A pleasant companion is Mr. Robert Lynd in Books and Authors". (Cobden - Sanderson, Phavies Inn, Holborn, 7s, 6d.) not merely pleasant but informative. To the young, feeling their. way among books, he has much to say which is of value; to those who have ceased to be young, and to whom the books and authors referred to in his volume are familiar, he is no less welcome.
He is never dull; he turns a phrase aptly; he is clear with the clarity that comes from clear thinking. In other words he knows what he is writing about, and how to express himself so that his reader will know, too. Old subjects; yes, but with that perennial freshness which springs from an exploring mind keen on investigating avenues of thought. It may be said of Mr. Lynd, as he has said of another, He is an expositor with high standards in life and literature, who worships beauty in the temple of reason. His essays, though slight in form, are rich in matter. They are fragments of a philosophy as well as comments on authors."
Bia Avrgors AND Lirrip AvTHORS.
Mr. Lynd's canvas is crowded with big authors and little authors. Notwithstanding, he keeps their identity clear enough. He has the knack, talent rather, of hitting off their characteristics in a stroke or two. As this of Keats "Keats was a score of Keatses He was luxuriant and ascetic, heroic and self-indulgent, an artist and a thinker, vulgar and an "aesthetic, perfect in phrase and gauche in phrase, melancholy and merry, sensual and spiritual, a cynic about worner and one of the great lovers, a teller of heart-easing tales and a would-be redeemer. Keats's life was not that of a planet beautifully poised as it_ wheels on its lonely errand. He was aman torn by conflicting demons—a martyr to poetry and love and, ultimately, to ideals of truth and goodness."
Take a more modern instance "Mr. Max Beerbohm is in danger of being canonized. Critics may quarrel about him, but it is only because the wreaths get in the way of one another, and every critic thinks that his should be on the top... One of the charms of Mr. Beerbohm is that he never pretends to be what he is not. He knows as well as anybody that he is-not an oak of the forest, but a choice bloom grown from seed in
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.