Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

the records of their friends. prizes were beyond his reach. A life out short prevented Patrick Shaw - Stewart and many another of his kind from proving to the world the force and talent that were in them, and it is a pious duty to rescue them from oblivion. We would not, if we could, turn away from what Mr Knox calls "the imperfect monuments of a generation that died before its time." The more monuments, perfect or imperfect, the better shall we understand what we have lost in the great generation which has been taken from us. And what we And what we value most highly in these plain records, in these colleotions of familiar letters, is the detachment of mind which they they suggest. The men who became soldiers, not because soldiering was their business, but because they were discharging the duty they owed to their country, were no specialists. They needed no maps to explain their movements. As Mr Knox says, "their letters do not speak of advances or of hand-to-hand fighting, but of books, of quiet hours, of welcome rest-camps; they appeal, not for credit or sympathy, but for trivial daily needs, pathetio because trivial-bootpolish and pipe - cleaners and shaving-soap.'

[ocr errors]

Of those who died quietly and without parade none is better worth a record than Patrick Shaw - Stewart. He was, above all, a competent

If he felt that he had no definite vocation in life, he knew also that few of life's

He had that serviceable and efficient sort of brain which could be turned to any account. He passed through Eton and Balliol with an air of easy triumph. He won the Newcastle, the Ireland, the Hertford, and capped his career at Oxford by winning a fellowship at All Souls. Truly, as his kindly biographer says, he "was not one of the passengers of his generation." And it is his very distinction which makes the work of portraiture difficult. He was too busy in converting life into a success to express himself in literature. He left no lasting memory of himself in words, as did his friend Julian Grenfell. Whatever lay before him, he took in his stride without fuss and without emphasis. "He had a genius," says Mr Knox, "for relating means to ends, for doing just so much work as was required to gain this scholarship, for making just so much impression as was required to consolidate this acquaintanceship; and his whole life (I think) was mapped out on a plan which involved the acquisition of an assured position in the world before he began to toy with literature, with Movements, with serious politics.' In other words, there was a kind of worldliness in Patrick ShawStewart which he shared with very few of his contemporaries. He meant to get on, and not to sacrifice the hope of solid happiness to any forlorn hope of art or letters. His system of life, if rarely

[ocr errors]

applied, is clearly intelligible. The danger is that, when men have attained an assured position, the impetus "to toy with literature" is weak indeed. Literature is a jealous mistress, apt to punish severely the slights that are put upon her in youth. Alas! it is too late to speculate about what Patrick Shaw-Stewart might have done. It is enough to record that in many fields he accomplished as much as or more than the most of his friends and colleagues.

Moreover, as all those who knew Shaw-Stewart will remember, he purposely put stumbling-blocks in the path of those who would understand him. Mr Knox points out that he had acquired at Eton a habit of writing in a sort of parody of journalese. He did not think he was writing good English when he dealt in long words and stock phrases. He wanted you to know that what he said upon paper he put into inverted commas. And, as Mr Knox adds in a passage of clairvoyance, he was in inverted commas himself. He had a "fierce candour both about himself and about other people which sometimes left his friends aghast. He hated false enthusiasms and sham

his

certainties: an enthymeme, for him, should never do duty for a syllogism. He could not bear that any action of his should be ascribed to a good motive if there were any unworthy motive that had put a grain on the balance of decision." It was consonant with his character, then, that he should take the work that he did in the war lightly and gaily. He never complains or repines. The ready jest is on tongue; a literary allusion or reminiscence is always at the point of his pen. He found his way about the East with Homer and Herodotus for his guides. He recognised Eumæus when he met him on a Greek island, and belies at every turn the half-contempt which he poured upon his own scholarship as a means of deceiving the examiners. But that, of course, was only a part of his inverted pride. He died in France, fighting with the highest gallantry, and refusing, though wounded, to go back to Battalion H.Q. to be dressed. His life, so far as it went, was rounded and complete; and fortunate in many things, Patrick Shaw-Stewart was fortunate also in finding so profoundly sympathetic and so wisely understanding a biographer as Mr Knox.

Printed by William Blackwood and Sons.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][graphic][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

Entered as second-class matter, July 3, 1917, at the post once at New York, N. Y.. under

the Act of March 3, 1879

$5.00 Per Year.

Single Copy, 50 Cents

MONTHLY REVIEWS

Nineteenth Century and After Fortnightly Review Contemporary Review $7.00 each per year; any two, $13.50; the three, $20.00. Single copies, 75 cents

MONTHLY MAGAZINE

Blackwood's Magazine

$5.00 per year; single copies, 50 cents

QUARTERLY REVIEWS

Edinburgh Review

Quarterly Review

$5.00 each per year; the two $9.50 per year. Single copies $1.50
Blackwood's Magazine and one quarterly, $9.50 per year;
with two quarterlies, $13.50 per year

All subscriptions payable In New York funds

Subscriptions for less than six months at single copy prices
LEONARD SCOTT PUBLICATION CO.

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

BROADWAY, from 30th Street to Columbus Circle, ohanges its electric signs, idols, and habits with whirligig frequenoy according to the behaviour of its box-office receipts, its Press agents, and the officials who try their ineffeotive hardest to enforce the 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which which prohibits the manufacture and sale of liquor vitalised by more than one-half of 1 per cent alcohol.

Its traditions, however, remain unchangeable as fate. Among these are, that good fellowship is beyond humility, that the big drum is more effective than the lyre any day, and and that Englishmen have no sense of humour.

The

[blocks in formation]

Copyright in the United States of America.

VOL. CCVIII.-NO. MCCLVIII.

K

« ZurückWeiter »