THE ENGLISH REVIEW

London, England

April 1912

(page 334)

BOOKS OF THE MONTH.

POETRY.

The Whirlpool. By Ethel Archer. London, Wieland & Co. 1s. net.

This is a whirlpool and no mistake; a witches’ cauldron wherein suns and stars and souls, and Lilith and Sappho, and “whispering hair,” and corpses and poppies, jostle one another in a heaving brew of iridescent, quasi-putrescent ultra-modernity. Quite good reading, all the same. Take p. 44:—

“Ah me! What serpent hisses from out those purple ‘bysses.”

And we must thank the mysterious V. B. N. [Victor B. Neuburg] for a really inspired line:—

“Thou lyric laughter of the enfranchised Male.”

The enfranchised Male—ha, ha! Excellent fooling, i’faith! The naughty new “male,” smashing our windows with his inverted commas…..unless, indeed, as Mr. Aleister Crowley authoritatively hints in his sacerdotal preface, “abaaab=babbba and AaBCcAaBccAaBC.”…..In that case, why, of course…..But the time, we think, is hardly ripe for such disclosures, although the more intelligent among us may have seen a certain Writing upon the Wall, setting forth, in clearest language, that 1+1 = 3.

N. D.