From Essays of the Year 1930-1931 Argonaut Press THE ESSAY EVERYONE who has hitherto attempted has failed to produce a satisfactory definition of the word “essay.” The reason for this failure is simple enough: it is that an essay may be almost any kind of shortish piece of prose for which no other name can be […]
This essay appears in his book It’s a Fine World (1930) New Statesman – , 1929 THE GODDESS A famous actress died not long ago, and it was easy to see from the comments in the newspapers that many now middle-aged men in Fleet Street had been her adoring slaves in their youth. An […]
A PUBLIC SERVANT by R. J. P. HEWISON Of erudition full, with due degrees, He wore his learning with conspicuous case; And, that no hint of don in him he found, Pressed both feet firmly on pragmatic ground. Pest-master of the bureaucratic craft— The minute, memorandum, précis, draft, The marginally annotated sneer, When to write […]
Preface of James Connolly: Portrait of a Rebel Father (1935) JAMES CONNOLLY AMONG the sixteen men who were executed after the failure of the Irish Insurrection of 1916 there was no nobler or more heroic figure than James Connolly. It was not necessary to share the faith for which he died in order to realise what […]
Oct 11, 1919 LO, THE POOR BOURGEOIS! IF there was one feature of the great railway strike more melancholy than another, it was the figure cut by a certain section of the middle-classes. For our part we have always been impatient of dull gibes at the middle-classes—gibes that are the boast of the artistic and […]
Feb 21, 1914 LUCK THE man we were talking to made no attempt to deny that it was most absurd that a law should be in force which could award (we do not, of course, prejudge the result of the appeal) £13,000 to a “common informer,” who had not informed anybody of anything they did […]
Nov 1, 1913 THE LEVITES SOMEONE, we believe, has divided the human race into three sexes—men, women, and clergymen. The great ages of the world have been those in which the men and women regarded the clergymen with suspicion. The gloomy ages of the world have been those in which they bowed down and worshipped […]
Oct 11, 1913 THE IMPORTANCE OF BAD MANNERS IT has been the custom for many years—probably ever since the grandchildren of Adam captured their first slave—to deplore the increasingly bad manners of the “lower classes.” During the past week a lady has published a book in which she describes the horrid effects which residence in […]
Oct 25, 1919 THE DEVIL THOSE who suffer from melancholy to such a degree that even to go to a music-hall seems a cheerful experience may easily find themselves one of these nights listening in the heart of London to a chorus in praise of the Devil. The chorus runs something like this: Give the […]
Robert Lynd 