Published Monthly THE EGOIST

No. 8.—VOL. V. SEPTEMBER 1918. SIXPENCE.

Editor : HARRIET SHAW WEAVER Contributing Editor : Assistant Editor : T. S. ELIOT DORA MARSDEN CONTENTS

PAGE PAOB PHILOSOPHY : THE SCIENCE OF SIGNS. XVI. OUR THE FRENCH WORD IN MODERN PROSE. XII. JEAN- RICHARD BLOCH. By Madame Ciolkowska . . 108 PHILOSOPHY OF THE "REAL" (continued). By D. CHARITY AND GRACE IN THE WORK OF MAY SINCLAIR. Marsden ...... 101 By Jean de Bosschère ...... 109 " TARR." By T. S. Eliot 105 VISION. By Mary Butts 111

EARLY TRANSLATORS OF HOMER. II. ANDREAS DIVUS. THE MEDITATION OF A LOVER AT DAYBREAK. By Her­ By Ezra Pound . . . . • . . .106 bert Read 111

XVI. OUR PHILOSOPHY OF THE " REAL " (continued) IV. Space and Substance

By D. MARSDEN

time principally exhausts itself. The third motor- VIII mode is that newly evolved motor-activity relative (81) HOW closely our theory binds together the facts to symbolization which collectively form i the intellect. of reality and time we have already indicated. Time The supervention of the latter being happily coinci­ we defined as the potentiality for organic movement dent with a specialized development of the spatial slowly accumulated in, and impregnated upon, the power in the form of hands, their co-incident action organic tissues, and bequeathed both as to capital has proved responsible—in a fashion we have already and interest from organic form to form. We pointed described—for that unique form of activity called out that the human organism, with its mechanism realizing which has reacted with such amazing fruit- adapted for symbolization, brought with it the power fulness in the transformation and development of to differentiate simple time into the complexities of substance. Any explanation of reality therefore past and future time, and that it is indeed only with involves every one of these terms. In sum: space, working with this fact as a basis that the activity substance, and intellect are three modes of time, and of realizing together with the whole notion of reality reality is an important, though secondary, compounded has arisen. Only when these two new wings of time effect arising out of their coincident operations. had furnished the stage necessary if the interwoven (84) Having now indicated these larger relation­ activities of speech and manual construction were to ships of our subjects, we may limit ourselves in our pursue their transforming career did the conception present study to their more circumscribed aspects: of making ideas real assume form. When we defined all forms of experience as forms (82) Now just as an explanation of reality which f feeling, and then defined feeling as forms of move­ failed to reveal the latter's relationship to time would ment in the tissues of the experiencing organism, we perforce be concerning itself only with the more committed ourselves to a definition of space and superficial bearings of the subject, so would an substance no less than of any other experiential form. explanation of reality which failed to relate the latter Hence, allowing these definitions, all subsequent to the ideas of space and substance be limited to the consideration of space and substance will be limited merely formal difficulties of the subject. As a to a detailing of the specific differences characteristic matter of fact, the ideas of time, space, substance, and of the particular motor-forms composing them. It reality, together with that of intellect, combine to is upon a consideration of such a limited scope that make a schematic logical whole, and the actual we have to be understood as entering here. meaning of "explanation" in relation to them (85) Circumscribed, however, from the outset as consists in the orderly setting forth of their com­ we thus are by our most elemental definitions, the plementary relationship towards one another. conceptions of space and substance still remain so (83) It is in this fashion that it follows that, defining primary that any survey of them will keep us in the time as the total motor-potentiality of any organism, region of our most fundamental vital facts. Our space and substance prove definable as two out of first step, therefore, will be to recall the definition the three motor-modes into which the totality of which at an earlier stage we gave of the term life 102 THE EGOIST September 1918

itself. Life we described as a power to establish a organism has an affinity, the body moves externally complex motor-system consisting of an organism with a view to the sensation's prolongation or in­ plus an extra-organic fringe; that is to say, of a tensification. If it is one to which it is antipathetic "me" plus a "not-me": or of a self plus a corre­ it moves so as to ensure the sensation's diminution or lated world. The contradictions seemingly involved cessation. It is in this way that we hive to regard in these paradoxical conditions we sought to resolve the spatial power of movement as the organism's by insisting that the vital unit or universal was the ego auxiliary, or reactive mode, by means of which rather than the organism. In this universe, the judgment is effected upon the substantial creations organic body itself constitutes only the active creative themselves, since it serves either to intensify and nucleus, while the effects of its creative activity fall prolong them, or to furnish an avenue of escape from into two great categories of organic movement, i.e. them. The complementary character of the two sensations and action proper, according as they spring modes is to be emphasized. Such emphasis must not, from the one or other of the organism's two main however, blind us to the fact that each is absolute in motor-modes: the substantial and the spatial itself. The spatial activity, for instance, is not able respectively. to annihilate, override, or efface the products of the (86) The first category, i.e. that of sensations, substantial activity. All that it can do is to nego­ consists of motor-forms enacted in localized organic tiate and manoeuvre them, and under certain pro­ areas upon tissues interiorly connected with the cedures, which the intellect and the hands have made localized sense-organs lying just within the organic possible for the human organism, to transmute them. surface. In their total effects, these comprise the sense-forms of substance with the secondary qualities IX of sound, colour, and scent. Along with the cha­ (89) The idea of space took its origin in men's racteristics of these sense-forms just enumerated, minds as the spontaneous logical translation of the however, we have to associate that of projectivity: a limited power of the organic nucleus to negotiate sense-aspect which is very readily overlooked on sensory forms, either by moving through them or account of its unvarying incidence with each and round them. The idea sprang up betimes in man's every sensory form. For while sensory effects are cultural history, and came by its most indelibly produced by movements within the organic body, marked features at a time when man was more the prime feature admitting of discrimination from habituated to the acceptance of sense-forms at their their total complex is that of projection beyond the face value than he is now. There was, accordingly, organic body. It is this feature which occasions the about his notion of space neither mistiness nor externality relative to that body common to all uncertainty. When his body on its external surface sensory phenomena. The very genius of the dual- was able to move, he said there space existed. When aspected activity which we call living resides in this such progress was blocked by sensory forms he said power to produce, by means of a mechanism within there existed no space. As a matter of fact it has the body, sense-effects which appear as projected to be acknowledged that he associated his term space beyond it. Thus an organism proves itself an organism with the medium through which his limbs moved, by the exercise of the power to possess itself of an rather than with the movement itself. We, however, external world. Considered in absolute detachment shall claim that an intelligent and coherent account from its external world, an organism is therefore a can be rendered of space only when the term is applied pure contradiction. As the organism is, so its world is. to the bodily movement itself. Space, we shall say, is A world is precisely the expression of what is essen­ organic movement precisely as these sensory sur­ tially organic in any organism, and the world-fringe roundings themselves are, but that it is limited as to element in the egoistic universe bears an exact its expression to movement of the nucleus-body relation to the creative power of the nucleus which among its sensory surroundings, while the sensory not only experiences it but creates it. forms are composed of movement passing over the (87) This conception of a vital unit comprehending interiorly situated tissues, which connect up with the at once both the organic body and its related external sense-organs lying just within the surface. Organic world is, to our mind, the sole one logically capable movement will, therefore, be responsible not only for of accommodating all the vital facts : the sole one the "contents" of space, i.e. the sense-forms them­ capable of resolving the baffling antinomies which selves, but also for what the ancients called the crop out in every attempt to render into a logical "containing vessel" of such contents, i.e. space statement the riddle of existence. Among the first- itself. fruits of its competence is its suggestion of an adequate (90) Now with this simple but important modifica­ word-scheme, into which may be translated the other­ tion of the popular notion of space we are provided wise altogether baffling facts of space. with a conception which the philosophic mind could (88) Of the three great orders of organic movement accept as comporting logically with all related vital we have now indicated one: those localized sensory facts, and which would meet every requirement of the movements which yield the projected sense-forms space with which the geometrician deals. It is "occupying" space. The second order consists of advisable here, however, to dwell for a moment on movements of the organic nucleus acting as a whole: the latter. The geometrician has managed to invest or rather acting so as to move the external surface the subject of space with a certain formidableness by of the organism, as a whole or in part, in such a manner specializing not directly on space but on what he as to alter the relative position of the organic nucleus would term the spatial properties. Let us see what, towards its projected sensory fringe. The second according to our theory, these properties may be. order of movement thus forms a kingdom of motion Space exists, let us say, whenever the organic body within a kingdom. It is the spatial order of move­ finds itself capable of moving relatively to its sensory ment, as distinguished from the sensory substantial surroundings. "Perfect" space therefore would be order. Of the two kingdoms, neither takes precedence represented by conditions where such movement in time over the other. In the history of vital effort would be absolutely unhampered as, for instance, in a both are equally involved. Both require to be frictionless or obstacle-free vacuum, which would recognized as operating in the bare fact of life, and leave the organic energy undiminished by its own both require place in the latter's definition. Even exercise and capable of maintaining and continuing in respect of sensory forms whose range of sensation itself perpetually if it so desired by virtue of the is limited to the simplest form of contact, the revealing inertia of an established movement unslowed-down of this sensation consists precisely in forward or by friction. It is not, however, from any such idea of backward movements of the organism viewed ex­ a "perfect" space that our idea of space has origi­ ternally. If the sense-form is one for which the nated. Our notions of space have sprung up just September 1918 THE EGOIST 103 because of the existence of highly insistent limitations the number of directions in which one may strike upon these externalized movements of the body. outwards from the centre of a sphere is of course Man has concentrated his attention upon his purely infinite, but if we confine ourselves to the main relative freedom of external movement because he has directions we see that there are three : those repre­ to contend with so many obstacles which impede it. sented by the movements through the three plane Everything which is of interest to us in our space surfaces whose diameters co-exist at right angles to is born out of the "lie" of sense-effects which tend each other. It is the directions represented by these to negate our space. The interest of our organic diameters which constitute the three "dimensions" movements of the second order resides in the fact of space. It would indeed vastly reduce the awe- that they have shape and pattern imposed on them someness of the matter on its metaphysical, and even by the products of organic movements of the first its mathematical, side if the three spatial dimensions order. That is to say, the character of the sense- were frankly spoken of as the three main directions. forms impose definite features upon our external It would then be clear that while the number of bodily motions. We can only move thus and thus directions open to bodily movement would be infinite, precisely in accord with the value of a ratio represented the number of main directions— i.e. directions along by the substantial strength of our sensations in the diameters of a sphere at right angles to each other comparison with our power of spatial movement. —is limited to three, while every other conceivable (91) Hence, though the forms of our externalized direction would admit of description in terms relative movements are imposed by the character of sensory to these. A fourth dimension to space is inconceiv­ forms, they nevertheless remain the properties of our able for the prosaic reason that we cannot make external movements. They are indeed spatial pro­ such a direction: we cannot strike out into it, and perties correctly so called, being the properties of it seems to us, therefore, that the learned mathe­ our action, i.e. our space, rather than the properties maticians who propound a fourth dimension for of our substantial forms. However, because they space—and even higher—are confounding two things appear in unvarying correlation with the substantial which are quite distinct and different. They are forms, we have come to associate them even more confounding space itself and its qualities with their readily with the sense-forms than with space. What own dazzling prowess as computators in dealing with we, however, in rough-and-ready way call the spatial even heightened complexity of calculation relative to properties of substance are actually the free bodily the quantities of space. movements which can be taken in closest proximity (94) The complementary conception to space in to them. They are those edges and surfaces which this interpretation of it is, of course, that of substance. constitute the uttermost limits of spatial movement Absolute space would be the power in an organic in relation to opposing substances. They are the nucleus-body to move itself bodily without any lines of movement which show the least possible obstruction, hindrance, or friction of any kind. Such deviation from the organic body's track of motion in an absolute space we can imagine and symbolize, a straight line: the line, that is, which is shortest, but cannot in any way possess knowledge of, inas­ and therefore the most economical of organic energy. much as the idea involves the negation of the very (92) It is upon surfaces and edges: these lines of sense-forms whose experiencing forms one factor in space abutting upon sensory substances: that the the dual activity which constitutes knowing. When­ attention of the geometrician has fastened. In order ever we experience space it is a limited space : external to economize in the amount of energy spent in the movement opposed by some form or other of that tracing of those turning movements substantially sensory movement which constitutes substance. It imposed upon the human organism and more par­ is precisely in terms of this opposition that we have ticularly upon the latter's most mobile external organ to define substantiality. A substance is a sensory— —the hand, and those refinements upon the manual that is to say a projected—form which presents model—our instruments of measure, concentrated hindrances to the free movement of the organic scrutiny has been trained upon these free paths most nucleus, the limbs of this nucleus, or the artificial nearly contiguous to the sensory blocks. To sys­ instruments constructed in imitation of limbs. Since tematize their many forms, and reduce their multiple not all sensory forms are equally efficacious as and complex "routes" to simplicity and order, obstacles—their substantiality being indeed a very quite the heaviest artillery of the mental forces has highly variable quantity—the organism finds itself been directed upon their analysis and synthesis. able to plot out by means of its movements a sensory The generalizations thus drawn constitute the sum panorama, through some items of which run highly of our geometrical knowledge. This knowledge, be free paths of space, and comparatively free paths, it reiterated then, is knowledge about the external but about certain of which the paths are so definitely movements of our bodies, and the kind of deflected and obstinately blocked that they proceed to turn movement in any given sensory milieu to which they round instead of going through the substance should have revealed themselves as subject. further progress be desired. The type of such a (93) With such a defining of space and its pro­ " block " is obviously the solid. perties we should have no difficulty in understanding (95) In these circumstances the primitive organism what is implied by the ascription to space of a "three- evolved not only the notion of space but a notion of dimensional" character. Space being the path of thinghood to correspond. Roughly, space was where the organism's externalized movements, it is obvious there were highly free paths of movement, and things that space will have as many dimensions as there are were those sensory forms which definitely blocked possible directions of external bodily movement. such paths. Hence, at the outset, things would be The number of dimensions, therefore, can be deter­ exclusively solids and space would come to be regarded mined by making direct appeal to our externalized as the realm where there existed no solid. The realm motor-experience. The findings resulting from such of no-thing, and therefore of space, would be co­ an appeal show that there are three main directions : terminous with that of no solid, while that of some­ up and down; to and fro; in and out. For example, thing (i.e. some solid thing) would be the realm in let us consider the directions open to external move­ which the solid refused a way to space. ment available for the most mobile human limbs— (96) Now the scientific progress of man can be the arms. Looking upon the shoulder-sockets as the described as a progress in which the idea of thinghood centre of a sphere about which each arm turns, the has broadened out from the primitively exclusive one latter can be conceived as capable of assuming of a solid to the comprehensive one which includes positions and moving through an area approximating anything capable of making an impress even upon to that of a half-sphere: the possible movements of our most exquisitely delicate measuring-instruments. both arms thus constituting the whole sphere. Now Here, as elsewhere, the increased show of sensitiveness 104 THE EGOIST September 1918 presented by our measuring-instruments produces substance are both modes of organic motion, and have revolutionizing results. As a result of the latter's reduced all difficulties in the way of proving space a use, the domain of no-thing dwindles, being en­ motor-mode by the simple, if drastic, expedient of croached upon by that of some-thing, until it has transferring the term from its popular acceptation in shrunk to vainshing-point. The idea of some-thing which it stands for the areas covered by the organism's broadens into the extensive notion of a mailer com­ external motions to the movements themselves. prehending any obstacle which can either put up the Such an expedient will not serve us, however, in smallest resistance or impart the slightest propulsion respect of substance. As definite blocks to spatial to body, limb, or instrument. Moreover, the scientist movement, there is no gainsaying or doubting its feeling the trend of this progression towards the identity, and therefore no possibility of any mere negation of no-thing has bettered it, passing beyond transference of labels. Either must sensory analysis his actually sensed observatories into the realm of prove the blocks to be movement or the entire speculation, and has postulated an imaginary matter, contention fails. In such circumstances the theory an ether, which by definition tills all space, and even derives support, all the more emphatic from the fact permeates all substance, so as to fill up the chinks that the analytic progress of science reveals matter existing between molecule and molecule. This to our scientific instruments as forms of motion. logical invention has indeed been of such assistance What any philosopher bold enough to stand by faith to him in the way of actual sensory findings: for upon his logical formulae alone might have asserted, instance, in his inquiry into the behaviour of radiant the scientist has now to propound as the sensory energy: that he has confidently set his instruments resultant of his analytic manœuvres. Sense-forms to work to discover its existence as a form of resistance, he asserts are modes of motion. Well, the philosopher and it is to his very great surprise that it has never can agree ; but to what source is such motion to be materialized. But leaving speculation alone we can referred? For the scientist this motion is an un­ still assert that as far as our spatial experience goes, related fact allied to nothing: a mystery. The nowhere is there no-thing; everywhere there is philosopher, however, remembering his formulae, some-thing. The "containing-vessel" of space those intellectual frameworks into which all his primitively regarded as tenanted by comparatively known relations and facts must fit, will perforce widely separated solid, or partially solidified, blocks relate it to that fount of motion with which he is the conies to be regarded as a closely packed continuum, most intimately acquainted: the sole source with the formerly recognized solid tenantry being con­ which he can associate motion which is self-initiable: sidered as particularly involved, and tightened knots the sole source of the type which can accurately be existing in the all-pervasive substance. Substance is regarded as originative. These sources are the ex­ thus the warp of the universe athwart which space periencing organic forms themselves. must interweave itself according as it can. Where it is challenged, frustrated and turned aside by the (99) One last observation before we break off from knotted warp, a sensory pattern sketches itself out our study of reality in order to take up what is indeed with which space has to come to terms. a continuation of it in a consideration of the nature and objective of truth. Until the human level is (97) Let us now note what is observable relative reached it is possible to look upon the organism's to the constitution of this matter when the latter is spatial and substantial motor-modes as two fairly subjected to a close analytic scrutiny. First, how­ equally developing domains of activity. On lower ever, let us note what is meant by "analytical scru­ levels indeed, where all action is instinctive, the two tiny" of such forms. What is meant is the subjection modes appear so intimately and equally yoked to­ of these latter to mutual onslaughts upon each other gether that neither admit of being experienced under conditions specially arranged by the spatial separately. Bather, the movements combine to movements of the organism. As the outcome of form a unit experience. In such circumstances, picked arrangements contrived by the hand at the development in each is inevitably co-ordinated. instance of the intellect, one (or more) sensory form When, however, the intellectual, the third and newest plays upon another (or other) sensory form to the end mode of organic movement, supervenes, embodying that the sense-form shall lose that inexorableness of everything that is significant in both the antecedent disposition which at its face value it presents to what modes, and yet differing from them in being infinitely we may call frontal spatial onslaughts. As the out­ more economical and untrammelled than either, a come of these schemed juxtapositions, sensory forms directing-force has emerged capable of separating are made so to betray one another as to render up the the warp of the universe from its weft, and of further secret of their mechanism and movement. By such weaving them together according to the dictates of devices the mind-guided, spatial activity speedily a total organic preference. Apparently this inno­ brings about the transformation, and even the vating weaver of organic powers has no fundamental disintegration of sensory forms. With matter thus preference of its own as between the two forces it reduced, the possibility begins to present itself with commands ; but because, of the two, the external one increasing insistence to the intellect that it is open to alone is the executant, it follows that whether that it to use the spatial movement of the organism in which the mind conceives relates to the sphere of order to convert all sense-forms to conditions where sensation or to that of action, it has to call upon the they will obey the organic will. The possibilities externalized bodily movement for its realization. residing in the realizing activity begin to show them­ As it happens, this externalized movement has been selves capable of transposing the centre of gravity of able to assemble many simple and ingenious devices vital power from the sensory order to that of the which have made our sensory creations bloom forth spatial as animated by the intellect. As between the into a bewildering multiplicity and richness of form. spatial and sensory motor-orders, the balance weighed The transforming effects of a lens, the high sensitivity heavily towards the sensory, but with the advent of of a photographic plate, and the exquisite delicacy to the third, the intellectual motor-order, with its minute degrees of pressure of certain substances amazing alliance with the spatial, with a view to the when geared together to form a balance, furnish exploitation of the sensory, the balance begins to instances. tip unmistakably in the reverse direction. Herein (100) Now there is a very definite sense in which resides everything that is significant and essential the sensory wealth and diversity accruing from the to the meaning of the real. manipulation of its forms by the combined forces of (98) We have just been concerned to characterize intellect and space produces a depressing effect upon the features of the analytic operation, but let us now the organic forces as a whole. The effect results from look at the sensory products resulting from that the disparity created between the substantial forces operation. We have contended that space and and the remaining two : and this, notwithstanding September 1918 THE EGOIST 105

the fact that the former forces have come by their in our analysis of it. To find the resemblance is augmentation through the agency of the latter rather nothing ; several other contemporary novelists have than by any strength inhering in themselves. As an obviously admired Dostoevsky, and the result is of no instance of what is meant there are the facts of importance. Mr. Lewis has made such good use of astronomy. It is not too much to say that the human Dostoevsky— has commandeered him so efficiently for mind is literally bullied by the wealth of astronomical his purposes—that his differences from the Russian phenomena. When men read of some new telescope must be insisted upon. His mind is different, his which is able to bring at a stroke a hundred million method is different, his aims are different. new suns into their ken, although this instrument is The method of Mr. Lewis is in fact no more like man-made, they remain unmistakably depressed. that of Dostoevsky, taking Tarr as a whole, than What is its meaning? It is the sense of the existing it is like that of Flaubert. The book does not comply powerlessness of the spatial power to bring men with any of the accepted categories of fiction. It is into anything approaching intimate connexion and not the extended conte (Cantelman's Spring Mate contact with the new substantial elements. Man's is not on the pattern of either Turgenev or Mau­ universe has so swiftly expanded that he is over­ passant). It is not the elaboration of a datum, as whelmed with his impotence to overrun and reduce it. Madame Bovary. From the standpoint of a The intellect is no longer able to hold an even rein Dostoevsky novel Tarr needs filling out : so much over the necks of the forces it commands. The result of Dostoevsky's effect is due to apparent pure is strain and discouragement. Now this state of receptivity, lack of conscious selection, to the irrele­ affairs, developing particularly in respect of astrono­ vances which merely happen and contribute imper­ mical forms, has its origin in a particular trans­ ceptibly to a total impression. In contrast to Dos­ parently spatial capacity: in a comparative power­ toevsky, Mr. Lewis is impressively deliberate, frigid ; lessness of the organism to effect complete bodily his interest in his own personages is wholly intellectual. movement in one of its main dimensions, that of This is a peculiar intellectuality, not kin to Flaubert ; height. While the body may move indefinitely in and perhaps inhuman would be a better word than the direction of length and breadth, its power to frigid. Intelligence, however, is only a part of Mr. move in that of height has been—until this last Lewis's quality ; it is united with a vigorous physical moment of history—only one degree removed from organism which interests itself directly in sensation total incompetence, while it is in this very direction for its own sake. The direct contact with the senses, that creative sensory appliances, such as telescope perception of the world of immediate experience with and spectroscope, have been able to achieve most its own scale of values, is like Dostoevsky, but there signal triumphs. Hence that feeling of being master is always the suggestion of a purely intellectual of his fate and destiny which man has had in con­ curiosity in the senses which will disconcert many nexion with sensory forms with which he could bring readers of the Russian novelist. And there is another his body into intimate contact has contrasted vividly important quality, neither French nor Russian, which with his feelings of insignificance and impotence, may disconcert them still more. This is Humour. faced with the sensory "occupants" of an interstellar "space" almost hopelessly remote. This impotence Humour is distinctively English. No one can be of one of the organic modes is the true meaning of the so aware of the environment of Stupidity as the wistful awesomeness of such "space." Its true Englishman; no other nationality perhaps provides correction is the growth of power in the lagging mode: so dense an environment as the English. The a growth which has indeed already begun. The intelligent Englishman is more aware of loneliness, has possibility begins to dawn that the polar feats of more reserves, than the man of intelligence of any endurance on the terrestrial sphere will one day be other nation. Wit is public, it is in the object; repeated in, shall we say, expeditions to Sirius and humour (I am speaking only of real humour) is the other outposts of the universe. On the day when the instinctive attempt of a sensitive mind to protect intellect—through the agency of the constructions of beauty against ugliness ; and to protect itself against the hand—is able to impose this correction of balance stupidity. The older British humour is of this sort; between the spatial and substantial powers, the in that great but decadent humorist, Dickens, and in articulate vital spirit embodied in man will feel some­ some of his contemporaries it is on the way to the what less impotently arrogant in claiming the universe imbecilities of Punch. Mr. Lewis's humour is near to as his emanation, and his bodily habitation its true Dickens, but on the right side, for it is not too remote centre. from Ben Jonson. In Tarr it is by no means omni- present. It turns up when the movement is relaxed, it disappears when the action moves rapidly. The action is in places very rapid indeed: from the blow "TARR" given by Kreisler in the café to the suicide is one uninterrupted movement. The awakening of Kreisler THE fact that Mr. Wyndham Lewis is known as by the alarum-clock is as good as anything of the sort a draughtsman and painter is not of the by Dostoevsky; the feverish haste of the suit-case least consequence to his standing as a prose episode proceeds without a smile. Bertha's impres­ writer. To treat his writing as an outlet for his sion of Kreisler is good in the same way: superabundant vitality, or a means on his part of satisfying intellectual passions and keeping his art She saw side by side, and unconnected, the silent figure healthy, cannot lead to accurate criticism. His prose drawing her and the other one full of blindness and violence. must be judged quite independently of his painting, Then there were two other figures, one getting up from the he must be allowed the hypothesis of a dual creative chair, yawning", and the present lazy one at the window—four personality. It would be quite another thing, of in all, that she could not bring together somehow, each in a com­ course, to find in his writing the evidences of a plete compartment of time of its own. draughtsman's training—the training to respond to It is always with the appearance of Tarr, a very an ocular impression with the motion of a line on English figure, that Humour is apt to enter; whenever paper; the special reaction to vision and especially the situation is seen from Tarr's point of view. the development of the tactile sense, recognition of Humour invests him. He impressed you "'as having emotion by the physical strains and movements which inherited himself last week, and as under a great are its basis. press of business to grasp the details and resources of It is already a commonplace to compare Mr. Lewis the concern." Bertha's apartment, with the "repul­ to Dostoevski, analogy fostered by Mr. Lewis's explicit sive shades of Islands of the Dead" is as it appeared admiration for Dostoevsky. The relationship is so to Tarr. Humour, indeed, protects Tarr from Bertha, T apparent that WO can all the more easily be mistaken from the less important Anastasya, from the Lipmann 106 THE EGOIST September 1918 circle. As a figure in the book, indeed, he is protected matters is Divus' text. We find for the "Kekuia" too well: "Tarr exalts life into a Comedy," but it (Odys. xi) : remains Ms (private) comedy. In one scene, and " At postquam ad navem descendimus, et mare, that in contact with Kreisler, Tarr is moved from his Nauem quidem primum deduximus in mare diuum, reserve into reality: the scene in which Tarr is Et malum posuimus et vela in navi nigra : forced out of Kreisler's bedroom. Here there is Intro autem oues accipientes ire fecimus, intro et another point of contact with Dostoevsky, in a ipsi variation on one of Dostoevsky's best themes: Iuimus dolentes, huberes lachrymas fundentes : Humiliation. This is one of the most important Nobis autem a tergo navis nigrae prorse elements in human life, and one little exploited. Prosperum ventum imisit pandentern velum bonum Kreisler is a study in humiliation. amicurn I do not understand the Times when it remarks Circe benecomata gravis Dea altiloqua. that the book "is a very brilliant reductio ad absurdum Nos autem arma singula expedientes in navi not only of its own characters, but of its own method." Sedebamus : hanc autem ventusque gubernatorque I am not sure that there is one method at all; or dirigebat : that there is not a different method for Tarr, for Hums at per totum diem extensa sunt vela pontum Kreisler, and for Bertha. It is absurd to attack the transientis : method which produced Kreisler and Bertha; they Occidit tunc Sol, onibratae sunt omnes vise : are permanent for literature. But there is an Haec autem in fines pervenit profundi Oceani : invisible conflict in progress all the time, between Illic autem Cimmeriorum virorum populusque Tarr and Kreisler, to impose two different methods civitasque, upon the book. We cannot say, therefore, that the Caligine et nebula cooperti, neque unquam ipsos form is perfect. In form, and in the actual writing, Sol lucidus aspicit radiis, it is surpassed by Cantelman's Spring Mate. And Neque quando tendit ad cœlum stellatum, Inferior Religions remains in my opinion the most Neque quando retro in terram a ccelo vertitur : indubitable evidence of genius, the most powerful Sed nox pernitiosa extenditur miseris hominibus : piece of imaginative thought, of anything Mr. Lewis Navem quidem illuc venientes traximus, extra has written. autem oves 20 There can be no question of the importance of Accepimus : ipsi autem rursus apud fluxum Oceani Tarr. But it is only in part a novel; for the rest, Iuimus, ut in locum perveniremus quern dixit Circe : Mr. Lewis is a magician who compels our interest in Hie sacra quidem Perimedes Eurylochusque himself ; he is the most fascinating personality of our Faciebant : ego autem ensem acutum trahens a time rather than a novelist. The artist, I believe, is foemore, more primitive, as well as more civilized, than his Foveam fodi quantum cubiti mensura hinc et inde:25 contemporaries, his experience is deeper than civiliza­ Circum ipsam autem libamina fundimus omnibus tion, and he only uses the phenomena of civilization mortuis : in expressing it. Primitive instincts and the acquired Primum mulso, postea autem dulci vino: habits of ages are confounded in the ordinary man. Tertio rursus aqua, et farinas albas miscui: In the work of Mr. Lewis we recognize the thought of Multum autem oravi mortuorum infirma capita: the modern and the energy of the cave-man. Profectus in Ithicam, sterilem bovem, quae optima esset, 30 T. S. ELIOT Sacrificare in domibus, pyramque implere bonis : Tiresiae autem seorsum ovem sacrificare vovi Totam nigram, quae ovibus antecellat nostris : EARLY TRANSLATORS OF HOMER Has autem postquam votis precationibusque gentes By EZRA POUND mortuorum Precatus sum, oves autem accipiens obtruncavi: 35 II. ANDREAS DIVUS In fossma fluebat autem sanguis niger, congregatae- que sunt" IN the year of grace 1906, '08, or '10 I picked from Animae ex Erebo cadaverum mortuorum, the Paris quais a Latin version of the Odyssey Nymphaeque iuvenesque et multa passi senes, by Andreas Divus Justinopolitanus (Parisiis, In Virginesque tenerae, nuper flebilem animum officina Christiani Wecheli, M,D,XXXVIII), the habentes, volume containing also the Batrachomyomachia, by Multi autem vulnerati aereis lanceis 40 Aldus Manutius, and the "Hymni Deorum" rendered Viri in bello necati, cruenta arma habentes, by Georgius Dartona Cretensis. I lost a Latin Iliads Qui multi circum foveam veniebant aliunde alius for the economy of four francs, these coins being at Magno clamore, me autem pallidus timor cepit. that time scarcer with me than they ever should be Iam postea socios hortans iussi with any man of my tastes and abilities. Pecora, quae iam iacebant iugulata saevo aere, 45 In 1911 the Italian savant, Signore E. Teza, Excoriantes combuere : supplicare autem Diis, published his note, "Quale fosse la Casata di Andreas Fortique Plutoni, et laudatae Proserpina?. Divus Justinopolitanus?" This question I am un­ At ego ensem acutum trahens a foemore, able to answer, nor do I greatly care by what name Sedi, neque permisi mortuorum impotentia capita Andreas was known in the privacy of his life : Signore Sanguinem prope ire, antequam Tiresiam Dio, Signore Divino, or even Mijnheer van Gott may audirem: 50 have served him as patronymic. Sannazaro, author Prima autem anima Elpenoris venit socii: of Be Partu Virginis, and also of the epigram ending Nondum enim sepultus erat sub terra lata, lianc et sugere, translated himself as Sanctus Naza- Corpus enim in domo Circes reliquimus nos renus, I am myself known as Signore Sterlina to Infletum et insepultum, quoniam labor alius urgebat: James Joyce's children, while the phonetic translation Hunc quidem ego lachrymatus sum videns, miser - of my name into the Japanese tongue is so indecorous tusque sum aio, 55 that I am seriously advised not to use it, lest it do Et ipsum clamando verba velocia allocutus sum: me harm in Nippon. (Rendered back ad verbum into Elpenor, quomodo venisti sub caliginem obs- our maternal speech it gives for its meaning, " This curam : picture of a phallus costs ten yen." There is no Praevenisti pedes existons, quam ego in navi nigra? surety in shifting personal names from one idiom to Sic dixi : hie autem mihi lugens respondit verbo: another. Nobilis Laertiade, prudens Ulysse, Justinopolis is identified as Capodistria, what Nocuit mihi dei fatum malum, et multum vinum: September 1918 THE EGOIST 107

Circes autem in domo dormiens, non animadverti Swartest night stretched over wretched men there, Me retrogradum descenderc eundo per scalam The ocean flowing backward, came we then to the longam, place Sed contra murum cecidi ast autem mihi cervix Aforesaid by Circe. Nervorum frac ta est, anima autem in internum Here did they rites, Perimedes and Eurylochus, descendit : 65 And drawing sword from my hip Nunc autem his qui venturi sunt postea precor non I dug the ell-square pitkin, praesentibus Poured we libations unto each the dead, Per uxorem et patrem, qui educavit parvum First mead and then sweet wine, water mixed with existentem, white flour. Telemachumque quern solum in domibus reliquisti. Then prayed I many a prayer to the sickly death's- Scio enim quod hinc iens domo ex inferni heads, Insulam in iEaeani impellens benefabricatam navim: As set in Ithaca, sterile bulls of the best Tunc te postea Eex iubeo recordari mei For sacrifice, heaping the pyre with goods. Ne me infletum,.insepultum, abiens retro, relinquas Sheep, to Tiresias only ; black and a bell sheep. Separatus, ne deorum ira nam Dark blood flowed in the fosse, Sed me combure con armis quaecunque mihi sunt, Souls out of Erebus, cadaverous dead, Sepulchramque mihi accumula cani in litore maris,75 Of brides, of youths, and of much-bearing old ; Viri infelicis, et cuius apud posteros fama sit: Virgins tender, souls stained with recent tears, Haecque mihi perfice, figeque in sepulehro remum, Many men mauled with bronze lance-heads, Quo et vivus remigabam existens cum meis sociis. Battle spoil, bearing yet dreary arms, Sic dixit: at ego ipsum, respondens, allocutus These many crowded about me, sum: With shouting, pallor upon me, cried to my men for Haec tibi infelix perficiamque et faciam: 80 more beasts. Nos quidem sic verbis respondentes molestis Slaughtered the herds, sheep slain of bronze, Sedebamus : ego quidem seperatim supra san­ Poured ointment, cried to the gods, guinem ensem tenebam : To Pluto the strong, and praised Proserpine, Idoluni autem ex altera parte socii multa loque- Unsheathed the narrow sword, batur : I sat to keep off the impetuous, impotent dead Venit autem insuper anima matris mortua? Till I should hear Tiresias. Autolyci filia magnanimi Anticlea, 85 But first Elpenor came, our friend Elpenor, Quam vivam dereliqui iens ad Ilium sacrum, Unburied, cast on the wide earth, Hac quidem ego lachrymatus sum videns misera- Limbs that we left in the house of Circe, tus que sum aio : Unwept, unwrapped in sepulchre, since toils urged Sed neque sic sivi priorem licet valde dolens other. Sanguinem prope ire, antequam Tiresiam audirem : Pitiful spirit, and I cried in hurried speech: Venit autem insuper anima Thebani Tiresiae, 90 'Elpenor, how art thou come to this dark coast! Aureuni sceptrum tenens, me autem novit et Cam'st thou a-foot, outstripping seamen?' allocuta est : And he in heavy speech: Cur iterum o infelix linquens lumen Solis 'Ill fate and abundant wine ! I slept in Circe's Venisti, ut videas mortuos, et iniucundam regionem? ingle, Sed recede a fossa, remove autem ensem acutum, Going down the long ladder unguarded, I fell Sanguinem ut bibam, et tibi vera dicam. 95 against the buttress, Sic dixi : ego autem retrocedens, ensem argen- Shattered the nape-nerve, the soul sought Avernus. teum But thou, O King, I bid remember me, unwept, un­ Vagina inclusi : hie autem postquam bibit san­ buried, guinem nigrum, Heap up mine arms, be tomb by sea-board, and Et tunc iam me verbis allocutus est vates verus : inscribed : Eeditum quaeris dulcem illustris Ulysse : "A man of no fortune and with a name to come." Hanc autem tibi difïicilem faciet Deus, non enim And set my oar up, that I swung mid fellows.' puto 100 Came then another ghost, whom I beat off, Anticlea, Latere Neptunum, quam iram imposuit animo And then Tiresias, Theban, Iratus, quem ei filium dilectum excaecasti : Holding his golden wand, knew me and spoke first : Sed tarnen et sic mala licet passi pervenientis, 'Man of ill hour, why come a second time, Si volveris tuum animum continere et sociorum." Leaving the sunlight, facing the sunless dead, and The meaning of the passage is, with a few abbrevia­ this joyless region? tions, as I have interpolated it in three cantos (Poetry, Stand from the fosse, move back, leave me my The Future, and in Lustra, larger edition, pub. bloody bever, A. A. Knopf, New York). And I will speak you true speeches.' And I stepped back, "And then went down to the ship, set keel to Sheathing the yellow sword. Dark blood he drank breakers, then, Forth on the godly sea, And spoke: 'Lustrous Odysseus We set up mast and sail on the swart ship, Shalt return through spiteful Neptune, over dark Sheep bore we aboard her, and our bodies also, seas, Heavy with weeping; and winds from sternward Lose all companions.' Foretold me the ways and Bore us out onward with bellying canvas, the signs. Circe's this craft, the trim-coifed goddess. Came then Anticlea, to whom I answered : Then sat we amidships—wind jamming the tiller— ' Fate drives me on through these deeps. I sought Thus with stretched sail Tiresias,' we went over sea till day's end. Told her the news of Troy. And thrice her shadow Sun to his slumber, shadows o'er all the ocean, Faded in my embrace." Came we then to the bounds of deepest water, It takes no more Latin than I have to know that To the Kimmerian lands and peopled cities Divus' Latin is not the Latin of Catullus and Ovid; Covered with close-webbed mist, unpierced ever that it is illepidus to chuck Latin nominative par­ With glitter of sun-rays, ticiples about in such profusion ; that Romans did Nor with stars stretched, nor looking back from not use habentes as the Greeks used êxovres, etc. heaven, And nos in line 53 is unnecessary. The point is that 108 THE EGOIST September 1918

Divus' Latin has, despite these wems, its quality; Donum orichalchi aurique honorabilis: it is even singable, there are constant suggestions of Collum autem molle, ac pectora argentea the poetic motion; it is very simple Latin, after all, Monilibus aureis ornabant ..." etc. and a crib of this sort may make just the difference Ernestus, adding by himself the appendices to the of permitting a man to read fast enough to get the Epics, gives us : swing and mood of the subject, instead of losing both in a dictionary. " Venerandam auream coronam habentem pulchram Even habentes when one has made up one's mind Venerem to it, together with less obvious exoticisms, does not Canam, quae totius Cypri munimenta sortita est upset, one as Maritimae, ubi illam zephyri vis molliter spirantis Tulit per undam multisoni maris "the steep of Delphos leaving." Spuma in molli: hanc autem auro comam religatae One is, of necessity, more sensitive to botches in one's Horae own tongue than to botches in another, however care­ Susceperunt hilariter, immortales autem vestes fully learned. induere: For all the fuss about Divus' errors of elegance Caput autem super immortale coronam bene con- Samuelis Clarkius and Jo. Augustus Ernestus do not structam posuere seem to have gone him much better—with two hundred Pulchram, auream, perforatis autem auriculis years extra Hellenic scholarship at their disposal. Donum orichalci preciosi : The first Aldine Greek Iliads appeared I think in Collum autem molle ac pectora Candida * 1504, Odyssey possibly later. My edition of Divus Monilibus aureis ornabant ..." etc. is of 1538, and as it contains Aldus' own translation of the Frog-fight, it may indicate that Divus was in "Which things since they are so" lead us to feel touch with Aldus in Italy, or quite possibly the that we would have had no less respect for Messrs. French edition is pirated from an earlier Italian Clarkius and Ernestus if they had deigned to mention printing. A Latin Odyssey in some sort of verse the names of their predecessors. They have not was at that time infinitely worth doing. done this in their prefaces, and if any mention is made Raphael of Volterra had done a prose Odyssey of the sixteenth-century scholars, it is very effectually with the opening lines of several books and a few other buried somewhere in the voluminous Latin notes, brief passages in verse. This was printed with which I have not gone through in toto. Their edition Laurenzo Valla's prose Iliads as early as 1502. He (Glasgow, 1814) is, however, most serviceable. begins : "Die mihi musa virum captae post tempora Troiae Qui mores hominum multorum vidit et urbes Multa quo que et ponto passus dum naufragus errat THE FRENCH WORD IN MODERN Ut sibi tum sotiis (soeiis) vitam servaret in alto PROSE Non tarnen hos cupiens fato deprompsit acerbo." XII. JEAN-RICHARD BLOCH : ... et Cie Probably the source of "Master Watson's "English quantitive couplet, but obviously not copied by JEAN-RICHARD BLOCH is the nearest equiva­ Divus: lent I know to George Meredith. It would "Virum mihi die musa multiscium qui valde multum almost be possible to balance a page from Erravit ex quo Troiae sacram urbem depopulatus Meredith against a page from . . . et Cie. But est: Meredith remains the more complete master, as yet, Multorum autem virorum vidit urbes et meutern if not the more interesting. cognovit: If, while I was looking through the first two Moltos autem hie in mare passus est dolores, suo in chapters of . . . et Cie, I had been told by some animo, bystander that I should reach the last of the 340 Liberans suamque animam et reditum sociorum." pages or so (400 words to a page) without another stumble I should have been surprised. For this On the other hand, it is nearly impossible to believe narrative about a business adventure, as detailed as that Clark and Ernestus were unfamiliar with Divus. Robinson Crusoe itself, has a repellingly Teutonic Clark calls his Latin crib a composite "non elegantem stolidity of approach. Subtract the introductory utique et venustam, sed ita Romanam, ut verbis scenes and the almost as ungainly and quite unneces­ verba." A good deal of Divus' venustas has departed. sarily and unexpectedly sybilline oration at the close, Clark's hyphenated compounds are, I think, no more and you have a book important and engrossing. Roman than are some of Divus' coinage ; they may It is the history of a family of Alsatian Jews: be a trifle more explanatory, but if we read a shade weavers, who, choosing for France after the first more of colour into àôéo-cpaTos oïvos than we can Franco-German War, emigrate out of their native into multum vinum, it is not restored to us in Clark's province, now annexed, across the frontier, there to copiosum vinum, nor does terra spatiosa improve upon start life and business anew, characteristically intent terra lata, evpvbelrjs being (if anything more than (characteristically Alsatian and characteristically lata) : " with wide ways or streets," the wide ways Jewish) upon prosperity. Their united wind-in-the- of the world, traversable, open to wanderers. The face career with the ultimate stagnation accompanying participles remain in Clark-Ernestus, many of the a limited if difficult goal, forms the main raison d'être coined words remain unchanged. Georgius Dartona of a romance wherein the business passion takes the gives, in the opening of the second hymn to Aphrodite : place of the, in fiction, more usual love passion. Nevertheless, grafted upon this more novel theme is " Venerandam auream corona m habentem pulchram a love episode of a rare quality, the " heroine " of Venerem which is the flower of the whole composition, a girl Canam, quae totius Cypri munimenta sortita est "Gove" who has a place in the ranks of striking Maritimae ubi illam zephyri vis niolliter spirantis feminine characters. Suscitavit per undam multisoni maris, A feature of this curious book is, that while enabled Spuma in molli: hanc autem auricurae Horae by his own descent to give the most intimate views of Susceperunt hilariter, immortales autem vestes the Jewish psychology (incidentally also of Jewish induere: and Alsatian customs and other distinctive traits), Capite vero super immortali coronam bene con- structam posuere * Reading àpyv

the attitude of this Zangwill in French literary annals although only issued in 1917, was in the publishers' is that of an impartial outsider and looker-on. hands in 1914, and contains the following most timely M. Bloch delineates character with a tart origi­ observation : nality. The men are made clear by their actions ; "Listen," says the millionaire uncle from the other side, Königin the women (witty Helene Le Pleynier, Sarah "America still needs you French [let us bracket : Europeans] as and the rest) insinuate their presence more passively, much as you need her. What she has to learn from you will more obliquely. take her a century. What she has to teach you, in trade, in Comme toute la vie doit passer à travers la femme pour se business, will take you ten years to learn when once you set perpétuer, elle sait quelque chose de plus que nous dans le about it." domaine obscur. Nothing more apt has been said since it became The women answer to that theory. They weigh particularly apt. heavily on events without directing them. MURIEL CIOLKOWSKA The men in this book are enamoured of their trade, and as the women live for their mankind the "factory" is their raison d'être too : CHARITY AND GRACE IN THE WORK Il fallait des pièces de drap dans le magasin, non seulement OF MAY SINCLAIR pareequ'un magasin vide glace le client, mais surtout parce- qu'il fallait s'entourer au plus vite de cette odeur, de ce toucher By JEAN DE BOSSCHERE et de ce spectacle si nécessaires à la vie. THE unifying factor in the work of May Sinclair Everything lives that comes into contact with life is its humanity. The emotions of the heart if it be intense enough. It is this great and insuffi­ are controlled by the intelligence, but ever and ciently recognized truth on which Bloch's book is again we find the heart claiming its unalienable rights, founded. The Simlers' business was one of their and it is then that the author produces her finest work. various religions, the " family " was another : It is not sentimental, but there is about it a naked La fabrique, la famille, il n'y a pas de différence, ce sont deux truthfulness quite free from that rhetoric which is the aspects de la même chose. evil tradition of most writers in dealing with emotions. And every one of Miss Sinclair's books is fragrant M. Bloch does not squeamishly idealize or attenuate with the flower of poetry. I have not set myself his characters. They can be frankly and avowedly the task of showing what a great poet is latent in this coarse in manner, and physically unprepossessing. novelist ; but it is relevant to insist upon the fact Brusque contrasts illustrate the combined matter- before passing on to consider the peculiar qualities of of-factness with the artistic emotions of the Jewish the illumination displayed in her pictures of modern temperament. From the description of a menu (with life. recipes), M. Bloch will pass without interval to Miss Sinclair approaches humankind with com­ analysing the "Waldstein" sonata. I cannot be miseration and solicitude, and since everything in this sure whether he intended to convey this impression world is in a state of equilibrium, her solicitude and or whether these ungraduated oppositions are the her love bring her intuition and charity. Through consequence of his own innate racial tendencies. her love she reaches visions of the rarest reality. Probably there is a combination of accident and She manages, by virtue of the wholeness and con­ design. fidence of her gift, to see the world without a veil. The book is swollen with metaphor, much of it There is only one world and one reality, and that very fine. M. Bloch's use of adjectives also deserves is the image we make of it imaginatively. See the comment. Simplicity is not Bloch's way : world as it is, say the rhetoricians. That is meaning­ less. The world varies according to the way we look Enfin, au moment où une écailleuse syllabe, proche parente at it. The world is only what we ourselves are. du mot ruine, se débattait entre les favoris d'Hyppolyte, et There is no relationship between the carpenter's tentait de franchir le seuil disloqué de ses lèvres, la tornade, que world and the world of the professor. There may be les plus avertis guettaient de loin, se leva et les enveloppa. sometimes, in politics and in religion, a certain Yet his prolixity at its most prolix is not tedious identity of vision, but these ephemeral understandings because it is always full and compact. do not concern the authentic world. Only the world Like Balzac, but a rational Balzac, Bloch is versed that is in ourselves is known to us. We can conceive in a great variety of topics. He plays with figures, of no other with any reality. Every time that a man, is sensitively comprehending of the psychology of even a mediocrity, is depicted; whenever we are children and women ; he will explain the cause of shown the honest portrait of a philosopher, a madman, or a mediocrity such as Banny Bansome,* or of a feminine domination in France, the rôle of women in determined constructor such as Jevons, * we fasten Jewish families—he seems to possess a master-key to upon the delineation with an eager passionate a world of subjects. instinct—the instinct of direct communication with Such profusion might, very easily, have entailed the man. It is always the secret hope of a personal confusion. Here it does not. . . . et Cie is a well- revelation that attaches us to a loyal narrative. sustained, orderly composition. The characters are all good portraits, the minor ones as well as those The multitude of the characters appearing in May more in the foreground—the little hunchback Blum, Sinclair's work is proof enough that she has pene­ for instance, is striking. Certain scenes are replete trated into all hearts. But she specially inclines with life, the first introduction between Hélène and towards two types, first, the humble and then the Joseph, the succeeding love scene with its suppressed creators, poets or writers, living on the proceeds of demonstration, the adventure of, and after, the their art. She must from the first have had some presentiment of her own strength. Her early figures Moulin de la Galette, the soliloquies of the boy are good outline sketches of those which appear later Louis, which in themselves mirror various scenes, on ; and if these early figures lack in force and these chiefly, but many other pictures are magnificent emphasis, it is due to lack of practice in waiting. achievements. M. Bloch is prolifically careless of A writer does not master his medium all at once. But opportunities for plot and facile dramatic effect. already in The Divine Fire she has acquired the Half a dozen books might have grown out of this one. Every now and again a chance is, happily, * The Combined, Maze. By May Sinclair. Hutchinson, deliberately and disdainfully squandered. London, 1913. Its relation to the 1870 war and its connexion with f Tasker Jevons. Bv May Sinclair. Hutchinson, London, Alsace make topical reading of this book which, 1916. 110 THE EGOIST September 1918 master's certainty of touch. The personality of the a tissue of good novels. In this fear of omission, hero is indicated in a few strokes. One does not this burning desire to say and to express everything, desire the smallest elaboration or retouching. Her I can see a fine honesty, a prodigious fecundity and grasp of her characters is always so powerful as to above all a beautiful candour. One discovers that give one at first the impression that it is purely the author, in the fever of waiting, forgets her readers intuitive. But this impression does not linger. It is and forgets their demand for simple reading, for swept away by recurrent evidence of close analysis, a reading that shall not be too tiring. She has there­ meticulous examination of the atom s forming the whole. fore not bowed to her public; she has extended her It is of course true that even the greatest gifts will material, writing three novels at once, or rather one not allow a novelist to write his books as if they were in which three are found interlaced. Five or six chapters of ancient history. There are hours when books written round a common centre—forming he is in infinite communion with the character that together an incomparable work—each tell the story has presented itself to him, and there are weeks of of a single life. But in this extension of material emptiness and lack of contact. In a word, the nothing of the author's characteristic depth, nothing of history of a man's life is not to be written coldly. the lucid ardour of the investigation has been sacrificed. The novelist shares the experience of his characters Great force has the effect of simplicity. In its and is more dependent upon them than one would presence, everything seems easy and "natural." suppose. May Sinclair, like all great artists, must The apparent absence of construction is felt even in await her hours of grace. It is only then that her the way events succeed one another. A novel characters come near enough to be drawn. And it composed according to classical rules is familiar even is then that she is a poet. A good novelist is always before we have read it through. There are fixed a very good poet. That she is a poet, and the poet conventions as to the presentation of the hero, the of pity, her many incomparable figures proclaim. foreshadowing of a marriage, the prevision of a death. She shows us misery, egoism, unhappiness, minds In May Sinclair's work, these things happen as they narrow or sick—all bathed in the intense humanity do in life. The steering of such works demands an which is the atmosphere of her books. For none of infinite amount of artistic originality, of prudence them has she a single word of condemnation. and of foresight. The invisibility of all effort is the As to the divine moments of perfect vision, she measure of a great force and it brings us a priceless herself has often described them. There are times satisfaction of the mind. In The Three Sisters, for when her vision is so intense that she seems to see example, it seems as if the author is as ignorant as the whole of life as in a dream. It is that power that we are ourselves of the way things are going ; she I am attempting to indicate in this essay. ... It is even seems unprepared for the changes worked by she herself, too, who reveals to us through her time, and the necessity for introducing a fresh characters something of her love and respect for her characteristic registering a defacement, a shadow, a art. She puts it before everything. And it is nuance of development comes to her with the freshness indeed just this unfailing love which calls down the of actual experience. By virtue of this quality of recurring hour of grace. In this hour, this state of unexpectedness some of her novels may be classed intuition and inspiration, her characters appear to with the romans d'aventure which seemed in France, her all at once. She rediscovers herself and re­ before the war, to be once more coming into favour captures her material at the same time. "Great and are certain always to be invincibly captivating. creation of character," says Suarès, "is a passionate The faculty of not giving one's characters away is, differentiation of the soul of the creator." This like many others, the product of intelligence. Have fever of creation is perceptible throughout the work I not insisted that intelligence is simply a human of May Sinclair. There may be here and there pages soul? But it is necessary. There are many gifted that are less well written; but there are none people who are without intelligence; and there are without the inner light, the very breath of art. almost as many writers who have neither intelligence And this is the origin of her talent. There is no nor gifts. For a proper comprehension of individual talent without genius. It is grace or inspiration, depth, the vision it brings and the understanding it in addition to the discipline of work, which gradually permits, intelligence is fatally necessary. develops the writer's talent. Without this gift one Dostoevsky had two of the three gifts that are may write, but one will never create a style. There said to be indispensable to the novelist. If he had is no distinctive stylism in May Sinclair's writing; had all three in equal measure he would have been but harmony and precision of form is born naturally the equal of Shakespeare. From the point of view of of the sentiments and the ideas that she expresses. the three essentials—gift, intelligence, and poetic In this way, without artifice, her talent has become faculty—The Three Sisters stands out as a type. prodigious. It is not a congeries of theories and It is a masterpiece, as Taslcer Jevons is a masterpiece mannerisms somehow contrived together. It is from the point of view of the creation of character. simple in a way that may not be called facile. The The representation of friendship takes a prominent unity of her style defies even the closest analysis. place in Miss Sinclair's work ; friendship and sacrifice. Its elements are poured into a clear, fine mould. To In The Creators, in the midst of a group of women have a just idea of the inner beauty and force of her mad with the passion for sacrifice (which they style, one must consult her later books, the first pages confound with the love of humanity), Laura sacrifices of Taslcer Jevons, for example, or certain passages, herself to her father in a horrible life, cold and arid, perhaps the most enchanting of all, in The Three Sisters. threaded with frightful dreams. It is hell, with a In Taslcer Jevons, the very fabric of the book is madman. When her father dies, her instinct for inspiration from end to end, so that it seems as if service and for self-abnegation drives her to Protheros, there were no construction. It is life laid bare with a genius without the capacity of pleasing the crowd. He dies between Laura and Pose, another of the an unfailing and even violent charity. This con­ multitude of silent self-sacrificers who appear in stancy, this infallibility of touch, itself produces the Miss Sinclair's novels. Her marriages, again, seem harmony of the book. to be made by the same ardour for pain. Her people Books like The Three Sisters and Taslcer Jevons are seem to marry at the instigation of the spirit of a proof that the abundance, the apparent confusion torture. It is true. But on the other side of the ' of The Divine Fire and The Creators is the result of balance is her immense pity. the tireless domination of the clear spirit of the author. There is no real confusion in The Divine Fire "Am I," says Gwenda, "to go on giving the whole blessed and The Creators, but a mind which absorbs every­ time ? Am I never to have anything for myself?" thing ; treating with equal power both the diversity "There never is anything," some one answers, "for anybody of detail and the salient figures. It is for this reason but what they give. Or what they take from somebody else. that each one of the early novels of May Sinclair is You should have taken. You had your chance." September 1918 THE EGOIST 111

Here, for the moment, met by this cry of terror, The mouse-image stooped and shook, then whirled her pity cannot be vanquished. Nevertheless— about the rim. From the fury of its revolution though many pages of quotation would be required there showed only a halo of shaken light about the to demonstrate it—charity, pity, and grace bathe, hoop. almost exultantly, all her scenes. And her repre­ The eyes blinked and accepted. sentations of friendships give friendship at its utmost The mouse ran out of the dancing air and hung —attachments persisting through years of trial and of upside down under the rim. happiness. At the end of Jane Rolland, for example, They stared. Jane says to her friend : It began another turn, infinitely slow, and another whereon it appeared immovable. Time in the fan­ "You're right. I can't do much without you. I am not tastic room moved like the strokes of a gong. perfectly alive when you're not there. And I can't get away "Get on with it!" The squeal was swallowed in from you—as I can get away from Hugh. I believe I remember the infinite silence proceeding from the mouse. every single thing you ever said to me. I'm always wanting to It rose, passed, and returned. It leapt and accom­ talk to you. I don't want—always—to talk to Hugh. But— plished the circle, a returning ship with cloven time I think more of him." pouring from its bows. It leapt again and paused, Her deep tenderness shines out steadily in the checked by an observant star. representations of the intermingling of different The rim glittered and was not shaken. classes. In three or four of her books we meet men "It is the soul upon its journey to perfection." and women coming from different social ranks who With shameless levity the mouse ran down. Again fall in love and marry. The heart alone is capable of shot up and the hoop trembled. It stopped, sus­ guiding the novelist through the labyrinth of complex pended by tiny feet. The brown tail followed the sentiments in the souls of these contrasted types. circumference. The mouse returned. Such contrasts are yet another of the salient charac­ The image of: that horror recommenced its upward teristics of her work. It is in her last book that social crawl sub specie œtemitatis. inequality in marriage is most finely treated. Tasker The torrent of coloured silk, the glittering cliffs Jevons is the son of obscure folk; Viola the daughter crashed down. Upon the wriggling body the pendu­ of very considerable people, her father a minor canon lous breasts touched the knees. The eyes strained of Canterbury. up. The mouse climbed the zenith. In her presentation of Tasker Jevons May Sinclair "'In whom is no variableness,'" then wailing reaches the summit of analytical insight. It is done, —"but it always comes back to the same place. however, with subtlety and one is not conscious of What is the good if it always comes back to the the workmanship. Taslcer Jevons is her best known same place? It can't mean that. Cruel, cruel, novel. There is only the action and the commentary cruel." on the action. Yet by these means she has built up, uncontestably, a character so far unknown to fiction. The mouse that shall run from everlasting to ever­ Tasker Jevons is restrained from crime by his goodness lasting attenuated in significance. of heart, which is also the motive of his attachment Projected on the opening panels of a screen an to Viola—a young girl who is portrayed with an angel in Wattsian deshabille conducted a creeping almost incredible insight. soul up the ascent of a mountain. At telescopic One may summarize the way in which the atmos­ distance on the receding folds a black speck circum­ phere of tenderness bathes the novels of May Sin­ scribed a black hoop. clair: the good she endows with her own sentiments; The crashing silks swelled. The angel smiled and the bad she sees pitifully and mercifully. A poet, pointed up. The little soul pattering along behind even in his laughter, derives his art from his own sat back on its haunches. A fat white star featured suffering. A novelist draws it, even when he is slick on the screen, its spherical nature obscured by representing demons, from the all-embracing vastness long theosophic points. of his charity. The eyes tranquillized into rapture. The star's It is this charity which draws down upon the circumference grew till it included its irradiation. novelist the grace of inspiration. It became a threepennybit melting at the core. A thin bright hoop hung in the heavens. The angel disintegrated till it put forth the plumage of a mackaw. The little soul went down on all fours and began to VISION grow a tail and the bright bottom of a mandril. The A TORRENT of silk poured between over­ star's circumference grew and slid across the diagonal hanging breasts and spread upon the carpet of the screen. in a troubled sea. The eyes wept, and through the liquid veil they Vast skirts stood out over the surf, vertical ceased to distinguish these things. The scarlet lids lunar cliffs at the point of collapse. The core of closed. A telephone bell jarred on the table. The flesh beneath moved like a troubled worm, and above clashing silks built up again the shell of the body's the unsubstantial walls eyes watched a gilt hoop complaisance. hung from a pole, the late circumference of a dead MARY BUTTS macaw. The wire was worn pale where the horny feet had gripped and shaken. To the eyes, meditation his similitude locked there, till the fantastic banners THE MEDITATION OF A LOVER AT of crest and tail contracted into a mouse—like image DAYBREAK of enamelled solidity—a chinoiserie of the imagination —suspended by tiny feet under the outer rim. A I CAN just see the distant trees tail like a bronze whip followed the line of the And I wonder whether they will circumference. Or will not Hickory, dickory, dock. Bow their tall plumes at your passing The eyes followed the ascent. In the carriage of the morning wind : It climbed the golden rim, and crept over the farther side at even pace—a tiny demon on the noble disk of the sun. Or whether they will merely "In whom is no variableness, neither shadow, of Tremble against the cold dawnlight turning." The weak eyes gleamed, and at the sigh Shaking a yellow leaf of pleasure the light cliffs were shattered and re­ to the dew-wet earth. shapes. HERBERT BEAD 112 THE EGOIST September 1918

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