THE WORLD OF BOOKS .sx EDMUND GOSSE .sx " The life and Letters of Edmund Gosse .sx " Edited by Evan Charteris , K.C. ( Heinemann .sx 25s .sx ) By Desmond MacCARTHY .sx Readers of the SUNDAY TIMES are probably more familiar than any other portion of the reading public with the critical talents of Edmund Gosse , who wrote in it from 1919 till his death .sx I am not forgetful of the fact that , if they still turn to these two columns expecting to find there something really worth reading , that propensity , so advantageous to me , is due to him .sx He was a born man-of-letters , and unexcelled as a literary journalist .sx He was a charming poet ; the author of several critical biographies of high value , and of one masterpiece of autobiography .sx " Father and Son .sx " And he was second only to Carlyle in the art of pen-portraiture .sx Thanks to his constant practise of this art , his name will be found by prosperity scattered up and down the modern literary history .sx There was an enthusiastic bustling eagerness to him to seek acquaintance with the great , the odd , and the notorious , and prosperity will profit .sx Simple enthusiasm for the great and gifted is apt to produce auto-combustions rather than portraits , and the hero-worshipper is apt to draw more attention to his admiration than to his hero .sx But , happily for literature , in Gosse this disposition was combined with a temperamental peculiarity , not so amiable in itself , which gave to his portraits a vivid objectivity and piquancy .sx While one of his eyes would be swimming with rapturous respect , the other would be fixed on its object with a mercilessly feminine scrutiny , which no mental or physical oddity escaped .sx As a portrait-painter his problem was to blend the reports of profound or affectionate admiration with a most irreverent astonishment .sx He solved it dexterously , thanks to a diction of admirable suavity and vividness , and by means of ceremonious approach and a twinkling touch .sx When he could weave into his interpretations the thread of personal impressions his criticism was at its best .sx When that was impossible , he sought by the accumulation of picturesque detail and amusing cross-references to supply the lack of that kind of knowledge .sx He succeeded marvellously well ; especially when his subject belonged to the seventeenth century , which he knew well both in England and France .sx An Anticipation .sx Before opening Mr. Charteris's " Life and Letters of Sir Edmund Gosse , " I asked myself what I expected of the biographer .sx I found it was a great deal , and saw it was a task difficult to perform .sx The book must be first and foremost the portrait of a man in whom literature and the practice of the art of writing were passions .sx but it must also be that of a man in whom other desires , apt to conflict with disinterested devotion , were , if not as constant , certainly constantly recurrent ; the desire for conspicuous eminence in the world , the desire to make or mar the reputations of others , the craving for immediate response in the form of affectionate admiration .sx I found also that I was asking his biographer to trace a career which , though barren in striking events , was full of agitation .sx Gosse would not be Gosse in these pages if emotional crises were not frequent occurrences ; and yet the occasions of them , with one or two exceptions , would often strike a reader as almost comically inadequate .sx The biographer would have to give an account of a marriage , singularly free from disruptive confusions so common in the domestic lives of imaginative men .sx ( There would be no revelations here to hold the reader's interest .sx ) The biographer , too , would have to give us the impression of a man at once cautious and impulsive , socially circumspect to the point of pedantry , and yet intensely combative and impulsive ; one to whom no wound inflicted upon his vanity would be a slight wound , who felt a scratch as though it was a heart-blow ; and yet one whose sensitiveness to the behaviour of others made him exquisitely considerate in return .sx He must strike us as a man who , like many women , love a quarrel provided a reconciliation is practically certain ; and as one who , if he loved flattery himself , was lavish in bestowing it .sx He must strike us as one likely to exasperate the virile , independent type of man , but one who brought a rare though rather precarious delight into the lives of those who seek in friendship the warmth of a perpetually demonstrative delicacy .sx We must realise that he was an amazingly witty , spontaneous and finished converser , who talked , even at his most fantastic high-spirited moments , with the accuracy and aplomb of a practised writer .sx The biographer should also give us an estimate of the value of Gosse's contributions to literary history , as well as a definition of his peculiar gifts as a critic .sx You see I was asking a great deal from his biographer .sx Gosse as Critic .sx Yet practically all those demands have been met by this book .sx Only Mr. Charteris does not attempt to appraise Gosse as a literary historian .sx On the other hand , his analysis of Gosse's critical gifts is admirable .sx In the preceding pages his letter must have made it abundantly clear that the art of writing was the passion of his life .sx His aim in criticism was to communicate that passion to others .sx He was gifted with the means for bringing this about , perhaps beyond all men of his time .sx .. He revealed the strength of his preferences but he banged no doors and brandished no sledge hammers .sx Literature was a house with many mansions , and turning a key of exquisite workmanship , and with a tread that never resounded , he threw open doors , to illuminate without pedantry or affectation the mansions that he entered .sx " I ask that literature should give me pleasure !sx I do not dictate to writers by what route they shall approach me , " he wrote in a review of Miss Bitwell's poems , a sentence which gives a clue to much of his charm as a critic .sx He certainly neglected no means by which that pleasure could be transmitted to the readers .sx That was one of the functions of the critic , to excite curiosity and interest , to rouse the reader by visions and persuade him of the enjoyment to be derived from a cultivated understanding of literature .sx " To dress her charms , and make her more beloved .sx .. " Gosse is a showman not a lecturer ; he eschews moral reflections , and as he passes to and fro among the company with which he has crowded his stage , he delights us with the banter and wit by which he draws attention to the individual figures , and the lightness with which he adores a weighty judgment or a pronouncement of discriminating insight .sx .sx .. It is impossible to take up any one of his volumes of critical reviews without being aware of the high spirits and genial vision with which he approached his task .sx " .sx " He is never dull ; he is always good to read .sx He threads his way through the landscape like a silver stream , even and clear , reflecting few shadows but a great deal of light - the reader must not look for deep still pools .sx That could not be better .sx Mr. Charteris in the last words quoted touches on Gosse's limitations as a critic .sx His interests , intellectual , moral , imaginative , were those of an intensely social nature ; and perhaps that is why his own poetry , though charming , was so slight .sx There was too little of the solitary in him to tempt him to interpret the thinking , feeling solitude in others - what the writer was to himself .sx What he was to those who surrounded him , in relation to the society of his day , in relation to the history of literature , the traditions which preceded him , he expounded with the greatest skill .sx He brought to the consideration of style and accomplishment the most instructed sensitiveness and capacity for delighted admiration ; but the creative impulse behind it , and the relation of the work in question to human life , were matters he preferred to touch upon rather than explore .sx It was as though the intense severity of his upbringing , so marvellously well described in " Father and Son , " had frightened him , for good and all , from peering again into depths .sx " Father and Son .sx " Mr Charteris has , of course , found his work as Gosse's biographer done as far as childhood is concerned .sx What he adds to " Father and Son " in his opening chapters is an illuminating appendix , showing how that struggle between two temperaments continued .sx He never glosses over weaknesses in his sitter , nor does he suppress letters which give them away more completely than comments .sx But these passages and letters will not impress the reader unduly against Gosse , if he recalls that he never allowed that black gulf of narrow but noble fanaticism to sever the love between his father and himself .sx It was a wonderful feat of patience and faithful reverence for human ties , and these high qualities he exhibited in all deeper relations .sx Gosse's Letters .sx One word in conclusion regarding the method by which Mr. Charteris has fulfilled his task .sx His biography is mainly a collection of letters , with introductory commentary at different stages , often so pointful that the reader wishes that , in proportion to the letters , brilliant and illuminating as they are , these introductions made up a larger part of the book .sx He has taken the easiest way , the safest way .sx He has made Gosse show himself .sx Gosse's letters are not only like his talk .sx They exhibit his master passion , his devotion to literature , and all those desires I mentioned which criss-crossed it .sx They show his immense power of enjoyment , his preoccupation with the chessboard of his career , his arts of propitiation and flattery , his gift for rapid amusing description , his response to beauty , his wit , malicious and playful , his touchiness , his craving for praise , his generosity in bestowing it , his elegant obsequiousness , his craving for affection , his love of success , his intense sociability .sx The selection is admirable , though here and there letters have been included the significance of which could have been more compendiously conveyed by comment .sx His Enthusiasm for Literature .sx As a rule the substitute for the interest of action in the biographies of literary men is the development of their minds .sx Here that guiding thread was too slight to cling to .sx Gosse's attitude towards literature remained what it was when he first awoke to its thrilling and varied delights ; his sensibility never changed , though his talents improved amazingly with practise and confidence .sx there was little or no development to trace .sx His career , therefore , was the only consecutive theme available ; his rapid rise , his occasional check , his final success .sx This ascending line , with its intermittent drops , is drawn in these pages , though more emphasis might have been laid , from this point of view , upon Gosse's connection with the SUNDAY TIMES .sx By 1919 , when his work on this paper began , he was already one of the most distinguished men of letters in England .sx The SUNDAY TIMES in no sense helped to make him .sx It could not deepen but it did widen his influence ; his name and opinions were henceforth more frequently on men's lips .sx The Churton Collins Episode .sx To the importance of the Churton Collins episode as a psychological factor in Gosse's career , increasing his innate sensitiveness , Mr. Charteris does subtle justice .sx In 1886 Gosse has at last reached the higher plateau of reputation .sx He was a literary pundit ; he had just been made , to his intense gratification , Clark Lecturer at Cambridge ; the varied liveliness of his writings had convinced ordinary readers that he was a man of great learning ; he was basking in the sunshine of general admiration .sx Suddenly , the east blackened and a storm burst on his head .sx His friend and rival , Churton Collins , reviewing his latest book " From Shakespeare to Pope , " scathingly exposed in the " Quarterly " its elementary blunders .sx Gosse had referred - and , too , in that unpretentious yet confident tone which those employ who have far more behind than they can show in the window - to authors of whom he was clearly ignorant .sx