If we have reached the parting of the ways in Ireland, Archbishop Mannix is the signpost to those who will take the trouble to read before they rush into hysteric hostility. There is something melodramatic, but not without its providential aspect, in his return to Europe. It is curious to think that the Twentieth Century opened finding Mercier, Mannix, and Wilson obscurely buried in college life, so closely related to abstract and metaphysical subjects that their very injection into international politics would have caused instant amusement to their former pupils. They were after the manner of Plato’s schoolmasters, whom in his republic he wished to govern the world. The world has never come nearer to the Platonic ideal than when Wilson proclaimed the doctrine of Self-determination among nations. Though Wilson failed in the gigantic task of imposing it upon the Allies, Archbishop Mannix has taken upon himself the duty of bringing it with logical severity to the notice of the British Government. Though living at the Antipodes, he has crossed two oceans in his consuming desire to see applied the supreme theory of modern times to the kindly and admiring people who gave him birth.

Economists tell us that the selling-value or price of any commodity is a function of its scarcity ; and we need no telling that artists and authors pay little attention to the economics of their work. They are lazy about it, because the marketing of their wares does not seem an attractive subject. How attractive are its principles, a little reflection will show. Samuel Butler had some interesting things to say on the relation of Art to Art Schools in Alps and Sanctuaries, and he suggested elsewhere that part of the education offered in these schools, if they were to be tolerated, should be a course of study in the prices of pictures at recent sales. There is something to be said for his view. Every collector studies sales ; and Robert Ross had instructive things to say about the value of attendance in the sale-room. Since, however, the course proposed by Butler, the example set by collectors, is not likely to be generally followed, criticism may seek briefly to define the conditions under which a maker, whether of pictures or of books, has to sell his wares, so that, by understanding these conditions, he may fulfil them to the best advantage.

Having gained permission from the Editor of BLACKFRIARS to contribute an article on Mrs. Meynell’s prose that should, as it were, balance Mr. Osbert Burdett’s recent article on her poetry, I find it well to set myself a wide and easy limit, and not attempt to appraise critically her writing, nor to discuss its technique, and only incidentally to settle the question of her “preciosity.” I am of Francis Thompson’s persuasion and do not know the body of her writing from its soul, and could love it for its very faults—if such were proved in it—so deeply have the beauties of its virtues ensnared me.

My subject, then, is not the prose of Mrs. Meynell, but Mrs. Meynell in her prose, who is its style.

In Miss Winifred Lucas’s Fugitives (1899) there are some lines which may have been intended for their writer’s friend, Mrs. Meynell, and which shall serve me as a text for this paper.

Since in the paths of mental liberty A finished saint,
To such as you ‘twere death to be A moment free Of thought’s restraint.

The first advertisement didn’t attract much attention. It was quite unclassified, and the advertisement editors, after a single glance, immediately put it down under Theatre Engagements. It ran simply, “Look out for The New Sin: Professor Laileb’s remarkable discovery: Satisfaction Guaranteed.” Naturally, the public merely supposed it to be the title of a new revue, and—already somewhat jaded—awaited the appearance of Press notices. But the next was far more formidable, appearing in the most expensive pages of the daily Press, and in very large letters all over the underground stations : “Professor Laileb’s Great Discovery. On Tuesday, September 27 (the date was about a month and a half ahead), Professor Laileb will lecture in the Albert Hall at 3 p.m. on The New Sin, recently discovered by him and now for the first time brought to the notice of the public. All seats free.” The mention of free seats and the Albert Hall made it clear that the Professor had money behind him, and was a person to be reckoned with; he was also a generous advertiser, and the leading daily papers lost no time in fishing out all they could in the way of information and writing him up as a Silly Season column. The public, though gravely afraid (from the use of the word “lecture”) that this particular form of transgression must be a System, needing (like the Physical Development and Memory-training Systems) stern months of self-discipline for its acquisition, nevertheless pricked up its ears, and was ready to know all about Professor Laileb that there was to be known.