Evening star., 1923-09-22
The Library Table
BY THE BooKLovER

ioOheu over the IeJLerS gLnen rather
hastily. and now, with summer vaca-
tion leisure, he has been reading
them, slowly and with deep apprecia-
tion. He is impressed, as all readers
and reviewers have been, with the
two prominent aspects Of the Let
ters," as they show Lanes political
activities, opinions, ideals, and as
they show his personal philosophy of
life and death. 1t is of the latter as
pect that L am going to write briefly,
by means of quotations from the
Letters" Never have letters given
a more frank and sincere revelation
of personality-a most lovable one
and personal philosophy than these of
Lane. Throughout his life and ut the
thine of his death Lanes attitude to-
ward religion was one of deep rever-
ence; intense longing to believe
something, but honest inability really
to believe. Over and over, to his inti-
mate friends, he expresses these feel
ings, with growing pathos as his
health fails and he more and more
feels the need of some sustaining re-
ligion or philosophy. In a letter to
his wife he says:
But / am a miserable. groping
creature, cast on sea of doubt re-
Jecting one spar to grasp another,
and crying all the time against the
storm for help. I do not know an
other man who has tortured himself
so insistently with the problems that
are unsOlvable." OF Balfour he SAYS:
Anne (Mrs. Lane) sat next to him
at dinner and he told her that he be-
iteved in personal God. personal
identity after death. and answer to
prayer. which is remarkable state
ment of faith for one who has lived
through our scientific age. I think at
bottom he is a mystic" To his brother
he writes:
Il am trying hard to believe some
thlng that might be called the shadow
OF religion God that has a good
purpose, and another life in which
II not for glory But when | bump
up against a series of Affections such
as you have been subjected to, / fall
back upon Fred's philosophy of a
purposeless or else cruel God .
L simply have a sinking of the heart
goneness, hopelessness-not even
the pleasure of a resignation" In a
letter to a friend he says:
A man who can believe anything
is miles ahead of the rest of us. /
would gladly take Christian Science,
Mohammedanism, the Holy Rollers
or anything else that promised some
answer to the perpIexing problems"
He writes to his daughter soon after
her marriage:
II wish you would really sink
yourself into some religion. To start
right is so important. You will miss
much JOY in life, L am convinced by
not having faith. something to live
by. something that explains the ques-
tions that rise each hour Buddhism
does not claim to be supernatural,
is not founded on miracles. and yet
Buddha taught the philosophy of
Shrlst 500 years before He came
me central note is getting above
self-real self-mastery" Just before
his operation at Rochester, Mimi, he
writes:
Il find myself quite serene, for
can look forward even to the very
worst result with the feeling that
there is no one to meet me over there
TO whom I've done any wrong" In
another letter of the same date he
says
I'D like to have Anne's perfect
sureness as to the future. but, lacking
it, ] do not look forward with fear
even If the worst should happen. I've
never done a wrong to any man or
woman or child that I can now re-
call-but maybe my memory Is fall
ing" During the interval Of twelve
days between his operation and his
death he dictated a letter to be sent
graphing or writing to inquire about
him. In this he said:
"Ah, now / was to know the great
secret! For forty years / had been
wondering. wondering-and had
come to the conclusion that perhaps
be fitted into the words, I accept
which to me meant that if in the
law Of nature my individual spirit
was to go back into the great ocean
of spirits, my one duty was TO con,
form. Lead. Kindly Light was all
the gospel 1 had. 1 accepted. l made
pretenSe to put out my hand in sub
mission and lay there" After brief
period, during which it seemed that
Lane might be on the way to restored
health and renewed life, he suddenly
went. either to learn or not to learn
the great secret" for, as he himself
said a short time before:
Either would know, or not know,
and 1 would not know that L would
not know"
The spirit of Thomas Hardy as it
appears in his poetry receives a fine
tribute from John Middleton Murry in
review of Hardy's Collected
Poems" published recently in the
New York Times book review. Mr..
Murry says: 1T is to the spirit of
great man that come to submit my
self and to pay homage. I take up
the Collected Poems now in order
that I may approach a hero of hu-
manity. / am spellbound. Binding the
earliest of the poems to the last, l
am aware of an imperishable thread
of predestination. No matter how
casual its occasion, each several poem
has it's place in the structure of en-
during poetry which Hardy has built
to be the everlasting mansion of his
spirit"
Ireland in recent years has suggested
so much of hatred, mingled with crude
sentimentalism. both in literature and
politics, that it is a keen pleasure to
be recalled to the Ireland Of Celtic
fancy and idealism by such book as
Padriac Columns new novel, "Castie
Conquer" Columns artistry and i'm
agination also furnish a delightful
contrast for any one who has recently
made an excursion into the extreme
and decadent naturalism of his fellow
countryman. James Joyce. 1t will be
remembered that Padriac Colum was
one of the leaders in the Irish literary
renaissance OF twenty years ago, with
which the names of Yeats and Synge
are even more closely connected.
Columns verse, drama and fiction are all
folk literature, and are always con-
cerned more with the soul of the Irish
peasant than with his external life.
"Castle Conquer combines realism
and symbolism in an Interpretation of
Irish character. The action covers
fifty years of Irish struggle, ambition
and suffering, and ends with the pres
ent time, in a mood of sad acceptance
rather than sof hope fulfilled.
X X X Il
The late Maurice Hewlett hated pub
licity so much that he lived in a
small Wiltshire village about ten