A Spectator's Notebook'
LYTTON STRACHEY will have a narrow but secure niche in English letters. He was especially a writer's writer, like Mr. Max Beerbohm. Only a fellow- craftsman could fully appreciate the artfulness of the technique, the subtlety of the irony, and the winnowed simplicity of the style. Writing was to him something of a ritual, as it was to Flaubert or Pater, and since it was but a natural process his aim was the miniature rather than the big canvas. Within limits he was a penetrating critic of books ; his little work on French literature could hardly be bettered, and his study of Racine is a masterpiece. But I should define his supreme talent as that of the historical novelist. He was not any kind of historian, or scarcely even a biographer, for his purpose was not historical verity, but an artistic creation. The truth he sought was the truth of art. He took actual personages and made wonderful portraits of them, but he was not particular about his evidence, selecting just those details, certain or dubious, which suited his con- ception. " Partial Portraits " is a title which would have fitted much of his work. So far from being a realist, he was a glutton for the romantic.- -
s * * * Like all original people he suffered from clumsy imita-: tors. The picturesque irony which in his hands was so precise a weapon became an Offence when attempted by the ill-bred smatterer. One thing he achieved which must give him some importance in literary history. He discredited—I am afraid' he could not kill—the ponderous compilation called a " Life and Letters " under which we have buried too many worthies. He showed how fine an art was the biographer's, and, though biography in the strict sense was not his aim, he set an example of technique for future practitioners. Also, the careful perfection of his style was a wholesome influence in an age which provides too much dilapidated prose.
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The first measure to be introduced when the House Meets—Sir Hilton Young's Town Planning Bill—is designed to knit up the loose ends of a good many sporadic activities. It is hard to see how there can be any disagreement with its main provisions. It gives local authorities the power of regional planning, not only in areas ripe for development, but in untouched rural districts and in areas already developed and often de- veloped ill ; and it makes provision against hardship alike to individual and community. What is needed above all things is to check casual exploitation, and to see that a sufficiently large unit is taken in the planning survey. A, short-sighted little town may have ideas which, if unchecked, will ruin a whole district, and even sound local plans may need a wider co-ordination. One of the chief difficulties of recent years has been the setting up of new industries in the South of England without con- sidering any question except low rates and railway facilities. The consequence is that some of these new factories find themselves in the wrong place for their own interests, and meantime they have ruined country peace. When industries tend to be migratory there is an urgent need of some authority not only to restrain, but to give sound advice. Half our blunders are due not to bad intentions but to defective information.
* * * * General Dawes' departure will be regretted by a host of friends. He represented a type of ambassador very different from the stately tradition of Lowell and Choate and John Hay and Whitelaw Reid. His was the idiom of the West, just as Walter Page's was that of the South,
He and General Pershing came, I believe, from the same Western township, but Pershing's cold discretion was very different from Dawes' bluff heartiness. At first it looked as if he had cast himself for a character-part, and intended to play with a heavy make-up, but he was shrewd enough very soon to tone down his mannerisms. But his spontaneous friendlines remained. One who had known him in the War, and had not seen him since, found himself greeted at a big dinner party with a roar from the other side of the room : " My I If it ain't one of the old bunch " His new post as head of the Recon- Struction Finance Corporation will be no sinecure, but he is probably the only man capable of filling it. As he has been absent for three years, his repute has not been tarnished by recent disasters. He is uncommonly shrewd and an adept at his own kind of diplomacy. Also, he has a talent for a genial panache, an inestimable gift in days of depression.
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" The good are always the merry," says a poem of Mr. Yeats, " save by an evil chance." A book might well be written about the merriment of saints, for it is by no means the least common of their graces. Much has been said lately about Bishop Gore, and stress has pro- perly been laid upon the exceeding cheerfulness of his later years. As I remember him, in the great days of his Westminster canonry, lie was a little formidable. He seemed to me like one of Wycliffe's preachers, consumed by his mission, a voice with something of the desert austerity. But when I came to know him better, while his fervour had not diminished, he seemed to me to realize what has been described as the essence of Plat- onism—the love of the unseen and the eternal cherished by one who rejoices in the seen and temporal. Much of the charm of his company came from his unfailing relish for simple pleasures. His friends will remember the gusto with which he described his holiday experiences— the vintage he had found in a corner of Touraine, the view from this or that hill, and his sensitiveness to all the humours of life. Clarendon's portrait of Chillingworth fits him. " He was a man of excellent parts, and of a cheerefull disposition, voyde of all kindc of vice, and indewed with many notable virtues, of a very publique
hearte, and an indefatigable desyre to do good." * * * * No doubt histoi ians repeat each other more often than -history repeats itself,but there is an interesting resemblance between the British policy in India to-day and that fol- lowed nearly a quarter of a century ago. Our policy, as I see it, is to suppress anarchy with a firm hand and to push on resolutely with the constructive work begun by the Round Table Conference. Between 1908 and 1910 the Minto-Morley reforms were steadily pressed on, and at the same time a number of drastic measures were passed to curb the disorder in Bengal. Both the Viceroy and the Secretary of State refused to be turned from their path by outrages, but they also took prompt measures to prevent them. This seems to me to be in the best British tradition. " No man of honour at the head of a government," said Lord Minto, " will ever compromise with revolt," and Lord Morley cordially assented. One who has ridden in the Grand National is rarely a fount of political apophthegms, but Lord Minto was responsible for two which deserve to be remembered. One was that to govern with the consent of the governed was not so much a moral as a physical necessity ; the opposite was simply not possible. The other was that " the strongest man is he who is not afraid to be called weak."
AUSPEX.
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