[Sidenote: _The Boston Evening Transcript_]
An extremely pleasant philosophy harboured by literary folk of a certain
class in regard to the stress of bread-winning is that there is monotony
about such a humdrum occupation. It is not agreeable to work at something
you hate when you long to be literarily productive. Nevertheless, despite
Carl Van Vechten’s sympathetic explosions all over the yellow cover of
this book, we wonder just how much self-respect and inclination may war
with each other in a young man’s soul when the young man lives as Mr
Machen did in his youth. A book called “The Anatomy of Tobacco” was an
early effort. That achieved, he seems to have lived on his father, a
clergyman who had no money. He speaks of the situation thus: “My mother
had been a hopeless invalid for fifteen years; my father’s health had
failed, and he had become very deaf; the poor living of Llanddewi Fach
had grown poorer still through the agricultural smash of 1880; he was
in dire and perpetual straits for money; he underwent most of the
mortifications which are allotted to the poor. It makes me grieve to this
day to remember with what piteous sadness he would lean his head on his
hand; he had lost hope.”
Thus Mr Machen summarises his family’s situation financially. He does
not appear to have been much comfort to his father. He speaks now of
“grieving.” Better indeed if he had done a little honest work. He goes
to London. He reads manuscripts for a bookseller. Some intelligent
people like that sort of occupation. He calls it a “weary business.”
In fact, this book is filled with complaints, constant, unstinted in
their outgo, because he, Arthur Machen, could not do exactly what he
wished to do, on all occasions. There is a good deal of what we might
term the pseudo-classic touch to his style. He likes to pose as an
intellectual deserving of immortality. He is not content to be one of our
leading contemporaries. He prefers, as in one instance, to “abide by the
verdict of M. Octave Uzanne, who is said, I believe, to be a good judge
of letters. He said that it (a certain work called ‘The Chronicle of
Clemendy’) was ‘le renouveau de la Rennaissance,’ and that I was sure of
my place beside Rabelais and Boccaccio, on the serene immortal seats.”
We quote the above from Mr Machen because it is wholly typical of the
man. Another remark in reference to George Moore’s “A Mummer’s Wife”
shows his attitude toward the age in which he lives equally well. He
complains because no good novel of stage life has been written. And
then he adds that in the old days, the days of the Crummles Company, it
would have been easier. That is nonsense. This age and generation is
adequate for all, provided some effort at adaptation is made by those of
us who have been too overburdened by the weight of the glorious past.
A good novel can be written as well in the twentieth century as in the
seventeenth, provided some one has the brains to compass it. The whole
book shows the reflections of a conceited man of mediocre ability, who
buries his talent in the ashes of the past, mumbles over it incessant
Latin quotations, pats himself on the back because he knows so much Latin
to quote and then ... is continually irritated because the world hurries
by without digging into the ashes, or listening respectfully to his
incantations.—D. F. G.
[Sidenote: Maurice Hewlett in _The Evening Standard_]
... “To be in the Strand,” he says, sighing, “was like drinking punch
and reading Dickens.” So it was—but one can read Dickens the better
without the punch, either within or without the pages. It was a strange
chapter of literary history where human happiness could not be imagined
or pictured without too much to eat and too much to drink. I will be
sentimental with almost anyone, for the mingling of tears is as wholesome
a vent as the chiming of laughter—but I cannot cry over the bad smells of
yesteryear to save my life. When I remember Holywell Street I turn with
thanksgiving to Charing Cross Road. It is nothing to write home about—but
you can feel the wind in it. So much for that....