New-York tribune., 1922-05-07

widely different from tho general run
of human beings as to put a strain
on credulity. and he studies them with
subtle and firm understanding. Their
talk sounds real. Their emotions are
alive in his bold and delicate prose.
He has lately made amatcurish cx-
cursions into psycho-analysls, which
may or may not be n fruitful subject
for novelist to study. The real novel
ist has always been psychologist In
an untcchnical sense
Lawrence is too fine an artist to I'm
port into his art the dubious lingo of
psyche analysis; he remains the poet,
the dramatist, his symbols and images
interrupted by pseudo science. Aaron's
dream in the last chapter-no modern
novel Is complete without Mt least ono
dream--is easily "iroudcd" (cavo. cor
ridor and water symbols), but Law
renee rcfrains from analysis.
Aaron's whole life, or as much as
the author gives US Of it, Is a dream. a
dream unfulflled In love or friendship
or music. To what he wakes. If he
wakes at all, tho conclusion leaves us
guessing. That will puzzle readers who
demand that story shall finish with
bang or come to definite point of rest
But life does not conclude; it persists
When Aaron related his history and
experiences to some friends, he "told
oil his tale as If 1t was a comedy. A
comedy it seemed, too, at that hour.
And q comedy no doubt it was. But
mixed, like most things in this life.
Mixed" Though Aaron is strange
man, an individual, yet the conflict that
goes on in him, between his rebellion
and his indecision, his desire and his
impotence, is not freakish; it is so
much like the struggle that every man
knows, with special variations, that it
is true to universal human nature.
Behind the symbolism arc the plain
facts, solidly conceived.
The other characters In the book are
we'll drawn, notably Aaron's odd, philo-
sophie friend, Lilly, whose ideas are at
once clear and cryptic. There is pitt
fully accurate portrait Of a captain
whose soul and nerves had not rccov-
cred from the war. In single chapter
through one man Lawrence suggests
the establishment, the mental disaster
that followed the armistice None Of
the glamour of returned heroes, none
OF tbs romance of war the hot,
scared burn of unbearable experience,
which did not heal nor cool, and whose
Irritation was not to be relieved"
TN "The Lost Girl" and Women in
Love" the men are subordinate to
the women. In "Aaron's Rod" the women
are of secondary interest; Aaron's wife
is rather indistinct and shadowy, and
the Marchesa, the Cleopatra whom he
tried to love and couldn't, never quite
comes alive, either for Aaron or for the
reader, Probably these women are lust
what Lawrence intended them to be,
8 seen through Aaron's temperament
But do not feel that Lawrence has
here made q very striking contribution
to the history of the everlasting war
fare between the sexes. Did Aaron
miss because ne happened not to meet
the right woman? Or was he the sort
Of man whom no woman could capture
and satisfy? Evidently Lawrence means
to leave the eternal question unsettled
even for the man whom he has created.
Like many other English poets, Law
renee is lover of Italy, and he takes
his hero there, one suspects, for the
sheer joy of the scene and the atm os-
phere, which he realizes with vivid
beauty. He is q master of description.
master Of words. His command
ranges from the baldest sort Of every
day conversation to prose harmonies
that are as near to verse as prose can
so without breaking over. This is not
merely a command Of style; it is more
than that-it Is command OF ideas.
Lawrence can pass with equal sureness
from colltery to cathedral and fnd the
right word for every thing and person
met on tbs way, the right word, though
often perplexed and perplexing word
because life is like that It is "mixed.~