Edward Ashburnham, the man in the case, "was the cleanest-looking sort

of chap: an excellent magistrate, a first-rate soldier, one of the best

landlords in Hampshire."

There is practically no conversation; the whole novel is a monologue, a

going forward or a harking back to unravel intricate motives and to lay

bare the souls of men and women.

Florence, the wife of the narrator, had apparently always been a harlot

at heart, but had successfully hoodwinked him for years. Leonora, the

betrayed wife of the good soldier, adored her husband with a passion

that was like an agony, and hated him with an agony that was as bitter

as the sea.

Florence one day had laid one finger on Captain Ashburnham's wrist. "I

was aware of something treacherous, something frightful, something evil

in the day.... In Ashburnham's face I knew that there was absolute

panic.... 'I can't stand this,' said Leonora, with a most extraordinary

passion. 'I must get out of this.' I was horribly frightened.... 'Don't

you see,' she said, 'don't you see what's going on?... Don't you see

that that's the cause of the whole miserable affair; of the whole sorrow

of the world? And of the eternal damnation of you and me and them?' Her

eyes were enormously distended; her face was exactly that of a person

looking into the pit of hell and seeing horrors there." But he sees

nothing. In Florence he thought he had a wife and an unattained

mistress--and in the retaining of her in the world (she pretended to

have serious heart trouble) he had his occupation, career and ambition.

Ashburnham had begun his intrigues by being arrested for kissing a

servant girl in a train. He left servants alone after that and ran amok

with girls of his own class. There was Mrs Maidan, who died--of heart

trouble, at twenty-three. Florence had come upon Leonora boxing Mrs

Maidan's ears.... There had been an affair with a harpy mistress of a

Russian Grand Duke, who exacted a twenty-thousand-pound pearl tiara from

Edward as the price of her favours for a week. It was not that he was a

promiscuous libertine: he was a sentimentalist.

We find it hard to realise all through this rambling discourse that

until Edward and the last girl concerned and Florence were all dead the

narrator had not the shadow of a suspicion that there was anything

wrong. "I suppose that during all that time I was a deceived husband and

that Leonora was pimping for Edward.... You ask how it feels to be a

deceived husband.... It is not Hell, certainly it is not necessarily

Heaven.... I hate Florence. I hate Florence with such a hatred that I

would not spare her an eternity of loneliness ... she cut out poor dear

Edward from sheer vanity; she meddled between him and Leonora from a

sheer, imbecile spirit of district visiting. Do you understand that,

whilst she was Edward's mistress, she was perpetually trying to reunite

him to his wife?... Once she said to Florence in the early morning: 'You

come to me straight out of his bed to tell me that that is my proper

place. I know it, thank you.... Yes, you would give him up. And you

would go on writing to each other in secret, and committing adultery in

hired rooms. I know the pair of you, you know. No. I prefer the

situation as it is.'"

Mrs Maidan had died on the 4th of August 1904 and then nothing happened

until the 4th of August 1913. It was on the 4th of August 1901 that the

narrator had married Florence, who had then hinted that she did not want

much physical passion from her husband. She elaborated rules so that she

should never be caught. "I must never enter her room without knocking,

or her poor little heart might flutter away to its doom." Her first

lover, Jimmy, she discarded for Edward as soon as he appeared on the

scene. It was because she was afraid that her husband would murder her

that she took such precautions.

"Well, there you have the position ... the husband an ignorant fool, the

wife a cold sensualist with imbecile fears ... and the blackmailing

lover ... and then ... Edward Ashburnham, who was worth having." But

within three years he was sick of Florence and would willingly have let

the husband see what his wife was like, but Leonora threatened to wreak

appalling vengeance if any inkling of the truth filtered through. The

worst vengeance would have been to refuse herself ever to see him again

... but the husband discovers the truth about his wife from a stranger

in an hotel.

"'Do you know who that is?' asked the stranger of me as Florence burst

past. 'The last time I saw that girl she was coming out of the bedroom

of a young man at five o'clock in the morning....'

"A long time afterwards I ... went up to Florence's room. She had not

locked the door--for the first night of our married life. She was lying

... on her bed. She had a little phial ... in her right hand. That was

on the 4th of August 1913.

"Florence had found that Edward for the first time in his life was

really finally in love with a young girl called Nancy Rufford.

"For every man there comes at last a time of life when the woman who

then sets her seal upon his imagination has set her seal for good. He

travels over no more horizons ... that was the case with Edward and the

poor girl."

Anyway that was the end of Florence. "You have no idea how quite

extraordinarily for me that was the end of Florence. From that day to

this I have never given her another thought ... she just went completely

out of existence, like yesterday's paper.... It was as if an immensely

heavy knapsack had fallen off my shoulders. I was in love with Nancy

Rufford--I who was forty-five and she twenty-two, a miracle of patience

who could be almost miraculously impatient."

Edward then began to drink heavily, owing to his frustrated passion for

her: she looked on him as an uncle and he could not make love to her and

it was killing him.

The chronicler at this stage goes over his tracks as he often does to

give us the earlier history of Leonora and Edward, who had come together

in an extraordinary state of innocence. He had admired her for her

truthfulness, her cleanness of mind, the clean-run-ness of her limbs,

the fairness of her skin, the gold of her hair, her religion, her sense

of duty. But she failed to have for him a touch of magnetism, while in

her admiration for his qualities soon became love of the deepest

description. "There could not have been a happier girl for five or six

years." They never had any children: they did not even know how they

were produced for some years after their marriage. He came to regard her

as physically and mentally cold: she wished for the child that never

came. Meanwhile after the episode of the servant girl Edward could not

have a mistress without falling violently in love with her; but the

Spanish dancer cured him of that. The passion that he had for her arose

"like fire in dry corn" ... and from the moment of his unfaithfulness

with her Leonora never acted the part of wife to him, though there were

moments when she was within a hair of yielding to her physical passion

for him. She had the vague, passionate idea that when Edward had

exhausted a number of other types of women he must turn to her....

Florence knocked all that on the head.

The cleverest and most interesting thing in the book is the masterly way

in which the narrator manages to convey to us all the points of view of

everybody concerned--Leonora's, Edward's, Florence's and his own.

Never till the moment when Florence began to gain ascendency over Edward

did Leonora despair of getting him back. But when she saw Florence lay

her hand upon Edward's wrist she knew that that touching of hands gave

that woman an irrevocable claim--to be seduced. And she so despised

Florence that she would have preferred it to be a parlour-maid. But she

said nothing to Florence's husband. She had to give Edward to understand

"that if ever I came to know of his intrigue she would ruin him beyond

repair." And then Florence had died, and the girl Nancy with whom the

narrator is in love becomes the object of Edward's fiercest passion: his

love for her threatened to kill him and she knew ... and she offered him

herself and he could not accept the offer of her virtue and they sent

her back to her father in India.

"'You can't let that man,' said Leonora, 'go on to ruin for want of you.

You must belong to him.'

"'I knew you would come to that,' answered Nancy very slowly. 'But we

are not worth it--Edward and I.'"

And because she wouldn't Edward killed himself and Nancy went mad: they

sent the narrator out to bring Nancy home.

"She is, I am aware, sitting in the hall, forty paces from where I am

now writing.... I should marry Nancy if her reason were ever

sufficiently restored to let her appreciate the meaning of the Anglican

marriage service.... Is there any terrestrial paradise where, amidst

the whispering of the olive-leaves, people can be with whom they like

and have what they like and take their ease in shadows and in coolness?

Or are all men's lives like the lives of us good people--like the lives

of the Ashburnhams, of the Dowells, of the Ruffords--broken, tumultuous,

agonised, and unromantic lives, periods punctuated by screams, by

imbecilities, by deaths, by agonies?... I can't conceal from myself the

fact that I loved Edward Ashburnham--and that I love him because he was

just myself. If I had had the courage and the virility and possibly also

the physique of Edward Ashburnham I should, I fancy, have done much what

he did."

We read novels like _The Good Soldier_ and _Ladies Whose Bright Eyes_

for their freshness and honesty of outlook. They follow no stereotyped

form of writing; they lay bare character in an unusual manner; they

demand intelligent reading and an appreciation of the quietly subtle.

They give a picture of life which is devoid of sentimentality, true to

experience and courageously uncoloured. Most of all they give the

impression of being written by a careful and highly gifted artist.

Mr Hueffer is a master of English prose style.

X

_THE BALLAD OF THE WHITE HORSE_

Most people have read G. K. Chesterton's prose, many people have read

the drinking songs in _The Flying Inn_, some people have read his

collected Poems, and a few, only too few, have read the work by which he

will probably be remembered when all the rest of his work is dead. _The

Ballad of the White Horse_ was first published in 1911 and is, as might

be expected, a vindication of Christianity. "I say, as do all Christian

men, that it is a divine purpose that rules, and not Fate," he quotes as

his motto. He dedicates the poem to his wife because of "the sign that

hangs about your neck":

"Therefore I bring these rhymes to you,

Who brought the cross to me."

Before we have read five pages we realise that here is at last a ballad

which is not a spurious imitation. It rings clear, clean and true. We

see Alfred beaten to his knees by "a sea-folk blinder than the sea,"

almost broken-hearted, beseeching the Virgin Mary for a sign.

"'Mother of God,' the wanderer said,

'I am but a common king,

Nor will I ask what saints may ask,

To see a secret thing....

But for this earth most pitiful,

This little land I know,

If that which is for ever is,

Or if our hearts shall break with bliss,

Seeing the stranger go?

When our last bow is broken, Queen,

And our last javelin cast,

Under some sad, green evening sky,

Holding a ruined cross on high,

Under warm westland grass to lie,

Shall we come home at last?'"

And she answers:

"'I tell you naught for your comfort,

Yea, naught for your desire,

Save that the sky grows darker yet

And the sea rises higher.

Night shall be thrice night over you,

And heaven an iron cope.

Do you have joy without a cause,

Yea, faith without a hope?'"

Stirred by this message, Alfred sets out yet again to stir zeal in his

chiefs for the causeless cause.

"Up across windy wastes and up

Went Alfred over the shaws,

Shaken of the joy of giants,

The joy without a cause....

The King went gathering Christian men,

As wheat out of the husk;

Eldred, the Franklin by the sea,

And Mark, the man from Italy,

And Colan of the Sacred Tree,

From the old tribe on Usk."

We are first given a picture of Eldred's farm fallen awry, "Like an old

cripple's bones," with its purple thistles bursting up between the

kitchen stones. But Eldred, the red-faced, bulky tun is sick of

fighting.

"'Come not to me, King Alfred,

Save always for the ale....

Your scalds still thunder and prophesy

That crown that never comes;

Friend, I will watch the certain things,

Swine, and slow moons like silver rings,

And the ripening of the plums.'"

Alfred merely repeats the message of the Virgin Mary, tells him where to

meet him and goes away certain of his help. He next goes to Mark's farm,

the low, white house in the southland, inhabited by the bronzed man with

a bird's beak and a bird's bright eye.

"His fruit trees stood like soldiers

Drilled in a straight line,

His strange, stiff olives did not fail,

And all the kings of the earth drank ale,

But he drank wine."

Alfred gives his message and the Roman answers:

"'Guthrum sits strong on either bank

And you must press his lines

Inwards, and eastward drive him down;

I doubt if you shall take the crown

Till you have taken London town.

For me, I have the vines.'"

But Alfred is certain of his help too and goes on to the lost land of

boulders and broken men, where dwells Colan of Caerleon:

"Last of a race in ruin--

He spoke the speech of the Gaels;

His kin were in holy Ireland,

Or up in the crags of Wales....

He made the sign of the cross of God,

He knew the Roman prayer,

But he had unreason in his heart

Because of the gods that were....

Gods of unbearable beauty

That broke the hearts of men."

He ridicules Alfred until he hears the warning:

" ... that the sky grows darker yet

And the sea rises higher."

Then he tosses his black mane on high and cries:

"'And if the sea and sky be foes,

We will tame the sea and sky.'"

And so Alfred is sure too of his help.

Alfred is then taken by the Danes as he is playing on his harp to the

camp of Guthrum and there is made to sing and play again:

"And leaving all later hates unsaid,

He sang of some old British raid

On the wild west march of yore.

He sang of war in the warm wet shires,

Where rain nor fruitage fails,

Where England of the motley states

Deepens like a garden to the gates

In the purple walls of Wales."

He sang until Harold, Guthrum's nephew, snatched the harp from him and

began in his turn to sing of ships and the sea and material delights:

"'Great wine like blood from Burgundy,

Cloaks like the clouds from Tyre,

And marble like solid moonlight,

And gold like frozen fire.'"

Elf the minstrel then took the instrument:

"And as he stirred the strings of the harp

To notes but four or five,

The heart of each man moved in him

Like a babe buried alive."

He sang of Balder beautiful, whom the heavens could not save ... and

finishes with these two peerlessly beautiful verses:

"'There is always a thing forgotten

When all the world goes well;

A thing forgotten, as long ago

When the gods forgot the mistletoe,

And soundless as an arrow of snow

The arrow of anguish fell.

The thing on the blind side of the heart,

On the wrong side of the door,

The green plant groweth, menacing

Almighty lovers in the spring;

There is always a forgotten thing,

And love is not secure.'"

Earl Ogier of the Stone and Sling next took the harp and sang in praise

of "Fury, that does not fail":

"'There lives one moment for a man

When the door at his shoulder shakes,

When the taut rope parts under the pull,

And the barest branch is beautiful

One moment, while it breaks....

And you that sit by the fire are young,

And true loves wait for you;

But the King and I grow old, grow old,

And hate alone is true.'"

Guthrum in his turn takes the great harp wearily and sings of death:

"'For this is a heavy matter,

And the truth is cold to tell;

Do we not know, have we not heard,

The soul is like a lost bird,

The body a broken shell....

Strong are the Roman roses,

Or the free flowers of the heath,

But every flower, like a flower of the sea,

Smelleth with the salt of death.

And the heart of the locked battle

Is the happiest place for men....

Death blazes bright above the cup,

And clear above the crown;

But in that dream of battle

We seem to tread it down.

Wherefore I am a great king,

And waste the world in vain,

Because man hath not other power,

Save that in dealing death for dower,

He may forget it for an hour

To remember it again.'"

And then Alfred seizes it again and triumphantly, scornfully, sings his

pæan in praise of his own creed:

"'But though I lie on the floor of the world,

With the seven sins for rods,

I would rather fall with Adam

Than rise with all your gods.

What have the strong gods given?

Where have the glad gods led?

When Guthrum sits on a hero's throne

And asks if he is dead?...

... Though you hunt the Christian man

Like a hare on the hill-side,

The hare has still more heart to run

Than you have heart to ride....

Our monks go robed in rain and snow,

But the heart of flame therein,

But you go clothed in feasts and flames,

When all is ice within; ...

Ere the sad gods that made your gods

Saw their sad sunrise pass,

The White Horse of the White Horse Vale,

That you have left to darken and fail,

Was cut out of the grass.

Therefore your end is on you,

Is on you and your kings,

Not for a fire in Ely fen,

Not that your gods are nine or ten,

But because it is only Christian men

Guard even heathen things.'"

Alfred then goes away and is struck by the woman in the forest for

letting her cakes blacken.

"'He that hath failed in a little thing

Hath a sign upon the brow;

And the Earls of the Great Army

Have no such seal to show....

... I am the first king known of heaven

That has been struck like a slave.'"

He takes the blow as a good omen:

"'For he that is struck for an ill servant

Should be a kind lord.'"

He collects his followers and they go roaring over the Roman wall and

fall upon the Danes at Ethandune. In the first phase we see Alfred's men

waking to the realisation of the high folly of the fight and despair

clawing at their hearts.

"For the Saxon Franklin sorrowed

For the things that had been fair,

For the dear dead women, crimson clad,

And the great feasts and the friends he had;

But the Celtic prince's soul was sad

For the things that never were."

Alfred asks for his people's prayers and the Roman Mark proudly says:

"'Lift not my head from bloody ground,

Bear not my body home,

For all the earth is Roman earth

And I shall die in Rome.'"

Harold then comes forward in gay colours smoking with oil and musk, and

taunts the ragged Colan with the rusty sword: he takes his bow and

shoots an arrow at Colan, who sprang aside and whirled his sword round

his head and let it sweep out of his hand on to Harold's head. The Dane

fell dead and Alfred gave his own sword to Colan and himself seized a

rude axe from a hind hard by and turned to the fray.

In Book VI., "The Slaying of the Chiefs," we are first shown Eldred

breaking the sea of spears "As a tall ship breaks the sea."

"But while he moved like a massacre

He murmured as in sleep,

And his words were all of low hedges

And little fields and sheep.

Even as he strode like a pestilence,

That strides from Rhine to Rome,

He thought how tall his beans might be

If ever he went home."

But in the end the sword broke in his hand and he falls to the seventh

"faerie blade" of Elf the minstrel.

"Six spears thrust upon Eldred

Were splintered while he laughed;

One spear thrust into Eldred,

Three feet of blade and shaft."

But he was soon avenged by Mark:

"Right on the Roman shield and sword

Did spear of the Rhine maids run;

But the shield shifted never,

The sword rang down to sever,

The great Rhine sang for ever,

And the songs of Elf were done."

Ogier in his turn avenges Elf:

"But hate in the buried Ogier

Was strong as pain in hell,

With bare brute hand from the inside

He burst the shield of brass and hide,

And a death-stroke to the Roman's side

Sent suddenly and well.

Then the great statue on the shield

Looked his last look around

With level and imperial eye;

And Mark, the man from Italy,

Fell in the sea of agony,

And died without a sound."

The Danes in their triumph sing:

"'No more shall the brown men of the south

Move like the ants in lines,

To quiet men with olives

Or madden men with vines.'

There was that in the wild men back of him [Ogier],

There was that in his own wild song,

A dizzy throbbing, a drunkard smoke,

That dazed to death all Wessex folk,

And swept their spears along.

Vainly the sword of Colan

And the axe of Alfred plied--

The Danes poured in like brainless plague,

And knew not when they died.

Prince Colan slew a score of them,

And was stricken to his knee;

King Alfred slew a score and seven

And was borne back on a tree."

The King was beaten, blind, at bay, and we are taken on to Book VII.,

"The Last Change," where Alfred is compared to a small child building

one tower in vain, piling up small stones to make a town, and evermore

the stones fall down and he piles them up again.

"And this was the might of Alfred,

At the ending of the way;

That of such smiters, wise or wild,

He was least distant from the child,

Piling the stones all day.

For Eldred fought like a frank hunter

That killeth and goeth home;

And Mark had fought because all arms

Rang like the name of Rome.

And Colan fought with a double mind,

Moody and madly gay;

But Alfred fought as gravely

As a good child at play.

He saw wheels break and work run back

And all things as they were;

And his heart was orbed like victory

And simple like despair.

Therefore is Mark forgotten,

That was wise with his tongue and brave;

And the cairn over Colan crumbled,

And the cross on Eldred's grave.

Their great souls went on a wind away,

And they have not tale or tomb;

And Alfred born in Wantage

Rules England till the doom.

Because in the forest of all fears

Like a strange fresh gust from sea,

Struck him that ancient innocence

That is more than mastery."

And so Alfred began his life once more and took his ivory horn unslung

and smiled, but not in scorn:

"'Endeth the Battle of Ethandune

With the blowing of a horn.'"

He collects his remnants and incites them to a last desperate effort:

"'To grow old cowed in a conquered land,

With the sun itself discrowned,

To see trees crouch and cattle slink--

Death is a better ale to drink,

And by high Death on the fell brink,

That flagon shall go round.' ...

And the King held up the horn and said:

'See ye my father's horn,

That Egbert blew in his empery,

Once, when he rode out commonly,

Twice when he rode for venery,

And thrice on the battle-morn.'"

So

" ... the last charge went blindly,

And all too lost for fear:

The Danes closed round, a roaring ring,

And twenty clubs rose o'er the King,

Four Danes hewed at him, halloing,

And Ogier of the Stone and Sling

Drove at him with a spear."

But the Danes were careless, and Alfred split Ogier to the spine: the

tide miraculously turned and the Danes gave way and retreated

clamouring, disorderly:

"For dire was Alfred in his hour

The pale scribe witnesseth,

More mighty in defeat was he

Than all men else in victory,

And behind, his men came murderously,

Dry-throated, drinking death."

So at last the sign of the cross was put on Guthrum and

"Far out to the winding river

The blood ran down for days,

When we put the cross on Guthrum

In the parting of the ways."

And in the last book, "The Scouring of the White Horse," we see Alfred

at peace again.

"In the days of the rest of Alfred,

When all these things were done,

And Wessex lay in a patch of peace,

Like a dog in a patch of sun--

The King sat in his orchard,

Among apples green and red,

With the little book in his bosom

And the sunshine on his head."

And he gathered the songs of simple men, and gave alms, and "gat good

laws of the ancient kings like treasure out of the tombs"; and men came

from the ends of the earth and went out to the ends of the earth because

of the word of the King.

"And men, seeing such embassies,

Spake with the King and said:

'The steel that sang so sweet a tune

On Ashdown and on Ethandune,

Why hangs it scabbarded so soon,

All heavily like lead?'"

They asked: "Why dwell the Danes in North England and up to the river

ride?"

"And Alfred in the orchard,

Among apples green and red,

With the little book in his bosom,

Looked at green leaves and said:

'When all philosophies shall fail,

This word alone shall fit;

That a sage feels too small for life,

And a fool too large for it.

Asia and all Imperial plains

Are too little for a fool;

But for one man whose eyes can see,

The little island of Athelney

Is too large a land to rule.

... But I am a common king,

And I will make my fences tough

From Wantage Town to Plymouth Bluff,

Because I am not wise enough

To rule so small a thing.'"

He only commands his men to keep the White Horse white. Rumour of the

Danes to the eastward, Danes wasting the world about the Thames reaches

him, but Alfred only points to the White Horse.

"'Will ye part with the weeds for ever?

Or show daisies to the door?

Or will you b id the bold grass

Go, and return no more?...

And though skies alter and empires melt,

This word shall still be true:

If we would have the horse of old,

Scour ye the horse anew....

But now I wot if ye scour not well

Red rust shall grow on God's great bell

And grass in the streets of God.'"

He has a vision that the heathen will return.

"'They shall not come with warships,

They shall not waste with brands,

But books be all their eating,

And ink be on their hands....

By this sign you shall know them,

The breaking of the sword,

And Man no more a free knight,

That loves or hates his lord....

When is great talk of trend and tide,

And wisdom and destiny,

Hail that undying heathen

That is sadder than the sea.'"

He sees no more, but rides out doubtfully to his last war on a tall grey

horse at dawn.

"And all the while on White Horse Hill

The horse lay long and wan,

The turf crawled and the fungus crept,

And the little sorrel, while all men slept,

Unwrought the work of man....

And clover and silent thistle throve,

And buds burst silently,

With little care for the Thames Valley

Or what things there might be."

And the King took London Town.

I have given enough illustrations to show the masculine strength and

virility of this amazing poem. We read G. K. Chesterton for his wit, for

his brilliance, for his delightful paradoxes, for his sanity and

wholesomeness, but we read him most of all for his brave creed, for his

defence of Christianity and his love for the eternal values of honour,

uprightness, courage, loyalty and devotion, for his steadfast adherence

to whatsoever things are of good report.

XI

E. M. FORSTER

This is really a chapter about one book, not about a man. It is quite

true that Mr Forster has written a number of novels, but he is only

remembered by one and that is a decade old. He is a very skilful and

careful artist and interested in classical myth rather more than he is

in us: he is a scholar with a good deal of the poetic in him; when he

lets his thought dwell on us poor moderns his satiric vein appears

predominant, though he too, like the rest of us, had to let the

autobiographical have its way in two novels: _A Room with a View_ and

the schoolmaster's book, _The Longer Journey_, give us, if we want to

know them, many facts about himself, but wiser people will plump for

_Howard's End_ and forget the others--only hoping that he will soon give

us something more in that vein.

There was a slight flutter in our dovecotes when we saw the announcement

of a novel by him early in 1920, but _The Syren_ is not a novel and is

not new. It is a delicious trifle, artistically perfect ... but from a

man who can give us real men of the type of Leonard Bast we want no

chatter about blue grottoes, however perfect.

Yes, I fully realise that E. M. Forster published _Howard's End_ in

1910, but he has not written a novel since, and, as W. L. George says,

"He is still one of the young men, while it is not at all certain that

he is not 'the' young man." "Mystic athleticism" is the phrase that Mr

George uses as his label for him, and so far as labels ever fit, this

will do.

We read _Howard's End_ for its unexpectedness, its elliptic talk, which

so exactly hits off the characters he creates, for its manifestation of

the Comic Spirit, for passages such as the following, which abound:--

"It will be generally admitted that Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is the

most sublime noise that has ever penetrated into the ear of man. All

sorts and conditions are satisfied by it. Whether you are like Mrs Munt

["I do know when I like a thing and when I don't"] and tap

surreptitiously when the tunes come--of course, not so as to disturb the

others--or like Helen, who can see heroes and shipwrecks in the music's

flood; or like Margaret, who can only see the music; or like Tibby, who

is profoundly versed in counterpoint, and holds the full score open on

his knee ... or like Fräulein Mosebach's young man, who can remember

nothing but Fräulein Mosebach: in any case, the passion of your life

becomes more vivid, and you are bound to admit that such a noise is

cheap at two shillings."

We read _Howard's End_ for the merciless skill which E. M. Forster shows

in laying bare the soul of Leonard Bast, the clerk in the insurance

office, who reads Ruskin and goes to the Queen's Hall in order to

improve himself, who is dragged into the gutter by his loose-living

mistress ("she seemed all strings and bell-pulls, ribbons, chains, bead

necklaces that chinked and caught----").... We read _Howard's End_ for

the equally merciless sketch of the millionaire husband of the heroine

("a man who ruins a woman for his pleasure, and casts her off to ruin

other men. And gives bad financial advice, and then says he is not

responsible. These men are you. You can't recognise them, because you

cannot connect. I've had enough of your unweeded kindness. I've spoilt

you long enough. All your life you have been spoiled.... No one has ever

told what you are--muddled, criminally muddled").

Mr E. M. Forster's eyes are pellucidly clear in their vision both of

rich and poor. "Only connect," he says. That is the cause of all the

folly and cruelty in the world, lack of power to connect. Think of this

picture of Leonard Bast. "Hints of robustness survived in him (he came

of Lincolnshire yeoman stock), more than a hint of primitive good looks,

and Margaret, noting the spine that might have been straight, and the

chest that might have broadened, wondered whether it paid to give up the

glory of the animal for a tail coat and a couple of ideas. Culture had

worked in her own case, but during the last few weeks she had doubted

whether it humanised the majority, so wide and so widening is the gulf

that stretches between the natural and philosophic man, so many the good

chaps who are wrecked in trying to cross it. She knew this type very

well--the vague aspirations, the mental dishonesty, the familiarity with

the outsides of books."

But he should not have permitted an untimely end even to such a man: it

is bad artistry to overweight your dice. When any character in a book of

this sort goes to prison or dies (except in child-birth) one cannot help

feeling that the author has burked the issue or been too lazy to work

out his thesis to a reasonable, logical conclusion. Like Margaret in

_Howard's End_, who did not see that to break her husband was her only

hope, but did rather what seemed easiest, so E. M. Forster does what

seems easiest, and the result is a certain falsity all the more

reprehensive because in so many ways this book is head and shoulders

above any of its era. Helen's gift of herself to Leonard Bast is

absolutely true to life.

"It never occurred to him that Helen was to blame. He forgot the

intensity of their talk, the charm that had been lent him by sincerity,

the magic of Oniton under darkness and of the whispering river. Helen

loved the absolute. Leonard had been ruined absolutely, and had appeared

to her as a man apart, isolated from the world.... She and the victim

seemed alone in a world of unreality, and she loved him absolutely,

perhaps for half an hour."

Notice the last five words--"perhaps for half an hour": that is the

secret of E. M. Forster's greatness. He plays the game with the gloves

off, he strips bare all the fopperies and artificialities of the world.

All these characters have to learn how entirely different from the

formal codes they are brought up to believe are the real codes of

existence. Listen to Helen:

"'I want never to see him again, though it sounds appalling. I wanted to

give him money and feel finished. Oh, Meg, the little that is known

about these things.'"

Listen to Margaret's attitude when she finds out that her husband has

been unfaithful.

"Now and then he asked her whether she could possibly forgive him, and

she answered: 'I have already forgiven you, Henry.' She chose her words

carefully, and so saved him from panic. She played the girl, until he

could rebuild his fortress and hide his soul from the world. When the

butler came to clear away, Henry was in a very different mood--asked the

fellow what he was in such a hurry for, complained of the noise last

night in the servants' hall. Margaret looked intently at the butler. He,

as a handsome young man, was faintly attractive to her as a woman--an

attraction so faint as scarcely to be perceptible, yet the skies would

have fallen if she had mentioned it to Henry."

It is into Margaret's mind that E. M. Forster puts the ideas that take

pride of place in _Howard's End_.

"Margaret greeted her lord with peculiar tenderness on the morrow.

Mature as he was, she might yet be able to help him to the building of

the rainbow bridge that should connect the prose in us with the passion.

Without it we are meaningless fragments, half monks, half beasts,

unconnected arches that have never joined into a man. With it love is

born, and alights on the highest curve, glowing against the grey, sober

against the fire. Happy the man who sees from either aspect the glory of

these outspread wings. The roads of his soul lie clear, and he and his

friends shall find easy-going."

"It was hard-going in the roads of Mr Wilcox's soul. From boyhood he had

neglected them. 'I am not a fellow who bothers about my own inside.'

Outwardly he was cheerful, reliable, and brave; but within, all had

reverted to chaos, ruled, so far as it was ruled at all, by an

incomplete asceticism. Whether as boy, husband, or widower, he had

always the sneaking belief that bodily passion is bad, a belief that is

desirable only when held passionately. Religion had confirmed him.... He

could not be as the saints and love the Infinite with a seraphic ardour,

but he could be a little ashamed of loving a wife.... And it was here

that Margaret hoped to help him ... _only connect_! That was the whole

of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be

exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no

longer. Only connect and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation

that is life to either, will die."

If we demand of modern novels that they should portray human character

exactly as it is and that the author should have a definite standpoint

for his philosopher of life, one need quote no further to prove that in

_Howard's End_ these two desirable factors are to be found in profusion.

Mr E. M. Forster is a conscious artist of a very high order and our only

quarrel with him is that he writes too little.

XII

SHEILA KAYE-SMITH

We read Sheila Kaye-Smith because she alone among the women writers of

to-day writes with the sure touch of a man. This is not to decry other

writers of her sex of the stamp of Clemence Dane (though there are very

few good women novelists): it is that Miss Sheila Kaye-Smith has a

masculine strength; her narrative flows strongly, she has an uncanny

knowledge of and kinship with the elemental things of the soil.

We read her for her breadth of outlook, her sense of the beauty of the

Sussex that she has made hers as much as Thomas Hardy has made Wessex

his, for the dignity and excellent music of her English prose style. She

has an accurate sense of history and can with equal ease place her

characters at the beginning as at the end of Victoria's reign.

Her dialect (all her novels are full of dialect) is accurate if at times

a little literary: there are too many "howsumdevers," "dunnamanys,"

"vrotherings," "spannelings" and "tediouses," but this is a very little

blemish.

Her strength is seen fully fledged in _Sussex Gorse_, in the picture of

Reuben battling with the forces of nature.

"He drank in the scent of the baking awns, the heat of the sun-cracked

earth. It was all dear to him--all ecstasy. And he himself was dear to

himself because the beauty of it fell upon him ... his body, strong and

tired, smelling a little of sweat, his back scorched by the heat in

which he had bent, his hand strong as iron upon his sickle. Oh, Lord! it

was good to be a man, to feel the sap of life and conquest running in

you, to be battling with mighty forces, to be able to fight seasons,

elements, earth, and nature...."

He hates his son's poetic attitude, the boy who saw in nature a kind of

enchanted ground, full of mysteries of sun and moon, full of secrets

that were sometimes beautiful, sometimes terrifying. "It seemed to have

a soul and a voice ... and its soul was that ... of a fetch, some

country sprite."

But Reuben's hardness becomes his undoing: his hardness kills his

beloved wife through overmuch child-bearing; his hardness sends one son

to prison for stealing; his hardness makes him turn another son out of

the house; his hardness, his strength, his remorseless nature left him

to fight his battles with the land alone. He falls under the personality

of Alice Jury, who was the first to ask him whether it was worth while

fighting so hard to reclaim waste earth, to give up so much for the sake

of a piece of land. "'Life is worth while,'" she says, "'in itself, not

because of what it gives you.'

"'I agree with you there,' said Reuben; 'it's not wot life gives that's

good, it's wot you täake out of it.'"

But in the wrangles which he had with this new type of womanhood he

failed ever to convince her of the "worth-whileness" of his aim.

Meanwhile through his excessive zeal Reuben had driven his youngest,

weakling son to his death and continued to try to "draw out Leviathan

with a hook." The cleverest of his sons regarded his father as a

primordial gorilla, and Tilly, his daughter, despised him and married

his enemy: his ambition drove him to make slaves of his children, and

one by one they break the fetters and leave him. Alice tries to make him

see reason.... "You don't see this hideous thing that's pursuing you,

that's stripping you of all that ought to be yours, that's making you

miss a hundred beautiful things, that's driving you past all your

joys--this Boarzell...." Nearly, very nearly, he married Alice ... and

she would have saved him. "She was utterly unlike anything there was or

had been in his life, the only thing he knew that did not smell of

earth. The pity of it was that he loved that strong-smelling earth so

much."

She tells him that she would fight his schemes to the end, in love with

him as she is: she would never beguile him with the thought that she

could help him in his life's desire ... but she called him, as no woman

had ever called him, with all that of herself which was in his heart,

part of his own being, and she was within an ace of winning: she was in

the act of crossing to where he stood waiting with outstretched arms

when he caught sight of Boarzell lying in a great hush, a great

solitude, a quiet beast of power and mystery. "It seemed to call him

through the twilight like a love forsaken. There it lay,

Boarzell--strong, beautiful, desired, untamed, still his hope, still his

battle." So he turns his back on love and goes back to his lone fight

with Nature. Almost immediately afterwards he meets Rose, tall,

strapping, superbly moulded, animal Rose, free with her kisses, and

experienced and energetic in love: he marries her: she wanted Reuben's

love and she got it. "She was a perpetual source of delight to him! Her

beauty, her astounding mixture of fire and innocence, her good humour,

and her gaiety were even more intoxicating than before marriage. He felt

that he had found the ideal wife. As a woman she was perfect, so perfect

that in her arms he could forget her shortcomings as a comrade." She

smoothed away the wrinkles of his day with her caresses, gave him love

where she could not give him understanding, heart where she could not

give him brain. She made him forget his heaviness and gave him strength

to meet his difficulties, of which there were many. But she wanted no

children, and Reuben had set his heart on more. She spent much money on

the fastidious care of her person ... so that he "sometimes had doubts

of this beautiful, extravagant, irresponsible creature." Gradually he

came to realise her uselessness, but when one more grown-up son ran away

to sea Rose bore him a child, and her rich near relative died and he

began to think that his luck was in. Unfortunately this relative of his

wife's left all his money to an illegitimate son of whom no one had ever

heard, and the fortune that Reuben had expected to inherit by marrying

Rose fell elsewhere.

Shortly after this Rose finds the thirty years' difference between

herself and her husband too much for her and she allows herself to love

his foreman. Reuben locked her out of his house late one night when she

had been out with her lover, so she has no alternative but to go off

with him and leave Reuben in the lurch once more. He turns again to

Alice: "Wot sort o' chap am I to have pride? My farm's ruined, my wife's

run away, my children have left me--wot right have I to be proud?... She

deceived me. I married her expecting money, and there wur none--I

married her fur her body, and she's given it to another." This love of

Alice Jury's had nothing akin to Naomi's poor little fluttering passion,

or to Rose's fascination, half appetite, half game. Someone loved him

purely, truly, strongly, deeply, with a fire that could be extinguished

only by death or ... her own will. He is sorely tempted to give up his

ambitious struggle--all his great plans had crumbled into failure. "Far

better give up the struggle while there was the chance of an honourable

retreat. He realised that he was at the turning-point--a step further

along his old course and he would lose Alice, a step along the road she

pointed and he would lose Boarzell.... His mind painted him a picture it

had never dared paint before ... comfort ... his dear frail wife ...

himself contented, growing stout, wanting nothing he hadn't got, so

having nothing he didn't want...." But he turned his back on this with a

shudder. Boarzell was more to him than any woman in the world....

Through blood and tears ... he would wade to Boarzell, and conquer it at

last. Alice should go the way of all enemies. "And the last enemy to be

destroyed is Love." So he tore women out of his life, as he tore up the

gorse on Boarzell. Caro, his sole remaining daughter, then gives herself

to a sailor and goes off with him as his mistress. She felt very few

qualms of conscience, even when the barrier was past which she had

thought impassable ... her life was brimmed with beauty, unimaginable

beauty that welled up into the commonest things and suffused them with

light. Also, about it all was that surprising sense of naturalness which

almost always comes to women when they love for the first time, the

feeling of "For this I was born." Sheila Kaye-Smith has a wonderful gift

for depicting the passion of true love in the most beautiful manner.

"She never asked Dansay to marry her. He had given her pretty clearly to

understand that he was not a marrying man, and she was terrified of

doing or saying anything that might turn him against her. One of the

things about her that charmed him most was the absence of all demand

upon him."

But she is remorseless as Nature herself in her processes. A hundred

pages later we see her own young brothers attempting to "pick her up" on

the Newhaven Parade. She has become a third-rate harlot, a bundle of

rags and bones and paint.

"'I'm not happy, but I'm jolly. I'm not good, but I'm pleasant-like....

Mind you tell father as, no matter the life I lead and the knocks I get,

I've never once, not once, regretted the day I ran off from his old

farm.'"

The Boer War claims his youngest sons and Reuben is left alone at Odiam,

except for his brother Harry, who grows more shrivelled, more ape-like

every day. "Reuben was not ashamed at eighty years old to lie full

length in some sun-hazed field, and stretch his body over the grass, the

better to feel that fertile quietness and moist freshness which is the

comfort of those who make the ground their bed."

In the end we leave him victorious: out of a small obscure farm of

barely sixty acres he had raised up this splendid dominion, and he had

tamed the roughest, toughest, fiercest, cruellest piece of ground in

Sussex, the beast of Boarzell. His victory was complete. He had done all

that he set out to do. He had done what everyone had told him he could

never do. He had made the wilderness to blossom as the rose, he had set

his foot on Leviathan's neck, and made him his servant for ever.... He

knew that not only the land within these boundaries was his--his

possessions stretched beyond it, and reached up to the stars. The wind,

the rain, dawns, dusks and darkness were all given him as the crown of

his faithfulness. He had bruised Nature's head--and she had bruised his

heel, and given him the earth as his reward.

"'I've won,' he said softly to himself--'I've won--and it's bin worth

while.... I've fought and I've suffered, and I've gone hard and gone

rough and gone empty--but I haven't gone in vain. It's all bin worth it.

Odiam's great and Boarzell's mine--and when I die ... well, I've lived

so close to the earth all my days that I reckon I shan't be afraid to

lie in it at last.'"

There is a sense of complete unity, of complete mastery in this long

novel that is lacking in nearly all other modern novels. It is a very

high achievement for any author; for a woman it is amazing. Miss Sheila

Kaye-Smith has given us the inside workings of a rough man's life from

his earliest youth to his full four-score years: the secrets of the

soil lie bare before her scrutiny, and both in characterisation and in

descriptive power she shows a power which is nothing short of genius.

All her books deal with a mighty conflict between a man's tugging

desires. In _Tamarisk Town_ the conflict is between a man's love of a

woman and his ambition to build and develop a seaside town. In _Green

Apple Harvest_ the conflict lies between a man's love for a woman and

his soul's salvation. It is in this last novel of hers that we get

perhaps Sheila Kaye-Smith's most telling descriptions.

Passages of this sort abound:

"The moon was climbing up above the mists, and among them huddled the

still shapes of the sleeping country, dim outlines of woods and stacks

and hedges. Here and there a star winked across the fields from a

farmhouse window, or a pond caught the faint, fog-thickened light of the

moon. There was no wind, only a catch of frost on the motionless air,

and the mist had muffled all the lanes into silence, so that even the

small sounds of the night--the barking of a dog at Bantony, the trot of

hoofs on the highroad, the far-off scream and groan of a train, the suck

of all the Fullers' feet in the mud--were hushed to something even

fainter than the munch of cows on the other side of the hedge."

Or this: "The mists had sunk into the earth or shredded into the sky,

and the distances that had been blurred since twilight were now almost

frostily keen of outline and colour. The air was thinly sweet-scented

with the sodden earth, with the moist, golden leaves, with the straw of

rick and barn-roof made pungent by dew."

Robert Fuller of Bodingmares falls in love with Hannah Iden, a gipsy,

who is not so easy to conquer as the other girls he had made love to....

"'I want her, Clem,'" he says to his brother. "'She's lovely ... her

mouth makes my mouth ache ... she smells of grass ... and her eyes in

the shadder--they mäake me want to drownd myself. I wish her eyes wur

water and I could drownd myself in 'em.'"

Eventually she gives in to his importunity.

"'I love her,' said Robert, 'not because she's sweet, but because I

can't help it; surelye ... she'll let me love her--that's all I ask. All

I ask is fur her to täake me and let me love her.... She döan't want a

boy to love her--she wants a man.... Hannah wurn't born to mäake men

happy--she wur born to mäake them men.'"

Clem, the young brother, is unhappy about Robert and confronts Hannah,

who retorts: "'You're afraid of me because I've taught your Bob how to

love, as none of the silly, fat young girls in this place have taught

him.... I could teach you how to love, little hedgehog, if I hadn't your

brother for scholard.'"

"For long afterwards her shadow seemed to lie on the dusk--on the wet

gleam of the road, on the twigs and spines of the thorny hedges, on the

clear sky with its spatter of yellow rain. Yet it was not her beauty

which defiled, but the cruelty in which it was rooted like a rose-tree

in dung.... Her crude physical power would not have disgusted him if it

had had its accustomed growth out of a healthy instinct.... She was like

the bitter kernel of a ripe, sweet fruit--she was the hard stone of

Nature's heart...."

All the same she contributed to Clem's own manhood, for it is not long

after that he holds his own sweetheart Polly, despite her struggling,

and loves her like a man at last with a passion that is not free from

fierceness. So he at any rate achieves his happiness in marriage and

becomes Polly's "dear Clemmy ... his sweetness and gentleness were

fundamental--a deep gratitude stirred in her heart, making her take his

dark, woolly head in her hands and kiss it with the slow, reverent

kisses of a thankful child, and then suddenly find herself the mother

with that head upon her breast."

But Robert finds no such happiness with his gipsy love.

"'Nannie, you're cruel--I can't mäake you out. You let me love you, and

I'm full of heaven, but in between whiles you're no more'n a lady

acquaintance.'"

To which she replies: "'I'm not one of your Gentile rawnees who loves

and kisses all day and half the night.... I love when I feels like it,

and I bet I give you more to remember than any silly fat girl in these

parts....'"

He has to take her on her own terms ... but she loves his bulk and

beauty, and on this occasion she yields and her hardness melts into his

passion "as a rock melts into a wave."

But she goes away, and betrays him by marrying one of her own kind and

so drives Robert almost out of his mind.

As a reaction he turns to Mabel, an anæmic, town-bred, artificial type

of girl who imparted to his "flagging taste a savour as of salt and

olives."

"She brought the atmosphere of streets and shops and picture-houses into

the stuffy little parlour of a country cottage.... After his country

loves, it excited him to touch the novelty of a powdered skin--Mabel's

powder and scent were part of a new and very gripping charm...."

"It was June when Hannah came back. The hay had been cut in the low

fields by the river, but the high grounds were still russet with sorrel

and plantain, and sainfoin waiting for the scythe. The lanes were dim

with the warm dust that hung over them and mixed with the cloud of

chervil and cow-parsley and fennel that filmed the hedges, making with

it a sweet, stale scent of dust and flowers. Down by the watercourses

the hawthorn had faded, and the meadowsweet sicklied the still air that

thickened above the dykes and at night crept up as a damp, perfumed mist

to farmhouse walls."

Suddenly Robert makes up his mind. To forget Hannah he decides to marry

Mabel, and does so. "She was a lovely little girl, with her soft,

powdered skin and her fluffy hair and her dainty ways." But she does not

take kindly to her new life.

"Lying there in bed, in her flimsy, town-made night-gown, staring at the

black, star-dazzled sky, listening to the sough of the reeds and the

moan of the water ... she would feel strangely and terrifyingly lonely

... the common, homely fields seemed to take on a savage remoteness ...

even the man at her side, so familiar and commonplace to her now, by day

her playfellow and companion and master, now seemed to take his part in

the strangeness of it all ... he belonged to this dark, unfriendly

country, he was part of its clay; it had worked itself into him, his

very skin smelt of its soil."

She gets jealous lest he should still hanker after his early love, and

she taunts him with it. A frequent drinker, one night he returns drunk

and has an accident: he is rescued by a frenzied zealot, who frightens

him by depicting the terrors of hell and tries to save his soul, with

the result that when he is well again he tramps round the country-side

trying to convert all those who are not yet "saved." Mabel somewhat

naturally looks on his phase as evidence of lunacy. He gives up smoking

and drinking and looks on himself as one of God's chosen.

"'I'm säafe, I'll never go in fear of hell no more.... When I think wot

I wur--a very worm and no man, as the Scriptures say--and then I think

how He has accepted me.... I reckon I'll give all my life to Him, to

serve Him and love Him, and reckon as I'll never drink nor smoke nor

grumble at Mabel as long as I live.'"

But Clem and Polly are not satisfied about him.

"'I can't help wishing,'" said Polly to her husband, "'as he hadn't got

hold of such a Salvation sort of religion--I can't help thinking as

he'll find as much trouble on his way to God as ever he found on his way

to the devil.'"

People certainly liked him better as an "honest sinner."

"'Wotsumdever ull Bob do next? That's wot I'd lik' to hear,'" said Mary;

"'fust it's a woman, and then it's drink, and then it's the devil, and

then it's God: reckon he's tried every way to disgrace us as he knows.'"

"'I thought I'd married a man,'" is Mabel's thought, "'and now it seems

I've married a Young Man--a Young Man's Christian Association.'"

Robert's love for her became more diffident and beseeching, for its

glamours and ardours she had no response, for its doubts and hesitations

she had nothing but contempt. "'I believe you'd make me as big a fool as

yourself, if you could,'" she said. The people in the district get to

the point where they "'wöan't täake any more preaching from a chap wot's

bin a byword in the Parish fur loosness this five years.'" So Clem tries

to make him "höald his tongue," but he has come to look upon himself as

an apostle sent to the Gentiles, so he becomes a tramping Methodist,

like the hero of Sheila Kaye-Smith's first book.

"On a warm March Sunday, when the hedges were brushed with green bloom,

and the willow catkin made creamy splashes in the brown of the woods,

Robert went off to Goudhurst."

Getting tired with his long walk, "he suddenly felt that it would be

good to turn out of the lane, and lie down on the earth-smelling grass

of one of those big, quiet fields, just where the shadow of the hedge

was lacy on the edge of the sunshine ... to smell the earth, and feel

its sweet, living strength as he lay on it ... while round him the

primrose leaves uncurled, and the spotted leaves of the field orchid

broke the green film of their bract, and the warm daisies breathed out a

scent that was the caught essence of spring heat and honey ..." but he

pulled himself up short ... this was the devil tempting him. "He

distrusted a yearning for the beauty of the fields ... of old times he

used never to think twice about the country--but since his conversion he

had had ... temptations to turn to mere beauty." The conflict in his

mind affected his preaching powers adversely. In the evening he meets a

tramp whom he turns from the drink and is seduced by him into sleeping

out of doors. "A strange, sweet peace had dropped upon him at last--he

had forgotten the rubs and humiliations of his Sabbath ... but he did

not sleep till nearly dawn. The night seemed awake ... it was full of a

living scent of earth and grass, which mixed strangely with the musty

dry scent of the hay. There was a continual flutter and whisper in the

hedge, queer muffled sounds came from the next field ... he slept just

when the rich blue of the darkness was turning grey."

Mabel was furious with him, but he continued his irregular ministry. "It

belonged to the casual nights he spent under the stars--soft purple

nights of June, when the horns of the yellow moon burned above the

woods, and the air was warm, and thick with the smell of hay. He

associated it with the sweet, straggling sunlight of late afternoon or

early morning, with village wells, and cool deserted lanes ... he made

no wonderful stir among the people, either for good or evil." He was not

stoned at the cross-roads, any more than he was thronged by repentant

sinners.

These accounts of his wanderings through Kent and Sussex give Sheila

Kaye-Smith a chance to describe more wonderfully and in greater detail

than elsewhere the beauties of the nature that she knows and loves so

well. In the end he falls in again with the gipsies, and is enticed by

them to wrestle with Hannah, his first love, for her soul. He is at

first averse from undertaking it: in the end, of course, he does.

"'Oh, Nannie,'" he said, "'God loves you. He's never stopped loving you

once, for all you've turned against Him, and the cruel things you've

done----'"

Then he knew that he was merely declaring his own love for her, and

calling it God's.... He fell on his knees before her, and taking her in

his arms, covered her face with kisses. Her husband immediately appears

and threatens to blackmail him: "'This is a fine Gospel, and a damn-fine

Gospeller.'" He suggests that five pounds might seal their mouths and

then----

"'I call five quid nothing for what you've done,'" said Auntie Lovel.

"'The other gentleman had to pay ten, and he scarce got hold of Hannah

properly....'"

Robert at last sees the trick and nearly kills Hannah's husband, as a

result of which he goes to prison, and Mabel seizes the opportunity to

go back to the seaside. When he is released from jail Robert goes to

live with Clem, a broken man.

"'Sims to me,'" says Polly, "'as Bob's life's lik' a green apple

tree--he's picked his fruit lik' other men, but it's bin hard and sour

instead of sweet. Love and religion--they're both sweet things, folks

say, but with Bob they've bin as the hard green apples.'"

Robert goes to see Mabel and discovers that she wants to cut him right

out of her life, and he decides to kill himself. He goes out in the dead

of night to do it ... and finds at last that the love of the soil is too

much for him. "The mistrusted earth had been his comfort all through

that wonderful year.... Memories came to him of footprints in the white

dust of Kentish lanes, of big fields tilted to the sunset, of ponds like

moons in the night, of dim shapes of villages in a twilight thickened

and yellowed by the chaffy mist of harvest, of the spilt glory of big

solemn stars, the mystery and the wonder of sounds at night, sounds of

animals creeping, sounds of water, sounds of birds.... The fields and

the farms and the sunrise were calling him ... 'I am your God--döan't

you know me?... Didn't you know that I've bin with you all the time?

That every time you looked out on the fields ... you looked on Me? Why

wöan't you look and see how beautiful and homely and faithful and loving

I am? I'm plighted to you wud the troth of a mother to her child. You

lost Me in the mists of your own mind.' ..."

Once more he is converted. Full of his new Salvation he hastens to

enlighten Clem.

"'But now I see as how He's love ... and He's beauty.... He's in the

fields mäaking the flowers grow and the birds sing and the ponds have

that lovely liddle white flower growing on 'em....'" Again he decides to

convert the world despite Clem's protests. "'You can't go every time

you're convarted preaching the Gospel about the pläace.'" But he goes

... and Hannah's husband stirs up the roughs to duck him in a mill pond:

they are more thorough than they mean to be and he dies of his injuries.

'"I've a feeling as if I go to the Lord God I'll only be going into the

middle of all that's alive ... if I'm wud Him I can't never lose the

month of May.'"

And the last words are fittingly left to Clem and Polly. "'He wur a

decent chap, Poll ... he wur a good chap, the best I've known.'

"'Surelye,' said Polly, 'if Bob had only had sense he might have come to

be a saint and martyr--who knows? He had the makings of one; but he had

no sense--if he'd had sense he'd be alive now.'

"'Reckon he did wot he thought right.'

"'That's why it's a pity it wurn't sense.'"

This study of a man strange, dignified, real and crystal-clear is not

likely quickly to perish. Those who have any trace of the passion for

the soil that possesses nearly all the characters in Sheila Kaye-Smith's

books, and most Englishmen have it in some degree, will not need to look

for any further reason why they should read her novels. All lovers of

pure art, all lovers of Nature, all lovers of humanity will find in them

satisfaction hardly to be found elsewhere in fiction.

PART III

BOOKS ON THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

I

_A HISTORY OF MODERN COLLOQUIAL ENGLISH_--BY H. C. WYLD

I purposely refrained from saying "Philology" because it has a

frightening sound. There is a feeling that the study of literature is

directly hostile to a study of Philology, whereas the truth is that, as

Professor Wyld says, "_Rightly interpreted, language is a mirror of the

minds and manners of those who speak it_," a point of view which cannot

be sufficiently emphasised.

In the old days the study of language meant the chasing of umlaut and

the tracking down of ablaut; to-day we find ourselves enticed into the

study of modern colloquial English in these words:

"Together let us beat this ample field,

Try what the open, what the covert yield;

The latent tracts, the giddy heights explore,

Of all who blindly creep, or sightless soar;

Eye nature's walks, shoot folly as it flies,

And catch the manners living as they rise."

The study of language in H. C. Wyld's _History of Modern Colloquial

English_ becomes "one line of approach to the Knowledge of Man," and is

vastly intriguing.

We find ourselves, for instance, trying to account for the great

shifting in pronunciation between the last quarter of the eighteenth and

the first quarter of the nineteenth century in words of the "er" and

"ar" type. Why did "sarvice," "vartue," "sarmon" die out, and "Derby,"

"Berkshire," "clerk" remain? Of course the great factor which nowadays

destroys the value of vocabulary as a specific characteristic of a given

regional dialect is the migratory habits of the population, and the war

will have done more to ruin it than any amount of Elementary Education.

But we are concerned for the moment with curiosities. Why is "napkin"

to be preferred to "serviette"? Why do not people who speak of "the

influenza" say "the appendicitis"? Even so great an authority on social

propriety as Lord Chesterfield talks of "the head-ach." Where do

shop-walkers get their "half-hose," "vest" (for waistcoat), "neckwear,"

"footwear" and similar words? What has happened to the word "_genteel_"?

"O damn anything that's low"--"The genteel thing is the genteel thing";

but the fun lies in finding out what each age and each individual means

or has meant by "genteel" and "low."

It is with a certain sense of surprise that those who have never studied

the English Language find that in mediæval times our ancestors gave the

alphabet Continental values; those who have a smattering of literary

history are equally surprised to find that Chaucer, "the Father of

English Literature," did not create the English of Literature; he found

it ready to his hand and used it with a gaiety, a freshness, a

tenderness and a humanity which has never been surpassed.

Those interested in Literature have ever looked upon the fifteenth

century as an arid waste: in language, on the other hand, it is a period

of intense importance. For one thing, there is a big increase in the

number of people who can write, and therefore in the number of private

documents that have come down to us. Freed from the shackles of the

professional scribe, writing becomes a listening to actual people

speaking, and so we find a great variety of spelling ... we find that

modern English is beginning ... and there is of course the introduction

of printing. It is to these old printers and to these old printers alone

that we owe our persistence in clinging to an outworn system of

spelling.

For four hundred and fifty years they have dictated to us how we are to

spell, and a defence of our existing system which is completely

unphonetic is defensible chiefly on the ground of custom, not at all for

any pretended historical merit. If only Caxton had been a trifle more

enterprising our spelling would have been less widely divorced from the

facts of pronunciation.

In the sixteenth century we find that regional dialect disappears

completely from the written language of the South and Midlands--almost

every private letter contains a certain number of spellings which throw

light upon pronunciation: "the tongue which Shakespeare spake" was the

tongue which he wrote: and there is a definite unity between the

colloquial language and the language of literature which is after all

natural when we think how closely approximated to the action done was

every word written by the Elizabethans who one and all seem to have been

writers as well as soldiers, statesmen, politicians, sailors, merchant

venturers and ambassadors.

"It is not for nothing," says Professor Wyld, "that matters stood thus

between the men of letters and the courtiers and the explorers in the

age when Literary English was being made, or rather, let us say, when

English speech was being put to new uses, and made to express in all its

fullness the amazing life of a wonderful age, with all its fresh

experiences, thoughts and dreams.

"If anyone doubts whether the language of Elizabethan literature was

actually identical with that of everyday life, or whether it was not

rather an artful concoction, divorced from the real life of the age, let

him, after reading something of the lives and opinions of a few of the

great men we have briefly referred to, ask himself whether the picture

of Ascham, Wilson, Sidney, or Raleigh posturing and mourning like the

Della Cruscans of a later age, is a conceivable one ... if the speech of

the great men we have been considering was unaffected and natural, it

certainly was not vulgar. If it be vulgar to say _whot_ for _hot_,

_stap_ for _stop_, _offen_ for _often_, _sarvice_ for _service_,

_venter_ for _venture_: if it be slipshod to say _Wensday_ for

_Wednesday_, _beseechin_ for _beseeching_, _stricly_ for _strictly_,

_sounded_ for _swooned_, _attemps_ for _attempts_, and so on; then it is

certain that the Queen herself, and the greater part of her Court, must

plead guilty to these imputations."

The individualism in spelling which still to a certain extent prevailed

in the sixteenth century enables us to collect from written works, to a

far higher degree than at present, the individual habits of speech which

the writer possessed. The result of an examination of the writings of

this age, from this point of view, is that we see that there existed a

greater degree of variety in speech--both in pronunciation and in

grammatical forms--than exists now.

One particularly valuable document which Professor Wyld makes use of is

the diary of Henry Machyn, a sixteenth-century tradesman who gossips at

random in the vernacular of the middle-class Londoner with no particular

education or refinement. Like the Wellers, he confuses his _v's_ and

_w's_: _wacabondes_, _wergers_, _walues_, _welvet_, _woyce_, _voman_,

_Vestmynster_ are examples. He misplaces his initial aspirates, _alff_,

_Amton Courte_, _ard_, _Allallows_, _elmet_, _alpeny_, _hanswered_,

_haskyd_, _harme_: his is the largest list of "dropped aspirates" in

words of English, not Norman-French, origin which Professor Wyld has

found in any document as early as this. _As_ as a relative pronoun,

_good ons_ for _good ones_, _syngyne_ for _singing_, _wyche_ for _which_

and _watt_ for _what_ are valuable signs. Machyn lets us into more

secrets of contemporary speech than does any other writer of his period:

he is marvellously emancipated from traditional spelling, which makes

him a wonderful guide to the lower type of London English of his time.

When he gets to the seventeenth century the ordinary reader of to-day

feels that the writers of that period begin for the first time to speak

like men and women of his own age; both in spirit and in substance we

have reached our own English; by the time we reach Sir John Suckling and

Cowley we scent a colloquial modernity which is altogether foreign to

the soaring periods of Milton, the eccentricity of Sir Thomas Browne or

the didactic aloofness of Bacon. Dryden was conscious of great

differences between the speech of his own time as reflected in writing,

especially in the drama, and that of the Elizabethans. He attributes the

change and "improvement" to the polish and refinement of Charles II.'s

Court. He congratulates himself that "the stiff forms of conversation"

had passed away; his charges against the older age are merely charges

against the archaic and unfamiliar. To be obsolete in his eyes was to be

inferior. Hence his attempt to modernise Chaucer and improve on

Shakespeare. These strictures of Dryden about English refer primarily to

literature, but they are applicable to the colloquial language. If

literary prose style changes it is because the colloquial language has

changed first.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century we have Swift's instructive

treatises on the English of his day and of the age before, which is

diametrically opposed to Dryden's theories. But it is important to

notice that among the hosts of solecisms to which he objects he does not

quote what we should expect him to quote. Why does he not mention

_Lunnon_, _Wensday_, _Chrismas_, _greatis_ (greatest), _respeck_,

_hounes_ (hounds)? The reason is that they were so widespread among the

best speakers that he himself didn't notice anything wrong with them.

His strictures are those of the academic pedant, Dryden's are those of

the man of the world.

But for a study of seventeenth-century colloquial English we are

directed to the letters in the _Verney Memoirs_. Just as in the

sixteenth century Henry Machyn's diary was more to our purpose than the

work of any great man, so are the _Verney Papers_ in the seventeenth

century the eternal joy of the philologist. A large proportion of the

letters are written by ladies, and it is from these that we get the

greater number of departures from the conventional spelling which shed

so much light upon pronunciation. If they spell phonetically it is not

because their talk was more careless, but because they read less and

were therefore unfamiliar with the orthodox spelling of printed books.

To spell badly, it must be remembered, was no fault in the seventeenth

or eighteenth centuries. From them we get this common form of

pronouncing _ar_ for _er_--_sartinly_, _desarve_, _sarvant_, _sarve_,

_presarve_, _divartion_, _larne_, _marcy_; from them we get _gine_ for

_join_, _byled_ for _boiled_, _oblege_ for _oblige_, _seein_, _missin_,

_comin_, _disablegin_, _lemonds_, _night gownd_; they shorten _have_ to

_a_; they say _between you and I_ and _he is reasonable well agane_.

This free and easy pronunciation and grammar which are characteristic of

fashionable English down to the middle of the eighteenth century is

partly due to the intimate relation that existed between the ruling

classes who visited their estates in the country and came directly into

contact with regional speech. "It is just this constant touch with

country pursuits and rustic dialect which distinguished, and still

distinguishes, the upper classes from the middle-class dwellers in the

town."

We owe a good deal to a phonetician called Cooper, whose _Grammatica

Anglicana_ was published in 1685. From him we see that _line_ and _loin_

had the same pronunciation. _Ant_ and _aunt_, _Rome_ and _room_,

_Noah's_ and _nose_, _Walter_ and _water_, _doer_ and _door_, _pulls_

and _pulse_, _shire_ and _shear_--these show us at once how closely the

real rustic of to-day gets to the fashionable speech of two hundred

years ago. He then gives us pronunciations which he would have his

readers avoid as barbarous: _ommost_ for _almost_, _wuts_ for _oats_,

_fut_ for _foot_; but it is pleasant to find that Mr Cooper is

pleasantly free from that gross and besetting sin of the schoolmaster to

describe an ideally "correct" English.

This omission of the "l" (in _Walter_) is extended by another

"phonographer" in 1701 to _St Albans_, _Talbot_, _falcon_, _almanac_,

_almost_, _Falmouth_, _falter_: apparently too, in his time, the _au_

sound which most of us have kept in _sausage_ and _because_ extended

then to _auburn_, _auction_, _audience_, _august_, _aunt_, _austere_,

_daunt_, _fault_, _fraud_, _jaundice_, _Paul_ and _vault_.

William Baker in 1724 gave us in his _Rules for True Spelling and

Writing English_, an instructive list of what he called "words that are

commonly pronounced very different from what they are written"!

_Stomick_, _spannel_, _Dannel_, _venison_, _medson_ are noteworthy.

From the middle of the eighteenth century there are signs of a reaction

against a laxity in pronunciation, influenced perhaps by Lord

Chesterfield and Doctor Johnson.

Johnson, we know, favoured the "regular and solemn" rather than the

"cursory and colloquial."

It is to be noticed in passing that all the "reforms" in pronunciation

and grammar which have passed into general currency in colloquial

English during the last hundred and fifty years have come from below and

not from above, in the first instance. This accounts for what some of us

look on as the offensive vulgarity of the modern pronunciations of

_waistcoat_, _often_, _forehead_, _landscape_, _handkerchief_, due to a

wish to speak correctly. So our pronunciation of _gold_, _servant_,

_oblige_, _nature_, _London_, _Edward_, etc., would in their turn have

struck our grandfathers as offensive vulgarisms.

The later eighteenth century and the early nineteenth seem to have

favoured a very serious turn of mind. It is really extraordinary to

think of the hold which Jane Austen exerts over us when we come to

analyse the total absence of brilliance, humour, pointedness or charm

of any kind that marks the conversation of her characters. The charm and

the genius lie in the author's handling of these second-rate people, but

she represents them as they actually were. These are actually the

conversations of living people. All the little pomposities and

reticences, the polite formulas, the unconscious vulgarisms, the

well-bred insincerities of the age are here perfectly displayed. The

Bennets, D'Arcy's, Wodehouses, etc., pronounced their words _kyard_,

_gyearl_, _ojus_, _Injun_, _comin'_, _goin'_, and so on. Lady Catherine

de Burgh probably said _Eddard_, _tay_, _chaney_, _ooman_, _neigb'rood_,

_lanskip_, _Lunnon_, _cheer_ (chair) and perhaps _goold_, _obleege_ and

_sarvant_.

Professor Wyld quite rightly waxes indignant over the rise of bogus

pronunciations, based purely on the spelling, among persons who were

ignorant of the best traditional usage until they obtained currency

among the better classes. "It would be desirable," he says, "to run

these monstrosities to earth, when it would probably appear that many

had their origin among ignorant teachers of pronunciation." "It would be

an interesting inquiry," he says in another place, "how far the falling

off in the quality of prose style among the generality of writers after

the third quarter of the eighteenth century is related to social

developments. An East Indian director is said to have told Charles Lamb

(of all men!) that the style the Company most appreciated was the

humdrum, thus doubtlessly voicing the literary ideals of the rising

class of bankers, brokers, and nabobs whose point of view was largely to

dominate English taste for several generations."

It is worth remembering that the change in pronunciation of a host of

words like _heat_, _meat_, _eat_, _ease_, _sea_, _speak_, _cheat_,

_dream_, _deceit_ from _hate_, _mate_, _ate_, _ase_, _say_ and so on is

not in the nature of a sound change, but is merely the abandonment of

one type of pronunciation, and the adoption of another, a very common

phenomenon.

It was a visit to _The Beggar's Opera_ that made me think the following

sentence worthy of comment. The present-day vulgarism of dropping the

initial aspirate was not widespread much before the end of the

eighteenth century, and it made one wince to hear an otherwise good

actor so far go out of his part as to drop "h's" where the original

would never have done so. The restoration of an aspirate in _humour_ is

a trick of yesterday. The gap in the evidence between Machyn and two

hundred years later is remarkable. The practice which did exist in

Machyn's day in London must have been confined to a limited class. The

wrong addition of _h_ is far more noticeable.

In a most diverting final chapter Professor Wyld dilates on colloquial

idiom, and reminds us how impossible it would be for us, if we were

transported into the sixteenth century, to know how to greet or take

leave of those we met, how to express our thanks suitably, how to ask a

favour, pay a compliment or send a polite message to a gentleman's wife.

We should be at a loss how to begin and end the simplest note, whether

to a friend, relative or stranger. We should hesitate every moment how

to address the person we were talking to.

Readers of Ford Madox Hueffer's _Ladies whose Bright Eyes_, and those

who saw _When Knights were Bold_, will realise what infinite amusement

can be called up by imagining oneself driven to talk on level terms with

our ancestors.

Professor Wyld opens up the subject by giving characteristic specimens

of modes of greeting, farewells, compliments, endearments, angry

speeches, oaths, affectations and so on, all of which are entertaining

and enlightening. We find, for instance, most of our modern formulas in

letter-writing in use before the end of the first half of the

seventeenth century.

For anyone in the least interested in the sources and development of his

own language there is no book which will whet his appetite to pursue the

subject still more deeply than Professor Wyld's History. It has the

added advantage that scholars will find in it plenty of material for

further research; but everyone should read it for the flood of light it

sheds on what we fondly imagined to be good taste, on what is falsely

thought to be "the correct thing," and most of all because it shows us

still another way of "catching the manners" of other ages "living as

they rise."

II

_THE ROMANCE OF WORDS_--BY ERNEST WEEKLEY

Professor Weekley interests us in philology no less than Professor Wyld,

but he treads an entirely different path. His aim is to select the

unexpected in etymology, to show us the close connection between _jilt_

and _Juliet_, to trace _assegai_ back to Chaucer, to explain the true

meaning of phrases like _curry favour_, which really means the combing

down of a horse of a particular colour.

The result of this system is that we begin for ourselves to eye every

word with suspicion, and work out by ourselves reasons why _trivial_

means _commonplace_ (it can be picked up anywhere, at the meet of "three

ways," _trivium_), and so on.

Why are the series of monosyllables by which notes are indicated, do,

re, mi, fa, so, la? They are supposed to be taken from a Latin hymn:

"_Ut_ (_do_) queant laxis _re_sonare fibris

_Mi_ra questorum _fa_muli tuorum

_Sol_ve polluti _la_bü reatum

Sancte Iohannees ..."

Professor Weekley invites us to watch words as they travel, an amusing

game.

_Apricot_ starts in mediæval Greek, through vulgar Latin as _præcox_

(early ripe), through Arabia. It first crossed the Adriatic, passed on

to Asia Minor or the north coast of Africa, and then travelling along

the Mediterranean re-entered Southern Europe. _Carat_ does much the

same, being a corruption through French, Italian and Arabic of the Greek

[Greek: κερατιον] (fruit of the locust-tree, little horn). _Hussar_ is a

doublet of _corsair_, and has travelled a long way since the separation

first took place. The _cocoa_ of _cocoanut_ is a Spanish baby word for a

bogey-man.

Then there are words of popular manufacture like _ortolan_,

_guinea-pig_ (which is not a pig and does not come from Guinea),

_parrot_ ("little Peter"), _pinchbeck_ and _nicotine_ (from the names of

men), and so on.

Phonetic accidents account for many vagaries, as we see only too

commonly with the letter "_h_." It is noteworthy that in Imperial Rome

educated people sounded the aspirate, while it completely disappeared

from the everyday language of the lower classes, the vulgar Latin from

which the Romance languages are descended, so far as their working

vocabulary is concerned.

That is why the Romance languages have no aspirate. Our "educated" _h_

in modern English is mainly artificial, as we saw before: cf. _Armitage_

with _hermitage_.

Then there are sound changes by assimilation, dissimilation and

metathesis: the _lime_ and _linden_ is an example of the first;

_tankard_ for _cantar_, _wattle_ and _wallet_ examples of the third.

Some words shrink, like _Spittlegate_ near Grantham for _hospital gate_,

_gin_ for _Geneva_, _grog_ from the admiral who wore _grogram_ breeches,

_navvy_ for _navigator_. Words have a habit too of completely changing

their meaning. _Treacle_ used for _balm_ in Coverdale's Bible from

_theriaca_, a remedy against snake-bite, a _lumber_-room, is really a

_Lombard_ room, where the pawnbrokers stored pledged property.

Adjectives are especially subject to change. _Quaint_ used to mean

_acquaint_; _restive_ used to mean standing stock still; _smug_ used to

mean trim, elegant, beautiful; _homely_ used to mean ugly, disagreeable,

coarse.

_Miniature_ ought to mean something painted in _minium_ (red lead).

The original _scavenger_ was an important official.

There is too the study of semantics--the science of meanings as

distinguished from phonetics, the science of sound.

The _exchequer_ is really a _chess-board_; _chancel_ a _cross-bar_, so

_cancel_.

The study of metaphors is a little startling, when we find that to "take

the cake" is paralleled by the Greek [Greek: λαβειν τον πυραμουντα], and

that "to lose the _ship_ for a ha'porth of tar" is merely dialect for

_sheep_. Tar is used as a medicine for sheep.

Folk etymology is worth spending time over, if only to discover such

things as the derivation of _humble-pie_, a pie made from the _umbles_

of a stag; _umpire_ (non per), not equal; _ramper_, causeway, a doublet

of _rampart_; _purley_, a strip of disforested woodland from

_pour-allée_; _taffrail_ from _tafel_, picture; _posthumous_, from

_postumus_, latest-born. _Witch-elm_ has nothing to do with witches; it

is for _weech-elm_, the bent elm.

Ignorance of the true meaning of a word leads to vain repetitions:

_greyhound_ means _hound-hound_; _Buckhurst Holt Wood_ means beech wood

wood wood; a _cheerful face_ means a face full of face.

And before taking leave of us and sending us off on a thousand different

scents of our own in chase of words Professor Weekley warns us to

preserve the rules of the hunt. A sound etymology must not violate the

recognised laws of sound change (these may be found in Professor Wyld's

book); the development of meaning must be clearly traced, and it must

start from the earliest or fundamental sense of the word.

With the few delicious examples that I have quoted before you,

multiplied by a thousand in _The Romance of Words_, this is a game to

send you into ecstasies, and one of which you can never tire.

III

_THE ROMANCE OF NAMES_--BY ERNEST WEEKLEY

This companion volume to _The Romance of Words_ is no less diverting. It

is just one branch of the hunt, and perhaps the most interesting one to

start with. We find mythical etymologies like that of the Napiers of

Merchiston who took the motto _n'a pier_ ("has no equal"), whereas their

ancestors were the servants who looked after the napery. Not all the

_Seymours_ are _St Maurs_. Some of them were once _Seamers_--_i.e._

tailors.

The ff in _ffrench_ and _ffoulkes_ is sheer affectation, as the _ff_ is

merely the method of indicating the capital letter in early documents.

The telescoping of long names leads to trouble among the ignorant.

Auchinleck, _Affleck_; Postlethwaite, _Posnett_; Wolstenholme, _Woosnam_

are good examples of this.

It is well to be reminded, for the sake of those who bear "hideous

names," of the following facts. Matthew Arnold in his essay on the

_Function of Criticism at the Present Time_ is moved by the case of

_Wragg_ to this:

"What a touch of grossness in our race, what an original shortcoming in

the more delicate spiritual perceptions, is shown by the natural growth

amongst us of such hideous names--_Higginbottom_, _Stiggins_, _Bugg_."

As a matter of fact, _Wragg_ is the first element in the heroic Ragnar;

_Bugg_ is the Anglo-Saxon Bucga; _Stiggins_ is the illustrious Stigand,

and _Higginbottom_ is purely geographical.

We owe a great many of our names in disguise to the paladins and of

course to the Bible. _Pankhurst_ is Pentecost, _Chubb_ and _Jupp_ are

derived from Job, _Cradock_ from Caradoc (Caractacus), _Maddox_ from

Madoc, _Izzard_ from Isolt, _Rome_ from Roland.

Metronymics, as Professor Weekley hastens to assure us, are not always a

sign of moral depravity: in mediæval times the children of a widow often

assumed the mother's name.

From Matilda we get Tillotson, from Beatrice Betts, from Isabel

Ibbotson, from Avice Haweis.

With regard to local surnames we have to accustom ourselves to the idea

that the name of a county, town or village was acquired when the

locality was left. _Scott_ is an English name, _English_ or _Inglis_ is

Scottish; _Cornish_ and _Cornwallis_ first became common in Devonshire,

_French_ and _Francis_ are English ... for the same reason _Cutler_ is a

rare name in Sheffield. The great exception _Curnow_ in Cornwall may

stand for those who could only speak the old Cornish language.

Morris (Moorish) is probably a nickname due to complexion.

"In _ford_, in _ham_, in _ley_ and _tun_

The most of English surnames run."

It is true that we owe many names to "spots." It is curious how _Field_,

_Lake_, _Pool_, _Spring_, _Street_ and _Marsh_ persist in the singular,

while _Meadows_, _Rivers_, _Mears_, _Wells_, _Rhodes_ and _Myers_ hang

on to the plural. So we get _Nokes_, but _Nash_: monosyllables tend to

the plural. There are certain Celtic words connected with

scenery--_Lynn_, _Carrick_, _Craig_ are common examples.

_Beerbohm Tree_ is pleonastic, meaning pear-tree tree. _Thackeray_ means

the corner where the thatch was stored. _Kellogg_ is derived from kill

hog. _Cazenove_ and _Newbolt_ have the same meaning. _Rothschild_ means

red shield, _Hawtrey_ comes from Hauterive, but Norman ancestry is not

always to be assumed because we find French spot-names so common in

England (_Neville_, _Villiers_, etc.). _Boyes_ and _Boyce_ may spring

from a man of pure English descent who happened to be described _del

bois_ instead of _atte wood_, but this is rare. _Roach_ is not a

fish-name, but corresponds to _Delaroche_. _Pew_, if not _Ap Hugh_, was

a _Dupuy_.

Occupative names become a natural surname, but _Knight_ is not always

knightly, for Anglo-Saxon _cuiht_ means servant; _Labouchère_ was the

lady butcher, _Cordner_ the worker in Cordovan leather; _Muir_ was _le

muur_, who had charge of the mews in which the hawks were kept while

moulting. _Reader_ and _Booker_ have nothing to do with literature: the

former thatched, the latter was a butcher.

Professor Weekley devotes one whole chapter to show the difficulties

that beset the etymologist in his search to derive one single word

accurately. The specimen name he takes is _Rutter_, which he eventually

traces to fiddler.

From the lower orders of the church we get _Lister_, a reader; _Bennet_,

an exorcist; and _Collet_, an acolyte.

In trades we get _Fuller_ in the south, _Tucker_ (toucher) in the west,

and _Walker_ in the north. _Secker_ means sackmaker, _Parmenter_ a

parchmenter, _Pargater_ a dauber, _Straker_ a maker of tires. _Grieve_,

_Graves_ and _Greaves_ was a land agent, _Coster_ dealt in

costards--_i.e._ apples; _Jagger_ worked draught-horses for hire;

_Stewart_ was the sty-ward; _Todhunter_ hunted the fox; _Toller_

collected the tolls.

Among nicknames _Earnes_ means uncle, and _Neave_ nephew. Who would

recognise _Halfpenny_ in _MacAlpine_? _Coffin_ means bald, _Lloyd_ grey,

and _Russell_ red; _Oliphant_ elephant; _Hinks_, from Hengst, a

stallion; _Stott_, a bullock; _Luttrell_, an otter; _Talbot_, a hound;

_Colfox_, a black fox; _Fitch_, a polecat.

Fish-names are usually not genuine.

IV

_THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE_--BY LOGAN PEARSALL SMITH

There are few of us so learned that we can afford to dispense with the

aid given by the small volumes in the Home University Library in any

subject, and Mr Pearsall Smith's philological book is one of the most

informative and interesting of the series.

Here we learn of the tendency in English to put the accent on borrowed

French words on the first syllable when we decide to pronounce them in

our own way: later borrowings are accented according to what we imagine

the native pronunciation to be: so we get _gentle_, _dragon_, _gállant_,

_baron_, _button_ and _mutton_ of old time against the newer words

_genteel_, _dragoon_, _gallânt_, _buffoon_, _cartoon_, _balloon_. In

like manner words like _message_ and _cabbage_ show their antiquity when

compared with _massage_, _mirage_ and _prestige_. _Police_ has kept its

English accent only in Ireland and Scotland.

Mr Pearsall Smith, like Professor Wyld, has much to say against the

pedants, and shows us how letters like the _b_ in _debt_, the _l_ in

_fault_, the _p_ in _receipt_, the _d_ in _advance_ and _advantage_, the

_c_ in _scent_ and _scissors_ have been inserted incorrectly by English

scholars who ought to have known better.

In the course of an enthusiastic defence of a mixed language as against

a pure national home-bred speech he makes the valuable point that we are

richer than most nations in that we can express subtle shades of

difference of meaning, of emotional significance between such pairs of

words as _paternal_ and _fatherly_, _fortune_ and _luck_, _celestial_

and _heavenly_, _royal_ and _kingly_ by reason of this intermixture of

foreign elements.

One of the most interesting chapters in the book is on "Makers of

English Words," which gives us yet another avenue of approach to the

study of the language.

Not only interesting, but surprising, are some of the results gleaned

from this: that Sir Isaac Newton was the first to use _centrifugal_ and

_centripetal_; that Jeremy Bentham coined _international_; Huxley was

responsible for _Agnostic_; _cyclone_ was created in 1848 by a

meteorologist, but _anti-cyclone_ had to wait for Sir Francis Galton.

Whewell invented _scientist_ and Macaulay was responsible for

_constituency_. Other words created in the nineteenth century are

_Eurasian_, _esogamy_, _folklore_, _hypnotism_, _telegraph_,

_telephone_, _photograph_ and a host of other scientific terms. To go

back to the classics: we owe the formation of many new words to Sir

Thomas Browne, among them _hallucination_, _insecurity_,

_retrogression_, _precarious_, _antediluvian_. Milton coined

_infinitude_, _liturgical_, _gloom_, _pandemonium_, _echoing_,

_rumoured_, _moonstruck_, _Satanic_. Shakespeare coined more than all

the rest of the poets put together. To Coverdale and Tindale we owe a

great number of new compounds, like _loving-kindness_, _long-suffering_,

_broken-hearted_. It is delightful to think that we owe _irascibility_

to Doctor Johnson, _persiflage_ and _etiquette_ to Lord Chesterfield,

_bored_ and _blasé_ to Byron, _colonial_ and _diplomacy_ to Burke, and

_pessimism_ to Coleridge. After Keats (whose creations are miniature

poems in themselves) there is a remarkable decline in word-creation.

Two valuable chapters are devoted to "Language and History," in which we

find how far the evolution of our race and civilisation is embodied in

our vocabulary--"A contradiction between history and language rarely or

never occurs"--and a further chapter on "Language and Thought" is of

extraordinary interest in showing us what words we must delete from our

vocabulary if we wish to enter into the spirit and popular consciousness

of the Middle Ages, that world of supernatural purposes and

interventions. All sense of past and future would drop from us. Our

thoughts would be absorbed entirely by immediate practical

considerations. We should feel imprisoned, though we might feel more

dignified. With the Renaissance we should expand enough to observe our

fellows: a century later we should turn to the study of ourselves.

"The change of thought from one generation to another does not depend so

much on new discoveries as on the gradual shifting, into the centre of

vision, of ideas and feelings that had been but dimly realised before.

And it is just this shifting--this change, so important and yet so

elusive--which is marked and dated in the history of language."

There was once an American writer who said: "You commend or condemn

yourself by your regular choice of words ... don't use such commonplace

words as grab, bet, awful, says, worst, boss, monkeying, job, ain't,

tackled, floored, bicker, rumpus, shindy, hunk, fellow, drub, henpecked,

blubber, spout, pickings, croak, swipe, swap, handy, fluster, nasty,

hankering, flabbergasted, highfalutin.... Are you familiar with such

_desirable_ words as lassitude, flamboyant, nascent, legendary,

perennial, Nemesis, cryptic, brooding, imperturbable, disenchanted,

belated, cleavage, august, clarity, demarcation, indigenous, cloistered,

malevolent?"

Well, if you agree with him (and there are people who do) it's quite

time you started to read some books on the English Language, and if you

don't it means that you already understand the delights of philology and

you will need no further encouragement to read the four books I have

mentioned, if you have not already done so.

PART IV

CERTAIN FOREIGNERS

I

MONTAIGNE

I begin with the third book of Essays because I happened, for the

purposes of writing about him, to re-read that first. And on the first

page we find our reason for reading him: "I speake unto Paper as to the

first man I meete." "These are but my fantasies," he says in another

place, "by which I endevour not to make things known, but myselfe" ...

and truly that is the whole matter. We do not read Montaigne to learn

anything, but to make a friend. No man was ever so completely unashamed

or so completely honest in his depiction of himself:

"All contrarieties are found in me, according to some turne or removing,

and in some fashion or other; shamefast, bashfull, insolent, chaste,

luxurious, peevish, pratling, silent, fond, doting, labourious, nice,

delicate, ingenious, slow, dull, froward, humorous, debonaire, wise,

ignorant, false in words, true-speaking, both liberall, covetous and

prodigall."

Though this list is pretty long, it omits the most delightful quality of

all. Ingenuous is the first word we apply to Montaigne. His pages

sparkle with naïve statements. "I will follow the best side to the fire,

but not into it, if I can choose. If neede require, let Montaigne my

Mannorhouse be swallowed up in publike ruine: but if there be no such

necessity, I will acknowledge my selfe beholding unto fortune if she

please to save it.... Verily I could easily for a neede bring a candle

to St Michaell, and another to his Dragon," from which we may safely

assume that Montaigne owes much of his happy-go-lucky, care-free nature

to his wisdom in not embroiling himself in public affairs. "I speake

truth, not my belly-full, but as much as I dare," he says, and what

follows may account for the greater pleasure we derive from his later

essays ... "and I dare the more the more I grow into yeares.... I teach

not: I report." Of the effect of his work we read: "In my climate of

Gascoigne they deeme it a jest to see mee in print.... In Guienne I pay

Printers, in other places they pay mee."

One of the most delectable essays in this third book is on Repentance,

where we read: "Were I to live againe it should be as I have already

lived: I neither deplore what is past, nor dread what is to come" ...

the philosophy of a sane man in whom cheerfulness keeps on breaking

forth: "It is one of the chiefest points wherein I am beholden to

fortune, that in the course of my bodies estate, each thing hath been

carried in season.... I therefore renounce these casuall and dolourous

reformations.... A man cannot boast of contemning or combating

sensuality if hee see her not, or know not her grace, her force, and

most attractive beauties ... in truth we abandon not vices so much as we

change them."

In the next chapter he pleads (it is one of his favourite subjects) for

mutability. "We must not cleave so fast unto our humours and

dispositions.... The goodliest mindes are those that have most variety

and pliablenesse in them.... Life is a motion unequall, irregular, and

multiforme." Books, he would have us believe, seduce us from study, but

"Meditation is a large and powerfull study to such as vigorously can

taste and employ themselves therein. I had rather forge than furnish my

minde." So he reads to busy his judgment, not his memory. Of the three

commerces or Societies which he would indulge in, discourse with

friends, intercourse with fair women ("a sweet commerce for me"), and

recourse unto books, he writes: "The first is troublesome and tedious

for its raritie, the second withers with old age, the third is much more

solid-sure and much more ours ... it comforts me in age and solaceth me

in solitarinesse; it easeth mee of the burthen of a weary-some sloth;

and at all times rids me of tedious companies: it abateth the edge of

fretting sorrow.... I never travel without bookes, nor in peace nor in

warre: yet doe I passe many dayes and moneths without using them. It

shall be anon, say I, or to-morrow, or when I please; in the meanewhile

the time runnes away, and passeth without hurting me." He gives us exact

details of the dimensions of his library, where he turns over "by

peece-meales," "now one booke and now another." This is his private

sanctuary. "Miserable in my minde is he who in his owne home hath

nowhere to be to him selfe." But he urges as the great objection to

reading that "the minde is therein exercised, but the body remaineth

there whilst without action, and is wasted and ensorrowed. I know no

excesse more hurtfull for me, nor more to be avoided by me, in this

declining age."

Of his attitude to women, which is exactly that of Donne in his early

days, we hear much. In his amours he likes to set an edge on his

pleasures "by difficultie, by desire, and for some glory ... surely

glittering pearles and silken cloathes adde some-thing unto it, and so

doe titles, nobilitie and a worthie traine.... Something may be done

without the graces of the minde, but little or nothing without the

corporall ... but it is a society wherein it behooveth a man somewhat to

stand upon his guard." In chapter four, on _Diverting and Diversions_,

he dwells on the importance of little things in life: "The remembrance

of a farewell, of an action, of a particular grace, or of a last

commendation afflict us," when we miss not at all the big thing.

"Cæsar's gowne disquieted all Rome, which his death had not done." ...

"The teares of a Lacquey, the distributing of my cast sutes, the touch

of a knowne hand, an ordinary consolation, doth disconsolate and

intender me." Which draws him to the brave and totally unexpected

conclusion: "It is the right way to prize one's life at the right worth

of it to forgo it for a dreame." In chapter five, _Upon Some Verses of

Virgil_, he amplifies at enormous length what he said in an earlier

chapter about the fascination of fair women.

It is a trick of his to give headings to his chapters which are wholly

misleading, but it would be hard anywhere to find a parallel for so

innocent a title for so deliciously frank a discussion.

"From the excesse of jollity," he begins, "I am falne into the extreame

of severity ... therefore, I do now of purpose somewhat give way unto

licentious allurements." This is an understatement ... "As I have

heretofore defended my selfe from pleasure, so I now ward my selfe from

temperance ... wisdom hath her excesses, and no lesse need of moderation

than follie." So he attempts to amuse himself with the remembrance of

past "youth-tricks," and to judge from the length of the chapter he

found that the amusement did not quickly pall. It certainly does not

pall on us.

"I take hold of even of the least occasions of delight I can meet with

all ... I am ready to leape for joy, as at the receaving of some

unexspected favour, when nothing grieveth me": and he discredits those

who will attack his licence before he starts: "Few I know will snarle at

the liberty of my writings, that have not more cause to snarle at their

thoughts-looseness." ... "For my part I am resolved to dare speake

whatsoever I dare do ... the worst of my actions ... seeme not so ugly

unto me as I finde it both ugly and base not to dare to avouch them....

A ly is in mine opinion worse than leachery." "I greedily long to make

my selfe knowne, nor care I at what rate, so it be truly ... in farewels

we heate above ordinary our affections to the things we forgo. I here

take my last leave of this world's pleasures: loe here our last

embraces. And now to our theame."

He objects to the conspiracy of silence which rules on this subject and

proceeds to lay down rules for happy marriages. "A good marriage (if any

there be) refuseth the company and conditions of love; it endevoureth to

present those of amity. It is a sweete society of life, full of

constancy, of trust ..." but "few men have wedded their sweet hearts,

their paramours or mistresses, but have come home by weeping Crosse, and

ere long repented their bargaine ... we then love without disturbance to

our selves; two divers and in themselves contrary things ... it is no

longer love, be it once without Arrowes or without fire. The liberality

of Ladies is to profuse in marriage, and blunts the edge of affection

and desire." With regard to the innocence of the other sex on these

matters he is completely sceptical. "Heare them relate how we sue, how

we wooe, how we sollicitie, and how we entertaine them, they will soone

give you to understand that we can say, that we can doe, and that we can

bring them nothing but what they already knew, and had long before

digested without us." ... "It is folly to go about to bridle women of a

desire so fervent and so naturall in them."

It is in this chapter (Montaigne is world-famous for irrelevancies) that

he gives us his finest panegyric on Plutarch, his favourite author, and

then goes on as usual to reveal more of himself ... "for all matters are

linked one to another." We learn, for instance, of his fondness for

riding and for travelling alone: he quickly veers round again to the

subject, however.... "Leaving bookes aside ... when all is done I find

that love is nothing else but an insatiate thirst of enjoying a greedily

desired subject." He returns with redoubled vigour to the delight of

describing this desire: "The more steps and degrees there are, the more

delight and honour is there on the top ... it is the deare price makes

viands savour the better.... I love gradation and prolonging in the

distribution of their favours."

"Philosophie contends not against naturall delights, so that due measure

bee joyned therewith; and alloweth the moderation, not the shunning of

them."

There is wisdom in this: "May we not say that there is nothing in us,

during this earthly prison, simply corporall, or purely spirituall?" So

he would not have the body follow its appetites to the mind's prejudice

or damage and vice versa. He then pronounces a noble pæan in praise of

love: "I have no other passion that keeps mee in breath ... it restores

me the vigilancy, sobriety, grace and care of my person ... assures my

countenance against the wrinckled frowns of age ... reduces me to

serious, sound and wise studies, whereby I might procure more love,

purges my minde from despaire, diverts me from thousands of irksome

tedious thoughts...."

But he realises that age has to give place to youth: "They have both

strength and reason on their side.... If women can do us no good but in

pittie, I had much rather not to live at all than to live by almes ..."

and so concludes a noble essay of some eighty pages: it is as

unexpectedly frank as Mrs Asquith's _Autobiography_, and just as

delightful: of both it might with equal truth be said: "It is only

hurtfull unto fooles." In chapter six, _Of Coaches_, he shows us his own

natural courage. "There is nothing doth sooner cast us into dangers than

an inconsiderate greediness to avoide them."

"Nature having disarmed me of strength, hath armed me with

insensibility, and a regular or soft apprehension. I cannot long endure

to ride either in coach or litter, or to go in a boat--an interrupted

and broken motion offends me" and then (typically) goes on to describe

with immense relish the wonders of Mexico and Peru. In the essay on _The

Incommoditie of Greatnesse_ he confesses to a lack of personal ambition:

"I should love my selfe better to be the second or third man in Perigot

than the first in Paris ... mediocrity best fitteth me." That on _The

Art of Conferring_ contains more personal confessions. "The horror of

cruelty draws me nearer unto clemency then any patterne of clemency can

ever win me ... being but little instructed by good examples, I make use

of bad" before he comes to his subject: "The most fruitfull and naturall

exercise of our spirit is, in my selfe--pleasing conceit, conference ...

no propositions amaze me, no conceit woundeth me, what contrariety

soever they have to mine. There is no fantazie so frivolous or humor so

extravagant, that in mine opinion is not sortable to the production of

humane wit." He immediately dashes off at a tangent to discuss fond

conceits: "Meseemeth I may well be excused if I rather except an odde

number than an even: Thursday in respect of Friday ... if when I am

travelling I would rather see a Hare coasting than crossing my way; and

rather reach my left than my right foote to be shod."

The matter in debate affects him not at all, the manner is all: "It is

not force nor subtilty that I so much require, as forme and order." As

usual he has scant respect for the pedants: "I had rather my child

should learne to speake in a Taverne than in the schooles of

well-speaking Art." ... "I dayly ammuse my selfe to read in authors,

without care of their learning; therein seeking their manner, not their

subject." ... "Let but a man looke who are the mightiest in Cities and

who thrive best in their businesse: he shall commonly find they are the

siliest and poorest in wit." It is in this essay that he compares

Tacitus so excellently with Seneca.