St Ignatius College - Ignatian Yearbook (San Francisco, CA)

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ANDREW LANG Z7 meshes of his admirable portrayal of hidden human feelings and the relation thereto of the characters, the creatures of the great novelists. Lang has been compared in appearance and character to Robert Louis Stevenson, yet they worked in utterly di- verse fields of writing. Of especial interest therefore is the essay on Mr. Stevenson's works in the Essays in Little. It is the lover, writer, translator of fairy tales that says in the aforementioned essay: thus in the fogs and horrors of London he plays at being an Arabian tale teller, and his 'New Arabian Nights' are a new kind of romanticism- Oriental, freakish, like the work of a changeling. Indeed, this curious genius, springing from a family of Scottish engineers, resembles nothing so much as one of the fairy children, whom the ladies of Queen Proserpina's court used to leave in thescradles of Border keeps or of Peasant's cottages. The Letters to Dead Authors were very popular, al- though Lang confesses they are by no means his favorite work as they came too easily and do not sort well with his ideas of reverence. They are written in archaic style. They have been called neat things, easy, unpretentious, and give evidence of varied taste and wide knowledge. There is a masterly trend of playful imitation in the letter to Herodotus, with a basis of true English humor. The fol- lowing lines at the expense of British' climatic conditions fairly illustrate the style of the entire sketch: Now the island is not small, but large, greater than the whole of Hellasg and they call it Britain. In that island the east wind blows for ten parts of the year, and the people know not how to cover themselves from the cold. But for the other two months the sun shines fiercely so that some of them die thereof, and others die of the frozen mixed drinks, for they have ice even in the summer, and this ice they put to their liquor. Langls faults, for his scholarship was rather broad than

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26 IGNA TIAN To his having been nursed on the knees of the hills of the north fBallade of his own Countryj, as well as to his excursions into French literature was due, also, no doubt, the distinguishing grace of his writings. While chiefly occupied as scholar, translator, journalist, critic, Lang was a master of metrical forms. His .Ballades in Blue China won for him recognition, and his subsequent works in this line made him a worthy rival of Austin Dobson in his light, neat verses. Versatile and equally voluminous, he was ever about Hunresting and nomadic pursuits of new fields in letters fAthenaeumj. A new vogue for French forms had been set by Dobson, and here especially the influence of French, the mainspring of the dexterity and diversity of all of Lang's writings, is particularly seen. Besides the pleasant ease of his expression, Lang as a versiiier has embued with the same rare imagery that he summoned at will into his prose, such lines as these from The New Millennium in Rhymes a la Modev: Till slowly from the wrinkled skies, The fireless, frozen Sun shall wane, Nor summer come with golden grain, Till men be glad, mid frost and snow To live such equal lives of pain As now the hutted Eskimo. As a critic Andrew Lang was one of an illustrious trio, together with Edmund Gosse and Austin Dobson, whose services to belle-letters were immeasurable. Criticism in their hands was a means of keeping flying the colors of the highest literature, of all that makes and records the flower of civilization QI-Iomer and the Epicj. Any one of Lang's essays on our late masters, as Stev- enson, Dickens, Scott, or Thackeray, should persuade the reader to peruse, as well, its subject, or, if so fortunate, to peruse again, for who could fail to be caught in the

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28 IGNA TIAN deep, have detracted nothing from his true workfto traverse the field of belles-lettres, replenishing its byways With Scottish grace and Gallic artistry. So the tower of mine eminence leans was not written of himself, and, had it been, the recognition that pursues his name would have fore- stalled its effectiveness. William M. Queen. Mlrtahility The tender bloom of innocence-what thrills Of joy it brings to those who fondly gaze Upon its splendor. O, were it thus always! Alas! like wintry cold, temptation chills That growth so delicate-and all the ills That fallen flesh is heir to, blight the days Of future hope and honor, joy and praise: It fades, imbibes the death that sin instils. And is this life? Ah, death, a blessing thou To free us from vicissitude. Behold The dazzling sun, the mountain's noble brow, The sky perennial, and all unfold A realm of peaceful bliss, toward which e'en now We daily journey spite our woes untold. Raymond T. Feely.