Phoenix Shakes His Feathers

Phoenix. The Posthumous Papers of D. H. Lawrence. Edited and with an Introduction by Edward D. McDonald. (Heinemann. 21s.)

"OUR universe," wrote D. H. Lawrence some twenty years ago; in an article which nobody in England save a small

group of friends, including Middleton Murry, would print :

" Our universe is not much more than a mannerism with us now. If we break through we shall find that man is not man, as he seems to be, nor woman woman. The present seeming is a ridiculous

_ . _ travesty."

Later he foresaw the direction which some minds would take in a crumbling universe :

" When men are made in bottles

and emerge as squeaky globules with no bodies to speak of and therefore have nothing to feel with."

But this was not his own direction, and the 830 pages of Phoenix reveal steadily, if also unequally, how he subjected our mannerism and our travesty 'to the solVent of his genius.

These " posthumous papers "—externally of a kind which, even with the best authors, afford chiefly an academic. ntereat —play for us like a fountain. Critics who never tired of finding Lawrence vain, unbalanced, morbid or wrong, now draw our attention to his " shoots of everlastingness." The poet they refused, their one contemporary who called himself a phoenix (and was chased off every English roost for it), here shakes his feathers in their faces. Forced to admit him, they feel no call to excuse themselves. The company of archers who launched the shafts invite a canonised and clothed St. Sebastian to sup with them. But it is under- stood that it would be unmannerly fol• the guest to bare his chest. Nor is the phoenix credited with a beak, which remains the proper appendage of the' poit-moirteM 'Vulture.

True, no phoenix can expect consideration until it bas risen from its ashes. To prove itself it must first be well and truly roasted. When at length it rises, the correct procedure is to keep your eye on the points of the bird. To sprinkle ashes on one's own head, or to call for sackcloth for another's, would be to mar the general good humour. Yet, ears that remember the blame and the belittlement of the living, may be pardoned for finding something tuneless in praises of the dead, when the late paeans lack any ground

bass of remorse. - Lawrence would have liked the title of this volanle: One 'wishes that he could have chosen a sub-title. He was_-not

given to satire, however. " Never yield before the barren " was one of his articles of conduct, and satire was a yielding because a waste of life. His way, as Max Plow-den said at his death, was " to dare to be defenceless." Look !

hare come Through ! he called one of his books. He would probably have contented himself by adding to Phoenix, " Lo! Here Am I ! " It would be enough. Those who wish to find Lawrence can find him here.

To one long familiar with by far the greater part of what now finds itself within the covers of a book and, in large pro- portion, in print for the first time, the most absorbing pages are provided by the appendix in which Mr. McDonald, Lawrence's bibliographer, sets down all he knows of dates, non-publications and the places of publication of each item. It is worth noting that it was left to an American to do these things, and they are well done.

Out of the 93 items, 25—including the longest of all save for an excerpt, and the -whole of the next longest—are offered to the public for the 'first time. -These two, Study of Thomas hardy and Education of the People, both arose out of commissions that failed to please. The first was to have been a short book for a series of biographical sketches issued by Messrs. Nisbet. It turned out as a fall-length book - having Hardy merely as its text. How a work of this size lay forgotten " in Mr. Murry's keeping from 1914 until 1923, and 'how One chapter of it came to be published at thi. later date, in two places, as " part of an unfinished study," Mr. McDonald is at a loss to say. • Education of the People, rejected in its original essay form, was later rejected also by the publisher who had asked•for it in expanded book fOrtn. Of the 70 that remain, some 16 found print in America only; -and- six more appeated in both countries, America usually leading. Subtract a few first drafts which, pre- sumably, the author laid aside, and we find the names of our leading editors and publishers scarcely represented. For these stories, reviews, reflective and descriptive articles, so far as his own country is concerned, Lawrence had to depend ahnost entirely upon the =remunerative enterprise of obscure

admirers. - .

Some of the items are faulty. Some have a bright slanginess that is =pleasing. A few show themselves as having been difficult to handle. Not one is without what Lawrence called " the special gleam of poetry."

The story, Adolf, which appears second, has been praised without a dissentient voice. Here, we are told, is not merely Lawrence at his best, but attaining a singular eminence in our literature. Yet Adolf was written in what the Times Literary Supplement recalls as • its author's " unhappy period"—that is, when, unable to sell anything in England, he allowed himself to remark in a letter : •• Really, I need a little reassuring of sonic sort." And it was submitted in the justifiable hope of pleasing, without betrayal on the one hand or offence on the other. In this Adolf succeeds. Nevertheless it sought publication in

England in vain. - -

We may rejoice that England gives so handsome a post- humous welcome to Phoenix. - We cannot wonder that the living author of Adolf heartily. cursed. England.

'CATHERINE CARSWELL.