SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[Irolies in this column does not nu-rms.-ill/ preclude subsequent mow) The Eton Candle. Vol. L Edited by Brian Howard. (Savile Press, Eton. 2s. 6d.)—We feel unaccountably antique. What ages can have passed since we felt the passionate conviction that the one true artistic religion has been revealed to us ! Youth does not, as the middle-aged generally suppose, demand freedom, but a faith. Uaually it is given neither, but contents itself well enough with a faahion. Not that we think fashion, the mode of the moment, something to be despised, for we are too frequently at its mercy to do so. As Rimbaud said, of whom there is naturally mention in this volume, " 11 faut etre absolument modeme." But the energy and enthusiasm with which we weave chains for our later progress is continually amazing. The process is world-old and- proceeds from a constant misapplication of aesthetic principles, which being deduced from work of the past, function only backwards, so that any attempt to impose them on the actually creating writers leads sooner or later to revolt. We should not be surprised to find, if the Eton Candle burns for
twenty years, as we hope it will, an, editorial on the neglected beauties of the Lake Poeta having the same passionate one-sided- ness as Mr. Brian Howard's present oourageous justification of the modem poetical manner. But if we do not accept the whole that is offered us in this extraordinary half-orown's- worth (which includes ten moat interesting reproductions of paintings by past and present Etonians), we certainly value it for the dissemination of some of those fresh sensations a constant stream of which is essential to the understanding and to the maintenance of a living poetry.
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