New-York tribune., 1922-10-29

letters with delight, and. revealing the
springs of life. make for the enrich
ment of art and knowledge.
| Edward Garnett has, 1t seems to me,
always wanted to find something good
always made himself ready, but he has
never compromised with his instinct
never persuaded himself that WHIST he
| did not like was good, or feared TIC
justify and champion what ne did like
4 1t Is twenty years since that quiet
little revolution in English fiction be-
gan with our first knowledge OF the
| Russians, through Constance Garnett' I
/ translation Of Turgeneff and Edward
4 Garnett's urefaces thereto. Now, the
peculiar quality, the ono quality itj
! which the Russians excel all othey
writer's OF fiction, is spiritual trutS
fulness, II sort of natural power OF
putting forth Impressions and expo
rience unstained by self-tonscious..
ness IT is this quality which Edward
Garnett seems to have been born to
nurse and foster; and his incessant
championship in the face Of the solemn
oppositions and false romanticisn1 has
vitality contributed to the sincerity
and revealing force Of modern Eng
lish fiction. He has been the lifelong
friend Of truth delicately recorded.
I There has Been no critic of our time
with keener appreciation, not for
style--to which he is, indeed, to my
mind, too indiffcrcns but for form,
no critic to whom the naked line OF
the tree has been 80 visible through
the enshrouding foliage. none who has
been more surely able TO say-~thl3 or
that is an excrescnnee. And this IN
| stinct of his exercised in the many
I4Iu
Of books has been Of peculiar value to
the fiction writer's of nation cele-
brated for it's adherence to form IN
conduct, notorious for it's Indifference
to form III art.
can we'll imagine, for example,
what the upturned attitude OF the
British man Of letters nose would have
been twenty years ago to those little
marvels of form, those little breaths
of truth, Tchehoff's short stories. To-
day the attitude of that nose is one OF
savoring delight, and the change is due
more to Edward Garnett than to any
man alive, not because he has written
much, if at all, of Tchehov, but be
cause he has had the power of distill--
ing year by year into the minds of
others his unerring feeling for what is
the. right shape and clothing Of idea
anF incident From time immemorial
it has been the fashion of British iic-
ton, fortified by British criticism, TO
think that it does not much matter
how thing is said, story told. so
long as it Is told. Into this fashion
Edward Garnett's instructive horror Of
imitation and irrelevance has cut with
a depth that few perhaps realize. The
value of real critic is not to be
measured by his actua! writings, but
|. 1>f L. te
sistently expressed in many ways that
! DO not leap to the eye. There is
strange potency ir that half hidden
! figure. standing so firm on the base of
an instinct and conviction that never
| swerves. IT is lighthouse hardly
seen by the landsmen public, known
only TO us navigators of the shoals
and cross currents of fiction.
! Freedom may be the essence of
| imagination, but it is vital to have here
and there the guidance of some pierre
ing insight into what is true imagina-
! tion, and what is its essential cloth
/ ing. However, much we fiction writers
arc inclined to shut our eyes to what
may be destructive of our pet
| luxuriances, every now and then we
/ open them, and there is the lamp, only
visible to us, perhaps, but none the less
| invaluable for that.
The novelist is, nowadays, very much
in the glare of the fooslghts: We come
! in for all the shekels and handshakes.
Those who. year after year-they are
not many--who for sheer love of let
ters help and guide US, come in for
/ little but our carpings.
To Edward Garnett we owe great
debt, debt that perhaps cannot be
paid. There arc some men born TO give
out sympathy and help to others and
forget themselves. They have reward,
but it is seldom coined