Selected Modern English Essays

Considering not a single one of these folk were born in the 20th century, it’s not exactly modern, but I’m sure they were in 1925. I picked up this small volume at a bookstall and I’ve been reading through them occasionally. It must look as though I don’t read all that much, considering how few posts per month there are, but actually I read every day; a lot of rereads, about which I won’t post, or junk, or books I don’t finish because they’re crap (like the Paul Bowles book I started on the weekend; it’s sadly a Graham Greene rip-off, and I can’t see why they bother republishing it). And things like this that I don’t read all in one go.

There’s an impressive author list involved; Joseph Conrad, John Galsworthy, Hilaire Belloc, G. K. Chesterton, E. M. Forster, Samuel Butler, and there’s even a woman, Alice Meynell. The writing quality is fairly good, although the subject matter is occasionally boring or incredibly dated. Chesterton comments on the difference between the French and the English. Edward Thomas, in a find, writes about his memories of a little cottage belonging to his aunt. There’s more than one reference to the war, of course. And Sir Walter Raleigh writes about why Don Quixote is so good, which is kind of apposite to some things I’ve been thinking and discussing recently.

Essays now I think would be very different. These are all very English. They’re mostly very formal, earnest. No one is particularly angry. I think it’s all right now to be angry, and to be whatever culture you like, and to be not quite serious. But in another way it’s nice that they feel the importance of London fog enough to write about it, or the ways of a country clergyman. They saw what was going before it went and that is a good thing.