The Equinox (Volume I, Number V)

THE BIG STICK THE DWELLER ON THE THRESHOLD. ROBERT HICHENS. Methuen. ös. Mr Hichens once wrote “Flames,” This wasa pretty powerful book. To- day (tempted, as Ι suppose, by a heavy bribe, for he is an artist in his way) he gives us this book with a title borrowed, not from Lytton, whom he has obviously not read, but from some eighteenth-hand source, and contents borrowed from his own “ Flames.” Hence a tedious novel, dull novel, unconvincing novel, stupid novel, futile novel, pseudo<occult novel, banal novel, pot-boiling novel, senseless novel, tired novel, groundnut novel, pointless novel, unreal novel, fatuous novel, sorry novel, etc, etc., etc. The above method of filling space I took from Rabelais. Mr Hichens’ method is just as obvious. PANURGE. MYSTICISM. EVELYN UNDERHILL. Methuen, 15:. net. This lengthy treatise upon the simplest of subjects is more free from pedantry and theological bias than was perhaps to be expected. It is very complete in its way as regards Christian mysticism ; but the attempt to restrict the term mysticism to Christian mysticism must fail. It is indeed self— destructive. To exclude the authors of the Bhagavadgita, the Voice of the Silence, Konx Om Fax, and the Tao Teh King is to exclude by implication St Teresa, To deny Crowley is to deny Christ. Similarly, the attempt to define Magic in terms contrary to its tradition, is sectarian folly, I may disagree with Huxley, but I shall not confute him by saying that he was a bigoted opponent of Evolution. Roosevelt, in calling Thomas Paine a dirty little Atheist, when he was demonstrably a clean tall Deist, established only the record for falsehood. Mr 160