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UNTHEL CHI
The China Mail
Ninety-Second Year of Publication
his library was well pencil-
et and tilled. Emerson sees in him an impatienc
fas- tidiousness at colour or pretence of any kind,” and we too can see
SA Wyndham Street, Hong Kong. the expression of it; but literary
Telephone 20022.
London Office:
not necessarily for insertion as a guarantee of good faith.
Subscription Rates.
abhorrence of humbug is no guár. antee of its entire absence from 7. Garrick Street, London, W.C.2. the writer. The world's
Notice To Cont
stage, indeed, as Shakespeare All communicatione intended for says, and each man in his time publication should be addressed to plays many parts. He plays the Editor, and be accompanied by more than Shakespeare dreamed the Writer'a Name and Address, of, for the literary temperament
but goes play-acting too, and the-
writer struts before himself, as audience, in all the high sincerity of art. Here, for exampler is a little poem by a young man kill- ed in the war. It has since been crucified by crooners, but take it Hong Kong, Saturday, July 17, 1937. simply as a poem. The literalist might call it insincere, since such a poet could not have believed BYGONE DISCOURSES himself a fool. It is the simple
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sincerity of it which convinces When the world of political us, and once more persuades us change is looked at till the mind that anybody, we included, could becomes fuddled with anxiety, have written it. Ah! But could and the trust that belongs to faith we? We can feel it, hence our roams off like a dog that will not appreciation: answer to whistling, then is the time to turn to old writers. It is wonderful how these old fel- lows can prove to you that Wed- nesday is just a day as Monday was, and that Saturday cannot be so very different, a reflection that carries comfort.
-
I think that I shall never seë A poem lovely as a tree, A tree whose hungry mouth is
prest
Against the earth's sweet
flowing breast.
A tree that looks at God all
day;
And lifts her leafy arms to
pray;
A tree that may in summer
wear
A nest of robins in her hair; Upon whose bosom snow has
lain,
Who intimately lives with rain. Poems are made by fools like
me.
But only God can make a tree. Had these delicate fancies been
man's
There is Montaigne, for exam- ple, the garrulous, humorous, egotistic, discussive essayist of whose work it is the chief praise to say what Voltaire e said in scorn of Montesquieu's, that anybody might have written it easily. This is a common illusion among readers of vital literature, that they⠀⠀⠀ might have written it themselves, and that indeed the author seems to have turned their mind înside out, and used all its ideas. One has said it, as expressed in quaint but measur- matter of fact, of Voltaire's ed prose, and interlarded with “Zadig,” and in trying to play the apt quotations from the classics, “sedulous ape" thereto, has we should have had a short essay found it less easy than it looks. in Montaigne's best manner. As Montaigne's friends have done to his "invincible frankness," we him little service: George Saints have already said that it is not bury has analysed him as a bot to be taken too literally. There anist pulls à flower to pieces, dis- is something Shavian in it, akin coursing learnedly the while of to the immodesty of G.B.S., which stamen, anther, and pistil. The shames - many another result may be scientific but the modesty. He is not to be class- essence is lost. Colour and fra- ed as a sceptic as Emerson did, grance are to be enjoyed, not dis- but on the other hand he is not sected. The label adds no beauty, the pious Catholic that the auth- to the rose Emerson, whose es- or of "The Gentle Life" would say on Montaigne is very Emer- have him. Had he been that, he sonian but quite readable, makes would have been a Pascal, a too much of his scepticism. It is writer of whom he was assured- true his motto was “Que scais-ly the literary father, though je?," and that in his writings he Pascal did not absorb his libera- is not afraid to query and to lism. As for Montaigne's claim probe, but like all such men, he to have written in good faith is never one sided. Faith mar-(c'est icy un- livre de bon foy) ches with his doubt, and incon-we do not doubt it, but we repeat sistency is his privilege. The the warning that it may be all author of the introduction to the that and yet inexact. See the 1866. edition (in English) by essay on cannibals. When he Sampson Low notes that he confides that he is a great lover must go wrote as most good essayists of white wines, none have written, for pastime, when away saying that he confessed idleness becomes irksome,” but he was a drumard. It were as does not seem able to realise that reasonable to call him a Bolshe such a man may play tricks vik. Saintsbury denies him true with truth and yet be ceré essay quality, which he defines
Such
taken at are never to be as the discussion of some special
the foot of the letter," point, with permissible → digres- because the desk at the window sions. That sort of thing is to that is tres plaisamment perce take a tapemeasure to a rainbow. is never a factory for data or When a man says that he facts, but for the play of fancy has read Montaigne, band and the gambols of intellect as enjoyed him, he has said all that tretch. De Quincy ““followed his may safely be said: “Form in own humours,” regardless (so he literature" may be a right thing:
ork it is. says) of the reader, and so did but in such protes Lamb. Montaigne has an essay at once idle to look for it and on Pedants in which he says foolish to deny it. As Emerson some shrewd things about the says, we are dealing. literary Tomlinsons who were entertaining・・・ soliloquy* once the vogue, but as he is words of which are copious quoter himself, and pro- and alive." If fesses a bad memory, we may be like it much.
Mke it