interest was raised by a paper read by Mr. F. W. Bourdillon on
"Some French Romances." He showed how many of the woodcuts used in
illustration were reproduced by one printer after another with a marked
fall in quality by a method of transfer on to wood-blocks called by the
technical name of _pocher_, which, he submitted, may be an ancestor of
the modern English verb "to poach." Mr. Bourdillon urged the importance
of the comparative study of such woodcuts, and suggested that a Society
should be formed for reproducing early book illustrations in facsimile.
* * * * *
_DISCOVERY_
A Conference was called last January by the joint invitation of the
President of the Royal Society, the President of the British Academy,
and a large number of others, interested both in the production and
distribution of knowledge, to frame, if possible, a scheme for a
journal which should present in popular form the most recent results
of research in all the chief subjects of knowledge. This Conference
appointed a committee to frame a scheme, and their report was presented
and adopted at the adjourned meeting of the Conference held recently
in the rooms of the Royal Society, Burlington House. Professor R.
S. Conway, of Manchester, has acted throughout as Secretary of the
movement. The meeting approved the name _Discovery_ for the new
journal, and established a trust for its maintenance, the first
trustees being Sir Joseph J. Thomson, O.M., P.R.S., Sir Frederic G.
Kenyon, D.Litt., K.C.B., P.B.A., Professor A. C. Seward, Sc.D., F.R.S.,
Professor R. S. Conway, Litt.D., P.B.A.
The meeting further approved of the agreement made provisionally by the
Executive Committee, with Mr. John Murray as Publisher, and of his and
the committee's joint recommendation of Captain A. S. Russell, M.C.,
D.Sc., recently of the R.G.A., now of the University, Sheffield, and
Reader-elect in Chemistry at Christ Church, Oxford, as Editor. The
first number will be issued on January 15th, 1920, at the price of
sixpence.
The Conference further considered in detail and adopted the committee's
scheme for the management of the journal, of which the chief principles
may be mentioned. The control of the trustees is final, but they
undertake to exercise it through a managing committee, which they will
appoint on the nomination of a large number of bodies, the chief of
whom are the Conjoint Board of Scientific Societies, who will nominate
five members, the Classical, Historical, English, and Geographical,
each of whom will nominate one member, and the Modern Language
Association, if, as is hoped, that also adheres to the scheme. Further
the British Psychological Society and the Royal Society of Economics
will appoint one member.
This, however, is only one side of the committee's constitution.
It will comprise also representatives of the great Associations
which represent different bodies of students and teachers, and the
public libraries. Those that have already pledged themselves to
take part are the National Union of Teachers, which is to nominate
two representatives; the Co-operative Union; the Associations of
Headmasters and Headmistresses, who will appoint one member. Similar
co-operation is hoped for from the Royal Society of Literature, the
Library Association, the Young Men's Christian Association, the
Workers' Educational Association, the Associations of Assistant Masters
and Assistant Mistresses, and the Association of Education Committees,
all of which have expressed sympathy with the movement.
BIBLIOGRAPHIES OF MODERN AUTHORS
ARTHUR CLUTTON-BROCK
ETON. Bell. 1900. (Handbooks of Great Public Schools.)
SHELLEY: THE MAN AND THE POET. Methuen. 1909.
DESCRIPTION IN POETRY. English Association. 1911.
WILLIAM MORRIS. Williams & Norgate. 1914. (Home University Library.)
THOUGHTS ON THE WAR. Methuen. 1914.
MORE THOUGHTS ON THE WAR. Methuen. 1915. [Several times reprinted.
Collected from the _Times Literary Supplement_.]
SIMPSON'S CHOICE: AN ESSAY IN VERSE ON A FUTURE LIFE. Omega Workshops.
1916.
A MODERN CREED OF WORK. Design and Industry Association. Miscellaneous
Publications. 1915.
THE ULTIMATE BELIEF. Constable. 1916.
STUDIES IN CHRISTIANITY. Constable. 1918.
WHAT IS THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN? Methuen. 1919.
ESSAYS ON ART. Methuen. 1919. [Reprinted from the _Times Literary
Supplement_.]
(He has also written Introductions to Shelley's Works (1911); to
Kenneth Richmond's _Permanent Values in Education_ (1917); to _Letters
of a Soldier_ (1917); and an essay on _Immortality_ in the Rev. B. H.
Streeter's collection of theological essays (1917).)
HILAIRE BELLOC
_Prose_
DANTON--A study. Nisbet. 1899. Reprinted, 1911, in _Nelson's Shilling
Library_.
PARIS. E. Arnold. 1900. Second Edition. Methuen. 1907.
ROBESPIERRE. Nisbet. 1901.
THE PATH TO ROME. George Allen. 1902. Now published by Allen & Unwin
and by Nelson. [Illustrated by the author.]
AFTERMATHS AND GLEANINGS OF A BUSY LIFE CALLED CALIBAN'S GUIDE TO
LETTERS. Duckworth. 1903. Greenback Library.
TRISTAN AND ISEULT. George Allen. 1903. (French Romances.)
THE GREAT ENQUIRY. Duckworth. 1903. [A Tariff Reform satire with
illustrations by G. K. Chesterton.]
EMMANUEL BURDEN: A Novel. Methuen. 1904. [Illustrated by G. K.
Chesterton.]
THE OLD ROAD. Constable. 1904. Reprinted. 1910.
AVRIL: Being an Essay on the Poetry of the French Renaissance.
Duckworth. 1904.
ESTO PERPETUA: Algerian Studies. Duckworth. 1906. [Both the above have
been reprinted in the _Reader's Library_.]
HILLS AND THE SEA. Methuen. 1906.
THE HISTORIC THAMES. Dent. 1907.
MR. CLUTTERBUCK'S ELECTION. Nash. 1907. [Now published by Nelson.]
THE EYE WITNESS. Nash. 1908.
ON NOTHING AND KINDRED SUBJECTS. Methuen. 1908.
ON EVERYTHING. Methuen. 1909.
MARIE ANTOINETTE. Methuen. 1909.
THE PYRENEES. Methuen. 1909.
A CHANGE IN THE CABINET. Methuen. 1909.
ON ANYTHING. Constable. 1910.
ON SOMETHING. Methuen. 1910.
PONGO AND THE BULL: A Novel. Constable. 1910.
THE GIRONDIN. Nelson. 1911.
FIRST AND LAST. Methuen. 1911.
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. Williams & Norgate. 1911. (Home University
Library.)
WARFARE IN ENGLAND. Williams & Norgate. 1911. (Home University Library.)
THE PARTY SYSTEM. Stephen Swift. 1911. (Written in collaboration with
Cecil Chesterton.)
SOCIALISM AND THE SERVILE STATE. Debate with Mr. Ramsay Macdonald,
Independent Labour Party. 1911.
BRITISH BATTLES Stephen Swift. 1911. Now published by Hugh Rees. [Six
Monographs on Waterloo, Blenheim, Tourcoing, Malplaquet, Crecy, and
Poictiers.]
THE GREEN OVERCOAT. Arrowsmith. 1912.
THE FOUR MEN. Nelson. 1912. [Illustrated by the author.]
THIS, THAT, AND THE OTHER. Methuen. 1912
THE RIVER OF LONDON. Foulis. 1912.
THE SERVILE STATE. Foulis. 1912.
THE HILAIRE BELLOC CALENDAR. Frank Palmer. 1913.
THE BOOK OF THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY. Chatto & Windus. 1913.
THE STANE STREET: A Monograph. Constable. 1913.
A PICKED COMPANY. Methuen. 1915. (Selected Writings.)
THE TWO MAPS OF EUROPE AND SOME ASPECTS OF THE GREAT WAR. Pearson. 1915.
A HISTORY OF ENGLAND FROM THE FIRST INVASION OF THE ROMANS TO THE
ACCESSION OF GEORGE V. By J. Lingard and Hilaire Belloc. 1915.
[Mr. Belloc wrote a concluding volume to Lingard, covering the period
from 1688.]
A GENERAL SKETCH OF THE EUROPEAN WAR. Vol. I. Nelson. 1915. Vol. II.,
1916.
THE LAST DAYS OF THE FRENCH MONARCHY. Chapman & Hall. 1916.
THE FREE PRESS. Allen & Unwin. 1918.
_Verse_
VERSES AND SONNETS. Ward & Downey. 1895. [Withdrawn from circulation.]
THE MODERN TRAVELLER. Arnold. 1898.
A MORAL ALPHABET. Arnold. 1899.
LAMBKIN'S REMAINS. Alden, Oxford. 1898.
THE BAD CHILD'S BOOK OF BEASTS. Alden, Oxford. 1897.
MORE BEASTS FOR WORSE CHILDREN. Arnold. 1898. [The above five books are
now published by Duckworth.]
CAUTIONARY TALES FOR CHILDREN. Nash. 1907. [Now published by Nelson.]
VERSES. Duckworth. 1910. [A collection including certain poems from
previous books.]
MORE PEERS. Verses. Stephen Swift. 1911.
(He has also written numerous Introductions, a chapter in (Oxford)
_Essays in Liberalism_, a number of penny religious tracts published by
the Catholic Truth Society, and contributions to various anthologies.)
DRAMA
THE DUCHESS OF MALFI
The production by the Phœnix Society of Webster's _The Duchess
of Malfi_ at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, gave many people an
opportunity to make an exhibition of themselves. In the first place,
it was somewhat astonishing to find that on the Sunday night the
audience, which one might have supposed to have been made up of people
of some education, contained many persons who were evidently unaware
that Webster wrote at the very beginning of the seventeenth century,
and who had gone to the Lyric Theatre expecting to find a classical
and not a renaissance tragedy. Perhaps this is being too kind to them;
perhaps they thought _The Duchess of Malfi_ was a Revue, or a Viennese
Musical Comedy by Leo Fall or Franz Lehar, which, owing to D.O.R.A.,
could not yet be produced on the ordinary stage. But perhaps they did
not even think at all, and their tittering and nudging was merely the
manifestation of the vacancy of their minds. Whatever the explanation,
it is certainly odd that such people should be--as they presumably
were--members of the Phœnix Society. It has been said to me that this
section of the audience was composed largely of the profession, to whom
Sunday night is their one opportunity of the week to enjoy the role of
spectator. I hesitate to believe it. I refuse to believe it, although
the notorious and shameful ignorance of many actors and actresses of
the dramatic literature of their own country is difficult to forget.
But if this is the explanation--and it is an unpalatable one--it also
accounts for the reception given--again by a section only of the
audience--to Mr. Farquharson's extraordinarily fine effort to grapple
with the part of Ferdinand. The rank and file of actors, like the rank
and file of musicians, are notoriously poor judges of their own art.
They are sound enough when it is a question of merely conventional
skill. They know in an ordinary way the difference between the
professional and the amateur. Mere clumsiness, roughness, or smoothness
of technique they can discern and, to some extent, understand; but even
in these matters it is the conventional, the accustomed way of doing a
thing rather than the essentially good way of doing it that they judge
by. The moment an actor goes outside routine methods he runs the risk
of being ridiculed; his slightest faults and exaggerations and mistakes
are fastened upon, while what there may be of insight, imagination, and
power in his characterisation is completely passed over.
This is what happened to Mr. Robert Farquharson at _The Duchess of
Malfi_. He gave an interpretation of the character of Ferdinand which
was a real creative effort of the actor's imagination. Even if he had
been less successful than he was in producing the effect he aimed at,
he should have met with a respectful attention from his fellow-artists
in the audience. But such an attention would have proceeded from an
interest in and some glimmer of an understanding of the serious efforts
of an artist; whereas these people who disgraced themselves by loudly
giggling at Mr. Farquharson were not obviously blind to serious art.
Of Mr. Farquharson's interpretation I will say this. It was essentially
sound and convincing. In portraying Ferdinand as a man abnormal,
fanatical, and almost insane on the subject of sex, we are made to
understand all his subsequent conduct. Ferdinand, as drawn by Webster,
is a man of diseased imagination; he is described in the very first
scene by Antonio as "a most perverse and turbulent nature"; his very
language right from the start is more violent, more imaginative than
that of any other character in the play. Sex is an obsession with him;
his first words to his sister are:
You are a widow:
You know already what man is;
And his second:
Marry! they are most luxurious
Will wed twice. Their lovers are more spotted
Than Laban's sheep.
He cannot let the subject alone, he is always returning to it. Earlier
in the scene, when he tells Bosola that he does not wish his sister to
marry again, he says:
Do not you ask the reason, but be satisfied
I say I would not.
Mr. Farquharson said these words with just the right emphasis, an
emphasis that sent a shudder through one's flesh, it was so simple, so
vague, and yet so peculiar.
Now, for this Mr. Farquharson ought to have been highly praised. It
meant, first of all, that Mr. Farquharson had an original conception
of his part; and, secondly, that he had the technique to carry
his conception across the footlights. But imagination must meet
imagination; if it meets nothing but dullness it might just as well be
dull itself, its effect is necessarily _nil_; and, apparently, that is
what Mr. Farquharson's noble effort did meet. It was really astonishing
to find written in the daily Press the pained little grumblings of men
who had been unable to discover an adequate motive for Ferdinand's
conduct, and who expressed their dissatisfaction with Webster's
capacity as a dramatist, after having been accustomed for many years to
the dramatic genius of Mr. Walter Ellis (the author of _A Little Bit
of Fluff_), Mr. George R. Sims (the author of _The Great Day_), Mr.
Oscar Asche (author of _Chu Chin Chow_), Mr. Robert Hichens (author
of _The Voice from the Minaret_), and many others of equal greatness
but too numerous to mention. It was perhaps an over-familiarity with
the works of this galaxy of genius that led one London newspaper to
describe _The Duchess of Malfi_ in headlines as "Funnier than Farce."
The atmosphere of a genuine tragedy might easily appear "funny" to
anyone accustomed to that of the average London play. One great
difficulty that confronted some critics was the impossibility--after
a war in which millions were slaughtered--of imagining the murder of
four men. Because Webster's tragedy ends in the death of four of the
principal characters, it is, apparently, farcical or funny. It never
even seems to have occurred to these detractors of a great work that in
Italy of the Renaissance--the place and period with which Webster is
dealing--such incidents were as common as divorce suits nowadays; but
it would, assuredly, be asking too much to expect people to exercise a
little historical imagination who have no imagination of any sort, and
who are, therefore, to be pitied for their inability to understand any
play that does not contain a telephone.
On the bulk of the audience, however, Mr. Farquharson's Ferdinand made
a deep impression, and the wonderful fifth scene in the second act,
where Ferdinand enters with the words: "I have this night digged up a
mandrake," was very nearly one of the finest and most blood-curdling
things I have ever witnessed. It was just marred by a few exaggerations
of gesture and crudities which could have easily been put right, but
in conception and power it was magnificent. I have used the word
"blood-curdling," although I know that nobody's blood curdles nowadays,
least of all the blood of dramatic critics. But that is just what is
wrong with them. It is no distinction to have blood that does not
"curdle." The blood of an ox does not curdle--not at the tragedy of
_King Lear_, nor _Macbeth_, nor the third act of _Die Walküre_, nor
the _Prometheus_ of Scriabin. There must be an imagination in the
spectator to take fire, and without imagination the work of a poet like
Webster must of necessity appear incomprehensible:
Methinks I see her laughing--
Excellent hyena! Talk to me somewhat quickly,
Or my imagination will carry me
To see her in the shameful act of sin.
To the unimaginative these lines of Ferdinand's will seem nothing, but
they are wonderful in their dramatic vividness and appropriateness. I
have quoted them because it is the sort of writing Webster gives us
on every page; it is not one of his purple patches. Webster's command
of language is little short of marvellous. To anyone with a sense of
words it is a wonderful experience to read _The Duchess of Malfi_ for
the first time; and after seeing it played one returns to the book and
finds it all ten times more wonderful still. Could anything be more
utter cant than the suggestion that the plays of many modern dramatists
are superior to Webster's even as literature? How many of them can
be read at all, even once? It is so nearly impossible that more than
half of them cannot be published, and of those that are published
the perusal of a few pages leads to their prompt consignment to the
dustbin. As for ever attaining that combination of great poetry with
perfect dramatic appropriateness culminating in moments when _vox in
faucibus hæsit_, it is utterly beyond them. Such passages as:
_Bosola._ Strangling; here are your executioners.
_Duch._ I forgive them:
The apoplexy, catarrh, or cough o' the lungs
Would do as much as they do.
_Bos._ Doth not death fright you?
_Duch._ Who would be afraid on't
Knowing to meet such excellent company
In the other world?
_Bos._ Yet, methinks
The manner of your death should much afflict you:
This cord should terrify you.
_Duch._ Not a whit:
What would it pleasure me to have my throat cut
With diamonds? or to be smotherèd
With cassia? or to be shot to death with pearls?
I know death hath ten thousand several doors
For men to take their exits; and 'tis found
They go on such strange geometrical hinges
You may open them both ways.
Such passages are as abundant in Webster as dots in the novels of Mr.
H. G. Wells. The only readable modern English dramatist--with the
exception of Mr. Granville Barker, and possibly of Sir James Barrie--is
Mr. Shaw; but one reads Mr. Shaw for his wit, and his wit, like
water-ices, is, though tasty, very poor sustenance. Yet the same people
who treat _The Duchess of Malfi_ as "Farce" take Mr. Shaw's amusing
buffoonery quite seriously; and there is one explanation for both
phenomena, and it is the one with which I began--lack of imagination.
An imaginative man does not need Mr. Shaw to show him in a play that
soldiers value their lives, and there being nothing astoundingly novel
in the idea, he is free to appreciate Mr. Shaw's extravagant humour;
but the unimaginative man thinks, firstly, that it is some perilous
and subversive doctrine, or some new and wonderful truth--according
to his political prejudice--and then, secondly, when some personal
experience fits Mr. Shaw's formula, looks upon Mr. Shaw as a dealer
in real property, and has for him that serious consideration he has
for his landlord. This explains the fate of such a brilliant piece of
extravaganza as _Arms and the Man_, which Mr. Loraine has produced at
the Duke of York's Theatre. Originally the darling of unimaginative
intellectuals--to whom it had brought light--and the bugbear of
equally unimaginative Philistines--to whom its "light" was the flame
of revolution--it is now accepted by the ordinary man in the pit as an
ordinary, matter-of-fact account of what war is, because the man in the
pit is just back from one and recognises the likeness. The deafening
applause from ex-soldiers at the Duke of York's Theatre is something
to go and hear. To them Mr. Shaw is no intellectual forerunner opening
up obscure paths of thought, but a man who has described exactly what
used to go on in the only army they have ever known, and they have for
him the serious respect they have for all retailers of materials. He
is a dealer not in "fancies," but in real goods. But this "reality"
is just as imaginary as the former "light." Neither Bluntschli nor
Cyrano de Bergerac represents the soldier. There is, in fact, no such
thing as a soldier, there are only soldiers. The intellectual has
never had his "light" nor the plain man his "reality"; for, being
without imagination, they cannot have these things. There is no way
of truth reaching an unimaginative man; he is doomed to live under a
series of illusions, only shedding one to receive another, but, by a
sublime paradox, the only illusion he can never shed is the illusion
that poetry is an illusion, an illusion of the senses. It is the fate
of poetry, of such magnificent poetic drama as Webster's, to remain
always undraped in the world of imagination and never by any protective
mimicry to take the colour of its surroundings and put on a fashionable
dress. This, its unique greatness, is in the eyes of the unimaginative
man its weakness, because he fails to recognise in it any of the
outward appearances of his daily life--in short, he fails to see his
washerwoman because to him she is a washerwoman and not a woman.
It is pleasant to think that there are actors and actresses who
practically, for sheer love of their art, will give their time and
ability for two isolated performances of a long and difficult work like
_The Duchess of Malfi_. The performance, as a whole, was remarkably
good, and it seems to me worth while recording the cast here:
FERDINAND, Duke of Calabria ROBERT FARQUHARSON
CARDINAL, his Brother ION SWINLEY
ANTONIO BOLOGNA, Steward of the Household
to the Duchess NICHOLAS HANNEN
DELIO, his friend MURRAY KINNELL
DANIEL DE BOSOLA, Gentleman of the Horse
to the Duchess WILLIAM J. REA
CASTRUCCIO FREDERICK HARKER
MARQUIS OF PESCARA ROBERT ATKINS
COUNT MALATESTE BASIL GORDON
RODERIGO IVAN SAMSON
SILVIO CLAUDE ALLISTER
GRISOLAN J. ADRIAN BYRNE
DOCTOR JOSEPH A. DODD
THE DUCHESS OF MALFI CATHLEEN NESBITT
CARIOLA, her Woman FLORENCE BUCKTON
JULIA, Castruccio's wife and the Cardinal's
mistress EDITH EVANS
OLD LADY BLANCHE STANLEY
The Play produced by ALLAN WADE, in a setting designed by NORMAN
WILKINSON of Four Oaks.
Of Mr. Farquharson I have already spoken. Equally fine but smoother
and more accomplished was the work of Miss Cathleen Nesbitt as the
Duchess. Mr. William J. Rea gave a fine and convincing study of Bosola,
whose "garb of melancholy" he wore with an exquisite naturalness. Mr.
Rea has a beautiful voice, and I hope it gave him as much pleasure to
speak Webster's wonderful verse as it gave me to hear it so beautifully
spoken. Antonio is difficult to make attractive, but Mr. Nicholas
Hannen might have been more successful. I thought Miss Edith Evans's
Julia excellent, but the Cardinal might well have been more sinister;
he has some splendid lines to speak, including the famous:
When I look into the fish-ponds in my garden,
Methinks I see a thing armed with a rake,
That seems to strike at me,
and they were not always as effective as they might have been. It is to
be hoped that the Phœnix Society will get a large number of new members
through this fine production.
* * * * *
The French Classical _Matinées_ at 2.30 every Tuesday and Wednesday
afternoon at the Duke of York's Theatre will be as follows: _Les
Plaideurs_, January 6th, 7th, 13th, 14th, 20th, and 21st.
W. J. TURNER
THE FINE ARTS
British Comic Drawing