The Washington times., 1921-04-10


fates to FIJI the places OF the Twelve
Apostles. But the idea that there
was something cleansing or whole
some about the touching Of wood
seems to me one of those ideas
which are truly popular. because they
are truly poetic.
1t is probable enough that the
conception came originally from the
healing power of the wood of the
Cross; but that only clinches the
divine coincidence. 1t is like that
other divine coincidence that the
victim was a Carpenter, who might
almost have made His own Cross.
Whether we take the mystical or
the mythical explanation, there is
obviously a very deep connection be-
tween the human working In wood
and such plain and pathetic mys-
ticism. 1t gives something like
touch of the holy childishness to the
tale, as IL that terrible engine could
be a toy. In the same fashion,
child fancies, that mysterious and
s.nister horse, which was the down.
fall of Troy. as something plain AMI
staring, and perhaps spotted, like
his own rocking horse in the nursery.
1t might be said symbolically that
Americans have a taste for rocking
horses as they certainly have
ia ste for rocking chairs. hippant
critic might suggest that they select
rocking chairs, so that, even when
they are sitting down. they need not
be sitting still. Something OF this
restlessness in the race may really be
involved in the matter. but / think
the deeper significance OF the rocking
chair may still be found in the deeper
symbolism of the rocking horse.
I think there is behind all this
fresh and facile use OF wood a GER
tin spirit that is childish in the good
sense OF the word: something that
In innocent and easily pleased. IL IS
not altogether true, still less II is un-
friendly, to say that the landscape
seems to be dotted with dolls houses.
1t is the true tragedy of every fallen
son of Adam that he has grown too
big to live in a dolls house. These
things seem somehow to escape the
irony OF time by not even challenging
IL: they are too temporary even TO be
merely temporal.
These people are not blild'1g
tombs, they are not. as in the IN"
image OF Mrs. Meynells poem. merely
building ruins. 1t is not easy 10
imagine the ruin OF a dolls house:
and that is why a dolls house 10 en-
everlasting habitation. How far II
promises a political permanence Is
matter for further discussion: l am
| only describing the mood OF dis
covery: in which all these cottages
built OF lath. like the places of pan
tomime. really seemed colored like the
clouds OF morning. which are bot
! fugitive and eternal.
| There Is also in all this aAnosphe-e
| that comes in another sense from trn
nursery We hear much more o.
Americans being educated on Eng
| lish literature. but think few Amer
leans realize how much English ch,l
dren have been educated on Amer.
can literature II is true. and II is IN
evitable, that they can only be edu-
Gated on rather old-fashioned Amcri.
can literature.
THEY LIKED .HUCK FINN
Bernard Shaw. in one of his plays,
noted truly the Limitation Of the
young American millionaire, and
especially the stsleness of his English
| culture, but there is necessarily a
similar staleness in our American
| culture. II Mr.. Shaw's young man
was still talking about Mathew Arnold
and not about Mr.. Yeats we are rather
more likely to mention Emerson than
Ezra Pound.
| Whether this staleness Is neces-
sarily a disadvantage is. of course,
different question. But in any case 1t
is true that the old American books
were often the books of our childhood,
even in the literal sense of the books
OF our nursery.
know few men ir England who
have not left their boyhood to some
extent lost and entangled in the for-
ests of "Huckleberry Finn"
|