Hilaire Belloc, the man and his work

by C. Creighton Mandell; Edward Shanks

Now we must admit at the outset that Mr. Belloc's verse does not satisfy the reader, in the same sense that his prose satisfies. It is fragmentary, unequal, very small in bulk, apparently the outcome of a scanty leisure. But it is an ingredient in the mass of his writing that cannot be dismissed without discussion.

Mr. Belloc realizes to the full the position of poetry in life. He gives it the importance of an element which builds up and broadens the understanding and the spirit. He has written some, but not very much, literary criticism; and, of a piece with the rest of thinking, he thinks of poetry as a factor in, and a symptom of, the growth and maintenance of the European mind. He would not understand the facile critics who only yesterday dismissed this necessary element of literature as something which the modern world has outgrown.

But, curiously, he is a disappointing critic of Literature. His essays in this regard are, like his essays on anything else, obviously in touch with some substratum of connected thinking, a growth which springs from a settled and confident attitude towards man and the world. But they are, as it were, less in touch with it; they are more on the surface, more accidental, less continuous.

His little—very little—essays on the verse of the French Renaissance are extremely unsatisfactory. His criticism of Ronsard's Mignonne, allons voir si la rose is a little masterpiece of delicate discrimination:

If it be asked why this should have become the most famous of Ronsard's poems, no answer can be given save the "flavour of language." It is the perfection of his tongue. Its rhythm reaches the exact limit of change which a simple metre will tolerate: where it saddens, a lengthy hesitation at the opening of the seventh line introduces a new cadence, a lengthy lingering upon the last syllables of the tenth, eleventh and twelfth closes a grave complaint. So, also by an effect of quantities, the last six lines rise out of melancholy into their proper character of appeal and vivacity: an exhortation.

This passage, which, as a demonstration of method, is not altogether meaningless, even without the text beside it, shows the accuracy and nicety of his criticism. And Avril contains a number of similar observations which are valuable in the extreme as aids to judgement and pleasure. But the book has written all over it a confession, that this is a department of writing which the author is content, comparatively, to neglect. The essays are short and, again comparatively, they are detached: they examine each poem by itself, not in its general aspect. And it is, too, a singular example of book-making: there are more blank pages, in proportion to its total bulk, than one could have believed possible.

The rare studies dealing with poetry which one finds among his general essays also bear witness to his discrimination and determined judgement. The essay on José-Maria de Hérédia in First and Last is a remarkable example of these, a remarkable analysis of a poet who is, if not obscure, at least reticent and difficult to like, and in whom Mr. Belloc sees the recapturer of "the secure tradition of an older time." And this essay relates the spirit of a poet to the general conception of Europe and its destiny.

Such a relation is rare. Poetry seems to lie, to an extent, apart from Mr. Belloc's definite and consistent view of life. He takes other pleasures, beer, walking, singing and what not, with the utmost seriousness: this he treats, at bottom, casually and disconnectedly. We can just perceive how he links it up with his general conception of life, but we can only just see it. The link is there, but he has never strengthened it.

And when we turn from his opinions on other men's poetry to his own compositions, we find the same broad effect of casualness varied with passages of singular achievement. His verse is very small in bulk: between two and three thousand lines would cover as much of it as he has yet published. Within this restricted space there are numerous variations of type, but these, in verse, are so subtle and so fluid that we are forbidden to attempt a rigid classification.

What, then, is our impression on surveying this collection of poetry? It includes a number of small amusing books for children, a volume called Verses and a few more verses scattered in the prose, most notably (as being not yet collected) in The Four Men. The general impression is, as we have said, one of confusion and lack of order: verse, the revealing instrument, seems to be to Mr. Belloc a pastime for moments of dispersion, and most of these poems seem to point to intervals of refreshment, periods of a light use of the powers, rather than to the seconds of intense feeling whereof verse, either at the time or later, is the proper expression.