New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-11-04
Beyond

Beyond a novel by John GaIslcorthy.
Published by Charles Sc,rbner's Sons,
Nec York. $3.50 net
lfT%yERY ONE" declares a reviewer in
1.-THE London Times especially
IL in August especially in England,
can bring to mind the peculiar
mood which follows a long day of exercise
in the open air. The body is tired out;
the mind washed smooth by countless
gallons of fresh air. and for some reason
everything seems dangerously simple, and
the most complex and difficult decisions OBJ
sious and inevitable There is something
sruly or falsely spiritual about this state.
and it is one which, if prolonged, may easily
lead to disaster
an Mr. Galsworthy's new novel the people
III US with alarm, because they appear all
more or less under the influence Of the great
narcotic and therefore, not quite response
bic for their actions. They have been out
hunting all day for so many generations that
they are now perpetually in this evening
condition of physical wellbeing and spirit
cal simplicity.
with minds one blur Of field and lane,
hounds and foxes, they make sudden and
tremendous decisions, marked by the pc
culiar lightness and holiness Of those who
are drugged out of self-consciousness by the
open air.
"Just before they drop of to sleep they
decide that they must get married to-mor-
row, or elope with housemaid, or challenge
some one to fight q duel. This, of course, is
an exaggeration, but some theory of the mind
must be fabricated to explain this rather
queer book. Beyond"
Whether or not these precise reactions
attended the perusal of this latest Gals
worthy novel by another person Of literary
discrimination katharine Fullerton
Gerould) is not on record. However, that
Miss Gerould is very emphatically con-
cerned about Mr.. Galsworthy's tendency
becomes patent when one discovers her
writing in "The Yale Review" that Mr.
Galsworthy has gone on, from book to
book, steadily becoming more sentimental
and more 1abby.
CERTAINLY, Beyond" is work quite
~ in another category than that en-
bracing the work with which his career as
novelist and playwright and essayist has
become popularity assOciated--a fact which
leads 1.-THE Dial" to ask: Toward what is
John Galsworthy headed?" After noting
that 'latterly the social interest seems to
have become subordinated TO the sexual
interest" this Chicago publication goes on
to PROFOUND more questions;
"The change first became markedly notice.
able in The Dark Flower and 1t is stu
more so in his latest novel, Beyond. is "
his taste and purpose 20 enter yet turther
into the saffron penumbra of sex and II so,
whyY Does Galsworthy, as fiction
ist past his youthful strength, select the
sexual line as the line Of least resistance -
as the course able IN yield the maximum CT
feet with the minimum expenditure Of et-
fort? Or has he, in the latter stages OF his
career. come to feel, with Hardy, that the
fundamental, elemental relation between man
and woman is the only relation which, IN the
end. profoundly matters? 1t is well to re-
member that, while a man and woman may
he but man and woman when envisaglng each
other. there are many other phases OF human
relationship involved, and that the novel may
detach and specialize to the detriment OF IT'S
essentially social nature and to the partial
legation of its possibilities and even of its
duties"
DUT the significant, the more or less
ID inevitable name-ThOmas Hardy
having been thus brought into the arena,
il is interesting to turn to "The Outlook"
,London), wherein Arthur Waugh com
ments upon the fact that Beyond" is ded-