Essays and Essayists::
4 Events and Embroideries. By E. V.. Lucas. (Methuen. The Return to the cabbage.. By Gerald Gould. (Methuen. These Diversions : Talking. By J. B. Priestley. (Jarrold. These Diversions : Reading. By-Hugh Walpole'. (Jarrold. MIL GERALD GOULD defends hinthelf and his fellows as Mr. Woolf, who complains that modern essayists write much and his defence ts sound.: The-good Difiliard OS° alWays playing : that is a condition of his being good!! matter what his genius. But it is reasonable to observe IT mans iiiirderil hOoks Of essay's Suffer Because the 'elSayist he says) " cuts his interest aceording to column." The son° is a good form; but it would be a dull world if poets WI*. nothing but sonnet's. The essayist has his trade to coos'1:16' but he need not always write for the same 'kind Of period], One or-two papers from a magazine (if there 'must he lgif publication,' fOrhoginegs reasons) should diirersifYihe st .
of shorter things.- Mr. Could's volume- needithis vary' though his knack of neat quotation redeems much. Mr. Lucas, most experienced and accomplished of all in this class, varica his menu of reprints a good deal more. Mr. Priestley and Mr. Walpole are in a different category, because their essays are planned without regard for the necessities of a periodical ; and for that reason they have a better chance to Please. Un- luckily Mr. Walpole's book is merely a piece of autobiography, which only at times remembers that it set out to be an essay on reading. We are given at length the story of his childish delights, or what he considered such : " There was a gentle- man called Markin Crawford (is he now altogether forgotten ? I trust not) "—Very kind of Mr. Walpole, but if he could with a dispassionate mind read, say, A Cigarette Maker's Romance, his anxiety might be removed. Mr. Priestley now, who writes on " Talking," is a born essayist, but perhaps not fully matured. He will never be a writer who can (like Mr. Lucas) give the stamp of style to sentences any one of which might apparently have been spoken by any casual person : but it is probable that as his books multiply they will recall Stevenson's manner less. Meanwhile, one notes and likes his saying that the thing " necessary when there is to be real talk " is " a feeling of warm companionship." - - But in no possible conversation could Mr. Priestley talk he writes, for instance :- " We belong to the talkers. Opposed to us, throughout the length of the world and in all-ages, is that other division ci the company of the silent, in whose hearts; though they may cha all day long, is barbaric silence,•the dumb spell of the desert and jungle. Behind them they have the proverb makers and on banners. that oat above their soundless ranks is inscribed' Site is golden.' "
Very good writing. But now observe Mr. Lucas coil. • versing
" Whether the search for mushrooms on other people's prope is illegal or not matters nothing to a certain Essex squire, almost tke last of the great characters, for he takes the law into, his own handy I was talking with his son not long since, and he said, What you think I found the Governor doing from his bedroom window t morning. Shooting at people who come after the mushrooms.'
" ` Shooting,' I exclaimed, all my tame conventional bleed amused. _ " ‘. Yes, shooting,' he repeated : only dust shot of course, bd .
enough to frighten them. The GoVernor wants the mushrooms is himself.' And thinking it over I am, against all my Socialisti sympathies, disposed to agree with him. If ever there is justifies for a whiff of dust shot—yes or even grape—it is in defence of in rooms."
Previous page
