The New York herald., 1921-07-24

BOOhS On THE TABLE. BY Edmund
Gosse Charles Scribner's Sons.
THUS TO REVISIT. BY Ford MADDOX
Hueffer. f. p. Dutton & Co.
TWO books have recently ap-
peared that are made up of lit
erary causerie. a title that often
covers multitude of negligible things.
AS the interest of neither one is OPP
pressivo, perhaps the reviewer would
be justified in considering them to-
gether and noting some points of diff
ference. The Justification will seem
more real when the comparison is not
made personal to the authors but
drawn on the lines of literary epochs.
For Edmund Gosse more than in
chronology belongs to a fading school
of writers who have very little in COM
mon with essayists of to-day-shall we
call 1t the Georgian hool?-which is
not very well or very fairly represent
ed by Ford MADDOX Hueffer. The lat
ter's Thus to Revisit" has an initial
purpose like that which binds in a
volume the scattered newspaper jot-
tings of Gosse. who dubs them Books
on the Table" In attack the two au
thors are as different as singer of
the Italian school is from a singer who
was trained by the German method.
Suavity and grace, the lovely old
qualities that found their way into
English writing with Addison and that
have not lost their charm. perfume
every least sentence of the older man.
and however inclined a reader may be
to scott at these evidences Of refine
ment he is more than apt to linger
and enjoy them in the leisure time
they demand This is the sole demand
nor do they make pretence of filling
void. The books they talk about are
ION your table," if you are fortunate,
as a vase Of flowers might be, al
though their pretty colors and pleas
ant but not pungent odors are far from
being evanescent. like flowers.
Mr. Hueffer's "reminiscences, how
ever, challenge the reader and stir him
| to opposition to a good many dicta
there set down. His way of approach,
as devious and crablike as Mr. Gosse's
is straightforward, too often annoys.
In this approach, slowly and fantasti-
cally made by an Introduction, fore
word. an apology there is a palpable
impertinence that readers brought up
on Victorian literature will resent,
even while admitting that the author
never intended 1t and is not aware of
having given offence. 1t is just the sub
tie inference that only the man up to
all the tricks of the twentieth century
can possibly follow the author that is
so maddening.
| And he knows the truth about him
self. He reveals this unconsciously
when he seeks in many subterranean
ways TO underrate his own ability and
to account for his failure to appeal to
readers. An open confession of what
he feels TO be his shortcomings might
have gone long way to palliating
them; the half-revealed, half-hidden
things he says about himself offend
like mock modesty
Henley, he says, suggested him as
the modern Englishman ACQUAINTED
with all the tricks" who would best
serve Joseph Conrad as a collaboration.
yet when Hueffer mentioned this to
the irritable critic Henley exploded
with who the hell are you, any
way? I never even heard your name 4"
Unless Hueffer had in mind to account
for the inanity of the book Romance. /"
which he wrote with Conrad, he Is
without excuse for tellirg this anec-
dote. 1t does indeed excite an antici-
patory interest in what the author is
going to relate about the collaboration.
He disappoints this interest, quitting
the subject with the remark that Con-
rad was always complaining that his
partner in the book didn't know how
to write"
In spite of this repeated snub and
the failure of Romance" chief
figure in Hueffer's literary gallery is
the famous Pole. To him he comes
back again and again and always with
new adjectives intended to give the
poor, uncultured" reader some idea of
Conrad's greatness. Henry James also
comes in for Hueffers praise, a lauda-
ton that somehow seems to tarnish
the heroes he worships and loves to
revisit With his recollections of
Stephen Crane he is more successful
and produces a real portrait of this
pathetic figure. But with Crane, too.
he has not been a Velasquez; the
image breathes. to be sure, but gasp
ingly. and in Hueffer's drawing there
are vaguenesses.
Into an atmosphere where there are
no harsh lights and no deep shadows
we are carried by that 'reactionary''
Edmund Gosse and we go there more
willingly when the author warns us at
the entrance that what we are TO read
are the fiotsam and jetsam of his
quotidian newspaper contribution. He
sucks the feathery end of his pen as
he tries to give his little offspring a
family name. But the name was not
necessary and Books on the Table
will serve as well az another: the mat
ter and the style are all Gosse. Be-
ginning as poet far back In the already
dim. and as some people would have
It, discredited Victorian era, this au.
thor has produced a volume every