The London Mercury Volume I by J C Squire Editor PDF
Preview The London Mercury Volume I by J C Squire Editor
The Project Gutenberg EBook of The London Mercury, Vol. I, Nos. 1-6, November 1919 to April 1920, by Various This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: The London Mercury, Vol. I, Nos. 1-6, November 1919 to April 1920 Author: Various Editor: J. C. Squire Release Date: March 11, 2014 [EBook #45116] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LONDON MERCURY, NOV 1919-APRIL 1920 *** Produced by David Clarke, Charlie Howard, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) Transcriber added this Table of Contents: Issue Page 1 1 2 129 3 257 4 385 5 513 6 641 Greek transliterations provided by transcribers are enclosed in {curly braces}. Other Transcriber notes appear at the end of this eBook. THE LONDON MERCURY Edited by J. C. Squire Volume I 1919 November to April 1920 London The Field Press Ltd PRINTED AT THE FIELD PRESS WINDSOR HOUSE BREAM'S BUILDINGS LONDON E·C4 I N D E X TO V O L U M E I M·CM·XIX NOVEMBER APRIL M·CM·XX REGULAR ARTICLES AMERICA, A Letter from, 232 Bibliographical Notes, 73, 194, 325, 458, 581, 718 BIBLIOGRAPHIES of Modern Authors: Beerbohm, Max, 626 Belloc, Hilaire, 366 Bridges, Robert Seymour, 753 Brooke, Rupert, 123 Chesterton, G. K., 496 Clutton-Brock, Arthur, 366 Davies, W. H., 122 De La Mare, Walter, 122 Flecker, James Elroy, 239 Freeman, John, 497 Hardy, Thomas, 122 Hewlett, Maurice, 625 Meynell, Alice, 754 Saintsbury, George, 238 Book Production Notes, 231, 359, 495, 621, 752 Books of the Month, 78, 201, 332, 468, 593, 727 Correspondence, 77, 198, 329, 462, 585, 721 DRAMA, The: Calvinists of the Drama, The, 112 Candida, 755 Children's Plays, 498 Demand and Supply, 501 Duchess of Malfi, The, 368 Grierson's Way, 755 Intellectual Drama, The, 241 John Ferguson, 755 iii Living Corpse, A, 111 Marriage à la Mode, 627 Materialism and Poetry, 242 Medea, 755 Miniature Ballet, 755 Pantomime, The Change in the, 499 Poetic Drama, The, 240 Pygmalion, 755 Theatre, The Influence of the Existing, 113 Three Sisters, The, 755 Young Visiters, The, 755 EDITORIAL NOTES: American Copyright, 131, 389 Art, Ugliness, and Incomprehensibility, 385 Auction Room Knock-Out, The, 516 Literature of 1919, The, and the Prospects of Literature, 257 Ministry of Fine Arts, A, 513 National Theatre, The, 641 Objects of the London Mercury, 1, 129 FINE ARTS, The: Black Country, The, 634 Comic Drawing, British, 373 Epstein, Recent Sculpture by Jacob, 633 Fine Arts, The, 116 Goupil Gallery Salon, 375 Grant, Paintings by Duncan, 634 Group-making and Group-breaking, 245 London Group, The, 247 Matisse, M. Henri, 374 Meaning of Impressionism, The, 759 National Gallery, The, 632 Nevinson's Exhibition, Mr., 246 New English Art Club, The, 504 Renoir, Auguste, 759 War Pictures at Burlington House, 503 FRANCE, A LETTER FROM: The Present State of the French Novel, 105 The French Poetry of To-day, 360 The Young Reviews, 622 Learned Societies, etc., 108, 235, 363, 465, 590, 724 LITERARY INTELLIGENCE: Andreef, Leonid, Death of, 136 Bullen, A. H., Death of, 647 Burne-Jones, Lady, Death of, 520 Chesterton, G. K., 263 Cummings, Bruce, Death of, 135 Dehmel, Dr. Richard, Death of, 519 Dial, The, 392 Dobson, Austin, Eightieth Birthday of, 391 Flecker, James Elroy, 263 Gosse, Edmund, Seventieth Birthday of, 136 Hardy, Thomas, Presentation to, 135 New Edition of his Works, 263 James, Henry, Letters of, 263 Micro-organisms in Paper, 264 Osler, Sir William, Death of, 391 Smith, G. D., Death of, 648 Thomas, Edward, Memorial to, 519 MUSIC: Audience, The Function of the, 764 Beecham Opera, The, 248 Concerts, 377 Covent Garden, 376 Naturalisation of Opera in England, The, 763 Promenade Concerts, The, 119 Purcell and His Orchestra, 637 Purcell and Shakespeare, 635 Resurrection of an Opera, The, 635 Rubinstein's Recital, Mr. Arthur, 506 Scriabin Recital, A, 508 Spanish Music, Modern, 507 Surrey's Opportunity, The, 764 iv Publications, Select List of, 124, 251, 379, 509, 638, 766 OCCASIONAL CONTRIBUTIONS IN PROSE ARCHITECTURE as Form in Civilisation, 574 Autographs, A Collection of, 320 Barbellion, W. N. P., 543 Blake as a Prophet, On, 283 Blind Thamyris, 403 Bridges' Lyrical Poems, Robert, 708 Butler, Samuel, 164 Classic of the Future, A Little (Somerville and Ross), 555 Crane, Stephen: A Note without Dates, 192 Creatures, The, 275 Crystal Vase, The, 176 Donne, John, 435 Eighteenth-Century Poetry, 155 Eliot, George, 34 English, The Teaching of, 62 Foreshore of London, The, 663 Future Poet and Our Time, The, 44 James, Henry—I, 673 Jonson, Ben, 184 Mackenzie, The Novels of Mr. Compton, 448 Misadventures, 149 Music, On Interpretation in, 694 Particles, An Article on, 71 Photography and Art, 301 Prose and Mortality, 312 Prose, On, 671 Psycho-Analysis and the Novel, 426 Records, A Case for, 685 Rhyme, The Romance of, 416 Satirists, Forgotten, 565 Servants, On, 533 Shelley and His Publishers, 291 Smile of the Sphinx, The, 16 Walpole, Horace, 52 POEMS Almswomen, 525 Beechwood, 656 Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, Bryan!, 396 Buzzards, The, 138 Coming of Green, The, 523 Country Mood, A, 272 Draft for "A First and Last Song", 271 Early Chronology, 11 Evening Sky in March, The, 12 Fortunatus Nimium, 393 Gallipoli, Lines Written in, 267 Glimpse from the Train, A, 265 Going and Staying, 7 Hippolytus, The Modern, 524 House That Was, The, 14 Inglis, Elsie, 531 Intimacy, 527 Ishak's Song, 137 It's Not Going to Happen Again, 7 Love's Caution, 13 Moon, The, 139 Nature's Fruitfulness, 524 Night Rapture, 529 Nobis cum Pereant, 655 November, 268 Rock Pool, The, 12 Scirocco, 273 Search for the Nightingale, The, 8 Senses, The, 521 Shadow, The, 394 Shobeensho, 662 "Skindle's" in Poperinghe, 649 Soldier Addresses His Body, The, 527 Sorrowing for Childhood Departed, 532 Storm and Stars, 662 Suppose, 14 Tarantella, 266 To E. G., 394 Weir, By the, 395 INDEX OF AUTHORS Armstrong, Martin: The Buzzards, 138 The Senses, 521 The Coming of Green, 523 Beerbohm, Max: On Servants, 533 Belloc, H.: Tarantella, 266 Beresford, J. D.: Psycho-Analysis and the Novel, 426 Binyon, Laurence: The House That Was, 14 Storm and Stars, 662 Blunden, Edmund: Almswomen, 525 Brett Young, Francis: Scirocco, 273 Bridges, Robert: Fortunatus Nimium, 393 Brooke, Rupert: It's Not Going to Happen Again, 7 Burrows, Francis: Nature's Fruitfulness, 524 Chesterton, G. K.: The Romance of Rhyme, 416 Clutton-Brock, A.: On Blake as a Prophet, 283 Conrad, Joseph: Stephen Crane: A Note without Dates, 192 Davies, W. H.: Love's Caution, 13 De la Mare, Walter: Suppose, 14 The Creatures, 275 Dent, Edward J.: Music, 119, 248, 376, 506, 635, 763 Dobson, Austin: v To E. G., 394 Flecker, James Elroy: Ishak's Song, 137 Freeman, John: The Evening Sky in March, 12 The Novels of Mr. Compton Mackenzie, 448 Beechwood, 656 Gibson, Wilfrid Wilson: By the Weir, 395 Gosse, Edmund, C.B.: George Eliot, 34 Henry James—I., 673 Graves, A. P.: Shobeensho, 662 Graves, Robert: A Country Mood, 272 Hannay, Howard: Photography and Art, 301 The Fine Arts, 503, 632, 759 Hardy, Thomas, O.M.: Going and Staying, 7 A Glimpse from the Train, 265 Hastings, Major L. M.: "Skindle's" in Poperinghe, 649 Henschel, Sir George: On Interpretation in Music, 694 Hewlett, Maurice: The Crystal Vase, 176 Elsie Inglis, 531 Huxley, Aldous: Ben Jonson, 184 Forgotten Satirists, 565 Ingpen, Roger: Shelley and His Publishers, 291 Jenkinson, Hilary: A Case for Records, 685 Kennard, Sir Coleridge, Bart.: Draft for "A First and Last Song", 271 Leigh, The Rev. Canon N. Egerton: A Collection of Autographs, 320 Lethaby, Professor W. R.: Architecture as Form in Civilisation, 574 Lindsay, Nicholas Vachel: Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, Bryan!, 396 Lynd, Robert: Horace Walpole, 52 John Donne, 435 Mason, J. H.: Book-Production Notes, 231, 359, 495, 621, 752 Meynell, Alice: An Article on Particles, 71 Moore, T. Sturge: Blind Thamyris, 403 Nash, John: The Fine Arts, 116, 245, 373 Newbolt, Sir Henry: Nobis cum Pereant, 655 Nichols, Robert: The Smile of the Sphinx, 16 November, 268 Night Rapture, 529 Rickword, Edgell: Intimacy, 527 The Soldier Addresses His Body, 527 Rushby, Kenworth: The Modern Hippolytus, 524 Saintsbury, George: Eighteenth-Century Poetry, 155 Sassoon, Siegfried: Early Chronology, 11 Shanks, Edward: The Rock Pool, 12 Samuel Butler, 164 The Shadow, 394 W. N. P. Barbellion, 543 Shaw-Stewart, Patrick: Lines Written in Gallipoli, 267 Smith, L. Pearsall: Misadventures, 149 Squire, J. C.: The Future Poet and Our Time, 44 The Moon, 139 Prose and Mortality, 312 Robert Bridges' Lyrical Poems, 708 Stobart, J. C.: The Teaching of English, 62 Thibaudet, Albert: A Letter from France, 105, 360, 622 Tomlinson, H. M.: The Foreshore of London, 663 Turner, W. J.: The Search for the Nightingale, 8 Sorrowing for Childhood Departed, 532 The Drama, 111, 240, 368, 498, 627, 755 Van Deijssel, L.: Of Prose, 671 Williams, Orlo: A Little Classic of the Future, 555 REVIEWS ACCOUNTS Rendered of Work Done and Things Seen, Buchanan, 494 Actor, Problems of the, Calvert, 502 Addresses in America, Galsworthy, 480 Anaphylaxis and Anti-Anaphylaxis, Besredka, 228 Appreciations of Poetry, Hearn, 93 Archaic England, Bayley, 616 Argonaut and Juggernaut, Sitwell, 206 Art, Essays on, Clutton-Brock, 344 Athenian Days, Byron, 83 Athletics, Success in, Webster, Jenkins, and Mostyn, 224 BALKAN Problems and European Peace, Buxton and Leese, 351 Banner, The, Spender, 733 Battle Line in France, The Romance of the, Bodley, 606 Before the War, Haldane, 487 Boche and Bolshevik, Price, 96 Books in the War, Koch, 738 Botany, Applied, Ellis, 230 Brooke and the Intellectual Imagination, Rupert, De la Mare, 215 Butler, Samuel: A Memoir, Festing-Jones, 164 CARMINA Rapta, Fairfax, 207 Catalysis in Theory and Practice, Rideal and Taylor, 101 Catherine of Siena, St., Pollard, 484 Cervantes, Schevill, 737 Challenge, A., Hardyman, 82 Chemistry and Its Mysteries, Gibson, 357 Chemistry from the Industrial Standpoint, Thorne, 230 vi Childhood in Brittany Eighty Years Ago, A, Sedgwick, 482 Children of No Man's Land, Stern, 337 Chorus-Girl, and Other Stories, The, Tchehov, 476 Christian Ideas, First, Selwyn, 746 Clintons and Others, The, Marshall, 598 Clown of Paradise, The, Creston, 207 Coal Mining and the Coal Miner, Bulman, 744 Colloid Chemistry, Theoretical and Applied, Ostwald, 491 Colloids, The Chemistry of, Zsigmondy, 491 Comrades in Captivity, Harvey, 743 Cosmogony and Stellar Dynamics, Jeans, 619 Cottage Building in Cob, Pisé, Chalk and Clay, Williams-Ellis, 354 Country Sentiment, Graves, 728 Cousin Philip, Ward, 208 Coutts, The Life of Thomas, Coleridge, 482 Critic in Pall Mall, A, Wilde, 91 DAWN and Night, Poems of the, Mond, 82 Dickens, Reade, and Collins, Phillips, 606 Discovery, 751 Diversions of a Man of Letters, Some, Gosse, 89 Dodington, George Bubb: Patron and Place-Hunter, Sanders, 348 Domus Doloris, Leith, 481 Donne's Sermons: Selected Passages with an Essay, Pearsall Smith, 213 Douglas, Collected Poems of Lord Alfred, 81 Ducks and Other Verses, Harvey, 596 EASTER Island, The Mystery of, Routledge, 355 Economic Consequences of the Peace, The, Keynes, 487 Efficiency, Everyday, Lindsay, 228 Eli of the Downs, Peake, 733 Emerson and His Philosophy, Hill, 226 Empire and Commerce in Africa, Woolf, 616 Engineering, Foundations of, Spikes, 230 Engines of the Human Body, Keith, 618 English Course for Schools, An, Mais, 62 Europe, The Expansion of, Abbott, 93 Europe, Fifty Years of, Hazen, 217 Every Man in his Humour, Jonson, 243 FAR East, The Mastery of the, 98 Financial Problems, War-Time, Withers, 99 First Plays, Milne, 115 Fleurs-de-Lys, Thorley, 731 Flora, Bianco and De la Mare, 468 Flowers in the Grass, Hewlett, 727 Forgotten Places, Mackenzie, 81 Fox, Henry: First Lord Holland, Ilchester, 608 Friend to Friend, From, Ritchie, 739 Full Circle, Hamilton, 473 GALLOPER at Ypres, A, Butler, 606 Garret, In the, Van Vechten, 477 General William Booth Enters into Heaven, Lindsay, 335 Georgian Poetry, 1918–1919, 201 Glory of the Coming, The, Cobb, 486 Gold and Iron, Hergesheimer, 337 vii Greek Anthology, Echoes from the, Legge, 83 Guild State: Its Principles and Possibilities, The, Taylor, 100 Gyroscopic and Rotational Motion, A Treatise on, Gray, 226 HAMLET, The Problem of, Robertson, 92 Handmaiden of the Navy, The, Doorly, 223 Heartbreak House, Shaw, 114 Herschel, Macpherson, 751 How the War Came, Loreburn, 97 Hygiene for Training Colleges, A Text Book of, Avery, 750 IF All These Young Men, Wilson, 208 Illustration, Meynell, 375 Images of War, Aldington, 594 Imperfect Mother, An, Beresford, 733 India, The Government of, Macdonald, 490 Industry and Trade, Marshall, 220 Inflation, Nicholson, 222 Interim, Richardson, 473 Invisible Kingdom, An, Lilly, 225 Invisible Tides, Seymour, 473 Ions, Electrons, and Ionising Radiations, Crowther, 618 Ireland a Nation, Lynd, 353 Irish Impressions, Chesterton, 222 Italian Peasants, Among, Cyriax, 478 JACOPONE Da Todi, Underhill, 346 Jeremy, Walpole, 84 Jesus Chapel, Cambridge, The Stones and Story of, Morgan, 743 Jonson, Ben, Smith, 184 KEATS' Endymion, An Interpretation of, Notcutt, 737 Kiel in the Hercules, To, Freeman, 96 Kossovo, Rootham, 730 Kut Prisoner, A, Bishop, 606 LEAGUE of Nations, A Handbook of the, Butler, 489 Leagues of Nations, York, 615 Legend, Dane, 208 Lehmann, The Life of Liza, Lehmann, 486 Limbo, Huxley, 598 Lincoln, Abraham: The Practical Mystic, Grierson, 218 Lines of Life, Nevinson, 729 London Venture, The, Arlen, 477 MADELEINE, Mirrlees, 208 Man: Past and Present, Keane, Quiggin, and Haddon, 747 Manners of My Time, The, Dempster, 741 Mansoul or The Riddle of the World, Doughty, 593 Mask, The, Cournos, 208 Matter, Some Wonders of, Mercer, 357 Measures of the Poets, The, Bayfield, 601 Middle Life, Thoughts in, Locker-Lampson, 481 Miscellany of Poetry, A, Seymour, 471 Modern Science and Materialism, Elliot, 493 My Kingdom for a Horse! Allison, 96 NAPOLEON, Trench, 83 National Finance, A Primer of, Higgs, 101 Nationalisation of the Mines, Hodges, 744 Nevill, The Life and Letters of Lady Dorothy, Nevill, 219 New Decameron, The, Various Authors, 88 New Outlook, The, Cecil, 615 New Poems, Williams, 205 Night and Day, Woolf, 337 OCTOBER and Other Poems, Bridges, 708 Over and Above, Gurdon, 88 Oxford Scholar, An: Ingram Bywater, 1840–1914, Jackson, 349 PAGAN and Christian Creeds, Carpenter, 747 Paravane Adventure, The, Cornford, 487 Paths of Glory, The, 732 Peace in the Making, The, Harris, 615 Pedlar and Other Poems, The, Manning-Sanders, 729 Peel, Recollections of Lady Georgiana, Peel, 611 Peter Jackson, Cigar Merchant, Frankau, 598 Phillpotts, One Hundred Pictures from Eden, Brewitt, 740 Physicists, Ten British, Macfarlane, 103 Pilgrim in Palestine, A, Finley, 479 Playwright, Problems of the, Hamilton, 758 Poems, Collected, Hardy, 333 Poems, 1916–1918, Brett Young, 332 Poems, Selected, Sackville, 596 Poetical Works, Excluding the Eight Dramas, Bridges, 708 Poland and the Poles, Boswell, 223 Poor Relations, Mackenzie, 84 Power of a Lie, The, Bojer, 337 Prelude, Nichols, 598 RACE and Nationality, Oakesmith, 99 Realities of Modern Science, The, Mills, 357 Reconstructors and Reconstruction, Oxon, 100 Records, Fisher, 607 Responsibilities of the League, The, Percy, 489 Revolt of Youth, The, Hobson, 88 Reynard the Fox, Masefield, 78 Richard Kurt, Hudson, 84 Riddle of the Ruthvens, The, Roughead, 347 Roast Beef, Medium, Ferber, 733 R. L. S., A Book of, Brown, 216 Romantic Roussillon, The, Savory, 345 Rousseau and Romanticism, Babbitt, 604 Russia in Rule and Misrule, Ballard, 615 SACRED and Profane Love, Bennett, 244 Saint's Progress, Galsworthy, 208 Science and Life, Soddy, 750 Seals and Documents, Poole, 742 Second Country, My, Dell, 614 September, Swinnerton, 84 Seven Men, Beerbohm, 212 Seventeenth-Century English Verse, Massingham, 470 Seventeenth-Century Life in the Country Parish, Trotter, 351 Shakespeare, Contemporaries of, Swinburne, 92 Shakespeare's Versification, A Study of, Bayfield, 601 Side Shows, In the, Benn, 353 Sir Limpidus, Pickthall, 337 viii Skilled Labourer, The, Hammond, 352 Skylark and Swallow, Gales, 729 Smith, William: Potter and Farmer, Bourne, 744 Social Theory, Cole, 745 Soldier Poets, Some, Sturge Moore, 215 Soldier to His Son, Any, Willis, 83 Sorley, The Letters of Charles, 343 South Sea Foam, Safroni-Middleton, 214 Springtime and Other Essays, Darwin, 605 Station Platform and Other Poems, The, Mackenzie, 83 Story of Purton, The, Richardson, 741 Submarines and Sea-Power, Domville-Fife, 487 Superhuman Antagonists, The, Watson, 79 Supreme Adventure, The, Macandrew, 101 Sussex in Bygone Days, Blaker, 478 TANK Corps, The, Williams-Ellis, 217 Tender Conscience, The, Lynch, 84 Thomson of Duddingston, The Life of John, Napier, 247 Time and Eternity, Cannan, 84 Tolstoy, Noyes, 737 Trade Unionism, The History of, Webb, 612 Turks in Europe, The, Allen, 484 Twenty-fifth Division in France and Flanders, The, Kincaid-Smith, 486 ULSTER and Ireland, Good, 100 Unhappy Far-Off Things, Dunsany, 345 Unmarried, The Great, Gallichan, 99 VALMOUTH, Firbank, 473 Vector Algebra, Projective, Silberstein, 230 Verse, Kipling, 333 Verse-Craft, Lessons in, Ford, 601 Verses, Meynell, 596 Victorian Recollections, Bridges, 485 Village Libraries, Sayle, 738 WALPOLE, Letters of Horace, 52 War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon, The, 206 War Poetry, A Treasury of, Clarke, 336 Wheels, 1919, 334 Worms and Epitaphs, Garrod, 594 YOUNG Physician, The, Brett Young, 84 1 W THE LONDON M E R C U RY Vol. I No. 1 November 1919 EDITORIAL NOTES ITH these notes we introduce the first number of the London Mercury. It might, beyond denial, appear in more tranquil and comfortable days. We have just been through a crisis which has brought us within sight of the basic realities of life—food, clothing, housing, security against violence. As soon as the paper was projected we were forced to visualise the likelihood of a time in which paper would be almost unprocurable, printing impossible (save in an amateur way at home), and the distribution of literature a matter of passing sheets from hand to hand. We have had a glimpse into the abyss of disorganisation, and, for the time being at all events, we have managed to keep on the solid ground. But, having conceived this journal, its conductors would have been reluctant to abandon their plans whatever confusion might have supervened. They may fairly claim to have formulated a scheme which, when it is perfectly executed, will meet all the demands of the public which reads old or new books, and of that other and smaller public which is chiefly concerned with the production of new works of the imagination. The more intense the troubles of society, the more uncertain and dark the future, the more obvious is the necessity for periodicals which hand on the torch of culture and creative activity. Literature is of the spirit; and by the spirit man lives. Our traditions are never more jealously to be cherished than when they are threatened; and our literature is the repository of all our traditions. We think that, with our list of contents before us, we may reasonably say that there has never been in this country a paper with the scope of the London Mercury. We have had periodicals which have exercised a great critical influence, such as the Edinburgh Review of Jeffrey's and Macaulay's day. We have had periodicals which have published an unusual amount of fine "creative work," such as Thackeray's Cornhill. We have at this day the Times Literary Supplement, which reviews, with the utmost possible approximation to completeness, the literary "output" of the time; we have weekly papers which review the principal books and publish original verse and prose, and monthly papers which diversify their tables of contents with articles on Molière or Chateaubriand, Byron or Mr. Alfred Noyes. But we have had no paper which has combined as the London Mercury will do all those various kinds of matter which are required by the lover of books and the practising writer. In our pages will be found original verse and prose in a volume not possible to the weekly paper; full-length literary essays such as have been found only in the politico-literary monthlies; a critical survey of books of all kinds recently published; and other "features," analogues to some of which may be found, one by one, here and there, but which have never before been brought together within a single cover. The London Mercury—save in so far as it will publish reasoned criticisms of political (as of other) books—will avoid politics. It will concern itself with none of those issues which are the field of political controversy, save only such—the teaching of English, the fostering of the arts, the preservation of ancient monuments are examples—as impinge directly upon the main sphere of its interests. But within the field that it has chosen it will endeavour to be as exhaustive as is humanly possible. The present number is an earnest of its intentions; in early future numbers other sections will be added which will steadily bring it nearer to the ideal that it has set out to reach. That ideal comprehends the satisfaction of the current needs of all those who are intelligently interested in literature, in the drama, in the arts, and in music. We shall attempt to make known the best that is being done and, so far as literature is concerned, to assist the process by the publication of original work. But thus far we have mentioned no more than the London Mercury's functions as what may be called a "news" paper, an organ for the recording and dissemination of things that have already happened or been done. Its functions, as its conductors conceive them, will include—and this will be the chief of them—the examination of those conditions which in the past have favoured, and in the future are likely to favour, the production of artistic work of the first order, and the formulation and application of sound critical standards. It is not a matter of attempting to make universal the shibboleths of some coterie or school, or of carrying some technical "stunt" through the country as though it were a fiery cross. We do not propose to maintain (to give concrete examples) that literature should be didactic or that it should be a-moral. We are not interested in urging that the couplet is exhausted, that the sonnet should be revived, that plays should have four or three acts, that rhyme is essential or that it is outworn, that lines should or should not be of regular lengths. We are tied to no system of harmony; we have no dogmas as to the dominance of representation in painting; we would make no hard- and-fast rule about the desirability of drawing a vertical wall as sloping at 45 degrees or of painting a man's face magenta and sage- green. As convenient descriptions we do not object (save sometimes on grounds of euphony) to the terms Futurist, Vorticist, Expressionist, post-Impressionist, Cubist, Unanimist, Imagist: but we suspect them as banners and battle-cries, for where they are used as such it is probable that fundamentals are being forgotten. Our aim will be, as critics, to state and to reiterate what are the motives, and 2 3 what must be the dominant elements, of all good art, whatever the medium and whatever the idiosyncrasies of the artist, even if he find it convenient to draw on papier-mâché with a red-hot poker, and even if his natural genius impels him to write in lines of one syllable. The profoundest truths about art, whether literary or pictorial, are crystallised in maxims which may have been more often reiterated than understood, but which have undeniably been so often repeated that people now find them tiresome. Of such are "fundamental brainwork," "emotion recollected in tranquillity," "the rhythmical creation of beauty," and "the eye on the object." Each of these embodies truths, and there is indisputable truth also in the statements that a poet should have an ear and that a painter should paint what he sees. These things are platitudes; but a thing does not cease to be true merely because it is trite, and it is disastrous to throw over the obvious merely because it was obvious to one's grandfather. Yet men—and even women—do such things. We have had in the last few years art, so called, which sprang from every sort of impulse but the right one, and was governed by every sort of conceptions but the right ones. We have had "styles" which were mere protests and revulsions against other styles; "styles" which were no more than flamboyant attempts at advertisement akin to the shifting lights of the electric night signs; authors who have forgotten their true selves in the desperate search for remarkable selves; artists who have refused to keep their eyes upon the object because it has been seen before; musicians who have made, for novelty's sake, noises, and painters who have made, for effect's sake, spectacles, which invited the attention of those who make it their business to suppress public nuisances. We have had also theories in vogue the effects of which on mind and heart were such, and were foredoomed to be such, as to wither many talents in the bud. A single positive trend in English literature we do not ask and it is not necessarily desirable. We have heard the complaint from critics of the Gallic school that even in the days of the marvellously fertile English "Romantic generation" there was no one "movement," no Ten Commandments, and everybody was at sixes and sevens. That is the national way, and it probably accounts for our possession of the greatest and most varied imaginative literature that exists. Nevertheless, anarchy is not desirable, nor that worthy frame of mind which extends toleration not merely to the good of all kinds, but to the good and the bad, the intelligent and the foolish indifferently. And surely this toleration has been too commonly in evidence in this country in our time. Is the contention disputed? Is the fact other than self-evident? Is it necessary to explain and to accentuate the confusion which for the last ten years has been evident in the creative and in the critical literature of this country? There have been, as there always are, writers who have cheerfully continued writing as their predecessors have written, serious parodists of Milton, of Tennyson, and of George Eliot. These least of all can be said to be in the tradition of English letters; for that tradition has been a tradition of constant experiment and renovation. There has been a central body of writers—from Mr. Hardy, Mr. Bridges, and Mr. Conrad to the best of the younger poets —who have gone steadily along the sound path, traditional yet experimental, personal yet sane. But there has been also a large number of young writers who have strayed and lost themselves amongst experiments, many of them foredoomed to sterility. Young men, ignoring the fundamental truth expressed in the maxim, "Look in thy heart and write," have attempted to make up poems (and pictures) "out of their heads." Others, defying the obvious postulate that all good writing will carry at least a superficial meaning to the intelligent reader, have invited us to admire strings of disconnected words and images, meaningless and even verbless. Others, turning their backs on those natural affections and primary interests the repudiation of which means, and must always mean, the death of the highest forms of literature, have concentrated upon the subversion of every belief by which man lives. They have sapped at the bases of every loyalty, and sneered at every code, oblivious to both social welfare and social experience. They have been, such of them as profess the moralistic preoccupation, very contemptuous of "clean living and no thinking," but the dirty living and muddled thinking that they have offered as a substitute have been no great improvement. They have been, such of them as have the preoccupation of the artist, so anxious to look at the abnormal and the recondite that they have forgotten what are and must be the main elements of man's life and what the most conspicuous features in man's landscape. We have had an orgy of undirected abnormality. The old object of art was "what oft was said but ne'er so well expressed"; the object of many of the new artists has been what was never said before and could not possibly be expressed worse. The tricks of abnormality have been learnt. Young simpletons who, twenty years ago, would have been writing vapid magazine verses about moonrise and roses have discovered that they have only to become incoherent, incomprehensible, and unmetrical to be taken seriously. Bad writers will, without intellectual or æsthetic impulse, pretend to burrow into psychological (or physical) obscurities which are no more beyond the artist's purview than anything else, provided he responds to them, but which have the advantage for an insincere writer that they enable him to talk nonsense that honest unsophisticated readers are unable to diagnose as nonsense. Year after year we have new fungoid growths of feeble pretentious impostors who, after a while, are superseded by their younger kindred; and year by year we see writers who actually have some intelligence and capacity for observation and exact statement led astray into the stony and barren fields of technical anarchism or the pitiful madhouse of moral antinomianism. At bottom vanity and pretence are the worst of vices in a young writer, but they may be encouraged or discouraged, even these; and we have seen times and places in which black was called white. Amid this luxuriant confusion the voices of critics at once sane and informed have been few. For the most part our older critics have tended to treat the younger generation as a howling menagerie of insensate young beasts, and have failed to keep sufficiently closely in touch with production to discriminate between the traditional and the anarchistic, the sincere and the pretentious, the intelligent and the stupid, the healthy and the vicious, the promising and the sterile. We have ourselves been frequently amused and irritated at finding elderly men of letters alarmed at the "revolutionism of the young," as manifested in Mr. A. or Mr. B., or asking, bewildered, "why the young take Miss C. so seriously," when as a fact A. and B. are merely rowdies of whose foolish books even the young buy only fifty or sixty copies, and the fair C. is a person taken seriously by no serious person of her own generation. Those critics, again, who are constantly in touch with the fruits of the printing press have for the most part got into a state of puzzlement in which they are not merely afraid to make mistakes (lest what looks like a frog may turn out to be an angel), but in which they have almost lost the habit of using their senses for the purpose for which they were meant to be used. Everything is treated with respect. Platitudinous rubbish—so welcome perhaps because it is so easily understood—is treated as though Wordsworth had written it; hectic gibberish of the silliest kind is honoured, at worst, with the sort of deferential reprimand that is applicable to great genius when great genius shows a slight tendency to kick over the traces. Even those of our reviews which do not ignore the best contemporary work more often than not allocate just as much space to the humbug and the faux bon. "The public, though dull, has not quite such a skull," as Swinburne's limerick put it. Many 4 5 bad authors are much talked about but very little read, and critics who never write a line are frequently sound when most of the professionals have gone clean off the rails. Moreover, it is arguable—though we should not, without long consideration, accept the argument—that no amount of misleading criticism or bad example will ruin a man of strong natural genius, which implies perceptions which will not be denied, and a well-defined positive character. Nevertheless, even if we do not exaggerate the ill effects of haphazard and timid or haphazard and reckless criticism, it is surely obvious that both artists and their publics must gain if some of the rubbish can be cleared away. The ship moves in spite of all the barnacles, and it does not lose direction, but its progress might be less troublesome. We have often met persons who have distrusted all reviews because they have bought books on the strength of extravagant reviews and been once bit. We have often met people, too, who have procured what somebody (undeniably "intellectual") has told them to be the latest and most vigorous and representative work of imaginative literature, and, finding it distasteful, have come to the conclusion that the "poets of the day" or the "novelists of to-morrow" are not for them: turning back, then, to their Dickens or Browning or Dionysius of Halicarnassus in the mood of that ghastly pessimist who said that whenever a new book came out he read an old one. These readers are typical of many, and the result of their existence is that the dissemination of the best contemporary literature is (1) less wide than it might be and (2) less rapid than it might be. There is, as a rule—in the economists' term—far too great a "time-lag" in the making of the best reputations. A man often writes for years before he is heard of by the mass of the cultivated readers who are naturally predisposed to like his work, and do like it when at last they meet it. In a nation so large, and with so immense a volume of literary production, such numerous and diverse news-sheets, and such congested and ill-arranged bookshops, this phenomenon is bound to exist in some degree. But it may be minimised, and although we of the London Mercury cannot hope, and do not desire, to be judged by our aspirations rather than by our performances, we may at least be permitted to say that we shall do our utmost to contribute towards that end. Even to disclaim an ambition for an infallible pontificate of letters must savour of impertinence. We can only say that what our journal can do in the way of affirming and applying principles of criticism, and giving a conspectus of the best contemporary work, we shall attempt to do. Our other functions we have already outlined, and a beginning is made in this number. We have made no endeavour to arrange a dazzling shop-window of names or "features" for our first number; whatever may be our readers' views concerning this number we can at least assure them that the contributors to subsequent numbers will be not less representative than those here found, and that only a beginning has yet been made towards the complete scheme that we have in view. Going and Staying The moving sun-shapes on the spray, The sparkles where the brook was flowing, Pink faces, plightings, moonlit May, These were the things we wished would stay; But they were going. Seasons of blankness as of snow, The silent bleed of a world decaying, The moan of multitudes in woe, These were the things we wished would go; But they were staying. THOMAS HARDY It's Not Going to Happen Again 6 7 I have known the most dear that is granted us here, More supreme than the gods know above, Like a star I was hurled through the sweet of the world, And the height and the light of it, Love. I have risen to the uttermost Heaven of Joy, I have sunk to the sheer Hell of Pain— But—it's not going to happen again, my boy, It's not going to happen again. It's the very first word that poor Juliet heard From her Romeo over the Styx; And the Roman will tell Cleopatra in hell When she starts her immortal old tricks; What Paris was tellin' for good-bye to Helen When he bundled her into the train— Oh, it's not going to happen again, old girl, It's not going to happen again. RUPERT BROOKE Château Lake Louise, Canada, 1913. The Search for the Nightingale (To S. S.) 1 Beside a stony, shallow stream I sat In a deep gully underneath a hill. I watched the water trickle down dark moss And shake the tiny boughs of maidenhair, And billow on the bodies of cold stone. And sculptured clear Upon the shoulder of that aerial peak Stood trees, the fragile skeletons of light, High in a bubble blown Of visionary stone. 2 Under that azurine transparent arch The hill, the rocks, the trees Were still and dreamless as the printed wood Black on the snowy page. It was the song of some diviner bird Than this still country knew, The words were twigs of burnt and blackened trees From which there trilled a voice, Shadowy and faint, as though it were the song The water carolled as it flowed along. 3 Lifting my head, I gazed upon the world, Carved in the breathless heat as in a gem, And watched the parroquets green-feathered fly Through crystal vacancy, and perch in trees That glittered in a thin, blue, haze-like dream, And the voice faded, though the water dinned Against the stones its dimming memory. And I ached then To hear that song burst out upon that scene, Startling an earth where it had never been. 4 And then I came unto an older world. The woods were damp, the sun 8
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