Benson to be so fatuous as these phrases, like scores of others in the
book, would indicate. It is merely that heaven has been pleased to deprive
him of any glimmer of humour, and that he is the victim of a style which,
under an appearance of neatness and efficiency and honesty, is really
disorderly, loose, inefficient, and traitorous. His pages abound in
instances of the unfaithfulness of his style, which is continually giving
him away and making him say what he does not in fact want to say. For
example: "Such traces as one sees in the chapels of the Oxford Movement
... would be purely deplorable from the artistic point of view, if they
did not possess a historical interest." As if historical interest could
make them less deplorable from an artistic point of view! It might make
them less deplorable from another point of view. Three times he explains
the motif of the book. Here is the third and, at present, the last version
of the motif: "That whether we are conquerors or conquered, triumphant or
despairing, prosperous or pitiful, well or ailing, we are all these things
through Him that loves us." I seem to remember that the late Frances
Ridley Havergal burst into the world with this information I recommend her
works to Mr. Benson. In another of the introductions he says: "I think
that God put it into my heart to write this book, and I hope that he [not
He] will allow me to persevere.
Pages:
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208