20 FEBRUARY 1942, Page 16

Defect of Character

IN recent years, several very worthy efforts have been made to restore the literary periodical to popular favour by presenting it as a book. The latest venture of the Hogarth Press, Daylight, bears some resemblance to New Writing ; but although it has the same geographical operunindedness (contributors include French, Greek, Czech and Chinese writers as well as British), 115 political flavour is somewhat less pronounced, and some interest- ing new names have been added to the familiar list of contributors to this type of publication. Thus we have not only Mr. V. S. Pritchett writing agreeably on The Good Soldier Schweik and Mr. John Lehmann discussing novels by Hemingway, Koestler and Hoellering, but also the Earl of Longford on The rash Theatre Today, Mr. Karel Brusak on The New Conception el Dramatic Space, and Mr. Mosco Camer on Modern Music the Balance. There is a poein by David Gascoyne and there are translations of Rimbaud by Norman Cameron. If it is objected

that anyone likely to enjoy Rimbaud at all would probably be able to read him in French, the editors can reply that the volume also contains translations from Czech and Greek poets.

The mainstay of the present volume, however, are contributions by Stephen Spender Rex Warner, and Rene Avord. Mr. Spender, under the heading To Be Truly Free, carries his old problem, the individual's claim to self-fulfilment versus the moral claims of the community, a short stage further, and he finds a tentative solution in " culture," as something that transcends both the individual and the community. In a fragment from a play he poses another of his favourite problems : what is the individual to do when, having devoted himself with passionate altruism to the cause of Liberty and Progress, he finds that, like all other causes, it is shot through and through with faults that spring from human imperfection. Mr. Spender's themes are not new— they are the stock themes of religious philosophy and tragic poetry—but he regards problems with a refreshing naivety and earnestness, like an Eskimo looking at a tiger or a railway train.

Mr. Warner, in an essay on The Cult of Power, makes a shrewd comparison between the Nazi outlook and that of D. H. Lawrence. He sees the same distrust of intellect in both, the same trust in " dark " instinctive forces, and the same rejection of the " white " ideals of traditional,religion—gentleness, abstract justice, universal brotherhood. Mr. Warner does not overlook the differences between Mein Kampf and Sons and Lovers, but he implies that both books owe their popularity to the same underlying needs, the same weaknesses in our society and our outlook. At this point, he ends, somewhat abruptly, by saying that the situation will not be helped by " bogus religious revivals led by elderly generals," but only by " the actual practice of general justice, mercy, brother- hood and understanding."

Perhaps the most interesting contribution to the present issue of Daylight is M. Avord's article on "The Writers of France Today," reprinted from La France Libre. The authors quoted- Duhamel, Gide, Claudel, Martin du Gard, Jean Schlumberger and others—have long been aware of the problems that worry Mr. Spender and Mr. Warner, and some of them at one time thought in the same terms as these young English writers. But the shock of France's military defeat, and the greater shock of her abject and disunited condition in face of the invader, have compelled them to reconsider their fundamental premisses. Jean Schlumberger lays much .of the blame on " the turning away from basic values in favour of everything to be found at the periphery of art and on the confines of psychology." Marc Bernard says: " We attributed much too much importance to reason ; the rationalist spirit has made us lose an immense amount of time " ; and Bertrand de la Salle comments: " We must try and visualise what lies hidden behind this quite surprising complaint. Intel- ligence may prove an obstacle to the spirit of sacrifice, may inculcate doubt at the expense of decision. But it is a strange subterfuge of one's vanity that would make one prefer to arraign the intellect, rather than some defect of character or absence of probity. Be that as it may, plain stupidity will not get us out of this mess."

Some points in M. Schiumberger's diagnosis of the sickness of French literature (" a chewing at the cud of discontent, a relish in proclaiming a ur.iversal aimlessness, and a giving oneself up to disgust ") sound very like hostile criticisms of one or two con- tributions to this book—for instance, Mr. Hostovsky's story (or rather, study) of refugees at Lisbon. On the other hand, they could not be quoted against Jiri Mucha's brief sketch of a Czech soldier in action, an able piece of writing that recalls Stephen