look at themselves in the mirrors before they enter the passage.
Lavinia.Will they really kill one another?
Spintho.Yes, if the people turn down their thumbs.
The Editor.You know nothing about it. The people indeed! Do you suppose we would kill a man worth perhaps fifty talents to please the riff-raff? I should like to catch any of my men at it.
Spintho.I thought——
The Editor[contemptuously]. You thought! Who cares whatyouthink?You’llbe killed all right enough.
Spintho[groans and again hides his face].!!!...
Lavinia.Does the Emperor ever interfere?
The Editor.Oh yes; he turns his thumb up fast enough if the vestal virgins want to have one of his pet fighting men killed.
Androcles and the Lion
(c)His Defects.As a dramatist Mr. Shaw has many faults. When he is anxious to expound one of his opinions he subordinates the dramatic interest and permits his characters to become merely the mouthpieces of his views. Jack Tanner, the chief character inMan and Superman,is the stock example of such a personage. Nearly all his characters, moreover, though they are galvanically active, hardly impress the reader as being actually alive. Like Dickens, Mr. Shaw is skillful in the creation of freaks and oddities, but he is weak in the presentation of living and ordinary people.
(d)His Opinions.Like Mr. Wells, Mr. Shaw holds decided views on many subjects, from phonetics to the construction of the universe, and he is not backward in expressing them. More than once he has declared that he would never have written a word if he had not some message to convey. He has, however, a curious method of exposition, which he has purposely developed in order to shock his opponents into attention: a jesting, paradoxical mishandling of the truth, often glaringly personal, and stated with almost brutal clearness. As a result Mr. Shaw rarely finds himself taken seriously by the superficial reader, though the deep underlying seriousness of his opinions is nearly always perceptible to the attentive mind. It has often been urged that his opinions are purely destructive; and his efforts to provide alternatives to the institutions he condemns are not always of the happiest.
(e)His Style.Like his great fellow-countryman Swift, Mr. Shaw has a powerful and logical mind, with the same fierce satiric purpose and (it may be added) the same type of Irish nationalism. His prose is more amusing, less destructive, more diffuse, and less simple than that of the great Dean. In his dramatic dialogue, however, Mr. Shaw is pithy, direct, and absolutely clear. The example already given shows its character.
We add a brief specimen of his expository prose. It is the peroration to a long preface, and therefore somewhat more elevated in style than the average. It contains a characteristic mock-serious personal reference which sheds light on Mr. Shaw’s own opinion of his work.
I now find myself inspired to make a second legend of Creative Evolution without distractions and embellishments. My sands are running out; the exuberance of 1901 has aged into thegarrulity of 1920; and the war has been a stern intimation that the matter is not one to be trifled with. I abandon the legend of Don Juan with its erotic associations, and go back to the legend of the Garden of Eden. I exploit the eternal interest of the philosopher’s stone which enables men to live for ever. I am not, I hope, under more illusion than is humanly inevitable as to the crudity of this my beginning of a Bible for Creative Evolution. I am doing the best I can at my age. My powers are waning; but so much the better for those who found me unbearably brilliant when I was in my prime. It is my hope that a hundred apter and more elegant parables by younger hands will soon leave mine as far behind as the religious pictures of the fifteenth century left behind the first attempts of the early Christians at inconography. In that hope I withdraw and ring up the curtain.Preface to “Back to Methuselah”
I now find myself inspired to make a second legend of Creative Evolution without distractions and embellishments. My sands are running out; the exuberance of 1901 has aged into thegarrulity of 1920; and the war has been a stern intimation that the matter is not one to be trifled with. I abandon the legend of Don Juan with its erotic associations, and go back to the legend of the Garden of Eden. I exploit the eternal interest of the philosopher’s stone which enables men to live for ever. I am not, I hope, under more illusion than is humanly inevitable as to the crudity of this my beginning of a Bible for Creative Evolution. I am doing the best I can at my age. My powers are waning; but so much the better for those who found me unbearably brilliant when I was in my prime. It is my hope that a hundred apter and more elegant parables by younger hands will soon leave mine as far behind as the religious pictures of the fifteenth century left behind the first attempts of the early Christians at inconography. In that hope I withdraw and ring up the curtain.
Preface to “Back to Methuselah”
1. Oscar O. W. Wilde (1856–1900)was the son of a famous Irish surgeon, and was educated at Dublin and Oxford. At Oxford he distinguished himself both as a scholar and as an eccentric. In the latter capacity he posed as an “æsthete” in opposition to the common type of “athlete,” wearing fantastic garments, and behaving with an extraordinary combination of folly, extravagance, and presumption. On leaving the university he dabbled in literature in an amateurish fashion, writing poems, novels, and plays, and contributing to magazines and reviews. His opinions—he held that “morality” does not exist in “art”—led to much heated discussion, and to many charges being made against his moral character. Wilde instituted proceedings for libel, which in turn brought to light many unpleasant facts against him, and in the end landed him in jail (1895). On regaining his liberty (1897) he lived a wandering life on the Continent, and died miserably in Paris.
Wilde’s early poems and novels, an example of which latter isThe Picture of Dorian Gray(1891), are sumptuous in detail, cynically phrased, and richly ornamented in style;[237]but over them all is a curious taint, a faint malodorouscorruption, that repels the healthy-minded reader. His plays, however, almost escape this infection. In tone they are hard and cynical, and in the portrayal of character they are exceedingly weak, but they are brilliant with epigram and telling phrase, are ingeniously contrived, and have many clever situations. They are the cleverest society comedies since the days of Wilde’s great fellow-country-man Sheridan. The best of them areLady Windermere’s Fan(1892) andThe Importance of Being Earnest(1895).
2. John Galsworthy(born in 1867) in drama takes the place occupied in the novel by Gissing. In sincerity, in his close scrutiny of the vexed problems of to-day, and in his deep sympathy for the poor and wretched Mr. Galsworthy much resembles the earlier novelist. As a playwright, however, he is too deeply engrossed with his problems to do complete justice to his talents. He is too serious, his humor is wan and meager, and the severe detachment of his plays makes them rather cold and depressing.The Silver Box(1906) deals with the inequality of “justice” as it is administered in the police courts;Joy(1907),Strife(1909), andJustice(1910) discuss various social and domestic problems; andThe Skin Game(1920) deals with the post-war profiteer.
Mr. Galsworthy has written a considerable number of novels, which culminate inThe Forsyte Saga(1922). This immense work includes three longish novels and two shorter tales, all of which had previously been published individually. In its breadth and power of comprehension, and in its keen and destructive vision into social and personal weaknesses, the book takes rank as one of the most noteworthy of the present day.
3. Sir James Barriewas born in 1860 at Kirriemuir, a small town in Forfarshire. Educated at Dumfries and at Edinburgh University, he became a journalist, settling ultimately in London. His early sketches and novels, such asAuld Licht Idylls(1888),A Window in Thrums(1889), andSentimental Tommy(1896), squared with the averageEnglishman’s notions of Scotland, and were exceedingly successful. The element of pathos was heavily drawn upon, and their quaint and attractive humor—a delicate compound of fancy, pathos, and whimsical sentiment—was something quite new of its kind.
His plays strongly resemble the novels. In them he displays a sweet ethereal fancy that adds to the humor and pathos.The Admirable Crichton(1903) is fresh and delightful;Peter Pan, a golden venture into unashamed nonsense, is to the stage whatAlice in Wonderlandis to literature—a children’s classic; andQuality Street(1901),What Every Woman Knows(1908),A Kiss for Cinderella(1916),Dear Brutus(1917), andMary Rose(1920) have the sweetly sensitive tears-in-laughter that make the Barrie plays quite different from all others.
4. John M. Synge (1871–1909)deserves mention as being the most important playwright of the purely Celtic school. He was always in delicate health, and his period of play-writing was very brief. During the years of his literary output he lived in close association with Irish peasantry, especially that of the Aran Islands, where the Celtic spirit is least affected by modern movements.
The Shadow of the Glen(1903) andRiders to the Sea(1904) are short plays of one act; and with the longer plays calledThe Well of the Saints(1905),The Playboy of the Western World(1907),The Tinker’s Wedding(1909), andDeirdre of the Sorrows(1910), they represent his published works. All portray the life of the Irish peasant; but it is the peasant as viewed from the outside by the cultured literary man. The observation is often keen, and the satiric intention apparent; but the peasant remains an idealized literary figure, and his language is idealized language. As acting plays, moreover, they are heavy and lifeless, for Synge was little skilled in stage technique. Their real importance lies in their style: a slow-moving, wonderful prose, rich in poetic embellishment and sonorous rhythms, and full of the typical Celtic mysticism. Consequently Synge’s plays will be read far more than theywill be acted. A specimen of his style will be found on p.568.
1. Gilbert K. Chestertonwas born in London in the year 1874. He was educated at St. Paul’s School, then studied art, but ultimately became a journalist. He wrote much literary and miscellaneous prose for journals, and distinguished himself as a writer of much ingenuity, topsy-turvy humor, and a robust, rampageous style. His books of verse, such asGray-beards at Play(1900),The Wild Knight(1900), andWine, Water, and Song(1915), are quite excellent in their way: clever and vigorous, skillfully constructed, and genuinely funny. His novels are fine-spun webs of ingenious nonsense, and includeThe Club of Queer Trades(1905) andThe Man Who was Thursday(1908). His literary and miscellaneous work, often apparently willful and inconsequent, is usually sane and substantial at bottom. His critical work is well represented by his books on Dickens and Browning, and his miscellaneous writing, gloriously Chestertonian, byTremendous Trifles(1909) andA Shilling for my Thoughts(1916).
2. Hilaire Belloc, the son of a Frenchman, was born in France in 1870. He was educated in England, served two years with the French Artillery, and finished his education at Oxford University. Mr. Belloc has contributed to most kinds of literature. His serious verses are noteworthy for their ease and vigor, and his nonsense verses, such asA Bad Child’s Book of Beasts, are excellent fooling. As a humorist Mr. Belloc specializes in a super-solemnity of manner while he is stating the most ridiculous problems. His humor, however, rarely lacks the sharp stab of satire. His novels, like those of Disraeli, are a shrewd commentary upon our political life. They have an unwinkingly solemn humor, biting scorn scarcely concealed, and a clear and incisive style.Mr. Clutterbuck’s Election(1908) andA Change in the Cabinet(1909) come high in the thin ranks of the first-rate political novel. His miscellaneous work isoften clever, whimsically learned, and often distinguished by the same parade of grave nonsense.On Nothing(1908) sets him high among modern essayists. His two travel volumes,The Path to Rome(1902) andThe Pyrenees(1909), in spite of their somewhat labored mannerisms, deserve to become classical.
3. Lord Morley (1838–1923)is the sole writer of serious miscellaneous prose that we have space to mention. He was born at Blackburn, took his degree at Oxford, and became a journalist of a Radical and philosophical type. He was in turn editor of more than one important review, entered Parliament (1883), and was closely associated with Mr. Gladstone during the struggles over the Irish Home Rule Bills. He held high offices under the Liberal Government, was created Viscount Morley of Blackburn (1908), and on the outbreak of war in 1914 retired from public life.
Lord Morley wrote a great deal of literary, philosophical, and miscellaneous work, distinguished by its scholarly care and accuracy, by a deep but placable seriousness, and by a strong and flexible style. His monographs onVoltaire(1872),Burke(1879), andWalpole(1889) are models of what such brief works ought to be; hisLife of Cromwell(1900) is a sane and scholarly treatment of a difficult subject; and his monumentalLife of Gladstone(1903), though it lacks proportion in some respects, is a well-filled storehouse of historical fact, and, on this side of idolatry, a reverent tribute to a great man.
In the section that follows we have made a careful selection from the poets of the period. Many more names might have been included, of a value and interest little inferior to those given a place. In any case, a selection such as this must be in the nature of an experiment, for time alone will sift out the poems of permanent value.
1. Sir William Watsonwas born in 1858, the son of a Yorkshire farmer, and was educated privately. His lifehas been devoted to letters: a devotion that was recognized by Mr. Gladstone, who transferred to him (1893) the Civil List pension that had been granted to Tennyson. He was knighted in 1917.
His fairly abundant poetry includesThe Prince’s Quest(1880), after the manner of Tennyson;Wordsworth’s Grave(1890), the style of which suggests the meditative poetry of Matthew Arnold;Lacrymæ Musarum(1893), which contains a fine elegy on the death of Tennyson;The Muse in Exile(1913); andThe Superhuman Antagonists(1919). Sir William Watson is at his best as an elegiac poet, when, though he is apt to become diffusely meditative, he writes with sincerity and a scholarly enthusiasm. In the heroic vein, such as he attempted in the last poem mentioned above, he is merely violent, without being impressive. His political poetry, such asThe Year of Shame(1897), is strong rhetorical verse, palpably sincere, but of no high poetical merit.
2. Francis Thompson (1859–1907)had a career suggestive of that of the poets of the eighteenth century. He was born in Lancashire, and was dedicated to the profession of medicine. He abandoned medicine, and went to London as a friendless literary adventurer. Then followed the tragically familiar tale of loneliness, poverty, opium, and disease. After a time (1893) his poems drew a little attention to himself, and he was rescued just in time from the fate of Chatterton. His health, however, was never fully restored, and finally he died of consumption.
In style and temper Thompson is a strange blend of the poets of past epochs. He has the rapt religious enthusiasm and the soaring imagination of the Metaphysical poets, as can be clearly seen in his truly magnificentHound of Heaven; or again, as inThe Daisy, he is the inspired babbler of the type of William Blake. In one sense he wrote too much, when he marred his splendid lyrical energy with too abundant detail; in another sense he wrote too little, for the fire that was within him was extinguished before it could burn clear. He is not quite another Coleridge,hag-ridden with opium, but at least he is a lyrical poet far above mediocrity.
3. John Masefield(born 1874) has contributed much poetry to modern literature. Quite a budget of long descriptive-narrative poems has come from him, includingThe Widow in the Bye Street(1912), a grimly realistic tale;Dauber(1913), full of the splendor and terror of the sea; andReynard the Fox(1920), a bustling tale of the foxhunt. These long poems are well informed and masterfully narrated, with many purple passages of description, and in the grimmer incidents a strong fidelity to fact that does not stop short of strong language. Mr. Masefield’s shorter poems, though they do not include any great lyrics, are dignified, reticent, and tuneful. He is undoubtedly at his best when he writes of the sea, a subject that was never far from the hearts of his great poetical predecessors.
4. William H. Davieswas born at Newport, Monmouthshire, in 1870. In his youth he emigrated to America, where he became a tramp, and then served as a cattleman on a steamer. An accident in which he lost a foot made him incapable of hard physical work, so for a living he sang in the streets and lived in common lodging-houses. His first volume of verse,The Soul’s Destroyer(1906), rescued him from penury. HisCollected Poems(1916) andForty New Pieces(1918) contain his best work.
Like Burns, Mr. Davies is the natural, untaught lyrical genius. His capacity is neither so deep nor so intense as that of Burns, but within his limits he can write poems of great beauty. When he writes of nature he almost recreates the spirit of Wordsworth, he shows such insight, freshness, and ease. His artless simplicity is at times almost grotesque, yet the reader cannot help admitting that it is in keeping with his subject. This marked naïveté, however, is often given a queer metaphysical twist; or it sometimes rises, with a mighty rhythm, into passages of noble harmony. At least half a dozen of his shorter pieces—the expressiveThunderstorms; the exquisiteMoon, so old in theme and so original in expression; the daintySweetStay-at-Home, with its haunting Caroline meter and phrasing; the absolutely perfectThe White Cascade, eight lines long; the provokingly beautifulDreams of the Sea, that one cries out upon as being too wonderful to be merely imitative of the grand Marlowe manner; and the amazing verses, Elizabethan to the core, beginningWhen I Am Old—are stamped with immortality. The temptation to quote is irresistible:
(1) When I am old, and it is spring,And joy leaps dancing, wild and free,Clear out of every living thing,While I command no ecstasy;And to translate the songs of birdsWill be beyond my power in words:*****For when these little songs shall fail,These happy notes that to the worldAre puny mole-hills, nothing more,That unto me are Alps of gold—That toad’s dark life must be my own,Buried alive inside a stone.
(1) When I am old, and it is spring,And joy leaps dancing, wild and free,Clear out of every living thing,While I command no ecstasy;And to translate the songs of birdsWill be beyond my power in words:*****For when these little songs shall fail,These happy notes that to the worldAre puny mole-hills, nothing more,That unto me are Alps of gold—That toad’s dark life must be my own,Buried alive inside a stone.
(1) When I am old, and it is spring,And joy leaps dancing, wild and free,Clear out of every living thing,While I command no ecstasy;And to translate the songs of birdsWill be beyond my power in words:
(1) When I am old, and it is spring,
And joy leaps dancing, wild and free,
Clear out of every living thing,
While I command no ecstasy;
And to translate the songs of birds
Will be beyond my power in words:
*****
*****
For when these little songs shall fail,These happy notes that to the worldAre puny mole-hills, nothing more,That unto me are Alps of gold—That toad’s dark life must be my own,Buried alive inside a stone.
For when these little songs shall fail,
These happy notes that to the world
Are puny mole-hills, nothing more,
That unto me are Alps of gold—
That toad’s dark life must be my own,
Buried alive inside a stone.
(2) Thou knowest the way to tame the wildest life,Thou knowest the way to bend the great and proud:I think of that Armada whose puffed sails,Greedy and large, came swallowing every cloud.But I have seen the sea-boy young and drowned,Lying on shore, and, by thy cruel hand,A seaweed beard was on his tender chin,His heaven-blue eyes were filled with common sand.And yet, for all, I yearn for thee again,To sail once more upon thy fickle flood:I’ll hear thy waves wash under my death-bed,Thy salt is lodged for ever in my blood.Dreams of the Sea
(2) Thou knowest the way to tame the wildest life,Thou knowest the way to bend the great and proud:I think of that Armada whose puffed sails,Greedy and large, came swallowing every cloud.But I have seen the sea-boy young and drowned,Lying on shore, and, by thy cruel hand,A seaweed beard was on his tender chin,His heaven-blue eyes were filled with common sand.And yet, for all, I yearn for thee again,To sail once more upon thy fickle flood:I’ll hear thy waves wash under my death-bed,Thy salt is lodged for ever in my blood.Dreams of the Sea
(2) Thou knowest the way to tame the wildest life,Thou knowest the way to bend the great and proud:I think of that Armada whose puffed sails,Greedy and large, came swallowing every cloud.
(2) Thou knowest the way to tame the wildest life,
Thou knowest the way to bend the great and proud:
I think of that Armada whose puffed sails,
Greedy and large, came swallowing every cloud.
But I have seen the sea-boy young and drowned,Lying on shore, and, by thy cruel hand,A seaweed beard was on his tender chin,His heaven-blue eyes were filled with common sand.
But I have seen the sea-boy young and drowned,
Lying on shore, and, by thy cruel hand,
A seaweed beard was on his tender chin,
His heaven-blue eyes were filled with common sand.
And yet, for all, I yearn for thee again,To sail once more upon thy fickle flood:I’ll hear thy waves wash under my death-bed,Thy salt is lodged for ever in my blood.Dreams of the Sea
And yet, for all, I yearn for thee again,
To sail once more upon thy fickle flood:
I’ll hear thy waves wash under my death-bed,
Thy salt is lodged for ever in my blood.
Dreams of the Sea
5. John Drinkwater(born 1882) was educated at Oxford High School, and for a time worked in insurance offices. He has done much to revive the modern drama, helping to found the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. Asa poet he is representative of the work of his day: meditative rather than passionate, descriptive rather than narrative, and always clear, competent, and precise. He is one of the best of modern blank-verse writers. His shorter poems will be found in hisPoems of 1908–1914(1914) andSwords and Ploughshares(1915).
6. Rupert C. Brooke (1887–1915)was educated at Rugby and Cambridge, and for a time traveled in America. In 1914 he enlisted in the Royal Naval Division, took part in the fighting at Antwerp, and died of fever while on active service in the Dardanelles.
Brooke’s lamentably early death gave rise to a quite natural tendency to overpraise his poetry. The exaggerated estimates made at his death must be revised, and real justice done to his name. As a poet he is not consistently great, but he is always readable, often delightfully mannered and humorous (as in the poem calledHeaven), and on at least one occasion, in the splendid sonnet calledThe Soldier, touches greatness. His sonnets are perhaps his best achievement. In this very difficult species of composition he has the requisite technical skill and delicate ear for rhythm, and he can catch the unmistakable surge and swell that mark the successful sonnet.
We quote from his piece calledHeaven. In felicity of phrasing and aptness of humor it is of the best Metaphysical tradition.
But somewhere, beyond Space and Time,Is wetter water, slimier slime!And there (they trust) there swimmeth OneWho swam ere rivers were begun,Immense, of fishy form and mind,Squamous, omnipotent, and kind;And under that Almighty Fin,The littlest fish may enter in.Oh! never fly conceals a hook,Fish say, in the Eternal Brook,But more than mundane weeds are there,And mud, celestially fair;Fat caterpillars drift around,And Paradisal grubs are found;Unfading moths, immortal flies,And the worm that never dies.And in that Heaven of all their wish,There shall be no more land, say fish.
But somewhere, beyond Space and Time,Is wetter water, slimier slime!And there (they trust) there swimmeth OneWho swam ere rivers were begun,Immense, of fishy form and mind,Squamous, omnipotent, and kind;And under that Almighty Fin,The littlest fish may enter in.Oh! never fly conceals a hook,Fish say, in the Eternal Brook,But more than mundane weeds are there,And mud, celestially fair;Fat caterpillars drift around,And Paradisal grubs are found;Unfading moths, immortal flies,And the worm that never dies.And in that Heaven of all their wish,There shall be no more land, say fish.
But somewhere, beyond Space and Time,Is wetter water, slimier slime!And there (they trust) there swimmeth OneWho swam ere rivers were begun,Immense, of fishy form and mind,Squamous, omnipotent, and kind;And under that Almighty Fin,The littlest fish may enter in.Oh! never fly conceals a hook,Fish say, in the Eternal Brook,But more than mundane weeds are there,And mud, celestially fair;Fat caterpillars drift around,And Paradisal grubs are found;Unfading moths, immortal flies,And the worm that never dies.And in that Heaven of all their wish,There shall be no more land, say fish.
But somewhere, beyond Space and Time,
Is wetter water, slimier slime!
And there (they trust) there swimmeth One
Who swam ere rivers were begun,
Immense, of fishy form and mind,
Squamous, omnipotent, and kind;
And under that Almighty Fin,
The littlest fish may enter in.
Oh! never fly conceals a hook,
Fish say, in the Eternal Brook,
But more than mundane weeds are there,
And mud, celestially fair;
Fat caterpillars drift around,
And Paradisal grubs are found;
Unfading moths, immortal flies,
And the worm that never dies.
And in that Heaven of all their wish,
There shall be no more land, say fish.
7. William B. Yeatswas born in Dublin in 1865, and was educated both in London and in his native city. He studied art, but his real bent was literary. He was one of the chief supporters of the Celtic Revival, helped to found the Irish Literary Theatre (1899), wrote plays for it, and discovered other literary talent, including that of Mr. Synge.
Mr. Yeats’s poetry was published in several volumes, and was issued in a collected edition in 1908.The Wanderings of Oisin(1889) was his first volume, and among the rest we may mentionThe Countess Cathleen(1892), a romantic drama,The Wind among the Reeds(1899), containing some of his best lyrics, andThe Wild Swans of Coole(1917). Of his poetical playsThe Land of Heart’s Desire(1894) is perhaps the best, and of the prose dramasCathleen ni Hoolihan(1902) is a fine example.
Mr. Yeats is a fastidious poet, writing little and revising often. As a consequence the average merit of his poetry is very high; and sometimes, as in the often-quotedLake Isle of Innisfree, he breathes the pathos and longing that are generally regarded as typical of the Celtic spirit. His style has the usual Celtic peculiarities: a meditative and melancholy beauty, a misty idealism, and a sweet and dignified diction. Mr. Yeats is the most important of the modern Irish poets.
1. The Novel.In mass of production the novel easily outdoes all other species of literature; in general workmanship it has advanced exceedingly; and in importance it probably deserves to take the first place. We shall comment briefly upon a few of the outstanding lines of development.
(a)The Novel as Propaganda.The “purpose novel” has long been a feature of our literature, but was never so prominent as it is to-day. It seems as if the novel were swallowing up the duties of the sermon, the pamphlet, and the text-book. Of all the subjects that are discussed social and religious questions are the most popular.
(b)The Realism of the Novel.This will probably be regarded as typical of the age. The realistic novel certainly forms a large proportion of the whole. In subject it deals with modern life in all its complexity; in detail it seeks to reflect faithfully the world we live in; and in style it is studiously subdued. How much this modern development makes for the improvement of the novel is a question still unsolved. In the hands of a novelist of the caliber of Mr. Hardy realism becomes actual beauty, and George Gissing and Mr. Galsworthy are able to make it artistically important. In lesser hands, however, realism is apt to degenerate into squalor and ugliness, and the studious simplicity of style becomes a dreary burden.
(c)The Romantic Novel.Along with the flood of realistic novels, there is a steady stream of the romantic kind. Mr. Kipling, who seems to delight in such mundane things as machinery, is concerned with showing the intense romantic beauty behind them. Other writers, such asMaurice HewlettandKenneth Grahame, are openly absorbed in things that are remote and beautiful—the essential qualities of the romance. On the other hand, it is unfortunately true that the historical novel shows hardly a flicker of life.
(d)The Commercializing of the Novel.It is a common habit to decry the age one lives in, and the present age is no exception. It is freely declared that, in spite of the importance attained by the novel, there are few great novelists, and that the level of merit, such as it is, will rapidly fall. The decline, moreover, is (it is declared) due to the stress that is being laid upon the commercial value of fiction. Novels are now expensive things to publish; to make each one of them worth publishing a large circulationmust be assured; to ensure this circulation the novel must appeal to the vulgar taste, and must avoid originality and teasing literary devices—these are the charges levelled against the modern novel. Such assertions are exaggerated, but there is no doubt that the persistent desire to turn the novel into a commercial chattel will lead to its decline as literature.
2. The Short Story.This type of fiction has become so important that it is here necessary to give a very brief sketch of its development.
(a)Definition.To define a “short” story, we must clearly come to some conclusion as to length. We can approximately define this length by saying that a short story should be capable of being read at one brief sitting.
(b)Medium of Publication.At the very outset a difficulty met the writer of the short story: how was he to get his work published? The short story is not long enough to appear as a book by itself. There were two ways of overcoming the difficulty: by inserting (or interpolating) the short story in the midst of a long one, or by using it as an item in a magazine. We shall trace the development of both these methods. The publication of collections of short stories in volume form is a comparatively modern practice.
(c)The Interpolated Story.This was the earliest form of the short story. As early as the romance ofDon Quixotewe have one or more of the characters of the main story relating some short tale that acts as a foil to the principal narrative. The interpolated story is a common device in the picaresque novel, and it is freely employed by Defoe, Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne. Scott, in his famousWandering Willie’s Tale, which is introduced inRedgauntlet, continues the practice; and as late as Dickens we have the common use of short stories, some of them of very inferior quality, inThe Pickwick Papers. At this point the interpolated story becomes quite rare in good fiction, for the magazine has appeared on the scene and has provided the natural medium for the genuine short story. In manycases the interpolated tale is of great merit, but it spoils the unity of the main story, and so it is better out of the way.
(d)The Magazine Short Story.The development of the popular magazine led to the establishment of this class of tale. In English its history can be said to begin with Addison, whose Coverley papers are really a collection of short stories; the record continued through the eighteenth century in the miscellaneous work of Goldsmith and Dr. Johnson. During the first half of the nineteenth century there was a decline in the production of the short story. The lighter type of magazine was not yet in favor, and the more ponderous journals, likeThe Quarterly ReviewandThe Edinburgh Review, which specialized in literary and political articles, held the stage.Blackwood’s MagazineandThe London Magazineencouraged the more popular kinds of fiction. Among their contributors were James Hogg, De Quincey, and Charles Lamb. Some of the essays of these writers, such as Lamb’s famous tale of roast pig, are short stories thinly disguised. Another contributor of the same kind wasDouglas Jerrold (1803–57), whoseCakes and Ale(1842) is one of the first collections of short stories and sketches. After the middle of the century there was a rapid increase in part-fiction magazines, such as Dickens’sAll the Year Round(1859) and Thackeray’sCornhill Magazine(1860). As the century drew near its close the number of lighter magazines largely increased, until nowadays we have a large proportion entirely given over to the supply of fiction. Nearly all the writers of the modern epoch have taken to the short story, and most of them have issued this class of their work in volume form. To the names already mentioned in this chapter we may add those ofSir Arthur Conan Doyle(born 1859) andW. W. Jacobs(born 1863). The former struck a rich vein in the popular detective story, and the latter specialized in the humorous presentation of the longshoreman.
3. The Drama.(a)The Poetical Drama.In this class of drama there is little to set on record. The blank-versetragedy is still written with skill and enthusiasm, but there is little of outstanding merit, and nothing of originality. The poetical dramas of Mr. Yeats—for example,The Countess Cathleen(1892) andThe Shadowy Waters(1900)—have all his mystical beauty, and are the most original of their class.Stephen Phillips (1868–1915)achieved some distinction, and even considerable stage success, with his smooth and Tennysonian blank-verse tragedies, such asPaolo and Francesca(1899),Ulysses(1902), andThe Virgin Goddess(1910). Mr. Hardy’sDynastsis dramatic only in form; it is rather a philosophical poem with a dramatic setting.
(b)The Prose Drama.In this age the activity of the prose drama is second only to that of the novel. The mood of the time is essentially critical, and the prose drama is an excellent medium for expressing such a mood. Among the earliest of the modern dramatists isSir Arthur Pinero(born 1855), and we can trace the development through the work of Mr. Galsworthy, already mentioned, and ofSt. John Hankin (1869–1909)andGranville Barker(born 1877). Their plays have the note of the realistic novel in the emphasis they lay upon common life and common speech. The plays of Mr. Shaw, by reason of their wit and high spirits, stand rather apart from this class; and the brilliance of the Wilde comedies is that of a past age.
4. Poetry.(a) The main poetical tendency of the time is toward thelyric, especially toward a chastened and rather tepid form of it. Of this class, the lyrics of Sir William Watson are fairly typical. Mr. Davies’s best pieces, and some of Mr. Hardy’s, are good examples of the simple and direct lyric, and Francis Thompson excels in the descriptive style.
(b) In the class ofdescriptive-narrative poetrywe have the sea-pieces of Mr. Masefield and the rustic poetry of Mr. Drinkwater. To these we must add the work ofRalph Hodgson(born 1871), several of whose poems, inparticularThe BullandThe Song of Honour, have some of the ecstatic energy of the young Coleridge.
(c) In addition to what we may call the standard types of poetry, there are experiments invers libre, orfree verse(that is, rhymeless verse of the type of Matthew Arnold’sThe Strayed Reveller), and the more daring efforts of others who defy the conventions of rhyme, meter, and even intelligibility. Experiments such as these are all for the good of poetry, which, if it is to live at all, must live by progressing. So far, the attempts of the innovators have produced nothing that is really noteworthy; and with that we must leave them.
1. Poetry.As can easily be understood, in such a troubled age there is little uniformity in style. The average verse is distinguished by a correct and scholarly diction, somewhat ornate, but clear and ably used. Of the highly ornate style there is little to mention, except the more elaborate compositions of Francis Thompson; but from the scholarly elegance ofDr. Bridges(born 1844) we may run down the scale of simplicity through the mannered graces of Mr. Kipling, the crabbed satiric verses of Mr. Hardy, the high simplicity of Mr. Davies, to the sweet child-verse ofWalter de la Mare(born 1873), whoseSongs of Childhood(1902),Peacock Pie(1913), and other volumes are the almost perfect expression of artless youth. When we arrive here we cannot allow to pass unnoticed the lyrics ofJames Stephens(born 1882), whose poems of country life are simplicity itself, but full of the deepest sympathy. His short poem calledThe Snareis a little masterpiece.
When simplicity develops further it becomes realism, and in poetry the prevailing taste is revealed. The European War, as was natural, produced a crop of realistic poems. Of this kind are the verses ofSiegfried Sassoon(born 1886), whose war-poems are distinguished by a passionate desire to get to grips with reality.
2. Prose.In this age, as in most other ages, there is much lamentation over the decay of English prose. There is probably a great deal of truth in the charge that our prose is lapsing into slovenly ways, and there is no doubt that the stress of modern methods leads to haphazard and makeshift production. On the other hand, we have but to glance at the names that have a place in this chapter to find exponents of prose styles who represent the best traditions: the reverent respect shown for English in the ornate prose of Mr. Conrad; the massive middle prose of Mr. Hardy; the sonorous and poetical mannerisms of the Celts; the eighteenth-century grace and precision of Lord Morley; the swift, clean swoop of the Shavian manner; and the quick ease of Mr. Wells. Surely such an age is not unblessed. With regard to the future none dare dogmatize; but, with a confidence born of the knowledge of nineteen centuries, one can look forward undismayed.