[_1 Sep. '10_]
I am indebted to Mr. Murray for sending what is to me a new manifestation
of the entirely precious activity of Mr. Arthur Christopher Benson. Mr.
Benson, in "The Thread of Gold," ministers to all that is highest and most
sacred in the Mudie temperament. It is not a new book; only I have been
getting behind-hand. It was first printed in 1905, and it seems to have
been on and off the printing-presses ever since, and now Mr. Murray has
issued it, very neatly, at a shilling net, so that people who have never
even been inside Mudie's may obtain it. I have read the book with intense
joy, hugging myself, and every now and then running off to a sister-spirit
with a "I say, just listen to _this_!" The opening sentence of one of the
various introductions serves well to display Mr. A.C. Benson at his
superlative: "I have for a great part of my life desired, perhaps more
than I have desired anything else, to make a beautiful book; and I have
tried, perhaps too hard and too often, to do this, _without ever quite
succeeding_" [my italics]. Oh, triple modesty! The violet-like beauty of
that word "quite"! Thus he tried perhaps too hard and too often to
produce something beautiful! Not that for a moment I believe the excellent
Mr. Benson to be so fatuous as these phrases, like scores of others in the
book, would indicate. It is merely that heaven has been pleased to deprive
him of any glimmer of humour, and that he is the victim of a style which,
under an appearance of neatness and efficiency and honesty, is really
disorderly, loose, inefficient, and traitorous. His pages abound in
instances of the unfaithfulness of his style, which is continually giving
him away and making him say what he does not in fact want to say. For
example: "Such traces as one sees in the chapels of the Oxford Movement
... would be purely deplorable from the artistic point of view, if they
did not possess a historical interest." As if historical interest could
make them less deplorable from an artistic point of view! It might make
them less deplorable from another point of view. Three times he explains
the motif of the book. Here is the third and, at present, the last version
of the motif: "That whether we are conquerors or conquered, triumphant or
despairing, prosperous or pitiful, well or ailing, we are all these things
through Him that loves us." I seem to remember that the late Frances
Ridley Havergal burst into the world with this information I recommend her
works to Mr. Benson. In another of the introductions he says: "I think
that God put it into my heart to write this book, and I hope that he [not
He] will allow me to persevere." Personally (conceited though I am), I
never put myself to the trouble of formulating hopes concerning the
Infinite Purpose, but if I did I should hope that He just won't. Mr.
Benson proceeds: "And yet indeed I know that I am not fit for so holy a
task." Here we have one of the most diverting instances of Mr. Benson's
trick-playing style. He didn't mean that; he only said it. Much, if not
most, of "The Thread of of Gold" is merely absurd. Some of it is
pretentious, some of it inept. All of it is utterly banal. All of it has
the astounding calm assurance of mediocrity. It is a solemn thought that
tens of thousands of well-dressed mortals alive and idle to-day consider
themselves to have been uplifted by the perusal of this work. It is also a
solemn thought that God in His infinite mercy and wisdom is still allowing
Mr. Benson to persevere in his so holy task, thus responding to Mr.
Benson's hopes.