IV 



DISCOVERY 



A MONTHLY POPULAR 

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Vol. Ill, No. 32. AUGUST 1922. 



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Editorial Notes 



The Hawthornden Prize, given annually " for the 

 best book published during the year by a writer under 

 forty years of age," was presented by Mr. John Mase- 

 field to Mr. Edmund Blunden on June 29, for his latest 

 volume of poetry, The Shepherd. Many of our readers 

 will remember an article which Mr. Blunden wrote for 

 Discovery a year ago on John Clare, the peasant 

 poet of Northamptonshire ; some, no doubt, have read 

 Mr. Blunden 's work in The Waggoner and The Shepherd 

 and been impressed by its full colour and detail, 

 reminiscent of the landscapes of the old Dutch painters, 

 and by an inspiration which seems to spring out of 

 the heart of our English countryside. Indeed the 

 dominant characteristic of this young poet's work is 

 its quality of expressing not only the material appear- 

 ance of our landscapes, but the hundred and one 

 associations, sensations, emotions which they rouse 

 in individual English hearts. If Mr. Blunden can use 

 his strong feelings for rural beauty as a background 

 before which English men and women play out their 

 lives, he may develop into a very great poet. This 

 remains to be seen. 



:(: :)c ^ :}: ^ 



It has been said that the greatest works of art and 

 literature have never been created out of a cosmo- 



politan atmosphere, but have been derived from the 

 national environment and sympathies of their creators. 

 But the world is changing fast, and individually and 

 racially we are becoming more cosmopolitan in 

 environment and mind. In these columns we have 

 consistently advocated the fostering of a friendly and 

 peace-loving spirit amongst the nations of the world, 

 but we cannot conceive of an age in which powerful, 

 innate, cherished national characteristics shall have 

 disappeared any more than we can conceive of an age 

 in which all individuals have been reduced to a set 

 standard of mental and physical attainments. The 

 idea is both abhorrent and futile. Attempts at cosmo- 

 politanism in literature have never been attended with 

 much success. In this connection Paul Bourget's 

 novels, with their tendency to present, instead of 

 characters, so many caricatures of nationality, come 

 to one's thoughts ; as also the novels of Joseph 

 Conrad, who has attained his triumphs, not really 

 by probing the Oriental mind, but by showing the 

 strangely contrasting characteristics of the white man, 

 with his complex of ideals and materialism unintelli- 

 gible to the Easterner, against an Oriental background. 

 ***** 

 There are few countries or nations so individualistic 

 as these islands and their inhabitants. We feel that 

 this is not a statement biased by patriotism. It is 

 a fact which comes home very vividly to any English- 

 man returning to his country after a long sojourn 

 abroad. Often he is disappointed for a while. The 

 effusive welcomes, friendships, and society to which 

 he has grown accustomed are wanting ; the streets 

 are filled with serious faces ; there is a coldness of 

 manner about his countrymen which is difficult to 

 understand. But gradually, as he picks up the threads 

 of national life, remakes old friendships and forms new 

 ones, he is conscious of the deep affections and stead- 

 fast characters of those around him. He says to himself, 

 " I have felt with my native land, I am one with my 

 kind," and he is rightly proud of his own people and 

 of his birthright which unites him to them. The 

 winter, with its mists and damp cold, gives way to 



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