"When Icicles Hang by the Wall"
A Winter Miscellany. Edited and compiled by Humbert Wolfe. (Eyre & Spottiewoode. Ss. fid.)
LIKE the majority of anthologists, Mr. Wolfe begins with an apology. Yet what does he care whether we accept it or not ? Clearly, he has compiled his book for joy and because he loves the winter. He admits that he has copied out the last section " God and Mary's Winter " in his own hand- " for the pleasure of writing it out." As for the apology, that is only another excuse for the luxurious treat that every man likes to give himself when he turns back down the long lane that leads to boyhood. As we read it, we feel ourselves excursionists into another man's memory. We hurry with him into firelit rooms, out again into crisp lanes, and up to the mountains where the snow drifts gently as feathers. It is nearly all pleasant, for Mr. Wolfe is a born rambler, and his pen runs easily as his thoughts. We use the word nearly for we do not understand of what necessity the author includes these sentences : " I don't see, I thought resentfully, how even Sir Edmund Gosse, who knew a little about everything and not much about anything, could have out-pointed me on winter. Did he, suave old grammarian, ever sleigh down from Heaton gates in Manningham Park . . .? " It is difficult to understand the point of such an argument, especially in so genial a book.
The volume is divided into seven sections. There is the Countryman's Winter, with many extracts from Gilbert White, who has never been so great a friend of the anthologist as his due is, The Traveller's Winter—a rich and varied store here, and the Soldiers' and Sailors' Winter which is not too heavily-laden. The Traveller's Winter is full of poems, that make a cheerful noise, by Donne and Herrick and Burns and Lamb. The chief joys are to be found in "The Poet's Winter" and " God and Mary's Winter", but the whole book is a delight. All the pleasures of winter are here—stars, snow, carols, the crackling of woods and the flickering of fires. Between the various sections, are some of Mr. Wolfe's best poems, and there is this one in the preface : It is winter in the mountains where the wind confesses the firs. They have put on the veil the green ones, the slender, the whisperers.
' I loved the sun, and I gave him all that he asked,' said this.
' Is it sin " It is sin,' said the North wind ' to he ashamed of the kiss.' "
B. E. TODD.
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