THE BOOKSELLER

London, England

4 August 1899

(page 681)

From Messrs. Kegan, Paul and Co. :—

Jephthah, and other Mysteries, Lyrical and Dramatic. By Aleister Crowley.

Mr. Crowley is a master of colour, if a little deficient in form and accuracy of outline. It would be easy, no doubt, to pick out place after place where the grammar is shaky, the meaning obscure, and the choice of epithet and noun determined more by the exigencies of rhyme than by natural appositeness; but where one recognises a certain reality of power in a writer, such extravagances may be passed over. When he condescends to leave his “mystic” heights and the enigmata that belong to those altitudes, Mr. Crowley composes well indeed. What could be better—in the Shelleyan vein—than this?

Sing, happy nightingale, sing;

Past is the season of weeping;

Birds in the woods are on wing,

Lambs in the meadow are leaping,

Can there be any delight still in the buttercup sleeping.

Much more also of the same quality, were there only the necessary space for further citation.