THE TRAVAIL OF A SOUL
the Journals of Thomas James Cobden-Sanderson, 1879.7 1922. (Cobden-Sanderson. 2 vols. £4 4s. net.) JANE Ausmx, in Persuasion, speaks of autumn as " that season of peculiar and inexhaustible influence on the mind- of taste and tenderness," and, however unusual a piece of feeling this may be in Miss Austen (so different from the tailor- cut conventions of her general style), the sentiment is one that would have found an echo in Cobden-Sanderson's heart.' " Lovelier than all the birds in spring " (he notes) " is the sole singing redbreast in autumn." The chance reflection seems- to furnish a key to much of his thought, as it is revealed in these almost morbidly introspective Journals. Throughout them all is shot a blaze of colour accompanied by a just pride in artistry (and is_ not his fame there imperishably sealed in the incomparable products of his Doves Bindery and Doves Press ?}, but 'equally across them all there runs a vein of autumnal despondency, a sense perhaps of baffled endeavour, it may be a sense of decay and defeat. Idealist and artist in every fibre of his being, he held high endeavour always before' his eye : " I have always the same customer : posterity. And always the same standard : perfection." And again : " My binding I wish indeed to be beautiful, but I still- more wish it to be a sign and symbol of good social work, and of the spirit in which all work should be done." Needless to say he was a Socialist, of that notable early regiment which counted Morris and Walter Crane among its ranks, and he had vague notions " of teaching _geniuses to be Socialists and bookbinders."
But transcending art and the love of letters which appears • on every page of his Journals, and far above social reform, was the private striving of his soul towards Truth. " I would , rather, being what I am, be uncertain, unconvinced, asking with Pilate what is truth, than be of the multitude who know." Finding the ultimate truth nowhere he falls back, but with a difference, on the age-long cry of despair : " Vanity to make schemes for the reformation and reorganization of mankind, it is vanity to aspire to a vision of the universe. . . . All is vanity except to love God, and Him only to serve."
Primarily this book is a record of religious experience—true religious experience not necessarily conditioned by the cramping tenets of dogma. The Journals are not reminis- cences : " I have no reminiscences. I could only set down my forward-looking and thoughts in the order of their growth, and amid the circumstances thro' and over which they made their way." But while the spiritual stiles along the field- paths of life were being crossed, many interesting passers-by were met : John Bright, George Eliot, William Morris, Yeats, " a beautiful pale poet, with black hair and brows and eyes, and an open expectant mouth " ; and Anatole France, looking like " an affectionate old fox." But with such as these and with the current of the great world generally the book has small commerce. The prevailing colour-note is one of grey and sad introspection—" all things beautiful are with sadness woven-in "—of a lonely, struggling soul that was ever trying to lift itself painfully towards the Unknown.
Previous page
