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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/27116-0.txt b/27116-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ebc1164 --- /dev/null +++ b/27116-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9841 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN +STREET *** + + + + +WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET + +by + +GRANT OVERTON + +Author of "The Women Who Make Our Novels" + + + + + + + +New York +George H. Doran Company + +Printed in the United States of America + +Copyright, 1922, +by George H. Doran Company + +WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET. + +Press of +J. J. Little & Ives Company +New York, U. S. A. + + + + +FOR +GEORGE H. DORAN +WHO HAD THE IDEA + + + + +PREFACE + +I have borrowed my title from two remarkable novels. + +_If Winter Comes_, by A. S. M. Hutchinson, was published in the autumn of +1921 by Messrs. Little, Brown & Company of Boston. + +_Main Street_, by Sinclair Lewis, was published in the autumn of 1920 by +Messrs. Harcourt, Brace & Company of New York. + +I have not before me the precise figures of the amazing sales of these two +books--each passed 350,000--but I make my bow to their authors and to +their publishers and to the American public. I bow to the authors for the +quality of their work and to the publishers and the public for their +recognition of that quality. + +These two substantial successes confirm my belief that the American public +in hundreds of thousands relishes good reading. Without that belief, this +book would not have been prepared; but I have prepared it with some +confidence that those who relish good reading will be interested in the +chapters that follow. + +As a former book reviewer and literary editor, as an author and, now, as +one vitally concerned in book publishing, my interest in books has been +fundamentally unchanging--a wish to see more books read and better books +to read. + +From one standpoint, _When Winter Comes to Main Street_ is frankly an +advertisement; it deals with Doran books and authors. This is a fact of +some relevance, however, if, as I believe, the reader shall find +well-spent the time given to these pages. + + Grant Overton. + +19 July 1922. + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER + + I THE COURAGE OF HUGH WALPOLE 15 + + II HALF-SMILES AND GESTURES 33 + + III STEWART EDWARD WHITE AND ADVENTURE 55 + + IV WHERE THE PLOT THICKENS 68 + + V REBECCA WEST: AN ARTIST 78 + + VI SHAMELESS FUN 88 + + VII THE VITALITY OF MARY ROBERTS RINEHART 102 + + VIII THEY HAVE ONLY THEMSELVES TO BLAME 118 + + IX AUDACIOUS MR. BENNETT 133 + + X A CHAPTER FOR CHILDREN 152 + + XI COBB'S FOURTH DIMENSION 166 + + XII PLACES TO GO 187 + + XIII ALIAS RICHARD DEHAN 196 + + XIV WITH FULL DIRECTIONS 212 + + XV FRANK SWINNERTON: ANALYST OF LOVERS 225 + + XVI AN ARMFUL OF NOVELS, WITH NOTES ON THE NOVELISTS 244 + + XVII THE HETEROGENEOUS MAGIC OF MAUGHAM 270 + + XVIII BOOKS WE LIVE BY 293 + + XIX ROBERT W. CHAMBERS AND THE WHOLE TRUTH 308 + + XX UNIQUITIES 321 + + XXI THE CONFESSIONS OF A WELL-MEANING YOUNG MAN, + STEPHEN MCKENNA 334 + + XXII POETS AND PLAYWRIGHTS 347 + + XXIII THE BOOKMAN FOUNDATION AND THE BOOKMAN 366 + + EPILOGUE 372 + + INDEX 373 + + + + +PORTRAITS + + PAGE +HUGH WALPOLE 17 +STEWART EDWARD WHITE 57 +REBECCA WEST 79 +MARY ROBERTS RINEHART 103 +ARNOLD BENNETT 135 +IRVIN S. COBB 167 +FRANK SWINNERTON 227 +W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM 271 +STEPHEN McKENNA 335 + + + + +WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE COURAGE OF HUGH WALPOLE + + +=i= + +Says his American contemporary, Joseph Hergesheimer, in an appreciation of +Hugh Walpole: "Mr. Walpole's courage in the face of the widest scepticism +is nowhere more daring than in _The Golden Scarecrow_." Mr. Walpole's +courage, I shall always hold, is nowhere more apparent than in the choice +of his birthplace. He was born in the Antipodes. Yes! In that magical, +unpronounceable realm one reads about and intends to look up in the +dictionary.... The precise Antipodean spot was Auckland, New Zealand, and +the year was 1884. + +The Right Reverend George Henry Somerset Walpole, D.D., Bishop of +Edinburgh since 1910, had been sent in 1882 to Auckland as Incumbent of +St. Mary's Pro-Cathedral, and the same ecclesiastical fates which took +charge of Hugh Seymour Walpole's birthplace provided that, at the age of +five, the immature novelist should be transferred to New York. Dr. Walpole +spent the next seven years in imparting to students of the General +Theological Seminary, New York, their knowledge of Dogmatic Theology. Hugh +Seymour Walpole spent the seven years in attaining the age of twelve. + +Then, in 1896, the family returned to England. Perhaps a tendency to +travel had by this time become implanted in Hugh, for now, in his late +thirties, he is one of the most peripatetic of writers. He is here, he is +there. You write to him in London and receive a reply from Cornwall or the +Continent. And, regularly, he comes over to America. Of all the English +novelists who have visited this country he is easily the most popular +personally on this side. His visit this autumn (1922) will undoubtedly +multiply earlier welcomes. + +Interest in Walpole the man and Walpole the novelist shows an increasing +tendency to become identical. It is all very well to say that the man is +one thing, his books are quite another; but suppose the man cannot be +separated from his books? The Walpole that loved Cornwall as a lad can't +be dissevered from the "Hugh Seymour" of _The Golden Scarecrow_; without +his Red Cross service in Russia during the Great War, Walpole could not +have written _The Dark Forest_; and I think the new novel he offers us +this autumn must owe a good deal to direct reminiscence of such a +cathedral town as Durham, to which the family returned when Hugh was +twelve. + +[Illustration: HUGH WALPOLE] + +_The Cathedral_, as the new book is called, rests the whole of its effect +upon just such an edifice as young Hugh was familiar with. The Cathedral +of the story stands in Polchester, in the west of England, in the county +of Glebeshire--that mythical yet actual county of Walpole's other novels. +Like such tales as _The Green Mirror_ and _The Duchess of Wrexe_, the aim +is threefold--to give a history of a certain group of people and, at the +same time, (2) to be a comment on English life, and, beyond that, (3) to +offer a philosophy of life itself. + +The innermost of the three circles of interest created in this powerful +novel--like concentric rings formed by dropping stones in water--concerns +the life of Archdeacon Brandon. When the story opens he is ruling +Polchester, all its life, religious and civic and social, with an iron +rod. A good man, kindly and virtuous and simple, power has been too much +for him. In the first chapter a parallel is made between Brandon and a +great mediæval ecclesiastic of the Cathedral, the Black Bishop, who came +to think of himself as God and who was killed by his enemies. All through +the book this parallel is followed. + +A certain Canon Ronder arrives to take up a post in the Cathedral. The +main thread of the novel now emerges as the history of the rivalry of +these two men, one simple and elemental, the other calculating, selfish +and sure. Ronder sees at once that Brandon is in his way and at once +begins his work to overthrow the Archdeacon, not because he dislikes him +at all (he _likes_ him), but because he wants his place; too, because +Brandon represents the Victorian church, while Ronder is on the side of +the modernists. + +Brandon is threatened through his son Stephen and through his wife. His +source of strength,--a source of which he is unaware--lies in his +daughter, Joan, a charming girl just growing up. The first part of the +novel ends with everything that is to follow implicit in what has been +told; the story centres in Brandon but more sharply in the Cathedral, +which is depicted as a living organism with all its great history behind +it working quickly, ceaselessly, for its own purposes. Every part of the +Cathedral life is brought in to effect this, the Bishop, the Dean, the +Canons--down to the Verger's smallest child. All the town life also is +brought in, from the Cathedral on the hill to the mysterious little +riverside inn. Behind the town is seen the Glebeshire country, behind +that, England; behind England, the world, all moving toward set purposes. + +The four parts of the novel markedly resemble, in structure, acts of a +play; in particular, the striking third part, entirely concerned with the +events of a week and full of flashing pictures, such as the scene of the +Town Ball. But the culmination of this part, indeed, the climax of the +whole book, comes in the scene of the Fair, with its atmosphere of +carnival, its delirium of outdoor mood, and its tremendous encounter +between Brandon and his wife. The novel closes upon a moment both fugitive +and eternal--Brandon watching across the fields the Cathedral, lovely and +powerful, in the evening distance. The Cathedral, lovely and powerful, +forever victorious, served by the generations of men.... + +=ii= + +Courage, for Hugh, must have made its demand to be exercised early. We +have the "Hugh Seymour" of _The Golden Scarecrow_ who "was sent from +Ceylon, where his parents lived, to be educated in England. His relations +having for the most part settled in foreign countries, he spent his +holidays as a minute and pale-faced 'paying guest' in various houses where +other children were of more importance than he, or where children as a +race were of no importance at all." It would be a mistake to confer on +such a fictional passage a strict autobiographical importance; but I think +it significant that the novel with which Walpole first won an American +following, _Fortitude_, should derive from a theme as simple and as strong +as that of a classic symphony--from those words with which it opens: "'T +isn't life that matters! 'T is the courage you bring to it." From that +moment on, the novel follows the struggle of Peter Westcott, in boyhood +and young manhood, with antagonists, inner and outer. At the end we have +him partly defeated, wholly triumphant, still fighting, still pledged to +fight. + +Not to confuse fiction with fact: Hugh Walpole was educated at Kings +School, Canterbury, and at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. When he left the +university he drifted into newspaper work in London. He also had a brief +experience as master in a boys' school (the experiential-imaginative +source of _The Gods and Mr. Perrin_, that superb novel of underpaid +teachers in a second-rate boarding school). The war brought Red Cross work +in Russia and also a mission to Petrograd to promote pro-Ally sentiment. +For these services Walpole was decorated with the Georgian Medal. + +What is Hugh Walpole like personally? Arnold Bennett, in an article which +appeared in the Book News Monthly and which was reprinted in a booklet, +says: "About the time of the publication of _The Gods and Mr. Perrin_, I +made the acquaintance of Mr. Walpole and found a man of youthful +appearance, rather dark, with a spacious forehead, a very highly +sensitised nervous organisation, and that reassuring matter-of-factness of +demeanour which one usually does find in an expert. He was then busy at +his task of seeing life in London. He seems to give about one-third of the +year to the tasting of all the heterogeneous sensations which London can +provide for the connoisseur and two-thirds to the exercise of his vocation +in some withdrawn spot in Cornwall that nobody save a postman or so, and +Mr. Walpole, has ever beheld. During one month it is impossible to 'go +out' in London without meeting Mr. Walpole--and then for a long period he +is a mere legend of dinner tables. He returns to the dinner tables with a +novel complete." + +In the same magazine, in an article reprinted in the same booklet, Mrs. +Belloc Lowndes, that excellent weaver of mystery stories and sister of +Hilaire Belloc, said: "Before all things Hugh Walpole is an optimist, with +a great love for and a great belief in human nature. His outlook is +essentially sane, essentially normal. He has had his reverses and +difficulties, living in lodgings in remote Chelsea, depending entirely +upon his own efforts. Tall and strongly built, clean-shaven, with a wide, +high forehead and kindly sympathetic expression, the author of _Fortitude_ +has a refreshing boyishness and zest for enjoyment which are pleasant to +his close friends. London, the home of his adoption, Cornwall, the home of +his youth, have each an equal spell for him and he divides his year +roughly into two parts: the tiny fishing town of Polperro, Cornwall, and +the pleasure of friendships in London. 'What a wonderful day!' he was +heard to say, his voice sounding muffled through the thickest variety of a +pea-soup fog. 'It wouldn't really be London without an occasional day like +this! I'm off to tramp the city.' It is one of Hugh Walpole's +superstitions that he should always begin his novels on Christmas Eve. He +has always done so, and he believes it brings him luck. Often it means the +exercise of no small measure of self-control, for the story has matured in +his mind and he is aching to commence it. But he vigorously adheres to his +custom, and by the time he begins to write his book lies before him like a +map. 'I could tell it you now, practically in the very words in which I +shall write it,' he has said. Nevertheless, he takes infinite trouble with +the work as it progresses. A great reader, Hugh Walpole reads with method. +Tracts of history, periods of fiction and poetry, are studied seriously; +and he has a really exhaustive heritage of modern poetry and fiction." + +Perhaps since Mrs. Lowndes wrote those words, Mr. Walpole has departed +from his Christmas Eve custom. At any rate, I notice on the last page in +his very long novel _The Captives_ (the work by which, I think, he sets +most store of all his books so far published) the dates: + + POLPERRO, JAN. 1916, + POLPERRO, MAY 1920. + +=iii= + +The demand for the exercise of that courage of which we have spoken can be +seen from these further details, supplied by Arnold Bennett: + +"At the age of twenty, as an undergraduate of Cambridge, Walpole wrote +two novels. One of these, a very long book, the author had the +imprudence to destroy. The other was _The Wooden Horse_, his first +printed novel. It is not to be presumed that _The Wooden Horse_ was +published at once. For years it waited in manuscript until Walpole had +become a master in a certain provincial school in England. There he +showed the novel to a fellow-master, who, having kept the novel for a +period, spoke thus: 'I have tried to read your novel, Walpole, but I +can't. Whatever else you may be fitted for, you aren't fitted to be a +novelist.' Mr. Walpole was grieved. Perhaps he was unaware, then, that a +similar experience had happened to Joseph Conrad. I am unable to judge +the schoolmaster's fitness to be a critic, because I have not read _The +Wooden Horse_. Walpole once promised to send me a copy so that I might +come to some conclusion as to the schoolmaster, but he did not send it. +Soon after this deplorable incident, Walpole met Charles Marriott, a +novelist of a remarkable distinction. Mr. Marriott did not agree with the +schoolmaster as to _The Wooden Horse_. The result of the conflict of +opinion between Mr. Marriott and the schoolmaster was that Mr. Walpole +left the school abruptly--perhaps without the approval of his family, +but certainly with a sum of £30 which he had saved. His destination was +London. + +"In Chelsea he took a room at four shillings a week. He was twenty-three +and (in theory) a professional author at last. Through the favouring +influence of Mr. Marriott he obtained a temporary job on the London +Standard as a critic of fiction. It lasted three weeks. Then he got a +regular situation on the same paper, a situation which I think he kept for +several years. _The Wooden Horse_ was published by a historic firm. +Statistics are interesting and valuable--_The Wooden Horse_ sold seven +hundred copies. The author's profits therefrom were less than the cost of +typewriting the novel. History is constantly repeating itself. + +"Mr. Walpole was quite incurable, and he kept on writing novels. _Maradick +at Forty_ was the next one. It sold eleven hundred copies, but with no +greater net monetary profit to the author than the first one. He made, +however, a more shining profit of glory. _Maradick at Forty_--as the +phrase runs--'attracted attention.' I myself, though in a foreign country, +heard of it, and registered the name of Hugh Walpole as one whose progress +must be watched." + +=iv= + +Not so long ago there was published in England, in a series of +pocket-sized books called the _Kings Treasuries of Literature_ (under the +general editorship of Sir A. T. Quiller-Couch), a small volume called _A +Hugh Walpole Anthology_. This consisted of selections from Mr. Walpole's +novels up to and including _The Captives_. The selection was made by Mr. +Walpole himself. + +I think that the six divisions into which the selections fell are +interesting as giving, in a few words, a prospectus of Walpole's work. The +titles of the sections were "Some Children," "Men and Women," "Some +Incidents," "London," "Country Places," and "Russia." The excerpts under +the heading "Some Children" are all from _Jeremy_ and _The Golden +Scarecrow_. The "Men and Women" are Mr. Perrin and Mrs. Comber, from _The +Gods and Mr. Perrin_; Mr. Trenchard and Aunt Aggie, from _The Green +Mirror_; and Mr. Crashaw, from _The Captives_. The "Incidents" are chosen +with an equal felicity--we have the theft of an umbrella from _The Gods +and Mr. Perrin_ and, out of the same book, the whole passage in which Mr. +Perrin sees double. There is also a scene from _Fortitude_, "After Defeat." +After two episodes from _The Green Mirror_, this portion of the anthology +is closed with the tragic passage from _The Captives_ in which Maggie +finds her uncle. + +Among the London places pictured by Mr. Walpole in his novels and in this +pleasant anthology are Fleet Street, Chelsea, Portland Place, The Strand, +and Marble Arch. The selections under the heading "Country Places" are +bits about a cove, the sea, dusk, a fire and homecoming. The passages that +relate to Russia are taken, of course, from _The Dark Forest_ and _The +Secret City_. + +Not the least interesting thing in this small volume is a short +introductory note by Joseph Conrad, who speaks of the anthology as +"intelligently compiled," and as offering, within its limits, a sample of +literary shade for every reader's sympathy. "Sophistication," adds Mr. +Conrad, "is the only shade that does not exist in Mr. Walpole's prose." He +goes on: + +"Of the general soundness of Mr. Walpole's work I am perfectly convinced. +Let no modern and malicious mind take this declaration for a left-handed +compliment. Mr. Walpole's soundness is not of conventions but of +convictions; and even as to these, let no one suppose that Mr. Walpole's +convictions are old-fashioned. He is distinctly a man of his time; and it +is just because of that modernity, informed by a sane judgment of urgent +problems and wide and deep sympathy with all mankind, that we look forward +hopefully to the growth and increased importance of his work. In his +style, so level, so consistent, Mr. Hugh Walpole does not seek so much for +novel as for individual expression; and this search, this ambition so +natural to an artist, is often rewarded by success. Old and young interest +him alike and he treats both with a sure touch and in the kindest manner. +In each of these passages we see Mr. Walpole grappling with the truth of +things spiritual and material with his characteristic earnestness, and in +the whole we can discern the characteristics of this acute and sympathetic +explorer of human nature: His love of adventure and the serious audacity +he brings to the task of recording the changes of human fate and the +moments of human emotion, in the quiet backwaters or in the tumultuous +open streams of existence." + +=v= + +There is not space here to reprint all of Joseph Hergesheimer's +Appreciation of Hugh Walpole, published in a booklet in 1919--a booklet +still obtainable--but I would like to quote a few sentences from the close +of Mr. Hergesheimer's essay, where he says: + +"As a whole, Hugh Walpole's novels maintain an impressive unity of +expression; they are the distinguished presentation of a distinguished +mind. Singly and in a group, they hold possibilities of infinite +development. This, it seems to me, is most clearly marked in their +superiority to the cheap materialism that has been the insistent note of +the prevailing optimistic fiction. There is a great deal of happiness in +Mr. Walpole's pages, but it is not founded on surface vulgarity of +appetite. The drama of his books is not sapped by the automatic security +of invulnerable heroics. Accidents happen, tragic and humorous; the life +of his novels is checked in black and white, often shrouded in grey; the +sun moves and stars come out; youth grows old; charm fades; girls may or +may not be pretty; his old women---- + +"But there he is inimitable. The old gentlewomen, or caretakers, dry and +twisted, brittle and sharp, repositories of emotion--vanities and malice +and self-seeking--like echoes of the past, or fat and loquacious, with +alcoholic sentimentality, are wonderfully ingratiating. They gather like +shadows, ghosts, about the feet of the young, and provide Mr. Walpole with +one of his main resources--the restless turning away of the young from the +conventions, prejudices and inhibitions of yesterday. He is singularly +intent upon the injustice of locking age about the wrists of youth; and, +with him, youth is very apt to escape, to defy authority set in years ... +only to become, in time, age itself." + +Perhaps this is an anti-climax: The University of Edinburgh has twice +awarded the Tait Black Prize for the best novel of the year to Mr. +Walpole--first for _The Secret City_ in 1919 and then for _The Captives_ +in 1920. + +BOOKS BY HUGH WALPOLE + +Novels: + THE WOODEN HORSE + THE GODS AND MR. PERRIN + (In England, MR. PERRIN AND MR. TRAILL) + THE GREEN MIRROR + THE DARK FOREST + THE SECRET CITY + THE CAPTIVES + THE CATHEDRAL + +Romances: + MARADICK AT FORTY + THE PRELUDE TO ADVENTURE + FORTITUDE + THE DUCHESS OF WREXE + THE YOUNG ENCHANTED + +Short Stories: + THE GOLDEN SCARECROW + JEREMY + THE THIRTEEN TRAVELLERS + +Belles-Lettres: + JOSEPH CONRAD--A Critical Study. + +SOURCES ON HUGH WALPOLE + +Hugh Walpole: An Appreciation, by Joseph Hergesheimer, GEORGE H. DORAN +COMPANY. + + +English Literature During the Last Half Century, by J. W. Cunliffe, THE +MACMILLAN COMPANY. + +A Hugh Walpole Anthology, selected by the author. LONDON: J. M. +DENT & SONS. NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY. + +Hugh Walpole, Master Novelist. Pamphlet published by GEORGE H. DORAN +COMPANY. (Out of print.) + +Who's Who [In England]. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +HALF-SMILES AND GESTURES + + +=i= + +Half-smiles and gestures! There is always a younger generation but it is +not always articulate. The war may not have changed the face of the world, +but it changed the faces of very many young men. Faces of naïve enthusiasm +and an innocent expectancy were not particularly noticeable in the years +1918 to 1922. The sombreness, the abruptness, the savage mood evident in +the writings of such men as Barbusse and Siegfried Sassoon were abandoned. +Confronted with the riddle of life, spared the enigma of death, the young +men have felt nothing more befitting their age and generation than the +personal "gesture." + +If you ask me what is a gesture, I can't say that I know. It is something +felt in the attitude of a person to whom one is talking or whose book one +is reading. And the gesture is accompanied, in some of our younger +writers, with an expression that is both serious and smiling. These +half-smiles are, I take it, youth's comment on the riddle of a continued +existence, on the loss of well-lost illusions, on the uncertainty of all +future values. What is there worth trying for? It is not too clear, hence +the gesture. What is there worth the expenditure of emotion? It is +doubtful; and a half-smile is the best. + +Such a writer, busily experimenting in several directions, is Aldous +Huxley. This child of 1894, the son of Leonard Huxley (eldest son and +biographer of Prof. T. H. Huxley) and Julia Arnold (niece of Martha Arnold +and sister of Mrs. Humphry Ward), has with three books of prose built up a +considerable and devoted following of American readers. First there was +_Limbo_. Then came _Crome Yellow_, and on the heels of that we had the +five stories--if you like to call them so--composing _Mortal Coils_. I +have seen no comment more penetrating than that of Michael Sadleir, +himself the author of a novel of distinction. Sadleir says: + +"Already Huxley is the most readable of his generation. He has the +allurement of his own inconsistency, and the inconsistency of youth is its +questing spirit, and, consequently, its chief claim to respect. + +"At present there are several Huxleys--the artificer in words, the amateur +of garbage, pierrot lunaire, the cynic in rag-time, the fastidious +sensualist. For my part, I believe only in the last, taking that to be the +real Huxley and the rest prank, virtuosity, and, most of all, +self-consciousness. As the foal will shy at his own shadow, so Aldous +Huxley, nervous by fits at the poise of his own reality, sidesteps with +graceful violence into the opposite of himself. There is a beautiful +example of this in _Mortal Coils_. Among the stage-directions to his play, +'Permutations Among the Nightingales,' occur the following sentences: +'Sydney Dolphin has a romantic appearance. His two volumes of verse have +been recognised by intelligent critics as remarkable. How far they are +poetry nobody, least of all Dolphin himself, is certain. They may be +merely the ingenious products of a very cultured and elaborate brain.' + +"The point is not that these words might be applied to the author himself, +but rather that he knows they might, even hopes they will, and has sought +to lull his too-ready self-criticism by, so to speak, getting there first +and putting down on paper what he imagines others may think or write of +him. + +"Huxley is a poet and writer of prose. His varied personalities show +themselves in both. The artificer in words is almost omnipresent, and God +forbid that he ever vanish utterly. The disciple of Laforgue has produced +lovely and skilful things, and one is grateful for the study of the French +symbolists that instigated the translation of 'L'Apres-midi d'un Faune.' +In 'The Walk' the recapture of Laforgue's blend of the exotic and the +everyday is astonishingly complete. + +"The cynic is as accomplished as the Pierrot and 'Social Amenities,' parts +of 'Soles Occidere et Redire Possunt,' and, in _Limbo_, 'Richard Greenow' +(first 100 pages) and 'Happy Families' are syncopated actuality, and the +mind jigs an appreciative shoulder, as the body jerks irresistibly to +'Indianola.' + +"There remains Huxley the sensualist, a very ardent lover of beauty, but +one that shrinks from the sordid preamble of modern gallantry, one that is +apprehensive of the inevitable disillusionment. As others have done, as +others will do, he finds in imagination the adventure that progress has +decreed unseemly. + +"The reader who is shocked by 'slabby-bellies,' 'mucus,' 'Priapulids'; the +reader who is awed by the paraded learning of 'Splendour by Numbers,' by +the deliberate intricacy of 'Beauty,' or the delicate fatigue of 'The +Death of Lully' in _Limbo_--these are no audience for an artist. It +tickles the author's fancy, stretches his wits, flatters his deviltry to +provoke and witness such consternation and such respect. But the process +is waste of time, and a writer of Huxley's quality, whatever his youth, +has never time to waste." + +=ii= + +Readers who have chuckled over _Guinea Girl_ or have read with the +peculiar delight of discovery _The Pilgrim of a Smile_ are astonished to +learn that its author is, properly speaking, an engineer. Norman Davey, +born in 1888 (Cambridge 1908-10) is the son of Henry Davey, an engineer of +eminence. After taking honours in chemistry and physics, Norman Davey +travelled in America (1911), particularly in Virginia and Carolina. Then +he went to serve as an apprentice in engineering work in the North of +England and to study in the University of Montpellier in France. + +His first book was _The Gas Turbine_, published in London and now a +classic on its subject. In the four years preceding the war he contributed +articles on thermodynamics to scientific papers. It is only honest to add +that at the same time he contributed to Punch and Life--chiefly verse. + +After the war he had a book of verse published in England and followed it +with _The Pilgrim of a Smile_. He has travelled a good deal in Spain, +Italy, Sweden, and his hobby is book collecting. This is all very well; +and it explains how he could provide the necessary atmosphere for that +laughable story of Monte Carlo, _Guinea Girl_; but one is scarcely +prepared for _The Pilgrim of a Smile_ by those preliminaries in +thermodynamics--or in Punch. The story of the man who did not ask the +Sphinx for love or fame or money but for the reason of her smile is one of +the most intelligible of the gestures characteristic of literature since +the war. + +=iii= + +The gesture as such is perhaps most definitely recognised in the charming +book by John Dos Passos, _Rosinante to the Road Again_. This, indeed, is +the story of a gesture and a quest for it. The gesture is that of Castile, +defined in the opening chapter in some memorable words exchanged by +Telemachus and his friend Lyæus: + +"'It's the gesture that's so overpowering; don't you feel it in your arms? +Something sudden and tremendously muscular.' + +"'When Belmonte turned his back suddenly on the bull and walked away +dragging the red cloak on the ground behind him I felt it,' said Lyæus. + +"'That gesture, a yellow flame against maroon and purple cadences ... an +instant swagger of defiance in the midst of a litany to death the +all-powerful. That is Spain ... Castile at any rate.' + +"'Is "swagger" the right word?' + +"'Find a better!' + +"'For the gesture a mediæval knight made when he threw his mailed glove at +his enemy's feet or a rose in his lady's window, that a mule-driver makes +when he tosses off a glass of aguardiente, that Pastora Imperio makes +dancing....'" + +I do not know whether one should classify _Rosinante_ as a book of travel, +a book of essays, a book of criticisms. It is all three--an integrated +gesture. Certain interspersed chapters purport to relate the wayside +conversations of Telemachus and Lyæus--dual phases of the author's +personality shall we say?--and the people they meet. The other chapters +are acute studies of modern Spain, with rather special attention to modern +Spanish writers. One varies in his admiration between such an essay as +that on Miguel de Unamuno and such an unforgettable picture as the vision +of Jorge Manrique composing his splendid ode to Death: + +"It had been raining. Lights rippled red and orange and yellow and green +on the clean paving-stones. A cold wind off the Sierra shrilled through +clattering streets. As they walked the other man was telling how this +Castilian nobleman, courtier, man-at-arms, had shut himself up when his +father, the Master of Santiago, died, and had written this poem, created +this tremendous rhythm of death sweeping like a wind over the world. He +had never written anything else. They thought of him in the court of his +great dust-coloured mansion at Ocaña, where the broad eaves were full of a +cooing of pigeons and the wide halls had dark rafters painted with +arabesques in vermilion, in a suit of black velvet, writing at a table +under a lemon tree. Down the sun-scarred street, in the cathedral that was +building in those days, full of a smell of scaffolding and stone dust, +there must have stood a tremendous catafalque where lay with his arms +around him the Master of Santiago; in the carved seats of the choirs the +stout canons intoned an endless growling litany; at the sacristy door, the +flare of the candles flashing occasionally on the jewels of his mitre, the +bishop fingered his crosier restlessly, asking his favourite choir-boy +from time to time why Don Jorge had not arrived. And messengers must have +come running to Don Jorge, telling him the service was at the point of +beginning, and he must have waved them away with a grave gesture of a long +white hand, while in his mind the distant sound of chanting, the jingle of +the silver bit of his roan horse stamping nervously where he was tied to a +twined Moorish column, memories of cavalcades filing with braying of +trumpets and flutter of crimson damask into conquered towns, of court +ladies dancing and the noise of pigeons in the eaves drew together like +strings plucked in succession on a guitar into a great wave of rhythm in +which his life was sucked away into this one poem in praise of death." + +=iv= + +The Column is an American institution. What is meant, of course, is that +daily vertical discussion of Things That Have Interested Me by different +individuals attached to different papers and having in common only the +great gift of being interested in what interests everybody else. Perhaps +that is not right, either. Maybe the gift is that of being able to +interest everybody else in the things you are interested in. Of all those +who write a Column, Heywood Broun is possibly the one whose interests are +the most varied. It is precisely this variety which makes his book _Pieces +of Hate: and Other Enthusiasms_ unique as a collection of essays. He will +write on one page about the boxing ring, on the next about the theatre, a +little farther along about books, farther on yet about politics. He makes +excursions into college sports, horse racing and questions of fair play; +and the problems of child-rearing are his constant preoccupation. + +Consider some of his topics. We have an opening study of the literary +masterpiece of E. M. Hull, the novel celebrating the adventures of Miss +Diana Mayo and the Sheik Ahmed Ben Hassan. The next chapter deals with +Hans Christian Andersen and literary and dramatic critics. Pretty soon we +are discussing after-dinner speeches, Babe Ruth and Jack Dempsey. If this +is a gesture, all I can say is, it is a pinwheel; and yet Broun writes +only about things he knows about. Lest you think from my description that +_Pieces of Hate_ is a book in a wholly unserious vein, I invite you to +read the little story, "Frankincense and Myrrh." + +"Once there were three kings in the East and they were wise men. They read +the heavens and they saw a certain strange star by which they knew that in +a distant land the King of the World was to be born. The star beckoned to +them and they made preparations for a long journey. + +"From their palaces they gathered rich gifts, gold and frankincense and +myrrh. Great sacks of precious stuffs were loaded upon the backs of the +camels which were to bear them on their journey. Everything was in +readiness, but one of the wise men seemed perplexed and would not come at +once to join his two companions who were eager and impatient to be on +their way in the direction indicated by the star. + +"They were old, these two kings, and the other wise man was young. When +they asked him he could not tell why he waited. He knew that his +treasuries had been ransacked for rich gifts for the King of Kings. It +seemed that there was nothing more which he could give, and yet he was not +content. + +"He made no answer to the old men who shouted to him that the time had +come. The camels were impatient and swayed and snarled. The shadows across +the desert grew longer. And still the young king sat and thought deeply. + +"At length he smiled, and he ordered his servants to open the great +treasure sack upon the back of the first of his camels. Then he went into +a high chamber to which he had not been since he was a child. He rummaged +about and presently came out and approached the caravan. In his hand he +carried something which glinted in the sun. + +"The kings thought that he bore some new gift more rare and precious than +any which they had been able to find in all their treasure rooms. They +bent down to see, and even the camel drivers peered from the backs of the +great beasts to find out what it was which gleamed in the sun. They were +curious about this last gift for which all the caravan had waited. + +"And the young king took a toy from his hand and placed it upon the sand. +It was a dog of tin, painted white and speckled with black spots. Great +patches of paint had worn away and left the metal clear, and that was why +the toy shone in the sun as if it had been silver. + +"The youngest of the wise men turned a key in the side of the little black +and white dog and then he stepped aside so that the kings and the camel +drivers could see. The dog leaped high in the air and turned a somersault. +He turned another and another and then fell over upon his side and lay +there with a set and painted grin upon his face. + +"A child, the son of a camel driver, laughed and clapped his hands, but +the kings were stern. They rebuked the youngest of the wise men and he +paid no attention but called to his chief servant to make the first of all +the camels kneel. Then he picked up the toy of tin and, opening the +treasure sack, placed his last gift with his own hands in the mouth of the +sack so that it rested safely upon the soft bags of incense. + +"'What folly has seized you?' cried the eldest of the wise men. 'Is this a +gift to bear to the King of Kings in the far country?' + +"And the young man answered and said: 'For the King of Kings there are +gifts of great richness, gold and frankincense and myrrh. + +"'But this,' he said, 'is for the child in Bethlehem!'" + +=v= + +Editor of the London Mercury, J. C. Squire has the light touch of the +columnist but limits himself somewhat more closely to books and the +subjects suggested by them. Very few men living can write about books with +more actual and less apparent erudition than Mr. Squire. Born in 1884, +educated at Cambridge, an editor of the New Statesman, a poet unsurpassed +in the field of parody but a poet who sets more store by his serious +verse, Mr. Squire can best be appreciated by those who have just that +desultory interest in literature which he himself possesses. I have been +looking through his _Books in General_, _Third Series_, for something +quotable, and I declare I cannot lift anything from its setting. It is all +of a piece, from the essay on "If One Were Descended from Shakespeare" to +the remarks about Ben Jonson, Maeterlinck, Ruskin, Cecil Chesterton and +Mr. Kipling's later verse (which I have nowhere seen more sensibly +discussed). + +Well, perhaps these observations from the chapter "A Terrifying +Collection" will give the taste! It appears that an anonymous donor had +offered money to the Birmingham Reference Library to pay for the gathering +of a complete collection of the war poetry issued in the British Empire. +After some preliminary comment, Mr. Squire concludes: + +"If that donor really means business I shall be prepared to supply him +with one or two rare and special examples myself. I possess tributes to +the English effort written by Portuguese, Japanese and Belgians; and pæans +by Englishmen which excel, as regards both simplicity of sentiment and +illiteracy of construction, any foreign composition. Birmingham is not +noted for very many things. It is, we know, the only large city in the +country which remains solidly Tory in election after election. It +produced, we know, Mr. Joseph and Mr. Austen Chamberlain. It has, we know, +something like a monopoly in the manufacture of the gods in wood and brass +to which (in his blindness) the heathen bows down; and there are all sorts +of cheap lines in which it can give the whole world points and a beating. +But it has not yet got the conspicuous position of Manchester or +Liverpool; and one feels that the enterprise of this anonymous donor may +help to put it on a level with those towns. For, granted that its +librarians take their commission seriously, and its friends give them the +utmost assistance in their power, there seems every reason to suppose that +within the next year the City of Birmingham will be the proud possessor of +the largest mound of villainously bad literature in the English-speaking +world. Pilgrims will go to see it who on no other account would have gone +to Birmingham; historians will refer to it when endeavouring to prove that +their own ages are superior to ours in intelligence; authors will inspect +it when seeking the consoling assurance that far, far worse things than +they have ever done have got into public libraries and been seriously +catalogued. The enterprise, in fact, is likely to be of service to several +classes of our fellow-citizens; and it cannot, as far as I am able to see, +do harm to any. It should therefore be encouraged, and I recommend anyone +who has volumes of war-verse which he wishes to get rid of to send them +off at once to the Chief Librarian of Birmingham." + +Oh, yes! _Books in General_, _Third Series_, is by Solomon Eagle. Mr. +Squire explains that the pen name Solomon Eagle has no excuse. The +original bearer of the name was a poor maniac who, during the Great Plague +of London, used to run naked through the streets with a pan of coals of +fire on his head crying, "Repent, repent." + +Too late I realise my wrongdoing, for what, after all, is _Books in +General_ as compared to Mr. Squire's _Life and Letters_? As a +divertissement, compared to a tone poem; as a curtain-raiser to a +three-act play. _Life and Letters_, though not lacking in the lighter +touches of Mr. Squire's fancy, contains chapters on Keats, Jane Austen, +Anatole France, Walt Whitman, Pope and Rabelais of that more considered +character one expects from the editor of the London Mercury. This is not +to say that these studies are devoid of humour; and those chapters in the +volume which are in the nature of interludes are among the best Mr. Squire +has written. Unfortunately I have left myself no room to quote the +incomparable panegyric (in the chapter on "Initials") to the name of John. +Read it, if your name is John; you will thank me for bringing it to your +attention. + +=vi= + +One expects personality in the daughter of Margot Asquith, and the readers +of the first book by Princess Antoine Bibesco (Elizabeth Asquith) were not +disappointed. The same distinction and the same unusual personality will +be found in her new book, _Balloons_. Princess Bibesco's _I Have Only +Myself to Blame_ consisted of sixteen short stories the most nervously +alive and most clearly individualised of feminine gestures. The quality of +Princess Bibesco's work, in so far as purely descriptive passages can +convey it, may be realised from these portraits of a father and mother +which open the story called "Pilgrimage" in _I Have Only Myself to +Blame_: + +"My father was one of the most brilliant men I have ever known but as he +refused to choose any of the ordinary paths of mental activity his name +has remained a family name when it should have become more exclusively his +own. If anything, my mother's famous beauty cast far more lustre on it +than his genius--which preferred to bask in the sunshine of intimacy or +recline indolently in the shady backwaters of privacy and leisure. And yet +in a way he was an adventurer--or rather an adventurous scientist. He was +often called cynical but that was not true--he was far too dispassionate, +too little of a sentimentalist to be tempted by inverted sentimentalism. +Above all things he was a collector--a collector of impressions. His +psychological bibelots were not for everyone. Some, indeed, lay open in +the vitime of his everyday conversation but many more lay hidden in +drawers opened only for the elect. + +"Undoubtedly, in a way, my mother was one of his masterpieces. Her beauty +seemed to be enhanced by every hour and every season. At forty suddenly +her hair had gone snow white. The primrose, the daffodil, the flame, the +gold, the black, the emerald, the ruby of her youth gave way to grey and +silver, pale jade and faint turquoise, shell pink and dim lavender. Her +loveliness had shifted. The hours of the day conspired to set her. The +hard coat and skirt, the high collar, the small hat, the neat veil of +morning, the caressing charmeuse that followed, the trailing chiffon +mysteries of her tea-gown, the white velvet or the cloth of silver that +launched her triumphantly at night, who was to choose between them? Summer +and winter followed suit. Whether you saw her emerging from crisp organdy +or clinging crepe de chine, stiff grey astrakan or melting chinchilla +always it was the same. This moment you said to yourself, 'She has reached +the climax of her loveliness.' + +"My father delighted in perfection. He had discovered it in her and +promptly made it his own. I don't know if he ever regretted the unfillable +quality of her emptiness. Rather I think it amused him to see the violent +passions she inspired, to hear her low thrilling voice weigh down her +meaningless murmurs with significance. To many of her victims the very +incompleteness of her sentences was a form of divine loyalty. One young +poet had described her soul as a fluttering, desperate bird beating its +wings on the bars of her marvellous loveliness. At this her lazy smile +looked very wise. She thought my father an ideal husband. He was always +right about her clothes and after all he was the greatest living expert on +her beauty. Obviously he loved her but--well, he didn't love her +inconveniently." + +=vii= + +There will be some who remember reading a first novel, published several +years ago, called _Responsibility_. This was a study from a Samuel +Butleresque standpoint of the attitude of a father toward an illegitimate +son. At least, that is what it came to in the end; but there were +leisurely earlier pages dealing with such subjects as the tiresomeness of +Honest Work and the dishonesty of righteous people. Very good they were, +too. James E. Agate was the author of this decidedly interesting piece of +fiction. He was not a particularly young man, being in his early forties; +but he was a youngish man. He was youngish in the sense that Mr. Wells and +Mr. Bennett are youngish, and not in the sense of Sir James Peter Pan +Barrie--incapable of growing up. As dramatic critic for the Saturday +Review, London, Agate has been much happier than in a former experience on +the Cotton Exchange of Manchester, his native city. "Each week," said The +Londoner in The Bookman, recently, "he watches over the theatre with an +enthusiasm for the drama which must constantly be receiving disagreeable +shocks. He is a man full of schemes, so that the title of his new book is +distinctly appropriate." That new book is called _Alarums and +Excursions_. + +"Agate is not peaceable," continues our informant. "He carries his full +energy, which is astounding, into each topic that arises. He seizes it. +Woe betide the man who dismisses an idol of his. It is not to be done. He +will submit to no man, however great that man's prestige may be. He is the +bulldog." + +Agate is a critic "still vigorous enough and fresh enough to attack and to +destroy shams of every kind. This is what Agate does in _Alarums and +Excursions_." + +Bright news is it that Agate is writing a new novel "on the Balzacian +scale of _Responsibility_." + +=viii= + +It was in 1918, when I was exploring new books for a New York book +section, that there came to hand a volume called _Walking-Stick Papers_. +Therein I found such stuff as this: + +"And so the fish reporter enters upon the last lap of his rounds. Through, +perhaps, the narrow, crooked lane of Pine Street he passes, to come out at +length upon a scene set for a sea tale. Here would a lad, heir to vast +estates in Virginia, be kidnapped and smuggled aboard to be sold a slave +in Africa. This is Front Street. A white ship lies at the foot of it. +Cranes rise at her side. Tugs, belching smoke, bob beyond. All about are +ancient warehouses, redolent of the Thames, with steep roofs and sometimes +stairs outside, and with tall shutters, a crescent-shaped hole in each. +There is a dealer in weather-vanes. Other things dealt in hereabout are +these: Chronometers, 'nautical instruments,' wax guns, cordage and twine, +marine paints, cotton wool and waste, turpentine, oils, greases, and +rosin. Queer old taverns, public houses, are here, too. Why do not their +windows rattle with a 'Yo, ho, ho'? + +"There is an old, old house whose business has been fish oil within the +memory of men. And here is another. Next, through Water Street, one comes +in search of the last word on salt fish. Now the air is filled with +gorgeous smell of roasting coffee. Tea, coffee, sugar, rice, spices, bags +and bagging here have their home. And there are haughty bonded warehouses +filled with fine liquors. From his white cabin at the top of a venerable +structure comes the dean of the salt-fish business. 'Export trade fair,' +he says; 'good demand from South America.'" + +The whole book was like that. I remember saying and printing: + +"If this isn't individualised writing, extremely skilful writing and +highly entertaining writing, we would like to know what is." + +But what was that in the general chorus of delighted praise that went up +all over the country?--and there were persons of discrimination among the +laudators of Robert Cortes Holliday. People like James Huneker and Simeon +Strunsky, who praised not lightly, were quick to express their admiration +of this new essayist. + +Four years have gone adding to Holliday's first book volumes in the same +class and singularly unmistakeable in their authorship. They are the sort +of essays that could not be anonymous once the authorship of one of them +was known. We have, now, _Broome Street Straws_ and the pocket mirror, +_Peeps at People_. We have _Men and Books and Cities_ and we have a score +of pleasant _Turns About Town_. + +Holliday shows no sign of failing us. I think the truth is that he is one +of those persons described somewhere by Wilson Follett; I think Follett +was trying to convey the quality of De Morgan. Follett said that with +Dickens and De Morgan it was not a question of separate books, singly +achieved, but a mere matter of cutting off another liberal length of the +rich personality which was Dickens or De Morgan. So, exactly, it seems to +me in the case of Holliday. A new book of Holliday's essays is simply +another few yards of a personality not precisely matched among +contemporary American essayists. Holliday's interests are somewhat +broader, more human and perhaps more humane, more varied and closer to the +normal human spirit and taste and fancy than are the interests of +essayists like Samuel Crothers and Agnes Repplier. + +The measure of Holliday as an author is not, of course, bounded by these +collections of essays. There is his penetrating study of Booth Tarkington +and the fine collected edition of Joyce Kilmer, _Joyce Kilmer; Poems, +Essays and Letters With a Memoir by Robert Cortes Holliday_. + +=ix= + +A gesture can be very graceful, sometimes. A half-smile can be wistful and +worth remembering. That was a pleasant story, almost too slender +structurally to be called a novel, by Gilbert W. Gabriel, published in the +spring of 1922. _Jiminy_ is a tale of the quest of the perfect love story +by Benjamin Benvenuto and Jiminy, maker of small rhymes. The author, music +critic of The Sun, New York, had long been known as a newspaper writer and +a pinch hitter for Don Marquis, conductor of The Sun's famous column, The +Sun Dial, when Don was A. W. O. L. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +STEWART EDWARD WHITE AND ADVENTURE + + +=i= + +"Stewart Edward White," says George Gordon in his book _The Men Who Make +Our Novels_, "writes out of a vast self-made experience, draws his +characters from a wide acquaintance with men, recalls situations and +incidents through years of forest tramping, hunting, exploring in Africa +and the less visited places of our continent, for the differing occasions +of his books. In his boyhood he spent a great part of each year in lumber +camps and on the river. He first found print with a series of articles on +birds, 'The Birds of Mackinac Island' (he was born in Grand Rapids, March +12, 1873), brought out in pamphlet form by the Ornithologists' Union and +since (perforce) referred to as his 'first book.' In the height of the +gold rush he set out for the Black Hills, to return East broke and to +write _The Claim Jumpers_ and _The Westerners_. He followed Roosevelt into +Africa, _The Land of Footprints_ and of _Simba_. He has, more recently, +seen service in France as a Major in the U. S. Field Artillery. Though +(certainly) no Ishmael, he has for years been a wanderer upon the face of +the earth, observant and curious of the arresting and strange--and his +novels and short stories mark a journey such as but few have gone upon, a +trailing of rainbows, a search for gold beyond the further hills and a +finding of those campfires (left behind when Mr. Kipling's _Explorer_ +crossed the ranges beyond the edge of cultivation) round which the +resolute sit to swap lies while the tenderfoot makes a fair--and +forced--pretence at belief." + +=ii= + +Spring, 1922, having advanced to that stage where one could feel +confidence that summer would follow--a confidence one cannot always feel +in March--a short letter came from Mr. White. He enclosed two photographs. +One of them showed a trim-looking man with eyeglasses and moustache, +sitting shirt-sleeved in a frail-looking craft. The letter explained that +this was a collapsible canvas boat. My deduction was that the picture had +been taken before the boat collapsed. + +There was also a picture of another and much sturdier boat. I think the +name Seattle was painted on her stern. She lay on a calm surface that +stretched off to a background of towering mountains--Lake Louise Inlet. +The much sturdier boat, I understood, was also the property of S. E. +White. + +[Illustration: STEWART EDWARD WHITE] + +The letter made all these things very clear. It said: "Fifteen tons, fifty +feet, sleeps five, thirty-seven horsepower, heavy duty engine, built +sea-going, speed nine knots. No phonograph! No wine cellar. + +"We are going north, that is all the plans we have. We two are all there +are on board, though we are thinking of getting a cat. On second thought, +here is the crew in the canvas boat we carry to the inland lakes to fish +from. Her name is the _Wreckless_; be careful how you spell it." + +As stated, the crew in the about-to-collapse boat was Stewart Edward +White. On his way north it was his intention to revise what will be, in +his judgment, the most important novel he has written. But I must not say +anything about that yet. Let me say something, rather, about his new book +which you who read this have a more immediate prospect of enjoying. _On +Tiptoe: A Romance of the Redwoods_ is Stewart Edward White in a somewhat +unusual but entirely taking rôle. Here we have Mr. White writing what is +essentially a comedy; and yet there is an element of fantasy in the story +which, in the light of a few opening and closing paragraphs, can be taken +seriously, too. + +The story sounds, in an outline, almost baldly implausible. Here are +certain people, including a young woman, the daughter of a captain of +industry, stranded in the redwoods. Here is a young man out of nowhere, +who foretells the weather in a way that is uncannily verified soon +afterward. Here also is the astonishing engine which the young man has +brought with him out of nowhere,--an engine likely to revolutionise the +affairs of the world.... + +I suppose that the secret of such a story as _On Tiptoe_ lies entirely in +the telling. I know that when I heard it outlined, the thing seemed to me +to be preposterous. But then, while still under the conviction of this +preposterousness, the story itself came to my hand and I began to read. +Its preposterousness did not worry me any longer. It had, besides a +plausibility more than sufficient, a narrative charm and a whimsical +humour that would have justified any tale. The thing that links _On +Tiptoe_ with Stewart Edward White is the perfect picture of the +redwoods--the feeling of all outdoors you get while under the spell of the +story. I do not think there is any doubt that all lovers of White will +enjoy this venture into the field of light romance. + +=iii= + +Stewart Edward White was the son of T. Stewart White and Mary E. (Daniell) +White. He received the degree of bachelor of philosophy from the +University of Michigan in 1895 and the degree of master of arts from the +same institution in 1903 (_Who's Who in America: Volume 12_). He attended +Columbia Law School in 1896-97. He married on April 28, 1904, Elizabeth +Grant of Newport, Rhode Island. He was a major with the 144th Field +Artillery in 1917-18. He lives in California. But these skeletal details, +all right for _Who's Who in America_, serve our purpose poorly. I am going +to try to picture the man from two accounts of him written by friends. One +appeared as an appendix to White's novel _Gold_, published in 1913, and +was written by Eugene F. Saxton. The other is a short newspaper article by +John Palmer Gavit (long with the New York Evening Post) printed in the +Philadelphia Ledger for May 20, 1922. + +Mr. Saxton had a talk with White a few days before White sailed from New +York for his second African exploring expedition. Saxton had asked the +novelist if he did not think it possible to lay hold of the hearts and +imaginations of a great public through a novel which had no love interest +in it; if "man pitted against nature was not, after all, the eternal +drama." + +White thought for a moment and then said: + +"In the main, that is correct. Only I should say that the one great drama +is that of the individual man's struggles toward perfect adjustment with +his environment. According as he comes into correspondence and harmony +with his environment, by that much does he succeed. That is what an +environment is for. It may be financial, natural, sexual, political, and +so on. The sex element is important, of course,--very important. But it is +not the only element by any means; nor is it necessarily an element that +exercises an instant influence on the great drama. Any one who so depicts +it is violating the truth. Other elements of the great drama are as +important--self-preservation, for example, is a very simple and even more +important instinct than that of the propagation of the race. Properly +presented, these other elements, being essentially vital, are of as much +interest to the great public as the relation of the sexes." + +The first eight or nine years of Mr. White's life were spent in a small +mill town. Michigan was at that time the greatest of lumber states. White +was still a boy when the family moved to Grand Rapids, then a city of +about 30,000. Stewart Edward White did not go to school until he was +sixteen, but then he entered the third year high with boys of his own age +and was graduated at eighteen, president of his class. He won and, I +believe, still holds the five-mile running record of the school. + +The explanation is that the eight or ten years which most boys spend in +grammar school were spent by Stewart Edward continually in the woods and +among the rivermen, in his own town and in the lumber camps to which his +father took him. Then there was a stretch of four years, from about the +age of twelve on, when he was in California, as he says "a very new sort +of a place." These days were spent largely in the saddle and he saw a good +deal of the old California ranch life. + +"The Birds of Mackinac Island," already referred to, was only one of +thirty or forty papers on birds which White wrote in his youth for +scientific publications. Six or seven hundred skins that he acquired are +now preserved in the Kent Scientific Museum of Grand Rapids. + +His summer vacations while he was in college were spent cruising the Great +Lakes in a 28-foot cutter sloop. After graduating he spent six months in a +packing-house at $6 a week. His adventure in the Black Hills gold rush +followed. + +It was during his studies at Columbia that White wrote, as part of his +class work, a story called "A Man and His Dog" which Brander Matthews +urged him to try to sell. Short Stories brought it for $15 and subsequent +stories sold also. One brought as much as $35! + +He tried working in MCClurg's bookstore in Chicago at $9 a week. Then he +set out for Hudson Bay. _The Claim Jumpers_, finished about this time, was +brought out as a book and was well received. The turn of the tide did not +come until Munsey paid $500 for the serial right in _The Westerners_. +White was paid in five dollar bills and he says that when he stuffed the +money in his pockets he left at once for fear someone would change his +mind and want all that money back. + +_The Blazed Trail_ was written in a lumber camp in the depth of a northern +winter. The only hours White could spare for writing were in the early +morning, so he would begin at 4 A. M., and write until 8 A. M., then put +on his snowshoes and go out for a day's lumbering. The story finished, he +gave it to Jack Boyd, the foreman, to read. Boyd began it after supper one +evening and when White awoke the next morning at four o'clock he found the +foreman still at it. As Boyd never even read a newspaper, White regarded +this as a triumph. This is the book that an Englishwoman, entering a book +shop where White happened to be, asked for in these words: "Have you a +copy of _Blasé Tales_?" + +White went out hastily in order not to overhear her cries of +disappointment. + +=iv= + +Mr. Saxton asked White why he went to Africa and White said: + +"My answer to that is pretty general. I went because I wanted to. About +once in so often the wheels get rusty and I have to get up and do +something real or else blow up. Africa seemed to me a pretty real thing. +Before I went I read at least twenty books about it and yet I got no +mental image of what I was going to see. That fact accounts for these +books of mine. I have tried to tell in plain words what an ordinary person +would see there. + +"Let me add," he went on, "that I did not go for material. I never go +anywhere for material; if I did I should not get it. That attitude of mind +would give me merely externals, which are not worth writing about. I go +places merely because, for one reason or another, they attract me. Then, +if it happens that I get close enough to the life, I may later find that I +have something to write about. A man rarely writes anything convincing +unless he has lived the life; not with his critical faculty alert; but +whole-heartedly and because, for the time being, it is his life." + +=v= + +John Palmer Gavit tells how once, when hunting, White broke his leg and +had to drag himself back long miles to camp alone: + +"Adventure enough, you'd say. But along the way a partridge drummed and +nothing would do but he must digress a hundred yards from the shorter and +sufficiently painful way, brace himself for the shot and recoil, kill the +bird and have his dog retrieve it, and bring his game along with him. Just +to show himself that this impossible thing could be done. + +"I am not imagining when I say that in this same spirit Stewart Edward +White faces the deeper problems and speculations of life. He wants to know +about things here and hereafter. With the same zest and simplicity of +motive he faces the secret doors of existence; not to prove or disprove, +but to see and find out. And when he comes to the Last Door he will go +through without fear, with eyes open to see in the next undiscovered +country what there is to be seen and to show that the heart of a brave and +unshrinking man, truthful and open-handed and friendly, is at home there, +as he may be anywhere under God's jurisdiction." + +BOOKS BY STEWART EDWARD WHITE + +THE WESTERNERS +THE CLAIM JUMPERS +THE BLAZED TRAIL +CONJUROR'S HOUSE +THE FOREST +THE MAGIC FOREST +THE SILENT PLACES +THE MOUNTAIN +BLAZED TRAIL STORIES +THE PASS +THE MYSTERY +ARIZONA NIGHTS +CAMP AND TRAIL +THE RIVERMAN +THE RULES OF THE GAME +THE CABIN +THE ADVENTURES OF BOBBY ORDE +THE LAND OF FOOTPRINTS +AFRICAN CAMP FIRES +GOLD +THE REDISCOVERED COUNTRY +THE GREY DAWN +THE LEOPARD WOMAN +SIMBA +THE FORTY-NINERS +THE ROSE DAWN +THE KILLER, AND OTHER STORIES +ON TIPTOE: A ROMANCE OF THE REDWOODS + +SOURCES ON STEWART EDWARD WHITE + +The Men Who Make our Novels, by George Gordon. MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY. + +Who's Who in America. + +Stewart Edward White: Appendix to GOLD (published in 1913) by Eugene F. +Saxton. DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY. + +Stewart Edward White, by John Palmer Gavit. PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC LEDGER, +May 20, 1922. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +WHERE THE PLOT THICKENS + + +=i= + +Scarcely anyone is there, now writing mystery stories, who, +with the combination of ingenuity--or perhaps I should say +originality--dependableness, and a sufficient atmosphere comes up to +the high and steady level of Frank L. Packard. Born in Montreal in 1877 +of American parents, a graduate of McGill University and a student of +Liége, Belgium, Mr. Packard was engaged in engineering work for some +years and began writing for a number of magazines in 1906. He now +lives at Lachine, Province of Quebec, Canada, and the roll of his books +is a considerable one. In that roll, there are titles known and +enthusiastically remembered by nearly every reader of the mystery tale. +Is there anyone who has not heard of _The Miracle Man_ or _The Wire +Devils_ or Jimmie Dale in _The Adventures of Jimmie Dale_ and _The Further +Adventures of Jimmie Dale_? _The Night Operator,_ _From Now On_, +_Pawned_, and, most recently, _Doors of the Night_ have had their public +ready and waiting. That same public will denude the book counters of +_Jimmie Dale and The Phantom Clue_ this autumn. + +Packard differs from his fellow-writers of mystery stories in his flair +for the unusual idea. In _Pawned_ each character finds himself in pawn to +another, and must act as someone else dictates. _Doors of the Night_ is +the account of a man who was both a notorious leader and hunted prey of +New York's underworld. _From Now On_ is the unexpected story of a man +after he comes out of prison; and Jimmie Dale, Fifth Avenue clubman, was, +to Clancy, Smarlinghue the dope fiend; to the gang, Larry the Bat, stool +pigeon; but to Headquarters--the Grey Seal! + +Stories of the underworld are among the most difficult to write. The thing +had, it seemed, been done to death and underdone and overdone when Packard +came along. In all seriousness, it may be said that Packard has restored +the underworld to respectability--as a domain for fictional purposes at +least! It is not that his crooks are real crooks--though they are--but +that he is able to put life into them, to make them seem human. No man is +a hero to his valet and no crook can be merely a crook in a story of the +underworld that is intended to convey any sense of actuality. Beside the +distortions and conventionalisations of most underworld stories, Packard's +novels stand out with distinctiveness and a persistent vitality. + +=ii= + +When a book called _Bulldog Drummond_ was published there was no one +prescient of the great success of the play which would be made from the +story. But those who read mystery stories habitually knew well that a +mystery-builder of exceptional adroitness had arrived. Of course, Cyril +McNeile, under the pen name "Sapper," was already somewhat known in +America by several war books; but _Bulldog Drummond_ was a novelty. +Apparently it was possible to write a first rate detective-mystery story +with touches of crisp humour as good as Pelham Grenville Wodehouse's +stuff! There is something convincing about the hero of _Bulldog Drummond_, +the brisk and cheerful young man whom demobilisation has left unemployed +and whose perfectly natural susceptibility to the attractiveness of a +young woman leads him into adventures as desperate as any in No Man's +Land. + +For Cyril McNeile's new story _The Black Gang_, after the experience of +_Bulldog Drummond_ as a book and play, Americans will be better prepared. +An intermediate book, _The Man in Ratcatcher_, consists of shorter stories +which exhibit very perfectly McNeile's gift for the dramatic situation. He +gives us the man who returned from the dead to save his sweetheart from +destruction; the man who staked his happiness on a half forgotten waltz; +the man who played at cards for his wife; the man who assisted at suicide, +either ordinary short stories nor ordinary motifs! I should hesitate to +predict how far McNeile will go along this special line of his; but I see +no reason why he should not give us the successor of Sherlock Holmes. + +=iii= + +_Black Cæsar's Clan_ is the good title of Albert Payson Terhune's new +story in succession to his _Black Gold_, a mystery story that was +distinguished by the possession of a Foreword so unusual as to be worth +reprinting--one of the best arguments for this type of book ever penned: + +"If you are questing for character-study or for realism or for true +literature in any of its forms,--then walk around this book of mine (and, +indeed, any book of mine); for it was not written for you and it will have +no appeal for you. + +"But if you care for a yarn with lots of action,--some of it pretty +exciting,--you may like _Black Gold_. I think you will. + +"It has all the grand old tricks: from the Weirdly Vanishing Footprints, +to the venerable Ride for Life. Yes, and it embalms even the +half-forgotten and long-disused Struggle on the Cliff. Its Hero is a hero. +Its Villain is a villain. Nobody could possibly mistake either of them for +the Friend of the Family. The Heroine is just a heroine; not a human. +There is not a subtle phrase or a disturbingly new thought, from start to +finish. + +"There is a good mystery, too; along lines which have not been worked +over-often. And there is a glimpse of Untold Treasure. What better can you +ask; in a story that is frank melodrama? + +"The scene, by the way, is laid in Northern California; a beautiful and +strikingly individualistic region which, for the most part, is ignored by +tourists for the man-made scenic effects and playgrounds of the southern +counties of the State. + +"If, now and again, my puppets or my plot-wires creak a bit noisily,--what +then? Creaking, at worst, is a sure indication of movement,--of +action,--of incessant progress of sorts. A thing that creaks is not +standing still and gathering mildew. It moves. Otherwise it could not +creak. + +"Yes, there are worse faults to a plot than an occasional tendency to +creakiness. It means, for one thing, that numberless skippable pages are +not consumed in photographic description of the ill-assorted furnishings +of the heroine's room or cosmos; nor in setting forth the myriad phases of +thought undergone by the hero in seeking to check the sway of his pet +complexes. (This drearily flippant slur on realism springs from pure envy. +I should rejoice to write such a book. But I can't. And, if I could, I +know I should never be able to stay awake long enough to correct its +proofs.) + +"Yet, there is something to be said in behalf of the man or woman who +finds guilty joy in reading a story whose action gallops; a story whose +runaway pace breaks its stride only to leap a chasm or for a +breathcatching stumble on a precipice-edge. The office boy prefers Captain +Kidd to Strindberg; not because he is a boy, but because he is human and +has not yet learned the trick of disingenuousness. He is still normal. So +is the average grown-up. + +"These normal and excitement-loving readers are overwhelmingly in the +majority. Witness the fact that _The Bat_ had a longer run in New York +than have all of Dunsany's and Yeats's rare dramas, put together. If we +insist that our country be guided by majority-rule, then why sneer at a +majority-report in literary tastes? + +"_Ben Hur_ was branded as a 'religious dime novel.' Yet it has had fifty +times the general vogue of Anatole France's pseudo-blasphemy which deals +with the same period. Public taste is not always, necessarily, bad taste. +'The common people heard Him, gladly.' (The Scribes did not.) + +"After all, there is nothing especially debasing in a taste for yarns +which drip with mystery and suspense and ceaseless action; even if the +style and concept of these yarns be grossly lacking in certain approved +elements. So the tale be written with strong evidence of sincerity and +with a dash of enthusiasm, why grudge it a small place of its own in +readers' hours of mental laziness? + +"With this shambling apology,--which, really, is no apology at all,--I lay +my book on your knees. You may like it or you may not. You will find it +alive with flaws. But, it is alive. + +"I don't think it will bore you. Perhaps there are worse +recommendations." + +=iv= + +Hulbert Footner does not look like a writer of mystery stories. A tall, +handsome, well-dressed, extremely courteous gentleman who, had he the +requisite accent, might just have arrived from Bond Street. He has a trim +moustache. Awfully attractive blue eyes! He lives on a farm at Sollers, +Maryland. No one else, it seems, is so familiar with the unusual corners +of New York City, the sort of places that get themselves called "quaint." +No one else manages the affairs of young lovers (on paper) with quite so +much of the airy spirit of young love. I can think of no one else who +could write such a scene as that in _The Owl Taxi_, where the dead-wagon, +on its way in the night to the vast cemetery in a New York suburb, is held +up for the removal of a much-needed corpse. Such material is bizarre. The +handling of it must be very deft or the result will be revolting; and yet +the thing can be done. In the latter part of that excellent play, _Seven +Keys to Baldpate_, George M. Cohan and his company bandied a corpse from +attic to cellar of a country house. This preposterous scene as presented +on the stage was helplessly laughable. Mr. Footner's scene in _The Owl +Taxi_ is like that. + +The man has a special gift for the picturesque person. I do not know +whether he uses originals; if I suspect an original for old Simon Deaves +in _The Deaves Affair_, I get no farther than a faint suspicion that ... +No, I cannot identify his character. (Not that I want to; I am not a +victim of that fatal obsession which fastens itself upon so many readers +of fiction--the desire to identify the characters in a story with someone +in real life. The idea is ridiculous.) Mr. Footner knows Greenwich +Village. He knows outlying stretches in the greater city of New York; he +knows excursion boats such as the Ernestina, whose cruises play so curious +a part in _The Deaves Affair_. I have a whetted appetite for what Footner +will give us next; I feel sure it will be like no other story of the +season. A great deal to be sure of! + +=v= + +The peculiarity about _Gold-Killer_ is the mystery behind the excellent +mystery of the book. I mean, of course, the mystery of its authorship. I +do not any longer believe that the book is the work of Siamese twins--in a +physiological sense of the word "twins." I know that there is no John +Prosper--or, rather, that if there is a John Prosper, he is not the author +of _Gold-Killer_. Yet the book was the work of more than one man. Were two +intellects siamesed to write the story? Those who, in my opinion, know the +facts point to the name on the title page and say that John is John and +Prosper is Prosper and never the twain shall meet, unless for the purpose +of evolving a super-_Gold-Killer_. Whether they will be able to surpass +this book, which opens with a murder at the opera and finishes +(practically) with a nose dive in an airplane, is beyond my surmise. + +If they will try, I give them my word I will read the new yarn. + +Mrs. Baillie Reynolds's latest novel is called _The Judgment of Charis_. +It is not a story to tell too much about in advance. I will say that +Charis had run away from an all-too-persistent lover and an +all-too-gorgeous family, and had been taken under the wing of a kindly, +middle-aged millionaire and invited to become his secretary. She expected +some complications and in her expectations she was not disappointed; and +the readers' expectations will not be disappointed either, though they may +find the ending unexpected. _The Vanishing of Betty Varian_ restored to +readers of Carolyn Wells a detective whose appearance in _The Room with +the Tassels_ made that story more than ordinarily worth while. I do not +know, though, whether Penny Wise would be interesting or even notable if +it were not for his curious assistant, Zizi. The merit of detective +stories is necessarily variable; _The Vanishing of Betty Varian_ is one of +the author's best; but Miss Wells (really Mrs. Hadwin Houghton) is, to me, +as extraordinary as her stories. All those books! She herself says that +"having mastered the psychology of detachment" she can write with more +concentration and less revision than any other professional writer of her +acquaintance. Yes, but how---- No doubt it is too much to expect her to +explain _how_ she is ingenious. + +Mrs. Belloc Lowndes, sister of Hilaire Belloc, is ingenious in a different +direction. Her story of _What Timmy Did_ was one that attracted +especial attention from those periodicals and persons interested in +psychic matters. Here was a woman whose husband had died from +poison--self-administered, the coroner decided--and here was little +Timmy, who knew that something was wrong. Animals also knew it; and then +one day Timmy saw at her heels a shadow man, stiff and military, and +behind him a phantom dog. Mrs. Lowndes's gifts, different from her +distinguished brother's, are none the less gifts. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +REBECCA WEST: AN ARTIST + + +=i= + +Whether Rebecca West is writing reviews of books or dramatic criticism or +novels she is an artist, above everything. I have been reading delightedly +the pages of her new novel, _The Judge_. It is Miss West's second novel. +One is somewhat prepared for it by the excellence of her first, _The +Return of the Soldier_, published in 1918. Somewhat, but not adequately. + +Perhaps I am prejudiced. You see, I have been in Edinburgh, and though it +was the worst season of the year--the period when, as Robert Louis +Stevenson says, that Northern city has "the vilest climate under +Heaven"--nevertheless, the charm and dignity of that old town captured me +at the very moment when a penetrating Scotch winter rain was coming in +direct contact with my bones. I was, I might as well confess, soaked and +chilled as no New York winter snowstorm ever wetted and chilled me. It did +not matter; here was the long sweep of Princes Street with its gay shops +on one side and its deep valley on the other; across the valley the +tenements of the Royal Mile lifted themselves up--the Royal Mile, which +runs always uphill from the Palace that is Holyrood to the height that is +the Castle. Talk about gestures! The whole city of Edinburgh is a +matchless gesture. + +[Illustration: REBECCA WEST] + +And so, when I began the first page of _The Judge_, it was a grand delight +to find myself back in the city of the East Wind: + +"It was not because life was not good enough that Ellen Melville was +crying as she sat by the window. The world, indeed, even so much of it as +could be seen from her window, was extravagantly beautiful. The office of +Mr. Mactavish James, Writer to the Signet, was in one of those decent grey +streets that lie high on the Northward slope of Edinburgh New Town, and +Ellen was looking up the sidestreet that opened just opposite and +revealed, menacing as the rattle of spears, the black rock and bastions of +the Castle against the white beamless glare of the southern sky. And it +was the hour of the clear Edinburgh twilight, that strange time when the +world seems to have forgotten the sun though it keeps its colour; it could +still be seen that the moss between the cobblestones was a wet bright +green, and that a red autumn had been busy with the wind-nipped trees, yet +these things were not gay, but cold and remote as brightness might be on +the bed of a deep stream, fathoms beneath the visitation of the sun. At +this time all the town was ghostly, and she loved it so. She took her mind +by the arm and marched it up and down among the sights of Edinburgh, +telling it that to be weeping with discontent in such a place was a +scandalous turning up of the nose at good mercies. Now the Castle +Esplanade, that all day had proudly supported the harsh virile sounds and +colours of the drilling regiments, would show to the slums its blank +surface, bleached bonewhite by the winds that raced above the city smoke. +Now the Cowgate and the Canongate would be given over to the drama of the +disorderly night, the slumdwellers would foregather about the rotting +doors of dead men's mansions and brawl among the not less brawling ghosts +of a past that here never speaks of peace, but only of blood and argument. +And Holyrood, under a black bank surmounted by a low bitten cliff, would +lie like the camp of an invading and terrified army...." + +=ii= + +_The Judge_ is certainly autobiographical in some of the material +employed. For instance, it is a fact that Miss West went to school in +Edinburgh, attending an institution not unlike John Thompson's Ladies +College referred to in _The Judge_ (but only referred to). It is a fact, +as everyone who knows anything about Miss West knows, that Miss West was +an ardent suffragette in that time before suffragettes had ceased from +troubling and Prime Ministers were at rest. An amazing legend got about +some time ago that Rebecca West's real name was Regina Miriam Bloch. Then +on the strength of the erring "Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature" +did Miss Amy Wellington write a sprightly article for the Literary Review +of the New York Evening Post. Miss Wellington referred to this mysterious +Regina Miriam Bloch who had stunned everybody by her early articles +written under the name of one of Ibsen's most formidable heroines; but +unfortunately Miss West wrote a letter in disclaimer. She cannot help Mr. +Ibsen. It may be a collision in names, but it is not a collusion. The +truth about Rebecca West, who has written _The Judge_, seems to be +dependably derivable from the English _Who's Who_, a standard work always +worth consulting. This estimable authority says that Rebecca West was born +on Christmas in 1892, and is the youngest daughter of the late Charles +Fairfield of County Kerry. It further says that she was educated at George +Watson's Ladies' College, Edinburgh. It states that she joined the staff +of The Freewoman as a reviewer in 1911. Her club is the International +Women's Franchise. Her residence is 36 Queen's Gate Terrace, London S. W. +7. Her telephone is Kensington 7285. + +Now is there anything mythical left? What excuse, O everybody, is there +any longer for the legend of Regina Miriam Bloch? + +But I do not believe Miss West objects to legends. I imagine she loves +them. The legend of a name is perhaps unimportant; the legend of a +personality is of the highest importance. That Miss West has a personality +is evident to anyone familiar with her work. A personality, however, is +not three-dimensionally revealed except in that form of work which comes +closest to the heart and life of the worker. To write pungent and +terrifyingly sane criticisms is a notable thing; but to write novels of +tender insight and intimate revelation is a far more convincing thing. +_The Judge_ is such a novel. + +=iii= + +There is a prefatory sentence, as follows: + +"Every mother is a Judge who sentences the children for the sins of the +father." + +There is a dedication. It is: + +TO THE MEMORY OF MY MOTHER + +_The Judge_ is a study of the claim of a mother upon her son. The +circumstances of Mrs. Yaverland's life were such as peculiarly to +strengthen the tie between her and Richard. On the other hand, she had +always disliked and even hated her son Roger. + +The first part of the book, however, does not bring in Richard Yaverland's +mother. It is a picture of Ellen Melville, the girl in Edinburgh, the girl +whose craving for the colour of existence has gone unsatisfied until +Richard Yaverland enters her life. Yaverland, with his stories of Spain, +and his imaginative appeal for that young girl, is the fulcrum of Ellen +Melville's destiny. + +That destiny, carried by the forces of human character to its strange +termination, is handled by Miss West in a long novel the chapters of which +are a series of delineative emotions. I do not mean that Miss West shrinks +from externalised action, as did Henry James whom she has admired and +studied. She perceives the immense value of introspection, but is not lost +in its quicksands. She can devote a whole chapter to a train of thought in +the mind of Ellen Melville, sitting inattentively at a public meeting; and +she can follow it with another long chapter giving the sequence of +thoughts in the mind of Richard Yaverland; and she can bring each chapter +to a period with the words: "She (he) glanced across the hall. Their eyes +met." It might be thought that this constitutes a waste of narrative +space; not so. As a matter of fact, without the insight accorded by these +disclosures of things thought and felt, we should be unable to understand +the behaviour of these two young people. + +All the first half of the book is a truly marvelous story of young lovers; +all the latter end of the book is a relation scarcely paralleled in +fiction of the conflict between the mother's claim and the claim of the +younger woman. + +Of subsidiary portraits there are plenty. Ellen's mother and Mr. Mactavish +James and Mr. Philip James are like full-lengths by Velasquez. In the +closing chapters of the book we have the extraordinary figure of the +brother and son, Roger, accompanied by the depressing girl whom he has +picked up the Lord knows where. + +And, after all, this is not a first novel--that promise, which so often +fails of fulfilment--but a second novel; and I have in many a day not read +anything that seemed to me to get deeper into the secrets of life than +this study of a man who, at the last, spoke triumphantly, "as if he had +found a hidden staircase out of destiny," and a woman who, at the last, +"knew that though life at its beginning was lovely as a corn of wheat it +was ground down to flour that must make bitter bread between two human +tendencies, the insane sexual caprice of men, the not less mad excessive +steadfastness of women." + +BOOKS BY REBECCA WEST + +THE RETURN OF THE SOLDIER +THE JUDGE + +SOURCES ON REBECCA WEST + +Who's Who. [In England]. + +Rebecca West: Article by Amy Wellington in the LITERARY REVIEW OF THE NEW +YORK EVENING POST, 1921. + +Articles by Rebecca West in various English publications, frequently +reprinted by THE LIVING AGE. See the READERS' GUIDE TO PERIODICAL +LITERATURE. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +SHAMELESS FUN + + +=i= + +One way to write about Nina Wilcox Putnam would be in the way she writes +about everything. It's not so hard. As thus: + +Some dull day in the office. We look up and whom should we see standing +right there before us but Nina Wilcox Putnam! Falling over backwards, that +being what our swivel chair is made for, we say: "Well, well, well! So +today is May 3, 1922! Where from? West Broadway?" + +"I should not say so! South Broadway, I guess. I've just motored up from +Florida. But your speaking of West Broadway reminds me: I've written a +piece for George Lorimer of Saturday Evening Post. You see my book, _West +Broadway_, brought me so many letters my arm ached from answering them. +What car did you drive? Where d'y' get gas in the desert? What's the best +route? And thus et cetera. So now I have wrote me a slender essay +answering everything that anybody can ask on this or other +transcontinental subjects. Mr. Lorimer will publish, and who knows--as +they say in fiction--it might make a book afterward." + +"How's Florida?" + +"I left it fine, if it doesn't get in trouble while I'm away. I've bought +a ranch, for fruit only, on the East Coast, between Palm Beach and Miami, +but not paying these expensive prices, no, not never. And I shall live +there for better but not for worse, for richer, but most positively not +for poorer. I pick my own alligator pears off my own tree unless I want to +sell them for fifteen cents on the tree. Bathing, one-half mile east by +motor." + +"Been reading your piece, 'How I Have Got So Far So Good,' in John +Siddall's American Magazine." + +"Yes, I thought I would join the autobiographists--Benvenuto Cellini, +Margot Asquith, Benjamin Franklin, et Al, as Ring Lardner would insist. Do +you know Ring? He and I are going to have one of these amicable literary +duels soon, like the famous _Isn't That Just Like a Man? Oh, Well, You +Know How Women Are!_ which Mrs. Rinehart and Irvin Cobb fought to a +finish. But speaking of sport, I have discovered my grandest favourite +sport, in spite of motoring, which is deep sea fishing, nothing less. Let +me inform you that I landed a 9-pound dolphin which he is like fire-opals +all over and will grace the wall of my dining-room no matter if all my +friends suffer with him the rest of their lives. He was a male dolphin; +get that! It makes a difference from the deep sea fishing sportsman's +standpoint. And this place of mine at the end of South Broadway where I +can roll cocoanuts the rest of my life if I want to is at, in or about +Delray, Florida. D-e-l-r-a-y; you've spelled it." + +"We're publishing your new book on how to get thin, _Tomorrow We Diet_." + +"Oh, yes. Well, I am several laps ahead of that. Now, I am going up to my +home in Madison, Connecticut, to work. Later, I'll maybe drive out to +Yellowstone Park or some place. Well, I might stay here at the Brevoort +for a month; run down to Philadelphia, maybe. Did you know I once wrote a +book for children that has sold 500,000 copies? And, besides a young son +whom I am capable of entertaining if you'll let him tell you, I have a few +ideas...." + +Hold on! This isn't so easy as it looked. + +Probably Nina Wilcox Putnam is inimitable. This one and that may steal +Ring W. Lardner's stuff, but there is a sort of Yale lock effect about the +slang (American slanguage) in such books as _West Broadway_ which is not +picked so easily. As for the new Nina Wilcox Putnam novel, _Laughter +Limited_--if you don't believe what we say about N.W.P. inimitableness +just open that book and see for yourself. The story of a movie actress? +Yes, and considerable more. Just as _West Broadway_ was a great deal more +than an amusing story, being actually the best hunch extant on +transcontinental motoring, outside of the automobile blue books, which are +not nearly such good reading. + +And then there's _Tomorrow We Diet_, in which Nina Wilcox Putnam tells how +she reduced fifty pounds in seven months without exercising anything but +her intelligence. But if you want to know about Nina Wilcox Putnam, read +her story in her own words that appeared in the American Magazine for May, +1922. Here is a bit of it: + +"Believe you me, considering the fact that they are mostly men, which it +would hardly be right to hold that up against them, Editors in my +experience has been an unusually fine race, and it is my contracts with +them has made me what I am today, I'm sure I'm satisfied. And when a +fellow or sister writer commences hollering about how Editors in America +don't know anything about what is style or English, well anyways not +enough to publish it when they see it, why all I can say is that I could +show them living proof to the contrary, only modesty and good manners +forbids me pointing, even at myself. I am also sure that the checks these +hollerers have received from said Editors is more apt to read the Editor +regrets than pay to the order of, if you get what I mean. + +"Well, I have had it pretty soft, I will admit, because all the work I +done to get where I am, is never over eight hours a day penal servitude, +locked up in my study and fighting against only such minor odds and +intrusions as please may I have a dollar and a quarter for the laundry, or +now dear you have been writing long enough, I have brought you a nice cup +of tea, just when I am going strong on a important third chapter. But my +work is of course not really work since it is done in the home, as my +relations often remind me. At least they did until I got George, that's my +pres. husband, and he never lets me be interrupted unless he wants to +interrupt me himself for a clean collar or something. + +"Also besides working these short hours, four of which is generally what +us authors calls straight creative work, I have it soft in another way. I +got a pretty good market for my stuff and always had, and this of course +has got me so's I can draw checks as neat and quick as anybody in the +family and they love to see me do it. + +"All kidding to one side it is the straight dope when I say that from +being merely the daughter of honest and only moderately poor parents I +have now a house of my own, the very one in our town which I most admired +as a child; and the quit-claim deed come out of my own easy money. I also +got a car or two--and a few pieces of the sort of second-hand stuff which +successful people generally commence cluttering up their house with as a +sign of outward and visible success. I mean the junk one moves in when one +moves the golden oak out.... + +"I never commenced going over really big until it was up to me to make +good every time I delivered, and this was not until my husband died and +left me with a small son, which I may say in passing, that I consider he +is the best thing I have ever published. Well, there I was, a widow with a +child, and no visible means of support except when I looked into the +mirror. Of course, before then I had been earning good money, but only +when I wanted something, or felt like it. Now I had to want to feel like +it three hundred and sixty-five days a year. + +"I'll tell the world it was some jolt." + +=ii= + +_Perfect Behaviour_ is the calmly confident title of the new book by +Donald Ogden Stewart--a work which will rejoice the readers of _A Parody +Outline of History_. Behaviour is the great obstacle to happiness. One may +overcome all the ordinary complexes. One may kill his cousins and get his +nephews and nieces deported, and refuse to perform Honest Work--yet remain +a hopeless slave to the _Book of Etiquette_. In a Pullman car, with a +ticket for the lower berth, he will take the seat facing backward, only to +tremble and blush with shame on learning his social error. Who has not +suffered the mortification of picking up the fork that was on the floor +and then finding out afterward that it was the function of the waiter to +pick up the fork? What is a girl to do if, escorted home at night from the +dance, she finds the hour is rather late and yet her folks are still up? +Whether she should invite the young man in or ask him to call again, she +is sure to do the wrong thing. Then there are those wedding days, the +proudest and happiest of a girl's life, when she slips her hand into the +arm of the wrong man or otherwise gives herself away before she is given +away. Tragedy lurks in such trifles. Don Stewart, who has suffered +countless mortifications and heartbreaks from just such little things as +these, determined that something shall be done to spare others his own +unfortunate experiences. + +_Perfect Behaviour_ is the result of his brave determination. It is a book +that will be constantly in demand until society is abolished. Then, too, +there is that new behaviouristic psychology. You have not heard of that? I +can only assure you that Mr. Stewart's great work is founded upon all the +most recent principles of behaviouristic psychology. Noted scientists will +undoubtedly endorse it. You will endorse it yourself, and you will be able +to cash in on it. + +Stewart wrote _A Parody Outline of History_ for The Bookman. When the idea +was broached, John Farrar, editor of The Bookman, was about the only +person who saw the possibilities. Response to the _Parody Outline of +History_ was immediate, spontaneous and unanimous. When the chapters +appeared as a book, this magnificent take-off of contemporary American +writers as well as of H. G. Wells leaped at once into the place of a best +seller. It remains one. The thing that it accomplished is not likely to be +well done again for years. + +=iii= + +_Neither Here Nor There_ is the title of a new book by Oliver Herford, +author of _This Giddy Globe_. + +I do not know which is funnier, Herford or his books. Among the +unforgotten occasions was one when he was in the Doran office talking +about a forthcoming book and nibbling on animal crackers. Suddenly he +stopped nibbling and exclaimed with a gasp of dismay: + +"Good heavens! I've been eating the illustrations for my book." + +=iv= + +_Timothy Tubby's Journal_ is, of course, the diary of the famous British +novelist with notes by Theresa Tubby, his wife. Tubby, on his visit to +this side, was remarkably observant. He says: + +"How weary we were after a few hours of being interviewed and +photographed! This deep appreciation on the part of the American people +was touching, but exhausting. Yet my publishers telephoned me every two or +three hours, to say that editions of my latest novel were flying through +multitudinous presses; that I must bear up under the strain and give the +public what it demands; namely, the glimpse of me and of my aristocratic +wife. This, it seems, is what sells a book in America. The public must see +an author in order to believe that he can write. + +"When my distinguished forebear Charles Dickens[1] arrived in the town of +Boston, he found his room flooded with offers of a pew at Sunday morning +church. This fashion in America has apparently passed, though I was taken +on sightseeing expeditions to various cathedrals whose architecture seemed +to me to be execrable (largely European copies--nothing natively +American). It was never suggested that I attend divine service. On the +contrary, I had countless invitations to be present at what is known as a +'cocktail chase.' My New York literary admirers seemed tumbling over one +another to offer me keys to their cellars and to invite me to take part in +one of those strange functions. It is their love of danger, rather than +any particular passion for liquor, that has, I believe, given birth to +these elaborate fêtes. + +"A cocktail chase takes place shortly before dinner. It may lead you into +any one of a number of places, even as far as the outlying districts of +the Bronx. If you own a motor, you may use that; if not, a taxi will do. +Usually a large number of motors are employed. Add to this pursuing +motorcycle policemen, and the sight is most impressive. The police are for +protection against crime waves, not for the arrest of the cocktail +chasers. A revenue agent performs this function, when it becomes +necessary. + +"The number of our invitations was so large that it was hard to pick and +choose. Naturally, we did not care to risk attendance at any function +which might injure our reputation. Usually my wife has an almost psychic +sense of such matters; but the Social Register was of no assistance in +this case.[2] Before several hours had passed, however, we decided to hire +a social secretary. I phoned my publisher for a recommendation. 'Dear +Tubby,' he said, 'what you need is a publicity agent, not a social +secretary. I'll send you the best New York can offer immediately. It was +careless of me not to think of it before. You seemed to have a genius for +that sort of thing yourself.' + +"The publicity agent is difficult to explain. He is somehow connected with +an American game which originated in the great northwest, and which is +called log-rolling. He stands between you and the public which is +clamouring for a glimpse of you. The difference between a social secretary +and a publicity agent seems to be that the former merely answers +invitations, while the latter makes sure that you are invited. He writes +your speeches for you, sometimes even goes so far as to write your novels, +and, in a strange place, will impersonate you at all public functions +unless your wife objects.[3] + +"Mr. Vernay arrived, fortunately, in time to sort our invitations. +'First,' he said, 'just you and Terry' (he was one of those brusque new +world types and Theresa rather enjoyed his familiarity--'so refreshing,' I +remember she said) 'sit right down and I'll tell you all about literature +in this here New York.'" + +... I have always been meaning to read Tubby's novels--so like those of +Archibald Marshall and Anthony Trollope, I understand--but have never got +around to it. Now I feel I simply must. + +----- + + [1] The relationship was on my husband's father's side. The + Turbots + were never so closely connected with the bourgeoisie. + + [2] We, of course, had entrée to all the best Fifth Avenue + homes, but + since we have now become literary folk, we + hose to remain so. We therefore avoided the better + classes. + + [3] Indeed Mr. Vernay was a most accomplished gentleman, and + I never + objected to him. I only remarked once that I was glad + Timothy was + not so attractive to the ladies as Mr. Vernay. This, I + did + not consider an objection. +=v= + +Such an expert judge as Franklin P. Adams has considered that the ablest +living parodist in verse is J. C. Squire. Certainly his _Collected +Parodies_ is a masterly performance quite fit to go on the shelf with Max +Beerbohm's _A Christmas Garland_. In _Collected Parodies_ will be found +all those verses which, published earlier in magazines and in one or two +books, have delighted the readers of Punch and other magazines--"Imaginary +Speeches," "Steps to Parnassus," "Tricks of the Trade," "Repertory Drama, +How They Do It and How They Would Have Done It," "Imaginary Reviews and +Speeches" and "The Aspirant's Manual." + +The great source book of fun in rhyme, however, is and will for a long +time remain Carolyn Wells's _The Book of Humorous Verse_. This has not an +equal in existence, so far as I know, except _The Home Book of Verse_. +Here in nearly 900 pages are specimens of light verse from Chaucer to +Chesterton. Modern writers, such as Bert Leston Taylor and Don Marquis, +share the pages with Robert Herrick and William Cowper, Charles Lamb and +Oliver Wendell Holmes. Verses whimsical, satiric, narrative, +punning--there is no conceivable variety overlooked by Miss Wells in what +was so evidently a labour of love as well as of the most careful industry, +an industry directed by an exceptional taste. + +P. G. Wodehouse used to write lyrics for musical plays in England, +interpolating one or two in existing successes. Then he came to America +and began writing lyrics, interpolating them in musical comedies over +here. Then he began interpolating extremely funny short stories in the +American magazines and he has now succeeded in interpolating into modern +fiction some of the funniest novels of the last few years. This bit from +his latest, _Three Men and a Maid_, is typical: + +"Mrs. Hignett was never a very patient woman. "'Let us take all your +negative qualities for granted,' she said curtly. 'I have no doubt that +there are many things which you do not do. Let us confine ourselves to +issues of definite importance. What is it, if you have no objection to +concentrating your attention on that for a moment, that you wish to see me +about?' + +"This marriage.' + +"'What marriage?' + +"'Your son's marriage.' + +"'My son is not married.' + +"'No, but he's going to be. At eleven o'clock this morning at the Little +Church Around the Corner!' + +"Mrs. Hignett stared. + +"'Are you mad?' + +"'Well, I'm not any too well pleased, I'm bound to say,' admitted Mr. +Mortimer. 'You see, darn it all, I'm in love with the girl myself!' + +"'Who is this girl?' + +"'Have been for years. I'm one of those silent, patient fellows who hang +around and look a lot, but never tell their love....' + +"'Who is this girl who has entrapped my son?' + +"'I've always been one of those men who....' + +"'Mr. Mortimer! With your permission we will take your positive qualities +for granted. In fact, we will not discuss you at all.... What is her +name?' + +"'Bennett.' + +"'Bennett? Wilhelmina Bennett? The daughter of Mr. Rufus Bennett? The +red-haired girl I met at lunch one day at your father's house?' + +"'That's it. You're a great guesser. I think you ought to stop the +thing.' + +"'I intend to.' + +"'Fine!' + +"'The marriage would be unsuitable in every way. Miss Bennett and my son +do not vibrate on the same plane.' + +"That's right. I've noticed it myself.' + +"'Their auras are not the same colour.' + +"'If I thought that once,' said Bream Mortimer, 'I've thought it a +hundred times. I wish I had a dollar for every time I thought it. Not the +same colour! That's the whole thing in a nutshell.'" + +Mr. Wodehouse is described by a friend as "now a somewhat fluid inhabitant +of England, running over here spasmodically. Last summer he bought a +race-horse. It is the beginning of the end!" + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE VITALITY OF MARY ROBERTS RINEHART + + +=i= + +"The total result ... after twelve years is that I have learned to sit +down at my desk and begin work simultaneously," wrote Mrs. Rinehart in +1917. "One thing died, however, in those years of readjustment and +struggle. That was my belief in what is called 'inspiration.' I think I +had it now and then in those days, moments when I felt things I had hardly +words for, a breath of something much bigger than I was, a little lift in +the veil. + +"It does not come any more. + +"Other things bothered me in those first early days. I seemed to have so +many things to write about and writing was so difficult. Ideas came, but +no words to clothe them. Now, when writing is easy, when the technique of +my work bothers me no more than the pen I write with, I have less to say. + +[Illustration: MARY ROBERTS RINEHART] + +"I have words, but fewer ideas to clothe in them. And, coming more and +more often is the feeling that, before I have commenced to do my real +work, I am written out; that I have for years wasted my substance in +riotous writing and that now, when my chance is here, when I have lived +and adventured, when, if ever, I am to record honestly my little page of +these great times in which I live, now I shall fail." + +These surprising words appeared in an article in the American Magazine for +1917. Not many months later _The Amazing Interlude_ was published and, +quoting Mrs. Rinehart soon afterward, I said: "If her readers shared this +feeling they must have murmured to themselves as they turned the absorbing +pages of _The Amazing Interlude_: 'How absurd!' It is doubtful if they +recalled the spoken misgiving at all." + +Few novels of recent years have had so captivating a quality as had this +war story. But I wish to emphasise again what I felt and tried to express +at that time--the sense of Mrs. Rinehart's vitality as a writer of +fiction. In what seem to me to be her best books there is a freshness of +feeling I find astonishing. I felt it in _K_; I found it in _The Amazing +Interlude_; and I find it in her new novel just published, _The Breaking +Point_. + +_The Breaking Point_ is the story of a man's past and his inability to +escape from it. If that were all, it might be a very commonplace subject +indeed. It is not all, nor half. + +Dr. Richard Livingstone, just past thirty, is supposedly the nephew of Dr. +David Livingstone, with whom he lives and whose practice he shares in the +town of Haverly; but at the very outset of the novel, we have the fact +that--according to a casual visitor in Haverly--Dr. Livingstone's dead +brother had no son; was unmarried, anyway. And then it transpires that, +whatever may have been the past, Dr. Livingstone has walled it off from +the younger man's consciousness. The elder man has built up a powerful +secondary personality--secondary in the point of time only, for Richard +Livingstone is no longer aware of any other personality, nor scarcely of +any former existence. He does, indeed, have fugitive moments in which he +recalls with a painful and unsatisfactory vagueness some manner of life +that he once had a part in. But in his young manhood, in the pleasant +village where there is none who isn't his friend, deeply centred in his +work, stayed by the affection of Dr. Livingstone, these whispers of the +past are infrequent and untroubling. + +The casual visitor's surprise and the undercurrent of talk which she +starts is the beginning of a rapid series of incidents which force the +problem of the past up to the threshold of Richard Livingstone's +consciousness. There would then be two ways of facing his difficulties, +and he takes the braver. Confronted with an increasingly difficult +situation, a situation sharpened by his love for Elizabeth Wheeler, and +her love for him, young Dr. Dick plays the man. The title of Mrs. +Rinehart's story comes from the psychological (and physical) fact that +there is in every man and woman a point at which Nature steps in and +says: + +"See here, you can't stand this! You've got to forget it." + +This is the breaking point, the moment when amnesia intervenes. But later +there may come a time when the erected wall safeguarding the secondary +personality gives way. The first, submerged or walled-off personality may +step across the levelled barrier. That extraordinarily dramatic moment +does come in the new novel and is handled by Mrs. Rinehart with triumphant +skill. + +It will be seen that this new novel bears some resemblances to _K_, by +many of her readers considered Mrs. Rinehart's most satisfactory story. If +I may venture a personal opinion, _The Breaking Point_ is a much stronger +novel than _K_. To me it seems to combine the excellence of character +delineation noticeable in _K_ with the dramatic thrill and plot +effectiveness which made _The Amazing Interlude_ so irresistible as you +read it. + +=ii= + +To say so much is to bear the strongest testimony to that superb vitality, +which, characteristic of Mrs. Rinehart as a person, is yet more +characteristic of her fiction. There is, I suppose, this additional +interest in regard to _The Breaking Point_, that Mrs. Rinehart is the wife +of a physician and was herself, before her marriage, a trained nurse. The +facts of her life are interesting, though not nearly so interesting as the +way in which she tells them. + +She was the daughter of Thomas Beveridge Roberts and Cornelia (Gilleland) +Roberts of Pittsburgh. From the city's public and high schools she went +into a training school for nurses, acquiring that familiarity with +hospital scenes which served her so well when she came to write _The +Amazing Adventures of Letitia Carberry_, the stories collected under the +title of _Tish_ and the novel _K_. She became, at nineteen, the wife of +Stanley Marshall Rinehart, a Pittsburgh physician. + +"Life was very good to me at the beginning," said Mrs. Rinehart in the +_American Magazine_ article I have referred to. "It gave me a strong body +and it gave me my sons before it gave me my work. I do not know what would +have happened had the work come first, but I should have had the children. +I know that. I had always wanted them. Even my hospital experience, which +rent the veil of life for me, and showed it often terrible, could not +change that fundamental thing we call the maternal instinct.... I would +forfeit every part of success that has come to me rather than lose any +part, even the smallest, of my family life. It is on the foundation of my +home that I have builded. + +"Yet, for a time, it seemed that my sons were to be all I was to have out +of life. From twenty to thirty I was an invalid.... This last summer +(1917), after forty days in the saddle through unknown mountains in +Montana and Washington, I was as unwearied as they were. But I paid ten +years for them." + +Mrs. Rinehart had always wanted to write. She began in 1905--she was +twenty-nine that year--and worked at a tiny mahogany desk or upon a card +table "so low and so movable. It can sit by the fire or in a sunny +window." She "learned to use a typewriter with my two forefingers with a +baby on my knee!" She wrote when the children were out for a walk, asleep, +playing. "It was frightfully hard.... I found that when I wanted to write +I could not and then, when leisure came and I went to my desk, I had +nothing to say." + +I quote from a chapter on Mrs. Rinehart in my book _The Women Who Make Our +Novels_: + +"Her first work was mainly short stories and poems. Her very first work +was verse for children. Her first check was for $25, the reward of a short +article telling how she had systematised the work of a household with two +maids and a negro 'buttons.' She sold one or two of the poems for children +and with a sense of guilt at the desertion of her family made a trip to +New York. She made the weary rounds in one day, 'a heartbreaking day, +going from publisher to publisher.' In two places she saw responsible +persons and everywhere her verses were turned down. 'But one man was very +kind to me, and to that publishing house I later sent _The Circular +Staircase_, my first novel. They published it and some eight other books +of mine.' + +"In her first year of sustained effort at writing, Mrs. Rinehart made +about $l,200. She was surrounded by 'sane people who cried me down,' but +who were merry without being contemptuous. Her husband has been her +everlasting help. He 'has stood squarely behind me, always. His belief in +me, his steadiness and his sanity and his humour have kept me going, when, +as has happened now and then, my little world of letters has shaken under +my feet.' To the three boys their mother's work has been a matter of +course ever since they can remember. 'I did not burst on them gloriously. +I am glad to say that they think I am a much better mother than I am a +writer, and that the family attitude in general has been attentive but not +supine. They regard it exactly as a banker's family regards his bank.'" + +Most of the work of the twelve years from 1905 to 1917 was done in Mrs. +Rinehart's home. But when she had a long piece of work to do she often +felt "the necessity of getting away from everything for a little while." +So, beginning about 1915, she rented a room in an office building in +Pittsburgh once each year while she was writing a novel. It was sparsely +furnished and, significantly, it contained no telephone. In 1917 she +became a commuter from her home in Sewickley, a Pittsburgh suburb. Her +earnings had risen to $50,000 a year and more. + +"My business with its various ramifications had been growing; an enormous +correspondence, involving business details, foreign rights, copyrights, +moving picture rights, translation rights, second serial rights, and +dramatisations, had made from the small beginning of that book of poems a +large and complicated business. + +"I had added political and editorial writing to my other work, and also +records of travel. I was quite likely to begin the day with an article +opposing capital punishment, spend the noon hours in the Rocky Mountains, +and finish off with a love story! + +"I developed the mental agility of a mountain goat! Filing cases entered +into my life, card index systems. To glance into my study after working +hours was dismaying." + +More recently, Mrs. Rinehart has become a resident of Washington, D. C. +Her husband is engaged in the Government health service and the family +lives in the Wardman Park Hotel, having taken the apartment of the late +Senator Boies Penrose of Pennsylvania. + +=iii= + +"Yet, if I were to begin again, I would go through it all, the rejections +at the beginning, the hard work, the envious and malicious hands reached +up to pull down anyone who has risen ever so little above his fellows. Not +for the money reward, although that has been large, not for the publicity, +although I am frank enough to say I would probably miss being pointed out +in a crowd! But because of two things: the friends I have made all over +the world, and the increased outlook and a certain breadth of perception +and knowledge that must come as the result of years of such labour. I am +not so intolerant as in those early days. I love my kind better. I find +the world good, to work and to play in. + +"I sometimes think, if I were advising a young woman as to a career, that +I should say: 'First, pick your husband.' + +"It is impossible to try to tell how I have attempted to reconcile my +private life with my public work without mentioning my husband. Because, +after all, it requires two people, a man and a woman, to organise a home, +and those two people must be in accord. It has been a sort of family creed +of ours that we do things together. We have tried, because of the varied +outside interests that pull hard, to keep the family life even more intact +than the average. Differing widely as they do, my husband's profession and +my career, we have been compelled to work apart. But we have relaxed, +rested and played, together. + +"And this rule holds good for the family. Generally speaking, we have been +a sort of closed corporation, a board of five, with each one given a vote +and the right to cast it. Holidays and home matters, and picnics and dogs, +and everything that is of common interest all come up for a discussion in +which the best opinion wins. The small boy had a voice as well as the +biggest boy. And it worked well. + +"It is not because we happened to like the same things. People do not +happen to like the same things. It is because we tried to, and it is +because we have really all grown up together. + +"Thus in the summer we would spend weeks in the saddle in the mountains of +the Far West, or fishing in Canada. But let me be entirely frank here. +These outdoor summers were planned at first because there were four men +and one woman in our party. Now, however, I love the open as the men do." + +=iv= + +"Writing is a clean profession. The writer gets out of it exactly what he +puts in, no more and no less. It is one-man work. No one can help. The +writer works alone, solitary and unaided. And, contrary to the general +opinion, what the writer has done in the past does not help him in the +future. He must continue to make good, day after day. + +"More than that he must manufacture a new article every day, and every +working hour of his day. He cannot repeat himself. Can you imagine a +manufacturer turning out something different all the time? And his income +stopping if he has a sick headache, or goes to a funeral?" + +=v= + +Next to the vitality, the variety of Mrs. Rinehart's work is most +noticeable. Her first novel, _The Circular Staircase_, was a mystery tale, +and so was her second, _The Man in Lower Ten_. She has, from time to time, +continued to write excellent mystery stories. _The Breaking Point_ is, +from one standpoint, a first class mystery story; and then there is that +enormously successful mystery play, written by Mrs. Rinehart in +conjunction with Avery Hopwood, _The Bat_. Nor was this her first success +as a playwright for she collaborated with Mr. Hopwood in writing the farce +_Seven Days_. Shall I add that Mrs. Rinehart has lived part of her life in +haunted houses? I am under the impression that more than one of her +residences has been found to be suitably or unsuitably haunted. There was +that house at Bellport on Long Island--but I really don't know the story. +I do know that the family's experience has been such as to provide +material for one or more very good mystery novels. My own theory is that +Mrs. Rinehart's indubitable gift for the creation of mystery yarns has +been responsible for the facts. I imagine that the haunting of the houses +has been a projection into some physical plane of her busy +sub-consciousness. I mean, simply, that instead of materialising as a +story, her preoccupation induced a set of actual and surprising +circumstances. Why couldn't it? Let Sir Oliver Lodge or Sir Arthur Conan +Doyle, the Society for Psychical Research, anybody who knows about that +sort of thing, explain! + +Consider the stories about Letitia Carberry. Tish is without a literary +parallel. Well-to-do, excitement loving, with a passion for guiding the +lives of two other elderly maidens like herself; with a nephew who throws +up hopeless hands before her unpredictable performances, Tish is funny +beyond all description. + +Just as diverting, in a quite different way, is Bab, the sub-deb and +forerunner of the present-day flapper. + +Something like a historical romance is _Long Live the King!_--a story of a +small boy, Crown Prince of a Graustark kingdom, whose scrapes and +friendships and admiration of Abraham Lincoln are strikingly contrasted +with court intrigues and uncovered treason. + +_The Amazing Interlude_ is the story of Sara Lee Kennedy, who went from a +Pennsylvania city to the Belgian front to make soup for the soldiers and +to fall in love with Henri.... But one could go on with other samples of +Mrs. Rinehart's abundant variety. I think, however, that the vitality of +her work, and not the variety nor the success in variety, is our point. +That vitality has its roots in a sympathetic feeling and a sanative humour +not exceeded in the equipment of any popular novelist writing in America +today. + +BOOKS BY MARY ROBERTS RINEHART + +THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE +THE MAN IN LOWER TEN +WHEN A MAN MARRIES +THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT +THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF LETITIA CARBERRY +WHERE THERE'S A WILL +THE CASE OF JENNY BRICE +THE AFTER HOUSE +THE STREET OF SEVEN STARS +K +THROUGH GLACIER PARK +TISH +THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM +LONG LIVE THE KING +TENTING TO-NIGHT +BAB, A SUB-DEB +KINGS, QUEENS AND PAWNS +THE AMAZING INTERLUDE +TWENTY-THREE AND A HALF HOURS' LEAVE +DANGEROUS DAYS +MORE TISH +LOVE STORIES +AFFINITIES AND OTHER STORIES +"ISN'T THAT JUST LIKE A MAN?" +THE TRUCE OF GOD +A POOR WISE MAN +SIGHT UNSEEN AND THE CONFESSION +THE BREAKING POINT + +SOURCES ON MARY ROBERTS RINEHART + +"My Creed: The Way to Happiness--As I Found It," by Mary Roberts +Rinehart. AMERICAN MAGAZINE, October, 1917. + +"Mary Roberts Rinehart as She Appears" by Robert H. Davis, AMERICAN +MAGAZINE, October, 1917. + +"My Public" by Mary Roberts Rinehart, THE BOOKMAN, December, 1920. + +The Women Who Make Our Novels, by Grant Overton, MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY. + +Who's Who in America. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THEY HAVE ONLY THEMSELVES TO BLAME + + +=i= + +If people will write memoirs, they must expect to suffer. They have only +themselves to blame if life becomes almost intolerable from the waves of +praise and censure. I am going to speak of some books of memoirs and +biography--highly personal and decidedly unusual books, in the main by +persons who are personages. + +_The Life of Sir William Vernon Harcourt_ concerns Sir William George +Granville Venables Vernon Harcourt, who was born in 1827 and died in 1904. +He was an English statesman, grandson of Edward Vernon Harcourt, +Archbishop of York. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and was +called to the bar in 1854. He entered Parliament (for Oxford) in 1868, sat +for Derby 1880-95, and for West Monmouthshire, 1895-1904. He was +Solicitor-general 1873-74, Home Secretary 1880-85 and Chancellor of the +Exchequer in 1886, 1892-94 and 1894-95. From March, 1894, to December, +1898, he was leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Commons. He wrote +in the London Times under the signature of "Historicus" a series of +letters on International Law, which were republished in 1863. His +biography, which begins before Victoria ascended the throne and closes +after her death, is the work of A. G. Gardiner. + +_Memoirs of the Memorable_ is by Sir James Denham, the poet-author of +"Wake Up, England!" and deals with most of the prominent social names of +the end of the last and commencement of this century, including Mr. +Gladstone, Lord Beaconsfield, Lord Byron, Robert Browning, the Bishop of +London, Cardinal Howard, Lord Dunedin, Lewis Carroll, Lord Marcus +Beresford and the late Bishop of Manchester. The book also deals with club +life and the leading sportsmen. + +_The Pomp of Power_ is by an author who very wisely remains anonymous, +like the author of _The Mirrors of Downing Street_. I shall not run the +risks of perjury by asserting or denying that the author of _The Mirrors +of Downing Street_ has written _The Pomp of Power_. As to the probability +perhaps readers of _The Pomp of Power_ had better judge. It is an +extremely frank book and its subjects include the leading personalities of +Great Britain today and, indeed, all the world. Lloyd George, +Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, Lord Haig, Marshal Joffre, Lord +Beaverbrook, Millerand, Loucheur, Painleve, Cambon, Lord Northcliffe, +Colonel Repington and Krassin of Soviet Russia are the persons principally +portrayed. The book throws a searchlight upon the military and diplomatic +relations of Britain and France before and during the war, and also deals +with the present international situation. It may fairly be called +sensational. + +Especially interesting is the anonymous author's revelation of the rôle +played in the war by Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, so lately +assassinated in London. The author was evidently an intimate of Sir Henry +and, just as evidently, he is intimately acquainted with Lloyd George, +apparently having worked with or under the Prime Minister. He is neither +Lloyd George's friend nor enemy and his portrait of the Prime Minister is +the most competent I can recall. Can he be Philip Kerr, Lloyd George's +adviser? + +I praise, in this slightly superlative fashion, the picture of the British +Prime Minister by the author of _The Pomp of Power_ ... and I pick up +another book and discover it to be E. T. Raymond's _Mr. Lloyd George: A +Biographical and Critical Sketch_. The author of _Uncensored Celebrities_ +is far too modest when he calls his new work a "sketch." It is a genuine +biography with that special accent due to the biographer's personality and +his power of what I may call penetrative synthesis. By that I mean the +insight into character which coördinates and builds--the sort of biography +that makes a legend about a man. + +Mr. Raymond does not begin with the "little Welshman" but with a Roman +Emperor, Diocletian, our first well-studied exemplar of the "coalition +mind." These are the words with which, after a brilliant survey of the +Prime Minister's career, the author closes: + +"If, however, we withhold judgment on every point where a difference of +opinion is possible, if we abandon to destructive criticism every act of +administrative vigour which is claimed by his admirers as a triumph, if we +accept the least charitable view of his faults and failures, there still +remains more than enough with which to defy what Lord Rosebery once called +'the body-snatchers of history, who dig up dead reputations for malignant +dissection.' If only that he imparted, in a black time, when it appeared +but too likely that the Alliance might falter and succumb from mere +sick-headache, his own defying, ardent, and invincible spirit to a tired, +puzzled, distracted and distrustful nation; if only that he dispelled the +vapours, inspired a new hope and resolution, brought the British people to +that temper which makes small men great, assured our Allies that their +cause was in the fullest sense our own, and finally achieved the great +moral victory implied in 'unity of command'--if these things be alone +considered, he will be judged to have earned for his portrait the right to +a dignified place in the gallery of history; and some future generation +will probably recall with astonishment that it was considered unfit to +adorn the dining-room of a London club." + +And here are two new books by Margot Asquith! One is _My Impressions of +America_, the other continues _The Autobiography of Margot Asquith_. Of +the first of these books there is to say that it represents Mrs. Asquith's +matured impressions and will have a value that could not possibly attach +to interviews or statements she gave on this side. It also gives, for the +first time, her frank and direct analyses of the personalities of the +distinguished people whom she met in America. The continuation of her +_Autobiography_ is a different matter. Those who have read _The +Autobiography of Margot Asquith_ will be prepared for the new book. At +least, I hope they will be prepared and yet I question whether they will. +There is, after all, only one person for Mrs. Asquith to surpass, and that +is herself; and I think she has done it. This new book will add Volumes +III. and IV. to _The Autobiography of Margot Asquith_. + +In _The Memoirs of Djemal Pasha: Turkey 1913-21_ will be found the +recollections of a man who was successively Military Governor of +Constantinople, Minister of Public Works and Naval Minister and who, with +Enver Bey and Talaat Bey, formed the triumvirate which dictated Turkish +policy and guided Turkey's fate after the coup d'état of 1913. I believe +these memoirs are of extraordinary interest and the greatest importance. +They give the first and only account from the Turkish side of events in +Turkey since 1913. The development of relations with Germany, France and +England immediately before the war is clearly traced, and a graphic +account is given of the first two months of the war, the escape of the +Goeben and the attempts made to keep Turkey neutral. When these failed, +Djemal Pasha was sent to govern Syria and to command the Fourth Army, +which was to conquer Egypt. The attack on the Suez Canal is described, and +then the series of operations which culminated in the British reverses in +the two battles of Gaza. Further important sections are devoted to the +revolt of the Arabs and the question of responsibility for the Armenian +massacres. + +The value of _Miscellanies--Literary and Historical_, by Lord Rosebery, +consists not so much in his recollections of people as in the delight of +reading good prose. Lord Rosebery has a natural dignity and a charm of +lucid phrasing that adapts itself admirably to the essay form he has +chosen. The subjects he takes up are beloved figures of the past. Robert +Burns, as Lord Rosebery talks of him, walks about in Dumfries and holds +spellbound by sheer personal charm the guests of the tavern. There are +papers on Burke, on Dr. Johnson, on Robert Louis Stevenson, and others as +great. One group deals with Scottish History and one with the service of +the state. The last is a study of the _genius loci_ of such places of +mellow associations as Eton and the Turf. The sort of book one returns +to! + +=ii= + +I was going to say something about Andrew C. P. Haggard's book, _Madame de +Staël: Her Trials and Triumphs_. But so profoundly convinced am I of the +book's fascination that I shall reprint the first chapter. If this is not +worthy of Lytton Strachey, I am no judge: + +"In the year 1751 a young fellow, only fourteen years of age, went to +Magdalen College at Oxford, and in the same year displayed his budding +talent by writing _The Age of Sesostris, Conqueror of Asia_, which work he +burnt in later years. + +"The boy was Edward Gibbon, who, after becoming a Roman Catholic at the +age of sixteen, was sent by his father to Switzerland, to continue his +education in the house of a Calvinist minister named M. Pavilliard, under +the influence of which gentleman he became a Protestant again at Lausanne +eighteen months later. + +"The young fellow, while leading the life of gaiety natural to his age in +company with a friend named Deyverdun, became an apt student of the +classics and was soon a proficient in French, in which tongue he wrote +before long as fluently as in English. With young Deyverdun he worked, and +in his company Edward Gibbon also played. After visiting frequently at the +house of the celebrated Voltaire at Monrepos, and after being present when +the distinguished French philosopher played in his own comedies and +sentimental pieces, the young fellow's thoughts soon turned to the theme +which was the continual subject of conversation of the ladies and +gentlemen who were Voltaire's guests and formed the company of amateurs +with whom the great dramatic writer was in the habit of rehearsing his +plays. This was, as might have been suspected in such a society, the theme +of love. + +"As it happened, there was in the habit of visiting Lausanne a young lady +who was a perfect paragon. Her name was Suzanne Curchod, and she was half +Swiss and half French, her father being a Swiss pastor and her mother a +Frenchwoman. + +"Very handsome and sprightly in appearance, the fair Suzanne was well +instructed in sciences and languages. Her wit, beauty and erudition made +her a prodigy and an object of universal admiration upon the occasion of +her visits to her relations in Lausanne. Soon an intimate connection +existed between Edward Gibbon and herself; he frequently accompanied her +to stay at her mountain home at Grassy, while at Lausanne also they +indulged in their dream of felicity. Edward loved the brilliant Suzanne +with a union of desire, friendship, and tenderness, and was in later years +proud of the fact that he was once capable of feeling such an exalted +sentiment. There is no doubt that, had he been able to consult his own +inclinations alone, Gibbon would have married Mademoiselle Curchod, but, +the time coming when he was forced to return to his home in England his +father declared that he would not hear of 'such a strange alliance.' + +"'Thereupon,' says Gibbon in his autobiography, 'I yielded to my +fate--sighed as a lover, obeyed as a son, and my wound was insensibly +healed by time, absence and new habits of life.' + +"These habits of life included four or five years' service in the +Hampshire Militia, in which corps Suzanne's lover became a captain, the +regiment being embodied during the period of the Seven Years' War. + +"Upon returning to Lausanne, at the age of twenty-six, in 1763, Edward +Gibbon was warmly received by his old love, but he heard that she had been +flirting with others, and notably with his friend M. Deyverdun. He +himself, while now mixing with an agreeable society of twenty unmarried +young ladies who, without any chaperons, mingled with a crowd of young men +of all nations, also 'lost many hours in dissipation.' + +"He was not long in showing Suzanne that he no longer found her +indispensable to his happiness, with the result that she assailed him, +although in vain, with angry reproaches. Notwithstanding that she begged +Gibbon to be her friend if no longer her lover, while vowing herself to be +confiding and tender, he acted hard-heartedly and declined to return to +his old allegiance, coldly replying: 'I feel the dangers that continued +correspondence may have for both of us.' + +"It is impossible to feel otherwise than sorry for the brilliant Suzanne +at this period, as although from her subsequent manoeuvres it became +evident that her principal object in life was to obtain a rich husband, +from the manner in which she humiliated herself to him it is evident that +she was passionately in love with the author of _The Decline and Fall of +the Roman Empire_. + +"Eventually the neglected damsel gave up the siege of an unwilling lover, +while assuring her formerly devoted Edward that the day would come 'when +he would regret the irreparable loss of the too frank and tender heart of +Suzanne Curchod.' + +"Had the pair been united, one wonders what would have been the +characteristics of the offspring of an English literary man like Gibbon, +who became perhaps the world's greatest historian, and a beautiful woman +of mixed nationality, whose subsequent career, although gilded with riches +and adorned with a position of power, displays nothing above the mediocre +and commonplace. + +"Edward Gibbon's fame, which was not long in coming, was his own, and will +remain for so long as a love of history and literature exists in the +world, whereas that of Suzanne Curchod rests upon two circumstances--the +first that she was once the sweetheart of Gibbon, the second that she was +the mother of a Madame de Staël. + +"When finally cast off by the Englishman, the Swiss Pastor's daughter +remembered that, if pretty, she was poor, and had her way to make in the +world. She commenced to play fast and loose with a M. Correvon, a rich +lawyer, whom she said she would marry 'if she had only to live with him +for four months in each year.' + +"The next lover was a pastor, who was as mercenary as herself, for he +threw her over for a lady with a large fortune. After this failure to +establish herself, Suzanne became tired of seeking a husband in +Switzerland and went to Paris as the companion of the rich and handsome +Madame Vermoneux, the supposed mistress of Jacques Necker, the rich Swiss +banker, who was established in the French capital. Once in Paris, it was +not long before by her seductions Suzanne succeeded in supplanting Madame +Vermoneux in the still young banker's affections, with the result that she +married him in 1764. + +"Gibbon, whom she had last seen in 1763, returned to the side of his +former love when she was at length safely married to another man. We find +him writing in 1765, to his friend Lord Sheffield, formerly Mr. Holroyd, +that he had spent ten delicious days in Paris about the end of June. 'She +was very fond of me, and the husband was particularly civil.' He continues +confidentially: 'Could they insult me more cruelly? Ask me every evening +to supper, go to bed and leave me alone with his wife--what an impertinent +security!' + +"It was in the month of April in the following year, 1766, that was born +Madame Necker's only child, Anne Louise Germaine, who was destined to +become one of the most remarkable women of modern times. From the great +literary talent displayed by this wonderfully precocious child from +girlhood, it is difficult not to imagine but that in some, if merely +spiritual, way the genius of her mother's old lover had descended through +that mother's brain as a mantle upon herself. That she learnt to look upon +Gibbon with admiration at an early age is sure. Michelet informs us that +owing to the praises showered upon the historian by M. Necker, Germaine +was anxious, as her mother had been before her, to become Gibbon's wife. +She was, however, destined to have another husband--or rather we should +say two other husbands." + +=iii= + +_Recollections and Reflections_ by a Woman of No Importance has added +greatly to the number of this author's readers, gained in the first +instance by her _Memories Discreet and Indiscreet_, which was followed by +_More Indiscretions_. + +_Recollections and Reflections_ consists of random memories of lords and +ladies, sportsmen, Kings, Queens, cooks, chauffeurs and Empresses, related +with a great deal of philosophy and insight and no little wit. + +There are stories of Gladstone's lovemaking, of Empress Eugenie and the +diamond the soldier swallowed, of Balfour's hats, Henry Irving's swelled +head and the cosmetics of Disraeli. There are stories of etiquette at a +hair-dressers' ball side by side with comments on Kitchener's waltzing. + +Lady Angela Forbes was the daughter of the fourth Earl of Rosslyn and the +youngest child of one of the largest and most prominent families in +England. Kitchener, Lord Roberts, Disraeli, the Kaiser, Prince Edward--she +has dined or sailed or hunted with them all on the most informal terms. +She tells, with engaging frankness, in _Memories and Base Details_, of the +gaieties, the mistakes and tragedies of herself and her friends. + +It was Baron von Margutti who informed the Emperor Francis Joseph in 1914 +that Serbia had rejected his ultimatum. The character of the Emperor is a +moot question. _The Emperor Francis Joseph and His Times_, reminiscences +by Baron von Margutti, is by a man who knew the Emperor intimately and who +knew the men and women who surrounded him daily. Baron von Margutti met +all the distinguished European figures, such as Edward VII, Emperor +Wilhelm, Czar Nicholas and the Empress Eugenie who came to Austria to +visit. He watched from a particularly favourable vantage point the deft +moves of secret diplomacy which interlaced the various governments. + +Lord Frederic Hamilton, born in 1856, the fourth son of the first Duke of +Abercorn, was educated at Harrow, was formerly in the British Diplomatic +Service and served successively as Secretary of the British Embassies in +Berlin and Petrograd and the Legations at Lisbon and Buenos Aires. He has +travelled much and, besides being in Parliament, was editor of the Pall +Mall Magazine till 1900. The popularity of his books of reminiscences is +explained by the fascinating way in which he tells a story or illuminates +a character. Other books of memoirs have been more widely celebrated but I +know of none which has made friends who were more enthusiastic. _The +Vanished Pomps of Yesterday_, _Days Before Yesterday_ and _Here, There and +Everywhere_ are constantly in demand. + +But, all along, a surprise has been in store and the time is now here to +disclose it! The talent for this delightful species of memoirising runs +through the family; and Sir Frederic Hamilton's brother, Lord Ernest +Hamilton, proves it. Lord Ernest is the author of _Forty Years On_, a new +book quite as engaging as _Here, There and Everywhere_, and the rest of +Sir Frederic's. Word from London is that Sir Frederic will have no new +book this year; he steps aside with a gallant bow for Lord Ernest. I have +been turning pages in _Forty Years On_ and reading about such matters as +the Copley curse, school life at Harrow where Shifner and others bowed the +knee to Baal, bull fights in Peru and adventures in the Klondike. +Personally the most amusing moments of the book I find to be those in +which Lord Ernest describes his experiments in speaking ancient Greek in +modern Greece. But this is perhaps because I, too, have tried to speak +syllables of Xenophon while being rapidly driven (in a barouche) about +Patras--with the same lamentable results. It is enough to unhinge the +reason, the pronunciation of modern Greek, I mean. But maybe your hobby is +bathing? Lord Ernest has a word in praise of Port Antonio, Jamaica, as a +bathing ground. + +What he says about hummingbirds--but I mustn't! _Forty Years On_ is a mine +of interest and each reader ought to be pretty well left to work it for +himself. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +AUDACIOUS MR. BENNETT + + +=i= + +Mr. Bennett's audacity has always been evident. One might say that he +began by daring to tell the truth about an author, continued by daring to +tell the truth about the Five Towns, and has now reached the incredible +stage where he dares to tell the truth about marriage. This is affronting +Fate indeed. It was all very well for Arnold Bennett to write a play +called _Cupid and Commonsense_. Perhaps, in view of the fact that it is +one of the great novels of the twentieth century, it was all right for him +to create _The Old Wives' Tale_; but it cannot be all right for him to +compose such novels as _Mr. Prohack_ and his still newer story, _Lilian_. + +Think of the writers who have stumbled and fallen over the theme of +marriage. There is W. L. George ... but I cannot bring myself to name +other names and discuss their tragic fates. There are those who have +sought to make the picture of marriage a picture of horror; but that was +because they did not dare to tell the truth. That marriage is all, no one +but Mr. Bennett seems to realise. No one but Mr. Bennett seems to realise +that, as between husband and wife, there are no such things as moral +standards, there can be no such thing as an ethical code, there can be no +interposition of lofty abstractions which Men call principles and appeal +to as they would appeal to a just God, Himself. No one but Mr. Bennett +seems to realise that the relation between a man and his wife necessarily +transcends every abstraction, brushes aside every ideal of "right" and +"wrong." Mr. Bennett, in the course of the amazing discoveries of an +amazing lifetime, has made the greatest discovery possible to mortals of +this planet. He has discovered that marriage occurs when a man and a woman +take the law into their own hands, and not only the human law, but the +divine. + +It would be impossible for the hero of a Bennett novel of recent years to +be a character like Mark Sabre in _If Winter Comes_. Arnold Bennett's +married hero would realise that the health, comfort, wishes, doubts, +dissimulations; the jealousies, the happiness or the fancied happiness, +and the exterior appearances of the woman who was his wife abolish, for +practical purposes, everything else. It is due to Mr. Bennett more than to +anyone else that we now understand that while "husband" may be a correct +legal designation, "lover" is the only possible æsthetic appellation of +the man who is married. If he is not a lover he is not a husband except +for statutory purposes--that is all. + +[Illustration: ARNOLD BENNETT] + +=ii= + +It is hard to describe _Lilian_. I will let you taste it: + +"Lilian, in dark blue office frock with an embroidered red line round the +neck and detachable black wristlets that preserved the ends of the sleeves +from dust and friction, sat idle at her flat desk in what was called 'the +small room' at Felix Grig's establishment in Clifford Street, off Bond +Street. There were three desks, three typewriting machines and three +green-shaded lamps. Only Lilian's lamp was lighted, and she sat alone, +with darkness above her chestnut hair and about her, and a circle of +radiance below. She was twenty-three. Through the drawn blind of the +window could just be discerned the backs of the letters of words painted +on the glass: 'Felix Grig. Typewriting Office. Open day and night.' Seen +from the street the legend stood out black and clear against the faintly +glowing blind. It was eleven p.m. + +"That a beautiful girl, created for pleasure and affection and expensive +flattery, should be sitting by herself at eleven p.m., in a gloomy office +in Clifford Street, in the centre of the luxurious, pleasure-mad, love-mad +West End of London seemed shocking and contrary to nature, and Lilian +certainly so regarded it. She pictured the shut shops, and shops and yet +again shops, filled with elegance and costliness--robes, hats, stockings, +shoes, gloves, incredibly fine lingerie, furs, jewels, perfumes--designed +and confected for the setting-off of just such young attractiveness as +hers. She pictured herself rifling those deserted and silent shops by some +magic means and emerging safe, undetected, in batiste so rare that her +skin blushed through it, in a frock that was priceless and yet nothing at +all, and in warm marvellous sables that no blast of wind or misfortune +could ever penetrate--and diamonds in her hair. She pictured thousands of +smart women, with imperious command over rich, attendant males, who at +that very moment were moving quickly in automobiles from theatres towards +the dancing-clubs that clustered round Felix Grig's typewriting office. At +that very moment she herself ought to have been dancing. Not in a smart +club; no! Only in the basement of a house where an acquaintance of hers +lodged; and only with clerks and things like that; and only a gramophone. +But still a dance, a respite from the immense ennui and solitude called +existence!" + +After Lilian's mother died she had been "Papa's cherished darling. Then +Mr. Share caught pneumonia, through devotion to duty and died in a few +days; and at last Lilian felt on her lovely cheek the winds of the world; +at last she was free. Of high paternal finance she had never in her life +heard one word. In the week following the funeral she learnt that she +would be mistress of the furniture and a little over one hundred pounds +net. Mr. Share had illustrated the ancient maxim that it is easier to make +money than to keep it. He had held shipping shares too long and had sold a +fully-paid endowment insurance policy in the vain endeavour to replace by +adventurous investment that which the sea had swallowed up. And Lilian was +helpless. She could do absolutely nothing that was worth money. She could +not begin to earn a livelihood. As for relatives, there was only her +father's brother, a Board School teacher with a large vulgar family and an +income far too small to permit of generosities. Lilian was first +incredulous, then horror-struck. + +"Leaving the youth of the world to pick up art as best it could without +him, and fleeing to join his wife in paradise, the loving, adoring father +had in effect abandoned a beautiful idolised daughter to the alternatives +of starvation or prostitution. He had shackled her wrists behind her back +and hobbled her feet and bequeathed her to wolves. That was what he had +done, and what many and many such fathers had done, and still do, to their +idolised daughters. + +"Herein was the root of Lilian's awful burning resentment against the +whole world, and of a fierce and terrible determination by fair means or +foul to make the world pay. Her soul was a horrid furnace, and if by +chance Lionel Share leaned out from the gold bar of heaven and noticed it, +the sight must have turned his thoughts towards hell for a pleasant +change. She was saved from disaster, from martyrdom, from ignominy, from +the unnameable, by the merest fluke. The nurse who tended Lionel Share's +last hours was named Grig. This nurse had cousins in the typewriting +business. She had also a kind heart a practical mind, and a persuasive +manner with cousins." + +Lilian in the office late at night has been engaged in conversation by her +employer, Mr. Grig, and Mr. Grig has finally come to the point. + +"'You know you've no business in a place like this, a girl like you. +You're much too highly strung for one thing. You aren't like Miss Jackson, +for instance. You're simply wasting yourself here. Of course you're +terribly independent, but you do try to please. I don't mean try to please +merely in your work. You try to please. It's an instinct with you. Now in +typing you'd never beat Miss Jackson. Miss Jackson's only alive, really, +when she's typing. She types with her whole soul. You type well--I +hear--but that's only because you're clever all round. You'd do anything +well. You'd milk cows just as well as you'd type. But your business is +marriage, and a good marriage! You're beautiful, and, as I say, you have +an instinct to please. That's the important thing. You'd make a success of +marriage because of that and because you're adaptable and quick at picking +up. Most women when they're married forget that their job is to adapt +themselves and to please. That's their job. They expect to be kowtowed to +and spoilt and humoured and to be free to spend money without having to +earn it, and to do nothing in return except just exist--and perhaps manage +a household, pretty badly. They seem to forget that there are two sides to +a bargain. It's dashed hard work, pleasing is, sometimes. I know that. But +it isn't so hard as earning money, believe me! Now you wouldn't be like +the majority of women. You'd keep your share of the bargain, and +handsomely. If you don't marry, and marry fifty miles above you, you'll be +very silly. For you to stop here is an outrage against commonsense. It's +merely monstrous. If I wasn't an old man I wouldn't tell you this, +naturally. Now you needn't blush. I expect I'm not far off thirty years +older than you--and you're young enough to be wise in time.'" + +=iii= + +It will be seen that _Lilian_ has all the philosophy and humour which make +_Mr. Prohack_ a joy forever, and in addition the new novel has the strong +interest we feel in a young, beautiful, attractive, helpless girl, who has +her way to make in the world. And yet, I love _Mr. Prohack_. I think I +have by heart some of the wisdom he utters; for instance-- + +On women: "Even the finest and most agreeable women, such as those with +whom I have been careful to surround myself in my domestic existence, are +monsters of cruelty." + +On women's clubs: "You scarcely ever speak to a soul in your club. The +food's bad in your club. They drink liqueurs before dinner at your club. +I've seen 'em. Your club's full every night of the most formidable +spinsters each eating at a table alone. Give up your club by all means. +Set fire to it and burn it down. But don't count the act as a +renunciation. You hate your club." + +On his wife: "You may annoy me. You may exasperate me. You are frequently +unspeakable. But you have never made me unhappy. And why? Because I am one +of the few exponents of romantic passion left in this city. My passion for +you transcends my reason. I am a fool, but I am a magnificent fool. And +the greatest miracle of modern times is that after twenty-four years of +marriage you should be able to give me pleasure by perching your stout +body on the arm of my chair as you are doing." + +On his daughter: "In 1917 I saw that girl in dirty overalls driving a +thundering great van down Whitehall. Yesterday I met her in her foolish +high heels and her shocking openwork stockings and her negligible dress +and her exposed throat and her fur stole, and she was so delicious and so +absurd and so futile and so sure of her power that--that--well ... that +chit has the right to ruin me--not because of anything she's done, but +because she is." + +On kissing: "That fellow has kissed my daughter and he has kissed her for +the first time. It is monstrous that any girl, and especially my daughter, +should be kissed for the first time.... It amounts to an outrage." + +On parenthood: "To become a parent is to accept terrible risks. I'm +Charlie's father. What then?... He owes nothing whatever to me or to you. +If we were starving and he had plenty, he would probably consider it his +duty to look after us; but that's the limit of what he owes us. Whereas +nothing can put an end to our responsibility towards him.... We thought it +would be nice to have children and so Charlie arrived. He didn't choose +his time and he didn't choose his character, nor his education, nor his +chance. If he had his choice you may depend he'd have chosen differently. +Do you want me, on the top of all that, to tell him that he must +obediently accept something else from us--our code of conduct? It would be +mere cheek, and with all my shortcomings I'm incapable of impudence, +especially to the young." + +On ownership: "Have you ever stood outside a money-changer's and looked at +the fine collection of genuine banknotes in the window? Supposing I told +you that you could look at them, and enjoy the sight of them, and nobody +could do more? No, my boy, to enjoy a thing properly you've got to own it. +And anybody who says the contrary is probably a member of the League of +all the Arts." + +On economics: "That's where the honest poor have the advantage of us.... +We're the dishonest poor.... We're one vast pretence.... A pretence +resembles a bladder. It may burst. We probably shall burst. Still, we have +one great advantage over the honest poor, who sometimes have no income at +all; and also over the rich, who never can tell how big their incomes are +going to be. We know exactly where we are. We know to the nearest +sixpence." + +On history: "Never yet when empire, any empire, has been weighed in the +balance against a young and attractive woman has the young woman failed to +win! This is a dreadful fact, but men are thus constituted." + +On bolshevism: "Abandon the word 'bolshevik.' It's a very overworked word +and wants a long repose." + +=iv= + +The best brief sketch of Arnold Bennett's life that I know of is given in +the chapter on Arnold Bennett in John W. Cunliffe's _English Literature +During the Last Half Century_. Professor Cunliffe, with the aid, of +course, of Bennett's own story, _The Truth About an Author_, writes as +follows: + +"He was born near Hanley, the 'Hanbridge' of the Five Towns which his +novels were to launch into literary fame, and received a somewhat limited +education at the neighbouring 'Middle School' of Newcastle, his highest +scholastic achievement being the passing of the London University +Matriculation Examination. Some youthful adventures in journalism were +perhaps significant of latent power and literary inclination, but a small +provincial newspaper offers no great encouragement to youthful ambition, +and Enoch Arnold Bennett (as he was then called) made his way at 21 as a +solicitor's clerk to London, where he was soon earning a modest livelihood +by 'a natural gift for the preparation of bills for taxation.' He had +never 'wanted to write' (except for money) and had read almost nothing of +Scott, Jane Austen, Dickens, Thackeray, the Brontës, and George Eliot, +though he had devoured Ouida, boys' books and serials. His first real +interest in a book was 'not as an instrument for obtaining information or +emotion, but as a book, printed at such a place in such a year by +so-and-so, bound by so-and-so, and carrying colophons, registers, +water-marks, and _fautes d'impression_.' It was when he showed a rare copy +of _Manon Lescaut_ to an artist and the latter remarked that it was one of +the ugliest books he had ever seen, that Bennett, now in his early +twenties, first became aware of the appreciation of beauty. He won twenty +guineas in a competition, conducted by a popular weekly, for a humorous +condensation of a sensational serial, being assured that this was 'art,' +and the same paper paid him a few shillings for a short article on 'How a +bill of costs is drawn up.' Meanwhile he was 'gorging' on English and +French literature, his chief idols being the brothers de Goncourt, de +Maupassant, and Turgenev, and he got a story into the Yellow Book. He saw +that he could write, and he determined to adopt the vocation of letters. +After a humiliating period of free lancing in Fleet Street, he became +assistant editor and later editor of Woman. When he was 31, his first +novel, _A Man From the North_, was published, both in England and America, +and with the excess of the profits over the cost of typewriting he bought +a new hat. At the end of the following year he wrote in his diary: + +"'This year I have written 335,340 words, grand total: 224 articles and +stories, and four instalments of a serial called _The Gates of Wrath_ have +actually been published, and also my book of plays, _Polite Farces_. My +work included six or eight short stories not yet published, also the +greater part of a 55,000 word serial _Love and Life_ for Tillotsons, and +the whole draft, 80,000 words of my Staffordshire novel _Anna +Tellwright_.' + +"This last was not published in book form till 1902 under the title of +_Anna of the Five Towns_; but in the ten years that had elapsed since he +came to London, Bennett had risen from a clerk at six dollars a week to be +a successful 'editor, novelist, dramatist, critic, connoisseur of all +arts' with a comfortable suburban residence. Still he was not satisfied; +he was weary of journalism and the tyranny of his Board of Directors. He +threw up his editorial post, with its certain income, and retired first to +the country and then to a cottage at Fontainebleau to devote himself to +literature. + +"In the autumn of 1903, when Bennett used to dine frequently in a Paris +restaurant, it happened that a fat old woman came in who aroused almost +universal merriment by her eccentric behaviour. The novelist reflected: +'This woman was once young, slim, perhaps beautiful; certainly free from +these ridiculous mannerisms. Very probably she is unconscious of her +singularities. Her case is a tragedy. One ought to be able to make a +heart-rending novel out of a woman such as she.' The idea then occurred to +him of writing the book which afterwards became _The Old Wives' Tale_, and +in order to go one better than Guy de Maupassant's 'Une Vie' he determined +to make it the life-history of two women instead of one. Constance, the +more ordinary sister, was the original heroine; Sophia, the more +independent and attractive one, was created 'out of bravado.' The project +occupied Bennett's mind for some years, during which he produced five or +six novels of smaller scope, but in the autumn of 1907 he began to write +_The Old Wives' Tale_ and finished it in July, 1908. It was published the +same autumn and though its immediate reception was not encouraging, before +the winter was over it was recognised both in England and America as a +work of genius. The novelist's reputation was upheld, if not increased, by +the publication of Clayhanger in 1910, and in June, 1911, the most +conservative of American critical authorities, the New York Evening Post, +could pronounce judgment in these terms: + +"'Mr. Bennett's Bursley is not merely one single stupid English provincial +town. His Baineses and Clayhangers are not simply average middle class +provincials foredoomed to humdrum and the drab shadows of experience. His +Bursley is every provincial town, his Baineses are all townspeople +whatsoever under the sun. He professes nothing of the kind; but with quiet +smiling patience, with a multitude of impalpable touches, clothes his +scene and its humble figures in an atmosphere of pity and understanding. +These little people, he seems to say, are as important to themselves as +you are to yourself, or as I am to myself. Their strength and weakness are +ours; their lives, like ours, are rounded with a sleep. And because they +stand in their fashion for all human character and experience, there is +even a sort of beauty in them if you will but look for it.'" + +BOOKS BY ARNOLD BENNETT + +Novels: + A MAN FROM THE NORTH + THE GRAND BABYLON HOTEL + THE GATES OF WRATH + ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS + LEONORA + HUGO + A GREAT MAN + THE BOOK OF CARLOTTA + WHOM GOD HATH JOINED + THE OLD ADAM + BURIED ALIVE + THE OLD WIVES' TALE + CLAYHANGER + DENRY THE AUDACIOUS [In England, THE CARD] + HILDA LESSWAYS + THE MATADOR OF THE FIVE TOWNS + HELEN WITH THE HIGH HAND + THE GLIMPSE + THE CITY OF PLEASURE + THESE TWAIN + THE LION'S SHARE + THE PRETTY LADY + THE ROLL CALL + MR. PROHACK + LILIAN + +Plays: + CUPID AND COMMONSENSE + WHAT THE PUBLIC WANTS + THE HONEYMOON + MILESTONES [With Edward Knoblauch] + THE GREAT ADVENTURE + THE TITLE + JUDITH + SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE + THE LOVE MATCH + +SOURCES ON ARNOLD BENNETT + +Who's Who [In England]. + +English Literature During the Last Half Century, by John W. Cunliffe. +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. + +Arnold Bennett. A booklet published by GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY, 1911. +(Out of print.) + +The Truth About an Author, by Arnold Bennett. GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY. + +The Author's Craft, by Arnold Bennett. GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY. + +Some Modern Novelists, by Helen Thomas Follett and Wilson Follett. +HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY. + +Arnold Bennett, by J. F. Harvey Darton, in the WRITERS OF THE DAY series. + +The critical articles on Mr. Bennett and his individual books are too +numerous to mention. The reader is referred to the New York Public +Library or the Library of Congress, Washington, D. C., and to the Annual +Index of Periodical Publications for the last twenty years. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +A CHAPTER FOR CHILDREN + + +=i= + +I know of only one book which really aids parents and others who have to +oversee children's reading. That is Annie Carroll Moore's invaluable +_Roads to Childhood_. The author, as supervisor of work with children in +the New York Public Library, has had possibly a completer opportunity to +understand what children like to read and why they like it than any other +woman. What is more, she has the gift of writing readably about both +children and books, and an unusual faculty for reconciling those somewhat +opposite poles--things children like to read and the things it is well for +them to read. + +Miss Moore says that the important thing is a discovery of personality in +children and a respect for their natural inclinations in reading--an early +and live appreciation of literature and good drawings is best imparted by +exposure rather than by insistence upon a too rigid selection. "What I +like about these papers," said one young mother, "is that they are good +talk. You can pick the book up and open it anywhere without following a +course of reading or instruction to understand it. There is full +recognition of the fact that children are different and react differently +to the same books at different periods of their development." + +Maude Radford Warren's _Tales Told by the Gander_ is one of those books +for children that adults find interesting, too; and there is a new series +of children's books by May Byron, concerning which I must say a few words. +The series is called "Old Friends in New Frocks" and here are a few of the +titles: + +_Billy Butt's Adventure: The Tale of the Wolf and the Goat._ + +_Little Jumping Joan: The Tale of the Ants and the Grasshopper._ + +_Jack-a-Dandy: The Tale of the Vain Jackdaw._ + +These books are noteworthy for their beautiful illustrations. Each volume +has an inspired and fanciful frontispiece in colours by E. J. Detmold and +line illustrations by Day Hodgetts. Moreover, there are end papers and the +binding has a picture in colour that begins on the back and extends all +the way around in front. Naturally they are for very young children--shall +we say up to seven years old? + +=ii= + +On April 29, 1922, the Philadelphia Public Ledger printed a letter from +twelve-year-old Marion Kummer, as follows: + +"Dear Mr. Editor: My father asked me to write you a story about him and +they say at school that I am good at stories, so I thought I would. I +think he thinks I can write and become a great writer like him some day, +but I would rather be a great actress like Leonora Ulrick. I saw her in a +play where she went to sleep and they stuck pins in her but could not wake +her up, which part I should not like. But at that I would rather be an +actress because acting is pleasanter and more exciting and you do not have +to write on the typewriter all day and get a pain in your back. Daddy says +he would rather shovel coal but he does not, but snow sometimes, which has +been very plentiful about here this winter, also sledding. + +"When he is not working, he goes for a walk with the dogs, or tells us +most any question we should ask almost like an encikelopedia. He is very +good-natured and I love the things he writes, especially plays. Daddy has +just finished a children's book called _The Earth's Story_ about how it +began millions of years ago when there was a great many fossils, so nice +for children. Also about stone axes. My brother Fred made one but when he +was showing us how it worked the head came off and hit me on the foot and +I kicked him. So stone axes were one of the man's first weapons. Daddy +read us each chapter when it was done and we helped him except baby +brother who wrote with red crayon all over one chapter when no one was +there, and he should not have been in Daddy's office anyway. Daddy has to +draw horses and engines for him all the time. He gets tired of it but what +can he do?" + +Now this is very pleasant, for here on the table is the first volume of +_The Earth's Story--The First Days of Man_ by Frederic Arnold Kummer; and +this book for children has a preface for parents in it. In that preface +Mr. Kummer says: + +"In this process of storing away in his brain the accumulated knowledge of +the ages the child's mind passes, with inconceivable rapidity, along the +same route that the composite minds of his ancestors travelled, during +their centuries of development. The impulse that causes him to want to +hunt, to fish, to build brush huts, to camp out in the woods, to use his +hands as well as his brain, is an inheritance from the past, when his +primitive ancestors did these things. He should be helped to trace the +route they followed with intelligence and understanding, he should be +encouraged to know the woods, and all the great world of out-of-doors, to +make and use the primitive weapons, utensils, toys, his ancestors made and +used, to come into closer contact with the fundamental laws of nature, and +thus to lay a groundwork for wholesome and practical thinking which cannot +be gained in the classroom or the city streets. + +"As has been said, the writer has tested the methods outlined above. The +chapters in _The First Days of Man_ are merely the things he has told his +own children. It is of interest to note that one of these, a boy of seven, +on first going to school, easily outstripped in a single month a dozen or +more children who had been at school almost a year, and was able to enter +a grade a full year ahead of them. The child in question is not in the +least precocious, but having understood the knowledge he has gained, he is +able to make use of it, he has a definite mental perspective, a sure grasp +on things, which makes study of any kind easy for him, and progression +correspondingly rapid." + +To say that _Jungle Tales, Adventures in India_, by Howard Anderson Musser +is a series of missionary tales of adventure in India, is to give no idea +of the thrills within its covers. There are fights with tigers, bears and +bandits, and there is one long fight against ignorance and disease, +superstition and merciless greed. And the fighter? He was an American +athlete, who had won honour on the track and football field. Great for +boys! + +=iii= + +The English _Who's Who_ says: "Colonel Stevenson Lyle Cummins"--then +follows a string of degrees--"David Davies Professor of Tuberculosis, +University College, South Wales, Monmouthshire, and Principal Medical +Officer to the King Edward VII. Welsh National Memorial Association +since 1921.... Entered Army 1897; Captain, 1900; Major, 1909; +Lieutenant-Colonel, 1915; Colonel, 1918; served Nile Expedition, 1898 +(medal with clasp, despatches); Sudan 1900, 1902; Sudan, 1904 (Clasp); +Osmanieh 4th class, 1907; European War, 1914-18 (C.B., C.M.G., +despatches six times, Brevetted Colonel); Legion of Honour (Officer), +Couronne de Belgique (Officer); Col. 1918; Croix de Guerre (Belgian), +1918, retired from Army, 1921." + +But I don't suppose that it was as a consequence of anything in that +honourable record that Colonel Cummins wrote _Plays for Children_, in +three volumes. I suppose it was in consequence of another fact which the +English_ Who's Who_ mentions (very briefly and abbreviatedly) as "four +_c._" + +The possession of four children is a natural explanation of three volumes +of juvenile plays. + +But wait a moment! Did Colonel Cummins write them wholly for his +youngsters? As I read these little plays, it seems to me that there is +frequently an undercurrent of philosophy, truth, satire--what you +will--which, unappreciated by the youngsters themselves, will make these +household dramas ingratiating to their parents. At any rate, this is +exceptional work; you may be sure it is, for publishers are not in the +habit of bringing out an author's three volumes of children's plays all at +one stroke, and that is what is happening with Colonel Cummins's little +dramas. + +What is there to say in advance about _The Fairy Flute_, by Rose Fyleman? +No one of the increasing number who have read her utterly charming book of +poems for children, _Fairies and Chimneys_, will need more than the breath +that this book is coming. I shall give myself (and I think everyone who +reads this) the pleasure of quoting a poem from _Fairies and Chimneys_. +This will show those who do not know the work of Rose Fyleman what to +expect: + + PEACOCKS + Peacocks sweep the fairies' rooms; + They use their folded tails for brooms; + But fairy dust is brighter far + Than any mortal colours are; + And all about their tails it clings + In strange designs of rounds and rings; + And that is why they strut about + And proudly spread their feathers out. + +=iv= + +Francis Rolt-Wheeler has spent years at sea, travelled a great deal in the +West Indies, and South America, trapped at Hudson Bay, punched cattle in +the far West, lived in mining camps, traversed the greater part of the +American continent on horseback, lived with the Indians of the plains and +lived with the Indians of the Pueblos, was a journalist for several years, +has been in nearly every country of the world, and when last heard from +(May, 1922) was meandering through Spain on his way to Morocco intending +to take journeys on mule-back among the wild tribes of the Riff. He is +studying Arabic and Mohammedan customs to prepare himself for this latest +adventure. He writes boys' books. + +Can he write boys' books? If a man of his experience cannot write boys' +books, then boys' books are hopeless. + +_Plotting in Pirate Seas_, besides the thrill of the story relating Stuart +Garfield's adventures in Haiti, contains glimpses of the whole pageant we +call "the history of the Spanish Main." There is a chapter which gives an +account of Teach and Blackbeard, the buccaneers. Other chapters offer +natural history in connection with Stuart Garfield's hunt for his father. +The boy gets an inside view of newspaper work and a clear idea of native +life in Haiti and of conditions which brought about American intervention +on the island. + +_Hunting Hidden Treasure in the Andes_ is, explicitly, the story of Julio +and his guidance of two North American boys to the buried treasure of the +Incas; but the book is much more than that. It gives, with accuracy and +exceptional interest, a panorama of South American civilisation. + +These are the first two volumes of the "Boy Journalist Series." Two other +books, the first two volumes in the series called "Romance-History of +America," are: + +_In the Days Before Columbus_, which deals with the North America that +every youngster wants to know about--a continent flung up from the ocean's +bed and sculptured by ice; a continent that was kept hidden for centuries +from European knowledge by the silent sweep of ocean currents; a continent +that developed civilisations comparable with the Phoenician and Egyptian; +the continent of the Red Man. The book places what we customarily call +"American History" in its proper perspective by hanging behind it the +stupendous backdrop of creation and the prehistoric time. + +_The Quest of the Western World_ is not the usual story of Columbus, +preceded by a few allusions to the adventurings of earlier navigators. Dr. +Rolt-Wheeler has written a book which goes back to the days of Tyre and +Sidon, which includes the core of the old Norse and Irish sagas, and which +comes down to Columbus with all the rich tapestry of a daring past +unrolled before the youthful reader. Nor does the author stand on the +letter of his title; he tells the story of the Quest both backward and +forward, tying up the past with the present and avoiding, with singular +success, the fatal effect which makes a child feel: "All this was a long +time ago; it hasn't anything to do with me or today." + +And now two new Rolt-Wheeler books are ready! _Heroes of the Ruins_, the +third volume of the "Boy Journalist Series," tells of a fourteen-year-old +who lived for four years of war in trenches and dugouts. Andre, the Mole, +went from one company to another, dodged the authorities and successfully +ran the risks of death, emerging at the end to take up the search for his +scattered family, from whom he had been separated in the early days of the +fighting. + +The third volume in the "Romance-History of America" books is _The Coming +of the Peoples_, which tells how the French, Spanish, English and Dutch +settled early America. + +=v= + +Olive Roberts Barton is a sister of Mary Roberts Rinehart. When she taught +school in Pittsburgh for several years before her marriage, she worked +with children of all sizes and ages during part of that time and found +small children were her specialty. She says: + +"Working with them, and giving out constantly as one must with small +children, was like casting bread upon waters. It came back to me, what I +was giving them, not after many days but at once; their appreciation, +their spontaneous sympathy, their love gave to me something I could get +nowhere else, and it was enriching. I felt then, as I still feel, that +children give us the best things the world has to offer, and my effort has +been to make some return. Twice during the crises in my married life I +went back to the schoolroom for comfort. Once after the death of one of my +own children, when I had no others left, and again when my husband went to +the battle-fields of France. + +"I have written with the same experience as I taught. My first successes +were with adult fiction. I have had something like six hundred short +stories published by syndicates, and magazine articles have appeared from +time to time, but gradually I realised that I wanted children for my +audience. Several years ago I published _Cloud Boat Stories_. Later _The +Wonderful Land of Up_. A syndicate editor saw these books and asked me to +start a children's department for the five hundred papers he served. That +was the beginning of the 'Twins.' Nancy and Nick were born two years ago. +They still visit their little friends every day in the columns of many +newspapers. What a vast audience I have! A million children! No wonder one +wishes to do his best. + +"I have two children of my own. They are my critics. What they do not +like, I do not write. We all love the out-of-doors and to us a bird or a +little wild animal is a fairy." + +But when I try to say something about the _Nancy and Nick_ series I find +it has all been said for me (and said so much better!) by that +accomplished bookseller, Candace T. Stevenson: + +"I have just finished all of the books by Olive Roberts Barton. They are +truly spontaneous and delightful. In fact, they have carried my small +group of children listeners and myself along as breathlessly as if they +were Alice in Wonderland or Davy and the Goblin. They are delightful +nonsense with exactly the right degree of an undercurrent of ideas which +they can make use of in their business of everyday living. Children love +morals which are done as skilfully as the chapter on Examinations in +Helter Skelter Land, and Sammy Jones, the Topsy Turvy Boy in Topsy Turvy +Land, and I found my group not only seriously discussing them but putting +them into practice. Speaking of putting things into practice, there is +only one spot in all of the books which seemed to me as if it might get +some children into trouble. The description of Waspy Weasel's trick on the +schoolmaster in Helter Skelter Land where he squeezes bittersweet juice +into the schoolmaster's milk and puts him to sleep, I think would lead any +inquiring mind to try it. + +"The whale who loved peppermints, Torty Turtle with his seagull's wings +on, the adventures of the children when they help Mr. Tingaling collect +the rents--this isn't the same old stuff of the endless 'bedtime' stories +which are dealt out to us by the yard. These animals are real people with +the tinge which takes real imagination to paint. + +"At first I was disappointed in the pictures, but as I read on I came +to like those also, and I found that they were wholly satisfactory to the +children. The picture of the thousand legger with all his shoes on is +entrancing, and poor Mrs. Frog cutting out clothes because the +dressmaker had made them for the children when they were still +tadpoles. These books ought to come like an oasis in the desert to the +poor-jaded-reading-aloud-parent." + +=vi= + +At Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, in a small house built from her own plans +and standing 2,000 feet above sea level, in a growing shade of trees, +lives Marion Ames Taggart, author of the Jack-in-the-Box series--four +children's books that renew their popularity every year. They are: + + AT GREENACRES + THE QUEER LITTLE MAN + THE BOTTLE IMP + POPPY'S PLUCK + +_At Greenacres_ and _The Queer Little Man_ are particularly good to read +aloud to a group of children; they really are the mystery and detective +story diluted for children. + +Miss Taggart, an only child and extremely frail in childhood, had the good +fortune as a consequence of ill-health to be educated entirely at home. As +a result she had free access to really good books--for the home was in +Haverhill, Mass. She began to carry out a cherished wish to write for +young girls in 1901, when her first book (for girls of about sixteen) was +published in St. Nicholas. She has a habit of transplanting four-footed +friends in her stories under their own names--as where, in the +Jack-in-the-Box series, one finds Pincushion, Miss Taggart's own plump +grey kitten. + +What will the children say to _A Wonder Book_, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, +with pictures in color by Arthur Rackham? I do not know why I ask this +rhetorical question, which, like most questions of the sort, should be +followed by exclamation points! There will be exclamations, at any rate, +over this book, surely the most beautiful of the year, perhaps of several +years. The quality of Arthur Rackham's work is well known, its artistic +value is undisputedly of the very highest. And Hawthorne's text--the story +of the Gorgon's head, the tale of Midas, Tanglewood, and the rest--is of +the finest literary, poetic and imaginative worth. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +COBB'S FOURTH DIMENSION + + +=i= + +As a three-dimensional writer, Irvin S. Cobb has long been among the +American literary heavy-weights. Now that he has acquired a fourth +dimension, the time has come for a new measurement of his excellences as +an author. + +Among those excellences I know a man (responsible for the manufacture of +Doran books) who holds that Cobb is the greatest living American author. +The reason for this is severely logical, to wit: Irvin Cobb always sends +in his copy in a perfect condition. His copy goes to the manufacturer of +books with a correctly written title page, a correctly written copyright +page, the exact wording of the dedication, an accurate table of contents, +and so on, all the way through the manuscript. Moreover, when proofs are +sent to Mr. Cobb, he makes very few changes. He reduces to a minimum the +difficulties of a printer and his changes are always perceptibly changes +for the better. + +But I don't suppose that any of this would redound to Cobb's credit in the +eyes of a literary critic. + +[Illustration: IRVIN S. COBB] + +And to return to the subject of the fourth dimension: My difficulty is to +know in just what direction that fourth dimension lies. Is the fourth +dimension of Cobb as a novelist or as an autobiographer? It puzzles me to +tell inasmuch as I have before me the manuscripts of Mr. Cobb's first +novel, _J. Poindexter, Colored_, and his very first autobiography, a +volume called _Stickfuls_. + +The title of _Stickfuls_ will probably not be charged with meaning to +people unfamiliar with newspaper work. Perhaps it is worth while to +explain that in the old days, when type was set by hand, the printer had a +little metal holder called a "stick." When he had set a dozen lines--more +or less--he had a "stickful." Although very little type is now set by +hand, the stick as a measure of space is still in good standing. The +reporter presents himself at the city desk, tells what he has got, and is +told by the city editor, "Write a stickful." Or, "Write two sticks." And +so on. + +_Stickfuls_ is not so much the story of Cobb's life as the story of people +he has met and places he has been, told in a series of extremely +interesting chapters--told in a leisurely and delightful fashion of +reminiscence by a natural association of one incident with another and one +person with someone else. For example, Cobb as a newspaper man, covered a +great many trials in court; and one of the chapters of _Stickfuls_ tells +of famous trials he has attended. + +=ii= + +Now about this novel of Cobb's: Jeff Poindexter will be remembered by all +the readers of Mr. Cobb's short stories as the negro body servant of old +Judge Priest. In _J. Poindexter, Colored_, we have Jeff coming to New +York. Of course, New York seen through the eyes of a genuine Southern +darkey is a New York most of us have never seen. There's nothing like +sampling, so I will let you begin the book: + +"My name is J. Poindexter. But the full name is Jefferson Exodus +Poindexter, Colored. But most always in general I has been known as Jeff +for short. The Jefferson part is for a white family which my folks worked +for them one time before I was born, and the Exodus is because my mammy +craved I should be named after somebody out of the Bible. How I comes to +write this is this way: + +"It seems like my experiences here in New York is liable to be such that +one of my white gentleman friends he says to me I should take pen in hand +and write them out just the way they happen and at the time they is +happening, or right soon afterwards, whilst the memory of them is clear in +my brain; and then he's see if he can't get them printed somewheres, which +on the top of the other things which I now is, will make me an author with +money coming in steady. He says to me he will fix up the spelling wherever +needed and attend to the punctuating; but all the rest of it will be my +own just like I puts it down. I reads and writes very well but someway I +never learned to puncture. So the places where it is necessary to be +punctual in order to make good sense and keep everything regulation and +make the talk sound natural is his doings and also some of the spelling. +But everything else is mine and I asks credit. + +"My coming to New York, in the first place, is sort of a sudden thing +which starts here about a month before the present time. I has been +working for Judge Priest for going on sixteen years and is expecting to go +on working for him as long as we can get along together all right, which +it seems like from appearances that ought to be always. But after he gives +up being circuit judge on account of him getting along so in age he gets +sort of fretful by reasons of him not having much to do any more and most +of his own friends having died off on him. When the State begins going +Republican about once in so often, he says to me, kind of half joking, +he's a great mind to pull up stakes and move off and go live somewheres +else. But pretty soon after that the whole country goes dry and then he +says to me there just naturally ain't no fitten place left for him to go +without he leaves the United States." + +It seems that Judge Priest finally succumbed to an invitation to visit +Bermuda, a place where a gentleman can still raise a thirst and satisfy +it. Jeff could not stand the house without the Judge in it; and when an +opportunity came to go to New York, Jeff went. + +=iii= + +The biographer of Cobb is Robert H. Davis, editor of Munsey's Magazine, +whose authoritative account I take pleasure in reprinting here--the more +so because it appeared some time ago in a booklet which is now out of +print. Mr. Davis's article was first printed in The Sun, New York: + +"Let me deal with this individual in a categorical way. Most biographers +prefer to mutilate their canvas with a small daub which purports to be a +sketch of the most significant event in the life of the accused. Around +this it is their custom to paint smaller and less impressive scenes, +blending the whole by placing it in a large gilded frame, which, for +obvious reasons, costs more than the picture--and it is worth more. Pardon +me, therefore, if I creep upon Mr. Cobb from the lower left-hand corner of +the canvas and chase him across the open space as rapidly as possible. It +is not for me to indicate when the big events in his life will occur or to +lay the milestones of the route along which he will travel. I know only +that they are in the future, and that, regardless of any of his +achievements in the past, Irvin Cobb has not yet come into his own. + +"The first glimpse I had of him was in a half-tone portrait in the New +York Evening World five years ago. This picture hung pendant-like from a +title which read 'Through Funny Glasses, by Irvin S. Cobb.' It was the +face of a man scarred with uncertainty; an even money proposition that he +had either just emerged from the Commune or was about to enter it. Grief +was written on the brow; more than written, it was emblazoned. The eyes +were heavy with inexpressible sadness. The corners of the mouth were +drooped, heightening the whole effect of incomprehensible depression. +Quickly I turned to the next page among the stock quotations, where I got +my depression in a blanket form. The concentrated Cobb kind was too much +for me. + +"A few days later I came suddenly upon the face again. The very +incongruity of its alliance with laughter overwhelmed me, and wonderingly +I read what he had written, not once, but every day, always with the +handicap of that half-tone. If Cobb were an older man, I would go on the +witness stand and swear that the photograph was made when he was +witnessing the Custer Massacre or the passing of Geronimo through the +winter quarters of his enemies. Notwithstanding, he supplied my week's +laughter. + +"Digression this: + +"After Bret Harte died, many stories were written by San Franciscans who +knew him when he first put in an appearance on the Pacific Coast. One +contemporary described minutely how Bret would come silently up the stairs +of the old Alta office, glide down the dingy hallway through the exchange +room, and seat himself at the now historic desk. It took Bret fifteen +minutes to sharpen a lead pencil, one hour for sober reflection, and three +hours to write a one-stick paragraph, after which he would carefully tear +it up, gaze out of the window down the Golden Gate, and go home. + +"He repeated this formula the following day, and at the end of the week +succeeded in turning out three or four sticks which he considered fit to +print. In later years, after fame had sought him out and presented him +with a fur-lined overcoat, which I am bound to say Bret knew how to wear, +the files of the Alta were ransacked for the pearls he had dropped in his +youth. A few gems were identified, a very few. Beside this entire printed +collection the New England Primer would have looked like a set of +encyclopedias. Bret worked slowly, methodically, brilliantly, and is an +imperishable figure in American letters. + +"Returning to Cobb: He has already written twenty times more than Bret +Harte turned out during his entire career. He has made more people laugh +and written better short stories. He has all of Harte's subtle and +delicate feeling, and will, if he is spared, write better novels about the +people of today than Bret Harte, with all his genius and imagination, +wrote around the Pioneers. I know of no single instance where one man has +shown such fecundity and quality as Irvin Cobb has so far evinced, and it +is my opinion that his complete works at fifty will contain more good +humour, more good short stories, and at least one bigger novel than the +works of any other single contemporaneous figure. + +"He was born in Paducah, Kentucky, in June, '76. I have taken occasion to +look into the matter and find that his existence was peculiarly varied. He +belonged to one of those old Southern families-there being no new Southern +families--and passed through the public schools sans incident. At the age +of sixteen he went into the office of The Paducah Daily News as a +reportorial cub. + +"He was first drawn to daily journalism because he yearned to be an +illustrator. Indeed, he went so far as to write local humorous stories, +illustrating them himself. The pictures must have been pretty bad, +although they served to keep people from saying that his literature was +the worst thing in the paper. + +"Resisting all efforts of the editor, the stockholders and the subscribers +of The Paducah Daily News, he remained barricaded behind his desk until +his nineteenth year, when he was crowned with a two-dollar raise and a +secondary caption under his picture which read 'The Youngest Managing +Editor of a Daily Paper in the United States.' + +"If Cobb was consulted in the matter of this review, he would like to have +these preliminaries expunged from his biography. But the public is +entitled to the details. + +"It is also true that he stacked up more libel suits than a newspaper of +limited capital with a staff of local attorneys could handle before he +moved to Louisville, where, for three years, he was staff correspondent of +The Evening Post. It was here that Cobb discovered how far a humorist +could go without being invited to step out at 6 a.m. and rehearse 'The +Rivals' with real horse-pistols. + +"The first sobering episode in his life occurred when the Goebel murder +echoed out of Louisville. He reported this historic assassination and +covered the subsequent trials in the Georgetown court house. Doubtless the +seeds of tragedy, which mark some of his present work, were sown here. +Those who are familiar with his writings know that occasionally he sets +his cap and bells aside and dips his pen into the very darkness of life. +We find it particularly in three of his short stories entitled 'An +Occurrence Up a Side Street,' 'The Belled Buzzard,' and 'Fishhead.' +Nothing better can be found in Edgar Allan Poe's collected works. One is +impressed not only with the beauty and simplicity of his prose, but with +the tremendous power of his tragic conceptions and his art in dealing with +terror. There appears to be no phase of human emotion beyond his pen. +Without an effort he rises from the level of actualities to the high plane +of boundless imagination, invoking laughter or tears at will. + +"After his Louisville experience Cobb married and returned to Paducah to +be managing editor of The Democrat. Either Paducah or The Democrat got on +his nerves and, after a comparison of the Paducah school of journalism +with the metropolitan brand, he turned his face (see Evening World +half-tone) in the direction of New York, buoyed up by the illusion that he +was needed there along with other reforms. + +"He arrived at the gates of Manhattan full of hope, and visited every +newspaper office in New York without receiving encouragement to call +again. Being resourceful he retired to his suite of hall bedrooms on 57th +Street West and wrote a personal note to every city editor in New York, +setting forth in each instance the magnificent intellectual proportions of +the epistolographer. The next morning, by mail, Cobb had offers for a job +from five of them. He selected The Evening Sun. + +"At about that time the Portsmouth Peace Conference convened, and The Sun +sent the Paducah party to help cover the proceedings. Upon arriving at +Portsmouth, Cobb cast his experienced eye over the situation, discovered +that the story was already well covered by a large coterie of competent, +serious-minded young men, and went into action to write a few columns +daily on subjects having no bearing whatsoever on the conference. These +stories were written in the ebullition of youth, inspired by the ecstasy +which rises from the possession of a steady job; a perfect deluge from the +well springs of spontaneity. There wasn't a single fact in the entire +series, and yet The Sun syndicated these stories throughout the United +States. All they possessed was I-N-D-I-V-I-D-U-A-L-I-T-Y. + +"At the end of three weeks, Cobb returned to New York, to find that he +could have a job on any newspaper in it. This brings him to The Evening +World, the half-tone engraving, which was the first glimpse I had of him, +and the dawn of his subsequent triumphs. For four years he supplied the +evening edition and The Sunday World with a comic feature, to say nothing +of a comic opera, written to order in five days. The absence of a +guillotine in New York State accounts for his escape for this latter +offence. Nevertheless, in all else his standard of excellence ascended. He +reported the Thaw trial in long-hand, writing nearly 600,000 words of +testimony and observation, establishing a new style for reporting trials, +and gave further evidence of his power. That performance will stand out in +the annals of American journalism as one of the really big reportorial +achievements. + +"At about this juncture in his career Cobb opened a door to the past, +reached in and took out some of the recollections of his youth. These he +converted into 'The Escape of Mr. Trimm,' his first short fiction story. +It appeared in The Saturday Evening Post. The court scene was so +absolutely true to life, so minutely perfect in its atmosphere, that a +Supreme Court judge signed an unsolicited and voluntary note for +publication, in which he said that Mr. Cobb had reported with marvelous +accuracy and fulness a murder trial at which His Honour had presided. + +"Gelett Burgess, in a lecture at Columbia College, said that Cobb was one +of the ten great American humourists. Cobb ought to demand a recount. +There are not ten humourists in the world, although Cobb is one of them. +The extraordinary thing about Cobb is that he can turn a burst of laughter +into a funeral oration, a snicker into a shudder and a smile into a crime. +He writes in octaves, striking instinctively all the chords of humour, +tragedy, pathos and romance with either hand. Observe this man in his +thirty-ninth year, possessing gifts the limitations of which even he +himself has not yet recognised. + +"In appraising a genius, we must consider the man's highest achievement, +and in comparing him with others the verdict must be reached only upon +consideration of his best work. For scintillant wit and unflagging good +humour, read his essays on the Teeth, the Hair and the Stomach. If you +desire a perfect blending of all that is essential to a short story, read +'The Escape of Mr. Trimm' or 'Words and Music.' If you are in search of +pure, unadulterated, boundless terror, the gruesome quality, the blackness +of despair and the fear of death in the human conscience, 'Fishhead,' 'The +Belled Buzzard' or 'An Occurrence Up a Side Street' will enthrall you. + +"Thus in Irvin Cobb we find Mark Twain, Bret Harte and Edgar Allan Poe at +their best. Reckon with these potentialities in the future. Speculate, if +you will, upon the sort of a novel that is bound, some day, to come from +his pen. There seem to be no pinnacles along the horizon of the literary +future that are beyond him. If he uses his pen for an Alpine stock, the +Matterhorn is his. + +"There are critics and reviewers who do not entirely agree with me +concerning Cobb. But they will. + +"As I write these lines I recall a conversation I had with Irvin Cobb on +the hurricane deck of a Fifth Avenue 'bus one bleak November afternoon, +1911. We had met at the funeral of Joseph Pulitzer, in whose employ we had +served in the past. + +"Cobb was in a reflective mood, chilled to the marrow, and not +particularly communicative. + +"At the junction of Fifth Avenue and Forty-second Street we were held up +by congested traffic. After a little manoeuvring on the part of a mounted +policeman, the Fifth Avenue tide flowed through and onward again. + +"'It reminds me of a river,' said Cobb, 'into which all humanity is drawn. +Some of these people think because they are walking up-stream they are +getting out of it. But they never escape. The current is at work on them. +Some day they will get tired and go down again, and finally pass out to +sea. It is the same with real rivers. They do not flow uphill.' + +"He lapsed into silence. + +"'What's on your mind?' I inquired. + +"'Nothing in particular,' he said, scanning the banks of the great +municipal stream, 'except that I intend to write a novel some day about a +boy born at the headwaters. Gradually he floats down through the +tributaries, across the valleys, swings into the main stream, and docks +finally at one of the cities on its banks. This particular youth was a +great success--in the beginning. Every door was open to him. He had +position, brains, and popularity to boot. He married brilliantly. And then +The Past, a trivial, unimportant Detail, lifted its head and barked at +him. He was too sensitive to bark back. Thereupon it bit him and he +collapsed.' + +"Again Cobb ceased talking. For some reason--indefinable--I respected his +silence. Two blocks further down he took up the thread of his story +again: + +"'--and one evening, just about sundown, a river hand, sitting on a +stringpiece of a dock, saw a derby hat bobbing in the muddy Mississippi, +floating unsteadily but surely into the Gulf of Mexico.' + +"As is his habit, Cobb tugged at his lower lip. + +"'What are you going to call this novel?' + +"'I don't know. What do you think?' + +"'Why not "The River"?' + +"'Very well, I'll call it "The River."' + +"He scrambled from his seat. 'I'm docking at Twenty-seventh Street. +Good-bye. Keep your hat out of the water.' + +"Laboriously he made his way down the winding staircase from the upper +deck, dropped flat-footed on the asphalt pavement, turned his collar up, +leaned into the gust of wind from the South, and swung into the +cross-current of another stream. + +"I doubt if he has any intention of calling his story 'The River.' But I +am sure the last chapter will contain something about an unhappy wretch +who wore a derby hat at the moment he walked hand in hand with his +miserable Past into the Father of Waters. + +"For those who wish to know something of his personal side, I can do no +better than to record his remarks to a stranger, who, in my presence, +asked Irvin Cobb, without knowing to whom he was speaking, what kind of a +person Cobb was. + +"'Well, to be perfectly frank with you,' replied the Paducah prodigy, +'Cobb is related to my wife by marriage, and if you don't object to a +brief sketch, with all the technicalities eliminated, I should say in +appearance he is rather bulky, standing six feet high, not especially +beautiful, a light roan in colour, with a black mane. His figure is +undecided, but might be called bunchy in places. He belongs to several +clubs, including The Yonkers Pressing Club and The Park Hill Democratic +Marching Club, and has always, like his father, who was a Confederate +soldier, voted the Democratic ticket. He has had one wife and one child +and still has them. In religion he is an Innocent Bystander.' + +"Could anything be fuller than this?" + +=iv= + +It was Mr. Davis, also, who in the New York Herald of April 23, 1922, made +public the evidence for the following box score: + + 1st 2nd + +Best Writer of Humour Cobb ---- +Best All-Round Reporter Cobb ---- +Best Local Colourist Cobb ---- +Best in Tales of Horror Cobb ---- +Best Writer of Negro Stories ---- Cobb +Best Writer of Light Tarkington Cobb and + Humorous Fiction Harry Leon Wilson +Best Teller of Anecdotes Cobb Cobb + +"Not long ago a group of ten literary men--editors, critics, readers and +writers--were dining together. Discussion arose as to the respective and +comparative merits of contemporaneous popular writers. It was decided that +each man present should set down upon a slip of paper his first, second +and third choices in various specified but widely diversified fields of +literary endeavour, and that then the results should be compared. Admirers +of Cobb's work will derive a peculiar satisfaction from the outcome. It +was found that as a writer of humour he had won first place; that as an +all round reporter he had first place; that as a handler of local colour +in the qualified sense of a power of apt, swiftly-done, journalistic +description, he had first place. He also had first place as a writer of +horror yarns. He won second place as a writer of darkey stories. He tied +with Harry Leon Wilson for second place as a writer of light humorous +fiction, Tarkington being given first place in this category. As a teller +of anecdotes he won by acclamation over all contenders. Altogether his +name appeared on eight of the ten lists." + +Cobb lives at Ossining, New York. He describes himself as lazy, but +convinces no one. He likes to go fishing. But he has never written any +fish stories. + +BOOKS BY IRVIN S. COBB + +BACK HOME +COBB'S ANATOMY +THE ESCAPE OF MR. TRIMM +COBB'S BILL OF FARE +ROUGHING IT DE LUXE +EUROPE REVISED +PATHS OF GLORY +OLD JUDGE PRIEST +FIBBLE, D.D. +SPEAKING OF OPERATIONS +LOCAL COLOR +SPEAKING OF PRUSSIANS +THOSE TIMES AND THESE +THE GLORY OF THE COMING +THE THUNDERS OF SILENCE +THE LIFE OF THE PARTY +FROM PLACE TO PLACE +"OH, WELL, YOU KNOW HOW WOMEN ARE!" +THE ABANDONED FARMERS +SUNDRY ACCOUNTS +A PLEA FOR OLD CAP COLLIER +ONE THIRD OFF +EATING IN TWO OR THREE LANGUAGES +J. POINDEXTER, COLORED +STICKFULS + +Plays: +FUNABASHI +BUSYBODY +BACK HOME +SERGEANT BAGBY +GUILTY AS CHARGED +UNDER SENTENCE + + +SOURCES ON IRVIN S. COBB + +Who's Who in America. + +Who's Cobb and Why? Booklet published by GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY. +(Out of print). + +Article by Robert H. Davis in the book section of THE NEW YORK HERALD +for April 23, 1922. + +Robert H. Davis, 280 Broadway, New York. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +PLACES TO GO + + +=i= + +The book by Thomas Burke called _More Limehouse Nights_ was published in +England under the title of _Whispering Windows_. At the time of its +publication, Mr. Burke wrote the following: + +"The most disconcerting question that an author can be asked, and often is +asked, is: 'Why did you write that book?' The questioners do not want an +answer to that immediate question; but to the implied question: 'Why don't +you write some other kind of book?' To either question there is but one +answer: BECAUSE. + +"Every writer is thus challenged. The writer of comic stories is asked why +he doesn't write something really serious. The novelist is asked why he +doesn't write short stories, and the short-story writer is asked why he +doesn't write a novel. To me people say, impatiently: 'Why don't you write +happy stories about ordinary people?' And the only answer I can give them +is: 'Because I can't. I present life as I see it.' + +"I am an ordinary man, but I don't understand ordinary men. I am at a loss +with them. But with the people of whom I write I have a fellow-feeling. I +know them and their sorrows and their thwarted strivings and I understand +their aberrations. I cannot see the romance of the merchant or the glamour +of the duke's daughter. They do not permit themselves to be seized and +driven by passion and imagination. Instead they are driven by fear, which +they have misnamed Commonsense. These people thwart themselves, while my +people are thwarted by malign circumstance. + +"Often I have taken other men to the dire districts about which I write, +and they have remained unmoved; they have seen, in their phrase, nothing +to get excited about. Well, one cannot help that kind of person. One +cannot give understanding to the man who regards the flogging of children +as a joke, or to whom a broken love-story is, in low life, a theme for +smoking-room anecdotes. + +"Wherever there are human creatures there are beauty and courage and +sacrifice. The stories in _Whispering Windows_ deal with human creatures, +thieves, drunkards, prostitutes, each of whom is striving for happiness in +his or her way, and missing it, as most of us do. Each has hidden away +some fine streak of character, some mark below which he will not go. +And--they are alive. They have met life in its ugliest phases, and fought +it. + +"My answer, then, to the charge of writing 'loathsome' stories, is that +these things happen. To those who say that cruelty and degradation are not +fit subjects for fiction, I say that all twists and phases of the human +heart are fit subjects for fiction. + +"The entertainment of hundreds of thousands with 'healthy' literature is a +great and worthy office; but the author can only give out what is in him. +If I write of wretched and strange things, it is because these move me +most. Happiness needs no understanding; but these darker things--they are +kept too much from sensitive eyes and polite ears; and so are too harshly +judged upon the world's report. I am no reformer; I have never 'studied' +people; and I have no 'purpose,' unless it be illumination. + +"What we all need today is illumination; for only through full knowledge +can we come to truth--and understanding." + +=ii= + +Burke's new book, _The London Spy_, is described by the author as "a book +of town travels." Some of the subjects are London street characters, cab +shelters, coffee stalls and street entertainers. The range is very wide, +for there is a chapter called "In the Streets of Rich Men," which deals +with Pall Mall and Piccadilly, as well as a study of a waterside colony, +including the results of a first pipe of opium ("In the Streets of +Cyprus"). Mr. Burke tells a good deal about the film world of Soho and is +able to give an intimate sketch of Chaplin. Perhaps the most charming of +the titles in the book is the chapter called "In the Street of Beautiful +Children." This is a study of a street in Stepney, with observations on +orphanages and reformatories and "their oppressions of the children of the +poor." + +Thomas Burke was born in London and seldom lives away from it. He started +writing when employed in a mercantile office, and sold his first story +when sixteen. He sincerely hopes nobody will ever discover and reprint +that story. His early struggles have been recounted in his _Nights in +London_. He married Winifred Wells, a young London poet, author of _The +Three Crowns_. He lives at Highgate, on the Northern Heights of London. He +hates literary society and social functions generally. His chief +recreation is wandering about London. + +=iii= + +There is very little use in doing a book about China nowadays unless you +can do an unusual book about China; and that, precisely, is what E. G. +Kemp has done. _Chinese Mettle_ is an unusual book, even to the shape of +it (it is nearly square though not taller than the ordinary book). The +author has written enough books on China to cover all the usual ground +and, as Sao-Ke Alfred Sze of the Chinese Legation at Washington says in +his foreword, Miss Kemp "has wisely neglected the 'show-window' by putting +seaports at the end. By acquainting the public with the wealth and beauty +of the interior, she reveals to readers the vitality and potential energy, +both natural and cultural, of a great nation." Three provinces are +particularly described--Yünnan, Kweichow, Hunan--and there are good +chapters on the new Chinese woman and the youth of China. This book has, +in addition to unusual illustrations, what every good book of its sort +should have, an index. + +In view of the title of this chapter I have hesitated over mentioning here +Albert C. White's _The Irish Free State_. Whether Ireland now should be +numbered among the places to go or not is possibly a matter of heredity +and sympathies; but at any rate, Ireland is unquestionably a place to read +about. Shall we agree that the Irish Free State is one of the best places +in the world to go in a book? Then Mr. White's book will furnish +up-to-the-minute transportation thither. + +The book is written throughout from the standpoint of a vigorous and +independent mind. It will annoy extreme partisans of all shades of +opinion, and will provoke much discussion. This is especially true of the +concluding chapter, in which the author discusses "Some Factors in the +Future." The value of the book is enhanced by the inclusion of the +essential documents of the Home Rule struggle, including the four Home +Rule Bills of 1886, 1893, 1914 and 1920, and the terms of the Treaty +concluded with Sinn Fein. + +Whether Russia is a place to go is another of those debatable questions +and I feel that the same conclusion holds good. A book is the wisest +passport to Russia at present. _Marooned in Moscow_, by Marguerite E. +Harrison, is not a new book--in the sense of having been published last +week. It remains about the best single book published on Russia under the +Soviet government; and I say this with the full recollection that H. G. +Wells also wrote a book about Soviet Russia after a visit of fifteen days. +Mrs. Harrison spent eighteen months and was part of the time in prison. +She is an exceptionally good reporter without prejudices for or against +any theory of government--with an eye only for the facts and a word only +for an observed fact. + +It is good news that _The Secret of the Sahara: Kufara_, by Rosita Forbes, +is to be published in a new edition. This Englishwoman, with no assistance +but that of native guides, penetrated to Kufara, which lies hidden in the +heart of the Libyan desert, a section of the Sahara. This is the region of +a fanatical sect of Mohammedans known as the Senussi. No other white woman +has ever been known to enter the sacred city of Paj, a gloomy citadel hewn +out of rock on the edge of a beautiful valley. _The Secret of the_ +_Sahara_ is illustrated with pictures taken by the author, many times +under pain of death if she were detected using a camera. + +=iv= + +C. E. Andrews is a college professor who saw war service in France and +relief administration work in the Balkans. His gifts as a delightful +writer will be apparent now that his book of travels, _Old Morocco and the +Forbidden Atlas_, is out. This book, unlike the conventional travel book, +has the qualities of a good story. There is colour and adventure. There +are humorous episodes and there are pictures that seem to be mirrored in +the clear lake of a lovely prose. The journey described is through a +region of Morocco little traversed by white men and over paths of the +Atlas Mountains frequented chiefly by wild tribes and banditti. + +Of all places to go, old New York remains, for many, the most appealing. +Does it sound queer to recommend for those readers _A Century of Banking +in New York: 1822-1922_, by Henry Wysham Lanier? Mr. Lanier is a son of +Sidney Lanier, the poet, and those who believe that a chronicle of banking +must necessarily be full of dry statistics are invited to read the opening +chapter of this book; for Mr. Lanier begins his tale with the yellow fever +epidemic of 1822, when all the banks of New York, to say nothing of the +thousands of people, fled "from the city to the country"--that is, from +lowermost Broadway to the healthful village of Greenwich. This quality of +human rather than statistical interest is paramount throughout the book. + +I go back almost four years to call attention again to Frederic A. +Fenger's _Alone in the Caribbean_, a book with maps and illustrations from +unusual photographs, the narrative of a cruise in a sailing canoe among +the Caribbean Islands.... It is just a good book. + +=v= + +_Robin Hood's Barn_, by Margaret Emerson Bailey, should be classified, I +suppose, as a volume of essays. It seems to me admirably suited for this +chapter, since it is all about a pleasant house inhabited by pleasant +people--and surely that is a place where everyone wants to go. Margaret +Emerson Bailey is describing, I think, an actual house and actual people; +not so much their lives as what they make out of life in the collectivism +that family life enforces. At least, I seem to get from her book a unity +of meaning, the lack of which in our lives, as we live them daily, makes +for helplessness and sometimes for despair. + +With even more doubt as to the exact "classification," I proceed to speak +here and now of L. P. Jacks's book, _The Legends of Smokeover_. Mr. Jacks +is well known as the editor of the Hibbert Journal and a writer of +distinction upon philosophical subjects. I should say his specialty is an +ability to relate philosophical abstractions to practical, everyday +existence. Those familiar with his essays in the Atlantic Monthly will +know what I mean. And is the Smokeover of his new book, then, a place to +go? It is, if you wish to see our modern age and industrial civilisation +expressed in such terms--almost in the terms of fiction--as make its +appraisal relatively easy. + +I suppose this book might make Mr. Jacks memorable as a satirist. It +brings philosophy down from the air, like a peaceful thunderbolt, to +shatter the vain illusions we entertain of our material success and our +civilised strides forward. The fact that when you have begun to read the +book you may experience some difficulty in knowing how to take it is in +the book's favour. And why should you complain so long as from the outset +you are continuously entertained and amused? You can scarcely complain ... +even though at the end, you find you have been instructed. In a world +thickly spotted with Smokeovers, Mr. Jacks's book is a book worth having, +worth reading, worth reading again. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +ALIAS RICHARD DEHAN + + +=i= + +At that, I think I am wrong. I think the title of this chapter ought to be +"Alias Clotilde Graves." + +The problems of literary personality are strange. Some time after the Boer +War a woman who had been in newspaper work in London and who had even, at +one time, been on the stage under the necessity of earning her living, +wrote a novel. The novel happened to be an intensive study of the Boer +War, made possible by the fact that the writer was the daughter of a +soldier and had spent her early years in barracks. England at that time +was interested by the subject of this novel. It sold largely and its +author was established by the book. + +She was forty-six years old in the year when the book was published. But +this was not the striking thing. William De Morgan produced the first of +his impressive novels at a much more advanced age. The significant thing +was that in publishing her novel, _The Dop Doctor_ (American title: _One_ +_Braver Thing_), Clotilde Graves chose the pen name of Richard Dehan, +although she was already known as a writer (chiefly for the theatre) under +her own name. + +I do not know that Miss Graves has ever said anything publicly about her +motive in electing the name of Richard Dehan. But I feel that whatever the +cause the result was the distinct emergence of a totally different +personality. There is no final disassociation between Clotilde Graves and +Richard Dehan. Richard Dehan, novelist, steadily employs the material +furnished in valuable abundance by Clotilde Graves's life. At the same +time the personality of Richard Dehan is so unusual, so gifted, so lavish +in its invention and so much at home in surprising backgrounds, that +something approaching a psychic explanation of authorship seems called +for. + +=ii= + +Clotilde Inez Mary Graves was born at Barracks, Buttevant, County Cork, +Ireland, on June 3, 1864, third daughter of the late Major W. H. Graves of +the Eighteenth Royal Irish Regiment and Antoinette, daughter of Captain +George Anthony Deane of Harwich. Thus, the English _Who's Who_. + +"She numbers among her ancestors admirals and deans," said The Bookman in +1912. + +As the same magazine at about the same time spoke of her as descended from +Charles II.'s naval architect, Admiral Sir Anthony Deane, one wonders if +Sir Anthony were not the sum of the admirals and the total of the deans. +But no; at any rate in so far as the admirals are concerned, for Miss +Graves is also said to be distantly related to Admiral Nelson. + +I will give you what The Bookman said in the "Chronicle and Comment" +columns of its number for February, 1913: + +"Richard Dehan was nine years old when her family emigrated to England +from their Irish home. She had seen a good deal of barrack life, and at +Southsea, where they went to live, she acquired a large knowledge of both +services in the circle of naval and military friends they made there, and +this knowledge years afterward she turned to account in _Between Two +Thieves_. In 1884, Miss Graves became an art student and worked at the +British Museum galleries and the Royal Female School of Art, helping to +support herself by journalism of a lesser kind, among other things drawing +little pen-and-ink grotesques for the comic papers. By and by she resolved +to take to dramatic writing and being too poor, she says, to manage in any +other way, she abandoned art and took an engagement in a travelling +theatrical company. In 1888 her first chance as a dramatist came. She was +again in London, working vigorously at journalism, when some one was +needed to write extra lyrics for a pantomime then in preparation. A letter +of recommendation from an editor to the manager ended in Miss Clo Graves +writing the pantomime of _Puss in Boots_. Later a tragedy by her, +_Nitocris_, was produced for an afternoon at Drury Lane, and another of +her plays, _The Mother of Three_, proved not only a literary, but also a +material, success." + +Her first novel to be signed Richard Dehan being so successful, an English +publisher planned to bring out an earlier, minor work, already published +as by Clotilde Graves, with "Richard Dehan" on the title-page. The author +was stirred to a vigorous and public protest. In the ensuing controversy +someone made the point that the proposed reissue would not be more +indefensible than the act of a publishing house in bringing out posthumous +"books" by O. Henry and dragging from its deserved oblivion Rudyard +Kipling's _Abaft the Funnel_. + +I do not know whether the publishing of books is a business or a +profession. I should say that it has, at one time or another and by one or +another individual or concern, been pursued as either or both. + +There have certainly been, and probably are, book publishers who not only +conduct their business as a business but as a business of a low order. +There have been and are book publishers who, though quite necessarily +business men, observe an ethical code as nice as that of any of the +recognised professions. Perhaps publishing books should qualify as an art, +since it has the characteristics of bringing out what is best or worst in +a publisher; and, indeed, if we are to hold that any successful means of +self-expression is art, then publishing books has been an art more than +once; for unquestionably there are publishers who find self-expression in +their work. + +This is an interesting subject, but I must not pursue it in this place. +Certainly Miss Graves was justified in objecting to the use of her new pen +name on work already published under her own name. In her case, as I +think, the objection was peculiarly well-founded, because it seems to me +that Richard Dehan was a new person. Since Richard Dehan appeared on the +title-page of _The Dop Doctor_, there has never been a Clotilde Graves in +books. You have only to study the books. The _Dop Doctor_ was followed, +two years later, by _Between Two Thieves_. This novel has as a leading +character Florence Nightingale under the name of Ada Merling. The story +was at first to have been called "The Lady With The Lamp"; but the author +delayed it for a year and subjected it to a complete rewriting, the result +of a new and enlarged conception of the story. + +Then came a steady succession of novels by Richard Dehan. I remember with +what surprise I read, in 1918, _That Which Hath Wings_, a war story of +large dimensions and an incredible amount of exact and easy detail. I +remember, too, noting that there was embedded in it a marvellous story for +children--an airplane flight in which a youngster figured--if the +publisher chose, with the author's consent, to lift this out of its +larger, adult setting. I remember very vividly reading in 1920 a +collection of short stories by Richard Dehan, published under the title +_The Eve of Pascua_. Pascua is the Spanish word for Easter. I wondered +where on earth, unless in Spain itself, the author got the bright +colouring for his story. + +What I did not realise at the time was that Richard Dehan is like that. +Now, smitten to earth by the 500-page novel which he has just completed, I +think I understand better. _The Just Steward_, from one standpoint, makes +the labours of Gustave Flaubert in _Salaambo_ seem trivial. It is known +with what passionate tenacity and surprising ardour the French master +studied the subject of ancient Carthage, grubbing like the lowliest +archseologist to get at his fingertips all those recondite allusions so +necessary if he were to move with lightness, assurance and consummate art +through the scenes of his novel. But, frankly, one does not expect this of +the third daughter of an Irish soldier, an ex-journalist and the author of +a Drury Lane pantomime. Nevertheless the erudition is all here. From this +standpoint, _The Just Steward_ is truly monumental. I will show you a +sample or two: + +"Beautiful, even with the trench and wall of Diocletian's comparatively +recent siege scarring the orchards and vineyards of Lake Mareotis, +splendid even though her broken canals and aqueducts had never been +repaired, and part of her western quarter still displayed heaps of +calcined ruins where had been temples, palaces and academies, Alexandria +lay shimmering under the African sun.... + +"The vintage of Egypt was in full swing, the figs and dates were being +harvested. Swarms of wasps and hornets, armed with formidable stings, +yellow-striped like the dreaded nomads of the south and eastern frontiers, +greedily sucked the sugary juices of the ripe fruit. Flocks of fig-birds +twittered amongst the branches, being like the date-pigeons, almost too +gorged to fly. Half naked, dark or tawny skinned, tattooed native +labourers, hybrids of mingled races, with heads close-shaven save for a +topknot, dwellers in mud-hovels, drudges of the water-wheel, cut down the +heavy grape-clusters with sickle-shaped cooper knives. + +"Ebony, woolly-haired negroes in clean white breech-cloths, piled up the +gathered fruit in tall baskets woven of reeds and lined with leaves. Copts +with the rich reddish skins, the long eyes and boldly curving profiles of +Egyptian warriors and monarchs as presented on the walls of ancient +temples of Libya and the Thebaïd, moved about in leather-girdled blue +linen tunics and hide sandals, keeping account of the laden panniers, +roped upon the backs of diminutive asses and carried to the winepresses as +fast as they were filled. + +"The negroes sang as they set snares for fig-birds, and stuffed themselves +to the throat with grapes and custard-apples. The fat beccaficoes beloved +of the epicurean fell by hundreds into the limed horsehair traps. Greek, +Egyptian and negro girls, laughing under garlands of hibiscus, periwinkle +and tuberoses, coaxed the fat morsels out of the black men to carry home +for a supper treat, while acrobats, comic singers, sellers of cakes, +drinks and sweetmeats, with strolling jugglers and jesters and Jewish +fortune-tellers of both sexes, assailed the workers and the merrymakers +with importunities and made harvest in their own way." + +The story is extraordinary. Opening in the Alexandria of the fourth +century, it pictures two men, a Roman official and a Jewish steward, who +are friends unto death. The second of the four parts or books into which +the novel is divided opens in England in 1914. We have to do with John +Hazel, the descendant of Hazaël Aben Hazaël, and with the lovely Katharine +Forbis, whose ancestor was a Roman, Hazaël Aben Hazaël's sworn friend. + +A story of exciting action certainly; it has elements that would +ordinarily be called melodramatic--events which are focussed down into +realities against the tremendous background of an incredible war. The +exotic settings are Egypt and Palestine. It must not be thought that the +story is bizarre; the scenes in England, the English slang of John Hazel, +as well as the typical figure of Trixie, Lady Wastwood, are utterly +modern. I do not find anything to explain how Miss Graves could write such +a book; the answer is that Richard Dehan wrote it. + +=iii= + +Miss Graves, of whose antecedents and education we already know something, +is a Roman Catholic in faith and a Liberal Unionist in politics. She lives +at The Towers, Beeding, near Bramber, Sussex. Her recreations are +gardening and driving. + +But Richard Dehan knows the early history of the Christian Church; he +knows military life, strategy, tactics, types; he knows in a most +extraordinary way the details of Jewish history and religious observances; +he knows perfectly and as a matter of course all about English middle +class life; he knows all sorts of things about the East--Turkey and Arabia +and those countries. + +This is a discrepancy which will bear a good deal of accounting for. + +Before I try to account for it I will give you a long passage from _The +Just Steward_, describing the visit of Katharine Forbis and her friend to +the house of John Hazel, lately of London and now of Alexandria: + +"The negro porter who had opened the door, a huge Ethiopian of ebony +blackness, dressed and turbaned in snow-white linen, salaamed deeply to +the ladies, displaying as he did so a mouthful of teeth as dazzling in +whiteness and sharply-pointed as those of the mosaic dog. + +"Then the negro shut the heavy door and locked and bolted it. They heard +the car snort and move away as the heavy bolts scrooped in their ancient +grooves of stone. But, as they glanced back, towards the entrance, the +imperturbable attendant in the black kaftan waved them forward to where +another man, exactly like himself in feature, colouring and costume, +waited as imperturbably on the threshold of a larger hall beyond. On its +right-hand doorpost was affixed a cylinder of metal _repoussée_ with an +oval piece of glass on that something like a human eye. And the big +invisible bees went on humming as industriously and as sleepily as ever: + +"'Bz'zz'z!... Bzz'z!... Bzz m'm'm!...' + +"Perhaps it was the bees' thick, sleepy droning that made Miss Forbis feel +as though she had previously visited this house in a dream, in which, +though the mosaic dog had certainly figured, together with a negro who had +opened doors, the rows of shoes along the wall, the little creature +tripping at her side, the two dark, ultra-respectable men in black +tarbushes and kaftans had had no place or part. Only John Hazel had bulked +big. He was there, beyond the grave Semitic face of the second Jewish +secretary, on the farther side of the torrent of boiling amber sunshine +pouring through a central opening in the roof of the inner hall that +succeeded the vestibule of the mosaic Cerberus. An atrium some forty feet +in length, paved with squares of black and yellow marble with an oblong +pool in the midst of it, upon whose still crystal surface pink and crimson +petals of roses had been strewn in patterns, and in the centre of which a +triple-jetted fountain played. + +"The humming of the unseen bees came louder than ever, from a doorway in +the wall upon Katharine's right hand, a wall of black polished marble, +decorated with an inlaid ornament in porphyry of yellow and red and pale +green. The curtain of dyed and threaded reeds did not hide what lay beyond +the doorway. You saw a long, high-pitched whitewashed room, cooled by big +wooden electric fans working under the ceiling, and traversed by avenues +of creamy-white Chinese matting, running between rows of low native desks, +before each of which squatted, on naked or cotton-sock-covered heels, or +sat cross-legged upon a square native chintz cushion, a coffee-coloured, +almond-eyed young Copt, in a black or blue cotton nightgown, topped with +the tarbush of black felt or a dingy-white or olive-brown muslin turban, +murmuring softly to himself as he made entries, from right to left, in a +huge limp-covered ledger, or deftly fingered the balls of coloured clay +strung on the wires of the abacus at his side. + +"Oh! ... Wonderful! I'm so Glad you Brought me!' + +"Lady Wastwood's emphatic exclamation of pleasure in her surroundings +brought cessation in the humming--caused a swivelling of capped or +turbanned heads all down the length of three avenues--evoked a +simultaneous flash of black Oriental eyes, and white teeth in dusky faces +lifted or turned. Then at the upper end of the long counting-house, where +three wide glassless windows looked on a sanded palm-garden, and the +leather-topped knee-hole tables, roll-top desks, copying ink presses, +mahogany revolving-chairs, telephone installations, willow-paper baskets, +pewter inkstands and Post Office Directories suggested Cornhill and +Cheapside rather than the Orient--one of the olive-faced Jewish +head-clerks in kaftans and side-curls coughed--and as though he had pulled +a string controlling all the observant faces, every tooth was hidden and +every eye discreetly bent on the big limp ledgers again. + +"All the Coptic bees were humming sonorously in unison as Katharine went +forward to a lofty doorway, framing brightness, where waited to receive +her the master of the hive.... + +"The light beings behind him may have exaggerated his proportions, but he +seemed to Trixie the biggest man she had ever seen, and nearly the +ugliest. Close-curling coarse black hair capped his high-domed skull, and +his stern, powerful, swarthy face, big-nosed and long-chinned, with a +humorous quirk at the corners of the heavy-lipped mouth, that redeemed its +sensuousness, was lighted by eyes of the intensest black, burning under +heavy beetle-brows. His khaki uniform, though of fine material and +admirable cut, was that of a common ranker, and a narrow strip of colours +over the heart, and the fact of his left arm being bandaged and slung, +intimated to Lady Wastwood that Katharine's Jewish friend had already +served with some degree of distinction, and had been wounded in the War. +And drawing back with her characteristic inconquerable shyness, as he +advanced to Miss Forbis, plainly unconscious of any presence save hers, +Trixie's observant green eyes saw him bend his towering head, and sweep +his right arm out and down with slow Oriental stateliness, bringing back +the supple hand to touch breast, lips and brow. Whether or not he had +raised the hem of Katharine's skirt to his lips and kissed it, Lady +Wastwood could not definitely determine. She was left with the impression +that he had done this thing." + +=iv= + +I should have liked to have given, rather than purely descriptive +passages, a slice of the complicated and tense action with which the story +brims over, but there is the difficulty that such a scene might not be +intelligible to one not having read the story from the beginning. I must +resist the tendency to quote any more, having indulged it already to +excess, and I am ready to propound my theory of the existence of Richard +Dehan. + +If you receive a letter from The Towers, Beeding, it will bear a double +signature, like this: + + RICHARD DEHAN + CLOTILDE GRAVES + +Clotilde Graves has become a secondary personality. + +There was once a time when there was no Richard Dehan. There now are times +when there is no Clotilde Graves. + +To a woman in middle age an opportunity presented itself. It was the +chance to write a novel around the subject which, as a girl, she had come +to know a great deal about--the subject of war. To write about it and gain +attention, the novel required a man's signature. + +Then there was born in the mind of the woman who purposed to write the +novel the idea of a man--of _the_ man--who should be the novelist she +wanted to be. He should use as by right and from instinct the material +which lay inutile at her woman's disposal. + +She created Richard Dehan. Perhaps, in so doing, she created another +monster like Frankenstein's. I do not know. + +Born of necessity and opportunity and a woman's inventiveness, Richard +Dehan took over whatever of Clotilde Graves's he could use. He is now the +master. It is, intellectually and spiritually, as if he were the +full-grown son of Clotilde Graves. It is a partnership not less intimate +than that. + +Clotilde Graves--but she does not matter. I think she existed to bring +Richard Dehan into the world. + +BOOKS BY RICHARD DEHAN + +Novels: + THE LOVER'S BATTLE + THE DOP DOCTOR + BETWEEN TWO THIEVES + THE HEADQUARTER RECRUIT + THE COST OF WINGS + THE MAN OF IRON + OFF SANDY HOOK + EARTH TO EARTH + UNDER THE HERMES + THAT WHICH HATH WINGS + A SAILOR'S HOME + THE EVE OF PASCUA + THE VILLA OF THE PEACOCK + THE JUST STEWARD + +Plays + NITOCRIS + DRURY LANE PANTOMIME, PUSS IN BOOTS + DR. AND MRS. NEILL + A MOTHER OF THREE + A MATCHMAKER + THE BISHOP'S EYE + THE FOREST LOVERS + A MAKER OF COMEDIES + THE BOND OF NIKON + A TENEMENT TRAGEDY + + +SOURCES ON RICHARD DEHAN + +Who's Who [in England]. + +THE BOOKMAN for February, 1913 (Volume XXXVI, pp. 595-6), also brief +mention in THE BOOKMAN for September and October, 1912. + +Private Information. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +WITH FULL DIRECTIONS + + +=i= + +I have read the book called _Civilization in the United States_, a +collection of essays by various Americans, and count the time well spent +chiefly because, at the end of the chapter on "Sport," I came upon these +words by Ring W. Lardner: + +"The best sporting fiction we know of, practically the only sporting +fiction an adult may read without fear of stomach trouble, is contained in +the collected works of the late Charles E. Van Loan." + +This is expert testimony, if there is such a thing. The books Mr. Lardner +referred to are published in a five-volume memorial edition consisting +of: + + FORE! GOLF STORIES + SCORE BY INNINGS: BASEBALL STORIES + OLD MAN CURRY: RACETRACK STORIES + TAKING THE COUNT: PRIZE RING STORIES + BUCK PARVIN: STORIES OF THE MOTION PICTURE GAME. + +This collected edition was published by George H. Doran Company with the +arrangement that every cent above actual cost should go to Mrs. Van Loan +and her children. + +William T. Tilden, 2nd, was winner of the world's tennis championship in +1920 and 1921. With W. M. Johnston he was winner of the Davis cup in the +same years. He also won the United States championship in those years. His +book, _The Art of Lawn Tennis_, published in 1921, was republished in +1922. The revised edition included chapters on the winning of the Davis +cup and on the world's and the United States championships, on Mrs. +Mallory's play in the women's world championship games in France and +England, and on Mlle. Lenglen's play in America. Mr. Tilden also added an +estimate of the promising youngsters playing tennis and indulged in one or +two surprising and radical prophecies. + +_Twenty Years of Lawn Tennis_, by A. Wallis Myers, an English player of +distinction, has interesting chapters on play in other countries than +America, England and France. An anecdotal volume this, with moments on the +Riviera and matches played in South Africa. + +After unpreventable delays we have, at last, _The Gist of Golf_ by Harry +Vardon. Using remarkable photographs, Vardon devotes a chapter to each +club and chapters to stance, grip, and swing. Although the chief value of +the book is to the player who wants to improve his game, there is text +interesting to everyone familiar with golf; for Vardon gives personal +reminiscences covering years of play and illustrative of his +instructions. + +=ii= + +I suppose the fifty-three photographs, mostly full page ones, are the +outstanding feature of _Wild Life in the Tree Tops_, by Captain C. W. R. +Knight. This English book, large and flat, shows with the aid of the +camera, the merlin pursuing her quarry, young tawny owls in a disused +magpie's nest, female noctules and their young, the male kestrel brooding, +and a male buzzard that has just brought a rabbit to the younglings in the +nest. Plenty of other pictures like these! The chapters deal with the +buzzards of the Doone country, the lady's hawk, woodpeckers, brown owls, +sparrow-hawks, herons and various other feathered people. + +Did you ever read _Lad: A Dog_? Well, anyway, there is a man named Albert +Payson Terhune and he and his wife live at a place called "Sunny-bank," at +Pompton Lakes, New Jersey, where they raise prize winning collie dogs. +Photographs come from New Jersey showing Mr. and Mrs. Terhune taking +afternoon tea, entirely surrounded by magnificently coated collies. You +will also find, if you stray into a bookstore this autumn, a book with a +jacket drawn by Charles Livingston Bull--a jacket from which looms a +colossal collie. He carries in a firmly knotted shawl or blanket or sheet +or something (the knot clenched between his teeth) a new-born babe. +New-born or approximately so. The title of this book is _Further +Adventures of Lad_. + +Mr. Terhune writes the best dog stories. Read a little bit from the first +chapter of _Further Adventures of Lad_: + +"Even the crate which brought the new dog to the Place failed somehow to +destroy the illusion of size and fierceness. But the moment the crate door +was opened the delusion was wrecked by Lad himself. + +"Out on to the porch he walked. The ramshackle crate behind him had a +ridiculous air of chrysalis from which some bright thing had departed. For +a shaft of sunlight was shimmering athwart the veranda floor. And into the +middle of the warm bar of radiance Laddie stepped--and stood. + +"His fluffy puppy-coat of wavy mahogany-and-white caught a million +sunbeams, reflecting them back in tawny-orange glints and in a dazzle as +of snow. His forepaws were absurdly small even for a puppy's. Above them +the ridging of the stocky leg bones gave as clear promise of mighty size +and strength as did the amazingly deep little chest and square shoulders. + +"Here one day would stand a giant among dogs, powerful as a timber-wolf, +lithe as a cat, as dangerous to foes as an angry tiger; a dog without fear +or treachery; a dog of uncanny brain and great lovingly loyal heart and, +withal, a dancing sense of fun. A dog with a soul. + +"All this, any canine physiologist might have read from the compact frame, +the proud head carriage, the smoulder in the deep-set sorrowful dark eyes. +To the casual observer, he was but a beautiful and appealing and +wonderfully cuddleable bunch of puppyhood. + +"Lad's dark eyes swept the porch, the soft swelling green of the lawn. The +flash of fire-blue lake among the trees below. Then he deigned to look at +the group of humans at one side of him. Gravely, impersonally, he surveyed +them; not at all cowed or strange in his new surroundings; courteously +inquisitive as to the twist of luck that had set him down here and as to +the people who, presumably, were to be his future companions. + +"Perhaps the stout little heart quivered just a bit, if memory went back +to his home kennel and to the rowdy throng of brothers and sisters and, +most of all, to the soft furry mother against whose side he had nestled +every night since he was born. But if so, Lad was too valiant to show +homesickness by so much as a whimper. And, assuredly, this House of Peace +was infinitely better than the miserable crate wherein he had spent twenty +horrible and jouncing and smelly and noisy hours. + +"From one to another of the group strayed the level sorrowful gaze. After +the swift inspection Laddie's eyes rest again on the Mistress. For an +instant, he stood, looking at her, in that mildly polite curiosity which +held no hint of personal interest. + +"Then, all at once, his plumy tail began to wave. Into his sad eyes sprang +a flicker of warm friendliness. Unbidden--oblivious of everyone else--he +trotted across to where the Mistress sat. He put one tiny white paw in her +lap and stood thus, looking up lovingly into her face, tail awave, eyes +shining. + +"'There's no question whose dog he's going to be,' laughed the Master. +'He's elected you--by acclamation.'" + +=iii= + +Not content with being the husband of Margaret Sangster, C. M. Sheridan +has written _The Stag Cook Book_. I would have it understood that this is +an honest-to-goodness cook-book, although I readily confess that there is +plenty of humour throughout its pages. Mr. Sheridan has acquired various +unusual and unreplaceable recipes--I believe he secured from Wladislaw +Benda, the illustrator, a rare and secret formula for the preparation of a +species of Hungarian or Polish pastry. Now, as every housewife knows, and +as no man except a Frenchman or somebody like that knows, the preparation +of pastry is an intricate art. Simply to make ordinary French pastry +requires innumerable rollings to incredible thinnesses; besides which the +pastry has to be chilled; but there is more than that to this recondite +substance which Mr. Benda, probably under the terms of the Treaty of +Brest-Litovsk, surrendered to Mr. Sheridan. The pastry in question has to +be executed with the aid of geometrical designs. Mr. Sheridan has supplied +the necessary front elevation and working plans. He shows you where you +fold along the line from A to B--in other words, along the dotted line. +Thus no man using this unique cook-book can go wrong any more than his +wife can go wrong when making a new dress according to Pictorial Review or +McCall's or Delineator patterns. + +On the other hand, women remain still chiefly responsible for the food we +eat. Elizabeth A. Monaghan's _What to Eat and How to Prepare It_ is an +orthodox cook-book in contrast with Mr. Sheridan's daring adventure. + +=iv= + +Large numbers of people still play games. I do not mean cards or tennis or +golf or any of the famous outdoor and indoor sports, but just games, the +sort of things that are sometimes called stunts and that make the life of +the party--or, by their absence or failure, rob the evening gathering of +all its vitality. For the people who play games, Edna Geister is the one +best bet. Edna Geister knows all about stunts and games and parties and +she brims over with clever ideas for the hostess or recreation leader. You +will find them in her book _Ice-breakers and the Ice-breaker Herself_. The +second section of this book, _The Ice-breaker Herself_, has been bound +separately for the convenience of those already owning _Ice Breakers_. +Miss Geister's latest book, _It Is to Laugh_, was written primarily for +adults because there is so much material already available for the +recreation of children. Nevertheless almost every one of the games and +stunts described in _It Is to Laugh_ can be used for children. There are +games for large groups and small groups, games for the family, for dinner +parties, for community affairs and for almost any kind of social +gathering, with one chapter devoted to out-of-door and picnic programmes. + +Playing the piano is not a game, at least not as Mark Hambourg, the +pianist and composer, plays it. Hambourg, though born in South Russia in +1879, the eldest son of the late Professor Michel Hambourg, has for years +been a naturalised Englishman. In fact, he married in 1907 the Honourable +Dorothea Mackenzie, daughter of Lord Muir Mackenzie. And the pair have +four daughters. Mark Hambourg was a pupil of Leschetitzky in Vienna, where +he obtained the Liszt scholarship in 1894. He has made concert appearances +all over the world, his third American tour falling in 1907, and his first +Canadian tour in 1910. + +Mark Hambourg's book is called _How to Play the Piano_ and the text is +helped with practical illustrations and diagrams and a complete compendium +of five-finger exercises, scales, arpeggi, thirds and octaves as practised +by Hambourg. + +=v= + +Those who read The Bookman will not need to be told that the articles by +Robert Cortes Holliday on _Writing as a Business: A Practical Guide for +Authors_, will constitute an exceptional book. The great point about Mr. +Holliday's chapters, which have been written in collaboration with +Alexander Van Rensselaer, is that they are disinterested. There has been +an immense amount of printed matter, some of it in book form, telling of +the problems that confront the writer, especially the young beginner. As a +rule, the underlying motive was to induce people to write so that someone +else might make money out of their efforts, whether the writers did or +not. So-called correspondence schools in the art of writing, so-called +literary bureaus, interested individuals anxious to earn "commissions," +and sometimes individuals who purported to be publishers have for many +years carried on a continuous campaign at the expense of persons who did +not know how to write but who fancied they could write and who, above +everything, craved to write--craved seeing themselves in print and hearing +themselves referred to as "authors" or "writers." It would take a +statistician versed in all manner of mysteries and calculations to tell +how many people have been deluded by this stuff, and how much money has +been nuzzled out of them. The time was certainly here for someone in a +position to tell the truth to speak up. + +And of Mr. Holliday's qualifications there is no question. He has had to +do with books and authors and book publishing for years. He was, as his +readers know, for a number of years in the Scribner bookstore. He was with +Doubleday, Page & Company at Garden City; he was with George H. Doran +Company, serving not only as editor of The Bookman but acting in other +editorial capacities. He is now connected with Henry Holt & Company. As an +author he is amply established. Therefore, when he tells about writing and +book publishing and bookselling, and when he discusses such subjects as +"Publishing Your Own Book," his statements are most thoroughly documented. +The important thing, however, is that Mr. Holliday is disinterested, he +has no axe to grind in the advice he gives; although the impressive thing +about his book is the absence of advice and the continual presentation of +unvarnished facts. After all, confronted with the facts, the literary +aspirant of ordinary intelligence must and should reach his own +conclusions as regards what he wants to do and how best to essay it. This +is a sample of the kind of straightforwardness to which Mr. Holliday +adheres: + +"An experienced writer 'on his own' may earn a couple of hundred dollars +or so in one week, and for several weeks afterward average something like +$14.84. The beginner-writer should not consider that he has 'arrived' when +he has sold one story, or even several; it may be a year before he places +another. And the future of a writer who may be having a very fair success +now is not any too secure. Public taste changes. New orders come in. The +kind of thing which took so well yesterday may be quite out of fashion +tomorrow. + +"There is among people generally much misconception as to the profits +ordinarily derived by the author from the publication of a book. The price +of a novel today is about two dollars. Usually the author receives a +royalty of about fifteen cents a copy on the first two thousand copies +sold, and about twenty cents on each copy thereafter. A novel which sold +upward of 50,000 copies would bring the author something like $10,000. +Many men make as much as $10,000 by a year's work at some other business +or profession than authorship. But authors who make that amount in a year, +or anything near that amount, are exceedingly rare. A book is regarded by +the publisher as highly successful if it sells from five to ten thousand +copies. Far and away the greater number of books published do not sell as +many as 1,500 copies. Many far less. A recently published book, which +received a very cordial 'press,' has had an uncommon amount of publicity, +and the advertisements of which announce that it is in its 'fourth +printing,' has, after about half a year, earned for its author perhaps +$1,000. Its sale now in active measure is over. An author is fairly +fortunate who receives as much as $500 or $600 from the sale of his book. +I recall an excellent story published something over a year ago which was +much praised by many reviewers. It took the author probably the better +part of a year to write it. He was then six months or more getting it +accepted. He has not been able to place much of anything since. At the +end, then, of two years and a half he has received from his literary +labors about $110." + +Mr. Van Rensselaer has greatly enhanced the usefulness of _Writing as a +Business_ by the addition of very complete bibliographies. + +_Illumination and Its Development in the Present Day_, by Sidney +Farnsworth, has nothing to do with street or indoor lighting but has a +great deal to do with lettering and illuminating manuscripts. Mr. +Farnsworth traces the growth of illumination from its birth, showing, by +means of numerous diagrams and drawings, its gradual development through +the centuries from mere writing to the elaborate poster work and +commercial lettering of the present day. Although other books have already +been written on this fascinating subject, Mr. Farnsworth breaks new ground +in many directions; he treats the matter from the modern standpoint in a +manner which makes his work invaluable not only to students of the art, +but also to the rapidly-growing public interested in what has hitherto +been a somewhat exclusive craft. The book is well illustrated. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +FRANK SWINNERTON: ANALYST OF LOVERS + + +=i= + +It is as an analyst of lovers, I think, that Frank Swinnerton claims and +holds his place among those whom we still sometimes call the younger +novelists of England. + +I do not say this because his fame was achieved at a bound with +_Nocturne_, but because all his novels show a natural preoccupation with +the theme of love between the sexes. Usually it is a pair of young lovers +or contrasted pairs; but sometimes this is interestingly varied, as in +September, where we have a study of love that comes to a woman in middle +life. + +The unique character of _Nocturne_ makes it very hard to write about +Swinnerton. It is true that Arnold Bennett wrote: "I am prepared to say to +the judicious reader unacquainted with Swinnerton's work, 'Read +_Nocturne_,' and to stand or fall, and to let him stand or fall by the +result." At the same time, though the rule is that we must judge an artist +by his finest work and a genius by his greatest masterpiece, it is not +entirely just to estimate the living writer by a single unique +performance, an extraordinary piece of virtuosity, which _Nocturne_ +unquestionably is. For anyone who wishes to understand and appreciate +Swinnerton, I would recommend that he begin with _Coquette_, follow it +with _September_, follow that with _Shops and Houses_ and then read +_Nocturne_. That is, I would have made this recommendation a few months +ago, but so representative of all sides of Swinnerton's talent is his new +novel, _The Three Lovers_, that I should now prefer to say to anyone +unacquainted with Swinnerton: "Begin with _The Three Lovers_." And after +that I would have him read _Coquette_ and the other books in the order I +have named. After he had reached and finished _Nocturne_, I would have him +turn to the several earlier novels--_The Happy Family_, _On the +Staircase_, and _The Chaste Wife_. + +=ii= + +_The Three Lovers_, a full-length novel which Swinnerton finished in +Devonshire in the spring of 1922, is a story of human beings in conflict, +and it is also a picture of certain phases of modern life. A young and +intelligent girl, alone in the world, is introduced abruptly to a kind of +life with which she is unfamiliar. Thereafter the book shows the +development of her character and her struggle for the love of the men to +whom she is most attracted. The book steadily moves + +[Illustration: FRANK SWINNERTON] + +through its earlier chapters of introduction and growth to a climax that +is both dramatic and moving. It opens with a characteristic descriptive +passage from which I take a few sentences: + +"It was a suddenly cold evening towards the end of September.... The +street lamps were sharp brightnesses in the black night, wickedly +revealing the naked rain-swept paving-stones. It was an evening to make +one think with joy of succulent crumpets and rampant fires and warm +slippers and noggins of whisky; but it was not an evening for cats or +timid people. The cats were racing about the houses, drunken with primeval +savagery; the timid people were shuddering and looking in distress over +feebly hoisted shoulders, dreadfully prepared for disaster of any kind, +afraid of sounds and shadows and their own forgotten sins.... The wind +shook the window-panes; soot fell down all the chimneys; trees +continuously rustled as if they were trying to keep warm by constant +friction and movement." + +The imagination which sees in the movement of trees an endeavour to keep +warm is not less sharp in its discernment of human beings. I will give one +other passage, a conversation between Patricia Quin, the heroine, and +another girl: + +"'Do you mean he's in love with you?' asked Patricia. 'That seems to be +what's the matter.' + +"'Oho, it takes two to be in love,' scornfully cried Amy. 'And I'm not in +love with him.' + +"'But he's your friend.' + +"'That's just it. He won't recognise that men and women _can_ be friends. +He's a very decent fellow; but he's full of this sulky jealousy, and he +glowers and sulks whenever any other man comes near me. Well, that's not +my idea of friendship.' + +"'Nor mine,' echoed Patricia, trying to reconstruct her puzzled estimate +of their relations. 'But couldn't you stop that? Surely, if you put it +clearly to him....' + +"Amy interrupted with a laugh that was almost shrill. Her manner was +coldly contemptuous. + +"'You _are_ priceless!' she cried. 'You say the most wonderful things.' + +"'Well, _I_ should.' + +"'I wonder.' Amy moved about, collecting the plates. 'You see ... some day +I shall marry. And in a weak moment I said probably I'd marry him.' + +"'Oh, Amy! Of _course_ he's jealous.' Swiftly, Patricia did the young man +justice. + +"'I didn't give him any right to be. I told him I'd changed my mind. I've +told him lots of times that probably I sha'n't marry him.' + +"'But you keep him. Amy! You do encourage him.' Patricia was stricken +afresh with a generous impulse of emotion on Jack's behalf. 'I mean, by +not telling him straight out. Surely you can't keep a man waiting like +that? I wonder he doesn't _insist_.' + +"'Jack insist!' Amy was again scornful. 'Not he!' + +"There was a moment s pause. Innocently, Patricia ventured upon a +charitable interpretation. + +"'He must love you very much. But, Amy, if you don't love him.' + +"'What's love got to do with marriage?' asked Amy, with a sourly cynical +air. + +"'Hasn't it--everything?' Patricia was full of sincerity. She was too +absorbed in this story to help Amy to clear the table; but on finding +herself alone in the studio while the crockery was carried away to the +kitchen she mechanically shook the crumbs behind the gas-fire and folded +the napkin. This was the most astonishing moment of her day. + +"Presently Amy returned, and sat in the big armchair, while, seated upon +the podger and leaning back against the wall, Patricia smoked a +cigarette. + +"'You see, the sort of man one falls in love with doesn't make a good +husband,' announced Amy, as patiently as if Patricia had been in fact a +child. She persisted in her attitude of superior wisdom in the world's +ways. 'It's all very well; but a girl ought to be able to live with any +man she fancies, and then in the end marry the safe man for a ... well, +for life, if she likes.' + +"Patricia's eyes were opened wide. + +"'I shouldn't like that,' she said. 'I don't think the man would either.' + +"'Bless you, the men all _do_ it,' cried Amy, contemptuously. 'Don't make +any mistake about that.' + +"'I don't believe it,' said Patricia. 'Do you mean that my father--or +_your_ father...?' + +"'Oh, I don't know. I meant, nowadays. Most of the people you saw last +night are living together or living with other people.' + +"Patricia was aware of a chill. + +"'But _you've_ never,' she urged. 'I've never.' + +"'No.' Amy was obviously irritated by the personal application. 'That's +just it. I say we _ought_ to be free to do what we like. Men do what they +like.' + +"'D'you think Jack has lived with other girls?' + +"'My dear child, how do I know? I should hope he has.' + +"'Hope! Amy, you do make me feel a prig.' + +"'Perhaps you are one. Oh, I don't know. I'm sick of thinking, thinking, +thinking about it all. I never get any peace.' + +"'Is there somebody you _want_ to live with?' + +"'No. I wish there was. Then I should _know_' + +"'I wonder if you would know,' said Patricia, in a low voice. 'Amy, do you +really know what love is? Because I don't. I've sometimes let men kiss me, +and it doesn't seem to matter in the least. I don't particularly want to +kiss them, or to be kissed. I've never seen anything in all the flirtation +that goes on in dark corners. It's amusing once or twice; but it becomes +an awful bore. The men don't interest you. The thought of living with any +of them just turns me sick.'" + +=iii= + +The analysis, in _The Three Lovers_, of Patricia Quin is done with that +simplicity, quiet deftness and inoffensive frankness which is the hallmark +of Mr. Swinnerton's fiction. And, coming at last to _Nocturne_, I fall +back cheerfully upon the praise accorded that novel by H. G. Wells in his +preface to it. Said Mr. Wells: + +"Such a writer as Mr. Swinnerton sees life and renders it with a +steadiness and detachment and patience quite foreign to my disposition. He +has no underlying motive. He sees and tells. His aim is the attainment of +that beauty which comes with exquisite presentation. Seen through his art, +life is seen as one sees things through a crystal lens, more intensely, +more completed, and with less turbidity. There the business begins and +ends for him. He does not want you or anyone to do anything. + +"Mr. Swinnerton is not alone among recent writers in this clear detached +objectivity. But Mr. Swinnerton, like Mr. James Joyce, does not repudiate +the depths for the sake of the surface. His people are not splashes of +appearance, but living minds. Jenny and Emmy in this book are realities +inside and out; they are imaginative creatures so complete that one can +think with ease of Jenny ten years hence or of Emmy as a baby. The fickle +Alf is one of the most perfect Cockneys--a type so easy to caricature and +so hard to get true--in fiction. If there exists a better writing of +vulgar lovemaking, so base, so honest, so touchingly mean and so +touchingly full of the craving for happiness than this, I do not know of +it. Only a novelist who has had his troubles can understand fully what a +dance among china cups, what a skating over thin ice, what a tight-rope +performance is achieved in this astounding chapter. A false note, one +fatal line, would have ruined it all. On the one hand lay brutality; a +hundred imitative louts could have written a similar chapter brutally, +with the soul left out, we have loads of such 'strong stuff' and it is +nothing; on the other side was the still more dreadful fall into +sentimentality, the tear of conscious tenderness, the redeeming glimpse of +'better things' in Alf or Emmy that could at one stroke have converted +their reality into a genteel masquerade. The perfection of Alf and Emmy is +that at no point does a 'nature's gentleman' or a 'nature's lady' show +through and demand our refined sympathy. It is only by comparison with +this supreme conversation that the affair of Keith and Jenny seems to fall +short of perfection. But that also is at last perfected, I think, by +Jenny's final, 'Keith ... Oh, Keith!...' + +"Above these four figures again looms the majestic invention of 'Pa.' +Every reader can appreciate the truth and humour of Pa, but I doubt if +anyone without technical experience can realise how the atmosphere is made +and completed, and rounded off by Pa's beer, Pa's meals, and Pa's +accident, how he binds the bundle and makes the whole thing one, and what +an enviable triumph his achievement is. + +"But the book is before the reader and I will not enlarge upon its merits +further. Mr. Swinnerton has written four or five other novels before this +one, but none of them compares with it in quality. His earlier books were +strongly influenced by the work of George Gissing; they have something of +the same fatigued greyness of texture and little of the same artistic +completeness and intense vision of _Nocturne_. + +"This is a book that will not die. It is perfect, authentic and alive. +Whether a large and immediate popularity will fall to it, I cannot say, +but certainly the discriminating will find it and keep it and keep it +alive. If Mr. Swinnerton were never to write another word I think he might +count on this much of his work living, when many of the more portentous +reputations of today may have served their purpose in the world and become +no more than fading names." + +=iv= + +Arnold Bennett has described Swinnerton personally in a way no one else is +likely to surpass. I will prefix a few elemental facts which he has +neglected and then will let him have his say. + +Frank Arthur Swinnerton was born in Wood Green, England, in 1884, the +youngest son of Charles Swinnerton and Rose Cottam. He married, a few +years ago, Helen Dircks, a poet; her slim little book of verse, +_Passenger_, was published with a preface by Mr. Swinnerton. His first +three novels Swinnerton destroyed. His first novel to be published was +_The Merry Heart_. It is interesting to know that Floyd Dell was the first +American to appreciate Swinnerton. I make way for Mr. Bennett, who says: + +"One day perhaps eight or nine years ago I received a novel entitled _The +Casement_. The book was accompanied by a short, rather curt note from the +author, Frank Swinnerton, politely indicating that if I cared to read it +he would be glad, and implying that if I didn't care to read it, he should +endeavour still to survive. I would quote the letter but I cannot find +it--no doubt for the reason that all my correspondence is carefully filed +on the most modern filing system. I did not read _The Casement_ for a long +time. Why should I consecrate three irrecoverable hours or so to the work +of a man as to whom I had no credentials? Why should I thus introduce +foreign matter into the delicate cogwheels of my programme of reading? +However, after a delay of weeks, heaven in its deep wisdom inspired me +with a caprice to pick up the volume. + +"I had read, without fatigue but on the other hand without passionate +eagerness, about a hundred pages before the thought occurred suddenly to +me: 'I do not remember having yet come across one single ready-made phrase +in this story.' Such was my first definable thought concerning Frank +Swinnerton. I hate ready-made phrases, which in my view--and in that of +Schopenhauer--are the sure mark of a mediocre writer. I began to be +interested. I soon said to myself: 'This fellow has a distinguished +style.' I then perceived that the character-drawing was both subtle and +original, the atmosphere delicious, and the movement of the tale very +original, too. The novel stirred me--not by its powerfulness, for it did +not set out to be powerful--but by its individuality and distinction. I +thereupon wrote to Frank Swinnerton. I forget entirely what I said. But I +know that I decided that I must meet him. + +"When I came to London, considerably later, I took measures to meet him, +at the Authors' Club. He proved to be young; I daresay twenty-four or +twenty-five--medium height, medium looks, medium clothes, somewhat reddish +hair, and lively eyes. If I had seen him in a motorbus I should never have +said, 'A remarkable chap'--no more than if I had seen myself in a +motorbus. My impressions of the interview were rather like my impressions +of the book: at first somewhat negative, and only very slowly becoming +positive. He was reserved, as became a young author; I was reserved, as +became an older author; we were both reserved, as became Englishmen. Our +views on the only important thing in the world--that is to say, +fiction--agreed, not completely, but in the main; it would never have done +for us to agree completely. I was as much pleased by what he didn't say as +by what he said; quite as much by the indications of the stock inside the +shop as by the display in the window. The interview came to a calm close. +My knowledge of him acquired from it amounted to this, that he held +decided and righteous views upon literature, that his heart was not on his +sleeve, and that he worked in a publisher's office during the day and +wrote for himself in the evenings. + +"Then I saw no more of Swinnerton for a relatively long period. I read +other books of his. I read _The Young Idea_, and _The Happy Family_, and, +I think, his critical work on George Gissing. _The Happy Family_ marked a +new stage in his development. It has some really piquant scenes, and it +revealed that minute knowledge of middle-class life in the nearer suburbs +of London, and that disturbing insight into the hearts and brains of quite +unfashionable girls, which are two of his principal gifts. I read a sketch +of his of a commonplace crowd walking around a bandstand which brought me +to a real decision as to his qualities. The thing was like life, and it +was bathed in poetry. + +"Our acquaintance proceeded slowly, and I must be allowed to assert that +the initiative which pushed it forward was mine. It made a jump when he +spent a week-end in the Thames Estuary on my yacht. If any reader has a +curiosity to know what my yacht is not like, he should read the striking +yacht chapter in _Nocturne_. I am convinced that Swinnerton evolved the +yacht in _Nocturne_ from my yacht; but he ennobled, magnified, decorated, +enriched and bejewelled it till honestly I could not recognise my wretched +vessel. The yacht in _Nocturne_ is the yacht I want, ought to have, and +never shall have. I envy him the yacht in _Nocturne_, and my envy takes a +malicious pleasure in pointing out a mistake in the glowing scene. He +anchors his yacht in the middle of the Thames--as if the tyrannic +authorities of the Port of London would ever allow a yacht, or any other +craft, to anchor in midstream! + +"After the brief cruise our friendship grew rapidly. I now know +Swinnerton--probably as well as any man knows him; I have penetrated into +the interior of the shop. He has done several things since I first knew +him--rounded the corner of thirty, grown a beard, under the orders of a +doctor, and physically matured. Indeed, he looks decidedly stronger than +in fact he is--he was never able to pass the medical examination for the +army. He is still in the business of publishing, being one of the +principal personages in the ancient and well-tried firm of Chatto & +Windus, the English publishers of Swinburne and Mark Twain. He reads +manuscripts, including his own--and including mine. He refuses +manuscripts, though he did accept one of mine. He tells authors what they +ought to do and ought not to do. He is marvellously and terribly +particular and fussy about the format of the books issued by his firm. +Questions as to fonts of type, width of margins, disposition of +title-pages, tint and texture of bindings really do interest him. And +misprints--especially when he has read the proofs himself--give him +neuralgia and even worse afflictions. Indeed he is the ideal publisher for +an author. + +"Nevertheless, publishing is only a side-line of his. He still writes for +himself in the evenings and at week-ends--the office never sees him on +Saturdays. + +"Frank Swinnerton has other gifts. He is a surpassingly good raconteur. By +which I do not signify that the man who meets Swinnerton for the first, +second or third time will infallibly ache with laughter at his remarks. +Swinnerton only blossoms in the right atmosphere; he must know exactly +where he is; he must be perfectly sure of his environment, before the +flower uncloses. And he merely relates what he has seen, what he has taken +part in. The narrations would be naught if he were not the narrator. His +effects are helped by the fact that he is an excellent mimic and by his +utter realistic mercilessness. But like all first-class realists he is +also a romantic, and in his mercilessness there is a mysterious touch of +fundamental benevolence--as befits the attitude of one who does not worry +because human nature is not something different from what it actually is. +Lastly, in this connection, he has superlatively the laugh known as the +'infectious laugh.' When he laughs everybody laughs, everybody has to +laugh. There are men who tell side-splitting tales with the face of an +undertaker--for example, Irvin Cobb. There are men who can tell +side-splitting tales and openly and candidly rollick in them from the +first word; and of these latter is Frank Swinnerton. But Frank Swinnerton +can be more cruel than Irvin Cobb. Indeed, sometimes when he is telling a +story, his face becomes exactly like the face of Mephistopheles in +excellent humour with the world's sinfulness and idiocy. + +"Swinnerton's other gift is the critical. It has been said that an author +cannot be at once a first-class critic and a first-class creative artist. +To which absurdity I reply: What about William Dean Howells? And what +about Henry James, to name no other names? Anyhow, if Swinnerton excels in +fiction he also excels in literary criticism. The fact that the literary +editor of the Manchester Guardian wrote and asked him to write literary +criticism for the Manchester Guardian will perhaps convey nothing to the +American citizen. But to the Englishman of literary taste and experience +it has enormous import. The Manchester Guardian publishes the most +fastidious and judicious literary criticism in Britain. + +"I recall that once when Swinnerton was in my house I had there also a +young military officer with a mad passion for letters and a terrific +ambition to be an author. The officer gave me a manuscript to read. I +handed it over to Swinnerton to read, and then called upon Swinnerton to +criticise it in the presence of both of us. 'Your friend is very kind,' +said the officer to me afterward, 'but it was a frightful ordeal.' + +"The book on George Gissing I have already mentioned. But it was +Swinnerton's work on R. L. Stevenson that made the trouble in London. It +is a destructive work. It is bland and impartial, and not bereft of +laudatory passages, but since its appearance Stevenson's reputation has +never been the same." + +BOOKS BY FRANK SWINNERTON + +THE MERRY HEART +THE YOUNG IDEA +THE CASEMENT +THE HAPPY FAMILY +GEORGE GISSING: A CRITICAL STUDY +R. L. STEVENSON: A CRITICAL STUDY +ON THE STAIRCASE +THE CHASTE WIFE +NOCTURNE +SHOPS AND HOUSES +SEPTEMBER +COQUETTE +THE THREE LOVERS + + +SOURCES ON FRANK SWINNERTON + +Who's Who [In England]. + +Frank Swinnerton: Personal Sketches by Arnold Bennett, H. G. Wells, +Grant Overtor, Booklet published by GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY, 1920. + +Private Information. + + + + +Chapter XVI + +AN ARMFUL OF NOVELS, WITH NOTES ON THE NOVELISTS + + +=i= + +"The quiet, the calm, the extreme individualism, and the easy-going +self-content of my birthplace and early habitat--the Eastern Shore of +Maryland, have been, I fear, the dominating influences of my life," writes +Sophie Kerr. "Thank heaven, I had a restless, energetic, and very +bad-tempered father to leaven them, a man with a biting tongue and a kind +heart, a keen sense of the ridiculous and a passion for honesty in speech +and action. I, the younger of his two children, was his constant +companion. I tagged after him, every day and all day. Even when I was very +small he interested me--and very few fathers ever really interest their +children. + +"The usual life of a girl in a small semi-Southern town was mine. I +learned to cook, I made most of my own frocks, I embroidered excessively, +I played the violin worse than any other person in the world, I went away +to college and I came back again. I wasn't a popular girl socially for two +reasons. I had inherited my father's gift of sarcasm, and there was the +even greater handicap of a beautiful, popular, socially malleable older +sister. Beside her I was nowhere. + +"But I wanted to write, so I didn't care. I got my father to buy me a +second-hand typewriter, and learned to run it with two fingers. And I +wrote. I even sold some of the stuff. The Country Gentleman bought one of +my first stories, and the Ladies' World bought another. This was +glorious. + +"Then I got a job on the Pittsburgh Chronicle-Telegraph, an afternoon +newspaper owned by Senator Oliver. Later I went to The Gazette-Times, the +morning paper also owned by the Senator. A few years later I came to New +York and found a place on the staff of the Woman's Home Companion, +eventually becoming Managing Editor. Two years ago I resigned my editorial +job to give all my time to writing. Of course I had been writing pretty +steadily anyway, but holding my job too. + +"I had expected, when I gave up office work, to find my leisure time an +embarrassment. I planned so many things to do, how I would see all my +friends often, how I would travel, read, do all sorts of delightful things +that double work had before made impossible. But I've done none of them. I +haven't nearly as much time as I had when I hadn't any time at all, and +that's the honest truth. + +"If only I could arrange a multiple existence--one life for work; one for +the machinery of life, housekeeping, getting clothes made, shopping; one +for seeing my friends, travel, visiting; one life for the other diversions +such as music, the theatre, clubs, politics, one life for just plain +loafing. Now that would be wonderful. But to crowd it all into twenty-four +hours a day--no, too much of it gets squeezed out. + +"What do I like the most? Comfort, I think. And old painted satinwood, and +cats and prizefights, and dancing, and Spanish shawls, and looking at the +ocean, and having my own way. And I dislike argument, and perfume, and fat +women, and people who tell the sort of lies that simply insult your +intelligence, and men who begin letters 'Dear Lady,' and long earrings, +and intolerance." + +All of which is excellent preparation for the reader of Sophie Kerr's new +novel, _One Thing Is Certain_. Those who read her _Painted Meadows_ will +expect and will find in this new novel the same charming background, but +they will find a much more dramatic story. Since the novel is one of +surprise, with an event at its close which throws everything that went +before in a new, a curious, a startling and profoundly significant light, +I cannot indulge in any further description of it in this place. But I do +wish to quote some sentences from a letter Sophie Kerr wrote me: + +"I wanted to show that when lives get out of plumb, the way to straighten +them is not with a violent gesture. That when we do seize them, and try to +jerk them straight again, we invariably let ourselves in for long years of +unhappiness and remorse. Witness Louellen. In two desperate attempts ... +she tries to change the whole current and colour of her life." + +So much for the essential character of the story, but there is a question +in my mind as to what, in the story, readers will consider the true +essential! I think for very many it will not be the action, unusual and +dramatic as that is, but the picture of a peculiar community, one typical +of Maryland's Eastern Shore, where we have farmer folk in whom there lives +the spirit and tradition of a landed aristocracy. The true essential with +such readers, will be the individuals who are drawn with such humour and +skill, the mellowness of the scene; even such a detail as the culinary +triumph that was Louellen's wedding dinner. A marvellous and incomparable +meal! One reads of it, his mouth watering and his stomach crying out. + +=ii= + +_The House of Five Swords_, by Tristram Tupper, is a gallant +representative of those novels which we are beginning to get in the +inevitable reaction from such realism as _Main Street_ and _Moon-Calf_, a +romantic story of age and youth, of love and hate, of bitter unyielding +hardness, and of melting pity and tenderness. It begins with the Robin, +age seven, with burnished curls, viewing with awestruck delight five +polished swords against the shining dark wall in Colonial House, where she +had gone to deliver the Colonel's boots! She forgot the boots. She lifted +two of the swords from the wall, crossed them on the floor and danced the +sword dance of Scotland. From the doorway a white-haired old figure +watched with narrowed eyes and tightened mouth. Then the storm broke.... + +_The House of Five Swords_ is Mr. Tupper's first novel. A native of +Virginia, he has done newspaper work, has tramped a good deal and was +fooling with the study of law when American troops were ordered to the +Mexican border. After that experience he went overseas. On his return from +the war, he tried writing and met with rapid success. + +=iii= + +Readers of Baroness Orczy's novels will welcome _Nicolette_. + +This is essentially a love story, with the scene laid in the mountains of +Provence in the early days of the Restoration of King Louis XVIII to the +throne of France. An ancient half-ruined château perches among dwarf +olives and mimosa, orange and lemon groves. There is a vivid contrast +between the prosperity of Jaume Deydier, a rich peasant-proprietor, and +the grinding poverty of the proud and ancient family of de Ventadour, +whose last scion, Bertrand, goes to seek fortune in Paris and there +becomes affianced to a wealthy and beautiful heiress. Nicolette, the +daughter of Jaume Deydier, whose ancestor had been a lackey in the service +of the Comte de Ventadour, is passionately in love with Bertrand, but a +bitter feud keeps the lovers for long apart. + +There will be a new novel this autumn, _Ann and Her Mother_, by O. +Douglas, whose _Penny Plain_ gave great pleasure to its readers. "Penny +plain," if you remember, was the way Jean described the lot of herself and +her brothers whom she mothered in the Scottish cottage; but matters were +somewhat changed when romance crossed the threshold in the person of the +Honourable Pamela and a bitter old millionaire who came to claim the house +as his own. + +_Ann and Her Mother_ is the story of a Scotch family as seen through the +eyes of the mother and her daughter. The author of _Penny Plain_ and _Ann +and Her Mother_ is a sister of John Buchan, author of _The Thirty-nine +Steps_, _The Path of the King_, and many other books. + +_December Love_, by Robert Hichens, will have a greater popularity than +any of his novels since _The Garden of Allah_. It is a question whether +this uncannily penetrative study of power and the need for love of a woman +of sixty does not surpass _The Garden of Allah_. In Lady Sellingworth, Mr. +Hichens is dealing with a brilliant woman. The theme is daring and calls +for both skill and delicacy. Of the action, one really should not say very +much, lest one spoil the book for the reader. The loss of the Sellingworth +jewels in Paris had caused a sensation in the midst of which Lady +Sellingworth was silent. She declined to discuss the disappearance of the +jewels. There followed the advent at No. 4 Berkeley Square of Alick +Craven, a man of thirty, vigorous, attractive and decidedly a somebody. +But inexplicably--at any rate without explanation--Lady Sellingworth +retired from society when Craven appeared. + +_Tell England_ by Ernest Raymond is a novel which has been sensationally +successful in England. It is a war story and I will give you some of the +opening paragraphs of the "Prologue by Padre Monty": + +"In the year that the Colonel died he took little Rupert to see the +swallows fly away. I can find no better beginning than that. + +"When there devolved upon me as a labour of love the editing of Rupert +Ray's book, _Tell England_, I carried the manuscript to my room one bright +autumn afternoon and read it during the fall of a soft evening, till the +light failed, and my eyes burned with the strain of reading in the dark. I +could hardly leave his ingenuous tale to rise and turn on the gas. Nor, +perhaps, did I want such artificial brightness. There are times when one +prefers the twilight. Doubtless the tale held me fascinated because it +revealed the schooldays of those boys whom I met in their young manhood +and told afresh that wild old Gallipoli adventure which I shared with +them. Though, sadly enough, I take Heaven to witness that I was not the +idealised creature whom Rupert portrays. God bless them, how these boys +will idealise us! + +"Then again, as Rupert tells you, it was I who suggested to him the +writing of his story. And well I recall how he demurred, asking: + +"'But what am I to write about?' For he was always diffident and +unconscious of his power. + +"'Is Gallipoli nothing to write about?' I retorted. 'And you can't have +spent five years at a great public school like Kensington without one or +two sensational things. Pick them out and let us have them. For whatever +the modern theorists say, the main duty of a story-teller is certainly to +tell stories.'" + +This prologue is followed by the novel which begins with English public +school life in the fashion of _Sonia_ and other novels American readers +are familiar with. The main theme of the book is Gallipoli. + +The new novel by J. E. Buckrose is _A Knight Among Ladies_. Mrs. Buckrose +says that the character of Sid Dummeris in this book is modelled upon an +actual person. "He did actually live in a remote country place where I +used to stay a great deal when I was a child and as he has been gone +twenty years, I thought I might employ my exact memories of him without +hurting anyone." This was in answer to questions asked by The Bookman +(London) of a number of English writers. The London Bookman wanted to find +out if novelists generally drew their characters from actual people. The +replies showed that this proceeding was very rare. Mrs. Buckrose recalled +only one other instance in which she had used an actual person in her +fiction. Mrs. Buckrose is Mrs. Falconer Jameson. She lives at Hornsea, +East Yorkshire, and says: + +"My real hobby is my writing--as it was my secret pleasure from the age of +nine until I was over thirty when I first attempted to publish. I look +after my chickens, my house and a rather delicate husband; write my books +and try to do my duty to my neighbour!" + +=iv= + +Back of the new novel by Margaret Culkin Banning, _Spellbinders_, is the +question: Has the vote and its consequent widening of the mental horizon +introduced a brand new element of discord or a factor for mutual support +into modern marriage? The household of the George Flandons was almost +wrecked by it. That his wife should accept the opportunity to play her +part in State and National affairs seemed to George Flandon a desertion of +her real duty. + +Mrs. Banning has written a novel which will surprise those who remember +her only by her first novel, _This Marrying_. The surprise will be less +for those who read her second novel, _Half Loaves_, for they must have +been struck by the real understanding she showed of the married +relationship and the marked increase in her skill as a writer. +_Spellbinders_ is the sort of work one looks for after such a good novel +as _Half Loaves_. + +Mrs. Banning, who was married in 1914, lives in Duluth. A graduate of +Vassar, her first novel was written in one of Margaret Mayo's cottages at +Harmon, New York. She is of purely Irish ancestry, related to the Plunkett +family which bred both statesmen and revolutionaries for Ireland. On the +other side there was a Colonel Culkin, who, Mrs. Banning says, "came over +at the time of the Revolution but unfortunately fought on the wrong side, +so we forget him and begin our Culkin lineage in this country with the +Culkin who came over at the famous time of the 'potato-rot.'" That would +be the Irish famine of 1846, no doubt. + +_Sunny-San_, Onoto Watanna's first novel in six years, has been the signal +for her re-entrance not only into the world of fiction, but the world of +motion pictures and plays. Even before _Sunny-San_ was ready as a book, +the motion picture producers were on the author's track. A large sum was +paid cash down for the picture rights to the novel and then the prospect +of a picture was laid aside while the possibilities of a play were +estimated. These were seen to be exceptionally good. Here was a story of +young American boys travelling in Japan and coming upon a still younger +Japanese girl, threatened with cruelty and unhappiness. The young men +endowed Sunny-San, so to speak, planking down enough money to secure her +protection and education. Thereupon they continued blithely on their +travels and forgot all about her. + +Some years later a well-educated, dainty and exceedingly attractive +Japanese girl presents herself on the doorstep of a house in New York +where one of the young men resides. Situation! What shall the young man do +with his charming and unexpected protégée! In view of the prolonged +success of Fay Bainter in the play, _East Is West_, it was obviously the +thing to make a play out of _Sunny-San_. And this, I believe, is being +done as I write. In the meantime Onoto Watanna, who is really Mrs. +Winnifred Reeve, and who lives on a ranch near Calgary, Canada, is very +busy with her Canadian stories which have excited the enthusiasm of +magazine editors. I am confident that she will do a Canadian novel; the +more so because she tells me that, despite the success of _Sunny-San_ and +the enormous success of her earlier Japanese stories, like _A Japanese +Nightingale_, her interest is really centred at present in Canada, its +people and backgrounds. + +=v= + +Pending Dorothy Speare's second novel, let me suggest that those who have +not done so read her first, _Dancers in the Dark_. That a young woman just +out of Smith College should write this novel, that the novel should then +begin immediately selling at a great rate, and that David Belasco should +demand a play constructed from the novel is altogether a sequence to cause +surprise. I have had letters from older people who said frankly that they +could not express themselves about _Dancers in the Dark_, because it dealt +with a life with which they were utterly unfamiliar--which, in some cases, +they did not know existed. And yet it does exist! The demand for the book, +the avidity with which it has been read and the intemperance with which it +has been discussed testify that in _Dancers in the Dark_ Miss Speare wrote +a book with truth in it. I suppose it might be said of her first +novel--though I should not agree in saying it--that, like F. Scott +Fitzgerald's _This Side of Paradise_, it had every conceivable fault +except the fatal fault; it did not fail to live. The amount of publicity +that this book received was astonishing. I have handled clippings from +newspapers all over the country--and not mere "items" but "spreads" with +pictures--in which the epigrammatic utterances of the characters in +_Dancers_ were reprinted and their truth or falsity debated hotly. Is the +modern girl an "excitement eater"? Does she "live from man to man and +never kill off a man"? There was altogether too much smoke and heat in the +controversy for one to doubt the existence, underneath the surface of Miss +Speare's fiction, of glowing coals. And Miss Speare? Well, it is a fact +that, like her heroine in _Dancers_, she has an exceptional voice; and I +understand that she intends to cultivate the voice and to continue as a +writer, both. That is a very difficult programme to lay out for one's +self, but I really believe her capable of succeeding in both halves of the +programme. + +Another distinctly popular novel, _The Moon Out of Reach_, by Margaret +Pedler, is the fruit of a well-developed career as a novelist. _The Hermit +of Far End_, _The House of Dreams Come True_, _The Lamp of Fate_, and _The +Splendid Folly_ were the forerunners of this immediate and distinct +success. Mrs. Pedler is the wife of a sportsman well known in the West of +England, the nearest living descendant of Sir Francis Drake. They have a +lovely home in the country and Mrs. Pedler, besides the joys of her +writing, is a collector of old furniture and china and a devotee of +driving, tennis and swimming. It is interesting that as a girl she studied +at the Royal Academy of Music with a view to being a professional singer. +Marriage diverted her from that, but she still retains her interest in +music; and it is characteristic of such novels as _The Splendid Folly_ and +_The Moon Out of Reach_ that a lyric appearing in the book embodies the +theme of the story. These lyrics of Mrs. Pedler's have mostly been set to +music. + +What shall I say about Corra Harris's _The Eyes of Love_ except that it +offers such a study of marriage as only Mrs. Harris puts on paper? Shrewd +and homely wisdom, sympathetic and ironical humour, the insight and the +fundamental experience,--above all, imagination in experience--which made +their first deep and wide impression with the publication of _A Circuit +Rider's Wife_. I open _The Eyes of Love_ at random and come upon such a +passage as this, and then I don't wonder that men as well as women read +Corra Harris and continue to read her: + +"Few women are ever related by marriage to the minds of their husbands. +These minds are foreign countries where they discover themselves to be +aliens, speaking another smaller language and practically incapable of +mastering the manners and customs of that place. This is sometimes the +man's fault, because his mind is not a fit place for a nice person like +his wife to dwell, but more frequently it is the wife's fault, who is not +willing to associate intimately with the hardships that inhabit the mind +of a busy man, who has no time to ornament that area with ideas pertaining +to the finer things. So it happens that both of them prefer this divorce, +the man because the woman gets in the way with her scruples and emotions +when he is about to do business without reference to either; the woman +because it is easier to keep on the domestic periphery of her husband, +where she thinks she knows him and is married to him because she knows +what foods he likes, and the people he prefers to have asked to dine when +she entertains, the chair that fits him, the large pillow or the small one +he wants for his tired old head at night, the place where the light must +be when he reads in the evening rather than talk to her, because there is +nothing to talk about, since she is only the wife of his bosom and not of +his head." + +=vi= + +Phyllis Bottome is just as interesting as her novels. When scarcely more +than a child with large, delightful eyes, she began to write, and +completed at the age of seventeen a novel which Andrew Lang advised an +English publisher to accept. Thereafter she wrote regularly and with +increasing distinction. Ill-health drove her to Switzerland where, living +for some years, she met all kinds of people from all the countries of +Europe and America as well. + +It is interesting that her father was an American, although after his +marriage to an Englishwoman, he settled in England. Later Mr. Bottome came +to America and for six years during Phyllis Bottome's childhood he was +rector of Grace Church at Jamaica, New York. Phyllis Bottome is the wife +of A. E. Forbes Dennis, who, recovering from dangerous wounds in the war, +has been serving as passport officer at Vienna. They were married in 1917. +Those who know Phyllis Bottome personally say that the striking thing +about her is the extent of her acquaintance with people of all sorts and +conditions of life and her ready and unfailing sympathy with all kinds of +people. She herself says that she "has had friends who live humdrum and +simple lives and friends whose stories would bring a rush of doubt to the +most credulous believer in fiction." "My friendships have included +workmen, bargees, actresses, clergymen, thieves, scholars, dancers, +soldiers, sailors and even the manager of a bank. It would be true of me +to say that as a human being I prefer life to art, even if it would at the +same time be damning to admit that I know much more about it. I have no +preferences; men, women, children, animals and nature under every aspect +seem to me a mere choice of miracles. I have not perhaps many illusions, +but I have got hold of one or two certainties. I believe in life and I +know that it is very hard." + +The hardness of life, its uproar, its agony, its magnificence and its +duty, is the theme of Phyllis Bottome's latest and finest novel. When it +was published, because it was so different from Phyllis Bottome's earlier +work, I tried to draw attention to it by a letter in which I said: + +"I don't know whether you read J. C. Snaith's _The Sailor_. People said +Snaith got his suggestion from the life of John Masefield. _The Sailor_ +sold many thousands and people recall the book today, years afterward. +But, as an ex-sailor and a few other things, I never found Snaith's 'Enry +'Arper half so convincing as Jim Barton in Phyllis Bottome's new novel, +_The Kingfisher_. + +"Jim, a boy of the slums, reaching toward 'that broken image of the mind +of God--human love,' goes pretty deeply into me. Since reading those last +words of the book--'Beauty touched him. It was as if he saw, with a flash +of jewelled wings, a Kingfisher fly home'--I keep going back and rereading +bits.... + +"Won't you tackle _The Kingfisher_? If you'll read to the bottom of page +51, I'll take a chance beyond that. Read that far and then, if you stop +there, I've no word to say." + +Although this letter called for no special reply, I received dozens of +replies promising to read the book and then enthusiastic comments after +having read the book. I do not consider _The Kingfisher_ the greatest book +Phyllis Bottome will write, but it marks an important advance in her work +and it is a novel whose positive merits will last; it will be as moving +and as significant ten years from now as it is today. + +=vii= + +I come to a group of novels of which the chief aim of all except two is +entertainment. _The_ _Return of Alfred_, by the anonymous author of +_Patricia Brent, Spinster_, is the diverting narrative of a man who found +himself in another man's shoes. What made it particularly difficult was +that the other man had been a very bad egg, indeed. And there was, as +might have been feared (or anticipated), a girl to complicate matters +tremendously. + +E. F. Benson's _Peter_ is the story of a young man who made a point of +being different, of keeping his aloofness and paying just the amount of +charm and gaiety required for the dinners and opera seats which London +hostesses so gladly proffered. Then he married Silvia, not for her money +exactly, but he certainly would not have asked her if she hadn't had +money. No wonder E. F. Benson has a liberal and expectant audience! In +_Peter_ he shows an exquisite understanding of the quality of the love +between Peter and his boyish young wife. + +A. A. Milne is another name to conjure with among those who love humour +and charm, gentleness and a quiet shafting of the human depths. There is +his novel, _Mr. Pim_. Old Mr. Pim, in his gentle way, shuffled into the +Mardens' charming household. Mr. Pim said a few words and went +absentmindedly away,--leaving Mr. Marden with the devastating knowledge +that his wife was no wife, that her first husband, instead of lying +quietly in his grave in Australia, had just landed in England. In short, +the Mardens had been living in sin for five years! Then Mr. Pim came back +for his forgotten hat and the Marden household was again revolutionised. + +_Beauty for Ashes_, by Joan Sutherland, is a story with a more serious +theme. It really raises the question whether a man who has wrongly been +named as co-respondent is in honour bound to marry the defendant. The +affair of Lady Madge with Lord Desmond was an entirely innocent one, +despite what London said. Lady Madge's husband, wrought upon by shame and +anger, began his action for divorce; and Desmond found himself not merely +face to face with dishonour but bound by conventional honour for life to a +girl with whom he had simply been friendly. + +William Rose Benét had been known chiefly as a poet until the publication +of his first novel, _The First Person Singular_. The scene of _The First +Person Singular_ shifts between the kinetic panorama of modern New York +and the somewhat stultifying quietude of a small Pennsylvania town. A +mysterious Mrs. Ventress is the centre of its rapidly unfolding series of +peculiar situations. Mrs. Ventress is a puzzle to the townspeople. They +believe odd things about her. The particular family in Tupton with which +she comes in contact is an eccentric one. The father is a recluse--for +reasons. His adopted daughter, Bessie Gedney, is an odd character among +young girls in fiction. Dr. Gedney's real daughter had disappeared years +before. Why? What has become of her? This complicates the mystery. + +_The First Person Singular_ is a light novel, avowedly without the heavy +"significance" and desperately drab realism of many modern novels. And yet +it flashes with tragedy and implicates grim spiritual struggle without +tearing any passion to tatters. The author's touch is light, the variety +of his characters furnish him much diversion. The amusing side of each +situation does not escape him. His style has a certain effervescent +quality, but, for all that, the tragic developments of the story are not +shirked. + +Another treatment of a problem of marriage, a treatment sympathetic but +robust, is found in the new novel of F. E. Mills Young, _The Stronger +Influence_. Like Miss Mills Young's earlier novels, _Imprudence_ and _The +Almonds of Life_, the scene of _The Stronger Influence_ is British Africa. +The story is of the choice confronting a girl upon whom two men have a +vital claim. + +To be somebody is more ethical than to serve somebody. The individual has +not only a right but an obligation to sacrifice family entanglements in +the cause of a necessary personal independence. This is the attitude +expressed in Richard Blaker's novel, _The Voice in the Wilderness_. The +story centres around the figure of Charles Petrie, popular playwright in +London but known in Pelchester merely as a shabby fellow and to his family +a singularly sarcastic and annoying father. Sarcasm was Petrie's one +defence against the limp weight that was Mrs. Petrie His children would +have been astonished to hear him called a charming man of the world, yet +he was. It is probable that he never would have come out into the open to +combat if he hadn't been moved constantly to interfere and save his +daughter Cynthia from offering herself as a willing sacrifice to her +mother. Richard Blaker is new to America, a novelist of acutely pointed +characterisations and careful atmosphere. + +=viii= + +_Nêne_, the work of an unknown French school teacher, a novel +distinguished in France by the award of the Goncourt Prize as the most +distinguished French novel of the year 1920, had sold at this writing +400,000 copies in France. Three months after publication, it had sold in +this country less than 3,000 copies. + +I am glad to say that it was sufficient to draw to the attention of +Americans this deplorable discrepancy to arouse interest in the novel. +People of so divergent tastes as William Lyon Phelps, Corra Harris, Ralph +Connor, Walter Prichard Eaton, Mary Johnston, Dorothy Speare and Richard +LeGallienne have been at pains to express the feeling to which _Nêne_ has +stirred them. I have not space to quote them all, and so select as typical +the comment of Walter Prichard Eaton: + +"I read _Nêne_ with great interest, especially because of its relation to +_Maria Chapdelaine_. It seems to me the two books came out most happily +together. _Maria Chapdelaine_ gives us the French peasant in the new +world, touched with the pioneer spirit, and though close to the soil in +constant battle with nature, somehow always master of his fate. _Nêne_ +gives us this same racial stock, again close to the soil, but an old-world +soil its fathers worked, and the peasant here seems ringed around with +those old ghosts, their prejudices and their passions. I have seldom read +any book which seemed to me so unerringly to capture the enveloping +atmosphere of place and tradition, as it conditions the lives of people, +and yet to do it so (apparently) artlessly. This struck me so forcibly +that it was not till later I began to realise with a sigh--if one himself +is a writer, a sigh of envy--that _Nêne_ has a directness, a simplicity, a +principle of internal growth or dramatic life of its own, which, alas! +most of us are incapable of attaining." + +The author of _Carnival_, _Sinister Street_, _Plasher's Mead_; of those +highly comedic novels, _Poor Relations_ and _Rich Relatives_; of other and +still more diverse fiction, Compton Mackenzie, has turned to a new task. +His fine novel, _The Altar Steps_, concerns itself with a young priest of +the Church of England. We live in the England of Lytton Strachey's _Queen +Victoria_--the England of 1880 to the close of the Boer War--as we follow +Mark Lidderdale from boyhood to his ordination. _The Altar Steps_, it is +known will be followed by a novel probably to be called _The Parson's +Progress_. Evidently Mr. Mackenzie is bent upon a fictional study of the +whole problem of the Church of England in relation to our times, and +particularly the position of the Catholic party in the Church. + +"Simon Pure," who writes the monthly letter from London appearing in The +Bookman (and whose identity is a well-known secret!) thus describes, in +The Bookman for September, 1922, a visit to Mr. Mackenzie: + +"I have recently seen the author of _The Altar Steps_ upon his native +heath._ The Altar Steps_ is the latest work of Compton Mackenzie, and it +has done something to rehabilitate him with the critics. The press has +been less fiercely adverse than usual to the author. He is supposed to +have come back to the fold of the 'serious' writers, and so the fatted +calf has been slain for him. We shall see. My own impression is that +Mackenzie is a humorous writer, and that the wiseacres who want the novel +to be 'serious' are barking up the wrong tree. At any rate, there the book +is, and it is admitted to be a good book by all who have been condemning +Mackenzie as a trifler; and Mackenzie is going on with his sequel to it in +the pleasant land of Italy. I did not see him in Italy, but in Herm, one +of the minor Channel Islands. It took me a night to reach the place--a +night of fog and fog-signals--a night of mystery, with the moon full and +the water shrouded--and morning found the fog abruptly lifted, and the +islands before our eyes. They glittered under a brilliant sun. There came +hurried disembarking, a transference (for me, and after breakfast) to a +small boat called, by the owner's pleasantry, 'Watch Me' (Compton +Mackenzie), and then a fine sail (per motor) to Herm. I said to the +skipper that I supposed there must be many dangerous submerged rocks. 'My +dear fellow!' exclaimed the skipper, driven to familiarity by my naïveté. +And with that we reached the island. Upon the end of a pier stood a tall +figure, solitary. 'My host!' thought I. Not so. Merely an advance guard: +his engineer. We greeted--my reception being that of some foreign +potentate--and I was led up a fine winding road that made me think of +Samoa and Vailima and all the beauties of the South Seas. Upon the road +came another figure--this time a young man who made a friend of me at a +glance. He now took me in hand. Together we made the rest of the journey +along this beautiful road, and to the cottage of residence. I entered. +There was a scramble. At last I met my host, who leapt from bed to welcome +me! + +"From that moment my holiday was delightful. The island is really +magnificent. Short of a stream, it has everything one could wish for in +such a place. It has cliffs, a wood, a common fields under cultivation, +fields used as pasture, caves, shell beaches, several empty cottages. Its +bird life is wealthy in cuckoos and other magic-bringers; its flowers have +extraordinary interest; dogs and cattle and horses give domestic life, and +a boat or two may be used for excursions to Jethou, a smaller island near +by. And Mackenzie has this ideal place to live in for as much of the year +as he likes. None may gather there without his permission. He is the lord +of the manor, and his boundaries are the sea and the sky. We walked about +the islands, and saw their beauties, accompanied by a big dog--a Great +Dane--which coursed rabbits and lay like a dead fish in the bottom of a +small boat. And as each marvel of the little paradise presented itself, I +became more and more filled with that wicked thing, envy. But I believe +envy does not make much progress when the owner of the desired object so +evidently appreciates it with more gusto even than the envious one. Reason +is against envy in such a case. To have said, 'He doesn't appreciate it' +would have been a lie so manifest that it did not even occur to me. He +does. That is the secret of Mackenzie's personal ability to charm. He is +filled with vitality, but he is also filled with the power to take extreme +delight in the delight of others and to better it. Moreover, he gives one +the impression of understanding islands. Herm has been in his possession +for something more than a year, and he has lived there continuously all +that time (except for two or three visits to London, of short duration). +It has been in all his thoughts. He has seen it as a whole. He knows it +from end to end, its rocks, its birds, its trees and flowers and paths. +What wonder that his health is magnificent, his spirits high! What wonder +the critics have seen fit to praise _The Altar Steps_ as they have not +praised anything of Mackenzie's for years? If they had seen Herm, they +could have done nothing at all but praise without reserve." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE HETEROGENEOUS MAGIC OF MAUGHAM + + +=i= + +Now, I don't know where to begin. Probably I shall not know where to leave +off, either. That is my usual misfortune, to write a chapter at both ends. +It is a fatal thing, like the doubly-consuming candle. Perhaps I might +start with the sapience of Hector MacQuarrie, author of _Tahiti Days_. I +am tempted to, because so many people think of W. Somerset Maugham as the +author of _The Moon and Sixpence_. The day will come, however, when people +will think of him as the man who wrote _Of Human Bondage_. + +This novel does not need praise. All it needs, like the grand work it is, +is attention; and that it increasingly gets. + +[Illustration: W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM] + +=ii= + +Theodore Dreiser reviewed _Of Human Bondage_ for the New Republic. I +reprint part of what he said: + +"Sometimes in retrospect of a great book the mind falters, confused by the +multitude and yet the harmony of the detail, the strangeness of the +frettings, the brooding, musing intelligence that has foreseen, loved, +created, elaborated, perfected, until, in the middle ground which we call +life, somewhere between nothing and nothing, hangs the perfect thing which +we love and cannot understand, but which we are compelled to confess a +work of art. It is at once something and nothing, a dream of happy memory, +a song, a benediction. In viewing it one finds nothing to criticise or to +regret. The thing sings, it has colour. It has rapture. You wonder at the +loving, patient care which has evolved it. + +"Here is a novel or biography or autobiography or social transcript of the +utmost importance. To begin with, it is unmoral, as a novel of this kind +must necessarily be. The hero is born with a club foot, and in +consequence, and because of a temperament delicately attuned to the +miseries of life, suffers all the pains, recessions, and involute self +tortures which only those who have striven handicapped by what they have +considered a blighting defect can understand. He is a youth, therefore, +with an intense craving for sympathy and understanding. He must have it. +The thought of his lack, and the part which his disability plays in it +soon becomes an obsession. He is tortured, miserable. + +"Curiously the story rises to no spired climax. To some it has apparently +appealed as a drab, unrelieved narrative. To me at least it is a gorgeous +weave, as interesting and valuable at the beginning as at the end. There +is material in its three hundred thousand or more words for many novels +and indeed several philosophies, and even a religion or stoic hope. There +are a series of women, of course--drab, pathetic, enticing as the case may +be,--who lead him through the mazes of sentiment, sex, love, pity, +passion; a wonderful series of portraits and of incidents. There are a +series of men friends of a peculiarly inclusive range of intellectuality +and taste, who lead him, or whom he leads, through all the intricacies of +art, philosophy, criticism, humour. And lastly comes life itself, the +great land and sea of people, England, Germany, France, battering, +corroding, illuminating, a Goyaesque world. + +"Naturally I asked myself how such a book would be received in America, in +England. In the latter country I was sure, with its traditions and the +Athenæum and the Saturday Review, it would be adequately appreciated. +Imagine my surprise to find that the English reviews were almost uniformly +contemptuous and critical on moral and social grounds. The hero was a +weakling, not for a moment to be tolerated by sound, right-thinking men. +On the other hand, in America the reviewers for the most part have seen +its true merits and stated them. Need I say, however, that the New York +World finds it 'the sentimental servitude of a poor fool,' or that the +Philadelphia Press sees fit to dub it 'futile Philip,' or that the Outlook +feels that 'the author might have made his book true without making it so +frequently distasteful'; or that the Dial cries 'a most depressing +impression of the futility of life'? + +"Despite these dissonant voices it is still a book of the utmost import, +and has so been received. Compact of the experiences, the dreams, the +hopes, the fears, the disillusionments, the ruptures, and the +philosophising of a strangely starved soul, it is a beacon light by which +the wanderer may be guided. Nothing is left out; the author writes as +though it were a labour of love. It bears the imprint of an eager, almost +consuming desire to say truly what is in his heart. + +"Personally, I found myself aching with pain when, yearning for sympathy, +Philip begs the wretched Mildred, never his mistress but on his level, to +no more than tolerate him. He finally humiliates himself to the extent of +exclaiming, 'You don't know what it means to be a cripple!' The pathos of +it plumbs the depths. The death of Fannie Price, of the sixteen-year-old +mother in the slum, of Cronshaw, and the rambling agonies of old Ducroz +and of Philip himself, are perfect in their appeal. + +"There are many other and all equally brilliant pictures. No one short of +a genius could rout the philosophers from their lairs and label them as +individuals 'tempering life with rules agreeable to themselves' or could +follow Mildred Rogers, waitress of the London A B C restaurant, through +all the shabby windings of her tawdry soul. No other than a genius endowed +with an immense capacity for understanding and pity could have sympathised +with Fannie Price, with her futile and self-destructive art dreams; or old +Cronshaw, the wastrel of poetry and philosophy; or Mons. Ducroz, the +worn-out revolutionary; or Thorne Athelny, the caged grandee of Spain; or +Leonard Upjohn, airy master of the art of self-advancement; or Dr. South, +the vicar of Blackstable, and his wife--these are masterpieces. They are +marvellous portraits; they are as smooth as a Vermeer, as definite as a +Hals; as brooding and moving as a Rembrandt. The study of Carey himself, +while one sees him more as a medium through which the others express +themselves, still registers photographically at times. He is by no means a +brooding voice but a definite, active, vigorous character. + +"If the book can be said to have a fault it will lie for some in its +length, 300,000 words, or for others in the peculiar reticence with which +the last love affair in the story is handled. Until the coming of Sallie +Athelny all has been described with the utmost frankness. No situation, +however crude or embarrassing, has been shirked. In the matter of the +process by which he arrived at the intimacy which resulted in her becoming +pregnant not a word is said. All at once, by a slight frown which she +subsequently explains, the truth is forced upon you that there has been a +series of intimacies which have not been accounted for. After Mildred +Rogers and his relationship with Norah Nesbit it strikes one as +strange.... + +"One feels as though one were sitting before a splendid Shiraz or +Daghestan of priceless texture and intricate weave, admiring, feeling, +responding sensually to its colours and tones. Mr. Maugham ... has +suffered for the joy of the many who are to read after him. By no willing +of his own he has been compelled to take life by the hand and go down +where there has been little save sorrow and degradation. The cup of gall +and wormwood has obviously been lifted to his lips and to the last drop he +has been compelled to drink it. Because of this, we are enabled to see the +rug, woven of the tortures and delights of a life. We may actually walk +and talk with one whose hands and feet have been pierced with nails." + +=iii= + +I turn, for a different example of the heterogeneous magic of Maugham, +including his ability to create and sustain a mood in his readers, to the +words of Mr. MacQuarrie, who writes: + +"It was Tahiti. With a profound trust in my discretion, or perhaps an +utter ignorance of the homely fact that people have their feelings, a +London friend sent us a copy of _The Moon and_ _Sixpence_. This friend, +actually a beautiful, well set up woman of the intelligent class in +England (which is more often than not the upper fringes or spray of the +_bourgeoisie_), wrote: 'You will be interested in this book, since quite +the most charming portion of it deals with your remote island of Tahiti. I +met the author last night at Lady B----'s. I think the landlady at the +end, Mrs. Johnson, is a perfect darling.' + +"Knowing Somerset Maugham as a dramatist, the author of that kind of play +which never bored one, but rather sent one home suffused with +pleasantness, I opened the book with happy anticipation. Therefore--and +the title of the book, _The Moon and Sixpence_, gave a jolly calming +reaction--I was surprised and frankly annoyed when I found myself +compelled to follow the fortunes of a large red-headed man with mighty sex +appeal, who barged his way through female tears to a final goal which +seemed to be a spiritual achievement, and a nasty death in a native +_fare_. I was alarmed; here was a man writing something enormously strong, +when I had been accustomed to associate him with charming London +nights--the theatre, perfect acting, no middle class problems, a dropping +of one's women folks at their doors and a return to White's and whiskey +and a soda. And furthermore, in this book of his, he had picked up Lavina, +the famous landlady of the Tiare Hotel, the uncrowned queen of Tahiti, and +with a few strokes of his pen, had dissected her, and exposed her to the +world as she was. Here I must quote: + +"'Tall and extremely stout, she would have been an imposing presence if +the great good nature of her face had not made it impossible for her to +express anything but kindliness. Her arms were like legs of mutton, her +breasts like giant cabbages; her face, broad and fleshy, gave you an +impression of almost indecent nakedness and vast chin succeeded vast +chin.' + +"This may seem a small matter in a great world. Tahiti is a small world, +and this became a great matter. I read the book twice, decided that +Somerset Maugham could no longer be regarded as a pleasant liqueur, but +rather as the joint of a meal requiring steady digestion, and suppressed +_The Moon and Sixpence_ on Tahiti. The temptation to lend it to a kindred +spirit was almost unbearable, but the thought of Lavina hearing of the +above description of her person frightened me and I resisted. For kindred +souls, on Tahiti as elsewhere, have their own kindred souls, and slowly +but surely the fact that a writer had described her arms as legs of mutton +(perfect!) and her breasts as huge cabbages (even better!) would have +oozed its way to Lavina, sending her to bed for six days, with gloom +spread over Tahiti and no cocktails. + +"All of which is a trifle by the way. Yet in writing of Somerset Maugham +one must gaze along all lines of vision. And it seemed to me that Tahiti +in general, and Papeete in particular should supply a clear one; for here, +certainly, in the days when Maugham visited the island a man could be +mentally dead, spiritually naked and physically unashamed. I therefore +sought Lavina one afternoon as she sat clothed as with a garment by the +small side verandah of the Tiare Hotel. (Lavina was huge; the verandah was +a small verandah as verandahs go; there was just room for me and a bottle +of rum.) + +"'Lavina,' I remarked; 'many persons who write come to Tahiti.' + +"'It is true,' she admitted, 'but not as the heavy rain, rather as the few +drops at the end.' + +"'Do you like them?' I enquired. + +"One makes that kind of remark on Tahiti. The climate demands such, since +the answer can be almost anything, a meandering spreading-of-weight kind +of answer. + +"'These are good men,' said Lavina steadily, wandering off into the old +and possibly untrue story of a lady called Beatrice Grimshaw and her +dilemma on a schooner in mid-Pacific, when the captain, a gentle ancient, +thinking that the dark women were having it all their own way, offered to +embrace Miss Grimshaw, finding in return a gun pointing at his middle, +filling him with quaint surprise that anyone could possibly offer violence +in defence of a soul in so delightful a climate. + +"After which and a rum cocktail, I said: 'Lavina, did you see much of +M'sieur Somerset Maugham when he was here?' + +"'It is the man who writes?' she inquired lazily. + +"'It is,' I returned. + +"'It is the _beau garçon-ta-ta, neneenha roa?_' she suggested. + +"'Probably not,' I said; 'I suspect you are thinking, as usual, of Rupert +Brooke. M'sieur Maugham may be regarded as _beau_, but he is not an +elderly waiter of forty-seven, therefore we may not call him a _garçon_.' + +"'It is,' Lavina admitted; 'that I am thinking of M'sieur Rupert, he is +the _beau garçon_.' + +"'But,' I said, 'I want to know what you thought of M'sieur Somerset +Maugham?' + +"Once started on Rupert Brooke, and Lavina would go on for the afternoon! + +"'I respect M'sieur Morn,' said Lavina. + +"'Oh!' thought I; 'if she respects him, then I'm not going to get much.' + +"'His French is not mixed,' she continued, referring to Maugham's Parisian +accent; 'I speak much with him, and he listen, with but a small question +here, and one there. It is the pure French from Paris, as M'sieur _le +Governeur_ speak, who is the pig. But when he speak much, then it is like +the coral which breaks.' + +"Lavina now wandered off permanently; it was impossible to bring her back. +Her image of the brittle coral branches was a mild personality directed at +Maugham's stutter, which seldom escapes the most sophisticated observer. +For those who interview him always find well cut suitings, clean collars +and the stutter, and very little else that they can lay hold of with any +degree of honesty. Which only goes to prove my own opinion that Maugham, +as an observer, refuses to have his own vision clogged by prying eyes at +himself. + +"I expect that if my French had been better, I might have got some +information about Maugham in Tahiti from the bland and badly built French +officials who lurk in the official club near the Pomare Palace. I was +reduced, in my rather casual investigation, to questioning natives and +schooner captains. Once I felt confident of gaining a picture, I asked +Titi of Taunoa. (Titi is the lady who figures a trifle disgracefully in +Gauguin's _Noanoa_, the woman he found boring after a few weeks, her +French blood being insufficiently exotic to his spirit.) + +"Said Titi: 'M'sieur Morn? Yes, him I know; he speak good French, and take +the door down from the _fare_ on which is the picture done by Gauguin of +the lady whose legs are like thin pillows and her arms like fat ropes, +very what you call strained, and funny.' + +"After which her remarks centred around a lover of her sister, who had +just died at the age of seventy, and Titi considered that the denouement +made by Manu, the sister, was uncalled for at the death bed, since the +true and faithful wife stood there surrounded by nine children, all safely +born the right side of the sheet. She did mention that the removal of the +door from the _fare_ caused the wind to enter. And although I often made +inquiries, I never gained much information. Tahiti, as a whole, seemed +unaware of Maugham's visit. + +"They may have adored him; but I suspect he was a quiet joy, the kind +native Tahiti soon forgets, certainly not the kind of joy she embodies in +her national songs and _himines_. Such are the merry drunkards, +inefficient though earnest white hulahula dancers and the plain (more than +everyday) sinners who cut up rough with wild jagged edges and cruel +tearings. + +"His occasional appearance at the French club would raise his status, +removing any light touches with his junketings, perhaps turning them into +dignified ceremonies. Which, for the Tahitian, approaches the end. The +Tahitian never quite understands the white man who consorts with the +French officials, although many do. 'For are not these men of Farane,' +says the native, 'like the hen that talks without feathers?'--whatever +that may mean, but it suggests at once the talkative Frenchman denuding +himself on hot evenings, and wearing but the native _pareu_ to hide +portions of his bad figure. + +"But although, in some ways, Maugham hid himself from the natives and +pleasant half-castes, he saw them all right, and clearly, since the +closing pages of the _The Moon and Sixpence_ display a magical picture of +that portion of Tahiti he found time to explore." + +=iv= + +Mr. Maugham now offers us _On a Chinese Screen_, sketches of Chinese life, +and _East of Suez_, his new play. + +There are fifty-eight sketches in _On a Chinese Screen_, portraits +including European residents in China as well as native types. Here is a +sample of the book, the little descriptive study with which it closes, +entitled "A Libation to the Gods": + +"She was an old woman, and her face was wizened and deeply lined. In her +grey hair three long silver knives formed a fantastic headgear. Her dress +of faded blue consisted of a long jacket, worn and patched, and a pair of +trousers that reached a little below her calves. Her feet were bare, but +on one ankle she wore a silver bangle. It was plain that she was very +poor. She was not stout but squarely built and in her prime she must have +done without effort the heavy work in which her life had been spent. She +walked leisurely, with the sedate tread of an elderly woman, and she +carried on her arm a basket. She came down to the harbour; it was crowded +with painted junks; her eyes rested for a moment curiously on a man who +stood on a narrow bamboo raft, fishing with cormorants; and then she set +about her business. She put down her basket on the stones of the quay, at +the water's edge, and took from it a red candle. This she lit and fixed in +a chink of the stones. Then she took several joss-sticks, held each of +them for a moment in the flame of the candle and set them up around it. +She took three tiny bowls and filled them with a liquid that she had +brought with her in a bottle and placed them neatly in a row. Then from +her basket she took rolls of paper cash and paper 'shoes' and unravelled +them, so that they should burn easily. She made a little bonfire, and when +it was well alight she took the three bowls and poured out some of their +contents before the smouldering joss-sticks. She bowed herself three times +and muttered certain words. She stirred the burning paper so that the +flames burned brightly. Then she emptied the bowls on the stones and again +bowed three times. No one took the smallest notice of her. She took a few +more paper cash from her basket and flung them in the fire. Then, without +further ado, she took up her basket, and with the same leisurely, rather +heavy tread, walked away. The gods were duly propitiated, and like an old +peasant woman in France, who has satisfactorily done her day's +housekeeping, she went about her business." + +=v= + +W. Somerset Maugham was born in 1874, the son of Robert Ormond Maugham. He +married Syrie, daughter of the late Dr. Barnardo. Mr. Maugham has a +daughter. His education was got at King's School, Canterbury, at +Heidelberg University and at St. Thomas's Hospital, London. + +Mr. Maugham's father was a comparatively prominent solicitor, responsible +for the foundation of the Incorporated Society of Solicitors in England. +Somerset Maugham, after studying medicine at Heidelberg, went to St. +Thomas's, in the section of London known as Lambeth. He obtained his +medical degree there. St. Thomas's just across the river from Westminster +proved his medical ruin, and his literary birth. The hospital is situated +on the border of the slum areas of South London where much that is +hopeless, terrible, and wildly cheerful can be found. Persons are not +wanting who hold that the slums of Battersea and Lambeth contain more +misery and poverty than Limehouse, Whitechapel and the dark forest +surrounding the Commercial Road combined. To St. Thomas's daily comes a +procession of battered derelicts, seeking attention from the young men in +white tunics who hope to be doctors on their own account some day. To St. +Thomas's came Eliza of Lambeth, came Liza's mother, came Jim and Tom. Here +is the genesis of Maugham's first serious work, _Liza of Lambeth_. + +It will be simpler and less confusing to deal with Somerset Maugham in the +first instance as a maker of books rather than as a playwright. One cannot +help believing that, while not one of his plays can be regarded as a pot +boiler, they yet but seldom display that fervent purpose found in his +books. Yet in his plays, one finds a greater attention to conventional +technique and "form" than one finds in books like _Of Human Bondage_ and +_The Moon and Sixpence_. + +The first book launched by Somerset Maugham, _Liza of Lambeth_, could +hardly have been, considering its slight dimensions, a clearer indication +of the line he was to follow. It came out at a time when Gissing was still +in favour, and the odour of mean streets was accepted as synonymous with +literary honesty and courage. There is certainly no lack of either about +this idyll of Elizabeth Kemp of the lissome limbs and auburn hair. The +story pursues its way, and one sees the soul of a woman shining clearly +through the racy dialect and frolics of the Chingford beano, the rueful +futility of faithful Thomas and the engaging callousness of Liza's +mother. + +Somerset Maugham's next study in female portraiture showed how far he +could travel towards perfection. _Mrs. Craddock_, which is often called +his best book, is a sex satire punctuated by four curtains, two of comedy +and two of tragedy. This mixture of opposites should have been enough to +damn it in the eyes of a public intent upon classifying everything by +means of labels and of making everything so classified stick to its label +like grim death. Yet the unclassified may flourish, and does, when its +merit is beyond dispute. _Mrs. Craddock_ appeared fully a decade before +its time, when Victorian influences were still alive, and the modern idea +for well to do women to have something to justify their existence was +still in the nature of a novelty. Even in the fuller light of experience, +Maugham could hardly have bettered his study of an impulsive and exigent +woman, rising at the outset to the height of a bold and womanly choice in +defiance of social prejudice and family tradition, and then relapsing +under the disillusions of marriage into the weakest failings of her class, +rising again, from a self-torturing neurotic into a kind of Niobe at the +death of her baby. + +The ironic key of the book is at its best, in the passage half way +through-- + +"Mr. Craddock's principles, of course, were quite right; he had given her +plenty of run and ignored her cackle, and now she had come home to roost. +There is nothing like a knowledge of farming, and an acquaintance with the +habits of domestic animals, to teach a man how to manage his wife." + +=vi= + +As a playwright Mr. Maugham is quite as well known as he is for his +novels. The author of _Lady Frederick_, _Mrs. Dot_, and _Caroline_--the +creator of Lord Porteous and Lady Kitty in _The Circle_--writes his plays +because it amuses him to do so and because they supply him with an +excellent income. Here is a good story: + +It seems that Maugham had peddled his first play, _Lady Frederick_, to the +offices of seventeen well-known London managers, until it came to rest in +the Archives of the Court Theatre. The Court Theatre, standing in Sloane +Square near the Tube station, is definitely outside the London theatre +area, but as the scene of productions by the Stage Society, it is kept in +the running. However, it might conceivably be the last port of call for a +worn manuscript. + +It so happened that Athole Stewart, the manager of the Court Theatre, +found himself needing a play very badly during one season. The theatre had +to be kept open and there was nothing to keep it open with. From a dingy +pile of play manuscripts he chose _Lady Frederick_. He had no hopes of its +success--or so it is said--but the success materialised. At the +anniversary of _Lady Frederick_ in London, Maugham thought of asking to +dinner the seventeen managers who rejected the play, but realising that no +man enjoyed being reminded of a lost opportunity he decided to forgo the +pleasure. + +The circumstances in which _Caroline_ was written give an interesting +reflex on Maugham as an artist. This delicious comedy was put on paper +while Maugham was acting as British agent in Switzerland during the war. +Some of its more amusing lines were written in some haste while a spy (of +uncertain intentions toward Maugham) stood outside in the snow. + +=vii= + +Someone, probably the gifted Hector MacQuarrie, whom I fear I have +guiltily been quoting in almost every sentence of this chapter, has said +that Maugham writes "transcripts, not of life as a tolerable whole, but of +phases which suit his arbitrary treatment." It is an enlightening +comment. + +But Maugham himself is the keenest appraiser of his own intentions in his +work, as when he spoke of the stories in his book, _The Trembling of a +Leaf_, as not short stories, but "a study of the effect of the Islands of +the Pacific on the white man." + +The man never stays still. When you think the time is ripe for him +triumphally to tour America--when _The Moon and Sixpence_ has attracted +the widest attention--he insists on going immediately to China. This may +be because, though well set up, black-eyed, broad-framed and excessively +handsome in evening clothes, he is rather diffident. + +BOOKS BY W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM + +NOVELS: + LIZA OF LAMBETH + THE MAKING OF A SAINT + ORIENTATIONS + THE HERO + MRS. CRADDOCK + THE MERRY-GO-ROUND + THE LAND OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN + THE BISHOP'S APRON + THE EXPLORER + THE MAGICIAN + OF HUMAN BONDAGE + THE MOON AND SIXPENCE + THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF + ON A CHINESE SCREEN + +PLAYS: + SCHIFFBRÜCHIG + A MAN OF HONOUR + LADY FREDERICK + JACK STRAW + MRS. DOT + THE EXPLORER + PENELOPE + SMITH + THE TENTH MAN + GRACE + LOAVES AND FISHES + THE LAND OF PROMISE + CAROLINE + LOVE IN A COTTAGE + CAESAR'S WIFE + HOME AND BEAUTY + THE UNKNOWN + THE CIRCLE + EAST OF SUEZ + +SOURCES ON W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM + +Who's Who [In England]. + +Somerset Maugham in Tahiti: Hitherto unpublished article by Hector +MacQuarrie. + +THE BOOKMAN (London). + +Private information. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +BOOKS WE LIVE BY + + +=i= + +_The Parallel New Testament_ is by Dr. James Moffatt, whose _New +Translation of the New Testament_ has excited such wide admiration and +praise. _The Parallel New Testament_ presents the Authorised Version and +Professor Moffatt's translation in parallel columns, together with a brief +introduction to the New Testament. + +I suppose there is no sense in my expending adjectives in praise of Dr. +Moffatt's translation of the New Testament. I could do so very easily. But +what I think would be more effective would be to ask you to take a copy of +the Authorised Version and read in it some such passage as Luke, 24th +chapter, 13th verse, to the close of the chapter and then--and not +before!--read the same account from Dr. Moffatt's _New Translation_, as +follows: + +"That very day two of them were on their way to a village called Emmaus +about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were conversing about all these +events, and during their conversation and discussion Jesus himself +approached and walked beside them, though they were prevented from +recognising him. He said to them, 'What is all this you are debating on +your walk?' They stopped, looking downcast, and one of them, called +Cleopas, answered him, 'Are you a lone stranger in Jerusalem, not to know +what has been happening there?' 'What is that?' he said to them. They +replied, 'All about Jesus of Nazaret! To God and all the people he was a +prophet strong in action and utterance, but the high priests and our +rulers delivered him up to be sentenced to death and crucified him. Our +own hope was that he would be the redeemer of Israel; but he is dead and +that is three days ago! Though some women of our number gave us a +surprise; they were at the tomb early in the morning and could not find +his body, but they came to tell us they had actually seen a vision of +angels who declared he was alive. Some of our company did go to the tomb +and found things exactly as the women had said, but they did not see him.' +He said to them, 'Oh, foolish men, with hearts so slow to believe, after +all the prophets have declared! Had not the Christ to suffer thus and so +enter his glory?' Then he began with Moses and all the prophets and +interpreted to them the passages referring to himself throughout the +scriptures. Now they approached the village to which they were going. He +pretended to be going further on, but they pressed him, saying 'Stay with +us, for it is getting towards evening and the day has now declined.' So he +went in to stay with them. And as he lay at the table with them he took +the loaf, blessed it, broke it and handed it to them. Then their eyes were +opened and they recognised him, but he vanished from their sight. And they +said to one another, 'Did not our hearts glow within us when he was +talking to us on the road, opening up the scriptures for us?' So they got +up and returned that very hour to Jerusalem, where they found the eleven +and their friends all gathered, who told them that the Lord had really +risen and that he had appeared to Simon. Then they related their own +experience on the road and how they had recognised him when he broke the +loaf. Just as they were speaking He stood among them [and said to them, +'Peace to you!']. They were scared and terrified, imagining it was a ghost +they saw; but he said to them, 'Why are you upset? Why do doubts invade +your mind? Look at my hands and feet. It is I! Feel me and see; a ghost +has not flesh and bones as you see I have.' [With these words he showed +them his hands and feet.] Even yet they could not believe it for sheer +joy; they were lost in wonder. So he said to them, 'Have you any food +here?' And when they handed him a piece of broiled fish, he took and ate +it in their presence. Then he said to them, 'When I was still with you, +this is what I told you, that whatever is written about me in the law of +Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled.' Then he opened +their minds to understand the scriptures. 'Thus,' he said, 'it is written +that the Christ has to suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and +that repentance and the remission of sins must be preached in his name to +all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. To this you must bear testimony. +And I will send down on you what my Father has promised; wait in the city +till you are endued with power from on high.' He led them out as far as +Bethany; then, lifting his hands, he blessed them. And as he blessed them, +he parted from them [and was carried up to heaven]. They [worshipped him +and] returned with great joy to Jerusalem, where they spent all their time +within the temple, blessing God." + +I am particularly glad to say that Dr. Moffatt is at work now on a _New +Translation of the Old Testament_. No man living is fitter for this +tremendously important and tremendously difficult task than James Moffatt. +Born in Glasgow in 1870, Dr. Moffatt has been Professor of Church History +there since 1915. Of his many published studies in Bible literature, I now +speak only of _The Approach to the New Testament_, which he modestly +describes as "a brief statement of the general situation created by +historical criticism," aiming to "bring out the positive value of the New +Testament literature for the world of today as a source of guidance in +social reconstruction, so that readers might be enabled to recover or +retain a sense of its lasting significance for personal faith and social +ideals." + +=ii= + +With Alfred Dwight Sheffield's _Joining in Public Discussion_ was begun +publication of a unique collection of books suitable alike for general +reading and for use in trade union colleges. This is the Workers' +Bookshelf Series. These books, in many instances, are being written by the +chief authorities on their subjects--men who have dealt exhaustively with +their specialties in two and three-volume treatises, and who now bring +their great knowledge to a sharp focus and a simple, condensed statement +in small but wholly authoritative new books. + +The work of preparing these little masterpieces has been undertaken by an +editorial board chosen with the aid of the Workers' Education Bureau of +America. The board consists of Charles A. Beard, Miss Fannia Cohn, H. W. +L. Dana, John P. Frey, Arthur Gleason, Everitt Dean Martin, Spencer +Miller, Jr., George W. Perkins and Robert Wolf. + +Trade union colleges now exist all over the United States, training armies +of workers. The lack of suitable texts for use in these colleges has been +a serious obstacle to the training they desire to give. + +This obstacle the Workers' Bookshelf overcomes. The books that compose it +will each be distinguished for (a) scholarship, (b) a scientific attitude +toward facts, and (c) simplicity of style. + +Each volume is beginning as a class outline and will receive the benefit +of every suggestion, and criticism through its gradual growth into the +written book. + +Each book will be brief. Its references will help the reader to more +detailed sources of information. + +By binding the books in paper as well as in cloth, the volumes will be +brought within the reach of all. + +The Workers' Bookshelf will contain no volumes on vocational guidance, nor +any books which give "short cuts" to moneymaking success. + +The series will not be limited to any set number of volumes nor to any +programme of subjects. Art, literature and the natural sciences, as well +as the social sciences, will be dealt with. New titles will be added as +the demand for treatment of a topic becomes apparent. + +The first use of these books will be as texts to educate workers; the +intermediate use of the books will be as the nucleus of workingmen's +libraries, collective and personal, and the last use of the Workers' +Bookshelf will be to instruct and delight all readers of serious books +everywhere. + +In our modern industrial society, knowledge--things to know--increases +much more rapidly than our understanding. The worker finds it increasingly +difficult to comprehend the world he has done most to create. The +education of the worker consists in showing him in a simple fashion the +interrelations of that world and all its aspects as they are turned toward +him. On the education of the worker depends the future of industrialism, +and, indeed, of all human society. + +The author of _Joining in Public Discussion_ is professor of rhetoric in +Wellesley College and instructor in the Boston Trade Union College. His +book "is a study of effective speechmaking, for members of labour unions, +conferences, forums and other discussion groups." The first section is +upon "Qualifying Oneself to Contribute" to any discussion and the second +section is upon "Making the Discussion Group Co-operate." A brief +introduction explains "What Discussion Aims to Do." + +The following titles of the Workers' Bookshelf are in preparation: + +_Trade Union Policy_, by Dr. Leo Wolman, lecturer at the New School for +Social Research and instructor in the Workers' University of the +International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union. + +_Women and the Labor Movement_, by Alice Henry, editor of Life and Labour, +director of the Training School for Women Workers in Industry. + +_Labor and Health_, by Dr. Emery Hayhurst of Ohio State University, author +of "Industrial Health Hazards and Occupational Diseases." + +_Social Forces in Literature_, by Dr. H. W. L. Dana, formerly teacher of +comparative literature at Columbia, now instructor at Boston Trade Union +College. + +_The Creative Spirit in Industry_, by Robert B. Wolf, vice-president of +the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, member of the Federated +American Engineering Society. + +_Cooperative Movement_, by Dr. James B. Warbasse, president of the +Cooperative League of America and instructor at the Workers' University. + +=iii= + +Side by side in Esme Wingfield-Stratford's _Facing Reality_ are chapters +with these titles: "Thinking in a Passion" and "Mental Inertia." Those +chapter titles seem to me to signify the chief dangers confronting the +world today--perhaps confronting the world in any day--and the main +reasons why we do not face reality as we should. I regard _Facing Reality_ +as an important book and I am not alone in so regarding it. What do we +mean by reality? The answer is explicit in a sentence in Mr. +Wingfield-Stratford's introduction, where he says: + +"But if we are to get right with reality or, in the time-honoured +evangelical phrase, with God, it must be by a ruthless determination to +get the truth in religion, even if we have to break down Church walls to +attain it." + +Then the author proceeds to assess the social and ethical conditions which +threaten the world with spiritual bankruptcy. As he says: + +"Whether Germany can be fleeced of a yearly contribution, of doubtful +advantage to the receiver, for forty years or sixty, what particular +economic laws decree that Poles should be governed by Germans or +vice-versa, whose honour or profit demands the possession of the town of +Fiume or the district of Tetschen or the Island of Yap, why all the horses +and men of the Entente are necessary to compel the Port of Dantzig to +become a free city, what particular delicacy of national honour requires +that the impartial distribution of colonies should be interpreted as +meaning the appropriation of the whole of them by the victors--all these +things are held by universal consent to be more urgent and interesting +than the desperate necessity that confronts us all." + +And yet, for some, reality is not immanent in the affairs of this world +but only in those of the next. Among the men who, with Sir Oliver Lodge, +have gone most deeply and earnestly into the whole subject we call +"spiritualism," Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is now the most widely known as he +has always been the most persuasive. The overflowing crowds which came out +to hear him lecture on psychic evidences during his recent tour of America +testify to the unquenchable hope of mankind in a life beyond ours. Sir +Arthur has written three books on this subject closest to his heart. _The +New Revelation_ and _The Vital Message_ are both short books presenting +the general case for spiritualists; _The Wanderings of a Spiritualist_, +the result of a lecture tour in India and Australia, commingles incidents +of travel with discussions of psychic phenomena. I believe Sir Arthur has +in preparation a more extensive work, probably to be published under the +title _Spiritualism and Rationalism_. + +In recent years there has been something like a consensus honouring +Havelock Ellis as the ablest living authority on the subject of sex; or +perhaps I should say that Mr. Ellis and his wife are the most competent +writers on this difficult and delicate subject, so beset by fraudulent +theories and so much written upon by charlatans. Let me recommend to you +Havelock Ellis's slender book, _Little Essays of Love and Virtue_, for a +sane, attractive and, at the same time, authoritative handling of sex +problems. + +=iv= + +_Little Essays of Love and Virtue_, however, is, after all, only upon a +special subject, even though of extreme importance. There are others among +the books we live by which I must speak of here. It is tiresome to point +out that we are all self-made men or women, consciously or unconsciously, +in the sense that if we gain control of our habits, to a very large extent +we acquire control of our lives. If, in _Some Things That Matter_ Lord +Riddell did no more than point out this old truth, his book would not be +worth mentioning. What makes it so well worth mentioning, so much more +deserving of discussion than any I can enter upon here, is the fact that +Lord Riddell tells how to observe, how to read, and how to think--or +perhaps I should say how to develop the habit of thought. I think, so able +are his instructions, so pointed and so susceptible of carrying out by any +reader, that his book would carry due weight even if it were anonymous. +But for those who want assurance that the author of _Some Things That +Matter_ is himself somebody who matters, let me point out that he is one +of the largest newspaper proprietors in the world, a man whose grasp on +affairs has twice placed him at the head of news service for two +continents--once at the Peace Conference in Paris and afterward at the +Disarmament Conference in Washington. + +_Some Things That Matter_ is the best book of its kind since Arnold +Bennett's _How to Live on Twenty-four Hours a Day_, a little book of +trenchant advice to which it is a pleasure again to call attention. Of all +Mr. Bennett's pocket philosophies--_Self and Self-Management_, _Friendship +and Happiness_, _The Human Machine_, _Mental Efficiency_ and _Married +Life_--_How to Live on_ _Twenty-four Hours a Day_ is easily of the +greatest service to the greatest number of people. + +=v= + +I read Dr. George L. Perin's _Self-Healing Simplified_ in manuscript and +enthusiastically recommended its acceptance for publication. Dr. Perin was +the founder of the Franklin Square House for Girls in Boston, a home-hotel +from which 70,000 girls, most of whom Dr. Perin knew personally, have gone +forth all over these United States. His death at the end of 1921 was felt +by thousands of people as a personal loss. He left, in the manuscript of +this book, the best and simplest volume I know of on what is generally +called autosuggestion. And I have examined a great many books of the +sort. + +Discarding all extreme claims, Dr. Perin says in the first place that the +mind can heal; that it may not be able to heal alone; that obviously no +form of healing can be successful without a favourable mental state; that +the favourable mental state can usually be acquired by the sincere and +conscious effort of the sufferer. This effort should take the form of +certain affirmations. + +It is at this point that the ordinary book on autosuggestion breaks +down--so far as any practical usefulness is concerned. Either it +degenerates into a purely technical treatise or it becomes lost in a +mysticism which is to the average reader incomprehensible. What has long +been needed has been a book like _Self-Healing Simplified_, readable by +the ordinary person who has his own troubles to contend with and who knows +not how to contend with them; who is willing to believe that he can do his +part by cheerful resolutions and faith toward getting well, but who has no +idea what to do. + +Dr. Perin tells him _what_ to do, _what_ to say, _what_ to think and how +to order his daily life. Actually Dr. Perin does much more than this; his +own confidence and personal success inspire confidence and give the +impulsion toward one's own personal success. However, excellent as the +book might be, it would be worthless if it were not clearly and simply +expressed. It is. I remember no book of the kind so direct and so lucid. + +=vi= + +It is a pleasure to feel that his new book, _Poets and Puritans_, +introduces T. R. Glover to a wider audience. The author of _The Pilgrim_, +_Essays on Religion_, _The Nature and Purpose of a Christian Society_, +_Jesus in the Experience of Man_ and _The Jesus of History_ is a scholar +and somewhat of a recluse whom one finds after much groping about dim +halls at Cambridge. A highly individual personality! It is this +personality, though, that makes the fascination of _Poets and Pilgrims_--a +volume of studies in which the subjects are Spenser, Milton, Evelyn, +Bunyan, Boswell, Crabbe, Wordsworth and Carlyle. Mr. Glover notes at the +foot of the table of contents: "An acute young critic, who saw some of the +proofs, has asked me, with a hint of irony, whether Evelyn and Boswell +were Puritans or Poets. Any reader who has a conscience about the matter +must omit these essays." There you have the flavour of the man! It is +expressed further in the short preface of _Poets and Puritans_:-- + +"Wandering among books and enjoying them, I find in a certain sense that, +the more I enjoy them, the harder becomes the task of criticism, the less +sure one's faith in critical canons, and the fewer the canons themselves. +Of one thing, though, I grow more and more sure--that the real business of +the critic is to find out what is right with a great work of art--book, +song, statue, or picture--not what is wrong. Plenty of things may be +wrong, but it is what is right that really counts. If the critic's work is +to be worth while, it is the great element in the thing that he has to +seek and to find--to learn what it is that makes it live and gives it its +appeal, so that, as Montaigne said about Plutarch, men 'cannot do without' +it; why it is that in a world, where everything that can be 'scrapped' is +'scrapped,' is thrown aside and forgotten, this thing, this book or +picture, refuses to be ignored, but captures and charms men generations +after its maker has passed away. + +"With such a quest a man must not be in a hurry, and he does best to +linger in company with the great men whose work he wishes to understand, +and to postpone criticism to intimacy. This book comes in the end to be a +record of personal acquaintances and of enjoyment. But one is never done +with knowing the greatest men or the greatest works of art--they carry you +on and on, and at the last you feel you are only beginning. That is my +experience. I would not say that I know these men, of whom I have written, +thoroughly--a man of sense would hardly say that, but I can say that I +have enjoyed my work, and that, whatever other people may find it, to me +it has been a delight and an illumination." + +Another welcome book is E. V. Lucas's _Giving and Receiving_, a new volume +of essays. Since the appearance of _Roving East and Roving West_, Mr. +Lucas has been looking back at America from London with its fogs and +(yes!) its sunshine. The audience for his new book will include not only +those readers he has had for such volumes in the past but all those +personal friends that he made in a visit that took him from California to +the Battery. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +ROBERT W. CHAMBERS AND THE WHOLE TRUTH + + +=i= + +Once a man came to Robert W. Chambers and said words to this effect: + +"You had a great gift as a literary artist and you spoiled it. For some +reason or other, I don't know what, but I suppose there was more money in +the other thing, you wrote down to a big audience. Don't you think, +yourself, that your earlier work--those stories of Paris and those novels +of the American revolution--had something that you have sacrificed in your +novels of our modern day?" + +Mr. Chambers listened politely and attentively. When the man had finished, +Chambers said to him words to this effect: + +"You are mistaken. I have heard such talk. I am not to blame if some +people entertain a false impression. I have sacrificed nothing, neither +for money nor popularity nor anything else. + +"Sir, I am a story-teller. I have no other gift. Those who imagine that +they have seen in my earlier work some quality of literary distinction or +some unrealised possibility as an artist missing from my later work, are +wrong. + +"They have read into those stories their own satisfaction in them and +their first delight. I was new, then. In their pleasure, such as it was, +they imagined the arrival of someone whom they styled a great literary +artist. They imagined it all; it was not I. + +"A story-teller I began, and a story-teller I remain. I do pride myself on +being a good story-teller; if the verdict were overwhelmingly against me +as a good story-teller that would cast me down. I have no reason to +believe that the verdict is against me. + +"And that is the ground I myself have stood upon. I am not responsible for +the delusion of those who put me on some other, unearthly pinnacle, only +to realise, as the years went by, that I was not there at all. But they +can find me now where they first found me--where I rather suspect they +found me first with unalloyed delight." + +This does not pretend to be an actual transcription of the conversation +between Mr. Chambers and his visitor. I asked Mr. Chambers recently if he +recalled this interview. He said at this date he did not distinctly +recollect it and he added: + +"Probably I said what is true, that I write the sort of stories which at +the moment it amuses me to write; I trust to luck that it may also amuse +the public. + +"If a writer makes a hit with a story the public wants him to continue +that sort of story. It does not like to follow the moods of a writer from +gay to frivolous, from serious to grave, but I have always liked to +change, to experiment--just as I used to like to change my medium in +painting, aquarelle, oil, charcoal, wash, etc. + +"Unless I had a good time writing I'd do something else. I suit myself +first of all in choice of subject and treatment, and leave the rest to the +gods." + +As a human creature Chambers is strikingly versatile. It must always be +remembered that he started life as a painter. There is a story that +Charles Dana Gibson and Robert W. Chambers sent their first offerings to +Life at the same time. Mr. Chambers sent a picture and Mr. Gibson sent a +bit of writing. Mr. Gibson's offering was accepted and Robert W. Chambers +received a rejection slip. + +Not only was he a painter but Chambers has preserved his interest in art, +and is a welcome visitor in the offices of curators and directors of +museums because he is one of the few who can talk intelligently about +paintings. + +He knows enough about Chinese and Japanese antiques to enable him to +detect forgeries. He knows more about armour than anyone, perhaps, except +the man who made the marvellous collection of mediæval armour for the +Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. + +One of his varieties of knowledge, observable by any reader of his novels, +is lepidoptery--the science of butterflies. He collects butterflies with +exceeding ardour. But then, he is a good deal of an outdoor man. He knows +horses and books; he has been known to hunt; he has been seen with a +fishing rod in his hand. + +His knowledge of out-of-the-way places in different parts of the +world--Paris, Petrograd--is not usual. + +Will you believe me if I add that he is something of an expert on rare +rugs? + +Of course, I am, to some extent, taking Rupert Hughes's word for these +accomplishments; and yet they are visible in the written work of Robert W. +Chambers where, as a rule, they appear without extrusion. + +=ii= + +And here is the newest Robert W. Chambers novel, _Eris_. Mr. Chambers's +_The Flaming Jewel_, a melodrama of the maddest character, was published +last spring. _Eris_ is really a story of the movie world, and reaches its +most definite conclusion, possibly, in a passage where the hero says to +Eris Odell: + +"Whether they are financing a picture, directing it, releasing it, +exhibiting it, or acting in it, these vermin are likely to do it to death. +Your profession is crawling with them. It needs delousing." + +But I am not really anxious, in this chapter, to discuss the justice or +injustice of the view of motion pictures thus forcibly presented. I have +read _Eris_ with an interest sharpened by the fact that its hero is a +writer. I seem to see in what is said about and by Barry Annan expressions +of Mr. Chambers's own attitude of more than casual importance. + +Barry Annan is obsessed with the stupidity of the American mass and more +particularly with the grossness (as he sees it) of New York City. + +"Annan went on with his breakfast leisurely. As he ate he read over his +pencilled manuscript and corrected it between bites of muffin and bacon. + +"It was laid out on the lines of those modern short stories which had +proven so popular and which had lifted Barry Annan out of the uniform +ranks of the unidentified and given him an individual and approving +audience for whatever he chose to offer them. + +"Already there had been lively competition among periodical publishers for +the work of this newcomer. + +"His first volume of short stories was now in preparation. Repetition had +stencilled his name and his photograph upon the public cerebrum. Success +had not yet enraged the less successful in the literary puddle. The frogs +chanted politely in praise of their own comrade. + +"The maiden, too, who sips the literary soup that seeps through the pages +of periodical publications, was already requesting his autograph. Clipping +agencies began to pursue him; film companies wasted his time with +glittering offers that never materialised. Annan was on the way to +premature fame and fortune. And to the aftermath that follows for all who +win too easily and too soon. + +"There is a King Stork for all puddles. His law is the law of +compensations. Dame Nature executes it--alike on species that swarm and on +individuals that ripen too quickly. + +"Annan wrote very fast. There was about thirty-five hundred words in the +story of Eris. He finished it by half past ten. + +"Re-reading it, he realised it had all the concentrated brilliancy of an +epigram. Whether or not it would hold water did not bother him. The story +of Eris was Barry Annan at his easiest and most persuasive. There was the +characteristic and ungodly skill in it, the subtle partnership with a +mindless public that seduces to mental speculation; the reassuring caress +as reward for intellectual penetration; that inborn cleverness that makes +the reader see, applaud, or pity him or herself in the sympathetic rôle of +a plaything of Chance and Fate. + +"And always Barry Annan left the victim of his tact and technique +agreeably trapped, suffering gratefully, excited by self-approval to the +verge of sentimental tears. + +"'That'll make 'em ruffle their plumage and gulp down a sob or two,' he +reflected, his tongue in his cheek, a little intoxicated, as usual, by his +own infernal facility. + +"He lit a cigarette, shuffled his manuscript, numbered the pages, and +stuffed them into his pocket. The damned thing was done." + +And again:-- + +"Considering her, now, a half-smile touching his lips, it occurred to him +that here, in her, he saw his audience in the flesh. This was what his +written words did to his readers. His skill held their attention; his +persuasive technique, unsuspected, led them where he guided. His +cleverness meddled with their intellectual emotions. The more primitive +felt it physically, too. + +"When he dismissed them at the bottom of the last page they went away +about their myriad vocations. But his brand was on their hearts. They were +his, these countless listeners whom he had never seen--never would see. + +"He checked his agreeable revery. This wouldn't do. He was becoming smug. +Reaction brought the inevitable note of alarm. Suppose his audience tired +of him. Suppose he lost them. Chastened, he realised what his audience +meant to him--these thousands of unknown people whose minds he titivated, +whose reason he juggled with and whose heart-strings he yanked, his tongue +in his cheek." + +And this further on:-- + +"He went into his room but did not light the lamp. For a long while he sat +by the open window looking out into the darkness of Governor's Place. + +"It probably was nothing he saw out there that brought to his lips a +slight recurrent smile. + +"The bad habit of working late at night was growing on this young man. It +is a picturesque habit, and one of the most imbecile, because sound work +is done only with a normal mind. + +"He made himself some coffee. A rush of genius to the head followed +stimulation. He had a grand time, revelling with pen and pad and littering +the floor with inked sheets unnumbered and still wet. His was a messy +genius. His plot-logic held by the grace of God and a hair-line. Even the +Leaning Tower of Pisa can be plumbed; and the lead dangled inside +Achilles's tendon when one held the string to the medulla of Annan's +stories." + +Our young man is undergoing a variety of interesting changes: + +"Partly experimental, partly sympathetically responsive, always tenderly +curious, this young man drifted gratefully through the inevitable episodes +to which all young men are heir. + +"And something in him always transmuted into ultimate friendship the +sentimental chaos, where comedy and tragedy clashed at the crisis. + +"The result was professional knowledge. Which, however, he had employed +rather ruthlessly in his work. For he resolutely cut out all that had been +agreeable to the generations which had thriven on the various phases of +virtue and its rewards. Beauty he replaced with ugliness; dreary squalor +was the setting for crippled body and deformed mind. The heavy twilight of +Scandinavian insanity touched his pages where sombre shapes born out of +Jewish Russia moved like anachronisms through the unpolluted sunshine of +the New World. + +"His were essays on the enormous meanness of mankind--meaner conditions, +mean minds, mean aspirations, and a little mean horizon to encompass all. + +"Out of his theme, patiently, deftly, ingeniously he extracted every atom +of that beauty, sanity, inspired imagination which _makes_ the imperfect +more perfect, creates _better_ than the materials permit, _forces_ real +life actually to assume and _be_ what the passionate desire for sanity and +beauty demands." + +There comes a time when Eris Odell says to Barry Annan:-- + +"'I could neither understand nor play such a character as the woman in +your last book.... Nor could I ever believe in her.... Nor in the ugliness +of her world--the world you write about, nor in the dreary, hopeless, +malformed, starving minds you analyse.... My God, Mr. Annan--are there no +wholesome brains in the world you write about?'" + +I think these citations interesting. I do not feel especially competent to +produce from them inferences regarding Mr. Chambers's own attitude toward +his work. + +_Eris_ will be published early in 1923, following Mr. Chambers's _The +Talkers_. + +=iii= + +Mr. Chambers was born in Brooklyn, May 26, 1865, the son of William +Chambers and Carolyn (Boughton) Chambers. Walter Boughton Chambers, the +architect, is his brother. Robert William Chambers was a student in the +Julien Academy in Paris from 1886 to 1893. He married, on July 12, 1898, +Elsa Vaughn Moler. He first exhibited in the Paris Salon in 1889; he was +an illustrator for Life, Truth, Vogue and other magazines. His first book, +_In the Quarter_, was published in 1893; and when, in the same year, a +collection of stories of Paris called _The King in Yellow_ made its +appearance, Robert W. Chambers became a name of literary importance. + +Curiously enough, among the things persistently remembered about Mr. +Chambers to this day is a particular poem in a book of rollicking verse +called _With the Band_, which he published in 1895. This cherished--by +very many people scattered here and there--poem had to do with Irishmen +parading. One stanza will identify it. + + "Ses Corporal Madden to Private McFadden: + 'Bedad yer a bad 'un! + Now turn out yer toes! + Yer belt is unhookit, + Yer cap is on crookit, + Yer may not be drunk, + But, be jabers, ye look it! + Wan-two! + Wan-two! + Ye monkey-faced divil, I'll jolly ye through! + Wan-two! + Time! Mark! + Ye march like the aigle in Cintheral Park!'" + +In the course of writing many books, Chambers has been responsible for one +or two shows. He wrote for Ada Rehan, _The Witch of Ellangowan_, a drama +produced at Daly's Theatre. His _Iole_ was the basis of a delightful +musical comedy produced in New York in 1913. He is a member of the +National Institute of Arts and Letters. + +BOOKS BY ROBERT W. CHAMBERS + +IN THE QUARTER +THE KING IN YELLOW +THE RED REPUBLIC +THE KING AND A FEW DUKES +THE MAKER OF MOONS +WITH THE BAND +THE MYSTERY OF CHOICE +LORRAINE +ASHES OF EMPIRE +THE HAUNTS OF MEN +THE CAMBRIC MASK +OUTSIDERS +THE CONSPIRATORS +CARDIGAN +THE MAID-AT-ARMS +OUTDOOR-LAND +THE MAIDS OF PARADISE +ORCHARD-LAND +FOREST LAND +IOLE +THE FIGHTING CHANCE +MOUNTAIN LAND +THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS +THE TREE OF HEAVEN +THE FIRING LINE +SOME LADIES IN HASTE +THE DANGER MARK +THE SPECIAL MESSENGER +HIDE AND SEEK IN FORESTLAND +THE GREEN MOUSE +AILSA PAIGE +BLUE-BIRD WEATHER +JAPONETTE +THE STREETS OF ASCALON +ADVENTURES OF A MODEST MAN +THE BUSINESS OF LIFE +THE COMMON LAW +THE GAY REBELLION +WHO GOES THERE? +THE HIDDEN CHILDREN +ATHALIE +POLICE!!! +THE GIRL PHILIPPA +THE BARBARIANS +THE RESTLESS SEX +THE MOONLIT WAY +IN SECRET +THE CRIMSON TIDE +THE SLAYER OF SOULS +THE LITTLE RED FOOT +THE FLAMING JEWEL +THE TALKERS +ERIS + +SOURCES ON ROBERT W. CHAMBERS + +Hugh Walpole: An Appreciation, by Joseph Hergesheimer, GEORGE H. DORAN +COMPANY. + +English Literature During the Last Half Century, by J. W. Cunliffe, THE +MACMILLAN COMPANY. + +A Hugh Walpole Anthology, selected by the author. LONDON: J. M. DENT +& SONS. NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY. + +Hugh Walpole, Master Novelist. Pamphlet published by GEORGE H. DORAN +COMPANY. (Out of print.) + +Who's Who [In England]. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +UNIQUITIES + + +=i= + +Each of these five is a book which, either from its subject, its +authorship, or its handling, is _sui generis_. I call such books +"uniquities"; it sounds a little less trite than saying they are unique. I +think I will let someone else speak of these books. I will look to see, +and will let you see, what others have said about my uniquities. + +=ii= + +First we have _Our Navy at War_ by Josephus Daniels. W. B. M'Cormick, +formerly of the editorial staff of the Army and Navy Journal, reviewing +this book for the New York Herald (28 May 1922) said: + +"Josephus Daniels always was an optimist about navy affairs while he was +Secretary of the Navy from 1913 to 1921, and now that he has told what the +navy did during the world war he demonstrates in his narrative that he is +a good sport. For in spite of the many and bitter attacks that were made +on him in that troubled time he does not make a single reference to any of +them, nor does he wreak any such revenge as he might have done through +this medium. In this respect it may be said that truly does he live up to +the description of his character set down in the pages of Rear Admiral +Bradley A. Fiske's autobiography, namely, that 'Secretary Daniels +impressed me as being a Christian gentleman.' + +"In its general outlines and in many of its details there is little in Mr. +Daniels's story that has not been told before in volumes devoted to single +phases of the United States Navy's war operations. For example, his +chapter on the extraordinary task of laying the great mine fields, known +as the North Sea barrage, from Norway to the Orkneys, is much more fully +described in the account written by Captain Reginald R. Belknap; the story +of 'Sending Sims to Europe' is also more extensively presented in that +officer's book, _The Victory at Sea_, and the same qualification can be +applied to the chapter on the fighting of the marines in Belleau Wood and +elsewhere, and the work of our destroyers and submarines in European +waters. + +"But Mr. Daniels's history has one great merit that these other books +lack. This is that it tells in its 374 pages the complete story of the +work of the navy in the world war, giving so many details and so much +precise information about officers and their commands, ships of all +classes and just what they did, the valuable contributions made to the +winning of the war by civilians, that it makes a special place for itself, +a very special place, in any library or shelf devoted to war books." + +=iii= + +Leslie Haden Guest, a surgeon of wide experience and secretary of the +British Labour Delegation to Soviet Russia, is the author of _The Struggle +for Power in Europe (1917-21)_, "an outline economic and political survey +of the Central States and Russia," of which E. J. C. said in the Boston +Evening Transcript (4 March 1922): + +"The author writes from personal observation in Russia and discloses much +of the life of the day in that country which heretofore has remained +undisclosed to the world. He has met and interviewed Lenine and Trotsky +themselves, shows us the individuality of these great Bolshevist leaders +and tells us much of the life of the people and of the social conditions +and tendencies in that distressful country. + +"Next he crosses to Poland, another undiscovered country, and shows us the +new Poland, its aims and its struggles to emerge from a state almost of +anarchy into one of a rational democracy. Very little do we of this +country know of the new nation of Tcheko-Slovakia, but Dr. Guest has +travelled through it also and shows us the two sections, one cultured, the +other more backward, but both working together to form a modern democratic +nation. + +"The distressful condition of Austria and the Austrians now suffering for +the sins of the Hapsburgs, is next shown forth. Vienna, once the capital +of a vast empire and the seat of a great imperial court, was suddenly +reduced to the level of the capital of a small agricultural, inland state, +a condition productive of great suffering. The conditions here are shown +to differ much from those in other countries, for the dismemberment of +Austria was not brought about by the act of the Allies, but of their own +people. The causes of the suffering are fully explained, as are also the +causes of similar conditions in Hungary, in Roumania, in Bulgaria and in +other countries affected by the economic and political upheavals following +the war. That democracy in Europe will finally triumph Dr. Guest feels +certain and he gives lucid reasons for the faith that is in him. He gives +a broadly intelligent analysis of the entire situation and finds that the +essential conditions of success of a democracy are peace, education and +adequate nutrition. But he shows that a great problem exists which must be +worked out; and he shows how it must be worked out. Dr. Guest is not alone +a thinker, but an observer; not a theorist, but a man of practical +understanding, who has studied a problem at first hand and shows it forth +simply but comprehensively and with an eye single to the needs of +humanity." + +=iv= + +Of _Herman Melville: Mariner and Mystic_, by Raymond M. Weaver, Carl Van +Vechten, writing in the Literary Review of the New York Evening Post (31 +December 1921), said: + +"No biography of Melville, no important personal memorandum of the man, +was published during his lifetime. It is only now, thirty years after his +death and one hundred and two years after his birth, that Raymond M. +Weaver's _Herman Melville: Mariner and Mystic_ has appeared. + +"Under the circumstances, Mr. Weaver may be said to have done his work +well. The weakness of the book is due to the conditions controlling its +creation. Personal records in any great number do not exist. There are, to +be sure, Melville's letters to Hawthorne, published by Julian Hawthorne, +in his _Nathaniel Hawthorne and His Wife_. There are a few references to +Melville in the diary of Mrs. Hawthorne and in her letters to her mother. +There remain the short account given by J. E. A. Smith, a man with no kind +of mental approach to his hero, a few casual memories of Richard Henry +Stoddard, whose further testimony would have been invaluable had he been +inclined to be more loquacious, and a few more by Dr. Titus Munson Coan +and Arthur Stedman; but both these men, perhaps the nearest to Melville in +his later years, were agreed that he ceased to be an artist when he +deserted the prescribed field of _Typee_ and _Omoo_, and they harassed his +last days in their efforts to make him perceive this, much as if an +admirer of Verdi's early manner had attempted to persuade the composer +that work on 'Aida' and 'Otello' was a waste of time that might much +better be occupied in creating another 'Trovatore.' In desperation, +Melville refused to be lured into conversation about the South Seas, and +whenever the subject was broached he took refuge in quoting Plato. No very +competent witnesses, therefore, these. Aside from these sources, long open +to an investigator, Mr. Weaver has had the assistance of Mr. Melville's +granddaughter, who was not quite ten years old when Melville died, but who +has in her possession Mrs. Melville's commonplace book, Melville's diary +of two European excursions, and a few letters. + +"Generally, however, especially for the most important periods and the +most thrilling events in Melville's life, Mr. Weaver has been compelled to +depend upon the books the man wrote. + +"The book, on the whole, is worthy of its subject. It is written with +warmth, subtlety, and considerable humour. Smiles and thoughts lie hidden +within many of its pregnant lines. One of the biographer's very strangest +suggestions is never made concrete at all, so far as I can discern. The +figure of the literary discoverer of the South Seas emerges perhaps a bit +vaguely, his head in the clouds, but there is no reason to believe that +Melville's head was anywhere else when he was alive. Hawthorne is at last +described pretty accurately and not too flatteringly. _The Scarlet Letter_ +was published in 1850; _Moby Dick_ in 1851. It is one of the eternal +ironies that the one should be world-famous while the other is still +struggling for even national recognition. There are long passages, +well-studied and well-written, dealing with the whaling industry and the +early missionaries, which will be extremely helpful to any one who wants a +bibliographical background for the ocean and South Sea books. Melville's +London notebook is published for the first time and there is a nearly +complete reprint of his first known published paper 'Fragments From a +Writing Desk,' which appeared in two numbers of The Democratic Press and +Lansingburgh Advertiser in 1839 (not 1849, as the bibliography erroneously +gives it). Mr. Weaver is probably right in ascribing Melville's retirement +from literature to poverty (it was a fortunate year that brought him as +much as $100 in royalties and his account at Harper's was usually +overdrawn), to complete disillusionment, which made it impossible for him +to say more than he had already said, even on the subject of +disillusionment, and to ill-health. + +"It is a pleasure, moreover, to find that Mr. Weaver has a warm +appreciation of _Mardi_ and _Pierre_, books which have either been +neglected or fiercely condemned since they first appeared, books which are +no longer available save in early editions. They are not equal to _Moby +Dick_, but they are infinitely more important and more interesting than +_Typee_ and _Omoo_, on which the chief fame of the man rests. It is to his +credit that Mr. Weaver has perceived this, but a great deal more remains +to be said on the subject. _Mardi_, _Moby Dick_, and _Pierre_, as a matter +of fact, form a kind of tragic trinity: _Mardi_ is a tragedy of the +intellect; _Moby Dick_ a tragedy of the spirit, and _Pierre_ a tragedy of +the flesh. _Mardi_ is a tragedy of heaven, _Moby Dick_ a tragedy of hell, +and _Pierre_ a tragedy of the world we live in. + +"Considering the difficulties in his path, it may be said that Mr. Weaver +has solved his problem successfully. The faults of the book, to a large +extent, as I have already pointed out, are not the faults of the author, +but the faults of conditions circumscribing his work. At any rate, it can +no longer be said that no biography exists of the most brilliant figure in +the history of our letters, the author of a book which far surpasses every +other work created by an American from _The Scarlet Letter_ to _The Golden +Bowl_. For _Moby Dick_ stands with the great classics of all times, with +the tragedies of the Greeks, with _Don Quixote_, with _Dante's Inferno_ +and with Shakespeare's _Hamlet_." + +=v= + +A man who is certainly an authority on naval subjects tells me that _The +Grand Fleet_ by Viscount Jellicoe of Scapa is the masterpiece of the great +war. He does not mean, of course, in a literary sense; but he does most +emphatically mean in every other sense. I quote from the review by P. L. +J., of Admiral Jellicoe's second book, _The Crisis of the Naval War_. The +review appeared in that valuable Annapolis publication, the Proceedings of +the United States Naval Institute for April, 1921: + +"This interesting book is the complement of his first volume, _The Grand +Fleet,1914-16_. Admiral Jellicoe, the one man who was best situated to +know, now draws aside the curtains and reveals to us the efforts made by +the Admiralty to overcome the threat made by the German submarine +campaign. The account not only deals with the origin ashore of the defence +and offence against submarines, but follows to sea the measures adopted +where their application and results are shown. + +"The first chapter deals at length with the changes made in the admiralty +that the organisation might be logical and smooth working to avoid +conflict of authority, to have no necessary service neglected, to provide +the necessary corps of investigators of new devices, and above all to free +the first Sea Lord and his assistants of a mass of detail that their +efforts might be concentrated on the larger questions. + +"The appendices are of value and interesting because they show the +organisation at different periods and emphasise the fact that the Naval +Staff at the end of the war was the result of trial and error, natural +growth, and at least one radical change adopted during the war. + +"Chapters II and III deal with the Submarine Campaign in 1917 and the +measures adopted to win success. The gradual naval control of all merchant +shipping with its attendant difficulties is clearly shown. The tremendous +labour involved in putting into operation new measures; the unremitting +search for and development of new antisubmarine devices is revealed, and +above all the length of time necessary to put into operation any new +device, and this when time is the most precious element, is pointed out. + +"That a campaign against the enemy must be waged with every means at hand; +that new weapons must be continually sought; that no 'cure-all' by which +the enemy may be defeated without fighting can be expected; that during +war is the poorest time to provide the material which should be provided +during peace, the Admiral shows in a manner not to be gainsaid. + +"Chapters IV and V deal with the testing, introduction, and gradual growth +of the convoy system. It is shown how the introduction of this system was +delayed by lack of vessels to perform escort duty and why when finally +adopted it was so successful because it was not only defensive but +offensive in that it meant a fight for a submarine to attack a vessel +under convoy. + +"Chapter VI is devoted to the entry of the United States. The accurate +estimate of our naval strength by both the enemy and the allies, and our +inability upon the declaration of war to lend any great assistance are +shown--and this at the most critical period for the Allies--a period when +the German submarine campaign was at its height, when the tonnage lost +monthly by the Allies was far in excess of what can be replaced--when the +destruction of merchant shipping if continued at the then present rate +would in a few months mean the defeat of the Allies." + +=vi= + +I will give you what Admiral Caspar F. Goodrich said in the Weekly Review +(30 April 1921; The Weekly Review has since been combined with The +Independent) regarding _A History of Sea Power_, by William O. Stevens and +Allan Westcott: + +"Two professors at the Naval Academy, the one a historian, the other a +close student of Mahan, have written a noteworthy volume in their _History +of Sea Power_, published in excellent form, generously supplied with maps, +illustrations, and index. The title suggests Mahan's classic which is +largely followed in plan and treatment. It will be remembered that his +writings covered in detail only the years from 1660 to 1815. While not +neglecting this period, this book is particularly valuable for events not +within its self-assigned limits. Practically it is a history of naval +warfare from ancient times to the present day. Each chapter deals briefly, +but ably, with one epoch and closes with an appropriate bibliography for +those who care to go more fully into the question; a commendable feature. +The last chapter, 'Conclusions,' deserves especial attention. Naturally, +considerable space is devoted to the story and analysis of Jellicoe's +fight. Few will disagree with the verdict of the authors: + +"'It is no reflection on the personal courage of the Commander-in-Chief +that he should be moved by the consideration of saving his ships. The +existence of the Grand Fleet was, of course, essential to the Allied +cause, and there was a heavy weight of responsibility hanging on its use. +But again it is a matter of naval doctrine. Did the British fleet exist +merely to maintain a numerical preponderance over its enemy or to crush +that enemy--whatever the cost? If the Battle of Jutland receives the stamp +of approval as the best that could have been done, then the British or the +American officer of the future will know that he is expected primarily to +"play safe." But he will never tread the path of Blake, Hawke, or Nelson, +the men who made the traditions of the Service and forged the anchors of +the British Empire.' + +"One factor in the success of the antisubmarine campaign is not mentioned, +important as it proved to be. This was the policy adopted by the Allies of +not giving out the news that any U-boat was captured or otherwise +accounted for. Confronted with this appalling veil of mystery the morale +of the German submarine crews became seriously affected; volunteering for +this service gradually ceased; arbitrary detail grew necessary; greatly +lessened efficiency resulted. + +"The authors are to be congratulated on producing a volume which should be +in the hands of all naval officers of the coming generation; on the +shelves of all who take interest in the development of history; and of +statesmen upon whom may eventually rest the responsibility of heeding or +not heeding the teachings of Mahan as here sympathetically and cleverly +brought up to date." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE CONFESSIONS OF A WELL-MEANING YOUNG MAN, STEPHEN MCKENNA + + +=i= + +In a sense, all of Stephen McKenna's writing has been a confession. More +than any other novelist now actively at work, this young man bases fiction +on biographical and autobiographical material; and when he sits down +deliberately to write reminiscences, such as _While I Remember_, the +result is merely that, in addition to confessing himself, he confesses +others. + +He has probably had more opportunity of knowing the social and political +life of London from the inside than most novelists of his time. In _While +I Remember_ he gives his recollections, while his memory is still fresh +enough to be vivid, of a generation that closed, for literary if not for +political purposes, with the Peace Conference. There is a power of wit and +mordant humour and a sufficiency of descriptive power and insight into +human character in all his work. + +[Illustration: STEPHEN McKENNA] + +_While I Remember_ is actually a gallery of pictures taken from the life +and executed with the technique of youth by a man still young--pictures of +public school and university life, of social London from the death of King +Edward to the Armistice, of domestic and foreign politics of the period, +of the public services of Great Britain at home and abroad. Though all +these are within the circle of Mr. McKenna's narrative, literary +London--the London that is more talked about than seen--is the core of his +story. + +=ii= + +Mr. McKenna's latest novel, _The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman_, is +a series of monologues addressed by one Lady Ann Spenworth to "a friend of +proved discretion." I quote from the London Times of April 6, 1922: "In +the course of them Lady Ann Spenworth reveals to us the difficulties +besetting a lady of rank. She is compelled to live in a house in Mount +street--for how could she ask 'The Princess' to visit her in +Bayswater?--and her income of a few thousands, hardly supplemented by her +husband's directorships, is depleted by the disbursements needed to keep +the name of her only son out of the newspapers while she is obtaining for +him the wife and the salary suited to his requirements and capacities. Mr. +Stephen McKenna provides us with the same kind of exasperating +entertainment that we get at games from watching a skilful and +unscrupulous veteran. Her deftness in taking a step or two forward in the +centre and so putting the fast wing off side; her air of sporting +acquiescence touched with astonishment when a penalty is given against her +for obstruction; her resolution in jumping in to hit a young bowler off +his length; the trouble she has with her shoe-lace when her opponent is +nervous; the suddenness with which every now and again her usually +deliberate second service will follow her first; the slight pucker in her +eyebrows when she picks up a hand full of spades; the pluck with which she +throws herself on the ball when there is nothing else for it; her +dignified bonhomie in the dressing room! We all know Lady Ann and her +tricks, but nothing can be proved against her and she continues to play +for the best clubs. + +"In this story Lady Ann is playing the social game, and it is a tribute to +the skill of Mr. McKenna that at the end we hope that the Princess will be +sufficiently curious about her new 'frame and setting' to continue her +visits.... We have used the word 'story' because Lady Ann reports her +machinations while they are in progress and we are a little nervous about +the issue. Her main service, however, lies in the pictures she draws of +her own highly placed relatives and of a number of people who at house +parties and elsewhere may help ladies of title to make both ends meet. +Chief among them is her son Will, who even as seen through her partial +eyes, appears a very dishonest, paltry boy. Her blind devotion to him +humanises both her shrewdness and her selfishness. It is for his sake that +she separates her niece from the fine young soldier she is in love with +and that she almost succeeds in providing the King's Proctor with the +materials for an intervention that would secure to him the estates and +title of his fox-hunting uncle. There is always a plain tale to put her +down and always the friend of proved discretion is left with the +impression that the tale is the invention of malice; at least we suppose +she must be, for Lady Ann is allowed by people to whom she has done one +injury to remain in a position to do them another. The difficult medium +employed by Mr. McKenna entitles him, however, to count on the +co-operation of the reader; and it is to be accorded the more readily that +to it we owe the felicity of having her own account of the steps she took +to prevent an attractive but expensive widow from running away with her +husband, and of the party which she gave, according to plan, to the +Princess and, not according to plan, to other guests let loose on her by +her scapegrace brother-in-law." + +=iii= + +Stephen McKenna, the author of _Sonia_, not to be confused with Stephen +McKenna, the translator of Poltinus, belongs to the Protestant branch of +that royal Catholic sept which has had its home in the County Monagham +since the dawn of Irish history. Some members, even, of this branch have +reverted to the old faith since the date of Stephen McKenna's birth in the +year 1888 in London. + +He was a scholar of Westminster and an exhibitioner of Christ Church, +Oxford. After he had taken his degree, his father, Leopold McKenna, an +elder brother of the Right Honourable Reginald McKenna, K. C., the last +Liberal Chancellor of the British Exchequer, made it possible for him to +travel desultorily and to try his luck in the great literary adventure. + +On the outbreak of the war, as his health, which is delicate to the point +of frailness, debarred him from entering the army, Stephen McKenna first +volunteered for service at his old school, and, after a year, joined the +staff of the War Trade Intelligence Department, where he did valuable war +work for three and a half years. He represented his department on the +Right Honourable A. J. Balfour's mission in 1917, to the United States, +where he enjoyed himself thoroughly and made himself very popular; and he +did not sever his connection with the government service until February, +1919, four months after the conclusion of the armistice. + +Stephen McKenna's first three novels--_The Reluctant Lover_, _Sheila +Intervenes_ and _The Sixth Sense_--were written and published before their +author was 27 years of age! But _Sonia_, the story that made him widely +known, was written entirely during the period of his activities on the +staff of Westminster School and at the War Trade Intelligence Department. +The book won the public favour more quickly than perhaps any other novel +that has appeared in our time. + +The success of _Sonia_ was largely due to its description in a facile, +popular and yet eminently chaste and polished style, of the social and +political situation in England for a half generation before and during the +early stages of the war. This description Stephen McKenna was peculiarly +well-equipped to produce, not only as the near relative of a prominent +cabinet minister, but also as an assiduous frequenter of the leading +Liberal centre, the Reform Club, on the committee of which he had sat, +despite his youthful years, since 1915. The political interest, indeed, is +revealed in the subtitle, _Between Two Worlds_, which was originally +intended for the actual title. + +McKenna's next book, _Ninety-Six Hours' Leave_, appealed to the reader's +gayer moods and _Midas and Son_, with its tragic history of an +Anglo-American multimillionaire, to the reader in serious temper. + +In spite of certain blemishes due to Mr. McKenna's unfamiliarity with +American life, I should say that _Midas and Son_ is probably his ablest +work so far. I think it surpasses even _Sonia_. Mr. McKenna returned to +Sonia in his novel, _Sonia Married_. His work after that was a trilogy +called _The Sensationalists_, three brilliant studies of modern London in +the form of successive novels called _Lady Lilith_, _The Education of Eric +Lane_ and _The Secret Victory_. + +=iv= + +Writing from 11, Stone Buildings, Lincoln's Inn, London, in 1920, Mr. +McKenna had this to say about his trilogy: + +"_Lady Lilith_ is the first volume of a trilogy called _The +Sensationalists_, three books giving the history for a few years before +the war, during and immediately after the war, of a group of +sensation-mongers, emotion-hunters or whatever you like to call them, +whose principle and practice it was to startle the world by the +extravagance of their behaviour, speech, dress and thought and, in the +other sense of the word, sensationalism, to live on the excitement of new +experiences. Such people have always existed and always will exist, +receiving perhaps undue attention from the world that they set out to +astonish. You, I am sure, have them in America, as we have them here, and +in the luxurious and idle years before the war they had incomparable scope +for their search for novelty and their quest for emotion. Some of the +characters in _Lady Lilith_ have already been seen hovering in the +background of _Sonia_, _Midas and Son_ and _Sonia Married_, though the +principal characters in _Lady Lilith_ have not before been painted at full +length or in great detail; and these principal characters will be found in +all three books of the trilogy. + +"_Lady Lilith_, of course, takes its title from the Talmud, according to +which Lilith was Adam's first wife; and as mankind did not taste of the +Tree of Knowledge or of death until Eve came to trouble the Garden of +Eden, Lilith belongs to a time in which there was neither death nor +knowledge of good or evil in the world. She is immortal, unaging and +non-moral; her name is given by Valentine Arden, the young novelist who +appears in _Sonia_ and elsewhere, to Lady Barbara Neave, the principal +character in _Lady Lilith_ and one of the principal characters in the two +succeeding books." + +=v= + +In person, Stephen McKenna is tall, with a slender figure, Irish blue +eyes, fair hair, regular features and a Dante profile. He has an engaging +and very courteous address, a sympathetic manner, a ready but always +urbane wit and great conversational charm. He possesses the rare +accomplishment of "talking like a book." His intimates are legion; and, +apart from these, he knows everyone who "counts" in London society. He is +known never to lose his temper; and it is doubtful whether he has ever had +cause to lose it. + +His one recreation is the Opera; and during the London season his +delightful chambers in Lincoln's Inn are the almost nightly scene of +parties collected then and there from the opera house. + +=vi= + +A sample of _The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman_: + +"Lady Ann (_to a friend of proved discretion_): You have toiled all the +way here again? Do you know, I feel I am only beginning to find out who my +true friends are? I am much, much better.... On Friday I am to be allowed +on to the sofa and by the end of next week Dr. Richardson promises to let +me go back to Mount Street. Of course I should have liked the operation to +take place there--it is one's frame and setting, but, truly honestly, +Arthur and I have not been in a position to have any painting or papering +done for so long.... The surgeon insisted on a nursing home. Apparatus and +so on and so forth.... Quite between ourselves I fancy that they make a +very good thing out of these homes; but I am so thankful to be well again +that I would put up with almost any imposition.... + +"Everything went off too wonderfully. Perhaps you have seen my brother +Brackenbury? Or Ruth? Ah, I am sorry; I should have been vastly +entertained to hear what they were saying, what they dared say. Ruth did +indeed offer to pay the expenses of the operation--the belated prick of +conscience!--and it was on the tip of my tongue to say we are not yet +dependent on her spasmodic charity. Also, that I can keep my lips closed +about Brackenbury without expecting a--tip? But they know I can't afford +to refuse £500.... If they, if everybody would only leave one alone! Spied +on, whispered about.... + +"The papers made such an absurd stir! If you are known by name as +occupying any little niche, the world waits gaping below. I suppose I +ought to be flattered, but for days there were callers, letters, +telephone-messages. Like Royalty _in extremis_.... And I never pretended +that the operation was in any sense critical.... + +"Do you know, beyond saying that, I would much rather not talk about it? +This very modern frankness.... Not you, of course! But when a man like my +brother-in-law Spenworth strides in here a few hours before the anæsthetic +is administered and says 'What is the matter with you? Much ado about +nothing, I call it.' ... That from Arthur's brother to Arthur's wife, +when, for all he knew, he might never see her alive again.... I prefer +just to say that everything went off most satisfactorily and that I hope +now to be better than I have been for years...." + +BOOKS BY STEPHEN MCKENNA + +THE RELUCTANT LOVER +SHEILA INTERVENES +THE SIXTH SENSE +SONIA: BETWEEN TWO WORLDS +NINETY-SIX HOURS' LEAVE +MIDAS AND SON +SONIA MARRIED +LADY LILITH +THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE +THE SECRET VICTORY +WHILE I REMEMBER +THE CONFESSIONS OF A WELL-MEANING WOMAN + +SOURCES ON STEPHEN MCKENNA + +_Who's Who_ [In England]. + +Private Information. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +POETS AND PLAYWRIGHTS + + +=i= + +I have to tell about a number of poets and, regarding poets, I agree with +a very clever woman I know who declares that poetry is the most personal +of the arts and who further says that it is manifestly inadequate to talk +about a poet's work without giving a sample of his poetry. So, generally, +I shall quote one of the shorter poems or a passage from a longer poem. + +John Dos Passos, known for _Three Soldiers_ and for _Rosinante to the Road +Again_, will be still more variously known to those who read his book of +verse, _A Pushcart at the Curb_. This book bears a relation to +_Rosinante_, the contents grouping themselves under these general +headings: + + Winter in Castile + Nights by Bassano + Translations from the Spanish of Antonio Machado + Vagones de Tercera + Quai de la Tournelle + Of Foreign Travel + Phases of the Moon + +I will select for quotation the sixth or final poem dedicated to A. K. +McC. from the section entitled "Quai de la Tournelle," + + This is a garden + where through the russet mist of clustered trees + and strewn November leaves, + they crunch with vainglorious heels + of ancient vermilion + the dry dead of spent summer's greens, + and stalk with mincing sceptic steps, + and sound of snuffboxes snapping + to the capping of an epigram, + in fluffy attar-scented wigs ... + the exquisite Augustans. + +Christopher Morley is too well-known as a poet to require any explicit +account in this place. I shall remind you of the pleasure of reading him +by quoting the "Song For a Little House" from his book, _The Rocking +Horse_, and also a short verse from his _Translations from the Chinese_. + + I'm glad our house is a little house, + Not too tall nor too wide: + I'm glad the hovering butterflies + Feel free to come inside. + + Our little house is a friendly house, + It is not shy or vain; + It gossips with the talking trees, + And makes friends with the rain. + + And quick leaves cast a shimmer of green, + Against our whited walls, + And in the phlox, the courteous bees, + Are paying duty calls. + +But there is a different temper--or, if you like, tempering--to the verse +in _Translations from the Chinese_. I quote "A National Frailty": + + The American people + Were put into the world + To assist foreign lecturers. + When I visited them + They filled crowded halls + To hear me tell them Great Truths + Which they might as well have read + In their own prophet Thoreau. + They paid me, for this, + Three hundred dollars a night, + And ten of their mandarins + Invited me to visit at Newport. + My agent told me + If I would wear Chinese costume on the platform + It would be five hundred. + +In speaking of the late Joyce Kilmer, the temptation is inescapable to +quote his "Trees"; after all, it is his best known and best loved poem--in +certain moments it is his best poem! But instead, I will desert his +volume, _Trees and Other Poems_, and from his other book, _Main Street and +Other Poems_, I will quote the first two stanzas of Kilmer's "Houses"--a +poem written for his wife: + + When you shall die and to the sky + Serenely, delicately go, + Saint Peter, when he sees you there, + Will clash his keys and say: + "Now talk to her, Sir Christopher! + And hurry, Michelangelo! + She wants to play at building, + And you've got to help her play!" + + Every architect will help erect + A palace on a lawn of cloud, + With rainbow beams and a sunset roof, + And a level star-tiled floor; + And at your will you may use the skill + Of this gay angelic crowd, + When a house is made you will throw it down, + And they'll build you twenty more. + +Mrs. Kilmer is the author of two volumes of verse which have sold rather +more than John Masefield usually sells--at least, until the publication of +_Reynard the Fox. Candles That Burn_ created her audience and _Vigils_ has +been that audience's renewed delight. From _Vigils_ I take the poem "The +Touch of Tears." In it "Michael" is, of course, her own son: + + Michael walks in autumn leaves, + Rustling leaves and fading grasses, + And his little music-box + Tinkles faintly as he passes. + It's a gay and jaunty tune + If the hands that play were clever: + Michael plays it like a dirge, + Moaning on and on forever. + + While his happy eyes grow big, + Big and innocent and soulful, + Wistful, halting little notes + Rise, unutterably doleful, + Telling of all childish griefs-- + Baffled babies sob forsaken, + Birds fly off and bubbles burst, + Kittens sleep and will not waken. + + Michael, it's the touch of tears. + Though you sing for very gladness, + Others will not see your mirth; + They will mourn your fancied sadness. + Though you laugh at them in scorn, + Show your happy heart for token, + Michael, you'll protest in vain-- + They will swear your heart is broken! + +I think I have said elsewhere that J. C. Squire prefers his serious poems +to those parodies of which he is such an admitted master. It seems only +decent to defer, in this place, to the author's own feeling in the matter. +Mr. Squire is the author of _The Birds and Other Poems_ and _Poems: Second +Series_. My present choice is the beginning and the close of the poem, +"Harlequin"--which is in both books: + + Moonlit woodland, veils of green, + Caves of empty dark between; + Veils of green from rounded arms + Drooping, that the moonlight charms: + Tranced the trees, grass beneath + Silent ... + Like a stealthy breath, + Mask and wand and silver skin + Sudden enters Harlequin. + + Hist! Hist! Watch him go, + Leaping limb and pointing toe, + Slender arms that float and flow, + Curving wand above, below; + Flying, gliding, changing feet; + Onset merging in retreat. + + Not a shadow of sound there is + But his motion's gentle hiss, + Till one fluent arm and hand + Suddenly circles, and the wand + Taps a bough far overhead, + "Crack," and then all noise is dead. + For he halts, and for a space + Stands erect with upward face, + Taut and tense to the white + Message of the Moon's light. + + He was listening; he was there; + Flash! he went. To the air + He a waiting ear had bent, + Silent; but before he went + Something somewhere else to seek, + He moved his lips as though to speak. + + And we wait, and in vain, + For he will not come again. + Earth, grass, wood, and air, + As we stare, and we stare, + Which that fierce life did hold, + Tired, dim, void, cold. + +Milton Raison is a young writer, known especially to readers of The +Bookman, whose verse has appeared in various magazines. A Russian, Milton +Raison went to sea as a boy--he is scarcely more than a boy now. His first +book of verse, _Spindrift_, carries a preface by William McFee. I quote: + +"There is a Latin sharpness of mentality manifested in these clearly, +sardonically etched portraits of a ship's crew. The whimsical humour +revealed in final lines is a portent, in the present writer's opinion, of +a talent which will probably come to maturity in a very different field. +Indeed it may be, though it is too early to dogmatise, that these poems +are but the early efflorescence of a gift for vigorous prose narrative. + +"Mr. Milton Raison has settled for himself, with engaging promptitude, +that a seafaring career provides the inspiration he craves. The influence +of Masefield is strong upon him, and some of his verses are plainly +derivative. As already hinted, it is too early to say definitely how this +plan will succeed. In his diary, kept while on a voyage to South America, +a document remarkable for its descriptive power and a certain crude and +virginal candour, one may discover an embryo novelist struggling with the +inevitable limitations of youth. But in his simple and naïve poems, +whether they give us some bizarre and catastrophic picture of seamen, or +depict the charming emotions of a sensitive adolescence, there is a +passion for experiment and humility of intellect which promises well +enough for a young man in his teens." + +I find it particularly difficult to choose a poem for citation from this +book. Perhaps I shall do as well as I can, with only space to quote one +poem, if I give you "Vision": + + Have I forgotten beauty, and the pang + Of sheer delight in perfect visioning? + Have I forgotten how the spirit sang + When shattered breakers sprayed their ocean-tang + To ease the blows with which the great cliffs rang? + Have I forgotten how the fond stars fling + Their naked children to the faery ring + Of some dark pool, and watch them play and sing + In silent silver chords I too could hear? + Or smile to see a starlet shake with fear + Whenever winds disturbed the lake's repose, + Or when in mocking mood they form in rows, + And stare up at their parents--so sedate-- + Then break up laughing 'neath a ripple's weight? + +It seems as if, _The First Person Singular_ having been published, more +people now know William Rose Benét as a novelist than as a poet. I cannot +help feeling that to be something of a pity. I am not going to quote one +of Mr. Benét's poems--indeed all his best work is in quite long and +semi-narrative verse--but I will give you what Don Marquis was inspired to +write after reading Benét's _Moons of Grandeur_. On looking at it again, I +see that Mr. Marquis has quoted eight lines, so you shall have your taste +of William Rose Benét, the poet, after all! + +"Some day, just to please ourself, we intend to make a compilation of +poems that we love best; the ones that we turn to again and again. There +will be in the volume the six odes of Keats, Shelley's 'Adonais'; +Wordsworth's 'Intimations of Immortality'; Milton's 'L'Allegro' and 'Il +Penseroso'; William Rose Benét's 'Man Possessed' and very little else. + +"We don't 'defend' these poems ... no doubt they are all of them quite +indefensible, in the light of certain special poetic revelations of the +last few years ... and we have no particular theories about them; we +merely yield ourself to them, and they transport us; we are careless of +reason in the matter, for they cast a spell upon us. We do not mean to say +that we are in the category with the person who says: 'I don't know +anything about art, but I know what I like'--On the contrary, we know +exactly why we like these things, although we don't intend to take the +trouble to tell you now. + +"William Rose Benét has published another book of poems, _Moons of +Grandeur_. Here is a stanza picked up at random--it happens to be the +opening stanza of 'Gaspara Stampa'--which shows the lyric quality of the +verse: + + "Like flame, like wine, across the still lagoon, + The colours of the sunset stream. + Spectral in heaven as climbs the frail veiled moon + So climbs my dream. + Out of the heart's eternal torture fire + No eastern phoenix risen-- + Only the naked soul, spent with desire, + Bursts its prison. + +"Was Benét ever in Italy? No matter ... he has Italy in him, in his heart +and brain. Italy and Egypt and every other country that was ever warmed by +the sun of beauty and shone on by the stars of romance. For the poems in +this book are woven of the stuff of sheer romance. There is nothing else +in the world as depressing as a romantic poem that doesn't 'get there.' +And to us, at least, there is nothing as thrilling as the authentic voice +of romance, the genuine utterance of the soul that walks in communion with +beauty. _Moons of Grandeur_ is a ringing bell and a glimmering tapestry +and a draught of sparkling wine. + +"A certain rich intricacy of pattern distinguishes the physical body of +Benét's art; when he chooses he can use words as if they were the jewelled +particles of a mosaic; familiar words, with his handling, become +'something rich and strange.' Of the spiritual content of his poems, we +can say nothing adequate, because there is not much that can be said of +spirit; either it is there and you feel it, and it works upon you, or it +is not there. There are very few people writing verse today who have the +power to charm us and enchant us and carry us away with them as Benét can. +He has found the horse with wings." + +_The Bookman Anthology of Verse_ (1922), edited by John Farrar, editor of +The Bookman, is an altogether extraordinary anthology to be made up from +the poets contributing to a single magazine in eighteen consecutive +months. Among those who are represented are: Franklin P. Adams, Karle +Wilson Baker, Maxwell Bodenheim, Hilda Conkling, John Dos Passos, Zona +Gale, D. H. Lawrence, Amy Lowell, David Morton, Edwin Arlington Robinson, +Carl Sandburg, Siegfried Sassoon, Sara Teasdale, Louis and Jean Starr +Untermeyer, and Elinor Wylie. + +Mr. Farrar has written short introductions to the example (or examples) of +the work of each poet. In his general preface he says: + +"Where most anthologies of poetry are collected for the purpose of giving +pleasure by means of the verses themselves, I have tried here to give you +something of the joy to be found in securing manuscripts, in attempting to +understand current poetry by a broadening of taste to match broadening +literary tendencies; and, perhaps most important of all, to present you to +the poets themselves as I know them by actual meeting or correspondence." + +I will choose what Mr. Farrar says about Hilda Conkling, prefacing her +poem "Lonely Song"; and then I will quote the poem: + +"A shy, but normal little girl, twelve years old now, nine when her first +volume of verses appeared, Hilda Conkling is not so much the infant +prodigy as a clear proof that the child mind, before the precious spark is +destroyed, possesses both vision and the ability to express it in natural +and beautiful rhythm. Grace Hazard Conkling, herself a poet, is Hilda's +mother. They live at Northampton, Massachusetts, in the academic +atmosphere of Smith College where those who know the little girl say that +she enjoys sliding down a cellar stairway quite as much as she does +talking of elves and gnomes. She was born in New York State, so that she +is distinctly of the East. The rhythms which she uses to express her ideas +are the result both of her own moods, which are often crystal-clear in +their delicate imagery, and of the fact that from time to time, when she +was first able to listen, her mother read aloud to her. In fact, her first +poems were made before she, herself, could write them down. The +speculation as to what she will do when she grows to womanhood is a common +one. Is it important? A childhood filled with beauty is something to have +achieved." + + Bend low, blue sky, + Touch my forehead; + You look cool ... bend down ... + + Flow about me in your blueness and coolness, + Be thistledown, be flowers, + Be all the songs I have not yet sung. + + Laugh at me, sky! + Put a cap of cloud on my head ... + Blow it off with your blue winds; + Give me a feeling of your laughter + Beyond cloud and wind! + I need to have you laugh at me + As though you liked me a little. + +This has been, as I meant it to be, a wholly serious chapter; but at the +end I find I cannot stop without speaking of Keith Preston. No one who +reads the Chicago Daily News fails to know Keith Preston's delightful +humour and "needle-tipped satire." And his book, _Splinters_, contains all +sorts of good things of which I can give you, alas, only some inadequate +(because solitary) sample. Yet, anyway, here is his "Ode to Common +Sense": + + Spirit or demon, Common Sense! + Seen seldom by us mortals dense, + Come, sprite, inform, inhabit me + And teach me art and poetry. + + Teach me to chuckle, sly as you, + At gods that now I truckle to, + To doubt the New Republic's bent, + And jeer each bookish Supplement. + + Now, like a thief, you come and flit, + You call so seldom, Mother Wit! + Remember? Once when you stood by + I found a Dreiser novel dry. + + One day when I was reading hard-- + What? Amy Lowell, godlike bard! + You peeped and then at what you saw + Gave one Gargantuan guffaw. + + Spirit or demon, coarse or rude, + (Sometimes I think you must be stewed) + Brute that you are, I love your powers, + But,--drop in after office hours! + + Yes, Common Sense, be mine, I ask, + But still respect my critic's task; + Molest me not when I'm employed + With psychics, sex, vers libre, or Freud. + +=ii= + +The matter of playwrights is much more difficult than that of poets! A +play cannot, as a rule, be satisfactorily quoted from. In the case of a +play which is to be staged there are terrible objections (on the part of +the producer) to any excerpts at all appearing in advance. The publication +of the text of a play is hedged about by all manner of difficulties, +copyrights, warnings and solemn notifications. As I write, it is expected +that A. H. Woods, the producer of plays, will stage at the Times Square +Theatre, New York, probably in September, 1922, the new play by W. +Somerset Maugham, _East of Suez_. Pauline Frederick is expected to assume +the principal rôle. Mr. Maugham's play will be published when it has been +produced, or, if the theatre plans suffer one of those changes to which +all theatres are subject, will be published anyhow! Shall we say that the +setting is Chinese, and that the characters are Europeans, and that Mr. +Maugham has again shown his peculiar skill in the delineation of the white +man in contact with an alien civilisation? We shall say so. And--never +mind! A sure production of the play for the Fireside Theatre is hereby +guaranteed. The Fireside Theatre, blessed institution, has certain merits. +The actors are always ideal and the performance always begins on time, as +a letter to the New York Times has pointed out. + +Arnold Bennett has written a lot of plays; _The Love Match_ is merely the +latest of them. If I cannot very well quote a scene from _The Love +Match_,--on the grounds of length and possible unintelligibility apart +from the rest of the drama--I can give you, I think, an idea of the wit of +the dialogue: + +RUSS (_with calm and disdainful resentment_). You're angry with me now. + +NINA (_hurt_). Indeed I'm not. Why should I be angry? Do you suppose I +mind who sends you flowers? + +RUSS. No, I don't. That's not the reason. You're angry with me because you +came in here tonight, after saying positively you wouldn't come, and I +didn't happen to be waiting for you. + +NINA. Hugh, you're ridiculous. + +RUSS. Of course I am. That's not the reason. You took me against my will +to that footling hospital ball last night, and I only got three hours' +sleep instead of six, and you're angry with me because I yawned after you +kissed me. + +NINA. You're too utterly absurd! + +RUSS. Of course I am. That's not the reason, either. The real reason is +(_firmly_) you're angry with me because you clean forgot it was my +birthday today. That's why you're angry with me. + +NINA. Well, I think you might have reminded me.... + +NINA. I like sitting on the carpet. + +(_She reclines at his feet._) I wonder why women nowadays are so fond of +the floor. + +RUSS. Because they're oriental, of course. + +NINA. But I'm not oriental, Hughie! (_Looking at him with loving +passion._) Am I? + +RUSS. That's the Eastern question. + +NINA. But you like it, don't you? + +RUSS. Every man has a private longing to live in the East. + +NINA. But not harems and things? + +RUSS. Well--within reason.... + +NINA. What do you think of me? I'm always dying to know, and I'm never +sure. + +RUSS. What do you think of _me_? + +NINA. I think you're magnificent and terrible and ruthless. + +RUSS (_with amicable sincerity_). Oh, no, I'm not. But you are. + +NINA. How? When? When was I ruthless last? + +RUSS. You're always ruthless in your appetite for life. You want to taste +everything, enjoy all the sensations there are. This evening you like +intensely to sit very quiet on the floor; but last night you were mad +about dancing and eating and drinking. You couldn't be still. Tomorrow +night it'll be something else. There's no end to what you want, and what +you want tremendously, and what you've jolly well got to have. You aren't +a woman. You're a hundred women. + +NINA. Oh! Hughie. How well you understand! + +RUSS. Yes, don't I? + +NINA (_tenderly_). Do I make you very unhappy? Hughie, you mustn't tell me +I make you unhappy. I couldn't bear it. + +RUSS. Then I won't. + +NINA. But do I? + +RUSS. Let's say you cause a certain amount of disturbance sometimes. + +NINA. But you like me to be as I am, don't you? + +RUSS. Yes. + +NINA. You wouldn't have me altered? + +RUSS. Can't alter a climate. + +NINA. You don't know how much I want to be perfect for you. + +RUSS. You know my ruthless rule, "The best is good enough; chuck +everything else into the street." Have I ever, on any single occasion, +chucked you into the street? + +NINA. But I want to be more perfect. + +RUSS. Why do women always hanker after the impossible? + +J. Hartley Manners is the husband of Laurette Taylor and the author of +plays in some of which she appears. His drama _The Harp of Life_ has as +its theme the love of two women, his mother and a courtesan, for a +nineteen-year-old boy, and their willing self-sacrifice that he may go +forward unbroken and unsmirched. The interesting thing, aside from the +strength of the play and its vivid study of adolescence, is the portrait +of the mother. And now his play, _The National Anthem_, which caused so +much discussion, is procurable in book form. + +Here I have been talking about _East of Suez_ and _The Love Match_ and +have said nothing about _The Circle_ or _Milestones_! But I suppose +everyone knows that _The Circle_ is by Maugham and was markedly successful +when it was produced in New York; and surely everyone must know that +_Milestones_ is by Arnold Bennett and Edward Knoblauch--one of the great +plays of the last quarter century. I must take a moment to speak of Sidney +Howard's four act play, _Swords_. I think the best thing to do is to give +what Kenneth Macgowan, an exceptionally able critic of the drama, said +about the play: + +"_Swords_ is as remarkable a play as America has ever produced. It is a +drama of action on a par with _The Jest_, fused with the ecstasy of +inspiration and the mysticism of the spirit and the body of woman. It sets +Ghibelline and Guelph, Pope and Emperor, two nobles and a dog of the +gutters fighting for a lady of strange and extraordinary beauty who is the +bride of one noble and the hostage of the other. With the passions, the +cruelties, and spiritual vision of the middle ages to build upon _Swords_ +sweeps upward to a scene of sudden, flashing conflict shot with the mystic +and triumphant ecstasy which emanates from this glorious woman." + +American lovers of the drama have a special interest in the two volumes of +_The Plays of Hubert Henry Davies._ At the time of his first success Mr. +Davies was working in San Francisco, whither he had come from England. It +was Frohman who made him an offer that brought him to New York and began +the series of productions which ended only with his death in 1917 in +Paris. These two volumes, very beautiful examples of fine bookmaking, +contain the successes: _Cousin Kate_, _Captain Drew on Leave_, and _The +Mollusc_. Among the other plays included are: _A Single Man_, _Doormats_, +_Outcasts_, _Mrs. Gorringe's Necklace_, and _Lady Epping's Lawsuit_. Hugh +Walpole has contributed a very touching introduction. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE BOOKMAN FOUNDATION AND THE BOOKMAN + + +"Thank you very much for the May Bookman," writes Hugh Walpole (June, +1922). "I have been reading The Bookman during the last year and I +congratulate Mr. Farrar most strongly upon it. The paper has now a +personality unlike any other that I know and it is the least dull of all +literary papers! I like especially the more serious articles, the series +of sketches of literary personalities seeming especially excellent to me." +Mr. Walpole evidently had in mind the feature of The Bookman called "The +Literary Spotlight." + +"The Bookman is alive. If there is a better quality in the long run for a +general literary magazine to try for, I do not know what it is," writes +Carl Van Doren, literary editor of The Nation. + +"Mr. Farrar has turned The Bookman into a monthly brimming with his own +creative enthusiasm," says Louis Untermeyer. "It has technically as well +as figuratively no rival." + +And Irvin S. Cobb declares: "By my way of thinking, it is the most +informative, the most entertaining, and incidentally the brightest and +most amusing publication devoted to literature and its products that I +have ever seen." + +=ii= + +The idea of The Bookman Foundation first occurred in a discussion of the +future of the magazine and the ampler purposes it was desired to have The +Bookman serve. The idea had been advanced that more than the future of the +magazine should be considered; those to whom the welfare of the magazine +was a most important consideration distinctly felt that welfare to depend +upon a healthy and thriving condition of American literature and of +American interest in American literature. The broadest possible view, as +is so often the case, seemed the only ultimately profitable view. In what +way could The Bookman serve the interests of American literature in which +it was not already serving them? How could public interest in American +literature best be stimulated? + +The idea gradually took shape as a form of foundation, naturally to be +called The Bookman Foundation, with a double purpose. Fundamentally The +Bookman Foundation is being established to stimulate the study of American +literature and its development; more immediately, and as the direct means +to that end, the purpose of the Foundation will be to afford a vehicle for +the best constructive criticism, spoken and written, on the beginnings and +development of our literature. In association with the faculty of English +at one of the larger and older American universities, Yale, the Foundation +will establish a lectureship; and annually there will be given at Yale a +lecture or a course of lectures on American literature by some +distinguished writer or critic. It is hoped that, as the Foundation grows, +other universities will be brought into co-operation with Yale so that the +lectureship may move from centre to centre, stimulating to intelligent +self-expression the varied elements that are contributing to our national +growth. + +The lectures given on The Bookman Foundation will be published in book +form by The Bookman in a handsome and uniform edition. Membership in The +Bookman Foundation will be by invitation. All members of the Foundation +will be entitled to receive the published lectures without charge and they +will also have the privilege of subscribing for certain first and limited +editions of notable American books. At the present writing, even so much +as I have suggested is largely tentative, and I offer it for its essential +idea; an executive committee of The Bookman Foundation, in co-operation +with an advisory committee, the members of which committees have +yet to be finally determined, will settle all details. By the time of this +book's publication or even sooner, I expect a full announcement will have +been made; and for the correction of what I have stated I would refer the +reader to The Bookman itself. + +=iii= + +I am not going to give a historical account of The Bookman here. The +magazine is no newcomer among American periodicals. It has a reasonably +old and highly honourable history. For long published by the house of +Dodd, Mead & Company, it was acquired by George H. Doran Company and +placed under the editorial direction of Robert Cortes Holliday. That was +the beginning of a new vitality in its pages. Mr. Holliday was succeeded +by Mr. Farrar, and now, in its fifty-sixth volume, The Bookman seems to +the thousands who read it more interesting than ever before in its +history. + +The roll call of its past and present contributors includes many of the +representative names in contemporary American and English literature. I +will give a few: + + JOSEPH HERGESHEIMER + AMY LOWELL + SIEGFRIED SASSOON + JAMES BRANCH CABELL + MARY ROBERTS RINEHART + ZONA GALE + FANNIE HURST + WILLIAM MCFEE + SHERWOOD ANDERSON + HUGH WALPOLE + FRANK SWINNERTON + ROBERT FROST + SARA TEASDALE + IRVIN S. COBB + RICHARD LE GALLIENNE + DONN BYRNE + CHRISTOPHER MORLEY + ROBERT CORTES HOLLIDAY + JOHAN BOJER + WILLIAM ROSE BENÉT + EDGAR LEE MASTERS + KATHLEEN NORRIS + FREDERICK O'BRIEN + D. H. LAWRENCE + JOHN DRINKWATER + JOSEPH C. LINCOLN + GEORGE JEAN NATHAN + WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE + CARL SANDBURG + SINCLAIR LEWIS + F. SCOTT FITZGERALD + EUGENE O'NEILL + H. L. MENCKEN + JOHN DOS PASSOS + ELINOR WYLIE + GERTRUDE ATHERTON + FLOYD DELL + +=iv= + +Among the American essayists whose work has appeared in The Bookman before +its publication in book form is Robert Cortes Holliday; among strikingly +successful books that appeared serially in The Bookman was Donald Ogden +Stewart's _A Parody Outline of History_. Among The Bookman's regular +reviewers are Louis Untermeyer, Wilson Follett, Paul Elmer More, H. L. +Mencken, Henry Seidel Canby and Maurice Francis Egan. Among writers of +distinction whose short stories have first appeared in The Bookman are +William McFee, Sherwood Anderson, Mary Austin, and Johan Bojer; while the +intimate personal portraits published under the general title "The +Literary Spotlight" have Lytton Stracheyized contemporary American +literature. Possibly it is in the department of poetry that The Bookman +now shines the brightest (see the account of The Bookman Anthology in the +previous chapter); if so, that may be because the editor, John Farrar, is +himself a poet. + +Probably no other literary magazine in the world exhibits such a degree of +personal contact between the editor, his readers, his contributors and the +magazine's friends. This note of personal contact is constantly reflected +in the magazine's pages; but anyone who has called upon the editor of The +Bookman once or twice will know explicitly just what I mean. + + + + +EPILOGUE + + +I have been surprised, on looking back over these chapters, by the variety +of the books I have talked about. That so diverse a list should be under a +single imprint and should represent, with few exceptions, the publications +of a single twelvemonth, seems to me very remarkable. I believe a majority +of the books are the production of a single publishing season, the autumn +of 1922, and the Doran imprint is but thirteen years old. + +"Of the making of books, there is no end"; but of the making of any single +book, there must come an end. Yet what is the end of a book but the +beginning of new friendships? + +THE END + + + + +INDEX + + +Agate, James E., 49; + _Alarums and Excursions_, 49; + dramatic critic, 50; + _Responsibility_, 50; + review by The Londoner, in The Bookman, 50 + +_Alarums and Excursions_ by James E. Agate, 49 + +_Alone in the Caribbean_, by Frederic A. Fenger, 194 + +_Altar Steps, The_, by Compton Mackenzie, 265, 266 + +_Amazing Adventures of Letitia Carberry, The_, + by Mary Roberts Rinehart, 108, 115, 116 + +_Amazing Interlude, The_, by Mary Roberts Rinehart, 105, 115, 116 + +Andrews, C. E., _Old Morocco and the Forbidden Atlas_, 193 + +_Ann and Her Mother_, by O. Douglas, 249 + +_Anna of the Five Towns_, by Arnold Bennett, 146, 149 + +_Art of Lawn Tennis_, The, by William T. Tilden, 213 + +Asquith, Elizabeth (Princess Antoine Bibesco), + daughter of Margot Asquith, 47 + +Asquith, Margot, 89; + mother of Elizabeth, 47; + _My Impressions of America_, 122; + _The Autobiography of Margot Asquith_, 122 + +_Autobiography of Margot Asquith_, The, by Margot Asquith, 122 + +Bailey, Margaret Emerson, _Robin Hood's Barn_, 194 + +_Balloons_, by Princess Antoine Bibesco, 47 + +Banning, Margaret Culkin, _Half Loaves_, 253; + _Spellbinders_, 252; + _This Marrying_, 253 + +Barton, Olive Roberts, _Cloud Boat Stories,_ 162; + Column, 162; + review by Candace T. Stevenson, 162-164; + sister of Mary Roberts Rinehart, 161; + _Wonderful Land of Up_, 162; + work with children, 161 + +_Beauty for Ashes_, by Jean Sutherland, 262 + +Belloc, Hilaire, 23, 77 + +Benét, William Rose, _Moons of Grandeur_, 354, 355; + review by Don Marquis, 354, 355; + Benét, William Rose, _The First Person Singular_, 262, 263, 354 + +Bennett, Arnold 133, 134, 144, 145, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151; + A _Man from the North_, 146, 149; + _Anna of the Five Towns_, 146, 149; + article on Hugh Walpole, 22, 23; + booklet by George H. Doran Co., 150; + books by, list of, 149, 150; + _Clayhanger_, 148, 149; + comments of Frank Swinnerton's Books, 225; + comments on _The Casement_, by Frank Swinnerton, 236-242; + criticism by New York Evening Post, 148; + _Cupid and Commonsense_, 133, 150; + description of Hugh Walpole, 22; + _Friendship and Happiness_, 303; + _How to Live on Twenty-four Hours a Day_, 303; + _Lilian_, 133; + _Love and Life_, 146; + _Married Life_, 303; + _Mental Efficiency_, 303; + _Milestones_ (with Edward Knoblauch), 364; + _Mr. Prohack_, 133, 141, 149; + on Hugh Walpole's courage, 25; + _Polite Farces_, 146; + _Self and Self-Management_, 303; + sketch of life by John W. Cunliffe, 144-148, 150; + sources on, 150; + _The Author's Craft_, 150; + education of, 145; + _The Gates of Wrath_, 146, 149; + _The Love Match_, 361, 364; + _The Old Wives' Tale_, 133, 149; + _The Truth About an Author_, 144, 150 + +Benson, E. F., _Peter_, 261 + +_Between Two Thieves_, by Richard Dehan (Clotilde Graves), 198, 200, 210 + +Bibesco, Princess Antoine (Elizabeth Asquith), 47; + _Balloons_, 47; + _I Have Only Myself to Blame_, 47 + +_Birds and Other Poems, The_, by J. C. Squire, 351; + Quotation from, 351 + +_Black Gang, The_, by Cyril McNeile, 70 + +_Black Cæsar's Clan_, by Albert Payson Terhune, 71 + +_Black Gold_, by Albert Payson Terhune, 71; + Foreword to, by Albert Payson Terhune, 71-74 + +Blaker, Richard, _The Voice in the Wilderness_, 263 + +Bookman, The; + articles by Robert Cortes Holliday, 221; + Comment on Richard Dehan, 198, 211; + Comments on by Hugh Walpole, Carl Van Doren, Irvin S. Cobb, + Louis Untermeyer, 367; + List of contributors, 370, 371; + List of Reviewers, 371 + +_Book of Humorous Verse_, by Carolyn Wells, 99 + +_Bookman Anthology of Verse_ (1922), 356; + Contributors, 356, 357 + +_Bookman Foundation, The_, 367, 368; + lectures on, 368 + +_Books in General, Third Series_, by J. C. Squire, 44 + +Bottome, Phyllis (Mrs. A. E. Forbes Dennis), 258; + Acquaintances, 259; + _The Kingfisher_, 260 + +_Boy Journalist Series_, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler, 159, 161 + +_Breaking Point, The_, by Mary Roberts Rinehart, 105; + résumé of, 105-7, 117 + +_Broome Street Straws_, by Robert Cortes Holliday, 52 + +Broun, Heywood, 40; + columnist, _Pieces of Hate_ and _Other Enthusiasms_, 41; + Subjects touched, 41, 42, 43 + +Buchan, John, The Path of the King, 249; + _The Thirty-nine Steps_ + +Buckrose, J. E. (Mrs. Falconer Jameson), _A Knight Among Ladies_, 251 + +_Bulldog Drummond_, by Cyril McNeile, 70 + +Burke, Thomas, 187, 189, 190; + More Limehouse Nights, 187; + _Nights in London_, 190; + Reasons given for his characters, 187, 188, 189; + _The London Spy_, 189 + +Byron, May, _Billy Butt's Adventure_, 153; + _Jack-a-Dandy_, 153; + _Little Jumping Joan_, 153; + _Old Friends in New Frocks_, 153 + +_Candles that Burn_, by Mrs. Kilmer + +_Captives, The_, by Hugh Walpole, 24, 27, 30, 31; + won Tait Black Prize, 1920, 30 + +_Carnival_, by Compton Mackenzie, 265 + +_Casement, The_, by Frank Swinnerton, 236, 242 + +_Cathedral, The_, by Hugh Walpole, 19, 31; + at Polchester, 19; + review of, 19 + +_Century of Banking in New York, 1822-1922, A_, by Henry Wysham +Lanier, 193 + +Chambers, Robert W., article on, by Rupert Hughes, 320; + Eris, 311, 317, 320; + _In the Quarter_, 317, 318; Iole, 318, 319; + list of books by, 318, 319, 320; + Sources On, 320; Story-teller, 308; + _The Flaming Jewel_, 311, 320; + _The King in Yellow,_ 317, 318; + _The Talkers_, 317, 320; + _The Witch of Ellangowan_, 318; + _With the Band_ (poem), 317 + +_Chaste Wife, The_, by Frank Swinnerton, 226, 243 + +Chinese Metal, by E. G. Kemp, 190; + comment by Sao-Ke Alfred Sze, 191 + +_Circle, The_, by W. Somerset Maugham, 289, 292, 364 + +_Circuit Rider's Wife, A_, by Corra Harris, 257 + +_Circular Staircase, The_, by Mary Roberts Rinehart, 110, 114, 116 + +_Claim Jumpers, The_, by Stewart Edward White, 55, 63, 66 + +_Clayhanger_, by Arnold Bennett, 148, 149 + +_Cloud Boat Stories_, by Olive Roberts Barton, 162 + +Cobb, Irvin S., 89, 241; + _An Occurrence up a Side Street_, 176, 180; + as a humorist, 179; + at Portsmouth Peace Conference, 177, 178; + biography by Robert H. Davis, 172-183, 186; + books by, 184; + comments on The Bookman, 367; + description of self, 182, 183; + dimensions of, 166; + editorial work, 175, 176; + Fishhead, 176, 180; + _J. Poindexter, Colored_, 169, 185; + lecture by Gelett Burgess, 179; + Plays by, 185; + report of Thaw Trial, 178; + Sources on, 186; + _Stickfuls_, 169, 185; + _The Belled Buzzard_, 176, 180; + _The Escape of Mr. Trimm_, 178, 180, 184 + +Collected Parodies, by J. C. Squire, 98; + Selections, 98, 99 + +Coming of the Peoples, The, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler, 161 + +_Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman, The_, + by Stephen McKenna, 337, 344, 346; + + Quotations from London Times, 337-339; + Sample of, 344, 345 + +Conjurors House, by Stewart Edward White, 66 + +Conkling, Hilda, 356 + +Connor, Ralph, 264 + +Conrad, Joseph, A Critical Study of Walpole, 31; + experiences similar, 25; + introductory note to _Anthology_, 28 + +_Cooperative Movement_, by Dr. James B. Warbasse, 300 + +_Coquette_, by Frank Swinnerton, 226, 243 + +_Creative Spirit in Industry, The_, by Robert B. Wolf, 300 + +_Crisis of the Naval War_, by Viscount Jellicoe of Scapa, 329; + review of, in Proceedings of the United States Naval + Institute, 329, 330, 331 + +_Crome Yellow_, by Aldous Huxley, 34 + +Cummins, Col. Stevenson Lyle, in Who's Who, 156, 157; + _Plays for Children_, 157 + +_Cupid and Commonsense_, by Arnold Bennett, 133, 150 + +Dana, H. W. L., 297; _Social Forces in Literature_, 300 + +_Dancers in the Dark_, by Dorothy Speare, 255, 256 + +Daniels, Josephus, _Our Navy at War_, 321, 322 + +_Dark Forest, The_, by Hugh, Walpole, 16, 28, 31 + +Davey, Norman, 36, 37; + Guinea Girl, 36, 37; + The Gas Turbine, 37; + _The Pilgrim of a Smile_, 36 + +Davies, Hubert Henry, Plays of, _A Single Man_, 365; + _Captain Drew on Leave_, 365; + _Cousin Kate_, 365; + _Doormats_, 365; + _Lady Epping's Law Suit_, 365; + _Mrs. Gorringe's Necklace_, 365; + _Outcasts_, 365; + _The Mollusc_, 365 + +Davis, Robert H., 186; + biographer of Irvin S. Cobb, 172, 186; + Box Score of Writers, 183 + +_Days Before Yesterday_, by Lord Frederic Hamilton, 131 + +de Staël, Madame, 128 + +"Death of Lully," in Limbo, by Aldous Huxley, 36 + +_Deaves Affair_, The, by Hulbert Footner, 75 + +_December Love_, by Robert Hichins, 249 + +Dehan, Richard (Clotilde Graves), 196, 197, 199, 200, 201, 204, 209, + 210, 211; + _Between Two Thieves_, 198, 200, 210; + books by, 210; + Comment by The Bookman, 198; + sources on, 211; + _That Which Hath Wings_, 200, 210; + _The Dop Doctor_, 196, 200, 210; + _The Eve of Pascua_, 201, 210; + _The Just Steward_, 201, 202, 203, 205, 206, 207, 208, 210 + +Denham, Sir James, _Memoirs of the Memorable_, 119 + +Dennis, Mrs. A. E. Forbes, see Phyllis Bottome, 258 + +Dircks, Helen, _Passenger_, 236 + +Djemal Pasha, _Memoirs of_, 122 + +_Doors of the Night_, by Frank L. Packard, 68, 69 + +_Dop Doctor, The_, by Richard Dehan (Clotilde Graves), 196, 200, 210 + +Dos Passes, John, 356; + _A Pushcart at the Curb_, 347; + _de Unamuno, Miguel_, 39; + _Manrique, Jorge, Ode_, 39; + _Rosinante to The Road Again_, 38, 347; + _Three Soldiers_, 347 + +Douglas, O., 249; + _Ann and Her Mother_, 249; + _Penny Plain_, 249; + Sister of John Buchan, 249 + +Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan, 115; + _Spiritualism and Rationalism_, 302; + _The New Revelation_, 302; + _The Vital Message_, 302; + _The Wanderings of a Spiritualist_, 302 + +Dreiser, Theodore, review of Human Bondage, in New Republic, 273-277 + +_Duchess of Wrexe, The_, by Hugh Walpole, 19, 31 + +_Earth's Story, The_, by Frederic Arnold Kummer, 155 + +_East of Suez_, by W. Somerset Maugham, 284, 292, 360 + +_Education of Eric Law, The_, see _The Sensationalists_, + by Stephen McKenna, 342, 346 + +Ellis, Havelock, _Little Essays of Love and Virtue_, 302; + _Emperor Francis Joseph and His Times, The_, by Baron Margutti, 130 + +_English Literature During the Last Half Century_, + by John W. Cunliffe, 144, 150 + +_Eris_, by Robert W. Chambers, 311, 317, 320; + from extracts, 311-316, 320 + +_Escape of Mr. Trimm, The_, by Irvin S. Cobb, 178, 180, 184 + +_Essays on Religion_, by T. R. Glover, 305 + +_Eve of Pascua_, The, by Richard Dehan (Clotilde Graves), 201, 210 + +_Eyes of Love, The_, by Corra Harris, 257; + extract from, 257-8 + +_Facing Reality_, by Esme Wingfield-Stratford, 300; + Chapter titles, 300; + introduction, extracts from, 300, 301 + +_Fairies and Chimneys_, by Rose Fyleman, 158; + Quotation from, 158 + +_Fairy Flute, The_, by Rose Fyleman, 158 + +Farnsworth, Sidney, _Illumination and Its Development in the + Present Day_, 223 + +Farrar, John, Editor of The Bookman, 94, 357; + poet, 371; + Editor, see The Bookman, 371 + +Fenger, Frederic A., _Alone in the Caribbean_, 194 + +_First Days of Man, The_, by Frederic Arnold Kummer, 155, 156 + +_First Person Singular, The_, by William Rose Benét, 262, 263, 354 + +_Flaming Jewel, The_, by Robert W. Chambers, 311, 320 + +Follett, Wilson, comparisons, 52; + Reviewer The Bookman, 371; + _Some Modern Novelists_, 150 + +Footner, Hulbert, _The Deaves Affair_, 75; + _The Owl Taxi_, 74, 75 + +Forbes, Lady Angela, _Memories and Base Details_, 130; + _Memories Discreet and Indiscreet_, 130; + _More Indiscretions_, 129 + +Forbes, Rosita, _The Secret of the Sahara: Kufara_, 192 + +_Fortitude_, by Hugh Walpole, 21, 23, 27, 31; + theme of, 21, 31 + +_Forty Years On_, by Lord Ernest Hamilton, 132 + +"Frankincense and Myrrh," from _Pieces of Hate_, + by Heywood Broun, 41, 42, 43 + +_From Now On_, by Frank L. Packard, 68, 69 + +_Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale, The_, by Frank L. Packard, 68, 69 + +_Further Adventures of Lad_, by Albert Payson Terhune, 215; + extracts from, 216 + +Fyleman, Rose, Fairies and Chimneys, 158; + _The Fairy Flute_, 158 + +Gabriel, Gilbert W., 53; + Jiminy, novel by, 53; + music critic, N. Y. Sun, 53; + Novelist, 53; + substitute for Don Marquis, 54 + +_Gates of Wrath, The_, by Arnold Bennett, 146, 149 + +Gavit, John Palmer, account of Stewart Edward White, 65, 66, 67 + +Geister, Edna, _Ice-breakers and the Ice-Breaker Herself_, 219; + _It Is to Laugh_, 219 + +_Gist of Golf, The_, by Harry Vardon, 213 + +_Giving and Receiving_, by E. V. Lucas, 307 + +Glover, T. R., _Essays on Religion_, 305; + _Jesus in the Experience of Man_, 305; + _Poets and Pilgrims_, 305; + _Poets and Puritans,_ 305; + _The Jesus of History_, 305; + _The Nature and Purpose of a Christian Society_, 305; + _The Pilgrim_, 305 + +_Gods and Mr. Perrin, The_, by Hugh Walpole, 22, 27, 31 + +_Gold_, by Stewart Edward White, 61, 67 + +_Golden Scarecrow, The_, 15, 27, 31 + +_Gold-Killer_, by John Prosper, 75 + +_Grand Fleet, The_, by Viscount Jellicoe of Scapa, 329 + +Graves, Clotilde (Richard Dehan), 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 204, + 209, 210, 211; + _A Mother of Three_, 199, 210; + _Nitocris_, 199, 210; + _Puss in Boots_, 199 + +_Green Mirror, The_, by Hugh Walpole, 19, 27, 31 + +"Greenow, Richard," of _Limbo_, by Aldous Huxley, 36 + +_Guinea Girl_, by Norman Davey, 36, 37 + +Guest, Leslie Haden, _The Struggle for Power in Europe_ (1917-21), 323, 324 + +Haggard, Andrew C. P., _Madame de Staël; Her Trials and Triumphs_, 129 + +_Half Loaves_, by Margaret Culkin Banning, 253 + +Hambourg, Mark, _How to Play the Piano_, 219, 220 + +Hamilton, Lord Ernest, Forty Years On, 131 + +Hamilton, Lord Frederic, Days Before Yesterday, 131; + Diplomatic Services, 131; + Education, 131; + _Here, There and Everywhere_, 131; + _The Vanished Pomps of Yesterday_, 131 + +"Happy Families," in _Limbo_, by Aldous Huxley, 36 + +_Happy Family, The_, by Frank Swinnerton, 226, 238, 242 + +Harcourt, Edward Vernon, 118 + +Harcourt, Sir William, _George Granville Venables Vernon, Life of_, 118 + +"Harlequin," from _The Birds and Other Poems_, by J. C. Squire, 351, 352 + +_Harp of Life, The_, by J. Hartley Manners, 363 + +Harris, Corra, 257, 264; + _A Circuit Rider's Wife_, 257; + _The Eyes of Love_, 257 + +Harrison, Marguerite E., _Marooned in Russia_, 192 + +Hawthorne, Nathaniel, _A Wonder Book_, 165; + _The Scarlet Letter_, 327, 328 + +Hayhurst, Dr. Emery, _Labour and Health_, 209 + +Henry, Alice, _Women and the Labour Movement_, 299 + +_Here, There and Everywhere_, by Lord Frederic Hamilton, 131 + +Herford, Oliver, _Neither Here Nor There_, 95 + +Hergesheimer, Joseph, Appreciation of Hugh Walpole, 15, 29, 30, 31 + +Herm, home of Compton Mackenzie, 267 + +_Herman Melville: Mariner and Mystic_, by Raymond W. Weaver, 325; + review by Carl Van Vechten, 325-328 + +_Hermit of Far End, The_, by Margaret Pedler, 256 + +Heroes of the Ruins, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler, 160 + +Heterogeneous Magis of Maugham, The, 270 + +Hichins, Robert, _The Garden of Allah_, 249; + _December Love_, 249 + +_History of Sea Power, A_, by William O. Stevens and Allan Westcott, 331; + Admiral Caspar F. Goodrich, review of, in The Weekly Review, 331-333; + Extracts from, 332, 333 + +Holliday, Robert Cortes, 52; + business connections, 221; + _Broome Street Straws_, 52; + editor of The Bookman, 369; + Memoirs in _Joyce Kilmer, Poems, Essays and Letters_, 53; + _Men and Books and Cities_, 52; + _Peeps at People_, 52; + praise by James Hunecker, 52; + Study of Booth Tarkington, 53; + _Turns About Town_, 52; + _Walking Stick Papers_, 51; + _Writing as a Business; A Practical Guide for Authors_, 220 + +Houghton, Mrs. Hadwin, See Wells, Carolyn + +_House of Dreams Come True, The_, by Margaret Pedler, 256 + +House of Five Swords, The, by Tristram Tupper, 247, 248 + +"Houses" from _Main Street and other Poems_, by Joyce Kilmer, 349, 350 + +_How to Live on Twenty-four Hours a Day_, by Arnold Bennett, 303 + +_How to Play the Piano_, by Mark Hambourg, 219, 220 + +Howard, Sidney, Swords, 364 + +Hughes, Rupert, article on Robert W. Chambers, 320; + on Robert W. Chambers, 311 + +_Hugh Walpole Anthology, A_, by Hugh Walpole, 27, 32; + divisions of, 27; + Country Places, 27; + London, 27; + Men and Women, 27; + Russia, 27; + Some Children, 27; + Some Incidents, 27 + +_Hunting Hidden Treasure in the Andes_, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler, 159 + +Huxley, Aldous, 34, 35, 36; + Beauty, 36; + Comment by Michael Sadlier, 34; + Crome Yellow, 34; + Disciple of Laforgue, 35; + L'Apres-Midi-d'un Faune, translation by, 35; + _Limbo_, 34, 36; + Mortal Coils, 34, 35; + "Permutation among the Nightingales," play by, 35; + poet and writer of prose, 35; + Quotations from _Mortal Coils,_ 35; + Splendour, by Numbers, 36; + the sensualist, 36; + Translator of Laforgue, 35; + translation of _The Walk_, 35 + +_I Have Only Myself to Blame_, by Princess Bibesco, 47; + extract from, 47, 48, 49 + +_Ice-breakers and the Ice-Breaker Herself_, by Edna Geister, 219 + +_Illumination and Its Development in the Present Day_, + by Sidney Farnsworth, 223 + +_Imprudence_, by F. E. Mills Young, 263 + +_In the Days Before Columbus_, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler, 160 + +_In the Quarter_, by Robert W. Chambers, 317, 318 + +_Iole_, by Robert W. Chambers, 318, 319 + +_Irish Free State, The_, by Albert C. White, 191; Book Value, 192 + +Isn't That Just Like a Man: Oh, Well, You Know How Women Are! 89 + +_It Is to Laugh_, by Edna Geister, 219 + +Jacks, L. P., editor of Hibbert Journal, 195; + _The Legends of Smokeover_, 194 + +Jameson, Mrs. Falconer, see J. E. Buckrose + +Jellicoe, Viscount, of Scapa, _The Crisis of the Naval War_, 329; + _The Grand Fleet_, 329 + +_Jimmy Dale and the Phantom Clue_, by Frank L. Packard, 69 + +_Joining in Public Discussion_, by Alfred Dwight Sheffield, 297; + sections of, 299 + +_Judge, The_, by Rebecca West, 78; + dedication and review, 84, 85, 86; + extract from, 81, 82; + material employed, 82, 83 + +_Judgment of Charis, The_, by Mrs. Baillie Reynolds, 76 + +_Just Steward, The_, by Richard Dehan (Clotilde Graves), 201; + samples from, 201-203, 205, 206, 207, 208, 210 + +_Jungle Tales, Adventures in India_, by Howard Anderson Musser, 156 + +_K_, by Mary Roberts Rinehart, +107, 108, 116 + +Kemp, E. G., _Chinese Mettle_, 190 + +Kerr, Sophie, 244; + Autobiography, 244-246; + editor Woman's Home Companion, 245; + _One Thing is Certain_, 246; + _Painted Meadows_, 246; + quotations from letter by, 246, 247 + +Kilmer, Joyce, Main Street and Other Poems, 349; + Poems, Essays and Letters, 53; + Memoirs, by Robert Cortes Holliday, 53; + Trees and Other Poems, 349 + +Kilmer, Mrs., _Candles That Burn_, 350; Vigils, 350 + +_Kingfisher, The_, by Phyllis Bottome, 260 + +_King in Yellow, The_, by Robert W. Chambers, 317, 318 + +_Knight Among Ladies_, A, by J. E. Buckrose, 251 + +Knight, Captain, C. W. R., _Wild Life in the Tree Tops_, 214 + +Kummer, Frederic Arnold, The Earth's Story, 155; + _The First Days of Man_, 155, 156 + +_Labour and Health_, by Dr. Emery Hayhurst, 299 + +_Lad: A Dog_, by Albert Payson Terhune, 214 + +_Lady Frederick_, by W. Somerset Maugham, 289, 291 + +_Lady Lilith_, by Stephen McKenna, 342, 343, 346; + Comments by author, 342, 343, 346 + +_Lamp of Fate, The_, by Margaret Pedler, 256 + +_Land of Footprints, The_, by Stewart Edward White, 55, 67 + +Lanier, Henry Wysham, _A Century of Banking in New York: 1822-1922_, 193 + +Lardner, Ring W., appreciation of Charles E. Van Loan, 212; + Sport, 212 + +_Laughter, Ltd._, by Nina Wilcox Putnam, 90 + +_Legends of Smokeover, The_, by L. P. Jacks, 194 + +_Life and Letters_, by J. C. Squire, 46 + +_Life of Sir William Vernon Harcourt, The_, 118 + +Lilian, by Arnold Bennett, 133, 137-141, 149; + extract from, 137-141, 149 + +_Limbo_, by Aldous Huxley, 34, 36; + Death of Lully, 36; + Happy Families, 36 + +Literary Spotlight, The; The Bookman, 371 + +_Little Essays of Love and Virtue_, +by Havelock Ellis, 302 + +_Little Jumping Joan_, by May Byron, 153 + +_Liza of Lambeth_, by W. Somerset Maugham, 286, 287, 291 + +Lloyd George, critical sketch, by E. T. Raymond, 121 + +Lodge, Sir Oliver, 115, 301 + +London Mercury, edited by J. C. Squire, 44, 46 + +_London Spy, The_, by Thomas Burke, 189 + +_Long Live the King_, by Mary Roberts Rinehart, 115, 116 + +_Love Match, The_, by Arnold Bennett, 361, 364; + Extracts from, 361-363 + +Lowndes, Mrs. Belloc, appreciation of Hugh Walpole, 23, 24; + _What Timmy Did_, 77 + +Lucas, E. V., _Giving and Receiving_, 307; + _Roving East and Roving West_, 307 + +Mackenzie, Compton, _Carnival_, 265; + _Plasher's Mead_, 265; + _Poor Relations_, 265; + Rich Relatives, 265; + Sinister Street, 265; + The Altar Steps, 265, 266, 269; + The Parson's Progress, 266; + visit by Simon Pure, 266-269 + +MacQuarrie, Hector, on W. Somerset Maugham, 277, 284, 290; + _Tahiti Days_, 270 + +_Madame de Staël; Her Trials and Triumphs_, + by Andrew C. P. Haggard, 124-129 + +_Main Street and Other Poems_, by Joyce Kilmer, 349 + +_Man from the North, A_, by Arnold Bennett, 146, 149 + +_Man in Lower Ten, The_, by Mary Roberts Rinehart, 114, 116 + +_Man in Ratcatcher, The_, by Cyril McNeile, 70 + +Manners, J. Hartley, _The Harp of Life_, 363 + +_Maradick at Forty_, by Hugh Walpole, 26, 31 + +Margutti, Baron von, _The Emperor Francis Joseph and His Times_, 130 + +_Marooned in Moscow_, by Marguerite E. Harrison, 192 + +_Married Life_, by Arnold Bennett, 303 + +Maugham W. Somerset, article by Hector MacQuarrie, 292; + books by, 291, 292; + _Caroline_, 289, 292; + East of Suez, 284, 292, 360; + education of, 286; + father of, 286; + wife of, 286; + _Lady Frederick_, 289, 291; + _Liza of Lambeth_, 286, 287, 291; + _Mrs. Craddock_, 287, 288, 291; + _Mrs. Dot_, 289, 291; + _Of Human Bondage_, 270, 273-77, 287, 291; + _On a Chinese Screen_, 284-285, 291; + playright, 288; + sources on, 292; + _The Circle_, 289, 292; + The heterogeneous magic of, 270; + _The Moon and Sixpence_, 270, 277, 278, 279, 284, 287, 291 + +McCormick, W. B., Army and Navy Journal, Editor of, 321; + Comment on Josephus Daniels _Our Navy at War_, 321, 322, 323 + +McFee, William, 371; + Extracts from preface to _Spindrift_, by Milton Raison, 352, 353 + +McKenna, Stephen, 334, 337, 338, 339, 340, 341, 342, 343, 345, 346; + _Between Two Worlds_, 341, 346; + Books by, 345, 346; + Comments on _Lady Lilith_, 342, 343; + education of, 340; + _Lady Lilith_, 342, 343, 346; + Leopold McKenna, father of, 340; + _Midas and Son_, 341, 346; + _Ninety-Six Hours' Leave_, 341, 346; + personality, 343; + _Sheila Intervenes_, 340, 345; + _Sonia_, 339, 340, 341, 342, 343, 346; + _Sonia Married_, 341, 342, 346; + Sources on, 346; + _The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman_, 337, 344, 346; + _The Education of Eric Lane_, 342, 346; + _The Reluctant Lover_, 340, 345; + _The Secret Victory_, 342, 346; + _The Sensationalists_, 341, 342; + _The Sixth Sense_, 340, 345; + _Translator of Poltinus_, 339; + war service, 340; + _While I Remember_, 324, 346 + +McNeile, Cyril, Bulldog Drummond, 70; + _The Black Gang_, 70; + _The Man in Ratcatcher_, 70 + +Melville, Herman, _Mardi_, 327; + _Moby Dick_, 327, 328; + _Omoo_, 326; + _Pierre_, 327; + _Typee_, 326 + +_Memoirs of Djemal Pasha, The_, 122 + +_Memoirs of the Memorable_, by Sir James Denham, 119; + Beaconsfield, Lord, 119; + Beresford, Lord Marcus, 119; + Bishop of London, 119; + Bishop of Manchester, 119; + Browning, Robert, 119; + Byron, Lord, 119; + Carroll, Lewis, 119; + Dunedin, Lord, 119; + Gladstone, 119; + Howard, Cardinal, 119 + +_Memories and Base Details_, by Lady Angela Forbes, 130 + +_Memories Discreet and Indiscreet_, by Lady Angela Forbes, 129 + +_Men and Books and Cities_, by Robert Cortes Holliday, 52 + +_Men Who Make Our Novels, The_, by George Gordon, 55, 67, 320 + +_Merry Heart, The_, by Frank Swinnerton, 236, 242 + +_Midas and Son_, by Stephen McKenna, 341, 342, 346 + +_Milestones_, by Arnold Bennett and Edward Knoblauch, 364 + +Milne, A. A., _Mr. Pim_, 261 + +_Miracle Man, The_, by Frank L. Packard, 68 + +_Miscellanies--Literary and Historical_, by Lord Rosebery, 123 + +Moffatt, Dr. James, _The Approach of the New Testament_, 296; + _New Translation of the New Testament_, 293; + _New Translation of the Old Testament_, 296; + _The Parallel Testament_, 293 + +_Mollusc, The_, by Hubert Henry Davies, 365 + +Monaghan, Elizabeth A., _What to Eat and How to Prepare It_, 218 + +_Moon and Sixpence, The_, by W. Somerset Maugham, 270, 278, 279, 284, + 287, 291 + +_Moon Out of Reach, The_, by Margaret Pedler, 256 + +_Moons of Grandeur_, by William Rose Benét, 354, 355; + Don Marquis, review of, 354; + Quotation from, 355 + +Moore, Annie Carroll, _Roads to Childhood_, 152 + +_More Indiscretions_, by Lady Angela Forbes, 129 + +_More Limehouse Nights_, by Thomas Burke, 187 + +Morley, Christopher, _A Rocking Horse_, 348; + _Translations from the Chinese_, 349 + +_Mortal Coils_, by Aldous Huxley, 34, 35 + +_Mr. Lloyd George: A Biographical and Critical Sketch_, + by E. T. Raymond, 120 + +_Mr. Pim_, by A. A. Milne, 261 + +_Mr. Prohock_, by Arnold Bennett, 133, 141, 149; + extracts from, 141-144, 149 + +_Mrs. Craddock_, by W. Somerset Maugham, 287, 288, 291; + extract from, 288, 291 + +Musser, Howard Anderson, _Jungle Tales, Adventures in India_, 156 + +_My Creed: The Way to Happiness--As I Found It_, Mary Roberts Rinehart, 117 + +_My Impressions of America_, by Margot Asquith, 122 + +Myers, A. Wallis, _Twenty Years of Lawn Tennis_, 213 + +_Neither Here Nor There_, by Oliver Herford, 95 + +_Nêne_, 264; Comment by Walter +Prichard Eaton, 265; Goncourt +Prize, won by, 264 + +_New Revelation, The_, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 302 + +_New Translation of the New Testament_, by Dr. James Moffatt, 293; + extracts from, 293-296 + +_New Translation of the Old Testament_, by Dr. James Moffatt, 296 + +_Nicolette_, by Baroness Orczy, 248 + +_Night Operator, The_, by Frank L. Packard, 68 + +_Nights in London_, by Thomas Burke, 190 + +Ninety-six Hours' Leave, by Stephen McKenna, 341, 346 + +_Nocturne_, by Frank Swinnerton, 225, 233, 235, 239, 243; + Comment by H. G. Wells, 233-235 + +_Of Human Bondage_, by W. Somerset Maugham, 270; + review by Theodore Dreiser, 273-277, 287, 291 + +_Old Morocco and the Forbidden Atlas_, by C. E. Andrews, 193 + +_Old Wives' Tales, The_, by Arnold Bennett, 133, 149; + inspiration of, 147, 149 + +_On a Chinese Screen_, by W. Somerset Maugham, 284, 291; + extract from, 284-285 + +_On the Staircase_, by Frank Swinnerton, 226, 243 + +_On Tiptoe: A Romance of the Redwoods_, by Stewart Edward White, 59, 67 + +_One Thing is Certain_, by Sophie Kerr, 246 + +_Our Navy at War_, by Josephus Daniels, 321; + Comment on, by W. B. McCormick, 321, 322, 323 + +_Outcasts_, by Hubert Henry Davies, 365 + +Orczy, Baroness, _Nicolette_, 248 + +_Owl Taxi, The_, by Hulbert Footner, 74, 75 + +Packard, Frank L., _Doors of the Night_, 68; + education of, 68; + _From Now On_, 68; + _Pawned_, 68; + _The Adventures of Jimmy Dale_, 68, 69; + _The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale_, 68; + _The Miracle Man_, 68; + _The Night Operator_, 68; + _The Phantom Clue_, 69; + _The Wire Devils_, 68 + +_Painted Meadows_, by Sophie Kerr, 246 + +_Parallel New Testament, The_, by Dr. James Moffatt, 293 + +_Parody Outline of History, A,_ by Donald Ogden Stewart, 93, 94, 371; + see The Bookman, 371 + +_Parson's Progress, The_, by Compton Mackenzie, 266 + +_Passenger_, by Helen Dircks, 236 + +_Patricia Brent, Spinster_, anonymous, 261 + +_Pawned_, by Frank L. Packard, 68 + +Pedler, Margaret, _The Hermit of Far End_, 256; + _The House of Dreams Come True_, 256; + _The Lamp of Fate_, 256; + _The Moon Out of Reach_, 256; + _The Splendid Folly_, 256 + +_Peeps at People_, by Robert Cortes Holliday, 52 + +_Penny Plain_, by O. Douglas, 249 + +_Perfect Behaviour_, by Donald Ogden Stewart, 93, 94; + motive of, 94 + +Perin, Dr. George L., founder of Franklin Square House for Girls, 304; + on autosuggestion, 304; + _Self Healing Simplified_, 304 + +"Permutations Among the Nightingales," by Aldous Huxley, 35 + +_Peter_, by E. F. Benson, 261 + +_Pieces of Hate_, by Heywood Broun, 41 + +_Pilgrim of a Smile, The_, by Norman Davey, 36 + +_Plays for Children_, by Col. Stevenson Lyle Cummins, 157 + +Plays of Hubert Henry Davies, The, 365 + +_Plotting in Pirate Seas_, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler, 159 + +_Poems: Second Series_, by J. C. Squire, 351 + +_Poets and Puritans_, by T. R. Glover, 305; + preface, 306 + +_Poindexter, J., Colored_, by Irvin S. Cobb, 169, 185; + extract from, 170-171, 185 + +_Pomp of Power, The_, anonymous, 119 + +Preston, Keith, _Splinters_, 358, 359 + +Prosper, John, _Gold-Killer_, 75 + +Publishing as a business, 199 + +Pure, Simon, visit to Compton Mackenzie, 266-269 + +_Pushcart at the Curb, A_, by John Dos Passos, 347; + General Headings of, 347 + +Putnam, Nina Wilcox, Laughter, Ltd., 90; + story in American Magazine, 91, 92; + style of, 90; + _Tomorrow We Diet_, 90; + _West Broadway_, 88, 90 + +"Quai de la Tournelle," from a _Pushcart at the Curb_, by John Dos Passos, + Quotation from, 348 + +_Quest of the Western World, The_, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler, 160 + +Rackham, Arthur, artist, 165 + +Raison, Milton, _Spindrift_, 352, 353 + +Raymond, Ernest, _Tell England_, 250 + +Raymond, E. T., _Mr. Lloyd George: A Biographical and Critical + Sketch_, 120; + _Uncensored Celebrities_, 120 + +_Recollections and Reflections_, by A Woman of No Importance, 129 + +Reeve, Mrs. Winnifred, see Onoto Watanna, 254 + +_Responsibility_, by James E. Agate, 49 + +_Return of Alfred, The_, anonymous, 261 + +Reynolds, Mrs. Baillie, _The Judgment of Charis_, 76 + +Riddell, Lord, _Some Things That Matter_, 303 + +Rinehart, Mrs. Mary R., 89; + books by, 116; + K., 107, 108, 116; + _Long Live the King_, 115, 116; + methods of work, 111; + _My Creed: The Way to Happiness_, 117; + _My Public_, 117; + parents of, 108; + quotation from, 102-103; + Sources on, 117; + _The Amazing Adventures of Letitia Carberry_, 108, 115, 116; + _The Amazing Interlude_, 105, 115, 116; + _The Bat_, a collaboration with Avery Hopwood, 114; + _The Breaking Point_, 105, 117; + _The Circular Staircase_, 110, 114, 116; + _The Man in Lower Ten_, 114, 116; + _Tish_, 108, 115, 116; + vitality of, 102 + +_Roads to Childhood_, by Annie Carroll Moore, 152 + +_Robin Hood's Barn_, by Margaret Emerson Bailey, 194 + +_Rocking Horse, The_, by Christopher Morley, 348; + Quotation from, 348 + +Rolt-Wheeler, Francis, "Boy Journalist Series," 159, 161; + _Heroes of the Ruins_, 160; + _Hunting Hidden Treasures in the Andes_, 159; + _In the Days Before Columbus_, 160; + _Plotting in Pirate Seas_, 159; + _The Coming of the Peoples_, 161; + _The Quest of the Western World_, 160; + wanderings of, 158 + +Rosebery, Lord, _Miscellanies--Literary and Historical_, 123 + +_Rosinante to the Road Again_, by John Dos Passos, 38, 347 + +_Roving East and Roving West_, by E. V. Lucas, Sadlier, Michael, + comment on Huxley, 34 + +Saxton, Eugene F., 67; + account of Stewart Edward White, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65 + +_Secret of the Sahara: Kufara_, by Rosita Forbes, 192, 193 + +_Secret Victory, The._ See _The Sensationalists_, + by Stephen McKenna, 342, 346 + +_Self Healing Simplified_, by Dr. George L. Perin, 304 + +_Sensationalists, The_, by Stephen McKenna, 341; + _Lady Lilith_, 342; + _The Education of Eric Lane_, 342; + _The Secret Victory_, 342 + +_September_, by Frank Swinnerton, 225, 226, 243 + +"Seymour, Hugh," of _The Golden Scarecrow_, 16, 21 + +Sheffield, Alfred Dwight, _Joining in Public Discussion_, 297 + +Sheridan, C. M., _The Stag Cook Book_, 217 + +_Shops and Houses_, by Frank Swinnerton, 226, 243 + +_Sixth Sense, The_, by Stephen McKenna, 340, 345 + +"Social Amenities" in "Soles Occidere et Redire Possunt," 36 + +_Social Forces in Literature_, by Dr. H. W. L. Dana, 300 + +_Some Things that Matter_, by Lord Riddell, 303 + +_Somerset Maugham in Tahiti_, article, by Hector MacQuarrie, 292 + +"Song for a Little House," from _The Rocking Horse_ by Christopher + Morley, 348 + +_Sonia_, by Stephen McKenna, 251, 339, 340, 341, 342, 343, 346 + +_Sonia Married_, by Stephen McKenna, 341, 342, 346 + +Speare, Dorothy, 264; + _Dancers in the Dark_, 255, 256 + +_Spellbinders_, by Margaret Culkin Banning, 252 + +_Spindrift_, by Milton Raison, 352; + extracts from preface by William McFee, 353; + quotation from, 354 + +_Splendid Folly, The_, by Margaret Pedler, 256 + +Splendour by Numbers, Aldous Huxley, 36 + +_Splinters_, by Keith Preston, 358; + quotation from, 359 + +Squire, J. C., _Books in General_, Third Series, 44; + collected parodies, 98; + editor of the _London Mercury_, 44; + _Life and Letters_, 46; + on Anatole France, Jane Austen, Keats, Pope, Rabelais, Walt Whitman, 46; + pen name (Solomon Eagle), 46; + _Poems: Second Series_, 351; + _The Birds and Other Poems_, 351 + +_Stag Cook Book, The_, by C. M. Sheridan, 217 + +Stevens, William O., see Allan Westcott, _A History of Sea Power_, 331 + +Stevenson, Candace T., review of Olive Roberts Barton, 162 + +Stevenson, Robert Louis, description of Edinburgh, 86; + in Miscellanies, by Lord Rosebery, 123; + Swinnerton, on, 242 + +Stewart, Donald Ogden, _A Parody Outline of History_, 93, 94, 371; + _Perfect Behaviour_, 93, 94 + +_Stickfuls_, by Irvin S. Cobb, 169, 185 + +_Struggle for Power in Europe_ (1917-21), by Leslie Haden Guest, 323 + +_Sunny-San_, by Onoto Watanna, 253 + +Sutherland, Jean, _Beauty for Ashes_, 262 + +Swinnerton, Frank, Analyst of Lovers, 225; + Arnold Bennett's Comments, 225; + _Coquette_, 226, 243; + criticism of R. L. Stevenson, 242; + list of books, 242, 243; + literary critic, 241; + _Nocturne_, 225, 233, 235, 239, 243; + _On the Staircase_, 226, 243; + _Personal Sketches_ by Arnold Bennett, Grant Overton, H. G. Wells, 243; + publisher, 240; + _September_, 225, 226, 243; + _Shops and Houses_, 226, 243; + Sources on, 243; + _The Casement_, 236, 242; + _The Chaste Wife_, 226, 243; + _The Happy Family_, 226, 238, 242; + _The Merry Heart_, 236, 242; + _The Three Lovers_, 226, 227, 233, 243; + _The Young Idea_, 238 + +_Swords_, by Sidney Howard, 364; + Kenneth Macgowan's criticism, 364, 365 + +Taggart, Marion Ames, 164; + _At Greenacres_, 164; + _Poppy's Pluck_, 164; + _The Bottle Imp_, 164; + _The Queer Little Man_, 164 + +_Tahiti Days_, by Hector McQuarrie, 270 + +_Tales Told by the Gander_, by Maude Radford Warren, 153 + +_Talkers, The_, by Robert W. Chambers, 317, 320 + +Tarkington, Booth, box score, 183, 184; + study of, by Robert Cortes Holliday, 53 + +_Tell England_, by Ernest Raymond, 250; + Prologue, by Padre Monty, 250, 251 + +Terhune, Albert Payson, _Black Cæsar's Clan_, 71; + _Black Gold_, 71; + _Further Adventures of Lad_, 215; + home of, 214; + _Lad: A Dog_, 214 + +_That Which Hath Wings_, by Richard Dehan (Clotilde Graves), 200, 210 + +_They Have Only Themselves to Blame_, 118 + +_Thirty-nine Steps_, The, by John Buchan, 249 + +_This Marrying_, by Margaret Culkin Banning, 253 + +_Three Crowns_, The, by Winnifred Wells, 190 + +_Three Lovers, The_, by Frank Swinnerton, 226, 227, 233, 243; + Extracts from, 229, 243 + +_Three Men and a Maid_, by P. G. Wodehouse, 99; + extract from, 99-101 + +_Three Soldiers_, by John Dos Passos + +Tilden, William T., The Art of Lawn Tennis, 213; + tennis champion, 213 + +Timothy Tubby's Journal, extracts from, 95, 96, 97, 98 + +_Tish_, by Mary Roberts Rinehart, 108, 115, 116 + +_Tomorrow We Diet_, by Nina Wilcox Putnam, 90 + +"_Touch of Tears, The_," from Vigils, by Mrs. Kilmer, 350-351 + +_Trade Union Policy_, by Dr. Leo Wolman, 299 + +_Translations from the Chinese_, by Christopher Morley, 348; + Quotation from, 349 + +_Trees and Other Poems_, by Joyce Kilmer, 349 + +_Truth About an Author, The_, by Arnold Bennett, 144, 150 + +_Turns About Town_, by Robert Cortes Holliday, 52 + +_Twenty Years of Lawn Tennis_, by A. Wallis Myers, 213 + +_Vanished Pomps of Yesterday, The_, by Lord Frederic Hamilton, 131 + +_Vanishing of Betty Varian, The_, by Carolyn Wells, 76, 77 + +Van Loan, Charles E., Buck Parvin: + _Stories of the Motion Picture Game_, 212; + _Fore! Golf Stories_, 212; + _Old Man Curry: Racetrack Stories_, 212; + _Score by Innings: Baseball Stories_, 212; + _Taking the Count: Prize Ring Stories_, 212 + +Van, Rensselaer, Alexander, 220; + bibliographies by, 223 + +Van Vechten, Carl, New York Evening Post, + review of _Herman Melville: Mariner and Mystic_, 325-328 + +Vardon, Harry, _The Gist of Golf_, 213 + +_Vigils_, by Mrs. Kilmer, 350; + Quotations from, 350, 351 + +"Vision," from _Spindrift_, by Milton Raison, 354 + + _Vital Message, The_, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 302 + +_Voice in the Wilderness, The_, by Richard Blaker, 263 + +_Walking Stick Papers_, by Robert Cortes Holliday, selection from, 51, 52 + +Walpole, Hugh, 15 27, 28, 29, 31, 32; + _A Hugh Walpole Anthology_, 32; + American following of, 21; + appearance, 22; + article on, by Mrs. Belloc Loundes, 23; + birthplace, 15; + Books of, 31; + comments on The Bookman, 366; + connection with London Standard, 26; + appreciation by Joseph Hergesheimer, 15, 29, 30, 31; + courage of, 25; + description by Arnold Bennett, 22; + education of, 22; + educational experiences of, 22; + _English Literature During the Last Half Century_, 32; + father of, 15; + Fortitude, 21; + goes to England, 16; + Hugh Walpole, an appreciation, 31; + Hugh Walpole, Master Novelist, 32; + life in New York, 16; + London scenes pictured by, in _Anthology_, 28; + _Maradick at Forty_, 26; + Note by Joseph Conrad, 28; + Novels, list of, 31; + optimist, 23; + Romances, list of, 31; + Service in Great War, 16; + Selections for Anthology, 27; + Short Stories, list of, 31; + Sources on, 31; + superstitions, 24; + reader, 24; + Tait Black Prize for best novel of year, 30; + won by, 30; + _The Captives_, 24; + _The Cathedral_, 19; + _The Dark Forest_, 16; + _The Duchess of Wrexe_, 19; + _The Gods and Mr. Perrin_, 22; + _The Green Mirror_, 19; + _The Wooden Horse_, 25; + _Visits to America_, 16 + +_Wanderings of a Spiritualist, The_, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 302 + +Warren, Maude Radford, _Tales Told by the Gander_, 153 + +Watanna, Onoto (Mrs. Winnifred Reeve), 254; + _A Japanese Nightingale_, 254; + _Sunny-San_, 253 + +Warbasse, Dr. James B., _Cooperative Movement_, 300 + +Weaver, Raymond M., _Herman Melville: Mariner and Mystic_, + 325, 326, 327, 328 + +Wells, Carolyn (Mrs. Hadwin Houghton), 77; + _Book of Humorous Verse_, 99; + _The Room with the Tassels_, 76; + _The Vanishing of Betty Varian_, 76, 77 + +Wells, H. G., 94; Comments on Frank Swinnerton's _Nocturne_, 233, 234, 235; + _Soviet Russia_, 192 + +Westcott, Peter, in _Fortitude_, by Hugh Walpole, 22 + +_West Broadway_, by Nina Wilcox Putnam, 88, 90 + +_Westerners, The_, by Stewart Edward White, 55, 63, 66 + +West, Rebecca, books by, 86; + article by Amy Wellington, 83; + artist, 78; + biography of, 83; + _The Judge_, 78; + _The Return of the Soldier_, 86 + +Westcott, Allan, and William O. Stevens, _A History of Sea Power_, 331 + +_What Timmy Did_, by Mrs. Belloc Lowndes, 77 + +_What to Eat and How to Prepare It_, by Elizabeth A. Monaghan, 218 + +_While I Remember_, by Stephen McKenna, 324, 346 + +_Whispering Windows_, see _More Limehouse Nights_, + by Thomas Burke, 187, 188 + +White, Albert C., _The Irish Free State_, 191 + +White, Stewart Edward, 55, 56, 59, 60, 61, 66; + account of by Eugene F. Saxton, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65; + _Appendix, to Gold_, by Eugene F. Saxton, 67; + _The Birds of Mackinac Island_, 55, 63; + boat and books, 56, 59; + books of, 66; + by John Palmer Gavit, 67; + education of, 61; + Gold, 61, 67; + in France, 56; + military service, 61; + _On Tiptoe: A Romance of the Redwoods_, 59, 67; + parents, 60; + _Simba_, 55, 67; + sources on, 67; + _The Claim Jumpers_, 55, 63, 66; + _The Land of Footprints_, 55, 67; + _The Westerners_, 55, 63, 66 + +_Wild Life in the Tree Tops_, by Captain C. W. R. Knight, 214; + Photographs, 214 + +Wingfield-Stratford, Esme, _Facing Reality_, 300 + +_Wire Devils, The_, by Frank L. Packard, 68 + +_With the Band_, poem, by Robert W. Chambers, 317 + +Wodehouse, Pelham Grenville, 70; + lyrical writer, 99; + _Three Men and a Maid_, 99 + +Wolf, Robert, 297; + _The Creative Spirit in Industry_, 300 + +Wolman, Dr. Leo, _Trade Union Policy_, 299 + +Woman of No Importance, A, _Recollections and Reflections_, 129 + +_Women and the Labour Movement_, by Alice Henry, 299 + +_Women Who Make Our Novels, The_, by Grant Overton, 117; + chapter on Mary Roberts Rinehart, 109, 117 + +_Wonder Book, A_, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, 165 + +_Wooden Horse, The_, by Hugh Walpole, 25, 26, 31; + sale of, 25 + +Workers' Bookshelf Series, 297 + +Workers' Education Bureau of America, editorial board, 297 + + _Writing as a Business: A Practical Guide for Authors_, + by Robert Cortes Holliday, 220; + Extracts from, 222, 223 + +Wylie, Elinor, 357 + +Young, F. E. Mills, 263; + _Almonds of Life_, 263; + _Imprudence_, 263; + _The Stronger Influence_, 263 + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN +STREET ***
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/27116-h/27116-h.htm b/27116-h/27116-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..55b821d --- /dev/null +++ b/27116-h/27116-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,12655 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of When Winter Comes to Main Street, by Grant Martin Overton</title> +<style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p {margin-top: 0.5em; text-align: justify; margin-bottom: 0.5em;} + body {margin-left: 11%; margin-right: 10%;} + a {text-decoration: none;} + h1 {text-align:center; } + h3 {text-align:center; font-weight:normal; font-size: 1.2em;} + h3.pg {text-align:center; font-weight:bold; font-size: 110%;} + .pncolor {color: silver;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + div.ce p {text-align: center; margin: auto 0;} + .figcenter {margin: 2em auto 2em auto; text-align: center;} + hr.mini {width: 2em; margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; border:none; border-bottom:1px solid black; clear:both;} + td {padding: 2px 5px;} + div.la p {text-align: left; margin: auto 0;} + .caption {font-size:.8em;} + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; clear: both;} + tr {vertical-align: top;} + .pagenum {display: inline; font-size: x-small; text-align: right; position: absolute; right: 2%; padding: 1px 3px; font-style: normal; font-variant:normal; font-weight:normal; text-decoration: none; background-color: inherit; border:1px solid #eee;} + hr.major {width: 65%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em; border:none; border-bottom:1px solid black; clear:both;} + hr.minor {width: 35%; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; border:none; border-bottom:1px solid black; clear:both;} + div.ra p {text-align: right; margin: auto 0;} + h2 {text-align:center; font-weight:normal; font-size: 1.4em;} + + hr.full { width: 100%; + margin-top: 3em; + margin-bottom: 0em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + height: 4px; + border-width: 4px 0 0 0; /* remove all borders except the top one */ + border-style: solid; + border-color: #000000; + clear: both; } + pre {font-size: 85%;} +// --> +/* XML end ]]>*/ +</style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET ***</div> +<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, When Winter Comes to Main Street, by Grant +Martin Overton</h1> + +<div class='figcenter'> +<img src='images/winter01.jpg' alt='' title='' style='width: 328px; height: 517px;' /><br /> +</div> + +<hr style='margin:30px 0; width:100%; border:none; border-top:thin dashed silver;' /> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:2em;'>WHEN WINTER COMES</p> +<p style=' font-size:2em; margin-bottom:1em;'>TO MAIN STREET</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>BY</p> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-bottom:0.3em;'>GRANT OVERTON</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-bottom:12em;'>AUTHOR OF “THE WOMEN WHO MAKE OUR NOVELS”</p> +</div> + +<div class='figcenter'> +<img src='images/illus-emb.jpg' alt='' title='' style='width: 48px; height: 50px;' /><br /> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em;'>NEW YORK</p> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em;'>GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY</p> +</div> + +<hr style='margin:30px 0; width:100%; border:none; border-top:thin dashed silver;' /> +<div class='ce' style=' font-size:0.8em;'> +<p style=' margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:3em;'>PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</p> +<p>COPYRIGHT, 1922,</p> +<p>BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY</p> +</div> + +<hr class='mini' /> + +<div class='ce' style=' font-size:0.8em;'> +<p style=' margin-bottom:3em;'>WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET.</p> +<p>Press of</p> +<p>J. J. Little & Ives Company</p> +<p style=' margin-bottom:2em;'>New York, U. S. A.</p> +</div> + +<hr style='margin:30px 0; width:100%; border:none; border-top:thin dashed silver;' /> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-top:1em;'>FOR</p> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em;'>GEORGE H. DORAN</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-bottom:1em;'>WHO HAD THE IDEA</p> +<div style='margin-top:1em'></div> +</div> + +<hr style='margin:30px 0; width:100%; border:none; border-top:thin dashed silver;' /> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.4em;'>PREFACE</p> +</div> + +<p>I have borrowed my title from two remarkable +novels.</p> +<p><i>If Winter Comes</i>, by A. S. M. Hutchinson, was +published in the autumn of 1921 by Messrs. +Little, Brown & Company of Boston.</p> +<p><i>Main Street</i>, by Sinclair Lewis, was published +in the autumn of 1920 by Messrs. Harcourt, +Brace & Company of New York.</p> +<p>I have not before me the precise figures of the +amazing sales of these two books—each passed +350,000—but I make my bow to their authors +and to their publishers and to the American public. +I bow to the authors for the quality of their +work and to the publishers and the public for +their recognition of that quality.</p> +<p>These two substantial successes confirm my +belief that the American public in hundreds of +thousands relishes good reading. Without that +belief, this book would not have been prepared; +but I have prepared it with some confidence that +those who relish good reading will be interested +in the chapters that follow.</p> +<p>As a former book reviewer and literary editor, +as an author and, now, as one vitally concerned +in book publishing, my interest in books has been +fundamentally unchanging—a wish to see more +books read and better books to read.</p> +<p>From one standpoint, <i>When Winter Comes to +Main Street</i> is frankly an advertisement; it deals +with Doran books and authors. This is a fact +of some relevance, however, if, as I believe, the +reader shall find well-spent the time given to +these pages.</p> +<div class='ra'> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Grant Overton</span>.</p> +</div> + +<p><i>19 July 1922.</i></p> +<hr style='margin:30px 0; width:100%; border:none; border-top:thin dashed silver;' /> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.4em; margin-bottom:1em;'>CONTENTS</p> +</div> + +<table border='0' width='500' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary='Contents' style='margin:1em auto;'> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>I</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>THE COURAGE OF HUGH WALPOLE </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#I_THE_COURAGE_OF_HUGH_WALPOLE'>15</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>II</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>HALF-SMILES AND GESTURES </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#II_HALFSMILES_AND_GESTURES'>33</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>III</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>STEWART EDWARD WHITE AND ADVENTURE </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#III_STEWART_EDWARD_WHITE_AND_ADVENTURE'>55</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>IV</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>WHERE THE PLOT THICKENS </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#IV_WHERE_THE_PLOT_THICKENS'>68</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>V</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>REBECCA WEST: AN ARTIST </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#V_REBECCA_WEST_AN_ARTIST'>78</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>VI</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>SHAMELESS FUN </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#VI_SHAMELESS_FUN'>88</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>VII</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>THE VITALITY OF MARY ROBERTS RINEHART </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#VII_THE_VITALITY_OF_MARY_ROBERTS_RINEHART'>102</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>VIII</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>THEY HAVE ONLY THEMSELVES TO BLAME </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#VIII_THEY_HAVE_ONLY_THEMSELVES_TO_BLAME'>118</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>IX</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>AUDACIOUS MR. BENNETT </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#IX_AUDACIOUS_MR_BENNETT'>133</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>X</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>A CHAPTER FOR CHILDREN </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#X_A_CHAPTER_FOR_CHILDREN'>152</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XI</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>COBB’S FOURTH DIMENSION </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XI_COBB_S_FOURTH_DIMENSION'>166</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XII</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>PLACES TO GO </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XII_PLACES_TO_GO'>187</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XIII</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>ALIAS RICHARD DEHAN </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XIII_ALIAS_RICHARD_DEHAN'>196</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XIV</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>WITH FULL DIRECTIONS </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XIV_WITH_FULL_DIRECTIONS'>212</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XV</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>FRANK SWINNERTON: ANALYST OF LOVERS </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XV_FRANK_SWINNERTON_ANALYST_OF_LOVERS'>225</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XVI</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>AN ARMFUL OF NOVELS, WITH NOTES ON THE NOVELISTS </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XVI_AN_ARMFUL_OF_NOVELS_WITH_NOTES_ON_THE_NOVELISTS'>244</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XVII</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>THE HETEROGENEOUS MAGIC OF MAUGHAM </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XVII_THE_HETEROGENEOUS_MAGIC_OF_MAUGHAM'>270</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XVIII</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>BOOKS WE LIVE BY </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XVIII_BOOKS_WE_LIVE_BY'>293</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XIX</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>ROBERT W. CHAMBERS AND THE WHOLE TRUTH </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XIX_ROBERT_W_CHAMBERS_AND_THE_WHOLE_TRUTH'>308</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XX</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>UNIQUITIES </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XX_UNIQUITIES'>321</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XXI</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>THE CONFESSIONS OF A WELL-MEANING YOUNG MAN, STEPHEN MCKENNA </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XXI_THE_CONFESSIONS_OF_A_WELLMEANING_YOUNG_MAN_STEPHEN_MCKENNA'>334</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XXII</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>POETS AND PLAYWRIGHTS </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XXII_POETS_AND_PLAYWRIGHTS'>347</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XXIII</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>THE BOOKMAN FOUNDATION AND THE BOOKMAN </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XXIII_THE_BOOKMAN_FOUNDATION_AND_THE_BOOKMAN'>366</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'></td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>EPILOGUE </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#EPILOGUE'>372</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'></td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>INDEX </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#INDEX'>373</a></td> +</tr> +</table> +<hr style='margin:30px 0; width:100%; border:none; border-top:thin dashed silver;' /> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.4em; margin-bottom:1em;'>PORTRAITS</p> +</div> + +<table border='0' width='400' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary='Illustrations' style='margin:1em auto'> +<col style='width:80%;' /> +<col style='width:20%;' /> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td align='right'><span style='font-size:small'>PAGE</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left'>HUGH WALPOLE</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#linki_1'>17</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left'>STEWART EDWARD WHITE</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#linki_2'>57</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left'>REBECCA WEST</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#linki_3'>79</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left'>MARY ROBERTS RINEHART</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#linki_4'>103</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left'>ARNOLD BENNETT</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#linki_5'>135</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left'>IRVIN S. COBB</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#linki_6'>167</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left'>FRANK SWINNERTON</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#linki_7'>227</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left'>W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#linki_8'>271</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left'>STEPHEN McKENNA</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#linki_9'>335</a></td> +</tr> +</table> +<hr style='margin:30px 0; width:100%; border:none; border-top:thin dashed silver;' /> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_15' name='page_15'></a>15</span></div> +<div class='ce' style=' font-size:1.4em;'> +<p>WHEN WINTER COMES</p> +<p>TO MAIN STREET</p> +</div> + +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='I_THE_COURAGE_OF_HUGH_WALPOLE' id='I_THE_COURAGE_OF_HUGH_WALPOLE'></a> +<h2><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Chapter I</span></h2> +<h3>THE COURAGE OF HUGH WALPOLE</h3> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>i</p> +</div> + +<p>Says his American contemporary, Joseph +Hergesheimer, in an appreciation of Hugh +Walpole: “Mr. Walpole’s courage in the face of +the widest scepticism is nowhere more daring than +in <i>The Golden Scarecrow</i>.” Mr. Walpole’s courage, +I shall always hold, is nowhere more apparent +than in the choice of his birthplace. He was +born in the Antipodes. Yes! In that magical, +unpronounceable realm one reads about and intends +to look up in the dictionary.... The precise +Antipodean spot was Auckland, New Zealand, +and the year was 1884.</p> +<p>The Right Reverend George Henry Somerset +Walpole, D.D., Bishop of Edinburgh since 1910, +had been sent in 1882 to Auckland as Incumbent +of St. Mary’s Pro-Cathedral, and the same ecclesiastical +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_16' name='page_16'></a>16</span> +fates which took charge of Hugh Seymour +Walpole’s birthplace provided that, at the age of +five, the immature novelist should be transferred +to New York. Dr. Walpole spent the next seven +years in imparting to students of the General Theological +Seminary, New York, their knowledge of +Dogmatic Theology. Hugh Seymour Walpole +spent the seven years in attaining the age of +twelve.</p> +<p>Then, in 1896, the family returned to England. +Perhaps a tendency to travel had by this time +become implanted in Hugh, for now, in his late +thirties, he is one of the most peripatetic of +writers. He is here, he is there. You write to +him in London and receive a reply from Cornwall +or the Continent. And, regularly, he comes over +to America. Of all the English novelists who +have visited this country he is easily the most popular +personally on this side. His visit this autumn +(1922) will undoubtedly multiply earlier welcomes.</p> +<p>Interest in Walpole the man and Walpole the +novelist shows an increasing tendency to become +identical. It is all very well to say that the man +is one thing, his books are quite another; but suppose +the man cannot be separated from his books? +The Walpole that loved Cornwall as a lad can’t +be dissevered from the “Hugh Seymour” of +<i>The Golden Scarecrow</i>; without his Red Cross +service in Russia during the Great War, Walpole +could not have written <i>The Dark Forest</i>; and I +think the new novel he offers us this autumn must +owe a good deal to direct reminiscence of such a +cathedral town as Durham, to which the family +returned when Hugh was twelve.</p> +<div class='figcenter'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_17' name='page_17'></a>17</span> +<a name='linki_1' id='linki_1'></a> +<img src='images/winter02.jpg' alt='' title='' style='width: 309px; height: 453px;' /><br /> +<p class='caption' style='margin: 0 auto; text-align:center;width: 309px;'> +HUGH WALPOLE<br /> +</p> +</div> + +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_19' name='page_19'></a>19</span></div> +<p><i>The Cathedral</i>, as the new book is called, rests +the whole of its effect upon just such an edifice +as young Hugh was familiar with. The Cathedral +of the story stands in Polchester, in the west of +England, in the county of Glebeshire—that mythical +yet actual county of Walpole’s other novels. +Like such tales as <i>The Green Mirror</i> and <i>The +Duchess of Wrexe</i>, the aim is threefold—to give +a history of a certain group of people and, at the +same time, (2) to be a comment on English life, +and, beyond that, (3) to offer a philosophy of life +itself.</p> +<p>The innermost of the three circles of interest +created in this powerful novel—like concentric +rings formed by dropping stones in water—concerns +the life of Archdeacon Brandon. When the +story opens he is ruling Polchester, all its life, +religious and civic and social, with an iron rod. +A good man, kindly and virtuous and simple, +power has been too much for him. In the first +chapter a parallel is made between Brandon and +a great mediæval ecclesiastic of the Cathedral, the +Black Bishop, who came to think of himself as +God and who was killed by his enemies. All +through the book this parallel is followed.</p> +<p>A certain Canon Ronder arrives to take up a +post in the Cathedral. The main thread of the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_20' name='page_20'></a>20</span> +novel now emerges as the history of the rivalry +of these two men, one simple and elemental, the +other calculating, selfish and sure. Ronder sees +at once that Brandon is in his way and at once +begins his work to overthrow the Archdeacon, not +because he dislikes him at all (he <i>likes</i> him), but +because he wants his place; too, because Brandon +represents the Victorian church, while Ronder is +on the side of the modernists.</p> +<p>Brandon is threatened through his son Stephen +and through his wife. His source of strength,—a +source of which he is unaware—lies in his daughter, +Joan, a charming girl just growing up. The +first part of the novel ends with everything that is +to follow implicit in what has been told; the story +centres in Brandon but more sharply in the Cathedral, +which is depicted as a living organism with +all its great history behind it working quickly, +ceaselessly, for its own purposes. Every part of +the Cathedral life is brought in to effect this, the +Bishop, the Dean, the Canons—down to the Verger’s +smallest child. All the town life also is +brought in, from the Cathedral on the hill to the +mysterious little riverside inn. Behind the town +is seen the Glebeshire country, behind that, England; +behind England, the world, all moving +toward set purposes.</p> +<p>The four parts of the novel markedly resemble, +in structure, acts of a play; in particular, the striking +third part, entirely concerned with the events +of a week and full of flashing pictures, such as the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_21' name='page_21'></a>21</span> +scene of the Town Ball. But the culmination of +this part, indeed, the climax of the whole book, +comes in the scene of the Fair, with its atmosphere +of carnival, its delirium of outdoor mood, and its +tremendous encounter between Brandon and his +wife. The novel closes upon a moment both fugitive +and eternal—Brandon watching across the +fields the Cathedral, lovely and powerful, in the +evening distance. The Cathedral, lovely and +powerful, forever victorious, served by the generations +of men....</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p>Courage, for Hugh, must have made its demand +to be exercised early. We have the “Hugh Seymour” +of <i>The Golden Scarecrow</i> who “was sent +from Ceylon, where his parents lived, to be educated +in England. His relations having for the +most part settled in foreign countries, he spent +his holidays as a minute and pale-faced ‘paying +guest’ in various houses where other children were +of more importance than he, or where children +as a race were of no importance at all.” It would +be a mistake to confer on such a fictional passage +a strict autobiographical importance; but I think +it significant that the novel with which Walpole +first won an American following, <i>Fortitude</i>, +should derive from a theme as simple and as +strong as that of a classic symphony—from those +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_22' name='page_22'></a>22</span> +words with which it opens: “’T isn’t life that +matters! ’T is the courage you bring to it.” +From that moment on, the novel follows the struggle +of Peter Westcott, in boyhood and young manhood, +with antagonists, inner and outer. At the +end we have him partly defeated, wholly triumphant, +still fighting, still pledged to fight.</p> +<p>Not to confuse fiction with fact: Hugh Walpole +was educated at Kings School, Canterbury, +and at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. When he +left the university he drifted into newspaper work +in London. He also had a brief experience as +master in a boys’ school (the experiential-imaginative +source of <i>The Gods and Mr. Perrin</i>, that +superb novel of underpaid teachers in a second-rate +boarding school). The war brought Red +Cross work in Russia and also a mission to Petrograd +to promote pro-Ally sentiment. For these +services Walpole was decorated with the Georgian +Medal.</p> +<p>What is Hugh Walpole like personally? Arnold +Bennett, in an article which appeared in the +Book News Monthly and which was reprinted in +a booklet, says: “About the time of the publication +of <i>The Gods and Mr. Perrin</i>, I made the +acquaintance of Mr. Walpole and found a man +of youthful appearance, rather dark, with a spacious +forehead, a very highly sensitised nervous +organisation, and that reassuring matter-of-factness +of demeanour which one usually does find in +an expert. He was then busy at his task of seeing +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_23' name='page_23'></a>23</span> +life in London. He seems to give about one-third +of the year to the tasting of all the heterogeneous +sensations which London can provide for the +connoisseur and two-thirds to the exercise of his +vocation in some withdrawn spot in Cornwall that +nobody save a postman or so, and Mr. Walpole, +has ever beheld. During one month it is impossible +to ‘go out’ in London without meeting Mr. +Walpole—and then for a long period he is a mere +legend of dinner tables. He returns to the dinner +tables with a novel complete.”</p> +<p>In the same magazine, in an article reprinted +in the same booklet, Mrs. Belloc Lowndes, that +excellent weaver of mystery stories and sister of +Hilaire Belloc, said: “Before all things Hugh +Walpole is an optimist, with a great love for and +a great belief in human nature. His outlook is +essentially sane, essentially normal. He has had +his reverses and difficulties, living in lodgings in +remote Chelsea, depending entirely upon his own +efforts. Tall and strongly built, clean-shaven, +with a wide, high forehead and kindly sympathetic +expression, the author of <i>Fortitude</i> has a +refreshing boyishness and zest for enjoyment +which are pleasant to his close friends. London, +the home of his adoption, Cornwall, the home of +his youth, have each an equal spell for him and +he divides his year roughly into two parts: the tiny +fishing town of Polperro, Cornwall, and the pleasure +of friendships in London. ‘What a wonderful +day!’ he was heard to say, his voice sounding +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_24' name='page_24'></a>24</span> +muffled through the thickest variety of a pea-soup +fog. ‘It wouldn’t really be London without an +occasional day like this! I’m off to tramp the +city.’ It is one of Hugh Walpole’s superstitions +that he should always begin his novels on Christmas +Eve. He has always done so, and he believes +it brings him luck. Often it means the exercise of +no small measure of self-control, for the story has +matured in his mind and he is aching to commence +it. But he vigorously adheres to his custom, and +by the time he begins to write his book lies before +him like a map. ‘I could tell it you now, practically +in the very words in which I shall write it,’ +he has said. Nevertheless, he takes infinite trouble +with the work as it progresses. A great reader, +Hugh Walpole reads with method. Tracts of history, +periods of fiction and poetry, are studied +seriously; and he has a really exhaustive heritage +of modern poetry and fiction.”</p> +<p>Perhaps since Mrs. Lowndes wrote those words, +Mr. Walpole has departed from his Christmas +Eve custom. At any rate, I notice on the last +page in his very long novel <i>The Captives</i> (the +work by which, I think, he sets most store of all +his books so far published) the dates:</p> +<table summary='poetry' style='margin:0 auto'><tr><td> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>POLPERRO, JAN. 1916,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>POLPERRO, MAY 1920.</p> +</td></tr></table> + +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_25' name='page_25'></a>25</span></div> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iii</p> +</div> + +<p>The demand for the exercise of that courage of +which we have spoken can be seen from these further +details, supplied by Arnold Bennett:</p> +<p>“At the age of twenty, as an undergraduate of +Cambridge, Walpole wrote two novels. One of +these, a very long book, the author had the imprudence +to destroy. The other was <i>The Wooden +Horse</i>, his first printed novel. It is not to be +presumed that <i>The Wooden Horse</i> was published +at once. For years it waited in manuscript +until Walpole had become a master +in a certain provincial school in England. +There he showed the novel to a fellow-master, +who, having kept the novel for a period, spoke +thus: ‘I have tried to read your novel, Walpole, +but I can’t. Whatever else you may be fitted for, +you aren’t fitted to be a novelist.’ Mr. Walpole +was grieved. Perhaps he was unaware, then, that +a similar experience had happened to Joseph Conrad. +I am unable to judge the schoolmaster’s fitness +to be a critic, because I have not read <i>The +Wooden Horse</i>. Walpole once promised to send +me a copy so that I might come to some conclusion +as to the schoolmaster, but he did not send +it. Soon after this deplorable incident, Walpole +met Charles Marriott, a novelist of a remarkable +distinction. Mr. Marriott did not agree with the +schoolmaster as to <i>The Wooden Horse</i>. The result +of the conflict of opinion between Mr. Marriott +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_26' name='page_26'></a>26</span> +and the schoolmaster was that Mr. Walpole +left the school abruptly—perhaps without the approval +of his family, but certainly with a sum of +£30 which he had saved. His destination was +London.</p> +<p>“In Chelsea he took a room at four shillings a +week. He was twenty-three and (in theory) a +professional author at last. Through the favouring +influence of Mr. Marriott he obtained a temporary +job on the London Standard as a critic of fiction. +It lasted three weeks. Then he got a regular +situation on the same paper, a situation which +I think he kept for several years. <i>The Wooden +Horse</i> was published by a historic firm. Statistics +are interesting and valuable—<i>The Wooden Horse</i> +sold seven hundred copies. The author’s profits +therefrom were less than the cost of typewriting +the novel. History is constantly repeating itself.</p> +<p>“Mr. Walpole was quite incurable, and he kept +on writing novels. <i>Maradick at Forty</i> was the +next one. It sold eleven hundred copies, but with +no greater net monetary profit to the author than +the first one. He made, however, a more shining +profit of glory. <i>Maradick at Forty</i>—as the phrase +runs—‘attracted attention.’ I myself, though in +a foreign country, heard of it, and registered the +name of Hugh Walpole as one whose progress +must be watched.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_27' name='page_27'></a>27</span></p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iv</p> +</div> + +<p>Not so long ago there was published in England, +in a series of pocket-sized books called the +<i>Kings Treasuries of Literature</i> (under the general +editorship of Sir A. T. Quiller-Couch), a +small volume called <i>A Hugh Walpole Anthology</i>. +This consisted of selections from Mr. Walpole’s +novels up to and including <i>The Captives</i>. The +selection was made by Mr. Walpole himself.</p> +<p>I think that the six divisions into which the +selections fell are interesting as giving, in a few +words, a prospectus of Walpole’s work. The +titles of the sections were “Some Children,” “Men +and Women,” “Some Incidents,” “London,” +“Country Places,” and “Russia.” The excerpts +under the heading “Some Children” are all from +<i>Jeremy</i> and <i>The Golden Scarecrow</i>. The “Men +and Women” are Mr. Perrin and Mrs. Comber, +from <i>The Gods and Mr. Perrin</i>; Mr. Trenchard +and Aunt Aggie, from <i>The Green Mirror</i>; and Mr. +Crashaw, from <i>The Captives</i>. The “Incidents” +are chosen with an equal felicity—we have the +theft of an umbrella from <i>The Gods and Mr. Perrin</i> +and, out of the same book, the whole passage +in which Mr. Perrin sees double. There is also a +scene from <i>Fortitude</i>, “After Defeat.” After two +episodes from <i>The Green Mirror</i>, this portion of +the anthology is closed with the tragic passage +from <i>The Captives</i> in which Maggie finds her +uncle. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_28' name='page_28'></a>28</span></p> +<p>Among the London places pictured by Mr. Walpole +in his novels and in this pleasant anthology +are Fleet Street, Chelsea, Portland Place, The +Strand, and Marble Arch. The selections under +the heading “Country Places” are bits about a +cove, the sea, dusk, a fire and homecoming. The +passages that relate to Russia are taken, of course, +from <i>The Dark Forest</i> and <i>The Secret City</i>.</p> +<p>Not the least interesting thing in this small +volume is a short introductory note by Joseph Conrad, +who speaks of the anthology as “intelligently +compiled,” and as offering, within its limits, a +sample of literary shade for every reader’s sympathy. +“Sophistication,” adds Mr. Conrad, “is +the only shade that does not exist in Mr. Walpole’s +prose.” He goes on:</p> +<p>“Of the general soundness of Mr. Walpole’s +work I am perfectly convinced. Let no modern +and malicious mind take this declaration for a +left-handed compliment. Mr. Walpole’s soundness +is not of conventions but of convictions; and +even as to these, let no one suppose that Mr. Walpole’s +convictions are old-fashioned. He is distinctly +a man of his time; and it is just because +of that modernity, informed by a sane judgment +of urgent problems and wide and deep sympathy +with all mankind, that we look forward hopefully +to the growth and increased importance of his +work. In his style, so level, so consistent, Mr. +Hugh Walpole does not seek so much for novel as +for individual expression; and this search, this +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_29' name='page_29'></a>29</span> +ambition so natural to an artist, is often rewarded +by success. Old and young interest him alike and +he treats both with a sure touch and in the kindest +manner. In each of these passages we see Mr. +Walpole grappling with the truth of things spiritual +and material with his characteristic earnestness, +and in the whole we can discern the characteristics +of this acute and sympathetic explorer +of human nature: His love of adventure and the +serious audacity he brings to the task of recording +the changes of human fate and the moments of +human emotion, in the quiet backwaters or in the +tumultuous open streams of existence.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>v</p> +</div> + +<p>There is not space here to reprint all of Joseph +Hergesheimer’s Appreciation of Hugh Walpole, +published in a booklet in 1919—a booklet still +obtainable—but I would like to quote a few +sentences from the close of Mr. Hergesheimer’s +essay, where he says:</p> +<p>“As a whole, Hugh Walpole’s novels maintain +an impressive unity of expression; they are the +distinguished presentation of a distinguished +mind. Singly and in a group, they hold possibilities +of infinite development. This, it seems to +me, is most clearly marked in their superiority to +the cheap materialism that has been the insistent +note of the prevailing optimistic fiction. There +is a great deal of happiness in Mr. Walpole’s +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_30' name='page_30'></a>30</span> +pages, but it is not founded on surface vulgarity +of appetite. The drama of his books is not sapped +by the automatic security of invulnerable heroics. +Accidents happen, tragic and humorous; the life +of his novels is checked in black and white, often +shrouded in grey; the sun moves and stars come +out; youth grows old; charm fades; girls may or +may not be pretty; his old women——</p> +<p>“But there he is inimitable. The old gentlewomen, +or caretakers, dry and twisted, brittle and +sharp, repositories of emotion—vanities and malice +and self-seeking—like echoes of the past, or +fat and loquacious, with alcoholic sentimentality, +are wonderfully ingratiating. They gather like +shadows, ghosts, about the feet of the young, and +provide Mr. Walpole with one of his main resources—the +restless turning away of the young +from the conventions, prejudices and inhibitions +of yesterday. He is singularly intent upon the injustice +of locking age about the wrists of youth; +and, with him, youth is very apt to escape, to defy +authority set in years ... only to become, in +time, age itself.”</p> +<p>Perhaps this is an anti-climax: The University +of Edinburgh has twice awarded the Tait +Black Prize for the best novel of the year to Mr. +Walpole—first for <i>The Secret City</i> in 1919 and +then for <i>The Captives</i> in 1920.</p> +<hr class='minor' /> + +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_31' name='page_31'></a>31</span></div> +<div class='ce'> +<p><i>Books</i></p> +<p>by Hugh Walpole</p> +</div> + +<div class='la'> +<p style=' margin-top:1.5em;'><i>Novels</i>:</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE WOODEN HORSE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE GODS AND MR. PERRIN</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>(In England, MR. PERRIN AND MR. TRAILL)</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE GREEN MIRROR</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE DARK FOREST</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE SECRET CITY</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE CAPTIVES</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE CATHEDRAL</p> +<p style=' margin-top:1.5em;'><i>Romances</i>:</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>MARADICK AT FORTY</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE PRELUDE TO ADVENTURE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>FORTITUDE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE DUCHESS OF WREXE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE YOUNG ENCHANTED</p> +<p style=' margin-top:1.5em;'><i>Short Stories</i>:</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE GOLDEN SCARECROW</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>JEREMY</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE THIRTEEN TRAVELLERS</p> +<p style=' margin-top:1.5em;'><i>Belles-Lettres</i>:</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>JOSEPH CONRAD—<i>A Critical Study</i>.</p> +</div> + +<hr class='minor' /> + +<div class='ce'> +<p><i>Sources</i></p> +<p style=' margin-bottom:1.5em;'>on Hugh Walpole</p> +</div> + +<p><i>Hugh Walpole: An Appreciation</i>, by Joseph +Hergesheimer, <span style='font-variant: small-caps'>GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY</span>.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_32' name='page_32'></a>32</span></div> +<p><i>English Literature During the Last Half Century</i>, +by J. W. Cunliffe, <span style='font-variant: small-caps'>THE MACMILLAN COMPANY</span>.</p> +<p><i>A Hugh Walpole Anthology</i>, selected by the author. +<span style='font-variant: small-caps'>LONDON</span>: <span style='font-variant: small-caps'>J. M. DENT & SONS</span>. <span style='font-variant: small-caps'>NEW YORK</span>: +<span style='font-variant: small-caps'>E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY</span>.</p> +<p><i>Hugh Walpole, Master Novelist</i>. Pamphlet published +by <span style='font-variant: small-caps'>GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY</span>. (Out +of print.)</p> +<p><i>Who’s Who</i> [In England].</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='II_HALFSMILES_AND_GESTURES' id='II_HALFSMILES_AND_GESTURES'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_33' name='page_33'></a>33</span> +<h2><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Chapter II</span></h2> +<h3>HALF-SMILES AND GESTURES</h3> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>i</p> +</div> + +<p>Half-smiles and gestures! There is always +a younger generation but it is not always +articulate. The war may not have changed the +face of the world, but it changed the faces of very +many young men. Faces of naïve enthusiasm +and an innocent expectancy were not particularly +noticeable in the years 1918 to 1922. The sombreness, +the abruptness, the savage mood evident +in the writings of such men as Barbusse and Siegfried +Sassoon were abandoned. Confronted with +the riddle of life, spared the enigma of death, the +young men have felt nothing more befitting their +age and generation than the personal “gesture.”</p> +<p>If you ask me what is a gesture, I can’t say that +I know. It is something felt in the attitude of a +person to whom one is talking or whose book one +is reading. And the gesture is accompanied, in +some of our younger writers, with an expression +that is both serious and smiling. These half-smiles +are, I take it, youth’s comment on the riddle +of a continued existence, on the loss of well-lost +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_34' name='page_34'></a>34</span> +illusions, on the uncertainty of all future +values. What is there worth trying for? It is +not too clear, hence the gesture. What is there +worth the expenditure of emotion? It is doubtful; +and a half-smile is the best.</p> +<p>Such a writer, busily experimenting in several +directions, is Aldous Huxley. This child of +1894, the son of Leonard Huxley (eldest son and +biographer of Prof. T. H. Huxley) and Julia +Arnold (niece of Martha Arnold and sister of +Mrs. Humphry Ward), has with three books of +prose built up a considerable and devoted following +of American readers. First there was <i>Limbo</i>. +Then came <i>Crome Yellow</i>, and on the heels of +that we had the five stories—if you like to call +them so—composing <i>Mortal Coils</i>. I have seen +no comment more penetrating than that of +Michael Sadleir, himself the author of a novel +of distinction. Sadleir says:</p> +<p>“Already Huxley is the most readable of his +generation. He has the allurement of his own inconsistency, +and the inconsistency of youth is its +questing spirit, and, consequently, its chief claim +to respect.</p> +<p>“At present there are several Huxleys—the +artificer in words, the amateur of garbage, pierrot +lunaire, the cynic in rag-time, the fastidious sensualist. +For my part, I believe only in the last, +taking that to be the real Huxley and the rest +prank, virtuosity, and, most of all, self-consciousness. +As the foal will shy at his own shadow, so +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_35' name='page_35'></a>35</span> +Aldous Huxley, nervous by fits at the poise of his +own reality, sidesteps with graceful violence into +the opposite of himself. There is a beautiful example +of this in <i>Mortal Coils</i>. Among the stage-directions +to his play, ‘Permutations Among the +Nightingales,’ occur the following sentences: +‘Sydney Dolphin has a romantic appearance. His +two volumes of verse have been recognised by +intelligent critics as remarkable. How far they +are poetry nobody, least of all Dolphin himself, is +certain. They may be merely the ingenious products +of a very cultured and elaborate brain.’</p> +<p>“The point is not that these words might be +applied to the author himself, but rather that he +knows they might, even hopes they will, and has +sought to lull his too-ready self-criticism by, so to +speak, getting there first and putting down on +paper what he imagines others may think or write +of him.</p> +<p>“Huxley is a poet and writer of prose. His +varied personalities show themselves in both. The +artificer in words is almost omnipresent, and God +forbid that he ever vanish utterly. The disciple +of Laforgue has produced lovely and skilful +things, and one is grateful for the study of the +French symbolists that instigated the translation +of ‘L’Apres-midi d’un Faune.’ In ‘The Walk’ the +recapture of Laforgue’s blend of the exotic and +the everyday is astonishingly complete.</p> +<p>“The cynic is as accomplished as the Pierrot +and ‘Social Amenities,’ parts of ‘Soles Occidere +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_36' name='page_36'></a>36</span> +et Redire Possunt,’ and, in <i>Limbo</i>, ‘Richard +Greenow’ (first 100 pages) and ‘Happy Families’ +are syncopated actuality, and the mind jigs an +appreciative shoulder, as the body jerks irresistibly +to ‘Indianola.’</p> +<p>“There remains Huxley the sensualist, a very +ardent lover of beauty, but one that shrinks from +the sordid preamble of modern gallantry, one that +is apprehensive of the inevitable disillusionment. +As others have done, as others will do, he finds in +imagination the adventure that progress has decreed +unseemly.</p> +<p>“The reader who is shocked by ‘slabby-bellies,’ +‘mucus,’ ‘Priapulids’; the reader who is awed by +the paraded learning of ‘Splendour by Numbers,’ +by the deliberate intricacy of ‘Beauty,’ or the delicate +fatigue of ‘The Death of Lully’ in <i>Limbo</i>—these +are no audience for an artist. It tickles the +author’s fancy, stretches his wits, flatters his deviltry +to provoke and witness such consternation +and such respect. But the process is waste of time, +and a writer of Huxley’s quality, whatever his +youth, has never time to waste.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p>Readers who have chuckled over <i>Guinea Girl</i> +or have read with the peculiar delight of discovery +<i>The Pilgrim of a Smile</i> are astonished to learn +that its author is, properly speaking, an engineer. +Norman Davey, born in 1888 (Cambridge 1908-10) +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_37' name='page_37'></a>37</span> +is the son of Henry Davey, an engineer of +eminence. After taking honours in chemistry and +physics, Norman Davey travelled in America +(1911), particularly in Virginia and Carolina. +Then he went to serve as an apprentice in engineering +work in the North of England and to +study in the University of Montpellier in France.</p> +<p>His first book was <i>The Gas Turbine</i>, published +in London and now a classic on its subject. In +the four years preceding the war he contributed +articles on thermodynamics to scientific papers. +It is only honest to add that at the same time he +contributed to Punch and Life—chiefly verse.</p> +<p>After the war he had a book of verse published +in England and followed it with <i>The Pilgrim of +a Smile</i>. He has travelled a good deal in Spain, +Italy, Sweden, and his hobby is book collecting. +This is all very well; and it explains how he could +provide the necessary atmosphere for that laughable +story of Monte Carlo, <i>Guinea Girl</i>; but one +is scarcely prepared for <i>The Pilgrim of a Smile</i> +by those preliminaries in thermodynamics—or in +Punch. The story of the man who did not ask +the Sphinx for love or fame or money but for the +reason of her smile is one of the most intelligible +of the gestures characteristic of literature since +the war.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iii</p> +</div> + +<p>The gesture as such is perhaps most definitely +recognised in the charming book by John Dos +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_38' name='page_38'></a>38</span> +Passos, <i>Rosinante to the Road Again</i>. This, indeed, +is the story of a gesture and a quest for it. +The gesture is that of Castile, defined in the opening +chapter in some memorable words exchanged +by Telemachus and his friend Lyæus:</p> +<p>“‘It’s the gesture that’s so overpowering; don’t +you feel it in your arms? Something sudden and +tremendously muscular.’</p> +<p>“‘When Belmonte turned his back suddenly on +the bull and walked away dragging the red cloak +on the ground behind him I felt it,’ said Lyæus.</p> +<p>“‘That gesture, a yellow flame against maroon +and purple cadences ... an instant swagger of +defiance in the midst of a litany to death the all-powerful. +That is Spain ... Castile at any +rate.’</p> +<p>“‘Is “swagger” the right word?’</p> +<p>“‘Find a better!’</p> +<p>“‘For the gesture a mediæval knight made +when he threw his mailed glove at his enemy’s +feet or a rose in his lady’s window, that a mule-driver +makes when he tosses off a glass of aguardiente, +that Pastora Imperio makes dancing....’”</p> +<p>I do not know whether one should classify +<i>Rosinante</i> as a book of travel, a book of essays, a +book of criticisms. It is all three—an integrated +gesture. Certain interspersed chapters purport to +relate the wayside conversations of Telemachus +and Lyæus—dual phases of the author’s personality +shall we say?—and the people they meet. +The other chapters are acute studies of modern +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_39' name='page_39'></a>39</span> +Spain, with rather special attention to modern +Spanish writers. One varies in his admiration +between such an essay as that on Miguel de +Unamuno and such an unforgettable picture as +the vision of Jorge Manrique composing his splendid +ode to Death:</p> +<p>“It had been raining. Lights rippled red and +orange and yellow and green on the clean paving-stones. +A cold wind off the Sierra shrilled through +clattering streets. As they walked the other man +was telling how this Castilian nobleman, courtier, +man-at-arms, had shut himself up when his father, +the Master of Santiago, died, and had +written this poem, created this tremendous +rhythm of death sweeping like a wind over the +world. He had never written anything else. +They thought of him in the court of his great dust-coloured +mansion at Ocaña, where the broad eaves +were full of a cooing of pigeons and the wide +halls had dark rafters painted with arabesques in +vermilion, in a suit of black velvet, writing at a +table under a lemon tree. Down the sun-scarred +street, in the cathedral that was building in those +days, full of a smell of scaffolding and stone dust, +there must have stood a tremendous catafalque +where lay with his arms around him the Master +of Santiago; in the carved seats of the choirs the +stout canons intoned an endless growling litany; +at the sacristy door, the flare of the candles flashing +occasionally on the jewels of his mitre, the +bishop fingered his crosier restlessly, asking his +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_40' name='page_40'></a>40</span> +favourite choir-boy from time to time why Don +Jorge had not arrived. And messengers must have +come running to Don Jorge, telling him the service +was at the point of beginning, and he must +have waved them away with a grave gesture of a +long white hand, while in his mind the distant +sound of chanting, the jingle of the silver bit of +his roan horse stamping nervously where he was +tied to a twined Moorish column, memories of +cavalcades filing with braying of trumpets and +flutter of crimson damask into conquered towns, +of court ladies dancing and the noise of pigeons +in the eaves drew together like strings plucked in +succession on a guitar into a great wave of rhythm +in which his life was sucked away into this one +poem in praise of death.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iv</p> +</div> + +<p>The Column is an American institution. What +is meant, of course, is that daily vertical discussion +of Things That Have Interested Me by different +individuals attached to different papers and +having in common only the great gift of being +interested in what interests everybody else. Perhaps +that is not right, either. Maybe the gift is +that of being able to interest everybody else in +the things you are interested in. Of all those who +write a Column, Heywood Broun is possibly the +one whose interests are the most varied. It is +precisely this variety which makes his book +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_41' name='page_41'></a>41</span> +<i>Pieces of Hate: and Other Enthusiasms</i> unique as +a collection of essays. He will write on one page +about the boxing ring, on the next about the theatre, +a little farther along about books, farther on +yet about politics. He makes excursions into college +sports, horse racing and questions of fair +play; and the problems of child-rearing are his +constant preoccupation.</p> +<p>Consider some of his topics. We have an +opening study of the literary masterpiece of E. M. +Hull, the novel celebrating the adventures of Miss +Diana Mayo and the Sheik Ahmed Ben Hassan. +The next chapter deals with Hans Christian +Andersen and literary and dramatic critics. +Pretty soon we are discussing after-dinner +speeches, Babe Ruth and Jack Dempsey. If this +is a gesture, all I can say is, it is a pinwheel; and +yet Broun writes only about things he knows +about. Lest you think from my description that +<i>Pieces of Hate</i> is a book in a wholly unserious +vein, I invite you to read the little story, “Frankincense +and Myrrh.”</p> +<p>“Once there were three kings in the East and +they were wise men. They read the heavens and +they saw a certain strange star by which they knew +that in a distant land the King of the World was +to be born. The star beckoned to them and they +made preparations for a long journey.</p> +<p>“From their palaces they gathered rich gifts, +gold and frankincense and myrrh. Great sacks +of precious stuffs were loaded upon the backs of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_42' name='page_42'></a>42</span> +the camels which were to bear them on their journey. +Everything was in readiness, but one of the +wise men seemed perplexed and would not come +at once to join his two companions who were +eager and impatient to be on their way in the +direction indicated by the star.</p> +<p>“They were old, these two kings, and the other +wise man was young. When they asked him he +could not tell why he waited. He knew that his +treasuries had been ransacked for rich gifts for the +King of Kings. It seemed that there was nothing +more which he could give, and yet he was not content.</p> +<p>“He made no answer to the old men who +shouted to him that the time had come. The +camels were impatient and swayed and snarled. +The shadows across the desert grew longer. And +still the young king sat and thought deeply.</p> +<p>“At length he smiled, and he ordered his servants +to open the great treasure sack upon the back +of the first of his camels. Then he went into a +high chamber to which he had not been since he +was a child. He rummaged about and presently +came out and approached the caravan. In his +hand he carried something which glinted in the +sun.</p> +<p>“The kings thought that he bore some new gift +more rare and precious than any which they had +been able to find in all their treasure rooms. They +bent down to see, and even the camel drivers +peered from the backs of the great beasts to find +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_43' name='page_43'></a>43</span> +out what it was which gleamed in the sun. They +were curious about this last gift for which all the +caravan had waited.</p> +<p>“And the young king took a toy from his hand +and placed it upon the sand. It was a dog of +tin, painted white and speckled with black spots. +Great patches of paint had worn away and left +the metal clear, and that was why the toy shone +in the sun as if it had been silver.</p> +<p>“The youngest of the wise men turned a key in +the side of the little black and white dog and then +he stepped aside so that the kings and the camel +drivers could see. The dog leaped high in the air +and turned a somersault. He turned another and +another and then fell over upon his side and lay +there with a set and painted grin upon his face.</p> +<p>“A child, the son of a camel driver, laughed and +clapped his hands, but the kings were stern. +They rebuked the youngest of the wise men and +he paid no attention but called to his chief servant +to make the first of all the camels kneel. Then +he picked up the toy of tin and, opening the treasure +sack, placed his last gift with his own hands +in the mouth of the sack so that it rested safely +upon the soft bags of incense.</p> +<p>“‘What folly has seized you?’ cried the eldest +of the wise men. ‘Is this a gift to bear to the +King of Kings in the far country?’</p> +<p>“And the young man answered and said: ‘For +the King of Kings there are gifts of great richness, +gold and frankincense and myrrh. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_44' name='page_44'></a>44</span></p> +<p>“‘But this,’ he said, ‘is for the child in Bethlehem!’”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>v</p> +</div> + +<p>Editor of the London Mercury, J. C. Squire has +the light touch of the columnist but limits himself +somewhat more closely to books and the subjects +suggested by them. Very few men living can +write about books with more actual and less apparent +erudition than Mr. Squire. Born in 1884, +educated at Cambridge, an editor of the New +Statesman, a poet unsurpassed in the field of +parody but a poet who sets more store by his serious +verse, Mr. Squire can best be appreciated by +those who have just that desultory interest in +literature which he himself possesses. I have +been looking through his <i>Books in General</i>, <i>Third +Series</i>, for something quotable, and I declare I +cannot lift anything from its setting. It is all of +a piece, from the essay on “If One Were Descended +from Shakespeare” to the remarks about +Ben Jonson, Maeterlinck, Ruskin, Cecil Chesterton +and Mr. Kipling’s later verse (which I have +nowhere seen more sensibly discussed).</p> +<p>Well, perhaps these observations from the chapter +“A Terrifying Collection” will give the taste! +It appears that an anonymous donor had offered +money to the Birmingham Reference Library to +pay for the gathering of a complete collection of +the war poetry issued in the British Empire. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_45' name='page_45'></a>45</span> +After some preliminary comment, Mr. Squire concludes:</p> +<p>“If that donor really means business I shall be +prepared to supply him with one or two rare and +special examples myself. I possess tributes to the +English effort written by Portuguese, Japanese +and Belgians; and pæans by Englishmen which +excel, as regards both simplicity of sentiment and +illiteracy of construction, any foreign composition. +Birmingham is not noted for very many +things. It is, we know, the only large city in the +country which remains solidly Tory in election +after election. It produced, we know, Mr. Joseph +and Mr. Austen Chamberlain. It has, we know, +something like a monopoly in the manufacture of +the gods in wood and brass to which (in his blindness) +the heathen bows down; and there are all +sorts of cheap lines in which it can give the whole +world points and a beating. But it has not yet +got the conspicuous position of Manchester or +Liverpool; and one feels that the enterprise of +this anonymous donor may help to put it on a +level with those towns. For, granted that its +librarians take their commission seriously, and its +friends give them the utmost assistance in their +power, there seems every reason to suppose that +within the next year the City of Birmingham will +be the proud possessor of the largest mound of +villainously bad literature in the English-speaking +world. Pilgrims will go to see it who on no other +account would have gone to Birmingham; historians +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_46' name='page_46'></a>46</span> +will refer to it when endeavouring to prove +that their own ages are superior to ours in intelligence; +authors will inspect it when seeking the +consoling assurance that far, far worse things +than they have ever done have got into public +libraries and been seriously catalogued. The enterprise, +in fact, is likely to be of service to several +classes of our fellow-citizens; and it cannot, +as far as I am able to see, do harm to any. It +should therefore be encouraged, and I recommend +anyone who has volumes of war-verse which he +wishes to get rid of to send them off at once to the +Chief Librarian of Birmingham.”</p> +<p>Oh, yes! <i>Books in General</i>, <i>Third Series</i>, is by +Solomon Eagle. Mr. Squire explains that the pen +name Solomon Eagle has no excuse. The original +bearer of the name was a poor maniac who, during +the Great Plague of London, used to run naked +through the streets with a pan of coals of fire on +his head crying, “Repent, repent.”</p> +<p>Too late I realise my wrongdoing, for what, +after all, is <i>Books in General</i> as compared to Mr. +Squire’s <i>Life and Letters</i>? As a divertissement, +compared to a tone poem; as a curtain-raiser to +a three-act play. <i>Life and Letters</i>, though not +lacking in the lighter touches of Mr. Squire’s +fancy, contains chapters on Keats, Jane Austen, +Anatole France, Walt Whitman, Pope and Rabelais +of that more considered character one expects +from the editor of the London Mercury. This is +not to say that these studies are devoid of humour; +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_47' name='page_47'></a>47</span> +and those chapters in the volume which are in the +nature of interludes are among the best Mr. +Squire has written. Unfortunately I have left +myself no room to quote the incomparable panegyric +(in the chapter on “Initials”) to the name +of John. Read it, if your name is John; you will +thank me for bringing it to your attention.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>vi</p> +</div> + +<p>One expects personality in the daughter of +Margot Asquith, and the readers of the first book +by Princess Antoine Bibesco (Elizabeth Asquith) +were not disappointed. The same distinction and +the same unusual personality will be found in her +new book, <i>Balloons</i>. Princess Bibesco’s <i>I Have +Only Myself to Blame</i> consisted of sixteen short +stories the most nervously alive and most clearly +individualised of feminine gestures. The quality +of Princess Bibesco’s work, in so far as purely descriptive +passages can convey it, may be realised +from these portraits of a father and mother which +open the story called “Pilgrimage” in <i>I Have +Only Myself to Blame</i>:</p> +<p>“My father was one of the most brilliant men +I have ever known but as he refused to choose any +of the ordinary paths of mental activity his name +has remained a family name when it should have +become more exclusively his own. If anything, +my mother’s famous beauty cast far more lustre +on it than his genius—which preferred to bask +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_48' name='page_48'></a>48</span> +in the sunshine of intimacy or recline indolently +in the shady backwaters of privacy and leisure. +And yet in a way he was an adventurer—or rather +an adventurous scientist. He was often called +cynical but that was not true—he was far too +dispassionate, too little of a sentimentalist to be +tempted by inverted sentimentalism. Above all +things he was a collector—a collector of impressions. +His psychological bibelots were not for +everyone. Some, indeed, lay open in the vitime +of his everyday conversation but many more lay +hidden in drawers opened only for the elect.</p> +<p>“Undoubtedly, in a way, my mother was one +of his masterpieces. Her beauty seemed to be +enhanced by every hour and every season. At +forty suddenly her hair had gone snow white. +The primrose, the daffodil, the flame, the gold, the +black, the emerald, the ruby of her youth gave +way to grey and silver, pale jade and faint turquoise, +shell pink and dim lavender. Her loveliness +had shifted. The hours of the day conspired +to set her. The hard coat and skirt, the high collar, +the small hat, the neat veil of morning, the +caressing charmeuse that followed, the trailing +chiffon mysteries of her tea-gown, the white velvet +or the cloth of silver that launched her triumphantly +at night, who was to choose between +them? Summer and winter followed suit. +Whether you saw her emerging from crisp organdy +or clinging crepe de chine, stiff grey astrakan +or melting chinchilla always it was the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_49' name='page_49'></a>49</span> +same. This moment you said to yourself, ‘She has +reached the climax of her loveliness.’</p> +<p>“My father delighted in perfection. He had +discovered it in her and promptly made it his own. +I don’t know if he ever regretted the unfillable +quality of her emptiness. Rather I think it +amused him to see the violent passions she inspired, +to hear her low thrilling voice weigh down +her meaningless murmurs with significance. To +many of her victims the very incompleteness of +her sentences was a form of divine loyalty. One +young poet had described her soul as a fluttering, +desperate bird beating its wings on the bars of her +marvellous loveliness. At this her lazy smile +looked very wise. She thought my father an ideal +husband. He was always right about her clothes +and after all he was the greatest living expert +on her beauty. Obviously he loved her but—well, +he didn’t love her inconveniently.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>vii</p> +</div> + +<p>There will be some who remember reading a +first novel, published several years ago, called +<i>Responsibility</i>. This was a study from a Samuel +Butleresque standpoint of the attitude of a father +toward an illegitimate son. At least, that is what +it came to in the end; but there were leisurely +earlier pages dealing with such subjects as the tiresomeness +of Honest Work and the dishonesty of +righteous people. Very good they were, too. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_50' name='page_50'></a>50</span> +James E. Agate was the author of this decidedly +interesting piece of fiction. He was not a particularly +young man, being in his early forties; but +he was a youngish man. He was youngish in the +sense that Mr. Wells and Mr. Bennett are youngish, +and not in the sense of Sir James Peter Pan +Barrie—incapable of growing up. As dramatic +critic for the Saturday Review, London, Agate +has been much happier than in a former experience +on the Cotton Exchange of Manchester, his +native city. “Each week,” said The Londoner in +The Bookman, recently, “he watches over the +theatre with an enthusiasm for the drama which +must constantly be receiving disagreeable shocks. +He is a man full of schemes, so that the title of +his new book is distinctly appropriate.” That +new book is called <i>Alarums and Excursions</i>.</p> +<p>“Agate is not peaceable,” continues our informant. +“He carries his full energy, which is +astounding, into each topic that arises. He seizes +it. Woe betide the man who dismisses an idol of +his. It is not to be done. He will submit to no +man, however great that man’s prestige may be. +He is the bulldog.”</p> +<p>Agate is a critic “still vigorous enough and +fresh enough to attack and to destroy shams of +every kind. This is what Agate does in <i>Alarums +and Excursions</i>.”</p> +<p>Bright news is it that Agate is writing a new +novel “on the Balzacian scale of <i>Responsibility</i>.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_51' name='page_51'></a>51</span></p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>viii</p> +</div> + +<p>It was in 1918, when I was exploring new +books for a New York book section, that there +came to hand a volume called <i>Walking-Stick +Papers</i>. Therein I found such stuff as this:</p> +<p>“And so the fish reporter enters upon the last +lap of his rounds. Through, perhaps, the narrow, +crooked lane of Pine Street he passes, to come out +at length upon a scene set for a sea tale. Here +would a lad, heir to vast estates in Virginia, be +kidnapped and smuggled aboard to be sold a slave +in Africa. This is Front Street. A white ship lies +at the foot of it. Cranes rise at her side. Tugs, +belching smoke, bob beyond. All about are ancient +warehouses, redolent of the Thames, with +steep roofs and sometimes stairs outside, and with +tall shutters, a crescent-shaped hole in each. +There is a dealer in weather-vanes. Other things +dealt in hereabout are these: Chronometers, ‘nautical +instruments,’ wax guns, cordage and twine, +marine paints, cotton wool and waste, turpentine, +oils, greases, and rosin. Queer old taverns, public +houses, are here, too. Why do not their windows +rattle with a ‘Yo, ho, ho’?</p> +<p>“There is an old, old house whose business +has been fish oil within the memory of men. And +here is another. Next, through Water Street, one +comes in search of the last word on salt fish. Now +the air is filled with gorgeous smell of roasting +coffee. Tea, coffee, sugar, rice, spices, bags and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_52' name='page_52'></a>52</span> +bagging here have their home. And there are +haughty bonded warehouses filled with fine liquors. +From his white cabin at the top of a venerable +structure comes the dean of the salt-fish +business. ‘Export trade fair,’ he says; ‘good demand +from South America.’”</p> +<p>The whole book was like that. I remember +saying and printing:</p> +<p>“If this isn’t individualised writing, extremely +skilful writing and highly entertaining writing, +we would like to know what is.”</p> +<p>But what was that in the general chorus of +delighted praise that went up all over the country?—and +there were persons of discrimination +among the laudators of Robert Cortes Holliday. +People like James Huneker and Simeon Strunsky, +who praised not lightly, were quick to express their +admiration of this new essayist.</p> +<p>Four years have gone adding to Holliday’s +first book volumes in the same class and singularly +unmistakeable in their authorship. They are the +sort of essays that could not be anonymous once +the authorship of one of them was known. We +have, now, <i>Broome Street Straws</i> and the pocket +mirror, <i>Peeps at People</i>. We have <i>Men and +Books and Cities</i> and we have a score of pleasant +<i>Turns About Town</i>.</p> +<p>Holliday shows no sign of failing us. I think +the truth is that he is one of those persons described +somewhere by Wilson Follett; I think +Follett was trying to convey the quality of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_53' name='page_53'></a>53</span> +De Morgan. Follett said that with Dickens and +De Morgan it was not a question of separate +books, singly achieved, but a mere matter of cutting +off another liberal length of the rich personality +which was Dickens or De Morgan. So, +exactly, it seems to me in the case of Holliday. +A new book of Holliday’s essays is simply another +few yards of a personality not precisely matched +among contemporary American essayists. Holliday’s +interests are somewhat broader, more +human and perhaps more humane, more varied +and closer to the normal human spirit and taste +and fancy than are the interests of essayists like +Samuel Crothers and Agnes Repplier.</p> +<p>The measure of Holliday as an author is not, of +course, bounded by these collections of essays. +There is his penetrating study of Booth Tarkington +and the fine collected edition of Joyce Kilmer, +<i>Joyce Kilmer; Poems, Essays and Letters With a +Memoir by Robert Cortes Holliday</i>.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ix</p> +</div> + +<p>A gesture can be very graceful, sometimes. A +half-smile can be wistful and worth remembering. +That was a pleasant story, almost too slender +structurally to be called a novel, by Gilbert W. +Gabriel, published in the spring of 1922. <i>Jiminy</i> +is a tale of the quest of the perfect love story by +Benjamin Benvenuto and Jiminy, maker of small +rhymes. The author, music critic of The Sun, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_54' name='page_54'></a>54</span> +New York, had long been known as a newspaper +writer and a pinch hitter for Don Marquis, conductor +of The Sun’s famous column, The Sun +Dial, when Don was A. W. O. L.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='III_STEWART_EDWARD_WHITE_AND_ADVENTURE' id='III_STEWART_EDWARD_WHITE_AND_ADVENTURE'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_55' name='page_55'></a>55</span> +<h2><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Chapter III</span></h2> +<h3>STEWART EDWARD WHITE AND ADVENTURE</h3> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>i</p> +</div> + +<p>“Stewart Edward White,” says +George Gordon in his book <i>The Men Who +Make Our Novels</i>, “writes out of a vast self-made +experience, draws his characters from a wide +acquaintance with men, recalls situations and incidents +through years of forest tramping, hunting, +exploring in Africa and the less visited places of +our continent, for the differing occasions of his +books. In his boyhood he spent a great part of +each year in lumber camps and on the river. He +first found print with a series of articles on birds, +‘The Birds of Mackinac Island’ (he was born in +Grand Rapids, March 12, 1873), brought out in +pamphlet form by the Ornithologists’ Union and +since (perforce) referred to as his ‘first book.’ In +the height of the gold rush he set out for the Black +Hills, to return East broke and to write <i>The Claim +Jumpers</i> and <i>The Westerners</i>. He followed +Roosevelt into Africa, <i>The Land of Footprints</i> +and of <i>Simba</i>. He has, more recently, seen service +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_56' name='page_56'></a>56</span> +in France as a Major in the U. S. Field Artillery. +Though (certainly) no Ishmael, he has for +years been a wanderer upon the face of the earth, +observant and curious of the arresting and strange—and +his novels and short stories mark a journey +such as but few have gone upon, a trailing of rainbows, +a search for gold beyond the further hills +and a finding of those campfires (left behind when +Mr. Kipling’s <i>Explorer</i> crossed the ranges beyond +the edge of cultivation) round which the resolute +sit to swap lies while the tenderfoot makes a fair—and +forced—pretence at belief.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p>Spring, 1922, having advanced to that stage +where one could feel confidence that summer +would follow—a confidence one cannot always +feel in March—a short letter came from Mr. +White. He enclosed two photographs. One of +them showed a trim-looking man with eyeglasses +and moustache, sitting shirt-sleeved in a frail-looking +craft. The letter explained that this was +a collapsible canvas boat. My deduction was that +the picture had been taken before the boat collapsed.</p> +<p>There was also a picture of another and much +sturdier boat. I think the name Seattle was +painted on her stern. She lay on a calm surface +that stretched off to a background of towering +mountains—Lake Louise Inlet. The much sturdier boat, +I understood, was also the property of S. E. White.</p> +<div class='figcenter'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_57' name='page_57'></a>57</span> +<a name='linki_2' id='linki_2'></a> +<img src='images/winter03.jpg' alt='' title='' style='width: 303px; height: 443px;' /><br /> +<p class='caption' style='margin: 0 auto; text-align:center;width: 303px;'> +STEWART EDWARD WHITE<br /> +</p> +</div> + +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_59' name='page_59'></a>59</span></div> +<p>The letter made all these things very clear. +It said: “Fifteen tons, fifty feet, sleeps five, +thirty-seven horsepower, heavy duty engine, built +sea-going, speed nine knots. No phonograph! +No wine cellar.</p> +<p>“We are going north, that is all the plans we +have. We two are all there are on board, though +we are thinking of getting a cat. On second +thought, here is the crew in the canvas boat we +carry to the inland lakes to fish from. Her name +is the <i>Wreckless</i>; be careful how you spell it.”</p> +<p>As stated, the crew in the about-to-collapse +boat was Stewart Edward White. On his way +north it was his intention to revise what will be, +in his judgment, the most important novel he has +written. But I must not say anything about that +yet. Let me say something, rather, about his new +book which you who read this have a more immediate +prospect of enjoying. <i>On Tiptoe: A Romance +of the Redwoods</i> is Stewart Edward White +in a somewhat unusual but entirely taking rôle. +Here we have Mr. White writing what is essentially +a comedy; and yet there is an element of +fantasy in the story which, in the light of a few +opening and closing paragraphs, can be taken +seriously, too.</p> +<p>The story sounds, in an outline, almost baldly +implausible. Here are certain people, including +a young woman, the daughter of a captain of industry, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_60' name='page_60'></a>60</span> +stranded in the redwoods. Here is a +young man out of nowhere, who foretells the +weather in a way that is uncannily verified soon +afterward. Here also is the astonishing engine +which the young man has brought with him out +of nowhere,—an engine likely to revolutionise +the affairs of the world....</p> +<p>I suppose that the secret of such a story as <i>On +Tiptoe</i> lies entirely in the telling. I know that +when I heard it outlined, the thing seemed to me +to be preposterous. But then, while still under +the conviction of this preposterousness, the story +itself came to my hand and I began to read. Its +preposterousness did not worry me any longer. It +had, besides a plausibility more than sufficient, a +narrative charm and a whimsical humour that +would have justified any tale. The thing that +links <i>On Tiptoe</i> with Stewart Edward White is +the perfect picture of the redwoods—the feeling +of all outdoors you get while under the spell of the +story. I do not think there is any doubt that all +lovers of White will enjoy this venture into the +field of light romance.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iii</p> +</div> + +<p>Stewart Edward White was the son of T. +Stewart White and Mary E. (Daniell) White. +He received the degree of bachelor of philosophy +from the University of Michigan in 1895 and the +degree of master of arts from the same institution +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_61' name='page_61'></a>61</span> +in 1903 (<i>Who’s Who in America: Volume 12</i>). +He attended Columbia Law School in 1896-97. +He married on April 28, 1904, Elizabeth Grant +of Newport, Rhode Island. He was a major with +the 144th Field Artillery in 1917-18. He lives in +California. But these skeletal details, all right +for <i>Who’s Who in America</i>, serve our purpose +poorly. I am going to try to picture the man from +two accounts of him written by friends. One +appeared as an appendix to White’s novel <i>Gold</i>, +published in 1913, and was written by Eugene F. +Saxton. The other is a short newspaper article +by John Palmer Gavit (long with the New York +Evening Post) printed in the Philadelphia Ledger +for May 20, 1922.</p> +<p>Mr. Saxton had a talk with White a few days +before White sailed from New York for his second +African exploring expedition. Saxton had +asked the novelist if he did not think it possible +to lay hold of the hearts and imaginations of a +great public through a novel which had no love +interest in it; if “man pitted against nature was +not, after all, the eternal drama.”</p> +<p>White thought for a moment and then said:</p> +<p>“In the main, that is correct. Only I should +say that the one great drama is that of the individual +man’s struggles toward perfect adjustment +with his environment. According as he comes +into correspondence and harmony with his environment, +by that much does he succeed. That +is what an environment is for. It may be financial, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_62' name='page_62'></a>62</span> +natural, sexual, political, and so on. The +sex element is important, of course,—very important. +But it is not the only element by any +means; nor is it necessarily an element that exercises +an instant influence on the great drama. Any +one who so depicts it is violating the truth. Other +elements of the great drama are as important—self-preservation, +for example, is a very simple +and even more important instinct than that of the +propagation of the race. Properly presented, +these other elements, being essentially vital, are +of as much interest to the great public as the relation +of the sexes.”</p> +<p>The first eight or nine years of Mr. White’s +life were spent in a small mill town. Michigan +was at that time the greatest of lumber states. +White was still a boy when the family moved to +Grand Rapids, then a city of about 30,000. +Stewart Edward White did not go to school until +he was sixteen, but then he entered the third year +high with boys of his own age and was graduated +at eighteen, president of his class. He won and, I +believe, still holds the five-mile running record +of the school.</p> +<p>The explanation is that the eight or ten years +which most boys spend in grammar school were +spent by Stewart Edward continually in the +woods and among the rivermen, in his own town +and in the lumber camps to which his father took +him. Then there was a stretch of four years, from +about the age of twelve on, when he was in California, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_63' name='page_63'></a>63</span> +as he says “a very new sort of a place.” +These days were spent largely in the saddle and +he saw a good deal of the old California ranch +life.</p> +<p>“The Birds of Mackinac Island,” already referred +to, was only one of thirty or forty papers +on birds which White wrote in his youth for +scientific publications. Six or seven hundred +skins that he acquired are now preserved in the +Kent Scientific Museum of Grand Rapids.</p> +<p>His summer vacations while he was in college +were spent cruising the Great Lakes in a 28-foot +cutter sloop. After graduating he spent six +months in a packing-house at $6 a week. His +adventure in the Black Hills gold rush followed.</p> +<p>It was during his studies at Columbia that +White wrote, as part of his class work, a story +called “A Man and His Dog” which Brander +Matthews urged him to try to sell. Short Stories +brought it for $15 and subsequent stories sold also. +One brought as much as $35!</p> +<p>He tried working in MCClurg’s bookstore in +Chicago at $9 a week. Then he set out for Hudson +Bay. <i>The Claim Jumpers</i>, finished about +this time, was brought out as a book and was well +received. The turn of the tide did not come until +Munsey paid $500 for the serial right in <i>The +Westerners</i>. White was paid in five dollar bills +and he says that when he stuffed the money in his +pockets he left at once for fear someone would +change his mind and want all that money back. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_64' name='page_64'></a>64</span></p> +<p><i>The Blazed Trail</i> was written in a lumber camp +in the depth of a northern winter. The only +hours White could spare for writing were in the +early morning, so he would begin at 4 A. M., +and write until 8 A. M., then put on his snowshoes +and go out for a day’s lumbering. The story +finished, he gave it to Jack Boyd, the foreman, to +read. Boyd began it after supper one evening and +when White awoke the next morning at four +o’clock he found the foreman still at it. As Boyd +never even read a newspaper, White regarded this +as a triumph. This is the book that an Englishwoman, +entering a book shop where White happened +to be, asked for in these words: “Have you +a copy of <i>Blasé Tales</i>?”</p> +<p>White went out hastily in order not to overhear +her cries of disappointment.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iv</p> +</div> + +<p>Mr. Saxton asked White why he went to Africa +and White said:</p> +<p>“My answer to that is pretty general. I went +because I wanted to. About once in so often the +wheels get rusty and I have to get up and do something +real or else blow up. Africa seemed to me +a pretty real thing. Before I went I read at least +twenty books about it and yet I got no mental +image of what I was going to see. That fact accounts +for these books of mine. I have tried to +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_65' name='page_65'></a>65</span> +tell in plain words what an ordinary person would +see there.</p> +<p>“Let me add,” he went on, “that I did not go +for material. I never go anywhere for material; +if I did I should not get it. That attitude of mind +would give me merely externals, which are not +worth writing about. I go places merely because, +for one reason or another, they attract me. Then, +if it happens that I get close enough to the life, +I may later find that I have something to write +about. A man rarely writes anything convincing +unless he has lived the life; not with his critical +faculty alert; but whole-heartedly and because, +for the time being, it is his life.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>v</p> +</div> + +<p>John Palmer Gavit tells how once, when hunting, +White broke his leg and had to drag himself +back long miles to camp alone:</p> +<p>“Adventure enough, you’d say. But along the +way a partridge drummed and nothing would do +but he must digress a hundred yards from the +shorter and sufficiently painful way, brace himself +for the shot and recoil, kill the bird and have +his dog retrieve it, and bring his game along with +him. Just to show himself that this impossible +thing could be done.</p> +<p>“I am not imagining when I say that in this +same spirit Stewart Edward White faces the +deeper problems and speculations of life. He +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_66' name='page_66'></a>66</span> +wants to know about things here and hereafter. +With the same zest and simplicity of motive he +faces the secret doors of existence; not to prove +or disprove, but to see and find out. And when +he comes to the Last Door he will go through without +fear, with eyes open to see in the next undiscovered +country what there is to be seen and to +show that the heart of a brave and unshrinking +man, truthful and open-handed and friendly, is +at home there, as he may be anywhere under God’s +jurisdiction.”</p> +<hr class='minor' /> + +<div class='ce'> +<p><i>Books</i></p> +<p>by Stewart Edward White</p> +</div> + +<div class='la'> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE WESTERNERS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE CLAIM JUMPERS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE BLAZED TRAIL</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>CONJUROR’S HOUSE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE FOREST</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE MAGIC FOREST</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE SILENT PLACES</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE MOUNTAIN</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>BLAZED TRAIL STORIES</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE PASS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE MYSTERY (With Samuel Hopkins Adams)</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>ARIZONA NIGHTS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>CAMP AND TRAIL</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE RIVERMAN</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE RULES OF THE GAME</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE CABIN</p> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_67' name='page_67'></a>67</span> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE ADVENTURES OF BOBBY ORDE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE LAND OF FOOTPRINTS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>AFRICAN CAMP FIRES</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>GOLD</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE REDISCOVERED COUNTRY</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE GREY DAWN</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE LEOPARD WOMAN</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>SIMBA</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE FORTY-NINERS (In The Chronicles of America Series)</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE ROSE DAWN</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE KILLER, AND OTHER STORIES</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>ON TIPTOE: A ROMANCE OF THE REDWOODS</p> +</div> + +<hr class='minor' /> + +<div class='ce'> +<p><i>Sources</i></p> +<p style=' margin-bottom:1.5em;'>on Stewart Edward White</p> +</div> + +<p><i>The Men Who Make our Novels</i>, by George Gordon. <span style='font-variant: small-caps'>MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY</span>.</p> +<p><i>Who’s Who in America.</i></p> +<p><i>Stewart Edward White: Appendix to</i> <span style='font-variant: small-caps'>GOLD</span> (published in 1913) by Eugene F. Saxton. +<span style='font-variant: small-caps'>DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY</span>.</p> +<p><i>Stewart Edward White</i>, by John Palmer Gavit. +<span style='font-variant: small-caps'>PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC LEDGER</span>, May 20, 1922.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='IV_WHERE_THE_PLOT_THICKENS' id='IV_WHERE_THE_PLOT_THICKENS'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_68' name='page_68'></a>68</span> +<h2><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Chapter IV</span></h2> +<h3>WHERE THE PLOT THICKENS</h3> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>i</p> +</div> + +<p>Scarcely anyone is there, now writing +mystery stories, who, with the combination +of ingenuity—or perhaps I should say originality—dependableness, +and a sufficient atmosphere +comes up to the high and steady level of Frank L. +Packard. Born in Montreal in 1877 of American +parents, a graduate of McGill University and a +student of Liége, Belgium, Mr. Packard was engaged +in engineering work for some years and began +writing for a number of magazines in 1906. +He now lives at Lachine, Province of Quebec, +Canada, and the roll of his books is a considerable +one. In that roll, there are titles known and enthusiastically +remembered by nearly every reader +of the mystery tale. Is there anyone who has not +heard of <i>The Miracle Man</i> or <i>The Wire Devils</i> or +Jimmie Dale in <i>The Adventures of Jimmie Dale</i> +and <i>The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale</i>? +<i>The Night Operator,</i> <i>From Now On</i>, <i>Pawned</i>, +and, most recently, <i>Doors of the Night</i> have had +their public ready and waiting. That same public +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_69' name='page_69'></a>69</span> +will denude the book counters of <i>Jimmie Dale +and The Phantom Clue</i> this autumn.</p> +<p>Packard differs from his fellow-writers of mystery +stories in his flair for the unusual idea. In +<i>Pawned</i> each character finds himself in pawn to +another, and must act as someone else dictates. +<i>Doors of the Night</i> is the account of a man who +was both a notorious leader and hunted prey of +New York’s underworld. <i>From Now On</i> is the +unexpected story of a man after he comes out of +prison; and Jimmie Dale, Fifth Avenue clubman, +was, to Clancy, Smarlinghue the dope fiend; to +the gang, Larry the Bat, stool pigeon; but to +Headquarters—the Grey Seal!</p> +<p>Stories of the underworld are among the most +difficult to write. The thing had, it seemed, been +done to death and underdone and overdone when +Packard came along. In all seriousness, it may +be said that Packard has restored the underworld +to respectability—as a domain for fictional purposes +at least! It is not that his crooks are real +crooks—though they are—but that he is able to +put life into them, to make them seem human. +No man is a hero to his valet and no crook can be +merely a crook in a story of the underworld that is +intended to convey any sense of actuality. Beside +the distortions and conventionalisations of most +underworld stories, Packard’s novels stand out +with distinctiveness and a persistent vitality. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_70' name='page_70'></a>70</span></p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p>When a book called <i>Bulldog Drummond</i> was +published there was no one prescient of the great +success of the play which would be made from +the story. But those who read mystery stories +habitually knew well that a mystery-builder of +exceptional adroitness had arrived. Of course, +Cyril McNeile, under the pen name “Sapper,” +was already somewhat known in America by several +war books; but <i>Bulldog Drummond</i> was a +novelty. Apparently it was possible to write a +first rate detective-mystery story with touches of +crisp humour as good as Pelham Grenville Wodehouse’s +stuff! There is something convincing +about the hero of <i>Bulldog Drummond</i>, the brisk +and cheerful young man whom demobilisation has +left unemployed and whose perfectly natural susceptibility +to the attractiveness of a young woman +leads him into adventures as desperate as any in +No Man’s Land.</p> +<p>For Cyril McNeile’s new story <i>The Black +Gang</i>, after the experience of <i>Bulldog Drummond</i> +as a book and play, Americans will be better prepared. +An intermediate book, <i>The Man in Ratcatcher</i>, +consists of shorter stories which exhibit +very perfectly McNeile’s gift for the dramatic +situation. He gives us the man who returned +from the dead to save his sweetheart from destruction; +the man who staked his happiness on a +half forgotten waltz; the man who played at cards +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_71' name='page_71'></a>71</span> +for his wife; the man who assisted at suicide, +either ordinary short stories nor ordinary +motifs! I should hesitate to predict how far +McNeile will go along this special line of his; +but I see no reason why he should not give us the +successor of Sherlock Holmes.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iii</p> +</div> + +<p><i>Black Cæsar’s Clan</i> is the good title of Albert +Payson Terhune’s new story in succession to his +<i>Black Gold</i>, a mystery story that was distinguished +by the possession of a Foreword so unusual +as to be worth reprinting—one of the best +arguments for this type of book ever penned:</p> +<p>“If you are questing for character-study or for +realism or for true literature in any of its forms,—then +walk around this book of mine (and, indeed, +any book of mine); for it was not written for you +and it will have no appeal for you.</p> +<p>“But if you care for a yarn with lots of action,—some +of it pretty exciting,—you may like <i>Black +Gold</i>. I think you will.</p> +<p>“It has all the grand old tricks: from the +Weirdly Vanishing Footprints, to the venerable +Ride for Life. Yes, and it embalms even the half-forgotten +and long-disused Struggle on the Cliff. +Its Hero is a hero. Its Villain is a villain. Nobody +could possibly mistake either of them for the +Friend of the Family. The Heroine is just a +heroine; not a human. There is not a subtle +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_72' name='page_72'></a>72</span> +phrase or a disturbingly new thought, from start +to finish.</p> +<p>“There is a good mystery, too; along lines +which have not been worked over-often. And +there is a glimpse of Untold Treasure. What better +can you ask; in a story that is frank melodrama?</p> +<p>“The scene, by the way, is laid in Northern +California; a beautiful and strikingly individualistic +region which, for the most part, is ignored +by tourists for the man-made scenic effects and +playgrounds of the southern counties of the +State.</p> +<p>“If, now and again, my puppets or my plot-wires +creak a bit noisily,—what then? Creaking, +at worst, is a sure indication of movement,—of +action,—of incessant progress of sorts. A thing +that creaks is not standing still and gathering +mildew. It moves. Otherwise it could not +creak.</p> +<p>“Yes, there are worse faults to a plot than an +occasional tendency to creakiness. It means, for +one thing, that numberless skippable pages are not +consumed in photographic description of the ill-assorted +furnishings of the heroine’s room or +cosmos; nor in setting forth the myriad phases of +thought undergone by the hero in seeking to check +the sway of his pet complexes. (This drearily +flippant slur on realism springs from pure envy. +I should rejoice to write such a book. But I +can’t. And, if I could, I know I should never be +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_73' name='page_73'></a>73</span> +able to stay awake long enough to correct its +proofs.)</p> +<p>“Yet, there is something to be said in behalf +of the man or woman who finds guilty joy in +reading a story whose action gallops; a story +whose runaway pace breaks its stride only to leap +a chasm or for a breathcatching stumble on a +precipice-edge. The office boy prefers Captain +Kidd to Strindberg; not because he is a boy, but +because he is human and has not yet learned the +trick of disingenuousness. He is still normal. +So is the average grown-up.</p> +<p>“These normal and excitement-loving readers +are overwhelmingly in the majority. Witness the +fact that <i>The Bat</i> had a longer run in New York +than have all of Dunsany’s and Yeats’s rare +dramas, put together. If we insist that our country +be guided by majority-rule, then why sneer at +a majority-report in literary tastes?</p> +<p>“<i>Ben Hur</i> was branded as a ‘religious dime +novel.’ Yet it has had fifty times the general +vogue of Anatole France’s pseudo-blasphemy +which deals with the same period. Public taste +is not always, necessarily, bad taste. ‘The common +people heard Him, gladly.’ (The Scribes did +not.)</p> +<p>“After all, there is nothing especially debasing +in a taste for yarns which drip with mystery and +suspense and ceaseless action; even if the style +and concept of these yarns be grossly lacking in +certain approved elements. So the tale be written +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_74' name='page_74'></a>74</span> +with strong evidence of sincerity and with a dash +of enthusiasm, why grudge it a small place of its +own in readers’ hours of mental laziness?</p> +<p>“With this shambling apology,—which, really, +is no apology at all,—I lay my book on your +knees. You may like it or you may not. You +will find it alive with flaws. But, it is alive.</p> +<p>“I don’t think it will bore you. Perhaps there +are worse recommendations.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iv</p> +</div> + +<p>Hulbert Footner does not look like a writer of +mystery stories. A tall, handsome, well-dressed, +extremely courteous gentleman who, had he the +requisite accent, might just have arrived from +Bond Street. He has a trim moustache. Awfully +attractive blue eyes! He lives on a farm at +Sollers, Maryland. No one else, it seems, is so +familiar with the unusual corners of New York +City, the sort of places that get themselves called +“quaint.” No one else manages the affairs of +young lovers (on paper) with quite so much of +the airy spirit of young love. I can think of no +one else who could write such a scene as that in +<i>The Owl Taxi</i>, where the dead-wagon, on its way +in the night to the vast cemetery in a New York +suburb, is held up for the removal of a much-needed +corpse. Such material is bizarre. The +handling of it must be very deft or the result +will be revolting; and yet the thing can be done. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_75' name='page_75'></a>75</span> +In the latter part of that excellent play, <i>Seven +Keys to Baldpate</i>, George M. Cohan and his +company bandied a corpse from attic to cellar of +a country house. This preposterous scene as presented +on the stage was helplessly laughable. Mr. +Footner’s scene in <i>The Owl Taxi</i> is like that.</p> +<p>The man has a special gift for the picturesque +person. I do not know whether he uses originals; +if I suspect an original for old Simon Deaves in +<i>The Deaves Affair</i>, I get no farther than a faint +suspicion that ... No, I cannot identify his +character. (Not that I want to; I am not a victim +of that fatal obsession which fastens itself upon +so many readers of fiction—the desire to identify +the characters in a story with someone in real life. +The idea is ridiculous.) Mr. Footner knows +Greenwich Village. He knows outlying stretches +in the greater city of New York; he knows excursion +boats such as the Ernestina, whose cruises +play so curious a part in <i>The Deaves Affair</i>. I +have a whetted appetite for what Footner will +give us next; I feel sure it will be like no other +story of the season. A great deal to be sure of!</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>v</p> +</div> + +<p>The peculiarity about <i>Gold-Killer</i> is the mystery +behind the excellent mystery of the book. I +mean, of course, the mystery of its authorship. I +do not any longer believe that the book is the work +of Siamese twins—in a physiological sense of the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_76' name='page_76'></a>76</span> +word “twins.” I know that there is no John Prosper—or, +rather, that if there is a John Prosper, he +is not the author of <i>Gold-Killer</i>. Yet the book +was the work of more than one man. Were two +intellects siamesed to write the story? Those +who, in my opinion, know the facts point to the +name on the title page and say that John is John +and Prosper is Prosper and never the twain shall +meet, unless for the purpose of evolving a super-<i>Gold-Killer</i>. +Whether they will be able to surpass +this book, which opens with a murder at the +opera and finishes (practically) with a nose dive +in an airplane, is beyond my surmise.</p> +<p>If they will try, I give them my word I will read +the new yarn.</p> +<p>Mrs. Baillie Reynolds’s latest novel is called +<i>The Judgment of Charis</i>. It is not a story to tell +too much about in advance. I will say that +Charis had run away from an all-too-persistent +lover and an all-too-gorgeous family, and had +been taken under the wing of a kindly, middle-aged +millionaire and invited to become his secretary. +She expected some complications and in her +expectations she was not disappointed; and the +readers’ expectations will not be disappointed +either, though they may find the ending unexpected. +<i>The Vanishing of Betty Varian</i> restored to +readers of Carolyn Wells a detective whose appearance +in <i>The Room with the Tassels</i> made that +story more than ordinarily worth while. I do not +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_77' name='page_77'></a>77</span> +know, though, whether Penny Wise would be interesting +or even notable if it were not for his +curious assistant, Zizi. The merit of detective +stories is necessarily variable; <i>The Vanishing of +Betty Varian</i> is one of the author’s best; but Miss +Wells (really Mrs. Hadwin Houghton) is, to me, +as extraordinary as her stories. All those books! +She herself says that “having mastered the psychology +of detachment” she can write with more +concentration and less revision than any other professional +writer of her acquaintance. Yes, but +how—— No doubt it is too much to expect her +to explain <i>how</i> she is ingenious.</p> +<p>Mrs. Belloc Lowndes, sister of Hilaire Belloc, +is ingenious in a different direction. Her story +of <i>What Timmy Did</i> was one that attracted especial +attention from those periodicals and persons +interested in psychic matters. Here was a woman +whose husband had died from poison—self-administered, +the coroner decided—and here was little +Timmy, who knew that something was wrong. +Animals also knew it; and then one day Timmy +saw at her heels a shadow man, stiff and military, +and behind him a phantom dog. Mrs. Lowndes’s +gifts, different from her distinguished brother’s, +are none the less gifts.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='V_REBECCA_WEST_AN_ARTIST' id='V_REBECCA_WEST_AN_ARTIST'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_78' name='page_78'></a>78</span> +<h2><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Chapter V</span></h2> +<h3>REBECCA WEST: AN ARTIST</h3> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>i</p> +</div> + +<p>Whether Rebecca West is writing reviews +of books or dramatic criticism or +novels she is an artist, above everything. I have +been reading delightedly the pages of her new +novel, <i>The Judge</i>. It is Miss West’s second novel. +One is somewhat prepared for it by the excellence +of her first, <i>The Return of the Soldier</i>, published +in 1918. Somewhat, but not adequately.</p> +<p>Perhaps I am prejudiced. You see, I have been +in Edinburgh, and though it was the worst season +of the year—the period when, as Robert Louis +Stevenson says, that Northern city has “the vilest +climate under Heaven”—nevertheless, the charm +and dignity of that old town captured me at the +very moment when a penetrating Scotch winter +rain was coming in direct contact with my bones. +I was, I might as well confess, soaked and chilled +as no New York winter snowstorm ever wetted +and chilled me. It did not matter; here was the +long sweep of Princes Street with its gay shops on +one side and its deep valley on the other; across +the valley the tenements of the Royal Mile lifted +themselves up—the Royal Mile, which runs always +uphill from the Palace that is Holyrood to +the height that is the Castle. Talk about gestures! +The whole city of Edinburgh is a matchless +gesture.</p> +<div class='figcenter'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_79' name='page_79'></a>79</span> +<a name='linki_3' id='linki_3'></a> +<img src='images/winter04.jpg' alt='' title='' style='width: 303px; height: 269px;' /><br /> +<p class='caption' style='margin: 0 auto; text-align:center;width: 303px;'> +REBECCA WEST<br /> +</p> +</div> + +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_81' name='page_81'></a>81</span></div> +<p>And so, when I began the first page of <i>The +Judge</i>, it was a grand delight to find myself back +in the city of the East Wind:</p> +<p>“It was not because life was not good enough +that Ellen Melville was crying as she sat by the +window. The world, indeed, even so much of it +as could be seen from her window, was extravagantly +beautiful. The office of Mr. Mactavish +James, Writer to the Signet, was in one of those +decent grey streets that lie high on the Northward +slope of Edinburgh New Town, and Ellen was +looking up the sidestreet that opened just opposite +and revealed, menacing as the rattle of spears, +the black rock and bastions of the Castle against +the white beamless glare of the southern sky. +And it was the hour of the clear Edinburgh twilight, +that strange time when the world seems to +have forgotten the sun though it keeps its colour; +it could still be seen that the moss between the +cobblestones was a wet bright green, and that a +red autumn had been busy with the wind-nipped +trees, yet these things were not gay, but cold and +remote as brightness might be on the bed of a +deep stream, fathoms beneath the visitation of the +sun. At this time all the town was ghostly, and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_82' name='page_82'></a>82</span> +she loved it so. She took her mind by the arm +and marched it up and down among the sights of +Edinburgh, telling it that to be weeping with discontent +in such a place was a scandalous turning +up of the nose at good mercies. Now the Castle +Esplanade, that all day had proudly supported +the harsh virile sounds and colours of the drilling +regiments, would show to the slums its blank surface, +bleached bonewhite by the winds that raced +above the city smoke. Now the Cowgate and the +Canongate would be given over to the drama of +the disorderly night, the slumdwellers would foregather +about the rotting doors of dead men’s mansions +and brawl among the not less brawling +ghosts of a past that here never speaks of peace, +but only of blood and argument. And Holyrood, +under a black bank surmounted by a low bitten +cliff, would lie like the camp of an invading and +terrified army....”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p><i>The Judge</i> is certainly autobiographical in +some of the material employed. For instance, it +is a fact that Miss West went to school in Edinburgh, +attending an institution not unlike John +Thompson’s Ladies College referred to in <i>The +Judge</i> (but only referred to). It is a fact, as everyone +who knows anything about Miss West knows, +that Miss West was an ardent suffragette in that +time before suffragettes had ceased from troubling +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_83' name='page_83'></a>83</span> +and Prime Ministers were at rest. An amazing +legend got about some time ago that Rebecca +West’s real name was Regina Miriam Bloch. +Then on the strength of the erring “Readers’ +Guide to Periodical Literature” did Miss Amy +Wellington write a sprightly article for the Literary +Review of the New York Evening Post. Miss +Wellington referred to this mysterious Regina +Miriam Bloch who had stunned everybody by her +early articles written under the name of one of +Ibsen’s most formidable heroines; but unfortunately +Miss West wrote a letter in disclaimer. She +cannot help Mr. Ibsen. It may be a collision in +names, but it is not a collusion. The truth about +Rebecca West, who has written <i>The Judge</i>, seems +to be dependably derivable from the English +<i>Who’s Who</i>, a standard work always worth consulting. +This estimable authority says that Rebecca +West was born on Christmas in 1892, and +is the youngest daughter of the late Charles Fairfield +of County Kerry. It further says that she +was educated at George Watson’s Ladies’ College, +Edinburgh. It states that she joined the staff of +The Freewoman as a reviewer in 1911. Her club +is the International Women’s Franchise. Her +residence is 36 Queen’s Gate Terrace, London +S. W. 7. Her telephone is Kensington 7285.</p> +<p>Now is there anything mythical left? What +excuse, O everybody, is there any longer for the +legend of Regina Miriam Bloch?</p> +<p>But I do not believe Miss West objects to legends. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_84' name='page_84'></a>84</span> +I imagine she loves them. The legend of +a name is perhaps unimportant; the legend of a +personality is of the highest importance. That +Miss West has a personality is evident to anyone +familiar with her work. A personality, however, +is not three-dimensionally revealed except in that +form of work which comes closest to the heart and +life of the worker. To write pungent and terrifyingly +sane criticisms is a notable thing; but to +write novels of tender insight and intimate revelation +is a far more convincing thing. <i>The Judge</i> is +such a novel.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iii</p> +</div> + +<p>There is a prefatory sentence, as follows:</p> +<p>“Every mother is a Judge who sentences the +children for the sins of the father.”</p> +<p>There is a dedication. It is:</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p>TO THE MEMORY OF MY MOTHER</p> +</div> + +<p><i>The Judge</i> is a study of the claim of a mother +upon her son. The circumstances of Mrs. Yaverland’s +life were such as peculiarly to strengthen +the tie between her and Richard. On the other +hand, she had always disliked and even hated +her son Roger.</p> +<p>The first part of the book, however, does not +bring in Richard Yaverland’s mother. It is a picture +of Ellen Melville, the girl in Edinburgh, the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_85' name='page_85'></a>85</span> +girl whose craving for the colour of existence has +gone unsatisfied until Richard Yaverland enters +her life. Yaverland, with his stories of Spain, +and his imaginative appeal for that young girl, +is the fulcrum of Ellen Melville’s destiny.</p> +<p>That destiny, carried by the forces of human +character to its strange termination, is handled by +Miss West in a long novel the chapters of which +are a series of delineative emotions. I do not +mean that Miss West shrinks from externalised +action, as did Henry James whom she has admired +and studied. She perceives the immense +value of introspection, but is not lost in its quicksands. +She can devote a whole chapter to a train +of thought in the mind of Ellen Melville, sitting +inattentively at a public meeting; and she can +follow it with another long chapter giving the sequence +of thoughts in the mind of Richard Yaverland; +and she can bring each chapter to a period +with the words: “She (he) glanced across the +hall. Their eyes met.” It might be thought that +this constitutes a waste of narrative space; not so. +As a matter of fact, without the insight accorded +by these disclosures of things thought and felt, +we should be unable to understand the behaviour +of these two young people.</p> +<p>All the first half of the book is a truly marvelous +story of young lovers; all the latter end of the +book is a relation scarcely paralleled in fiction of +the conflict between the mother’s claim and the +claim of the younger woman. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_86' name='page_86'></a>86</span></p> +<p>Of subsidiary portraits there are plenty. Ellen’s +mother and Mr. Mactavish James and Mr. +Philip James are like full-lengths by Velasquez. +In the closing chapters of the book we have the +extraordinary figure of the brother and son, Roger, +accompanied by the depressing girl whom he has +picked up the Lord knows where.</p> +<p>And, after all, this is not a first novel—that +promise, which so often fails of fulfilment—but a +second novel; and I have in many a day not read +anything that seemed to me to get deeper into the +secrets of life than this study of a man who, at the +last, spoke triumphantly, “as if he had found a +hidden staircase out of destiny,” and a woman +who, at the last, “knew that though life at its +beginning was lovely as a corn of wheat it was +ground down to flour that must make bitter bread +between two human tendencies, the insane sexual +caprice of men, the not less mad excessive steadfastness +of women.”</p> +<hr class='minor' /> + +<div class='ce'> +<p><i>Books</i></p> +<p>by Rebecca West</p> +</div> + +<div class='la'> +<p>THE RETURN OF THE SOLDIER</p> +<p>THE JUDGE</p> +</div> + +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_87' name='page_87'></a>87</span></div> +<hr class='minor' /> + +<div class='ce'> +<p><i>Sources</i></p> +<p style=' margin-bottom:1.5em;'>on Rebecca West</p> +</div> + +<p><i>Who’s Who</i>. [In England].</p> +<p><i>Rebecca West</i>: Article by Amy Wellington in the +<span style='font-variant: small-caps'>LITERARY REVIEW OF THE NEW YORK EVENING POST</span>, 1921.</p> +<p>Articles by Rebecca West in various English publications, +frequently reprinted by <span style='font-variant: small-caps'>THE LIVING +AGE</span>. See the <span style='font-variant: small-caps'>READERS’ GUIDE TO PERIODICAL +LITERATURE</span>.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='VI_SHAMELESS_FUN' id='VI_SHAMELESS_FUN'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_88' name='page_88'></a>88</span> +<h2><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Chapter VI</span></h2> +<h3>SHAMELESS FUN</h3> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>i</p> +</div> + +<p>One way to write about Nina Wilcox +Putnam would be in the way she writes +about everything. It’s not so hard. As thus:</p> +<p>Some dull day in the office. We look up and +whom should we see standing right there before +us but Nina Wilcox Putnam! Falling over backwards, +that being what our swivel chair is made +for, we say: “Well, well, well! So today is +May 3, 1922! Where from? West Broadway?”</p> +<p>“I should not say so! South Broadway, I +guess. I’ve just motored up from Florida. But +your speaking of West Broadway reminds me: +I’ve written a piece for George Lorimer of Saturday +Evening Post. You see my book, <i>West +Broadway</i>, brought me so many letters my arm +ached from answering them. What car did you +drive? Where d’y’ get gas in the desert? What’s +the best route? And thus et cetera. So now I +have wrote me a slender essay answering everything +that anybody can ask on this or other transcontinental +subjects. Mr. Lorimer will publish, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_89' name='page_89'></a>89</span> +and who knows—as they say in fiction—it might +make a book afterward.”</p> +<p>“How’s Florida?”</p> +<p>“I left it fine, if it doesn’t get in trouble while +I’m away. I’ve bought a ranch, for fruit only, on +the East Coast, between Palm Beach and Miami, +but not paying these expensive prices, no, not +never. And I shall live there for better but not +for worse, for richer, but most positively not for +poorer. I pick my own alligator pears off my own +tree unless I want to sell them for fifteen cents +on the tree. Bathing, one-half mile east by +motor.”</p> +<p>“Been reading your piece, ‘How I Have Got So +Far So Good,’ in John Siddall’s American Magazine.”</p> +<p>“Yes, I thought I would join the autobiographists—Benvenuto +Cellini, Margot Asquith, +Benjamin Franklin, et Al, as Ring Lardner would +insist. Do you know Ring? He and I are going +to have one of these amicable literary duels soon, +like the famous <i>Isn’t That Just Like a Man? Oh, +Well, You Know How Women Are!</i> which Mrs. +Rinehart and Irvin Cobb fought to a finish. But +speaking of sport, I have discovered my grandest +favourite sport, in spite of motoring, which is deep +sea fishing, nothing less. Let me inform you that +I landed a 9-pound dolphin which he is like fire-opals +all over and will grace the wall of my dining-room +no matter if all my friends suffer with +him the rest of their lives. He was a male dolphin; +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_90' name='page_90'></a>90</span> +get that! It makes a difference from the +deep sea fishing sportsman’s standpoint. And this +place of mine at the end of South Broadway where +I can roll cocoanuts the rest of my life if I want +to is at, in or about Delray, Florida. D-e-l-r-a-y; +you’ve spelled it.”</p> +<p>“We’re publishing your new book on how to +get thin, <i>Tomorrow We Diet</i>.”</p> +<p>“Oh, yes. Well, I am several laps ahead of +that. Now, I am going up to my home in Madison, +Connecticut, to work. Later, I’ll maybe drive +out to Yellowstone Park or some place. Well, I +might stay here at the Brevoort for a month; run +down to Philadelphia, maybe. Did you know I +once wrote a book for children that has sold +500,000 copies? And, besides a young son whom +I am capable of entertaining if you’ll let him tell +you, I have a few ideas....”</p> +<p>Hold on! This isn’t so easy as it looked.</p> +<p>Probably Nina Wilcox Putnam is inimitable. +This one and that may steal Ring W. Lardner’s +stuff, but there is a sort of Yale lock effect about +the slang (American slanguage) in such books as +<i>West Broadway</i> which is not picked so easily. As +for the new Nina Wilcox Putnam novel, <i>Laughter +Limited</i>—if you don’t believe what we say +about N.W.P. inimitableness just open that book +and see for yourself. The story of a movie +actress? Yes, and considerable more. Just as +<i>West Broadway</i> was a great deal more than an +amusing story, being actually the best hunch +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_91' name='page_91'></a>91</span> +extant on transcontinental motoring, outside of +the automobile blue books, which are not nearly +such good reading.</p> +<p>And then there’s <i>Tomorrow We Diet</i>, in which +Nina Wilcox Putnam tells how she reduced fifty +pounds in seven months without exercising anything +but her intelligence. But if you want to +know about Nina Wilcox Putnam, read her story +in her own words that appeared in the American +Magazine for May, 1922. Here is a bit of it:</p> +<p>“Believe you me, considering the fact that they +are mostly men, which it would hardly be right +to hold that up against them, Editors in my experience +has been an unusually fine race, and it is +my contracts with them has made me what I am +today, I’m sure I’m satisfied. And when a fellow +or sister writer commences hollering about how +Editors in America don’t know anything about +what is style or English, well anyways not enough +to publish it when they see it, why all I can say is +that I could show them living proof to the contrary, +only modesty and good manners forbids me +pointing, even at myself. I am also sure that the +checks these hollerers have received from said +Editors is more apt to read the Editor regrets +than pay to the order of, if you get what I mean.</p> +<p>“Well, I have had it pretty soft, I will admit, +because all the work I done to get where I am, is +never over eight hours a day penal servitude, +locked up in my study and fighting against only +such minor odds and intrusions as please may I +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_92' name='page_92'></a>92</span> +have a dollar and a quarter for the laundry, or +now dear you have been writing long enough, I +have brought you a nice cup of tea, just when I +am going strong on a important third chapter. +But my work is of course not really work since it +is done in the home, as my relations often remind +me. At least they did until I got George, that’s +my pres. husband, and he never lets me be interrupted +unless he wants to interrupt me himself for +a clean collar or something.</p> +<p>“Also besides working these short hours, four +of which is generally what us authors calls straight +creative work, I have it soft in another way. I +got a pretty good market for my stuff and always +had, and this of course has got me so’s I can draw +checks as neat and quick as anybody in the family +and they love to see me do it.</p> +<p>“All kidding to one side it is the straight dope +when I say that from being merely the daughter +of honest and only moderately poor parents I have +now a house of my own, the very one in our town +which I most admired as a child; and the quit-claim +deed come out of my own easy money. I +also got a car or two—and a few pieces of the +sort of second-hand stuff which successful people +generally commence cluttering up their house +with as a sign of outward and visible success. I +mean the junk one moves in when one moves the +golden oak out....</p> +<p>“I never commenced going over really big until +it was up to me to make good every time I delivered, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_93' name='page_93'></a>93</span> +and this was not until my husband died and +left me with a small son, which I may say in +passing, that I consider he is the best thing I have +ever published. Well, there I was, a widow with +a child, and no visible means of support except +when I looked into the mirror. Of course, before +then I had been earning good money, but only +when I wanted something, or felt like it. Now I +had to want to feel like it three hundred and sixty-five +days a year.</p> +<p>“I’ll tell the world it was some jolt.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p><i>Perfect Behaviour</i> is the calmly confident title +of the new book by Donald Ogden Stewart—a +work which will rejoice the readers of <i>A Parody +Outline of History</i>. Behaviour is the great obstacle +to happiness. One may overcome all the +ordinary complexes. One may kill his cousins and +get his nephews and nieces deported, and refuse +to perform Honest Work—yet remain a hopeless +slave to the <i>Book of Etiquette</i>. In a Pullman +car, with a ticket for the lower berth, he will take +the seat facing backward, only to tremble and +blush with shame on learning his social error. +Who has not suffered the mortification of picking +up the fork that was on the floor and then finding +out afterward that it was the function of the +waiter to pick up the fork? What is a girl to do +if, escorted home at night from the dance, she +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_94' name='page_94'></a>94</span> +finds the hour is rather late and yet her folks are +still up? Whether she should invite the young +man in or ask him to call again, she is sure to do +the wrong thing. Then there are those wedding +days, the proudest and happiest of a girl’s life, +when she slips her hand into the arm of the wrong +man or otherwise gives herself away before she is +given away. Tragedy lurks in such trifles. Don +Stewart, who has suffered countless mortifications +and heartbreaks from just such little things as +these, determined that something shall be done to +spare others his own unfortunate experiences.</p> +<p><i>Perfect Behaviour</i> is the result of his brave +determination. It is a book that will be constantly +in demand until society is abolished. +Then, too, there is that new behaviouristic psychology. +You have not heard of that? I can +only assure you that Mr. Stewart’s great work is +founded upon all the most recent principles of +behaviouristic psychology. Noted scientists will +undoubtedly endorse it. You will endorse it +yourself, and you will be able to cash in on it.</p> +<p>Stewart wrote <i>A Parody Outline of History</i> +for The Bookman. When the idea was broached, +John Farrar, editor of The Bookman, was about +the only person who saw the possibilities. Response +to the <i>Parody Outline of History</i> was immediate, +spontaneous and unanimous. When the +chapters appeared as a book, this magnificent take-off +of contemporary American writers as well as +of H. G. Wells leaped at once into the place of a +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_95' name='page_95'></a>95</span> +best seller. It remains one. The thing that it +accomplished is not likely to be well done again +for years.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iii</p> +</div> + +<p><i>Neither Here Nor There</i> is the title of a new +book by Oliver Herford, author of <i>This Giddy +Globe</i>.</p> +<p>I do not know which is funnier, Herford or his +books. Among the unforgotten occasions was one +when he was in the Doran office talking about a +forthcoming book and nibbling on animal crackers. +Suddenly he stopped nibbling and exclaimed with +a gasp of dismay:</p> +<p>“Good heavens! I’ve been eating the illustrations +for my book.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iv</p> +</div> + +<p><i>Timothy Tubby’s Journal</i> is, of course, the +diary of the famous British novelist with notes by +Theresa Tubby, his wife. Tubby, on his visit to +this side, was remarkably observant. He says:</p> +<p>“How weary we were after a few hours of being +interviewed and photographed! This deep appreciation +on the part of the American people +was touching, but exhausting. Yet my publishers +telephoned me every two or three hours, to say +that editions of my latest novel were flying +through multitudinous presses; that I must bear +up under the strain and give the public what it +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_96' name='page_96'></a>96</span> +demands; namely, the glimpse of me and of my +aristocratic wife. This, it seems, is what sells a +book in America. The public must see an author +in order to believe that he can write.</p> +<p>“When my distinguished forebear Charles +Dickens<a name="FNanchor_1" id="FNanchor_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> arrived in the town of Boston, he found +his room flooded with offers of a pew at Sunday +morning church. This fashion in America has +apparently passed, though I was taken on sightseeing +expeditions to various cathedrals whose +architecture seemed to me to be execrable (largely +European copies—nothing natively American). +It was never suggested that I attend divine service. +On the contrary, I had countless invitations to be +present at what is known as a ‘cocktail chase.’ +My New York literary admirers seemed tumbling +over one another to offer me keys to their cellars +and to invite me to take part in one of those +strange functions. It is their love of danger, +rather than any particular passion for liquor, +that has, I believe, given birth to these elaborate +fêtes.</p> +<p>“A cocktail chase takes place shortly before +dinner. It may lead you into any one of a number +of places, even as far as the outlying districts of +the Bronx. If you own a motor, you may use +that; if not, a taxi will do. Usually a large number +of motors are employed. Add to this pursuing +motorcycle policemen, and the sight is most +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_97' name='page_97'></a>97</span> +impressive. The police are for protection against +crime waves, not for the arrest of the cocktail +chasers. A revenue agent performs this function, +when it becomes necessary.</p> +<p>“The number of our invitations was so large +that it was hard to pick and choose. Naturally, we +did not care to risk attendance at any function +which might injure our reputation. Usually my +wife has an almost psychic sense of such matters; +but the Social Register was of no assistance in this +case.<a name="FNanchor_2" id="FNanchor_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> Before several hours had passed, however, +we decided to hire a social secretary. I phoned +my publisher for a recommendation. ‘Dear +Tubby,’ he said, ‘what you need is a publicity +agent, not a social secretary. I’ll send you the +best New York can offer immediately. It was +careless of me not to think of it before. You +seemed to have a genius for that sort of thing +yourself.’</p> +<p>“The publicity agent is difficult to explain. He +is somehow connected with an American game +which originated in the great northwest, and +which is called log-rolling. He stands between +you and the public which is clamouring for a +glimpse of you. The difference between a social +secretary and a publicity agent seems to be that +the former merely answers invitations, while the +latter makes sure that you are invited. He writes +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_98' name='page_98'></a>98</span> +your speeches for you, sometimes even goes so far +as to write your novels, and, in a strange place, +will impersonate you at all public functions unless +your wife objects.<a name="FNanchor_3" id="FNanchor_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p> +<p>“Mr. Vernay arrived, fortunately, in time to +sort our invitations. ‘First,’ he said, ‘just you +and Terry’ (he was one of those brusque new +world types and Theresa rather enjoyed his familiarity—‘so +refreshing,’ I remember she said) +‘sit right down and I’ll tell you all about literature +in this here New York.’”</p> +<p>... I have always been meaning to read +Tubby’s novels—so like those of Archibald Marshall +and Anthony Trollope, I understand—but +have never got around to it. Now I feel I simply +must.</p> + +<hr style='width: 10%; border:none; border-bottom:1px solid black; clear:both; margin: 2em auto 1em 0' /> + +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_1' id='Footnote_1'></a><a href='#FNanchor_1'><span class='label'>[1]</span></a> +<p style='font-size: small'>The relationship was on my husband’s father’s side. The Turbots were never so closely connected with the bourgeoisie.</p></div> + +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_2' id='Footnote_2'></a><a href='#FNanchor_2'><span class='label'>[2]</span></a> +<p style='font-size: small'>We, of course, had entrée to all the best Fifth Avenue homes, but since we have now become literary folk, we chose to remain so. We therefore avoided the better classes.</p></div> + +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_3' id='Footnote_3'></a><a href='#FNanchor_3'><span class='label'>[3]</span></a> +<p style='font-size: small'>Indeed Mr. Vernay was a most accomplished gentleman, and I never objected to him. I only remarked once that I was glad Timothy was not so attractive to the ladies as Mr. Vernay. This, I did not consider an objection.</p></div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>v</p> +</div> + +<p>Such an expert judge as Franklin P. Adams has +considered that the ablest living parodist in verse +is J. C. Squire. Certainly his <i>Collected Parodies</i> +is a masterly performance quite fit to go on the +shelf with Max Beerbohm’s <i>A Christmas Garland</i>. +In <i>Collected Parodies</i> will be found all those +verses which, published earlier in magazines and +in one or two books, have delighted the readers +of Punch and other magazines—“Imaginary +Speeches,” “Steps to Parnassus,” “Tricks of the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_99' name='page_99'></a>99</span> +Trade,” “Repertory Drama, How They Do It +and How They Would Have Done It,” “Imaginary +Reviews and Speeches” and “The Aspirant’s +Manual.”</p> +<p>The great source book of fun in rhyme, however, +is and will for a long time remain Carolyn +Wells’s <i>The Book of Humorous Verse</i>. This has +not an equal in existence, so far as I know, except +<i>The Home Book of Verse</i>. Here in nearly 900 +pages are specimens of light verse from Chaucer to +Chesterton. Modern writers, such as Bert Leston +Taylor and Don Marquis, share the pages with +Robert Herrick and William Cowper, Charles +Lamb and Oliver Wendell Holmes. Verses whimsical, +satiric, narrative, punning—there is no conceivable +variety overlooked by Miss Wells in +what was so evidently a labour of love as well as +of the most careful industry, an industry directed +by an exceptional taste.</p> +<p>P. G. Wodehouse used to write lyrics for musical +plays in England, interpolating one or two in +existing successes. Then he came to America and +began writing lyrics, interpolating them in musical +comedies over here. Then he began interpolating +extremely funny short stories in the +American magazines and he has now succeeded in +interpolating into modern fiction some of the +funniest novels of the last few years. This bit +from his latest, <i>Three Men and a Maid</i>, is typical:</p> +<p>“Mrs. Hignett was never a very patient woman. +”‘Let us take all your negative qualities for +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_100' name='page_100'></a>100</span> +granted,’ she said curtly. ‘I have no doubt that +there are many things which you do not do. Let +us confine ourselves to issues of definite importance. +What is it, if you have no objection to concentrating +your attention on that for a moment, +that you wish to see me about?’</p> +<p>“This marriage.’</p> +<p>“‘What marriage?’</p> +<p>“‘Your son’s marriage.’</p> +<p>“‘My son is not married.’</p> +<p>“‘No, but he’s going to be. At eleven o’clock +this morning at the Little Church Around the +Corner!’</p> +<p>“Mrs. Hignett stared.</p> +<p>“‘Are you mad?’</p> +<p>“‘Well, I’m not any too well pleased, I’m +bound to say,’ admitted Mr. Mortimer. ‘You see, +darn it all, I’m in love with the girl myself!’</p> +<p>“‘Who is this girl?’</p> +<p>“‘Have been for years. I’m one of those silent, +patient fellows who hang around and look a lot, +but never tell their love....’</p> +<p>“‘Who is this girl who has entrapped my +son?’</p> +<p>“‘I’ve always been one of those men who....’</p> +<p>“‘Mr. Mortimer! With your permission we +will take your positive qualities for granted. In +fact, we will not discuss you at all.... What +is her name?’</p> +<p>“‘Bennett.’</p> +<p>“‘Bennett? Wilhelmina Bennett? The daughter +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_101' name='page_101'></a>101</span> +of Mr. Rufus Bennett? The red-haired girl +I met at lunch one day at your father’s house?’</p> +<p>“‘That’s it. You’re a great guesser. I think +you ought to stop the thing.’</p> +<p>“‘I intend to.’</p> +<p>“‘Fine!’</p> +<p>“‘The marriage would be unsuitable in every +way. Miss Bennett and my son do not vibrate +on the same plane.’</p> +<p>“That’s right. I’ve noticed it myself.’</p> +<p>“‘Their auras are not the same colour.’</p> +<p>“‘If I thought that once,’ said Bream Mortimer, +‘I’ve thought it a hundred times. I wish I +had a dollar for every time I thought it. Not the +same colour! That’s the whole thing in a nutshell.’”</p> +<p>Mr. Wodehouse is described by a friend as +“now a somewhat fluid inhabitant of England, +running over here spasmodically. Last summer +he bought a race-horse. It is the beginning of the +end!”</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='VII_THE_VITALITY_OF_MARY_ROBERTS_RINEHART' id='VII_THE_VITALITY_OF_MARY_ROBERTS_RINEHART'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_102' name='page_102'></a>102</span> +<h2><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Chapter VII</span></h2> +<h3>THE VITALITY OF MARY ROBERTS RINEHART</h3> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>i</p> +</div> + +<p>“The total result ... after twelve years is +that I have learned to sit down at my desk +and begin work simultaneously,” wrote Mrs. Rinehart +in 1917. “One thing died, however, in those +years of readjustment and struggle. That was +my belief in what is called ‘inspiration.’ I think +I had it now and then in those days, moments +when I felt things I had hardly words for, a +breath of something much bigger than I was, a +little lift in the veil.</p> +<p>“It does not come any more.</p> +<p>“Other things bothered me in those first early +days. I seemed to have so many things to write +about and writing was so difficult. Ideas came, +but no words to clothe them. Now, when writing +is easy, when the technique of my work bothers +me no more than the pen I write with, I have less +to say.</p> +<div class='figcenter'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_103' name='page_103'></a>103</span> +<a name='linki_4' id='linki_4'></a> +<img src='images/winter05.jpg' alt='' title='' style='width: 305px; height: 388px;' /><br /> +<p class='caption' style='margin: 0 auto; text-align:center;width: 305px;'> +MARY ROBERTS RINEHART<br /> +</p> +</div> + +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_105' name='page_105'></a>105</span></div> +<p>“I have words, but fewer ideas to clothe in +them. And, coming more and more often is the +feeling that, before I have commenced to do my +real work, I am written out; that I have for years +wasted my substance in riotous writing and that +now, when my chance is here, when I have lived +and adventured, when, if ever, I am to record +honestly my little page of these great times in +which I live, now I shall fail.”</p> +<p>These surprising words appeared in an article +in the American Magazine for 1917. Not many +months later <i>The Amazing Interlude</i> was published +and, quoting Mrs. Rinehart soon afterward, +I said: “If her readers shared this feeling they +must have murmured to themselves as they turned +the absorbing pages of <i>The Amazing Interlude</i>: +‘How absurd!’ It is doubtful if they recalled the +spoken misgiving at all.”</p> +<p>Few novels of recent years have had so captivating +a quality as had this war story. But I wish +to emphasise again what I felt and tried to express +at that time—the sense of Mrs. Rinehart’s +vitality as a writer of fiction. In what seem to +me to be her best books there is a freshness of +feeling I find astonishing. I felt it in <i>K</i>; I found +it in <i>The Amazing Interlude</i>; and I find it in her +new novel just published, <i>The Breaking Point</i>.</p> +<p><i>The Breaking Point</i> is the story of a man’s past +and his inability to escape from it. If that were +all, it might be a very commonplace subject indeed. +It is not all, nor half.</p> +<p>Dr. Richard Livingstone, just past thirty, is +supposedly the nephew of Dr. David Livingstone, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_106' name='page_106'></a>106</span> +with whom he lives and whose practice he shares +in the town of Haverly; but at the very outset of +the novel, we have the fact that—according to a +casual visitor in Haverly—Dr. Livingstone’s dead +brother had no son; was unmarried, anyway. +And then it transpires that, whatever may have +been the past, Dr. Livingstone has walled it off +from the younger man’s consciousness. The elder +man has built up a powerful secondary personality—secondary +in the point of time only, for +Richard Livingstone is no longer aware of any +other personality, nor scarcely of any former +existence. He does, indeed, have fugitive moments +in which he recalls with a painful and unsatisfactory +vagueness some manner of life that +he once had a part in. But in his young manhood, +in the pleasant village where there is none +who isn’t his friend, deeply centred in his work, +stayed by the affection of Dr. Livingstone, these +whispers of the past are infrequent and untroubling.</p> +<p>The casual visitor’s surprise and the undercurrent +of talk which she starts is the beginning of a +rapid series of incidents which force the problem +of the past up to the threshold of Richard Livingstone’s +consciousness. There would then be +two ways of facing his difficulties, and he takes +the braver. Confronted with an increasingly +difficult situation, a situation sharpened by his +love for Elizabeth Wheeler, and her love for him, +young Dr. Dick plays the man. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_107' name='page_107'></a>107</span> +The title of Mrs. Rinehart’s story comes from +the psychological (and physical) fact that there +is in every man and woman a point at which +Nature steps in and says:</p> +<p>“See here, you can’t stand this! You’ve got +to forget it.”</p> +<p>This is the breaking point, the moment when +amnesia intervenes. But later there may come a +time when the erected wall safeguarding the secondary +personality gives way. The first, submerged +or walled-off personality may step across +the levelled barrier. That extraordinarily dramatic +moment does come in the new novel and +is handled by Mrs. Rinehart with triumphant +skill.</p> +<p>It will be seen that this new novel bears some +resemblances to <i>K</i>, by many of her readers considered +Mrs. Rinehart’s most satisfactory story. +If I may venture a personal opinion, <i>The Breaking +Point</i> is a much stronger novel than <i>K</i>. To +me it seems to combine the excellence of character +delineation noticeable in <i>K</i> with the dramatic +thrill and plot effectiveness which made +<i>The Amazing Interlude</i> so irresistible as you +read it.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p>To say so much is to bear the strongest testimony +to that superb vitality, which, characteristic +of Mrs. Rinehart as a person, is yet more characteristic +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_108' name='page_108'></a>108</span> +of her fiction. There is, I suppose, this +additional interest in regard to <i>The Breaking +Point</i>, that Mrs. Rinehart is the wife of a physician +and was herself, before her marriage, a +trained nurse. The facts of her life are interesting, +though not nearly so interesting as the way +in which she tells them.</p> +<p>She was the daughter of Thomas Beveridge +Roberts and Cornelia (Gilleland) Roberts of +Pittsburgh. From the city’s public and high +schools she went into a training school for nurses, +acquiring that familiarity with hospital scenes +which served her so well when she came to write +<i>The Amazing Adventures of Letitia Carberry</i>, the +stories collected under the title of <i>Tish</i> and the +novel <i>K</i>. She became, at nineteen, the wife of +Stanley Marshall Rinehart, a Pittsburgh physician.</p> +<p>“Life was very good to me at the beginning,” +said Mrs. Rinehart in the <i>American Magazine</i> +article I have referred to. “It gave me a strong +body and it gave me my sons before it gave me +my work. I do not know what would have happened +had the work come first, but I should have +had the children. I know that. I had always +wanted them. Even my hospital experience, +which rent the veil of life for me, and showed it +often terrible, could not change that fundamental +thing we call the maternal instinct.... I would +forfeit every part of success that has come to me +rather than lose any part, even the smallest, of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_109' name='page_109'></a>109</span> +my family life. It is on the foundation of my +home that I have builded.</p> +<p>“Yet, for a time, it seemed that my sons were +to be all I was to have out of life. From twenty +to thirty I was an invalid.... This last summer +(1917), after forty days in the saddle +through unknown mountains in Montana and +Washington, I was as unwearied as they were. +But I paid ten years for them.”</p> +<p>Mrs. Rinehart had always wanted to write. +She began in 1905—she was twenty-nine that +year—and worked at a tiny mahogany desk or +upon a card table “so low and so movable. It +can sit by the fire or in a sunny window.” She +“learned to use a typewriter with my two forefingers +with a baby on my knee!” She wrote +when the children were out for a walk, asleep, +playing. “It was frightfully hard.... I found +that when I wanted to write I could not and then, +when leisure came and I went to my desk, I had +nothing to say.”</p> +<p>I quote from a chapter on Mrs. Rinehart in +my book <i>The Women Who Make Our Novels</i>:</p> +<p>“Her first work was mainly short stories and +poems. Her very first work was verse for children. +Her first check was for $25, the reward of +a short article telling how she had systematised +the work of a household with two maids and a +negro ‘buttons.’ She sold one or two of the poems +for children and with a sense of guilt at the desertion +of her family made a trip to New York. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_110' name='page_110'></a>110</span> +She made the weary rounds in one day, ‘a heartbreaking +day, going from publisher to publisher.’ +In two places she saw responsible persons and +everywhere her verses were turned down. ‘But +one man was very kind to me, and to that publishing +house I later sent <i>The Circular Staircase</i>, +my first novel. They published it and some eight +other books of mine.’</p> +<p>“In her first year of sustained effort at writing, +Mrs. Rinehart made about $l,200. She was surrounded +by ‘sane people who cried me down,’ but +who were merry without being contemptuous. +Her husband has been her everlasting help. He +‘has stood squarely behind me, always. His belief +in me, his steadiness and his sanity and his +humour have kept me going, when, as has happened +now and then, my little world of letters has +shaken under my feet.’ To the three boys their +mother’s work has been a matter of course ever +since they can remember. ‘I did not burst on +them gloriously. I am glad to say that they +think I am a much better mother than I am a +writer, and that the family attitude in general has +been attentive but not supine. They regard it +exactly as a banker’s family regards his bank.’”</p> +<p>Most of the work of the twelve years from +1905 to 1917 was done in Mrs. Rinehart’s home. +But when she had a long piece of work to do she +often felt “the necessity of getting away from +everything for a little while.” So, beginning +about 1915, she rented a room in an office building +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_111' name='page_111'></a>111</span> +in Pittsburgh once each year while she was +writing a novel. It was sparsely furnished and, +significantly, it contained no telephone. In 1917 +she became a commuter from her home in Sewickley, +a Pittsburgh suburb. Her earnings had +risen to $50,000 a year and more.</p> +<p>“My business with its various ramifications had +been growing; an enormous correspondence, involving +business details, foreign rights, copyrights, +moving picture rights, translation rights, +second serial rights, and dramatisations, had made +from the small beginning of that book of poems a +large and complicated business.</p> +<p>“I had added political and editorial writing to +my other work, and also records of travel. I was +quite likely to begin the day with an article opposing +capital punishment, spend the noon hours +in the Rocky Mountains, and finish off with a love +story!</p> +<p>“I developed the mental agility of a mountain +goat! Filing cases entered into my life, card index +systems. To glance into my study after working +hours was dismaying.”</p> +<p>More recently, Mrs. Rinehart has become a resident +of Washington, D. C. Her husband is +engaged in the Government health service and the +family lives in the Wardman Park Hotel, having +taken the apartment of the late Senator Boies Penrose +of Pennsylvania. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_112' name='page_112'></a>112</span></p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iii</p> +</div> + +<p>“Yet, if I were to begin again, I would go +through it all, the rejections at the beginning, the +hard work, the envious and malicious hands +reached up to pull down anyone who has risen +ever so little above his fellows. Not for the +money reward, although that has been large, not +for the publicity, although I am frank enough to +say I would probably miss being pointed out in a +crowd! But because of two things: the friends +I have made all over the world, and the increased +outlook and a certain breadth of perception and +knowledge that must come as the result of years +of such labour. I am not so intolerant as in those +early days. I love my kind better. I find the +world good, to work and to play in.</p> +<p>“I sometimes think, if I were advising a young +woman as to a career, that I should say: ‘First, +pick your husband.’</p> +<p>“It is impossible to try to tell how I have attempted +to reconcile my private life with my +public work without mentioning my husband. +Because, after all, it requires two people, a man +and a woman, to organise a home, and those two +people must be in accord. It has been a sort of +family creed of ours that we do things together. +We have tried, because of the varied outside interests +that pull hard, to keep the family life even +more intact than the average. Differing widely +as they do, my husband’s profession and my career, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_113' name='page_113'></a>113</span> +we have been compelled to work apart. But +we have relaxed, rested and played, together.</p> +<p>“And this rule holds good for the family. Generally +speaking, we have been a sort of closed +corporation, a board of five, with each one given +a vote and the right to cast it. Holidays and +home matters, and picnics and dogs, and everything +that is of common interest all come up for a +discussion in which the best opinion wins. The +small boy had a voice as well as the biggest boy. +And it worked well.</p> +<p>“It is not because we happened to like the same +things. People do not happen to like the same +things. It is because we tried to, and it is because +we have really all grown up together.</p> +<p>“Thus in the summer we would spend weeks in +the saddle in the mountains of the Far West, or +fishing in Canada. But let me be entirely frank +here. These outdoor summers were planned at +first because there were four men and one woman +in our party. Now, however, I love the open +as the men do.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iv</p> +</div> + +<p>“Writing is a clean profession. The writer gets +out of it exactly what he puts in, no more and no +less. It is one-man work. No one can help. The +writer works alone, solitary and unaided. And, +contrary to the general opinion, what the writer +has done in the past does not help him in the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_114' name='page_114'></a>114</span> +future. He must continue to make good, day +after day.</p> +<p>“More than that he must manufacture a new +article every day, and every working hour of his +day. He cannot repeat himself. Can you imagine +a manufacturer turning out something different +all the time? And his income stopping if he +has a sick headache, or goes to a funeral?”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>v</p> +</div> + +<p>Next to the vitality, the variety of Mrs. Rinehart’s +work is most noticeable. Her first novel, +<i>The Circular Staircase</i>, was a mystery tale, and so +was her second, <i>The Man in Lower Ten</i>. She has, +from time to time, continued to write excellent +mystery stories. <i>The Breaking Point</i> is, from one +standpoint, a first class mystery story; and then +there is that enormously successful mystery play, +written by Mrs. Rinehart in conjunction with +Avery Hopwood, <i>The Bat</i>. Nor was this her first +success as a playwright for she collaborated with +Mr. Hopwood in writing the farce <i>Seven Days</i>. +Shall I add that Mrs. Rinehart has lived part of +her life in haunted houses? I am under the impression +that more than one of her residences has +been found to be suitably or unsuitably haunted. +There was that house at Bellport on Long Island—but +I really don’t know the story. I do know +that the family’s experience has been such as to +provide material for one or more very good mystery +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_115' name='page_115'></a>115</span> +novels. My own theory is that Mrs. Rinehart’s +indubitable gift for the creation of mystery +yarns has been responsible for the facts. I imagine +that the haunting of the houses has been a projection +into some physical plane of her busy sub-consciousness. +I mean, simply, that instead of +materialising as a story, her preoccupation induced +a set of actual and surprising circumstances. +Why couldn’t it? Let Sir Oliver Lodge or Sir +Arthur Conan Doyle, the Society for Psychical +Research, anybody who knows about that sort of +thing, explain!</p> +<p>Consider the stories about Letitia Carberry. +Tish is without a literary parallel. Well-to-do, +excitement loving, with a passion for guiding the +lives of two other elderly maidens like herself; +with a nephew who throws up hopeless hands before +her unpredictable performances, Tish is +funny beyond all description.</p> +<p>Just as diverting, in a quite different way, is +Bab, the sub-deb and forerunner of the present-day +flapper.</p> +<p>Something like a historical romance is <i>Long +Live the King!</i>—a story of a small boy, Crown +Prince of a Graustark kingdom, whose scrapes +and friendships and admiration of Abraham Lincoln +are strikingly contrasted with court intrigues +and uncovered treason.</p> +<p><i>The Amazing Interlude</i> is the story of Sara Lee +Kennedy, who went from a Pennsylvania city to +the Belgian front to make soup for the soldiers +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_116' name='page_116'></a>116</span> +and to fall in love with Henri.... But one +could go on with other samples of Mrs. Rinehart’s +abundant variety. I think, however, that the vitality +of her work, and not the variety nor the +success in variety, is our point. That vitality has +its roots in a sympathetic feeling and a sanative +humour not exceeded in the equipment of any +popular novelist writing in America today.</p> +<hr class='minor' /> + +<div class='ce'> +<p><i>Books</i></p> +<p>by Mary Roberts Rinehart</p> +</div> + +<div class='la'> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE MAN IN LOWER TEN</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>WHEN A MAN MARRIES</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF LETITIA CARBERRY</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>WHERE THERE’S A WILL</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE CASE OF JENNY BRICE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE AFTER HOUSE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE STREET OF SEVEN STARS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>K</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THROUGH GLACIER PARK</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>TISH</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>LONG LIVE THE KING</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>TENTING TO-NIGHT</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>BAB, A SUB-DEB</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>KINGS, QUEENS AND PAWNS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE AMAZING INTERLUDE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>TWENTY-THREE AND A HALF HOURS’ LEAVE</p> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_117' name='page_117'></a>117</span> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>DANGEROUS DAYS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>MORE TISH</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>LOVE STORIES</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>AFFINITIES AND OTHER STORIES</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>“ISN’T THAT JUST LIKE A MAN?”</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE TRUCE OF GOD</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>A POOR WISE MAN</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>SIGHT UNSEEN AND THE CONFESSION</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE BREAKING POINT</p> +</div> + +<hr class='minor' /> + +<div class='ce'> +<p><i>Sources</i></p> +<p style=' margin-bottom:1.5em;'>on Mary Roberts Rinehart</p> +</div> + +<p>“<i>My Creed: The Way to Happiness—As I Found +It</i>,” by Mary Roberts Rinehart. AMERICAN MAGAZINE, October, 1917.</p> +<p>“<i>Mary Roberts Rinehart as She Appears</i>” by +Robert H. Davis, AMERICAN MAGAZINE, October, +1917.</p> +<p>“<i>My Public</i>” by Mary Roberts Rinehart, THE +BOOKMAN, December, 1920.</p> +<p><i>The Women Who Make Our Novels</i>, by Grant +Overton, MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY.</p> +<p><i>Who’s Who in America.</i></p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='VIII_THEY_HAVE_ONLY_THEMSELVES_TO_BLAME' id='VIII_THEY_HAVE_ONLY_THEMSELVES_TO_BLAME'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_118' name='page_118'></a>118</span> +<h2><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Chapter VIII</span></h2> +<h3>THEY HAVE ONLY THEMSELVES TO BLAME</h3> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>i</p> +</div> + +<p>If people will write memoirs, they must expect +to suffer. They have only themselves to +blame if life becomes almost intolerable from the +waves of praise and censure. I am going to speak +of some books of memoirs and biography—highly +personal and decidedly unusual books, in the +main by persons who are personages.</p> +<p><i>The Life of Sir William Vernon Harcourt</i> concerns +Sir William George Granville Venables +Vernon Harcourt, who was born in 1827 and died +in 1904. He was an English statesman, grandson +of Edward Vernon Harcourt, Archbishop of York. +He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, +and was called to the bar in 1854. He entered +Parliament (for Oxford) in 1868, sat for Derby +1880-95, and for West Monmouthshire, 1895-1904. +He was Solicitor-general 1873-74, Home +Secretary 1880-85 and Chancellor of the Exchequer +in 1886, 1892-94 and 1894-95. From +March, 1894, to December, 1898, he was leader +of the Liberal Party in the House of Commons. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_119' name='page_119'></a>119</span> +He wrote in the London Times under the signature +of “Historicus” a series of letters on International +Law, which were republished in 1863. +His biography, which begins before Victoria +ascended the throne and closes after her death, +is the work of A. G. Gardiner.</p> +<p><i>Memoirs of the Memorable</i> is by Sir James +Denham, the poet-author of “Wake Up, England!” +and deals with most of the prominent social +names of the end of the last and commencement +of this century, including Mr. Gladstone, +Lord Beaconsfield, Lord Byron, Robert Browning, +the Bishop of London, Cardinal Howard, Lord +Dunedin, Lewis Carroll, Lord Marcus Beresford +and the late Bishop of Manchester. The book +also deals with club life and the leading sportsmen.</p> +<p><i>The Pomp of Power</i> is by an author who very +wisely remains anonymous, like the author of +<i>The Mirrors of Downing Street</i>. I shall not run +the risks of perjury by asserting or denying that +the author of <i>The Mirrors of Downing Street</i> has +written <i>The Pomp of Power</i>. As to the probability +perhaps readers of <i>The Pomp of Power</i> +had better judge. It is an extremely frank book +and its subjects include the leading personalities +of Great Britain today and, indeed, all the world. +Lloyd George, Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, +Lord Haig, Marshal Joffre, Lord Beaverbrook, +Millerand, Loucheur, Painleve, Cambon, Lord +Northcliffe, Colonel Repington and Krassin of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_120' name='page_120'></a>120</span> +Soviet Russia are the persons principally portrayed. +The book throws a searchlight upon the +military and diplomatic relations of Britain and +France before and during the war, and also deals +with the present international situation. It may +fairly be called sensational.</p> +<p>Especially interesting is the anonymous author’s +revelation of the rôle played in the war by +Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, so lately assassinated +in London. The author was evidently an +intimate of Sir Henry and, just as evidently, he +is intimately acquainted with Lloyd George, +apparently having worked with or under the +Prime Minister. He is neither Lloyd George’s +friend nor enemy and his portrait of the Prime +Minister is the most competent I can recall. Can +he be Philip Kerr, Lloyd George’s adviser?</p> +<p>I praise, in this slightly superlative fashion, +the picture of the British Prime Minister by the +author of <i>The Pomp of Power</i> ... and I pick +up another book and discover it to be E. T. Raymond’s +<i>Mr. Lloyd George: A Biographical and +Critical Sketch</i>. The author of <i>Uncensored +Celebrities</i> is far too modest when he calls his +new work a “sketch.” It is a genuine biography +with that special accent due to the biographer’s +personality and his power of what I may call +penetrative synthesis. By that I mean the insight +into character which coördinates and builds—the +sort of biography that makes a legend about a +man. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_121' name='page_121'></a>121</span></p> +<p>Mr. Raymond does not begin with the “little +Welshman” but with a Roman Emperor, Diocletian, +our first well-studied exemplar of the “coalition +mind.” These are the words with which, +after a brilliant survey of the Prime Minister’s +career, the author closes:</p> +<p>“If, however, we withhold judgment on every +point where a difference of opinion is possible, if +we abandon to destructive criticism every act of +administrative vigour which is claimed by his +admirers as a triumph, if we accept the least +charitable view of his faults and failures, there +still remains more than enough with which to +defy what Lord Rosebery once called ‘the body-snatchers +of history, who dig up dead reputations +for malignant dissection.’ If only that he imparted, +in a black time, when it appeared but +too likely that the Alliance might falter and succumb +from mere sick-headache, his own defying, +ardent, and invincible spirit to a tired, puzzled, +distracted and distrustful nation; if only that he +dispelled the vapours, inspired a new hope and +resolution, brought the British people to that +temper which makes small men great, assured our +Allies that their cause was in the fullest sense +our own, and finally achieved the great moral +victory implied in ‘unity of command’—if these +things be alone considered, he will be judged to +have earned for his portrait the right to a dignified +place in the gallery of history; and some +future generation will probably recall with astonishment +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_122' name='page_122'></a>122</span> +that it was considered unfit to adorn the +dining-room of a London club.”</p> +<p>And here are two new books by Margot Asquith! +One is <i>My Impressions of America</i>, the +other continues <i>The Autobiography of Margot +Asquith</i>. Of the first of these books there is to +say that it represents Mrs. Asquith’s matured impressions +and will have a value that could not +possibly attach to interviews or statements she +gave on this side. It also gives, for the first +time, her frank and direct analyses of the personalities +of the distinguished people whom she met +in America. The continuation of her <i>Autobiography</i> +is a different matter. Those who have read +<i>The Autobiography of Margot Asquith</i> will be +prepared for the new book. At least, I hope they +will be prepared and yet I question whether they +will. There is, after all, only one person for Mrs. +Asquith to surpass, and that is herself; and I +think she has done it. This new book will add +Volumes III. and IV. to <i>The Autobiography of +Margot Asquith</i>.</p> +<p>In <i>The Memoirs of Djemal Pasha: Turkey +1913-21</i> will be found the recollections of a man +who was successively Military Governor of Constantinople, +Minister of Public Works and Naval +Minister and who, with Enver Bey and Talaat +Bey, formed the triumvirate which dictated Turkish +policy and guided Turkey’s fate after the coup +d’état of 1913. I believe these memoirs are of +extraordinary interest and the greatest importance. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_123' name='page_123'></a>123</span> +They give the first and only account from +the Turkish side of events in Turkey since 1913. +The development of relations with Germany, +France and England immediately before the war +is clearly traced, and a graphic account is given of +the first two months of the war, the escape of the +Goeben and the attempts made to keep Turkey +neutral. When these failed, Djemal Pasha was +sent to govern Syria and to command the Fourth +Army, which was to conquer Egypt. The attack +on the Suez Canal is described, and then the series +of operations which culminated in the British reverses +in the two battles of Gaza. Further important +sections are devoted to the revolt of the +Arabs and the question of responsibility for the +Armenian massacres.</p> +<p>The value of <i>Miscellanies—Literary and Historical</i>, +by Lord Rosebery, consists not so much in +his recollections of people as in the delight of +reading good prose. Lord Rosebery has a natural +dignity and a charm of lucid phrasing that adapts +itself admirably to the essay form he has chosen. +The subjects he takes up are beloved figures of +the past. Robert Burns, as Lord Rosebery talks +of him, walks about in Dumfries and holds spellbound +by sheer personal charm the guests of the +tavern. There are papers on Burke, on Dr. Johnson, +on Robert Louis Stevenson, and others as +great. One group deals with Scottish History +and one with the service of the state. The last is +a study of the <i>genius loci</i> of such places of mellow +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_124' name='page_124'></a>124</span> +associations as Eton and the Turf. The sort of +book one returns to!</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p>I was going to say something about Andrew +C. P. Haggard’s book, <i>Madame de Staël: Her +Trials and Triumphs</i>. But so profoundly convinced +am I of the book’s fascination that I shall +reprint the first chapter. If this is not worthy of +Lytton Strachey, I am no judge:</p> +<p>“In the year 1751 a young fellow, only fourteen +years of age, went to Magdalen College at Oxford, +and in the same year displayed his budding +talent by writing <i>The Age of Sesostris, Conqueror +of Asia</i>, which work he burnt in later years.</p> +<p>“The boy was Edward Gibbon, who, after becoming +a Roman Catholic at the age of sixteen, +was sent by his father to Switzerland, to continue +his education in the house of a Calvinist minister +named M. Pavilliard, under the influence of +which gentleman he became a Protestant again at +Lausanne eighteen months later.</p> +<p>“The young fellow, while leading the life of +gaiety natural to his age in company with a friend +named Deyverdun, became an apt student of the +classics and was soon a proficient in French, in +which tongue he wrote before long as fluently as in +English. With young Deyverdun he worked, and +in his company Edward Gibbon also played. +After visiting frequently at the house of the celebrated +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_125' name='page_125'></a>125</span> +Voltaire at Monrepos, and after being +present when the distinguished French philosopher +played in his own comedies and sentimental +pieces, the young fellow’s thoughts soon turned to +the theme which was the continual subject of conversation +of the ladies and gentlemen who were +Voltaire’s guests and formed the company of +amateurs with whom the great dramatic writer +was in the habit of rehearsing his plays. This +was, as might have been suspected in such a society, +the theme of love.</p> +<p>“As it happened, there was in the habit of visiting +Lausanne a young lady who was a perfect +paragon. Her name was Suzanne Curchod, and +she was half Swiss and half French, her father +being a Swiss pastor and her mother a Frenchwoman.</p> +<p>“Very handsome and sprightly in appearance, +the fair Suzanne was well instructed in sciences +and languages. Her wit, beauty and erudition +made her a prodigy and an object of universal +admiration upon the occasion of her visits to her +relations in Lausanne. Soon an intimate connection +existed between Edward Gibbon and herself; +he frequently accompanied her to stay at +her mountain home at Grassy, while at Lausanne +also they indulged in their dream of felicity. +Edward loved the brilliant Suzanne with a union +of desire, friendship, and tenderness, and was in +later years proud of the fact that he was once +capable of feeling such an exalted sentiment. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_126' name='page_126'></a>126</span> +There is no doubt that, had he been able to consult +his own inclinations alone, Gibbon would +have married Mademoiselle Curchod, but, the +time coming when he was forced to return to his +home in England his father declared that he would +not hear of ‘such a strange alliance.’</p> +<p>“‘Thereupon,’ says Gibbon in his autobiography, +‘I yielded to my fate—sighed as a lover, +obeyed as a son, and my wound was insensibly +healed by time, absence and new habits of life.’</p> +<p>“These habits of life included four or five years’ +service in the Hampshire Militia, in which corps +Suzanne’s lover became a captain, the regiment +being embodied during the period of the Seven +Years’ War.</p> +<p>“Upon returning to Lausanne, at the age of +twenty-six, in 1763, Edward Gibbon was warmly +received by his old love, but he heard that she had +been flirting with others, and notably with his +friend M. Deyverdun. He himself, while now +mixing with an agreeable society of twenty unmarried +young ladies who, without any chaperons, +mingled with a crowd of young men of all nations, +also ‘lost many hours in dissipation.’</p> +<p>“He was not long in showing Suzanne that he +no longer found her indispensable to his happiness, +with the result that she assailed him, although +in vain, with angry reproaches. Notwithstanding +that she begged Gibbon to be her friend +if no longer her lover, while vowing herself to be +confiding and tender, he acted hard-heartedly and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_127' name='page_127'></a>127</span> +declined to return to his old allegiance, coldly replying: +‘I feel the dangers that continued correspondence +may have for both of us.’</p> +<p>“It is impossible to feel otherwise than sorry +for the brilliant Suzanne at this period, as although +from her subsequent manœuvres it became +evident that her principal object in life was +to obtain a rich husband, from the manner in +which she humiliated herself to him it is evident +that she was passionately in love with the author +of <i>The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire</i>.</p> +<p>“Eventually the neglected damsel gave up the +siege of an unwilling lover, while assuring her +formerly devoted Edward that the day would +come ‘when he would regret the irreparable loss +of the too frank and tender heart of Suzanne +Curchod.’</p> +<p>“Had the pair been united, one wonders what +would have been the characteristics of the offspring +of an English literary man like Gibbon, +who became perhaps the world’s greatest historian, +and a beautiful woman of mixed nationality, +whose subsequent career, although gilded +with riches and adorned with a position of power, +displays nothing above the mediocre and commonplace.</p> +<p>“Edward Gibbon’s fame, which was not long +in coming, was his own, and will remain for so +long as a love of history and literature exists in +the world, whereas that of Suzanne Curchod rests +upon two circumstances—the first that she was +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_128' name='page_128'></a>128</span> +once the sweetheart of Gibbon, the second that +she was the mother of a Madame de Staël.</p> +<p>“When finally cast off by the Englishman, the +Swiss Pastor’s daughter remembered that, if +pretty, she was poor, and had her way to make in +the world. She commenced to play fast and loose +with a M. Correvon, a rich lawyer, whom she said +she would marry ‘if she had only to live with him +for four months in each year.’</p> +<p>“The next lover was a pastor, who was as mercenary +as herself, for he threw her over for a lady +with a large fortune. After this failure to establish +herself, Suzanne became tired of seeking a +husband in Switzerland and went to Paris as the +companion of the rich and handsome Madame +Vermoneux, the supposed mistress of Jacques +Necker, the rich Swiss banker, who was established +in the French capital. Once in Paris, it +was not long before by her seductions Suzanne +succeeded in supplanting Madame Vermoneux in +the still young banker’s affections, with the result +that she married him in 1764.</p> +<p>“Gibbon, whom she had last seen in 1763, returned +to the side of his former love when she was +at length safely married to another man. We find +him writing in 1765, to his friend Lord Sheffield, +formerly Mr. Holroyd, that he had spent ten delicious +days in Paris about the end of June. ‘She +was very fond of me, and the husband was particularly +civil.’ He continues confidentially: +‘Could they insult me more cruelly? Ask me +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_129' name='page_129'></a>129</span> +every evening to supper, go to bed and leave me +alone with his wife—what an impertinent security!’</p> +<p>“It was in the month of April in the following +year, 1766, that was born Madame Necker’s only +child, Anne Louise Germaine, who was destined +to become one of the most remarkable women of +modern times. From the great literary talent +displayed by this wonderfully precocious child +from girlhood, it is difficult not to imagine but +that in some, if merely spiritual, way the genius +of her mother’s old lover had descended through +that mother’s brain as a mantle upon herself. +That she learnt to look upon Gibbon with admiration +at an early age is sure. Michelet informs us +that owing to the praises showered upon the historian +by M. Necker, Germaine was anxious, as +her mother had been before her, to become Gibbon’s +wife. She was, however, destined to have +another husband—or rather we should say two +other husbands.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iii</p> +</div> + +<p><i>Recollections and Reflections</i> by a Woman of +No Importance has added greatly to the number +of this author’s readers, gained in the first instance +by her <i>Memories Discreet and Indiscreet</i>, which +was followed by <i>More Indiscretions</i>.</p> +<p><i>Recollections and Reflections</i> consists of random +memories of lords and ladies, sportsmen, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_130' name='page_130'></a>130</span> +Kings, Queens, cooks, chauffeurs and Empresses, +related with a great deal of philosophy and insight +and no little wit.</p> +<p>There are stories of Gladstone’s lovemaking, +of Empress Eugenie and the diamond the soldier +swallowed, of Balfour’s hats, Henry Irving’s +swelled head and the cosmetics of Disraeli. +There are stories of etiquette at a hair-dressers’ +ball side by side with comments on Kitchener’s +waltzing.</p> +<p>Lady Angela Forbes was the daughter of the +fourth Earl of Rosslyn and the youngest child of +one of the largest and most prominent families in +England. Kitchener, Lord Roberts, Disraeli, the +Kaiser, Prince Edward—she has dined or sailed +or hunted with them all on the most informal +terms. She tells, with engaging frankness, in +<i>Memories and Base Details</i>, of the gaieties, the +mistakes and tragedies of herself and her friends.</p> +<p>It was Baron von Margutti who informed the +Emperor Francis Joseph in 1914 that Serbia had +rejected his ultimatum. The character of the +Emperor is a moot question. <i>The Emperor +Francis Joseph and His Times</i>, reminiscences by +Baron von Margutti, is by a man who knew the +Emperor intimately and who knew the men and +women who surrounded him daily. Baron von +Margutti met all the distinguished European figures, +such as Edward VII, Emperor Wilhelm, +Czar Nicholas and the Empress Eugenie who +came to Austria to visit. He watched from a particularly +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_131' name='page_131'></a>131</span> +favourable vantage point the deft moves +of secret diplomacy which interlaced the various +governments.</p> +<p>Lord Frederic Hamilton, born in 1856, the +fourth son of the first Duke of Abercorn, was educated +at Harrow, was formerly in the British +Diplomatic Service and served successively as +Secretary of the British Embassies in Berlin and +Petrograd and the Legations at Lisbon and +Buenos Aires. He has travelled much and, besides +being in Parliament, was editor of the Pall +Mall Magazine till 1900. The popularity of his +books of reminiscences is explained by the fascinating +way in which he tells a story or illuminates +a character. Other books of memoirs have been +more widely celebrated but I know of none which +has made friends who were more enthusiastic. +<i>The Vanished Pomps of Yesterday</i>, <i>Days Before +Yesterday</i> and <i>Here, There and Everywhere</i> are +constantly in demand.</p> +<p>But, all along, a surprise has been in store +and the time is now here to disclose it! The +talent for this delightful species of memoirising +runs through the family; and Sir Frederic Hamilton’s +brother, Lord Ernest Hamilton, proves it. +Lord Ernest is the author of <i>Forty Years On</i>, a +new book quite as engaging as <i>Here, There and +Everywhere</i>, and the rest of Sir Frederic’s. Word +from London is that Sir Frederic will have no +new book this year; he steps aside with a gallant +bow for Lord Ernest. I have been turning pages +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_132' name='page_132'></a>132</span> +in <i>Forty Years On</i> and reading about such matters +as the Copley curse, school life at Harrow +where Shifner and others bowed the knee to Baal, +bull fights in Peru and adventures in the Klondike. +Personally the most amusing moments of +the book I find to be those in which Lord Ernest +describes his experiments in speaking ancient +Greek in modern Greece. But this is perhaps because +I, too, have tried to speak syllables of +Xenophon while being rapidly driven (in a +barouche) about Patras—with the same lamentable +results. It is enough to unhinge the reason, +the pronunciation of modern Greek, I mean. +But maybe your hobby is bathing? Lord Ernest +has a word in praise of Port Antonio, Jamaica, +as a bathing ground.</p> +<p>What he says about hummingbirds—but I +mustn’t! <i>Forty Years On</i> is a mine of interest +and each reader ought to be pretty well left to +work it for himself.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='IX_AUDACIOUS_MR_BENNETT' id='IX_AUDACIOUS_MR_BENNETT'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_133' name='page_133'></a>133</span> +<h2><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Chapter IX</span></h2> +<h3>AUDACIOUS MR. BENNETT</h3> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>i</p> +</div> + +<p>Mr. Bennett’s audacity has always been +evident. One might say that he began by +daring to tell the truth about an author, continued +by daring to tell the truth about the Five +Towns, and has now reached the incredible stage +where he dares to tell the truth about marriage. +This is affronting Fate indeed. It was all very +well for Arnold Bennett to write a play called +<i>Cupid and Commonsense</i>. Perhaps, in view of +the fact that it is one of the great novels of the +twentieth century, it was all right for him to create +<i>The Old Wives’ Tale</i>; but it cannot be all +right for him to compose such novels as <i>Mr. Prohack</i> +and his still newer story, <i>Lilian</i>.</p> +<p>Think of the writers who have stumbled and +fallen over the theme of marriage. There is +W. L. George ... but I cannot bring myself +to name other names and discuss their tragic +fates. There are those who have sought to make +the picture of marriage a picture of horror; but +that was because they did not dare to tell the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_134' name='page_134'></a>134</span> +truth. That marriage is all, no one but Mr. +Bennett seems to realise. No one but Mr. Bennett +seems to realise that, as between husband and +wife, there are no such things as moral standards, +there can be no such thing as an ethical code, there +can be no interposition of lofty abstractions which +Men call principles and appeal to as they would +appeal to a just God, Himself. No one but Mr. +Bennett seems to realise that the relation between +a man and his wife necessarily transcends every +abstraction, brushes aside every ideal of “right” +and “wrong.” Mr. Bennett, in the course of the +amazing discoveries of an amazing lifetime, has +made the greatest discovery possible to mortals +of this planet. He has discovered that marriage +occurs when a man and a woman take the law +into their own hands, and not only the human law, +but the divine.</p> +<p>It would be impossible for the hero of a Bennett +novel of recent years to be a character like Mark +Sabre in <i>If Winter Comes</i>. Arnold Bennett’s +married hero would realise that the health, comfort, +wishes, doubts, dissimulations; the jealousies, +the happiness or the fancied happiness, and +the exterior appearances of the woman who was +his wife abolish, for practical purposes, everything +else. It is due to Mr. Bennett more than to +anyone else that we now understand that while +“husband” may be a correct legal designation, +“lover” is the only possible æsthetic appellation +of the man who is married. If he is not a lover +he is not a husband except for statutory purposes—that +is all.</p> +<div class='figcenter'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_135' name='page_135'></a>135</span> +<a name='linki_5' id='linki_5'></a> +<img src='images/winter06.jpg' alt='' title='' style='width: 309px; height: 473px;' /><br /> +<p class='caption' style='margin: 0 auto; text-align:center;width: 309px;'> +ARNOLD BENNETT<br /> +</p> +</div> + +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_137' name='page_137'></a>137</span></div> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p>It is hard to describe <i>Lilian</i>. I will let you +taste it:</p> +<p>“Lilian, in dark blue office frock with an embroidered +red line round the neck and detachable +black wristlets that preserved the ends of the +sleeves from dust and friction, sat idle at her flat +desk in what was called ‘the small room’ at Felix +Grig’s establishment in Clifford Street, off Bond +Street. There were three desks, three typewriting +machines and three green-shaded lamps. Only +Lilian’s lamp was lighted, and she sat alone, with +darkness above her chestnut hair and about her, +and a circle of radiance below. She was twenty-three. +Through the drawn blind of the window +could just be discerned the backs of the letters of +words painted on the glass: ‘Felix Grig. Typewriting +Office. Open day and night.’ Seen from +the street the legend stood out black and clear +against the faintly glowing blind. It was +eleven p.m.</p> +<p>“That a beautiful girl, created for pleasure and +affection and expensive flattery, should be sitting +by herself at eleven p.m., in a gloomy office in +Clifford Street, in the centre of the luxurious, +pleasure-mad, love-mad West End of London +seemed shocking and contrary to nature, and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_138' name='page_138'></a>138</span> +Lilian certainly so regarded it. She pictured the +shut shops, and shops and yet again shops, filled +with elegance and costliness—robes, hats, stockings, +shoes, gloves, incredibly fine lingerie, furs, +jewels, perfumes—designed and confected for the +setting-off of just such young attractiveness as +hers. She pictured herself rifling those deserted +and silent shops by some magic means and emerging +safe, undetected, in batiste so rare that her +skin blushed through it, in a frock that was priceless +and yet nothing at all, and in warm marvellous +sables that no blast of wind or misfortune +could ever penetrate—and diamonds in her hair. +She pictured thousands of smart women, with +imperious command over rich, attendant males, +who at that very moment were moving quickly in +automobiles from theatres towards the dancing-clubs +that clustered round Felix Grig’s typewriting +office. At that very moment she herself ought +to have been dancing. Not in a smart club; no! +Only in the basement of a house where an acquaintance +of hers lodged; and only with clerks +and things like that; and only a gramophone. But +still a dance, a respite from the immense ennui +and solitude called existence!”</p> +<p>After Lilian’s mother died she had been +“Papa’s cherished darling. Then Mr. Share +caught pneumonia, through devotion to duty and +died in a few days; and at last Lilian felt on her +lovely cheek the winds of the world; at last she +was free. Of high paternal finance she had never +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_139' name='page_139'></a>139</span> +in her life heard one word. In the week following +the funeral she learnt that she would be mistress +of the furniture and a little over one hundred +pounds net. Mr. Share had illustrated the ancient +maxim that it is easier to make money than +to keep it. He had held shipping shares too long +and had sold a fully-paid endowment insurance +policy in the vain endeavour to replace by adventurous +investment that which the sea had swallowed +up. And Lilian was helpless. She could +do absolutely nothing that was worth money. +She could not begin to earn a livelihood. As for +relatives, there was only her father’s brother, a +Board School teacher with a large vulgar family +and an income far too small to permit of generosities. +Lilian was first incredulous, then horror-struck.</p> +<p>“Leaving the youth of the world to pick up art +as best it could without him, and fleeing to join +his wife in paradise, the loving, adoring father +had in effect abandoned a beautiful idolised +daughter to the alternatives of starvation or prostitution. +He had shackled her wrists behind her +back and hobbled her feet and bequeathed her to +wolves. That was what he had done, and what +many and many such fathers had done, and still +do, to their idolised daughters.</p> +<p>“Herein was the root of Lilian’s awful burning +resentment against the whole world, and of a +fierce and terrible determination by fair means or +foul to make the world pay. Her soul was a +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_140' name='page_140'></a>140</span> +horrid furnace, and if by chance Lionel Share +leaned out from the gold bar of heaven and noticed +it, the sight must have turned his thoughts +towards hell for a pleasant change. She was +saved from disaster, from martyrdom, from ignominy, +from the unnameable, by the merest fluke. +The nurse who tended Lionel Share’s last hours +was named Grig. This nurse had cousins in the +typewriting business. She had also a kind heart +a practical mind, and a persuasive manner with +cousins.”</p> +<p>Lilian in the office late at night has been engaged +in conversation by her employer, Mr. Grig, +and Mr. Grig has finally come to the point.</p> +<p>“‘You know you’ve no business in a place like +this, a girl like you. You’re much too highly +strung for one thing. You aren’t like Miss Jackson, +for instance. You’re simply wasting yourself +here. Of course you’re terribly independent, but +you do try to please. I don’t mean try to please +merely in your work. You try to please. It’s an +instinct with you. Now in typing you’d never +beat Miss Jackson. Miss Jackson’s only alive, +really, when she’s typing. She types with her +whole soul. You type well—I hear—but that’s +only because you’re clever all round. You’d do +anything well. You’d milk cows just as well as +you’d type. But your business is marriage, and a +good marriage! You’re beautiful, and, as I say, +you have an instinct to please. That’s the important +thing. You’d make a success of marriage +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_141' name='page_141'></a>141</span> +because of that and because you’re adaptable and +quick at picking up. Most women when they’re +married forget that their job is to adapt themselves +and to please. That’s their job. They +expect to be kowtowed to and spoilt and humoured +and to be free to spend money without +having to earn it, and to do nothing in return except +just exist—and perhaps manage a household, +pretty badly. They seem to forget that there are +two sides to a bargain. It’s dashed hard work, +pleasing is, sometimes. I know that. But it isn’t +so hard as earning money, believe me! Now you +wouldn’t be like the majority of women. You’d +keep your share of the bargain, and handsomely. +If you don’t marry, and marry fifty miles above +you, you’ll be very silly. For you to stop here is +an outrage against commonsense. It’s merely +monstrous. If I wasn’t an old man I wouldn’t +tell you this, naturally. Now you needn’t blush. +I expect I’m not far off thirty years older than you—and +you’re young enough to be wise in time.’”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iii</p> +</div> + +<p>It will be seen that <i>Lilian</i> has all the philosophy +and humour which make <i>Mr. Prohack</i> a joy +forever, and in addition the new novel has the +strong interest we feel in a young, beautiful, attractive, +helpless girl, who has her way to make +in the world. And yet, I love <i>Mr. Prohack</i>. I +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_142' name='page_142'></a>142</span> +think I have by heart some of the wisdom he +utters; for instance—</p> +<p>On women: “Even the finest and most agreeable +women, such as those with whom I have been +careful to surround myself in my domestic existence, +are monsters of cruelty.”</p> +<p>On women’s clubs: “You scarcely ever speak +to a soul in your club. The food’s bad in your +club. They drink liqueurs before dinner at your +club. I’ve seen ’em. Your club’s full every night +of the most formidable spinsters each eating at a +table alone. Give up your club by all means. +Set fire to it and burn it down. But don’t count +the act as a renunciation. You hate your club.”</p> +<p>On his wife: “You may annoy me. You may +exasperate me. You are frequently unspeakable. +But you have never made me unhappy. And +why? Because I am one of the few exponents of +romantic passion left in this city. My passion +for you transcends my reason. I am a fool, but +I am a magnificent fool. And the greatest miracle +of modern times is that after twenty-four years +of marriage you should be able to give me pleasure +by perching your stout body on the arm of my +chair as you are doing.”</p> +<p>On his daughter: “In 1917 I saw that girl in +dirty overalls driving a thundering great van +down Whitehall. Yesterday I met her in her +foolish high heels and her shocking openwork +stockings and her negligible dress and her exposed +throat and her fur stole, and she was so +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_143' name='page_143'></a>143</span> +delicious and so absurd and so futile and so sure +of her power that—that—well ... that chit has +the right to ruin me—not because of anything +she’s done, but because she is.”</p> +<p>On kissing: “That fellow has kissed my daughter +and he has kissed her for the first time. It is +monstrous that any girl, and especially my daughter, +should be kissed for the first time.... It +amounts to an outrage.”</p> +<p>On parenthood: “To become a parent is to accept +terrible risks. I’m Charlie’s father. What +then?... He owes nothing whatever to me or +to you. If we were starving and he had plenty, he +would probably consider it his duty to look after +us; but that’s the limit of what he owes us. +Whereas nothing can put an end to our responsibility +towards him.... We thought it would +be nice to have children and so Charlie arrived. +He didn’t choose his time and he didn’t choose his +character, nor his education, nor his chance. If he +had his choice you may depend he’d have chosen +differently. Do you want me, on the top of all +that, to tell him that he must obediently accept +something else from us—our code of conduct? It +would be mere cheek, and with all my shortcomings +I’m incapable of impudence, especially to the +young.”</p> +<p>On ownership: “Have you ever stood outside +a money-changer’s and looked at the fine collection +of genuine banknotes in the window? Supposing +I told you that you could look at them, and enjoy +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_144' name='page_144'></a>144</span> +the sight of them, and nobody could do more? +No, my boy, to enjoy a thing properly you’ve got +to own it. And anybody who says the contrary is +probably a member of the League of all the Arts.”</p> +<p>On economics: “That’s where the honest poor +have the advantage of us.... We’re the dishonest +poor.... We’re one vast pretence.... +A pretence resembles a bladder. It may burst. +We probably shall burst. Still, we have one great +advantage over the honest poor, who sometimes +have no income at all; and also over the rich, who +never can tell how big their incomes are going to +be. We know exactly where we are. We know +to the nearest sixpence.”</p> +<p>On history: “Never yet when empire, any empire, +has been weighed in the balance against a +young and attractive woman has the young woman +failed to win! This is a dreadful fact, but men +are thus constituted.”</p> +<p>On bolshevism: “Abandon the word ‘bolshevik.’ +It’s a very overworked word and wants a +long repose.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iv</p> +</div> + +<p>The best brief sketch of Arnold Bennett’s life +that I know of is given in the chapter on Arnold +Bennett in John W. Cunliffe’s <i>English Literature +During the Last Half Century</i>. Professor Cunliffe, +with the aid, of course, of Bennett’s own +story, <i>The Truth About an Author</i>, writes as +follows: +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_145' name='page_145'></a>145</span></p> +<p>“He was born near Hanley, the ‘Hanbridge’ of +the Five Towns which his novels were to launch +into literary fame, and received a somewhat limited +education at the neighbouring ‘Middle +School’ of Newcastle, his highest scholastic +achievement being the passing of the London +University Matriculation Examination. Some +youthful adventures in journalism were perhaps +significant of latent power and literary inclination, +but a small provincial newspaper offers no +great encouragement to youthful ambition, and +Enoch Arnold Bennett (as he was then called) +made his way at 21 as a solicitor’s clerk to London, +where he was soon earning a modest livelihood +by ‘a natural gift for the preparation of bills +for taxation.’ He had never ‘wanted to write’ +(except for money) and had read almost nothing +of Scott, Jane Austen, Dickens, Thackeray, the +Brontës, and George Eliot, though he had devoured +Ouida, boys’ books and serials. His first +real interest in a book was ‘not as an instrument +for obtaining information or emotion, but as a +book, printed at such a place in such a year by +so-and-so, bound by so-and-so, and carrying colophons, +registers, water-marks, and <i>fautes d’impression</i>.’ +It was when he showed a rare copy of +<i>Manon Lescaut</i> to an artist and the latter remarked +that it was one of the ugliest books he had +ever seen, that Bennett, now in his early twenties, +first became aware of the appreciation of beauty. +He won twenty guineas in a competition, conducted +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_146' name='page_146'></a>146</span> +by a popular weekly, for a humorous +condensation of a sensational serial, being assured +that this was ‘art,’ and the same paper paid him +a few shillings for a short article on ‘How a bill +of costs is drawn up.’ Meanwhile he was ‘gorging’ +on English and French literature, his chief +idols being the brothers de Goncourt, de Maupassant, +and Turgenev, and he got a story into the +Yellow Book. He saw that he could write, and +he determined to adopt the vocation of letters. +After a humiliating period of free lancing in Fleet +Street, he became assistant editor and later editor +of Woman. When he was 31, his first novel, +<i>A Man From the North</i>, was published, both in +England and America, and with the excess of the +profits over the cost of typewriting he bought a +new hat. At the end of the following year he +wrote in his diary:</p> +<p>“‘This year I have written 335,340 words, +grand total: 224 articles and stories, and four instalments +of a serial called <i>The Gates of Wrath</i> +have actually been published, and also my book +of plays, <i>Polite Farces</i>. My work included six +or eight short stories not yet published, also the +greater part of a 55,000 word serial <i>Love and +Life</i> for Tillotsons, and the whole draft, 80,000 +words of my Staffordshire novel <i>Anna Tellwright</i>.’</p> +<p>“This last was not published in book form till +1902 under the title of <i>Anna of the Five Towns</i>; +but in the ten years that had elapsed since he came +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_147' name='page_147'></a>147</span> +to London, Bennett had risen from a clerk at six +dollars a week to be a successful ‘editor, novelist, +dramatist, critic, connoisseur of all arts’ with a +comfortable suburban residence. Still he was not +satisfied; he was weary of journalism and the +tyranny of his Board of Directors. He threw up +his editorial post, with its certain income, and +retired first to the country and then to a cottage +at Fontainebleau to devote himself to literature.</p> +<p>“In the autumn of 1903, when Bennett used to +dine frequently in a Paris restaurant, it happened +that a fat old woman came in who aroused almost +universal merriment by her eccentric behaviour. +The novelist reflected: ‘This woman was once +young, slim, perhaps beautiful; certainly free +from these ridiculous mannerisms. Very probably +she is unconscious of her singularities. Her case +is a tragedy. One ought to be able to make a +heart-rending novel out of a woman such as she.’ +The idea then occurred to him of writing the book +which afterwards became <i>The Old Wives’ Tale</i>, +and in order to go one better than Guy de Maupassant’s +‘Une Vie’ he determined to make it the +life-history of two women instead of one. Constance, +the more ordinary sister, was the original +heroine; Sophia, the more independent and attractive +one, was created ‘out of bravado.’ The +project occupied Bennett’s mind for some years, +during which he produced five or six novels of +smaller scope, but in the autumn of 1907 he began +to write <i>The Old Wives’ Tale</i> and finished it in +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_148' name='page_148'></a>148</span> +July, 1908. It was published the same autumn +and though its immediate reception was not encouraging, +before the winter was over it was recognised +both in England and America as a work +of genius. The novelist’s reputation was upheld, +if not increased, by the publication of Clayhanger +in 1910, and in June, 1911, the most conservative +of American critical authorities, the New York +Evening Post, could pronounce judgment in these +terms:</p> +<p>“‘Mr. Bennett’s Bursley is not merely one +single stupid English provincial town. His +Baineses and Clayhangers are not simply average +middle class provincials foredoomed to humdrum +and the drab shadows of experience. His Bursley +is every provincial town, his Baineses are all +townspeople whatsoever under the sun. He professes +nothing of the kind; but with quiet smiling +patience, with a multitude of impalpable touches, +clothes his scene and its humble figures in an atmosphere +of pity and understanding. These little +people, he seems to say, are as important to themselves +as you are to yourself, or as I am to myself. +Their strength and weakness are ours; their lives, +like ours, are rounded with a sleep. And because +they stand in their fashion for all human character +and experience, there is even a sort of beauty +in them if you will but look for it.’”</p> +<hr class='minor' /> + +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_149' name='page_149'></a>149</span></div> +<div class='ce'> +<p><i>Books</i></p> +<p>by Arnold Bennett</p> +</div> + +<div class='la'> +<p style=' margin-top:1.5em;'><i>Novels</i>:</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>A MAN FROM THE NORTH</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE GRAND BABYLON HOTEL</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE GATES OF WRATH</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>LEONORA</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>HUGO</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>A GREAT MAN</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE BOOK OF CARLOTTA</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>WHOM GOD HATH JOINED</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE OLD ADAM</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>BURIED ALIVE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE OLD WIVES’ TALE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>CLAYHANGER</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>DENRY THE AUDACIOUS [In England, THE CARD]</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>HILDA LESSWAYS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE MATADOR OF THE FIVE TOWNS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>HELEN WITH THE HIGH HAND</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE GLIMPSE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE CITY OF PLEASURE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THESE TWAIN</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE LION’S SHARE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE PRETTY LADY</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE ROLL CALL</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>MR. PROHACK</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>LILIAN</p> +<p style=' margin-top:1.5em;'><i>Plays</i>:</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>CUPID AND COMMONSENSE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>WHAT THE PUBLIC WANTS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE HONEYMOON</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>MILESTONES [With Edward Knoblauch]</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE GREAT ADVENTURE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE TITLE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>JUDITH</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE LOVE MATCH</p> +</div> + +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_150' name='page_150'></a>150</span></div> +<div class='ce'> +<p><i>Sources</i></p> +<p style=' margin-bottom:1.5em;'>on Arnold Bennett</p> +</div> + +<p><i>Who’s Who</i> [In England].</p> +<p><i>English Literature During the Last Half Century</i>, +by John W. Cunliffe. THE MACMILLAN +COMPANY.</p> +<p><i>Arnold Bennett.</i> A booklet published by GEORGE +H. DORAN COMPANY, 1911. (Out of +print.)</p> +<p><i>The Truth About an Author</i>, by Arnold Bennett. +GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY.</p> +<p><i>The Author’s Craft</i>, by Arnold Bennett. GEORGE +H. DORAN COMPANY.</p> +<p><i>Some Modern Novelists</i>, by Helen Thomas Follett +and Wilson Follett. HENRY HOLT AND +COMPANY.</p> +<p><i>Arnold Bennett</i>, by J. F. Harvey Darton, in the +WRITERS OF THE DAY series. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_151' name='page_151'></a>151</span></p> +<p>The critical articles on Mr. Bennett and his individual +books are too numerous to mention. The +reader is referred to the New York Public Library +or the Library of Congress, Washington, +D. C., and to the Annual Index of Periodical +Publications for the last twenty years.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='X_A_CHAPTER_FOR_CHILDREN' id='X_A_CHAPTER_FOR_CHILDREN'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_152' name='page_152'></a>152</span> +<h2><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Chapter X</span></h2> +<h3>A CHAPTER FOR CHILDREN</h3> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>i</p> +</div> + +<p>I know of only one book which really aids +parents and others who have to oversee children’s +reading. That is Annie Carroll Moore’s +invaluable <i>Roads to Childhood</i>. The author, as +supervisor of work with children in the New York +Public Library, has had possibly a completer opportunity +to understand what children like to read +and why they like it than any other woman. +What is more, she has the gift of writing readably +about both children and books, and an unusual +faculty for reconciling those somewhat opposite +poles—things children like to read and the things +it is well for them to read.</p> +<p>Miss Moore says that the important thing is a +discovery of personality in children and a respect +for their natural inclinations in reading—an early +and live appreciation of literature and good drawings +is best imparted by exposure rather than by +insistence upon a too rigid selection. “What I +like about these papers,” said one young mother, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_153' name='page_153'></a>153</span> +“is that they are good talk. You can pick the +book up and open it anywhere without following +a course of reading or instruction to understand +it. There is full recognition of the fact that +children are different and react differently to the +same books at different periods of their development.”</p> +<p>Maude Radford Warren’s <i>Tales Told by the +Gander</i> is one of those books for children that +adults find interesting, too; and there is a new +series of children’s books by May Byron, concerning +which I must say a few words. The series is +called “Old Friends in New Frocks” and here are +a few of the titles:</p> +<p><i>Billy Butt’s Adventure: The Tale of the Wolf +and the Goat.</i></p> +<p><i>Little Jumping Joan: The Tale of the Ants and +the Grasshopper.</i></p> +<p><i>Jack-a-Dandy: The Tale of the Vain Jackdaw.</i></p> +<p>These books are noteworthy for their beautiful +illustrations. Each volume has an inspired and +fanciful frontispiece in colours by E. J. Detmold +and line illustrations by Day Hodgetts. Moreover, +there are end papers and the binding has a +picture in colour that begins on the back and extends +all the way around in front. Naturally +they are for very young children—shall we say up +to seven years old? +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_154' name='page_154'></a>154</span></p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p>On April 29, 1922, the Philadelphia Public +Ledger printed a letter from twelve-year-old +Marion Kummer, as follows:</p> +<p>“Dear Mr. Editor: My father asked me to +write you a story about him and they say at school +that I am good at stories, so I thought I would. +I think he thinks I can write and become a great +writer like him some day, but I would rather be a +great actress like Leonora Ulrick. I saw her in a +play where she went to sleep and they stuck pins +in her but could not wake her up, which part I +should not like. But at that I would rather be an +actress because acting is pleasanter and more exciting +and you do not have to write on the typewriter +all day and get a pain in your back. Daddy +says he would rather shovel coal but he does not, +but snow sometimes, which has been very plentiful +about here this winter, also sledding.</p> +<p>“When he is not working, he goes for a walk +with the dogs, or tells us most any question we +should ask almost like an encikelopedia. He is +very good-natured and I love the things he writes, +especially plays. Daddy has just finished a children’s +book called <i>The Earth’s Story</i> about how +it began millions of years ago when there was a +great many fossils, so nice for children. Also +about stone axes. My brother Fred made one +but when he was showing us how it worked the +head came off and hit me on the foot and I +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_155' name='page_155'></a>155</span> +kicked him. So stone axes were one of the man’s +first weapons. Daddy read us each chapter +when it was done and we helped him except baby +brother who wrote with red crayon all over one +chapter when no one was there, and he should not +have been in Daddy’s office anyway. Daddy has +to draw horses and engines for him all the time. +He gets tired of it but what can he do?”</p> +<p>Now this is very pleasant, for here on the table +is the first volume of <i>The Earth’s Story—The +First Days of Man</i> by Frederic Arnold Kummer; +and this book for children has a preface for parents +in it. In that preface Mr. Kummer says:</p> +<p>“In this process of storing away in his brain +the accumulated knowledge of the ages the child’s +mind passes, with inconceivable rapidity, along +the same route that the composite minds of his +ancestors travelled, during their centuries of development. +The impulse that causes him to want +to hunt, to fish, to build brush huts, to camp out +in the woods, to use his hands as well as his brain, +is an inheritance from the past, when his primitive +ancestors did these things. He should be +helped to trace the route they followed with intelligence +and understanding, he should be encouraged +to know the woods, and all the great +world of out-of-doors, to make and use the primitive +weapons, utensils, toys, his ancestors made +and used, to come into closer contact with the +fundamental laws of nature, and thus to lay a +groundwork for wholesome and practical thinking +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_156' name='page_156'></a>156</span> +which cannot be gained in the classroom or the +city streets.</p> +<p>“As has been said, the writer has tested the +methods outlined above. The chapters in <i>The +First Days of Man</i> are merely the things he has +told his own children. It is of interest to note +that one of these, a boy of seven, on first going to +school, easily outstripped in a single month a +dozen or more children who had been at school +almost a year, and was able to enter a grade a full +year ahead of them. The child in question is not +in the least precocious, but having understood the +knowledge he has gained, he is able to make use +of it, he has a definite mental perspective, a sure +grasp on things, which makes study of any kind +easy for him, and progression correspondingly +rapid.”</p> +<p>To say that <i>Jungle Tales, Adventures in India</i>, +by Howard Anderson Musser is a series of missionary +tales of adventure in India, is to give no +idea of the thrills within its covers. There are +fights with tigers, bears and bandits, and there is +one long fight against ignorance and disease, superstition +and merciless greed. And the fighter? +He was an American athlete, who had won honour +on the track and football field. Great for boys!</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iii</p> +</div> + +<p>The English <i>Who’s Who</i> says: +“Colonel Stevenson Lyle Cummins”—then follows +a string of degrees—“David Davies Professor +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_157' name='page_157'></a>157</span> +of Tuberculosis, University College, South +Wales, Monmouthshire, and Principal Medical +Officer to the King Edward VII. Welsh National +Memorial Association since 1921.... Entered +Army 1897; Captain, 1900; Major, 1909; Lieutenant-Colonel, +1915; Colonel, 1918; served Nile +Expedition, 1898 (medal with clasp, despatches); +Sudan 1900, 1902; Sudan, 1904 (Clasp); Osmanieh +4th class, 1907; European War, 1914-18 +(C.B., C.M.G., despatches six times, Brevetted +Colonel); Legion of Honour (Officer), Couronne +de Belgique (Officer); Col. 1918; Croix de Guerre +(Belgian), 1918, retired from Army, 1921.”</p> +<p>But I don’t suppose that it was as a consequence +of anything in that honourable record that Colonel +Cummins wrote <i>Plays for Children</i>, in three +volumes. I suppose it was in consequence of another +fact which the English<i> Who’s Who</i> mentions +(very briefly and abbreviatedly) as “four <i>c.</i>”</p> +<p>The possession of four children is a natural explanation +of three volumes of juvenile plays.</p> +<p>But wait a moment! Did Colonel Cummins +write them wholly for his youngsters? As I read +these little plays, it seems to me that there is frequently +an undercurrent of philosophy, truth, +satire—what you will—which, unappreciated by +the youngsters themselves, will make these household +dramas ingratiating to their parents. At any +rate, this is exceptional work; you may be sure it +is, for publishers are not in the habit of bringing +out an author’s three volumes of children’s plays +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_158' name='page_158'></a>158</span> +all at one stroke, and that is what is happening +with Colonel Cummins’s little dramas.</p> +<p>What is there to say in advance about <i>The +Fairy Flute</i>, by Rose Fyleman? No one of the +increasing number who have read her utterly +charming book of poems for children, <i>Fairies and +Chimneys</i>, will need more than the breath that +this book is coming. I shall give myself (and I +think everyone who reads this) the pleasure of +quoting a poem from <i>Fairies and Chimneys</i>. This +will show those who do not know the work of +Rose Fyleman what to expect:</p> +<table summary='poetry' style='margin:0 auto'><tr><td> +<p style='text-align: center;'>PEACOCKS</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Peacocks sweep the fairies’ rooms;</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>They use their folded tails for brooms;</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>But fairy dust is brighter far</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Than any mortal colours are;</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>And all about their tails it clings</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>In strange designs of rounds and rings;</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>And that is why they strut about</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>And proudly spread their feathers out.</p> +</td></tr></table> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iv</p> +</div> + +<p>Francis Rolt-Wheeler has spent years at sea, +travelled a great deal in the West Indies, and +South America, trapped at Hudson Bay, punched +cattle in the far West, lived in mining camps, +traversed the greater part of the American continent +on horseback, lived with the Indians of the +plains and lived with the Indians of the Pueblos, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_159' name='page_159'></a>159</span> +was a journalist for several years, has been in +nearly every country of the world, and when last +heard from (May, 1922) was meandering through +Spain on his way to Morocco intending to take +journeys on mule-back among the wild tribes of +the Riff. He is studying Arabic and Mohammedan +customs to prepare himself for this latest adventure. +He writes boys’ books.</p> +<p>Can he write boys’ books? If a man of his experience +cannot write boys’ books, then boys’ +books are hopeless.</p> +<p><i>Plotting in Pirate Seas</i>, besides the thrill of +the story relating Stuart Garfield’s adventures +in Haiti, contains glimpses of the whole pageant +we call “the history of the Spanish Main.” There +is a chapter which gives an account of Teach and +Blackbeard, the buccaneers. Other chapters offer +natural history in connection with Stuart Garfield’s +hunt for his father. The boy gets an +inside view of newspaper work and a clear idea of +native life in Haiti and of conditions which +brought about American intervention on the +island.</p> +<p><i>Hunting Hidden Treasure in the Andes</i> is, explicitly, +the story of Julio and his guidance of two +North American boys to the buried treasure of the +Incas; but the book is much more than that. It +gives, with accuracy and exceptional interest, a +panorama of South American civilisation.</p> +<p>These are the first two volumes of the “Boy +Journalist Series.” Two other books, the first +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_160' name='page_160'></a>160</span> +two volumes in the series called “Romance-History +of America,” are:</p> +<p><i>In the Days Before Columbus</i>, which deals with +the North America that every youngster wants to +know about—a continent flung up from the +ocean’s bed and sculptured by ice; a continent +that was kept hidden for centuries from European +knowledge by the silent sweep of ocean currents; +a continent that developed civilisations comparable +with the Phoenician and Egyptian; the continent +of the Red Man. The book places what we +customarily call “American History” in its proper +perspective by hanging behind it the stupendous +backdrop of creation and the prehistoric time.</p> +<p><i>The Quest of the Western World</i> is not the +usual story of Columbus, preceded by a few allusions +to the adventurings of earlier navigators. +Dr. Rolt-Wheeler has written a book which goes +back to the days of Tyre and Sidon, which includes +the core of the old Norse and Irish sagas, +and which comes down to Columbus with all the +rich tapestry of a daring past unrolled before the +youthful reader. Nor does the author stand on +the letter of his title; he tells the story of the +Quest both backward and forward, tying up the +past with the present and avoiding, with singular +success, the fatal effect which makes a child feel: +“All this was a long time ago; it hasn’t anything +to do with me or today.”</p> +<p>And now two new Rolt-Wheeler books are +ready! <i>Heroes of the Ruins</i>, the third volume of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_161' name='page_161'></a>161</span> +the “Boy Journalist Series,” tells of a fourteen-year-old +who lived for four years of war in +trenches and dugouts. Andre, the Mole, went +from one company to another, dodged the authorities +and successfully ran the risks of death, +emerging at the end to take up the search for his +scattered family, from whom he had been separated +in the early days of the fighting.</p> +<p>The third volume in the “Romance-History of +America” books is <i>The Coming of the Peoples</i>, +which tells how the French, Spanish, English and +Dutch settled early America.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>v</p> +</div> + +<p>Olive Roberts Barton is a sister of Mary Roberts +Rinehart. When she taught school in Pittsburgh +for several years before her marriage, she +worked with children of all sizes and ages during +part of that time and found small children were +her specialty. She says:</p> +<p>“Working with them, and giving out constantly +as one must with small children, was like casting +bread upon waters. It came back to me, what I +was giving them, not after many days but at once; +their appreciation, their spontaneous sympathy, +their love gave to me something I could get nowhere +else, and it was enriching. I felt then, as I +still feel, that children give us the best things the +world has to offer, and my effort has been to make +some return. Twice during the crises in my married +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_162' name='page_162'></a>162</span> +life I went back to the schoolroom for comfort. +Once after the death of one of my own +children, when I had no others left, and again +when my husband went to the battle-fields of +France.</p> +<p>“I have written with the same experience as I +taught. My first successes were with adult fiction. +I have had something like six hundred short stories +published by syndicates, and magazine articles +have appeared from time to time, but gradually +I realised that I wanted children for my audience. +Several years ago I published <i>Cloud Boat +Stories</i>. Later <i>The Wonderful Land of Up</i>. A +syndicate editor saw these books and asked me to +start a children’s department for the five hundred +papers he served. That was the beginning of the +‘Twins.’ Nancy and Nick were born two years +ago. They still visit their little friends every +day in the columns of many newspapers. What +a vast audience I have! A million children! No +wonder one wishes to do his best.</p> +<p>“I have two children of my own. They are my +critics. What they do not like, I do not write. +We all love the out-of-doors and to us a bird or a +little wild animal is a fairy.”</p> +<p>But when I try to say something about the +<i>Nancy and Nick</i> series I find it has all been said +for me (and said so much better!) by that accomplished +bookseller, Candace T. Stevenson:</p> +<p>“I have just finished all of the books by Olive +Roberts Barton. They are truly spontaneous and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_163' name='page_163'></a>163</span> +delightful. In fact, they have carried my small +group of children listeners and myself along as +breathlessly as if they were Alice in Wonderland +or Davy and the Goblin. They are delightful +nonsense with exactly the right degree of an undercurrent +of ideas which they can make use of in +their business of everyday living. Children love +morals which are done as skilfully as the chapter +on Examinations in Helter Skelter Land, and +Sammy Jones, the Topsy Turvy Boy in Topsy +Turvy Land, and I found my group not only seriously +discussing them but putting them into practice. +Speaking of putting things into practice, +there is only one spot in all of the books which +seemed to me as if it might get some children into +trouble. The description of Waspy Weasel’s +trick on the schoolmaster in Helter Skelter Land +where he squeezes bittersweet juice into the +schoolmaster’s milk and puts him to sleep, I think +would lead any inquiring mind to try it.</p> +<p>“The whale who loved peppermints, Torty +Turtle with his seagull’s wings on, the adventures +of the children when they help Mr. Tingaling collect +the rents—this isn’t the same old stuff of the +endless ‘bedtime’ stories which are dealt out to us +by the yard. These animals are real people with +the tinge which takes real imagination to paint.</p> +<p>“At first I was disappointed in the pictures, but +as I read on I came to like those also, and I found +that they were wholly satisfactory to the children. +The picture of the thousand legger with all his +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_164' name='page_164'></a>164</span> +shoes on is entrancing, and poor Mrs. Frog cutting +out clothes because the dressmaker had made them +for the children when they were still tadpoles. +These books ought to come like an oasis in the +desert to the poor-jaded-reading-aloud-parent.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>vi</p> +</div> + +<p>At Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, in a small +house built from her own plans and standing +2,000 feet above sea level, in a growing shade of +trees, lives Marion Ames Taggart, author of the +Jack-in-the-Box series—four children’s books that +renew their popularity every year. They are:</p> +<table summary='poetry' style='margin:0 auto'><tr><td> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>AT GREENACRES</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>THE QUEER LITTLE MAN</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>THE BOTTLE IMP</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>POPPY’S PLUCK</p> +</td></tr></table> + +<p><i>At Greenacres</i> and <i>The Queer Little Man</i> are +particularly good to read aloud to a group of children; +they really are the mystery and detective +story diluted for children.</p> +<p>Miss Taggart, an only child and extremely frail +in childhood, had the good fortune as a consequence +of ill-health to be educated entirely at +home. As a result she had free access to really +good books—for the home was in Haverhill, +Mass. She began to carry out a cherished wish to +write for young girls in 1901, when her first book +(for girls of about sixteen) was published in St. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_165' name='page_165'></a>165</span> +Nicholas. She has a habit of transplanting four-footed +friends in her stories under their own +names—as where, in the Jack-in-the-Box series, +one finds Pincushion, Miss Taggart’s own plump +grey kitten.</p> +<p>What will the children say to <i>A Wonder Book</i>, +by Nathaniel Hawthorne, with pictures in color +by Arthur Rackham? I do not know why I ask +this rhetorical question, which, like most questions +of the sort, should be followed by exclamation +points! There will be exclamations, at any rate, +over this book, surely the most beautiful of the +year, perhaps of several years. The quality of +Arthur Rackham’s work is well known, its artistic +value is undisputedly of the very highest. And +Hawthorne’s text—the story of the Gorgon’s +head, the tale of Midas, Tanglewood, and the +rest—is of the finest literary, poetic and imaginative +worth.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='XI_COBB_S_FOURTH_DIMENSION' id='XI_COBB_S_FOURTH_DIMENSION'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_166' name='page_166'></a>166</span> +<h2><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Chapter XI</span></h2> +<h3>COBB’S FOURTH DIMENSION</h3> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>i</p> +</div> + +<p>As a three-dimensional writer, Irvin S. Cobb +has long been among the American literary +heavy-weights. Now that he has acquired a +fourth dimension, the time has come for a new +measurement of his excellences as an author.</p> +<p>Among those excellences I know a man (responsible +for the manufacture of Doran books) who +holds that Cobb is the greatest living American +author. The reason for this is severely logical, +to wit: Irvin Cobb always sends in his copy in a +perfect condition. His copy goes to the manufacturer +of books with a correctly written title page, +a correctly written copyright page, the exact wording +of the dedication, an accurate table of contents, +and so on, all the way through the manuscript. +Moreover, when proofs are sent to Mr. +Cobb, he makes very few changes. He reduces to +a minimum the difficulties of a printer and his +changes are always perceptibly changes for the +better.</p> +<p>But I don’t suppose that any of this would redound +to Cobb’s credit in the eyes of a literary +critic.</p> +<div class='figcenter'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_167' name='page_167'></a>167</span> +<a name='linki_6' id='linki_6'></a> +<img src='images/winter07.jpg' alt='' title='' style='width: 307px; height: 419px;' /><br /> +<p class='caption' style='margin: 0 auto; text-align:center;width: 307px;'> +IRVIN S. COBB<br /> +</p> +</div> + +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_169' name='page_169'></a>169</span></div> +<p>And to return to the subject of the fourth dimension: +My difficulty is to know in just what +direction that fourth dimension lies. Is the fourth +dimension of Cobb as a novelist or as an autobiographer? +It puzzles me to tell inasmuch as +I have before me the manuscripts of Mr. Cobb’s +first novel, <i>J. Poindexter, Colored</i>, and his very +first autobiography, a volume called <i>Stickfuls</i>.</p> +<p>The title of <i>Stickfuls</i> will probably not be +charged with meaning to people unfamiliar with +newspaper work. Perhaps it is worth while to +explain that in the old days, when type was set +by hand, the printer had a little metal holder +called a “stick.” When he had set a dozen lines—more +or less—he had a “stickful.” Although +very little type is now set by hand, the stick as a +measure of space is still in good standing. The +reporter presents himself at the city desk, tells +what he has got, and is told by the city editor, +“Write a stickful.” Or, “Write two sticks.” +And so on.</p> +<p><i>Stickfuls</i> is not so much the story of Cobb’s life +as the story of people he has met and places he has +been, told in a series of extremely interesting +chapters—told in a leisurely and delightful +fashion of reminiscence by a natural association +of one incident with another and one person with +someone else. For example, Cobb as a newspaper +man, covered a great many trials in court; and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_170' name='page_170'></a>170</span> +one of the chapters of <i>Stickfuls</i> tells of famous +trials he has attended.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p>Now about this novel of Cobb’s: Jeff Poindexter +will be remembered by all the readers of +Mr. Cobb’s short stories as the negro body servant +of old Judge Priest. In <i>J. Poindexter, Colored</i>, +we have Jeff coming to New York. Of course, +New York seen through the eyes of a genuine +Southern darkey is a New York most of us have +never seen. There’s nothing like sampling, so I +will let you begin the book:</p> +<p>“My name is J. Poindexter. But the full name +is Jefferson Exodus Poindexter, Colored. But +most always in general I has been known as Jeff +for short. The Jefferson part is for a white family +which my folks worked for them one time before +I was born, and the Exodus is because my mammy +craved I should be named after somebody out of +the Bible. How I comes to write this is this way:</p> +<p>“It seems like my experiences here in New York +is liable to be such that one of my white gentleman +friends he says to me I should take pen in hand +and write them out just the way they happen and +at the time they is happening, or right soon afterwards, +whilst the memory of them is clear in my +brain; and then he’s see if he can’t get them +printed somewheres, which on the top of the other +things which I now is, will make me an author +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_171' name='page_171'></a>171</span> +with money coming in steady. He says to me he +will fix up the spelling wherever needed and attend +to the punctuating; but all the rest of it will +be my own just like I puts it down. I reads and +writes very well but someway I never learned to +puncture. So the places where it is necessary to +be punctual in order to make good sense and keep +everything regulation and make the talk sound +natural is his doings and also some of the spelling. +But everything else is mine and I asks credit.</p> +<p>“My coming to New York, in the first place, is +sort of a sudden thing which starts here about a +month before the present time. I has been working +for Judge Priest for going on sixteen years and +is expecting to go on working for him as long as we +can get along together all right, which it seems +like from appearances that ought to be always. +But after he gives up being circuit judge on account +of him getting along so in age he gets sort +of fretful by reasons of him not having much to +do any more and most of his own friends having +died off on him. When the State begins going +Republican about once in so often, he says to me, +kind of half joking, he’s a great mind to pull up +stakes and move off and go live somewheres else. +But pretty soon after that the whole country goes +dry and then he says to me there just naturally +ain’t no fitten place left for him to go without he +leaves the United States.”</p> +<p>It seems that Judge Priest finally succumbed to +an invitation to visit Bermuda, a place where a +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_172' name='page_172'></a>172</span> +gentleman can still raise a thirst and satisfy it. +Jeff could not stand the house without the Judge +in it; and when an opportunity came to go to New +York, Jeff went.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iii</p> +</div> + +<p>The biographer of Cobb is Robert H. Davis, +editor of Munsey’s Magazine, whose authoritative +account I take pleasure in reprinting here—the +more so because it appeared some time ago in +a booklet which is now out of print. Mr. Davis’s +article was first printed in The Sun, New York:</p> +<p>“Let me deal with this individual in a categorical +way. Most biographers prefer to mutilate +their canvas with a small daub which purports to +be a sketch of the most significant event in the life +of the accused. Around this it is their custom to +paint smaller and less impressive scenes, blending +the whole by placing it in a large gilded frame, +which, for obvious reasons, costs more than the +picture—and it is worth more. Pardon me, +therefore, if I creep upon Mr. Cobb from the +lower left-hand corner of the canvas and chase +him across the open space as rapidly as possible. +It is not for me to indicate when the big events +in his life will occur or to lay the milestones of the +route along which he will travel. I know only +that they are in the future, and that, regardless of +any of his achievements in the past, Irvin Cobb +has not yet come into his own. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_173' name='page_173'></a>173</span></p> +<p>“The first glimpse I had of him was in a half-tone +portrait in the New York Evening World +five years ago. This picture hung pendant-like +from a title which read ‘Through Funny Glasses, +by Irvin S. Cobb.’ It was the face of a man +scarred with uncertainty; an even money proposition +that he had either just emerged from the +Commune or was about to enter it. Grief was +written on the brow; more than written, it was +emblazoned. The eyes were heavy with inexpressible +sadness. The corners of the mouth were +drooped, heightening the whole effect of incomprehensible +depression. Quickly I turned to the +next page among the stock quotations, where I got +my depression in a blanket form. The concentrated +Cobb kind was too much for me.</p> +<p>“A few days later I came suddenly upon the +face again. The very incongruity of its alliance +with laughter overwhelmed me, and wonderingly +I read what he had written, not once, but every +day, always with the handicap of that half-tone. +If Cobb were an older man, I would go on the witness +stand and swear that the photograph was +made when he was witnessing the Custer Massacre +or the passing of Geronimo through the winter +quarters of his enemies. Notwithstanding, he +supplied my week’s laughter.</p> +<p>“Digression this:</p> +<p>“After Bret Harte died, many stories were written +by San Franciscans who knew him when he +first put in an appearance on the Pacific Coast. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_174' name='page_174'></a>174</span> +One contemporary described minutely how Bret +would come silently up the stairs of the old Alta +office, glide down the dingy hallway through the +exchange room, and seat himself at the now historic +desk. It took Bret fifteen minutes to sharpen +a lead pencil, one hour for sober reflection, and +three hours to write a one-stick paragraph, after +which he would carefully tear it up, gaze out of +the window down the Golden Gate, and go home.</p> +<p>“He repeated this formula the following day, +and at the end of the week succeeded in turning +out three or four sticks which he considered fit to +print. In later years, after fame had sought him +out and presented him with a fur-lined overcoat, +which I am bound to say Bret knew how to wear, +the files of the Alta were ransacked for the pearls +he had dropped in his youth. A few gems were +identified, a very few. Beside this entire printed +collection the New England Primer would have +looked like a set of encyclopedias. Bret worked +slowly, methodically, brilliantly, and is an imperishable +figure in American letters.</p> +<p>“Returning to Cobb: He has already written +twenty times more than Bret Harte turned out +during his entire career. He has made more people +laugh and written better short stories. He has +all of Harte’s subtle and delicate feeling, and +will, if he is spared, write better novels about the +people of today than Bret Harte, with all his +genius and imagination, wrote around the Pioneers. +I know of no single instance where one +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_175' name='page_175'></a>175</span> +man has shown such fecundity and quality as Irvin +Cobb has so far evinced, and it is my opinion that +his complete works at fifty will contain more good +humour, more good short stories, and at least one +bigger novel than the works of any other single +contemporaneous figure.</p> +<p>“He was born in Paducah, Kentucky, in June, +’76. I have taken occasion to look into the matter +and find that his existence was peculiarly varied. +He belonged to one of those old Southern families-there +being no new Southern families—and +passed through the public schools sans incident. +At the age of sixteen he went into the office +of The Paducah Daily News as a reportorial +cub.</p> +<p>“He was first drawn to daily journalism because +he yearned to be an illustrator. Indeed, he +went so far as to write local humorous stories, +illustrating them himself. The pictures must +have been pretty bad, although they served to +keep people from saying that his literature was +the worst thing in the paper.</p> +<p>“Resisting all efforts of the editor, the stockholders +and the subscribers of The Paducah Daily +News, he remained barricaded behind his desk +until his nineteenth year, when he was crowned +with a two-dollar raise and a secondary caption +under his picture which read ‘The Youngest +Managing Editor of a Daily Paper in the United +States.’</p> +<p>“If Cobb was consulted in the matter of this +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_176' name='page_176'></a>176</span> +review, he would like to have these preliminaries +expunged from his biography. But the public is +entitled to the details.</p> +<p>“It is also true that he stacked up more libel +suits than a newspaper of limited capital with a +staff of local attorneys could handle before he +moved to Louisville, where, for three years, he +was staff correspondent of The Evening Post. It +was here that Cobb discovered how far a humorist +could go without being invited to step out at 6 +a.m. and rehearse ‘The Rivals’ with real horse-pistols.</p> +<p>“The first sobering episode in his life occurred +when the Goebel murder echoed out of Louisville. +He reported this historic assassination and covered +the subsequent trials in the Georgetown court +house. Doubtless the seeds of tragedy, which +mark some of his present work, were sown here. +Those who are familiar with his writings know +that occasionally he sets his cap and bells aside +and dips his pen into the very darkness of life. +We find it particularly in three of his short stories +entitled ‘An Occurrence Up a Side Street,’ +‘The Belled Buzzard,’ and ‘Fishhead.’ Nothing +better can be found in Edgar Allan Poe’s collected +works. One is impressed not only with the beauty +and simplicity of his prose, but with the tremendous +power of his tragic conceptions and his art +in dealing with terror. There appears to be no +phase of human emotion beyond his pen. Without +an effort he rises from the level of actualities +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_177' name='page_177'></a>177</span> +to the high plane of boundless imagination, invoking +laughter or tears at will.</p> +<p>“After his Louisville experience Cobb married +and returned to Paducah to be managing editor of +The Democrat. Either Paducah or The Democrat +got on his nerves and, after a comparison of +the Paducah school of journalism with the metropolitan +brand, he turned his face (see Evening +World half-tone) in the direction of New York, +buoyed up by the illusion that he was needed there +along with other reforms.</p> +<p>“He arrived at the gates of Manhattan full of +hope, and visited every newspaper office in New +York without receiving encouragement to call +again. Being resourceful he retired to his suite of +hall bedrooms on 57th Street West and wrote a +personal note to every city editor in New York, +setting forth in each instance the magnificent intellectual +proportions of the epistolographer. The +next morning, by mail, Cobb had offers for a job +from five of them. He selected The Evening Sun.</p> +<p>“At about that time the Portsmouth Peace Conference +convened, and The Sun sent the Paducah +party to help cover the proceedings. Upon arriving +at Portsmouth, Cobb cast his experienced eye +over the situation, discovered that the story was +already well covered by a large coterie of competent, +serious-minded young men, and went into +action to write a few columns daily on subjects +having no bearing whatsoever on the conference. +These stories were written in the ebullition of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_178' name='page_178'></a>178</span> +youth, inspired by the ecstasy which rises from +the possession of a steady job; a perfect deluge +from the well springs of spontaneity. There +wasn’t a single fact in the entire series, and yet +The Sun syndicated these stories throughout the +United States. All they possessed was I-N-D-I-V-I-D-U-A-L-I-T-Y.</p> +<p>“At the end of three weeks, Cobb returned to +New York, to find that he could have a job on any +newspaper in it. This brings him to The Evening +World, the half-tone engraving, which was the +first glimpse I had of him, and the dawn of his +subsequent triumphs. For four years he supplied +the evening edition and The Sunday World with +a comic feature, to say nothing of a comic opera, +written to order in five days. The absence of a +guillotine in New York State accounts for his +escape for this latter offence. Nevertheless, in all +else his standard of excellence ascended. He reported +the Thaw trial in long-hand, writing nearly +600,000 words of testimony and observation, establishing +a new style for reporting trials, and +gave further evidence of his power. That performance +will stand out in the annals of American +journalism as one of the really big reportorial +achievements.</p> +<p>“At about this juncture in his career Cobb +opened a door to the past, reached in and took +out some of the recollections of his youth. These +he converted into ‘The Escape of Mr. Trimm,’ +his first short fiction story. It appeared in The +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_179' name='page_179'></a>179</span> +Saturday Evening Post. The court scene was +so absolutely true to life, so minutely perfect +in its atmosphere, that a Supreme Court judge +signed an unsolicited and voluntary note for publication, +in which he said that Mr. Cobb had reported +with marvelous accuracy and fulness a +murder trial at which His Honour had presided.</p> +<p>“Gelett Burgess, in a lecture at Columbia College, +said that Cobb was one of the ten great +American humourists. Cobb ought to demand a +recount. There are not ten humourists in the +world, although Cobb is one of them. The extraordinary +thing about Cobb is that he can turn +a burst of laughter into a funeral oration, a +snicker into a shudder and a smile into a crime. +He writes in octaves, striking instinctively all the +chords of humour, tragedy, pathos and romance +with either hand. Observe this man in his thirty-ninth +year, possessing gifts the limitations of +which even he himself has not yet recognised.</p> +<p>“In appraising a genius, we must consider the +man’s highest achievement, and in comparing him +with others the verdict must be reached only upon +consideration of his best work. For scintillant +wit and unflagging good humour, read his essays +on the Teeth, the Hair and the Stomach. If you +desire a perfect blending of all that is essential +to a short story, read ‘The Escape of Mr. Trimm’ +or ‘Words and Music.’ If you are in search of +pure, unadulterated, boundless terror, the gruesome +quality, the blackness of despair and the fear +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_180' name='page_180'></a>180</span> +of death in the human conscience, ‘Fishhead,’ +‘The Belled Buzzard’ or ‘An Occurrence Up a +Side Street’ will enthrall you.</p> +<p>“Thus in Irvin Cobb we find Mark Twain, Bret +Harte and Edgar Allan Poe at their best. Reckon +with these potentialities in the future. Speculate, +if you will, upon the sort of a novel that is bound, +some day, to come from his pen. There seem to +be no pinnacles along the horizon of the literary +future that are beyond him. If he uses his pen +for an Alpine stock, the Matterhorn is his.</p> +<p>“There are critics and reviewers who do not +entirely agree with me concerning Cobb. But +they will.</p> +<p>“As I write these lines I recall a conversation I +had with Irvin Cobb on the hurricane deck of a +Fifth Avenue ’bus one bleak November afternoon, +1911. We had met at the funeral of Joseph Pulitzer, +in whose employ we had served in the past.</p> +<p>“Cobb was in a reflective mood, chilled to the +marrow, and not particularly communicative.</p> +<p>“At the junction of Fifth Avenue and Forty-second +Street we were held up by congested traffic. +After a little manœuvring on the part of a +mounted policeman, the Fifth Avenue tide flowed +through and onward again.</p> +<p>“‘It reminds me of a river,’ said Cobb, ‘into +which all humanity is drawn. Some of these people +think because they are walking up-stream they +are getting out of it. But they never escape. The +current is at work on them. Some day they will +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_181' name='page_181'></a>181</span> +get tired and go down again, and finally pass out +to sea. It is the same with real rivers. They do +not flow uphill.’</p> +<p>“He lapsed into silence.</p> +<p>“‘What’s on your mind?’ I inquired.</p> +<p>“‘Nothing in particular,’ he said, scanning the +banks of the great municipal stream, ‘except that +I intend to write a novel some day about a boy +born at the headwaters. Gradually he floats down +through the tributaries, across the valleys, swings +into the main stream, and docks finally at one of +the cities on its banks. This particular youth was +a great success—in the beginning. Every door +was open to him. He had position, brains, and +popularity to boot. He married brilliantly. And +then The Past, a trivial, unimportant Detail, +lifted its head and barked at him. He was too +sensitive to bark back. Thereupon it bit him and +he collapsed.’</p> +<p>“Again Cobb ceased talking. For some reason—indefinable—I +respected his silence. Two +blocks further down he took up the thread of his +story again:</p> +<p>“‘—and one evening, just about sundown, a +river hand, sitting on a stringpiece of a dock, saw +a derby hat bobbing in the muddy Mississippi, +floating unsteadily but surely into the Gulf of +Mexico.’</p> +<p>“As is his habit, Cobb tugged at his lower lip.</p> +<p>“‘What are you going to call this novel?’</p> +<p>“‘I don’t know. What do you think?’ +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_182' name='page_182'></a>182</span></p> +<p>“‘Why not “The River”?’</p> +<p>“‘Very well, I’ll call it “The River.”’</p> +<p>“He scrambled from his seat. ‘I’m docking at +Twenty-seventh Street. Good-bye. Keep your +hat out of the water.’</p> +<p>“Laboriously he made his way down the +winding staircase from the upper deck, dropped +flat-footed on the asphalt pavement, turned his +collar up, leaned into the gust of wind from the +South, and swung into the cross-current of another +stream.</p> +<p>“I doubt if he has any intention of calling his +story ‘The River.’ But I am sure the last chapter +will contain something about an unhappy wretch +who wore a derby hat at the moment he walked +hand in hand with his miserable Past into the +Father of Waters.</p> +<p>“For those who wish to know something of his +personal side, I can do no better than to record +his remarks to a stranger, who, in my presence, +asked Irvin Cobb, without knowing to whom he +was speaking, what kind of a person Cobb was.</p> +<p>“‘Well, to be perfectly frank with you,’ replied +the Paducah prodigy, ‘Cobb is related to +my wife by marriage, and if you don’t object to a +brief sketch, with all the technicalities eliminated, +I should say in appearance he is rather bulky, +standing six feet high, not especially beautiful, a +light roan in colour, with a black mane. His figure +is undecided, but might be called bunchy in +places. He belongs to several clubs, including +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_183' name='page_183'></a>183</span> +The Yonkers Pressing Club and The Park Hill +Democratic Marching Club, and has always, like +his father, who was a Confederate soldier, voted +the Democratic ticket. He has had one wife and +one child and still has them. In religion he is an +Innocent Bystander.’</p> +<p>“Could anything be fuller than this?”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iv</p> +</div> + +<p>It was Mr. Davis, also, who in the New York +Herald of April 23, 1922, made public the evidence +for the following box score:</p> +<table summary=''> +<tr><td> </td><td>1st</td><td>2nd</td></tr> +<tr><td>Best Writer of Humour</td><td>Cobb</td><td>—</td></tr> +<tr><td>Best All-Round Reporter</td><td>Cobb</td><td>—</td></tr> +<tr><td>Best Local Colourist</td><td>Cobb</td><td>—</td></tr> +<tr><td>Best in Tales of Horror</td><td></td><td>—</td></tr> +<tr><td>Best Writer of Negro Stories</td><td>—</td><td>Cobb</td></tr> +<tr><td>Best Writer of<br />Light Humorous Fiction</td><td>Tarkington</td><td>Cobb and<br />Harry Leon Wilson</td></tr> +<tr><td>Best Teller of Anecdotes</td><td>Cobb</td><td>Cobb</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>“Not long ago a group of ten literary men—editors, +critics, readers and writers—were dining +together. Discussion arose as to the respective +and comparative merits of contemporaneous popular +writers. It was decided that each man present +should set down upon a slip of paper his first, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_184' name='page_184'></a>184</span> +second and third choices in various specified but +widely diversified fields of literary endeavour, and +that then the results should be compared. Admirers +of Cobb’s work will derive a peculiar satisfaction +from the outcome. It was found that as +a writer of humour he had won first place; that as +an all round reporter he had first place; that as a +handler of local colour in the qualified sense of a +power of apt, swiftly-done, journalistic description, +he had first place. He also had first place as +a writer of horror yarns. He won second place +as a writer of darkey stories. He tied with Harry +Leon Wilson for second place as a writer of light +humorous fiction, Tarkington being given first +place in this category. As a teller of anecdotes he +won by acclamation over all contenders. Altogether +his name appeared on eight of the ten lists.”</p> +<p>Cobb lives at Ossining, New York. He describes +himself as lazy, but convinces no one. He +likes to go fishing. But he has never written any +fish stories.</p> +<hr class='minor' /> + +<div class='ce'> +<p><i>Books</i></p> +<p>by Irvin S. Cobb</p> +</div> + +<div class='la'> +<p>BACK HOME</p> +<p>COBB’S ANATOMY</p> +<p>THE ESCAPE OF MR. TRIMM</p> +<p>COBB’S BILL OF FARE</p> +<p>ROUGHING IT DE LUXE</p> +<p>EUROPE REVISED</p> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_185' name='page_185'></a>185</span> +<p>PATHS OF GLORY</p> +<p>OLD JUDGE PRIEST</p> +<p>FIBBLE, D.D.</p> +<p>SPEAKING OF OPERATIONS</p> +<p>LOCAL COLOR</p> +<p>SPEAKING OF PRUSSIANS</p> +<p>THOSE TIMES AND THESE</p> +<p>THE GLORY OF THE COMING</p> +<p>THE THUNDERS OF SILENCE</p> +<p>THE LIFE OF THE PARTY</p> +<p>FROM PLACE TO PLACE</p> +<p>“OH, WELL, YOU KNOW HOW WOMEN ARE!”</p> +<p>THE ABANDONED FARMERS</p> +<p>SUNDRY ACCOUNTS</p> +<p>A PLEA FOR OLD CAP COLLIER</p> +<p>ONE THIRD OFF</p> +<p>EATING IN TWO OR THREE LANGUAGES</p> +<p>J. POINDEXTER, COLORED</p> +<p>STICKFULS</p> +<div style='margin-top:1em'></div> +<p><i>Plays:</i></p> +<p>FUNABASHI</p> +<p>BUSYBODY</p> +<p>BACK HOME</p> +<p>SERGEANT BAGBY</p> +<p>GUILTY AS CHARGED</p> +<p>UNDER SENTENCE</p> +</div> + +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_186' name='page_186'></a>186</span></div> +<hr class='minor' /> + +<div class='ce'> +<p><i>Sources</i></p> +<p style=' margin-bottom:1.5em;'>on Irvin S. Cobb</p> +</div> + +<p><i>Who’s Who in America.</i></p> +<p><i>Who’s Cobb and Why?</i> Booklet published by +GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY. (Out of print).</p> +<p>Article by Robert H. Davis in the book section +of THE NEW YORK HERALD for April 23, +1922.</p> +<p>Robert H. Davis, 280 Broadway, New York.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='XII_PLACES_TO_GO' id='XII_PLACES_TO_GO'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_187' name='page_187'></a>187</span> +<h2><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Chapter XII</span></h2> +<h3>PLACES TO GO</h3> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>i</p> +</div> + +<p>The book by Thomas Burke called <i>More +Limehouse Nights</i> was published in England +under the title of <i>Whispering Windows</i>. At +the time of its publication, Mr. Burke wrote the +following:</p> +<p>“The most disconcerting question that an +author can be asked, and often is asked, is: ‘Why +did you write that book?’ The questioners do not +want an answer to that immediate question; but +to the implied question: ‘Why don’t you write +some other kind of book?’ To either question +there is but one answer: <span style='font-variant: small-caps'>BECAUSE</span>.</p> +<p>“Every writer is thus challenged. The writer +of comic stories is asked why he doesn’t write +something really serious. The novelist is asked +why he doesn’t write short stories, and the short-story +writer is asked why he doesn’t write a novel. +To me people say, impatiently: ‘Why don’t you +write happy stories about ordinary people?’ And +the only answer I can give them is: ‘Because I +can’t. I present life as I see it.’</p> +<p>“I am an ordinary man, but I don’t understand +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_188' name='page_188'></a>188</span> +ordinary men. I am at a loss with them. But +with the people of whom I write I have a fellow-feeling. +I know them and their sorrows and their +thwarted strivings and I understand their aberrations. +I cannot see the romance of the merchant +or the glamour of the duke’s daughter. +They do not permit themselves to be seized and +driven by passion and imagination. Instead they +are driven by fear, which they have misnamed +Commonsense. These people thwart themselves, +while my people are thwarted by malign circumstance.</p> +<p>“Often I have taken other men to the dire districts +about which I write, and they have remained +unmoved; they have seen, in their phrase, +nothing to get excited about. Well, one cannot +help that kind of person. One cannot give understanding +to the man who regards the flogging of +children as a joke, or to whom a broken love-story +is, in low life, a theme for smoking-room anecdotes.</p> +<p>“Wherever there are human creatures there are +beauty and courage and sacrifice. The stories in +<i>Whispering Windows</i> deal with human creatures, +thieves, drunkards, prostitutes, each of whom is +striving for happiness in his or her way, and missing +it, as most of us do. Each has hidden away +some fine streak of character, some mark below +which he will not go. And—they are alive. +They have met life in its ugliest phases, and +fought it. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_189' name='page_189'></a>189</span></p> +<p>“My answer, then, to the charge of writing +‘loathsome’ stories, is that these things happen. +To those who say that cruelty and degradation +are not fit subjects for fiction, I say that all twists +and phases of the human heart are fit subjects for +fiction.</p> +<p>“The entertainment of hundreds of thousands +with ‘healthy’ literature is a great and worthy +office; but the author can only give out what is in +him. If I write of wretched and strange things, it +is because these move me most. Happiness needs +no understanding; but these darker things—they +are kept too much from sensitive eyes and polite +ears; and so are too harshly judged upon the +world’s report. I am no reformer; I have never +‘studied’ people; and I have no ‘purpose,’ unless +it be illumination.</p> +<p>“What we all need today is illumination; for +only through full knowledge can we come to truth—and +understanding.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p>Burke’s new book, <i>The London Spy</i>, is described +by the author as “a book of town travels.” Some +of the subjects are London street characters, cab +shelters, coffee stalls and street entertainers. The +range is very wide, for there is a chapter called +“In the Streets of Rich Men,” which deals with +Pall Mall and Piccadilly, as well as a study of +a waterside colony, including the results of a +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_190' name='page_190'></a>190</span> +first pipe of opium (“In the Streets of Cyprus”). +Mr. Burke tells a good deal about the film world +of Soho and is able to give an intimate sketch of +Chaplin. Perhaps the most charming of the titles +in the book is the chapter called “In the Street of +Beautiful Children.” This is a study of a street +in Stepney, with observations on orphanages and +reformatories and “their oppressions of the children +of the poor.”</p> +<p>Thomas Burke was born in London and seldom +lives away from it. He started writing when +employed in a mercantile office, and sold his first +story when sixteen. He sincerely hopes nobody +will ever discover and reprint that story. His +early struggles have been recounted in his <i>Nights +in London</i>. He married Winifred Wells, a +young London poet, author of <i>The Three Crowns</i>. +He lives at Highgate, on the Northern Heights of +London. He hates literary society and social +functions generally. His chief recreation is wandering +about London.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iii</p> +</div> + +<p>There is very little use in doing a book about +China nowadays unless you can do an unusual +book about China; and that, precisely, is what +E. G. Kemp has done. <i>Chinese Mettle</i> is an unusual +book, even to the shape of it (it is nearly +square though not taller than the ordinary book). +The author has written enough books on China +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_191' name='page_191'></a>191</span> +to cover all the usual ground and, as Sao-Ke Alfred +Sze of the Chinese Legation at Washington +says in his foreword, Miss Kemp “has wisely +neglected the ‘show-window’ by putting seaports +at the end. By acquainting the public with the +wealth and beauty of the interior, she reveals to +readers the vitality and potential energy, both +natural and cultural, of a great nation.” Three +provinces are particularly described—Yünnan, +Kweichow, Hunan—and there are good chapters +on the new Chinese woman and the youth of +China. This book has, in addition to unusual illustrations, +what every good book of its sort +should have, an index.</p> +<p>In view of the title of this chapter I have hesitated +over mentioning here Albert C. White’s +<i>The Irish Free State</i>. Whether Ireland now +should be numbered among the places to go or not +is possibly a matter of heredity and sympathies; +but at any rate, Ireland is unquestionably a place +to read about. Shall we agree that the Irish Free +State is one of the best places in the world to go +in a book? Then Mr. White’s book will furnish +up-to-the-minute transportation thither.</p> +<p>The book is written throughout from the standpoint +of a vigorous and independent mind. It +will annoy extreme partisans of all shades of +opinion, and will provoke much discussion. This +is especially true of the concluding chapter, in +which the author discusses “Some Factors in the +Future.” The value of the book is enhanced by +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_192' name='page_192'></a>192</span> +the inclusion of the essential documents of the +Home Rule struggle, including the four Home +Rule Bills of 1886, 1893, 1914 and 1920, and +the terms of the Treaty concluded with Sinn Fein.</p> +<p>Whether Russia is a place to go is another of +those debatable questions and I feel that the same +conclusion holds good. A book is the wisest passport +to Russia at present. <i>Marooned in Moscow</i>, +by Marguerite E. Harrison, is not a new book—in +the sense of having been published last week. +It remains about the best single book published on +Russia under the Soviet government; and I say +this with the full recollection that H. G. Wells +also wrote a book about Soviet Russia after a visit +of fifteen days. Mrs. Harrison spent eighteen +months and was part of the time in prison. She is +an exceptionally good reporter without prejudices +for or against any theory of government—with an +eye only for the facts and a word only for an +observed fact.</p> +<p>It is good news that <i>The Secret of the Sahara: +Kufara</i>, by Rosita Forbes, is to be published in a +new edition. This Englishwoman, with no assistance +but that of native guides, penetrated to +Kufara, which lies hidden in the heart of the +Libyan desert, a section of the Sahara. This is +the region of a fanatical sect of Mohammedans +known as the Senussi. No other white woman +has ever been known to enter the sacred city of +Paj, a gloomy citadel hewn out of rock on the +edge of a beautiful valley. <i>The Secret of the</i> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_193' name='page_193'></a>193</span> +<i>Sahara</i> is illustrated with pictures taken by the +author, many times under pain of death if she +were detected using a camera.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iv</p> +</div> + +<p>C. E. Andrews is a college professor who saw +war service in France and relief administration +work in the Balkans. His gifts as a delightful +writer will be apparent now that his book of travels, +<i>Old Morocco and the Forbidden Atlas</i>, is out. +This book, unlike the conventional travel book, +has the qualities of a good story. There is colour +and adventure. There are humorous episodes and +there are pictures that seem to be mirrored in the +clear lake of a lovely prose. The journey described +is through a region of Morocco little +traversed by white men and over paths of the Atlas +Mountains frequented chiefly by wild tribes and +banditti.</p> +<p>Of all places to go, old New York remains, for +many, the most appealing. Does it sound queer +to recommend for those readers <i>A Century of +Banking in New York: 1822-1922</i>, by Henry +Wysham Lanier? Mr. Lanier is a son of Sidney +Lanier, the poet, and those who believe that a +chronicle of banking must necessarily be full of +dry statistics are invited to read the opening chapter +of this book; for Mr. Lanier begins his tale +with the yellow fever epidemic of 1822, when all +the banks of New York, to say nothing of the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_194' name='page_194'></a>194</span> +thousands of people, fled “from the city to the +country”—that is, from lowermost Broadway to +the healthful village of Greenwich. This quality +of human rather than statistical interest is paramount +throughout the book.</p> +<p>I go back almost four years to call attention +again to Frederic A. Fenger’s <i>Alone in the Caribbean</i>, +a book with maps and illustrations from +unusual photographs, the narrative of a cruise in +a sailing canoe among the Caribbean Islands.... +It is just a good book.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>v</p> +</div> + +<p><i>Robin Hood’s Barn</i>, by Margaret Emerson +Bailey, should be classified, I suppose, as a volume +of essays. It seems to me admirably suited for +this chapter, since it is all about a pleasant house +inhabited by pleasant people—and surely that is +a place where everyone wants to go. Margaret +Emerson Bailey is describing, I think, an actual +house and actual people; not so much their lives +as what they make out of life in the collectivism +that family life enforces. At least, I seem to get +from her book a unity of meaning, the lack of +which in our lives, as we live them daily, makes +for helplessness and sometimes for despair.</p> +<p>With even more doubt as to the exact “classification,” +I proceed to speak here and now of L. P. +Jacks’s book, <i>The Legends of Smokeover</i>. Mr. +Jacks is well known as the editor of the Hibbert +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_195' name='page_195'></a>195</span> +Journal and a writer of distinction upon philosophical +subjects. I should say his specialty is an +ability to relate philosophical abstractions to practical, +everyday existence. Those familiar with +his essays in the Atlantic Monthly will know what +I mean. And is the Smokeover of his new book, +then, a place to go? It is, if you wish to see our +modern age and industrial civilisation expressed +in such terms—almost in the terms of fiction—as +make its appraisal relatively easy.</p> +<p>I suppose this book might make Mr. Jacks memorable +as a satirist. It brings philosophy down +from the air, like a peaceful thunderbolt, to shatter +the vain illusions we entertain of our material +success and our civilised strides forward. The +fact that when you have begun to read the book +you may experience some difficulty in knowing +how to take it is in the book’s favour. And why +should you complain so long as from the outset +you are continuously entertained and amused? +You can scarcely complain ... even though at +the end, you find you have been instructed. In a +world thickly spotted with Smokeovers, Mr. +Jacks’s book is a book worth having, worth reading, +worth reading again.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='XIII_ALIAS_RICHARD_DEHAN' id='XIII_ALIAS_RICHARD_DEHAN'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_196' name='page_196'></a>196</span> +<h2><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Chapter XIII</span></h2> +<h3>ALIAS RICHARD DEHAN</h3> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>i</p> +</div> + +<p>At that, I think I am wrong. I think the title +of this chapter ought to be “Alias Clotilde +Graves.”</p> +<p>The problems of literary personality are +strange. Some time after the Boer War a woman +who had been in newspaper work in London and +who had even, at one time, been on the stage under +the necessity of earning her living, wrote a novel. +The novel happened to be an intensive study of +the Boer War, made possible by the fact that the +writer was the daughter of a soldier and had spent +her early years in barracks. England at that time +was interested by the subject of this novel. It +sold largely and its author was established by the +book.</p> +<p>She was forty-six years old in the year when the +book was published. But this was not the striking +thing. William De Morgan produced the first of +his impressive novels at a much more advanced +age. The significant thing was that in publishing +her novel, <i>The Dop Doctor</i> (American title: <i>One</i> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_197' name='page_197'></a>197</span> +<i>Braver Thing</i>), Clotilde Graves chose the pen +name of Richard Dehan, although she was already +known as a writer (chiefly for the theatre) under +her own name.</p> +<p>I do not know that Miss Graves has ever said +anything publicly about her motive in electing the +name of Richard Dehan. But I feel that whatever +the cause the result was the distinct emergence +of a totally different personality. There is +no final disassociation between Clotilde Graves +and Richard Dehan. Richard Dehan, novelist, +steadily employs the material furnished in valuable +abundance by Clotilde Graves’s life. At the +same time the personality of Richard Dehan is so +unusual, so gifted, so lavish in its invention and +so much at home in surprising backgrounds, that +something approaching a psychic explanation of +authorship seems called for.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p>Clotilde Inez Mary Graves was born at Barracks, +Buttevant, County Cork, Ireland, on June +3, 1864, third daughter of the late Major W. H. +Graves of the Eighteenth Royal Irish Regiment +and Antoinette, daughter of Captain George Anthony +Deane of Harwich. Thus, the English +<i>Who’s Who</i>.</p> +<p>“She numbers among her ancestors admirals +and deans,” said The Bookman in 1912.</p> +<p>As the same magazine at about the same time +spoke of her as descended from Charles II.’s naval +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_198' name='page_198'></a>198</span> +architect, Admiral Sir Anthony Deane, one wonders +if Sir Anthony were not the sum of the admirals +and the total of the deans. But no; at +any rate in so far as the admirals are concerned, +for Miss Graves is also said to be distantly related +to Admiral Nelson.</p> +<p>I will give you what The Bookman said in the +“Chronicle and Comment” columns of its number +for February, 1913:</p> +<p>“Richard Dehan was nine years old when her +family emigrated to England from their Irish +home. She had seen a good deal of barrack life, +and at Southsea, where they went to live, she +acquired a large knowledge of both services in the +circle of naval and military friends they made +there, and this knowledge years afterward she +turned to account in <i>Between Two Thieves</i>. In +1884, Miss Graves became an art student and +worked at the British Museum galleries and the +Royal Female School of Art, helping to support +herself by journalism of a lesser kind, among +other things drawing little pen-and-ink grotesques +for the comic papers. By and by she resolved to +take to dramatic writing and being too poor, she +says, to manage in any other way, she abandoned +art and took an engagement in a travelling theatrical +company. In 1888 her first chance as a +dramatist came. She was again in London, working +vigorously at journalism, when some one was +needed to write extra lyrics for a pantomime then +in preparation. A letter of recommendation from +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_199' name='page_199'></a>199</span> +an editor to the manager ended in Miss Clo Graves +writing the pantomime of <i>Puss in Boots</i>. Later a +tragedy by her, <i>Nitocris</i>, was produced for an +afternoon at Drury Lane, and another of her +plays, <i>The Mother of Three</i>, proved not only a +literary, but also a material, success.”</p> +<p>Her first novel to be signed Richard Dehan +being so successful, an English publisher planned +to bring out an earlier, minor work, already published +as by Clotilde Graves, with “Richard +Dehan” on the title-page. The author was stirred +to a vigorous and public protest. In the ensuing +controversy someone made the point that the proposed +reissue would not be more indefensible than +the act of a publishing house in bringing out +posthumous “books” by O. Henry and dragging +from its deserved oblivion Rudyard Kipling’s +<i>Abaft the Funnel</i>.</p> +<p>I do not know whether the publishing of books +is a business or a profession. I should say that +it has, at one time or another and by one or another +individual or concern, been pursued as +either or both.</p> +<p>There have certainly been, and probably are, +book publishers who not only conduct their +business as a business but as a business of a low +order. There have been and are book publishers +who, though quite necessarily business men, observe +an ethical code as nice as that of any of the +recognised professions. Perhaps publishing books +should qualify as an art, since it has the characteristics +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_200' name='page_200'></a>200</span> +of bringing out what is best or worst in a +publisher; and, indeed, if we are to hold that any +successful means of self-expression is art, then +publishing books has been an art more than once; +for unquestionably there are publishers who find +self-expression in their work.</p> +<p>This is an interesting subject, but I must not +pursue it in this place. Certainly Miss Graves +was justified in objecting to the use of her new +pen name on work already published under her +own name. In her case, as I think, the objection +was peculiarly well-founded, because it seems to +me that Richard Dehan was a new person. Since +Richard Dehan appeared on the title-page of <i>The +Dop Doctor</i>, there has never been a Clotilde +Graves in books. You have only to study the +books. The <i>Dop Doctor</i> was followed, two years +later, by <i>Between Two Thieves</i>. This novel has +as a leading character Florence Nightingale under +the name of Ada Merling. The story was at +first to have been called “The Lady With The +Lamp”; but the author delayed it for a year and +subjected it to a complete rewriting, the result +of a new and enlarged conception of the story.</p> +<p>Then came a steady succession of novels by +Richard Dehan. I remember with what surprise +I read, in 1918, <i>That Which Hath Wings</i>, a war +story of large dimensions and an incredible +amount of exact and easy detail. I remember, +too, noting that there was embedded in it a marvellous +story for children—an airplane flight in +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_201' name='page_201'></a>201</span> +which a youngster figured—if the publisher chose, +with the author’s consent, to lift this out of its +larger, adult setting. I remember very vividly +reading in 1920 a collection of short stories by +Richard Dehan, published under the title <i>The +Eve of Pascua</i>. Pascua is the Spanish word for +Easter. I wondered where on earth, unless in +Spain itself, the author got the bright colouring +for his story.</p> +<p>What I did not realise at the time was that +Richard Dehan is like that. Now, smitten to +earth by the 500-page novel which he has just +completed, I think I understand better. <i>The +Just Steward</i>, from one standpoint, makes the +labours of Gustave Flaubert in <i>Salaambo</i> seem +trivial. It is known with what passionate tenacity +and surprising ardour the French master +studied the subject of ancient Carthage, grubbing +like the lowliest archseologist to get at his fingertips +all those recondite allusions so necessary if he +were to move with lightness, assurance and consummate +art through the scenes of his novel. But, +frankly, one does not expect this of the third +daughter of an Irish soldier, an ex-journalist and +the author of a Drury Lane pantomime. Nevertheless +the erudition is all here. From this standpoint, +<i>The Just Steward</i> is truly monumental. I +will show you a sample or two:</p> +<p>“Beautiful, even with the trench and wall of +Diocletian’s comparatively recent siege scarring +the orchards and vineyards of Lake Mareotis, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_202' name='page_202'></a>202</span> +splendid even though her broken canals and aqueducts +had never been repaired, and part of her +western quarter still displayed heaps of calcined +ruins where had been temples, palaces and academies, +Alexandria lay shimmering under the +African sun....</p> +<p>“The vintage of Egypt was in full swing, the +figs and dates were being harvested. Swarms of +wasps and hornets, armed with formidable stings, +yellow-striped like the dreaded nomads of the +south and eastern frontiers, greedily sucked the +sugary juices of the ripe fruit. Flocks of fig-birds +twittered amongst the branches, being like +the date-pigeons, almost too gorged to fly. Half +naked, dark or tawny skinned, tattooed native +labourers, hybrids of mingled races, with heads +close-shaven save for a topknot, dwellers in mud-hovels, +drudges of the water-wheel, cut down the +heavy grape-clusters with sickle-shaped cooper +knives.</p> +<p>“Ebony, woolly-haired negroes in clean white +breech-cloths, piled up the gathered fruit in tall +baskets woven of reeds and lined with leaves. +Copts with the rich reddish skins, the long eyes +and boldly curving profiles of Egyptian warriors +and monarchs as presented on the walls of ancient +temples of Libya and the Thebaïd, moved about +in leather-girdled blue linen tunics and hide sandals, +keeping account of the laden panniers, roped +upon the backs of diminutive asses and carried +to the winepresses as fast as they were filled. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_203' name='page_203'></a>203</span></p> +<p>“The negroes sang as they set snares for fig-birds, +and stuffed themselves to the throat with +grapes and custard-apples. The fat beccaficoes +beloved of the epicurean fell by hundreds into the +limed horsehair traps. Greek, Egyptian and negro +girls, laughing under garlands of hibiscus, +periwinkle and tuberoses, coaxed the fat morsels +out of the black men to carry home for a supper +treat, while acrobats, comic singers, sellers of +cakes, drinks and sweetmeats, with strolling jugglers +and jesters and Jewish fortune-tellers of +both sexes, assailed the workers and the merrymakers +with importunities and made harvest in +their own way.”</p> +<p>The story is extraordinary. Opening in the +Alexandria of the fourth century, it pictures two +men, a Roman official and a Jewish steward, who +are friends unto death. The second of the four +parts or books into which the novel is divided +opens in England in 1914. We have to do with +John Hazel, the descendant of Hazaël Aben +Hazaël, and with the lovely Katharine Forbis, +whose ancestor was a Roman, Hazaël Aben +Hazaël’s sworn friend.</p> +<p>A story of exciting action certainly; it has elements +that would ordinarily be called melodramatic—events +which are focussed down into realities +against the tremendous background of an +incredible war. The exotic settings are Egypt +and Palestine. It must not be thought that the +story is bizarre; the scenes in England, the English +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_204' name='page_204'></a>204</span> +slang of John Hazel, as well as the typical +figure of Trixie, Lady Wastwood, are utterly +modern. I do not find anything to explain how +Miss Graves could write such a book; the answer +is that Richard Dehan wrote it.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iii</p> +</div> + +<p>Miss Graves, of whose antecedents and education +we already know something, is a Roman +Catholic in faith and a Liberal Unionist in politics. +She lives at The Towers, Beeding, near +Bramber, Sussex. Her recreations are gardening +and driving.</p> +<p>But Richard Dehan knows the early history of +the Christian Church; he knows military life, +strategy, tactics, types; he knows in a most extraordinary +way the details of Jewish history and +religious observances; he knows perfectly and as +a matter of course all about English middle class +life; he knows all sorts of things about the East—Turkey +and Arabia and those countries.</p> +<p>This is a discrepancy which will bear a good +deal of accounting for.</p> +<p>Before I try to account for it I will give you a +long passage from <i>The Just Steward</i>, describing +the visit of Katharine Forbis and her friend to the +house of John Hazel, lately of London and now +of Alexandria:</p> +<p>“The negro porter who had opened the door, a +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_205' name='page_205'></a>205</span> +huge Ethiopian of ebony blackness, dressed and +turbaned in snow-white linen, salaamed deeply to +the ladies, displaying as he did so a mouthful of +teeth as dazzling in whiteness and sharply-pointed +as those of the mosaic dog.</p> +<p>“Then the negro shut the heavy door and +locked and bolted it. They heard the car snort +and move away as the heavy bolts scrooped in +their ancient grooves of stone. But, as they +glanced back, towards the entrance, the imperturbable +attendant in the black kaftan waved +them forward to where another man, exactly like +himself in feature, colouring and costume, waited +as imperturbably on the threshold of a larger hall +beyond. On its right-hand doorpost was affixed +a cylinder of metal <i>repoussée</i> with an oval piece +of glass on that something like a human eye. And +the big invisible bees went on humming as industriously +and as sleepily as ever:</p> +<p>“‘Bz’zz’z!... Bzz’z!... Bzz m’m’m!...’</p> +<p>“Perhaps it was the bees’ thick, sleepy droning +that made Miss Forbis feel as though she had +previously visited this house in a dream, in which, +though the mosaic dog had certainly figured, together +with a negro who had opened doors, the +rows of shoes along the wall, the little creature +tripping at her side, the two dark, ultra-respectable +men in black tarbushes and kaftans had had +no place or part. Only John Hazel had bulked +big. He was there, beyond the grave Semitic face +of the second Jewish secretary, on the farther side +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_206' name='page_206'></a>206</span> +of the torrent of boiling amber sunshine pouring +through a central opening in the roof of the inner +hall that succeeded the vestibule of the mosaic +Cerberus. An atrium some forty feet in length, +paved with squares of black and yellow marble +with an oblong pool in the midst of it, upon whose +still crystal surface pink and crimson petals of +roses had been strewn in patterns, and in the +centre of which a triple-jetted fountain played.</p> +<p>“The humming of the unseen bees came louder +than ever, from a doorway in the wall upon +Katharine’s right hand, a wall of black polished +marble, decorated with an inlaid ornament in porphyry +of yellow and red and pale green. The +curtain of dyed and threaded reeds did not hide +what lay beyond the doorway. You saw a long, +high-pitched whitewashed room, cooled by big +wooden electric fans working under the ceiling, +and traversed by avenues of creamy-white Chinese +matting, running between rows of low native +desks, before each of which squatted, on naked +or cotton-sock-covered heels, or sat cross-legged +upon a square native chintz cushion, a coffee-coloured, +almond-eyed young Copt, in a black +or blue cotton nightgown, topped with the tarbush +of black felt or a dingy-white or olive-brown +muslin turban, murmuring softly to himself as he +made entries, from right to left, in a huge limp-covered +ledger, or deftly fingered the balls of +coloured clay strung on the wires of the abacus +at his side. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_207' name='page_207'></a>207</span></p> +<p>“Oh! ... Wonderful! I’m so Glad you +Brought me!’</p> +<p>“Lady Wastwood’s emphatic exclamation of +pleasure in her surroundings brought cessation in +the humming—caused a swivelling of capped or +turbanned heads all down the length of three +avenues—evoked a simultaneous flash of black +Oriental eyes, and white teeth in dusky faces +lifted or turned. Then at the upper end of the +long counting-house, where three wide glassless +windows looked on a sanded palm-garden, and +the leather-topped knee-hole tables, roll-top desks, +copying ink presses, mahogany revolving-chairs, +telephone installations, willow-paper baskets, +pewter inkstands and Post Office Directories suggested +Cornhill and Cheapside rather than the +Orient—one of the olive-faced Jewish head-clerks +in kaftans and side-curls coughed—and as though +he had pulled a string controlling all the observant +faces, every tooth was hidden and every eye +discreetly bent on the big limp ledgers again.</p> +<p>“All the Coptic bees were humming sonorously +in unison as Katharine went forward to a lofty +doorway, framing brightness, where waited to receive +her the master of the hive....</p> +<p>“The light beings behind him may have exaggerated +his proportions, but he seemed to Trixie +the biggest man she had ever seen, and nearly the +ugliest. Close-curling coarse black hair capped +his high-domed skull, and his stern, powerful, +swarthy face, big-nosed and long-chinned, with a +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_208' name='page_208'></a>208</span> +humorous quirk at the corners of the heavy-lipped +mouth, that redeemed its sensuousness, was +lighted by eyes of the intensest black, burning +under heavy beetle-brows. His khaki uniform, +though of fine material and admirable cut, was +that of a common ranker, and a narrow strip of +colours over the heart, and the fact of his left +arm being bandaged and slung, intimated to Lady +Wastwood that Katharine’s Jewish friend had +already served with some degree of distinction, +and had been wounded in the War. And drawing +back with her characteristic inconquerable shyness, +as he advanced to Miss Forbis, plainly unconscious +of any presence save hers, Trixie’s observant +green eyes saw him bend his towering +head, and sweep his right arm out and down with +slow Oriental stateliness, bringing back the supple +hand to touch breast, lips and brow. Whether +or not he had raised the hem of Katharine’s skirt +to his lips and kissed it, Lady Wastwood could +not definitely determine. She was left with the +impression that he had done this thing.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iv</p> +</div> + +<p>I should have liked to have given, rather than +purely descriptive passages, a slice of the complicated +and tense action with which the story +brims over, but there is the difficulty that such a +scene might not be intelligible to one not having +read the story from the beginning. I must resist +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_209' name='page_209'></a>209</span> +the tendency to quote any more, having indulged +it already to excess, and I am ready to propound +my theory of the existence of Richard Dehan.</p> +<p>If you receive a letter from The Towers, Beeding, +it will bear a double signature, like this:</p> +<table summary='poetry' style='margin:0 auto'><tr><td> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>RICHARD DEHAN</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>CLOTILDE GRAVES</p> +</td></tr></table> + +<p>Clotilde Graves has become a secondary personality.</p> +<p>There was once a time when there was no +Richard Dehan. There now are times when there +is no Clotilde Graves.</p> +<p>To a woman in middle age an opportunity presented +itself. It was the chance to write a novel +around the subject which, as a girl, she had come +to know a great deal about—the subject of war. +To write about it and gain attention, the novel +required a man’s signature.</p> +<p>Then there was born in the mind of the woman +who purposed to write the novel the idea of a +man—of <i>the</i> man—who should be the novelist +she wanted to be. He should use as by right and +from instinct the material which lay inutile at her +woman’s disposal.</p> +<p>She created Richard Dehan. Perhaps, in so +doing, she created another monster like Frankenstein’s. +I do not know.</p> +<p>Born of necessity and opportunity and a +woman’s inventiveness, Richard Dehan took over +whatever of Clotilde Graves’s he could use. He +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_210' name='page_210'></a>210</span> +is now the master. It is, intellectually and spiritually, +as if he were the full-grown son of Clotilde +Graves. It is a partnership not less intimate than +that.</p> +<p>Clotilde Graves—but she does not matter. I +think she existed to bring Richard Dehan into +the world.</p> +<hr class='minor' /> + +<div class='ce'> +<p><i>Books</i></p> +<p>by Richard Dehan</p> +</div> + +<div class='la'> +<p style=' margin-top:1.5em;'><i>Novels</i>:</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE LOVER’S BATTLE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE DOP DOCTOR</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>BETWEEN TWO THIEVES</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE HEADQUARTER RECRUIT</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE COST OF WINGS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE MAN OF IRON</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>OFF SANDY HOOK</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>EARTH TO EARTH</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>UNDER THE HERMES</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THAT WHICH HATH WINGS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>A SAILOR’S HOME</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE EVE OF PASCUA</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE VILLA OF THE PEACOCK</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE JUST STEWARD</p> +<div style='margin-top:1em'></div> +<p style=' margin-top:1.5em;'><i>Plays</i>:</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>NITOCRIS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>DRURY LANE PANTOMIME, PUSS IN BOOTS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>DR. AND MRS. NEILL</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>A MOTHER OF THREE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>A MATCHMAKER</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE BISHOP’S EYE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE FOREST LOVERS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>A MAKER OF COMEDIES</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE BOND OF NIKON</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>A TENEMENT TRAGEDY</p> +</div> + +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_211' name='page_211'></a>211</span></div> +<hr class='minor' /> + +<div class='ce'> +<p><i>Sources</i></p> +<p style=' margin-bottom:1.5em;'>on Richard Dehan</p> +</div> + +<p><i>Who’s Who</i> [in England].</p> +<p>THE BOOKMAN for February, 1913 (Volume +XXXVI, pp. 595-6), also brief mention in +THE BOOKMAN for September and October, +1912.</p> +<p>Private Information.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='XIV_WITH_FULL_DIRECTIONS' id='XIV_WITH_FULL_DIRECTIONS'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_212' name='page_212'></a>212</span> +<h2><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Chapter XIV</span></h2> +<h3>WITH FULL DIRECTIONS</h3> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>i</p> +</div> + +<p>I have read the book called <i>Civilization in +the United States</i>, a collection of essays by +various Americans, and count the time well spent +chiefly because, at the end of the chapter on +“Sport,” I came upon these words by Ring W. +Lardner:</p> +<p>“The best sporting fiction we know of, practically +the only sporting fiction an adult may read +without fear of stomach trouble, is contained in +the collected works of the late Charles E. Van +Loan.”</p> +<p>This is expert testimony, if there is such a +thing. The books Mr. Lardner referred to are +published in a five-volume memorial edition consisting +of:</p> +<table summary='poetry' style='margin:0 auto'><tr><td> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>FORE! GOLF STORIES</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>SCORE BY INNINGS: BASEBALL STORIES</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>OLD MAN CURRY: RACETRACK STORIES</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>TAKING THE COUNT: PRIZE RING STORIES</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>BUCK PARVIN: STORIES OF THE MOTION PICTURE GAME.</p> +</td></tr></table> + +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_213' name='page_213'></a>213</span></div> +<p>This collected edition was published by George +H. Doran Company with the arrangement that +every cent above actual cost should go to Mrs. +Van Loan and her children.</p> +<p>William T. Tilden, 2nd, was winner of the +world’s tennis championship in 1920 and 1921. +With W. M. Johnston he was winner of the Davis +cup in the same years. He also won the United +States championship in those years. His book, +<i>The Art of Lawn Tennis</i>, published in 1921, was +republished in 1922. The revised edition included +chapters on the winning of the Davis cup and +on the world’s and the United States championships, +on Mrs. Mallory’s play in the women’s +world championship games in France and England, +and on Mlle. Lenglen’s play in America. +Mr. Tilden also added an estimate of the promising +youngsters playing tennis and indulged in +one or two surprising and radical prophecies.</p> +<p><i>Twenty Years of Lawn Tennis</i>, by A. Wallis +Myers, an English player of distinction, has interesting +chapters on play in other countries than +America, England and France. An anecdotal +volume this, with moments on the Riviera and +matches played in South Africa.</p> +<p>After unpreventable delays we have, at last, +<i>The Gist of Golf</i> by Harry Vardon. Using remarkable +photographs, Vardon devotes a chapter +to each club and chapters to stance, grip, and +swing. Although the chief value of the book is +to the player who wants to improve his game, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_214' name='page_214'></a>214</span> +there is text interesting to everyone familiar +with golf; for Vardon gives personal reminiscences +covering years of play and illustrative of +his instructions.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p>I suppose the fifty-three photographs, mostly +full page ones, are the outstanding feature of +<i>Wild Life in the Tree Tops</i>, by Captain C. W. R. +Knight. This English book, large and flat, shows +with the aid of the camera, the merlin pursuing +her quarry, young tawny owls in a disused magpie’s +nest, female noctules and their young, the +male kestrel brooding, and a male buzzard that +has just brought a rabbit to the younglings in the +nest. Plenty of other pictures like these! The +chapters deal with the buzzards of the Doone +country, the lady’s hawk, woodpeckers, brown +owls, sparrow-hawks, herons and various other +feathered people.</p> +<p>Did you ever read <i>Lad: A Dog</i>? Well, anyway, +there is a man named Albert Payson Terhune +and he and his wife live at a place called “Sunny-bank,” +at Pompton Lakes, New Jersey, where +they raise prize winning collie dogs. Photographs +come from New Jersey showing Mr. and Mrs. +Terhune taking afternoon tea, entirely surrounded +by magnificently coated collies. You +will also find, if you stray into a bookstore this +autumn, a book with a jacket drawn by Charles +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_215' name='page_215'></a>215</span> +Livingston Bull—a jacket from which looms a +colossal collie. He carries in a firmly knotted +shawl or blanket or sheet or something (the knot +clenched between his teeth) a new-born babe. +New-born or approximately so. The title of this +book is <i>Further Adventures of Lad</i>.</p> +<p>Mr. Terhune writes the best dog stories. Read +a little bit from the first chapter of <i>Further +Adventures of Lad</i>:</p> +<p>“Even the crate which brought the new dog to +the Place failed somehow to destroy the illusion +of size and fierceness. But the moment the crate +door was opened the delusion was wrecked by Lad +himself.</p> +<p>“Out on to the porch he walked. The ramshackle +crate behind him had a ridiculous air of +chrysalis from which some bright thing had departed. +For a shaft of sunlight was shimmering +athwart the veranda floor. And into the middle +of the warm bar of radiance Laddie stepped—and +stood.</p> +<p>“His fluffy puppy-coat of wavy mahogany-and-white +caught a million sunbeams, reflecting them +back in tawny-orange glints and in a dazzle as of +snow. His forepaws were absurdly small even +for a puppy’s. Above them the ridging of the +stocky leg bones gave as clear promise of mighty +size and strength as did the amazingly deep little +chest and square shoulders.</p> +<p>“Here one day would stand a giant among +dogs, powerful as a timber-wolf, lithe as a cat, as +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_216' name='page_216'></a>216</span> +dangerous to foes as an angry tiger; a dog without +fear or treachery; a dog of uncanny brain and +great lovingly loyal heart and, withal, a dancing +sense of fun. A dog with a soul.</p> +<p>“All this, any canine physiologist might have +read from the compact frame, the proud head carriage, +the smoulder in the deep-set sorrowful dark +eyes. To the casual observer, he was but a beautiful +and appealing and wonderfully cuddleable +bunch of puppyhood.</p> +<p>“Lad’s dark eyes swept the porch, the soft +swelling green of the lawn. The flash of fire-blue +lake among the trees below. Then he deigned to +look at the group of humans at one side of him. +Gravely, impersonally, he surveyed them; not at +all cowed or strange in his new surroundings; +courteously inquisitive as to the twist of luck that +had set him down here and as to the people who, +presumably, were to be his future companions.</p> +<p>“Perhaps the stout little heart quivered just a +bit, if memory went back to his home kennel and +to the rowdy throng of brothers and sisters and, +most of all, to the soft furry mother against +whose side he had nestled every night since he +was born. But if so, Lad was too valiant to show +homesickness by so much as a whimper. And, +assuredly, this House of Peace was infinitely better +than the miserable crate wherein he had spent +twenty horrible and jouncing and smelly and +noisy hours.</p> +<p>“From one to another of the group strayed the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_217' name='page_217'></a>217</span> +level sorrowful gaze. After the swift inspection +Laddie’s eyes rest again on the Mistress. For +an instant, he stood, looking at her, in that mildly +polite curiosity which held no hint of personal +interest.</p> +<p>“Then, all at once, his plumy tail began to +wave. Into his sad eyes sprang a flicker of warm +friendliness. Unbidden—oblivious of everyone +else—he trotted across to where the Mistress sat. +He put one tiny white paw in her lap and stood +thus, looking up lovingly into her face, tail awave, +eyes shining.</p> +<p>“‘There’s no question whose dog he’s going to +be,’ laughed the Master. ‘He’s elected you—by +acclamation.’”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iii</p> +</div> + +<p>Not content with being the husband of Margaret +Sangster, C. M. Sheridan has written <i>The +Stag Cook Book</i>. I would have it understood +that this is an honest-to-goodness cook-book, although +I readily confess that there is plenty of +humour throughout its pages. Mr. Sheridan has +acquired various unusual and unreplaceable +recipes—I believe he secured from Wladislaw +Benda, the illustrator, a rare and secret formula +for the preparation of a species of Hungarian or +Polish pastry. Now, as every housewife knows, +and as no man except a Frenchman or somebody +like that knows, the preparation of pastry is an +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_218' name='page_218'></a>218</span> +intricate art. Simply to make ordinary French +pastry requires innumerable rollings to incredible +thinnesses; besides which the pastry has to be +chilled; but there is more than that to this recondite +substance which Mr. Benda, probably under +the terms of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, surrendered +to Mr. Sheridan. The pastry in question has +to be executed with the aid of geometrical designs. +Mr. Sheridan has supplied the necessary +front elevation and working plans. He shows you +where you fold along the line from A to B—in +other words, along the dotted line. Thus no man +using this unique cook-book can go wrong any +more than his wife can go wrong when making a +new dress according to Pictorial Review or +McCall’s or Delineator patterns.</p> +<p>On the other hand, women remain still chiefly +responsible for the food we eat. Elizabeth A. +Monaghan’s <i>What to Eat and How to Prepare It</i> +is an orthodox cook-book in contrast with Mr. +Sheridan’s daring adventure.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iv</p> +</div> + +<p>Large numbers of people still play games. I do +not mean cards or tennis or golf or any of the +famous outdoor and indoor sports, but just games, +the sort of things that are sometimes called stunts +and that make the life of the party—or, by their +absence or failure, rob the evening gathering of +all its vitality. For the people who play games, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_219' name='page_219'></a>219</span> +Edna Geister is the one best bet. Edna Geister +knows all about stunts and games and parties and +she brims over with clever ideas for the hostess +or recreation leader. You will find them in her +book <i>Ice-breakers and the Ice-breaker Herself</i>. +The second section of this book, <i>The Ice-breaker +Herself</i>, has been bound separately for the convenience +of those already owning <i>Ice Breakers</i>. +Miss Geister’s latest book, <i>It Is to Laugh</i>, was +written primarily for adults because there is so +much material already available for the recreation +of children. Nevertheless almost every one of the +games and stunts described in <i>It Is to Laugh</i> can +be used for children. There are games for large +groups and small groups, games for the family, +for dinner parties, for community affairs and for +almost any kind of social gathering, with one +chapter devoted to out-of-door and picnic programmes.</p> +<p>Playing the piano is not a game, at least not as +Mark Hambourg, the pianist and composer, plays +it. Hambourg, though born in South Russia in +1879, the eldest son of the late Professor Michel +Hambourg, has for years been a naturalised Englishman. +In fact, he married in 1907 the Honourable +Dorothea Mackenzie, daughter of Lord +Muir Mackenzie. And the pair have four daughters. +Mark Hambourg was a pupil of Leschetitzky +in Vienna, where he obtained the Liszt scholarship +in 1894. He has made concert appearances +all over the world, his third American tour falling +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_220' name='page_220'></a>220</span> +in 1907, and his first Canadian tour in 1910.</p> +<p>Mark Hambourg’s book is called <i>How to +Play the Piano</i> and the text is helped with practical +illustrations and diagrams and a complete +compendium of five-finger exercises, scales, arpeggi, +thirds and octaves as practised by Hambourg.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>v</p> +</div> + +<p>Those who read The Bookman will not need +to be told that the articles by Robert Cortes Holliday +on <i>Writing as a Business: A Practical +Guide for Authors</i>, will constitute an exceptional +book. The great point about Mr. Holliday’s +chapters, which have been written in collaboration +with Alexander Van Rensselaer, is that they are +disinterested. There has been an immense +amount of printed matter, some of it in book +form, telling of the problems that confront the +writer, especially the young beginner. As a rule, +the underlying motive was to induce people to +write so that someone else might make money out +of their efforts, whether the writers did or not. +So-called correspondence schools in the art of +writing, so-called literary bureaus, interested individuals +anxious to earn “commissions,” and +sometimes individuals who purported to be publishers +have for many years carried on a continuous +campaign at the expense of persons who did +not know how to write but who fancied they +could write and who, above everything, craved to +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_221' name='page_221'></a>221</span> +write—craved seeing themselves in print and +hearing themselves referred to as “authors” or +“writers.” It would take a statistician versed in +all manner of mysteries and calculations to tell +how many people have been deluded by this stuff, +and how much money has been nuzzled out of +them. The time was certainly here for someone in +a position to tell the truth to speak up.</p> +<p>And of Mr. Holliday’s qualifications there is +no question. He has had to do with books and +authors and book publishing for years. He was, +as his readers know, for a number of years in +the Scribner bookstore. He was with Doubleday, +Page & Company at Garden City; he was +with George H. Doran Company, serving not only +as editor of The Bookman but acting in other editorial +capacities. He is now connected with +Henry Holt & Company. As an author he is +amply established. Therefore, when he tells +about writing and book publishing and bookselling, +and when he discusses such subjects as +“Publishing Your Own Book,” his statements are +most thoroughly documented. The important +thing, however, is that Mr. Holliday is disinterested, +he has no axe to grind in the advice he +gives; although the impressive thing about his +book is the absence of advice and the continual +presentation of unvarnished facts. After all, confronted +with the facts, the literary aspirant of +ordinary intelligence must and should reach his +own conclusions as regards what he wants to do +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_222' name='page_222'></a>222</span> +and how best to essay it. This is a sample of the +kind of straightforwardness to which Mr. Holliday +adheres:</p> +<p>“An experienced writer ‘on his own’ may earn +a couple of hundred dollars or so in one week, and +for several weeks afterward average something +like $14.84. The beginner-writer should not consider +that he has ‘arrived’ when he has sold one +story, or even several; it may be a year before he +places another. And the future of a writer who +may be having a very fair success now is not any +too secure. Public taste changes. New orders +come in. The kind of thing which took so well +yesterday may be quite out of fashion tomorrow.</p> +<p>“There is among people generally much misconception +as to the profits ordinarily derived by +the author from the publication of a book. The +price of a novel today is about two dollars. Usually +the author receives a royalty of about fifteen +cents a copy on the first two thousand copies sold, +and about twenty cents on each copy thereafter. +A novel which sold upward of 50,000 copies +would bring the author something like $10,000. +Many men make as much as $10,000 by a year’s +work at some other business or profession than +authorship. But authors who make that amount +in a year, or anything near that amount, are exceedingly +rare. A book is regarded by the publisher +as highly successful if it sells from five to +ten thousand copies. Far and away the greater +number of books published do not sell as many +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_223' name='page_223'></a>223</span> +as 1,500 copies. Many far less. A recently published +book, which received a very cordial ‘press,’ +has had an uncommon amount of publicity, and +the advertisements of which announce that it is +in its ‘fourth printing,’ has, after about half a +year, earned for its author perhaps $1,000. Its +sale now in active measure is over. An author is +fairly fortunate who receives as much as $500 or +$600 from the sale of his book. I recall an excellent +story published something over a year ago +which was much praised by many reviewers. It +took the author probably the better part of a year +to write it. He was then six months or more +getting it accepted. He has not been able to place +much of anything since. At the end, then, of +two years and a half he has received from his +literary labors about $110.”</p> +<p>Mr. Van Rensselaer has greatly enhanced the +usefulness of <i>Writing as a Business</i> by the addition +of very complete bibliographies.</p> +<p><i>Illumination and Its Development in the Present +Day</i>, by Sidney Farnsworth, has nothing to do +with street or indoor lighting but has a great deal +to do with lettering and illuminating manuscripts. +Mr. Farnsworth traces the growth of illumination +from its birth, showing, by means of numerous +diagrams and drawings, its gradual development +through the centuries from mere writing to the +elaborate poster work and commercial lettering +of the present day. Although other books have +already been written on this fascinating subject, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_224' name='page_224'></a>224</span> +Mr. Farnsworth breaks new ground in many directions; +he treats the matter from the modern +standpoint in a manner which makes his work invaluable +not only to students of the art, but also +to the rapidly-growing public interested in what +has hitherto been a somewhat exclusive craft. +The book is well illustrated.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='XV_FRANK_SWINNERTON_ANALYST_OF_LOVERS' id='XV_FRANK_SWINNERTON_ANALYST_OF_LOVERS'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_225' name='page_225'></a>225</span> +<h2><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Chapter XV</span></h2> +<h3>FRANK SWINNERTON: ANALYST OF LOVERS</h3> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>i</p> +</div> + +<p>It is as an analyst of lovers, I think, that Frank +Swinnerton claims and holds his place among +those whom we still sometimes call the younger +novelists of England.</p> +<p>I do not say this because his fame was achieved +at a bound with <i>Nocturne</i>, but because all his +novels show a natural preoccupation with the +theme of love between the sexes. Usually it is a +pair of young lovers or contrasted pairs; but sometimes +this is interestingly varied, as in September, +where we have a study of love that comes to a +woman in middle life.</p> +<p>The unique character of <i>Nocturne</i> makes it +very hard to write about Swinnerton. It is true +that Arnold Bennett wrote: “I am prepared to +say to the judicious reader unacquainted with +Swinnerton’s work, ‘Read <i>Nocturne</i>,’ and to stand +or fall, and to let him stand or fall by the result.” +At the same time, though the rule is that we must +judge an artist by his finest work and a genius +by his greatest masterpiece, it is not entirely just +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_226' name='page_226'></a>226</span> +to estimate the living writer by a single unique +performance, an extraordinary piece of virtuosity, +which <i>Nocturne</i> unquestionably is. For anyone +who wishes to understand and appreciate Swinnerton, +I would recommend that he begin with +<i>Coquette</i>, follow it with <i>September</i>, follow that +with <i>Shops and Houses</i> and then read <i>Nocturne</i>. +That is, I would have made this recommendation +a few months ago, but so representative of all +sides of Swinnerton’s talent is his new novel, <i>The +Three Lovers</i>, that I should now prefer to say to +anyone unacquainted with Swinnerton: “Begin +with <i>The Three Lovers</i>.” And after that I would +have him read <i>Coquette</i> and the other books in +the order I have named. After he had reached +and finished <i>Nocturne</i>, I would have him turn to +the several earlier novels—<i>The Happy Family</i>, +<i>On the Staircase</i>, and <i>The Chaste Wife</i>.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p><i>The Three Lovers</i>, a full-length novel which +Swinnerton finished in Devonshire in the spring of +1922, is a story of human beings in conflict, and +it is also a picture of certain phases of modern +life. A young and intelligent girl, alone in the +world, is introduced abruptly to a kind of life +with which she is unfamiliar. Thereafter the +book shows the development of her character and +her struggle for the love of the men to whom she +is most attracted. The book steadily moves</p> +<div class='figcenter'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_227' name='page_227'></a>227</span> +<a name='linki_7' id='linki_7'></a> +<img src='images/winter08.jpg' alt='' title='' style='width: 303px; height: 398px;' /><br /> +<p class='caption' style='margin: 0 auto; text-align:center;width: 303px;'> +FRANK SWINNERTON<br /> +</p> +</div> + +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_229' name='page_229'></a>229</span></div> +<p>through its earlier chapters of introduction and +growth to a climax that is both dramatic and moving. +It opens with a characteristic descriptive +passage from which I take a few sentences:</p> +<p>“It was a suddenly cold evening towards the +end of September.... The street lamps were +sharp brightnesses in the black night, wickedly +revealing the naked rain-swept paving-stones. It +was an evening to make one think with joy of +succulent crumpets and rampant fires and warm +slippers and noggins of whisky; but it was not an +evening for cats or timid people. The cats were +racing about the houses, drunken with primeval +savagery; the timid people were shuddering and +looking in distress over feebly hoisted shoulders, +dreadfully prepared for disaster of any kind, +afraid of sounds and shadows and their own +forgotten sins.... The wind shook the window-panes; +soot fell down all the chimneys; +trees continuously rustled as if they were trying +to keep warm by constant friction and movement.”</p> +<p>The imagination which sees in the movement of +trees an endeavour to keep warm is not less sharp +in its discernment of human beings. I will give +one other passage, a conversation between Patricia +Quin, the heroine, and another girl:</p> +<p>“‘Do you mean he’s in love with you?’ asked +Patricia. ‘That seems to be what’s the matter.’</p> +<p>“‘Oho, it takes two to be in love,’ scornfully +cried Amy. ‘And I’m not in love with him.’ +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_230' name='page_230'></a>230</span></p> +<p>“‘But he’s your friend.’</p> +<p>“‘That’s just it. He won’t recognise that men +and women <i>can</i> be friends. He’s a very decent +fellow; but he’s full of this sulky jealousy, and +he glowers and sulks whenever any other man +comes near me. Well, that’s not my idea of +friendship.’</p> +<p>“‘Nor mine,’ echoed Patricia, trying to reconstruct +her puzzled estimate of their relations. +‘But couldn’t you stop that? Surely, if you put +it clearly to him....’</p> +<p>“Amy interrupted with a laugh that was almost +shrill. Her manner was coldly contemptuous.</p> +<p>“‘You <i>are</i> priceless!’ she cried. ‘You say the +most wonderful things.’</p> +<p>“‘Well, <i>I</i> should.’</p> +<p>“‘I wonder.’ Amy moved about, collecting the +plates. ‘You see ... some day I shall marry. +And in a weak moment I said probably I’d marry +him.’</p> +<p>“‘Oh, Amy! Of <i>course</i> he’s jealous.’ Swiftly, +Patricia did the young man justice.</p> +<p>“‘I didn’t give him any right to be. I told him +I’d changed my mind. I’ve told him lots of times +that probably I sha’n’t marry him.’</p> +<p>“‘But you keep him. Amy! You do encourage +him.’ Patricia was stricken afresh with a +generous impulse of emotion on Jack’s behalf. ‘I +mean, by not telling him straight out. Surely you +can’t keep a man waiting like that? I wonder he +doesn’t <i>insist</i>.’ +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_231' name='page_231'></a>231</span></p> +<p>“‘Jack insist!’ Amy was again scornful. ‘Not +he!’</p> +<p>“There was a moment s pause. Innocently, +Patricia ventured upon a charitable interpretation.</p> +<p>“‘He must love you very much. But, Amy, if +you don’t love him.’</p> +<p>“‘What’s love got to do with marriage?’ asked +Amy, with a sourly cynical air.</p> +<p>“‘Hasn’t it—everything?’ Patricia was full +of sincerity. She was too absorbed in this story +to help Amy to clear the table; but on finding herself +alone in the studio while the crockery was +carried away to the kitchen she mechanically +shook the crumbs behind the gas-fire and folded +the napkin. This was the most astonishing moment +of her day.</p> +<p>“Presently Amy returned, and sat in the big +armchair, while, seated upon the podger and leaning +back against the wall, Patricia smoked a +cigarette.</p> +<p>“‘You see, the sort of man one falls in love +with doesn’t make a good husband,’ announced +Amy, as patiently as if Patricia had been in fact a +child. She persisted in her attitude of superior +wisdom in the world’s ways. ‘It’s all very +well; but a girl ought to be able to live with any +man she fancies, and then in the end marry +the safe man for a ... well, for life, if she +likes.’</p> +<p>“Patricia’s eyes were opened wide. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_232' name='page_232'></a>232</span></p> +<p>“‘I shouldn’t like that,’ she said. ‘I don’t +think the man would either.’</p> +<p>“‘Bless you, the men all <i>do</i> it,’ cried Amy, contemptuously. +‘Don’t make any mistake about +that.’</p> +<p>“‘I don’t believe it,’ said Patricia. ‘Do you +mean that my father—or <i>your</i> father...?’</p> +<p>“‘Oh, I don’t know. I meant, nowadays. +Most of the people you saw last night are living +together or living with other people.’</p> +<p>“Patricia was aware of a chill.</p> +<p>“‘But <i>you’ve</i> never,’ she urged. ‘I’ve never.’</p> +<p>“‘No.’ Amy was obviously irritated by the +personal application. ‘That’s just it. I say we +<i>ought</i> to be free to do what we like. Men do +what they like.’</p> +<p>“‘D’you think Jack has lived with other girls?’</p> +<p>“‘My dear child, how do I know? I should +hope he has.’</p> +<p>“‘Hope! Amy, you do make me feel a prig.’</p> +<p>“‘Perhaps you are one. Oh, I don’t know. +I’m sick of thinking, thinking, thinking about it +all. I never get any peace.’</p> +<p>“‘Is there somebody you <i>want</i> to live with?’</p> +<p>“‘No. I wish there was. Then I should +<i>know</i>’</p> +<p>“‘I wonder if you would know,’ said Patricia, +in a low voice. ‘Amy, do you really know what +love is? Because I don’t. I’ve sometimes let men +kiss me, and it doesn’t seem to matter in the least. +I don’t particularly want to kiss them, or to be +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_233' name='page_233'></a>233</span> +kissed. I’ve never seen anything in all the flirtation +that goes on in dark corners. It’s amusing +once or twice; but it becomes an awful bore. The +men don’t interest you. The thought of living +with any of them just turns me sick.’”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iii</p> +</div> + +<p>The analysis, in <i>The Three Lovers</i>, of Patricia +Quin is done with that simplicity, quiet deftness +and inoffensive frankness which is the hallmark of +Mr. Swinnerton’s fiction. And, coming at last to +<i>Nocturne</i>, I fall back cheerfully upon the praise +accorded that novel by H. G. Wells in his preface +to it. Said Mr. Wells:</p> +<p>“Such a writer as Mr. Swinnerton sees life and +renders it with a steadiness and detachment and +patience quite foreign to my disposition. He has +no underlying motive. He sees and tells. His +aim is the attainment of that beauty which comes +with exquisite presentation. Seen through his +art, life is seen as one sees things through a crystal +lens, more intensely, more completed, and with +less turbidity. There the business begins and ends +for him. He does not want you or anyone to do +anything.</p> +<p>“Mr. Swinnerton is not alone among recent +writers in this clear detached objectivity. But +Mr. Swinnerton, like Mr. James Joyce, does not +repudiate the depths for the sake of the surface. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_234' name='page_234'></a>234</span> +His people are not splashes of appearance, but +living minds. Jenny and Emmy in this book are +realities inside and out; they are imaginative creatures +so complete that one can think with ease of +Jenny ten years hence or of Emmy as a baby. +The fickle Alf is one of the most perfect Cockneys—a +type so easy to caricature and so hard to get +true—in fiction. If there exists a better writing +of vulgar lovemaking, so base, so honest, so touchingly +mean and so touchingly full of the craving +for happiness than this, I do not know of it. Only +a novelist who has had his troubles can understand +fully what a dance among china cups, what a skating +over thin ice, what a tight-rope performance is +achieved in this astounding chapter. A false note, +one fatal line, would have ruined it all. On the +one hand lay brutality; a hundred imitative louts +could have written a similar chapter brutally, +with the soul left out, we have loads of such +‘strong stuff’ and it is nothing; on the other side +was the still more dreadful fall into sentimentality, +the tear of conscious tenderness, the redeeming +glimpse of ‘better things’ in Alf or Emmy +that could at one stroke have converted their +reality into a genteel masquerade. The perfection +of Alf and Emmy is that at no point does a ‘nature’s +gentleman’ or a ‘nature’s lady’ show +through and demand our refined sympathy. It is +only by comparison with this supreme conversation +that the affair of Keith and Jenny seems to +fall short of perfection. But that also is at last +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_235' name='page_235'></a>235</span> +perfected, I think, by Jenny’s final, ‘Keith ... Oh, +Keith!...’</p> +<p>“Above these four figures again looms the majestic +invention of ‘Pa.’ Every reader can appreciate +the truth and humour of Pa, but I doubt if +anyone without technical experience can realise +how the atmosphere is made and completed, and +rounded off by Pa’s beer, Pa’s meals, and Pa’s +accident, how he binds the bundle and makes the +whole thing one, and what an enviable triumph +his achievement is.</p> +<p>“But the book is before the reader and I will +not enlarge upon its merits further. Mr. Swinnerton +has written four or five other novels before +this one, but none of them compares with it in +quality. His earlier books were strongly influenced +by the work of George Gissing; they have +something of the same fatigued greyness of texture +and little of the same artistic completeness +and intense vision of <i>Nocturne</i>.</p> +<p>“This is a book that will not die. It is perfect, +authentic and alive. Whether a large and +immediate popularity will fall to it, I cannot say, +but certainly the discriminating will find it and +keep it and keep it alive. If Mr. Swinnerton were +never to write another word I think he might +count on this much of his work living, when many +of the more portentous reputations of today may +have served their purpose in the world and become +no more than fading names.”</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_236' name='page_236'></a>236</span></div> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iv</p> +</div> + +<p>Arnold Bennett has described Swinnerton personally +in a way no one else is likely to surpass. +I will prefix a few elemental facts which he has +neglected and then will let him have his say.</p> +<p>Frank Arthur Swinnerton was born in Wood +Green, England, in 1884, the youngest son of +Charles Swinnerton and Rose Cottam. He married, +a few years ago, Helen Dircks, a poet; her +slim little book of verse, <i>Passenger</i>, was published +with a preface by Mr. Swinnerton. His first three +novels Swinnerton destroyed. His first novel to +be published was <i>The Merry Heart</i>. It is interesting +to know that Floyd Dell was the first +American to appreciate Swinnerton. I make way +for Mr. Bennett, who says:</p> +<p>“One day perhaps eight or nine years ago I received +a novel entitled <i>The Casement</i>. The book +was accompanied by a short, rather curt note from +the author, Frank Swinnerton, politely indicating +that if I cared to read it he would be glad, and +implying that if I didn’t care to read it, he should +endeavour still to survive. I would quote the letter +but I cannot find it—no doubt for the reason +that all my correspondence is carefully filed on +the most modern filing system. I did not read +<i>The Casement</i> for a long time. Why should I +consecrate three irrecoverable hours or so to the +work of a man as to whom I had no credentials? +Why should I thus introduce foreign matter into +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_237' name='page_237'></a>237</span> +the delicate cogwheels of my programme of reading? +However, after a delay of weeks, heaven in +its deep wisdom inspired me with a caprice to pick +up the volume.</p> +<p>“I had read, without fatigue but on the other +hand without passionate eagerness, about a hundred +pages before the thought occurred suddenly +to me: ‘I do not remember having yet come across +one single ready-made phrase in this story.’ Such +was my first definable thought concerning Frank +Swinnerton. I hate ready-made phrases, which +in my view—and in that of Schopenhauer—are +the sure mark of a mediocre writer. I began to be +interested. I soon said to myself: ‘This fellow +has a distinguished style.’ I then perceived that +the character-drawing was both subtle and original, +the atmosphere delicious, and the movement +of the tale very original, too. The novel stirred +me—not by its powerfulness, for it did not set +out to be powerful—but by its individuality and +distinction. I thereupon wrote to Frank Swinnerton. +I forget entirely what I said. But I know +that I decided that I must meet him.</p> +<p>“When I came to London, considerably later, +I took measures to meet him, at the Authors’ Club. +He proved to be young; I daresay twenty-four or +twenty-five—medium height, medium looks, medium +clothes, somewhat reddish hair, and lively +eyes. If I had seen him in a motorbus I should +never have said, ‘A remarkable chap’—no more +than if I had seen myself in a motorbus. My +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_238' name='page_238'></a>238</span> +impressions of the interview were rather like my impressions +of the book: at first somewhat negative, +and only very slowly becoming positive. He was +reserved, as became a young author; I was reserved, +as became an older author; we were both +reserved, as became Englishmen. Our views on +the only important thing in the world—that is +to say, fiction—agreed, not completely, but in +the main; it would never have done for us to agree +completely. I was as much pleased by what he +didn’t say as by what he said; quite as much by +the indications of the stock inside the shop as by +the display in the window. The interview came +to a calm close. My knowledge of him acquired +from it amounted to this, that he held decided and +righteous views upon literature, that his heart was +not on his sleeve, and that he worked in a publisher’s +office during the day and wrote for himself +in the evenings.</p> +<p>“Then I saw no more of Swinnerton for a relatively +long period. I read other books of his. I +read <i>The Young Idea</i>, and <i>The Happy Family</i>, +and, I think, his critical work on George Gissing. +<i>The Happy Family</i> marked a new stage in his +development. It has some really piquant scenes, +and it revealed that minute knowledge of middle-class +life in the nearer suburbs of London, and +that disturbing insight into the hearts and brains +of quite unfashionable girls, which are two of his +principal gifts. I read a sketch of his of a commonplace +crowd walking around a bandstand +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_239' name='page_239'></a>239</span> +which brought me to a real decision as to his qualities. +The thing was like life, and it was bathed +in poetry.</p> +<p>“Our acquaintance proceeded slowly, and I +must be allowed to assert that the initiative which +pushed it forward was mine. It made a jump +when he spent a week-end in the Thames Estuary +on my yacht. If any reader has a curiosity to +know what my yacht is not like, he should read +the striking yacht chapter in <i>Nocturne</i>. I am +convinced that Swinnerton evolved the yacht in +<i>Nocturne</i> from my yacht; but he ennobled, magnified, +decorated, enriched and bejewelled it till +honestly I could not recognise my wretched vessel. +The yacht in <i>Nocturne</i> is the yacht I want, ought +to have, and never shall have. I envy him the +yacht in <i>Nocturne</i>, and my envy takes a malicious +pleasure in pointing out a mistake in the glowing +scene. He anchors his yacht in the middle of the +Thames—as if the tyrannic authorities of the +Port of London would ever allow a yacht, or any +other craft, to anchor in midstream!</p> +<p>“After the brief cruise our friendship grew +rapidly. I now know Swinnerton—probably as +well as any man knows him; I have penetrated +into the interior of the shop. He has done several +things since I first knew him—rounded the corner +of thirty, grown a beard, under the orders of a +doctor, and physically matured. Indeed, he +looks decidedly stronger than in fact he is—he +was never able to pass the medical examination +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_240' name='page_240'></a>240</span> +for the army. He is still in the business of publishing, +being one of the principal personages in +the ancient and well-tried firm of Chatto & +Windus, the English publishers of Swinburne and +Mark Twain. He reads manuscripts, including +his own—and including mine. He refuses manuscripts, +though he did accept one of mine. He +tells authors what they ought to do and ought not +to do. He is marvellously and terribly particular +and fussy about the format of the books +issued by his firm. Questions as to fonts of type, +width of margins, disposition of title-pages, tint +and texture of bindings really do interest him. +And misprints—especially when he has read the +proofs himself—give him neuralgia and even +worse afflictions. Indeed he is the ideal publisher +for an author.</p> +<p>“Nevertheless, publishing is only a side-line of +his. He still writes for himself in the evenings +and at week-ends—the office never sees him on +Saturdays.</p> +<p>“Frank Swinnerton has other gifts. He is a +surpassingly good raconteur. By which I do not +signify that the man who meets Swinnerton for +the first, second or third time will infallibly ache +with laughter at his remarks. Swinnerton only +blossoms in the right atmosphere; he must know +exactly where he is; he must be perfectly sure of +his environment, before the flower uncloses. And +he merely relates what he has seen, what he has +taken part in. The narrations would be naught +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_241' name='page_241'></a>241</span> +if he were not the narrator. His effects are helped +by the fact that he is an excellent mimic and by +his utter realistic mercilessness. But like all first-class +realists he is also a romantic, and in his +mercilessness there is a mysterious touch of fundamental +benevolence—as befits the attitude of one +who does not worry because human nature is not +something different from what it actually is. +Lastly, in this connection, he has superlatively the +laugh known as the ‘infectious laugh.’ When he +laughs everybody laughs, everybody has to laugh. +There are men who tell side-splitting tales with +the face of an undertaker—for example, Irvin +Cobb. There are men who can tell side-splitting +tales and openly and candidly rollick in them +from the first word; and of these latter is Frank +Swinnerton. But Frank Swinnerton can be more +cruel than Irvin Cobb. Indeed, sometimes when +he is telling a story, his face becomes exactly like +the face of Mephistopheles in excellent humour +with the world’s sinfulness and idiocy.</p> +<p>“Swinnerton’s other gift is the critical. It has +been said that an author cannot be at once a first-class +critic and a first-class creative artist. To +which absurdity I reply: What about William +Dean Howells? And what about Henry James, +to name no other names? Anyhow, if Swinnerton +excels in fiction he also excels in literary criticism. +The fact that the literary editor of the +Manchester Guardian wrote and asked him to +write literary criticism for the Manchester +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_242' name='page_242'></a>242</span> +Guardian will perhaps convey nothing to the American +citizen. But to the Englishman of literary taste +and experience it has enormous import. The +Manchester Guardian publishes the most fastidious +and judicious literary criticism in Britain.</p> +<p>“I recall that once when Swinnerton was in my +house I had there also a young military officer +with a mad passion for letters and a terrific ambition +to be an author. The officer gave me a manuscript +to read. I handed it over to Swinnerton to +read, and then called upon Swinnerton to criticise +it in the presence of both of us. ‘Your friend is +very kind,’ said the officer to me afterward, ‘but +it was a frightful ordeal.’</p> +<p>“The book on George Gissing I have already +mentioned. But it was Swinnerton’s work on +R. L. Stevenson that made the trouble in London. +It is a destructive work. It is bland and impartial, +and not bereft of laudatory passages, but +since its appearance Stevenson’s reputation has +never been the same.”</p> +<hr class='minor' /> + +<div class='ce'> +<p><i>Books</i></p> +<p>by Frank Swinnerton</p> +</div> + +<div class='la'> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE LOVER’S BATTLE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE MERRY HEART</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE YOUNG IDEA</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE CASEMENT</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE HAPPY FAMILY</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>GEORGE GISSING: A CRITICAL STUDY</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>R. L. STEVENSON: A CRITICAL STUDY</p> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_243' name='page_243'></a>243</span> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>ON THE STAIRCASE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE CHASTE WIFE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>NOCTURNE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>SHOPS AND HOUSES</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>SEPTEMBER</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>COQUETTE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE THREE LOVERS</p> +</div> + +<hr class='minor' /> + +<div class='ce'> +<p><i>Sources</i></p> +<p style=' margin-bottom:1.5em;'>on Frank Swinnerton</p> +</div> + +<p><i>Who’s Who</i> [In England].</p> +<p><i>Frank Swinnerton</i>: Personal Sketches by Arnold +Bennett, H. G. Wells, Grant Overtor, +Booklet published by GEORGE H. DORAN +COMPANY, 1920.</p> +<p>Private Information.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='XVI_AN_ARMFUL_OF_NOVELS_WITH_NOTES_ON_THE_NOVELISTS' id='XVI_AN_ARMFUL_OF_NOVELS_WITH_NOTES_ON_THE_NOVELISTS'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_244' name='page_244'></a>244</span> +<h2>Chapter XVI</h2> +<h3>AN ARMFUL OF NOVELS, WITH NOTES ON THE NOVELISTS</h3> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>i</p> +</div> + +<p>“The quiet, the calm, the extreme individualism, +and the easy-going self-content of my +birthplace and early habitat—the Eastern Shore +of Maryland, have been, I fear, the dominating +influences of my life,” writes Sophie Kerr. +“Thank heaven, I had a restless, energetic, and +very bad-tempered father to leaven them, a man +with a biting tongue and a kind heart, a keen +sense of the ridiculous and a passion for honesty +in speech and action. I, the younger of his two +children, was his constant companion. I tagged +after him, every day and all day. Even when I +was very small he interested me—and very few +fathers ever really interest their children.</p> +<p>“The usual life of a girl in a small semi-Southern +town was mine. I learned to cook, I +made most of my own frocks, I embroidered excessively, +I played the violin worse than any other +person in the world, I went away to college and +I came back again. I wasn’t a popular girl socially +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_245' name='page_245'></a>245</span> +for two reasons. I had inherited my father’s +gift of sarcasm, and there was the even +greater handicap of a beautiful, popular, socially +malleable older sister. Beside her I was nowhere.</p> +<p>“But I wanted to write, so I didn’t care. I got +my father to buy me a second-hand typewriter, +and learned to run it with two fingers. And I +wrote. I even sold some of the stuff. The Country +Gentleman bought one of my first stories, and +the Ladies’ World bought another. This was +glorious.</p> +<p>“Then I got a job on the Pittsburgh Chronicle-Telegraph, +an afternoon newspaper owned by +Senator Oliver. Later I went to The Gazette-Times, +the morning paper also owned by the +Senator. A few years later I came to New York +and found a place on the staff of the Woman’s +Home Companion, eventually becoming Managing +Editor. Two years ago I resigned my editorial +job to give all my time to writing. Of course +I had been writing pretty steadily anyway, but +holding my job too.</p> +<p>“I had expected, when I gave up office work, to +find my leisure time an embarrassment. I planned +so many things to do, how I would see all my +friends often, how I would travel, read, do all +sorts of delightful things that double work had +before made impossible. But I’ve done none of +them. I haven’t nearly as much time as I had +when I hadn’t any time at all, and that’s the +honest truth. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_246' name='page_246'></a>246</span></p> +<p>“If only I could arrange a multiple existence—one +life for work; one for the machinery of life, +housekeeping, getting clothes made, shopping; +one for seeing my friends, travel, visiting; one life +for the other diversions such as music, the theatre, +clubs, politics, one life for just plain loafing. +Now that would be wonderful. But to crowd it +all into twenty-four hours a day—no, too much +of it gets squeezed out.</p> +<p>“What do I like the most? Comfort, I think. +And old painted satinwood, and cats and prizefights, +and dancing, and Spanish shawls, and looking +at the ocean, and having my own way. And +I dislike argument, and perfume, and fat women, +and people who tell the sort of lies that simply +insult your intelligence, and men who begin letters +‘Dear Lady,’ and long earrings, and intolerance.”</p> +<p>All of which is excellent preparation for the +reader of Sophie Kerr’s new novel, <i>One Thing Is +Certain</i>. Those who read her <i>Painted Meadows</i> +will expect and will find in this new novel the +same charming background, but they will find a +much more dramatic story. Since the novel is one +of surprise, with an event at its close which throws +everything that went before in a new, a curious, a +startling and profoundly significant light, I cannot +indulge in any further description of it in this +place. But I do wish to quote some sentences +from a letter Sophie Kerr wrote me:</p> +<p>“I wanted to show that when lives get out of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_247' name='page_247'></a>247</span> +plumb, the way to straighten them is not with a +violent gesture. That when we do seize them, +and try to jerk them straight again, we invariably +let ourselves in for long years of unhappiness and +remorse. Witness Louellen. In two desperate +attempts ... she tries to change the whole current +and colour of her life.”</p> +<p>So much for the essential character of the story, +but there is a question in my mind as to what, in +the story, readers will consider the true essential! +I think for very many it will not be the action, +unusual and dramatic as that is, but the picture +of a peculiar community, one typical of Maryland’s +Eastern Shore, where we have farmer folk +in whom there lives the spirit and tradition of a +landed aristocracy. The true essential with such +readers, will be the individuals who are drawn +with such humour and skill, the mellowness of +the scene; even such a detail as the culinary triumph +that was Louellen’s wedding dinner. A +marvellous and incomparable meal! One reads +of it, his mouth watering and his stomach crying +out.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p><i>The House of Five Swords</i>, by Tristram +Tupper, is a gallant representative of those novels +which we are beginning to get in the inevitable +reaction from such realism as <i>Main Street</i> and +<i>Moon-Calf</i>, a romantic story of age and youth, of +love and hate, of bitter unyielding hardness, and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_248' name='page_248'></a>248</span> +of melting pity and tenderness. It begins with +the Robin, age seven, with burnished curls, viewing +with awestruck delight five polished swords +against the shining dark wall in Colonial House, +where she had gone to deliver the Colonel’s boots! +She forgot the boots. She lifted two of the +swords from the wall, crossed them on the floor +and danced the sword dance of Scotland. From +the doorway a white-haired old figure watched +with narrowed eyes and tightened mouth. Then +the storm broke....</p> +<p><i>The House of Five Swords</i> is Mr. Tupper’s +first novel. A native of Virginia, he has done +newspaper work, has tramped a good deal and was +fooling with the study of law when American +troops were ordered to the Mexican border. After +that experience he went overseas. On his return +from the war, he tried writing and met with rapid +success.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iii</p> +</div> + +<p>Readers of Baroness Orczy’s novels will welcome +<i>Nicolette</i>.</p> +<p>This is essentially a love story, with the scene +laid in the mountains of Provence in the early +days of the Restoration of King Louis XVIII to +the throne of France. An ancient half-ruined +château perches among dwarf olives and mimosa, +orange and lemon groves. There is a vivid contrast +between the prosperity of Jaume Deydier, a +rich peasant-proprietor, and the grinding poverty +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_249' name='page_249'></a>249</span> +of the proud and ancient family of de Ventadour, +whose last scion, Bertrand, goes to seek fortune in +Paris and there becomes affianced to a wealthy +and beautiful heiress. Nicolette, the daughter +of Jaume Deydier, whose ancestor had been a +lackey in the service of the Comte de Ventadour, +is passionately in love with Bertrand, but a bitter +feud keeps the lovers for long apart.</p> +<p>There will be a new novel this autumn, <i>Ann +and Her Mother</i>, by O. Douglas, whose <i>Penny +Plain</i> gave great pleasure to its readers. “Penny +plain,” if you remember, was the way Jean described +the lot of herself and her brothers whom +she mothered in the Scottish cottage; but matters +were somewhat changed when romance +crossed the threshold in the person of the Honourable +Pamela and a bitter old millionaire who +came to claim the house as his own.</p> +<p><i>Ann and Her Mother</i> is the story of a Scotch +family as seen through the eyes of the mother +and her daughter. The author of <i>Penny Plain</i> +and <i>Ann and Her Mother</i> is a sister of John +Buchan, author of <i>The Thirty-nine Steps</i>, <i>The +Path of the King</i>, and many other books.</p> +<p><i>December Love</i>, by Robert Hichens, will have +a greater popularity than any of his novels since +<i>The Garden of Allah</i>. It is a question whether +this uncannily penetrative study of power and the +need for love of a woman of sixty does not surpass +<i>The Garden of Allah</i>. In Lady Sellingworth, +Mr. Hichens is dealing with a brilliant woman. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_250' name='page_250'></a>250</span> +The theme is daring and calls for both skill and +delicacy. Of the action, one really should not +say very much, lest one spoil the book for the +reader. The loss of the Sellingworth jewels in +Paris had caused a sensation in the midst of which +Lady Sellingworth was silent. She declined to +discuss the disappearance of the jewels. There +followed the advent at No. 4 Berkeley Square of +Alick Craven, a man of thirty, vigorous, attractive +and decidedly a somebody. But inexplicably—at +any rate without explanation—Lady Sellingworth +retired from society when Craven appeared.</p> +<p><i>Tell England</i> by Ernest Raymond is a novel +which has been sensationally successful in England. +It is a war story and I will give you some +of the opening paragraphs of the “Prologue by +Padre Monty”:</p> +<p>“In the year that the Colonel died he took little +Rupert to see the swallows fly away. I can find +no better beginning than that.</p> +<p>“When there devolved upon me as a labour of +love the editing of Rupert Ray’s book, <i>Tell England</i>, +I carried the manuscript to my room one +bright autumn afternoon and read it during the +fall of a soft evening, till the light failed, and my +eyes burned with the strain of reading in the dark. +I could hardly leave his ingenuous tale to rise and +turn on the gas. Nor, perhaps, did I want such +artificial brightness. There are times when one +prefers the twilight. Doubtless the tale held me +fascinated because it revealed the schooldays of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_251' name='page_251'></a>251</span> +those boys whom I met in their young manhood +and told afresh that wild old Gallipoli adventure +which I shared with them. Though, sadly enough, +I take Heaven to witness that I was not the idealised +creature whom Rupert portrays. God bless +them, how these boys will idealise us!</p> +<p>“Then again, as Rupert tells you, it was I who +suggested to him the writing of his story. And +well I recall how he demurred, asking:</p> +<p>“‘But what am I to write about?’ For he +was always diffident and unconscious of his +power.</p> +<p>“‘Is Gallipoli nothing to write about?’ I retorted. +‘And you can’t have spent five years at a +great public school like Kensington without one +or two sensational things. Pick them out and let +us have them. For whatever the modern theorists +say, the main duty of a story-teller is certainly to +tell stories.’”</p> +<p>This prologue is followed by the novel which +begins with English public school life in the +fashion of <i>Sonia</i> and other novels American readers +are familiar with. The main theme of the +book is Gallipoli.</p> +<p>The new novel by J. E. Buckrose is <i>A Knight +Among Ladies</i>. Mrs. Buckrose says that the character +of Sid Dummeris in this book is modelled +upon an actual person. “He did actually live in a +remote country place where I used to stay a great +deal when I was a child and as he has been gone +twenty years, I thought I might employ my exact +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_252' name='page_252'></a>252</span> +memories of him without hurting anyone.” This +was in answer to questions asked by The Bookman +(London) of a number of English writers. The +London Bookman wanted to find out if novelists +generally drew their characters from actual people. +The replies showed that this proceeding was +very rare. Mrs. Buckrose recalled only one other +instance in which she had used an actual person +in her fiction. Mrs. Buckrose is Mrs. Falconer +Jameson. She lives at Hornsea, East Yorkshire, +and says:</p> +<p>“My real hobby is my writing—as it was my +secret pleasure from the age of nine until I was +over thirty when I first attempted to publish. I +look after my chickens, my house and a rather +delicate husband; write my books and try to do +my duty to my neighbour!”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iv</p> +</div> + +<p>Back of the new novel by Margaret Culkin +Banning, <i>Spellbinders</i>, is the question: Has the +vote and its consequent widening of the mental +horizon introduced a brand new element of discord +or a factor for mutual support into modern +marriage? The household of the George Flandons +was almost wrecked by it. That his wife +should accept the opportunity to play her part in +State and National affairs seemed to George +Flandon a desertion of her real duty.</p> +<p>Mrs. Banning has written a novel which will +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_253' name='page_253'></a>253</span> +surprise those who remember her only by her first +novel, <i>This Marrying</i>. The surprise will be less +for those who read her second novel, <i>Half Loaves</i>, +for they must have been struck by the real understanding +she showed of the married relationship +and the marked increase in her skill as a writer. +<i>Spellbinders</i> is the sort of work one looks for after +such a good novel as <i>Half Loaves</i>.</p> +<p>Mrs. Banning, who was married in 1914, lives +in Duluth. A graduate of Vassar, her first novel +was written in one of Margaret Mayo’s cottages +at Harmon, New York. She is of purely Irish +ancestry, related to the Plunkett family which +bred both statesmen and revolutionaries for Ireland. +On the other side there was a Colonel Culkin, +who, Mrs. Banning says, “came over at the +time of the Revolution but unfortunately fought +on the wrong side, so we forget him and begin our +Culkin lineage in this country with the Culkin who +came over at the famous time of the ‘potato-rot.’” +That would be the Irish famine of 1846, no doubt.</p> +<p><i>Sunny-San</i>, Onoto Watanna’s first novel in six +years, has been the signal for her re-entrance not +only into the world of fiction, but the world of +motion pictures and plays. Even before <i>Sunny-San</i> +was ready as a book, the motion picture producers +were on the author’s track. A large sum +was paid cash down for the picture rights to the +novel and then the prospect of a picture was laid +aside while the possibilities of a play were estimated. +These were seen to be exceptionally good. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_254' name='page_254'></a>254</span> +Here was a story of young American boys travelling +in Japan and coming upon a still younger +Japanese girl, threatened with cruelty and unhappiness. +The young men endowed Sunny-San, so +to speak, planking down enough money to secure +her protection and education. Thereupon they +continued blithely on their travels and forgot all +about her.</p> +<p>Some years later a well-educated, dainty and +exceedingly attractive Japanese girl presents herself +on the doorstep of a house in New York where +one of the young men resides. Situation! What +shall the young man do with his charming and +unexpected protégée! In view of the prolonged +success of Fay Bainter in the play, <i>East Is West</i>, +it was obviously the thing to make a play out of +<i>Sunny-San</i>. And this, I believe, is being done as +I write. In the meantime Onoto Watanna, who +is really Mrs. Winnifred Reeve, and who lives on +a ranch near Calgary, Canada, is very busy with +her Canadian stories which have excited the enthusiasm +of magazine editors. I am confident +that she will do a Canadian novel; the more so +because she tells me that, despite the success of +<i>Sunny-San</i> and the enormous success of her +earlier Japanese stories, like <i>A Japanese Nightingale</i>, +her interest is really centred at present in +Canada, its people and backgrounds. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_255' name='page_255'></a>255</span></p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>v</p> +</div> + +<p>Pending Dorothy Speare’s second novel, let me +suggest that those who have not done so read her +first, <i>Dancers in the Dark</i>. That a young woman +just out of Smith College should write this novel, +that the novel should then begin immediately selling +at a great rate, and that David Belasco should +demand a play constructed from the novel is altogether +a sequence to cause surprise. I have had +letters from older people who said frankly that +they could not express themselves about <i>Dancers +in the Dark</i>, because it dealt with a life with +which they were utterly unfamiliar—which, in +some cases, they did not know existed. And yet it +does exist! The demand for the book, the avidity +with which it has been read and the intemperance +with which it has been discussed testify that in +<i>Dancers in the Dark</i> Miss Speare wrote a book +with truth in it. I suppose it might be said of her +first novel—though I should not agree in saying +it—that, like F. Scott Fitzgerald’s <i>This Side of +Paradise</i>, it had every conceivable fault except +the fatal fault; it did not fail to live. The +amount of publicity that this book received was +astonishing. I have handled clippings from +newspapers all over the country—and not mere +“items” but “spreads” with pictures—in which +the epigrammatic utterances of the characters in +<i>Dancers</i> were reprinted and their truth or falsity +debated hotly. Is the modern girl an “excitement +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_256' name='page_256'></a>256</span> +eater”? Does she “live from man to man and +never kill off a man”? There was altogether too +much smoke and heat in the controversy for one +to doubt the existence, underneath the surface of +Miss Speare’s fiction, of glowing coals. And Miss +Speare? Well, it is a fact that, like her heroine +in <i>Dancers</i>, she has an exceptional voice; and I +understand that she intends to cultivate the voice +and to continue as a writer, both. That is a very +difficult programme to lay out for one’s self, but +I really believe her capable of succeeding in both +halves of the programme.</p> +<p>Another distinctly popular novel, <i>The Moon +Out of Reach</i>, by Margaret Pedler, is the fruit of +a well-developed career as a novelist. <i>The Hermit +of Far End</i>, <i>The House of Dreams Come +True</i>, <i>The Lamp of Fate</i>, and <i>The Splendid +Folly</i> were the forerunners of this immediate and +distinct success. Mrs. Pedler is the wife of a +sportsman well known in the West of England, +the nearest living descendant of Sir Francis +Drake. They have a lovely home in the country +and Mrs. Pedler, besides the joys of her writing, +is a collector of old furniture and china and a +devotee of driving, tennis and swimming. It is +interesting that as a girl she studied at the Royal +Academy of Music with a view to being a professional +singer. Marriage diverted her from that, +but she still retains her interest in music; and it +is characteristic of such novels as <i>The Splendid +Folly</i> and <i>The Moon Out of Reach</i> that a lyric +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_257' name='page_257'></a>257</span> +appearing in the book embodies the theme of the +story. These lyrics of Mrs. Pedler’s have mostly +been set to music.</p> +<p>What shall I say about Corra Harris’s <i>The +Eyes of Love</i> except that it offers such a study of +marriage as only Mrs. Harris puts on paper? +Shrewd and homely wisdom, sympathetic and +ironical humour, the insight and the fundamental +experience,—above all, imagination in experience—which +made their first deep and wide impression +with the publication of <i>A Circuit Rider’s Wife</i>. +I open <i>The Eyes of Love</i> at random and come +upon such a passage as this, and then I don’t wonder +that men as well as women read Corra Harris +and continue to read her:</p> +<p>“Few women are ever related by marriage to +the minds of their husbands. These minds are +foreign countries where they discover themselves +to be aliens, speaking another smaller language +and practically incapable of mastering the manners +and customs of that place. This is sometimes +the man’s fault, because his mind is not a fit place +for a nice person like his wife to dwell, but more +frequently it is the wife’s fault, who is not willing +to associate intimately with the hardships that +inhabit the mind of a busy man, who has no time +to ornament that area with ideas pertaining to the +finer things. So it happens that both of them +prefer this divorce, the man because the woman +gets in the way with her scruples and emotions +when he is about to do business without reference +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_258' name='page_258'></a>258</span> +to either; the woman because it is easier to keep +on the domestic periphery of her husband, where +she thinks she knows him and is married to him +because she knows what foods he likes, and the +people he prefers to have asked to dine when she +entertains, the chair that fits him, the large pillow +or the small one he wants for his tired old head at +night, the place where the light must be when he +reads in the evening rather than talk to her, because +there is nothing to talk about, since she is +only the wife of his bosom and not of his head.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>vi</p> +</div> + +<p>Phyllis Bottome is just as interesting as her +novels. When scarcely more than a child with +large, delightful eyes, she began to write, and +completed at the age of seventeen a novel which +Andrew Lang advised an English publisher to +accept. Thereafter she wrote regularly and with +increasing distinction. Ill-health drove her to +Switzerland where, living for some years, she met +all kinds of people from all the countries of Europe +and America as well.</p> +<p>It is interesting that her father was an American, +although after his marriage to an Englishwoman, +he settled in England. Later Mr. Bottome +came to America and for six years during +Phyllis Bottome’s childhood he was rector of +Grace Church at Jamaica, New York. Phyllis +Bottome is the wife of A. E. Forbes Dennis, who, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_259' name='page_259'></a>259</span> +recovering from dangerous wounds in the war, has +been serving as passport officer at Vienna. They +were married in 1917. Those who know Phyllis +Bottome personally say that the striking thing +about her is the extent of her acquaintance with +people of all sorts and conditions of life and her +ready and unfailing sympathy with all kinds of +people. She herself says that she “has had friends +who live humdrum and simple lives and friends +whose stories would bring a rush of doubt to the +most credulous believer in fiction.” “My friendships +have included workmen, bargees, actresses, +clergymen, thieves, scholars, dancers, soldiers, +sailors and even the manager of a bank. It would +be true of me to say that as a human being I prefer +life to art, even if it would at the same time be +damning to admit that I know much more about +it. I have no preferences; men, women, children, +animals and nature under every aspect seem to me +a mere choice of miracles. I have not perhaps +many illusions, but I have got hold of one or two +certainties. I believe in life and I know that it is +very hard.”</p> +<p>The hardness of life, its uproar, its agony, its +magnificence and its duty, is the theme of Phyllis +Bottome’s latest and finest novel. When it was +published, because it was so different from Phyllis +Bottome’s earlier work, I tried to draw attention +to it by a letter in which I said:</p> +<p>“I don’t know whether you read J. C. Snaith’s +<i>The Sailor</i>. People said Snaith got his suggestion +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_260' name='page_260'></a>260</span> +from the life of John Masefield. <i>The +Sailor</i> sold many thousands and people recall the +book today, years afterward. But, as an ex-sailor +and a few other things, I never found +Snaith’s ‘Enry ‘Arper half so convincing as Jim +Barton in Phyllis Bottome’s new novel, <i>The Kingfisher</i>.</p> +<p>“Jim, a boy of the slums, reaching toward ‘that +broken image of the mind of God—human love,’ +goes pretty deeply into me. Since reading those +last words of the book—‘Beauty touched him. It +was as if he saw, with a flash of jewelled wings, +a Kingfisher fly home’—I keep going back and rereading +bits....</p> +<p>“Won’t you tackle <i>The Kingfisher</i>? If you’ll +read to the bottom of page 51, I’ll take a chance +beyond that. Read that far and then, if you stop +there, I’ve no word to say.”</p> +<p>Although this letter called for no special reply, +I received dozens of replies promising to read the +book and then enthusiastic comments after having +read the book. I do not consider <i>The Kingfisher</i> +the greatest book Phyllis Bottome will +write, but it marks an important advance in her +work and it is a novel whose positive merits will +last; it will be as moving and as significant ten +years from now as it is today.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>vii</p> +</div> + +<p>I come to a group of novels of which the chief +aim of all except two is entertainment. <i>The</i> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_261' name='page_261'></a>261</span> +<i>Return of Alfred</i>, by the anonymous author of +<i>Patricia Brent, Spinster</i>, is the diverting narrative +of a man who found himself in another man’s +shoes. What made it particularly difficult was +that the other man had been a very bad egg, indeed. +And there was, as might have been feared +(or anticipated), a girl to complicate matters +tremendously.</p> +<p>E. F. Benson’s <i>Peter</i> is the story of a young +man who made a point of being different, of keeping +his aloofness and paying just the amount of +charm and gaiety required for the dinners and +opera seats which London hostesses so gladly +proffered. Then he married Silvia, not for her +money exactly, but he certainly would not have +asked her if she hadn’t had money. No wonder +E. F. Benson has a liberal and expectant audience! +In <i>Peter</i> he shows an exquisite understanding +of the quality of the love between Peter +and his boyish young wife.</p> +<p>A. A. Milne is another name to conjure with +among those who love humour and charm, gentleness +and a quiet shafting of the human depths. +There is his novel, <i>Mr. Pim</i>. Old Mr. Pim, in +his gentle way, shuffled into the Mardens’ charming +household. Mr. Pim said a few words and +went absentmindedly away,—leaving Mr. Marden +with the devastating knowledge that his wife +was no wife, that her first husband, instead of +lying quietly in his grave in Australia, had just +landed in England. In short, the Mardens had +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_262' name='page_262'></a>262</span> +been living in sin for five years! Then Mr. Pim +came back for his forgotten hat and the Marden +household was again revolutionised.</p> +<p><i>Beauty for Ashes</i>, by Joan Sutherland, is a +story with a more serious theme. It really raises +the question whether a man who has wrongly +been named as co-respondent is in honour bound +to marry the defendant. The affair of Lady +Madge with Lord Desmond was an entirely innocent +one, despite what London said. Lady +Madge’s husband, wrought upon by shame and +anger, began his action for divorce; and Desmond +found himself not merely face to face with dishonour +but bound by conventional honour for +life to a girl with whom he had simply been +friendly.</p> +<p>William Rose Benét had been known chiefly as +a poet until the publication of his first novel, +<i>The First Person Singular</i>. The scene of <i>The +First Person Singular</i> shifts between the kinetic +panorama of modern New York and the somewhat +stultifying quietude of a small Pennsylvania +town. A mysterious Mrs. Ventress is the +centre of its rapidly unfolding series of peculiar +situations. Mrs. Ventress is a puzzle to the +townspeople. They believe odd things about her. +The particular family in Tupton with which she +comes in contact is an eccentric one. The father +is a recluse—for reasons. His adopted daughter, +Bessie Gedney, is an odd character among young +girls in fiction. Dr. Gedney’s real daughter had +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_263' name='page_263'></a>263</span> +disappeared years before. Why? What has become +of her? This complicates the mystery.</p> +<p><i>The First Person Singular</i> is a light novel, +avowedly without the heavy “significance” and +desperately drab realism of many modern novels. +And yet it flashes with tragedy and implicates +grim spiritual struggle without tearing any passion +to tatters. The author’s touch is light, the +variety of his characters furnish him much diversion. +The amusing side of each situation does +not escape him. His style has a certain effervescent +quality, but, for all that, the tragic developments +of the story are not shirked.</p> +<p>Another treatment of a problem of marriage, a +treatment sympathetic but robust, is found in the +new novel of F. E. Mills Young, <i>The Stronger +Influence</i>. Like Miss Mills Young’s earlier +novels, <i>Imprudence</i> and <i>The Almonds of Life</i>, the +scene of <i>The Stronger Influence</i> is British Africa. +The story is of the choice confronting a girl upon +whom two men have a vital claim.</p> +<p>To be somebody is more ethical than to serve +somebody. The individual has not only a right +but an obligation to sacrifice family entanglements +in the cause of a necessary personal independence. +This is the attitude expressed in +Richard Blaker’s novel, <i>The Voice in the Wilderness</i>. +The story centres around the figure of +Charles Petrie, popular playwright in London but +known in Pelchester merely as a shabby fellow +and to his family a singularly sarcastic and annoying +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_264' name='page_264'></a>264</span> +father. Sarcasm was Petrie’s one defence +against the limp weight that was Mrs. Petrie +His children would have been astonished to hear +him called a charming man of the world, yet he +was. It is probable that he never would have +come out into the open to combat if he hadn’t +been moved constantly to interfere and save his +daughter Cynthia from offering herself as a willing +sacrifice to her mother. Richard Blaker is new +to America, a novelist of acutely pointed characterisations +and careful atmosphere.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>viii</p> +</div> + +<p><i>Nêne</i>, the work of an unknown French school +teacher, a novel distinguished in France by the +award of the Goncourt Prize as the most distinguished +French novel of the year 1920, had sold +at this writing 400,000 copies in France. Three +months after publication, it had sold in this country +less than 3,000 copies.</p> +<p>I am glad to say that it was sufficient to draw +to the attention of Americans this deplorable discrepancy +to arouse interest in the novel. People +of so divergent tastes as William Lyon Phelps, +Corra Harris, Ralph Connor, Walter Prichard +Eaton, Mary Johnston, Dorothy Speare and +Richard LeGallienne have been at pains to express +the feeling to which <i>Nêne</i> has stirred them. +I have not space to quote them all, and so select +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_265' name='page_265'></a>265</span> +as typical the comment of Walter Prichard +Eaton:</p> +<p>“I read <i>Nêne</i> with great interest, especially because +of its relation to <i>Maria Chapdelaine</i>. It +seems to me the two books came out most happily +together. <i>Maria Chapdelaine</i> gives us the French +peasant in the new world, touched with the +pioneer spirit, and though close to the soil in constant +battle with nature, somehow always master +of his fate. <i>Nêne</i> gives us this same racial stock, +again close to the soil, but an old-world soil its +fathers worked, and the peasant here seems ringed +around with those old ghosts, their prejudices and +their passions. I have seldom read any book +which seemed to me so unerringly to capture the +enveloping atmosphere of place and tradition, as +it conditions the lives of people, and yet to do it +so (apparently) artlessly. This struck me so +forcibly that it was not till later I began to realise +with a sigh—if one himself is a writer, a sigh of +envy—that <i>Nêne</i> has a directness, a simplicity, +a principle of internal growth or dramatic life +of its own, which, alas! most of us are incapable +of attaining.”</p> +<p>The author of <i>Carnival</i>, <i>Sinister Street</i>, +<i>Plasher’s Mead</i>; of those highly comedic novels, +<i>Poor Relations</i> and <i>Rich Relatives</i>; of other and +still more diverse fiction, Compton Mackenzie, +has turned to a new task. His fine novel, <i>The +Altar Steps</i>, concerns itself with a young priest +of the Church of England. We live in the England +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_266' name='page_266'></a>266</span> +of Lytton Strachey’s <i>Queen Victoria</i>—the +England of 1880 to the close of the Boer War—as +we follow Mark Lidderdale from boyhood +to his ordination. <i>The Altar Steps</i>, it is known +will be followed by a novel probably to be called +<i>The Parson’s Progress</i>. Evidently Mr. Mackenzie +is bent upon a fictional study of the whole +problem of the Church of England in relation to +our times, and particularly the position of the +Catholic party in the Church.</p> +<p>“Simon Pure,” who writes the monthly letter +from London appearing in The Bookman (and +whose identity is a well-known secret!) thus describes, +in The Bookman for September, 1922, a +visit to Mr. Mackenzie:</p> +<p>“I have recently seen the author of <i>The Altar +Steps</i> upon his native heath.<i> The Altar Steps</i> is +the latest work of Compton Mackenzie, and it has +done something to rehabilitate him with the +critics. The press has been less fiercely adverse +than usual to the author. He is supposed to have +come back to the fold of the ‘serious’ writers, and +so the fatted calf has been slain for him. We +shall see. My own impression is that Mackenzie +is a humorous writer, and that the wiseacres who +want the novel to be ‘serious’ are barking up the +wrong tree. At any rate, there the book is, and +it is admitted to be a good book by all who have +been condemning Mackenzie as a trifler; and +Mackenzie is going on with his sequel to it in the +pleasant land of Italy. I did not see him in Italy, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_267' name='page_267'></a>267</span> +but in Herm, one of the minor Channel Islands. +It took me a night to reach the place—a night of +fog and fog-signals—a night of mystery, with the +moon full and the water shrouded—and morning +found the fog abruptly lifted, and the islands before +our eyes. They glittered under a brilliant +sun. There came hurried disembarking, a transference +(for me, and after breakfast) to a small +boat called, by the owner’s pleasantry, ‘Watch +Me’ (Compton Mackenzie), and then a fine sail +(per motor) to Herm. I said to the skipper that +I supposed there must be many dangerous submerged +rocks. ‘My dear fellow!’ exclaimed the +skipper, driven to familiarity by my naïveté. And +with that we reached the island. Upon the end +of a pier stood a tall figure, solitary. ‘My host!’ +thought I. Not so. Merely an advance guard: +his engineer. We greeted—my reception being +that of some foreign potentate—and I was led up +a fine winding road that made me think of Samoa +and Vailima and all the beauties of the South +Seas. Upon the road came another figure—this +time a young man who made a friend of me at a +glance. He now took me in hand. Together we +made the rest of the journey along this beautiful +road, and to the cottage of residence. I entered. +There was a scramble. At last I met my host, +who leapt from bed to welcome me!</p> +<p>“From that moment my holiday was delightful. +The island is really magnificent. Short of +a stream, it has everything one could wish for in +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_268' name='page_268'></a>268</span> +such a place. It has cliffs, a wood, a common +fields under cultivation, fields used as pasture, +caves, shell beaches, several empty cottages. Its +bird life is wealthy in cuckoos and other magic-bringers; +its flowers have extraordinary interest; +dogs and cattle and horses give domestic life, and +a boat or two may be used for excursions to +Jethou, a smaller island near by. And Mackenzie +has this ideal place to live in for as much +of the year as he likes. None may gather there +without his permission. He is the lord of the +manor, and his boundaries are the sea and the sky. +We walked about the islands, and saw their +beauties, accompanied by a big dog—a Great +Dane—which coursed rabbits and lay like a dead +fish in the bottom of a small boat. And as each +marvel of the little paradise presented itself, I +became more and more filled with that wicked +thing, envy. But I believe envy does not make +much progress when the owner of the desired object +so evidently appreciates it with more gusto +even than the envious one. Reason is against +envy in such a case. To have said, ‘He doesn’t +appreciate it’ would have been a lie so manifest +that it did not even occur to me. He does. That +is the secret of Mackenzie’s personal ability to +charm. He is filled with vitality, but he is also +filled with the power to take extreme delight in +the delight of others and to better it. Moreover, +he gives one the impression of understanding +islands. Herm has been in his possession for +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_269' name='page_269'></a>269</span> +something more than a year, and he has lived +there continuously all that time (except for two or +three visits to London, of short duration). It has +been in all his thoughts. He has seen it as a +whole. He knows it from end to end, its rocks, +its birds, its trees and flowers and paths. What +wonder that his health is magnificent, his spirits +high! What wonder the critics have seen fit to +praise <i>The Altar Steps</i> as they have not praised +anything of Mackenzie’s for years? If they had +seen Herm, they could have done nothing at all +but praise without reserve.”</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='XVII_THE_HETEROGENEOUS_MAGIC_OF_MAUGHAM' id='XVII_THE_HETEROGENEOUS_MAGIC_OF_MAUGHAM'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_270' name='page_270'></a>270</span> +<h2><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Chapter XVII</span></h2> +<h3>THE HETEROGENEOUS MAGIC OF MAUGHAM</h3> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>i</p> +</div> + +<p>Now, I don’t know where to begin. Probably +I shall not know where to leave off, +either. That is my usual misfortune, to write a +chapter at both ends. It is a fatal thing, like the +doubly-consuming candle. Perhaps I might start +with the sapience of Hector MacQuarrie, author +of <i>Tahiti Days</i>. I am tempted to, because so +many people think of W. Somerset Maugham as +the author of <i>The Moon and Sixpence</i>. The day +will come, however, when people will think of +him as the man who wrote <i>Of Human Bondage</i>.</p> +<p>This novel does not need praise. All it needs, +like the grand work it is, is attention; and that +it increasingly gets.</p> +<div class='figcenter'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_271' name='page_271'></a>271</span> +<a name='linki_8' id='linki_8'></a> +<img src='images/winter09.jpg' alt='' title='' style='width: 297px; height: 437px;' /><br /> +<p class='caption' style='margin: 0 auto; text-align:center;width: 297px;'> +W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM<br /> +</p> +</div> + +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_273' name='page_273'></a>273</span></div> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p>Theodore Dreiser reviewed <i>Of Human Bondage</i> +for the New Republic. I reprint part of +what he said:</p> +<p>“Sometimes in retrospect of a great book the +mind falters, confused by the multitude and yet +the harmony of the detail, the strangeness of the +frettings, the brooding, musing intelligence that +has foreseen, loved, created, elaborated, perfected, +until, in the middle ground which we call life, +somewhere between nothing and nothing, hangs +the perfect thing which we love and cannot understand, +but which we are compelled to confess +a work of art. It is at once something and nothing, +a dream of happy memory, a song, a benediction. +In viewing it one finds nothing to criticise +or to regret. The thing sings, it has colour. +It has rapture. You wonder at the loving, patient +care which has evolved it.</p> +<p>“Here is a novel or biography or autobiography +or social transcript of the utmost importance. To +begin with, it is unmoral, as a novel of this kind +must necessarily be. The hero is born with a club +foot, and in consequence, and because of a temperament +delicately attuned to the miseries of life, +suffers all the pains, recessions, and involute self +tortures which only those who have striven handicapped +by what they have considered a blighting +defect can understand. He is a youth, therefore, +with an intense craving for sympathy and understanding. +He must have it. The thought of his +lack, and the part which his disability plays in it +soon becomes an obsession. He is tortured, +miserable.</p> +<p>“Curiously the story rises to no spired climax. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_274' name='page_274'></a>274</span> +To some it has apparently appealed as a drab, unrelieved +narrative. To me at least it is a gorgeous +weave, as interesting and valuable at the +beginning as at the end. There is material in its +three hundred thousand or more words for many +novels and indeed several philosophies, and even +a religion or stoic hope. There are a series of +women, of course—drab, pathetic, enticing as the +case may be,—who lead him through the mazes +of sentiment, sex, love, pity, passion; a wonderful +series of portraits and of incidents. There +are a series of men friends of a peculiarly inclusive +range of intellectuality and taste, who lead +him, or whom he leads, through all the intricacies +of art, philosophy, criticism, humour. +And lastly comes life itself, the great land and +sea of people, England, Germany, France, battering, +corroding, illuminating, a Goyaesque +world.</p> +<p>“Naturally I asked myself how such a book +would be received in America, in England. In +the latter country I was sure, with its traditions +and the Athenæum and the Saturday Review, it +would be adequately appreciated. Imagine my +surprise to find that the English reviews were almost +uniformly contemptuous and critical on +moral and social grounds. The hero was a weakling, +not for a moment to be tolerated by sound, +right-thinking men. On the other hand, in America +the reviewers for the most part have seen its +true merits and stated them. Need I say, however, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_275' name='page_275'></a>275</span> +that the New York World finds it ‘the sentimental +servitude of a poor fool,’ or that the Philadelphia +Press sees fit to dub it ‘futile Philip,’ or +that the Outlook feels that ‘the author might have +made his book true without making it so frequently +distasteful’; or that the Dial cries ‘a most +depressing impression of the futility of life’?</p> +<p>“Despite these dissonant voices it is still a book +of the utmost import, and has so been received. +Compact of the experiences, the dreams, the +hopes, the fears, the disillusionments, the ruptures, +and the philosophising of a strangely +starved soul, it is a beacon light by which the +wanderer may be guided. Nothing is left out; +the author writes as though it were a labour of +love. It bears the imprint of an eager, almost +consuming desire to say truly what is in his heart.</p> +<p>“Personally, I found myself aching with pain +when, yearning for sympathy, Philip begs the +wretched Mildred, never his mistress but on his +level, to no more than tolerate him. He finally +humiliates himself to the extent of exclaiming, +‘You don’t know what it means to be a cripple!’ +The pathos of it plumbs the depths. The death +of Fannie Price, of the sixteen-year-old mother +in the slum, of Cronshaw, and the rambling +agonies of old Ducroz and of Philip himself, are +perfect in their appeal.</p> +<p>“There are many other and all equally brilliant +pictures. No one short of a genius could rout the +philosophers from their lairs and label them as +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_276' name='page_276'></a>276</span> +individuals ‘tempering life with rules agreeable +to themselves’ or could follow Mildred Rogers, +waitress of the London A B C restaurant, through +all the shabby windings of her tawdry soul. No +other than a genius endowed with an immense +capacity for understanding and pity could have +sympathised with Fannie Price, with her futile +and self-destructive art dreams; or old Cronshaw, +the wastrel of poetry and philosophy; or Mons. +Ducroz, the worn-out revolutionary; or Thorne +Athelny, the caged grandee of Spain; or Leonard +Upjohn, airy master of the art of self-advancement; +or Dr. South, the vicar of Blackstable, and +his wife—these are masterpieces. They are marvellous +portraits; they are as smooth as a Vermeer, +as definite as a Hals; as brooding and moving as +a Rembrandt. The study of Carey himself, while +one sees him more as a medium through which +the others express themselves, still registers photographically +at times. He is by no means a brooding +voice but a definite, active, vigorous character.</p> +<p>“If the book can be said to have a fault it will +lie for some in its length, 300,000 words, or for +others in the peculiar reticence with which the +last love affair in the story is handled. Until the +coming of Sallie Athelny all has been described +with the utmost frankness. No situation, however +crude or embarrassing, has been shirked. In +the matter of the process by which he arrived at +the intimacy which resulted in her becoming pregnant +not a word is said. All at once, by a slight +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_277' name='page_277'></a>277</span> +frown which she subsequently explains, the truth +is forced upon you that there has been a series of +intimacies which have not been accounted for. +After Mildred Rogers and his relationship with +Norah Nesbit it strikes one as strange....</p> +<p>“One feels as though one were sitting before a +splendid Shiraz or Daghestan of priceless texture +and intricate weave, admiring, feeling, responding +sensually to its colours and tones. Mr. +Maugham ... has suffered for the joy of the +many who are to read after him. By no willing +of his own he has been compelled to take life by +the hand and go down where there has been little +save sorrow and degradation. The cup of gall +and wormwood has obviously been lifted to his +lips and to the last drop he has been compelled +to drink it. Because of this, we are enabled to +see the rug, woven of the tortures and delights +of a life. We may actually walk and talk with +one whose hands and feet have been pierced with +nails.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iii</p> +</div> + +<p>I turn, for a different example of the heterogeneous +magic of Maugham, including his ability +to create and sustain a mood in his readers, to +the words of Mr. MacQuarrie, who writes:</p> +<p>“It was Tahiti. With a profound trust in my +discretion, or perhaps an utter ignorance of the +homely fact that people have their feelings, a +London friend sent us a copy of <i>The Moon and</i> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_278' name='page_278'></a>278</span> +<i>Sixpence</i>. This friend, actually a beautiful, well +set up woman of the intelligent class in England +(which is more often than not the upper fringes +or spray of the <i>bourgeoisie</i>), wrote: ‘You will be +interested in this book, since quite the most charming +portion of it deals with your remote island of +Tahiti. I met the author last night at Lady +B——’s. I think the landlady at the end, Mrs. +Johnson, is a perfect darling.’</p> +<p>“Knowing Somerset Maugham as a dramatist, +the author of that kind of play which never bored +one, but rather sent one home suffused with pleasantness, +I opened the book with happy anticipation. +Therefore—and the title of the book, <i>The +Moon and Sixpence</i>, gave a jolly calming reaction—I +was surprised and frankly annoyed when +I found myself compelled to follow the fortunes +of a large red-headed man with mighty sex appeal, +who barged his way through female tears +to a final goal which seemed to be a spiritual +achievement, and a nasty death in a native <i>fare</i>. +I was alarmed; here was a man writing something +enormously strong, when I had been accustomed +to associate him with charming London nights—the +theatre, perfect acting, no middle class problems, +a dropping of one’s women folks at their +doors and a return to White’s and whiskey and a +soda. And furthermore, in this book of his, he +had picked up Lavina, the famous landlady of +the Tiare Hotel, the uncrowned queen of Tahiti, +and with a few strokes of his pen, had dissected +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_279' name='page_279'></a>279</span> +her, and exposed her to the world as she was. +Here I must quote:</p> +<p>“‘Tall and extremely stout, she would have +been an imposing presence if the great good nature +of her face had not made it impossible for her to +express anything but kindliness. Her arms were +like legs of mutton, her breasts like giant cabbages; +her face, broad and fleshy, gave you an +impression of almost indecent nakedness and vast +chin succeeded vast chin.’</p> +<p>“This may seem a small matter in a great +world. Tahiti is a small world, and this became +a great matter. I read the book twice, decided +that Somerset Maugham could no longer be regarded +as a pleasant liqueur, but rather as the +joint of a meal requiring steady digestion, and +suppressed <i>The Moon and Sixpence</i> on Tahiti. +The temptation to lend it to a kindred spirit was +almost unbearable, but the thought of Lavina +hearing of the above description of her person +frightened me and I resisted. For kindred souls, +on Tahiti as elsewhere, have their own kindred +souls, and slowly but surely the fact that a writer +had described her arms as legs of mutton (perfect!) +and her breasts as huge cabbages (even +better!) would have oozed its way to Lavina, +sending her to bed for six days, with gloom spread +over Tahiti and no cocktails.</p> +<p>“All of which is a trifle by the way. Yet in +writing of Somerset Maugham one must gaze +along all lines of vision. And it seemed to me +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_280' name='page_280'></a>280</span> +that Tahiti in general, and Papeete in particular +should supply a clear one; for here, certainly, in +the days when Maugham visited the island a man +could be mentally dead, spiritually naked and +physically unashamed. I therefore sought Lavina +one afternoon as she sat clothed as with a garment +by the small side verandah of the Tiare Hotel. +(Lavina was huge; the verandah was a small +verandah as verandahs go; there was just room +for me and a bottle of rum.)</p> +<p>“‘Lavina,’ I remarked; ‘many persons who +write come to Tahiti.’</p> +<p>“‘It is true,’ she admitted, ‘but not as the +heavy rain, rather as the few drops at the end.’</p> +<p>“‘Do you like them?’ I enquired.</p> +<p>“One makes that kind of remark on Tahiti. +The climate demands such, since the answer can +be almost anything, a meandering spreading-of-weight +kind of answer.</p> +<p>“‘These are good men,’ said Lavina steadily, +wandering off into the old and possibly untrue +story of a lady called Beatrice Grimshaw and her +dilemma on a schooner in mid-Pacific, when the +captain, a gentle ancient, thinking that the dark +women were having it all their own way, offered +to embrace Miss Grimshaw, finding in return a +gun pointing at his middle, filling him with +quaint surprise that anyone could possibly offer +violence in defence of a soul in so delightful a +climate.</p> +<p>“After which and a rum cocktail, I said: +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_281' name='page_281'></a>281</span> +‘Lavina, did you see much of M’sieur Somerset +Maugham when he was here?’</p> +<p>“‘It is the man who writes?’ she inquired +lazily.</p> +<p>“‘It is,’ I returned.</p> +<p>“‘It is the <i>beau garçon-ta-ta, neneenha roa?</i>’ +she suggested.</p> +<p>“‘Probably not,’ I said; ‘I suspect you are +thinking, as usual, of Rupert Brooke. M’sieur +Maugham may be regarded as <i>beau</i>, but he is not +an elderly waiter of forty-seven, therefore we may +not call him a <i>garçon</i>.’</p> +<p>“‘It is,’ Lavina admitted; ‘that I am thinking +of M’sieur Rupert, he is the <i>beau garçon</i>.’</p> +<p>“‘But,’ I said, ‘I want to know what you +thought of M’sieur Somerset Maugham?’</p> +<p>“Once started on Rupert Brooke, and Lavina +would go on for the afternoon!</p> +<p>“‘I respect M’sieur Morn,’ said Lavina.</p> +<p>“‘Oh!’ thought I; ‘if she respects him, then +I’m not going to get much.’</p> +<p>“‘His French is not mixed,’ she continued, referring +to Maugham’s Parisian accent; ‘I speak +much with him, and he listen, with but a small +question here, and one there. It is the pure +French from Paris, as M’sieur <i>le Governeur</i> speak, +who is the pig. But when he speak much, then +it is like the coral which breaks.’</p> +<p>“Lavina now wandered off permanently; it was +impossible to bring her back. Her image of the +brittle coral branches was a mild personality directed +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_282' name='page_282'></a>282</span> +at Maugham’s stutter, which seldom escapes +the most sophisticated observer. For those +who interview him always find well cut suitings, +clean collars and the stutter, and very little else +that they can lay hold of with any degree of +honesty. Which only goes to prove my own +opinion that Maugham, as an observer, refuses +to have his own vision clogged by prying eyes at +himself.</p> +<p>“I expect that if my French had been better, +I might have got some information about +Maugham in Tahiti from the bland and badly +built French officials who lurk in the official club +near the Pomare Palace. I was reduced, in my +rather casual investigation, to questioning natives +and schooner captains. Once I felt confident of +gaining a picture, I asked Titi of Taunoa. (Titi +is the lady who figures a trifle disgracefully in +Gauguin’s <i>Noanoa</i>, the woman he found boring +after a few weeks, her French blood being insufficiently +exotic to his spirit.)</p> +<p>“Said Titi: ‘M’sieur Morn? Yes, him I know; +he speak good French, and take the door down +from the <i>fare</i> on which is the picture done by +Gauguin of the lady whose legs are like thin +pillows and her arms like fat ropes, very what +you call strained, and funny.’</p> +<p>“After which her remarks centred around a +lover of her sister, who had just died at the age +of seventy, and Titi considered that the denouement +made by Manu, the sister, was uncalled for +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_283' name='page_283'></a>283</span> +at the death bed, since the true and faithful wife +stood there surrounded by nine children, all safely +born the right side of the sheet. She did mention +that the removal of the door from the <i>fare</i> caused +the wind to enter. And although I often made +inquiries, I never gained much information. +Tahiti, as a whole, seemed unaware of Maugham’s +visit.</p> +<p>“They may have adored him; but I suspect he +was a quiet joy, the kind native Tahiti soon forgets, +certainly not the kind of joy she embodies +in her national songs and <i>himines</i>. Such are the +merry drunkards, inefficient though earnest white +hulahula dancers and the plain (more than everyday) +sinners who cut up rough with wild jagged +edges and cruel tearings.</p> +<p>“His occasional appearance at the French club +would raise his status, removing any light touches +with his junketings, perhaps turning them into +dignified ceremonies. Which, for the Tahitian, +approaches the end. The Tahitian never quite +understands the white man who consorts with the +French officials, although many do. ‘For are not +these men of Farane,’ says the native, ‘like the +hen that talks without feathers?’—whatever that +may mean, but it suggests at once the talkative +Frenchman denuding himself on hot evenings, +and wearing but the native <i>pareu</i> to hide portions +of his bad figure.</p> +<p>“But although, in some ways, Maugham hid +himself from the natives and pleasant half-castes, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_284' name='page_284'></a>284</span> +he saw them all right, and clearly, since the closing +pages of the <i>The Moon and Sixpence</i> display +a magical picture of that portion of Tahiti he +found time to explore.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iv</p> +</div> + +<p>Mr. Maugham now offers us <i>On a Chinese +Screen</i>, sketches of Chinese life, and <i>East of Suez</i>, +his new play.</p> +<p>There are fifty-eight sketches in <i>On a Chinese +Screen</i>, portraits including European residents in +China as well as native types. Here is a sample +of the book, the little descriptive study with which +it closes, entitled “A Libation to the Gods”:</p> +<p>“She was an old woman, and her face was +wizened and deeply lined. In her grey hair three +long silver knives formed a fantastic headgear. +Her dress of faded blue consisted of a long jacket, +worn and patched, and a pair of trousers that +reached a little below her calves. Her feet were +bare, but on one ankle she wore a silver bangle. +It was plain that she was very poor. She was +not stout but squarely built and in her prime she +must have done without effort the heavy work in +which her life had been spent. She walked +leisurely, with the sedate tread of an elderly +woman, and she carried on her arm a basket. She +came down to the harbour; it was crowded with +painted junks; her eyes rested for a moment curiously +on a man who stood on a narrow bamboo +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_285' name='page_285'></a>285</span> +raft, fishing with cormorants; and then she set +about her business. She put down her basket on +the stones of the quay, at the water’s edge, and +took from it a red candle. This she lit and fixed +in a chink of the stones. Then she took several +joss-sticks, held each of them for a moment in +the flame of the candle and set them up around +it. She took three tiny bowls and filled them +with a liquid that she had brought with her in a +bottle and placed them neatly in a row. Then +from her basket she took rolls of paper cash and +paper ‘shoes’ and unravelled them, so that they +should burn easily. She made a little bonfire, +and when it was well alight she took the three +bowls and poured out some of their contents before +the smouldering joss-sticks. She bowed herself +three times and muttered certain words. She +stirred the burning paper so that the flames burned +brightly. Then she emptied the bowls on the +stones and again bowed three times. No one took +the smallest notice of her. She took a few more +paper cash from her basket and flung them in the +fire. Then, without further ado, she took up her +basket, and with the same leisurely, rather heavy +tread, walked away. The gods were duly propitiated, +and like an old peasant woman in +France, who has satisfactorily done her day’s +housekeeping, she went about her business.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_286' name='page_286'></a>286</span></p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>v</p> +</div> + +<p>W. Somerset Maugham was born in 1874, the +son of Robert Ormond Maugham. He married +Syrie, daughter of the late Dr. Barnardo. Mr. +Maugham has a daughter. His education was +got at King’s School, Canterbury, at Heidelberg +University and at St. Thomas’s Hospital, London.</p> +<p>Mr. Maugham’s father was a comparatively +prominent solicitor, responsible for the foundation +of the Incorporated Society of Solicitors in +England. Somerset Maugham, after studying +medicine at Heidelberg, went to St. Thomas’s, in +the section of London known as Lambeth. He +obtained his medical degree there. St. Thomas’s +just across the river from Westminster proved +his medical ruin, and his literary birth. The +hospital is situated on the border of the slum areas +of South London where much that is hopeless, +terrible, and wildly cheerful can be found. Persons +are not wanting who hold that the slums of +Battersea and Lambeth contain more misery and +poverty than Limehouse, Whitechapel and the +dark forest surrounding the Commercial Road +combined. To St. Thomas’s daily comes a procession +of battered derelicts, seeking attention +from the young men in white tunics who hope to +be doctors on their own account some day. To +St. Thomas’s came Eliza of Lambeth, came Liza’s +mother, came Jim and Tom. Here is the genesis +of Maugham’s first serious work, <i>Liza of Lambeth</i>. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_287' name='page_287'></a>287</span></p> +<p>It will be simpler and less confusing to deal +with Somerset Maugham in the first instance as a +maker of books rather than as a playwright. One +cannot help believing that, while not one of his +plays can be regarded as a pot boiler, they yet but +seldom display that fervent purpose found in his +books. Yet in his plays, one finds a greater attention +to conventional technique and “form” +than one finds in books like <i>Of Human Bondage</i> +and <i>The Moon and Sixpence</i>.</p> +<p>The first book launched by Somerset Maugham, +<i>Liza of Lambeth</i>, could hardly have been, considering +its slight dimensions, a clearer indication of +the line he was to follow. It came out at a time +when Gissing was still in favour, and the odour +of mean streets was accepted as synonymous with +literary honesty and courage. There is certainly +no lack of either about this idyll of Elizabeth +Kemp of the lissome limbs and auburn hair. The +story pursues its way, and one sees the soul of a +woman shining clearly through the racy dialect +and frolics of the Chingford beano, the rueful +futility of faithful Thomas and the engaging +callousness of Liza’s mother.</p> +<p>Somerset Maugham’s next study in female portraiture +showed how far he could travel towards +perfection. <i>Mrs. Craddock</i>, which is often called +his best book, is a sex satire punctuated by four +curtains, two of comedy and two of tragedy. This +mixture of opposites should have been enough to +damn it in the eyes of a public intent upon classifying +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_288' name='page_288'></a>288</span> +everything by means of labels and of +making everything so classified stick to its label +like grim death. Yet the unclassified may flourish, +and does, when its merit is beyond dispute. +<i>Mrs. Craddock</i> appeared fully a decade before its +time, when Victorian influences were still alive, +and the modern idea for well to do women to have +something to justify their existence was still in +the nature of a novelty. Even in the fuller light +of experience, Maugham could hardly have bettered +his study of an impulsive and exigent +woman, rising at the outset to the height of a bold +and womanly choice in defiance of social prejudice +and family tradition, and then relapsing under +the disillusions of marriage into the weakest failings +of her class, rising again, from a self-torturing +neurotic into a kind of Niobe at the death of +her baby.</p> +<p>The ironic key of the book is at its best, in the +passage half way through—</p> +<p>“Mr. Craddock’s principles, of course, were +quite right; he had given her plenty of run and +ignored her cackle, and now she had come home +to roost. There is nothing like a knowledge of +farming, and an acquaintance with the habits of +domestic animals, to teach a man how to manage +his wife.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>vi</p> +</div> + +<p>As a playwright Mr. Maugham is quite as well +known as he is for his novels. The author of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_289' name='page_289'></a>289</span> +<i>Lady Frederick</i>, <i>Mrs. Dot</i>, and <i>Caroline</i>—the +creator of Lord Porteous and Lady Kitty in <i>The +Circle</i>—writes his plays because it amuses him to +do so and because they supply him with an excellent +income. Here is a good story:</p> +<p>It seems that Maugham had peddled his first +play, <i>Lady Frederick</i>, to the offices of seventeen +well-known London managers, until it came to +rest in the Archives of the Court Theatre. The +Court Theatre, standing in Sloane Square near +the Tube station, is definitely outside the London +theatre area, but as the scene of productions by +the Stage Society, it is kept in the running. However, +it might conceivably be the last port of call +for a worn manuscript.</p> +<p>It so happened that Athole Stewart, the manager +of the Court Theatre, found himself needing +a play very badly during one season. The theatre +had to be kept open and there was nothing +to keep it open with. From a dingy pile of play +manuscripts he chose <i>Lady Frederick</i>. He had no +hopes of its success—or so it is said—but the +success materialised. At the anniversary of <i>Lady +Frederick</i> in London, Maugham thought of asking +to dinner the seventeen managers who rejected +the play, but realising that no man enjoyed +being reminded of a lost opportunity he decided +to forgo the pleasure.</p> +<p>The circumstances in which <i>Caroline</i> was written +give an interesting reflex on Maugham as an +artist. This delicious comedy was put on paper +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_290' name='page_290'></a>290</span> +while Maugham was acting as British agent in +Switzerland during the war. Some of its more +amusing lines were written in some haste while +a spy (of uncertain intentions toward Maugham) +stood outside in the snow.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>vii</p> +</div> + +<p>Someone, probably the gifted Hector MacQuarrie, +whom I fear I have guiltily been quoting +in almost every sentence of this chapter, has said +that Maugham writes “transcripts, not of life as +a tolerable whole, but of phases which suit his +arbitrary treatment.” It is an enlightening comment.</p> +<p>But Maugham himself is the keenest appraiser +of his own intentions in his work, as when he +spoke of the stories in his book, <i>The Trembling +of a Leaf</i>, as not short stories, but “a study of the +effect of the Islands of the Pacific on the white +man.”</p> +<p>The man never stays still. When you think +the time is ripe for him triumphally to tour America—when +<i>The Moon and Sixpence</i> has attracted +the widest attention—he insists on going immediately +to China. This may be because, though +well set up, black-eyed, broad-framed and excessively +handsome in evening clothes, he is rather +diffident. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_291' name='page_291'></a>291</span></p> +<hr class='minor' /> + +<div class='ce'> +<p><i>Books</i></p> +<p>by W. Somerset Maugham</p> +</div> + +<div class='la'> +<p style=' margin-top:1.5em;'><i>Novels</i>:</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>LIZA OF LAMBETH</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE MAKING OF A SAINT</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>ORIENTATIONS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE HERO</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>MRS. CRADDOCK</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE MERRY-GO-ROUND</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE LAND OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE BISHOP’S APRON</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE EXPLORER</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE MAGICIAN</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>OF HUMAN BONDAGE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE MOON AND SIXPENCE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>ON A CHINESE SCREEN</p> +<div style='margin-top:1em'></div> +<p>Plays:</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>SCHIFFBRÜCHIG</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>A MAN OF HONOUR</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>LADY FREDERICK</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>JACK STRAW</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>MRS. DOT</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE EXPLORER</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>PENELOPE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>SMITH</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE TENTH MAN</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>GRACE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>LOAVES AND FISHES</p> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_292' name='page_292'></a>292</span> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE LAND OF PROMISE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>CAROLINE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>LOVE IN A COTTAGE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>CAESAR’S WIFE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>HOME AND BEAUTY</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE UNKNOWN</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE CIRCLE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>EAST OF SUEZ</p> +</div> + +<hr class='minor' /> + +<div class='ce'> +<p><i>Sources</i></p> +<p style=' margin-bottom:1.5em;'>on W. Somerset Maugham</p> +</div> + +<div class='la'> +<p><i>Who’s Who</i> [In England].</p> +<div style='margin-top:1em'></div> +<p><i>Somerset Maugham in Tahiti:</i> Hitherto unpublished article by</p> +<p>Hector MacQuarrie.</p> +<div style='margin-top:1em'></div> +<p>THE BOOKMAN (London).</p> +<div style='margin-top:1em'></div> +<p>Private information.</p> +</div> + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='XVIII_BOOKS_WE_LIVE_BY' id='XVIII_BOOKS_WE_LIVE_BY'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_293' name='page_293'></a>293</span> +<h2><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Chapter XVIII</span></h2> +<h3>BOOKS WE LIVE BY</h3> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>i</p> +</div> + +<p><i>The Parallel New Testament</i> is by Dr. +James Moffatt, whose <i>New Translation +of the New Testament</i> has excited such wide admiration +and praise. <i>The Parallel New Testament</i> +presents the Authorised Version and Professor +Moffatt’s translation in parallel columns, +together with a brief introduction to the New +Testament.</p> +<p>I suppose there is no sense in my expending +adjectives in praise of Dr. Moffatt’s translation +of the New Testament. I could do so very easily. +But what I think would be more effective would +be to ask you to take a copy of the Authorised +Version and read in it some such passage as Luke, +24th chapter, 13th verse, to the close of the chapter +and then—and not before!—read the same +account from Dr. Moffatt’s <i>New Translation</i>, as +follows:</p> +<p>“That very day two of them were on their way +to a village called Emmaus about seven miles +from Jerusalem. They were conversing about all +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_294' name='page_294'></a>294</span> +these events, and during their conversation and +discussion Jesus himself approached and walked +beside them, though they were prevented from +recognising him. He said to them, ‘What is all +this you are debating on your walk?’ They +stopped, looking downcast, and one of them, +called Cleopas, answered him, ‘Are you a lone +stranger in Jerusalem, not to know what has been +happening there?’ ‘What is that?’ he said to +them. They replied, ‘All about Jesus of Nazaret! +To God and all the people he was a prophet strong +in action and utterance, but the high priests and +our rulers delivered him up to be sentenced to +death and crucified him. Our own hope was that +he would be the redeemer of Israel; but he is dead +and that is three days ago! Though some women +of our number gave us a surprise; they were at +the tomb early in the morning and could not find +his body, but they came to tell us they had +actually seen a vision of angels who declared he +was alive. Some of our company did go to the +tomb and found things exactly as the women had +said, but they did not see him.’ He said to them, +‘Oh, foolish men, with hearts so slow to believe, +after all the prophets have declared! Had not +the Christ to suffer thus and so enter his glory?’ +Then he began with Moses and all the prophets +and interpreted to them the passages referring to +himself throughout the scriptures. Now they approached +the village to which they were going. +He pretended to be going further on, but they +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_295' name='page_295'></a>295</span> +pressed him, saying ‘Stay with us, for it is getting +towards evening and the day has now declined.’ +So he went in to stay with them. And as he lay +at the table with them he took the loaf, blessed it, +broke it and handed it to them. Then their eyes +were opened and they recognised him, but he vanished +from their sight. And they said to one another, +‘Did not our hearts glow within us when +he was talking to us on the road, opening up the +scriptures for us?’ So they got up and returned +that very hour to Jerusalem, where they found +the eleven and their friends all gathered, who +told them that the Lord had really risen and that +he had appeared to Simon. Then they related +their own experience on the road and how they +had recognised him when he broke the loaf. Just +as they were speaking He stood among them [and +said to them, ‘Peace to you!’]. They were scared +and terrified, imagining it was a ghost they saw; +but he said to them, ‘Why are you upset? Why +do doubts invade your mind? Look at my hands +and feet. It is I! Feel me and see; a ghost has +not flesh and bones as you see I have.’ [With +these words he showed them his hands and feet.] +Even yet they could not believe it for sheer joy; +they were lost in wonder. So he said to them, +‘Have you any food here?’ And when they +handed him a piece of broiled fish, he took and +ate it in their presence. Then he said to them, +‘When I was still with you, this is what I told +you, that whatever is written about me in the law +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_296' name='page_296'></a>296</span> +of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be +fulfilled.’ Then he opened their minds to understand +the scriptures. ‘Thus,’ he said, ‘it is written +that the Christ has to suffer and rise from the +dead on the third day and that repentance and +the remission of sins must be preached in his name +to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. To +this you must bear testimony. And I will send +down on you what my Father has promised; wait +in the city till you are endued with power from +on high.’ He led them out as far as Bethany; +then, lifting his hands, he blessed them. And as +he blessed them, he parted from them [and was +carried up to heaven]. They [worshipped him +and] returned with great joy to Jerusalem, where +they spent all their time within the temple, blessing +God.”</p> +<p>I am particularly glad to say that Dr. Moffatt +is at work now on a <i>New Translation of the Old +Testament</i>. No man living is fitter for this tremendously +important and tremendously difficult +task than James Moffatt. Born in Glasgow in +1870, Dr. Moffatt has been Professor of Church +History there since 1915. Of his many published +studies in Bible literature, I now speak +only of <i>The Approach to the New Testament</i>, +which he modestly describes as “a brief statement +of the general situation created by historical criticism,” +aiming to “bring out the positive value of +the New Testament literature for the world of +today as a source of guidance in social reconstruction, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_297' name='page_297'></a>297</span> +so that readers might be enabled to recover +or retain a sense of its lasting significance for personal +faith and social ideals.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p>With Alfred Dwight Sheffield’s <i>Joining in +Public Discussion</i> was begun publication of a +unique collection of books suitable alike for general +reading and for use in trade union colleges. +This is the Workers’ Bookshelf Series. These +books, in many instances, are being written by +the chief authorities on their subjects—men who +have dealt exhaustively with their specialties in +two and three-volume treatises, and who now +bring their great knowledge to a sharp focus and +a simple, condensed statement in small but wholly +authoritative new books.</p> +<p>The work of preparing these little masterpieces +has been undertaken by an editorial board chosen +with the aid of the Workers’ Education Bureau +of America. The board consists of Charles A. +Beard, Miss Fannia Cohn, H. W. L. Dana, John +P. Frey, Arthur Gleason, Everitt Dean Martin, +Spencer Miller, Jr., George W. Perkins and +Robert Wolf.</p> +<p>Trade union colleges now exist all over the +United States, training armies of workers. The +lack of suitable texts for use in these colleges has +been a serious obstacle to the training they desire +to give. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_298' name='page_298'></a>298</span></p> +<p>This obstacle the Workers’ Bookshelf overcomes. +The books that compose it will each be +distinguished for (a) scholarship, (b) a scientific +attitude toward facts, and (c) simplicity of style.</p> +<p>Each volume is beginning as a class outline and +will receive the benefit of every suggestion, and +criticism through its gradual growth into the +written book.</p> +<p>Each book will be brief. Its references will +help the reader to more detailed sources of information.</p> +<p>By binding the books in paper as well as in +cloth, the volumes will be brought within the +reach of all.</p> +<p>The Workers’ Bookshelf will contain no volumes +on vocational guidance, nor any books which +give “short cuts” to moneymaking success.</p> +<p>The series will not be limited to any set number +of volumes nor to any programme of subjects. +Art, literature and the natural sciences, as well +as the social sciences, will be dealt with. New +titles will be added as the demand for treatment +of a topic becomes apparent.</p> +<p>The first use of these books will be as texts to +educate workers; the intermediate use of the +books will be as the nucleus of workingmen’s +libraries, collective and personal, and the last use +of the Workers’ Bookshelf will be to instruct and +delight all readers of serious books everywhere.</p> +<p>In our modern industrial society, knowledge—things +to know—increases much more rapidly than +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_299' name='page_299'></a>299</span> +our understanding. The worker finds it increasingly +difficult to comprehend the world he has +done most to create. The education of the worker +consists in showing him in a simple fashion the +interrelations of that world and all its aspects +as they are turned toward him. On the education +of the worker depends the future of industrialism, +and, indeed, of all human society.</p> +<p>The author of <i>Joining in Public Discussion</i> is +professor of rhetoric in Wellesley College and +instructor in the Boston Trade Union College. +His book “is a study of effective speechmaking, +for members of labour unions, conferences, forums +and other discussion groups.” The first section +is upon “Qualifying Oneself to Contribute” to +any discussion and the second section is upon +“Making the Discussion Group Co-operate.” A +brief introduction explains “What Discussion +Aims to Do.”</p> +<p>The following titles of the Workers’ Bookshelf +are in preparation:</p> +<p><i>Trade Union Policy</i>, by Dr. Leo Wolman, +lecturer at the New School for Social Research +and instructor in the Workers’ University of +the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ +Union.</p> +<p><i>Women and the Labor Movement</i>, by Alice +Henry, editor of Life and Labour, director of +the Training School for Women Workers in +Industry.</p> +<p><i>Labor and Health</i>, by Dr. Emery Hayhurst of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_300' name='page_300'></a>300</span> +Ohio State University, author of “Industrial +Health Hazards and Occupational Diseases.”</p> +<p><i>Social Forces in Literature</i>, by Dr. H. W. L. +Dana, formerly teacher of comparative literature +at Columbia, now instructor at Boston Trade +Union College.</p> +<p><i>The Creative Spirit in Industry</i>, by Robert B. +Wolf, vice-president of the American Society of +Mechanical Engineers, member of the Federated +American Engineering Society.</p> +<p><i>Cooperative Movement</i>, by Dr. James B. +Warbasse, president of the Cooperative League +of America and instructor at the Workers’ University.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iii</p> +</div> + +<p>Side by side in Esme Wingfield-Stratford’s +<i>Facing Reality</i> are chapters with these titles: +“Thinking in a Passion” and “Mental Inertia.” +Those chapter titles seem to me to signify the +chief dangers confronting the world today—perhaps +confronting the world in any day—and the +main reasons why we do not face reality as we +should. I regard <i>Facing Reality</i> as an important +book and I am not alone in so regarding it. What +do we mean by reality? The answer is explicit in +a sentence in Mr. Wingfield-Stratford’s introduction, +where he says:</p> +<p>“But if we are to get right with reality or, in +the time-honoured evangelical phrase, with God, +it must be by a ruthless determination to get the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_301' name='page_301'></a>301</span> +truth in religion, even if we have to break down +Church walls to attain it.”</p> +<p>Then the author proceeds to assess the social +and ethical conditions which threaten the world +with spiritual bankruptcy. As he says:</p> +<p>“Whether Germany can be fleeced of a yearly +contribution, of doubtful advantage to the receiver, +for forty years or sixty, what particular +economic laws decree that Poles should be governed +by Germans or vice-versa, whose honour or +profit demands the possession of the town of +Fiume or the district of Tetschen or the Island of +Yap, why all the horses and men of the Entente +are necessary to compel the Port of Dantzig to +become a free city, what particular delicacy of +national honour requires that the impartial distribution +of colonies should be interpreted as +meaning the appropriation of the whole of them +by the victors—all these things are held by universal +consent to be more urgent and interesting +than the desperate necessity that confronts us +all.”</p> +<p>And yet, for some, reality is not immanent in +the affairs of this world but only in those of the +next. Among the men who, with Sir Oliver +Lodge, have gone most deeply and earnestly into +the whole subject we call “spiritualism,” Sir +Arthur Conan Doyle is now the most widely +known as he has always been the most persuasive. +The overflowing crowds which came out to hear +him lecture on psychic evidences during his recent +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_302' name='page_302'></a>302</span> +tour of America testify to the unquenchable hope +of mankind in a life beyond ours. Sir Arthur +has written three books on this subject closest to +his heart. <i>The New Revelation</i> and <i>The Vital +Message</i> are both short books presenting the general +case for spiritualists; <i>The Wanderings of a +Spiritualist</i>, the result of a lecture tour in India +and Australia, commingles incidents of travel +with discussions of psychic phenomena. I believe +Sir Arthur has in preparation a more extensive +work, probably to be published under the title +<i>Spiritualism and Rationalism</i>.</p> +<p>In recent years there has been something like a +consensus honouring Havelock Ellis as the ablest +living authority on the subject of sex; or perhaps +I should say that Mr. Ellis and his wife are the +most competent writers on this difficult and delicate +subject, so beset by fraudulent theories and +so much written upon by charlatans. Let me +recommend to you Havelock Ellis’s slender book, +<i>Little Essays of Love and Virtue</i>, for a sane, attractive +and, at the same time, authoritative +handling of sex problems.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iv</p> +</div> + +<p><i>Little Essays of Love and Virtue</i>, however, is, +after all, only upon a special subject, even though +of extreme importance. There are others among +the books we live by which I must speak of here. +It is tiresome to point out that we are all +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_303' name='page_303'></a>303</span> +self-made men or women, consciously or unconsciously, +in the sense that if we gain control of our habits, +to a very large extent we acquire control of our +lives. If, in <i>Some Things That Matter</i> Lord +Riddell did no more than point out this old truth, +his book would not be worth mentioning. What +makes it so well worth mentioning, so much more +deserving of discussion than any I can enter upon +here, is the fact that Lord Riddell tells how to +observe, how to read, and how to think—or perhaps +I should say how to develop the habit of +thought. I think, so able are his instructions, so +pointed and so susceptible of carrying out by any +reader, that his book would carry due weight even +if it were anonymous. But for those who want +assurance that the author of <i>Some Things That +Matter</i> is himself somebody who matters, let me +point out that he is one of the largest newspaper +proprietors in the world, a man whose grasp on +affairs has twice placed him at the head of news +service for two continents—once at the Peace +Conference in Paris and afterward at the Disarmament +Conference in Washington.</p> +<p><i>Some Things That Matter</i> is the best book of +its kind since Arnold Bennett’s <i>How to Live on +Twenty-four Hours a Day</i>, a little book of trenchant +advice to which it is a pleasure again to call +attention. Of all Mr. Bennett’s pocket philosophies—<i>Self +and Self-Management</i>, <i>Friendship +and Happiness</i>, <i>The Human Machine</i>, <i>Mental +Efficiency</i> and <i>Married Life</i>—<i>How to Live on</i> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_304' name='page_304'></a>304</span> +<i>Twenty-four Hours a Day</i> is easily of the greatest +service to the greatest number of people.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>v</p> +</div> + +<p>I read Dr. George L. Perin’s <i>Self-Healing +Simplified</i> in manuscript and enthusiastically +recommended its acceptance for publication. Dr. +Perin was the founder of the Franklin Square +House for Girls in Boston, a home-hotel from +which 70,000 girls, most of whom Dr. Perin knew +personally, have gone forth all over these United +States. His death at the end of 1921 was felt +by thousands of people as a personal loss. He +left, in the manuscript of this book, the best and +simplest volume I know of on what is generally +called autosuggestion. And I have examined a +great many books of the sort.</p> +<p>Discarding all extreme claims, Dr. Perin says +in the first place that the mind can heal; that it +may not be able to heal alone; that obviously no +form of healing can be successful without a +favourable mental state; that the favourable +mental state can usually be acquired by the sincere +and conscious effort of the sufferer. This +effort should take the form of certain affirmations.</p> +<p>It is at this point that the ordinary book on +autosuggestion breaks down—so far as any practical +usefulness is concerned. Either it degenerates +into a purely technical treatise or it becomes +lost in a mysticism which is to the average +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_305' name='page_305'></a>305</span> +reader incomprehensible. What has long been +needed has been a book like <i>Self-Healing Simplified</i>, +readable by the ordinary person who has his +own troubles to contend with and who knows not +how to contend with them; who is willing to believe +that he can do his part by cheerful resolutions +and faith toward getting well, but who has +no idea what to do.</p> +<p>Dr. Perin tells him <i>what</i> to do, <i>what</i> to say, +<i>what</i> to think and how to order his daily life. +Actually Dr. Perin does much more than this; his +own confidence and personal success inspire confidence +and give the impulsion toward one’s own +personal success. However, excellent as the book +might be, it would be worthless if it were not +clearly and simply expressed. It is. I remember +no book of the kind so direct and so lucid.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>vi</p> +</div> + +<p>It is a pleasure to feel that his new book, <i>Poets +and Puritans</i>, introduces T. R. Glover to a wider +audience. The author of <i>The Pilgrim</i>, <i>Essays on +Religion</i>, <i>The Nature and Purpose of a Christian +Society</i>, <i>Jesus in the Experience of Man</i> and <i>The +Jesus of History</i> is a scholar and somewhat of a +recluse whom one finds after much groping about +dim halls at Cambridge. A highly individual +personality! It is this personality, though, that +makes the fascination of <i>Poets and Pilgrims</i>—a +volume of studies in which the subjects are +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_306' name='page_306'></a>306</span> +Spenser, Milton, Evelyn, Bunyan, Boswell, +Crabbe, Wordsworth and Carlyle. Mr. Glover +notes at the foot of the table of contents: “An +acute young critic, who saw some of the proofs, +has asked me, with a hint of irony, whether +Evelyn and Boswell were Puritans or Poets. Any +reader who has a conscience about the matter must +omit these essays.” There you have the flavour of +the man! It is expressed further in the short +preface of <i>Poets and Puritans</i>:—</p> +<p>“Wandering among books and enjoying them, +I find in a certain sense that, the more I enjoy +them, the harder becomes the task of criticism, +the less sure one’s faith in critical canons, and the +fewer the canons themselves. Of one thing, +though, I grow more and more sure—that the real +business of the critic is to find out what is right +with a great work of art—book, song, statue, or +picture—not what is wrong. Plenty of things +may be wrong, but it is what is right that really +counts. If the critic’s work is to be worth while, +it is the great element in the thing that he has to +seek and to find—to learn what it is that makes +it live and gives it its appeal, so that, as Montaigne +said about Plutarch, men ‘cannot do without’ +it; why it is that in a world, where everything +that can be ‘scrapped’ is ‘scrapped,’ is +thrown aside and forgotten, this thing, this book +or picture, refuses to be ignored, but captures and +charms men generations after its maker has passed +away. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_307' name='page_307'></a>307</span></p> +<p>“With such a quest a man must not be in a +hurry, and he does best to linger in company with +the great men whose work he wishes to understand, +and to postpone criticism to intimacy. This +book comes in the end to be a record of personal +acquaintances and of enjoyment. But one is +never done with knowing the greatest men or the +greatest works of art—they carry you on and on, +and at the last you feel you are only beginning. +That is my experience. I would not say that I +know these men, of whom I have written, thoroughly—a +man of sense would hardly say that, +but I can say that I have enjoyed my work, and +that, whatever other people may find it, to me it +has been a delight and an illumination.”</p> +<p>Another welcome book is E. V. Lucas’s <i>Giving +and Receiving</i>, a new volume of essays. Since +the appearance of <i>Roving East and Roving West</i>, +Mr. Lucas has been looking back at America from +London with its fogs and (yes!) its sunshine. The +audience for his new book will include not only +those readers he has had for such volumes in the +past but all those personal friends that he made +in a visit that took him from California to the +Battery.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='XIX_ROBERT_W_CHAMBERS_AND_THE_WHOLE_TRUTH' id='XIX_ROBERT_W_CHAMBERS_AND_THE_WHOLE_TRUTH'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_308' name='page_308'></a>308</span> +<h2><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Chapter XIX</span></h2> +<h3>ROBERT W. CHAMBERS AND THE WHOLE TRUTH</h3> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>i</p> +</div> + +<p>Once a man came to Robert W. Chambers +and said words to this effect:</p> +<p>“You had a great gift as a literary artist and +you spoiled it. For some reason or other, I don’t +know what, but I suppose there was more money +in the other thing, you wrote down to a big audience. +Don’t you think, yourself, that your earlier +work—those stories of Paris and those novels of +the American revolution—had something that you +have sacrificed in your novels of our modern +day?”</p> +<p>Mr. Chambers listened politely and attentively. +When the man had finished, Chambers said to +him words to this effect:</p> +<p>“You are mistaken. I have heard such talk. I +am not to blame if some people entertain a false +impression. I have sacrificed nothing, neither for +money nor popularity nor anything else.</p> +<p>“Sir, I am a story-teller. I have no other gift. +Those who imagine that they have seen in my +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_309' name='page_309'></a>309</span> +earlier work some quality of literary distinction +or some unrealised possibility as an artist missing +from my later work, are wrong.</p> +<p>“They have read into those stories their own +satisfaction in them and their first delight. I was +new, then. In their pleasure, such as it was, they +imagined the arrival of someone whom they styled +a great literary artist. They imagined it all; it +was not I.</p> +<p>“A story-teller I began, and a story-teller I remain. +I do pride myself on being a good story-teller; +if the verdict were overwhelmingly against +me as a good story-teller that would cast me down. +I have no reason to believe that the verdict is +against me.</p> +<p>“And that is the ground I myself have stood +upon. I am not responsible for the delusion of +those who put me on some other, unearthly pinnacle, +only to realise, as the years went by, that I +was not there at all. But they can find me now +where they first found me—where I rather suspect +they found me first with unalloyed delight.”</p> +<p>This does not pretend to be an actual transcription +of the conversation between Mr. Chambers +and his visitor. I asked Mr. Chambers recently +if he recalled this interview. He said at this date +he did not distinctly recollect it and he added:</p> +<p>“Probably I said what is true, that I write the +sort of stories which at the moment it amuses me +to write; I trust to luck that it may also amuse +the public. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_310' name='page_310'></a>310</span></p> +<p>“If a writer makes a hit with a story the public +wants him to continue that sort of story. It does +not like to follow the moods of a writer from gay +to frivolous, from serious to grave, but I have +always liked to change, to experiment—just as I +used to like to change my medium in painting, +aquarelle, oil, charcoal, wash, etc.</p> +<p>“Unless I had a good time writing I’d do something +else. I suit myself first of all in choice +of subject and treatment, and leave the rest to +the gods.”</p> +<p>As a human creature Chambers is strikingly +versatile. It must always be remembered that +he started life as a painter. There is a story that +Charles Dana Gibson and Robert W. Chambers +sent their first offerings to Life at the same time. +Mr. Chambers sent a picture and Mr. Gibson sent +a bit of writing. Mr. Gibson’s offering was accepted +and Robert W. Chambers received a +rejection slip.</p> +<p>Not only was he a painter but Chambers has +preserved his interest in art, and is a welcome +visitor in the offices of curators and directors of +museums because he is one of the few who can +talk intelligently about paintings.</p> +<p>He knows enough about Chinese and Japanese +antiques to enable him to detect forgeries. He +knows more about armour than anyone, perhaps, +except the man who made the marvellous collection +of mediæval armour for the Metropolitan +Museum of Art, New York. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_311' name='page_311'></a>311</span></p> +<p>One of his varieties of knowledge, observable +by any reader of his novels, is lepidoptery—the +science of butterflies. He collects butterflies with +exceeding ardour. But then, he is a good deal of +an outdoor man. He knows horses and books; +he has been known to hunt; he has been seen with +a fishing rod in his hand.</p> +<p>His knowledge of out-of-the-way places in different +parts of the world—Paris, Petrograd—is +not usual.</p> +<p>Will you believe me if I add that he is something +of an expert on rare rugs?</p> +<p>Of course, I am, to some extent, taking Rupert +Hughes’s word for these accomplishments; and +yet they are visible in the written work of Robert +W. Chambers where, as a rule, they appear without +extrusion.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p>And here is the newest Robert W. Chambers +novel, <i>Eris</i>. Mr. Chambers’s <i>The Flaming +Jewel</i>, a melodrama of the maddest character, +was published last spring. <i>Eris</i> is really a story +of the movie world, and reaches its most definite +conclusion, possibly, in a passage where the hero +says to Eris Odell:</p> +<p>“Whether they are financing a picture, directing +it, releasing it, exhibiting it, or acting in it, +these vermin are likely to do it to death. Your +profession is crawling with them. It needs delousing.”</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_312' name='page_312'></a>312</span></div> +<p>But I am not really anxious, in this chapter, to +discuss the justice or injustice of the view of +motion pictures thus forcibly presented. I have +read <i>Eris</i> with an interest sharpened by the fact +that its hero is a writer. I seem to see in what is +said about and by Barry Annan expressions of +Mr. Chambers’s own attitude of more than casual +importance.</p> +<p>Barry Annan is obsessed with the stupidity of +the American mass and more particularly with +the grossness (as he sees it) of New York City.</p> +<p>“Annan went on with his breakfast leisurely. +As he ate he read over his pencilled manuscript +and corrected it between bites of muffin and +bacon.</p> +<p>“It was laid out on the lines of those modern +short stories which had proven so popular and +which had lifted Barry Annan out of the uniform +ranks of the unidentified and given him an individual +and approving audience for whatever he +chose to offer them.</p> +<p>“Already there had been lively competition +among periodical publishers for the work of this +newcomer.</p> +<p>“His first volume of short stories was now in +preparation. Repetition had stencilled his name +and his photograph upon the public cerebrum. +Success had not yet enraged the less successful in +the literary puddle. The frogs chanted politely +in praise of their own comrade.</p> +<p>“The maiden, too, who sips the literary soup +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_313' name='page_313'></a>313</span> +that seeps through the pages of periodical publications, +was already requesting his autograph. +Clipping agencies began to pursue him; film companies +wasted his time with glittering offers that +never materialised. Annan was on the way to +premature fame and fortune. And to the aftermath +that follows for all who win too easily and +too soon.</p> +<p>“There is a King Stork for all puddles. His +law is the law of compensations. Dame Nature +executes it—alike on species that swarm and on +individuals that ripen too quickly.</p> +<p>“Annan wrote very fast. There was about +thirty-five hundred words in the story of Eris. +He finished it by half past ten.</p> +<p>“Re-reading it, he realised it had all the concentrated +brilliancy of an epigram. Whether or +not it would hold water did not bother him. The +story of Eris was Barry Annan at his easiest and +most persuasive. There was the characteristic +and ungodly skill in it, the subtle partnership with +a mindless public that seduces to mental speculation; +the reassuring caress as reward for intellectual +penetration; that inborn cleverness that +makes the reader see, applaud, or pity him or herself +in the sympathetic rôle of a plaything of +Chance and Fate.</p> +<p>“And always Barry Annan left the victim of +his tact and technique agreeably trapped, suffering +gratefully, excited by self-approval to the +verge of sentimental tears. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_314' name='page_314'></a>314</span></p> +<p>“‘That’ll make ’em ruffle their plumage and +gulp down a sob or two,’ he reflected, his tongue +in his cheek, a little intoxicated, as usual, by his +own infernal facility.</p> +<p>“He lit a cigarette, shuffled his manuscript, +numbered the pages, and stuffed them into his +pocket. The damned thing was done.”</p> +<p>And again:—</p> +<p>“Considering her, now, a half-smile touching +his lips, it occurred to him that here, in her, he +saw his audience in the flesh. This was what his +written words did to his readers. His skill held +their attention; his persuasive technique, unsuspected, +led them where he guided. His cleverness +meddled with their intellectual emotions. The +more primitive felt it physically, too.</p> +<p>“When he dismissed them at the bottom of the +last page they went away about their myriad +vocations. But his brand was on their hearts. +They were his, these countless listeners whom he +had never seen—never would see.</p> +<p>“He checked his agreeable revery. This +wouldn’t do. He was becoming smug. Reaction +brought the inevitable note of alarm. Suppose +his audience tired of him. Suppose he lost them. +Chastened, he realised what his audience meant +to him—these thousands of unknown people +whose minds he titivated, whose reason he juggled +with and whose heart-strings he yanked, his +tongue in his cheek.”</p> +<p>And this further on:— +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_315' name='page_315'></a>315</span></p> +<p>“He went into his room but did not light the +lamp. For a long while he sat by the open window +looking out into the darkness of Governor’s +Place.</p> +<p>“It probably was nothing he saw out there +that brought to his lips a slight recurrent smile.</p> +<p>“The bad habit of working late at night was +growing on this young man. It is a picturesque +habit, and one of the most imbecile, because sound +work is done only with a normal mind.</p> +<p>“He made himself some coffee. A rush of +genius to the head followed stimulation. He had +a grand time, revelling with pen and pad and +littering the floor with inked sheets unnumbered +and still wet. His was a messy genius. His plot-logic +held by the grace of God and a hair-line. +Even the Leaning Tower of Pisa can be plumbed; +and the lead dangled inside Achilles’s tendon +when one held the string to the medulla of +Annan’s stories.”</p> +<p>Our young man is undergoing a variety of interesting +changes:</p> +<p>“Partly experimental, partly sympathetically +responsive, always tenderly curious, this young +man drifted gratefully through the inevitable +episodes to which all young men are heir.</p> +<p>“And something in him always transmuted into +ultimate friendship the sentimental chaos, where +comedy and tragedy clashed at the crisis.</p> +<p>“The result was professional knowledge. +Which, however, he had employed rather ruthlessly +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_316' name='page_316'></a>316</span> +in his work. For he resolutely cut out all +that had been agreeable to the generations which +had thriven on the various phases of virtue and +its rewards. Beauty he replaced with ugliness; +dreary squalor was the setting for crippled body +and deformed mind. The heavy twilight of +Scandinavian insanity touched his pages where +sombre shapes born out of Jewish Russia moved +like anachronisms through the unpolluted sunshine +of the New World.</p> +<p>“His were essays on the enormous meanness +of mankind—meaner conditions, mean minds, +mean aspirations, and a little mean horizon to +encompass all.</p> +<p>“Out of his theme, patiently, deftly, ingeniously +he extracted every atom of that beauty, +sanity, inspired imagination which <i>makes</i> the imperfect +more perfect, creates <i>better</i> than the materials +permit, <i>forces</i> real life actually to assume +and <i>be</i> what the passionate desire for sanity and +beauty demands.”</p> +<p>There comes a time when Eris Odell says to +Barry Annan:—</p> +<p>“‘I could neither understand nor play such a +character as the woman in your last book.... +Nor could I ever believe in her.... Nor in the +ugliness of her world—the world you write about, +nor in the dreary, hopeless, malformed, starving +minds you analyse.... My God, Mr. Annan—are +there no wholesome brains in the world you +write about?’” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_317' name='page_317'></a>317</span></p> +<p>I think these citations interesting. I do not feel +especially competent to produce from them inferences +regarding Mr. Chambers’s own attitude +toward his work.</p> +<p><i>Eris</i> will be published early in 1923, following +Mr. Chambers’s <i>The Talkers</i>.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iii</p> +</div> + +<p>Mr. Chambers was born in Brooklyn, May 26, +1865, the son of William Chambers and Carolyn +(Boughton) Chambers. Walter Boughton Chambers, +the architect, is his brother. Robert William +Chambers was a student in the Julien Academy in +Paris from 1886 to 1893. He married, on July +12, 1898, Elsa Vaughn Moler. He first exhibited +in the Paris Salon in 1889; he was an illustrator +for Life, Truth, Vogue and other magazines. His +first book, <i>In the Quarter</i>, was published in 1893; +and when, in the same year, a collection of stories +of Paris called <i>The King in Yellow</i> made its appearance, +Robert W. Chambers became a name +of literary importance.</p> +<p>Curiously enough, among the things persistently +remembered about Mr. Chambers to this day +is a particular poem in a book of rollicking verse +called <i>With the Band</i>, which he published in +1895. This cherished—by very many people +scattered here and there—poem had to do with +Irishmen parading. One stanza will identify it. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_318' name='page_318'></a>318</span></p> +<table summary='poetry' style='margin:0 auto'><tr><td> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>“Ses Corporal Madden to Private McFadden:</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 3.67917586460633em;'>’Bedad yer a bad ’un!</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 3.67917586460633em;'>Now turn out yer toes!</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 3.67917586460633em;'>Yer belt is unhookit,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 3.67917586460633em;'>Yer cap is on crookit,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 3.67917586460633em;'>Yer may not be drunk,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 3.67917586460633em;'>But, be jabers, ye look it!</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 5.15084621044886em;'>Wan-two!</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 5.15084621044886em;'>Wan-two!</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Ye monkey-faced divil, I’ll jolly ye through!</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 5.15084621044886em;'>Wan-two!</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 5.15084621044886em;'>Time! Mark!</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Ye march like the aigle in Cintheral Park!’”</p> +</td></tr></table> + +<p>In the course of writing many books, Chambers +has been responsible for one or two shows. He +wrote for Ada Rehan, <i>The Witch of Ellangowan</i>, +a drama produced at Daly’s Theatre. +His <i>Iole</i> was the basis of a delightful musical +comedy produced in New York in 1913. He is +a member of the National Institute of Arts and +Letters.</p> +<hr class='minor' /> + +<div class='ce'> +<p><i>Books</i></p> +<p>by Robert W. Chambers</p> +</div> + +<div class='la'> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>IN THE QUARTER</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE KING IN YELLOW</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE RED REPUBLIC</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE KING AND A FEW DUKES</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE MAKER OF MOONS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>WITH THE BAND</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE MYSTERY OF CHOICE</p> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_319' name='page_319'></a>319</span> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>LORRAINE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>ASHES OF EMPIRE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE HAUNTS OF MEN</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE CAMBRIC MASK</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>OUTSIDERS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE CONSPIRATORS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>CARDIGAN</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE MAID-AT-ARMS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>OUTDOOR-LAND</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE MAIDS OF PARADISE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>ORCHARD-LAND</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>FOREST LAND</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>IOLE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE FIGHTING CHANCE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>MOUNTAIN LAND</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE TREE OF HEAVEN</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE FIRING LINE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>SOME LADIES IN HASTE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE DANGER MARK</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE SPECIAL MESSENGER</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>HIDE AND SEEK IN FORESTLAND</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE GREEN MOUSE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>AILSA PAIGE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>BLUE-BIRD WEATHER</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>JAPONETTE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE STREETS OF ASCALON</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>ADVENTURES OF A MODEST MAN</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE BUSINESS OF LIFE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE COMMON LAW</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE GAY REBELLION</p> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_320' name='page_320'></a>320</span> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>WHO GOES THERE?</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE HIDDEN CHILDREN</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>ATHALIE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>POLICE!!!</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE GIRL PHILIPPA</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE BARBARIANS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE RESTLESS SEX</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE MOONLIT WAY</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>IN SECRET</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE CRIMSON TIDE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE SLAYER OF SOULS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE LITTLE RED FOOT</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE FLAMING JEWEL</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE TALKERS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>ERIS</p> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p><i>Sources</i></p> +<p style=' margin-bottom:1.5em;'>on Robert W. Chambers</p> +</div> + +<p><i>Hugh Walpole: An Appreciation</i>, by Joseph +Hergesheimer, <span style='font-variant: small-caps'>GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY</span>.</p> +<p><i>English Literature During the Last Half Century</i>, +by J. W. Cunliffe, <span style='font-variant: small-caps'>THE MACMILLAN COMPANY</span>.</p> +<p><i>A Hugh Walpole Anthology</i>, selected by the author. +<span style='font-variant: small-caps'>LONDON</span>: <span style='font-variant: small-caps'>J. M. DENT & SONS</span>. <span style='font-variant: small-caps'>NEW YORK</span>: +<span style='font-variant: small-caps'>E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY</span>.</p> +<p><i>Hugh Walpole, Master Novelist</i>. Pamphlet published +by <span style='font-variant: small-caps'>GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY</span>. (Out +of print.)</p> +<p><i>Who’s Who</i> [In England].</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='XX_UNIQUITIES' id='XX_UNIQUITIES'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_321' name='page_321'></a>321</span> +<h2><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Chapter XX</span></h2> +<h3>UNIQUITIES</h3> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>i</p> +</div> + +<p>Each of these five is a book which, either from +its subject, its authorship, or its handling, +is <i>sui generis</i>. I call such books “uniquities”; it +sounds a little less trite than saying they are +unique. I think I will let someone else speak +of these books. I will look to see, and will let +you see, what others have said about my +uniquities.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p>First we have <i>Our Navy at War</i> by Josephus +Daniels. W. B. M’Cormick, formerly of the editorial +staff of the Army and Navy Journal, reviewing +this book for the New York Herald +(28 May 1922) said:</p> +<p>“Josephus Daniels always was an optimist +about navy affairs while he was Secretary of the +Navy from 1913 to 1921, and now that he has +told what the navy did during the world war he +demonstrates in his narrative that he is a good +sport. For in spite of the many and bitter attacks +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_322' name='page_322'></a>322</span> +that were made on him in that troubled time he +does not make a single reference to any of them, +nor does he wreak any such revenge as he might +have done through this medium. In this respect +it may be said that truly does he live up to the +description of his character set down in the pages +of Rear Admiral Bradley A. Fiske’s autobiography, +namely, that ‘Secretary Daniels impressed +me as being a Christian gentleman.’</p> +<p>“In its general outlines and in many of its details +there is little in Mr. Daniels’s story that has +not been told before in volumes devoted to single +phases of the United States Navy’s war operations. +For example, his chapter on the extraordinary +task of laying the great mine fields, known +as the North Sea barrage, from Norway to the +Orkneys, is much more fully described in the account +written by Captain Reginald R. Belknap; +the story of ‘Sending Sims to Europe’ is also more +extensively presented in that officer’s book, <i>The +Victory at Sea</i>, and the same qualification can be +applied to the chapter on the fighting of the marines +in Belleau Wood and elsewhere, and the +work of our destroyers and submarines in European +waters.</p> +<p>“But Mr. Daniels’s history has one great merit +that these other books lack. This is that it tells +in its 374 pages the complete story of the work of +the navy in the world war, giving so many details +and so much precise information about officers and +their commands, ships of all classes and just what +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_323' name='page_323'></a>323</span> +they did, the valuable contributions made to the +winning of the war by civilians, that it makes a +special place for itself, a very special place, in any +library or shelf devoted to war books.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iii</p> +</div> + +<p>Leslie Haden Guest, a surgeon of wide experience +and secretary of the British Labour Delegation +to Soviet Russia, is the author of <i>The Struggle +for Power in Europe (1917-21)</i>, “an outline +economic and political survey of the Central +States and Russia,” of which E. J. C. said in the +Boston Evening Transcript (4 March 1922):</p> +<p>“The author writes from personal observation +in Russia and discloses much of the life of the day +in that country which heretofore has remained undisclosed +to the world. He has met and interviewed +Lenine and Trotsky themselves, shows us +the individuality of these great Bolshevist leaders +and tells us much of the life of the people and +of the social conditions and tendencies in that +distressful country.</p> +<p>“Next he crosses to Poland, another undiscovered +country, and shows us the new Poland, its +aims and its struggles to emerge from a state almost +of anarchy into one of a rational democracy. +Very little do we of this country know of +the new nation of Tcheko-Slovakia, but Dr. +Guest has travelled through it also and shows us +the two sections, one cultured, the other more +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_324' name='page_324'></a>324</span> +backward, but both working together to form a +modern democratic nation.</p> +<p>“The distressful condition of Austria and the +Austrians now suffering for the sins of the Hapsburgs, +is next shown forth. Vienna, once the +capital of a vast empire and the seat of a great +imperial court, was suddenly reduced to the level +of the capital of a small agricultural, inland state, +a condition productive of great suffering. The +conditions here are shown to differ much from +those in other countries, for the dismemberment +of Austria was not brought about by the act of +the Allies, but of their own people. The causes +of the suffering are fully explained, as are also +the causes of similar conditions in Hungary, in +Roumania, in Bulgaria and in other countries affected +by the economic and political upheavals +following the war. That democracy in Europe +will finally triumph Dr. Guest feels certain and +he gives lucid reasons for the faith that is in him. +He gives a broadly intelligent analysis of the +entire situation and finds that the essential conditions +of success of a democracy are peace, education +and adequate nutrition. But he shows that +a great problem exists which must be worked out; +and he shows how it must be worked out. Dr. +Guest is not alone a thinker, but an observer; not +a theorist, but a man of practical understanding, +who has studied a problem at first hand and shows +it forth simply but comprehensively and with an +eye single to the needs of humanity.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_325' name='page_325'></a>325</span></p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iv</p> +</div> + +<p>Of <i>Herman Melville: Mariner and Mystic</i>, by +Raymond M. Weaver, Carl Van Vechten, writing +in the Literary Review of the New York +Evening Post (31 December 1921), said:</p> +<p>“No biography of Melville, no important personal +memorandum of the man, was published +during his lifetime. It is only now, thirty years +after his death and one hundred and two years +after his birth, that Raymond M. Weaver’s +<i>Herman Melville: Mariner and Mystic</i> has appeared.</p> +<p>“Under the circumstances, Mr. Weaver may be +said to have done his work well. The weakness +of the book is due to the conditions controlling its +creation. Personal records in any great number +do not exist. There are, to be sure, Melville’s +letters to Hawthorne, published by Julian Hawthorne, +in his <i>Nathaniel Hawthorne and His +Wife</i>. There are a few references to Melville in +the diary of Mrs. Hawthorne and in her letters to +her mother. There remain the short account +given by J. E. A. Smith, a man with no kind of +mental approach to his hero, a few casual memories +of Richard Henry Stoddard, whose further +testimony would have been invaluable had he +been inclined to be more loquacious, and a few +more by Dr. Titus Munson Coan and Arthur Stedman; +but both these men, perhaps the nearest +to Melville in his later years, were agreed that he +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_326' name='page_326'></a>326</span> +ceased to be an artist when he deserted the prescribed +field of <i>Typee</i> and <i>Omoo</i>, and they harassed +his last days in their efforts to make him +perceive this, much as if an admirer of Verdi’s +early manner had attempted to persuade the composer +that work on ‘Aida’ and ‘Otello’ was a waste +of time that might much better be occupied in +creating another ‘Trovatore.’ In desperation, +Melville refused to be lured into conversation +about the South Seas, and whenever the subject +was broached he took refuge in quoting Plato. +No very competent witnesses, therefore, these. +Aside from these sources, long open to an investigator, +Mr. Weaver has had the assistance of Mr. +Melville’s granddaughter, who was not quite ten +years old when Melville died, but who has in her +possession Mrs. Melville’s commonplace book, +Melville’s diary of two European excursions, and +a few letters.</p> +<p>“Generally, however, especially for the most +important periods and the most thrilling events in +Melville’s life, Mr. Weaver has been compelled +to depend upon the books the man wrote.</p> +<p>“The book, on the whole, is worthy of its subject. +It is written with warmth, subtlety, and +considerable humour. Smiles and thoughts lie hidden +within many of its pregnant lines. One of +the biographer’s very strangest suggestions is +never made concrete at all, so far as I can discern. +The figure of the literary discoverer of the South +Seas emerges perhaps a bit vaguely, his head in +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_327' name='page_327'></a>327</span> +the clouds, but there is no reason to believe that +Melville’s head was anywhere else when he was +alive. Hawthorne is at last described pretty accurately +and not too flatteringly. <i>The Scarlet +Letter</i> was published in 1850; <i>Moby Dick</i> in +1851. It is one of the eternal ironies that the one +should be world-famous while the other is still +struggling for even national recognition. There +are long passages, well-studied and well-written, +dealing with the whaling industry and the early +missionaries, which will be extremely helpful to +any one who wants a bibliographical background +for the ocean and South Sea books. Melville’s +London notebook is published for the first time +and there is a nearly complete reprint of his first +known published paper ‘Fragments From a Writing +Desk,’ which appeared in two numbers of +The Democratic Press and Lansingburgh Advertiser +in 1839 (not 1849, as the bibliography erroneously +gives it). Mr. Weaver is probably +right in ascribing Melville’s retirement from literature +to poverty (it was a fortunate year that +brought him as much as $100 in royalties and his +account at Harper’s was usually overdrawn), to +complete disillusionment, which made it impossible +for him to say more than he had already +said, even on the subject of disillusionment, and +to ill-health.</p> +<p>“It is a pleasure, moreover, to find that Mr. +Weaver has a warm appreciation of <i>Mardi</i> and +<i>Pierre</i>, books which have either been neglected or +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_328' name='page_328'></a>328</span> +fiercely condemned since they first appeared, books +which are no longer available save in early editions. +They are not equal to <i>Moby Dick</i>, but they +are infinitely more important and more interesting +than <i>Typee</i> and <i>Omoo</i>, on which the chief fame +of the man rests. It is to his credit that Mr. +Weaver has perceived this, but a great deal more +remains to be said on the subject. <i>Mardi</i>, <i>Moby +Dick</i>, and <i>Pierre</i>, as a matter of fact, form a kind +of tragic trinity: <i>Mardi</i> is a tragedy of the intellect; +<i>Moby Dick</i> a tragedy of the spirit, and +<i>Pierre</i> a tragedy of the flesh. <i>Mardi</i> is a tragedy +of heaven, <i>Moby Dick</i> a tragedy of hell, and +<i>Pierre</i> a tragedy of the world we live in.</p> +<p>“Considering the difficulties in his path, it may +be said that Mr. Weaver has solved his problem +successfully. The faults of the book, to a large +extent, as I have already pointed out, are not the +faults of the author, but the faults of conditions +circumscribing his work. At any rate, it can no +longer be said that no biography exists of the +most brilliant figure in the history of our letters, +the author of a book which far surpasses every +other work created by an American from <i>The Scarlet +Letter</i> to <i>The Golden Bowl</i>. For <i>Moby Dick</i> +stands with the great classics of all times, with +the tragedies of the Greeks, with <i>Don Quixote</i>, +with <i>Dante’s Inferno</i> and with Shakespeare’s +<i>Hamlet</i>.”</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_329' name='page_329'></a>329</span></div> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>v</p> +</div> + +<p>A man who is certainly an authority on naval +subjects tells me that <i>The Grand Fleet</i> by Viscount +Jellicoe of Scapa is the masterpiece of the +great war. He does not mean, of course, in a +literary sense; but he does most emphatically +mean in every other sense. I quote from the review +by P. L. J., of Admiral Jellicoe’s second +book, <i>The Crisis of the Naval War</i>. The review +appeared in that valuable Annapolis publication, +the Proceedings of the United States Naval Institute +for April, 1921:</p> +<p>“This interesting book is the complement of his +first volume, <i>The Grand Fleet,1914-16</i>. Admiral +Jellicoe, the one man who was best situated to +know, now draws aside the curtains and reveals +to us the efforts made by the Admiralty to overcome +the threat made by the German submarine +campaign. The account not only deals with the +origin ashore of the defence and offence against +submarines, but follows to sea the measures +adopted where their application and results are +shown.</p> +<p>“The first chapter deals at length with the +changes made in the admiralty that the organisation +might be logical and smooth working to avoid +conflict of authority, to have no necessary service +neglected, to provide the necessary corps of investigators +of new devices, and above all to free the +first Sea Lord and his assistants of a mass of detail +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_330' name='page_330'></a>330</span> +that their efforts might be concentrated on +the larger questions.</p> +<p>“The appendices are of value and interesting +because they show the organisation at different +periods and emphasise the fact that the Naval +Staff at the end of the war was the result of trial +and error, natural growth, and at least one radical +change adopted during the war.</p> +<p>“Chapters II and III deal with the Submarine +Campaign in 1917 and the measures adopted to +win success. The gradual naval control of all +merchant shipping with its attendant difficulties +is clearly shown. The tremendous labour involved +in putting into operation new measures; the unremitting +search for and development of new +antisubmarine devices is revealed, and above all +the length of time necessary to put into operation +any new device, and this when time is the most +precious element, is pointed out.</p> +<p>“That a campaign against the enemy must be +waged with every means at hand; that new weapons +must be continually sought; that no ‘cure-all’ +by which the enemy may be defeated without +fighting can be expected; that during war is the +poorest time to provide the material which should +be provided during peace, the Admiral shows in a +manner not to be gainsaid.</p> +<p>“Chapters IV and V deal with the testing, introduction, +and gradual growth of the convoy system. +It is shown how the introduction of this +system was delayed by lack of vessels to perform +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_331' name='page_331'></a>331</span> +escort duty and why when finally adopted it was +so successful because it was not only defensive but +offensive in that it meant a fight for a submarine +to attack a vessel under convoy.</p> +<p>“Chapter VI is devoted to the entry of the +United States. The accurate estimate of our +naval strength by both the enemy and the allies, +and our inability upon the declaration of war to +lend any great assistance are shown—and this at +the most critical period for the Allies—a period +when the German submarine campaign was at its +height, when the tonnage lost monthly by the +Allies was far in excess of what can be replaced—when +the destruction of merchant shipping if continued +at the then present rate would in a few +months mean the defeat of the Allies.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>vi</p> +</div> + +<p>I will give you what Admiral Caspar F. Goodrich +said in the Weekly Review (30 April 1921; +The Weekly Review has since been combined +with The Independent) regarding <i>A History of +Sea Power</i>, by William O. Stevens and Allan +Westcott:</p> +<p>“Two professors at the Naval Academy, the +one a historian, the other a close student of Mahan, +have written a noteworthy volume in their +<i>History of Sea Power</i>, published in excellent +form, generously supplied with maps, illustrations, +and index. The title suggests Mahan’s +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_332' name='page_332'></a>332</span> +classic which is largely followed in plan and treatment. +It will be remembered that his writings +covered in detail only the years from 1660 to +1815. While not neglecting this period, this +book is particularly valuable for events not within +its self-assigned limits. Practically it is a history +of naval warfare from ancient times to the +present day. Each chapter deals briefly, but ably, +with one epoch and closes with an appropriate +bibliography for those who care to go more fully +into the question; a commendable feature. The +last chapter, ‘Conclusions,’ deserves especial attention. +Naturally, considerable space is devoted +to the story and analysis of Jellicoe’s +fight. Few will disagree with the verdict of the +authors:</p> +<p>“‘It is no reflection on the personal courage of +the Commander-in-Chief that he should be moved +by the consideration of saving his ships. The existence +of the Grand Fleet was, of course, essential +to the Allied cause, and there was a heavy weight +of responsibility hanging on its use. But again +it is a matter of naval doctrine. Did the British +fleet exist merely to maintain a numerical preponderance +over its enemy or to crush that enemy—whatever +the cost? If the Battle of Jutland receives +the stamp of approval as the best that +could have been done, then the British or the +American officer of the future will know that he +is expected primarily to ”play safe.“ But he will +never tread the path of Blake, Hawke, or Nelson, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_333' name='page_333'></a>333</span> +the men who made the traditions of the Service +and forged the anchors of the British Empire.’</p> +<p>“One factor in the success of the antisubmarine +campaign is not mentioned, important as it proved +to be. This was the policy adopted by the Allies +of not giving out the news that any U-boat was +captured or otherwise accounted for. Confronted +with this appalling veil of mystery the morale of +the German submarine crews became seriously affected; +volunteering for this service gradually +ceased; arbitrary detail grew necessary; greatly +lessened efficiency resulted.</p> +<p>“The authors are to be congratulated on producing +a volume which should be in the hands of +all naval officers of the coming generation; on the +shelves of all who take interest in the development +of history; and of statesmen upon whom may +eventually rest the responsibility of heeding or +not heeding the teachings of Mahan as here sympathetically +and cleverly brought up to date.”</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='XXI_THE_CONFESSIONS_OF_A_WELLMEANING_YOUNG_MAN_STEPHEN_MCKENNA' id='XXI_THE_CONFESSIONS_OF_A_WELLMEANING_YOUNG_MAN_STEPHEN_MCKENNA'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_334' name='page_334'></a>334</span> +<h2><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Chapter XXI</span></h2> +<h3>THE CONFESSIONS OF A WELL-MEANING YOUNG MAN, STEPHEN MCKENNA</h3> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>i</p> +</div> + +<p>In a sense, all of Stephen McKenna’s writing +has been a confession. More than any other +novelist now actively at work, this young man +bases fiction on biographical and autobiographical +material; and when he sits down deliberately to +write reminiscences, such as <i>While I Remember</i>, +the result is merely that, in addition to confessing +himself, he confesses others.</p> +<p>He has probably had more opportunity of +knowing the social and political life of London +from the inside than most novelists of his time. +In <i>While I Remember</i> he gives his recollections, +while his memory is still fresh enough to be vivid, +of a generation that closed, for literary if not for +political purposes, with the Peace Conference. +There is a power of wit and mordant humour and +a sufficiency of descriptive power and insight into +human character in all his work.</p> +<div class='figcenter'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_335' name='page_335'></a>335</span> +<a name='linki_9' id='linki_9'></a> +<img src='images/winter10.jpg' alt='' title='' style='width: 306px; height: 410px;' /><br /> +<p class='caption' style='margin: 0 auto; text-align:center;width: 306px;'> +STEPHEN McKENNA<br /> +</p> +</div> + +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_337' name='page_337'></a>337</span></div> +<p><i>While I Remember</i> is actually a gallery of pictures +taken from the life and executed with the +technique of youth by a man still young—pictures +of public school and university life, of social London +from the death of King Edward to the Armistice, +of domestic and foreign politics of the period, +of the public services of Great Britain at home +and abroad. Though all these are within the +circle of Mr. McKenna’s narrative, literary London—the +London that is more talked about than +seen—is the core of his story.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p>Mr. McKenna’s latest novel, <i>The Confessions +of a Well-Meaning Woman</i>, is a series of monologues +addressed by one Lady Ann Spenworth to +“a friend of proved discretion.” I quote from the +London Times of April 6, 1922: “In the course +of them Lady Ann Spenworth reveals to us the +difficulties besetting a lady of rank. She is compelled +to live in a house in Mount street—for how +could she ask ‘The Princess’ to visit her in Bayswater?—and +her income of a few thousands, +hardly supplemented by her husband’s directorships, +is depleted by the disbursements needed to +keep the name of her only son out of the newspapers +while she is obtaining for him the wife and +the salary suited to his requirements and capacities. +Mr. Stephen McKenna provides us with +the same kind of exasperating entertainment that +we get at games from watching a skilful and unscrupulous +veteran. Her deftness in taking a step +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_338' name='page_338'></a>338</span> +or two forward in the centre and so putting the +fast wing off side; her air of sporting acquiescence +touched with astonishment when a penalty is +given against her for obstruction; her resolution +in jumping in to hit a young bowler off his length; +the trouble she has with her shoe-lace when her +opponent is nervous; the suddenness with which +every now and again her usually deliberate second +service will follow her first; the slight pucker in +her eyebrows when she picks up a hand full of +spades; the pluck with which she throws herself +on the ball when there is nothing else for it; her +dignified bonhomie in the dressing room! We all +know Lady Ann and her tricks, but nothing can +be proved against her and she continues to play +for the best clubs.</p> +<p>“In this story Lady Ann is playing the social +game, and it is a tribute to the skill of Mr. McKenna +that at the end we hope that the Princess +will be sufficiently curious about her new ‘frame +and setting’ to continue her visits.... We have +used the word ‘story’ because Lady Ann reports +her machinations while they are in progress and +we are a little nervous about the issue. Her main +service, however, lies in the pictures she draws of +her own highly placed relatives and of a number +of people who at house parties and elsewhere may +help ladies of title to make both ends meet. Chief +among them is her son Will, who even as seen +through her partial eyes, appears a very dishonest, +paltry boy. Her blind devotion to him humanises +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_339' name='page_339'></a>339</span> +both her shrewdness and her selfishness. It is for +his sake that she separates her niece from the fine +young soldier she is in love with and that she almost +succeeds in providing the King’s Proctor +with the materials for an intervention that would +secure to him the estates and title of his fox-hunting +uncle. There is always a plain tale to put her +down and always the friend of proved discretion +is left with the impression that the tale is the invention +of malice; at least we suppose she must +be, for Lady Ann is allowed by people to whom +she has done one injury to remain in a position +to do them another. The difficult medium employed +by Mr. McKenna entitles him, however, to +count on the co-operation of the reader; and it is +to be accorded the more readily that to it we owe +the felicity of having her own account of the +steps she took to prevent an attractive but expensive +widow from running away with her husband, +and of the party which she gave, according to plan, +to the Princess and, not according to plan, to other +guests let loose on her by her scapegrace brother-in-law.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iii</p> +</div> + +<p>Stephen McKenna, the author of <i>Sonia</i>, not to +be confused with Stephen McKenna, the translator +of Poltinus, belongs to the Protestant branch +of that royal Catholic sept which has had its home +in the County Monagham since the dawn of Irish +history. Some members, even, of this branch +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_340' name='page_340'></a>340</span> +have reverted to the old faith since the date +of Stephen McKenna’s birth in the year 1888 in +London.</p> +<p>He was a scholar of Westminster and an exhibitioner +of Christ Church, Oxford. After he had +taken his degree, his father, Leopold McKenna, +an elder brother of the Right Honourable Reginald +McKenna, K. C., the last Liberal Chancellor +of the British Exchequer, made it possible for him +to travel desultorily and to try his luck in the +great literary adventure.</p> +<p>On the outbreak of the war, as his health, which +is delicate to the point of frailness, debarred him +from entering the army, Stephen McKenna first +volunteered for service at his old school, and, after +a year, joined the staff of the War Trade Intelligence +Department, where he did valuable war +work for three and a half years. He represented +his department on the Right Honourable A. J. +Balfour’s mission in 1917, to the United States, +where he enjoyed himself thoroughly and made +himself very popular; and he did not sever his connection +with the government service until February, +1919, four months after the conclusion of the +armistice.</p> +<p>Stephen McKenna’s first three novels—<i>The +Reluctant Lover</i>, <i>Sheila Intervenes</i> and <i>The Sixth +Sense</i>—were written and published before their +author was 27 years of age! But <i>Sonia</i>, the story +that made him widely known, was written entirely +during the period of his activities on the staff of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_341' name='page_341'></a>341</span> +Westminster School and at the War Trade Intelligence +Department. The book won the public +favour more quickly than perhaps any other novel +that has appeared in our time.</p> +<p>The success of <i>Sonia</i> was largely due to its description +in a facile, popular and yet eminently +chaste and polished style, of the social and political +situation in England for a half generation before +and during the early stages of the war. This +description Stephen McKenna was peculiarly +well-equipped to produce, not only as the near +relative of a prominent cabinet minister, but also +as an assiduous frequenter of the leading Liberal +centre, the Reform Club, on the committee of +which he had sat, despite his youthful years, since +1915. The political interest, indeed, is revealed +in the subtitle, <i>Between Two Worlds</i>, which was +originally intended for the actual title.</p> +<p>McKenna’s next book, <i>Ninety-Six Hours’ +Leave</i>, appealed to the reader’s gayer moods and +<i>Midas and Son</i>, with its tragic history of an Anglo-American +multimillionaire, to the reader in serious +temper.</p> +<p>In spite of certain blemishes due to Mr. McKenna’s +unfamiliarity with American life, I +should say that <i>Midas and Son</i> is probably his +ablest work so far. I think it surpasses even +<i>Sonia</i>. Mr. McKenna returned to Sonia in his +novel, <i>Sonia Married</i>. His work after that was a +trilogy called <i>The Sensationalists</i>, three brilliant +studies of modern London in the form of successive +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_342' name='page_342'></a>342</span> +novels called <i>Lady Lilith</i>, <i>The Education of +Eric Lane</i> and <i>The Secret Victory</i>.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iv</p> +</div> + +<p>Writing from 11, Stone Buildings, Lincoln’s +Inn, London, in 1920, Mr. McKenna had this to +say about his trilogy:</p> +<p>“<i>Lady Lilith</i> is the first volume of a trilogy +called <i>The Sensationalists</i>, three books giving the +history for a few years before the war, during and +immediately after the war, of a group of sensation-mongers, +emotion-hunters or whatever you +like to call them, whose principle and practice it +was to startle the world by the extravagance of +their behaviour, speech, dress and thought and, +in the other sense of the word, sensationalism, to +live on the excitement of new experiences. Such +people have always existed and always will exist, +receiving perhaps undue attention from the world +that they set out to astonish. You, I am sure, +have them in America, as we have them here, and +in the luxurious and idle years before the war they +had incomparable scope for their search for novelty +and their quest for emotion. Some of the +characters in <i>Lady Lilith</i> have already been seen +hovering in the background of <i>Sonia</i>, <i>Midas and +Son</i> and <i>Sonia Married</i>, though the principal +characters in <i>Lady Lilith</i> have not before been +painted at full length or in great detail; and these +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_343' name='page_343'></a>343</span> +principal characters will be found in all three +books of the trilogy.</p> +<p>“<i>Lady Lilith</i>, of course, takes its title from the +Talmud, according to which Lilith was Adam’s +first wife; and as mankind did not taste of the +Tree of Knowledge or of death until Eve came to +trouble the Garden of Eden, Lilith belongs to a +time in which there was neither death nor knowledge +of good or evil in the world. She is immortal, +unaging and non-moral; her name is given by +Valentine Arden, the young novelist who appears +in <i>Sonia</i> and elsewhere, to Lady Barbara Neave, +the principal character in <i>Lady Lilith</i> and one +of the principal characters in the two succeeding +books.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>v</p> +</div> + +<p>In person, Stephen McKenna is tall, with a +slender figure, Irish blue eyes, fair hair, regular +features and a Dante profile. He has an engaging +and very courteous address, a sympathetic manner, +a ready but always urbane wit and great +conversational charm. He possesses the rare accomplishment +of “talking like a book.” His intimates +are legion; and, apart from these, he +knows everyone who “counts” in London society. +He is known never to lose his temper; and it is +doubtful whether he has ever had cause to lose it.</p> +<p>His one recreation is the Opera; and during the +London season his delightful chambers in Lincoln’s +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_344' name='page_344'></a>344</span> +Inn are the almost nightly scene of parties +collected then and there from the opera house.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>vi</p> +</div> + +<p>A sample of <i>The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman</i>:</p> +<p>“Lady Ann (<i>to a friend of proved discretion</i>): +You have toiled all the way here again? Do you +know, I feel I am only beginning to find out who +my true friends are? I am much, much better.... +On Friday I am to be allowed on to the sofa +and by the end of next week Dr. Richardson promises +to let me go back to Mount Street. Of course +I should have liked the operation to take place +there—it is one’s frame and setting, but, truly +honestly, Arthur and I have not been in a position +to have any painting or papering done for so long.... The +surgeon insisted on a nursing home. +Apparatus and so on and so forth.... Quite +between ourselves I fancy that they make a very +good thing out of these homes; but I am so thankful +to be well again that I would put up with almost +any imposition....</p> +<p>“Everything went off too wonderfully. Perhaps +you have seen my brother Brackenbury? Or +Ruth? Ah, I am sorry; I should have been vastly +entertained to hear what they were saying, what +they dared say. Ruth did indeed offer to pay the +expenses of the operation—the belated prick of +conscience!—and it was on the tip of my tongue +to say we are not yet dependent on her spasmodic +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_345' name='page_345'></a>345</span> +charity. Also, that I can keep my lips closed +about Brackenbury without expecting a—tip? +But they know I can’t afford to refuse £500.... +If they, if everybody would only leave one alone! +Spied on, whispered about....</p> +<p>“The papers made such an absurd stir! If you +are known by name as occupying any little niche, +the world waits gaping below. I suppose I ought +to be flattered, but for days there were callers, letters, +telephone-messages. Like Royalty <i>in extremis</i>.... +And I never pretended that the operation +was in any sense critical....</p> +<p>“Do you know, beyond saying that, I would +much rather not talk about it? This very modern +frankness.... Not you, of course! But when +a man like my brother-in-law Spenworth strides +in here a few hours before the anæsthetic is administered +and says ‘What is the matter with +you? Much ado about nothing, I call it.’ ... +That from Arthur’s brother to Arthur’s wife, +when, for all he knew, he might never see her alive +again.... I prefer just to say that everything +went off most satisfactorily and that I hope now +to be better than I have been for years....”</p> +<hr class='minor' /> + +<div class='ce'> +<p><i>Books</i></p> +<p>by Stephen McKenna</p> +</div> + +<div class='la'> +<p>THE RELUCTANT LOVER</p> +<p>SHEILA INTERVENES</p> +<p>THE SIXTH SENSE</p> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_346' name='page_346'></a>346</span> +<p>SONIA: BETWEEN TWO WORLDS</p> +<p>NINETY-SIX HOURS’ LEAVE</p> +<p>MIDAS AND SON</p> +<p>SONIA MARRIED</p> +<p>LADY LILITH</p> +<p>THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE</p> +<p>THE SECRET VICTORY</p> +<p>WHILE I REMEMBER</p> +<p>THE CONFESSIONS OF A WELL-MEANING WOMAN</p> +</div> + +<hr class='minor' /> + +<div class='ce'> +<p><i>Sources</i></p> +<p style=' margin-bottom:1.5em;'>on Stephen McKenna</p> +</div> + +<div class='la'> +<p><i>Who’s Who</i> [In England].</p> +<div style='margin-top:1em'></div> +<p>Private Information.</p> +</div> + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='XXII_POETS_AND_PLAYWRIGHTS' id='XXII_POETS_AND_PLAYWRIGHTS'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_347' name='page_347'></a>347</span> +<h2><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Chapter XXII</span></h2> +<h3>POETS AND PLAYWRIGHTS</h3> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>i</p> +</div> + +<p>I have to tell about a number of poets and, +regarding poets, I agree with a very clever +woman I know who declares that poetry is the +most personal of the arts and who further says +that it is manifestly inadequate to talk about a +poet’s work without giving a sample of his poetry. +So, generally, I shall quote one of the shorter +poems or a passage from a longer poem.</p> +<p>John Dos Passos, known for <i>Three Soldiers</i> +and for <i>Rosinante to the Road Again</i>, will be still +more variously known to those who read his book +of verse, <i>A Pushcart at the Curb</i>. This book bears +a relation to <i>Rosinante</i>, the contents grouping +themselves under these general headings:</p> +<table summary='poetry' style=' margin-left:2em;'><tr><td> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Winter in Castile</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Nights by Bassano</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Translations from the Spanish of Antonio Machado</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Vagones de Tercera</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Quai de la Tournelle</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Of Foreign Travel</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Phases of the Moon</p> +</td></tr></table> + +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_348' name='page_348'></a>348</span></div> +<p>I will select for quotation the sixth or final +poem dedicated to A. K. McC. from the section +entitled “Quai de la Tournelle,”</p> +<table summary='poetry' style=' margin-left:2em;'><tr><td> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>This is a garden</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>where through the russet mist of clustered trees</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>and strewn November leaves,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>they crunch with vainglorious heels</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>of ancient vermilion</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>the dry dead of spent summer’s greens,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>and stalk with mincing sceptic steps,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>and sound of snuffboxes snapping</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>to the capping of an epigram,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>in fluffy attar-scented wigs ...</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>the exquisite Augustans.</p> +</td></tr></table> + +<p>Christopher Morley is too well-known as a poet +to require any explicit account in this place. I +shall remind you of the pleasure of reading him +by quoting the “Song For a Little House” from +his book, <i>The Rocking Horse</i>, and also a short +verse from his <i>Translations from the Chinese</i>.</p> +<table summary='poetry' style=' margin-left:2em;'><tr><td> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>I’m glad our house is a little house,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>Not too tall nor too wide:</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>I’m glad the hovering butterflies</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>Feel free to come inside.</p> +<br /> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Our little house is a friendly house,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>It is not shy or vain;</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>It gossips with the talking trees,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>And makes friends with the rain.</p> +<br /> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>And quick leaves cast a shimmer of green,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>Against our whited walls,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>And in the phlox, the courteous bees,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>Are paying duty calls.</p> +</td></tr></table> + +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_349' name='page_349'></a>349</span></div> +<p>But there is a different temper—or, if you like, +tempering—to the verse in <i>Translations from the +Chinese</i>. I quote “A National Frailty”:</p> +<table summary='poetry' style=' margin-left:2em;'><tr><td> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>The American people</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Were put into the world</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>To assist foreign lecturers.</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>When I visited them</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>They filled crowded halls</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>To hear me tell them Great Truths</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Which they might as well have read</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>In their own prophet Thoreau.</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>They paid me, for this,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Three hundred dollars a night,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>And ten of their mandarins</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Invited me to visit at Newport.</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>My agent told me</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>If I would wear Chinese costume on the platform</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>It would be five hundred.</p> +</td></tr></table> + +<p>In speaking of the late Joyce Kilmer, the temptation +is inescapable to quote his “Trees”; after +all, it is his best known and best loved poem—in +certain moments it is his best poem! But instead, +I will desert his volume, <i>Trees and Other Poems</i>, +and from his other book, <i>Main Street and Other +Poems</i>, I will quote the first two stanzas of +Kilmer’s “Houses”—a poem written for his +wife:</p> +<table summary='poetry' style=' margin-left:2em;'><tr><td> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>When you shall die and to the sky</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>Serenely, delicately go,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Saint Peter, when he sees you there,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>Will clash his keys and say:</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_350' name='page_350'></a>350</span></div> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>“Now talk to her, Sir Christopher!</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>And hurry, Michelangelo!</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>She wants to play at building,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>And you’ve got to help her play!”</p> +<br /> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Every architect will help erect</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>A palace on a lawn of cloud,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>With rainbow beams and a sunset roof,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>And a level star-tiled floor;</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>And at your will you may use the skill</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>Of this gay angelic crowd,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>When a house is made you will throw it down,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>And they’ll build you twenty more.</p> +</td></tr></table> + +<p>Mrs. Kilmer is the author of two volumes of +verse which have sold rather more than John +Masefield usually sells—at least, until the publication +of <i>Reynard the Fox. Candles That +Burn</i> created her audience and <i>Vigils</i> has been +that audience’s renewed delight. From <i>Vigils</i> I +take the poem “The Touch of Tears.” In it +“Michael” is, of course, her own son:</p> +<table summary='poetry' style=' margin-left:2em;'><tr><td> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Michael walks in autumn leaves,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>Rustling leaves and fading grasses,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>And his little music-box</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>Tinkles faintly as he passes.</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>It’s a gay and jaunty tune</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>If the hands that play were clever:</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Michael plays it like a dirge,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>Moaning on and on forever.</p> +<br /> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>While his happy eyes grow big,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>Big and innocent and soulful,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Wistful, halting little notes</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>Rise, unutterably doleful,</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_351' name='page_351'></a>351</span></div> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Telling of all childish griefs—</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>Baffled babies sob forsaken,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Birds fly off and bubbles burst,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>Kittens sleep and will not waken.</p> +<br /> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Michael, it’s the touch of tears.</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>Though you sing for very gladness,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Others will not see your mirth;</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>They will mourn your fancied sadness.</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Though you laugh at them in scorn,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>Show your happy heart for token,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Michael, you’ll protest in vain—</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>They will swear your heart is broken!</p> +</td></tr></table> + +<p>I think I have said elsewhere that J. C. Squire +prefers his serious poems to those parodies of +which he is such an admitted master. It seems +only decent to defer, in this place, to the author’s +own feeling in the matter. Mr. Squire is the +author of <i>The Birds and Other Poems</i> and <i>Poems: +Second Series</i>. My present choice is the beginning +and the close of the poem, “Harlequin”—which +is in both books:</p> +<table summary='poetry' style=' margin-left:2em;'><tr><td> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Moonlit woodland, veils of green,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Caves of empty dark between;</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Veils of green from rounded arms</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Drooping, that the moonlight charms:</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Tranced the trees, grass beneath</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Silent ...</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>Like a stealthy breath,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Mask and wand and silver skin</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Sudden enters Harlequin.</p> +<br /> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Hist! Hist! Watch him go,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Leaping limb and pointing toe,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Slender arms that float and flow,</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_352' name='page_352'></a>352</span></div> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Curving wand above, below;</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Flying, gliding, changing feet;</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Onset merging in retreat.</p> +<br /> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Not a shadow of sound there is</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>But his motion’s gentle hiss,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Till one fluent arm and hand</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Suddenly circles, and the wand</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Taps a bough far overhead,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>“Crack,” and then all noise is dead.</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>For he halts, and for a space</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Stands erect with upward face,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Taut and tense to the white</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Message of the Moon’s light.</p> +<br /> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>He was listening; he was there;</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Flash! he went. To the air</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>He a waiting ear had bent,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Silent; but before he went</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Something somewhere else to seek,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>He moved his lips as though to speak.</p> +<br /> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>And we wait, and in vain,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>For he will not come again.</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Earth, grass, wood, and air,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>As we stare, and we stare,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Which that fierce life did hold,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Tired, dim, void, cold.</p> +</td></tr></table> + +<p>Milton Raison is a young writer, known especially +to readers of The Bookman, whose verse has +appeared in various magazines. A Russian, Milton +Raison went to sea as a boy—he is scarcely +more than a boy now. His first book of verse, +<i>Spindrift</i>, carries a preface by William McFee. +I quote:</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_353' name='page_353'></a>353</span></div> +<p>“There is a Latin sharpness of mentality manifested +in these clearly, sardonically etched portraits +of a ship’s crew. The whimsical humour +revealed in final lines is a portent, in the present +writer’s opinion, of a talent which will probably +come to maturity in a very different field. Indeed +it may be, though it is too early to dogmatise, +that these poems are but the early efflorescence of +a gift for vigorous prose narrative.</p> +<p>“Mr. Milton Raison has settled for himself, +with engaging promptitude, that a seafaring +career provides the inspiration he craves. The influence +of Masefield is strong upon him, and some +of his verses are plainly derivative. As already +hinted, it is too early to say definitely how this +plan will succeed. In his diary, kept while on a +voyage to South America, a document remarkable +for its descriptive power and a certain crude and +virginal candour, one may discover an embryo +novelist struggling with the inevitable limitations +of youth. But in his simple and naïve poems, +whether they give us some bizarre and catastrophic +picture of seamen, or depict the charming +emotions of a sensitive adolescence, there is a +passion for experiment and humility of intellect +which promises well enough for a young man in +his teens.”</p> +<p>I find it particularly difficult to choose a poem +for citation from this book. Perhaps I shall do +as well as I can, with only space to quote one +poem, if I give you “Vision”: +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_354' name='page_354'></a>354</span></p> +<table summary='poetry' style=' margin-left:2em;'><tr><td> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Have I forgotten beauty, and the pang</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Of sheer delight in perfect visioning?</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Have I forgotten how the spirit sang</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>When shattered breakers sprayed their ocean-tang</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>To ease the blows with which the great cliffs rang?</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Have I forgotten how the fond stars fling</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Their naked children to the faery ring</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Of some dark pool, and watch them play and sing</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>In silent silver chords I too could hear?</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Or smile to see a starlet shake with fear</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Whenever winds disturbed the lake’s repose,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Or when in mocking mood they form in rows,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>And stare up at their parents—so sedate—</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Then break up laughing ’neath a ripple’s weight?</p> +</td></tr></table> + +<p>It seems as if, <i>The First Person Singular</i> having +been published, more people now know William +Rose Benét as a novelist than as a poet. I +cannot help feeling that to be something of a pity. +I am not going to quote one of Mr. Benét’s poems—indeed +all his best work is in quite long and +semi-narrative verse—but I will give you what +Don Marquis was inspired to write after reading +Benét’s <i>Moons of Grandeur</i>. On looking at it +again, I see that Mr. Marquis has quoted eight +lines, so you shall have your taste of William +Rose Benét, the poet, after all!</p> +<p>“Some day, just to please ourself, we intend +to make a compilation of poems that we love best; +the ones that we turn to again and again. There +will be in the volume the six odes of Keats, Shelley’s +‘Adonais’; Wordsworth’s ‘Intimations of Immortality’; +Milton’s ‘L’Allegro’ and ‘Il Penseroso’; +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_355' name='page_355'></a>355</span> +William Rose Benét’s ‘Man Possessed’ and +very little else.</p> +<p>“We don’t ‘defend’ these poems ... no doubt +they are all of them quite indefensible, in the light +of certain special poetic revelations of the last +few years ... and we have no particular theories +about them; we merely yield ourself to them, +and they transport us; we are careless of reason in +the matter, for they cast a spell upon us. We do +not mean to say that we are in the category with +the person who says: ‘I don’t know anything +about art, but I know what I like’—On the contrary, +we know exactly why we like these things, +although we don’t intend to take the trouble to +tell you now.</p> +<p>“William Rose Benét has published another +book of poems, <i>Moons of Grandeur</i>. Here is a +stanza picked up at random—it happens to be the +opening stanza of ‘Gaspara Stampa’—which +shows the lyric quality of the verse:</p> +<table summary='poetry' style=' margin-left:2em;'><tr><td> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>“Like flame, like wine, across the still lagoon,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>The colours of the sunset stream.</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Spectral in heaven as climbs the frail veiled moon</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>So climbs my dream.</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Out of the heart’s eternal torture fire</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>No eastern phoenix risen—</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Only the naked soul, spent with desire,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>Bursts its prison.</p> +</td></tr></table> + +<p>“Was Benét ever in Italy? No matter ... +he has Italy in him, in his heart and brain. Italy +and Egypt and every other country that was ever +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_356' name='page_356'></a>356</span> +warmed by the sun of beauty and shone on by the +stars of romance. For the poems in this book are +woven of the stuff of sheer romance. There is +nothing else in the world as depressing as a romantic +poem that doesn’t ‘get there.’ And to us, +at least, there is nothing as thrilling as the authentic +voice of romance, the genuine utterance of the +soul that walks in communion with beauty. +<i>Moons of Grandeur</i> is a ringing bell and a glimmering +tapestry and a draught of sparkling wine.</p> +<p>“A certain rich intricacy of pattern distinguishes +the physical body of Benét’s art; when +he chooses he can use words as if they were the +jewelled particles of a mosaic; familiar words, +with his handling, become ‘something rich and +strange.’ Of the spiritual content of his poems, +we can say nothing adequate, because there is not +much that can be said of spirit; either it is there +and you feel it, and it works upon you, or it is +not there. There are very few people writing +verse today who have the power to charm us and +enchant us and carry us away with them as Benét +can. He has found the horse with wings.”</p> +<p><i>The Bookman Anthology of Verse</i> (1922), +edited by John Farrar, editor of The Bookman, is +an altogether extraordinary anthology to be made +up from the poets contributing to a single magazine +in eighteen consecutive months. Among those +who are represented are: Franklin P. Adams, +Karle Wilson Baker, Maxwell Bodenheim, Hilda +Conkling, John Dos Passos, Zona Gale, D. H. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_357' name='page_357'></a>357</span> +Lawrence, Amy Lowell, David Morton, Edwin +Arlington Robinson, Carl Sandburg, Siegfried +Sassoon, Sara Teasdale, Louis and Jean Starr +Untermeyer, and Elinor Wylie.</p> +<p>Mr. Farrar has written short introductions to +the example (or examples) of the work of each +poet. In his general preface he says:</p> +<p>“Where most anthologies of poetry are collected +for the purpose of giving pleasure by means +of the verses themselves, I have tried here to give +you something of the joy to be found in securing +manuscripts, in attempting to understand current +poetry by a broadening of taste to match broadening +literary tendencies; and, perhaps most important +of all, to present you to the poets themselves +as I know them by actual meeting or correspondence.”</p> +<p>I will choose what Mr. Farrar says about Hilda +Conkling, prefacing her poem “Lonely Song”; +and then I will quote the poem:</p> +<p>“A shy, but normal little girl, twelve years old +now, nine when her first volume of verses appeared, +Hilda Conkling is not so much the infant +prodigy as a clear proof that the child mind, before +the precious spark is destroyed, possesses both +vision and the ability to express it in natural +and beautiful rhythm. Grace Hazard Conkling, +herself a poet, is Hilda’s mother. They live at +Northampton, Massachusetts, in the academic +atmosphere of Smith College where those who +know the little girl say that she enjoys sliding +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_358' name='page_358'></a>358</span> +down a cellar stairway quite as much as she does +talking of elves and gnomes. She was born in +New York State, so that she is distinctly of the +East. The rhythms which she uses to express her +ideas are the result both of her own moods, which +are often crystal-clear in their delicate imagery, +and of the fact that from time to time, when she +was first able to listen, her mother read aloud to +her. In fact, her first poems were made before +she, herself, could write them down. The speculation +as to what she will do when she grows to +womanhood is a common one. Is it important? +A childhood filled with beauty is something to +have achieved.”</p> +<table summary='poetry' style=' margin-left:2em;'><tr><td> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Bend low, blue sky,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Touch my forehead;</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>You look cool ... bend down ...</p> +<br /> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Flow about me in your blueness and coolness,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Be thistledown, be flowers,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Be all the songs I have not yet sung.</p> +<br /> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Laugh at me, sky!</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Put a cap of cloud on my head ...</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Blow it off with your blue winds;</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Give me a feeling of your laughter</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Beyond cloud and wind!</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>I need to have you laugh at me</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>As though you liked me a little.</p> +</td></tr></table> + +<p>This has been, as I meant it to be, a wholly +serious chapter; but at the end I find I cannot stop +without speaking of Keith Preston. No one who +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_359' name='page_359'></a>359</span> +reads the Chicago Daily News fails to know Keith +Preston’s delightful humour and “needle-tipped +satire.” And his book, <i>Splinters</i>, contains all +sorts of good things of which I can give you, alas, +only some inadequate (because solitary) sample. +Yet, anyway, here is his “Ode to Common Sense”:</p> +<table summary='poetry' style=' margin-left:2em;'><tr><td> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Spirit or demon, Common Sense!</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Seen seldom by us mortals dense,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Come, sprite, inform, inhabit me</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>And teach me art and poetry.</p> +<br /> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Teach me to chuckle, sly as you,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>At gods that now I truckle to,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>To doubt the New Republic’s bent,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>And jeer each bookish Supplement.</p> +<br /> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Now, like a thief, you come and flit,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>You call so seldom, Mother Wit!</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Remember? Once when you stood by</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>I found a Dreiser novel dry.</p> +<br /> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>One day when I was reading hard—</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>What? Amy Lowell, godlike bard!</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>You peeped and then at what you saw</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Gave one Gargantuan guffaw.</p> +<br /> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Spirit or demon, coarse or rude,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>(Sometimes I think you must be stewed)</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Brute that you are, I love your powers,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>But,—drop in after office hours!</p> +<br /> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Yes, Common Sense, be mine, I ask,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>But still respect my critic’s task;</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Molest me not when I’m employed</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>With psychics, sex, vers libre, or Freud.</p> +</td></tr></table> + +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_360' name='page_360'></a>360</span></div> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p>The matter of playwrights is much more difficult +than that of poets! A play cannot, as a rule, +be satisfactorily quoted from. In the case of a +play which is to be staged there are terrible objections +(on the part of the producer) to any excerpts +at all appearing in advance. The publication +of the text of a play is hedged about by all +manner of difficulties, copyrights, warnings and +solemn notifications. As I write, it is expected +that A. H. Woods, the producer of plays, will +stage at the Times Square Theatre, New York, +probably in September, 1922, the new play by +W. Somerset Maugham, <i>East of Suez</i>. Pauline +Frederick is expected to assume the principal rôle. +Mr. Maugham’s play will be published when it +has been produced, or, if the theatre plans suffer +one of those changes to which all theatres are subject, +will be published anyhow! Shall we say +that the setting is Chinese, and that the characters +are Europeans, and that Mr. Maugham has again +shown his peculiar skill in the delineation of the +white man in contact with an alien civilisation? +We shall say so. And—never mind! A sure production +of the play for the Fireside Theatre is +hereby guaranteed. The Fireside Theatre, blessed +institution, has certain merits. The actors are always +ideal and the performance always begins on +time, as a letter to the New York Times has +pointed out. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_361' name='page_361'></a>361</span></p> +<p>Arnold Bennett has written a lot of plays; <i>The +Love Match</i> is merely the latest of them. If I +cannot very well quote a scene from <i>The Love +Match</i>,—on the grounds of length and possible +unintelligibility apart from the rest of the drama—I +can give you, I think, an idea of the wit of +the dialogue:</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Russ</span> (<i>with calm and disdainful resentment</i>). +You’re angry with me now.</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Nina</span> (<i>hurt</i>). Indeed I’m not. Why should I +be angry? Do you suppose I mind who sends you +flowers?</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Russ.</span> No, I don’t. That’s not the reason. +You’re angry with me because you came in here +tonight, after saying positively you wouldn’t +come, and I didn’t happen to be waiting for you.</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Nina.</span> Hugh, you’re ridiculous.</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Russ.</span> Of course I am. That’s not the reason. +You took me against my will to that footling +hospital ball last night, and I only got three +hours’ sleep instead of six, and you’re angry with +me because I yawned after you kissed me.</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Nina.</span> You’re too utterly absurd!</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Russ.</span> Of course I am. That’s not the reason, +either. The real reason is (<i>firmly</i>) you’re angry +with me because you clean forgot it was my +birthday today. That’s why you’re angry with +me.</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Nina.</span> Well, I think you might have reminded +me....</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Nina.</span> I like sitting on the carpet. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_362' name='page_362'></a>362</span></p> +<p>(<i>She reclines at his feet.</i>) I wonder why women nowadays +are so fond of the floor.</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Russ.</span> Because they’re oriental, of course.</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Nina.</span> But I’m not oriental, Hughie! (<i>Looking +at him with loving passion.</i>) Am I?</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Russ.</span> That’s the Eastern question.</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Nina.</span> But you like it, don’t you?</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Russ.</span> Every man has a private longing to live +in the East.</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Nina.</span> But not harems and things?</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Russ.</span> Well—within reason....</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Nina.</span> What do you think of me? I’m always +dying to know, and I’m never sure.</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Russ.</span> What do you think of <i>me</i>?</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Nina.</span> I think you’re magnificent and terrible +and ruthless.</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Russ</span> (<i>with amicable sincerity</i>). Oh, no, I’m +not. But you are.</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Nina.</span> How? When? When was I ruthless +last?</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Russ.</span> You’re always ruthless in your appetite +for life. You want to taste everything, enjoy +all the sensations there are. This evening you +like intensely to sit very quiet on the floor; but +last night you were mad about dancing and eating +and drinking. You couldn’t be still. Tomorrow +night it’ll be something else. There’s no +end to what you want, and what you want tremendously, +and what you’ve jolly well got to +have. You aren’t a woman. You’re a hundred +women. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_363' name='page_363'></a>363</span></p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Nina.</span> Oh! Hughie. How well you understand!</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Russ.</span> Yes, don’t I?</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Nina</span> (<i>tenderly</i>). Do I make you very unhappy? +Hughie, you mustn’t tell me I make you +unhappy. I couldn’t bear it.</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Russ.</span> Then I won’t.</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Nina.</span> But do I?</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Russ.</span> Let’s say you cause a certain amount of +disturbance sometimes.</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Nina.</span> But you like me to be as I am, don’t +you?</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Russ.</span> Yes.</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Nina.</span> You wouldn’t have me altered?</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Russ.</span> Can’t alter a climate.</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Nina.</span> You don’t know how much I want to +be perfect for you.</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Russ.</span> You know my ruthless rule, “The best +is good enough; chuck everything else into the +street.” Have I ever, on any single occasion, +chucked you into the street?</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Nina.</span> But I want to be more perfect.</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Russ.</span> Why do women always hanker after +the impossible?</p> +<p>J. Hartley Manners is the husband of Laurette +Taylor and the author of plays in some of which +she appears. His drama <i>The Harp of Life</i> has +as its theme the love of two women, his mother +and a courtesan, for a nineteen-year-old boy, and +their willing self-sacrifice that he may go forward +unbroken and unsmirched. The interesting +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_364' name='page_364'></a>364</span> +thing, aside from the strength of the play and its +vivid study of adolescence, is the portrait of the +mother. And now his play, <i>The National +Anthem</i>, which caused so much discussion, is procurable +in book form.</p> +<p>Here I have been talking about <i>East of Suez</i> +and <i>The Love Match</i> and have said nothing about +<i>The Circle</i> or <i>Milestones</i>! But I suppose everyone +knows that <i>The Circle</i> is by Maugham and +was markedly successful when it was produced +in New York; and surely everyone must +know that <i>Milestones</i> is by Arnold Bennett and +Edward Knoblauch—one of the great plays of +the last quarter century. I must take a moment +to speak of Sidney Howard’s four act +play, <i>Swords</i>. I think the best thing to do is to +give what Kenneth Macgowan, an exceptionally +able critic of the drama, said about the +play:</p> +<p>“<i>Swords</i> is as remarkable a play as America has +ever produced. It is a drama of action on a par +with <i>The Jest</i>, fused with the ecstasy of inspiration +and the mysticism of the spirit and the body +of woman. It sets Ghibelline and Guelph, Pope +and Emperor, two nobles and a dog of the gutters +fighting for a lady of strange and extraordinary +beauty who is the bride of one noble and the hostage +of the other. With the passions, the cruelties, +and spiritual vision of the middle ages to build +upon <i>Swords</i> sweeps upward to a scene of sudden, +flashing conflict shot with the mystic and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_365' name='page_365'></a>365</span> +triumphant ecstasy which emanates from this glorious +woman.”</p> +<p>American lovers of the drama have a special +interest in the two volumes of <i>The Plays of +Hubert Henry Davies.</i> At the time of his first +success Mr. Davies was working in San Francisco, +whither he had come from England. It was +Frohman who made him an offer that brought +him to New York and began the series of productions +which ended only with his death in 1917 +in Paris. These two volumes, very beautiful examples +of fine bookmaking, contain the successes: +<i>Cousin Kate</i>, <i>Captain Drew on Leave</i>, and <i>The +Mollusc</i>. Among the other plays included are: +<i>A Single Man</i>, <i>Doormats</i>, <i>Outcasts</i>, <i>Mrs. Gorringe’s +Necklace</i>, and <i>Lady Epping’s Lawsuit</i>. +Hugh Walpole has contributed a very touching +introduction.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='XXIII_THE_BOOKMAN_FOUNDATION_AND_THE_BOOKMAN' id='XXIII_THE_BOOKMAN_FOUNDATION_AND_THE_BOOKMAN'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_366' name='page_366'></a>366</span> +<h2><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Chapter XXIII</span></h2> +<h3>THE BOOKMAN FOUNDATION AND THE BOOKMAN</h3> +</div> + +<p>“Thank you very much for the May Bookman,” +writes Hugh Walpole (June, 1922). +“I have been reading The Bookman during the +last year and I congratulate Mr. Farrar most +strongly upon it. The paper has now a personality +unlike any other that I know and it is the least +dull of all literary papers! I like especially the +more serious articles, the series of sketches of literary +personalities seeming especially excellent to +me.” Mr. Walpole evidently had in mind the +feature of The Bookman called “The Literary +Spotlight.”</p> +<p>“The Bookman is alive. If there is a better +quality in the long run for a general literary +magazine to try for, I do not know what it is,” +writes Carl Van Doren, literary editor of The +Nation.</p> +<p>“Mr. Farrar has turned The Bookman into a +monthly brimming with his own creative enthusiasm,” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_367' name='page_367'></a>367</span> +says Louis Untermeyer. “It has technically +as well as figuratively no rival.”</p> +<p>And Irvin S. Cobb declares: “By my way of +thinking, it is the most informative, the most entertaining, +and incidentally the brightest and most +amusing publication devoted to literature and its +products that I have ever seen.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p>The idea of The Bookman Foundation first occurred +in a discussion of the future of the magazine +and the ampler purposes it was desired to +have The Bookman serve. The idea had been advanced +that more than the future of the magazine +should be considered; those to whom the welfare +of the magazine was a most important consideration +distinctly felt that welfare to depend +upon a healthy and thriving condition of American +literature and of American interest in +American literature. The broadest possible view, +as is so often the case, seemed the only ultimately +profitable view. In what way could The Bookman +serve the interests of American literature in +which it was not already serving them? How +could public interest in American literature best +be stimulated?</p> +<p>The idea gradually took shape as a form of +foundation, naturally to be called The Bookman +Foundation, with a double purpose. Fundamentally +The Bookman Foundation is being established +to stimulate the study of American literature +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_368' name='page_368'></a>368</span> +and its development; more immediately, and +as the direct means to that end, the purpose of the +Foundation will be to afford a vehicle for the best +constructive criticism, spoken and written, on the +beginnings and development of our literature. In +association with the faculty of English at one of +the larger and older American universities, Yale, +the Foundation will establish a lectureship; and +annually there will be given at Yale a lecture or +a course of lectures on American literature by +some distinguished writer or critic. It is hoped +that, as the Foundation grows, other universities +will be brought into co-operation with Yale so +that the lectureship may move from centre to +centre, stimulating to intelligent self-expression +the varied elements that are contributing to our +national growth.</p> +<p>The lectures given on The Bookman Foundation +will be published in book form by The Bookman +in a handsome and uniform edition. Membership +in The Bookman Foundation will be by +invitation. All members of the Foundation will +be entitled to receive the published lectures without +charge and they will also have the privilege +of subscribing for certain first and limited editions +of notable American books. At the present +writing, even so much as I have suggested is +largely tentative, and I offer it for its essential +idea; an executive committee of The Bookman +Foundation, in co-operation with an advisory +committee, the members of which committees have +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_369' name='page_369'></a>369</span> +yet to be finally determined, will settle all details. +By the time of this book’s publication or even +sooner, I expect a full announcement will have +been made; and for the correction of what I have +stated I would refer the reader to The Bookman +itself.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iii</p> +</div> + +<p>I am not going to give a historical account of +The Bookman here. The magazine is no newcomer +among American periodicals. It has a reasonably +old and highly honourable history. For +long published by the house of Dodd, Mead & +Company, it was acquired by George H. Doran +Company and placed under the editorial direction +of Robert Cortes Holliday. That was the beginning +of a new vitality in its pages. Mr. Holliday +was succeeded by Mr. Farrar, and now, in its +fifty-sixth volume, The Bookman seems to the +thousands who read it more interesting than ever +before in its history.</p> +<p>The roll call of its past and present contributors +includes many of the representative names in contemporary +American and English literature. I +will give a few:</p> +<table summary='poetry' style=' margin-left:2em;'><tr><td> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Joseph Hergesheimer</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Amy Lowell</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Siegfried Sassoon</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>James Branch Cabell</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Mary Roberts Rinehart</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Zona Gale</span></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_370' name='page_370'></a>370</span></div> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Fannie Hurst</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>William McFee</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Sherwood Anderson</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Hugh Walpole</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Frank Swinnerton</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Robert Frost</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Sara Teasdale</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Irvin S. Cobb</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Richard Le Gallienne</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Donn Byrne</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Christopher Morley</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Robert Cortes Holliday</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Johan Bojer</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>William Rose Benét</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Edgar Lee Masters</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Kathleen Norris</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Frederick O’Brien</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>D. H. Lawrence</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>John Drinkwater</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Joseph C. Lincoln</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>George Jean Nathan</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>William Allen White</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Carl Sandburg</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Sinclair Lewis</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>F. Scott Fitzgerald</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Eugene O’Neill</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>H. L. Mencken</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>John Dos Passos</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Elinor Wylie</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Gertrude Atherton</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Floyd Dell</span></p> +</td></tr></table> + +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_371' name='page_371'></a>371</span></div> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iv</p> +</div> + +<p>Among the American essayists whose work has +appeared in The Bookman before its publication +in book form is Robert Cortes Holliday; among +strikingly successful books that appeared serially +in The Bookman was Donald Ogden Stewart’s +<i>A Parody Outline of History</i>. Among The Bookman’s +regular reviewers are Louis Untermeyer, +Wilson Follett, Paul Elmer More, H. L. Mencken, +Henry Seidel Canby and Maurice Francis +Egan. Among writers of distinction whose short +stories have first appeared in The Bookman are +William McFee, Sherwood Anderson, Mary Austin, +and Johan Bojer; while the intimate personal +portraits published under the general title “The +Literary Spotlight” have Lytton Stracheyized +contemporary American literature. Possibly it is +in the department of poetry that The Bookman +now shines the brightest (see the account of The +Bookman Anthology in the previous chapter); if +so, that may be because the editor, John Farrar, is +himself a poet.</p> +<p>Probably no other literary magazine in the +world exhibits such a degree of personal contact +between the editor, his readers, his contributors +and the magazine’s friends. This note of personal +contact is constantly reflected in the magazine’s +pages; but anyone who has called upon the editor +of The Bookman once or twice will know +explicitly just what I mean.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_372' name='page_372'></a>372</span></div> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='EPILOGUE' id='EPILOGUE'></a> + +<h3>EPILOGUE</h3> +</div> + +<p>I have been surprised, on looking back over +these chapters, by the variety of the books I have +talked about. That so diverse a list should be +under a single imprint and should represent, with +few exceptions, the publications of a single +twelvemonth, seems to me very remarkable. I +believe a majority of the books are the production +of a single publishing season, the autumn of 1922, +and the Doran imprint is but thirteen years old.</p> +<p>“Of the making of books, there is no end”; but +of the making of any single book, there must +come an end. Yet what is the end of a book but +the beginning of new friendships?</p> +<div class='ce' style=' margin-top:3em; margin-bottom:2em;'> +<p>THE END</p> +</div> + +<hr style='margin:30px 0; width:100%; border:none; border-top:thin dashed silver;' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 0em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='INDEX' id='INDEX'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_373' name='page_373'></a>373</span> + +<h3>INDEX</h3> +</div> + +<p> +Agate, James E., <a href='#page_49'>49</a>;<br /> + <i>Alarums and Excursions</i>, <a href='#page_49'>49</a>;<br /> + dramatic critic, <a href='#page_50'>50</a>;<br /> + <i>Responsibility</i>, <a href='#page_50'>50</a>;<br /> + review by The Londoner, in The Bookman, <a href='#page_50'>50</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Alarums and Excursions</i> by James E. Agate, <a href='#page_49'>49</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Alone in the Caribbean</i>, by Frederic A. Fenger, <a href='#page_194'>194</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Altar Steps, The</i>, by Compton Mackenzie, <a href='#page_265'>265</a>, <a href='#page_266'>266</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Amazing Adventures of Letitia Carberry, The</i>, by Mary Roberts Rinehart, <a href='#page_108'>108</a>, <a href='#page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#page_116'>116</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Amazing Interlude, The</i>, by Mary Roberts Rinehart, <a href='#page_105'>105</a>, <a href='#page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#page_116'>116</a><br /> +<br /> +Andrews, C. E., <i>Old Morocco and the Forbidden Atlas</i>, <a href='#page_193'>193</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Ann and Her Mother</i>, by O. Douglas, <a href='#page_249'>249</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Anna of the Five Towns</i>, by Arnold Bennett, <a href='#page_146'>146</a>, <a href='#page_149'>149</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Art of Lawn Tennis</i>, The, by William T. Tilden, <a href='#page_213'>213</a><br /> +<br /> +Asquith, Elizabeth (Princess Antoine Bibesco), daughter of Margot Asquith, <a href='#page_47'>47</a><br /> +<br /> +Asquith, Margot, <a href='#page_89'>89</a>;<br /> + mother of Elizabeth, <a href='#page_47'>47</a>;<br /> + <i>My Impressions of America</i>, <a href='#page_122'>122</a>;<br /> + <i>The Autobiography of Margot Asquith</i>, <a href='#page_122'>122</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Autobiography of Margot Asquith</i>, The, by Margot Asquith, <a href='#page_122'>122</a><br /> +<br /> +Bailey, Margaret Emerson, <i>Robin Hood’s Barn</i>, <a href='#page_194'>194</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Balloons</i>, by Princess Antoine Bibesco, <a href='#page_47'>47</a><br /> +<br /> +Banning, Margaret Culkin, <i>Half Loaves</i>, <a href='#page_253'>253</a>;<br /> + <i>Spellbinders</i>, <a href='#page_252'>252</a>;<br /> + <i>This Marrying</i>, <a href='#page_253'>253</a><br /> +<br /> +Barton, Olive Roberts, <i>Cloud Boat Stories,</i> <a href='#page_162'>162</a>;<br /> + Column, <a href='#page_162'>162</a>;<br /> + review by Candace T. Stevenson, <a href='#page_162'>162</a>-<a href='#page_164'>164</a>;<br /> + sister of Mary Roberts Rinehart, <a href='#page_161'>161</a>;<br /> + <i>Wonderful Land of Up</i>, <a href='#page_162'>162</a>;<br /> + work with children, <a href='#page_161'>161</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Beauty for Ashes</i>, by Jean Sutherland, <a href='#page_262'>262</a><br /> +<br /> +Belloc, Hilaire, <a href='#page_23'>23</a>, <a href='#page_77'>77</a><br /> +<br /> +Benét, William Rose, <i>Moons of Grandeur</i>, <a href='#page_354'>354</a>, <a href='#page_355'>355</a>;<br /> + review by Don Marquis, <a href='#page_354'>354</a>, <a href='#page_355'>355</a>;<br /> + Benét, William Rose, <i>The First Person Singular</i>, <a href='#page_262'>262</a>, <a href='#page_263'>263</a>, <a href='#page_354'>354</a><br /> +<br /> +Bennett, Arnold <a href='#page_133'>133</a>, <a href='#page_134'>134</a>, <a href='#page_144'>144</a>, <a href='#page_145'>145</a>, <a href='#page_147'>147</a>, <a href='#page_148'>148</a>, <a href='#page_149'>149</a>, <a href='#page_150'>150</a>, <a href='#page_151'>151</a>;<br /> + A <i>Man from the North</i>, <a href='#page_146'>146</a>, <a href='#page_149'>149</a>;<br /> + <i>Anna of the Five Towns</i>, <a href='#page_146'>146</a>, <a href='#page_149'>149</a>;<br /> + article on Hugh Walpole, <a href='#page_22'>22</a>, <a href='#page_23'>23</a>;<br /> + booklet by George H. Doran Co., <a href='#page_150'>150</a>;<br /> + books by, list of, <a href='#page_149'>149</a>, <a href='#page_150'>150</a>;<br /> + <i>Clayhanger</i>, <a href='#page_148'>148</a>, <a href='#page_149'>149</a>;<br /> + comments of Frank Swinnerton’s Books, <a href='#page_225'>225</a>;<br /> + comments on <i>The Casement</i>, by Frank Swinnerton, <a href='#page_236'>236</a>-<a href='#page_242'>242</a>;<br /> + criticism by New York Evening Post, <a href='#page_148'>148</a>;<br /> + <i>Cupid and Commonsense</i>, <a href='#page_133'>133</a>, <a href='#page_150'>150</a>;<br /> + description of Hugh Walpole, <a href='#page_22'>22</a>;<br /> + <i>Friendship and Happiness</i>, <a href='#page_303'>303</a>;<br /> + <i>How to Live on Twenty-four Hours a Day</i>, <a href='#page_303'>303</a>;<br /> + <i>Lilian</i>, <a href='#page_133'>133</a>;<br /> + <i>Love and Life</i>, <a href='#page_146'>146</a>;<br /> + <i>Married Life</i>, <a href='#page_303'>303</a>;<br /> + <i>Mental Efficiency</i>, <a href='#page_303'>303</a>;<br /> + <i>Milestones</i> (with Edward Knoblauch), <a href='#page_364'>364</a>;<br /> + <i>Mr. Prohack</i>, <a href='#page_133'>133</a>, <a href='#page_141'>141</a>, <a href='#page_149'>149</a>;<br /> + on Hugh Walpole’s courage, <a href='#page_25'>25</a>;<br /> + <i>Polite Farces</i>, <a href='#page_146'>146</a>;<br /> + <i>Self and Self-Management</i>, <a href='#page_303'>303</a>;<br /> + sketch of life by John W. Cunliffe, <a href='#page_144'>144</a>-<a href='#page_148'>148</a>, <a href='#page_150'>150</a>;<br /> + sources on, <a href='#page_150'>150</a>;<br /> + <i>The Author’s Craft</i>, <a href='#page_150'>150</a>;<br /> + education of, <a href='#page_145'>145</a>;<br /> + <i>The Gates of Wrath</i>, <a href='#page_146'>146</a>, <a href='#page_149'>149</a>;<br /> + <i>The Love Match</i>, <a href='#page_361'>361</a>, <a href='#page_364'>364</a>;<br /> + <i>The Old Wives’ Tale</i>, <a href='#page_133'>133</a>, <a href='#page_149'>149</a>;<br /> + <i>The Truth About an Author</i>, <a href='#page_144'>144</a>, <a href='#page_150'>150</a><br /> +<br /> +Benson, E. F., <i>Peter</i>, <a href='#page_261'>261</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Between Two Thieves</i>, by Richard Dehan (Clotilde Graves), <a href='#page_198'>198</a>, <a href='#page_200'>200</a>, <a href='#page_210'>210</a><br /> +<br /> +Bibesco, Princess Antoine (Elizabeth Asquith), <a href='#page_47'>47</a>;<br /> + <i>Balloons</i>, <a href='#page_47'>47</a>;<br /> + <i>I Have Only Myself to Blame</i>, <a href='#page_47'>47</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Birds and Other Poems, The</i>, by J. C. Squire, <a href='#page_351'>351</a>;<br /> + Quotation from, <a href='#page_351'>351</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Black Gang, The</i>, by Cyril McNeile, <a href='#page_70'>70</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Black Cæsar’s Clan</i>, by Albert Payson Terhune, <a href='#page_71'>71</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Black Gold</i>, by Albert Payson Terhune, <a href='#page_71'>71</a>;<br /> + Foreword to, by Albert Payson Terhune, <a href='#page_71'>71</a>-<a href='#page_74'>74</a><br /> +<br /> +Blaker, Richard, <i>The Voice in the Wilderness</i>, <a href='#page_263'>263</a><br /> +<br /> +Bookman, The;<br /> + articles by Robert Cortes Holliday, <a href='#page_221'>221</a>;<br /> + Comment on Richard Dehan, <a href='#page_198'>198</a>, <a href='#page_211'>211</a>;<br /> + Comments on by Hugh Walpole, Carl Van Doren, Irvin S. Cobb, Louis Untermeyer, <a href='#page_367'>367</a>;<br /> + List of contributors, <a href='#page_370'>370</a>, <a href='#page_371'>371</a>;<br /> + List of Reviewers, <a href='#page_371'>371</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Book of Humorous Verse</i>, by Carolyn Wells, <a href='#page_99'>99</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Bookman Anthology of Verse</i> (1922), <a href='#page_356'>356</a>;<br /> + Contributors, <a href='#page_356'>356</a>, <a href='#page_357'>357</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Bookman Foundation, The</i>, <a href='#page_367'>367</a>, <a href='#page_368'>368</a>;<br /> + lectures on, <a href='#page_368'>368</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Books in General, Third Series</i>, by J. C. Squire, <a href='#page_44'>44</a><br /> +<br /> +Bottome, Phyllis (Mrs. A. E. Forbes Dennis), <a href='#page_258'>258</a>;<br /> + Acquaintances, <a href='#page_259'>259</a>;<br /> + <i>The Kingfisher</i>, <a href='#page_260'>260</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Boy Journalist Series</i>, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler, <a href='#page_159'>159</a>, <a href='#page_161'>161</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Breaking Point, The</i>, by Mary Roberts Rinehart, <a href='#page_105'>105</a>;<br /> + résumé of, <a href='#page_105'>105</a>-<a href='#page_107'>7</a>, <a href='#page_117'>117</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Broome Street Straws</i>, by Robert Cortes Holliday, <a href='#page_52'>52</a><br /> +<br /> +Broun, Heywood, <a href='#page_40'>40</a>;<br /> + columnist, <i>Pieces of Hate</i> and <i>Other Enthusiasms</i>, <a href='#page_41'>41</a>;<br /> + Subjects touched, <a href='#page_41'>41</a>, <a href='#page_42'>42</a>, <a href='#page_43'>43</a><br /> +<br /> +Buchan, John, The Path of the King, <a href='#page_249'>249</a>;<br /> + <i>The Thirty-nine Steps</i><br /> +<br /> +Buckrose, J. E. (Mrs. Falconer Jameson), <i>A Knight Among Ladies</i>, <a href='#page_251'>251</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Bulldog Drummond</i>, by Cyril McNeile, <a href='#page_70'>70</a><br /> +<br /> +Burke, Thomas, <a href='#page_187'>187</a>, <a href='#page_189'>189</a>, <a href='#page_190'>190</a>;<br /> + More Limehouse Nights, <a href='#page_187'>187</a>;<br /> + <i>Nights in London</i>, <a href='#page_190'>190</a>;<br /> + Reasons given for his characters, <a href='#page_187'>187</a>, <a href='#page_188'>188</a>, <a href='#page_189'>189</a>;<br /> + <i>The London Spy</i>, <a href='#page_189'>189</a><br /> +<br /> +Byron, May, <i>Billy Butt’s Adventure</i>, <a href='#page_153'>153</a>;<br /> + <i>Jack-a-Dandy</i>, <a href='#page_153'>153</a>;<br /> + <i>Little Jumping Joan</i>, <a href='#page_153'>153</a>;<br /> + <i>Old Friends in New Frocks</i>, <a href='#page_153'>153</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Candles that Burn</i>, by Mrs. Kilmer<br /> +<br /> +<i>Captives, The</i>, by Hugh Walpole, <a href='#page_24'>24</a>, <a href='#page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#page_30'>30</a>, <a href='#page_31'>31</a>;<br /> + won Tait Black Prize, 1920, <a href='#page_30'>30</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Carnival</i>, by Compton Mackenzie, <a href='#page_265'>265</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Casement, The</i>, by Frank Swinnerton, <a href='#page_236'>236</a>, <a href='#page_242'>242</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Cathedral, The</i>, by Hugh Walpole, <a href='#page_19'>19</a>, <a href='#page_31'>31</a>;<br /> + at Polchester, <a href='#page_19'>19</a>;<br /> + review of, <a href='#page_19'>19</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Century of Banking in New York, 1822-1922, A</i>, by Henry Wysham Lanier, <a href='#page_193'>193</a><br /> +<br /> +Chambers, Robert W., article on, by Rupert Hughes, <a href='#page_320'>320</a>;<br /> + Eris, <a href='#page_311'>311</a>, <a href='#page_317'>317</a>, <a href='#page_320'>320</a>;<br /> + <i>In the Quarter</i>, <a href='#page_317'>317</a>, <a href='#page_318'>318</a>; Iole, <a href='#page_318'>318</a>, <a href='#page_319'>319</a>;<br /> + list of books by, <a href='#page_318'>318</a>, <a href='#page_319'>319</a>, <a href='#page_320'>320</a>;<br /> + Sources On, <a href='#page_320'>320</a>; Story-teller, <a href='#page_308'>308</a>;<br /> + <i>The Flaming Jewel</i>, <a href='#page_311'>311</a>, <a href='#page_320'>320</a>;<br /> + <i>The King in Yellow,</i> <a href='#page_317'>317</a>, <a href='#page_318'>318</a>;<br /> + <i>The Talkers</i>, <a href='#page_317'>317</a>, <a href='#page_320'>320</a>;<br /> + <i>The Witch of Ellangowan</i>, <a href='#page_318'>318</a>;<br /> + <i>With the Band</i> (poem), <a href='#page_317'>317</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Chaste Wife, The</i>, by Frank Swinnerton, <a href='#page_226'>226</a>, <a href='#page_243'>243</a><br /> +<br /> +Chinese Metal, by E. G. Kemp, <a href='#page_190'>190</a>;<br /> + comment by Sao-Ke Alfred Sze, <a href='#page_191'>191</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Circle, The</i>, by W. Somerset Maugham, <a href='#page_289'>289</a>, <a href='#page_292'>292</a>, <a href='#page_364'>364</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Circuit Rider’s Wife, A</i>, by Corra Harris, <a href='#page_257'>257</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Circular Staircase, The</i>, by Mary Roberts Rinehart, <a href='#page_110'>110</a>, <a href='#page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#page_116'>116</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Claim Jumpers, The</i>, by Stewart Edward White, <a href='#page_55'>55</a>, <a href='#page_63'>63</a>, <a href='#page_66'>66</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Clayhanger</i>, by Arnold Bennett, <a href='#page_148'>148</a>, <a href='#page_149'>149</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Cloud Boat Stories</i>, by Olive Roberts Barton, <a href='#page_162'>162</a><br /> +<br /> +Cobb, Irvin S., <a href='#page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#page_241'>241</a>;<br /> + <i>An Occurrence up a Side Street</i>, <a href='#page_176'>176</a>, <a href='#page_180'>180</a>;<br /> + as a humorist, <a href='#page_179'>179</a>;<br /> + at Portsmouth Peace Conference, <a href='#page_177'>177</a>, <a href='#page_178'>178</a>;<br /> + biography by Robert H. Davis, <a href='#page_172'>172</a>-<a href='#page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#page_186'>186</a>;<br /> + books by, <a href='#page_184'>184</a>;<br /> + comments on The Bookman, <a href='#page_367'>367</a>;<br /> + description of self, <a href='#page_182'>182</a>, <a href='#page_183'>183</a>;<br /> + dimensions of, <a href='#page_166'>166</a>;<br /> + editorial work, <a href='#page_175'>175</a>, <a href='#page_176'>176</a>;<br /> + Fishhead, <a href='#page_176'>176</a>, <a href='#page_180'>180</a>;<br /> + <i>J. Poindexter, Colored</i>, <a href='#page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#page_185'>185</a>;<br /> + lecture by Gelett Burgess, <a href='#page_179'>179</a>;<br /> + Plays by, <a href='#page_185'>185</a>;<br /> + report of Thaw Trial, <a href='#page_178'>178</a>;<br /> + Sources on, <a href='#page_186'>186</a>;<br /> + <i>Stickfuls</i>, <a href='#page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#page_185'>185</a>;<br /> + <i>The Belled Buzzard</i>, <a href='#page_176'>176</a>, <a href='#page_180'>180</a>;<br /> + <i>The Escape of Mr. Trimm</i>, <a href='#page_178'>178</a>, <a href='#page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#page_184'>184</a><br /> +<br /> +Collected Parodies, by J. C. Squire, <a href='#page_98'>98</a>;<br /> + Selections, <a href='#page_98'>98</a>, <a href='#page_99'>99</a><br /> +<br /> +Coming of the Peoples, The, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler, <a href='#page_161'>161</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman, The</i>, by Stephen McKenna, <a href='#page_337'>337</a>, <a href='#page_344'>344</a>, <a href='#page_346'>346</a>;<br /> +<br /> + Quotations from London Times, <a href='#page_337'>337</a>-<a href='#page_339'>339</a>;<br /> + Sample of, <a href='#page_344'>344</a>, <a href='#page_345'>345</a><br /> +<br /> +Conjurors House, by Stewart Edward White, <a href='#page_66'>66</a><br /> +<br /> +Conkling, Hilda, <a href='#page_356'>356</a><br /> +<br /> +Connor, Ralph, <a href='#page_264'>264</a><br /> +<br /> +Conrad, Joseph, A Critical Study of Walpole, <a href='#page_31'>31</a>;<br /> + experiences similar, <a href='#page_25'>25</a>;<br /> + introductory note to <i>Anthology</i>, <a href='#page_28'>28</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Cooperative Movement</i>, by Dr. James B. Warbasse, <a href='#page_300'>300</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Coquette</i>, by Frank Swinnerton, <a href='#page_226'>226</a>, <a href='#page_243'>243</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Creative Spirit in Industry, The</i>, by Robert B. Wolf, <a href='#page_300'>300</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Crisis of the Naval War</i>, by Viscount Jellicoe of Scapa, <a href='#page_329'>329</a>;<br /> + review of, in Proceedings of the United States Naval Institute, <a href='#page_329'>329</a>, <a href='#page_330'>330</a>, <a href='#page_331'>331</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Crome Yellow</i>, by Aldous Huxley, <a href='#page_34'>34</a><br /> +<br /> +Cummins, Col. Stevenson Lyle, in Who’s Who, <a href='#page_156'>156</a>, <a href='#page_157'>157</a>;<br /> + <i>Plays for Children</i>, <a href='#page_157'>157</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Cupid and Commonsense</i>, by Arnold Bennett, <a href='#page_133'>133</a>, <a href='#page_150'>150</a><br /> +<br /> +Dana, H. W. L., <a href='#page_297'>297</a>; <i>Social Forces in Literature</i>, <a href='#page_300'>300</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Dancers in the Dark</i>, by Dorothy Speare, <a href='#page_255'>255</a>, <a href='#page_256'>256</a><br /> +<br /> +Daniels, Josephus, <i>Our Navy at War</i>, <a href='#page_321'>321</a>, <a href='#page_322'>322</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Dark Forest, The</i>, by Hugh, Walpole, <a href='#page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#page_31'>31</a><br /> +<br /> +Davey, Norman, <a href='#page_36'>36</a>, <a href='#page_37'>37</a>;<br /> + Guinea Girl, <a href='#page_36'>36</a>, <a href='#page_37'>37</a>;<br /> + The Gas Turbine, <a href='#page_37'>37</a>;<br /> + <i>The Pilgrim of a Smile</i>, <a href='#page_36'>36</a><br /> +<br /> +Davies, Hubert Henry, Plays of, <i>A Single Man</i>, <a href='#page_365'>365</a>;<br /> + <i>Captain Drew on Leave</i>, <a href='#page_365'>365</a>;<br /> + <i>Cousin Kate</i>, <a href='#page_365'>365</a>;<br /> + <i>Doormats</i>, <a href='#page_365'>365</a>;<br /> + <i>Lady Epping’s Law Suit</i>, <a href='#page_365'>365</a>;<br /> + <i>Mrs. Gorringe’s Necklace</i>, <a href='#page_365'>365</a>;<br /> + <i>Outcasts</i>, <a href='#page_365'>365</a>;<br /> + <i>The Mollusc</i>, <a href='#page_365'>365</a><br /> +<br /> +Davis, Robert H., <a href='#page_186'>186</a>;<br /> + biographer of Irvin S. Cobb, <a href='#page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#page_186'>186</a>;<br /> + Box Score of Writers, <a href='#page_183'>183</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Days Before Yesterday</i>, by Lord Frederic Hamilton, <a href='#page_131'>131</a><br /> +<br /> +de Staël, Madame, <a href='#page_128'>128</a><br /> +<br /> +“Death of Lully,” in Limbo, by Aldous Huxley, <a href='#page_36'>36</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Deaves Affair</i>, The, by Hulbert Footner, <a href='#page_75'>75</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>December Love</i>, by Robert Hichins, <a href='#page_249'>249</a><br /> +<br /> +Dehan, Richard (Clotilde Graves), <a href='#page_196'>196</a>, <a href='#page_197'>197</a>, <a href='#page_199'>199</a>, <a href='#page_200'>200</a>, <a href='#page_201'>201</a>, <a href='#page_204'>204</a>, <a href='#page_209'>209</a>, <a href='#page_210'>210</a>, <a href='#page_211'>211</a>;<br /> + <i>Between Two Thieves</i>, <a href='#page_198'>198</a>, <a href='#page_200'>200</a>, <a href='#page_210'>210</a>;<br /> + books by, <a href='#page_210'>210</a>;<br /> + Comment by The Bookman, <a href='#page_198'>198</a>;<br /> + sources on, <a href='#page_211'>211</a>;<br /> + <i>That Which Hath Wings</i>, <a href='#page_200'>200</a>, <a href='#page_210'>210</a>;<br /> + <i>The Dop Doctor</i>, <a href='#page_196'>196</a>, <a href='#page_200'>200</a>, <a href='#page_210'>210</a>;<br /> + <i>The Eve of Pascua</i>, <a href='#page_201'>201</a>, <a href='#page_210'>210</a>;<br /> + <i>The Just Steward</i>, <a href='#page_201'>201</a>, <a href='#page_202'>202</a>, <a href='#page_203'>203</a>, <a href='#page_205'>205</a>, <a href='#page_206'>206</a>, <a href='#page_207'>207</a>, <a href='#page_208'>208</a>, <a href='#page_210'>210</a><br /> +<br /> +Denham, Sir James, <i>Memoirs of the Memorable</i>, <a href='#page_119'>119</a><br /> +<br /> +Dennis, Mrs. A. E. Forbes, see Phyllis Bottome, <a href='#page_258'>258</a><br /> +<br /> +Dircks, Helen, <i>Passenger</i>, <a href='#page_236'>236</a><br /> +<br /> +Djemal Pasha, <i>Memoirs of</i>, <a href='#page_122'>122</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Doors of the Night</i>, by Frank L. Packard, <a href='#page_68'>68</a>, <a href='#page_69'>69</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Dop Doctor, The</i>, by Richard Dehan (Clotilde Graves), <a href='#page_196'>196</a>, <a href='#page_200'>200</a>, <a href='#page_210'>210</a><br /> +<br /> +Dos Passes, John, <a href='#page_356'>356</a>;<br /> + <i>A Pushcart at the Curb</i>, <a href='#page_347'>347</a>;<br /> + <i>de Unamuno, Miguel</i>, <a href='#page_39'>39</a>;<br /> + <i>Manrique, Jorge, Ode</i>, <a href='#page_39'>39</a>;<br /> + <i>Rosinante to The Road Again</i>, <a href='#page_38'>38</a>, <a href='#page_347'>347</a>;<br /> + <i>Three Soldiers</i>, <a href='#page_347'>347</a><br /> +<br /> +Douglas, O., <a href='#page_249'>249</a>;<br /> + <i>Ann and Her Mother</i>, <a href='#page_249'>249</a>;<br /> + <i>Penny Plain</i>, <a href='#page_249'>249</a>;<br /> + Sister of John Buchan, <a href='#page_249'>249</a><br /> +<br /> +Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan, <a href='#page_115'>115</a>;<br /> + <i>Spiritualism and Rationalism</i>, <a href='#page_302'>302</a>;<br /> + <i>The New Revelation</i>, <a href='#page_302'>302</a>;<br /> + <i>The Vital Message</i>, <a href='#page_302'>302</a>;<br /> + <i>The Wanderings of a Spiritualist</i>, <a href='#page_302'>302</a><br /> +<br /> +Dreiser, Theodore, review of Human Bondage, in New Republic, <a href='#page_273'>273</a>-<a href='#page_277'>277</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Duchess of Wrexe, The</i>, by Hugh Walpole, <a href='#page_19'>19</a>, <a href='#page_31'>31</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Earth’s Story, The</i>, by Frederic Arnold Kummer, <a href='#page_155'>155</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>East of Suez</i>, by W. Somerset Maugham, <a href='#page_284'>284</a>, <a href='#page_292'>292</a>, <a href='#page_360'>360</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Education of Eric Law, The</i>, see <i>The Sensationalists</i>, by Stephen McKenna, <a href='#page_342'>342</a>, <a href='#page_346'>346</a><br /> +<br /> +Ellis, Havelock, <i>Little Essays of Love and Virtue</i>, <a href='#page_302'>302</a>;<br /> + <i>Emperor Francis Joseph and His Times, The</i>, by Baron Margutti, <a href='#page_130'>130</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>English Literature During the Last Half Century</i>, by John W. Cunliffe, <a href='#page_144'>144</a>, <a href='#page_150'>150</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Eris</i>, by Robert W. Chambers, <a href='#page_311'>311</a>, <a href='#page_317'>317</a>, <a href='#page_320'>320</a>;<br /> + from extracts, <a href='#page_311'>311</a>-<a href='#page_316'>316</a>, <a href='#page_320'>320</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Escape of Mr. Trimm, The</i>, by Irvin S. Cobb, <a href='#page_178'>178</a>, <a href='#page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#page_184'>184</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Essays on Religion</i>, by T. R. Glover, <a href='#page_305'>305</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Eve of Pascua</i>, The, by Richard Dehan (Clotilde Graves), <a href='#page_201'>201</a>, <a href='#page_210'>210</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Eyes of Love, The</i>, by Corra Harris, <a href='#page_257'>257</a>;<br /> + extract from, <a href='#page_257'>257</a>-<a href='#page_258'>8</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Facing Reality</i>, by Esme Wingfield-Stratford, <a href='#page_300'>300</a>;<br /> + Chapter titles, <a href='#page_300'>300</a>;<br /> + introduction, extracts from, <a href='#page_300'>300</a>, <a href='#page_301'>301</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Fairies and Chimneys</i>, by Rose Fyleman, <a href='#page_158'>158</a>;<br /> + Quotation from, <a href='#page_158'>158</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Fairy Flute, The</i>, by Rose Fyleman, <a href='#page_158'>158</a><br /> +<br /> +Farnsworth, Sidney, <i>Illumination and Its Development in the Present Day</i>, <a href='#page_223'>223</a><br /> +<br /> +Farrar, John, Editor of The Bookman, <a href='#page_94'>94</a>, <a href='#page_357'>357</a>;<br /> + poet, <a href='#page_371'>371</a>;<br /> + Editor, see The Bookman, <a href='#page_371'>371</a><br /> +<br /> +Fenger, Frederic A., <i>Alone in the Caribbean</i>, <a href='#page_194'>194</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>First Days of Man, The</i>, by Frederic Arnold Kummer, <a href='#page_155'>155</a>, <a href='#page_156'>156</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>First Person Singular, The</i>, by William Rose Benét, <a href='#page_262'>262</a>, <a href='#page_263'>263</a>, <a href='#page_354'>354</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Flaming Jewel, The</i>, by Robert W. Chambers, <a href='#page_311'>311</a>, <a href='#page_320'>320</a><br /> +<br /> +Follett, Wilson, comparisons, <a href='#page_52'>52</a>;<br /> + Reviewer The Bookman, <a href='#page_371'>371</a>;<br /> + <i>Some Modern Novelists</i>, <a href='#page_150'>150</a><br /> +<br /> +Footner, Hulbert, <i>The Deaves Affair</i>, <a href='#page_75'>75</a>;<br /> + <i>The Owl Taxi</i>, <a href='#page_74'>74</a>, <a href='#page_75'>75</a><br /> +<br /> +Forbes, Lady Angela, <i>Memories and Base Details</i>, <a href='#page_130'>130</a>;<br /> + <i>Memories Discreet and Indiscreet</i>, <a href='#page_130'>130</a>;<br /> + <i>More Indiscretions</i>, <a href='#page_129'>129</a><br /> +<br /> +Forbes, Rosita, <i>The Secret of the Sahara: Kufara</i>, <a href='#page_192'>192</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Fortitude</i>, by Hugh Walpole, <a href='#page_21'>21</a>, <a href='#page_23'>23</a>, <a href='#page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#page_31'>31</a>;<br /> + theme of, <a href='#page_21'>21</a>, <a href='#page_31'>31</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Forty Years On</i>, by Lord Ernest Hamilton, <a href='#page_132'>132</a><br /> +<br /> +“Frankincense and Myrrh,” from <i>Pieces of Hate</i>, by Heywood Broun, <a href='#page_41'>41</a>, <a href='#page_42'>42</a>, <a href='#page_43'>43</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>From Now On</i>, by Frank L. Packard, <a href='#page_68'>68</a>, <a href='#page_69'>69</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale, The</i>, by Frank L. Packard, <a href='#page_68'>68</a>, <a href='#page_69'>69</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Further Adventures of Lad</i>, by Albert Payson Terhune, <a href='#page_215'>215</a>;<br /> + extracts from, <a href='#page_216'>216</a><br /> +<br /> +Fyleman, Rose, Fairies and Chimneys, <a href='#page_158'>158</a>;<br /> + <i>The Fairy Flute</i>, <a href='#page_158'>158</a><br /> +<br /> +Gabriel, Gilbert W., <a href='#page_53'>53</a>;<br /> + Jiminy, novel by, <a href='#page_53'>53</a>;<br /> + music critic, N. Y. Sun, <a href='#page_53'>53</a>;<br /> + Novelist, <a href='#page_53'>53</a>;<br /> + substitute for Don Marquis, <a href='#page_54'>54</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Gates of Wrath, The</i>, by Arnold Bennett, <a href='#page_146'>146</a>, <a href='#page_149'>149</a><br /> +<br /> +Gavit, John Palmer, account of Stewart Edward White, <a href='#page_65'>65</a>, <a href='#page_66'>66</a>, <a href='#page_67'>67</a><br /> +<br /> +Geister, Edna, <i>Ice-breakers and the Ice-Breaker Herself</i>, <a href='#page_219'>219</a>;<br /> + <i>It Is to Laugh</i>, <a href='#page_219'>219</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Gist of Golf, The</i>, by Harry Vardon, <a href='#page_213'>213</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Giving and Receiving</i>, by E. V. Lucas, <a href='#page_307'>307</a><br /> +<br /> +Glover, T. R., <i>Essays on Religion</i>, <a href='#page_305'>305</a>;<br /> + <i>Jesus in the Experience of Man</i>, <a href='#page_305'>305</a>;<br /> + <i>Poets and Pilgrims</i>, <a href='#page_305'>305</a>;<br /> + <i>Poets and Puritans,</i> <a href='#page_305'>305</a>;<br /> + <i>The Jesus of History</i>, <a href='#page_305'>305</a>;<br /> + <i>The Nature and Purpose of a Christian Society</i>, <a href='#page_305'>305</a>;<br /> + <i>The Pilgrim</i>, <a href='#page_305'>305</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Gods and Mr. Perrin, The</i>, by Hugh Walpole, <a href='#page_22'>22</a>, <a href='#page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#page_31'>31</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Gold</i>, by Stewart Edward White, <a href='#page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#page_67'>67</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Golden Scarecrow, The</i>, <a href='#page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#page_31'>31</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Gold-Killer</i>, by John Prosper, <a href='#page_75'>75</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Grand Fleet, The</i>, by Viscount Jellicoe of Scapa, <a href='#page_329'>329</a><br /> +<br /> +Graves, Clotilde (Richard Dehan), <a href='#page_196'>196</a>, <a href='#page_197'>197</a>, <a href='#page_198'>198</a>, <a href='#page_199'>199</a>, <a href='#page_200'>200</a>, <a href='#page_204'>204</a>, <a href='#page_209'>209</a>, <a href='#page_210'>210</a>, <a href='#page_211'>211</a>;<br /> + <i>A Mother of Three</i>, <a href='#page_199'>199</a>, <a href='#page_210'>210</a>;<br /> + <i>Nitocris</i>, <a href='#page_199'>199</a>, <a href='#page_210'>210</a>;<br /> + <i>Puss in Boots</i>, <a href='#page_199'>199</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Green Mirror, The</i>, by Hugh Walpole, <a href='#page_19'>19</a>, <a href='#page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#page_31'>31</a><br /> +<br /> +“Greenow, Richard,” of <i>Limbo</i>, by Aldous Huxley, <a href='#page_36'>36</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Guinea Girl</i>, by Norman Davey, <a href='#page_36'>36</a>, <a href='#page_37'>37</a><br /> +<br /> +Guest, Leslie Haden, <i>The Struggle for Power in Europe</i> (1917-21), <a href='#page_323'>323</a>, <a href='#page_324'>324</a><br /> +<br /> +Haggard, Andrew C. P., <i>Madame de Staël; Her Trials and Triumphs</i>, <a href='#page_129'>129</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Half Loaves</i>, by Margaret Culkin Banning, <a href='#page_253'>253</a><br /> +<br /> +Hambourg, Mark, <i>How to Play the Piano</i>, <a href='#page_219'>219</a>, <a href='#page_220'>220</a><br /> +<br /> +Hamilton, Lord Ernest, Forty Years On, <a href='#page_131'>131</a><br /> +<br /> +Hamilton, Lord Frederic, Days Before Yesterday, <a href='#page_131'>131</a>;<br /> + Diplomatic Services, <a href='#page_131'>131</a>;<br /> + Education, <a href='#page_131'>131</a>;<br /> + <i>Here, There and Everywhere</i>, <a href='#page_131'>131</a>;<br /> + <i>The Vanished Pomps of Yesterday</i>, <a href='#page_131'>131</a><br /> +<br /> +“Happy Families,” in <i>Limbo</i>, by Aldous Huxley, <a href='#page_36'>36</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Happy Family, The</i>, by Frank Swinnerton, <a href='#page_226'>226</a>, <a href='#page_238'>238</a>, <a href='#page_242'>242</a><br /> +<br /> +Harcourt, Edward Vernon, <a href='#page_118'>118</a><br /> +<br /> +Harcourt, Sir William, <i>George Granville Venables Vernon, Life of</i>, <a href='#page_118'>118</a><br /> +<br /> +“Harlequin,” from <i>The Birds and Other Poems</i>, by J. C. Squire, <a href='#page_351'>351</a>, <a href='#page_352'>352</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Harp of Life, The</i>, by J. Hartley Manners, <a href='#page_363'>363</a><br /> +<br /> +Harris, Corra, <a href='#page_257'>257</a>, <a href='#page_264'>264</a>;<br /> + <i>A Circuit Rider’s Wife</i>, <a href='#page_257'>257</a>;<br /> + <i>The Eyes of Love</i>, <a href='#page_257'>257</a><br /> +<br /> +Harrison, Marguerite E., <i>Marooned in Russia</i>, <a href='#page_192'>192</a><br /> +<br /> +Hawthorne, Nathaniel, <i>A Wonder Book</i>, <a href='#page_165'>165</a>;<br /> + <i>The Scarlet Letter</i>, <a href='#page_327'>327</a>, <a href='#page_328'>328</a><br /> +<br /> +Hayhurst, Dr. Emery, <i>Labour and Health</i>, <a href='#page_209'>209</a><br /> +<br /> +Henry, Alice, <i>Women and the Labour Movement</i>, <a href='#page_299'>299</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Here, There and Everywhere</i>, by Lord Frederic Hamilton, <a href='#page_131'>131</a><br /> +<br /> +Herford, Oliver, <i>Neither Here Nor There</i>, <a href='#page_95'>95</a><br /> +<br /> +Hergesheimer, Joseph, Appreciation of Hugh Walpole, <a href='#page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#page_29'>29</a>, <a href='#page_30'>30</a>, <a href='#page_31'>31</a><br /> +<br /> +Herm, home of Compton Mackenzie, <a href='#page_267'>267</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Herman Melville: Mariner and Mystic</i>, by Raymond W. Weaver, <a href='#page_325'>325</a>;<br /> + review by Carl Van Vechten, <a href='#page_325'>325</a>-<a href='#page_328'>328</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Hermit of Far End, The</i>, by Margaret Pedler, <a href='#page_256'>256</a><br /> +<br /> +Heroes of the Ruins, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler, <a href='#page_160'>160</a><br /> +<br /> +Heterogeneous Magis of Maugham, The, <a href='#page_270'>270</a><br /> +<br /> +Hichins, Robert, <i>The Garden of Allah</i>, <a href='#page_249'>249</a>;<br /> + <i>December Love</i>, <a href='#page_249'>249</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>History of Sea Power, A</i>, by William O. Stevens and Allan Westcott, <a href='#page_331'>331</a>;<br /> + Admiral Caspar F. Goodrich, review of, in The Weekly Review, <a href='#page_331'>331</a>-<a href='#page_333'>333</a>;<br /> + Extracts from, <a href='#page_332'>332</a>, <a href='#page_333'>333</a><br /> +<br /> +Holliday, Robert Cortes, <a href='#page_52'>52</a>;<br /> + business connections, <a href='#page_221'>221</a>;<br /> + <i>Broome Street Straws</i>, <a href='#page_52'>52</a>;<br /> + editor of The Bookman, <a href='#page_369'>369</a>;<br /> + Memoirs in <i>Joyce Kilmer, Poems, Essays and Letters</i>, <a href='#page_53'>53</a>;<br /> + <i>Men and Books and Cities</i>, <a href='#page_52'>52</a>;<br /> + <i>Peeps at People</i>, <a href='#page_52'>52</a>;<br /> + praise by James Hunecker, <a href='#page_52'>52</a>;<br /> + Study of Booth Tarkington, <a href='#page_53'>53</a>;<br /> + <i>Turns About Town</i>, <a href='#page_52'>52</a>;<br /> + <i>Walking Stick Papers</i>, <a href='#page_51'>51</a>;<br /> + <i>Writing as a Business; A Practical Guide for Authors</i>, <a href='#page_220'>220</a><br /> +<br /> +Houghton, Mrs. Hadwin, See Wells, Carolyn<br /> +<br /> +<i>House of Dreams Come True, The</i>, by Margaret Pedler, <a href='#page_256'>256</a><br /> +<br /> +House of Five Swords, The, by Tristram Tupper, <a href='#page_247'>247</a>, <a href='#page_248'>248</a><br /> +<br /> +“Houses” from <i>Main Street and other Poems</i>, by Joyce Kilmer, <a href='#page_349'>349</a>, <a href='#page_350'>350</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>How to Live on Twenty-four Hours a Day</i>, by Arnold Bennett, <a href='#page_303'>303</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>How to Play the Piano</i>, by Mark Hambourg, <a href='#page_219'>219</a>, <a href='#page_220'>220</a><br /> +<br /> +Howard, Sidney, Swords, <a href='#page_364'>364</a><br /> +<br /> +Hughes, Rupert, article on Robert W. Chambers, <a href='#page_320'>320</a>;<br /> + on Robert W. Chambers, <a href='#page_311'>311</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Hugh Walpole Anthology, A</i>, by Hugh Walpole, <a href='#page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#page_32'>32</a>;<br /> + divisions of, <a href='#page_27'>27</a>;<br /> + Country Places, <a href='#page_27'>27</a>;<br /> + London, <a href='#page_27'>27</a>;<br /> + Men and Women, <a href='#page_27'>27</a>;<br /> + Russia, <a href='#page_27'>27</a>;<br /> + Some Children, <a href='#page_27'>27</a>;<br /> + Some Incidents, <a href='#page_27'>27</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Hunting Hidden Treasure in the Andes</i>, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler, <a href='#page_159'>159</a><br /> +<br /> +Huxley, Aldous, <a href='#page_34'>34</a>, <a href='#page_35'>35</a>, <a href='#page_36'>36</a>;<br /> + Beauty, <a href='#page_36'>36</a>;<br /> + Comment by Michael Sadlier, <a href='#page_34'>34</a>;<br /> + Crome Yellow, <a href='#page_34'>34</a>;<br /> + Disciple of Laforgue, <a href='#page_35'>35</a>;<br /> + L’Apres-Midi-d’un Faune, translation by, <a href='#page_35'>35</a>;<br /> + <i>Limbo</i>, <a href='#page_34'>34</a>, <a href='#page_36'>36</a>;<br /> + Mortal Coils, <a href='#page_34'>34</a>, <a href='#page_35'>35</a>;<br /> + “Permutation among the Nightingales,” play by, <a href='#page_35'>35</a>;<br /> + poet and writer of prose, <a href='#page_35'>35</a>;<br /> + Quotations from <i>Mortal Coils,</i> <a href='#page_35'>35</a>;<br /> + Splendour, by Numbers, <a href='#page_36'>36</a>;<br /> + the sensualist, <a href='#page_36'>36</a>;<br /> + Translator of Laforgue, <a href='#page_35'>35</a>;<br /> + translation of <i>The Walk</i>, <a href='#page_35'>35</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>I Have Only Myself to Blame</i>, by Princess Bibesco, <a href='#page_47'>47</a>;<br /> + extract from, <a href='#page_47'>47</a>, <a href='#page_48'>48</a>, <a href='#page_49'>49</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Ice-breakers and the Ice-Breaker Herself</i>, by Edna Geister, <a href='#page_219'>219</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Illumination and Its Development in the Present Day</i>, by Sidney Farnsworth, <a href='#page_223'>223</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Imprudence</i>, by F. E. Mills Young, <a href='#page_263'>263</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>In the Days Before Columbus</i>, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler, <a href='#page_160'>160</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>In the Quarter</i>, by Robert W. Chambers, <a href='#page_317'>317</a>, <a href='#page_318'>318</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Iole</i>, by Robert W. Chambers, <a href='#page_318'>318</a>, <a href='#page_319'>319</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Irish Free State, The</i>, by Albert C. White, <a href='#page_191'>191</a>; Book Value, <a href='#page_192'>192</a><br /> +<br /> +Isn’t That Just Like a Man: Oh, Well, You Know How Women Are! <a href='#page_89'>89</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>It Is to Laugh</i>, by Edna Geister, <a href='#page_219'>219</a><br /> +<br /> +Jacks, L. P., editor of Hibbert Journal, <a href='#page_195'>195</a>;<br /> + <i>The Legends of Smokeover</i>, <a href='#page_194'>194</a><br /> +<br /> +Jameson, Mrs. Falconer, see J. E. Buckrose<br /> +<br /> +Jellicoe, Viscount, of Scapa, <i>The Crisis of the Naval War</i>, <a href='#page_329'>329</a>;<br /> + <i>The Grand Fleet</i>, <a href='#page_329'>329</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Jimmy Dale and the Phantom Clue</i>, by Frank L. Packard, <a href='#page_69'>69</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Joining in Public Discussion</i>, by Alfred Dwight Sheffield, <a href='#page_297'>297</a>;<br /> + sections of, <a href='#page_299'>299</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Judge, The</i>, by Rebecca West, <a href='#page_78'>78</a>;<br /> + dedication and review, <a href='#page_84'>84</a>, <a href='#page_85'>85</a>, <a href='#page_86'>86</a>;<br /> + extract from, <a href='#page_81'>81</a>, <a href='#page_82'>82</a>;<br /> + material employed, <a href='#page_82'>82</a>, <a href='#page_83'>83</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Judgment of Charis, The</i>, by Mrs. Baillie Reynolds, <a href='#page_76'>76</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Just Steward, The</i>, by Richard Dehan (Clotilde Graves), <a href='#page_201'>201</a>;<br /> + samples from, <a href='#page_201'>201</a>-<a href='#page_203'>203</a>, <a href='#page_205'>205</a>, <a href='#page_206'>206</a>, <a href='#page_207'>207</a>, <a href='#page_208'>208</a>, <a href='#page_210'>210</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Jungle Tales, Adventures in India</i>, by Howard Anderson Musser, <a href='#page_156'>156</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>K</i>, by Mary Roberts Rinehart,<br /> +<a href='#page_107'>107</a>, <a href='#page_108'>108</a>, <a href='#page_116'>116</a><br /> +<br /> +Kemp, E. G., <i>Chinese Mettle</i>, <a href='#page_190'>190</a><br /> +<br /> +Kerr, Sophie, <a href='#page_244'>244</a>;<br /> + Autobiography, <a href='#page_244'>244</a>-<a href='#page_246'>246</a>;<br /> + editor Woman’s Home Companion, <a href='#page_245'>245</a>;<br /> + <i>One Thing is Certain</i>, <a href='#page_246'>246</a>;<br /> + <i>Painted Meadows</i>, <a href='#page_246'>246</a>;<br /> + quotations from letter by, <a href='#page_246'>246</a>, <a href='#page_247'>247</a><br /> +<br /> +Kilmer, Joyce, Main Street and Other Poems, <a href='#page_349'>349</a>;<br /> + Poems, Essays and Letters, <a href='#page_53'>53</a>;<br /> + Memoirs, by Robert Cortes Holliday, <a href='#page_53'>53</a>;<br /> + Trees and Other Poems, <a href='#page_349'>349</a><br /> +<br /> +Kilmer, Mrs., <i>Candles That Burn</i>, <a href='#page_350'>350</a>; Vigils, <a href='#page_350'>350</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Kingfisher, The</i>, by Phyllis Bottome, <a href='#page_260'>260</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>King in Yellow, The</i>, by Robert W. Chambers, <a href='#page_317'>317</a>, <a href='#page_318'>318</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Knight Among Ladies</i>, A, by J. E. Buckrose, <a href='#page_251'>251</a><br /> +<br /> +Knight, Captain, C. W. R., <i>Wild Life in the Tree Tops</i>, <a href='#page_214'>214</a><br /> +<br /> +Kummer, Frederic Arnold, The Earth’s Story, <a href='#page_155'>155</a>;<br /> + <i>The First Days of Man</i>, <a href='#page_155'>155</a>, <a href='#page_156'>156</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Labour and Health</i>, by Dr. Emery Hayhurst, <a href='#page_299'>299</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Lad: A Dog</i>, by Albert Payson Terhune, <a href='#page_214'>214</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Lady Frederick</i>, by W. Somerset Maugham, <a href='#page_289'>289</a>, <a href='#page_291'>291</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Lady Lilith</i>, by Stephen McKenna, <a href='#page_342'>342</a>, <a href='#page_343'>343</a>, <a href='#page_346'>346</a>;<br /> + Comments by author, <a href='#page_342'>342</a>, <a href='#page_343'>343</a>, <a href='#page_346'>346</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Lamp of Fate, The</i>, by Margaret Pedler, <a href='#page_256'>256</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Land of Footprints, The</i>, by Stewart Edward White, <a href='#page_55'>55</a>, <a href='#page_67'>67</a><br /> +<br /> +Lanier, Henry Wysham, <i>A Century of Banking in New York: 1822-1922</i>, <a href='#page_193'>193</a><br /> +<br /> +Lardner, Ring W., appreciation of Charles E. Van Loan, <a href='#page_212'>212</a>;<br /> + Sport, <a href='#page_212'>212</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Laughter, Ltd.</i>, by Nina Wilcox Putnam, <a href='#page_90'>90</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Legends of Smokeover, The</i>, by L. P. Jacks, <a href='#page_194'>194</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Life and Letters</i>, by J. C. Squire, <a href='#page_46'>46</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Life of Sir William Vernon Harcourt, The</i>, <a href='#page_118'>118</a><br /> +<br /> +Lilian, by Arnold Bennett, <a href='#page_133'>133</a>, <a href='#page_137'>137</a>-<a href='#page_141'>141</a>, <a href='#page_149'>149</a>;<br /> + extract from, <a href='#page_137'>137</a>-<a href='#page_141'>141</a>, <a href='#page_149'>149</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Limbo</i>, by Aldous Huxley, <a href='#page_34'>34</a>, <a href='#page_36'>36</a>;<br /> + Death of Lully, <a href='#page_36'>36</a>;<br /> + Happy Families, <a href='#page_36'>36</a><br /> +<br /> +Literary Spotlight, The; The Bookman, <a href='#page_371'>371</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Little Essays of Love and Virtue</i>,<br /> +by Havelock Ellis, <a href='#page_302'>302</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Little Jumping Joan</i>, by May Byron, <a href='#page_153'>153</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Liza of Lambeth</i>, by W. Somerset Maugham, <a href='#page_286'>286</a>, <a href='#page_287'>287</a>, <a href='#page_291'>291</a><br /> +<br /> +Lloyd George, critical sketch, by E. T. Raymond, <a href='#page_121'>121</a><br /> +<br /> +Lodge, Sir Oliver, <a href='#page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#page_301'>301</a><br /> +<br /> +London Mercury, edited by J. C. Squire, <a href='#page_44'>44</a>, <a href='#page_46'>46</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>London Spy, The</i>, by Thomas Burke, <a href='#page_189'>189</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Long Live the King</i>, by Mary Roberts Rinehart, <a href='#page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#page_116'>116</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Love Match, The</i>, by Arnold Bennett, <a href='#page_361'>361</a>, <a href='#page_364'>364</a>;<br /> + Extracts from, <a href='#page_361'>361</a>-<a href='#page_363'>363</a><br /> +<br /> +Lowndes, Mrs. Belloc, appreciation of Hugh Walpole, <a href='#page_23'>23</a>, <a href='#page_24'>24</a>;<br /> + <i>What Timmy Did</i>, <a href='#page_77'>77</a><br /> +<br /> +Lucas, E. V., <i>Giving and Receiving</i>, <a href='#page_307'>307</a>;<br /> + <i>Roving East and Roving West</i>, <a href='#page_307'>307</a><br /> +<br /> +Mackenzie, Compton, <i>Carnival</i>, <a href='#page_265'>265</a>;<br /> + <i>Plasher’s Mead</i>, <a href='#page_265'>265</a>;<br /> + <i>Poor Relations</i>, <a href='#page_265'>265</a>;<br /> + Rich Relatives, <a href='#page_265'>265</a>;<br /> + Sinister Street, <a href='#page_265'>265</a>;<br /> + The Altar Steps, <a href='#page_265'>265</a>, <a href='#page_266'>266</a>, <a href='#page_269'>269</a>;<br /> + The Parson’s Progress, <a href='#page_266'>266</a>;<br /> + visit by Simon Pure, <a href='#page_266'>266</a>-<a href='#page_269'>269</a><br /> +<br /> +MacQuarrie, Hector, on W. Somerset Maugham, <a href='#page_277'>277</a>, <a href='#page_284'>284</a>, <a href='#page_290'>290</a>;<br /> + <i>Tahiti Days</i>, <a href='#page_270'>270</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Madame de Staël; Her Trials and Triumphs</i>, by Andrew C. P. Haggard, <a href='#page_124'>124</a>-<a href='#page_129'>129</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Main Street and Other Poems</i>, by Joyce Kilmer, <a href='#page_349'>349</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Man from the North, A</i>, by Arnold Bennett, <a href='#page_146'>146</a>, <a href='#page_149'>149</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Man in Lower Ten, The</i>, by Mary Roberts Rinehart, <a href='#page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#page_116'>116</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Man in Ratcatcher, The</i>, by Cyril McNeile, <a href='#page_70'>70</a><br /> +<br /> +Manners, J. Hartley, <i>The Harp of Life</i>, <a href='#page_363'>363</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Maradick at Forty</i>, by Hugh Walpole, <a href='#page_26'>26</a>, <a href='#page_31'>31</a><br /> +<br /> +Margutti, Baron von, <i>The Emperor Francis Joseph and His Times</i>, <a href='#page_130'>130</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Marooned in Moscow</i>, by Marguerite E. Harrison, <a href='#page_192'>192</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Married Life</i>, by Arnold Bennett, <a href='#page_303'>303</a><br /> +<br /> +Maugham W. Somerset, article by Hector MacQuarrie, <a href='#page_292'>292</a>;<br /> + books by, <a href='#page_291'>291</a>, <a href='#page_292'>292</a>;<br /> + <i>Caroline</i>, <a href='#page_289'>289</a>, <a href='#page_292'>292</a>;<br /> + East of Suez, <a href='#page_284'>284</a>, <a href='#page_292'>292</a>, <a href='#page_360'>360</a>;<br /> + education of, <a href='#page_286'>286</a>;<br /> + father of, <a href='#page_286'>286</a>;<br /> + wife of, <a href='#page_286'>286</a>;<br /> + <i>Lady Frederick</i>, <a href='#page_289'>289</a>, <a href='#page_291'>291</a>;<br /> + <i>Liza of Lambeth</i>, <a href='#page_286'>286</a>, <a href='#page_287'>287</a>, <a href='#page_291'>291</a>;<br /> + <i>Mrs. Craddock</i>, <a href='#page_287'>287</a>, <a href='#page_288'>288</a>, <a href='#page_291'>291</a>;<br /> + <i>Mrs. Dot</i>, <a href='#page_289'>289</a>, <a href='#page_291'>291</a>;<br /> + <i>Of Human Bondage</i>, <a href='#page_270'>270</a>, <a href='#page_273'>273</a>-<a href='#page_77'>77</a>, <a href='#page_287'>287</a>, <a href='#page_291'>291</a>;<br /> + <i>On a Chinese Screen</i>, <a href='#page_284'>284</a>-<a href='#page_285'>285</a>, <a href='#page_291'>291</a>;<br /> + playright, <a href='#page_288'>288</a>;<br /> + sources on, <a href='#page_292'>292</a>;<br /> + <i>The Circle</i>, <a href='#page_289'>289</a>, <a href='#page_292'>292</a>;<br /> + The heterogeneous magic of, <a href='#page_270'>270</a>;<br /> + <i>The Moon and Sixpence</i>, <a href='#page_270'>270</a>, <a href='#page_277'>277</a>, <a href='#page_278'>278</a>, <a href='#page_279'>279</a>, <a href='#page_284'>284</a>, <a href='#page_287'>287</a>, <a href='#page_291'>291</a><br /> +<br /> +McCormick, W. B., Army and Navy Journal, Editor of, <a href='#page_321'>321</a>;<br /> + Comment on Josephus Daniels <i>Our Navy at War</i>, <a href='#page_321'>321</a>, <a href='#page_322'>322</a>, <a href='#page_323'>323</a><br /> +<br /> +McFee, William, <a href='#page_371'>371</a>;<br /> + Extracts from preface to <i>Spindrift</i>, by Milton Raison, <a href='#page_352'>352</a>, <a href='#page_353'>353</a><br /> +<br /> +McKenna, Stephen, <a href='#page_334'>334</a>, <a href='#page_337'>337</a>, <a href='#page_338'>338</a>, <a href='#page_339'>339</a>, <a href='#page_340'>340</a>, <a href='#page_341'>341</a>, <a href='#page_342'>342</a>, <a href='#page_343'>343</a>, <a href='#page_345'>345</a>, <a href='#page_346'>346</a>;<br /> + <i>Between Two Worlds</i>, <a href='#page_341'>341</a>, <a href='#page_346'>346</a>;<br /> + Books by, <a href='#page_345'>345</a>, <a href='#page_346'>346</a>;<br /> + Comments on <i>Lady Lilith</i>, <a href='#page_342'>342</a>, <a href='#page_343'>343</a>;<br /> + education of, <a href='#page_340'>340</a>;<br /> + <i>Lady Lilith</i>, <a href='#page_342'>342</a>, <a href='#page_343'>343</a>, <a href='#page_346'>346</a>;<br /> + Leopold McKenna, father of, <a href='#page_340'>340</a>;<br /> + <i>Midas and Son</i>, <a href='#page_341'>341</a>, <a href='#page_346'>346</a>;<br /> + <i>Ninety-Six Hours’ Leave</i>, <a href='#page_341'>341</a>, <a href='#page_346'>346</a>;<br /> + personality, <a href='#page_343'>343</a>;<br /> + <i>Sheila Intervenes</i>, <a href='#page_340'>340</a>, <a href='#page_345'>345</a>;<br /> + <i>Sonia</i>, <a href='#page_339'>339</a>, <a href='#page_340'>340</a>, <a href='#page_341'>341</a>, <a href='#page_342'>342</a>, <a href='#page_343'>343</a>, <a href='#page_346'>346</a>;<br /> + <i>Sonia Married</i>, <a href='#page_341'>341</a>, <a href='#page_342'>342</a>, <a href='#page_346'>346</a>;<br /> + Sources on, <a href='#page_346'>346</a>;<br /> + <i>The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman</i>, <a href='#page_337'>337</a>, <a href='#page_344'>344</a>, <a href='#page_346'>346</a>;<br /> + <i>The Education of Eric Lane</i>, <a href='#page_342'>342</a>, <a href='#page_346'>346</a>;<br /> + <i>The Reluctant Lover</i>, <a href='#page_340'>340</a>, <a href='#page_345'>345</a>;<br /> + <i>The Secret Victory</i>, <a href='#page_342'>342</a>, <a href='#page_346'>346</a>;<br /> + <i>The Sensationalists</i>, <a href='#page_341'>341</a>, <a href='#page_342'>342</a>;<br /> + <i>The Sixth Sense</i>, <a href='#page_340'>340</a>, <a href='#page_345'>345</a>;<br /> + <i>Translator of Poltinus</i>, <a href='#page_339'>339</a>;<br /> + war service, <a href='#page_340'>340</a>;<br /> + <i>While I Remember</i>, <a href='#page_324'>324</a>, <a href='#page_346'>346</a><br /> +<br /> +McNeile, Cyril, Bulldog Drummond, <a href='#page_70'>70</a>;<br /> + <i>The Black Gang</i>, <a href='#page_70'>70</a>;<br /> + <i>The Man in Ratcatcher</i>, <a href='#page_70'>70</a><br /> +<br /> +Melville, Herman, <i>Mardi</i>, <a href='#page_327'>327</a>;<br /> + <i>Moby Dick</i>, <a href='#page_327'>327</a>, <a href='#page_328'>328</a>;<br /> + <i>Omoo</i>, <a href='#page_326'>326</a>;<br /> + <i>Pierre</i>, <a href='#page_327'>327</a>;<br /> + <i>Typee</i>, <a href='#page_326'>326</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Memoirs of Djemal Pasha, The</i>, <a href='#page_122'>122</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Memoirs of the Memorable</i>, by Sir James Denham, <a href='#page_119'>119</a>;<br /> + Beaconsfield, Lord, <a href='#page_119'>119</a>;<br /> + Beresford, Lord Marcus, <a href='#page_119'>119</a>;<br /> + Bishop of London, <a href='#page_119'>119</a>;<br /> + Bishop of Manchester, <a href='#page_119'>119</a>;<br /> + Browning, Robert, <a href='#page_119'>119</a>;<br /> + Byron, Lord, <a href='#page_119'>119</a>;<br /> + Carroll, Lewis, <a href='#page_119'>119</a>;<br /> + Dunedin, Lord, <a href='#page_119'>119</a>;<br /> + Gladstone, <a href='#page_119'>119</a>;<br /> + Howard, Cardinal, <a href='#page_119'>119</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Memories and Base Details</i>, by Lady Angela Forbes, <a href='#page_130'>130</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Memories Discreet and Indiscreet</i>, by Lady Angela Forbes, <a href='#page_129'>129</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Men and Books and Cities</i>, by Robert Cortes Holliday, <a href='#page_52'>52</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Men Who Make Our Novels, The</i>, by George Gordon, <a href='#page_55'>55</a>, <a href='#page_67'>67</a>, <a href='#page_320'>320</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Merry Heart, The</i>, by Frank Swinnerton, <a href='#page_236'>236</a>, <a href='#page_242'>242</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Midas and Son</i>, by Stephen McKenna, <a href='#page_341'>341</a>, <a href='#page_342'>342</a>, <a href='#page_346'>346</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Milestones</i>, by Arnold Bennett and Edward Knoblauch, <a href='#page_364'>364</a><br /> +<br /> +Milne, A. A., <i>Mr. Pim</i>, <a href='#page_261'>261</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Miracle Man, The</i>, by Frank L. Packard, <a href='#page_68'>68</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Miscellanies—Literary and Historical</i>, by Lord Rosebery, <a href='#page_123'>123</a><br /> +<br /> +Moffatt, Dr. James, <i>The Approach of the New Testament</i>, <a href='#page_296'>296</a>;<br /> + <i>New Translation of the New Testament</i>, <a href='#page_293'>293</a>;<br /> + <i>New Translation of the Old Testament</i>, <a href='#page_296'>296</a>;<br /> + <i>The Parallel Testament</i>, <a href='#page_293'>293</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Mollusc, The</i>, by Hubert Henry Davies, <a href='#page_365'>365</a><br /> +<br /> +Monaghan, Elizabeth A., <i>What to Eat and How to Prepare It</i>, <a href='#page_218'>218</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Moon and Sixpence, The</i>, by W. Somerset Maugham, <a href='#page_270'>270</a>, <a href='#page_278'>278</a>, <a href='#page_279'>279</a>, <a href='#page_284'>284</a>, <a href='#page_287'>287</a>, <a href='#page_291'>291</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Moon Out of Reach, The</i>, by Margaret Pedler, <a href='#page_256'>256</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Moons of Grandeur</i>, by William Rose Benét, <a href='#page_354'>354</a>, <a href='#page_355'>355</a>;<br /> + Don Marquis, review of, <a href='#page_354'>354</a>;<br /> + Quotation from, <a href='#page_355'>355</a><br /> +<br /> +Moore, Annie Carroll, <i>Roads to Childhood</i>, <a href='#page_152'>152</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>More Indiscretions</i>, by Lady Angela Forbes, <a href='#page_129'>129</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>More Limehouse Nights</i>, by Thomas Burke, <a href='#page_187'>187</a><br /> +<br /> +Morley, Christopher, <i>A Rocking Horse</i>, <a href='#page_348'>348</a>;<br /> + <i>Translations from the Chinese</i>, <a href='#page_349'>349</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Mortal Coils</i>, by Aldous Huxley, <a href='#page_34'>34</a>, <a href='#page_35'>35</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Mr. Lloyd George: A Biographical and Critical Sketch</i>, by E. T. Raymond, <a href='#page_120'>120</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Mr. Pim</i>, by A. A. Milne, <a href='#page_261'>261</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Mr. Prohock</i>, by Arnold Bennett, <a href='#page_133'>133</a>, <a href='#page_141'>141</a>, <a href='#page_149'>149</a>;<br /> + extracts from, <a href='#page_141'>141</a>-<a href='#page_144'>144</a>, <a href='#page_149'>149</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Mrs. Craddock</i>, by W. Somerset Maugham, <a href='#page_287'>287</a>, <a href='#page_288'>288</a>, <a href='#page_291'>291</a>;<br /> + extract from, <a href='#page_288'>288</a>, <a href='#page_291'>291</a><br /> +<br /> +Musser, Howard Anderson, <i>Jungle Tales, Adventures in India</i>, <a href='#page_156'>156</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>My Creed: The Way to Happiness—As I Found It</i>, Mary Roberts Rinehart, <a href='#page_117'>117</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>My Impressions of America</i>, by Margot Asquith, <a href='#page_122'>122</a><br /> +<br /> +Myers, A. Wallis, <i>Twenty Years of Lawn Tennis</i>, <a href='#page_213'>213</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Neither Here Nor There</i>, by Oliver Herford, <a href='#page_95'>95</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Nêne</i>, <a href='#page_264'>264</a>; Comment by Walter<br /> +Prichard Eaton, <a href='#page_265'>265</a>; Goncourt<br /> +Prize, won by, <a href='#page_264'>264</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>New Revelation, The</i>, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, <a href='#page_302'>302</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>New Translation of the New Testament</i>, by Dr. James Moffatt, <a href='#page_293'>293</a>;<br /> + extracts from, <a href='#page_293'>293</a>-<a href='#page_296'>296</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>New Translation of the Old Testament</i>, by Dr. James Moffatt, <a href='#page_296'>296</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Nicolette</i>, by Baroness Orczy, <a href='#page_248'>248</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Night Operator, The</i>, by Frank L. Packard, <a href='#page_68'>68</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Nights in London</i>, by Thomas Burke, <a href='#page_190'>190</a><br /> +<br /> +Ninety-six Hours’ Leave, by Stephen McKenna, <a href='#page_341'>341</a>, <a href='#page_346'>346</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Nocturne</i>, by Frank Swinnerton, <a href='#page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#page_233'>233</a>, <a href='#page_235'>235</a>, <a href='#page_239'>239</a>, <a href='#page_243'>243</a>;<br /> + Comment by H. G. Wells, <a href='#page_233'>233</a>-<a href='#page_235'>235</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Of Human Bondage</i>, by W. Somerset Maugham, <a href='#page_270'>270</a>;<br /> + review by Theodore Dreiser, <a href='#page_273'>273</a>-<a href='#page_277'>277</a>, <a href='#page_287'>287</a>, <a href='#page_291'>291</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Old Morocco and the Forbidden Atlas</i>, by C. E. Andrews, <a href='#page_193'>193</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Old Wives’ Tales, The</i>, by Arnold Bennett, <a href='#page_133'>133</a>, <a href='#page_149'>149</a>;<br /> + inspiration of, <a href='#page_147'>147</a>, <a href='#page_149'>149</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>On a Chinese Screen</i>, by W. Somerset Maugham, <a href='#page_284'>284</a>, <a href='#page_291'>291</a>;<br /> + extract from, <a href='#page_284'>284</a>-<a href='#page_285'>285</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>On the Staircase</i>, by Frank Swinnerton, <a href='#page_226'>226</a>, <a href='#page_243'>243</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>On Tiptoe: A Romance of the Redwoods</i>, by Stewart Edward White, <a href='#page_59'>59</a>, <a href='#page_67'>67</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>One Thing is Certain</i>, by Sophie Kerr, <a href='#page_246'>246</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Our Navy at War</i>, by Josephus Daniels, <a href='#page_321'>321</a>;<br /> + Comment on, by W. B. McCormick, <a href='#page_321'>321</a>, <a href='#page_322'>322</a>, <a href='#page_323'>323</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Outcasts</i>, by Hubert Henry Davies, <a href='#page_365'>365</a><br /> +<br /> +Orczy, Baroness, <i>Nicolette</i>, <a href='#page_248'>248</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Owl Taxi, The</i>, by Hulbert Footner, <a href='#page_74'>74</a>, <a href='#page_75'>75</a><br /> +<br /> +Packard, Frank L., <i>Doors of the Night</i>, <a href='#page_68'>68</a>;<br /> + education of, <a href='#page_68'>68</a>;<br /> + <i>From Now On</i>, <a href='#page_68'>68</a>;<br /> + <i>Pawned</i>, <a href='#page_68'>68</a>;<br /> + <i>The Adventures of Jimmy Dale</i>, <a href='#page_68'>68</a>, <a href='#page_69'>69</a>;<br /> + <i>The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale</i>, <a href='#page_68'>68</a>;<br /> + <i>The Miracle Man</i>, <a href='#page_68'>68</a>;<br /> + <i>The Night Operator</i>, <a href='#page_68'>68</a>;<br /> + <i>The Phantom Clue</i>, <a href='#page_69'>69</a>;<br /> + <i>The Wire Devils</i>, <a href='#page_68'>68</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Painted Meadows</i>, by Sophie Kerr, <a href='#page_246'>246</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Parallel New Testament, The</i>, by Dr. James Moffatt, <a href='#page_293'>293</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Parody Outline of History, A,</i> by Donald Ogden Stewart, <a href='#page_93'>93</a>, <a href='#page_94'>94</a>, <a href='#page_371'>371</a>;<br /> + see The Bookman, <a href='#page_371'>371</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Parson’s Progress, The</i>, by Compton Mackenzie, <a href='#page_266'>266</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Passenger</i>, by Helen Dircks, <a href='#page_236'>236</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Patricia Brent, Spinster</i>, anonymous, <a href='#page_261'>261</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Pawned</i>, by Frank L. Packard, <a href='#page_68'>68</a><br /> +<br /> +Pedler, Margaret, <i>The Hermit of Far End</i>, <a href='#page_256'>256</a>;<br /> + <i>The House of Dreams Come True</i>, <a href='#page_256'>256</a>;<br /> + <i>The Lamp of Fate</i>, <a href='#page_256'>256</a>;<br /> + <i>The Moon Out of Reach</i>, <a href='#page_256'>256</a>;<br /> + <i>The Splendid Folly</i>, <a href='#page_256'>256</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Peeps at People</i>, by Robert Cortes Holliday, <a href='#page_52'>52</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Penny Plain</i>, by O. Douglas, <a href='#page_249'>249</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Perfect Behaviour</i>, by Donald Ogden Stewart, <a href='#page_93'>93</a>, <a href='#page_94'>94</a>;<br /> + motive of, <a href='#page_94'>94</a><br /> +<br /> +Perin, Dr. George L., founder of Franklin Square House for Girls, <a href='#page_304'>304</a>;<br /> + on autosuggestion, <a href='#page_304'>304</a>;<br /> + <i>Self Healing Simplified</i>, <a href='#page_304'>304</a><br /> +<br /> +“Permutations Among the Nightingales,” by Aldous Huxley, <a href='#page_35'>35</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Peter</i>, by E. F. Benson, <a href='#page_261'>261</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Pieces of Hate</i>, by Heywood Broun, <a href='#page_41'>41</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Pilgrim of a Smile, The</i>, by Norman Davey, <a href='#page_36'>36</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Plays for Children</i>, by Col. Stevenson Lyle Cummins, <a href='#page_157'>157</a><br /> +<br /> +Plays of Hubert Henry Davies, The, <a href='#page_365'>365</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Plotting in Pirate Seas</i>, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler, <a href='#page_159'>159</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Poems: Second Series</i>, by J. C. Squire, <a href='#page_351'>351</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Poets and Puritans</i>, by T. R. Glover, <a href='#page_305'>305</a>;<br /> + preface, <a href='#page_306'>306</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Poindexter, J., Colored</i>, by Irvin S. Cobb, <a href='#page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#page_185'>185</a>;<br /> + extract from, <a href='#page_170'>170</a>-<a href='#page_171'>171</a>, <a href='#page_185'>185</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Pomp of Power, The</i>, anonymous, <a href='#page_119'>119</a><br /> +<br /> +Preston, Keith, <i>Splinters</i>, <a href='#page_358'>358</a>, <a href='#page_359'>359</a><br /> +<br /> +Prosper, John, <i>Gold-Killer</i>, <a href='#page_75'>75</a><br /> +<br /> +Publishing as a business, <a href='#page_199'>199</a><br /> +<br /> +Pure, Simon, visit to Compton Mackenzie, <a href='#page_266'>266</a>-<a href='#page_269'>269</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Pushcart at the Curb, A</i>, by John Dos Passos, <a href='#page_347'>347</a>;<br /> + General Headings of, <a href='#page_347'>347</a><br /> +<br /> +Putnam, Nina Wilcox, Laughter, Ltd., <a href='#page_90'>90</a>;<br /> + story in American Magazine, <a href='#page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#page_92'>92</a>;<br /> + style of, <a href='#page_90'>90</a>;<br /> + <i>Tomorrow We Diet</i>, <a href='#page_90'>90</a>;<br /> + <i>West Broadway</i>, <a href='#page_88'>88</a>, <a href='#page_90'>90</a><br /> +<br /> +“Quai de la Tournelle,” from a <i>Pushcart at the Curb</i>, by John Dos Passos, Quotation from, <a href='#page_348'>348</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Quest of the Western World, The</i>, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler, <a href='#page_160'>160</a><br /> +<br /> +Rackham, Arthur, artist, <a href='#page_165'>165</a><br /> +<br /> +Raison, Milton, <i>Spindrift</i>, <a href='#page_352'>352</a>, <a href='#page_353'>353</a><br /> +<br /> +Raymond, Ernest, <i>Tell England</i>, <a href='#page_250'>250</a><br /> +<br /> +Raymond, E. T., <i>Mr. Lloyd George: A Biographical and Critical Sketch</i>, <a href='#page_120'>120</a>;<br /> + <i>Uncensored Celebrities</i>, <a href='#page_120'>120</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Recollections and Reflections</i>, by A Woman of No Importance, <a href='#page_129'>129</a><br /> +<br /> +Reeve, Mrs. Winnifred, see Onoto Watanna, <a href='#page_254'>254</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Responsibility</i>, by James E. Agate, <a href='#page_49'>49</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Return of Alfred, The</i>, anonymous, <a href='#page_261'>261</a><br /> +<br /> +Reynolds, Mrs. Baillie, <i>The Judgment of Charis</i>, <a href='#page_76'>76</a><br /> +<br /> +Riddell, Lord, <i>Some Things That Matter</i>, <a href='#page_303'>303</a><br /> +<br /> +Rinehart, Mrs. Mary R., <a href='#page_89'>89</a>;<br /> + books by, <a href='#page_116'>116</a>;<br /> + K., <a href='#page_107'>107</a>, <a href='#page_108'>108</a>, <a href='#page_116'>116</a>;<br /> + <i>Long Live the King</i>, <a href='#page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#page_116'>116</a>;<br /> + methods of work, <a href='#page_111'>111</a>;<br /> + <i>My Creed: The Way to Happiness</i>, <a href='#page_117'>117</a>;<br /> + <i>My Public</i>, <a href='#page_117'>117</a>;<br /> + parents of, <a href='#page_108'>108</a>;<br /> + quotation from, <a href='#page_102'>102</a>-<a href='#page_103'>103</a>;<br /> + Sources on, <a href='#page_117'>117</a>;<br /> + <i>The Amazing Adventures of Letitia Carberry</i>, <a href='#page_108'>108</a>, <a href='#page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#page_116'>116</a>;<br /> + <i>The Amazing Interlude</i>, <a href='#page_105'>105</a>, <a href='#page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#page_116'>116</a>;<br /> + <i>The Bat</i>, a collaboration with Avery Hopwood, <a href='#page_114'>114</a>;<br /> + <i>The Breaking Point</i>, <a href='#page_105'>105</a>, <a href='#page_117'>117</a>;<br /> + <i>The Circular Staircase</i>, <a href='#page_110'>110</a>, <a href='#page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#page_116'>116</a>;<br /> + <i>The Man in Lower Ten</i>, <a href='#page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#page_116'>116</a>;<br /> + <i>Tish</i>, <a href='#page_108'>108</a>, <a href='#page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#page_116'>116</a>;<br /> + vitality of, <a href='#page_102'>102</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Roads to Childhood</i>, by Annie Carroll Moore, <a href='#page_152'>152</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Robin Hood’s Barn</i>, by Margaret Emerson Bailey, <a href='#page_194'>194</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Rocking Horse, The</i>, by Christopher Morley, <a href='#page_348'>348</a>;<br /> + Quotation from, <a href='#page_348'>348</a><br /> +<br /> +Rolt-Wheeler, Francis, “Boy Journalist Series,” <a href='#page_159'>159</a>, <a href='#page_161'>161</a>;<br /> + <i>Heroes of the Ruins</i>, <a href='#page_160'>160</a>;<br /> + <i>Hunting Hidden Treasures in the Andes</i>, <a href='#page_159'>159</a>;<br /> + <i>In the Days Before Columbus</i>, <a href='#page_160'>160</a>;<br /> + <i>Plotting in Pirate Seas</i>, <a href='#page_159'>159</a>;<br /> + <i>The Coming of the Peoples</i>, <a href='#page_161'>161</a>;<br /> + <i>The Quest of the Western World</i>, <a href='#page_160'>160</a>;<br /> + wanderings of, <a href='#page_158'>158</a><br /> +<br /> +Rosebery, Lord, <i>Miscellanies—Literary and Historical</i>, <a href='#page_123'>123</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Rosinante to the Road Again</i>, by John Dos Passos, <a href='#page_38'>38</a>, <a href='#page_347'>347</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Roving East and Roving West</i>, by E. V. Lucas, Sadlier, Michael, comment on Huxley, <a href='#page_34'>34</a><br /> +<br /> +Saxton, Eugene F., <a href='#page_67'>67</a>;<br /> + account of Stewart Edward White, <a href='#page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#page_62'>62</a>, <a href='#page_63'>63</a>, <a href='#page_64'>64</a>, <a href='#page_65'>65</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Secret of the Sahara: Kufara</i>, by Rosita Forbes, <a href='#page_192'>192</a>, <a href='#page_193'>193</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Secret Victory, The.</i> See <i>The Sensationalists</i>, by Stephen McKenna, <a href='#page_342'>342</a>, <a href='#page_346'>346</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Self Healing Simplified</i>, by Dr. George L. Perin, <a href='#page_304'>304</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Sensationalists, The</i>, by Stephen McKenna, <a href='#page_341'>341</a>;<br /> + <i>Lady Lilith</i>, <a href='#page_342'>342</a>;<br /> + <i>The Education of Eric Lane</i>, <a href='#page_342'>342</a>;<br /> + <i>The Secret Victory</i>, <a href='#page_342'>342</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>September</i>, by Frank Swinnerton, <a href='#page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#page_226'>226</a>, <a href='#page_243'>243</a><br /> +<br /> +“Seymour, Hugh,” of <i>The Golden Scarecrow</i>, <a href='#page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#page_21'>21</a><br /> +<br /> +Sheffield, Alfred Dwight, <i>Joining in Public Discussion</i>, <a href='#page_297'>297</a><br /> +<br /> +Sheridan, C. M., <i>The Stag Cook Book</i>, <a href='#page_217'>217</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Shops and Houses</i>, by Frank Swinnerton, <a href='#page_226'>226</a>, <a href='#page_243'>243</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Sixth Sense, The</i>, by Stephen McKenna, <a href='#page_340'>340</a>, <a href='#page_345'>345</a><br /> +<br /> +“Social Amenities” in “Soles Occidere et Redire Possunt,” <a href='#page_36'>36</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Social Forces in Literature</i>, by Dr. H. W. L. Dana, <a href='#page_300'>300</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Some Things that Matter</i>, by Lord Riddell, <a href='#page_303'>303</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Somerset Maugham in Tahiti</i>, article, by Hector MacQuarrie, <a href='#page_292'>292</a><br /> +<br /> +“Song for a Little House,” from <i>The Rocking Horse</i> by Christopher Morley, <a href='#page_348'>348</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Sonia</i>, by Stephen McKenna, <a href='#page_251'>251</a>, <a href='#page_339'>339</a>, <a href='#page_340'>340</a>, <a href='#page_341'>341</a>, <a href='#page_342'>342</a>, <a href='#page_343'>343</a>, <a href='#page_346'>346</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Sonia Married</i>, by Stephen McKenna, <a href='#page_341'>341</a>, <a href='#page_342'>342</a>, <a href='#page_346'>346</a><br /> +<br /> +Speare, Dorothy, <a href='#page_264'>264</a>;<br /> + <i>Dancers in the Dark</i>, <a href='#page_255'>255</a>, <a href='#page_256'>256</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Spellbinders</i>, by Margaret Culkin Banning, <a href='#page_252'>252</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Spindrift</i>, by Milton Raison, <a href='#page_352'>352</a>;<br /> + extracts from preface by William McFee, <a href='#page_353'>353</a>;<br /> + quotation from, <a href='#page_354'>354</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Splendid Folly, The</i>, by Margaret Pedler, <a href='#page_256'>256</a><br /> +<br /> +Splendour by Numbers, Aldous Huxley, <a href='#page_36'>36</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Splinters</i>, by Keith Preston, <a href='#page_358'>358</a>;<br /> + quotation from, <a href='#page_359'>359</a><br /> +<br /> +Squire, J. C., <i>Books in General</i>, Third Series, <a href='#page_44'>44</a>;<br /> + collected parodies, <a href='#page_98'>98</a>;<br /> + editor of the <i>London Mercury</i>, <a href='#page_44'>44</a>;<br /> + <i>Life and Letters</i>, <a href='#page_46'>46</a>;<br /> + on Anatole France, Jane Austen, Keats, Pope, Rabelais, Walt Whitman, <a href='#page_46'>46</a>;<br /> + pen name (Solomon Eagle), <a href='#page_46'>46</a>;<br /> + <i>Poems: Second Series</i>, <a href='#page_351'>351</a>;<br /> + <i>The Birds and Other Poems</i>, <a href='#page_351'>351</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Stag Cook Book, The</i>, by C. M. Sheridan, <a href='#page_217'>217</a><br /> +<br /> +Stevens, William O., see Allan Westcott, <i>A History of Sea Power</i>, <a href='#page_331'>331</a><br /> +<br /> +Stevenson, Candace T., review of Olive Roberts Barton, <a href='#page_162'>162</a><br /> +<br /> +Stevenson, Robert Louis, description of Edinburgh, <a href='#page_86'>86</a>;<br /> + in Miscellanies, by Lord Rosebery, <a href='#page_123'>123</a>;<br /> + Swinnerton, on, <a href='#page_242'>242</a><br /> +<br /> +Stewart, Donald Ogden, <i>A Parody Outline of History</i>, <a href='#page_93'>93</a>, <a href='#page_94'>94</a>, <a href='#page_371'>371</a>;<br /> + <i>Perfect Behaviour</i>, <a href='#page_93'>93</a>, <a href='#page_94'>94</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Stickfuls</i>, by Irvin S. Cobb, <a href='#page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#page_185'>185</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Struggle for Power in Europe</i> (1917-21), by Leslie Haden Guest, <a href='#page_323'>323</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Sunny-San</i>, by Onoto Watanna, <a href='#page_253'>253</a><br /> +<br /> +Sutherland, Jean, <i>Beauty for Ashes</i>, <a href='#page_262'>262</a><br /> +<br /> +Swinnerton, Frank, Analyst of Lovers, <a href='#page_225'>225</a>;<br /> + Arnold Bennett’s Comments, <a href='#page_225'>225</a>;<br /> + <i>Coquette</i>, <a href='#page_226'>226</a>, <a href='#page_243'>243</a>;<br /> + criticism of R. L. Stevenson, <a href='#page_242'>242</a>;<br /> + list of books, <a href='#page_242'>242</a>, <a href='#page_243'>243</a>;<br /> + literary critic, <a href='#page_241'>241</a>;<br /> + <i>Nocturne</i>, <a href='#page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#page_233'>233</a>, <a href='#page_235'>235</a>, <a href='#page_239'>239</a>, <a href='#page_243'>243</a>;<br /> + <i>On the Staircase</i>, <a href='#page_226'>226</a>, <a href='#page_243'>243</a>;<br /> + <i>Personal Sketches</i> by Arnold Bennett, Grant Overton, H. G. Wells, <a href='#page_243'>243</a>;<br /> + publisher, <a href='#page_240'>240</a>;<br /> + <i>September</i>, <a href='#page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#page_226'>226</a>, <a href='#page_243'>243</a>;<br /> + <i>Shops and Houses</i>, <a href='#page_226'>226</a>, <a href='#page_243'>243</a>;<br /> + Sources on, <a href='#page_243'>243</a>;<br /> + <i>The Casement</i>, <a href='#page_236'>236</a>, <a href='#page_242'>242</a>;<br /> + <i>The Chaste Wife</i>, <a href='#page_226'>226</a>, <a href='#page_243'>243</a>;<br /> + <i>The Happy Family</i>, <a href='#page_226'>226</a>, <a href='#page_238'>238</a>, <a href='#page_242'>242</a>;<br /> + <i>The Merry Heart</i>, <a href='#page_236'>236</a>, <a href='#page_242'>242</a>;<br /> + <i>The Three Lovers</i>, <a href='#page_226'>226</a>, <a href='#page_227'>227</a>, <a href='#page_233'>233</a>, <a href='#page_243'>243</a>;<br /> + <i>The Young Idea</i>, <a href='#page_238'>238</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Swords</i>, by Sidney Howard, <a href='#page_364'>364</a>;<br /> + Kenneth Macgowan’s criticism, <a href='#page_364'>364</a>, <a href='#page_365'>365</a><br /> +<br /> +Taggart, Marion Ames, <a href='#page_164'>164</a>;<br /> + <i>At Greenacres</i>, <a href='#page_164'>164</a>;<br /> + <i>Poppy’s Pluck</i>, <a href='#page_164'>164</a>;<br /> + <i>The Bottle Imp</i>, <a href='#page_164'>164</a>;<br /> + <i>The Queer Little Man</i>, <a href='#page_164'>164</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Tahiti Days</i>, by Hector McQuarrie, <a href='#page_270'>270</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Tales Told by the Gander</i>, by Maude Radford Warren, <a href='#page_153'>153</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Talkers, The</i>, by Robert W. Chambers, <a href='#page_317'>317</a>, <a href='#page_320'>320</a><br /> +<br /> +Tarkington, Booth, box score, <a href='#page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#page_184'>184</a>;<br /> + study of, by Robert Cortes Holliday, <a href='#page_53'>53</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Tell England</i>, by Ernest Raymond, <a href='#page_250'>250</a>;<br /> + Prologue, by Padre Monty, <a href='#page_250'>250</a>, <a href='#page_251'>251</a><br /> +<br /> +Terhune, Albert Payson, <i>Black Cæsar’s Clan</i>, <a href='#page_71'>71</a>;<br /> + <i>Black Gold</i>, <a href='#page_71'>71</a>;<br /> + <i>Further Adventures of Lad</i>, <a href='#page_215'>215</a>;<br /> + home of, <a href='#page_214'>214</a>;<br /> + <i>Lad: A Dog</i>, <a href='#page_214'>214</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>That Which Hath Wings</i>, by Richard Dehan (Clotilde Graves), <a href='#page_200'>200</a>, <a href='#page_210'>210</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>They Have Only Themselves to Blame</i>, <a href='#page_118'>118</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Thirty-nine Steps</i>, The, by John Buchan, <a href='#page_249'>249</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>This Marrying</i>, by Margaret Culkin Banning, <a href='#page_253'>253</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Three Crowns</i>, The, by Winnifred Wells, <a href='#page_190'>190</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Three Lovers, The</i>, by Frank Swinnerton, <a href='#page_226'>226</a>, <a href='#page_227'>227</a>, <a href='#page_233'>233</a>, <a href='#page_243'>243</a>;<br /> + Extracts from, <a href='#page_229'>229</a>, <a href='#page_243'>243</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Three Men and a Maid</i>, by P. G. Wodehouse, <a href='#page_99'>99</a>;<br /> + extract from, <a href='#page_99'>99</a>-<a href='#page_101'>101</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Three Soldiers</i>, by John Dos Passos<br /> +<br /> +Tilden, William T., The Art of Lawn Tennis, <a href='#page_213'>213</a>;<br /> + tennis champion, <a href='#page_213'>213</a><br /> +<br /> +Timothy Tubby’s Journal, extracts from, <a href='#page_95'>95</a>, <a href='#page_96'>96</a>, <a href='#page_97'>97</a>, <a href='#page_98'>98</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Tish</i>, by Mary Roberts Rinehart, <a href='#page_108'>108</a>, <a href='#page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#page_116'>116</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Tomorrow We Diet</i>, by Nina Wilcox Putnam, <a href='#page_90'>90</a><br /> +<br /> +“<i>Touch of Tears, The</i>,” from Vigils, by Mrs. Kilmer, <a href='#page_350'>350</a>-<a href='#page_351'>351</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Trade Union Policy</i>, by Dr. Leo Wolman, <a href='#page_299'>299</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Translations from the Chinese</i>, by Christopher Morley, <a href='#page_348'>348</a>;<br /> + Quotation from, <a href='#page_349'>349</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Trees and Other Poems</i>, by Joyce Kilmer, <a href='#page_349'>349</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Truth About an Author, The</i>, by Arnold Bennett, <a href='#page_144'>144</a>, <a href='#page_150'>150</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Turns About Town</i>, by Robert Cortes Holliday, <a href='#page_52'>52</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Twenty Years of Lawn Tennis</i>, by A. Wallis Myers, <a href='#page_213'>213</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Vanished Pomps of Yesterday, The</i>, by Lord Frederic Hamilton, <a href='#page_131'>131</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Vanishing of Betty Varian, The</i>, by Carolyn Wells, <a href='#page_76'>76</a>, <a href='#page_77'>77</a><br /> +<br /> +Van Loan, Charles E., Buck Parvin:<br /> + <i>Stories of the Motion Picture Game</i>, <a href='#page_212'>212</a>;<br /> + <i>Fore! Golf Stories</i>, <a href='#page_212'>212</a>;<br /> + <i>Old Man Curry: Racetrack Stories</i>, <a href='#page_212'>212</a>;<br /> + <i>Score by Innings: Baseball Stories</i>, <a href='#page_212'>212</a>;<br /> + <i>Taking the Count: Prize Ring Stories</i>, <a href='#page_212'>212</a><br /> +<br /> +Van, Rensselaer, Alexander, <a href='#page_220'>220</a>;<br /> + bibliographies by, <a href='#page_223'>223</a><br /> +<br /> +Van Vechten, Carl, New York Evening Post, review of <i>Herman Melville: Mariner and Mystic</i>, <a href='#page_325'>325</a>-<a href='#page_328'>328</a><br /> +<br /> +Vardon, Harry, <i>The Gist of Golf</i>, <a href='#page_213'>213</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Vigils</i>, by Mrs. Kilmer, <a href='#page_350'>350</a>;<br /> + Quotations from, <a href='#page_350'>350</a>, <a href='#page_351'>351</a><br /> +<br /> +“Vision,” from <i>Spindrift</i>, by Milton Raison, <a href='#page_354'>354</a><br /> +<br /> + <i>Vital Message, The</i>, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, <a href='#page_302'>302</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Voice in the Wilderness, The</i>, by Richard Blaker, <a href='#page_263'>263</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Walking Stick Papers</i>, by Robert Cortes Holliday, selection from, <a href='#page_51'>51</a>, <a href='#page_52'>52</a><br /> +<br /> +Walpole, Hugh, <a href='#page_15'>15</a> <a href='#page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#page_29'>29</a>, <a href='#page_31'>31</a>, <a href='#page_32'>32</a>;<br /> + <i>A Hugh Walpole Anthology</i>, <a href='#page_32'>32</a>;<br /> + American following of, <a href='#page_21'>21</a>;<br /> + appearance, <a href='#page_22'>22</a>;<br /> + article on, by Mrs. Belloc Loundes, <a href='#page_23'>23</a>;<br /> + birthplace, <a href='#page_15'>15</a>;<br /> + Books of, <a href='#page_31'>31</a>;<br /> + comments on The Bookman, <a href='#page_366'>366</a>;<br /> + connection with London Standard, <a href='#page_26'>26</a>;<br /> + appreciation by Joseph Hergesheimer, <a href='#page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#page_29'>29</a>, <a href='#page_30'>30</a>, <a href='#page_31'>31</a>;<br /> + courage of, <a href='#page_25'>25</a>;<br /> + description by Arnold Bennett, <a href='#page_22'>22</a>;<br /> + education of, <a href='#page_22'>22</a>;<br /> + educational experiences of, <a href='#page_22'>22</a>;<br /> + <i>English Literature During the Last Half Century</i>, <a href='#page_32'>32</a>;<br /> + father of, <a href='#page_15'>15</a>;<br /> + Fortitude, <a href='#page_21'>21</a>;<br /> + goes to England, <a href='#page_16'>16</a>;<br /> + Hugh Walpole, an appreciation, <a href='#page_31'>31</a>;<br /> + Hugh Walpole, Master Novelist, <a href='#page_32'>32</a>;<br /> + life in New York, <a href='#page_16'>16</a>;<br /> + London scenes pictured by, in <i>Anthology</i>, <a href='#page_28'>28</a>;<br /> + <i>Maradick at Forty</i>, <a href='#page_26'>26</a>;<br /> + Note by Joseph Conrad, <a href='#page_28'>28</a>;<br /> + Novels, list of, <a href='#page_31'>31</a>;<br /> + optimist, <a href='#page_23'>23</a>;<br /> + Romances, list of, <a href='#page_31'>31</a>;<br /> + Service in Great War, <a href='#page_16'>16</a>;<br /> + Selections for Anthology, <a href='#page_27'>27</a>;<br /> + Short Stories, list of, <a href='#page_31'>31</a>;<br /> + Sources on, <a href='#page_31'>31</a>;<br /> + superstitions, <a href='#page_24'>24</a>;<br /> + reader, <a href='#page_24'>24</a>;<br /> + Tait Black Prize for best novel of year, <a href='#page_30'>30</a>;<br /> + won by, <a href='#page_30'>30</a>;<br /> + <i>The Captives</i>, <a href='#page_24'>24</a>;<br /> + <i>The Cathedral</i>, <a href='#page_19'>19</a>;<br /> + <i>The Dark Forest</i>, <a href='#page_16'>16</a>;<br /> + <i>The Duchess of Wrexe</i>, <a href='#page_19'>19</a>;<br /> + <i>The Gods and Mr. Perrin</i>, <a href='#page_22'>22</a>;<br /> + <i>The Green Mirror</i>, <a href='#page_19'>19</a>;<br /> + <i>The Wooden Horse</i>, <a href='#page_25'>25</a>;<br /> + <i>Visits to America</i>, <a href='#page_16'>16</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Wanderings of a Spiritualist, The</i>, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, <a href='#page_302'>302</a><br /> +<br /> +Warren, Maude Radford, <i>Tales Told by the Gander</i>, <a href='#page_153'>153</a><br /> +<br /> +Watanna, Onoto (Mrs. Winnifred Reeve), <a href='#page_254'>254</a>;<br /> + <i>A Japanese Nightingale</i>, <a href='#page_254'>254</a>;<br /> + <i>Sunny-San</i>, <a href='#page_253'>253</a><br /> +<br /> +Warbasse, Dr. James B., <i>Cooperative Movement</i>, <a href='#page_300'>300</a><br /> +<br /> +Weaver, Raymond M., <i>Herman Melville: Mariner and Mystic</i>, <a href='#page_325'>325</a>, <a href='#page_326'>326</a>, <a href='#page_327'>327</a>, <a href='#page_328'>328</a><br /> +<br /> +Wells, Carolyn (Mrs. Hadwin Houghton), <a href='#page_77'>77</a>;<br /> + <i>Book of Humorous Verse</i>, <a href='#page_99'>99</a>;<br /> + <i>The Room with the Tassels</i>, <a href='#page_76'>76</a>;<br /> + <i>The Vanishing of Betty Varian</i>, <a href='#page_76'>76</a>, <a href='#page_77'>77</a><br /> +<br /> +Wells, H. G., <a href='#page_94'>94</a>; Comments on Frank Swinnerton’s <i>Nocturne</i>, <a href='#page_233'>233</a>, <a href='#page_234'>234</a>, <a href='#page_235'>235</a>;<br /> + <i>Soviet Russia</i>, <a href='#page_192'>192</a><br /> +<br /> +Westcott, Peter, in <i>Fortitude</i>, by Hugh Walpole, <a href='#page_22'>22</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>West Broadway</i>, by Nina Wilcox Putnam, <a href='#page_88'>88</a>, <a href='#page_90'>90</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Westerners, The</i>, by Stewart Edward White, <a href='#page_55'>55</a>, <a href='#page_63'>63</a>, <a href='#page_66'>66</a><br /> +<br /> +West, Rebecca, books by, <a href='#page_86'>86</a>;<br /> + article by Amy Wellington, <a href='#page_83'>83</a>;<br /> + artist, <a href='#page_78'>78</a>;<br /> + biography of, <a href='#page_83'>83</a>;<br /> + <i>The Judge</i>, <a href='#page_78'>78</a>;<br /> + <i>The Return of the Soldier</i>, <a href='#page_86'>86</a><br /> +<br /> +Westcott, Allan, and William O. Stevens, <i>A History of Sea Power</i>, <a href='#page_331'>331</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>What Timmy Did</i>, by Mrs. Belloc Lowndes, <a href='#page_77'>77</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>What to Eat and How to Prepare It</i>, by Elizabeth A. Monaghan, <a href='#page_218'>218</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>While I Remember</i>, by Stephen McKenna, <a href='#page_324'>324</a>, <a href='#page_346'>346</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Whispering Windows</i>, see <i>More Limehouse Nights</i>, by Thomas Burke, <a href='#page_187'>187</a>, <a href='#page_188'>188</a><br /> +<br /> +White, Albert C., <i>The Irish Free State</i>, <a href='#page_191'>191</a><br /> +<br /> +White, Stewart Edward, <a href='#page_55'>55</a>, <a href='#page_56'>56</a>, <a href='#page_59'>59</a>, <a href='#page_60'>60</a>, <a href='#page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#page_66'>66</a>;<br /> + account of by Eugene F. Saxton, <a href='#page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#page_62'>62</a>, <a href='#page_63'>63</a>, <a href='#page_64'>64</a>, <a href='#page_65'>65</a>;<br /> + <i>Appendix, to Gold</i>, by Eugene F. Saxton, <a href='#page_67'>67</a>;<br /> + <i>The Birds of Mackinac Island</i>, <a href='#page_55'>55</a>, <a href='#page_63'>63</a>;<br /> + boat and books, <a href='#page_56'>56</a>, <a href='#page_59'>59</a>;<br /> + books of, <a href='#page_66'>66</a>;<br /> + by John Palmer Gavit, <a href='#page_67'>67</a>;<br /> + education of, <a href='#page_61'>61</a>;<br /> + Gold, <a href='#page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#page_67'>67</a>;<br /> + in France, <a href='#page_56'>56</a>;<br /> + military service, <a href='#page_61'>61</a>;<br /> + <i>On Tiptoe: A Romance of the Redwoods</i>, <a href='#page_59'>59</a>, <a href='#page_67'>67</a>;<br /> + parents, <a href='#page_60'>60</a>;<br /> + <i>Simba</i>, <a href='#page_55'>55</a>, <a href='#page_67'>67</a>;<br /> + sources on, <a href='#page_67'>67</a>;<br /> + <i>The Claim Jumpers</i>, <a href='#page_55'>55</a>, <a href='#page_63'>63</a>, <a href='#page_66'>66</a>;<br /> + <i>The Land of Footprints</i>, <a href='#page_55'>55</a>, <a href='#page_67'>67</a>;<br /> + <i>The Westerners</i>, <a href='#page_55'>55</a>, <a href='#page_63'>63</a>, <a href='#page_66'>66</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Wild Life in the Tree Tops</i>, by Captain C. W. R. Knight, <a href='#page_214'>214</a>;<br /> + Photographs, <a href='#page_214'>214</a><br /> +<br /> +Wingfield-Stratford, Esme, <i>Facing Reality</i>, <a href='#page_300'>300</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Wire Devils, The</i>, by Frank L. Packard, <a href='#page_68'>68</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>With the Band</i>, poem, by Robert W. Chambers, <a href='#page_317'>317</a><br /> +<br /> +Wodehouse, Pelham Grenville, <a href='#page_70'>70</a>;<br /> + lyrical writer, <a href='#page_99'>99</a>;<br /> + <i>Three Men and a Maid</i>, <a href='#page_99'>99</a><br /> +<br /> +Wolf, Robert, <a href='#page_297'>297</a>;<br /> + <i>The Creative Spirit in Industry</i>, <a href='#page_300'>300</a><br /> +<br /> +Wolman, Dr. Leo, <i>Trade Union Policy</i>, <a href='#page_299'>299</a><br /> +<br /> +Woman of No Importance, A, <i>Recollections and Reflections</i>, <a href='#page_129'>129</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Women and the Labour Movement</i>, by Alice Henry, <a href='#page_299'>299</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Women Who Make Our Novels, The</i>, by Grant Overton, <a href='#page_117'>117</a>;<br /> + chapter on Mary Roberts Rinehart, <a href='#page_109'>109</a>, <a href='#page_117'>117</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Wonder Book, A</i>, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, <a href='#page_165'>165</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Wooden Horse, The</i>, by Hugh Walpole, <a href='#page_25'>25</a>, <a href='#page_26'>26</a>, <a href='#page_31'>31</a>;<br /> + sale of, <a href='#page_25'>25</a><br /> +<br /> +Workers’ Bookshelf Series, <a href='#page_297'>297</a><br /> +<br /> +Workers’ Education Bureau of America, editorial board, <a href='#page_297'>297</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Writing as a Business: A Practical Guide for Authors</i>, by Robert Cortes Holliday, <a href='#page_220'>220</a>;<br /> + Extracts from, <a href='#page_222'>222</a>, <a href='#page_223'>223</a><br /> +<br /> +Wylie, Elinor, <a href='#page_357'>357</a><br /> +<br /> +Young, F. E. Mills, <a href='#page_263'>263</a>;<br /> + <i>Almonds of Life</i>, <a href='#page_263'>263</a>;<br /> + <i>Imprudence</i>, <a href='#page_263'>263</a>;<br /> + <i>The Stronger Influence</i>, <a href='#page_263'>263</a><br /> +</p> + +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/27116-h/images/illus-emb.jpg b/27116-h/images/illus-emb.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9e714b9 --- /dev/null +++ b/27116-h/images/illus-emb.jpg diff --git a/27116-h/images/winter01.jpg b/27116-h/images/winter01.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..82f0836 --- /dev/null +++ b/27116-h/images/winter01.jpg diff --git a/27116-h/images/winter02.jpg b/27116-h/images/winter02.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1a88130 --- /dev/null +++ b/27116-h/images/winter02.jpg diff --git a/27116-h/images/winter03.jpg b/27116-h/images/winter03.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7293faa --- /dev/null +++ b/27116-h/images/winter03.jpg diff --git a/27116-h/images/winter04.jpg b/27116-h/images/winter04.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2948769 --- /dev/null +++ b/27116-h/images/winter04.jpg diff --git a/27116-h/images/winter05.jpg b/27116-h/images/winter05.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e984287 --- /dev/null +++ b/27116-h/images/winter05.jpg diff --git a/27116-h/images/winter06.jpg b/27116-h/images/winter06.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6dcdfd8 --- /dev/null +++ b/27116-h/images/winter06.jpg diff --git a/27116-h/images/winter07.jpg b/27116-h/images/winter07.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c0b1500 --- /dev/null +++ b/27116-h/images/winter07.jpg diff --git a/27116-h/images/winter08.jpg b/27116-h/images/winter08.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..109bbda --- /dev/null +++ b/27116-h/images/winter08.jpg diff --git a/27116-h/images/winter09.jpg b/27116-h/images/winter09.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b952383 --- /dev/null +++ b/27116-h/images/winter09.jpg diff --git a/27116-h/images/winter10.jpg b/27116-h/images/winter10.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6b6bdb1 --- /dev/null +++ b/27116-h/images/winter10.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5800f24 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #27116 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/27116) diff --git a/old/27116-8.txt b/old/27116-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f0b507a --- /dev/null +++ b/old/27116-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10240 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, When Winter Comes to Main Street, by Grant +Martin Overton + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: When Winter Comes to Main Street + + +Author: Grant Martin Overton + + + +Release Date: November 1, 2008 [eBook #27116] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET*** + + +E-text prepared by Roger Frank and the Project Gutenberg Online +Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 27116-h.htm or 27116-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/7/1/1/27116/27116-h/27116-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/7/1/1/27116/27116-h.zip) + + + + + +WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET + +by + +GRANT OVERTON + +Author of "The Women Who Make Our Novels" + + + + + + + +New York +George H. Doran Company + +Printed in the United States of America + +Copyright, 1922, +by George H. Doran Company + +WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET. + +Press of +J. J. Little & Ives Company +New York, U. S. A. + + + + +FOR +GEORGE H. DORAN +WHO HAD THE IDEA + + + + +PREFACE + +I have borrowed my title from two remarkable novels. + +_If Winter Comes_, by A. S. M. Hutchinson, was published in the autumn of +1921 by Messrs. Little, Brown & Company of Boston. + +_Main Street_, by Sinclair Lewis, was published in the autumn of 1920 by +Messrs. Harcourt, Brace & Company of New York. + +I have not before me the precise figures of the amazing sales of these two +books--each passed 350,000--but I make my bow to their authors and to +their publishers and to the American public. I bow to the authors for the +quality of their work and to the publishers and the public for their +recognition of that quality. + +These two substantial successes confirm my belief that the American public +in hundreds of thousands relishes good reading. Without that belief, this +book would not have been prepared; but I have prepared it with some +confidence that those who relish good reading will be interested in the +chapters that follow. + +As a former book reviewer and literary editor, as an author and, now, as +one vitally concerned in book publishing, my interest in books has been +fundamentally unchanging--a wish to see more books read and better books +to read. + +From one standpoint, _When Winter Comes to Main Street_ is frankly an +advertisement; it deals with Doran books and authors. This is a fact of +some relevance, however, if, as I believe, the reader shall find +well-spent the time given to these pages. + + Grant Overton. + +19 July 1922. + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER + + I THE COURAGE OF HUGH WALPOLE 15 + + II HALF-SMILES AND GESTURES 33 + + III STEWART EDWARD WHITE AND ADVENTURE 55 + + IV WHERE THE PLOT THICKENS 68 + + V REBECCA WEST: AN ARTIST 78 + + VI SHAMELESS FUN 88 + + VII THE VITALITY OF MARY ROBERTS RINEHART 102 + + VIII THEY HAVE ONLY THEMSELVES TO BLAME 118 + + IX AUDACIOUS MR. BENNETT 133 + + X A CHAPTER FOR CHILDREN 152 + + XI COBB'S FOURTH DIMENSION 166 + + XII PLACES TO GO 187 + + XIII ALIAS RICHARD DEHAN 196 + + XIV WITH FULL DIRECTIONS 212 + + XV FRANK SWINNERTON: ANALYST OF LOVERS 225 + + XVI AN ARMFUL OF NOVELS, WITH NOTES ON THE NOVELISTS 244 + + XVII THE HETEROGENEOUS MAGIC OF MAUGHAM 270 + + XVIII BOOKS WE LIVE BY 293 + + XIX ROBERT W. CHAMBERS AND THE WHOLE TRUTH 308 + + XX UNIQUITIES 321 + + XXI THE CONFESSIONS OF A WELL-MEANING YOUNG MAN, + STEPHEN MCKENNA 334 + + XXII POETS AND PLAYWRIGHTS 347 + + XXIII THE BOOKMAN FOUNDATION AND THE BOOKMAN 366 + + EPILOGUE 372 + + INDEX 373 + + + + +PORTRAITS + + PAGE +HUGH WALPOLE 17 +STEWART EDWARD WHITE 57 +REBECCA WEST 79 +MARY ROBERTS RINEHART 103 +ARNOLD BENNETT 135 +IRVIN S. COBB 167 +FRANK SWINNERTON 227 +W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM 271 +STEPHEN McKENNA 335 + + + + +WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE COURAGE OF HUGH WALPOLE + + +=i= + +Says his American contemporary, Joseph Hergesheimer, in an appreciation of +Hugh Walpole: "Mr. Walpole's courage in the face of the widest scepticism +is nowhere more daring than in _The Golden Scarecrow_." Mr. Walpole's +courage, I shall always hold, is nowhere more apparent than in the choice +of his birthplace. He was born in the Antipodes. Yes! In that magical, +unpronounceable realm one reads about and intends to look up in the +dictionary.... The precise Antipodean spot was Auckland, New Zealand, and +the year was 1884. + +The Right Reverend George Henry Somerset Walpole, D.D., Bishop of +Edinburgh since 1910, had been sent in 1882 to Auckland as Incumbent of +St. Mary's Pro-Cathedral, and the same ecclesiastical fates which took +charge of Hugh Seymour Walpole's birthplace provided that, at the age of +five, the immature novelist should be transferred to New York. Dr. Walpole +spent the next seven years in imparting to students of the General +Theological Seminary, New York, their knowledge of Dogmatic Theology. Hugh +Seymour Walpole spent the seven years in attaining the age of twelve. + +Then, in 1896, the family returned to England. Perhaps a tendency to +travel had by this time become implanted in Hugh, for now, in his late +thirties, he is one of the most peripatetic of writers. He is here, he is +there. You write to him in London and receive a reply from Cornwall or the +Continent. And, regularly, he comes over to America. Of all the English +novelists who have visited this country he is easily the most popular +personally on this side. His visit this autumn (1922) will undoubtedly +multiply earlier welcomes. + +Interest in Walpole the man and Walpole the novelist shows an increasing +tendency to become identical. It is all very well to say that the man is +one thing, his books are quite another; but suppose the man cannot be +separated from his books? The Walpole that loved Cornwall as a lad can't +be dissevered from the "Hugh Seymour" of _The Golden Scarecrow_; without +his Red Cross service in Russia during the Great War, Walpole could not +have written _The Dark Forest_; and I think the new novel he offers us +this autumn must owe a good deal to direct reminiscence of such a +cathedral town as Durham, to which the family returned when Hugh was +twelve. + +[Illustration: HUGH WALPOLE] + +_The Cathedral_, as the new book is called, rests the whole of its effect +upon just such an edifice as young Hugh was familiar with. The Cathedral +of the story stands in Polchester, in the west of England, in the county +of Glebeshire--that mythical yet actual county of Walpole's other novels. +Like such tales as _The Green Mirror_ and _The Duchess of Wrexe_, the aim +is threefold--to give a history of a certain group of people and, at the +same time, (2) to be a comment on English life, and, beyond that, (3) to +offer a philosophy of life itself. + +The innermost of the three circles of interest created in this powerful +novel--like concentric rings formed by dropping stones in water--concerns +the life of Archdeacon Brandon. When the story opens he is ruling +Polchester, all its life, religious and civic and social, with an iron +rod. A good man, kindly and virtuous and simple, power has been too much +for him. In the first chapter a parallel is made between Brandon and a +great mediæval ecclesiastic of the Cathedral, the Black Bishop, who came +to think of himself as God and who was killed by his enemies. All through +the book this parallel is followed. + +A certain Canon Ronder arrives to take up a post in the Cathedral. The +main thread of the novel now emerges as the history of the rivalry of +these two men, one simple and elemental, the other calculating, selfish +and sure. Ronder sees at once that Brandon is in his way and at once +begins his work to overthrow the Archdeacon, not because he dislikes him +at all (he _likes_ him), but because he wants his place; too, because +Brandon represents the Victorian church, while Ronder is on the side of +the modernists. + +Brandon is threatened through his son Stephen and through his wife. His +source of strength,--a source of which he is unaware--lies in his +daughter, Joan, a charming girl just growing up. The first part of the +novel ends with everything that is to follow implicit in what has been +told; the story centres in Brandon but more sharply in the Cathedral, +which is depicted as a living organism with all its great history behind +it working quickly, ceaselessly, for its own purposes. Every part of the +Cathedral life is brought in to effect this, the Bishop, the Dean, the +Canons--down to the Verger's smallest child. All the town life also is +brought in, from the Cathedral on the hill to the mysterious little +riverside inn. Behind the town is seen the Glebeshire country, behind +that, England; behind England, the world, all moving toward set purposes. + +The four parts of the novel markedly resemble, in structure, acts of a +play; in particular, the striking third part, entirely concerned with the +events of a week and full of flashing pictures, such as the scene of the +Town Ball. But the culmination of this part, indeed, the climax of the +whole book, comes in the scene of the Fair, with its atmosphere of +carnival, its delirium of outdoor mood, and its tremendous encounter +between Brandon and his wife. The novel closes upon a moment both fugitive +and eternal--Brandon watching across the fields the Cathedral, lovely and +powerful, in the evening distance. The Cathedral, lovely and powerful, +forever victorious, served by the generations of men.... + +=ii= + +Courage, for Hugh, must have made its demand to be exercised early. We +have the "Hugh Seymour" of _The Golden Scarecrow_ who "was sent from +Ceylon, where his parents lived, to be educated in England. His relations +having for the most part settled in foreign countries, he spent his +holidays as a minute and pale-faced 'paying guest' in various houses where +other children were of more importance than he, or where children as a +race were of no importance at all." It would be a mistake to confer on +such a fictional passage a strict autobiographical importance; but I think +it significant that the novel with which Walpole first won an American +following, _Fortitude_, should derive from a theme as simple and as strong +as that of a classic symphony--from those words with which it opens: "'T +isn't life that matters! 'T is the courage you bring to it." From that +moment on, the novel follows the struggle of Peter Westcott, in boyhood +and young manhood, with antagonists, inner and outer. At the end we have +him partly defeated, wholly triumphant, still fighting, still pledged to +fight. + +Not to confuse fiction with fact: Hugh Walpole was educated at Kings +School, Canterbury, and at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. When he left the +university he drifted into newspaper work in London. He also had a brief +experience as master in a boys' school (the experiential-imaginative +source of _The Gods and Mr. Perrin_, that superb novel of underpaid +teachers in a second-rate boarding school). The war brought Red Cross work +in Russia and also a mission to Petrograd to promote pro-Ally sentiment. +For these services Walpole was decorated with the Georgian Medal. + +What is Hugh Walpole like personally? Arnold Bennett, in an article which +appeared in the Book News Monthly and which was reprinted in a booklet, +says: "About the time of the publication of _The Gods and Mr. Perrin_, I +made the acquaintance of Mr. Walpole and found a man of youthful +appearance, rather dark, with a spacious forehead, a very highly +sensitised nervous organisation, and that reassuring matter-of-factness of +demeanour which one usually does find in an expert. He was then busy at +his task of seeing life in London. He seems to give about one-third of the +year to the tasting of all the heterogeneous sensations which London can +provide for the connoisseur and two-thirds to the exercise of his vocation +in some withdrawn spot in Cornwall that nobody save a postman or so, and +Mr. Walpole, has ever beheld. During one month it is impossible to 'go +out' in London without meeting Mr. Walpole--and then for a long period he +is a mere legend of dinner tables. He returns to the dinner tables with a +novel complete." + +In the same magazine, in an article reprinted in the same booklet, Mrs. +Belloc Lowndes, that excellent weaver of mystery stories and sister of +Hilaire Belloc, said: "Before all things Hugh Walpole is an optimist, with +a great love for and a great belief in human nature. His outlook is +essentially sane, essentially normal. He has had his reverses and +difficulties, living in lodgings in remote Chelsea, depending entirely +upon his own efforts. Tall and strongly built, clean-shaven, with a wide, +high forehead and kindly sympathetic expression, the author of _Fortitude_ +has a refreshing boyishness and zest for enjoyment which are pleasant to +his close friends. London, the home of his adoption, Cornwall, the home of +his youth, have each an equal spell for him and he divides his year +roughly into two parts: the tiny fishing town of Polperro, Cornwall, and +the pleasure of friendships in London. 'What a wonderful day!' he was +heard to say, his voice sounding muffled through the thickest variety of a +pea-soup fog. 'It wouldn't really be London without an occasional day like +this! I'm off to tramp the city.' It is one of Hugh Walpole's +superstitions that he should always begin his novels on Christmas Eve. He +has always done so, and he believes it brings him luck. Often it means the +exercise of no small measure of self-control, for the story has matured in +his mind and he is aching to commence it. But he vigorously adheres to his +custom, and by the time he begins to write his book lies before him like a +map. 'I could tell it you now, practically in the very words in which I +shall write it,' he has said. Nevertheless, he takes infinite trouble with +the work as it progresses. A great reader, Hugh Walpole reads with method. +Tracts of history, periods of fiction and poetry, are studied seriously; +and he has a really exhaustive heritage of modern poetry and fiction." + +Perhaps since Mrs. Lowndes wrote those words, Mr. Walpole has departed +from his Christmas Eve custom. At any rate, I notice on the last page in +his very long novel _The Captives_ (the work by which, I think, he sets +most store of all his books so far published) the dates: + + POLPERRO, JAN. 1916, + POLPERRO, MAY 1920. + +=iii= + +The demand for the exercise of that courage of which we have spoken can be +seen from these further details, supplied by Arnold Bennett: + +"At the age of twenty, as an undergraduate of Cambridge, Walpole wrote +two novels. One of these, a very long book, the author had the +imprudence to destroy. The other was _The Wooden Horse_, his first +printed novel. It is not to be presumed that _The Wooden Horse_ was +published at once. For years it waited in manuscript until Walpole had +become a master in a certain provincial school in England. There he +showed the novel to a fellow-master, who, having kept the novel for a +period, spoke thus: 'I have tried to read your novel, Walpole, but I +can't. Whatever else you may be fitted for, you aren't fitted to be a +novelist.' Mr. Walpole was grieved. Perhaps he was unaware, then, that a +similar experience had happened to Joseph Conrad. I am unable to judge +the schoolmaster's fitness to be a critic, because I have not read _The +Wooden Horse_. Walpole once promised to send me a copy so that I might +come to some conclusion as to the schoolmaster, but he did not send it. +Soon after this deplorable incident, Walpole met Charles Marriott, a +novelist of a remarkable distinction. Mr. Marriott did not agree with the +schoolmaster as to _The Wooden Horse_. The result of the conflict of +opinion between Mr. Marriott and the schoolmaster was that Mr. Walpole +left the school abruptly--perhaps without the approval of his family, +but certainly with a sum of £30 which he had saved. His destination was +London. + +"In Chelsea he took a room at four shillings a week. He was twenty-three +and (in theory) a professional author at last. Through the favouring +influence of Mr. Marriott he obtained a temporary job on the London +Standard as a critic of fiction. It lasted three weeks. Then he got a +regular situation on the same paper, a situation which I think he kept for +several years. _The Wooden Horse_ was published by a historic firm. +Statistics are interesting and valuable--_The Wooden Horse_ sold seven +hundred copies. The author's profits therefrom were less than the cost of +typewriting the novel. History is constantly repeating itself. + +"Mr. Walpole was quite incurable, and he kept on writing novels. _Maradick +at Forty_ was the next one. It sold eleven hundred copies, but with no +greater net monetary profit to the author than the first one. He made, +however, a more shining profit of glory. _Maradick at Forty_--as the +phrase runs--'attracted attention.' I myself, though in a foreign country, +heard of it, and registered the name of Hugh Walpole as one whose progress +must be watched." + +=iv= + +Not so long ago there was published in England, in a series of +pocket-sized books called the _Kings Treasuries of Literature_ (under the +general editorship of Sir A. T. Quiller-Couch), a small volume called _A +Hugh Walpole Anthology_. This consisted of selections from Mr. Walpole's +novels up to and including _The Captives_. The selection was made by Mr. +Walpole himself. + +I think that the six divisions into which the selections fell are +interesting as giving, in a few words, a prospectus of Walpole's work. The +titles of the sections were "Some Children," "Men and Women," "Some +Incidents," "London," "Country Places," and "Russia." The excerpts under +the heading "Some Children" are all from _Jeremy_ and _The Golden +Scarecrow_. The "Men and Women" are Mr. Perrin and Mrs. Comber, from _The +Gods and Mr. Perrin_; Mr. Trenchard and Aunt Aggie, from _The Green +Mirror_; and Mr. Crashaw, from _The Captives_. The "Incidents" are chosen +with an equal felicity--we have the theft of an umbrella from _The Gods +and Mr. Perrin_ and, out of the same book, the whole passage in which Mr. +Perrin sees double. There is also a scene from _Fortitude_, "After Defeat." +After two episodes from _The Green Mirror_, this portion of the anthology +is closed with the tragic passage from _The Captives_ in which Maggie +finds her uncle. + +Among the London places pictured by Mr. Walpole in his novels and in this +pleasant anthology are Fleet Street, Chelsea, Portland Place, The Strand, +and Marble Arch. The selections under the heading "Country Places" are +bits about a cove, the sea, dusk, a fire and homecoming. The passages that +relate to Russia are taken, of course, from _The Dark Forest_ and _The +Secret City_. + +Not the least interesting thing in this small volume is a short +introductory note by Joseph Conrad, who speaks of the anthology as +"intelligently compiled," and as offering, within its limits, a sample of +literary shade for every reader's sympathy. "Sophistication," adds Mr. +Conrad, "is the only shade that does not exist in Mr. Walpole's prose." He +goes on: + +"Of the general soundness of Mr. Walpole's work I am perfectly convinced. +Let no modern and malicious mind take this declaration for a left-handed +compliment. Mr. Walpole's soundness is not of conventions but of +convictions; and even as to these, let no one suppose that Mr. Walpole's +convictions are old-fashioned. He is distinctly a man of his time; and it +is just because of that modernity, informed by a sane judgment of urgent +problems and wide and deep sympathy with all mankind, that we look forward +hopefully to the growth and increased importance of his work. In his +style, so level, so consistent, Mr. Hugh Walpole does not seek so much for +novel as for individual expression; and this search, this ambition so +natural to an artist, is often rewarded by success. Old and young interest +him alike and he treats both with a sure touch and in the kindest manner. +In each of these passages we see Mr. Walpole grappling with the truth of +things spiritual and material with his characteristic earnestness, and in +the whole we can discern the characteristics of this acute and sympathetic +explorer of human nature: His love of adventure and the serious audacity +he brings to the task of recording the changes of human fate and the +moments of human emotion, in the quiet backwaters or in the tumultuous +open streams of existence." + +=v= + +There is not space here to reprint all of Joseph Hergesheimer's +Appreciation of Hugh Walpole, published in a booklet in 1919--a booklet +still obtainable--but I would like to quote a few sentences from the close +of Mr. Hergesheimer's essay, where he says: + +"As a whole, Hugh Walpole's novels maintain an impressive unity of +expression; they are the distinguished presentation of a distinguished +mind. Singly and in a group, they hold possibilities of infinite +development. This, it seems to me, is most clearly marked in their +superiority to the cheap materialism that has been the insistent note of +the prevailing optimistic fiction. There is a great deal of happiness in +Mr. Walpole's pages, but it is not founded on surface vulgarity of +appetite. The drama of his books is not sapped by the automatic security +of invulnerable heroics. Accidents happen, tragic and humorous; the life +of his novels is checked in black and white, often shrouded in grey; the +sun moves and stars come out; youth grows old; charm fades; girls may or +may not be pretty; his old women---- + +"But there he is inimitable. The old gentlewomen, or caretakers, dry and +twisted, brittle and sharp, repositories of emotion--vanities and malice +and self-seeking--like echoes of the past, or fat and loquacious, with +alcoholic sentimentality, are wonderfully ingratiating. They gather like +shadows, ghosts, about the feet of the young, and provide Mr. Walpole with +one of his main resources--the restless turning away of the young from the +conventions, prejudices and inhibitions of yesterday. He is singularly +intent upon the injustice of locking age about the wrists of youth; and, +with him, youth is very apt to escape, to defy authority set in years ... +only to become, in time, age itself." + +Perhaps this is an anti-climax: The University of Edinburgh has twice +awarded the Tait Black Prize for the best novel of the year to Mr. +Walpole--first for _The Secret City_ in 1919 and then for _The Captives_ +in 1920. + +BOOKS BY HUGH WALPOLE + +Novels: + THE WOODEN HORSE + THE GODS AND MR. PERRIN + (In England, MR. PERRIN AND MR. TRAILL) + THE GREEN MIRROR + THE DARK FOREST + THE SECRET CITY + THE CAPTIVES + THE CATHEDRAL + +Romances: + MARADICK AT FORTY + THE PRELUDE TO ADVENTURE + FORTITUDE + THE DUCHESS OF WREXE + THE YOUNG ENCHANTED + +Short Stories: + THE GOLDEN SCARECROW + JEREMY + THE THIRTEEN TRAVELLERS + +Belles-Lettres: + JOSEPH CONRAD--A Critical Study. + +SOURCES ON HUGH WALPOLE + +Hugh Walpole: An Appreciation, by Joseph Hergesheimer, GEORGE H. DORAN +COMPANY. + + +English Literature During the Last Half Century, by J. W. Cunliffe, THE +MACMILLAN COMPANY. + +A Hugh Walpole Anthology, selected by the author. LONDON: J. M. +DENT & SONS. NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY. + +Hugh Walpole, Master Novelist. Pamphlet published by GEORGE H. DORAN +COMPANY. (Out of print.) + +Who's Who [In England]. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +HALF-SMILES AND GESTURES + + +=i= + +Half-smiles and gestures! There is always a younger generation but it is +not always articulate. The war may not have changed the face of the world, +but it changed the faces of very many young men. Faces of naïve enthusiasm +and an innocent expectancy were not particularly noticeable in the years +1918 to 1922. The sombreness, the abruptness, the savage mood evident in +the writings of such men as Barbusse and Siegfried Sassoon were abandoned. +Confronted with the riddle of life, spared the enigma of death, the young +men have felt nothing more befitting their age and generation than the +personal "gesture." + +If you ask me what is a gesture, I can't say that I know. It is something +felt in the attitude of a person to whom one is talking or whose book one +is reading. And the gesture is accompanied, in some of our younger +writers, with an expression that is both serious and smiling. These +half-smiles are, I take it, youth's comment on the riddle of a continued +existence, on the loss of well-lost illusions, on the uncertainty of all +future values. What is there worth trying for? It is not too clear, hence +the gesture. What is there worth the expenditure of emotion? It is +doubtful; and a half-smile is the best. + +Such a writer, busily experimenting in several directions, is Aldous +Huxley. This child of 1894, the son of Leonard Huxley (eldest son and +biographer of Prof. T. H. Huxley) and Julia Arnold (niece of Martha Arnold +and sister of Mrs. Humphry Ward), has with three books of prose built up a +considerable and devoted following of American readers. First there was +_Limbo_. Then came _Crome Yellow_, and on the heels of that we had the +five stories--if you like to call them so--composing _Mortal Coils_. I +have seen no comment more penetrating than that of Michael Sadleir, +himself the author of a novel of distinction. Sadleir says: + +"Already Huxley is the most readable of his generation. He has the +allurement of his own inconsistency, and the inconsistency of youth is its +questing spirit, and, consequently, its chief claim to respect. + +"At present there are several Huxleys--the artificer in words, the amateur +of garbage, pierrot lunaire, the cynic in rag-time, the fastidious +sensualist. For my part, I believe only in the last, taking that to be the +real Huxley and the rest prank, virtuosity, and, most of all, +self-consciousness. As the foal will shy at his own shadow, so Aldous +Huxley, nervous by fits at the poise of his own reality, sidesteps with +graceful violence into the opposite of himself. There is a beautiful +example of this in _Mortal Coils_. Among the stage-directions to his play, +'Permutations Among the Nightingales,' occur the following sentences: +'Sydney Dolphin has a romantic appearance. His two volumes of verse have +been recognised by intelligent critics as remarkable. How far they are +poetry nobody, least of all Dolphin himself, is certain. They may be +merely the ingenious products of a very cultured and elaborate brain.' + +"The point is not that these words might be applied to the author himself, +but rather that he knows they might, even hopes they will, and has sought +to lull his too-ready self-criticism by, so to speak, getting there first +and putting down on paper what he imagines others may think or write of +him. + +"Huxley is a poet and writer of prose. His varied personalities show +themselves in both. The artificer in words is almost omnipresent, and God +forbid that he ever vanish utterly. The disciple of Laforgue has produced +lovely and skilful things, and one is grateful for the study of the French +symbolists that instigated the translation of 'L'Apres-midi d'un Faune.' +In 'The Walk' the recapture of Laforgue's blend of the exotic and the +everyday is astonishingly complete. + +"The cynic is as accomplished as the Pierrot and 'Social Amenities,' parts +of 'Soles Occidere et Redire Possunt,' and, in _Limbo_, 'Richard Greenow' +(first 100 pages) and 'Happy Families' are syncopated actuality, and the +mind jigs an appreciative shoulder, as the body jerks irresistibly to +'Indianola.' + +"There remains Huxley the sensualist, a very ardent lover of beauty, but +one that shrinks from the sordid preamble of modern gallantry, one that is +apprehensive of the inevitable disillusionment. As others have done, as +others will do, he finds in imagination the adventure that progress has +decreed unseemly. + +"The reader who is shocked by 'slabby-bellies,' 'mucus,' 'Priapulids'; the +reader who is awed by the paraded learning of 'Splendour by Numbers,' by +the deliberate intricacy of 'Beauty,' or the delicate fatigue of 'The +Death of Lully' in _Limbo_--these are no audience for an artist. It +tickles the author's fancy, stretches his wits, flatters his deviltry to +provoke and witness such consternation and such respect. But the process +is waste of time, and a writer of Huxley's quality, whatever his youth, +has never time to waste." + +=ii= + +Readers who have chuckled over _Guinea Girl_ or have read with the +peculiar delight of discovery _The Pilgrim of a Smile_ are astonished to +learn that its author is, properly speaking, an engineer. Norman Davey, +born in 1888 (Cambridge 1908-10) is the son of Henry Davey, an engineer of +eminence. After taking honours in chemistry and physics, Norman Davey +travelled in America (1911), particularly in Virginia and Carolina. Then +he went to serve as an apprentice in engineering work in the North of +England and to study in the University of Montpellier in France. + +His first book was _The Gas Turbine_, published in London and now a +classic on its subject. In the four years preceding the war he contributed +articles on thermodynamics to scientific papers. It is only honest to add +that at the same time he contributed to Punch and Life--chiefly verse. + +After the war he had a book of verse published in England and followed it +with _The Pilgrim of a Smile_. He has travelled a good deal in Spain, +Italy, Sweden, and his hobby is book collecting. This is all very well; +and it explains how he could provide the necessary atmosphere for that +laughable story of Monte Carlo, _Guinea Girl_; but one is scarcely +prepared for _The Pilgrim of a Smile_ by those preliminaries in +thermodynamics--or in Punch. The story of the man who did not ask the +Sphinx for love or fame or money but for the reason of her smile is one of +the most intelligible of the gestures characteristic of literature since +the war. + +=iii= + +The gesture as such is perhaps most definitely recognised in the charming +book by John Dos Passos, _Rosinante to the Road Again_. This, indeed, is +the story of a gesture and a quest for it. The gesture is that of Castile, +defined in the opening chapter in some memorable words exchanged by +Telemachus and his friend Lyæus: + +"'It's the gesture that's so overpowering; don't you feel it in your arms? +Something sudden and tremendously muscular.' + +"'When Belmonte turned his back suddenly on the bull and walked away +dragging the red cloak on the ground behind him I felt it,' said Lyæus. + +"'That gesture, a yellow flame against maroon and purple cadences ... an +instant swagger of defiance in the midst of a litany to death the +all-powerful. That is Spain ... Castile at any rate.' + +"'Is "swagger" the right word?' + +"'Find a better!' + +"'For the gesture a mediæval knight made when he threw his mailed glove at +his enemy's feet or a rose in his lady's window, that a mule-driver makes +when he tosses off a glass of aguardiente, that Pastora Imperio makes +dancing....'" + +I do not know whether one should classify _Rosinante_ as a book of travel, +a book of essays, a book of criticisms. It is all three--an integrated +gesture. Certain interspersed chapters purport to relate the wayside +conversations of Telemachus and Lyæus--dual phases of the author's +personality shall we say?--and the people they meet. The other chapters +are acute studies of modern Spain, with rather special attention to modern +Spanish writers. One varies in his admiration between such an essay as +that on Miguel de Unamuno and such an unforgettable picture as the vision +of Jorge Manrique composing his splendid ode to Death: + +"It had been raining. Lights rippled red and orange and yellow and green +on the clean paving-stones. A cold wind off the Sierra shrilled through +clattering streets. As they walked the other man was telling how this +Castilian nobleman, courtier, man-at-arms, had shut himself up when his +father, the Master of Santiago, died, and had written this poem, created +this tremendous rhythm of death sweeping like a wind over the world. He +had never written anything else. They thought of him in the court of his +great dust-coloured mansion at Ocaña, where the broad eaves were full of a +cooing of pigeons and the wide halls had dark rafters painted with +arabesques in vermilion, in a suit of black velvet, writing at a table +under a lemon tree. Down the sun-scarred street, in the cathedral that was +building in those days, full of a smell of scaffolding and stone dust, +there must have stood a tremendous catafalque where lay with his arms +around him the Master of Santiago; in the carved seats of the choirs the +stout canons intoned an endless growling litany; at the sacristy door, the +flare of the candles flashing occasionally on the jewels of his mitre, the +bishop fingered his crosier restlessly, asking his favourite choir-boy +from time to time why Don Jorge had not arrived. And messengers must have +come running to Don Jorge, telling him the service was at the point of +beginning, and he must have waved them away with a grave gesture of a long +white hand, while in his mind the distant sound of chanting, the jingle of +the silver bit of his roan horse stamping nervously where he was tied to a +twined Moorish column, memories of cavalcades filing with braying of +trumpets and flutter of crimson damask into conquered towns, of court +ladies dancing and the noise of pigeons in the eaves drew together like +strings plucked in succession on a guitar into a great wave of rhythm in +which his life was sucked away into this one poem in praise of death." + +=iv= + +The Column is an American institution. What is meant, of course, is that +daily vertical discussion of Things That Have Interested Me by different +individuals attached to different papers and having in common only the +great gift of being interested in what interests everybody else. Perhaps +that is not right, either. Maybe the gift is that of being able to +interest everybody else in the things you are interested in. Of all those +who write a Column, Heywood Broun is possibly the one whose interests are +the most varied. It is precisely this variety which makes his book _Pieces +of Hate: and Other Enthusiasms_ unique as a collection of essays. He will +write on one page about the boxing ring, on the next about the theatre, a +little farther along about books, farther on yet about politics. He makes +excursions into college sports, horse racing and questions of fair play; +and the problems of child-rearing are his constant preoccupation. + +Consider some of his topics. We have an opening study of the literary +masterpiece of E. M. Hull, the novel celebrating the adventures of Miss +Diana Mayo and the Sheik Ahmed Ben Hassan. The next chapter deals with +Hans Christian Andersen and literary and dramatic critics. Pretty soon we +are discussing after-dinner speeches, Babe Ruth and Jack Dempsey. If this +is a gesture, all I can say is, it is a pinwheel; and yet Broun writes +only about things he knows about. Lest you think from my description that +_Pieces of Hate_ is a book in a wholly unserious vein, I invite you to +read the little story, "Frankincense and Myrrh." + +"Once there were three kings in the East and they were wise men. They read +the heavens and they saw a certain strange star by which they knew that in +a distant land the King of the World was to be born. The star beckoned to +them and they made preparations for a long journey. + +"From their palaces they gathered rich gifts, gold and frankincense and +myrrh. Great sacks of precious stuffs were loaded upon the backs of the +camels which were to bear them on their journey. Everything was in +readiness, but one of the wise men seemed perplexed and would not come at +once to join his two companions who were eager and impatient to be on +their way in the direction indicated by the star. + +"They were old, these two kings, and the other wise man was young. When +they asked him he could not tell why he waited. He knew that his +treasuries had been ransacked for rich gifts for the King of Kings. It +seemed that there was nothing more which he could give, and yet he was not +content. + +"He made no answer to the old men who shouted to him that the time had +come. The camels were impatient and swayed and snarled. The shadows across +the desert grew longer. And still the young king sat and thought deeply. + +"At length he smiled, and he ordered his servants to open the great +treasure sack upon the back of the first of his camels. Then he went into +a high chamber to which he had not been since he was a child. He rummaged +about and presently came out and approached the caravan. In his hand he +carried something which glinted in the sun. + +"The kings thought that he bore some new gift more rare and precious than +any which they had been able to find in all their treasure rooms. They +bent down to see, and even the camel drivers peered from the backs of the +great beasts to find out what it was which gleamed in the sun. They were +curious about this last gift for which all the caravan had waited. + +"And the young king took a toy from his hand and placed it upon the sand. +It was a dog of tin, painted white and speckled with black spots. Great +patches of paint had worn away and left the metal clear, and that was why +the toy shone in the sun as if it had been silver. + +"The youngest of the wise men turned a key in the side of the little black +and white dog and then he stepped aside so that the kings and the camel +drivers could see. The dog leaped high in the air and turned a somersault. +He turned another and another and then fell over upon his side and lay +there with a set and painted grin upon his face. + +"A child, the son of a camel driver, laughed and clapped his hands, but +the kings were stern. They rebuked the youngest of the wise men and he +paid no attention but called to his chief servant to make the first of all +the camels kneel. Then he picked up the toy of tin and, opening the +treasure sack, placed his last gift with his own hands in the mouth of the +sack so that it rested safely upon the soft bags of incense. + +"'What folly has seized you?' cried the eldest of the wise men. 'Is this a +gift to bear to the King of Kings in the far country?' + +"And the young man answered and said: 'For the King of Kings there are +gifts of great richness, gold and frankincense and myrrh. + +"'But this,' he said, 'is for the child in Bethlehem!'" + +=v= + +Editor of the London Mercury, J. C. Squire has the light touch of the +columnist but limits himself somewhat more closely to books and the +subjects suggested by them. Very few men living can write about books with +more actual and less apparent erudition than Mr. Squire. Born in 1884, +educated at Cambridge, an editor of the New Statesman, a poet unsurpassed +in the field of parody but a poet who sets more store by his serious +verse, Mr. Squire can best be appreciated by those who have just that +desultory interest in literature which he himself possesses. I have been +looking through his _Books in General_, _Third Series_, for something +quotable, and I declare I cannot lift anything from its setting. It is all +of a piece, from the essay on "If One Were Descended from Shakespeare" to +the remarks about Ben Jonson, Maeterlinck, Ruskin, Cecil Chesterton and +Mr. Kipling's later verse (which I have nowhere seen more sensibly +discussed). + +Well, perhaps these observations from the chapter "A Terrifying +Collection" will give the taste! It appears that an anonymous donor had +offered money to the Birmingham Reference Library to pay for the gathering +of a complete collection of the war poetry issued in the British Empire. +After some preliminary comment, Mr. Squire concludes: + +"If that donor really means business I shall be prepared to supply him +with one or two rare and special examples myself. I possess tributes to +the English effort written by Portuguese, Japanese and Belgians; and pæans +by Englishmen which excel, as regards both simplicity of sentiment and +illiteracy of construction, any foreign composition. Birmingham is not +noted for very many things. It is, we know, the only large city in the +country which remains solidly Tory in election after election. It +produced, we know, Mr. Joseph and Mr. Austen Chamberlain. It has, we know, +something like a monopoly in the manufacture of the gods in wood and brass +to which (in his blindness) the heathen bows down; and there are all sorts +of cheap lines in which it can give the whole world points and a beating. +But it has not yet got the conspicuous position of Manchester or +Liverpool; and one feels that the enterprise of this anonymous donor may +help to put it on a level with those towns. For, granted that its +librarians take their commission seriously, and its friends give them the +utmost assistance in their power, there seems every reason to suppose that +within the next year the City of Birmingham will be the proud possessor of +the largest mound of villainously bad literature in the English-speaking +world. Pilgrims will go to see it who on no other account would have gone +to Birmingham; historians will refer to it when endeavouring to prove that +their own ages are superior to ours in intelligence; authors will inspect +it when seeking the consoling assurance that far, far worse things than +they have ever done have got into public libraries and been seriously +catalogued. The enterprise, in fact, is likely to be of service to several +classes of our fellow-citizens; and it cannot, as far as I am able to see, +do harm to any. It should therefore be encouraged, and I recommend anyone +who has volumes of war-verse which he wishes to get rid of to send them +off at once to the Chief Librarian of Birmingham." + +Oh, yes! _Books in General_, _Third Series_, is by Solomon Eagle. Mr. +Squire explains that the pen name Solomon Eagle has no excuse. The +original bearer of the name was a poor maniac who, during the Great Plague +of London, used to run naked through the streets with a pan of coals of +fire on his head crying, "Repent, repent." + +Too late I realise my wrongdoing, for what, after all, is _Books in +General_ as compared to Mr. Squire's _Life and Letters_? As a +divertissement, compared to a tone poem; as a curtain-raiser to a +three-act play. _Life and Letters_, though not lacking in the lighter +touches of Mr. Squire's fancy, contains chapters on Keats, Jane Austen, +Anatole France, Walt Whitman, Pope and Rabelais of that more considered +character one expects from the editor of the London Mercury. This is not +to say that these studies are devoid of humour; and those chapters in the +volume which are in the nature of interludes are among the best Mr. Squire +has written. Unfortunately I have left myself no room to quote the +incomparable panegyric (in the chapter on "Initials") to the name of John. +Read it, if your name is John; you will thank me for bringing it to your +attention. + +=vi= + +One expects personality in the daughter of Margot Asquith, and the readers +of the first book by Princess Antoine Bibesco (Elizabeth Asquith) were not +disappointed. The same distinction and the same unusual personality will +be found in her new book, _Balloons_. Princess Bibesco's _I Have Only +Myself to Blame_ consisted of sixteen short stories the most nervously +alive and most clearly individualised of feminine gestures. The quality of +Princess Bibesco's work, in so far as purely descriptive passages can +convey it, may be realised from these portraits of a father and mother +which open the story called "Pilgrimage" in _I Have Only Myself to +Blame_: + +"My father was one of the most brilliant men I have ever known but as he +refused to choose any of the ordinary paths of mental activity his name +has remained a family name when it should have become more exclusively his +own. If anything, my mother's famous beauty cast far more lustre on it +than his genius--which preferred to bask in the sunshine of intimacy or +recline indolently in the shady backwaters of privacy and leisure. And yet +in a way he was an adventurer--or rather an adventurous scientist. He was +often called cynical but that was not true--he was far too dispassionate, +too little of a sentimentalist to be tempted by inverted sentimentalism. +Above all things he was a collector--a collector of impressions. His +psychological bibelots were not for everyone. Some, indeed, lay open in +the vitime of his everyday conversation but many more lay hidden in +drawers opened only for the elect. + +"Undoubtedly, in a way, my mother was one of his masterpieces. Her beauty +seemed to be enhanced by every hour and every season. At forty suddenly +her hair had gone snow white. The primrose, the daffodil, the flame, the +gold, the black, the emerald, the ruby of her youth gave way to grey and +silver, pale jade and faint turquoise, shell pink and dim lavender. Her +loveliness had shifted. The hours of the day conspired to set her. The +hard coat and skirt, the high collar, the small hat, the neat veil of +morning, the caressing charmeuse that followed, the trailing chiffon +mysteries of her tea-gown, the white velvet or the cloth of silver that +launched her triumphantly at night, who was to choose between them? Summer +and winter followed suit. Whether you saw her emerging from crisp organdy +or clinging crepe de chine, stiff grey astrakan or melting chinchilla +always it was the same. This moment you said to yourself, 'She has reached +the climax of her loveliness.' + +"My father delighted in perfection. He had discovered it in her and +promptly made it his own. I don't know if he ever regretted the unfillable +quality of her emptiness. Rather I think it amused him to see the violent +passions she inspired, to hear her low thrilling voice weigh down her +meaningless murmurs with significance. To many of her victims the very +incompleteness of her sentences was a form of divine loyalty. One young +poet had described her soul as a fluttering, desperate bird beating its +wings on the bars of her marvellous loveliness. At this her lazy smile +looked very wise. She thought my father an ideal husband. He was always +right about her clothes and after all he was the greatest living expert on +her beauty. Obviously he loved her but--well, he didn't love her +inconveniently." + +=vii= + +There will be some who remember reading a first novel, published several +years ago, called _Responsibility_. This was a study from a Samuel +Butleresque standpoint of the attitude of a father toward an illegitimate +son. At least, that is what it came to in the end; but there were +leisurely earlier pages dealing with such subjects as the tiresomeness of +Honest Work and the dishonesty of righteous people. Very good they were, +too. James E. Agate was the author of this decidedly interesting piece of +fiction. He was not a particularly young man, being in his early forties; +but he was a youngish man. He was youngish in the sense that Mr. Wells and +Mr. Bennett are youngish, and not in the sense of Sir James Peter Pan +Barrie--incapable of growing up. As dramatic critic for the Saturday +Review, London, Agate has been much happier than in a former experience on +the Cotton Exchange of Manchester, his native city. "Each week," said The +Londoner in The Bookman, recently, "he watches over the theatre with an +enthusiasm for the drama which must constantly be receiving disagreeable +shocks. He is a man full of schemes, so that the title of his new book is +distinctly appropriate." That new book is called _Alarums and +Excursions_. + +"Agate is not peaceable," continues our informant. "He carries his full +energy, which is astounding, into each topic that arises. He seizes it. +Woe betide the man who dismisses an idol of his. It is not to be done. He +will submit to no man, however great that man's prestige may be. He is the +bulldog." + +Agate is a critic "still vigorous enough and fresh enough to attack and to +destroy shams of every kind. This is what Agate does in _Alarums and +Excursions_." + +Bright news is it that Agate is writing a new novel "on the Balzacian +scale of _Responsibility_." + +=viii= + +It was in 1918, when I was exploring new books for a New York book +section, that there came to hand a volume called _Walking-Stick Papers_. +Therein I found such stuff as this: + +"And so the fish reporter enters upon the last lap of his rounds. Through, +perhaps, the narrow, crooked lane of Pine Street he passes, to come out at +length upon a scene set for a sea tale. Here would a lad, heir to vast +estates in Virginia, be kidnapped and smuggled aboard to be sold a slave +in Africa. This is Front Street. A white ship lies at the foot of it. +Cranes rise at her side. Tugs, belching smoke, bob beyond. All about are +ancient warehouses, redolent of the Thames, with steep roofs and sometimes +stairs outside, and with tall shutters, a crescent-shaped hole in each. +There is a dealer in weather-vanes. Other things dealt in hereabout are +these: Chronometers, 'nautical instruments,' wax guns, cordage and twine, +marine paints, cotton wool and waste, turpentine, oils, greases, and +rosin. Queer old taverns, public houses, are here, too. Why do not their +windows rattle with a 'Yo, ho, ho'? + +"There is an old, old house whose business has been fish oil within the +memory of men. And here is another. Next, through Water Street, one comes +in search of the last word on salt fish. Now the air is filled with +gorgeous smell of roasting coffee. Tea, coffee, sugar, rice, spices, bags +and bagging here have their home. And there are haughty bonded warehouses +filled with fine liquors. From his white cabin at the top of a venerable +structure comes the dean of the salt-fish business. 'Export trade fair,' +he says; 'good demand from South America.'" + +The whole book was like that. I remember saying and printing: + +"If this isn't individualised writing, extremely skilful writing and +highly entertaining writing, we would like to know what is." + +But what was that in the general chorus of delighted praise that went up +all over the country?--and there were persons of discrimination among the +laudators of Robert Cortes Holliday. People like James Huneker and Simeon +Strunsky, who praised not lightly, were quick to express their admiration +of this new essayist. + +Four years have gone adding to Holliday's first book volumes in the same +class and singularly unmistakeable in their authorship. They are the sort +of essays that could not be anonymous once the authorship of one of them +was known. We have, now, _Broome Street Straws_ and the pocket mirror, +_Peeps at People_. We have _Men and Books and Cities_ and we have a score +of pleasant _Turns About Town_. + +Holliday shows no sign of failing us. I think the truth is that he is one +of those persons described somewhere by Wilson Follett; I think Follett +was trying to convey the quality of De Morgan. Follett said that with +Dickens and De Morgan it was not a question of separate books, singly +achieved, but a mere matter of cutting off another liberal length of the +rich personality which was Dickens or De Morgan. So, exactly, it seems to +me in the case of Holliday. A new book of Holliday's essays is simply +another few yards of a personality not precisely matched among +contemporary American essayists. Holliday's interests are somewhat +broader, more human and perhaps more humane, more varied and closer to the +normal human spirit and taste and fancy than are the interests of +essayists like Samuel Crothers and Agnes Repplier. + +The measure of Holliday as an author is not, of course, bounded by these +collections of essays. There is his penetrating study of Booth Tarkington +and the fine collected edition of Joyce Kilmer, _Joyce Kilmer; Poems, +Essays and Letters With a Memoir by Robert Cortes Holliday_. + +=ix= + +A gesture can be very graceful, sometimes. A half-smile can be wistful and +worth remembering. That was a pleasant story, almost too slender +structurally to be called a novel, by Gilbert W. Gabriel, published in the +spring of 1922. _Jiminy_ is a tale of the quest of the perfect love story +by Benjamin Benvenuto and Jiminy, maker of small rhymes. The author, music +critic of The Sun, New York, had long been known as a newspaper writer and +a pinch hitter for Don Marquis, conductor of The Sun's famous column, The +Sun Dial, when Don was A. W. O. L. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +STEWART EDWARD WHITE AND ADVENTURE + + +=i= + +"Stewart Edward White," says George Gordon in his book _The Men Who Make +Our Novels_, "writes out of a vast self-made experience, draws his +characters from a wide acquaintance with men, recalls situations and +incidents through years of forest tramping, hunting, exploring in Africa +and the less visited places of our continent, for the differing occasions +of his books. In his boyhood he spent a great part of each year in lumber +camps and on the river. He first found print with a series of articles on +birds, 'The Birds of Mackinac Island' (he was born in Grand Rapids, March +12, 1873), brought out in pamphlet form by the Ornithologists' Union and +since (perforce) referred to as his 'first book.' In the height of the +gold rush he set out for the Black Hills, to return East broke and to +write _The Claim Jumpers_ and _The Westerners_. He followed Roosevelt into +Africa, _The Land of Footprints_ and of _Simba_. He has, more recently, +seen service in France as a Major in the U. S. Field Artillery. Though +(certainly) no Ishmael, he has for years been a wanderer upon the face of +the earth, observant and curious of the arresting and strange--and his +novels and short stories mark a journey such as but few have gone upon, a +trailing of rainbows, a search for gold beyond the further hills and a +finding of those campfires (left behind when Mr. Kipling's _Explorer_ +crossed the ranges beyond the edge of cultivation) round which the +resolute sit to swap lies while the tenderfoot makes a fair--and +forced--pretence at belief." + +=ii= + +Spring, 1922, having advanced to that stage where one could feel +confidence that summer would follow--a confidence one cannot always feel +in March--a short letter came from Mr. White. He enclosed two photographs. +One of them showed a trim-looking man with eyeglasses and moustache, +sitting shirt-sleeved in a frail-looking craft. The letter explained that +this was a collapsible canvas boat. My deduction was that the picture had +been taken before the boat collapsed. + +There was also a picture of another and much sturdier boat. I think the +name Seattle was painted on her stern. She lay on a calm surface that +stretched off to a background of towering mountains--Lake Louise Inlet. +The much sturdier boat, I understood, was also the property of S. E. +White. + +[Illustration: STEWART EDWARD WHITE] + +The letter made all these things very clear. It said: "Fifteen tons, fifty +feet, sleeps five, thirty-seven horsepower, heavy duty engine, built +sea-going, speed nine knots. No phonograph! No wine cellar. + +"We are going north, that is all the plans we have. We two are all there +are on board, though we are thinking of getting a cat. On second thought, +here is the crew in the canvas boat we carry to the inland lakes to fish +from. Her name is the _Wreckless_; be careful how you spell it." + +As stated, the crew in the about-to-collapse boat was Stewart Edward +White. On his way north it was his intention to revise what will be, in +his judgment, the most important novel he has written. But I must not say +anything about that yet. Let me say something, rather, about his new book +which you who read this have a more immediate prospect of enjoying. _On +Tiptoe: A Romance of the Redwoods_ is Stewart Edward White in a somewhat +unusual but entirely taking rôle. Here we have Mr. White writing what is +essentially a comedy; and yet there is an element of fantasy in the story +which, in the light of a few opening and closing paragraphs, can be taken +seriously, too. + +The story sounds, in an outline, almost baldly implausible. Here are +certain people, including a young woman, the daughter of a captain of +industry, stranded in the redwoods. Here is a young man out of nowhere, +who foretells the weather in a way that is uncannily verified soon +afterward. Here also is the astonishing engine which the young man has +brought with him out of nowhere,--an engine likely to revolutionise the +affairs of the world.... + +I suppose that the secret of such a story as _On Tiptoe_ lies entirely in +the telling. I know that when I heard it outlined, the thing seemed to me +to be preposterous. But then, while still under the conviction of this +preposterousness, the story itself came to my hand and I began to read. +Its preposterousness did not worry me any longer. It had, besides a +plausibility more than sufficient, a narrative charm and a whimsical +humour that would have justified any tale. The thing that links _On +Tiptoe_ with Stewart Edward White is the perfect picture of the +redwoods--the feeling of all outdoors you get while under the spell of the +story. I do not think there is any doubt that all lovers of White will +enjoy this venture into the field of light romance. + +=iii= + +Stewart Edward White was the son of T. Stewart White and Mary E. (Daniell) +White. He received the degree of bachelor of philosophy from the +University of Michigan in 1895 and the degree of master of arts from the +same institution in 1903 (_Who's Who in America: Volume 12_). He attended +Columbia Law School in 1896-97. He married on April 28, 1904, Elizabeth +Grant of Newport, Rhode Island. He was a major with the 144th Field +Artillery in 1917-18. He lives in California. But these skeletal details, +all right for _Who's Who in America_, serve our purpose poorly. I am going +to try to picture the man from two accounts of him written by friends. One +appeared as an appendix to White's novel _Gold_, published in 1913, and +was written by Eugene F. Saxton. The other is a short newspaper article by +John Palmer Gavit (long with the New York Evening Post) printed in the +Philadelphia Ledger for May 20, 1922. + +Mr. Saxton had a talk with White a few days before White sailed from New +York for his second African exploring expedition. Saxton had asked the +novelist if he did not think it possible to lay hold of the hearts and +imaginations of a great public through a novel which had no love interest +in it; if "man pitted against nature was not, after all, the eternal +drama." + +White thought for a moment and then said: + +"In the main, that is correct. Only I should say that the one great drama +is that of the individual man's struggles toward perfect adjustment with +his environment. According as he comes into correspondence and harmony +with his environment, by that much does he succeed. That is what an +environment is for. It may be financial, natural, sexual, political, and +so on. The sex element is important, of course,--very important. But it is +not the only element by any means; nor is it necessarily an element that +exercises an instant influence on the great drama. Any one who so depicts +it is violating the truth. Other elements of the great drama are as +important--self-preservation, for example, is a very simple and even more +important instinct than that of the propagation of the race. Properly +presented, these other elements, being essentially vital, are of as much +interest to the great public as the relation of the sexes." + +The first eight or nine years of Mr. White's life were spent in a small +mill town. Michigan was at that time the greatest of lumber states. White +was still a boy when the family moved to Grand Rapids, then a city of +about 30,000. Stewart Edward White did not go to school until he was +sixteen, but then he entered the third year high with boys of his own age +and was graduated at eighteen, president of his class. He won and, I +believe, still holds the five-mile running record of the school. + +The explanation is that the eight or ten years which most boys spend in +grammar school were spent by Stewart Edward continually in the woods and +among the rivermen, in his own town and in the lumber camps to which his +father took him. Then there was a stretch of four years, from about the +age of twelve on, when he was in California, as he says "a very new sort +of a place." These days were spent largely in the saddle and he saw a good +deal of the old California ranch life. + +"The Birds of Mackinac Island," already referred to, was only one of +thirty or forty papers on birds which White wrote in his youth for +scientific publications. Six or seven hundred skins that he acquired are +now preserved in the Kent Scientific Museum of Grand Rapids. + +His summer vacations while he was in college were spent cruising the Great +Lakes in a 28-foot cutter sloop. After graduating he spent six months in a +packing-house at $6 a week. His adventure in the Black Hills gold rush +followed. + +It was during his studies at Columbia that White wrote, as part of his +class work, a story called "A Man and His Dog" which Brander Matthews +urged him to try to sell. Short Stories brought it for $15 and subsequent +stories sold also. One brought as much as $35! + +He tried working in MCClurg's bookstore in Chicago at $9 a week. Then he +set out for Hudson Bay. _The Claim Jumpers_, finished about this time, was +brought out as a book and was well received. The turn of the tide did not +come until Munsey paid $500 for the serial right in _The Westerners_. +White was paid in five dollar bills and he says that when he stuffed the +money in his pockets he left at once for fear someone would change his +mind and want all that money back. + +_The Blazed Trail_ was written in a lumber camp in the depth of a northern +winter. The only hours White could spare for writing were in the early +morning, so he would begin at 4 A. M., and write until 8 A. M., then put +on his snowshoes and go out for a day's lumbering. The story finished, he +gave it to Jack Boyd, the foreman, to read. Boyd began it after supper one +evening and when White awoke the next morning at four o'clock he found the +foreman still at it. As Boyd never even read a newspaper, White regarded +this as a triumph. This is the book that an Englishwoman, entering a book +shop where White happened to be, asked for in these words: "Have you a +copy of _Blasé Tales_?" + +White went out hastily in order not to overhear her cries of +disappointment. + +=iv= + +Mr. Saxton asked White why he went to Africa and White said: + +"My answer to that is pretty general. I went because I wanted to. About +once in so often the wheels get rusty and I have to get up and do +something real or else blow up. Africa seemed to me a pretty real thing. +Before I went I read at least twenty books about it and yet I got no +mental image of what I was going to see. That fact accounts for these +books of mine. I have tried to tell in plain words what an ordinary person +would see there. + +"Let me add," he went on, "that I did not go for material. I never go +anywhere for material; if I did I should not get it. That attitude of mind +would give me merely externals, which are not worth writing about. I go +places merely because, for one reason or another, they attract me. Then, +if it happens that I get close enough to the life, I may later find that I +have something to write about. A man rarely writes anything convincing +unless he has lived the life; not with his critical faculty alert; but +whole-heartedly and because, for the time being, it is his life." + +=v= + +John Palmer Gavit tells how once, when hunting, White broke his leg and +had to drag himself back long miles to camp alone: + +"Adventure enough, you'd say. But along the way a partridge drummed and +nothing would do but he must digress a hundred yards from the shorter and +sufficiently painful way, brace himself for the shot and recoil, kill the +bird and have his dog retrieve it, and bring his game along with him. Just +to show himself that this impossible thing could be done. + +"I am not imagining when I say that in this same spirit Stewart Edward +White faces the deeper problems and speculations of life. He wants to know +about things here and hereafter. With the same zest and simplicity of +motive he faces the secret doors of existence; not to prove or disprove, +but to see and find out. And when he comes to the Last Door he will go +through without fear, with eyes open to see in the next undiscovered +country what there is to be seen and to show that the heart of a brave and +unshrinking man, truthful and open-handed and friendly, is at home there, +as he may be anywhere under God's jurisdiction." + +BOOKS BY STEWART EDWARD WHITE + +THE WESTERNERS +THE CLAIM JUMPERS +THE BLAZED TRAIL +CONJUROR'S HOUSE +THE FOREST +THE MAGIC FOREST +THE SILENT PLACES +THE MOUNTAIN +BLAZED TRAIL STORIES +THE PASS +THE MYSTERY +ARIZONA NIGHTS +CAMP AND TRAIL +THE RIVERMAN +THE RULES OF THE GAME +THE CABIN +THE ADVENTURES OF BOBBY ORDE +THE LAND OF FOOTPRINTS +AFRICAN CAMP FIRES +GOLD +THE REDISCOVERED COUNTRY +THE GREY DAWN +THE LEOPARD WOMAN +SIMBA +THE FORTY-NINERS +THE ROSE DAWN +THE KILLER, AND OTHER STORIES +ON TIPTOE: A ROMANCE OF THE REDWOODS + +SOURCES ON STEWART EDWARD WHITE + +The Men Who Make our Novels, by George Gordon. MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY. + +Who's Who in America. + +Stewart Edward White: Appendix to GOLD (published in 1913) by Eugene F. +Saxton. DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY. + +Stewart Edward White, by John Palmer Gavit. PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC LEDGER, +May 20, 1922. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +WHERE THE PLOT THICKENS + + +=i= + +Scarcely anyone is there, now writing mystery stories, who, +with the combination of ingenuity--or perhaps I should say +originality--dependableness, and a sufficient atmosphere comes up to +the high and steady level of Frank L. Packard. Born in Montreal in 1877 +of American parents, a graduate of McGill University and a student of +Liége, Belgium, Mr. Packard was engaged in engineering work for some +years and began writing for a number of magazines in 1906. He now +lives at Lachine, Province of Quebec, Canada, and the roll of his books +is a considerable one. In that roll, there are titles known and +enthusiastically remembered by nearly every reader of the mystery tale. +Is there anyone who has not heard of _The Miracle Man_ or _The Wire +Devils_ or Jimmie Dale in _The Adventures of Jimmie Dale_ and _The Further +Adventures of Jimmie Dale_? _The Night Operator,_ _From Now On_, +_Pawned_, and, most recently, _Doors of the Night_ have had their public +ready and waiting. That same public will denude the book counters of +_Jimmie Dale and The Phantom Clue_ this autumn. + +Packard differs from his fellow-writers of mystery stories in his flair +for the unusual idea. In _Pawned_ each character finds himself in pawn to +another, and must act as someone else dictates. _Doors of the Night_ is +the account of a man who was both a notorious leader and hunted prey of +New York's underworld. _From Now On_ is the unexpected story of a man +after he comes out of prison; and Jimmie Dale, Fifth Avenue clubman, was, +to Clancy, Smarlinghue the dope fiend; to the gang, Larry the Bat, stool +pigeon; but to Headquarters--the Grey Seal! + +Stories of the underworld are among the most difficult to write. The thing +had, it seemed, been done to death and underdone and overdone when Packard +came along. In all seriousness, it may be said that Packard has restored +the underworld to respectability--as a domain for fictional purposes at +least! It is not that his crooks are real crooks--though they are--but +that he is able to put life into them, to make them seem human. No man is +a hero to his valet and no crook can be merely a crook in a story of the +underworld that is intended to convey any sense of actuality. Beside the +distortions and conventionalisations of most underworld stories, Packard's +novels stand out with distinctiveness and a persistent vitality. + +=ii= + +When a book called _Bulldog Drummond_ was published there was no one +prescient of the great success of the play which would be made from the +story. But those who read mystery stories habitually knew well that a +mystery-builder of exceptional adroitness had arrived. Of course, Cyril +McNeile, under the pen name "Sapper," was already somewhat known in +America by several war books; but _Bulldog Drummond_ was a novelty. +Apparently it was possible to write a first rate detective-mystery story +with touches of crisp humour as good as Pelham Grenville Wodehouse's +stuff! There is something convincing about the hero of _Bulldog Drummond_, +the brisk and cheerful young man whom demobilisation has left unemployed +and whose perfectly natural susceptibility to the attractiveness of a +young woman leads him into adventures as desperate as any in No Man's +Land. + +For Cyril McNeile's new story _The Black Gang_, after the experience of +_Bulldog Drummond_ as a book and play, Americans will be better prepared. +An intermediate book, _The Man in Ratcatcher_, consists of shorter stories +which exhibit very perfectly McNeile's gift for the dramatic situation. He +gives us the man who returned from the dead to save his sweetheart from +destruction; the man who staked his happiness on a half forgotten waltz; +the man who played at cards for his wife; the man who assisted at suicide, +either ordinary short stories nor ordinary motifs! I should hesitate to +predict how far McNeile will go along this special line of his; but I see +no reason why he should not give us the successor of Sherlock Holmes. + +=iii= + +_Black Cæsar's Clan_ is the good title of Albert Payson Terhune's new +story in succession to his _Black Gold_, a mystery story that was +distinguished by the possession of a Foreword so unusual as to be worth +reprinting--one of the best arguments for this type of book ever penned: + +"If you are questing for character-study or for realism or for true +literature in any of its forms,--then walk around this book of mine (and, +indeed, any book of mine); for it was not written for you and it will have +no appeal for you. + +"But if you care for a yarn with lots of action,--some of it pretty +exciting,--you may like _Black Gold_. I think you will. + +"It has all the grand old tricks: from the Weirdly Vanishing Footprints, +to the venerable Ride for Life. Yes, and it embalms even the +half-forgotten and long-disused Struggle on the Cliff. Its Hero is a hero. +Its Villain is a villain. Nobody could possibly mistake either of them for +the Friend of the Family. The Heroine is just a heroine; not a human. +There is not a subtle phrase or a disturbingly new thought, from start to +finish. + +"There is a good mystery, too; along lines which have not been worked +over-often. And there is a glimpse of Untold Treasure. What better can you +ask; in a story that is frank melodrama? + +"The scene, by the way, is laid in Northern California; a beautiful and +strikingly individualistic region which, for the most part, is ignored by +tourists for the man-made scenic effects and playgrounds of the southern +counties of the State. + +"If, now and again, my puppets or my plot-wires creak a bit noisily,--what +then? Creaking, at worst, is a sure indication of movement,--of +action,--of incessant progress of sorts. A thing that creaks is not +standing still and gathering mildew. It moves. Otherwise it could not +creak. + +"Yes, there are worse faults to a plot than an occasional tendency to +creakiness. It means, for one thing, that numberless skippable pages are +not consumed in photographic description of the ill-assorted furnishings +of the heroine's room or cosmos; nor in setting forth the myriad phases of +thought undergone by the hero in seeking to check the sway of his pet +complexes. (This drearily flippant slur on realism springs from pure envy. +I should rejoice to write such a book. But I can't. And, if I could, I +know I should never be able to stay awake long enough to correct its +proofs.) + +"Yet, there is something to be said in behalf of the man or woman who +finds guilty joy in reading a story whose action gallops; a story whose +runaway pace breaks its stride only to leap a chasm or for a +breathcatching stumble on a precipice-edge. The office boy prefers Captain +Kidd to Strindberg; not because he is a boy, but because he is human and +has not yet learned the trick of disingenuousness. He is still normal. So +is the average grown-up. + +"These normal and excitement-loving readers are overwhelmingly in the +majority. Witness the fact that _The Bat_ had a longer run in New York +than have all of Dunsany's and Yeats's rare dramas, put together. If we +insist that our country be guided by majority-rule, then why sneer at a +majority-report in literary tastes? + +"_Ben Hur_ was branded as a 'religious dime novel.' Yet it has had fifty +times the general vogue of Anatole France's pseudo-blasphemy which deals +with the same period. Public taste is not always, necessarily, bad taste. +'The common people heard Him, gladly.' (The Scribes did not.) + +"After all, there is nothing especially debasing in a taste for yarns +which drip with mystery and suspense and ceaseless action; even if the +style and concept of these yarns be grossly lacking in certain approved +elements. So the tale be written with strong evidence of sincerity and +with a dash of enthusiasm, why grudge it a small place of its own in +readers' hours of mental laziness? + +"With this shambling apology,--which, really, is no apology at all,--I lay +my book on your knees. You may like it or you may not. You will find it +alive with flaws. But, it is alive. + +"I don't think it will bore you. Perhaps there are worse +recommendations." + +=iv= + +Hulbert Footner does not look like a writer of mystery stories. A tall, +handsome, well-dressed, extremely courteous gentleman who, had he the +requisite accent, might just have arrived from Bond Street. He has a trim +moustache. Awfully attractive blue eyes! He lives on a farm at Sollers, +Maryland. No one else, it seems, is so familiar with the unusual corners +of New York City, the sort of places that get themselves called "quaint." +No one else manages the affairs of young lovers (on paper) with quite so +much of the airy spirit of young love. I can think of no one else who +could write such a scene as that in _The Owl Taxi_, where the dead-wagon, +on its way in the night to the vast cemetery in a New York suburb, is held +up for the removal of a much-needed corpse. Such material is bizarre. The +handling of it must be very deft or the result will be revolting; and yet +the thing can be done. In the latter part of that excellent play, _Seven +Keys to Baldpate_, George M. Cohan and his company bandied a corpse from +attic to cellar of a country house. This preposterous scene as presented +on the stage was helplessly laughable. Mr. Footner's scene in _The Owl +Taxi_ is like that. + +The man has a special gift for the picturesque person. I do not know +whether he uses originals; if I suspect an original for old Simon Deaves +in _The Deaves Affair_, I get no farther than a faint suspicion that ... +No, I cannot identify his character. (Not that I want to; I am not a +victim of that fatal obsession which fastens itself upon so many readers +of fiction--the desire to identify the characters in a story with someone +in real life. The idea is ridiculous.) Mr. Footner knows Greenwich +Village. He knows outlying stretches in the greater city of New York; he +knows excursion boats such as the Ernestina, whose cruises play so curious +a part in _The Deaves Affair_. I have a whetted appetite for what Footner +will give us next; I feel sure it will be like no other story of the +season. A great deal to be sure of! + +=v= + +The peculiarity about _Gold-Killer_ is the mystery behind the excellent +mystery of the book. I mean, of course, the mystery of its authorship. I +do not any longer believe that the book is the work of Siamese twins--in a +physiological sense of the word "twins." I know that there is no John +Prosper--or, rather, that if there is a John Prosper, he is not the author +of _Gold-Killer_. Yet the book was the work of more than one man. Were two +intellects siamesed to write the story? Those who, in my opinion, know the +facts point to the name on the title page and say that John is John and +Prosper is Prosper and never the twain shall meet, unless for the purpose +of evolving a super-_Gold-Killer_. Whether they will be able to surpass +this book, which opens with a murder at the opera and finishes +(practically) with a nose dive in an airplane, is beyond my surmise. + +If they will try, I give them my word I will read the new yarn. + +Mrs. Baillie Reynolds's latest novel is called _The Judgment of Charis_. +It is not a story to tell too much about in advance. I will say that +Charis had run away from an all-too-persistent lover and an +all-too-gorgeous family, and had been taken under the wing of a kindly, +middle-aged millionaire and invited to become his secretary. She expected +some complications and in her expectations she was not disappointed; and +the readers' expectations will not be disappointed either, though they may +find the ending unexpected. _The Vanishing of Betty Varian_ restored to +readers of Carolyn Wells a detective whose appearance in _The Room with +the Tassels_ made that story more than ordinarily worth while. I do not +know, though, whether Penny Wise would be interesting or even notable if +it were not for his curious assistant, Zizi. The merit of detective +stories is necessarily variable; _The Vanishing of Betty Varian_ is one of +the author's best; but Miss Wells (really Mrs. Hadwin Houghton) is, to me, +as extraordinary as her stories. All those books! She herself says that +"having mastered the psychology of detachment" she can write with more +concentration and less revision than any other professional writer of her +acquaintance. Yes, but how---- No doubt it is too much to expect her to +explain _how_ she is ingenious. + +Mrs. Belloc Lowndes, sister of Hilaire Belloc, is ingenious in a different +direction. Her story of _What Timmy Did_ was one that attracted +especial attention from those periodicals and persons interested in +psychic matters. Here was a woman whose husband had died from +poison--self-administered, the coroner decided--and here was little +Timmy, who knew that something was wrong. Animals also knew it; and then +one day Timmy saw at her heels a shadow man, stiff and military, and +behind him a phantom dog. Mrs. Lowndes's gifts, different from her +distinguished brother's, are none the less gifts. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +REBECCA WEST: AN ARTIST + + +=i= + +Whether Rebecca West is writing reviews of books or dramatic criticism or +novels she is an artist, above everything. I have been reading delightedly +the pages of her new novel, _The Judge_. It is Miss West's second novel. +One is somewhat prepared for it by the excellence of her first, _The +Return of the Soldier_, published in 1918. Somewhat, but not adequately. + +Perhaps I am prejudiced. You see, I have been in Edinburgh, and though it +was the worst season of the year--the period when, as Robert Louis +Stevenson says, that Northern city has "the vilest climate under +Heaven"--nevertheless, the charm and dignity of that old town captured me +at the very moment when a penetrating Scotch winter rain was coming in +direct contact with my bones. I was, I might as well confess, soaked and +chilled as no New York winter snowstorm ever wetted and chilled me. It did +not matter; here was the long sweep of Princes Street with its gay shops +on one side and its deep valley on the other; across the valley the +tenements of the Royal Mile lifted themselves up--the Royal Mile, which +runs always uphill from the Palace that is Holyrood to the height that is +the Castle. Talk about gestures! The whole city of Edinburgh is a +matchless gesture. + +[Illustration: REBECCA WEST] + +And so, when I began the first page of _The Judge_, it was a grand delight +to find myself back in the city of the East Wind: + +"It was not because life was not good enough that Ellen Melville was +crying as she sat by the window. The world, indeed, even so much of it as +could be seen from her window, was extravagantly beautiful. The office of +Mr. Mactavish James, Writer to the Signet, was in one of those decent grey +streets that lie high on the Northward slope of Edinburgh New Town, and +Ellen was looking up the sidestreet that opened just opposite and +revealed, menacing as the rattle of spears, the black rock and bastions of +the Castle against the white beamless glare of the southern sky. And it +was the hour of the clear Edinburgh twilight, that strange time when the +world seems to have forgotten the sun though it keeps its colour; it could +still be seen that the moss between the cobblestones was a wet bright +green, and that a red autumn had been busy with the wind-nipped trees, yet +these things were not gay, but cold and remote as brightness might be on +the bed of a deep stream, fathoms beneath the visitation of the sun. At +this time all the town was ghostly, and she loved it so. She took her mind +by the arm and marched it up and down among the sights of Edinburgh, +telling it that to be weeping with discontent in such a place was a +scandalous turning up of the nose at good mercies. Now the Castle +Esplanade, that all day had proudly supported the harsh virile sounds and +colours of the drilling regiments, would show to the slums its blank +surface, bleached bonewhite by the winds that raced above the city smoke. +Now the Cowgate and the Canongate would be given over to the drama of the +disorderly night, the slumdwellers would foregather about the rotting +doors of dead men's mansions and brawl among the not less brawling ghosts +of a past that here never speaks of peace, but only of blood and argument. +And Holyrood, under a black bank surmounted by a low bitten cliff, would +lie like the camp of an invading and terrified army...." + +=ii= + +_The Judge_ is certainly autobiographical in some of the material +employed. For instance, it is a fact that Miss West went to school in +Edinburgh, attending an institution not unlike John Thompson's Ladies +College referred to in _The Judge_ (but only referred to). It is a fact, +as everyone who knows anything about Miss West knows, that Miss West was +an ardent suffragette in that time before suffragettes had ceased from +troubling and Prime Ministers were at rest. An amazing legend got about +some time ago that Rebecca West's real name was Regina Miriam Bloch. Then +on the strength of the erring "Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature" +did Miss Amy Wellington write a sprightly article for the Literary Review +of the New York Evening Post. Miss Wellington referred to this mysterious +Regina Miriam Bloch who had stunned everybody by her early articles +written under the name of one of Ibsen's most formidable heroines; but +unfortunately Miss West wrote a letter in disclaimer. She cannot help Mr. +Ibsen. It may be a collision in names, but it is not a collusion. The +truth about Rebecca West, who has written _The Judge_, seems to be +dependably derivable from the English _Who's Who_, a standard work always +worth consulting. This estimable authority says that Rebecca West was born +on Christmas in 1892, and is the youngest daughter of the late Charles +Fairfield of County Kerry. It further says that she was educated at George +Watson's Ladies' College, Edinburgh. It states that she joined the staff +of The Freewoman as a reviewer in 1911. Her club is the International +Women's Franchise. Her residence is 36 Queen's Gate Terrace, London S. W. +7. Her telephone is Kensington 7285. + +Now is there anything mythical left? What excuse, O everybody, is there +any longer for the legend of Regina Miriam Bloch? + +But I do not believe Miss West objects to legends. I imagine she loves +them. The legend of a name is perhaps unimportant; the legend of a +personality is of the highest importance. That Miss West has a personality +is evident to anyone familiar with her work. A personality, however, is +not three-dimensionally revealed except in that form of work which comes +closest to the heart and life of the worker. To write pungent and +terrifyingly sane criticisms is a notable thing; but to write novels of +tender insight and intimate revelation is a far more convincing thing. +_The Judge_ is such a novel. + +=iii= + +There is a prefatory sentence, as follows: + +"Every mother is a Judge who sentences the children for the sins of the +father." + +There is a dedication. It is: + +TO THE MEMORY OF MY MOTHER + +_The Judge_ is a study of the claim of a mother upon her son. The +circumstances of Mrs. Yaverland's life were such as peculiarly to +strengthen the tie between her and Richard. On the other hand, she had +always disliked and even hated her son Roger. + +The first part of the book, however, does not bring in Richard Yaverland's +mother. It is a picture of Ellen Melville, the girl in Edinburgh, the girl +whose craving for the colour of existence has gone unsatisfied until +Richard Yaverland enters her life. Yaverland, with his stories of Spain, +and his imaginative appeal for that young girl, is the fulcrum of Ellen +Melville's destiny. + +That destiny, carried by the forces of human character to its strange +termination, is handled by Miss West in a long novel the chapters of which +are a series of delineative emotions. I do not mean that Miss West shrinks +from externalised action, as did Henry James whom she has admired and +studied. She perceives the immense value of introspection, but is not lost +in its quicksands. She can devote a whole chapter to a train of thought in +the mind of Ellen Melville, sitting inattentively at a public meeting; and +she can follow it with another long chapter giving the sequence of +thoughts in the mind of Richard Yaverland; and she can bring each chapter +to a period with the words: "She (he) glanced across the hall. Their eyes +met." It might be thought that this constitutes a waste of narrative +space; not so. As a matter of fact, without the insight accorded by these +disclosures of things thought and felt, we should be unable to understand +the behaviour of these two young people. + +All the first half of the book is a truly marvelous story of young lovers; +all the latter end of the book is a relation scarcely paralleled in +fiction of the conflict between the mother's claim and the claim of the +younger woman. + +Of subsidiary portraits there are plenty. Ellen's mother and Mr. Mactavish +James and Mr. Philip James are like full-lengths by Velasquez. In the +closing chapters of the book we have the extraordinary figure of the +brother and son, Roger, accompanied by the depressing girl whom he has +picked up the Lord knows where. + +And, after all, this is not a first novel--that promise, which so often +fails of fulfilment--but a second novel; and I have in many a day not read +anything that seemed to me to get deeper into the secrets of life than +this study of a man who, at the last, spoke triumphantly, "as if he had +found a hidden staircase out of destiny," and a woman who, at the last, +"knew that though life at its beginning was lovely as a corn of wheat it +was ground down to flour that must make bitter bread between two human +tendencies, the insane sexual caprice of men, the not less mad excessive +steadfastness of women." + +BOOKS BY REBECCA WEST + +THE RETURN OF THE SOLDIER +THE JUDGE + +SOURCES ON REBECCA WEST + +Who's Who. [In England]. + +Rebecca West: Article by Amy Wellington in the LITERARY REVIEW OF THE NEW +YORK EVENING POST, 1921. + +Articles by Rebecca West in various English publications, frequently +reprinted by THE LIVING AGE. See the READERS' GUIDE TO PERIODICAL +LITERATURE. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +SHAMELESS FUN + + +=i= + +One way to write about Nina Wilcox Putnam would be in the way she writes +about everything. It's not so hard. As thus: + +Some dull day in the office. We look up and whom should we see standing +right there before us but Nina Wilcox Putnam! Falling over backwards, that +being what our swivel chair is made for, we say: "Well, well, well! So +today is May 3, 1922! Where from? West Broadway?" + +"I should not say so! South Broadway, I guess. I've just motored up from +Florida. But your speaking of West Broadway reminds me: I've written a +piece for George Lorimer of Saturday Evening Post. You see my book, _West +Broadway_, brought me so many letters my arm ached from answering them. +What car did you drive? Where d'y' get gas in the desert? What's the best +route? And thus et cetera. So now I have wrote me a slender essay +answering everything that anybody can ask on this or other +transcontinental subjects. Mr. Lorimer will publish, and who knows--as +they say in fiction--it might make a book afterward." + +"How's Florida?" + +"I left it fine, if it doesn't get in trouble while I'm away. I've bought +a ranch, for fruit only, on the East Coast, between Palm Beach and Miami, +but not paying these expensive prices, no, not never. And I shall live +there for better but not for worse, for richer, but most positively not +for poorer. I pick my own alligator pears off my own tree unless I want to +sell them for fifteen cents on the tree. Bathing, one-half mile east by +motor." + +"Been reading your piece, 'How I Have Got So Far So Good,' in John +Siddall's American Magazine." + +"Yes, I thought I would join the autobiographists--Benvenuto Cellini, +Margot Asquith, Benjamin Franklin, et Al, as Ring Lardner would insist. Do +you know Ring? He and I are going to have one of these amicable literary +duels soon, like the famous _Isn't That Just Like a Man? Oh, Well, You +Know How Women Are!_ which Mrs. Rinehart and Irvin Cobb fought to a +finish. But speaking of sport, I have discovered my grandest favourite +sport, in spite of motoring, which is deep sea fishing, nothing less. Let +me inform you that I landed a 9-pound dolphin which he is like fire-opals +all over and will grace the wall of my dining-room no matter if all my +friends suffer with him the rest of their lives. He was a male dolphin; +get that! It makes a difference from the deep sea fishing sportsman's +standpoint. And this place of mine at the end of South Broadway where I +can roll cocoanuts the rest of my life if I want to is at, in or about +Delray, Florida. D-e-l-r-a-y; you've spelled it." + +"We're publishing your new book on how to get thin, _Tomorrow We Diet_." + +"Oh, yes. Well, I am several laps ahead of that. Now, I am going up to my +home in Madison, Connecticut, to work. Later, I'll maybe drive out to +Yellowstone Park or some place. Well, I might stay here at the Brevoort +for a month; run down to Philadelphia, maybe. Did you know I once wrote a +book for children that has sold 500,000 copies? And, besides a young son +whom I am capable of entertaining if you'll let him tell you, I have a few +ideas...." + +Hold on! This isn't so easy as it looked. + +Probably Nina Wilcox Putnam is inimitable. This one and that may steal +Ring W. Lardner's stuff, but there is a sort of Yale lock effect about the +slang (American slanguage) in such books as _West Broadway_ which is not +picked so easily. As for the new Nina Wilcox Putnam novel, _Laughter +Limited_--if you don't believe what we say about N.W.P. inimitableness +just open that book and see for yourself. The story of a movie actress? +Yes, and considerable more. Just as _West Broadway_ was a great deal more +than an amusing story, being actually the best hunch extant on +transcontinental motoring, outside of the automobile blue books, which are +not nearly such good reading. + +And then there's _Tomorrow We Diet_, in which Nina Wilcox Putnam tells how +she reduced fifty pounds in seven months without exercising anything but +her intelligence. But if you want to know about Nina Wilcox Putnam, read +her story in her own words that appeared in the American Magazine for May, +1922. Here is a bit of it: + +"Believe you me, considering the fact that they are mostly men, which it +would hardly be right to hold that up against them, Editors in my +experience has been an unusually fine race, and it is my contracts with +them has made me what I am today, I'm sure I'm satisfied. And when a +fellow or sister writer commences hollering about how Editors in America +don't know anything about what is style or English, well anyways not +enough to publish it when they see it, why all I can say is that I could +show them living proof to the contrary, only modesty and good manners +forbids me pointing, even at myself. I am also sure that the checks these +hollerers have received from said Editors is more apt to read the Editor +regrets than pay to the order of, if you get what I mean. + +"Well, I have had it pretty soft, I will admit, because all the work I +done to get where I am, is never over eight hours a day penal servitude, +locked up in my study and fighting against only such minor odds and +intrusions as please may I have a dollar and a quarter for the laundry, or +now dear you have been writing long enough, I have brought you a nice cup +of tea, just when I am going strong on a important third chapter. But my +work is of course not really work since it is done in the home, as my +relations often remind me. At least they did until I got George, that's my +pres. husband, and he never lets me be interrupted unless he wants to +interrupt me himself for a clean collar or something. + +"Also besides working these short hours, four of which is generally what +us authors calls straight creative work, I have it soft in another way. I +got a pretty good market for my stuff and always had, and this of course +has got me so's I can draw checks as neat and quick as anybody in the +family and they love to see me do it. + +"All kidding to one side it is the straight dope when I say that from +being merely the daughter of honest and only moderately poor parents I +have now a house of my own, the very one in our town which I most admired +as a child; and the quit-claim deed come out of my own easy money. I also +got a car or two--and a few pieces of the sort of second-hand stuff which +successful people generally commence cluttering up their house with as a +sign of outward and visible success. I mean the junk one moves in when one +moves the golden oak out.... + +"I never commenced going over really big until it was up to me to make +good every time I delivered, and this was not until my husband died and +left me with a small son, which I may say in passing, that I consider he +is the best thing I have ever published. Well, there I was, a widow with a +child, and no visible means of support except when I looked into the +mirror. Of course, before then I had been earning good money, but only +when I wanted something, or felt like it. Now I had to want to feel like +it three hundred and sixty-five days a year. + +"I'll tell the world it was some jolt." + +=ii= + +_Perfect Behaviour_ is the calmly confident title of the new book by +Donald Ogden Stewart--a work which will rejoice the readers of _A Parody +Outline of History_. Behaviour is the great obstacle to happiness. One may +overcome all the ordinary complexes. One may kill his cousins and get his +nephews and nieces deported, and refuse to perform Honest Work--yet remain +a hopeless slave to the _Book of Etiquette_. In a Pullman car, with a +ticket for the lower berth, he will take the seat facing backward, only to +tremble and blush with shame on learning his social error. Who has not +suffered the mortification of picking up the fork that was on the floor +and then finding out afterward that it was the function of the waiter to +pick up the fork? What is a girl to do if, escorted home at night from the +dance, she finds the hour is rather late and yet her folks are still up? +Whether she should invite the young man in or ask him to call again, she +is sure to do the wrong thing. Then there are those wedding days, the +proudest and happiest of a girl's life, when she slips her hand into the +arm of the wrong man or otherwise gives herself away before she is given +away. Tragedy lurks in such trifles. Don Stewart, who has suffered +countless mortifications and heartbreaks from just such little things as +these, determined that something shall be done to spare others his own +unfortunate experiences. + +_Perfect Behaviour_ is the result of his brave determination. It is a book +that will be constantly in demand until society is abolished. Then, too, +there is that new behaviouristic psychology. You have not heard of that? I +can only assure you that Mr. Stewart's great work is founded upon all the +most recent principles of behaviouristic psychology. Noted scientists will +undoubtedly endorse it. You will endorse it yourself, and you will be able +to cash in on it. + +Stewart wrote _A Parody Outline of History_ for The Bookman. When the idea +was broached, John Farrar, editor of The Bookman, was about the only +person who saw the possibilities. Response to the _Parody Outline of +History_ was immediate, spontaneous and unanimous. When the chapters +appeared as a book, this magnificent take-off of contemporary American +writers as well as of H. G. Wells leaped at once into the place of a best +seller. It remains one. The thing that it accomplished is not likely to be +well done again for years. + +=iii= + +_Neither Here Nor There_ is the title of a new book by Oliver Herford, +author of _This Giddy Globe_. + +I do not know which is funnier, Herford or his books. Among the +unforgotten occasions was one when he was in the Doran office talking +about a forthcoming book and nibbling on animal crackers. Suddenly he +stopped nibbling and exclaimed with a gasp of dismay: + +"Good heavens! I've been eating the illustrations for my book." + +=iv= + +_Timothy Tubby's Journal_ is, of course, the diary of the famous British +novelist with notes by Theresa Tubby, his wife. Tubby, on his visit to +this side, was remarkably observant. He says: + +"How weary we were after a few hours of being interviewed and +photographed! This deep appreciation on the part of the American people +was touching, but exhausting. Yet my publishers telephoned me every two or +three hours, to say that editions of my latest novel were flying through +multitudinous presses; that I must bear up under the strain and give the +public what it demands; namely, the glimpse of me and of my aristocratic +wife. This, it seems, is what sells a book in America. The public must see +an author in order to believe that he can write. + +"When my distinguished forebear Charles Dickens[1] arrived in the town of +Boston, he found his room flooded with offers of a pew at Sunday morning +church. This fashion in America has apparently passed, though I was taken +on sightseeing expeditions to various cathedrals whose architecture seemed +to me to be execrable (largely European copies--nothing natively +American). It was never suggested that I attend divine service. On the +contrary, I had countless invitations to be present at what is known as a +'cocktail chase.' My New York literary admirers seemed tumbling over one +another to offer me keys to their cellars and to invite me to take part in +one of those strange functions. It is their love of danger, rather than +any particular passion for liquor, that has, I believe, given birth to +these elaborate fêtes. + +"A cocktail chase takes place shortly before dinner. It may lead you into +any one of a number of places, even as far as the outlying districts of +the Bronx. If you own a motor, you may use that; if not, a taxi will do. +Usually a large number of motors are employed. Add to this pursuing +motorcycle policemen, and the sight is most impressive. The police are for +protection against crime waves, not for the arrest of the cocktail +chasers. A revenue agent performs this function, when it becomes +necessary. + +"The number of our invitations was so large that it was hard to pick and +choose. Naturally, we did not care to risk attendance at any function +which might injure our reputation. Usually my wife has an almost psychic +sense of such matters; but the Social Register was of no assistance in +this case.[2] Before several hours had passed, however, we decided to hire +a social secretary. I phoned my publisher for a recommendation. 'Dear +Tubby,' he said, 'what you need is a publicity agent, not a social +secretary. I'll send you the best New York can offer immediately. It was +careless of me not to think of it before. You seemed to have a genius for +that sort of thing yourself.' + +"The publicity agent is difficult to explain. He is somehow connected with +an American game which originated in the great northwest, and which is +called log-rolling. He stands between you and the public which is +clamouring for a glimpse of you. The difference between a social secretary +and a publicity agent seems to be that the former merely answers +invitations, while the latter makes sure that you are invited. He writes +your speeches for you, sometimes even goes so far as to write your novels, +and, in a strange place, will impersonate you at all public functions +unless your wife objects.[3] + +"Mr. Vernay arrived, fortunately, in time to sort our invitations. +'First,' he said, 'just you and Terry' (he was one of those brusque new +world types and Theresa rather enjoyed his familiarity--'so refreshing,' I +remember she said) 'sit right down and I'll tell you all about literature +in this here New York.'" + +... I have always been meaning to read Tubby's novels--so like those of +Archibald Marshall and Anthony Trollope, I understand--but have never got +around to it. Now I feel I simply must. + +----- + + [1] The relationship was on my husband's father's side. The + Turbots + were never so closely connected with the bourgeoisie. + + [2] We, of course, had entrée to all the best Fifth Avenue + homes, but + since we have now become literary folk, we + hose to remain so. We therefore avoided the better + classes. + + [3] Indeed Mr. Vernay was a most accomplished gentleman, and + I never + objected to him. I only remarked once that I was glad + Timothy was + not so attractive to the ladies as Mr. Vernay. This, I + did + not consider an objection. +=v= + +Such an expert judge as Franklin P. Adams has considered that the ablest +living parodist in verse is J. C. Squire. Certainly his _Collected +Parodies_ is a masterly performance quite fit to go on the shelf with Max +Beerbohm's _A Christmas Garland_. In _Collected Parodies_ will be found +all those verses which, published earlier in magazines and in one or two +books, have delighted the readers of Punch and other magazines--"Imaginary +Speeches," "Steps to Parnassus," "Tricks of the Trade," "Repertory Drama, +How They Do It and How They Would Have Done It," "Imaginary Reviews and +Speeches" and "The Aspirant's Manual." + +The great source book of fun in rhyme, however, is and will for a long +time remain Carolyn Wells's _The Book of Humorous Verse_. This has not an +equal in existence, so far as I know, except _The Home Book of Verse_. +Here in nearly 900 pages are specimens of light verse from Chaucer to +Chesterton. Modern writers, such as Bert Leston Taylor and Don Marquis, +share the pages with Robert Herrick and William Cowper, Charles Lamb and +Oliver Wendell Holmes. Verses whimsical, satiric, narrative, +punning--there is no conceivable variety overlooked by Miss Wells in what +was so evidently a labour of love as well as of the most careful industry, +an industry directed by an exceptional taste. + +P. G. Wodehouse used to write lyrics for musical plays in England, +interpolating one or two in existing successes. Then he came to America +and began writing lyrics, interpolating them in musical comedies over +here. Then he began interpolating extremely funny short stories in the +American magazines and he has now succeeded in interpolating into modern +fiction some of the funniest novels of the last few years. This bit from +his latest, _Three Men and a Maid_, is typical: + +"Mrs. Hignett was never a very patient woman. "'Let us take all your +negative qualities for granted,' she said curtly. 'I have no doubt that +there are many things which you do not do. Let us confine ourselves to +issues of definite importance. What is it, if you have no objection to +concentrating your attention on that for a moment, that you wish to see me +about?' + +"This marriage.' + +"'What marriage?' + +"'Your son's marriage.' + +"'My son is not married.' + +"'No, but he's going to be. At eleven o'clock this morning at the Little +Church Around the Corner!' + +"Mrs. Hignett stared. + +"'Are you mad?' + +"'Well, I'm not any too well pleased, I'm bound to say,' admitted Mr. +Mortimer. 'You see, darn it all, I'm in love with the girl myself!' + +"'Who is this girl?' + +"'Have been for years. I'm one of those silent, patient fellows who hang +around and look a lot, but never tell their love....' + +"'Who is this girl who has entrapped my son?' + +"'I've always been one of those men who....' + +"'Mr. Mortimer! With your permission we will take your positive qualities +for granted. In fact, we will not discuss you at all.... What is her +name?' + +"'Bennett.' + +"'Bennett? Wilhelmina Bennett? The daughter of Mr. Rufus Bennett? The +red-haired girl I met at lunch one day at your father's house?' + +"'That's it. You're a great guesser. I think you ought to stop the +thing.' + +"'I intend to.' + +"'Fine!' + +"'The marriage would be unsuitable in every way. Miss Bennett and my son +do not vibrate on the same plane.' + +"That's right. I've noticed it myself.' + +"'Their auras are not the same colour.' + +"'If I thought that once,' said Bream Mortimer, ''I've thought it a +hundred times. I wish I had a dollar for every time I thought it. Not the +same colour! That's the whole thing in a nutshell.'" + +Mr. Wodehouse is described by a friend as "now a somewhat fluid inhabitant +of England, running over here spasmodically. Last summer he bought a +race-horse. It is the beginning of the end!" + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE VITALITY OF MARY ROBERTS RINEHART + + +=i= + +"The total result ... after twelve years is that I have learned to sit +down at my desk and begin work simultaneously," wrote Mrs. Rinehart in +1917. "One thing died, however, in those years of readjustment and +struggle. That was my belief in what is called 'inspiration.' I think I +had it now and then in those days, moments when I felt things I had hardly +words for, a breath of something much bigger than I was, a little lift in +the veil. + +"It does not come any more. + +"Other things bothered me in those first early days. I seemed to have so +many things to write about and writing was so difficult. Ideas came, but +no words to clothe them. Now, when writing is easy, when the technique of +my work bothers me no more than the pen I write with, I have less to say. + +[Illustration: MARY ROBERTS RINEHART] + +"I have words, but fewer ideas to clothe in them. And, coming more and +more often is the feeling that, before I have commenced to do my real +work, I am written out; that I have for years wasted my substance in +riotous writing and that now, when my chance is here, when I have lived +and adventured, when, if ever, I am to record honestly my little page of +these great times in which I live, now I shall fail." + +These surprising words appeared in an article in the American Magazine for +1917. Not many months later _The Amazing Interlude_ was published and, +quoting Mrs. Rinehart soon afterward, I said: "If her readers shared this +feeling they must have murmured to themselves as they turned the absorbing +pages of _The Amazing Interlude_: 'How absurd!' It is doubtful if they +recalled the spoken misgiving at all." + +Few novels of recent years have had so captivating a quality as had this +war story. But I wish to emphasise again what I felt and tried to express +at that time--the sense of Mrs. Rinehart's vitality as a writer of +fiction. In what seem to me to be her best books there is a freshness of +feeling I find astonishing. I felt it in _K_; I found it in _The Amazing +Interlude_; and I find it in her new novel just published, _The Breaking +Point_. + +_The Breaking Point_ is the story of a man's past and his inability to +escape from it. If that were all, it might be a very commonplace subject +indeed. It is not all, nor half. + +Dr. Richard Livingstone, just past thirty, is supposedly the nephew of Dr. +David Livingstone, with whom he lives and whose practice he shares in the +town of Haverly; but at the very outset of the novel, we have the fact +that--according to a casual visitor in Haverly--Dr. Livingstone's dead +brother had no son; was unmarried, anyway. And then it transpires that, +whatever may have been the past, Dr. Livingstone has walled it off from +the younger man's consciousness. The elder man has built up a powerful +secondary personality--secondary in the point of time only, for Richard +Livingstone is no longer aware of any other personality, nor scarcely of +any former existence. He does, indeed, have fugitive moments in which he +recalls with a painful and unsatisfactory vagueness some manner of life +that he once had a part in. But in his young manhood, in the pleasant +village where there is none who isn't his friend, deeply centred in his +work, stayed by the affection of Dr. Livingstone, these whispers of the +past are infrequent and untroubling. + +The casual visitor's surprise and the undercurrent of talk which she +starts is the beginning of a rapid series of incidents which force the +problem of the past up to the threshold of Richard Livingstone's +consciousness. There would then be two ways of facing his difficulties, +and he takes the braver. Confronted with an increasingly difficult +situation, a situation sharpened by his love for Elizabeth Wheeler, and +her love for him, young Dr. Dick plays the man. The title of Mrs. +Rinehart's story comes from the psychological (and physical) fact that +there is in every man and woman a point at which Nature steps in and +says: + +"See here, you can't stand this! You've got to forget it." + +This is the breaking point, the moment when amnesia intervenes. But later +there may come a time when the erected wall safeguarding the secondary +personality gives way. The first, submerged or walled-off personality may +step across the levelled barrier. That extraordinarily dramatic moment +does come in the new novel and is handled by Mrs. Rinehart with triumphant +skill. + +It will be seen that this new novel bears some resemblances to _K_, by +many of her readers considered Mrs. Rinehart's most satisfactory story. If +I may venture a personal opinion, _The Breaking Point_ is a much stronger +novel than _K_. To me it seems to combine the excellence of character +delineation noticeable in _K_ with the dramatic thrill and plot +effectiveness which made _The Amazing Interlude_ so irresistible as you +read it. + +=ii= + +To say so much is to bear the strongest testimony to that superb vitality, +which, characteristic of Mrs. Rinehart as a person, is yet more +characteristic of her fiction. There is, I suppose, this additional +interest in regard to _The Breaking Point_, that Mrs. Rinehart is the wife +of a physician and was herself, before her marriage, a trained nurse. The +facts of her life are interesting, though not nearly so interesting as the +way in which she tells them. + +She was the daughter of Thomas Beveridge Roberts and Cornelia (Gilleland) +Roberts of Pittsburgh. From the city's public and high schools she went +into a training school for nurses, acquiring that familiarity with +hospital scenes which served her so well when she came to write _The +Amazing Adventures of Letitia Carberry_, the stories collected under the +title of _Tish_ and the novel _K_. She became, at nineteen, the wife of +Stanley Marshall Rinehart, a Pittsburgh physician. + +"Life was very good to me at the beginning," said Mrs. Rinehart in the +_American Magazine_ article I have referred to. "It gave me a strong body +and it gave me my sons before it gave me my work. I do not know what would +have happened had the work come first, but I should have had the children. +I know that. I had always wanted them. Even my hospital experience, which +rent the veil of life for me, and showed it often terrible, could not +change that fundamental thing we call the maternal instinct.... I would +forfeit every part of success that has come to me rather than lose any +part, even the smallest, of my family life. It is on the foundation of my +home that I have builded. + +"Yet, for a time, it seemed that my sons were to be all I was to have out +of life. From twenty to thirty I was an invalid.... This last summer +(1917), after forty days in the saddle through unknown mountains in +Montana and Washington, I was as unwearied as they were. But I paid ten +years for them." + +Mrs. Rinehart had always wanted to write. She began in 1905--she was +twenty-nine that year--and worked at a tiny mahogany desk or upon a card +table "so low and so movable. It can sit by the fire or in a sunny +window." She "learned to use a typewriter with my two forefingers with a +baby on my knee!" She wrote when the children were out for a walk, asleep, +playing. "It was frightfully hard.... I found that when I wanted to write +I could not and then, when leisure came and I went to my desk, I had +nothing to say." + +I quote from a chapter on Mrs. Rinehart in my book _The Women Who Make Our +Novels_: + +"Her first work was mainly short stories and poems. Her very first work +was verse for children. Her first check was for $25, the reward of a short +article telling how she had systematised the work of a household with two +maids and a negro 'buttons.' She sold one or two of the poems for children +and with a sense of guilt at the desertion of her family made a trip to +New York. She made the weary rounds in one day, 'a heartbreaking day, +going from publisher to publisher.' In two places she saw responsible +persons and everywhere her verses were turned down. 'But one man was very +kind to me, and to that publishing house I later sent _The Circular +Staircase_, my first novel. They published it and some eight other books +of mine.' + +"In her first year of sustained effort at writing, Mrs. Rinehart made +about $l,200. She was surrounded by 'sane people who cried me down,' but +who were merry without being contemptuous. Her husband has been her +everlasting help. He 'has stood squarely behind me, always. His belief in +me, his steadiness and his sanity and his humour have kept me going, when, +as has happened now and then, my little world of letters has shaken under +my feet.' To the three boys their mother's work has been a matter of +course ever since they can remember. 'I did not burst on them gloriously. +I am glad to say that they think I am a much better mother than I am a +writer, and that the family attitude in general has been attentive but not +supine. They regard it exactly as a banker's family regards his bank.'" + +Most of the work of the twelve years from 1905 to 1917 was done in Mrs. +Rinehart's home. But when she had a long piece of work to do she often +felt "the necessity of getting away from everything for a little while." +So, beginning about 1915, she rented a room in an office building in +Pittsburgh once each year while she was writing a novel. It was sparsely +furnished and, significantly, it contained no telephone. In 1917 she +became a commuter from her home in Sewickley, a Pittsburgh suburb. Her +earnings had risen to $50,000 a year and more. + +"My business with its various ramifications had been growing; an enormous +correspondence, involving business details, foreign rights, copyrights, +moving picture rights, translation rights, second serial rights, and +dramatisations, had made from the small beginning of that book of poems a +large and complicated business. + +"I had added political and editorial writing to my other work, and also +records of travel. I was quite likely to begin the day with an article +opposing capital punishment, spend the noon hours in the Rocky Mountains, +and finish off with a love story! + +"I developed the mental agility of a mountain goat! Filing cases entered +into my life, card index systems. To glance into my study after working +hours was dismaying." + +More recently, Mrs. Rinehart has become a resident of Washington, D. C. +Her husband is engaged in the Government health service and the family +lives in the Wardman Park Hotel, having taken the apartment of the late +Senator Boies Penrose of Pennsylvania. + +=iii= + +"Yet, if I were to begin again, I would go through it all, the rejections +at the beginning, the hard work, the envious and malicious hands reached +up to pull down anyone who has risen ever so little above his fellows. Not +for the money reward, although that has been large, not for the publicity, +although I am frank enough to say I would probably miss being pointed out +in a crowd! But because of two things: the friends I have made all over +the world, and the increased outlook and a certain breadth of perception +and knowledge that must come as the result of years of such labour. I am +not so intolerant as in those early days. I love my kind better. I find +the world good, to work and to play in. + +"I sometimes think, if I were advising a young woman as to a career, that +I should say: 'First, pick your husband.' + +"It is impossible to try to tell how I have attempted to reconcile my +private life with my public work without mentioning my husband. Because, +after all, it requires two people, a man and a woman, to organise a home, +and those two people must be in accord. It has been a sort of family creed +of ours that we do things together. We have tried, because of the varied +outside interests that pull hard, to keep the family life even more intact +than the average. Differing widely as they do, my husband's profession and +my career, we have been compelled to work apart. But we have relaxed, +rested and played, together. + +"And this rule holds good for the family. Generally speaking, we have been +a sort of closed corporation, a board of five, with each one given a vote +and the right to cast it. Holidays and home matters, and picnics and dogs, +and everything that is of common interest all come up for a discussion in +which the best opinion wins. The small boy had a voice as well as the +biggest boy. And it worked well. + +"It is not because we happened to like the same things. People do not +happen to like the same things. It is because we tried to, and it is +because we have really all grown up together. + +"Thus in the summer we would spend weeks in the saddle in the mountains of +the Far West, or fishing in Canada. But let me be entirely frank here. +These outdoor summers were planned at first because there were four men +and one woman in our party. Now, however, I love the open as the men do." + +=iv= + +"Writing is a clean profession. The writer gets out of it exactly what he +puts in, no more and no less. It is one-man work. No one can help. The +writer works alone, solitary and unaided. And, contrary to the general +opinion, what the writer has done in the past does not help him in the +future. He must continue to make good, day after day. + +"More than that he must manufacture a new article every day, and every +working hour of his day. He cannot repeat himself. Can you imagine a +manufacturer turning out something different all the time? And his income +stopping if he has a sick headache, or goes to a funeral?" + +=v= + +Next to the vitality, the variety of Mrs. Rinehart's work is most +noticeable. Her first novel, _The Circular Staircase_, was a mystery tale, +and so was her second, _The Man in Lower Ten_. She has, from time to time, +continued to write excellent mystery stories. _The Breaking Point_ is, +from one standpoint, a first class mystery story; and then there is that +enormously successful mystery play, written by Mrs. Rinehart in +conjunction with Avery Hopwood, _The Bat_. Nor was this her first success +as a playwright for she collaborated with Mr. Hopwood in writing the farce +_Seven Days_. Shall I add that Mrs. Rinehart has lived part of her life in +haunted houses? I am under the impression that more than one of her +residences has been found to be suitably or unsuitably haunted. There was +that house at Bellport on Long Island--but I really don't know the story. +I do know that the family's experience has been such as to provide +material for one or more very good mystery novels. My own theory is that +Mrs. Rinehart's indubitable gift for the creation of mystery yarns has +been responsible for the facts. I imagine that the haunting of the houses +has been a projection into some physical plane of her busy +sub-consciousness. I mean, simply, that instead of materialising as a +story, her preoccupation induced a set of actual and surprising +circumstances. Why couldn't it? Let Sir Oliver Lodge or Sir Arthur Conan +Doyle, the Society for Psychical Research, anybody who knows about that +sort of thing, explain! + +Consider the stories about Letitia Carberry. Tish is without a literary +parallel. Well-to-do, excitement loving, with a passion for guiding the +lives of two other elderly maidens like herself; with a nephew who throws +up hopeless hands before her unpredictable performances, Tish is funny +beyond all description. + +Just as diverting, in a quite different way, is Bab, the sub-deb and +forerunner of the present-day flapper. + +Something like a historical romance is _Long Live the King!_--a story of a +small boy, Crown Prince of a Graustark kingdom, whose scrapes and +friendships and admiration of Abraham Lincoln are strikingly contrasted +with court intrigues and uncovered treason. + +_The Amazing Interlude_ is the story of Sara Lee Kennedy, who went from a +Pennsylvania city to the Belgian front to make soup for the soldiers and +to fall in love with Henri.... But one could go on with other samples of +Mrs. Rinehart's abundant variety. I think, however, that the vitality of +her work, and not the variety nor the success in variety, is our point. +That vitality has its roots in a sympathetic feeling and a sanative humour +not exceeded in the equipment of any popular novelist writing in America +today. + +BOOKS BY MARY ROBERTS RINEHART + +THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE +THE MAN IN LOWER TEN +WHEN A MAN MARRIES +THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT +THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF LETITIA CARBERRY +WHERE THERE'S A WILL +THE CASE OF JENNY BRICE +THE AFTER HOUSE +THE STREET OF SEVEN STARS +K +THROUGH GLACIER PARK +TISH +THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM +LONG LIVE THE KING +TENTING TO-NIGHT +BAB, A SUB-DEB +KINGS, QUEENS AND PAWNS +THE AMAZING INTERLUDE +TWENTY-THREE AND A HALF HOURS' LEAVE +DANGEROUS DAYS +MORE TISH +LOVE STORIES +AFFINITIES AND OTHER STORIES +"ISN'T THAT JUST LIKE A MAN?" +THE TRUCE OF GOD +A POOR WISE MAN +SIGHT UNSEEN AND THE CONFESSION +THE BREAKING POINT + +SOURCES ON MARY ROBERTS RINEHART + +``My Creed: The Way to Happiness--As I Found It,'' by Mary Roberts +Rinehart. AMERICAN MAGAZINE, October, 1917. + +``Mary Roberts Rinehart as She Appears'' by Robert H. Davis, AMERICAN +MAGAZINE, October, 1917. + +``My Public'' by Mary Roberts Rinehart, THE BOOKMAN, December, 1920. + +The Women Who Make Our Novels, by Grant Overton, MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY. + +Who's Who in America. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THEY HAVE ONLY THEMSELVES TO BLAME + + +=i= + +If people will write memoirs, they must expect to suffer. They have only +themselves to blame if life becomes almost intolerable from the waves of +praise and censure. I am going to speak of some books of memoirs and +biography--highly personal and decidedly unusual books, in the main by +persons who are personages. + +_The Life of Sir William Vernon Harcourt_ concerns Sir William George +Granville Venables Vernon Harcourt, who was born in 1827 and died in 1904. +He was an English statesman, grandson of Edward Vernon Harcourt, +Archbishop of York. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and was +called to the bar in 1854. He entered Parliament (for Oxford) in 1868, sat +for Derby 1880-95, and for West Monmouthshire, 1895-1904. He was +Solicitor-general 1873-74, Home Secretary 1880-85 and Chancellor of the +Exchequer in 1886, 1892-94 and 1894-95. From March, 1894, to December, +1898, he was leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Commons. He wrote +in the London Times under the signature of "Historicus" a series of +letters on International Law, which were republished in 1863. His +biography, which begins before Victoria ascended the throne and closes +after her death, is the work of A. G. Gardiner. + +_Memoirs of the Memorable_ is by Sir James Denham, the poet-author of +"Wake Up, England!" and deals with most of the prominent social names of +the end of the last and commencement of this century, including Mr. +Gladstone, Lord Beaconsfield, Lord Byron, Robert Browning, the Bishop of +London, Cardinal Howard, Lord Dunedin, Lewis Carroll, Lord Marcus +Beresford and the late Bishop of Manchester. The book also deals with club +life and the leading sportsmen. + +_The Pomp of Power_ is by an author who very wisely remains anonymous, +like the author of _The Mirrors of Downing Street_. I shall not run the +risks of perjury by asserting or denying that the author of _The Mirrors +of Downing Street_ has written _The Pomp of Power_. As to the probability +perhaps readers of _The Pomp of Power_ had better judge. It is an +extremely frank book and its subjects include the leading personalities of +Great Britain today and, indeed, all the world. Lloyd George, +Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, Lord Haig, Marshal Joffre, Lord +Beaverbrook, Millerand, Loucheur, Painleve, Cambon, Lord Northcliffe, +Colonel Repington and Krassin of Soviet Russia are the persons principally +portrayed. The book throws a searchlight upon the military and diplomatic +relations of Britain and France before and during the war, and also deals +with the present international situation. It may fairly be called +sensational. + +Especially interesting is the anonymous author's revelation of the rôle +played in the war by Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, so lately +assassinated in London. The author was evidently an intimate of Sir Henry +and, just as evidently, he is intimately acquainted with Lloyd George, +apparently having worked with or under the Prime Minister. He is neither +Lloyd George's friend nor enemy and his portrait of the Prime Minister is +the most competent I can recall. Can he be Philip Kerr, Lloyd George's +adviser? + +I praise, in this slightly superlative fashion, the picture of the British +Prime Minister by the author of _The Pomp of Power_ ... and I pick up +another book and discover it to be E. T. Raymond's _Mr. Lloyd George: A +Biographical and Critical Sketch_. The author of _Uncensored Celebrities_ +is far too modest when he calls his new work a "sketch." It is a genuine +biography with that special accent due to the biographer's personality and +his power of what I may call penetrative synthesis. By that I mean the +insight into character which coördinates and builds--the sort of biography +that makes a legend about a man. + +Mr. Raymond does not begin with the "little Welshman" but with a Roman +Emperor, Diocletian, our first well-studied exemplar of the "coalition +mind." These are the words with which, after a brilliant survey of the +Prime Minister's career, the author closes: + +"If, however, we withhold judgment on every point where a difference of +opinion is possible, if we abandon to destructive criticism every act of +administrative vigour which is claimed by his admirers as a triumph, if we +accept the least charitable view of his faults and failures, there still +remains more than enough with which to defy what Lord Rosebery once called +'the body-snatchers of history, who dig up dead reputations for malignant +dissection.' If only that he imparted, in a black time, when it appeared +but too likely that the Alliance might falter and succumb from mere +sick-headache, his own defying, ardent, and invincible spirit to a tired, +puzzled, distracted and distrustful nation; if only that he dispelled the +vapours, inspired a new hope and resolution, brought the British people to +that temper which makes small men great, assured our Allies that their +cause was in the fullest sense our own, and finally achieved the great +moral victory implied in 'unity of command'--if these things be alone +considered, he will be judged to have earned for his portrait the right to +a dignified place in the gallery of history; and some future generation +will probably recall with astonishment that it was considered unfit to +adorn the dining-room of a London club." + +And here are two new books by Margot Asquith! One is _My Impressions of +America_, the other continues _The Autobiography of Margot Asquith_. Of +the first of these books there is to say that it represents Mrs. Asquith's +matured impressions and will have a value that could not possibly attach +to interviews or statements she gave on this side. It also gives, for the +first time, her frank and direct analyses of the personalities of the +distinguished people whom she met in America. The continuation of her +_Autobiography_ is a different matter. Those who have read _The +Autobiography of Margot Asquith_ will be prepared for the new book. At +least, I hope they will be prepared and yet I question whether they will. +There is, after all, only one person for Mrs. Asquith to surpass, and that +is herself; and I think she has done it. This new book will add Volumes +III. and IV. to _The Autobiography of Margot Asquith_. + +In _The Memoirs of Djemal Pasha: Turkey 1913-21_ will be found the +recollections of a man who was successively Military Governor of +Constantinople, Minister of Public Works and Naval Minister and who, with +Enver Bey and Talaat Bey, formed the triumvirate which dictated Turkish +policy and guided Turkey's fate after the coup d'état of 1913. I believe +these memoirs are of extraordinary interest and the greatest importance. +They give the first and only account from the Turkish side of events in +Turkey since 1913. The development of relations with Germany, France and +England immediately before the war is clearly traced, and a graphic +account is given of the first two months of the war, the escape of the +Goeben and the attempts made to keep Turkey neutral. When these failed, +Djemal Pasha was sent to govern Syria and to command the Fourth Army, +which was to conquer Egypt. The attack on the Suez Canal is described, and +then the series of operations which culminated in the British reverses in +the two battles of Gaza. Further important sections are devoted to the +revolt of the Arabs and the question of responsibility for the Armenian +massacres. + +The value of _Miscellanies--Literary and Historical_, by Lord Rosebery, +consists not so much in his recollections of people as in the delight of +reading good prose. Lord Rosebery has a natural dignity and a charm of +lucid phrasing that adapts itself admirably to the essay form he has +chosen. The subjects he takes up are beloved figures of the past. Robert +Burns, as Lord Rosebery talks of him, walks about in Dumfries and holds +spellbound by sheer personal charm the guests of the tavern. There are +papers on Burke, on Dr. Johnson, on Robert Louis Stevenson, and others as +great. One group deals with Scottish History and one with the service of +the state. The last is a study of the _genius loci_ of such places of +mellow associations as Eton and the Turf. The sort of book one returns +to! + +=ii= + +I was going to say something about Andrew C. P. Haggard's book, _Madame de +Staël: Her Trials and Triumphs_. But so profoundly convinced am I of the +book's fascination that I shall reprint the first chapter. If this is not +worthy of Lytton Strachey, I am no judge: + +"In the year 1751 a young fellow, only fourteen years of age, went to +Magdalen College at Oxford, and in the same year displayed his budding +talent by writing _The Age of Sesostris, Conqueror of Asia_, which work he +burnt in later years. + +"The boy was Edward Gibbon, who, after becoming a Roman Catholic at the +age of sixteen, was sent by his father to Switzerland, to continue his +education in the house of a Calvinist minister named M. Pavilliard, under +the influence of which gentleman he became a Protestant again at Lausanne +eighteen months later. + +"The young fellow, while leading the life of gaiety natural to his age in +company with a friend named Deyverdun, became an apt student of the +classics and was soon a proficient in French, in which tongue he wrote +before long as fluently as in English. With young Deyverdun he worked, and +in his company Edward Gibbon also played. After visiting frequently at the +house of the celebrated Voltaire at Monrepos, and after being present when +the distinguished French philosopher played in his own comedies and +sentimental pieces, the young fellow's thoughts soon turned to the theme +which was the continual subject of conversation of the ladies and +gentlemen who were Voltaire's guests and formed the company of amateurs +with whom the great dramatic writer was in the habit of rehearsing his +plays. This was, as might have been suspected in such a society, the theme +of love. + +"As it happened, there was in the habit of visiting Lausanne a young lady +who was a perfect paragon. Her name was Suzanne Curchod, and she was half +Swiss and half French, her father being a Swiss pastor and her mother a +Frenchwoman. + +"Very handsome and sprightly in appearance, the fair Suzanne was well +instructed in sciences and languages. Her wit, beauty and erudition made +her a prodigy and an object of universal admiration upon the occasion of +her visits to her relations in Lausanne. Soon an intimate connection +existed between Edward Gibbon and herself; he frequently accompanied her +to stay at her mountain home at Grassy, while at Lausanne also they +indulged in their dream of felicity. Edward loved the brilliant Suzanne +with a union of desire, friendship, and tenderness, and was in later years +proud of the fact that he was once capable of feeling such an exalted +sentiment. There is no doubt that, had he been able to consult his own +inclinations alone, Gibbon would have married Mademoiselle Curchod, but, +the time coming when he was forced to return to his home in England his +father declared that he would not hear of 'such a strange alliance.' + +"'Thereupon,' says Gibbon in his autobiography, 'I yielded to my +fate--sighed as a lover, obeyed as a son, and my wound was insensibly +healed by time, absence and new habits of life.' + +"These habits of life included four or five years' service in the +Hampshire Militia, in which corps Suzanne's lover became a captain, the +regiment being embodied during the period of the Seven Years' War. + +"Upon returning to Lausanne, at the age of twenty-six, in 1763, Edward +Gibbon was warmly received by his old love, but he heard that she had been +flirting with others, and notably with his friend M. Deyverdun. He +himself, while now mixing with an agreeable society of twenty unmarried +young ladies who, without any chaperons, mingled with a crowd of young men +of all nations, also 'lost many hours in dissipation.' + +"He was not long in showing Suzanne that he no longer found her +indispensable to his happiness, with the result that she assailed him, +although in vain, with angry reproaches. Notwithstanding that she begged +Gibbon to be her friend if no longer her lover, while vowing herself to be +confiding and tender, he acted hard-heartedly and declined to return to +his old allegiance, coldly replying: 'I feel the dangers that continued +correspondence may have for both of us.' + +"It is impossible to feel otherwise than sorry for the brilliant Suzanne +at this period, as although from her subsequent manoeuvres it became +evident that her principal object in life was to obtain a rich husband, +from the manner in which she humiliated herself to him it is evident that +she was passionately in love with the author of _The Decline and Fall of +the Roman Empire_. + +"Eventually the neglected damsel gave up the siege of an unwilling lover, +while assuring her formerly devoted Edward that the day would come 'when +he would regret the irreparable loss of the too frank and tender heart of +Suzanne Curchod.' + +"Had the pair been united, one wonders what would have been the +characteristics of the offspring of an English literary man like Gibbon, +who became perhaps the world's greatest historian, and a beautiful woman +of mixed nationality, whose subsequent career, although gilded with riches +and adorned with a position of power, displays nothing above the mediocre +and commonplace. + +"Edward Gibbon's fame, which was not long in coming, was his own, and will +remain for so long as a love of history and literature exists in the +world, whereas that of Suzanne Curchod rests upon two circumstances--the +first that she was once the sweetheart of Gibbon, the second that she was +the mother of a Madame de Staël. + +"When finally cast off by the Englishman, the Swiss Pastor's daughter +remembered that, if pretty, she was poor, and had her way to make in the +world. She commenced to play fast and loose with a M. Correvon, a rich +lawyer, whom she said she would marry 'if she had only to live with him +for four months in each year.' + +"The next lover was a pastor, who was as mercenary as herself, for he +threw her over for a lady with a large fortune. After this failure to +establish herself, Suzanne became tired of seeking a husband in +Switzerland and went to Paris as the companion of the rich and handsome +Madame Vermoneux, the supposed mistress of Jacques Necker, the rich Swiss +banker, who was established in the French capital. Once in Paris, it was +not long before by her seductions Suzanne succeeded in supplanting Madame +Vermoneux in the still young banker's affections, with the result that she +married him in 1764. + +"Gibbon, whom she had last seen in 1763, returned to the side of his +former love when she was at length safely married to another man. We find +him writing in 1765, to his friend Lord Sheffield, formerly Mr. Holroyd, +that he had spent ten delicious days in Paris about the end of June. 'She +was very fond of me, and the husband was particularly civil.' He continues +confidentially: 'Could they insult me more cruelly? Ask me every evening +to supper, go to bed and leave me alone with his wife--what an impertinent +security!' + +"It was in the month of April in the following year, 1766, that was born +Madame Necker's only child, Anne Louise Germaine, who was destined to +become one of the most remarkable women of modern times. From the great +literary talent displayed by this wonderfully precocious child from +girlhood, it is difficult not to imagine but that in some, if merely +spiritual, way the genius of her mother's old lover had descended through +that mother's brain as a mantle upon herself. That she learnt to look upon +Gibbon with admiration at an early age is sure. Michelet informs us that +owing to the praises showered upon the historian by M. Necker, Germaine +was anxious, as her mother had been before her, to become Gibbon's wife. +She was, however, destined to have another husband--or rather we should +say two other husbands." + +=iii= + +_Recollections and Reflections_ by a Woman of No Importance has added +greatly to the number of this author's readers, gained in the first +instance by her _Memories Discreet and Indiscreet_, which was followed by +_More Indiscretions_. + +_Recollections and Reflections_ consists of random memories of lords and +ladies, sportsmen, Kings, Queens, cooks, chauffeurs and Empresses, related +with a great deal of philosophy and insight and no little wit. + +There are stories of Gladstone's lovemaking, of Empress Eugenie and the +diamond the soldier swallowed, of Balfour's hats, Henry Irving's swelled +head and the cosmetics of Disraeli. There are stories of etiquette at a +hair-dressers' ball side by side with comments on Kitchener's waltzing. + +Lady Angela Forbes was the daughter of the fourth Earl of Rosslyn and the +youngest child of one of the largest and most prominent families in +England. Kitchener, Lord Roberts, Disraeli, the Kaiser, Prince Edward--she +has dined or sailed or hunted with them all on the most informal terms. +She tells, with engaging frankness, in _Memories and Base Details_, of the +gaieties, the mistakes and tragedies of herself and her friends. + +It was Baron von Margutti who informed the Emperor Francis Joseph in 1914 +that Serbia had rejected his ultimatum. The character of the Emperor is a +moot question. _The Emperor Francis Joseph and His Times_, reminiscences +by Baron von Margutti, is by a man who knew the Emperor intimately and who +knew the men and women who surrounded him daily. Baron von Margutti met +all the distinguished European figures, such as Edward VII, Emperor +Wilhelm, Czar Nicholas and the Empress Eugenie who came to Austria to +visit. He watched from a particularly favourable vantage point the deft +moves of secret diplomacy which interlaced the various governments. + +Lord Frederic Hamilton, born in 1856, the fourth son of the first Duke of +Abercorn, was educated at Harrow, was formerly in the British Diplomatic +Service and served successively as Secretary of the British Embassies in +Berlin and Petrograd and the Legations at Lisbon and Buenos Aires. He has +travelled much and, besides being in Parliament, was editor of the Pall +Mall Magazine till 1900. The popularity of his books of reminiscences is +explained by the fascinating way in which he tells a story or illuminates +a character. Other books of memoirs have been more widely celebrated but I +know of none which has made friends who were more enthusiastic. _The +Vanished Pomps of Yesterday_, _Days Before Yesterday_ and _Here, There and +Everywhere_ are constantly in demand. + +But, all along, a surprise has been in store and the time is now here to +disclose it! The talent for this delightful species of memoirising runs +through the family; and Sir Frederic Hamilton's brother, Lord Ernest +Hamilton, proves it. Lord Ernest is the author of _Forty Years On_, a new +book quite as engaging as _Here, There and Everywhere_, and the rest of +Sir Frederic's. Word from London is that Sir Frederic will have no new +book this year; he steps aside with a gallant bow for Lord Ernest. I have +been turning pages in _Forty Years On_ and reading about such matters as +the Copley curse, school life at Harrow where Shifner and others bowed the +knee to Baal, bull fights in Peru and adventures in the Klondike. +Personally the most amusing moments of the book I find to be those in +which Lord Ernest describes his experiments in speaking ancient Greek in +modern Greece. But this is perhaps because I, too, have tried to speak +syllables of Xenophon while being rapidly driven (in a barouche) about +Patras--with the same lamentable results. It is enough to unhinge the +reason, the pronunciation of modern Greek, I mean. But maybe your hobby is +bathing? Lord Ernest has a word in praise of Port Antonio, Jamaica, as a +bathing ground. + +What he says about hummingbirds--but I mustn't! _Forty Years On_ is a mine +of interest and each reader ought to be pretty well left to work it for +himself. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +AUDACIOUS MR. BENNETT + + +=i= + +Mr. Bennett's audacity has always been evident. One might say that he +began by daring to tell the truth about an author, continued by daring to +tell the truth about the Five Towns, and has now reached the incredible +stage where he dares to tell the truth about marriage. This is affronting +Fate indeed. It was all very well for Arnold Bennett to write a play +called _Cupid and Commonsense_. Perhaps, in view of the fact that it is +one of the great novels of the twentieth century, it was all right for him +to create _The Old Wives' Tale_; but it cannot be all right for him to +compose such novels as _Mr. Prohack_ and his still newer story, _Lilian_. + +Think of the writers who have stumbled and fallen over the theme of +marriage. There is W. L. George ... but I cannot bring myself to name +other names and discuss their tragic fates. There are those who have +sought to make the picture of marriage a picture of horror; but that was +because they did not dare to tell the truth. That marriage is all, no one +but Mr. Bennett seems to realise. No one but Mr. Bennett seems to realise +that, as between husband and wife, there are no such things as moral +standards, there can be no such thing as an ethical code, there can be no +interposition of lofty abstractions which Men call principles and appeal +to as they would appeal to a just God, Himself. No one but Mr. Bennett +seems to realise that the relation between a man and his wife necessarily +transcends every abstraction, brushes aside every ideal of "right" and +"wrong." Mr. Bennett, in the course of the amazing discoveries of an +amazing lifetime, has made the greatest discovery possible to mortals of +this planet. He has discovered that marriage occurs when a man and a woman +take the law into their own hands, and not only the human law, but the +divine. + +It would be impossible for the hero of a Bennett novel of recent years to +be a character like Mark Sabre in _If Winter Comes_. Arnold Bennett's +married hero would realise that the health, comfort, wishes, doubts, +dissimulations; the jealousies, the happiness or the fancied happiness, +and the exterior appearances of the woman who was his wife abolish, for +practical purposes, everything else. It is due to Mr. Bennett more than to +anyone else that we now understand that while "husband" may be a correct +legal designation, "lover" is the only possible æsthetic appellation of +the man who is married. If he is not a lover he is not a husband except +for statutory purposes--that is all. + +[Illustration: ARNOLD BENNETT] + +=ii= + +It is hard to describe _Lilian_. I will let you taste it: + +"Lilian, in dark blue office frock with an embroidered red line round the +neck and detachable black wristlets that preserved the ends of the sleeves +from dust and friction, sat idle at her flat desk in what was called 'the +small room' at Felix Grig's establishment in Clifford Street, off Bond +Street. There were three desks, three typewriting machines and three +green-shaded lamps. Only Lilian's lamp was lighted, and she sat alone, +with darkness above her chestnut hair and about her, and a circle of +radiance below. She was twenty-three. Through the drawn blind of the +window could just be discerned the backs of the letters of words painted +on the glass: 'Felix Grig. Typewriting Office. Open day and night.' Seen +from the street the legend stood out black and clear against the faintly +glowing blind. It was eleven p.m. + +"That a beautiful girl, created for pleasure and affection and expensive +flattery, should be sitting by herself at eleven p.m., in a gloomy office +in Clifford Street, in the centre of the luxurious, pleasure-mad, love-mad +West End of London seemed shocking and contrary to nature, and Lilian +certainly so regarded it. She pictured the shut shops, and shops and yet +again shops, filled with elegance and costliness--robes, hats, stockings, +shoes, gloves, incredibly fine lingerie, furs, jewels, perfumes--designed +and confected for the setting-off of just such young attractiveness as +hers. She pictured herself rifling those deserted and silent shops by some +magic means and emerging safe, undetected, in batiste so rare that her +skin blushed through it, in a frock that was priceless and yet nothing at +all, and in warm marvellous sables that no blast of wind or misfortune +could ever penetrate--and diamonds in her hair. She pictured thousands of +smart women, with imperious command over rich, attendant males, who at +that very moment were moving quickly in automobiles from theatres towards +the dancing-clubs that clustered round Felix Grig's typewriting office. At +that very moment she herself ought to have been dancing. Not in a smart +club; no! Only in the basement of a house where an acquaintance of hers +lodged; and only with clerks and things like that; and only a gramophone. +But still a dance, a respite from the immense ennui and solitude called +existence!" + +After Lilian's mother died she had been "Papa's cherished darling. Then +Mr. Share caught pneumonia, through devotion to duty and died in a few +days; and at last Lilian felt on her lovely cheek the winds of the world; +at last she was free. Of high paternal finance she had never in her life +heard one word. In the week following the funeral she learnt that she +would be mistress of the furniture and a little over one hundred pounds +net. Mr. Share had illustrated the ancient maxim that it is easier to make +money than to keep it. He had held shipping shares too long and had sold a +fully-paid endowment insurance policy in the vain endeavour to replace by +adventurous investment that which the sea had swallowed up. And Lilian was +helpless. She could do absolutely nothing that was worth money. She could +not begin to earn a livelihood. As for relatives, there was only her +father's brother, a Board School teacher with a large vulgar family and an +income far too small to permit of generosities. Lilian was first +incredulous, then horror-struck. + +"Leaving the youth of the world to pick up art as best it could without +him, and fleeing to join his wife in paradise, the loving, adoring father +had in effect abandoned a beautiful idolised daughter to the alternatives +of starvation or prostitution. He had shackled her wrists behind her back +and hobbled her feet and bequeathed her to wolves. That was what he had +done, and what many and many such fathers had done, and still do, to their +idolised daughters. + +"Herein was the root of Lilian's awful burning resentment against the +whole world, and of a fierce and terrible determination by fair means or +foul to make the world pay. Her soul was a horrid furnace, and if by +chance Lionel Share leaned out from the gold bar of heaven and noticed it, +the sight must have turned his thoughts towards hell for a pleasant +change. She was saved from disaster, from martyrdom, from ignominy, from +the unnameable, by the merest fluke. The nurse who tended Lionel Share's +last hours was named Grig. This nurse had cousins in the typewriting +business. She had also a kind heart a practical mind, and a persuasive +manner with cousins." + +Lilian in the office late at night has been engaged in conversation by her +employer, Mr. Grig, and Mr. Grig has finally come to the point. + +"'You know you've no business in a place like this, a girl like you. +You're much too highly strung for one thing. You aren't like Miss Jackson, +for instance. You're simply wasting yourself here. Of course you're +terribly independent, but you do try to please. I don't mean try to please +merely in your work. You try to please. It's an instinct with you. Now in +typing you'd never beat Miss Jackson. Miss Jackson's only alive, really, +when she's typing. She types with her whole soul. You type well--I +hear--but that's only because you're clever all round. You'd do anything +well. You'd milk cows just as well as you'd type. But your business is +marriage, and a good marriage! You're beautiful, and, as I say, you have +an instinct to please. That's the important thing. You'd make a success of +marriage because of that and because you're adaptable and quick at picking +up. Most women when they're married forget that their job is to adapt +themselves and to please. That's their job. They expect to be kowtowed to +and spoilt and humoured and to be free to spend money without having to +earn it, and to do nothing in return except just exist--and perhaps manage +a household, pretty badly. They seem to forget that there are two sides to +a bargain. It's dashed hard work, pleasing is, sometimes. I know that. But +it isn't so hard as earning money, believe me! Now you wouldn't be like +the majority of women. You'd keep your share of the bargain, and +handsomely. If you don't marry, and marry fifty miles above you, you'll be +very silly. For you to stop here is an outrage against commonsense. It's +merely monstrous. If I wasn't an old man I wouldn't tell you this, +naturally. Now you needn't blush. I expect I'm not far off thirty years +older than you--and you're young enough to be wise in time.'" + +=iii= + +It will be seen that _Lilian_ has all the philosophy and humour which make +_Mr. Prohack_ a joy forever, and in addition the new novel has the strong +interest we feel in a young, beautiful, attractive, helpless girl, who has +her way to make in the world. And yet, I love _Mr. Prohack_. I think I +have by heart some of the wisdom he utters; for instance-- + +On women: "Even the finest and most agreeable women, such as those with +whom I have been careful to surround myself in my domestic existence, are +monsters of cruelty." + +On women's clubs: "You scarcely ever speak to a soul in your club. The +food's bad in your club. They drink liqueurs before dinner at your club. +I've seen 'em. Your club's full every night of the most formidable +spinsters each eating at a table alone. Give up your club by all means. +Set fire to it and burn it down. But don't count the act as a +renunciation. You hate your club." + +On his wife: "You may annoy me. You may exasperate me. You are frequently +unspeakable. But you have never made me unhappy. And why? Because I am one +of the few exponents of romantic passion left in this city. My passion for +you transcends my reason. I am a fool, but I am a magnificent fool. And +the greatest miracle of modern times is that after twenty-four years of +marriage you should be able to give me pleasure by perching your stout +body on the arm of my chair as you are doing." + +On his daughter: "In 1917 I saw that girl in dirty overalls driving a +thundering great van down Whitehall. Yesterday I met her in her foolish +high heels and her shocking openwork stockings and her negligible dress +and her exposed throat and her fur stole, and she was so delicious and so +absurd and so futile and so sure of her power that--that--well ... that +chit has the right to ruin me--not because of anything she's done, but +because she is." + +On kissing: "That fellow has kissed my daughter and he has kissed her for +the first time. It is monstrous that any girl, and especially my daughter, +should be kissed for the first time.... It amounts to an outrage." + +On parenthood: "To become a parent is to accept terrible risks. I'm +Charlie's father. What then?... He owes nothing whatever to me or to you. +If we were starving and he had plenty, he would probably consider it his +duty to look after us; but that's the limit of what he owes us. Whereas +nothing can put an end to our responsibility towards him.... We thought it +would be nice to have children and so Charlie arrived. He didn't choose +his time and he didn't choose his character, nor his education, nor his +chance. If he had his choice you may depend he'd have chosen differently. +Do you want me, on the top of all that, to tell him that he must +obediently accept something else from us--our code of conduct? It would be +mere cheek, and with all my shortcomings I'm incapable of impudence, +especially to the young." + +On ownership: "Have you ever stood outside a money-changer's and looked at +the fine collection of genuine banknotes in the window? Supposing I told +you that you could look at them, and enjoy the sight of them, and nobody +could do more? No, my boy, to enjoy a thing properly you've got to own it. +And anybody who says the contrary is probably a member of the League of +all the Arts." + +On economics: "That's where the honest poor have the advantage of us.... +We're the dishonest poor.... We're one vast pretence.... A pretence +resembles a bladder. It may burst. We probably shall burst. Still, we have +one great advantage over the honest poor, who sometimes have no income at +all; and also over the rich, who never can tell how big their incomes are +going to be. We know exactly where we are. We know to the nearest +sixpence." + +On history: "Never yet when empire, any empire, has been weighed in the +balance against a young and attractive woman has the young woman failed to +win! This is a dreadful fact, but men are thus constituted." + +On bolshevism: "Abandon the word 'bolshevik.' It's a very overworked word +and wants a long repose." + +=iv= + +The best brief sketch of Arnold Bennett's life that I know of is given in +the chapter on Arnold Bennett in John W. Cunliffe's _English Literature +During the Last Half Century_. Professor Cunliffe, with the aid, of +course, of Bennett's own story, _The Truth About an Author_, writes as +follows: + +"He was born near Hanley, the 'Hanbridge' of the Five Towns which his +novels were to launch into literary fame, and received a somewhat limited +education at the neighbouring 'Middle School' of Newcastle, his highest +scholastic achievement being the passing of the London University +Matriculation Examination. Some youthful adventures in journalism were +perhaps significant of latent power and literary inclination, but a small +provincial newspaper offers no great encouragement to youthful ambition, +and Enoch Arnold Bennett (as he was then called) made his way at 21 as a +solicitor's clerk to London, where he was soon earning a modest livelihood +by 'a natural gift for the preparation of bills for taxation.' He had +never 'wanted to write' (except for money) and had read almost nothing of +Scott, Jane Austen, Dickens, Thackeray, the Brontës, and George Eliot, +though he had devoured Ouida, boys' books and serials. His first real +interest in a book was 'not as an instrument for obtaining information or +emotion, but as a book, printed at such a place in such a year by +so-and-so, bound by so-and-so, and carrying colophons, registers, +water-marks, and _fautes d'impression_.' It was when he showed a rare copy +of _Manon Lescaut_ to an artist and the latter remarked that it was one of +the ugliest books he had ever seen, that Bennett, now in his early +twenties, first became aware of the appreciation of beauty. He won twenty +guineas in a competition, conducted by a popular weekly, for a humorous +condensation of a sensational serial, being assured that this was 'art,' +and the same paper paid him a few shillings for a short article on 'How a +bill of costs is drawn up.' Meanwhile he was 'gorging' on English and +French literature, his chief idols being the brothers de Goncourt, de +Maupassant, and Turgenev, and he got a story into the Yellow Book. He saw +that he could write, and he determined to adopt the vocation of letters. +After a humiliating period of free lancing in Fleet Street, he became +assistant editor and later editor of Woman. When he was 31, his first +novel, _A Man From the North_, was published, both in England and America, +and with the excess of the profits over the cost of typewriting he bought +a new hat. At the end of the following year he wrote in his diary: + +"'This year I have written 335,340 words, grand total: 224 articles and +stories, and four instalments of a serial called _The Gates of Wrath_ have +actually been published, and also my book of plays, _Polite Farces_. My +work included six or eight short stories not yet published, also the +greater part of a 55,000 word serial _Love and Life_ for Tillotsons, and +the whole draft, 80,000 words of my Staffordshire novel _Anna +Tellwright_.' + +"This last was not published in book form till 1902 under the title of +_Anna of the Five Towns_; but in the ten years that had elapsed since he +came to London, Bennett had risen from a clerk at six dollars a week to be +a successful 'editor, novelist, dramatist, critic, connoisseur of all +arts' with a comfortable suburban residence. Still he was not satisfied; +he was weary of journalism and the tyranny of his Board of Directors. He +threw up his editorial post, with its certain income, and retired first to +the country and then to a cottage at Fontainebleau to devote himself to +literature. + +"In the autumn of 1903, when Bennett used to dine frequently in a Paris +restaurant, it happened that a fat old woman came in who aroused almost +universal merriment by her eccentric behaviour. The novelist reflected: +'This woman was once young, slim, perhaps beautiful; certainly free from +these ridiculous mannerisms. Very probably she is unconscious of her +singularities. Her case is a tragedy. One ought to be able to make a +heart-rending novel out of a woman such as she.' The idea then occurred to +him of writing the book which afterwards became _The Old Wives' Tale_, and +in order to go one better than Guy de Maupassant's 'Une Vie' he determined +to make it the life-history of two women instead of one. Constance, the +more ordinary sister, was the original heroine; Sophia, the more +independent and attractive one, was created 'out of bravado.' The project +occupied Bennett's mind for some years, during which he produced five or +six novels of smaller scope, but in the autumn of 1907 he began to write +_The Old Wives' Tale_ and finished it in July, 1908. It was published the +same autumn and though its immediate reception was not encouraging, before +the winter was over it was recognised both in England and America as a +work of genius. The novelist's reputation was upheld, if not increased, by +the publication of Clayhanger in 1910, and in June, 1911, the most +conservative of American critical authorities, the New York Evening Post, +could pronounce judgment in these terms: + +"'Mr. Bennett's Bursley is not merely one single stupid English provincial +town. His Baineses and Clayhangers are not simply average middle class +provincials foredoomed to humdrum and the drab shadows of experience. His +Bursley is every provincial town, his Baineses are all townspeople +whatsoever under the sun. He professes nothing of the kind; but with quiet +smiling patience, with a multitude of impalpable touches, clothes his +scene and its humble figures in an atmosphere of pity and understanding. +These little people, he seems to say, are as important to themselves as +you are to yourself, or as I am to myself. Their strength and weakness are +ours; their lives, like ours, are rounded with a sleep. And because they +stand in their fashion for all human character and experience, there is +even a sort of beauty in them if you will but look for it.'" + +BOOKS BY ARNOLD BENNETT + +Novels: + A MAN FROM THE NORTH + THE GRAND BABYLON HOTEL + THE GATES OF WRATH + ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS + LEONORA + HUGO + A GREAT MAN + THE BOOK OF CARLOTTA + WHOM GOD HATH JOINED + THE OLD ADAM + BURIED ALIVE + THE OLD WIVES' TALE + CLAYHANGER + DENRY THE AUDACIOUS [In England, THE CARD] + HILDA LESSWAYS + THE MATADOR OF THE FIVE TOWNS + HELEN WITH THE HIGH HAND + THE GLIMPSE + THE CITY OF PLEASURE + THESE TWAIN + THE LION'S SHARE + THE PRETTY LADY + THE ROLL CALL + MR. PROHACK + LILIAN + +Plays: + CUPID AND COMMONSENSE + WHAT THE PUBLIC WANTS + THE HONEYMOON + MILESTONES [With Edward Knoblauch] + THE GREAT ADVENTURE + THE TITLE + JUDITH + SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE + THE LOVE MATCH + +SOURCES ON ARNOLD BENNETT + +Who's Who [In England]. + +English Literature During the Last Half Century, by John W. Cunliffe. +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. + +Arnold Bennett. A booklet published by GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY, 1911. +(Out of print.) + +The Truth About an Author, by Arnold Bennett. GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY. + +The Author's Craft, by Arnold Bennett. GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY. + +Some Modern Novelists, by Helen Thomas Follett and Wilson Follett. +HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY. + +Arnold Bennett, by J. F. Harvey Darton, in the WRITERS OF THE DAY series. + +The critical articles on Mr. Bennett and his individual books are too +numerous to mention. The reader is referred to the New York Public +Library or the Library of Congress, Washington, D. C., and to the Annual +Index of Periodical Publications for the last twenty years. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +A CHAPTER FOR CHILDREN + + +=i= + +I know of only one book which really aids parents and others who have to +oversee children's reading. That is Annie Carroll Moore's invaluable +_Roads to Childhood_. The author, as supervisor of work with children in +the New York Public Library, has had possibly a completer opportunity to +understand what children like to read and why they like it than any other +woman. What is more, she has the gift of writing readably about both +children and books, and an unusual faculty for reconciling those somewhat +opposite poles--things children like to read and the things it is well for +them to read. + +Miss Moore says that the important thing is a discovery of personality in +children and a respect for their natural inclinations in reading--an early +and live appreciation of literature and good drawings is best imparted by +exposure rather than by insistence upon a too rigid selection. "What I +like about these papers," said one young mother, "is that they are good +talk. You can pick the book up and open it anywhere without following a +course of reading or instruction to understand it. There is full +recognition of the fact that children are different and react differently +to the same books at different periods of their development." + +Maude Radford Warren's _Tales Told by the Gander_ is one of those books +for children that adults find interesting, too; and there is a new series +of children's books by May Byron, concerning which I must say a few words. +The series is called "Old Friends in New Frocks" and here are a few of the +titles: + +_Billy Butt's Adventure: The Tale of the Wolf and the Goat._ + +_Little Jumping Joan: The Tale of the Ants and the Grasshopper._ + +_Jack-a-Dandy: The Tale of the Vain Jackdaw._ + +These books are noteworthy for their beautiful illustrations. Each volume +has an inspired and fanciful frontispiece in colours by E. J. Detmold and +line illustrations by Day Hodgetts. Moreover, there are end papers and the +binding has a picture in colour that begins on the back and extends all +the way around in front. Naturally they are for very young children--shall +we say up to seven years old? + +=ii= + +On April 29, 1922, the Philadelphia Public Ledger printed a letter from +twelve-year-old Marion Kummer, as follows: + +"Dear Mr. Editor: My father asked me to write you a story about him and +they say at school that I am good at stories, so I thought I would. I +think he thinks I can write and become a great writer like him some day, +but I would rather be a great actress like Leonora Ulrick. I saw her in a +play where she went to sleep and they stuck pins in her but could not wake +her up, which part I should not like. But at that I would rather be an +actress because acting is pleasanter and more exciting and you do not have +to write on the typewriter all day and get a pain in your back. Daddy says +he would rather shovel coal but he does not, but snow sometimes, which has +been very plentiful about here this winter, also sledding. + +"When he is not working, he goes for a walk with the dogs, or tells us +most any question we should ask almost like an encikelopedia. He is very +good-natured and I love the things he writes, especially plays. Daddy has +just finished a children's book called _The Earth's Story_ about how it +began millions of years ago when there was a great many fossils, so nice +for children. Also about stone axes. My brother Fred made one but when he +was showing us how it worked the head came off and hit me on the foot and +I kicked him. So stone axes were one of the man's first weapons. Daddy +read us each chapter when it was done and we helped him except baby +brother who wrote with red crayon all over one chapter when no one was +there, and he should not have been in Daddy's office anyway. Daddy has to +draw horses and engines for him all the time. He gets tired of it but what +can he do?" + +Now this is very pleasant, for here on the table is the first volume of +_The Earth's Story--The First Days of Man_ by Frederic Arnold Kummer; and +this book for children has a preface for parents in it. In that preface +Mr. Kummer says: + +"In this process of storing away in his brain the accumulated knowledge of +the ages the child's mind passes, with inconceivable rapidity, along the +same route that the composite minds of his ancestors travelled, during +their centuries of development. The impulse that causes him to want to +hunt, to fish, to build brush huts, to camp out in the woods, to use his +hands as well as his brain, is an inheritance from the past, when his +primitive ancestors did these things. He should be helped to trace the +route they followed with intelligence and understanding, he should be +encouraged to know the woods, and all the great world of out-of-doors, to +make and use the primitive weapons, utensils, toys, his ancestors made and +used, to come into closer contact with the fundamental laws of nature, and +thus to lay a groundwork for wholesome and practical thinking which cannot +be gained in the classroom or the city streets. + +"As has been said, the writer has tested the methods outlined above. The +chapters in _The First Days of Man_ are merely the things he has told his +own children. It is of interest to note that one of these, a boy of seven, +on first going to school, easily outstripped in a single month a dozen or +more children who had been at school almost a year, and was able to enter +a grade a full year ahead of them. The child in question is not in the +least precocious, but having understood the knowledge he has gained, he is +able to make use of it, he has a definite mental perspective, a sure grasp +on things, which makes study of any kind easy for him, and progression +correspondingly rapid." + +To say that _Jungle Tales, Adventures in India_, by Howard Anderson Musser +is a series of missionary tales of adventure in India, is to give no idea +of the thrills within its covers. There are fights with tigers, bears and +bandits, and there is one long fight against ignorance and disease, +superstition and merciless greed. And the fighter? He was an American +athlete, who had won honour on the track and football field. Great for +boys! + +=iii= + +The English _Who's Who_ says: "Colonel Stevenson Lyle Cummins"--then +follows a string of degrees--"David Davies Professor of Tuberculosis, +University College, South Wales, Monmouthshire, and Principal Medical +Officer to the King Edward VII. Welsh National Memorial Association +since 1921.... Entered Army 1897; Captain, 1900; Major, 1909; +Lieutenant-Colonel, 1915; Colonel, 1918; served Nile Expedition, 1898 +(medal with clasp, despatches); Sudan 1900, 1902; Sudan, 1904 (Clasp); +Osmanieh 4th class, 1907; European War, 1914-18 (C.B., C.M.G., +despatches six times, Brevetted Colonel); Legion of Honour (Officer), +Couronne de Belgique (Officer); Col. 1918; Croix de Guerre (Belgian), +1918, retired from Army, 1921." + +But I don't suppose that it was as a consequence of anything in that +honourable record that Colonel Cummins wrote _Plays for Children_, in +three volumes. I suppose it was in consequence of another fact which the +English_ Who's Who_ mentions (very briefly and abbreviatedly) as "four +_c._" + +The possession of four children is a natural explanation of three volumes +of juvenile plays. + +But wait a moment! Did Colonel Cummins write them wholly for his +youngsters? As I read these little plays, it seems to me that there is +frequently an undercurrent of philosophy, truth, satire--what you +will--which, unappreciated by the youngsters themselves, will make these +household dramas ingratiating to their parents. At any rate, this is +exceptional work; you may be sure it is, for publishers are not in the +habit of bringing out an author's three volumes of children's plays all at +one stroke, and that is what is happening with Colonel Cummins's little +dramas. + +What is there to say in advance about _The Fairy Flute_, by Rose Fyleman? +No one of the increasing number who have read her utterly charming book of +poems for children, _Fairies and Chimneys_, will need more than the breath +that this book is coming. I shall give myself (and I think everyone who +reads this) the pleasure of quoting a poem from _Fairies and Chimneys_. +This will show those who do not know the work of Rose Fyleman what to +expect: + + PEACOCKS + Peacocks sweep the fairies' rooms; + They use their folded tails for brooms; + But fairy dust is brighter far + Than any mortal colours are; + And all about their tails it clings + In strange designs of rounds and rings; + And that is why they strut about + And proudly spread their feathers out. + +=iv= + +Francis Rolt-Wheeler has spent years at sea, travelled a great deal in the +West Indies, and South America, trapped at Hudson Bay, punched cattle in +the far West, lived in mining camps, traversed the greater part of the +American continent on horseback, lived with the Indians of the plains and +lived with the Indians of the Pueblos, was a journalist for several years, +has been in nearly every country of the world, and when last heard from +(May, 1922) was meandering through Spain on his way to Morocco intending +to take journeys on mule-back among the wild tribes of the Riff. He is +studying Arabic and Mohammedan customs to prepare himself for this latest +adventure. He writes boys' books. + +Can he write boys' books? If a man of his experience cannot write boys' +books, then boys' books are hopeless. + +_Plotting in Pirate Seas_, besides the thrill of the story relating Stuart +Garfield's adventures in Haiti, contains glimpses of the whole pageant we +call "the history of the Spanish Main." There is a chapter which gives an +account of Teach and Blackbeard, the buccaneers. Other chapters offer +natural history in connection with Stuart Garfield's hunt for his father. +The boy gets an inside view of newspaper work and a clear idea of native +life in Haiti and of conditions which brought about American intervention +on the island. + +_Hunting Hidden Treasure in the Andes_ is, explicitly, the story of Julio +and his guidance of two North American boys to the buried treasure of the +Incas; but the book is much more than that. It gives, with accuracy and +exceptional interest, a panorama of South American civilisation. + +These are the first two volumes of the "Boy Journalist Series." Two other +books, the first two volumes in the series called "Romance-History of +America," are: + +_In the Days Before Columbus_, which deals with the North America that +every youngster wants to know about--a continent flung up from the ocean's +bed and sculptured by ice; a continent that was kept hidden for centuries +from European knowledge by the silent sweep of ocean currents; a continent +that developed civilisations comparable with the Phoenician and Egyptian; +the continent of the Red Man. The book places what we customarily call +"American History" in its proper perspective by hanging behind it the +stupendous backdrop of creation and the prehistoric time. + +_The Quest of the Western World_ is not the usual story of Columbus, +preceded by a few allusions to the adventurings of earlier navigators. Dr. +Rolt-Wheeler has written a book which goes back to the days of Tyre and +Sidon, which includes the core of the old Norse and Irish sagas, and which +comes down to Columbus with all the rich tapestry of a daring past +unrolled before the youthful reader. Nor does the author stand on the +letter of his title; he tells the story of the Quest both backward and +forward, tying up the past with the present and avoiding, with singular +success, the fatal effect which makes a child feel: "All this was a long +time ago; it hasn't anything to do with me or today." + +And now two new Rolt-Wheeler books are ready! _Heroes of the Ruins_, the +third volume of the "Boy Journalist Series," tells of a fourteen-year-old +who lived for four years of war in trenches and dugouts. Andre, the Mole, +went from one company to another, dodged the authorities and successfully +ran the risks of death, emerging at the end to take up the search for his +scattered family, from whom he had been separated in the early days of the +fighting. + +The third volume in the "Romance-History of America" books is _The Coming +of the Peoples_, which tells how the French, Spanish, English and Dutch +settled early America. + +=v= + +Olive Roberts Barton is a sister of Mary Roberts Rinehart. When she taught +school in Pittsburgh for several years before her marriage, she worked +with children of all sizes and ages during part of that time and found +small children were her specialty. She says: + +"Working with them, and giving out constantly as one must with small +children, was like casting bread upon waters. It came back to me, what I +was giving them, not after many days but at once; their appreciation, +their spontaneous sympathy, their love gave to me something I could get +nowhere else, and it was enriching. I felt then, as I still feel, that +children give us the best things the world has to offer, and my effort has +been to make some return. Twice during the crises in my married life I +went back to the schoolroom for comfort. Once after the death of one of my +own children, when I had no others left, and again when my husband went to +the battle-fields of France. + +"I have written with the same experience as I taught. My first successes +were with adult fiction. I have had something like six hundred short +stories published by syndicates, and magazine articles have appeared from +time to time, but gradually I realised that I wanted children for my +audience. Several years ago I published _Cloud Boat Stories_. Later _The +Wonderful Land of Up_. A syndicate editor saw these books and asked me to +start a children's department for the five hundred papers he served. That +was the beginning of the 'Twins.' Nancy and Nick were born two years ago. +They still visit their little friends every day in the columns of many +newspapers. What a vast audience I have! A million children! No wonder one +wishes to do his best. + +"I have two children of my own. They are my critics. What they do not +like, I do not write. We all love the out-of-doors and to us a bird or a +little wild animal is a fairy." + +But when I try to say something about the _Nancy and Nick_ series I find +it has all been said for me (and said so much better!) by that +accomplished bookseller, Candace T. Stevenson: + +"I have just finished all of the books by Olive Roberts Barton. They are +truly spontaneous and delightful. In fact, they have carried my small +group of children listeners and myself along as breathlessly as if they +were Alice in Wonderland or Davy and the Goblin. They are delightful +nonsense with exactly the right degree of an undercurrent of ideas which +they can make use of in their business of everyday living. Children love +morals which are done as skilfully as the chapter on Examinations in +Helter Skelter Land, and Sammy Jones, the Topsy Turvy Boy in Topsy Turvy +Land, and I found my group not only seriously discussing them but putting +them into practice. Speaking of putting things into practice, there is +only one spot in all of the books which seemed to me as if it might get +some children into trouble. The description of Waspy Weasel's trick on the +schoolmaster in Helter Skelter Land where he squeezes bittersweet juice +into the schoolmaster's milk and puts him to sleep, I think would lead any +inquiring mind to try it. + +"The whale who loved peppermints, Torty Turtle with his seagull's wings +on, the adventures of the children when they help Mr. Tingaling collect +the rents--this isn't the same old stuff of the endless 'bedtime' stories +which are dealt out to us by the yard. These animals are real people with +the tinge which takes real imagination to paint. + +"At first I was disappointed in the pictures, but as I read on I came +to like those also, and I found that they were wholly satisfactory to the +children. The picture of the thousand legger with all his shoes on is +entrancing, and poor Mrs. Frog cutting out clothes because the +dressmaker had made them for the children when they were still +tadpoles. These books ought to come like an oasis in the desert to the +poor-jaded-reading-aloud-parent." + +=vi= + +At Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, in a small house built from her own plans +and standing 2,000 feet above sea level, in a growing shade of trees, +lives Marion Ames Taggart, author of the Jack-in-the-Box series--four +children's books that renew their popularity every year. They are: + + AT GREENACRES + THE QUEER LITTLE MAN + THE BOTTLE IMP + POPPY'S PLUCK + +_At Greenacres_ and _The Queer Little Man_ are particularly good to read +aloud to a group of children; they really are the mystery and detective +story diluted for children. + +Miss Taggart, an only child and extremely frail in childhood, had the good +fortune as a consequence of ill-health to be educated entirely at home. As +a result she had free access to really good books--for the home was in +Haverhill, Mass. She began to carry out a cherished wish to write for +young girls in 1901, when her first book (for girls of about sixteen) was +published in St. Nicholas. She has a habit of transplanting four-footed +friends in her stories under their own names--as where, in the +Jack-in-the-Box series, one finds Pincushion, Miss Taggart's own plump +grey kitten. + +What will the children say to _A Wonder Book_, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, +with pictures in color by Arthur Rackham? I do not know why I ask this +rhetorical question, which, like most questions of the sort, should be +followed by exclamation points! There will be exclamations, at any rate, +over this book, surely the most beautiful of the year, perhaps of several +years. The quality of Arthur Rackham's work is well known, its artistic +value is undisputedly of the very highest. And Hawthorne's text--the story +of the Gorgon's head, the tale of Midas, Tanglewood, and the rest--is of +the finest literary, poetic and imaginative worth. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +COBB'S FOURTH DIMENSION + + +=i= + +As a three-dimensional writer, Irvin S. Cobb has long been among the +American literary heavy-weights. Now that he has acquired a fourth +dimension, the time has come for a new measurement of his excellences as +an author. + +Among those excellences I know a man (responsible for the manufacture of +Doran books) who holds that Cobb is the greatest living American author. +The reason for this is severely logical, to wit: Irvin Cobb always sends +in his copy in a perfect condition. His copy goes to the manufacturer of +books with a correctly written title page, a correctly written copyright +page, the exact wording of the dedication, an accurate table of contents, +and so on, all the way through the manuscript. Moreover, when proofs are +sent to Mr. Cobb, he makes very few changes. He reduces to a minimum the +difficulties of a printer and his changes are always perceptibly changes +for the better. + +But I don't suppose that any of this would redound to Cobb's credit in the +eyes of a literary critic. + +[Illustration: IRVIN S. COBB] + +And to return to the subject of the fourth dimension: My difficulty is to +know in just what direction that fourth dimension lies. Is the fourth +dimension of Cobb as a novelist or as an autobiographer? It puzzles me to +tell inasmuch as I have before me the manuscripts of Mr. Cobb's first +novel, _J. Poindexter, Colored_, and his very first autobiography, a +volume called _Stickfuls_. + +The title of _Stickfuls_ will probably not be charged with meaning to +people unfamiliar with newspaper work. Perhaps it is worth while to +explain that in the old days, when type was set by hand, the printer had a +little metal holder called a "stick." When he had set a dozen lines--more +or less--he had a "stickful." Although very little type is now set by +hand, the stick as a measure of space is still in good standing. The +reporter presents himself at the city desk, tells what he has got, and is +told by the city editor, "Write a stickful." Or, "Write two sticks." And +so on. + +_Stickfuls_ is not so much the story of Cobb's life as the story of people +he has met and places he has been, told in a series of extremely +interesting chapters--told in a leisurely and delightful fashion of +reminiscence by a natural association of one incident with another and one +person with someone else. For example, Cobb as a newspaper man, covered a +great many trials in court; and one of the chapters of _Stickfuls_ tells +of famous trials he has attended. + +=ii= + +Now about this novel of Cobb's: Jeff Poindexter will be remembered by all +the readers of Mr. Cobb's short stories as the negro body servant of old +Judge Priest. In _J. Poindexter, Colored_, we have Jeff coming to New +York. Of course, New York seen through the eyes of a genuine Southern +darkey is a New York most of us have never seen. There's nothing like +sampling, so I will let you begin the book: + +"My name is J. Poindexter. But the full name is Jefferson Exodus +Poindexter, Colored. But most always in general I has been known as Jeff +for short. The Jefferson part is for a white family which my folks worked +for them one time before I was born, and the Exodus is because my mammy +craved I should be named after somebody out of the Bible. How I comes to +write this is this way: + +"It seems like my experiences here in New York is liable to be such that +one of my white gentleman friends he says to me I should take pen in hand +and write them out just the way they happen and at the time they is +happening, or right soon afterwards, whilst the memory of them is clear in +my brain; and then he's see if he can't get them printed somewheres, which +on the top of the other things which I now is, will make me an author with +money coming in steady. He says to me he will fix up the spelling wherever +needed and attend to the punctuating; but all the rest of it will be my +own just like I puts it down. I reads and writes very well but someway I +never learned to puncture. So the places where it is necessary to be +punctual in order to make good sense and keep everything regulation and +make the talk sound natural is his doings and also some of the spelling. +But everything else is mine and I asks credit. + +"My coming to New York, in the first place, is sort of a sudden thing +which starts here about a month before the present time. I has been +working for Judge Priest for going on sixteen years and is expecting to go +on working for him as long as we can get along together all right, which +it seems like from appearances that ought to be always. But after he gives +up being circuit judge on account of him getting along so in age he gets +sort of fretful by reasons of him not having much to do any more and most +of his own friends having died off on him. When the State begins going +Republican about once in so often, he says to me, kind of half joking, +he's a great mind to pull up stakes and move off and go live somewheres +else. But pretty soon after that the whole country goes dry and then he +says to me there just naturally ain't no fitten place left for him to go +without he leaves the United States." + +It seems that Judge Priest finally succumbed to an invitation to visit +Bermuda, a place where a gentleman can still raise a thirst and satisfy +it. Jeff could not stand the house without the Judge in it; and when an +opportunity came to go to New York, Jeff went. + +=iii= + +The biographer of Cobb is Robert H. Davis, editor of Munsey's Magazine, +whose authoritative account I take pleasure in reprinting here--the more +so because it appeared some time ago in a booklet which is now out of +print. Mr. Davis's article was first printed in The Sun, New York: + +"Let me deal with this individual in a categorical way. Most biographers +prefer to mutilate their canvas with a small daub which purports to be a +sketch of the most significant event in the life of the accused. Around +this it is their custom to paint smaller and less impressive scenes, +blending the whole by placing it in a large gilded frame, which, for +obvious reasons, costs more than the picture--and it is worth more. Pardon +me, therefore, if I creep upon Mr. Cobb from the lower left-hand corner of +the canvas and chase him across the open space as rapidly as possible. It +is not for me to indicate when the big events in his life will occur or to +lay the milestones of the route along which he will travel. I know only +that they are in the future, and that, regardless of any of his +achievements in the past, Irvin Cobb has not yet come into his own. + +"The first glimpse I had of him was in a half-tone portrait in the New +York Evening World five years ago. This picture hung pendant-like from a +title which read 'Through Funny Glasses, by Irvin S. Cobb.' It was the +face of a man scarred with uncertainty; an even money proposition that he +had either just emerged from the Commune or was about to enter it. Grief +was written on the brow; more than written, it was emblazoned. The eyes +were heavy with inexpressible sadness. The corners of the mouth were +drooped, heightening the whole effect of incomprehensible depression. +Quickly I turned to the next page among the stock quotations, where I got +my depression in a blanket form. The concentrated Cobb kind was too much +for me. + +"A few days later I came suddenly upon the face again. The very +incongruity of its alliance with laughter overwhelmed me, and wonderingly +I read what he had written, not once, but every day, always with the +handicap of that half-tone. If Cobb were an older man, I would go on the +witness stand and swear that the photograph was made when he was +witnessing the Custer Massacre or the passing of Geronimo through the +winter quarters of his enemies. Notwithstanding, he supplied my week's +laughter. + +"Digression this: + +"After Bret Harte died, many stories were written by San Franciscans who +knew him when he first put in an appearance on the Pacific Coast. One +contemporary described minutely how Bret would come silently up the stairs +of the old Alta office, glide down the dingy hallway through the exchange +room, and seat himself at the now historic desk. It took Bret fifteen +minutes to sharpen a lead pencil, one hour for sober reflection, and three +hours to write a one-stick paragraph, after which he would carefully tear +it up, gaze out of the window down the Golden Gate, and go home. + +"He repeated this formula the following day, and at the end of the week +succeeded in turning out three or four sticks which he considered fit to +print. In later years, after fame had sought him out and presented him +with a fur-lined overcoat, which I am bound to say Bret knew how to wear, +the files of the Alta were ransacked for the pearls he had dropped in his +youth. A few gems were identified, a very few. Beside this entire printed +collection the New England Primer would have looked like a set of +encyclopedias. Bret worked slowly, methodically, brilliantly, and is an +imperishable figure in American letters. + +"Returning to Cobb: He has already written twenty times more than Bret +Harte turned out during his entire career. He has made more people laugh +and written better short stories. He has all of Harte's subtle and +delicate feeling, and will, if he is spared, write better novels about the +people of today than Bret Harte, with all his genius and imagination, +wrote around the Pioneers. I know of no single instance where one man has +shown such fecundity and quality as Irvin Cobb has so far evinced, and it +is my opinion that his complete works at fifty will contain more good +humour, more good short stories, and at least one bigger novel than the +works of any other single contemporaneous figure. + +"He was born in Paducah, Kentucky, in June, '76. I have taken occasion to +look into the matter and find that his existence was peculiarly varied. He +belonged to one of those old Southern families-there being no new Southern +families--and passed through the public schools sans incident. At the age +of sixteen he went into the office of The Paducah Daily News as a +reportorial cub. + +"He was first drawn to daily journalism because he yearned to be an +illustrator. Indeed, he went so far as to write local humorous stories, +illustrating them himself. The pictures must have been pretty bad, +although they served to keep people from saying that his literature was +the worst thing in the paper. + +"Resisting all efforts of the editor, the stockholders and the subscribers +of The Paducah Daily News, he remained barricaded behind his desk until +his nineteenth year, when he was crowned with a two-dollar raise and a +secondary caption under his picture which read 'The Youngest Managing +Editor of a Daily Paper in the United States.' + +"If Cobb was consulted in the matter of this review, he would like to have +these preliminaries expunged from his biography. But the public is +entitled to the details. + +"It is also true that he stacked up more libel suits than a newspaper of +limited capital with a staff of local attorneys could handle before he +moved to Louisville, where, for three years, he was staff correspondent of +The Evening Post. It was here that Cobb discovered how far a humorist +could go without being invited to step out at 6 a.m. and rehearse 'The +Rivals' with real horse-pistols. + +"The first sobering episode in his life occurred when the Goebel murder +echoed out of Louisville. He reported this historic assassination and +covered the subsequent trials in the Georgetown court house. Doubtless the +seeds of tragedy, which mark some of his present work, were sown here. +Those who are familiar with his writings know that occasionally he sets +his cap and bells aside and dips his pen into the very darkness of life. +We find it particularly in three of his short stories entitled 'An +Occurrence Up a Side Street,' 'The Belled Buzzard,' and 'Fishhead.' +Nothing better can be found in Edgar Allan Poe's collected works. One is +impressed not only with the beauty and simplicity of his prose, but with +the tremendous power of his tragic conceptions and his art in dealing with +terror. There appears to be no phase of human emotion beyond his pen. +Without an effort he rises from the level of actualities to the high plane +of boundless imagination, invoking laughter or tears at will. + +"After his Louisville experience Cobb married and returned to Paducah to +be managing editor of The Democrat. Either Paducah or The Democrat got on +his nerves and, after a comparison of the Paducah school of journalism +with the metropolitan brand, he turned his face (see Evening World +half-tone) in the direction of New York, buoyed up by the illusion that he +was needed there along with other reforms. + +"He arrived at the gates of Manhattan full of hope, and visited every +newspaper office in New York without receiving encouragement to call +again. Being resourceful he retired to his suite of hall bedrooms on 57th +Street West and wrote a personal note to every city editor in New York, +setting forth in each instance the magnificent intellectual proportions of +the epistolographer. The next morning, by mail, Cobb had offers for a job +from five of them. He selected The Evening Sun. + +"At about that time the Portsmouth Peace Conference convened, and The Sun +sent the Paducah party to help cover the proceedings. Upon arriving at +Portsmouth, Cobb cast his experienced eye over the situation, discovered +that the story was already well covered by a large coterie of competent, +serious-minded young men, and went into action to write a few columns +daily on subjects having no bearing whatsoever on the conference. These +stories were written in the ebullition of youth, inspired by the ecstasy +which rises from the possession of a steady job; a perfect deluge from the +well springs of spontaneity. There wasn't a single fact in the entire +series, and yet The Sun syndicated these stories throughout the United +States. All they possessed was I-N-D-I-V-I-D-U-A-L-I-T-Y. + +"At the end of three weeks, Cobb returned to New York, to find that he +could have a job on any newspaper in it. This brings him to The Evening +World, the half-tone engraving, which was the first glimpse I had of him, +and the dawn of his subsequent triumphs. For four years he supplied the +evening edition and The Sunday World with a comic feature, to say nothing +of a comic opera, written to order in five days. The absence of a +guillotine in New York State accounts for his escape for this latter +offence. Nevertheless, in all else his standard of excellence ascended. He +reported the Thaw trial in long-hand, writing nearly 600,000 words of +testimony and observation, establishing a new style for reporting trials, +and gave further evidence of his power. That performance will stand out in +the annals of American journalism as one of the really big reportorial +achievements. + +"At about this juncture in his career Cobb opened a door to the past, +reached in and took out some of the recollections of his youth. These he +converted into 'The Escape of Mr. Trimm,' his first short fiction story. +It appeared in The Saturday Evening Post. The court scene was so +absolutely true to life, so minutely perfect in its atmosphere, that a +Supreme Court judge signed an unsolicited and voluntary note for +publication, in which he said that Mr. Cobb had reported with marvelous +accuracy and fulness a murder trial at which His Honour had presided. + +"Gelett Burgess, in a lecture at Columbia College, said that Cobb was one +of the ten great American humourists. Cobb ought to demand a recount. +There are not ten humourists in the world, although Cobb is one of them. +The extraordinary thing about Cobb is that he can turn a burst of laughter +into a funeral oration, a snicker into a shudder and a smile into a crime. +He writes in octaves, striking instinctively all the chords of humour, +tragedy, pathos and romance with either hand. Observe this man in his +thirty-ninth year, possessing gifts the limitations of which even he +himself has not yet recognised. + +"In appraising a genius, we must consider the man's highest achievement, +and in comparing him with others the verdict must be reached only upon +consideration of his best work. For scintillant wit and unflagging good +humour, read his essays on the Teeth, the Hair and the Stomach. If you +desire a perfect blending of all that is essential to a short story, read +'The Escape of Mr. Trimm' or 'Words and Music.' If you are in search of +pure, unadulterated, boundless terror, the gruesome quality, the blackness +of despair and the fear of death in the human conscience, 'Fishhead,' 'The +Belled Buzzard' or 'An Occurrence Up a Side Street' will enthrall you. + +"Thus in Irvin Cobb we find Mark Twain, Bret Harte and Edgar Allan Poe at +their best. Reckon with these potentialities in the future. Speculate, if +you will, upon the sort of a novel that is bound, some day, to come from +his pen. There seem to be no pinnacles along the horizon of the literary +future that are beyond him. If he uses his pen for an Alpine stock, the +Matterhorn is his. + +"There are critics and reviewers who do not entirely agree with me +concerning Cobb. But they will. + +"As I write these lines I recall a conversation I had with Irvin Cobb on +the hurricane deck of a Fifth Avenue 'bus one bleak November afternoon, +1911. We had met at the funeral of Joseph Pulitzer, in whose employ we had +served in the past. + +"Cobb was in a reflective mood, chilled to the marrow, and not +particularly communicative. + +"At the junction of Fifth Avenue and Forty-second Street we were held up +by congested traffic. After a little manoeuvring on the part of a mounted +policeman, the Fifth Avenue tide flowed through and onward again. + +"'It reminds me of a river,' said Cobb, 'into which all humanity is drawn. +Some of these people think because they are walking up-stream they are +getting out of it. But they never escape. The current is at work on them. +Some day they will get tired and go down again, and finally pass out to +sea. It is the same with real rivers. They do not flow uphill.' + +"He lapsed into silence. + +"'What's on your mind?' I inquired. + +"'Nothing in particular,' he said, scanning the banks of the great +municipal stream, 'except that I intend to write a novel some day about a +boy born at the headwaters. Gradually he floats down through the +tributaries, across the valleys, swings into the main stream, and docks +finally at one of the cities on its banks. This particular youth was a +great success--in the beginning. Every door was open to him. He had +position, brains, and popularity to boot. He married brilliantly. And then +The Past, a trivial, unimportant Detail, lifted its head and barked at +him. He was too sensitive to bark back. Thereupon it bit him and he +collapsed.' + +"Again Cobb ceased talking. For some reason--indefinable--I respected his +silence. Two blocks further down he took up the thread of his story +again: + +"'--and one evening, just about sundown, a river hand, sitting on a +stringpiece of a dock, saw a derby hat bobbing in the muddy Mississippi, +floating unsteadily but surely into the Gulf of Mexico.' + +"As is his habit, Cobb tugged at his lower lip. + +"'What are you going to call this novel?' + +"'I don't know. What do you think?' + +"'Why not "The River"?' + +"'Very well, I'll call it "The River."' + +"He scrambled from his seat. 'I'm docking at Twenty-seventh Street. +Good-bye. Keep your hat out of the water.' + +"Laboriously he made his way down the winding staircase from the upper +deck, dropped flat-footed on the asphalt pavement, turned his collar up, +leaned into the gust of wind from the South, and swung into the +cross-current of another stream. + +"I doubt if he has any intention of calling his story 'The River.' But I +am sure the last chapter will contain something about an unhappy wretch +who wore a derby hat at the moment he walked hand in hand with his +miserable Past into the Father of Waters. + +"For those who wish to know something of his personal side, I can do no +better than to record his remarks to a stranger, who, in my presence, +asked Irvin Cobb, without knowing to whom he was speaking, what kind of a +person Cobb was. + +"'Well, to be perfectly frank with you,' replied the Paducah prodigy, +'Cobb is related to my wife by marriage, and if you don't object to a +brief sketch, with all the technicalities eliminated, I should say in +appearance he is rather bulky, standing six feet high, not especially +beautiful, a light roan in colour, with a black mane. His figure is +undecided, but might be called bunchy in places. He belongs to several +clubs, including The Yonkers Pressing Club and The Park Hill Democratic +Marching Club, and has always, like his father, who was a Confederate +soldier, voted the Democratic ticket. He has had one wife and one child +and still has them. In religion he is an Innocent Bystander.' + +"Could anything be fuller than this?" + +=iv= + +It was Mr. Davis, also, who in the New York Herald of April 23, 1922, made +public the evidence for the following box score: + + 1st 2nd + +Best Writer of Humour Cobb ---- +Best All-Round Reporter Cobb ---- +Best Local Colourist Cobb ---- +Best in Tales of Horror Cobb ---- +Best Writer of Negro Stories ---- Cobb +Best Writer of Light Tarkington Cobb and + Humorous Fiction Harry Leon Wilson +Best Teller of Anecdotes Cobb Cobb + +"Not long ago a group of ten literary men--editors, critics, readers and +writers--were dining together. Discussion arose as to the respective and +comparative merits of contemporaneous popular writers. It was decided that +each man present should set down upon a slip of paper his first, second +and third choices in various specified but widely diversified fields of +literary endeavour, and that then the results should be compared. Admirers +of Cobb's work will derive a peculiar satisfaction from the outcome. It +was found that as a writer of humour he had won first place; that as an +all round reporter he had first place; that as a handler of local colour +in the qualified sense of a power of apt, swiftly-done, journalistic +description, he had first place. He also had first place as a writer of +horror yarns. He won second place as a writer of darkey stories. He tied +with Harry Leon Wilson for second place as a writer of light humorous +fiction, Tarkington being given first place in this category. As a teller +of anecdotes he won by acclamation over all contenders. Altogether his +name appeared on eight of the ten lists." + +Cobb lives at Ossining, New York. He describes himself as lazy, but +convinces no one. He likes to go fishing. But he has never written any +fish stories. + +BOOKS BY IRVIN S. COBB + +BACK HOME +COBB'S ANATOMY +THE ESCAPE OF MR. TRIMM +COBB'S BILL OF FARE +ROUGHING IT DE LUXE +EUROPE REVISED +PATHS OF GLORY +OLD JUDGE PRIEST +FIBBLE, D.D. +SPEAKING OF OPERATIONS +LOCAL COLOR +SPEAKING OF PRUSSIANS +THOSE TIMES AND THESE +THE GLORY OF THE COMING +THE THUNDERS OF SILENCE +THE LIFE OF THE PARTY +FROM PLACE TO PLACE +"OH, WELL, YOU KNOW HOW WOMEN ARE!" +THE ABANDONED FARMERS +SUNDRY ACCOUNTS +A PLEA FOR OLD CAP COLLIER +ONE THIRD OFF +EATING IN TWO OR THREE LANGUAGES +J. POINDEXTER, COLORED +STICKFULS + +Plays: +FUNABASHI +BUSYBODY +BACK HOME +SERGEANT BAGBY +GUILTY AS CHARGED +UNDER SENTENCE + + +SOURCES ON IRVIN S. COBB + +Who's Who in America. + +Who's Cobb and Why? Booklet published by GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY. +(Out of print). + +Article by Robert H. Davis in the book section of THE NEW YORK HERALD +for April 23, 1922. + +Robert H. Davis, 280 Broadway, New York. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +PLACES TO GO + + +=i= + +The book by Thomas Burke called _More Limehouse Nights_ was published in +England under the title of _Whispering Windows_. At the time of its +publication, Mr. Burke wrote the following: + +"The most disconcerting question that an author can be asked, and often is +asked, is: 'Why did you write that book?' The questioners do not want an +answer to that immediate question; but to the implied question: 'Why don't +you write some other kind of book?' To either question there is but one +answer: BECAUSE. + +"Every writer is thus challenged. The writer of comic stories is asked why +he doesn't write something really serious. The novelist is asked why he +doesn't write short stories, and the short-story writer is asked why he +doesn't write a novel. To me people say, impatiently: 'Why don't you write +happy stories about ordinary people?' And the only answer I can give them +is: 'Because I can't. I present life as I see it.' + +"I am an ordinary man, but I don't understand ordinary men. I am at a loss +with them. But with the people of whom I write I have a fellow-feeling. I +know them and their sorrows and their thwarted strivings and I understand +their aberrations. I cannot see the romance of the merchant or the glamour +of the duke's daughter. They do not permit themselves to be seized and +driven by passion and imagination. Instead they are driven by fear, which +they have misnamed Commonsense. These people thwart themselves, while my +people are thwarted by malign circumstance. + +"Often I have taken other men to the dire districts about which I write, +and they have remained unmoved; they have seen, in their phrase, nothing +to get excited about. Well, one cannot help that kind of person. One +cannot give understanding to the man who regards the flogging of children +as a joke, or to whom a broken love-story is, in low life, a theme for +smoking-room anecdotes. + +"Wherever there are human creatures there are beauty and courage and +sacrifice. The stories in _Whispering Windows_ deal with human creatures, +thieves, drunkards, prostitutes, each of whom is striving for happiness in +his or her way, and missing it, as most of us do. Each has hidden away +some fine streak of character, some mark below which he will not go. +And--they are alive. They have met life in its ugliest phases, and fought +it. + +"My answer, then, to the charge of writing 'loathsome' stories, is that +these things happen. To those who say that cruelty and degradation are not +fit subjects for fiction, I say that all twists and phases of the human +heart are fit subjects for fiction. + +"The entertainment of hundreds of thousands with 'healthy' literature is a +great and worthy office; but the author can only give out what is in him. +If I write of wretched and strange things, it is because these move me +most. Happiness needs no understanding; but these darker things--they are +kept too much from sensitive eyes and polite ears; and so are too harshly +judged upon the world's report. I am no reformer; I have never 'studied' +people; and I have no 'purpose,' unless it be illumination. + +"What we all need today is illumination; for only through full knowledge +can we come to truth--and understanding." + +=ii= + +Burke's new book, _The London Spy_, is described by the author as "a book +of town travels." Some of the subjects are London street characters, cab +shelters, coffee stalls and street entertainers. The range is very wide, +for there is a chapter called "In the Streets of Rich Men," which deals +with Pall Mall and Piccadilly, as well as a study of a waterside colony, +including the results of a first pipe of opium ("In the Streets of +Cyprus"). Mr. Burke tells a good deal about the film world of Soho and is +able to give an intimate sketch of Chaplin. Perhaps the most charming of +the titles in the book is the chapter called "In the Street of Beautiful +Children." This is a study of a street in Stepney, with observations on +orphanages and reformatories and "their oppressions of the children of the +poor." + +Thomas Burke was born in London and seldom lives away from it. He started +writing when employed in a mercantile office, and sold his first story +when sixteen. He sincerely hopes nobody will ever discover and reprint +that story. His early struggles have been recounted in his _Nights in +London_. He married Winifred Wells, a young London poet, author of _The +Three Crowns_. He lives at Highgate, on the Northern Heights of London. He +hates literary society and social functions generally. His chief +recreation is wandering about London. + +=iii= + +There is very little use in doing a book about China nowadays unless you +can do an unusual book about China; and that, precisely, is what E. G. +Kemp has done. _Chinese Mettle_ is an unusual book, even to the shape of +it (it is nearly square though not taller than the ordinary book). The +author has written enough books on China to cover all the usual ground +and, as Sao-Ke Alfred Sze of the Chinese Legation at Washington says in +his foreword, Miss Kemp "has wisely neglected the 'show-window' by putting +seaports at the end. By acquainting the public with the wealth and beauty +of the interior, she reveals to readers the vitality and potential energy, +both natural and cultural, of a great nation." Three provinces are +particularly described--Yünnan, Kweichow, Hunan--and there are good +chapters on the new Chinese woman and the youth of China. This book has, +in addition to unusual illustrations, what every good book of its sort +should have, an index. + +In view of the title of this chapter I have hesitated over mentioning here +Albert C. White's _The Irish Free State_. Whether Ireland now should be +numbered among the places to go or not is possibly a matter of heredity +and sympathies; but at any rate, Ireland is unquestionably a place to read +about. Shall we agree that the Irish Free State is one of the best places +in the world to go in a book? Then Mr. White's book will furnish +up-to-the-minute transportation thither. + +The book is written throughout from the standpoint of a vigorous and +independent mind. It will annoy extreme partisans of all shades of +opinion, and will provoke much discussion. This is especially true of the +concluding chapter, in which the author discusses "Some Factors in the +Future." The value of the book is enhanced by the inclusion of the +essential documents of the Home Rule struggle, including the four Home +Rule Bills of 1886, 1893, 1914 and 1920, and the terms of the Treaty +concluded with Sinn Fein. + +Whether Russia is a place to go is another of those debatable questions +and I feel that the same conclusion holds good. A book is the wisest +passport to Russia at present. _Marooned in Moscow_, by Marguerite E. +Harrison, is not a new book--in the sense of having been published last +week. It remains about the best single book published on Russia under the +Soviet government; and I say this with the full recollection that H. G. +Wells also wrote a book about Soviet Russia after a visit of fifteen days. +Mrs. Harrison spent eighteen months and was part of the time in prison. +She is an exceptionally good reporter without prejudices for or against +any theory of government--with an eye only for the facts and a word only +for an observed fact. + +It is good news that _The Secret of the Sahara: Kufara_, by Rosita Forbes, +is to be published in a new edition. This Englishwoman, with no assistance +but that of native guides, penetrated to Kufara, which lies hidden in the +heart of the Libyan desert, a section of the Sahara. This is the region of +a fanatical sect of Mohammedans known as the Senussi. No other white woman +has ever been known to enter the sacred city of Paj, a gloomy citadel hewn +out of rock on the edge of a beautiful valley. _The Secret of the_ +_Sahara_ is illustrated with pictures taken by the author, many times +under pain of death if she were detected using a camera. + +=iv= + +C. E. Andrews is a college professor who saw war service in France and +relief administration work in the Balkans. His gifts as a delightful +writer will be apparent now that his book of travels, _Old Morocco and the +Forbidden Atlas_, is out. This book, unlike the conventional travel book, +has the qualities of a good story. There is colour and adventure. There +are humorous episodes and there are pictures that seem to be mirrored in +the clear lake of a lovely prose. The journey described is through a +region of Morocco little traversed by white men and over paths of the +Atlas Mountains frequented chiefly by wild tribes and banditti. + +Of all places to go, old New York remains, for many, the most appealing. +Does it sound queer to recommend for those readers _A Century of Banking +in New York: 1822-1922_, by Henry Wysham Lanier? Mr. Lanier is a son of +Sidney Lanier, the poet, and those who believe that a chronicle of banking +must necessarily be full of dry statistics are invited to read the opening +chapter of this book; for Mr. Lanier begins his tale with the yellow fever +epidemic of 1822, when all the banks of New York, to say nothing of the +thousands of people, fled "from the city to the country"--that is, from +lowermost Broadway to the healthful village of Greenwich. This quality of +human rather than statistical interest is paramount throughout the book. + +I go back almost four years to call attention again to Frederic A. +Fenger's _Alone in the Caribbean_, a book with maps and illustrations from +unusual photographs, the narrative of a cruise in a sailing canoe among +the Caribbean Islands.... It is just a good book. + +=v= + +_Robin Hood's Barn_, by Margaret Emerson Bailey, should be classified, I +suppose, as a volume of essays. It seems to me admirably suited for this +chapter, since it is all about a pleasant house inhabited by pleasant +people--and surely that is a place where everyone wants to go. Margaret +Emerson Bailey is describing, I think, an actual house and actual people; +not so much their lives as what they make out of life in the collectivism +that family life enforces. At least, I seem to get from her book a unity +of meaning, the lack of which in our lives, as we live them daily, makes +for helplessness and sometimes for despair. + +With even more doubt as to the exact "classification," I proceed to speak +here and now of L. P. Jacks's book, _The Legends of Smokeover_. Mr. Jacks +is well known as the editor of the Hibbert Journal and a writer of +distinction upon philosophical subjects. I should say his specialty is an +ability to relate philosophical abstractions to practical, everyday +existence. Those familiar with his essays in the Atlantic Monthly will +know what I mean. And is the Smokeover of his new book, then, a place to +go? It is, if you wish to see our modern age and industrial civilisation +expressed in such terms--almost in the terms of fiction--as make its +appraisal relatively easy. + +I suppose this book might make Mr. Jacks memorable as a satirist. It +brings philosophy down from the air, like a peaceful thunderbolt, to +shatter the vain illusions we entertain of our material success and our +civilised strides forward. The fact that when you have begun to read the +book you may experience some difficulty in knowing how to take it is in +the book's favour. And why should you complain so long as from the outset +you are continuously entertained and amused? You can scarcely complain ... +even though at the end, you find you have been instructed. In a world +thickly spotted with Smokeovers, Mr. Jacks's book is a book worth having, +worth reading, worth reading again. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +ALIAS RICHARD DEHAN + + +=i= + +At that, I think I am wrong. I think the title of this chapter ought to be +"Alias Clotilde Graves." + +The problems of literary personality are strange. Some time after the Boer +War a woman who had been in newspaper work in London and who had even, at +one time, been on the stage under the necessity of earning her living, +wrote a novel. The novel happened to be an intensive study of the Boer +War, made possible by the fact that the writer was the daughter of a +soldier and had spent her early years in barracks. England at that time +was interested by the subject of this novel. It sold largely and its +author was established by the book. + +She was forty-six years old in the year when the book was published. But +this was not the striking thing. William De Morgan produced the first of +his impressive novels at a much more advanced age. The significant thing +was that in publishing her novel, _The Dop Doctor_ (American title: _One_ +_Braver Thing_), Clotilde Graves chose the pen name of Richard Dehan, +although she was already known as a writer (chiefly for the theatre) under +her own name. + +I do not know that Miss Graves has ever said anything publicly about her +motive in electing the name of Richard Dehan. But I feel that whatever the +cause the result was the distinct emergence of a totally different +personality. There is no final disassociation between Clotilde Graves and +Richard Dehan. Richard Dehan, novelist, steadily employs the material +furnished in valuable abundance by Clotilde Graves's life. At the same +time the personality of Richard Dehan is so unusual, so gifted, so lavish +in its invention and so much at home in surprising backgrounds, that +something approaching a psychic explanation of authorship seems called +for. + +=ii= + +Clotilde Inez Mary Graves was born at Barracks, Buttevant, County Cork, +Ireland, on June 3, 1864, third daughter of the late Major W. H. Graves of +the Eighteenth Royal Irish Regiment and Antoinette, daughter of Captain +George Anthony Deane of Harwich. Thus, the English _Who's Who_. + +"She numbers among her ancestors admirals and deans," said The Bookman in +1912. + +As the same magazine at about the same time spoke of her as descended from +Charles II.'s naval architect, Admiral Sir Anthony Deane, one wonders if +Sir Anthony were not the sum of the admirals and the total of the deans. +But no; at any rate in so far as the admirals are concerned, for Miss +Graves is also said to be distantly related to Admiral Nelson. + +I will give you what The Bookman said in the "Chronicle and Comment" +columns of its number for February, 1913: + +"Richard Dehan was nine years old when her family emigrated to England +from their Irish home. She had seen a good deal of barrack life, and at +Southsea, where they went to live, she acquired a large knowledge of both +services in the circle of naval and military friends they made there, and +this knowledge years afterward she turned to account in _Between Two +Thieves_. In 1884, Miss Graves became an art student and worked at the +British Museum galleries and the Royal Female School of Art, helping to +support herself by journalism of a lesser kind, among other things drawing +little pen-and-ink grotesques for the comic papers. By and by she resolved +to take to dramatic writing and being too poor, she says, to manage in any +other way, she abandoned art and took an engagement in a travelling +theatrical company. In 1888 her first chance as a dramatist came. She was +again in London, working vigorously at journalism, when some one was +needed to write extra lyrics for a pantomime then in preparation. A letter +of recommendation from an editor to the manager ended in Miss Clo Graves +writing the pantomime of _Puss in Boots_. Later a tragedy by her, +_Nitocris_, was produced for an afternoon at Drury Lane, and another of +her plays, _The Mother of Three_, proved not only a literary, but also a +material, success." + +Her first novel to be signed Richard Dehan being so successful, an English +publisher planned to bring out an earlier, minor work, already published +as by Clotilde Graves, with "Richard Dehan" on the title-page. The author +was stirred to a vigorous and public protest. In the ensuing controversy +someone made the point that the proposed reissue would not be more +indefensible than the act of a publishing house in bringing out posthumous +"books" by O. Henry and dragging from its deserved oblivion Rudyard +Kipling's _Abaft the Funnel_. + +I do not know whether the publishing of books is a business or a +profession. I should say that it has, at one time or another and by one or +another individual or concern, been pursued as either or both. + +There have certainly been, and probably are, book publishers who not only +conduct their business as a business but as a business of a low order. +There have been and are book publishers who, though quite necessarily +business men, observe an ethical code as nice as that of any of the +recognised professions. Perhaps publishing books should qualify as an art, +since it has the characteristics of bringing out what is best or worst in +a publisher; and, indeed, if we are to hold that any successful means of +self-expression is art, then publishing books has been an art more than +once; for unquestionably there are publishers who find self-expression in +their work. + +This is an interesting subject, but I must not pursue it in this place. +Certainly Miss Graves was justified in objecting to the use of her new pen +name on work already published under her own name. In her case, as I +think, the objection was peculiarly well-founded, because it seems to me +that Richard Dehan was a new person. Since Richard Dehan appeared on the +title-page of _The Dop Doctor_, there has never been a Clotilde Graves in +books. You have only to study the books. The _Dop Doctor_ was followed, +two years later, by _Between Two Thieves_. This novel has as a leading +character Florence Nightingale under the name of Ada Merling. The story +was at first to have been called "The Lady With The Lamp"; but the author +delayed it for a year and subjected it to a complete rewriting, the result +of a new and enlarged conception of the story. + +Then came a steady succession of novels by Richard Dehan. I remember with +what surprise I read, in 1918, _That Which Hath Wings_, a war story of +large dimensions and an incredible amount of exact and easy detail. I +remember, too, noting that there was embedded in it a marvellous story for +children--an airplane flight in which a youngster figured--if the +publisher chose, with the author's consent, to lift this out of its +larger, adult setting. I remember very vividly reading in 1920 a +collection of short stories by Richard Dehan, published under the title +_The Eve of Pascua_. Pascua is the Spanish word for Easter. I wondered +where on earth, unless in Spain itself, the author got the bright +colouring for his story. + +What I did not realise at the time was that Richard Dehan is like that. +Now, smitten to earth by the 500-page novel which he has just completed, I +think I understand better. _The Just Steward_, from one standpoint, makes +the labours of Gustave Flaubert in _Salaambo_ seem trivial. It is known +with what passionate tenacity and surprising ardour the French master +studied the subject of ancient Carthage, grubbing like the lowliest +archseologist to get at his fingertips all those recondite allusions so +necessary if he were to move with lightness, assurance and consummate art +through the scenes of his novel. But, frankly, one does not expect this of +the third daughter of an Irish soldier, an ex-journalist and the author of +a Drury Lane pantomime. Nevertheless the erudition is all here. From this +standpoint, _The Just Steward_ is truly monumental. I will show you a +sample or two: + +"Beautiful, even with the trench and wall of Diocletian's comparatively +recent siege scarring the orchards and vineyards of Lake Mareotis, +splendid even though her broken canals and aqueducts had never been +repaired, and part of her western quarter still displayed heaps of +calcined ruins where had been temples, palaces and academies, Alexandria +lay shimmering under the African sun.... + +"The vintage of Egypt was in full swing, the figs and dates were being +harvested. Swarms of wasps and hornets, armed with formidable stings, +yellow-striped like the dreaded nomads of the south and eastern frontiers, +greedily sucked the sugary juices of the ripe fruit. Flocks of fig-birds +twittered amongst the branches, being like the date-pigeons, almost too +gorged to fly. Half naked, dark or tawny skinned, tattooed native +labourers, hybrids of mingled races, with heads close-shaven save for a +topknot, dwellers in mud-hovels, drudges of the water-wheel, cut down the +heavy grape-clusters with sickle-shaped cooper knives. + +"Ebony, woolly-haired negroes in clean white breech-cloths, piled up the +gathered fruit in tall baskets woven of reeds and lined with leaves. Copts +with the rich reddish skins, the long eyes and boldly curving profiles of +Egyptian warriors and monarchs as presented on the walls of ancient +temples of Libya and the Thebaïd, moved about in leather-girdled blue +linen tunics and hide sandals, keeping account of the laden panniers, +roped upon the backs of diminutive asses and carried to the winepresses as +fast as they were filled. + +"The negroes sang as they set snares for fig-birds, and stuffed themselves +to the throat with grapes and custard-apples. The fat beccaficoes beloved +of the epicurean fell by hundreds into the limed horsehair traps. Greek, +Egyptian and negro girls, laughing under garlands of hibiscus, periwinkle +and tuberoses, coaxed the fat morsels out of the black men to carry home +for a supper treat, while acrobats, comic singers, sellers of cakes, +drinks and sweetmeats, with strolling jugglers and jesters and Jewish +fortune-tellers of both sexes, assailed the workers and the merrymakers +with importunities and made harvest in their own way." + +The story is extraordinary. Opening in the Alexandria of the fourth +century, it pictures two men, a Roman official and a Jewish steward, who +are friends unto death. The second of the four parts or books into which +the novel is divided opens in England in 1914. We have to do with John +Hazel, the descendant of Hazaël Aben Hazaël, and with the lovely Katharine +Forbis, whose ancestor was a Roman, Hazaël Aben Hazaël's sworn friend. + +A story of exciting action certainly; it has elements that would +ordinarily be called melodramatic--events which are focussed down into +realities against the tremendous background of an incredible war. The +exotic settings are Egypt and Palestine. It must not be thought that the +story is bizarre; the scenes in England, the English slang of John Hazel, +as well as the typical figure of Trixie, Lady Wastwood, are utterly +modern. I do not find anything to explain how Miss Graves could write such +a book; the answer is that Richard Dehan wrote it. + +=iii= + +Miss Graves, of whose antecedents and education we already know something, +is a Roman Catholic in faith and a Liberal Unionist in politics. She lives +at The Towers, Beeding, near Bramber, Sussex. Her recreations are +gardening and driving. + +But Richard Dehan knows the early history of the Christian Church; he +knows military life, strategy, tactics, types; he knows in a most +extraordinary way the details of Jewish history and religious observances; +he knows perfectly and as a matter of course all about English middle +class life; he knows all sorts of things about the East--Turkey and Arabia +and those countries. + +This is a discrepancy which will bear a good deal of accounting for. + +Before I try to account for it I will give you a long passage from _The +Just Steward_, describing the visit of Katharine Forbis and her friend to +the house of John Hazel, lately of London and now of Alexandria: + +"The negro porter who had opened the door, a huge Ethiopian of ebony +blackness, dressed and turbaned in snow-white linen, salaamed deeply to +the ladies, displaying as he did so a mouthful of teeth as dazzling in +whiteness and sharply-pointed as those of the mosaic dog. + +"Then the negro shut the heavy door and locked and bolted it. They heard +the car snort and move away as the heavy bolts scrooped in their ancient +grooves of stone. But, as they glanced back, towards the entrance, the +imperturbable attendant in the black kaftan waved them forward to where +another man, exactly like himself in feature, colouring and costume, +waited as imperturbably on the threshold of a larger hall beyond. On its +right-hand doorpost was affixed a cylinder of metal _repoussée_ with an +oval piece of glass on that something like a human eye. And the big +invisible bees went on humming as industriously and as sleepily as ever: + +"'Bz'zz'z!... Bzz'z!... Bzz m'm'm!...' + +"Perhaps it was the bees' thick, sleepy droning that made Miss Forbis feel +as though she had previously visited this house in a dream, in which, +though the mosaic dog had certainly figured, together with a negro who had +opened doors, the rows of shoes along the wall, the little creature +tripping at her side, the two dark, ultra-respectable men in black +tarbushes and kaftans had had no place or part. Only John Hazel had bulked +big. He was there, beyond the grave Semitic face of the second Jewish +secretary, on the farther side of the torrent of boiling amber sunshine +pouring through a central opening in the roof of the inner hall that +succeeded the vestibule of the mosaic Cerberus. An atrium some forty feet +in length, paved with squares of black and yellow marble with an oblong +pool in the midst of it, upon whose still crystal surface pink and crimson +petals of roses had been strewn in patterns, and in the centre of which a +triple-jetted fountain played. + +"The humming of the unseen bees came louder than ever, from a doorway in +the wall upon Katharine's right hand, a wall of black polished marble, +decorated with an inlaid ornament in porphyry of yellow and red and pale +green. The curtain of dyed and threaded reeds did not hide what lay beyond +the doorway. You saw a long, high-pitched whitewashed room, cooled by big +wooden electric fans working under the ceiling, and traversed by avenues +of creamy-white Chinese matting, running between rows of low native desks, +before each of which squatted, on naked or cotton-sock-covered heels, or +sat cross-legged upon a square native chintz cushion, a coffee-coloured, +almond-eyed young Copt, in a black or blue cotton nightgown, topped with +the tarbush of black felt or a dingy-white or olive-brown muslin turban, +murmuring softly to himself as he made entries, from right to left, in a +huge limp-covered ledger, or deftly fingered the balls of coloured clay +strung on the wires of the abacus at his side. + +"Oh! ... Wonderful! I'm so Glad you Brought me!' + +"Lady Wastwood's emphatic exclamation of pleasure in her surroundings +brought cessation in the humming--caused a swivelling of capped or +turbanned heads all down the length of three avenues--evoked a +simultaneous flash of black Oriental eyes, and white teeth in dusky faces +lifted or turned. Then at the upper end of the long counting-house, where +three wide glassless windows looked on a sanded palm-garden, and the +leather-topped knee-hole tables, roll-top desks, copying ink presses, +mahogany revolving-chairs, telephone installations, willow-paper baskets, +pewter inkstands and Post Office Directories suggested Cornhill and +Cheapside rather than the Orient--one of the olive-faced Jewish +head-clerks in kaftans and side-curls coughed--and as though he had pulled +a string controlling all the observant faces, every tooth was hidden and +every eye discreetly bent on the big limp ledgers again. + +"All the Coptic bees were humming sonorously in unison as Katharine went +forward to a lofty doorway, framing brightness, where waited to receive +her the master of the hive.... + +"The light beings behind him may have exaggerated his proportions, but he +seemed to Trixie the biggest man she had ever seen, and nearly the +ugliest. Close-curling coarse black hair capped his high-domed skull, and +his stern, powerful, swarthy face, big-nosed and long-chinned, with a +humorous quirk at the corners of the heavy-lipped mouth, that redeemed its +sensuousness, was lighted by eyes of the intensest black, burning under +heavy beetle-brows. His khaki uniform, though of fine material and +admirable cut, was that of a common ranker, and a narrow strip of colours +over the heart, and the fact of his left arm being bandaged and slung, +intimated to Lady Wastwood that Katharine's Jewish friend had already +served with some degree of distinction, and had been wounded in the War. +And drawing back with her characteristic inconquerable shyness, as he +advanced to Miss Forbis, plainly unconscious of any presence save hers, +Trixie's observant green eyes saw him bend his towering head, and sweep +his right arm out and down with slow Oriental stateliness, bringing back +the supple hand to touch breast, lips and brow. Whether or not he had +raised the hem of Katharine's skirt to his lips and kissed it, Lady +Wastwood could not definitely determine. She was left with the impression +that he had done this thing." + +=iv= + +I should have liked to have given, rather than purely descriptive +passages, a slice of the complicated and tense action with which the story +brims over, but there is the difficulty that such a scene might not be +intelligible to one not having read the story from the beginning. I must +resist the tendency to quote any more, having indulged it already to +excess, and I am ready to propound my theory of the existence of Richard +Dehan. + +If you receive a letter from The Towers, Beeding, it will bear a double +signature, like this: + + RICHARD DEHAN + CLOTILDE GRAVES + +Clotilde Graves has become a secondary personality. + +There was once a time when there was no Richard Dehan. There now are times +when there is no Clotilde Graves. + +To a woman in middle age an opportunity presented itself. It was the +chance to write a novel around the subject which, as a girl, she had come +to know a great deal about--the subject of war. To write about it and gain +attention, the novel required a man's signature. + +Then there was born in the mind of the woman who purposed to write the +novel the idea of a man--of _the_ man--who should be the novelist she +wanted to be. He should use as by right and from instinct the material +which lay inutile at her woman's disposal. + +She created Richard Dehan. Perhaps, in so doing, she created another +monster like Frankenstein's. I do not know. + +Born of necessity and opportunity and a woman's inventiveness, Richard +Dehan took over whatever of Clotilde Graves's he could use. He is now the +master. It is, intellectually and spiritually, as if he were the +full-grown son of Clotilde Graves. It is a partnership not less intimate +than that. + +Clotilde Graves--but she does not matter. I think she existed to bring +Richard Dehan into the world. + +BOOKS BY RICHARD DEHAN + +Novels: + THE LOVER'S BATTLE + THE DOP DOCTOR + BETWEEN TWO THIEVES + THE HEADQUARTER RECRUIT + THE COST OF WINGS + THE MAN OF IRON + OFF SANDY HOOK + EARTH TO EARTH + UNDER THE HERMES + THAT WHICH HATH WINGS + A SAILOR'S HOME + THE EVE OF PASCUA + THE VILLA OF THE PEACOCK + THE JUST STEWARD + +Plays + NITOCRIS + DRURY LANE PANTOMIME, PUSS IN BOOTS + DR. AND MRS. NEILL + A MOTHER OF THREE + A MATCHMAKER + THE BISHOP'S EYE + THE FOREST LOVERS + A MAKER OF COMEDIES + THE BOND OF NIKON + A TENEMENT TRAGEDY + + +SOURCES ON RICHARD DEHAN + +Who's Who [in England]. + +THE BOOKMAN for February, 1913 (Volume XXXVI, pp. 595-6), also brief +mention in THE BOOKMAN for September and October, 1912. + +Private Information. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +WITH FULL DIRECTIONS + + +=i= + +I have read the book called _Civilization in the United States_, a +collection of essays by various Americans, and count the time well spent +chiefly because, at the end of the chapter on "Sport," I came upon these +words by Ring W. Lardner: + +"The best sporting fiction we know of, practically the only sporting +fiction an adult may read without fear of stomach trouble, is contained in +the collected works of the late Charles E. Van Loan." + +This is expert testimony, if there is such a thing. The books Mr. Lardner +referred to are published in a five-volume memorial edition consisting +of: + + FORE! GOLF STORIES + SCORE BY INNINGS: BASEBALL STORIES + OLD MAN CURRY: RACETRACK STORIES + TAKING THE COUNT: PRIZE RING STORIES + BUCK PARVIN: STORIES OF THE MOTION PICTURE GAME. + +This collected edition was published by George H. Doran Company with the +arrangement that every cent above actual cost should go to Mrs. Van Loan +and her children. + +William T. Tilden, 2nd, was winner of the world's tennis championship in +1920 and 1921. With W. M. Johnston he was winner of the Davis cup in the +same years. He also won the United States championship in those years. His +book, _The Art of Lawn Tennis_, published in 1921, was republished in +1922. The revised edition included chapters on the winning of the Davis +cup and on the world's and the United States championships, on Mrs. +Mallory's play in the women's world championship games in France and +England, and on Mlle. Lenglen's play in America. Mr. Tilden also added an +estimate of the promising youngsters playing tennis and indulged in one or +two surprising and radical prophecies. + +_Twenty Years of Lawn Tennis_, by A. Wallis Myers, an English player of +distinction, has interesting chapters on play in other countries than +America, England and France. An anecdotal volume this, with moments on the +Riviera and matches played in South Africa. + +After unpreventable delays we have, at last, _The Gist of Golf_ by Harry +Vardon. Using remarkable photographs, Vardon devotes a chapter to each +club and chapters to stance, grip, and swing. Although the chief value of +the book is to the player who wants to improve his game, there is text +interesting to everyone familiar with golf; for Vardon gives personal +reminiscences covering years of play and illustrative of his +instructions. + +=ii= + +I suppose the fifty-three photographs, mostly full page ones, are the +outstanding feature of _Wild Life in the Tree Tops_, by Captain C. W. R. +Knight. This English book, large and flat, shows with the aid of the +camera, the merlin pursuing her quarry, young tawny owls in a disused +magpie's nest, female noctules and their young, the male kestrel brooding, +and a male buzzard that has just brought a rabbit to the younglings in the +nest. Plenty of other pictures like these! The chapters deal with the +buzzards of the Doone country, the lady's hawk, woodpeckers, brown owls, +sparrow-hawks, herons and various other feathered people. + +Did you ever read _Lad: A Dog_? Well, anyway, there is a man named Albert +Payson Terhune and he and his wife live at a place called "Sunny-bank," at +Pompton Lakes, New Jersey, where they raise prize winning collie dogs. +Photographs come from New Jersey showing Mr. and Mrs. Terhune taking +afternoon tea, entirely surrounded by magnificently coated collies. You +will also find, if you stray into a bookstore this autumn, a book with a +jacket drawn by Charles Livingston Bull--a jacket from which looms a +colossal collie. He carries in a firmly knotted shawl or blanket or sheet +or something (the knot clenched between his teeth) a new-born babe. +New-born or approximately so. The title of this book is _Further +Adventures of Lad_. + +Mr. Terhune writes the best dog stories. Read a little bit from the first +chapter of _Further Adventures of Lad_: + +"Even the crate which brought the new dog to the Place failed somehow to +destroy the illusion of size and fierceness. But the moment the crate door +was opened the delusion was wrecked by Lad himself. + +"Out on to the porch he walked. The ramshackle crate behind him had a +ridiculous air of chrysalis from which some bright thing had departed. For +a shaft of sunlight was shimmering athwart the veranda floor. And into the +middle of the warm bar of radiance Laddie stepped--and stood. + +"His fluffy puppy-coat of wavy mahogany-and-white caught a million +sunbeams, reflecting them back in tawny-orange glints and in a dazzle as +of snow. His forepaws were absurdly small even for a puppy's. Above them +the ridging of the stocky leg bones gave as clear promise of mighty size +and strength as did the amazingly deep little chest and square shoulders. + +"Here one day would stand a giant among dogs, powerful as a timber-wolf, +lithe as a cat, as dangerous to foes as an angry tiger; a dog without fear +or treachery; a dog of uncanny brain and great lovingly loyal heart and, +withal, a dancing sense of fun. A dog with a soul. + +"All this, any canine physiologist might have read from the compact frame, +the proud head carriage, the smoulder in the deep-set sorrowful dark eyes. +To the casual observer, he was but a beautiful and appealing and +wonderfully cuddleable bunch of puppyhood. + +"Lad's dark eyes swept the porch, the soft swelling green of the lawn. The +flash of fire-blue lake among the trees below. Then he deigned to look at +the group of humans at one side of him. Gravely, impersonally, he surveyed +them; not at all cowed or strange in his new surroundings; courteously +inquisitive as to the twist of luck that had set him down here and as to +the people who, presumably, were to be his future companions. + +"Perhaps the stout little heart quivered just a bit, if memory went back +to his home kennel and to the rowdy throng of brothers and sisters and, +most of all, to the soft furry mother against whose side he had nestled +every night since he was born. But if so, Lad was too valiant to show +homesickness by so much as a whimper. And, assuredly, this House of Peace +was infinitely better than the miserable crate wherein he had spent twenty +horrible and jouncing and smelly and noisy hours. + +"From one to another of the group strayed the level sorrowful gaze. After +the swift inspection Laddie's eyes rest again on the Mistress. For an +instant, he stood, looking at her, in that mildly polite curiosity which +held no hint of personal interest. + +"Then, all at once, his plumy tail began to wave. Into his sad eyes sprang +a flicker of warm friendliness. Unbidden--oblivious of everyone else--he +trotted across to where the Mistress sat. He put one tiny white paw in her +lap and stood thus, looking up lovingly into her face, tail awave, eyes +shining. + +"'There's no question whose dog he's going to be,' laughed the Master. +'He's elected you--by acclamation.'" + +=iii= + +Not content with being the husband of Margaret Sangster, C. M. Sheridan +has written _The Stag Cook Book_. I would have it understood that this is +an honest-to-goodness cook-book, although I readily confess that there is +plenty of humour throughout its pages. Mr. Sheridan has acquired various +unusual and unreplaceable recipes--I believe he secured from Wladislaw +Benda, the illustrator, a rare and secret formula for the preparation of a +species of Hungarian or Polish pastry. Now, as every housewife knows, and +as no man except a Frenchman or somebody like that knows, the preparation +of pastry is an intricate art. Simply to make ordinary French pastry +requires innumerable rollings to incredible thinnesses; besides which the +pastry has to be chilled; but there is more than that to this recondite +substance which Mr. Benda, probably under the terms of the Treaty of +Brest-Litovsk, surrendered to Mr. Sheridan. The pastry in question has to +be executed with the aid of geometrical designs. Mr. Sheridan has supplied +the necessary front elevation and working plans. He shows you where you +fold along the line from A to B--in other words, along the dotted line. +Thus no man using this unique cook-book can go wrong any more than his +wife can go wrong when making a new dress according to Pictorial Review or +McCall's or Delineator patterns. + +On the other hand, women remain still chiefly responsible for the food we +eat. Elizabeth A. Monaghan's _What to Eat and How to Prepare It_ is an +orthodox cook-book in contrast with Mr. Sheridan's daring adventure. + +=iv= + +Large numbers of people still play games. I do not mean cards or tennis or +golf or any of the famous outdoor and indoor sports, but just games, the +sort of things that are sometimes called stunts and that make the life of +the party--or, by their absence or failure, rob the evening gathering of +all its vitality. For the people who play games, Edna Geister is the one +best bet. Edna Geister knows all about stunts and games and parties and +she brims over with clever ideas for the hostess or recreation leader. You +will find them in her book _Ice-breakers and the Ice-breaker Herself_. The +second section of this book, _The Ice-breaker Herself_, has been bound +separately for the convenience of those already owning _Ice Breakers_. +Miss Geister's latest book, _It Is to Laugh_, was written primarily for +adults because there is so much material already available for the +recreation of children. Nevertheless almost every one of the games and +stunts described in _It Is to Laugh_ can be used for children. There are +games for large groups and small groups, games for the family, for dinner +parties, for community affairs and for almost any kind of social +gathering, with one chapter devoted to out-of-door and picnic programmes. + +Playing the piano is not a game, at least not as Mark Hambourg, the +pianist and composer, plays it. Hambourg, though born in South Russia in +1879, the eldest son of the late Professor Michel Hambourg, has for years +been a naturalised Englishman. In fact, he married in 1907 the Honourable +Dorothea Mackenzie, daughter of Lord Muir Mackenzie. And the pair have +four daughters. Mark Hambourg was a pupil of Leschetitzky in Vienna, where +he obtained the Liszt scholarship in 1894. He has made concert appearances +all over the world, his third American tour falling in 1907, and his first +Canadian tour in 1910. + +Mark Hambourg's book is called _How to Play the Piano_ and the text is +helped with practical illustrations and diagrams and a complete compendium +of five-finger exercises, scales, arpeggi, thirds and octaves as practised +by Hambourg. + +=v= + +Those who read The Bookman will not need to be told that the articles by +Robert Cortes Holliday on _Writing as a Business: A Practical Guide for +Authors_, will constitute an exceptional book. The great point about Mr. +Holliday's chapters, which have been written in collaboration with +Alexander Van Rensselaer, is that they are disinterested. There has been +an immense amount of printed matter, some of it in book form, telling of +the problems that confront the writer, especially the young beginner. As a +rule, the underlying motive was to induce people to write so that someone +else might make money out of their efforts, whether the writers did or +not. So-called correspondence schools in the art of writing, so-called +literary bureaus, interested individuals anxious to earn "commissions," +and sometimes individuals who purported to be publishers have for many +years carried on a continuous campaign at the expense of persons who did +not know how to write but who fancied they could write and who, above +everything, craved to write--craved seeing themselves in print and hearing +themselves referred to as "authors" or "writers." It would take a +statistician versed in all manner of mysteries and calculations to tell +how many people have been deluded by this stuff, and how much money has +been nuzzled out of them. The time was certainly here for someone in a +position to tell the truth to speak up. + +And of Mr. Holliday's qualifications there is no question. He has had to +do with books and authors and book publishing for years. He was, as his +readers know, for a number of years in the Scribner bookstore. He was with +Doubleday, Page & Company at Garden City; he was with George H. Doran +Company, serving not only as editor of The Bookman but acting in other +editorial capacities. He is now connected with Henry Holt & Company. As an +author he is amply established. Therefore, when he tells about writing and +book publishing and bookselling, and when he discusses such subjects as +"Publishing Your Own Book," his statements are most thoroughly documented. +The important thing, however, is that Mr. Holliday is disinterested, he +has no axe to grind in the advice he gives; although the impressive thing +about his book is the absence of advice and the continual presentation of +unvarnished facts. After all, confronted with the facts, the literary +aspirant of ordinary intelligence must and should reach his own +conclusions as regards what he wants to do and how best to essay it. This +is a sample of the kind of straightforwardness to which Mr. Holliday +adheres: + +"An experienced writer 'on his own' may earn a couple of hundred dollars +or so in one week, and for several weeks afterward average something like +$14.84. The beginner-writer should not consider that he has 'arrived' when +he has sold one story, or even several; it may be a year before he places +another. And the future of a writer who may be having a very fair success +now is not any too secure. Public taste changes. New orders come in. The +kind of thing which took so well yesterday may be quite out of fashion +tomorrow. + +"There is among people generally much misconception as to the profits +ordinarily derived by the author from the publication of a book. The price +of a novel today is about two dollars. Usually the author receives a +royalty of about fifteen cents a copy on the first two thousand copies +sold, and about twenty cents on each copy thereafter. A novel which sold +upward of 50,000 copies would bring the author something like $10,000. +Many men make as much as $10,000 by a year's work at some other business +or profession than authorship. But authors who make that amount in a year, +or anything near that amount, are exceedingly rare. A book is regarded by +the publisher as highly successful if it sells from five to ten thousand +copies. Far and away the greater number of books published do not sell as +many as 1,500 copies. Many far less. A recently published book, which +received a very cordial 'press,' has had an uncommon amount of publicity, +and the advertisements of which announce that it is in its 'fourth +printing,' has, after about half a year, earned for its author perhaps +$1,000. Its sale now in active measure is over. An author is fairly +fortunate who receives as much as $500 or $600 from the sale of his book. +I recall an excellent story published something over a year ago which was +much praised by many reviewers. It took the author probably the better +part of a year to write it. He was then six months or more getting it +accepted. He has not been able to place much of anything since. At the +end, then, of two years and a half he has received from his literary +labors about $110." + +Mr. Van Rensselaer has greatly enhanced the usefulness of _Writing as a +Business_ by the addition of very complete bibliographies. + +_Illumination and Its Development in the Present Day_, by Sidney +Farnsworth, has nothing to do with street or indoor lighting but has a +great deal to do with lettering and illuminating manuscripts. Mr. +Farnsworth traces the growth of illumination from its birth, showing, by +means of numerous diagrams and drawings, its gradual development through +the centuries from mere writing to the elaborate poster work and +commercial lettering of the present day. Although other books have already +been written on this fascinating subject, Mr. Farnsworth breaks new ground +in many directions; he treats the matter from the modern standpoint in a +manner which makes his work invaluable not only to students of the art, +but also to the rapidly-growing public interested in what has hitherto +been a somewhat exclusive craft. The book is well illustrated. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +FRANK SWINNERTON: ANALYST OF LOVERS + + +=i= + +It is as an analyst of lovers, I think, that Frank Swinnerton claims and +holds his place among those whom we still sometimes call the younger +novelists of England. + +I do not say this because his fame was achieved at a bound with +_Nocturne_, but because all his novels show a natural preoccupation with +the theme of love between the sexes. Usually it is a pair of young lovers +or contrasted pairs; but sometimes this is interestingly varied, as in +September, where we have a study of love that comes to a woman in middle +life. + +The unique character of _Nocturne_ makes it very hard to write about +Swinnerton. It is true that Arnold Bennett wrote: "I am prepared to say to +the judicious reader unacquainted with Swinnerton's work, 'Read +_Nocturne_,' and to stand or fall, and to let him stand or fall by the +result." At the same time, though the rule is that we must judge an artist +by his finest work and a genius by his greatest masterpiece, it is not +entirely just to estimate the living writer by a single unique +performance, an extraordinary piece of virtuosity, which _Nocturne_ +unquestionably is. For anyone who wishes to understand and appreciate +Swinnerton, I would recommend that he begin with _Coquette_, follow it +with _September_, follow that with _Shops and Houses_ and then read +_Nocturne_. That is, I would have made this recommendation a few months +ago, but so representative of all sides of Swinnerton's talent is his new +novel, _The Three Lovers_, that I should now prefer to say to anyone +unacquainted with Swinnerton: "Begin with _The Three Lovers_." And after +that I would have him read _Coquette_ and the other books in the order I +have named. After he had reached and finished _Nocturne_, I would have him +turn to the several earlier novels--_The Happy Family_, _On the +Staircase_, and _The Chaste Wife_. + +=ii= + +_The Three Lovers_, a full-length novel which Swinnerton finished in +Devonshire in the spring of 1922, is a story of human beings in conflict, +and it is also a picture of certain phases of modern life. A young and +intelligent girl, alone in the world, is introduced abruptly to a kind of +life with which she is unfamiliar. Thereafter the book shows the +development of her character and her struggle for the love of the men to +whom she is most attracted. The book steadily moves + +[Illustration: FRANK SWINNERTON] + +through its earlier chapters of introduction and growth to a climax that +is both dramatic and moving. It opens with a characteristic descriptive +passage from which I take a few sentences: + +"It was a suddenly cold evening towards the end of September.... The +street lamps were sharp brightnesses in the black night, wickedly +revealing the naked rain-swept paving-stones. It was an evening to make +one think with joy of succulent crumpets and rampant fires and warm +slippers and noggins of whisky; but it was not an evening for cats or +timid people. The cats were racing about the houses, drunken with primeval +savagery; the timid people were shuddering and looking in distress over +feebly hoisted shoulders, dreadfully prepared for disaster of any kind, +afraid of sounds and shadows and their own forgotten sins.... The wind +shook the window-panes; soot fell down all the chimneys; trees +continuously rustled as if they were trying to keep warm by constant +friction and movement." + +The imagination which sees in the movement of trees an endeavour to keep +warm is not less sharp in its discernment of human beings. I will give one +other passage, a conversation between Patricia Quin, the heroine, and +another girl: + +"'Do you mean he's in love with you?' asked Patricia. 'That seems to be +what's the matter.' + +"'Oho, it takes two to be in love,' scornfully cried Amy. 'And I'm not in +love with him.' + +"'But he's your friend.' + +"'That's just it. He won't recognise that men and women _can_ be friends. +He's a very decent fellow; but he's full of this sulky jealousy, and he +glowers and sulks whenever any other man comes near me. Well, that's not +my idea of friendship.' + +"'Nor mine,' echoed Patricia, trying to reconstruct her puzzled estimate +of their relations. 'But couldn't you stop that? Surely, if you put it +clearly to him....' + +"Amy interrupted with a laugh that was almost shrill. Her manner was +coldly contemptuous. + +"'You _are_ priceless!' she cried. 'You say the most wonderful things.' + +"'Well, _I_ should.' + +"'I wonder.' Amy moved about, collecting the plates. 'You see ... some day +I shall marry. And in a weak moment I said probably I'd marry him.' + +"'Oh, Amy! Of _course_ he's jealous.' Swiftly, Patricia did the young man +justice. + +"'I didn't give him any right to be. I told him I'd changed my mind. I've +told him lots of times that probably I sha'n't marry him.' + +"'But you keep him. Amy! You do encourage him.' Patricia was stricken +afresh with a generous impulse of emotion on Jack's behalf. 'I mean, by +not telling him straight out. Surely you can't keep a man waiting like +that? I wonder he doesn't _insist_.' + +"'Jack insist!' Amy was again scornful. 'Not he!' + +"There was a moment s pause. Innocently, Patricia ventured upon a +charitable interpretation. + +"'He must love you very much. But, Amy, if you don't love him.' + +"'What's love got to do with marriage?' asked Amy, with a sourly cynical +air. + +"'Hasn't it--everything?' Patricia was full of sincerity. She was too +absorbed in this story to help Amy to clear the table; but on finding +herself alone in the studio while the crockery was carried away to the +kitchen she mechanically shook the crumbs behind the gas-fire and folded +the napkin. This was the most astonishing moment of her day. + +"Presently Amy returned, and sat in the big armchair, while, seated upon +the podger and leaning back against the wall, Patricia smoked a +cigarette. + +"'You see, the sort of man one falls in love with doesn't make a good +husband,' announced Amy, as patiently as if Patricia had been in fact a +child. She persisted in her attitude of superior wisdom in the world's +ways. 'It's all very well; but a girl ought to be able to live with any +man she fancies, and then in the end marry the safe man for a ... well, +for life, if she likes.' + +"Patricia's eyes were opened wide. + +"'I shouldn't like that,' she said. 'I don't think the man would either.' + +"'Bless you, the men all _do_ it,' cried Amy, contemptuously. 'Don't make +any mistake about that.' + +"'I don't believe it,' said Patricia. 'Do you mean that my father--or +_your_ father...?' + +"'Oh, I don't know. I meant, nowadays. Most of the people you saw last +night are living together or living with other people.' + +"Patricia was aware of a chill. + +"'But _you've_ never,' she urged. 'I've never.' + +"'No.' Amy was obviously irritated by the personal application. 'That's +just it. I say we _ought_ to be free to do what we like. Men do what they +like.' + +"'D'you think Jack has lived with other girls?' + +"'My dear child, how do I know? I should hope he has.' + +"'Hope! Amy, you do make me feel a prig.' + +"'Perhaps you are one. Oh, I don't know. I'm sick of thinking, thinking, +thinking about it all. I never get any peace.' + +"'Is there somebody you _want_ to live with?' + +"'No. I wish there was. Then I should _know_' + +"'I wonder if you would know,' said Patricia, in a low voice. 'Amy, do you +really know what love is? Because I don't. I've sometimes let men kiss me, +and it doesn't seem to matter in the least. I don't particularly want to +kiss them, or to be kissed. I've never seen anything in all the flirtation +that goes on in dark corners. It's amusing once or twice; but it becomes +an awful bore. The men don't interest you. The thought of living with any +of them just turns me sick.'" + +=iii= + +The analysis, in _The Three Lovers_, of Patricia Quin is done with that +simplicity, quiet deftness and inoffensive frankness which is the hallmark +of Mr. Swinnerton's fiction. And, coming at last to _Nocturne_, I fall +back cheerfully upon the praise accorded that novel by H. G. Wells in his +preface to it. Said Mr. Wells: + +"Such a writer as Mr. Swinnerton sees life and renders it with a +steadiness and detachment and patience quite foreign to my disposition. He +has no underlying motive. He sees and tells. His aim is the attainment of +that beauty which comes with exquisite presentation. Seen through his art, +life is seen as one sees things through a crystal lens, more intensely, +more completed, and with less turbidity. There the business begins and +ends for him. He does not want you or anyone to do anything. + +"Mr. Swinnerton is not alone among recent writers in this clear detached +objectivity. But Mr. Swinnerton, like Mr. James Joyce, does not repudiate +the depths for the sake of the surface. His people are not splashes of +appearance, but living minds. Jenny and Emmy in this book are realities +inside and out; they are imaginative creatures so complete that one can +think with ease of Jenny ten years hence or of Emmy as a baby. The fickle +Alf is one of the most perfect Cockneys--a type so easy to caricature and +so hard to get true--in fiction. If there exists a better writing of +vulgar lovemaking, so base, so honest, so touchingly mean and so +touchingly full of the craving for happiness than this, I do not know of +it. Only a novelist who has had his troubles can understand fully what a +dance among china cups, what a skating over thin ice, what a tight-rope +performance is achieved in this astounding chapter. A false note, one +fatal line, would have ruined it all. On the one hand lay brutality; a +hundred imitative louts could have written a similar chapter brutally, +with the soul left out, we have loads of such 'strong stuff' and it is +nothing; on the other side was the still more dreadful fall into +sentimentality, the tear of conscious tenderness, the redeeming glimpse of +'better things' in Alf or Emmy that could at one stroke have converted +their reality into a genteel masquerade. The perfection of Alf and Emmy is +that at no point does a 'nature's gentleman' or a 'nature's lady' show +through and demand our refined sympathy. It is only by comparison with +this supreme conversation that the affair of Keith and Jenny seems to fall +short of perfection. But that also is at last perfected, I think, by +Jenny's final, 'Keith ... Oh, Keith!...' + +"Above these four figures again looms the majestic invention of 'Pa.' +Every reader can appreciate the truth and humour of Pa, but I doubt if +anyone without technical experience can realise how the atmosphere is made +and completed, and rounded off by Pa's beer, Pa's meals, and Pa's +accident, how he binds the bundle and makes the whole thing one, and what +an enviable triumph his achievement is. + +"But the book is before the reader and I will not enlarge upon its merits +further. Mr. Swinnerton has written four or five other novels before this +one, but none of them compares with it in quality. His earlier books were +strongly influenced by the work of George Gissing; they have something of +the same fatigued greyness of texture and little of the same artistic +completeness and intense vision of _Nocturne_. + +"This is a book that will not die. It is perfect, authentic and alive. +Whether a large and immediate popularity will fall to it, I cannot say, +but certainly the discriminating will find it and keep it and keep it +alive. If Mr. Swinnerton were never to write another word I think he might +count on this much of his work living, when many of the more portentous +reputations of today may have served their purpose in the world and become +no more than fading names." + +=iv= + +Arnold Bennett has described Swinnerton personally in a way no one else is +likely to surpass. I will prefix a few elemental facts which he has +neglected and then will let him have his say. + +Frank Arthur Swinnerton was born in Wood Green, England, in 1884, the +youngest son of Charles Swinnerton and Rose Cottam. He married, a few +years ago, Helen Dircks, a poet; her slim little book of verse, +_Passenger_, was published with a preface by Mr. Swinnerton. His first +three novels Swinnerton destroyed. His first novel to be published was +_The Merry Heart_. It is interesting to know that Floyd Dell was the first +American to appreciate Swinnerton. I make way for Mr. Bennett, who says: + +"One day perhaps eight or nine years ago I received a novel entitled _The +Casement_. The book was accompanied by a short, rather curt note from the +author, Frank Swinnerton, politely indicating that if I cared to read it +he would be glad, and implying that if I didn't care to read it, he should +endeavour still to survive. I would quote the letter but I cannot find +it--no doubt for the reason that all my correspondence is carefully filed +on the most modern filing system. I did not read _The Casement_ for a long +time. Why should I consecrate three irrecoverable hours or so to the work +of a man as to whom I had no credentials? Why should I thus introduce +foreign matter into the delicate cogwheels of my programme of reading? +However, after a delay of weeks, heaven in its deep wisdom inspired me +with a caprice to pick up the volume. + +"I had read, without fatigue but on the other hand without passionate +eagerness, about a hundred pages before the thought occurred suddenly to +me: 'I do not remember having yet come across one single ready-made phrase +in this story.' Such was my first definable thought concerning Frank +Swinnerton. I hate ready-made phrases, which in my view--and in that of +Schopenhauer--are the sure mark of a mediocre writer. I began to be +interested. I soon said to myself: 'This fellow has a distinguished +style.' I then perceived that the character-drawing was both subtle and +original, the atmosphere delicious, and the movement of the tale very +original, too. The novel stirred me--not by its powerfulness, for it did +not set out to be powerful--but by its individuality and distinction. I +thereupon wrote to Frank Swinnerton. I forget entirely what I said. But I +know that I decided that I must meet him. + +"When I came to London, considerably later, I took measures to meet him, +at the Authors' Club. He proved to be young; I daresay twenty-four or +twenty-five--medium height, medium looks, medium clothes, somewhat reddish +hair, and lively eyes. If I had seen him in a motorbus I should never have +said, 'A remarkable chap'--no more than if I had seen myself in a +motorbus. My impressions of the interview were rather like my impressions +of the book: at first somewhat negative, and only very slowly becoming +positive. He was reserved, as became a young author; I was reserved, as +became an older author; we were both reserved, as became Englishmen. Our +views on the only important thing in the world--that is to say, +fiction--agreed, not completely, but in the main; it would never have done +for us to agree completely. I was as much pleased by what he didn't say as +by what he said; quite as much by the indications of the stock inside the +shop as by the display in the window. The interview came to a calm close. +My knowledge of him acquired from it amounted to this, that he held +decided and righteous views upon literature, that his heart was not on his +sleeve, and that he worked in a publisher's office during the day and +wrote for himself in the evenings. + +"Then I saw no more of Swinnerton for a relatively long period. I read +other books of his. I read _The Young Idea_, and _The Happy Family_, and, +I think, his critical work on George Gissing. _The Happy Family_ marked a +new stage in his development. It has some really piquant scenes, and it +revealed that minute knowledge of middle-class life in the nearer suburbs +of London, and that disturbing insight into the hearts and brains of quite +unfashionable girls, which are two of his principal gifts. I read a sketch +of his of a commonplace crowd walking around a bandstand which brought me +to a real decision as to his qualities. The thing was like life, and it +was bathed in poetry. + +"Our acquaintance proceeded slowly, and I must be allowed to assert that +the initiative which pushed it forward was mine. It made a jump when he +spent a week-end in the Thames Estuary on my yacht. If any reader has a +curiosity to know what my yacht is not like, he should read the striking +yacht chapter in _Nocturne_. I am convinced that Swinnerton evolved the +yacht in _Nocturne_ from my yacht; but he ennobled, magnified, decorated, +enriched and bejewelled it till honestly I could not recognise my wretched +vessel. The yacht in _Nocturne_ is the yacht I want, ought to have, and +never shall have. I envy him the yacht in _Nocturne_, and my envy takes a +malicious pleasure in pointing out a mistake in the glowing scene. He +anchors his yacht in the middle of the Thames--as if the tyrannic +authorities of the Port of London would ever allow a yacht, or any other +craft, to anchor in midstream! + +"After the brief cruise our friendship grew rapidly. I now know +Swinnerton--probably as well as any man knows him; I have penetrated into +the interior of the shop. He has done several things since I first knew +him--rounded the corner of thirty, grown a beard, under the orders of a +doctor, and physically matured. Indeed, he looks decidedly stronger than +in fact he is--he was never able to pass the medical examination for the +army. He is still in the business of publishing, being one of the +principal personages in the ancient and well-tried firm of Chatto & +Windus, the English publishers of Swinburne and Mark Twain. He reads +manuscripts, including his own--and including mine. He refuses +manuscripts, though he did accept one of mine. He tells authors what they +ought to do and ought not to do. He is marvellously and terribly +particular and fussy about the format of the books issued by his firm. +Questions as to fonts of type, width of margins, disposition of +title-pages, tint and texture of bindings really do interest him. And +misprints--especially when he has read the proofs himself--give him +neuralgia and even worse afflictions. Indeed he is the ideal publisher for +an author. + +"Nevertheless, publishing is only a side-line of his. He still writes for +himself in the evenings and at week-ends--the office never sees him on +Saturdays. + +"Frank Swinnerton has other gifts. He is a surpassingly good raconteur. By +which I do not signify that the man who meets Swinnerton for the first, +second or third time will infallibly ache with laughter at his remarks. +Swinnerton only blossoms in the right atmosphere; he must know exactly +where he is; he must be perfectly sure of his environment, before the +flower uncloses. And he merely relates what he has seen, what he has taken +part in. The narrations would be naught if he were not the narrator. His +effects are helped by the fact that he is an excellent mimic and by his +utter realistic mercilessness. But like all first-class realists he is +also a romantic, and in his mercilessness there is a mysterious touch of +fundamental benevolence--as befits the attitude of one who does not worry +because human nature is not something different from what it actually is. +Lastly, in this connection, he has superlatively the laugh known as the +'infectious laugh.' When he laughs everybody laughs, everybody has to +laugh. There are men who tell side-splitting tales with the face of an +undertaker--for example, Irvin Cobb. There are men who can tell +side-splitting tales and openly and candidly rollick in them from the +first word; and of these latter is Frank Swinnerton. But Frank Swinnerton +can be more cruel than Irvin Cobb. Indeed, sometimes when he is telling a +story, his face becomes exactly like the face of Mephistopheles in +excellent humour with the world's sinfulness and idiocy. + +"Swinnerton's other gift is the critical. It has been said that an author +cannot be at once a first-class critic and a first-class creative artist. +To which absurdity I reply: What about William Dean Howells? And what +about Henry James, to name no other names? Anyhow, if Swinnerton excels in +fiction he also excels in literary criticism. The fact that the literary +editor of the Manchester Guardian wrote and asked him to write literary +criticism for the Manchester Guardian will perhaps convey nothing to the +American citizen. But to the Englishman of literary taste and experience +it has enormous import. The Manchester Guardian publishes the most +fastidious and judicious literary criticism in Britain. + +"I recall that once when Swinnerton was in my house I had there also a +young military officer with a mad passion for letters and a terrific +ambition to be an author. The officer gave me a manuscript to read. I +handed it over to Swinnerton to read, and then called upon Swinnerton to +criticise it in the presence of both of us. 'Your friend is very kind,' +said the officer to me afterward, 'but it was a frightful ordeal.' + +"The book on George Gissing I have already mentioned. But it was +Swinnerton's work on R. L. Stevenson that made the trouble in London. It +is a destructive work. It is bland and impartial, and not bereft of +laudatory passages, but since its appearance Stevenson's reputation has +never been the same." + +BOOKS BY FRANK SWINNERTON + +THE MERRY HEART +THE YOUNG IDEA +THE CASEMENT +THE HAPPY FAMILY +GEORGE GISSING: A CRITICAL STUDY +R. L. STEVENSON: A CRITICAL STUDY +ON THE STAIRCASE +THE CHASTE WIFE +NOCTURNE +SHOPS AND HOUSES +SEPTEMBER +COQUETTE +THE THREE LOVERS + + +SOURCES ON FRANK SWINNERTON + +Who's Who [In England]. + +Frank Swinnerton: Personal Sketches by Arnold Bennett, H. G. Wells, +Grant Overtor, Booklet published by GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY, 1920. + +Private Information. + + + + +Chapter XVI + +AN ARMFUL OF NOVELS, WITH NOTES ON THE NOVELISTS + + +=i= + +"The quiet, the calm, the extreme individualism, and the easy-going +self-content of my birthplace and early habitat--the Eastern Shore of +Maryland, have been, I fear, the dominating influences of my life," writes +Sophie Kerr. "Thank heaven, I had a restless, energetic, and very +bad-tempered father to leaven them, a man with a biting tongue and a kind +heart, a keen sense of the ridiculous and a passion for honesty in speech +and action. I, the younger of his two children, was his constant +companion. I tagged after him, every day and all day. Even when I was very +small he interested me--and very few fathers ever really interest their +children. + +"The usual life of a girl in a small semi-Southern town was mine. I +learned to cook, I made most of my own frocks, I embroidered excessively, +I played the violin worse than any other person in the world, I went away +to college and I came back again. I wasn't a popular girl socially for two +reasons. I had inherited my father's gift of sarcasm, and there was the +even greater handicap of a beautiful, popular, socially malleable older +sister. Beside her I was nowhere. + +"But I wanted to write, so I didn't care. I got my father to buy me a +second-hand typewriter, and learned to run it with two fingers. And I +wrote. I even sold some of the stuff. The Country Gentleman bought one of +my first stories, and the Ladies' World bought another. This was +glorious. + +"Then I got a job on the Pittsburgh Chronicle-Telegraph, an afternoon +newspaper owned by Senator Oliver. Later I went to The Gazette-Times, the +morning paper also owned by the Senator. A few years later I came to New +York and found a place on the staff of the Woman's Home Companion, +eventually becoming Managing Editor. Two years ago I resigned my editorial +job to give all my time to writing. Of course I had been writing pretty +steadily anyway, but holding my job too. + +"I had expected, when I gave up office work, to find my leisure time an +embarrassment. I planned so many things to do, how I would see all my +friends often, how I would travel, read, do all sorts of delightful things +that double work had before made impossible. But I've done none of them. I +haven't nearly as much time as I had when I hadn't any time at all, and +that's the honest truth. + +"If only I could arrange a multiple existence--one life for work; one for +the machinery of life, housekeeping, getting clothes made, shopping; one +for seeing my friends, travel, visiting; one life for the other diversions +such as music, the theatre, clubs, politics, one life for just plain +loafing. Now that would be wonderful. But to crowd it all into twenty-four +hours a day--no, too much of it gets squeezed out. + +"What do I like the most? Comfort, I think. And old painted satinwood, and +cats and prizefights, and dancing, and Spanish shawls, and looking at the +ocean, and having my own way. And I dislike argument, and perfume, and fat +women, and people who tell the sort of lies that simply insult your +intelligence, and men who begin letters 'Dear Lady,' and long earrings, +and intolerance." + +All of which is excellent preparation for the reader of Sophie Kerr's new +novel, _One Thing Is Certain_. Those who read her _Painted Meadows_ will +expect and will find in this new novel the same charming background, but +they will find a much more dramatic story. Since the novel is one of +surprise, with an event at its close which throws everything that went +before in a new, a curious, a startling and profoundly significant light, +I cannot indulge in any further description of it in this place. But I do +wish to quote some sentences from a letter Sophie Kerr wrote me: + +"I wanted to show that when lives get out of plumb, the way to straighten +them is not with a violent gesture. That when we do seize them, and try to +jerk them straight again, we invariably let ourselves in for long years of +unhappiness and remorse. Witness Louellen. In two desperate attempts ... +she tries to change the whole current and colour of her life." + +So much for the essential character of the story, but there is a question +in my mind as to what, in the story, readers will consider the true +essential! I think for very many it will not be the action, unusual and +dramatic as that is, but the picture of a peculiar community, one typical +of Maryland's Eastern Shore, where we have farmer folk in whom there lives +the spirit and tradition of a landed aristocracy. The true essential with +such readers, will be the individuals who are drawn with such humour and +skill, the mellowness of the scene; even such a detail as the culinary +triumph that was Louellen's wedding dinner. A marvellous and incomparable +meal! One reads of it, his mouth watering and his stomach crying out. + +=ii= + +_The House of Five Swords_, by Tristram Tupper, is a gallant +representative of those novels which we are beginning to get in the +inevitable reaction from such realism as _Main Street_ and _Moon-Calf_, a +romantic story of age and youth, of love and hate, of bitter unyielding +hardness, and of melting pity and tenderness. It begins with the Robin, +age seven, with burnished curls, viewing with awestruck delight five +polished swords against the shining dark wall in Colonial House, where she +had gone to deliver the Colonel's boots! She forgot the boots. She lifted +two of the swords from the wall, crossed them on the floor and danced the +sword dance of Scotland. From the doorway a white-haired old figure +watched with narrowed eyes and tightened mouth. Then the storm broke.... + +_The House of Five Swords_ is Mr. Tupper's first novel. A native of +Virginia, he has done newspaper work, has tramped a good deal and was +fooling with the study of law when American troops were ordered to the +Mexican border. After that experience he went overseas. On his return from +the war, he tried writing and met with rapid success. + +=iii= + +Readers of Baroness Orczy's novels will welcome _Nicolette_. + +This is essentially a love story, with the scene laid in the mountains of +Provence in the early days of the Restoration of King Louis XVIII to the +throne of France. An ancient half-ruined château perches among dwarf +olives and mimosa, orange and lemon groves. There is a vivid contrast +between the prosperity of Jaume Deydier, a rich peasant-proprietor, and +the grinding poverty of the proud and ancient family of de Ventadour, +whose last scion, Bertrand, goes to seek fortune in Paris and there +becomes affianced to a wealthy and beautiful heiress. Nicolette, the +daughter of Jaume Deydier, whose ancestor had been a lackey in the service +of the Comte de Ventadour, is passionately in love with Bertrand, but a +bitter feud keeps the lovers for long apart. + +There will be a new novel this autumn, _Ann and Her Mother_, by O. +Douglas, whose _Penny Plain_ gave great pleasure to its readers. "Penny +plain," if you remember, was the way Jean described the lot of herself and +her brothers whom she mothered in the Scottish cottage; but matters were +somewhat changed when romance crossed the threshold in the person of the +Honourable Pamela and a bitter old millionaire who came to claim the house +as his own. + +_Ann and Her Mother_ is the story of a Scotch family as seen through the +eyes of the mother and her daughter. The author of _Penny Plain_ and _Ann +and Her Mother_ is a sister of John Buchan, author of _The Thirty-nine +Steps_, _The Path of the King_, and many other books. + +_December Love_, by Robert Hichens, will have a greater popularity than +any of his novels since _The Garden of Allah_. It is a question whether +this uncannily penetrative study of power and the need for love of a woman +of sixty does not surpass _The Garden of Allah_. In Lady Sellingworth, Mr. +Hichens is dealing with a brilliant woman. The theme is daring and calls +for both skill and delicacy. Of the action, one really should not say very +much, lest one spoil the book for the reader. The loss of the Sellingworth +jewels in Paris had caused a sensation in the midst of which Lady +Sellingworth was silent. She declined to discuss the disappearance of the +jewels. There followed the advent at No. 4 Berkeley Square of Alick +Craven, a man of thirty, vigorous, attractive and decidedly a somebody. +But inexplicably--at any rate without explanation--Lady Sellingworth +retired from society when Craven appeared. + +_Tell England_ by Ernest Raymond is a novel which has been sensationally +successful in England. It is a war story and I will give you some of the +opening paragraphs of the "Prologue by Padre Monty": + +"In the year that the Colonel died he took little Rupert to see the +swallows fly away. I can find no better beginning than that. + +"When there devolved upon me as a labour of love the editing of Rupert +Ray's book, _Tell England_, I carried the manuscript to my room one bright +autumn afternoon and read it during the fall of a soft evening, till the +light failed, and my eyes burned with the strain of reading in the dark. I +could hardly leave his ingenuous tale to rise and turn on the gas. Nor, +perhaps, did I want such artificial brightness. There are times when one +prefers the twilight. Doubtless the tale held me fascinated because it +revealed the schooldays of those boys whom I met in their young manhood +and told afresh that wild old Gallipoli adventure which I shared with +them. Though, sadly enough, I take Heaven to witness that I was not the +idealised creature whom Rupert portrays. God bless them, how these boys +will idealise us! + +"Then again, as Rupert tells you, it was I who suggested to him the +writing of his story. And well I recall how he demurred, asking: + +"'But what am I to write about?' For he was always diffident and +unconscious of his power. + +"'Is Gallipoli nothing to write about?' I retorted. 'And you can't have +spent five years at a great public school like Kensington without one or +two sensational things. Pick them out and let us have them. For whatever +the modern theorists say, the main duty of a story-teller is certainly to +tell stories.'" + +This prologue is followed by the novel which begins with English public +school life in the fashion of _Sonia_ and other novels American readers +are familiar with. The main theme of the book is Gallipoli. + +The new novel by J. E. Buckrose is _A Knight Among Ladies_. Mrs. Buckrose +says that the character of Sid Dummeris in this book is modelled upon an +actual person. "He did actually live in a remote country place where I +used to stay a great deal when I was a child and as he has been gone +twenty years, I thought I might employ my exact memories of him without +hurting anyone." This was in answer to questions asked by The Bookman +(London) of a number of English writers. The London Bookman wanted to find +out if novelists generally drew their characters from actual people. The +replies showed that this proceeding was very rare. Mrs. Buckrose recalled +only one other instance in which she had used an actual person in her +fiction. Mrs. Buckrose is Mrs. Falconer Jameson. She lives at Hornsea, +East Yorkshire, and says: + +"My real hobby is my writing--as it was my secret pleasure from the age of +nine until I was over thirty when I first attempted to publish. I look +after my chickens, my house and a rather delicate husband; write my books +and try to do my duty to my neighbour!" + +=iv= + +Back of the new novel by Margaret Culkin Banning, _Spellbinders_, is the +question: Has the vote and its consequent widening of the mental horizon +introduced a brand new element of discord or a factor for mutual support +into modern marriage? The household of the George Flandons was almost +wrecked by it. That his wife should accept the opportunity to play her +part in State and National affairs seemed to George Flandon a desertion of +her real duty. + +Mrs. Banning has written a novel which will surprise those who remember +her only by her first novel, _This Marrying_. The surprise will be less +for those who read her second novel, _Half Loaves_, for they must have +been struck by the real understanding she showed of the married +relationship and the marked increase in her skill as a writer. +_Spellbinders_ is the sort of work one looks for after such a good novel +as _Half Loaves_. + +Mrs. Banning, who was married in 1914, lives in Duluth. A graduate of +Vassar, her first novel was written in one of Margaret Mayo's cottages at +Harmon, New York. She is of purely Irish ancestry, related to the Plunkett +family which bred both statesmen and revolutionaries for Ireland. On the +other side there was a Colonel Culkin, who, Mrs. Banning says, "came over +at the time of the Revolution but unfortunately fought on the wrong side, +so we forget him and begin our Culkin lineage in this country with the +Culkin who came over at the famous time of the 'potato-rot.'" That would +be the Irish famine of 1846, no doubt. + +_Sunny-San_, Onoto Watanna's first novel in six years, has been the signal +for her re-entrance not only into the world of fiction, but the world of +motion pictures and plays. Even before _Sunny-San_ was ready as a book, +the motion picture producers were on the author's track. A large sum was +paid cash down for the picture rights to the novel and then the prospect +of a picture was laid aside while the possibilities of a play were +estimated. These were seen to be exceptionally good. Here was a story of +young American boys travelling in Japan and coming upon a still younger +Japanese girl, threatened with cruelty and unhappiness. The young men +endowed Sunny-San, so to speak, planking down enough money to secure her +protection and education. Thereupon they continued blithely on their +travels and forgot all about her. + +Some years later a well-educated, dainty and exceedingly attractive +Japanese girl presents herself on the doorstep of a house in New York +where one of the young men resides. Situation! What shall the young man do +with his charming and unexpected protégée! In view of the prolonged +success of Fay Bainter in the play, _East Is West_, it was obviously the +thing to make a play out of _Sunny-San_. And this, I believe, is being +done as I write. In the meantime Onoto Watanna, who is really Mrs. +Winnifred Reeve, and who lives on a ranch near Calgary, Canada, is very +busy with her Canadian stories which have excited the enthusiasm of +magazine editors. I am confident that she will do a Canadian novel; the +more so because she tells me that, despite the success of _Sunny-San_ and +the enormous success of her earlier Japanese stories, like _A Japanese +Nightingale_, her interest is really centred at present in Canada, its +people and backgrounds. + +=v= + +Pending Dorothy Speare's second novel, let me suggest that those who have +not done so read her first, _Dancers in the Dark_. That a young woman just +out of Smith College should write this novel, that the novel should then +begin immediately selling at a great rate, and that David Belasco should +demand a play constructed from the novel is altogether a sequence to cause +surprise. I have had letters from older people who said frankly that they +could not express themselves about _Dancers in the Dark_, because it dealt +with a life with which they were utterly unfamiliar--which, in some cases, +they did not know existed. And yet it does exist! The demand for the book, +the avidity with which it has been read and the intemperance with which it +has been discussed testify that in _Dancers in the Dark_ Miss Speare wrote +a book with truth in it. I suppose it might be said of her first +novel--though I should not agree in saying it--that, like F. Scott +Fitzgerald's _This Side of Paradise_, it had every conceivable fault +except the fatal fault; it did not fail to live. The amount of publicity +that this book received was astonishing. I have handled clippings from +newspapers all over the country--and not mere "items" but "spreads" with +pictures--in which the epigrammatic utterances of the characters in +_Dancers_ were reprinted and their truth or falsity debated hotly. Is the +modern girl an "excitement eater"? Does she "live from man to man and +never kill off a man"? There was altogether too much smoke and heat in the +controversy for one to doubt the existence, underneath the surface of Miss +Speare's fiction, of glowing coals. And Miss Speare? Well, it is a fact +that, like her heroine in _Dancers_, she has an exceptional voice; and I +understand that she intends to cultivate the voice and to continue as a +writer, both. That is a very difficult programme to lay out for one's +self, but I really believe her capable of succeeding in both halves of the +programme. + +Another distinctly popular novel, _The Moon Out of Reach_, by Margaret +Pedler, is the fruit of a well-developed career as a novelist. _The Hermit +of Far End_, _The House of Dreams Come True_, _The Lamp of Fate_, and _The +Splendid Folly_ were the forerunners of this immediate and distinct +success. Mrs. Pedler is the wife of a sportsman well known in the West of +England, the nearest living descendant of Sir Francis Drake. They have a +lovely home in the country and Mrs. Pedler, besides the joys of her +writing, is a collector of old furniture and china and a devotee of +driving, tennis and swimming. It is interesting that as a girl she studied +at the Royal Academy of Music with a view to being a professional singer. +Marriage diverted her from that, but she still retains her interest in +music; and it is characteristic of such novels as _The Splendid Folly_ and +_The Moon Out of Reach_ that a lyric appearing in the book embodies the +theme of the story. These lyrics of Mrs. Pedler's have mostly been set to +music. + +What shall I say about Corra Harris's _The Eyes of Love_ except that it +offers such a study of marriage as only Mrs. Harris puts on paper? Shrewd +and homely wisdom, sympathetic and ironical humour, the insight and the +fundamental experience,--above all, imagination in experience--which made +their first deep and wide impression with the publication of _A Circuit +Rider's Wife_. I open _The Eyes of Love_ at random and come upon such a +passage as this, and then I don't wonder that men as well as women read +Corra Harris and continue to read her: + +"Few women are ever related by marriage to the minds of their husbands. +These minds are foreign countries where they discover themselves to be +aliens, speaking another smaller language and practically incapable of +mastering the manners and customs of that place. This is sometimes the +man's fault, because his mind is not a fit place for a nice person like +his wife to dwell, but more frequently it is the wife's fault, who is not +willing to associate intimately with the hardships that inhabit the mind +of a busy man, who has no time to ornament that area with ideas pertaining +to the finer things. So it happens that both of them prefer this divorce, +the man because the woman gets in the way with her scruples and emotions +when he is about to do business without reference to either; the woman +because it is easier to keep on the domestic periphery of her husband, +where she thinks she knows him and is married to him because she knows +what foods he likes, and the people he prefers to have asked to dine when +she entertains, the chair that fits him, the large pillow or the small one +he wants for his tired old head at night, the place where the light must +be when he reads in the evening rather than talk to her, because there is +nothing to talk about, since she is only the wife of his bosom and not of +his head." + +=vi= + +Phyllis Bottome is just as interesting as her novels. When scarcely more +than a child with large, delightful eyes, she began to write, and +completed at the age of seventeen a novel which Andrew Lang advised an +English publisher to accept. Thereafter she wrote regularly and with +increasing distinction. Ill-health drove her to Switzerland where, living +for some years, she met all kinds of people from all the countries of +Europe and America as well. + +It is interesting that her father was an American, although after his +marriage to an Englishwoman, he settled in England. Later Mr. Bottome came +to America and for six years during Phyllis Bottome's childhood he was +rector of Grace Church at Jamaica, New York. Phyllis Bottome is the wife +of A. E. Forbes Dennis, who, recovering from dangerous wounds in the war, +has been serving as passport officer at Vienna. They were married in 1917. +Those who know Phyllis Bottome personally say that the striking thing +about her is the extent of her acquaintance with people of all sorts and +conditions of life and her ready and unfailing sympathy with all kinds of +people. She herself says that she "has had friends who live humdrum and +simple lives and friends whose stories would bring a rush of doubt to the +most credulous believer in fiction." "My friendships have included +workmen, bargees, actresses, clergymen, thieves, scholars, dancers, +soldiers, sailors and even the manager of a bank. It would be true of me +to say that as a human being I prefer life to art, even if it would at the +same time be damning to admit that I know much more about it. I have no +preferences; men, women, children, animals and nature under every aspect +seem to me a mere choice of miracles. I have not perhaps many illusions, +but I have got hold of one or two certainties. I believe in life and I +know that it is very hard." + +The hardness of life, its uproar, its agony, its magnificence and its +duty, is the theme of Phyllis Bottome's latest and finest novel. When it +was published, because it was so different from Phyllis Bottome's earlier +work, I tried to draw attention to it by a letter in which I said: + +"I don't know whether you read J. C. Snaith's _The Sailor_. People said +Snaith got his suggestion from the life of John Masefield. _The Sailor_ +sold many thousands and people recall the book today, years afterward. +But, as an ex-sailor and a few other things, I never found Snaith's 'Enry +'Arper half so convincing as Jim Barton in Phyllis Bottome's new novel, +_The Kingfisher_. + +"Jim, a boy of the slums, reaching toward 'that broken image of the mind +of God--human love,' goes pretty deeply into me. Since reading those last +words of the book--'Beauty touched him. It was as if he saw, with a flash +of jewelled wings, a Kingfisher fly home'--I keep going back and rereading +bits.... + +"Won't you tackle _The Kingfisher_? If you'll read to the bottom of page +51, I'll take a chance beyond that. Read that far and then, if you stop +there, I've no word to say." + +Although this letter called for no special reply, I received dozens of +replies promising to read the book and then enthusiastic comments after +having read the book. I do not consider _The Kingfisher_ the greatest book +Phyllis Bottome will write, but it marks an important advance in her work +and it is a novel whose positive merits will last; it will be as moving +and as significant ten years from now as it is today. + +=vii= + +I come to a group of novels of which the chief aim of all except two is +entertainment. _The_ _Return of Alfred_, by the anonymous author of +_Patricia Brent, Spinster_, is the diverting narrative of a man who found +himself in another man's shoes. What made it particularly difficult was +that the other man had been a very bad egg, indeed. And there was, as +might have been feared (or anticipated), a girl to complicate matters +tremendously. + +E. F. Benson's _Peter_ is the story of a young man who made a point of +being different, of keeping his aloofness and paying just the amount of +charm and gaiety required for the dinners and opera seats which London +hostesses so gladly proffered. Then he married Silvia, not for her money +exactly, but he certainly would not have asked her if she hadn't had +money. No wonder E. F. Benson has a liberal and expectant audience! In +_Peter_ he shows an exquisite understanding of the quality of the love +between Peter and his boyish young wife. + +A. A. Milne is another name to conjure with among those who love humour +and charm, gentleness and a quiet shafting of the human depths. There is +his novel, _Mr. Pim_. Old Mr. Pim, in his gentle way, shuffled into the +Mardens' charming household. Mr. Pim said a few words and went +absentmindedly away,--leaving Mr. Marden with the devastating knowledge +that his wife was no wife, that her first husband, instead of lying +quietly in his grave in Australia, had just landed in England. In short, +the Mardens had been living in sin for five years! Then Mr. Pim came back +for his forgotten hat and the Marden household was again revolutionised. + +_Beauty for Ashes_, by Joan Sutherland, is a story with a more serious +theme. It really raises the question whether a man who has wrongly been +named as co-respondent is in honour bound to marry the defendant. The +affair of Lady Madge with Lord Desmond was an entirely innocent one, +despite what London said. Lady Madge's husband, wrought upon by shame and +anger, began his action for divorce; and Desmond found himself not merely +face to face with dishonour but bound by conventional honour for life to a +girl with whom he had simply been friendly. + +William Rose Benét had been known chiefly as a poet until the publication +of his first novel, _The First Person Singular_. The scene of _The First +Person Singular_ shifts between the kinetic panorama of modern New York +and the somewhat stultifying quietude of a small Pennsylvania town. A +mysterious Mrs. Ventress is the centre of its rapidly unfolding series of +peculiar situations. Mrs. Ventress is a puzzle to the townspeople. They +believe odd things about her. The particular family in Tupton with which +she comes in contact is an eccentric one. The father is a recluse--for +reasons. His adopted daughter, Bessie Gedney, is an odd character among +young girls in fiction. Dr. Gedney's real daughter had disappeared years +before. Why? What has become of her? This complicates the mystery. + +_The First Person Singular_ is a light novel, avowedly without the heavy +"significance" and desperately drab realism of many modern novels. And yet +it flashes with tragedy and implicates grim spiritual struggle without +tearing any passion to tatters. The author's touch is light, the variety +of his characters furnish him much diversion. The amusing side of each +situation does not escape him. His style has a certain effervescent +quality, but, for all that, the tragic developments of the story are not +shirked. + +Another treatment of a problem of marriage, a treatment sympathetic but +robust, is found in the new novel of F. E. Mills Young, _The Stronger +Influence_. Like Miss Mills Young's earlier novels, _Imprudence_ and _The +Almonds of Life_, the scene of _The Stronger Influence_ is British Africa. +The story is of the choice confronting a girl upon whom two men have a +vital claim. + +To be somebody is more ethical than to serve somebody. The individual has +not only a right but an obligation to sacrifice family entanglements in +the cause of a necessary personal independence. This is the attitude +expressed in Richard Blaker's novel, _The Voice in the Wilderness_. The +story centres around the figure of Charles Petrie, popular playwright in +London but known in Pelchester merely as a shabby fellow and to his family +a singularly sarcastic and annoying father. Sarcasm was Petrie's one +defence against the limp weight that was Mrs. Petrie His children would +have been astonished to hear him called a charming man of the world, yet +he was. It is probable that he never would have come out into the open to +combat if he hadn't been moved constantly to interfere and save his +daughter Cynthia from offering herself as a willing sacrifice to her +mother. Richard Blaker is new to America, a novelist of acutely pointed +characterisations and careful atmosphere. + +=viii= + +_Nêne_, the work of an unknown French school teacher, a novel +distinguished in France by the award of the Goncourt Prize as the most +distinguished French novel of the year 1920, had sold at this writing +400,000 copies in France. Three months after publication, it had sold in +this country less than 3,000 copies. + +I am glad to say that it was sufficient to draw to the attention of +Americans this deplorable discrepancy to arouse interest in the novel. +People of so divergent tastes as William Lyon Phelps, Corra Harris, Ralph +Connor, Walter Prichard Eaton, Mary Johnston, Dorothy Speare and Richard +LeGallienne have been at pains to express the feeling to which _Nêne_ has +stirred them. I have not space to quote them all, and so select as typical +the comment of Walter Prichard Eaton: + +"I read _Nêne_ with great interest, especially because of its relation to +_Maria Chapdelaine_. It seems to me the two books came out most happily +together. _Maria Chapdelaine_ gives us the French peasant in the new +world, touched with the pioneer spirit, and though close to the soil in +constant battle with nature, somehow always master of his fate. _Nêne_ +gives us this same racial stock, again close to the soil, but an old-world +soil its fathers worked, and the peasant here seems ringed around with +those old ghosts, their prejudices and their passions. I have seldom read +any book which seemed to me so unerringly to capture the enveloping +atmosphere of place and tradition, as it conditions the lives of people, +and yet to do it so (apparently) artlessly. This struck me so forcibly +that it was not till later I began to realise with a sigh--if one himself +is a writer, a sigh of envy--that _Nêne_ has a directness, a simplicity, a +principle of internal growth or dramatic life of its own, which, alas! +most of us are incapable of attaining." + +The author of _Carnival_, _Sinister Street_, _Plasher's Mead_; of those +highly comedic novels, _Poor Relations_ and _Rich Relatives_; of other and +still more diverse fiction, Compton Mackenzie, has turned to a new task. +His fine novel, _The Altar Steps_, concerns itself with a young priest of +the Church of England. We live in the England of Lytton Strachey's _Queen +Victoria_--the England of 1880 to the close of the Boer War--as we follow +Mark Lidderdale from boyhood to his ordination. _The Altar Steps_, it is +known will be followed by a novel probably to be called _The Parson's +Progress_. Evidently Mr. Mackenzie is bent upon a fictional study of the +whole problem of the Church of England in relation to our times, and +particularly the position of the Catholic party in the Church. + +"Simon Pure," who writes the monthly letter from London appearing in The +Bookman (and whose identity is a well-known secret!) thus describes, in +The Bookman for September, 1922, a visit to Mr. Mackenzie: + +"I have recently seen the author of _The Altar Steps_ upon his native +heath._ The Altar Steps_ is the latest work of Compton Mackenzie, and it +has done something to rehabilitate him with the critics. The press has +been less fiercely adverse than usual to the author. He is supposed to +have come back to the fold of the 'serious' writers, and so the fatted +calf has been slain for him. We shall see. My own impression is that +Mackenzie is a humorous writer, and that the wiseacres who want the novel +to be 'serious' are barking up the wrong tree. At any rate, there the book +is, and it is admitted to be a good book by all who have been condemning +Mackenzie as a trifler; and Mackenzie is going on with his sequel to it in +the pleasant land of Italy. I did not see him in Italy, but in Herm, one +of the minor Channel Islands. It took me a night to reach the place--a +night of fog and fog-signals--a night of mystery, with the moon full and +the water shrouded--and morning found the fog abruptly lifted, and the +islands before our eyes. They glittered under a brilliant sun. There came +hurried disembarking, a transference (for me, and after breakfast) to a +small boat called, by the owner's pleasantry, 'Watch Me' (Compton +Mackenzie), and then a fine sail (per motor) to Herm. I said to the +skipper that I supposed there must be many dangerous submerged rocks. 'My +dear fellow!' exclaimed the skipper, driven to familiarity by my naïveté. +And with that we reached the island. Upon the end of a pier stood a tall +figure, solitary. 'My host!' thought I. Not so. Merely an advance guard: +his engineer. We greeted--my reception being that of some foreign +potentate--and I was led up a fine winding road that made me think of +Samoa and Vailima and all the beauties of the South Seas. Upon the road +came another figure--this time a young man who made a friend of me at a +glance. He now took me in hand. Together we made the rest of the journey +along this beautiful road, and to the cottage of residence. I entered. +There was a scramble. At last I met my host, who leapt from bed to welcome +me! + +"From that moment my holiday was delightful. The island is really +magnificent. Short of a stream, it has everything one could wish for in +such a place. It has cliffs, a wood, a common fields under cultivation, +fields used as pasture, caves, shell beaches, several empty cottages. Its +bird life is wealthy in cuckoos and other magic-bringers; its flowers have +extraordinary interest; dogs and cattle and horses give domestic life, and +a boat or two may be used for excursions to Jethou, a smaller island near +by. And Mackenzie has this ideal place to live in for as much of the year +as he likes. None may gather there without his permission. He is the lord +of the manor, and his boundaries are the sea and the sky. We walked about +the islands, and saw their beauties, accompanied by a big dog--a Great +Dane--which coursed rabbits and lay like a dead fish in the bottom of a +small boat. And as each marvel of the little paradise presented itself, I +became more and more filled with that wicked thing, envy. But I believe +envy does not make much progress when the owner of the desired object so +evidently appreciates it with more gusto even than the envious one. Reason +is against envy in such a case. To have said, 'He doesn't appreciate it' +would have been a lie so manifest that it did not even occur to me. He +does. That is the secret of Mackenzie's personal ability to charm. He is +filled with vitality, but he is also filled with the power to take extreme +delight in the delight of others and to better it. Moreover, he gives one +the impression of understanding islands. Herm has been in his possession +for something more than a year, and he has lived there continuously all +that time (except for two or three visits to London, of short duration). +It has been in all his thoughts. He has seen it as a whole. He knows it +from end to end, its rocks, its birds, its trees and flowers and paths. +What wonder that his health is magnificent, his spirits high! What wonder +the critics have seen fit to praise _The Altar Steps_ as they have not +praised anything of Mackenzie's for years? If they had seen Herm, they +could have done nothing at all but praise without reserve." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE HETEROGENEOUS MAGIC OF MAUGHAM + + +=i= + +Now, I don't know where to begin. Probably I shall not know where to leave +off, either. That is my usual misfortune, to write a chapter at both ends. +It is a fatal thing, like the doubly-consuming candle. Perhaps I might +start with the sapience of Hector MacQuarrie, author of _Tahiti Days_. I +am tempted to, because so many people think of W. Somerset Maugham as the +author of _The Moon and Sixpence_. The day will come, however, when people +will think of him as the man who wrote _Of Human Bondage_. + +This novel does not need praise. All it needs, like the grand work it is, +is attention; and that it increasingly gets. + +[Illustration: W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM] + +=ii= + +Theodore Dreiser reviewed _Of Human Bondage_ for the New Republic. I +reprint part of what he said: + +"Sometimes in retrospect of a great book the mind falters, confused by the +multitude and yet the harmony of the detail, the strangeness of the +frettings, the brooding, musing intelligence that has foreseen, loved, +created, elaborated, perfected, until, in the middle ground which we call +life, somewhere between nothing and nothing, hangs the perfect thing which +we love and cannot understand, but which we are compelled to confess a +work of art. It is at once something and nothing, a dream of happy memory, +a song, a benediction. In viewing it one finds nothing to criticise or to +regret. The thing sings, it has colour. It has rapture. You wonder at the +loving, patient care which has evolved it. + +"Here is a novel or biography or autobiography or social transcript of the +utmost importance. To begin with, it is unmoral, as a novel of this kind +must necessarily be. The hero is born with a club foot, and in +consequence, and because of a temperament delicately attuned to the +miseries of life, suffers all the pains, recessions, and involute self +tortures which only those who have striven handicapped by what they have +considered a blighting defect can understand. He is a youth, therefore, +with an intense craving for sympathy and understanding. He must have it. +The thought of his lack, and the part which his disability plays in it +soon becomes an obsession. He is tortured, miserable. + +"Curiously the story rises to no spired climax. To some it has apparently +appealed as a drab, unrelieved narrative. To me at least it is a gorgeous +weave, as interesting and valuable at the beginning as at the end. There +is material in its three hundred thousand or more words for many novels +and indeed several philosophies, and even a religion or stoic hope. There +are a series of women, of course--drab, pathetic, enticing as the case may +be,--who lead him through the mazes of sentiment, sex, love, pity, +passion; a wonderful series of portraits and of incidents. There are a +series of men friends of a peculiarly inclusive range of intellectuality +and taste, who lead him, or whom he leads, through all the intricacies of +art, philosophy, criticism, humour. And lastly comes life itself, the +great land and sea of people, England, Germany, France, battering, +corroding, illuminating, a Goyaesque world. + +"Naturally I asked myself how such a book would be received in America, in +England. In the latter country I was sure, with its traditions and the +Athenæum and the Saturday Review, it would be adequately appreciated. +Imagine my surprise to find that the English reviews were almost uniformly +contemptuous and critical on moral and social grounds. The hero was a +weakling, not for a moment to be tolerated by sound, right-thinking men. +On the other hand, in America the reviewers for the most part have seen +its true merits and stated them. Need I say, however, that the New York +World finds it 'the sentimental servitude of a poor fool,' or that the +Philadelphia Press sees fit to dub it 'futile Philip,' or that the Outlook +feels that 'the author might have made his book true without making it so +frequently distasteful'; or that the Dial cries 'a most depressing +impression of the futility of life'? + +"Despite these dissonant voices it is still a book of the utmost import, +and has so been received. Compact of the experiences, the dreams, the +hopes, the fears, the disillusionments, the ruptures, and the +philosophising of a strangely starved soul, it is a beacon light by which +the wanderer may be guided. Nothing is left out; the author writes as +though it were a labour of love. It bears the imprint of an eager, almost +consuming desire to say truly what is in his heart. + +"Personally, I found myself aching with pain when, yearning for sympathy, +Philip begs the wretched Mildred, never his mistress but on his level, to +no more than tolerate him. He finally humiliates himself to the extent of +exclaiming, 'You don't know what it means to be a cripple!' The pathos of +it plumbs the depths. The death of Fannie Price, of the sixteen-year-old +mother in the slum, of Cronshaw, and the rambling agonies of old Ducroz +and of Philip himself, are perfect in their appeal. + +"There are many other and all equally brilliant pictures. No one short of +a genius could rout the philosophers from their lairs and label them as +individuals 'tempering life with rules agreeable to themselves' or could +follow Mildred Rogers, waitress of the London A B C restaurant, through +all the shabby windings of her tawdry soul. No other than a genius endowed +with an immense capacity for understanding and pity could have sympathised +with Fannie Price, with her futile and self-destructive art dreams; or old +Cronshaw, the wastrel of poetry and philosophy; or Mons. Ducroz, the +worn-out revolutionary; or Thorne Athelny, the caged grandee of Spain; or +Leonard Upjohn, airy master of the art of self-advancement; or Dr. South, +the vicar of Blackstable, and his wife--these are masterpieces. They are +marvellous portraits; they are as smooth as a Vermeer, as definite as a +Hals; as brooding and moving as a Rembrandt. The study of Carey himself, +while one sees him more as a medium through which the others express +themselves, still registers photographically at times. He is by no means a +brooding voice but a definite, active, vigorous character. + +"If the book can be said to have a fault it will lie for some in its +length, 300,000 words, or for others in the peculiar reticence with which +the last love affair in the story is handled. Until the coming of Sallie +Athelny all has been described with the utmost frankness. No situation, +however crude or embarrassing, has been shirked. In the matter of the +process by which he arrived at the intimacy which resulted in her becoming +pregnant not a word is said. All at once, by a slight frown which she +subsequently explains, the truth is forced upon you that there has been a +series of intimacies which have not been accounted for. After Mildred +Rogers and his relationship with Norah Nesbit it strikes one as +strange.... + +"One feels as though one were sitting before a splendid Shiraz or +Daghestan of priceless texture and intricate weave, admiring, feeling, +responding sensually to its colours and tones. Mr. Maugham ... has +suffered for the joy of the many who are to read after him. By no willing +of his own he has been compelled to take life by the hand and go down +where there has been little save sorrow and degradation. The cup of gall +and wormwood has obviously been lifted to his lips and to the last drop he +has been compelled to drink it. Because of this, we are enabled to see the +rug, woven of the tortures and delights of a life. We may actually walk +and talk with one whose hands and feet have been pierced with nails." + +=iii= + +I turn, for a different example of the heterogeneous magic of Maugham, +including his ability to create and sustain a mood in his readers, to the +words of Mr. MacQuarrie, who writes: + +"It was Tahiti. With a profound trust in my discretion, or perhaps an +utter ignorance of the homely fact that people have their feelings, a +London friend sent us a copy of _The Moon and_ _Sixpence_. This friend, +actually a beautiful, well set up woman of the intelligent class in +England (which is more often than not the upper fringes or spray of the +_bourgeoisie_), wrote: 'You will be interested in this book, since quite +the most charming portion of it deals with your remote island of Tahiti. I +met the author last night at Lady B----'s. I think the landlady at the +end, Mrs. Johnson, is a perfect darling.' + +"Knowing Somerset Maugham as a dramatist, the author of that kind of play +which never bored one, but rather sent one home suffused with +pleasantness, I opened the book with happy anticipation. Therefore--and +the title of the book, _The Moon and Sixpence_, gave a jolly calming +reaction--I was surprised and frankly annoyed when I found myself +compelled to follow the fortunes of a large red-headed man with mighty sex +appeal, who barged his way through female tears to a final goal which +seemed to be a spiritual achievement, and a nasty death in a native +_fare_. I was alarmed; here was a man writing something enormously strong, +when I had been accustomed to associate him with charming London +nights--the theatre, perfect acting, no middle class problems, a dropping +of one's women folks at their doors and a return to White's and whiskey +and a soda. And furthermore, in this book of his, he had picked up Lavina, +the famous landlady of the Tiare Hotel, the uncrowned queen of Tahiti, and +with a few strokes of his pen, had dissected her, and exposed her to the +world as she was. Here I must quote: + +"'Tall and extremely stout, she would have been an imposing presence if +the great good nature of her face had not made it impossible for her to +express anything but kindliness. Her arms were like legs of mutton, her +breasts like giant cabbages; her face, broad and fleshy, gave you an +impression of almost indecent nakedness and vast chin succeeded vast +chin.' + +"This may seem a small matter in a great world. Tahiti is a small world, +and this became a great matter. I read the book twice, decided that +Somerset Maugham could no longer be regarded as a pleasant liqueur, but +rather as the joint of a meal requiring steady digestion, and suppressed +_The Moon and Sixpence_ on Tahiti. The temptation to lend it to a kindred +spirit was almost unbearable, but the thought of Lavina hearing of the +above description of her person frightened me and I resisted. For kindred +souls, on Tahiti as elsewhere, have their own kindred souls, and slowly +but surely the fact that a writer had described her arms as legs of mutton +(perfect!) and her breasts as huge cabbages (even better!) would have +oozed its way to Lavina, sending her to bed for six days, with gloom +spread over Tahiti and no cocktails. + +"All of which is a trifle by the way. Yet in writing of Somerset Maugham +one must gaze along all lines of vision. And it seemed to me that Tahiti +in general, and Papeete in particular should supply a clear one; for here, +certainly, in the days when Maugham visited the island a man could be +mentally dead, spiritually naked and physically unashamed. I therefore +sought Lavina one afternoon as she sat clothed as with a garment by the +small side verandah of the Tiare Hotel. (Lavina was huge; the verandah was +a small verandah as verandahs go; there was just room for me and a bottle +of rum.) + +"'Lavina,' I remarked; 'many persons who write come to Tahiti.' + +"'It is true,' she admitted, 'but not as the heavy rain, rather as the few +drops at the end.' + +"'Do you like them?' I enquired. + +"One makes that kind of remark on Tahiti. The climate demands such, since +the answer can be almost anything, a meandering spreading-of-weight kind +of answer. + +"'These are good men,' said Lavina steadily, wandering off into the old +and possibly untrue story of a lady called Beatrice Grimshaw and her +dilemma on a schooner in mid-Pacific, when the captain, a gentle ancient, +thinking that the dark women were having it all their own way, offered to +embrace Miss Grimshaw, finding in return a gun pointing at his middle, +filling him with quaint surprise that anyone could possibly offer violence +in defence of a soul in so delightful a climate. + +"After which and a rum cocktail, I said: 'Lavina, did you see much of +M'sieur Somerset Maugham when he was here?' + +"'It is the man who writes?' she inquired lazily. + +"'It is,' I returned. + +"'It is the _beau garçon-ta-ta, neneenha roa?_' she suggested. + +"'Probably not,' I said; 'I suspect you are thinking, as usual, of Rupert +Brooke. M'sieur Maugham may be regarded as _beau_, but he is not an +elderly waiter of forty-seven, therefore we may not call him a _garçon_.' + +"'It is,' Lavina admitted; 'that I am thinking of M'sieur Rupert, he is +the _beau garçon_.' + +"'But,' I said, 'I want to know what you thought of M'sieur Somerset +Maugham?' + +"Once started on Rupert Brooke, and Lavina would go on for the afternoon! + +"'I respect M'sieur Morn,' said Lavina. + +"'Oh!' thought I; 'if she respects him, then I'm not going to get much.' + +"'His French is not mixed,' she continued, referring to Maugham's Parisian +accent; 'I speak much with him, and he listen, with but a small question +here, and one there. It is the pure French from Paris, as M'sieur _le +Governeur_ speak, who is the pig. But when he speak much, then it is like +the coral which breaks.' + +"Lavina now wandered off permanently; it was impossible to bring her back. +Her image of the brittle coral branches was a mild personality directed at +Maugham's stutter, which seldom escapes the most sophisticated observer. +For those who interview him always find well cut suitings, clean collars +and the stutter, and very little else that they can lay hold of with any +degree of honesty. Which only goes to prove my own opinion that Maugham, +as an observer, refuses to have his own vision clogged by prying eyes at +himself. + +"I expect that if my French had been better, I might have got some +information about Maugham in Tahiti from the bland and badly built French +officials who lurk in the official club near the Pomare Palace. I was +reduced, in my rather casual investigation, to questioning natives and +schooner captains. Once I felt confident of gaining a picture, I asked +Titi of Taunoa. (Titi is the lady who figures a trifle disgracefully in +Gauguin's _Noanoa_, the woman he found boring after a few weeks, her +French blood being insufficiently exotic to his spirit.) + +"Said Titi: 'M'sieur Morn? Yes, him I know; he speak good French, and take +the door down from the _fare_ on which is the picture done by Gauguin of +the lady whose legs are like thin pillows and her arms like fat ropes, +very what you call strained, and funny.' + +"After which her remarks centred around a lover of her sister, who had +just died at the age of seventy, and Titi considered that the denouement +made by Manu, the sister, was uncalled for at the death bed, since the +true and faithful wife stood there surrounded by nine children, all safely +born the right side of the sheet. She did mention that the removal of the +door from the _fare_ caused the wind to enter. And although I often made +inquiries, I never gained much information. Tahiti, as a whole, seemed +unaware of Maugham's visit. + +"They may have adored him; but I suspect he was a quiet joy, the kind +native Tahiti soon forgets, certainly not the kind of joy she embodies in +her national songs and _himines_. Such are the merry drunkards, +inefficient though earnest white hulahula dancers and the plain (more than +everyday) sinners who cut up rough with wild jagged edges and cruel +tearings. + +"His occasional appearance at the French club would raise his status, +removing any light touches with his junketings, perhaps turning them into +dignified ceremonies. Which, for the Tahitian, approaches the end. The +Tahitian never quite understands the white man who consorts with the +French officials, although many do. 'For are not these men of Farane,' +says the native, 'like the hen that talks without feathers?'--whatever +that may mean, but it suggests at once the talkative Frenchman denuding +himself on hot evenings, and wearing but the native _pareu_ to hide +portions of his bad figure. + +"But although, in some ways, Maugham hid himself from the natives and +pleasant half-castes, he saw them all right, and clearly, since the +closing pages of the _The Moon and Sixpence_ display a magical picture of +that portion of Tahiti he found time to explore." + +=iv= + +Mr. Maugham now offers us _On a Chinese Screen_, sketches of Chinese life, +and _East of Suez_, his new play. + +There are fifty-eight sketches in _On a Chinese Screen_, portraits +including European residents in China as well as native types. Here is a +sample of the book, the little descriptive study with which it closes, +entitled "A Libation to the Gods": + +"She was an old woman, and her face was wizened and deeply lined. In her +grey hair three long silver knives formed a fantastic headgear. Her dress +of faded blue consisted of a long jacket, worn and patched, and a pair of +trousers that reached a little below her calves. Her feet were bare, but +on one ankle she wore a silver bangle. It was plain that she was very +poor. She was not stout but squarely built and in her prime she must have +done without effort the heavy work in which her life had been spent. She +walked leisurely, with the sedate tread of an elderly woman, and she +carried on her arm a basket. She came down to the harbour; it was crowded +with painted junks; her eyes rested for a moment curiously on a man who +stood on a narrow bamboo raft, fishing with cormorants; and then she set +about her business. She put down her basket on the stones of the quay, at +the water's edge, and took from it a red candle. This she lit and fixed in +a chink of the stones. Then she took several joss-sticks, held each of +them for a moment in the flame of the candle and set them up around it. +She took three tiny bowls and filled them with a liquid that she had +brought with her in a bottle and placed them neatly in a row. Then from +her basket she took rolls of paper cash and paper 'shoes' and unravelled +them, so that they should burn easily. She made a little bonfire, and when +it was well alight she took the three bowls and poured out some of their +contents before the smouldering joss-sticks. She bowed herself three times +and muttered certain words. She stirred the burning paper so that the +flames burned brightly. Then she emptied the bowls on the stones and again +bowed three times. No one took the smallest notice of her. She took a few +more paper cash from her basket and flung them in the fire. Then, without +further ado, she took up her basket, and with the same leisurely, rather +heavy tread, walked away. The gods were duly propitiated, and like an old +peasant woman in France, who has satisfactorily done her day's +housekeeping, she went about her business." + +=v= + +W. Somerset Maugham was born in 1874, the son of Robert Ormond Maugham. He +married Syrie, daughter of the late Dr. Barnardo. Mr. Maugham has a +daughter. His education was got at King's School, Canterbury, at +Heidelberg University and at St. Thomas's Hospital, London. + +Mr. Maugham's father was a comparatively prominent solicitor, responsible +for the foundation of the Incorporated Society of Solicitors in England. +Somerset Maugham, after studying medicine at Heidelberg, went to St. +Thomas's, in the section of London known as Lambeth. He obtained his +medical degree there. St. Thomas's just across the river from Westminster +proved his medical ruin, and his literary birth. The hospital is situated +on the border of the slum areas of South London where much that is +hopeless, terrible, and wildly cheerful can be found. Persons are not +wanting who hold that the slums of Battersea and Lambeth contain more +misery and poverty than Limehouse, Whitechapel and the dark forest +surrounding the Commercial Road combined. To St. Thomas's daily comes a +procession of battered derelicts, seeking attention from the young men in +white tunics who hope to be doctors on their own account some day. To St. +Thomas's came Eliza of Lambeth, came Liza's mother, came Jim and Tom. Here +is the genesis of Maugham's first serious work, _Liza of Lambeth_. + +It will be simpler and less confusing to deal with Somerset Maugham in the +first instance as a maker of books rather than as a playwright. One cannot +help believing that, while not one of his plays can be regarded as a pot +boiler, they yet but seldom display that fervent purpose found in his +books. Yet in his plays, one finds a greater attention to conventional +technique and "form" than one finds in books like _Of Human Bondage_ and +_The Moon and Sixpence_. + +The first book launched by Somerset Maugham, _Liza of Lambeth_, could +hardly have been, considering its slight dimensions, a clearer indication +of the line he was to follow. It came out at a time when Gissing was still +in favour, and the odour of mean streets was accepted as synonymous with +literary honesty and courage. There is certainly no lack of either about +this idyll of Elizabeth Kemp of the lissome limbs and auburn hair. The +story pursues its way, and one sees the soul of a woman shining clearly +through the racy dialect and frolics of the Chingford beano, the rueful +futility of faithful Thomas and the engaging callousness of Liza's +mother. + +Somerset Maugham's next study in female portraiture showed how far he +could travel towards perfection. _Mrs. Craddock_, which is often called +his best book, is a sex satire punctuated by four curtains, two of comedy +and two of tragedy. This mixture of opposites should have been enough to +damn it in the eyes of a public intent upon classifying everything by +means of labels and of making everything so classified stick to its label +like grim death. Yet the unclassified may flourish, and does, when its +merit is beyond dispute. _Mrs. Craddock_ appeared fully a decade before +its time, when Victorian influences were still alive, and the modern idea +for well to do women to have something to justify their existence was +still in the nature of a novelty. Even in the fuller light of experience, +Maugham could hardly have bettered his study of an impulsive and exigent +woman, rising at the outset to the height of a bold and womanly choice in +defiance of social prejudice and family tradition, and then relapsing +under the disillusions of marriage into the weakest failings of her class, +rising again, from a self-torturing neurotic into a kind of Niobe at the +death of her baby. + +The ironic key of the book is at its best, in the passage half way +through-- + +"Mr. Craddock's principles, of course, were quite right; he had given her +plenty of run and ignored her cackle, and now she had come home to roost. +There is nothing like a knowledge of farming, and an acquaintance with the +habits of domestic animals, to teach a man how to manage his wife." + +=vi= + +As a playwright Mr. Maugham is quite as well known as he is for his +novels. The author of _Lady Frederick_, _Mrs. Dot_, and _Caroline_--the +creator of Lord Porteous and Lady Kitty in _The Circle_--writes his plays +because it amuses him to do so and because they supply him with an +excellent income. Here is a good story: + +It seems that Maugham had peddled his first play, _Lady Frederick_, to the +offices of seventeen well-known London managers, until it came to rest in +the Archives of the Court Theatre. The Court Theatre, standing in Sloane +Square near the Tube station, is definitely outside the London theatre +area, but as the scene of productions by the Stage Society, it is kept in +the running. However, it might conceivably be the last port of call for a +worn manuscript. + +It so happened that Athole Stewart, the manager of the Court Theatre, +found himself needing a play very badly during one season. The theatre had +to be kept open and there was nothing to keep it open with. From a dingy +pile of play manuscripts he chose _Lady Frederick_. He had no hopes of its +success--or so it is said--but the success materialised. At the +anniversary of _Lady Frederick_ in London, Maugham thought of asking to +dinner the seventeen managers who rejected the play, but realising that no +man enjoyed being reminded of a lost opportunity he decided to forgo the +pleasure. + +The circumstances in which _Caroline_ was written give an interesting +reflex on Maugham as an artist. This delicious comedy was put on paper +while Maugham was acting as British agent in Switzerland during the war. +Some of its more amusing lines were written in some haste while a spy (of +uncertain intentions toward Maugham) stood outside in the snow. + +=vii= + +Someone, probably the gifted Hector MacQuarrie, whom I fear I have +guiltily been quoting in almost every sentence of this chapter, has said +that Maugham writes "transcripts, not of life as a tolerable whole, but of +phases which suit his arbitrary treatment." It is an enlightening +comment. + +But Maugham himself is the keenest appraiser of his own intentions in his +work, as when he spoke of the stories in his book, _The Trembling of a +Leaf_, as not short stories, but "a study of the effect of the Islands of +the Pacific on the white man." + +The man never stays still. When you think the time is ripe for him +triumphally to tour America--when _The Moon and Sixpence_ has attracted +the widest attention--he insists on going immediately to China. This may +be because, though well set up, black-eyed, broad-framed and excessively +handsome in evening clothes, he is rather diffident. + +BOOKS BY W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM + +NOVELS: + LIZA OF LAMBETH + THE MAKING OF A SAINT + ORIENTATIONS + THE HERO + MRS. CRADDOCK + THE MERRY-GO-ROUND + THE LAND OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN + THE BISHOP'S APRON + THE EXPLORER + THE MAGICIAN + OF HUMAN BONDAGE + THE MOON AND SIXPENCE + THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF + ON A CHINESE SCREEN + +PLAYS: + SCHIFFBRÜCHIG + A MAN OF HONOUR + LADY FREDERICK + JACK STRAW + MRS. DOT + THE EXPLORER + PENELOPE + SMITH + THE TENTH MAN + GRACE + LOAVES AND FISHES + THE LAND OF PROMISE + CAROLINE + LOVE IN A COTTAGE + CAESAR'S WIFE + HOME AND BEAUTY + THE UNKNOWN + THE CIRCLE + EAST OF SUEZ + +SOURCES ON W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM + +Who's Who [In England]. + +Somerset Maugham in Tahiti: Hitherto unpublished article by Hector +MacQuarrie. + +THE BOOKMAN (London). + +Private information. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +BOOKS WE LIVE BY + + +=i= + +_The Parallel New Testament_ is by Dr. James Moffatt, whose _New +Translation of the New Testament_ has excited such wide admiration and +praise. _The Parallel New Testament_ presents the Authorised Version and +Professor Moffatt's translation in parallel columns, together with a brief +introduction to the New Testament. + +I suppose there is no sense in my expending adjectives in praise of Dr. +Moffatt's translation of the New Testament. I could do so very easily. But +what I think would be more effective would be to ask you to take a copy of +the Authorised Version and read in it some such passage as Luke, 24th +chapter, 13th verse, to the close of the chapter and then--and not +before!--read the same account from Dr. Moffatt's _New Translation_, as +follows: + +"That very day two of them were on their way to a village called Emmaus +about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were conversing about all these +events, and during their conversation and discussion Jesus himself +approached and walked beside them, though they were prevented from +recognising him. He said to them, 'What is all this you are debating on +your walk?' They stopped, looking downcast, and one of them, called +Cleopas, answered him, 'Are you a lone stranger in Jerusalem, not to know +what has been happening there?' 'What is that?' he said to them. They +replied, 'All about Jesus of Nazaret! To God and all the people he was a +prophet strong in action and utterance, but the high priests and our +rulers delivered him up to be sentenced to death and crucified him. Our +own hope was that he would be the redeemer of Israel; but he is dead and +that is three days ago! Though some women of our number gave us a +surprise; they were at the tomb early in the morning and could not find +his body, but they came to tell us they had actually seen a vision of +angels who declared he was alive. Some of our company did go to the tomb +and found things exactly as the women had said, but they did not see him.' +He said to them, 'Oh, foolish men, with hearts so slow to believe, after +all the prophets have declared! Had not the Christ to suffer thus and so +enter his glory?' Then he began with Moses and all the prophets and +interpreted to them the passages referring to himself throughout the +scriptures. Now they approached the village to which they were going. He +pretended to be going further on, but they pressed him, saying 'Stay with +us, for it is getting towards evening and the day has now declined.' So he +went in to stay with them. And as he lay at the table with them he took +the loaf, blessed it, broke it and handed it to them. Then their eyes were +opened and they recognised him, but he vanished from their sight. And they +said to one another, 'Did not our hearts glow within us when he was +talking to us on the road, opening up the scriptures for us?' So they got +up and returned that very hour to Jerusalem, where they found the eleven +and their friends all gathered, who told them that the Lord had really +risen and that he had appeared to Simon. Then they related their own +experience on the road and how they had recognised him when he broke the +loaf. Just as they were speaking He stood among them [and said to them, +'Peace to you!']. They were scared and terrified, imagining it was a ghost +they saw; but he said to them, 'Why are you upset? Why do doubts invade +your mind? Look at my hands and feet. It is I! Feel me and see; a ghost +has not flesh and bones as you see I have.' [With these words he showed +them his hands and feet.] Even yet they could not believe it for sheer +joy; they were lost in wonder. So he said to them, 'Have you any food +here?' And when they handed him a piece of broiled fish, he took and ate +it in their presence. Then he said to them, 'When I was still with you, +this is what I told you, that whatever is written about me in the law of +Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled.' Then he opened +their minds to understand the scriptures. 'Thus,' he said, 'it is written +that the Christ has to suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and +that repentance and the remission of sins must be preached in his name to +all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. To this you must bear testimony. +And I will send down on you what my Father has promised; wait in the city +till you are endued with power from on high.' He led them out as far as +Bethany; then, lifting his hands, he blessed them. And as he blessed them, +he parted from them [and was carried up to heaven]. They [worshipped him +and] returned with great joy to Jerusalem, where they spent all their time +within the temple, blessing God." + +I am particularly glad to say that Dr. Moffatt is at work now on a _New +Translation of the Old Testament_. No man living is fitter for this +tremendously important and tremendously difficult task than James Moffatt. +Born in Glasgow in 1870, Dr. Moffatt has been Professor of Church History +there since 1915. Of his many published studies in Bible literature, I now +speak only of _The Approach to the New Testament_, which he modestly +describes as "a brief statement of the general situation created by +historical criticism," aiming to "bring out the positive value of the New +Testament literature for the world of today as a source of guidance in +social reconstruction, so that readers might be enabled to recover or +retain a sense of its lasting significance for personal faith and social +ideals." + +=ii= + +With Alfred Dwight Sheffield's _Joining in Public Discussion_ was begun +publication of a unique collection of books suitable alike for general +reading and for use in trade union colleges. This is the Workers' +Bookshelf Series. These books, in many instances, are being written by the +chief authorities on their subjects--men who have dealt exhaustively with +their specialties in two and three-volume treatises, and who now bring +their great knowledge to a sharp focus and a simple, condensed statement +in small but wholly authoritative new books. + +The work of preparing these little masterpieces has been undertaken by an +editorial board chosen with the aid of the Workers' Education Bureau of +America. The board consists of Charles A. Beard, Miss Fannia Cohn, H. W. +L. Dana, John P. Frey, Arthur Gleason, Everitt Dean Martin, Spencer +Miller, Jr., George W. Perkins and Robert Wolf. + +Trade union colleges now exist all over the United States, training armies +of workers. The lack of suitable texts for use in these colleges has been +a serious obstacle to the training they desire to give. + +This obstacle the Workers' Bookshelf overcomes. The books that compose it +will each be distinguished for (a) scholarship, (b) a scientific attitude +toward facts, and (c) simplicity of style. + +Each volume is beginning as a class outline and will receive the benefit +of every suggestion, and criticism through its gradual growth into the +written book. + +Each book will be brief. Its references will help the reader to more +detailed sources of information. + +By binding the books in paper as well as in cloth, the volumes will be +brought within the reach of all. + +The Workers' Bookshelf will contain no volumes on vocational guidance, nor +any books which give "short cuts" to moneymaking success. + +The series will not be limited to any set number of volumes nor to any +programme of subjects. Art, literature and the natural sciences, as well +as the social sciences, will be dealt with. New titles will be added as +the demand for treatment of a topic becomes apparent. + +The first use of these books will be as texts to educate workers; the +intermediate use of the books will be as the nucleus of workingmen's +libraries, collective and personal, and the last use of the Workers' +Bookshelf will be to instruct and delight all readers of serious books +everywhere. + +In our modern industrial society, knowledge--things to know--increases +much more rapidly than our understanding. The worker finds it increasingly +difficult to comprehend the world he has done most to create. The +education of the worker consists in showing him in a simple fashion the +interrelations of that world and all its aspects as they are turned toward +him. On the education of the worker depends the future of industrialism, +and, indeed, of all human society. + +The author of _Joining in Public Discussion_ is professor of rhetoric in +Wellesley College and instructor in the Boston Trade Union College. His +book "is a study of effective speechmaking, for members of labour unions, +conferences, forums and other discussion groups." The first section is +upon "Qualifying Oneself to Contribute" to any discussion and the second +section is upon "Making the Discussion Group Co-operate." A brief +introduction explains "What Discussion Aims to Do." + +The following titles of the Workers' Bookshelf are in preparation: + +_Trade Union Policy_, by Dr. Leo Wolman, lecturer at the New School for +Social Research and instructor in the Workers' University of the +International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union. + +_Women and the Labor Movement_, by Alice Henry, editor of Life and Labour, +director of the Training School for Women Workers in Industry. + +_Labor and Health_, by Dr. Emery Hayhurst of Ohio State University, author +of "Industrial Health Hazards and Occupational Diseases." + +_Social Forces in Literature_, by Dr. H. W. L. Dana, formerly teacher of +comparative literature at Columbia, now instructor at Boston Trade Union +College. + +_The Creative Spirit in Industry_, by Robert B. Wolf, vice-president of +the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, member of the Federated +American Engineering Society. + +_Cooperative Movement_, by Dr. James B. Warbasse, president of the +Cooperative League of America and instructor at the Workers' University. + +=iii= + +Side by side in Esme Wingfield-Stratford's _Facing Reality_ are chapters +with these titles: "Thinking in a Passion" and "Mental Inertia." Those +chapter titles seem to me to signify the chief dangers confronting the +world today--perhaps confronting the world in any day--and the main +reasons why we do not face reality as we should. I regard _Facing Reality_ +as an important book and I am not alone in so regarding it. What do we +mean by reality? The answer is explicit in a sentence in Mr. +Wingfield-Stratford's introduction, where he says: + +"But if we are to get right with reality or, in the time-honoured +evangelical phrase, with God, it must be by a ruthless determination to +get the truth in religion, even if we have to break down Church walls to +attain it." + +Then the author proceeds to assess the social and ethical conditions which +threaten the world with spiritual bankruptcy. As he says: + +"Whether Germany can be fleeced of a yearly contribution, of doubtful +advantage to the receiver, for forty years or sixty, what particular +economic laws decree that Poles should be governed by Germans or +vice-versa, whose honour or profit demands the possession of the town of +Fiume or the district of Tetschen or the Island of Yap, why all the horses +and men of the Entente are necessary to compel the Port of Dantzig to +become a free city, what particular delicacy of national honour requires +that the impartial distribution of colonies should be interpreted as +meaning the appropriation of the whole of them by the victors--all these +things are held by universal consent to be more urgent and interesting +than the desperate necessity that confronts us all." + +And yet, for some, reality is not immanent in the affairs of this world +but only in those of the next. Among the men who, with Sir Oliver Lodge, +have gone most deeply and earnestly into the whole subject we call +"spiritualism," Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is now the most widely known as he +has always been the most persuasive. The overflowing crowds which came out +to hear him lecture on psychic evidences during his recent tour of America +testify to the unquenchable hope of mankind in a life beyond ours. Sir +Arthur has written three books on this subject closest to his heart. _The +New Revelation_ and _The Vital Message_ are both short books presenting +the general case for spiritualists; _The Wanderings of a Spiritualist_, +the result of a lecture tour in India and Australia, commingles incidents +of travel with discussions of psychic phenomena. I believe Sir Arthur has +in preparation a more extensive work, probably to be published under the +title _Spiritualism and Rationalism_. + +In recent years there has been something like a consensus honouring +Havelock Ellis as the ablest living authority on the subject of sex; or +perhaps I should say that Mr. Ellis and his wife are the most competent +writers on this difficult and delicate subject, so beset by fraudulent +theories and so much written upon by charlatans. Let me recommend to you +Havelock Ellis's slender book, _Little Essays of Love and Virtue_, for a +sane, attractive and, at the same time, authoritative handling of sex +problems. + +=iv= + +_Little Essays of Love and Virtue_, however, is, after all, only upon a +special subject, even though of extreme importance. There are others among +the books we live by which I must speak of here. It is tiresome to point +out that we are all self-made men or women, consciously or unconsciously, +in the sense that if we gain control of our habits, to a very large extent +we acquire control of our lives. If, in _Some Things That Matter_ Lord +Riddell did no more than point out this old truth, his book would not be +worth mentioning. What makes it so well worth mentioning, so much more +deserving of discussion than any I can enter upon here, is the fact that +Lord Riddell tells how to observe, how to read, and how to think--or +perhaps I should say how to develop the habit of thought. I think, so able +are his instructions, so pointed and so susceptible of carrying out by any +reader, that his book would carry due weight even if it were anonymous. +But for those who want assurance that the author of _Some Things That +Matter_ is himself somebody who matters, let me point out that he is one +of the largest newspaper proprietors in the world, a man whose grasp on +affairs has twice placed him at the head of news service for two +continents--once at the Peace Conference in Paris and afterward at the +Disarmament Conference in Washington. + +_Some Things That Matter_ is the best book of its kind since Arnold +Bennett's _How to Live on Twenty-four Hours a Day_, a little book of +trenchant advice to which it is a pleasure again to call attention. Of all +Mr. Bennett's pocket philosophies--_Self and Self-Management_, _Friendship +and Happiness_, _The Human Machine_, _Mental Efficiency_ and _Married +Life_--_How to Live on_ _Twenty-four Hours a Day_ is easily of the +greatest service to the greatest number of people. + +=v= + +I read Dr. George L. Perin's _Self-Healing Simplified_ in manuscript and +enthusiastically recommended its acceptance for publication. Dr. Perin was +the founder of the Franklin Square House for Girls in Boston, a home-hotel +from which 70,000 girls, most of whom Dr. Perin knew personally, have gone +forth all over these United States. His death at the end of 1921 was felt +by thousands of people as a personal loss. He left, in the manuscript of +this book, the best and simplest volume I know of on what is generally +called autosuggestion. And I have examined a great many books of the +sort. + +Discarding all extreme claims, Dr. Perin says in the first place that the +mind can heal; that it may not be able to heal alone; that obviously no +form of healing can be successful without a favourable mental state; that +the favourable mental state can usually be acquired by the sincere and +conscious effort of the sufferer. This effort should take the form of +certain affirmations. + +It is at this point that the ordinary book on autosuggestion breaks +down--so far as any practical usefulness is concerned. Either it +degenerates into a purely technical treatise or it becomes lost in a +mysticism which is to the average reader incomprehensible. What has long +been needed has been a book like _Self-Healing Simplified_, readable by +the ordinary person who has his own troubles to contend with and who knows +not how to contend with them; who is willing to believe that he can do his +part by cheerful resolutions and faith toward getting well, but who has no +idea what to do. + +Dr. Perin tells him _what_ to do, _what_ to say, _what_ to think and how +to order his daily life. Actually Dr. Perin does much more than this; his +own confidence and personal success inspire confidence and give the +impulsion toward one's own personal success. However, excellent as the +book might be, it would be worthless if it were not clearly and simply +expressed. It is. I remember no book of the kind so direct and so lucid. + +=vi= + +It is a pleasure to feel that his new book, _Poets and Puritans_, +introduces T. R. Glover to a wider audience. The author of _The Pilgrim_, +_Essays on Religion_, _The Nature and Purpose of a Christian Society_, +_Jesus in the Experience of Man_ and _The Jesus of History_ is a scholar +and somewhat of a recluse whom one finds after much groping about dim +halls at Cambridge. A highly individual personality! It is this +personality, though, that makes the fascination of _Poets and Pilgrims_--a +volume of studies in which the subjects are Spenser, Milton, Evelyn, +Bunyan, Boswell, Crabbe, Wordsworth and Carlyle. Mr. Glover notes at the +foot of the table of contents: "An acute young critic, who saw some of the +proofs, has asked me, with a hint of irony, whether Evelyn and Boswell +were Puritans or Poets. Any reader who has a conscience about the matter +must omit these essays." There you have the flavour of the man! It is +expressed further in the short preface of _Poets and Puritans_:-- + +"Wandering among books and enjoying them, I find in a certain sense that, +the more I enjoy them, the harder becomes the task of criticism, the less +sure one's faith in critical canons, and the fewer the canons themselves. +Of one thing, though, I grow more and more sure--that the real business of +the critic is to find out what is right with a great work of art--book, +song, statue, or picture--not what is wrong. Plenty of things may be +wrong, but it is what is right that really counts. If the critic's work is +to be worth while, it is the great element in the thing that he has to +seek and to find--to learn what it is that makes it live and gives it its +appeal, so that, as Montaigne said about Plutarch, men 'cannot do without' +it; why it is that in a world, where everything that can be 'scrapped' is +'scrapped,' is thrown aside and forgotten, this thing, this book or +picture, refuses to be ignored, but captures and charms men generations +after its maker has passed away. + +"With such a quest a man must not be in a hurry, and he does best to +linger in company with the great men whose work he wishes to understand, +and to postpone criticism to intimacy. This book comes in the end to be a +record of personal acquaintances and of enjoyment. But one is never done +with knowing the greatest men or the greatest works of art--they carry you +on and on, and at the last you feel you are only beginning. That is my +experience. I would not say that I know these men, of whom I have written, +thoroughly--a man of sense would hardly say that, but I can say that I +have enjoyed my work, and that, whatever other people may find it, to me +it has been a delight and an illumination." + +Another welcome book is E. V. Lucas's _Giving and Receiving_, a new volume +of essays. Since the appearance of _Roving East and Roving West_, Mr. +Lucas has been looking back at America from London with its fogs and +(yes!) its sunshine. The audience for his new book will include not only +those readers he has had for such volumes in the past but all those +personal friends that he made in a visit that took him from California to +the Battery. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +ROBERT W. CHAMBERS AND THE WHOLE TRUTH + + +=i= + +Once a man came to Robert W. Chambers and said words to this effect: + +"You had a great gift as a literary artist and you spoiled it. For some +reason or other, I don't know what, but I suppose there was more money in +the other thing, you wrote down to a big audience. Don't you think, +yourself, that your earlier work--those stories of Paris and those novels +of the American revolution--had something that you have sacrificed in your +novels of our modern day?" + +Mr. Chambers listened politely and attentively. When the man had finished, +Chambers said to him words to this effect: + +"You are mistaken. I have heard such talk. I am not to blame if some +people entertain a false impression. I have sacrificed nothing, neither +for money nor popularity nor anything else. + +"Sir, I am a story-teller. I have no other gift. Those who imagine that +they have seen in my earlier work some quality of literary distinction or +some unrealised possibility as an artist missing from my later work, are +wrong. + +"They have read into those stories their own satisfaction in them and +their first delight. I was new, then. In their pleasure, such as it was, +they imagined the arrival of someone whom they styled a great literary +artist. They imagined it all; it was not I. + +"A story-teller I began, and a story-teller I remain. I do pride myself on +being a good story-teller; if the verdict were overwhelmingly against me +as a good story-teller that would cast me down. I have no reason to +believe that the verdict is against me. + +"And that is the ground I myself have stood upon. I am not responsible for +the delusion of those who put me on some other, unearthly pinnacle, only +to realise, as the years went by, that I was not there at all. But they +can find me now where they first found me--where I rather suspect they +found me first with unalloyed delight." + +This does not pretend to be an actual transcription of the conversation +between Mr. Chambers and his visitor. I asked Mr. Chambers recently if he +recalled this interview. He said at this date he did not distinctly +recollect it and he added: + +"Probably I said what is true, that I write the sort of stories which at +the moment it amuses me to write; I trust to luck that it may also amuse +the public. + +"If a writer makes a hit with a story the public wants him to continue +that sort of story. It does not like to follow the moods of a writer from +gay to frivolous, from serious to grave, but I have always liked to +change, to experiment--just as I used to like to change my medium in +painting, aquarelle, oil, charcoal, wash, etc. + +"Unless I had a good time writing I'd do something else. I suit myself +first of all in choice of subject and treatment, and leave the rest to the +gods." + +As a human creature Chambers is strikingly versatile. It must always be +remembered that he started life as a painter. There is a story that +Charles Dana Gibson and Robert W. Chambers sent their first offerings to +Life at the same time. Mr. Chambers sent a picture and Mr. Gibson sent a +bit of writing. Mr. Gibson's offering was accepted and Robert W. Chambers +received a rejection slip. + +Not only was he a painter but Chambers has preserved his interest in art, +and is a welcome visitor in the offices of curators and directors of +museums because he is one of the few who can talk intelligently about +paintings. + +He knows enough about Chinese and Japanese antiques to enable him to +detect forgeries. He knows more about armour than anyone, perhaps, except +the man who made the marvellous collection of mediæval armour for the +Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. + +One of his varieties of knowledge, observable by any reader of his novels, +is lepidoptery--the science of butterflies. He collects butterflies with +exceeding ardour. But then, he is a good deal of an outdoor man. He knows +horses and books; he has been known to hunt; he has been seen with a +fishing rod in his hand. + +His knowledge of out-of-the-way places in different parts of the +world--Paris, Petrograd--is not usual. + +Will you believe me if I add that he is something of an expert on rare +rugs? + +Of course, I am, to some extent, taking Rupert Hughes's word for these +accomplishments; and yet they are visible in the written work of Robert W. +Chambers where, as a rule, they appear without extrusion. + +=ii= + +And here is the newest Robert W. Chambers novel, _Eris_. Mr. Chambers's +_The Flaming Jewel_, a melodrama of the maddest character, was published +last spring. _Eris_ is really a story of the movie world, and reaches its +most definite conclusion, possibly, in a passage where the hero says to +Eris Odell: + +"Whether they are financing a picture, directing it, releasing it, +exhibiting it, or acting in it, these vermin are likely to do it to death. +Your profession is crawling with them. It needs delousing." + +But I am not really anxious, in this chapter, to discuss the justice or +injustice of the view of motion pictures thus forcibly presented. I have +read _Eris_ with an interest sharpened by the fact that its hero is a +writer. I seem to see in what is said about and by Barry Annan expressions +of Mr. Chambers's own attitude of more than casual importance. + +Barry Annan is obsessed with the stupidity of the American mass and more +particularly with the grossness (as he sees it) of New York City. + +"Annan went on with his breakfast leisurely. As he ate he read over his +pencilled manuscript and corrected it between bites of muffin and bacon. + +"It was laid out on the lines of those modern short stories which had +proven so popular and which had lifted Barry Annan out of the uniform +ranks of the unidentified and given him an individual and approving +audience for whatever he chose to offer them. + +"Already there had been lively competition among periodical publishers for +the work of this newcomer. + +"His first volume of short stories was now in preparation. Repetition had +stencilled his name and his photograph upon the public cerebrum. Success +had not yet enraged the less successful in the literary puddle. The frogs +chanted politely in praise of their own comrade. + +"The maiden, too, who sips the literary soup that seeps through the pages +of periodical publications, was already requesting his autograph. Clipping +agencies began to pursue him; film companies wasted his time with +glittering offers that never materialised. Annan was on the way to +premature fame and fortune. And to the aftermath that follows for all who +win too easily and too soon. + +"There is a King Stork for all puddles. His law is the law of +compensations. Dame Nature executes it--alike on species that swarm and on +individuals that ripen too quickly. + +"Annan wrote very fast. There was about thirty-five hundred words in the +story of Eris. He finished it by half past ten. + +"Re-reading it, he realised it had all the concentrated brilliancy of an +epigram. Whether or not it would hold water did not bother him. The story +of Eris was Barry Annan at his easiest and most persuasive. There was the +characteristic and ungodly skill in it, the subtle partnership with a +mindless public that seduces to mental speculation; the reassuring caress +as reward for intellectual penetration; that inborn cleverness that makes +the reader see, applaud, or pity him or herself in the sympathetic rôle of +a plaything of Chance and Fate. + +"And always Barry Annan left the victim of his tact and technique +agreeably trapped, suffering gratefully, excited by self-approval to the +verge of sentimental tears. + +"'That'll make 'em ruffle their plumage and gulp down a sob or two,' he +reflected, his tongue in his cheek, a little intoxicated, as usual, by his +own infernal facility. + +"He lit a cigarette, shuffled his manuscript, numbered the pages, and +stuffed them into his pocket. The damned thing was done." + +And again:-- + +"Considering her, now, a half-smile touching his lips, it occurred to him +that here, in her, he saw his audience in the flesh. This was what his +written words did to his readers. His skill held their attention; his +persuasive technique, unsuspected, led them where he guided. His +cleverness meddled with their intellectual emotions. The more primitive +felt it physically, too. + +"When he dismissed them at the bottom of the last page they went away +about their myriad vocations. But his brand was on their hearts. They were +his, these countless listeners whom he had never seen--never would see. + +"He checked his agreeable revery. This wouldn't do. He was becoming smug. +Reaction brought the inevitable note of alarm. Suppose his audience tired +of him. Suppose he lost them. Chastened, he realised what his audience +meant to him--these thousands of unknown people whose minds he titivated, +whose reason he juggled with and whose heart-strings he yanked, his tongue +in his cheek." + +And this further on:-- + +"He went into his room but did not light the lamp. For a long while he sat +by the open window looking out into the darkness of Governor's Place. + +"It probably was nothing he saw out there that brought to his lips a +slight recurrent smile. + +"The bad habit of working late at night was growing on this young man. It +is a picturesque habit, and one of the most imbecile, because sound work +is done only with a normal mind. + +"He made himself some coffee. A rush of genius to the head followed +stimulation. He had a grand time, revelling with pen and pad and littering +the floor with inked sheets unnumbered and still wet. His was a messy +genius. His plot-logic held by the grace of God and a hair-line. Even the +Leaning Tower of Pisa can be plumbed; and the lead dangled inside +Achilles's tendon when one held the string to the medulla of Annan's +stories." + +Our young man is undergoing a variety of interesting changes: + +"Partly experimental, partly sympathetically responsive, always tenderly +curious, this young man drifted gratefully through the inevitable episodes +to which all young men are heir. + +"And something in him always transmuted into ultimate friendship the +sentimental chaos, where comedy and tragedy clashed at the crisis. + +"The result was professional knowledge. Which, however, he had employed +rather ruthlessly in his work. For he resolutely cut out all that had been +agreeable to the generations which had thriven on the various phases of +virtue and its rewards. Beauty he replaced with ugliness; dreary squalor +was the setting for crippled body and deformed mind. The heavy twilight of +Scandinavian insanity touched his pages where sombre shapes born out of +Jewish Russia moved like anachronisms through the unpolluted sunshine of +the New World. + +"His were essays on the enormous meanness of mankind--meaner conditions, +mean minds, mean aspirations, and a little mean horizon to encompass all. + +"Out of his theme, patiently, deftly, ingeniously he extracted every atom +of that beauty, sanity, inspired imagination which _makes_ the imperfect +more perfect, creates _better_ than the materials permit, _forces_ real +life actually to assume and _be_ what the passionate desire for sanity and +beauty demands." + +There comes a time when Eris Odell says to Barry Annan:-- + +"'I could neither understand nor play such a character as the woman in +your last book.... Nor could I ever believe in her.... Nor in the ugliness +of her world--the world you write about, nor in the dreary, hopeless, +malformed, starving minds you analyse.... My God, Mr. Annan--are there no +wholesome brains in the world you write about?'" + +I think these citations interesting. I do not feel especially competent to +produce from them inferences regarding Mr. Chambers's own attitude toward +his work. + +_Eris_ will be published early in 1923, following Mr. Chambers's _The +Talkers_. + +=iii= + +Mr. Chambers was born in Brooklyn, May 26, 1865, the son of William +Chambers and Carolyn (Boughton) Chambers. Walter Boughton Chambers, the +architect, is his brother. Robert William Chambers was a student in the +Julien Academy in Paris from 1886 to 1893. He married, on July 12, 1898, +Elsa Vaughn Moler. He first exhibited in the Paris Salon in 1889; he was +an illustrator for Life, Truth, Vogue and other magazines. His first book, +_In the Quarter_, was published in 1893; and when, in the same year, a +collection of stories of Paris called _The King in Yellow_ made its +appearance, Robert W. Chambers became a name of literary importance. + +Curiously enough, among the things persistently remembered about Mr. +Chambers to this day is a particular poem in a book of rollicking verse +called _With the Band_, which he published in 1895. This cherished--by +very many people scattered here and there--poem had to do with Irishmen +parading. One stanza will identify it. + + "Ses Corporal Madden to Private McFadden: + 'Bedad yer a bad 'un! + Now turn out yer toes! + Yer belt is unhookit, + Yer cap is on crookit, + Yer may not be drunk, + But, be jabers, ye look it! + Wan-two! + Wan-two! + Ye monkey-faced divil, I'll jolly ye through! + Wan-two! + Time! Mark! + Ye march like the aigle in Cintheral Park!'" + +In the course of writing many books, Chambers has been responsible for one +or two shows. He wrote for Ada Rehan, _The Witch of Ellangowan_, a drama +produced at Daly's Theatre. His _Iole_ was the basis of a delightful +musical comedy produced in New York in 1913. He is a member of the +National Institute of Arts and Letters. + +BOOKS BY ROBERT W. CHAMBERS + +IN THE QUARTER +THE KING IN YELLOW +THE RED REPUBLIC +THE KING AND A FEW DUKES +THE MAKER OF MOONS +WITH THE BAND +THE MYSTERY OF CHOICE +LORRAINE +ASHES OF EMPIRE +THE HAUNTS OF MEN +THE CAMBRIC MASK +OUTSIDERS +THE CONSPIRATORS +CARDIGAN +THE MAID-AT-ARMS +OUTDOOR-LAND +THE MAIDS OF PARADISE +ORCHARD-LAND +FOREST LAND +IOLE +THE FIGHTING CHANCE +MOUNTAIN LAND +THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS +THE TREE OF HEAVEN +THE FIRING LINE +SOME LADIES IN HASTE +THE DANGER MARK +THE SPECIAL MESSENGER +HIDE AND SEEK IN FORESTLAND +THE GREEN MOUSE +AILSA PAIGE +BLUE-BIRD WEATHER +JAPONETTE +THE STREETS OF ASCALON +ADVENTURES OF A MODEST MAN +THE BUSINESS OF LIFE +THE COMMON LAW +THE GAY REBELLION +WHO GOES THERE? +THE HIDDEN CHILDREN +ATHALIE +POLICE!!! +THE GIRL PHILIPPA +THE BARBARIANS +THE RESTLESS SEX +THE MOONLIT WAY +IN SECRET +THE CRIMSON TIDE +THE SLAYER OF SOULS +THE LITTLE RED FOOT +THE FLAMING JEWEL +THE TALKERS +ERIS + +SOURCES ON ROBERT W. CHAMBERS + +Hugh Walpole: An Appreciation, by Joseph Hergesheimer, GEORGE H. DORAN +COMPANY. + +English Literature During the Last Half Century, by J. W. Cunliffe, THE +MACMILLAN COMPANY. + +A Hugh Walpole Anthology, selected by the author. LONDON: J. M. DENT +& SONS. NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY. + +Hugh Walpole, Master Novelist. Pamphlet published by GEORGE H. DORAN +COMPANY. (Out of print.) + +Who's Who [In England]. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +UNIQUITIES + + +=i= + +Each of these five is a book which, either from its subject, its +authorship, or its handling, is _sui generis_. I call such books +"uniquities"; it sounds a little less trite than saying they are unique. I +think I will let someone else speak of these books. I will look to see, +and will let you see, what others have said about my uniquities. + +=ii= + +First we have _Our Navy at War_ by Josephus Daniels. W. B. M'Cormick, +formerly of the editorial staff of the Army and Navy Journal, reviewing +this book for the New York Herald (28 May 1922) said: + +"Josephus Daniels always was an optimist about navy affairs while he was +Secretary of the Navy from 1913 to 1921, and now that he has told what the +navy did during the world war he demonstrates in his narrative that he is +a good sport. For in spite of the many and bitter attacks that were made +on him in that troubled time he does not make a single reference to any of +them, nor does he wreak any such revenge as he might have done through +this medium. In this respect it may be said that truly does he live up to +the description of his character set down in the pages of Rear Admiral +Bradley A. Fiske's autobiography, namely, that 'Secretary Daniels +impressed me as being a Christian gentleman.' + +"In its general outlines and in many of its details there is little in Mr. +Daniels's story that has not been told before in volumes devoted to single +phases of the United States Navy's war operations. For example, his +chapter on the extraordinary task of laying the great mine fields, known +as the North Sea barrage, from Norway to the Orkneys, is much more fully +described in the account written by Captain Reginald R. Belknap; the story +of 'Sending Sims to Europe' is also more extensively presented in that +officer's book, _The Victory at Sea_, and the same qualification can be +applied to the chapter on the fighting of the marines in Belleau Wood and +elsewhere, and the work of our destroyers and submarines in European +waters. + +"But Mr. Daniels's history has one great merit that these other books +lack. This is that it tells in its 374 pages the complete story of the +work of the navy in the world war, giving so many details and so much +precise information about officers and their commands, ships of all +classes and just what they did, the valuable contributions made to the +winning of the war by civilians, that it makes a special place for itself, +a very special place, in any library or shelf devoted to war books." + +=iii= + +Leslie Haden Guest, a surgeon of wide experience and secretary of the +British Labour Delegation to Soviet Russia, is the author of _The Struggle +for Power in Europe (1917-21)_, "an outline economic and political survey +of the Central States and Russia," of which E. J. C. said in the Boston +Evening Transcript (4 March 1922): + +"The author writes from personal observation in Russia and discloses much +of the life of the day in that country which heretofore has remained +undisclosed to the world. He has met and interviewed Lenine and Trotsky +themselves, shows us the individuality of these great Bolshevist leaders +and tells us much of the life of the people and of the social conditions +and tendencies in that distressful country. + +"Next he crosses to Poland, another undiscovered country, and shows us the +new Poland, its aims and its struggles to emerge from a state almost of +anarchy into one of a rational democracy. Very little do we of this +country know of the new nation of Tcheko-Slovakia, but Dr. Guest has +travelled through it also and shows us the two sections, one cultured, the +other more backward, but both working together to form a modern democratic +nation. + +"The distressful condition of Austria and the Austrians now suffering for +the sins of the Hapsburgs, is next shown forth. Vienna, once the capital +of a vast empire and the seat of a great imperial court, was suddenly +reduced to the level of the capital of a small agricultural, inland state, +a condition productive of great suffering. The conditions here are shown +to differ much from those in other countries, for the dismemberment of +Austria was not brought about by the act of the Allies, but of their own +people. The causes of the suffering are fully explained, as are also the +causes of similar conditions in Hungary, in Roumania, in Bulgaria and in +other countries affected by the economic and political upheavals following +the war. That democracy in Europe will finally triumph Dr. Guest feels +certain and he gives lucid reasons for the faith that is in him. He gives +a broadly intelligent analysis of the entire situation and finds that the +essential conditions of success of a democracy are peace, education and +adequate nutrition. But he shows that a great problem exists which must be +worked out; and he shows how it must be worked out. Dr. Guest is not alone +a thinker, but an observer; not a theorist, but a man of practical +understanding, who has studied a problem at first hand and shows it forth +simply but comprehensively and with an eye single to the needs of +humanity." + +=iv= + +Of _Herman Melville: Mariner and Mystic_, by Raymond M. Weaver, Carl Van +Vechten, writing in the Literary Review of the New York Evening Post (31 +December 1921), said: + +"No biography of Melville, no important personal memorandum of the man, +was published during his lifetime. It is only now, thirty years after his +death and one hundred and two years after his birth, that Raymond M. +Weaver's _Herman Melville: Mariner and Mystic_ has appeared. + +"Under the circumstances, Mr. Weaver may be said to have done his work +well. The weakness of the book is due to the conditions controlling its +creation. Personal records in any great number do not exist. There are, to +be sure, Melville's letters to Hawthorne, published by Julian Hawthorne, +in his _Nathaniel Hawthorne and His Wife_. There are a few references to +Melville in the diary of Mrs. Hawthorne and in her letters to her mother. +There remain the short account given by J. E. A. Smith, a man with no kind +of mental approach to his hero, a few casual memories of Richard Henry +Stoddard, whose further testimony would have been invaluable had he been +inclined to be more loquacious, and a few more by Dr. Titus Munson Coan +and Arthur Stedman; but both these men, perhaps the nearest to Melville in +his later years, were agreed that he ceased to be an artist when he +deserted the prescribed field of _Typee_ and _Omoo_, and they harassed his +last days in their efforts to make him perceive this, much as if an +admirer of Verdi's early manner had attempted to persuade the composer +that work on 'Aida' and 'Otello' was a waste of time that might much +better be occupied in creating another 'Trovatore.' In desperation, +Melville refused to be lured into conversation about the South Seas, and +whenever the subject was broached he took refuge in quoting Plato. No very +competent witnesses, therefore, these. Aside from these sources, long open +to an investigator, Mr. Weaver has had the assistance of Mr. Melville's +granddaughter, who was not quite ten years old when Melville died, but who +has in her possession Mrs. Melville's commonplace book, Melville's diary +of two European excursions, and a few letters. + +"Generally, however, especially for the most important periods and the +most thrilling events in Melville's life, Mr. Weaver has been compelled to +depend upon the books the man wrote. + +"The book, on the whole, is worthy of its subject. It is written with +warmth, subtlety, and considerable humour. Smiles and thoughts lie hidden +within many of its pregnant lines. One of the biographer's very strangest +suggestions is never made concrete at all, so far as I can discern. The +figure of the literary discoverer of the South Seas emerges perhaps a bit +vaguely, his head in the clouds, but there is no reason to believe that +Melville's head was anywhere else when he was alive. Hawthorne is at last +described pretty accurately and not too flatteringly. _The Scarlet Letter_ +was published in 1850; _Moby Dick_ in 1851. It is one of the eternal +ironies that the one should be world-famous while the other is still +struggling for even national recognition. There are long passages, +well-studied and well-written, dealing with the whaling industry and the +early missionaries, which will be extremely helpful to any one who wants a +bibliographical background for the ocean and South Sea books. Melville's +London notebook is published for the first time and there is a nearly +complete reprint of his first known published paper 'Fragments From a +Writing Desk,' which appeared in two numbers of The Democratic Press and +Lansingburgh Advertiser in 1839 (not 1849, as the bibliography erroneously +gives it). Mr. Weaver is probably right in ascribing Melville's retirement +from literature to poverty (it was a fortunate year that brought him as +much as $100 in royalties and his account at Harper's was usually +overdrawn), to complete disillusionment, which made it impossible for him +to say more than he had already said, even on the subject of +disillusionment, and to ill-health. + +"It is a pleasure, moreover, to find that Mr. Weaver has a warm +appreciation of _Mardi_ and _Pierre_, books which have either been +neglected or fiercely condemned since they first appeared, books which are +no longer available save in early editions. They are not equal to _Moby +Dick_, but they are infinitely more important and more interesting than +_Typee_ and _Omoo_, on which the chief fame of the man rests. It is to his +credit that Mr. Weaver has perceived this, but a great deal more remains +to be said on the subject. _Mardi_, _Moby Dick_, and _Pierre_, as a matter +of fact, form a kind of tragic trinity: _Mardi_ is a tragedy of the +intellect; _Moby Dick_ a tragedy of the spirit, and _Pierre_ a tragedy of +the flesh. _Mardi_ is a tragedy of heaven, _Moby Dick_ a tragedy of hell, +and _Pierre_ a tragedy of the world we live in. + +"Considering the difficulties in his path, it may be said that Mr. Weaver +has solved his problem successfully. The faults of the book, to a large +extent, as I have already pointed out, are not the faults of the author, +but the faults of conditions circumscribing his work. At any rate, it can +no longer be said that no biography exists of the most brilliant figure in +the history of our letters, the author of a book which far surpasses every +other work created by an American from _The Scarlet Letter_ to _The Golden +Bowl_. For _Moby Dick_ stands with the great classics of all times, with +the tragedies of the Greeks, with _Don Quixote_, with _Dante's Inferno_ +and with Shakespeare's _Hamlet_." + +=v= + +A man who is certainly an authority on naval subjects tells me that _The +Grand Fleet_ by Viscount Jellicoe of Scapa is the masterpiece of the great +war. He does not mean, of course, in a literary sense; but he does most +emphatically mean in every other sense. I quote from the review by P. L. +J., of Admiral Jellicoe's second book, _The Crisis of the Naval War_. The +review appeared in that valuable Annapolis publication, the Proceedings of +the United States Naval Institute for April, 1921: + +"This interesting book is the complement of his first volume, _The Grand +Fleet,1914-16_. Admiral Jellicoe, the one man who was best situated to +know, now draws aside the curtains and reveals to us the efforts made by +the Admiralty to overcome the threat made by the German submarine +campaign. The account not only deals with the origin ashore of the defence +and offence against submarines, but follows to sea the measures adopted +where their application and results are shown. + +"The first chapter deals at length with the changes made in the admiralty +that the organisation might be logical and smooth working to avoid +conflict of authority, to have no necessary service neglected, to provide +the necessary corps of investigators of new devices, and above all to free +the first Sea Lord and his assistants of a mass of detail that their +efforts might be concentrated on the larger questions. + +"The appendices are of value and interesting because they show the +organisation at different periods and emphasise the fact that the Naval +Staff at the end of the war was the result of trial and error, natural +growth, and at least one radical change adopted during the war. + +"Chapters II and III deal with the Submarine Campaign in 1917 and the +measures adopted to win success. The gradual naval control of all merchant +shipping with its attendant difficulties is clearly shown. The tremendous +labour involved in putting into operation new measures; the unremitting +search for and development of new antisubmarine devices is revealed, and +above all the length of time necessary to put into operation any new +device, and this when time is the most precious element, is pointed out. + +"That a campaign against the enemy must be waged with every means at hand; +that new weapons must be continually sought; that no 'cure-all' by which +the enemy may be defeated without fighting can be expected; that during +war is the poorest time to provide the material which should be provided +during peace, the Admiral shows in a manner not to be gainsaid. + +"Chapters IV and V deal with the testing, introduction, and gradual growth +of the convoy system. It is shown how the introduction of this system was +delayed by lack of vessels to perform escort duty and why when finally +adopted it was so successful because it was not only defensive but +offensive in that it meant a fight for a submarine to attack a vessel +under convoy. + +"Chapter VI is devoted to the entry of the United States. The accurate +estimate of our naval strength by both the enemy and the allies, and our +inability upon the declaration of war to lend any great assistance are +shown--and this at the most critical period for the Allies--a period when +the German submarine campaign was at its height, when the tonnage lost +monthly by the Allies was far in excess of what can be replaced--when the +destruction of merchant shipping if continued at the then present rate +would in a few months mean the defeat of the Allies." + +=vi= + +I will give you what Admiral Caspar F. Goodrich said in the Weekly Review +(30 April 1921; The Weekly Review has since been combined with The +Independent) regarding _A History of Sea Power_, by William O. Stevens and +Allan Westcott: + +"Two professors at the Naval Academy, the one a historian, the other a +close student of Mahan, have written a noteworthy volume in their _History +of Sea Power_, published in excellent form, generously supplied with maps, +illustrations, and index. The title suggests Mahan's classic which is +largely followed in plan and treatment. It will be remembered that his +writings covered in detail only the years from 1660 to 1815. While not +neglecting this period, this book is particularly valuable for events not +within its self-assigned limits. Practically it is a history of naval +warfare from ancient times to the present day. Each chapter deals briefly, +but ably, with one epoch and closes with an appropriate bibliography for +those who care to go more fully into the question; a commendable feature. +The last chapter, 'Conclusions,' deserves especial attention. Naturally, +considerable space is devoted to the story and analysis of Jellicoe's +fight. Few will disagree with the verdict of the authors: + +"'It is no reflection on the personal courage of the Commander-in-Chief +that he should be moved by the consideration of saving his ships. The +existence of the Grand Fleet was, of course, essential to the Allied +cause, and there was a heavy weight of responsibility hanging on its use. +But again it is a matter of naval doctrine. Did the British fleet exist +merely to maintain a numerical preponderance over its enemy or to crush +that enemy--whatever the cost? If the Battle of Jutland receives the stamp +of approval as the best that could have been done, then the British or the +American officer of the future will know that he is expected primarily to +"play safe." But he will never tread the path of Blake, Hawke, or Nelson, +the men who made the traditions of the Service and forged the anchors of +the British Empire.' + +"One factor in the success of the antisubmarine campaign is not mentioned, +important as it proved to be. This was the policy adopted by the Allies of +not giving out the news that any U-boat was captured or otherwise +accounted for. Confronted with this appalling veil of mystery the morale +of the German submarine crews became seriously affected; volunteering for +this service gradually ceased; arbitrary detail grew necessary; greatly +lessened efficiency resulted. + +"The authors are to be congratulated on producing a volume which should be +in the hands of all naval officers of the coming generation; on the +shelves of all who take interest in the development of history; and of +statesmen upon whom may eventually rest the responsibility of heeding or +not heeding the teachings of Mahan as here sympathetically and cleverly +brought up to date." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE CONFESSIONS OF A WELL-MEANING YOUNG MAN, STEPHEN MCKENNA + + +=i= + +In a sense, all of Stephen McKenna's writing has been a confession. More +than any other novelist now actively at work, this young man bases fiction +on biographical and autobiographical material; and when he sits down +deliberately to write reminiscences, such as _While I Remember_, the +result is merely that, in addition to confessing himself, he confesses +others. + +He has probably had more opportunity of knowing the social and political +life of London from the inside than most novelists of his time. In _While +I Remember_ he gives his recollections, while his memory is still fresh +enough to be vivid, of a generation that closed, for literary if not for +political purposes, with the Peace Conference. There is a power of wit and +mordant humour and a sufficiency of descriptive power and insight into +human character in all his work. + +[Illustration: STEPHEN McKENNA] + +_While I Remember_ is actually a gallery of pictures taken from the life +and executed with the technique of youth by a man still young--pictures of +public school and university life, of social London from the death of King +Edward to the Armistice, of domestic and foreign politics of the period, +of the public services of Great Britain at home and abroad. Though all +these are within the circle of Mr. McKenna's narrative, literary +London--the London that is more talked about than seen--is the core of his +story. + +=ii= + +Mr. McKenna's latest novel, _The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman_, is +a series of monologues addressed by one Lady Ann Spenworth to "a friend of +proved discretion." I quote from the London Times of April 6, 1922: "In +the course of them Lady Ann Spenworth reveals to us the difficulties +besetting a lady of rank. She is compelled to live in a house in Mount +street--for how could she ask 'The Princess' to visit her in +Bayswater?--and her income of a few thousands, hardly supplemented by her +husband's directorships, is depleted by the disbursements needed to keep +the name of her only son out of the newspapers while she is obtaining for +him the wife and the salary suited to his requirements and capacities. Mr. +Stephen McKenna provides us with the same kind of exasperating +entertainment that we get at games from watching a skilful and +unscrupulous veteran. Her deftness in taking a step or two forward in the +centre and so putting the fast wing off side; her air of sporting +acquiescence touched with astonishment when a penalty is given against her +for obstruction; her resolution in jumping in to hit a young bowler off +his length; the trouble she has with her shoe-lace when her opponent is +nervous; the suddenness with which every now and again her usually +deliberate second service will follow her first; the slight pucker in her +eyebrows when she picks up a hand full of spades; the pluck with which she +throws herself on the ball when there is nothing else for it; her +dignified bonhomie in the dressing room! We all know Lady Ann and her +tricks, but nothing can be proved against her and she continues to play +for the best clubs. + +"In this story Lady Ann is playing the social game, and it is a tribute to +the skill of Mr. McKenna that at the end we hope that the Princess will be +sufficiently curious about her new 'frame and setting' to continue her +visits.... We have used the word 'story' because Lady Ann reports her +machinations while they are in progress and we are a little nervous about +the issue. Her main service, however, lies in the pictures she draws of +her own highly placed relatives and of a number of people who at house +parties and elsewhere may help ladies of title to make both ends meet. +Chief among them is her son Will, who even as seen through her partial +eyes, appears a very dishonest, paltry boy. Her blind devotion to him +humanises both her shrewdness and her selfishness. It is for his sake that +she separates her niece from the fine young soldier she is in love with +and that she almost succeeds in providing the King's Proctor with the +materials for an intervention that would secure to him the estates and +title of his fox-hunting uncle. There is always a plain tale to put her +down and always the friend of proved discretion is left with the +impression that the tale is the invention of malice; at least we suppose +she must be, for Lady Ann is allowed by people to whom she has done one +injury to remain in a position to do them another. The difficult medium +employed by Mr. McKenna entitles him, however, to count on the +co-operation of the reader; and it is to be accorded the more readily that +to it we owe the felicity of having her own account of the steps she took +to prevent an attractive but expensive widow from running away with her +husband, and of the party which she gave, according to plan, to the +Princess and, not according to plan, to other guests let loose on her by +her scapegrace brother-in-law." + +=iii= + +Stephen McKenna, the author of _Sonia_, not to be confused with Stephen +McKenna, the translator of Poltinus, belongs to the Protestant branch of +that royal Catholic sept which has had its home in the County Monagham +since the dawn of Irish history. Some members, even, of this branch have +reverted to the old faith since the date of Stephen McKenna's birth in the +year 1888 in London. + +He was a scholar of Westminster and an exhibitioner of Christ Church, +Oxford. After he had taken his degree, his father, Leopold McKenna, an +elder brother of the Right Honourable Reginald McKenna, K. C., the last +Liberal Chancellor of the British Exchequer, made it possible for him to +travel desultorily and to try his luck in the great literary adventure. + +On the outbreak of the war, as his health, which is delicate to the point +of frailness, debarred him from entering the army, Stephen McKenna first +volunteered for service at his old school, and, after a year, joined the +staff of the War Trade Intelligence Department, where he did valuable war +work for three and a half years. He represented his department on the +Right Honourable A. J. Balfour's mission in 1917, to the United States, +where he enjoyed himself thoroughly and made himself very popular; and he +did not sever his connection with the government service until February, +1919, four months after the conclusion of the armistice. + +Stephen McKenna's first three novels--_The Reluctant Lover_, _Sheila +Intervenes_ and _The Sixth Sense_--were written and published before their +author was 27 years of age! But _Sonia_, the story that made him widely +known, was written entirely during the period of his activities on the +staff of Westminster School and at the War Trade Intelligence Department. +The book won the public favour more quickly than perhaps any other novel +that has appeared in our time. + +The success of _Sonia_ was largely due to its description in a facile, +popular and yet eminently chaste and polished style, of the social and +political situation in England for a half generation before and during the +early stages of the war. This description Stephen McKenna was peculiarly +well-equipped to produce, not only as the near relative of a prominent +cabinet minister, but also as an assiduous frequenter of the leading +Liberal centre, the Reform Club, on the committee of which he had sat, +despite his youthful years, since 1915. The political interest, indeed, is +revealed in the subtitle, _Between Two Worlds_, which was originally +intended for the actual title. + +McKenna's next book, _Ninety-Six Hours' Leave_, appealed to the reader's +gayer moods and _Midas and Son_, with its tragic history of an +Anglo-American multimillionaire, to the reader in serious temper. + +In spite of certain blemishes due to Mr. McKenna's unfamiliarity with +American life, I should say that _Midas and Son_ is probably his ablest +work so far. I think it surpasses even _Sonia_. Mr. McKenna returned to +Sonia in his novel, _Sonia Married_. His work after that was a trilogy +called _The Sensationalists_, three brilliant studies of modern London in +the form of successive novels called _Lady Lilith_, _The Education of Eric +Lane_ and _The Secret Victory_. + +=iv= + +Writing from 11, Stone Buildings, Lincoln's Inn, London, in 1920, Mr. +McKenna had this to say about his trilogy: + +"_Lady Lilith_ is the first volume of a trilogy called _The +Sensationalists_, three books giving the history for a few years before +the war, during and immediately after the war, of a group of +sensation-mongers, emotion-hunters or whatever you like to call them, +whose principle and practice it was to startle the world by the +extravagance of their behaviour, speech, dress and thought and, in the +other sense of the word, sensationalism, to live on the excitement of new +experiences. Such people have always existed and always will exist, +receiving perhaps undue attention from the world that they set out to +astonish. You, I am sure, have them in America, as we have them here, and +in the luxurious and idle years before the war they had incomparable scope +for their search for novelty and their quest for emotion. Some of the +characters in _Lady Lilith_ have already been seen hovering in the +background of _Sonia_, _Midas and Son_ and _Sonia Married_, though the +principal characters in _Lady Lilith_ have not before been painted at full +length or in great detail; and these principal characters will be found in +all three books of the trilogy. + +"_Lady Lilith_, of course, takes its title from the Talmud, according to +which Lilith was Adam's first wife; and as mankind did not taste of the +Tree of Knowledge or of death until Eve came to trouble the Garden of +Eden, Lilith belongs to a time in which there was neither death nor +knowledge of good or evil in the world. She is immortal, unaging and +non-moral; her name is given by Valentine Arden, the young novelist who +appears in _Sonia_ and elsewhere, to Lady Barbara Neave, the principal +character in _Lady Lilith_ and one of the principal characters in the two +succeeding books." + +=v= + +In person, Stephen McKenna is tall, with a slender figure, Irish blue +eyes, fair hair, regular features and a Dante profile. He has an engaging +and very courteous address, a sympathetic manner, a ready but always +urbane wit and great conversational charm. He possesses the rare +accomplishment of "talking like a book." His intimates are legion; and, +apart from these, he knows everyone who "counts" in London society. He is +known never to lose his temper; and it is doubtful whether he has ever had +cause to lose it. + +His one recreation is the Opera; and during the London season his +delightful chambers in Lincoln's Inn are the almost nightly scene of +parties collected then and there from the opera house. + +=vi= + +A sample of _The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman_: + +"Lady Ann (_to a friend of proved discretion_): You have toiled all the +way here again? Do you know, I feel I am only beginning to find out who my +true friends are? I am much, much better.... On Friday I am to be allowed +on to the sofa and by the end of next week Dr. Richardson promises to let +me go back to Mount Street. Of course I should have liked the operation to +take place there--it is one's frame and setting, but, truly honestly, +Arthur and I have not been in a position to have any painting or papering +done for so long.... The surgeon insisted on a nursing home. Apparatus and +so on and so forth.... Quite between ourselves I fancy that they make a +very good thing out of these homes; but I am so thankful to be well again +that I would put up with almost any imposition.... + +"Everything went off too wonderfully. Perhaps you have seen my brother +Brackenbury? Or Ruth? Ah, I am sorry; I should have been vastly +entertained to hear what they were saying, what they dared say. Ruth did +indeed offer to pay the expenses of the operation--the belated prick of +conscience!--and it was on the tip of my tongue to say we are not yet +dependent on her spasmodic charity. Also, that I can keep my lips closed +about Brackenbury without expecting a--tip? But they know I can't afford +to refuse £500.... If they, if everybody would only leave one alone! Spied +on, whispered about.... + +"The papers made such an absurd stir! If you are known by name as +occupying any little niche, the world waits gaping below. I suppose I +ought to be flattered, but for days there were callers, letters, +telephone-messages. Like Royalty _in extremis_.... And I never pretended +that the operation was in any sense critical.... + +"Do you know, beyond saying that, I would much rather not talk about it? +This very modern frankness.... Not you, of course! But when a man like my +brother-in-law Spenworth strides in here a few hours before the anæsthetic +is administered and says 'What is the matter with you? Much ado about +nothing, I call it.' ... That from Arthur's brother to Arthur's wife, +when, for all he knew, he might never see her alive again.... I prefer +just to say that everything went off most satisfactorily and that I hope +now to be better than I have been for years...." + +BOOKS BY STEPHEN MCKENNA + +THE RELUCTANT LOVER +SHEILA INTERVENES +THE SIXTH SENSE +SONIA: BETWEEN TWO WORLDS +NINETY-SIX HOURS' LEAVE +MIDAS AND SON +SONIA MARRIED +LADY LILITH +THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE +THE SECRET VICTORY +WHILE I REMEMBER +THE CONFESSIONS OF A WELL-MEANING WOMAN + +SOURCES ON STEPHEN MCKENNA + +_Who's Who_ [In England]. + +Private Information. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +POETS AND PLAYWRIGHTS + + +=i= + +I have to tell about a number of poets and, regarding poets, I agree with +a very clever woman I know who declares that poetry is the most personal +of the arts and who further says that it is manifestly inadequate to talk +about a poet's work without giving a sample of his poetry. So, generally, +I shall quote one of the shorter poems or a passage from a longer poem. + +John Dos Passos, known for _Three Soldiers_ and for _Rosinante to the Road +Again_, will be still more variously known to those who read his book of +verse, _A Pushcart at the Curb_. This book bears a relation to +_Rosinante_, the contents grouping themselves under these general +headings: + + Winter in Castile + Nights by Bassano + Translations from the Spanish of Antonio Machado + Vagones de Tercera + Quai de la Tournelle + Of Foreign Travel + Phases of the Moon + +I will select for quotation the sixth or final poem dedicated to A. K. +McC. from the section entitled "Quai de la Tournelle," + + This is a garden + where through the russet mist of clustered trees + and strewn November leaves, + they crunch with vainglorious heels + of ancient vermilion + the dry dead of spent summer's greens, + and stalk with mincing sceptic steps, + and sound of snuffboxes snapping + to the capping of an epigram, + in fluffy attar-scented wigs ... + the exquisite Augustans. + +Christopher Morley is too well-known as a poet to require any explicit +account in this place. I shall remind you of the pleasure of reading him +by quoting the "Song For a Little House" from his book, _The Rocking +Horse_, and also a short verse from his _Translations from the Chinese_. + + I'm glad our house is a little house, + Not too tall nor too wide: + I'm glad the hovering butterflies + Feel free to come inside. + + Our little house is a friendly house, + It is not shy or vain; + It gossips with the talking trees, + And makes friends with the rain. + + And quick leaves cast a shimmer of green, + Against our whited walls, + And in the phlox, the courteous bees, + Are paying duty calls. + +But there is a different temper--or, if you like, tempering--to the verse +in _Translations from the Chinese_. I quote "A National Frailty": + + The American people + Were put into the world + To assist foreign lecturers. + When I visited them + They filled crowded halls + To hear me tell them Great Truths + Which they might as well have read + In their own prophet Thoreau. + They paid me, for this, + Three hundred dollars a night, + And ten of their mandarins + Invited me to visit at Newport. + My agent told me + If I would wear Chinese costume on the platform + It would be five hundred. + +In speaking of the late Joyce Kilmer, the temptation is inescapable to +quote his "Trees"; after all, it is his best known and best loved poem--in +certain moments it is his best poem! But instead, I will desert his +volume, _Trees and Other Poems_, and from his other book, _Main Street and +Other Poems_, I will quote the first two stanzas of Kilmer's "Houses"--a +poem written for his wife: + + When you shall die and to the sky + Serenely, delicately go, + Saint Peter, when he sees you there, + Will clash his keys and say: + "Now talk to her, Sir Christopher! + And hurry, Michelangelo! + She wants to play at building, + And you've got to help her play!" + + Every architect will help erect + A palace on a lawn of cloud, + With rainbow beams and a sunset roof, + And a level star-tiled floor; + And at your will you may use the skill + Of this gay angelic crowd, + When a house is made you will throw it down, + And they'll build you twenty more. + +Mrs. Kilmer is the author of two volumes of verse which have sold rather +more than John Masefield usually sells--at least, until the publication of +_Reynard the Fox. Candles That Burn_ created her audience and _Vigils_ has +been that audience's renewed delight. From _Vigils_ I take the poem "The +Touch of Tears." In it "Michael" is, of course, her own son: + + Michael walks in autumn leaves, + Rustling leaves and fading grasses, + And his little music-box + Tinkles faintly as he passes. + It's a gay and jaunty tune + If the hands that play were clever: + Michael plays it like a dirge, + Moaning on and on forever. + + While his happy eyes grow big, + Big and innocent and soulful, + Wistful, halting little notes + Rise, unutterably doleful, + Telling of all childish griefs-- + Baffled babies sob forsaken, + Birds fly off and bubbles burst, + Kittens sleep and will not waken. + + Michael, it's the touch of tears. + Though you sing for very gladness, + Others will not see your mirth; + They will mourn your fancied sadness. + Though you laugh at them in scorn, + Show your happy heart for token, + Michael, you'll protest in vain-- + They will swear your heart is broken! + +I think I have said elsewhere that J. C. Squire prefers his serious poems +to those parodies of which he is such an admitted master. It seems only +decent to defer, in this place, to the author's own feeling in the matter. +Mr. Squire is the author of _The Birds and Other Poems_ and _Poems: Second +Series_. My present choice is the beginning and the close of the poem, +"Harlequin"--which is in both books: + + Moonlit woodland, veils of green, + Caves of empty dark between; + Veils of green from rounded arms + Drooping, that the moonlight charms: + Tranced the trees, grass beneath + Silent ... + Like a stealthy breath, + Mask and wand and silver skin + Sudden enters Harlequin. + + Hist! Hist! Watch him go, + Leaping limb and pointing toe, + Slender arms that float and flow, + Curving wand above, below; + Flying, gliding, changing feet; + Onset merging in retreat. + + Not a shadow of sound there is + But his motion's gentle hiss, + Till one fluent arm and hand + Suddenly circles, and the wand + Taps a bough far overhead, + "Crack," and then all noise is dead. + For he halts, and for a space + Stands erect with upward face, + Taut and tense to the white + Message of the Moon's light. + + He was listening; he was there; + Flash! he went. To the air + He a waiting ear had bent, + Silent; but before he went + Something somewhere else to seek, + He moved his lips as though to speak. + + And we wait, and in vain, + For he will not come again. + Earth, grass, wood, and air, + As we stare, and we stare, + Which that fierce life did hold, + Tired, dim, void, cold. + +Milton Raison is a young writer, known especially to readers of The +Bookman, whose verse has appeared in various magazines. A Russian, Milton +Raison went to sea as a boy--he is scarcely more than a boy now. His first +book of verse, _Spindrift_, carries a preface by William McFee. I quote: + +"There is a Latin sharpness of mentality manifested in these clearly, +sardonically etched portraits of a ship's crew. The whimsical humour +revealed in final lines is a portent, in the present writer's opinion, of +a talent which will probably come to maturity in a very different field. +Indeed it may be, though it is too early to dogmatise, that these poems +are but the early efflorescence of a gift for vigorous prose narrative. + +"Mr. Milton Raison has settled for himself, with engaging promptitude, +that a seafaring career provides the inspiration he craves. The influence +of Masefield is strong upon him, and some of his verses are plainly +derivative. As already hinted, it is too early to say definitely how this +plan will succeed. In his diary, kept while on a voyage to South America, +a document remarkable for its descriptive power and a certain crude and +virginal candour, one may discover an embryo novelist struggling with the +inevitable limitations of youth. But in his simple and naïve poems, +whether they give us some bizarre and catastrophic picture of seamen, or +depict the charming emotions of a sensitive adolescence, there is a +passion for experiment and humility of intellect which promises well +enough for a young man in his teens." + +I find it particularly difficult to choose a poem for citation from this +book. Perhaps I shall do as well as I can, with only space to quote one +poem, if I give you "Vision": + + Have I forgotten beauty, and the pang + Of sheer delight in perfect visioning? + Have I forgotten how the spirit sang + When shattered breakers sprayed their ocean-tang + To ease the blows with which the great cliffs rang? + Have I forgotten how the fond stars fling + Their naked children to the faery ring + Of some dark pool, and watch them play and sing + In silent silver chords I too could hear? + Or smile to see a starlet shake with fear + Whenever winds disturbed the lake's repose, + Or when in mocking mood they form in rows, + And stare up at their parents--so sedate-- + Then break up laughing 'neath a ripple's weight? + +It seems as if, _The First Person Singular_ having been published, more +people now know William Rose Benét as a novelist than as a poet. I cannot +help feeling that to be something of a pity. I am not going to quote one +of Mr. Benét's poems--indeed all his best work is in quite long and +semi-narrative verse--but I will give you what Don Marquis was inspired to +write after reading Benét's _Moons of Grandeur_. On looking at it again, I +see that Mr. Marquis has quoted eight lines, so you shall have your taste +of William Rose Benét, the poet, after all! + +"Some day, just to please ourself, we intend to make a compilation of +poems that we love best; the ones that we turn to again and again. There +will be in the volume the six odes of Keats, Shelley's 'Adonais'; +Wordsworth's 'Intimations of Immortality'; Milton's 'L'Allegro' and 'Il +Penseroso'; William Rose Benét's 'Man Possessed' and very little else. + +"We don't 'defend' these poems ... no doubt they are all of them quite +indefensible, in the light of certain special poetic revelations of the +last few years ... and we have no particular theories about them; we +merely yield ourself to them, and they transport us; we are careless of +reason in the matter, for they cast a spell upon us. We do not mean to say +that we are in the category with the person who says: 'I don't know +anything about art, but I know what I like'--On the contrary, we know +exactly why we like these things, although we don't intend to take the +trouble to tell you now. + +"William Rose Benét has published another book of poems, _Moons of +Grandeur_. Here is a stanza picked up at random--it happens to be the +opening stanza of 'Gaspara Stampa'--which shows the lyric quality of the +verse: + + "Like flame, like wine, across the still lagoon, + The colours of the sunset stream. + Spectral in heaven as climbs the frail veiled moon + So climbs my dream. + Out of the heart's eternal torture fire + No eastern phoenix risen-- + Only the naked soul, spent with desire, + Bursts its prison. + +"Was Benét ever in Italy? No matter ... he has Italy in him, in his heart +and brain. Italy and Egypt and every other country that was ever warmed by +the sun of beauty and shone on by the stars of romance. For the poems in +this book are woven of the stuff of sheer romance. There is nothing else +in the world as depressing as a romantic poem that doesn't 'get there.' +And to us, at least, there is nothing as thrilling as the authentic voice +of romance, the genuine utterance of the soul that walks in communion with +beauty. _Moons of Grandeur_ is a ringing bell and a glimmering tapestry +and a draught of sparkling wine. + +"A certain rich intricacy of pattern distinguishes the physical body of +Benét's art; when he chooses he can use words as if they were the jewelled +particles of a mosaic; familiar words, with his handling, become +'something rich and strange.' Of the spiritual content of his poems, we +can say nothing adequate, because there is not much that can be said of +spirit; either it is there and you feel it, and it works upon you, or it +is not there. There are very few people writing verse today who have the +power to charm us and enchant us and carry us away with them as Benét can. +He has found the horse with wings." + +_The Bookman Anthology of Verse_ (1922), edited by John Farrar, editor of +The Bookman, is an altogether extraordinary anthology to be made up from +the poets contributing to a single magazine in eighteen consecutive +months. Among those who are represented are: Franklin P. Adams, Karle +Wilson Baker, Maxwell Bodenheim, Hilda Conkling, John Dos Passos, Zona +Gale, D. H. Lawrence, Amy Lowell, David Morton, Edwin Arlington Robinson, +Carl Sandburg, Siegfried Sassoon, Sara Teasdale, Louis and Jean Starr +Untermeyer, and Elinor Wylie. + +Mr. Farrar has written short introductions to the example (or examples) of +the work of each poet. In his general preface he says: + +"Where most anthologies of poetry are collected for the purpose of giving +pleasure by means of the verses themselves, I have tried here to give you +something of the joy to be found in securing manuscripts, in attempting to +understand current poetry by a broadening of taste to match broadening +literary tendencies; and, perhaps most important of all, to present you to +the poets themselves as I know them by actual meeting or correspondence." + +I will choose what Mr. Farrar says about Hilda Conkling, prefacing her +poem "Lonely Song"; and then I will quote the poem: + +"A shy, but normal little girl, twelve years old now, nine when her first +volume of verses appeared, Hilda Conkling is not so much the infant +prodigy as a clear proof that the child mind, before the precious spark is +destroyed, possesses both vision and the ability to express it in natural +and beautiful rhythm. Grace Hazard Conkling, herself a poet, is Hilda's +mother. They live at Northampton, Massachusetts, in the academic +atmosphere of Smith College where those who know the little girl say that +she enjoys sliding down a cellar stairway quite as much as she does +talking of elves and gnomes. She was born in New York State, so that she +is distinctly of the East. The rhythms which she uses to express her ideas +are the result both of her own moods, which are often crystal-clear in +their delicate imagery, and of the fact that from time to time, when she +was first able to listen, her mother read aloud to her. In fact, her first +poems were made before she, herself, could write them down. The +speculation as to what she will do when she grows to womanhood is a common +one. Is it important? A childhood filled with beauty is something to have +achieved." + + Bend low, blue sky, + Touch my forehead; + You look cool ... bend down ... + + Flow about me in your blueness and coolness, + Be thistledown, be flowers, + Be all the songs I have not yet sung. + + Laugh at me, sky! + Put a cap of cloud on my head ... + Blow it off with your blue winds; + Give me a feeling of your laughter + Beyond cloud and wind! + I need to have you laugh at me + As though you liked me a little. + +This has been, as I meant it to be, a wholly serious chapter; but at the +end I find I cannot stop without speaking of Keith Preston. No one who +reads the Chicago Daily News fails to know Keith Preston's delightful +humour and "needle-tipped satire." And his book, _Splinters_, contains all +sorts of good things of which I can give you, alas, only some inadequate +(because solitary) sample. Yet, anyway, here is his "Ode to Common +Sense": + + Spirit or demon, Common Sense! + Seen seldom by us mortals dense, + Come, sprite, inform, inhabit me + And teach me art and poetry. + + Teach me to chuckle, sly as you, + At gods that now I truckle to, + To doubt the New Republic's bent, + And jeer each bookish Supplement. + + Now, like a thief, you come and flit, + You call so seldom, Mother Wit! + Remember? Once when you stood by + I found a Dreiser novel dry. + + One day when I was reading hard-- + What? Amy Lowell, godlike bard! + You peeped and then at what you saw + Gave one Gargantuan guffaw. + + Spirit or demon, coarse or rude, + (Sometimes I think you must be stewed) + Brute that you are, I love your powers, + But,--drop in after office hours! + + Yes, Common Sense, be mine, I ask, + But still respect my critic's task; + Molest me not when I'm employed + With psychics, sex, vers libre, or Freud. + +=ii= + +The matter of playwrights is much more difficult than that of poets! A +play cannot, as a rule, be satisfactorily quoted from. In the case of a +play which is to be staged there are terrible objections (on the part of +the producer) to any excerpts at all appearing in advance. The publication +of the text of a play is hedged about by all manner of difficulties, +copyrights, warnings and solemn notifications. As I write, it is expected +that A. H. Woods, the producer of plays, will stage at the Times Square +Theatre, New York, probably in September, 1922, the new play by W. +Somerset Maugham, _East of Suez_. Pauline Frederick is expected to assume +the principal rôle. Mr. Maugham's play will be published when it has been +produced, or, if the theatre plans suffer one of those changes to which +all theatres are subject, will be published anyhow! Shall we say that the +setting is Chinese, and that the characters are Europeans, and that Mr. +Maugham has again shown his peculiar skill in the delineation of the white +man in contact with an alien civilisation? We shall say so. And--never +mind! A sure production of the play for the Fireside Theatre is hereby +guaranteed. The Fireside Theatre, blessed institution, has certain merits. +The actors are always ideal and the performance always begins on time, as +a letter to the New York Times has pointed out. + +Arnold Bennett has written a lot of plays; _The Love Match_ is merely the +latest of them. If I cannot very well quote a scene from _The Love +Match_,--on the grounds of length and possible unintelligibility apart +from the rest of the drama--I can give you, I think, an idea of the wit of +the dialogue: + +RUSS (_with calm and disdainful resentment_). You're angry with me now. + +NINA (_hurt_). Indeed I'm not. Why should I be angry? Do you suppose I +mind who sends you flowers? + +RUSS. No, I don't. That's not the reason. You're angry with me because you +came in here tonight, after saying positively you wouldn't come, and I +didn't happen to be waiting for you. + +NINA. Hugh, you're ridiculous. + +RUSS. Of course I am. That's not the reason. You took me against my will +to that footling hospital ball last night, and I only got three hours' +sleep instead of six, and you're angry with me because I yawned after you +kissed me. + +NINA. You're too utterly absurd! + +RUSS. Of course I am. That's not the reason, either. The real reason is +(_firmly_) you're angry with me because you clean forgot it was my +birthday today. That's why you're angry with me. + +NINA. Well, I think you might have reminded me.... + +NINA. I like sitting on the carpet. + +(_She reclines at his feet._) I wonder why women nowadays are so fond of +the floor. + +RUSS. Because they're oriental, of course. + +NINA. But I'm not oriental, Hughie! (_Looking at him with loving +passion._) Am I? + +RUSS. That's the Eastern question. + +NINA. But you like it, don't you? + +RUSS. Every man has a private longing to live in the East. + +NINA. But not harems and things? + +RUSS. Well--within reason.... + +NINA. What do you think of me? I'm always dying to know, and I'm never +sure. + +RUSS. What do you think of _me_? + +NINA. I think you're magnificent and terrible and ruthless. + +RUSS (_with amicable sincerity_). Oh, no, I'm not. But you are. + +NINA. How? When? When was I ruthless last? + +RUSS. You're always ruthless in your appetite for life. You want to taste +everything, enjoy all the sensations there are. This evening you like +intensely to sit very quiet on the floor; but last night you were mad +about dancing and eating and drinking. You couldn't be still. Tomorrow +night it'll be something else. There's no end to what you want, and what +you want tremendously, and what you've jolly well got to have. You aren't +a woman. You're a hundred women. + +NINA. Oh! Hughie. How well you understand! + +RUSS. Yes, don't I? + +NINA (_tenderly_). Do I make you very unhappy? Hughie, you mustn't tell me +I make you unhappy. I couldn't bear it. + +RUSS. Then I won't. + +NINA. But do I? + +RUSS. Let's say you cause a certain amount of disturbance sometimes. + +NINA. But you like me to be as I am, don't you? + +RUSS. Yes. + +NINA. You wouldn't have me altered? + +RUSS. Can't alter a climate. + +NINA. You don't know how much I want to be perfect for you. + +RUSS. You know my ruthless rule, "The best is good enough; chuck +everything else into the street." Have I ever, on any single occasion, +chucked you into the street? + +NINA. But I want to be more perfect. + +RUSS. Why do women always hanker after the impossible? + +J. Hartley Manners is the husband of Laurette Taylor and the author of +plays in some of which she appears. His drama _The Harp of Life_ has as +its theme the love of two women, his mother and a courtesan, for a +nineteen-year-old boy, and their willing self-sacrifice that he may go +forward unbroken and unsmirched. The interesting thing, aside from the +strength of the play and its vivid study of adolescence, is the portrait +of the mother. And now his play, _The National Anthem_, which caused so +much discussion, is procurable in book form. + +Here I have been talking about _East of Suez_ and _The Love Match_ and +have said nothing about _The Circle_ or _Milestones_! But I suppose +everyone knows that _The Circle_ is by Maugham and was markedly successful +when it was produced in New York; and surely everyone must know that +_Milestones_ is by Arnold Bennett and Edward Knoblauch--one of the great +plays of the last quarter century. I must take a moment to speak of Sidney +Howard's four act play, _Swords_. I think the best thing to do is to give +what Kenneth Macgowan, an exceptionally able critic of the drama, said +about the play: + +"_Swords_ is as remarkable a play as America has ever produced. It is a +drama of action on a par with _The Jest_, fused with the ecstasy of +inspiration and the mysticism of the spirit and the body of woman. It sets +Ghibelline and Guelph, Pope and Emperor, two nobles and a dog of the +gutters fighting for a lady of strange and extraordinary beauty who is the +bride of one noble and the hostage of the other. With the passions, the +cruelties, and spiritual vision of the middle ages to build upon _Swords_ +sweeps upward to a scene of sudden, flashing conflict shot with the mystic +and triumphant ecstasy which emanates from this glorious woman." + +American lovers of the drama have a special interest in the two volumes of +_The Plays of Hubert Henry Davies._ At the time of his first success Mr. +Davies was working in San Francisco, whither he had come from England. It +was Frohman who made him an offer that brought him to New York and began +the series of productions which ended only with his death in 1917 in +Paris. These two volumes, very beautiful examples of fine bookmaking, +contain the successes: _Cousin Kate_, _Captain Drew on Leave_, and _The +Mollusc_. Among the other plays included are: _A Single Man_, _Doormats_, +_Outcasts_, _Mrs. Gorringe's Necklace_, and _Lady Epping's Lawsuit_. Hugh +Walpole has contributed a very touching introduction. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE BOOKMAN FOUNDATION AND THE BOOKMAN + + +"Thank you very much for the May Bookman," writes Hugh Walpole (June, +1922). "I have been reading The Bookman during the last year and I +congratulate Mr. Farrar most strongly upon it. The paper has now a +personality unlike any other that I know and it is the least dull of all +literary papers! I like especially the more serious articles, the series +of sketches of literary personalities seeming especially excellent to me." +Mr. Walpole evidently had in mind the feature of The Bookman called "The +Literary Spotlight." + +"The Bookman is alive. If there is a better quality in the long run for a +general literary magazine to try for, I do not know what it is," writes +Carl Van Doren, literary editor of The Nation. + +"Mr. Farrar has turned The Bookman into a monthly brimming with his own +creative enthusiasm," says Louis Untermeyer. "It has technically as well +as figuratively no rival." + +And Irvin S. Cobb declares: "By my way of thinking, it is the most +informative, the most entertaining, and incidentally the brightest and +most amusing publication devoted to literature and its products that I +have ever seen." + +=ii= + +The idea of The Bookman Foundation first occurred in a discussion of the +future of the magazine and the ampler purposes it was desired to have The +Bookman serve. The idea had been advanced that more than the future of the +magazine should be considered; those to whom the welfare of the magazine +was a most important consideration distinctly felt that welfare to depend +upon a healthy and thriving condition of American literature and of +American interest in American literature. The broadest possible view, as +is so often the case, seemed the only ultimately profitable view. In what +way could The Bookman serve the interests of American literature in which +it was not already serving them? How could public interest in American +literature best be stimulated? + +The idea gradually took shape as a form of foundation, naturally to be +called The Bookman Foundation, with a double purpose. Fundamentally The +Bookman Foundation is being established to stimulate the study of American +literature and its development; more immediately, and as the direct means +to that end, the purpose of the Foundation will be to afford a vehicle for +the best constructive criticism, spoken and written, on the beginnings and +development of our literature. In association with the faculty of English +at one of the larger and older American universities, Yale, the Foundation +will establish a lectureship; and annually there will be given at Yale a +lecture or a course of lectures on American literature by some +distinguished writer or critic. It is hoped that, as the Foundation grows, +other universities will be brought into co-operation with Yale so that the +lectureship may move from centre to centre, stimulating to intelligent +self-expression the varied elements that are contributing to our national +growth. + +The lectures given on The Bookman Foundation will be published in book +form by The Bookman in a handsome and uniform edition. Membership in The +Bookman Foundation will be by invitation. All members of the Foundation +will be entitled to receive the published lectures without charge and they +will also have the privilege of subscribing for certain first and limited +editions of notable American books. At the present writing, even so much +as I have suggested is largely tentative, and I offer it for its essential +idea; an executive committee of The Bookman Foundation, in co-operation +with an advisory committee, the members of which committees have +yet to be finally determined, will settle all details. By the time of this +book's publication or even sooner, I expect a full announcement will have +been made; and for the correction of what I have stated I would refer the +reader to The Bookman itself. + +=iii= + +I am not going to give a historical account of The Bookman here. The +magazine is no newcomer among American periodicals. It has a reasonably +old and highly honourable history. For long published by the house of +Dodd, Mead & Company, it was acquired by George H. Doran Company and +placed under the editorial direction of Robert Cortes Holliday. That was +the beginning of a new vitality in its pages. Mr. Holliday was succeeded +by Mr. Farrar, and now, in its fifty-sixth volume, The Bookman seems to +the thousands who read it more interesting than ever before in its +history. + +The roll call of its past and present contributors includes many of the +representative names in contemporary American and English literature. I +will give a few: + + JOSEPH HERGESHEIMER + AMY LOWELL + SIEGFRIED SASSOON + JAMES BRANCH CABELL + MARY ROBERTS RINEHART + ZONA GALE + FANNIE HURST + WILLIAM MCFEE + SHERWOOD ANDERSON + HUGH WALPOLE + FRANK SWINNERTON + ROBERT FROST + SARA TEASDALE + IRVIN S. COBB + RICHARD LE GALLIENNE + DONN BYRNE + CHRISTOPHER MORLEY + ROBERT CORTES HOLLIDAY + JOHAN BOJER + WILLIAM ROSE BENÉT + EDGAR LEE MASTERS + KATHLEEN NORRIS + FREDERICK O'BRIEN + D. H. LAWRENCE + JOHN DRINKWATER + JOSEPH C. LINCOLN + GEORGE JEAN NATHAN + WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE + CARL SANDBURG + SINCLAIR LEWIS + F. SCOTT FITZGERALD + EUGENE O'NEILL + H. L. MENCKEN + JOHN DOS PASSOS + ELINOR WYLIE + GERTRUDE ATHERTON + FLOYD DELL + +=iv= + +Among the American essayists whose work has appeared in The Bookman before +its publication in book form is Robert Cortes Holliday; among strikingly +successful books that appeared serially in The Bookman was Donald Ogden +Stewart's _A Parody Outline of History_. Among The Bookman's regular +reviewers are Louis Untermeyer, Wilson Follett, Paul Elmer More, H. L. +Mencken, Henry Seidel Canby and Maurice Francis Egan. Among writers of +distinction whose short stories have first appeared in The Bookman are +William McFee, Sherwood Anderson, Mary Austin, and Johan Bojer; while the +intimate personal portraits published under the general title "The +Literary Spotlight" have Lytton Stracheyized contemporary American +literature. Possibly it is in the department of poetry that The Bookman +now shines the brightest (see the account of The Bookman Anthology in the +previous chapter); if so, that may be because the editor, John Farrar, is +himself a poet. + +Probably no other literary magazine in the world exhibits such a degree of +personal contact between the editor, his readers, his contributors and the +magazine's friends. This note of personal contact is constantly reflected +in the magazine's pages; but anyone who has called upon the editor of The +Bookman once or twice will know explicitly just what I mean. + + + + +EPILOGUE + + +I have been surprised, on looking back over these chapters, by the variety +of the books I have talked about. That so diverse a list should be under a +single imprint and should represent, with few exceptions, the publications +of a single twelvemonth, seems to me very remarkable. I believe a majority +of the books are the production of a single publishing season, the autumn +of 1922, and the Doran imprint is but thirteen years old. + +"Of the making of books, there is no end"; but of the making of any single +book, there must come an end. Yet what is the end of a book but the +beginning of new friendships? + +THE END + + + + +INDEX + + +Agate, James E., 49; + _Alarums and Excursions_, 49; + dramatic critic, 50; + _Responsibility_, 50; + review by The Londoner, in The Bookman, 50 + +_Alarums and Excursions_ by James E. Agate, 49 + +_Alone in the Caribbean_, by Frederic A. Fenger, 194 + +_Altar Steps, The_, by Compton Mackenzie, 265, 266 + +_Amazing Adventures of Letitia Carberry, The_, + by Mary Roberts Rinehart, 108, 115, 116 + +_Amazing Interlude, The_, by Mary Roberts Rinehart, 105, 115, 116 + +Andrews, C. E., _Old Morocco and the Forbidden Atlas_, 193 + +_Ann and Her Mother_, by O. Douglas, 249 + +_Anna of the Five Towns_, by Arnold Bennett, 146, 149 + +_Art of Lawn Tennis_, The, by William T. Tilden, 213 + +Asquith, Elizabeth (Princess Antoine Bibesco), + daughter of Margot Asquith, 47 + +Asquith, Margot, 89; + mother of Elizabeth, 47; + _My Impressions of America_, 122; + _The Autobiography of Margot Asquith_, 122 + +_Autobiography of Margot Asquith_, The, by Margot Asquith, 122 + +Bailey, Margaret Emerson, _Robin Hood's Barn_, 194 + +_Balloons_, by Princess Antoine Bibesco, 47 + +Banning, Margaret Culkin, _Half Loaves_, 253; + _Spellbinders_, 252; + _This Marrying_, 253 + +Barton, Olive Roberts, _Cloud Boat Stories,_ 162; + Column, 162; + review by Candace T. Stevenson, 162-164; + sister of Mary Roberts Rinehart, 161; + _Wonderful Land of Up_, 162; + work with children, 161 + +_Beauty for Ashes_, by Jean Sutherland, 262 + +Belloc, Hilaire, 23, 77 + +Benét, William Rose, _Moons of Grandeur_, 354, 355; + review by Don Marquis, 354, 355; + Benét, William Rose, _The First Person Singular_, 262, 263, 354 + +Bennett, Arnold 133, 134, 144, 145, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151; + A _Man from the North_, 146, 149; + _Anna of the Five Towns_, 146, 149; + article on Hugh Walpole, 22, 23; + booklet by George H. Doran Co., 150; + books by, list of, 149, 150; + _Clayhanger_, 148, 149; + comments of Frank Swinnerton's Books, 225; + comments on _The Casement_, by Frank Swinnerton, 236-242; + criticism by New York Evening Post, 148; + _Cupid and Commonsense_, 133, 150; + description of Hugh Walpole, 22; + _Friendship and Happiness_, 303; + _How to Live on Twenty-four Hours a Day_, 303; + _Lilian_, 133; + _Love and Life_, 146; + _Married Life_, 303; + _Mental Efficiency_, 303; + _Milestones_ (with Edward Knoblauch), 364; + _Mr. Prohack_, 133, 141, 149; + on Hugh Walpole's courage, 25; + _Polite Farces_, 146; + _Self and Self-Management_, 303; + sketch of life by John W. Cunliffe, 144-148, 150; + sources on, 150; + _The Author's Craft_, 150; + education of, 145; + _The Gates of Wrath_, 146, 149; + _The Love Match_, 361, 364; + _The Old Wives' Tale_, 133, 149; + _The Truth About an Author_, 144, 150 + +Benson, E. F., _Peter_, 261 + +_Between Two Thieves_, by Richard Dehan (Clotilde Graves), 198, 200, 210 + +Bibesco, Princess Antoine (Elizabeth Asquith), 47; + _Balloons_, 47; + _I Have Only Myself to Blame_, 47 + +_Birds and Other Poems, The_, by J. C. Squire, 351; + Quotation from, 351 + +_Black Gang, The_, by Cyril McNeile, 70 + +_Black Cæsar's Clan_, by Albert Payson Terhune, 71 + +_Black Gold_, by Albert Payson Terhune, 71; + Foreword to, by Albert Payson Terhune, 71-74 + +Blaker, Richard, _The Voice in the Wilderness_, 263 + +Bookman, The; + articles by Robert Cortes Holliday, 221; + Comment on Richard Dehan, 198, 211; + Comments on by Hugh Walpole, Carl Van Doren, Irvin S. Cobb, + Louis Untermeyer, 367; + List of contributors, 370, 371; + List of Reviewers, 371 + +_Book of Humorous Verse_, by Carolyn Wells, 99 + +_Bookman Anthology of Verse_ (1922), 356; + Contributors, 356, 357 + +_Bookman Foundation, The_, 367, 368; + lectures on, 368 + +_Books in General, Third Series_, by J. C. Squire, 44 + +Bottome, Phyllis (Mrs. A. E. Forbes Dennis), 258; + Acquaintances, 259; + _The Kingfisher_, 260 + +_Boy Journalist Series_, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler, 159, 161 + +_Breaking Point, The_, by Mary Roberts Rinehart, 105; + résumé of, 105-7, 117 + +_Broome Street Straws_, by Robert Cortes Holliday, 52 + +Broun, Heywood, 40; + columnist, _Pieces of Hate_ and _Other Enthusiasms_, 41; + Subjects touched, 41, 42, 43 + +Buchan, John, The Path of the King, 249; + _The Thirty-nine Steps_ + +Buckrose, J. E. (Mrs. Falconer Jameson), _A Knight Among Ladies_, 251 + +_Bulldog Drummond_, by Cyril McNeile, 70 + +Burke, Thomas, 187, 189, 190; + More Limehouse Nights, 187; + _Nights in London_, 190; + Reasons given for his characters, 187, 188, 189; + _The London Spy_, 189 + +Byron, May, _Billy Butt's Adventure_, 153; + _Jack-a-Dandy_, 153; + _Little Jumping Joan_, 153; + _Old Friends in New Frocks_, 153 + +_Candles that Burn_, by Mrs. Kilmer + +_Captives, The_, by Hugh Walpole, 24, 27, 30, 31; + won Tait Black Prize, 1920, 30 + +_Carnival_, by Compton Mackenzie, 265 + +_Casement, The_, by Frank Swinnerton, 236, 242 + +_Cathedral, The_, by Hugh Walpole, 19, 31; + at Polchester, 19; + review of, 19 + +_Century of Banking in New York, 1822-1922, A_, by Henry Wysham +Lanier, 193 + +Chambers, Robert W., article on, by Rupert Hughes, 320; + Eris, 311, 317, 320; + _In the Quarter_, 317, 318; Iole, 318, 319; + list of books by, 318, 319, 320; + Sources On, 320; Story-teller, 308; + _The Flaming Jewel_, 311, 320; + _The King in Yellow,_ 317, 318; + _The Talkers_, 317, 320; + _The Witch of Ellangowan_, 318; + _With the Band_ (poem), 317 + +_Chaste Wife, The_, by Frank Swinnerton, 226, 243 + +Chinese Metal, by E. G. Kemp, 190; + comment by Sao-Ke Alfred Sze, 191 + +_Circle, The_, by W. Somerset Maugham, 289, 292, 364 + +_Circuit Rider's Wife, A_, by Corra Harris, 257 + +_Circular Staircase, The_, by Mary Roberts Rinehart, 110, 114, 116 + +_Claim Jumpers, The_, by Stewart Edward White, 55, 63, 66 + +_Clayhanger_, by Arnold Bennett, 148, 149 + +_Cloud Boat Stories_, by Olive Roberts Barton, 162 + +Cobb, Irvin S., 89, 241; + _An Occurrence up a Side Street_, 176, 180; + as a humorist, 179; + at Portsmouth Peace Conference, 177, 178; + biography by Robert H. Davis, 172-183, 186; + books by, 184; + comments on The Bookman, 367; + description of self, 182, 183; + dimensions of, 166; + editorial work, 175, 176; + Fishhead, 176, 180; + _J. Poindexter, Colored_, 169, 185; + lecture by Gelett Burgess, 179; + Plays by, 185; + report of Thaw Trial, 178; + Sources on, 186; + _Stickfuls_, 169, 185; + _The Belled Buzzard_, 176, 180; + _The Escape of Mr. Trimm_, 178, 180, 184 + +Collected Parodies, by J. C. Squire, 98; + Selections, 98, 99 + +Coming of the Peoples, The, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler, 161 + +_Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman, The_, + by Stephen McKenna, 337, 344, 346; + + Quotations from London Times, 337-339; + Sample of, 344, 345 + +Conjurors House, by Stewart Edward White, 66 + +Conkling, Hilda, 356 + +Connor, Ralph, 264 + +Conrad, Joseph, A Critical Study of Walpole, 31; + experiences similar, 25; + introductory note to _Anthology_, 28 + +_Cooperative Movement_, by Dr. James B. Warbasse, 300 + +_Coquette_, by Frank Swinnerton, 226, 243 + +_Creative Spirit in Industry, The_, by Robert B. Wolf, 300 + +_Crisis of the Naval War_, by Viscount Jellicoe of Scapa, 329; + review of, in Proceedings of the United States Naval + Institute, 329, 330, 331 + +_Crome Yellow_, by Aldous Huxley, 34 + +Cummins, Col. Stevenson Lyle, in Who's Who, 156, 157; + _Plays for Children_, 157 + +_Cupid and Commonsense_, by Arnold Bennett, 133, 150 + +Dana, H. W. L., 297; _Social Forces in Literature_, 300 + +_Dancers in the Dark_, by Dorothy Speare, 255, 256 + +Daniels, Josephus, _Our Navy at War_, 321, 322 + +_Dark Forest, The_, by Hugh, Walpole, 16, 28, 31 + +Davey, Norman, 36, 37; + Guinea Girl, 36, 37; + The Gas Turbine, 37; + _The Pilgrim of a Smile_, 36 + +Davies, Hubert Henry, Plays of, _A Single Man_, 365; + _Captain Drew on Leave_, 365; + _Cousin Kate_, 365; + _Doormats_, 365; + _Lady Epping's Law Suit_, 365; + _Mrs. Gorringe's Necklace_, 365; + _Outcasts_, 365; + _The Mollusc_, 365 + +Davis, Robert H., 186; + biographer of Irvin S. Cobb, 172, 186; + Box Score of Writers, 183 + +_Days Before Yesterday_, by Lord Frederic Hamilton, 131 + +de Staël, Madame, 128 + +"Death of Lully," in Limbo, by Aldous Huxley, 36 + +_Deaves Affair_, The, by Hulbert Footner, 75 + +_December Love_, by Robert Hichins, 249 + +Dehan, Richard (Clotilde Graves), 196, 197, 199, 200, 201, 204, 209, + 210, 211; + _Between Two Thieves_, 198, 200, 210; + books by, 210; + Comment by The Bookman, 198; + sources on, 211; + _That Which Hath Wings_, 200, 210; + _The Dop Doctor_, 196, 200, 210; + _The Eve of Pascua_, 201, 210; + _The Just Steward_, 201, 202, 203, 205, 206, 207, 208, 210 + +Denham, Sir James, _Memoirs of the Memorable_, 119 + +Dennis, Mrs. A. E. Forbes, see Phyllis Bottome, 258 + +Dircks, Helen, _Passenger_, 236 + +Djemal Pasha, _Memoirs of_, 122 + +_Doors of the Night_, by Frank L. Packard, 68, 69 + +_Dop Doctor, The_, by Richard Dehan (Clotilde Graves), 196, 200, 210 + +Dos Passes, John, 356; + _A Pushcart at the Curb_, 347; + _de Unamuno, Miguel_, 39; + _Manrique, Jorge, Ode_, 39; + _Rosinante to The Road Again_, 38, 347; + _Three Soldiers_, 347 + +Douglas, O., 249; + _Ann and Her Mother_, 249; + _Penny Plain_, 249; + Sister of John Buchan, 249 + +Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan, 115; + _Spiritualism and Rationalism_, 302; + _The New Revelation_, 302; + _The Vital Message_, 302; + _The Wanderings of a Spiritualist_, 302 + +Dreiser, Theodore, review of Human Bondage, in New Republic, 273-277 + +_Duchess of Wrexe, The_, by Hugh Walpole, 19, 31 + +_Earth's Story, The_, by Frederic Arnold Kummer, 155 + +_East of Suez_, by W. Somerset Maugham, 284, 292, 360 + +_Education of Eric Law, The_, see _The Sensationalists_, + by Stephen McKenna, 342, 346 + +Ellis, Havelock, _Little Essays of Love and Virtue_, 302; + _Emperor Francis Joseph and His Times, The_, by Baron Margutti, 130 + +_English Literature During the Last Half Century_, + by John W. Cunliffe, 144, 150 + +_Eris_, by Robert W. Chambers, 311, 317, 320; + from extracts, 311-316, 320 + +_Escape of Mr. Trimm, The_, by Irvin S. Cobb, 178, 180, 184 + +_Essays on Religion_, by T. R. Glover, 305 + +_Eve of Pascua_, The, by Richard Dehan (Clotilde Graves), 201, 210 + +_Eyes of Love, The_, by Corra Harris, 257; + extract from, 257-8 + +_Facing Reality_, by Esme Wingfield-Stratford, 300; + Chapter titles, 300; + introduction, extracts from, 300, 301 + +_Fairies and Chimneys_, by Rose Fyleman, 158; + Quotation from, 158 + +_Fairy Flute, The_, by Rose Fyleman, 158 + +Farnsworth, Sidney, _Illumination and Its Development in the + Present Day_, 223 + +Farrar, John, Editor of The Bookman, 94, 357; + poet, 371; + Editor, see The Bookman, 371 + +Fenger, Frederic A., _Alone in the Caribbean_, 194 + +_First Days of Man, The_, by Frederic Arnold Kummer, 155, 156 + +_First Person Singular, The_, by William Rose Benét, 262, 263, 354 + +_Flaming Jewel, The_, by Robert W. Chambers, 311, 320 + +Follett, Wilson, comparisons, 52; + Reviewer The Bookman, 371; + _Some Modern Novelists_, 150 + +Footner, Hulbert, _The Deaves Affair_, 75; + _The Owl Taxi_, 74, 75 + +Forbes, Lady Angela, _Memories and Base Details_, 130; + _Memories Discreet and Indiscreet_, 130; + _More Indiscretions_, 129 + +Forbes, Rosita, _The Secret of the Sahara: Kufara_, 192 + +_Fortitude_, by Hugh Walpole, 21, 23, 27, 31; + theme of, 21, 31 + +_Forty Years On_, by Lord Ernest Hamilton, 132 + +"Frankincense and Myrrh," from _Pieces of Hate_, + by Heywood Broun, 41, 42, 43 + +_From Now On_, by Frank L. Packard, 68, 69 + +_Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale, The_, by Frank L. Packard, 68, 69 + +_Further Adventures of Lad_, by Albert Payson Terhune, 215; + extracts from, 216 + +Fyleman, Rose, Fairies and Chimneys, 158; + _The Fairy Flute_, 158 + +Gabriel, Gilbert W., 53; + Jiminy, novel by, 53; + music critic, N. Y. Sun, 53; + Novelist, 53; + substitute for Don Marquis, 54 + +_Gates of Wrath, The_, by Arnold Bennett, 146, 149 + +Gavit, John Palmer, account of Stewart Edward White, 65, 66, 67 + +Geister, Edna, _Ice-breakers and the Ice-Breaker Herself_, 219; + _It Is to Laugh_, 219 + +_Gist of Golf, The_, by Harry Vardon, 213 + +_Giving and Receiving_, by E. V. Lucas, 307 + +Glover, T. R., _Essays on Religion_, 305; + _Jesus in the Experience of Man_, 305; + _Poets and Pilgrims_, 305; + _Poets and Puritans,_ 305; + _The Jesus of History_, 305; + _The Nature and Purpose of a Christian Society_, 305; + _The Pilgrim_, 305 + +_Gods and Mr. Perrin, The_, by Hugh Walpole, 22, 27, 31 + +_Gold_, by Stewart Edward White, 61, 67 + +_Golden Scarecrow, The_, 15, 27, 31 + +_Gold-Killer_, by John Prosper, 75 + +_Grand Fleet, The_, by Viscount Jellicoe of Scapa, 329 + +Graves, Clotilde (Richard Dehan), 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 204, + 209, 210, 211; + _A Mother of Three_, 199, 210; + _Nitocris_, 199, 210; + _Puss in Boots_, 199 + +_Green Mirror, The_, by Hugh Walpole, 19, 27, 31 + +"Greenow, Richard," of _Limbo_, by Aldous Huxley, 36 + +_Guinea Girl_, by Norman Davey, 36, 37 + +Guest, Leslie Haden, _The Struggle for Power in Europe_ (1917-21), 323, 324 + +Haggard, Andrew C. P., _Madame de Staël; Her Trials and Triumphs_, 129 + +_Half Loaves_, by Margaret Culkin Banning, 253 + +Hambourg, Mark, _How to Play the Piano_, 219, 220 + +Hamilton, Lord Ernest, Forty Years On, 131 + +Hamilton, Lord Frederic, Days Before Yesterday, 131; + Diplomatic Services, 131; + Education, 131; + _Here, There and Everywhere_, 131; + _The Vanished Pomps of Yesterday_, 131 + +"Happy Families," in _Limbo_, by Aldous Huxley, 36 + +_Happy Family, The_, by Frank Swinnerton, 226, 238, 242 + +Harcourt, Edward Vernon, 118 + +Harcourt, Sir William, _George Granville Venables Vernon, Life of_, 118 + +"Harlequin," from _The Birds and Other Poems_, by J. C. Squire, 351, 352 + +_Harp of Life, The_, by J. Hartley Manners, 363 + +Harris, Corra, 257, 264; + _A Circuit Rider's Wife_, 257; + _The Eyes of Love_, 257 + +Harrison, Marguerite E., _Marooned in Russia_, 192 + +Hawthorne, Nathaniel, _A Wonder Book_, 165; + _The Scarlet Letter_, 327, 328 + +Hayhurst, Dr. Emery, _Labour and Health_, 209 + +Henry, Alice, _Women and the Labour Movement_, 299 + +_Here, There and Everywhere_, by Lord Frederic Hamilton, 131 + +Herford, Oliver, _Neither Here Nor There_, 95 + +Hergesheimer, Joseph, Appreciation of Hugh Walpole, 15, 29, 30, 31 + +Herm, home of Compton Mackenzie, 267 + +_Herman Melville: Mariner and Mystic_, by Raymond W. Weaver, 325; + review by Carl Van Vechten, 325-328 + +_Hermit of Far End, The_, by Margaret Pedler, 256 + +Heroes of the Ruins, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler, 160 + +Heterogeneous Magis of Maugham, The, 270 + +Hichins, Robert, _The Garden of Allah_, 249; + _December Love_, 249 + +_History of Sea Power, A_, by William O. Stevens and Allan Westcott, 331; + Admiral Caspar F. Goodrich, review of, in The Weekly Review, 331-333; + Extracts from, 332, 333 + +Holliday, Robert Cortes, 52; + business connections, 221; + _Broome Street Straws_, 52; + editor of The Bookman, 369; + Memoirs in _Joyce Kilmer, Poems, Essays and Letters_, 53; + _Men and Books and Cities_, 52; + _Peeps at People_, 52; + praise by James Hunecker, 52; + Study of Booth Tarkington, 53; + _Turns About Town_, 52; + _Walking Stick Papers_, 51; + _Writing as a Business; A Practical Guide for Authors_, 220 + +Houghton, Mrs. Hadwin, See Wells, Carolyn + +_House of Dreams Come True, The_, by Margaret Pedler, 256 + +House of Five Swords, The, by Tristram Tupper, 247, 248 + +"Houses" from _Main Street and other Poems_, by Joyce Kilmer, 349, 350 + +_How to Live on Twenty-four Hours a Day_, by Arnold Bennett, 303 + +_How to Play the Piano_, by Mark Hambourg, 219, 220 + +Howard, Sidney, Swords, 364 + +Hughes, Rupert, article on Robert W. Chambers, 320; + on Robert W. Chambers, 311 + +_Hugh Walpole Anthology, A_, by Hugh Walpole, 27, 32; + divisions of, 27; + Country Places, 27; + London, 27; + Men and Women, 27; + Russia, 27; + Some Children, 27; + Some Incidents, 27 + +_Hunting Hidden Treasure in the Andes_, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler, 159 + +Huxley, Aldous, 34, 35, 36; + Beauty, 36; + Comment by Michael Sadlier, 34; + Crome Yellow, 34; + Disciple of Laforgue, 35; + L'Apres-Midi-d'un Faune, translation by, 35; + _Limbo_, 34, 36; + Mortal Coils, 34, 35; + "Permutation among the Nightingales," play by, 35; + poet and writer of prose, 35; + Quotations from _Mortal Coils,_ 35; + Splendour, by Numbers, 36; + the sensualist, 36; + Translator of Laforgue, 35; + translation of _The Walk_, 35 + +_I Have Only Myself to Blame_, by Princess Bibesco, 47; + extract from, 47, 48, 49 + +_Ice-breakers and the Ice-Breaker Herself_, by Edna Geister, 219 + +_Illumination and Its Development in the Present Day_, + by Sidney Farnsworth, 223 + +_Imprudence_, by F. E. Mills Young, 263 + +_In the Days Before Columbus_, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler, 160 + +_In the Quarter_, by Robert W. Chambers, 317, 318 + +_Iole_, by Robert W. Chambers, 318, 319 + +_Irish Free State, The_, by Albert C. White, 191; Book Value, 192 + +Isn't That Just Like a Man: Oh, Well, You Know How Women Are! 89 + +_It Is to Laugh_, by Edna Geister, 219 + +Jacks, L. P., editor of Hibbert Journal, 195; + _The Legends of Smokeover_, 194 + +Jameson, Mrs. Falconer, see J. E. Buckrose + +Jellicoe, Viscount, of Scapa, _The Crisis of the Naval War_, 329; + _The Grand Fleet_, 329 + +_Jimmy Dale and the Phantom Clue_, by Frank L. Packard, 69 + +_Joining in Public Discussion_, by Alfred Dwight Sheffield, 297; + sections of, 299 + +_Judge, The_, by Rebecca West, 78; + dedication and review, 84, 85, 86; + extract from, 81, 82; + material employed, 82, 83 + +_Judgment of Charis, The_, by Mrs. Baillie Reynolds, 76 + +_Just Steward, The_, by Richard Dehan (Clotilde Graves), 201; + samples from, 201-203, 205, 206, 207, 208, 210 + +_Jungle Tales, Adventures in India_, by Howard Anderson Musser, 156 + +_K_, by Mary Roberts Rinehart, +107, 108, 116 + +Kemp, E. G., _Chinese Mettle_, 190 + +Kerr, Sophie, 244; + Autobiography, 244-246; + editor Woman's Home Companion, 245; + _One Thing is Certain_, 246; + _Painted Meadows_, 246; + quotations from letter by, 246, 247 + +Kilmer, Joyce, Main Street and Other Poems, 349; + Poems, Essays and Letters, 53; + Memoirs, by Robert Cortes Holliday, 53; + Trees and Other Poems, 349 + +Kilmer, Mrs., _Candles That Burn_, 350; Vigils, 350 + +_Kingfisher, The_, by Phyllis Bottome, 260 + +_King in Yellow, The_, by Robert W. Chambers, 317, 318 + +_Knight Among Ladies_, A, by J. E. Buckrose, 251 + +Knight, Captain, C. W. R., _Wild Life in the Tree Tops_, 214 + +Kummer, Frederic Arnold, The Earth's Story, 155; + _The First Days of Man_, 155, 156 + +_Labour and Health_, by Dr. Emery Hayhurst, 299 + +_Lad: A Dog_, by Albert Payson Terhune, 214 + +_Lady Frederick_, by W. Somerset Maugham, 289, 291 + +_Lady Lilith_, by Stephen McKenna, 342, 343, 346; + Comments by author, 342, 343, 346 + +_Lamp of Fate, The_, by Margaret Pedler, 256 + +_Land of Footprints, The_, by Stewart Edward White, 55, 67 + +Lanier, Henry Wysham, _A Century of Banking in New York: 1822-1922_, 193 + +Lardner, Ring W., appreciation of Charles E. Van Loan, 212; + Sport, 212 + +_Laughter, Ltd._, by Nina Wilcox Putnam, 90 + +_Legends of Smokeover, The_, by L. P. Jacks, 194 + +_Life and Letters_, by J. C. Squire, 46 + +_Life of Sir William Vernon Harcourt, The_, 118 + +Lilian, by Arnold Bennett, 133, 137-141, 149; + extract from, 137-141, 149 + +_Limbo_, by Aldous Huxley, 34, 36; + Death of Lully, 36; + Happy Families, 36 + +Literary Spotlight, The; The Bookman, 371 + +_Little Essays of Love and Virtue_, +by Havelock Ellis, 302 + +_Little Jumping Joan_, by May Byron, 153 + +_Liza of Lambeth_, by W. Somerset Maugham, 286, 287, 291 + +Lloyd George, critical sketch, by E. T. Raymond, 121 + +Lodge, Sir Oliver, 115, 301 + +London Mercury, edited by J. C. Squire, 44, 46 + +_London Spy, The_, by Thomas Burke, 189 + +_Long Live the King_, by Mary Roberts Rinehart, 115, 116 + +_Love Match, The_, by Arnold Bennett, 361, 364; + Extracts from, 361-363 + +Lowndes, Mrs. Belloc, appreciation of Hugh Walpole, 23, 24; + _What Timmy Did_, 77 + +Lucas, E. V., _Giving and Receiving_, 307; + _Roving East and Roving West_, 307 + +Mackenzie, Compton, _Carnival_, 265; + _Plasher's Mead_, 265; + _Poor Relations_, 265; + Rich Relatives, 265; + Sinister Street, 265; + The Altar Steps, 265, 266, 269; + The Parson's Progress, 266; + visit by Simon Pure, 266-269 + +MacQuarrie, Hector, on W. Somerset Maugham, 277, 284, 290; + _Tahiti Days_, 270 + +_Madame de Staël; Her Trials and Triumphs_, + by Andrew C. P. Haggard, 124-129 + +_Main Street and Other Poems_, by Joyce Kilmer, 349 + +_Man from the North, A_, by Arnold Bennett, 146, 149 + +_Man in Lower Ten, The_, by Mary Roberts Rinehart, 114, 116 + +_Man in Ratcatcher, The_, by Cyril McNeile, 70 + +Manners, J. Hartley, _The Harp of Life_, 363 + +_Maradick at Forty_, by Hugh Walpole, 26, 31 + +Margutti, Baron von, _The Emperor Francis Joseph and His Times_, 130 + +_Marooned in Moscow_, by Marguerite E. Harrison, 192 + +_Married Life_, by Arnold Bennett, 303 + +Maugham W. Somerset, article by Hector MacQuarrie, 292; + books by, 291, 292; + _Caroline_, 289, 292; + East of Suez, 284, 292, 360; + education of, 286; + father of, 286; + wife of, 286; + _Lady Frederick_, 289, 291; + _Liza of Lambeth_, 286, 287, 291; + _Mrs. Craddock_, 287, 288, 291; + _Mrs. Dot_, 289, 291; + _Of Human Bondage_, 270, 273-77, 287, 291; + _On a Chinese Screen_, 284-285, 291; + playright, 288; + sources on, 292; + _The Circle_, 289, 292; + The heterogeneous magic of, 270; + _The Moon and Sixpence_, 270, 277, 278, 279, 284, 287, 291 + +McCormick, W. B., Army and Navy Journal, Editor of, 321; + Comment on Josephus Daniels _Our Navy at War_, 321, 322, 323 + +McFee, William, 371; + Extracts from preface to _Spindrift_, by Milton Raison, 352, 353 + +McKenna, Stephen, 334, 337, 338, 339, 340, 341, 342, 343, 345, 346; + _Between Two Worlds_, 341, 346; + Books by, 345, 346; + Comments on _Lady Lilith_, 342, 343; + education of, 340; + _Lady Lilith_, 342, 343, 346; + Leopold McKenna, father of, 340; + _Midas and Son_, 341, 346; + _Ninety-Six Hours' Leave_, 341, 346; + personality, 343; + _Sheila Intervenes_, 340, 345; + _Sonia_, 339, 340, 341, 342, 343, 346; + _Sonia Married_, 341, 342, 346; + Sources on, 346; + _The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman_, 337, 344, 346; + _The Education of Eric Lane_, 342, 346; + _The Reluctant Lover_, 340, 345; + _The Secret Victory_, 342, 346; + _The Sensationalists_, 341, 342; + _The Sixth Sense_, 340, 345; + _Translator of Poltinus_, 339; + war service, 340; + _While I Remember_, 324, 346 + +McNeile, Cyril, Bulldog Drummond, 70; + _The Black Gang_, 70; + _The Man in Ratcatcher_, 70 + +Melville, Herman, _Mardi_, 327; + _Moby Dick_, 327, 328; + _Omoo_, 326; + _Pierre_, 327; + _Typee_, 326 + +_Memoirs of Djemal Pasha, The_, 122 + +_Memoirs of the Memorable_, by Sir James Denham, 119; + Beaconsfield, Lord, 119; + Beresford, Lord Marcus, 119; + Bishop of London, 119; + Bishop of Manchester, 119; + Browning, Robert, 119; + Byron, Lord, 119; + Carroll, Lewis, 119; + Dunedin, Lord, 119; + Gladstone, 119; + Howard, Cardinal, 119 + +_Memories and Base Details_, by Lady Angela Forbes, 130 + +_Memories Discreet and Indiscreet_, by Lady Angela Forbes, 129 + +_Men and Books and Cities_, by Robert Cortes Holliday, 52 + +_Men Who Make Our Novels, The_, by George Gordon, 55, 67, 320 + +_Merry Heart, The_, by Frank Swinnerton, 236, 242 + +_Midas and Son_, by Stephen McKenna, 341, 342, 346 + +_Milestones_, by Arnold Bennett and Edward Knoblauch, 364 + +Milne, A. A., _Mr. Pim_, 261 + +_Miracle Man, The_, by Frank L. Packard, 68 + +_Miscellanies--Literary and Historical_, by Lord Rosebery, 123 + +Moffatt, Dr. James, _The Approach of the New Testament_, 296; + _New Translation of the New Testament_, 293; + _New Translation of the Old Testament_, 296; + _The Parallel Testament_, 293 + +_Mollusc, The_, by Hubert Henry Davies, 365 + +Monaghan, Elizabeth A., _What to Eat and How to Prepare It_, 218 + +_Moon and Sixpence, The_, by W. Somerset Maugham, 270, 278, 279, 284, + 287, 291 + +_Moon Out of Reach, The_, by Margaret Pedler, 256 + +_Moons of Grandeur_, by William Rose Benét, 354, 355; + Don Marquis, review of, 354; + Quotation from, 355 + +Moore, Annie Carroll, _Roads to Childhood_, 152 + +_More Indiscretions_, by Lady Angela Forbes, 129 + +_More Limehouse Nights_, by Thomas Burke, 187 + +Morley, Christopher, _A Rocking Horse_, 348; + _Translations from the Chinese_, 349 + +_Mortal Coils_, by Aldous Huxley, 34, 35 + +_Mr. Lloyd George: A Biographical and Critical Sketch_, + by E. T. Raymond, 120 + +_Mr. Pim_, by A. A. Milne, 261 + +_Mr. Prohock_, by Arnold Bennett, 133, 141, 149; + extracts from, 141-144, 149 + +_Mrs. Craddock_, by W. Somerset Maugham, 287, 288, 291; + extract from, 288, 291 + +Musser, Howard Anderson, _Jungle Tales, Adventures in India_, 156 + +_My Creed: The Way to Happiness--As I Found It_, Mary Roberts Rinehart, 117 + +_My Impressions of America_, by Margot Asquith, 122 + +Myers, A. Wallis, _Twenty Years of Lawn Tennis_, 213 + +_Neither Here Nor There_, by Oliver Herford, 95 + +_Nêne_, 264; Comment by Walter +Prichard Eaton, 265; Goncourt +Prize, won by, 264 + +_New Revelation, The_, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 302 + +_New Translation of the New Testament_, by Dr. James Moffatt, 293; + extracts from, 293-296 + +_New Translation of the Old Testament_, by Dr. James Moffatt, 296 + +_Nicolette_, by Baroness Orczy, 248 + +_Night Operator, The_, by Frank L. Packard, 68 + +_Nights in London_, by Thomas Burke, 190 + +Ninety-six Hours' Leave, by Stephen McKenna, 341, 346 + +_Nocturne_, by Frank Swinnerton, 225, 233, 235, 239, 243; + Comment by H. G. Wells, 233-235 + +_Of Human Bondage_, by W. Somerset Maugham, 270; + review by Theodore Dreiser, 273-277, 287, 291 + +_Old Morocco and the Forbidden Atlas_, by C. E. Andrews, 193 + +_Old Wives' Tales, The_, by Arnold Bennett, 133, 149; + inspiration of, 147, 149 + +_On a Chinese Screen_, by W. Somerset Maugham, 284, 291; + extract from, 284-285 + +_On the Staircase_, by Frank Swinnerton, 226, 243 + +_On Tiptoe: A Romance of the Redwoods_, by Stewart Edward White, 59, 67 + +_One Thing is Certain_, by Sophie Kerr, 246 + +_Our Navy at War_, by Josephus Daniels, 321; + Comment on, by W. B. McCormick, 321, 322, 323 + +_Outcasts_, by Hubert Henry Davies, 365 + +Orczy, Baroness, _Nicolette_, 248 + +_Owl Taxi, The_, by Hulbert Footner, 74, 75 + +Packard, Frank L., _Doors of the Night_, 68; + education of, 68; + _From Now On_, 68; + _Pawned_, 68; + _The Adventures of Jimmy Dale_, 68, 69; + _The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale_, 68; + _The Miracle Man_, 68; + _The Night Operator_, 68; + _The Phantom Clue_, 69; + _The Wire Devils_, 68 + +_Painted Meadows_, by Sophie Kerr, 246 + +_Parallel New Testament, The_, by Dr. James Moffatt, 293 + +_Parody Outline of History, A,_ by Donald Ogden Stewart, 93, 94, 371; + see The Bookman, 371 + +_Parson's Progress, The_, by Compton Mackenzie, 266 + +_Passenger_, by Helen Dircks, 236 + +_Patricia Brent, Spinster_, anonymous, 261 + +_Pawned_, by Frank L. Packard, 68 + +Pedler, Margaret, _The Hermit of Far End_, 256; + _The House of Dreams Come True_, 256; + _The Lamp of Fate_, 256; + _The Moon Out of Reach_, 256; + _The Splendid Folly_, 256 + +_Peeps at People_, by Robert Cortes Holliday, 52 + +_Penny Plain_, by O. Douglas, 249 + +_Perfect Behaviour_, by Donald Ogden Stewart, 93, 94; + motive of, 94 + +Perin, Dr. George L., founder of Franklin Square House for Girls, 304; + on autosuggestion, 304; + _Self Healing Simplified_, 304 + +"Permutations Among the Nightingales," by Aldous Huxley, 35 + +_Peter_, by E. F. Benson, 261 + +_Pieces of Hate_, by Heywood Broun, 41 + +_Pilgrim of a Smile, The_, by Norman Davey, 36 + +_Plays for Children_, by Col. Stevenson Lyle Cummins, 157 + +Plays of Hubert Henry Davies, The, 365 + +_Plotting in Pirate Seas_, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler, 159 + +_Poems: Second Series_, by J. C. Squire, 351 + +_Poets and Puritans_, by T. R. Glover, 305; + preface, 306 + +_Poindexter, J., Colored_, by Irvin S. Cobb, 169, 185; + extract from, 170-171, 185 + +_Pomp of Power, The_, anonymous, 119 + +Preston, Keith, _Splinters_, 358, 359 + +Prosper, John, _Gold-Killer_, 75 + +Publishing as a business, 199 + +Pure, Simon, visit to Compton Mackenzie, 266-269 + +_Pushcart at the Curb, A_, by John Dos Passos, 347; + General Headings of, 347 + +Putnam, Nina Wilcox, Laughter, Ltd., 90; + story in American Magazine, 91, 92; + style of, 90; + _Tomorrow We Diet_, 90; + _West Broadway_, 88, 90 + +"Quai de la Tournelle," from a _Pushcart at the Curb_, by John Dos Passos, + Quotation from, 348 + +_Quest of the Western World, The_, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler, 160 + +Rackham, Arthur, artist, 165 + +Raison, Milton, _Spindrift_, 352, 353 + +Raymond, Ernest, _Tell England_, 250 + +Raymond, E. T., _Mr. Lloyd George: A Biographical and Critical + Sketch_, 120; + _Uncensored Celebrities_, 120 + +_Recollections and Reflections_, by A Woman of No Importance, 129 + +Reeve, Mrs. Winnifred, see Onoto Watanna, 254 + +_Responsibility_, by James E. Agate, 49 + +_Return of Alfred, The_, anonymous, 261 + +Reynolds, Mrs. Baillie, _The Judgment of Charis_, 76 + +Riddell, Lord, _Some Things That Matter_, 303 + +Rinehart, Mrs. Mary R., 89; + books by, 116; + K., 107, 108, 116; + _Long Live the King_, 115, 116; + methods of work, 111; + _My Creed: The Way to Happiness_, 117; + _My Public_, 117; + parents of, 108; + quotation from, 102-103; + Sources on, 117; + _The Amazing Adventures of Letitia Carberry_, 108, 115, 116; + _The Amazing Interlude_, 105, 115, 116; + _The Bat_, a collaboration with Avery Hopwood, 114; + _The Breaking Point_, 105, 117; + _The Circular Staircase_, 110, 114, 116; + _The Man in Lower Ten_, 114, 116; + _Tish_, 108, 115, 116; + vitality of, 102 + +_Roads to Childhood_, by Annie Carroll Moore, 152 + +_Robin Hood's Barn_, by Margaret Emerson Bailey, 194 + +_Rocking Horse, The_, by Christopher Morley, 348; + Quotation from, 348 + +Rolt-Wheeler, Francis, "Boy Journalist Series," 159, 161; + _Heroes of the Ruins_, 160; + _Hunting Hidden Treasures in the Andes_, 159; + _In the Days Before Columbus_, 160; + _Plotting in Pirate Seas_, 159; + _The Coming of the Peoples_, 161; + _The Quest of the Western World_, 160; + wanderings of, 158 + +Rosebery, Lord, _Miscellanies--Literary and Historical_, 123 + +_Rosinante to the Road Again_, by John Dos Passos, 38, 347 + +_Roving East and Roving West_, by E. V. Lucas, Sadlier, Michael, + comment on Huxley, 34 + +Saxton, Eugene F., 67; + account of Stewart Edward White, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65 + +_Secret of the Sahara: Kufara_, by Rosita Forbes, 192, 193 + +_Secret Victory, The._ See _The Sensationalists_, + by Stephen McKenna, 342, 346 + +_Self Healing Simplified_, by Dr. George L. Perin, 304 + +_Sensationalists, The_, by Stephen McKenna, 341; + _Lady Lilith_, 342; + _The Education of Eric Lane_, 342; + _The Secret Victory_, 342 + +_September_, by Frank Swinnerton, 225, 226, 243 + +"Seymour, Hugh," of _The Golden Scarecrow_, 16, 21 + +Sheffield, Alfred Dwight, _Joining in Public Discussion_, 297 + +Sheridan, C. M., _The Stag Cook Book_, 217 + +_Shops and Houses_, by Frank Swinnerton, 226, 243 + +_Sixth Sense, The_, by Stephen McKenna, 340, 345 + +"Social Amenities" in "Soles Occidere et Redire Possunt," 36 + +_Social Forces in Literature_, by Dr. H. W. L. Dana, 300 + +_Some Things that Matter_, by Lord Riddell, 303 + +_Somerset Maugham in Tahiti_, article, by Hector MacQuarrie, 292 + +"Song for a Little House," from _The Rocking Horse_ by Christopher + Morley, 348 + +_Sonia_, by Stephen McKenna, 251, 339, 340, 341, 342, 343, 346 + +_Sonia Married_, by Stephen McKenna, 341, 342, 346 + +Speare, Dorothy, 264; + _Dancers in the Dark_, 255, 256 + +_Spellbinders_, by Margaret Culkin Banning, 252 + +_Spindrift_, by Milton Raison, 352; + extracts from preface by William McFee, 353; + quotation from, 354 + +_Splendid Folly, The_, by Margaret Pedler, 256 + +Splendour by Numbers, Aldous Huxley, 36 + +_Splinters_, by Keith Preston, 358; + quotation from, 359 + +Squire, J. C., _Books in General_, Third Series, 44; + collected parodies, 98; + editor of the _London Mercury_, 44; + _Life and Letters_, 46; + on Anatole France, Jane Austen, Keats, Pope, Rabelais, Walt Whitman, 46; + pen name (Solomon Eagle), 46; + _Poems: Second Series_, 351; + _The Birds and Other Poems_, 351 + +_Stag Cook Book, The_, by C. M. Sheridan, 217 + +Stevens, William O., see Allan Westcott, _A History of Sea Power_, 331 + +Stevenson, Candace T., review of Olive Roberts Barton, 162 + +Stevenson, Robert Louis, description of Edinburgh, 86; + in Miscellanies, by Lord Rosebery, 123; + Swinnerton, on, 242 + +Stewart, Donald Ogden, _A Parody Outline of History_, 93, 94, 371; + _Perfect Behaviour_, 93, 94 + +_Stickfuls_, by Irvin S. Cobb, 169, 185 + +_Struggle for Power in Europe_ (1917-21), by Leslie Haden Guest, 323 + +_Sunny-San_, by Onoto Watanna, 253 + +Sutherland, Jean, _Beauty for Ashes_, 262 + +Swinnerton, Frank, Analyst of Lovers, 225; + Arnold Bennett's Comments, 225; + _Coquette_, 226, 243; + criticism of R. L. Stevenson, 242; + list of books, 242, 243; + literary critic, 241; + _Nocturne_, 225, 233, 235, 239, 243; + _On the Staircase_, 226, 243; + _Personal Sketches_ by Arnold Bennett, Grant Overton, H. G. Wells, 243; + publisher, 240; + _September_, 225, 226, 243; + _Shops and Houses_, 226, 243; + Sources on, 243; + _The Casement_, 236, 242; + _The Chaste Wife_, 226, 243; + _The Happy Family_, 226, 238, 242; + _The Merry Heart_, 236, 242; + _The Three Lovers_, 226, 227, 233, 243; + _The Young Idea_, 238 + +_Swords_, by Sidney Howard, 364; + Kenneth Macgowan's criticism, 364, 365 + +Taggart, Marion Ames, 164; + _At Greenacres_, 164; + _Poppy's Pluck_, 164; + _The Bottle Imp_, 164; + _The Queer Little Man_, 164 + +_Tahiti Days_, by Hector McQuarrie, 270 + +_Tales Told by the Gander_, by Maude Radford Warren, 153 + +_Talkers, The_, by Robert W. Chambers, 317, 320 + +Tarkington, Booth, box score, 183, 184; + study of, by Robert Cortes Holliday, 53 + +_Tell England_, by Ernest Raymond, 250; + Prologue, by Padre Monty, 250, 251 + +Terhune, Albert Payson, _Black Cæsar's Clan_, 71; + _Black Gold_, 71; + _Further Adventures of Lad_, 215; + home of, 214; + _Lad: A Dog_, 214 + +_That Which Hath Wings_, by Richard Dehan (Clotilde Graves), 200, 210 + +_They Have Only Themselves to Blame_, 118 + +_Thirty-nine Steps_, The, by John Buchan, 249 + +_This Marrying_, by Margaret Culkin Banning, 253 + +_Three Crowns_, The, by Winnifred Wells, 190 + +_Three Lovers, The_, by Frank Swinnerton, 226, 227, 233, 243; + Extracts from, 229, 243 + +_Three Men and a Maid_, by P. G. Wodehouse, 99; + extract from, 99-101 + +_Three Soldiers_, by John Dos Passos + +Tilden, William T., The Art of Lawn Tennis, 213; + tennis champion, 213 + +Timothy Tubby's Journal, extracts from, 95, 96, 97, 98 + +_Tish_, by Mary Roberts Rinehart, 108, 115, 116 + +_Tomorrow We Diet_, by Nina Wilcox Putnam, 90 + +"_Touch of Tears, The_," from Vigils, by Mrs. Kilmer, 350-351 + +_Trade Union Policy_, by Dr. Leo Wolman, 299 + +_Translations from the Chinese_, by Christopher Morley, 348; + Quotation from, 349 + +_Trees and Other Poems_, by Joyce Kilmer, 349 + +_Truth About an Author, The_, by Arnold Bennett, 144, 150 + +_Turns About Town_, by Robert Cortes Holliday, 52 + +_Twenty Years of Lawn Tennis_, by A. Wallis Myers, 213 + +_Vanished Pomps of Yesterday, The_, by Lord Frederic Hamilton, 131 + +_Vanishing of Betty Varian, The_, by Carolyn Wells, 76, 77 + +Van Loan, Charles E., Buck Parvin: + _Stories of the Motion Picture Game_, 212; + _Fore! Golf Stories_, 212; + _Old Man Curry: Racetrack Stories_, 212; + _Score by Innings: Baseball Stories_, 212; + _Taking the Count: Prize Ring Stories_, 212 + +Van, Rensselaer, Alexander, 220; + bibliographies by, 223 + +Van Vechten, Carl, New York Evening Post, + review of _Herman Melville: Mariner and Mystic_, 325-328 + +Vardon, Harry, _The Gist of Golf_, 213 + +_Vigils_, by Mrs. Kilmer, 350; + Quotations from, 350, 351 + +"Vision," from _Spindrift_, by Milton Raison, 354 + + _Vital Message, The_, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 302 + +_Voice in the Wilderness, The_, by Richard Blaker, 263 + +_Walking Stick Papers_, by Robert Cortes Holliday, selection from, 51, 52 + +Walpole, Hugh, 15 27, 28, 29, 31, 32; + _A Hugh Walpole Anthology_, 32; + American following of, 21; + appearance, 22; + article on, by Mrs. Belloc Loundes, 23; + birthplace, 15; + Books of, 31; + comments on The Bookman, 366; + connection with London Standard, 26; + appreciation by Joseph Hergesheimer, 15, 29, 30, 31; + courage of, 25; + description by Arnold Bennett, 22; + education of, 22; + educational experiences of, 22; + _English Literature During the Last Half Century_, 32; + father of, 15; + Fortitude, 21; + goes to England, 16; + Hugh Walpole, an appreciation, 31; + Hugh Walpole, Master Novelist, 32; + life in New York, 16; + London scenes pictured by, in _Anthology_, 28; + _Maradick at Forty_, 26; + Note by Joseph Conrad, 28; + Novels, list of, 31; + optimist, 23; + Romances, list of, 31; + Service in Great War, 16; + Selections for Anthology, 27; + Short Stories, list of, 31; + Sources on, 31; + superstitions, 24; + reader, 24; + Tait Black Prize for best novel of year, 30; + won by, 30; + _The Captives_, 24; + _The Cathedral_, 19; + _The Dark Forest_, 16; + _The Duchess of Wrexe_, 19; + _The Gods and Mr. Perrin_, 22; + _The Green Mirror_, 19; + _The Wooden Horse_, 25; + _Visits to America_, 16 + +_Wanderings of a Spiritualist, The_, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 302 + +Warren, Maude Radford, _Tales Told by the Gander_, 153 + +Watanna, Onoto (Mrs. Winnifred Reeve), 254; + _A Japanese Nightingale_, 254; + _Sunny-San_, 253 + +Warbasse, Dr. James B., _Cooperative Movement_, 300 + +Weaver, Raymond M., _Herman Melville: Mariner and Mystic_, + 325, 326, 327, 328 + +Wells, Carolyn (Mrs. Hadwin Houghton), 77; + _Book of Humorous Verse_, 99; + _The Room with the Tassels_, 76; + _The Vanishing of Betty Varian_, 76, 77 + +Wells, H. G., 94; Comments on Frank Swinnerton's _Nocturne_, 233, 234, 235; + _Soviet Russia_, 192 + +Westcott, Peter, in _Fortitude_, by Hugh Walpole, 22 + +_West Broadway_, by Nina Wilcox Putnam, 88, 90 + +_Westerners, The_, by Stewart Edward White, 55, 63, 66 + +West, Rebecca, books by, 86; + article by Amy Wellington, 83; + artist, 78; + biography of, 83; + _The Judge_, 78; + _The Return of the Soldier_, 86 + +Westcott, Allan, and William O. Stevens, _A History of Sea Power_, 331 + +_What Timmy Did_, by Mrs. Belloc Lowndes, 77 + +_What to Eat and How to Prepare It_, by Elizabeth A. Monaghan, 218 + +_While I Remember_, by Stephen McKenna, 324, 346 + +_Whispering Windows_, see _More Limehouse Nights_, + by Thomas Burke, 187, 188 + +White, Albert C., _The Irish Free State_, 191 + +White, Stewart Edward, 55, 56, 59, 60, 61, 66; + account of by Eugene F. Saxton, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65; + _Appendix, to Gold_, by Eugene F. Saxton, 67; + _The Birds of Mackinac Island_, 55, 63; + boat and books, 56, 59; + books of, 66; + by John Palmer Gavit, 67; + education of, 61; + Gold, 61, 67; + in France, 56; + military service, 61; + _On Tiptoe: A Romance of the Redwoods_, 59, 67; + parents, 60; + _Simba_, 55, 67; + sources on, 67; + _The Claim Jumpers_, 55, 63, 66; + _The Land of Footprints_, 55, 67; + _The Westerners_, 55, 63, 66 + +_Wild Life in the Tree Tops_, by Captain C. W. R. Knight, 214; + Photographs, 214 + +Wingfield-Stratford, Esme, _Facing Reality_, 300 + +_Wire Devils, The_, by Frank L. Packard, 68 + +_With the Band_, poem, by Robert W. Chambers, 317 + +Wodehouse, Pelham Grenville, 70; + lyrical writer, 99; + _Three Men and a Maid_, 99 + +Wolf, Robert, 297; + _The Creative Spirit in Industry_, 300 + +Wolman, Dr. Leo, _Trade Union Policy_, 299 + +Woman of No Importance, A, _Recollections and Reflections_, 129 + +_Women and the Labour Movement_, by Alice Henry, 299 + +_Women Who Make Our Novels, The_, by Grant Overton, 117; + chapter on Mary Roberts Rinehart, 109, 117 + +_Wonder Book, A_, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, 165 + +_Wooden Horse, The_, by Hugh Walpole, 25, 26, 31; + sale of, 25 + +Workers' Bookshelf Series, 297 + +Workers' Education Bureau of America, editorial board, 297 + + _Writing as a Business: A Practical Guide for Authors_, + by Robert Cortes Holliday, 220; + Extracts from, 222, 223 + +Wylie, Elinor, 357 + +Young, F. E. Mills, 263; + _Almonds of Life_, 263; + _Imprudence_, 263; + _The Stronger Influence_, 263 + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET*** + + +******* This file should be named 27116-8.txt or 27116-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/7/1/1/27116 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: When Winter Comes to Main Street</p> +<p>Author: Grant Martin Overton</p> +<p>Release Date: November 1, 2008 [eBook #27116]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3 class="pg">E-text prepared by Roger Frank<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> + +<div class='figcenter'> +<img src='images/winter01.jpg' alt='' title='' style='width: 328px; height: 517px;' /><br /> +</div> + +<hr style='margin:30px 0; width:100%; border:none; border-top:thin dashed silver;' /> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:2em;'>WHEN WINTER COMES</p> +<p style=' font-size:2em; margin-bottom:1em;'>TO MAIN STREET</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>BY</p> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-bottom:0.3em;'>GRANT OVERTON</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-bottom:12em;'>AUTHOR OF “THE WOMEN WHO MAKE OUR NOVELS”</p> +</div> + +<div class='figcenter'> +<img src='images/illus-emb.jpg' alt='' title='' style='width: 48px; height: 50px;' /><br /> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em;'>NEW YORK</p> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em;'>GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY</p> +</div> + +<hr style='margin:30px 0; width:100%; border:none; border-top:thin dashed silver;' /> +<div class='ce' style=' font-size:0.8em;'> +<p style=' margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:3em;'>PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</p> +<p>COPYRIGHT, 1922,</p> +<p>BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY</p> +</div> + +<hr class='mini' /> + +<div class='ce' style=' font-size:0.8em;'> +<p style=' margin-bottom:3em;'>WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET.</p> +<p>Press of</p> +<p>J. J. Little & Ives Company</p> +<p style=' margin-bottom:2em;'>New York, U. S. A.</p> +</div> + +<hr style='margin:30px 0; width:100%; border:none; border-top:thin dashed silver;' /> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-top:1em;'>FOR</p> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em;'>GEORGE H. DORAN</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-bottom:1em;'>WHO HAD THE IDEA</p> +<div style='margin-top:1em'></div> +</div> + +<hr style='margin:30px 0; width:100%; border:none; border-top:thin dashed silver;' /> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.4em;'>PREFACE</p> +</div> + +<p>I have borrowed my title from two remarkable +novels.</p> +<p><i>If Winter Comes</i>, by A. S. M. Hutchinson, was +published in the autumn of 1921 by Messrs. +Little, Brown & Company of Boston.</p> +<p><i>Main Street</i>, by Sinclair Lewis, was published +in the autumn of 1920 by Messrs. Harcourt, +Brace & Company of New York.</p> +<p>I have not before me the precise figures of the +amazing sales of these two books—each passed +350,000—but I make my bow to their authors +and to their publishers and to the American public. +I bow to the authors for the quality of their +work and to the publishers and the public for +their recognition of that quality.</p> +<p>These two substantial successes confirm my +belief that the American public in hundreds of +thousands relishes good reading. Without that +belief, this book would not have been prepared; +but I have prepared it with some confidence that +those who relish good reading will be interested +in the chapters that follow.</p> +<p>As a former book reviewer and literary editor, +as an author and, now, as one vitally concerned +in book publishing, my interest in books has been +fundamentally unchanging—a wish to see more +books read and better books to read.</p> +<p>From one standpoint, <i>When Winter Comes to +Main Street</i> is frankly an advertisement; it deals +with Doran books and authors. This is a fact +of some relevance, however, if, as I believe, the +reader shall find well-spent the time given to +these pages.</p> +<div class='ra'> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Grant Overton</span>.</p> +</div> + +<p><i>19 July 1922.</i></p> +<hr style='margin:30px 0; width:100%; border:none; border-top:thin dashed silver;' /> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.4em; margin-bottom:1em;'>CONTENTS</p> +</div> + +<table border='0' width='500' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary='Contents' style='margin:1em auto;'> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>I</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>THE COURAGE OF HUGH WALPOLE </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#I_THE_COURAGE_OF_HUGH_WALPOLE'>15</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>II</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>HALF-SMILES AND GESTURES </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#II_HALFSMILES_AND_GESTURES'>33</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>III</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>STEWART EDWARD WHITE AND ADVENTURE </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#III_STEWART_EDWARD_WHITE_AND_ADVENTURE'>55</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>IV</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>WHERE THE PLOT THICKENS </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#IV_WHERE_THE_PLOT_THICKENS'>68</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>V</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>REBECCA WEST: AN ARTIST </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#V_REBECCA_WEST_AN_ARTIST'>78</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>VI</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>SHAMELESS FUN </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#VI_SHAMELESS_FUN'>88</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>VII</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>THE VITALITY OF MARY ROBERTS RINEHART </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#VII_THE_VITALITY_OF_MARY_ROBERTS_RINEHART'>102</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>VIII</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>THEY HAVE ONLY THEMSELVES TO BLAME </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#VIII_THEY_HAVE_ONLY_THEMSELVES_TO_BLAME'>118</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>IX</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>AUDACIOUS MR. BENNETT </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#IX_AUDACIOUS_MR_BENNETT'>133</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>X</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>A CHAPTER FOR CHILDREN </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#X_A_CHAPTER_FOR_CHILDREN'>152</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XI</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>COBB’S FOURTH DIMENSION </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XI_COBB_S_FOURTH_DIMENSION'>166</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XII</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>PLACES TO GO </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XII_PLACES_TO_GO'>187</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XIII</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>ALIAS RICHARD DEHAN </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XIII_ALIAS_RICHARD_DEHAN'>196</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XIV</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>WITH FULL DIRECTIONS </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XIV_WITH_FULL_DIRECTIONS'>212</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XV</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>FRANK SWINNERTON: ANALYST OF LOVERS </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XV_FRANK_SWINNERTON_ANALYST_OF_LOVERS'>225</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XVI</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>AN ARMFUL OF NOVELS, WITH NOTES ON THE NOVELISTS </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XVI_AN_ARMFUL_OF_NOVELS_WITH_NOTES_ON_THE_NOVELISTS'>244</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XVII</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>THE HETEROGENEOUS MAGIC OF MAUGHAM </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XVII_THE_HETEROGENEOUS_MAGIC_OF_MAUGHAM'>270</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XVIII</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>BOOKS WE LIVE BY </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XVIII_BOOKS_WE_LIVE_BY'>293</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XIX</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>ROBERT W. CHAMBERS AND THE WHOLE TRUTH </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XIX_ROBERT_W_CHAMBERS_AND_THE_WHOLE_TRUTH'>308</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XX</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>UNIQUITIES </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XX_UNIQUITIES'>321</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XXI</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>THE CONFESSIONS OF A WELL-MEANING YOUNG MAN, STEPHEN MCKENNA </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XXI_THE_CONFESSIONS_OF_A_WELLMEANING_YOUNG_MAN_STEPHEN_MCKENNA'>334</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XXII</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>POETS AND PLAYWRIGHTS </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XXII_POETS_AND_PLAYWRIGHTS'>347</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XXIII</td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>THE BOOKMAN FOUNDATION AND THE BOOKMAN </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XXIII_THE_BOOKMAN_FOUNDATION_AND_THE_BOOKMAN'>366</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'></td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>EPILOGUE </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#EPILOGUE'>372</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'></td> + <td valign='top' align='left'>INDEX </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#INDEX'>373</a></td> +</tr> +</table> +<hr style='margin:30px 0; width:100%; border:none; border-top:thin dashed silver;' /> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.4em; margin-bottom:1em;'>PORTRAITS</p> +</div> + +<table border='0' width='400' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary='Illustrations' style='margin:1em auto'> +<col style='width:80%;' /> +<col style='width:20%;' /> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td align='right'><span style='font-size:small'>PAGE</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left'>HUGH WALPOLE</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#linki_1'>17</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left'>STEWART EDWARD WHITE</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#linki_2'>57</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left'>REBECCA WEST</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#linki_3'>79</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left'>MARY ROBERTS RINEHART</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#linki_4'>103</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left'>ARNOLD BENNETT</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#linki_5'>135</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left'>IRVIN S. COBB</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#linki_6'>167</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left'>FRANK SWINNERTON</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#linki_7'>227</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left'>W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#linki_8'>271</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='left'>STEPHEN McKENNA</td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#linki_9'>335</a></td> +</tr> +</table> +<hr style='margin:30px 0; width:100%; border:none; border-top:thin dashed silver;' /> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_15' name='page_15'></a>15</span></div> +<div class='ce' style=' font-size:1.4em;'> +<p>WHEN WINTER COMES</p> +<p>TO MAIN STREET</p> +</div> + +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='I_THE_COURAGE_OF_HUGH_WALPOLE' id='I_THE_COURAGE_OF_HUGH_WALPOLE'></a> +<h2><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Chapter I</span></h2> +<h3>THE COURAGE OF HUGH WALPOLE</h3> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>i</p> +</div> + +<p>Says his American contemporary, Joseph +Hergesheimer, in an appreciation of Hugh +Walpole: “Mr. Walpole’s courage in the face of +the widest scepticism is nowhere more daring than +in <i>The Golden Scarecrow</i>.” Mr. Walpole’s courage, +I shall always hold, is nowhere more apparent +than in the choice of his birthplace. He was +born in the Antipodes. Yes! In that magical, +unpronounceable realm one reads about and intends +to look up in the dictionary.... The precise +Antipodean spot was Auckland, New Zealand, +and the year was 1884.</p> +<p>The Right Reverend George Henry Somerset +Walpole, D.D., Bishop of Edinburgh since 1910, +had been sent in 1882 to Auckland as Incumbent +of St. Mary’s Pro-Cathedral, and the same ecclesiastical +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_16' name='page_16'></a>16</span> +fates which took charge of Hugh Seymour +Walpole’s birthplace provided that, at the age of +five, the immature novelist should be transferred +to New York. Dr. Walpole spent the next seven +years in imparting to students of the General Theological +Seminary, New York, their knowledge of +Dogmatic Theology. Hugh Seymour Walpole +spent the seven years in attaining the age of +twelve.</p> +<p>Then, in 1896, the family returned to England. +Perhaps a tendency to travel had by this time +become implanted in Hugh, for now, in his late +thirties, he is one of the most peripatetic of +writers. He is here, he is there. You write to +him in London and receive a reply from Cornwall +or the Continent. And, regularly, he comes over +to America. Of all the English novelists who +have visited this country he is easily the most popular +personally on this side. His visit this autumn +(1922) will undoubtedly multiply earlier welcomes.</p> +<p>Interest in Walpole the man and Walpole the +novelist shows an increasing tendency to become +identical. It is all very well to say that the man +is one thing, his books are quite another; but suppose +the man cannot be separated from his books? +The Walpole that loved Cornwall as a lad can’t +be dissevered from the “Hugh Seymour” of +<i>The Golden Scarecrow</i>; without his Red Cross +service in Russia during the Great War, Walpole +could not have written <i>The Dark Forest</i>; and I +think the new novel he offers us this autumn must +owe a good deal to direct reminiscence of such a +cathedral town as Durham, to which the family +returned when Hugh was twelve.</p> +<div class='figcenter'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_17' name='page_17'></a>17</span> +<a name='linki_1' id='linki_1'></a> +<img src='images/winter02.jpg' alt='' title='' style='width: 309px; height: 453px;' /><br /> +<p class='caption' style='margin: 0 auto; text-align:center;width: 309px;'> +HUGH WALPOLE<br /> +</p> +</div> + +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_19' name='page_19'></a>19</span></div> +<p><i>The Cathedral</i>, as the new book is called, rests +the whole of its effect upon just such an edifice +as young Hugh was familiar with. The Cathedral +of the story stands in Polchester, in the west of +England, in the county of Glebeshire—that mythical +yet actual county of Walpole’s other novels. +Like such tales as <i>The Green Mirror</i> and <i>The +Duchess of Wrexe</i>, the aim is threefold—to give +a history of a certain group of people and, at the +same time, (2) to be a comment on English life, +and, beyond that, (3) to offer a philosophy of life +itself.</p> +<p>The innermost of the three circles of interest +created in this powerful novel—like concentric +rings formed by dropping stones in water—concerns +the life of Archdeacon Brandon. When the +story opens he is ruling Polchester, all its life, +religious and civic and social, with an iron rod. +A good man, kindly and virtuous and simple, +power has been too much for him. In the first +chapter a parallel is made between Brandon and +a great mediæval ecclesiastic of the Cathedral, the +Black Bishop, who came to think of himself as +God and who was killed by his enemies. All +through the book this parallel is followed.</p> +<p>A certain Canon Ronder arrives to take up a +post in the Cathedral. The main thread of the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_20' name='page_20'></a>20</span> +novel now emerges as the history of the rivalry +of these two men, one simple and elemental, the +other calculating, selfish and sure. Ronder sees +at once that Brandon is in his way and at once +begins his work to overthrow the Archdeacon, not +because he dislikes him at all (he <i>likes</i> him), but +because he wants his place; too, because Brandon +represents the Victorian church, while Ronder is +on the side of the modernists.</p> +<p>Brandon is threatened through his son Stephen +and through his wife. His source of strength,—a +source of which he is unaware—lies in his daughter, +Joan, a charming girl just growing up. The +first part of the novel ends with everything that is +to follow implicit in what has been told; the story +centres in Brandon but more sharply in the Cathedral, +which is depicted as a living organism with +all its great history behind it working quickly, +ceaselessly, for its own purposes. Every part of +the Cathedral life is brought in to effect this, the +Bishop, the Dean, the Canons—down to the Verger’s +smallest child. All the town life also is +brought in, from the Cathedral on the hill to the +mysterious little riverside inn. Behind the town +is seen the Glebeshire country, behind that, England; +behind England, the world, all moving +toward set purposes.</p> +<p>The four parts of the novel markedly resemble, +in structure, acts of a play; in particular, the striking +third part, entirely concerned with the events +of a week and full of flashing pictures, such as the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_21' name='page_21'></a>21</span> +scene of the Town Ball. But the culmination of +this part, indeed, the climax of the whole book, +comes in the scene of the Fair, with its atmosphere +of carnival, its delirium of outdoor mood, and its +tremendous encounter between Brandon and his +wife. The novel closes upon a moment both fugitive +and eternal—Brandon watching across the +fields the Cathedral, lovely and powerful, in the +evening distance. The Cathedral, lovely and +powerful, forever victorious, served by the generations +of men....</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p>Courage, for Hugh, must have made its demand +to be exercised early. We have the “Hugh Seymour” +of <i>The Golden Scarecrow</i> who “was sent +from Ceylon, where his parents lived, to be educated +in England. His relations having for the +most part settled in foreign countries, he spent +his holidays as a minute and pale-faced ‘paying +guest’ in various houses where other children were +of more importance than he, or where children +as a race were of no importance at all.” It would +be a mistake to confer on such a fictional passage +a strict autobiographical importance; but I think +it significant that the novel with which Walpole +first won an American following, <i>Fortitude</i>, +should derive from a theme as simple and as +strong as that of a classic symphony—from those +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_22' name='page_22'></a>22</span> +words with which it opens: “’T isn’t life that +matters! ’T is the courage you bring to it.” +From that moment on, the novel follows the struggle +of Peter Westcott, in boyhood and young manhood, +with antagonists, inner and outer. At the +end we have him partly defeated, wholly triumphant, +still fighting, still pledged to fight.</p> +<p>Not to confuse fiction with fact: Hugh Walpole +was educated at Kings School, Canterbury, +and at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. When he +left the university he drifted into newspaper work +in London. He also had a brief experience as +master in a boys’ school (the experiential-imaginative +source of <i>The Gods and Mr. Perrin</i>, that +superb novel of underpaid teachers in a second-rate +boarding school). The war brought Red +Cross work in Russia and also a mission to Petrograd +to promote pro-Ally sentiment. For these +services Walpole was decorated with the Georgian +Medal.</p> +<p>What is Hugh Walpole like personally? Arnold +Bennett, in an article which appeared in the +Book News Monthly and which was reprinted in +a booklet, says: “About the time of the publication +of <i>The Gods and Mr. Perrin</i>, I made the +acquaintance of Mr. Walpole and found a man +of youthful appearance, rather dark, with a spacious +forehead, a very highly sensitised nervous +organisation, and that reassuring matter-of-factness +of demeanour which one usually does find in +an expert. He was then busy at his task of seeing +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_23' name='page_23'></a>23</span> +life in London. He seems to give about one-third +of the year to the tasting of all the heterogeneous +sensations which London can provide for the +connoisseur and two-thirds to the exercise of his +vocation in some withdrawn spot in Cornwall that +nobody save a postman or so, and Mr. Walpole, +has ever beheld. During one month it is impossible +to ‘go out’ in London without meeting Mr. +Walpole—and then for a long period he is a mere +legend of dinner tables. He returns to the dinner +tables with a novel complete.”</p> +<p>In the same magazine, in an article reprinted +in the same booklet, Mrs. Belloc Lowndes, that +excellent weaver of mystery stories and sister of +Hilaire Belloc, said: “Before all things Hugh +Walpole is an optimist, with a great love for and +a great belief in human nature. His outlook is +essentially sane, essentially normal. He has had +his reverses and difficulties, living in lodgings in +remote Chelsea, depending entirely upon his own +efforts. Tall and strongly built, clean-shaven, +with a wide, high forehead and kindly sympathetic +expression, the author of <i>Fortitude</i> has a +refreshing boyishness and zest for enjoyment +which are pleasant to his close friends. London, +the home of his adoption, Cornwall, the home of +his youth, have each an equal spell for him and +he divides his year roughly into two parts: the tiny +fishing town of Polperro, Cornwall, and the pleasure +of friendships in London. ‘What a wonderful +day!’ he was heard to say, his voice sounding +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_24' name='page_24'></a>24</span> +muffled through the thickest variety of a pea-soup +fog. ‘It wouldn’t really be London without an +occasional day like this! I’m off to tramp the +city.’ It is one of Hugh Walpole’s superstitions +that he should always begin his novels on Christmas +Eve. He has always done so, and he believes +it brings him luck. Often it means the exercise of +no small measure of self-control, for the story has +matured in his mind and he is aching to commence +it. But he vigorously adheres to his custom, and +by the time he begins to write his book lies before +him like a map. ‘I could tell it you now, practically +in the very words in which I shall write it,’ +he has said. Nevertheless, he takes infinite trouble +with the work as it progresses. A great reader, +Hugh Walpole reads with method. Tracts of history, +periods of fiction and poetry, are studied +seriously; and he has a really exhaustive heritage +of modern poetry and fiction.”</p> +<p>Perhaps since Mrs. Lowndes wrote those words, +Mr. Walpole has departed from his Christmas +Eve custom. At any rate, I notice on the last +page in his very long novel <i>The Captives</i> (the +work by which, I think, he sets most store of all +his books so far published) the dates:</p> +<table summary='poetry' style='margin:0 auto'><tr><td> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>POLPERRO, JAN. 1916,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>POLPERRO, MAY 1920.</p> +</td></tr></table> + +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_25' name='page_25'></a>25</span></div> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iii</p> +</div> + +<p>The demand for the exercise of that courage of +which we have spoken can be seen from these further +details, supplied by Arnold Bennett:</p> +<p>“At the age of twenty, as an undergraduate of +Cambridge, Walpole wrote two novels. One of +these, a very long book, the author had the imprudence +to destroy. The other was <i>The Wooden +Horse</i>, his first printed novel. It is not to be +presumed that <i>The Wooden Horse</i> was published +at once. For years it waited in manuscript +until Walpole had become a master +in a certain provincial school in England. +There he showed the novel to a fellow-master, +who, having kept the novel for a period, spoke +thus: ‘I have tried to read your novel, Walpole, +but I can’t. Whatever else you may be fitted for, +you aren’t fitted to be a novelist.’ Mr. Walpole +was grieved. Perhaps he was unaware, then, that +a similar experience had happened to Joseph Conrad. +I am unable to judge the schoolmaster’s fitness +to be a critic, because I have not read <i>The +Wooden Horse</i>. Walpole once promised to send +me a copy so that I might come to some conclusion +as to the schoolmaster, but he did not send +it. Soon after this deplorable incident, Walpole +met Charles Marriott, a novelist of a remarkable +distinction. Mr. Marriott did not agree with the +schoolmaster as to <i>The Wooden Horse</i>. The result +of the conflict of opinion between Mr. Marriott +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_26' name='page_26'></a>26</span> +and the schoolmaster was that Mr. Walpole +left the school abruptly—perhaps without the approval +of his family, but certainly with a sum of +£30 which he had saved. His destination was +London.</p> +<p>“In Chelsea he took a room at four shillings a +week. He was twenty-three and (in theory) a +professional author at last. Through the favouring +influence of Mr. Marriott he obtained a temporary +job on the London Standard as a critic of fiction. +It lasted three weeks. Then he got a regular +situation on the same paper, a situation which +I think he kept for several years. <i>The Wooden +Horse</i> was published by a historic firm. Statistics +are interesting and valuable—<i>The Wooden Horse</i> +sold seven hundred copies. The author’s profits +therefrom were less than the cost of typewriting +the novel. History is constantly repeating itself.</p> +<p>“Mr. Walpole was quite incurable, and he kept +on writing novels. <i>Maradick at Forty</i> was the +next one. It sold eleven hundred copies, but with +no greater net monetary profit to the author than +the first one. He made, however, a more shining +profit of glory. <i>Maradick at Forty</i>—as the phrase +runs—‘attracted attention.’ I myself, though in +a foreign country, heard of it, and registered the +name of Hugh Walpole as one whose progress +must be watched.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_27' name='page_27'></a>27</span></p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iv</p> +</div> + +<p>Not so long ago there was published in England, +in a series of pocket-sized books called the +<i>Kings Treasuries of Literature</i> (under the general +editorship of Sir A. T. Quiller-Couch), a +small volume called <i>A Hugh Walpole Anthology</i>. +This consisted of selections from Mr. Walpole’s +novels up to and including <i>The Captives</i>. The +selection was made by Mr. Walpole himself.</p> +<p>I think that the six divisions into which the +selections fell are interesting as giving, in a few +words, a prospectus of Walpole’s work. The +titles of the sections were “Some Children,” “Men +and Women,” “Some Incidents,” “London,” +“Country Places,” and “Russia.” The excerpts +under the heading “Some Children” are all from +<i>Jeremy</i> and <i>The Golden Scarecrow</i>. The “Men +and Women” are Mr. Perrin and Mrs. Comber, +from <i>The Gods and Mr. Perrin</i>; Mr. Trenchard +and Aunt Aggie, from <i>The Green Mirror</i>; and Mr. +Crashaw, from <i>The Captives</i>. The “Incidents” +are chosen with an equal felicity—we have the +theft of an umbrella from <i>The Gods and Mr. Perrin</i> +and, out of the same book, the whole passage +in which Mr. Perrin sees double. There is also a +scene from <i>Fortitude</i>, “After Defeat.” After two +episodes from <i>The Green Mirror</i>, this portion of +the anthology is closed with the tragic passage +from <i>The Captives</i> in which Maggie finds her +uncle. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_28' name='page_28'></a>28</span></p> +<p>Among the London places pictured by Mr. Walpole +in his novels and in this pleasant anthology +are Fleet Street, Chelsea, Portland Place, The +Strand, and Marble Arch. The selections under +the heading “Country Places” are bits about a +cove, the sea, dusk, a fire and homecoming. The +passages that relate to Russia are taken, of course, +from <i>The Dark Forest</i> and <i>The Secret City</i>.</p> +<p>Not the least interesting thing in this small +volume is a short introductory note by Joseph Conrad, +who speaks of the anthology as “intelligently +compiled,” and as offering, within its limits, a +sample of literary shade for every reader’s sympathy. +“Sophistication,” adds Mr. Conrad, “is +the only shade that does not exist in Mr. Walpole’s +prose.” He goes on:</p> +<p>“Of the general soundness of Mr. Walpole’s +work I am perfectly convinced. Let no modern +and malicious mind take this declaration for a +left-handed compliment. Mr. Walpole’s soundness +is not of conventions but of convictions; and +even as to these, let no one suppose that Mr. Walpole’s +convictions are old-fashioned. He is distinctly +a man of his time; and it is just because +of that modernity, informed by a sane judgment +of urgent problems and wide and deep sympathy +with all mankind, that we look forward hopefully +to the growth and increased importance of his +work. In his style, so level, so consistent, Mr. +Hugh Walpole does not seek so much for novel as +for individual expression; and this search, this +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_29' name='page_29'></a>29</span> +ambition so natural to an artist, is often rewarded +by success. Old and young interest him alike and +he treats both with a sure touch and in the kindest +manner. In each of these passages we see Mr. +Walpole grappling with the truth of things spiritual +and material with his characteristic earnestness, +and in the whole we can discern the characteristics +of this acute and sympathetic explorer +of human nature: His love of adventure and the +serious audacity he brings to the task of recording +the changes of human fate and the moments of +human emotion, in the quiet backwaters or in the +tumultuous open streams of existence.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>v</p> +</div> + +<p>There is not space here to reprint all of Joseph +Hergesheimer’s Appreciation of Hugh Walpole, +published in a booklet in 1919—a booklet still +obtainable—but I would like to quote a few +sentences from the close of Mr. Hergesheimer’s +essay, where he says:</p> +<p>“As a whole, Hugh Walpole’s novels maintain +an impressive unity of expression; they are the +distinguished presentation of a distinguished +mind. Singly and in a group, they hold possibilities +of infinite development. This, it seems to +me, is most clearly marked in their superiority to +the cheap materialism that has been the insistent +note of the prevailing optimistic fiction. There +is a great deal of happiness in Mr. Walpole’s +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_30' name='page_30'></a>30</span> +pages, but it is not founded on surface vulgarity +of appetite. The drama of his books is not sapped +by the automatic security of invulnerable heroics. +Accidents happen, tragic and humorous; the life +of his novels is checked in black and white, often +shrouded in grey; the sun moves and stars come +out; youth grows old; charm fades; girls may or +may not be pretty; his old women——</p> +<p>“But there he is inimitable. The old gentlewomen, +or caretakers, dry and twisted, brittle and +sharp, repositories of emotion—vanities and malice +and self-seeking—like echoes of the past, or +fat and loquacious, with alcoholic sentimentality, +are wonderfully ingratiating. They gather like +shadows, ghosts, about the feet of the young, and +provide Mr. Walpole with one of his main resources—the +restless turning away of the young +from the conventions, prejudices and inhibitions +of yesterday. He is singularly intent upon the injustice +of locking age about the wrists of youth; +and, with him, youth is very apt to escape, to defy +authority set in years ... only to become, in +time, age itself.”</p> +<p>Perhaps this is an anti-climax: The University +of Edinburgh has twice awarded the Tait +Black Prize for the best novel of the year to Mr. +Walpole—first for <i>The Secret City</i> in 1919 and +then for <i>The Captives</i> in 1920.</p> +<hr class='minor' /> + +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_31' name='page_31'></a>31</span></div> +<div class='ce'> +<p><i>Books</i></p> +<p>by Hugh Walpole</p> +</div> + +<div class='la'> +<p style=' margin-top:1.5em;'><i>Novels</i>:</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE WOODEN HORSE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE GODS AND MR. PERRIN</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>(In England, MR. PERRIN AND MR. TRAILL)</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE GREEN MIRROR</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE DARK FOREST</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE SECRET CITY</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE CAPTIVES</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE CATHEDRAL</p> +<p style=' margin-top:1.5em;'><i>Romances</i>:</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>MARADICK AT FORTY</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE PRELUDE TO ADVENTURE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>FORTITUDE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE DUCHESS OF WREXE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE YOUNG ENCHANTED</p> +<p style=' margin-top:1.5em;'><i>Short Stories</i>:</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE GOLDEN SCARECROW</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>JEREMY</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE THIRTEEN TRAVELLERS</p> +<p style=' margin-top:1.5em;'><i>Belles-Lettres</i>:</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>JOSEPH CONRAD—<i>A Critical Study</i>.</p> +</div> + +<hr class='minor' /> + +<div class='ce'> +<p><i>Sources</i></p> +<p style=' margin-bottom:1.5em;'>on Hugh Walpole</p> +</div> + +<p><i>Hugh Walpole: An Appreciation</i>, by Joseph +Hergesheimer, <span style='font-variant: small-caps'>GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY</span>.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_32' name='page_32'></a>32</span></div> +<p><i>English Literature During the Last Half Century</i>, +by J. W. Cunliffe, <span style='font-variant: small-caps'>THE MACMILLAN COMPANY</span>.</p> +<p><i>A Hugh Walpole Anthology</i>, selected by the author. +<span style='font-variant: small-caps'>LONDON</span>: <span style='font-variant: small-caps'>J. M. DENT & SONS</span>. <span style='font-variant: small-caps'>NEW YORK</span>: +<span style='font-variant: small-caps'>E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY</span>.</p> +<p><i>Hugh Walpole, Master Novelist</i>. Pamphlet published +by <span style='font-variant: small-caps'>GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY</span>. (Out +of print.)</p> +<p><i>Who’s Who</i> [In England].</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='II_HALFSMILES_AND_GESTURES' id='II_HALFSMILES_AND_GESTURES'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_33' name='page_33'></a>33</span> +<h2><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Chapter II</span></h2> +<h3>HALF-SMILES AND GESTURES</h3> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>i</p> +</div> + +<p>Half-smiles and gestures! There is always +a younger generation but it is not always +articulate. The war may not have changed the +face of the world, but it changed the faces of very +many young men. Faces of naïve enthusiasm +and an innocent expectancy were not particularly +noticeable in the years 1918 to 1922. The sombreness, +the abruptness, the savage mood evident +in the writings of such men as Barbusse and Siegfried +Sassoon were abandoned. Confronted with +the riddle of life, spared the enigma of death, the +young men have felt nothing more befitting their +age and generation than the personal “gesture.”</p> +<p>If you ask me what is a gesture, I can’t say that +I know. It is something felt in the attitude of a +person to whom one is talking or whose book one +is reading. And the gesture is accompanied, in +some of our younger writers, with an expression +that is both serious and smiling. These half-smiles +are, I take it, youth’s comment on the riddle +of a continued existence, on the loss of well-lost +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_34' name='page_34'></a>34</span> +illusions, on the uncertainty of all future +values. What is there worth trying for? It is +not too clear, hence the gesture. What is there +worth the expenditure of emotion? It is doubtful; +and a half-smile is the best.</p> +<p>Such a writer, busily experimenting in several +directions, is Aldous Huxley. This child of +1894, the son of Leonard Huxley (eldest son and +biographer of Prof. T. H. Huxley) and Julia +Arnold (niece of Martha Arnold and sister of +Mrs. Humphry Ward), has with three books of +prose built up a considerable and devoted following +of American readers. First there was <i>Limbo</i>. +Then came <i>Crome Yellow</i>, and on the heels of +that we had the five stories—if you like to call +them so—composing <i>Mortal Coils</i>. I have seen +no comment more penetrating than that of +Michael Sadleir, himself the author of a novel +of distinction. Sadleir says:</p> +<p>“Already Huxley is the most readable of his +generation. He has the allurement of his own inconsistency, +and the inconsistency of youth is its +questing spirit, and, consequently, its chief claim +to respect.</p> +<p>“At present there are several Huxleys—the +artificer in words, the amateur of garbage, pierrot +lunaire, the cynic in rag-time, the fastidious sensualist. +For my part, I believe only in the last, +taking that to be the real Huxley and the rest +prank, virtuosity, and, most of all, self-consciousness. +As the foal will shy at his own shadow, so +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_35' name='page_35'></a>35</span> +Aldous Huxley, nervous by fits at the poise of his +own reality, sidesteps with graceful violence into +the opposite of himself. There is a beautiful example +of this in <i>Mortal Coils</i>. Among the stage-directions +to his play, ‘Permutations Among the +Nightingales,’ occur the following sentences: +‘Sydney Dolphin has a romantic appearance. His +two volumes of verse have been recognised by +intelligent critics as remarkable. How far they +are poetry nobody, least of all Dolphin himself, is +certain. They may be merely the ingenious products +of a very cultured and elaborate brain.’</p> +<p>“The point is not that these words might be +applied to the author himself, but rather that he +knows they might, even hopes they will, and has +sought to lull his too-ready self-criticism by, so to +speak, getting there first and putting down on +paper what he imagines others may think or write +of him.</p> +<p>“Huxley is a poet and writer of prose. His +varied personalities show themselves in both. The +artificer in words is almost omnipresent, and God +forbid that he ever vanish utterly. The disciple +of Laforgue has produced lovely and skilful +things, and one is grateful for the study of the +French symbolists that instigated the translation +of ‘L’Apres-midi d’un Faune.’ In ‘The Walk’ the +recapture of Laforgue’s blend of the exotic and +the everyday is astonishingly complete.</p> +<p>“The cynic is as accomplished as the Pierrot +and ‘Social Amenities,’ parts of ‘Soles Occidere +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_36' name='page_36'></a>36</span> +et Redire Possunt,’ and, in <i>Limbo</i>, ‘Richard +Greenow’ (first 100 pages) and ‘Happy Families’ +are syncopated actuality, and the mind jigs an +appreciative shoulder, as the body jerks irresistibly +to ‘Indianola.’</p> +<p>“There remains Huxley the sensualist, a very +ardent lover of beauty, but one that shrinks from +the sordid preamble of modern gallantry, one that +is apprehensive of the inevitable disillusionment. +As others have done, as others will do, he finds in +imagination the adventure that progress has decreed +unseemly.</p> +<p>“The reader who is shocked by ‘slabby-bellies,’ +‘mucus,’ ‘Priapulids’; the reader who is awed by +the paraded learning of ‘Splendour by Numbers,’ +by the deliberate intricacy of ‘Beauty,’ or the delicate +fatigue of ‘The Death of Lully’ in <i>Limbo</i>—these +are no audience for an artist. It tickles the +author’s fancy, stretches his wits, flatters his deviltry +to provoke and witness such consternation +and such respect. But the process is waste of time, +and a writer of Huxley’s quality, whatever his +youth, has never time to waste.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p>Readers who have chuckled over <i>Guinea Girl</i> +or have read with the peculiar delight of discovery +<i>The Pilgrim of a Smile</i> are astonished to learn +that its author is, properly speaking, an engineer. +Norman Davey, born in 1888 (Cambridge 1908-10) +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_37' name='page_37'></a>37</span> +is the son of Henry Davey, an engineer of +eminence. After taking honours in chemistry and +physics, Norman Davey travelled in America +(1911), particularly in Virginia and Carolina. +Then he went to serve as an apprentice in engineering +work in the North of England and to +study in the University of Montpellier in France.</p> +<p>His first book was <i>The Gas Turbine</i>, published +in London and now a classic on its subject. In +the four years preceding the war he contributed +articles on thermodynamics to scientific papers. +It is only honest to add that at the same time he +contributed to Punch and Life—chiefly verse.</p> +<p>After the war he had a book of verse published +in England and followed it with <i>The Pilgrim of +a Smile</i>. He has travelled a good deal in Spain, +Italy, Sweden, and his hobby is book collecting. +This is all very well; and it explains how he could +provide the necessary atmosphere for that laughable +story of Monte Carlo, <i>Guinea Girl</i>; but one +is scarcely prepared for <i>The Pilgrim of a Smile</i> +by those preliminaries in thermodynamics—or in +Punch. The story of the man who did not ask +the Sphinx for love or fame or money but for the +reason of her smile is one of the most intelligible +of the gestures characteristic of literature since +the war.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iii</p> +</div> + +<p>The gesture as such is perhaps most definitely +recognised in the charming book by John Dos +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_38' name='page_38'></a>38</span> +Passos, <i>Rosinante to the Road Again</i>. This, indeed, +is the story of a gesture and a quest for it. +The gesture is that of Castile, defined in the opening +chapter in some memorable words exchanged +by Telemachus and his friend Lyæus:</p> +<p>“‘It’s the gesture that’s so overpowering; don’t +you feel it in your arms? Something sudden and +tremendously muscular.’</p> +<p>“‘When Belmonte turned his back suddenly on +the bull and walked away dragging the red cloak +on the ground behind him I felt it,’ said Lyæus.</p> +<p>“‘That gesture, a yellow flame against maroon +and purple cadences ... an instant swagger of +defiance in the midst of a litany to death the all-powerful. +That is Spain ... Castile at any +rate.’</p> +<p>“‘Is “swagger” the right word?’</p> +<p>“‘Find a better!’</p> +<p>“‘For the gesture a mediæval knight made +when he threw his mailed glove at his enemy’s +feet or a rose in his lady’s window, that a mule-driver +makes when he tosses off a glass of aguardiente, +that Pastora Imperio makes dancing....’”</p> +<p>I do not know whether one should classify +<i>Rosinante</i> as a book of travel, a book of essays, a +book of criticisms. It is all three—an integrated +gesture. Certain interspersed chapters purport to +relate the wayside conversations of Telemachus +and Lyæus—dual phases of the author’s personality +shall we say?—and the people they meet. +The other chapters are acute studies of modern +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_39' name='page_39'></a>39</span> +Spain, with rather special attention to modern +Spanish writers. One varies in his admiration +between such an essay as that on Miguel de +Unamuno and such an unforgettable picture as +the vision of Jorge Manrique composing his splendid +ode to Death:</p> +<p>“It had been raining. Lights rippled red and +orange and yellow and green on the clean paving-stones. +A cold wind off the Sierra shrilled through +clattering streets. As they walked the other man +was telling how this Castilian nobleman, courtier, +man-at-arms, had shut himself up when his father, +the Master of Santiago, died, and had +written this poem, created this tremendous +rhythm of death sweeping like a wind over the +world. He had never written anything else. +They thought of him in the court of his great dust-coloured +mansion at Ocaña, where the broad eaves +were full of a cooing of pigeons and the wide +halls had dark rafters painted with arabesques in +vermilion, in a suit of black velvet, writing at a +table under a lemon tree. Down the sun-scarred +street, in the cathedral that was building in those +days, full of a smell of scaffolding and stone dust, +there must have stood a tremendous catafalque +where lay with his arms around him the Master +of Santiago; in the carved seats of the choirs the +stout canons intoned an endless growling litany; +at the sacristy door, the flare of the candles flashing +occasionally on the jewels of his mitre, the +bishop fingered his crosier restlessly, asking his +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_40' name='page_40'></a>40</span> +favourite choir-boy from time to time why Don +Jorge had not arrived. And messengers must have +come running to Don Jorge, telling him the service +was at the point of beginning, and he must +have waved them away with a grave gesture of a +long white hand, while in his mind the distant +sound of chanting, the jingle of the silver bit of +his roan horse stamping nervously where he was +tied to a twined Moorish column, memories of +cavalcades filing with braying of trumpets and +flutter of crimson damask into conquered towns, +of court ladies dancing and the noise of pigeons +in the eaves drew together like strings plucked in +succession on a guitar into a great wave of rhythm +in which his life was sucked away into this one +poem in praise of death.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iv</p> +</div> + +<p>The Column is an American institution. What +is meant, of course, is that daily vertical discussion +of Things That Have Interested Me by different +individuals attached to different papers and +having in common only the great gift of being +interested in what interests everybody else. Perhaps +that is not right, either. Maybe the gift is +that of being able to interest everybody else in +the things you are interested in. Of all those who +write a Column, Heywood Broun is possibly the +one whose interests are the most varied. It is +precisely this variety which makes his book +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_41' name='page_41'></a>41</span> +<i>Pieces of Hate: and Other Enthusiasms</i> unique as +a collection of essays. He will write on one page +about the boxing ring, on the next about the theatre, +a little farther along about books, farther on +yet about politics. He makes excursions into college +sports, horse racing and questions of fair +play; and the problems of child-rearing are his +constant preoccupation.</p> +<p>Consider some of his topics. We have an +opening study of the literary masterpiece of E. M. +Hull, the novel celebrating the adventures of Miss +Diana Mayo and the Sheik Ahmed Ben Hassan. +The next chapter deals with Hans Christian +Andersen and literary and dramatic critics. +Pretty soon we are discussing after-dinner +speeches, Babe Ruth and Jack Dempsey. If this +is a gesture, all I can say is, it is a pinwheel; and +yet Broun writes only about things he knows +about. Lest you think from my description that +<i>Pieces of Hate</i> is a book in a wholly unserious +vein, I invite you to read the little story, “Frankincense +and Myrrh.”</p> +<p>“Once there were three kings in the East and +they were wise men. They read the heavens and +they saw a certain strange star by which they knew +that in a distant land the King of the World was +to be born. The star beckoned to them and they +made preparations for a long journey.</p> +<p>“From their palaces they gathered rich gifts, +gold and frankincense and myrrh. Great sacks +of precious stuffs were loaded upon the backs of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_42' name='page_42'></a>42</span> +the camels which were to bear them on their journey. +Everything was in readiness, but one of the +wise men seemed perplexed and would not come +at once to join his two companions who were +eager and impatient to be on their way in the +direction indicated by the star.</p> +<p>“They were old, these two kings, and the other +wise man was young. When they asked him he +could not tell why he waited. He knew that his +treasuries had been ransacked for rich gifts for the +King of Kings. It seemed that there was nothing +more which he could give, and yet he was not content.</p> +<p>“He made no answer to the old men who +shouted to him that the time had come. The +camels were impatient and swayed and snarled. +The shadows across the desert grew longer. And +still the young king sat and thought deeply.</p> +<p>“At length he smiled, and he ordered his servants +to open the great treasure sack upon the back +of the first of his camels. Then he went into a +high chamber to which he had not been since he +was a child. He rummaged about and presently +came out and approached the caravan. In his +hand he carried something which glinted in the +sun.</p> +<p>“The kings thought that he bore some new gift +more rare and precious than any which they had +been able to find in all their treasure rooms. They +bent down to see, and even the camel drivers +peered from the backs of the great beasts to find +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_43' name='page_43'></a>43</span> +out what it was which gleamed in the sun. They +were curious about this last gift for which all the +caravan had waited.</p> +<p>“And the young king took a toy from his hand +and placed it upon the sand. It was a dog of +tin, painted white and speckled with black spots. +Great patches of paint had worn away and left +the metal clear, and that was why the toy shone +in the sun as if it had been silver.</p> +<p>“The youngest of the wise men turned a key in +the side of the little black and white dog and then +he stepped aside so that the kings and the camel +drivers could see. The dog leaped high in the air +and turned a somersault. He turned another and +another and then fell over upon his side and lay +there with a set and painted grin upon his face.</p> +<p>“A child, the son of a camel driver, laughed and +clapped his hands, but the kings were stern. +They rebuked the youngest of the wise men and +he paid no attention but called to his chief servant +to make the first of all the camels kneel. Then +he picked up the toy of tin and, opening the treasure +sack, placed his last gift with his own hands +in the mouth of the sack so that it rested safely +upon the soft bags of incense.</p> +<p>“‘What folly has seized you?’ cried the eldest +of the wise men. ‘Is this a gift to bear to the +King of Kings in the far country?’</p> +<p>“And the young man answered and said: ‘For +the King of Kings there are gifts of great richness, +gold and frankincense and myrrh. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_44' name='page_44'></a>44</span></p> +<p>“‘But this,’ he said, ‘is for the child in Bethlehem!’”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>v</p> +</div> + +<p>Editor of the London Mercury, J. C. Squire has +the light touch of the columnist but limits himself +somewhat more closely to books and the subjects +suggested by them. Very few men living can +write about books with more actual and less apparent +erudition than Mr. Squire. Born in 1884, +educated at Cambridge, an editor of the New +Statesman, a poet unsurpassed in the field of +parody but a poet who sets more store by his serious +verse, Mr. Squire can best be appreciated by +those who have just that desultory interest in +literature which he himself possesses. I have +been looking through his <i>Books in General</i>, <i>Third +Series</i>, for something quotable, and I declare I +cannot lift anything from its setting. It is all of +a piece, from the essay on “If One Were Descended +from Shakespeare” to the remarks about +Ben Jonson, Maeterlinck, Ruskin, Cecil Chesterton +and Mr. Kipling’s later verse (which I have +nowhere seen more sensibly discussed).</p> +<p>Well, perhaps these observations from the chapter +“A Terrifying Collection” will give the taste! +It appears that an anonymous donor had offered +money to the Birmingham Reference Library to +pay for the gathering of a complete collection of +the war poetry issued in the British Empire. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_45' name='page_45'></a>45</span> +After some preliminary comment, Mr. Squire concludes:</p> +<p>“If that donor really means business I shall be +prepared to supply him with one or two rare and +special examples myself. I possess tributes to the +English effort written by Portuguese, Japanese +and Belgians; and pæans by Englishmen which +excel, as regards both simplicity of sentiment and +illiteracy of construction, any foreign composition. +Birmingham is not noted for very many +things. It is, we know, the only large city in the +country which remains solidly Tory in election +after election. It produced, we know, Mr. Joseph +and Mr. Austen Chamberlain. It has, we know, +something like a monopoly in the manufacture of +the gods in wood and brass to which (in his blindness) +the heathen bows down; and there are all +sorts of cheap lines in which it can give the whole +world points and a beating. But it has not yet +got the conspicuous position of Manchester or +Liverpool; and one feels that the enterprise of +this anonymous donor may help to put it on a +level with those towns. For, granted that its +librarians take their commission seriously, and its +friends give them the utmost assistance in their +power, there seems every reason to suppose that +within the next year the City of Birmingham will +be the proud possessor of the largest mound of +villainously bad literature in the English-speaking +world. Pilgrims will go to see it who on no other +account would have gone to Birmingham; historians +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_46' name='page_46'></a>46</span> +will refer to it when endeavouring to prove +that their own ages are superior to ours in intelligence; +authors will inspect it when seeking the +consoling assurance that far, far worse things +than they have ever done have got into public +libraries and been seriously catalogued. The enterprise, +in fact, is likely to be of service to several +classes of our fellow-citizens; and it cannot, +as far as I am able to see, do harm to any. It +should therefore be encouraged, and I recommend +anyone who has volumes of war-verse which he +wishes to get rid of to send them off at once to the +Chief Librarian of Birmingham.”</p> +<p>Oh, yes! <i>Books in General</i>, <i>Third Series</i>, is by +Solomon Eagle. Mr. Squire explains that the pen +name Solomon Eagle has no excuse. The original +bearer of the name was a poor maniac who, during +the Great Plague of London, used to run naked +through the streets with a pan of coals of fire on +his head crying, “Repent, repent.”</p> +<p>Too late I realise my wrongdoing, for what, +after all, is <i>Books in General</i> as compared to Mr. +Squire’s <i>Life and Letters</i>? As a divertissement, +compared to a tone poem; as a curtain-raiser to +a three-act play. <i>Life and Letters</i>, though not +lacking in the lighter touches of Mr. Squire’s +fancy, contains chapters on Keats, Jane Austen, +Anatole France, Walt Whitman, Pope and Rabelais +of that more considered character one expects +from the editor of the London Mercury. This is +not to say that these studies are devoid of humour; +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_47' name='page_47'></a>47</span> +and those chapters in the volume which are in the +nature of interludes are among the best Mr. +Squire has written. Unfortunately I have left +myself no room to quote the incomparable panegyric +(in the chapter on “Initials”) to the name +of John. Read it, if your name is John; you will +thank me for bringing it to your attention.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>vi</p> +</div> + +<p>One expects personality in the daughter of +Margot Asquith, and the readers of the first book +by Princess Antoine Bibesco (Elizabeth Asquith) +were not disappointed. The same distinction and +the same unusual personality will be found in her +new book, <i>Balloons</i>. Princess Bibesco’s <i>I Have +Only Myself to Blame</i> consisted of sixteen short +stories the most nervously alive and most clearly +individualised of feminine gestures. The quality +of Princess Bibesco’s work, in so far as purely descriptive +passages can convey it, may be realised +from these portraits of a father and mother which +open the story called “Pilgrimage” in <i>I Have +Only Myself to Blame</i>:</p> +<p>“My father was one of the most brilliant men +I have ever known but as he refused to choose any +of the ordinary paths of mental activity his name +has remained a family name when it should have +become more exclusively his own. If anything, +my mother’s famous beauty cast far more lustre +on it than his genius—which preferred to bask +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_48' name='page_48'></a>48</span> +in the sunshine of intimacy or recline indolently +in the shady backwaters of privacy and leisure. +And yet in a way he was an adventurer—or rather +an adventurous scientist. He was often called +cynical but that was not true—he was far too +dispassionate, too little of a sentimentalist to be +tempted by inverted sentimentalism. Above all +things he was a collector—a collector of impressions. +His psychological bibelots were not for +everyone. Some, indeed, lay open in the vitime +of his everyday conversation but many more lay +hidden in drawers opened only for the elect.</p> +<p>“Undoubtedly, in a way, my mother was one +of his masterpieces. Her beauty seemed to be +enhanced by every hour and every season. At +forty suddenly her hair had gone snow white. +The primrose, the daffodil, the flame, the gold, the +black, the emerald, the ruby of her youth gave +way to grey and silver, pale jade and faint turquoise, +shell pink and dim lavender. Her loveliness +had shifted. The hours of the day conspired +to set her. The hard coat and skirt, the high collar, +the small hat, the neat veil of morning, the +caressing charmeuse that followed, the trailing +chiffon mysteries of her tea-gown, the white velvet +or the cloth of silver that launched her triumphantly +at night, who was to choose between +them? Summer and winter followed suit. +Whether you saw her emerging from crisp organdy +or clinging crepe de chine, stiff grey astrakan +or melting chinchilla always it was the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_49' name='page_49'></a>49</span> +same. This moment you said to yourself, ‘She has +reached the climax of her loveliness.’</p> +<p>“My father delighted in perfection. He had +discovered it in her and promptly made it his own. +I don’t know if he ever regretted the unfillable +quality of her emptiness. Rather I think it +amused him to see the violent passions she inspired, +to hear her low thrilling voice weigh down +her meaningless murmurs with significance. To +many of her victims the very incompleteness of +her sentences was a form of divine loyalty. One +young poet had described her soul as a fluttering, +desperate bird beating its wings on the bars of her +marvellous loveliness. At this her lazy smile +looked very wise. She thought my father an ideal +husband. He was always right about her clothes +and after all he was the greatest living expert +on her beauty. Obviously he loved her but—well, +he didn’t love her inconveniently.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>vii</p> +</div> + +<p>There will be some who remember reading a +first novel, published several years ago, called +<i>Responsibility</i>. This was a study from a Samuel +Butleresque standpoint of the attitude of a father +toward an illegitimate son. At least, that is what +it came to in the end; but there were leisurely +earlier pages dealing with such subjects as the tiresomeness +of Honest Work and the dishonesty of +righteous people. Very good they were, too. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_50' name='page_50'></a>50</span> +James E. Agate was the author of this decidedly +interesting piece of fiction. He was not a particularly +young man, being in his early forties; but +he was a youngish man. He was youngish in the +sense that Mr. Wells and Mr. Bennett are youngish, +and not in the sense of Sir James Peter Pan +Barrie—incapable of growing up. As dramatic +critic for the Saturday Review, London, Agate +has been much happier than in a former experience +on the Cotton Exchange of Manchester, his +native city. “Each week,” said The Londoner in +The Bookman, recently, “he watches over the +theatre with an enthusiasm for the drama which +must constantly be receiving disagreeable shocks. +He is a man full of schemes, so that the title of +his new book is distinctly appropriate.” That +new book is called <i>Alarums and Excursions</i>.</p> +<p>“Agate is not peaceable,” continues our informant. +“He carries his full energy, which is +astounding, into each topic that arises. He seizes +it. Woe betide the man who dismisses an idol of +his. It is not to be done. He will submit to no +man, however great that man’s prestige may be. +He is the bulldog.”</p> +<p>Agate is a critic “still vigorous enough and +fresh enough to attack and to destroy shams of +every kind. This is what Agate does in <i>Alarums +and Excursions</i>.”</p> +<p>Bright news is it that Agate is writing a new +novel “on the Balzacian scale of <i>Responsibility</i>.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_51' name='page_51'></a>51</span></p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>viii</p> +</div> + +<p>It was in 1918, when I was exploring new +books for a New York book section, that there +came to hand a volume called <i>Walking-Stick +Papers</i>. Therein I found such stuff as this:</p> +<p>“And so the fish reporter enters upon the last +lap of his rounds. Through, perhaps, the narrow, +crooked lane of Pine Street he passes, to come out +at length upon a scene set for a sea tale. Here +would a lad, heir to vast estates in Virginia, be +kidnapped and smuggled aboard to be sold a slave +in Africa. This is Front Street. A white ship lies +at the foot of it. Cranes rise at her side. Tugs, +belching smoke, bob beyond. All about are ancient +warehouses, redolent of the Thames, with +steep roofs and sometimes stairs outside, and with +tall shutters, a crescent-shaped hole in each. +There is a dealer in weather-vanes. Other things +dealt in hereabout are these: Chronometers, ‘nautical +instruments,’ wax guns, cordage and twine, +marine paints, cotton wool and waste, turpentine, +oils, greases, and rosin. Queer old taverns, public +houses, are here, too. Why do not their windows +rattle with a ‘Yo, ho, ho’?</p> +<p>“There is an old, old house whose business +has been fish oil within the memory of men. And +here is another. Next, through Water Street, one +comes in search of the last word on salt fish. Now +the air is filled with gorgeous smell of roasting +coffee. Tea, coffee, sugar, rice, spices, bags and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_52' name='page_52'></a>52</span> +bagging here have their home. And there are +haughty bonded warehouses filled with fine liquors. +From his white cabin at the top of a venerable +structure comes the dean of the salt-fish +business. ‘Export trade fair,’ he says; ‘good demand +from South America.’”</p> +<p>The whole book was like that. I remember +saying and printing:</p> +<p>“If this isn’t individualised writing, extremely +skilful writing and highly entertaining writing, +we would like to know what is.”</p> +<p>But what was that in the general chorus of +delighted praise that went up all over the country?—and +there were persons of discrimination +among the laudators of Robert Cortes Holliday. +People like James Huneker and Simeon Strunsky, +who praised not lightly, were quick to express their +admiration of this new essayist.</p> +<p>Four years have gone adding to Holliday’s +first book volumes in the same class and singularly +unmistakeable in their authorship. They are the +sort of essays that could not be anonymous once +the authorship of one of them was known. We +have, now, <i>Broome Street Straws</i> and the pocket +mirror, <i>Peeps at People</i>. We have <i>Men and +Books and Cities</i> and we have a score of pleasant +<i>Turns About Town</i>.</p> +<p>Holliday shows no sign of failing us. I think +the truth is that he is one of those persons described +somewhere by Wilson Follett; I think +Follett was trying to convey the quality of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_53' name='page_53'></a>53</span> +De Morgan. Follett said that with Dickens and +De Morgan it was not a question of separate +books, singly achieved, but a mere matter of cutting +off another liberal length of the rich personality +which was Dickens or De Morgan. So, +exactly, it seems to me in the case of Holliday. +A new book of Holliday’s essays is simply another +few yards of a personality not precisely matched +among contemporary American essayists. Holliday’s +interests are somewhat broader, more +human and perhaps more humane, more varied +and closer to the normal human spirit and taste +and fancy than are the interests of essayists like +Samuel Crothers and Agnes Repplier.</p> +<p>The measure of Holliday as an author is not, of +course, bounded by these collections of essays. +There is his penetrating study of Booth Tarkington +and the fine collected edition of Joyce Kilmer, +<i>Joyce Kilmer; Poems, Essays and Letters With a +Memoir by Robert Cortes Holliday</i>.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ix</p> +</div> + +<p>A gesture can be very graceful, sometimes. A +half-smile can be wistful and worth remembering. +That was a pleasant story, almost too slender +structurally to be called a novel, by Gilbert W. +Gabriel, published in the spring of 1922. <i>Jiminy</i> +is a tale of the quest of the perfect love story by +Benjamin Benvenuto and Jiminy, maker of small +rhymes. The author, music critic of The Sun, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_54' name='page_54'></a>54</span> +New York, had long been known as a newspaper +writer and a pinch hitter for Don Marquis, conductor +of The Sun’s famous column, The Sun +Dial, when Don was A. W. O. L.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='III_STEWART_EDWARD_WHITE_AND_ADVENTURE' id='III_STEWART_EDWARD_WHITE_AND_ADVENTURE'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_55' name='page_55'></a>55</span> +<h2><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Chapter III</span></h2> +<h3>STEWART EDWARD WHITE AND ADVENTURE</h3> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>i</p> +</div> + +<p>“Stewart Edward White,” says +George Gordon in his book <i>The Men Who +Make Our Novels</i>, “writes out of a vast self-made +experience, draws his characters from a wide +acquaintance with men, recalls situations and incidents +through years of forest tramping, hunting, +exploring in Africa and the less visited places of +our continent, for the differing occasions of his +books. In his boyhood he spent a great part of +each year in lumber camps and on the river. He +first found print with a series of articles on birds, +‘The Birds of Mackinac Island’ (he was born in +Grand Rapids, March 12, 1873), brought out in +pamphlet form by the Ornithologists’ Union and +since (perforce) referred to as his ‘first book.’ In +the height of the gold rush he set out for the Black +Hills, to return East broke and to write <i>The Claim +Jumpers</i> and <i>The Westerners</i>. He followed +Roosevelt into Africa, <i>The Land of Footprints</i> +and of <i>Simba</i>. He has, more recently, seen service +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_56' name='page_56'></a>56</span> +in France as a Major in the U. S. Field Artillery. +Though (certainly) no Ishmael, he has for +years been a wanderer upon the face of the earth, +observant and curious of the arresting and strange—and +his novels and short stories mark a journey +such as but few have gone upon, a trailing of rainbows, +a search for gold beyond the further hills +and a finding of those campfires (left behind when +Mr. Kipling’s <i>Explorer</i> crossed the ranges beyond +the edge of cultivation) round which the resolute +sit to swap lies while the tenderfoot makes a fair—and +forced—pretence at belief.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p>Spring, 1922, having advanced to that stage +where one could feel confidence that summer +would follow—a confidence one cannot always +feel in March—a short letter came from Mr. +White. He enclosed two photographs. One of +them showed a trim-looking man with eyeglasses +and moustache, sitting shirt-sleeved in a frail-looking +craft. The letter explained that this was +a collapsible canvas boat. My deduction was that +the picture had been taken before the boat collapsed.</p> +<p>There was also a picture of another and much +sturdier boat. I think the name Seattle was +painted on her stern. She lay on a calm surface +that stretched off to a background of towering +mountains—Lake Louise Inlet. The much sturdier boat, +I understood, was also the property of S. E. White.</p> +<div class='figcenter'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_57' name='page_57'></a>57</span> +<a name='linki_2' id='linki_2'></a> +<img src='images/winter03.jpg' alt='' title='' style='width: 303px; height: 443px;' /><br /> +<p class='caption' style='margin: 0 auto; text-align:center;width: 303px;'> +STEWART EDWARD WHITE<br /> +</p> +</div> + +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_59' name='page_59'></a>59</span></div> +<p>The letter made all these things very clear. +It said: “Fifteen tons, fifty feet, sleeps five, +thirty-seven horsepower, heavy duty engine, built +sea-going, speed nine knots. No phonograph! +No wine cellar.</p> +<p>“We are going north, that is all the plans we +have. We two are all there are on board, though +we are thinking of getting a cat. On second +thought, here is the crew in the canvas boat we +carry to the inland lakes to fish from. Her name +is the <i>Wreckless</i>; be careful how you spell it.”</p> +<p>As stated, the crew in the about-to-collapse +boat was Stewart Edward White. On his way +north it was his intention to revise what will be, +in his judgment, the most important novel he has +written. But I must not say anything about that +yet. Let me say something, rather, about his new +book which you who read this have a more immediate +prospect of enjoying. <i>On Tiptoe: A Romance +of the Redwoods</i> is Stewart Edward White +in a somewhat unusual but entirely taking rôle. +Here we have Mr. White writing what is essentially +a comedy; and yet there is an element of +fantasy in the story which, in the light of a few +opening and closing paragraphs, can be taken +seriously, too.</p> +<p>The story sounds, in an outline, almost baldly +implausible. Here are certain people, including +a young woman, the daughter of a captain of industry, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_60' name='page_60'></a>60</span> +stranded in the redwoods. Here is a +young man out of nowhere, who foretells the +weather in a way that is uncannily verified soon +afterward. Here also is the astonishing engine +which the young man has brought with him out +of nowhere,—an engine likely to revolutionise +the affairs of the world....</p> +<p>I suppose that the secret of such a story as <i>On +Tiptoe</i> lies entirely in the telling. I know that +when I heard it outlined, the thing seemed to me +to be preposterous. But then, while still under +the conviction of this preposterousness, the story +itself came to my hand and I began to read. Its +preposterousness did not worry me any longer. It +had, besides a plausibility more than sufficient, a +narrative charm and a whimsical humour that +would have justified any tale. The thing that +links <i>On Tiptoe</i> with Stewart Edward White is +the perfect picture of the redwoods—the feeling +of all outdoors you get while under the spell of the +story. I do not think there is any doubt that all +lovers of White will enjoy this venture into the +field of light romance.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iii</p> +</div> + +<p>Stewart Edward White was the son of T. +Stewart White and Mary E. (Daniell) White. +He received the degree of bachelor of philosophy +from the University of Michigan in 1895 and the +degree of master of arts from the same institution +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_61' name='page_61'></a>61</span> +in 1903 (<i>Who’s Who in America: Volume 12</i>). +He attended Columbia Law School in 1896-97. +He married on April 28, 1904, Elizabeth Grant +of Newport, Rhode Island. He was a major with +the 144th Field Artillery in 1917-18. He lives in +California. But these skeletal details, all right +for <i>Who’s Who in America</i>, serve our purpose +poorly. I am going to try to picture the man from +two accounts of him written by friends. One +appeared as an appendix to White’s novel <i>Gold</i>, +published in 1913, and was written by Eugene F. +Saxton. The other is a short newspaper article +by John Palmer Gavit (long with the New York +Evening Post) printed in the Philadelphia Ledger +for May 20, 1922.</p> +<p>Mr. Saxton had a talk with White a few days +before White sailed from New York for his second +African exploring expedition. Saxton had +asked the novelist if he did not think it possible +to lay hold of the hearts and imaginations of a +great public through a novel which had no love +interest in it; if “man pitted against nature was +not, after all, the eternal drama.”</p> +<p>White thought for a moment and then said:</p> +<p>“In the main, that is correct. Only I should +say that the one great drama is that of the individual +man’s struggles toward perfect adjustment +with his environment. According as he comes +into correspondence and harmony with his environment, +by that much does he succeed. That +is what an environment is for. It may be financial, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_62' name='page_62'></a>62</span> +natural, sexual, political, and so on. The +sex element is important, of course,—very important. +But it is not the only element by any +means; nor is it necessarily an element that exercises +an instant influence on the great drama. Any +one who so depicts it is violating the truth. Other +elements of the great drama are as important—self-preservation, +for example, is a very simple +and even more important instinct than that of the +propagation of the race. Properly presented, +these other elements, being essentially vital, are +of as much interest to the great public as the relation +of the sexes.”</p> +<p>The first eight or nine years of Mr. White’s +life were spent in a small mill town. Michigan +was at that time the greatest of lumber states. +White was still a boy when the family moved to +Grand Rapids, then a city of about 30,000. +Stewart Edward White did not go to school until +he was sixteen, but then he entered the third year +high with boys of his own age and was graduated +at eighteen, president of his class. He won and, I +believe, still holds the five-mile running record +of the school.</p> +<p>The explanation is that the eight or ten years +which most boys spend in grammar school were +spent by Stewart Edward continually in the +woods and among the rivermen, in his own town +and in the lumber camps to which his father took +him. Then there was a stretch of four years, from +about the age of twelve on, when he was in California, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_63' name='page_63'></a>63</span> +as he says “a very new sort of a place.” +These days were spent largely in the saddle and +he saw a good deal of the old California ranch +life.</p> +<p>“The Birds of Mackinac Island,” already referred +to, was only one of thirty or forty papers +on birds which White wrote in his youth for +scientific publications. Six or seven hundred +skins that he acquired are now preserved in the +Kent Scientific Museum of Grand Rapids.</p> +<p>His summer vacations while he was in college +were spent cruising the Great Lakes in a 28-foot +cutter sloop. After graduating he spent six +months in a packing-house at $6 a week. His +adventure in the Black Hills gold rush followed.</p> +<p>It was during his studies at Columbia that +White wrote, as part of his class work, a story +called “A Man and His Dog” which Brander +Matthews urged him to try to sell. Short Stories +brought it for $15 and subsequent stories sold also. +One brought as much as $35!</p> +<p>He tried working in MCClurg’s bookstore in +Chicago at $9 a week. Then he set out for Hudson +Bay. <i>The Claim Jumpers</i>, finished about +this time, was brought out as a book and was well +received. The turn of the tide did not come until +Munsey paid $500 for the serial right in <i>The +Westerners</i>. White was paid in five dollar bills +and he says that when he stuffed the money in his +pockets he left at once for fear someone would +change his mind and want all that money back. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_64' name='page_64'></a>64</span></p> +<p><i>The Blazed Trail</i> was written in a lumber camp +in the depth of a northern winter. The only +hours White could spare for writing were in the +early morning, so he would begin at 4 A. M., +and write until 8 A. M., then put on his snowshoes +and go out for a day’s lumbering. The story +finished, he gave it to Jack Boyd, the foreman, to +read. Boyd began it after supper one evening and +when White awoke the next morning at four +o’clock he found the foreman still at it. As Boyd +never even read a newspaper, White regarded this +as a triumph. This is the book that an Englishwoman, +entering a book shop where White happened +to be, asked for in these words: “Have you +a copy of <i>Blasé Tales</i>?”</p> +<p>White went out hastily in order not to overhear +her cries of disappointment.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iv</p> +</div> + +<p>Mr. Saxton asked White why he went to Africa +and White said:</p> +<p>“My answer to that is pretty general. I went +because I wanted to. About once in so often the +wheels get rusty and I have to get up and do something +real or else blow up. Africa seemed to me +a pretty real thing. Before I went I read at least +twenty books about it and yet I got no mental +image of what I was going to see. That fact accounts +for these books of mine. I have tried to +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_65' name='page_65'></a>65</span> +tell in plain words what an ordinary person would +see there.</p> +<p>“Let me add,” he went on, “that I did not go +for material. I never go anywhere for material; +if I did I should not get it. That attitude of mind +would give me merely externals, which are not +worth writing about. I go places merely because, +for one reason or another, they attract me. Then, +if it happens that I get close enough to the life, +I may later find that I have something to write +about. A man rarely writes anything convincing +unless he has lived the life; not with his critical +faculty alert; but whole-heartedly and because, +for the time being, it is his life.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>v</p> +</div> + +<p>John Palmer Gavit tells how once, when hunting, +White broke his leg and had to drag himself +back long miles to camp alone:</p> +<p>“Adventure enough, you’d say. But along the +way a partridge drummed and nothing would do +but he must digress a hundred yards from the +shorter and sufficiently painful way, brace himself +for the shot and recoil, kill the bird and have +his dog retrieve it, and bring his game along with +him. Just to show himself that this impossible +thing could be done.</p> +<p>“I am not imagining when I say that in this +same spirit Stewart Edward White faces the +deeper problems and speculations of life. He +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_66' name='page_66'></a>66</span> +wants to know about things here and hereafter. +With the same zest and simplicity of motive he +faces the secret doors of existence; not to prove +or disprove, but to see and find out. And when +he comes to the Last Door he will go through without +fear, with eyes open to see in the next undiscovered +country what there is to be seen and to +show that the heart of a brave and unshrinking +man, truthful and open-handed and friendly, is +at home there, as he may be anywhere under God’s +jurisdiction.”</p> +<hr class='minor' /> + +<div class='ce'> +<p><i>Books</i></p> +<p>by Stewart Edward White</p> +</div> + +<div class='la'> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE WESTERNERS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE CLAIM JUMPERS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE BLAZED TRAIL</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>CONJUROR’S HOUSE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE FOREST</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE MAGIC FOREST</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE SILENT PLACES</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE MOUNTAIN</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>BLAZED TRAIL STORIES</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE PASS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE MYSTERY (With Samuel Hopkins Adams)</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>ARIZONA NIGHTS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>CAMP AND TRAIL</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE RIVERMAN</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE RULES OF THE GAME</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE CABIN</p> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_67' name='page_67'></a>67</span> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE ADVENTURES OF BOBBY ORDE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE LAND OF FOOTPRINTS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>AFRICAN CAMP FIRES</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>GOLD</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE REDISCOVERED COUNTRY</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE GREY DAWN</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE LEOPARD WOMAN</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>SIMBA</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE FORTY-NINERS (In The Chronicles of America Series)</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE ROSE DAWN</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE KILLER, AND OTHER STORIES</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>ON TIPTOE: A ROMANCE OF THE REDWOODS</p> +</div> + +<hr class='minor' /> + +<div class='ce'> +<p><i>Sources</i></p> +<p style=' margin-bottom:1.5em;'>on Stewart Edward White</p> +</div> + +<p><i>The Men Who Make our Novels</i>, by George Gordon. <span style='font-variant: small-caps'>MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY</span>.</p> +<p><i>Who’s Who in America.</i></p> +<p><i>Stewart Edward White: Appendix to</i> <span style='font-variant: small-caps'>GOLD</span> (published in 1913) by Eugene F. Saxton. +<span style='font-variant: small-caps'>DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY</span>.</p> +<p><i>Stewart Edward White</i>, by John Palmer Gavit. +<span style='font-variant: small-caps'>PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC LEDGER</span>, May 20, 1922.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='IV_WHERE_THE_PLOT_THICKENS' id='IV_WHERE_THE_PLOT_THICKENS'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_68' name='page_68'></a>68</span> +<h2><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Chapter IV</span></h2> +<h3>WHERE THE PLOT THICKENS</h3> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>i</p> +</div> + +<p>Scarcely anyone is there, now writing +mystery stories, who, with the combination +of ingenuity—or perhaps I should say originality—dependableness, +and a sufficient atmosphere +comes up to the high and steady level of Frank L. +Packard. Born in Montreal in 1877 of American +parents, a graduate of McGill University and a +student of Liége, Belgium, Mr. Packard was engaged +in engineering work for some years and began +writing for a number of magazines in 1906. +He now lives at Lachine, Province of Quebec, +Canada, and the roll of his books is a considerable +one. In that roll, there are titles known and enthusiastically +remembered by nearly every reader +of the mystery tale. Is there anyone who has not +heard of <i>The Miracle Man</i> or <i>The Wire Devils</i> or +Jimmie Dale in <i>The Adventures of Jimmie Dale</i> +and <i>The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale</i>? +<i>The Night Operator,</i> <i>From Now On</i>, <i>Pawned</i>, +and, most recently, <i>Doors of the Night</i> have had +their public ready and waiting. That same public +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_69' name='page_69'></a>69</span> +will denude the book counters of <i>Jimmie Dale +and The Phantom Clue</i> this autumn.</p> +<p>Packard differs from his fellow-writers of mystery +stories in his flair for the unusual idea. In +<i>Pawned</i> each character finds himself in pawn to +another, and must act as someone else dictates. +<i>Doors of the Night</i> is the account of a man who +was both a notorious leader and hunted prey of +New York’s underworld. <i>From Now On</i> is the +unexpected story of a man after he comes out of +prison; and Jimmie Dale, Fifth Avenue clubman, +was, to Clancy, Smarlinghue the dope fiend; to +the gang, Larry the Bat, stool pigeon; but to +Headquarters—the Grey Seal!</p> +<p>Stories of the underworld are among the most +difficult to write. The thing had, it seemed, been +done to death and underdone and overdone when +Packard came along. In all seriousness, it may +be said that Packard has restored the underworld +to respectability—as a domain for fictional purposes +at least! It is not that his crooks are real +crooks—though they are—but that he is able to +put life into them, to make them seem human. +No man is a hero to his valet and no crook can be +merely a crook in a story of the underworld that is +intended to convey any sense of actuality. Beside +the distortions and conventionalisations of most +underworld stories, Packard’s novels stand out +with distinctiveness and a persistent vitality. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_70' name='page_70'></a>70</span></p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p>When a book called <i>Bulldog Drummond</i> was +published there was no one prescient of the great +success of the play which would be made from +the story. But those who read mystery stories +habitually knew well that a mystery-builder of +exceptional adroitness had arrived. Of course, +Cyril McNeile, under the pen name “Sapper,” +was already somewhat known in America by several +war books; but <i>Bulldog Drummond</i> was a +novelty. Apparently it was possible to write a +first rate detective-mystery story with touches of +crisp humour as good as Pelham Grenville Wodehouse’s +stuff! There is something convincing +about the hero of <i>Bulldog Drummond</i>, the brisk +and cheerful young man whom demobilisation has +left unemployed and whose perfectly natural susceptibility +to the attractiveness of a young woman +leads him into adventures as desperate as any in +No Man’s Land.</p> +<p>For Cyril McNeile’s new story <i>The Black +Gang</i>, after the experience of <i>Bulldog Drummond</i> +as a book and play, Americans will be better prepared. +An intermediate book, <i>The Man in Ratcatcher</i>, +consists of shorter stories which exhibit +very perfectly McNeile’s gift for the dramatic +situation. He gives us the man who returned +from the dead to save his sweetheart from destruction; +the man who staked his happiness on a +half forgotten waltz; the man who played at cards +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_71' name='page_71'></a>71</span> +for his wife; the man who assisted at suicide, +either ordinary short stories nor ordinary +motifs! I should hesitate to predict how far +McNeile will go along this special line of his; +but I see no reason why he should not give us the +successor of Sherlock Holmes.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iii</p> +</div> + +<p><i>Black Cæsar’s Clan</i> is the good title of Albert +Payson Terhune’s new story in succession to his +<i>Black Gold</i>, a mystery story that was distinguished +by the possession of a Foreword so unusual +as to be worth reprinting—one of the best +arguments for this type of book ever penned:</p> +<p>“If you are questing for character-study or for +realism or for true literature in any of its forms,—then +walk around this book of mine (and, indeed, +any book of mine); for it was not written for you +and it will have no appeal for you.</p> +<p>“But if you care for a yarn with lots of action,—some +of it pretty exciting,—you may like <i>Black +Gold</i>. I think you will.</p> +<p>“It has all the grand old tricks: from the +Weirdly Vanishing Footprints, to the venerable +Ride for Life. Yes, and it embalms even the half-forgotten +and long-disused Struggle on the Cliff. +Its Hero is a hero. Its Villain is a villain. Nobody +could possibly mistake either of them for the +Friend of the Family. The Heroine is just a +heroine; not a human. There is not a subtle +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_72' name='page_72'></a>72</span> +phrase or a disturbingly new thought, from start +to finish.</p> +<p>“There is a good mystery, too; along lines +which have not been worked over-often. And +there is a glimpse of Untold Treasure. What better +can you ask; in a story that is frank melodrama?</p> +<p>“The scene, by the way, is laid in Northern +California; a beautiful and strikingly individualistic +region which, for the most part, is ignored +by tourists for the man-made scenic effects and +playgrounds of the southern counties of the +State.</p> +<p>“If, now and again, my puppets or my plot-wires +creak a bit noisily,—what then? Creaking, +at worst, is a sure indication of movement,—of +action,—of incessant progress of sorts. A thing +that creaks is not standing still and gathering +mildew. It moves. Otherwise it could not +creak.</p> +<p>“Yes, there are worse faults to a plot than an +occasional tendency to creakiness. It means, for +one thing, that numberless skippable pages are not +consumed in photographic description of the ill-assorted +furnishings of the heroine’s room or +cosmos; nor in setting forth the myriad phases of +thought undergone by the hero in seeking to check +the sway of his pet complexes. (This drearily +flippant slur on realism springs from pure envy. +I should rejoice to write such a book. But I +can’t. And, if I could, I know I should never be +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_73' name='page_73'></a>73</span> +able to stay awake long enough to correct its +proofs.)</p> +<p>“Yet, there is something to be said in behalf +of the man or woman who finds guilty joy in +reading a story whose action gallops; a story +whose runaway pace breaks its stride only to leap +a chasm or for a breathcatching stumble on a +precipice-edge. The office boy prefers Captain +Kidd to Strindberg; not because he is a boy, but +because he is human and has not yet learned the +trick of disingenuousness. He is still normal. +So is the average grown-up.</p> +<p>“These normal and excitement-loving readers +are overwhelmingly in the majority. Witness the +fact that <i>The Bat</i> had a longer run in New York +than have all of Dunsany’s and Yeats’s rare +dramas, put together. If we insist that our country +be guided by majority-rule, then why sneer at +a majority-report in literary tastes?</p> +<p>“<i>Ben Hur</i> was branded as a ‘religious dime +novel.’ Yet it has had fifty times the general +vogue of Anatole France’s pseudo-blasphemy +which deals with the same period. Public taste +is not always, necessarily, bad taste. ‘The common +people heard Him, gladly.’ (The Scribes did +not.)</p> +<p>“After all, there is nothing especially debasing +in a taste for yarns which drip with mystery and +suspense and ceaseless action; even if the style +and concept of these yarns be grossly lacking in +certain approved elements. So the tale be written +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_74' name='page_74'></a>74</span> +with strong evidence of sincerity and with a dash +of enthusiasm, why grudge it a small place of its +own in readers’ hours of mental laziness?</p> +<p>“With this shambling apology,—which, really, +is no apology at all,—I lay my book on your +knees. You may like it or you may not. You +will find it alive with flaws. But, it is alive.</p> +<p>“I don’t think it will bore you. Perhaps there +are worse recommendations.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iv</p> +</div> + +<p>Hulbert Footner does not look like a writer of +mystery stories. A tall, handsome, well-dressed, +extremely courteous gentleman who, had he the +requisite accent, might just have arrived from +Bond Street. He has a trim moustache. Awfully +attractive blue eyes! He lives on a farm at +Sollers, Maryland. No one else, it seems, is so +familiar with the unusual corners of New York +City, the sort of places that get themselves called +“quaint.” No one else manages the affairs of +young lovers (on paper) with quite so much of +the airy spirit of young love. I can think of no +one else who could write such a scene as that in +<i>The Owl Taxi</i>, where the dead-wagon, on its way +in the night to the vast cemetery in a New York +suburb, is held up for the removal of a much-needed +corpse. Such material is bizarre. The +handling of it must be very deft or the result +will be revolting; and yet the thing can be done. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_75' name='page_75'></a>75</span> +In the latter part of that excellent play, <i>Seven +Keys to Baldpate</i>, George M. Cohan and his +company bandied a corpse from attic to cellar of +a country house. This preposterous scene as presented +on the stage was helplessly laughable. Mr. +Footner’s scene in <i>The Owl Taxi</i> is like that.</p> +<p>The man has a special gift for the picturesque +person. I do not know whether he uses originals; +if I suspect an original for old Simon Deaves in +<i>The Deaves Affair</i>, I get no farther than a faint +suspicion that ... No, I cannot identify his +character. (Not that I want to; I am not a victim +of that fatal obsession which fastens itself upon +so many readers of fiction—the desire to identify +the characters in a story with someone in real life. +The idea is ridiculous.) Mr. Footner knows +Greenwich Village. He knows outlying stretches +in the greater city of New York; he knows excursion +boats such as the Ernestina, whose cruises +play so curious a part in <i>The Deaves Affair</i>. I +have a whetted appetite for what Footner will +give us next; I feel sure it will be like no other +story of the season. A great deal to be sure of!</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>v</p> +</div> + +<p>The peculiarity about <i>Gold-Killer</i> is the mystery +behind the excellent mystery of the book. I +mean, of course, the mystery of its authorship. I +do not any longer believe that the book is the work +of Siamese twins—in a physiological sense of the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_76' name='page_76'></a>76</span> +word “twins.” I know that there is no John Prosper—or, +rather, that if there is a John Prosper, he +is not the author of <i>Gold-Killer</i>. Yet the book +was the work of more than one man. Were two +intellects siamesed to write the story? Those +who, in my opinion, know the facts point to the +name on the title page and say that John is John +and Prosper is Prosper and never the twain shall +meet, unless for the purpose of evolving a super-<i>Gold-Killer</i>. +Whether they will be able to surpass +this book, which opens with a murder at the +opera and finishes (practically) with a nose dive +in an airplane, is beyond my surmise.</p> +<p>If they will try, I give them my word I will read +the new yarn.</p> +<p>Mrs. Baillie Reynolds’s latest novel is called +<i>The Judgment of Charis</i>. It is not a story to tell +too much about in advance. I will say that +Charis had run away from an all-too-persistent +lover and an all-too-gorgeous family, and had +been taken under the wing of a kindly, middle-aged +millionaire and invited to become his secretary. +She expected some complications and in her +expectations she was not disappointed; and the +readers’ expectations will not be disappointed +either, though they may find the ending unexpected. +<i>The Vanishing of Betty Varian</i> restored to +readers of Carolyn Wells a detective whose appearance +in <i>The Room with the Tassels</i> made that +story more than ordinarily worth while. I do not +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_77' name='page_77'></a>77</span> +know, though, whether Penny Wise would be interesting +or even notable if it were not for his +curious assistant, Zizi. The merit of detective +stories is necessarily variable; <i>The Vanishing of +Betty Varian</i> is one of the author’s best; but Miss +Wells (really Mrs. Hadwin Houghton) is, to me, +as extraordinary as her stories. All those books! +She herself says that “having mastered the psychology +of detachment” she can write with more +concentration and less revision than any other professional +writer of her acquaintance. Yes, but +how—— No doubt it is too much to expect her +to explain <i>how</i> she is ingenious.</p> +<p>Mrs. Belloc Lowndes, sister of Hilaire Belloc, +is ingenious in a different direction. Her story +of <i>What Timmy Did</i> was one that attracted especial +attention from those periodicals and persons +interested in psychic matters. Here was a woman +whose husband had died from poison—self-administered, +the coroner decided—and here was little +Timmy, who knew that something was wrong. +Animals also knew it; and then one day Timmy +saw at her heels a shadow man, stiff and military, +and behind him a phantom dog. Mrs. Lowndes’s +gifts, different from her distinguished brother’s, +are none the less gifts.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='V_REBECCA_WEST_AN_ARTIST' id='V_REBECCA_WEST_AN_ARTIST'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_78' name='page_78'></a>78</span> +<h2><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Chapter V</span></h2> +<h3>REBECCA WEST: AN ARTIST</h3> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>i</p> +</div> + +<p>Whether Rebecca West is writing reviews +of books or dramatic criticism or +novels she is an artist, above everything. I have +been reading delightedly the pages of her new +novel, <i>The Judge</i>. It is Miss West’s second novel. +One is somewhat prepared for it by the excellence +of her first, <i>The Return of the Soldier</i>, published +in 1918. Somewhat, but not adequately.</p> +<p>Perhaps I am prejudiced. You see, I have been +in Edinburgh, and though it was the worst season +of the year—the period when, as Robert Louis +Stevenson says, that Northern city has “the vilest +climate under Heaven”—nevertheless, the charm +and dignity of that old town captured me at the +very moment when a penetrating Scotch winter +rain was coming in direct contact with my bones. +I was, I might as well confess, soaked and chilled +as no New York winter snowstorm ever wetted +and chilled me. It did not matter; here was the +long sweep of Princes Street with its gay shops on +one side and its deep valley on the other; across +the valley the tenements of the Royal Mile lifted +themselves up—the Royal Mile, which runs always +uphill from the Palace that is Holyrood to +the height that is the Castle. Talk about gestures! +The whole city of Edinburgh is a matchless +gesture.</p> +<div class='figcenter'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_79' name='page_79'></a>79</span> +<a name='linki_3' id='linki_3'></a> +<img src='images/winter04.jpg' alt='' title='' style='width: 303px; height: 269px;' /><br /> +<p class='caption' style='margin: 0 auto; text-align:center;width: 303px;'> +REBECCA WEST<br /> +</p> +</div> + +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_81' name='page_81'></a>81</span></div> +<p>And so, when I began the first page of <i>The +Judge</i>, it was a grand delight to find myself back +in the city of the East Wind:</p> +<p>“It was not because life was not good enough +that Ellen Melville was crying as she sat by the +window. The world, indeed, even so much of it +as could be seen from her window, was extravagantly +beautiful. The office of Mr. Mactavish +James, Writer to the Signet, was in one of those +decent grey streets that lie high on the Northward +slope of Edinburgh New Town, and Ellen was +looking up the sidestreet that opened just opposite +and revealed, menacing as the rattle of spears, +the black rock and bastions of the Castle against +the white beamless glare of the southern sky. +And it was the hour of the clear Edinburgh twilight, +that strange time when the world seems to +have forgotten the sun though it keeps its colour; +it could still be seen that the moss between the +cobblestones was a wet bright green, and that a +red autumn had been busy with the wind-nipped +trees, yet these things were not gay, but cold and +remote as brightness might be on the bed of a +deep stream, fathoms beneath the visitation of the +sun. At this time all the town was ghostly, and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_82' name='page_82'></a>82</span> +she loved it so. She took her mind by the arm +and marched it up and down among the sights of +Edinburgh, telling it that to be weeping with discontent +in such a place was a scandalous turning +up of the nose at good mercies. Now the Castle +Esplanade, that all day had proudly supported +the harsh virile sounds and colours of the drilling +regiments, would show to the slums its blank surface, +bleached bonewhite by the winds that raced +above the city smoke. Now the Cowgate and the +Canongate would be given over to the drama of +the disorderly night, the slumdwellers would foregather +about the rotting doors of dead men’s mansions +and brawl among the not less brawling +ghosts of a past that here never speaks of peace, +but only of blood and argument. And Holyrood, +under a black bank surmounted by a low bitten +cliff, would lie like the camp of an invading and +terrified army....”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p><i>The Judge</i> is certainly autobiographical in +some of the material employed. For instance, it +is a fact that Miss West went to school in Edinburgh, +attending an institution not unlike John +Thompson’s Ladies College referred to in <i>The +Judge</i> (but only referred to). It is a fact, as everyone +who knows anything about Miss West knows, +that Miss West was an ardent suffragette in that +time before suffragettes had ceased from troubling +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_83' name='page_83'></a>83</span> +and Prime Ministers were at rest. An amazing +legend got about some time ago that Rebecca +West’s real name was Regina Miriam Bloch. +Then on the strength of the erring “Readers’ +Guide to Periodical Literature” did Miss Amy +Wellington write a sprightly article for the Literary +Review of the New York Evening Post. Miss +Wellington referred to this mysterious Regina +Miriam Bloch who had stunned everybody by her +early articles written under the name of one of +Ibsen’s most formidable heroines; but unfortunately +Miss West wrote a letter in disclaimer. She +cannot help Mr. Ibsen. It may be a collision in +names, but it is not a collusion. The truth about +Rebecca West, who has written <i>The Judge</i>, seems +to be dependably derivable from the English +<i>Who’s Who</i>, a standard work always worth consulting. +This estimable authority says that Rebecca +West was born on Christmas in 1892, and +is the youngest daughter of the late Charles Fairfield +of County Kerry. It further says that she +was educated at George Watson’s Ladies’ College, +Edinburgh. It states that she joined the staff of +The Freewoman as a reviewer in 1911. Her club +is the International Women’s Franchise. Her +residence is 36 Queen’s Gate Terrace, London +S. W. 7. Her telephone is Kensington 7285.</p> +<p>Now is there anything mythical left? What +excuse, O everybody, is there any longer for the +legend of Regina Miriam Bloch?</p> +<p>But I do not believe Miss West objects to legends. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_84' name='page_84'></a>84</span> +I imagine she loves them. The legend of +a name is perhaps unimportant; the legend of a +personality is of the highest importance. That +Miss West has a personality is evident to anyone +familiar with her work. A personality, however, +is not three-dimensionally revealed except in that +form of work which comes closest to the heart and +life of the worker. To write pungent and terrifyingly +sane criticisms is a notable thing; but to +write novels of tender insight and intimate revelation +is a far more convincing thing. <i>The Judge</i> is +such a novel.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iii</p> +</div> + +<p>There is a prefatory sentence, as follows:</p> +<p>“Every mother is a Judge who sentences the +children for the sins of the father.”</p> +<p>There is a dedication. It is:</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p>TO THE MEMORY OF MY MOTHER</p> +</div> + +<p><i>The Judge</i> is a study of the claim of a mother +upon her son. The circumstances of Mrs. Yaverland’s +life were such as peculiarly to strengthen +the tie between her and Richard. On the other +hand, she had always disliked and even hated +her son Roger.</p> +<p>The first part of the book, however, does not +bring in Richard Yaverland’s mother. It is a picture +of Ellen Melville, the girl in Edinburgh, the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_85' name='page_85'></a>85</span> +girl whose craving for the colour of existence has +gone unsatisfied until Richard Yaverland enters +her life. Yaverland, with his stories of Spain, +and his imaginative appeal for that young girl, +is the fulcrum of Ellen Melville’s destiny.</p> +<p>That destiny, carried by the forces of human +character to its strange termination, is handled by +Miss West in a long novel the chapters of which +are a series of delineative emotions. I do not +mean that Miss West shrinks from externalised +action, as did Henry James whom she has admired +and studied. She perceives the immense +value of introspection, but is not lost in its quicksands. +She can devote a whole chapter to a train +of thought in the mind of Ellen Melville, sitting +inattentively at a public meeting; and she can +follow it with another long chapter giving the sequence +of thoughts in the mind of Richard Yaverland; +and she can bring each chapter to a period +with the words: “She (he) glanced across the +hall. Their eyes met.” It might be thought that +this constitutes a waste of narrative space; not so. +As a matter of fact, without the insight accorded +by these disclosures of things thought and felt, +we should be unable to understand the behaviour +of these two young people.</p> +<p>All the first half of the book is a truly marvelous +story of young lovers; all the latter end of the +book is a relation scarcely paralleled in fiction of +the conflict between the mother’s claim and the +claim of the younger woman. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_86' name='page_86'></a>86</span></p> +<p>Of subsidiary portraits there are plenty. Ellen’s +mother and Mr. Mactavish James and Mr. +Philip James are like full-lengths by Velasquez. +In the closing chapters of the book we have the +extraordinary figure of the brother and son, Roger, +accompanied by the depressing girl whom he has +picked up the Lord knows where.</p> +<p>And, after all, this is not a first novel—that +promise, which so often fails of fulfilment—but a +second novel; and I have in many a day not read +anything that seemed to me to get deeper into the +secrets of life than this study of a man who, at the +last, spoke triumphantly, “as if he had found a +hidden staircase out of destiny,” and a woman +who, at the last, “knew that though life at its +beginning was lovely as a corn of wheat it was +ground down to flour that must make bitter bread +between two human tendencies, the insane sexual +caprice of men, the not less mad excessive steadfastness +of women.”</p> +<hr class='minor' /> + +<div class='ce'> +<p><i>Books</i></p> +<p>by Rebecca West</p> +</div> + +<div class='la'> +<p>THE RETURN OF THE SOLDIER</p> +<p>THE JUDGE</p> +</div> + +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_87' name='page_87'></a>87</span></div> +<hr class='minor' /> + +<div class='ce'> +<p><i>Sources</i></p> +<p style=' margin-bottom:1.5em;'>on Rebecca West</p> +</div> + +<p><i>Who’s Who</i>. [In England].</p> +<p><i>Rebecca West</i>: Article by Amy Wellington in the +<span style='font-variant: small-caps'>LITERARY REVIEW OF THE NEW YORK EVENING POST</span>, 1921.</p> +<p>Articles by Rebecca West in various English publications, +frequently reprinted by <span style='font-variant: small-caps'>THE LIVING +AGE</span>. See the <span style='font-variant: small-caps'>READERS’ GUIDE TO PERIODICAL +LITERATURE</span>.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='VI_SHAMELESS_FUN' id='VI_SHAMELESS_FUN'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_88' name='page_88'></a>88</span> +<h2><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Chapter VI</span></h2> +<h3>SHAMELESS FUN</h3> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>i</p> +</div> + +<p>One way to write about Nina Wilcox +Putnam would be in the way she writes +about everything. It’s not so hard. As thus:</p> +<p>Some dull day in the office. We look up and +whom should we see standing right there before +us but Nina Wilcox Putnam! Falling over backwards, +that being what our swivel chair is made +for, we say: “Well, well, well! So today is +May 3, 1922! Where from? West Broadway?”</p> +<p>“I should not say so! South Broadway, I +guess. I’ve just motored up from Florida. But +your speaking of West Broadway reminds me: +I’ve written a piece for George Lorimer of Saturday +Evening Post. You see my book, <i>West +Broadway</i>, brought me so many letters my arm +ached from answering them. What car did you +drive? Where d’y’ get gas in the desert? What’s +the best route? And thus et cetera. So now I +have wrote me a slender essay answering everything +that anybody can ask on this or other transcontinental +subjects. Mr. Lorimer will publish, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_89' name='page_89'></a>89</span> +and who knows—as they say in fiction—it might +make a book afterward.”</p> +<p>“How’s Florida?”</p> +<p>“I left it fine, if it doesn’t get in trouble while +I’m away. I’ve bought a ranch, for fruit only, on +the East Coast, between Palm Beach and Miami, +but not paying these expensive prices, no, not +never. And I shall live there for better but not +for worse, for richer, but most positively not for +poorer. I pick my own alligator pears off my own +tree unless I want to sell them for fifteen cents +on the tree. Bathing, one-half mile east by +motor.”</p> +<p>“Been reading your piece, ‘How I Have Got So +Far So Good,’ in John Siddall’s American Magazine.”</p> +<p>“Yes, I thought I would join the autobiographists—Benvenuto +Cellini, Margot Asquith, +Benjamin Franklin, et Al, as Ring Lardner would +insist. Do you know Ring? He and I are going +to have one of these amicable literary duels soon, +like the famous <i>Isn’t That Just Like a Man? Oh, +Well, You Know How Women Are!</i> which Mrs. +Rinehart and Irvin Cobb fought to a finish. But +speaking of sport, I have discovered my grandest +favourite sport, in spite of motoring, which is deep +sea fishing, nothing less. Let me inform you that +I landed a 9-pound dolphin which he is like fire-opals +all over and will grace the wall of my dining-room +no matter if all my friends suffer with +him the rest of their lives. He was a male dolphin; +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_90' name='page_90'></a>90</span> +get that! It makes a difference from the +deep sea fishing sportsman’s standpoint. And this +place of mine at the end of South Broadway where +I can roll cocoanuts the rest of my life if I want +to is at, in or about Delray, Florida. D-e-l-r-a-y; +you’ve spelled it.”</p> +<p>“We’re publishing your new book on how to +get thin, <i>Tomorrow We Diet</i>.”</p> +<p>“Oh, yes. Well, I am several laps ahead of +that. Now, I am going up to my home in Madison, +Connecticut, to work. Later, I’ll maybe drive +out to Yellowstone Park or some place. Well, I +might stay here at the Brevoort for a month; run +down to Philadelphia, maybe. Did you know I +once wrote a book for children that has sold +500,000 copies? And, besides a young son whom +I am capable of entertaining if you’ll let him tell +you, I have a few ideas....”</p> +<p>Hold on! This isn’t so easy as it looked.</p> +<p>Probably Nina Wilcox Putnam is inimitable. +This one and that may steal Ring W. Lardner’s +stuff, but there is a sort of Yale lock effect about +the slang (American slanguage) in such books as +<i>West Broadway</i> which is not picked so easily. As +for the new Nina Wilcox Putnam novel, <i>Laughter +Limited</i>—if you don’t believe what we say +about N.W.P. inimitableness just open that book +and see for yourself. The story of a movie +actress? Yes, and considerable more. Just as +<i>West Broadway</i> was a great deal more than an +amusing story, being actually the best hunch +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_91' name='page_91'></a>91</span> +extant on transcontinental motoring, outside of +the automobile blue books, which are not nearly +such good reading.</p> +<p>And then there’s <i>Tomorrow We Diet</i>, in which +Nina Wilcox Putnam tells how she reduced fifty +pounds in seven months without exercising anything +but her intelligence. But if you want to +know about Nina Wilcox Putnam, read her story +in her own words that appeared in the American +Magazine for May, 1922. Here is a bit of it:</p> +<p>“Believe you me, considering the fact that they +are mostly men, which it would hardly be right +to hold that up against them, Editors in my experience +has been an unusually fine race, and it is +my contracts with them has made me what I am +today, I’m sure I’m satisfied. And when a fellow +or sister writer commences hollering about how +Editors in America don’t know anything about +what is style or English, well anyways not enough +to publish it when they see it, why all I can say is +that I could show them living proof to the contrary, +only modesty and good manners forbids me +pointing, even at myself. I am also sure that the +checks these hollerers have received from said +Editors is more apt to read the Editor regrets +than pay to the order of, if you get what I mean.</p> +<p>“Well, I have had it pretty soft, I will admit, +because all the work I done to get where I am, is +never over eight hours a day penal servitude, +locked up in my study and fighting against only +such minor odds and intrusions as please may I +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_92' name='page_92'></a>92</span> +have a dollar and a quarter for the laundry, or +now dear you have been writing long enough, I +have brought you a nice cup of tea, just when I +am going strong on a important third chapter. +But my work is of course not really work since it +is done in the home, as my relations often remind +me. At least they did until I got George, that’s +my pres. husband, and he never lets me be interrupted +unless he wants to interrupt me himself for +a clean collar or something.</p> +<p>“Also besides working these short hours, four +of which is generally what us authors calls straight +creative work, I have it soft in another way. I +got a pretty good market for my stuff and always +had, and this of course has got me so’s I can draw +checks as neat and quick as anybody in the family +and they love to see me do it.</p> +<p>“All kidding to one side it is the straight dope +when I say that from being merely the daughter +of honest and only moderately poor parents I have +now a house of my own, the very one in our town +which I most admired as a child; and the quit-claim +deed come out of my own easy money. I +also got a car or two—and a few pieces of the +sort of second-hand stuff which successful people +generally commence cluttering up their house +with as a sign of outward and visible success. I +mean the junk one moves in when one moves the +golden oak out....</p> +<p>“I never commenced going over really big until +it was up to me to make good every time I delivered, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_93' name='page_93'></a>93</span> +and this was not until my husband died and +left me with a small son, which I may say in +passing, that I consider he is the best thing I have +ever published. Well, there I was, a widow with +a child, and no visible means of support except +when I looked into the mirror. Of course, before +then I had been earning good money, but only +when I wanted something, or felt like it. Now I +had to want to feel like it three hundred and sixty-five +days a year.</p> +<p>“I’ll tell the world it was some jolt.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p><i>Perfect Behaviour</i> is the calmly confident title +of the new book by Donald Ogden Stewart—a +work which will rejoice the readers of <i>A Parody +Outline of History</i>. Behaviour is the great obstacle +to happiness. One may overcome all the +ordinary complexes. One may kill his cousins and +get his nephews and nieces deported, and refuse +to perform Honest Work—yet remain a hopeless +slave to the <i>Book of Etiquette</i>. In a Pullman +car, with a ticket for the lower berth, he will take +the seat facing backward, only to tremble and +blush with shame on learning his social error. +Who has not suffered the mortification of picking +up the fork that was on the floor and then finding +out afterward that it was the function of the +waiter to pick up the fork? What is a girl to do +if, escorted home at night from the dance, she +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_94' name='page_94'></a>94</span> +finds the hour is rather late and yet her folks are +still up? Whether she should invite the young +man in or ask him to call again, she is sure to do +the wrong thing. Then there are those wedding +days, the proudest and happiest of a girl’s life, +when she slips her hand into the arm of the wrong +man or otherwise gives herself away before she is +given away. Tragedy lurks in such trifles. Don +Stewart, who has suffered countless mortifications +and heartbreaks from just such little things as +these, determined that something shall be done to +spare others his own unfortunate experiences.</p> +<p><i>Perfect Behaviour</i> is the result of his brave +determination. It is a book that will be constantly +in demand until society is abolished. +Then, too, there is that new behaviouristic psychology. +You have not heard of that? I can +only assure you that Mr. Stewart’s great work is +founded upon all the most recent principles of +behaviouristic psychology. Noted scientists will +undoubtedly endorse it. You will endorse it +yourself, and you will be able to cash in on it.</p> +<p>Stewart wrote <i>A Parody Outline of History</i> +for The Bookman. When the idea was broached, +John Farrar, editor of The Bookman, was about +the only person who saw the possibilities. Response +to the <i>Parody Outline of History</i> was immediate, +spontaneous and unanimous. When the +chapters appeared as a book, this magnificent take-off +of contemporary American writers as well as +of H. G. Wells leaped at once into the place of a +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_95' name='page_95'></a>95</span> +best seller. It remains one. The thing that it +accomplished is not likely to be well done again +for years.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iii</p> +</div> + +<p><i>Neither Here Nor There</i> is the title of a new +book by Oliver Herford, author of <i>This Giddy +Globe</i>.</p> +<p>I do not know which is funnier, Herford or his +books. Among the unforgotten occasions was one +when he was in the Doran office talking about a +forthcoming book and nibbling on animal crackers. +Suddenly he stopped nibbling and exclaimed with +a gasp of dismay:</p> +<p>“Good heavens! I’ve been eating the illustrations +for my book.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iv</p> +</div> + +<p><i>Timothy Tubby’s Journal</i> is, of course, the +diary of the famous British novelist with notes by +Theresa Tubby, his wife. Tubby, on his visit to +this side, was remarkably observant. He says:</p> +<p>“How weary we were after a few hours of being +interviewed and photographed! This deep appreciation +on the part of the American people +was touching, but exhausting. Yet my publishers +telephoned me every two or three hours, to say +that editions of my latest novel were flying +through multitudinous presses; that I must bear +up under the strain and give the public what it +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_96' name='page_96'></a>96</span> +demands; namely, the glimpse of me and of my +aristocratic wife. This, it seems, is what sells a +book in America. The public must see an author +in order to believe that he can write.</p> +<p>“When my distinguished forebear Charles +Dickens<a name="FNanchor_1" id="FNanchor_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> arrived in the town of Boston, he found +his room flooded with offers of a pew at Sunday +morning church. This fashion in America has +apparently passed, though I was taken on sightseeing +expeditions to various cathedrals whose +architecture seemed to me to be execrable (largely +European copies—nothing natively American). +It was never suggested that I attend divine service. +On the contrary, I had countless invitations to be +present at what is known as a ‘cocktail chase.’ +My New York literary admirers seemed tumbling +over one another to offer me keys to their cellars +and to invite me to take part in one of those +strange functions. It is their love of danger, +rather than any particular passion for liquor, +that has, I believe, given birth to these elaborate +fêtes.</p> +<p>“A cocktail chase takes place shortly before +dinner. It may lead you into any one of a number +of places, even as far as the outlying districts of +the Bronx. If you own a motor, you may use +that; if not, a taxi will do. Usually a large number +of motors are employed. Add to this pursuing +motorcycle policemen, and the sight is most +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_97' name='page_97'></a>97</span> +impressive. The police are for protection against +crime waves, not for the arrest of the cocktail +chasers. A revenue agent performs this function, +when it becomes necessary.</p> +<p>“The number of our invitations was so large +that it was hard to pick and choose. Naturally, we +did not care to risk attendance at any function +which might injure our reputation. Usually my +wife has an almost psychic sense of such matters; +but the Social Register was of no assistance in this +case.<a name="FNanchor_2" id="FNanchor_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> Before several hours had passed, however, +we decided to hire a social secretary. I phoned +my publisher for a recommendation. ‘Dear +Tubby,’ he said, ‘what you need is a publicity +agent, not a social secretary. I’ll send you the +best New York can offer immediately. It was +careless of me not to think of it before. You +seemed to have a genius for that sort of thing +yourself.’</p> +<p>“The publicity agent is difficult to explain. He +is somehow connected with an American game +which originated in the great northwest, and +which is called log-rolling. He stands between +you and the public which is clamouring for a +glimpse of you. The difference between a social +secretary and a publicity agent seems to be that +the former merely answers invitations, while the +latter makes sure that you are invited. He writes +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_98' name='page_98'></a>98</span> +your speeches for you, sometimes even goes so far +as to write your novels, and, in a strange place, +will impersonate you at all public functions unless +your wife objects.<a name="FNanchor_3" id="FNanchor_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p> +<p>“Mr. Vernay arrived, fortunately, in time to +sort our invitations. ‘First,’ he said, ‘just you +and Terry’ (he was one of those brusque new +world types and Theresa rather enjoyed his familiarity—‘so +refreshing,’ I remember she said) +‘sit right down and I’ll tell you all about literature +in this here New York.’”</p> +<p>... I have always been meaning to read +Tubby’s novels—so like those of Archibald Marshall +and Anthony Trollope, I understand—but +have never got around to it. Now I feel I simply +must.</p> + +<hr style='width: 10%; border:none; border-bottom:1px solid black; clear:both; margin: 2em auto 1em 0' /> + +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_1' id='Footnote_1'></a><a href='#FNanchor_1'><span class='label'>[1]</span></a> +<p style='font-size: small'>The relationship was on my husband’s father’s side. The Turbots were never so closely connected with the bourgeoisie.</p></div> + +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_2' id='Footnote_2'></a><a href='#FNanchor_2'><span class='label'>[2]</span></a> +<p style='font-size: small'>We, of course, had entrée to all the best Fifth Avenue homes, but since we have now become literary folk, we chose to remain so. We therefore avoided the better classes.</p></div> + +<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_3' id='Footnote_3'></a><a href='#FNanchor_3'><span class='label'>[3]</span></a> +<p style='font-size: small'>Indeed Mr. Vernay was a most accomplished gentleman, and I never objected to him. I only remarked once that I was glad Timothy was not so attractive to the ladies as Mr. Vernay. This, I did not consider an objection.</p></div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>v</p> +</div> + +<p>Such an expert judge as Franklin P. Adams has +considered that the ablest living parodist in verse +is J. C. Squire. Certainly his <i>Collected Parodies</i> +is a masterly performance quite fit to go on the +shelf with Max Beerbohm’s <i>A Christmas Garland</i>. +In <i>Collected Parodies</i> will be found all those +verses which, published earlier in magazines and +in one or two books, have delighted the readers +of Punch and other magazines—“Imaginary +Speeches,” “Steps to Parnassus,” “Tricks of the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_99' name='page_99'></a>99</span> +Trade,” “Repertory Drama, How They Do It +and How They Would Have Done It,” “Imaginary +Reviews and Speeches” and “The Aspirant’s +Manual.”</p> +<p>The great source book of fun in rhyme, however, +is and will for a long time remain Carolyn +Wells’s <i>The Book of Humorous Verse</i>. This has +not an equal in existence, so far as I know, except +<i>The Home Book of Verse</i>. Here in nearly 900 +pages are specimens of light verse from Chaucer to +Chesterton. Modern writers, such as Bert Leston +Taylor and Don Marquis, share the pages with +Robert Herrick and William Cowper, Charles +Lamb and Oliver Wendell Holmes. Verses whimsical, +satiric, narrative, punning—there is no conceivable +variety overlooked by Miss Wells in +what was so evidently a labour of love as well as +of the most careful industry, an industry directed +by an exceptional taste.</p> +<p>P. G. Wodehouse used to write lyrics for musical +plays in England, interpolating one or two in +existing successes. Then he came to America and +began writing lyrics, interpolating them in musical +comedies over here. Then he began interpolating +extremely funny short stories in the +American magazines and he has now succeeded in +interpolating into modern fiction some of the +funniest novels of the last few years. This bit +from his latest, <i>Three Men and a Maid</i>, is typical:</p> +<p>“Mrs. Hignett was never a very patient woman. +”‘Let us take all your negative qualities for +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_100' name='page_100'></a>100</span> +granted,’ she said curtly. ‘I have no doubt that +there are many things which you do not do. Let +us confine ourselves to issues of definite importance. +What is it, if you have no objection to concentrating +your attention on that for a moment, +that you wish to see me about?’</p> +<p>“This marriage.’</p> +<p>“‘What marriage?’</p> +<p>“‘Your son’s marriage.’</p> +<p>“‘My son is not married.’</p> +<p>“‘No, but he’s going to be. At eleven o’clock +this morning at the Little Church Around the +Corner!’</p> +<p>“Mrs. Hignett stared.</p> +<p>“‘Are you mad?’</p> +<p>“‘Well, I’m not any too well pleased, I’m +bound to say,’ admitted Mr. Mortimer. ‘You see, +darn it all, I’m in love with the girl myself!’</p> +<p>“‘Who is this girl?’</p> +<p>“‘Have been for years. I’m one of those silent, +patient fellows who hang around and look a lot, +but never tell their love....’</p> +<p>“‘Who is this girl who has entrapped my +son?’</p> +<p>“‘I’ve always been one of those men who....’</p> +<p>“‘Mr. Mortimer! With your permission we +will take your positive qualities for granted. In +fact, we will not discuss you at all.... What +is her name?’</p> +<p>“‘Bennett.’</p> +<p>“‘Bennett? Wilhelmina Bennett? The daughter +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_101' name='page_101'></a>101</span> +of Mr. Rufus Bennett? The red-haired girl +I met at lunch one day at your father’s house?’</p> +<p>“‘That’s it. You’re a great guesser. I think +you ought to stop the thing.’</p> +<p>“‘I intend to.’</p> +<p>“‘Fine!’</p> +<p>“‘The marriage would be unsuitable in every +way. Miss Bennett and my son do not vibrate +on the same plane.’</p> +<p>“That’s right. I’ve noticed it myself.’</p> +<p>“‘Their auras are not the same colour.’</p> +<p>“‘If I thought that once,‘ said Bream Mortimer, +’‘I’ve thought it a hundred times. I wish I +had a dollar for every time I thought it. Not the +same colour! That’s the whole thing in a nutshell.’”</p> +<p>Mr. Wodehouse is described by a friend as +“now a somewhat fluid inhabitant of England, +running over here spasmodically. Last summer +he bought a race-horse. It is the beginning of the +end!”</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='VII_THE_VITALITY_OF_MARY_ROBERTS_RINEHART' id='VII_THE_VITALITY_OF_MARY_ROBERTS_RINEHART'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_102' name='page_102'></a>102</span> +<h2><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Chapter VII</span></h2> +<h3>THE VITALITY OF MARY ROBERTS RINEHART</h3> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>i</p> +</div> + +<p>“The total result ... after twelve years is +that I have learned to sit down at my desk +and begin work simultaneously,” wrote Mrs. Rinehart +in 1917. “One thing died, however, in those +years of readjustment and struggle. That was +my belief in what is called ‘inspiration.’ I think +I had it now and then in those days, moments +when I felt things I had hardly words for, a +breath of something much bigger than I was, a +little lift in the veil.</p> +<p>“It does not come any more.</p> +<p>“Other things bothered me in those first early +days. I seemed to have so many things to write +about and writing was so difficult. Ideas came, +but no words to clothe them. Now, when writing +is easy, when the technique of my work bothers +me no more than the pen I write with, I have less +to say.</p> +<div class='figcenter'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_103' name='page_103'></a>103</span> +<a name='linki_4' id='linki_4'></a> +<img src='images/winter05.jpg' alt='' title='' style='width: 305px; height: 388px;' /><br /> +<p class='caption' style='margin: 0 auto; text-align:center;width: 305px;'> +MARY ROBERTS RINEHART<br /> +</p> +</div> + +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_105' name='page_105'></a>105</span></div> +<p>“I have words, but fewer ideas to clothe in +them. And, coming more and more often is the +feeling that, before I have commenced to do my +real work, I am written out; that I have for years +wasted my substance in riotous writing and that +now, when my chance is here, when I have lived +and adventured, when, if ever, I am to record +honestly my little page of these great times in +which I live, now I shall fail.”</p> +<p>These surprising words appeared in an article +in the American Magazine for 1917. Not many +months later <i>The Amazing Interlude</i> was published +and, quoting Mrs. Rinehart soon afterward, +I said: “If her readers shared this feeling they +must have murmured to themselves as they turned +the absorbing pages of <i>The Amazing Interlude</i>: +‘How absurd!’ It is doubtful if they recalled the +spoken misgiving at all.”</p> +<p>Few novels of recent years have had so captivating +a quality as had this war story. But I wish +to emphasise again what I felt and tried to express +at that time—the sense of Mrs. Rinehart’s +vitality as a writer of fiction. In what seem to +me to be her best books there is a freshness of +feeling I find astonishing. I felt it in <i>K</i>; I found +it in <i>The Amazing Interlude</i>; and I find it in her +new novel just published, <i>The Breaking Point</i>.</p> +<p><i>The Breaking Point</i> is the story of a man’s past +and his inability to escape from it. If that were +all, it might be a very commonplace subject indeed. +It is not all, nor half.</p> +<p>Dr. Richard Livingstone, just past thirty, is +supposedly the nephew of Dr. David Livingstone, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_106' name='page_106'></a>106</span> +with whom he lives and whose practice he shares +in the town of Haverly; but at the very outset of +the novel, we have the fact that—according to a +casual visitor in Haverly—Dr. Livingstone’s dead +brother had no son; was unmarried, anyway. +And then it transpires that, whatever may have +been the past, Dr. Livingstone has walled it off +from the younger man’s consciousness. The elder +man has built up a powerful secondary personality—secondary +in the point of time only, for +Richard Livingstone is no longer aware of any +other personality, nor scarcely of any former +existence. He does, indeed, have fugitive moments +in which he recalls with a painful and unsatisfactory +vagueness some manner of life that +he once had a part in. But in his young manhood, +in the pleasant village where there is none +who isn’t his friend, deeply centred in his work, +stayed by the affection of Dr. Livingstone, these +whispers of the past are infrequent and untroubling.</p> +<p>The casual visitor’s surprise and the undercurrent +of talk which she starts is the beginning of a +rapid series of incidents which force the problem +of the past up to the threshold of Richard Livingstone’s +consciousness. There would then be +two ways of facing his difficulties, and he takes +the braver. Confronted with an increasingly +difficult situation, a situation sharpened by his +love for Elizabeth Wheeler, and her love for him, +young Dr. Dick plays the man. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_107' name='page_107'></a>107</span> +The title of Mrs. Rinehart’s story comes from +the psychological (and physical) fact that there +is in every man and woman a point at which +Nature steps in and says:</p> +<p>“See here, you can’t stand this! You’ve got +to forget it.”</p> +<p>This is the breaking point, the moment when +amnesia intervenes. But later there may come a +time when the erected wall safeguarding the secondary +personality gives way. The first, submerged +or walled-off personality may step across +the levelled barrier. That extraordinarily dramatic +moment does come in the new novel and +is handled by Mrs. Rinehart with triumphant +skill.</p> +<p>It will be seen that this new novel bears some +resemblances to <i>K</i>, by many of her readers considered +Mrs. Rinehart’s most satisfactory story. +If I may venture a personal opinion, <i>The Breaking +Point</i> is a much stronger novel than <i>K</i>. To +me it seems to combine the excellence of character +delineation noticeable in <i>K</i> with the dramatic +thrill and plot effectiveness which made +<i>The Amazing Interlude</i> so irresistible as you +read it.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p>To say so much is to bear the strongest testimony +to that superb vitality, which, characteristic +of Mrs. Rinehart as a person, is yet more characteristic +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_108' name='page_108'></a>108</span> +of her fiction. There is, I suppose, this +additional interest in regard to <i>The Breaking +Point</i>, that Mrs. Rinehart is the wife of a physician +and was herself, before her marriage, a +trained nurse. The facts of her life are interesting, +though not nearly so interesting as the way +in which she tells them.</p> +<p>She was the daughter of Thomas Beveridge +Roberts and Cornelia (Gilleland) Roberts of +Pittsburgh. From the city’s public and high +schools she went into a training school for nurses, +acquiring that familiarity with hospital scenes +which served her so well when she came to write +<i>The Amazing Adventures of Letitia Carberry</i>, the +stories collected under the title of <i>Tish</i> and the +novel <i>K</i>. She became, at nineteen, the wife of +Stanley Marshall Rinehart, a Pittsburgh physician.</p> +<p>“Life was very good to me at the beginning,” +said Mrs. Rinehart in the <i>American Magazine</i> +article I have referred to. “It gave me a strong +body and it gave me my sons before it gave me +my work. I do not know what would have happened +had the work come first, but I should have +had the children. I know that. I had always +wanted them. Even my hospital experience, +which rent the veil of life for me, and showed it +often terrible, could not change that fundamental +thing we call the maternal instinct.... I would +forfeit every part of success that has come to me +rather than lose any part, even the smallest, of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_109' name='page_109'></a>109</span> +my family life. It is on the foundation of my +home that I have builded.</p> +<p>“Yet, for a time, it seemed that my sons were +to be all I was to have out of life. From twenty +to thirty I was an invalid.... This last summer +(1917), after forty days in the saddle +through unknown mountains in Montana and +Washington, I was as unwearied as they were. +But I paid ten years for them.”</p> +<p>Mrs. Rinehart had always wanted to write. +She began in 1905—she was twenty-nine that +year—and worked at a tiny mahogany desk or +upon a card table “so low and so movable. It +can sit by the fire or in a sunny window.” She +“learned to use a typewriter with my two forefingers +with a baby on my knee!” She wrote +when the children were out for a walk, asleep, +playing. “It was frightfully hard.... I found +that when I wanted to write I could not and then, +when leisure came and I went to my desk, I had +nothing to say.”</p> +<p>I quote from a chapter on Mrs. Rinehart in +my book <i>The Women Who Make Our Novels</i>:</p> +<p>“Her first work was mainly short stories and +poems. Her very first work was verse for children. +Her first check was for $25, the reward of +a short article telling how she had systematised +the work of a household with two maids and a +negro ‘buttons.’ She sold one or two of the poems +for children and with a sense of guilt at the desertion +of her family made a trip to New York. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_110' name='page_110'></a>110</span> +She made the weary rounds in one day, ‘a heartbreaking +day, going from publisher to publisher.’ +In two places she saw responsible persons and +everywhere her verses were turned down. ‘But +one man was very kind to me, and to that publishing +house I later sent <i>The Circular Staircase</i>, +my first novel. They published it and some eight +other books of mine.’</p> +<p>“In her first year of sustained effort at writing, +Mrs. Rinehart made about $l,200. She was surrounded +by ‘sane people who cried me down,’ but +who were merry without being contemptuous. +Her husband has been her everlasting help. He +‘has stood squarely behind me, always. His belief +in me, his steadiness and his sanity and his +humour have kept me going, when, as has happened +now and then, my little world of letters has +shaken under my feet.’ To the three boys their +mother’s work has been a matter of course ever +since they can remember. ‘I did not burst on +them gloriously. I am glad to say that they +think I am a much better mother than I am a +writer, and that the family attitude in general has +been attentive but not supine. They regard it +exactly as a banker’s family regards his bank.’”</p> +<p>Most of the work of the twelve years from +1905 to 1917 was done in Mrs. Rinehart’s home. +But when she had a long piece of work to do she +often felt “the necessity of getting away from +everything for a little while.” So, beginning +about 1915, she rented a room in an office building +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_111' name='page_111'></a>111</span> +in Pittsburgh once each year while she was +writing a novel. It was sparsely furnished and, +significantly, it contained no telephone. In 1917 +she became a commuter from her home in Sewickley, +a Pittsburgh suburb. Her earnings had +risen to $50,000 a year and more.</p> +<p>“My business with its various ramifications had +been growing; an enormous correspondence, involving +business details, foreign rights, copyrights, +moving picture rights, translation rights, +second serial rights, and dramatisations, had made +from the small beginning of that book of poems a +large and complicated business.</p> +<p>“I had added political and editorial writing to +my other work, and also records of travel. I was +quite likely to begin the day with an article opposing +capital punishment, spend the noon hours +in the Rocky Mountains, and finish off with a love +story!</p> +<p>“I developed the mental agility of a mountain +goat! Filing cases entered into my life, card index +systems. To glance into my study after working +hours was dismaying.”</p> +<p>More recently, Mrs. Rinehart has become a resident +of Washington, D. C. Her husband is +engaged in the Government health service and the +family lives in the Wardman Park Hotel, having +taken the apartment of the late Senator Boies Penrose +of Pennsylvania. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_112' name='page_112'></a>112</span></p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iii</p> +</div> + +<p>“Yet, if I were to begin again, I would go +through it all, the rejections at the beginning, the +hard work, the envious and malicious hands +reached up to pull down anyone who has risen +ever so little above his fellows. Not for the +money reward, although that has been large, not +for the publicity, although I am frank enough to +say I would probably miss being pointed out in a +crowd! But because of two things: the friends +I have made all over the world, and the increased +outlook and a certain breadth of perception and +knowledge that must come as the result of years +of such labour. I am not so intolerant as in those +early days. I love my kind better. I find the +world good, to work and to play in.</p> +<p>“I sometimes think, if I were advising a young +woman as to a career, that I should say: ‘First, +pick your husband.’</p> +<p>“It is impossible to try to tell how I have attempted +to reconcile my private life with my +public work without mentioning my husband. +Because, after all, it requires two people, a man +and a woman, to organise a home, and those two +people must be in accord. It has been a sort of +family creed of ours that we do things together. +We have tried, because of the varied outside interests +that pull hard, to keep the family life even +more intact than the average. Differing widely +as they do, my husband’s profession and my career, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_113' name='page_113'></a>113</span> +we have been compelled to work apart. But +we have relaxed, rested and played, together.</p> +<p>“And this rule holds good for the family. Generally +speaking, we have been a sort of closed +corporation, a board of five, with each one given +a vote and the right to cast it. Holidays and +home matters, and picnics and dogs, and everything +that is of common interest all come up for a +discussion in which the best opinion wins. The +small boy had a voice as well as the biggest boy. +And it worked well.</p> +<p>“It is not because we happened to like the same +things. People do not happen to like the same +things. It is because we tried to, and it is because +we have really all grown up together.</p> +<p>“Thus in the summer we would spend weeks in +the saddle in the mountains of the Far West, or +fishing in Canada. But let me be entirely frank +here. These outdoor summers were planned at +first because there were four men and one woman +in our party. Now, however, I love the open +as the men do.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iv</p> +</div> + +<p>“Writing is a clean profession. The writer gets +out of it exactly what he puts in, no more and no +less. It is one-man work. No one can help. The +writer works alone, solitary and unaided. And, +contrary to the general opinion, what the writer +has done in the past does not help him in the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_114' name='page_114'></a>114</span> +future. He must continue to make good, day +after day.</p> +<p>“More than that he must manufacture a new +article every day, and every working hour of his +day. He cannot repeat himself. Can you imagine +a manufacturer turning out something different +all the time? And his income stopping if he +has a sick headache, or goes to a funeral?”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>v</p> +</div> + +<p>Next to the vitality, the variety of Mrs. Rinehart’s +work is most noticeable. Her first novel, +<i>The Circular Staircase</i>, was a mystery tale, and so +was her second, <i>The Man in Lower Ten</i>. She has, +from time to time, continued to write excellent +mystery stories. <i>The Breaking Point</i> is, from one +standpoint, a first class mystery story; and then +there is that enormously successful mystery play, +written by Mrs. Rinehart in conjunction with +Avery Hopwood, <i>The Bat</i>. Nor was this her first +success as a playwright for she collaborated with +Mr. Hopwood in writing the farce <i>Seven Days</i>. +Shall I add that Mrs. Rinehart has lived part of +her life in haunted houses? I am under the impression +that more than one of her residences has +been found to be suitably or unsuitably haunted. +There was that house at Bellport on Long Island—but +I really don’t know the story. I do know +that the family’s experience has been such as to +provide material for one or more very good mystery +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_115' name='page_115'></a>115</span> +novels. My own theory is that Mrs. Rinehart’s +indubitable gift for the creation of mystery +yarns has been responsible for the facts. I imagine +that the haunting of the houses has been a projection +into some physical plane of her busy sub-consciousness. +I mean, simply, that instead of +materialising as a story, her preoccupation induced +a set of actual and surprising circumstances. +Why couldn’t it? Let Sir Oliver Lodge or Sir +Arthur Conan Doyle, the Society for Psychical +Research, anybody who knows about that sort of +thing, explain!</p> +<p>Consider the stories about Letitia Carberry. +Tish is without a literary parallel. Well-to-do, +excitement loving, with a passion for guiding the +lives of two other elderly maidens like herself; +with a nephew who throws up hopeless hands before +her unpredictable performances, Tish is +funny beyond all description.</p> +<p>Just as diverting, in a quite different way, is +Bab, the sub-deb and forerunner of the present-day +flapper.</p> +<p>Something like a historical romance is <i>Long +Live the King!</i>—a story of a small boy, Crown +Prince of a Graustark kingdom, whose scrapes +and friendships and admiration of Abraham Lincoln +are strikingly contrasted with court intrigues +and uncovered treason.</p> +<p><i>The Amazing Interlude</i> is the story of Sara Lee +Kennedy, who went from a Pennsylvania city to +the Belgian front to make soup for the soldiers +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_116' name='page_116'></a>116</span> +and to fall in love with Henri.... But one +could go on with other samples of Mrs. Rinehart’s +abundant variety. I think, however, that the vitality +of her work, and not the variety nor the +success in variety, is our point. That vitality has +its roots in a sympathetic feeling and a sanative +humour not exceeded in the equipment of any +popular novelist writing in America today.</p> +<hr class='minor' /> + +<div class='ce'> +<p><i>Books</i></p> +<p>by Mary Roberts Rinehart</p> +</div> + +<div class='la'> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE MAN IN LOWER TEN</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>WHEN A MAN MARRIES</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF LETITIA CARBERRY</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>WHERE THERE’S A WILL</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE CASE OF JENNY BRICE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE AFTER HOUSE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE STREET OF SEVEN STARS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>K</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THROUGH GLACIER PARK</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>TISH</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>LONG LIVE THE KING</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>TENTING TO-NIGHT</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>BAB, A SUB-DEB</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>KINGS, QUEENS AND PAWNS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE AMAZING INTERLUDE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>TWENTY-THREE AND A HALF HOURS’ LEAVE</p> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_117' name='page_117'></a>117</span> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>DANGEROUS DAYS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>MORE TISH</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>LOVE STORIES</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>AFFINITIES AND OTHER STORIES</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>“ISN’T THAT JUST LIKE A MAN?”</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE TRUCE OF GOD</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>A POOR WISE MAN</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>SIGHT UNSEEN AND THE CONFESSION</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE BREAKING POINT</p> +</div> + +<hr class='minor' /> + +<div class='ce'> +<p><i>Sources</i></p> +<p style=' margin-bottom:1.5em;'>on Mary Roberts Rinehart</p> +</div> + +<p>“<i>My Creed: The Way to Happiness—As I Found +It</i>,” by Mary Roberts Rinehart. AMERICAN MAGAZINE, October, 1917.</p> +<p>“<i>Mary Roberts Rinehart as She Appears</i>” by +Robert H. Davis, AMERICAN MAGAZINE, October, +1917.</p> +<p>“<i>My Public</i>” by Mary Roberts Rinehart, THE +BOOKMAN, December, 1920.</p> +<p><i>The Women Who Make Our Novels</i>, by Grant +Overton, MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY.</p> +<p><i>Who’s Who in America.</i></p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='VIII_THEY_HAVE_ONLY_THEMSELVES_TO_BLAME' id='VIII_THEY_HAVE_ONLY_THEMSELVES_TO_BLAME'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_118' name='page_118'></a>118</span> +<h2><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Chapter VIII</span></h2> +<h3>THEY HAVE ONLY THEMSELVES TO BLAME</h3> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>i</p> +</div> + +<p>If people will write memoirs, they must expect +to suffer. They have only themselves to +blame if life becomes almost intolerable from the +waves of praise and censure. I am going to speak +of some books of memoirs and biography—highly +personal and decidedly unusual books, in the +main by persons who are personages.</p> +<p><i>The Life of Sir William Vernon Harcourt</i> concerns +Sir William George Granville Venables +Vernon Harcourt, who was born in 1827 and died +in 1904. He was an English statesman, grandson +of Edward Vernon Harcourt, Archbishop of York. +He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, +and was called to the bar in 1854. He entered +Parliament (for Oxford) in 1868, sat for Derby +1880-95, and for West Monmouthshire, 1895-1904. +He was Solicitor-general 1873-74, Home +Secretary 1880-85 and Chancellor of the Exchequer +in 1886, 1892-94 and 1894-95. From +March, 1894, to December, 1898, he was leader +of the Liberal Party in the House of Commons. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_119' name='page_119'></a>119</span> +He wrote in the London Times under the signature +of “Historicus” a series of letters on International +Law, which were republished in 1863. +His biography, which begins before Victoria +ascended the throne and closes after her death, +is the work of A. G. Gardiner.</p> +<p><i>Memoirs of the Memorable</i> is by Sir James +Denham, the poet-author of “Wake Up, England!” +and deals with most of the prominent social +names of the end of the last and commencement +of this century, including Mr. Gladstone, +Lord Beaconsfield, Lord Byron, Robert Browning, +the Bishop of London, Cardinal Howard, Lord +Dunedin, Lewis Carroll, Lord Marcus Beresford +and the late Bishop of Manchester. The book +also deals with club life and the leading sportsmen.</p> +<p><i>The Pomp of Power</i> is by an author who very +wisely remains anonymous, like the author of +<i>The Mirrors of Downing Street</i>. I shall not run +the risks of perjury by asserting or denying that +the author of <i>The Mirrors of Downing Street</i> has +written <i>The Pomp of Power</i>. As to the probability +perhaps readers of <i>The Pomp of Power</i> +had better judge. It is an extremely frank book +and its subjects include the leading personalities +of Great Britain today and, indeed, all the world. +Lloyd George, Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, +Lord Haig, Marshal Joffre, Lord Beaverbrook, +Millerand, Loucheur, Painleve, Cambon, Lord +Northcliffe, Colonel Repington and Krassin of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_120' name='page_120'></a>120</span> +Soviet Russia are the persons principally portrayed. +The book throws a searchlight upon the +military and diplomatic relations of Britain and +France before and during the war, and also deals +with the present international situation. It may +fairly be called sensational.</p> +<p>Especially interesting is the anonymous author’s +revelation of the rôle played in the war by +Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, so lately assassinated +in London. The author was evidently an +intimate of Sir Henry and, just as evidently, he +is intimately acquainted with Lloyd George, +apparently having worked with or under the +Prime Minister. He is neither Lloyd George’s +friend nor enemy and his portrait of the Prime +Minister is the most competent I can recall. Can +he be Philip Kerr, Lloyd George’s adviser?</p> +<p>I praise, in this slightly superlative fashion, +the picture of the British Prime Minister by the +author of <i>The Pomp of Power</i> ... and I pick +up another book and discover it to be E. T. Raymond’s +<i>Mr. Lloyd George: A Biographical and +Critical Sketch</i>. The author of <i>Uncensored +Celebrities</i> is far too modest when he calls his +new work a “sketch.” It is a genuine biography +with that special accent due to the biographer’s +personality and his power of what I may call +penetrative synthesis. By that I mean the insight +into character which coördinates and builds—the +sort of biography that makes a legend about a +man. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_121' name='page_121'></a>121</span></p> +<p>Mr. Raymond does not begin with the “little +Welshman” but with a Roman Emperor, Diocletian, +our first well-studied exemplar of the “coalition +mind.” These are the words with which, +after a brilliant survey of the Prime Minister’s +career, the author closes:</p> +<p>“If, however, we withhold judgment on every +point where a difference of opinion is possible, if +we abandon to destructive criticism every act of +administrative vigour which is claimed by his +admirers as a triumph, if we accept the least +charitable view of his faults and failures, there +still remains more than enough with which to +defy what Lord Rosebery once called ‘the body-snatchers +of history, who dig up dead reputations +for malignant dissection.’ If only that he imparted, +in a black time, when it appeared but +too likely that the Alliance might falter and succumb +from mere sick-headache, his own defying, +ardent, and invincible spirit to a tired, puzzled, +distracted and distrustful nation; if only that he +dispelled the vapours, inspired a new hope and +resolution, brought the British people to that +temper which makes small men great, assured our +Allies that their cause was in the fullest sense +our own, and finally achieved the great moral +victory implied in ‘unity of command’—if these +things be alone considered, he will be judged to +have earned for his portrait the right to a dignified +place in the gallery of history; and some +future generation will probably recall with astonishment +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_122' name='page_122'></a>122</span> +that it was considered unfit to adorn the +dining-room of a London club.”</p> +<p>And here are two new books by Margot Asquith! +One is <i>My Impressions of America</i>, the +other continues <i>The Autobiography of Margot +Asquith</i>. Of the first of these books there is to +say that it represents Mrs. Asquith’s matured impressions +and will have a value that could not +possibly attach to interviews or statements she +gave on this side. It also gives, for the first +time, her frank and direct analyses of the personalities +of the distinguished people whom she met +in America. The continuation of her <i>Autobiography</i> +is a different matter. Those who have read +<i>The Autobiography of Margot Asquith</i> will be +prepared for the new book. At least, I hope they +will be prepared and yet I question whether they +will. There is, after all, only one person for Mrs. +Asquith to surpass, and that is herself; and I +think she has done it. This new book will add +Volumes III. and IV. to <i>The Autobiography of +Margot Asquith</i>.</p> +<p>In <i>The Memoirs of Djemal Pasha: Turkey +1913-21</i> will be found the recollections of a man +who was successively Military Governor of Constantinople, +Minister of Public Works and Naval +Minister and who, with Enver Bey and Talaat +Bey, formed the triumvirate which dictated Turkish +policy and guided Turkey’s fate after the coup +d’état of 1913. I believe these memoirs are of +extraordinary interest and the greatest importance. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_123' name='page_123'></a>123</span> +They give the first and only account from +the Turkish side of events in Turkey since 1913. +The development of relations with Germany, +France and England immediately before the war +is clearly traced, and a graphic account is given of +the first two months of the war, the escape of the +Goeben and the attempts made to keep Turkey +neutral. When these failed, Djemal Pasha was +sent to govern Syria and to command the Fourth +Army, which was to conquer Egypt. The attack +on the Suez Canal is described, and then the series +of operations which culminated in the British reverses +in the two battles of Gaza. Further important +sections are devoted to the revolt of the +Arabs and the question of responsibility for the +Armenian massacres.</p> +<p>The value of <i>Miscellanies—Literary and Historical</i>, +by Lord Rosebery, consists not so much in +his recollections of people as in the delight of +reading good prose. Lord Rosebery has a natural +dignity and a charm of lucid phrasing that adapts +itself admirably to the essay form he has chosen. +The subjects he takes up are beloved figures of +the past. Robert Burns, as Lord Rosebery talks +of him, walks about in Dumfries and holds spellbound +by sheer personal charm the guests of the +tavern. There are papers on Burke, on Dr. Johnson, +on Robert Louis Stevenson, and others as +great. One group deals with Scottish History +and one with the service of the state. The last is +a study of the <i>genius loci</i> of such places of mellow +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_124' name='page_124'></a>124</span> +associations as Eton and the Turf. The sort of +book one returns to!</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p>I was going to say something about Andrew +C. P. Haggard’s book, <i>Madame de Staël: Her +Trials and Triumphs</i>. But so profoundly convinced +am I of the book’s fascination that I shall +reprint the first chapter. If this is not worthy of +Lytton Strachey, I am no judge:</p> +<p>“In the year 1751 a young fellow, only fourteen +years of age, went to Magdalen College at Oxford, +and in the same year displayed his budding +talent by writing <i>The Age of Sesostris, Conqueror +of Asia</i>, which work he burnt in later years.</p> +<p>“The boy was Edward Gibbon, who, after becoming +a Roman Catholic at the age of sixteen, +was sent by his father to Switzerland, to continue +his education in the house of a Calvinist minister +named M. Pavilliard, under the influence of +which gentleman he became a Protestant again at +Lausanne eighteen months later.</p> +<p>“The young fellow, while leading the life of +gaiety natural to his age in company with a friend +named Deyverdun, became an apt student of the +classics and was soon a proficient in French, in +which tongue he wrote before long as fluently as in +English. With young Deyverdun he worked, and +in his company Edward Gibbon also played. +After visiting frequently at the house of the celebrated +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_125' name='page_125'></a>125</span> +Voltaire at Monrepos, and after being +present when the distinguished French philosopher +played in his own comedies and sentimental +pieces, the young fellow’s thoughts soon turned to +the theme which was the continual subject of conversation +of the ladies and gentlemen who were +Voltaire’s guests and formed the company of +amateurs with whom the great dramatic writer +was in the habit of rehearsing his plays. This +was, as might have been suspected in such a society, +the theme of love.</p> +<p>“As it happened, there was in the habit of visiting +Lausanne a young lady who was a perfect +paragon. Her name was Suzanne Curchod, and +she was half Swiss and half French, her father +being a Swiss pastor and her mother a Frenchwoman.</p> +<p>“Very handsome and sprightly in appearance, +the fair Suzanne was well instructed in sciences +and languages. Her wit, beauty and erudition +made her a prodigy and an object of universal +admiration upon the occasion of her visits to her +relations in Lausanne. Soon an intimate connection +existed between Edward Gibbon and herself; +he frequently accompanied her to stay at +her mountain home at Grassy, while at Lausanne +also they indulged in their dream of felicity. +Edward loved the brilliant Suzanne with a union +of desire, friendship, and tenderness, and was in +later years proud of the fact that he was once +capable of feeling such an exalted sentiment. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_126' name='page_126'></a>126</span> +There is no doubt that, had he been able to consult +his own inclinations alone, Gibbon would +have married Mademoiselle Curchod, but, the +time coming when he was forced to return to his +home in England his father declared that he would +not hear of ‘such a strange alliance.’</p> +<p>“‘Thereupon,’ says Gibbon in his autobiography, +‘I yielded to my fate—sighed as a lover, +obeyed as a son, and my wound was insensibly +healed by time, absence and new habits of life.’</p> +<p>“These habits of life included four or five years’ +service in the Hampshire Militia, in which corps +Suzanne’s lover became a captain, the regiment +being embodied during the period of the Seven +Years’ War.</p> +<p>“Upon returning to Lausanne, at the age of +twenty-six, in 1763, Edward Gibbon was warmly +received by his old love, but he heard that she had +been flirting with others, and notably with his +friend M. Deyverdun. He himself, while now +mixing with an agreeable society of twenty unmarried +young ladies who, without any chaperons, +mingled with a crowd of young men of all nations, +also ‘lost many hours in dissipation.’</p> +<p>“He was not long in showing Suzanne that he +no longer found her indispensable to his happiness, +with the result that she assailed him, although +in vain, with angry reproaches. Notwithstanding +that she begged Gibbon to be her friend +if no longer her lover, while vowing herself to be +confiding and tender, he acted hard-heartedly and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_127' name='page_127'></a>127</span> +declined to return to his old allegiance, coldly replying: +‘I feel the dangers that continued correspondence +may have for both of us.’</p> +<p>“It is impossible to feel otherwise than sorry +for the brilliant Suzanne at this period, as although +from her subsequent manœuvres it became +evident that her principal object in life was +to obtain a rich husband, from the manner in +which she humiliated herself to him it is evident +that she was passionately in love with the author +of <i>The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire</i>.</p> +<p>“Eventually the neglected damsel gave up the +siege of an unwilling lover, while assuring her +formerly devoted Edward that the day would +come ‘when he would regret the irreparable loss +of the too frank and tender heart of Suzanne +Curchod.’</p> +<p>“Had the pair been united, one wonders what +would have been the characteristics of the offspring +of an English literary man like Gibbon, +who became perhaps the world’s greatest historian, +and a beautiful woman of mixed nationality, +whose subsequent career, although gilded +with riches and adorned with a position of power, +displays nothing above the mediocre and commonplace.</p> +<p>“Edward Gibbon’s fame, which was not long +in coming, was his own, and will remain for so +long as a love of history and literature exists in +the world, whereas that of Suzanne Curchod rests +upon two circumstances—the first that she was +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_128' name='page_128'></a>128</span> +once the sweetheart of Gibbon, the second that +she was the mother of a Madame de Staël.</p> +<p>“When finally cast off by the Englishman, the +Swiss Pastor’s daughter remembered that, if +pretty, she was poor, and had her way to make in +the world. She commenced to play fast and loose +with a M. Correvon, a rich lawyer, whom she said +she would marry ‘if she had only to live with him +for four months in each year.’</p> +<p>“The next lover was a pastor, who was as mercenary +as herself, for he threw her over for a lady +with a large fortune. After this failure to establish +herself, Suzanne became tired of seeking a +husband in Switzerland and went to Paris as the +companion of the rich and handsome Madame +Vermoneux, the supposed mistress of Jacques +Necker, the rich Swiss banker, who was established +in the French capital. Once in Paris, it +was not long before by her seductions Suzanne +succeeded in supplanting Madame Vermoneux in +the still young banker’s affections, with the result +that she married him in 1764.</p> +<p>“Gibbon, whom she had last seen in 1763, returned +to the side of his former love when she was +at length safely married to another man. We find +him writing in 1765, to his friend Lord Sheffield, +formerly Mr. Holroyd, that he had spent ten delicious +days in Paris about the end of June. ‘She +was very fond of me, and the husband was particularly +civil.’ He continues confidentially: +‘Could they insult me more cruelly? Ask me +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_129' name='page_129'></a>129</span> +every evening to supper, go to bed and leave me +alone with his wife—what an impertinent security!’</p> +<p>“It was in the month of April in the following +year, 1766, that was born Madame Necker’s only +child, Anne Louise Germaine, who was destined +to become one of the most remarkable women of +modern times. From the great literary talent +displayed by this wonderfully precocious child +from girlhood, it is difficult not to imagine but +that in some, if merely spiritual, way the genius +of her mother’s old lover had descended through +that mother’s brain as a mantle upon herself. +That she learnt to look upon Gibbon with admiration +at an early age is sure. Michelet informs us +that owing to the praises showered upon the historian +by M. Necker, Germaine was anxious, as +her mother had been before her, to become Gibbon’s +wife. She was, however, destined to have +another husband—or rather we should say two +other husbands.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iii</p> +</div> + +<p><i>Recollections and Reflections</i> by a Woman of +No Importance has added greatly to the number +of this author’s readers, gained in the first instance +by her <i>Memories Discreet and Indiscreet</i>, which +was followed by <i>More Indiscretions</i>.</p> +<p><i>Recollections and Reflections</i> consists of random +memories of lords and ladies, sportsmen, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_130' name='page_130'></a>130</span> +Kings, Queens, cooks, chauffeurs and Empresses, +related with a great deal of philosophy and insight +and no little wit.</p> +<p>There are stories of Gladstone’s lovemaking, +of Empress Eugenie and the diamond the soldier +swallowed, of Balfour’s hats, Henry Irving’s +swelled head and the cosmetics of Disraeli. +There are stories of etiquette at a hair-dressers’ +ball side by side with comments on Kitchener’s +waltzing.</p> +<p>Lady Angela Forbes was the daughter of the +fourth Earl of Rosslyn and the youngest child of +one of the largest and most prominent families in +England. Kitchener, Lord Roberts, Disraeli, the +Kaiser, Prince Edward—she has dined or sailed +or hunted with them all on the most informal +terms. She tells, with engaging frankness, in +<i>Memories and Base Details</i>, of the gaieties, the +mistakes and tragedies of herself and her friends.</p> +<p>It was Baron von Margutti who informed the +Emperor Francis Joseph in 1914 that Serbia had +rejected his ultimatum. The character of the +Emperor is a moot question. <i>The Emperor +Francis Joseph and His Times</i>, reminiscences by +Baron von Margutti, is by a man who knew the +Emperor intimately and who knew the men and +women who surrounded him daily. Baron von +Margutti met all the distinguished European figures, +such as Edward VII, Emperor Wilhelm, +Czar Nicholas and the Empress Eugenie who +came to Austria to visit. He watched from a particularly +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_131' name='page_131'></a>131</span> +favourable vantage point the deft moves +of secret diplomacy which interlaced the various +governments.</p> +<p>Lord Frederic Hamilton, born in 1856, the +fourth son of the first Duke of Abercorn, was educated +at Harrow, was formerly in the British +Diplomatic Service and served successively as +Secretary of the British Embassies in Berlin and +Petrograd and the Legations at Lisbon and +Buenos Aires. He has travelled much and, besides +being in Parliament, was editor of the Pall +Mall Magazine till 1900. The popularity of his +books of reminiscences is explained by the fascinating +way in which he tells a story or illuminates +a character. Other books of memoirs have been +more widely celebrated but I know of none which +has made friends who were more enthusiastic. +<i>The Vanished Pomps of Yesterday</i>, <i>Days Before +Yesterday</i> and <i>Here, There and Everywhere</i> are +constantly in demand.</p> +<p>But, all along, a surprise has been in store +and the time is now here to disclose it! The +talent for this delightful species of memoirising +runs through the family; and Sir Frederic Hamilton’s +brother, Lord Ernest Hamilton, proves it. +Lord Ernest is the author of <i>Forty Years On</i>, a +new book quite as engaging as <i>Here, There and +Everywhere</i>, and the rest of Sir Frederic’s. Word +from London is that Sir Frederic will have no +new book this year; he steps aside with a gallant +bow for Lord Ernest. I have been turning pages +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_132' name='page_132'></a>132</span> +in <i>Forty Years On</i> and reading about such matters +as the Copley curse, school life at Harrow +where Shifner and others bowed the knee to Baal, +bull fights in Peru and adventures in the Klondike. +Personally the most amusing moments of +the book I find to be those in which Lord Ernest +describes his experiments in speaking ancient +Greek in modern Greece. But this is perhaps because +I, too, have tried to speak syllables of +Xenophon while being rapidly driven (in a +barouche) about Patras—with the same lamentable +results. It is enough to unhinge the reason, +the pronunciation of modern Greek, I mean. +But maybe your hobby is bathing? Lord Ernest +has a word in praise of Port Antonio, Jamaica, +as a bathing ground.</p> +<p>What he says about hummingbirds—but I +mustn’t! <i>Forty Years On</i> is a mine of interest +and each reader ought to be pretty well left to +work it for himself.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='IX_AUDACIOUS_MR_BENNETT' id='IX_AUDACIOUS_MR_BENNETT'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_133' name='page_133'></a>133</span> +<h2><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Chapter IX</span></h2> +<h3>AUDACIOUS MR. BENNETT</h3> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>i</p> +</div> + +<p>Mr. Bennett’s audacity has always been +evident. One might say that he began by +daring to tell the truth about an author, continued +by daring to tell the truth about the Five +Towns, and has now reached the incredible stage +where he dares to tell the truth about marriage. +This is affronting Fate indeed. It was all very +well for Arnold Bennett to write a play called +<i>Cupid and Commonsense</i>. Perhaps, in view of +the fact that it is one of the great novels of the +twentieth century, it was all right for him to create +<i>The Old Wives’ Tale</i>; but it cannot be all +right for him to compose such novels as <i>Mr. Prohack</i> +and his still newer story, <i>Lilian</i>.</p> +<p>Think of the writers who have stumbled and +fallen over the theme of marriage. There is +W. L. George ... but I cannot bring myself +to name other names and discuss their tragic +fates. There are those who have sought to make +the picture of marriage a picture of horror; but +that was because they did not dare to tell the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_134' name='page_134'></a>134</span> +truth. That marriage is all, no one but Mr. +Bennett seems to realise. No one but Mr. Bennett +seems to realise that, as between husband and +wife, there are no such things as moral standards, +there can be no such thing as an ethical code, there +can be no interposition of lofty abstractions which +Men call principles and appeal to as they would +appeal to a just God, Himself. No one but Mr. +Bennett seems to realise that the relation between +a man and his wife necessarily transcends every +abstraction, brushes aside every ideal of “right” +and “wrong.” Mr. Bennett, in the course of the +amazing discoveries of an amazing lifetime, has +made the greatest discovery possible to mortals +of this planet. He has discovered that marriage +occurs when a man and a woman take the law +into their own hands, and not only the human law, +but the divine.</p> +<p>It would be impossible for the hero of a Bennett +novel of recent years to be a character like Mark +Sabre in <i>If Winter Comes</i>. Arnold Bennett’s +married hero would realise that the health, comfort, +wishes, doubts, dissimulations; the jealousies, +the happiness or the fancied happiness, and +the exterior appearances of the woman who was +his wife abolish, for practical purposes, everything +else. It is due to Mr. Bennett more than to +anyone else that we now understand that while +“husband” may be a correct legal designation, +“lover” is the only possible æsthetic appellation +of the man who is married. If he is not a lover +he is not a husband except for statutory purposes—that +is all.</p> +<div class='figcenter'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_135' name='page_135'></a>135</span> +<a name='linki_5' id='linki_5'></a> +<img src='images/winter06.jpg' alt='' title='' style='width: 309px; height: 473px;' /><br /> +<p class='caption' style='margin: 0 auto; text-align:center;width: 309px;'> +ARNOLD BENNETT<br /> +</p> +</div> + +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_137' name='page_137'></a>137</span></div> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p>It is hard to describe <i>Lilian</i>. I will let you +taste it:</p> +<p>“Lilian, in dark blue office frock with an embroidered +red line round the neck and detachable +black wristlets that preserved the ends of the +sleeves from dust and friction, sat idle at her flat +desk in what was called ‘the small room’ at Felix +Grig’s establishment in Clifford Street, off Bond +Street. There were three desks, three typewriting +machines and three green-shaded lamps. Only +Lilian’s lamp was lighted, and she sat alone, with +darkness above her chestnut hair and about her, +and a circle of radiance below. She was twenty-three. +Through the drawn blind of the window +could just be discerned the backs of the letters of +words painted on the glass: ‘Felix Grig. Typewriting +Office. Open day and night.’ Seen from +the street the legend stood out black and clear +against the faintly glowing blind. It was +eleven p.m.</p> +<p>“That a beautiful girl, created for pleasure and +affection and expensive flattery, should be sitting +by herself at eleven p.m., in a gloomy office in +Clifford Street, in the centre of the luxurious, +pleasure-mad, love-mad West End of London +seemed shocking and contrary to nature, and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_138' name='page_138'></a>138</span> +Lilian certainly so regarded it. She pictured the +shut shops, and shops and yet again shops, filled +with elegance and costliness—robes, hats, stockings, +shoes, gloves, incredibly fine lingerie, furs, +jewels, perfumes—designed and confected for the +setting-off of just such young attractiveness as +hers. She pictured herself rifling those deserted +and silent shops by some magic means and emerging +safe, undetected, in batiste so rare that her +skin blushed through it, in a frock that was priceless +and yet nothing at all, and in warm marvellous +sables that no blast of wind or misfortune +could ever penetrate—and diamonds in her hair. +She pictured thousands of smart women, with +imperious command over rich, attendant males, +who at that very moment were moving quickly in +automobiles from theatres towards the dancing-clubs +that clustered round Felix Grig’s typewriting +office. At that very moment she herself ought +to have been dancing. Not in a smart club; no! +Only in the basement of a house where an acquaintance +of hers lodged; and only with clerks +and things like that; and only a gramophone. But +still a dance, a respite from the immense ennui +and solitude called existence!”</p> +<p>After Lilian’s mother died she had been +“Papa’s cherished darling. Then Mr. Share +caught pneumonia, through devotion to duty and +died in a few days; and at last Lilian felt on her +lovely cheek the winds of the world; at last she +was free. Of high paternal finance she had never +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_139' name='page_139'></a>139</span> +in her life heard one word. In the week following +the funeral she learnt that she would be mistress +of the furniture and a little over one hundred +pounds net. Mr. Share had illustrated the ancient +maxim that it is easier to make money than +to keep it. He had held shipping shares too long +and had sold a fully-paid endowment insurance +policy in the vain endeavour to replace by adventurous +investment that which the sea had swallowed +up. And Lilian was helpless. She could +do absolutely nothing that was worth money. +She could not begin to earn a livelihood. As for +relatives, there was only her father’s brother, a +Board School teacher with a large vulgar family +and an income far too small to permit of generosities. +Lilian was first incredulous, then horror-struck.</p> +<p>“Leaving the youth of the world to pick up art +as best it could without him, and fleeing to join +his wife in paradise, the loving, adoring father +had in effect abandoned a beautiful idolised +daughter to the alternatives of starvation or prostitution. +He had shackled her wrists behind her +back and hobbled her feet and bequeathed her to +wolves. That was what he had done, and what +many and many such fathers had done, and still +do, to their idolised daughters.</p> +<p>“Herein was the root of Lilian’s awful burning +resentment against the whole world, and of a +fierce and terrible determination by fair means or +foul to make the world pay. Her soul was a +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_140' name='page_140'></a>140</span> +horrid furnace, and if by chance Lionel Share +leaned out from the gold bar of heaven and noticed +it, the sight must have turned his thoughts +towards hell for a pleasant change. She was +saved from disaster, from martyrdom, from ignominy, +from the unnameable, by the merest fluke. +The nurse who tended Lionel Share’s last hours +was named Grig. This nurse had cousins in the +typewriting business. She had also a kind heart +a practical mind, and a persuasive manner with +cousins.”</p> +<p>Lilian in the office late at night has been engaged +in conversation by her employer, Mr. Grig, +and Mr. Grig has finally come to the point.</p> +<p>“‘You know you’ve no business in a place like +this, a girl like you. You’re much too highly +strung for one thing. You aren’t like Miss Jackson, +for instance. You’re simply wasting yourself +here. Of course you’re terribly independent, but +you do try to please. I don’t mean try to please +merely in your work. You try to please. It’s an +instinct with you. Now in typing you’d never +beat Miss Jackson. Miss Jackson’s only alive, +really, when she’s typing. She types with her +whole soul. You type well—I hear—but that’s +only because you’re clever all round. You’d do +anything well. You’d milk cows just as well as +you’d type. But your business is marriage, and a +good marriage! You’re beautiful, and, as I say, +you have an instinct to please. That’s the important +thing. You’d make a success of marriage +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_141' name='page_141'></a>141</span> +because of that and because you’re adaptable and +quick at picking up. Most women when they’re +married forget that their job is to adapt themselves +and to please. That’s their job. They +expect to be kowtowed to and spoilt and humoured +and to be free to spend money without +having to earn it, and to do nothing in return except +just exist—and perhaps manage a household, +pretty badly. They seem to forget that there are +two sides to a bargain. It’s dashed hard work, +pleasing is, sometimes. I know that. But it isn’t +so hard as earning money, believe me! Now you +wouldn’t be like the majority of women. You’d +keep your share of the bargain, and handsomely. +If you don’t marry, and marry fifty miles above +you, you’ll be very silly. For you to stop here is +an outrage against commonsense. It’s merely +monstrous. If I wasn’t an old man I wouldn’t +tell you this, naturally. Now you needn’t blush. +I expect I’m not far off thirty years older than you—and +you’re young enough to be wise in time.’”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iii</p> +</div> + +<p>It will be seen that <i>Lilian</i> has all the philosophy +and humour which make <i>Mr. Prohack</i> a joy +forever, and in addition the new novel has the +strong interest we feel in a young, beautiful, attractive, +helpless girl, who has her way to make +in the world. And yet, I love <i>Mr. Prohack</i>. I +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_142' name='page_142'></a>142</span> +think I have by heart some of the wisdom he +utters; for instance—</p> +<p>On women: “Even the finest and most agreeable +women, such as those with whom I have been +careful to surround myself in my domestic existence, +are monsters of cruelty.”</p> +<p>On women’s clubs: “You scarcely ever speak +to a soul in your club. The food’s bad in your +club. They drink liqueurs before dinner at your +club. I’ve seen ’em. Your club’s full every night +of the most formidable spinsters each eating at a +table alone. Give up your club by all means. +Set fire to it and burn it down. But don’t count +the act as a renunciation. You hate your club.”</p> +<p>On his wife: “You may annoy me. You may +exasperate me. You are frequently unspeakable. +But you have never made me unhappy. And +why? Because I am one of the few exponents of +romantic passion left in this city. My passion +for you transcends my reason. I am a fool, but +I am a magnificent fool. And the greatest miracle +of modern times is that after twenty-four years +of marriage you should be able to give me pleasure +by perching your stout body on the arm of my +chair as you are doing.”</p> +<p>On his daughter: “In 1917 I saw that girl in +dirty overalls driving a thundering great van +down Whitehall. Yesterday I met her in her +foolish high heels and her shocking openwork +stockings and her negligible dress and her exposed +throat and her fur stole, and she was so +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_143' name='page_143'></a>143</span> +delicious and so absurd and so futile and so sure +of her power that—that—well ... that chit has +the right to ruin me—not because of anything +she’s done, but because she is.”</p> +<p>On kissing: “That fellow has kissed my daughter +and he has kissed her for the first time. It is +monstrous that any girl, and especially my daughter, +should be kissed for the first time.... It +amounts to an outrage.”</p> +<p>On parenthood: “To become a parent is to accept +terrible risks. I’m Charlie’s father. What +then?... He owes nothing whatever to me or +to you. If we were starving and he had plenty, he +would probably consider it his duty to look after +us; but that’s the limit of what he owes us. +Whereas nothing can put an end to our responsibility +towards him.... We thought it would +be nice to have children and so Charlie arrived. +He didn’t choose his time and he didn’t choose his +character, nor his education, nor his chance. If he +had his choice you may depend he’d have chosen +differently. Do you want me, on the top of all +that, to tell him that he must obediently accept +something else from us—our code of conduct? It +would be mere cheek, and with all my shortcomings +I’m incapable of impudence, especially to the +young.”</p> +<p>On ownership: “Have you ever stood outside +a money-changer’s and looked at the fine collection +of genuine banknotes in the window? Supposing +I told you that you could look at them, and enjoy +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_144' name='page_144'></a>144</span> +the sight of them, and nobody could do more? +No, my boy, to enjoy a thing properly you’ve got +to own it. And anybody who says the contrary is +probably a member of the League of all the Arts.”</p> +<p>On economics: “That’s where the honest poor +have the advantage of us.... We’re the dishonest +poor.... We’re one vast pretence.... +A pretence resembles a bladder. It may burst. +We probably shall burst. Still, we have one great +advantage over the honest poor, who sometimes +have no income at all; and also over the rich, who +never can tell how big their incomes are going to +be. We know exactly where we are. We know +to the nearest sixpence.”</p> +<p>On history: “Never yet when empire, any empire, +has been weighed in the balance against a +young and attractive woman has the young woman +failed to win! This is a dreadful fact, but men +are thus constituted.”</p> +<p>On bolshevism: “Abandon the word ‘bolshevik.’ +It’s a very overworked word and wants a +long repose.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iv</p> +</div> + +<p>The best brief sketch of Arnold Bennett’s life +that I know of is given in the chapter on Arnold +Bennett in John W. Cunliffe’s <i>English Literature +During the Last Half Century</i>. Professor Cunliffe, +with the aid, of course, of Bennett’s own +story, <i>The Truth About an Author</i>, writes as +follows: +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_145' name='page_145'></a>145</span></p> +<p>“He was born near Hanley, the ‘Hanbridge’ of +the Five Towns which his novels were to launch +into literary fame, and received a somewhat limited +education at the neighbouring ‘Middle +School’ of Newcastle, his highest scholastic +achievement being the passing of the London +University Matriculation Examination. Some +youthful adventures in journalism were perhaps +significant of latent power and literary inclination, +but a small provincial newspaper offers no +great encouragement to youthful ambition, and +Enoch Arnold Bennett (as he was then called) +made his way at 21 as a solicitor’s clerk to London, +where he was soon earning a modest livelihood +by ‘a natural gift for the preparation of bills +for taxation.’ He had never ‘wanted to write’ +(except for money) and had read almost nothing +of Scott, Jane Austen, Dickens, Thackeray, the +Brontës, and George Eliot, though he had devoured +Ouida, boys’ books and serials. His first +real interest in a book was ‘not as an instrument +for obtaining information or emotion, but as a +book, printed at such a place in such a year by +so-and-so, bound by so-and-so, and carrying colophons, +registers, water-marks, and <i>fautes d’impression</i>.’ +It was when he showed a rare copy of +<i>Manon Lescaut</i> to an artist and the latter remarked +that it was one of the ugliest books he had +ever seen, that Bennett, now in his early twenties, +first became aware of the appreciation of beauty. +He won twenty guineas in a competition, conducted +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_146' name='page_146'></a>146</span> +by a popular weekly, for a humorous +condensation of a sensational serial, being assured +that this was ‘art,’ and the same paper paid him +a few shillings for a short article on ‘How a bill +of costs is drawn up.’ Meanwhile he was ‘gorging’ +on English and French literature, his chief +idols being the brothers de Goncourt, de Maupassant, +and Turgenev, and he got a story into the +Yellow Book. He saw that he could write, and +he determined to adopt the vocation of letters. +After a humiliating period of free lancing in Fleet +Street, he became assistant editor and later editor +of Woman. When he was 31, his first novel, +<i>A Man From the North</i>, was published, both in +England and America, and with the excess of the +profits over the cost of typewriting he bought a +new hat. At the end of the following year he +wrote in his diary:</p> +<p>“‘This year I have written 335,340 words, +grand total: 224 articles and stories, and four instalments +of a serial called <i>The Gates of Wrath</i> +have actually been published, and also my book +of plays, <i>Polite Farces</i>. My work included six +or eight short stories not yet published, also the +greater part of a 55,000 word serial <i>Love and +Life</i> for Tillotsons, and the whole draft, 80,000 +words of my Staffordshire novel <i>Anna Tellwright</i>.’</p> +<p>“This last was not published in book form till +1902 under the title of <i>Anna of the Five Towns</i>; +but in the ten years that had elapsed since he came +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_147' name='page_147'></a>147</span> +to London, Bennett had risen from a clerk at six +dollars a week to be a successful ‘editor, novelist, +dramatist, critic, connoisseur of all arts’ with a +comfortable suburban residence. Still he was not +satisfied; he was weary of journalism and the +tyranny of his Board of Directors. He threw up +his editorial post, with its certain income, and +retired first to the country and then to a cottage +at Fontainebleau to devote himself to literature.</p> +<p>“In the autumn of 1903, when Bennett used to +dine frequently in a Paris restaurant, it happened +that a fat old woman came in who aroused almost +universal merriment by her eccentric behaviour. +The novelist reflected: ‘This woman was once +young, slim, perhaps beautiful; certainly free +from these ridiculous mannerisms. Very probably +she is unconscious of her singularities. Her case +is a tragedy. One ought to be able to make a +heart-rending novel out of a woman such as she.’ +The idea then occurred to him of writing the book +which afterwards became <i>The Old Wives’ Tale</i>, +and in order to go one better than Guy de Maupassant’s +‘Une Vie’ he determined to make it the +life-history of two women instead of one. Constance, +the more ordinary sister, was the original +heroine; Sophia, the more independent and attractive +one, was created ‘out of bravado.’ The +project occupied Bennett’s mind for some years, +during which he produced five or six novels of +smaller scope, but in the autumn of 1907 he began +to write <i>The Old Wives’ Tale</i> and finished it in +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_148' name='page_148'></a>148</span> +July, 1908. It was published the same autumn +and though its immediate reception was not encouraging, +before the winter was over it was recognised +both in England and America as a work +of genius. The novelist’s reputation was upheld, +if not increased, by the publication of Clayhanger +in 1910, and in June, 1911, the most conservative +of American critical authorities, the New York +Evening Post, could pronounce judgment in these +terms:</p> +<p>“‘Mr. Bennett’s Bursley is not merely one +single stupid English provincial town. His +Baineses and Clayhangers are not simply average +middle class provincials foredoomed to humdrum +and the drab shadows of experience. His Bursley +is every provincial town, his Baineses are all +townspeople whatsoever under the sun. He professes +nothing of the kind; but with quiet smiling +patience, with a multitude of impalpable touches, +clothes his scene and its humble figures in an atmosphere +of pity and understanding. These little +people, he seems to say, are as important to themselves +as you are to yourself, or as I am to myself. +Their strength and weakness are ours; their lives, +like ours, are rounded with a sleep. And because +they stand in their fashion for all human character +and experience, there is even a sort of beauty +in them if you will but look for it.’”</p> +<hr class='minor' /> + +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_149' name='page_149'></a>149</span></div> +<div class='ce'> +<p><i>Books</i></p> +<p>by Arnold Bennett</p> +</div> + +<div class='la'> +<p style=' margin-top:1.5em;'><i>Novels</i>:</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>A MAN FROM THE NORTH</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE GRAND BABYLON HOTEL</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE GATES OF WRATH</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>LEONORA</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>HUGO</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>A GREAT MAN</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE BOOK OF CARLOTTA</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>WHOM GOD HATH JOINED</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE OLD ADAM</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>BURIED ALIVE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE OLD WIVES’ TALE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>CLAYHANGER</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>DENRY THE AUDACIOUS [In England, THE CARD]</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>HILDA LESSWAYS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE MATADOR OF THE FIVE TOWNS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>HELEN WITH THE HIGH HAND</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE GLIMPSE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE CITY OF PLEASURE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THESE TWAIN</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE LION’S SHARE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE PRETTY LADY</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE ROLL CALL</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>MR. PROHACK</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>LILIAN</p> +<p style=' margin-top:1.5em;'><i>Plays</i>:</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>CUPID AND COMMONSENSE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>WHAT THE PUBLIC WANTS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE HONEYMOON</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>MILESTONES [With Edward Knoblauch]</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE GREAT ADVENTURE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE TITLE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>JUDITH</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE LOVE MATCH</p> +</div> + +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_150' name='page_150'></a>150</span></div> +<div class='ce'> +<p><i>Sources</i></p> +<p style=' margin-bottom:1.5em;'>on Arnold Bennett</p> +</div> + +<p><i>Who’s Who</i> [In England].</p> +<p><i>English Literature During the Last Half Century</i>, +by John W. Cunliffe. THE MACMILLAN +COMPANY.</p> +<p><i>Arnold Bennett.</i> A booklet published by GEORGE +H. DORAN COMPANY, 1911. (Out of +print.)</p> +<p><i>The Truth About an Author</i>, by Arnold Bennett. +GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY.</p> +<p><i>The Author’s Craft</i>, by Arnold Bennett. GEORGE +H. DORAN COMPANY.</p> +<p><i>Some Modern Novelists</i>, by Helen Thomas Follett +and Wilson Follett. HENRY HOLT AND +COMPANY.</p> +<p><i>Arnold Bennett</i>, by J. F. Harvey Darton, in the +WRITERS OF THE DAY series. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_151' name='page_151'></a>151</span></p> +<p>The critical articles on Mr. Bennett and his individual +books are too numerous to mention. The +reader is referred to the New York Public Library +or the Library of Congress, Washington, +D. C., and to the Annual Index of Periodical +Publications for the last twenty years.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='X_A_CHAPTER_FOR_CHILDREN' id='X_A_CHAPTER_FOR_CHILDREN'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_152' name='page_152'></a>152</span> +<h2><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Chapter X</span></h2> +<h3>A CHAPTER FOR CHILDREN</h3> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>i</p> +</div> + +<p>I know of only one book which really aids +parents and others who have to oversee children’s +reading. That is Annie Carroll Moore’s +invaluable <i>Roads to Childhood</i>. The author, as +supervisor of work with children in the New York +Public Library, has had possibly a completer opportunity +to understand what children like to read +and why they like it than any other woman. +What is more, she has the gift of writing readably +about both children and books, and an unusual +faculty for reconciling those somewhat opposite +poles—things children like to read and the things +it is well for them to read.</p> +<p>Miss Moore says that the important thing is a +discovery of personality in children and a respect +for their natural inclinations in reading—an early +and live appreciation of literature and good drawings +is best imparted by exposure rather than by +insistence upon a too rigid selection. “What I +like about these papers,” said one young mother, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_153' name='page_153'></a>153</span> +“is that they are good talk. You can pick the +book up and open it anywhere without following +a course of reading or instruction to understand +it. There is full recognition of the fact that +children are different and react differently to the +same books at different periods of their development.”</p> +<p>Maude Radford Warren’s <i>Tales Told by the +Gander</i> is one of those books for children that +adults find interesting, too; and there is a new +series of children’s books by May Byron, concerning +which I must say a few words. The series is +called “Old Friends in New Frocks” and here are +a few of the titles:</p> +<p><i>Billy Butt’s Adventure: The Tale of the Wolf +and the Goat.</i></p> +<p><i>Little Jumping Joan: The Tale of the Ants and +the Grasshopper.</i></p> +<p><i>Jack-a-Dandy: The Tale of the Vain Jackdaw.</i></p> +<p>These books are noteworthy for their beautiful +illustrations. Each volume has an inspired and +fanciful frontispiece in colours by E. J. Detmold +and line illustrations by Day Hodgetts. Moreover, +there are end papers and the binding has a +picture in colour that begins on the back and extends +all the way around in front. Naturally +they are for very young children—shall we say up +to seven years old? +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_154' name='page_154'></a>154</span></p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p>On April 29, 1922, the Philadelphia Public +Ledger printed a letter from twelve-year-old +Marion Kummer, as follows:</p> +<p>“Dear Mr. Editor: My father asked me to +write you a story about him and they say at school +that I am good at stories, so I thought I would. +I think he thinks I can write and become a great +writer like him some day, but I would rather be a +great actress like Leonora Ulrick. I saw her in a +play where she went to sleep and they stuck pins +in her but could not wake her up, which part I +should not like. But at that I would rather be an +actress because acting is pleasanter and more exciting +and you do not have to write on the typewriter +all day and get a pain in your back. Daddy +says he would rather shovel coal but he does not, +but snow sometimes, which has been very plentiful +about here this winter, also sledding.</p> +<p>“When he is not working, he goes for a walk +with the dogs, or tells us most any question we +should ask almost like an encikelopedia. He is +very good-natured and I love the things he writes, +especially plays. Daddy has just finished a children’s +book called <i>The Earth’s Story</i> about how +it began millions of years ago when there was a +great many fossils, so nice for children. Also +about stone axes. My brother Fred made one +but when he was showing us how it worked the +head came off and hit me on the foot and I +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_155' name='page_155'></a>155</span> +kicked him. So stone axes were one of the man’s +first weapons. Daddy read us each chapter +when it was done and we helped him except baby +brother who wrote with red crayon all over one +chapter when no one was there, and he should not +have been in Daddy’s office anyway. Daddy has +to draw horses and engines for him all the time. +He gets tired of it but what can he do?”</p> +<p>Now this is very pleasant, for here on the table +is the first volume of <i>The Earth’s Story—The +First Days of Man</i> by Frederic Arnold Kummer; +and this book for children has a preface for parents +in it. In that preface Mr. Kummer says:</p> +<p>“In this process of storing away in his brain +the accumulated knowledge of the ages the child’s +mind passes, with inconceivable rapidity, along +the same route that the composite minds of his +ancestors travelled, during their centuries of development. +The impulse that causes him to want +to hunt, to fish, to build brush huts, to camp out +in the woods, to use his hands as well as his brain, +is an inheritance from the past, when his primitive +ancestors did these things. He should be +helped to trace the route they followed with intelligence +and understanding, he should be encouraged +to know the woods, and all the great +world of out-of-doors, to make and use the primitive +weapons, utensils, toys, his ancestors made +and used, to come into closer contact with the +fundamental laws of nature, and thus to lay a +groundwork for wholesome and practical thinking +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_156' name='page_156'></a>156</span> +which cannot be gained in the classroom or the +city streets.</p> +<p>“As has been said, the writer has tested the +methods outlined above. The chapters in <i>The +First Days of Man</i> are merely the things he has +told his own children. It is of interest to note +that one of these, a boy of seven, on first going to +school, easily outstripped in a single month a +dozen or more children who had been at school +almost a year, and was able to enter a grade a full +year ahead of them. The child in question is not +in the least precocious, but having understood the +knowledge he has gained, he is able to make use +of it, he has a definite mental perspective, a sure +grasp on things, which makes study of any kind +easy for him, and progression correspondingly +rapid.”</p> +<p>To say that <i>Jungle Tales, Adventures in India</i>, +by Howard Anderson Musser is a series of missionary +tales of adventure in India, is to give no +idea of the thrills within its covers. There are +fights with tigers, bears and bandits, and there is +one long fight against ignorance and disease, superstition +and merciless greed. And the fighter? +He was an American athlete, who had won honour +on the track and football field. Great for boys!</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iii</p> +</div> + +<p>The English <i>Who’s Who</i> says: +“Colonel Stevenson Lyle Cummins”—then follows +a string of degrees—“David Davies Professor +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_157' name='page_157'></a>157</span> +of Tuberculosis, University College, South +Wales, Monmouthshire, and Principal Medical +Officer to the King Edward VII. Welsh National +Memorial Association since 1921.... Entered +Army 1897; Captain, 1900; Major, 1909; Lieutenant-Colonel, +1915; Colonel, 1918; served Nile +Expedition, 1898 (medal with clasp, despatches); +Sudan 1900, 1902; Sudan, 1904 (Clasp); Osmanieh +4th class, 1907; European War, 1914-18 +(C.B., C.M.G., despatches six times, Brevetted +Colonel); Legion of Honour (Officer), Couronne +de Belgique (Officer); Col. 1918; Croix de Guerre +(Belgian), 1918, retired from Army, 1921.”</p> +<p>But I don’t suppose that it was as a consequence +of anything in that honourable record that Colonel +Cummins wrote <i>Plays for Children</i>, in three +volumes. I suppose it was in consequence of another +fact which the English<i> Who’s Who</i> mentions +(very briefly and abbreviatedly) as “four <i>c.</i>”</p> +<p>The possession of four children is a natural explanation +of three volumes of juvenile plays.</p> +<p>But wait a moment! Did Colonel Cummins +write them wholly for his youngsters? As I read +these little plays, it seems to me that there is frequently +an undercurrent of philosophy, truth, +satire—what you will—which, unappreciated by +the youngsters themselves, will make these household +dramas ingratiating to their parents. At any +rate, this is exceptional work; you may be sure it +is, for publishers are not in the habit of bringing +out an author’s three volumes of children’s plays +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_158' name='page_158'></a>158</span> +all at one stroke, and that is what is happening +with Colonel Cummins’s little dramas.</p> +<p>What is there to say in advance about <i>The +Fairy Flute</i>, by Rose Fyleman? No one of the +increasing number who have read her utterly +charming book of poems for children, <i>Fairies and +Chimneys</i>, will need more than the breath that +this book is coming. I shall give myself (and I +think everyone who reads this) the pleasure of +quoting a poem from <i>Fairies and Chimneys</i>. This +will show those who do not know the work of +Rose Fyleman what to expect:</p> +<table summary='poetry' style='margin:0 auto'><tr><td> +<p style='text-align: center;'>PEACOCKS</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Peacocks sweep the fairies’ rooms;</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>They use their folded tails for brooms;</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>But fairy dust is brighter far</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Than any mortal colours are;</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>And all about their tails it clings</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>In strange designs of rounds and rings;</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>And that is why they strut about</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>And proudly spread their feathers out.</p> +</td></tr></table> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iv</p> +</div> + +<p>Francis Rolt-Wheeler has spent years at sea, +travelled a great deal in the West Indies, and +South America, trapped at Hudson Bay, punched +cattle in the far West, lived in mining camps, +traversed the greater part of the American continent +on horseback, lived with the Indians of the +plains and lived with the Indians of the Pueblos, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_159' name='page_159'></a>159</span> +was a journalist for several years, has been in +nearly every country of the world, and when last +heard from (May, 1922) was meandering through +Spain on his way to Morocco intending to take +journeys on mule-back among the wild tribes of +the Riff. He is studying Arabic and Mohammedan +customs to prepare himself for this latest adventure. +He writes boys’ books.</p> +<p>Can he write boys’ books? If a man of his experience +cannot write boys’ books, then boys’ +books are hopeless.</p> +<p><i>Plotting in Pirate Seas</i>, besides the thrill of +the story relating Stuart Garfield’s adventures +in Haiti, contains glimpses of the whole pageant +we call “the history of the Spanish Main.” There +is a chapter which gives an account of Teach and +Blackbeard, the buccaneers. Other chapters offer +natural history in connection with Stuart Garfield’s +hunt for his father. The boy gets an +inside view of newspaper work and a clear idea of +native life in Haiti and of conditions which +brought about American intervention on the +island.</p> +<p><i>Hunting Hidden Treasure in the Andes</i> is, explicitly, +the story of Julio and his guidance of two +North American boys to the buried treasure of the +Incas; but the book is much more than that. It +gives, with accuracy and exceptional interest, a +panorama of South American civilisation.</p> +<p>These are the first two volumes of the “Boy +Journalist Series.” Two other books, the first +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_160' name='page_160'></a>160</span> +two volumes in the series called “Romance-History +of America,” are:</p> +<p><i>In the Days Before Columbus</i>, which deals with +the North America that every youngster wants to +know about—a continent flung up from the +ocean’s bed and sculptured by ice; a continent +that was kept hidden for centuries from European +knowledge by the silent sweep of ocean currents; +a continent that developed civilisations comparable +with the Phoenician and Egyptian; the continent +of the Red Man. The book places what we +customarily call “American History” in its proper +perspective by hanging behind it the stupendous +backdrop of creation and the prehistoric time.</p> +<p><i>The Quest of the Western World</i> is not the +usual story of Columbus, preceded by a few allusions +to the adventurings of earlier navigators. +Dr. Rolt-Wheeler has written a book which goes +back to the days of Tyre and Sidon, which includes +the core of the old Norse and Irish sagas, +and which comes down to Columbus with all the +rich tapestry of a daring past unrolled before the +youthful reader. Nor does the author stand on +the letter of his title; he tells the story of the +Quest both backward and forward, tying up the +past with the present and avoiding, with singular +success, the fatal effect which makes a child feel: +“All this was a long time ago; it hasn’t anything +to do with me or today.”</p> +<p>And now two new Rolt-Wheeler books are +ready! <i>Heroes of the Ruins</i>, the third volume of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_161' name='page_161'></a>161</span> +the “Boy Journalist Series,” tells of a fourteen-year-old +who lived for four years of war in +trenches and dugouts. Andre, the Mole, went +from one company to another, dodged the authorities +and successfully ran the risks of death, +emerging at the end to take up the search for his +scattered family, from whom he had been separated +in the early days of the fighting.</p> +<p>The third volume in the “Romance-History of +America” books is <i>The Coming of the Peoples</i>, +which tells how the French, Spanish, English and +Dutch settled early America.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>v</p> +</div> + +<p>Olive Roberts Barton is a sister of Mary Roberts +Rinehart. When she taught school in Pittsburgh +for several years before her marriage, she +worked with children of all sizes and ages during +part of that time and found small children were +her specialty. She says:</p> +<p>“Working with them, and giving out constantly +as one must with small children, was like casting +bread upon waters. It came back to me, what I +was giving them, not after many days but at once; +their appreciation, their spontaneous sympathy, +their love gave to me something I could get nowhere +else, and it was enriching. I felt then, as I +still feel, that children give us the best things the +world has to offer, and my effort has been to make +some return. Twice during the crises in my married +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_162' name='page_162'></a>162</span> +life I went back to the schoolroom for comfort. +Once after the death of one of my own +children, when I had no others left, and again +when my husband went to the battle-fields of +France.</p> +<p>“I have written with the same experience as I +taught. My first successes were with adult fiction. +I have had something like six hundred short stories +published by syndicates, and magazine articles +have appeared from time to time, but gradually +I realised that I wanted children for my audience. +Several years ago I published <i>Cloud Boat +Stories</i>. Later <i>The Wonderful Land of Up</i>. A +syndicate editor saw these books and asked me to +start a children’s department for the five hundred +papers he served. That was the beginning of the +‘Twins.’ Nancy and Nick were born two years +ago. They still visit their little friends every +day in the columns of many newspapers. What +a vast audience I have! A million children! No +wonder one wishes to do his best.</p> +<p>“I have two children of my own. They are my +critics. What they do not like, I do not write. +We all love the out-of-doors and to us a bird or a +little wild animal is a fairy.”</p> +<p>But when I try to say something about the +<i>Nancy and Nick</i> series I find it has all been said +for me (and said so much better!) by that accomplished +bookseller, Candace T. Stevenson:</p> +<p>“I have just finished all of the books by Olive +Roberts Barton. They are truly spontaneous and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_163' name='page_163'></a>163</span> +delightful. In fact, they have carried my small +group of children listeners and myself along as +breathlessly as if they were Alice in Wonderland +or Davy and the Goblin. They are delightful +nonsense with exactly the right degree of an undercurrent +of ideas which they can make use of in +their business of everyday living. Children love +morals which are done as skilfully as the chapter +on Examinations in Helter Skelter Land, and +Sammy Jones, the Topsy Turvy Boy in Topsy +Turvy Land, and I found my group not only seriously +discussing them but putting them into practice. +Speaking of putting things into practice, +there is only one spot in all of the books which +seemed to me as if it might get some children into +trouble. The description of Waspy Weasel’s +trick on the schoolmaster in Helter Skelter Land +where he squeezes bittersweet juice into the +schoolmaster’s milk and puts him to sleep, I think +would lead any inquiring mind to try it.</p> +<p>“The whale who loved peppermints, Torty +Turtle with his seagull’s wings on, the adventures +of the children when they help Mr. Tingaling collect +the rents—this isn’t the same old stuff of the +endless ‘bedtime’ stories which are dealt out to us +by the yard. These animals are real people with +the tinge which takes real imagination to paint.</p> +<p>“At first I was disappointed in the pictures, but +as I read on I came to like those also, and I found +that they were wholly satisfactory to the children. +The picture of the thousand legger with all his +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_164' name='page_164'></a>164</span> +shoes on is entrancing, and poor Mrs. Frog cutting +out clothes because the dressmaker had made them +for the children when they were still tadpoles. +These books ought to come like an oasis in the +desert to the poor-jaded-reading-aloud-parent.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>vi</p> +</div> + +<p>At Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, in a small +house built from her own plans and standing +2,000 feet above sea level, in a growing shade of +trees, lives Marion Ames Taggart, author of the +Jack-in-the-Box series—four children’s books that +renew their popularity every year. They are:</p> +<table summary='poetry' style='margin:0 auto'><tr><td> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>AT GREENACRES</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>THE QUEER LITTLE MAN</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>THE BOTTLE IMP</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>POPPY’S PLUCK</p> +</td></tr></table> + +<p><i>At Greenacres</i> and <i>The Queer Little Man</i> are +particularly good to read aloud to a group of children; +they really are the mystery and detective +story diluted for children.</p> +<p>Miss Taggart, an only child and extremely frail +in childhood, had the good fortune as a consequence +of ill-health to be educated entirely at +home. As a result she had free access to really +good books—for the home was in Haverhill, +Mass. She began to carry out a cherished wish to +write for young girls in 1901, when her first book +(for girls of about sixteen) was published in St. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_165' name='page_165'></a>165</span> +Nicholas. She has a habit of transplanting four-footed +friends in her stories under their own +names—as where, in the Jack-in-the-Box series, +one finds Pincushion, Miss Taggart’s own plump +grey kitten.</p> +<p>What will the children say to <i>A Wonder Book</i>, +by Nathaniel Hawthorne, with pictures in color +by Arthur Rackham? I do not know why I ask +this rhetorical question, which, like most questions +of the sort, should be followed by exclamation +points! There will be exclamations, at any rate, +over this book, surely the most beautiful of the +year, perhaps of several years. The quality of +Arthur Rackham’s work is well known, its artistic +value is undisputedly of the very highest. And +Hawthorne’s text—the story of the Gorgon’s +head, the tale of Midas, Tanglewood, and the +rest—is of the finest literary, poetic and imaginative +worth.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='XI_COBB_S_FOURTH_DIMENSION' id='XI_COBB_S_FOURTH_DIMENSION'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_166' name='page_166'></a>166</span> +<h2><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Chapter XI</span></h2> +<h3>COBB’S FOURTH DIMENSION</h3> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>i</p> +</div> + +<p>As a three-dimensional writer, Irvin S. Cobb +has long been among the American literary +heavy-weights. Now that he has acquired a +fourth dimension, the time has come for a new +measurement of his excellences as an author.</p> +<p>Among those excellences I know a man (responsible +for the manufacture of Doran books) who +holds that Cobb is the greatest living American +author. The reason for this is severely logical, +to wit: Irvin Cobb always sends in his copy in a +perfect condition. His copy goes to the manufacturer +of books with a correctly written title page, +a correctly written copyright page, the exact wording +of the dedication, an accurate table of contents, +and so on, all the way through the manuscript. +Moreover, when proofs are sent to Mr. +Cobb, he makes very few changes. He reduces to +a minimum the difficulties of a printer and his +changes are always perceptibly changes for the +better.</p> +<p>But I don’t suppose that any of this would redound +to Cobb’s credit in the eyes of a literary +critic.</p> +<div class='figcenter'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_167' name='page_167'></a>167</span> +<a name='linki_6' id='linki_6'></a> +<img src='images/winter07.jpg' alt='' title='' style='width: 307px; height: 419px;' /><br /> +<p class='caption' style='margin: 0 auto; text-align:center;width: 307px;'> +IRVIN S. COBB<br /> +</p> +</div> + +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_169' name='page_169'></a>169</span></div> +<p>And to return to the subject of the fourth dimension: +My difficulty is to know in just what +direction that fourth dimension lies. Is the fourth +dimension of Cobb as a novelist or as an autobiographer? +It puzzles me to tell inasmuch as +I have before me the manuscripts of Mr. Cobb’s +first novel, <i>J. Poindexter, Colored</i>, and his very +first autobiography, a volume called <i>Stickfuls</i>.</p> +<p>The title of <i>Stickfuls</i> will probably not be +charged with meaning to people unfamiliar with +newspaper work. Perhaps it is worth while to +explain that in the old days, when type was set +by hand, the printer had a little metal holder +called a “stick.” When he had set a dozen lines—more +or less—he had a “stickful.” Although +very little type is now set by hand, the stick as a +measure of space is still in good standing. The +reporter presents himself at the city desk, tells +what he has got, and is told by the city editor, +“Write a stickful.” Or, “Write two sticks.” +And so on.</p> +<p><i>Stickfuls</i> is not so much the story of Cobb’s life +as the story of people he has met and places he has +been, told in a series of extremely interesting +chapters—told in a leisurely and delightful +fashion of reminiscence by a natural association +of one incident with another and one person with +someone else. For example, Cobb as a newspaper +man, covered a great many trials in court; and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_170' name='page_170'></a>170</span> +one of the chapters of <i>Stickfuls</i> tells of famous +trials he has attended.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p>Now about this novel of Cobb’s: Jeff Poindexter +will be remembered by all the readers of +Mr. Cobb’s short stories as the negro body servant +of old Judge Priest. In <i>J. Poindexter, Colored</i>, +we have Jeff coming to New York. Of course, +New York seen through the eyes of a genuine +Southern darkey is a New York most of us have +never seen. There’s nothing like sampling, so I +will let you begin the book:</p> +<p>“My name is J. Poindexter. But the full name +is Jefferson Exodus Poindexter, Colored. But +most always in general I has been known as Jeff +for short. The Jefferson part is for a white family +which my folks worked for them one time before +I was born, and the Exodus is because my mammy +craved I should be named after somebody out of +the Bible. How I comes to write this is this way:</p> +<p>“It seems like my experiences here in New York +is liable to be such that one of my white gentleman +friends he says to me I should take pen in hand +and write them out just the way they happen and +at the time they is happening, or right soon afterwards, +whilst the memory of them is clear in my +brain; and then he’s see if he can’t get them +printed somewheres, which on the top of the other +things which I now is, will make me an author +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_171' name='page_171'></a>171</span> +with money coming in steady. He says to me he +will fix up the spelling wherever needed and attend +to the punctuating; but all the rest of it will +be my own just like I puts it down. I reads and +writes very well but someway I never learned to +puncture. So the places where it is necessary to +be punctual in order to make good sense and keep +everything regulation and make the talk sound +natural is his doings and also some of the spelling. +But everything else is mine and I asks credit.</p> +<p>“My coming to New York, in the first place, is +sort of a sudden thing which starts here about a +month before the present time. I has been working +for Judge Priest for going on sixteen years and +is expecting to go on working for him as long as we +can get along together all right, which it seems +like from appearances that ought to be always. +But after he gives up being circuit judge on account +of him getting along so in age he gets sort +of fretful by reasons of him not having much to +do any more and most of his own friends having +died off on him. When the State begins going +Republican about once in so often, he says to me, +kind of half joking, he’s a great mind to pull up +stakes and move off and go live somewheres else. +But pretty soon after that the whole country goes +dry and then he says to me there just naturally +ain’t no fitten place left for him to go without he +leaves the United States.”</p> +<p>It seems that Judge Priest finally succumbed to +an invitation to visit Bermuda, a place where a +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_172' name='page_172'></a>172</span> +gentleman can still raise a thirst and satisfy it. +Jeff could not stand the house without the Judge +in it; and when an opportunity came to go to New +York, Jeff went.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iii</p> +</div> + +<p>The biographer of Cobb is Robert H. Davis, +editor of Munsey’s Magazine, whose authoritative +account I take pleasure in reprinting here—the +more so because it appeared some time ago in +a booklet which is now out of print. Mr. Davis’s +article was first printed in The Sun, New York:</p> +<p>“Let me deal with this individual in a categorical +way. Most biographers prefer to mutilate +their canvas with a small daub which purports to +be a sketch of the most significant event in the life +of the accused. Around this it is their custom to +paint smaller and less impressive scenes, blending +the whole by placing it in a large gilded frame, +which, for obvious reasons, costs more than the +picture—and it is worth more. Pardon me, +therefore, if I creep upon Mr. Cobb from the +lower left-hand corner of the canvas and chase +him across the open space as rapidly as possible. +It is not for me to indicate when the big events +in his life will occur or to lay the milestones of the +route along which he will travel. I know only +that they are in the future, and that, regardless of +any of his achievements in the past, Irvin Cobb +has not yet come into his own. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_173' name='page_173'></a>173</span></p> +<p>“The first glimpse I had of him was in a half-tone +portrait in the New York Evening World +five years ago. This picture hung pendant-like +from a title which read ‘Through Funny Glasses, +by Irvin S. Cobb.’ It was the face of a man +scarred with uncertainty; an even money proposition +that he had either just emerged from the +Commune or was about to enter it. Grief was +written on the brow; more than written, it was +emblazoned. The eyes were heavy with inexpressible +sadness. The corners of the mouth were +drooped, heightening the whole effect of incomprehensible +depression. Quickly I turned to the +next page among the stock quotations, where I got +my depression in a blanket form. The concentrated +Cobb kind was too much for me.</p> +<p>“A few days later I came suddenly upon the +face again. The very incongruity of its alliance +with laughter overwhelmed me, and wonderingly +I read what he had written, not once, but every +day, always with the handicap of that half-tone. +If Cobb were an older man, I would go on the witness +stand and swear that the photograph was +made when he was witnessing the Custer Massacre +or the passing of Geronimo through the winter +quarters of his enemies. Notwithstanding, he +supplied my week’s laughter.</p> +<p>“Digression this:</p> +<p>“After Bret Harte died, many stories were written +by San Franciscans who knew him when he +first put in an appearance on the Pacific Coast. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_174' name='page_174'></a>174</span> +One contemporary described minutely how Bret +would come silently up the stairs of the old Alta +office, glide down the dingy hallway through the +exchange room, and seat himself at the now historic +desk. It took Bret fifteen minutes to sharpen +a lead pencil, one hour for sober reflection, and +three hours to write a one-stick paragraph, after +which he would carefully tear it up, gaze out of +the window down the Golden Gate, and go home.</p> +<p>“He repeated this formula the following day, +and at the end of the week succeeded in turning +out three or four sticks which he considered fit to +print. In later years, after fame had sought him +out and presented him with a fur-lined overcoat, +which I am bound to say Bret knew how to wear, +the files of the Alta were ransacked for the pearls +he had dropped in his youth. A few gems were +identified, a very few. Beside this entire printed +collection the New England Primer would have +looked like a set of encyclopedias. Bret worked +slowly, methodically, brilliantly, and is an imperishable +figure in American letters.</p> +<p>“Returning to Cobb: He has already written +twenty times more than Bret Harte turned out +during his entire career. He has made more people +laugh and written better short stories. He has +all of Harte’s subtle and delicate feeling, and +will, if he is spared, write better novels about the +people of today than Bret Harte, with all his +genius and imagination, wrote around the Pioneers. +I know of no single instance where one +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_175' name='page_175'></a>175</span> +man has shown such fecundity and quality as Irvin +Cobb has so far evinced, and it is my opinion that +his complete works at fifty will contain more good +humour, more good short stories, and at least one +bigger novel than the works of any other single +contemporaneous figure.</p> +<p>“He was born in Paducah, Kentucky, in June, +’76. I have taken occasion to look into the matter +and find that his existence was peculiarly varied. +He belonged to one of those old Southern families-there +being no new Southern families—and +passed through the public schools sans incident. +At the age of sixteen he went into the office +of The Paducah Daily News as a reportorial +cub.</p> +<p>“He was first drawn to daily journalism because +he yearned to be an illustrator. Indeed, he +went so far as to write local humorous stories, +illustrating them himself. The pictures must +have been pretty bad, although they served to +keep people from saying that his literature was +the worst thing in the paper.</p> +<p>“Resisting all efforts of the editor, the stockholders +and the subscribers of The Paducah Daily +News, he remained barricaded behind his desk +until his nineteenth year, when he was crowned +with a two-dollar raise and a secondary caption +under his picture which read ‘The Youngest +Managing Editor of a Daily Paper in the United +States.’</p> +<p>“If Cobb was consulted in the matter of this +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_176' name='page_176'></a>176</span> +review, he would like to have these preliminaries +expunged from his biography. But the public is +entitled to the details.</p> +<p>“It is also true that he stacked up more libel +suits than a newspaper of limited capital with a +staff of local attorneys could handle before he +moved to Louisville, where, for three years, he +was staff correspondent of The Evening Post. It +was here that Cobb discovered how far a humorist +could go without being invited to step out at 6 +a.m. and rehearse ‘The Rivals’ with real horse-pistols.</p> +<p>“The first sobering episode in his life occurred +when the Goebel murder echoed out of Louisville. +He reported this historic assassination and covered +the subsequent trials in the Georgetown court +house. Doubtless the seeds of tragedy, which +mark some of his present work, were sown here. +Those who are familiar with his writings know +that occasionally he sets his cap and bells aside +and dips his pen into the very darkness of life. +We find it particularly in three of his short stories +entitled ‘An Occurrence Up a Side Street,’ +‘The Belled Buzzard,’ and ‘Fishhead.’ Nothing +better can be found in Edgar Allan Poe’s collected +works. One is impressed not only with the beauty +and simplicity of his prose, but with the tremendous +power of his tragic conceptions and his art +in dealing with terror. There appears to be no +phase of human emotion beyond his pen. Without +an effort he rises from the level of actualities +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_177' name='page_177'></a>177</span> +to the high plane of boundless imagination, invoking +laughter or tears at will.</p> +<p>“After his Louisville experience Cobb married +and returned to Paducah to be managing editor of +The Democrat. Either Paducah or The Democrat +got on his nerves and, after a comparison of +the Paducah school of journalism with the metropolitan +brand, he turned his face (see Evening +World half-tone) in the direction of New York, +buoyed up by the illusion that he was needed there +along with other reforms.</p> +<p>“He arrived at the gates of Manhattan full of +hope, and visited every newspaper office in New +York without receiving encouragement to call +again. Being resourceful he retired to his suite of +hall bedrooms on 57th Street West and wrote a +personal note to every city editor in New York, +setting forth in each instance the magnificent intellectual +proportions of the epistolographer. The +next morning, by mail, Cobb had offers for a job +from five of them. He selected The Evening Sun.</p> +<p>“At about that time the Portsmouth Peace Conference +convened, and The Sun sent the Paducah +party to help cover the proceedings. Upon arriving +at Portsmouth, Cobb cast his experienced eye +over the situation, discovered that the story was +already well covered by a large coterie of competent, +serious-minded young men, and went into +action to write a few columns daily on subjects +having no bearing whatsoever on the conference. +These stories were written in the ebullition of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_178' name='page_178'></a>178</span> +youth, inspired by the ecstasy which rises from +the possession of a steady job; a perfect deluge +from the well springs of spontaneity. There +wasn’t a single fact in the entire series, and yet +The Sun syndicated these stories throughout the +United States. All they possessed was I-N-D-I-V-I-D-U-A-L-I-T-Y.</p> +<p>“At the end of three weeks, Cobb returned to +New York, to find that he could have a job on any +newspaper in it. This brings him to The Evening +World, the half-tone engraving, which was the +first glimpse I had of him, and the dawn of his +subsequent triumphs. For four years he supplied +the evening edition and The Sunday World with +a comic feature, to say nothing of a comic opera, +written to order in five days. The absence of a +guillotine in New York State accounts for his +escape for this latter offence. Nevertheless, in all +else his standard of excellence ascended. He reported +the Thaw trial in long-hand, writing nearly +600,000 words of testimony and observation, establishing +a new style for reporting trials, and +gave further evidence of his power. That performance +will stand out in the annals of American +journalism as one of the really big reportorial +achievements.</p> +<p>“At about this juncture in his career Cobb +opened a door to the past, reached in and took +out some of the recollections of his youth. These +he converted into ‘The Escape of Mr. Trimm,’ +his first short fiction story. It appeared in The +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_179' name='page_179'></a>179</span> +Saturday Evening Post. The court scene was +so absolutely true to life, so minutely perfect +in its atmosphere, that a Supreme Court judge +signed an unsolicited and voluntary note for publication, +in which he said that Mr. Cobb had reported +with marvelous accuracy and fulness a +murder trial at which His Honour had presided.</p> +<p>“Gelett Burgess, in a lecture at Columbia College, +said that Cobb was one of the ten great +American humourists. Cobb ought to demand a +recount. There are not ten humourists in the +world, although Cobb is one of them. The extraordinary +thing about Cobb is that he can turn +a burst of laughter into a funeral oration, a +snicker into a shudder and a smile into a crime. +He writes in octaves, striking instinctively all the +chords of humour, tragedy, pathos and romance +with either hand. Observe this man in his thirty-ninth +year, possessing gifts the limitations of +which even he himself has not yet recognised.</p> +<p>“In appraising a genius, we must consider the +man’s highest achievement, and in comparing him +with others the verdict must be reached only upon +consideration of his best work. For scintillant +wit and unflagging good humour, read his essays +on the Teeth, the Hair and the Stomach. If you +desire a perfect blending of all that is essential +to a short story, read ‘The Escape of Mr. Trimm’ +or ‘Words and Music.’ If you are in search of +pure, unadulterated, boundless terror, the gruesome +quality, the blackness of despair and the fear +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_180' name='page_180'></a>180</span> +of death in the human conscience, ‘Fishhead,’ +‘The Belled Buzzard’ or ‘An Occurrence Up a +Side Street’ will enthrall you.</p> +<p>“Thus in Irvin Cobb we find Mark Twain, Bret +Harte and Edgar Allan Poe at their best. Reckon +with these potentialities in the future. Speculate, +if you will, upon the sort of a novel that is bound, +some day, to come from his pen. There seem to +be no pinnacles along the horizon of the literary +future that are beyond him. If he uses his pen +for an Alpine stock, the Matterhorn is his.</p> +<p>“There are critics and reviewers who do not +entirely agree with me concerning Cobb. But +they will.</p> +<p>“As I write these lines I recall a conversation I +had with Irvin Cobb on the hurricane deck of a +Fifth Avenue ’bus one bleak November afternoon, +1911. We had met at the funeral of Joseph Pulitzer, +in whose employ we had served in the past.</p> +<p>“Cobb was in a reflective mood, chilled to the +marrow, and not particularly communicative.</p> +<p>“At the junction of Fifth Avenue and Forty-second +Street we were held up by congested traffic. +After a little manœuvring on the part of a +mounted policeman, the Fifth Avenue tide flowed +through and onward again.</p> +<p>“‘It reminds me of a river,’ said Cobb, ‘into +which all humanity is drawn. Some of these people +think because they are walking up-stream they +are getting out of it. But they never escape. The +current is at work on them. Some day they will +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_181' name='page_181'></a>181</span> +get tired and go down again, and finally pass out +to sea. It is the same with real rivers. They do +not flow uphill.’</p> +<p>“He lapsed into silence.</p> +<p>“‘What’s on your mind?’ I inquired.</p> +<p>“‘Nothing in particular,’ he said, scanning the +banks of the great municipal stream, ‘except that +I intend to write a novel some day about a boy +born at the headwaters. Gradually he floats down +through the tributaries, across the valleys, swings +into the main stream, and docks finally at one of +the cities on its banks. This particular youth was +a great success—in the beginning. Every door +was open to him. He had position, brains, and +popularity to boot. He married brilliantly. And +then The Past, a trivial, unimportant Detail, +lifted its head and barked at him. He was too +sensitive to bark back. Thereupon it bit him and +he collapsed.’</p> +<p>“Again Cobb ceased talking. For some reason—indefinable—I +respected his silence. Two +blocks further down he took up the thread of his +story again:</p> +<p>“‘—and one evening, just about sundown, a +river hand, sitting on a stringpiece of a dock, saw +a derby hat bobbing in the muddy Mississippi, +floating unsteadily but surely into the Gulf of +Mexico.’</p> +<p>“As is his habit, Cobb tugged at his lower lip.</p> +<p>“‘What are you going to call this novel?’</p> +<p>“‘I don’t know. What do you think?’ +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_182' name='page_182'></a>182</span></p> +<p>“‘Why not “The River”?’</p> +<p>“‘Very well, I’ll call it “The River.”’</p> +<p>“He scrambled from his seat. ‘I’m docking at +Twenty-seventh Street. Good-bye. Keep your +hat out of the water.’</p> +<p>“Laboriously he made his way down the +winding staircase from the upper deck, dropped +flat-footed on the asphalt pavement, turned his +collar up, leaned into the gust of wind from the +South, and swung into the cross-current of another +stream.</p> +<p>“I doubt if he has any intention of calling his +story ‘The River.’ But I am sure the last chapter +will contain something about an unhappy wretch +who wore a derby hat at the moment he walked +hand in hand with his miserable Past into the +Father of Waters.</p> +<p>“For those who wish to know something of his +personal side, I can do no better than to record +his remarks to a stranger, who, in my presence, +asked Irvin Cobb, without knowing to whom he +was speaking, what kind of a person Cobb was.</p> +<p>“‘Well, to be perfectly frank with you,’ replied +the Paducah prodigy, ‘Cobb is related to +my wife by marriage, and if you don’t object to a +brief sketch, with all the technicalities eliminated, +I should say in appearance he is rather bulky, +standing six feet high, not especially beautiful, a +light roan in colour, with a black mane. His figure +is undecided, but might be called bunchy in +places. He belongs to several clubs, including +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_183' name='page_183'></a>183</span> +The Yonkers Pressing Club and The Park Hill +Democratic Marching Club, and has always, like +his father, who was a Confederate soldier, voted +the Democratic ticket. He has had one wife and +one child and still has them. In religion he is an +Innocent Bystander.’</p> +<p>“Could anything be fuller than this?”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iv</p> +</div> + +<p>It was Mr. Davis, also, who in the New York +Herald of April 23, 1922, made public the evidence +for the following box score:</p> +<table summary=''> +<tr><td> </td><td>1st</td><td>2nd</td></tr> +<tr><td>Best Writer of Humour</td><td>Cobb</td><td>—</td></tr> +<tr><td>Best All-Round Reporter</td><td>Cobb</td><td>—</td></tr> +<tr><td>Best Local Colourist</td><td>Cobb</td><td>—</td></tr> +<tr><td>Best in Tales of Horror</td><td></td><td>—</td></tr> +<tr><td>Best Writer of Negro Stories</td><td>—</td><td>Cobb</td></tr> +<tr><td>Best Writer of<br />Light Humorous Fiction</td><td>Tarkington</td><td>Cobb and<br />Harry Leon Wilson</td></tr> +<tr><td>Best Teller of Anecdotes</td><td>Cobb</td><td>Cobb</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>“Not long ago a group of ten literary men—editors, +critics, readers and writers—were dining +together. Discussion arose as to the respective +and comparative merits of contemporaneous popular +writers. It was decided that each man present +should set down upon a slip of paper his first, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_184' name='page_184'></a>184</span> +second and third choices in various specified but +widely diversified fields of literary endeavour, and +that then the results should be compared. Admirers +of Cobb’s work will derive a peculiar satisfaction +from the outcome. It was found that as +a writer of humour he had won first place; that as +an all round reporter he had first place; that as a +handler of local colour in the qualified sense of a +power of apt, swiftly-done, journalistic description, +he had first place. He also had first place as +a writer of horror yarns. He won second place +as a writer of darkey stories. He tied with Harry +Leon Wilson for second place as a writer of light +humorous fiction, Tarkington being given first +place in this category. As a teller of anecdotes he +won by acclamation over all contenders. Altogether +his name appeared on eight of the ten lists.”</p> +<p>Cobb lives at Ossining, New York. He describes +himself as lazy, but convinces no one. He +likes to go fishing. But he has never written any +fish stories.</p> +<hr class='minor' /> + +<div class='ce'> +<p><i>Books</i></p> +<p>by Irvin S. Cobb</p> +</div> + +<div class='la'> +<p>BACK HOME</p> +<p>COBB’S ANATOMY</p> +<p>THE ESCAPE OF MR. TRIMM</p> +<p>COBB’S BILL OF FARE</p> +<p>ROUGHING IT DE LUXE</p> +<p>EUROPE REVISED</p> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_185' name='page_185'></a>185</span> +<p>PATHS OF GLORY</p> +<p>OLD JUDGE PRIEST</p> +<p>FIBBLE, D.D.</p> +<p>SPEAKING OF OPERATIONS</p> +<p>LOCAL COLOR</p> +<p>SPEAKING OF PRUSSIANS</p> +<p>THOSE TIMES AND THESE</p> +<p>THE GLORY OF THE COMING</p> +<p>THE THUNDERS OF SILENCE</p> +<p>THE LIFE OF THE PARTY</p> +<p>FROM PLACE TO PLACE</p> +<p>“OH, WELL, YOU KNOW HOW WOMEN ARE!”</p> +<p>THE ABANDONED FARMERS</p> +<p>SUNDRY ACCOUNTS</p> +<p>A PLEA FOR OLD CAP COLLIER</p> +<p>ONE THIRD OFF</p> +<p>EATING IN TWO OR THREE LANGUAGES</p> +<p>J. POINDEXTER, COLORED</p> +<p>STICKFULS</p> +<div style='margin-top:1em'></div> +<p><i>Plays:</i></p> +<p>FUNABASHI</p> +<p>BUSYBODY</p> +<p>BACK HOME</p> +<p>SERGEANT BAGBY</p> +<p>GUILTY AS CHARGED</p> +<p>UNDER SENTENCE</p> +</div> + +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_186' name='page_186'></a>186</span></div> +<hr class='minor' /> + +<div class='ce'> +<p><i>Sources</i></p> +<p style=' margin-bottom:1.5em;'>on Irvin S. Cobb</p> +</div> + +<p><i>Who’s Who in America.</i></p> +<p><i>Who’s Cobb and Why?</i> Booklet published by +GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY. (Out of print).</p> +<p>Article by Robert H. Davis in the book section +of THE NEW YORK HERALD for April 23, +1922.</p> +<p>Robert H. Davis, 280 Broadway, New York.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='XII_PLACES_TO_GO' id='XII_PLACES_TO_GO'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_187' name='page_187'></a>187</span> +<h2><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Chapter XII</span></h2> +<h3>PLACES TO GO</h3> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>i</p> +</div> + +<p>The book by Thomas Burke called <i>More +Limehouse Nights</i> was published in England +under the title of <i>Whispering Windows</i>. At +the time of its publication, Mr. Burke wrote the +following:</p> +<p>“The most disconcerting question that an +author can be asked, and often is asked, is: ‘Why +did you write that book?’ The questioners do not +want an answer to that immediate question; but +to the implied question: ‘Why don’t you write +some other kind of book?’ To either question +there is but one answer: <span style='font-variant: small-caps'>BECAUSE</span>.</p> +<p>“Every writer is thus challenged. The writer +of comic stories is asked why he doesn’t write +something really serious. The novelist is asked +why he doesn’t write short stories, and the short-story +writer is asked why he doesn’t write a novel. +To me people say, impatiently: ‘Why don’t you +write happy stories about ordinary people?’ And +the only answer I can give them is: ‘Because I +can’t. I present life as I see it.’</p> +<p>“I am an ordinary man, but I don’t understand +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_188' name='page_188'></a>188</span> +ordinary men. I am at a loss with them. But +with the people of whom I write I have a fellow-feeling. +I know them and their sorrows and their +thwarted strivings and I understand their aberrations. +I cannot see the romance of the merchant +or the glamour of the duke’s daughter. +They do not permit themselves to be seized and +driven by passion and imagination. Instead they +are driven by fear, which they have misnamed +Commonsense. These people thwart themselves, +while my people are thwarted by malign circumstance.</p> +<p>“Often I have taken other men to the dire districts +about which I write, and they have remained +unmoved; they have seen, in their phrase, +nothing to get excited about. Well, one cannot +help that kind of person. One cannot give understanding +to the man who regards the flogging of +children as a joke, or to whom a broken love-story +is, in low life, a theme for smoking-room anecdotes.</p> +<p>“Wherever there are human creatures there are +beauty and courage and sacrifice. The stories in +<i>Whispering Windows</i> deal with human creatures, +thieves, drunkards, prostitutes, each of whom is +striving for happiness in his or her way, and missing +it, as most of us do. Each has hidden away +some fine streak of character, some mark below +which he will not go. And—they are alive. +They have met life in its ugliest phases, and +fought it. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_189' name='page_189'></a>189</span></p> +<p>“My answer, then, to the charge of writing +‘loathsome’ stories, is that these things happen. +To those who say that cruelty and degradation +are not fit subjects for fiction, I say that all twists +and phases of the human heart are fit subjects for +fiction.</p> +<p>“The entertainment of hundreds of thousands +with ‘healthy’ literature is a great and worthy +office; but the author can only give out what is in +him. If I write of wretched and strange things, it +is because these move me most. Happiness needs +no understanding; but these darker things—they +are kept too much from sensitive eyes and polite +ears; and so are too harshly judged upon the +world’s report. I am no reformer; I have never +‘studied’ people; and I have no ‘purpose,’ unless +it be illumination.</p> +<p>“What we all need today is illumination; for +only through full knowledge can we come to truth—and +understanding.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p>Burke’s new book, <i>The London Spy</i>, is described +by the author as “a book of town travels.” Some +of the subjects are London street characters, cab +shelters, coffee stalls and street entertainers. The +range is very wide, for there is a chapter called +“In the Streets of Rich Men,” which deals with +Pall Mall and Piccadilly, as well as a study of +a waterside colony, including the results of a +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_190' name='page_190'></a>190</span> +first pipe of opium (“In the Streets of Cyprus”). +Mr. Burke tells a good deal about the film world +of Soho and is able to give an intimate sketch of +Chaplin. Perhaps the most charming of the titles +in the book is the chapter called “In the Street of +Beautiful Children.” This is a study of a street +in Stepney, with observations on orphanages and +reformatories and “their oppressions of the children +of the poor.”</p> +<p>Thomas Burke was born in London and seldom +lives away from it. He started writing when +employed in a mercantile office, and sold his first +story when sixteen. He sincerely hopes nobody +will ever discover and reprint that story. His +early struggles have been recounted in his <i>Nights +in London</i>. He married Winifred Wells, a +young London poet, author of <i>The Three Crowns</i>. +He lives at Highgate, on the Northern Heights of +London. He hates literary society and social +functions generally. His chief recreation is wandering +about London.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iii</p> +</div> + +<p>There is very little use in doing a book about +China nowadays unless you can do an unusual +book about China; and that, precisely, is what +E. G. Kemp has done. <i>Chinese Mettle</i> is an unusual +book, even to the shape of it (it is nearly +square though not taller than the ordinary book). +The author has written enough books on China +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_191' name='page_191'></a>191</span> +to cover all the usual ground and, as Sao-Ke Alfred +Sze of the Chinese Legation at Washington +says in his foreword, Miss Kemp “has wisely +neglected the ‘show-window’ by putting seaports +at the end. By acquainting the public with the +wealth and beauty of the interior, she reveals to +readers the vitality and potential energy, both +natural and cultural, of a great nation.” Three +provinces are particularly described—Yünnan, +Kweichow, Hunan—and there are good chapters +on the new Chinese woman and the youth of +China. This book has, in addition to unusual illustrations, +what every good book of its sort +should have, an index.</p> +<p>In view of the title of this chapter I have hesitated +over mentioning here Albert C. White’s +<i>The Irish Free State</i>. Whether Ireland now +should be numbered among the places to go or not +is possibly a matter of heredity and sympathies; +but at any rate, Ireland is unquestionably a place +to read about. Shall we agree that the Irish Free +State is one of the best places in the world to go +in a book? Then Mr. White’s book will furnish +up-to-the-minute transportation thither.</p> +<p>The book is written throughout from the standpoint +of a vigorous and independent mind. It +will annoy extreme partisans of all shades of +opinion, and will provoke much discussion. This +is especially true of the concluding chapter, in +which the author discusses “Some Factors in the +Future.” The value of the book is enhanced by +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_192' name='page_192'></a>192</span> +the inclusion of the essential documents of the +Home Rule struggle, including the four Home +Rule Bills of 1886, 1893, 1914 and 1920, and +the terms of the Treaty concluded with Sinn Fein.</p> +<p>Whether Russia is a place to go is another of +those debatable questions and I feel that the same +conclusion holds good. A book is the wisest passport +to Russia at present. <i>Marooned in Moscow</i>, +by Marguerite E. Harrison, is not a new book—in +the sense of having been published last week. +It remains about the best single book published on +Russia under the Soviet government; and I say +this with the full recollection that H. G. Wells +also wrote a book about Soviet Russia after a visit +of fifteen days. Mrs. Harrison spent eighteen +months and was part of the time in prison. She is +an exceptionally good reporter without prejudices +for or against any theory of government—with an +eye only for the facts and a word only for an +observed fact.</p> +<p>It is good news that <i>The Secret of the Sahara: +Kufara</i>, by Rosita Forbes, is to be published in a +new edition. This Englishwoman, with no assistance +but that of native guides, penetrated to +Kufara, which lies hidden in the heart of the +Libyan desert, a section of the Sahara. This is +the region of a fanatical sect of Mohammedans +known as the Senussi. No other white woman +has ever been known to enter the sacred city of +Paj, a gloomy citadel hewn out of rock on the +edge of a beautiful valley. <i>The Secret of the</i> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_193' name='page_193'></a>193</span> +<i>Sahara</i> is illustrated with pictures taken by the +author, many times under pain of death if she +were detected using a camera.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iv</p> +</div> + +<p>C. E. Andrews is a college professor who saw +war service in France and relief administration +work in the Balkans. His gifts as a delightful +writer will be apparent now that his book of travels, +<i>Old Morocco and the Forbidden Atlas</i>, is out. +This book, unlike the conventional travel book, +has the qualities of a good story. There is colour +and adventure. There are humorous episodes and +there are pictures that seem to be mirrored in the +clear lake of a lovely prose. The journey described +is through a region of Morocco little +traversed by white men and over paths of the Atlas +Mountains frequented chiefly by wild tribes and +banditti.</p> +<p>Of all places to go, old New York remains, for +many, the most appealing. Does it sound queer +to recommend for those readers <i>A Century of +Banking in New York: 1822-1922</i>, by Henry +Wysham Lanier? Mr. Lanier is a son of Sidney +Lanier, the poet, and those who believe that a +chronicle of banking must necessarily be full of +dry statistics are invited to read the opening chapter +of this book; for Mr. Lanier begins his tale +with the yellow fever epidemic of 1822, when all +the banks of New York, to say nothing of the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_194' name='page_194'></a>194</span> +thousands of people, fled “from the city to the +country”—that is, from lowermost Broadway to +the healthful village of Greenwich. This quality +of human rather than statistical interest is paramount +throughout the book.</p> +<p>I go back almost four years to call attention +again to Frederic A. Fenger’s <i>Alone in the Caribbean</i>, +a book with maps and illustrations from +unusual photographs, the narrative of a cruise in +a sailing canoe among the Caribbean Islands.... +It is just a good book.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>v</p> +</div> + +<p><i>Robin Hood’s Barn</i>, by Margaret Emerson +Bailey, should be classified, I suppose, as a volume +of essays. It seems to me admirably suited for +this chapter, since it is all about a pleasant house +inhabited by pleasant people—and surely that is +a place where everyone wants to go. Margaret +Emerson Bailey is describing, I think, an actual +house and actual people; not so much their lives +as what they make out of life in the collectivism +that family life enforces. At least, I seem to get +from her book a unity of meaning, the lack of +which in our lives, as we live them daily, makes +for helplessness and sometimes for despair.</p> +<p>With even more doubt as to the exact “classification,” +I proceed to speak here and now of L. P. +Jacks’s book, <i>The Legends of Smokeover</i>. Mr. +Jacks is well known as the editor of the Hibbert +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_195' name='page_195'></a>195</span> +Journal and a writer of distinction upon philosophical +subjects. I should say his specialty is an +ability to relate philosophical abstractions to practical, +everyday existence. Those familiar with +his essays in the Atlantic Monthly will know what +I mean. And is the Smokeover of his new book, +then, a place to go? It is, if you wish to see our +modern age and industrial civilisation expressed +in such terms—almost in the terms of fiction—as +make its appraisal relatively easy.</p> +<p>I suppose this book might make Mr. Jacks memorable +as a satirist. It brings philosophy down +from the air, like a peaceful thunderbolt, to shatter +the vain illusions we entertain of our material +success and our civilised strides forward. The +fact that when you have begun to read the book +you may experience some difficulty in knowing +how to take it is in the book’s favour. And why +should you complain so long as from the outset +you are continuously entertained and amused? +You can scarcely complain ... even though at +the end, you find you have been instructed. In a +world thickly spotted with Smokeovers, Mr. +Jacks’s book is a book worth having, worth reading, +worth reading again.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='XIII_ALIAS_RICHARD_DEHAN' id='XIII_ALIAS_RICHARD_DEHAN'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_196' name='page_196'></a>196</span> +<h2><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Chapter XIII</span></h2> +<h3>ALIAS RICHARD DEHAN</h3> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>i</p> +</div> + +<p>At that, I think I am wrong. I think the title +of this chapter ought to be “Alias Clotilde +Graves.”</p> +<p>The problems of literary personality are +strange. Some time after the Boer War a woman +who had been in newspaper work in London and +who had even, at one time, been on the stage under +the necessity of earning her living, wrote a novel. +The novel happened to be an intensive study of +the Boer War, made possible by the fact that the +writer was the daughter of a soldier and had spent +her early years in barracks. England at that time +was interested by the subject of this novel. It +sold largely and its author was established by the +book.</p> +<p>She was forty-six years old in the year when the +book was published. But this was not the striking +thing. William De Morgan produced the first of +his impressive novels at a much more advanced +age. The significant thing was that in publishing +her novel, <i>The Dop Doctor</i> (American title: <i>One</i> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_197' name='page_197'></a>197</span> +<i>Braver Thing</i>), Clotilde Graves chose the pen +name of Richard Dehan, although she was already +known as a writer (chiefly for the theatre) under +her own name.</p> +<p>I do not know that Miss Graves has ever said +anything publicly about her motive in electing the +name of Richard Dehan. But I feel that whatever +the cause the result was the distinct emergence +of a totally different personality. There is +no final disassociation between Clotilde Graves +and Richard Dehan. Richard Dehan, novelist, +steadily employs the material furnished in valuable +abundance by Clotilde Graves’s life. At the +same time the personality of Richard Dehan is so +unusual, so gifted, so lavish in its invention and +so much at home in surprising backgrounds, that +something approaching a psychic explanation of +authorship seems called for.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p>Clotilde Inez Mary Graves was born at Barracks, +Buttevant, County Cork, Ireland, on June +3, 1864, third daughter of the late Major W. H. +Graves of the Eighteenth Royal Irish Regiment +and Antoinette, daughter of Captain George Anthony +Deane of Harwich. Thus, the English +<i>Who’s Who</i>.</p> +<p>“She numbers among her ancestors admirals +and deans,” said The Bookman in 1912.</p> +<p>As the same magazine at about the same time +spoke of her as descended from Charles II.’s naval +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_198' name='page_198'></a>198</span> +architect, Admiral Sir Anthony Deane, one wonders +if Sir Anthony were not the sum of the admirals +and the total of the deans. But no; at +any rate in so far as the admirals are concerned, +for Miss Graves is also said to be distantly related +to Admiral Nelson.</p> +<p>I will give you what The Bookman said in the +“Chronicle and Comment” columns of its number +for February, 1913:</p> +<p>“Richard Dehan was nine years old when her +family emigrated to England from their Irish +home. She had seen a good deal of barrack life, +and at Southsea, where they went to live, she +acquired a large knowledge of both services in the +circle of naval and military friends they made +there, and this knowledge years afterward she +turned to account in <i>Between Two Thieves</i>. In +1884, Miss Graves became an art student and +worked at the British Museum galleries and the +Royal Female School of Art, helping to support +herself by journalism of a lesser kind, among +other things drawing little pen-and-ink grotesques +for the comic papers. By and by she resolved to +take to dramatic writing and being too poor, she +says, to manage in any other way, she abandoned +art and took an engagement in a travelling theatrical +company. In 1888 her first chance as a +dramatist came. She was again in London, working +vigorously at journalism, when some one was +needed to write extra lyrics for a pantomime then +in preparation. A letter of recommendation from +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_199' name='page_199'></a>199</span> +an editor to the manager ended in Miss Clo Graves +writing the pantomime of <i>Puss in Boots</i>. Later a +tragedy by her, <i>Nitocris</i>, was produced for an +afternoon at Drury Lane, and another of her +plays, <i>The Mother of Three</i>, proved not only a +literary, but also a material, success.”</p> +<p>Her first novel to be signed Richard Dehan +being so successful, an English publisher planned +to bring out an earlier, minor work, already published +as by Clotilde Graves, with “Richard +Dehan” on the title-page. The author was stirred +to a vigorous and public protest. In the ensuing +controversy someone made the point that the proposed +reissue would not be more indefensible than +the act of a publishing house in bringing out +posthumous “books” by O. Henry and dragging +from its deserved oblivion Rudyard Kipling’s +<i>Abaft the Funnel</i>.</p> +<p>I do not know whether the publishing of books +is a business or a profession. I should say that +it has, at one time or another and by one or another +individual or concern, been pursued as +either or both.</p> +<p>There have certainly been, and probably are, +book publishers who not only conduct their +business as a business but as a business of a low +order. There have been and are book publishers +who, though quite necessarily business men, observe +an ethical code as nice as that of any of the +recognised professions. Perhaps publishing books +should qualify as an art, since it has the characteristics +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_200' name='page_200'></a>200</span> +of bringing out what is best or worst in a +publisher; and, indeed, if we are to hold that any +successful means of self-expression is art, then +publishing books has been an art more than once; +for unquestionably there are publishers who find +self-expression in their work.</p> +<p>This is an interesting subject, but I must not +pursue it in this place. Certainly Miss Graves +was justified in objecting to the use of her new +pen name on work already published under her +own name. In her case, as I think, the objection +was peculiarly well-founded, because it seems to +me that Richard Dehan was a new person. Since +Richard Dehan appeared on the title-page of <i>The +Dop Doctor</i>, there has never been a Clotilde +Graves in books. You have only to study the +books. The <i>Dop Doctor</i> was followed, two years +later, by <i>Between Two Thieves</i>. This novel has +as a leading character Florence Nightingale under +the name of Ada Merling. The story was at +first to have been called “The Lady With The +Lamp”; but the author delayed it for a year and +subjected it to a complete rewriting, the result +of a new and enlarged conception of the story.</p> +<p>Then came a steady succession of novels by +Richard Dehan. I remember with what surprise +I read, in 1918, <i>That Which Hath Wings</i>, a war +story of large dimensions and an incredible +amount of exact and easy detail. I remember, +too, noting that there was embedded in it a marvellous +story for children—an airplane flight in +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_201' name='page_201'></a>201</span> +which a youngster figured—if the publisher chose, +with the author’s consent, to lift this out of its +larger, adult setting. I remember very vividly +reading in 1920 a collection of short stories by +Richard Dehan, published under the title <i>The +Eve of Pascua</i>. Pascua is the Spanish word for +Easter. I wondered where on earth, unless in +Spain itself, the author got the bright colouring +for his story.</p> +<p>What I did not realise at the time was that +Richard Dehan is like that. Now, smitten to +earth by the 500-page novel which he has just +completed, I think I understand better. <i>The +Just Steward</i>, from one standpoint, makes the +labours of Gustave Flaubert in <i>Salaambo</i> seem +trivial. It is known with what passionate tenacity +and surprising ardour the French master +studied the subject of ancient Carthage, grubbing +like the lowliest archseologist to get at his fingertips +all those recondite allusions so necessary if he +were to move with lightness, assurance and consummate +art through the scenes of his novel. But, +frankly, one does not expect this of the third +daughter of an Irish soldier, an ex-journalist and +the author of a Drury Lane pantomime. Nevertheless +the erudition is all here. From this standpoint, +<i>The Just Steward</i> is truly monumental. I +will show you a sample or two:</p> +<p>“Beautiful, even with the trench and wall of +Diocletian’s comparatively recent siege scarring +the orchards and vineyards of Lake Mareotis, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_202' name='page_202'></a>202</span> +splendid even though her broken canals and aqueducts +had never been repaired, and part of her +western quarter still displayed heaps of calcined +ruins where had been temples, palaces and academies, +Alexandria lay shimmering under the +African sun....</p> +<p>“The vintage of Egypt was in full swing, the +figs and dates were being harvested. Swarms of +wasps and hornets, armed with formidable stings, +yellow-striped like the dreaded nomads of the +south and eastern frontiers, greedily sucked the +sugary juices of the ripe fruit. Flocks of fig-birds +twittered amongst the branches, being like +the date-pigeons, almost too gorged to fly. Half +naked, dark or tawny skinned, tattooed native +labourers, hybrids of mingled races, with heads +close-shaven save for a topknot, dwellers in mud-hovels, +drudges of the water-wheel, cut down the +heavy grape-clusters with sickle-shaped cooper +knives.</p> +<p>“Ebony, woolly-haired negroes in clean white +breech-cloths, piled up the gathered fruit in tall +baskets woven of reeds and lined with leaves. +Copts with the rich reddish skins, the long eyes +and boldly curving profiles of Egyptian warriors +and monarchs as presented on the walls of ancient +temples of Libya and the Thebaïd, moved about +in leather-girdled blue linen tunics and hide sandals, +keeping account of the laden panniers, roped +upon the backs of diminutive asses and carried +to the winepresses as fast as they were filled. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_203' name='page_203'></a>203</span></p> +<p>“The negroes sang as they set snares for fig-birds, +and stuffed themselves to the throat with +grapes and custard-apples. The fat beccaficoes +beloved of the epicurean fell by hundreds into the +limed horsehair traps. Greek, Egyptian and negro +girls, laughing under garlands of hibiscus, +periwinkle and tuberoses, coaxed the fat morsels +out of the black men to carry home for a supper +treat, while acrobats, comic singers, sellers of +cakes, drinks and sweetmeats, with strolling jugglers +and jesters and Jewish fortune-tellers of +both sexes, assailed the workers and the merrymakers +with importunities and made harvest in +their own way.”</p> +<p>The story is extraordinary. Opening in the +Alexandria of the fourth century, it pictures two +men, a Roman official and a Jewish steward, who +are friends unto death. The second of the four +parts or books into which the novel is divided +opens in England in 1914. We have to do with +John Hazel, the descendant of Hazaël Aben +Hazaël, and with the lovely Katharine Forbis, +whose ancestor was a Roman, Hazaël Aben +Hazaël’s sworn friend.</p> +<p>A story of exciting action certainly; it has elements +that would ordinarily be called melodramatic—events +which are focussed down into realities +against the tremendous background of an +incredible war. The exotic settings are Egypt +and Palestine. It must not be thought that the +story is bizarre; the scenes in England, the English +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_204' name='page_204'></a>204</span> +slang of John Hazel, as well as the typical +figure of Trixie, Lady Wastwood, are utterly +modern. I do not find anything to explain how +Miss Graves could write such a book; the answer +is that Richard Dehan wrote it.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iii</p> +</div> + +<p>Miss Graves, of whose antecedents and education +we already know something, is a Roman +Catholic in faith and a Liberal Unionist in politics. +She lives at The Towers, Beeding, near +Bramber, Sussex. Her recreations are gardening +and driving.</p> +<p>But Richard Dehan knows the early history of +the Christian Church; he knows military life, +strategy, tactics, types; he knows in a most extraordinary +way the details of Jewish history and +religious observances; he knows perfectly and as +a matter of course all about English middle class +life; he knows all sorts of things about the East—Turkey +and Arabia and those countries.</p> +<p>This is a discrepancy which will bear a good +deal of accounting for.</p> +<p>Before I try to account for it I will give you a +long passage from <i>The Just Steward</i>, describing +the visit of Katharine Forbis and her friend to the +house of John Hazel, lately of London and now +of Alexandria:</p> +<p>“The negro porter who had opened the door, a +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_205' name='page_205'></a>205</span> +huge Ethiopian of ebony blackness, dressed and +turbaned in snow-white linen, salaamed deeply to +the ladies, displaying as he did so a mouthful of +teeth as dazzling in whiteness and sharply-pointed +as those of the mosaic dog.</p> +<p>“Then the negro shut the heavy door and +locked and bolted it. They heard the car snort +and move away as the heavy bolts scrooped in +their ancient grooves of stone. But, as they +glanced back, towards the entrance, the imperturbable +attendant in the black kaftan waved +them forward to where another man, exactly like +himself in feature, colouring and costume, waited +as imperturbably on the threshold of a larger hall +beyond. On its right-hand doorpost was affixed +a cylinder of metal <i>repoussée</i> with an oval piece +of glass on that something like a human eye. And +the big invisible bees went on humming as industriously +and as sleepily as ever:</p> +<p>“‘Bz’zz’z!... Bzz’z!... Bzz m’m’m!...’</p> +<p>“Perhaps it was the bees’ thick, sleepy droning +that made Miss Forbis feel as though she had +previously visited this house in a dream, in which, +though the mosaic dog had certainly figured, together +with a negro who had opened doors, the +rows of shoes along the wall, the little creature +tripping at her side, the two dark, ultra-respectable +men in black tarbushes and kaftans had had +no place or part. Only John Hazel had bulked +big. He was there, beyond the grave Semitic face +of the second Jewish secretary, on the farther side +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_206' name='page_206'></a>206</span> +of the torrent of boiling amber sunshine pouring +through a central opening in the roof of the inner +hall that succeeded the vestibule of the mosaic +Cerberus. An atrium some forty feet in length, +paved with squares of black and yellow marble +with an oblong pool in the midst of it, upon whose +still crystal surface pink and crimson petals of +roses had been strewn in patterns, and in the +centre of which a triple-jetted fountain played.</p> +<p>“The humming of the unseen bees came louder +than ever, from a doorway in the wall upon +Katharine’s right hand, a wall of black polished +marble, decorated with an inlaid ornament in porphyry +of yellow and red and pale green. The +curtain of dyed and threaded reeds did not hide +what lay beyond the doorway. You saw a long, +high-pitched whitewashed room, cooled by big +wooden electric fans working under the ceiling, +and traversed by avenues of creamy-white Chinese +matting, running between rows of low native +desks, before each of which squatted, on naked +or cotton-sock-covered heels, or sat cross-legged +upon a square native chintz cushion, a coffee-coloured, +almond-eyed young Copt, in a black +or blue cotton nightgown, topped with the tarbush +of black felt or a dingy-white or olive-brown +muslin turban, murmuring softly to himself as he +made entries, from right to left, in a huge limp-covered +ledger, or deftly fingered the balls of +coloured clay strung on the wires of the abacus +at his side. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_207' name='page_207'></a>207</span></p> +<p>“Oh! ... Wonderful! I’m so Glad you +Brought me!’</p> +<p>“Lady Wastwood’s emphatic exclamation of +pleasure in her surroundings brought cessation in +the humming—caused a swivelling of capped or +turbanned heads all down the length of three +avenues—evoked a simultaneous flash of black +Oriental eyes, and white teeth in dusky faces +lifted or turned. Then at the upper end of the +long counting-house, where three wide glassless +windows looked on a sanded palm-garden, and +the leather-topped knee-hole tables, roll-top desks, +copying ink presses, mahogany revolving-chairs, +telephone installations, willow-paper baskets, +pewter inkstands and Post Office Directories suggested +Cornhill and Cheapside rather than the +Orient—one of the olive-faced Jewish head-clerks +in kaftans and side-curls coughed—and as though +he had pulled a string controlling all the observant +faces, every tooth was hidden and every eye +discreetly bent on the big limp ledgers again.</p> +<p>“All the Coptic bees were humming sonorously +in unison as Katharine went forward to a lofty +doorway, framing brightness, where waited to receive +her the master of the hive....</p> +<p>“The light beings behind him may have exaggerated +his proportions, but he seemed to Trixie +the biggest man she had ever seen, and nearly the +ugliest. Close-curling coarse black hair capped +his high-domed skull, and his stern, powerful, +swarthy face, big-nosed and long-chinned, with a +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_208' name='page_208'></a>208</span> +humorous quirk at the corners of the heavy-lipped +mouth, that redeemed its sensuousness, was +lighted by eyes of the intensest black, burning +under heavy beetle-brows. His khaki uniform, +though of fine material and admirable cut, was +that of a common ranker, and a narrow strip of +colours over the heart, and the fact of his left +arm being bandaged and slung, intimated to Lady +Wastwood that Katharine’s Jewish friend had +already served with some degree of distinction, +and had been wounded in the War. And drawing +back with her characteristic inconquerable shyness, +as he advanced to Miss Forbis, plainly unconscious +of any presence save hers, Trixie’s observant +green eyes saw him bend his towering +head, and sweep his right arm out and down with +slow Oriental stateliness, bringing back the supple +hand to touch breast, lips and brow. Whether +or not he had raised the hem of Katharine’s skirt +to his lips and kissed it, Lady Wastwood could +not definitely determine. She was left with the +impression that he had done this thing.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iv</p> +</div> + +<p>I should have liked to have given, rather than +purely descriptive passages, a slice of the complicated +and tense action with which the story +brims over, but there is the difficulty that such a +scene might not be intelligible to one not having +read the story from the beginning. I must resist +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_209' name='page_209'></a>209</span> +the tendency to quote any more, having indulged +it already to excess, and I am ready to propound +my theory of the existence of Richard Dehan.</p> +<p>If you receive a letter from The Towers, Beeding, +it will bear a double signature, like this:</p> +<table summary='poetry' style='margin:0 auto'><tr><td> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>RICHARD DEHAN</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>CLOTILDE GRAVES</p> +</td></tr></table> + +<p>Clotilde Graves has become a secondary personality.</p> +<p>There was once a time when there was no +Richard Dehan. There now are times when there +is no Clotilde Graves.</p> +<p>To a woman in middle age an opportunity presented +itself. It was the chance to write a novel +around the subject which, as a girl, she had come +to know a great deal about—the subject of war. +To write about it and gain attention, the novel +required a man’s signature.</p> +<p>Then there was born in the mind of the woman +who purposed to write the novel the idea of a +man—of <i>the</i> man—who should be the novelist +she wanted to be. He should use as by right and +from instinct the material which lay inutile at her +woman’s disposal.</p> +<p>She created Richard Dehan. Perhaps, in so +doing, she created another monster like Frankenstein’s. +I do not know.</p> +<p>Born of necessity and opportunity and a +woman’s inventiveness, Richard Dehan took over +whatever of Clotilde Graves’s he could use. He +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_210' name='page_210'></a>210</span> +is now the master. It is, intellectually and spiritually, +as if he were the full-grown son of Clotilde +Graves. It is a partnership not less intimate than +that.</p> +<p>Clotilde Graves—but she does not matter. I +think she existed to bring Richard Dehan into +the world.</p> +<hr class='minor' /> + +<div class='ce'> +<p><i>Books</i></p> +<p>by Richard Dehan</p> +</div> + +<div class='la'> +<p style=' margin-top:1.5em;'><i>Novels</i>:</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE LOVER’S BATTLE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE DOP DOCTOR</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>BETWEEN TWO THIEVES</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE HEADQUARTER RECRUIT</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE COST OF WINGS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE MAN OF IRON</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>OFF SANDY HOOK</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>EARTH TO EARTH</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>UNDER THE HERMES</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THAT WHICH HATH WINGS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>A SAILOR’S HOME</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE EVE OF PASCUA</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE VILLA OF THE PEACOCK</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE JUST STEWARD</p> +<div style='margin-top:1em'></div> +<p style=' margin-top:1.5em;'><i>Plays</i>:</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>NITOCRIS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>DRURY LANE PANTOMIME, PUSS IN BOOTS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>DR. AND MRS. NEILL</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>A MOTHER OF THREE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>A MATCHMAKER</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE BISHOP’S EYE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE FOREST LOVERS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>A MAKER OF COMEDIES</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE BOND OF NIKON</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>A TENEMENT TRAGEDY</p> +</div> + +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_211' name='page_211'></a>211</span></div> +<hr class='minor' /> + +<div class='ce'> +<p><i>Sources</i></p> +<p style=' margin-bottom:1.5em;'>on Richard Dehan</p> +</div> + +<p><i>Who’s Who</i> [in England].</p> +<p>THE BOOKMAN for February, 1913 (Volume +XXXVI, pp. 595-6), also brief mention in +THE BOOKMAN for September and October, +1912.</p> +<p>Private Information.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='XIV_WITH_FULL_DIRECTIONS' id='XIV_WITH_FULL_DIRECTIONS'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_212' name='page_212'></a>212</span> +<h2><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Chapter XIV</span></h2> +<h3>WITH FULL DIRECTIONS</h3> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>i</p> +</div> + +<p>I have read the book called <i>Civilization in +the United States</i>, a collection of essays by +various Americans, and count the time well spent +chiefly because, at the end of the chapter on +“Sport,” I came upon these words by Ring W. +Lardner:</p> +<p>“The best sporting fiction we know of, practically +the only sporting fiction an adult may read +without fear of stomach trouble, is contained in +the collected works of the late Charles E. Van +Loan.”</p> +<p>This is expert testimony, if there is such a +thing. The books Mr. Lardner referred to are +published in a five-volume memorial edition consisting +of:</p> +<table summary='poetry' style='margin:0 auto'><tr><td> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>FORE! GOLF STORIES</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>SCORE BY INNINGS: BASEBALL STORIES</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>OLD MAN CURRY: RACETRACK STORIES</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>TAKING THE COUNT: PRIZE RING STORIES</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>BUCK PARVIN: STORIES OF THE MOTION PICTURE GAME.</p> +</td></tr></table> + +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_213' name='page_213'></a>213</span></div> +<p>This collected edition was published by George +H. Doran Company with the arrangement that +every cent above actual cost should go to Mrs. +Van Loan and her children.</p> +<p>William T. Tilden, 2nd, was winner of the +world’s tennis championship in 1920 and 1921. +With W. M. Johnston he was winner of the Davis +cup in the same years. He also won the United +States championship in those years. His book, +<i>The Art of Lawn Tennis</i>, published in 1921, was +republished in 1922. The revised edition included +chapters on the winning of the Davis cup and +on the world’s and the United States championships, +on Mrs. Mallory’s play in the women’s +world championship games in France and England, +and on Mlle. Lenglen’s play in America. +Mr. Tilden also added an estimate of the promising +youngsters playing tennis and indulged in +one or two surprising and radical prophecies.</p> +<p><i>Twenty Years of Lawn Tennis</i>, by A. Wallis +Myers, an English player of distinction, has interesting +chapters on play in other countries than +America, England and France. An anecdotal +volume this, with moments on the Riviera and +matches played in South Africa.</p> +<p>After unpreventable delays we have, at last, +<i>The Gist of Golf</i> by Harry Vardon. Using remarkable +photographs, Vardon devotes a chapter +to each club and chapters to stance, grip, and +swing. Although the chief value of the book is +to the player who wants to improve his game, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_214' name='page_214'></a>214</span> +there is text interesting to everyone familiar +with golf; for Vardon gives personal reminiscences +covering years of play and illustrative of +his instructions.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p>I suppose the fifty-three photographs, mostly +full page ones, are the outstanding feature of +<i>Wild Life in the Tree Tops</i>, by Captain C. W. R. +Knight. This English book, large and flat, shows +with the aid of the camera, the merlin pursuing +her quarry, young tawny owls in a disused magpie’s +nest, female noctules and their young, the +male kestrel brooding, and a male buzzard that +has just brought a rabbit to the younglings in the +nest. Plenty of other pictures like these! The +chapters deal with the buzzards of the Doone +country, the lady’s hawk, woodpeckers, brown +owls, sparrow-hawks, herons and various other +feathered people.</p> +<p>Did you ever read <i>Lad: A Dog</i>? Well, anyway, +there is a man named Albert Payson Terhune +and he and his wife live at a place called “Sunny-bank,” +at Pompton Lakes, New Jersey, where +they raise prize winning collie dogs. Photographs +come from New Jersey showing Mr. and Mrs. +Terhune taking afternoon tea, entirely surrounded +by magnificently coated collies. You +will also find, if you stray into a bookstore this +autumn, a book with a jacket drawn by Charles +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_215' name='page_215'></a>215</span> +Livingston Bull—a jacket from which looms a +colossal collie. He carries in a firmly knotted +shawl or blanket or sheet or something (the knot +clenched between his teeth) a new-born babe. +New-born or approximately so. The title of this +book is <i>Further Adventures of Lad</i>.</p> +<p>Mr. Terhune writes the best dog stories. Read +a little bit from the first chapter of <i>Further +Adventures of Lad</i>:</p> +<p>“Even the crate which brought the new dog to +the Place failed somehow to destroy the illusion +of size and fierceness. But the moment the crate +door was opened the delusion was wrecked by Lad +himself.</p> +<p>“Out on to the porch he walked. The ramshackle +crate behind him had a ridiculous air of +chrysalis from which some bright thing had departed. +For a shaft of sunlight was shimmering +athwart the veranda floor. And into the middle +of the warm bar of radiance Laddie stepped—and +stood.</p> +<p>“His fluffy puppy-coat of wavy mahogany-and-white +caught a million sunbeams, reflecting them +back in tawny-orange glints and in a dazzle as of +snow. His forepaws were absurdly small even +for a puppy’s. Above them the ridging of the +stocky leg bones gave as clear promise of mighty +size and strength as did the amazingly deep little +chest and square shoulders.</p> +<p>“Here one day would stand a giant among +dogs, powerful as a timber-wolf, lithe as a cat, as +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_216' name='page_216'></a>216</span> +dangerous to foes as an angry tiger; a dog without +fear or treachery; a dog of uncanny brain and +great lovingly loyal heart and, withal, a dancing +sense of fun. A dog with a soul.</p> +<p>“All this, any canine physiologist might have +read from the compact frame, the proud head carriage, +the smoulder in the deep-set sorrowful dark +eyes. To the casual observer, he was but a beautiful +and appealing and wonderfully cuddleable +bunch of puppyhood.</p> +<p>“Lad’s dark eyes swept the porch, the soft +swelling green of the lawn. The flash of fire-blue +lake among the trees below. Then he deigned to +look at the group of humans at one side of him. +Gravely, impersonally, he surveyed them; not at +all cowed or strange in his new surroundings; +courteously inquisitive as to the twist of luck that +had set him down here and as to the people who, +presumably, were to be his future companions.</p> +<p>“Perhaps the stout little heart quivered just a +bit, if memory went back to his home kennel and +to the rowdy throng of brothers and sisters and, +most of all, to the soft furry mother against +whose side he had nestled every night since he +was born. But if so, Lad was too valiant to show +homesickness by so much as a whimper. And, +assuredly, this House of Peace was infinitely better +than the miserable crate wherein he had spent +twenty horrible and jouncing and smelly and +noisy hours.</p> +<p>“From one to another of the group strayed the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_217' name='page_217'></a>217</span> +level sorrowful gaze. After the swift inspection +Laddie’s eyes rest again on the Mistress. For +an instant, he stood, looking at her, in that mildly +polite curiosity which held no hint of personal +interest.</p> +<p>“Then, all at once, his plumy tail began to +wave. Into his sad eyes sprang a flicker of warm +friendliness. Unbidden—oblivious of everyone +else—he trotted across to where the Mistress sat. +He put one tiny white paw in her lap and stood +thus, looking up lovingly into her face, tail awave, +eyes shining.</p> +<p>“‘There’s no question whose dog he’s going to +be,’ laughed the Master. ‘He’s elected you—by +acclamation.’”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iii</p> +</div> + +<p>Not content with being the husband of Margaret +Sangster, C. M. Sheridan has written <i>The +Stag Cook Book</i>. I would have it understood +that this is an honest-to-goodness cook-book, although +I readily confess that there is plenty of +humour throughout its pages. Mr. Sheridan has +acquired various unusual and unreplaceable +recipes—I believe he secured from Wladislaw +Benda, the illustrator, a rare and secret formula +for the preparation of a species of Hungarian or +Polish pastry. Now, as every housewife knows, +and as no man except a Frenchman or somebody +like that knows, the preparation of pastry is an +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_218' name='page_218'></a>218</span> +intricate art. Simply to make ordinary French +pastry requires innumerable rollings to incredible +thinnesses; besides which the pastry has to be +chilled; but there is more than that to this recondite +substance which Mr. Benda, probably under +the terms of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, surrendered +to Mr. Sheridan. The pastry in question has +to be executed with the aid of geometrical designs. +Mr. Sheridan has supplied the necessary +front elevation and working plans. He shows you +where you fold along the line from A to B—in +other words, along the dotted line. Thus no man +using this unique cook-book can go wrong any +more than his wife can go wrong when making a +new dress according to Pictorial Review or +McCall’s or Delineator patterns.</p> +<p>On the other hand, women remain still chiefly +responsible for the food we eat. Elizabeth A. +Monaghan’s <i>What to Eat and How to Prepare It</i> +is an orthodox cook-book in contrast with Mr. +Sheridan’s daring adventure.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iv</p> +</div> + +<p>Large numbers of people still play games. I do +not mean cards or tennis or golf or any of the +famous outdoor and indoor sports, but just games, +the sort of things that are sometimes called stunts +and that make the life of the party—or, by their +absence or failure, rob the evening gathering of +all its vitality. For the people who play games, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_219' name='page_219'></a>219</span> +Edna Geister is the one best bet. Edna Geister +knows all about stunts and games and parties and +she brims over with clever ideas for the hostess +or recreation leader. You will find them in her +book <i>Ice-breakers and the Ice-breaker Herself</i>. +The second section of this book, <i>The Ice-breaker +Herself</i>, has been bound separately for the convenience +of those already owning <i>Ice Breakers</i>. +Miss Geister’s latest book, <i>It Is to Laugh</i>, was +written primarily for adults because there is so +much material already available for the recreation +of children. Nevertheless almost every one of the +games and stunts described in <i>It Is to Laugh</i> can +be used for children. There are games for large +groups and small groups, games for the family, +for dinner parties, for community affairs and for +almost any kind of social gathering, with one +chapter devoted to out-of-door and picnic programmes.</p> +<p>Playing the piano is not a game, at least not as +Mark Hambourg, the pianist and composer, plays +it. Hambourg, though born in South Russia in +1879, the eldest son of the late Professor Michel +Hambourg, has for years been a naturalised Englishman. +In fact, he married in 1907 the Honourable +Dorothea Mackenzie, daughter of Lord +Muir Mackenzie. And the pair have four daughters. +Mark Hambourg was a pupil of Leschetitzky +in Vienna, where he obtained the Liszt scholarship +in 1894. He has made concert appearances +all over the world, his third American tour falling +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_220' name='page_220'></a>220</span> +in 1907, and his first Canadian tour in 1910.</p> +<p>Mark Hambourg’s book is called <i>How to +Play the Piano</i> and the text is helped with practical +illustrations and diagrams and a complete +compendium of five-finger exercises, scales, arpeggi, +thirds and octaves as practised by Hambourg.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>v</p> +</div> + +<p>Those who read The Bookman will not need +to be told that the articles by Robert Cortes Holliday +on <i>Writing as a Business: A Practical +Guide for Authors</i>, will constitute an exceptional +book. The great point about Mr. Holliday’s +chapters, which have been written in collaboration +with Alexander Van Rensselaer, is that they are +disinterested. There has been an immense +amount of printed matter, some of it in book +form, telling of the problems that confront the +writer, especially the young beginner. As a rule, +the underlying motive was to induce people to +write so that someone else might make money out +of their efforts, whether the writers did or not. +So-called correspondence schools in the art of +writing, so-called literary bureaus, interested individuals +anxious to earn “commissions,” and +sometimes individuals who purported to be publishers +have for many years carried on a continuous +campaign at the expense of persons who did +not know how to write but who fancied they +could write and who, above everything, craved to +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_221' name='page_221'></a>221</span> +write—craved seeing themselves in print and +hearing themselves referred to as “authors” or +“writers.” It would take a statistician versed in +all manner of mysteries and calculations to tell +how many people have been deluded by this stuff, +and how much money has been nuzzled out of +them. The time was certainly here for someone in +a position to tell the truth to speak up.</p> +<p>And of Mr. Holliday’s qualifications there is +no question. He has had to do with books and +authors and book publishing for years. He was, +as his readers know, for a number of years in +the Scribner bookstore. He was with Doubleday, +Page & Company at Garden City; he was +with George H. Doran Company, serving not only +as editor of The Bookman but acting in other editorial +capacities. He is now connected with +Henry Holt & Company. As an author he is +amply established. Therefore, when he tells +about writing and book publishing and bookselling, +and when he discusses such subjects as +“Publishing Your Own Book,” his statements are +most thoroughly documented. The important +thing, however, is that Mr. Holliday is disinterested, +he has no axe to grind in the advice he +gives; although the impressive thing about his +book is the absence of advice and the continual +presentation of unvarnished facts. After all, confronted +with the facts, the literary aspirant of +ordinary intelligence must and should reach his +own conclusions as regards what he wants to do +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_222' name='page_222'></a>222</span> +and how best to essay it. This is a sample of the +kind of straightforwardness to which Mr. Holliday +adheres:</p> +<p>“An experienced writer ‘on his own’ may earn +a couple of hundred dollars or so in one week, and +for several weeks afterward average something +like $14.84. The beginner-writer should not consider +that he has ‘arrived’ when he has sold one +story, or even several; it may be a year before he +places another. And the future of a writer who +may be having a very fair success now is not any +too secure. Public taste changes. New orders +come in. The kind of thing which took so well +yesterday may be quite out of fashion tomorrow.</p> +<p>“There is among people generally much misconception +as to the profits ordinarily derived by +the author from the publication of a book. The +price of a novel today is about two dollars. Usually +the author receives a royalty of about fifteen +cents a copy on the first two thousand copies sold, +and about twenty cents on each copy thereafter. +A novel which sold upward of 50,000 copies +would bring the author something like $10,000. +Many men make as much as $10,000 by a year’s +work at some other business or profession than +authorship. But authors who make that amount +in a year, or anything near that amount, are exceedingly +rare. A book is regarded by the publisher +as highly successful if it sells from five to +ten thousand copies. Far and away the greater +number of books published do not sell as many +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_223' name='page_223'></a>223</span> +as 1,500 copies. Many far less. A recently published +book, which received a very cordial ‘press,’ +has had an uncommon amount of publicity, and +the advertisements of which announce that it is +in its ‘fourth printing,’ has, after about half a +year, earned for its author perhaps $1,000. Its +sale now in active measure is over. An author is +fairly fortunate who receives as much as $500 or +$600 from the sale of his book. I recall an excellent +story published something over a year ago +which was much praised by many reviewers. It +took the author probably the better part of a year +to write it. He was then six months or more +getting it accepted. He has not been able to place +much of anything since. At the end, then, of +two years and a half he has received from his +literary labors about $110.”</p> +<p>Mr. Van Rensselaer has greatly enhanced the +usefulness of <i>Writing as a Business</i> by the addition +of very complete bibliographies.</p> +<p><i>Illumination and Its Development in the Present +Day</i>, by Sidney Farnsworth, has nothing to do +with street or indoor lighting but has a great deal +to do with lettering and illuminating manuscripts. +Mr. Farnsworth traces the growth of illumination +from its birth, showing, by means of numerous +diagrams and drawings, its gradual development +through the centuries from mere writing to the +elaborate poster work and commercial lettering +of the present day. Although other books have +already been written on this fascinating subject, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_224' name='page_224'></a>224</span> +Mr. Farnsworth breaks new ground in many directions; +he treats the matter from the modern +standpoint in a manner which makes his work invaluable +not only to students of the art, but also +to the rapidly-growing public interested in what +has hitherto been a somewhat exclusive craft. +The book is well illustrated.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='XV_FRANK_SWINNERTON_ANALYST_OF_LOVERS' id='XV_FRANK_SWINNERTON_ANALYST_OF_LOVERS'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_225' name='page_225'></a>225</span> +<h2><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Chapter XV</span></h2> +<h3>FRANK SWINNERTON: ANALYST OF LOVERS</h3> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>i</p> +</div> + +<p>It is as an analyst of lovers, I think, that Frank +Swinnerton claims and holds his place among +those whom we still sometimes call the younger +novelists of England.</p> +<p>I do not say this because his fame was achieved +at a bound with <i>Nocturne</i>, but because all his +novels show a natural preoccupation with the +theme of love between the sexes. Usually it is a +pair of young lovers or contrasted pairs; but sometimes +this is interestingly varied, as in September, +where we have a study of love that comes to a +woman in middle life.</p> +<p>The unique character of <i>Nocturne</i> makes it +very hard to write about Swinnerton. It is true +that Arnold Bennett wrote: “I am prepared to +say to the judicious reader unacquainted with +Swinnerton’s work, ‘Read <i>Nocturne</i>,’ and to stand +or fall, and to let him stand or fall by the result.” +At the same time, though the rule is that we must +judge an artist by his finest work and a genius +by his greatest masterpiece, it is not entirely just +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_226' name='page_226'></a>226</span> +to estimate the living writer by a single unique +performance, an extraordinary piece of virtuosity, +which <i>Nocturne</i> unquestionably is. For anyone +who wishes to understand and appreciate Swinnerton, +I would recommend that he begin with +<i>Coquette</i>, follow it with <i>September</i>, follow that +with <i>Shops and Houses</i> and then read <i>Nocturne</i>. +That is, I would have made this recommendation +a few months ago, but so representative of all +sides of Swinnerton’s talent is his new novel, <i>The +Three Lovers</i>, that I should now prefer to say to +anyone unacquainted with Swinnerton: “Begin +with <i>The Three Lovers</i>.” And after that I would +have him read <i>Coquette</i> and the other books in +the order I have named. After he had reached +and finished <i>Nocturne</i>, I would have him turn to +the several earlier novels—<i>The Happy Family</i>, +<i>On the Staircase</i>, and <i>The Chaste Wife</i>.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p><i>The Three Lovers</i>, a full-length novel which +Swinnerton finished in Devonshire in the spring of +1922, is a story of human beings in conflict, and +it is also a picture of certain phases of modern +life. A young and intelligent girl, alone in the +world, is introduced abruptly to a kind of life +with which she is unfamiliar. Thereafter the +book shows the development of her character and +her struggle for the love of the men to whom she +is most attracted. The book steadily moves</p> +<div class='figcenter'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_227' name='page_227'></a>227</span> +<a name='linki_7' id='linki_7'></a> +<img src='images/winter08.jpg' alt='' title='' style='width: 303px; height: 398px;' /><br /> +<p class='caption' style='margin: 0 auto; text-align:center;width: 303px;'> +FRANK SWINNERTON<br /> +</p> +</div> + +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_229' name='page_229'></a>229</span></div> +<p>through its earlier chapters of introduction and +growth to a climax that is both dramatic and moving. +It opens with a characteristic descriptive +passage from which I take a few sentences:</p> +<p>“It was a suddenly cold evening towards the +end of September.... The street lamps were +sharp brightnesses in the black night, wickedly +revealing the naked rain-swept paving-stones. It +was an evening to make one think with joy of +succulent crumpets and rampant fires and warm +slippers and noggins of whisky; but it was not an +evening for cats or timid people. The cats were +racing about the houses, drunken with primeval +savagery; the timid people were shuddering and +looking in distress over feebly hoisted shoulders, +dreadfully prepared for disaster of any kind, +afraid of sounds and shadows and their own +forgotten sins.... The wind shook the window-panes; +soot fell down all the chimneys; +trees continuously rustled as if they were trying +to keep warm by constant friction and movement.”</p> +<p>The imagination which sees in the movement of +trees an endeavour to keep warm is not less sharp +in its discernment of human beings. I will give +one other passage, a conversation between Patricia +Quin, the heroine, and another girl:</p> +<p>“‘Do you mean he’s in love with you?’ asked +Patricia. ‘That seems to be what’s the matter.’</p> +<p>“‘Oho, it takes two to be in love,’ scornfully +cried Amy. ‘And I’m not in love with him.’ +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_230' name='page_230'></a>230</span></p> +<p>“‘But he’s your friend.’</p> +<p>“‘That’s just it. He won’t recognise that men +and women <i>can</i> be friends. He’s a very decent +fellow; but he’s full of this sulky jealousy, and +he glowers and sulks whenever any other man +comes near me. Well, that’s not my idea of +friendship.’</p> +<p>“‘Nor mine,’ echoed Patricia, trying to reconstruct +her puzzled estimate of their relations. +‘But couldn’t you stop that? Surely, if you put +it clearly to him....’</p> +<p>“Amy interrupted with a laugh that was almost +shrill. Her manner was coldly contemptuous.</p> +<p>“‘You <i>are</i> priceless!’ she cried. ‘You say the +most wonderful things.’</p> +<p>“‘Well, <i>I</i> should.’</p> +<p>“‘I wonder.’ Amy moved about, collecting the +plates. ‘You see ... some day I shall marry. +And in a weak moment I said probably I’d marry +him.’</p> +<p>“‘Oh, Amy! Of <i>course</i> he’s jealous.’ Swiftly, +Patricia did the young man justice.</p> +<p>“‘I didn’t give him any right to be. I told him +I’d changed my mind. I’ve told him lots of times +that probably I sha’n’t marry him.’</p> +<p>“‘But you keep him. Amy! You do encourage +him.’ Patricia was stricken afresh with a +generous impulse of emotion on Jack’s behalf. ‘I +mean, by not telling him straight out. Surely you +can’t keep a man waiting like that? I wonder he +doesn’t <i>insist</i>.’ +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_231' name='page_231'></a>231</span></p> +<p>“‘Jack insist!’ Amy was again scornful. ‘Not +he!’</p> +<p>“There was a moment s pause. Innocently, +Patricia ventured upon a charitable interpretation.</p> +<p>“‘He must love you very much. But, Amy, if +you don’t love him.’</p> +<p>“‘What’s love got to do with marriage?’ asked +Amy, with a sourly cynical air.</p> +<p>“‘Hasn’t it—everything?’ Patricia was full +of sincerity. She was too absorbed in this story +to help Amy to clear the table; but on finding herself +alone in the studio while the crockery was +carried away to the kitchen she mechanically +shook the crumbs behind the gas-fire and folded +the napkin. This was the most astonishing moment +of her day.</p> +<p>“Presently Amy returned, and sat in the big +armchair, while, seated upon the podger and leaning +back against the wall, Patricia smoked a +cigarette.</p> +<p>“‘You see, the sort of man one falls in love +with doesn’t make a good husband,’ announced +Amy, as patiently as if Patricia had been in fact a +child. She persisted in her attitude of superior +wisdom in the world’s ways. ‘It’s all very +well; but a girl ought to be able to live with any +man she fancies, and then in the end marry +the safe man for a ... well, for life, if she +likes.’</p> +<p>“Patricia’s eyes were opened wide. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_232' name='page_232'></a>232</span></p> +<p>“‘I shouldn’t like that,’ she said. ‘I don’t +think the man would either.’</p> +<p>“‘Bless you, the men all <i>do</i> it,’ cried Amy, contemptuously. +‘Don’t make any mistake about +that.’</p> +<p>“‘I don’t believe it,’ said Patricia. ‘Do you +mean that my father—or <i>your</i> father...?’</p> +<p>“‘Oh, I don’t know. I meant, nowadays. +Most of the people you saw last night are living +together or living with other people.’</p> +<p>“Patricia was aware of a chill.</p> +<p>“‘But <i>you’ve</i> never,’ she urged. ‘I’ve never.’</p> +<p>“‘No.’ Amy was obviously irritated by the +personal application. ‘That’s just it. I say we +<i>ought</i> to be free to do what we like. Men do +what they like.’</p> +<p>“‘D’you think Jack has lived with other girls?’</p> +<p>“‘My dear child, how do I know? I should +hope he has.’</p> +<p>“‘Hope! Amy, you do make me feel a prig.’</p> +<p>“‘Perhaps you are one. Oh, I don’t know. +I’m sick of thinking, thinking, thinking about it +all. I never get any peace.’</p> +<p>“‘Is there somebody you <i>want</i> to live with?’</p> +<p>“‘No. I wish there was. Then I should +<i>know</i>’</p> +<p>“‘I wonder if you would know,’ said Patricia, +in a low voice. ‘Amy, do you really know what +love is? Because I don’t. I’ve sometimes let men +kiss me, and it doesn’t seem to matter in the least. +I don’t particularly want to kiss them, or to be +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_233' name='page_233'></a>233</span> +kissed. I’ve never seen anything in all the flirtation +that goes on in dark corners. It’s amusing +once or twice; but it becomes an awful bore. The +men don’t interest you. The thought of living +with any of them just turns me sick.’”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iii</p> +</div> + +<p>The analysis, in <i>The Three Lovers</i>, of Patricia +Quin is done with that simplicity, quiet deftness +and inoffensive frankness which is the hallmark of +Mr. Swinnerton’s fiction. And, coming at last to +<i>Nocturne</i>, I fall back cheerfully upon the praise +accorded that novel by H. G. Wells in his preface +to it. Said Mr. Wells:</p> +<p>“Such a writer as Mr. Swinnerton sees life and +renders it with a steadiness and detachment and +patience quite foreign to my disposition. He has +no underlying motive. He sees and tells. His +aim is the attainment of that beauty which comes +with exquisite presentation. Seen through his +art, life is seen as one sees things through a crystal +lens, more intensely, more completed, and with +less turbidity. There the business begins and ends +for him. He does not want you or anyone to do +anything.</p> +<p>“Mr. Swinnerton is not alone among recent +writers in this clear detached objectivity. But +Mr. Swinnerton, like Mr. James Joyce, does not +repudiate the depths for the sake of the surface. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_234' name='page_234'></a>234</span> +His people are not splashes of appearance, but +living minds. Jenny and Emmy in this book are +realities inside and out; they are imaginative creatures +so complete that one can think with ease of +Jenny ten years hence or of Emmy as a baby. +The fickle Alf is one of the most perfect Cockneys—a +type so easy to caricature and so hard to get +true—in fiction. If there exists a better writing +of vulgar lovemaking, so base, so honest, so touchingly +mean and so touchingly full of the craving +for happiness than this, I do not know of it. Only +a novelist who has had his troubles can understand +fully what a dance among china cups, what a skating +over thin ice, what a tight-rope performance is +achieved in this astounding chapter. A false note, +one fatal line, would have ruined it all. On the +one hand lay brutality; a hundred imitative louts +could have written a similar chapter brutally, +with the soul left out, we have loads of such +‘strong stuff’ and it is nothing; on the other side +was the still more dreadful fall into sentimentality, +the tear of conscious tenderness, the redeeming +glimpse of ‘better things’ in Alf or Emmy +that could at one stroke have converted their +reality into a genteel masquerade. The perfection +of Alf and Emmy is that at no point does a ‘nature’s +gentleman’ or a ‘nature’s lady’ show +through and demand our refined sympathy. It is +only by comparison with this supreme conversation +that the affair of Keith and Jenny seems to +fall short of perfection. But that also is at last +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_235' name='page_235'></a>235</span> +perfected, I think, by Jenny’s final, ‘Keith ... Oh, +Keith!...’</p> +<p>“Above these four figures again looms the majestic +invention of ‘Pa.’ Every reader can appreciate +the truth and humour of Pa, but I doubt if +anyone without technical experience can realise +how the atmosphere is made and completed, and +rounded off by Pa’s beer, Pa’s meals, and Pa’s +accident, how he binds the bundle and makes the +whole thing one, and what an enviable triumph +his achievement is.</p> +<p>“But the book is before the reader and I will +not enlarge upon its merits further. Mr. Swinnerton +has written four or five other novels before +this one, but none of them compares with it in +quality. His earlier books were strongly influenced +by the work of George Gissing; they have +something of the same fatigued greyness of texture +and little of the same artistic completeness +and intense vision of <i>Nocturne</i>.</p> +<p>“This is a book that will not die. It is perfect, +authentic and alive. Whether a large and +immediate popularity will fall to it, I cannot say, +but certainly the discriminating will find it and +keep it and keep it alive. If Mr. Swinnerton were +never to write another word I think he might +count on this much of his work living, when many +of the more portentous reputations of today may +have served their purpose in the world and become +no more than fading names.”</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_236' name='page_236'></a>236</span></div> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iv</p> +</div> + +<p>Arnold Bennett has described Swinnerton personally +in a way no one else is likely to surpass. +I will prefix a few elemental facts which he has +neglected and then will let him have his say.</p> +<p>Frank Arthur Swinnerton was born in Wood +Green, England, in 1884, the youngest son of +Charles Swinnerton and Rose Cottam. He married, +a few years ago, Helen Dircks, a poet; her +slim little book of verse, <i>Passenger</i>, was published +with a preface by Mr. Swinnerton. His first three +novels Swinnerton destroyed. His first novel to +be published was <i>The Merry Heart</i>. It is interesting +to know that Floyd Dell was the first +American to appreciate Swinnerton. I make way +for Mr. Bennett, who says:</p> +<p>“One day perhaps eight or nine years ago I received +a novel entitled <i>The Casement</i>. The book +was accompanied by a short, rather curt note from +the author, Frank Swinnerton, politely indicating +that if I cared to read it he would be glad, and +implying that if I didn’t care to read it, he should +endeavour still to survive. I would quote the letter +but I cannot find it—no doubt for the reason +that all my correspondence is carefully filed on +the most modern filing system. I did not read +<i>The Casement</i> for a long time. Why should I +consecrate three irrecoverable hours or so to the +work of a man as to whom I had no credentials? +Why should I thus introduce foreign matter into +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_237' name='page_237'></a>237</span> +the delicate cogwheels of my programme of reading? +However, after a delay of weeks, heaven in +its deep wisdom inspired me with a caprice to pick +up the volume.</p> +<p>“I had read, without fatigue but on the other +hand without passionate eagerness, about a hundred +pages before the thought occurred suddenly +to me: ‘I do not remember having yet come across +one single ready-made phrase in this story.’ Such +was my first definable thought concerning Frank +Swinnerton. I hate ready-made phrases, which +in my view—and in that of Schopenhauer—are +the sure mark of a mediocre writer. I began to be +interested. I soon said to myself: ‘This fellow +has a distinguished style.’ I then perceived that +the character-drawing was both subtle and original, +the atmosphere delicious, and the movement +of the tale very original, too. The novel stirred +me—not by its powerfulness, for it did not set +out to be powerful—but by its individuality and +distinction. I thereupon wrote to Frank Swinnerton. +I forget entirely what I said. But I know +that I decided that I must meet him.</p> +<p>“When I came to London, considerably later, +I took measures to meet him, at the Authors’ Club. +He proved to be young; I daresay twenty-four or +twenty-five—medium height, medium looks, medium +clothes, somewhat reddish hair, and lively +eyes. If I had seen him in a motorbus I should +never have said, ‘A remarkable chap’—no more +than if I had seen myself in a motorbus. My +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_238' name='page_238'></a>238</span> +impressions of the interview were rather like my impressions +of the book: at first somewhat negative, +and only very slowly becoming positive. He was +reserved, as became a young author; I was reserved, +as became an older author; we were both +reserved, as became Englishmen. Our views on +the only important thing in the world—that is +to say, fiction—agreed, not completely, but in +the main; it would never have done for us to agree +completely. I was as much pleased by what he +didn’t say as by what he said; quite as much by +the indications of the stock inside the shop as by +the display in the window. The interview came +to a calm close. My knowledge of him acquired +from it amounted to this, that he held decided and +righteous views upon literature, that his heart was +not on his sleeve, and that he worked in a publisher’s +office during the day and wrote for himself +in the evenings.</p> +<p>“Then I saw no more of Swinnerton for a relatively +long period. I read other books of his. I +read <i>The Young Idea</i>, and <i>The Happy Family</i>, +and, I think, his critical work on George Gissing. +<i>The Happy Family</i> marked a new stage in his +development. It has some really piquant scenes, +and it revealed that minute knowledge of middle-class +life in the nearer suburbs of London, and +that disturbing insight into the hearts and brains +of quite unfashionable girls, which are two of his +principal gifts. I read a sketch of his of a commonplace +crowd walking around a bandstand +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_239' name='page_239'></a>239</span> +which brought me to a real decision as to his qualities. +The thing was like life, and it was bathed +in poetry.</p> +<p>“Our acquaintance proceeded slowly, and I +must be allowed to assert that the initiative which +pushed it forward was mine. It made a jump +when he spent a week-end in the Thames Estuary +on my yacht. If any reader has a curiosity to +know what my yacht is not like, he should read +the striking yacht chapter in <i>Nocturne</i>. I am +convinced that Swinnerton evolved the yacht in +<i>Nocturne</i> from my yacht; but he ennobled, magnified, +decorated, enriched and bejewelled it till +honestly I could not recognise my wretched vessel. +The yacht in <i>Nocturne</i> is the yacht I want, ought +to have, and never shall have. I envy him the +yacht in <i>Nocturne</i>, and my envy takes a malicious +pleasure in pointing out a mistake in the glowing +scene. He anchors his yacht in the middle of the +Thames—as if the tyrannic authorities of the +Port of London would ever allow a yacht, or any +other craft, to anchor in midstream!</p> +<p>“After the brief cruise our friendship grew +rapidly. I now know Swinnerton—probably as +well as any man knows him; I have penetrated +into the interior of the shop. He has done several +things since I first knew him—rounded the corner +of thirty, grown a beard, under the orders of a +doctor, and physically matured. Indeed, he +looks decidedly stronger than in fact he is—he +was never able to pass the medical examination +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_240' name='page_240'></a>240</span> +for the army. He is still in the business of publishing, +being one of the principal personages in +the ancient and well-tried firm of Chatto & +Windus, the English publishers of Swinburne and +Mark Twain. He reads manuscripts, including +his own—and including mine. He refuses manuscripts, +though he did accept one of mine. He +tells authors what they ought to do and ought not +to do. He is marvellously and terribly particular +and fussy about the format of the books +issued by his firm. Questions as to fonts of type, +width of margins, disposition of title-pages, tint +and texture of bindings really do interest him. +And misprints—especially when he has read the +proofs himself—give him neuralgia and even +worse afflictions. Indeed he is the ideal publisher +for an author.</p> +<p>“Nevertheless, publishing is only a side-line of +his. He still writes for himself in the evenings +and at week-ends—the office never sees him on +Saturdays.</p> +<p>“Frank Swinnerton has other gifts. He is a +surpassingly good raconteur. By which I do not +signify that the man who meets Swinnerton for +the first, second or third time will infallibly ache +with laughter at his remarks. Swinnerton only +blossoms in the right atmosphere; he must know +exactly where he is; he must be perfectly sure of +his environment, before the flower uncloses. And +he merely relates what he has seen, what he has +taken part in. The narrations would be naught +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_241' name='page_241'></a>241</span> +if he were not the narrator. His effects are helped +by the fact that he is an excellent mimic and by +his utter realistic mercilessness. But like all first-class +realists he is also a romantic, and in his +mercilessness there is a mysterious touch of fundamental +benevolence—as befits the attitude of one +who does not worry because human nature is not +something different from what it actually is. +Lastly, in this connection, he has superlatively the +laugh known as the ‘infectious laugh.’ When he +laughs everybody laughs, everybody has to laugh. +There are men who tell side-splitting tales with +the face of an undertaker—for example, Irvin +Cobb. There are men who can tell side-splitting +tales and openly and candidly rollick in them +from the first word; and of these latter is Frank +Swinnerton. But Frank Swinnerton can be more +cruel than Irvin Cobb. Indeed, sometimes when +he is telling a story, his face becomes exactly like +the face of Mephistopheles in excellent humour +with the world’s sinfulness and idiocy.</p> +<p>“Swinnerton’s other gift is the critical. It has +been said that an author cannot be at once a first-class +critic and a first-class creative artist. To +which absurdity I reply: What about William +Dean Howells? And what about Henry James, +to name no other names? Anyhow, if Swinnerton +excels in fiction he also excels in literary criticism. +The fact that the literary editor of the +Manchester Guardian wrote and asked him to +write literary criticism for the Manchester +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_242' name='page_242'></a>242</span> +Guardian will perhaps convey nothing to the American +citizen. But to the Englishman of literary taste +and experience it has enormous import. The +Manchester Guardian publishes the most fastidious +and judicious literary criticism in Britain.</p> +<p>“I recall that once when Swinnerton was in my +house I had there also a young military officer +with a mad passion for letters and a terrific ambition +to be an author. The officer gave me a manuscript +to read. I handed it over to Swinnerton to +read, and then called upon Swinnerton to criticise +it in the presence of both of us. ‘Your friend is +very kind,’ said the officer to me afterward, ‘but +it was a frightful ordeal.’</p> +<p>“The book on George Gissing I have already +mentioned. But it was Swinnerton’s work on +R. L. Stevenson that made the trouble in London. +It is a destructive work. It is bland and impartial, +and not bereft of laudatory passages, but +since its appearance Stevenson’s reputation has +never been the same.”</p> +<hr class='minor' /> + +<div class='ce'> +<p><i>Books</i></p> +<p>by Frank Swinnerton</p> +</div> + +<div class='la'> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE LOVER’S BATTLE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE MERRY HEART</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE YOUNG IDEA</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE CASEMENT</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE HAPPY FAMILY</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>GEORGE GISSING: A CRITICAL STUDY</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>R. L. STEVENSON: A CRITICAL STUDY</p> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_243' name='page_243'></a>243</span> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>ON THE STAIRCASE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE CHASTE WIFE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>NOCTURNE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>SHOPS AND HOUSES</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>SEPTEMBER</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>COQUETTE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE THREE LOVERS</p> +</div> + +<hr class='minor' /> + +<div class='ce'> +<p><i>Sources</i></p> +<p style=' margin-bottom:1.5em;'>on Frank Swinnerton</p> +</div> + +<p><i>Who’s Who</i> [In England].</p> +<p><i>Frank Swinnerton</i>: Personal Sketches by Arnold +Bennett, H. G. Wells, Grant Overtor, +Booklet published by GEORGE H. DORAN +COMPANY, 1920.</p> +<p>Private Information.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='XVI_AN_ARMFUL_OF_NOVELS_WITH_NOTES_ON_THE_NOVELISTS' id='XVI_AN_ARMFUL_OF_NOVELS_WITH_NOTES_ON_THE_NOVELISTS'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_244' name='page_244'></a>244</span> +<h2>Chapter XVI</h2> +<h3>AN ARMFUL OF NOVELS, WITH NOTES ON THE NOVELISTS</h3> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>i</p> +</div> + +<p>“The quiet, the calm, the extreme individualism, +and the easy-going self-content of my +birthplace and early habitat—the Eastern Shore +of Maryland, have been, I fear, the dominating +influences of my life,” writes Sophie Kerr. +“Thank heaven, I had a restless, energetic, and +very bad-tempered father to leaven them, a man +with a biting tongue and a kind heart, a keen +sense of the ridiculous and a passion for honesty +in speech and action. I, the younger of his two +children, was his constant companion. I tagged +after him, every day and all day. Even when I +was very small he interested me—and very few +fathers ever really interest their children.</p> +<p>“The usual life of a girl in a small semi-Southern +town was mine. I learned to cook, I +made most of my own frocks, I embroidered excessively, +I played the violin worse than any other +person in the world, I went away to college and +I came back again. I wasn’t a popular girl socially +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_245' name='page_245'></a>245</span> +for two reasons. I had inherited my father’s +gift of sarcasm, and there was the even +greater handicap of a beautiful, popular, socially +malleable older sister. Beside her I was nowhere.</p> +<p>“But I wanted to write, so I didn’t care. I got +my father to buy me a second-hand typewriter, +and learned to run it with two fingers. And I +wrote. I even sold some of the stuff. The Country +Gentleman bought one of my first stories, and +the Ladies’ World bought another. This was +glorious.</p> +<p>“Then I got a job on the Pittsburgh Chronicle-Telegraph, +an afternoon newspaper owned by +Senator Oliver. Later I went to The Gazette-Times, +the morning paper also owned by the +Senator. A few years later I came to New York +and found a place on the staff of the Woman’s +Home Companion, eventually becoming Managing +Editor. Two years ago I resigned my editorial +job to give all my time to writing. Of course +I had been writing pretty steadily anyway, but +holding my job too.</p> +<p>“I had expected, when I gave up office work, to +find my leisure time an embarrassment. I planned +so many things to do, how I would see all my +friends often, how I would travel, read, do all +sorts of delightful things that double work had +before made impossible. But I’ve done none of +them. I haven’t nearly as much time as I had +when I hadn’t any time at all, and that’s the +honest truth. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_246' name='page_246'></a>246</span></p> +<p>“If only I could arrange a multiple existence—one +life for work; one for the machinery of life, +housekeeping, getting clothes made, shopping; +one for seeing my friends, travel, visiting; one life +for the other diversions such as music, the theatre, +clubs, politics, one life for just plain loafing. +Now that would be wonderful. But to crowd it +all into twenty-four hours a day—no, too much +of it gets squeezed out.</p> +<p>“What do I like the most? Comfort, I think. +And old painted satinwood, and cats and prizefights, +and dancing, and Spanish shawls, and looking +at the ocean, and having my own way. And +I dislike argument, and perfume, and fat women, +and people who tell the sort of lies that simply +insult your intelligence, and men who begin letters +‘Dear Lady,’ and long earrings, and intolerance.”</p> +<p>All of which is excellent preparation for the +reader of Sophie Kerr’s new novel, <i>One Thing Is +Certain</i>. Those who read her <i>Painted Meadows</i> +will expect and will find in this new novel the +same charming background, but they will find a +much more dramatic story. Since the novel is one +of surprise, with an event at its close which throws +everything that went before in a new, a curious, a +startling and profoundly significant light, I cannot +indulge in any further description of it in this +place. But I do wish to quote some sentences +from a letter Sophie Kerr wrote me:</p> +<p>“I wanted to show that when lives get out of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_247' name='page_247'></a>247</span> +plumb, the way to straighten them is not with a +violent gesture. That when we do seize them, +and try to jerk them straight again, we invariably +let ourselves in for long years of unhappiness and +remorse. Witness Louellen. In two desperate +attempts ... she tries to change the whole current +and colour of her life.”</p> +<p>So much for the essential character of the story, +but there is a question in my mind as to what, in +the story, readers will consider the true essential! +I think for very many it will not be the action, +unusual and dramatic as that is, but the picture +of a peculiar community, one typical of Maryland’s +Eastern Shore, where we have farmer folk +in whom there lives the spirit and tradition of a +landed aristocracy. The true essential with such +readers, will be the individuals who are drawn +with such humour and skill, the mellowness of +the scene; even such a detail as the culinary triumph +that was Louellen’s wedding dinner. A +marvellous and incomparable meal! One reads +of it, his mouth watering and his stomach crying +out.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p><i>The House of Five Swords</i>, by Tristram +Tupper, is a gallant representative of those novels +which we are beginning to get in the inevitable +reaction from such realism as <i>Main Street</i> and +<i>Moon-Calf</i>, a romantic story of age and youth, of +love and hate, of bitter unyielding hardness, and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_248' name='page_248'></a>248</span> +of melting pity and tenderness. It begins with +the Robin, age seven, with burnished curls, viewing +with awestruck delight five polished swords +against the shining dark wall in Colonial House, +where she had gone to deliver the Colonel’s boots! +She forgot the boots. She lifted two of the +swords from the wall, crossed them on the floor +and danced the sword dance of Scotland. From +the doorway a white-haired old figure watched +with narrowed eyes and tightened mouth. Then +the storm broke....</p> +<p><i>The House of Five Swords</i> is Mr. Tupper’s +first novel. A native of Virginia, he has done +newspaper work, has tramped a good deal and was +fooling with the study of law when American +troops were ordered to the Mexican border. After +that experience he went overseas. On his return +from the war, he tried writing and met with rapid +success.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iii</p> +</div> + +<p>Readers of Baroness Orczy’s novels will welcome +<i>Nicolette</i>.</p> +<p>This is essentially a love story, with the scene +laid in the mountains of Provence in the early +days of the Restoration of King Louis XVIII to +the throne of France. An ancient half-ruined +château perches among dwarf olives and mimosa, +orange and lemon groves. There is a vivid contrast +between the prosperity of Jaume Deydier, a +rich peasant-proprietor, and the grinding poverty +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_249' name='page_249'></a>249</span> +of the proud and ancient family of de Ventadour, +whose last scion, Bertrand, goes to seek fortune in +Paris and there becomes affianced to a wealthy +and beautiful heiress. Nicolette, the daughter +of Jaume Deydier, whose ancestor had been a +lackey in the service of the Comte de Ventadour, +is passionately in love with Bertrand, but a bitter +feud keeps the lovers for long apart.</p> +<p>There will be a new novel this autumn, <i>Ann +and Her Mother</i>, by O. Douglas, whose <i>Penny +Plain</i> gave great pleasure to its readers. “Penny +plain,” if you remember, was the way Jean described +the lot of herself and her brothers whom +she mothered in the Scottish cottage; but matters +were somewhat changed when romance +crossed the threshold in the person of the Honourable +Pamela and a bitter old millionaire who +came to claim the house as his own.</p> +<p><i>Ann and Her Mother</i> is the story of a Scotch +family as seen through the eyes of the mother +and her daughter. The author of <i>Penny Plain</i> +and <i>Ann and Her Mother</i> is a sister of John +Buchan, author of <i>The Thirty-nine Steps</i>, <i>The +Path of the King</i>, and many other books.</p> +<p><i>December Love</i>, by Robert Hichens, will have +a greater popularity than any of his novels since +<i>The Garden of Allah</i>. It is a question whether +this uncannily penetrative study of power and the +need for love of a woman of sixty does not surpass +<i>The Garden of Allah</i>. In Lady Sellingworth, +Mr. Hichens is dealing with a brilliant woman. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_250' name='page_250'></a>250</span> +The theme is daring and calls for both skill and +delicacy. Of the action, one really should not +say very much, lest one spoil the book for the +reader. The loss of the Sellingworth jewels in +Paris had caused a sensation in the midst of which +Lady Sellingworth was silent. She declined to +discuss the disappearance of the jewels. There +followed the advent at No. 4 Berkeley Square of +Alick Craven, a man of thirty, vigorous, attractive +and decidedly a somebody. But inexplicably—at +any rate without explanation—Lady Sellingworth +retired from society when Craven appeared.</p> +<p><i>Tell England</i> by Ernest Raymond is a novel +which has been sensationally successful in England. +It is a war story and I will give you some +of the opening paragraphs of the “Prologue by +Padre Monty”:</p> +<p>“In the year that the Colonel died he took little +Rupert to see the swallows fly away. I can find +no better beginning than that.</p> +<p>“When there devolved upon me as a labour of +love the editing of Rupert Ray’s book, <i>Tell England</i>, +I carried the manuscript to my room one +bright autumn afternoon and read it during the +fall of a soft evening, till the light failed, and my +eyes burned with the strain of reading in the dark. +I could hardly leave his ingenuous tale to rise and +turn on the gas. Nor, perhaps, did I want such +artificial brightness. There are times when one +prefers the twilight. Doubtless the tale held me +fascinated because it revealed the schooldays of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_251' name='page_251'></a>251</span> +those boys whom I met in their young manhood +and told afresh that wild old Gallipoli adventure +which I shared with them. Though, sadly enough, +I take Heaven to witness that I was not the idealised +creature whom Rupert portrays. God bless +them, how these boys will idealise us!</p> +<p>“Then again, as Rupert tells you, it was I who +suggested to him the writing of his story. And +well I recall how he demurred, asking:</p> +<p>“‘But what am I to write about?’ For he +was always diffident and unconscious of his +power.</p> +<p>“‘Is Gallipoli nothing to write about?’ I retorted. +‘And you can’t have spent five years at a +great public school like Kensington without one +or two sensational things. Pick them out and let +us have them. For whatever the modern theorists +say, the main duty of a story-teller is certainly to +tell stories.’”</p> +<p>This prologue is followed by the novel which +begins with English public school life in the +fashion of <i>Sonia</i> and other novels American readers +are familiar with. The main theme of the +book is Gallipoli.</p> +<p>The new novel by J. E. Buckrose is <i>A Knight +Among Ladies</i>. Mrs. Buckrose says that the character +of Sid Dummeris in this book is modelled +upon an actual person. “He did actually live in a +remote country place where I used to stay a great +deal when I was a child and as he has been gone +twenty years, I thought I might employ my exact +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_252' name='page_252'></a>252</span> +memories of him without hurting anyone.” This +was in answer to questions asked by The Bookman +(London) of a number of English writers. The +London Bookman wanted to find out if novelists +generally drew their characters from actual people. +The replies showed that this proceeding was +very rare. Mrs. Buckrose recalled only one other +instance in which she had used an actual person +in her fiction. Mrs. Buckrose is Mrs. Falconer +Jameson. She lives at Hornsea, East Yorkshire, +and says:</p> +<p>“My real hobby is my writing—as it was my +secret pleasure from the age of nine until I was +over thirty when I first attempted to publish. I +look after my chickens, my house and a rather +delicate husband; write my books and try to do +my duty to my neighbour!”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iv</p> +</div> + +<p>Back of the new novel by Margaret Culkin +Banning, <i>Spellbinders</i>, is the question: Has the +vote and its consequent widening of the mental +horizon introduced a brand new element of discord +or a factor for mutual support into modern +marriage? The household of the George Flandons +was almost wrecked by it. That his wife +should accept the opportunity to play her part in +State and National affairs seemed to George +Flandon a desertion of her real duty.</p> +<p>Mrs. Banning has written a novel which will +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_253' name='page_253'></a>253</span> +surprise those who remember her only by her first +novel, <i>This Marrying</i>. The surprise will be less +for those who read her second novel, <i>Half Loaves</i>, +for they must have been struck by the real understanding +she showed of the married relationship +and the marked increase in her skill as a writer. +<i>Spellbinders</i> is the sort of work one looks for after +such a good novel as <i>Half Loaves</i>.</p> +<p>Mrs. Banning, who was married in 1914, lives +in Duluth. A graduate of Vassar, her first novel +was written in one of Margaret Mayo’s cottages +at Harmon, New York. She is of purely Irish +ancestry, related to the Plunkett family which +bred both statesmen and revolutionaries for Ireland. +On the other side there was a Colonel Culkin, +who, Mrs. Banning says, “came over at the +time of the Revolution but unfortunately fought +on the wrong side, so we forget him and begin our +Culkin lineage in this country with the Culkin who +came over at the famous time of the ‘potato-rot.’” +That would be the Irish famine of 1846, no doubt.</p> +<p><i>Sunny-San</i>, Onoto Watanna’s first novel in six +years, has been the signal for her re-entrance not +only into the world of fiction, but the world of +motion pictures and plays. Even before <i>Sunny-San</i> +was ready as a book, the motion picture producers +were on the author’s track. A large sum +was paid cash down for the picture rights to the +novel and then the prospect of a picture was laid +aside while the possibilities of a play were estimated. +These were seen to be exceptionally good. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_254' name='page_254'></a>254</span> +Here was a story of young American boys travelling +in Japan and coming upon a still younger +Japanese girl, threatened with cruelty and unhappiness. +The young men endowed Sunny-San, so +to speak, planking down enough money to secure +her protection and education. Thereupon they +continued blithely on their travels and forgot all +about her.</p> +<p>Some years later a well-educated, dainty and +exceedingly attractive Japanese girl presents herself +on the doorstep of a house in New York where +one of the young men resides. Situation! What +shall the young man do with his charming and +unexpected protégée! In view of the prolonged +success of Fay Bainter in the play, <i>East Is West</i>, +it was obviously the thing to make a play out of +<i>Sunny-San</i>. And this, I believe, is being done as +I write. In the meantime Onoto Watanna, who +is really Mrs. Winnifred Reeve, and who lives on +a ranch near Calgary, Canada, is very busy with +her Canadian stories which have excited the enthusiasm +of magazine editors. I am confident +that she will do a Canadian novel; the more so +because she tells me that, despite the success of +<i>Sunny-San</i> and the enormous success of her +earlier Japanese stories, like <i>A Japanese Nightingale</i>, +her interest is really centred at present in +Canada, its people and backgrounds. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_255' name='page_255'></a>255</span></p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>v</p> +</div> + +<p>Pending Dorothy Speare’s second novel, let me +suggest that those who have not done so read her +first, <i>Dancers in the Dark</i>. That a young woman +just out of Smith College should write this novel, +that the novel should then begin immediately selling +at a great rate, and that David Belasco should +demand a play constructed from the novel is altogether +a sequence to cause surprise. I have had +letters from older people who said frankly that +they could not express themselves about <i>Dancers +in the Dark</i>, because it dealt with a life with +which they were utterly unfamiliar—which, in +some cases, they did not know existed. And yet it +does exist! The demand for the book, the avidity +with which it has been read and the intemperance +with which it has been discussed testify that in +<i>Dancers in the Dark</i> Miss Speare wrote a book +with truth in it. I suppose it might be said of her +first novel—though I should not agree in saying +it—that, like F. Scott Fitzgerald’s <i>This Side of +Paradise</i>, it had every conceivable fault except +the fatal fault; it did not fail to live. The +amount of publicity that this book received was +astonishing. I have handled clippings from +newspapers all over the country—and not mere +“items” but “spreads” with pictures—in which +the epigrammatic utterances of the characters in +<i>Dancers</i> were reprinted and their truth or falsity +debated hotly. Is the modern girl an “excitement +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_256' name='page_256'></a>256</span> +eater”? Does she “live from man to man and +never kill off a man”? There was altogether too +much smoke and heat in the controversy for one +to doubt the existence, underneath the surface of +Miss Speare’s fiction, of glowing coals. And Miss +Speare? Well, it is a fact that, like her heroine +in <i>Dancers</i>, she has an exceptional voice; and I +understand that she intends to cultivate the voice +and to continue as a writer, both. That is a very +difficult programme to lay out for one’s self, but +I really believe her capable of succeeding in both +halves of the programme.</p> +<p>Another distinctly popular novel, <i>The Moon +Out of Reach</i>, by Margaret Pedler, is the fruit of +a well-developed career as a novelist. <i>The Hermit +of Far End</i>, <i>The House of Dreams Come +True</i>, <i>The Lamp of Fate</i>, and <i>The Splendid +Folly</i> were the forerunners of this immediate and +distinct success. Mrs. Pedler is the wife of a +sportsman well known in the West of England, +the nearest living descendant of Sir Francis +Drake. They have a lovely home in the country +and Mrs. Pedler, besides the joys of her writing, +is a collector of old furniture and china and a +devotee of driving, tennis and swimming. It is +interesting that as a girl she studied at the Royal +Academy of Music with a view to being a professional +singer. Marriage diverted her from that, +but she still retains her interest in music; and it +is characteristic of such novels as <i>The Splendid +Folly</i> and <i>The Moon Out of Reach</i> that a lyric +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_257' name='page_257'></a>257</span> +appearing in the book embodies the theme of the +story. These lyrics of Mrs. Pedler’s have mostly +been set to music.</p> +<p>What shall I say about Corra Harris’s <i>The +Eyes of Love</i> except that it offers such a study of +marriage as only Mrs. Harris puts on paper? +Shrewd and homely wisdom, sympathetic and +ironical humour, the insight and the fundamental +experience,—above all, imagination in experience—which +made their first deep and wide impression +with the publication of <i>A Circuit Rider’s Wife</i>. +I open <i>The Eyes of Love</i> at random and come +upon such a passage as this, and then I don’t wonder +that men as well as women read Corra Harris +and continue to read her:</p> +<p>“Few women are ever related by marriage to +the minds of their husbands. These minds are +foreign countries where they discover themselves +to be aliens, speaking another smaller language +and practically incapable of mastering the manners +and customs of that place. This is sometimes +the man’s fault, because his mind is not a fit place +for a nice person like his wife to dwell, but more +frequently it is the wife’s fault, who is not willing +to associate intimately with the hardships that +inhabit the mind of a busy man, who has no time +to ornament that area with ideas pertaining to the +finer things. So it happens that both of them +prefer this divorce, the man because the woman +gets in the way with her scruples and emotions +when he is about to do business without reference +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_258' name='page_258'></a>258</span> +to either; the woman because it is easier to keep +on the domestic periphery of her husband, where +she thinks she knows him and is married to him +because she knows what foods he likes, and the +people he prefers to have asked to dine when she +entertains, the chair that fits him, the large pillow +or the small one he wants for his tired old head at +night, the place where the light must be when he +reads in the evening rather than talk to her, because +there is nothing to talk about, since she is +only the wife of his bosom and not of his head.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>vi</p> +</div> + +<p>Phyllis Bottome is just as interesting as her +novels. When scarcely more than a child with +large, delightful eyes, she began to write, and +completed at the age of seventeen a novel which +Andrew Lang advised an English publisher to +accept. Thereafter she wrote regularly and with +increasing distinction. Ill-health drove her to +Switzerland where, living for some years, she met +all kinds of people from all the countries of Europe +and America as well.</p> +<p>It is interesting that her father was an American, +although after his marriage to an Englishwoman, +he settled in England. Later Mr. Bottome +came to America and for six years during +Phyllis Bottome’s childhood he was rector of +Grace Church at Jamaica, New York. Phyllis +Bottome is the wife of A. E. Forbes Dennis, who, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_259' name='page_259'></a>259</span> +recovering from dangerous wounds in the war, has +been serving as passport officer at Vienna. They +were married in 1917. Those who know Phyllis +Bottome personally say that the striking thing +about her is the extent of her acquaintance with +people of all sorts and conditions of life and her +ready and unfailing sympathy with all kinds of +people. She herself says that she “has had friends +who live humdrum and simple lives and friends +whose stories would bring a rush of doubt to the +most credulous believer in fiction.” “My friendships +have included workmen, bargees, actresses, +clergymen, thieves, scholars, dancers, soldiers, +sailors and even the manager of a bank. It would +be true of me to say that as a human being I prefer +life to art, even if it would at the same time be +damning to admit that I know much more about +it. I have no preferences; men, women, children, +animals and nature under every aspect seem to me +a mere choice of miracles. I have not perhaps +many illusions, but I have got hold of one or two +certainties. I believe in life and I know that it is +very hard.”</p> +<p>The hardness of life, its uproar, its agony, its +magnificence and its duty, is the theme of Phyllis +Bottome’s latest and finest novel. When it was +published, because it was so different from Phyllis +Bottome’s earlier work, I tried to draw attention +to it by a letter in which I said:</p> +<p>“I don’t know whether you read J. C. Snaith’s +<i>The Sailor</i>. People said Snaith got his suggestion +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_260' name='page_260'></a>260</span> +from the life of John Masefield. <i>The +Sailor</i> sold many thousands and people recall the +book today, years afterward. But, as an ex-sailor +and a few other things, I never found +Snaith’s ‘Enry ‘Arper half so convincing as Jim +Barton in Phyllis Bottome’s new novel, <i>The Kingfisher</i>.</p> +<p>“Jim, a boy of the slums, reaching toward ‘that +broken image of the mind of God—human love,’ +goes pretty deeply into me. Since reading those +last words of the book—‘Beauty touched him. It +was as if he saw, with a flash of jewelled wings, +a Kingfisher fly home’—I keep going back and rereading +bits....</p> +<p>“Won’t you tackle <i>The Kingfisher</i>? If you’ll +read to the bottom of page 51, I’ll take a chance +beyond that. Read that far and then, if you stop +there, I’ve no word to say.”</p> +<p>Although this letter called for no special reply, +I received dozens of replies promising to read the +book and then enthusiastic comments after having +read the book. I do not consider <i>The Kingfisher</i> +the greatest book Phyllis Bottome will +write, but it marks an important advance in her +work and it is a novel whose positive merits will +last; it will be as moving and as significant ten +years from now as it is today.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>vii</p> +</div> + +<p>I come to a group of novels of which the chief +aim of all except two is entertainment. <i>The</i> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_261' name='page_261'></a>261</span> +<i>Return of Alfred</i>, by the anonymous author of +<i>Patricia Brent, Spinster</i>, is the diverting narrative +of a man who found himself in another man’s +shoes. What made it particularly difficult was +that the other man had been a very bad egg, indeed. +And there was, as might have been feared +(or anticipated), a girl to complicate matters +tremendously.</p> +<p>E. F. Benson’s <i>Peter</i> is the story of a young +man who made a point of being different, of keeping +his aloofness and paying just the amount of +charm and gaiety required for the dinners and +opera seats which London hostesses so gladly +proffered. Then he married Silvia, not for her +money exactly, but he certainly would not have +asked her if she hadn’t had money. No wonder +E. F. Benson has a liberal and expectant audience! +In <i>Peter</i> he shows an exquisite understanding +of the quality of the love between Peter +and his boyish young wife.</p> +<p>A. A. Milne is another name to conjure with +among those who love humour and charm, gentleness +and a quiet shafting of the human depths. +There is his novel, <i>Mr. Pim</i>. Old Mr. Pim, in +his gentle way, shuffled into the Mardens’ charming +household. Mr. Pim said a few words and +went absentmindedly away,—leaving Mr. Marden +with the devastating knowledge that his wife +was no wife, that her first husband, instead of +lying quietly in his grave in Australia, had just +landed in England. In short, the Mardens had +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_262' name='page_262'></a>262</span> +been living in sin for five years! Then Mr. Pim +came back for his forgotten hat and the Marden +household was again revolutionised.</p> +<p><i>Beauty for Ashes</i>, by Joan Sutherland, is a +story with a more serious theme. It really raises +the question whether a man who has wrongly +been named as co-respondent is in honour bound +to marry the defendant. The affair of Lady +Madge with Lord Desmond was an entirely innocent +one, despite what London said. Lady +Madge’s husband, wrought upon by shame and +anger, began his action for divorce; and Desmond +found himself not merely face to face with dishonour +but bound by conventional honour for +life to a girl with whom he had simply been +friendly.</p> +<p>William Rose Benét had been known chiefly as +a poet until the publication of his first novel, +<i>The First Person Singular</i>. The scene of <i>The +First Person Singular</i> shifts between the kinetic +panorama of modern New York and the somewhat +stultifying quietude of a small Pennsylvania +town. A mysterious Mrs. Ventress is the +centre of its rapidly unfolding series of peculiar +situations. Mrs. Ventress is a puzzle to the +townspeople. They believe odd things about her. +The particular family in Tupton with which she +comes in contact is an eccentric one. The father +is a recluse—for reasons. His adopted daughter, +Bessie Gedney, is an odd character among young +girls in fiction. Dr. Gedney’s real daughter had +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_263' name='page_263'></a>263</span> +disappeared years before. Why? What has become +of her? This complicates the mystery.</p> +<p><i>The First Person Singular</i> is a light novel, +avowedly without the heavy “significance” and +desperately drab realism of many modern novels. +And yet it flashes with tragedy and implicates +grim spiritual struggle without tearing any passion +to tatters. The author’s touch is light, the +variety of his characters furnish him much diversion. +The amusing side of each situation does +not escape him. His style has a certain effervescent +quality, but, for all that, the tragic developments +of the story are not shirked.</p> +<p>Another treatment of a problem of marriage, a +treatment sympathetic but robust, is found in the +new novel of F. E. Mills Young, <i>The Stronger +Influence</i>. Like Miss Mills Young’s earlier +novels, <i>Imprudence</i> and <i>The Almonds of Life</i>, the +scene of <i>The Stronger Influence</i> is British Africa. +The story is of the choice confronting a girl upon +whom two men have a vital claim.</p> +<p>To be somebody is more ethical than to serve +somebody. The individual has not only a right +but an obligation to sacrifice family entanglements +in the cause of a necessary personal independence. +This is the attitude expressed in +Richard Blaker’s novel, <i>The Voice in the Wilderness</i>. +The story centres around the figure of +Charles Petrie, popular playwright in London but +known in Pelchester merely as a shabby fellow +and to his family a singularly sarcastic and annoying +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_264' name='page_264'></a>264</span> +father. Sarcasm was Petrie’s one defence +against the limp weight that was Mrs. Petrie +His children would have been astonished to hear +him called a charming man of the world, yet he +was. It is probable that he never would have +come out into the open to combat if he hadn’t +been moved constantly to interfere and save his +daughter Cynthia from offering herself as a willing +sacrifice to her mother. Richard Blaker is new +to America, a novelist of acutely pointed characterisations +and careful atmosphere.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>viii</p> +</div> + +<p><i>Nêne</i>, the work of an unknown French school +teacher, a novel distinguished in France by the +award of the Goncourt Prize as the most distinguished +French novel of the year 1920, had sold +at this writing 400,000 copies in France. Three +months after publication, it had sold in this country +less than 3,000 copies.</p> +<p>I am glad to say that it was sufficient to draw +to the attention of Americans this deplorable discrepancy +to arouse interest in the novel. People +of so divergent tastes as William Lyon Phelps, +Corra Harris, Ralph Connor, Walter Prichard +Eaton, Mary Johnston, Dorothy Speare and +Richard LeGallienne have been at pains to express +the feeling to which <i>Nêne</i> has stirred them. +I have not space to quote them all, and so select +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_265' name='page_265'></a>265</span> +as typical the comment of Walter Prichard +Eaton:</p> +<p>“I read <i>Nêne</i> with great interest, especially because +of its relation to <i>Maria Chapdelaine</i>. It +seems to me the two books came out most happily +together. <i>Maria Chapdelaine</i> gives us the French +peasant in the new world, touched with the +pioneer spirit, and though close to the soil in constant +battle with nature, somehow always master +of his fate. <i>Nêne</i> gives us this same racial stock, +again close to the soil, but an old-world soil its +fathers worked, and the peasant here seems ringed +around with those old ghosts, their prejudices and +their passions. I have seldom read any book +which seemed to me so unerringly to capture the +enveloping atmosphere of place and tradition, as +it conditions the lives of people, and yet to do it +so (apparently) artlessly. This struck me so +forcibly that it was not till later I began to realise +with a sigh—if one himself is a writer, a sigh of +envy—that <i>Nêne</i> has a directness, a simplicity, +a principle of internal growth or dramatic life +of its own, which, alas! most of us are incapable +of attaining.”</p> +<p>The author of <i>Carnival</i>, <i>Sinister Street</i>, +<i>Plasher’s Mead</i>; of those highly comedic novels, +<i>Poor Relations</i> and <i>Rich Relatives</i>; of other and +still more diverse fiction, Compton Mackenzie, +has turned to a new task. His fine novel, <i>The +Altar Steps</i>, concerns itself with a young priest +of the Church of England. We live in the England +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_266' name='page_266'></a>266</span> +of Lytton Strachey’s <i>Queen Victoria</i>—the +England of 1880 to the close of the Boer War—as +we follow Mark Lidderdale from boyhood +to his ordination. <i>The Altar Steps</i>, it is known +will be followed by a novel probably to be called +<i>The Parson’s Progress</i>. Evidently Mr. Mackenzie +is bent upon a fictional study of the whole +problem of the Church of England in relation to +our times, and particularly the position of the +Catholic party in the Church.</p> +<p>“Simon Pure,” who writes the monthly letter +from London appearing in The Bookman (and +whose identity is a well-known secret!) thus describes, +in The Bookman for September, 1922, a +visit to Mr. Mackenzie:</p> +<p>“I have recently seen the author of <i>The Altar +Steps</i> upon his native heath.<i> The Altar Steps</i> is +the latest work of Compton Mackenzie, and it has +done something to rehabilitate him with the +critics. The press has been less fiercely adverse +than usual to the author. He is supposed to have +come back to the fold of the ‘serious’ writers, and +so the fatted calf has been slain for him. We +shall see. My own impression is that Mackenzie +is a humorous writer, and that the wiseacres who +want the novel to be ‘serious’ are barking up the +wrong tree. At any rate, there the book is, and +it is admitted to be a good book by all who have +been condemning Mackenzie as a trifler; and +Mackenzie is going on with his sequel to it in the +pleasant land of Italy. I did not see him in Italy, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_267' name='page_267'></a>267</span> +but in Herm, one of the minor Channel Islands. +It took me a night to reach the place—a night of +fog and fog-signals—a night of mystery, with the +moon full and the water shrouded—and morning +found the fog abruptly lifted, and the islands before +our eyes. They glittered under a brilliant +sun. There came hurried disembarking, a transference +(for me, and after breakfast) to a small +boat called, by the owner’s pleasantry, ‘Watch +Me’ (Compton Mackenzie), and then a fine sail +(per motor) to Herm. I said to the skipper that +I supposed there must be many dangerous submerged +rocks. ‘My dear fellow!’ exclaimed the +skipper, driven to familiarity by my naïveté. And +with that we reached the island. Upon the end +of a pier stood a tall figure, solitary. ‘My host!’ +thought I. Not so. Merely an advance guard: +his engineer. We greeted—my reception being +that of some foreign potentate—and I was led up +a fine winding road that made me think of Samoa +and Vailima and all the beauties of the South +Seas. Upon the road came another figure—this +time a young man who made a friend of me at a +glance. He now took me in hand. Together we +made the rest of the journey along this beautiful +road, and to the cottage of residence. I entered. +There was a scramble. At last I met my host, +who leapt from bed to welcome me!</p> +<p>“From that moment my holiday was delightful. +The island is really magnificent. Short of +a stream, it has everything one could wish for in +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_268' name='page_268'></a>268</span> +such a place. It has cliffs, a wood, a common +fields under cultivation, fields used as pasture, +caves, shell beaches, several empty cottages. Its +bird life is wealthy in cuckoos and other magic-bringers; +its flowers have extraordinary interest; +dogs and cattle and horses give domestic life, and +a boat or two may be used for excursions to +Jethou, a smaller island near by. And Mackenzie +has this ideal place to live in for as much +of the year as he likes. None may gather there +without his permission. He is the lord of the +manor, and his boundaries are the sea and the sky. +We walked about the islands, and saw their +beauties, accompanied by a big dog—a Great +Dane—which coursed rabbits and lay like a dead +fish in the bottom of a small boat. And as each +marvel of the little paradise presented itself, I +became more and more filled with that wicked +thing, envy. But I believe envy does not make +much progress when the owner of the desired object +so evidently appreciates it with more gusto +even than the envious one. Reason is against +envy in such a case. To have said, ‘He doesn’t +appreciate it’ would have been a lie so manifest +that it did not even occur to me. He does. That +is the secret of Mackenzie’s personal ability to +charm. He is filled with vitality, but he is also +filled with the power to take extreme delight in +the delight of others and to better it. Moreover, +he gives one the impression of understanding +islands. Herm has been in his possession for +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_269' name='page_269'></a>269</span> +something more than a year, and he has lived +there continuously all that time (except for two or +three visits to London, of short duration). It has +been in all his thoughts. He has seen it as a +whole. He knows it from end to end, its rocks, +its birds, its trees and flowers and paths. What +wonder that his health is magnificent, his spirits +high! What wonder the critics have seen fit to +praise <i>The Altar Steps</i> as they have not praised +anything of Mackenzie’s for years? If they had +seen Herm, they could have done nothing at all +but praise without reserve.”</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='XVII_THE_HETEROGENEOUS_MAGIC_OF_MAUGHAM' id='XVII_THE_HETEROGENEOUS_MAGIC_OF_MAUGHAM'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_270' name='page_270'></a>270</span> +<h2><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Chapter XVII</span></h2> +<h3>THE HETEROGENEOUS MAGIC OF MAUGHAM</h3> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>i</p> +</div> + +<p>Now, I don’t know where to begin. Probably +I shall not know where to leave off, +either. That is my usual misfortune, to write a +chapter at both ends. It is a fatal thing, like the +doubly-consuming candle. Perhaps I might start +with the sapience of Hector MacQuarrie, author +of <i>Tahiti Days</i>. I am tempted to, because so +many people think of W. Somerset Maugham as +the author of <i>The Moon and Sixpence</i>. The day +will come, however, when people will think of +him as the man who wrote <i>Of Human Bondage</i>.</p> +<p>This novel does not need praise. All it needs, +like the grand work it is, is attention; and that +it increasingly gets.</p> +<div class='figcenter'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_271' name='page_271'></a>271</span> +<a name='linki_8' id='linki_8'></a> +<img src='images/winter09.jpg' alt='' title='' style='width: 297px; height: 437px;' /><br /> +<p class='caption' style='margin: 0 auto; text-align:center;width: 297px;'> +W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM<br /> +</p> +</div> + +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_273' name='page_273'></a>273</span></div> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p>Theodore Dreiser reviewed <i>Of Human Bondage</i> +for the New Republic. I reprint part of +what he said:</p> +<p>“Sometimes in retrospect of a great book the +mind falters, confused by the multitude and yet +the harmony of the detail, the strangeness of the +frettings, the brooding, musing intelligence that +has foreseen, loved, created, elaborated, perfected, +until, in the middle ground which we call life, +somewhere between nothing and nothing, hangs +the perfect thing which we love and cannot understand, +but which we are compelled to confess +a work of art. It is at once something and nothing, +a dream of happy memory, a song, a benediction. +In viewing it one finds nothing to criticise +or to regret. The thing sings, it has colour. +It has rapture. You wonder at the loving, patient +care which has evolved it.</p> +<p>“Here is a novel or biography or autobiography +or social transcript of the utmost importance. To +begin with, it is unmoral, as a novel of this kind +must necessarily be. The hero is born with a club +foot, and in consequence, and because of a temperament +delicately attuned to the miseries of life, +suffers all the pains, recessions, and involute self +tortures which only those who have striven handicapped +by what they have considered a blighting +defect can understand. He is a youth, therefore, +with an intense craving for sympathy and understanding. +He must have it. The thought of his +lack, and the part which his disability plays in it +soon becomes an obsession. He is tortured, +miserable.</p> +<p>“Curiously the story rises to no spired climax. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_274' name='page_274'></a>274</span> +To some it has apparently appealed as a drab, unrelieved +narrative. To me at least it is a gorgeous +weave, as interesting and valuable at the +beginning as at the end. There is material in its +three hundred thousand or more words for many +novels and indeed several philosophies, and even +a religion or stoic hope. There are a series of +women, of course—drab, pathetic, enticing as the +case may be,—who lead him through the mazes +of sentiment, sex, love, pity, passion; a wonderful +series of portraits and of incidents. There +are a series of men friends of a peculiarly inclusive +range of intellectuality and taste, who lead +him, or whom he leads, through all the intricacies +of art, philosophy, criticism, humour. +And lastly comes life itself, the great land and +sea of people, England, Germany, France, battering, +corroding, illuminating, a Goyaesque +world.</p> +<p>“Naturally I asked myself how such a book +would be received in America, in England. In +the latter country I was sure, with its traditions +and the Athenæum and the Saturday Review, it +would be adequately appreciated. Imagine my +surprise to find that the English reviews were almost +uniformly contemptuous and critical on +moral and social grounds. The hero was a weakling, +not for a moment to be tolerated by sound, +right-thinking men. On the other hand, in America +the reviewers for the most part have seen its +true merits and stated them. Need I say, however, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_275' name='page_275'></a>275</span> +that the New York World finds it ‘the sentimental +servitude of a poor fool,’ or that the Philadelphia +Press sees fit to dub it ‘futile Philip,’ or +that the Outlook feels that ‘the author might have +made his book true without making it so frequently +distasteful’; or that the Dial cries ‘a most +depressing impression of the futility of life’?</p> +<p>“Despite these dissonant voices it is still a book +of the utmost import, and has so been received. +Compact of the experiences, the dreams, the +hopes, the fears, the disillusionments, the ruptures, +and the philosophising of a strangely +starved soul, it is a beacon light by which the +wanderer may be guided. Nothing is left out; +the author writes as though it were a labour of +love. It bears the imprint of an eager, almost +consuming desire to say truly what is in his heart.</p> +<p>“Personally, I found myself aching with pain +when, yearning for sympathy, Philip begs the +wretched Mildred, never his mistress but on his +level, to no more than tolerate him. He finally +humiliates himself to the extent of exclaiming, +‘You don’t know what it means to be a cripple!’ +The pathos of it plumbs the depths. The death +of Fannie Price, of the sixteen-year-old mother +in the slum, of Cronshaw, and the rambling +agonies of old Ducroz and of Philip himself, are +perfect in their appeal.</p> +<p>“There are many other and all equally brilliant +pictures. No one short of a genius could rout the +philosophers from their lairs and label them as +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_276' name='page_276'></a>276</span> +individuals ‘tempering life with rules agreeable +to themselves’ or could follow Mildred Rogers, +waitress of the London A B C restaurant, through +all the shabby windings of her tawdry soul. No +other than a genius endowed with an immense +capacity for understanding and pity could have +sympathised with Fannie Price, with her futile +and self-destructive art dreams; or old Cronshaw, +the wastrel of poetry and philosophy; or Mons. +Ducroz, the worn-out revolutionary; or Thorne +Athelny, the caged grandee of Spain; or Leonard +Upjohn, airy master of the art of self-advancement; +or Dr. South, the vicar of Blackstable, and +his wife—these are masterpieces. They are marvellous +portraits; they are as smooth as a Vermeer, +as definite as a Hals; as brooding and moving as +a Rembrandt. The study of Carey himself, while +one sees him more as a medium through which +the others express themselves, still registers photographically +at times. He is by no means a brooding +voice but a definite, active, vigorous character.</p> +<p>“If the book can be said to have a fault it will +lie for some in its length, 300,000 words, or for +others in the peculiar reticence with which the +last love affair in the story is handled. Until the +coming of Sallie Athelny all has been described +with the utmost frankness. No situation, however +crude or embarrassing, has been shirked. In +the matter of the process by which he arrived at +the intimacy which resulted in her becoming pregnant +not a word is said. All at once, by a slight +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_277' name='page_277'></a>277</span> +frown which she subsequently explains, the truth +is forced upon you that there has been a series of +intimacies which have not been accounted for. +After Mildred Rogers and his relationship with +Norah Nesbit it strikes one as strange....</p> +<p>“One feels as though one were sitting before a +splendid Shiraz or Daghestan of priceless texture +and intricate weave, admiring, feeling, responding +sensually to its colours and tones. Mr. +Maugham ... has suffered for the joy of the +many who are to read after him. By no willing +of his own he has been compelled to take life by +the hand and go down where there has been little +save sorrow and degradation. The cup of gall +and wormwood has obviously been lifted to his +lips and to the last drop he has been compelled +to drink it. Because of this, we are enabled to +see the rug, woven of the tortures and delights +of a life. We may actually walk and talk with +one whose hands and feet have been pierced with +nails.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iii</p> +</div> + +<p>I turn, for a different example of the heterogeneous +magic of Maugham, including his ability +to create and sustain a mood in his readers, to +the words of Mr. MacQuarrie, who writes:</p> +<p>“It was Tahiti. With a profound trust in my +discretion, or perhaps an utter ignorance of the +homely fact that people have their feelings, a +London friend sent us a copy of <i>The Moon and</i> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_278' name='page_278'></a>278</span> +<i>Sixpence</i>. This friend, actually a beautiful, well +set up woman of the intelligent class in England +(which is more often than not the upper fringes +or spray of the <i>bourgeoisie</i>), wrote: ‘You will be +interested in this book, since quite the most charming +portion of it deals with your remote island of +Tahiti. I met the author last night at Lady +B——’s. I think the landlady at the end, Mrs. +Johnson, is a perfect darling.’</p> +<p>“Knowing Somerset Maugham as a dramatist, +the author of that kind of play which never bored +one, but rather sent one home suffused with pleasantness, +I opened the book with happy anticipation. +Therefore—and the title of the book, <i>The +Moon and Sixpence</i>, gave a jolly calming reaction—I +was surprised and frankly annoyed when +I found myself compelled to follow the fortunes +of a large red-headed man with mighty sex appeal, +who barged his way through female tears +to a final goal which seemed to be a spiritual +achievement, and a nasty death in a native <i>fare</i>. +I was alarmed; here was a man writing something +enormously strong, when I had been accustomed +to associate him with charming London nights—the +theatre, perfect acting, no middle class problems, +a dropping of one’s women folks at their +doors and a return to White’s and whiskey and a +soda. And furthermore, in this book of his, he +had picked up Lavina, the famous landlady of +the Tiare Hotel, the uncrowned queen of Tahiti, +and with a few strokes of his pen, had dissected +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_279' name='page_279'></a>279</span> +her, and exposed her to the world as she was. +Here I must quote:</p> +<p>“‘Tall and extremely stout, she would have +been an imposing presence if the great good nature +of her face had not made it impossible for her to +express anything but kindliness. Her arms were +like legs of mutton, her breasts like giant cabbages; +her face, broad and fleshy, gave you an +impression of almost indecent nakedness and vast +chin succeeded vast chin.’</p> +<p>“This may seem a small matter in a great +world. Tahiti is a small world, and this became +a great matter. I read the book twice, decided +that Somerset Maugham could no longer be regarded +as a pleasant liqueur, but rather as the +joint of a meal requiring steady digestion, and +suppressed <i>The Moon and Sixpence</i> on Tahiti. +The temptation to lend it to a kindred spirit was +almost unbearable, but the thought of Lavina +hearing of the above description of her person +frightened me and I resisted. For kindred souls, +on Tahiti as elsewhere, have their own kindred +souls, and slowly but surely the fact that a writer +had described her arms as legs of mutton (perfect!) +and her breasts as huge cabbages (even +better!) would have oozed its way to Lavina, +sending her to bed for six days, with gloom spread +over Tahiti and no cocktails.</p> +<p>“All of which is a trifle by the way. Yet in +writing of Somerset Maugham one must gaze +along all lines of vision. And it seemed to me +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_280' name='page_280'></a>280</span> +that Tahiti in general, and Papeete in particular +should supply a clear one; for here, certainly, in +the days when Maugham visited the island a man +could be mentally dead, spiritually naked and +physically unashamed. I therefore sought Lavina +one afternoon as she sat clothed as with a garment +by the small side verandah of the Tiare Hotel. +(Lavina was huge; the verandah was a small +verandah as verandahs go; there was just room +for me and a bottle of rum.)</p> +<p>“‘Lavina,’ I remarked; ‘many persons who +write come to Tahiti.’</p> +<p>“‘It is true,’ she admitted, ‘but not as the +heavy rain, rather as the few drops at the end.’</p> +<p>“‘Do you like them?’ I enquired.</p> +<p>“One makes that kind of remark on Tahiti. +The climate demands such, since the answer can +be almost anything, a meandering spreading-of-weight +kind of answer.</p> +<p>“‘These are good men,’ said Lavina steadily, +wandering off into the old and possibly untrue +story of a lady called Beatrice Grimshaw and her +dilemma on a schooner in mid-Pacific, when the +captain, a gentle ancient, thinking that the dark +women were having it all their own way, offered +to embrace Miss Grimshaw, finding in return a +gun pointing at his middle, filling him with +quaint surprise that anyone could possibly offer +violence in defence of a soul in so delightful a +climate.</p> +<p>“After which and a rum cocktail, I said: +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_281' name='page_281'></a>281</span> +‘Lavina, did you see much of M’sieur Somerset +Maugham when he was here?’</p> +<p>“‘It is the man who writes?’ she inquired +lazily.</p> +<p>“‘It is,’ I returned.</p> +<p>“‘It is the <i>beau garçon-ta-ta, neneenha roa?</i>’ +she suggested.</p> +<p>“‘Probably not,’ I said; ‘I suspect you are +thinking, as usual, of Rupert Brooke. M’sieur +Maugham may be regarded as <i>beau</i>, but he is not +an elderly waiter of forty-seven, therefore we may +not call him a <i>garçon</i>.’</p> +<p>“‘It is,’ Lavina admitted; ‘that I am thinking +of M’sieur Rupert, he is the <i>beau garçon</i>.’</p> +<p>“‘But,’ I said, ‘I want to know what you +thought of M’sieur Somerset Maugham?’</p> +<p>“Once started on Rupert Brooke, and Lavina +would go on for the afternoon!</p> +<p>“‘I respect M’sieur Morn,’ said Lavina.</p> +<p>“‘Oh!’ thought I; ‘if she respects him, then +I’m not going to get much.’</p> +<p>“‘His French is not mixed,’ she continued, referring +to Maugham’s Parisian accent; ‘I speak +much with him, and he listen, with but a small +question here, and one there. It is the pure +French from Paris, as M’sieur <i>le Governeur</i> speak, +who is the pig. But when he speak much, then +it is like the coral which breaks.’</p> +<p>“Lavina now wandered off permanently; it was +impossible to bring her back. Her image of the +brittle coral branches was a mild personality directed +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_282' name='page_282'></a>282</span> +at Maugham’s stutter, which seldom escapes +the most sophisticated observer. For those +who interview him always find well cut suitings, +clean collars and the stutter, and very little else +that they can lay hold of with any degree of +honesty. Which only goes to prove my own +opinion that Maugham, as an observer, refuses +to have his own vision clogged by prying eyes at +himself.</p> +<p>“I expect that if my French had been better, +I might have got some information about +Maugham in Tahiti from the bland and badly +built French officials who lurk in the official club +near the Pomare Palace. I was reduced, in my +rather casual investigation, to questioning natives +and schooner captains. Once I felt confident of +gaining a picture, I asked Titi of Taunoa. (Titi +is the lady who figures a trifle disgracefully in +Gauguin’s <i>Noanoa</i>, the woman he found boring +after a few weeks, her French blood being insufficiently +exotic to his spirit.)</p> +<p>“Said Titi: ‘M’sieur Morn? Yes, him I know; +he speak good French, and take the door down +from the <i>fare</i> on which is the picture done by +Gauguin of the lady whose legs are like thin +pillows and her arms like fat ropes, very what +you call strained, and funny.’</p> +<p>“After which her remarks centred around a +lover of her sister, who had just died at the age +of seventy, and Titi considered that the denouement +made by Manu, the sister, was uncalled for +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_283' name='page_283'></a>283</span> +at the death bed, since the true and faithful wife +stood there surrounded by nine children, all safely +born the right side of the sheet. She did mention +that the removal of the door from the <i>fare</i> caused +the wind to enter. And although I often made +inquiries, I never gained much information. +Tahiti, as a whole, seemed unaware of Maugham’s +visit.</p> +<p>“They may have adored him; but I suspect he +was a quiet joy, the kind native Tahiti soon forgets, +certainly not the kind of joy she embodies +in her national songs and <i>himines</i>. Such are the +merry drunkards, inefficient though earnest white +hulahula dancers and the plain (more than everyday) +sinners who cut up rough with wild jagged +edges and cruel tearings.</p> +<p>“His occasional appearance at the French club +would raise his status, removing any light touches +with his junketings, perhaps turning them into +dignified ceremonies. Which, for the Tahitian, +approaches the end. The Tahitian never quite +understands the white man who consorts with the +French officials, although many do. ‘For are not +these men of Farane,’ says the native, ‘like the +hen that talks without feathers?’—whatever that +may mean, but it suggests at once the talkative +Frenchman denuding himself on hot evenings, +and wearing but the native <i>pareu</i> to hide portions +of his bad figure.</p> +<p>“But although, in some ways, Maugham hid +himself from the natives and pleasant half-castes, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_284' name='page_284'></a>284</span> +he saw them all right, and clearly, since the closing +pages of the <i>The Moon and Sixpence</i> display +a magical picture of that portion of Tahiti he +found time to explore.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iv</p> +</div> + +<p>Mr. Maugham now offers us <i>On a Chinese +Screen</i>, sketches of Chinese life, and <i>East of Suez</i>, +his new play.</p> +<p>There are fifty-eight sketches in <i>On a Chinese +Screen</i>, portraits including European residents in +China as well as native types. Here is a sample +of the book, the little descriptive study with which +it closes, entitled “A Libation to the Gods”:</p> +<p>“She was an old woman, and her face was +wizened and deeply lined. In her grey hair three +long silver knives formed a fantastic headgear. +Her dress of faded blue consisted of a long jacket, +worn and patched, and a pair of trousers that +reached a little below her calves. Her feet were +bare, but on one ankle she wore a silver bangle. +It was plain that she was very poor. She was +not stout but squarely built and in her prime she +must have done without effort the heavy work in +which her life had been spent. She walked +leisurely, with the sedate tread of an elderly +woman, and she carried on her arm a basket. She +came down to the harbour; it was crowded with +painted junks; her eyes rested for a moment curiously +on a man who stood on a narrow bamboo +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_285' name='page_285'></a>285</span> +raft, fishing with cormorants; and then she set +about her business. She put down her basket on +the stones of the quay, at the water’s edge, and +took from it a red candle. This she lit and fixed +in a chink of the stones. Then she took several +joss-sticks, held each of them for a moment in +the flame of the candle and set them up around +it. She took three tiny bowls and filled them +with a liquid that she had brought with her in a +bottle and placed them neatly in a row. Then +from her basket she took rolls of paper cash and +paper ‘shoes’ and unravelled them, so that they +should burn easily. She made a little bonfire, +and when it was well alight she took the three +bowls and poured out some of their contents before +the smouldering joss-sticks. She bowed herself +three times and muttered certain words. She +stirred the burning paper so that the flames burned +brightly. Then she emptied the bowls on the +stones and again bowed three times. No one took +the smallest notice of her. She took a few more +paper cash from her basket and flung them in the +fire. Then, without further ado, she took up her +basket, and with the same leisurely, rather heavy +tread, walked away. The gods were duly propitiated, +and like an old peasant woman in +France, who has satisfactorily done her day’s +housekeeping, she went about her business.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_286' name='page_286'></a>286</span></p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>v</p> +</div> + +<p>W. Somerset Maugham was born in 1874, the +son of Robert Ormond Maugham. He married +Syrie, daughter of the late Dr. Barnardo. Mr. +Maugham has a daughter. His education was +got at King’s School, Canterbury, at Heidelberg +University and at St. Thomas’s Hospital, London.</p> +<p>Mr. Maugham’s father was a comparatively +prominent solicitor, responsible for the foundation +of the Incorporated Society of Solicitors in +England. Somerset Maugham, after studying +medicine at Heidelberg, went to St. Thomas’s, in +the section of London known as Lambeth. He +obtained his medical degree there. St. Thomas’s +just across the river from Westminster proved +his medical ruin, and his literary birth. The +hospital is situated on the border of the slum areas +of South London where much that is hopeless, +terrible, and wildly cheerful can be found. Persons +are not wanting who hold that the slums of +Battersea and Lambeth contain more misery and +poverty than Limehouse, Whitechapel and the +dark forest surrounding the Commercial Road +combined. To St. Thomas’s daily comes a procession +of battered derelicts, seeking attention +from the young men in white tunics who hope to +be doctors on their own account some day. To +St. Thomas’s came Eliza of Lambeth, came Liza’s +mother, came Jim and Tom. Here is the genesis +of Maugham’s first serious work, <i>Liza of Lambeth</i>. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_287' name='page_287'></a>287</span></p> +<p>It will be simpler and less confusing to deal +with Somerset Maugham in the first instance as a +maker of books rather than as a playwright. One +cannot help believing that, while not one of his +plays can be regarded as a pot boiler, they yet but +seldom display that fervent purpose found in his +books. Yet in his plays, one finds a greater attention +to conventional technique and “form” +than one finds in books like <i>Of Human Bondage</i> +and <i>The Moon and Sixpence</i>.</p> +<p>The first book launched by Somerset Maugham, +<i>Liza of Lambeth</i>, could hardly have been, considering +its slight dimensions, a clearer indication of +the line he was to follow. It came out at a time +when Gissing was still in favour, and the odour +of mean streets was accepted as synonymous with +literary honesty and courage. There is certainly +no lack of either about this idyll of Elizabeth +Kemp of the lissome limbs and auburn hair. The +story pursues its way, and one sees the soul of a +woman shining clearly through the racy dialect +and frolics of the Chingford beano, the rueful +futility of faithful Thomas and the engaging +callousness of Liza’s mother.</p> +<p>Somerset Maugham’s next study in female portraiture +showed how far he could travel towards +perfection. <i>Mrs. Craddock</i>, which is often called +his best book, is a sex satire punctuated by four +curtains, two of comedy and two of tragedy. This +mixture of opposites should have been enough to +damn it in the eyes of a public intent upon classifying +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_288' name='page_288'></a>288</span> +everything by means of labels and of +making everything so classified stick to its label +like grim death. Yet the unclassified may flourish, +and does, when its merit is beyond dispute. +<i>Mrs. Craddock</i> appeared fully a decade before its +time, when Victorian influences were still alive, +and the modern idea for well to do women to have +something to justify their existence was still in +the nature of a novelty. Even in the fuller light +of experience, Maugham could hardly have bettered +his study of an impulsive and exigent +woman, rising at the outset to the height of a bold +and womanly choice in defiance of social prejudice +and family tradition, and then relapsing under +the disillusions of marriage into the weakest failings +of her class, rising again, from a self-torturing +neurotic into a kind of Niobe at the death of +her baby.</p> +<p>The ironic key of the book is at its best, in the +passage half way through—</p> +<p>“Mr. Craddock’s principles, of course, were +quite right; he had given her plenty of run and +ignored her cackle, and now she had come home +to roost. There is nothing like a knowledge of +farming, and an acquaintance with the habits of +domestic animals, to teach a man how to manage +his wife.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>vi</p> +</div> + +<p>As a playwright Mr. Maugham is quite as well +known as he is for his novels. The author of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_289' name='page_289'></a>289</span> +<i>Lady Frederick</i>, <i>Mrs. Dot</i>, and <i>Caroline</i>—the +creator of Lord Porteous and Lady Kitty in <i>The +Circle</i>—writes his plays because it amuses him to +do so and because they supply him with an excellent +income. Here is a good story:</p> +<p>It seems that Maugham had peddled his first +play, <i>Lady Frederick</i>, to the offices of seventeen +well-known London managers, until it came to +rest in the Archives of the Court Theatre. The +Court Theatre, standing in Sloane Square near +the Tube station, is definitely outside the London +theatre area, but as the scene of productions by +the Stage Society, it is kept in the running. However, +it might conceivably be the last port of call +for a worn manuscript.</p> +<p>It so happened that Athole Stewart, the manager +of the Court Theatre, found himself needing +a play very badly during one season. The theatre +had to be kept open and there was nothing +to keep it open with. From a dingy pile of play +manuscripts he chose <i>Lady Frederick</i>. He had no +hopes of its success—or so it is said—but the +success materialised. At the anniversary of <i>Lady +Frederick</i> in London, Maugham thought of asking +to dinner the seventeen managers who rejected +the play, but realising that no man enjoyed +being reminded of a lost opportunity he decided +to forgo the pleasure.</p> +<p>The circumstances in which <i>Caroline</i> was written +give an interesting reflex on Maugham as an +artist. This delicious comedy was put on paper +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_290' name='page_290'></a>290</span> +while Maugham was acting as British agent in +Switzerland during the war. Some of its more +amusing lines were written in some haste while +a spy (of uncertain intentions toward Maugham) +stood outside in the snow.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>vii</p> +</div> + +<p>Someone, probably the gifted Hector MacQuarrie, +whom I fear I have guiltily been quoting +in almost every sentence of this chapter, has said +that Maugham writes “transcripts, not of life as +a tolerable whole, but of phases which suit his +arbitrary treatment.” It is an enlightening comment.</p> +<p>But Maugham himself is the keenest appraiser +of his own intentions in his work, as when he +spoke of the stories in his book, <i>The Trembling +of a Leaf</i>, as not short stories, but “a study of the +effect of the Islands of the Pacific on the white +man.”</p> +<p>The man never stays still. When you think +the time is ripe for him triumphally to tour America—when +<i>The Moon and Sixpence</i> has attracted +the widest attention—he insists on going immediately +to China. This may be because, though +well set up, black-eyed, broad-framed and excessively +handsome in evening clothes, he is rather +diffident. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_291' name='page_291'></a>291</span></p> +<hr class='minor' /> + +<div class='ce'> +<p><i>Books</i></p> +<p>by W. Somerset Maugham</p> +</div> + +<div class='la'> +<p style=' margin-top:1.5em;'><i>Novels</i>:</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>LIZA OF LAMBETH</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE MAKING OF A SAINT</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>ORIENTATIONS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE HERO</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>MRS. CRADDOCK</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE MERRY-GO-ROUND</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE LAND OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE BISHOP’S APRON</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE EXPLORER</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE MAGICIAN</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>OF HUMAN BONDAGE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE MOON AND SIXPENCE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>ON A CHINESE SCREEN</p> +<div style='margin-top:1em'></div> +<p>Plays:</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>SCHIFFBRÜCHIG</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>A MAN OF HONOUR</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>LADY FREDERICK</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>JACK STRAW</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>MRS. DOT</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE EXPLORER</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>PENELOPE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>SMITH</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE TENTH MAN</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>GRACE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>LOAVES AND FISHES</p> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_292' name='page_292'></a>292</span> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE LAND OF PROMISE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>CAROLINE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>LOVE IN A COTTAGE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>CAESAR’S WIFE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>HOME AND BEAUTY</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE UNKNOWN</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>THE CIRCLE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em; margin-left:2em;'>EAST OF SUEZ</p> +</div> + +<hr class='minor' /> + +<div class='ce'> +<p><i>Sources</i></p> +<p style=' margin-bottom:1.5em;'>on W. Somerset Maugham</p> +</div> + +<div class='la'> +<p><i>Who’s Who</i> [In England].</p> +<div style='margin-top:1em'></div> +<p><i>Somerset Maugham in Tahiti:</i> Hitherto unpublished article by</p> +<p>Hector MacQuarrie.</p> +<div style='margin-top:1em'></div> +<p>THE BOOKMAN (London).</p> +<div style='margin-top:1em'></div> +<p>Private information.</p> +</div> + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='XVIII_BOOKS_WE_LIVE_BY' id='XVIII_BOOKS_WE_LIVE_BY'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_293' name='page_293'></a>293</span> +<h2><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Chapter XVIII</span></h2> +<h3>BOOKS WE LIVE BY</h3> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>i</p> +</div> + +<p><i>The Parallel New Testament</i> is by Dr. +James Moffatt, whose <i>New Translation +of the New Testament</i> has excited such wide admiration +and praise. <i>The Parallel New Testament</i> +presents the Authorised Version and Professor +Moffatt’s translation in parallel columns, +together with a brief introduction to the New +Testament.</p> +<p>I suppose there is no sense in my expending +adjectives in praise of Dr. Moffatt’s translation +of the New Testament. I could do so very easily. +But what I think would be more effective would +be to ask you to take a copy of the Authorised +Version and read in it some such passage as Luke, +24th chapter, 13th verse, to the close of the chapter +and then—and not before!—read the same +account from Dr. Moffatt’s <i>New Translation</i>, as +follows:</p> +<p>“That very day two of them were on their way +to a village called Emmaus about seven miles +from Jerusalem. They were conversing about all +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_294' name='page_294'></a>294</span> +these events, and during their conversation and +discussion Jesus himself approached and walked +beside them, though they were prevented from +recognising him. He said to them, ‘What is all +this you are debating on your walk?’ They +stopped, looking downcast, and one of them, +called Cleopas, answered him, ‘Are you a lone +stranger in Jerusalem, not to know what has been +happening there?’ ‘What is that?’ he said to +them. They replied, ‘All about Jesus of Nazaret! +To God and all the people he was a prophet strong +in action and utterance, but the high priests and +our rulers delivered him up to be sentenced to +death and crucified him. Our own hope was that +he would be the redeemer of Israel; but he is dead +and that is three days ago! Though some women +of our number gave us a surprise; they were at +the tomb early in the morning and could not find +his body, but they came to tell us they had +actually seen a vision of angels who declared he +was alive. Some of our company did go to the +tomb and found things exactly as the women had +said, but they did not see him.’ He said to them, +‘Oh, foolish men, with hearts so slow to believe, +after all the prophets have declared! Had not +the Christ to suffer thus and so enter his glory?’ +Then he began with Moses and all the prophets +and interpreted to them the passages referring to +himself throughout the scriptures. Now they approached +the village to which they were going. +He pretended to be going further on, but they +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_295' name='page_295'></a>295</span> +pressed him, saying ‘Stay with us, for it is getting +towards evening and the day has now declined.’ +So he went in to stay with them. And as he lay +at the table with them he took the loaf, blessed it, +broke it and handed it to them. Then their eyes +were opened and they recognised him, but he vanished +from their sight. And they said to one another, +‘Did not our hearts glow within us when +he was talking to us on the road, opening up the +scriptures for us?’ So they got up and returned +that very hour to Jerusalem, where they found +the eleven and their friends all gathered, who +told them that the Lord had really risen and that +he had appeared to Simon. Then they related +their own experience on the road and how they +had recognised him when he broke the loaf. Just +as they were speaking He stood among them [and +said to them, ‘Peace to you!’]. They were scared +and terrified, imagining it was a ghost they saw; +but he said to them, ‘Why are you upset? Why +do doubts invade your mind? Look at my hands +and feet. It is I! Feel me and see; a ghost has +not flesh and bones as you see I have.’ [With +these words he showed them his hands and feet.] +Even yet they could not believe it for sheer joy; +they were lost in wonder. So he said to them, +‘Have you any food here?’ And when they +handed him a piece of broiled fish, he took and +ate it in their presence. Then he said to them, +‘When I was still with you, this is what I told +you, that whatever is written about me in the law +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_296' name='page_296'></a>296</span> +of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be +fulfilled.’ Then he opened their minds to understand +the scriptures. ‘Thus,’ he said, ‘it is written +that the Christ has to suffer and rise from the +dead on the third day and that repentance and +the remission of sins must be preached in his name +to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. To +this you must bear testimony. And I will send +down on you what my Father has promised; wait +in the city till you are endued with power from +on high.’ He led them out as far as Bethany; +then, lifting his hands, he blessed them. And as +he blessed them, he parted from them [and was +carried up to heaven]. They [worshipped him +and] returned with great joy to Jerusalem, where +they spent all their time within the temple, blessing +God.”</p> +<p>I am particularly glad to say that Dr. Moffatt +is at work now on a <i>New Translation of the Old +Testament</i>. No man living is fitter for this tremendously +important and tremendously difficult +task than James Moffatt. Born in Glasgow in +1870, Dr. Moffatt has been Professor of Church +History there since 1915. Of his many published +studies in Bible literature, I now speak +only of <i>The Approach to the New Testament</i>, +which he modestly describes as “a brief statement +of the general situation created by historical criticism,” +aiming to “bring out the positive value of +the New Testament literature for the world of +today as a source of guidance in social reconstruction, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_297' name='page_297'></a>297</span> +so that readers might be enabled to recover +or retain a sense of its lasting significance for personal +faith and social ideals.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p>With Alfred Dwight Sheffield’s <i>Joining in +Public Discussion</i> was begun publication of a +unique collection of books suitable alike for general +reading and for use in trade union colleges. +This is the Workers’ Bookshelf Series. These +books, in many instances, are being written by +the chief authorities on their subjects—men who +have dealt exhaustively with their specialties in +two and three-volume treatises, and who now +bring their great knowledge to a sharp focus and +a simple, condensed statement in small but wholly +authoritative new books.</p> +<p>The work of preparing these little masterpieces +has been undertaken by an editorial board chosen +with the aid of the Workers’ Education Bureau +of America. The board consists of Charles A. +Beard, Miss Fannia Cohn, H. W. L. Dana, John +P. Frey, Arthur Gleason, Everitt Dean Martin, +Spencer Miller, Jr., George W. Perkins and +Robert Wolf.</p> +<p>Trade union colleges now exist all over the +United States, training armies of workers. The +lack of suitable texts for use in these colleges has +been a serious obstacle to the training they desire +to give. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_298' name='page_298'></a>298</span></p> +<p>This obstacle the Workers’ Bookshelf overcomes. +The books that compose it will each be +distinguished for (a) scholarship, (b) a scientific +attitude toward facts, and (c) simplicity of style.</p> +<p>Each volume is beginning as a class outline and +will receive the benefit of every suggestion, and +criticism through its gradual growth into the +written book.</p> +<p>Each book will be brief. Its references will +help the reader to more detailed sources of information.</p> +<p>By binding the books in paper as well as in +cloth, the volumes will be brought within the +reach of all.</p> +<p>The Workers’ Bookshelf will contain no volumes +on vocational guidance, nor any books which +give “short cuts” to moneymaking success.</p> +<p>The series will not be limited to any set number +of volumes nor to any programme of subjects. +Art, literature and the natural sciences, as well +as the social sciences, will be dealt with. New +titles will be added as the demand for treatment +of a topic becomes apparent.</p> +<p>The first use of these books will be as texts to +educate workers; the intermediate use of the +books will be as the nucleus of workingmen’s +libraries, collective and personal, and the last use +of the Workers’ Bookshelf will be to instruct and +delight all readers of serious books everywhere.</p> +<p>In our modern industrial society, knowledge—things +to know—increases much more rapidly than +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_299' name='page_299'></a>299</span> +our understanding. The worker finds it increasingly +difficult to comprehend the world he has +done most to create. The education of the worker +consists in showing him in a simple fashion the +interrelations of that world and all its aspects +as they are turned toward him. On the education +of the worker depends the future of industrialism, +and, indeed, of all human society.</p> +<p>The author of <i>Joining in Public Discussion</i> is +professor of rhetoric in Wellesley College and +instructor in the Boston Trade Union College. +His book “is a study of effective speechmaking, +for members of labour unions, conferences, forums +and other discussion groups.” The first section +is upon “Qualifying Oneself to Contribute” to +any discussion and the second section is upon +“Making the Discussion Group Co-operate.” A +brief introduction explains “What Discussion +Aims to Do.”</p> +<p>The following titles of the Workers’ Bookshelf +are in preparation:</p> +<p><i>Trade Union Policy</i>, by Dr. Leo Wolman, +lecturer at the New School for Social Research +and instructor in the Workers’ University of +the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ +Union.</p> +<p><i>Women and the Labor Movement</i>, by Alice +Henry, editor of Life and Labour, director of +the Training School for Women Workers in +Industry.</p> +<p><i>Labor and Health</i>, by Dr. Emery Hayhurst of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_300' name='page_300'></a>300</span> +Ohio State University, author of “Industrial +Health Hazards and Occupational Diseases.”</p> +<p><i>Social Forces in Literature</i>, by Dr. H. W. L. +Dana, formerly teacher of comparative literature +at Columbia, now instructor at Boston Trade +Union College.</p> +<p><i>The Creative Spirit in Industry</i>, by Robert B. +Wolf, vice-president of the American Society of +Mechanical Engineers, member of the Federated +American Engineering Society.</p> +<p><i>Cooperative Movement</i>, by Dr. James B. +Warbasse, president of the Cooperative League +of America and instructor at the Workers’ University.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iii</p> +</div> + +<p>Side by side in Esme Wingfield-Stratford’s +<i>Facing Reality</i> are chapters with these titles: +“Thinking in a Passion” and “Mental Inertia.” +Those chapter titles seem to me to signify the +chief dangers confronting the world today—perhaps +confronting the world in any day—and the +main reasons why we do not face reality as we +should. I regard <i>Facing Reality</i> as an important +book and I am not alone in so regarding it. What +do we mean by reality? The answer is explicit in +a sentence in Mr. Wingfield-Stratford’s introduction, +where he says:</p> +<p>“But if we are to get right with reality or, in +the time-honoured evangelical phrase, with God, +it must be by a ruthless determination to get the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_301' name='page_301'></a>301</span> +truth in religion, even if we have to break down +Church walls to attain it.”</p> +<p>Then the author proceeds to assess the social +and ethical conditions which threaten the world +with spiritual bankruptcy. As he says:</p> +<p>“Whether Germany can be fleeced of a yearly +contribution, of doubtful advantage to the receiver, +for forty years or sixty, what particular +economic laws decree that Poles should be governed +by Germans or vice-versa, whose honour or +profit demands the possession of the town of +Fiume or the district of Tetschen or the Island of +Yap, why all the horses and men of the Entente +are necessary to compel the Port of Dantzig to +become a free city, what particular delicacy of +national honour requires that the impartial distribution +of colonies should be interpreted as +meaning the appropriation of the whole of them +by the victors—all these things are held by universal +consent to be more urgent and interesting +than the desperate necessity that confronts us +all.”</p> +<p>And yet, for some, reality is not immanent in +the affairs of this world but only in those of the +next. Among the men who, with Sir Oliver +Lodge, have gone most deeply and earnestly into +the whole subject we call “spiritualism,” Sir +Arthur Conan Doyle is now the most widely +known as he has always been the most persuasive. +The overflowing crowds which came out to hear +him lecture on psychic evidences during his recent +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_302' name='page_302'></a>302</span> +tour of America testify to the unquenchable hope +of mankind in a life beyond ours. Sir Arthur +has written three books on this subject closest to +his heart. <i>The New Revelation</i> and <i>The Vital +Message</i> are both short books presenting the general +case for spiritualists; <i>The Wanderings of a +Spiritualist</i>, the result of a lecture tour in India +and Australia, commingles incidents of travel +with discussions of psychic phenomena. I believe +Sir Arthur has in preparation a more extensive +work, probably to be published under the title +<i>Spiritualism and Rationalism</i>.</p> +<p>In recent years there has been something like a +consensus honouring Havelock Ellis as the ablest +living authority on the subject of sex; or perhaps +I should say that Mr. Ellis and his wife are the +most competent writers on this difficult and delicate +subject, so beset by fraudulent theories and +so much written upon by charlatans. Let me +recommend to you Havelock Ellis’s slender book, +<i>Little Essays of Love and Virtue</i>, for a sane, attractive +and, at the same time, authoritative +handling of sex problems.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iv</p> +</div> + +<p><i>Little Essays of Love and Virtue</i>, however, is, +after all, only upon a special subject, even though +of extreme importance. There are others among +the books we live by which I must speak of here. +It is tiresome to point out that we are all +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_303' name='page_303'></a>303</span> +self-made men or women, consciously or unconsciously, +in the sense that if we gain control of our habits, +to a very large extent we acquire control of our +lives. If, in <i>Some Things That Matter</i> Lord +Riddell did no more than point out this old truth, +his book would not be worth mentioning. What +makes it so well worth mentioning, so much more +deserving of discussion than any I can enter upon +here, is the fact that Lord Riddell tells how to +observe, how to read, and how to think—or perhaps +I should say how to develop the habit of +thought. I think, so able are his instructions, so +pointed and so susceptible of carrying out by any +reader, that his book would carry due weight even +if it were anonymous. But for those who want +assurance that the author of <i>Some Things That +Matter</i> is himself somebody who matters, let me +point out that he is one of the largest newspaper +proprietors in the world, a man whose grasp on +affairs has twice placed him at the head of news +service for two continents—once at the Peace +Conference in Paris and afterward at the Disarmament +Conference in Washington.</p> +<p><i>Some Things That Matter</i> is the best book of +its kind since Arnold Bennett’s <i>How to Live on +Twenty-four Hours a Day</i>, a little book of trenchant +advice to which it is a pleasure again to call +attention. Of all Mr. Bennett’s pocket philosophies—<i>Self +and Self-Management</i>, <i>Friendship +and Happiness</i>, <i>The Human Machine</i>, <i>Mental +Efficiency</i> and <i>Married Life</i>—<i>How to Live on</i> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_304' name='page_304'></a>304</span> +<i>Twenty-four Hours a Day</i> is easily of the greatest +service to the greatest number of people.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>v</p> +</div> + +<p>I read Dr. George L. Perin’s <i>Self-Healing +Simplified</i> in manuscript and enthusiastically +recommended its acceptance for publication. Dr. +Perin was the founder of the Franklin Square +House for Girls in Boston, a home-hotel from +which 70,000 girls, most of whom Dr. Perin knew +personally, have gone forth all over these United +States. His death at the end of 1921 was felt +by thousands of people as a personal loss. He +left, in the manuscript of this book, the best and +simplest volume I know of on what is generally +called autosuggestion. And I have examined a +great many books of the sort.</p> +<p>Discarding all extreme claims, Dr. Perin says +in the first place that the mind can heal; that it +may not be able to heal alone; that obviously no +form of healing can be successful without a +favourable mental state; that the favourable +mental state can usually be acquired by the sincere +and conscious effort of the sufferer. This +effort should take the form of certain affirmations.</p> +<p>It is at this point that the ordinary book on +autosuggestion breaks down—so far as any practical +usefulness is concerned. Either it degenerates +into a purely technical treatise or it becomes +lost in a mysticism which is to the average +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_305' name='page_305'></a>305</span> +reader incomprehensible. What has long been +needed has been a book like <i>Self-Healing Simplified</i>, +readable by the ordinary person who has his +own troubles to contend with and who knows not +how to contend with them; who is willing to believe +that he can do his part by cheerful resolutions +and faith toward getting well, but who has +no idea what to do.</p> +<p>Dr. Perin tells him <i>what</i> to do, <i>what</i> to say, +<i>what</i> to think and how to order his daily life. +Actually Dr. Perin does much more than this; his +own confidence and personal success inspire confidence +and give the impulsion toward one’s own +personal success. However, excellent as the book +might be, it would be worthless if it were not +clearly and simply expressed. It is. I remember +no book of the kind so direct and so lucid.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>vi</p> +</div> + +<p>It is a pleasure to feel that his new book, <i>Poets +and Puritans</i>, introduces T. R. Glover to a wider +audience. The author of <i>The Pilgrim</i>, <i>Essays on +Religion</i>, <i>The Nature and Purpose of a Christian +Society</i>, <i>Jesus in the Experience of Man</i> and <i>The +Jesus of History</i> is a scholar and somewhat of a +recluse whom one finds after much groping about +dim halls at Cambridge. A highly individual +personality! It is this personality, though, that +makes the fascination of <i>Poets and Pilgrims</i>—a +volume of studies in which the subjects are +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_306' name='page_306'></a>306</span> +Spenser, Milton, Evelyn, Bunyan, Boswell, +Crabbe, Wordsworth and Carlyle. Mr. Glover +notes at the foot of the table of contents: “An +acute young critic, who saw some of the proofs, +has asked me, with a hint of irony, whether +Evelyn and Boswell were Puritans or Poets. Any +reader who has a conscience about the matter must +omit these essays.” There you have the flavour of +the man! It is expressed further in the short +preface of <i>Poets and Puritans</i>:—</p> +<p>“Wandering among books and enjoying them, +I find in a certain sense that, the more I enjoy +them, the harder becomes the task of criticism, +the less sure one’s faith in critical canons, and the +fewer the canons themselves. Of one thing, +though, I grow more and more sure—that the real +business of the critic is to find out what is right +with a great work of art—book, song, statue, or +picture—not what is wrong. Plenty of things +may be wrong, but it is what is right that really +counts. If the critic’s work is to be worth while, +it is the great element in the thing that he has to +seek and to find—to learn what it is that makes +it live and gives it its appeal, so that, as Montaigne +said about Plutarch, men ‘cannot do without’ +it; why it is that in a world, where everything +that can be ‘scrapped’ is ‘scrapped,’ is +thrown aside and forgotten, this thing, this book +or picture, refuses to be ignored, but captures and +charms men generations after its maker has passed +away. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_307' name='page_307'></a>307</span></p> +<p>“With such a quest a man must not be in a +hurry, and he does best to linger in company with +the great men whose work he wishes to understand, +and to postpone criticism to intimacy. This +book comes in the end to be a record of personal +acquaintances and of enjoyment. But one is +never done with knowing the greatest men or the +greatest works of art—they carry you on and on, +and at the last you feel you are only beginning. +That is my experience. I would not say that I +know these men, of whom I have written, thoroughly—a +man of sense would hardly say that, +but I can say that I have enjoyed my work, and +that, whatever other people may find it, to me it +has been a delight and an illumination.”</p> +<p>Another welcome book is E. V. Lucas’s <i>Giving +and Receiving</i>, a new volume of essays. Since +the appearance of <i>Roving East and Roving West</i>, +Mr. Lucas has been looking back at America from +London with its fogs and (yes!) its sunshine. The +audience for his new book will include not only +those readers he has had for such volumes in the +past but all those personal friends that he made +in a visit that took him from California to the +Battery.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='XIX_ROBERT_W_CHAMBERS_AND_THE_WHOLE_TRUTH' id='XIX_ROBERT_W_CHAMBERS_AND_THE_WHOLE_TRUTH'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_308' name='page_308'></a>308</span> +<h2><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Chapter XIX</span></h2> +<h3>ROBERT W. CHAMBERS AND THE WHOLE TRUTH</h3> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>i</p> +</div> + +<p>Once a man came to Robert W. Chambers +and said words to this effect:</p> +<p>“You had a great gift as a literary artist and +you spoiled it. For some reason or other, I don’t +know what, but I suppose there was more money +in the other thing, you wrote down to a big audience. +Don’t you think, yourself, that your earlier +work—those stories of Paris and those novels of +the American revolution—had something that you +have sacrificed in your novels of our modern +day?”</p> +<p>Mr. Chambers listened politely and attentively. +When the man had finished, Chambers said to +him words to this effect:</p> +<p>“You are mistaken. I have heard such talk. I +am not to blame if some people entertain a false +impression. I have sacrificed nothing, neither for +money nor popularity nor anything else.</p> +<p>“Sir, I am a story-teller. I have no other gift. +Those who imagine that they have seen in my +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_309' name='page_309'></a>309</span> +earlier work some quality of literary distinction +or some unrealised possibility as an artist missing +from my later work, are wrong.</p> +<p>“They have read into those stories their own +satisfaction in them and their first delight. I was +new, then. In their pleasure, such as it was, they +imagined the arrival of someone whom they styled +a great literary artist. They imagined it all; it +was not I.</p> +<p>“A story-teller I began, and a story-teller I remain. +I do pride myself on being a good story-teller; +if the verdict were overwhelmingly against +me as a good story-teller that would cast me down. +I have no reason to believe that the verdict is +against me.</p> +<p>“And that is the ground I myself have stood +upon. I am not responsible for the delusion of +those who put me on some other, unearthly pinnacle, +only to realise, as the years went by, that I +was not there at all. But they can find me now +where they first found me—where I rather suspect +they found me first with unalloyed delight.”</p> +<p>This does not pretend to be an actual transcription +of the conversation between Mr. Chambers +and his visitor. I asked Mr. Chambers recently +if he recalled this interview. He said at this date +he did not distinctly recollect it and he added:</p> +<p>“Probably I said what is true, that I write the +sort of stories which at the moment it amuses me +to write; I trust to luck that it may also amuse +the public. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_310' name='page_310'></a>310</span></p> +<p>“If a writer makes a hit with a story the public +wants him to continue that sort of story. It does +not like to follow the moods of a writer from gay +to frivolous, from serious to grave, but I have +always liked to change, to experiment—just as I +used to like to change my medium in painting, +aquarelle, oil, charcoal, wash, etc.</p> +<p>“Unless I had a good time writing I’d do something +else. I suit myself first of all in choice +of subject and treatment, and leave the rest to +the gods.”</p> +<p>As a human creature Chambers is strikingly +versatile. It must always be remembered that +he started life as a painter. There is a story that +Charles Dana Gibson and Robert W. Chambers +sent their first offerings to Life at the same time. +Mr. Chambers sent a picture and Mr. Gibson sent +a bit of writing. Mr. Gibson’s offering was accepted +and Robert W. Chambers received a +rejection slip.</p> +<p>Not only was he a painter but Chambers has +preserved his interest in art, and is a welcome +visitor in the offices of curators and directors of +museums because he is one of the few who can +talk intelligently about paintings.</p> +<p>He knows enough about Chinese and Japanese +antiques to enable him to detect forgeries. He +knows more about armour than anyone, perhaps, +except the man who made the marvellous collection +of mediæval armour for the Metropolitan +Museum of Art, New York. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_311' name='page_311'></a>311</span></p> +<p>One of his varieties of knowledge, observable +by any reader of his novels, is lepidoptery—the +science of butterflies. He collects butterflies with +exceeding ardour. But then, he is a good deal of +an outdoor man. He knows horses and books; +he has been known to hunt; he has been seen with +a fishing rod in his hand.</p> +<p>His knowledge of out-of-the-way places in different +parts of the world—Paris, Petrograd—is +not usual.</p> +<p>Will you believe me if I add that he is something +of an expert on rare rugs?</p> +<p>Of course, I am, to some extent, taking Rupert +Hughes’s word for these accomplishments; and +yet they are visible in the written work of Robert +W. Chambers where, as a rule, they appear without +extrusion.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p>And here is the newest Robert W. Chambers +novel, <i>Eris</i>. Mr. Chambers’s <i>The Flaming +Jewel</i>, a melodrama of the maddest character, +was published last spring. <i>Eris</i> is really a story +of the movie world, and reaches its most definite +conclusion, possibly, in a passage where the hero +says to Eris Odell:</p> +<p>“Whether they are financing a picture, directing +it, releasing it, exhibiting it, or acting in it, +these vermin are likely to do it to death. Your +profession is crawling with them. It needs delousing.”</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_312' name='page_312'></a>312</span></div> +<p>But I am not really anxious, in this chapter, to +discuss the justice or injustice of the view of +motion pictures thus forcibly presented. I have +read <i>Eris</i> with an interest sharpened by the fact +that its hero is a writer. I seem to see in what is +said about and by Barry Annan expressions of +Mr. Chambers’s own attitude of more than casual +importance.</p> +<p>Barry Annan is obsessed with the stupidity of +the American mass and more particularly with +the grossness (as he sees it) of New York City.</p> +<p>“Annan went on with his breakfast leisurely. +As he ate he read over his pencilled manuscript +and corrected it between bites of muffin and +bacon.</p> +<p>“It was laid out on the lines of those modern +short stories which had proven so popular and +which had lifted Barry Annan out of the uniform +ranks of the unidentified and given him an individual +and approving audience for whatever he +chose to offer them.</p> +<p>“Already there had been lively competition +among periodical publishers for the work of this +newcomer.</p> +<p>“His first volume of short stories was now in +preparation. Repetition had stencilled his name +and his photograph upon the public cerebrum. +Success had not yet enraged the less successful in +the literary puddle. The frogs chanted politely +in praise of their own comrade.</p> +<p>“The maiden, too, who sips the literary soup +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_313' name='page_313'></a>313</span> +that seeps through the pages of periodical publications, +was already requesting his autograph. +Clipping agencies began to pursue him; film companies +wasted his time with glittering offers that +never materialised. Annan was on the way to +premature fame and fortune. And to the aftermath +that follows for all who win too easily and +too soon.</p> +<p>“There is a King Stork for all puddles. His +law is the law of compensations. Dame Nature +executes it—alike on species that swarm and on +individuals that ripen too quickly.</p> +<p>“Annan wrote very fast. There was about +thirty-five hundred words in the story of Eris. +He finished it by half past ten.</p> +<p>“Re-reading it, he realised it had all the concentrated +brilliancy of an epigram. Whether or +not it would hold water did not bother him. The +story of Eris was Barry Annan at his easiest and +most persuasive. There was the characteristic +and ungodly skill in it, the subtle partnership with +a mindless public that seduces to mental speculation; +the reassuring caress as reward for intellectual +penetration; that inborn cleverness that +makes the reader see, applaud, or pity him or herself +in the sympathetic rôle of a plaything of +Chance and Fate.</p> +<p>“And always Barry Annan left the victim of +his tact and technique agreeably trapped, suffering +gratefully, excited by self-approval to the +verge of sentimental tears. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_314' name='page_314'></a>314</span></p> +<p>“‘That’ll make ’em ruffle their plumage and +gulp down a sob or two,’ he reflected, his tongue +in his cheek, a little intoxicated, as usual, by his +own infernal facility.</p> +<p>“He lit a cigarette, shuffled his manuscript, +numbered the pages, and stuffed them into his +pocket. The damned thing was done.”</p> +<p>And again:—</p> +<p>“Considering her, now, a half-smile touching +his lips, it occurred to him that here, in her, he +saw his audience in the flesh. This was what his +written words did to his readers. His skill held +their attention; his persuasive technique, unsuspected, +led them where he guided. His cleverness +meddled with their intellectual emotions. The +more primitive felt it physically, too.</p> +<p>“When he dismissed them at the bottom of the +last page they went away about their myriad +vocations. But his brand was on their hearts. +They were his, these countless listeners whom he +had never seen—never would see.</p> +<p>“He checked his agreeable revery. This +wouldn’t do. He was becoming smug. Reaction +brought the inevitable note of alarm. Suppose +his audience tired of him. Suppose he lost them. +Chastened, he realised what his audience meant +to him—these thousands of unknown people +whose minds he titivated, whose reason he juggled +with and whose heart-strings he yanked, his +tongue in his cheek.”</p> +<p>And this further on:— +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_315' name='page_315'></a>315</span></p> +<p>“He went into his room but did not light the +lamp. For a long while he sat by the open window +looking out into the darkness of Governor’s +Place.</p> +<p>“It probably was nothing he saw out there +that brought to his lips a slight recurrent smile.</p> +<p>“The bad habit of working late at night was +growing on this young man. It is a picturesque +habit, and one of the most imbecile, because sound +work is done only with a normal mind.</p> +<p>“He made himself some coffee. A rush of +genius to the head followed stimulation. He had +a grand time, revelling with pen and pad and +littering the floor with inked sheets unnumbered +and still wet. His was a messy genius. His plot-logic +held by the grace of God and a hair-line. +Even the Leaning Tower of Pisa can be plumbed; +and the lead dangled inside Achilles’s tendon +when one held the string to the medulla of +Annan’s stories.”</p> +<p>Our young man is undergoing a variety of interesting +changes:</p> +<p>“Partly experimental, partly sympathetically +responsive, always tenderly curious, this young +man drifted gratefully through the inevitable +episodes to which all young men are heir.</p> +<p>“And something in him always transmuted into +ultimate friendship the sentimental chaos, where +comedy and tragedy clashed at the crisis.</p> +<p>“The result was professional knowledge. +Which, however, he had employed rather ruthlessly +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_316' name='page_316'></a>316</span> +in his work. For he resolutely cut out all +that had been agreeable to the generations which +had thriven on the various phases of virtue and +its rewards. Beauty he replaced with ugliness; +dreary squalor was the setting for crippled body +and deformed mind. The heavy twilight of +Scandinavian insanity touched his pages where +sombre shapes born out of Jewish Russia moved +like anachronisms through the unpolluted sunshine +of the New World.</p> +<p>“His were essays on the enormous meanness +of mankind—meaner conditions, mean minds, +mean aspirations, and a little mean horizon to +encompass all.</p> +<p>“Out of his theme, patiently, deftly, ingeniously +he extracted every atom of that beauty, +sanity, inspired imagination which <i>makes</i> the imperfect +more perfect, creates <i>better</i> than the materials +permit, <i>forces</i> real life actually to assume +and <i>be</i> what the passionate desire for sanity and +beauty demands.”</p> +<p>There comes a time when Eris Odell says to +Barry Annan:—</p> +<p>“‘I could neither understand nor play such a +character as the woman in your last book.... +Nor could I ever believe in her.... Nor in the +ugliness of her world—the world you write about, +nor in the dreary, hopeless, malformed, starving +minds you analyse.... My God, Mr. Annan—are +there no wholesome brains in the world you +write about?’” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_317' name='page_317'></a>317</span></p> +<p>I think these citations interesting. I do not feel +especially competent to produce from them inferences +regarding Mr. Chambers’s own attitude +toward his work.</p> +<p><i>Eris</i> will be published early in 1923, following +Mr. Chambers’s <i>The Talkers</i>.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iii</p> +</div> + +<p>Mr. Chambers was born in Brooklyn, May 26, +1865, the son of William Chambers and Carolyn +(Boughton) Chambers. Walter Boughton Chambers, +the architect, is his brother. Robert William +Chambers was a student in the Julien Academy in +Paris from 1886 to 1893. He married, on July +12, 1898, Elsa Vaughn Moler. He first exhibited +in the Paris Salon in 1889; he was an illustrator +for Life, Truth, Vogue and other magazines. His +first book, <i>In the Quarter</i>, was published in 1893; +and when, in the same year, a collection of stories +of Paris called <i>The King in Yellow</i> made its appearance, +Robert W. Chambers became a name +of literary importance.</p> +<p>Curiously enough, among the things persistently +remembered about Mr. Chambers to this day +is a particular poem in a book of rollicking verse +called <i>With the Band</i>, which he published in +1895. This cherished—by very many people +scattered here and there—poem had to do with +Irishmen parading. One stanza will identify it. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_318' name='page_318'></a>318</span></p> +<table summary='poetry' style='margin:0 auto'><tr><td> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>“Ses Corporal Madden to Private McFadden:</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 3.67917586460633em;'>’Bedad yer a bad ’un!</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 3.67917586460633em;'>Now turn out yer toes!</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 3.67917586460633em;'>Yer belt is unhookit,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 3.67917586460633em;'>Yer cap is on crookit,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 3.67917586460633em;'>Yer may not be drunk,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 3.67917586460633em;'>But, be jabers, ye look it!</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 5.15084621044886em;'>Wan-two!</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 5.15084621044886em;'>Wan-two!</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Ye monkey-faced divil, I’ll jolly ye through!</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 5.15084621044886em;'>Wan-two!</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 5.15084621044886em;'>Time! Mark!</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Ye march like the aigle in Cintheral Park!’”</p> +</td></tr></table> + +<p>In the course of writing many books, Chambers +has been responsible for one or two shows. He +wrote for Ada Rehan, <i>The Witch of Ellangowan</i>, +a drama produced at Daly’s Theatre. +His <i>Iole</i> was the basis of a delightful musical +comedy produced in New York in 1913. He is +a member of the National Institute of Arts and +Letters.</p> +<hr class='minor' /> + +<div class='ce'> +<p><i>Books</i></p> +<p>by Robert W. Chambers</p> +</div> + +<div class='la'> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>IN THE QUARTER</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE KING IN YELLOW</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE RED REPUBLIC</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE KING AND A FEW DUKES</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE MAKER OF MOONS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>WITH THE BAND</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE MYSTERY OF CHOICE</p> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_319' name='page_319'></a>319</span> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>LORRAINE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>ASHES OF EMPIRE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE HAUNTS OF MEN</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE CAMBRIC MASK</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>OUTSIDERS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE CONSPIRATORS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>CARDIGAN</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE MAID-AT-ARMS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>OUTDOOR-LAND</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE MAIDS OF PARADISE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>ORCHARD-LAND</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>FOREST LAND</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>IOLE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE FIGHTING CHANCE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>MOUNTAIN LAND</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE TREE OF HEAVEN</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE FIRING LINE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>SOME LADIES IN HASTE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE DANGER MARK</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE SPECIAL MESSENGER</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>HIDE AND SEEK IN FORESTLAND</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE GREEN MOUSE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>AILSA PAIGE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>BLUE-BIRD WEATHER</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>JAPONETTE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE STREETS OF ASCALON</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>ADVENTURES OF A MODEST MAN</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE BUSINESS OF LIFE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE COMMON LAW</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE GAY REBELLION</p> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_320' name='page_320'></a>320</span> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>WHO GOES THERE?</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE HIDDEN CHILDREN</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>ATHALIE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>POLICE!!!</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE GIRL PHILIPPA</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE BARBARIANS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE RESTLESS SEX</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE MOONLIT WAY</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>IN SECRET</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE CRIMSON TIDE</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE SLAYER OF SOULS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE LITTLE RED FOOT</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE FLAMING JEWEL</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>THE TALKERS</p> +<p style=' font-size:0.8em;'>ERIS</p> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p><i>Sources</i></p> +<p style=' margin-bottom:1.5em;'>on Robert W. Chambers</p> +</div> + +<p><i>Hugh Walpole: An Appreciation</i>, by Joseph +Hergesheimer, <span style='font-variant: small-caps'>GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY</span>.</p> +<p><i>English Literature During the Last Half Century</i>, +by J. W. Cunliffe, <span style='font-variant: small-caps'>THE MACMILLAN COMPANY</span>.</p> +<p><i>A Hugh Walpole Anthology</i>, selected by the author. +<span style='font-variant: small-caps'>LONDON</span>: <span style='font-variant: small-caps'>J. M. DENT & SONS</span>. <span style='font-variant: small-caps'>NEW YORK</span>: +<span style='font-variant: small-caps'>E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY</span>.</p> +<p><i>Hugh Walpole, Master Novelist</i>. Pamphlet published +by <span style='font-variant: small-caps'>GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY</span>. (Out +of print.)</p> +<p><i>Who’s Who</i> [In England].</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='XX_UNIQUITIES' id='XX_UNIQUITIES'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_321' name='page_321'></a>321</span> +<h2><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Chapter XX</span></h2> +<h3>UNIQUITIES</h3> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>i</p> +</div> + +<p>Each of these five is a book which, either from +its subject, its authorship, or its handling, +is <i>sui generis</i>. I call such books “uniquities”; it +sounds a little less trite than saying they are +unique. I think I will let someone else speak +of these books. I will look to see, and will let +you see, what others have said about my +uniquities.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p>First we have <i>Our Navy at War</i> by Josephus +Daniels. W. B. M’Cormick, formerly of the editorial +staff of the Army and Navy Journal, reviewing +this book for the New York Herald +(28 May 1922) said:</p> +<p>“Josephus Daniels always was an optimist +about navy affairs while he was Secretary of the +Navy from 1913 to 1921, and now that he has +told what the navy did during the world war he +demonstrates in his narrative that he is a good +sport. For in spite of the many and bitter attacks +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_322' name='page_322'></a>322</span> +that were made on him in that troubled time he +does not make a single reference to any of them, +nor does he wreak any such revenge as he might +have done through this medium. In this respect +it may be said that truly does he live up to the +description of his character set down in the pages +of Rear Admiral Bradley A. Fiske’s autobiography, +namely, that ‘Secretary Daniels impressed +me as being a Christian gentleman.’</p> +<p>“In its general outlines and in many of its details +there is little in Mr. Daniels’s story that has +not been told before in volumes devoted to single +phases of the United States Navy’s war operations. +For example, his chapter on the extraordinary +task of laying the great mine fields, known +as the North Sea barrage, from Norway to the +Orkneys, is much more fully described in the account +written by Captain Reginald R. Belknap; +the story of ‘Sending Sims to Europe’ is also more +extensively presented in that officer’s book, <i>The +Victory at Sea</i>, and the same qualification can be +applied to the chapter on the fighting of the marines +in Belleau Wood and elsewhere, and the +work of our destroyers and submarines in European +waters.</p> +<p>“But Mr. Daniels’s history has one great merit +that these other books lack. This is that it tells +in its 374 pages the complete story of the work of +the navy in the world war, giving so many details +and so much precise information about officers and +their commands, ships of all classes and just what +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_323' name='page_323'></a>323</span> +they did, the valuable contributions made to the +winning of the war by civilians, that it makes a +special place for itself, a very special place, in any +library or shelf devoted to war books.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iii</p> +</div> + +<p>Leslie Haden Guest, a surgeon of wide experience +and secretary of the British Labour Delegation +to Soviet Russia, is the author of <i>The Struggle +for Power in Europe (1917-21)</i>, “an outline +economic and political survey of the Central +States and Russia,” of which E. J. C. said in the +Boston Evening Transcript (4 March 1922):</p> +<p>“The author writes from personal observation +in Russia and discloses much of the life of the day +in that country which heretofore has remained undisclosed +to the world. He has met and interviewed +Lenine and Trotsky themselves, shows us +the individuality of these great Bolshevist leaders +and tells us much of the life of the people and +of the social conditions and tendencies in that +distressful country.</p> +<p>“Next he crosses to Poland, another undiscovered +country, and shows us the new Poland, its +aims and its struggles to emerge from a state almost +of anarchy into one of a rational democracy. +Very little do we of this country know of +the new nation of Tcheko-Slovakia, but Dr. +Guest has travelled through it also and shows us +the two sections, one cultured, the other more +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_324' name='page_324'></a>324</span> +backward, but both working together to form a +modern democratic nation.</p> +<p>“The distressful condition of Austria and the +Austrians now suffering for the sins of the Hapsburgs, +is next shown forth. Vienna, once the +capital of a vast empire and the seat of a great +imperial court, was suddenly reduced to the level +of the capital of a small agricultural, inland state, +a condition productive of great suffering. The +conditions here are shown to differ much from +those in other countries, for the dismemberment +of Austria was not brought about by the act of +the Allies, but of their own people. The causes +of the suffering are fully explained, as are also +the causes of similar conditions in Hungary, in +Roumania, in Bulgaria and in other countries affected +by the economic and political upheavals +following the war. That democracy in Europe +will finally triumph Dr. Guest feels certain and +he gives lucid reasons for the faith that is in him. +He gives a broadly intelligent analysis of the +entire situation and finds that the essential conditions +of success of a democracy are peace, education +and adequate nutrition. But he shows that +a great problem exists which must be worked out; +and he shows how it must be worked out. Dr. +Guest is not alone a thinker, but an observer; not +a theorist, but a man of practical understanding, +who has studied a problem at first hand and shows +it forth simply but comprehensively and with an +eye single to the needs of humanity.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_325' name='page_325'></a>325</span></p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iv</p> +</div> + +<p>Of <i>Herman Melville: Mariner and Mystic</i>, by +Raymond M. Weaver, Carl Van Vechten, writing +in the Literary Review of the New York +Evening Post (31 December 1921), said:</p> +<p>“No biography of Melville, no important personal +memorandum of the man, was published +during his lifetime. It is only now, thirty years +after his death and one hundred and two years +after his birth, that Raymond M. Weaver’s +<i>Herman Melville: Mariner and Mystic</i> has appeared.</p> +<p>“Under the circumstances, Mr. Weaver may be +said to have done his work well. The weakness +of the book is due to the conditions controlling its +creation. Personal records in any great number +do not exist. There are, to be sure, Melville’s +letters to Hawthorne, published by Julian Hawthorne, +in his <i>Nathaniel Hawthorne and His +Wife</i>. There are a few references to Melville in +the diary of Mrs. Hawthorne and in her letters to +her mother. There remain the short account +given by J. E. A. Smith, a man with no kind of +mental approach to his hero, a few casual memories +of Richard Henry Stoddard, whose further +testimony would have been invaluable had he +been inclined to be more loquacious, and a few +more by Dr. Titus Munson Coan and Arthur Stedman; +but both these men, perhaps the nearest +to Melville in his later years, were agreed that he +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_326' name='page_326'></a>326</span> +ceased to be an artist when he deserted the prescribed +field of <i>Typee</i> and <i>Omoo</i>, and they harassed +his last days in their efforts to make him +perceive this, much as if an admirer of Verdi’s +early manner had attempted to persuade the composer +that work on ‘Aida’ and ‘Otello’ was a waste +of time that might much better be occupied in +creating another ‘Trovatore.’ In desperation, +Melville refused to be lured into conversation +about the South Seas, and whenever the subject +was broached he took refuge in quoting Plato. +No very competent witnesses, therefore, these. +Aside from these sources, long open to an investigator, +Mr. Weaver has had the assistance of Mr. +Melville’s granddaughter, who was not quite ten +years old when Melville died, but who has in her +possession Mrs. Melville’s commonplace book, +Melville’s diary of two European excursions, and +a few letters.</p> +<p>“Generally, however, especially for the most +important periods and the most thrilling events in +Melville’s life, Mr. Weaver has been compelled +to depend upon the books the man wrote.</p> +<p>“The book, on the whole, is worthy of its subject. +It is written with warmth, subtlety, and +considerable humour. Smiles and thoughts lie hidden +within many of its pregnant lines. One of +the biographer’s very strangest suggestions is +never made concrete at all, so far as I can discern. +The figure of the literary discoverer of the South +Seas emerges perhaps a bit vaguely, his head in +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_327' name='page_327'></a>327</span> +the clouds, but there is no reason to believe that +Melville’s head was anywhere else when he was +alive. Hawthorne is at last described pretty accurately +and not too flatteringly. <i>The Scarlet +Letter</i> was published in 1850; <i>Moby Dick</i> in +1851. It is one of the eternal ironies that the one +should be world-famous while the other is still +struggling for even national recognition. There +are long passages, well-studied and well-written, +dealing with the whaling industry and the early +missionaries, which will be extremely helpful to +any one who wants a bibliographical background +for the ocean and South Sea books. Melville’s +London notebook is published for the first time +and there is a nearly complete reprint of his first +known published paper ‘Fragments From a Writing +Desk,’ which appeared in two numbers of +The Democratic Press and Lansingburgh Advertiser +in 1839 (not 1849, as the bibliography erroneously +gives it). Mr. Weaver is probably +right in ascribing Melville’s retirement from literature +to poverty (it was a fortunate year that +brought him as much as $100 in royalties and his +account at Harper’s was usually overdrawn), to +complete disillusionment, which made it impossible +for him to say more than he had already +said, even on the subject of disillusionment, and +to ill-health.</p> +<p>“It is a pleasure, moreover, to find that Mr. +Weaver has a warm appreciation of <i>Mardi</i> and +<i>Pierre</i>, books which have either been neglected or +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_328' name='page_328'></a>328</span> +fiercely condemned since they first appeared, books +which are no longer available save in early editions. +They are not equal to <i>Moby Dick</i>, but they +are infinitely more important and more interesting +than <i>Typee</i> and <i>Omoo</i>, on which the chief fame +of the man rests. It is to his credit that Mr. +Weaver has perceived this, but a great deal more +remains to be said on the subject. <i>Mardi</i>, <i>Moby +Dick</i>, and <i>Pierre</i>, as a matter of fact, form a kind +of tragic trinity: <i>Mardi</i> is a tragedy of the intellect; +<i>Moby Dick</i> a tragedy of the spirit, and +<i>Pierre</i> a tragedy of the flesh. <i>Mardi</i> is a tragedy +of heaven, <i>Moby Dick</i> a tragedy of hell, and +<i>Pierre</i> a tragedy of the world we live in.</p> +<p>“Considering the difficulties in his path, it may +be said that Mr. Weaver has solved his problem +successfully. The faults of the book, to a large +extent, as I have already pointed out, are not the +faults of the author, but the faults of conditions +circumscribing his work. At any rate, it can no +longer be said that no biography exists of the +most brilliant figure in the history of our letters, +the author of a book which far surpasses every +other work created by an American from <i>The Scarlet +Letter</i> to <i>The Golden Bowl</i>. For <i>Moby Dick</i> +stands with the great classics of all times, with +the tragedies of the Greeks, with <i>Don Quixote</i>, +with <i>Dante’s Inferno</i> and with Shakespeare’s +<i>Hamlet</i>.”</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_329' name='page_329'></a>329</span></div> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>v</p> +</div> + +<p>A man who is certainly an authority on naval +subjects tells me that <i>The Grand Fleet</i> by Viscount +Jellicoe of Scapa is the masterpiece of the +great war. He does not mean, of course, in a +literary sense; but he does most emphatically +mean in every other sense. I quote from the review +by P. L. J., of Admiral Jellicoe’s second +book, <i>The Crisis of the Naval War</i>. The review +appeared in that valuable Annapolis publication, +the Proceedings of the United States Naval Institute +for April, 1921:</p> +<p>“This interesting book is the complement of his +first volume, <i>The Grand Fleet,1914-16</i>. Admiral +Jellicoe, the one man who was best situated to +know, now draws aside the curtains and reveals +to us the efforts made by the Admiralty to overcome +the threat made by the German submarine +campaign. The account not only deals with the +origin ashore of the defence and offence against +submarines, but follows to sea the measures +adopted where their application and results are +shown.</p> +<p>“The first chapter deals at length with the +changes made in the admiralty that the organisation +might be logical and smooth working to avoid +conflict of authority, to have no necessary service +neglected, to provide the necessary corps of investigators +of new devices, and above all to free the +first Sea Lord and his assistants of a mass of detail +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_330' name='page_330'></a>330</span> +that their efforts might be concentrated on +the larger questions.</p> +<p>“The appendices are of value and interesting +because they show the organisation at different +periods and emphasise the fact that the Naval +Staff at the end of the war was the result of trial +and error, natural growth, and at least one radical +change adopted during the war.</p> +<p>“Chapters II and III deal with the Submarine +Campaign in 1917 and the measures adopted to +win success. The gradual naval control of all +merchant shipping with its attendant difficulties +is clearly shown. The tremendous labour involved +in putting into operation new measures; the unremitting +search for and development of new +antisubmarine devices is revealed, and above all +the length of time necessary to put into operation +any new device, and this when time is the most +precious element, is pointed out.</p> +<p>“That a campaign against the enemy must be +waged with every means at hand; that new weapons +must be continually sought; that no ‘cure-all’ +by which the enemy may be defeated without +fighting can be expected; that during war is the +poorest time to provide the material which should +be provided during peace, the Admiral shows in a +manner not to be gainsaid.</p> +<p>“Chapters IV and V deal with the testing, introduction, +and gradual growth of the convoy system. +It is shown how the introduction of this +system was delayed by lack of vessels to perform +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_331' name='page_331'></a>331</span> +escort duty and why when finally adopted it was +so successful because it was not only defensive but +offensive in that it meant a fight for a submarine +to attack a vessel under convoy.</p> +<p>“Chapter VI is devoted to the entry of the +United States. The accurate estimate of our +naval strength by both the enemy and the allies, +and our inability upon the declaration of war to +lend any great assistance are shown—and this at +the most critical period for the Allies—a period +when the German submarine campaign was at its +height, when the tonnage lost monthly by the +Allies was far in excess of what can be replaced—when +the destruction of merchant shipping if continued +at the then present rate would in a few +months mean the defeat of the Allies.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>vi</p> +</div> + +<p>I will give you what Admiral Caspar F. Goodrich +said in the Weekly Review (30 April 1921; +The Weekly Review has since been combined +with The Independent) regarding <i>A History of +Sea Power</i>, by William O. Stevens and Allan +Westcott:</p> +<p>“Two professors at the Naval Academy, the +one a historian, the other a close student of Mahan, +have written a noteworthy volume in their +<i>History of Sea Power</i>, published in excellent +form, generously supplied with maps, illustrations, +and index. The title suggests Mahan’s +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_332' name='page_332'></a>332</span> +classic which is largely followed in plan and treatment. +It will be remembered that his writings +covered in detail only the years from 1660 to +1815. While not neglecting this period, this +book is particularly valuable for events not within +its self-assigned limits. Practically it is a history +of naval warfare from ancient times to the +present day. Each chapter deals briefly, but ably, +with one epoch and closes with an appropriate +bibliography for those who care to go more fully +into the question; a commendable feature. The +last chapter, ‘Conclusions,’ deserves especial attention. +Naturally, considerable space is devoted +to the story and analysis of Jellicoe’s +fight. Few will disagree with the verdict of the +authors:</p> +<p>“‘It is no reflection on the personal courage of +the Commander-in-Chief that he should be moved +by the consideration of saving his ships. The existence +of the Grand Fleet was, of course, essential +to the Allied cause, and there was a heavy weight +of responsibility hanging on its use. But again +it is a matter of naval doctrine. Did the British +fleet exist merely to maintain a numerical preponderance +over its enemy or to crush that enemy—whatever +the cost? If the Battle of Jutland receives +the stamp of approval as the best that +could have been done, then the British or the +American officer of the future will know that he +is expected primarily to ”play safe.“ But he will +never tread the path of Blake, Hawke, or Nelson, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_333' name='page_333'></a>333</span> +the men who made the traditions of the Service +and forged the anchors of the British Empire.’</p> +<p>“One factor in the success of the antisubmarine +campaign is not mentioned, important as it proved +to be. This was the policy adopted by the Allies +of not giving out the news that any U-boat was +captured or otherwise accounted for. Confronted +with this appalling veil of mystery the morale of +the German submarine crews became seriously affected; +volunteering for this service gradually +ceased; arbitrary detail grew necessary; greatly +lessened efficiency resulted.</p> +<p>“The authors are to be congratulated on producing +a volume which should be in the hands of +all naval officers of the coming generation; on the +shelves of all who take interest in the development +of history; and of statesmen upon whom may +eventually rest the responsibility of heeding or +not heeding the teachings of Mahan as here sympathetically +and cleverly brought up to date.”</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='XXI_THE_CONFESSIONS_OF_A_WELLMEANING_YOUNG_MAN_STEPHEN_MCKENNA' id='XXI_THE_CONFESSIONS_OF_A_WELLMEANING_YOUNG_MAN_STEPHEN_MCKENNA'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_334' name='page_334'></a>334</span> +<h2><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Chapter XXI</span></h2> +<h3>THE CONFESSIONS OF A WELL-MEANING YOUNG MAN, STEPHEN MCKENNA</h3> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>i</p> +</div> + +<p>In a sense, all of Stephen McKenna’s writing +has been a confession. More than any other +novelist now actively at work, this young man +bases fiction on biographical and autobiographical +material; and when he sits down deliberately to +write reminiscences, such as <i>While I Remember</i>, +the result is merely that, in addition to confessing +himself, he confesses others.</p> +<p>He has probably had more opportunity of +knowing the social and political life of London +from the inside than most novelists of his time. +In <i>While I Remember</i> he gives his recollections, +while his memory is still fresh enough to be vivid, +of a generation that closed, for literary if not for +political purposes, with the Peace Conference. +There is a power of wit and mordant humour and +a sufficiency of descriptive power and insight into +human character in all his work.</p> +<div class='figcenter'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_335' name='page_335'></a>335</span> +<a name='linki_9' id='linki_9'></a> +<img src='images/winter10.jpg' alt='' title='' style='width: 306px; height: 410px;' /><br /> +<p class='caption' style='margin: 0 auto; text-align:center;width: 306px;'> +STEPHEN McKENNA<br /> +</p> +</div> + +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_337' name='page_337'></a>337</span></div> +<p><i>While I Remember</i> is actually a gallery of pictures +taken from the life and executed with the +technique of youth by a man still young—pictures +of public school and university life, of social London +from the death of King Edward to the Armistice, +of domestic and foreign politics of the period, +of the public services of Great Britain at home +and abroad. Though all these are within the +circle of Mr. McKenna’s narrative, literary London—the +London that is more talked about than +seen—is the core of his story.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p>Mr. McKenna’s latest novel, <i>The Confessions +of a Well-Meaning Woman</i>, is a series of monologues +addressed by one Lady Ann Spenworth to +“a friend of proved discretion.” I quote from the +London Times of April 6, 1922: “In the course +of them Lady Ann Spenworth reveals to us the +difficulties besetting a lady of rank. She is compelled +to live in a house in Mount street—for how +could she ask ‘The Princess’ to visit her in Bayswater?—and +her income of a few thousands, +hardly supplemented by her husband’s directorships, +is depleted by the disbursements needed to +keep the name of her only son out of the newspapers +while she is obtaining for him the wife and +the salary suited to his requirements and capacities. +Mr. Stephen McKenna provides us with +the same kind of exasperating entertainment that +we get at games from watching a skilful and unscrupulous +veteran. Her deftness in taking a step +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_338' name='page_338'></a>338</span> +or two forward in the centre and so putting the +fast wing off side; her air of sporting acquiescence +touched with astonishment when a penalty is +given against her for obstruction; her resolution +in jumping in to hit a young bowler off his length; +the trouble she has with her shoe-lace when her +opponent is nervous; the suddenness with which +every now and again her usually deliberate second +service will follow her first; the slight pucker in +her eyebrows when she picks up a hand full of +spades; the pluck with which she throws herself +on the ball when there is nothing else for it; her +dignified bonhomie in the dressing room! We all +know Lady Ann and her tricks, but nothing can +be proved against her and she continues to play +for the best clubs.</p> +<p>“In this story Lady Ann is playing the social +game, and it is a tribute to the skill of Mr. McKenna +that at the end we hope that the Princess +will be sufficiently curious about her new ‘frame +and setting’ to continue her visits.... We have +used the word ‘story’ because Lady Ann reports +her machinations while they are in progress and +we are a little nervous about the issue. Her main +service, however, lies in the pictures she draws of +her own highly placed relatives and of a number +of people who at house parties and elsewhere may +help ladies of title to make both ends meet. Chief +among them is her son Will, who even as seen +through her partial eyes, appears a very dishonest, +paltry boy. Her blind devotion to him humanises +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_339' name='page_339'></a>339</span> +both her shrewdness and her selfishness. It is for +his sake that she separates her niece from the fine +young soldier she is in love with and that she almost +succeeds in providing the King’s Proctor +with the materials for an intervention that would +secure to him the estates and title of his fox-hunting +uncle. There is always a plain tale to put her +down and always the friend of proved discretion +is left with the impression that the tale is the invention +of malice; at least we suppose she must +be, for Lady Ann is allowed by people to whom +she has done one injury to remain in a position +to do them another. The difficult medium employed +by Mr. McKenna entitles him, however, to +count on the co-operation of the reader; and it is +to be accorded the more readily that to it we owe +the felicity of having her own account of the +steps she took to prevent an attractive but expensive +widow from running away with her husband, +and of the party which she gave, according to plan, +to the Princess and, not according to plan, to other +guests let loose on her by her scapegrace brother-in-law.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iii</p> +</div> + +<p>Stephen McKenna, the author of <i>Sonia</i>, not to +be confused with Stephen McKenna, the translator +of Poltinus, belongs to the Protestant branch +of that royal Catholic sept which has had its home +in the County Monagham since the dawn of Irish +history. Some members, even, of this branch +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_340' name='page_340'></a>340</span> +have reverted to the old faith since the date +of Stephen McKenna’s birth in the year 1888 in +London.</p> +<p>He was a scholar of Westminster and an exhibitioner +of Christ Church, Oxford. After he had +taken his degree, his father, Leopold McKenna, +an elder brother of the Right Honourable Reginald +McKenna, K. C., the last Liberal Chancellor +of the British Exchequer, made it possible for him +to travel desultorily and to try his luck in the +great literary adventure.</p> +<p>On the outbreak of the war, as his health, which +is delicate to the point of frailness, debarred him +from entering the army, Stephen McKenna first +volunteered for service at his old school, and, after +a year, joined the staff of the War Trade Intelligence +Department, where he did valuable war +work for three and a half years. He represented +his department on the Right Honourable A. J. +Balfour’s mission in 1917, to the United States, +where he enjoyed himself thoroughly and made +himself very popular; and he did not sever his connection +with the government service until February, +1919, four months after the conclusion of the +armistice.</p> +<p>Stephen McKenna’s first three novels—<i>The +Reluctant Lover</i>, <i>Sheila Intervenes</i> and <i>The Sixth +Sense</i>—were written and published before their +author was 27 years of age! But <i>Sonia</i>, the story +that made him widely known, was written entirely +during the period of his activities on the staff of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_341' name='page_341'></a>341</span> +Westminster School and at the War Trade Intelligence +Department. The book won the public +favour more quickly than perhaps any other novel +that has appeared in our time.</p> +<p>The success of <i>Sonia</i> was largely due to its description +in a facile, popular and yet eminently +chaste and polished style, of the social and political +situation in England for a half generation before +and during the early stages of the war. This +description Stephen McKenna was peculiarly +well-equipped to produce, not only as the near +relative of a prominent cabinet minister, but also +as an assiduous frequenter of the leading Liberal +centre, the Reform Club, on the committee of +which he had sat, despite his youthful years, since +1915. The political interest, indeed, is revealed +in the subtitle, <i>Between Two Worlds</i>, which was +originally intended for the actual title.</p> +<p>McKenna’s next book, <i>Ninety-Six Hours’ +Leave</i>, appealed to the reader’s gayer moods and +<i>Midas and Son</i>, with its tragic history of an Anglo-American +multimillionaire, to the reader in serious +temper.</p> +<p>In spite of certain blemishes due to Mr. McKenna’s +unfamiliarity with American life, I +should say that <i>Midas and Son</i> is probably his +ablest work so far. I think it surpasses even +<i>Sonia</i>. Mr. McKenna returned to Sonia in his +novel, <i>Sonia Married</i>. His work after that was a +trilogy called <i>The Sensationalists</i>, three brilliant +studies of modern London in the form of successive +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_342' name='page_342'></a>342</span> +novels called <i>Lady Lilith</i>, <i>The Education of +Eric Lane</i> and <i>The Secret Victory</i>.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iv</p> +</div> + +<p>Writing from 11, Stone Buildings, Lincoln’s +Inn, London, in 1920, Mr. McKenna had this to +say about his trilogy:</p> +<p>“<i>Lady Lilith</i> is the first volume of a trilogy +called <i>The Sensationalists</i>, three books giving the +history for a few years before the war, during and +immediately after the war, of a group of sensation-mongers, +emotion-hunters or whatever you +like to call them, whose principle and practice it +was to startle the world by the extravagance of +their behaviour, speech, dress and thought and, +in the other sense of the word, sensationalism, to +live on the excitement of new experiences. Such +people have always existed and always will exist, +receiving perhaps undue attention from the world +that they set out to astonish. You, I am sure, +have them in America, as we have them here, and +in the luxurious and idle years before the war they +had incomparable scope for their search for novelty +and their quest for emotion. Some of the +characters in <i>Lady Lilith</i> have already been seen +hovering in the background of <i>Sonia</i>, <i>Midas and +Son</i> and <i>Sonia Married</i>, though the principal +characters in <i>Lady Lilith</i> have not before been +painted at full length or in great detail; and these +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_343' name='page_343'></a>343</span> +principal characters will be found in all three +books of the trilogy.</p> +<p>“<i>Lady Lilith</i>, of course, takes its title from the +Talmud, according to which Lilith was Adam’s +first wife; and as mankind did not taste of the +Tree of Knowledge or of death until Eve came to +trouble the Garden of Eden, Lilith belongs to a +time in which there was neither death nor knowledge +of good or evil in the world. She is immortal, +unaging and non-moral; her name is given by +Valentine Arden, the young novelist who appears +in <i>Sonia</i> and elsewhere, to Lady Barbara Neave, +the principal character in <i>Lady Lilith</i> and one +of the principal characters in the two succeeding +books.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>v</p> +</div> + +<p>In person, Stephen McKenna is tall, with a +slender figure, Irish blue eyes, fair hair, regular +features and a Dante profile. He has an engaging +and very courteous address, a sympathetic manner, +a ready but always urbane wit and great +conversational charm. He possesses the rare accomplishment +of “talking like a book.” His intimates +are legion; and, apart from these, he +knows everyone who “counts” in London society. +He is known never to lose his temper; and it is +doubtful whether he has ever had cause to lose it.</p> +<p>His one recreation is the Opera; and during the +London season his delightful chambers in Lincoln’s +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_344' name='page_344'></a>344</span> +Inn are the almost nightly scene of parties +collected then and there from the opera house.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>vi</p> +</div> + +<p>A sample of <i>The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman</i>:</p> +<p>“Lady Ann (<i>to a friend of proved discretion</i>): +You have toiled all the way here again? Do you +know, I feel I am only beginning to find out who +my true friends are? I am much, much better.... +On Friday I am to be allowed on to the sofa +and by the end of next week Dr. Richardson promises +to let me go back to Mount Street. Of course +I should have liked the operation to take place +there—it is one’s frame and setting, but, truly +honestly, Arthur and I have not been in a position +to have any painting or papering done for so long.... The +surgeon insisted on a nursing home. +Apparatus and so on and so forth.... Quite +between ourselves I fancy that they make a very +good thing out of these homes; but I am so thankful +to be well again that I would put up with almost +any imposition....</p> +<p>“Everything went off too wonderfully. Perhaps +you have seen my brother Brackenbury? Or +Ruth? Ah, I am sorry; I should have been vastly +entertained to hear what they were saying, what +they dared say. Ruth did indeed offer to pay the +expenses of the operation—the belated prick of +conscience!—and it was on the tip of my tongue +to say we are not yet dependent on her spasmodic +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_345' name='page_345'></a>345</span> +charity. Also, that I can keep my lips closed +about Brackenbury without expecting a—tip? +But they know I can’t afford to refuse £500.... +If they, if everybody would only leave one alone! +Spied on, whispered about....</p> +<p>“The papers made such an absurd stir! If you +are known by name as occupying any little niche, +the world waits gaping below. I suppose I ought +to be flattered, but for days there were callers, letters, +telephone-messages. Like Royalty <i>in extremis</i>.... +And I never pretended that the operation +was in any sense critical....</p> +<p>“Do you know, beyond saying that, I would +much rather not talk about it? This very modern +frankness.... Not you, of course! But when +a man like my brother-in-law Spenworth strides +in here a few hours before the anæsthetic is administered +and says ‘What is the matter with +you? Much ado about nothing, I call it.’ ... +That from Arthur’s brother to Arthur’s wife, +when, for all he knew, he might never see her alive +again.... I prefer just to say that everything +went off most satisfactorily and that I hope now +to be better than I have been for years....”</p> +<hr class='minor' /> + +<div class='ce'> +<p><i>Books</i></p> +<p>by Stephen McKenna</p> +</div> + +<div class='la'> +<p>THE RELUCTANT LOVER</p> +<p>SHEILA INTERVENES</p> +<p>THE SIXTH SENSE</p> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_346' name='page_346'></a>346</span> +<p>SONIA: BETWEEN TWO WORLDS</p> +<p>NINETY-SIX HOURS’ LEAVE</p> +<p>MIDAS AND SON</p> +<p>SONIA MARRIED</p> +<p>LADY LILITH</p> +<p>THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE</p> +<p>THE SECRET VICTORY</p> +<p>WHILE I REMEMBER</p> +<p>THE CONFESSIONS OF A WELL-MEANING WOMAN</p> +</div> + +<hr class='minor' /> + +<div class='ce'> +<p><i>Sources</i></p> +<p style=' margin-bottom:1.5em;'>on Stephen McKenna</p> +</div> + +<div class='la'> +<p><i>Who’s Who</i> [In England].</p> +<div style='margin-top:1em'></div> +<p>Private Information.</p> +</div> + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='XXII_POETS_AND_PLAYWRIGHTS' id='XXII_POETS_AND_PLAYWRIGHTS'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_347' name='page_347'></a>347</span> +<h2><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Chapter XXII</span></h2> +<h3>POETS AND PLAYWRIGHTS</h3> +</div> + +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>i</p> +</div> + +<p>I have to tell about a number of poets and, +regarding poets, I agree with a very clever +woman I know who declares that poetry is the +most personal of the arts and who further says +that it is manifestly inadequate to talk about a +poet’s work without giving a sample of his poetry. +So, generally, I shall quote one of the shorter +poems or a passage from a longer poem.</p> +<p>John Dos Passos, known for <i>Three Soldiers</i> +and for <i>Rosinante to the Road Again</i>, will be still +more variously known to those who read his book +of verse, <i>A Pushcart at the Curb</i>. This book bears +a relation to <i>Rosinante</i>, the contents grouping +themselves under these general headings:</p> +<table summary='poetry' style=' margin-left:2em;'><tr><td> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Winter in Castile</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Nights by Bassano</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Translations from the Spanish of Antonio Machado</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Vagones de Tercera</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Quai de la Tournelle</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Of Foreign Travel</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Phases of the Moon</p> +</td></tr></table> + +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_348' name='page_348'></a>348</span></div> +<p>I will select for quotation the sixth or final +poem dedicated to A. K. McC. from the section +entitled “Quai de la Tournelle,”</p> +<table summary='poetry' style=' margin-left:2em;'><tr><td> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>This is a garden</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>where through the russet mist of clustered trees</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>and strewn November leaves,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>they crunch with vainglorious heels</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>of ancient vermilion</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>the dry dead of spent summer’s greens,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>and stalk with mincing sceptic steps,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>and sound of snuffboxes snapping</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>to the capping of an epigram,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>in fluffy attar-scented wigs ...</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>the exquisite Augustans.</p> +</td></tr></table> + +<p>Christopher Morley is too well-known as a poet +to require any explicit account in this place. I +shall remind you of the pleasure of reading him +by quoting the “Song For a Little House” from +his book, <i>The Rocking Horse</i>, and also a short +verse from his <i>Translations from the Chinese</i>.</p> +<table summary='poetry' style=' margin-left:2em;'><tr><td> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>I’m glad our house is a little house,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>Not too tall nor too wide:</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>I’m glad the hovering butterflies</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>Feel free to come inside.</p> +<br /> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Our little house is a friendly house,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>It is not shy or vain;</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>It gossips with the talking trees,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>And makes friends with the rain.</p> +<br /> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>And quick leaves cast a shimmer of green,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>Against our whited walls,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>And in the phlox, the courteous bees,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>Are paying duty calls.</p> +</td></tr></table> + +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_349' name='page_349'></a>349</span></div> +<p>But there is a different temper—or, if you like, +tempering—to the verse in <i>Translations from the +Chinese</i>. I quote “A National Frailty”:</p> +<table summary='poetry' style=' margin-left:2em;'><tr><td> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>The American people</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Were put into the world</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>To assist foreign lecturers.</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>When I visited them</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>They filled crowded halls</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>To hear me tell them Great Truths</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Which they might as well have read</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>In their own prophet Thoreau.</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>They paid me, for this,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Three hundred dollars a night,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>And ten of their mandarins</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Invited me to visit at Newport.</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>My agent told me</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>If I would wear Chinese costume on the platform</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>It would be five hundred.</p> +</td></tr></table> + +<p>In speaking of the late Joyce Kilmer, the temptation +is inescapable to quote his “Trees”; after +all, it is his best known and best loved poem—in +certain moments it is his best poem! But instead, +I will desert his volume, <i>Trees and Other Poems</i>, +and from his other book, <i>Main Street and Other +Poems</i>, I will quote the first two stanzas of +Kilmer’s “Houses”—a poem written for his +wife:</p> +<table summary='poetry' style=' margin-left:2em;'><tr><td> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>When you shall die and to the sky</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>Serenely, delicately go,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Saint Peter, when he sees you there,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>Will clash his keys and say:</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_350' name='page_350'></a>350</span></div> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>“Now talk to her, Sir Christopher!</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>And hurry, Michelangelo!</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>She wants to play at building,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>And you’ve got to help her play!”</p> +<br /> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Every architect will help erect</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>A palace on a lawn of cloud,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>With rainbow beams and a sunset roof,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>And a level star-tiled floor;</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>And at your will you may use the skill</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>Of this gay angelic crowd,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>When a house is made you will throw it down,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>And they’ll build you twenty more.</p> +</td></tr></table> + +<p>Mrs. Kilmer is the author of two volumes of +verse which have sold rather more than John +Masefield usually sells—at least, until the publication +of <i>Reynard the Fox. Candles That +Burn</i> created her audience and <i>Vigils</i> has been +that audience’s renewed delight. From <i>Vigils</i> I +take the poem “The Touch of Tears.” In it +“Michael” is, of course, her own son:</p> +<table summary='poetry' style=' margin-left:2em;'><tr><td> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Michael walks in autumn leaves,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>Rustling leaves and fading grasses,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>And his little music-box</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>Tinkles faintly as he passes.</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>It’s a gay and jaunty tune</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>If the hands that play were clever:</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Michael plays it like a dirge,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>Moaning on and on forever.</p> +<br /> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>While his happy eyes grow big,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>Big and innocent and soulful,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Wistful, halting little notes</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>Rise, unutterably doleful,</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_351' name='page_351'></a>351</span></div> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Telling of all childish griefs—</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>Baffled babies sob forsaken,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Birds fly off and bubbles burst,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>Kittens sleep and will not waken.</p> +<br /> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Michael, it’s the touch of tears.</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>Though you sing for very gladness,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Others will not see your mirth;</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>They will mourn your fancied sadness.</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Though you laugh at them in scorn,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>Show your happy heart for token,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Michael, you’ll protest in vain—</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>They will swear your heart is broken!</p> +</td></tr></table> + +<p>I think I have said elsewhere that J. C. Squire +prefers his serious poems to those parodies of +which he is such an admitted master. It seems +only decent to defer, in this place, to the author’s +own feeling in the matter. Mr. Squire is the +author of <i>The Birds and Other Poems</i> and <i>Poems: +Second Series</i>. My present choice is the beginning +and the close of the poem, “Harlequin”—which +is in both books:</p> +<table summary='poetry' style=' margin-left:2em;'><tr><td> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Moonlit woodland, veils of green,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Caves of empty dark between;</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Veils of green from rounded arms</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Drooping, that the moonlight charms:</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Tranced the trees, grass beneath</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Silent ...</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>Like a stealthy breath,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Mask and wand and silver skin</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Sudden enters Harlequin.</p> +<br /> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Hist! Hist! Watch him go,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Leaping limb and pointing toe,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Slender arms that float and flow,</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_352' name='page_352'></a>352</span></div> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Curving wand above, below;</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Flying, gliding, changing feet;</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Onset merging in retreat.</p> +<br /> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Not a shadow of sound there is</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>But his motion’s gentle hiss,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Till one fluent arm and hand</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Suddenly circles, and the wand</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Taps a bough far overhead,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>“Crack,” and then all noise is dead.</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>For he halts, and for a space</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Stands erect with upward face,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Taut and tense to the white</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Message of the Moon’s light.</p> +<br /> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>He was listening; he was there;</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Flash! he went. To the air</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>He a waiting ear had bent,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Silent; but before he went</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Something somewhere else to seek,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>He moved his lips as though to speak.</p> +<br /> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>And we wait, and in vain,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>For he will not come again.</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Earth, grass, wood, and air,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>As we stare, and we stare,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Which that fierce life did hold,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Tired, dim, void, cold.</p> +</td></tr></table> + +<p>Milton Raison is a young writer, known especially +to readers of The Bookman, whose verse has +appeared in various magazines. A Russian, Milton +Raison went to sea as a boy—he is scarcely +more than a boy now. His first book of verse, +<i>Spindrift</i>, carries a preface by William McFee. +I quote:</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_353' name='page_353'></a>353</span></div> +<p>“There is a Latin sharpness of mentality manifested +in these clearly, sardonically etched portraits +of a ship’s crew. The whimsical humour +revealed in final lines is a portent, in the present +writer’s opinion, of a talent which will probably +come to maturity in a very different field. Indeed +it may be, though it is too early to dogmatise, +that these poems are but the early efflorescence of +a gift for vigorous prose narrative.</p> +<p>“Mr. Milton Raison has settled for himself, +with engaging promptitude, that a seafaring +career provides the inspiration he craves. The influence +of Masefield is strong upon him, and some +of his verses are plainly derivative. As already +hinted, it is too early to say definitely how this +plan will succeed. In his diary, kept while on a +voyage to South America, a document remarkable +for its descriptive power and a certain crude and +virginal candour, one may discover an embryo +novelist struggling with the inevitable limitations +of youth. But in his simple and naïve poems, +whether they give us some bizarre and catastrophic +picture of seamen, or depict the charming +emotions of a sensitive adolescence, there is a +passion for experiment and humility of intellect +which promises well enough for a young man in +his teens.”</p> +<p>I find it particularly difficult to choose a poem +for citation from this book. Perhaps I shall do +as well as I can, with only space to quote one +poem, if I give you “Vision”: +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_354' name='page_354'></a>354</span></p> +<table summary='poetry' style=' margin-left:2em;'><tr><td> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Have I forgotten beauty, and the pang</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Of sheer delight in perfect visioning?</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Have I forgotten how the spirit sang</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>When shattered breakers sprayed their ocean-tang</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>To ease the blows with which the great cliffs rang?</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Have I forgotten how the fond stars fling</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Their naked children to the faery ring</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Of some dark pool, and watch them play and sing</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>In silent silver chords I too could hear?</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Or smile to see a starlet shake with fear</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Whenever winds disturbed the lake’s repose,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Or when in mocking mood they form in rows,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>And stare up at their parents—so sedate—</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Then break up laughing ’neath a ripple’s weight?</p> +</td></tr></table> + +<p>It seems as if, <i>The First Person Singular</i> having +been published, more people now know William +Rose Benét as a novelist than as a poet. I +cannot help feeling that to be something of a pity. +I am not going to quote one of Mr. Benét’s poems—indeed +all his best work is in quite long and +semi-narrative verse—but I will give you what +Don Marquis was inspired to write after reading +Benét’s <i>Moons of Grandeur</i>. On looking at it +again, I see that Mr. Marquis has quoted eight +lines, so you shall have your taste of William +Rose Benét, the poet, after all!</p> +<p>“Some day, just to please ourself, we intend +to make a compilation of poems that we love best; +the ones that we turn to again and again. There +will be in the volume the six odes of Keats, Shelley’s +‘Adonais’; Wordsworth’s ‘Intimations of Immortality’; +Milton’s ‘L’Allegro’ and ‘Il Penseroso’; +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_355' name='page_355'></a>355</span> +William Rose Benét’s ‘Man Possessed’ and +very little else.</p> +<p>“We don’t ‘defend’ these poems ... no doubt +they are all of them quite indefensible, in the light +of certain special poetic revelations of the last +few years ... and we have no particular theories +about them; we merely yield ourself to them, +and they transport us; we are careless of reason in +the matter, for they cast a spell upon us. We do +not mean to say that we are in the category with +the person who says: ‘I don’t know anything +about art, but I know what I like’—On the contrary, +we know exactly why we like these things, +although we don’t intend to take the trouble to +tell you now.</p> +<p>“William Rose Benét has published another +book of poems, <i>Moons of Grandeur</i>. Here is a +stanza picked up at random—it happens to be the +opening stanza of ‘Gaspara Stampa’—which +shows the lyric quality of the verse:</p> +<table summary='poetry' style=' margin-left:2em;'><tr><td> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>“Like flame, like wine, across the still lagoon,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>The colours of the sunset stream.</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Spectral in heaven as climbs the frail veiled moon</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>So climbs my dream.</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Out of the heart’s eternal torture fire</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>No eastern phoenix risen—</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Only the naked soul, spent with desire,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.735835172921266em;'>Bursts its prison.</p> +</td></tr></table> + +<p>“Was Benét ever in Italy? No matter ... +he has Italy in him, in his heart and brain. Italy +and Egypt and every other country that was ever +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_356' name='page_356'></a>356</span> +warmed by the sun of beauty and shone on by the +stars of romance. For the poems in this book are +woven of the stuff of sheer romance. There is +nothing else in the world as depressing as a romantic +poem that doesn’t ‘get there.’ And to us, +at least, there is nothing as thrilling as the authentic +voice of romance, the genuine utterance of the +soul that walks in communion with beauty. +<i>Moons of Grandeur</i> is a ringing bell and a glimmering +tapestry and a draught of sparkling wine.</p> +<p>“A certain rich intricacy of pattern distinguishes +the physical body of Benét’s art; when +he chooses he can use words as if they were the +jewelled particles of a mosaic; familiar words, +with his handling, become ‘something rich and +strange.’ Of the spiritual content of his poems, +we can say nothing adequate, because there is not +much that can be said of spirit; either it is there +and you feel it, and it works upon you, or it is +not there. There are very few people writing +verse today who have the power to charm us and +enchant us and carry us away with them as Benét +can. He has found the horse with wings.”</p> +<p><i>The Bookman Anthology of Verse</i> (1922), +edited by John Farrar, editor of The Bookman, is +an altogether extraordinary anthology to be made +up from the poets contributing to a single magazine +in eighteen consecutive months. Among those +who are represented are: Franklin P. Adams, +Karle Wilson Baker, Maxwell Bodenheim, Hilda +Conkling, John Dos Passos, Zona Gale, D. H. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_357' name='page_357'></a>357</span> +Lawrence, Amy Lowell, David Morton, Edwin +Arlington Robinson, Carl Sandburg, Siegfried +Sassoon, Sara Teasdale, Louis and Jean Starr +Untermeyer, and Elinor Wylie.</p> +<p>Mr. Farrar has written short introductions to +the example (or examples) of the work of each +poet. In his general preface he says:</p> +<p>“Where most anthologies of poetry are collected +for the purpose of giving pleasure by means +of the verses themselves, I have tried here to give +you something of the joy to be found in securing +manuscripts, in attempting to understand current +poetry by a broadening of taste to match broadening +literary tendencies; and, perhaps most important +of all, to present you to the poets themselves +as I know them by actual meeting or correspondence.”</p> +<p>I will choose what Mr. Farrar says about Hilda +Conkling, prefacing her poem “Lonely Song”; +and then I will quote the poem:</p> +<p>“A shy, but normal little girl, twelve years old +now, nine when her first volume of verses appeared, +Hilda Conkling is not so much the infant +prodigy as a clear proof that the child mind, before +the precious spark is destroyed, possesses both +vision and the ability to express it in natural +and beautiful rhythm. Grace Hazard Conkling, +herself a poet, is Hilda’s mother. They live at +Northampton, Massachusetts, in the academic +atmosphere of Smith College where those who +know the little girl say that she enjoys sliding +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_358' name='page_358'></a>358</span> +down a cellar stairway quite as much as she does +talking of elves and gnomes. She was born in +New York State, so that she is distinctly of the +East. The rhythms which she uses to express her +ideas are the result both of her own moods, which +are often crystal-clear in their delicate imagery, +and of the fact that from time to time, when she +was first able to listen, her mother read aloud to +her. In fact, her first poems were made before +she, herself, could write them down. The speculation +as to what she will do when she grows to +womanhood is a common one. Is it important? +A childhood filled with beauty is something to +have achieved.”</p> +<table summary='poetry' style=' margin-left:2em;'><tr><td> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Bend low, blue sky,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Touch my forehead;</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>You look cool ... bend down ...</p> +<br /> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Flow about me in your blueness and coolness,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Be thistledown, be flowers,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Be all the songs I have not yet sung.</p> +<br /> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Laugh at me, sky!</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Put a cap of cloud on my head ...</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Blow it off with your blue winds;</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Give me a feeling of your laughter</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Beyond cloud and wind!</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>I need to have you laugh at me</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>As though you liked me a little.</p> +</td></tr></table> + +<p>This has been, as I meant it to be, a wholly +serious chapter; but at the end I find I cannot stop +without speaking of Keith Preston. No one who +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_359' name='page_359'></a>359</span> +reads the Chicago Daily News fails to know Keith +Preston’s delightful humour and “needle-tipped +satire.” And his book, <i>Splinters</i>, contains all +sorts of good things of which I can give you, alas, +only some inadequate (because solitary) sample. +Yet, anyway, here is his “Ode to Common Sense”:</p> +<table summary='poetry' style=' margin-left:2em;'><tr><td> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Spirit or demon, Common Sense!</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Seen seldom by us mortals dense,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Come, sprite, inform, inhabit me</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>And teach me art and poetry.</p> +<br /> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Teach me to chuckle, sly as you,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>At gods that now I truckle to,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>To doubt the New Republic’s bent,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>And jeer each bookish Supplement.</p> +<br /> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Now, like a thief, you come and flit,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>You call so seldom, Mother Wit!</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Remember? Once when you stood by</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>I found a Dreiser novel dry.</p> +<br /> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>One day when I was reading hard—</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>What? Amy Lowell, godlike bard!</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>You peeped and then at what you saw</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Gave one Gargantuan guffaw.</p> +<br /> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Spirit or demon, coarse or rude,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>(Sometimes I think you must be stewed)</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Brute that you are, I love your powers,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>But,—drop in after office hours!</p> +<br /> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Yes, Common Sense, be mine, I ask,</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>But still respect my critic’s task;</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Molest me not when I’m employed</p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>With psychics, sex, vers libre, or Freud.</p> +</td></tr></table> + +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_360' name='page_360'></a>360</span></div> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p>The matter of playwrights is much more difficult +than that of poets! A play cannot, as a rule, +be satisfactorily quoted from. In the case of a +play which is to be staged there are terrible objections +(on the part of the producer) to any excerpts +at all appearing in advance. The publication +of the text of a play is hedged about by all +manner of difficulties, copyrights, warnings and +solemn notifications. As I write, it is expected +that A. H. Woods, the producer of plays, will +stage at the Times Square Theatre, New York, +probably in September, 1922, the new play by +W. Somerset Maugham, <i>East of Suez</i>. Pauline +Frederick is expected to assume the principal rôle. +Mr. Maugham’s play will be published when it +has been produced, or, if the theatre plans suffer +one of those changes to which all theatres are subject, +will be published anyhow! Shall we say +that the setting is Chinese, and that the characters +are Europeans, and that Mr. Maugham has again +shown his peculiar skill in the delineation of the +white man in contact with an alien civilisation? +We shall say so. And—never mind! A sure production +of the play for the Fireside Theatre is +hereby guaranteed. The Fireside Theatre, blessed +institution, has certain merits. The actors are always +ideal and the performance always begins on +time, as a letter to the New York Times has +pointed out. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_361' name='page_361'></a>361</span></p> +<p>Arnold Bennett has written a lot of plays; <i>The +Love Match</i> is merely the latest of them. If I +cannot very well quote a scene from <i>The Love +Match</i>,—on the grounds of length and possible +unintelligibility apart from the rest of the drama—I +can give you, I think, an idea of the wit of +the dialogue:</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Russ</span> (<i>with calm and disdainful resentment</i>). +You’re angry with me now.</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Nina</span> (<i>hurt</i>). Indeed I’m not. Why should I +be angry? Do you suppose I mind who sends you +flowers?</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Russ.</span> No, I don’t. That’s not the reason. +You’re angry with me because you came in here +tonight, after saying positively you wouldn’t +come, and I didn’t happen to be waiting for you.</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Nina.</span> Hugh, you’re ridiculous.</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Russ.</span> Of course I am. That’s not the reason. +You took me against my will to that footling +hospital ball last night, and I only got three +hours’ sleep instead of six, and you’re angry with +me because I yawned after you kissed me.</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Nina.</span> You’re too utterly absurd!</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Russ.</span> Of course I am. That’s not the reason, +either. The real reason is (<i>firmly</i>) you’re angry +with me because you clean forgot it was my +birthday today. That’s why you’re angry with +me.</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Nina.</span> Well, I think you might have reminded +me....</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Nina.</span> I like sitting on the carpet. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_362' name='page_362'></a>362</span></p> +<p>(<i>She reclines at his feet.</i>) I wonder why women nowadays +are so fond of the floor.</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Russ.</span> Because they’re oriental, of course.</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Nina.</span> But I’m not oriental, Hughie! (<i>Looking +at him with loving passion.</i>) Am I?</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Russ.</span> That’s the Eastern question.</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Nina.</span> But you like it, don’t you?</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Russ.</span> Every man has a private longing to live +in the East.</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Nina.</span> But not harems and things?</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Russ.</span> Well—within reason....</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Nina.</span> What do you think of me? I’m always +dying to know, and I’m never sure.</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Russ.</span> What do you think of <i>me</i>?</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Nina.</span> I think you’re magnificent and terrible +and ruthless.</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Russ</span> (<i>with amicable sincerity</i>). Oh, no, I’m +not. But you are.</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Nina.</span> How? When? When was I ruthless +last?</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Russ.</span> You’re always ruthless in your appetite +for life. You want to taste everything, enjoy +all the sensations there are. This evening you +like intensely to sit very quiet on the floor; but +last night you were mad about dancing and eating +and drinking. You couldn’t be still. Tomorrow +night it’ll be something else. There’s no +end to what you want, and what you want tremendously, +and what you’ve jolly well got to +have. You aren’t a woman. You’re a hundred +women. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_363' name='page_363'></a>363</span></p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Nina.</span> Oh! Hughie. How well you understand!</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Russ.</span> Yes, don’t I?</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Nina</span> (<i>tenderly</i>). Do I make you very unhappy? +Hughie, you mustn’t tell me I make you +unhappy. I couldn’t bear it.</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Russ.</span> Then I won’t.</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Nina.</span> But do I?</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Russ.</span> Let’s say you cause a certain amount of +disturbance sometimes.</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Nina.</span> But you like me to be as I am, don’t +you?</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Russ.</span> Yes.</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Nina.</span> You wouldn’t have me altered?</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Russ.</span> Can’t alter a climate.</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Nina.</span> You don’t know how much I want to +be perfect for you.</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Russ.</span> You know my ruthless rule, “The best +is good enough; chuck everything else into the +street.” Have I ever, on any single occasion, +chucked you into the street?</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Nina.</span> But I want to be more perfect.</p> +<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Russ.</span> Why do women always hanker after +the impossible?</p> +<p>J. Hartley Manners is the husband of Laurette +Taylor and the author of plays in some of which +she appears. His drama <i>The Harp of Life</i> has +as its theme the love of two women, his mother +and a courtesan, for a nineteen-year-old boy, and +their willing self-sacrifice that he may go forward +unbroken and unsmirched. The interesting +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_364' name='page_364'></a>364</span> +thing, aside from the strength of the play and its +vivid study of adolescence, is the portrait of the +mother. And now his play, <i>The National +Anthem</i>, which caused so much discussion, is procurable +in book form.</p> +<p>Here I have been talking about <i>East of Suez</i> +and <i>The Love Match</i> and have said nothing about +<i>The Circle</i> or <i>Milestones</i>! But I suppose everyone +knows that <i>The Circle</i> is by Maugham and +was markedly successful when it was produced +in New York; and surely everyone must +know that <i>Milestones</i> is by Arnold Bennett and +Edward Knoblauch—one of the great plays of +the last quarter century. I must take a moment +to speak of Sidney Howard’s four act +play, <i>Swords</i>. I think the best thing to do is to +give what Kenneth Macgowan, an exceptionally +able critic of the drama, said about the +play:</p> +<p>“<i>Swords</i> is as remarkable a play as America has +ever produced. It is a drama of action on a par +with <i>The Jest</i>, fused with the ecstasy of inspiration +and the mysticism of the spirit and the body +of woman. It sets Ghibelline and Guelph, Pope +and Emperor, two nobles and a dog of the gutters +fighting for a lady of strange and extraordinary +beauty who is the bride of one noble and the hostage +of the other. With the passions, the cruelties, +and spiritual vision of the middle ages to build +upon <i>Swords</i> sweeps upward to a scene of sudden, +flashing conflict shot with the mystic and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_365' name='page_365'></a>365</span> +triumphant ecstasy which emanates from this glorious +woman.”</p> +<p>American lovers of the drama have a special +interest in the two volumes of <i>The Plays of +Hubert Henry Davies.</i> At the time of his first +success Mr. Davies was working in San Francisco, +whither he had come from England. It was +Frohman who made him an offer that brought +him to New York and began the series of productions +which ended only with his death in 1917 +in Paris. These two volumes, very beautiful examples +of fine bookmaking, contain the successes: +<i>Cousin Kate</i>, <i>Captain Drew on Leave</i>, and <i>The +Mollusc</i>. Among the other plays included are: +<i>A Single Man</i>, <i>Doormats</i>, <i>Outcasts</i>, <i>Mrs. Gorringe’s +Necklace</i>, and <i>Lady Epping’s Lawsuit</i>. +Hugh Walpole has contributed a very touching +introduction.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='XXIII_THE_BOOKMAN_FOUNDATION_AND_THE_BOOKMAN' id='XXIII_THE_BOOKMAN_FOUNDATION_AND_THE_BOOKMAN'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_366' name='page_366'></a>366</span> +<h2><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Chapter XXIII</span></h2> +<h3>THE BOOKMAN FOUNDATION AND THE BOOKMAN</h3> +</div> + +<p>“Thank you very much for the May Bookman,” +writes Hugh Walpole (June, 1922). +“I have been reading The Bookman during the +last year and I congratulate Mr. Farrar most +strongly upon it. The paper has now a personality +unlike any other that I know and it is the least +dull of all literary papers! I like especially the +more serious articles, the series of sketches of literary +personalities seeming especially excellent to +me.” Mr. Walpole evidently had in mind the +feature of The Bookman called “The Literary +Spotlight.”</p> +<p>“The Bookman is alive. If there is a better +quality in the long run for a general literary +magazine to try for, I do not know what it is,” +writes Carl Van Doren, literary editor of The +Nation.</p> +<p>“Mr. Farrar has turned The Bookman into a +monthly brimming with his own creative enthusiasm,” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_367' name='page_367'></a>367</span> +says Louis Untermeyer. “It has technically +as well as figuratively no rival.”</p> +<p>And Irvin S. Cobb declares: “By my way of +thinking, it is the most informative, the most entertaining, +and incidentally the brightest and most +amusing publication devoted to literature and its +products that I have ever seen.”</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>ii</p> +</div> + +<p>The idea of The Bookman Foundation first occurred +in a discussion of the future of the magazine +and the ampler purposes it was desired to +have The Bookman serve. The idea had been advanced +that more than the future of the magazine +should be considered; those to whom the welfare +of the magazine was a most important consideration +distinctly felt that welfare to depend +upon a healthy and thriving condition of American +literature and of American interest in +American literature. The broadest possible view, +as is so often the case, seemed the only ultimately +profitable view. In what way could The Bookman +serve the interests of American literature in +which it was not already serving them? How +could public interest in American literature best +be stimulated?</p> +<p>The idea gradually took shape as a form of +foundation, naturally to be called The Bookman +Foundation, with a double purpose. Fundamentally +The Bookman Foundation is being established +to stimulate the study of American literature +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_368' name='page_368'></a>368</span> +and its development; more immediately, and +as the direct means to that end, the purpose of the +Foundation will be to afford a vehicle for the best +constructive criticism, spoken and written, on the +beginnings and development of our literature. In +association with the faculty of English at one of +the larger and older American universities, Yale, +the Foundation will establish a lectureship; and +annually there will be given at Yale a lecture or +a course of lectures on American literature by +some distinguished writer or critic. It is hoped +that, as the Foundation grows, other universities +will be brought into co-operation with Yale so +that the lectureship may move from centre to +centre, stimulating to intelligent self-expression +the varied elements that are contributing to our +national growth.</p> +<p>The lectures given on The Bookman Foundation +will be published in book form by The Bookman +in a handsome and uniform edition. Membership +in The Bookman Foundation will be by +invitation. All members of the Foundation will +be entitled to receive the published lectures without +charge and they will also have the privilege +of subscribing for certain first and limited editions +of notable American books. At the present +writing, even so much as I have suggested is +largely tentative, and I offer it for its essential +idea; an executive committee of The Bookman +Foundation, in co-operation with an advisory +committee, the members of which committees have +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_369' name='page_369'></a>369</span> +yet to be finally determined, will settle all details. +By the time of this book’s publication or even +sooner, I expect a full announcement will have +been made; and for the correction of what I have +stated I would refer the reader to The Bookman +itself.</p> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iii</p> +</div> + +<p>I am not going to give a historical account of +The Bookman here. The magazine is no newcomer +among American periodicals. It has a reasonably +old and highly honourable history. For +long published by the house of Dodd, Mead & +Company, it was acquired by George H. Doran +Company and placed under the editorial direction +of Robert Cortes Holliday. That was the beginning +of a new vitality in its pages. Mr. Holliday +was succeeded by Mr. Farrar, and now, in its +fifty-sixth volume, The Bookman seems to the +thousands who read it more interesting than ever +before in its history.</p> +<p>The roll call of its past and present contributors +includes many of the representative names in contemporary +American and English literature. I +will give a few:</p> +<table summary='poetry' style=' margin-left:2em;'><tr><td> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Joseph Hergesheimer</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Amy Lowell</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Siegfried Sassoon</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>James Branch Cabell</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Mary Roberts Rinehart</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Zona Gale</span></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_370' name='page_370'></a>370</span></div> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Fannie Hurst</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>William McFee</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Sherwood Anderson</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Hugh Walpole</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Frank Swinnerton</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Robert Frost</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Sara Teasdale</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Irvin S. Cobb</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Richard Le Gallienne</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Donn Byrne</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Christopher Morley</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Robert Cortes Holliday</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Johan Bojer</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>William Rose Benét</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Edgar Lee Masters</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Kathleen Norris</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Frederick O’Brien</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>D. H. Lawrence</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>John Drinkwater</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Joseph C. Lincoln</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>George Jean Nathan</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>William Allen White</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Carl Sandburg</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Sinclair Lewis</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>F. Scott Fitzgerald</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Eugene O’Neill</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>H. L. Mencken</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>John Dos Passos</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Elinor Wylie</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Gertrude Atherton</span></p> +<p style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Floyd Dell</span></p> +</td></tr></table> + +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_371' name='page_371'></a>371</span></div> +<div class='ce'> +<p style=' font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;'>iv</p> +</div> + +<p>Among the American essayists whose work has +appeared in The Bookman before its publication +in book form is Robert Cortes Holliday; among +strikingly successful books that appeared serially +in The Bookman was Donald Ogden Stewart’s +<i>A Parody Outline of History</i>. Among The Bookman’s +regular reviewers are Louis Untermeyer, +Wilson Follett, Paul Elmer More, H. L. Mencken, +Henry Seidel Canby and Maurice Francis +Egan. Among writers of distinction whose short +stories have first appeared in The Bookman are +William McFee, Sherwood Anderson, Mary Austin, +and Johan Bojer; while the intimate personal +portraits published under the general title “The +Literary Spotlight” have Lytton Stracheyized +contemporary American literature. Possibly it is +in the department of poetry that The Bookman +now shines the brightest (see the account of The +Bookman Anthology in the previous chapter); if +so, that may be because the editor, John Farrar, is +himself a poet.</p> +<p>Probably no other literary magazine in the +world exhibits such a degree of personal contact +between the editor, his readers, his contributors +and the magazine’s friends. This note of personal +contact is constantly reflected in the magazine’s +pages; but anyone who has called upon the editor +of The Bookman once or twice will know +explicitly just what I mean.</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_372' name='page_372'></a>372</span></div> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='EPILOGUE' id='EPILOGUE'></a> + +<h3>EPILOGUE</h3> +</div> + +<p>I have been surprised, on looking back over +these chapters, by the variety of the books I have +talked about. That so diverse a list should be +under a single imprint and should represent, with +few exceptions, the publications of a single +twelvemonth, seems to me very remarkable. I +believe a majority of the books are the production +of a single publishing season, the autumn of 1922, +and the Doran imprint is but thirteen years old.</p> +<p>“Of the making of books, there is no end”; but +of the making of any single book, there must +come an end. Yet what is the end of a book but +the beginning of new friendships?</p> +<div class='ce' style=' margin-top:3em; margin-bottom:2em;'> +<p>THE END</p> +</div> + +<hr style='margin:30px 0; width:100%; border:none; border-top:thin dashed silver;' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 0em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='INDEX' id='INDEX'></a> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_373' name='page_373'></a>373</span> + +<h3>INDEX</h3> +</div> + +<p> +Agate, James E., <a href='#page_49'>49</a>;<br /> + <i>Alarums and Excursions</i>, <a href='#page_49'>49</a>;<br /> + dramatic critic, <a href='#page_50'>50</a>;<br /> + <i>Responsibility</i>, <a href='#page_50'>50</a>;<br /> + review by The Londoner, in The Bookman, <a href='#page_50'>50</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Alarums and Excursions</i> by James E. Agate, <a href='#page_49'>49</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Alone in the Caribbean</i>, by Frederic A. Fenger, <a href='#page_194'>194</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Altar Steps, The</i>, by Compton Mackenzie, <a href='#page_265'>265</a>, <a href='#page_266'>266</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Amazing Adventures of Letitia Carberry, The</i>, by Mary Roberts Rinehart, <a href='#page_108'>108</a>, <a href='#page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#page_116'>116</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Amazing Interlude, The</i>, by Mary Roberts Rinehart, <a href='#page_105'>105</a>, <a href='#page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#page_116'>116</a><br /> +<br /> +Andrews, C. E., <i>Old Morocco and the Forbidden Atlas</i>, <a href='#page_193'>193</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Ann and Her Mother</i>, by O. Douglas, <a href='#page_249'>249</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Anna of the Five Towns</i>, by Arnold Bennett, <a href='#page_146'>146</a>, <a href='#page_149'>149</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Art of Lawn Tennis</i>, The, by William T. Tilden, <a href='#page_213'>213</a><br /> +<br /> +Asquith, Elizabeth (Princess Antoine Bibesco), daughter of Margot Asquith, <a href='#page_47'>47</a><br /> +<br /> +Asquith, Margot, <a href='#page_89'>89</a>;<br /> + mother of Elizabeth, <a href='#page_47'>47</a>;<br /> + <i>My Impressions of America</i>, <a href='#page_122'>122</a>;<br /> + <i>The Autobiography of Margot Asquith</i>, <a href='#page_122'>122</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Autobiography of Margot Asquith</i>, The, by Margot Asquith, <a href='#page_122'>122</a><br /> +<br /> +Bailey, Margaret Emerson, <i>Robin Hood’s Barn</i>, <a href='#page_194'>194</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Balloons</i>, by Princess Antoine Bibesco, <a href='#page_47'>47</a><br /> +<br /> +Banning, Margaret Culkin, <i>Half Loaves</i>, <a href='#page_253'>253</a>;<br /> + <i>Spellbinders</i>, <a href='#page_252'>252</a>;<br /> + <i>This Marrying</i>, <a href='#page_253'>253</a><br /> +<br /> +Barton, Olive Roberts, <i>Cloud Boat Stories,</i> <a href='#page_162'>162</a>;<br /> + Column, <a href='#page_162'>162</a>;<br /> + review by Candace T. Stevenson, <a href='#page_162'>162</a>-<a href='#page_164'>164</a>;<br /> + sister of Mary Roberts Rinehart, <a href='#page_161'>161</a>;<br /> + <i>Wonderful Land of Up</i>, <a href='#page_162'>162</a>;<br /> + work with children, <a href='#page_161'>161</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Beauty for Ashes</i>, by Jean Sutherland, <a href='#page_262'>262</a><br /> +<br /> +Belloc, Hilaire, <a href='#page_23'>23</a>, <a href='#page_77'>77</a><br /> +<br /> +Benét, William Rose, <i>Moons of Grandeur</i>, <a href='#page_354'>354</a>, <a href='#page_355'>355</a>;<br /> + review by Don Marquis, <a href='#page_354'>354</a>, <a href='#page_355'>355</a>;<br /> + Benét, William Rose, <i>The First Person Singular</i>, <a href='#page_262'>262</a>, <a href='#page_263'>263</a>, <a href='#page_354'>354</a><br /> +<br /> +Bennett, Arnold <a href='#page_133'>133</a>, <a href='#page_134'>134</a>, <a href='#page_144'>144</a>, <a href='#page_145'>145</a>, <a href='#page_147'>147</a>, <a href='#page_148'>148</a>, <a href='#page_149'>149</a>, <a href='#page_150'>150</a>, <a href='#page_151'>151</a>;<br /> + A <i>Man from the North</i>, <a href='#page_146'>146</a>, <a href='#page_149'>149</a>;<br /> + <i>Anna of the Five Towns</i>, <a href='#page_146'>146</a>, <a href='#page_149'>149</a>;<br /> + article on Hugh Walpole, <a href='#page_22'>22</a>, <a href='#page_23'>23</a>;<br /> + booklet by George H. Doran Co., <a href='#page_150'>150</a>;<br /> + books by, list of, <a href='#page_149'>149</a>, <a href='#page_150'>150</a>;<br /> + <i>Clayhanger</i>, <a href='#page_148'>148</a>, <a href='#page_149'>149</a>;<br /> + comments of Frank Swinnerton’s Books, <a href='#page_225'>225</a>;<br /> + comments on <i>The Casement</i>, by Frank Swinnerton, <a href='#page_236'>236</a>-<a href='#page_242'>242</a>;<br /> + criticism by New York Evening Post, <a href='#page_148'>148</a>;<br /> + <i>Cupid and Commonsense</i>, <a href='#page_133'>133</a>, <a href='#page_150'>150</a>;<br /> + description of Hugh Walpole, <a href='#page_22'>22</a>;<br /> + <i>Friendship and Happiness</i>, <a href='#page_303'>303</a>;<br /> + <i>How to Live on Twenty-four Hours a Day</i>, <a href='#page_303'>303</a>;<br /> + <i>Lilian</i>, <a href='#page_133'>133</a>;<br /> + <i>Love and Life</i>, <a href='#page_146'>146</a>;<br /> + <i>Married Life</i>, <a href='#page_303'>303</a>;<br /> + <i>Mental Efficiency</i>, <a href='#page_303'>303</a>;<br /> + <i>Milestones</i> (with Edward Knoblauch), <a href='#page_364'>364</a>;<br /> + <i>Mr. Prohack</i>, <a href='#page_133'>133</a>, <a href='#page_141'>141</a>, <a href='#page_149'>149</a>;<br /> + on Hugh Walpole’s courage, <a href='#page_25'>25</a>;<br /> + <i>Polite Farces</i>, <a href='#page_146'>146</a>;<br /> + <i>Self and Self-Management</i>, <a href='#page_303'>303</a>;<br /> + sketch of life by John W. Cunliffe, <a href='#page_144'>144</a>-<a href='#page_148'>148</a>, <a href='#page_150'>150</a>;<br /> + sources on, <a href='#page_150'>150</a>;<br /> + <i>The Author’s Craft</i>, <a href='#page_150'>150</a>;<br /> + education of, <a href='#page_145'>145</a>;<br /> + <i>The Gates of Wrath</i>, <a href='#page_146'>146</a>, <a href='#page_149'>149</a>;<br /> + <i>The Love Match</i>, <a href='#page_361'>361</a>, <a href='#page_364'>364</a>;<br /> + <i>The Old Wives’ Tale</i>, <a href='#page_133'>133</a>, <a href='#page_149'>149</a>;<br /> + <i>The Truth About an Author</i>, <a href='#page_144'>144</a>, <a href='#page_150'>150</a><br /> +<br /> +Benson, E. F., <i>Peter</i>, <a href='#page_261'>261</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Between Two Thieves</i>, by Richard Dehan (Clotilde Graves), <a href='#page_198'>198</a>, <a href='#page_200'>200</a>, <a href='#page_210'>210</a><br /> +<br /> +Bibesco, Princess Antoine (Elizabeth Asquith), <a href='#page_47'>47</a>;<br /> + <i>Balloons</i>, <a href='#page_47'>47</a>;<br /> + <i>I Have Only Myself to Blame</i>, <a href='#page_47'>47</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Birds and Other Poems, The</i>, by J. C. Squire, <a href='#page_351'>351</a>;<br /> + Quotation from, <a href='#page_351'>351</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Black Gang, The</i>, by Cyril McNeile, <a href='#page_70'>70</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Black Cæsar’s Clan</i>, by Albert Payson Terhune, <a href='#page_71'>71</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Black Gold</i>, by Albert Payson Terhune, <a href='#page_71'>71</a>;<br /> + Foreword to, by Albert Payson Terhune, <a href='#page_71'>71</a>-<a href='#page_74'>74</a><br /> +<br /> +Blaker, Richard, <i>The Voice in the Wilderness</i>, <a href='#page_263'>263</a><br /> +<br /> +Bookman, The;<br /> + articles by Robert Cortes Holliday, <a href='#page_221'>221</a>;<br /> + Comment on Richard Dehan, <a href='#page_198'>198</a>, <a href='#page_211'>211</a>;<br /> + Comments on by Hugh Walpole, Carl Van Doren, Irvin S. Cobb, Louis Untermeyer, <a href='#page_367'>367</a>;<br /> + List of contributors, <a href='#page_370'>370</a>, <a href='#page_371'>371</a>;<br /> + List of Reviewers, <a href='#page_371'>371</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Book of Humorous Verse</i>, by Carolyn Wells, <a href='#page_99'>99</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Bookman Anthology of Verse</i> (1922), <a href='#page_356'>356</a>;<br /> + Contributors, <a href='#page_356'>356</a>, <a href='#page_357'>357</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Bookman Foundation, The</i>, <a href='#page_367'>367</a>, <a href='#page_368'>368</a>;<br /> + lectures on, <a href='#page_368'>368</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Books in General, Third Series</i>, by J. C. Squire, <a href='#page_44'>44</a><br /> +<br /> +Bottome, Phyllis (Mrs. A. E. Forbes Dennis), <a href='#page_258'>258</a>;<br /> + Acquaintances, <a href='#page_259'>259</a>;<br /> + <i>The Kingfisher</i>, <a href='#page_260'>260</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Boy Journalist Series</i>, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler, <a href='#page_159'>159</a>, <a href='#page_161'>161</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Breaking Point, The</i>, by Mary Roberts Rinehart, <a href='#page_105'>105</a>;<br /> + résumé of, <a href='#page_105'>105</a>-<a href='#page_107'>7</a>, <a href='#page_117'>117</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Broome Street Straws</i>, by Robert Cortes Holliday, <a href='#page_52'>52</a><br /> +<br /> +Broun, Heywood, <a href='#page_40'>40</a>;<br /> + columnist, <i>Pieces of Hate</i> and <i>Other Enthusiasms</i>, <a href='#page_41'>41</a>;<br /> + Subjects touched, <a href='#page_41'>41</a>, <a href='#page_42'>42</a>, <a href='#page_43'>43</a><br /> +<br /> +Buchan, John, The Path of the King, <a href='#page_249'>249</a>;<br /> + <i>The Thirty-nine Steps</i><br /> +<br /> +Buckrose, J. E. (Mrs. Falconer Jameson), <i>A Knight Among Ladies</i>, <a href='#page_251'>251</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Bulldog Drummond</i>, by Cyril McNeile, <a href='#page_70'>70</a><br /> +<br /> +Burke, Thomas, <a href='#page_187'>187</a>, <a href='#page_189'>189</a>, <a href='#page_190'>190</a>;<br /> + More Limehouse Nights, <a href='#page_187'>187</a>;<br /> + <i>Nights in London</i>, <a href='#page_190'>190</a>;<br /> + Reasons given for his characters, <a href='#page_187'>187</a>, <a href='#page_188'>188</a>, <a href='#page_189'>189</a>;<br /> + <i>The London Spy</i>, <a href='#page_189'>189</a><br /> +<br /> +Byron, May, <i>Billy Butt’s Adventure</i>, <a href='#page_153'>153</a>;<br /> + <i>Jack-a-Dandy</i>, <a href='#page_153'>153</a>;<br /> + <i>Little Jumping Joan</i>, <a href='#page_153'>153</a>;<br /> + <i>Old Friends in New Frocks</i>, <a href='#page_153'>153</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Candles that Burn</i>, by Mrs. Kilmer<br /> +<br /> +<i>Captives, The</i>, by Hugh Walpole, <a href='#page_24'>24</a>, <a href='#page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#page_30'>30</a>, <a href='#page_31'>31</a>;<br /> + won Tait Black Prize, 1920, <a href='#page_30'>30</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Carnival</i>, by Compton Mackenzie, <a href='#page_265'>265</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Casement, The</i>, by Frank Swinnerton, <a href='#page_236'>236</a>, <a href='#page_242'>242</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Cathedral, The</i>, by Hugh Walpole, <a href='#page_19'>19</a>, <a href='#page_31'>31</a>;<br /> + at Polchester, <a href='#page_19'>19</a>;<br /> + review of, <a href='#page_19'>19</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Century of Banking in New York, 1822-1922, A</i>, by Henry Wysham Lanier, <a href='#page_193'>193</a><br /> +<br /> +Chambers, Robert W., article on, by Rupert Hughes, <a href='#page_320'>320</a>;<br /> + Eris, <a href='#page_311'>311</a>, <a href='#page_317'>317</a>, <a href='#page_320'>320</a>;<br /> + <i>In the Quarter</i>, <a href='#page_317'>317</a>, <a href='#page_318'>318</a>; Iole, <a href='#page_318'>318</a>, <a href='#page_319'>319</a>;<br /> + list of books by, <a href='#page_318'>318</a>, <a href='#page_319'>319</a>, <a href='#page_320'>320</a>;<br /> + Sources On, <a href='#page_320'>320</a>; Story-teller, <a href='#page_308'>308</a>;<br /> + <i>The Flaming Jewel</i>, <a href='#page_311'>311</a>, <a href='#page_320'>320</a>;<br /> + <i>The King in Yellow,</i> <a href='#page_317'>317</a>, <a href='#page_318'>318</a>;<br /> + <i>The Talkers</i>, <a href='#page_317'>317</a>, <a href='#page_320'>320</a>;<br /> + <i>The Witch of Ellangowan</i>, <a href='#page_318'>318</a>;<br /> + <i>With the Band</i> (poem), <a href='#page_317'>317</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Chaste Wife, The</i>, by Frank Swinnerton, <a href='#page_226'>226</a>, <a href='#page_243'>243</a><br /> +<br /> +Chinese Metal, by E. G. Kemp, <a href='#page_190'>190</a>;<br /> + comment by Sao-Ke Alfred Sze, <a href='#page_191'>191</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Circle, The</i>, by W. Somerset Maugham, <a href='#page_289'>289</a>, <a href='#page_292'>292</a>, <a href='#page_364'>364</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Circuit Rider’s Wife, A</i>, by Corra Harris, <a href='#page_257'>257</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Circular Staircase, The</i>, by Mary Roberts Rinehart, <a href='#page_110'>110</a>, <a href='#page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#page_116'>116</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Claim Jumpers, The</i>, by Stewart Edward White, <a href='#page_55'>55</a>, <a href='#page_63'>63</a>, <a href='#page_66'>66</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Clayhanger</i>, by Arnold Bennett, <a href='#page_148'>148</a>, <a href='#page_149'>149</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Cloud Boat Stories</i>, by Olive Roberts Barton, <a href='#page_162'>162</a><br /> +<br /> +Cobb, Irvin S., <a href='#page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#page_241'>241</a>;<br /> + <i>An Occurrence up a Side Street</i>, <a href='#page_176'>176</a>, <a href='#page_180'>180</a>;<br /> + as a humorist, <a href='#page_179'>179</a>;<br /> + at Portsmouth Peace Conference, <a href='#page_177'>177</a>, <a href='#page_178'>178</a>;<br /> + biography by Robert H. Davis, <a href='#page_172'>172</a>-<a href='#page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#page_186'>186</a>;<br /> + books by, <a href='#page_184'>184</a>;<br /> + comments on The Bookman, <a href='#page_367'>367</a>;<br /> + description of self, <a href='#page_182'>182</a>, <a href='#page_183'>183</a>;<br /> + dimensions of, <a href='#page_166'>166</a>;<br /> + editorial work, <a href='#page_175'>175</a>, <a href='#page_176'>176</a>;<br /> + Fishhead, <a href='#page_176'>176</a>, <a href='#page_180'>180</a>;<br /> + <i>J. Poindexter, Colored</i>, <a href='#page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#page_185'>185</a>;<br /> + lecture by Gelett Burgess, <a href='#page_179'>179</a>;<br /> + Plays by, <a href='#page_185'>185</a>;<br /> + report of Thaw Trial, <a href='#page_178'>178</a>;<br /> + Sources on, <a href='#page_186'>186</a>;<br /> + <i>Stickfuls</i>, <a href='#page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#page_185'>185</a>;<br /> + <i>The Belled Buzzard</i>, <a href='#page_176'>176</a>, <a href='#page_180'>180</a>;<br /> + <i>The Escape of Mr. Trimm</i>, <a href='#page_178'>178</a>, <a href='#page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#page_184'>184</a><br /> +<br /> +Collected Parodies, by J. C. Squire, <a href='#page_98'>98</a>;<br /> + Selections, <a href='#page_98'>98</a>, <a href='#page_99'>99</a><br /> +<br /> +Coming of the Peoples, The, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler, <a href='#page_161'>161</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman, The</i>, by Stephen McKenna, <a href='#page_337'>337</a>, <a href='#page_344'>344</a>, <a href='#page_346'>346</a>;<br /> +<br /> + Quotations from London Times, <a href='#page_337'>337</a>-<a href='#page_339'>339</a>;<br /> + Sample of, <a href='#page_344'>344</a>, <a href='#page_345'>345</a><br /> +<br /> +Conjurors House, by Stewart Edward White, <a href='#page_66'>66</a><br /> +<br /> +Conkling, Hilda, <a href='#page_356'>356</a><br /> +<br /> +Connor, Ralph, <a href='#page_264'>264</a><br /> +<br /> +Conrad, Joseph, A Critical Study of Walpole, <a href='#page_31'>31</a>;<br /> + experiences similar, <a href='#page_25'>25</a>;<br /> + introductory note to <i>Anthology</i>, <a href='#page_28'>28</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Cooperative Movement</i>, by Dr. James B. Warbasse, <a href='#page_300'>300</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Coquette</i>, by Frank Swinnerton, <a href='#page_226'>226</a>, <a href='#page_243'>243</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Creative Spirit in Industry, The</i>, by Robert B. Wolf, <a href='#page_300'>300</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Crisis of the Naval War</i>, by Viscount Jellicoe of Scapa, <a href='#page_329'>329</a>;<br /> + review of, in Proceedings of the United States Naval Institute, <a href='#page_329'>329</a>, <a href='#page_330'>330</a>, <a href='#page_331'>331</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Crome Yellow</i>, by Aldous Huxley, <a href='#page_34'>34</a><br /> +<br /> +Cummins, Col. Stevenson Lyle, in Who’s Who, <a href='#page_156'>156</a>, <a href='#page_157'>157</a>;<br /> + <i>Plays for Children</i>, <a href='#page_157'>157</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Cupid and Commonsense</i>, by Arnold Bennett, <a href='#page_133'>133</a>, <a href='#page_150'>150</a><br /> +<br /> +Dana, H. W. L., <a href='#page_297'>297</a>; <i>Social Forces in Literature</i>, <a href='#page_300'>300</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Dancers in the Dark</i>, by Dorothy Speare, <a href='#page_255'>255</a>, <a href='#page_256'>256</a><br /> +<br /> +Daniels, Josephus, <i>Our Navy at War</i>, <a href='#page_321'>321</a>, <a href='#page_322'>322</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Dark Forest, The</i>, by Hugh, Walpole, <a href='#page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#page_31'>31</a><br /> +<br /> +Davey, Norman, <a href='#page_36'>36</a>, <a href='#page_37'>37</a>;<br /> + Guinea Girl, <a href='#page_36'>36</a>, <a href='#page_37'>37</a>;<br /> + The Gas Turbine, <a href='#page_37'>37</a>;<br /> + <i>The Pilgrim of a Smile</i>, <a href='#page_36'>36</a><br /> +<br /> +Davies, Hubert Henry, Plays of, <i>A Single Man</i>, <a href='#page_365'>365</a>;<br /> + <i>Captain Drew on Leave</i>, <a href='#page_365'>365</a>;<br /> + <i>Cousin Kate</i>, <a href='#page_365'>365</a>;<br /> + <i>Doormats</i>, <a href='#page_365'>365</a>;<br /> + <i>Lady Epping’s Law Suit</i>, <a href='#page_365'>365</a>;<br /> + <i>Mrs. Gorringe’s Necklace</i>, <a href='#page_365'>365</a>;<br /> + <i>Outcasts</i>, <a href='#page_365'>365</a>;<br /> + <i>The Mollusc</i>, <a href='#page_365'>365</a><br /> +<br /> +Davis, Robert H., <a href='#page_186'>186</a>;<br /> + biographer of Irvin S. Cobb, <a href='#page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#page_186'>186</a>;<br /> + Box Score of Writers, <a href='#page_183'>183</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Days Before Yesterday</i>, by Lord Frederic Hamilton, <a href='#page_131'>131</a><br /> +<br /> +de Staël, Madame, <a href='#page_128'>128</a><br /> +<br /> +“Death of Lully,” in Limbo, by Aldous Huxley, <a href='#page_36'>36</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Deaves Affair</i>, The, by Hulbert Footner, <a href='#page_75'>75</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>December Love</i>, by Robert Hichins, <a href='#page_249'>249</a><br /> +<br /> +Dehan, Richard (Clotilde Graves), <a href='#page_196'>196</a>, <a href='#page_197'>197</a>, <a href='#page_199'>199</a>, <a href='#page_200'>200</a>, <a href='#page_201'>201</a>, <a href='#page_204'>204</a>, <a href='#page_209'>209</a>, <a href='#page_210'>210</a>, <a href='#page_211'>211</a>;<br /> + <i>Between Two Thieves</i>, <a href='#page_198'>198</a>, <a href='#page_200'>200</a>, <a href='#page_210'>210</a>;<br /> + books by, <a href='#page_210'>210</a>;<br /> + Comment by The Bookman, <a href='#page_198'>198</a>;<br /> + sources on, <a href='#page_211'>211</a>;<br /> + <i>That Which Hath Wings</i>, <a href='#page_200'>200</a>, <a href='#page_210'>210</a>;<br /> + <i>The Dop Doctor</i>, <a href='#page_196'>196</a>, <a href='#page_200'>200</a>, <a href='#page_210'>210</a>;<br /> + <i>The Eve of Pascua</i>, <a href='#page_201'>201</a>, <a href='#page_210'>210</a>;<br /> + <i>The Just Steward</i>, <a href='#page_201'>201</a>, <a href='#page_202'>202</a>, <a href='#page_203'>203</a>, <a href='#page_205'>205</a>, <a href='#page_206'>206</a>, <a href='#page_207'>207</a>, <a href='#page_208'>208</a>, <a href='#page_210'>210</a><br /> +<br /> +Denham, Sir James, <i>Memoirs of the Memorable</i>, <a href='#page_119'>119</a><br /> +<br /> +Dennis, Mrs. A. E. Forbes, see Phyllis Bottome, <a href='#page_258'>258</a><br /> +<br /> +Dircks, Helen, <i>Passenger</i>, <a href='#page_236'>236</a><br /> +<br /> +Djemal Pasha, <i>Memoirs of</i>, <a href='#page_122'>122</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Doors of the Night</i>, by Frank L. Packard, <a href='#page_68'>68</a>, <a href='#page_69'>69</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Dop Doctor, The</i>, by Richard Dehan (Clotilde Graves), <a href='#page_196'>196</a>, <a href='#page_200'>200</a>, <a href='#page_210'>210</a><br /> +<br /> +Dos Passes, John, <a href='#page_356'>356</a>;<br /> + <i>A Pushcart at the Curb</i>, <a href='#page_347'>347</a>;<br /> + <i>de Unamuno, Miguel</i>, <a href='#page_39'>39</a>;<br /> + <i>Manrique, Jorge, Ode</i>, <a href='#page_39'>39</a>;<br /> + <i>Rosinante to The Road Again</i>, <a href='#page_38'>38</a>, <a href='#page_347'>347</a>;<br /> + <i>Three Soldiers</i>, <a href='#page_347'>347</a><br /> +<br /> +Douglas, O., <a href='#page_249'>249</a>;<br /> + <i>Ann and Her Mother</i>, <a href='#page_249'>249</a>;<br /> + <i>Penny Plain</i>, <a href='#page_249'>249</a>;<br /> + Sister of John Buchan, <a href='#page_249'>249</a><br /> +<br /> +Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan, <a href='#page_115'>115</a>;<br /> + <i>Spiritualism and Rationalism</i>, <a href='#page_302'>302</a>;<br /> + <i>The New Revelation</i>, <a href='#page_302'>302</a>;<br /> + <i>The Vital Message</i>, <a href='#page_302'>302</a>;<br /> + <i>The Wanderings of a Spiritualist</i>, <a href='#page_302'>302</a><br /> +<br /> +Dreiser, Theodore, review of Human Bondage, in New Republic, <a href='#page_273'>273</a>-<a href='#page_277'>277</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Duchess of Wrexe, The</i>, by Hugh Walpole, <a href='#page_19'>19</a>, <a href='#page_31'>31</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Earth’s Story, The</i>, by Frederic Arnold Kummer, <a href='#page_155'>155</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>East of Suez</i>, by W. Somerset Maugham, <a href='#page_284'>284</a>, <a href='#page_292'>292</a>, <a href='#page_360'>360</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Education of Eric Law, The</i>, see <i>The Sensationalists</i>, by Stephen McKenna, <a href='#page_342'>342</a>, <a href='#page_346'>346</a><br /> +<br /> +Ellis, Havelock, <i>Little Essays of Love and Virtue</i>, <a href='#page_302'>302</a>;<br /> + <i>Emperor Francis Joseph and His Times, The</i>, by Baron Margutti, <a href='#page_130'>130</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>English Literature During the Last Half Century</i>, by John W. Cunliffe, <a href='#page_144'>144</a>, <a href='#page_150'>150</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Eris</i>, by Robert W. Chambers, <a href='#page_311'>311</a>, <a href='#page_317'>317</a>, <a href='#page_320'>320</a>;<br /> + from extracts, <a href='#page_311'>311</a>-<a href='#page_316'>316</a>, <a href='#page_320'>320</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Escape of Mr. Trimm, The</i>, by Irvin S. Cobb, <a href='#page_178'>178</a>, <a href='#page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#page_184'>184</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Essays on Religion</i>, by T. R. Glover, <a href='#page_305'>305</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Eve of Pascua</i>, The, by Richard Dehan (Clotilde Graves), <a href='#page_201'>201</a>, <a href='#page_210'>210</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Eyes of Love, The</i>, by Corra Harris, <a href='#page_257'>257</a>;<br /> + extract from, <a href='#page_257'>257</a>-<a href='#page_258'>8</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Facing Reality</i>, by Esme Wingfield-Stratford, <a href='#page_300'>300</a>;<br /> + Chapter titles, <a href='#page_300'>300</a>;<br /> + introduction, extracts from, <a href='#page_300'>300</a>, <a href='#page_301'>301</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Fairies and Chimneys</i>, by Rose Fyleman, <a href='#page_158'>158</a>;<br /> + Quotation from, <a href='#page_158'>158</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Fairy Flute, The</i>, by Rose Fyleman, <a href='#page_158'>158</a><br /> +<br /> +Farnsworth, Sidney, <i>Illumination and Its Development in the Present Day</i>, <a href='#page_223'>223</a><br /> +<br /> +Farrar, John, Editor of The Bookman, <a href='#page_94'>94</a>, <a href='#page_357'>357</a>;<br /> + poet, <a href='#page_371'>371</a>;<br /> + Editor, see The Bookman, <a href='#page_371'>371</a><br /> +<br /> +Fenger, Frederic A., <i>Alone in the Caribbean</i>, <a href='#page_194'>194</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>First Days of Man, The</i>, by Frederic Arnold Kummer, <a href='#page_155'>155</a>, <a href='#page_156'>156</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>First Person Singular, The</i>, by William Rose Benét, <a href='#page_262'>262</a>, <a href='#page_263'>263</a>, <a href='#page_354'>354</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Flaming Jewel, The</i>, by Robert W. Chambers, <a href='#page_311'>311</a>, <a href='#page_320'>320</a><br /> +<br /> +Follett, Wilson, comparisons, <a href='#page_52'>52</a>;<br /> + Reviewer The Bookman, <a href='#page_371'>371</a>;<br /> + <i>Some Modern Novelists</i>, <a href='#page_150'>150</a><br /> +<br /> +Footner, Hulbert, <i>The Deaves Affair</i>, <a href='#page_75'>75</a>;<br /> + <i>The Owl Taxi</i>, <a href='#page_74'>74</a>, <a href='#page_75'>75</a><br /> +<br /> +Forbes, Lady Angela, <i>Memories and Base Details</i>, <a href='#page_130'>130</a>;<br /> + <i>Memories Discreet and Indiscreet</i>, <a href='#page_130'>130</a>;<br /> + <i>More Indiscretions</i>, <a href='#page_129'>129</a><br /> +<br /> +Forbes, Rosita, <i>The Secret of the Sahara: Kufara</i>, <a href='#page_192'>192</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Fortitude</i>, by Hugh Walpole, <a href='#page_21'>21</a>, <a href='#page_23'>23</a>, <a href='#page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#page_31'>31</a>;<br /> + theme of, <a href='#page_21'>21</a>, <a href='#page_31'>31</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Forty Years On</i>, by Lord Ernest Hamilton, <a href='#page_132'>132</a><br /> +<br /> +“Frankincense and Myrrh,” from <i>Pieces of Hate</i>, by Heywood Broun, <a href='#page_41'>41</a>, <a href='#page_42'>42</a>, <a href='#page_43'>43</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>From Now On</i>, by Frank L. Packard, <a href='#page_68'>68</a>, <a href='#page_69'>69</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale, The</i>, by Frank L. Packard, <a href='#page_68'>68</a>, <a href='#page_69'>69</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Further Adventures of Lad</i>, by Albert Payson Terhune, <a href='#page_215'>215</a>;<br /> + extracts from, <a href='#page_216'>216</a><br /> +<br /> +Fyleman, Rose, Fairies and Chimneys, <a href='#page_158'>158</a>;<br /> + <i>The Fairy Flute</i>, <a href='#page_158'>158</a><br /> +<br /> +Gabriel, Gilbert W., <a href='#page_53'>53</a>;<br /> + Jiminy, novel by, <a href='#page_53'>53</a>;<br /> + music critic, N. Y. Sun, <a href='#page_53'>53</a>;<br /> + Novelist, <a href='#page_53'>53</a>;<br /> + substitute for Don Marquis, <a href='#page_54'>54</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Gates of Wrath, The</i>, by Arnold Bennett, <a href='#page_146'>146</a>, <a href='#page_149'>149</a><br /> +<br /> +Gavit, John Palmer, account of Stewart Edward White, <a href='#page_65'>65</a>, <a href='#page_66'>66</a>, <a href='#page_67'>67</a><br /> +<br /> +Geister, Edna, <i>Ice-breakers and the Ice-Breaker Herself</i>, <a href='#page_219'>219</a>;<br /> + <i>It Is to Laugh</i>, <a href='#page_219'>219</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Gist of Golf, The</i>, by Harry Vardon, <a href='#page_213'>213</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Giving and Receiving</i>, by E. V. Lucas, <a href='#page_307'>307</a><br /> +<br /> +Glover, T. R., <i>Essays on Religion</i>, <a href='#page_305'>305</a>;<br /> + <i>Jesus in the Experience of Man</i>, <a href='#page_305'>305</a>;<br /> + <i>Poets and Pilgrims</i>, <a href='#page_305'>305</a>;<br /> + <i>Poets and Puritans,</i> <a href='#page_305'>305</a>;<br /> + <i>The Jesus of History</i>, <a href='#page_305'>305</a>;<br /> + <i>The Nature and Purpose of a Christian Society</i>, <a href='#page_305'>305</a>;<br /> + <i>The Pilgrim</i>, <a href='#page_305'>305</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Gods and Mr. Perrin, The</i>, by Hugh Walpole, <a href='#page_22'>22</a>, <a href='#page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#page_31'>31</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Gold</i>, by Stewart Edward White, <a href='#page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#page_67'>67</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Golden Scarecrow, The</i>, <a href='#page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#page_31'>31</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Gold-Killer</i>, by John Prosper, <a href='#page_75'>75</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Grand Fleet, The</i>, by Viscount Jellicoe of Scapa, <a href='#page_329'>329</a><br /> +<br /> +Graves, Clotilde (Richard Dehan), <a href='#page_196'>196</a>, <a href='#page_197'>197</a>, <a href='#page_198'>198</a>, <a href='#page_199'>199</a>, <a href='#page_200'>200</a>, <a href='#page_204'>204</a>, <a href='#page_209'>209</a>, <a href='#page_210'>210</a>, <a href='#page_211'>211</a>;<br /> + <i>A Mother of Three</i>, <a href='#page_199'>199</a>, <a href='#page_210'>210</a>;<br /> + <i>Nitocris</i>, <a href='#page_199'>199</a>, <a href='#page_210'>210</a>;<br /> + <i>Puss in Boots</i>, <a href='#page_199'>199</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Green Mirror, The</i>, by Hugh Walpole, <a href='#page_19'>19</a>, <a href='#page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#page_31'>31</a><br /> +<br /> +“Greenow, Richard,” of <i>Limbo</i>, by Aldous Huxley, <a href='#page_36'>36</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Guinea Girl</i>, by Norman Davey, <a href='#page_36'>36</a>, <a href='#page_37'>37</a><br /> +<br /> +Guest, Leslie Haden, <i>The Struggle for Power in Europe</i> (1917-21), <a href='#page_323'>323</a>, <a href='#page_324'>324</a><br /> +<br /> +Haggard, Andrew C. P., <i>Madame de Staël; Her Trials and Triumphs</i>, <a href='#page_129'>129</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Half Loaves</i>, by Margaret Culkin Banning, <a href='#page_253'>253</a><br /> +<br /> +Hambourg, Mark, <i>How to Play the Piano</i>, <a href='#page_219'>219</a>, <a href='#page_220'>220</a><br /> +<br /> +Hamilton, Lord Ernest, Forty Years On, <a href='#page_131'>131</a><br /> +<br /> +Hamilton, Lord Frederic, Days Before Yesterday, <a href='#page_131'>131</a>;<br /> + Diplomatic Services, <a href='#page_131'>131</a>;<br /> + Education, <a href='#page_131'>131</a>;<br /> + <i>Here, There and Everywhere</i>, <a href='#page_131'>131</a>;<br /> + <i>The Vanished Pomps of Yesterday</i>, <a href='#page_131'>131</a><br /> +<br /> +“Happy Families,” in <i>Limbo</i>, by Aldous Huxley, <a href='#page_36'>36</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Happy Family, The</i>, by Frank Swinnerton, <a href='#page_226'>226</a>, <a href='#page_238'>238</a>, <a href='#page_242'>242</a><br /> +<br /> +Harcourt, Edward Vernon, <a href='#page_118'>118</a><br /> +<br /> +Harcourt, Sir William, <i>George Granville Venables Vernon, Life of</i>, <a href='#page_118'>118</a><br /> +<br /> +“Harlequin,” from <i>The Birds and Other Poems</i>, by J. C. Squire, <a href='#page_351'>351</a>, <a href='#page_352'>352</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Harp of Life, The</i>, by J. Hartley Manners, <a href='#page_363'>363</a><br /> +<br /> +Harris, Corra, <a href='#page_257'>257</a>, <a href='#page_264'>264</a>;<br /> + <i>A Circuit Rider’s Wife</i>, <a href='#page_257'>257</a>;<br /> + <i>The Eyes of Love</i>, <a href='#page_257'>257</a><br /> +<br /> +Harrison, Marguerite E., <i>Marooned in Russia</i>, <a href='#page_192'>192</a><br /> +<br /> +Hawthorne, Nathaniel, <i>A Wonder Book</i>, <a href='#page_165'>165</a>;<br /> + <i>The Scarlet Letter</i>, <a href='#page_327'>327</a>, <a href='#page_328'>328</a><br /> +<br /> +Hayhurst, Dr. Emery, <i>Labour and Health</i>, <a href='#page_209'>209</a><br /> +<br /> +Henry, Alice, <i>Women and the Labour Movement</i>, <a href='#page_299'>299</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Here, There and Everywhere</i>, by Lord Frederic Hamilton, <a href='#page_131'>131</a><br /> +<br /> +Herford, Oliver, <i>Neither Here Nor There</i>, <a href='#page_95'>95</a><br /> +<br /> +Hergesheimer, Joseph, Appreciation of Hugh Walpole, <a href='#page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#page_29'>29</a>, <a href='#page_30'>30</a>, <a href='#page_31'>31</a><br /> +<br /> +Herm, home of Compton Mackenzie, <a href='#page_267'>267</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Herman Melville: Mariner and Mystic</i>, by Raymond W. Weaver, <a href='#page_325'>325</a>;<br /> + review by Carl Van Vechten, <a href='#page_325'>325</a>-<a href='#page_328'>328</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Hermit of Far End, The</i>, by Margaret Pedler, <a href='#page_256'>256</a><br /> +<br /> +Heroes of the Ruins, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler, <a href='#page_160'>160</a><br /> +<br /> +Heterogeneous Magis of Maugham, The, <a href='#page_270'>270</a><br /> +<br /> +Hichins, Robert, <i>The Garden of Allah</i>, <a href='#page_249'>249</a>;<br /> + <i>December Love</i>, <a href='#page_249'>249</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>History of Sea Power, A</i>, by William O. Stevens and Allan Westcott, <a href='#page_331'>331</a>;<br /> + Admiral Caspar F. Goodrich, review of, in The Weekly Review, <a href='#page_331'>331</a>-<a href='#page_333'>333</a>;<br /> + Extracts from, <a href='#page_332'>332</a>, <a href='#page_333'>333</a><br /> +<br /> +Holliday, Robert Cortes, <a href='#page_52'>52</a>;<br /> + business connections, <a href='#page_221'>221</a>;<br /> + <i>Broome Street Straws</i>, <a href='#page_52'>52</a>;<br /> + editor of The Bookman, <a href='#page_369'>369</a>;<br /> + Memoirs in <i>Joyce Kilmer, Poems, Essays and Letters</i>, <a href='#page_53'>53</a>;<br /> + <i>Men and Books and Cities</i>, <a href='#page_52'>52</a>;<br /> + <i>Peeps at People</i>, <a href='#page_52'>52</a>;<br /> + praise by James Hunecker, <a href='#page_52'>52</a>;<br /> + Study of Booth Tarkington, <a href='#page_53'>53</a>;<br /> + <i>Turns About Town</i>, <a href='#page_52'>52</a>;<br /> + <i>Walking Stick Papers</i>, <a href='#page_51'>51</a>;<br /> + <i>Writing as a Business; A Practical Guide for Authors</i>, <a href='#page_220'>220</a><br /> +<br /> +Houghton, Mrs. Hadwin, See Wells, Carolyn<br /> +<br /> +<i>House of Dreams Come True, The</i>, by Margaret Pedler, <a href='#page_256'>256</a><br /> +<br /> +House of Five Swords, The, by Tristram Tupper, <a href='#page_247'>247</a>, <a href='#page_248'>248</a><br /> +<br /> +“Houses” from <i>Main Street and other Poems</i>, by Joyce Kilmer, <a href='#page_349'>349</a>, <a href='#page_350'>350</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>How to Live on Twenty-four Hours a Day</i>, by Arnold Bennett, <a href='#page_303'>303</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>How to Play the Piano</i>, by Mark Hambourg, <a href='#page_219'>219</a>, <a href='#page_220'>220</a><br /> +<br /> +Howard, Sidney, Swords, <a href='#page_364'>364</a><br /> +<br /> +Hughes, Rupert, article on Robert W. Chambers, <a href='#page_320'>320</a>;<br /> + on Robert W. Chambers, <a href='#page_311'>311</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Hugh Walpole Anthology, A</i>, by Hugh Walpole, <a href='#page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#page_32'>32</a>;<br /> + divisions of, <a href='#page_27'>27</a>;<br /> + Country Places, <a href='#page_27'>27</a>;<br /> + London, <a href='#page_27'>27</a>;<br /> + Men and Women, <a href='#page_27'>27</a>;<br /> + Russia, <a href='#page_27'>27</a>;<br /> + Some Children, <a href='#page_27'>27</a>;<br /> + Some Incidents, <a href='#page_27'>27</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Hunting Hidden Treasure in the Andes</i>, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler, <a href='#page_159'>159</a><br /> +<br /> +Huxley, Aldous, <a href='#page_34'>34</a>, <a href='#page_35'>35</a>, <a href='#page_36'>36</a>;<br /> + Beauty, <a href='#page_36'>36</a>;<br /> + Comment by Michael Sadlier, <a href='#page_34'>34</a>;<br /> + Crome Yellow, <a href='#page_34'>34</a>;<br /> + Disciple of Laforgue, <a href='#page_35'>35</a>;<br /> + L’Apres-Midi-d’un Faune, translation by, <a href='#page_35'>35</a>;<br /> + <i>Limbo</i>, <a href='#page_34'>34</a>, <a href='#page_36'>36</a>;<br /> + Mortal Coils, <a href='#page_34'>34</a>, <a href='#page_35'>35</a>;<br /> + “Permutation among the Nightingales,” play by, <a href='#page_35'>35</a>;<br /> + poet and writer of prose, <a href='#page_35'>35</a>;<br /> + Quotations from <i>Mortal Coils,</i> <a href='#page_35'>35</a>;<br /> + Splendour, by Numbers, <a href='#page_36'>36</a>;<br /> + the sensualist, <a href='#page_36'>36</a>;<br /> + Translator of Laforgue, <a href='#page_35'>35</a>;<br /> + translation of <i>The Walk</i>, <a href='#page_35'>35</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>I Have Only Myself to Blame</i>, by Princess Bibesco, <a href='#page_47'>47</a>;<br /> + extract from, <a href='#page_47'>47</a>, <a href='#page_48'>48</a>, <a href='#page_49'>49</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Ice-breakers and the Ice-Breaker Herself</i>, by Edna Geister, <a href='#page_219'>219</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Illumination and Its Development in the Present Day</i>, by Sidney Farnsworth, <a href='#page_223'>223</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Imprudence</i>, by F. E. Mills Young, <a href='#page_263'>263</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>In the Days Before Columbus</i>, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler, <a href='#page_160'>160</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>In the Quarter</i>, by Robert W. Chambers, <a href='#page_317'>317</a>, <a href='#page_318'>318</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Iole</i>, by Robert W. Chambers, <a href='#page_318'>318</a>, <a href='#page_319'>319</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Irish Free State, The</i>, by Albert C. White, <a href='#page_191'>191</a>; Book Value, <a href='#page_192'>192</a><br /> +<br /> +Isn’t That Just Like a Man: Oh, Well, You Know How Women Are! <a href='#page_89'>89</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>It Is to Laugh</i>, by Edna Geister, <a href='#page_219'>219</a><br /> +<br /> +Jacks, L. P., editor of Hibbert Journal, <a href='#page_195'>195</a>;<br /> + <i>The Legends of Smokeover</i>, <a href='#page_194'>194</a><br /> +<br /> +Jameson, Mrs. Falconer, see J. E. Buckrose<br /> +<br /> +Jellicoe, Viscount, of Scapa, <i>The Crisis of the Naval War</i>, <a href='#page_329'>329</a>;<br /> + <i>The Grand Fleet</i>, <a href='#page_329'>329</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Jimmy Dale and the Phantom Clue</i>, by Frank L. Packard, <a href='#page_69'>69</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Joining in Public Discussion</i>, by Alfred Dwight Sheffield, <a href='#page_297'>297</a>;<br /> + sections of, <a href='#page_299'>299</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Judge, The</i>, by Rebecca West, <a href='#page_78'>78</a>;<br /> + dedication and review, <a href='#page_84'>84</a>, <a href='#page_85'>85</a>, <a href='#page_86'>86</a>;<br /> + extract from, <a href='#page_81'>81</a>, <a href='#page_82'>82</a>;<br /> + material employed, <a href='#page_82'>82</a>, <a href='#page_83'>83</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Judgment of Charis, The</i>, by Mrs. Baillie Reynolds, <a href='#page_76'>76</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Just Steward, The</i>, by Richard Dehan (Clotilde Graves), <a href='#page_201'>201</a>;<br /> + samples from, <a href='#page_201'>201</a>-<a href='#page_203'>203</a>, <a href='#page_205'>205</a>, <a href='#page_206'>206</a>, <a href='#page_207'>207</a>, <a href='#page_208'>208</a>, <a href='#page_210'>210</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Jungle Tales, Adventures in India</i>, by Howard Anderson Musser, <a href='#page_156'>156</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>K</i>, by Mary Roberts Rinehart,<br /> +<a href='#page_107'>107</a>, <a href='#page_108'>108</a>, <a href='#page_116'>116</a><br /> +<br /> +Kemp, E. G., <i>Chinese Mettle</i>, <a href='#page_190'>190</a><br /> +<br /> +Kerr, Sophie, <a href='#page_244'>244</a>;<br /> + Autobiography, <a href='#page_244'>244</a>-<a href='#page_246'>246</a>;<br /> + editor Woman’s Home Companion, <a href='#page_245'>245</a>;<br /> + <i>One Thing is Certain</i>, <a href='#page_246'>246</a>;<br /> + <i>Painted Meadows</i>, <a href='#page_246'>246</a>;<br /> + quotations from letter by, <a href='#page_246'>246</a>, <a href='#page_247'>247</a><br /> +<br /> +Kilmer, Joyce, Main Street and Other Poems, <a href='#page_349'>349</a>;<br /> + Poems, Essays and Letters, <a href='#page_53'>53</a>;<br /> + Memoirs, by Robert Cortes Holliday, <a href='#page_53'>53</a>;<br /> + Trees and Other Poems, <a href='#page_349'>349</a><br /> +<br /> +Kilmer, Mrs., <i>Candles That Burn</i>, <a href='#page_350'>350</a>; Vigils, <a href='#page_350'>350</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Kingfisher, The</i>, by Phyllis Bottome, <a href='#page_260'>260</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>King in Yellow, The</i>, by Robert W. Chambers, <a href='#page_317'>317</a>, <a href='#page_318'>318</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Knight Among Ladies</i>, A, by J. E. Buckrose, <a href='#page_251'>251</a><br /> +<br /> +Knight, Captain, C. W. R., <i>Wild Life in the Tree Tops</i>, <a href='#page_214'>214</a><br /> +<br /> +Kummer, Frederic Arnold, The Earth’s Story, <a href='#page_155'>155</a>;<br /> + <i>The First Days of Man</i>, <a href='#page_155'>155</a>, <a href='#page_156'>156</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Labour and Health</i>, by Dr. Emery Hayhurst, <a href='#page_299'>299</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Lad: A Dog</i>, by Albert Payson Terhune, <a href='#page_214'>214</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Lady Frederick</i>, by W. Somerset Maugham, <a href='#page_289'>289</a>, <a href='#page_291'>291</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Lady Lilith</i>, by Stephen McKenna, <a href='#page_342'>342</a>, <a href='#page_343'>343</a>, <a href='#page_346'>346</a>;<br /> + Comments by author, <a href='#page_342'>342</a>, <a href='#page_343'>343</a>, <a href='#page_346'>346</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Lamp of Fate, The</i>, by Margaret Pedler, <a href='#page_256'>256</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Land of Footprints, The</i>, by Stewart Edward White, <a href='#page_55'>55</a>, <a href='#page_67'>67</a><br /> +<br /> +Lanier, Henry Wysham, <i>A Century of Banking in New York: 1822-1922</i>, <a href='#page_193'>193</a><br /> +<br /> +Lardner, Ring W., appreciation of Charles E. Van Loan, <a href='#page_212'>212</a>;<br /> + Sport, <a href='#page_212'>212</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Laughter, Ltd.</i>, by Nina Wilcox Putnam, <a href='#page_90'>90</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Legends of Smokeover, The</i>, by L. P. Jacks, <a href='#page_194'>194</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Life and Letters</i>, by J. C. Squire, <a href='#page_46'>46</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Life of Sir William Vernon Harcourt, The</i>, <a href='#page_118'>118</a><br /> +<br /> +Lilian, by Arnold Bennett, <a href='#page_133'>133</a>, <a href='#page_137'>137</a>-<a href='#page_141'>141</a>, <a href='#page_149'>149</a>;<br /> + extract from, <a href='#page_137'>137</a>-<a href='#page_141'>141</a>, <a href='#page_149'>149</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Limbo</i>, by Aldous Huxley, <a href='#page_34'>34</a>, <a href='#page_36'>36</a>;<br /> + Death of Lully, <a href='#page_36'>36</a>;<br /> + Happy Families, <a href='#page_36'>36</a><br /> +<br /> +Literary Spotlight, The; The Bookman, <a href='#page_371'>371</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Little Essays of Love and Virtue</i>,<br /> +by Havelock Ellis, <a href='#page_302'>302</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Little Jumping Joan</i>, by May Byron, <a href='#page_153'>153</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Liza of Lambeth</i>, by W. Somerset Maugham, <a href='#page_286'>286</a>, <a href='#page_287'>287</a>, <a href='#page_291'>291</a><br /> +<br /> +Lloyd George, critical sketch, by E. T. Raymond, <a href='#page_121'>121</a><br /> +<br /> +Lodge, Sir Oliver, <a href='#page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#page_301'>301</a><br /> +<br /> +London Mercury, edited by J. C. Squire, <a href='#page_44'>44</a>, <a href='#page_46'>46</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>London Spy, The</i>, by Thomas Burke, <a href='#page_189'>189</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Long Live the King</i>, by Mary Roberts Rinehart, <a href='#page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#page_116'>116</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Love Match, The</i>, by Arnold Bennett, <a href='#page_361'>361</a>, <a href='#page_364'>364</a>;<br /> + Extracts from, <a href='#page_361'>361</a>-<a href='#page_363'>363</a><br /> +<br /> +Lowndes, Mrs. Belloc, appreciation of Hugh Walpole, <a href='#page_23'>23</a>, <a href='#page_24'>24</a>;<br /> + <i>What Timmy Did</i>, <a href='#page_77'>77</a><br /> +<br /> +Lucas, E. V., <i>Giving and Receiving</i>, <a href='#page_307'>307</a>;<br /> + <i>Roving East and Roving West</i>, <a href='#page_307'>307</a><br /> +<br /> +Mackenzie, Compton, <i>Carnival</i>, <a href='#page_265'>265</a>;<br /> + <i>Plasher’s Mead</i>, <a href='#page_265'>265</a>;<br /> + <i>Poor Relations</i>, <a href='#page_265'>265</a>;<br /> + Rich Relatives, <a href='#page_265'>265</a>;<br /> + Sinister Street, <a href='#page_265'>265</a>;<br /> + The Altar Steps, <a href='#page_265'>265</a>, <a href='#page_266'>266</a>, <a href='#page_269'>269</a>;<br /> + The Parson’s Progress, <a href='#page_266'>266</a>;<br /> + visit by Simon Pure, <a href='#page_266'>266</a>-<a href='#page_269'>269</a><br /> +<br /> +MacQuarrie, Hector, on W. Somerset Maugham, <a href='#page_277'>277</a>, <a href='#page_284'>284</a>, <a href='#page_290'>290</a>;<br /> + <i>Tahiti Days</i>, <a href='#page_270'>270</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Madame de Staël; Her Trials and Triumphs</i>, by Andrew C. P. Haggard, <a href='#page_124'>124</a>-<a href='#page_129'>129</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Main Street and Other Poems</i>, by Joyce Kilmer, <a href='#page_349'>349</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Man from the North, A</i>, by Arnold Bennett, <a href='#page_146'>146</a>, <a href='#page_149'>149</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Man in Lower Ten, The</i>, by Mary Roberts Rinehart, <a href='#page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#page_116'>116</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Man in Ratcatcher, The</i>, by Cyril McNeile, <a href='#page_70'>70</a><br /> +<br /> +Manners, J. Hartley, <i>The Harp of Life</i>, <a href='#page_363'>363</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Maradick at Forty</i>, by Hugh Walpole, <a href='#page_26'>26</a>, <a href='#page_31'>31</a><br /> +<br /> +Margutti, Baron von, <i>The Emperor Francis Joseph and His Times</i>, <a href='#page_130'>130</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Marooned in Moscow</i>, by Marguerite E. Harrison, <a href='#page_192'>192</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Married Life</i>, by Arnold Bennett, <a href='#page_303'>303</a><br /> +<br /> +Maugham W. Somerset, article by Hector MacQuarrie, <a href='#page_292'>292</a>;<br /> + books by, <a href='#page_291'>291</a>, <a href='#page_292'>292</a>;<br /> + <i>Caroline</i>, <a href='#page_289'>289</a>, <a href='#page_292'>292</a>;<br /> + East of Suez, <a href='#page_284'>284</a>, <a href='#page_292'>292</a>, <a href='#page_360'>360</a>;<br /> + education of, <a href='#page_286'>286</a>;<br /> + father of, <a href='#page_286'>286</a>;<br /> + wife of, <a href='#page_286'>286</a>;<br /> + <i>Lady Frederick</i>, <a href='#page_289'>289</a>, <a href='#page_291'>291</a>;<br /> + <i>Liza of Lambeth</i>, <a href='#page_286'>286</a>, <a href='#page_287'>287</a>, <a href='#page_291'>291</a>;<br /> + <i>Mrs. Craddock</i>, <a href='#page_287'>287</a>, <a href='#page_288'>288</a>, <a href='#page_291'>291</a>;<br /> + <i>Mrs. Dot</i>, <a href='#page_289'>289</a>, <a href='#page_291'>291</a>;<br /> + <i>Of Human Bondage</i>, <a href='#page_270'>270</a>, <a href='#page_273'>273</a>-<a href='#page_77'>77</a>, <a href='#page_287'>287</a>, <a href='#page_291'>291</a>;<br /> + <i>On a Chinese Screen</i>, <a href='#page_284'>284</a>-<a href='#page_285'>285</a>, <a href='#page_291'>291</a>;<br /> + playright, <a href='#page_288'>288</a>;<br /> + sources on, <a href='#page_292'>292</a>;<br /> + <i>The Circle</i>, <a href='#page_289'>289</a>, <a href='#page_292'>292</a>;<br /> + The heterogeneous magic of, <a href='#page_270'>270</a>;<br /> + <i>The Moon and Sixpence</i>, <a href='#page_270'>270</a>, <a href='#page_277'>277</a>, <a href='#page_278'>278</a>, <a href='#page_279'>279</a>, <a href='#page_284'>284</a>, <a href='#page_287'>287</a>, <a href='#page_291'>291</a><br /> +<br /> +McCormick, W. B., Army and Navy Journal, Editor of, <a href='#page_321'>321</a>;<br /> + Comment on Josephus Daniels <i>Our Navy at War</i>, <a href='#page_321'>321</a>, <a href='#page_322'>322</a>, <a href='#page_323'>323</a><br /> +<br /> +McFee, William, <a href='#page_371'>371</a>;<br /> + Extracts from preface to <i>Spindrift</i>, by Milton Raison, <a href='#page_352'>352</a>, <a href='#page_353'>353</a><br /> +<br /> +McKenna, Stephen, <a href='#page_334'>334</a>, <a href='#page_337'>337</a>, <a href='#page_338'>338</a>, <a href='#page_339'>339</a>, <a href='#page_340'>340</a>, <a href='#page_341'>341</a>, <a href='#page_342'>342</a>, <a href='#page_343'>343</a>, <a href='#page_345'>345</a>, <a href='#page_346'>346</a>;<br /> + <i>Between Two Worlds</i>, <a href='#page_341'>341</a>, <a href='#page_346'>346</a>;<br /> + Books by, <a href='#page_345'>345</a>, <a href='#page_346'>346</a>;<br /> + Comments on <i>Lady Lilith</i>, <a href='#page_342'>342</a>, <a href='#page_343'>343</a>;<br /> + education of, <a href='#page_340'>340</a>;<br /> + <i>Lady Lilith</i>, <a href='#page_342'>342</a>, <a href='#page_343'>343</a>, <a href='#page_346'>346</a>;<br /> + Leopold McKenna, father of, <a href='#page_340'>340</a>;<br /> + <i>Midas and Son</i>, <a href='#page_341'>341</a>, <a href='#page_346'>346</a>;<br /> + <i>Ninety-Six Hours’ Leave</i>, <a href='#page_341'>341</a>, <a href='#page_346'>346</a>;<br /> + personality, <a href='#page_343'>343</a>;<br /> + <i>Sheila Intervenes</i>, <a href='#page_340'>340</a>, <a href='#page_345'>345</a>;<br /> + <i>Sonia</i>, <a href='#page_339'>339</a>, <a href='#page_340'>340</a>, <a href='#page_341'>341</a>, <a href='#page_342'>342</a>, <a href='#page_343'>343</a>, <a href='#page_346'>346</a>;<br /> + <i>Sonia Married</i>, <a href='#page_341'>341</a>, <a href='#page_342'>342</a>, <a href='#page_346'>346</a>;<br /> + Sources on, <a href='#page_346'>346</a>;<br /> + <i>The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman</i>, <a href='#page_337'>337</a>, <a href='#page_344'>344</a>, <a href='#page_346'>346</a>;<br /> + <i>The Education of Eric Lane</i>, <a href='#page_342'>342</a>, <a href='#page_346'>346</a>;<br /> + <i>The Reluctant Lover</i>, <a href='#page_340'>340</a>, <a href='#page_345'>345</a>;<br /> + <i>The Secret Victory</i>, <a href='#page_342'>342</a>, <a href='#page_346'>346</a>;<br /> + <i>The Sensationalists</i>, <a href='#page_341'>341</a>, <a href='#page_342'>342</a>;<br /> + <i>The Sixth Sense</i>, <a href='#page_340'>340</a>, <a href='#page_345'>345</a>;<br /> + <i>Translator of Poltinus</i>, <a href='#page_339'>339</a>;<br /> + war service, <a href='#page_340'>340</a>;<br /> + <i>While I Remember</i>, <a href='#page_324'>324</a>, <a href='#page_346'>346</a><br /> +<br /> +McNeile, Cyril, Bulldog Drummond, <a href='#page_70'>70</a>;<br /> + <i>The Black Gang</i>, <a href='#page_70'>70</a>;<br /> + <i>The Man in Ratcatcher</i>, <a href='#page_70'>70</a><br /> +<br /> +Melville, Herman, <i>Mardi</i>, <a href='#page_327'>327</a>;<br /> + <i>Moby Dick</i>, <a href='#page_327'>327</a>, <a href='#page_328'>328</a>;<br /> + <i>Omoo</i>, <a href='#page_326'>326</a>;<br /> + <i>Pierre</i>, <a href='#page_327'>327</a>;<br /> + <i>Typee</i>, <a href='#page_326'>326</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Memoirs of Djemal Pasha, The</i>, <a href='#page_122'>122</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Memoirs of the Memorable</i>, by Sir James Denham, <a href='#page_119'>119</a>;<br /> + Beaconsfield, Lord, <a href='#page_119'>119</a>;<br /> + Beresford, Lord Marcus, <a href='#page_119'>119</a>;<br /> + Bishop of London, <a href='#page_119'>119</a>;<br /> + Bishop of Manchester, <a href='#page_119'>119</a>;<br /> + Browning, Robert, <a href='#page_119'>119</a>;<br /> + Byron, Lord, <a href='#page_119'>119</a>;<br /> + Carroll, Lewis, <a href='#page_119'>119</a>;<br /> + Dunedin, Lord, <a href='#page_119'>119</a>;<br /> + Gladstone, <a href='#page_119'>119</a>;<br /> + Howard, Cardinal, <a href='#page_119'>119</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Memories and Base Details</i>, by Lady Angela Forbes, <a href='#page_130'>130</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Memories Discreet and Indiscreet</i>, by Lady Angela Forbes, <a href='#page_129'>129</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Men and Books and Cities</i>, by Robert Cortes Holliday, <a href='#page_52'>52</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Men Who Make Our Novels, The</i>, by George Gordon, <a href='#page_55'>55</a>, <a href='#page_67'>67</a>, <a href='#page_320'>320</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Merry Heart, The</i>, by Frank Swinnerton, <a href='#page_236'>236</a>, <a href='#page_242'>242</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Midas and Son</i>, by Stephen McKenna, <a href='#page_341'>341</a>, <a href='#page_342'>342</a>, <a href='#page_346'>346</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Milestones</i>, by Arnold Bennett and Edward Knoblauch, <a href='#page_364'>364</a><br /> +<br /> +Milne, A. A., <i>Mr. Pim</i>, <a href='#page_261'>261</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Miracle Man, The</i>, by Frank L. Packard, <a href='#page_68'>68</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Miscellanies—Literary and Historical</i>, by Lord Rosebery, <a href='#page_123'>123</a><br /> +<br /> +Moffatt, Dr. James, <i>The Approach of the New Testament</i>, <a href='#page_296'>296</a>;<br /> + <i>New Translation of the New Testament</i>, <a href='#page_293'>293</a>;<br /> + <i>New Translation of the Old Testament</i>, <a href='#page_296'>296</a>;<br /> + <i>The Parallel Testament</i>, <a href='#page_293'>293</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Mollusc, The</i>, by Hubert Henry Davies, <a href='#page_365'>365</a><br /> +<br /> +Monaghan, Elizabeth A., <i>What to Eat and How to Prepare It</i>, <a href='#page_218'>218</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Moon and Sixpence, The</i>, by W. Somerset Maugham, <a href='#page_270'>270</a>, <a href='#page_278'>278</a>, <a href='#page_279'>279</a>, <a href='#page_284'>284</a>, <a href='#page_287'>287</a>, <a href='#page_291'>291</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Moon Out of Reach, The</i>, by Margaret Pedler, <a href='#page_256'>256</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Moons of Grandeur</i>, by William Rose Benét, <a href='#page_354'>354</a>, <a href='#page_355'>355</a>;<br /> + Don Marquis, review of, <a href='#page_354'>354</a>;<br /> + Quotation from, <a href='#page_355'>355</a><br /> +<br /> +Moore, Annie Carroll, <i>Roads to Childhood</i>, <a href='#page_152'>152</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>More Indiscretions</i>, by Lady Angela Forbes, <a href='#page_129'>129</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>More Limehouse Nights</i>, by Thomas Burke, <a href='#page_187'>187</a><br /> +<br /> +Morley, Christopher, <i>A Rocking Horse</i>, <a href='#page_348'>348</a>;<br /> + <i>Translations from the Chinese</i>, <a href='#page_349'>349</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Mortal Coils</i>, by Aldous Huxley, <a href='#page_34'>34</a>, <a href='#page_35'>35</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Mr. Lloyd George: A Biographical and Critical Sketch</i>, by E. T. Raymond, <a href='#page_120'>120</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Mr. Pim</i>, by A. A. Milne, <a href='#page_261'>261</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Mr. Prohock</i>, by Arnold Bennett, <a href='#page_133'>133</a>, <a href='#page_141'>141</a>, <a href='#page_149'>149</a>;<br /> + extracts from, <a href='#page_141'>141</a>-<a href='#page_144'>144</a>, <a href='#page_149'>149</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Mrs. Craddock</i>, by W. Somerset Maugham, <a href='#page_287'>287</a>, <a href='#page_288'>288</a>, <a href='#page_291'>291</a>;<br /> + extract from, <a href='#page_288'>288</a>, <a href='#page_291'>291</a><br /> +<br /> +Musser, Howard Anderson, <i>Jungle Tales, Adventures in India</i>, <a href='#page_156'>156</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>My Creed: The Way to Happiness—As I Found It</i>, Mary Roberts Rinehart, <a href='#page_117'>117</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>My Impressions of America</i>, by Margot Asquith, <a href='#page_122'>122</a><br /> +<br /> +Myers, A. Wallis, <i>Twenty Years of Lawn Tennis</i>, <a href='#page_213'>213</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Neither Here Nor There</i>, by Oliver Herford, <a href='#page_95'>95</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Nêne</i>, <a href='#page_264'>264</a>; Comment by Walter<br /> +Prichard Eaton, <a href='#page_265'>265</a>; Goncourt<br /> +Prize, won by, <a href='#page_264'>264</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>New Revelation, The</i>, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, <a href='#page_302'>302</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>New Translation of the New Testament</i>, by Dr. James Moffatt, <a href='#page_293'>293</a>;<br /> + extracts from, <a href='#page_293'>293</a>-<a href='#page_296'>296</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>New Translation of the Old Testament</i>, by Dr. James Moffatt, <a href='#page_296'>296</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Nicolette</i>, by Baroness Orczy, <a href='#page_248'>248</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Night Operator, The</i>, by Frank L. Packard, <a href='#page_68'>68</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Nights in London</i>, by Thomas Burke, <a href='#page_190'>190</a><br /> +<br /> +Ninety-six Hours’ Leave, by Stephen McKenna, <a href='#page_341'>341</a>, <a href='#page_346'>346</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Nocturne</i>, by Frank Swinnerton, <a href='#page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#page_233'>233</a>, <a href='#page_235'>235</a>, <a href='#page_239'>239</a>, <a href='#page_243'>243</a>;<br /> + Comment by H. G. Wells, <a href='#page_233'>233</a>-<a href='#page_235'>235</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Of Human Bondage</i>, by W. Somerset Maugham, <a href='#page_270'>270</a>;<br /> + review by Theodore Dreiser, <a href='#page_273'>273</a>-<a href='#page_277'>277</a>, <a href='#page_287'>287</a>, <a href='#page_291'>291</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Old Morocco and the Forbidden Atlas</i>, by C. E. Andrews, <a href='#page_193'>193</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Old Wives’ Tales, The</i>, by Arnold Bennett, <a href='#page_133'>133</a>, <a href='#page_149'>149</a>;<br /> + inspiration of, <a href='#page_147'>147</a>, <a href='#page_149'>149</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>On a Chinese Screen</i>, by W. Somerset Maugham, <a href='#page_284'>284</a>, <a href='#page_291'>291</a>;<br /> + extract from, <a href='#page_284'>284</a>-<a href='#page_285'>285</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>On the Staircase</i>, by Frank Swinnerton, <a href='#page_226'>226</a>, <a href='#page_243'>243</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>On Tiptoe: A Romance of the Redwoods</i>, by Stewart Edward White, <a href='#page_59'>59</a>, <a href='#page_67'>67</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>One Thing is Certain</i>, by Sophie Kerr, <a href='#page_246'>246</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Our Navy at War</i>, by Josephus Daniels, <a href='#page_321'>321</a>;<br /> + Comment on, by W. B. McCormick, <a href='#page_321'>321</a>, <a href='#page_322'>322</a>, <a href='#page_323'>323</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Outcasts</i>, by Hubert Henry Davies, <a href='#page_365'>365</a><br /> +<br /> +Orczy, Baroness, <i>Nicolette</i>, <a href='#page_248'>248</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Owl Taxi, The</i>, by Hulbert Footner, <a href='#page_74'>74</a>, <a href='#page_75'>75</a><br /> +<br /> +Packard, Frank L., <i>Doors of the Night</i>, <a href='#page_68'>68</a>;<br /> + education of, <a href='#page_68'>68</a>;<br /> + <i>From Now On</i>, <a href='#page_68'>68</a>;<br /> + <i>Pawned</i>, <a href='#page_68'>68</a>;<br /> + <i>The Adventures of Jimmy Dale</i>, <a href='#page_68'>68</a>, <a href='#page_69'>69</a>;<br /> + <i>The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale</i>, <a href='#page_68'>68</a>;<br /> + <i>The Miracle Man</i>, <a href='#page_68'>68</a>;<br /> + <i>The Night Operator</i>, <a href='#page_68'>68</a>;<br /> + <i>The Phantom Clue</i>, <a href='#page_69'>69</a>;<br /> + <i>The Wire Devils</i>, <a href='#page_68'>68</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Painted Meadows</i>, by Sophie Kerr, <a href='#page_246'>246</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Parallel New Testament, The</i>, by Dr. James Moffatt, <a href='#page_293'>293</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Parody Outline of History, A,</i> by Donald Ogden Stewart, <a href='#page_93'>93</a>, <a href='#page_94'>94</a>, <a href='#page_371'>371</a>;<br /> + see The Bookman, <a href='#page_371'>371</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Parson’s Progress, The</i>, by Compton Mackenzie, <a href='#page_266'>266</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Passenger</i>, by Helen Dircks, <a href='#page_236'>236</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Patricia Brent, Spinster</i>, anonymous, <a href='#page_261'>261</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Pawned</i>, by Frank L. Packard, <a href='#page_68'>68</a><br /> +<br /> +Pedler, Margaret, <i>The Hermit of Far End</i>, <a href='#page_256'>256</a>;<br /> + <i>The House of Dreams Come True</i>, <a href='#page_256'>256</a>;<br /> + <i>The Lamp of Fate</i>, <a href='#page_256'>256</a>;<br /> + <i>The Moon Out of Reach</i>, <a href='#page_256'>256</a>;<br /> + <i>The Splendid Folly</i>, <a href='#page_256'>256</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Peeps at People</i>, by Robert Cortes Holliday, <a href='#page_52'>52</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Penny Plain</i>, by O. Douglas, <a href='#page_249'>249</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Perfect Behaviour</i>, by Donald Ogden Stewart, <a href='#page_93'>93</a>, <a href='#page_94'>94</a>;<br /> + motive of, <a href='#page_94'>94</a><br /> +<br /> +Perin, Dr. George L., founder of Franklin Square House for Girls, <a href='#page_304'>304</a>;<br /> + on autosuggestion, <a href='#page_304'>304</a>;<br /> + <i>Self Healing Simplified</i>, <a href='#page_304'>304</a><br /> +<br /> +“Permutations Among the Nightingales,” by Aldous Huxley, <a href='#page_35'>35</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Peter</i>, by E. F. Benson, <a href='#page_261'>261</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Pieces of Hate</i>, by Heywood Broun, <a href='#page_41'>41</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Pilgrim of a Smile, The</i>, by Norman Davey, <a href='#page_36'>36</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Plays for Children</i>, by Col. Stevenson Lyle Cummins, <a href='#page_157'>157</a><br /> +<br /> +Plays of Hubert Henry Davies, The, <a href='#page_365'>365</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Plotting in Pirate Seas</i>, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler, <a href='#page_159'>159</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Poems: Second Series</i>, by J. C. Squire, <a href='#page_351'>351</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Poets and Puritans</i>, by T. R. Glover, <a href='#page_305'>305</a>;<br /> + preface, <a href='#page_306'>306</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Poindexter, J., Colored</i>, by Irvin S. Cobb, <a href='#page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#page_185'>185</a>;<br /> + extract from, <a href='#page_170'>170</a>-<a href='#page_171'>171</a>, <a href='#page_185'>185</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Pomp of Power, The</i>, anonymous, <a href='#page_119'>119</a><br /> +<br /> +Preston, Keith, <i>Splinters</i>, <a href='#page_358'>358</a>, <a href='#page_359'>359</a><br /> +<br /> +Prosper, John, <i>Gold-Killer</i>, <a href='#page_75'>75</a><br /> +<br /> +Publishing as a business, <a href='#page_199'>199</a><br /> +<br /> +Pure, Simon, visit to Compton Mackenzie, <a href='#page_266'>266</a>-<a href='#page_269'>269</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Pushcart at the Curb, A</i>, by John Dos Passos, <a href='#page_347'>347</a>;<br /> + General Headings of, <a href='#page_347'>347</a><br /> +<br /> +Putnam, Nina Wilcox, Laughter, Ltd., <a href='#page_90'>90</a>;<br /> + story in American Magazine, <a href='#page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#page_92'>92</a>;<br /> + style of, <a href='#page_90'>90</a>;<br /> + <i>Tomorrow We Diet</i>, <a href='#page_90'>90</a>;<br /> + <i>West Broadway</i>, <a href='#page_88'>88</a>, <a href='#page_90'>90</a><br /> +<br /> +“Quai de la Tournelle,” from a <i>Pushcart at the Curb</i>, by John Dos Passos, Quotation from, <a href='#page_348'>348</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Quest of the Western World, The</i>, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler, <a href='#page_160'>160</a><br /> +<br /> +Rackham, Arthur, artist, <a href='#page_165'>165</a><br /> +<br /> +Raison, Milton, <i>Spindrift</i>, <a href='#page_352'>352</a>, <a href='#page_353'>353</a><br /> +<br /> +Raymond, Ernest, <i>Tell England</i>, <a href='#page_250'>250</a><br /> +<br /> +Raymond, E. T., <i>Mr. Lloyd George: A Biographical and Critical Sketch</i>, <a href='#page_120'>120</a>;<br /> + <i>Uncensored Celebrities</i>, <a href='#page_120'>120</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Recollections and Reflections</i>, by A Woman of No Importance, <a href='#page_129'>129</a><br /> +<br /> +Reeve, Mrs. Winnifred, see Onoto Watanna, <a href='#page_254'>254</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Responsibility</i>, by James E. Agate, <a href='#page_49'>49</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Return of Alfred, The</i>, anonymous, <a href='#page_261'>261</a><br /> +<br /> +Reynolds, Mrs. Baillie, <i>The Judgment of Charis</i>, <a href='#page_76'>76</a><br /> +<br /> +Riddell, Lord, <i>Some Things That Matter</i>, <a href='#page_303'>303</a><br /> +<br /> +Rinehart, Mrs. Mary R., <a href='#page_89'>89</a>;<br /> + books by, <a href='#page_116'>116</a>;<br /> + K., <a href='#page_107'>107</a>, <a href='#page_108'>108</a>, <a href='#page_116'>116</a>;<br /> + <i>Long Live the King</i>, <a href='#page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#page_116'>116</a>;<br /> + methods of work, <a href='#page_111'>111</a>;<br /> + <i>My Creed: The Way to Happiness</i>, <a href='#page_117'>117</a>;<br /> + <i>My Public</i>, <a href='#page_117'>117</a>;<br /> + parents of, <a href='#page_108'>108</a>;<br /> + quotation from, <a href='#page_102'>102</a>-<a href='#page_103'>103</a>;<br /> + Sources on, <a href='#page_117'>117</a>;<br /> + <i>The Amazing Adventures of Letitia Carberry</i>, <a href='#page_108'>108</a>, <a href='#page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#page_116'>116</a>;<br /> + <i>The Amazing Interlude</i>, <a href='#page_105'>105</a>, <a href='#page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#page_116'>116</a>;<br /> + <i>The Bat</i>, a collaboration with Avery Hopwood, <a href='#page_114'>114</a>;<br /> + <i>The Breaking Point</i>, <a href='#page_105'>105</a>, <a href='#page_117'>117</a>;<br /> + <i>The Circular Staircase</i>, <a href='#page_110'>110</a>, <a href='#page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#page_116'>116</a>;<br /> + <i>The Man in Lower Ten</i>, <a href='#page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#page_116'>116</a>;<br /> + <i>Tish</i>, <a href='#page_108'>108</a>, <a href='#page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#page_116'>116</a>;<br /> + vitality of, <a href='#page_102'>102</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Roads to Childhood</i>, by Annie Carroll Moore, <a href='#page_152'>152</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Robin Hood’s Barn</i>, by Margaret Emerson Bailey, <a href='#page_194'>194</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Rocking Horse, The</i>, by Christopher Morley, <a href='#page_348'>348</a>;<br /> + Quotation from, <a href='#page_348'>348</a><br /> +<br /> +Rolt-Wheeler, Francis, “Boy Journalist Series,” <a href='#page_159'>159</a>, <a href='#page_161'>161</a>;<br /> + <i>Heroes of the Ruins</i>, <a href='#page_160'>160</a>;<br /> + <i>Hunting Hidden Treasures in the Andes</i>, <a href='#page_159'>159</a>;<br /> + <i>In the Days Before Columbus</i>, <a href='#page_160'>160</a>;<br /> + <i>Plotting in Pirate Seas</i>, <a href='#page_159'>159</a>;<br /> + <i>The Coming of the Peoples</i>, <a href='#page_161'>161</a>;<br /> + <i>The Quest of the Western World</i>, <a href='#page_160'>160</a>;<br /> + wanderings of, <a href='#page_158'>158</a><br /> +<br /> +Rosebery, Lord, <i>Miscellanies—Literary and Historical</i>, <a href='#page_123'>123</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Rosinante to the Road Again</i>, by John Dos Passos, <a href='#page_38'>38</a>, <a href='#page_347'>347</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Roving East and Roving West</i>, by E. V. Lucas, Sadlier, Michael, comment on Huxley, <a href='#page_34'>34</a><br /> +<br /> +Saxton, Eugene F., <a href='#page_67'>67</a>;<br /> + account of Stewart Edward White, <a href='#page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#page_62'>62</a>, <a href='#page_63'>63</a>, <a href='#page_64'>64</a>, <a href='#page_65'>65</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Secret of the Sahara: Kufara</i>, by Rosita Forbes, <a href='#page_192'>192</a>, <a href='#page_193'>193</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Secret Victory, The.</i> See <i>The Sensationalists</i>, by Stephen McKenna, <a href='#page_342'>342</a>, <a href='#page_346'>346</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Self Healing Simplified</i>, by Dr. George L. Perin, <a href='#page_304'>304</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Sensationalists, The</i>, by Stephen McKenna, <a href='#page_341'>341</a>;<br /> + <i>Lady Lilith</i>, <a href='#page_342'>342</a>;<br /> + <i>The Education of Eric Lane</i>, <a href='#page_342'>342</a>;<br /> + <i>The Secret Victory</i>, <a href='#page_342'>342</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>September</i>, by Frank Swinnerton, <a href='#page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#page_226'>226</a>, <a href='#page_243'>243</a><br /> +<br /> +“Seymour, Hugh,” of <i>The Golden Scarecrow</i>, <a href='#page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#page_21'>21</a><br /> +<br /> +Sheffield, Alfred Dwight, <i>Joining in Public Discussion</i>, <a href='#page_297'>297</a><br /> +<br /> +Sheridan, C. M., <i>The Stag Cook Book</i>, <a href='#page_217'>217</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Shops and Houses</i>, by Frank Swinnerton, <a href='#page_226'>226</a>, <a href='#page_243'>243</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Sixth Sense, The</i>, by Stephen McKenna, <a href='#page_340'>340</a>, <a href='#page_345'>345</a><br /> +<br /> +“Social Amenities” in “Soles Occidere et Redire Possunt,” <a href='#page_36'>36</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Social Forces in Literature</i>, by Dr. H. W. L. Dana, <a href='#page_300'>300</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Some Things that Matter</i>, by Lord Riddell, <a href='#page_303'>303</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Somerset Maugham in Tahiti</i>, article, by Hector MacQuarrie, <a href='#page_292'>292</a><br /> +<br /> +“Song for a Little House,” from <i>The Rocking Horse</i> by Christopher Morley, <a href='#page_348'>348</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Sonia</i>, by Stephen McKenna, <a href='#page_251'>251</a>, <a href='#page_339'>339</a>, <a href='#page_340'>340</a>, <a href='#page_341'>341</a>, <a href='#page_342'>342</a>, <a href='#page_343'>343</a>, <a href='#page_346'>346</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Sonia Married</i>, by Stephen McKenna, <a href='#page_341'>341</a>, <a href='#page_342'>342</a>, <a href='#page_346'>346</a><br /> +<br /> +Speare, Dorothy, <a href='#page_264'>264</a>;<br /> + <i>Dancers in the Dark</i>, <a href='#page_255'>255</a>, <a href='#page_256'>256</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Spellbinders</i>, by Margaret Culkin Banning, <a href='#page_252'>252</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Spindrift</i>, by Milton Raison, <a href='#page_352'>352</a>;<br /> + extracts from preface by William McFee, <a href='#page_353'>353</a>;<br /> + quotation from, <a href='#page_354'>354</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Splendid Folly, The</i>, by Margaret Pedler, <a href='#page_256'>256</a><br /> +<br /> +Splendour by Numbers, Aldous Huxley, <a href='#page_36'>36</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Splinters</i>, by Keith Preston, <a href='#page_358'>358</a>;<br /> + quotation from, <a href='#page_359'>359</a><br /> +<br /> +Squire, J. C., <i>Books in General</i>, Third Series, <a href='#page_44'>44</a>;<br /> + collected parodies, <a href='#page_98'>98</a>;<br /> + editor of the <i>London Mercury</i>, <a href='#page_44'>44</a>;<br /> + <i>Life and Letters</i>, <a href='#page_46'>46</a>;<br /> + on Anatole France, Jane Austen, Keats, Pope, Rabelais, Walt Whitman, <a href='#page_46'>46</a>;<br /> + pen name (Solomon Eagle), <a href='#page_46'>46</a>;<br /> + <i>Poems: Second Series</i>, <a href='#page_351'>351</a>;<br /> + <i>The Birds and Other Poems</i>, <a href='#page_351'>351</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Stag Cook Book, The</i>, by C. M. Sheridan, <a href='#page_217'>217</a><br /> +<br /> +Stevens, William O., see Allan Westcott, <i>A History of Sea Power</i>, <a href='#page_331'>331</a><br /> +<br /> +Stevenson, Candace T., review of Olive Roberts Barton, <a href='#page_162'>162</a><br /> +<br /> +Stevenson, Robert Louis, description of Edinburgh, <a href='#page_86'>86</a>;<br /> + in Miscellanies, by Lord Rosebery, <a href='#page_123'>123</a>;<br /> + Swinnerton, on, <a href='#page_242'>242</a><br /> +<br /> +Stewart, Donald Ogden, <i>A Parody Outline of History</i>, <a href='#page_93'>93</a>, <a href='#page_94'>94</a>, <a href='#page_371'>371</a>;<br /> + <i>Perfect Behaviour</i>, <a href='#page_93'>93</a>, <a href='#page_94'>94</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Stickfuls</i>, by Irvin S. Cobb, <a href='#page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#page_185'>185</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Struggle for Power in Europe</i> (1917-21), by Leslie Haden Guest, <a href='#page_323'>323</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Sunny-San</i>, by Onoto Watanna, <a href='#page_253'>253</a><br /> +<br /> +Sutherland, Jean, <i>Beauty for Ashes</i>, <a href='#page_262'>262</a><br /> +<br /> +Swinnerton, Frank, Analyst of Lovers, <a href='#page_225'>225</a>;<br /> + Arnold Bennett’s Comments, <a href='#page_225'>225</a>;<br /> + <i>Coquette</i>, <a href='#page_226'>226</a>, <a href='#page_243'>243</a>;<br /> + criticism of R. L. Stevenson, <a href='#page_242'>242</a>;<br /> + list of books, <a href='#page_242'>242</a>, <a href='#page_243'>243</a>;<br /> + literary critic, <a href='#page_241'>241</a>;<br /> + <i>Nocturne</i>, <a href='#page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#page_233'>233</a>, <a href='#page_235'>235</a>, <a href='#page_239'>239</a>, <a href='#page_243'>243</a>;<br /> + <i>On the Staircase</i>, <a href='#page_226'>226</a>, <a href='#page_243'>243</a>;<br /> + <i>Personal Sketches</i> by Arnold Bennett, Grant Overton, H. G. Wells, <a href='#page_243'>243</a>;<br /> + publisher, <a href='#page_240'>240</a>;<br /> + <i>September</i>, <a href='#page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#page_226'>226</a>, <a href='#page_243'>243</a>;<br /> + <i>Shops and Houses</i>, <a href='#page_226'>226</a>, <a href='#page_243'>243</a>;<br /> + Sources on, <a href='#page_243'>243</a>;<br /> + <i>The Casement</i>, <a href='#page_236'>236</a>, <a href='#page_242'>242</a>;<br /> + <i>The Chaste Wife</i>, <a href='#page_226'>226</a>, <a href='#page_243'>243</a>;<br /> + <i>The Happy Family</i>, <a href='#page_226'>226</a>, <a href='#page_238'>238</a>, <a href='#page_242'>242</a>;<br /> + <i>The Merry Heart</i>, <a href='#page_236'>236</a>, <a href='#page_242'>242</a>;<br /> + <i>The Three Lovers</i>, <a href='#page_226'>226</a>, <a href='#page_227'>227</a>, <a href='#page_233'>233</a>, <a href='#page_243'>243</a>;<br /> + <i>The Young Idea</i>, <a href='#page_238'>238</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Swords</i>, by Sidney Howard, <a href='#page_364'>364</a>;<br /> + Kenneth Macgowan’s criticism, <a href='#page_364'>364</a>, <a href='#page_365'>365</a><br /> +<br /> +Taggart, Marion Ames, <a href='#page_164'>164</a>;<br /> + <i>At Greenacres</i>, <a href='#page_164'>164</a>;<br /> + <i>Poppy’s Pluck</i>, <a href='#page_164'>164</a>;<br /> + <i>The Bottle Imp</i>, <a href='#page_164'>164</a>;<br /> + <i>The Queer Little Man</i>, <a href='#page_164'>164</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Tahiti Days</i>, by Hector McQuarrie, <a href='#page_270'>270</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Tales Told by the Gander</i>, by Maude Radford Warren, <a href='#page_153'>153</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Talkers, The</i>, by Robert W. Chambers, <a href='#page_317'>317</a>, <a href='#page_320'>320</a><br /> +<br /> +Tarkington, Booth, box score, <a href='#page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#page_184'>184</a>;<br /> + study of, by Robert Cortes Holliday, <a href='#page_53'>53</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Tell England</i>, by Ernest Raymond, <a href='#page_250'>250</a>;<br /> + Prologue, by Padre Monty, <a href='#page_250'>250</a>, <a href='#page_251'>251</a><br /> +<br /> +Terhune, Albert Payson, <i>Black Cæsar’s Clan</i>, <a href='#page_71'>71</a>;<br /> + <i>Black Gold</i>, <a href='#page_71'>71</a>;<br /> + <i>Further Adventures of Lad</i>, <a href='#page_215'>215</a>;<br /> + home of, <a href='#page_214'>214</a>;<br /> + <i>Lad: A Dog</i>, <a href='#page_214'>214</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>That Which Hath Wings</i>, by Richard Dehan (Clotilde Graves), <a href='#page_200'>200</a>, <a href='#page_210'>210</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>They Have Only Themselves to Blame</i>, <a href='#page_118'>118</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Thirty-nine Steps</i>, The, by John Buchan, <a href='#page_249'>249</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>This Marrying</i>, by Margaret Culkin Banning, <a href='#page_253'>253</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Three Crowns</i>, The, by Winnifred Wells, <a href='#page_190'>190</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Three Lovers, The</i>, by Frank Swinnerton, <a href='#page_226'>226</a>, <a href='#page_227'>227</a>, <a href='#page_233'>233</a>, <a href='#page_243'>243</a>;<br /> + Extracts from, <a href='#page_229'>229</a>, <a href='#page_243'>243</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Three Men and a Maid</i>, by P. G. Wodehouse, <a href='#page_99'>99</a>;<br /> + extract from, <a href='#page_99'>99</a>-<a href='#page_101'>101</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Three Soldiers</i>, by John Dos Passos<br /> +<br /> +Tilden, William T., The Art of Lawn Tennis, <a href='#page_213'>213</a>;<br /> + tennis champion, <a href='#page_213'>213</a><br /> +<br /> +Timothy Tubby’s Journal, extracts from, <a href='#page_95'>95</a>, <a href='#page_96'>96</a>, <a href='#page_97'>97</a>, <a href='#page_98'>98</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Tish</i>, by Mary Roberts Rinehart, <a href='#page_108'>108</a>, <a href='#page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#page_116'>116</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Tomorrow We Diet</i>, by Nina Wilcox Putnam, <a href='#page_90'>90</a><br /> +<br /> +“<i>Touch of Tears, The</i>,” from Vigils, by Mrs. Kilmer, <a href='#page_350'>350</a>-<a href='#page_351'>351</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Trade Union Policy</i>, by Dr. Leo Wolman, <a href='#page_299'>299</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Translations from the Chinese</i>, by Christopher Morley, <a href='#page_348'>348</a>;<br /> + Quotation from, <a href='#page_349'>349</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Trees and Other Poems</i>, by Joyce Kilmer, <a href='#page_349'>349</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Truth About an Author, The</i>, by Arnold Bennett, <a href='#page_144'>144</a>, <a href='#page_150'>150</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Turns About Town</i>, by Robert Cortes Holliday, <a href='#page_52'>52</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Twenty Years of Lawn Tennis</i>, by A. Wallis Myers, <a href='#page_213'>213</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Vanished Pomps of Yesterday, The</i>, by Lord Frederic Hamilton, <a href='#page_131'>131</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Vanishing of Betty Varian, The</i>, by Carolyn Wells, <a href='#page_76'>76</a>, <a href='#page_77'>77</a><br /> +<br /> +Van Loan, Charles E., Buck Parvin:<br /> + <i>Stories of the Motion Picture Game</i>, <a href='#page_212'>212</a>;<br /> + <i>Fore! Golf Stories</i>, <a href='#page_212'>212</a>;<br /> + <i>Old Man Curry: Racetrack Stories</i>, <a href='#page_212'>212</a>;<br /> + <i>Score by Innings: Baseball Stories</i>, <a href='#page_212'>212</a>;<br /> + <i>Taking the Count: Prize Ring Stories</i>, <a href='#page_212'>212</a><br /> +<br /> +Van, Rensselaer, Alexander, <a href='#page_220'>220</a>;<br /> + bibliographies by, <a href='#page_223'>223</a><br /> +<br /> +Van Vechten, Carl, New York Evening Post, review of <i>Herman Melville: Mariner and Mystic</i>, <a href='#page_325'>325</a>-<a href='#page_328'>328</a><br /> +<br /> +Vardon, Harry, <i>The Gist of Golf</i>, <a href='#page_213'>213</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Vigils</i>, by Mrs. Kilmer, <a href='#page_350'>350</a>;<br /> + Quotations from, <a href='#page_350'>350</a>, <a href='#page_351'>351</a><br /> +<br /> +“Vision,” from <i>Spindrift</i>, by Milton Raison, <a href='#page_354'>354</a><br /> +<br /> + <i>Vital Message, The</i>, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, <a href='#page_302'>302</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Voice in the Wilderness, The</i>, by Richard Blaker, <a href='#page_263'>263</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Walking Stick Papers</i>, by Robert Cortes Holliday, selection from, <a href='#page_51'>51</a>, <a href='#page_52'>52</a><br /> +<br /> +Walpole, Hugh, <a href='#page_15'>15</a> <a href='#page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#page_29'>29</a>, <a href='#page_31'>31</a>, <a href='#page_32'>32</a>;<br /> + <i>A Hugh Walpole Anthology</i>, <a href='#page_32'>32</a>;<br /> + American following of, <a href='#page_21'>21</a>;<br /> + appearance, <a href='#page_22'>22</a>;<br /> + article on, by Mrs. Belloc Loundes, <a href='#page_23'>23</a>;<br /> + birthplace, <a href='#page_15'>15</a>;<br /> + Books of, <a href='#page_31'>31</a>;<br /> + comments on The Bookman, <a href='#page_366'>366</a>;<br /> + connection with London Standard, <a href='#page_26'>26</a>;<br /> + appreciation by Joseph Hergesheimer, <a href='#page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#page_29'>29</a>, <a href='#page_30'>30</a>, <a href='#page_31'>31</a>;<br /> + courage of, <a href='#page_25'>25</a>;<br /> + description by Arnold Bennett, <a href='#page_22'>22</a>;<br /> + education of, <a href='#page_22'>22</a>;<br /> + educational experiences of, <a href='#page_22'>22</a>;<br /> + <i>English Literature During the Last Half Century</i>, <a href='#page_32'>32</a>;<br /> + father of, <a href='#page_15'>15</a>;<br /> + Fortitude, <a href='#page_21'>21</a>;<br /> + goes to England, <a href='#page_16'>16</a>;<br /> + Hugh Walpole, an appreciation, <a href='#page_31'>31</a>;<br /> + Hugh Walpole, Master Novelist, <a href='#page_32'>32</a>;<br /> + life in New York, <a href='#page_16'>16</a>;<br /> + London scenes pictured by, in <i>Anthology</i>, <a href='#page_28'>28</a>;<br /> + <i>Maradick at Forty</i>, <a href='#page_26'>26</a>;<br /> + Note by Joseph Conrad, <a href='#page_28'>28</a>;<br /> + Novels, list of, <a href='#page_31'>31</a>;<br /> + optimist, <a href='#page_23'>23</a>;<br /> + Romances, list of, <a href='#page_31'>31</a>;<br /> + Service in Great War, <a href='#page_16'>16</a>;<br /> + Selections for Anthology, <a href='#page_27'>27</a>;<br /> + Short Stories, list of, <a href='#page_31'>31</a>;<br /> + Sources on, <a href='#page_31'>31</a>;<br /> + superstitions, <a href='#page_24'>24</a>;<br /> + reader, <a href='#page_24'>24</a>;<br /> + Tait Black Prize for best novel of year, <a href='#page_30'>30</a>;<br /> + won by, <a href='#page_30'>30</a>;<br /> + <i>The Captives</i>, <a href='#page_24'>24</a>;<br /> + <i>The Cathedral</i>, <a href='#page_19'>19</a>;<br /> + <i>The Dark Forest</i>, <a href='#page_16'>16</a>;<br /> + <i>The Duchess of Wrexe</i>, <a href='#page_19'>19</a>;<br /> + <i>The Gods and Mr. Perrin</i>, <a href='#page_22'>22</a>;<br /> + <i>The Green Mirror</i>, <a href='#page_19'>19</a>;<br /> + <i>The Wooden Horse</i>, <a href='#page_25'>25</a>;<br /> + <i>Visits to America</i>, <a href='#page_16'>16</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Wanderings of a Spiritualist, The</i>, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, <a href='#page_302'>302</a><br /> +<br /> +Warren, Maude Radford, <i>Tales Told by the Gander</i>, <a href='#page_153'>153</a><br /> +<br /> +Watanna, Onoto (Mrs. Winnifred Reeve), <a href='#page_254'>254</a>;<br /> + <i>A Japanese Nightingale</i>, <a href='#page_254'>254</a>;<br /> + <i>Sunny-San</i>, <a href='#page_253'>253</a><br /> +<br /> +Warbasse, Dr. James B., <i>Cooperative Movement</i>, <a href='#page_300'>300</a><br /> +<br /> +Weaver, Raymond M., <i>Herman Melville: Mariner and Mystic</i>, <a href='#page_325'>325</a>, <a href='#page_326'>326</a>, <a href='#page_327'>327</a>, <a href='#page_328'>328</a><br /> +<br /> +Wells, Carolyn (Mrs. Hadwin Houghton), <a href='#page_77'>77</a>;<br /> + <i>Book of Humorous Verse</i>, <a href='#page_99'>99</a>;<br /> + <i>The Room with the Tassels</i>, <a href='#page_76'>76</a>;<br /> + <i>The Vanishing of Betty Varian</i>, <a href='#page_76'>76</a>, <a href='#page_77'>77</a><br /> +<br /> +Wells, H. G., <a href='#page_94'>94</a>; Comments on Frank Swinnerton’s <i>Nocturne</i>, <a href='#page_233'>233</a>, <a href='#page_234'>234</a>, <a href='#page_235'>235</a>;<br /> + <i>Soviet Russia</i>, <a href='#page_192'>192</a><br /> +<br /> +Westcott, Peter, in <i>Fortitude</i>, by Hugh Walpole, <a href='#page_22'>22</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>West Broadway</i>, by Nina Wilcox Putnam, <a href='#page_88'>88</a>, <a href='#page_90'>90</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Westerners, The</i>, by Stewart Edward White, <a href='#page_55'>55</a>, <a href='#page_63'>63</a>, <a href='#page_66'>66</a><br /> +<br /> +West, Rebecca, books by, <a href='#page_86'>86</a>;<br /> + article by Amy Wellington, <a href='#page_83'>83</a>;<br /> + artist, <a href='#page_78'>78</a>;<br /> + biography of, <a href='#page_83'>83</a>;<br /> + <i>The Judge</i>, <a href='#page_78'>78</a>;<br /> + <i>The Return of the Soldier</i>, <a href='#page_86'>86</a><br /> +<br /> +Westcott, Allan, and William O. Stevens, <i>A History of Sea Power</i>, <a href='#page_331'>331</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>What Timmy Did</i>, by Mrs. Belloc Lowndes, <a href='#page_77'>77</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>What to Eat and How to Prepare It</i>, by Elizabeth A. Monaghan, <a href='#page_218'>218</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>While I Remember</i>, by Stephen McKenna, <a href='#page_324'>324</a>, <a href='#page_346'>346</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Whispering Windows</i>, see <i>More Limehouse Nights</i>, by Thomas Burke, <a href='#page_187'>187</a>, <a href='#page_188'>188</a><br /> +<br /> +White, Albert C., <i>The Irish Free State</i>, <a href='#page_191'>191</a><br /> +<br /> +White, Stewart Edward, <a href='#page_55'>55</a>, <a href='#page_56'>56</a>, <a href='#page_59'>59</a>, <a href='#page_60'>60</a>, <a href='#page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#page_66'>66</a>;<br /> + account of by Eugene F. Saxton, <a href='#page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#page_62'>62</a>, <a href='#page_63'>63</a>, <a href='#page_64'>64</a>, <a href='#page_65'>65</a>;<br /> + <i>Appendix, to Gold</i>, by Eugene F. Saxton, <a href='#page_67'>67</a>;<br /> + <i>The Birds of Mackinac Island</i>, <a href='#page_55'>55</a>, <a href='#page_63'>63</a>;<br /> + boat and books, <a href='#page_56'>56</a>, <a href='#page_59'>59</a>;<br /> + books of, <a href='#page_66'>66</a>;<br /> + by John Palmer Gavit, <a href='#page_67'>67</a>;<br /> + education of, <a href='#page_61'>61</a>;<br /> + Gold, <a href='#page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#page_67'>67</a>;<br /> + in France, <a href='#page_56'>56</a>;<br /> + military service, <a href='#page_61'>61</a>;<br /> + <i>On Tiptoe: A Romance of the Redwoods</i>, <a href='#page_59'>59</a>, <a href='#page_67'>67</a>;<br /> + parents, <a href='#page_60'>60</a>;<br /> + <i>Simba</i>, <a href='#page_55'>55</a>, <a href='#page_67'>67</a>;<br /> + sources on, <a href='#page_67'>67</a>;<br /> + <i>The Claim Jumpers</i>, <a href='#page_55'>55</a>, <a href='#page_63'>63</a>, <a href='#page_66'>66</a>;<br /> + <i>The Land of Footprints</i>, <a href='#page_55'>55</a>, <a href='#page_67'>67</a>;<br /> + <i>The Westerners</i>, <a href='#page_55'>55</a>, <a href='#page_63'>63</a>, <a href='#page_66'>66</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Wild Life in the Tree Tops</i>, by Captain C. W. R. Knight, <a href='#page_214'>214</a>;<br /> + Photographs, <a href='#page_214'>214</a><br /> +<br /> +Wingfield-Stratford, Esme, <i>Facing Reality</i>, <a href='#page_300'>300</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Wire Devils, The</i>, by Frank L. Packard, <a href='#page_68'>68</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>With the Band</i>, poem, by Robert W. Chambers, <a href='#page_317'>317</a><br /> +<br /> +Wodehouse, Pelham Grenville, <a href='#page_70'>70</a>;<br /> + lyrical writer, <a href='#page_99'>99</a>;<br /> + <i>Three Men and a Maid</i>, <a href='#page_99'>99</a><br /> +<br /> +Wolf, Robert, <a href='#page_297'>297</a>;<br /> + <i>The Creative Spirit in Industry</i>, <a href='#page_300'>300</a><br /> +<br /> +Wolman, Dr. Leo, <i>Trade Union Policy</i>, <a href='#page_299'>299</a><br /> +<br /> +Woman of No Importance, A, <i>Recollections and Reflections</i>, <a href='#page_129'>129</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Women and the Labour Movement</i>, by Alice Henry, <a href='#page_299'>299</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Women Who Make Our Novels, The</i>, by Grant Overton, <a href='#page_117'>117</a>;<br /> + chapter on Mary Roberts Rinehart, <a href='#page_109'>109</a>, <a href='#page_117'>117</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Wonder Book, A</i>, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, <a href='#page_165'>165</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Wooden Horse, The</i>, by Hugh Walpole, <a href='#page_25'>25</a>, <a href='#page_26'>26</a>, <a href='#page_31'>31</a>;<br /> + sale of, <a href='#page_25'>25</a><br /> +<br /> +Workers’ Bookshelf Series, <a href='#page_297'>297</a><br /> +<br /> +Workers’ Education Bureau of America, editorial board, <a href='#page_297'>297</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Writing as a Business: A Practical Guide for Authors</i>, by Robert Cortes Holliday, <a href='#page_220'>220</a>;<br /> + Extracts from, <a href='#page_222'>222</a>, <a href='#page_223'>223</a><br /> +<br /> +Wylie, Elinor, <a href='#page_357'>357</a><br /> +<br /> +Young, F. E. Mills, <a href='#page_263'>263</a>;<br /> + <i>Almonds of Life</i>, <a href='#page_263'>263</a>;<br /> + <i>Imprudence</i>, <a href='#page_263'>263</a>;<br /> + <i>The Stronger Influence</i>, <a href='#page_263'>263</a><br /> +</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 27116-h.txt or 27116-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/7/1/1/27116">http://www.gutenberg.org/2/7/1/1/27116</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: When Winter Comes to Main Street + + +Author: Grant Martin Overton + + + +Release Date: November 1, 2008 [eBook #27116] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET*** + + +E-text prepared by Roger Frank and the Project Gutenberg Online +Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 27116-h.htm or 27116-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/7/1/1/27116/27116-h/27116-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/7/1/1/27116/27116-h.zip) + + + + + +WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET + +by + +GRANT OVERTON + +Author of "The Women Who Make Our Novels" + + + + + + + +New York +George H. Doran Company + +Printed in the United States of America + +Copyright, 1922, +by George H. Doran Company + +WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET. + +Press of +J. J. Little & Ives Company +New York, U. S. A. + + + + +FOR +GEORGE H. DORAN +WHO HAD THE IDEA + + + + +PREFACE + +I have borrowed my title from two remarkable novels. + +_If Winter Comes_, by A. S. M. Hutchinson, was published in the autumn of +1921 by Messrs. Little, Brown & Company of Boston. + +_Main Street_, by Sinclair Lewis, was published in the autumn of 1920 by +Messrs. Harcourt, Brace & Company of New York. + +I have not before me the precise figures of the amazing sales of these two +books--each passed 350,000--but I make my bow to their authors and to +their publishers and to the American public. I bow to the authors for the +quality of their work and to the publishers and the public for their +recognition of that quality. + +These two substantial successes confirm my belief that the American public +in hundreds of thousands relishes good reading. Without that belief, this +book would not have been prepared; but I have prepared it with some +confidence that those who relish good reading will be interested in the +chapters that follow. + +As a former book reviewer and literary editor, as an author and, now, as +one vitally concerned in book publishing, my interest in books has been +fundamentally unchanging--a wish to see more books read and better books +to read. + +From one standpoint, _When Winter Comes to Main Street_ is frankly an +advertisement; it deals with Doran books and authors. This is a fact of +some relevance, however, if, as I believe, the reader shall find +well-spent the time given to these pages. + + Grant Overton. + +19 July 1922. + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER + + I THE COURAGE OF HUGH WALPOLE 15 + + II HALF-SMILES AND GESTURES 33 + + III STEWART EDWARD WHITE AND ADVENTURE 55 + + IV WHERE THE PLOT THICKENS 68 + + V REBECCA WEST: AN ARTIST 78 + + VI SHAMELESS FUN 88 + + VII THE VITALITY OF MARY ROBERTS RINEHART 102 + + VIII THEY HAVE ONLY THEMSELVES TO BLAME 118 + + IX AUDACIOUS MR. BENNETT 133 + + X A CHAPTER FOR CHILDREN 152 + + XI COBB'S FOURTH DIMENSION 166 + + XII PLACES TO GO 187 + + XIII ALIAS RICHARD DEHAN 196 + + XIV WITH FULL DIRECTIONS 212 + + XV FRANK SWINNERTON: ANALYST OF LOVERS 225 + + XVI AN ARMFUL OF NOVELS, WITH NOTES ON THE NOVELISTS 244 + + XVII THE HETEROGENEOUS MAGIC OF MAUGHAM 270 + + XVIII BOOKS WE LIVE BY 293 + + XIX ROBERT W. CHAMBERS AND THE WHOLE TRUTH 308 + + XX UNIQUITIES 321 + + XXI THE CONFESSIONS OF A WELL-MEANING YOUNG MAN, + STEPHEN MCKENNA 334 + + XXII POETS AND PLAYWRIGHTS 347 + + XXIII THE BOOKMAN FOUNDATION AND THE BOOKMAN 366 + + EPILOGUE 372 + + INDEX 373 + + + + +PORTRAITS + + PAGE +HUGH WALPOLE 17 +STEWART EDWARD WHITE 57 +REBECCA WEST 79 +MARY ROBERTS RINEHART 103 +ARNOLD BENNETT 135 +IRVIN S. COBB 167 +FRANK SWINNERTON 227 +W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM 271 +STEPHEN McKENNA 335 + + + + +WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE COURAGE OF HUGH WALPOLE + + +=i= + +Says his American contemporary, Joseph Hergesheimer, in an appreciation of +Hugh Walpole: "Mr. Walpole's courage in the face of the widest scepticism +is nowhere more daring than in _The Golden Scarecrow_." Mr. Walpole's +courage, I shall always hold, is nowhere more apparent than in the choice +of his birthplace. He was born in the Antipodes. Yes! In that magical, +unpronounceable realm one reads about and intends to look up in the +dictionary.... The precise Antipodean spot was Auckland, New Zealand, and +the year was 1884. + +The Right Reverend George Henry Somerset Walpole, D.D., Bishop of +Edinburgh since 1910, had been sent in 1882 to Auckland as Incumbent of +St. Mary's Pro-Cathedral, and the same ecclesiastical fates which took +charge of Hugh Seymour Walpole's birthplace provided that, at the age of +five, the immature novelist should be transferred to New York. Dr. Walpole +spent the next seven years in imparting to students of the General +Theological Seminary, New York, their knowledge of Dogmatic Theology. Hugh +Seymour Walpole spent the seven years in attaining the age of twelve. + +Then, in 1896, the family returned to England. Perhaps a tendency to +travel had by this time become implanted in Hugh, for now, in his late +thirties, he is one of the most peripatetic of writers. He is here, he is +there. You write to him in London and receive a reply from Cornwall or the +Continent. And, regularly, he comes over to America. Of all the English +novelists who have visited this country he is easily the most popular +personally on this side. His visit this autumn (1922) will undoubtedly +multiply earlier welcomes. + +Interest in Walpole the man and Walpole the novelist shows an increasing +tendency to become identical. It is all very well to say that the man is +one thing, his books are quite another; but suppose the man cannot be +separated from his books? The Walpole that loved Cornwall as a lad can't +be dissevered from the "Hugh Seymour" of _The Golden Scarecrow_; without +his Red Cross service in Russia during the Great War, Walpole could not +have written _The Dark Forest_; and I think the new novel he offers us +this autumn must owe a good deal to direct reminiscence of such a +cathedral town as Durham, to which the family returned when Hugh was +twelve. + +[Illustration: HUGH WALPOLE] + +_The Cathedral_, as the new book is called, rests the whole of its effect +upon just such an edifice as young Hugh was familiar with. The Cathedral +of the story stands in Polchester, in the west of England, in the county +of Glebeshire--that mythical yet actual county of Walpole's other novels. +Like such tales as _The Green Mirror_ and _The Duchess of Wrexe_, the aim +is threefold--to give a history of a certain group of people and, at the +same time, (2) to be a comment on English life, and, beyond that, (3) to +offer a philosophy of life itself. + +The innermost of the three circles of interest created in this powerful +novel--like concentric rings formed by dropping stones in water--concerns +the life of Archdeacon Brandon. When the story opens he is ruling +Polchester, all its life, religious and civic and social, with an iron +rod. A good man, kindly and virtuous and simple, power has been too much +for him. In the first chapter a parallel is made between Brandon and a +great mediaeval ecclesiastic of the Cathedral, the Black Bishop, who came +to think of himself as God and who was killed by his enemies. All through +the book this parallel is followed. + +A certain Canon Ronder arrives to take up a post in the Cathedral. The +main thread of the novel now emerges as the history of the rivalry of +these two men, one simple and elemental, the other calculating, selfish +and sure. Ronder sees at once that Brandon is in his way and at once +begins his work to overthrow the Archdeacon, not because he dislikes him +at all (he _likes_ him), but because he wants his place; too, because +Brandon represents the Victorian church, while Ronder is on the side of +the modernists. + +Brandon is threatened through his son Stephen and through his wife. His +source of strength,--a source of which he is unaware--lies in his +daughter, Joan, a charming girl just growing up. The first part of the +novel ends with everything that is to follow implicit in what has been +told; the story centres in Brandon but more sharply in the Cathedral, +which is depicted as a living organism with all its great history behind +it working quickly, ceaselessly, for its own purposes. Every part of the +Cathedral life is brought in to effect this, the Bishop, the Dean, the +Canons--down to the Verger's smallest child. All the town life also is +brought in, from the Cathedral on the hill to the mysterious little +riverside inn. Behind the town is seen the Glebeshire country, behind +that, England; behind England, the world, all moving toward set purposes. + +The four parts of the novel markedly resemble, in structure, acts of a +play; in particular, the striking third part, entirely concerned with the +events of a week and full of flashing pictures, such as the scene of the +Town Ball. But the culmination of this part, indeed, the climax of the +whole book, comes in the scene of the Fair, with its atmosphere of +carnival, its delirium of outdoor mood, and its tremendous encounter +between Brandon and his wife. The novel closes upon a moment both fugitive +and eternal--Brandon watching across the fields the Cathedral, lovely and +powerful, in the evening distance. The Cathedral, lovely and powerful, +forever victorious, served by the generations of men.... + +=ii= + +Courage, for Hugh, must have made its demand to be exercised early. We +have the "Hugh Seymour" of _The Golden Scarecrow_ who "was sent from +Ceylon, where his parents lived, to be educated in England. His relations +having for the most part settled in foreign countries, he spent his +holidays as a minute and pale-faced 'paying guest' in various houses where +other children were of more importance than he, or where children as a +race were of no importance at all." It would be a mistake to confer on +such a fictional passage a strict autobiographical importance; but I think +it significant that the novel with which Walpole first won an American +following, _Fortitude_, should derive from a theme as simple and as strong +as that of a classic symphony--from those words with which it opens: "'T +isn't life that matters! 'T is the courage you bring to it." From that +moment on, the novel follows the struggle of Peter Westcott, in boyhood +and young manhood, with antagonists, inner and outer. At the end we have +him partly defeated, wholly triumphant, still fighting, still pledged to +fight. + +Not to confuse fiction with fact: Hugh Walpole was educated at Kings +School, Canterbury, and at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. When he left the +university he drifted into newspaper work in London. He also had a brief +experience as master in a boys' school (the experiential-imaginative +source of _The Gods and Mr. Perrin_, that superb novel of underpaid +teachers in a second-rate boarding school). The war brought Red Cross work +in Russia and also a mission to Petrograd to promote pro-Ally sentiment. +For these services Walpole was decorated with the Georgian Medal. + +What is Hugh Walpole like personally? Arnold Bennett, in an article which +appeared in the Book News Monthly and which was reprinted in a booklet, +says: "About the time of the publication of _The Gods and Mr. Perrin_, I +made the acquaintance of Mr. Walpole and found a man of youthful +appearance, rather dark, with a spacious forehead, a very highly +sensitised nervous organisation, and that reassuring matter-of-factness of +demeanour which one usually does find in an expert. He was then busy at +his task of seeing life in London. He seems to give about one-third of the +year to the tasting of all the heterogeneous sensations which London can +provide for the connoisseur and two-thirds to the exercise of his vocation +in some withdrawn spot in Cornwall that nobody save a postman or so, and +Mr. Walpole, has ever beheld. During one month it is impossible to 'go +out' in London without meeting Mr. Walpole--and then for a long period he +is a mere legend of dinner tables. He returns to the dinner tables with a +novel complete." + +In the same magazine, in an article reprinted in the same booklet, Mrs. +Belloc Lowndes, that excellent weaver of mystery stories and sister of +Hilaire Belloc, said: "Before all things Hugh Walpole is an optimist, with +a great love for and a great belief in human nature. His outlook is +essentially sane, essentially normal. He has had his reverses and +difficulties, living in lodgings in remote Chelsea, depending entirely +upon his own efforts. Tall and strongly built, clean-shaven, with a wide, +high forehead and kindly sympathetic expression, the author of _Fortitude_ +has a refreshing boyishness and zest for enjoyment which are pleasant to +his close friends. London, the home of his adoption, Cornwall, the home of +his youth, have each an equal spell for him and he divides his year +roughly into two parts: the tiny fishing town of Polperro, Cornwall, and +the pleasure of friendships in London. 'What a wonderful day!' he was +heard to say, his voice sounding muffled through the thickest variety of a +pea-soup fog. 'It wouldn't really be London without an occasional day like +this! I'm off to tramp the city.' It is one of Hugh Walpole's +superstitions that he should always begin his novels on Christmas Eve. He +has always done so, and he believes it brings him luck. Often it means the +exercise of no small measure of self-control, for the story has matured in +his mind and he is aching to commence it. But he vigorously adheres to his +custom, and by the time he begins to write his book lies before him like a +map. 'I could tell it you now, practically in the very words in which I +shall write it,' he has said. Nevertheless, he takes infinite trouble with +the work as it progresses. A great reader, Hugh Walpole reads with method. +Tracts of history, periods of fiction and poetry, are studied seriously; +and he has a really exhaustive heritage of modern poetry and fiction." + +Perhaps since Mrs. Lowndes wrote those words, Mr. Walpole has departed +from his Christmas Eve custom. At any rate, I notice on the last page in +his very long novel _The Captives_ (the work by which, I think, he sets +most store of all his books so far published) the dates: + + POLPERRO, JAN. 1916, + POLPERRO, MAY 1920. + +=iii= + +The demand for the exercise of that courage of which we have spoken can be +seen from these further details, supplied by Arnold Bennett: + +"At the age of twenty, as an undergraduate of Cambridge, Walpole wrote +two novels. One of these, a very long book, the author had the +imprudence to destroy. The other was _The Wooden Horse_, his first +printed novel. It is not to be presumed that _The Wooden Horse_ was +published at once. For years it waited in manuscript until Walpole had +become a master in a certain provincial school in England. There he +showed the novel to a fellow-master, who, having kept the novel for a +period, spoke thus: 'I have tried to read your novel, Walpole, but I +can't. Whatever else you may be fitted for, you aren't fitted to be a +novelist.' Mr. Walpole was grieved. Perhaps he was unaware, then, that a +similar experience had happened to Joseph Conrad. I am unable to judge +the schoolmaster's fitness to be a critic, because I have not read _The +Wooden Horse_. Walpole once promised to send me a copy so that I might +come to some conclusion as to the schoolmaster, but he did not send it. +Soon after this deplorable incident, Walpole met Charles Marriott, a +novelist of a remarkable distinction. Mr. Marriott did not agree with the +schoolmaster as to _The Wooden Horse_. The result of the conflict of +opinion between Mr. Marriott and the schoolmaster was that Mr. Walpole +left the school abruptly--perhaps without the approval of his family, +but certainly with a sum of L30 which he had saved. His destination was +London. + +"In Chelsea he took a room at four shillings a week. He was twenty-three +and (in theory) a professional author at last. Through the favouring +influence of Mr. Marriott he obtained a temporary job on the London +Standard as a critic of fiction. It lasted three weeks. Then he got a +regular situation on the same paper, a situation which I think he kept for +several years. _The Wooden Horse_ was published by a historic firm. +Statistics are interesting and valuable--_The Wooden Horse_ sold seven +hundred copies. The author's profits therefrom were less than the cost of +typewriting the novel. History is constantly repeating itself. + +"Mr. Walpole was quite incurable, and he kept on writing novels. _Maradick +at Forty_ was the next one. It sold eleven hundred copies, but with no +greater net monetary profit to the author than the first one. He made, +however, a more shining profit of glory. _Maradick at Forty_--as the +phrase runs--'attracted attention.' I myself, though in a foreign country, +heard of it, and registered the name of Hugh Walpole as one whose progress +must be watched." + +=iv= + +Not so long ago there was published in England, in a series of +pocket-sized books called the _Kings Treasuries of Literature_ (under the +general editorship of Sir A. T. Quiller-Couch), a small volume called _A +Hugh Walpole Anthology_. This consisted of selections from Mr. Walpole's +novels up to and including _The Captives_. The selection was made by Mr. +Walpole himself. + +I think that the six divisions into which the selections fell are +interesting as giving, in a few words, a prospectus of Walpole's work. The +titles of the sections were "Some Children," "Men and Women," "Some +Incidents," "London," "Country Places," and "Russia." The excerpts under +the heading "Some Children" are all from _Jeremy_ and _The Golden +Scarecrow_. The "Men and Women" are Mr. Perrin and Mrs. Comber, from _The +Gods and Mr. Perrin_; Mr. Trenchard and Aunt Aggie, from _The Green +Mirror_; and Mr. Crashaw, from _The Captives_. The "Incidents" are chosen +with an equal felicity--we have the theft of an umbrella from _The Gods +and Mr. Perrin_ and, out of the same book, the whole passage in which Mr. +Perrin sees double. There is also a scene from _Fortitude_, "After Defeat." +After two episodes from _The Green Mirror_, this portion of the anthology +is closed with the tragic passage from _The Captives_ in which Maggie +finds her uncle. + +Among the London places pictured by Mr. Walpole in his novels and in this +pleasant anthology are Fleet Street, Chelsea, Portland Place, The Strand, +and Marble Arch. The selections under the heading "Country Places" are +bits about a cove, the sea, dusk, a fire and homecoming. The passages that +relate to Russia are taken, of course, from _The Dark Forest_ and _The +Secret City_. + +Not the least interesting thing in this small volume is a short +introductory note by Joseph Conrad, who speaks of the anthology as +"intelligently compiled," and as offering, within its limits, a sample of +literary shade for every reader's sympathy. "Sophistication," adds Mr. +Conrad, "is the only shade that does not exist in Mr. Walpole's prose." He +goes on: + +"Of the general soundness of Mr. Walpole's work I am perfectly convinced. +Let no modern and malicious mind take this declaration for a left-handed +compliment. Mr. Walpole's soundness is not of conventions but of +convictions; and even as to these, let no one suppose that Mr. Walpole's +convictions are old-fashioned. He is distinctly a man of his time; and it +is just because of that modernity, informed by a sane judgment of urgent +problems and wide and deep sympathy with all mankind, that we look forward +hopefully to the growth and increased importance of his work. In his +style, so level, so consistent, Mr. Hugh Walpole does not seek so much for +novel as for individual expression; and this search, this ambition so +natural to an artist, is often rewarded by success. Old and young interest +him alike and he treats both with a sure touch and in the kindest manner. +In each of these passages we see Mr. Walpole grappling with the truth of +things spiritual and material with his characteristic earnestness, and in +the whole we can discern the characteristics of this acute and sympathetic +explorer of human nature: His love of adventure and the serious audacity +he brings to the task of recording the changes of human fate and the +moments of human emotion, in the quiet backwaters or in the tumultuous +open streams of existence." + +=v= + +There is not space here to reprint all of Joseph Hergesheimer's +Appreciation of Hugh Walpole, published in a booklet in 1919--a booklet +still obtainable--but I would like to quote a few sentences from the close +of Mr. Hergesheimer's essay, where he says: + +"As a whole, Hugh Walpole's novels maintain an impressive unity of +expression; they are the distinguished presentation of a distinguished +mind. Singly and in a group, they hold possibilities of infinite +development. This, it seems to me, is most clearly marked in their +superiority to the cheap materialism that has been the insistent note of +the prevailing optimistic fiction. There is a great deal of happiness in +Mr. Walpole's pages, but it is not founded on surface vulgarity of +appetite. The drama of his books is not sapped by the automatic security +of invulnerable heroics. Accidents happen, tragic and humorous; the life +of his novels is checked in black and white, often shrouded in grey; the +sun moves and stars come out; youth grows old; charm fades; girls may or +may not be pretty; his old women---- + +"But there he is inimitable. The old gentlewomen, or caretakers, dry and +twisted, brittle and sharp, repositories of emotion--vanities and malice +and self-seeking--like echoes of the past, or fat and loquacious, with +alcoholic sentimentality, are wonderfully ingratiating. They gather like +shadows, ghosts, about the feet of the young, and provide Mr. Walpole with +one of his main resources--the restless turning away of the young from the +conventions, prejudices and inhibitions of yesterday. He is singularly +intent upon the injustice of locking age about the wrists of youth; and, +with him, youth is very apt to escape, to defy authority set in years ... +only to become, in time, age itself." + +Perhaps this is an anti-climax: The University of Edinburgh has twice +awarded the Tait Black Prize for the best novel of the year to Mr. +Walpole--first for _The Secret City_ in 1919 and then for _The Captives_ +in 1920. + +BOOKS BY HUGH WALPOLE + +Novels: + THE WOODEN HORSE + THE GODS AND MR. PERRIN + (In England, MR. PERRIN AND MR. TRAILL) + THE GREEN MIRROR + THE DARK FOREST + THE SECRET CITY + THE CAPTIVES + THE CATHEDRAL + +Romances: + MARADICK AT FORTY + THE PRELUDE TO ADVENTURE + FORTITUDE + THE DUCHESS OF WREXE + THE YOUNG ENCHANTED + +Short Stories: + THE GOLDEN SCARECROW + JEREMY + THE THIRTEEN TRAVELLERS + +Belles-Lettres: + JOSEPH CONRAD--A Critical Study. + +SOURCES ON HUGH WALPOLE + +Hugh Walpole: An Appreciation, by Joseph Hergesheimer, GEORGE H. DORAN +COMPANY. + + +English Literature During the Last Half Century, by J. W. Cunliffe, THE +MACMILLAN COMPANY. + +A Hugh Walpole Anthology, selected by the author. LONDON: J. M. +DENT & SONS. NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY. + +Hugh Walpole, Master Novelist. Pamphlet published by GEORGE H. DORAN +COMPANY. (Out of print.) + +Who's Who [In England]. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +HALF-SMILES AND GESTURES + + +=i= + +Half-smiles and gestures! There is always a younger generation but it is +not always articulate. The war may not have changed the face of the world, +but it changed the faces of very many young men. Faces of naive enthusiasm +and an innocent expectancy were not particularly noticeable in the years +1918 to 1922. The sombreness, the abruptness, the savage mood evident in +the writings of such men as Barbusse and Siegfried Sassoon were abandoned. +Confronted with the riddle of life, spared the enigma of death, the young +men have felt nothing more befitting their age and generation than the +personal "gesture." + +If you ask me what is a gesture, I can't say that I know. It is something +felt in the attitude of a person to whom one is talking or whose book one +is reading. And the gesture is accompanied, in some of our younger +writers, with an expression that is both serious and smiling. These +half-smiles are, I take it, youth's comment on the riddle of a continued +existence, on the loss of well-lost illusions, on the uncertainty of all +future values. What is there worth trying for? It is not too clear, hence +the gesture. What is there worth the expenditure of emotion? It is +doubtful; and a half-smile is the best. + +Such a writer, busily experimenting in several directions, is Aldous +Huxley. This child of 1894, the son of Leonard Huxley (eldest son and +biographer of Prof. T. H. Huxley) and Julia Arnold (niece of Martha Arnold +and sister of Mrs. Humphry Ward), has with three books of prose built up a +considerable and devoted following of American readers. First there was +_Limbo_. Then came _Crome Yellow_, and on the heels of that we had the +five stories--if you like to call them so--composing _Mortal Coils_. I +have seen no comment more penetrating than that of Michael Sadleir, +himself the author of a novel of distinction. Sadleir says: + +"Already Huxley is the most readable of his generation. He has the +allurement of his own inconsistency, and the inconsistency of youth is its +questing spirit, and, consequently, its chief claim to respect. + +"At present there are several Huxleys--the artificer in words, the amateur +of garbage, pierrot lunaire, the cynic in rag-time, the fastidious +sensualist. For my part, I believe only in the last, taking that to be the +real Huxley and the rest prank, virtuosity, and, most of all, +self-consciousness. As the foal will shy at his own shadow, so Aldous +Huxley, nervous by fits at the poise of his own reality, sidesteps with +graceful violence into the opposite of himself. There is a beautiful +example of this in _Mortal Coils_. Among the stage-directions to his play, +'Permutations Among the Nightingales,' occur the following sentences: +'Sydney Dolphin has a romantic appearance. His two volumes of verse have +been recognised by intelligent critics as remarkable. How far they are +poetry nobody, least of all Dolphin himself, is certain. They may be +merely the ingenious products of a very cultured and elaborate brain.' + +"The point is not that these words might be applied to the author himself, +but rather that he knows they might, even hopes they will, and has sought +to lull his too-ready self-criticism by, so to speak, getting there first +and putting down on paper what he imagines others may think or write of +him. + +"Huxley is a poet and writer of prose. His varied personalities show +themselves in both. The artificer in words is almost omnipresent, and God +forbid that he ever vanish utterly. The disciple of Laforgue has produced +lovely and skilful things, and one is grateful for the study of the French +symbolists that instigated the translation of 'L'Apres-midi d'un Faune.' +In 'The Walk' the recapture of Laforgue's blend of the exotic and the +everyday is astonishingly complete. + +"The cynic is as accomplished as the Pierrot and 'Social Amenities,' parts +of 'Soles Occidere et Redire Possunt,' and, in _Limbo_, 'Richard Greenow' +(first 100 pages) and 'Happy Families' are syncopated actuality, and the +mind jigs an appreciative shoulder, as the body jerks irresistibly to +'Indianola.' + +"There remains Huxley the sensualist, a very ardent lover of beauty, but +one that shrinks from the sordid preamble of modern gallantry, one that is +apprehensive of the inevitable disillusionment. As others have done, as +others will do, he finds in imagination the adventure that progress has +decreed unseemly. + +"The reader who is shocked by 'slabby-bellies,' 'mucus,' 'Priapulids'; the +reader who is awed by the paraded learning of 'Splendour by Numbers,' by +the deliberate intricacy of 'Beauty,' or the delicate fatigue of 'The +Death of Lully' in _Limbo_--these are no audience for an artist. It +tickles the author's fancy, stretches his wits, flatters his deviltry to +provoke and witness such consternation and such respect. But the process +is waste of time, and a writer of Huxley's quality, whatever his youth, +has never time to waste." + +=ii= + +Readers who have chuckled over _Guinea Girl_ or have read with the +peculiar delight of discovery _The Pilgrim of a Smile_ are astonished to +learn that its author is, properly speaking, an engineer. Norman Davey, +born in 1888 (Cambridge 1908-10) is the son of Henry Davey, an engineer of +eminence. After taking honours in chemistry and physics, Norman Davey +travelled in America (1911), particularly in Virginia and Carolina. Then +he went to serve as an apprentice in engineering work in the North of +England and to study in the University of Montpellier in France. + +His first book was _The Gas Turbine_, published in London and now a +classic on its subject. In the four years preceding the war he contributed +articles on thermodynamics to scientific papers. It is only honest to add +that at the same time he contributed to Punch and Life--chiefly verse. + +After the war he had a book of verse published in England and followed it +with _The Pilgrim of a Smile_. He has travelled a good deal in Spain, +Italy, Sweden, and his hobby is book collecting. This is all very well; +and it explains how he could provide the necessary atmosphere for that +laughable story of Monte Carlo, _Guinea Girl_; but one is scarcely +prepared for _The Pilgrim of a Smile_ by those preliminaries in +thermodynamics--or in Punch. The story of the man who did not ask the +Sphinx for love or fame or money but for the reason of her smile is one of +the most intelligible of the gestures characteristic of literature since +the war. + +=iii= + +The gesture as such is perhaps most definitely recognised in the charming +book by John Dos Passos, _Rosinante to the Road Again_. This, indeed, is +the story of a gesture and a quest for it. The gesture is that of Castile, +defined in the opening chapter in some memorable words exchanged by +Telemachus and his friend Lyaeus: + +"'It's the gesture that's so overpowering; don't you feel it in your arms? +Something sudden and tremendously muscular.' + +"'When Belmonte turned his back suddenly on the bull and walked away +dragging the red cloak on the ground behind him I felt it,' said Lyaeus. + +"'That gesture, a yellow flame against maroon and purple cadences ... an +instant swagger of defiance in the midst of a litany to death the +all-powerful. That is Spain ... Castile at any rate.' + +"'Is "swagger" the right word?' + +"'Find a better!' + +"'For the gesture a mediaeval knight made when he threw his mailed glove at +his enemy's feet or a rose in his lady's window, that a mule-driver makes +when he tosses off a glass of aguardiente, that Pastora Imperio makes +dancing....'" + +I do not know whether one should classify _Rosinante_ as a book of travel, +a book of essays, a book of criticisms. It is all three--an integrated +gesture. Certain interspersed chapters purport to relate the wayside +conversations of Telemachus and Lyaeus--dual phases of the author's +personality shall we say?--and the people they meet. The other chapters +are acute studies of modern Spain, with rather special attention to modern +Spanish writers. One varies in his admiration between such an essay as +that on Miguel de Unamuno and such an unforgettable picture as the vision +of Jorge Manrique composing his splendid ode to Death: + +"It had been raining. Lights rippled red and orange and yellow and green +on the clean paving-stones. A cold wind off the Sierra shrilled through +clattering streets. As they walked the other man was telling how this +Castilian nobleman, courtier, man-at-arms, had shut himself up when his +father, the Master of Santiago, died, and had written this poem, created +this tremendous rhythm of death sweeping like a wind over the world. He +had never written anything else. They thought of him in the court of his +great dust-coloured mansion at Ocana, where the broad eaves were full of a +cooing of pigeons and the wide halls had dark rafters painted with +arabesques in vermilion, in a suit of black velvet, writing at a table +under a lemon tree. Down the sun-scarred street, in the cathedral that was +building in those days, full of a smell of scaffolding and stone dust, +there must have stood a tremendous catafalque where lay with his arms +around him the Master of Santiago; in the carved seats of the choirs the +stout canons intoned an endless growling litany; at the sacristy door, the +flare of the candles flashing occasionally on the jewels of his mitre, the +bishop fingered his crosier restlessly, asking his favourite choir-boy +from time to time why Don Jorge had not arrived. And messengers must have +come running to Don Jorge, telling him the service was at the point of +beginning, and he must have waved them away with a grave gesture of a long +white hand, while in his mind the distant sound of chanting, the jingle of +the silver bit of his roan horse stamping nervously where he was tied to a +twined Moorish column, memories of cavalcades filing with braying of +trumpets and flutter of crimson damask into conquered towns, of court +ladies dancing and the noise of pigeons in the eaves drew together like +strings plucked in succession on a guitar into a great wave of rhythm in +which his life was sucked away into this one poem in praise of death." + +=iv= + +The Column is an American institution. What is meant, of course, is that +daily vertical discussion of Things That Have Interested Me by different +individuals attached to different papers and having in common only the +great gift of being interested in what interests everybody else. Perhaps +that is not right, either. Maybe the gift is that of being able to +interest everybody else in the things you are interested in. Of all those +who write a Column, Heywood Broun is possibly the one whose interests are +the most varied. It is precisely this variety which makes his book _Pieces +of Hate: and Other Enthusiasms_ unique as a collection of essays. He will +write on one page about the boxing ring, on the next about the theatre, a +little farther along about books, farther on yet about politics. He makes +excursions into college sports, horse racing and questions of fair play; +and the problems of child-rearing are his constant preoccupation. + +Consider some of his topics. We have an opening study of the literary +masterpiece of E. M. Hull, the novel celebrating the adventures of Miss +Diana Mayo and the Sheik Ahmed Ben Hassan. The next chapter deals with +Hans Christian Andersen and literary and dramatic critics. Pretty soon we +are discussing after-dinner speeches, Babe Ruth and Jack Dempsey. If this +is a gesture, all I can say is, it is a pinwheel; and yet Broun writes +only about things he knows about. Lest you think from my description that +_Pieces of Hate_ is a book in a wholly unserious vein, I invite you to +read the little story, "Frankincense and Myrrh." + +"Once there were three kings in the East and they were wise men. They read +the heavens and they saw a certain strange star by which they knew that in +a distant land the King of the World was to be born. The star beckoned to +them and they made preparations for a long journey. + +"From their palaces they gathered rich gifts, gold and frankincense and +myrrh. Great sacks of precious stuffs were loaded upon the backs of the +camels which were to bear them on their journey. Everything was in +readiness, but one of the wise men seemed perplexed and would not come at +once to join his two companions who were eager and impatient to be on +their way in the direction indicated by the star. + +"They were old, these two kings, and the other wise man was young. When +they asked him he could not tell why he waited. He knew that his +treasuries had been ransacked for rich gifts for the King of Kings. It +seemed that there was nothing more which he could give, and yet he was not +content. + +"He made no answer to the old men who shouted to him that the time had +come. The camels were impatient and swayed and snarled. The shadows across +the desert grew longer. And still the young king sat and thought deeply. + +"At length he smiled, and he ordered his servants to open the great +treasure sack upon the back of the first of his camels. Then he went into +a high chamber to which he had not been since he was a child. He rummaged +about and presently came out and approached the caravan. In his hand he +carried something which glinted in the sun. + +"The kings thought that he bore some new gift more rare and precious than +any which they had been able to find in all their treasure rooms. They +bent down to see, and even the camel drivers peered from the backs of the +great beasts to find out what it was which gleamed in the sun. They were +curious about this last gift for which all the caravan had waited. + +"And the young king took a toy from his hand and placed it upon the sand. +It was a dog of tin, painted white and speckled with black spots. Great +patches of paint had worn away and left the metal clear, and that was why +the toy shone in the sun as if it had been silver. + +"The youngest of the wise men turned a key in the side of the little black +and white dog and then he stepped aside so that the kings and the camel +drivers could see. The dog leaped high in the air and turned a somersault. +He turned another and another and then fell over upon his side and lay +there with a set and painted grin upon his face. + +"A child, the son of a camel driver, laughed and clapped his hands, but +the kings were stern. They rebuked the youngest of the wise men and he +paid no attention but called to his chief servant to make the first of all +the camels kneel. Then he picked up the toy of tin and, opening the +treasure sack, placed his last gift with his own hands in the mouth of the +sack so that it rested safely upon the soft bags of incense. + +"'What folly has seized you?' cried the eldest of the wise men. 'Is this a +gift to bear to the King of Kings in the far country?' + +"And the young man answered and said: 'For the King of Kings there are +gifts of great richness, gold and frankincense and myrrh. + +"'But this,' he said, 'is for the child in Bethlehem!'" + +=v= + +Editor of the London Mercury, J. C. Squire has the light touch of the +columnist but limits himself somewhat more closely to books and the +subjects suggested by them. Very few men living can write about books with +more actual and less apparent erudition than Mr. Squire. Born in 1884, +educated at Cambridge, an editor of the New Statesman, a poet unsurpassed +in the field of parody but a poet who sets more store by his serious +verse, Mr. Squire can best be appreciated by those who have just that +desultory interest in literature which he himself possesses. I have been +looking through his _Books in General_, _Third Series_, for something +quotable, and I declare I cannot lift anything from its setting. It is all +of a piece, from the essay on "If One Were Descended from Shakespeare" to +the remarks about Ben Jonson, Maeterlinck, Ruskin, Cecil Chesterton and +Mr. Kipling's later verse (which I have nowhere seen more sensibly +discussed). + +Well, perhaps these observations from the chapter "A Terrifying +Collection" will give the taste! It appears that an anonymous donor had +offered money to the Birmingham Reference Library to pay for the gathering +of a complete collection of the war poetry issued in the British Empire. +After some preliminary comment, Mr. Squire concludes: + +"If that donor really means business I shall be prepared to supply him +with one or two rare and special examples myself. I possess tributes to +the English effort written by Portuguese, Japanese and Belgians; and paeans +by Englishmen which excel, as regards both simplicity of sentiment and +illiteracy of construction, any foreign composition. Birmingham is not +noted for very many things. It is, we know, the only large city in the +country which remains solidly Tory in election after election. It +produced, we know, Mr. Joseph and Mr. Austen Chamberlain. It has, we know, +something like a monopoly in the manufacture of the gods in wood and brass +to which (in his blindness) the heathen bows down; and there are all sorts +of cheap lines in which it can give the whole world points and a beating. +But it has not yet got the conspicuous position of Manchester or +Liverpool; and one feels that the enterprise of this anonymous donor may +help to put it on a level with those towns. For, granted that its +librarians take their commission seriously, and its friends give them the +utmost assistance in their power, there seems every reason to suppose that +within the next year the City of Birmingham will be the proud possessor of +the largest mound of villainously bad literature in the English-speaking +world. Pilgrims will go to see it who on no other account would have gone +to Birmingham; historians will refer to it when endeavouring to prove that +their own ages are superior to ours in intelligence; authors will inspect +it when seeking the consoling assurance that far, far worse things than +they have ever done have got into public libraries and been seriously +catalogued. The enterprise, in fact, is likely to be of service to several +classes of our fellow-citizens; and it cannot, as far as I am able to see, +do harm to any. It should therefore be encouraged, and I recommend anyone +who has volumes of war-verse which he wishes to get rid of to send them +off at once to the Chief Librarian of Birmingham." + +Oh, yes! _Books in General_, _Third Series_, is by Solomon Eagle. Mr. +Squire explains that the pen name Solomon Eagle has no excuse. The +original bearer of the name was a poor maniac who, during the Great Plague +of London, used to run naked through the streets with a pan of coals of +fire on his head crying, "Repent, repent." + +Too late I realise my wrongdoing, for what, after all, is _Books in +General_ as compared to Mr. Squire's _Life and Letters_? As a +divertissement, compared to a tone poem; as a curtain-raiser to a +three-act play. _Life and Letters_, though not lacking in the lighter +touches of Mr. Squire's fancy, contains chapters on Keats, Jane Austen, +Anatole France, Walt Whitman, Pope and Rabelais of that more considered +character one expects from the editor of the London Mercury. This is not +to say that these studies are devoid of humour; and those chapters in the +volume which are in the nature of interludes are among the best Mr. Squire +has written. Unfortunately I have left myself no room to quote the +incomparable panegyric (in the chapter on "Initials") to the name of John. +Read it, if your name is John; you will thank me for bringing it to your +attention. + +=vi= + +One expects personality in the daughter of Margot Asquith, and the readers +of the first book by Princess Antoine Bibesco (Elizabeth Asquith) were not +disappointed. The same distinction and the same unusual personality will +be found in her new book, _Balloons_. Princess Bibesco's _I Have Only +Myself to Blame_ consisted of sixteen short stories the most nervously +alive and most clearly individualised of feminine gestures. The quality of +Princess Bibesco's work, in so far as purely descriptive passages can +convey it, may be realised from these portraits of a father and mother +which open the story called "Pilgrimage" in _I Have Only Myself to +Blame_: + +"My father was one of the most brilliant men I have ever known but as he +refused to choose any of the ordinary paths of mental activity his name +has remained a family name when it should have become more exclusively his +own. If anything, my mother's famous beauty cast far more lustre on it +than his genius--which preferred to bask in the sunshine of intimacy or +recline indolently in the shady backwaters of privacy and leisure. And yet +in a way he was an adventurer--or rather an adventurous scientist. He was +often called cynical but that was not true--he was far too dispassionate, +too little of a sentimentalist to be tempted by inverted sentimentalism. +Above all things he was a collector--a collector of impressions. His +psychological bibelots were not for everyone. Some, indeed, lay open in +the vitime of his everyday conversation but many more lay hidden in +drawers opened only for the elect. + +"Undoubtedly, in a way, my mother was one of his masterpieces. Her beauty +seemed to be enhanced by every hour and every season. At forty suddenly +her hair had gone snow white. The primrose, the daffodil, the flame, the +gold, the black, the emerald, the ruby of her youth gave way to grey and +silver, pale jade and faint turquoise, shell pink and dim lavender. Her +loveliness had shifted. The hours of the day conspired to set her. The +hard coat and skirt, the high collar, the small hat, the neat veil of +morning, the caressing charmeuse that followed, the trailing chiffon +mysteries of her tea-gown, the white velvet or the cloth of silver that +launched her triumphantly at night, who was to choose between them? Summer +and winter followed suit. Whether you saw her emerging from crisp organdy +or clinging crepe de chine, stiff grey astrakan or melting chinchilla +always it was the same. This moment you said to yourself, 'She has reached +the climax of her loveliness.' + +"My father delighted in perfection. He had discovered it in her and +promptly made it his own. I don't know if he ever regretted the unfillable +quality of her emptiness. Rather I think it amused him to see the violent +passions she inspired, to hear her low thrilling voice weigh down her +meaningless murmurs with significance. To many of her victims the very +incompleteness of her sentences was a form of divine loyalty. One young +poet had described her soul as a fluttering, desperate bird beating its +wings on the bars of her marvellous loveliness. At this her lazy smile +looked very wise. She thought my father an ideal husband. He was always +right about her clothes and after all he was the greatest living expert on +her beauty. Obviously he loved her but--well, he didn't love her +inconveniently." + +=vii= + +There will be some who remember reading a first novel, published several +years ago, called _Responsibility_. This was a study from a Samuel +Butleresque standpoint of the attitude of a father toward an illegitimate +son. At least, that is what it came to in the end; but there were +leisurely earlier pages dealing with such subjects as the tiresomeness of +Honest Work and the dishonesty of righteous people. Very good they were, +too. James E. Agate was the author of this decidedly interesting piece of +fiction. He was not a particularly young man, being in his early forties; +but he was a youngish man. He was youngish in the sense that Mr. Wells and +Mr. Bennett are youngish, and not in the sense of Sir James Peter Pan +Barrie--incapable of growing up. As dramatic critic for the Saturday +Review, London, Agate has been much happier than in a former experience on +the Cotton Exchange of Manchester, his native city. "Each week," said The +Londoner in The Bookman, recently, "he watches over the theatre with an +enthusiasm for the drama which must constantly be receiving disagreeable +shocks. He is a man full of schemes, so that the title of his new book is +distinctly appropriate." That new book is called _Alarums and +Excursions_. + +"Agate is not peaceable," continues our informant. "He carries his full +energy, which is astounding, into each topic that arises. He seizes it. +Woe betide the man who dismisses an idol of his. It is not to be done. He +will submit to no man, however great that man's prestige may be. He is the +bulldog." + +Agate is a critic "still vigorous enough and fresh enough to attack and to +destroy shams of every kind. This is what Agate does in _Alarums and +Excursions_." + +Bright news is it that Agate is writing a new novel "on the Balzacian +scale of _Responsibility_." + +=viii= + +It was in 1918, when I was exploring new books for a New York book +section, that there came to hand a volume called _Walking-Stick Papers_. +Therein I found such stuff as this: + +"And so the fish reporter enters upon the last lap of his rounds. Through, +perhaps, the narrow, crooked lane of Pine Street he passes, to come out at +length upon a scene set for a sea tale. Here would a lad, heir to vast +estates in Virginia, be kidnapped and smuggled aboard to be sold a slave +in Africa. This is Front Street. A white ship lies at the foot of it. +Cranes rise at her side. Tugs, belching smoke, bob beyond. All about are +ancient warehouses, redolent of the Thames, with steep roofs and sometimes +stairs outside, and with tall shutters, a crescent-shaped hole in each. +There is a dealer in weather-vanes. Other things dealt in hereabout are +these: Chronometers, 'nautical instruments,' wax guns, cordage and twine, +marine paints, cotton wool and waste, turpentine, oils, greases, and +rosin. Queer old taverns, public houses, are here, too. Why do not their +windows rattle with a 'Yo, ho, ho'? + +"There is an old, old house whose business has been fish oil within the +memory of men. And here is another. Next, through Water Street, one comes +in search of the last word on salt fish. Now the air is filled with +gorgeous smell of roasting coffee. Tea, coffee, sugar, rice, spices, bags +and bagging here have their home. And there are haughty bonded warehouses +filled with fine liquors. From his white cabin at the top of a venerable +structure comes the dean of the salt-fish business. 'Export trade fair,' +he says; 'good demand from South America.'" + +The whole book was like that. I remember saying and printing: + +"If this isn't individualised writing, extremely skilful writing and +highly entertaining writing, we would like to know what is." + +But what was that in the general chorus of delighted praise that went up +all over the country?--and there were persons of discrimination among the +laudators of Robert Cortes Holliday. People like James Huneker and Simeon +Strunsky, who praised not lightly, were quick to express their admiration +of this new essayist. + +Four years have gone adding to Holliday's first book volumes in the same +class and singularly unmistakeable in their authorship. They are the sort +of essays that could not be anonymous once the authorship of one of them +was known. We have, now, _Broome Street Straws_ and the pocket mirror, +_Peeps at People_. We have _Men and Books and Cities_ and we have a score +of pleasant _Turns About Town_. + +Holliday shows no sign of failing us. I think the truth is that he is one +of those persons described somewhere by Wilson Follett; I think Follett +was trying to convey the quality of De Morgan. Follett said that with +Dickens and De Morgan it was not a question of separate books, singly +achieved, but a mere matter of cutting off another liberal length of the +rich personality which was Dickens or De Morgan. So, exactly, it seems to +me in the case of Holliday. A new book of Holliday's essays is simply +another few yards of a personality not precisely matched among +contemporary American essayists. Holliday's interests are somewhat +broader, more human and perhaps more humane, more varied and closer to the +normal human spirit and taste and fancy than are the interests of +essayists like Samuel Crothers and Agnes Repplier. + +The measure of Holliday as an author is not, of course, bounded by these +collections of essays. There is his penetrating study of Booth Tarkington +and the fine collected edition of Joyce Kilmer, _Joyce Kilmer; Poems, +Essays and Letters With a Memoir by Robert Cortes Holliday_. + +=ix= + +A gesture can be very graceful, sometimes. A half-smile can be wistful and +worth remembering. That was a pleasant story, almost too slender +structurally to be called a novel, by Gilbert W. Gabriel, published in the +spring of 1922. _Jiminy_ is a tale of the quest of the perfect love story +by Benjamin Benvenuto and Jiminy, maker of small rhymes. The author, music +critic of The Sun, New York, had long been known as a newspaper writer and +a pinch hitter for Don Marquis, conductor of The Sun's famous column, The +Sun Dial, when Don was A. W. O. L. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +STEWART EDWARD WHITE AND ADVENTURE + + +=i= + +"Stewart Edward White," says George Gordon in his book _The Men Who Make +Our Novels_, "writes out of a vast self-made experience, draws his +characters from a wide acquaintance with men, recalls situations and +incidents through years of forest tramping, hunting, exploring in Africa +and the less visited places of our continent, for the differing occasions +of his books. In his boyhood he spent a great part of each year in lumber +camps and on the river. He first found print with a series of articles on +birds, 'The Birds of Mackinac Island' (he was born in Grand Rapids, March +12, 1873), brought out in pamphlet form by the Ornithologists' Union and +since (perforce) referred to as his 'first book.' In the height of the +gold rush he set out for the Black Hills, to return East broke and to +write _The Claim Jumpers_ and _The Westerners_. He followed Roosevelt into +Africa, _The Land of Footprints_ and of _Simba_. He has, more recently, +seen service in France as a Major in the U. S. Field Artillery. Though +(certainly) no Ishmael, he has for years been a wanderer upon the face of +the earth, observant and curious of the arresting and strange--and his +novels and short stories mark a journey such as but few have gone upon, a +trailing of rainbows, a search for gold beyond the further hills and a +finding of those campfires (left behind when Mr. Kipling's _Explorer_ +crossed the ranges beyond the edge of cultivation) round which the +resolute sit to swap lies while the tenderfoot makes a fair--and +forced--pretence at belief." + +=ii= + +Spring, 1922, having advanced to that stage where one could feel +confidence that summer would follow--a confidence one cannot always feel +in March--a short letter came from Mr. White. He enclosed two photographs. +One of them showed a trim-looking man with eyeglasses and moustache, +sitting shirt-sleeved in a frail-looking craft. The letter explained that +this was a collapsible canvas boat. My deduction was that the picture had +been taken before the boat collapsed. + +There was also a picture of another and much sturdier boat. I think the +name Seattle was painted on her stern. She lay on a calm surface that +stretched off to a background of towering mountains--Lake Louise Inlet. +The much sturdier boat, I understood, was also the property of S. E. +White. + +[Illustration: STEWART EDWARD WHITE] + +The letter made all these things very clear. It said: "Fifteen tons, fifty +feet, sleeps five, thirty-seven horsepower, heavy duty engine, built +sea-going, speed nine knots. No phonograph! No wine cellar. + +"We are going north, that is all the plans we have. We two are all there +are on board, though we are thinking of getting a cat. On second thought, +here is the crew in the canvas boat we carry to the inland lakes to fish +from. Her name is the _Wreckless_; be careful how you spell it." + +As stated, the crew in the about-to-collapse boat was Stewart Edward +White. On his way north it was his intention to revise what will be, in +his judgment, the most important novel he has written. But I must not say +anything about that yet. Let me say something, rather, about his new book +which you who read this have a more immediate prospect of enjoying. _On +Tiptoe: A Romance of the Redwoods_ is Stewart Edward White in a somewhat +unusual but entirely taking role. Here we have Mr. White writing what is +essentially a comedy; and yet there is an element of fantasy in the story +which, in the light of a few opening and closing paragraphs, can be taken +seriously, too. + +The story sounds, in an outline, almost baldly implausible. Here are +certain people, including a young woman, the daughter of a captain of +industry, stranded in the redwoods. Here is a young man out of nowhere, +who foretells the weather in a way that is uncannily verified soon +afterward. Here also is the astonishing engine which the young man has +brought with him out of nowhere,--an engine likely to revolutionise the +affairs of the world.... + +I suppose that the secret of such a story as _On Tiptoe_ lies entirely in +the telling. I know that when I heard it outlined, the thing seemed to me +to be preposterous. But then, while still under the conviction of this +preposterousness, the story itself came to my hand and I began to read. +Its preposterousness did not worry me any longer. It had, besides a +plausibility more than sufficient, a narrative charm and a whimsical +humour that would have justified any tale. The thing that links _On +Tiptoe_ with Stewart Edward White is the perfect picture of the +redwoods--the feeling of all outdoors you get while under the spell of the +story. I do not think there is any doubt that all lovers of White will +enjoy this venture into the field of light romance. + +=iii= + +Stewart Edward White was the son of T. Stewart White and Mary E. (Daniell) +White. He received the degree of bachelor of philosophy from the +University of Michigan in 1895 and the degree of master of arts from the +same institution in 1903 (_Who's Who in America: Volume 12_). He attended +Columbia Law School in 1896-97. He married on April 28, 1904, Elizabeth +Grant of Newport, Rhode Island. He was a major with the 144th Field +Artillery in 1917-18. He lives in California. But these skeletal details, +all right for _Who's Who in America_, serve our purpose poorly. I am going +to try to picture the man from two accounts of him written by friends. One +appeared as an appendix to White's novel _Gold_, published in 1913, and +was written by Eugene F. Saxton. The other is a short newspaper article by +John Palmer Gavit (long with the New York Evening Post) printed in the +Philadelphia Ledger for May 20, 1922. + +Mr. Saxton had a talk with White a few days before White sailed from New +York for his second African exploring expedition. Saxton had asked the +novelist if he did not think it possible to lay hold of the hearts and +imaginations of a great public through a novel which had no love interest +in it; if "man pitted against nature was not, after all, the eternal +drama." + +White thought for a moment and then said: + +"In the main, that is correct. Only I should say that the one great drama +is that of the individual man's struggles toward perfect adjustment with +his environment. According as he comes into correspondence and harmony +with his environment, by that much does he succeed. That is what an +environment is for. It may be financial, natural, sexual, political, and +so on. The sex element is important, of course,--very important. But it is +not the only element by any means; nor is it necessarily an element that +exercises an instant influence on the great drama. Any one who so depicts +it is violating the truth. Other elements of the great drama are as +important--self-preservation, for example, is a very simple and even more +important instinct than that of the propagation of the race. Properly +presented, these other elements, being essentially vital, are of as much +interest to the great public as the relation of the sexes." + +The first eight or nine years of Mr. White's life were spent in a small +mill town. Michigan was at that time the greatest of lumber states. White +was still a boy when the family moved to Grand Rapids, then a city of +about 30,000. Stewart Edward White did not go to school until he was +sixteen, but then he entered the third year high with boys of his own age +and was graduated at eighteen, president of his class. He won and, I +believe, still holds the five-mile running record of the school. + +The explanation is that the eight or ten years which most boys spend in +grammar school were spent by Stewart Edward continually in the woods and +among the rivermen, in his own town and in the lumber camps to which his +father took him. Then there was a stretch of four years, from about the +age of twelve on, when he was in California, as he says "a very new sort +of a place." These days were spent largely in the saddle and he saw a good +deal of the old California ranch life. + +"The Birds of Mackinac Island," already referred to, was only one of +thirty or forty papers on birds which White wrote in his youth for +scientific publications. Six or seven hundred skins that he acquired are +now preserved in the Kent Scientific Museum of Grand Rapids. + +His summer vacations while he was in college were spent cruising the Great +Lakes in a 28-foot cutter sloop. After graduating he spent six months in a +packing-house at $6 a week. His adventure in the Black Hills gold rush +followed. + +It was during his studies at Columbia that White wrote, as part of his +class work, a story called "A Man and His Dog" which Brander Matthews +urged him to try to sell. Short Stories brought it for $15 and subsequent +stories sold also. One brought as much as $35! + +He tried working in MCClurg's bookstore in Chicago at $9 a week. Then he +set out for Hudson Bay. _The Claim Jumpers_, finished about this time, was +brought out as a book and was well received. The turn of the tide did not +come until Munsey paid $500 for the serial right in _The Westerners_. +White was paid in five dollar bills and he says that when he stuffed the +money in his pockets he left at once for fear someone would change his +mind and want all that money back. + +_The Blazed Trail_ was written in a lumber camp in the depth of a northern +winter. The only hours White could spare for writing were in the early +morning, so he would begin at 4 A. M., and write until 8 A. M., then put +on his snowshoes and go out for a day's lumbering. The story finished, he +gave it to Jack Boyd, the foreman, to read. Boyd began it after supper one +evening and when White awoke the next morning at four o'clock he found the +foreman still at it. As Boyd never even read a newspaper, White regarded +this as a triumph. This is the book that an Englishwoman, entering a book +shop where White happened to be, asked for in these words: "Have you a +copy of _Blase Tales_?" + +White went out hastily in order not to overhear her cries of +disappointment. + +=iv= + +Mr. Saxton asked White why he went to Africa and White said: + +"My answer to that is pretty general. I went because I wanted to. About +once in so often the wheels get rusty and I have to get up and do +something real or else blow up. Africa seemed to me a pretty real thing. +Before I went I read at least twenty books about it and yet I got no +mental image of what I was going to see. That fact accounts for these +books of mine. I have tried to tell in plain words what an ordinary person +would see there. + +"Let me add," he went on, "that I did not go for material. I never go +anywhere for material; if I did I should not get it. That attitude of mind +would give me merely externals, which are not worth writing about. I go +places merely because, for one reason or another, they attract me. Then, +if it happens that I get close enough to the life, I may later find that I +have something to write about. A man rarely writes anything convincing +unless he has lived the life; not with his critical faculty alert; but +whole-heartedly and because, for the time being, it is his life." + +=v= + +John Palmer Gavit tells how once, when hunting, White broke his leg and +had to drag himself back long miles to camp alone: + +"Adventure enough, you'd say. But along the way a partridge drummed and +nothing would do but he must digress a hundred yards from the shorter and +sufficiently painful way, brace himself for the shot and recoil, kill the +bird and have his dog retrieve it, and bring his game along with him. Just +to show himself that this impossible thing could be done. + +"I am not imagining when I say that in this same spirit Stewart Edward +White faces the deeper problems and speculations of life. He wants to know +about things here and hereafter. With the same zest and simplicity of +motive he faces the secret doors of existence; not to prove or disprove, +but to see and find out. And when he comes to the Last Door he will go +through without fear, with eyes open to see in the next undiscovered +country what there is to be seen and to show that the heart of a brave and +unshrinking man, truthful and open-handed and friendly, is at home there, +as he may be anywhere under God's jurisdiction." + +BOOKS BY STEWART EDWARD WHITE + +THE WESTERNERS +THE CLAIM JUMPERS +THE BLAZED TRAIL +CONJUROR'S HOUSE +THE FOREST +THE MAGIC FOREST +THE SILENT PLACES +THE MOUNTAIN +BLAZED TRAIL STORIES +THE PASS +THE MYSTERY +ARIZONA NIGHTS +CAMP AND TRAIL +THE RIVERMAN +THE RULES OF THE GAME +THE CABIN +THE ADVENTURES OF BOBBY ORDE +THE LAND OF FOOTPRINTS +AFRICAN CAMP FIRES +GOLD +THE REDISCOVERED COUNTRY +THE GREY DAWN +THE LEOPARD WOMAN +SIMBA +THE FORTY-NINERS +THE ROSE DAWN +THE KILLER, AND OTHER STORIES +ON TIPTOE: A ROMANCE OF THE REDWOODS + +SOURCES ON STEWART EDWARD WHITE + +The Men Who Make our Novels, by George Gordon. MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY. + +Who's Who in America. + +Stewart Edward White: Appendix to GOLD (published in 1913) by Eugene F. +Saxton. DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY. + +Stewart Edward White, by John Palmer Gavit. PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC LEDGER, +May 20, 1922. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +WHERE THE PLOT THICKENS + + +=i= + +Scarcely anyone is there, now writing mystery stories, who, +with the combination of ingenuity--or perhaps I should say +originality--dependableness, and a sufficient atmosphere comes up to +the high and steady level of Frank L. Packard. Born in Montreal in 1877 +of American parents, a graduate of McGill University and a student of +Liege, Belgium, Mr. Packard was engaged in engineering work for some +years and began writing for a number of magazines in 1906. He now +lives at Lachine, Province of Quebec, Canada, and the roll of his books +is a considerable one. In that roll, there are titles known and +enthusiastically remembered by nearly every reader of the mystery tale. +Is there anyone who has not heard of _The Miracle Man_ or _The Wire +Devils_ or Jimmie Dale in _The Adventures of Jimmie Dale_ and _The Further +Adventures of Jimmie Dale_? _The Night Operator,_ _From Now On_, +_Pawned_, and, most recently, _Doors of the Night_ have had their public +ready and waiting. That same public will denude the book counters of +_Jimmie Dale and The Phantom Clue_ this autumn. + +Packard differs from his fellow-writers of mystery stories in his flair +for the unusual idea. In _Pawned_ each character finds himself in pawn to +another, and must act as someone else dictates. _Doors of the Night_ is +the account of a man who was both a notorious leader and hunted prey of +New York's underworld. _From Now On_ is the unexpected story of a man +after he comes out of prison; and Jimmie Dale, Fifth Avenue clubman, was, +to Clancy, Smarlinghue the dope fiend; to the gang, Larry the Bat, stool +pigeon; but to Headquarters--the Grey Seal! + +Stories of the underworld are among the most difficult to write. The thing +had, it seemed, been done to death and underdone and overdone when Packard +came along. In all seriousness, it may be said that Packard has restored +the underworld to respectability--as a domain for fictional purposes at +least! It is not that his crooks are real crooks--though they are--but +that he is able to put life into them, to make them seem human. No man is +a hero to his valet and no crook can be merely a crook in a story of the +underworld that is intended to convey any sense of actuality. Beside the +distortions and conventionalisations of most underworld stories, Packard's +novels stand out with distinctiveness and a persistent vitality. + +=ii= + +When a book called _Bulldog Drummond_ was published there was no one +prescient of the great success of the play which would be made from the +story. But those who read mystery stories habitually knew well that a +mystery-builder of exceptional adroitness had arrived. Of course, Cyril +McNeile, under the pen name "Sapper," was already somewhat known in +America by several war books; but _Bulldog Drummond_ was a novelty. +Apparently it was possible to write a first rate detective-mystery story +with touches of crisp humour as good as Pelham Grenville Wodehouse's +stuff! There is something convincing about the hero of _Bulldog Drummond_, +the brisk and cheerful young man whom demobilisation has left unemployed +and whose perfectly natural susceptibility to the attractiveness of a +young woman leads him into adventures as desperate as any in No Man's +Land. + +For Cyril McNeile's new story _The Black Gang_, after the experience of +_Bulldog Drummond_ as a book and play, Americans will be better prepared. +An intermediate book, _The Man in Ratcatcher_, consists of shorter stories +which exhibit very perfectly McNeile's gift for the dramatic situation. He +gives us the man who returned from the dead to save his sweetheart from +destruction; the man who staked his happiness on a half forgotten waltz; +the man who played at cards for his wife; the man who assisted at suicide, +either ordinary short stories nor ordinary motifs! I should hesitate to +predict how far McNeile will go along this special line of his; but I see +no reason why he should not give us the successor of Sherlock Holmes. + +=iii= + +_Black Caesar's Clan_ is the good title of Albert Payson Terhune's new +story in succession to his _Black Gold_, a mystery story that was +distinguished by the possession of a Foreword so unusual as to be worth +reprinting--one of the best arguments for this type of book ever penned: + +"If you are questing for character-study or for realism or for true +literature in any of its forms,--then walk around this book of mine (and, +indeed, any book of mine); for it was not written for you and it will have +no appeal for you. + +"But if you care for a yarn with lots of action,--some of it pretty +exciting,--you may like _Black Gold_. I think you will. + +"It has all the grand old tricks: from the Weirdly Vanishing Footprints, +to the venerable Ride for Life. Yes, and it embalms even the +half-forgotten and long-disused Struggle on the Cliff. Its Hero is a hero. +Its Villain is a villain. Nobody could possibly mistake either of them for +the Friend of the Family. The Heroine is just a heroine; not a human. +There is not a subtle phrase or a disturbingly new thought, from start to +finish. + +"There is a good mystery, too; along lines which have not been worked +over-often. And there is a glimpse of Untold Treasure. What better can you +ask; in a story that is frank melodrama? + +"The scene, by the way, is laid in Northern California; a beautiful and +strikingly individualistic region which, for the most part, is ignored by +tourists for the man-made scenic effects and playgrounds of the southern +counties of the State. + +"If, now and again, my puppets or my plot-wires creak a bit noisily,--what +then? Creaking, at worst, is a sure indication of movement,--of +action,--of incessant progress of sorts. A thing that creaks is not +standing still and gathering mildew. It moves. Otherwise it could not +creak. + +"Yes, there are worse faults to a plot than an occasional tendency to +creakiness. It means, for one thing, that numberless skippable pages are +not consumed in photographic description of the ill-assorted furnishings +of the heroine's room or cosmos; nor in setting forth the myriad phases of +thought undergone by the hero in seeking to check the sway of his pet +complexes. (This drearily flippant slur on realism springs from pure envy. +I should rejoice to write such a book. But I can't. And, if I could, I +know I should never be able to stay awake long enough to correct its +proofs.) + +"Yet, there is something to be said in behalf of the man or woman who +finds guilty joy in reading a story whose action gallops; a story whose +runaway pace breaks its stride only to leap a chasm or for a +breathcatching stumble on a precipice-edge. The office boy prefers Captain +Kidd to Strindberg; not because he is a boy, but because he is human and +has not yet learned the trick of disingenuousness. He is still normal. So +is the average grown-up. + +"These normal and excitement-loving readers are overwhelmingly in the +majority. Witness the fact that _The Bat_ had a longer run in New York +than have all of Dunsany's and Yeats's rare dramas, put together. If we +insist that our country be guided by majority-rule, then why sneer at a +majority-report in literary tastes? + +"_Ben Hur_ was branded as a 'religious dime novel.' Yet it has had fifty +times the general vogue of Anatole France's pseudo-blasphemy which deals +with the same period. Public taste is not always, necessarily, bad taste. +'The common people heard Him, gladly.' (The Scribes did not.) + +"After all, there is nothing especially debasing in a taste for yarns +which drip with mystery and suspense and ceaseless action; even if the +style and concept of these yarns be grossly lacking in certain approved +elements. So the tale be written with strong evidence of sincerity and +with a dash of enthusiasm, why grudge it a small place of its own in +readers' hours of mental laziness? + +"With this shambling apology,--which, really, is no apology at all,--I lay +my book on your knees. You may like it or you may not. You will find it +alive with flaws. But, it is alive. + +"I don't think it will bore you. Perhaps there are worse +recommendations." + +=iv= + +Hulbert Footner does not look like a writer of mystery stories. A tall, +handsome, well-dressed, extremely courteous gentleman who, had he the +requisite accent, might just have arrived from Bond Street. He has a trim +moustache. Awfully attractive blue eyes! He lives on a farm at Sollers, +Maryland. No one else, it seems, is so familiar with the unusual corners +of New York City, the sort of places that get themselves called "quaint." +No one else manages the affairs of young lovers (on paper) with quite so +much of the airy spirit of young love. I can think of no one else who +could write such a scene as that in _The Owl Taxi_, where the dead-wagon, +on its way in the night to the vast cemetery in a New York suburb, is held +up for the removal of a much-needed corpse. Such material is bizarre. The +handling of it must be very deft or the result will be revolting; and yet +the thing can be done. In the latter part of that excellent play, _Seven +Keys to Baldpate_, George M. Cohan and his company bandied a corpse from +attic to cellar of a country house. This preposterous scene as presented +on the stage was helplessly laughable. Mr. Footner's scene in _The Owl +Taxi_ is like that. + +The man has a special gift for the picturesque person. I do not know +whether he uses originals; if I suspect an original for old Simon Deaves +in _The Deaves Affair_, I get no farther than a faint suspicion that ... +No, I cannot identify his character. (Not that I want to; I am not a +victim of that fatal obsession which fastens itself upon so many readers +of fiction--the desire to identify the characters in a story with someone +in real life. The idea is ridiculous.) Mr. Footner knows Greenwich +Village. He knows outlying stretches in the greater city of New York; he +knows excursion boats such as the Ernestina, whose cruises play so curious +a part in _The Deaves Affair_. I have a whetted appetite for what Footner +will give us next; I feel sure it will be like no other story of the +season. A great deal to be sure of! + +=v= + +The peculiarity about _Gold-Killer_ is the mystery behind the excellent +mystery of the book. I mean, of course, the mystery of its authorship. I +do not any longer believe that the book is the work of Siamese twins--in a +physiological sense of the word "twins." I know that there is no John +Prosper--or, rather, that if there is a John Prosper, he is not the author +of _Gold-Killer_. Yet the book was the work of more than one man. Were two +intellects siamesed to write the story? Those who, in my opinion, know the +facts point to the name on the title page and say that John is John and +Prosper is Prosper and never the twain shall meet, unless for the purpose +of evolving a super-_Gold-Killer_. Whether they will be able to surpass +this book, which opens with a murder at the opera and finishes +(practically) with a nose dive in an airplane, is beyond my surmise. + +If they will try, I give them my word I will read the new yarn. + +Mrs. Baillie Reynolds's latest novel is called _The Judgment of Charis_. +It is not a story to tell too much about in advance. I will say that +Charis had run away from an all-too-persistent lover and an +all-too-gorgeous family, and had been taken under the wing of a kindly, +middle-aged millionaire and invited to become his secretary. She expected +some complications and in her expectations she was not disappointed; and +the readers' expectations will not be disappointed either, though they may +find the ending unexpected. _The Vanishing of Betty Varian_ restored to +readers of Carolyn Wells a detective whose appearance in _The Room with +the Tassels_ made that story more than ordinarily worth while. I do not +know, though, whether Penny Wise would be interesting or even notable if +it were not for his curious assistant, Zizi. The merit of detective +stories is necessarily variable; _The Vanishing of Betty Varian_ is one of +the author's best; but Miss Wells (really Mrs. Hadwin Houghton) is, to me, +as extraordinary as her stories. All those books! She herself says that +"having mastered the psychology of detachment" she can write with more +concentration and less revision than any other professional writer of her +acquaintance. Yes, but how---- No doubt it is too much to expect her to +explain _how_ she is ingenious. + +Mrs. Belloc Lowndes, sister of Hilaire Belloc, is ingenious in a different +direction. Her story of _What Timmy Did_ was one that attracted +especial attention from those periodicals and persons interested in +psychic matters. Here was a woman whose husband had died from +poison--self-administered, the coroner decided--and here was little +Timmy, who knew that something was wrong. Animals also knew it; and then +one day Timmy saw at her heels a shadow man, stiff and military, and +behind him a phantom dog. Mrs. Lowndes's gifts, different from her +distinguished brother's, are none the less gifts. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +REBECCA WEST: AN ARTIST + + +=i= + +Whether Rebecca West is writing reviews of books or dramatic criticism or +novels she is an artist, above everything. I have been reading delightedly +the pages of her new novel, _The Judge_. It is Miss West's second novel. +One is somewhat prepared for it by the excellence of her first, _The +Return of the Soldier_, published in 1918. Somewhat, but not adequately. + +Perhaps I am prejudiced. You see, I have been in Edinburgh, and though it +was the worst season of the year--the period when, as Robert Louis +Stevenson says, that Northern city has "the vilest climate under +Heaven"--nevertheless, the charm and dignity of that old town captured me +at the very moment when a penetrating Scotch winter rain was coming in +direct contact with my bones. I was, I might as well confess, soaked and +chilled as no New York winter snowstorm ever wetted and chilled me. It did +not matter; here was the long sweep of Princes Street with its gay shops +on one side and its deep valley on the other; across the valley the +tenements of the Royal Mile lifted themselves up--the Royal Mile, which +runs always uphill from the Palace that is Holyrood to the height that is +the Castle. Talk about gestures! The whole city of Edinburgh is a +matchless gesture. + +[Illustration: REBECCA WEST] + +And so, when I began the first page of _The Judge_, it was a grand delight +to find myself back in the city of the East Wind: + +"It was not because life was not good enough that Ellen Melville was +crying as she sat by the window. The world, indeed, even so much of it as +could be seen from her window, was extravagantly beautiful. The office of +Mr. Mactavish James, Writer to the Signet, was in one of those decent grey +streets that lie high on the Northward slope of Edinburgh New Town, and +Ellen was looking up the sidestreet that opened just opposite and +revealed, menacing as the rattle of spears, the black rock and bastions of +the Castle against the white beamless glare of the southern sky. And it +was the hour of the clear Edinburgh twilight, that strange time when the +world seems to have forgotten the sun though it keeps its colour; it could +still be seen that the moss between the cobblestones was a wet bright +green, and that a red autumn had been busy with the wind-nipped trees, yet +these things were not gay, but cold and remote as brightness might be on +the bed of a deep stream, fathoms beneath the visitation of the sun. At +this time all the town was ghostly, and she loved it so. She took her mind +by the arm and marched it up and down among the sights of Edinburgh, +telling it that to be weeping with discontent in such a place was a +scandalous turning up of the nose at good mercies. Now the Castle +Esplanade, that all day had proudly supported the harsh virile sounds and +colours of the drilling regiments, would show to the slums its blank +surface, bleached bonewhite by the winds that raced above the city smoke. +Now the Cowgate and the Canongate would be given over to the drama of the +disorderly night, the slumdwellers would foregather about the rotting +doors of dead men's mansions and brawl among the not less brawling ghosts +of a past that here never speaks of peace, but only of blood and argument. +And Holyrood, under a black bank surmounted by a low bitten cliff, would +lie like the camp of an invading and terrified army...." + +=ii= + +_The Judge_ is certainly autobiographical in some of the material +employed. For instance, it is a fact that Miss West went to school in +Edinburgh, attending an institution not unlike John Thompson's Ladies +College referred to in _The Judge_ (but only referred to). It is a fact, +as everyone who knows anything about Miss West knows, that Miss West was +an ardent suffragette in that time before suffragettes had ceased from +troubling and Prime Ministers were at rest. An amazing legend got about +some time ago that Rebecca West's real name was Regina Miriam Bloch. Then +on the strength of the erring "Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature" +did Miss Amy Wellington write a sprightly article for the Literary Review +of the New York Evening Post. Miss Wellington referred to this mysterious +Regina Miriam Bloch who had stunned everybody by her early articles +written under the name of one of Ibsen's most formidable heroines; but +unfortunately Miss West wrote a letter in disclaimer. She cannot help Mr. +Ibsen. It may be a collision in names, but it is not a collusion. The +truth about Rebecca West, who has written _The Judge_, seems to be +dependably derivable from the English _Who's Who_, a standard work always +worth consulting. This estimable authority says that Rebecca West was born +on Christmas in 1892, and is the youngest daughter of the late Charles +Fairfield of County Kerry. It further says that she was educated at George +Watson's Ladies' College, Edinburgh. It states that she joined the staff +of The Freewoman as a reviewer in 1911. Her club is the International +Women's Franchise. Her residence is 36 Queen's Gate Terrace, London S. W. +7. Her telephone is Kensington 7285. + +Now is there anything mythical left? What excuse, O everybody, is there +any longer for the legend of Regina Miriam Bloch? + +But I do not believe Miss West objects to legends. I imagine she loves +them. The legend of a name is perhaps unimportant; the legend of a +personality is of the highest importance. That Miss West has a personality +is evident to anyone familiar with her work. A personality, however, is +not three-dimensionally revealed except in that form of work which comes +closest to the heart and life of the worker. To write pungent and +terrifyingly sane criticisms is a notable thing; but to write novels of +tender insight and intimate revelation is a far more convincing thing. +_The Judge_ is such a novel. + +=iii= + +There is a prefatory sentence, as follows: + +"Every mother is a Judge who sentences the children for the sins of the +father." + +There is a dedication. It is: + +TO THE MEMORY OF MY MOTHER + +_The Judge_ is a study of the claim of a mother upon her son. The +circumstances of Mrs. Yaverland's life were such as peculiarly to +strengthen the tie between her and Richard. On the other hand, she had +always disliked and even hated her son Roger. + +The first part of the book, however, does not bring in Richard Yaverland's +mother. It is a picture of Ellen Melville, the girl in Edinburgh, the girl +whose craving for the colour of existence has gone unsatisfied until +Richard Yaverland enters her life. Yaverland, with his stories of Spain, +and his imaginative appeal for that young girl, is the fulcrum of Ellen +Melville's destiny. + +That destiny, carried by the forces of human character to its strange +termination, is handled by Miss West in a long novel the chapters of which +are a series of delineative emotions. I do not mean that Miss West shrinks +from externalised action, as did Henry James whom she has admired and +studied. She perceives the immense value of introspection, but is not lost +in its quicksands. She can devote a whole chapter to a train of thought in +the mind of Ellen Melville, sitting inattentively at a public meeting; and +she can follow it with another long chapter giving the sequence of +thoughts in the mind of Richard Yaverland; and she can bring each chapter +to a period with the words: "She (he) glanced across the hall. Their eyes +met." It might be thought that this constitutes a waste of narrative +space; not so. As a matter of fact, without the insight accorded by these +disclosures of things thought and felt, we should be unable to understand +the behaviour of these two young people. + +All the first half of the book is a truly marvelous story of young lovers; +all the latter end of the book is a relation scarcely paralleled in +fiction of the conflict between the mother's claim and the claim of the +younger woman. + +Of subsidiary portraits there are plenty. Ellen's mother and Mr. Mactavish +James and Mr. Philip James are like full-lengths by Velasquez. In the +closing chapters of the book we have the extraordinary figure of the +brother and son, Roger, accompanied by the depressing girl whom he has +picked up the Lord knows where. + +And, after all, this is not a first novel--that promise, which so often +fails of fulfilment--but a second novel; and I have in many a day not read +anything that seemed to me to get deeper into the secrets of life than +this study of a man who, at the last, spoke triumphantly, "as if he had +found a hidden staircase out of destiny," and a woman who, at the last, +"knew that though life at its beginning was lovely as a corn of wheat it +was ground down to flour that must make bitter bread between two human +tendencies, the insane sexual caprice of men, the not less mad excessive +steadfastness of women." + +BOOKS BY REBECCA WEST + +THE RETURN OF THE SOLDIER +THE JUDGE + +SOURCES ON REBECCA WEST + +Who's Who. [In England]. + +Rebecca West: Article by Amy Wellington in the LITERARY REVIEW OF THE NEW +YORK EVENING POST, 1921. + +Articles by Rebecca West in various English publications, frequently +reprinted by THE LIVING AGE. See the READERS' GUIDE TO PERIODICAL +LITERATURE. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +SHAMELESS FUN + + +=i= + +One way to write about Nina Wilcox Putnam would be in the way she writes +about everything. It's not so hard. As thus: + +Some dull day in the office. We look up and whom should we see standing +right there before us but Nina Wilcox Putnam! Falling over backwards, that +being what our swivel chair is made for, we say: "Well, well, well! So +today is May 3, 1922! Where from? West Broadway?" + +"I should not say so! South Broadway, I guess. I've just motored up from +Florida. But your speaking of West Broadway reminds me: I've written a +piece for George Lorimer of Saturday Evening Post. You see my book, _West +Broadway_, brought me so many letters my arm ached from answering them. +What car did you drive? Where d'y' get gas in the desert? What's the best +route? And thus et cetera. So now I have wrote me a slender essay +answering everything that anybody can ask on this or other +transcontinental subjects. Mr. Lorimer will publish, and who knows--as +they say in fiction--it might make a book afterward." + +"How's Florida?" + +"I left it fine, if it doesn't get in trouble while I'm away. I've bought +a ranch, for fruit only, on the East Coast, between Palm Beach and Miami, +but not paying these expensive prices, no, not never. And I shall live +there for better but not for worse, for richer, but most positively not +for poorer. I pick my own alligator pears off my own tree unless I want to +sell them for fifteen cents on the tree. Bathing, one-half mile east by +motor." + +"Been reading your piece, 'How I Have Got So Far So Good,' in John +Siddall's American Magazine." + +"Yes, I thought I would join the autobiographists--Benvenuto Cellini, +Margot Asquith, Benjamin Franklin, et Al, as Ring Lardner would insist. Do +you know Ring? He and I are going to have one of these amicable literary +duels soon, like the famous _Isn't That Just Like a Man? Oh, Well, You +Know How Women Are!_ which Mrs. Rinehart and Irvin Cobb fought to a +finish. But speaking of sport, I have discovered my grandest favourite +sport, in spite of motoring, which is deep sea fishing, nothing less. Let +me inform you that I landed a 9-pound dolphin which he is like fire-opals +all over and will grace the wall of my dining-room no matter if all my +friends suffer with him the rest of their lives. He was a male dolphin; +get that! It makes a difference from the deep sea fishing sportsman's +standpoint. And this place of mine at the end of South Broadway where I +can roll cocoanuts the rest of my life if I want to is at, in or about +Delray, Florida. D-e-l-r-a-y; you've spelled it." + +"We're publishing your new book on how to get thin, _Tomorrow We Diet_." + +"Oh, yes. Well, I am several laps ahead of that. Now, I am going up to my +home in Madison, Connecticut, to work. Later, I'll maybe drive out to +Yellowstone Park or some place. Well, I might stay here at the Brevoort +for a month; run down to Philadelphia, maybe. Did you know I once wrote a +book for children that has sold 500,000 copies? And, besides a young son +whom I am capable of entertaining if you'll let him tell you, I have a few +ideas...." + +Hold on! This isn't so easy as it looked. + +Probably Nina Wilcox Putnam is inimitable. This one and that may steal +Ring W. Lardner's stuff, but there is a sort of Yale lock effect about the +slang (American slanguage) in such books as _West Broadway_ which is not +picked so easily. As for the new Nina Wilcox Putnam novel, _Laughter +Limited_--if you don't believe what we say about N.W.P. inimitableness +just open that book and see for yourself. The story of a movie actress? +Yes, and considerable more. Just as _West Broadway_ was a great deal more +than an amusing story, being actually the best hunch extant on +transcontinental motoring, outside of the automobile blue books, which are +not nearly such good reading. + +And then there's _Tomorrow We Diet_, in which Nina Wilcox Putnam tells how +she reduced fifty pounds in seven months without exercising anything but +her intelligence. But if you want to know about Nina Wilcox Putnam, read +her story in her own words that appeared in the American Magazine for May, +1922. Here is a bit of it: + +"Believe you me, considering the fact that they are mostly men, which it +would hardly be right to hold that up against them, Editors in my +experience has been an unusually fine race, and it is my contracts with +them has made me what I am today, I'm sure I'm satisfied. And when a +fellow or sister writer commences hollering about how Editors in America +don't know anything about what is style or English, well anyways not +enough to publish it when they see it, why all I can say is that I could +show them living proof to the contrary, only modesty and good manners +forbids me pointing, even at myself. I am also sure that the checks these +hollerers have received from said Editors is more apt to read the Editor +regrets than pay to the order of, if you get what I mean. + +"Well, I have had it pretty soft, I will admit, because all the work I +done to get where I am, is never over eight hours a day penal servitude, +locked up in my study and fighting against only such minor odds and +intrusions as please may I have a dollar and a quarter for the laundry, or +now dear you have been writing long enough, I have brought you a nice cup +of tea, just when I am going strong on a important third chapter. But my +work is of course not really work since it is done in the home, as my +relations often remind me. At least they did until I got George, that's my +pres. husband, and he never lets me be interrupted unless he wants to +interrupt me himself for a clean collar or something. + +"Also besides working these short hours, four of which is generally what +us authors calls straight creative work, I have it soft in another way. I +got a pretty good market for my stuff and always had, and this of course +has got me so's I can draw checks as neat and quick as anybody in the +family and they love to see me do it. + +"All kidding to one side it is the straight dope when I say that from +being merely the daughter of honest and only moderately poor parents I +have now a house of my own, the very one in our town which I most admired +as a child; and the quit-claim deed come out of my own easy money. I also +got a car or two--and a few pieces of the sort of second-hand stuff which +successful people generally commence cluttering up their house with as a +sign of outward and visible success. I mean the junk one moves in when one +moves the golden oak out.... + +"I never commenced going over really big until it was up to me to make +good every time I delivered, and this was not until my husband died and +left me with a small son, which I may say in passing, that I consider he +is the best thing I have ever published. Well, there I was, a widow with a +child, and no visible means of support except when I looked into the +mirror. Of course, before then I had been earning good money, but only +when I wanted something, or felt like it. Now I had to want to feel like +it three hundred and sixty-five days a year. + +"I'll tell the world it was some jolt." + +=ii= + +_Perfect Behaviour_ is the calmly confident title of the new book by +Donald Ogden Stewart--a work which will rejoice the readers of _A Parody +Outline of History_. Behaviour is the great obstacle to happiness. One may +overcome all the ordinary complexes. One may kill his cousins and get his +nephews and nieces deported, and refuse to perform Honest Work--yet remain +a hopeless slave to the _Book of Etiquette_. In a Pullman car, with a +ticket for the lower berth, he will take the seat facing backward, only to +tremble and blush with shame on learning his social error. Who has not +suffered the mortification of picking up the fork that was on the floor +and then finding out afterward that it was the function of the waiter to +pick up the fork? What is a girl to do if, escorted home at night from the +dance, she finds the hour is rather late and yet her folks are still up? +Whether she should invite the young man in or ask him to call again, she +is sure to do the wrong thing. Then there are those wedding days, the +proudest and happiest of a girl's life, when she slips her hand into the +arm of the wrong man or otherwise gives herself away before she is given +away. Tragedy lurks in such trifles. Don Stewart, who has suffered +countless mortifications and heartbreaks from just such little things as +these, determined that something shall be done to spare others his own +unfortunate experiences. + +_Perfect Behaviour_ is the result of his brave determination. It is a book +that will be constantly in demand until society is abolished. Then, too, +there is that new behaviouristic psychology. You have not heard of that? I +can only assure you that Mr. Stewart's great work is founded upon all the +most recent principles of behaviouristic psychology. Noted scientists will +undoubtedly endorse it. You will endorse it yourself, and you will be able +to cash in on it. + +Stewart wrote _A Parody Outline of History_ for The Bookman. When the idea +was broached, John Farrar, editor of The Bookman, was about the only +person who saw the possibilities. Response to the _Parody Outline of +History_ was immediate, spontaneous and unanimous. When the chapters +appeared as a book, this magnificent take-off of contemporary American +writers as well as of H. G. Wells leaped at once into the place of a best +seller. It remains one. The thing that it accomplished is not likely to be +well done again for years. + +=iii= + +_Neither Here Nor There_ is the title of a new book by Oliver Herford, +author of _This Giddy Globe_. + +I do not know which is funnier, Herford or his books. Among the +unforgotten occasions was one when he was in the Doran office talking +about a forthcoming book and nibbling on animal crackers. Suddenly he +stopped nibbling and exclaimed with a gasp of dismay: + +"Good heavens! I've been eating the illustrations for my book." + +=iv= + +_Timothy Tubby's Journal_ is, of course, the diary of the famous British +novelist with notes by Theresa Tubby, his wife. Tubby, on his visit to +this side, was remarkably observant. He says: + +"How weary we were after a few hours of being interviewed and +photographed! This deep appreciation on the part of the American people +was touching, but exhausting. Yet my publishers telephoned me every two or +three hours, to say that editions of my latest novel were flying through +multitudinous presses; that I must bear up under the strain and give the +public what it demands; namely, the glimpse of me and of my aristocratic +wife. This, it seems, is what sells a book in America. The public must see +an author in order to believe that he can write. + +"When my distinguished forebear Charles Dickens[1] arrived in the town of +Boston, he found his room flooded with offers of a pew at Sunday morning +church. This fashion in America has apparently passed, though I was taken +on sightseeing expeditions to various cathedrals whose architecture seemed +to me to be execrable (largely European copies--nothing natively +American). It was never suggested that I attend divine service. On the +contrary, I had countless invitations to be present at what is known as a +'cocktail chase.' My New York literary admirers seemed tumbling over one +another to offer me keys to their cellars and to invite me to take part in +one of those strange functions. It is their love of danger, rather than +any particular passion for liquor, that has, I believe, given birth to +these elaborate fetes. + +"A cocktail chase takes place shortly before dinner. It may lead you into +any one of a number of places, even as far as the outlying districts of +the Bronx. If you own a motor, you may use that; if not, a taxi will do. +Usually a large number of motors are employed. Add to this pursuing +motorcycle policemen, and the sight is most impressive. The police are for +protection against crime waves, not for the arrest of the cocktail +chasers. A revenue agent performs this function, when it becomes +necessary. + +"The number of our invitations was so large that it was hard to pick and +choose. Naturally, we did not care to risk attendance at any function +which might injure our reputation. Usually my wife has an almost psychic +sense of such matters; but the Social Register was of no assistance in +this case.[2] Before several hours had passed, however, we decided to hire +a social secretary. I phoned my publisher for a recommendation. 'Dear +Tubby,' he said, 'what you need is a publicity agent, not a social +secretary. I'll send you the best New York can offer immediately. It was +careless of me not to think of it before. You seemed to have a genius for +that sort of thing yourself.' + +"The publicity agent is difficult to explain. He is somehow connected with +an American game which originated in the great northwest, and which is +called log-rolling. He stands between you and the public which is +clamouring for a glimpse of you. The difference between a social secretary +and a publicity agent seems to be that the former merely answers +invitations, while the latter makes sure that you are invited. He writes +your speeches for you, sometimes even goes so far as to write your novels, +and, in a strange place, will impersonate you at all public functions +unless your wife objects.[3] + +"Mr. Vernay arrived, fortunately, in time to sort our invitations. +'First,' he said, 'just you and Terry' (he was one of those brusque new +world types and Theresa rather enjoyed his familiarity--'so refreshing,' I +remember she said) 'sit right down and I'll tell you all about literature +in this here New York.'" + +... I have always been meaning to read Tubby's novels--so like those of +Archibald Marshall and Anthony Trollope, I understand--but have never got +around to it. Now I feel I simply must. + +----- + + [1] The relationship was on my husband's father's side. The + Turbots + were never so closely connected with the bourgeoisie. + + [2] We, of course, had entree to all the best Fifth Avenue + homes, but + since we have now become literary folk, we + hose to remain so. We therefore avoided the better + classes. + + [3] Indeed Mr. Vernay was a most accomplished gentleman, and + I never + objected to him. I only remarked once that I was glad + Timothy was + not so attractive to the ladies as Mr. Vernay. This, I + did + not consider an objection. +=v= + +Such an expert judge as Franklin P. Adams has considered that the ablest +living parodist in verse is J. C. Squire. Certainly his _Collected +Parodies_ is a masterly performance quite fit to go on the shelf with Max +Beerbohm's _A Christmas Garland_. In _Collected Parodies_ will be found +all those verses which, published earlier in magazines and in one or two +books, have delighted the readers of Punch and other magazines--"Imaginary +Speeches," "Steps to Parnassus," "Tricks of the Trade," "Repertory Drama, +How They Do It and How They Would Have Done It," "Imaginary Reviews and +Speeches" and "The Aspirant's Manual." + +The great source book of fun in rhyme, however, is and will for a long +time remain Carolyn Wells's _The Book of Humorous Verse_. This has not an +equal in existence, so far as I know, except _The Home Book of Verse_. +Here in nearly 900 pages are specimens of light verse from Chaucer to +Chesterton. Modern writers, such as Bert Leston Taylor and Don Marquis, +share the pages with Robert Herrick and William Cowper, Charles Lamb and +Oliver Wendell Holmes. Verses whimsical, satiric, narrative, +punning--there is no conceivable variety overlooked by Miss Wells in what +was so evidently a labour of love as well as of the most careful industry, +an industry directed by an exceptional taste. + +P. G. Wodehouse used to write lyrics for musical plays in England, +interpolating one or two in existing successes. Then he came to America +and began writing lyrics, interpolating them in musical comedies over +here. Then he began interpolating extremely funny short stories in the +American magazines and he has now succeeded in interpolating into modern +fiction some of the funniest novels of the last few years. This bit from +his latest, _Three Men and a Maid_, is typical: + +"Mrs. Hignett was never a very patient woman. "'Let us take all your +negative qualities for granted,' she said curtly. 'I have no doubt that +there are many things which you do not do. Let us confine ourselves to +issues of definite importance. What is it, if you have no objection to +concentrating your attention on that for a moment, that you wish to see me +about?' + +"This marriage.' + +"'What marriage?' + +"'Your son's marriage.' + +"'My son is not married.' + +"'No, but he's going to be. At eleven o'clock this morning at the Little +Church Around the Corner!' + +"Mrs. Hignett stared. + +"'Are you mad?' + +"'Well, I'm not any too well pleased, I'm bound to say,' admitted Mr. +Mortimer. 'You see, darn it all, I'm in love with the girl myself!' + +"'Who is this girl?' + +"'Have been for years. I'm one of those silent, patient fellows who hang +around and look a lot, but never tell their love....' + +"'Who is this girl who has entrapped my son?' + +"'I've always been one of those men who....' + +"'Mr. Mortimer! With your permission we will take your positive qualities +for granted. In fact, we will not discuss you at all.... What is her +name?' + +"'Bennett.' + +"'Bennett? Wilhelmina Bennett? The daughter of Mr. Rufus Bennett? The +red-haired girl I met at lunch one day at your father's house?' + +"'That's it. You're a great guesser. I think you ought to stop the +thing.' + +"'I intend to.' + +"'Fine!' + +"'The marriage would be unsuitable in every way. Miss Bennett and my son +do not vibrate on the same plane.' + +"That's right. I've noticed it myself.' + +"'Their auras are not the same colour.' + +"'If I thought that once,' said Bream Mortimer, ''I've thought it a +hundred times. I wish I had a dollar for every time I thought it. Not the +same colour! That's the whole thing in a nutshell.'" + +Mr. Wodehouse is described by a friend as "now a somewhat fluid inhabitant +of England, running over here spasmodically. Last summer he bought a +race-horse. It is the beginning of the end!" + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE VITALITY OF MARY ROBERTS RINEHART + + +=i= + +"The total result ... after twelve years is that I have learned to sit +down at my desk and begin work simultaneously," wrote Mrs. Rinehart in +1917. "One thing died, however, in those years of readjustment and +struggle. That was my belief in what is called 'inspiration.' I think I +had it now and then in those days, moments when I felt things I had hardly +words for, a breath of something much bigger than I was, a little lift in +the veil. + +"It does not come any more. + +"Other things bothered me in those first early days. I seemed to have so +many things to write about and writing was so difficult. Ideas came, but +no words to clothe them. Now, when writing is easy, when the technique of +my work bothers me no more than the pen I write with, I have less to say. + +[Illustration: MARY ROBERTS RINEHART] + +"I have words, but fewer ideas to clothe in them. And, coming more and +more often is the feeling that, before I have commenced to do my real +work, I am written out; that I have for years wasted my substance in +riotous writing and that now, when my chance is here, when I have lived +and adventured, when, if ever, I am to record honestly my little page of +these great times in which I live, now I shall fail." + +These surprising words appeared in an article in the American Magazine for +1917. Not many months later _The Amazing Interlude_ was published and, +quoting Mrs. Rinehart soon afterward, I said: "If her readers shared this +feeling they must have murmured to themselves as they turned the absorbing +pages of _The Amazing Interlude_: 'How absurd!' It is doubtful if they +recalled the spoken misgiving at all." + +Few novels of recent years have had so captivating a quality as had this +war story. But I wish to emphasise again what I felt and tried to express +at that time--the sense of Mrs. Rinehart's vitality as a writer of +fiction. In what seem to me to be her best books there is a freshness of +feeling I find astonishing. I felt it in _K_; I found it in _The Amazing +Interlude_; and I find it in her new novel just published, _The Breaking +Point_. + +_The Breaking Point_ is the story of a man's past and his inability to +escape from it. If that were all, it might be a very commonplace subject +indeed. It is not all, nor half. + +Dr. Richard Livingstone, just past thirty, is supposedly the nephew of Dr. +David Livingstone, with whom he lives and whose practice he shares in the +town of Haverly; but at the very outset of the novel, we have the fact +that--according to a casual visitor in Haverly--Dr. Livingstone's dead +brother had no son; was unmarried, anyway. And then it transpires that, +whatever may have been the past, Dr. Livingstone has walled it off from +the younger man's consciousness. The elder man has built up a powerful +secondary personality--secondary in the point of time only, for Richard +Livingstone is no longer aware of any other personality, nor scarcely of +any former existence. He does, indeed, have fugitive moments in which he +recalls with a painful and unsatisfactory vagueness some manner of life +that he once had a part in. But in his young manhood, in the pleasant +village where there is none who isn't his friend, deeply centred in his +work, stayed by the affection of Dr. Livingstone, these whispers of the +past are infrequent and untroubling. + +The casual visitor's surprise and the undercurrent of talk which she +starts is the beginning of a rapid series of incidents which force the +problem of the past up to the threshold of Richard Livingstone's +consciousness. There would then be two ways of facing his difficulties, +and he takes the braver. Confronted with an increasingly difficult +situation, a situation sharpened by his love for Elizabeth Wheeler, and +her love for him, young Dr. Dick plays the man. The title of Mrs. +Rinehart's story comes from the psychological (and physical) fact that +there is in every man and woman a point at which Nature steps in and +says: + +"See here, you can't stand this! You've got to forget it." + +This is the breaking point, the moment when amnesia intervenes. But later +there may come a time when the erected wall safeguarding the secondary +personality gives way. The first, submerged or walled-off personality may +step across the levelled barrier. That extraordinarily dramatic moment +does come in the new novel and is handled by Mrs. Rinehart with triumphant +skill. + +It will be seen that this new novel bears some resemblances to _K_, by +many of her readers considered Mrs. Rinehart's most satisfactory story. If +I may venture a personal opinion, _The Breaking Point_ is a much stronger +novel than _K_. To me it seems to combine the excellence of character +delineation noticeable in _K_ with the dramatic thrill and plot +effectiveness which made _The Amazing Interlude_ so irresistible as you +read it. + +=ii= + +To say so much is to bear the strongest testimony to that superb vitality, +which, characteristic of Mrs. Rinehart as a person, is yet more +characteristic of her fiction. There is, I suppose, this additional +interest in regard to _The Breaking Point_, that Mrs. Rinehart is the wife +of a physician and was herself, before her marriage, a trained nurse. The +facts of her life are interesting, though not nearly so interesting as the +way in which she tells them. + +She was the daughter of Thomas Beveridge Roberts and Cornelia (Gilleland) +Roberts of Pittsburgh. From the city's public and high schools she went +into a training school for nurses, acquiring that familiarity with +hospital scenes which served her so well when she came to write _The +Amazing Adventures of Letitia Carberry_, the stories collected under the +title of _Tish_ and the novel _K_. She became, at nineteen, the wife of +Stanley Marshall Rinehart, a Pittsburgh physician. + +"Life was very good to me at the beginning," said Mrs. Rinehart in the +_American Magazine_ article I have referred to. "It gave me a strong body +and it gave me my sons before it gave me my work. I do not know what would +have happened had the work come first, but I should have had the children. +I know that. I had always wanted them. Even my hospital experience, which +rent the veil of life for me, and showed it often terrible, could not +change that fundamental thing we call the maternal instinct.... I would +forfeit every part of success that has come to me rather than lose any +part, even the smallest, of my family life. It is on the foundation of my +home that I have builded. + +"Yet, for a time, it seemed that my sons were to be all I was to have out +of life. From twenty to thirty I was an invalid.... This last summer +(1917), after forty days in the saddle through unknown mountains in +Montana and Washington, I was as unwearied as they were. But I paid ten +years for them." + +Mrs. Rinehart had always wanted to write. She began in 1905--she was +twenty-nine that year--and worked at a tiny mahogany desk or upon a card +table "so low and so movable. It can sit by the fire or in a sunny +window." She "learned to use a typewriter with my two forefingers with a +baby on my knee!" She wrote when the children were out for a walk, asleep, +playing. "It was frightfully hard.... I found that when I wanted to write +I could not and then, when leisure came and I went to my desk, I had +nothing to say." + +I quote from a chapter on Mrs. Rinehart in my book _The Women Who Make Our +Novels_: + +"Her first work was mainly short stories and poems. Her very first work +was verse for children. Her first check was for $25, the reward of a short +article telling how she had systematised the work of a household with two +maids and a negro 'buttons.' She sold one or two of the poems for children +and with a sense of guilt at the desertion of her family made a trip to +New York. She made the weary rounds in one day, 'a heartbreaking day, +going from publisher to publisher.' In two places she saw responsible +persons and everywhere her verses were turned down. 'But one man was very +kind to me, and to that publishing house I later sent _The Circular +Staircase_, my first novel. They published it and some eight other books +of mine.' + +"In her first year of sustained effort at writing, Mrs. Rinehart made +about $l,200. She was surrounded by 'sane people who cried me down,' but +who were merry without being contemptuous. Her husband has been her +everlasting help. He 'has stood squarely behind me, always. His belief in +me, his steadiness and his sanity and his humour have kept me going, when, +as has happened now and then, my little world of letters has shaken under +my feet.' To the three boys their mother's work has been a matter of +course ever since they can remember. 'I did not burst on them gloriously. +I am glad to say that they think I am a much better mother than I am a +writer, and that the family attitude in general has been attentive but not +supine. They regard it exactly as a banker's family regards his bank.'" + +Most of the work of the twelve years from 1905 to 1917 was done in Mrs. +Rinehart's home. But when she had a long piece of work to do she often +felt "the necessity of getting away from everything for a little while." +So, beginning about 1915, she rented a room in an office building in +Pittsburgh once each year while she was writing a novel. It was sparsely +furnished and, significantly, it contained no telephone. In 1917 she +became a commuter from her home in Sewickley, a Pittsburgh suburb. Her +earnings had risen to $50,000 a year and more. + +"My business with its various ramifications had been growing; an enormous +correspondence, involving business details, foreign rights, copyrights, +moving picture rights, translation rights, second serial rights, and +dramatisations, had made from the small beginning of that book of poems a +large and complicated business. + +"I had added political and editorial writing to my other work, and also +records of travel. I was quite likely to begin the day with an article +opposing capital punishment, spend the noon hours in the Rocky Mountains, +and finish off with a love story! + +"I developed the mental agility of a mountain goat! Filing cases entered +into my life, card index systems. To glance into my study after working +hours was dismaying." + +More recently, Mrs. Rinehart has become a resident of Washington, D. C. +Her husband is engaged in the Government health service and the family +lives in the Wardman Park Hotel, having taken the apartment of the late +Senator Boies Penrose of Pennsylvania. + +=iii= + +"Yet, if I were to begin again, I would go through it all, the rejections +at the beginning, the hard work, the envious and malicious hands reached +up to pull down anyone who has risen ever so little above his fellows. Not +for the money reward, although that has been large, not for the publicity, +although I am frank enough to say I would probably miss being pointed out +in a crowd! But because of two things: the friends I have made all over +the world, and the increased outlook and a certain breadth of perception +and knowledge that must come as the result of years of such labour. I am +not so intolerant as in those early days. I love my kind better. I find +the world good, to work and to play in. + +"I sometimes think, if I were advising a young woman as to a career, that +I should say: 'First, pick your husband.' + +"It is impossible to try to tell how I have attempted to reconcile my +private life with my public work without mentioning my husband. Because, +after all, it requires two people, a man and a woman, to organise a home, +and those two people must be in accord. It has been a sort of family creed +of ours that we do things together. We have tried, because of the varied +outside interests that pull hard, to keep the family life even more intact +than the average. Differing widely as they do, my husband's profession and +my career, we have been compelled to work apart. But we have relaxed, +rested and played, together. + +"And this rule holds good for the family. Generally speaking, we have been +a sort of closed corporation, a board of five, with each one given a vote +and the right to cast it. Holidays and home matters, and picnics and dogs, +and everything that is of common interest all come up for a discussion in +which the best opinion wins. The small boy had a voice as well as the +biggest boy. And it worked well. + +"It is not because we happened to like the same things. People do not +happen to like the same things. It is because we tried to, and it is +because we have really all grown up together. + +"Thus in the summer we would spend weeks in the saddle in the mountains of +the Far West, or fishing in Canada. But let me be entirely frank here. +These outdoor summers were planned at first because there were four men +and one woman in our party. Now, however, I love the open as the men do." + +=iv= + +"Writing is a clean profession. The writer gets out of it exactly what he +puts in, no more and no less. It is one-man work. No one can help. The +writer works alone, solitary and unaided. And, contrary to the general +opinion, what the writer has done in the past does not help him in the +future. He must continue to make good, day after day. + +"More than that he must manufacture a new article every day, and every +working hour of his day. He cannot repeat himself. Can you imagine a +manufacturer turning out something different all the time? And his income +stopping if he has a sick headache, or goes to a funeral?" + +=v= + +Next to the vitality, the variety of Mrs. Rinehart's work is most +noticeable. Her first novel, _The Circular Staircase_, was a mystery tale, +and so was her second, _The Man in Lower Ten_. She has, from time to time, +continued to write excellent mystery stories. _The Breaking Point_ is, +from one standpoint, a first class mystery story; and then there is that +enormously successful mystery play, written by Mrs. Rinehart in +conjunction with Avery Hopwood, _The Bat_. Nor was this her first success +as a playwright for she collaborated with Mr. Hopwood in writing the farce +_Seven Days_. Shall I add that Mrs. Rinehart has lived part of her life in +haunted houses? I am under the impression that more than one of her +residences has been found to be suitably or unsuitably haunted. There was +that house at Bellport on Long Island--but I really don't know the story. +I do know that the family's experience has been such as to provide +material for one or more very good mystery novels. My own theory is that +Mrs. Rinehart's indubitable gift for the creation of mystery yarns has +been responsible for the facts. I imagine that the haunting of the houses +has been a projection into some physical plane of her busy +sub-consciousness. I mean, simply, that instead of materialising as a +story, her preoccupation induced a set of actual and surprising +circumstances. Why couldn't it? Let Sir Oliver Lodge or Sir Arthur Conan +Doyle, the Society for Psychical Research, anybody who knows about that +sort of thing, explain! + +Consider the stories about Letitia Carberry. Tish is without a literary +parallel. Well-to-do, excitement loving, with a passion for guiding the +lives of two other elderly maidens like herself; with a nephew who throws +up hopeless hands before her unpredictable performances, Tish is funny +beyond all description. + +Just as diverting, in a quite different way, is Bab, the sub-deb and +forerunner of the present-day flapper. + +Something like a historical romance is _Long Live the King!_--a story of a +small boy, Crown Prince of a Graustark kingdom, whose scrapes and +friendships and admiration of Abraham Lincoln are strikingly contrasted +with court intrigues and uncovered treason. + +_The Amazing Interlude_ is the story of Sara Lee Kennedy, who went from a +Pennsylvania city to the Belgian front to make soup for the soldiers and +to fall in love with Henri.... But one could go on with other samples of +Mrs. Rinehart's abundant variety. I think, however, that the vitality of +her work, and not the variety nor the success in variety, is our point. +That vitality has its roots in a sympathetic feeling and a sanative humour +not exceeded in the equipment of any popular novelist writing in America +today. + +BOOKS BY MARY ROBERTS RINEHART + +THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE +THE MAN IN LOWER TEN +WHEN A MAN MARRIES +THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT +THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF LETITIA CARBERRY +WHERE THERE'S A WILL +THE CASE OF JENNY BRICE +THE AFTER HOUSE +THE STREET OF SEVEN STARS +K +THROUGH GLACIER PARK +TISH +THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM +LONG LIVE THE KING +TENTING TO-NIGHT +BAB, A SUB-DEB +KINGS, QUEENS AND PAWNS +THE AMAZING INTERLUDE +TWENTY-THREE AND A HALF HOURS' LEAVE +DANGEROUS DAYS +MORE TISH +LOVE STORIES +AFFINITIES AND OTHER STORIES +"ISN'T THAT JUST LIKE A MAN?" +THE TRUCE OF GOD +A POOR WISE MAN +SIGHT UNSEEN AND THE CONFESSION +THE BREAKING POINT + +SOURCES ON MARY ROBERTS RINEHART + +``My Creed: The Way to Happiness--As I Found It,'' by Mary Roberts +Rinehart. AMERICAN MAGAZINE, October, 1917. + +``Mary Roberts Rinehart as She Appears'' by Robert H. Davis, AMERICAN +MAGAZINE, October, 1917. + +``My Public'' by Mary Roberts Rinehart, THE BOOKMAN, December, 1920. + +The Women Who Make Our Novels, by Grant Overton, MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY. + +Who's Who in America. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THEY HAVE ONLY THEMSELVES TO BLAME + + +=i= + +If people will write memoirs, they must expect to suffer. They have only +themselves to blame if life becomes almost intolerable from the waves of +praise and censure. I am going to speak of some books of memoirs and +biography--highly personal and decidedly unusual books, in the main by +persons who are personages. + +_The Life of Sir William Vernon Harcourt_ concerns Sir William George +Granville Venables Vernon Harcourt, who was born in 1827 and died in 1904. +He was an English statesman, grandson of Edward Vernon Harcourt, +Archbishop of York. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and was +called to the bar in 1854. He entered Parliament (for Oxford) in 1868, sat +for Derby 1880-95, and for West Monmouthshire, 1895-1904. He was +Solicitor-general 1873-74, Home Secretary 1880-85 and Chancellor of the +Exchequer in 1886, 1892-94 and 1894-95. From March, 1894, to December, +1898, he was leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Commons. He wrote +in the London Times under the signature of "Historicus" a series of +letters on International Law, which were republished in 1863. His +biography, which begins before Victoria ascended the throne and closes +after her death, is the work of A. G. Gardiner. + +_Memoirs of the Memorable_ is by Sir James Denham, the poet-author of +"Wake Up, England!" and deals with most of the prominent social names of +the end of the last and commencement of this century, including Mr. +Gladstone, Lord Beaconsfield, Lord Byron, Robert Browning, the Bishop of +London, Cardinal Howard, Lord Dunedin, Lewis Carroll, Lord Marcus +Beresford and the late Bishop of Manchester. The book also deals with club +life and the leading sportsmen. + +_The Pomp of Power_ is by an author who very wisely remains anonymous, +like the author of _The Mirrors of Downing Street_. I shall not run the +risks of perjury by asserting or denying that the author of _The Mirrors +of Downing Street_ has written _The Pomp of Power_. As to the probability +perhaps readers of _The Pomp of Power_ had better judge. It is an +extremely frank book and its subjects include the leading personalities of +Great Britain today and, indeed, all the world. Lloyd George, +Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, Lord Haig, Marshal Joffre, Lord +Beaverbrook, Millerand, Loucheur, Painleve, Cambon, Lord Northcliffe, +Colonel Repington and Krassin of Soviet Russia are the persons principally +portrayed. The book throws a searchlight upon the military and diplomatic +relations of Britain and France before and during the war, and also deals +with the present international situation. It may fairly be called +sensational. + +Especially interesting is the anonymous author's revelation of the role +played in the war by Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, so lately +assassinated in London. The author was evidently an intimate of Sir Henry +and, just as evidently, he is intimately acquainted with Lloyd George, +apparently having worked with or under the Prime Minister. He is neither +Lloyd George's friend nor enemy and his portrait of the Prime Minister is +the most competent I can recall. Can he be Philip Kerr, Lloyd George's +adviser? + +I praise, in this slightly superlative fashion, the picture of the British +Prime Minister by the author of _The Pomp of Power_ ... and I pick up +another book and discover it to be E. T. Raymond's _Mr. Lloyd George: A +Biographical and Critical Sketch_. The author of _Uncensored Celebrities_ +is far too modest when he calls his new work a "sketch." It is a genuine +biography with that special accent due to the biographer's personality and +his power of what I may call penetrative synthesis. By that I mean the +insight into character which coordinates and builds--the sort of biography +that makes a legend about a man. + +Mr. Raymond does not begin with the "little Welshman" but with a Roman +Emperor, Diocletian, our first well-studied exemplar of the "coalition +mind." These are the words with which, after a brilliant survey of the +Prime Minister's career, the author closes: + +"If, however, we withhold judgment on every point where a difference of +opinion is possible, if we abandon to destructive criticism every act of +administrative vigour which is claimed by his admirers as a triumph, if we +accept the least charitable view of his faults and failures, there still +remains more than enough with which to defy what Lord Rosebery once called +'the body-snatchers of history, who dig up dead reputations for malignant +dissection.' If only that he imparted, in a black time, when it appeared +but too likely that the Alliance might falter and succumb from mere +sick-headache, his own defying, ardent, and invincible spirit to a tired, +puzzled, distracted and distrustful nation; if only that he dispelled the +vapours, inspired a new hope and resolution, brought the British people to +that temper which makes small men great, assured our Allies that their +cause was in the fullest sense our own, and finally achieved the great +moral victory implied in 'unity of command'--if these things be alone +considered, he will be judged to have earned for his portrait the right to +a dignified place in the gallery of history; and some future generation +will probably recall with astonishment that it was considered unfit to +adorn the dining-room of a London club." + +And here are two new books by Margot Asquith! One is _My Impressions of +America_, the other continues _The Autobiography of Margot Asquith_. Of +the first of these books there is to say that it represents Mrs. Asquith's +matured impressions and will have a value that could not possibly attach +to interviews or statements she gave on this side. It also gives, for the +first time, her frank and direct analyses of the personalities of the +distinguished people whom she met in America. The continuation of her +_Autobiography_ is a different matter. Those who have read _The +Autobiography of Margot Asquith_ will be prepared for the new book. At +least, I hope they will be prepared and yet I question whether they will. +There is, after all, only one person for Mrs. Asquith to surpass, and that +is herself; and I think she has done it. This new book will add Volumes +III. and IV. to _The Autobiography of Margot Asquith_. + +In _The Memoirs of Djemal Pasha: Turkey 1913-21_ will be found the +recollections of a man who was successively Military Governor of +Constantinople, Minister of Public Works and Naval Minister and who, with +Enver Bey and Talaat Bey, formed the triumvirate which dictated Turkish +policy and guided Turkey's fate after the coup d'etat of 1913. I believe +these memoirs are of extraordinary interest and the greatest importance. +They give the first and only account from the Turkish side of events in +Turkey since 1913. The development of relations with Germany, France and +England immediately before the war is clearly traced, and a graphic +account is given of the first two months of the war, the escape of the +Goeben and the attempts made to keep Turkey neutral. When these failed, +Djemal Pasha was sent to govern Syria and to command the Fourth Army, +which was to conquer Egypt. The attack on the Suez Canal is described, and +then the series of operations which culminated in the British reverses in +the two battles of Gaza. Further important sections are devoted to the +revolt of the Arabs and the question of responsibility for the Armenian +massacres. + +The value of _Miscellanies--Literary and Historical_, by Lord Rosebery, +consists not so much in his recollections of people as in the delight of +reading good prose. Lord Rosebery has a natural dignity and a charm of +lucid phrasing that adapts itself admirably to the essay form he has +chosen. The subjects he takes up are beloved figures of the past. Robert +Burns, as Lord Rosebery talks of him, walks about in Dumfries and holds +spellbound by sheer personal charm the guests of the tavern. There are +papers on Burke, on Dr. Johnson, on Robert Louis Stevenson, and others as +great. One group deals with Scottish History and one with the service of +the state. The last is a study of the _genius loci_ of such places of +mellow associations as Eton and the Turf. The sort of book one returns +to! + +=ii= + +I was going to say something about Andrew C. P. Haggard's book, _Madame de +Stael: Her Trials and Triumphs_. But so profoundly convinced am I of the +book's fascination that I shall reprint the first chapter. If this is not +worthy of Lytton Strachey, I am no judge: + +"In the year 1751 a young fellow, only fourteen years of age, went to +Magdalen College at Oxford, and in the same year displayed his budding +talent by writing _The Age of Sesostris, Conqueror of Asia_, which work he +burnt in later years. + +"The boy was Edward Gibbon, who, after becoming a Roman Catholic at the +age of sixteen, was sent by his father to Switzerland, to continue his +education in the house of a Calvinist minister named M. Pavilliard, under +the influence of which gentleman he became a Protestant again at Lausanne +eighteen months later. + +"The young fellow, while leading the life of gaiety natural to his age in +company with a friend named Deyverdun, became an apt student of the +classics and was soon a proficient in French, in which tongue he wrote +before long as fluently as in English. With young Deyverdun he worked, and +in his company Edward Gibbon also played. After visiting frequently at the +house of the celebrated Voltaire at Monrepos, and after being present when +the distinguished French philosopher played in his own comedies and +sentimental pieces, the young fellow's thoughts soon turned to the theme +which was the continual subject of conversation of the ladies and +gentlemen who were Voltaire's guests and formed the company of amateurs +with whom the great dramatic writer was in the habit of rehearsing his +plays. This was, as might have been suspected in such a society, the theme +of love. + +"As it happened, there was in the habit of visiting Lausanne a young lady +who was a perfect paragon. Her name was Suzanne Curchod, and she was half +Swiss and half French, her father being a Swiss pastor and her mother a +Frenchwoman. + +"Very handsome and sprightly in appearance, the fair Suzanne was well +instructed in sciences and languages. Her wit, beauty and erudition made +her a prodigy and an object of universal admiration upon the occasion of +her visits to her relations in Lausanne. Soon an intimate connection +existed between Edward Gibbon and herself; he frequently accompanied her +to stay at her mountain home at Grassy, while at Lausanne also they +indulged in their dream of felicity. Edward loved the brilliant Suzanne +with a union of desire, friendship, and tenderness, and was in later years +proud of the fact that he was once capable of feeling such an exalted +sentiment. There is no doubt that, had he been able to consult his own +inclinations alone, Gibbon would have married Mademoiselle Curchod, but, +the time coming when he was forced to return to his home in England his +father declared that he would not hear of 'such a strange alliance.' + +"'Thereupon,' says Gibbon in his autobiography, 'I yielded to my +fate--sighed as a lover, obeyed as a son, and my wound was insensibly +healed by time, absence and new habits of life.' + +"These habits of life included four or five years' service in the +Hampshire Militia, in which corps Suzanne's lover became a captain, the +regiment being embodied during the period of the Seven Years' War. + +"Upon returning to Lausanne, at the age of twenty-six, in 1763, Edward +Gibbon was warmly received by his old love, but he heard that she had been +flirting with others, and notably with his friend M. Deyverdun. He +himself, while now mixing with an agreeable society of twenty unmarried +young ladies who, without any chaperons, mingled with a crowd of young men +of all nations, also 'lost many hours in dissipation.' + +"He was not long in showing Suzanne that he no longer found her +indispensable to his happiness, with the result that she assailed him, +although in vain, with angry reproaches. Notwithstanding that she begged +Gibbon to be her friend if no longer her lover, while vowing herself to be +confiding and tender, he acted hard-heartedly and declined to return to +his old allegiance, coldly replying: 'I feel the dangers that continued +correspondence may have for both of us.' + +"It is impossible to feel otherwise than sorry for the brilliant Suzanne +at this period, as although from her subsequent manoeuvres it became +evident that her principal object in life was to obtain a rich husband, +from the manner in which she humiliated herself to him it is evident that +she was passionately in love with the author of _The Decline and Fall of +the Roman Empire_. + +"Eventually the neglected damsel gave up the siege of an unwilling lover, +while assuring her formerly devoted Edward that the day would come 'when +he would regret the irreparable loss of the too frank and tender heart of +Suzanne Curchod.' + +"Had the pair been united, one wonders what would have been the +characteristics of the offspring of an English literary man like Gibbon, +who became perhaps the world's greatest historian, and a beautiful woman +of mixed nationality, whose subsequent career, although gilded with riches +and adorned with a position of power, displays nothing above the mediocre +and commonplace. + +"Edward Gibbon's fame, which was not long in coming, was his own, and will +remain for so long as a love of history and literature exists in the +world, whereas that of Suzanne Curchod rests upon two circumstances--the +first that she was once the sweetheart of Gibbon, the second that she was +the mother of a Madame de Stael. + +"When finally cast off by the Englishman, the Swiss Pastor's daughter +remembered that, if pretty, she was poor, and had her way to make in the +world. She commenced to play fast and loose with a M. Correvon, a rich +lawyer, whom she said she would marry 'if she had only to live with him +for four months in each year.' + +"The next lover was a pastor, who was as mercenary as herself, for he +threw her over for a lady with a large fortune. After this failure to +establish herself, Suzanne became tired of seeking a husband in +Switzerland and went to Paris as the companion of the rich and handsome +Madame Vermoneux, the supposed mistress of Jacques Necker, the rich Swiss +banker, who was established in the French capital. Once in Paris, it was +not long before by her seductions Suzanne succeeded in supplanting Madame +Vermoneux in the still young banker's affections, with the result that she +married him in 1764. + +"Gibbon, whom she had last seen in 1763, returned to the side of his +former love when she was at length safely married to another man. We find +him writing in 1765, to his friend Lord Sheffield, formerly Mr. Holroyd, +that he had spent ten delicious days in Paris about the end of June. 'She +was very fond of me, and the husband was particularly civil.' He continues +confidentially: 'Could they insult me more cruelly? Ask me every evening +to supper, go to bed and leave me alone with his wife--what an impertinent +security!' + +"It was in the month of April in the following year, 1766, that was born +Madame Necker's only child, Anne Louise Germaine, who was destined to +become one of the most remarkable women of modern times. From the great +literary talent displayed by this wonderfully precocious child from +girlhood, it is difficult not to imagine but that in some, if merely +spiritual, way the genius of her mother's old lover had descended through +that mother's brain as a mantle upon herself. That she learnt to look upon +Gibbon with admiration at an early age is sure. Michelet informs us that +owing to the praises showered upon the historian by M. Necker, Germaine +was anxious, as her mother had been before her, to become Gibbon's wife. +She was, however, destined to have another husband--or rather we should +say two other husbands." + +=iii= + +_Recollections and Reflections_ by a Woman of No Importance has added +greatly to the number of this author's readers, gained in the first +instance by her _Memories Discreet and Indiscreet_, which was followed by +_More Indiscretions_. + +_Recollections and Reflections_ consists of random memories of lords and +ladies, sportsmen, Kings, Queens, cooks, chauffeurs and Empresses, related +with a great deal of philosophy and insight and no little wit. + +There are stories of Gladstone's lovemaking, of Empress Eugenie and the +diamond the soldier swallowed, of Balfour's hats, Henry Irving's swelled +head and the cosmetics of Disraeli. There are stories of etiquette at a +hair-dressers' ball side by side with comments on Kitchener's waltzing. + +Lady Angela Forbes was the daughter of the fourth Earl of Rosslyn and the +youngest child of one of the largest and most prominent families in +England. Kitchener, Lord Roberts, Disraeli, the Kaiser, Prince Edward--she +has dined or sailed or hunted with them all on the most informal terms. +She tells, with engaging frankness, in _Memories and Base Details_, of the +gaieties, the mistakes and tragedies of herself and her friends. + +It was Baron von Margutti who informed the Emperor Francis Joseph in 1914 +that Serbia had rejected his ultimatum. The character of the Emperor is a +moot question. _The Emperor Francis Joseph and His Times_, reminiscences +by Baron von Margutti, is by a man who knew the Emperor intimately and who +knew the men and women who surrounded him daily. Baron von Margutti met +all the distinguished European figures, such as Edward VII, Emperor +Wilhelm, Czar Nicholas and the Empress Eugenie who came to Austria to +visit. He watched from a particularly favourable vantage point the deft +moves of secret diplomacy which interlaced the various governments. + +Lord Frederic Hamilton, born in 1856, the fourth son of the first Duke of +Abercorn, was educated at Harrow, was formerly in the British Diplomatic +Service and served successively as Secretary of the British Embassies in +Berlin and Petrograd and the Legations at Lisbon and Buenos Aires. He has +travelled much and, besides being in Parliament, was editor of the Pall +Mall Magazine till 1900. The popularity of his books of reminiscences is +explained by the fascinating way in which he tells a story or illuminates +a character. Other books of memoirs have been more widely celebrated but I +know of none which has made friends who were more enthusiastic. _The +Vanished Pomps of Yesterday_, _Days Before Yesterday_ and _Here, There and +Everywhere_ are constantly in demand. + +But, all along, a surprise has been in store and the time is now here to +disclose it! The talent for this delightful species of memoirising runs +through the family; and Sir Frederic Hamilton's brother, Lord Ernest +Hamilton, proves it. Lord Ernest is the author of _Forty Years On_, a new +book quite as engaging as _Here, There and Everywhere_, and the rest of +Sir Frederic's. Word from London is that Sir Frederic will have no new +book this year; he steps aside with a gallant bow for Lord Ernest. I have +been turning pages in _Forty Years On_ and reading about such matters as +the Copley curse, school life at Harrow where Shifner and others bowed the +knee to Baal, bull fights in Peru and adventures in the Klondike. +Personally the most amusing moments of the book I find to be those in +which Lord Ernest describes his experiments in speaking ancient Greek in +modern Greece. But this is perhaps because I, too, have tried to speak +syllables of Xenophon while being rapidly driven (in a barouche) about +Patras--with the same lamentable results. It is enough to unhinge the +reason, the pronunciation of modern Greek, I mean. But maybe your hobby is +bathing? Lord Ernest has a word in praise of Port Antonio, Jamaica, as a +bathing ground. + +What he says about hummingbirds--but I mustn't! _Forty Years On_ is a mine +of interest and each reader ought to be pretty well left to work it for +himself. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +AUDACIOUS MR. BENNETT + + +=i= + +Mr. Bennett's audacity has always been evident. One might say that he +began by daring to tell the truth about an author, continued by daring to +tell the truth about the Five Towns, and has now reached the incredible +stage where he dares to tell the truth about marriage. This is affronting +Fate indeed. It was all very well for Arnold Bennett to write a play +called _Cupid and Commonsense_. Perhaps, in view of the fact that it is +one of the great novels of the twentieth century, it was all right for him +to create _The Old Wives' Tale_; but it cannot be all right for him to +compose such novels as _Mr. Prohack_ and his still newer story, _Lilian_. + +Think of the writers who have stumbled and fallen over the theme of +marriage. There is W. L. George ... but I cannot bring myself to name +other names and discuss their tragic fates. There are those who have +sought to make the picture of marriage a picture of horror; but that was +because they did not dare to tell the truth. That marriage is all, no one +but Mr. Bennett seems to realise. No one but Mr. Bennett seems to realise +that, as between husband and wife, there are no such things as moral +standards, there can be no such thing as an ethical code, there can be no +interposition of lofty abstractions which Men call principles and appeal +to as they would appeal to a just God, Himself. No one but Mr. Bennett +seems to realise that the relation between a man and his wife necessarily +transcends every abstraction, brushes aside every ideal of "right" and +"wrong." Mr. Bennett, in the course of the amazing discoveries of an +amazing lifetime, has made the greatest discovery possible to mortals of +this planet. He has discovered that marriage occurs when a man and a woman +take the law into their own hands, and not only the human law, but the +divine. + +It would be impossible for the hero of a Bennett novel of recent years to +be a character like Mark Sabre in _If Winter Comes_. Arnold Bennett's +married hero would realise that the health, comfort, wishes, doubts, +dissimulations; the jealousies, the happiness or the fancied happiness, +and the exterior appearances of the woman who was his wife abolish, for +practical purposes, everything else. It is due to Mr. Bennett more than to +anyone else that we now understand that while "husband" may be a correct +legal designation, "lover" is the only possible aesthetic appellation of +the man who is married. If he is not a lover he is not a husband except +for statutory purposes--that is all. + +[Illustration: ARNOLD BENNETT] + +=ii= + +It is hard to describe _Lilian_. I will let you taste it: + +"Lilian, in dark blue office frock with an embroidered red line round the +neck and detachable black wristlets that preserved the ends of the sleeves +from dust and friction, sat idle at her flat desk in what was called 'the +small room' at Felix Grig's establishment in Clifford Street, off Bond +Street. There were three desks, three typewriting machines and three +green-shaded lamps. Only Lilian's lamp was lighted, and she sat alone, +with darkness above her chestnut hair and about her, and a circle of +radiance below. She was twenty-three. Through the drawn blind of the +window could just be discerned the backs of the letters of words painted +on the glass: 'Felix Grig. Typewriting Office. Open day and night.' Seen +from the street the legend stood out black and clear against the faintly +glowing blind. It was eleven p.m. + +"That a beautiful girl, created for pleasure and affection and expensive +flattery, should be sitting by herself at eleven p.m., in a gloomy office +in Clifford Street, in the centre of the luxurious, pleasure-mad, love-mad +West End of London seemed shocking and contrary to nature, and Lilian +certainly so regarded it. She pictured the shut shops, and shops and yet +again shops, filled with elegance and costliness--robes, hats, stockings, +shoes, gloves, incredibly fine lingerie, furs, jewels, perfumes--designed +and confected for the setting-off of just such young attractiveness as +hers. She pictured herself rifling those deserted and silent shops by some +magic means and emerging safe, undetected, in batiste so rare that her +skin blushed through it, in a frock that was priceless and yet nothing at +all, and in warm marvellous sables that no blast of wind or misfortune +could ever penetrate--and diamonds in her hair. She pictured thousands of +smart women, with imperious command over rich, attendant males, who at +that very moment were moving quickly in automobiles from theatres towards +the dancing-clubs that clustered round Felix Grig's typewriting office. At +that very moment she herself ought to have been dancing. Not in a smart +club; no! Only in the basement of a house where an acquaintance of hers +lodged; and only with clerks and things like that; and only a gramophone. +But still a dance, a respite from the immense ennui and solitude called +existence!" + +After Lilian's mother died she had been "Papa's cherished darling. Then +Mr. Share caught pneumonia, through devotion to duty and died in a few +days; and at last Lilian felt on her lovely cheek the winds of the world; +at last she was free. Of high paternal finance she had never in her life +heard one word. In the week following the funeral she learnt that she +would be mistress of the furniture and a little over one hundred pounds +net. Mr. Share had illustrated the ancient maxim that it is easier to make +money than to keep it. He had held shipping shares too long and had sold a +fully-paid endowment insurance policy in the vain endeavour to replace by +adventurous investment that which the sea had swallowed up. And Lilian was +helpless. She could do absolutely nothing that was worth money. She could +not begin to earn a livelihood. As for relatives, there was only her +father's brother, a Board School teacher with a large vulgar family and an +income far too small to permit of generosities. Lilian was first +incredulous, then horror-struck. + +"Leaving the youth of the world to pick up art as best it could without +him, and fleeing to join his wife in paradise, the loving, adoring father +had in effect abandoned a beautiful idolised daughter to the alternatives +of starvation or prostitution. He had shackled her wrists behind her back +and hobbled her feet and bequeathed her to wolves. That was what he had +done, and what many and many such fathers had done, and still do, to their +idolised daughters. + +"Herein was the root of Lilian's awful burning resentment against the +whole world, and of a fierce and terrible determination by fair means or +foul to make the world pay. Her soul was a horrid furnace, and if by +chance Lionel Share leaned out from the gold bar of heaven and noticed it, +the sight must have turned his thoughts towards hell for a pleasant +change. She was saved from disaster, from martyrdom, from ignominy, from +the unnameable, by the merest fluke. The nurse who tended Lionel Share's +last hours was named Grig. This nurse had cousins in the typewriting +business. She had also a kind heart a practical mind, and a persuasive +manner with cousins." + +Lilian in the office late at night has been engaged in conversation by her +employer, Mr. Grig, and Mr. Grig has finally come to the point. + +"'You know you've no business in a place like this, a girl like you. +You're much too highly strung for one thing. You aren't like Miss Jackson, +for instance. You're simply wasting yourself here. Of course you're +terribly independent, but you do try to please. I don't mean try to please +merely in your work. You try to please. It's an instinct with you. Now in +typing you'd never beat Miss Jackson. Miss Jackson's only alive, really, +when she's typing. She types with her whole soul. You type well--I +hear--but that's only because you're clever all round. You'd do anything +well. You'd milk cows just as well as you'd type. But your business is +marriage, and a good marriage! You're beautiful, and, as I say, you have +an instinct to please. That's the important thing. You'd make a success of +marriage because of that and because you're adaptable and quick at picking +up. Most women when they're married forget that their job is to adapt +themselves and to please. That's their job. They expect to be kowtowed to +and spoilt and humoured and to be free to spend money without having to +earn it, and to do nothing in return except just exist--and perhaps manage +a household, pretty badly. They seem to forget that there are two sides to +a bargain. It's dashed hard work, pleasing is, sometimes. I know that. But +it isn't so hard as earning money, believe me! Now you wouldn't be like +the majority of women. You'd keep your share of the bargain, and +handsomely. If you don't marry, and marry fifty miles above you, you'll be +very silly. For you to stop here is an outrage against commonsense. It's +merely monstrous. If I wasn't an old man I wouldn't tell you this, +naturally. Now you needn't blush. I expect I'm not far off thirty years +older than you--and you're young enough to be wise in time.'" + +=iii= + +It will be seen that _Lilian_ has all the philosophy and humour which make +_Mr. Prohack_ a joy forever, and in addition the new novel has the strong +interest we feel in a young, beautiful, attractive, helpless girl, who has +her way to make in the world. And yet, I love _Mr. Prohack_. I think I +have by heart some of the wisdom he utters; for instance-- + +On women: "Even the finest and most agreeable women, such as those with +whom I have been careful to surround myself in my domestic existence, are +monsters of cruelty." + +On women's clubs: "You scarcely ever speak to a soul in your club. The +food's bad in your club. They drink liqueurs before dinner at your club. +I've seen 'em. Your club's full every night of the most formidable +spinsters each eating at a table alone. Give up your club by all means. +Set fire to it and burn it down. But don't count the act as a +renunciation. You hate your club." + +On his wife: "You may annoy me. You may exasperate me. You are frequently +unspeakable. But you have never made me unhappy. And why? Because I am one +of the few exponents of romantic passion left in this city. My passion for +you transcends my reason. I am a fool, but I am a magnificent fool. And +the greatest miracle of modern times is that after twenty-four years of +marriage you should be able to give me pleasure by perching your stout +body on the arm of my chair as you are doing." + +On his daughter: "In 1917 I saw that girl in dirty overalls driving a +thundering great van down Whitehall. Yesterday I met her in her foolish +high heels and her shocking openwork stockings and her negligible dress +and her exposed throat and her fur stole, and she was so delicious and so +absurd and so futile and so sure of her power that--that--well ... that +chit has the right to ruin me--not because of anything she's done, but +because she is." + +On kissing: "That fellow has kissed my daughter and he has kissed her for +the first time. It is monstrous that any girl, and especially my daughter, +should be kissed for the first time.... It amounts to an outrage." + +On parenthood: "To become a parent is to accept terrible risks. I'm +Charlie's father. What then?... He owes nothing whatever to me or to you. +If we were starving and he had plenty, he would probably consider it his +duty to look after us; but that's the limit of what he owes us. Whereas +nothing can put an end to our responsibility towards him.... We thought it +would be nice to have children and so Charlie arrived. He didn't choose +his time and he didn't choose his character, nor his education, nor his +chance. If he had his choice you may depend he'd have chosen differently. +Do you want me, on the top of all that, to tell him that he must +obediently accept something else from us--our code of conduct? It would be +mere cheek, and with all my shortcomings I'm incapable of impudence, +especially to the young." + +On ownership: "Have you ever stood outside a money-changer's and looked at +the fine collection of genuine banknotes in the window? Supposing I told +you that you could look at them, and enjoy the sight of them, and nobody +could do more? No, my boy, to enjoy a thing properly you've got to own it. +And anybody who says the contrary is probably a member of the League of +all the Arts." + +On economics: "That's where the honest poor have the advantage of us.... +We're the dishonest poor.... We're one vast pretence.... A pretence +resembles a bladder. It may burst. We probably shall burst. Still, we have +one great advantage over the honest poor, who sometimes have no income at +all; and also over the rich, who never can tell how big their incomes are +going to be. We know exactly where we are. We know to the nearest +sixpence." + +On history: "Never yet when empire, any empire, has been weighed in the +balance against a young and attractive woman has the young woman failed to +win! This is a dreadful fact, but men are thus constituted." + +On bolshevism: "Abandon the word 'bolshevik.' It's a very overworked word +and wants a long repose." + +=iv= + +The best brief sketch of Arnold Bennett's life that I know of is given in +the chapter on Arnold Bennett in John W. Cunliffe's _English Literature +During the Last Half Century_. Professor Cunliffe, with the aid, of +course, of Bennett's own story, _The Truth About an Author_, writes as +follows: + +"He was born near Hanley, the 'Hanbridge' of the Five Towns which his +novels were to launch into literary fame, and received a somewhat limited +education at the neighbouring 'Middle School' of Newcastle, his highest +scholastic achievement being the passing of the London University +Matriculation Examination. Some youthful adventures in journalism were +perhaps significant of latent power and literary inclination, but a small +provincial newspaper offers no great encouragement to youthful ambition, +and Enoch Arnold Bennett (as he was then called) made his way at 21 as a +solicitor's clerk to London, where he was soon earning a modest livelihood +by 'a natural gift for the preparation of bills for taxation.' He had +never 'wanted to write' (except for money) and had read almost nothing of +Scott, Jane Austen, Dickens, Thackeray, the Brontes, and George Eliot, +though he had devoured Ouida, boys' books and serials. His first real +interest in a book was 'not as an instrument for obtaining information or +emotion, but as a book, printed at such a place in such a year by +so-and-so, bound by so-and-so, and carrying colophons, registers, +water-marks, and _fautes d'impression_.' It was when he showed a rare copy +of _Manon Lescaut_ to an artist and the latter remarked that it was one of +the ugliest books he had ever seen, that Bennett, now in his early +twenties, first became aware of the appreciation of beauty. He won twenty +guineas in a competition, conducted by a popular weekly, for a humorous +condensation of a sensational serial, being assured that this was 'art,' +and the same paper paid him a few shillings for a short article on 'How a +bill of costs is drawn up.' Meanwhile he was 'gorging' on English and +French literature, his chief idols being the brothers de Goncourt, de +Maupassant, and Turgenev, and he got a story into the Yellow Book. He saw +that he could write, and he determined to adopt the vocation of letters. +After a humiliating period of free lancing in Fleet Street, he became +assistant editor and later editor of Woman. When he was 31, his first +novel, _A Man From the North_, was published, both in England and America, +and with the excess of the profits over the cost of typewriting he bought +a new hat. At the end of the following year he wrote in his diary: + +"'This year I have written 335,340 words, grand total: 224 articles and +stories, and four instalments of a serial called _The Gates of Wrath_ have +actually been published, and also my book of plays, _Polite Farces_. My +work included six or eight short stories not yet published, also the +greater part of a 55,000 word serial _Love and Life_ for Tillotsons, and +the whole draft, 80,000 words of my Staffordshire novel _Anna +Tellwright_.' + +"This last was not published in book form till 1902 under the title of +_Anna of the Five Towns_; but in the ten years that had elapsed since he +came to London, Bennett had risen from a clerk at six dollars a week to be +a successful 'editor, novelist, dramatist, critic, connoisseur of all +arts' with a comfortable suburban residence. Still he was not satisfied; +he was weary of journalism and the tyranny of his Board of Directors. He +threw up his editorial post, with its certain income, and retired first to +the country and then to a cottage at Fontainebleau to devote himself to +literature. + +"In the autumn of 1903, when Bennett used to dine frequently in a Paris +restaurant, it happened that a fat old woman came in who aroused almost +universal merriment by her eccentric behaviour. The novelist reflected: +'This woman was once young, slim, perhaps beautiful; certainly free from +these ridiculous mannerisms. Very probably she is unconscious of her +singularities. Her case is a tragedy. One ought to be able to make a +heart-rending novel out of a woman such as she.' The idea then occurred to +him of writing the book which afterwards became _The Old Wives' Tale_, and +in order to go one better than Guy de Maupassant's 'Une Vie' he determined +to make it the life-history of two women instead of one. Constance, the +more ordinary sister, was the original heroine; Sophia, the more +independent and attractive one, was created 'out of bravado.' The project +occupied Bennett's mind for some years, during which he produced five or +six novels of smaller scope, but in the autumn of 1907 he began to write +_The Old Wives' Tale_ and finished it in July, 1908. It was published the +same autumn and though its immediate reception was not encouraging, before +the winter was over it was recognised both in England and America as a +work of genius. The novelist's reputation was upheld, if not increased, by +the publication of Clayhanger in 1910, and in June, 1911, the most +conservative of American critical authorities, the New York Evening Post, +could pronounce judgment in these terms: + +"'Mr. Bennett's Bursley is not merely one single stupid English provincial +town. His Baineses and Clayhangers are not simply average middle class +provincials foredoomed to humdrum and the drab shadows of experience. His +Bursley is every provincial town, his Baineses are all townspeople +whatsoever under the sun. He professes nothing of the kind; but with quiet +smiling patience, with a multitude of impalpable touches, clothes his +scene and its humble figures in an atmosphere of pity and understanding. +These little people, he seems to say, are as important to themselves as +you are to yourself, or as I am to myself. Their strength and weakness are +ours; their lives, like ours, are rounded with a sleep. And because they +stand in their fashion for all human character and experience, there is +even a sort of beauty in them if you will but look for it.'" + +BOOKS BY ARNOLD BENNETT + +Novels: + A MAN FROM THE NORTH + THE GRAND BABYLON HOTEL + THE GATES OF WRATH + ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS + LEONORA + HUGO + A GREAT MAN + THE BOOK OF CARLOTTA + WHOM GOD HATH JOINED + THE OLD ADAM + BURIED ALIVE + THE OLD WIVES' TALE + CLAYHANGER + DENRY THE AUDACIOUS [In England, THE CARD] + HILDA LESSWAYS + THE MATADOR OF THE FIVE TOWNS + HELEN WITH THE HIGH HAND + THE GLIMPSE + THE CITY OF PLEASURE + THESE TWAIN + THE LION'S SHARE + THE PRETTY LADY + THE ROLL CALL + MR. PROHACK + LILIAN + +Plays: + CUPID AND COMMONSENSE + WHAT THE PUBLIC WANTS + THE HONEYMOON + MILESTONES [With Edward Knoblauch] + THE GREAT ADVENTURE + THE TITLE + JUDITH + SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE + THE LOVE MATCH + +SOURCES ON ARNOLD BENNETT + +Who's Who [In England]. + +English Literature During the Last Half Century, by John W. Cunliffe. +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. + +Arnold Bennett. A booklet published by GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY, 1911. +(Out of print.) + +The Truth About an Author, by Arnold Bennett. GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY. + +The Author's Craft, by Arnold Bennett. GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY. + +Some Modern Novelists, by Helen Thomas Follett and Wilson Follett. +HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY. + +Arnold Bennett, by J. F. Harvey Darton, in the WRITERS OF THE DAY series. + +The critical articles on Mr. Bennett and his individual books are too +numerous to mention. The reader is referred to the New York Public +Library or the Library of Congress, Washington, D. C., and to the Annual +Index of Periodical Publications for the last twenty years. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +A CHAPTER FOR CHILDREN + + +=i= + +I know of only one book which really aids parents and others who have to +oversee children's reading. That is Annie Carroll Moore's invaluable +_Roads to Childhood_. The author, as supervisor of work with children in +the New York Public Library, has had possibly a completer opportunity to +understand what children like to read and why they like it than any other +woman. What is more, she has the gift of writing readably about both +children and books, and an unusual faculty for reconciling those somewhat +opposite poles--things children like to read and the things it is well for +them to read. + +Miss Moore says that the important thing is a discovery of personality in +children and a respect for their natural inclinations in reading--an early +and live appreciation of literature and good drawings is best imparted by +exposure rather than by insistence upon a too rigid selection. "What I +like about these papers," said one young mother, "is that they are good +talk. You can pick the book up and open it anywhere without following a +course of reading or instruction to understand it. There is full +recognition of the fact that children are different and react differently +to the same books at different periods of their development." + +Maude Radford Warren's _Tales Told by the Gander_ is one of those books +for children that adults find interesting, too; and there is a new series +of children's books by May Byron, concerning which I must say a few words. +The series is called "Old Friends in New Frocks" and here are a few of the +titles: + +_Billy Butt's Adventure: The Tale of the Wolf and the Goat._ + +_Little Jumping Joan: The Tale of the Ants and the Grasshopper._ + +_Jack-a-Dandy: The Tale of the Vain Jackdaw._ + +These books are noteworthy for their beautiful illustrations. Each volume +has an inspired and fanciful frontispiece in colours by E. J. Detmold and +line illustrations by Day Hodgetts. Moreover, there are end papers and the +binding has a picture in colour that begins on the back and extends all +the way around in front. Naturally they are for very young children--shall +we say up to seven years old? + +=ii= + +On April 29, 1922, the Philadelphia Public Ledger printed a letter from +twelve-year-old Marion Kummer, as follows: + +"Dear Mr. Editor: My father asked me to write you a story about him and +they say at school that I am good at stories, so I thought I would. I +think he thinks I can write and become a great writer like him some day, +but I would rather be a great actress like Leonora Ulrick. I saw her in a +play where she went to sleep and they stuck pins in her but could not wake +her up, which part I should not like. But at that I would rather be an +actress because acting is pleasanter and more exciting and you do not have +to write on the typewriter all day and get a pain in your back. Daddy says +he would rather shovel coal but he does not, but snow sometimes, which has +been very plentiful about here this winter, also sledding. + +"When he is not working, he goes for a walk with the dogs, or tells us +most any question we should ask almost like an encikelopedia. He is very +good-natured and I love the things he writes, especially plays. Daddy has +just finished a children's book called _The Earth's Story_ about how it +began millions of years ago when there was a great many fossils, so nice +for children. Also about stone axes. My brother Fred made one but when he +was showing us how it worked the head came off and hit me on the foot and +I kicked him. So stone axes were one of the man's first weapons. Daddy +read us each chapter when it was done and we helped him except baby +brother who wrote with red crayon all over one chapter when no one was +there, and he should not have been in Daddy's office anyway. Daddy has to +draw horses and engines for him all the time. He gets tired of it but what +can he do?" + +Now this is very pleasant, for here on the table is the first volume of +_The Earth's Story--The First Days of Man_ by Frederic Arnold Kummer; and +this book for children has a preface for parents in it. In that preface +Mr. Kummer says: + +"In this process of storing away in his brain the accumulated knowledge of +the ages the child's mind passes, with inconceivable rapidity, along the +same route that the composite minds of his ancestors travelled, during +their centuries of development. The impulse that causes him to want to +hunt, to fish, to build brush huts, to camp out in the woods, to use his +hands as well as his brain, is an inheritance from the past, when his +primitive ancestors did these things. He should be helped to trace the +route they followed with intelligence and understanding, he should be +encouraged to know the woods, and all the great world of out-of-doors, to +make and use the primitive weapons, utensils, toys, his ancestors made and +used, to come into closer contact with the fundamental laws of nature, and +thus to lay a groundwork for wholesome and practical thinking which cannot +be gained in the classroom or the city streets. + +"As has been said, the writer has tested the methods outlined above. The +chapters in _The First Days of Man_ are merely the things he has told his +own children. It is of interest to note that one of these, a boy of seven, +on first going to school, easily outstripped in a single month a dozen or +more children who had been at school almost a year, and was able to enter +a grade a full year ahead of them. The child in question is not in the +least precocious, but having understood the knowledge he has gained, he is +able to make use of it, he has a definite mental perspective, a sure grasp +on things, which makes study of any kind easy for him, and progression +correspondingly rapid." + +To say that _Jungle Tales, Adventures in India_, by Howard Anderson Musser +is a series of missionary tales of adventure in India, is to give no idea +of the thrills within its covers. There are fights with tigers, bears and +bandits, and there is one long fight against ignorance and disease, +superstition and merciless greed. And the fighter? He was an American +athlete, who had won honour on the track and football field. Great for +boys! + +=iii= + +The English _Who's Who_ says: "Colonel Stevenson Lyle Cummins"--then +follows a string of degrees--"David Davies Professor of Tuberculosis, +University College, South Wales, Monmouthshire, and Principal Medical +Officer to the King Edward VII. Welsh National Memorial Association +since 1921.... Entered Army 1897; Captain, 1900; Major, 1909; +Lieutenant-Colonel, 1915; Colonel, 1918; served Nile Expedition, 1898 +(medal with clasp, despatches); Sudan 1900, 1902; Sudan, 1904 (Clasp); +Osmanieh 4th class, 1907; European War, 1914-18 (C.B., C.M.G., +despatches six times, Brevetted Colonel); Legion of Honour (Officer), +Couronne de Belgique (Officer); Col. 1918; Croix de Guerre (Belgian), +1918, retired from Army, 1921." + +But I don't suppose that it was as a consequence of anything in that +honourable record that Colonel Cummins wrote _Plays for Children_, in +three volumes. I suppose it was in consequence of another fact which the +English_ Who's Who_ mentions (very briefly and abbreviatedly) as "four +_c._" + +The possession of four children is a natural explanation of three volumes +of juvenile plays. + +But wait a moment! Did Colonel Cummins write them wholly for his +youngsters? As I read these little plays, it seems to me that there is +frequently an undercurrent of philosophy, truth, satire--what you +will--which, unappreciated by the youngsters themselves, will make these +household dramas ingratiating to their parents. At any rate, this is +exceptional work; you may be sure it is, for publishers are not in the +habit of bringing out an author's three volumes of children's plays all at +one stroke, and that is what is happening with Colonel Cummins's little +dramas. + +What is there to say in advance about _The Fairy Flute_, by Rose Fyleman? +No one of the increasing number who have read her utterly charming book of +poems for children, _Fairies and Chimneys_, will need more than the breath +that this book is coming. I shall give myself (and I think everyone who +reads this) the pleasure of quoting a poem from _Fairies and Chimneys_. +This will show those who do not know the work of Rose Fyleman what to +expect: + + PEACOCKS + Peacocks sweep the fairies' rooms; + They use their folded tails for brooms; + But fairy dust is brighter far + Than any mortal colours are; + And all about their tails it clings + In strange designs of rounds and rings; + And that is why they strut about + And proudly spread their feathers out. + +=iv= + +Francis Rolt-Wheeler has spent years at sea, travelled a great deal in the +West Indies, and South America, trapped at Hudson Bay, punched cattle in +the far West, lived in mining camps, traversed the greater part of the +American continent on horseback, lived with the Indians of the plains and +lived with the Indians of the Pueblos, was a journalist for several years, +has been in nearly every country of the world, and when last heard from +(May, 1922) was meandering through Spain on his way to Morocco intending +to take journeys on mule-back among the wild tribes of the Riff. He is +studying Arabic and Mohammedan customs to prepare himself for this latest +adventure. He writes boys' books. + +Can he write boys' books? If a man of his experience cannot write boys' +books, then boys' books are hopeless. + +_Plotting in Pirate Seas_, besides the thrill of the story relating Stuart +Garfield's adventures in Haiti, contains glimpses of the whole pageant we +call "the history of the Spanish Main." There is a chapter which gives an +account of Teach and Blackbeard, the buccaneers. Other chapters offer +natural history in connection with Stuart Garfield's hunt for his father. +The boy gets an inside view of newspaper work and a clear idea of native +life in Haiti and of conditions which brought about American intervention +on the island. + +_Hunting Hidden Treasure in the Andes_ is, explicitly, the story of Julio +and his guidance of two North American boys to the buried treasure of the +Incas; but the book is much more than that. It gives, with accuracy and +exceptional interest, a panorama of South American civilisation. + +These are the first two volumes of the "Boy Journalist Series." Two other +books, the first two volumes in the series called "Romance-History of +America," are: + +_In the Days Before Columbus_, which deals with the North America that +every youngster wants to know about--a continent flung up from the ocean's +bed and sculptured by ice; a continent that was kept hidden for centuries +from European knowledge by the silent sweep of ocean currents; a continent +that developed civilisations comparable with the Phoenician and Egyptian; +the continent of the Red Man. The book places what we customarily call +"American History" in its proper perspective by hanging behind it the +stupendous backdrop of creation and the prehistoric time. + +_The Quest of the Western World_ is not the usual story of Columbus, +preceded by a few allusions to the adventurings of earlier navigators. Dr. +Rolt-Wheeler has written a book which goes back to the days of Tyre and +Sidon, which includes the core of the old Norse and Irish sagas, and which +comes down to Columbus with all the rich tapestry of a daring past +unrolled before the youthful reader. Nor does the author stand on the +letter of his title; he tells the story of the Quest both backward and +forward, tying up the past with the present and avoiding, with singular +success, the fatal effect which makes a child feel: "All this was a long +time ago; it hasn't anything to do with me or today." + +And now two new Rolt-Wheeler books are ready! _Heroes of the Ruins_, the +third volume of the "Boy Journalist Series," tells of a fourteen-year-old +who lived for four years of war in trenches and dugouts. Andre, the Mole, +went from one company to another, dodged the authorities and successfully +ran the risks of death, emerging at the end to take up the search for his +scattered family, from whom he had been separated in the early days of the +fighting. + +The third volume in the "Romance-History of America" books is _The Coming +of the Peoples_, which tells how the French, Spanish, English and Dutch +settled early America. + +=v= + +Olive Roberts Barton is a sister of Mary Roberts Rinehart. When she taught +school in Pittsburgh for several years before her marriage, she worked +with children of all sizes and ages during part of that time and found +small children were her specialty. She says: + +"Working with them, and giving out constantly as one must with small +children, was like casting bread upon waters. It came back to me, what I +was giving them, not after many days but at once; their appreciation, +their spontaneous sympathy, their love gave to me something I could get +nowhere else, and it was enriching. I felt then, as I still feel, that +children give us the best things the world has to offer, and my effort has +been to make some return. Twice during the crises in my married life I +went back to the schoolroom for comfort. Once after the death of one of my +own children, when I had no others left, and again when my husband went to +the battle-fields of France. + +"I have written with the same experience as I taught. My first successes +were with adult fiction. I have had something like six hundred short +stories published by syndicates, and magazine articles have appeared from +time to time, but gradually I realised that I wanted children for my +audience. Several years ago I published _Cloud Boat Stories_. Later _The +Wonderful Land of Up_. A syndicate editor saw these books and asked me to +start a children's department for the five hundred papers he served. That +was the beginning of the 'Twins.' Nancy and Nick were born two years ago. +They still visit their little friends every day in the columns of many +newspapers. What a vast audience I have! A million children! No wonder one +wishes to do his best. + +"I have two children of my own. They are my critics. What they do not +like, I do not write. We all love the out-of-doors and to us a bird or a +little wild animal is a fairy." + +But when I try to say something about the _Nancy and Nick_ series I find +it has all been said for me (and said so much better!) by that +accomplished bookseller, Candace T. Stevenson: + +"I have just finished all of the books by Olive Roberts Barton. They are +truly spontaneous and delightful. In fact, they have carried my small +group of children listeners and myself along as breathlessly as if they +were Alice in Wonderland or Davy and the Goblin. They are delightful +nonsense with exactly the right degree of an undercurrent of ideas which +they can make use of in their business of everyday living. Children love +morals which are done as skilfully as the chapter on Examinations in +Helter Skelter Land, and Sammy Jones, the Topsy Turvy Boy in Topsy Turvy +Land, and I found my group not only seriously discussing them but putting +them into practice. Speaking of putting things into practice, there is +only one spot in all of the books which seemed to me as if it might get +some children into trouble. The description of Waspy Weasel's trick on the +schoolmaster in Helter Skelter Land where he squeezes bittersweet juice +into the schoolmaster's milk and puts him to sleep, I think would lead any +inquiring mind to try it. + +"The whale who loved peppermints, Torty Turtle with his seagull's wings +on, the adventures of the children when they help Mr. Tingaling collect +the rents--this isn't the same old stuff of the endless 'bedtime' stories +which are dealt out to us by the yard. These animals are real people with +the tinge which takes real imagination to paint. + +"At first I was disappointed in the pictures, but as I read on I came +to like those also, and I found that they were wholly satisfactory to the +children. The picture of the thousand legger with all his shoes on is +entrancing, and poor Mrs. Frog cutting out clothes because the +dressmaker had made them for the children when they were still +tadpoles. These books ought to come like an oasis in the desert to the +poor-jaded-reading-aloud-parent." + +=vi= + +At Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, in a small house built from her own plans +and standing 2,000 feet above sea level, in a growing shade of trees, +lives Marion Ames Taggart, author of the Jack-in-the-Box series--four +children's books that renew their popularity every year. They are: + + AT GREENACRES + THE QUEER LITTLE MAN + THE BOTTLE IMP + POPPY'S PLUCK + +_At Greenacres_ and _The Queer Little Man_ are particularly good to read +aloud to a group of children; they really are the mystery and detective +story diluted for children. + +Miss Taggart, an only child and extremely frail in childhood, had the good +fortune as a consequence of ill-health to be educated entirely at home. As +a result she had free access to really good books--for the home was in +Haverhill, Mass. She began to carry out a cherished wish to write for +young girls in 1901, when her first book (for girls of about sixteen) was +published in St. Nicholas. She has a habit of transplanting four-footed +friends in her stories under their own names--as where, in the +Jack-in-the-Box series, one finds Pincushion, Miss Taggart's own plump +grey kitten. + +What will the children say to _A Wonder Book_, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, +with pictures in color by Arthur Rackham? I do not know why I ask this +rhetorical question, which, like most questions of the sort, should be +followed by exclamation points! There will be exclamations, at any rate, +over this book, surely the most beautiful of the year, perhaps of several +years. The quality of Arthur Rackham's work is well known, its artistic +value is undisputedly of the very highest. And Hawthorne's text--the story +of the Gorgon's head, the tale of Midas, Tanglewood, and the rest--is of +the finest literary, poetic and imaginative worth. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +COBB'S FOURTH DIMENSION + + +=i= + +As a three-dimensional writer, Irvin S. Cobb has long been among the +American literary heavy-weights. Now that he has acquired a fourth +dimension, the time has come for a new measurement of his excellences as +an author. + +Among those excellences I know a man (responsible for the manufacture of +Doran books) who holds that Cobb is the greatest living American author. +The reason for this is severely logical, to wit: Irvin Cobb always sends +in his copy in a perfect condition. His copy goes to the manufacturer of +books with a correctly written title page, a correctly written copyright +page, the exact wording of the dedication, an accurate table of contents, +and so on, all the way through the manuscript. Moreover, when proofs are +sent to Mr. Cobb, he makes very few changes. He reduces to a minimum the +difficulties of a printer and his changes are always perceptibly changes +for the better. + +But I don't suppose that any of this would redound to Cobb's credit in the +eyes of a literary critic. + +[Illustration: IRVIN S. COBB] + +And to return to the subject of the fourth dimension: My difficulty is to +know in just what direction that fourth dimension lies. Is the fourth +dimension of Cobb as a novelist or as an autobiographer? It puzzles me to +tell inasmuch as I have before me the manuscripts of Mr. Cobb's first +novel, _J. Poindexter, Colored_, and his very first autobiography, a +volume called _Stickfuls_. + +The title of _Stickfuls_ will probably not be charged with meaning to +people unfamiliar with newspaper work. Perhaps it is worth while to +explain that in the old days, when type was set by hand, the printer had a +little metal holder called a "stick." When he had set a dozen lines--more +or less--he had a "stickful." Although very little type is now set by +hand, the stick as a measure of space is still in good standing. The +reporter presents himself at the city desk, tells what he has got, and is +told by the city editor, "Write a stickful." Or, "Write two sticks." And +so on. + +_Stickfuls_ is not so much the story of Cobb's life as the story of people +he has met and places he has been, told in a series of extremely +interesting chapters--told in a leisurely and delightful fashion of +reminiscence by a natural association of one incident with another and one +person with someone else. For example, Cobb as a newspaper man, covered a +great many trials in court; and one of the chapters of _Stickfuls_ tells +of famous trials he has attended. + +=ii= + +Now about this novel of Cobb's: Jeff Poindexter will be remembered by all +the readers of Mr. Cobb's short stories as the negro body servant of old +Judge Priest. In _J. Poindexter, Colored_, we have Jeff coming to New +York. Of course, New York seen through the eyes of a genuine Southern +darkey is a New York most of us have never seen. There's nothing like +sampling, so I will let you begin the book: + +"My name is J. Poindexter. But the full name is Jefferson Exodus +Poindexter, Colored. But most always in general I has been known as Jeff +for short. The Jefferson part is for a white family which my folks worked +for them one time before I was born, and the Exodus is because my mammy +craved I should be named after somebody out of the Bible. How I comes to +write this is this way: + +"It seems like my experiences here in New York is liable to be such that +one of my white gentleman friends he says to me I should take pen in hand +and write them out just the way they happen and at the time they is +happening, or right soon afterwards, whilst the memory of them is clear in +my brain; and then he's see if he can't get them printed somewheres, which +on the top of the other things which I now is, will make me an author with +money coming in steady. He says to me he will fix up the spelling wherever +needed and attend to the punctuating; but all the rest of it will be my +own just like I puts it down. I reads and writes very well but someway I +never learned to puncture. So the places where it is necessary to be +punctual in order to make good sense and keep everything regulation and +make the talk sound natural is his doings and also some of the spelling. +But everything else is mine and I asks credit. + +"My coming to New York, in the first place, is sort of a sudden thing +which starts here about a month before the present time. I has been +working for Judge Priest for going on sixteen years and is expecting to go +on working for him as long as we can get along together all right, which +it seems like from appearances that ought to be always. But after he gives +up being circuit judge on account of him getting along so in age he gets +sort of fretful by reasons of him not having much to do any more and most +of his own friends having died off on him. When the State begins going +Republican about once in so often, he says to me, kind of half joking, +he's a great mind to pull up stakes and move off and go live somewheres +else. But pretty soon after that the whole country goes dry and then he +says to me there just naturally ain't no fitten place left for him to go +without he leaves the United States." + +It seems that Judge Priest finally succumbed to an invitation to visit +Bermuda, a place where a gentleman can still raise a thirst and satisfy +it. Jeff could not stand the house without the Judge in it; and when an +opportunity came to go to New York, Jeff went. + +=iii= + +The biographer of Cobb is Robert H. Davis, editor of Munsey's Magazine, +whose authoritative account I take pleasure in reprinting here--the more +so because it appeared some time ago in a booklet which is now out of +print. Mr. Davis's article was first printed in The Sun, New York: + +"Let me deal with this individual in a categorical way. Most biographers +prefer to mutilate their canvas with a small daub which purports to be a +sketch of the most significant event in the life of the accused. Around +this it is their custom to paint smaller and less impressive scenes, +blending the whole by placing it in a large gilded frame, which, for +obvious reasons, costs more than the picture--and it is worth more. Pardon +me, therefore, if I creep upon Mr. Cobb from the lower left-hand corner of +the canvas and chase him across the open space as rapidly as possible. It +is not for me to indicate when the big events in his life will occur or to +lay the milestones of the route along which he will travel. I know only +that they are in the future, and that, regardless of any of his +achievements in the past, Irvin Cobb has not yet come into his own. + +"The first glimpse I had of him was in a half-tone portrait in the New +York Evening World five years ago. This picture hung pendant-like from a +title which read 'Through Funny Glasses, by Irvin S. Cobb.' It was the +face of a man scarred with uncertainty; an even money proposition that he +had either just emerged from the Commune or was about to enter it. Grief +was written on the brow; more than written, it was emblazoned. The eyes +were heavy with inexpressible sadness. The corners of the mouth were +drooped, heightening the whole effect of incomprehensible depression. +Quickly I turned to the next page among the stock quotations, where I got +my depression in a blanket form. The concentrated Cobb kind was too much +for me. + +"A few days later I came suddenly upon the face again. The very +incongruity of its alliance with laughter overwhelmed me, and wonderingly +I read what he had written, not once, but every day, always with the +handicap of that half-tone. If Cobb were an older man, I would go on the +witness stand and swear that the photograph was made when he was +witnessing the Custer Massacre or the passing of Geronimo through the +winter quarters of his enemies. Notwithstanding, he supplied my week's +laughter. + +"Digression this: + +"After Bret Harte died, many stories were written by San Franciscans who +knew him when he first put in an appearance on the Pacific Coast. One +contemporary described minutely how Bret would come silently up the stairs +of the old Alta office, glide down the dingy hallway through the exchange +room, and seat himself at the now historic desk. It took Bret fifteen +minutes to sharpen a lead pencil, one hour for sober reflection, and three +hours to write a one-stick paragraph, after which he would carefully tear +it up, gaze out of the window down the Golden Gate, and go home. + +"He repeated this formula the following day, and at the end of the week +succeeded in turning out three or four sticks which he considered fit to +print. In later years, after fame had sought him out and presented him +with a fur-lined overcoat, which I am bound to say Bret knew how to wear, +the files of the Alta were ransacked for the pearls he had dropped in his +youth. A few gems were identified, a very few. Beside this entire printed +collection the New England Primer would have looked like a set of +encyclopedias. Bret worked slowly, methodically, brilliantly, and is an +imperishable figure in American letters. + +"Returning to Cobb: He has already written twenty times more than Bret +Harte turned out during his entire career. He has made more people laugh +and written better short stories. He has all of Harte's subtle and +delicate feeling, and will, if he is spared, write better novels about the +people of today than Bret Harte, with all his genius and imagination, +wrote around the Pioneers. I know of no single instance where one man has +shown such fecundity and quality as Irvin Cobb has so far evinced, and it +is my opinion that his complete works at fifty will contain more good +humour, more good short stories, and at least one bigger novel than the +works of any other single contemporaneous figure. + +"He was born in Paducah, Kentucky, in June, '76. I have taken occasion to +look into the matter and find that his existence was peculiarly varied. He +belonged to one of those old Southern families-there being no new Southern +families--and passed through the public schools sans incident. At the age +of sixteen he went into the office of The Paducah Daily News as a +reportorial cub. + +"He was first drawn to daily journalism because he yearned to be an +illustrator. Indeed, he went so far as to write local humorous stories, +illustrating them himself. The pictures must have been pretty bad, +although they served to keep people from saying that his literature was +the worst thing in the paper. + +"Resisting all efforts of the editor, the stockholders and the subscribers +of The Paducah Daily News, he remained barricaded behind his desk until +his nineteenth year, when he was crowned with a two-dollar raise and a +secondary caption under his picture which read 'The Youngest Managing +Editor of a Daily Paper in the United States.' + +"If Cobb was consulted in the matter of this review, he would like to have +these preliminaries expunged from his biography. But the public is +entitled to the details. + +"It is also true that he stacked up more libel suits than a newspaper of +limited capital with a staff of local attorneys could handle before he +moved to Louisville, where, for three years, he was staff correspondent of +The Evening Post. It was here that Cobb discovered how far a humorist +could go without being invited to step out at 6 a.m. and rehearse 'The +Rivals' with real horse-pistols. + +"The first sobering episode in his life occurred when the Goebel murder +echoed out of Louisville. He reported this historic assassination and +covered the subsequent trials in the Georgetown court house. Doubtless the +seeds of tragedy, which mark some of his present work, were sown here. +Those who are familiar with his writings know that occasionally he sets +his cap and bells aside and dips his pen into the very darkness of life. +We find it particularly in three of his short stories entitled 'An +Occurrence Up a Side Street,' 'The Belled Buzzard,' and 'Fishhead.' +Nothing better can be found in Edgar Allan Poe's collected works. One is +impressed not only with the beauty and simplicity of his prose, but with +the tremendous power of his tragic conceptions and his art in dealing with +terror. There appears to be no phase of human emotion beyond his pen. +Without an effort he rises from the level of actualities to the high plane +of boundless imagination, invoking laughter or tears at will. + +"After his Louisville experience Cobb married and returned to Paducah to +be managing editor of The Democrat. Either Paducah or The Democrat got on +his nerves and, after a comparison of the Paducah school of journalism +with the metropolitan brand, he turned his face (see Evening World +half-tone) in the direction of New York, buoyed up by the illusion that he +was needed there along with other reforms. + +"He arrived at the gates of Manhattan full of hope, and visited every +newspaper office in New York without receiving encouragement to call +again. Being resourceful he retired to his suite of hall bedrooms on 57th +Street West and wrote a personal note to every city editor in New York, +setting forth in each instance the magnificent intellectual proportions of +the epistolographer. The next morning, by mail, Cobb had offers for a job +from five of them. He selected The Evening Sun. + +"At about that time the Portsmouth Peace Conference convened, and The Sun +sent the Paducah party to help cover the proceedings. Upon arriving at +Portsmouth, Cobb cast his experienced eye over the situation, discovered +that the story was already well covered by a large coterie of competent, +serious-minded young men, and went into action to write a few columns +daily on subjects having no bearing whatsoever on the conference. These +stories were written in the ebullition of youth, inspired by the ecstasy +which rises from the possession of a steady job; a perfect deluge from the +well springs of spontaneity. There wasn't a single fact in the entire +series, and yet The Sun syndicated these stories throughout the United +States. All they possessed was I-N-D-I-V-I-D-U-A-L-I-T-Y. + +"At the end of three weeks, Cobb returned to New York, to find that he +could have a job on any newspaper in it. This brings him to The Evening +World, the half-tone engraving, which was the first glimpse I had of him, +and the dawn of his subsequent triumphs. For four years he supplied the +evening edition and The Sunday World with a comic feature, to say nothing +of a comic opera, written to order in five days. The absence of a +guillotine in New York State accounts for his escape for this latter +offence. Nevertheless, in all else his standard of excellence ascended. He +reported the Thaw trial in long-hand, writing nearly 600,000 words of +testimony and observation, establishing a new style for reporting trials, +and gave further evidence of his power. That performance will stand out in +the annals of American journalism as one of the really big reportorial +achievements. + +"At about this juncture in his career Cobb opened a door to the past, +reached in and took out some of the recollections of his youth. These he +converted into 'The Escape of Mr. Trimm,' his first short fiction story. +It appeared in The Saturday Evening Post. The court scene was so +absolutely true to life, so minutely perfect in its atmosphere, that a +Supreme Court judge signed an unsolicited and voluntary note for +publication, in which he said that Mr. Cobb had reported with marvelous +accuracy and fulness a murder trial at which His Honour had presided. + +"Gelett Burgess, in a lecture at Columbia College, said that Cobb was one +of the ten great American humourists. Cobb ought to demand a recount. +There are not ten humourists in the world, although Cobb is one of them. +The extraordinary thing about Cobb is that he can turn a burst of laughter +into a funeral oration, a snicker into a shudder and a smile into a crime. +He writes in octaves, striking instinctively all the chords of humour, +tragedy, pathos and romance with either hand. Observe this man in his +thirty-ninth year, possessing gifts the limitations of which even he +himself has not yet recognised. + +"In appraising a genius, we must consider the man's highest achievement, +and in comparing him with others the verdict must be reached only upon +consideration of his best work. For scintillant wit and unflagging good +humour, read his essays on the Teeth, the Hair and the Stomach. If you +desire a perfect blending of all that is essential to a short story, read +'The Escape of Mr. Trimm' or 'Words and Music.' If you are in search of +pure, unadulterated, boundless terror, the gruesome quality, the blackness +of despair and the fear of death in the human conscience, 'Fishhead,' 'The +Belled Buzzard' or 'An Occurrence Up a Side Street' will enthrall you. + +"Thus in Irvin Cobb we find Mark Twain, Bret Harte and Edgar Allan Poe at +their best. Reckon with these potentialities in the future. Speculate, if +you will, upon the sort of a novel that is bound, some day, to come from +his pen. There seem to be no pinnacles along the horizon of the literary +future that are beyond him. If he uses his pen for an Alpine stock, the +Matterhorn is his. + +"There are critics and reviewers who do not entirely agree with me +concerning Cobb. But they will. + +"As I write these lines I recall a conversation I had with Irvin Cobb on +the hurricane deck of a Fifth Avenue 'bus one bleak November afternoon, +1911. We had met at the funeral of Joseph Pulitzer, in whose employ we had +served in the past. + +"Cobb was in a reflective mood, chilled to the marrow, and not +particularly communicative. + +"At the junction of Fifth Avenue and Forty-second Street we were held up +by congested traffic. After a little manoeuvring on the part of a mounted +policeman, the Fifth Avenue tide flowed through and onward again. + +"'It reminds me of a river,' said Cobb, 'into which all humanity is drawn. +Some of these people think because they are walking up-stream they are +getting out of it. But they never escape. The current is at work on them. +Some day they will get tired and go down again, and finally pass out to +sea. It is the same with real rivers. They do not flow uphill.' + +"He lapsed into silence. + +"'What's on your mind?' I inquired. + +"'Nothing in particular,' he said, scanning the banks of the great +municipal stream, 'except that I intend to write a novel some day about a +boy born at the headwaters. Gradually he floats down through the +tributaries, across the valleys, swings into the main stream, and docks +finally at one of the cities on its banks. This particular youth was a +great success--in the beginning. Every door was open to him. He had +position, brains, and popularity to boot. He married brilliantly. And then +The Past, a trivial, unimportant Detail, lifted its head and barked at +him. He was too sensitive to bark back. Thereupon it bit him and he +collapsed.' + +"Again Cobb ceased talking. For some reason--indefinable--I respected his +silence. Two blocks further down he took up the thread of his story +again: + +"'--and one evening, just about sundown, a river hand, sitting on a +stringpiece of a dock, saw a derby hat bobbing in the muddy Mississippi, +floating unsteadily but surely into the Gulf of Mexico.' + +"As is his habit, Cobb tugged at his lower lip. + +"'What are you going to call this novel?' + +"'I don't know. What do you think?' + +"'Why not "The River"?' + +"'Very well, I'll call it "The River."' + +"He scrambled from his seat. 'I'm docking at Twenty-seventh Street. +Good-bye. Keep your hat out of the water.' + +"Laboriously he made his way down the winding staircase from the upper +deck, dropped flat-footed on the asphalt pavement, turned his collar up, +leaned into the gust of wind from the South, and swung into the +cross-current of another stream. + +"I doubt if he has any intention of calling his story 'The River.' But I +am sure the last chapter will contain something about an unhappy wretch +who wore a derby hat at the moment he walked hand in hand with his +miserable Past into the Father of Waters. + +"For those who wish to know something of his personal side, I can do no +better than to record his remarks to a stranger, who, in my presence, +asked Irvin Cobb, without knowing to whom he was speaking, what kind of a +person Cobb was. + +"'Well, to be perfectly frank with you,' replied the Paducah prodigy, +'Cobb is related to my wife by marriage, and if you don't object to a +brief sketch, with all the technicalities eliminated, I should say in +appearance he is rather bulky, standing six feet high, not especially +beautiful, a light roan in colour, with a black mane. His figure is +undecided, but might be called bunchy in places. He belongs to several +clubs, including The Yonkers Pressing Club and The Park Hill Democratic +Marching Club, and has always, like his father, who was a Confederate +soldier, voted the Democratic ticket. He has had one wife and one child +and still has them. In religion he is an Innocent Bystander.' + +"Could anything be fuller than this?" + +=iv= + +It was Mr. Davis, also, who in the New York Herald of April 23, 1922, made +public the evidence for the following box score: + + 1st 2nd + +Best Writer of Humour Cobb ---- +Best All-Round Reporter Cobb ---- +Best Local Colourist Cobb ---- +Best in Tales of Horror Cobb ---- +Best Writer of Negro Stories ---- Cobb +Best Writer of Light Tarkington Cobb and + Humorous Fiction Harry Leon Wilson +Best Teller of Anecdotes Cobb Cobb + +"Not long ago a group of ten literary men--editors, critics, readers and +writers--were dining together. Discussion arose as to the respective and +comparative merits of contemporaneous popular writers. It was decided that +each man present should set down upon a slip of paper his first, second +and third choices in various specified but widely diversified fields of +literary endeavour, and that then the results should be compared. Admirers +of Cobb's work will derive a peculiar satisfaction from the outcome. It +was found that as a writer of humour he had won first place; that as an +all round reporter he had first place; that as a handler of local colour +in the qualified sense of a power of apt, swiftly-done, journalistic +description, he had first place. He also had first place as a writer of +horror yarns. He won second place as a writer of darkey stories. He tied +with Harry Leon Wilson for second place as a writer of light humorous +fiction, Tarkington being given first place in this category. As a teller +of anecdotes he won by acclamation over all contenders. Altogether his +name appeared on eight of the ten lists." + +Cobb lives at Ossining, New York. He describes himself as lazy, but +convinces no one. He likes to go fishing. But he has never written any +fish stories. + +BOOKS BY IRVIN S. COBB + +BACK HOME +COBB'S ANATOMY +THE ESCAPE OF MR. TRIMM +COBB'S BILL OF FARE +ROUGHING IT DE LUXE +EUROPE REVISED +PATHS OF GLORY +OLD JUDGE PRIEST +FIBBLE, D.D. +SPEAKING OF OPERATIONS +LOCAL COLOR +SPEAKING OF PRUSSIANS +THOSE TIMES AND THESE +THE GLORY OF THE COMING +THE THUNDERS OF SILENCE +THE LIFE OF THE PARTY +FROM PLACE TO PLACE +"OH, WELL, YOU KNOW HOW WOMEN ARE!" +THE ABANDONED FARMERS +SUNDRY ACCOUNTS +A PLEA FOR OLD CAP COLLIER +ONE THIRD OFF +EATING IN TWO OR THREE LANGUAGES +J. POINDEXTER, COLORED +STICKFULS + +Plays: +FUNABASHI +BUSYBODY +BACK HOME +SERGEANT BAGBY +GUILTY AS CHARGED +UNDER SENTENCE + + +SOURCES ON IRVIN S. COBB + +Who's Who in America. + +Who's Cobb and Why? Booklet published by GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY. +(Out of print). + +Article by Robert H. Davis in the book section of THE NEW YORK HERALD +for April 23, 1922. + +Robert H. Davis, 280 Broadway, New York. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +PLACES TO GO + + +=i= + +The book by Thomas Burke called _More Limehouse Nights_ was published in +England under the title of _Whispering Windows_. At the time of its +publication, Mr. Burke wrote the following: + +"The most disconcerting question that an author can be asked, and often is +asked, is: 'Why did you write that book?' The questioners do not want an +answer to that immediate question; but to the implied question: 'Why don't +you write some other kind of book?' To either question there is but one +answer: BECAUSE. + +"Every writer is thus challenged. The writer of comic stories is asked why +he doesn't write something really serious. The novelist is asked why he +doesn't write short stories, and the short-story writer is asked why he +doesn't write a novel. To me people say, impatiently: 'Why don't you write +happy stories about ordinary people?' And the only answer I can give them +is: 'Because I can't. I present life as I see it.' + +"I am an ordinary man, but I don't understand ordinary men. I am at a loss +with them. But with the people of whom I write I have a fellow-feeling. I +know them and their sorrows and their thwarted strivings and I understand +their aberrations. I cannot see the romance of the merchant or the glamour +of the duke's daughter. They do not permit themselves to be seized and +driven by passion and imagination. Instead they are driven by fear, which +they have misnamed Commonsense. These people thwart themselves, while my +people are thwarted by malign circumstance. + +"Often I have taken other men to the dire districts about which I write, +and they have remained unmoved; they have seen, in their phrase, nothing +to get excited about. Well, one cannot help that kind of person. One +cannot give understanding to the man who regards the flogging of children +as a joke, or to whom a broken love-story is, in low life, a theme for +smoking-room anecdotes. + +"Wherever there are human creatures there are beauty and courage and +sacrifice. The stories in _Whispering Windows_ deal with human creatures, +thieves, drunkards, prostitutes, each of whom is striving for happiness in +his or her way, and missing it, as most of us do. Each has hidden away +some fine streak of character, some mark below which he will not go. +And--they are alive. They have met life in its ugliest phases, and fought +it. + +"My answer, then, to the charge of writing 'loathsome' stories, is that +these things happen. To those who say that cruelty and degradation are not +fit subjects for fiction, I say that all twists and phases of the human +heart are fit subjects for fiction. + +"The entertainment of hundreds of thousands with 'healthy' literature is a +great and worthy office; but the author can only give out what is in him. +If I write of wretched and strange things, it is because these move me +most. Happiness needs no understanding; but these darker things--they are +kept too much from sensitive eyes and polite ears; and so are too harshly +judged upon the world's report. I am no reformer; I have never 'studied' +people; and I have no 'purpose,' unless it be illumination. + +"What we all need today is illumination; for only through full knowledge +can we come to truth--and understanding." + +=ii= + +Burke's new book, _The London Spy_, is described by the author as "a book +of town travels." Some of the subjects are London street characters, cab +shelters, coffee stalls and street entertainers. The range is very wide, +for there is a chapter called "In the Streets of Rich Men," which deals +with Pall Mall and Piccadilly, as well as a study of a waterside colony, +including the results of a first pipe of opium ("In the Streets of +Cyprus"). Mr. Burke tells a good deal about the film world of Soho and is +able to give an intimate sketch of Chaplin. Perhaps the most charming of +the titles in the book is the chapter called "In the Street of Beautiful +Children." This is a study of a street in Stepney, with observations on +orphanages and reformatories and "their oppressions of the children of the +poor." + +Thomas Burke was born in London and seldom lives away from it. He started +writing when employed in a mercantile office, and sold his first story +when sixteen. He sincerely hopes nobody will ever discover and reprint +that story. His early struggles have been recounted in his _Nights in +London_. He married Winifred Wells, a young London poet, author of _The +Three Crowns_. He lives at Highgate, on the Northern Heights of London. He +hates literary society and social functions generally. His chief +recreation is wandering about London. + +=iii= + +There is very little use in doing a book about China nowadays unless you +can do an unusual book about China; and that, precisely, is what E. G. +Kemp has done. _Chinese Mettle_ is an unusual book, even to the shape of +it (it is nearly square though not taller than the ordinary book). The +author has written enough books on China to cover all the usual ground +and, as Sao-Ke Alfred Sze of the Chinese Legation at Washington says in +his foreword, Miss Kemp "has wisely neglected the 'show-window' by putting +seaports at the end. By acquainting the public with the wealth and beauty +of the interior, she reveals to readers the vitality and potential energy, +both natural and cultural, of a great nation." Three provinces are +particularly described--Yunnan, Kweichow, Hunan--and there are good +chapters on the new Chinese woman and the youth of China. This book has, +in addition to unusual illustrations, what every good book of its sort +should have, an index. + +In view of the title of this chapter I have hesitated over mentioning here +Albert C. White's _The Irish Free State_. Whether Ireland now should be +numbered among the places to go or not is possibly a matter of heredity +and sympathies; but at any rate, Ireland is unquestionably a place to read +about. Shall we agree that the Irish Free State is one of the best places +in the world to go in a book? Then Mr. White's book will furnish +up-to-the-minute transportation thither. + +The book is written throughout from the standpoint of a vigorous and +independent mind. It will annoy extreme partisans of all shades of +opinion, and will provoke much discussion. This is especially true of the +concluding chapter, in which the author discusses "Some Factors in the +Future." The value of the book is enhanced by the inclusion of the +essential documents of the Home Rule struggle, including the four Home +Rule Bills of 1886, 1893, 1914 and 1920, and the terms of the Treaty +concluded with Sinn Fein. + +Whether Russia is a place to go is another of those debatable questions +and I feel that the same conclusion holds good. A book is the wisest +passport to Russia at present. _Marooned in Moscow_, by Marguerite E. +Harrison, is not a new book--in the sense of having been published last +week. It remains about the best single book published on Russia under the +Soviet government; and I say this with the full recollection that H. G. +Wells also wrote a book about Soviet Russia after a visit of fifteen days. +Mrs. Harrison spent eighteen months and was part of the time in prison. +She is an exceptionally good reporter without prejudices for or against +any theory of government--with an eye only for the facts and a word only +for an observed fact. + +It is good news that _The Secret of the Sahara: Kufara_, by Rosita Forbes, +is to be published in a new edition. This Englishwoman, with no assistance +but that of native guides, penetrated to Kufara, which lies hidden in the +heart of the Libyan desert, a section of the Sahara. This is the region of +a fanatical sect of Mohammedans known as the Senussi. No other white woman +has ever been known to enter the sacred city of Paj, a gloomy citadel hewn +out of rock on the edge of a beautiful valley. _The Secret of the_ +_Sahara_ is illustrated with pictures taken by the author, many times +under pain of death if she were detected using a camera. + +=iv= + +C. E. Andrews is a college professor who saw war service in France and +relief administration work in the Balkans. His gifts as a delightful +writer will be apparent now that his book of travels, _Old Morocco and the +Forbidden Atlas_, is out. This book, unlike the conventional travel book, +has the qualities of a good story. There is colour and adventure. There +are humorous episodes and there are pictures that seem to be mirrored in +the clear lake of a lovely prose. The journey described is through a +region of Morocco little traversed by white men and over paths of the +Atlas Mountains frequented chiefly by wild tribes and banditti. + +Of all places to go, old New York remains, for many, the most appealing. +Does it sound queer to recommend for those readers _A Century of Banking +in New York: 1822-1922_, by Henry Wysham Lanier? Mr. Lanier is a son of +Sidney Lanier, the poet, and those who believe that a chronicle of banking +must necessarily be full of dry statistics are invited to read the opening +chapter of this book; for Mr. Lanier begins his tale with the yellow fever +epidemic of 1822, when all the banks of New York, to say nothing of the +thousands of people, fled "from the city to the country"--that is, from +lowermost Broadway to the healthful village of Greenwich. This quality of +human rather than statistical interest is paramount throughout the book. + +I go back almost four years to call attention again to Frederic A. +Fenger's _Alone in the Caribbean_, a book with maps and illustrations from +unusual photographs, the narrative of a cruise in a sailing canoe among +the Caribbean Islands.... It is just a good book. + +=v= + +_Robin Hood's Barn_, by Margaret Emerson Bailey, should be classified, I +suppose, as a volume of essays. It seems to me admirably suited for this +chapter, since it is all about a pleasant house inhabited by pleasant +people--and surely that is a place where everyone wants to go. Margaret +Emerson Bailey is describing, I think, an actual house and actual people; +not so much their lives as what they make out of life in the collectivism +that family life enforces. At least, I seem to get from her book a unity +of meaning, the lack of which in our lives, as we live them daily, makes +for helplessness and sometimes for despair. + +With even more doubt as to the exact "classification," I proceed to speak +here and now of L. P. Jacks's book, _The Legends of Smokeover_. Mr. Jacks +is well known as the editor of the Hibbert Journal and a writer of +distinction upon philosophical subjects. I should say his specialty is an +ability to relate philosophical abstractions to practical, everyday +existence. Those familiar with his essays in the Atlantic Monthly will +know what I mean. And is the Smokeover of his new book, then, a place to +go? It is, if you wish to see our modern age and industrial civilisation +expressed in such terms--almost in the terms of fiction--as make its +appraisal relatively easy. + +I suppose this book might make Mr. Jacks memorable as a satirist. It +brings philosophy down from the air, like a peaceful thunderbolt, to +shatter the vain illusions we entertain of our material success and our +civilised strides forward. The fact that when you have begun to read the +book you may experience some difficulty in knowing how to take it is in +the book's favour. And why should you complain so long as from the outset +you are continuously entertained and amused? You can scarcely complain ... +even though at the end, you find you have been instructed. In a world +thickly spotted with Smokeovers, Mr. Jacks's book is a book worth having, +worth reading, worth reading again. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +ALIAS RICHARD DEHAN + + +=i= + +At that, I think I am wrong. I think the title of this chapter ought to be +"Alias Clotilde Graves." + +The problems of literary personality are strange. Some time after the Boer +War a woman who had been in newspaper work in London and who had even, at +one time, been on the stage under the necessity of earning her living, +wrote a novel. The novel happened to be an intensive study of the Boer +War, made possible by the fact that the writer was the daughter of a +soldier and had spent her early years in barracks. England at that time +was interested by the subject of this novel. It sold largely and its +author was established by the book. + +She was forty-six years old in the year when the book was published. But +this was not the striking thing. William De Morgan produced the first of +his impressive novels at a much more advanced age. The significant thing +was that in publishing her novel, _The Dop Doctor_ (American title: _One_ +_Braver Thing_), Clotilde Graves chose the pen name of Richard Dehan, +although she was already known as a writer (chiefly for the theatre) under +her own name. + +I do not know that Miss Graves has ever said anything publicly about her +motive in electing the name of Richard Dehan. But I feel that whatever the +cause the result was the distinct emergence of a totally different +personality. There is no final disassociation between Clotilde Graves and +Richard Dehan. Richard Dehan, novelist, steadily employs the material +furnished in valuable abundance by Clotilde Graves's life. At the same +time the personality of Richard Dehan is so unusual, so gifted, so lavish +in its invention and so much at home in surprising backgrounds, that +something approaching a psychic explanation of authorship seems called +for. + +=ii= + +Clotilde Inez Mary Graves was born at Barracks, Buttevant, County Cork, +Ireland, on June 3, 1864, third daughter of the late Major W. H. Graves of +the Eighteenth Royal Irish Regiment and Antoinette, daughter of Captain +George Anthony Deane of Harwich. Thus, the English _Who's Who_. + +"She numbers among her ancestors admirals and deans," said The Bookman in +1912. + +As the same magazine at about the same time spoke of her as descended from +Charles II.'s naval architect, Admiral Sir Anthony Deane, one wonders if +Sir Anthony were not the sum of the admirals and the total of the deans. +But no; at any rate in so far as the admirals are concerned, for Miss +Graves is also said to be distantly related to Admiral Nelson. + +I will give you what The Bookman said in the "Chronicle and Comment" +columns of its number for February, 1913: + +"Richard Dehan was nine years old when her family emigrated to England +from their Irish home. She had seen a good deal of barrack life, and at +Southsea, where they went to live, she acquired a large knowledge of both +services in the circle of naval and military friends they made there, and +this knowledge years afterward she turned to account in _Between Two +Thieves_. In 1884, Miss Graves became an art student and worked at the +British Museum galleries and the Royal Female School of Art, helping to +support herself by journalism of a lesser kind, among other things drawing +little pen-and-ink grotesques for the comic papers. By and by she resolved +to take to dramatic writing and being too poor, she says, to manage in any +other way, she abandoned art and took an engagement in a travelling +theatrical company. In 1888 her first chance as a dramatist came. She was +again in London, working vigorously at journalism, when some one was +needed to write extra lyrics for a pantomime then in preparation. A letter +of recommendation from an editor to the manager ended in Miss Clo Graves +writing the pantomime of _Puss in Boots_. Later a tragedy by her, +_Nitocris_, was produced for an afternoon at Drury Lane, and another of +her plays, _The Mother of Three_, proved not only a literary, but also a +material, success." + +Her first novel to be signed Richard Dehan being so successful, an English +publisher planned to bring out an earlier, minor work, already published +as by Clotilde Graves, with "Richard Dehan" on the title-page. The author +was stirred to a vigorous and public protest. In the ensuing controversy +someone made the point that the proposed reissue would not be more +indefensible than the act of a publishing house in bringing out posthumous +"books" by O. Henry and dragging from its deserved oblivion Rudyard +Kipling's _Abaft the Funnel_. + +I do not know whether the publishing of books is a business or a +profession. I should say that it has, at one time or another and by one or +another individual or concern, been pursued as either or both. + +There have certainly been, and probably are, book publishers who not only +conduct their business as a business but as a business of a low order. +There have been and are book publishers who, though quite necessarily +business men, observe an ethical code as nice as that of any of the +recognised professions. Perhaps publishing books should qualify as an art, +since it has the characteristics of bringing out what is best or worst in +a publisher; and, indeed, if we are to hold that any successful means of +self-expression is art, then publishing books has been an art more than +once; for unquestionably there are publishers who find self-expression in +their work. + +This is an interesting subject, but I must not pursue it in this place. +Certainly Miss Graves was justified in objecting to the use of her new pen +name on work already published under her own name. In her case, as I +think, the objection was peculiarly well-founded, because it seems to me +that Richard Dehan was a new person. Since Richard Dehan appeared on the +title-page of _The Dop Doctor_, there has never been a Clotilde Graves in +books. You have only to study the books. The _Dop Doctor_ was followed, +two years later, by _Between Two Thieves_. This novel has as a leading +character Florence Nightingale under the name of Ada Merling. The story +was at first to have been called "The Lady With The Lamp"; but the author +delayed it for a year and subjected it to a complete rewriting, the result +of a new and enlarged conception of the story. + +Then came a steady succession of novels by Richard Dehan. I remember with +what surprise I read, in 1918, _That Which Hath Wings_, a war story of +large dimensions and an incredible amount of exact and easy detail. I +remember, too, noting that there was embedded in it a marvellous story for +children--an airplane flight in which a youngster figured--if the +publisher chose, with the author's consent, to lift this out of its +larger, adult setting. I remember very vividly reading in 1920 a +collection of short stories by Richard Dehan, published under the title +_The Eve of Pascua_. Pascua is the Spanish word for Easter. I wondered +where on earth, unless in Spain itself, the author got the bright +colouring for his story. + +What I did not realise at the time was that Richard Dehan is like that. +Now, smitten to earth by the 500-page novel which he has just completed, I +think I understand better. _The Just Steward_, from one standpoint, makes +the labours of Gustave Flaubert in _Salaambo_ seem trivial. It is known +with what passionate tenacity and surprising ardour the French master +studied the subject of ancient Carthage, grubbing like the lowliest +archseologist to get at his fingertips all those recondite allusions so +necessary if he were to move with lightness, assurance and consummate art +through the scenes of his novel. But, frankly, one does not expect this of +the third daughter of an Irish soldier, an ex-journalist and the author of +a Drury Lane pantomime. Nevertheless the erudition is all here. From this +standpoint, _The Just Steward_ is truly monumental. I will show you a +sample or two: + +"Beautiful, even with the trench and wall of Diocletian's comparatively +recent siege scarring the orchards and vineyards of Lake Mareotis, +splendid even though her broken canals and aqueducts had never been +repaired, and part of her western quarter still displayed heaps of +calcined ruins where had been temples, palaces and academies, Alexandria +lay shimmering under the African sun.... + +"The vintage of Egypt was in full swing, the figs and dates were being +harvested. Swarms of wasps and hornets, armed with formidable stings, +yellow-striped like the dreaded nomads of the south and eastern frontiers, +greedily sucked the sugary juices of the ripe fruit. Flocks of fig-birds +twittered amongst the branches, being like the date-pigeons, almost too +gorged to fly. Half naked, dark or tawny skinned, tattooed native +labourers, hybrids of mingled races, with heads close-shaven save for a +topknot, dwellers in mud-hovels, drudges of the water-wheel, cut down the +heavy grape-clusters with sickle-shaped cooper knives. + +"Ebony, woolly-haired negroes in clean white breech-cloths, piled up the +gathered fruit in tall baskets woven of reeds and lined with leaves. Copts +with the rich reddish skins, the long eyes and boldly curving profiles of +Egyptian warriors and monarchs as presented on the walls of ancient +temples of Libya and the Thebaid, moved about in leather-girdled blue +linen tunics and hide sandals, keeping account of the laden panniers, +roped upon the backs of diminutive asses and carried to the winepresses as +fast as they were filled. + +"The negroes sang as they set snares for fig-birds, and stuffed themselves +to the throat with grapes and custard-apples. The fat beccaficoes beloved +of the epicurean fell by hundreds into the limed horsehair traps. Greek, +Egyptian and negro girls, laughing under garlands of hibiscus, periwinkle +and tuberoses, coaxed the fat morsels out of the black men to carry home +for a supper treat, while acrobats, comic singers, sellers of cakes, +drinks and sweetmeats, with strolling jugglers and jesters and Jewish +fortune-tellers of both sexes, assailed the workers and the merrymakers +with importunities and made harvest in their own way." + +The story is extraordinary. Opening in the Alexandria of the fourth +century, it pictures two men, a Roman official and a Jewish steward, who +are friends unto death. The second of the four parts or books into which +the novel is divided opens in England in 1914. We have to do with John +Hazel, the descendant of Hazael Aben Hazael, and with the lovely Katharine +Forbis, whose ancestor was a Roman, Hazael Aben Hazael's sworn friend. + +A story of exciting action certainly; it has elements that would +ordinarily be called melodramatic--events which are focussed down into +realities against the tremendous background of an incredible war. The +exotic settings are Egypt and Palestine. It must not be thought that the +story is bizarre; the scenes in England, the English slang of John Hazel, +as well as the typical figure of Trixie, Lady Wastwood, are utterly +modern. I do not find anything to explain how Miss Graves could write such +a book; the answer is that Richard Dehan wrote it. + +=iii= + +Miss Graves, of whose antecedents and education we already know something, +is a Roman Catholic in faith and a Liberal Unionist in politics. She lives +at The Towers, Beeding, near Bramber, Sussex. Her recreations are +gardening and driving. + +But Richard Dehan knows the early history of the Christian Church; he +knows military life, strategy, tactics, types; he knows in a most +extraordinary way the details of Jewish history and religious observances; +he knows perfectly and as a matter of course all about English middle +class life; he knows all sorts of things about the East--Turkey and Arabia +and those countries. + +This is a discrepancy which will bear a good deal of accounting for. + +Before I try to account for it I will give you a long passage from _The +Just Steward_, describing the visit of Katharine Forbis and her friend to +the house of John Hazel, lately of London and now of Alexandria: + +"The negro porter who had opened the door, a huge Ethiopian of ebony +blackness, dressed and turbaned in snow-white linen, salaamed deeply to +the ladies, displaying as he did so a mouthful of teeth as dazzling in +whiteness and sharply-pointed as those of the mosaic dog. + +"Then the negro shut the heavy door and locked and bolted it. They heard +the car snort and move away as the heavy bolts scrooped in their ancient +grooves of stone. But, as they glanced back, towards the entrance, the +imperturbable attendant in the black kaftan waved them forward to where +another man, exactly like himself in feature, colouring and costume, +waited as imperturbably on the threshold of a larger hall beyond. On its +right-hand doorpost was affixed a cylinder of metal _repoussee_ with an +oval piece of glass on that something like a human eye. And the big +invisible bees went on humming as industriously and as sleepily as ever: + +"'Bz'zz'z!... Bzz'z!... Bzz m'm'm!...' + +"Perhaps it was the bees' thick, sleepy droning that made Miss Forbis feel +as though she had previously visited this house in a dream, in which, +though the mosaic dog had certainly figured, together with a negro who had +opened doors, the rows of shoes along the wall, the little creature +tripping at her side, the two dark, ultra-respectable men in black +tarbushes and kaftans had had no place or part. Only John Hazel had bulked +big. He was there, beyond the grave Semitic face of the second Jewish +secretary, on the farther side of the torrent of boiling amber sunshine +pouring through a central opening in the roof of the inner hall that +succeeded the vestibule of the mosaic Cerberus. An atrium some forty feet +in length, paved with squares of black and yellow marble with an oblong +pool in the midst of it, upon whose still crystal surface pink and crimson +petals of roses had been strewn in patterns, and in the centre of which a +triple-jetted fountain played. + +"The humming of the unseen bees came louder than ever, from a doorway in +the wall upon Katharine's right hand, a wall of black polished marble, +decorated with an inlaid ornament in porphyry of yellow and red and pale +green. The curtain of dyed and threaded reeds did not hide what lay beyond +the doorway. You saw a long, high-pitched whitewashed room, cooled by big +wooden electric fans working under the ceiling, and traversed by avenues +of creamy-white Chinese matting, running between rows of low native desks, +before each of which squatted, on naked or cotton-sock-covered heels, or +sat cross-legged upon a square native chintz cushion, a coffee-coloured, +almond-eyed young Copt, in a black or blue cotton nightgown, topped with +the tarbush of black felt or a dingy-white or olive-brown muslin turban, +murmuring softly to himself as he made entries, from right to left, in a +huge limp-covered ledger, or deftly fingered the balls of coloured clay +strung on the wires of the abacus at his side. + +"Oh! ... Wonderful! I'm so Glad you Brought me!' + +"Lady Wastwood's emphatic exclamation of pleasure in her surroundings +brought cessation in the humming--caused a swivelling of capped or +turbanned heads all down the length of three avenues--evoked a +simultaneous flash of black Oriental eyes, and white teeth in dusky faces +lifted or turned. Then at the upper end of the long counting-house, where +three wide glassless windows looked on a sanded palm-garden, and the +leather-topped knee-hole tables, roll-top desks, copying ink presses, +mahogany revolving-chairs, telephone installations, willow-paper baskets, +pewter inkstands and Post Office Directories suggested Cornhill and +Cheapside rather than the Orient--one of the olive-faced Jewish +head-clerks in kaftans and side-curls coughed--and as though he had pulled +a string controlling all the observant faces, every tooth was hidden and +every eye discreetly bent on the big limp ledgers again. + +"All the Coptic bees were humming sonorously in unison as Katharine went +forward to a lofty doorway, framing brightness, where waited to receive +her the master of the hive.... + +"The light beings behind him may have exaggerated his proportions, but he +seemed to Trixie the biggest man she had ever seen, and nearly the +ugliest. Close-curling coarse black hair capped his high-domed skull, and +his stern, powerful, swarthy face, big-nosed and long-chinned, with a +humorous quirk at the corners of the heavy-lipped mouth, that redeemed its +sensuousness, was lighted by eyes of the intensest black, burning under +heavy beetle-brows. His khaki uniform, though of fine material and +admirable cut, was that of a common ranker, and a narrow strip of colours +over the heart, and the fact of his left arm being bandaged and slung, +intimated to Lady Wastwood that Katharine's Jewish friend had already +served with some degree of distinction, and had been wounded in the War. +And drawing back with her characteristic inconquerable shyness, as he +advanced to Miss Forbis, plainly unconscious of any presence save hers, +Trixie's observant green eyes saw him bend his towering head, and sweep +his right arm out and down with slow Oriental stateliness, bringing back +the supple hand to touch breast, lips and brow. Whether or not he had +raised the hem of Katharine's skirt to his lips and kissed it, Lady +Wastwood could not definitely determine. She was left with the impression +that he had done this thing." + +=iv= + +I should have liked to have given, rather than purely descriptive +passages, a slice of the complicated and tense action with which the story +brims over, but there is the difficulty that such a scene might not be +intelligible to one not having read the story from the beginning. I must +resist the tendency to quote any more, having indulged it already to +excess, and I am ready to propound my theory of the existence of Richard +Dehan. + +If you receive a letter from The Towers, Beeding, it will bear a double +signature, like this: + + RICHARD DEHAN + CLOTILDE GRAVES + +Clotilde Graves has become a secondary personality. + +There was once a time when there was no Richard Dehan. There now are times +when there is no Clotilde Graves. + +To a woman in middle age an opportunity presented itself. It was the +chance to write a novel around the subject which, as a girl, she had come +to know a great deal about--the subject of war. To write about it and gain +attention, the novel required a man's signature. + +Then there was born in the mind of the woman who purposed to write the +novel the idea of a man--of _the_ man--who should be the novelist she +wanted to be. He should use as by right and from instinct the material +which lay inutile at her woman's disposal. + +She created Richard Dehan. Perhaps, in so doing, she created another +monster like Frankenstein's. I do not know. + +Born of necessity and opportunity and a woman's inventiveness, Richard +Dehan took over whatever of Clotilde Graves's he could use. He is now the +master. It is, intellectually and spiritually, as if he were the +full-grown son of Clotilde Graves. It is a partnership not less intimate +than that. + +Clotilde Graves--but she does not matter. I think she existed to bring +Richard Dehan into the world. + +BOOKS BY RICHARD DEHAN + +Novels: + THE LOVER'S BATTLE + THE DOP DOCTOR + BETWEEN TWO THIEVES + THE HEADQUARTER RECRUIT + THE COST OF WINGS + THE MAN OF IRON + OFF SANDY HOOK + EARTH TO EARTH + UNDER THE HERMES + THAT WHICH HATH WINGS + A SAILOR'S HOME + THE EVE OF PASCUA + THE VILLA OF THE PEACOCK + THE JUST STEWARD + +Plays + NITOCRIS + DRURY LANE PANTOMIME, PUSS IN BOOTS + DR. AND MRS. NEILL + A MOTHER OF THREE + A MATCHMAKER + THE BISHOP'S EYE + THE FOREST LOVERS + A MAKER OF COMEDIES + THE BOND OF NIKON + A TENEMENT TRAGEDY + + +SOURCES ON RICHARD DEHAN + +Who's Who [in England]. + +THE BOOKMAN for February, 1913 (Volume XXXVI, pp. 595-6), also brief +mention in THE BOOKMAN for September and October, 1912. + +Private Information. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +WITH FULL DIRECTIONS + + +=i= + +I have read the book called _Civilization in the United States_, a +collection of essays by various Americans, and count the time well spent +chiefly because, at the end of the chapter on "Sport," I came upon these +words by Ring W. Lardner: + +"The best sporting fiction we know of, practically the only sporting +fiction an adult may read without fear of stomach trouble, is contained in +the collected works of the late Charles E. Van Loan." + +This is expert testimony, if there is such a thing. The books Mr. Lardner +referred to are published in a five-volume memorial edition consisting +of: + + FORE! GOLF STORIES + SCORE BY INNINGS: BASEBALL STORIES + OLD MAN CURRY: RACETRACK STORIES + TAKING THE COUNT: PRIZE RING STORIES + BUCK PARVIN: STORIES OF THE MOTION PICTURE GAME. + +This collected edition was published by George H. Doran Company with the +arrangement that every cent above actual cost should go to Mrs. Van Loan +and her children. + +William T. Tilden, 2nd, was winner of the world's tennis championship in +1920 and 1921. With W. M. Johnston he was winner of the Davis cup in the +same years. He also won the United States championship in those years. His +book, _The Art of Lawn Tennis_, published in 1921, was republished in +1922. The revised edition included chapters on the winning of the Davis +cup and on the world's and the United States championships, on Mrs. +Mallory's play in the women's world championship games in France and +England, and on Mlle. Lenglen's play in America. Mr. Tilden also added an +estimate of the promising youngsters playing tennis and indulged in one or +two surprising and radical prophecies. + +_Twenty Years of Lawn Tennis_, by A. Wallis Myers, an English player of +distinction, has interesting chapters on play in other countries than +America, England and France. An anecdotal volume this, with moments on the +Riviera and matches played in South Africa. + +After unpreventable delays we have, at last, _The Gist of Golf_ by Harry +Vardon. Using remarkable photographs, Vardon devotes a chapter to each +club and chapters to stance, grip, and swing. Although the chief value of +the book is to the player who wants to improve his game, there is text +interesting to everyone familiar with golf; for Vardon gives personal +reminiscences covering years of play and illustrative of his +instructions. + +=ii= + +I suppose the fifty-three photographs, mostly full page ones, are the +outstanding feature of _Wild Life in the Tree Tops_, by Captain C. W. R. +Knight. This English book, large and flat, shows with the aid of the +camera, the merlin pursuing her quarry, young tawny owls in a disused +magpie's nest, female noctules and their young, the male kestrel brooding, +and a male buzzard that has just brought a rabbit to the younglings in the +nest. Plenty of other pictures like these! The chapters deal with the +buzzards of the Doone country, the lady's hawk, woodpeckers, brown owls, +sparrow-hawks, herons and various other feathered people. + +Did you ever read _Lad: A Dog_? Well, anyway, there is a man named Albert +Payson Terhune and he and his wife live at a place called "Sunny-bank," at +Pompton Lakes, New Jersey, where they raise prize winning collie dogs. +Photographs come from New Jersey showing Mr. and Mrs. Terhune taking +afternoon tea, entirely surrounded by magnificently coated collies. You +will also find, if you stray into a bookstore this autumn, a book with a +jacket drawn by Charles Livingston Bull--a jacket from which looms a +colossal collie. He carries in a firmly knotted shawl or blanket or sheet +or something (the knot clenched between his teeth) a new-born babe. +New-born or approximately so. The title of this book is _Further +Adventures of Lad_. + +Mr. Terhune writes the best dog stories. Read a little bit from the first +chapter of _Further Adventures of Lad_: + +"Even the crate which brought the new dog to the Place failed somehow to +destroy the illusion of size and fierceness. But the moment the crate door +was opened the delusion was wrecked by Lad himself. + +"Out on to the porch he walked. The ramshackle crate behind him had a +ridiculous air of chrysalis from which some bright thing had departed. For +a shaft of sunlight was shimmering athwart the veranda floor. And into the +middle of the warm bar of radiance Laddie stepped--and stood. + +"His fluffy puppy-coat of wavy mahogany-and-white caught a million +sunbeams, reflecting them back in tawny-orange glints and in a dazzle as +of snow. His forepaws were absurdly small even for a puppy's. Above them +the ridging of the stocky leg bones gave as clear promise of mighty size +and strength as did the amazingly deep little chest and square shoulders. + +"Here one day would stand a giant among dogs, powerful as a timber-wolf, +lithe as a cat, as dangerous to foes as an angry tiger; a dog without fear +or treachery; a dog of uncanny brain and great lovingly loyal heart and, +withal, a dancing sense of fun. A dog with a soul. + +"All this, any canine physiologist might have read from the compact frame, +the proud head carriage, the smoulder in the deep-set sorrowful dark eyes. +To the casual observer, he was but a beautiful and appealing and +wonderfully cuddleable bunch of puppyhood. + +"Lad's dark eyes swept the porch, the soft swelling green of the lawn. The +flash of fire-blue lake among the trees below. Then he deigned to look at +the group of humans at one side of him. Gravely, impersonally, he surveyed +them; not at all cowed or strange in his new surroundings; courteously +inquisitive as to the twist of luck that had set him down here and as to +the people who, presumably, were to be his future companions. + +"Perhaps the stout little heart quivered just a bit, if memory went back +to his home kennel and to the rowdy throng of brothers and sisters and, +most of all, to the soft furry mother against whose side he had nestled +every night since he was born. But if so, Lad was too valiant to show +homesickness by so much as a whimper. And, assuredly, this House of Peace +was infinitely better than the miserable crate wherein he had spent twenty +horrible and jouncing and smelly and noisy hours. + +"From one to another of the group strayed the level sorrowful gaze. After +the swift inspection Laddie's eyes rest again on the Mistress. For an +instant, he stood, looking at her, in that mildly polite curiosity which +held no hint of personal interest. + +"Then, all at once, his plumy tail began to wave. Into his sad eyes sprang +a flicker of warm friendliness. Unbidden--oblivious of everyone else--he +trotted across to where the Mistress sat. He put one tiny white paw in her +lap and stood thus, looking up lovingly into her face, tail awave, eyes +shining. + +"'There's no question whose dog he's going to be,' laughed the Master. +'He's elected you--by acclamation.'" + +=iii= + +Not content with being the husband of Margaret Sangster, C. M. Sheridan +has written _The Stag Cook Book_. I would have it understood that this is +an honest-to-goodness cook-book, although I readily confess that there is +plenty of humour throughout its pages. Mr. Sheridan has acquired various +unusual and unreplaceable recipes--I believe he secured from Wladislaw +Benda, the illustrator, a rare and secret formula for the preparation of a +species of Hungarian or Polish pastry. Now, as every housewife knows, and +as no man except a Frenchman or somebody like that knows, the preparation +of pastry is an intricate art. Simply to make ordinary French pastry +requires innumerable rollings to incredible thinnesses; besides which the +pastry has to be chilled; but there is more than that to this recondite +substance which Mr. Benda, probably under the terms of the Treaty of +Brest-Litovsk, surrendered to Mr. Sheridan. The pastry in question has to +be executed with the aid of geometrical designs. Mr. Sheridan has supplied +the necessary front elevation and working plans. He shows you where you +fold along the line from A to B--in other words, along the dotted line. +Thus no man using this unique cook-book can go wrong any more than his +wife can go wrong when making a new dress according to Pictorial Review or +McCall's or Delineator patterns. + +On the other hand, women remain still chiefly responsible for the food we +eat. Elizabeth A. Monaghan's _What to Eat and How to Prepare It_ is an +orthodox cook-book in contrast with Mr. Sheridan's daring adventure. + +=iv= + +Large numbers of people still play games. I do not mean cards or tennis or +golf or any of the famous outdoor and indoor sports, but just games, the +sort of things that are sometimes called stunts and that make the life of +the party--or, by their absence or failure, rob the evening gathering of +all its vitality. For the people who play games, Edna Geister is the one +best bet. Edna Geister knows all about stunts and games and parties and +she brims over with clever ideas for the hostess or recreation leader. You +will find them in her book _Ice-breakers and the Ice-breaker Herself_. The +second section of this book, _The Ice-breaker Herself_, has been bound +separately for the convenience of those already owning _Ice Breakers_. +Miss Geister's latest book, _It Is to Laugh_, was written primarily for +adults because there is so much material already available for the +recreation of children. Nevertheless almost every one of the games and +stunts described in _It Is to Laugh_ can be used for children. There are +games for large groups and small groups, games for the family, for dinner +parties, for community affairs and for almost any kind of social +gathering, with one chapter devoted to out-of-door and picnic programmes. + +Playing the piano is not a game, at least not as Mark Hambourg, the +pianist and composer, plays it. Hambourg, though born in South Russia in +1879, the eldest son of the late Professor Michel Hambourg, has for years +been a naturalised Englishman. In fact, he married in 1907 the Honourable +Dorothea Mackenzie, daughter of Lord Muir Mackenzie. And the pair have +four daughters. Mark Hambourg was a pupil of Leschetitzky in Vienna, where +he obtained the Liszt scholarship in 1894. He has made concert appearances +all over the world, his third American tour falling in 1907, and his first +Canadian tour in 1910. + +Mark Hambourg's book is called _How to Play the Piano_ and the text is +helped with practical illustrations and diagrams and a complete compendium +of five-finger exercises, scales, arpeggi, thirds and octaves as practised +by Hambourg. + +=v= + +Those who read The Bookman will not need to be told that the articles by +Robert Cortes Holliday on _Writing as a Business: A Practical Guide for +Authors_, will constitute an exceptional book. The great point about Mr. +Holliday's chapters, which have been written in collaboration with +Alexander Van Rensselaer, is that they are disinterested. There has been +an immense amount of printed matter, some of it in book form, telling of +the problems that confront the writer, especially the young beginner. As a +rule, the underlying motive was to induce people to write so that someone +else might make money out of their efforts, whether the writers did or +not. So-called correspondence schools in the art of writing, so-called +literary bureaus, interested individuals anxious to earn "commissions," +and sometimes individuals who purported to be publishers have for many +years carried on a continuous campaign at the expense of persons who did +not know how to write but who fancied they could write and who, above +everything, craved to write--craved seeing themselves in print and hearing +themselves referred to as "authors" or "writers." It would take a +statistician versed in all manner of mysteries and calculations to tell +how many people have been deluded by this stuff, and how much money has +been nuzzled out of them. The time was certainly here for someone in a +position to tell the truth to speak up. + +And of Mr. Holliday's qualifications there is no question. He has had to +do with books and authors and book publishing for years. He was, as his +readers know, for a number of years in the Scribner bookstore. He was with +Doubleday, Page & Company at Garden City; he was with George H. Doran +Company, serving not only as editor of The Bookman but acting in other +editorial capacities. He is now connected with Henry Holt & Company. As an +author he is amply established. Therefore, when he tells about writing and +book publishing and bookselling, and when he discusses such subjects as +"Publishing Your Own Book," his statements are most thoroughly documented. +The important thing, however, is that Mr. Holliday is disinterested, he +has no axe to grind in the advice he gives; although the impressive thing +about his book is the absence of advice and the continual presentation of +unvarnished facts. After all, confronted with the facts, the literary +aspirant of ordinary intelligence must and should reach his own +conclusions as regards what he wants to do and how best to essay it. This +is a sample of the kind of straightforwardness to which Mr. Holliday +adheres: + +"An experienced writer 'on his own' may earn a couple of hundred dollars +or so in one week, and for several weeks afterward average something like +$14.84. The beginner-writer should not consider that he has 'arrived' when +he has sold one story, or even several; it may be a year before he places +another. And the future of a writer who may be having a very fair success +now is not any too secure. Public taste changes. New orders come in. The +kind of thing which took so well yesterday may be quite out of fashion +tomorrow. + +"There is among people generally much misconception as to the profits +ordinarily derived by the author from the publication of a book. The price +of a novel today is about two dollars. Usually the author receives a +royalty of about fifteen cents a copy on the first two thousand copies +sold, and about twenty cents on each copy thereafter. A novel which sold +upward of 50,000 copies would bring the author something like $10,000. +Many men make as much as $10,000 by a year's work at some other business +or profession than authorship. But authors who make that amount in a year, +or anything near that amount, are exceedingly rare. A book is regarded by +the publisher as highly successful if it sells from five to ten thousand +copies. Far and away the greater number of books published do not sell as +many as 1,500 copies. Many far less. A recently published book, which +received a very cordial 'press,' has had an uncommon amount of publicity, +and the advertisements of which announce that it is in its 'fourth +printing,' has, after about half a year, earned for its author perhaps +$1,000. Its sale now in active measure is over. An author is fairly +fortunate who receives as much as $500 or $600 from the sale of his book. +I recall an excellent story published something over a year ago which was +much praised by many reviewers. It took the author probably the better +part of a year to write it. He was then six months or more getting it +accepted. He has not been able to place much of anything since. At the +end, then, of two years and a half he has received from his literary +labors about $110." + +Mr. Van Rensselaer has greatly enhanced the usefulness of _Writing as a +Business_ by the addition of very complete bibliographies. + +_Illumination and Its Development in the Present Day_, by Sidney +Farnsworth, has nothing to do with street or indoor lighting but has a +great deal to do with lettering and illuminating manuscripts. Mr. +Farnsworth traces the growth of illumination from its birth, showing, by +means of numerous diagrams and drawings, its gradual development through +the centuries from mere writing to the elaborate poster work and +commercial lettering of the present day. Although other books have already +been written on this fascinating subject, Mr. Farnsworth breaks new ground +in many directions; he treats the matter from the modern standpoint in a +manner which makes his work invaluable not only to students of the art, +but also to the rapidly-growing public interested in what has hitherto +been a somewhat exclusive craft. The book is well illustrated. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +FRANK SWINNERTON: ANALYST OF LOVERS + + +=i= + +It is as an analyst of lovers, I think, that Frank Swinnerton claims and +holds his place among those whom we still sometimes call the younger +novelists of England. + +I do not say this because his fame was achieved at a bound with +_Nocturne_, but because all his novels show a natural preoccupation with +the theme of love between the sexes. Usually it is a pair of young lovers +or contrasted pairs; but sometimes this is interestingly varied, as in +September, where we have a study of love that comes to a woman in middle +life. + +The unique character of _Nocturne_ makes it very hard to write about +Swinnerton. It is true that Arnold Bennett wrote: "I am prepared to say to +the judicious reader unacquainted with Swinnerton's work, 'Read +_Nocturne_,' and to stand or fall, and to let him stand or fall by the +result." At the same time, though the rule is that we must judge an artist +by his finest work and a genius by his greatest masterpiece, it is not +entirely just to estimate the living writer by a single unique +performance, an extraordinary piece of virtuosity, which _Nocturne_ +unquestionably is. For anyone who wishes to understand and appreciate +Swinnerton, I would recommend that he begin with _Coquette_, follow it +with _September_, follow that with _Shops and Houses_ and then read +_Nocturne_. That is, I would have made this recommendation a few months +ago, but so representative of all sides of Swinnerton's talent is his new +novel, _The Three Lovers_, that I should now prefer to say to anyone +unacquainted with Swinnerton: "Begin with _The Three Lovers_." And after +that I would have him read _Coquette_ and the other books in the order I +have named. After he had reached and finished _Nocturne_, I would have him +turn to the several earlier novels--_The Happy Family_, _On the +Staircase_, and _The Chaste Wife_. + +=ii= + +_The Three Lovers_, a full-length novel which Swinnerton finished in +Devonshire in the spring of 1922, is a story of human beings in conflict, +and it is also a picture of certain phases of modern life. A young and +intelligent girl, alone in the world, is introduced abruptly to a kind of +life with which she is unfamiliar. Thereafter the book shows the +development of her character and her struggle for the love of the men to +whom she is most attracted. The book steadily moves + +[Illustration: FRANK SWINNERTON] + +through its earlier chapters of introduction and growth to a climax that +is both dramatic and moving. It opens with a characteristic descriptive +passage from which I take a few sentences: + +"It was a suddenly cold evening towards the end of September.... The +street lamps were sharp brightnesses in the black night, wickedly +revealing the naked rain-swept paving-stones. It was an evening to make +one think with joy of succulent crumpets and rampant fires and warm +slippers and noggins of whisky; but it was not an evening for cats or +timid people. The cats were racing about the houses, drunken with primeval +savagery; the timid people were shuddering and looking in distress over +feebly hoisted shoulders, dreadfully prepared for disaster of any kind, +afraid of sounds and shadows and their own forgotten sins.... The wind +shook the window-panes; soot fell down all the chimneys; trees +continuously rustled as if they were trying to keep warm by constant +friction and movement." + +The imagination which sees in the movement of trees an endeavour to keep +warm is not less sharp in its discernment of human beings. I will give one +other passage, a conversation between Patricia Quin, the heroine, and +another girl: + +"'Do you mean he's in love with you?' asked Patricia. 'That seems to be +what's the matter.' + +"'Oho, it takes two to be in love,' scornfully cried Amy. 'And I'm not in +love with him.' + +"'But he's your friend.' + +"'That's just it. He won't recognise that men and women _can_ be friends. +He's a very decent fellow; but he's full of this sulky jealousy, and he +glowers and sulks whenever any other man comes near me. Well, that's not +my idea of friendship.' + +"'Nor mine,' echoed Patricia, trying to reconstruct her puzzled estimate +of their relations. 'But couldn't you stop that? Surely, if you put it +clearly to him....' + +"Amy interrupted with a laugh that was almost shrill. Her manner was +coldly contemptuous. + +"'You _are_ priceless!' she cried. 'You say the most wonderful things.' + +"'Well, _I_ should.' + +"'I wonder.' Amy moved about, collecting the plates. 'You see ... some day +I shall marry. And in a weak moment I said probably I'd marry him.' + +"'Oh, Amy! Of _course_ he's jealous.' Swiftly, Patricia did the young man +justice. + +"'I didn't give him any right to be. I told him I'd changed my mind. I've +told him lots of times that probably I sha'n't marry him.' + +"'But you keep him. Amy! You do encourage him.' Patricia was stricken +afresh with a generous impulse of emotion on Jack's behalf. 'I mean, by +not telling him straight out. Surely you can't keep a man waiting like +that? I wonder he doesn't _insist_.' + +"'Jack insist!' Amy was again scornful. 'Not he!' + +"There was a moment s pause. Innocently, Patricia ventured upon a +charitable interpretation. + +"'He must love you very much. But, Amy, if you don't love him.' + +"'What's love got to do with marriage?' asked Amy, with a sourly cynical +air. + +"'Hasn't it--everything?' Patricia was full of sincerity. She was too +absorbed in this story to help Amy to clear the table; but on finding +herself alone in the studio while the crockery was carried away to the +kitchen she mechanically shook the crumbs behind the gas-fire and folded +the napkin. This was the most astonishing moment of her day. + +"Presently Amy returned, and sat in the big armchair, while, seated upon +the podger and leaning back against the wall, Patricia smoked a +cigarette. + +"'You see, the sort of man one falls in love with doesn't make a good +husband,' announced Amy, as patiently as if Patricia had been in fact a +child. She persisted in her attitude of superior wisdom in the world's +ways. 'It's all very well; but a girl ought to be able to live with any +man she fancies, and then in the end marry the safe man for a ... well, +for life, if she likes.' + +"Patricia's eyes were opened wide. + +"'I shouldn't like that,' she said. 'I don't think the man would either.' + +"'Bless you, the men all _do_ it,' cried Amy, contemptuously. 'Don't make +any mistake about that.' + +"'I don't believe it,' said Patricia. 'Do you mean that my father--or +_your_ father...?' + +"'Oh, I don't know. I meant, nowadays. Most of the people you saw last +night are living together or living with other people.' + +"Patricia was aware of a chill. + +"'But _you've_ never,' she urged. 'I've never.' + +"'No.' Amy was obviously irritated by the personal application. 'That's +just it. I say we _ought_ to be free to do what we like. Men do what they +like.' + +"'D'you think Jack has lived with other girls?' + +"'My dear child, how do I know? I should hope he has.' + +"'Hope! Amy, you do make me feel a prig.' + +"'Perhaps you are one. Oh, I don't know. I'm sick of thinking, thinking, +thinking about it all. I never get any peace.' + +"'Is there somebody you _want_ to live with?' + +"'No. I wish there was. Then I should _know_' + +"'I wonder if you would know,' said Patricia, in a low voice. 'Amy, do you +really know what love is? Because I don't. I've sometimes let men kiss me, +and it doesn't seem to matter in the least. I don't particularly want to +kiss them, or to be kissed. I've never seen anything in all the flirtation +that goes on in dark corners. It's amusing once or twice; but it becomes +an awful bore. The men don't interest you. The thought of living with any +of them just turns me sick.'" + +=iii= + +The analysis, in _The Three Lovers_, of Patricia Quin is done with that +simplicity, quiet deftness and inoffensive frankness which is the hallmark +of Mr. Swinnerton's fiction. And, coming at last to _Nocturne_, I fall +back cheerfully upon the praise accorded that novel by H. G. Wells in his +preface to it. Said Mr. Wells: + +"Such a writer as Mr. Swinnerton sees life and renders it with a +steadiness and detachment and patience quite foreign to my disposition. He +has no underlying motive. He sees and tells. His aim is the attainment of +that beauty which comes with exquisite presentation. Seen through his art, +life is seen as one sees things through a crystal lens, more intensely, +more completed, and with less turbidity. There the business begins and +ends for him. He does not want you or anyone to do anything. + +"Mr. Swinnerton is not alone among recent writers in this clear detached +objectivity. But Mr. Swinnerton, like Mr. James Joyce, does not repudiate +the depths for the sake of the surface. His people are not splashes of +appearance, but living minds. Jenny and Emmy in this book are realities +inside and out; they are imaginative creatures so complete that one can +think with ease of Jenny ten years hence or of Emmy as a baby. The fickle +Alf is one of the most perfect Cockneys--a type so easy to caricature and +so hard to get true--in fiction. If there exists a better writing of +vulgar lovemaking, so base, so honest, so touchingly mean and so +touchingly full of the craving for happiness than this, I do not know of +it. Only a novelist who has had his troubles can understand fully what a +dance among china cups, what a skating over thin ice, what a tight-rope +performance is achieved in this astounding chapter. A false note, one +fatal line, would have ruined it all. On the one hand lay brutality; a +hundred imitative louts could have written a similar chapter brutally, +with the soul left out, we have loads of such 'strong stuff' and it is +nothing; on the other side was the still more dreadful fall into +sentimentality, the tear of conscious tenderness, the redeeming glimpse of +'better things' in Alf or Emmy that could at one stroke have converted +their reality into a genteel masquerade. The perfection of Alf and Emmy is +that at no point does a 'nature's gentleman' or a 'nature's lady' show +through and demand our refined sympathy. It is only by comparison with +this supreme conversation that the affair of Keith and Jenny seems to fall +short of perfection. But that also is at last perfected, I think, by +Jenny's final, 'Keith ... Oh, Keith!...' + +"Above these four figures again looms the majestic invention of 'Pa.' +Every reader can appreciate the truth and humour of Pa, but I doubt if +anyone without technical experience can realise how the atmosphere is made +and completed, and rounded off by Pa's beer, Pa's meals, and Pa's +accident, how he binds the bundle and makes the whole thing one, and what +an enviable triumph his achievement is. + +"But the book is before the reader and I will not enlarge upon its merits +further. Mr. Swinnerton has written four or five other novels before this +one, but none of them compares with it in quality. His earlier books were +strongly influenced by the work of George Gissing; they have something of +the same fatigued greyness of texture and little of the same artistic +completeness and intense vision of _Nocturne_. + +"This is a book that will not die. It is perfect, authentic and alive. +Whether a large and immediate popularity will fall to it, I cannot say, +but certainly the discriminating will find it and keep it and keep it +alive. If Mr. Swinnerton were never to write another word I think he might +count on this much of his work living, when many of the more portentous +reputations of today may have served their purpose in the world and become +no more than fading names." + +=iv= + +Arnold Bennett has described Swinnerton personally in a way no one else is +likely to surpass. I will prefix a few elemental facts which he has +neglected and then will let him have his say. + +Frank Arthur Swinnerton was born in Wood Green, England, in 1884, the +youngest son of Charles Swinnerton and Rose Cottam. He married, a few +years ago, Helen Dircks, a poet; her slim little book of verse, +_Passenger_, was published with a preface by Mr. Swinnerton. His first +three novels Swinnerton destroyed. His first novel to be published was +_The Merry Heart_. It is interesting to know that Floyd Dell was the first +American to appreciate Swinnerton. I make way for Mr. Bennett, who says: + +"One day perhaps eight or nine years ago I received a novel entitled _The +Casement_. The book was accompanied by a short, rather curt note from the +author, Frank Swinnerton, politely indicating that if I cared to read it +he would be glad, and implying that if I didn't care to read it, he should +endeavour still to survive. I would quote the letter but I cannot find +it--no doubt for the reason that all my correspondence is carefully filed +on the most modern filing system. I did not read _The Casement_ for a long +time. Why should I consecrate three irrecoverable hours or so to the work +of a man as to whom I had no credentials? Why should I thus introduce +foreign matter into the delicate cogwheels of my programme of reading? +However, after a delay of weeks, heaven in its deep wisdom inspired me +with a caprice to pick up the volume. + +"I had read, without fatigue but on the other hand without passionate +eagerness, about a hundred pages before the thought occurred suddenly to +me: 'I do not remember having yet come across one single ready-made phrase +in this story.' Such was my first definable thought concerning Frank +Swinnerton. I hate ready-made phrases, which in my view--and in that of +Schopenhauer--are the sure mark of a mediocre writer. I began to be +interested. I soon said to myself: 'This fellow has a distinguished +style.' I then perceived that the character-drawing was both subtle and +original, the atmosphere delicious, and the movement of the tale very +original, too. The novel stirred me--not by its powerfulness, for it did +not set out to be powerful--but by its individuality and distinction. I +thereupon wrote to Frank Swinnerton. I forget entirely what I said. But I +know that I decided that I must meet him. + +"When I came to London, considerably later, I took measures to meet him, +at the Authors' Club. He proved to be young; I daresay twenty-four or +twenty-five--medium height, medium looks, medium clothes, somewhat reddish +hair, and lively eyes. If I had seen him in a motorbus I should never have +said, 'A remarkable chap'--no more than if I had seen myself in a +motorbus. My impressions of the interview were rather like my impressions +of the book: at first somewhat negative, and only very slowly becoming +positive. He was reserved, as became a young author; I was reserved, as +became an older author; we were both reserved, as became Englishmen. Our +views on the only important thing in the world--that is to say, +fiction--agreed, not completely, but in the main; it would never have done +for us to agree completely. I was as much pleased by what he didn't say as +by what he said; quite as much by the indications of the stock inside the +shop as by the display in the window. The interview came to a calm close. +My knowledge of him acquired from it amounted to this, that he held +decided and righteous views upon literature, that his heart was not on his +sleeve, and that he worked in a publisher's office during the day and +wrote for himself in the evenings. + +"Then I saw no more of Swinnerton for a relatively long period. I read +other books of his. I read _The Young Idea_, and _The Happy Family_, and, +I think, his critical work on George Gissing. _The Happy Family_ marked a +new stage in his development. It has some really piquant scenes, and it +revealed that minute knowledge of middle-class life in the nearer suburbs +of London, and that disturbing insight into the hearts and brains of quite +unfashionable girls, which are two of his principal gifts. I read a sketch +of his of a commonplace crowd walking around a bandstand which brought me +to a real decision as to his qualities. The thing was like life, and it +was bathed in poetry. + +"Our acquaintance proceeded slowly, and I must be allowed to assert that +the initiative which pushed it forward was mine. It made a jump when he +spent a week-end in the Thames Estuary on my yacht. If any reader has a +curiosity to know what my yacht is not like, he should read the striking +yacht chapter in _Nocturne_. I am convinced that Swinnerton evolved the +yacht in _Nocturne_ from my yacht; but he ennobled, magnified, decorated, +enriched and bejewelled it till honestly I could not recognise my wretched +vessel. The yacht in _Nocturne_ is the yacht I want, ought to have, and +never shall have. I envy him the yacht in _Nocturne_, and my envy takes a +malicious pleasure in pointing out a mistake in the glowing scene. He +anchors his yacht in the middle of the Thames--as if the tyrannic +authorities of the Port of London would ever allow a yacht, or any other +craft, to anchor in midstream! + +"After the brief cruise our friendship grew rapidly. I now know +Swinnerton--probably as well as any man knows him; I have penetrated into +the interior of the shop. He has done several things since I first knew +him--rounded the corner of thirty, grown a beard, under the orders of a +doctor, and physically matured. Indeed, he looks decidedly stronger than +in fact he is--he was never able to pass the medical examination for the +army. He is still in the business of publishing, being one of the +principal personages in the ancient and well-tried firm of Chatto & +Windus, the English publishers of Swinburne and Mark Twain. He reads +manuscripts, including his own--and including mine. He refuses +manuscripts, though he did accept one of mine. He tells authors what they +ought to do and ought not to do. He is marvellously and terribly +particular and fussy about the format of the books issued by his firm. +Questions as to fonts of type, width of margins, disposition of +title-pages, tint and texture of bindings really do interest him. And +misprints--especially when he has read the proofs himself--give him +neuralgia and even worse afflictions. Indeed he is the ideal publisher for +an author. + +"Nevertheless, publishing is only a side-line of his. He still writes for +himself in the evenings and at week-ends--the office never sees him on +Saturdays. + +"Frank Swinnerton has other gifts. He is a surpassingly good raconteur. By +which I do not signify that the man who meets Swinnerton for the first, +second or third time will infallibly ache with laughter at his remarks. +Swinnerton only blossoms in the right atmosphere; he must know exactly +where he is; he must be perfectly sure of his environment, before the +flower uncloses. And he merely relates what he has seen, what he has taken +part in. The narrations would be naught if he were not the narrator. His +effects are helped by the fact that he is an excellent mimic and by his +utter realistic mercilessness. But like all first-class realists he is +also a romantic, and in his mercilessness there is a mysterious touch of +fundamental benevolence--as befits the attitude of one who does not worry +because human nature is not something different from what it actually is. +Lastly, in this connection, he has superlatively the laugh known as the +'infectious laugh.' When he laughs everybody laughs, everybody has to +laugh. There are men who tell side-splitting tales with the face of an +undertaker--for example, Irvin Cobb. There are men who can tell +side-splitting tales and openly and candidly rollick in them from the +first word; and of these latter is Frank Swinnerton. But Frank Swinnerton +can be more cruel than Irvin Cobb. Indeed, sometimes when he is telling a +story, his face becomes exactly like the face of Mephistopheles in +excellent humour with the world's sinfulness and idiocy. + +"Swinnerton's other gift is the critical. It has been said that an author +cannot be at once a first-class critic and a first-class creative artist. +To which absurdity I reply: What about William Dean Howells? And what +about Henry James, to name no other names? Anyhow, if Swinnerton excels in +fiction he also excels in literary criticism. The fact that the literary +editor of the Manchester Guardian wrote and asked him to write literary +criticism for the Manchester Guardian will perhaps convey nothing to the +American citizen. But to the Englishman of literary taste and experience +it has enormous import. The Manchester Guardian publishes the most +fastidious and judicious literary criticism in Britain. + +"I recall that once when Swinnerton was in my house I had there also a +young military officer with a mad passion for letters and a terrific +ambition to be an author. The officer gave me a manuscript to read. I +handed it over to Swinnerton to read, and then called upon Swinnerton to +criticise it in the presence of both of us. 'Your friend is very kind,' +said the officer to me afterward, 'but it was a frightful ordeal.' + +"The book on George Gissing I have already mentioned. But it was +Swinnerton's work on R. L. Stevenson that made the trouble in London. It +is a destructive work. It is bland and impartial, and not bereft of +laudatory passages, but since its appearance Stevenson's reputation has +never been the same." + +BOOKS BY FRANK SWINNERTON + +THE MERRY HEART +THE YOUNG IDEA +THE CASEMENT +THE HAPPY FAMILY +GEORGE GISSING: A CRITICAL STUDY +R. L. STEVENSON: A CRITICAL STUDY +ON THE STAIRCASE +THE CHASTE WIFE +NOCTURNE +SHOPS AND HOUSES +SEPTEMBER +COQUETTE +THE THREE LOVERS + + +SOURCES ON FRANK SWINNERTON + +Who's Who [In England]. + +Frank Swinnerton: Personal Sketches by Arnold Bennett, H. G. Wells, +Grant Overtor, Booklet published by GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY, 1920. + +Private Information. + + + + +Chapter XVI + +AN ARMFUL OF NOVELS, WITH NOTES ON THE NOVELISTS + + +=i= + +"The quiet, the calm, the extreme individualism, and the easy-going +self-content of my birthplace and early habitat--the Eastern Shore of +Maryland, have been, I fear, the dominating influences of my life," writes +Sophie Kerr. "Thank heaven, I had a restless, energetic, and very +bad-tempered father to leaven them, a man with a biting tongue and a kind +heart, a keen sense of the ridiculous and a passion for honesty in speech +and action. I, the younger of his two children, was his constant +companion. I tagged after him, every day and all day. Even when I was very +small he interested me--and very few fathers ever really interest their +children. + +"The usual life of a girl in a small semi-Southern town was mine. I +learned to cook, I made most of my own frocks, I embroidered excessively, +I played the violin worse than any other person in the world, I went away +to college and I came back again. I wasn't a popular girl socially for two +reasons. I had inherited my father's gift of sarcasm, and there was the +even greater handicap of a beautiful, popular, socially malleable older +sister. Beside her I was nowhere. + +"But I wanted to write, so I didn't care. I got my father to buy me a +second-hand typewriter, and learned to run it with two fingers. And I +wrote. I even sold some of the stuff. The Country Gentleman bought one of +my first stories, and the Ladies' World bought another. This was +glorious. + +"Then I got a job on the Pittsburgh Chronicle-Telegraph, an afternoon +newspaper owned by Senator Oliver. Later I went to The Gazette-Times, the +morning paper also owned by the Senator. A few years later I came to New +York and found a place on the staff of the Woman's Home Companion, +eventually becoming Managing Editor. Two years ago I resigned my editorial +job to give all my time to writing. Of course I had been writing pretty +steadily anyway, but holding my job too. + +"I had expected, when I gave up office work, to find my leisure time an +embarrassment. I planned so many things to do, how I would see all my +friends often, how I would travel, read, do all sorts of delightful things +that double work had before made impossible. But I've done none of them. I +haven't nearly as much time as I had when I hadn't any time at all, and +that's the honest truth. + +"If only I could arrange a multiple existence--one life for work; one for +the machinery of life, housekeeping, getting clothes made, shopping; one +for seeing my friends, travel, visiting; one life for the other diversions +such as music, the theatre, clubs, politics, one life for just plain +loafing. Now that would be wonderful. But to crowd it all into twenty-four +hours a day--no, too much of it gets squeezed out. + +"What do I like the most? Comfort, I think. And old painted satinwood, and +cats and prizefights, and dancing, and Spanish shawls, and looking at the +ocean, and having my own way. And I dislike argument, and perfume, and fat +women, and people who tell the sort of lies that simply insult your +intelligence, and men who begin letters 'Dear Lady,' and long earrings, +and intolerance." + +All of which is excellent preparation for the reader of Sophie Kerr's new +novel, _One Thing Is Certain_. Those who read her _Painted Meadows_ will +expect and will find in this new novel the same charming background, but +they will find a much more dramatic story. Since the novel is one of +surprise, with an event at its close which throws everything that went +before in a new, a curious, a startling and profoundly significant light, +I cannot indulge in any further description of it in this place. But I do +wish to quote some sentences from a letter Sophie Kerr wrote me: + +"I wanted to show that when lives get out of plumb, the way to straighten +them is not with a violent gesture. That when we do seize them, and try to +jerk them straight again, we invariably let ourselves in for long years of +unhappiness and remorse. Witness Louellen. In two desperate attempts ... +she tries to change the whole current and colour of her life." + +So much for the essential character of the story, but there is a question +in my mind as to what, in the story, readers will consider the true +essential! I think for very many it will not be the action, unusual and +dramatic as that is, but the picture of a peculiar community, one typical +of Maryland's Eastern Shore, where we have farmer folk in whom there lives +the spirit and tradition of a landed aristocracy. The true essential with +such readers, will be the individuals who are drawn with such humour and +skill, the mellowness of the scene; even such a detail as the culinary +triumph that was Louellen's wedding dinner. A marvellous and incomparable +meal! One reads of it, his mouth watering and his stomach crying out. + +=ii= + +_The House of Five Swords_, by Tristram Tupper, is a gallant +representative of those novels which we are beginning to get in the +inevitable reaction from such realism as _Main Street_ and _Moon-Calf_, a +romantic story of age and youth, of love and hate, of bitter unyielding +hardness, and of melting pity and tenderness. It begins with the Robin, +age seven, with burnished curls, viewing with awestruck delight five +polished swords against the shining dark wall in Colonial House, where she +had gone to deliver the Colonel's boots! She forgot the boots. She lifted +two of the swords from the wall, crossed them on the floor and danced the +sword dance of Scotland. From the doorway a white-haired old figure +watched with narrowed eyes and tightened mouth. Then the storm broke.... + +_The House of Five Swords_ is Mr. Tupper's first novel. A native of +Virginia, he has done newspaper work, has tramped a good deal and was +fooling with the study of law when American troops were ordered to the +Mexican border. After that experience he went overseas. On his return from +the war, he tried writing and met with rapid success. + +=iii= + +Readers of Baroness Orczy's novels will welcome _Nicolette_. + +This is essentially a love story, with the scene laid in the mountains of +Provence in the early days of the Restoration of King Louis XVIII to the +throne of France. An ancient half-ruined chateau perches among dwarf +olives and mimosa, orange and lemon groves. There is a vivid contrast +between the prosperity of Jaume Deydier, a rich peasant-proprietor, and +the grinding poverty of the proud and ancient family of de Ventadour, +whose last scion, Bertrand, goes to seek fortune in Paris and there +becomes affianced to a wealthy and beautiful heiress. Nicolette, the +daughter of Jaume Deydier, whose ancestor had been a lackey in the service +of the Comte de Ventadour, is passionately in love with Bertrand, but a +bitter feud keeps the lovers for long apart. + +There will be a new novel this autumn, _Ann and Her Mother_, by O. +Douglas, whose _Penny Plain_ gave great pleasure to its readers. "Penny +plain," if you remember, was the way Jean described the lot of herself and +her brothers whom she mothered in the Scottish cottage; but matters were +somewhat changed when romance crossed the threshold in the person of the +Honourable Pamela and a bitter old millionaire who came to claim the house +as his own. + +_Ann and Her Mother_ is the story of a Scotch family as seen through the +eyes of the mother and her daughter. The author of _Penny Plain_ and _Ann +and Her Mother_ is a sister of John Buchan, author of _The Thirty-nine +Steps_, _The Path of the King_, and many other books. + +_December Love_, by Robert Hichens, will have a greater popularity than +any of his novels since _The Garden of Allah_. It is a question whether +this uncannily penetrative study of power and the need for love of a woman +of sixty does not surpass _The Garden of Allah_. In Lady Sellingworth, Mr. +Hichens is dealing with a brilliant woman. The theme is daring and calls +for both skill and delicacy. Of the action, one really should not say very +much, lest one spoil the book for the reader. The loss of the Sellingworth +jewels in Paris had caused a sensation in the midst of which Lady +Sellingworth was silent. She declined to discuss the disappearance of the +jewels. There followed the advent at No. 4 Berkeley Square of Alick +Craven, a man of thirty, vigorous, attractive and decidedly a somebody. +But inexplicably--at any rate without explanation--Lady Sellingworth +retired from society when Craven appeared. + +_Tell England_ by Ernest Raymond is a novel which has been sensationally +successful in England. It is a war story and I will give you some of the +opening paragraphs of the "Prologue by Padre Monty": + +"In the year that the Colonel died he took little Rupert to see the +swallows fly away. I can find no better beginning than that. + +"When there devolved upon me as a labour of love the editing of Rupert +Ray's book, _Tell England_, I carried the manuscript to my room one bright +autumn afternoon and read it during the fall of a soft evening, till the +light failed, and my eyes burned with the strain of reading in the dark. I +could hardly leave his ingenuous tale to rise and turn on the gas. Nor, +perhaps, did I want such artificial brightness. There are times when one +prefers the twilight. Doubtless the tale held me fascinated because it +revealed the schooldays of those boys whom I met in their young manhood +and told afresh that wild old Gallipoli adventure which I shared with +them. Though, sadly enough, I take Heaven to witness that I was not the +idealised creature whom Rupert portrays. God bless them, how these boys +will idealise us! + +"Then again, as Rupert tells you, it was I who suggested to him the +writing of his story. And well I recall how he demurred, asking: + +"'But what am I to write about?' For he was always diffident and +unconscious of his power. + +"'Is Gallipoli nothing to write about?' I retorted. 'And you can't have +spent five years at a great public school like Kensington without one or +two sensational things. Pick them out and let us have them. For whatever +the modern theorists say, the main duty of a story-teller is certainly to +tell stories.'" + +This prologue is followed by the novel which begins with English public +school life in the fashion of _Sonia_ and other novels American readers +are familiar with. The main theme of the book is Gallipoli. + +The new novel by J. E. Buckrose is _A Knight Among Ladies_. Mrs. Buckrose +says that the character of Sid Dummeris in this book is modelled upon an +actual person. "He did actually live in a remote country place where I +used to stay a great deal when I was a child and as he has been gone +twenty years, I thought I might employ my exact memories of him without +hurting anyone." This was in answer to questions asked by The Bookman +(London) of a number of English writers. The London Bookman wanted to find +out if novelists generally drew their characters from actual people. The +replies showed that this proceeding was very rare. Mrs. Buckrose recalled +only one other instance in which she had used an actual person in her +fiction. Mrs. Buckrose is Mrs. Falconer Jameson. She lives at Hornsea, +East Yorkshire, and says: + +"My real hobby is my writing--as it was my secret pleasure from the age of +nine until I was over thirty when I first attempted to publish. I look +after my chickens, my house and a rather delicate husband; write my books +and try to do my duty to my neighbour!" + +=iv= + +Back of the new novel by Margaret Culkin Banning, _Spellbinders_, is the +question: Has the vote and its consequent widening of the mental horizon +introduced a brand new element of discord or a factor for mutual support +into modern marriage? The household of the George Flandons was almost +wrecked by it. That his wife should accept the opportunity to play her +part in State and National affairs seemed to George Flandon a desertion of +her real duty. + +Mrs. Banning has written a novel which will surprise those who remember +her only by her first novel, _This Marrying_. The surprise will be less +for those who read her second novel, _Half Loaves_, for they must have +been struck by the real understanding she showed of the married +relationship and the marked increase in her skill as a writer. +_Spellbinders_ is the sort of work one looks for after such a good novel +as _Half Loaves_. + +Mrs. Banning, who was married in 1914, lives in Duluth. A graduate of +Vassar, her first novel was written in one of Margaret Mayo's cottages at +Harmon, New York. She is of purely Irish ancestry, related to the Plunkett +family which bred both statesmen and revolutionaries for Ireland. On the +other side there was a Colonel Culkin, who, Mrs. Banning says, "came over +at the time of the Revolution but unfortunately fought on the wrong side, +so we forget him and begin our Culkin lineage in this country with the +Culkin who came over at the famous time of the 'potato-rot.'" That would +be the Irish famine of 1846, no doubt. + +_Sunny-San_, Onoto Watanna's first novel in six years, has been the signal +for her re-entrance not only into the world of fiction, but the world of +motion pictures and plays. Even before _Sunny-San_ was ready as a book, +the motion picture producers were on the author's track. A large sum was +paid cash down for the picture rights to the novel and then the prospect +of a picture was laid aside while the possibilities of a play were +estimated. These were seen to be exceptionally good. Here was a story of +young American boys travelling in Japan and coming upon a still younger +Japanese girl, threatened with cruelty and unhappiness. The young men +endowed Sunny-San, so to speak, planking down enough money to secure her +protection and education. Thereupon they continued blithely on their +travels and forgot all about her. + +Some years later a well-educated, dainty and exceedingly attractive +Japanese girl presents herself on the doorstep of a house in New York +where one of the young men resides. Situation! What shall the young man do +with his charming and unexpected protegee! In view of the prolonged +success of Fay Bainter in the play, _East Is West_, it was obviously the +thing to make a play out of _Sunny-San_. And this, I believe, is being +done as I write. In the meantime Onoto Watanna, who is really Mrs. +Winnifred Reeve, and who lives on a ranch near Calgary, Canada, is very +busy with her Canadian stories which have excited the enthusiasm of +magazine editors. I am confident that she will do a Canadian novel; the +more so because she tells me that, despite the success of _Sunny-San_ and +the enormous success of her earlier Japanese stories, like _A Japanese +Nightingale_, her interest is really centred at present in Canada, its +people and backgrounds. + +=v= + +Pending Dorothy Speare's second novel, let me suggest that those who have +not done so read her first, _Dancers in the Dark_. That a young woman just +out of Smith College should write this novel, that the novel should then +begin immediately selling at a great rate, and that David Belasco should +demand a play constructed from the novel is altogether a sequence to cause +surprise. I have had letters from older people who said frankly that they +could not express themselves about _Dancers in the Dark_, because it dealt +with a life with which they were utterly unfamiliar--which, in some cases, +they did not know existed. And yet it does exist! The demand for the book, +the avidity with which it has been read and the intemperance with which it +has been discussed testify that in _Dancers in the Dark_ Miss Speare wrote +a book with truth in it. I suppose it might be said of her first +novel--though I should not agree in saying it--that, like F. Scott +Fitzgerald's _This Side of Paradise_, it had every conceivable fault +except the fatal fault; it did not fail to live. The amount of publicity +that this book received was astonishing. I have handled clippings from +newspapers all over the country--and not mere "items" but "spreads" with +pictures--in which the epigrammatic utterances of the characters in +_Dancers_ were reprinted and their truth or falsity debated hotly. Is the +modern girl an "excitement eater"? Does she "live from man to man and +never kill off a man"? There was altogether too much smoke and heat in the +controversy for one to doubt the existence, underneath the surface of Miss +Speare's fiction, of glowing coals. And Miss Speare? Well, it is a fact +that, like her heroine in _Dancers_, she has an exceptional voice; and I +understand that she intends to cultivate the voice and to continue as a +writer, both. That is a very difficult programme to lay out for one's +self, but I really believe her capable of succeeding in both halves of the +programme. + +Another distinctly popular novel, _The Moon Out of Reach_, by Margaret +Pedler, is the fruit of a well-developed career as a novelist. _The Hermit +of Far End_, _The House of Dreams Come True_, _The Lamp of Fate_, and _The +Splendid Folly_ were the forerunners of this immediate and distinct +success. Mrs. Pedler is the wife of a sportsman well known in the West of +England, the nearest living descendant of Sir Francis Drake. They have a +lovely home in the country and Mrs. Pedler, besides the joys of her +writing, is a collector of old furniture and china and a devotee of +driving, tennis and swimming. It is interesting that as a girl she studied +at the Royal Academy of Music with a view to being a professional singer. +Marriage diverted her from that, but she still retains her interest in +music; and it is characteristic of such novels as _The Splendid Folly_ and +_The Moon Out of Reach_ that a lyric appearing in the book embodies the +theme of the story. These lyrics of Mrs. Pedler's have mostly been set to +music. + +What shall I say about Corra Harris's _The Eyes of Love_ except that it +offers such a study of marriage as only Mrs. Harris puts on paper? Shrewd +and homely wisdom, sympathetic and ironical humour, the insight and the +fundamental experience,--above all, imagination in experience--which made +their first deep and wide impression with the publication of _A Circuit +Rider's Wife_. I open _The Eyes of Love_ at random and come upon such a +passage as this, and then I don't wonder that men as well as women read +Corra Harris and continue to read her: + +"Few women are ever related by marriage to the minds of their husbands. +These minds are foreign countries where they discover themselves to be +aliens, speaking another smaller language and practically incapable of +mastering the manners and customs of that place. This is sometimes the +man's fault, because his mind is not a fit place for a nice person like +his wife to dwell, but more frequently it is the wife's fault, who is not +willing to associate intimately with the hardships that inhabit the mind +of a busy man, who has no time to ornament that area with ideas pertaining +to the finer things. So it happens that both of them prefer this divorce, +the man because the woman gets in the way with her scruples and emotions +when he is about to do business without reference to either; the woman +because it is easier to keep on the domestic periphery of her husband, +where she thinks she knows him and is married to him because she knows +what foods he likes, and the people he prefers to have asked to dine when +she entertains, the chair that fits him, the large pillow or the small one +he wants for his tired old head at night, the place where the light must +be when he reads in the evening rather than talk to her, because there is +nothing to talk about, since she is only the wife of his bosom and not of +his head." + +=vi= + +Phyllis Bottome is just as interesting as her novels. When scarcely more +than a child with large, delightful eyes, she began to write, and +completed at the age of seventeen a novel which Andrew Lang advised an +English publisher to accept. Thereafter she wrote regularly and with +increasing distinction. Ill-health drove her to Switzerland where, living +for some years, she met all kinds of people from all the countries of +Europe and America as well. + +It is interesting that her father was an American, although after his +marriage to an Englishwoman, he settled in England. Later Mr. Bottome came +to America and for six years during Phyllis Bottome's childhood he was +rector of Grace Church at Jamaica, New York. Phyllis Bottome is the wife +of A. E. Forbes Dennis, who, recovering from dangerous wounds in the war, +has been serving as passport officer at Vienna. They were married in 1917. +Those who know Phyllis Bottome personally say that the striking thing +about her is the extent of her acquaintance with people of all sorts and +conditions of life and her ready and unfailing sympathy with all kinds of +people. She herself says that she "has had friends who live humdrum and +simple lives and friends whose stories would bring a rush of doubt to the +most credulous believer in fiction." "My friendships have included +workmen, bargees, actresses, clergymen, thieves, scholars, dancers, +soldiers, sailors and even the manager of a bank. It would be true of me +to say that as a human being I prefer life to art, even if it would at the +same time be damning to admit that I know much more about it. I have no +preferences; men, women, children, animals and nature under every aspect +seem to me a mere choice of miracles. I have not perhaps many illusions, +but I have got hold of one or two certainties. I believe in life and I +know that it is very hard." + +The hardness of life, its uproar, its agony, its magnificence and its +duty, is the theme of Phyllis Bottome's latest and finest novel. When it +was published, because it was so different from Phyllis Bottome's earlier +work, I tried to draw attention to it by a letter in which I said: + +"I don't know whether you read J. C. Snaith's _The Sailor_. People said +Snaith got his suggestion from the life of John Masefield. _The Sailor_ +sold many thousands and people recall the book today, years afterward. +But, as an ex-sailor and a few other things, I never found Snaith's 'Enry +'Arper half so convincing as Jim Barton in Phyllis Bottome's new novel, +_The Kingfisher_. + +"Jim, a boy of the slums, reaching toward 'that broken image of the mind +of God--human love,' goes pretty deeply into me. Since reading those last +words of the book--'Beauty touched him. It was as if he saw, with a flash +of jewelled wings, a Kingfisher fly home'--I keep going back and rereading +bits.... + +"Won't you tackle _The Kingfisher_? If you'll read to the bottom of page +51, I'll take a chance beyond that. Read that far and then, if you stop +there, I've no word to say." + +Although this letter called for no special reply, I received dozens of +replies promising to read the book and then enthusiastic comments after +having read the book. I do not consider _The Kingfisher_ the greatest book +Phyllis Bottome will write, but it marks an important advance in her work +and it is a novel whose positive merits will last; it will be as moving +and as significant ten years from now as it is today. + +=vii= + +I come to a group of novels of which the chief aim of all except two is +entertainment. _The_ _Return of Alfred_, by the anonymous author of +_Patricia Brent, Spinster_, is the diverting narrative of a man who found +himself in another man's shoes. What made it particularly difficult was +that the other man had been a very bad egg, indeed. And there was, as +might have been feared (or anticipated), a girl to complicate matters +tremendously. + +E. F. Benson's _Peter_ is the story of a young man who made a point of +being different, of keeping his aloofness and paying just the amount of +charm and gaiety required for the dinners and opera seats which London +hostesses so gladly proffered. Then he married Silvia, not for her money +exactly, but he certainly would not have asked her if she hadn't had +money. No wonder E. F. Benson has a liberal and expectant audience! In +_Peter_ he shows an exquisite understanding of the quality of the love +between Peter and his boyish young wife. + +A. A. Milne is another name to conjure with among those who love humour +and charm, gentleness and a quiet shafting of the human depths. There is +his novel, _Mr. Pim_. Old Mr. Pim, in his gentle way, shuffled into the +Mardens' charming household. Mr. Pim said a few words and went +absentmindedly away,--leaving Mr. Marden with the devastating knowledge +that his wife was no wife, that her first husband, instead of lying +quietly in his grave in Australia, had just landed in England. In short, +the Mardens had been living in sin for five years! Then Mr. Pim came back +for his forgotten hat and the Marden household was again revolutionised. + +_Beauty for Ashes_, by Joan Sutherland, is a story with a more serious +theme. It really raises the question whether a man who has wrongly been +named as co-respondent is in honour bound to marry the defendant. The +affair of Lady Madge with Lord Desmond was an entirely innocent one, +despite what London said. Lady Madge's husband, wrought upon by shame and +anger, began his action for divorce; and Desmond found himself not merely +face to face with dishonour but bound by conventional honour for life to a +girl with whom he had simply been friendly. + +William Rose Benet had been known chiefly as a poet until the publication +of his first novel, _The First Person Singular_. The scene of _The First +Person Singular_ shifts between the kinetic panorama of modern New York +and the somewhat stultifying quietude of a small Pennsylvania town. A +mysterious Mrs. Ventress is the centre of its rapidly unfolding series of +peculiar situations. Mrs. Ventress is a puzzle to the townspeople. They +believe odd things about her. The particular family in Tupton with which +she comes in contact is an eccentric one. The father is a recluse--for +reasons. His adopted daughter, Bessie Gedney, is an odd character among +young girls in fiction. Dr. Gedney's real daughter had disappeared years +before. Why? What has become of her? This complicates the mystery. + +_The First Person Singular_ is a light novel, avowedly without the heavy +"significance" and desperately drab realism of many modern novels. And yet +it flashes with tragedy and implicates grim spiritual struggle without +tearing any passion to tatters. The author's touch is light, the variety +of his characters furnish him much diversion. The amusing side of each +situation does not escape him. His style has a certain effervescent +quality, but, for all that, the tragic developments of the story are not +shirked. + +Another treatment of a problem of marriage, a treatment sympathetic but +robust, is found in the new novel of F. E. Mills Young, _The Stronger +Influence_. Like Miss Mills Young's earlier novels, _Imprudence_ and _The +Almonds of Life_, the scene of _The Stronger Influence_ is British Africa. +The story is of the choice confronting a girl upon whom two men have a +vital claim. + +To be somebody is more ethical than to serve somebody. The individual has +not only a right but an obligation to sacrifice family entanglements in +the cause of a necessary personal independence. This is the attitude +expressed in Richard Blaker's novel, _The Voice in the Wilderness_. The +story centres around the figure of Charles Petrie, popular playwright in +London but known in Pelchester merely as a shabby fellow and to his family +a singularly sarcastic and annoying father. Sarcasm was Petrie's one +defence against the limp weight that was Mrs. Petrie His children would +have been astonished to hear him called a charming man of the world, yet +he was. It is probable that he never would have come out into the open to +combat if he hadn't been moved constantly to interfere and save his +daughter Cynthia from offering herself as a willing sacrifice to her +mother. Richard Blaker is new to America, a novelist of acutely pointed +characterisations and careful atmosphere. + +=viii= + +_Nene_, the work of an unknown French school teacher, a novel +distinguished in France by the award of the Goncourt Prize as the most +distinguished French novel of the year 1920, had sold at this writing +400,000 copies in France. Three months after publication, it had sold in +this country less than 3,000 copies. + +I am glad to say that it was sufficient to draw to the attention of +Americans this deplorable discrepancy to arouse interest in the novel. +People of so divergent tastes as William Lyon Phelps, Corra Harris, Ralph +Connor, Walter Prichard Eaton, Mary Johnston, Dorothy Speare and Richard +LeGallienne have been at pains to express the feeling to which _Nene_ has +stirred them. I have not space to quote them all, and so select as typical +the comment of Walter Prichard Eaton: + +"I read _Nene_ with great interest, especially because of its relation to +_Maria Chapdelaine_. It seems to me the two books came out most happily +together. _Maria Chapdelaine_ gives us the French peasant in the new +world, touched with the pioneer spirit, and though close to the soil in +constant battle with nature, somehow always master of his fate. _Nene_ +gives us this same racial stock, again close to the soil, but an old-world +soil its fathers worked, and the peasant here seems ringed around with +those old ghosts, their prejudices and their passions. I have seldom read +any book which seemed to me so unerringly to capture the enveloping +atmosphere of place and tradition, as it conditions the lives of people, +and yet to do it so (apparently) artlessly. This struck me so forcibly +that it was not till later I began to realise with a sigh--if one himself +is a writer, a sigh of envy--that _Nene_ has a directness, a simplicity, a +principle of internal growth or dramatic life of its own, which, alas! +most of us are incapable of attaining." + +The author of _Carnival_, _Sinister Street_, _Plasher's Mead_; of those +highly comedic novels, _Poor Relations_ and _Rich Relatives_; of other and +still more diverse fiction, Compton Mackenzie, has turned to a new task. +His fine novel, _The Altar Steps_, concerns itself with a young priest of +the Church of England. We live in the England of Lytton Strachey's _Queen +Victoria_--the England of 1880 to the close of the Boer War--as we follow +Mark Lidderdale from boyhood to his ordination. _The Altar Steps_, it is +known will be followed by a novel probably to be called _The Parson's +Progress_. Evidently Mr. Mackenzie is bent upon a fictional study of the +whole problem of the Church of England in relation to our times, and +particularly the position of the Catholic party in the Church. + +"Simon Pure," who writes the monthly letter from London appearing in The +Bookman (and whose identity is a well-known secret!) thus describes, in +The Bookman for September, 1922, a visit to Mr. Mackenzie: + +"I have recently seen the author of _The Altar Steps_ upon his native +heath._ The Altar Steps_ is the latest work of Compton Mackenzie, and it +has done something to rehabilitate him with the critics. The press has +been less fiercely adverse than usual to the author. He is supposed to +have come back to the fold of the 'serious' writers, and so the fatted +calf has been slain for him. We shall see. My own impression is that +Mackenzie is a humorous writer, and that the wiseacres who want the novel +to be 'serious' are barking up the wrong tree. At any rate, there the book +is, and it is admitted to be a good book by all who have been condemning +Mackenzie as a trifler; and Mackenzie is going on with his sequel to it in +the pleasant land of Italy. I did not see him in Italy, but in Herm, one +of the minor Channel Islands. It took me a night to reach the place--a +night of fog and fog-signals--a night of mystery, with the moon full and +the water shrouded--and morning found the fog abruptly lifted, and the +islands before our eyes. They glittered under a brilliant sun. There came +hurried disembarking, a transference (for me, and after breakfast) to a +small boat called, by the owner's pleasantry, 'Watch Me' (Compton +Mackenzie), and then a fine sail (per motor) to Herm. I said to the +skipper that I supposed there must be many dangerous submerged rocks. 'My +dear fellow!' exclaimed the skipper, driven to familiarity by my naivete. +And with that we reached the island. Upon the end of a pier stood a tall +figure, solitary. 'My host!' thought I. Not so. Merely an advance guard: +his engineer. We greeted--my reception being that of some foreign +potentate--and I was led up a fine winding road that made me think of +Samoa and Vailima and all the beauties of the South Seas. Upon the road +came another figure--this time a young man who made a friend of me at a +glance. He now took me in hand. Together we made the rest of the journey +along this beautiful road, and to the cottage of residence. I entered. +There was a scramble. At last I met my host, who leapt from bed to welcome +me! + +"From that moment my holiday was delightful. The island is really +magnificent. Short of a stream, it has everything one could wish for in +such a place. It has cliffs, a wood, a common fields under cultivation, +fields used as pasture, caves, shell beaches, several empty cottages. Its +bird life is wealthy in cuckoos and other magic-bringers; its flowers have +extraordinary interest; dogs and cattle and horses give domestic life, and +a boat or two may be used for excursions to Jethou, a smaller island near +by. And Mackenzie has this ideal place to live in for as much of the year +as he likes. None may gather there without his permission. He is the lord +of the manor, and his boundaries are the sea and the sky. We walked about +the islands, and saw their beauties, accompanied by a big dog--a Great +Dane--which coursed rabbits and lay like a dead fish in the bottom of a +small boat. And as each marvel of the little paradise presented itself, I +became more and more filled with that wicked thing, envy. But I believe +envy does not make much progress when the owner of the desired object so +evidently appreciates it with more gusto even than the envious one. Reason +is against envy in such a case. To have said, 'He doesn't appreciate it' +would have been a lie so manifest that it did not even occur to me. He +does. That is the secret of Mackenzie's personal ability to charm. He is +filled with vitality, but he is also filled with the power to take extreme +delight in the delight of others and to better it. Moreover, he gives one +the impression of understanding islands. Herm has been in his possession +for something more than a year, and he has lived there continuously all +that time (except for two or three visits to London, of short duration). +It has been in all his thoughts. He has seen it as a whole. He knows it +from end to end, its rocks, its birds, its trees and flowers and paths. +What wonder that his health is magnificent, his spirits high! What wonder +the critics have seen fit to praise _The Altar Steps_ as they have not +praised anything of Mackenzie's for years? If they had seen Herm, they +could have done nothing at all but praise without reserve." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE HETEROGENEOUS MAGIC OF MAUGHAM + + +=i= + +Now, I don't know where to begin. Probably I shall not know where to leave +off, either. That is my usual misfortune, to write a chapter at both ends. +It is a fatal thing, like the doubly-consuming candle. Perhaps I might +start with the sapience of Hector MacQuarrie, author of _Tahiti Days_. I +am tempted to, because so many people think of W. Somerset Maugham as the +author of _The Moon and Sixpence_. The day will come, however, when people +will think of him as the man who wrote _Of Human Bondage_. + +This novel does not need praise. All it needs, like the grand work it is, +is attention; and that it increasingly gets. + +[Illustration: W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM] + +=ii= + +Theodore Dreiser reviewed _Of Human Bondage_ for the New Republic. I +reprint part of what he said: + +"Sometimes in retrospect of a great book the mind falters, confused by the +multitude and yet the harmony of the detail, the strangeness of the +frettings, the brooding, musing intelligence that has foreseen, loved, +created, elaborated, perfected, until, in the middle ground which we call +life, somewhere between nothing and nothing, hangs the perfect thing which +we love and cannot understand, but which we are compelled to confess a +work of art. It is at once something and nothing, a dream of happy memory, +a song, a benediction. In viewing it one finds nothing to criticise or to +regret. The thing sings, it has colour. It has rapture. You wonder at the +loving, patient care which has evolved it. + +"Here is a novel or biography or autobiography or social transcript of the +utmost importance. To begin with, it is unmoral, as a novel of this kind +must necessarily be. The hero is born with a club foot, and in +consequence, and because of a temperament delicately attuned to the +miseries of life, suffers all the pains, recessions, and involute self +tortures which only those who have striven handicapped by what they have +considered a blighting defect can understand. He is a youth, therefore, +with an intense craving for sympathy and understanding. He must have it. +The thought of his lack, and the part which his disability plays in it +soon becomes an obsession. He is tortured, miserable. + +"Curiously the story rises to no spired climax. To some it has apparently +appealed as a drab, unrelieved narrative. To me at least it is a gorgeous +weave, as interesting and valuable at the beginning as at the end. There +is material in its three hundred thousand or more words for many novels +and indeed several philosophies, and even a religion or stoic hope. There +are a series of women, of course--drab, pathetic, enticing as the case may +be,--who lead him through the mazes of sentiment, sex, love, pity, +passion; a wonderful series of portraits and of incidents. There are a +series of men friends of a peculiarly inclusive range of intellectuality +and taste, who lead him, or whom he leads, through all the intricacies of +art, philosophy, criticism, humour. And lastly comes life itself, the +great land and sea of people, England, Germany, France, battering, +corroding, illuminating, a Goyaesque world. + +"Naturally I asked myself how such a book would be received in America, in +England. In the latter country I was sure, with its traditions and the +Athenaeum and the Saturday Review, it would be adequately appreciated. +Imagine my surprise to find that the English reviews were almost uniformly +contemptuous and critical on moral and social grounds. The hero was a +weakling, not for a moment to be tolerated by sound, right-thinking men. +On the other hand, in America the reviewers for the most part have seen +its true merits and stated them. Need I say, however, that the New York +World finds it 'the sentimental servitude of a poor fool,' or that the +Philadelphia Press sees fit to dub it 'futile Philip,' or that the Outlook +feels that 'the author might have made his book true without making it so +frequently distasteful'; or that the Dial cries 'a most depressing +impression of the futility of life'? + +"Despite these dissonant voices it is still a book of the utmost import, +and has so been received. Compact of the experiences, the dreams, the +hopes, the fears, the disillusionments, the ruptures, and the +philosophising of a strangely starved soul, it is a beacon light by which +the wanderer may be guided. Nothing is left out; the author writes as +though it were a labour of love. It bears the imprint of an eager, almost +consuming desire to say truly what is in his heart. + +"Personally, I found myself aching with pain when, yearning for sympathy, +Philip begs the wretched Mildred, never his mistress but on his level, to +no more than tolerate him. He finally humiliates himself to the extent of +exclaiming, 'You don't know what it means to be a cripple!' The pathos of +it plumbs the depths. The death of Fannie Price, of the sixteen-year-old +mother in the slum, of Cronshaw, and the rambling agonies of old Ducroz +and of Philip himself, are perfect in their appeal. + +"There are many other and all equally brilliant pictures. No one short of +a genius could rout the philosophers from their lairs and label them as +individuals 'tempering life with rules agreeable to themselves' or could +follow Mildred Rogers, waitress of the London A B C restaurant, through +all the shabby windings of her tawdry soul. No other than a genius endowed +with an immense capacity for understanding and pity could have sympathised +with Fannie Price, with her futile and self-destructive art dreams; or old +Cronshaw, the wastrel of poetry and philosophy; or Mons. Ducroz, the +worn-out revolutionary; or Thorne Athelny, the caged grandee of Spain; or +Leonard Upjohn, airy master of the art of self-advancement; or Dr. South, +the vicar of Blackstable, and his wife--these are masterpieces. They are +marvellous portraits; they are as smooth as a Vermeer, as definite as a +Hals; as brooding and moving as a Rembrandt. The study of Carey himself, +while one sees him more as a medium through which the others express +themselves, still registers photographically at times. He is by no means a +brooding voice but a definite, active, vigorous character. + +"If the book can be said to have a fault it will lie for some in its +length, 300,000 words, or for others in the peculiar reticence with which +the last love affair in the story is handled. Until the coming of Sallie +Athelny all has been described with the utmost frankness. No situation, +however crude or embarrassing, has been shirked. In the matter of the +process by which he arrived at the intimacy which resulted in her becoming +pregnant not a word is said. All at once, by a slight frown which she +subsequently explains, the truth is forced upon you that there has been a +series of intimacies which have not been accounted for. After Mildred +Rogers and his relationship with Norah Nesbit it strikes one as +strange.... + +"One feels as though one were sitting before a splendid Shiraz or +Daghestan of priceless texture and intricate weave, admiring, feeling, +responding sensually to its colours and tones. Mr. Maugham ... has +suffered for the joy of the many who are to read after him. By no willing +of his own he has been compelled to take life by the hand and go down +where there has been little save sorrow and degradation. The cup of gall +and wormwood has obviously been lifted to his lips and to the last drop he +has been compelled to drink it. Because of this, we are enabled to see the +rug, woven of the tortures and delights of a life. We may actually walk +and talk with one whose hands and feet have been pierced with nails." + +=iii= + +I turn, for a different example of the heterogeneous magic of Maugham, +including his ability to create and sustain a mood in his readers, to the +words of Mr. MacQuarrie, who writes: + +"It was Tahiti. With a profound trust in my discretion, or perhaps an +utter ignorance of the homely fact that people have their feelings, a +London friend sent us a copy of _The Moon and_ _Sixpence_. This friend, +actually a beautiful, well set up woman of the intelligent class in +England (which is more often than not the upper fringes or spray of the +_bourgeoisie_), wrote: 'You will be interested in this book, since quite +the most charming portion of it deals with your remote island of Tahiti. I +met the author last night at Lady B----'s. I think the landlady at the +end, Mrs. Johnson, is a perfect darling.' + +"Knowing Somerset Maugham as a dramatist, the author of that kind of play +which never bored one, but rather sent one home suffused with +pleasantness, I opened the book with happy anticipation. Therefore--and +the title of the book, _The Moon and Sixpence_, gave a jolly calming +reaction--I was surprised and frankly annoyed when I found myself +compelled to follow the fortunes of a large red-headed man with mighty sex +appeal, who barged his way through female tears to a final goal which +seemed to be a spiritual achievement, and a nasty death in a native +_fare_. I was alarmed; here was a man writing something enormously strong, +when I had been accustomed to associate him with charming London +nights--the theatre, perfect acting, no middle class problems, a dropping +of one's women folks at their doors and a return to White's and whiskey +and a soda. And furthermore, in this book of his, he had picked up Lavina, +the famous landlady of the Tiare Hotel, the uncrowned queen of Tahiti, and +with a few strokes of his pen, had dissected her, and exposed her to the +world as she was. Here I must quote: + +"'Tall and extremely stout, she would have been an imposing presence if +the great good nature of her face had not made it impossible for her to +express anything but kindliness. Her arms were like legs of mutton, her +breasts like giant cabbages; her face, broad and fleshy, gave you an +impression of almost indecent nakedness and vast chin succeeded vast +chin.' + +"This may seem a small matter in a great world. Tahiti is a small world, +and this became a great matter. I read the book twice, decided that +Somerset Maugham could no longer be regarded as a pleasant liqueur, but +rather as the joint of a meal requiring steady digestion, and suppressed +_The Moon and Sixpence_ on Tahiti. The temptation to lend it to a kindred +spirit was almost unbearable, but the thought of Lavina hearing of the +above description of her person frightened me and I resisted. For kindred +souls, on Tahiti as elsewhere, have their own kindred souls, and slowly +but surely the fact that a writer had described her arms as legs of mutton +(perfect!) and her breasts as huge cabbages (even better!) would have +oozed its way to Lavina, sending her to bed for six days, with gloom +spread over Tahiti and no cocktails. + +"All of which is a trifle by the way. Yet in writing of Somerset Maugham +one must gaze along all lines of vision. And it seemed to me that Tahiti +in general, and Papeete in particular should supply a clear one; for here, +certainly, in the days when Maugham visited the island a man could be +mentally dead, spiritually naked and physically unashamed. I therefore +sought Lavina one afternoon as she sat clothed as with a garment by the +small side verandah of the Tiare Hotel. (Lavina was huge; the verandah was +a small verandah as verandahs go; there was just room for me and a bottle +of rum.) + +"'Lavina,' I remarked; 'many persons who write come to Tahiti.' + +"'It is true,' she admitted, 'but not as the heavy rain, rather as the few +drops at the end.' + +"'Do you like them?' I enquired. + +"One makes that kind of remark on Tahiti. The climate demands such, since +the answer can be almost anything, a meandering spreading-of-weight kind +of answer. + +"'These are good men,' said Lavina steadily, wandering off into the old +and possibly untrue story of a lady called Beatrice Grimshaw and her +dilemma on a schooner in mid-Pacific, when the captain, a gentle ancient, +thinking that the dark women were having it all their own way, offered to +embrace Miss Grimshaw, finding in return a gun pointing at his middle, +filling him with quaint surprise that anyone could possibly offer violence +in defence of a soul in so delightful a climate. + +"After which and a rum cocktail, I said: 'Lavina, did you see much of +M'sieur Somerset Maugham when he was here?' + +"'It is the man who writes?' she inquired lazily. + +"'It is,' I returned. + +"'It is the _beau garcon-ta-ta, neneenha roa?_' she suggested. + +"'Probably not,' I said; 'I suspect you are thinking, as usual, of Rupert +Brooke. M'sieur Maugham may be regarded as _beau_, but he is not an +elderly waiter of forty-seven, therefore we may not call him a _garcon_.' + +"'It is,' Lavina admitted; 'that I am thinking of M'sieur Rupert, he is +the _beau garcon_.' + +"'But,' I said, 'I want to know what you thought of M'sieur Somerset +Maugham?' + +"Once started on Rupert Brooke, and Lavina would go on for the afternoon! + +"'I respect M'sieur Morn,' said Lavina. + +"'Oh!' thought I; 'if she respects him, then I'm not going to get much.' + +"'His French is not mixed,' she continued, referring to Maugham's Parisian +accent; 'I speak much with him, and he listen, with but a small question +here, and one there. It is the pure French from Paris, as M'sieur _le +Governeur_ speak, who is the pig. But when he speak much, then it is like +the coral which breaks.' + +"Lavina now wandered off permanently; it was impossible to bring her back. +Her image of the brittle coral branches was a mild personality directed at +Maugham's stutter, which seldom escapes the most sophisticated observer. +For those who interview him always find well cut suitings, clean collars +and the stutter, and very little else that they can lay hold of with any +degree of honesty. Which only goes to prove my own opinion that Maugham, +as an observer, refuses to have his own vision clogged by prying eyes at +himself. + +"I expect that if my French had been better, I might have got some +information about Maugham in Tahiti from the bland and badly built French +officials who lurk in the official club near the Pomare Palace. I was +reduced, in my rather casual investigation, to questioning natives and +schooner captains. Once I felt confident of gaining a picture, I asked +Titi of Taunoa. (Titi is the lady who figures a trifle disgracefully in +Gauguin's _Noanoa_, the woman he found boring after a few weeks, her +French blood being insufficiently exotic to his spirit.) + +"Said Titi: 'M'sieur Morn? Yes, him I know; he speak good French, and take +the door down from the _fare_ on which is the picture done by Gauguin of +the lady whose legs are like thin pillows and her arms like fat ropes, +very what you call strained, and funny.' + +"After which her remarks centred around a lover of her sister, who had +just died at the age of seventy, and Titi considered that the denouement +made by Manu, the sister, was uncalled for at the death bed, since the +true and faithful wife stood there surrounded by nine children, all safely +born the right side of the sheet. She did mention that the removal of the +door from the _fare_ caused the wind to enter. And although I often made +inquiries, I never gained much information. Tahiti, as a whole, seemed +unaware of Maugham's visit. + +"They may have adored him; but I suspect he was a quiet joy, the kind +native Tahiti soon forgets, certainly not the kind of joy she embodies in +her national songs and _himines_. Such are the merry drunkards, +inefficient though earnest white hulahula dancers and the plain (more than +everyday) sinners who cut up rough with wild jagged edges and cruel +tearings. + +"His occasional appearance at the French club would raise his status, +removing any light touches with his junketings, perhaps turning them into +dignified ceremonies. Which, for the Tahitian, approaches the end. The +Tahitian never quite understands the white man who consorts with the +French officials, although many do. 'For are not these men of Farane,' +says the native, 'like the hen that talks without feathers?'--whatever +that may mean, but it suggests at once the talkative Frenchman denuding +himself on hot evenings, and wearing but the native _pareu_ to hide +portions of his bad figure. + +"But although, in some ways, Maugham hid himself from the natives and +pleasant half-castes, he saw them all right, and clearly, since the +closing pages of the _The Moon and Sixpence_ display a magical picture of +that portion of Tahiti he found time to explore." + +=iv= + +Mr. Maugham now offers us _On a Chinese Screen_, sketches of Chinese life, +and _East of Suez_, his new play. + +There are fifty-eight sketches in _On a Chinese Screen_, portraits +including European residents in China as well as native types. Here is a +sample of the book, the little descriptive study with which it closes, +entitled "A Libation to the Gods": + +"She was an old woman, and her face was wizened and deeply lined. In her +grey hair three long silver knives formed a fantastic headgear. Her dress +of faded blue consisted of a long jacket, worn and patched, and a pair of +trousers that reached a little below her calves. Her feet were bare, but +on one ankle she wore a silver bangle. It was plain that she was very +poor. She was not stout but squarely built and in her prime she must have +done without effort the heavy work in which her life had been spent. She +walked leisurely, with the sedate tread of an elderly woman, and she +carried on her arm a basket. She came down to the harbour; it was crowded +with painted junks; her eyes rested for a moment curiously on a man who +stood on a narrow bamboo raft, fishing with cormorants; and then she set +about her business. She put down her basket on the stones of the quay, at +the water's edge, and took from it a red candle. This she lit and fixed in +a chink of the stones. Then she took several joss-sticks, held each of +them for a moment in the flame of the candle and set them up around it. +She took three tiny bowls and filled them with a liquid that she had +brought with her in a bottle and placed them neatly in a row. Then from +her basket she took rolls of paper cash and paper 'shoes' and unravelled +them, so that they should burn easily. She made a little bonfire, and when +it was well alight she took the three bowls and poured out some of their +contents before the smouldering joss-sticks. She bowed herself three times +and muttered certain words. She stirred the burning paper so that the +flames burned brightly. Then she emptied the bowls on the stones and again +bowed three times. No one took the smallest notice of her. She took a few +more paper cash from her basket and flung them in the fire. Then, without +further ado, she took up her basket, and with the same leisurely, rather +heavy tread, walked away. The gods were duly propitiated, and like an old +peasant woman in France, who has satisfactorily done her day's +housekeeping, she went about her business." + +=v= + +W. Somerset Maugham was born in 1874, the son of Robert Ormond Maugham. He +married Syrie, daughter of the late Dr. Barnardo. Mr. Maugham has a +daughter. His education was got at King's School, Canterbury, at +Heidelberg University and at St. Thomas's Hospital, London. + +Mr. Maugham's father was a comparatively prominent solicitor, responsible +for the foundation of the Incorporated Society of Solicitors in England. +Somerset Maugham, after studying medicine at Heidelberg, went to St. +Thomas's, in the section of London known as Lambeth. He obtained his +medical degree there. St. Thomas's just across the river from Westminster +proved his medical ruin, and his literary birth. The hospital is situated +on the border of the slum areas of South London where much that is +hopeless, terrible, and wildly cheerful can be found. Persons are not +wanting who hold that the slums of Battersea and Lambeth contain more +misery and poverty than Limehouse, Whitechapel and the dark forest +surrounding the Commercial Road combined. To St. Thomas's daily comes a +procession of battered derelicts, seeking attention from the young men in +white tunics who hope to be doctors on their own account some day. To St. +Thomas's came Eliza of Lambeth, came Liza's mother, came Jim and Tom. Here +is the genesis of Maugham's first serious work, _Liza of Lambeth_. + +It will be simpler and less confusing to deal with Somerset Maugham in the +first instance as a maker of books rather than as a playwright. One cannot +help believing that, while not one of his plays can be regarded as a pot +boiler, they yet but seldom display that fervent purpose found in his +books. Yet in his plays, one finds a greater attention to conventional +technique and "form" than one finds in books like _Of Human Bondage_ and +_The Moon and Sixpence_. + +The first book launched by Somerset Maugham, _Liza of Lambeth_, could +hardly have been, considering its slight dimensions, a clearer indication +of the line he was to follow. It came out at a time when Gissing was still +in favour, and the odour of mean streets was accepted as synonymous with +literary honesty and courage. There is certainly no lack of either about +this idyll of Elizabeth Kemp of the lissome limbs and auburn hair. The +story pursues its way, and one sees the soul of a woman shining clearly +through the racy dialect and frolics of the Chingford beano, the rueful +futility of faithful Thomas and the engaging callousness of Liza's +mother. + +Somerset Maugham's next study in female portraiture showed how far he +could travel towards perfection. _Mrs. Craddock_, which is often called +his best book, is a sex satire punctuated by four curtains, two of comedy +and two of tragedy. This mixture of opposites should have been enough to +damn it in the eyes of a public intent upon classifying everything by +means of labels and of making everything so classified stick to its label +like grim death. Yet the unclassified may flourish, and does, when its +merit is beyond dispute. _Mrs. Craddock_ appeared fully a decade before +its time, when Victorian influences were still alive, and the modern idea +for well to do women to have something to justify their existence was +still in the nature of a novelty. Even in the fuller light of experience, +Maugham could hardly have bettered his study of an impulsive and exigent +woman, rising at the outset to the height of a bold and womanly choice in +defiance of social prejudice and family tradition, and then relapsing +under the disillusions of marriage into the weakest failings of her class, +rising again, from a self-torturing neurotic into a kind of Niobe at the +death of her baby. + +The ironic key of the book is at its best, in the passage half way +through-- + +"Mr. Craddock's principles, of course, were quite right; he had given her +plenty of run and ignored her cackle, and now she had come home to roost. +There is nothing like a knowledge of farming, and an acquaintance with the +habits of domestic animals, to teach a man how to manage his wife." + +=vi= + +As a playwright Mr. Maugham is quite as well known as he is for his +novels. The author of _Lady Frederick_, _Mrs. Dot_, and _Caroline_--the +creator of Lord Porteous and Lady Kitty in _The Circle_--writes his plays +because it amuses him to do so and because they supply him with an +excellent income. Here is a good story: + +It seems that Maugham had peddled his first play, _Lady Frederick_, to the +offices of seventeen well-known London managers, until it came to rest in +the Archives of the Court Theatre. The Court Theatre, standing in Sloane +Square near the Tube station, is definitely outside the London theatre +area, but as the scene of productions by the Stage Society, it is kept in +the running. However, it might conceivably be the last port of call for a +worn manuscript. + +It so happened that Athole Stewart, the manager of the Court Theatre, +found himself needing a play very badly during one season. The theatre had +to be kept open and there was nothing to keep it open with. From a dingy +pile of play manuscripts he chose _Lady Frederick_. He had no hopes of its +success--or so it is said--but the success materialised. At the +anniversary of _Lady Frederick_ in London, Maugham thought of asking to +dinner the seventeen managers who rejected the play, but realising that no +man enjoyed being reminded of a lost opportunity he decided to forgo the +pleasure. + +The circumstances in which _Caroline_ was written give an interesting +reflex on Maugham as an artist. This delicious comedy was put on paper +while Maugham was acting as British agent in Switzerland during the war. +Some of its more amusing lines were written in some haste while a spy (of +uncertain intentions toward Maugham) stood outside in the snow. + +=vii= + +Someone, probably the gifted Hector MacQuarrie, whom I fear I have +guiltily been quoting in almost every sentence of this chapter, has said +that Maugham writes "transcripts, not of life as a tolerable whole, but of +phases which suit his arbitrary treatment." It is an enlightening +comment. + +But Maugham himself is the keenest appraiser of his own intentions in his +work, as when he spoke of the stories in his book, _The Trembling of a +Leaf_, as not short stories, but "a study of the effect of the Islands of +the Pacific on the white man." + +The man never stays still. When you think the time is ripe for him +triumphally to tour America--when _The Moon and Sixpence_ has attracted +the widest attention--he insists on going immediately to China. This may +be because, though well set up, black-eyed, broad-framed and excessively +handsome in evening clothes, he is rather diffident. + +BOOKS BY W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM + +NOVELS: + LIZA OF LAMBETH + THE MAKING OF A SAINT + ORIENTATIONS + THE HERO + MRS. CRADDOCK + THE MERRY-GO-ROUND + THE LAND OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN + THE BISHOP'S APRON + THE EXPLORER + THE MAGICIAN + OF HUMAN BONDAGE + THE MOON AND SIXPENCE + THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF + ON A CHINESE SCREEN + +PLAYS: + SCHIFFBRUECHIG + A MAN OF HONOUR + LADY FREDERICK + JACK STRAW + MRS. DOT + THE EXPLORER + PENELOPE + SMITH + THE TENTH MAN + GRACE + LOAVES AND FISHES + THE LAND OF PROMISE + CAROLINE + LOVE IN A COTTAGE + CAESAR'S WIFE + HOME AND BEAUTY + THE UNKNOWN + THE CIRCLE + EAST OF SUEZ + +SOURCES ON W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM + +Who's Who [In England]. + +Somerset Maugham in Tahiti: Hitherto unpublished article by Hector +MacQuarrie. + +THE BOOKMAN (London). + +Private information. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +BOOKS WE LIVE BY + + +=i= + +_The Parallel New Testament_ is by Dr. James Moffatt, whose _New +Translation of the New Testament_ has excited such wide admiration and +praise. _The Parallel New Testament_ presents the Authorised Version and +Professor Moffatt's translation in parallel columns, together with a brief +introduction to the New Testament. + +I suppose there is no sense in my expending adjectives in praise of Dr. +Moffatt's translation of the New Testament. I could do so very easily. But +what I think would be more effective would be to ask you to take a copy of +the Authorised Version and read in it some such passage as Luke, 24th +chapter, 13th verse, to the close of the chapter and then--and not +before!--read the same account from Dr. Moffatt's _New Translation_, as +follows: + +"That very day two of them were on their way to a village called Emmaus +about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were conversing about all these +events, and during their conversation and discussion Jesus himself +approached and walked beside them, though they were prevented from +recognising him. He said to them, 'What is all this you are debating on +your walk?' They stopped, looking downcast, and one of them, called +Cleopas, answered him, 'Are you a lone stranger in Jerusalem, not to know +what has been happening there?' 'What is that?' he said to them. They +replied, 'All about Jesus of Nazaret! To God and all the people he was a +prophet strong in action and utterance, but the high priests and our +rulers delivered him up to be sentenced to death and crucified him. Our +own hope was that he would be the redeemer of Israel; but he is dead and +that is three days ago! Though some women of our number gave us a +surprise; they were at the tomb early in the morning and could not find +his body, but they came to tell us they had actually seen a vision of +angels who declared he was alive. Some of our company did go to the tomb +and found things exactly as the women had said, but they did not see him.' +He said to them, 'Oh, foolish men, with hearts so slow to believe, after +all the prophets have declared! Had not the Christ to suffer thus and so +enter his glory?' Then he began with Moses and all the prophets and +interpreted to them the passages referring to himself throughout the +scriptures. Now they approached the village to which they were going. He +pretended to be going further on, but they pressed him, saying 'Stay with +us, for it is getting towards evening and the day has now declined.' So he +went in to stay with them. And as he lay at the table with them he took +the loaf, blessed it, broke it and handed it to them. Then their eyes were +opened and they recognised him, but he vanished from their sight. And they +said to one another, 'Did not our hearts glow within us when he was +talking to us on the road, opening up the scriptures for us?' So they got +up and returned that very hour to Jerusalem, where they found the eleven +and their friends all gathered, who told them that the Lord had really +risen and that he had appeared to Simon. Then they related their own +experience on the road and how they had recognised him when he broke the +loaf. Just as they were speaking He stood among them [and said to them, +'Peace to you!']. They were scared and terrified, imagining it was a ghost +they saw; but he said to them, 'Why are you upset? Why do doubts invade +your mind? Look at my hands and feet. It is I! Feel me and see; a ghost +has not flesh and bones as you see I have.' [With these words he showed +them his hands and feet.] Even yet they could not believe it for sheer +joy; they were lost in wonder. So he said to them, 'Have you any food +here?' And when they handed him a piece of broiled fish, he took and ate +it in their presence. Then he said to them, 'When I was still with you, +this is what I told you, that whatever is written about me in the law of +Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled.' Then he opened +their minds to understand the scriptures. 'Thus,' he said, 'it is written +that the Christ has to suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and +that repentance and the remission of sins must be preached in his name to +all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. To this you must bear testimony. +And I will send down on you what my Father has promised; wait in the city +till you are endued with power from on high.' He led them out as far as +Bethany; then, lifting his hands, he blessed them. And as he blessed them, +he parted from them [and was carried up to heaven]. They [worshipped him +and] returned with great joy to Jerusalem, where they spent all their time +within the temple, blessing God." + +I am particularly glad to say that Dr. Moffatt is at work now on a _New +Translation of the Old Testament_. No man living is fitter for this +tremendously important and tremendously difficult task than James Moffatt. +Born in Glasgow in 1870, Dr. Moffatt has been Professor of Church History +there since 1915. Of his many published studies in Bible literature, I now +speak only of _The Approach to the New Testament_, which he modestly +describes as "a brief statement of the general situation created by +historical criticism," aiming to "bring out the positive value of the New +Testament literature for the world of today as a source of guidance in +social reconstruction, so that readers might be enabled to recover or +retain a sense of its lasting significance for personal faith and social +ideals." + +=ii= + +With Alfred Dwight Sheffield's _Joining in Public Discussion_ was begun +publication of a unique collection of books suitable alike for general +reading and for use in trade union colleges. This is the Workers' +Bookshelf Series. These books, in many instances, are being written by the +chief authorities on their subjects--men who have dealt exhaustively with +their specialties in two and three-volume treatises, and who now bring +their great knowledge to a sharp focus and a simple, condensed statement +in small but wholly authoritative new books. + +The work of preparing these little masterpieces has been undertaken by an +editorial board chosen with the aid of the Workers' Education Bureau of +America. The board consists of Charles A. Beard, Miss Fannia Cohn, H. W. +L. Dana, John P. Frey, Arthur Gleason, Everitt Dean Martin, Spencer +Miller, Jr., George W. Perkins and Robert Wolf. + +Trade union colleges now exist all over the United States, training armies +of workers. The lack of suitable texts for use in these colleges has been +a serious obstacle to the training they desire to give. + +This obstacle the Workers' Bookshelf overcomes. The books that compose it +will each be distinguished for (a) scholarship, (b) a scientific attitude +toward facts, and (c) simplicity of style. + +Each volume is beginning as a class outline and will receive the benefit +of every suggestion, and criticism through its gradual growth into the +written book. + +Each book will be brief. Its references will help the reader to more +detailed sources of information. + +By binding the books in paper as well as in cloth, the volumes will be +brought within the reach of all. + +The Workers' Bookshelf will contain no volumes on vocational guidance, nor +any books which give "short cuts" to moneymaking success. + +The series will not be limited to any set number of volumes nor to any +programme of subjects. Art, literature and the natural sciences, as well +as the social sciences, will be dealt with. New titles will be added as +the demand for treatment of a topic becomes apparent. + +The first use of these books will be as texts to educate workers; the +intermediate use of the books will be as the nucleus of workingmen's +libraries, collective and personal, and the last use of the Workers' +Bookshelf will be to instruct and delight all readers of serious books +everywhere. + +In our modern industrial society, knowledge--things to know--increases +much more rapidly than our understanding. The worker finds it increasingly +difficult to comprehend the world he has done most to create. The +education of the worker consists in showing him in a simple fashion the +interrelations of that world and all its aspects as they are turned toward +him. On the education of the worker depends the future of industrialism, +and, indeed, of all human society. + +The author of _Joining in Public Discussion_ is professor of rhetoric in +Wellesley College and instructor in the Boston Trade Union College. His +book "is a study of effective speechmaking, for members of labour unions, +conferences, forums and other discussion groups." The first section is +upon "Qualifying Oneself to Contribute" to any discussion and the second +section is upon "Making the Discussion Group Co-operate." A brief +introduction explains "What Discussion Aims to Do." + +The following titles of the Workers' Bookshelf are in preparation: + +_Trade Union Policy_, by Dr. Leo Wolman, lecturer at the New School for +Social Research and instructor in the Workers' University of the +International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union. + +_Women and the Labor Movement_, by Alice Henry, editor of Life and Labour, +director of the Training School for Women Workers in Industry. + +_Labor and Health_, by Dr. Emery Hayhurst of Ohio State University, author +of "Industrial Health Hazards and Occupational Diseases." + +_Social Forces in Literature_, by Dr. H. W. L. Dana, formerly teacher of +comparative literature at Columbia, now instructor at Boston Trade Union +College. + +_The Creative Spirit in Industry_, by Robert B. Wolf, vice-president of +the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, member of the Federated +American Engineering Society. + +_Cooperative Movement_, by Dr. James B. Warbasse, president of the +Cooperative League of America and instructor at the Workers' University. + +=iii= + +Side by side in Esme Wingfield-Stratford's _Facing Reality_ are chapters +with these titles: "Thinking in a Passion" and "Mental Inertia." Those +chapter titles seem to me to signify the chief dangers confronting the +world today--perhaps confronting the world in any day--and the main +reasons why we do not face reality as we should. I regard _Facing Reality_ +as an important book and I am not alone in so regarding it. What do we +mean by reality? The answer is explicit in a sentence in Mr. +Wingfield-Stratford's introduction, where he says: + +"But if we are to get right with reality or, in the time-honoured +evangelical phrase, with God, it must be by a ruthless determination to +get the truth in religion, even if we have to break down Church walls to +attain it." + +Then the author proceeds to assess the social and ethical conditions which +threaten the world with spiritual bankruptcy. As he says: + +"Whether Germany can be fleeced of a yearly contribution, of doubtful +advantage to the receiver, for forty years or sixty, what particular +economic laws decree that Poles should be governed by Germans or +vice-versa, whose honour or profit demands the possession of the town of +Fiume or the district of Tetschen or the Island of Yap, why all the horses +and men of the Entente are necessary to compel the Port of Dantzig to +become a free city, what particular delicacy of national honour requires +that the impartial distribution of colonies should be interpreted as +meaning the appropriation of the whole of them by the victors--all these +things are held by universal consent to be more urgent and interesting +than the desperate necessity that confronts us all." + +And yet, for some, reality is not immanent in the affairs of this world +but only in those of the next. Among the men who, with Sir Oliver Lodge, +have gone most deeply and earnestly into the whole subject we call +"spiritualism," Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is now the most widely known as he +has always been the most persuasive. The overflowing crowds which came out +to hear him lecture on psychic evidences during his recent tour of America +testify to the unquenchable hope of mankind in a life beyond ours. Sir +Arthur has written three books on this subject closest to his heart. _The +New Revelation_ and _The Vital Message_ are both short books presenting +the general case for spiritualists; _The Wanderings of a Spiritualist_, +the result of a lecture tour in India and Australia, commingles incidents +of travel with discussions of psychic phenomena. I believe Sir Arthur has +in preparation a more extensive work, probably to be published under the +title _Spiritualism and Rationalism_. + +In recent years there has been something like a consensus honouring +Havelock Ellis as the ablest living authority on the subject of sex; or +perhaps I should say that Mr. Ellis and his wife are the most competent +writers on this difficult and delicate subject, so beset by fraudulent +theories and so much written upon by charlatans. Let me recommend to you +Havelock Ellis's slender book, _Little Essays of Love and Virtue_, for a +sane, attractive and, at the same time, authoritative handling of sex +problems. + +=iv= + +_Little Essays of Love and Virtue_, however, is, after all, only upon a +special subject, even though of extreme importance. There are others among +the books we live by which I must speak of here. It is tiresome to point +out that we are all self-made men or women, consciously or unconsciously, +in the sense that if we gain control of our habits, to a very large extent +we acquire control of our lives. If, in _Some Things That Matter_ Lord +Riddell did no more than point out this old truth, his book would not be +worth mentioning. What makes it so well worth mentioning, so much more +deserving of discussion than any I can enter upon here, is the fact that +Lord Riddell tells how to observe, how to read, and how to think--or +perhaps I should say how to develop the habit of thought. I think, so able +are his instructions, so pointed and so susceptible of carrying out by any +reader, that his book would carry due weight even if it were anonymous. +But for those who want assurance that the author of _Some Things That +Matter_ is himself somebody who matters, let me point out that he is one +of the largest newspaper proprietors in the world, a man whose grasp on +affairs has twice placed him at the head of news service for two +continents--once at the Peace Conference in Paris and afterward at the +Disarmament Conference in Washington. + +_Some Things That Matter_ is the best book of its kind since Arnold +Bennett's _How to Live on Twenty-four Hours a Day_, a little book of +trenchant advice to which it is a pleasure again to call attention. Of all +Mr. Bennett's pocket philosophies--_Self and Self-Management_, _Friendship +and Happiness_, _The Human Machine_, _Mental Efficiency_ and _Married +Life_--_How to Live on_ _Twenty-four Hours a Day_ is easily of the +greatest service to the greatest number of people. + +=v= + +I read Dr. George L. Perin's _Self-Healing Simplified_ in manuscript and +enthusiastically recommended its acceptance for publication. Dr. Perin was +the founder of the Franklin Square House for Girls in Boston, a home-hotel +from which 70,000 girls, most of whom Dr. Perin knew personally, have gone +forth all over these United States. His death at the end of 1921 was felt +by thousands of people as a personal loss. He left, in the manuscript of +this book, the best and simplest volume I know of on what is generally +called autosuggestion. And I have examined a great many books of the +sort. + +Discarding all extreme claims, Dr. Perin says in the first place that the +mind can heal; that it may not be able to heal alone; that obviously no +form of healing can be successful without a favourable mental state; that +the favourable mental state can usually be acquired by the sincere and +conscious effort of the sufferer. This effort should take the form of +certain affirmations. + +It is at this point that the ordinary book on autosuggestion breaks +down--so far as any practical usefulness is concerned. Either it +degenerates into a purely technical treatise or it becomes lost in a +mysticism which is to the average reader incomprehensible. What has long +been needed has been a book like _Self-Healing Simplified_, readable by +the ordinary person who has his own troubles to contend with and who knows +not how to contend with them; who is willing to believe that he can do his +part by cheerful resolutions and faith toward getting well, but who has no +idea what to do. + +Dr. Perin tells him _what_ to do, _what_ to say, _what_ to think and how +to order his daily life. Actually Dr. Perin does much more than this; his +own confidence and personal success inspire confidence and give the +impulsion toward one's own personal success. However, excellent as the +book might be, it would be worthless if it were not clearly and simply +expressed. It is. I remember no book of the kind so direct and so lucid. + +=vi= + +It is a pleasure to feel that his new book, _Poets and Puritans_, +introduces T. R. Glover to a wider audience. The author of _The Pilgrim_, +_Essays on Religion_, _The Nature and Purpose of a Christian Society_, +_Jesus in the Experience of Man_ and _The Jesus of History_ is a scholar +and somewhat of a recluse whom one finds after much groping about dim +halls at Cambridge. A highly individual personality! It is this +personality, though, that makes the fascination of _Poets and Pilgrims_--a +volume of studies in which the subjects are Spenser, Milton, Evelyn, +Bunyan, Boswell, Crabbe, Wordsworth and Carlyle. Mr. Glover notes at the +foot of the table of contents: "An acute young critic, who saw some of the +proofs, has asked me, with a hint of irony, whether Evelyn and Boswell +were Puritans or Poets. Any reader who has a conscience about the matter +must omit these essays." There you have the flavour of the man! It is +expressed further in the short preface of _Poets and Puritans_:-- + +"Wandering among books and enjoying them, I find in a certain sense that, +the more I enjoy them, the harder becomes the task of criticism, the less +sure one's faith in critical canons, and the fewer the canons themselves. +Of one thing, though, I grow more and more sure--that the real business of +the critic is to find out what is right with a great work of art--book, +song, statue, or picture--not what is wrong. Plenty of things may be +wrong, but it is what is right that really counts. If the critic's work is +to be worth while, it is the great element in the thing that he has to +seek and to find--to learn what it is that makes it live and gives it its +appeal, so that, as Montaigne said about Plutarch, men 'cannot do without' +it; why it is that in a world, where everything that can be 'scrapped' is +'scrapped,' is thrown aside and forgotten, this thing, this book or +picture, refuses to be ignored, but captures and charms men generations +after its maker has passed away. + +"With such a quest a man must not be in a hurry, and he does best to +linger in company with the great men whose work he wishes to understand, +and to postpone criticism to intimacy. This book comes in the end to be a +record of personal acquaintances and of enjoyment. But one is never done +with knowing the greatest men or the greatest works of art--they carry you +on and on, and at the last you feel you are only beginning. That is my +experience. I would not say that I know these men, of whom I have written, +thoroughly--a man of sense would hardly say that, but I can say that I +have enjoyed my work, and that, whatever other people may find it, to me +it has been a delight and an illumination." + +Another welcome book is E. V. Lucas's _Giving and Receiving_, a new volume +of essays. Since the appearance of _Roving East and Roving West_, Mr. +Lucas has been looking back at America from London with its fogs and +(yes!) its sunshine. The audience for his new book will include not only +those readers he has had for such volumes in the past but all those +personal friends that he made in a visit that took him from California to +the Battery. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +ROBERT W. CHAMBERS AND THE WHOLE TRUTH + + +=i= + +Once a man came to Robert W. Chambers and said words to this effect: + +"You had a great gift as a literary artist and you spoiled it. For some +reason or other, I don't know what, but I suppose there was more money in +the other thing, you wrote down to a big audience. Don't you think, +yourself, that your earlier work--those stories of Paris and those novels +of the American revolution--had something that you have sacrificed in your +novels of our modern day?" + +Mr. Chambers listened politely and attentively. When the man had finished, +Chambers said to him words to this effect: + +"You are mistaken. I have heard such talk. I am not to blame if some +people entertain a false impression. I have sacrificed nothing, neither +for money nor popularity nor anything else. + +"Sir, I am a story-teller. I have no other gift. Those who imagine that +they have seen in my earlier work some quality of literary distinction or +some unrealised possibility as an artist missing from my later work, are +wrong. + +"They have read into those stories their own satisfaction in them and +their first delight. I was new, then. In their pleasure, such as it was, +they imagined the arrival of someone whom they styled a great literary +artist. They imagined it all; it was not I. + +"A story-teller I began, and a story-teller I remain. I do pride myself on +being a good story-teller; if the verdict were overwhelmingly against me +as a good story-teller that would cast me down. I have no reason to +believe that the verdict is against me. + +"And that is the ground I myself have stood upon. I am not responsible for +the delusion of those who put me on some other, unearthly pinnacle, only +to realise, as the years went by, that I was not there at all. But they +can find me now where they first found me--where I rather suspect they +found me first with unalloyed delight." + +This does not pretend to be an actual transcription of the conversation +between Mr. Chambers and his visitor. I asked Mr. Chambers recently if he +recalled this interview. He said at this date he did not distinctly +recollect it and he added: + +"Probably I said what is true, that I write the sort of stories which at +the moment it amuses me to write; I trust to luck that it may also amuse +the public. + +"If a writer makes a hit with a story the public wants him to continue +that sort of story. It does not like to follow the moods of a writer from +gay to frivolous, from serious to grave, but I have always liked to +change, to experiment--just as I used to like to change my medium in +painting, aquarelle, oil, charcoal, wash, etc. + +"Unless I had a good time writing I'd do something else. I suit myself +first of all in choice of subject and treatment, and leave the rest to the +gods." + +As a human creature Chambers is strikingly versatile. It must always be +remembered that he started life as a painter. There is a story that +Charles Dana Gibson and Robert W. Chambers sent their first offerings to +Life at the same time. Mr. Chambers sent a picture and Mr. Gibson sent a +bit of writing. Mr. Gibson's offering was accepted and Robert W. Chambers +received a rejection slip. + +Not only was he a painter but Chambers has preserved his interest in art, +and is a welcome visitor in the offices of curators and directors of +museums because he is one of the few who can talk intelligently about +paintings. + +He knows enough about Chinese and Japanese antiques to enable him to +detect forgeries. He knows more about armour than anyone, perhaps, except +the man who made the marvellous collection of mediaeval armour for the +Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. + +One of his varieties of knowledge, observable by any reader of his novels, +is lepidoptery--the science of butterflies. He collects butterflies with +exceeding ardour. But then, he is a good deal of an outdoor man. He knows +horses and books; he has been known to hunt; he has been seen with a +fishing rod in his hand. + +His knowledge of out-of-the-way places in different parts of the +world--Paris, Petrograd--is not usual. + +Will you believe me if I add that he is something of an expert on rare +rugs? + +Of course, I am, to some extent, taking Rupert Hughes's word for these +accomplishments; and yet they are visible in the written work of Robert W. +Chambers where, as a rule, they appear without extrusion. + +=ii= + +And here is the newest Robert W. Chambers novel, _Eris_. Mr. Chambers's +_The Flaming Jewel_, a melodrama of the maddest character, was published +last spring. _Eris_ is really a story of the movie world, and reaches its +most definite conclusion, possibly, in a passage where the hero says to +Eris Odell: + +"Whether they are financing a picture, directing it, releasing it, +exhibiting it, or acting in it, these vermin are likely to do it to death. +Your profession is crawling with them. It needs delousing." + +But I am not really anxious, in this chapter, to discuss the justice or +injustice of the view of motion pictures thus forcibly presented. I have +read _Eris_ with an interest sharpened by the fact that its hero is a +writer. I seem to see in what is said about and by Barry Annan expressions +of Mr. Chambers's own attitude of more than casual importance. + +Barry Annan is obsessed with the stupidity of the American mass and more +particularly with the grossness (as he sees it) of New York City. + +"Annan went on with his breakfast leisurely. As he ate he read over his +pencilled manuscript and corrected it between bites of muffin and bacon. + +"It was laid out on the lines of those modern short stories which had +proven so popular and which had lifted Barry Annan out of the uniform +ranks of the unidentified and given him an individual and approving +audience for whatever he chose to offer them. + +"Already there had been lively competition among periodical publishers for +the work of this newcomer. + +"His first volume of short stories was now in preparation. Repetition had +stencilled his name and his photograph upon the public cerebrum. Success +had not yet enraged the less successful in the literary puddle. The frogs +chanted politely in praise of their own comrade. + +"The maiden, too, who sips the literary soup that seeps through the pages +of periodical publications, was already requesting his autograph. Clipping +agencies began to pursue him; film companies wasted his time with +glittering offers that never materialised. Annan was on the way to +premature fame and fortune. And to the aftermath that follows for all who +win too easily and too soon. + +"There is a King Stork for all puddles. His law is the law of +compensations. Dame Nature executes it--alike on species that swarm and on +individuals that ripen too quickly. + +"Annan wrote very fast. There was about thirty-five hundred words in the +story of Eris. He finished it by half past ten. + +"Re-reading it, he realised it had all the concentrated brilliancy of an +epigram. Whether or not it would hold water did not bother him. The story +of Eris was Barry Annan at his easiest and most persuasive. There was the +characteristic and ungodly skill in it, the subtle partnership with a +mindless public that seduces to mental speculation; the reassuring caress +as reward for intellectual penetration; that inborn cleverness that makes +the reader see, applaud, or pity him or herself in the sympathetic role of +a plaything of Chance and Fate. + +"And always Barry Annan left the victim of his tact and technique +agreeably trapped, suffering gratefully, excited by self-approval to the +verge of sentimental tears. + +"'That'll make 'em ruffle their plumage and gulp down a sob or two,' he +reflected, his tongue in his cheek, a little intoxicated, as usual, by his +own infernal facility. + +"He lit a cigarette, shuffled his manuscript, numbered the pages, and +stuffed them into his pocket. The damned thing was done." + +And again:-- + +"Considering her, now, a half-smile touching his lips, it occurred to him +that here, in her, he saw his audience in the flesh. This was what his +written words did to his readers. His skill held their attention; his +persuasive technique, unsuspected, led them where he guided. His +cleverness meddled with their intellectual emotions. The more primitive +felt it physically, too. + +"When he dismissed them at the bottom of the last page they went away +about their myriad vocations. But his brand was on their hearts. They were +his, these countless listeners whom he had never seen--never would see. + +"He checked his agreeable revery. This wouldn't do. He was becoming smug. +Reaction brought the inevitable note of alarm. Suppose his audience tired +of him. Suppose he lost them. Chastened, he realised what his audience +meant to him--these thousands of unknown people whose minds he titivated, +whose reason he juggled with and whose heart-strings he yanked, his tongue +in his cheek." + +And this further on:-- + +"He went into his room but did not light the lamp. For a long while he sat +by the open window looking out into the darkness of Governor's Place. + +"It probably was nothing he saw out there that brought to his lips a +slight recurrent smile. + +"The bad habit of working late at night was growing on this young man. It +is a picturesque habit, and one of the most imbecile, because sound work +is done only with a normal mind. + +"He made himself some coffee. A rush of genius to the head followed +stimulation. He had a grand time, revelling with pen and pad and littering +the floor with inked sheets unnumbered and still wet. His was a messy +genius. His plot-logic held by the grace of God and a hair-line. Even the +Leaning Tower of Pisa can be plumbed; and the lead dangled inside +Achilles's tendon when one held the string to the medulla of Annan's +stories." + +Our young man is undergoing a variety of interesting changes: + +"Partly experimental, partly sympathetically responsive, always tenderly +curious, this young man drifted gratefully through the inevitable episodes +to which all young men are heir. + +"And something in him always transmuted into ultimate friendship the +sentimental chaos, where comedy and tragedy clashed at the crisis. + +"The result was professional knowledge. Which, however, he had employed +rather ruthlessly in his work. For he resolutely cut out all that had been +agreeable to the generations which had thriven on the various phases of +virtue and its rewards. Beauty he replaced with ugliness; dreary squalor +was the setting for crippled body and deformed mind. The heavy twilight of +Scandinavian insanity touched his pages where sombre shapes born out of +Jewish Russia moved like anachronisms through the unpolluted sunshine of +the New World. + +"His were essays on the enormous meanness of mankind--meaner conditions, +mean minds, mean aspirations, and a little mean horizon to encompass all. + +"Out of his theme, patiently, deftly, ingeniously he extracted every atom +of that beauty, sanity, inspired imagination which _makes_ the imperfect +more perfect, creates _better_ than the materials permit, _forces_ real +life actually to assume and _be_ what the passionate desire for sanity and +beauty demands." + +There comes a time when Eris Odell says to Barry Annan:-- + +"'I could neither understand nor play such a character as the woman in +your last book.... Nor could I ever believe in her.... Nor in the ugliness +of her world--the world you write about, nor in the dreary, hopeless, +malformed, starving minds you analyse.... My God, Mr. Annan--are there no +wholesome brains in the world you write about?'" + +I think these citations interesting. I do not feel especially competent to +produce from them inferences regarding Mr. Chambers's own attitude toward +his work. + +_Eris_ will be published early in 1923, following Mr. Chambers's _The +Talkers_. + +=iii= + +Mr. Chambers was born in Brooklyn, May 26, 1865, the son of William +Chambers and Carolyn (Boughton) Chambers. Walter Boughton Chambers, the +architect, is his brother. Robert William Chambers was a student in the +Julien Academy in Paris from 1886 to 1893. He married, on July 12, 1898, +Elsa Vaughn Moler. He first exhibited in the Paris Salon in 1889; he was +an illustrator for Life, Truth, Vogue and other magazines. His first book, +_In the Quarter_, was published in 1893; and when, in the same year, a +collection of stories of Paris called _The King in Yellow_ made its +appearance, Robert W. Chambers became a name of literary importance. + +Curiously enough, among the things persistently remembered about Mr. +Chambers to this day is a particular poem in a book of rollicking verse +called _With the Band_, which he published in 1895. This cherished--by +very many people scattered here and there--poem had to do with Irishmen +parading. One stanza will identify it. + + "Ses Corporal Madden to Private McFadden: + 'Bedad yer a bad 'un! + Now turn out yer toes! + Yer belt is unhookit, + Yer cap is on crookit, + Yer may not be drunk, + But, be jabers, ye look it! + Wan-two! + Wan-two! + Ye monkey-faced divil, I'll jolly ye through! + Wan-two! + Time! Mark! + Ye march like the aigle in Cintheral Park!'" + +In the course of writing many books, Chambers has been responsible for one +or two shows. He wrote for Ada Rehan, _The Witch of Ellangowan_, a drama +produced at Daly's Theatre. His _Iole_ was the basis of a delightful +musical comedy produced in New York in 1913. He is a member of the +National Institute of Arts and Letters. + +BOOKS BY ROBERT W. CHAMBERS + +IN THE QUARTER +THE KING IN YELLOW +THE RED REPUBLIC +THE KING AND A FEW DUKES +THE MAKER OF MOONS +WITH THE BAND +THE MYSTERY OF CHOICE +LORRAINE +ASHES OF EMPIRE +THE HAUNTS OF MEN +THE CAMBRIC MASK +OUTSIDERS +THE CONSPIRATORS +CARDIGAN +THE MAID-AT-ARMS +OUTDOOR-LAND +THE MAIDS OF PARADISE +ORCHARD-LAND +FOREST LAND +IOLE +THE FIGHTING CHANCE +MOUNTAIN LAND +THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS +THE TREE OF HEAVEN +THE FIRING LINE +SOME LADIES IN HASTE +THE DANGER MARK +THE SPECIAL MESSENGER +HIDE AND SEEK IN FORESTLAND +THE GREEN MOUSE +AILSA PAIGE +BLUE-BIRD WEATHER +JAPONETTE +THE STREETS OF ASCALON +ADVENTURES OF A MODEST MAN +THE BUSINESS OF LIFE +THE COMMON LAW +THE GAY REBELLION +WHO GOES THERE? +THE HIDDEN CHILDREN +ATHALIE +POLICE!!! +THE GIRL PHILIPPA +THE BARBARIANS +THE RESTLESS SEX +THE MOONLIT WAY +IN SECRET +THE CRIMSON TIDE +THE SLAYER OF SOULS +THE LITTLE RED FOOT +THE FLAMING JEWEL +THE TALKERS +ERIS + +SOURCES ON ROBERT W. CHAMBERS + +Hugh Walpole: An Appreciation, by Joseph Hergesheimer, GEORGE H. DORAN +COMPANY. + +English Literature During the Last Half Century, by J. W. Cunliffe, THE +MACMILLAN COMPANY. + +A Hugh Walpole Anthology, selected by the author. LONDON: J. M. DENT +& SONS. NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY. + +Hugh Walpole, Master Novelist. Pamphlet published by GEORGE H. DORAN +COMPANY. (Out of print.) + +Who's Who [In England]. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +UNIQUITIES + + +=i= + +Each of these five is a book which, either from its subject, its +authorship, or its handling, is _sui generis_. I call such books +"uniquities"; it sounds a little less trite than saying they are unique. I +think I will let someone else speak of these books. I will look to see, +and will let you see, what others have said about my uniquities. + +=ii= + +First we have _Our Navy at War_ by Josephus Daniels. W. B. M'Cormick, +formerly of the editorial staff of the Army and Navy Journal, reviewing +this book for the New York Herald (28 May 1922) said: + +"Josephus Daniels always was an optimist about navy affairs while he was +Secretary of the Navy from 1913 to 1921, and now that he has told what the +navy did during the world war he demonstrates in his narrative that he is +a good sport. For in spite of the many and bitter attacks that were made +on him in that troubled time he does not make a single reference to any of +them, nor does he wreak any such revenge as he might have done through +this medium. In this respect it may be said that truly does he live up to +the description of his character set down in the pages of Rear Admiral +Bradley A. Fiske's autobiography, namely, that 'Secretary Daniels +impressed me as being a Christian gentleman.' + +"In its general outlines and in many of its details there is little in Mr. +Daniels's story that has not been told before in volumes devoted to single +phases of the United States Navy's war operations. For example, his +chapter on the extraordinary task of laying the great mine fields, known +as the North Sea barrage, from Norway to the Orkneys, is much more fully +described in the account written by Captain Reginald R. Belknap; the story +of 'Sending Sims to Europe' is also more extensively presented in that +officer's book, _The Victory at Sea_, and the same qualification can be +applied to the chapter on the fighting of the marines in Belleau Wood and +elsewhere, and the work of our destroyers and submarines in European +waters. + +"But Mr. Daniels's history has one great merit that these other books +lack. This is that it tells in its 374 pages the complete story of the +work of the navy in the world war, giving so many details and so much +precise information about officers and their commands, ships of all +classes and just what they did, the valuable contributions made to the +winning of the war by civilians, that it makes a special place for itself, +a very special place, in any library or shelf devoted to war books." + +=iii= + +Leslie Haden Guest, a surgeon of wide experience and secretary of the +British Labour Delegation to Soviet Russia, is the author of _The Struggle +for Power in Europe (1917-21)_, "an outline economic and political survey +of the Central States and Russia," of which E. J. C. said in the Boston +Evening Transcript (4 March 1922): + +"The author writes from personal observation in Russia and discloses much +of the life of the day in that country which heretofore has remained +undisclosed to the world. He has met and interviewed Lenine and Trotsky +themselves, shows us the individuality of these great Bolshevist leaders +and tells us much of the life of the people and of the social conditions +and tendencies in that distressful country. + +"Next he crosses to Poland, another undiscovered country, and shows us the +new Poland, its aims and its struggles to emerge from a state almost of +anarchy into one of a rational democracy. Very little do we of this +country know of the new nation of Tcheko-Slovakia, but Dr. Guest has +travelled through it also and shows us the two sections, one cultured, the +other more backward, but both working together to form a modern democratic +nation. + +"The distressful condition of Austria and the Austrians now suffering for +the sins of the Hapsburgs, is next shown forth. Vienna, once the capital +of a vast empire and the seat of a great imperial court, was suddenly +reduced to the level of the capital of a small agricultural, inland state, +a condition productive of great suffering. The conditions here are shown +to differ much from those in other countries, for the dismemberment of +Austria was not brought about by the act of the Allies, but of their own +people. The causes of the suffering are fully explained, as are also the +causes of similar conditions in Hungary, in Roumania, in Bulgaria and in +other countries affected by the economic and political upheavals following +the war. That democracy in Europe will finally triumph Dr. Guest feels +certain and he gives lucid reasons for the faith that is in him. He gives +a broadly intelligent analysis of the entire situation and finds that the +essential conditions of success of a democracy are peace, education and +adequate nutrition. But he shows that a great problem exists which must be +worked out; and he shows how it must be worked out. Dr. Guest is not alone +a thinker, but an observer; not a theorist, but a man of practical +understanding, who has studied a problem at first hand and shows it forth +simply but comprehensively and with an eye single to the needs of +humanity." + +=iv= + +Of _Herman Melville: Mariner and Mystic_, by Raymond M. Weaver, Carl Van +Vechten, writing in the Literary Review of the New York Evening Post (31 +December 1921), said: + +"No biography of Melville, no important personal memorandum of the man, +was published during his lifetime. It is only now, thirty years after his +death and one hundred and two years after his birth, that Raymond M. +Weaver's _Herman Melville: Mariner and Mystic_ has appeared. + +"Under the circumstances, Mr. Weaver may be said to have done his work +well. The weakness of the book is due to the conditions controlling its +creation. Personal records in any great number do not exist. There are, to +be sure, Melville's letters to Hawthorne, published by Julian Hawthorne, +in his _Nathaniel Hawthorne and His Wife_. There are a few references to +Melville in the diary of Mrs. Hawthorne and in her letters to her mother. +There remain the short account given by J. E. A. Smith, a man with no kind +of mental approach to his hero, a few casual memories of Richard Henry +Stoddard, whose further testimony would have been invaluable had he been +inclined to be more loquacious, and a few more by Dr. Titus Munson Coan +and Arthur Stedman; but both these men, perhaps the nearest to Melville in +his later years, were agreed that he ceased to be an artist when he +deserted the prescribed field of _Typee_ and _Omoo_, and they harassed his +last days in their efforts to make him perceive this, much as if an +admirer of Verdi's early manner had attempted to persuade the composer +that work on 'Aida' and 'Otello' was a waste of time that might much +better be occupied in creating another 'Trovatore.' In desperation, +Melville refused to be lured into conversation about the South Seas, and +whenever the subject was broached he took refuge in quoting Plato. No very +competent witnesses, therefore, these. Aside from these sources, long open +to an investigator, Mr. Weaver has had the assistance of Mr. Melville's +granddaughter, who was not quite ten years old when Melville died, but who +has in her possession Mrs. Melville's commonplace book, Melville's diary +of two European excursions, and a few letters. + +"Generally, however, especially for the most important periods and the +most thrilling events in Melville's life, Mr. Weaver has been compelled to +depend upon the books the man wrote. + +"The book, on the whole, is worthy of its subject. It is written with +warmth, subtlety, and considerable humour. Smiles and thoughts lie hidden +within many of its pregnant lines. One of the biographer's very strangest +suggestions is never made concrete at all, so far as I can discern. The +figure of the literary discoverer of the South Seas emerges perhaps a bit +vaguely, his head in the clouds, but there is no reason to believe that +Melville's head was anywhere else when he was alive. Hawthorne is at last +described pretty accurately and not too flatteringly. _The Scarlet Letter_ +was published in 1850; _Moby Dick_ in 1851. It is one of the eternal +ironies that the one should be world-famous while the other is still +struggling for even national recognition. There are long passages, +well-studied and well-written, dealing with the whaling industry and the +early missionaries, which will be extremely helpful to any one who wants a +bibliographical background for the ocean and South Sea books. Melville's +London notebook is published for the first time and there is a nearly +complete reprint of his first known published paper 'Fragments From a +Writing Desk,' which appeared in two numbers of The Democratic Press and +Lansingburgh Advertiser in 1839 (not 1849, as the bibliography erroneously +gives it). Mr. Weaver is probably right in ascribing Melville's retirement +from literature to poverty (it was a fortunate year that brought him as +much as $100 in royalties and his account at Harper's was usually +overdrawn), to complete disillusionment, which made it impossible for him +to say more than he had already said, even on the subject of +disillusionment, and to ill-health. + +"It is a pleasure, moreover, to find that Mr. Weaver has a warm +appreciation of _Mardi_ and _Pierre_, books which have either been +neglected or fiercely condemned since they first appeared, books which are +no longer available save in early editions. They are not equal to _Moby +Dick_, but they are infinitely more important and more interesting than +_Typee_ and _Omoo_, on which the chief fame of the man rests. It is to his +credit that Mr. Weaver has perceived this, but a great deal more remains +to be said on the subject. _Mardi_, _Moby Dick_, and _Pierre_, as a matter +of fact, form a kind of tragic trinity: _Mardi_ is a tragedy of the +intellect; _Moby Dick_ a tragedy of the spirit, and _Pierre_ a tragedy of +the flesh. _Mardi_ is a tragedy of heaven, _Moby Dick_ a tragedy of hell, +and _Pierre_ a tragedy of the world we live in. + +"Considering the difficulties in his path, it may be said that Mr. Weaver +has solved his problem successfully. The faults of the book, to a large +extent, as I have already pointed out, are not the faults of the author, +but the faults of conditions circumscribing his work. At any rate, it can +no longer be said that no biography exists of the most brilliant figure in +the history of our letters, the author of a book which far surpasses every +other work created by an American from _The Scarlet Letter_ to _The Golden +Bowl_. For _Moby Dick_ stands with the great classics of all times, with +the tragedies of the Greeks, with _Don Quixote_, with _Dante's Inferno_ +and with Shakespeare's _Hamlet_." + +=v= + +A man who is certainly an authority on naval subjects tells me that _The +Grand Fleet_ by Viscount Jellicoe of Scapa is the masterpiece of the great +war. He does not mean, of course, in a literary sense; but he does most +emphatically mean in every other sense. I quote from the review by P. L. +J., of Admiral Jellicoe's second book, _The Crisis of the Naval War_. The +review appeared in that valuable Annapolis publication, the Proceedings of +the United States Naval Institute for April, 1921: + +"This interesting book is the complement of his first volume, _The Grand +Fleet,1914-16_. Admiral Jellicoe, the one man who was best situated to +know, now draws aside the curtains and reveals to us the efforts made by +the Admiralty to overcome the threat made by the German submarine +campaign. The account not only deals with the origin ashore of the defence +and offence against submarines, but follows to sea the measures adopted +where their application and results are shown. + +"The first chapter deals at length with the changes made in the admiralty +that the organisation might be logical and smooth working to avoid +conflict of authority, to have no necessary service neglected, to provide +the necessary corps of investigators of new devices, and above all to free +the first Sea Lord and his assistants of a mass of detail that their +efforts might be concentrated on the larger questions. + +"The appendices are of value and interesting because they show the +organisation at different periods and emphasise the fact that the Naval +Staff at the end of the war was the result of trial and error, natural +growth, and at least one radical change adopted during the war. + +"Chapters II and III deal with the Submarine Campaign in 1917 and the +measures adopted to win success. The gradual naval control of all merchant +shipping with its attendant difficulties is clearly shown. The tremendous +labour involved in putting into operation new measures; the unremitting +search for and development of new antisubmarine devices is revealed, and +above all the length of time necessary to put into operation any new +device, and this when time is the most precious element, is pointed out. + +"That a campaign against the enemy must be waged with every means at hand; +that new weapons must be continually sought; that no 'cure-all' by which +the enemy may be defeated without fighting can be expected; that during +war is the poorest time to provide the material which should be provided +during peace, the Admiral shows in a manner not to be gainsaid. + +"Chapters IV and V deal with the testing, introduction, and gradual growth +of the convoy system. It is shown how the introduction of this system was +delayed by lack of vessels to perform escort duty and why when finally +adopted it was so successful because it was not only defensive but +offensive in that it meant a fight for a submarine to attack a vessel +under convoy. + +"Chapter VI is devoted to the entry of the United States. The accurate +estimate of our naval strength by both the enemy and the allies, and our +inability upon the declaration of war to lend any great assistance are +shown--and this at the most critical period for the Allies--a period when +the German submarine campaign was at its height, when the tonnage lost +monthly by the Allies was far in excess of what can be replaced--when the +destruction of merchant shipping if continued at the then present rate +would in a few months mean the defeat of the Allies." + +=vi= + +I will give you what Admiral Caspar F. Goodrich said in the Weekly Review +(30 April 1921; The Weekly Review has since been combined with The +Independent) regarding _A History of Sea Power_, by William O. Stevens and +Allan Westcott: + +"Two professors at the Naval Academy, the one a historian, the other a +close student of Mahan, have written a noteworthy volume in their _History +of Sea Power_, published in excellent form, generously supplied with maps, +illustrations, and index. The title suggests Mahan's classic which is +largely followed in plan and treatment. It will be remembered that his +writings covered in detail only the years from 1660 to 1815. While not +neglecting this period, this book is particularly valuable for events not +within its self-assigned limits. Practically it is a history of naval +warfare from ancient times to the present day. Each chapter deals briefly, +but ably, with one epoch and closes with an appropriate bibliography for +those who care to go more fully into the question; a commendable feature. +The last chapter, 'Conclusions,' deserves especial attention. Naturally, +considerable space is devoted to the story and analysis of Jellicoe's +fight. Few will disagree with the verdict of the authors: + +"'It is no reflection on the personal courage of the Commander-in-Chief +that he should be moved by the consideration of saving his ships. The +existence of the Grand Fleet was, of course, essential to the Allied +cause, and there was a heavy weight of responsibility hanging on its use. +But again it is a matter of naval doctrine. Did the British fleet exist +merely to maintain a numerical preponderance over its enemy or to crush +that enemy--whatever the cost? If the Battle of Jutland receives the stamp +of approval as the best that could have been done, then the British or the +American officer of the future will know that he is expected primarily to +"play safe." But he will never tread the path of Blake, Hawke, or Nelson, +the men who made the traditions of the Service and forged the anchors of +the British Empire.' + +"One factor in the success of the antisubmarine campaign is not mentioned, +important as it proved to be. This was the policy adopted by the Allies of +not giving out the news that any U-boat was captured or otherwise +accounted for. Confronted with this appalling veil of mystery the morale +of the German submarine crews became seriously affected; volunteering for +this service gradually ceased; arbitrary detail grew necessary; greatly +lessened efficiency resulted. + +"The authors are to be congratulated on producing a volume which should be +in the hands of all naval officers of the coming generation; on the +shelves of all who take interest in the development of history; and of +statesmen upon whom may eventually rest the responsibility of heeding or +not heeding the teachings of Mahan as here sympathetically and cleverly +brought up to date." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE CONFESSIONS OF A WELL-MEANING YOUNG MAN, STEPHEN MCKENNA + + +=i= + +In a sense, all of Stephen McKenna's writing has been a confession. More +than any other novelist now actively at work, this young man bases fiction +on biographical and autobiographical material; and when he sits down +deliberately to write reminiscences, such as _While I Remember_, the +result is merely that, in addition to confessing himself, he confesses +others. + +He has probably had more opportunity of knowing the social and political +life of London from the inside than most novelists of his time. In _While +I Remember_ he gives his recollections, while his memory is still fresh +enough to be vivid, of a generation that closed, for literary if not for +political purposes, with the Peace Conference. There is a power of wit and +mordant humour and a sufficiency of descriptive power and insight into +human character in all his work. + +[Illustration: STEPHEN McKENNA] + +_While I Remember_ is actually a gallery of pictures taken from the life +and executed with the technique of youth by a man still young--pictures of +public school and university life, of social London from the death of King +Edward to the Armistice, of domestic and foreign politics of the period, +of the public services of Great Britain at home and abroad. Though all +these are within the circle of Mr. McKenna's narrative, literary +London--the London that is more talked about than seen--is the core of his +story. + +=ii= + +Mr. McKenna's latest novel, _The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman_, is +a series of monologues addressed by one Lady Ann Spenworth to "a friend of +proved discretion." I quote from the London Times of April 6, 1922: "In +the course of them Lady Ann Spenworth reveals to us the difficulties +besetting a lady of rank. She is compelled to live in a house in Mount +street--for how could she ask 'The Princess' to visit her in +Bayswater?--and her income of a few thousands, hardly supplemented by her +husband's directorships, is depleted by the disbursements needed to keep +the name of her only son out of the newspapers while she is obtaining for +him the wife and the salary suited to his requirements and capacities. Mr. +Stephen McKenna provides us with the same kind of exasperating +entertainment that we get at games from watching a skilful and +unscrupulous veteran. Her deftness in taking a step or two forward in the +centre and so putting the fast wing off side; her air of sporting +acquiescence touched with astonishment when a penalty is given against her +for obstruction; her resolution in jumping in to hit a young bowler off +his length; the trouble she has with her shoe-lace when her opponent is +nervous; the suddenness with which every now and again her usually +deliberate second service will follow her first; the slight pucker in her +eyebrows when she picks up a hand full of spades; the pluck with which she +throws herself on the ball when there is nothing else for it; her +dignified bonhomie in the dressing room! We all know Lady Ann and her +tricks, but nothing can be proved against her and she continues to play +for the best clubs. + +"In this story Lady Ann is playing the social game, and it is a tribute to +the skill of Mr. McKenna that at the end we hope that the Princess will be +sufficiently curious about her new 'frame and setting' to continue her +visits.... We have used the word 'story' because Lady Ann reports her +machinations while they are in progress and we are a little nervous about +the issue. Her main service, however, lies in the pictures she draws of +her own highly placed relatives and of a number of people who at house +parties and elsewhere may help ladies of title to make both ends meet. +Chief among them is her son Will, who even as seen through her partial +eyes, appears a very dishonest, paltry boy. Her blind devotion to him +humanises both her shrewdness and her selfishness. It is for his sake that +she separates her niece from the fine young soldier she is in love with +and that she almost succeeds in providing the King's Proctor with the +materials for an intervention that would secure to him the estates and +title of his fox-hunting uncle. There is always a plain tale to put her +down and always the friend of proved discretion is left with the +impression that the tale is the invention of malice; at least we suppose +she must be, for Lady Ann is allowed by people to whom she has done one +injury to remain in a position to do them another. The difficult medium +employed by Mr. McKenna entitles him, however, to count on the +co-operation of the reader; and it is to be accorded the more readily that +to it we owe the felicity of having her own account of the steps she took +to prevent an attractive but expensive widow from running away with her +husband, and of the party which she gave, according to plan, to the +Princess and, not according to plan, to other guests let loose on her by +her scapegrace brother-in-law." + +=iii= + +Stephen McKenna, the author of _Sonia_, not to be confused with Stephen +McKenna, the translator of Poltinus, belongs to the Protestant branch of +that royal Catholic sept which has had its home in the County Monagham +since the dawn of Irish history. Some members, even, of this branch have +reverted to the old faith since the date of Stephen McKenna's birth in the +year 1888 in London. + +He was a scholar of Westminster and an exhibitioner of Christ Church, +Oxford. After he had taken his degree, his father, Leopold McKenna, an +elder brother of the Right Honourable Reginald McKenna, K. C., the last +Liberal Chancellor of the British Exchequer, made it possible for him to +travel desultorily and to try his luck in the great literary adventure. + +On the outbreak of the war, as his health, which is delicate to the point +of frailness, debarred him from entering the army, Stephen McKenna first +volunteered for service at his old school, and, after a year, joined the +staff of the War Trade Intelligence Department, where he did valuable war +work for three and a half years. He represented his department on the +Right Honourable A. J. Balfour's mission in 1917, to the United States, +where he enjoyed himself thoroughly and made himself very popular; and he +did not sever his connection with the government service until February, +1919, four months after the conclusion of the armistice. + +Stephen McKenna's first three novels--_The Reluctant Lover_, _Sheila +Intervenes_ and _The Sixth Sense_--were written and published before their +author was 27 years of age! But _Sonia_, the story that made him widely +known, was written entirely during the period of his activities on the +staff of Westminster School and at the War Trade Intelligence Department. +The book won the public favour more quickly than perhaps any other novel +that has appeared in our time. + +The success of _Sonia_ was largely due to its description in a facile, +popular and yet eminently chaste and polished style, of the social and +political situation in England for a half generation before and during the +early stages of the war. This description Stephen McKenna was peculiarly +well-equipped to produce, not only as the near relative of a prominent +cabinet minister, but also as an assiduous frequenter of the leading +Liberal centre, the Reform Club, on the committee of which he had sat, +despite his youthful years, since 1915. The political interest, indeed, is +revealed in the subtitle, _Between Two Worlds_, which was originally +intended for the actual title. + +McKenna's next book, _Ninety-Six Hours' Leave_, appealed to the reader's +gayer moods and _Midas and Son_, with its tragic history of an +Anglo-American multimillionaire, to the reader in serious temper. + +In spite of certain blemishes due to Mr. McKenna's unfamiliarity with +American life, I should say that _Midas and Son_ is probably his ablest +work so far. I think it surpasses even _Sonia_. Mr. McKenna returned to +Sonia in his novel, _Sonia Married_. His work after that was a trilogy +called _The Sensationalists_, three brilliant studies of modern London in +the form of successive novels called _Lady Lilith_, _The Education of Eric +Lane_ and _The Secret Victory_. + +=iv= + +Writing from 11, Stone Buildings, Lincoln's Inn, London, in 1920, Mr. +McKenna had this to say about his trilogy: + +"_Lady Lilith_ is the first volume of a trilogy called _The +Sensationalists_, three books giving the history for a few years before +the war, during and immediately after the war, of a group of +sensation-mongers, emotion-hunters or whatever you like to call them, +whose principle and practice it was to startle the world by the +extravagance of their behaviour, speech, dress and thought and, in the +other sense of the word, sensationalism, to live on the excitement of new +experiences. Such people have always existed and always will exist, +receiving perhaps undue attention from the world that they set out to +astonish. You, I am sure, have them in America, as we have them here, and +in the luxurious and idle years before the war they had incomparable scope +for their search for novelty and their quest for emotion. Some of the +characters in _Lady Lilith_ have already been seen hovering in the +background of _Sonia_, _Midas and Son_ and _Sonia Married_, though the +principal characters in _Lady Lilith_ have not before been painted at full +length or in great detail; and these principal characters will be found in +all three books of the trilogy. + +"_Lady Lilith_, of course, takes its title from the Talmud, according to +which Lilith was Adam's first wife; and as mankind did not taste of the +Tree of Knowledge or of death until Eve came to trouble the Garden of +Eden, Lilith belongs to a time in which there was neither death nor +knowledge of good or evil in the world. She is immortal, unaging and +non-moral; her name is given by Valentine Arden, the young novelist who +appears in _Sonia_ and elsewhere, to Lady Barbara Neave, the principal +character in _Lady Lilith_ and one of the principal characters in the two +succeeding books." + +=v= + +In person, Stephen McKenna is tall, with a slender figure, Irish blue +eyes, fair hair, regular features and a Dante profile. He has an engaging +and very courteous address, a sympathetic manner, a ready but always +urbane wit and great conversational charm. He possesses the rare +accomplishment of "talking like a book." His intimates are legion; and, +apart from these, he knows everyone who "counts" in London society. He is +known never to lose his temper; and it is doubtful whether he has ever had +cause to lose it. + +His one recreation is the Opera; and during the London season his +delightful chambers in Lincoln's Inn are the almost nightly scene of +parties collected then and there from the opera house. + +=vi= + +A sample of _The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman_: + +"Lady Ann (_to a friend of proved discretion_): You have toiled all the +way here again? Do you know, I feel I am only beginning to find out who my +true friends are? I am much, much better.... On Friday I am to be allowed +on to the sofa and by the end of next week Dr. Richardson promises to let +me go back to Mount Street. Of course I should have liked the operation to +take place there--it is one's frame and setting, but, truly honestly, +Arthur and I have not been in a position to have any painting or papering +done for so long.... The surgeon insisted on a nursing home. Apparatus and +so on and so forth.... Quite between ourselves I fancy that they make a +very good thing out of these homes; but I am so thankful to be well again +that I would put up with almost any imposition.... + +"Everything went off too wonderfully. Perhaps you have seen my brother +Brackenbury? Or Ruth? Ah, I am sorry; I should have been vastly +entertained to hear what they were saying, what they dared say. Ruth did +indeed offer to pay the expenses of the operation--the belated prick of +conscience!--and it was on the tip of my tongue to say we are not yet +dependent on her spasmodic charity. Also, that I can keep my lips closed +about Brackenbury without expecting a--tip? But they know I can't afford +to refuse L500.... If they, if everybody would only leave one alone! Spied +on, whispered about.... + +"The papers made such an absurd stir! If you are known by name as +occupying any little niche, the world waits gaping below. I suppose I +ought to be flattered, but for days there were callers, letters, +telephone-messages. Like Royalty _in extremis_.... And I never pretended +that the operation was in any sense critical.... + +"Do you know, beyond saying that, I would much rather not talk about it? +This very modern frankness.... Not you, of course! But when a man like my +brother-in-law Spenworth strides in here a few hours before the anaesthetic +is administered and says 'What is the matter with you? Much ado about +nothing, I call it.' ... That from Arthur's brother to Arthur's wife, +when, for all he knew, he might never see her alive again.... I prefer +just to say that everything went off most satisfactorily and that I hope +now to be better than I have been for years...." + +BOOKS BY STEPHEN MCKENNA + +THE RELUCTANT LOVER +SHEILA INTERVENES +THE SIXTH SENSE +SONIA: BETWEEN TWO WORLDS +NINETY-SIX HOURS' LEAVE +MIDAS AND SON +SONIA MARRIED +LADY LILITH +THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE +THE SECRET VICTORY +WHILE I REMEMBER +THE CONFESSIONS OF A WELL-MEANING WOMAN + +SOURCES ON STEPHEN MCKENNA + +_Who's Who_ [In England]. + +Private Information. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +POETS AND PLAYWRIGHTS + + +=i= + +I have to tell about a number of poets and, regarding poets, I agree with +a very clever woman I know who declares that poetry is the most personal +of the arts and who further says that it is manifestly inadequate to talk +about a poet's work without giving a sample of his poetry. So, generally, +I shall quote one of the shorter poems or a passage from a longer poem. + +John Dos Passos, known for _Three Soldiers_ and for _Rosinante to the Road +Again_, will be still more variously known to those who read his book of +verse, _A Pushcart at the Curb_. This book bears a relation to +_Rosinante_, the contents grouping themselves under these general +headings: + + Winter in Castile + Nights by Bassano + Translations from the Spanish of Antonio Machado + Vagones de Tercera + Quai de la Tournelle + Of Foreign Travel + Phases of the Moon + +I will select for quotation the sixth or final poem dedicated to A. K. +McC. from the section entitled "Quai de la Tournelle," + + This is a garden + where through the russet mist of clustered trees + and strewn November leaves, + they crunch with vainglorious heels + of ancient vermilion + the dry dead of spent summer's greens, + and stalk with mincing sceptic steps, + and sound of snuffboxes snapping + to the capping of an epigram, + in fluffy attar-scented wigs ... + the exquisite Augustans. + +Christopher Morley is too well-known as a poet to require any explicit +account in this place. I shall remind you of the pleasure of reading him +by quoting the "Song For a Little House" from his book, _The Rocking +Horse_, and also a short verse from his _Translations from the Chinese_. + + I'm glad our house is a little house, + Not too tall nor too wide: + I'm glad the hovering butterflies + Feel free to come inside. + + Our little house is a friendly house, + It is not shy or vain; + It gossips with the talking trees, + And makes friends with the rain. + + And quick leaves cast a shimmer of green, + Against our whited walls, + And in the phlox, the courteous bees, + Are paying duty calls. + +But there is a different temper--or, if you like, tempering--to the verse +in _Translations from the Chinese_. I quote "A National Frailty": + + The American people + Were put into the world + To assist foreign lecturers. + When I visited them + They filled crowded halls + To hear me tell them Great Truths + Which they might as well have read + In their own prophet Thoreau. + They paid me, for this, + Three hundred dollars a night, + And ten of their mandarins + Invited me to visit at Newport. + My agent told me + If I would wear Chinese costume on the platform + It would be five hundred. + +In speaking of the late Joyce Kilmer, the temptation is inescapable to +quote his "Trees"; after all, it is his best known and best loved poem--in +certain moments it is his best poem! But instead, I will desert his +volume, _Trees and Other Poems_, and from his other book, _Main Street and +Other Poems_, I will quote the first two stanzas of Kilmer's "Houses"--a +poem written for his wife: + + When you shall die and to the sky + Serenely, delicately go, + Saint Peter, when he sees you there, + Will clash his keys and say: + "Now talk to her, Sir Christopher! + And hurry, Michelangelo! + She wants to play at building, + And you've got to help her play!" + + Every architect will help erect + A palace on a lawn of cloud, + With rainbow beams and a sunset roof, + And a level star-tiled floor; + And at your will you may use the skill + Of this gay angelic crowd, + When a house is made you will throw it down, + And they'll build you twenty more. + +Mrs. Kilmer is the author of two volumes of verse which have sold rather +more than John Masefield usually sells--at least, until the publication of +_Reynard the Fox. Candles That Burn_ created her audience and _Vigils_ has +been that audience's renewed delight. From _Vigils_ I take the poem "The +Touch of Tears." In it "Michael" is, of course, her own son: + + Michael walks in autumn leaves, + Rustling leaves and fading grasses, + And his little music-box + Tinkles faintly as he passes. + It's a gay and jaunty tune + If the hands that play were clever: + Michael plays it like a dirge, + Moaning on and on forever. + + While his happy eyes grow big, + Big and innocent and soulful, + Wistful, halting little notes + Rise, unutterably doleful, + Telling of all childish griefs-- + Baffled babies sob forsaken, + Birds fly off and bubbles burst, + Kittens sleep and will not waken. + + Michael, it's the touch of tears. + Though you sing for very gladness, + Others will not see your mirth; + They will mourn your fancied sadness. + Though you laugh at them in scorn, + Show your happy heart for token, + Michael, you'll protest in vain-- + They will swear your heart is broken! + +I think I have said elsewhere that J. C. Squire prefers his serious poems +to those parodies of which he is such an admitted master. It seems only +decent to defer, in this place, to the author's own feeling in the matter. +Mr. Squire is the author of _The Birds and Other Poems_ and _Poems: Second +Series_. My present choice is the beginning and the close of the poem, +"Harlequin"--which is in both books: + + Moonlit woodland, veils of green, + Caves of empty dark between; + Veils of green from rounded arms + Drooping, that the moonlight charms: + Tranced the trees, grass beneath + Silent ... + Like a stealthy breath, + Mask and wand and silver skin + Sudden enters Harlequin. + + Hist! Hist! Watch him go, + Leaping limb and pointing toe, + Slender arms that float and flow, + Curving wand above, below; + Flying, gliding, changing feet; + Onset merging in retreat. + + Not a shadow of sound there is + But his motion's gentle hiss, + Till one fluent arm and hand + Suddenly circles, and the wand + Taps a bough far overhead, + "Crack," and then all noise is dead. + For he halts, and for a space + Stands erect with upward face, + Taut and tense to the white + Message of the Moon's light. + + He was listening; he was there; + Flash! he went. To the air + He a waiting ear had bent, + Silent; but before he went + Something somewhere else to seek, + He moved his lips as though to speak. + + And we wait, and in vain, + For he will not come again. + Earth, grass, wood, and air, + As we stare, and we stare, + Which that fierce life did hold, + Tired, dim, void, cold. + +Milton Raison is a young writer, known especially to readers of The +Bookman, whose verse has appeared in various magazines. A Russian, Milton +Raison went to sea as a boy--he is scarcely more than a boy now. His first +book of verse, _Spindrift_, carries a preface by William McFee. I quote: + +"There is a Latin sharpness of mentality manifested in these clearly, +sardonically etched portraits of a ship's crew. The whimsical humour +revealed in final lines is a portent, in the present writer's opinion, of +a talent which will probably come to maturity in a very different field. +Indeed it may be, though it is too early to dogmatise, that these poems +are but the early efflorescence of a gift for vigorous prose narrative. + +"Mr. Milton Raison has settled for himself, with engaging promptitude, +that a seafaring career provides the inspiration he craves. The influence +of Masefield is strong upon him, and some of his verses are plainly +derivative. As already hinted, it is too early to say definitely how this +plan will succeed. In his diary, kept while on a voyage to South America, +a document remarkable for its descriptive power and a certain crude and +virginal candour, one may discover an embryo novelist struggling with the +inevitable limitations of youth. But in his simple and naive poems, +whether they give us some bizarre and catastrophic picture of seamen, or +depict the charming emotions of a sensitive adolescence, there is a +passion for experiment and humility of intellect which promises well +enough for a young man in his teens." + +I find it particularly difficult to choose a poem for citation from this +book. Perhaps I shall do as well as I can, with only space to quote one +poem, if I give you "Vision": + + Have I forgotten beauty, and the pang + Of sheer delight in perfect visioning? + Have I forgotten how the spirit sang + When shattered breakers sprayed their ocean-tang + To ease the blows with which the great cliffs rang? + Have I forgotten how the fond stars fling + Their naked children to the faery ring + Of some dark pool, and watch them play and sing + In silent silver chords I too could hear? + Or smile to see a starlet shake with fear + Whenever winds disturbed the lake's repose, + Or when in mocking mood they form in rows, + And stare up at their parents--so sedate-- + Then break up laughing 'neath a ripple's weight? + +It seems as if, _The First Person Singular_ having been published, more +people now know William Rose Benet as a novelist than as a poet. I cannot +help feeling that to be something of a pity. I am not going to quote one +of Mr. Benet's poems--indeed all his best work is in quite long and +semi-narrative verse--but I will give you what Don Marquis was inspired to +write after reading Benet's _Moons of Grandeur_. On looking at it again, I +see that Mr. Marquis has quoted eight lines, so you shall have your taste +of William Rose Benet, the poet, after all! + +"Some day, just to please ourself, we intend to make a compilation of +poems that we love best; the ones that we turn to again and again. There +will be in the volume the six odes of Keats, Shelley's 'Adonais'; +Wordsworth's 'Intimations of Immortality'; Milton's 'L'Allegro' and 'Il +Penseroso'; William Rose Benet's 'Man Possessed' and very little else. + +"We don't 'defend' these poems ... no doubt they are all of them quite +indefensible, in the light of certain special poetic revelations of the +last few years ... and we have no particular theories about them; we +merely yield ourself to them, and they transport us; we are careless of +reason in the matter, for they cast a spell upon us. We do not mean to say +that we are in the category with the person who says: 'I don't know +anything about art, but I know what I like'--On the contrary, we know +exactly why we like these things, although we don't intend to take the +trouble to tell you now. + +"William Rose Benet has published another book of poems, _Moons of +Grandeur_. Here is a stanza picked up at random--it happens to be the +opening stanza of 'Gaspara Stampa'--which shows the lyric quality of the +verse: + + "Like flame, like wine, across the still lagoon, + The colours of the sunset stream. + Spectral in heaven as climbs the frail veiled moon + So climbs my dream. + Out of the heart's eternal torture fire + No eastern phoenix risen-- + Only the naked soul, spent with desire, + Bursts its prison. + +"Was Benet ever in Italy? No matter ... he has Italy in him, in his heart +and brain. Italy and Egypt and every other country that was ever warmed by +the sun of beauty and shone on by the stars of romance. For the poems in +this book are woven of the stuff of sheer romance. There is nothing else +in the world as depressing as a romantic poem that doesn't 'get there.' +And to us, at least, there is nothing as thrilling as the authentic voice +of romance, the genuine utterance of the soul that walks in communion with +beauty. _Moons of Grandeur_ is a ringing bell and a glimmering tapestry +and a draught of sparkling wine. + +"A certain rich intricacy of pattern distinguishes the physical body of +Benet's art; when he chooses he can use words as if they were the jewelled +particles of a mosaic; familiar words, with his handling, become +'something rich and strange.' Of the spiritual content of his poems, we +can say nothing adequate, because there is not much that can be said of +spirit; either it is there and you feel it, and it works upon you, or it +is not there. There are very few people writing verse today who have the +power to charm us and enchant us and carry us away with them as Benet can. +He has found the horse with wings." + +_The Bookman Anthology of Verse_ (1922), edited by John Farrar, editor of +The Bookman, is an altogether extraordinary anthology to be made up from +the poets contributing to a single magazine in eighteen consecutive +months. Among those who are represented are: Franklin P. Adams, Karle +Wilson Baker, Maxwell Bodenheim, Hilda Conkling, John Dos Passos, Zona +Gale, D. H. Lawrence, Amy Lowell, David Morton, Edwin Arlington Robinson, +Carl Sandburg, Siegfried Sassoon, Sara Teasdale, Louis and Jean Starr +Untermeyer, and Elinor Wylie. + +Mr. Farrar has written short introductions to the example (or examples) of +the work of each poet. In his general preface he says: + +"Where most anthologies of poetry are collected for the purpose of giving +pleasure by means of the verses themselves, I have tried here to give you +something of the joy to be found in securing manuscripts, in attempting to +understand current poetry by a broadening of taste to match broadening +literary tendencies; and, perhaps most important of all, to present you to +the poets themselves as I know them by actual meeting or correspondence." + +I will choose what Mr. Farrar says about Hilda Conkling, prefacing her +poem "Lonely Song"; and then I will quote the poem: + +"A shy, but normal little girl, twelve years old now, nine when her first +volume of verses appeared, Hilda Conkling is not so much the infant +prodigy as a clear proof that the child mind, before the precious spark is +destroyed, possesses both vision and the ability to express it in natural +and beautiful rhythm. Grace Hazard Conkling, herself a poet, is Hilda's +mother. They live at Northampton, Massachusetts, in the academic +atmosphere of Smith College where those who know the little girl say that +she enjoys sliding down a cellar stairway quite as much as she does +talking of elves and gnomes. She was born in New York State, so that she +is distinctly of the East. The rhythms which she uses to express her ideas +are the result both of her own moods, which are often crystal-clear in +their delicate imagery, and of the fact that from time to time, when she +was first able to listen, her mother read aloud to her. In fact, her first +poems were made before she, herself, could write them down. The +speculation as to what she will do when she grows to womanhood is a common +one. Is it important? A childhood filled with beauty is something to have +achieved." + + Bend low, blue sky, + Touch my forehead; + You look cool ... bend down ... + + Flow about me in your blueness and coolness, + Be thistledown, be flowers, + Be all the songs I have not yet sung. + + Laugh at me, sky! + Put a cap of cloud on my head ... + Blow it off with your blue winds; + Give me a feeling of your laughter + Beyond cloud and wind! + I need to have you laugh at me + As though you liked me a little. + +This has been, as I meant it to be, a wholly serious chapter; but at the +end I find I cannot stop without speaking of Keith Preston. No one who +reads the Chicago Daily News fails to know Keith Preston's delightful +humour and "needle-tipped satire." And his book, _Splinters_, contains all +sorts of good things of which I can give you, alas, only some inadequate +(because solitary) sample. Yet, anyway, here is his "Ode to Common +Sense": + + Spirit or demon, Common Sense! + Seen seldom by us mortals dense, + Come, sprite, inform, inhabit me + And teach me art and poetry. + + Teach me to chuckle, sly as you, + At gods that now I truckle to, + To doubt the New Republic's bent, + And jeer each bookish Supplement. + + Now, like a thief, you come and flit, + You call so seldom, Mother Wit! + Remember? Once when you stood by + I found a Dreiser novel dry. + + One day when I was reading hard-- + What? Amy Lowell, godlike bard! + You peeped and then at what you saw + Gave one Gargantuan guffaw. + + Spirit or demon, coarse or rude, + (Sometimes I think you must be stewed) + Brute that you are, I love your powers, + But,--drop in after office hours! + + Yes, Common Sense, be mine, I ask, + But still respect my critic's task; + Molest me not when I'm employed + With psychics, sex, vers libre, or Freud. + +=ii= + +The matter of playwrights is much more difficult than that of poets! A +play cannot, as a rule, be satisfactorily quoted from. In the case of a +play which is to be staged there are terrible objections (on the part of +the producer) to any excerpts at all appearing in advance. The publication +of the text of a play is hedged about by all manner of difficulties, +copyrights, warnings and solemn notifications. As I write, it is expected +that A. H. Woods, the producer of plays, will stage at the Times Square +Theatre, New York, probably in September, 1922, the new play by W. +Somerset Maugham, _East of Suez_. Pauline Frederick is expected to assume +the principal role. Mr. Maugham's play will be published when it has been +produced, or, if the theatre plans suffer one of those changes to which +all theatres are subject, will be published anyhow! Shall we say that the +setting is Chinese, and that the characters are Europeans, and that Mr. +Maugham has again shown his peculiar skill in the delineation of the white +man in contact with an alien civilisation? We shall say so. And--never +mind! A sure production of the play for the Fireside Theatre is hereby +guaranteed. The Fireside Theatre, blessed institution, has certain merits. +The actors are always ideal and the performance always begins on time, as +a letter to the New York Times has pointed out. + +Arnold Bennett has written a lot of plays; _The Love Match_ is merely the +latest of them. If I cannot very well quote a scene from _The Love +Match_,--on the grounds of length and possible unintelligibility apart +from the rest of the drama--I can give you, I think, an idea of the wit of +the dialogue: + +RUSS (_with calm and disdainful resentment_). You're angry with me now. + +NINA (_hurt_). Indeed I'm not. Why should I be angry? Do you suppose I +mind who sends you flowers? + +RUSS. No, I don't. That's not the reason. You're angry with me because you +came in here tonight, after saying positively you wouldn't come, and I +didn't happen to be waiting for you. + +NINA. Hugh, you're ridiculous. + +RUSS. Of course I am. That's not the reason. You took me against my will +to that footling hospital ball last night, and I only got three hours' +sleep instead of six, and you're angry with me because I yawned after you +kissed me. + +NINA. You're too utterly absurd! + +RUSS. Of course I am. That's not the reason, either. The real reason is +(_firmly_) you're angry with me because you clean forgot it was my +birthday today. That's why you're angry with me. + +NINA. Well, I think you might have reminded me.... + +NINA. I like sitting on the carpet. + +(_She reclines at his feet._) I wonder why women nowadays are so fond of +the floor. + +RUSS. Because they're oriental, of course. + +NINA. But I'm not oriental, Hughie! (_Looking at him with loving +passion._) Am I? + +RUSS. That's the Eastern question. + +NINA. But you like it, don't you? + +RUSS. Every man has a private longing to live in the East. + +NINA. But not harems and things? + +RUSS. Well--within reason.... + +NINA. What do you think of me? I'm always dying to know, and I'm never +sure. + +RUSS. What do you think of _me_? + +NINA. I think you're magnificent and terrible and ruthless. + +RUSS (_with amicable sincerity_). Oh, no, I'm not. But you are. + +NINA. How? When? When was I ruthless last? + +RUSS. You're always ruthless in your appetite for life. You want to taste +everything, enjoy all the sensations there are. This evening you like +intensely to sit very quiet on the floor; but last night you were mad +about dancing and eating and drinking. You couldn't be still. Tomorrow +night it'll be something else. There's no end to what you want, and what +you want tremendously, and what you've jolly well got to have. You aren't +a woman. You're a hundred women. + +NINA. Oh! Hughie. How well you understand! + +RUSS. Yes, don't I? + +NINA (_tenderly_). Do I make you very unhappy? Hughie, you mustn't tell me +I make you unhappy. I couldn't bear it. + +RUSS. Then I won't. + +NINA. But do I? + +RUSS. Let's say you cause a certain amount of disturbance sometimes. + +NINA. But you like me to be as I am, don't you? + +RUSS. Yes. + +NINA. You wouldn't have me altered? + +RUSS. Can't alter a climate. + +NINA. You don't know how much I want to be perfect for you. + +RUSS. You know my ruthless rule, "The best is good enough; chuck +everything else into the street." Have I ever, on any single occasion, +chucked you into the street? + +NINA. But I want to be more perfect. + +RUSS. Why do women always hanker after the impossible? + +J. Hartley Manners is the husband of Laurette Taylor and the author of +plays in some of which she appears. His drama _The Harp of Life_ has as +its theme the love of two women, his mother and a courtesan, for a +nineteen-year-old boy, and their willing self-sacrifice that he may go +forward unbroken and unsmirched. The interesting thing, aside from the +strength of the play and its vivid study of adolescence, is the portrait +of the mother. And now his play, _The National Anthem_, which caused so +much discussion, is procurable in book form. + +Here I have been talking about _East of Suez_ and _The Love Match_ and +have said nothing about _The Circle_ or _Milestones_! But I suppose +everyone knows that _The Circle_ is by Maugham and was markedly successful +when it was produced in New York; and surely everyone must know that +_Milestones_ is by Arnold Bennett and Edward Knoblauch--one of the great +plays of the last quarter century. I must take a moment to speak of Sidney +Howard's four act play, _Swords_. I think the best thing to do is to give +what Kenneth Macgowan, an exceptionally able critic of the drama, said +about the play: + +"_Swords_ is as remarkable a play as America has ever produced. It is a +drama of action on a par with _The Jest_, fused with the ecstasy of +inspiration and the mysticism of the spirit and the body of woman. It sets +Ghibelline and Guelph, Pope and Emperor, two nobles and a dog of the +gutters fighting for a lady of strange and extraordinary beauty who is the +bride of one noble and the hostage of the other. With the passions, the +cruelties, and spiritual vision of the middle ages to build upon _Swords_ +sweeps upward to a scene of sudden, flashing conflict shot with the mystic +and triumphant ecstasy which emanates from this glorious woman." + +American lovers of the drama have a special interest in the two volumes of +_The Plays of Hubert Henry Davies._ At the time of his first success Mr. +Davies was working in San Francisco, whither he had come from England. It +was Frohman who made him an offer that brought him to New York and began +the series of productions which ended only with his death in 1917 in +Paris. These two volumes, very beautiful examples of fine bookmaking, +contain the successes: _Cousin Kate_, _Captain Drew on Leave_, and _The +Mollusc_. Among the other plays included are: _A Single Man_, _Doormats_, +_Outcasts_, _Mrs. Gorringe's Necklace_, and _Lady Epping's Lawsuit_. Hugh +Walpole has contributed a very touching introduction. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE BOOKMAN FOUNDATION AND THE BOOKMAN + + +"Thank you very much for the May Bookman," writes Hugh Walpole (June, +1922). "I have been reading The Bookman during the last year and I +congratulate Mr. Farrar most strongly upon it. The paper has now a +personality unlike any other that I know and it is the least dull of all +literary papers! I like especially the more serious articles, the series +of sketches of literary personalities seeming especially excellent to me." +Mr. Walpole evidently had in mind the feature of The Bookman called "The +Literary Spotlight." + +"The Bookman is alive. If there is a better quality in the long run for a +general literary magazine to try for, I do not know what it is," writes +Carl Van Doren, literary editor of The Nation. + +"Mr. Farrar has turned The Bookman into a monthly brimming with his own +creative enthusiasm," says Louis Untermeyer. "It has technically as well +as figuratively no rival." + +And Irvin S. Cobb declares: "By my way of thinking, it is the most +informative, the most entertaining, and incidentally the brightest and +most amusing publication devoted to literature and its products that I +have ever seen." + +=ii= + +The idea of The Bookman Foundation first occurred in a discussion of the +future of the magazine and the ampler purposes it was desired to have The +Bookman serve. The idea had been advanced that more than the future of the +magazine should be considered; those to whom the welfare of the magazine +was a most important consideration distinctly felt that welfare to depend +upon a healthy and thriving condition of American literature and of +American interest in American literature. The broadest possible view, as +is so often the case, seemed the only ultimately profitable view. In what +way could The Bookman serve the interests of American literature in which +it was not already serving them? How could public interest in American +literature best be stimulated? + +The idea gradually took shape as a form of foundation, naturally to be +called The Bookman Foundation, with a double purpose. Fundamentally The +Bookman Foundation is being established to stimulate the study of American +literature and its development; more immediately, and as the direct means +to that end, the purpose of the Foundation will be to afford a vehicle for +the best constructive criticism, spoken and written, on the beginnings and +development of our literature. In association with the faculty of English +at one of the larger and older American universities, Yale, the Foundation +will establish a lectureship; and annually there will be given at Yale a +lecture or a course of lectures on American literature by some +distinguished writer or critic. It is hoped that, as the Foundation grows, +other universities will be brought into co-operation with Yale so that the +lectureship may move from centre to centre, stimulating to intelligent +self-expression the varied elements that are contributing to our national +growth. + +The lectures given on The Bookman Foundation will be published in book +form by The Bookman in a handsome and uniform edition. Membership in The +Bookman Foundation will be by invitation. All members of the Foundation +will be entitled to receive the published lectures without charge and they +will also have the privilege of subscribing for certain first and limited +editions of notable American books. At the present writing, even so much +as I have suggested is largely tentative, and I offer it for its essential +idea; an executive committee of The Bookman Foundation, in co-operation +with an advisory committee, the members of which committees have +yet to be finally determined, will settle all details. By the time of this +book's publication or even sooner, I expect a full announcement will have +been made; and for the correction of what I have stated I would refer the +reader to The Bookman itself. + +=iii= + +I am not going to give a historical account of The Bookman here. The +magazine is no newcomer among American periodicals. It has a reasonably +old and highly honourable history. For long published by the house of +Dodd, Mead & Company, it was acquired by George H. Doran Company and +placed under the editorial direction of Robert Cortes Holliday. That was +the beginning of a new vitality in its pages. Mr. Holliday was succeeded +by Mr. Farrar, and now, in its fifty-sixth volume, The Bookman seems to +the thousands who read it more interesting than ever before in its +history. + +The roll call of its past and present contributors includes many of the +representative names in contemporary American and English literature. I +will give a few: + + JOSEPH HERGESHEIMER + AMY LOWELL + SIEGFRIED SASSOON + JAMES BRANCH CABELL + MARY ROBERTS RINEHART + ZONA GALE + FANNIE HURST + WILLIAM MCFEE + SHERWOOD ANDERSON + HUGH WALPOLE + FRANK SWINNERTON + ROBERT FROST + SARA TEASDALE + IRVIN S. COBB + RICHARD LE GALLIENNE + DONN BYRNE + CHRISTOPHER MORLEY + ROBERT CORTES HOLLIDAY + JOHAN BOJER + WILLIAM ROSE BENET + EDGAR LEE MASTERS + KATHLEEN NORRIS + FREDERICK O'BRIEN + D. H. LAWRENCE + JOHN DRINKWATER + JOSEPH C. LINCOLN + GEORGE JEAN NATHAN + WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE + CARL SANDBURG + SINCLAIR LEWIS + F. SCOTT FITZGERALD + EUGENE O'NEILL + H. L. MENCKEN + JOHN DOS PASSOS + ELINOR WYLIE + GERTRUDE ATHERTON + FLOYD DELL + +=iv= + +Among the American essayists whose work has appeared in The Bookman before +its publication in book form is Robert Cortes Holliday; among strikingly +successful books that appeared serially in The Bookman was Donald Ogden +Stewart's _A Parody Outline of History_. Among The Bookman's regular +reviewers are Louis Untermeyer, Wilson Follett, Paul Elmer More, H. L. +Mencken, Henry Seidel Canby and Maurice Francis Egan. Among writers of +distinction whose short stories have first appeared in The Bookman are +William McFee, Sherwood Anderson, Mary Austin, and Johan Bojer; while the +intimate personal portraits published under the general title "The +Literary Spotlight" have Lytton Stracheyized contemporary American +literature. Possibly it is in the department of poetry that The Bookman +now shines the brightest (see the account of The Bookman Anthology in the +previous chapter); if so, that may be because the editor, John Farrar, is +himself a poet. + +Probably no other literary magazine in the world exhibits such a degree of +personal contact between the editor, his readers, his contributors and the +magazine's friends. This note of personal contact is constantly reflected +in the magazine's pages; but anyone who has called upon the editor of The +Bookman once or twice will know explicitly just what I mean. + + + + +EPILOGUE + + +I have been surprised, on looking back over these chapters, by the variety +of the books I have talked about. That so diverse a list should be under a +single imprint and should represent, with few exceptions, the publications +of a single twelvemonth, seems to me very remarkable. I believe a majority +of the books are the production of a single publishing season, the autumn +of 1922, and the Doran imprint is but thirteen years old. + +"Of the making of books, there is no end"; but of the making of any single +book, there must come an end. Yet what is the end of a book but the +beginning of new friendships? + +THE END + + + + +INDEX + + +Agate, James E., 49; + _Alarums and Excursions_, 49; + dramatic critic, 50; + _Responsibility_, 50; + review by The Londoner, in The Bookman, 50 + +_Alarums and Excursions_ by James E. Agate, 49 + +_Alone in the Caribbean_, by Frederic A. Fenger, 194 + +_Altar Steps, The_, by Compton Mackenzie, 265, 266 + +_Amazing Adventures of Letitia Carberry, The_, + by Mary Roberts Rinehart, 108, 115, 116 + +_Amazing Interlude, The_, by Mary Roberts Rinehart, 105, 115, 116 + +Andrews, C. E., _Old Morocco and the Forbidden Atlas_, 193 + +_Ann and Her Mother_, by O. Douglas, 249 + +_Anna of the Five Towns_, by Arnold Bennett, 146, 149 + +_Art of Lawn Tennis_, The, by William T. Tilden, 213 + +Asquith, Elizabeth (Princess Antoine Bibesco), + daughter of Margot Asquith, 47 + +Asquith, Margot, 89; + mother of Elizabeth, 47; + _My Impressions of America_, 122; + _The Autobiography of Margot Asquith_, 122 + +_Autobiography of Margot Asquith_, The, by Margot Asquith, 122 + +Bailey, Margaret Emerson, _Robin Hood's Barn_, 194 + +_Balloons_, by Princess Antoine Bibesco, 47 + +Banning, Margaret Culkin, _Half Loaves_, 253; + _Spellbinders_, 252; + _This Marrying_, 253 + +Barton, Olive Roberts, _Cloud Boat Stories,_ 162; + Column, 162; + review by Candace T. Stevenson, 162-164; + sister of Mary Roberts Rinehart, 161; + _Wonderful Land of Up_, 162; + work with children, 161 + +_Beauty for Ashes_, by Jean Sutherland, 262 + +Belloc, Hilaire, 23, 77 + +Benet, William Rose, _Moons of Grandeur_, 354, 355; + review by Don Marquis, 354, 355; + Benet, William Rose, _The First Person Singular_, 262, 263, 354 + +Bennett, Arnold 133, 134, 144, 145, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151; + A _Man from the North_, 146, 149; + _Anna of the Five Towns_, 146, 149; + article on Hugh Walpole, 22, 23; + booklet by George H. Doran Co., 150; + books by, list of, 149, 150; + _Clayhanger_, 148, 149; + comments of Frank Swinnerton's Books, 225; + comments on _The Casement_, by Frank Swinnerton, 236-242; + criticism by New York Evening Post, 148; + _Cupid and Commonsense_, 133, 150; + description of Hugh Walpole, 22; + _Friendship and Happiness_, 303; + _How to Live on Twenty-four Hours a Day_, 303; + _Lilian_, 133; + _Love and Life_, 146; + _Married Life_, 303; + _Mental Efficiency_, 303; + _Milestones_ (with Edward Knoblauch), 364; + _Mr. Prohack_, 133, 141, 149; + on Hugh Walpole's courage, 25; + _Polite Farces_, 146; + _Self and Self-Management_, 303; + sketch of life by John W. Cunliffe, 144-148, 150; + sources on, 150; + _The Author's Craft_, 150; + education of, 145; + _The Gates of Wrath_, 146, 149; + _The Love Match_, 361, 364; + _The Old Wives' Tale_, 133, 149; + _The Truth About an Author_, 144, 150 + +Benson, E. F., _Peter_, 261 + +_Between Two Thieves_, by Richard Dehan (Clotilde Graves), 198, 200, 210 + +Bibesco, Princess Antoine (Elizabeth Asquith), 47; + _Balloons_, 47; + _I Have Only Myself to Blame_, 47 + +_Birds and Other Poems, The_, by J. C. Squire, 351; + Quotation from, 351 + +_Black Gang, The_, by Cyril McNeile, 70 + +_Black Caesar's Clan_, by Albert Payson Terhune, 71 + +_Black Gold_, by Albert Payson Terhune, 71; + Foreword to, by Albert Payson Terhune, 71-74 + +Blaker, Richard, _The Voice in the Wilderness_, 263 + +Bookman, The; + articles by Robert Cortes Holliday, 221; + Comment on Richard Dehan, 198, 211; + Comments on by Hugh Walpole, Carl Van Doren, Irvin S. Cobb, + Louis Untermeyer, 367; + List of contributors, 370, 371; + List of Reviewers, 371 + +_Book of Humorous Verse_, by Carolyn Wells, 99 + +_Bookman Anthology of Verse_ (1922), 356; + Contributors, 356, 357 + +_Bookman Foundation, The_, 367, 368; + lectures on, 368 + +_Books in General, Third Series_, by J. C. Squire, 44 + +Bottome, Phyllis (Mrs. A. E. Forbes Dennis), 258; + Acquaintances, 259; + _The Kingfisher_, 260 + +_Boy Journalist Series_, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler, 159, 161 + +_Breaking Point, The_, by Mary Roberts Rinehart, 105; + resume of, 105-7, 117 + +_Broome Street Straws_, by Robert Cortes Holliday, 52 + +Broun, Heywood, 40; + columnist, _Pieces of Hate_ and _Other Enthusiasms_, 41; + Subjects touched, 41, 42, 43 + +Buchan, John, The Path of the King, 249; + _The Thirty-nine Steps_ + +Buckrose, J. E. (Mrs. Falconer Jameson), _A Knight Among Ladies_, 251 + +_Bulldog Drummond_, by Cyril McNeile, 70 + +Burke, Thomas, 187, 189, 190; + More Limehouse Nights, 187; + _Nights in London_, 190; + Reasons given for his characters, 187, 188, 189; + _The London Spy_, 189 + +Byron, May, _Billy Butt's Adventure_, 153; + _Jack-a-Dandy_, 153; + _Little Jumping Joan_, 153; + _Old Friends in New Frocks_, 153 + +_Candles that Burn_, by Mrs. Kilmer + +_Captives, The_, by Hugh Walpole, 24, 27, 30, 31; + won Tait Black Prize, 1920, 30 + +_Carnival_, by Compton Mackenzie, 265 + +_Casement, The_, by Frank Swinnerton, 236, 242 + +_Cathedral, The_, by Hugh Walpole, 19, 31; + at Polchester, 19; + review of, 19 + +_Century of Banking in New York, 1822-1922, A_, by Henry Wysham +Lanier, 193 + +Chambers, Robert W., article on, by Rupert Hughes, 320; + Eris, 311, 317, 320; + _In the Quarter_, 317, 318; Iole, 318, 319; + list of books by, 318, 319, 320; + Sources On, 320; Story-teller, 308; + _The Flaming Jewel_, 311, 320; + _The King in Yellow,_ 317, 318; + _The Talkers_, 317, 320; + _The Witch of Ellangowan_, 318; + _With the Band_ (poem), 317 + +_Chaste Wife, The_, by Frank Swinnerton, 226, 243 + +Chinese Metal, by E. G. Kemp, 190; + comment by Sao-Ke Alfred Sze, 191 + +_Circle, The_, by W. Somerset Maugham, 289, 292, 364 + +_Circuit Rider's Wife, A_, by Corra Harris, 257 + +_Circular Staircase, The_, by Mary Roberts Rinehart, 110, 114, 116 + +_Claim Jumpers, The_, by Stewart Edward White, 55, 63, 66 + +_Clayhanger_, by Arnold Bennett, 148, 149 + +_Cloud Boat Stories_, by Olive Roberts Barton, 162 + +Cobb, Irvin S., 89, 241; + _An Occurrence up a Side Street_, 176, 180; + as a humorist, 179; + at Portsmouth Peace Conference, 177, 178; + biography by Robert H. Davis, 172-183, 186; + books by, 184; + comments on The Bookman, 367; + description of self, 182, 183; + dimensions of, 166; + editorial work, 175, 176; + Fishhead, 176, 180; + _J. Poindexter, Colored_, 169, 185; + lecture by Gelett Burgess, 179; + Plays by, 185; + report of Thaw Trial, 178; + Sources on, 186; + _Stickfuls_, 169, 185; + _The Belled Buzzard_, 176, 180; + _The Escape of Mr. Trimm_, 178, 180, 184 + +Collected Parodies, by J. C. Squire, 98; + Selections, 98, 99 + +Coming of the Peoples, The, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler, 161 + +_Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman, The_, + by Stephen McKenna, 337, 344, 346; + + Quotations from London Times, 337-339; + Sample of, 344, 345 + +Conjurors House, by Stewart Edward White, 66 + +Conkling, Hilda, 356 + +Connor, Ralph, 264 + +Conrad, Joseph, A Critical Study of Walpole, 31; + experiences similar, 25; + introductory note to _Anthology_, 28 + +_Cooperative Movement_, by Dr. James B. Warbasse, 300 + +_Coquette_, by Frank Swinnerton, 226, 243 + +_Creative Spirit in Industry, The_, by Robert B. Wolf, 300 + +_Crisis of the Naval War_, by Viscount Jellicoe of Scapa, 329; + review of, in Proceedings of the United States Naval + Institute, 329, 330, 331 + +_Crome Yellow_, by Aldous Huxley, 34 + +Cummins, Col. Stevenson Lyle, in Who's Who, 156, 157; + _Plays for Children_, 157 + +_Cupid and Commonsense_, by Arnold Bennett, 133, 150 + +Dana, H. W. L., 297; _Social Forces in Literature_, 300 + +_Dancers in the Dark_, by Dorothy Speare, 255, 256 + +Daniels, Josephus, _Our Navy at War_, 321, 322 + +_Dark Forest, The_, by Hugh, Walpole, 16, 28, 31 + +Davey, Norman, 36, 37; + Guinea Girl, 36, 37; + The Gas Turbine, 37; + _The Pilgrim of a Smile_, 36 + +Davies, Hubert Henry, Plays of, _A Single Man_, 365; + _Captain Drew on Leave_, 365; + _Cousin Kate_, 365; + _Doormats_, 365; + _Lady Epping's Law Suit_, 365; + _Mrs. Gorringe's Necklace_, 365; + _Outcasts_, 365; + _The Mollusc_, 365 + +Davis, Robert H., 186; + biographer of Irvin S. Cobb, 172, 186; + Box Score of Writers, 183 + +_Days Before Yesterday_, by Lord Frederic Hamilton, 131 + +de Stael, Madame, 128 + +"Death of Lully," in Limbo, by Aldous Huxley, 36 + +_Deaves Affair_, The, by Hulbert Footner, 75 + +_December Love_, by Robert Hichins, 249 + +Dehan, Richard (Clotilde Graves), 196, 197, 199, 200, 201, 204, 209, + 210, 211; + _Between Two Thieves_, 198, 200, 210; + books by, 210; + Comment by The Bookman, 198; + sources on, 211; + _That Which Hath Wings_, 200, 210; + _The Dop Doctor_, 196, 200, 210; + _The Eve of Pascua_, 201, 210; + _The Just Steward_, 201, 202, 203, 205, 206, 207, 208, 210 + +Denham, Sir James, _Memoirs of the Memorable_, 119 + +Dennis, Mrs. A. E. Forbes, see Phyllis Bottome, 258 + +Dircks, Helen, _Passenger_, 236 + +Djemal Pasha, _Memoirs of_, 122 + +_Doors of the Night_, by Frank L. Packard, 68, 69 + +_Dop Doctor, The_, by Richard Dehan (Clotilde Graves), 196, 200, 210 + +Dos Passes, John, 356; + _A Pushcart at the Curb_, 347; + _de Unamuno, Miguel_, 39; + _Manrique, Jorge, Ode_, 39; + _Rosinante to The Road Again_, 38, 347; + _Three Soldiers_, 347 + +Douglas, O., 249; + _Ann and Her Mother_, 249; + _Penny Plain_, 249; + Sister of John Buchan, 249 + +Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan, 115; + _Spiritualism and Rationalism_, 302; + _The New Revelation_, 302; + _The Vital Message_, 302; + _The Wanderings of a Spiritualist_, 302 + +Dreiser, Theodore, review of Human Bondage, in New Republic, 273-277 + +_Duchess of Wrexe, The_, by Hugh Walpole, 19, 31 + +_Earth's Story, The_, by Frederic Arnold Kummer, 155 + +_East of Suez_, by W. Somerset Maugham, 284, 292, 360 + +_Education of Eric Law, The_, see _The Sensationalists_, + by Stephen McKenna, 342, 346 + +Ellis, Havelock, _Little Essays of Love and Virtue_, 302; + _Emperor Francis Joseph and His Times, The_, by Baron Margutti, 130 + +_English Literature During the Last Half Century_, + by John W. Cunliffe, 144, 150 + +_Eris_, by Robert W. Chambers, 311, 317, 320; + from extracts, 311-316, 320 + +_Escape of Mr. Trimm, The_, by Irvin S. Cobb, 178, 180, 184 + +_Essays on Religion_, by T. R. Glover, 305 + +_Eve of Pascua_, The, by Richard Dehan (Clotilde Graves), 201, 210 + +_Eyes of Love, The_, by Corra Harris, 257; + extract from, 257-8 + +_Facing Reality_, by Esme Wingfield-Stratford, 300; + Chapter titles, 300; + introduction, extracts from, 300, 301 + +_Fairies and Chimneys_, by Rose Fyleman, 158; + Quotation from, 158 + +_Fairy Flute, The_, by Rose Fyleman, 158 + +Farnsworth, Sidney, _Illumination and Its Development in the + Present Day_, 223 + +Farrar, John, Editor of The Bookman, 94, 357; + poet, 371; + Editor, see The Bookman, 371 + +Fenger, Frederic A., _Alone in the Caribbean_, 194 + +_First Days of Man, The_, by Frederic Arnold Kummer, 155, 156 + +_First Person Singular, The_, by William Rose Benet, 262, 263, 354 + +_Flaming Jewel, The_, by Robert W. Chambers, 311, 320 + +Follett, Wilson, comparisons, 52; + Reviewer The Bookman, 371; + _Some Modern Novelists_, 150 + +Footner, Hulbert, _The Deaves Affair_, 75; + _The Owl Taxi_, 74, 75 + +Forbes, Lady Angela, _Memories and Base Details_, 130; + _Memories Discreet and Indiscreet_, 130; + _More Indiscretions_, 129 + +Forbes, Rosita, _The Secret of the Sahara: Kufara_, 192 + +_Fortitude_, by Hugh Walpole, 21, 23, 27, 31; + theme of, 21, 31 + +_Forty Years On_, by Lord Ernest Hamilton, 132 + +"Frankincense and Myrrh," from _Pieces of Hate_, + by Heywood Broun, 41, 42, 43 + +_From Now On_, by Frank L. Packard, 68, 69 + +_Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale, The_, by Frank L. Packard, 68, 69 + +_Further Adventures of Lad_, by Albert Payson Terhune, 215; + extracts from, 216 + +Fyleman, Rose, Fairies and Chimneys, 158; + _The Fairy Flute_, 158 + +Gabriel, Gilbert W., 53; + Jiminy, novel by, 53; + music critic, N. Y. Sun, 53; + Novelist, 53; + substitute for Don Marquis, 54 + +_Gates of Wrath, The_, by Arnold Bennett, 146, 149 + +Gavit, John Palmer, account of Stewart Edward White, 65, 66, 67 + +Geister, Edna, _Ice-breakers and the Ice-Breaker Herself_, 219; + _It Is to Laugh_, 219 + +_Gist of Golf, The_, by Harry Vardon, 213 + +_Giving and Receiving_, by E. V. Lucas, 307 + +Glover, T. R., _Essays on Religion_, 305; + _Jesus in the Experience of Man_, 305; + _Poets and Pilgrims_, 305; + _Poets and Puritans,_ 305; + _The Jesus of History_, 305; + _The Nature and Purpose of a Christian Society_, 305; + _The Pilgrim_, 305 + +_Gods and Mr. Perrin, The_, by Hugh Walpole, 22, 27, 31 + +_Gold_, by Stewart Edward White, 61, 67 + +_Golden Scarecrow, The_, 15, 27, 31 + +_Gold-Killer_, by John Prosper, 75 + +_Grand Fleet, The_, by Viscount Jellicoe of Scapa, 329 + +Graves, Clotilde (Richard Dehan), 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 204, + 209, 210, 211; + _A Mother of Three_, 199, 210; + _Nitocris_, 199, 210; + _Puss in Boots_, 199 + +_Green Mirror, The_, by Hugh Walpole, 19, 27, 31 + +"Greenow, Richard," of _Limbo_, by Aldous Huxley, 36 + +_Guinea Girl_, by Norman Davey, 36, 37 + +Guest, Leslie Haden, _The Struggle for Power in Europe_ (1917-21), 323, 324 + +Haggard, Andrew C. P., _Madame de Stael; Her Trials and Triumphs_, 129 + +_Half Loaves_, by Margaret Culkin Banning, 253 + +Hambourg, Mark, _How to Play the Piano_, 219, 220 + +Hamilton, Lord Ernest, Forty Years On, 131 + +Hamilton, Lord Frederic, Days Before Yesterday, 131; + Diplomatic Services, 131; + Education, 131; + _Here, There and Everywhere_, 131; + _The Vanished Pomps of Yesterday_, 131 + +"Happy Families," in _Limbo_, by Aldous Huxley, 36 + +_Happy Family, The_, by Frank Swinnerton, 226, 238, 242 + +Harcourt, Edward Vernon, 118 + +Harcourt, Sir William, _George Granville Venables Vernon, Life of_, 118 + +"Harlequin," from _The Birds and Other Poems_, by J. C. Squire, 351, 352 + +_Harp of Life, The_, by J. Hartley Manners, 363 + +Harris, Corra, 257, 264; + _A Circuit Rider's Wife_, 257; + _The Eyes of Love_, 257 + +Harrison, Marguerite E., _Marooned in Russia_, 192 + +Hawthorne, Nathaniel, _A Wonder Book_, 165; + _The Scarlet Letter_, 327, 328 + +Hayhurst, Dr. Emery, _Labour and Health_, 209 + +Henry, Alice, _Women and the Labour Movement_, 299 + +_Here, There and Everywhere_, by Lord Frederic Hamilton, 131 + +Herford, Oliver, _Neither Here Nor There_, 95 + +Hergesheimer, Joseph, Appreciation of Hugh Walpole, 15, 29, 30, 31 + +Herm, home of Compton Mackenzie, 267 + +_Herman Melville: Mariner and Mystic_, by Raymond W. Weaver, 325; + review by Carl Van Vechten, 325-328 + +_Hermit of Far End, The_, by Margaret Pedler, 256 + +Heroes of the Ruins, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler, 160 + +Heterogeneous Magis of Maugham, The, 270 + +Hichins, Robert, _The Garden of Allah_, 249; + _December Love_, 249 + +_History of Sea Power, A_, by William O. Stevens and Allan Westcott, 331; + Admiral Caspar F. Goodrich, review of, in The Weekly Review, 331-333; + Extracts from, 332, 333 + +Holliday, Robert Cortes, 52; + business connections, 221; + _Broome Street Straws_, 52; + editor of The Bookman, 369; + Memoirs in _Joyce Kilmer, Poems, Essays and Letters_, 53; + _Men and Books and Cities_, 52; + _Peeps at People_, 52; + praise by James Hunecker, 52; + Study of Booth Tarkington, 53; + _Turns About Town_, 52; + _Walking Stick Papers_, 51; + _Writing as a Business; A Practical Guide for Authors_, 220 + +Houghton, Mrs. Hadwin, See Wells, Carolyn + +_House of Dreams Come True, The_, by Margaret Pedler, 256 + +House of Five Swords, The, by Tristram Tupper, 247, 248 + +"Houses" from _Main Street and other Poems_, by Joyce Kilmer, 349, 350 + +_How to Live on Twenty-four Hours a Day_, by Arnold Bennett, 303 + +_How to Play the Piano_, by Mark Hambourg, 219, 220 + +Howard, Sidney, Swords, 364 + +Hughes, Rupert, article on Robert W. Chambers, 320; + on Robert W. Chambers, 311 + +_Hugh Walpole Anthology, A_, by Hugh Walpole, 27, 32; + divisions of, 27; + Country Places, 27; + London, 27; + Men and Women, 27; + Russia, 27; + Some Children, 27; + Some Incidents, 27 + +_Hunting Hidden Treasure in the Andes_, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler, 159 + +Huxley, Aldous, 34, 35, 36; + Beauty, 36; + Comment by Michael Sadlier, 34; + Crome Yellow, 34; + Disciple of Laforgue, 35; + L'Apres-Midi-d'un Faune, translation by, 35; + _Limbo_, 34, 36; + Mortal Coils, 34, 35; + "Permutation among the Nightingales," play by, 35; + poet and writer of prose, 35; + Quotations from _Mortal Coils,_ 35; + Splendour, by Numbers, 36; + the sensualist, 36; + Translator of Laforgue, 35; + translation of _The Walk_, 35 + +_I Have Only Myself to Blame_, by Princess Bibesco, 47; + extract from, 47, 48, 49 + +_Ice-breakers and the Ice-Breaker Herself_, by Edna Geister, 219 + +_Illumination and Its Development in the Present Day_, + by Sidney Farnsworth, 223 + +_Imprudence_, by F. E. Mills Young, 263 + +_In the Days Before Columbus_, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler, 160 + +_In the Quarter_, by Robert W. Chambers, 317, 318 + +_Iole_, by Robert W. Chambers, 318, 319 + +_Irish Free State, The_, by Albert C. White, 191; Book Value, 192 + +Isn't That Just Like a Man: Oh, Well, You Know How Women Are! 89 + +_It Is to Laugh_, by Edna Geister, 219 + +Jacks, L. P., editor of Hibbert Journal, 195; + _The Legends of Smokeover_, 194 + +Jameson, Mrs. Falconer, see J. E. Buckrose + +Jellicoe, Viscount, of Scapa, _The Crisis of the Naval War_, 329; + _The Grand Fleet_, 329 + +_Jimmy Dale and the Phantom Clue_, by Frank L. Packard, 69 + +_Joining in Public Discussion_, by Alfred Dwight Sheffield, 297; + sections of, 299 + +_Judge, The_, by Rebecca West, 78; + dedication and review, 84, 85, 86; + extract from, 81, 82; + material employed, 82, 83 + +_Judgment of Charis, The_, by Mrs. Baillie Reynolds, 76 + +_Just Steward, The_, by Richard Dehan (Clotilde Graves), 201; + samples from, 201-203, 205, 206, 207, 208, 210 + +_Jungle Tales, Adventures in India_, by Howard Anderson Musser, 156 + +_K_, by Mary Roberts Rinehart, +107, 108, 116 + +Kemp, E. G., _Chinese Mettle_, 190 + +Kerr, Sophie, 244; + Autobiography, 244-246; + editor Woman's Home Companion, 245; + _One Thing is Certain_, 246; + _Painted Meadows_, 246; + quotations from letter by, 246, 247 + +Kilmer, Joyce, Main Street and Other Poems, 349; + Poems, Essays and Letters, 53; + Memoirs, by Robert Cortes Holliday, 53; + Trees and Other Poems, 349 + +Kilmer, Mrs., _Candles That Burn_, 350; Vigils, 350 + +_Kingfisher, The_, by Phyllis Bottome, 260 + +_King in Yellow, The_, by Robert W. Chambers, 317, 318 + +_Knight Among Ladies_, A, by J. E. Buckrose, 251 + +Knight, Captain, C. W. R., _Wild Life in the Tree Tops_, 214 + +Kummer, Frederic Arnold, The Earth's Story, 155; + _The First Days of Man_, 155, 156 + +_Labour and Health_, by Dr. Emery Hayhurst, 299 + +_Lad: A Dog_, by Albert Payson Terhune, 214 + +_Lady Frederick_, by W. Somerset Maugham, 289, 291 + +_Lady Lilith_, by Stephen McKenna, 342, 343, 346; + Comments by author, 342, 343, 346 + +_Lamp of Fate, The_, by Margaret Pedler, 256 + +_Land of Footprints, The_, by Stewart Edward White, 55, 67 + +Lanier, Henry Wysham, _A Century of Banking in New York: 1822-1922_, 193 + +Lardner, Ring W., appreciation of Charles E. Van Loan, 212; + Sport, 212 + +_Laughter, Ltd._, by Nina Wilcox Putnam, 90 + +_Legends of Smokeover, The_, by L. P. Jacks, 194 + +_Life and Letters_, by J. C. Squire, 46 + +_Life of Sir William Vernon Harcourt, The_, 118 + +Lilian, by Arnold Bennett, 133, 137-141, 149; + extract from, 137-141, 149 + +_Limbo_, by Aldous Huxley, 34, 36; + Death of Lully, 36; + Happy Families, 36 + +Literary Spotlight, The; The Bookman, 371 + +_Little Essays of Love and Virtue_, +by Havelock Ellis, 302 + +_Little Jumping Joan_, by May Byron, 153 + +_Liza of Lambeth_, by W. Somerset Maugham, 286, 287, 291 + +Lloyd George, critical sketch, by E. T. Raymond, 121 + +Lodge, Sir Oliver, 115, 301 + +London Mercury, edited by J. C. Squire, 44, 46 + +_London Spy, The_, by Thomas Burke, 189 + +_Long Live the King_, by Mary Roberts Rinehart, 115, 116 + +_Love Match, The_, by Arnold Bennett, 361, 364; + Extracts from, 361-363 + +Lowndes, Mrs. Belloc, appreciation of Hugh Walpole, 23, 24; + _What Timmy Did_, 77 + +Lucas, E. V., _Giving and Receiving_, 307; + _Roving East and Roving West_, 307 + +Mackenzie, Compton, _Carnival_, 265; + _Plasher's Mead_, 265; + _Poor Relations_, 265; + Rich Relatives, 265; + Sinister Street, 265; + The Altar Steps, 265, 266, 269; + The Parson's Progress, 266; + visit by Simon Pure, 266-269 + +MacQuarrie, Hector, on W. Somerset Maugham, 277, 284, 290; + _Tahiti Days_, 270 + +_Madame de Stael; Her Trials and Triumphs_, + by Andrew C. P. Haggard, 124-129 + +_Main Street and Other Poems_, by Joyce Kilmer, 349 + +_Man from the North, A_, by Arnold Bennett, 146, 149 + +_Man in Lower Ten, The_, by Mary Roberts Rinehart, 114, 116 + +_Man in Ratcatcher, The_, by Cyril McNeile, 70 + +Manners, J. Hartley, _The Harp of Life_, 363 + +_Maradick at Forty_, by Hugh Walpole, 26, 31 + +Margutti, Baron von, _The Emperor Francis Joseph and His Times_, 130 + +_Marooned in Moscow_, by Marguerite E. Harrison, 192 + +_Married Life_, by Arnold Bennett, 303 + +Maugham W. Somerset, article by Hector MacQuarrie, 292; + books by, 291, 292; + _Caroline_, 289, 292; + East of Suez, 284, 292, 360; + education of, 286; + father of, 286; + wife of, 286; + _Lady Frederick_, 289, 291; + _Liza of Lambeth_, 286, 287, 291; + _Mrs. Craddock_, 287, 288, 291; + _Mrs. Dot_, 289, 291; + _Of Human Bondage_, 270, 273-77, 287, 291; + _On a Chinese Screen_, 284-285, 291; + playright, 288; + sources on, 292; + _The Circle_, 289, 292; + The heterogeneous magic of, 270; + _The Moon and Sixpence_, 270, 277, 278, 279, 284, 287, 291 + +McCormick, W. B., Army and Navy Journal, Editor of, 321; + Comment on Josephus Daniels _Our Navy at War_, 321, 322, 323 + +McFee, William, 371; + Extracts from preface to _Spindrift_, by Milton Raison, 352, 353 + +McKenna, Stephen, 334, 337, 338, 339, 340, 341, 342, 343, 345, 346; + _Between Two Worlds_, 341, 346; + Books by, 345, 346; + Comments on _Lady Lilith_, 342, 343; + education of, 340; + _Lady Lilith_, 342, 343, 346; + Leopold McKenna, father of, 340; + _Midas and Son_, 341, 346; + _Ninety-Six Hours' Leave_, 341, 346; + personality, 343; + _Sheila Intervenes_, 340, 345; + _Sonia_, 339, 340, 341, 342, 343, 346; + _Sonia Married_, 341, 342, 346; + Sources on, 346; + _The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman_, 337, 344, 346; + _The Education of Eric Lane_, 342, 346; + _The Reluctant Lover_, 340, 345; + _The Secret Victory_, 342, 346; + _The Sensationalists_, 341, 342; + _The Sixth Sense_, 340, 345; + _Translator of Poltinus_, 339; + war service, 340; + _While I Remember_, 324, 346 + +McNeile, Cyril, Bulldog Drummond, 70; + _The Black Gang_, 70; + _The Man in Ratcatcher_, 70 + +Melville, Herman, _Mardi_, 327; + _Moby Dick_, 327, 328; + _Omoo_, 326; + _Pierre_, 327; + _Typee_, 326 + +_Memoirs of Djemal Pasha, The_, 122 + +_Memoirs of the Memorable_, by Sir James Denham, 119; + Beaconsfield, Lord, 119; + Beresford, Lord Marcus, 119; + Bishop of London, 119; + Bishop of Manchester, 119; + Browning, Robert, 119; + Byron, Lord, 119; + Carroll, Lewis, 119; + Dunedin, Lord, 119; + Gladstone, 119; + Howard, Cardinal, 119 + +_Memories and Base Details_, by Lady Angela Forbes, 130 + +_Memories Discreet and Indiscreet_, by Lady Angela Forbes, 129 + +_Men and Books and Cities_, by Robert Cortes Holliday, 52 + +_Men Who Make Our Novels, The_, by George Gordon, 55, 67, 320 + +_Merry Heart, The_, by Frank Swinnerton, 236, 242 + +_Midas and Son_, by Stephen McKenna, 341, 342, 346 + +_Milestones_, by Arnold Bennett and Edward Knoblauch, 364 + +Milne, A. A., _Mr. Pim_, 261 + +_Miracle Man, The_, by Frank L. Packard, 68 + +_Miscellanies--Literary and Historical_, by Lord Rosebery, 123 + +Moffatt, Dr. James, _The Approach of the New Testament_, 296; + _New Translation of the New Testament_, 293; + _New Translation of the Old Testament_, 296; + _The Parallel Testament_, 293 + +_Mollusc, The_, by Hubert Henry Davies, 365 + +Monaghan, Elizabeth A., _What to Eat and How to Prepare It_, 218 + +_Moon and Sixpence, The_, by W. Somerset Maugham, 270, 278, 279, 284, + 287, 291 + +_Moon Out of Reach, The_, by Margaret Pedler, 256 + +_Moons of Grandeur_, by William Rose Benet, 354, 355; + Don Marquis, review of, 354; + Quotation from, 355 + +Moore, Annie Carroll, _Roads to Childhood_, 152 + +_More Indiscretions_, by Lady Angela Forbes, 129 + +_More Limehouse Nights_, by Thomas Burke, 187 + +Morley, Christopher, _A Rocking Horse_, 348; + _Translations from the Chinese_, 349 + +_Mortal Coils_, by Aldous Huxley, 34, 35 + +_Mr. Lloyd George: A Biographical and Critical Sketch_, + by E. T. Raymond, 120 + +_Mr. Pim_, by A. A. Milne, 261 + +_Mr. Prohock_, by Arnold Bennett, 133, 141, 149; + extracts from, 141-144, 149 + +_Mrs. Craddock_, by W. Somerset Maugham, 287, 288, 291; + extract from, 288, 291 + +Musser, Howard Anderson, _Jungle Tales, Adventures in India_, 156 + +_My Creed: The Way to Happiness--As I Found It_, Mary Roberts Rinehart, 117 + +_My Impressions of America_, by Margot Asquith, 122 + +Myers, A. Wallis, _Twenty Years of Lawn Tennis_, 213 + +_Neither Here Nor There_, by Oliver Herford, 95 + +_Nene_, 264; Comment by Walter +Prichard Eaton, 265; Goncourt +Prize, won by, 264 + +_New Revelation, The_, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 302 + +_New Translation of the New Testament_, by Dr. James Moffatt, 293; + extracts from, 293-296 + +_New Translation of the Old Testament_, by Dr. James Moffatt, 296 + +_Nicolette_, by Baroness Orczy, 248 + +_Night Operator, The_, by Frank L. Packard, 68 + +_Nights in London_, by Thomas Burke, 190 + +Ninety-six Hours' Leave, by Stephen McKenna, 341, 346 + +_Nocturne_, by Frank Swinnerton, 225, 233, 235, 239, 243; + Comment by H. G. Wells, 233-235 + +_Of Human Bondage_, by W. Somerset Maugham, 270; + review by Theodore Dreiser, 273-277, 287, 291 + +_Old Morocco and the Forbidden Atlas_, by C. E. Andrews, 193 + +_Old Wives' Tales, The_, by Arnold Bennett, 133, 149; + inspiration of, 147, 149 + +_On a Chinese Screen_, by W. Somerset Maugham, 284, 291; + extract from, 284-285 + +_On the Staircase_, by Frank Swinnerton, 226, 243 + +_On Tiptoe: A Romance of the Redwoods_, by Stewart Edward White, 59, 67 + +_One Thing is Certain_, by Sophie Kerr, 246 + +_Our Navy at War_, by Josephus Daniels, 321; + Comment on, by W. B. McCormick, 321, 322, 323 + +_Outcasts_, by Hubert Henry Davies, 365 + +Orczy, Baroness, _Nicolette_, 248 + +_Owl Taxi, The_, by Hulbert Footner, 74, 75 + +Packard, Frank L., _Doors of the Night_, 68; + education of, 68; + _From Now On_, 68; + _Pawned_, 68; + _The Adventures of Jimmy Dale_, 68, 69; + _The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale_, 68; + _The Miracle Man_, 68; + _The Night Operator_, 68; + _The Phantom Clue_, 69; + _The Wire Devils_, 68 + +_Painted Meadows_, by Sophie Kerr, 246 + +_Parallel New Testament, The_, by Dr. James Moffatt, 293 + +_Parody Outline of History, A,_ by Donald Ogden Stewart, 93, 94, 371; + see The Bookman, 371 + +_Parson's Progress, The_, by Compton Mackenzie, 266 + +_Passenger_, by Helen Dircks, 236 + +_Patricia Brent, Spinster_, anonymous, 261 + +_Pawned_, by Frank L. Packard, 68 + +Pedler, Margaret, _The Hermit of Far End_, 256; + _The House of Dreams Come True_, 256; + _The Lamp of Fate_, 256; + _The Moon Out of Reach_, 256; + _The Splendid Folly_, 256 + +_Peeps at People_, by Robert Cortes Holliday, 52 + +_Penny Plain_, by O. Douglas, 249 + +_Perfect Behaviour_, by Donald Ogden Stewart, 93, 94; + motive of, 94 + +Perin, Dr. George L., founder of Franklin Square House for Girls, 304; + on autosuggestion, 304; + _Self Healing Simplified_, 304 + +"Permutations Among the Nightingales," by Aldous Huxley, 35 + +_Peter_, by E. F. Benson, 261 + +_Pieces of Hate_, by Heywood Broun, 41 + +_Pilgrim of a Smile, The_, by Norman Davey, 36 + +_Plays for Children_, by Col. Stevenson Lyle Cummins, 157 + +Plays of Hubert Henry Davies, The, 365 + +_Plotting in Pirate Seas_, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler, 159 + +_Poems: Second Series_, by J. C. Squire, 351 + +_Poets and Puritans_, by T. R. Glover, 305; + preface, 306 + +_Poindexter, J., Colored_, by Irvin S. Cobb, 169, 185; + extract from, 170-171, 185 + +_Pomp of Power, The_, anonymous, 119 + +Preston, Keith, _Splinters_, 358, 359 + +Prosper, John, _Gold-Killer_, 75 + +Publishing as a business, 199 + +Pure, Simon, visit to Compton Mackenzie, 266-269 + +_Pushcart at the Curb, A_, by John Dos Passos, 347; + General Headings of, 347 + +Putnam, Nina Wilcox, Laughter, Ltd., 90; + story in American Magazine, 91, 92; + style of, 90; + _Tomorrow We Diet_, 90; + _West Broadway_, 88, 90 + +"Quai de la Tournelle," from a _Pushcart at the Curb_, by John Dos Passos, + Quotation from, 348 + +_Quest of the Western World, The_, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler, 160 + +Rackham, Arthur, artist, 165 + +Raison, Milton, _Spindrift_, 352, 353 + +Raymond, Ernest, _Tell England_, 250 + +Raymond, E. T., _Mr. Lloyd George: A Biographical and Critical + Sketch_, 120; + _Uncensored Celebrities_, 120 + +_Recollections and Reflections_, by A Woman of No Importance, 129 + +Reeve, Mrs. Winnifred, see Onoto Watanna, 254 + +_Responsibility_, by James E. Agate, 49 + +_Return of Alfred, The_, anonymous, 261 + +Reynolds, Mrs. Baillie, _The Judgment of Charis_, 76 + +Riddell, Lord, _Some Things That Matter_, 303 + +Rinehart, Mrs. Mary R., 89; + books by, 116; + K., 107, 108, 116; + _Long Live the King_, 115, 116; + methods of work, 111; + _My Creed: The Way to Happiness_, 117; + _My Public_, 117; + parents of, 108; + quotation from, 102-103; + Sources on, 117; + _The Amazing Adventures of Letitia Carberry_, 108, 115, 116; + _The Amazing Interlude_, 105, 115, 116; + _The Bat_, a collaboration with Avery Hopwood, 114; + _The Breaking Point_, 105, 117; + _The Circular Staircase_, 110, 114, 116; + _The Man in Lower Ten_, 114, 116; + _Tish_, 108, 115, 116; + vitality of, 102 + +_Roads to Childhood_, by Annie Carroll Moore, 152 + +_Robin Hood's Barn_, by Margaret Emerson Bailey, 194 + +_Rocking Horse, The_, by Christopher Morley, 348; + Quotation from, 348 + +Rolt-Wheeler, Francis, "Boy Journalist Series," 159, 161; + _Heroes of the Ruins_, 160; + _Hunting Hidden Treasures in the Andes_, 159; + _In the Days Before Columbus_, 160; + _Plotting in Pirate Seas_, 159; + _The Coming of the Peoples_, 161; + _The Quest of the Western World_, 160; + wanderings of, 158 + +Rosebery, Lord, _Miscellanies--Literary and Historical_, 123 + +_Rosinante to the Road Again_, by John Dos Passos, 38, 347 + +_Roving East and Roving West_, by E. V. Lucas, Sadlier, Michael, + comment on Huxley, 34 + +Saxton, Eugene F., 67; + account of Stewart Edward White, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65 + +_Secret of the Sahara: Kufara_, by Rosita Forbes, 192, 193 + +_Secret Victory, The._ See _The Sensationalists_, + by Stephen McKenna, 342, 346 + +_Self Healing Simplified_, by Dr. George L. Perin, 304 + +_Sensationalists, The_, by Stephen McKenna, 341; + _Lady Lilith_, 342; + _The Education of Eric Lane_, 342; + _The Secret Victory_, 342 + +_September_, by Frank Swinnerton, 225, 226, 243 + +"Seymour, Hugh," of _The Golden Scarecrow_, 16, 21 + +Sheffield, Alfred Dwight, _Joining in Public Discussion_, 297 + +Sheridan, C. M., _The Stag Cook Book_, 217 + +_Shops and Houses_, by Frank Swinnerton, 226, 243 + +_Sixth Sense, The_, by Stephen McKenna, 340, 345 + +"Social Amenities" in "Soles Occidere et Redire Possunt," 36 + +_Social Forces in Literature_, by Dr. H. W. L. Dana, 300 + +_Some Things that Matter_, by Lord Riddell, 303 + +_Somerset Maugham in Tahiti_, article, by Hector MacQuarrie, 292 + +"Song for a Little House," from _The Rocking Horse_ by Christopher + Morley, 348 + +_Sonia_, by Stephen McKenna, 251, 339, 340, 341, 342, 343, 346 + +_Sonia Married_, by Stephen McKenna, 341, 342, 346 + +Speare, Dorothy, 264; + _Dancers in the Dark_, 255, 256 + +_Spellbinders_, by Margaret Culkin Banning, 252 + +_Spindrift_, by Milton Raison, 352; + extracts from preface by William McFee, 353; + quotation from, 354 + +_Splendid Folly, The_, by Margaret Pedler, 256 + +Splendour by Numbers, Aldous Huxley, 36 + +_Splinters_, by Keith Preston, 358; + quotation from, 359 + +Squire, J. C., _Books in General_, Third Series, 44; + collected parodies, 98; + editor of the _London Mercury_, 44; + _Life and Letters_, 46; + on Anatole France, Jane Austen, Keats, Pope, Rabelais, Walt Whitman, 46; + pen name (Solomon Eagle), 46; + _Poems: Second Series_, 351; + _The Birds and Other Poems_, 351 + +_Stag Cook Book, The_, by C. M. Sheridan, 217 + +Stevens, William O., see Allan Westcott, _A History of Sea Power_, 331 + +Stevenson, Candace T., review of Olive Roberts Barton, 162 + +Stevenson, Robert Louis, description of Edinburgh, 86; + in Miscellanies, by Lord Rosebery, 123; + Swinnerton, on, 242 + +Stewart, Donald Ogden, _A Parody Outline of History_, 93, 94, 371; + _Perfect Behaviour_, 93, 94 + +_Stickfuls_, by Irvin S. Cobb, 169, 185 + +_Struggle for Power in Europe_ (1917-21), by Leslie Haden Guest, 323 + +_Sunny-San_, by Onoto Watanna, 253 + +Sutherland, Jean, _Beauty for Ashes_, 262 + +Swinnerton, Frank, Analyst of Lovers, 225; + Arnold Bennett's Comments, 225; + _Coquette_, 226, 243; + criticism of R. L. Stevenson, 242; + list of books, 242, 243; + literary critic, 241; + _Nocturne_, 225, 233, 235, 239, 243; + _On the Staircase_, 226, 243; + _Personal Sketches_ by Arnold Bennett, Grant Overton, H. G. Wells, 243; + publisher, 240; + _September_, 225, 226, 243; + _Shops and Houses_, 226, 243; + Sources on, 243; + _The Casement_, 236, 242; + _The Chaste Wife_, 226, 243; + _The Happy Family_, 226, 238, 242; + _The Merry Heart_, 236, 242; + _The Three Lovers_, 226, 227, 233, 243; + _The Young Idea_, 238 + +_Swords_, by Sidney Howard, 364; + Kenneth Macgowan's criticism, 364, 365 + +Taggart, Marion Ames, 164; + _At Greenacres_, 164; + _Poppy's Pluck_, 164; + _The Bottle Imp_, 164; + _The Queer Little Man_, 164 + +_Tahiti Days_, by Hector McQuarrie, 270 + +_Tales Told by the Gander_, by Maude Radford Warren, 153 + +_Talkers, The_, by Robert W. Chambers, 317, 320 + +Tarkington, Booth, box score, 183, 184; + study of, by Robert Cortes Holliday, 53 + +_Tell England_, by Ernest Raymond, 250; + Prologue, by Padre Monty, 250, 251 + +Terhune, Albert Payson, _Black Caesar's Clan_, 71; + _Black Gold_, 71; + _Further Adventures of Lad_, 215; + home of, 214; + _Lad: A Dog_, 214 + +_That Which Hath Wings_, by Richard Dehan (Clotilde Graves), 200, 210 + +_They Have Only Themselves to Blame_, 118 + +_Thirty-nine Steps_, The, by John Buchan, 249 + +_This Marrying_, by Margaret Culkin Banning, 253 + +_Three Crowns_, The, by Winnifred Wells, 190 + +_Three Lovers, The_, by Frank Swinnerton, 226, 227, 233, 243; + Extracts from, 229, 243 + +_Three Men and a Maid_, by P. G. Wodehouse, 99; + extract from, 99-101 + +_Three Soldiers_, by John Dos Passos + +Tilden, William T., The Art of Lawn Tennis, 213; + tennis champion, 213 + +Timothy Tubby's Journal, extracts from, 95, 96, 97, 98 + +_Tish_, by Mary Roberts Rinehart, 108, 115, 116 + +_Tomorrow We Diet_, by Nina Wilcox Putnam, 90 + +"_Touch of Tears, The_," from Vigils, by Mrs. Kilmer, 350-351 + +_Trade Union Policy_, by Dr. Leo Wolman, 299 + +_Translations from the Chinese_, by Christopher Morley, 348; + Quotation from, 349 + +_Trees and Other Poems_, by Joyce Kilmer, 349 + +_Truth About an Author, The_, by Arnold Bennett, 144, 150 + +_Turns About Town_, by Robert Cortes Holliday, 52 + +_Twenty Years of Lawn Tennis_, by A. Wallis Myers, 213 + +_Vanished Pomps of Yesterday, The_, by Lord Frederic Hamilton, 131 + +_Vanishing of Betty Varian, The_, by Carolyn Wells, 76, 77 + +Van Loan, Charles E., Buck Parvin: + _Stories of the Motion Picture Game_, 212; + _Fore! Golf Stories_, 212; + _Old Man Curry: Racetrack Stories_, 212; + _Score by Innings: Baseball Stories_, 212; + _Taking the Count: Prize Ring Stories_, 212 + +Van, Rensselaer, Alexander, 220; + bibliographies by, 223 + +Van Vechten, Carl, New York Evening Post, + review of _Herman Melville: Mariner and Mystic_, 325-328 + +Vardon, Harry, _The Gist of Golf_, 213 + +_Vigils_, by Mrs. Kilmer, 350; + Quotations from, 350, 351 + +"Vision," from _Spindrift_, by Milton Raison, 354 + + _Vital Message, The_, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 302 + +_Voice in the Wilderness, The_, by Richard Blaker, 263 + +_Walking Stick Papers_, by Robert Cortes Holliday, selection from, 51, 52 + +Walpole, Hugh, 15 27, 28, 29, 31, 32; + _A Hugh Walpole Anthology_, 32; + American following of, 21; + appearance, 22; + article on, by Mrs. Belloc Loundes, 23; + birthplace, 15; + Books of, 31; + comments on The Bookman, 366; + connection with London Standard, 26; + appreciation by Joseph Hergesheimer, 15, 29, 30, 31; + courage of, 25; + description by Arnold Bennett, 22; + education of, 22; + educational experiences of, 22; + _English Literature During the Last Half Century_, 32; + father of, 15; + Fortitude, 21; + goes to England, 16; + Hugh Walpole, an appreciation, 31; + Hugh Walpole, Master Novelist, 32; + life in New York, 16; + London scenes pictured by, in _Anthology_, 28; + _Maradick at Forty_, 26; + Note by Joseph Conrad, 28; + Novels, list of, 31; + optimist, 23; + Romances, list of, 31; + Service in Great War, 16; + Selections for Anthology, 27; + Short Stories, list of, 31; + Sources on, 31; + superstitions, 24; + reader, 24; + Tait Black Prize for best novel of year, 30; + won by, 30; + _The Captives_, 24; + _The Cathedral_, 19; + _The Dark Forest_, 16; + _The Duchess of Wrexe_, 19; + _The Gods and Mr. Perrin_, 22; + _The Green Mirror_, 19; + _The Wooden Horse_, 25; + _Visits to America_, 16 + +_Wanderings of a Spiritualist, The_, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 302 + +Warren, Maude Radford, _Tales Told by the Gander_, 153 + +Watanna, Onoto (Mrs. Winnifred Reeve), 254; + _A Japanese Nightingale_, 254; + _Sunny-San_, 253 + +Warbasse, Dr. James B., _Cooperative Movement_, 300 + +Weaver, Raymond M., _Herman Melville: Mariner and Mystic_, + 325, 326, 327, 328 + +Wells, Carolyn (Mrs. Hadwin Houghton), 77; + _Book of Humorous Verse_, 99; + _The Room with the Tassels_, 76; + _The Vanishing of Betty Varian_, 76, 77 + +Wells, H. G., 94; Comments on Frank Swinnerton's _Nocturne_, 233, 234, 235; + _Soviet Russia_, 192 + +Westcott, Peter, in _Fortitude_, by Hugh Walpole, 22 + +_West Broadway_, by Nina Wilcox Putnam, 88, 90 + +_Westerners, The_, by Stewart Edward White, 55, 63, 66 + +West, Rebecca, books by, 86; + article by Amy Wellington, 83; + artist, 78; + biography of, 83; + _The Judge_, 78; + _The Return of the Soldier_, 86 + +Westcott, Allan, and William O. Stevens, _A History of Sea Power_, 331 + +_What Timmy Did_, by Mrs. Belloc Lowndes, 77 + +_What to Eat and How to Prepare It_, by Elizabeth A. Monaghan, 218 + +_While I Remember_, by Stephen McKenna, 324, 346 + +_Whispering Windows_, see _More Limehouse Nights_, + by Thomas Burke, 187, 188 + +White, Albert C., _The Irish Free State_, 191 + +White, Stewart Edward, 55, 56, 59, 60, 61, 66; + account of by Eugene F. Saxton, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65; + _Appendix, to Gold_, by Eugene F. Saxton, 67; + _The Birds of Mackinac Island_, 55, 63; + boat and books, 56, 59; + books of, 66; + by John Palmer Gavit, 67; + education of, 61; + Gold, 61, 67; + in France, 56; + military service, 61; + _On Tiptoe: A Romance of the Redwoods_, 59, 67; + parents, 60; + _Simba_, 55, 67; + sources on, 67; + _The Claim Jumpers_, 55, 63, 66; + _The Land of Footprints_, 55, 67; + _The Westerners_, 55, 63, 66 + +_Wild Life in the Tree Tops_, by Captain C. W. R. Knight, 214; + Photographs, 214 + +Wingfield-Stratford, Esme, _Facing Reality_, 300 + +_Wire Devils, The_, by Frank L. Packard, 68 + +_With the Band_, poem, by Robert W. Chambers, 317 + +Wodehouse, Pelham Grenville, 70; + lyrical writer, 99; + _Three Men and a Maid_, 99 + +Wolf, Robert, 297; + _The Creative Spirit in Industry_, 300 + +Wolman, Dr. Leo, _Trade Union Policy_, 299 + +Woman of No Importance, A, _Recollections and Reflections_, 129 + +_Women and the Labour Movement_, by Alice Henry, 299 + +_Women Who Make Our Novels, The_, by Grant Overton, 117; + chapter on Mary Roberts Rinehart, 109, 117 + +_Wonder Book, A_, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, 165 + +_Wooden Horse, The_, by Hugh Walpole, 25, 26, 31; + sale of, 25 + +Workers' Bookshelf Series, 297 + +Workers' Education Bureau of America, editorial board, 297 + + _Writing as a Business: A Practical Guide for Authors_, + by Robert Cortes Holliday, 220; + Extracts from, 222, 223 + +Wylie, Elinor, 357 + +Young, F. E. Mills, 263; + _Almonds of Life_, 263; + _Imprudence_, 263; + _The Stronger Influence_, 263 + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET*** + + +******* This file should be named 27116.txt or 27116.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/7/1/1/27116 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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