1923-08-11 — Page 9

BATURDAY, AUGUST 11, 1923

BOOKS

POETRY.

WALTER DE LA MARE: POLT OF TISHNAN.

(By Llewellyn Jones.)

Walter de la Mare has been an easy subject for reviewers. They tell us that he is the post of one nood, that he deals in "white magic-whatever that may be and they lay especial stress upon his child poems. Here there is a por- missible variation. If the reviewer is an unmarried youth ho always add that the child rhymes are too god for children--that only older people will appreciate them. But if he is a father he tries the poems out on his own children and does not make any such abaurd state-

mont,

THE CHINA MAIL.

Stands with bowed and dowry

hoad

That one little leaden Lad.

In a footnote to "The Three Mulla-Mulgara” Mr. de la Mare explains Tishnar:

Tishuar is a very ancient word -although perhaps few children Afunza, and means that which can would stop to envy, as another poot not be thought about in words, or night, the happiness of "crinkle."

So all the Miss Bianco's drawing of a little told, or repressed. girl entitled "Divine Delight" has beyand the Mulgars' lives is Tishnar wonderful, secret, and quiet world moved Mr. de in Mare to the follow-winds and stars, too, the endless ing reflection, a far from childlike sea and the endless unknown.

ong:

Duin it rove

Dark, dork this mind, if ever in The face of man in search of hope

and love

Or, turning ineard from earth's

sun and moon,

In this particular book-the adventures of three mulla-mulgare, monkeys of a royal breed who are traversing the jungle to find their hereditary country, the word is used in a more restricted sense than that

given above. Bat in its wider sense

|

show:

And a far roar of long-drain

cataracts,

Flooded immeasurable night with

sound.

of collected poems and the Inter As some entranced child's a puppet collection," "The Veil," could sig.. gest poem after poem that might be Darkness gave birth to the all-trem- quoted here. The. Lasteners I bling stare, should never think of quoting because anyone who knows any thing at all about contemporary poetry knows it and knows that it is one of the best poems of its kind written in England for the last fifty years-indeed it belongs with Kubin Khan" and "Christabel.**

But here is a little

poem much less known which perhaps shows

that Mr. de la Maré is uà fur from being an imagist as one could be:

They told me Pan was dead, but I

Oft marcelled who it was that sang Down the green valleys languilly

Where the grey older thickets hang.

Sometimes I thought it was a bird

My soul had charged with sorcery;

heard

He sat so still, his very thoughts

tonk wing,

And, highest ariels, the stillness

haunted

With midge-liko measures; but, al

last, even they Sank 'neath the influences of his

night.

The sineet dust shed faint perfume

in the gloom; Through all wild space the stars'

bright arrows fell

On the lone Prince the troubled

son of man- On Time's dark waters in unrarthly

trouble:

But whithert

found her, the picturò of age, foot grook'd and head dejected.

Now it seemed clear to me after Long brooding and musing that | however beautiful wore these re- | The book is out of print, but that gions of which I never wearied to doo not really matter to its pre- read, and however wild and faith destined reader, who can easily get ful and strange and lovely the it by calling upon the aid of any people of the books, somewhere.

the former must remein yet, dealer in first editions. sometohere in immortality serand, As it is so much better known dwell they whom so many had littlo need be said here of the apent life dreaming and writing "Memoirs of a Midget." This is Mr. de la Maro's masterpiece in

about.

And one day, mounting upon a horse that comes he knows not prose and undoubtedly one of the whence, this youth rides off and permanent contributions of the visits, like Tom o' Bedlam, whose twentieth century to English liter lines preface the book, the regions sure.

It is the story of a woman of which he had dreamed.

midget, told from within: Of good

The book is written in a very family and with a soul as sensitive beautiful poetic prose-numerous as one might imagine from her giz prose, the grammarians would call and her beredity, she lives a life of

Spin in cold solitude thought's it is Mr. de la Mare's own "Arabia Sometimes it seemed my own heart! Then, as the roar increased, and one it and while it might be called intense imagination as a child, in

mazed cocoon.

Freeh hang Time's branches. Hollow in space cut-cry The grace-toned trumpets of

Eternity

World of divine delight heart

whispereth Though all its all lie but theirt

.........

Desertu" which he alone has map- ped. His preoccupation with it is! given us in many of his most musi cal poems, such as "Arabia": Far are the shades of Arabia

Where the Princesa ride at noon, Mid the verdurous vales and

thickets,

Under the ghost of the moon;

And so dark is that vaulted purple

I

Flowers in the forest rise And tans into blossom 'gainst the

phantom stars

Inland the sorrow of the avá,

But even where the primrose sela The seal of its pale loveliness,

I found amid the violets"

Tears of an antique bitterness.

fair Lower Of cloud took sky and stars with

majesty, He rose, his face a parchment of old

age.

and o'er.

Sorrow hath scribbled o'er and

e'er

...

tour de force, it is an indubitably successful one.

There is for a garden that to her is an advén-` instance the youth's meeting with turous wilderness, and in her grown the physician from "Macbeth" up years has to face that wilder You remember the doctor in the

fifth act of the play, who hears and wilderness of human beings. In Bees Lady Macbeth as she walks in this book Mr. de la Mare in at onca her sleep and tries to wash away the the poet of childhood and gardens

Ask any poet what he would give | And, for shrewdnose, we have stains of Dangan's blood.. This and the realist who can depict with-

Polonius:

doctor is living 'eternally with hia:

viol and his old songs. His visitor cruel accuracy the weak and the asks him about the tragedy, and we wicked. have in his answer,a hint of a new

But I have tried in the foregoing view of the matter, as if, watching again the play from "in front," we notes to call attention mther to the could suddenly transport ourselves less known than to the better known to another vantage point and see aspects of Mr. de la Mare's genius. otherwise hidden expressione upon Of his poems many critics have

The

to achieve such a last line as that. and if he be a real poot he will answer you, five years of his life. There haunts in Time's bare house

We have already in quoting an active ghost "They Told Me" passed from the Enamoured of his name, Polonius. Pale in the noonday skies. mood of Arabia into a more open air He minoca small fingers much, and

mood. He is not only an emotional and all his specch Sicect is the music of Arabia

fit my heart when out of dreams writer but a shrewd writer, and ha la like a sampler of precisest words, still in the thin, clear mirk of dawn has attempted something unique in Set in the pattern of a simpleton. ··

poetic character painting. This is While the pathos of famlet is the facts of the chameters. Desery her gliding streams; Hear her strange tutes on the green verse "Characters from Shaken her last decision:

no less than a series of short blank matched by that of Ophelia, with banka

petro. That was a large order. Ring loud with the grief and We know what critics do to Shakes

delight

peare's characters, and we know that they have even called in

This clairvoyant ability to see psycho-analysis to help them. Tol criticiza Shakespeare according to wholly and walk around the charte Secret herba their spices shower. They haunt me-her intes and her Croce's idea of criticistowhich is tere created by other, men informs recreation is more difficult stall the only prose work of Mr. de la Mare that has not been reprinted Mr. de in Mare las not only recently, Henry Bracken." attempted that but he has put his re-recreations into poetical form: that

birth and death.

Though it is called a collection of Of these rhylues for and about "fairy poems the selection in children the greater number and "Down-Adown - Derry" exhibite the best will be found in "Peacock more than one side of Mr. de la Pie-included in the two volume Mare's genius. Sam's Three collection of Mr. de in Mare' Wishes: or Life's Little Whirligig" poetry published in 1920. A nun.is a humorons rendering of Nietza- ber not included in that book will che's Eternal Return-achieved, be found in the book of Paul however, by an old farmer who Bianco's drawings, "Flora," for innocently wished that his youth which Mr. de la Mare wrote poerne might coine back. On the other illustrating the drawings thus re-hand we have such a gravely beauti- versing the usual order. The pocins ful poem as "The Sunken Gar of hot books which are more dent": especially for children have been collected, together with a few new poems, in "Down-Adown-Derry," published a year ago with drawings by Dorothy Lathrop, who also illus- trate Mr. de la Mare's "The The Mulla-Mulgare," And now comes the new edition of "A Child's Day" (first published in England in 1912), with illustrations by Winifred Bromhall.

Miss Bianen's drawings-exhibit- ed when she was twelv -ears old........ hav inspired Mr. de klare--over forts and with childre. older than Panela-te poetry that will appeal not only to other children Pamela's age lot to to their elders as well. Buch struzza S

Suppose and suppose, when the

gentle star of evening Came crinkling into the blue }

1 magical castle we saw in the air. like a cloudl of moonlight As onward we flere.

Speak not--whisper not;

Hare bloweth thyme and ber-

gamat:

Softly on the evening hour,

Dark-spiked rosemary and myrrh, Leon-stalked purple lagender; Hides within her bosom, too, All her sorrows, bitter ruc, Breathe not-trespasa not; Of this green and darkling spot, Latticed from the moon's beams, Perchance a distant

dreamer

dreams: Perchance upon its darkening air, The unseen ghosts of children

fare,

Faintly singing, sway

sweep,

Like lovely sea-flowers in

deep:

and

its

While, unmoved, to watch and

tearil,

Amid its gloomed and daisied

sward.

FILMS

PROGRAMME FEATURES.

TO-NIGHT.

Coronet.The Road to London**

and "Saturday Morn ing."

Leather Pusher, Round 10. "Wheh Kane Met Ahel"'

and Fillie."

World. The

New

Star, Kowloon-Grand Vande-

ville Entertainment.

MERTON OF THE MOVIES.

A reviewer in the Cape Times, after reading Merton of the Movies, rushed into verse in this fashion:

If you are mad on movie shows,

like Merton,

If you are thrilled at each suc-

ceeding scene.

Don't read it-disillusionment is

certain

When you learn of all the tricks

behind the screen.

When you meet the "heavy

father" in his own home, And the droopy-lidded "vampiro"

when at rest, When you know that why the "villain" looks so jaded

In because he cannot smoke with

Any 209-

When you find the "sumptuous library" is card-board, And my lady's boudoir"' only has

three walls,

It may somewhat bluit the edge of your enjoyment—‚· Perchance drive you to shinn the

pieture balls.

But if you like a story clean and

witty,

And love the foibles of your

fellow-men

The

adventures within the movie "city" Are woll worth reading once-it'

not again.

FILM INFLUENCE.

MR. W. B. MAXWELL'S VIEW OF PRESENT "CRISIS."

Of the dim-silked, dark-haired Musi-¦

cians

In the brooding silence of night.

forcats:

No beauty on carth I see But shadowed with that dream

calla.

Her loveliness to me: Still byes look coldly upon me,

Cold voices whisper and say—

"He is crazed with the spell of far

Arabio,

They have stolen his wits away." The beauty of that poem speake for itself: Its actual music is now -and the Georgians have recogniz ed the beauty of Mr. de la Mare's rhythmical effects and have occa sionally tried to imitate them. But they are of a sort that is especially hard to imitate. Any reader who already possessor the two volumes

CINEMA CHATTER.

NORMA'S CUPS.

chameter +

Better the glassy horror of the

stream.

Every imaginative reader enjoys

is to say be tries to meet Shakes a creative work for itself and than peare not partly on his own ground extends the figures in it or tries to He thinks of as the Crocean critica would, but get bohind them. wholly on it. I think that these something the poet or dramatist poems have not had anything like might have told us but did not. In "Henry Brocken" Mr. de la Mare the notice, they deserve. Here is one of them-to take a well known does just that, but not as the casual reader would. He does it with a creative imagination which meety Umbrageous cedars murmuring the first author more or less on his The framework of own ground. symphonies Stooped in late twilight

the story is this: An imaginative boy is brought up in solitude, in an old country house. In its library le reads all the imaginative triumphs of English literature. And a great itch to travel comes upon him:

o'er dark

Denmark's Prince: He sat, his eyes companioned with

dream-

Lustrous large syce that held the

world in view

on his release and reforme. In the and he recovers his sight, and marriez a former sweetheart, while the woman does the big white sneri Ice stuff, and goes off to Russlotos |-

a nurse. For all that, the picture

FILM TOPICS.

“IDEAL'S ""* FILM..

Ideal will shortly be showing

effect cannot be reproduced hero-spoken. It is no exaggeration to and a very real effect it is-but we say that he stands, alona among may quote a fow of the introductory present day English poets. And it words to it, simply to exhibit Mr.is wrong to regard him merely as a de la Mare's glowing stylo in thie minor roet writing disconnected book. This is the morning on which the wanderer, after sleeping in an lyrics. His poems taken as a whole

His Tishner is a country in which old graveyard, meets the physician cover a high and connected terrain.

Surely some hueless poppy blossomed in the darkness of Nose we uay all recognize claims which ruina, or the soulless ashes of the we, too, have tried to stake out.” “It dead breathe out a droncsy in is a country of indefinable but fluence. Never have I slept so

.....

heavily, yet perhaps never beneath nevertheless real mental states-a- so cold a tester. Suu-bcame beyond that is within. And Mr. de .streaming between the crests of la Mare is a philosopher with a I leapt categorical imperative for us. It is: the cypress awoke me.

shouted where none kept visible up as if a hundred sentinels had

watch.

An odour of a languid sweet- nean pereaded the air. There was no wind to stir the dew-besprink- led trees. The old, scarred grave- stones stood in a thick sunshine, afloat with bees. But Rosinante had preferred to surecy sunshine out of shade. In lush grass I

Maloney, of course, has establish- ed a reputation for his work in two- reel Woaterna, and his "Range Rider Series" not only represent the last word in two-reel dramas from America, but they are also the best!

is quite interesting, although inclin-new picture, to which exceptional in which Maloney has yet appeared,

- An order to spur the players in the polo match depicted in The Voice from the Minaret to their best ed to drag a little towards the end.portance is attached. It is called There are twelve subjects in the

"Loves of the Mighty," and may be Talmadge The characterisation all through it described as a poignant spectacular geries. endeavours, Norme awarded four handsome silver cups, one for each member of the winning nggregation.

Lady Teazle Retires.

cleverly done.

That, on occasion, the lot of the modern policeman, like that of bis Gilbertian brother, is not a happy one, is the point brought out in "Heroes of the Street," a pleasant production in which young Wealey

drama, built on extremely ambi- tious lines.

UNIVERSAL'S MOVE. The ery for "better pictures". is being answered from all quarters. Already one conference is sitting in New York to think out the problem of rescuing motion pictures from deteriorating into a mere mechanical Carl Laemmle, president of

Like This Freedum," "Jen- lousy," and other recent "Ideal" successes, "Loves of the Mighty" depends for its chief attraction on vital story, which may be called the recurring tragedy of human history

a great popular leader, mastered tay

After many strenuous weeks de Mr. W. B. Maxwell, the novelist, voted to the creation of the film who has just returned to London Lady Teazle, Queenie Thomas is after representing the Authore' taking a short rest before commenc Society of England at the Inter- ing work in her next film. "The Barry and dainty Marie Prevost give national Congress on the Motion School for Scandal" has been coin-remarkably clever performances. by the eternal feminine, and, as a Universal Pictures Corporation, has

Picture Arts in New York-believes plated, and Miss Thomas has pack-

starta.

-! •

Look thy last on all things lovely,

Every hour. Let no night Scal thy sense in deathly šlumber".

Till to delight pla

Thou have paid thy utmost bless..

ings;

Since that all things thou wouldst

praise

Beauty took from those who loved

them

In other days.

result, falling helpless into bia also contributed his weight in the

push for better pictures" by offer that the film play has reached aed up her big hats, walking canes, The melodramatic atmosphere of enemies hunds. critical point so far as its influence and billowy gowns and has returned "La Tosca" gives itself well to We hear that the theme is worked ing a Laemmle Scholarship for beat is concerned. He said:

them to the costumière, for she says screen production, and Francesca out-in-a-series of sequences so scenarios for which the students of If the film improves it will do she has no wardrobe big enough to Bertini, with her emotional ability dramatic and intense as to hold the hundreds of colleges are competing. Meanwhile Laemmle smartly turn- good. If not it will do harm. Ja contain them.

hoe made much of the title zola. spectator spell-bound throughout. certain inferior film productions She is keeping the silken mittens The murder of Scarpia was cleverly Grandeur is the keynote of the ed the tables on some prominent there is no appeal to this mind, no which she wore in many of the dous.

production, massed crowds playing film critics by inviting them, in uplift of any kind. One can guess scence as a souvenir of the film.

their part in scene after scene. In effect, to take over the Universal the end almost before the play Changing Her Spots.

Flors te Breton has done better one magnificent set; the gallery in scenario desk and show what they One reason for this step was cer Where the film is good and does For the first time in her screen things than "Little Miss Nobody, which the mob are seated rises to a could do.

tain criticism in America levelled at

The writer of the "best picture of. career Valia, the beautiful Anglo- a picture which for sheer inconsist height of 60 fees, and is packed solid stimulate the imagination it con-

the year" for a number of years One of the features of the produc- the Universal screen adaptations of fors a very great benefit to society. Russian film actress, is playing the ency rivals the curate's egg. In the with humanity. The producer must make the film part of a happy-go-lucky girl. Her part of a little governens she was tion is the manner in which the "The Flirt," a popular Booth Tark-will be rewarded by a cheque for The acting, ington novel, and by the announced $10,000, the gift of Adolph Zukor, play simple and easy, but if the vampire methods have been for just a little too restrained, and

too, will be found to be of real dis plans for the film of "The Hunch film magnate, the latter announced film play is made too simple there gotten, and she is now playing might have let herself go" with crowds are handled. is a danger that instead of kinema opposite Jack Buchanan (newly re- considerable effect.

tinction, the chief part being taken back of Notre Dame." The criti- at the International Congress of audiences being educated their cruited from the stage) in "Squire

by Emil Jannings, who will be re- cisms were based on slight changes Motion Picture Arts, in New York. membered for lus performances in or projected changes in plot due to A jury composed of members of intelligence may be deadenod..

"Passion" and "Peter the Groat. As a result you may get as the universal type of the kinema patron the large, blonde girl who

the Audacious.

Valia declares sho has seldom felt happier than when she made her first appearance before the camera

Bits sucking chocolates, "holding in this part, and when she visited n her sweetheart's hand, and vague kinema to see herself as the villai

Jy watching the film play-not nos in "The Green Caravan," which is now released, sho said she felt like shouting at herself. I Have Seen.

sure whether she likes best the Laste of the sweetstuff, the pros sure of her lover's fingern, or the sensation aroused by the phantozi pictures on the screen.

Only now and then in his latest picturo, "The Pilgrim," did we see GREAT FİLM WEITERS.

Charlie Chaplinthe old Charlie Mr. Maxwell believes that white as we knew him in "The Kid." On great film writers may arise, their the whole I was rather disappointed, art is not to be ranked with the and unless he can turn out better novelist a dramatist's.

stuff than this the great littlo man Trained authors who write will be displaced by Lloyd, or one direct for the screen will do the or other of the younger funny men. work well, but they are likely to As an escaped convict he imperson work on machine-made lines, los-atos a parson in pamall country ing the really fine ideas which I town, and does lots of really clever am pareuaded can be expressed on things, but somehow they lacked the screen.

the lustre of other days. His dumb

You want the real literary man show seen on Davil" and na the creative artist and the Goliath" is, however, the funniest highly trained producer as his thing I have seen for a long time, interpreter. P

and is really Chaplin at his best..

I consider that a great step forHMEREKANI wird in the progress of the film There is little exceptional in "The play has been made by the con- Scarlet Angel. An adventuress grem, which was the first at is the cause of a blind young musi which the various problems have cian's imprisonment for thefs, and, been considered seriously.

africken by remores, she moste him

“" ་

WESTERN. DRAMA:

"The Good Old Days' is a slogue which seems to find a responsive echo in public favour, particularly

in film entertainment.. People talk

translations from book to screen. A the Authors League will judge all general realisation of the fact that efforts-Good taste, fair play and the screen has its own media and a respect for law are among the that there can be no perfect tranala requisites of the "best photoplay," tion from book to screen any more Zukor said, than there can be perfect trainlo-}·

ion from music to painting, will,

in Carl Laemmle's opinion, remedy of the good old days in film enter this uncalled for criticism tainment, the days of exciting Western dramas, and it is a fact

How a Romany chief chivalrously shelters a runaway Scottish waid Already two New York jour from an importante suitor, and that this type of film entertainment nalists, film critics, and University thereby incurs the superstitions

is still favoured.

graduates have been selected to con

In a recent statistical investiga. struct film plays, instead of criticis wrath of his followers and the jea tion carried out by an independent ing the finished product. Their lousy of his gipsy sweetheart, forms authority in America to ascertain efforts in this direction will be the subject of the story: Ultimate the relative appeal of various kinds watched with interest, and not ly, the undesired quitor in killed in of filma, good Western drama head male's ambition to rope in the pro- fully to her protector, pairs off with without sympathy, for it is Laem- thunderstorm, while the fair re- fugee, after behaving very ungrate ed the list, with plenty of margin over its nearest rival in the affecmising young men and young her true lover, leaving the gipsy tions of the public. In this country women who are to be the creative weathearin free to ba bappy again, Gaumont, which runs a consistent geniuses of to-morrow-in writing, service of two rool Westerns, in technical improvement, and in

artistic sorgen progress,

ports that the average number of bookings on good Western two-

"' THE ROMANY!"' Miss Justine Johnstone famousreelers is above the average on a American beauty of the stage and fenfure of equivalent merit.

Remarkably clever acting and screen, is pictured here as she speAn announcement recently of a beautifully photographed. Scottish peared when she left the law new "Range Rider Series of two- exteriors are the outstanding fes: courts, in Landon, with her hureel Westors in which Leo tures of The Romany a produce band who sings Bread Maloner i featured, brought mors or by Martin Thornton of a motion picture concern. Miss direct inquiries than an ordinary original screen atory by Elio Stan Johnstong is wearing her wonder feature drama, and exhibliom have nard, which is being shown at the

no hesitation whatever in booking Palace, Edinburgh: ful emerald necklace.

a

As the reckless Romany chief, Victor M Laglen gives a fine per- formance. Hugh E. Wright draws richly humorous portrait of a gipsy medicine man"--a characterisation which is a joy in itself, irrespective of its relevancy to the story. Ide Fane's study of the venerable. Scot fish grandmother is a powerfully dramatic study, whilst Irena Nare man, who is the Marchioness of Queensberry, makes a very pleasing Valis, the jealous gipsy sweetheart.