fense in a little monograph, "D. H. Lawrence, an American Interpretation," of which the main contention, couched in very mixed metaphors, is that Mr. Lawrence is a great genius who is striving to do our Western world good. Mr. Seligman's expression of this thought is memorable: "D. H. Lawrence, like a well tempered chisel or some sharp boring instrument, goes to America's vitals, not to destroy but to strip off the lies and duality and subterfuges that prevent its voice singing out." One doesn't ordinarily use a "boring instrument" as a stripping instrument, but when by such an operation one can get "singing" out of a nation's "vitals" one shouldn't be too particular.
Something there is discussable and even exciting in Mr. Lawrence. There is much of England and Europe in him, and quite a bit now of Australia and the United States. The World War is in him and a violent individualistic reaction against war and the pressure of mobs and the crush of democracies upon the "isolate" self; see "Kangaroo." There is much current emotion and contemporary psychological interpretation of it in him. He appears to possess abundant energy and drive and more and more definiteness of purpose and direction. It is surmised in some quarters that the future is going his way and that he is close at its heels. Of the little group with the "bloom" on them, which James discussed a dozen years ago, he seems still as well worth watching as any. If what he will do next cannot be surely predicted, that is a considerable element in our interest.
This much can be said with assurance: His novels do not leave you where they found you. They have designs upon you. They quicken your consciousness, enlarge your capacity for feeling. They invade you,
