991
TIME AND TIDE
Auousr 16, 1929
vividly Schnitzler’s command of what is, after all, the
gave the earliest encouragement to the free discussion
supreme gift of the short story writer—that of setting
of intellectual matters, and yet how these same salons,
down, in limited compass, an internally complete and
far from justifying the leisured and measured society
achieved tale: not a Plittle novel?' capable of ex¬
of the France of Louis le Bien-aimé and of the two
pansion, but a thing entirely self-contained. The one
generations after Mme. de Sévigné, drove the men
point on which I do quarrel seriously with Mr. Sutton
of letters who adorned the century to revolt against
is, indeed, his title: a title which has, perhaps, partly
this very civilization. The denunciation of society,
governed his choice among the wealth of material
polite or impolite, by Rousseau, the communism of
open to him; for the perfect short story is an artistic
the Abbé Mably, the arguments of Montesquieu and
medium different in kind from the novel, not only in
d’Argenson in favour of equality of fortunes and of
length: and a medium in whose handling Schnitzler
Helvétius for 'some property for every individual’,
is unsurpassed; as The Fate of the Freiherr von
the acclaim of the republican simplicity of Benjamin
Leisenbohg' The Murderer'' or“ Redegonda’s
Franklin the soap-boiler, the near-American and en¬
Diary'' are there to show. But, whether for their own
tirely un-classical demand of La Mettrie that man
merits—full as they are of the exciting quality that
should be regarded as more developed and more
belongs to the work of a master both of psychology
civilized the more he had of sensations and desires,
and of narrative form—or as illustrations of one of the
are all symptoms of the age. They are, moreover,
most fascinating and most difficult genres in the
interesting comments on the theory of Miss Mary
entire range of literary production, these tales are
Borden and, apparently (in his less Rampionate
more than worth reading. Without conspieuous sue¬
moods), of Mr. Aldous Huxley, that the fine flower of
cess in rendering the limpid clarity of Schnitzley's
civilization (believed, it seems, to be a narcissus)
reaches its most perfect bloom when delicately culti¬
perfectly readable version.
vated at the tea-tables of the selected few. My great
It is a severe test of Mr. Neil Gunn to take him up
work,? writes Montesquieu, "now advances with
immediately after Schnitzler. But Mr. Gunn has
gigantic strides since I am no longer harassed with
quality of his own and his tales are impregnated with
Parisian invitations to toilsome dinners and fatiguing
an atmosphere which maintains itself, unafraid, even
suppers?'
in contact with the terrifying realism of the Austrian.
Amid a galaxy of names in this brilliant period,
V here his collection does suffer is through monotony:
perhaps none better deserve to stand out than those
there are but two notes in his gamut, and though he
of Helvétius and Holbach, last children of the Renais¬
strikes them with conviction and with beauty, at
sance, whose luminous writings received far too
times, after the rich variety of Schnitzler, the musie
little attention in the years after Rousseau blew upon
cannot help striking one as a wee bit thin. Thin, but
the embers of passion and began a period of fuliginous
authentic. Personally, if I were Mr. Gunn I should
sentimentalism which has persisted from that time
prosecute the gentleman who has penned the “blurb“'
to this. Mr. Kingsley Martin has not only added a
on the fly-leaf; I disbelieve that it is only because 1
valuable volume to a series edited by probably the
am a Scot that I find these stories both interesting
mest distinguished political theorist of our time, but
and at times deeply moving: I feel that they are
has conferred a benefit upon our civilization if he can
sincere, and the only thing that could make me doubt
arouse popular interest in the clearest-headed thinkers
it is this said“blurb':
of an age earlier in the history of the world but, in
The Book Club has assigned its monthly certificate
s0 many respects, more mature in the history of
of merit to Nicky Son o/ Egg: but, in so doing, they
manners than our own.
are surely a book behind the times. The work of Mr.
Gerald Bullett’s that might fairly have been thus
crowned was the parent of this one—“The History of
Egg Pendervill'' All that is best in Nickg really
New Fiction
belongs to that earlier volume, or so it seems to me:
there is nothing in this equal to its opening half, or to
the zense of unforced contrast between that oper'ug
experience and the actual life of Egg and Carrie in
Holiday Reading
the horrid little shop where Nicky, later, grows up.
1 do not mean to imply that Nicky Son of Egg has not
By MARY AGNES HAMILTON, M. P.
Littie Novels. Arthur Schnitzler. (Constable. 78. 6d.)
Hidden Fires. Neil M. Gunpt (Porpoise Press. 68.)
Nicky Son of Egg. Gerald/ Bulleft. (Heinemann. 6s.)
Himself and Mr. Raikes. W.B. Maxwell. (Hutchinson.
Wanted First Editions
78. 6d.)
Dance, Little Gentleman. Gilbert Frankau. (Hutchin¬
For fine copies of the following Books, we offer :—
son. 78. 6d.)
Tomlinson, Sea and Jungle, 612; De Morgan, Joseph Vance¬
64: Maugham, Of Human Bondage, K5; Barrie, Little
About five years ago, when staying in Vienna, I
Minister, 3 vols., 675: Deuglas, South Wind, 210; Hardy,
found in a bookshelf in tne house of my friends there a
Tess of the D’Urbe illes, 3 vols., 1891. 450.
fair row of the collected works of Arthur Schnitzler,
Please offer us any hrst Editions of—
included among them being three er four volumes of
Byron, Shelley. Coleridge, Keets, Jane Austen, the Brontes,
Novellen?' These Nuvellen I devoured: and ever
Charles Reade. Whitman, Thoreau, Browning. Hermann
since I have been hoping to see them translated.
Melville Kingsley Stevenson, Kipling, Hardy, Barrie.
Wells. Bennet. Galsworthy. Shaw, and other famous authors.
Here, at last, in Little Novels, is a selection of ten
from among their number, translated by Mr. Eric
Sutton. The selection which one translater makes is
DAVIS & ORIOLI,
never that which would have been made by another:
30 MUSEUM ST., LONDON, W. C.1
some of the stories I remember most vividlv are not
here: nor those which, to my sense, illustrate most
TIME AND TIDE
Auousr 16, 1929
vividly Schnitzler’s command of what is, after all, the
gave the earliest encouragement to the free discussion
supreme gift of the short story writer—that of setting
of intellectual matters, and yet how these same salons,
down, in limited compass, an internally complete and
far from justifying the leisured and measured society
achieved tale: not a Plittle novel?' capable of ex¬
of the France of Louis le Bien-aimé and of the two
pansion, but a thing entirely self-contained. The one
generations after Mme. de Sévigné, drove the men
point on which I do quarrel seriously with Mr. Sutton
of letters who adorned the century to revolt against
is, indeed, his title: a title which has, perhaps, partly
this very civilization. The denunciation of society,
governed his choice among the wealth of material
polite or impolite, by Rousseau, the communism of
open to him; for the perfect short story is an artistic
the Abbé Mably, the arguments of Montesquieu and
medium different in kind from the novel, not only in
d’Argenson in favour of equality of fortunes and of
length: and a medium in whose handling Schnitzler
Helvétius for 'some property for every individual’,
is unsurpassed; as The Fate of the Freiherr von
the acclaim of the republican simplicity of Benjamin
Leisenbohg' The Murderer'' or“ Redegonda’s
Franklin the soap-boiler, the near-American and en¬
Diary'' are there to show. But, whether for their own
tirely un-classical demand of La Mettrie that man
merits—full as they are of the exciting quality that
should be regarded as more developed and more
belongs to the work of a master both of psychology
civilized the more he had of sensations and desires,
and of narrative form—or as illustrations of one of the
are all symptoms of the age. They are, moreover,
most fascinating and most difficult genres in the
interesting comments on the theory of Miss Mary
entire range of literary production, these tales are
Borden and, apparently (in his less Rampionate
more than worth reading. Without conspieuous sue¬
moods), of Mr. Aldous Huxley, that the fine flower of
cess in rendering the limpid clarity of Schnitzley's
civilization (believed, it seems, to be a narcissus)
reaches its most perfect bloom when delicately culti¬
perfectly readable version.
vated at the tea-tables of the selected few. My great
It is a severe test of Mr. Neil Gunn to take him up
work,? writes Montesquieu, "now advances with
immediately after Schnitzler. But Mr. Gunn has
gigantic strides since I am no longer harassed with
quality of his own and his tales are impregnated with
Parisian invitations to toilsome dinners and fatiguing
an atmosphere which maintains itself, unafraid, even
suppers?'
in contact with the terrifying realism of the Austrian.
Amid a galaxy of names in this brilliant period,
V here his collection does suffer is through monotony:
perhaps none better deserve to stand out than those
there are but two notes in his gamut, and though he
of Helvétius and Holbach, last children of the Renais¬
strikes them with conviction and with beauty, at
sance, whose luminous writings received far too
times, after the rich variety of Schnitzler, the musie
little attention in the years after Rousseau blew upon
cannot help striking one as a wee bit thin. Thin, but
the embers of passion and began a period of fuliginous
authentic. Personally, if I were Mr. Gunn I should
sentimentalism which has persisted from that time
prosecute the gentleman who has penned the “blurb“'
to this. Mr. Kingsley Martin has not only added a
on the fly-leaf; I disbelieve that it is only because 1
valuable volume to a series edited by probably the
am a Scot that I find these stories both interesting
mest distinguished political theorist of our time, but
and at times deeply moving: I feel that they are
has conferred a benefit upon our civilization if he can
sincere, and the only thing that could make me doubt
arouse popular interest in the clearest-headed thinkers
it is this said“blurb':
of an age earlier in the history of the world but, in
The Book Club has assigned its monthly certificate
s0 many respects, more mature in the history of
of merit to Nicky Son o/ Egg: but, in so doing, they
manners than our own.
are surely a book behind the times. The work of Mr.
Gerald Bullett’s that might fairly have been thus
crowned was the parent of this one—“The History of
Egg Pendervill'' All that is best in Nickg really
New Fiction
belongs to that earlier volume, or so it seems to me:
there is nothing in this equal to its opening half, or to
the zense of unforced contrast between that oper'ug
experience and the actual life of Egg and Carrie in
Holiday Reading
the horrid little shop where Nicky, later, grows up.
1 do not mean to imply that Nicky Son of Egg has not
By MARY AGNES HAMILTON, M. P.
Littie Novels. Arthur Schnitzler. (Constable. 78. 6d.)
Hidden Fires. Neil M. Gunpt (Porpoise Press. 68.)
Nicky Son of Egg. Gerald/ Bulleft. (Heinemann. 6s.)
Himself and Mr. Raikes. W.B. Maxwell. (Hutchinson.
Wanted First Editions
78. 6d.)
Dance, Little Gentleman. Gilbert Frankau. (Hutchin¬
For fine copies of the following Books, we offer :—
son. 78. 6d.)
Tomlinson, Sea and Jungle, 612; De Morgan, Joseph Vance¬
64: Maugham, Of Human Bondage, K5; Barrie, Little
About five years ago, when staying in Vienna, I
Minister, 3 vols., 675: Deuglas, South Wind, 210; Hardy,
found in a bookshelf in tne house of my friends there a
Tess of the D’Urbe illes, 3 vols., 1891. 450.
fair row of the collected works of Arthur Schnitzler,
Please offer us any hrst Editions of—
included among them being three er four volumes of
Byron, Shelley. Coleridge, Keets, Jane Austen, the Brontes,
Novellen?' These Nuvellen I devoured: and ever
Charles Reade. Whitman, Thoreau, Browning. Hermann
since I have been hoping to see them translated.
Melville Kingsley Stevenson, Kipling, Hardy, Barrie.
Wells. Bennet. Galsworthy. Shaw, and other famous authors.
Here, at last, in Little Novels, is a selection of ten
from among their number, translated by Mr. Eric
Sutton. The selection which one translater makes is
DAVIS & ORIOLI,
never that which would have been made by another:
30 MUSEUM ST., LONDON, W. C.1
some of the stories I remember most vividlv are not
here: nor those which, to my sense, illustrate most