Read Ebook: Autographs for Freedom Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) by Griffiths Julia Editor

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Ebook has 713 lines and 62193 words, and 15 pages

He then took an Encyclopaedia and filled up the blanks with the names of three great men who appeared, according to that work, to be the leaders in this branch of natural history. His duty thus thoroughly accomplished and his mind at rest, he posted his review, and applied himself to lighter occupations.

Next day, however, the Editor telephoned to him, to the effect that the notice upon which he had spent so much labour could not be used.

On occasions such as these the beginner must remember to keep full possession of himself.

Nothing in this mortal life is permanent, and the changes that are native to the journalistic career are perhaps the most startling and frequent of all those which threaten humanity.

The Reviewer of whom I speak was as wise as he was honourable. He saw at once what was needed. He wrote another and much longer article, beginning--

"There are tender days just before the Spring dares the adventure of the Channel, when our Kentish woods are prescient, as it were, of the South. It is calm ..."

and so forth, leading gradually up to snails, and bringing in the book here and there about every twentieth line.

Soon the Editor turned to him and said that Pschuffer's had just let him know by the telephone that they would not advertise after all.

Next morning he was somewhat perturbed to be called up again upon the telephone by the Editor, who spoke to him as follows:--

"I am very sorry, but I have just learnt a most important fact. Adam Charles is standing in our interests at Biggleton. Lord Bailey will be on the platform. You must write a long and favourable review of the book before twelve to-day, and do try and say a little about the author."

He somewhat wearily took up a sheet of paper and wrote what follows:--a passage which I must again recommend to the student as a very admirable specimen of work upon these lines.

"This book comes at a most opportune moment. It is not generally known that Professor Charles was the first to point out the very great importance of the training of the mind in the education of children. It was in May, 1875, that he made this point in the presence of Mr. Gladstone, who was so impressed by the mingled enlightenment and novelty of the view, that he wrote a long and interesting postcard upon the author to a friend of the present writer. Professor Charles may be styled--nay, he styles himself--a 'self-made man.' Born in Huddersfield of parents who were weavers in that charming northern city, he was early fascinated by the study of natural science, and was admitted to the Alexandrovna University...."

"But this would not suffice for his growing genius."

" ... It is sometimes remarkable to men of less wide experience how such spirits find the mere time to achieve their prodigious results. Take, for example, this book on the Snail...."

And he continued in a fine spirit of praise, such as should be given to books of this weight and importance, and to men such as he who had written it. He sent it by boy-messenger to the office.

The messenger had but just left the house when the telephone rang again, and once more it was the Editor, who asked whether the review had been sent off. Knowing how dilatory are the run of journalists, my friend felt some natural pride in replying that he had indeed just despatched the article. The Editor, as luck would have it, was somewhat annoyed by this, and the reason soon appeared when he proceeded to say that the author was another Charles after all, and not the Mr. Charles who was standing for Parliament. He asked whether the original review could still be retained, in which the book, it will be remembered, had been treated with some severity.

My friend permitted himself to give a deep sigh, but was courteous enough to answer as follows:--

"I am afraid it has been destroyed, but I shall be very happy to write another, and I will make it really scathing. You shall have it by twelve."

It was under these circumstances that the review took this final form, which I recommend even more heartily than any of the others to those who may peruse these pages for their profit, as well as for their instruction.

"We desire to have as little to do with this book as possible, and we should recommend some similar attitude to our readers. It professes to be scientific, but the harm books of this kind do is incalculable. It is certainly unfit for ordinary reading, and for our part we will confess that we have not read more than the first few words. They were quite sufficient to confirm the judgment which we have put before our readers, and they would have formed sufficient material for a lengthier treatment had we thought it our duty as Englishmen to dwell further upon the subject."

Let me now turn from the light parenthesis of illuminating anecdote to the sterner part of my task.

We will begin at the beginning, taking the simplest form of review, and tracing the process of production through its various stages.

It is necessary first to procure a few forms, such as are sold by Messrs. Chatsworthy in Chancery Lane, and Messrs. Goldman, of the Haymarket, in which all the skeleton of a review is provided, with blanks left for those portions which must, with the best will in the world, vary according to the book and the author under consideration. There are a large number of these forms, and I would recommend the student who is as yet quite a novice in the trade to select some forty of the most conventional, such as these on page 7 of the catalogue:--

"Again, how admirable is the following:"

At the same establishments can be procured very complete lists of startling words, which lend individuality and force to the judgment of the Reviewer. Indeed I believe that Mr. Goldman was himself the original patentee of these useful little aids, and among many before me at this moment I would recommend the following to the student:--

I need hardly say that only the most elementary form of review can be constructed upon this model, but the simplest notice contains all the factors which enter into the most complicated and most serious of literary criticism and pronouncements.

In this, as in every other practical trade, an ounce of example is worth a ton of precept, and I have much pleasure in laying before the student one of the best examples that has ever appeared in the weekly press of how a careful, subtle, just, and yet tender review, may be written. The complexity of the situation which called it forth, and the lightness of touch required for its successful completion, may be gauged by the fact that Mr. Mayhem was the nephew of my employer, had quarrelled with him at the moment when the notice was written, but will almost certainly be on good terms with him again; he was also, as I privately knew, engaged to the daughter of a publisher who had shares in the works where the review was printed.

A YOUNG POET IN DANGER.

MR. MAYHEM'S "PEREANT QUI NOSTRA."

We fear that in "Pereant qui Nostra," Mr. Mayhem has hardly added to his reputation, and we might even doubt whether he was well advised to publish it at all. "Tufts in an Orchard" gave such promise, that the author of the exquisite lyrics it contained might easily have rested on the immediate fame that first effort procured him:

"Lord, look to England; England looks to you,"

and--

"Great unaffected vampires and the moon,"

are lines the Anglo-Saxon race will not readily let die.

In "Pereant qui Nostra," Mr. Mayhem preserves and even increases his old facility of expression, but there is a terrible falling-off in verbal aptitude.

What are we to think of "The greatest general the world has seen" applied as a poetic description to Lord Kitchener? Mr. Mayhem will excuse us if we say that the whole expression is commonplace.

All these similes verge upon the commonplace, even when they do not touch it. However, there is very genuine feeling in the description of his old school, and we have no doubt that the bulk of Etonians will see more in the poem than outsiders can possibly do.

It cannot be denied that Mr. Mayhem has a powerful source of inspiration in his strong patriotism, and the sonnets addressed to Mr. Kruger, Mr. O'Brien, Dr. Clark, and General Mercier are full of vigorous denunciation. It is the more regrettable that he has missed true poetic diction and lost his subtlety in a misapprehension of planes and values.

"Vile, vile old man, and yet more vile again,"

is a line that we are sure Mr. Mayhem would reconsider in his better moments: "more vile" than what? Than himself? The expression is far too vague.

"Babbler of Hell, importunate mad fiend, dead canker, crested worm," are vigorous and original, but do not save the sonnet. And as to the last two lines,

"Nor seek to pierce the viewless shield of years, For that you certainly could never do,"

Mr. Mayhem must excuse us if we say that the order of the lines make a sheer bathos.

Perhaps the faults and the excellences of Mr. Mayhem, his fruitful limitations, and his energetic inspirations, can be best appreciated if we quote the following sonnet; the exercise will also afford us the opportunity of pointing out the dangers into which his new tendencies may lead him.

Now, here is a composition that not everyone could have written. It is inspired by a vigorous patriotism, it strikes the right note , and it breathes throughout the motive spirit of our greatest lyrics.

It is the execution that is defective, and it is to execution that Mr. Mayhem must direct himself if he would rise to the level of his own great conceptions.

We will take the sonnet line by line, and make our meaning clear, and we do this earnestly for the sake of a young poet to whom the Anglo-Saxon race owes much, and whom it would be deplorable to see failing, as Kipling appears to be failing, and as Ganzer has failed.

In line 4, "dishevelled" is a false epithet for "lance"; a lance has no hair; the adjective can only properly be used of a woman, a wild beast, or domestic animal.

The last line is bad.

We do not write in this vein to gain any reputation for preciosity, and still less to offend. Mr. Mayhem has many qualities. He has a rare handling of penultimates, much potentiality, large framing; he has a very definite chiaroscuro, and the tones are full and objective; so are the values. We would not restrain a production in which the present writer is directly interested. But we wish to recall Mr. Mayhem to his earlier and simpler style--to the "Cassowary," and the superb interrupted seventh of "The Altar Ghoul."

England cannot afford to lose that talent.

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