136 Autumn 



the act is inevitable, says your critic. Pooh ! nonsense. 

 Suppose Mr. Steinitz the chess-player had published 

 the single score of a game as he played it, and said, 

 ' This is the one way to deal with the Ruy Lopez 

 opening, white must invariably attack thus, black 

 defend with that,' were the moves never so deep and 

 crafty his most docile pupil would refuse to take his 

 word that there are not others as subtle ; for the game 

 is susceptible of infinite variation. Yet critics continue 

 ally assert that in the far more complicated game of 

 life the man of genius sets down forced moves only, as 

 if on the great chess-board the score of one game as 

 written by a master were exhaustive. I find the main 

 pleasure of books to arise not from conning over 

 favourite poems or stories till I have them by heart, 

 not from rummaging in the dust-heaps of literature, 

 but from speculating about their possible variations. 

 How could Shakespeare have solved his hardest 

 problem without putting Polonius behind the arras ? 

 What would the ' Inferno ' have been had Dante 

 chanced to be a Puritan ? To try and invent answers 

 is like wooing the dead from Hades. 



There are still simpler examples. Of all the poets 

 who have tried, say, to concentrate the whole spirit of 

 Autumn into a sonnet or a lyric, is there one who 

 has succeeded so that we can point to his handiwork 

 and say, ' There is the one autumnal song ' ? It is 

 easy to answer with a negative, for the test is at hand. 

 Morning after morning may be spent in the windy 



