Esphinge (a novel). Immortalidade, (likewise a novel). Treva, a book of five novelettes; Fabulario (short stories). As Sete Dores De N. Senhora, a noble, uplifting book of faith. Saudades, many very brief stories, all of which are attractive and charm with originality. Scenas e Perfis, short stories, too, and O Paraiso.
I am sorry books are advertised as they are in America today. It both lessens interest in buying and reading. Publishers ought to get together, like nations, and arrange a general disarmament plan. At least we might float, occasionally, the white flag of truce.
Every reader has his peculiarities of taste, touched always with emotion, which is something not amenable to reason. I personally prefer for pleasure, a book on falconry written by some acute and sensual oriental, to the detailed facts, marshalled accurately and dated of, say, the Newgate Calendar.
Ships fascinate me, the beginnings of navigation, Strabo’s Geography, maps, old globes, and the Hakluyt Voyages. When I read about a drawing made of a ship a thousand years old, I shiver as at some line of immortal verse. The great emotion sweeps me. Russel Clark wrote: The most beautiful expression of the hand of man is the sailing ship. Old shipping books interest me. And the adventures of whaling days. The mischances that befell the Whaling Barque, George Henry, kept me awake nights. And the wild-tongued, great Elizabethan Voyagers! I hope pictures have been kept of all the great old ships that ever sailed the seas!
I love gardens. But I do not enjoy reading about them. I hate to see words fade and die. I learn of gardens from painters, etchers. And then I try to remember them without words. In Persian and Indian Miniatures I have loved them best. And the flowers Renoir painted when he was old. Yet that old book Gerard’s Herbal still gives out some of the spiced sweetness of all gardens.
I doubt if in novel making there is such thing as Romanticism, Classicism. Critics, like creations of God He forgot to call good, may be little men, who see in part only, or else through a glass darkly. The two terms merely classify different degrees of visibility.
It is not strange that Dr. Jozef Muls, born in one of the world’s richest art cities, Antwerp, a city that knew Rubens, Quentin Matsys, and Breughel, should write about art. And he has written well.
His Modern Art, The Twilight of Flemish Art Cities, and From Greco to Cubism, (Van El Greco Tot Het Cubisme), give him indisputable rank among the foremost critics of the day. Not only are they penetrating and profound as criticism, but accurately documented, and sensitive, and written in delightful, sympathetic prose. He writes in two languages, French and Flemish; and in speech, he is master of many.
He has not only written books of art but books of travel, short stories, and books of verse. I keep in memory two pleasant booklets about cities. One is Rouen, by André Maurois, the other is Het Levende Oud-Antwerpen, by Jozef Muls. The latter has eight etchings by Vaes. Both books have the indescribable charm which love of the thing written about gives to words. He writes again of the city of his birth in De Val Van Antwerpen.