AT LARGE.* IN the second essay of his new volume
Mr. Benson shows himself a little sore at the criticism some of his writings have met with, and he pictures to himself the reception of .At Large by not too friendly reviewers. "My critics will say that I am only appearing again from my cellar, with my hands filled with bottled platitudes." He goes on to explain that by "platitudes' he means "plain and obvious truths," and he is not inclined to think that his views of life, his reflections and recommendations, are at all of this character.
"Would that it were so !" he says. Would that people led instinctively, without advice, enlightenment, or guidance, such lives as he attempts to set before them as "possible and delightful."
And here we think Mr. Benson is right, and we shall not be inclined to join any chorus which accuses him of "platitudes." His views of life are no more obvious and commonplace than is the gentle grace of style which makes his books so pleasant to read. It is "the gospel of push," "the gospel of success," which is obvious and commonplace, the gospel of activity, of strenuousness, of everything that Mr. Benson thinks vulgar and undesirable. His new book, even if one cannot quite receive all his ideas, has the old originality and haunting charm. His thoughts are not platitudes. They are the nateral and delicately expressed thoughts of a recluse, who is quite sure that be is justified in living apart from this rough-and-tumble world, and that be does more good—which, given his genius and character, is probably true—than if he threw himself into the vanguard of the fighters. He has much of the poet and the dreamer; his realities are not quite ours ; but, as the old saying has it, "it takes all sorts to make a world," and no thoughtful person can deny that Mr. Benson's ideal of life is as high as it is refined.
-It is a difficult ideal for some of us. Plenty of people
there are who love independence and liberty, who would say from their hearts, with Mr. Benson:— "I love my own fireside, my own chair, my own hooka, my own way. It is little short of torture to have to conform to the rules of other people's households, to fall in with other people's arrangements, to throw my pen down when the gong sounds, to make myself agreeable to fortuitous visitors."
• At Large. By Arthur Christopher Benson. London : Smith, Elder, and Co. Us. 6d. net. .1 But moat of us have to learn in the .hard school of social life to bear these things with a smile. It is not every one who can take a big roomy house in quiet country, inducing one or two like-minded friends to visit him (during which experi- ence, probably, these friends must conform to the rules of his household, must fall in with his arrangements, must throw dawn their pens when his gong sounds). Neither have such ideal lives, it is a comfort to remember, the Monopoly of unselfishness and joy.
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