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of the poetical and the practical. It conveys the emotions aroused by the sight of these ships: it contains also sound information about them, obviously noted by an observer with some knowledge of boat-sailing. Compare it with the passage I have quoted above from Europe and the Faith, and you will see that, dissimilar as they are in subject and purpose, they have the same lucidity. And this quality, one which is admirable in itself (though perhaps a certain price must be paid for it), unites all Mr. Belloc's work and provides something which The Servile State and his most frivolous piece of fooling have in common.

IV

Possibly in time the greater part of Mr. Belloc's prose, tendencious as so much of it is, hasty and careless as nearly all of it is, may disappear. Even if it does so, the historical fact of his influence will remain and, I think, will not be forgotten; but it will then be a matter of social history rather than of literature. And his poetry is so small in extent, so unambitious in appearance, that one might be forgiven for thinking it inadequate to preserve in future times the memory of one who bulked so large in his own. Yet his verse is in some ways himself in epitome. Most even of his opinions can be found in it, and all his qualities-without some of the defects which circumstances have engendered in his prose.

It is, of course, the usual mixture-Mr. Belloc's objections to genres being apparently insuperable. He is, as every one knows, one of the most dexterous of light versifiers. The Bad Child's Book of Beasts,

More Peers, and The Modern Traveller are classics with an independent standing. These verses are a little in that vein:

"The Freshman ambles down the High,
In love with everything he sees,
He notes the very Midland sky,

He sniffs a more than Midland breeze.

'Can this be Oxford? This the place?'
(He cries)" of which my father said
The tutoring was a damned disgrace,
The creed a mummery, stuffed and dead ?

Is it from here the people come,
Who talk so loud and roll their eyes,
And stammer? How extremely rum!
How curious! What a great surprise."

The poem continues, and we come to this:

"I will not try the reach again,

I will not set my sail alone,

To moor a boat bereft of men
At Yarnton's tiny docks of stone.

But I will sit beside the fire,

And put my hand before my eyes,
And trace, to fill my heart's desire,
The last of all our Odysseys.

The quiet evening kept her tryst:
Beneath an open sky we rode,
And passed into a wandering mist
Along the perfect Evenlode,

The tender Evenlode that makes

Her meadows hush to hear the sound
Of waters mingling in the brakes,
And binds my heart to English ground.

A lovely river, all alone,

She lingers in the hills and holds
A hundred little towns of stone,

Forgotten in the western wolds.

He is the least obviously ambitious of poets; but his work in verse has the rocklike permanence of the sonnets of Hérédia whom he so much admires. He has not, it is true, any closer affinities with the French writer. His range is wider, his style is more flexible: his poems are executed in flesh, not in stone. But they themselves, their subjects and their phrases, give the same impression of scrupulous, unremittingly careful, choice. He seems to revolve a theme for many years before he clothes it in the quietly and beautifully appropriate language which is its only proper dress. His small production includes epigrams and little satires, carols and drinking-songs, ballads and sonnets and chanties. Not all of these are equally good. But they are all clearly written with much greater general care, with much more attention to the beauté du verbe, than his prose; and the best of them have a curious soundness of texture and a fullness of flavour that make his distinguishing qualities. And it is impressive to see how little he has written, considering the great outpouring of his prose. With most poets a small output, whatever else it may suggest, does not as a rule indicate great energy or great reserves of power. We know, however, that Mr. Belloc is not deficient in energy, that the small

volume of his verse cannot be a sign of flaccidness. It is explained by its own excellence. It is, as it were, the outlet of the artist in him, that artist who in prose has been submerged by considerations which to the rational man seemed more important.

And while the rational man has given himself, could not but give himself, to immediate work at immediate problems, the poet has expressed the fundamental ideas which underlie that philosophy of life. Mr. Belloc's poems do not lie aside from the rest of his work. They express his religion, his love of home, his love of friends, his love of "a good time"; and these are as essential to his philosophy as any views he may hold on politics or economics. And, in spite of their unambitious appearance, they will serve as an enduring representation of his work. It would indeed have been strange if a writer whose fantasies teach history and whose histories are as entertaining as novels had written poems which did anything less.

The Work of Mr. H. G. Wells

THE paragraphists and gossipers, who know such things, tell us that Mr. Wells is unable to speak in public. But perhaps the power of oratory is withering in the modern world. There are too many people. The busiest politician cannot make on more than a small proportion of those whom he would influence that direct and personal impact which was made by Gladstone and Mr. Bryan on subjugated and devoted audiences. A few thousands at most can gather within range of the speaker's voice: the rest of the nation must be reached through the medium of print. The speeches of Senator Hughes and M. Briand at the Washington Conference, which produced so deep an effect throughout the world, were conceived and delivered as oratory; but they came to an overwhelming proportion of the minds they were meant to influence in the shape of newspaper articles. And simultaneously Mr. Wells also was in Washington addressing the same audience in the same manner.

The importance of the direct personal impact must not even now be underrated. It cannot make a nation of enthusiasts; but it can leaven a nation with enthusiasts. Nevertheless, its importance is diminishing. The orator, with his physical gifts, is being reduced nearly to an equality with the publicist who may have none. The publicist grows in importance. When Mr. Wells went to Washington to comment on the proceedings there we were

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