THE SPECTATOR, Hardy had a feeling for natural objects as

powerful asWordsworth's, as detailed as D. H. Lawrence's. Yet, as he said himself in a note, JANUARY 29, 1954 131 It is Hardy's great achievement to have written novels on grave Philosophic themes which yet contain many completely convincing characters and wonderful evocations of country life and country habits. His characters and setting express his philosophy. Whether this philosophy, so apparently stoical, so emotional when examined more deeply, is of any value to us today is debateable. Like Yeats, Hardy had an intensely personal vision of life : unlike Yeats, he built a world out of a sense of negation. However much Yeats's world may be fashioned out of claptrap and eccentric philosophies, we can accept It whole because it " shows an affirming flame." With Hardy's World, we can take the parts only ; and not the least important parts arc his visual imagination, shown in both novels and lyrics, and his compassion for humanity. Miss Hardy's study is thoughtful, sympathetic and just. It is Occasionally marred by stylistic carelessness, such as the split infinitive. This is a valuable book which would have been of even greater value if Miss Hardy had compared Hardy's work more closely with that of his contemporaries. Nevertheless, her industrious research has produced a book that is both delightful and wise.

ELIZARETII JENNINGS

EEG

The Living Brain. By Dr. Grey Walter. (Gerald Duckworth. 15s.)

LECTROENCEPHALOGRAPHY, a process by which minute electrical Impulses in the brain are recorded and analysed, promises to be a major contribution to the physiology of the living brain : dead brains, until recently the physiologist's chief source of information, Yield little about mental processes. The stuff of our thoughts is a subject to touch everyone's imagination, and this Dr. Grey Walter, Well-known for his pioneer work in EEG, succeeds in doing. For his fascinating account of experimental technique alone his book, the only one of its kind written for the layman, is worth reading. nut when he attempts an outline of some known or suspected cerebral Processes such as the reception of various types of stimuli, the storing of information and the conditioning of reflexes, he is less successful. , EEG is already used in hospitals, prisons and other institutes and by some educational psychologists ; as the application of its findings '3 likely to be widespread, it is important for the public to know something about it, and Dr. Walter's responsibility is correspondingly mat. Since he has much to say that is valuable and can write lucidly enough and without affectation when he is addressing other k_,.lentists, one feels that, if he had allowed himself to face the enormous difficulties of presenting his material to the layman, this book would have been less of a disappointment. As it is, the ebullience of his ;rerbtatog c and the dartin inconseuentiality of his thought are of no the reader. Forg instanceq the term ''scanning "—borrowed them electrical engineering—is essential to the understanding of his ol), of the conditioning of reflexes, yet it is typical of his laok of ilddress that he never stops to explain it. No one who is interested !hough to master the technical chapters will be diverted by the tess of the one on evolution in which it is suggested that the dual „I:,_aM structure or Dipiodocus made it " a physical prototype of suer, Scientific jokes are funny only if they are accurate. t-utcr, asked to accept fanciful speculations in his own field, one t?oks back dubiously on his belly-floppers in more familiar waters. can be the really vital chapter, " Learning about Learning," little flan be abstracted that is germane to the heading ; the promised collection between Pavlov's and Berger's work is never explicitly 1141,,qe, though the chapter is remarkable for a number of Aunt uriire.s he foxes the reader with and forgets to knock down. 1,4 is to be regretted that Dr. Walter writes off the psycho-analysts. Might learn from them to ask useful questions about his own i,`lcrions—to the word sex ' for instance, which occurs with '61 Net ive irrelevance throughout the book. He might be able! to °late the self-dcstroying impulse that leads him to build up a difficult thesis to a climax and then wipe it flat with a clumsy and redundant sentence. (An example is to be found at the end of Chapter 6.) He might be interested to notice that the most lucid and absorb.ng chapter is that in which he describes his own machines, wonderful toys that imitate certain cerebral processes, can be made to react to stimuli and combinations of stimuli, can learn, develop " neuroses," and break down. Here he is at his most endearing ; contemplating his creatures, M. Speculatrix and M. Docilis, he is able to allow valuable and-unaffected qualities to show themselves. Fond as he is of the word " modest," it is only in the presence of his machines, one feels, that humility has any true meaning for him.

JEAN HOWARD

Keats Revisited

John Keats : The Living Year. By Robert Gittings. (Heinemann 16s.)

ONE of the reasons why we read at all, and it is among the most important of them, is that in so doing we break down the barrier that exists between one human being and another ; for a fleeting moment we bridge " the unplumbed, salt, estranging sea " which separates us from our fellows. It is true that we arc concerned with the ' object' with which the creative artists presents us ; in itself it nourishes us, enriches us, gives a signficance to the inchoate jumble of our time-eroded lives ; but we always ask for more, questing after the actuality of the being who moulded or welded or hacked out the object. Yet how gingerly we have come, through disillusioning experience, to handle books that elucidate the creative spirit for us ! How lamentably often we find the probing biography to be but another autobiography I Many perhaps, on picking up this book, and finding the publisher describe it as " a piece of literary detection" will put it aside with a premonitory shudder of distaste. They need have no fear. Mr. Gittings treats of this great final year of Keats's flowering with a beautiful and sensitive tact, never blaming, never sentimentalising, treating his subject with a respect the opposite of mawkish. And, the question asks itself, do we at the end know Keats better ? Understand his poetry more fully ? The answer in both cases is, Yes.

Mr. Gittings treats of the last great year of Keats's poetical life:

" Sometime or other "—a week after this meeting [with Hessey and Woodhouse], on Monday, September 21st, 1818, Keats plunged into the most amazingly creative year that any English poet has achieved. Two great unfinished poems on the same theme, " Hyperion " and " The Fall of Hyperion," mark the opening and the close of this period, to the very same day of the year. In this exact year, Keats wrote, with numerous other works, practically every poem that places him among the major poets of the world.

And what a year ! He had come back from his northern tour with Charles Brown, during which he wrote the great journal-letters to his brother George, to find his brother Tom on his death-bed, and to meet Blackwood's review of Endymion. Tom died, there were money troubles, his own and those of George ; dis- agreement with Abbey about his sister Fanny ; there was his connec- tion with Isabella Jones, who first emerges clearly in these pages, and who inspired, if that is the right word, " Hush, hush ! " " St. Agnes' Eve " and the first version of " Bright Star," while there are memories of Keats's meeting with her in " Lamia." There was the emergence of Fanny Brawne, whom Keats first regarded as a rather tiresome young chit, but who gradually became to him an agonising passion, as we know. There were the journeys to Chancellor Thurlow.

ROBERT GORE BROWNE ' This book will be of the greatest interest to lawyers and to all those who are interested in the history and life of the 18th century.'—sIR NORMAN BIRKETT (Time and Tide).

' Mr. Gore Browne puts Thurlow vividly Into an 18th-century picture truthfully painted.'—The Economist.

' A forgotten Colossus ... this admirable biography.'—CYRIL HUGHES HARTMANN (History Today).

Illustrated 25s. net

HAMISH HAMILTON