Books And Their Writers

Text extracted from opening pages of book: BOOKS AND THEIR WRITERS BY S. P. B. MAIS Author of From Shakespeare to 0. Henry 9' The secret which is also the reward of all learning lies in the passion for the search' 9 LONDON GRANT RICHARDS LTD. ST. MARTIN'S STREET 1920 TO MY WIFE CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE 9 PART I: NOVELISTS AND NOVELS I. INTRODUCTORY 13 II. COMPTON MACKENZIE 19 III. NORMAN DOUGLAS 27 IV. FRANK SWINNERTON 37 V. STEPHEN MCKENNA 45 VI. JANE AUSTEN 51 VII. CLEMENCE DANE 67 VIII. DOROTHY RICHARDSON 75 PART II: POETRY AND POETS I. INTRODUCTORY 89 II. J. c! SQUIRE 114 III. SIEGFRIED SASSOON 131 IV. ROBERT NICHOLS 188 V. DORA SIGERSON 146 VI. CHINESE POETRY 154 8 CONTENTS PART III: BOOKS IN GENERAL PAGE I. EMINENT VICTORIANS 167 II, TRIVIA' 192 III. Q AS CRITIC 200 IV. AUCE MEYNELL AS CRITIC 281 V. LAFCADIO HEARN 242 VI. SIR EDWARD COOK 277 VII. SET DOWN IN MALICE 800 VIII. THE HUMOUR OF SAKI 811 IX. WOMEN 881 PREFACE LET me make it quite clear at the outset: I have laid no claims to be thought a literary critic: the following papers are not studies in literature. While other men were more healthily and patriotically em ployed in digging up their allotments and gardens, for physical reasons I was forced to confine my self to the garden of my mind, by no means a fruitful soil: I have but little creative genius: abandoning this barren task I then began to dig in the gardens of other men's minds: this book is the result. All I have sought to do has been to convey some of the pleasure I have gained from desultory reading of all kinds during the last few years, to those who take the trouble to turn these pages: the art of criticism is not mine. I have not obtruded my own personalitymore than was abso lutely necessary. I have merely walked about pro lific vineyards and orchards and plucked a cluster of grapes here, a plum there, to entice you to share some of my golden pleasures. That I have missed some of the best will be obvious to any one who looks at the chapter-headings; that I have included much unripe and indigestible, or over-ripe and putrid fruit I beg leave to deny. There was so much that was very good that I could have filled another volume with ease. Some of these essays have already appeared in print. For permission to include them in this volume I wish to thank the editors of The Fortnightly Review and To-day. 9 PART I NOVELISTS AND NOVELS Oh, if s only a novel . . . only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineations of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are convtyed to the world in the best chosen language. INTRODUCTORY I HAVE lately read a book by W. L. George ( who appears to write with equal facility about everything) on the Modern Novel. I remember to have been astounded at his selection of authors: now that I, in my turn, find that I want to say some thing about the novel I can already hear the critic saying, What an amazing selection. It is quite impossible to make a class list. . It is like the competi tion of finding out which is the best of Keats' five Odes, or Shakespeare's greatest tragedy. 1 have no favourite author. The last time I dared to write generally of the modern author I was taken to task for omitting to mention Charles Marriott. It never struck my critic on that occasion, I suppose, that there are writerswho dare not talk about some things because the temptation to fill volume after volume would be so strong. There are moods when Marriott's are the only novels I can rely on to restore me to mental health: I know no man who can make the other sex live as he makes it live: do you remember the passage in Mrs Alemere's Elopement where Die* meets Evelyn again, loving her body, she loving him not at all: She must despise him for his self-restraint when she was under his protec tion ? It is a terribly merciless rending of the veil. I love Marriott for his epig