In Defence of Mr. J. B. Priestley

Long and lean and lank
As is the soft, ribbed sea-sand.

In these days of ‘long and lean and lank’ men and women–men and women who, in Falstaff’s immortal phrase, look like ‘cheeseparings made after supper,’–I do not think it right to ridicule, to pour scorn upon, portly people. On the other hand, we ought to wish them well, to wish more room to their elbows. All honour to them, I say! Let them, like the seed that fell upon good ground, multiply themselves a thousand-fold!

(2)

Mr. Priestley, let me point out, resembles Falstaff in another matter also. He has, like his predecessor, abundance of humour. Of course, nobody can equal Falstaff in that line. At any rate, nobody has equalled him up to now. All that I can lay down at the moment, with as much authority as possible, is that he (Mr. Priestley) has qualified himself in it as much as, if not more than, the next man: which, for the present, is, I fancy, good enough praise. No wonder that it has fallen to him to write perhaps the best book extant on English humour.

(3)

Talking about writing the ‘best book’ upon this and that, it is, surely, no mere coincidence, I think, that Mr. Priestley should have written the ‘best book’ upon the English novel (the best short book, I mean), the ‘best book,’ after Hazlitt (whom, indeed, he resembles in some ways), upon the English comic characters, the ‘best book’ upon Thomas Love Peacock, the ‘best novel’ as well as the ‘best best-seller’ (if I may say so) of modern times (Angel Pavement and The Good Companions), some of the ‘best’ essays–critical and other–and three of the ‘best’ modern plays (Dangerous Corner and Laburnum Grove and Eden End): not to speak of the ‘best book’ upon English humour, of which mention has already been made, and the ‘best’ book upon England. The two greatest living essayists are himself and Mr. Robert Lynd (‘Y. Y.’ of the New Statesman): though it is true–regrettably true–that, after his (deservedly) dazzling success in the novel form, he has (let us hope, only temporarily) abandoned essay-writing. All the same, a few books of essays stand to his credit: of which by far the brightest is Open House: a book that called forth the most glorious eulogy from a writer of the distinction of Mr. H. M. Tomlinson: a writer, too, who never, if he can help it, praises any modern author. Why, some eminent persons have compared Mr. Priestley (as an essayist) to Hazlitt. Of course, one does not, in these days, write such long essays as the latter: there is simply not the time for them, even if there is the inclination, and, anyway, no journal would care to publish them: so that Mr. Priestley–or any other essayist, for that matter–is not in a position to display all, or even most, of his learning, wisdom, and mental gymnastics as the hermit of Winterslow was able to do. Moreover, it requires (does it not?) another Hazlitt to beat our well-known William: which, it only stands to reason, one dare not expect in these ‘thin and ghastly times of ours.’ Barring that, however, we can say with certainty that Mr. Priestley has come as near to Hazlitt as anybody has done: having the same range of subject, the same loftiness of thought, and the same polish of expression as his predecessor. Well, what more need be said concerning that?

(4)

From 1924 or 1925 to 1929 Mr. Priestley had been contributing essays regularly every week to the Saturday Review: then under the incomparable regime of Mr. Gerald Barry. Well, to digress for a moment, the Saturday of those days was simply coruscating with brilliant writing: with such stuff as ‘dreams are made on.’ Every issue of that celebrated weekly was a regular literary feast: a battle of wits, almost. Wordsworth has written of the French Revolution:

France standing on the top of golden hours,
And human nature seeming born again.

With some (pardonable) exaggeration, one can say the same thing of that period when the Saturday was the un-crowned king of English Weeklies. English literature looked as if it were being re-born: anyway, to be young at that time was (to quote the Lake Poet again) ‘very heaven.’ Almost all the writers in that journal were distinguished persons: ‘Stet’–welby, and Ivor Brown, and Gerald Gould, and Edward Shanks, and L. P. Hartley, and a host of others: but none more so than Mr. Priestley himself, who was, indeed, the noblest Roman of them all, who, ‘flamed in the forehead of the morning sky.’ Well, it is a pity that those days are gone: and more so that Mr. Priestley has taken to ‘fresh woods and Pastures new.’

(5)

Mr. Priestley, the while he was entertaining us with his essays–each a gem in itself,–was also writing criticism–literary criticism–of the best type. Indeed, he first became famous, not through his essays, which only served to enhance his already-won distinction, but through his book, English Comic Characters (John Lane), which produced a veritable ripple on the otherwise serene surface of the lake of English letters. He was then a very young man: in his early twenties, in fact. He is a young man, even now: being still on the right side of forty. Among his critical writings his earliest book is still his best. It contains, in my opinion, not only his best criticism, but also his best writing. This was followed by his collection of critical essays, called Figures in Modern Literature (also published by Lane), which won the applause of the late Sir Edmund Gosse and Mr. Arthur Waugh and others of the same calibre. Then came, in swift succession, his George Meredith and Thomas Love Peacock in the (new) English Men of Letters series, edited by Mr. (now) Sir J. C. Squire. About the former I shall not write much: disagreeing as I do with much of what he says of Meredith. I am, let me confess, not only a Priestley–but a Meredith–fan as well; and when these two literati clash I have no hesitation in plumping for the older gentleman. In that book Mr. Priestley, it will be remembered, propounded the curious thesis that Meredith was a great writer, but not a great man. I am perfectly aware that the author of the Egoist is in disfavour now, Thomas Hardy–and even some lesser lights–being exalted much above him. It has become quite a fashion for any and everybody to confess blatantly that he cannot understand Meredith. I fail to see that it is a matter for self-congratulation: on the contrary, the misfortune, in my opinion, is theirs, not Meredith’s. Meredith, no doubt, wrote freakishly in his later novels; and I am prepared to grant that the early part of One of Our Conquerors is a sheer insult to the English language. All this–and even more–may be admitted. But, surely, there remains–after every possible deduction has been made––something of Meredith that is unsurpassed in the literature of his country. Meredith is incomparably greater than Hardy, both as a man and as a writer. However, I shall not pursue the point further: except to deplore that such a discerning critic as Mr. Priestley should not have pressed his foot down on such literary flap-doodle. All the same, Mr. Priestley’s criticism in this book is as profound as in his other books: the late Lord Oxford called it ‘penetrating,’ and regarded it as the most intelligent estimate of Meredith that he had ever come across. Anyhow, his Peacock deserved the full-throated praise of Sir Edmund Gosse as the best book (so far) about that curious writer: Mr. Priestley, strangely enough, preferring the father-in-law to the son-in-law.

(6)

I should like my readers to understand that Mr. Priestley was famous even before he ‘launched on the Brahmaputra’– as he wittily said in another connection–of novel-writing: famous as a critic, and famous, also, as an essayist. Let this be remembered by those of his detractors who, now that Mr. Priestley is a ‘best–selling’ novelist, conveniently forget that fact and label him a ‘low-brow’ and, perhaps, the lowest brow that is alive. I know that Messrs. Desmond Mac-Carthy and R. Ellis Roberts and Hugh Ross Williamson (Editor of the Bookman–a magazine that is now incorporated with the London Mercury–and worshipper at the shrine of Mr. T. S. Eliot) are the deadliest detractors of Mr. Priestley. Mr. Mac-Carthy’s opinion is, certainly, valuable. But it is a fact that that gentleman has fallen upon evil days, allowing his critical perception to descend so low as to hail Mr. David Garnett as the master-novelist of the present day, and to applaud his every successive book, as the finest that he has seen for a whole generation, and so forth. When I have said this I have, I think, said all that need be said about Mr. Mac-Carthy’s present level of literary appreciation.

(7)

I have no space to write about Mr. Priestley’s The Good Companions and Angel Pavement and Faraway and Wonder Hero, nor of his earlier novels, Adam in Moonshine and Benighted and The Town Major of Miraucourt. They speak for themselves. If, as the poet says, painting the lily and gilding refined gold and adding perfume to the violet are matters of supererogation, then I cannot help thinking that singing the praises of these books is equally so. The construction, as well as the style, of Angel Pavement have touched the high-water mark of English novel-writing; and, as for his characters, Mr. Jess Oakroyd is perhaps the only figure in recent English fiction who will live for ever–taking his place among such immortals as Falstaff, and my Uncle Toby, and Mr. Micawber, and the two Wellers. This is the opinion of Mr. Robert Lynd also, which he set forth succinctly in a recent issue of John O’London’s Weekly.

(8)

Mr. Priestley needs no defence. But they have told it in Gath that he is a nobody in English letters. Well, it is a critical dictum to make the angels weep. ‘Where O’Flaherty sits is the head of the table,’ and where Mr. Priestley is modern English literature.