Books and Persons; Being Comments on a Past Epoch, 1908-1911

by Arnold Bennett

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  If it is cultivated and manufactured with skill it will surpassimmeasurably in quantity, and quite appreciably in quality, the actualbook public. One may say that the inception of the process has beenpassably good. One is inclined to prophesy that within a moderately shortperiod--say a dozen years--the centre of gravity of the book market willbe rudely shifted. But the event is not yet.

  H.G. WELLS

  [_4 Mar. '09_]

  Wells! I have heard that significant monosyllable pronounced in variousEuropean countries, and with various bizarre accents. And always there wasadmiration, passionate or astonished, in the tone. But the occasion of itsutterance which remains historic in my mind was in England. I was, indeed,in Frank Richardson's Bayswater. "Wells?" exclaimed a smart, positivelittle woman--one of those creatures that have settled every question onceand for all beyond reopening, "Wells? No! I draw the line at Wells. Hestirs up the dregs. I don't mind the froth, but dregs I--will--not have!"And silence reigned as we stared at the reputation of Wells lying dead onthe carpet. When, with the thrill of emotion that a great workcommunicates, I finished reading "Tono-Bungay," I thought of the smartlittle woman in the Bayswater drawing-room. I was filled with a holy joybecause Wells had stirred up the dregs again, and more violently thanever. I rapturously reflected, "How angry this will make them!" "Them"being the whole innumerable tribe of persons, inane or chumpish (thisadjective I give to the world), who don't mind froth but won't have dregs.Human nature--you get it pretty complete in "Tono-Bungay," the entiretableau! If you don't like the spectacle of man whole, if you are afraidof humanity, if humanity isn't good enough for you, then you had betterlook out for squalls in the perusal of "Tono-Bungay." For me, human natureis good enough. I love to bathe deep in it. And of "Tono-Bungay" I willsay, with solemn heartiness: "By God! This is a book!"

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  You will have heard that it is the history of a patent medicine--thenostrum of the title. But the rise and fall of Tono-Bungay and itsinventor make only a small part of the book. It is rather the history ofthe collision of the soul of George Ponderevo (narrator, and nephew of themedicine-man) with his epoch. It is the arraignment of a whole epoch atthe bar of the conscience of a man who is intellectually honest andpowerfully intellectual. George Ponderevo transgresses most of the currentcodes, but he also shatters them. The entire system of sanctions tumblesdown with a clatter like the fall of a corrugated iron church. I do notknow what is left standing, unless it be George Ponderevo. I would notcall him a lovable, but he is an admirable, man. He is too ruthless, rude,and bitter to be anything but solitary. His harshness is his fault, hisone real fault; and his harshness also marks the point where his attitudetowards his environment becomes unscientific. The savagery of hisdescription of the family of Frapp, the little Nonconformist baker, and ofthe tea-drinkers in the housekeeper's room at Bladesover, somewhat impairseven the astounding force of this, George's first and only novel--notbecause he exaggerates the offensiveness of the phenomena, but because heunscientifically fails to perceive that these people are just as deservingof compassion as he is himself. He seems to think that, in their deafnessto the call of the noble in life, these people are guilty of a crime;whereas they are only guilty of a misfortune. The one other slip thatGeorge Ponderevo has made is a slight yielding to the temptation ofcaricature, out of place in a realistic book. Thus he names a half-pennypaper, "The Daily Decorator," and a journalistic peer, "Lord Boom." Yetthe few lines in which he hints at the tactics and the psychology of hisLord Boom are masterly. So much for the narrator, whose "I" writes thebook. I assume that Wells purposely left these matters uncorrected, asbeing essential to the completeness of George's self-revelation.

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  I do not think that any novelist ever more audaciously tried, or failedwith more honour, to render in the limits of one book the enormous andconfusing complexity of a nation's racial existence. The measure ofsuccess attained is marvellous. Complete success was, of course,impossible. But, in the terrific rout, Ponderevo never touches a problemsave to grip it firmly. He leaves nothing alone, and everything ishandled--handled! His fine detachment, and his sublime common sense, neverdesert him in the hour when he judges. Naturally his chief weapon in thecollision is just common sense; it is at the impact of mere common sensethat the current system crumbles. It is simply unanswerable common sensewhich will infuriate those who do not like the book. When common senserises to the lyric, as it does in the latter half of the tale, you havesomething formidable. Here Wells has united the daily verifiable actualismof novels like "Love and Mr. Lewisham" and "Kipps," with the large mannerof the paramount synthetic scenes in (what general usage compels me toterm) his "scientific romances." In the scientific romance he achieved, bymeans of parables (I employ the word roughly) a criticism of tendenciesand institutions which is on the plane of epic poetry. For example, thecriticism of specialization in "The First Men in the Moon," the mightyridicule of the institution of sovereignty in "When the Sleeper Wakes,"and the exquisite blighting of human narrow-mindedness in "The Country ofthe Blind"--this last one of the radiant gems of contemporary literature,and printed in the _Strand Magazine_! In "Tono-Bungay" he has achieved thesame feat, magnified by ten--or a hundred, without the aid of symbolicartifice. I have used the word "epic," and I insist on it. There arepassages toward the close of the book which may fitly be compared with thelyrical freedoms of no matter what epic, and which display anunsurpassable dexterity of hand. Such is the scene in which Georgedeflects his flying-machine so as to avoid Beatrice and her horse bysweeping over them. A new thrill, there, in the sexual vibrations! Onethinks of it afterwards. And yet such flashes are lost when onecontemplates the steady shining of the whole. "Tono-Bungay," to my mind,marks the junction of the two paths which the variety of Wells's gift hasenabled him to follow simultaneously, and, at the same time, it is hismost distinguished and most powerful book.

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  I have spoken of the angry and the infuriated. Fury can be hot or cold. Ofthe cold variety is Claudius Clear's in the _British Weekly_. "Extremelyclever," says Claudius Clear. "There is, however, no sign of any newpower." But, by way of further praise: "The episodes are carefullyselected and put together with skill, and there are few really dullpassages." This about the man of whom Maeterlinck has written that he has"the most complete and the most logical imagination of the age." (I thinkClaudius Clear may have been under the impression that he was reviewing atwo-hundred-and-fifty-guinea prize novel, selected by Messrs. Lang andShorter.) Further, "He writes always from the point of a B.Sc." But themost humorous part of the criticism is this. After stating that Ponderevoacknowledges himself to be a liar, a swindler, a thief, an adulterer, anda murderer, Claudius Clear then proceeds: "He is not in the least ashamedof these things. He explains them away with the utmost facility, and wefind him at the age of forty-five, _not unhappy, and successfully engagedin problems of aerial navigation_" (my italics). Oh! candid simplicity ofsoul! Wells, why did you not bring down the wrath of God, or at least makethe adulterer fail in the problems of flight? In quoting a description ofthe Frapps, Claudius Clear says: "I must earnestly apologize forextracting the following passage." Why? As Claudius Clear gets into histhird column his fury turns from cold to hot: "It is impossible for me inthese columns to reproduce or to describe the amorous episodes in'Tono-Bungay.' I cannot copy and I cannot summarize the loathsome tale ofGeorge Ponderevo's engagement and marriage and divorce. Nor can I speak ofhis intrigue with a typist, and of the orgy of lust described at the closeof the book...." Now, there is not a line in the book that could not beprinted in the _British Weekly_. There is not a line which fails in thatsober decency which is indispensable to the dignity of a masterpiece. Asfor George's engagement and marriage, it is precisely typical of legionssuch in England and Scotland. As for the intrigue with a typist, hasClaudius Clear never heard of an intri
gue with a typist before? Infaithfully and decently describing an intrigue with a typist, has onenecessarily written a "Justine"? And why "orgy of lust"? Orgy offiddlestick--if I am not being irreverent! The most correct honeymoon isan orgy of lust; and if it isn't, it ought to be. But some temperamentsfind a strange joy in using the word "lust." See the infuriatingdisquisition on "Mrs. Grundy" in "Tono-Bungay." The odd thing is, havingregard to the thunders of Claudius Clear, that George Ponderevo isdecidedly more chaste than nine men out of ten, and than ninety-ninemarried men out of every hundred. And the book emanates an austerity and aself-control which are quite conspicuous at the present stage of fiction,and which one would in vain search for amid the veiled concupiscence of atleast one author whom Claudius Clear has praised, and, I think, neverblamed--at least on that score. I leave him to guess the author.

  TCHEHKOFF

  [Sidenote:_18 Mar. '09_]

  One of the most noteworthy of recent publications in the way of fiction isAnton Tchehkoff's "The Kiss and Other Stories," translated by Mr. R.E.C.Long and published by Duckworth (6s.). A similar volume, "The Black Monk"(same translator and publisher), was issued some years ago. Tchehkofflived and made a tremendous name in Russia, and died, and England reckednot. He has been translated into French, and I believe that there exists acomplete edition of his works in German; but these two volumes are allthat we have in English. The thanks of the lettered are due to Mr. Longand to his publisher. Tchehkoff's stories are really remarkable. If anyone of authority stated that they rank him with the fixed stars of Russianfiction--Dostoievsky, Tourgeniev, Gogol, and Tolstoy--I should not beready to contradict. To read them, after even the finest stories of deMaupassant or Murray Gilchrist, is like having a bath after a ball. Theireffect is extraordinarily one of ingenuousness. Of course they are not inthe least ingenuous, as a fact, but self-conscious and elaborate to thehighest degree. The progress of every art is an apparent progress fromconventionality to realism. The basis of convention remains, but as theart develops it finds more and more subtle methods fitting life to theconvention or the convention to life--whichever you please. Tchehkoff'stales mark a definite new conquest in this long struggle. As you read himyou fancy that he must always have been saying to himself: "Life is goodenough for me. I won't alter it. I will set it down as it is." Such is thetribute to his success which he forces from you.

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  He seems to have achieved absolute realism. (But there is no absolute, andone day somebody--probably a Russian--will carry realism further.) Hisclimaxes are never strained; nothing is ever idealized, sentimentalized,etherealized; no part of the truth is left out, no part is exaggerated.There is no cleverness, no startling feat of virtuosity. All appearssimple, candid, almost childlike. I could imagine the editor of a popularmagazine returning a story of Tchehkoff's with the friendly criticism thatit showed promise, and that when he had acquired more skill in hitting thereader exactly between the eyes a deal might be possible. Tchehkoff neverhits you between the eyes. But he will, nevertheless, leave you on theflat of your back. Beneath the outward simplicity of his work is concealedthe most wondrous artifice, the artifice that is embedded deep in nearlyall great art. All we English novelists ought to study "The Kiss" and "TheBlack Monk." They will delight every person of fine taste, but to theartist they are a profound lesson. We have no writer, and we have neverhad one, nor has France, who could mould the material of life, withoutdistorting it, into such complex forms to such an end of beauty. Readthese books, and you will genuinely know something about Russia; you willbe drenched in the vast melancholy, savage and wistful, of Russian life;and you will have seen beauty. No tale in "The Kiss" is quite asmarvellous as either the first or the last tale in "The Black Monk,"perhaps; but both volumes are indispensable to one's full education. I donot exaggerate. I must add that on a reader whose taste is neither highlydeveloped nor capable of high development, the effect of the stories willbe similar to their effect on the magazine editor.

  THE SURREY LABOURER

  [_1 Apr. '09_]

  It is a great pleasure to see that Mr. George Bourne's "Memoirs of aSurrey Labourer" (Duckworth) has, after two years, reached the distinctionof a cheap edition at half a crown. I shall be surprised if this book doesnot continue to sell for about a hundred years. And yet, also, I amsurprised that a cheap edition should have come so soon. The "Memoirs"were very well received on their original publication in 1907; some of thereviews were indeed remarkable in the frankness with which they acceptedthe work as a masterpiece of portraiture and of sociological observation.But the book had no boom such as Mr. John Lane recently contrived foranother very good and not dissimilar book, Mr. Stephen Reynolds's "A PoorMan's House." Mr. Stephen Reynolds was more chattered about by literaryLondon in two months than Mr. George Bourne has been in the eight yearswhich have passed since he published his first book about FrederickBettesworth, the Surrey labourer in question. Mr. Bourne will owe hispopularity in 2009 to the intrinsic excellence of his work, but he oweshis popularity in 1909 to the dogged and talkative enthusiasm of a fewexperts in the press and in the world, and of his publishers. There havebeen a handful of persons who were determined to make this exceedinglyfine book sell, or perish themselves in the attempt; and it has sold. Butnot with the help of mandarins. It is not in the least the kind of book tocatch the roving eye of a mandarin. It is too proud, too austere, tootrue, and too tonically cruel to appeal to mandarins. It abounds not atall in quotable passages. Its subtitle is: "A Record of the Last Year ofFrederick Bettesworth." The mandarins who happened to see it no doubtturned to seek the death scene at the close, with thoughts of how quotablyIan Maclaren would have described the death of the old labourer, worn outby honest and ill-paid toil, surrounded by his beloved fields, and soforth and so forth. And Mr. George Bourne's description of his hero'sdeath would no doubt put them right off. I give it in full: "July 25(Thursday).--Bettesworth died this evening at six o'clock." Oh, ColonelNewcome, sugared tears, golden gates, glimmering panes, passings, pilots,harbour bars--had Mr. George Bourne never heard of you?

  [_1 Apr '09_]

  I should like to assume that all enlightened and curious readers havealready perused this book and its forerunner, "The Bettesworth Book"(Lamley and Co.), of which a cheap edition is soon to be had. But myirritating mania for stopping facts in the street and gazing at them makesit impossible for me to assume any such thing. I am perfectly certain thatto about 70 per cent. of you the name of George Bourne means naught. Itherefore need not apologize for offering the information that these booksare books. They set forth the psychology and the everything else of thebackbone, foundation, and original stock of the English race. They dealwith England. Naturally, the sacred name of England will call up in yourmind visions of the Carlton Club, Blenheim, Regent Street, Tubes,Selfridge's, theatre stalls, the crowd at Lord's, and the brilliantwriters of the _New Age_. And these phenomena are a part of England; but Itell you that they are all only the froth on the surface of Bettesworththe labourer. If you regard this as a cryptic saying, read the two books,and you will see light.

  SWINBURNE

  [Sidenote:_22 Apr. '09_]

  On Good Friday night I was out in the High Street, at the cross-roads,where the warp and the woof of the traffic assault each other under agreat glare of lamps. The shops were closed and black, except where atobacconist kept the tobacconist's bright and everlasting vigil; but abovethe shops occasional rare windows were illuminated, givinghints--dressing-tables, pictures, gas-globes--of intimate private lives. Idon't know why such hints should always seem to me pathetic, saddening;but they do. And beneath them, through the dark defile of shutters,motor-omnibuses roared and swayed and curved, too big for the street, anddwarfing it. And automobiles threaded between them, and bicycles dared thespaces that were left. From afar off there came a flying light, like ashot out of a gun, and it grew into a man perched on a shudderingcontrivance that might have been invented by H.G. Wells, and sweptperilously into the contending c
urrents, and by miracles emergeduntouched, and was gone, driven by the desire of the immortal soul withinthe man. This strange thing happened again and again. The pavements werecrowded with hurrying or loitering souls, and the omnibuses and autos werefull of them: hundreds passed before the vision every moment. And theywere all preoccupied; they nearly all bore the weary, egotistic melancholythat spreads like an infection at the close of a fete day in London; thelights of a motor-omnibus would show the rapt faces of sixteen souls atonce in their glass cage, driving the vehicle on by their desires. Thepoliceman and the loafers in the ring of fire made by the public-houses atthe cross-roads--even these were grave with the universal affliction oflife, and grim with the relentless universal egotism. Lovers walked asthough there were no heaven and no earth, but only themselves in space.Nobody but me seemed to guess that the road to Delhi could be as naught tothis road, with its dark, fleeing shapes, its shifting beams, its blackbrick precipices, and its thousand pale, flitting faces of a gloomy anddecadent race. As says the Indian proverb, I met ten thousand men on thePutney High Street, and they were all my brothers. But I alone was awareof it. As I stood watching autobus after autobus swing round in a fearfulsemi-circle to begin a new journey, I gazed myself into a mysticcomprehension of the significance of what I saw. A few yards beyond wherethe autobuses turned was a certain house with lighted upper windows, andin that house the greatest lyric versifier that England ever had, and oneof the great poets of the whole world and of all the ages, was dying: aname immortal. But nobody looked; nobody seemed to care; I doubt if anyone thought of it. This enormous negligence appeared to me to be fine, tobe magnificently human.