Page:The Dial (Volume 68).djvu/139

Rh runs nor cries; and he is naked only in spots. He does not bid us repent, which is a blessing. But I wish he would follow the advice of another English critic and jump for joy, at times.

His urbanity is a nuisance, but if he lacks fervor and intensity in this collection, he has, here and elsewhere, the rarer quality of competence. I do not use the word in the critical sense; "a competent performance" of almost anything usually means one that is barely good enough. In the world of affairs the term has a more flattering meaning and a competent workman is understood to be an uncommonly good one. In law, according to Dr. Johnson, "a competent judge is one who has a right of jurisdiction in the case," and it is precisely in that sense that I call Solomon Eagle competent. He has the right of jurisdiction because he has the material for judgement and the hard mind which will not be abused. He cannot be imposed upon; but unlike those cowardly people who boast of their immunity, he does not go about in perpetual fear of giving a critical farthing to an undeserving beggar. He is generous. He gives the groat or the guinea, according to his mood, but he knows exactly why he gives it. My clearest impression of the last three months' reading of Solomon Eagle is that he likes Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu stories enormously; he admires their competence; he is amused and entertained by them. And he praises them. But he is no more likely to say that Sax Rohmer is the greatest of English romancers than to deny Euphues or Walter Bagehot or Herrick his due. His ear for the false note is amazingly keen; he detects it whether you are praising the Imagistes or dispraising Shakespeare or suggesting that d'Annunzio could not write. He is amazingly unmoved by literary reputations, even when they are recent. He is notably unconcerned with schools or movements, but he is ready to run them through the rather fine mesh of his mind, and if he doesn't grow boisterous about the good that remains, you must grant him that he never tries to pass off the faux bon in its place.

He has discrimination, which is, I suppose, the beginning and the middle and the end of culture. (I know it is the end.) And that is why Solomon Eagle so contentedly stands still. He will have to stand still until intelligence and his rare kind of competence become a movement themselves.

I do not know how or when that will happen, although I should like to behold the run for cover which might follow the announce-