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
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