A SENSE OF HUMOUR.*
SOMETHING should be done about Mr. Canaan. He has discovered that " the number of thinking men and women in
the whole world is so small that they would hardly populate a
moderate-sized village." He has discovered that even in such a village he would be almost the only man with a sense
of humour. He has discovered that the English are " the world's best joke." His attitude to his critics is that of a more sophisticated Miss Marie Corelli. They are blind and smug.
They detest him because he tells the truth. He refuses to be popular ; and this though his later books have met with far greater success than they deserve.
The Stucco House, which once had an ominous air about it, is now a mere target for misaimed shots. Even in his commen- dations Mr. Cannan has become paltry. " The dreams that live and love, in words penetrating and flooding life with beauty " ; " There was a certain tune that went on inside people, not unlike the tune that came up into the sycamore
tree from the beck "—a writer who once had a conscience (and this, he tells us, means a sense of humour) to fob us off
with such poeticisms Mr. Canaan should be psycho-analysed, not for instruction but for cure. His case is ordinary enough. He has fallen a victim to the most distressing and worthless conflict a creative artist can have—the conflict between self-hatred and self-esteem. It shows, literally and sym- bolically, in almost every page of his new novel. It would be well for him to remember that, when a man is angered by anything, his anger is, in fact, directed at the symbol of some disagreeable trait in himself.
It is worth while to criticize Mr. Cannan severely. He has already done excellent work—Sembal, for example—and it
is deplorable to see him turn Timon. At the worst, Annette and Bennett is better than Pink Roses. If he could write only for the approbation of his model village he would be more in harmony with himself. And he might find it a good-sized town.
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