MUSINGS WITHOUT METHOD.*
THE word " musings " has a suggestion of a quiet peaceful. ness of which there is nothing to be seen in the attitude of "Annalist." Nor is he without a "method," if it is a method to hit out straight, so to speak, from the shoulder, to use no circumlocutions, to scorn reticence, to spare nothing and no one. It is not against the occupants of Highgate and Kensal • Musings without Mstha : a Record of 1900-1901. By Annalist. London* W. Blackwood and Boas. [711. GC) -
Green, if these may be taken to correspond to the Via Flaminia and the Via Latina of the Roman satirist, that he rages. The statesman, the man of letter, the diarist, the actor, of to-day are called up for judgment—every man by the name that stands in Who's Who—and beaten with few stripes or many, many rather than few. Even the well-known aphorism is neglected by this Rhadamanthus,—whole nations are indicted and condemned. Is there any Gallophobe among our readers P He may take his pleasure to the full in what would be chap. 2 in most books, but is here entitled "March, 1900." (" Annalist " mused—the joke of using such a word for these sharp cries of indignation and scorn is almost too good to he let go—in a Northern magazine.) Never was there a fiercer invective against certain French characteristics But for the fact that very few Frenchmen indeed ever dream of reading what is written outside France, we might have ex- pected to hear the "slogan cry," or whatever its French equivalent, may be, "peal through high Dunedin's streets."
It must not be supposed that we have not greatly enjoyed the reading of this volume, or have any wish to dissuade our readers from sharing that pleasure. "Annalist" always writee vigorously,. and often says the right thing in a very effective way. There are certain literary affectations, for
instance, on which he expresses himself with a quite invigorating plainness of speech. There is a certain club, which we need not name, that comes in for more than one touch of his whip. "Described as a modest coterie which never advertises,' its dinners are always the signal for a public outburst of enthusiasm."
Its members "sit with vine-leaves or some other vegetable encircling their scanty locks." " Scanty " is good, a gross injustice,, of course, for consummate virtue may go with baldness, but it is an injustice winch we condone, and even admire. "It would all be very dull," " Annalist " very truly says, but for the use of the name which these hierophants profess to honour but really degrade. All this passion for personalities, this art of interviewing, these fulsome bio- graphies of the living, are symptoms of a greatly prevailing disease, and deserve all the severity with which our author treats them. These people "have sought to make common what should have been rare, to niak.e popular what should have remained exclusive and aloof ; and, so doing, they have played their part in the tragedy of publicity which is daily enacted beneath our eyes. Time was when .a better law prevailed—when a man was appreciated by what he did, not by what somebody else could find out about him; and it is another symptom of the prevailing Anarchy that a lettered club can so blindly overlook the claims of proportion as to believe that paltry garlands, publicly worn, are a fitting tribute to the memory of a dignified recluse."
The diaiist, who is so much in evidence nowadays, is treated with no less severity. But we cannot help thinking that the writer whom he singles out for chastisement is some- what harshly handled. It is true that there are not a few tliings transcribed from his diaries which would have been better left there; but it is more than possible that the error of including them lwas almost mechanical. So many pages were handed over to the copyist, and a hasty revision failed to retrench them. What is certain is that there are many good stories and many shrewd observations of character. Politicians must be allowed the privilege proverbially conceded to poets of an occasional nod; and it is but the barest justice that a man who has filled high places with distinction, whose oecasional utterances on international politics have always been listened to with admiration by all persons competent to juage, must be treated with respect. The satirist himself does not always escape the peril of being tedious and trivial.
The war correspondent, also, does not, we think, deserve the unsparing reprobation with which " Annalist " visits him. The South African War produced, it must be owned, some very unhappy specimens of the class. What regulations it may be found expedient and possible to enforce this is not the place to discuss; .but that the war correspondent has come to stay, that he may be of great service to the nation and to the ..d.rmy, we fully believe. Often, it is true, he takes a great deal too much upon himself, and pronounces judgments on questions which he is incompetent to decide. But most of tui do that. And an to military matters, the stay-at-home critic -has-always been moat positive. Might not the -corre-
Spondent, who has at least smelt powder and seen the flash of - -
the bayonet and the sabre, turn, with some show of justice, on the critic who condemns him
But these are questions which burn with an inconvenient heat, and we may leave them and follow our author into cooler regions. Possibly he never says anything which will not contradict the convictions or prejudices of some one; but he often expresses with force the belief of moat sensible persons. Here is an amusing invective against the passion for speed :—
" The amateur starts out from London, which he has no desire to leave, and dines at York, which he has no reason to visit, that he may not fall below the new standard. And the journals, which are only too sure an index of popular feeling, prophesy the down- fall of England, because the French packet went from Calais to Dover in one minute less time than our packet took to cross from Dover to Calais. And the world is racing, racing on all sides and in all vehicles. The express trains race to Scotland; the 'buses and trains race in the public street. That the mob may be hurled with a greater vehemence from one place to another, the ingenuity of America is -permitted to riddle the subsoil of London with burrows called tubes, wherein adventurers run about like rabbits in a sautThill Nor is speed of transit the only speed sanctified by popular enthusiasm. Whatever is made must be made against time, and if it would completely suit the prevailing taste it must wear out as quickly as it has been made. Not long since the reproach was thrown in the teeth of the English that they built their bridges for eternity. Did one ever hear so reckless a waste of time and trouble? Why, the American will build you a bridge in a week, warranted not to last, a bridge which will be comfort- ably worn out before a new trick of architecture sends it out of date."
And "Annalist" is capable of writing in a very different style. His description, for instance, of the first part of Queen Victoria's funeral, the transport of the body from Osborne to the mainland, is very fine. We may quote the concluding passage, in which there is a singularly felicitous interpre- tation. of one of the features of the pageant :—
" The mournful mysterious music was heard again, and the Alberta passed solemnly by, a dark immovable figure, as of bronze, in her bows, and on board the precious burden of the dead Queen. So small a boat it seemed to carry so large a destiny, and it was this contrast between the tiny Alberta and the larger ships that followed that gave colour to the universal emotion. And when the mighty Hohenzollern came last, you recognised that the sentiment of grandeur may not be measured by bulk, that only the greatest ones of the earth might pass away into the tomb with so superb a humility. The ship steamed back to Southampton, the darkness of London engulfed you, but you were left with an imperishable memory. You had witnessed a beautiful act of homage, marred by no thought of vanity or self. The kings who witnessed it with you were indistinguishable as the iron plates of the warships. Only the dead Queen was visible to thought or sight. No chatter disturbed the unseen harmony of a6rial music ; no touch of colour disturbed the concord of black and grey and silver."
We have found ourselves differing from "Annalist" on many matters. We think that he is sometimes wrong—to say that the critic who thinks ill of Chesterfield's morality cannot have read the Letters is preposterous—and that when he is right he often expresses himself with unnecessary violence. But he has great merits, and these not only literary. Above all, he is a patriot. He may say hard things about the follies of his
countrymen, but he never despairs of the Republic.
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