Table Of ContentThe 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
