Evening star., 1924-11-22
The Library Table
BY THE BooKLOvER

which would have great ethical and
pedagogical as well as literary value
From blind Homer down TO kath-
crime Mansfield, who died year ago,
there have been many heroic literary
spirits who, having the creative power
and inspired by love of creation,
have compelled frail bodies to be
subservient to courageous. dominant
minds. Alexander Pope, though he
permitted his deformity and conse-
quent suffering to sour his disposi-
tion. did not permit them to interfere
with his being the leading poet and
poetic dictator of his age. DR.. john
son was afflicted during most OF his
life with two or three incurable dis
eases, but he produced his clever die
tionary, wrote his Lives Of the
Poets" and, best OF all, talked enough
on all sorts of subjects in Boswelrs
hearing to enable the perfect biog-
rapher to write THE Life of DR..
Johnson. The man Robert Louis
Stevenson, with his unfailing courage
/ and optimism under slowly killing
disease, seems to the reader of Sir
Sidney Colvin's Life of Stevenson"
as great as the romanticist Steven
son. author of Treasure Island"
kidnapped" and David Balfour."
Saint -Gaudens' beautiful relief Of Ste
venson in ST. Giles Church, Edin-
burgh, which shows the long, gaunt
figure propped up in bed writing, is
tribute to the heroism of the lit
erary invalid. Anton Chekov, one of
the greatest of Russian dramatists,
fought for years the same disease
which was Stevenson's life enemy,
and fought with equal courage, if
with less cheerfulness. Like Steven
son, he died at the age of ~, but
during the years when he was strug-
Cling with poverty and illness in
the harsh climate of MOSCOW, and
later while in search of health in
villa on the Black Sea, he produced
his masterpieces of Russian realism
in fiction and drama. On the shore
of the Black Sea Tolstoi and Cork
were his neighbors, both also seek
ing health: they won the coveted
prize, but Chekov lost.
Literary invalids among women
have been as heroic as men. Mrs.
Browning wrote some of her finest
lyrics during the long period when
she was bedridden in a darkened
room. When her love for Robert
Browning finally enabled her both to
conquer her physical weakness and to
oppose her devoted but tyrannical ia
ther, so that she secretly left home
and married Browning. better health
was the result for time. but she al
ways thought and wrote with the
handicap OF invalidism. The three
Eronte sisters. Charlotte. Emily and
Anne, were of delicate physique from
the start and were deprived of any
mental stimulus by their lonely life on
the bleak Yorkshire moors. Yet they
conquered their physical weakness
and relieved the depression caused by
their gloomy surroundings by writing
their novels and poems during the
short lives that were theirs. Mrs.
Humphry Ward lived into the Cos,
but her recently published Life" by
her daughter, Janet Penrose Tre-
velyan, shows that almost from the
beginning of her literary work she
suffered from severe neuritis and
later from persistent insomnia and
an internal trouble which caused fire.
quent pain and at times almost pre-
vented walking. When her eNhaus-
tion and pain were greatest her rela-
tives and friends used to suggest
cessation of her writing. but she her
self never considered this as pos
sibility. She would write lying down.
or in a reclining chair, and on a spe-
cially constructed writing board, but
write she would. pain or no pain, sleep
or no sleep. Katherine Mansfield. whose
premature death cut off one of the
most original and promising OF Brit
ish short story writers, while travel
ing about or resting in sunny climates
in the attempt to check tuberculosis,
wrote her stories, so perfect in sim
plicity and compression, included IN
the collections "The Garden Party"
and THE Doves Nest
Arthur Machen, whose chief work
| was done in the last decade of the
nineteenth century, and who has recent
| Iy been rediscovered or, indeed, dis
own first attempts in literature in the
| thinly veiied fiction. THE Hill Of
Dreams" In the preface he speaks
| of the moderate success he had en-
| joyed from The Three Impostors,"
| success which was embittered for him
! by the sneers of the critics. who
pointed out that he was an imitator
/ of Stevenson. This imitation, he ad-
mitted, and set himself to avoid in
| his next work, which the publisher to
whom he offered 1t pronounced en-
tirely lacking in interest and devoid
! of merit. His struggles to perfect his
style and to write the subtle rather
than the obvious are described in the
story of the life OF Julian Taylor, the
chief character of THE Hill OF
Dreams who ends in insanity and
suicide. A measure of success came
| late to Arthur Machen, but popularity
he has never achieved. probably never
will achieve and would scorn IL he did
achieve it, There are those, however,
today among the literateurs who
claim that they discovered and ap-
preciated Arthur Machen a quarter of
a century ago. A late work OF Ar
thur Machen has recently been pub
lished called Ornaments in Jade. 1t
| Is a book difficult to place, neither
fiction, essays nor poetry, but some
thing of all three. 1t partakes of the
Celtic mysticism, passionate nature
worship and morbid introspection OF
| his earlier work. The central idea
seems to be that all things are holy
if seen right, but that man Is always
a Jekyll-Hyde personality. He says:
And every day we lead two lives, and
the half of our soul is madness, and
half Of heaven is lit by black sun.
say / am a man, but who is the other
| who hides in me-"
| x \ x
Leaves From the Golden Bough,"
| culled by Lady Frazer and consisting
of popular selections from her hus-
| bands famous book, has recently
been published. These selections deal
with the beliefs and customs of
primitive peoples in different parts
of the world. There are chapters on
| "The Witches Sabbath" 1.-The Were
| Wolves" Binding the Wind, Christ
mas and the Mistletoe." THE Jinnee
Of the Sea-" "The Precipitation Of
| Dead Whales" Kings Of Fire and
Water" and many other quaint GUS
toms and legends.
| 4 y X X
Sherwood Anderson believes that