The Root of Culture
Through the Wilderness. By H. J. Massingham. (Cobden. Sanderson. 15s.) THE " exodus " with which Mr. Massingham's book deals is an urban one, and the " wilderness " is the transition between the city of captivity and the yet unsighted Promised Land. There is no denying that it is a difficult book, in the sense that the reader must hold continuously to the thread between the personal and the general sections or it falls apart.
This, putting it at its barest value; would be easier if the writer had forgone his delight in certain particular and static • moments, f6r when he turns from describing his own house and garden to the problem• of the stranger coining to " belong " to the rural scene, his method turns from the descriptive to the historical. But then it is just the richness of association of the word " country," thus exposed, that is the main problem ; the problem of a mind as aware of the
druidical stone as of the butterfly settled on it.
This 'is 'the gist of the book : the author builds is house. in the country awit ".gliostly hostage-to security " in the ``' blind tides of our times." He is at pains to build in harmony with the surrounding scene, but not in any superficial mock-Tudor style, and to lay out a garden that shall, not violate the nature of the field out of which it is cut. So far so good. Now, had he been a gentleman of literary and rural tastes of 'a hundred years ago, all that remained would have been for him to sit down and enjoy the scene. But 1935 brings obstinate and other than .Wordsworthian questionings. It is impressed on him that -he is so. far without• inner sanction. As for " building " the house—an architect designed it and the builders built it ; it is their house—his only by the accident Of money. He observes the country 'builders at work, himself lays some bricks, tastes and touches the fringe of their prowess and labour, stands for a while with one foot. within the circle of their community. They go, their job done ; the house is his ; airy, well-plumbed, light—and silent. Similarly the making of his garden with Henry, a villager, to help, brings the •following reflection. :.. • _
" What I with my set purpose, my resources greater than his, my ponderings of what to do and how to do it that I might become reconciled with the spirit of the.place and turn to the reality of what gave me life and mind—what I can only haltingly do, Henry does in the act of being himself and because ho belongs." That is the crux of the matter; an the author's, eyes stray to the view from his window to the hills, his horizon, and the Icknield Way that travels them. He in thought travels the ancient road of our ancestors, and then in body too, journeying back in time to its earliest users and founders, the neolithic settlers on the hills.
Mr. Massingharn's quest along the, ancient way was for the root of culture uniting the utilitarian, sensuous, and mystical aspects of the land into one. . He found it among the men• who built the long barrows and worshipped in the circles of stone, men whose deity was an earth-goddess before their submerg- ence in the Celtic communities of the Iron Age, who changed the goddess to a war god. He traces our earliest culture to the influence of Crete and sees analogies between the Cretan- Achaean fusion giving birth to Greek culture, the Neolithic- Celtic fusion resulting in the English rural tradition, and (he dares to. hope) the devitalized rural community of today and the urban invader with his quickened impulse resulting in some new flowering true to the spirit of the land. If it is to come at all, it may come that way. At present, as the writer admits, the mass of the invaders bring only destruction ; they live urban lives, that is to say lives dependent on urban stimuli, and are as cut off as before.
So vt e return to the house that looks across to the hills : a symbol, perhaps, of a culture as unlike the old as itself is unlike the thatched cottage that Henry inhabits. A culture inevitably conscious, yet simple by extreme of sensibility and co-ordinated in vision—a distant Utopia,- indeed, on account of the complexities that have to be resolved and the depths to be stilled and clarified. Particular proposals are not the author's purpose, but it might be pertinent to consider what forms the pursuit of agriculture would take, how far the prowess and rhythm of man and implement would be maintained. The deep sense of rightness • necessary to hold the balance between machine and hand work need hardly be stressed. Must leisure 'that grew out of labour become divided and different from it ? It may be questioned too whether there will be sufficient survivors of the old order to leaven the lump, and whether under modern conditions of mass organization, they will differ sufficiently from the others to make the author's analogies with the past hold- good, a danger of which he is aware. And how or when the din of slogans, sales and news-blague shall cease to let the stunned populace hear itself begin to think.
It is no reflection on the author if one is led to discuss the problem that lie states more than his stating of the problem. To range from a new house to remotest antiquity in the space of little over three hundred pages is a tremendous task. How far. his conclusions as' to the origins of our, tradition are acceptable to the archaeologist, remains to be seen : the etil, tural implications obtain at all points , intuitive sanction. He has made ,a determined attempt to bring a labyrinthine problem down to its cardinal issues. If the reader complain that the, book is labyrinthine too, he may justly retort that if you are in a maze, there is no straight way ADRIAN BELL,
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