A DREAMER'S TALES.*
A. BOOK which is romantic without being sentimental is to-day a rare phenomenon. The very meaning of Romance seems almost lost in a world which wavers from a sham romanticism to a hollow realism. No one, indeed, would at- tempt a strict definition of this most elusive quality ; but it is clear at least that it depends on something more subtle than the mere outward trappings of a " romantic " period—the wigs and the elopements of King Charles's reign or the jousts and tourneys of King Arthur's. Nor is an extravagant departure from the facts of every-day life in itself enough to produce the truly romantic atmosphere, as is shown clearly by the example of Gulliver's travels. (It might be thought para- doxical to add the Arabian Nights ; but there is a clear-cut brilliance about even the most fantastic of them which often makes one hesitate to call them romantic.) In any case, we can give scarcely any account of the means by which Lord Dunsany has reduced his " huge cloudy symbols " to ink and paper. It is enough that we should be delighted at his success. The reader cannot help observing, however, the immense effect which is produced by Lord Dunsany's use and • "A Dreemer's Wes." By Lord Dansany. London : George Allen and Sons L6.J selection of proper names. A love of proper names is, per- haps, the most obvious criterion by which the imaginative mind may be detected. The possessor of such a mind will enjoy the wonderful chapter of Genesis, which describes the
descendants of Esau and ends with a list of the names of the dukes that came of Esau : " duke Timnah, duke Aluah, duke Jetheth, duke Aholibamah, duke Elab, duke Pinon, duke Kenaz, duke Teman, duke Mibzar, duke Magdiel, duke Proper names were appreciated, of course, by no one more than Milton. We cannot resist quoting some very famous lines from the first book of " Paradise Lost," which shows his mas- terly use of them m a manner from which Lord Dunsany may almost have derived his inspiration. It is the passage in which the poet compares the infernal legions to the heroes of antiquity, "And what resounds In Fable or Romance of Uther's Son, Begirt with British and Armoric Knights; And all who since, Baptiz'd or Infidel, Jousted in Aspramont or Montalban, Damasco, or Morocco, or Trebisond, Or whom Biserta sent from Afric shore When Charlemain with all his peerage fell By Fontarabia."
It was because Dr. Bentley failed to see, like Juliet, what there was in a name that in his famous edition of " Paradise Lost" he put the whole of this passage in square brackets, and added the following note :—
"Milton indeed in his prose works tells us that in his youth he was a great lover and reader of romances : but surely he had more judgement in his old age, than to clog and sully his poem with such romantic trash, as even then when he wrote was obsolete and forgot. To stuff in here a heap of barbarous words, without any ornament or poetical colouring, serving only to make his own argument, which he takes from the Scripture, to be supposed equally fabulous, would be such pedantry, such a silly boast of useless reading, as I will not charge him with : let his acquaintance and editor take it."
Part at least of the effect of such a list is dim to the fact that the names have only the vaguest associations for us, and that consequently we can devote our attention to their sounds.
But, unfortunately, nowadays fewer and fewer places remain about which the newspapers have not provided us with more or less sordid pieces of information. So it is that Lord Dunsany, to make sure of his effects, creates countries and peoples of his own. No encyclopaedia will ever give us statistical information about the rainfall in Arvle Woondery, or the exports from Arizim, or the barrage of the river Yann. But although the most characteristic of Lord Dunsany's tales are concerned with an imaginary world, yet, sometimes, by way of contrast, he weaves his dreams round
what one would have supposed the most unromantic objects of actual life. The vision of the beggars in Piccadilly, or the conversation on a waste piece of land between the "outcast things "—a cork, an unstruck match, a piece of cord, a broken kettle and Blagdaross, the old rocking-horse—is scarcely less full of the incident and spirit of romance than the delightful diary of " Idle Days on the Yann." But it is of the very
nature of these tales that they cannot be re-told in other words, and we can only justify our admiration by referring our readers to Lord Dunsany's book itself, from which, however, we select a short quotation :-
" And there came out also from the dark and steaming jungle to behold and rejoice in the sun the huge and lazy butterflies. And they danced, but danced idly, on the ways of the air, as some haughty queen of distant conquered lands might in her poverty and exile dance, in some encampment of the gypsies, for the mere bread to live by, but beyond that would never abate her pride to dance for a fragment more. And the butterflies sung of strange and painted things, of purple orchids and of lost pink cities and the monstrous colours of the jungle's decay. And they, too, were among those whose voices are not discernible by human ears. And aa they floated above the river, going from forest to forest, their splendour was matched by the inimical beauty of the birds who darted out to pursue them. Or sometimes they settled on the white and wax-like blooms of the plant that creeps and clambers about the trees of the forest ; and their purple wings flashed out on the great blossoms as, when the caravans go from /furl to Thane, the gleaming silks flaah out upon the snow, where the crafty merchants spread them one by one to astonish the moun- taineers of the Hills of Noon'
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