The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1918-12-01

God the Invisible King, cXtingushed with n
sound of kissing he plunged into the muddy
waters of Joan and Peter. Instead Of being fifty
years or so ahead Of the time Mr. WELLS became six
months or longer behind the time Instead of light
ing new reefs and shoals with warning flares Mr..
WELLS went back and moved about all the bcacons
whose fixed positions he had already marked down
upon our charts. Between the devil and the deep
sea Mr.. WELLS instead of making choice, tried
to show connection But the devil, like the land,
stops where the sea begins. In the geography Of
this earth the land underlics the sea; but in the
geography Of men souls the underlies the land.
In the souls of men the continents of wrong and
wickedness and sin and misery with all their cities
and roads and mountain ranges and rushing rivers
are nothing but vast floating islands. Under them
lies the Somehow Good. Mr.. WELLS knows it and
sometimes he drills down to it. And he may Yet
sink an artcSian well
Mr.. GAIswoRTHY sails the sea of mems souls,
but by dead reckoning. For him it is an uncharted
without ATTITUDES or longitudes. He sees
lesser men set forth confidently upon those great
waters and reach various Ravens in the Isles of the
Blest; but himself he does not know the way there
and he cannot shape course He beats to and fro
in battling airs of thought amid brilliant sunshine
and showers of emotion; and with bare poles he
rides through the hurricane storms Of passions.
Meanwhile his spiritual supplies arebecoming low.
He speaks every passing ship. 1t is hail and fare
we'll
Mr.. BENNETT has permanently left the sea for
the land. We need not reach this conclusion on the
evidence Of The Pretty LGdy, which does, indeed,
show not an innocent abroad but an innocent at
home and sadly in need Of enlightenment. Cannot
the Salvation Army rescue Mr.. BENNETT from the
West End of London? In the words of friend:
Detail is all right but it seemed to me that Ben
NETT long ago stopped having ideas Mr.. BEN
NETT had an idea when he wrote The Old Wires
Tale, and he had an idea when he wrote Clay
hanger. He had an idea when he wrote Buried
AhUe, and again when he recorded the perform
ances of Denny the AudaciouS. As with every
good writer his potbOers constitute his best work
The best hope for him ashore is that he may be
robbed, beaten and starved and be shanghaicd to
sea again.
Some New Lurninaries.
But there are new luminaries in the English con-
stellation. 1t was one STEPHEN MCKENNA who
wrote Sonia, one MARY WEBB who wrote Gone to
Earth, one REBECCA WEST who wrote The Return
of The Soldier, one HUGH WAIPoLE who wrote The
Dark Forest FRANK SwrNNERToN gave us Noe
name Others but we hate cataloguing.
The Poets.
In the field Of poetry, an Elysian field, America
has lost JOYCE KHlNER, who would have become Il
great singer in the oden, golden ways. We have
developed an epical artist in AMY LOWELL, whose
Can GrGrIe'S Castle is the biggest thing since
WALT WHITMAN. We have large company of
poets of varying promise and, taken collectively,
of sure and distinguished performance. But our
greatest achievement has been the recruiting of an
army of poetry lovers
England lost RUPERT BROOKE and gained five
imperiShable sonnets. She has also gained the work
of ROBERT NICHOLS the Fairies and Fusitiers Of
GRAVES, the verse of SAssooN and Others In Franco
there has been, first and last good deal of splen-
did poetry evoked by the War in Defence of Civil
cation; including some of the work of RosTAND;
but this has largely defed the most painstaking at
tempts at English translation.
Other Lands.
In the field of fiction Mr. WEISS story of Mr.