New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-10-21
The Soul of a Bishop

"The Chicago Evening Post" who says
that "there Is enough of Mr.. Wells In the
took TO pay the reader who cares not Tor
Nicala. Arlus or Trinitarian symbolism.
THIS latest of Mr.. Wells's literary COM
i plexes-this absorption in religion
while il cannot be said greatly to amaze,
certainly gives his widening public fresh
cause to realize that he is still infinitely
alert 10 new vistas. Another English
critic. writing in Land and Water is in
clined 10 defend this book mot its theolo-
CIV but its persistent claim, observing
that:
with The Soul OF Bishop, as with
others Of MI. Wells's recent works, little
leaven leaveneth the whole lump. IL was
certainly so both with Mr.. Britling' and
The Invisible King The leavcn in this
case is precious fluid the most golden
of liquids, n sort of Great Easton syrup
which sends a joyous tinglng throughout
the body and promotes visions. Mr. Wells
benefits more from it than the Bishop, and
his readers benefit the most.
"Once the Great Easton syrup works-it
IS a familiar formula-we have the ola
Wells. the imaginative writer, the poet. who
throws reality to the winds. sacrifices ver'-
sirnilitude, and who, through vivid imagery
end fine art Of word painting, conveys an
impression which is outside the scope OF
ordinary language.
IBIS success is splendid. We may not like
the Bishop of Princhester we may regard
him az weak, unbalanced, half-educsted, but
once the tingling begins and the vision
opens, VIC see him struggling in an apoca-
lyptic it, honestly and sincerely endeavor-
ing to realize the truth he believes to lie
within him. While the drug Is In operation
the Bishop is no mean modern Hamlet, as
feeble as mortal man must always be,
bowed down beneath the heavy and weary
weight of all this uninteligible world
"Mr. Wells the theologian moves Us 20
mockery, but for Mr.. Wells the imaginative
writer we have most whole-hearted ad-
mirstion. Weak and Intellectual as The
Soul Of Bishop regarded as a whole,
must be pronounced, we believe IL contains
certain passages that will in time rank
among the masterpieces OF this prolific
writer"
But curiously at quarrel with this view
stands that Of still another English read
er, who says, in "The Saturday Review"
"Mr. Wells lacks imagination
"The New York World" says that ain
his conception of divinity that shapes our
ends Mr.. Wells advances no further in
this new book than in his God the lnvisi-
bic King" while 1.-THE Philadelphia Public
Ledger" gives this as the essence Of "The
Soul of Bishop:
"The book is the story OF the catastrophe
which follows when a half-baked intellect
grspples with weighty spiritual problems.
II Mr.. Wells had set out TO satirize his dis
covery of God announced in the two pre-
cedng books he could not have done II bet
ter"
all has come from the pen OF G.. X. Ches-
terton, who has himself gone in pretty ex-
tensively for matters ecclesiastic. He
commends the 'lively and appro-
pirate" Wellsian comparison of the pass
ing Of Queen Victoria to the lifting Of
"some compact and dignifed paperweight,"
followed by the blowing about of papers,
and also the description of "the grey and
earnest plains between the Cecils and the
Sidney Webbs."
But the philosophy of the book Mr.. Ches-
terton finds mot only as grey and earnest
as the Cecils," but also every bit as old
fashioned as the paperweight." And he
winds up long and characteristic review
with these words:
"Mr. Wells's hat does not At humanity any
better; and such universally, however
amiable, is but mild megalomania. 1t
will be sterile so long as one small error
Is not corrected, which affects the attitude
20 humanity. quite apart from divinity.
mean so long as such heresiarchs are full
Of the idea Of teaching mankind, and do not
even entertain the idea of learning from
mankind If they had less passion to prove
what men must want and more patience TO
observe what they do want, they would at
least show curiosity Cor something more
creative than contempt) touching that an
cestral instinct which has everywhere dedi-
Gated an altar to the god and a man to
the altar"
"The Nation" writes.
"The religious emotion which buboled up
in Mr.. Britling,' and spouted up in God, the
Invisible King sinks to a shallow little sur
lace pool In Inc SOuI OF a blSHop, Nhe I'M
plication being that the novelist has ex-
hausted his religious vein and the impetuous
rapture Of It's discovery-so swift bright
things come to confusion Taken by itself
this latest book would not excite much in
terest; 1t would impress one as fimsy imi-
tation of Mrs. Humphry Ward. Mr..
Wells, one would cay, is beginning 20 catch
up with mis- Victorisns.'"
And yet
"Mr. Weiss humor, which sleeps while he
is writing his new testaments and his pro-
phetical books, has walked and demanded its
inning. The Soul of Bishop is deliciously
amusing in all those passages in which the
author allows his comic spirit 70 frolic over
the absurdities Of his graver self-projec-
ton"
tn the Americans