Assorted Visions
Essex. By Phoebe Fenwick Gaye. Shropshire. By Maisie Herring. Somerset. By Sylvia Townsend Warner. South Wales. By Tom Richards. (Vision of England and Vision of Wales Series. Paul Elek. 15s. each).
TOPOGRAPHICAL writing of one sort and another has long been a favourite occupation in these islands. Back in 1881, John P. Anderson, compiling his still invaluable Book of British Topography, found that the British Museum contained nearly 14,000 works for him to list. I do not know what the total may be today, but assuredly the last three or four years have been responsible for much more than their fair share of. it. Vision of England, Face or Britain, Murray's Architectural Guides, County Books, Companions_into this that and every other place—the titles pile up at a rate which nilijt be a p-trpetual astonishment to contemporary Andersons. And not a few of these topographical books, the " Visions " among Om, are of a sort that had not been invented in the time of the original Anderson—are what in the present case the publisher's describe as " books which are intimate and personal in style rather than formally descriptive." "Hannah More is buried here,.md so is a teddy-bear, which I found igterred, with trust and 15iiTS7, if not altogether efficiently, in a no of a north wall buttress." Can you take it ? If you can, you will be quite able to take the reikof Nijss Townsend Water's essay on Somerset. Indeed, it is j fhaps an exercise of reviewer's licence to single oul that particular sentence ; for every now and again Miss Townsen War= oe let us a ' 4core a wine ,r— as as wlieg, for exampl , shex of. the,s2v e tury legern in Wells Cathedralbeing .!!:f of thOtiaje . ss of English Baroque." (" A maqer of ni'aMtlp, I Iliftilc," dads ; one can see the same cqmbiittitit of mildness and ma sti in a English-made boot.") From a li.tpiary point of ArieW.; Miss_Townrid Warner's is by far the most accomplished of these four books: she scores more winners than the other three authors together. Miss Herring cannot always bring them off—Thomas Telford's church at Bridgnorth is for her "something between Lady So-and-So's Folly and St. Cha&S, Shrewsbury," whiph will not really do—and Miss Gaye is apt to spoil hers bexpilping too much. As for Mr. Tom Richards, he ha y i o them. I:ty ale test of winsomeness his book is a ,fotir ; ails! siit I would certainly re- read it if I were going to -South Wales whereas I cannot see myself re-reading either Miss Herring or Miss Galre bet re visiting their respective counties. Why skquld this be ? Ai bottom, I think, it is because Mr. Richards has the advantage of writing about what for the English is practically a foreign country, so that he can afford to let facts speak for themselves instead of being under the necessity of underlining every slightest regional peculiarity.
They belong to a difficult genre, these " personal books on the ro English scene." The chief trouble about it is that, human sensibility being limited, not even the most perceptive of authors can have a first-hand and communicable reaction to everything ; there comes a time when, willy-nilly, he must write about things from the outside, so to speak, and to do that in a way that will be useful to his readers he must have both extra-personal standards and also, I fear, a modicum of specialised knowledge. Without the first he will find too many teddy-ir usjinvlie bu tr ; w4put the second he will stand little chalice of sangffing a p bi which is becoming increas- ingly well-informed about its surroundings. Topography never was an occupation to be taken up lightly. MARCUS WHIFFEN.
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