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Page 56
We had long wanted to see Mr. McFee in his sea-going quarters,
where he writes his books and essays (so finely flavoured with a
rich ironical skepticism as to the virtues of folk who live on
shore). Never was a literary sanctum less like the pretentious
studios of the imitation litterateurs. In a small cabin stood our
friend, in his working dungarees (if that is what they are called)
talking briskly with the Chief and another engineer. The
conversation, in which we were immediately engulfed, was so
vivacious that we had small chance to examine the surroundings as we
would have liked to. But save for the typewriter on the desk and a
few books in a rack, there was nothing to suggest literature.
"Plutarch's Lives," we noticed--a favourite of Mac's since boyhood;
Frank Harris's "The Bomb" (which, however, the Chief insisted
belonged to him), E.S. Martin's "Windfalls of Observation," and some
engineering works. We envied Mac the little reading lamp at the head
of his bunk.
We wish some of the soft-handed literary people who bleat about only
being able to write in carefully purged and decorated surroundings
could have a look at that stateroom. In just such compartments Mr.
McFee has written for years, and expected to finish that night (in
the two hours each day that he is able to devote to writing) his
tale, "Captain Macedoine's Daughter." As we talked there was a
constant procession of in-comers, most of them seeming to the opaque
observation of the layman to be firemen discussing matters of
overtime. On the desk lay an amusing memorandum, which the Chief
referred to jocularly as one of Mac's "works," anent some problem
of whether the donkeyman was due certain overtime on a Sunday when
the _Turrialba_ lay in Hampton Roads waiting for coal. On the cabin
door was a carefully typed list marked in Mr. McFee's hand "Work to
Do." It began something like this:
_Main Engine Pump-Link Brasses
Fill Up Main Engine Feed Pump and Bilge Rams
Open and Scale After Port Boiler
Main Circulator Impeller to Examine
Hydrokineter Valve on Centre Boiler to be Rejointed_
The delightful thing about Mr. McFee is that he can turn from these
things, which he knows and loves, to talk about literary problems,
and can out-talk most literary critics at their own game.
He took us through his shining engines, showing us some of the
beauty spots--the Weir pumps and the refrigerating machinery and the
thrust-blocks (we hope we have these right), unconsciously
inflicting upon us something of the pain it gives the bungling jack
of several trades when he sees a man who is so fine a master not
merely of one, but of two--two seemingly diverse, but in which the
spirit of faith and service are the same. "She's a bonny ship," he
said, and his face was lit with sincerity as he said it. Then he
washed his hands and changed into shore clothes and we went up to
Frank's, where we had pork and beans and talked about Sir Thomas
Browne.
[Illustration]
FALLACIOUS MEDITATIONS ON CRITICISM
I
There are never, at any time and place, more than a few literary
critics of genuine incision, taste, and instinct; and these
qualities, rare enough in themselves, are further debilitated, in
many cases, by excessive geniality or indigestion. The ideal
literary critic should be guarded as carefully as a delicate thermal
instrument at the Weather Bureau; his meals, friendships, underwear,
and bank account should all be supervised by experts and advisedly
maintained at a temperate mean. In the Almost Perfect State (so many
phases of which have been deliciously delineated by Mr. Marquis) a
critic seen to become over-exhilarated at the dining table or to
address any author by his first name would promptly be haled from
the room by a commissionaire lest his intellectual acuity become
blunted by emotion.
The unfortunate habit of critics being also human beings has done a
great deal to impair their value to the public. For other human
beings we all nourish a secret disrespect. And therefore it is well
that the world should be reminded now and then of the dignity and
purity of the critic's function. The critic's duty is not merely to
tabulate literary material according to some convenient scale of
proved niceties; but to discern the ratio existing in any given work
between possibility and performance; between the standard the author
might justly have been expected to achieve and the standard he
actually attained. There are hierarchies and lower archies. A pint
pot, full (it is no new observation), is just as full as a bathtub
full. And the first duty of the critic is to determine and make
plain to the reader the frame of mind in which the author approached
his task.
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