The Weekly Machen
Book lovers are in for a treat this week. Once again, we explore the reading habits of Arthur Machen as he writings in true contrarian form. George Moore’s thesis is diametrically opposed to Machen’s own thoughts on literature. In Hieroglyphics, Machen strongly states: “I will give you a test that will startle you; literature is the expression, through the æsthetic medium of words, of the dogmas of the Catholic Church, and that which in any way is out of harmony with these dogmas is not literature.” (Of course, unlike Moore, he meant “Catholic” in the universal sense, but the point remains.) As a young man, Machen expressed much admiration for Swinburne’s Songs Before Sunrise.
Some Novels of the Moment:
Mr. George Moore Demolishes Old Notions
by
Arthur Machen
October 29, 1912
Mr. George Moore, in “Salve” (Heinemann) is a man with a thesis; and the man with a thesis is, in general terms, a joy to himself and to his fellow men.
What is a thesis? It is a proposition, a statement which you lay down and support by argument. For example, anybody who says that black is white, or that the moon is made of green cheese, or that by night all cats are grey, and that he can prove it, is a man with a thesis; and he is bound to be good fun.
The thesis of “Salve” is that literature is incompatible with dogma; or, as Mr. Moore alternatively expresses it, that a Roman Catholic cannot be a literary artist. Or, in yet a third phrase, Catholicism is an intellectual desert.”
And Mr. Moore argues this position with infinite gaiety, ingenuity, and determination. Nothing rebuffs him. Newman’s “Apologia” rather stands in his way, since many people have held that Newman wrote fine prose. Mr. Moore shows that the “Apologia” is but poor stuff after all.
I hasten to add that I don’t believe in the famous thesis for a moment. Dante is too great a name, and Cervantes—Papist. I regret to say—wrote “Don Quixote,” one of the greatest books in the world, and authors in the Roman Obedience were undoubtedly responsible for the Arthur-Graal cycle, which I (with others) hold to be infinitely the noblest and most glorious of the world’s romances, not excluding Homer himself.
But what does personal disagreement matter? The more impossible the thesis, the better the fun of the argument; and everybody who loves good sport in literature should read “Salve.”
Going through Mr. Moore’s process for a second time, I hardly think that he has expressed his meaning quite clearly. I see that he puts Racine and Corneille on one side, because their plays were on classic themes, and he excepts Chateaubriand; partly because his name is pompous, ridiculous, soft, unreal, spongy, and windy; partly because it is the name for a particular way of cooking a steak; and partly because the author of the “Génie du Christianisme” was a naughty man.
Mr. Moore really means to say that a truly devout Catholic, who is never naughty, who does not write of classic times, whose name has never graced the carte du jour, cannot write literature.
Even that is a questionable proposition for St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Thomas à Kempis are by no means contemptible writers.
“Edwin Drood”
Sir Robertson Nicoll’s “The Problem of ‘Edwin Drood‘” (Hodder and Stoughtin) is a learned but laborious essay written to show that Edwin Drood was really murdered. I must say that the book is most convincing; every circumstance in favour of the murder theory is quoted, including Dickens’s own words, including his instructions to the artist that a certain scarf was to be drawn long, since Edwin was to be murdered with it, including the impressions of Dickens’s intimate circle. Really, there does not seem to be a loophole left—and yet I am not convinced; with the late Andrew Lang I believe, in spite of the evidence, that Edwin Drood would have come to life, if only Dickens had lived.
I have always held that doctrine, but I feel quite sure after reading the extract from Forster, quoted by Sir Robertson Nicoll:—
I laid aside the fancy I told you of (Dickens wrote) and have a very curious and new idea for my new story. Not a communicable idea (or the interest of the book would be gone), but a very strong one, though difficult to work.
This seems to me decisive. The plot of “Edwin Drood” as Sir Robertson Nicoll conceives it would not be incommunicable, nor new, nor curious: it would be just a murder story.
Then, again: what is the reason for the opium “motive”? Clearly that Jasper, muddled by the drug, might imagine that he had murdered his nephew.
Swinburne Prejudice
“He had better be careful. If I am obliged” (very slowly) “to take the cudgel in my hand” [in rapid exultation] “the rafters of the hovel on which he skulks and sniggers shall ring with the loudest whacks ever administered in discipline of chastisement to a howling crowd.” The speaker was Algernon Swinburne; and that was the way in which he spoke of his literary enemies in the year 1875.
The extract is taken from Mr. Gosse’s “Portraits and Sketches” (Heinemann), a book full of entertainment to those interested in books and bookmen. Swinburne was a man of excursions and prejudices.
He was absolutely indifferent to Stevenson, to Ibsen, to Dostoieffsky each of whom was pressed upon his notice, and his hostility to Zola was grotesque.
Stevenson, according to the poet, has no talent; an astonishing judgement indeed. But “sometimes even great Homer nods,” as the old proverb has it, and from the essay on Andrew Lang it appears that this learned and ingenious writer had to persuade himself to be “partly just” to Hardy, while Dumas père was his real and unfeigned love.
But Dumas père in his best moments is worthy of high admiration—Stevenson knew that—and I must enter a protest against Mr. Gosse’s coupling of “superficial and romantic” together, as if the two words were synonymous. Nothing that is really romantic can possibly be superficial; since it is only in romance and poetry that eternal truth can expressed.
Recent Books
“Rosemary and Rue” by Beatrice Stott (Sidgwick and Jackson), is a very good novel indeed. It is a study of an unhappy temperament, of the over-analytic mind which Dickens has illustrated in his Miss Wade.
The Rosemary of the story does not become malignant, like Miss Wade; she punishes not others, but herself; avoiding those who would have kept her safe, she falls into the hands of a portentous cad. The study is carefully and delicately worked out.
Among other books I note “Idle Hands” and “The Bravest Boy in Camp” (Jarrold); “Seaford’s Snake,” by Bertram Mitford (Ward, Lock); “Folk Tales of Bengal,” by the Rev. Lal Behari Day, with thirty-two illustrations in colour by Warwick Goble—a really beautiful volume this—and “The Adventures of an Elephant Hunter,” by James Sutherland (Macmillan).
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