MR. ANDREW LANG'S "LOST LEADERS."• IN our more serious and
conscientious moments, there are times when we rise in rebellion against the ever-growing practice of collecting and reprinting whatever, having any semblance of Lost Leaders. By Andrew Lang. London : Keg= Paul, Treneb, and Co. 1889.
unity, whether of subject or author—and here, of course, we are not speaking of a continuous tale—have at any time ap- peared in oar periodicals. There they have bloomed their hour, and might, in the natural course of events, have been left to fade, instead of rising up in renewed youth and seduc- tiveness to distract us from all our purposes of serious reading, and to render our minds more and more incapable of any pro- longed effort of attention or concentration. The more charming, of course, the more dangerous are these insidious foes ; and we would warn those of our readers who are still sustaining the unequal combat on the side of a steady aim and a higher purpose in reading, as against mere momentary dis-
traction and the thirst after novelty, on no account to open Mr. Andrew Lang's volume of Lost Leaders ; for assuredly, when they are once under the charm of that writer's bright, humorous, and appreciative comments on Life, Nature, and Literature, the promptings of their literary consciences will be coldly received.
Do not let the serious reader, judging from the title of any of these short " leaders," delude himself into the belief that he will get instruction out of any one of them, not even in salmon-fishing, for in a note at the end of the article with that heading, the author, with what we think unnecessary candour, goes out of his way to tell us that what he has so thrillingly narrated was, in fact, quite at variance with his actual ex- perience of the sport. But let such a reader, owning himself defeated for the moment, allow himself to drift into being very pleasantly and easily, and in no way extravagantly amused and interested, and we can guarantee him a quiet conscience, until the close of the volume at least.
Mr. Andrew Lang has read, and remembered, and noticed, and heard so much that is interesting and amusing, and he can so skilfully weave the scattered " oddments" of his memory round an unpromising subject, that we often find delight where we should be most prepared to be indif- ferent. He has the faculty in perfection of discriminating when a remark, pointless enough if directly uttered by the narrator himself, becomes even humorous when it, or some- thing very like it, is conveyed to us through the medium of some one else, however unimportant the some one else may be. This method, which comes naturally to those who, like Sam Weller, have a quick memory and a talent for comparison, and commends itself to many who shrink from the responsi- bility of making a remark entirely on their own account, may, of course, become very tiresome. Mr. Andrew Lang is never tiresome, though one or two of the later " leaders " are perhaps
a trifle forced.
A fair proportion of the articles deal with fishing and sports of various kinds. All these are vigorously written and inspiriting to the reader, and give occasion, also, for some of the author's most delightful descriptions of Nature. It is the fishing, however, more especially the trout-fishing, which is dearest to his heart, and allusions to this favourite sport crop up from time to time under different headings. Talking of hypochondria, one of the cures, when cure there may be, is, of course, trout-fishing, for " no man can be melancholy when the south wind blows in spring, when the soft, feathery March- browns flit from the alders and fall into the water, while the surface boils with the heads and tails of trout." Streams have
a great fascination at all times. There is one article devoted to " Scotch Rivers ;" or take, again, the following description,
which occurs in " Torrid Summer :"—
" Had a sage this power at this moment he would become a cow, standing up to her middle in the clear, cool water of the Kennet, under the shade of a hanging willow tree. What bliss can equal that of a cow thus engaged ? Her life must, indeed, be burning with a hard gem-like flame. She must be plucking the flower of a series of exquisite moments. The rich, deep grass, with the buttercups and forget-me-nots, is behind her, but she has had enough of that, and is open to more spiritual pleasures. The kingfishers and water-wagtails flit about her. The water-rat jumps into the stream with a, soft plash, and his black body scuttles along to the opposite bank. The green dragon-flies float hither and thither ; the beautiful frail-winged water-flies float over trout too lazy to snatch at them. The cow, in her sensuous nirvana, may see and marvel at the warm boating-man as he tows two stout young ladies in a heavy boat, or labours with the oar. Her pleasure is far more enduring than that of the bathers in the lasher up stream, and she has an enormous advantage over the contemplative man trying to lie on the grass and enjoy nature, for he really is not enjoying nature. The pleasures of lying on the grass are chiefly those of imagination. You cannot get into a truly comfortable position. Your back has a lump of grass under it here, or your arm tingles and falls asleep,' as children say. No attitude will enable you to read, and the black flies hover around and alight on such of your features as are tempting—to a fly.
Then you begin to be quite sure it is damp, and, as you have nothing else to sit on, you sit down on your book, which no one can call comfortable."
These, which are descriptive, are perhaps the happiest of all the " leaders." There are some which are pathetio. These are on such subjects as " Street Noises," " Club Bores," " Summer Nights," and " Lending of Books." Perhaps the pathos in the last-named is the most feelingly depicted; but here Mr. Andrew Lang is wide-minded and impartial; he looks on two sides of the question. Many have dilated upon the woes of lenders of books ; he dwells also upon the sufferings of borrowers :—" Thinking of these things, of these terrible, irreparable calamities, the wonder is, not that men still lend, but that any one has the courage to borrow. It is more dreadful far to spoil or lose a friend's book than to have our own lost or spoiled. Stoicism easily submits to the latter sorrow, but there is no remedy for a conscience sensible of its own unlucky giant." But few, happily for their peace of mind, have such sensible consciences.
On Montaigne, Thackeray, Samuel Pepys, the American humorists, Mr. Andrew Lang is, of course, pleasant to listen to; but these are the lightest of sketches, suited to the un- strung condition of mind of the reader of a daily paper who has waded through his political Slough of Despond, and much better than the generality of such readers of daily papers may hope for. Here is his description of Montaigne, and a specimen of the more serious parts of the book :- "Even in his old age, Montaigne was a gay, cheerful, untiring traveller, always eager to be going on, delighted with every place he visited, and yet anxious for constant change of scene and for new experience. To be amusingly and simply selfish is ever part of the charm of Montaigne. He adds to his reader's pleasure in life by the keenness with which he relished his own existence, and savoured every little incident as a man relishes the bouquet of wine. Without selfishness, how can this be managed ? and without perfect simplicity and the good faith on which he prided himself, how could Montaigne, how could Pepys, have enriched the world as they have done ? His essays are among the few works that really and literally make life more opulent with accumulated experience, criticism, reflection, humour. He gives of his rich nature, his lavish exuberance of character, out of that fresh and puissant century to this rather weary one, just as his society in youth might have been given to the sick old man. Besides what he has to give in this manner, Montaigne seems to express French character, to explain the French genius and the French way of looking at life, more clearly and completely than any other writer. He has at bottom the intense melancholy, the looking forward to the end of all, which is the ground-note of the poetry of Villon, and of Bonsard, as of the prose of Chateaubriand. The panelled library in Montaigne's chateau was carven with mottoes, which were to be charms against too great fear of death. For my part,' he says, if a man could by any means avoid death, were it by hanging a calf-skin on his limbs, I am one that would not be ashamed of the shift.' Happy it is, he thinks, that we do not, as a rule, meet death on a sudden, any more than we encounter the death of youth in one day. But this is only the dark background of the enjoyment of life, to which Montaigne clings, as he says, even too eagerly.' Merely to live, merely to muse over this spec- tacle of the world, simply to feel, even if the thing felt be agony, and to reflect on the pain, and on how it may best be borne—this is enough for Montaigne. This is his philosophy, reconciling in a way the maxims of the schools that divided the older worlds, the theories of the Stoic and wiser Epicurean. To make each moment yield all that it has of experience, and of reflection on that experience, is his system of existence."
Mr. Andrew Lang has given his classification of those interested in Letters :— " There are three classes of people who take an interest in letters. There are the persons who read books ; the much larger class which reads reviews ; and, again, they who merely skim over the advertise- ments of new works. The last set live in a constant enjoyment of the pleasure of expectation ; they pretend to themselves that some day they will find time to peruse the volumes in the birth of which they are interested,.but, in fact, they live in the future. They are d month ahead of their friends who read reviews, and six months of the students who actually devour books themselves."
We wonder where he would place those. whom the present volume delights. We suppose under the second heading, for not even the rejuvenescence of their present collected form could raise the reader of Mr. Andrew Lang's charming " leaders " to the dignity of a reader of books.
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