i6 
Land & Water 
June 6, 1918 
For some years America, to a far greater extent than this 
country, has been' flooded with poetic Schools, Futurists, 
Imagists, Vorticists, and so on, who have got an enormous 
amount of publicity and have been chattered about by 
almost all the critics. In 1916 (I take the story from the 
Chicago Dial) a volume was published called Spectra, the 
authors being Emanuel Morgan and Anne Knish. The 
preface expounded the Spectrist theory. The theme of a 
poem, it said, "is to be regarded as a prism, upon which the 
colourless white light of infinite existence falls and is broken 
U]) into glowing, Ijeautiful, and intelligible hues," and "the 
overtones, adumbrations or spectres which for the poet 
haunt all objects both of the seen and the unseen world . . . 
should touch with a tremulous vibrancy of ultimate fact the 
reader's sense of the immediate theme." Mr. Morgan used 
rhyme. Miss Knisli free verse ; the poems were lieaded 
"Op. I," "Op. 2," etc., and it was allowed to leak out that 
Mr. Morgan was a painter who had been to Paris, and Miss 
Knish a Hvmgarian wW had published poems in Russian : 
The authors began to be deluged with adulatory letters 
Irom the most advanced poets of our verj' advanced day, 
of whom the men naturally inclined to address Miss Knisli, 
and the women Mr. Morgan. Here at last, it appeared, 
was the real thing — pretence stripped away, teclinique 
reduceil to lowest terms, passionate beauty impaled for a 
marvelling posterity — that ultimate method for which the 
poets from Homer to themselves had been so many voices 
crying in the wilderness. Certain poetry magazines were 
impressed and sought the privilege of giving the world 
more Sjjectra, "Others" devoted an entire issue to the 
Spectrists : they were successfully parodied in a college 
magazine ; they acquired disciples — a Harvard under- 
graduate, for instance, forswore Imagism for Spectrisni, 
and had his apostasy roundlv rebuked by the high priestess 
of his earlier faith. 
The authors, who kept dark, were continually being intro- 
duced by enthusiasts to their own works. Reviews were, 
innumerable. The Conservatives wrote with alarm ; the 
Radicals with exuberance ; the cautious delegated their 
task. One distinguished editor passed on the work of 
criticism to Mr. VVitter Bynner, and paid him handsomely 
for "his solemnly judicial appraisal of himself in the role of 
'Emanuel Morgan,' originator of the Spectrist theory." The 
game might have gone on, and the movement might have spread 
from one end of' the continent to the other. Only America 
came into the war, and "Miss Knish" took a captain's com- 
mission under her real name of Arthur D. Ficke. Perhaps, 
after this, critics will be a little readier to discover and say 
what they really think about the nonsense that gets itself 
published. 
Books of the Week 
Memoirs of William Hickey, 1775-1782. Edited by 
Alfred Spencer. (Hurst & Blackett. 12s. 6d. net.) " 
Front Lines. By Boyd Cable. (John Murray. 6s. net.) 
A SECOND instalment of the Memoirs of William 
Hickey has now been published under the editor- 
ship of Mr. Alfred Spencer. They are as good a 
reading as the first volume, which appeared just 
before the war. William Hickey was a solicitor, 
with a taste for fast life. He came of a well-to-do London 
family, but, as he did not make a business success at home, 
was shipped to India. Not hking the country, he returned 
to London ; and this volume opens in 1775 with prepara- 
tions for a voyage to Jamaica, where his father was sending 
him to practise law. When in Jamaica he made many friends, 
for he was an amusing fellow who did not take life too seri- 
ously, travelled over the island, met all the local celebrities 
whom he describes, and finally decided there was no money 
in law in the West Indies, After a jgood time, excellently 
portrayed in these pages, he returned to London ; but feared 
to face his father. Presently peace is restored between the 
two, and W. H. goes again to India, sets up as an Attorney 
in Calcutta, rnakes a pot of money, and comes home, partly 
on business, partly on pleasure, in charge of a petition to 
Parliament for the establishment of trial by jury in the 
East. Every line he writes has an interest ; it is human 
and full of life, and much is of historical value. 
It is amusing in the first chapter to find that in 1775 
Government departments were making almost identically 
the same mistakes, but in reverse manner fi.e., in the export 
of food supplies instead of the imports) which they made in 
1917 ! So little does the working of the departmental brain 
alter with the times. When ia Madras, in 1778, Mr. Hickey 
stayed with Mr. Hall Plumer, who a little later took over "a 
Government contract for erecting military works, and 
"according to public report, cleared sixty thousand pounds 
thereby. Such wjts the advantage arising from Government 
contracts in those days" — an advantage, also according to 
])ublic report, which has not entirely disappeared in these 
days. This Mr. Hall Plumer, if we mistake ftot, was a forbear 
of General Sir Herbert Plumer, for the general's father was 
also Mr. Hall Plumer. Throughout these fascinating memoirs 
we are constantly coming across names and incidents which 
link the latter half of the eightqenth century with the early 
part of the twentietli century. And human nature has not 
varied in the least. Hickey, if not the model of propriety, 
must have been a thoroughly good fellow at heart. He 
marries a woman with a past— a very variegated past— but is 
devoted to her, and resents with vigour the least discourtesy 
to her. We get glimpses in Calcutta of Warren Hastings, 
Philip Frances, and Mme. Talleyrand, and see the 
beginnings of the restaurant habit in London. Yet a third 
\'olume of the.^e vivid memoirs, we are glad to say, is promised ; 
it also will be assured a warm welcome. 
Front Lines, Boyd Cable's new book is as good as his other 
two, but there is a difference ; he has paid more consideration 
to the inner meaning of the war, and has given the work 
a value for, say, distribution among pacifists, as well as 
retaining all the photographic accuracy of trench life that 
makes such stories as these acceptable both to the men who 
are doing the work and their friends at home who want to 
know how the work is done. As an instance, "Seeing Red," 
the story of an Australian who never quite realised why he 
was in France until he saw the Germans indulging in cold- 
blooded murder of their prisoners, is a very fine psychological 
study, and one that will appeal, with its ring of truth, to 
men in the front lines and to people at home. Almost 
as an aside the utter callousness of the German mind 
is shown, and reflection after reading will provoke the 
thought that there can be no compounding with people like 
these. 
Out of the twenty-one stories that make the book, at least 
half contain subtle lessons like this ; every phase of war 
activity is dealt with, from night raiding in big bombing 
aeroplanes to the task of the stretcher-bearers in the muddv 
rear of an attack. We see the war as the men who are 
fighting see it, and in that respect this work is the equal, 
if not better than anything its author has yet done. 
— BODLEY HEAD NEW BOOKS 
'n 
A NEW LE.\COCK VOLUME IS A LITERARY EVENT. 
FRENZIED FICTION. By STEPHEN LEACOCK. 
Author of '■ Further Fooli.shnes.s, " "Literary Lapses," '■ Non- 
sense Novels," etc. Crown 8vo. 4s. net. 
A fresh collection o( good things by a humorist in high spirits'. 
THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES, liv CONINGSBY 
DAWStJN. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6(1. net. 
This new boolt by the author of " Khaki Courage," which had such an e«ormous 
success 100.000 copies sold in U.S.A.), is an intt^rprctation of the inspiraUon which 
drives the fighting men on. 
THE COMING DAWN, a War Anthology in Prose and 
Verse. By THEODORA THOMPSON, Compiler of " Under- 
neath the Bough." With an Introduction by Sir Oliver 
Lodge. Fcap. 8vo. Ss. net. 
WOMEN AND SOLDIERS. 
Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net 
By Mrs. ALEC TWEEDIE. 
By FORD MADOX 
Mrs. 1 weedie touches on many controversial subjects from lovf-makiM war- 
m.irnages, war-babies, divorce, clothes, economy, dissipation, the great wofli done 
by women co-operativo housekeeping, women's conscription, wages and work. She 
interlards her wisdom with much humour. [Ready at once. 
ON HEAVEN, and other Poetos. 
HUEFFER. 3s. 6d. net. 
" It is refreshing to find in Mr. HueBcr a true and a modern poet— at once realistic 
fin!: '■°";''"V''^™,''°t"' ^'f "wn vivid way, flashes forth pathos and humour, and, in 
nne, leels aloud. — Satunhty Review. 
MESSINES, and other Poems. Hy emile cam- 
MAEK t S. Enghsh Version by TITA BRAND CAMMAERTS. 
Crown Svo. 3s. 6d. net. 
has dWt^-d™— ra''n5T"f'ater "°^' "<>'»'''e literary work which this terrible struggle 
COAL AND CANDLELIGHT. Poems by HELEN PARRY 
LDLN, Author ol " Bread and Circuses." Crown Svo. 
3s. 6d. net. 
" A book of distinguished venc."— Morning Post. 
THE MYSTERY OF THE DOWNS. A Bafflinij Detective 
^*'r[^'\r^^y J- J< WATSON and A. J. REES, Authors of 
The Hampstead Mystery." 6s net 
wifh'in"a'my^tor "*'"''*'''"' ''"'' ''"'"■'" '"'' ^ ''^"*"'"' ''"■^' '"■■ '' <:''"tains a mystery 
A NOT IMPOSSIBLE RELIGION. Bv the late Professor 
SI L\ ANUS THOMPSON, Author of "The Quest for Truth " 
etc. 6s. net. ^ 
hu'ma"nit'-''-cSr'" ""^ ''""'°'' "" ''" ^ ''«"'"-'>' °' in«lculable value to 
"A profoundly interesting and stimulating bookr—Wntminster Gaselle 
JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD • W.l 
