SHORTER NOTICES
Here and Now," No. s. An Anthology Edited by Peter Albery and Sylvia Read. (Falcon Press. 7s. 6d.) " IT is," write the editors of this miscellany, " our endeavour to light the minds of our readers with something of [the] inner radiance of Life ; above all, to give pride of place to the Spirit of Man."
Even allowing for such suspicion as these brave but hoary capitals evoke, the intention appears worthy. Fulfilment is another matter.
Poems of a somewhat banal order, sketches a little damp and sentimental—was it perhaps not rather unwise to sound such a fan- fare for so small-scale an entrance ? Minor art has its just and proper role ; but trumpets can only diminish its stature. An honourable exception must be made to this censure in favour of an essay by Olaf Stapledon, entitled The Meaning of Spirit. Influenced by Logical Positivism, he attempts to effect a compromise between humanists and religious believers concerning the existence and nature of deity. This he proposes to establish by thinking of God in terms of experience rather than in the image of a person. Spirit, he argues, is aspiration, the magnetic pull of ideal behaviour ; and not some rare metaphysical substance, strangely antithetical to body. If Mr. Stapledon is the sage of this particular symposium, one cannot help but commiserate with him over some of his fellow- contributors. There are, none the less, brighter performances by Mr. Day Lewis, who contributes a poem, and Messrs. Clive Sansom and Norman Nicholson, who each enliven the grey with their stories.
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