The Age of Wonder

By L. A. G. STRONG

OF all contemporary men of genius Mr. De la Mare has been worst served by his- admirers. Not by them all, -naturally; but for every one who has.taken his measure, a dozen, missing alike the power, the sanity, and the morbidity of his imagina- tion, strike a happy equation between his verses and Winnie the Pooh, join hands, and dance.. around: For some reason,

this filleted version appeals particularly to the academic mind, with the result that in universities, and other places where taste is formed largely by revulsion from adult promptings, Mr. De la Mare receives next to none of the attention which is his due. The volume before .us* should cure all this It offers a minimum of encouragement to the filleteers, and a great deal to everybody else.

Early One Morning is an examination of the state of child- hood. No subject could better suit Mr. De la Mare's tempera-. ment. Least sentimental of writers, he has the peculiar qualities, the curiosities, the candour, the withdrawals, the sudden utter ruthlessness, which make it possible partially to enter the child's world. Partially, because " lambs are not little

sheep."

" Most adults . . . are at least friendly to childhood and to children. With a benevolent eye they watch their gambols, are amused at their primitive oddities, give what they suppose to be the countersign, and depart. A few take children as they take one another, just as they come, welcome them for what they are, refrain froin making advances, and are gladly admitted on these terms into the confraternity. The very few—as few in books as in life— have the equivalent of what the. born gardener is blessed with—a green thiunb. He can pluck up a plant and without the least danger examine its roots." Mr. De la More has the given thUmb. He handles his subject quite fearlessly, and looks at the roots. Here the sinister turn of his imagination stands him in good- stead. He can' reach for the dark obverse of the brightest moon : and no one can get on terms with children who' is unprepared for

their darker side. Here, as elsewhere, they can outdo their elders. A mob of children in a panic : children, in a frenzy

of horror, stamping to death a pet animal they have unin- tentionally injured : a crowd of small boys, called in thirsty from a cricket field, realizing that they had to sit for an hour in a classroom, and turning suddenly into maddened animals, fighting for a drink : Mr. De la Mare is aware of all this, and gives it no more than its.due of sympathetic grave attention.

"Children master shared:conditions with an amazing ,rapidity, adapt thernselves to their surroundings like sagacious chatheleons,- dodge pitfalls, evade the crafty, simulate catalepsy, and when pursued, scuttle away into their impregnable burrows. And, even more surprising, they consider the feelings of the adult."

They do indeed—and to a degree of which, scale for scale, few adults would be capable.

Mr. De la Mare investigates his subject under various headings, in the light of his own imagination, and in that which a vast company of writers have shed upon it. He calls his book " a piece of literary patchwork " ; but individually

is as clearly manifest in the finding and choice of excerpts as in ipsissimis verbis, and the connecting matter is of a very high order. I can think of few books which give one a more - immediate sense of contact with the author. On almost every page there is an accuracy of observation, a sinewy.

Phrase, a taut felicity, to brace the mind with pleasure. I say almost every page, since there are, here and there, Pages of a surprising stodginess, where the transcription of authorites has become over-conscientious. They are, however, few ; and the felicities abound. " Of solitude in early childhood there is little for the body, but much for the mind." " He was

* Early One Morning. By Walter De la Mare. (Faber and- Faber. 21s.) a scion of the old contemptibles, the Victorians, to whose disconsolate sepulchres continual pilgrimage is being made nowadays, not for the purpose of bringing nosegays for remem-' brance or pansies for thoughts, but of scribbling mocking comments beneath their epitaphs." " Children eating are usually ' engrossed. But occasionally they lift singularly intent eyes ftom the platter to their surroundings ; and the ears maybe .shut when the eyes are wide open."

re He are a couple of longer extracts :

" Some years ago, one cloudless summer morning, my eye was attracted—as I was exploring the market-place of an English town —by a group of absorbed children aged four or five to • twelve, hanging over the hurdles of a pen among the sheep. Curious to see what gave them such pleasure, I drew near and discovered that a boy .of_ fourteen or fifteen was cutting a . sheep's throat with a penknife. No doubt he was obeying orders. In any case—it is a grievous confession—my stomach so much revolted at the spectacle that I hastened away and made no enquiries !' These young children : one and all were soberly intent, but not a single face among them suggested horror."

In a different key :

" Blake's visionary angels may have been (no less .' experience ' even .if they were) a pure fantasy of the imagination, but we an produce no proof of it. And to dismiss or disdain Traherue's ' apprehensions merely because we have never shared them is rather too easy -a way Out of a difficulty. It.lein unusual minds that we expect unusual events, the fruit of unusual powers of . perception...

Inspired common sense—this, with a rare faculty ,for wonder, is the note of Mr. De la Mare's reflections and suggestions upon - his theme. . For his ease of phrasing, one cannot do better than quote the opening paragraphs : There are few things- in the world so sure of a welcome in , any human mind as a creature brand-new to this life of ours, young .

in time, and of a brief earthly'experience. Its kind matters little ; . beast, bird, or fishfrom the lionet and the infant elephant, by way ' of the long-tailed Iamb, that picture of iimocende,'• and the- blind blunt-headed kitten, to the'newly-hatched alligator and the inifini- , tesimal crab—the human impulse is the same. A peculiar wistful- ness is mingled, with our pleasure in them. We realize their comparative helplessness, yet marvel at their finish, competence and vigour. They amuse 'Mu, yet with a certain pathos. They have ' what is often an odd, awkward, and even grotesque, yet, ravishing beauty of their own. - There is a tinge of heavenly foolishness in that . beauty, ; and we accept these young and ardent living things simply for what they are and regardless of their futurethe sober actualism,- for example, of the farmyard pig, the inanity of the domestic fowl, the cunning'of the fox, the ferocity of the panther." ■ The book is not all individual record and conjecture. There are statistics, in due proportion. Rejoicing, as we all must, in the Society for the Prevention of Crtielty to Children— a case mentioned is of " a baby unfitted out of Os cradle for weeks, till toadstools grew around the child out of the rotten- ness "—we will be pulled up sharply by the knowledge that, in 1933, 1,038 children were killed_ while using the roads ; and that 60 to 80 are so injured every day. Other times,

other barbarities. - - - - Among the chapter headings are Intelligence, Clothes,' Conscience,' Woes, Memory, Night-Fears, Lessons,' Horror, School, and Misfits. There are 19 illustrations, all happily chosen, of which a photograph of the 11-year-old Henry. James and the 13-year-old Shelley are of particular appeal. The range of authors drawn on is enormous ; nothing is more significant of Mr. De In Mare's perception than his selections (and omissions) from modern writers. The book as a whole is masterly, and one is tempted after a first reading to say that it is the _best thing he has done. " Since," he writes, " a man of genius is said to include among' his available elements those' of a woman and a child, this should give what he tells us about childhood a value all its own." He did 'not mei.O it for himself, but it will do.