iS 
LAND & WATER 
Januaiy 31, 1918 
Books of the Week 
The Green Mi ppoi'. By Hvgh Walpole, Macniillaii ami 
C(j. t)s. net. 
A New Study of English Poetry. By HiiNRV TS'lwbolt. 
Constable and Co. los. bd. net. 
Japan at the Cross Roads. By A. M. PouLtv. George 
Allen and Unwin. los. 6d. net. 
MANY writers iiave set out to .sliow the joys of 
laniily life, but Mr. Hugh Walpole may rank- 
almost as a pioneer in fiction in that he has shown 
how the ideal of tlie family mav become an evil 
tiling. Wiselv, he calls The Green Mirror " a quiet story." 
lor sa\e tha't Katherine Trcnchard married Philip Mark, 
whom the Trcnchard family disliked, nothing happens 111 the 
vear which the book covers. But the analysis of the Iren- 
l-hard family, in which the story is wrapped, is the main 
theme ■ Mrs. Trcnchard, the dominant figure, is a ternble 
woman, whose love for her daughter is ousted by her dislike 
lor Phihp ; unable to break the engagement, she sets herself 
to enmesh Philip in Trcnchard traditions— she will not let 
Katherine go to him and begin the new life which is the girl s 
right, but will let him share Katherine with the family so long 
as he is content to forego his own life and become proud of 
the honour of being a Trenchard by marriage. 
Set down thus briefly, Mrs. Trencharil's plan may seem 
crude, but as Mr. Waplole has expressed it in the compass of 
a long— but not too long— novel, it is artistically convincing. 
If there be a moral to the story, it is that the older generation 
has no right to thwart the "life aims of the new. Morals 
apart, tlie book is a picture of changing times ; mainly written 
before the war, it is a quiet forecast, by means of a microcosm 
that pictures the macrocosm, of the great upheaval that threw 
such out-of-date organisms as the Trenchard family into a 
melting pot from which emerge not families, but men and 
women conscious of and free to fulfil their separate destinies. 
Perhaps the end to wliich the book is designed is more fully 
achieved througii being embodied in what its author justly 
termsi " a quiet story." 
m * * * * 
Twelve essays, most of which have already appeared in the 
lorinighllv Review, make up Sir Henry Newbolt's A \ew 
Study of English Poetry. Beginning withja definition of poetry, 
the author goes on to its relation to politics, personality, 
rliythm, and then to a less didactic sketch entitled " The 
Poets and their Friends," which paves the way to studies of 
Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, and British ballads and ballad 
poetry. The rest of the book is concerned with Marinetti's 
futuristic dream, the relations between poetry and education, 
and "The Poet and his Audience," at the very end of which 
comes one of the finest passages in the whole book — too long 
lor quotation here. 
In this last essay as a whole, the author has let his love of 
loetry show forth, "the previous essays forming rather a mathe- 
natical statement of poetry— if such a description be per- 
missible — than an appreciation of poetry. Sir Henry criticises, 
iveighs and measures from the outside, in his statements of 
the relations of poetry to the various aspects of life ; he writes 
more as teacher of the methods of poetry than as poet, and as 
.1 teacher, moreover, who is writing lor the advanced student. 
1 1 is the voice of competent authority that is speaking in the 
first four essays. 
***** 
It may be said that the poet gradually emerges from the 
chrysalis of critic ; thus in " The Poets and their Friends," 
we come to mention of Whitehead, and quotation from his 
echo of Gray's Elegy ; of William Browne, an earlier and 
more completely forgotten poet ; we come, too, to certain 
l)riniantly sane criticisms, such as this of Byron — " forced to 
leave England, it is probable that though he gained readers, 
he lost adherents. His case is a doubly significant one, 
because it reminds us that so long as a man is living, so long 
as he remains in the sphere of active hfe, it is always jwssiblc 
that a moral view may come in at any moment to change or 
interfere with the purely artistic view of his work. Moreover, 
during a man's lifetime, his social position or his social credit 
may have an effect upon our judgment. The greatest of our 
poets was only a player who went here and there and made 
himself a motley to the view." 
There is in this pronouncement a ripe kindhness, so dis- 
jjassionate as to force the conviction that in this man's hands 
the meanest of versifiers might trust his work for criticism ; 
and that quality is apparent throughout all the work. 
Whether Sir Henry is concerned with the relation of poetry to 
rhythm, weighing and stating with the cold impartiality of a 
mathematician, or whether he is dealing — as he does deal — • 
with Chaucer and Shakespeare and Miltoii, with u true poet's 
Iteling lor tlie giaiu> <•! lu> ail, vi wnelhcr he is placing 
Marinetti, with an inimitable translation of Keats into 
fuluiistic jargon, lie is never swayed from his intellectual 
study of his art to mere criticism for the sake of criticising. 
Because of this, his book is more creative in character than 
critical ; he has put doy-n new thought, not merely criticised 
the thoughts of others. 
.^s for the sense of humour, there is his futuristic translation 
of the best-known stanza of the " Ode to a Nightingale " : 
" Bird minus death, same old jug-jug-jug Antiquity Emperor 
Clown Ruth tears windows foam fairyland forlornness." 
But one must read the context to get tlie full flavour of this. 
It is given as " an honest attempt to contrast two kinds of 
work, and it . . . sufficiently proves tliat a system of 
notation, even when it is intelligible, is not language, and 
therefore, though it may be used in description or enumera- 
tion, it cannot achieve anything creative." 
Within the limits imposed, adequate review of this book is 
hardly possible. Tlie author characterises his own work as 
" suggestive and not authoritative." 
The superficial student of the Far East and il> piubleuis, 
should he chance on Japan at the Cross Roads, by A. M. Pooley, 
will probably be annoyed, 'for the book will upset most of his 
conceptions of Japanese hfe, and the prospects of the country. 
It is, the author states, part of a more ambitious work dealing 
with Japan ; it is designed, apparently, to correct the appnt- 
ciati\e attitude hitherto jjievailing with regard to Japan, by 
means of very thorough criticism. We leam from Mr. Pooley 
tliat Japan can imitate, but cannot initiate ; that patriotism, 
instead of being rooted in the Japanese for centuries, is a very 
new virtue indeed ; that the country has been torn by rival 
factions for years ; that the industries, with which Japan 
competes with Britain and other producing countries, are 
maintained at a veiy heavy price indeed, and that the state of 
factories in Japan is as bad as in any factories in the world, 
twelve and thirteen hours a day being the rule for female 
labour. The author tries hard to give credit where credit is 
due, but he points out that for years Japan has suffered from 
a \'ery thorough system of press ad\ertisement, instigated by 
the government, which prevented criticism of the country 
and gave the foreigner a false conception of its development. 
Mr. Pooley is not addicted to prophecy, but confines himself 
to statement ; otherwise, it would be difficult to see what 
lies beyond the " cross roads " for Japan — as it is, tliere is 
plenty of food lor reflection in the present state of affairs, and 
each reader may decide for himself where they are likely to 
lead the country. Whatever may be one's conclusions on 
this score, the statements embodied in the work will be found 
well worth perusal, especially those dealing with commerce, 
and with social conditions. It is to be lioped ^that at some 
later date the author may find it possible to complete the 
larger scheme of which this book is a part ; Professor 
McLaren, studying the subject from other angles, arrives at 
virtually similar conclusions to these of Mr. Pooley, and there 
can be little doubt that the more enlightened of Japanese 
people will welcome this frank and only apparently harsh 
criticism of their country and itaways. 
***** 
In tile review of " The Keeper's Book " which appeared in 
this colunin on January 17th the price was mentioned as 12s. Od. 
This was a printer's eiTor, it should have been 7s. 6d, 
THE 
NINETEENTH CENTURY 
AND AFTER 
1 i;bi;laky. 
Altace-Lorraine and the Principle of Nationality : An Alsatian View. 
1!.V P.WI. Hl.l.lirit. 
Tlie 'Conscription of Wealtli.' itv .1 A. I;. M.xrrioTT, M.P. 
Tlie Futurii ot India— (1) Our Aim in India: an Anglo-Indian View, 
liv Sir FRANCIS YOLXUHUSUAIiD, K.O.b.l., K.C.I.L. 
(2) The Problem before us. 
iiy Sir AM)lli;\V rHA.Slili, K.C.S.I. (foTincrlv LitMit. Governor ol Ucngal.) 
English and Americans: the End of a long Misunderstanding. 
Iiy Sir THEODORE COOK. 
The World's Debt to Italy and how to pay if. Bv J. ELLIS BARKEI!. 
Shakspearc and Italy (concluded). Uv sir KDW.\RI> SULLIVAN. Bart. 
The Church of Engl.md and State Control, By the I!ev. CYlilL W. E.MMET. 
The Conscientious Objector. By Profe-woi' A. V. DICEY. 
Cerrrany's Financial Outlook. Uv H. .1 .lEXNINUR. 
The Plight of Spain. bv Dr. E. J. DILLON. 
Qovernment Relations with the Press: an Indian Precedent. 
liv Sic HOPER I.ETHBKIDOE, K.C.l.E. 
Incongruous Days: from the Notebook of a Hospital Orderly 
By Coriioral WAIiD MUIR. R.A.M.C.T. 
The French.Canadians. Bv llii> REV. HAHOI.D HAMILTON, D.C. 
Ways to Industrial Peace -(1) The Capfial of Labour: A Suggestion 
lor the EngineeriFC Trades, liv tli« liisht, Hon. Sir WILLIAM MATHER 
(2) The Commercialisation ol Labour. By YVES GUY"OT. 
Londou: S|iotti,svvi)<)ilc, Ball^intjue & Co., Ltd., 1, New Street Square. 
