Evening star., 1925-10-31
THE LIBRARY TABLE
By the BookLoUer.

EnRilSn critics as a literary group
ars not very different from the cor
responding American group. We are
in the habit Of thinking Of them as
possessed of a feeling of superiority,
an air of "our traditions are other
than yours; you are after all making
use of our language and literary prec-
edents." Whether this is their real
attitude or is a fiction Of our chip
on-the shoulder Americanisrn is open
to discussion. Certainly some OF them
who have landed in New York for
seven-day tour of the United States
have patted us on the head in most
patroniZing way. The roll of Eng
lish critics is as extended as the Amer
lean roll. So long as thsre IS no
nineteenth amendment in either Eng
land or the United States TO limit the
manufacture of literary criticism. so
long will any one who can use the Eng
lish language at all easily feel free to
become q critic of literature and life.
X K 4
II has probably caused great heart
burnings among the critics themselves
that any one so important as George
| Bernard Shaw should have assigned
the premier position IN criticism to
g. X Chesterton. In q recent article
in the Student Leader, published by
the Labor Club of Glasgow Cniver-
sity, Shaw says Of G.. X. Chesterton
that "by sheer literary force" he has
taken the position in London created
IN the eighteenth century by DR..
Johnson and left vacant at his death
until the accession Of G.. X. c. Ches-
terton, he continues, repudiated social
ism ''as an elephant might repudiate
IL set Of toy chains and reinVented It
for himself as the distrihutive state,
q more accurate and less pedantic
term than colleCtiVist state, as the
socialists or his youthful days call
it." The people adore chestertonS
irreievancies." he says, and invent
affeCtionate stories by Chesterton'S s eX-
ravagancies." The literary dicta-
torship of Chesterton is thus attested.
Perhaps one reason for the following
he has acquired is his versatility. His
mind does not Dartake of the heaVi-
ness of his body. He darts rapidly
from one form of literary produc-
tivity to another and one never knows
| where TO find him. Author OF the
! Father Brown" stories, poet. writer
of an eccentric history of England,
political controversialist, defender of
Catholicism and producer of some of
the best present-day CauSerieS and
criticism of the writer's of the Vic
torian age-all these is Chesterton.
His style is IS varied as his types
of work. He is sometimes serious,
mandatory. sometimes blandly APPROX
ing. but always clever and almost
always paradoxicai.
\ + x =
Hiaire BeIloc. characterized by
Cardinal O'Connell nS the greatest
lay Catholic mind i'll the world today"
shares prominence i'll criticism with
Chesterton. Son of a French father
and an English mother. and with an
American wife, he seems equipped
for appreciation of international prob
lens and literature. He left Parlla l.
ment after two terms because he could
attack the party system better out
side than Within il. so he founded
a paper Of his own, the New Witness,
In which he vigorously supports mis-
own political, religious and literary
beliefs. One of the most pronounced
of these beliefs is in the value of
dogmatic religion, without which he
thinks civilization would fall in pieces.
His most important work, Europe
and the Faith" was the result of long
study of the Roman Catholic influence
in Europe. Belloc is usually 50 seri-
Gus and takes himself 50 seriously as
to be almost heavy. He lacks the
light and easy handling which makes
Chesterton so popular.
X =
The two Stracheys may be mention
ed together. though entirely unlike.
Lytton Strachey in his Eminent Vic
torians" and the Life of Queen Vic
toria" illustrates the critical method
which is the exact opposite Of Carlyle's
Heroes and Hero Worship" For
him there are no heroes, only men
and women in whom fine qualities
and great powers are balanced by
faults. Queen Victoria. Florence Night
ingale, Gen. Gordon. Cardinal Man
ming are all shown to have been rather
difficult persons to get along with,
despite their achievements and reputa-
tions. John st. Loe Strachey. editor
; and proprietor of the Spectator, is
an editor who has retained his high
ideals and his JOY in life and litera-
! ture into his COS. His autobiog-
raphy. The Adventure of Living -
gives the history of his career as
author and editor. which began when
he was Il with the publication
OF a pamphlet of original verse. His
is a character full Of enthusiasms
: which are reflected in all his criti-
cism.
! Most of us have almost forgotten
Sir Edmund Gosse, or at least have
relegated him with Brander Matthews
to the altics of our minds. y critic
who has maintained preeminenCe for
fifty years is one we hardly care to
claim personal acquaintance with.
Yet Gosse is still writing, and writing
some good things, too. His recent
volume "SihouetteS," a collection of
pen portraits first published in the
London Sunday Times. is a fair eX-
ample of his later work, combining
sound erudition and finished work
manship. He is not as brilliant, as
witty. as caustic, as complex, as mod
ern as many of the other English
critics; but his balanced judgment, his
sense of real literary values and his
delicate irony, free from cynicism, are
perhaps qualities rarer today in criti-
cism than they should be. Some of
mis- "Silhouettes" are appreciations of
his contemporaries, as Mrs. Humphry
Ward, Andrew Lang and George
Moore.
= I: x !:
The veldt above Cape Colony. called
Little Karoo, is the scene of the short
stories of Pauline Smith published in
the volume 1.-The Little Karoo." The
author, daughter of an English ply
sician, spent the early years OF her
life In this region and it has impressed
itself ON her stories. The simple, prim-
tive life of the veldt, close to the
soil, Is similar to that portrayed in
Knut Hamsun's Growth of the Soil"
and Ladislas Reymont's peasants"
The happenings of the stories are not
unusual, are even commonplace, yet
are thoroughly moving. An old
couple, united by so years of devotion
and peaceful, pastoral life, sadly await
finds too late a wild love which is fol-
lowed by bitter awakening. A pastors
daughter is frustrated in her love and
knows only sadness in her fidelity.