by Unknown
James A. Joyce
An Irish Poet
1902
These are the verses of a writer lately dead, whom many consider the Davis of the latest national movement. They are issued from headquarters, and are preceded by two introductions wherein there is much said concerning the working man, mutual improvement, the superior person, shady musical plays, etc. They are illustrative of the national temper, and because they are so the writers of the introductions do not hesitate to claim for them the highest honours. But this claim cannot be allowed, unless it is supported by certain evidences of literary sincerity. For a man who writes a book cannot be excused by his good intentions, or by his moral character; he enters into a region where there is question of the written word, and it is well that this should be borne in mind, now that the region of literature is assailed so fiercely by the enthusiast and the doctrinaire.
An examination of the poems and ballads of William Rooney does not warrant one in claiming for them any high honours. The theme is consistently national, so uncompromising, indeed, that the reader must lift an eyebrow and assure himself when he meets on page 114 the name of D’Arcy MacGee. But the treatment of the theme does not show the same admirable consistency. In ‘S. Patrick’s Day’ and in ‘Dromceat’’ one cannot but see an uninteresting imitation of Denis Florence M’Carthy and of Ferguson; even Mr. T. D. Sullivan and Mr. Rolleston have done something in the making of this book. But ‘Roilig na Riogh is utterly lacking in the high distinctive virtue of The Dead at Clonmacnoise, and Mr. Rolleston, who certainly is not driven along by any poetic impulse, has written a poem because the very failure of the poetic impulse pleases in an epitaph. So much can careful writing achieve, and there can be no doubt that little is achieved in these verses, because the writing is so careless, and is yet so studiously mean. For, if carelessness is carried very far, it is like to become a positive virtue, but an ordinary carelessness is nothing but a false and mean expression of a false and mean idea.
Mr. Rooney, indeed, is almost a master in that ‘style’, which is neither good nor bad. In the verses of Maedhbh he writes:
‘Mid the sheltering hills, by the spreading waters,
They laid her down and her cairn raised
The fiercest-hearted of Erin’s daughters —
The bravest nature that ever blazed.
Here the writer has not devised, he has merely accepted, mean expressions, and even where he has accepted a fine expression, he cannot justify his use of it. Mangan’s Homeric epithet of ‘wine- dark’ becomes in his paper a colourless and meaningless epithet, which may cover any or all of the colours of the spectrum. How differently did Mangan write when he wrote:
Knowest thou the castle that beetles over
The wine-dark sea’.
Here a colour rises in the mind and is set firmly against the golden glow in the lines that follow.
But one must not look for these things when patriotism has laid hold of the writer. He has no care then to create anything according to the art of literature, not the greatest of the arts, indeed, but at least an art with a definite tradition behind it, possessing definite forms. Instead we find in these pages a weary succession of verses, ‘prize’ poems — the worst of all. They were written, it seems, for papers and societies week after week, and they bear witness to some desperate and weary energy. But they have no spiritual and living energy, because they come from one in whom the spirit is in a manner dead, or at least in its own hell, a weary and foolish spirit, speaking of redemption and revenge, blaspheming against tyrants, and going forth, full of tears and curses, upon its infernal labours. Religion and all that is allied thereto can manifestly persuade men to great evil, and by writing these verses, even though they should, as the writers of the prefaces think, enkindle the young men of Ireland to hope and activity, Mr. Rooney has been persuaded to great evil.
And yet he might have written well if he had not suffered from one of those big words which make us so unhappy.There is no piece in the book which has even the first quality of beauty, the quality of integrity, the quality of being separate and whole, but there is one piece in the book which seems to have come out of a conscious personal life. It is a translation of some verses by Dr. Douglas Hyde, and is called ‘A Request’, and yet I cannot believe that it owes more than its subject to its original. It begins:
In that last dark hour when my bed I lie on,
My narrow bed of the deal board bare,
My kin and neighbours around me standing,
And Death’s broad wings on the thickening air.
It proceeds to gather desolation about itself, and does so in lines of living verse, as in the lines that follow. The third line is feeble, perhaps, but the fourth line is so astonishingly good that it cannot be overpraised:
When night shallfall and my day is over
And Death’s pale symbol shall chill my face,
When heart and hand thrill no more responsive,
Oh Lord and Saviour, regard my case!
And when it has gathered about itself all the imagery of desolation, it remembers the Divine temptation, and puts up its prayer to the Divine mercy. It seems to come out of a personal life which has begun to realize itself, but to which death and that realization have come together. And in this manner, with the gravity of one who remembers all the errors of his members and his sins of speech, it goes into silence.
George Meredith
1902
Mr. George Meredith has been included in the English men of letters series, where he may be seen in honourable nearness to Mr. Hall Caine and Mr. Pinero. An age which has too keen a scent for contemporary values will often judge amiss, and, therefore, one must not complain when a writer who is, even for those who do not admire him unreservedly, a true man of letters, comes by his own in such a strange fashion. Mr. Jerrold in the biographical part of his book has to record a more than usual enormity of public taste, and if his book had recorded only this, something good would have been done; for it is certain that the public taste should be reproved, while it is by no means certain that Mr. Meredith is a martyr.
Mr. Jerrold confesses his faith in novels and plays alike, and he will have it that ‘Modern Love’ is on the same plane with the ‘Vita Nuova’. No one can deny to Mr. Meredith an occasional power of direct compelling speech (in a picture of a famine he wrote ‘starving lords were wasp and moth’) but he is plainly lacking in that fluid quality, the lyrical impulse, which, it seems, has been often taken from the wise and given unto the foolish. And it is plain to all who believe in the tradition of literature that this quality cannot be replaced.
Mr. Meredith’s eager brain, which will not let him be a poet, has, however, helped him to write novels which are, perhaps, unique in our time. Mr. Jerrold subjects each novel to a superficial analysis, and by doing so he has, I think, seized a fallacy for his readers. For these novels have, for the most part, no value as epical art, and Mr. Meredith has not the instinct of the epical artist. But they have a distinct value as philosophical essays, and they reveal a philosopher at work with much cheerfulness upon a very stubborn problem. Any book about the philosopher is worth reading, unless we have given ourselves over deliberately to the excellent foppery of the world, and though Mr. Jerrold’s book is not remarkable, it is worth reading.
Today and Tomorrow in Ireland
1903
In this book, the latest addition to the already formidable mass of modern Anglo-Irish literature, Mr. Gwynn has collected ten essays from, various reviews and journals, essays differing widely in interest, but for all of which he would claim a unity of subject. All the essays deal directly or indirectly with Ireland, and they combine in formulating a distinct accusation of English civilization and English modes of thought. For Mr. Gwynn, too, is a convert to the prevailing national movement, and professes himself a Nationalist though his nationalism, as he says, has nothing irreconcilable about it. Give Ireland the status of Canada and Mr. Gwynn becomes an Imperialist at once. It i
s hard to say into what political party Mr. Gwynn should go, for he is too consistently Gaelic for the Parliamentarians, and too mild for the true patriots, who are beginning to speak a little vaguely about their friends the French.
Mr. Gwynn, however, is at least a member of that party which seeks to establish an Irish literature and Irish industries. The first essays in his book are literary criticisms, and it may be said at once that they are the least interesting. Some are mere records of events and some seem written to give English readers a general notion of what is meant by the Gaelic revival. Mr. Gwynn has evidently a sympathy with modern Irish writers, but his criticism of their work is in no way remarkable. In the opening essay he has somehow the air of discovering Mangan, and he transcribes with some astonishment a few verses from ‘O’Hussey’s Ode to the Maguire. Few as the verses are, they are enough to show the real value of the work of the modern writers, whom Mr. Gwynn regards as the voice of Celticism proper. Their work varies in merit, never rising (except in Mr. Yeats’s case) above a certain fluency and an occasional distinction, and often falling so low that it has a value only as documentary evidence. It is work which has an interest of the day, but collectively it has not a third part of the value of the work of a man like Mangan, that creature of lightning, who has been, and is, a stranger among the people he ennobled, but who may yet come by his own as one of the greatest romantic poets among those who use the lyrical form.
Mr. Gwynn, however, is more successful in those essays which are illustrative of the industrial work which has been set in movement at different points of Ireland. His account of the establishing of the fishing industry in the West of Ireland is extremely interesting, and so are his accounts of dairies, old-fashioned and new- fashioned, and of carpet-making. These essays are written in a practical manner, and though they are supplemented by many quotations of dates and figures, they are also full of anecdotes. Mr. Gwynn has evidently a sense of the humorous, and it is pleasing to find this in a revivalist. He tells how, fishing one day, it was his fortune to meet with an old peasant whose thoughts ran all upon the traditional tales of his country and on the histories of great families. Mr. Gwynn’s instinct as a fisherman got the better of his patriotism, and he confesses to a slight disappointment when, after a good catch on an unfavourable day, he earned no word of praise from the peasant, who said, following his own train of thought, ‘The Clancartys was great men, too. Is there any of them living?’ The volume, admirably bound and printed, is a credit to the Dublin firm to whose enterprise its publication is due.
A Suave Philosophy
1903
In this book one reads about a people whose life is ordered according to beliefs and sympathies which will seem strange to us. The writer has very properly begun his account of that life by a brief exposition of Buddhism, and he sets forth so much of its history as illustrates its main principles. He omits some incidents which are among the most beautiful of the Buddhist legend — the kindly devas strewing flowers under the horse, and the story of the meeting of Buddha and his wife. But he states at some length the philosophy (if that be the proper name for it) of Buddhism. The Burmese people seem naturally adapted to follow such a wise passive philosophy. Five things are the five supreme evils for them — fire, water, storms, robbers, and rulers. All things that are inimical to human peace are evil. Though Buddhism is essentially a philosophy built against the evils of existence, a philosophy which places its end in the annihilation of the personal life and the personal will, the Burmese people have known how to transform it into a rule of life at once simple and wise.
Our civilization, bequeathed to us by fierce adventurers, eaters of meat and hunters, is so full of hurry and combat, so busy about many things which perhaps are of no importance, that it cannot but see something feeble in a civilization which smiles as it refuses to make the battlefield the test of excellence. There is a Burmese saying—’The thoughts of his heart, these are the wealth of a man’, and Mr. Hall, who has lived in Burma for many years, draws a picture of Burmese life which shows that a happiness, founded upon peace of mind in all circumstances, has a high place in the Burmese table of values. And happiness abides among this people: the yellow-robed monks begging alms, the believers coming to tell their beads in the temple, tiny rafts drifting down the river on the night of some festival, each one bearing upon it a tiny lamp, a girl sitting at evening in the shadow of the eaves until the young men come ‘courting’ — all this is part of a suave philosophy which does not know that there is anything to justify tears and lamentations. The courtesies of life are not neglected; anger and rudeness of manners are condemned; the animals themselves are glad to be under masters who treat them as living beings worthy of pity and toleration.
Mr. Hall is one of the conquerors of this people, and as he does not think it a warrior people he cannot predict for it any great political future. But he knows that peace lies before it, and, perhaps in literature, or in some art, a national temper so serene and order-loving may achieve itself. He gives a version of the story of Ma Pa Da, which he calls ‘Death, the Deliverer’, and this story itself is so pitiful that one would wish to know more of the Burmese popular tales. He gives elsewhere a rendering in prose of a Burmese love-song, which has, as may be seen, kept some of its charm, though it has lost, no doubt, much of its music:
‘The moon wooed the lotus in the night, the lotus was wooed by the moon, and my sweetheart is their child. The flower opened in the night, and she came forth; the petals moved and she was born.
‘She is more beautiful than any flower; her face is as delicate as the dusk; her hair is as night falling over the hills; her skin is as bright as the diamond. She is very full of health, no sickness can come near her.
‘When the wind blows I am afraid, when the breezes move I fear. I fear lest the south wind take her, I tremble lest the breath of evening woo her from me — so light is she, so graceful.
‘Her dress is of gold, of silk and gold, and her bracelets are of fine gold. She has precious stones in her ears, but her eyes, what jewels can compare unto them?
‘She is proud, my mistress; she is very proud, and all men are afraid of her. She is so beautiful and so proud that all men fear her.
‘In the whole world there is none anywhere that can compare unto her’.
Mr. Hall has written a most pleasing book in an easy and temperate style, a book which is full of interesting manners and stories. One is glad to see that even in these days of novels, religious and sensational, this book has run to four editions.
An Effort at Precision in Thinking
1903
He must be a hardy man who contends that the disputants in this book are common people. They are, happily for the peace of human animals, very uncommon people. For common people will not argue for any considerable time as to whether succession of appearances is or is not anything more than the appearance of succession. But these uncommon people, whose colloquies are recorded here at somewhat distressing length by Mr. Anstie, argue about such subtleties with a precision which is more apparent than real. The speakers will seem more precise than they are, for at one time they dispute eagerly over certainty of thought, though certainty is not a habit of the mind at all, but a quality of propositions, and the speakers are really arguing about certitude, and more than once all the speakers are agreed that sense impressions mark the furthest limit of knowledge, and that ‘reasonable belief is an oxymoron — conclusions with which the man of the people, who is no philosopher, professes himself in loud accord. However, this book is an effort at precision in thinking, even if it does not always provoke that stimulated attention which one speaker calls a form of activity.
Colonial Verses
1903
These are colonial verses. The colonial Esau is asked on page 3 would he change his pottage for Jacob’s birthright — a question which evidently expects the answer, No. One piece is named ‘Is Canada Loyal?’ and Mr. Wolley proclaims that it is loyal. His verse is for the most part loyal,
and where it is not, it describes Canadian scenery. Mr. Wolley says that he is a barbarian; he does not want the ‘murmurous muddle’ of the choir; he wants a ‘clean- cut creed, ‘plain laws for plain men. There is a piece called ‘Tableau’, about a girl dreaming in a picture gallery. It begins: ‘I wonder if it’s really true that you are only paint.’
Catilina
1903
The French translators of this play have included in their preface some extracts from Ibsen’s preface to the Dresden edition of 1875, and these extracts tell somewhat humorously the history of Ibsen’s early years. The play was written in 1848, when Ibsen was twenty, a poor student working all day in a druggist’s shop, and studying during the night as best he could. Sallust and Cicero, it seems, awakened his interest in the character of Catiline, and he set to work to write a tragedy, in part historical, and in part political, a reflection of the Norway of his day. The play was politely refused by the directors of the Christiania Theatre and by all the publishers. One of Ibsen’s friends, however, published it at his own expense, fully convinced that the play would at once make the writer’s name famous in the world. A few copies were sold and, as Ibsen and his friend were in need of money, they were glad to sell the remainder to a pork-butcher. ‘For some days’, Ibsen writes, ‘we did not lack the necessaries of life.’ This is a sufficiently instructive history, and it is well to remember it when reading a play which Ibsen publishes simply that his work may be complete. For the writer of Catilina is not the Ibsen of the social dramas, but, as the French translators joyfully proclaim, an ardent romantic exulting in disturbance and escaping from all formal laws under cover of an abundant rhetoric. This will not appear so strange when it is remembered that the young Goethe was somewhat given to alchemical researches, and as, to quote Goethe himself, the form in which a man goes into the shadows is the form in which he moves among his posterity, posterity will probably forget Ibsen the romantic as completely as it forgets Goethe and his athanor.