Welsh Journals

The Coming," J. C. Snaith. Chatto & Windus. 6s. net. Mr. Snaith has chosen for his new novel a subject of almost over- whelming difficulty, but one of supreme interest at the present time. He pictures the emergence in a quiet Sussex village of a poor half edu- cated youth, John Smith, posthumous son of a soldier killed in action in the eighties, who, in the stress of the tremendous events of 1915 alarms the more conventional classes of his neighbourhood by advancing claims to prophetic if not divine powers. His mother, who had dreamed before his birth, and after the loss of her husband, that she should bear a son destined finally to drive war from the world, has become firmly convinced of his divine mission, while Gervase Brandon, the squire of the parish, who has been brought home paralysed from Gallipoli, is plainly inclined to the same view. John Smith himself evidently has no doubt of his calling, and the calm simplicity with which he maintains his claim, coupled with the obviously pacifist tendency of his teaching, arouses the hostility of the Vicar of the Parish, who finally succeeds, despite the opposition of the Squire, in having him certified as a lunatic and removed to a private asylum. In the asylum John Smith's power develops rapidly. It soon becomes plain that he actually claims to be a Messiah. Indeed he even begins to assume the dress and the actual facial appearance of the traditional figure of Christ. His influence in the asylum, on patients and attendants alike, becomes very strong. By some strange power of suggestion he manages as it were to recreate in some of the patients the personalities of the great poets and sages of the past, and with them he holds strange and impressive conferences regarding the crisis in which the world has become involved. In a wonderful scene he heals the paralysed Brandon, whom he has summoned to the asylum, and entrusts him with a play, in which he has embodied his message and which Brandon is commanded to publish to the world. After great difficulties, and after being banned by the English Censor, the play is produced in America, Immediately it has the most profound effect. Translations and productions are arranged all over the world. The poet is awarded the Nobel peace prize, and a deputation is sent from Sweden to make the presentation. In a magnifi- cently ironical scene the Deputation arrives at the asylum, the nature of which is of course carefully concealed from them, only to find that John Smith has just expired in the arms of his former enemy the Vicar, while the reincarnation of Goethe (an old German patient and inmate of the asylum) wanders distractedly about the corridors crying "He is risen, He is risen." A book of this kind must stand or fall according to the success or failure of the central figure. There are few living authors who could have made John Smith a reality, but Mr. Snaith has undoubtedly succeeded in this almost impossible task. He treats the character purely objectively. There is no analysis of his feelings or motives. He is described entirely from the outside, as he appears to those others of the dramatis personae with whom he comes in contact. Mr. Snaith never even discloses or even implies whether Smith is in reality divinely inspired, or whether, as the asylum doctors prefer to believe, his is a case of auto-suggestion and hypnotic influence. In regard to this the reader is left to form his own conclusions. But, whatever uncertainty may be felt on this point, no reader will fail to be profoundly moved by the power and sweetness of the character which Mr. Snaith has drawn, and by the real fire of inspiration which animates those scenes of which John Smith forms the centre. The rest of the book is of course subsidiary to the central figure and for this reason it lacks the exuberance of vitality which made the Sailor" so remarkable. In order not to create a conflict of interest Mr. Snaith has sketched his lesser characters lightly and on more or less conventional lines. This does not however mean that the book lacks reality, Mr. Snaith's dramatic power is too true for that, and the Vicar, Urban Meyer, the German-Jew Impresario, and Gaseler Payne Murdwell, the American Professor, whose discoveries in the field of scientific destruction form the antithesis to the spirit of John Smith, are all sketched both with brilliance and certainty. The only serious fault in a most remarkable and moving book is a certain lack of confidence in the author's attack. The book is cast in a tone which often strikes one as a little too light for the subject, and, in the earlier stages, the central figure is scarcely given sufficient prominence. These weaknesses however, should increase rather than lessen the book's Popularity, and "The Coming" should make a wide and profound appeal. It breathes the authentic spirit of Christ, and its message has never more sorely needed than at the present time. Education to-day and to-morrow, by P. E Matheson. Oxford University Press, 1917. 2s. 6d Pp. 138. This book consists of a series of addresses delivered at various times to varied audiences, and of articles reprinted from magazines. They are chiefly directed towards insisting on the more fundamental factors in the problem (of education), the provision of good teachers and the creation of a deeper interest in education throughout the country." Thus instead of the waste of effort involved in the barren controversy of the merits of science or of the humanities, or of the necessity for technical and applied instruction, Mr. Matheson would have us rather realise the greatness and the wonder of all knowledge and the power of disciplined intelligence in a nation that has learnt reverence and self control." The book contains some remarkable addresses notably those on The Outlook in Education, but its chief characteristics are its lofty almost enthusiastic idealism, and its high conception of the teachers' task. The task of the great teachers, as of the prophet and higher statesman must often be one of lonely struggle," and no education is worthy of the name which does not take account of the quiet spaces of the inner life, in which lie the springs of personality and of fruitful thought." At the present day, when, especially in South Wales, so much is heard of the necessity for the cruder more materialistic phases of education, these addresses come as a welcome relief. W. Fairies and Fusiliers," by Robert Graves (Capt., R.W.F.). Heinemann. 3s. 6d. This volume of poems naturally falls into two divisions poems of the War, and poems of childhood and the country. None of the former can be called War-poems in the technical sense of the word they are poems hinting at some of the author's experiences in France, and reflections upon incidents of the War. In this class the finest poems are The Legion," a poem on the subject of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, and Goliath and David in which the giant is depicted as having slain David-an entirely new view but one which amidst the present sorrow and blighted hopes gives food for thought. In writing of this class one cannot pass by the two poems Escape and A Child's Nightmare," both of which hauntingly tell of the period when the author's life trembled in the balance. The poems in the latter division are full of quaint, idle, childish fancies and whimsical philosophising. That the author has lived in and loved Wales is shown in the" Letter to S.S. from Mametz Wood," and although he does not speak Welsh one feels that Wales can claim credit for at least one part of the book. There is something fresh' and new and buoyant in this volume, and yet Capt. Graves has not adopted the ultra- modern form of versification either in letter or spirit. At the same time, there is a kind of revolt against the old images, the stock-in-trade of the old would-be poet. At times the author reaches the highest height of beauty and poetry, and in conclusion one cannot do better than quote what is undoubtedly the finest poem in the whole volume-entitled, "1915"— 1915 I've watched the Seasons passing slow, so slow, In the fields between La Bassee and Bethune Primroses and the first warm day of spring, Red poppy floods of June, August, and yellowing Autumn, so To winter nights knee-deep in mud and snow, And you've been everything. Dear, you've been everything that I most lack In these soul-deadening trenches-pictures. books. Music, the quiet of an English wood, Beautiful comrade-looks, The narrow, bouldered mountain-track, The broad, full-bosomed ocean, green and black, And Peace, and all that's good." H. L/y. Gloucestershire Friends." F. W. Harvey. Sedg- wick & Jackson. 2s.6d. net. Pp. 71. Readers of Mr. Harvey's delightful Gloucestershire Lad will perhaps be a little disappointed with this second volume, written in a