THE LONDON
MERCURY
Edited by J. C. Squire
Volume I
1919 November to April 1920
[Illustration]
London The Field Press Ltd
PRINTED AT
THE FIELD PRESS
WINDSOR HOUSE
BREAM'S BUILDINGS
LONDON E·C4
INDEX TO VOLUME I
M·CM·XIX NOVEMBER APRIL M·CM·XX
REGULAR ARTICLES
page
AMERICA, A Letter from 232
Bibliographical Notes 73, 194, 325, 458, 581, 718
BIBLIOGRAPHIES OF MODERN AUTHORS:
Beerbohm, Max 626
Belloc, Hilaire 366
Bridges, Robert Seymour 753
Brooke, Rupert 123
Chesterton, G. K. 496
Clutton-Brock, Arthur 366
Davies, W. H. 122
De La Mare, Walter 122
Flecker, James Elroy 239
Freeman, John 497
Hardy, Thomas 122
Hewlett, Maurice 625
Meynell, Alice 754
Saintsbury, George 238
Book Production Notes 231, 359, 495, 621, 752
Books of the Month 78, 201, 332, 468, 593, 727
Correspondence 77, 198, 329, 462, 585, 721
DRAMA, The:
Calvinists of the Drama, The 112
_Candida_ 755
Children's Plays 498
Demand and Supply 501
_Duchess of Malfi, The_ 368
_Grierson's Way_ 755
Intellectual Drama, The 241
_John Ferguson_ 755
_Living Corpse, A_ 111
_Marriage à la Mode_ 627
Materialism and Poetry 242
_Medea_ 755
Miniature Ballet 755
Pantomime, The Change in the 499
Poetic Drama, The 240
_Pygmalion_ 755
Theatre, The Influence of the Existing 113
_Three Sisters, The_ 755
_Young Visiters, The_ 755
EDITORIAL NOTES:
American Copyright 131, 389
Art, Ugliness, and Incomprehensibility 385
Auction Room Knock-Out, The 516
Literature of 1919, The, and the
Prospects of Literature 257
Ministry of Fine Arts, A 513
National Theatre, The 641
Objects of the LONDON MERCURY 1, 129
FINE ARTS, The:
Black Country, The 634
Comic Drawing, British 373
Epstein, Recent Sculpture by
Jacob 633
Fine Arts, The 116
Goupil Gallery Salon 375
Grant, Paintings by Duncan 634
Group-making and Group-breaking 245
London Group, The 247
Matisse, M. Henri 374
Meaning of Impressionism, The 759
National Gallery, The 632
Nevinson's Exhibition, Mr. 246
New English Art Club, The 504
Renoir, Auguste 759
War Pictures at Burlington House 503
FRANCE, A LETTER FROM:
The Present State of the French Novel 105
The French Poetry of To-day 360
The Young Reviews 622
Learned Societies, etc. 108, 235, 363, 465, 590, 724
LITERARY INTELLIGENCE:
Andreef, Leonid, Death of 136
Bullen, A. H., Death of 647
Burne-Jones, Lady, Death of 520
Chesterton, G. K. 263
Cummings, Bruce, Death of 135
Dehmel, Dr. Richard, Death of 519
_Dial, The_ 392
Dobson, Austin, Eightieth Birthday of 391
Flecker, James Elroy 263
Gosse, Edmund, Seventieth Birthday of 136
Hardy, Thomas, Presentation to 135
New Edition of his Works 263
James, Henry, Letters of 263
Micro-organisms in Paper 264
Osler, Sir William, Death of 391
Smith, G. D., Death of 648
Thomas, Edward, Memorial to 519
MUSIC:
Audience, The Function of the 764
Beecham Opera, The 248
Concerts 377
Covent Garden 376
Naturalisation of Opera in England, The 763
Promenade Concerts, The 119
Purcell and His Orchestra 637
Purcell and Shakespeare 635
Resurrection of an Opera, The 635
Rubinstein's Recital, Mr. Arthur 506
Scriabin Recital, A 508
Spanish Music, Modern 507
Surrey's Opportunity, The 764
Publications, Select List of 124, 251, 379, 509, 638, 766
OCCASIONAL CONTRIBUTIONS IN PROSE
ARCHITECTURE as Form in Civilisation 574
Autographs, A Collection of 320
Barbellion, W. N. P. 543
Blake as a Prophet, On 283
Blind Thamyris 403
Bridges' Lyrical Poems, Robert 708
Butler, Samuel 164
Classic of the Future, A Little (Somerville and Ross) 555
Crane, Stephen: A Note without Dates 192
Creatures, The 275
Crystal Vase, The 176
Donne, John 435
Eighteenth-Century Poetry 155
Eliot, George 34
English, The Teaching of 62
Foreshore of London, The 663
Future Poet and Our Time, The 44
James, Henry--I 673
Jonson, Ben 184
Mackenzie, The Novels of Mr. Compton 448
Misadventures 149
Music, On Interpretation in 694
Particles, An Article on 71
Photography and Art 301
Prose and Mortality 312
Prose, On 671
Psycho-Analysis and the Novel 426
Records, A Case for 685
Rhyme, The Romance of 416
Satirists, Forgotten 565
Servants, On 533
Shelley and His Publishers 291
Smile of the Sphinx, The 16
Walpole, Horace 52
POEMS
Almswomen 525
Beechwood 656
Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, Bryan! 396
Buzzards, The 138
Coming of Green, The 523
Country Mood, A 272
Draft for "A First and Last Song" 271
Early Chronology 11
Evening Sky in March, The 12
_Fortunatus Nimium_ 393
Gallipoli, Lines Written in 267
Glimpse from the Train, A 265
Going and Staying 7
Hippolytus, The Modern 524
House That Was, The 14
Inglis, Elsie 531
Intimacy 527
Ishak's Song 137
It's Not Going to Happen Again 7
Love's Caution 13
Moon, The 139
Nature's Fruitfulness 524
Night Rapture 529
_Nobis cum Pereant_ 655
November 268
Rock Pool, The 12
Scirocco 273
Search for the Nightingale, The 8
Senses, The 521
Shadow, The 394
Shobeensho 662
"Skindle's" in Poperinghe 649
Soldier Addresses His Body, The 527
Sorrowing for Childhood Departed 532
Storm and Stars 662
Suppose 14
Tarantella 266
To E. G. 394
Weir, By the 395
INDEX OF AUTHORS
Armstrong, Martin:
_The Buzzards_ 138
_The Senses_ 521
_The Coming of Green_ 523
Beerbohm, Max:
On Servants 533
Belloc, H.:
_Tarantella_ 266
Beresford, J. D.:
Psycho-Analysis and the Novel 426
Binyon, Laurence:
_The House That Was_ 14
_Storm and Stars_ 662
Blunden, Edmund:
_Almswomen_ 525
Brett Young, Francis:
_Scirocco_ 273
Bridges, Robert:
_Fortunatus Nimium_ 393
Brooke, Rupert:
_It's Not Going to Happen Again_ 7
Burrows, Francis:
_Nature's Fruitfulness_ 524
Chesterton, G. K.:
The Romance of Rhyme 416
Clutton-Brock, A.:
On Blake as a Prophet 283
Conrad, Joseph:
Stephen Crane: A Note without Dates 192
Davies, W. H.:
_Love's Caution_ 13
De la Mare, Walter:
_Suppose_ 14
The Creatures 275
Dent, Edward J.:
Music 119, 248, 376, 506, 635, 763
Dobson, Austin:
_To E. G._ 394
Flecker, James Elroy:
_Ishak's Song_ 137
Freeman, John:
_The Evening Sky in March_ 12
The Novels of Mr. Compton Mackenzie 448
_Beechwood_ 656
Gibson, Wilfrid Wilson:
_By the Weir_ 395
Gosse, Edmund, C.B.:
George Eliot 34
Henry James--I. 673
Graves, A. P.:
_Shobeensho_ 662
Graves, Robert:
_A Country Mood_ 272
Hannay, Howard:
Photography and Art 301
The Fine Arts 503, 632, 759
Hardy, Thomas, O.M.:
_Going and Staying_ 7
_A Glimpse from the Train_ 265
Hastings, Major L. M.:
_"Skindle's" in Poperinghe_ 649
Henschel, Sir George:
On Interpretation in Music 694
Hewlett, Maurice:
The Crystal Vase 176
_Elsie Inglis_ 531
Huxley, Aldous:
Ben Jonson 184
Forgotten Satirists 565
Ingpen, Roger:
Shelley and His Publishers 291
Jenkinson, Hilary: A Case for Records 685
Kennard, Sir Coleridge, Bart.:
_Draft for "A First and Last Song"_ 271
Leigh, The Rev. Canon N. Egerton:
A Collection of Autographs 320
Lethaby, Professor W. R.:
Architecture as Form in Civilisation 574
Lindsay, Nicholas Vachel:
_Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, Bryan!_ 396
Lynd, Robert:
Horace Walpole 52
John Donne 435
Mason, J. H.:
Book-Production Notes 231, 359, 495, 621, 752
Meynell, Alice:
An Article on Particles 71
Moore, T. Sturge:
Blind Thamyris 403
Nash, John:
The Fine Arts 116, 245, 373
Newbolt, Sir Henry:
_Nobis cum Pereant_ 655
Nichols, Robert:
The Smile of the Sphinx 16
_November_ 268
_Night Rapture_ 529
Rickword, Edgell:
_Intimacy_ 527
_The Soldier Addresses His Body_ 527
Rushby, Kenworth:
_The Modern Hippolytus_ 524
Saintsbury, George:
Eighteenth-Century Poetry 155
Sassoon, Siegfried:
_Early Chronology_ 11
Shanks, Edward:
_The Rock Pool_ 12
Samuel Butler 164
_The Shadow_ 394
W. N. P. Barbellion 543
Shaw-Stewart, Patrick:
_Lines Written in Gallipoli_ 267
Smith, L. Pearsall:
Misadventures 149
Squire, J. C.:
The Future Poet and Our Time 44
_The Moon_ 139
Prose and Mortality 312
Robert Bridges' Lyrical Poems 708
Stobart, J. C.:
The Teaching of English 62
Thibaudet, Albert:
A Letter from France 105, 360, 622
Tomlinson, H. M.:
The Foreshore of London 663
Turner, W. J.:
_The Search for the Nightingale_ 8
_Sorrowing for Childhood Departed_ 532
The Drama 111, 240, 368, 498, 627, 755
Van Deijssel, L.:
Of Prose 671
Williams, Orlo:
A Little Classic of the Future 555
REVIEWS
Accounts Rendered of Work Done and Things Seen, _Buchanan_ 494
Actor, Problems of the, _Calvert_ 502
Addresses in America, _Galsworthy_ 480
Anaphylaxis and Anti-Anaphylaxis, _Besredka_ 228
Appreciations of Poetry, _Hearn_ 93
Archaic England, _Bayley_ 616
Argonaut and Juggernaut, _Sitwell_ 206
Art, Essays on, _Clutton-Brock_ 344
Athenian Days, _Byron_ 83
Athletics, Success in, _Webster, Jenkins_, and _Mostyn_ 224
Balkan Problems and European Peace, _Buxton and Leese_ 351
Banner, The, _Spender_ 733
Battle Line in France, The Romance of the, _Bodley_ 606
Before the War, _Haldane_ 487
Boche and Bolshevik, _Price_ 96
Books in the War, _Koch_ 738
Botany, Applied, _Ellis_ 230
Brooke and the Intellectual Imagination, Rupert, _De la Mare_ 215
Butler, Samuel: A Memoir, _Festing-Jones_ 164
Carmina Rapta, _Fairfax_ 207
Catalysis in Theory and Practice, _Rideal and Taylor_ 101
Catherine of Siena, St., _Pollard_ 484
Cervantes, _Schevill_ 737
Challenge, A., _Hardyman_ 82
Chemistry and Its Mysteries, _Gibson_ 357
Chemistry from the Industrial Standpoint, _Thorne_ 230
Childhood in Brittany Eighty Years Ago, A, _Sedgwick_ 482
Children of No Man's Land, _Stern_ 337
Chorus-Girl, and Other Stories, The, _Tchehov_ 476
Christian Ideas, First, _Selwyn_ 746
Clintons and Others, The, _Marshall_ 598
Clown of Paradise, The, _Creston_ 207
Coal Mining and the Coal Miner, _Bulman_ 744
Colloid Chemistry, Theoretical and Applied, _Ostwald_ 491
Colloids, The Chemistry of, _Zsigmondy_ 491
Comrades in Captivity, _Harvey_ 743
Cosmogony and Stellar Dynamics, _Jeans_ 619
Cottage Building in Cob, Pisé, Chalk and Clay,
_Williams-Ellis_ 354
Country Sentiment, _Graves_ 728
Cousin Philip, _Ward_ 208
Coutts, The Life of Thomas, _Coleridge_ 482
Critic in Pall Mall, A, _Wilde_ 91
Dawn and Night, Poems of the, _Mond_ 82
Dickens, Reade, and Collins, _Phillips_ 606
Discovery 751
Diversions of a Man of Letters, Some, _Gosse_ 89
Dodington, George Bubb:
Patron and Place-Hunter, _Sanders_ 348
Domus Doloris, _Leith_ 481
Donne's Sermons:
Selected Passages with an Essay, _Pearsall Smith_ 213
Douglas, Collected Poems of Lord Alfred 81
Ducks and Other Verses, _Harvey_ 596
Easter Island, The Mystery of, _Routledge_ 355
Economic Consequences of the Peace, The, _Keynes_ 487
Efficiency, Everyday, _Lindsay_ 228
Eli of the Downs, _Peake_ 733
Emerson and His Philosophy, _Hill_ 226
Empire and Commerce in Africa, _Woolf_ 616
Engineering, Foundations of, _Spikes_ 230
Engines of the Human Body, _Keith_ 618
English Course for Schools, An, _Mais_ 62
Europe, The Expansion of, _Abbott_ 93
Europe, Fifty Years of, _Hazen_ 217
Every Man in his Humour, _Jonson_ 243
Far East, The Mastery of the 98
Financial Problems, War-Time, _Withers_ 99
First Plays, _Milne_ 115
Fleurs-de-Lys, _Thorley_ 731
Flora, _Bianco_ and _De la Mare_ 468
Flowers in the Grass, _Hewlett_ 727
Forgotten Places, _Mackenzie_ 81
Fox, Henry:
First Lord Holland, _Ilchester_ 608
Friend to Friend, From, _Ritchie_ 739
Full Circle, _Hamilton_ 473
Galloper at Ypres, A, _Butler_ 606
Garret, In the, _Van Vechten_ 477
General William Booth Enters into Heaven, _Lindsay_ 335
Georgian Poetry, 1918-1919 201
Glory of the Coming, The, _Cobb_ 486
Gold and Iron, _Hergesheimer_ 337
Greek Anthology, Echoes from the, _Legge_ 83
Guild State: Its Principles and Possibilities, The, _Taylor_ 100
Gyroscopic and Rotational Motion, A Treatise on, _Gray_ 226
Hamlet, The Problem of, _Robertson_ 92
Handmaiden of the Navy, The, _Doorly_ 223
Heartbreak House, _Shaw_ 114
Herschel, _Macpherson_ 751
How the War Came, _Loreburn_ 97
Hygiene for Training Colleges, A Text Book of, _Avery_ 750
If All These Young Men, _Wilson_ 208
Illustration, _Meynell_ 375
Images of War, _Aldington_ 594
Imperfect Mother, An, _Beresford_ 733
India, The Government of, _Macdonald_ 490
Industry and Trade, _Marshall_ 220
Inflation, _Nicholson_ 222
Interim, _Richardson_ 473
Invisible Kingdom, An, _Lilly_ 225
Invisible Tides, _Seymour_ 473
Ions, Electrons, and Ionising Radiations, _Crowther_ 618
Ireland a Nation, _Lynd_ 353
Irish Impressions, _Chesterton_ 222
Italian Peasants, Among, _Cyriax_ 478
Jacopone Da Todi, _Underhill_ 346
Jeremy, _Walpole_ 84
Jesus Chapel, Cambridge, The Stones and Story of, _Morgan_ 743
Jonson, Ben, _Smith_ 184
Keats' _Endymion_, An Interpretation of, _Notcutt_ 737
Kiel in the _Hercules_, To, _Freeman_ 96
Kossovo, _Rootham_ 730
Kut Prisoner, A, _Bishop_ 606
League of Nations, A Handbook of the, _Butler_ 489
Leagues of Nations, _York_ 615
Legend, _Dane_ 208
Lehmann, The Life of Liza, _Lehmann_ 486
Limbo, _Huxley_ 598
Lincoln, Abraham:
The Practical Mystic, _Grierson_ 218
Lines of Life, _Nevinson_ 729
London Venture, The, _Arlen_ 477
Madeleine, _Mirrlees_ 208
Man: Past and Present, _Keane_, _Quiggin_, and _Haddon_ 747
Manners of My Time, The, _Dempster_ 741
Mansoul or The Riddle of the World, _Doughty_ 593
Mask, The, _Cournos_ 208
Matter, Some Wonders of, _Mercer_ 357
Measures of the Poets, The, _Bayfield_ 601
Middle Life, Thoughts in, _Locker-Lampson_ 481
Miscellany of Poetry, A, _Seymour_ 471
Modern Science and Materialism, _Elliot_ 493
My Kingdom for a Horse! _Allison_ 96
Napoleon, _Trench_ 83
National Finance, A Primer of, _Higgs_ 101
Nationalisation of the Mines, _Hodges_ 744
Nevill, The Life and Letters of Lady Dorothy, _Nevill_ 219
New Decameron, The, _Various Authors_ 88
New Outlook, The, _Cecil_ 615
New Poems, _Williams_ 205
Night and Day, _Woolf_ 337
October and Other Poems, _Bridges_ 708
Over and Above, _Gurdon_ 88
Oxford Scholar, An: Ingram Bywater, 1840-1914, _Jackson_ 349
Pagan and Christian Creeds, _Carpenter_ 747
Paravane Adventure, The, CORNFORD 487
Paths of Glory, The 732
Peace in the Making, The, _Harris_ 615
Pedlar and Other Poems, The, _Manning-Sanders_ 729
Peel, Recollections of Lady Georgiana, _Peel_ 611
Peter Jackson, Cigar Merchant, _Frankau_ 598
Phillpotts, One Hundred Pictures from Eden, _Brewitt_ 740
Physicists, Ten British, _Macfarlane_ 103
Pilgrim in Palestine, A, _Finley_ 479
Playwright, Problems of the, _Hamilton_ 758
Poems, Collected, _Hardy_ 333
Poems, 1916-1918, _Brett Young_ 332
Poems, Selected, _Sackville_ 596
Poetical Works, Excluding the Eight Dramas, _Bridges_ 708
Poland and the Poles, _Boswell_ 223
Poor Relations, _Mackenzie_ 84
Power of a Lie, The, _Bojer_ 337
Prelude, _Nichols_ 598
Race and Nationality, _Oakesmith_ 99
Realities of Modern Science, The, _Mills_ 357
Reconstructors and Reconstruction, _Oxon_ 100
Records, _Fisher_ 607
Responsibilities of the League, The, _Percy_ 489
Revolt of Youth, The, _Hobson_ 88
Reynard the Fox, _Masefield_ 78
Richard Kurt, _Hudson_ 84
Riddle of the Ruthvens, The, _Roughead_ 347
Roast Beef, Medium, _Ferber_ 733
R. L. S., A Book of, _Brown_ 216
Romantic Roussillon, The, _Savory_ 345
Rousseau and Romanticism, _Babbitt_ 604
Russia in Rule and Misrule, _Ballard_ 615
Sacred and Profane Love, _Bennett_ 244
Saint's Progress, _Galsworthy_ 208
Science and Life, _Soddy_ 750
Seals and Documents, _Poole_ 742
Second Country, My, _Dell_ 614
September, _Swinnerton_ 84
Seven Men, _Beerbohm_ 212
Seventeenth-Century English Verse, _Massingham_ 470
Seventeenth-Century Life in the Country Parish, _Trotter_ 351
Shakespeare, Contemporaries of, _Swinburne_ 92
Shakespeare's Versification, A Study of, _Bayfield_ 601
Side Shows, In the, _Benn_ 353
Sir Limpidus, _Pickthall_ 337
Skilled Labourer, The, _Hammond_ 352
Skylark and Swallow, _Gales_ 729
Smith, William: Potter and Farmer, _Bourne_ 744
Social Theory, _Cole_ 745
Soldier Poets, Some, _Sturge Moore_ 215
Soldier to His Son, Any, _Willis_ 83
Sorley, The Letters of Charles 343
South Sea Foam, _Safroni-Middleton_ 214
Springtime and Other Essays, _Darwin_ 605
Station Platform and Other Poems, The, _Mackenzie_ 83
Story of Purton, The, _Richardson_ 741
Submarines and Sea-Power, _Domville-Fife_ 487
Superhuman Antagonists, The, _Watson_ 79
Supreme Adventure, The, _Macandrew_ 101
Sussex in Bygone Days, _Blaker_ 478
Tank Corps, The, _Williams-Ellis_ 217
Tender Conscience, The, _Lynch_ 84
Thomson of Duddingston, The Life of John, _Napier_ 247
Time and Eternity, _Cannan_ 84
Tolstoy, _Noyes_ 737
Trade Unionism, The History of, _Webb_ 612
Turks in Europe, The, _Allen_ 484
Twenty-fifth Division in France and Flanders, The,
_Kincaid-Smith_ 486
Ulster and Ireland, _Good_ 100
Unhappy Far-Off Things, _Dunsany_ 345
Unmarried, The Great, _Gallichan_ 99
Valmouth, _Firbank_ 473
Vector Algebra, Projective, _Silberstein_ 230
Verse, _Kipling_ 333
Verse-Craft, Lessons in, _Ford_ 601
Verses, _Meynell_ 596
Victorian Recollections, _Bridges_ 485
Village Libraries, _Sayle_ 738
Walpole, Letters of Horace 52
War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon, The 206
War Poetry, A Treasury of, _Clarke_ 336
Wheels, 1919 334
Worms and Epitaphs, _Garrod_ 594
Young Physician, The, Brett _Young_ 84
THE LONDON
MERCURY
Vol. I No. 1 November 1919
EDITORIAL NOTES
With these notes we introduce the first number of the LONDON MERCURY.
It might, beyond denial, appear in more tranquil and comfortable days.
We have just been through a crisis which has brought us within sight
of the basic realities of life--food, clothing, housing, security
against violence. As soon as the paper was projected we were forced
to visualise the likelihood of a time in which paper would be almost
unprocurable, printing impossible (save in an amateur way at home),
and the distribution of literature a matter of passing sheets from
hand to hand. We have had a glimpse into the abyss of disorganisation,
and, for the time being at all events, we have managed to keep on the
solid ground. But, having conceived this journal, its conductors would
have been reluctant to abandon their plans whatever confusion might
have supervened. They may fairly claim to have formulated a scheme
which, when it is perfectly executed, will meet all the demands of the
public which reads old or new books, and of that other and smaller
public which is chiefly concerned with the production of new works
of the imagination. The more intense the troubles of society, the
more uncertain and dark the future, the more obvious is the necessity
for periodicals which hand on the torch of culture and creative
activity. Literature is of the spirit; and by the spirit man lives. Our
traditions are never more jealously to be cherished than when they are
threatened; and our literature is the repository of all our traditions.
* * * * *
We think that, with our list of contents before us, we may reasonably
say that there has never been in this country a paper with the scope
of the LONDON MERCURY. We have had periodicals which have exercised a
great critical influence, such as the _Edinburgh Review_ of Jeffrey's
and Macaulay's day. We have had periodicals which have published
an unusual amount of fine "creative work," such as Thackeray's
_Cornhill_. We have at this day the _Times Literary Supplement_, which
reviews, with the utmost possible approximation to completeness, the
literary "output" of the time; we have weekly papers which review the
principal books and publish original verse and prose, and monthly
papers which diversify their tables of contents with articles on
Molière or Chateaubriand, Byron or Mr. Alfred Noyes. But we have had
no paper which has combined as the LONDON MERCURY will do all those
various kinds of matter which are required by the lover of books and
the practising writer. In our pages will be found original verse
and prose in a volume not possible to the weekly paper; full-length
literary essays such as have been found only in the politico-literary
monthlies; a critical survey of books of all kinds recently published;
and other "features," analogues to some of which may be found, one by
one, here and there, but which have never before been brought together
within a single cover. The LONDON MERCURY--save in so far as it will
publish reasoned criticisms of political (as of other) books--will
avoid politics. It will concern itself with none of those issues which
are the field of political controversy, save only such--the teaching
of English, the fostering of the arts, the preservation of ancient
monuments are examples--as impinge directly upon the main sphere of its
interests. But within the field that it has chosen it will endeavour
to be as exhaustive as is humanly possible. The present number is an
earnest of its intentions; in early future numbers other sections will
be added which will steadily bring it nearer to the ideal that it has
set out to reach.
* * * * *
That ideal comprehends the satisfaction of the current needs of all
those who are intelligently interested in literature, in the drama,
in the arts, and in music. We shall attempt to make known the best
that is being done and, so far as literature is concerned, to assist
the process by the publication of original work. But thus far we have
mentioned no more than the LONDON MERCURY'S functions as what may be
called a "news" paper, an organ for the recording and dissemination
of things that have already happened or been done. Its functions, as
its conductors conceive them, will include--and this will be the chief
of them--the examination of those conditions which in the past have
favoured, and in the future are likely to favour, the production of
artistic work of the first order, and the formulation and application
of sound critical standards.
* * * * *
It is not a matter of attempting to make universal the shibboleths
of some coterie or school, or of carrying some technical "stunt"
through the country as though it were a fiery cross. We do not propose
to maintain (to give concrete examples) that literature _should_
be didactic or that it _should_ be a-moral. We are not interested
in urging that the couplet is exhausted, that the sonnet should be
revived, that plays should have four or three acts, that rhyme is
essential or that it is outworn, that lines should or should not be
of regular lengths. We are tied to no system of harmony; we have no
dogmas as to the dominance of representation in painting; we would
make no hard-and-fast rule about the desirability of drawing a vertical
wall as sloping at 45 degrees or of painting a man's face magenta
and sage-green. As convenient descriptions we do not object (save
sometimes on grounds of euphony) to the terms Futurist, Vorticist,
Expressionist, post-Impressionist, Cubist, Unanimist, Imagist: but we
suspect them as banners and battle-cries, for where they are used as
such it is probable that fundamentals are being forgotten. Our aim
will be, as critics, to state and to reiterate what are the motives,
and what must be the dominant elements, of all good art, whatever the
medium and whatever the idiosyncrasies of the artist, even if he find
it convenient to draw on papier-mâché with a red-hot poker, and even
if his natural genius impels him to write in lines of one syllable.
The profoundest truths about art, whether literary or pictorial, are
crystallised in maxims which may have been more often reiterated than
understood, but which have undeniably been so often repeated that
people now find them tiresome. Of such are "fundamental brainwork,"
"emotion recollected in tranquillity," "the rhythmical creation of
beauty," and "the eye on the object." Each of these embodies truths,
and there is indisputable truth also in the statements that a poet
should have an ear and that a painter should paint what he sees. These
things are platitudes; but a thing does not cease to be true merely
because it is trite, and it is disastrous to throw over the obvious
merely because it was obvious to one's grandfather. Yet men--and even
women--do such things. We have had in the last few years art, so
called, which sprang from every sort of impulse but the right one,
and was governed by every sort of conceptions but the right ones. We
have had "styles" which were mere protests and revulsions against
other styles; "styles" which were no more than flamboyant attempts
at advertisement akin to the shifting lights of the electric night
signs; authors who have forgotten their true selves in the desperate
search for remarkable selves; artists who have refused to keep their
eyes upon the object because it has been seen before; musicians who
have made, for novelty's sake, noises, and painters who have made, for
effect's sake, spectacles, which invited the attention of those who
make it their business to suppress public nuisances. We have had also
theories in vogue the effects of which on mind and heart were such, and
were foredoomed to be such, as to wither many talents in the bud. A
single positive trend in English literature we do not ask and it is not
necessarily desirable. We have heard the complaint from critics of the
Gallic school that even in the days of the marvellously fertile English
"Romantic generation" there was no one "movement," no Ten Commandments,
and everybody was at sixes and sevens. That is the national way, and
it probably accounts for our possession of the greatest and most
varied imaginative literature that exists. Nevertheless, anarchy is
not desirable, nor that worthy frame of mind which extends toleration
not merely to the good of all kinds, but to the good and the bad, the
intelligent and the foolish indifferently. And surely this toleration
has been too commonly in evidence in this country in our time.
Is the contention disputed? Is the fact other than self-evident? Is
it necessary to explain and to accentuate the confusion which for the
last ten years has been evident in the creative and in the critical
literature of this country? There have been, as there always are,
writers who have cheerfully continued writing as their predecessors
have written, serious parodists of Milton, of Tennyson, and of George
Eliot. These least of all can be said to be in the tradition of English
letters; for that tradition has been a tradition of constant experiment
and renovation. There has been a central body of writers--from
Mr. Hardy, Mr. Bridges, and Mr. Conrad to the best of the younger
poets--who have gone steadily along the sound path, traditional yet
experimental, personal yet sane. But there has been also a large
number of young writers who have strayed and lost themselves amongst
experiments, many of them foredoomed to sterility. Young men, ignoring
the fundamental truth expressed in the maxim, "Look in thy heart
and write," have attempted to make up poems (and pictures) "out of
their heads." Others, defying the obvious postulate that all good
writing will carry at least a superficial meaning to the intelligent
reader, have invited us to admire strings of disconnected words and
images, meaningless and even verbless. Others, turning their backs
on those natural affections and primary interests the repudiation of
which means, and must always mean, the death of the highest forms of
literature, have concentrated upon the subversion of every belief by
which man lives. They have sapped at the bases of every loyalty, and
sneered at every code, oblivious to both social welfare and social
experience. They have been, such of them as profess the moralistic
preoccupation, very contemptuous of "clean living and no thinking,"
but the dirty living and muddled thinking that they have offered as
a substitute have been no great improvement. They have been, such of
them as have the preoccupation of the artist, so anxious to look at
the abnormal and the recondite that they have forgotten what are and
must be the main elements of man's life and what the most conspicuous
features in man's landscape. We have had an orgy of undirected
abnormality. The old object of art was "what oft was said but ne'er so
well expressed"; the object of many of the new artists has been what
was never said before and could not possibly be expressed worse. The
tricks of abnormality have been learnt. Young simpletons who, twenty
years ago, would have been writing vapid magazine verses about moonrise
and roses have discovered that they have only to become incoherent,
incomprehensible, and unmetrical to be taken seriously. Bad writers
will, without intellectual or æsthetic impulse, pretend to burrow into
psychological (or physical) obscurities which are no more beyond the
artist's purview than anything else, provided he responds to them,
but which have the advantage for an insincere writer that they enable
him to talk nonsense that honest unsophisticated readers are unable
to diagnose as nonsense. Year after year we have new fungoid growths
of feeble pretentious impostors who, after a while, are superseded by
their younger kindred; and year by year we see writers who actually
have some intelligence and capacity for observation and exact statement
led astray into the stony and barren fields of technical anarchism
or the pitiful madhouse of moral antinomianism. At bottom vanity and
pretence are the worst of vices in a young writer, but they may be
encouraged or discouraged, even these; and we have seen times and
places in which black was called white.
* * * * *
Amid this luxuriant confusion the voices of critics at once sane and
informed have been few. For the most part our older critics have tended
to treat the younger generation as a howling menagerie of insensate
young beasts, and have failed to keep sufficiently closely in touch
with production to discriminate between the traditional and the
anarchistic, the sincere and the pretentious, the intelligent and the
stupid, the healthy and the vicious, the promising and the sterile.
We have ourselves been frequently amused and irritated at finding
elderly men of letters alarmed at the "revolutionism of the young," as
manifested in Mr. A. or Mr. B., or asking, bewildered, "why the young
take Miss C. so seriously," when as a fact A. and B. are merely rowdies
of whose foolish books even the young buy only fifty or sixty copies,
and the fair C. is a person taken seriously by no serious person of
her own generation. Those critics, again, who are constantly in touch
with the fruits of the printing press have for the most part got into
a state of puzzlement in which they are not merely afraid to make
mistakes (lest what looks like a frog may turn out to be an angel), but
in which they have almost lost the habit of using their senses for the
purpose for which they were meant to be used. Everything is treated
with respect. Platitudinous rubbish--so welcome perhaps because it
is so easily understood--is treated as though Wordsworth had written
it; hectic gibberish of the silliest kind is honoured, at worst, with
the sort of deferential reprimand that is applicable to great genius
when great genius shows a slight tendency to kick over the traces.
Even those of our reviews which do not ignore the best contemporary
work more often than not allocate just as much space to the humbug
and the _faux bon_. "The public, though dull, has not quite such a
skull," as Swinburne's limerick put it. Many bad authors are much
talked about but very little read, and critics who never write a line
are frequently sound when most of the professionals have gone clean
off the rails. Moreover, it is arguable--though we should not, without
long consideration, accept the argument--that no amount of misleading
criticism or bad example will ruin a man of strong natural genius,
which implies perceptions which will not be denied, and a well-defined
positive character. Nevertheless, even if we do not exaggerate the ill
effects of haphazard and timid or haphazard and reckless criticism,
it is surely obvious that both artists and their publics must gain if
some of the rubbish can be cleared away. The ship moves in spite of
all the barnacles, and it does not lose direction, but its progress
might be less troublesome. We have often met persons who have
distrusted all reviews because they have bought books on the strength
of extravagant reviews and been once bit. We have often met people,
too, who have procured what somebody (undeniably "intellectual") has
told them to be the latest and most vigorous and representative work of
imaginative literature, and, finding it distasteful, have come to the
conclusion that the "poets of the day" or the "novelists of to-morrow"
are not for them: turning back, then, to their Dickens or Browning
or Dionysius of Halicarnassus in the mood of that ghastly pessimist
who said that whenever a new book came out he read an old one. These
readers are typical of many, and the result of their existence is that
the dissemination of the best contemporary literature is (1) less
wide than it might be and (2) less rapid than it might be. There is,
as a rule--in the economists' term--far too great a "time-lag" in the
making of the best reputations. A man often writes for years before he
is heard of by the mass of the cultivated readers who are naturally
predisposed to like his work, and do like it when at last they meet
it. In a nation so large, and with so immense a volume of literary
production, such numerous and diverse news-sheets, and such congested
and ill-arranged bookshops, this phenomenon is bound to exist in some
degree. But it may be minimised, and although we of the LONDON MERCURY
cannot hope, and do not desire, to be judged by our aspirations rather
than by our performances, we may at least be permitted to say that we
shall do our utmost to contribute towards that end.
* * * * *
Even to disclaim an ambition for an infallible pontificate of letters
must savour of impertinence. We can only say that what our journal can
do in the way of affirming and applying principles of criticism, and
giving a conspectus of the best contemporary work, we shall attempt to
do. Our other functions we have already outlined, and a beginning is
made in this number. We have made no endeavour to arrange a dazzling
shop-window of names or "features" for our first number; whatever may
be our readers' views concerning this number we can at least assure
them that the contributors to subsequent numbers will be not less
representative than those here found, and that only a beginning has yet
been made towards the complete scheme that we have in view.
_Going and Staying_
The moving sun-shapes on the spray,
The sparkles where the brook was flowing,
Pink faces, plightings, moonlit May,
These were the things we wished would stay;
But they were going.
Seasons of blankness as of snow,
The silent bleed of a world decaying,
The moan of multitudes in woe,
These were the things we wished would go;
But they were staying.
THOMAS HARDY
_It's Not Going to Happen Again_
I have known the most dear that is granted us here,
More supreme than the gods know above,
Like a star I was hurled through the sweet of the world,
And the height and the light of it, Love.
I have risen to the uttermost Heaven of Joy,
I have sunk to the sheer Hell of Pain--
But--it's not going to happen again, my boy,
It's not going to happen again.
It's the very first word that poor Juliet heard
From her Romeo over the Styx;
And the Roman will tell Cleopatra in hell
When she starts her immortal old tricks;
What Paris was tellin' for good-bye to Helen
When he bundled her into the train--
Oh, it's not going to happen again, old girl,
It's not going to happen again.
RUPERT BROOKE
Château Lake Louise, Canada, 1913.
_The Search for the Nightingale_
(_To S. S._)
1
Beside a stony, shallow stream I sat
In a deep gully underneath a hill.
I watched the water trickle down dark moss
And shake the tiny boughs of maidenhair,
And billow on the bodies of cold stone.
And sculptured clear
Upon the shoulder of that aerial peak
Stood trees, the fragile skeletons of light,
High in a bubble blown
Of visionary stone.
2
Under that azurine transparent arch
The hill, the rocks, the trees
Were still and dreamless as the printed wood
Black on the snowy page.
It was the song of some diviner bird
Than this still country knew,
The words were twigs of burnt and blackened trees
From which there trilled a voice,
Shadowy and faint, as though it were the song
The water carolled as it flowed along.
3
Lifting my head, I gazed upon the world,
Carved in the breathless heat as in a gem,
And watched the parroquets green-feathered fly
Through crystal vacancy, and perch in trees
That glittered in a thin, blue, haze-like dream,
And the voice faded, though the water dinned
Against the stones its dimming memory.
And I ached then
To hear that song burst out upon that scene,
Startling an earth where it had never been.
4
And then I came unto an older world.
The woods were damp, the sun
Shone in a watery mist, and soon was gone;
The trees were thick with leaves, heavy and old,
The sky was grey, and blue, and like the sea
Rolling with mists and shadowy veils of foam.
I heard the roaring of an ancient wind
Among the elms and in the tattered pines;
Lighting pale hollows in the cloud-dark sky,
A ghostly ship, the Moon, flew scudding by.
5
"O is it here," I cried, "that bird that sings
So that the traveller in his frenzy weeps?"
It was the autumn of the year, and leaves
Fell with a dizzying moan, and all the trees
Roared like the sea at my small impotent voice.
And if that bird was there it did not sing,
And I knew not its haunts, or where it went,
But carven stood and raved!
In that old wood that dripped upon my face
Upturned below, pale in its passionate chase.
6
And years went by, and I grew slowly cold:
I had forgotten what I once had sought.
There are no passions that do not grow dim,
And like a fire imagination sinks
Into the ashes of the mind's cold grate.
And if I dreamed, I dreamed of that far land,
That coast of pearl upon a summer sea,
Whose frail trees in unruffled amber sleep,
Gaudy with jewelled birds, whose feathers spray
Bright founts of colour through the tranquil day.
7
The hill, the gully, and the stony stream
I had not thought on when this spring I sat
In a strange room with candles guttering down
Into the flickering silence. From the Moon
Among the trees still-wreathed upon the sky
There came the sudden twittering of a ghost.
And I stept out from darkness, and I saw
The great pale sky immense, transparent, filled
With boughs and mountains and wide-shining lakes
Where stillness, crying in a thin voice, breaks.
8
It was the voice of that imagined bird.
I saw the gully and that ancient hill,
The water trickling down from Paradise
Shaking the tiny boughs of maidenhair.
There sat the dreaming boy.
And O! I wept to see that scene again,
To read the black print on that snowy page,
I wept, and all was still.
No shadow came into that sun-steeped glen,
No sound of earth, no voice of living men.
9
Was it a dream or was it that in me
A God awoke and gazing on his dream
Saw that dream rise and gaze into its soul,
Finding, Narcissus-like, its image there:
A Song, a transitory Shape on water blown,
Descending down the bright cascades of time,
The shadowiest-flowering, ripple-woven bloom
As ghostly as still waters' unseen foam
That lies upon the air, as that song lay
Within my heart on one far summer day?
10
Carved in the azure air white peacocks fly,
Their fanning wings stir not the crystal trees,
Bright parrots fade through dimming turquoise days,
And music scrolls its lightning calm and bright
On the pale sky where thunder cannot come.
Into that world no ship has ever sailed,
No seaman gazing with hand-shaded eyes
Has ever seen its shore whiten the waves.
But to that land the Nightingale has flown,
Leaving bright treasure on this calm air blown.
W. J. TURNER
_Early Chronology_
Slowly the daylight left our listening faces.
* * * * *
Professor Brown with level baritone
Discoursed into the dusk.
Five thousand years
He guided us through scientific spaces
Of excavated History; till the lone
Roads of research grew blurred; and in our ears
Time was the rumoured tongues of vanished races,
And Thought a chartless Age of Ice and Stone.
* * * * *
The story ended. Then the darkened air
Flowered as he lit his pipe; an aureole glowed
Enwreathed with smoke; the moment's match-light showed
His rosy face, broad brow, and smooth grey hair,
Backed by the crowded book-shelves.
In his wake
An archæologist began to make
Assumptions about aqueducts (he quoted
Professor Sandstorm's book); and soon they floated
Through desiccated forests; mangled myths;
And argued easily round megaliths.
* * * * *
Beyond the college garden something glinted;
A copper moon climbed clear above the trees.
Some Lydian coin?... Professor Brown agrees
That copper coins _were_ in that culture minted;
But, as her whitening way aloft she took,
I thought she had a pre-dynastic look.
SIEGFRIED SASSOON
_The Rock Pool_
(_To Miss Alice Warrender_)
This is the sea. In these uneven walls
A wave lies prisoned. Far and far away,
Outward to ocean as the slow tide falls,
Her sisters, through the capes that hold the bay,
Dancing in lovely liberty recede.
Yet lovely in captivity she lies,
Filled with soft colours, where the waving weed
Moves gently and discloses to our eyes
Blurred shining veins of rock and lucent shells
Under the light-shot water; and here repose
Small quiet fish and the dimly glowing bells
Of sleeping sea-anemones that close
Their tender fronds and will not now awake
Till on these rocks the waves returning break.
EDWARD SHANKS
_The Evening Sky in March_
Rose-bosom'd and rose-limb'd,
With eyes of dazzling bright,
Shakes Venus mid the twined boughs of the night;
Rose-limb'd, soft-stepping
From low bough to bough,
Shaking the wide-hung starry fruitage--dimmed
Its bloom of snow
By that sole planetary glow.
Venus, avers the astronomer
Not thus idly dancing goes
Flushing the eternal orchard with wild rose.
She through ether burns
Outpacing planetary earth,
And ere two years triumphantly returns
And again wave-like swelling flows;
And again her flashing apparition comes and goes.
This we have not seen,
No heavenly courses set,
No flight unpausing through a void serene:
But when eve clears,
Arises Venus as she first uprose
Stepping the shaken boughs among,
And in her bosom glows
The warm light hidden in sunny snows.
She shakes the clustered stars
Lightly, as she goes
Amid the unseen branches of the night,
Rose-limb'd, rose-bosom'd bright.
She leaps: they shake and pale; she glows--
And who but knows
How the rejoiced heart aches
When Venus all his starry vision shakes:
When through his mind
Tossing with random airs of an unearthly wind,
Rose-bosom'd, rose-limb'd,
The mistress of his starry vision arises,
And the boughs glittering sway
And the stars pale away,
And the enlarging heaven glows
As Venus light-foot mid the twined branches goes.
JOHN FREEMAN
_Love's Caution_
Tell them, when you are home again,
How warm the air was now;
How silent were the birds and leaves,
And of the moon's full glow;
And how we saw afar
A falling star:
It was a tear of pure delight
Ran down the face of Heaven this happy night.
Our kisses are but love in flower,
Until that greater time
When, gathering strength, those flowers take wing,
And Love can reach his prime.
And now, my heart's delight,
Good night, good night;
Give me the last sweet kiss--
But do not breathe at home one word of this!
W. H. DAVIES
_The House That Was_
Of the old house, only a few crumbled
Courses of brick, smothered in nettle and dock,
Or a squared stone, lying mossy where it tumbled!
Sprawling bramble and saucy thistle mock
What once was firelit floor and private charm
Where, seen in a windowed picture, hills were fading
At dusk, and all was memory-coloured and warm,
And voices talked, secure from the wind's invading.
Of the old garden, only a stray shining
Of daffodil flames amid April's cuckoo-flowers,
Or a cluster of aconite mixt with weeds entwining!
But, dark and lofty, a royal cedar towers
By homely thorns: whether the white rain drifts
Or sun scorches, he holds the downs in ken,
The western vale; his branchy tiers he lifts,
Older than many a generation of men.
LAURENCE BINYON
_Suppose ..._
Suppose ... and suppose that a wild little Horse of Magic
Came cantering out of the sky,
With bridle of silver, and into the saddle I mounted
To fly--and to fly;
And we stretched up into the air, fleeting on in the sunshine,
A speck in the gleam
On galloping hoofs, his mane in the wind out-flowing,
In a shadowy stream;
And, oh, when, all lone, the gentle star of evening
Came crinkling into the blue,
A magical castle we saw in the air, like a cloud of moonlight,
As onward we flew;
And across the green moat on the drawbridge we foamed and we
snorted;
And there was a beautiful Queen
Who smiled at me strangely, and spoke to my wild little Horse,
too--
A lovely and beautiful Queen;
Suppose with delight she cried to her delicate maidens:
"Behold my daughter--my dear!"
And they crowned me with flowers, and then to their harps sate
playing,
Solemn and clear;
And magical cakes and goblets were spread on the table;
And at window the birds came in;
Hopping along with bright eyes, pecking crumbs from the platters,
And sipped of the wine;
And splashing up--up to the roof tossed fountains of crystal;
And Princes in scarlet and green
Shot with their bows and arrows, and kneeled with their dishes
Of fruits for the Queen;
And we walked in a magical garden, with rivers and bowers,
And my bed was of ivory and gold;
And the Queen breathed soft in my ear a song of enchantment--
And I never grew old....
And I never, never came back to the earth, oh, never and never;
How mother would cry and cry!
There'd be snow on the fields then, and all these sweet flowers in
the winter
Would wither and die....
Suppose ... and suppose....
WALTER DE LA MARE
THE SMILE OF THE SPHINX
By ROBERT NICHOLS
I.
Long, long ago there dwelt in the pleasant City-of-Towers a young
princess of immense riches and of such exceeding beauty that none
other could be compared to her. So famous, indeed, became the riches
of her beauty and her possessions, that were only less than her
beauty, that she was sought in marriage by every kind of personage. In
three moons the train of her suitors, or mounted upon gold-stencilled
elephants, tassel-fringed camels, palfries of Arabia, ponies of
Astrakhan, mules of Nubia, or faring but upon the Sandals-of-Nature
along the Road-of-Advantage, became so huge that the citizens of the
City-of-Towers being eaten (albeit at no small price) out of hearth
and home, petitioned the princely father of the damsel to mitigate,
in whatever sort he should think fit, the good fortune of their
city, which, possessing such a treasure as the princess Sa-adeh,
the Bestower-of-Felicity, admitted to finding its pleasure rather
in reflecting upon the value of their jewel than in entertaining
those who came to steal it. The ever-benevolent Prince accordingly
issued a decree that no suitor was to approach the Princess save
on the understanding that if he failed to win her affections his
head should pay the forfeit. Forthwith ensued so remarkable a
diminution in the number of her suitors that, in a short while, only
those whom the Light-of-Love's-Eyes had guided or those whom the
Three-thonged-Scourge-of-Need had driven remained mounted or standing
before the palace gates. Nor did these linger overlong, for the heart
of the Princess was less easily softened than that of the Executioner,
who with one sweep of the scimitar relieved the Lover of the
Burden-of-Love or severed the Needy from the Vessel-of-Need. Then the
beautiful Sa-adeh, the Bestower-of-Felicity, not unfatigued by such a
succession of maidenly preoccupations, determined that for a little she
would forget the Bonds-of-Necessity and atone somewhat to the citizens
of the City-of-Towers for the inconveniences she had brought them. To
this end she caused a special litter of cedar wood to be constructed,
and, mounting therein, sallied forth to bestow upon the citizens of the
City-of-Towers the hitherto-unseen and almost-unendurable beauty of her
face.