Show I r At A l iter ry r rBy Letter L Lettery 1 By y Richard Le en e c Itc f HAVE just done a venturesome thing I have hae been rereading an old oid favorite a book loved loed long since 81 ce and anal ait Josl loS awhile No III s other than Mr J 1 H ses John Ing I came crime to do tie o Jtb it because cause the ne Macmillan company has just reissued the tho lh book In a edition do P uniform with its library edition of Walter Pater The format is so charming that tJ t It would tempt tempt one to read anything though tho gh the fine tin sense of artistic fitness which presides over over the Macmillan publications would never permit the error error of or taste involved in giving so classical a form torm to a a book which wl ch was w s not to some extent in the running for classical honors The Th Macmillan company has pub published published many a u successful novel but I 1 fancy there are I Sew few ew novels on its lists written in repeat recent years ears that it would think of promoting to t so significant a format By presenting John in such sueh a style st ie the th publishers imply Its possession of unusual excellence and distinction and a quality of comparative perma perm permaL permanency nency And Arid it t is likely that this implied ImpH d opinion of or L theirs has not been reached without an intuition n that the world of readers has b time come to a like lik conclusion Is the Macmillan company right Does John stand the test of the honor thus paid It Does it bear reading again Is it still a a live book For myself my elf I answer Yes Ye What Is it that makes the book boo It is the ered unanswerable question for the ulti ulU ultimate ultimate mate secret of or life evades us in vital literature re as af everywhere else We c may name a dozen ifo doh n fur set eta two books may seem to satisfy p them em eta i sa zon of the books nill live lire and the other dV r we arrive as near to an answer as we w eY v r Mall all pj say c t Ing in that at the life Ufe of ofa a book depends In the end on a sonie S soap ip special vitality in the man behind the b book o to borrow a phrase se which Mr Bliss Carman makes the text of one of his sound illuminating causeries in the current number of the Literary World already Iam l m pleased J aEed to ee newly under weigh under his editor editorship editorship ship shiA I IThe The question Is brought up to me from ftp iii another r quarter by b the handsome prospectus just issued by the company of or The Chiswick Library of Noble Authors Noble Books In Noble Form is the rallying motto of the publishers and a d from the quality of the prospectus which in size folio the onlY really noble size for a a book paper and type is l a i foretaste of the books themselves them elves it is safe to pre pro dict diet a series worthy of or th tJ motto B By Noble Au thors the publishers n a hi Is ls mt nt u iter Conti nn r v D ii f A LITERARY LETTER Continued from fro Page 17 whose works have nobly and joyously influenced the life of their own and succeeding ages One is glad gladd to see the term thus rescued from its customary nar narrow narrow narrow row associations with titled aristocracy But ones chief reflection on running ones eye over the list of authors to be Included is upon the perennial vitality of ot a great writer and the perennial demand for his work For so 50 many years in some cases centuries have these noble authors been giving us of their treasure yet their treasure is as full as ever and the crowd at its as s great and as eager as of old Why is this t ls What is there about these masterpieces that t keeps them so young One may perhaps throw a sidelight t on the question by returning g a moment to John and ask why wh it has happened that the Macmillan lIa millan company has chosen it and not other equally notorious novels on its list fora tora classical reissue Mr lIr describes his bis book and nd rightly as a philosophical romance romance yet it is as an historical novel that it will be gen generally classified and it was probably as that that it made its name and won its large audience Exter nally nalty naB s indeed Ind indeed d it may may be regarded reg as one one I of the th plo pio pioneers pi of at th c costume romance for was teas some time time servant to King Charles I and took parOn parkin the theT civil wars and ri accidentally 3 the th book is s largely occupied pled with old manor houses popish plot plotters plotters astrologers Jesuits Italian adventurers and such accepted material of the historical romance During the twenty v years eats that have hae elapsed since John was published the world has been b pressed for tor room to contain all the historical nove noes s that have been written Many of these th sc have been gallant picturesque affairs Their authors aut have shown show n no little skill in inventing plots and arid m in devising breathless s situations S but outside one or two of Mr Ir Stanley anley f ns books what remains of all this prodigious output Has one single book been added to ta what wh t one might call the shelf of t probationary class classics classIcs classics ics It Is easy to answer not one It is barely pos poe possible po sible indeed to remember the titles of even the mo most t reverberating Here and there the stage keeps a a title titI for a 3 little while longer before the public but soon eoon oven in those cases the books will be swept along into intI the property room together with the halberds and th a helmets ana and all the other gallant trumpery which has hag for tor or awhile been once mere in fashion and which is about to take Its turn of being out of fashion one again And talking of the dramatized novel one wonders why aby John fohn has never neer found Sound its way Va onto the stage with the others for In Its per parts part it has the making of an excellent his historical historical l melodrama Doubtless the very suggestion would be painful to Mr and no writer in HL x position to ignore the financial consideration but would wouW shrink from having haing the merely external frame fram pf Pt his s book masquerade before the footlights white Its fitter filter fi essence essence escaped like the th soul of a murdered man And of course It is jus that finer essence in 1 n John h n Ingle Inges sant t and not its superficial romance that still keeps it alive Compared with the skilled manufacturer of the modern modem historical novel Mr Is a 8 mere baby beby in all the details of plot ons and incident The sensational elements of his plot are almost puerile in their conventionality the general machinery is almost quaintly cumbrous and nd naive Ones Interest t in what happens bapp ng is of the mildest and md the course of events Is innocently trans a Any third rate historical romancer could have hav made roade a better bettel Job of the th story as story But Butt t LS s so often orten happens with books the com corn comparative insignificance of the story in John In is unimportant and on a 3 rereading it proves Itself still a living book in hi sp spite of ot every ever every drawback and limitation by virtue of ot the sweet and nd serious temper which pervades it like the frail halt half heard ars airs of that old of which In Inelegant elegant was Vas so devoted an amateur John is a book beak with an atmosphere an atmosphere of rare spiritual refinement and at the same came time with the suggestion in m it of spiritual adventure The book in deed d ed is a 3 story of spiritual adventure told toad in n terms tenn of ot seventeenth century romance and as such i irich is rich in noble sensations I know only one other mod modern modern ern book which possesses a similar atmosphere of r pure pu yet romantic religious feeling a book of course cou much its superior sup namely Marius Martus the Epicurean Epi Epicurean cUle n Both books are romances of the spirit the adventures In each are adventures of the soul But Pat Pater of pf course was an original master of English prose and tind Mr unobtrusive manner of or writing almost as little accounts for the Impression his book continues to make on one as the external conduct of his story In vain we examine page after page and this passage and the other to find the secret t of f the books charm the hiding place of its sub tle tIe spiritual perfume Yet somehow the charm is there ther by some som untraceable means life has been breathed into these unpretentious words The only explanation is Mr Carmans the man behind the th book Mr has meditated on high mat in a seriouS exalted spirit his thoughts have dwelt in holy places and when he comes to set them themon on paper the plain words unconsciously to their writ writer writer er marshal themselves to the Inner music of his medi tation and breathe a like purity of tone There is a l mystery about pen and ink and the subtle way ay they convey o e and betray the truth about a which l be he h as a little as anyone anone understands J Copyright 1900 1960 by Robert Howard Russell |