New-York tribune., 1922-12-31
Rv Ernest Boyd

:" \. had something to say and he
w ,,preued il in his own manner.
,.member when I first saw him he
-.,,. before the curtain Of the Abbey
....,,r Dublin, rather timid youth wear
,.,,.s and obviously somewhat moved
-, enthusiastic reception Of his hrst
aMized Marriage was a fine dramatic
I-..r,,,ion Of theme and problem which
an fisherman, had realized and feii
- sincerity. His first novel, "Mrs.
-, Man which came a couple Of years
-. s,,o had that quality Of reality, OF
-...;re feeling and observation which be-
"a literature that springs from the
80, Il experience. Then came che war,
~, .o,.;urs Of Bernard Shaw, who has
~ -. rr.lsed no other Irish writer, and
-. % disastrous period Of Ar. Ervine's regime
"a, Abbey Theater, and Shaveling' chip
-. rsbiss block, took the place Of the
-,;ter he once promised TO be. Success in
,...,ies. which has had no equivalent eithet
M own or his adopted country, completed
a. Transformation and has provided him with
.,,or,unities Of family reproducing his
rssters voice.
N, Ervine can now turn out machine
"A, drama Of the Manchester repertory
..l.o, with all the conviction Of a Harold
p,;vhos,e or Stanley Houghton. He more
!, l,ss repudiates the play and the novel
..,,h whatever their defects. were informed
A. breath Of originality, Of personal expert
,,,e At least. apparently because they lack
,he veneer Of Fabian radicalism which he
\, adopted and adapted from Wells and
sb,w He presents himself in the guise Of an
Irish Wells in Changing Winds" a novelist
= t;Seas-and what ideasl while he carefully
,.ltiyates truculcnce which is obviously
derived from Shavian precedent. In this col
lection Of more or less literary essays, his
frs, publication Of the kind, one finds all the
,ri,s and attitudes and some Of the theories
rb;eb made Shaw a remarkable journalist
o,srter Of a century ago. In the introduc-
tory chapter he offers a naive variation upon
The o.. Shavian text that men OF letters are
Of no more account than manual laborers.
aTbe mere fact that a man has contracted the
habit n putting words together does not en-
title him 20 more Of the worlds respect than
Is due to one who has contracted the habit
of putting bits Of metal together and
calling the result a motor car DO
not know why a man who writes books
should regard himself as a better man than
one who makes butter" feel inclined TO re-
mark. as one Of Mr. Ervine's young intel
eetuas might: "Oh, say, come off, you
priceless old thingl" But one is disarmed
By the ingenious chatter wich precedes,
shere we are tcld in the consesrated for
nua: "Were II not for the insistence Of
ome o. my friends do not suppose ] should
ssue tais book to the public at all. We are
90 prone we subscribers, to put our casual
sritings between the covers Of book"
lsallyi "Unaccustomed as ] am to public
peaking" must rise to protest against such
tsreotyped humbug
ONE may not quarrel with Mr.. Ervine's
~ estimate Of the unimportanee Of his own
~scribblings," but one objects to the solemn
naivetk Of the manner in which he expresses
II. II Is hard to believe that so much CO.
erdOn was necessary to induce the author Of
The Critics" to provide that erudest Of all
'Ntires with counterpart The patronizing
,csay on AE, with which the series Of studies
,pens, is too obviously written straight from
hr heart (of an expatriate orangeman
-lamoured by the metropolitan delights Of
,Ondon) to require that ingenious apologize.
II, it seems, is a remarkable personality
ut he has not the good fortune TO have
from the Fabian nursery. He "has
we'd too long and too exclusively in Ire
md He is not free from the mush senti-