1941-01-28 — Page 7

•

THE CHINA MAIL, JANUARY 28, 1941.

CHINA MAIL The Poet

-WINDSOR HOUSE

DISTANT MEMORIES

A correspondent, following up something I had written about the rolling waves of Derbyshire scenery under a blue sky, has raised the question why that

And The

Place

has the Lake

By Ivor Brown

its

our query to suggest that spread- of population is the chief cause for the dispersion or aggregation of poets. Assuming that one man The Greeks and the Ro- county should lack poets. Is it the

in every

hundred thousand is potentially a writer or painter of case that certain districts have, as mans have the most ex-well as strength and beauty of

real and abiding distinction, then such writers and painters will citing past in Europe, and tint and texture in their landscape, fluence,

a spirituality which touches fine been so markedly "evocative I board, probably wilder and more a Cockney, but London, before and District normal English pastoral chequer- (mainly occur where the myriads abide. Poor Keats was sneered 'as it is not surprising that spirits to fine issues? Are West- has recently lured Sir Hugh Wal-

morland and Cumberland, that is pole from his earlier Cornish af-wooded in Shakespeare's time, but since he heard his Hampstead they revert to their great to say, naturally more evocative icetions, but it made little music not, as one might say, especially nightingale, has continued to of man's creative affection than after Wordsworth, and in the be-constructed to stir the heart and prove both populous and prolific legends in times of war, the shires of the Pennine Chait? ginning of the twentieth century Warwickshire has been no more through any special merit of its strike the lyre. Since that time as a hencoon of the Muses not Is the keen air of Derbyshire, heit was certainly less of a stimu- "evocative" than anywhere else. own but simply because The Greek Prime Minis- suggerts, productive only of ap- Innt to the lyrical impulse than Shropshire, with its great variety crammed full of eyes, ears, and ter, when appealing to his lack that which vibrates the finer petite for ham and eggs? Does it

of exquisite scene, was certainly fingers, some of which are cer- nation, quoted the

hypnotic to Housman, fam- strings of consciousness?

but there tain to be clever. There is more aguin the spell was not infectious. poetry made now in Kensington ous lines in which the

than in Keswick, for obvious Surely the truth is that poets statistical reasons. Persian messenger in the

sent according to the range and respond to what stimulus is pre-

Where there "Persae"

millions art gave to the

richness of their own sensibility. must emerge. Where there are It was not Fyfield's elm and Cum- only thousands the artist happens mother of Xerxes the

nor Hurst that actually made the by chance and may occasionally, Warwickshire had a claim to Scholar Gipsy's ode news of the Greek victory themelves are

any more happen anywhere. be the chief nesting-place of the than Grantchester created Rupert of Scottish poets was not inspired The greatest Elizabethan Muse, at Salamis.

speare coming

Shake-Brooke's familiar effusion. Arnold by the romantic Highlands but out of Stratford might have written as well about found his nu. So the district should natur

themes in the farm- shout greeted our

and Drayton at Clifford Chambers a Cambridge gipsy ears: ally elit

and Brooke yards, taverns, banks, and bracs quick and full res-hard by. But, when we have said about Abingdon or Bablock Hythe. of agreeable but unexciting Ayr- On, ye sons of Hellas! Free the sensitive spirit.

ponse from the observant eye and the most we can for Avon's placid The greatest mother of English shire. London and the Home course among the water-meadows | pocts happens to be London, sim-Counties score not only by the your native land, free

to its gentle confluence with Stour | ply because it is the greatest size of native population but by But. apart from one man and ❘ and later on with Severn, the mother of men and women. It their attractive power for people your children, your wives, the people under his high in-Shakespeare country remains the may sound a very dull answer to settling down, whether

they be ex-Anglo-Indians, like Kipling, or practising journalists, like Belloc.

the

Certainly the peaks and dales and meres of the Lake District strike the senses more swiftly than

anything of the kind elsewhere in England. The skyline has often a jagged Crocity hardly ever dis- covered in the fells, and the lakes as perfectly the miniors of a tranquil day os are

was a Cotswold or a Sussex scene, This leads us to but, I think, inevitable conclusion the unexclting

that places do not make poets but have poets thrust upon them.

with "A mighty the crags the expression of a wild

temples of your

fathers' gods, and the tombs of your ancestors. You battle for your all." Mussolini, too, lets his mind run on the past. He likes to fancy himself the founder of a second Rome in which the glory of the

The Choice Of Books

War-Time Questions And

London has read less and some

By B. Ifor Evans

Tendencies

are

A district which has been es- pecially well represented by let- ters lately has been East Anglia and the East Midlands, with Messrs. Blunden. Mottram, and 'H. E. Bates following in verse and proke such sehior singers as Yet Crabbe, Cowper, and Clare. those "stolchy" levels strike some. of us as quite ordinary, unin- spiring to a man of vision.

And there really lles the point, The discovery of significance is net bounded by any shire or any theme. A man manuring a field I can be as fit a subject for a Hugh Walpole's "Bright Pavi vas or a lyric as the most picture- lions."

sque shepherd on the sunlit, snowy fells,

can-

F. Brett Young's "Mr. Lucton's | Like shocks in a reaped fald of Freedom."

Negley Farson's "Behind God's first realised on any wide scale in Back" is also mentioned as a fav-

rye

The small black heaps of lively

dung

Sprinkled in the grace-meadow

he

Licking the air with smoky ton-

gue.

This is Earth's food that man

piles up

And with his fork will thrust on

her,

And Earth will ite and slowly sup With her moist mouth through

half the year,

-scene, rather

I HAVE been trying to discover for what Nazi Germany is really Howard Spring's "Fame is the old Empire will live again. how many people in England like are at a discount. Even bonits | Spur." The conquest of Greece are reading to-day and what they about Hitler are no longer popu- was a stage in the great

are reading. It is no easy problem lar. This type of war book hud to solve, but I have had the help many readers in the Munich per⚫ career that made Rome of Miss Christina Foyle and of toe, when the German threat was the mistress of the world some of the managers of circulat- that Alexander the Greating libraries. It is encouraging to had conquered in the report that in the country as a East, and Fascist enthu-whole there has been a great in- siasts when they set out crease of reading since the "total" on the conquest of Greece war began. For obvious reasons this country. To-day, to quote Missourite. These volumes are not war to-day doubtless thought|

Foyle, people are no longer in-fiction in any sense that the war other parts of the country haveterested in Hitler's ambitions nor, is their background. H. G. Wells, of it too as but a stage read more. In London some hardy I am afraid, in the in a

war sims of as far as I know, in "Babes in the similar series of readers continue in the disturbed either nation." A few sensational Darkling Wood," is the only writer triumphs. Greece was tonight watches their steady way books on our pre-war politics and to have attempted that, and a be followed by Egypt and through long

and substantial

diplomacy are exceptions and very difficult task it proves even the entire Middle East. volumes, but on the whole there have had large sales, Mr. Stanley to his practised hand. But what

Is a demand for light reading and,

ever my Lords) and· Commons may Urkvin in a recent broádéækt sug- Unhappily, the con- above all, for short stories. One trasts between the old editor

gested that there would be an in-say of his opinions, "Mr. Wells' Car of a London circulăting

Crease in residing this winter, pilok up-à contemporary atmos- Empire and the new are library comments, "Give us more Neuessity may make readers of phere like athlisty sponge. On stronger than the affini- good short stories. There are not us all. He o::-mented on the large thrillers" any information is con-Those lines are by Mr. Andrew demand for books of permanent 'ties. The Roman con- enough of them." In the past value and for the classics, which fasing. One circulating library re-Young, a capital poet of to-dny. Who has a singular "genlus for quest

publishers have been timid of the so many publishers now reprint ports that "good thriller' fiction-is finding stimulus in topics of the was marked by short story, firm in the bener that so excellently in cheap editions, some brutalities worthy to the public will not "buy them in turn to the classics of English bookseller writes, "People do not mean that he demitely cultivates My own inquiries also show "a re-going well." On the other hand a least impressive kinds. I do not rank with Fascist crimes, volume form. Here is a new opterature, while several good an buy many thifillers." Perhaps both normal English

squalor, but he simply takes the such as the sack of Cor-portunity

for some writer and thologies are in demand." Could views are correct, and that "thrill-grey, histy, and featureless, the

not some publisher produce a inth, and Sulla paid for some publisher. If we had a new "Shelter. Anthology" on the lines ers" are a borrowable rather than workaday' pastoral of the labour- a buyable commodity. I thought fer's round, and alstils a loveliness his savage treatment of 9. Heury now he would match the of the Week-end Book?”

that the war would -kill the by discovering the significance of Athens in the infamy with mood and the social need of the

The ambition of most men and "thriller" but then most of one's the ordinary detail. He can be which

speculations about the war have thoroughly warmed up by a real- his name

hd grotiis of

women is still to was people in shelters

lead a private been false. I could not see how a ly wet day or tapt by a dunk and who would life. branded in the writings of listen

It is true that war makes reader could go on paying atten- misty Reld. I cannot help feeling to an U. Henry type of inroads on privacy, but there are tion to the death of one fictional that if he spent from November Cicero, Plutarch, and St.story, with that memorable "click" many signs that men and women

aunt or don or stockbroker or to Märch in a hill-farm in Derby- are still trying to carry on with whatever it might be. But pershire he would emerge in April 'Augustine. But though) at the close.

the simple but rewarding occupa-haps the thriller" is a reassuring with a sheaf of most delicate poe- there were these resem-

tions that absorbed their leisure token of normality, just as when try. It is a matter of luck where I am not suggesting that the in peace-time. Books on garden- one hears on the B.B.C. after the the poet happens to be. blances in the history of whole demand is for light litera-ing are still popular, and "the Roman Republic and ture. One bookseller reports a cockery books continue to have a been knocked down,

air-raid news a police message handicrafts and hobbies, while that a single pedal cyclist has The plain truth about Derby- of Fascist warfare there is interesting increase in the demand steady sale in a rationed world. a capital difference be- for religious books and for books It is a more intellectual aspect of In general there is abundant so do a host of places. Winander tween the tolerant temper by foreign writers. Some readers to desire for privacy that has evidence that reading survives the was none the less Winander, but léd some readers to philosophy war, and that publishers, in splle quite unsung, when "the bards of seem determined to retain a con- and biography and made popular- of their difficulties, survive to passion and of mirth" were cul- of the Roman Empire and tact with the Europe they cannot works such as Andre Maurois's feed the readers. As one surveys tivating black spots in front of the narrow prejudices of visit by means of the printed "The Art of Living" and John the reading problem as a whole it their eyes on the sherrissack of the Fascist philosophy: word. Similarly, another rories Door."

Buchun's "Memory Hold the can be seen as part of the larger the Mermaid, the Apollo, and the

problem of social Rome's chief service to pondent reports in Increasing in-

adjustment. Devil taprooms. Later on Words- which has been thrown at us in worth passed that way and put mankind was that she terest in works of travel, Byron's have is confileting and I suppose been shifts of population from tural map. Of course the Lakes On fiction the information I this stage of the war. There have Winander in the centre of the cul- created a vast political Childe Harold" was read over a tastes vary so much that any pro- one area to another. Do the books had a tremendous effect on him. unity within which Greek hundred years bgo by men and clsa conclusions are difficult. 1 follow them? Are reading groups But so did beauty everywhere. have found general agreement and circulating libraries keeping Had he been educated in Ham- ideas and Greek culture women who had been shut off that some novels have been out pace with our migrations? This in mersmith instead of Hawkshead could spread. Men of all from Europe by the Napoleonic standingly popular, and amongst turn is part of the larger problem he would have been in poet still, races taught her peoples,

some longing is these are

["of 'whether we are working for a different, in scope but not in Bulanted society or for chaos. For magnitude. Obviously certnin Louis Bromfeld's "Night in this is the lesson of the hour, set places exercise a powerful hold on led her armies, adminis-present to-day--the desire to re- capture old memories" of those in-

Bombay

helote us in terms that will not certain people which will both damit of hesitation or compromise. Incalise and Intensify their FRose Macaulay's "Arid No Mains | We must remake our society even spiration. But poetry, if it is in a With

Inilahour of the war, and in man, will out. Derbyshire, if it be |that making other parts of the under-represented in our letters Michael Sadleir's "Fanny By country may gain much of what has not failed to be "evocative.

London may lose.

It has merely failed to be lucky.

stered her laws, and gov- erned her empire. That was the • secret of her

hour. There must

wars, and that

credibly "good days when "offe could move freely across Europe.

די

From every quarter I find that books about how the war started Gaslight"

OL

shire is that it deserves far more response than it has received. But