There were two literary mysteries in the 19th century—the identity of Fiona Macleod and the identity of Michael Field. The reason why Michael Field remained a mystery was largely due to indifference. The first book published over that name by a provincial bookseller had a great success of esteem; and the author was hailed as a great poet by Robert Browning and by many critical journals of 1884. Then a few people learned that Michael Field was two _women—Katharine Bradley and Edith Cooper, an aunt and a niece. Whether, as Miss Sturgeon wonders, the fact had anything to do with it or not, there is no doubt that from that time Michael Field's poems and plays, produced with great regularity, were very neglected. Far inferior poets were boomed, praised, and forgotten; most people forgot again who Michael Field was, and when first Miss Cooper and then Miss Bradley died, their passing meant very little except to a few students of modern English poetry. It is a crowning evidence, perhaps, of their obscurity that the most recent. anthology of women's verse should contain nothing by Michael Field.
Miss Sturgeon's book is mainly biographical and expository. We could wish the biographical part were longer and more detailed. Michael and Henry, as_ the two poets were generally called, were evidently exceptionally interesting people. It is the fashion to call them " Victorian," which, in date, they certainly were; but in spirit they recall rather the learned ladies of the French Court, or the earlier women who graced great nunneries. They were humanists rather than scholars, and their reception into the Roman Catholic Church seems a natural declaration of their intellectual and cultural allegiance as well as of their spiritual. The affection between the two was very rare and beautiful, and was wonder fully displayed in those dark days when Michael " was attacked by cancer six months before Henry's death on December 13, 1913. But she did not reveal the fact.. she nursed her fellow tenderly, hiding her own pain.and refusing an operation which might have been remedial, encouraging Henry in the composition that she still laboured at, and snatching moments herself to write poems which are among the most poignant in our language."
A Serres or TRaGEpIEs.
Michael Field's chief work was the long series of tragedies which have not yet been adequately considered by any critic. Miss Sturgeon wisely confines herself in this volume to exposition; but does not disguise her opinion as to the high quality of the work and supports it with ample quotation. Many of ithe-plays are full of great lines and beautiful images, and they have a dramatic quality at least as memorable as that in Mr.
Stephen Phillips's more highly appreciated work. In the writing of the plays the collaboration apspears to have been complete; it is not possible to separate Miss Bradley's work from Miss Cooper's—it was not possible for the authors themselves. With the lyrics it is different, and in judging them one can say confidently that Miss Cooper was the truer, intenser poet. She had an astonishing gift of phrase, as in Speak not, reveal not... There will In the unchallenged dark a mystery, And golden hair spring rapid in a tomb; while in her religious poems she handles old images with a sincerity which glows with new beauty, It is to be hoped that this essay will be followed by a selection from Michael Field's poetry, a selection which may make some reparation for the unjust neglect the work received in the author's lifetime.—The " Observer."" ind 8
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.