Fiction
In Three Continents
IT is a tribute to the blind and tentative genius of D. H. Lawrence that one is stirred by the advent of each new book of his into a certain expectation of some final illumination and clear choral chant. For it has been evident for years now to those who have steadily endured his obsessions (difficult enough to endure, occasionally) that, through the deceptive and furious embraces of passion, he was quivering towards some divinity ; and that, if he seemed lost in the fragrant darkness among mysterious pillars of stone, he might yet open his eyes among the asphodel of dawn and salute the Unknown God. In " The Woman Who Rode Away," chief among these ten stories, he remains amongthe ancient lords and their human sacrifices. Still it is a question of sun-worship, and of Mexico, that carven fierce country where the symbols and the images have an exciting affinity with his sympathies. Mr. Lawrence, few will deny, is held by a neurosis that half helps, half hinders him as an artist. His personality is unquiet and feminine ; hence he often degenerates into hysteric vio- lence, hence he is so inimical to women, especially imaginative women, too like, and yet too unlike, to partake with him the composure of their dream. But the name story of this book is that of a woman who feels compelled to ride from- her safe adobe, over the green and pinkish ranges, to see the houses and the gods of the Chilchui Indians. She is gravely received, isolated like a queen, and slowly realizes that she is the " white woman " whose sacrifice as a solstice victim must fulfil a prophecy. The extraordinary intensity of her experience, as, through some translucent hypnosis, with all its hyper- aesthesia of sound and vision, through the drums, the totem dances of bird and fox, the soothing perfumed solicitudes of her sacred body, she slowly acquiesces in her own doom, could not be more intimately communicated. The reader passes into the trance of the victim. Yet even here, in his exultation over the " dark maleness " of the Indians, the author shows a certain resentment towards the woman who outwits and out- dreams him. " Glad Ghosts" is a fantasy, unusually tender and reticent. The " I " of the story moves sensitively, unsel- fishly. Lord Lathbury rises into the rapture of a poet over the " Spring Ghost." " For She rises with silence like a crocus at the feet, and violets in the hollows of the heart come out." " Sun " has a golden Correggio picture of a modern Venus and Amor, the naked mother beside a cypress and the gracious patio piling lemons near by. If the music of silence had not been rent by a strident note, it would have been a Giorgione. The other stories have each some loveliness, though oddly flawed by mere errors of taste. It is a valuable collection. The long short-story suits Mr. Lawrence. He can hold the note, keep his concentrated grip just so long. The space is exact to the shape of his inevitable pattern, the dark soft wave that grows languidly to its crest and glimmers away in ineffable foam. He achieved this effect before, in The Ladybird volume ; then became incoherent again. So one cannot predict what will come next. Meanwhile this book contains great beauty. Mr. Lawrence is present here as a master of impressionists and a compelling visionary.
Storm Jameson's Farewell to Youth is attuned to the tender pathos of its title. Her technique is subtle in this novel ; you feel the drift of the river, of time, mark the agitated pulses of old and young, observe- the delicate modelling of the face, feel the contact_, as- with soft moths, with the agry..1).1tiadeo
of the spirit. ' Saints Rew is a delectable old house in Sussex, filled with precious things, such a dreaming house in its lime- scented darkness or its sun-steeped silence, that it takes your heart, almost as it stole its owner's, so that it became like a drowsy paramour, jewelled with rarities bought with the necessities of wife and child. Yet the accomplished old diplomatist who loved " the perfect house and the naked truth," is a lovable creature. So is his wife, dear shabby little lady, who swears softly like her boy when matters go amiss. So is Fanny, the amusing invalid. And so is Ann, desperate, sweet, quixotic creature. As for Nat, he is en- trancing, a slim, proud, pure Romeo, breaking the honey- suckle branch of his first love, " all virgin lamps of scent and dew," to give to the heartless Denny. There are vigorous scenes of the War which breaks Nat's nerves, though it does not kill. Ann takes him into her flawless heart : the tragedy is that his once flawless heart will never mend again into first love. It is a rich book with a haunting perfume, as if all the roses of those lamented and most golden Edwardian summers had been crushed within it. Miss Jameson is potent enough to make her readers grieve with Ann that her first-born cannot grow up in Saints Rew ; but she properly does not pamper that furtive quasi-sentimeniality.
Account Rendered and King's Mate are stories drowned, as one would expect, in the hard brilliance of North African sun. The first opens at cocktail hour in Deauville, when a spendthrift beauty in a primrose cloak walks out of the sunset. John Derwood, disadvised by all, must wed her. " I love you, my wonderwoman, I adore you," he says. Rather Elinor Glynish ! But the manganese mines of Bou Kela-a, whither Martin Vereker repairs under suspicion of a murder he thought she had committed, are described with much verve. In King's Mate a girl called Rosemary wanders into the camp of the Laid, the right-hand of Ibn Rashid. He is a strong man, so— The situations are a little stereotyped : the glimpses of the Riff are amusing as well as picturesque.
Previous page
