September
by . New York. George H. Doran Company. 1920. 12mo. 304 pp. $1.90.
THE faithful presentation of subjective drama, in all its complexity of emotional disturbances, demands a pen of extremely fine temper. Mr. Swinnerton’s pen is of that sort. In September, as elsewhere, it obeys the will of an artist who must have clarity without waste and truth without exaggeration; a skilled craftsman who makes plan and method a necessary adjunct to both. There is no waste, no clutter of odds and ends of persons, things, or events. A game of tennis, a swarming of bees, a dinner-party is a clear-cut isolated scene colored with a specific emotional effect; and the episodes compose into a novel which has the technical tightness of good drama. Beautiful writing, too, is a first principle of Mr. Swinnerton’s æsthetic code. It makes even the setting of this autumnal drama lovely and strangely poignant.
A subtle artistic economy is carried over into analysis of subjective emotion. ‘However much you say, there’s always something behind . . . . I should like to be like that.’ is Cherry Mant’s youthful compliment to Marian Forster’s maturity of thirty-eight. Behind the outward self-possession of the married elder woman is revealed a mind tormented with the rioting and jostling passions of youth, but ultimately ruled by the philosophy of her years and her fundamentally generous nature. With Nigel Sinclair she was “conscious of a new sense of alert, vitality.’ His youth and Cherry’s youth fomented the struggle in Marian’s own mind, made events symbolic of her inward clash of youth with maturity. Exhausted emotionally by these stresses, she was yet aware that ‘some instinct made her see the impossibility of continued love between herself and Nigel.’ Over her hatred and jealousy of Cherry prevailed an understanding of youth itself and the giving of youth to youth. ’It was nature; just as her own love was nature. It was inexplicable — merely the magnetic attraction of two bodies; not at all the harmony of two temperaments.’ The authors prime success is to have shown Marian Forster’s emotional life so that it reads like intimately known truth.
Mr. Swinnerton achieves a fine consistency in making the struggle wholly Marian’s. Objectively calm, self-mastered, a generous giver, she communicates her own qualities to others. Cherry’s refusal to marry Nigel out of loyalty to Marian is at once her reward and her pain. To Cherry she says: ‘Of’ course any idea that I’m in love with Nigel is ridiculous. Women of my age don’t fall quickly in love. Why, he ’s a dozen years younger than I am. How absurd. I like him very much. We’re friends.’
A rereading of September increases one’s sense of the difficulty of Mr. Swinnerton’s task, and correspondingly increases one’s conviction of the truth and beauty with which he has performed it.
H. T. F.