WHEN WINTER COMES 
 TO MAIN STREET 
 
 GRANT OVERTON 
 
atttara. ^. %. 
 
PR 473 08°™*" ""'""">' '■""■"T 
 
 When winter comes to Main street, 
 
 3 1924 014 525 251 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tlie Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924014525251 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES 
 TO MAIN STREET 
 
 GRANT OVERTON 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES 
 TO MAIN STREET 
 
 BY 
 
 GRANT OVERTON 
 
 AUTHOR OF "the WOMEN WHO MAKE OUR NOVELS" 
 
 NEW ^tar YORK 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 
 Pp4r3 
 o t 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1922, 
 BY GEORGE B. DORAN COMPANY 
 
 WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET. I 
 
 (5 Zbl07 
 
 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 pub- 
 lic. 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 
 
 [vii] 
 
PREFACE 
 
 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 
 Mean 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. 
 ig July ig22. 
 
 [viii] 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I THE COURAGE OF HUGH WALPOLE I5 
 
 II HALF-SMILES AND GESTURES 33 
 
 III STEWART EDWARD WHITE AND ADVENTURE ^^ 
 
 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 ll8 
 
 IX AUDACIOUS MR. BENNETT I33 
 
 X A CHAPTER F*OR CHILDREN 1^2 
 
 XI COBb's fourth DIMENSION 166 
 
 XII PLACES TO GO 187 
 
 XIII ALIAS RICHARD DEHAN I96 
 
 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 27O 
 
 [ix] 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 OHAPTBB Ti.Ba 
 
 XVIII BOOKS WE LIVE BY 293 
 
 XIX ROBERT W. CHAMBERS AND THE WHOLE 
 
 TRUTH 3°^ 
 
 XX UNIQUITIES 321 
 
 XXI THE CONFESSIONS OF A WELL-MEANING 
 
 YOUNG MAN, STEPHEN MOKENNA 334 
 
 XXII POETS AND PLAYWRIGHTS 347 
 
 XXIII THE BOOKMAN FOUNDATION AND THE BOOK- 
 MAN 366 
 
 EPILOGUE 372 
 
 INDEX 373 
 
 [X] 
 
PORTRAITS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 HUGH WALPOLE l^ 
 
 STEWART EDWARD WHITE 57 
 
 REBECCA WEST 79 
 
 MARY ROBERTS RINEHART IO3 
 
 ARNOLD BENNETT 135 
 
 IRVIN S. COBB 167 
 
 FRANK SWINNERTON 227 
 
 W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM 27 1 
 
 STEPHEN MCKENNA 335 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES 
 TO MAIN STREET 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES 
 TO MAIN STREET 
 
 Chapter I 
 THE COURAGE OF HUGH WALPOLE 
 
 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 cour- 
 age, I shall always hold, is nowhere more appar- 
 ent than in the choice of his birthplace. He was 
 bom in the Antipodes. Yes! In that magical, 
 unpronounceable realm one reads about and in- 
 tends to look up in the dictionary. . . . The pre- 
 cise 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 ecclesi- 
 
 [15] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 astical 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 The- 
 ological 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 pop- 
 ular personally on this side. His visit this autumn 
 (1922) will undoubtedly multiply earlier wel- 
 comes. 
 
 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 sup- 
 pose 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 
 [16] 
 
BUCK WALPOLE 
 
 [17] 
 
THE COURAGE OF HUGH WALPOLE 
 
 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. 
 
 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 myth- 
 ical 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 — con- 
 cerns 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 Render arrives to take up a 
 post in the Cathedral. The main thread of the 
 
 [19] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 daugh- 
 ter, 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 Cathe- 
 dral, 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 Ver- 
 ger'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, Eng- 
 land; 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 strik- 
 ing third part, entirely concerned with the events 
 of a week and full of flashing pictures, such as the 
 [20] 
 
THE COURAGE OF HUGH WALPOLE 
 
 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 fugi- 
 tive 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 gener- 
 ations of men. . . . 
 
 u 
 
 Courage, for Hugh, must have made its demand 
 to be exercised early. We have the "Hugh Sey- 
 mour" of The Golden Scarecrow who "was sent 
 from Ceylon, where his parents lived, to be edu- 
 cated 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 s)miphony — from those 
 
 [21] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 strug- 
 gle of Peter Westcott, in boyhood and young man- 
 hood, with antagonists, inner and outer. At the 
 end we have him partly defeated, wholly trium- 
 phant, still fighting, still pledged to fight. 
 
 Not to confuse fiction with fact : Hugh Wal- 
 pole 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-imagi- 
 native 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 Petro- 
 grad to promote pro-Ally sentiment. For these 
 services Walpole was decorated with the Georgian 
 Medal. 
 
 What is Hugh Walpole like personally? Ar- 
 nold Bennett, in an article which appeared in the 
 Book News Monthly and which was reprinted in 
 a booklet, says: "About the time of the publica- 
 tion of The Gods and Mr. Perrin, I made the 
 acquaintance of Mr. Walpole and found a man 
 of youthful appearance, rather dark, with a spa- 
 cious forehead, a very highly sensitised nervous 
 organisation, and that reassuring matter-of-fact- 
 ness of demeanour which one usually does find in 
 an expert. He was then busy at his task of seeing 
 
 t22] 
 
THE COURAGE OF HUGH WALPOLE 
 
 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 impos- 
 sible to 'go out' in London without meeting Mr. 
 Walpole — and then for a long period he is a mere 
 legend of dirmer 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 sympa- 
 thetic 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 pleas- 
 ure of friendships in London, 'What a wonder- 
 ful day!' he was heard to say, his voice sounding 
 
 [23] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 muifled 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 Christ- 
 mas 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, prac- 
 tically 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 his- 
 tory, periods oi 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. I916, 
 POLPERRO, MAY I92O. 
 
 [24] 
 
THE COURAGE OF HUGH WALPOLE 
 
 iii 
 
 The demand for the exercise of that courage of 
 which we have spoken can be seen from these fur- 
 ther 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 im- 
 prudence to destroy. The other was The Wooden 
 Horse, his first printed novel. It is not to be 
 presumed that The Wooden Horse was pub- 
 lished at once. For years it waited in manu- 
 script 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 Con- 
 rad. I am unable to judge the schoolmaster's fit- 
 ness 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 conclu- 
 sion 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 re- 
 sult of the conflict of opinion between Mr. Mar- 
 
 [25] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 riott and the schoolmaster was that Mr. Walpole 
 left the school abruptly — ^perhaps without the ap- 
 proval 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 favour- 
 ing influence of Mr. Marriott he obtained a tempo- 
 rary job on the London Standard as a critic of fic- 
 tion. It lasted three weeks. Then he got a regu- 
 lar 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." 
 
 [26] 
 
THE COURAGE OF HUGH WALPOLE 
 iv 
 
 Not so long ago there was published in Eng- 
 land, in a series of pocket-sized books called the 
 Kings Treasuries of Literature (under the gen- 
 eral 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. Per- 
 rin 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. 
 
 [27] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 Among the London places pictured by Mr. Wal- 
 pole 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 Con- 
 rad, who speaks of the anthology as "intelligently 
 compiled," and as offering, within its limits, a 
 sample of literary shade for every reader's sym- 
 pathy, "Sophistication," adds Mr. Conrad, "is 
 the only shade that does not exist in Mr. Wal- 
 pole'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 sound- 
 ness is not of conventions but of convictions; and 
 even as to these, let no one suppose that Mr. Wal- 
 pole's convictions are old-fashioned. He is dis- 
 tinctly 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 
 [28] 
 
THE COURAGE OF HUGH WALPOLE 
 
 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 spir- 
 itual and material with his characteristic earnest- 
 ness, and in the whole we can discern the charac- 
 teristics 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." 
 
 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 possibili- 
 ties 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 
 
 [29] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 gentle- 
 women, or caretakers, dry and twisted, brittle and 
 sharp, repositories of emotion — vanities and mal- 
 ice 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 re- 
 sources — the restless turning away of the young 
 from the conventions, prejudices and inhibitions 
 of yesterday. He is singularly intent upon the in- 
 justice 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 Univer- 
 sity 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. 
 
 [30] 
 
3:he courage of hugh walpole 
 
 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. 
 
 [31] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 English Literature During the Last Half Century, 
 by J. W. Cunliffe, the macmillan company. 
 
 A Hugh Walpole Anthology, selected by the au- 
 thor. LONDON : J. M. DENT & SONS. NEW YORK: 
 E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY. 
 
 Hugh Walpole, Master Novelist. Pamphlet pub- 
 lished by GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY. (Out 
 
 of print.) 
 Who's Who [In England]. 
 
 [32] 
 
Chapter II 
 HALF-SMILES AND GESTURES 
 
 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 yoimg men. Faces of naive enthusiasm 
 and an innocent expectancy were not particularly 
 noticeable in the years 1918 to 1922. The som- 
 breness, the abruptness, the savage mood evident 
 in the writings of such men as Barbusse and Sieg- 
 fried 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 rid- 
 dle of a continued existence, on the loss of well- 
 
 [33] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 doubt- 
 ful ; 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 follow- 
 ing 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 in- 
 consistency, 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 sen- 
 sualist. 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-conscious- 
 ness. As the foal will shy at his own shadow, so 
 
 [34] 
 
HALF-SMILES AND GESTURES 
 
 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 ex- 
 ample of this in Mortal Coils. Among the stage- 
 directions to his play, 'Permutations Among the 
 Nightingales,' occur the followiag 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 prod- 
 ucts 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 
 
 [35] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 ct Redire Possunt,' and, in Limbo, 'Richard 
 Greenow' (first loo pages) and 'Happy Families' 
 are syncopated actuality, and the mind jigs an 
 appreciative shoulder, as the body jerks irresist- 
 ibly to 'Indianola.' 
 
 "There remains Huxley the sensualist, a very 
 ardent lover of beauty, but one that shrinks from 
 the sordid preamble of modem gallantry, one that 
 is apprehensive of the inevitable disillusiomnent. 
 As others have done, as others will do, he finds in 
 imagination the adventure that progress has de- 
 creed 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 deli- 
 cate 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 dev- 
 iltry 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 discov- 
 ery The Pilgrim of a Smile are astonished to learn 
 that its author is, properly speaking, an engineer. 
 Norman Davey, born in 1888 (Cambridge 1908- 
 
 [36] 
 
HALF-SMILES AND GESTURES 
 
 lo) 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 engi- 
 neering work in the North of England and to 
 study in the University of Montpellier in France. 
 
 His first book was T^he 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 laugh- 
 able 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 
 
 [37] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 Passes, Rosinante to the Road Again. This, in- 
 deed, is the story of a gesture and a quest for it. 
 The gesture is that of Castile, defined in the open- 
 ing 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 medieval 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 aguard- 
 iente, 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 person- 
 ality shall we say? — and the people they meet. 
 The other chapters are acute studies of modem 
 
 [38] 
 
HALF-SMILES AND GESTURES 
 
 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 splen- 
 did 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 fa- 
 ther, 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 flash- 
 ing occasionally on the jewels of his mitre, the 
 bishop fingered his crosier restlessly, asking his 
 
 [39] 
 
WHEN WINTER COIvjii.S TO iy±Aii^ k,j. 
 
 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 serv- 
 ice 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 discus- 
 sion of Things That Have Interested Me by dif- 
 ferent individuals attached to different papers and 
 having in common only the great gift of being 
 interested in what interests everybody else. Per- 
 haps 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 
 
 [40] 
 
xa.ti.ijj? -civilijx^o .ti.i-'ijj vjr 
 
 ESTURES 
 
 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 thea- 
 tre, a little farther along about books, farther on 
 yet about politics. He makes excursions into col- 
 lege 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 pin wheel ; 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, "Frank- 
 incense 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 
 
 [41 J 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIJN ai±tJiiJ.x 
 
 the camels which were to bear them on their jour- 
 ney. 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 con- 
 tent. 
 
 "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 serv- 
 ants 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 
 
 [42J 
 
HALF-SMILES AND GESTURES 
 
 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 stem. 
 They rebuked the" youngest of the wise men and 
 he paid no attention but called to his chief serv- 
 ant to make the first of all the camels kneel. Then 
 he picked up the toy of tin and, opening the treas- 
 ure 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 : Tor 
 the King of Kings there are gifts of great rich- 
 ness, gold and frankincense and myrrh. 
 
 [43] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 " 'But this,' he said, 'is for the child in Beth- 
 lehem!'" 
 
 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 ap- 
 parent 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 seri- 
 ous 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 
 carmot lift anything from its setting. It is all of 
 a piece, from the essay on "If One Were De- 
 scended from Shakespeare" to the remarks about 
 Ben Jonson, Maeterlinck, Ruskin, Cecil Chester- 
 ton and Mr. Kipling's later verse (which I have 
 nowhere seen more sensibly discussed). 
 
 Well, perhaps these observations from the chap- 
 ter "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. 
 
 [44] 
 
HALF-SMILES AND GESTURES 
 
 After some preliminary comment, Mr. Squire con- 
 cludes : 
 
 "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 pseans by Englishmen which 
 excel, as regards both simplicity of sentiment and 
 illiteracy of construction, any foreign composi- 
 tion. 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 blind- 
 ness) 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; his- 
 
 [45] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 torians will refer to it when endeavouring to prove 
 that their own ages are superior to ours in intelli- 
 gence; 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 en- 
 terprise, in fact, is likely to be of service to sev- 
 eral 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 Rabe- 
 lais 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; 
 
 [46] 
 
HALF-SMILES AND GESTURES 
 
 and those chapters in the volume which are in the 
 nature of interludes are among the best Mr. 
 Squire has written. Unfortimately I have left 
 myself no room to quote the incomparable pane- 
 gyric (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 J 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 de- 
 scriptive passages can convey it, may be realised 
 from these portraits of a father and mother which 
 open the story called "Pilgrimage" in / Have 
 Only Myself to Blame: 
 
 "My father was one of the most brilliarxt 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 
 
 [47] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 caljjcd 
 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 impres- 
 sions. 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 tur- 
 quoise, shell pink and dim lavender. Her loveli- 
 ness had shifted. The hours of the day conspired 
 to set her. The hard coat and skirt, the high col- 
 lar, 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 trium- 
 phantly at night, who was to choose between 
 them? Summer and winter followed suit. 
 Whether you saw her emerging from crisp or- 
 gandy or clinging crepe de chine, stiff grey as- 
 trakan or melting chinchilla always it was the 
 
 [48] 
 
HALF-SMILES AND GESTURES 
 
 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 unfiUable 
 quality of her emptiness. Rather I think it 
 amused him to see the violent passions she in- 
 spired, 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 
 yoimg 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." 
 
 Vll 
 
 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 tire- 
 someness of Honest Work and the dishonesty of 
 righteous people. Very good they were, too. 
 
 [49] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 James E. Agate was the author of this decidedly 
 interesting piece of fiction. He was not a partic- 
 ularly 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 young- 
 ish, 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 experi- 
 ence 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 inform- 
 ant. "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 ^ 
 
 [50] 
 
HALF-SMILES AND GESTURES 
 
 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 an- 
 cient 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, 'nau- 
 tical instruments,' wax guns, cordage and twine, 
 marine paints, cotton wool and waste, turpentine, 
 oils, greases, and rosin. Queer old taverns, pub- 
 lic houses, are here, too. Why do not their win- 
 dows 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 
 
 [51] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 bagging here have their home. And there are 
 haughty bonded warehouses filled with fine li- 
 quors. From his white cabin at the top of a ven- 
 erable structure ccanes the dean of the salt-fish 
 business. 'Export trade fair,' he says; 'good de- 
 mand 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 corni- 
 try? — and there were persons of discrimination 
 among the laudators of Robert Cortes HoUiday. 
 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 de- 
 scribed somewhere by Wilson FoUett; I think 
 FoUett was trying to convey the quality of 
 
 [52] 
 
HALF-SMILES AND GESTURES 
 
 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 cut- 
 ting off another liberal length of the rich person- 
 ality which was Dickens or De Morgan. So, 
 exactly, it seems to me in the case of HoUiday. 
 A new book of Holliday's essays is simply another 
 few yards of a personality not precisely matched 
 among contemporary American essayists. Holli- 
 day'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 Tarking- 
 ton 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, 
 
 [53] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 New York, had long been known as a newspaper 
 writer and a pinch hitter for Don Marquis, con- 
 ductor of The Sun's famous column. The Sun 
 Dial, when Don was A. W. O. L. 
 
 [54] 
 
Chapter III 
 
 STEWART EDWARD WHITE AND 
 ADVENTURE 
 
 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 in- 
 cidents 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 serv- 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIJN si±ti!ii!iX 
 
 ice in France as a Major in the U. S. Field Artil- 
 lery. 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 rain- 
 bows, 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." 
 
 11 
 
 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 col- 
 lapsed. 
 
 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 stur- 
 
 [56] 
 
STEWART EDWARD WHITE 
 
 [57] 
 
STEWART EDWARD WHITE 
 
 dier boat, I understood, was also the property of 
 S. E. 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 im- 
 mediate prospect of enjoying. On Tiptoe: A Ro- 
 mance of the Rediuoods is Stewart Edward White 
 in a somewhat unusual but entirely taking role. 
 Here we have Mr. White writing what is essen- 
 tially 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 in- 
 
 [59] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 dustry, 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 ^^^ the 
 degree of master of arts from the same institution 
 [60] 
 
STEWART EDWARD WHITE 
 
 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 sec- 
 ond 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 indi- 
 vidual man's struggles toward perfect adjustment 
 with his environment. According as he comes 
 into correspondence and harmcHiy with his en- 
 vironment, by that much does he succeed. That 
 is what an environment is for. It may be finan- 
 
 [61J 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 cial, natural, sexual, political, and so on. The 
 sex element is important, of course, — very im- 
 portant. But it is not the only element by any 
 means ; nor is it necessarily an element that exer- 
 cises 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 rela- 
 tion 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 ruiming 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 Call- 
 [62] 
 
STEWART EDWARD WHITE 
 
 fortiia, 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 re- 
 ferred 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 Hud- 
 son 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. 
 
 [63] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 snow- 
 shoes 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 W^ite 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 English- 
 woman, entering a book shop where White hap- 
 pened 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 some- 
 thing 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 ac- 
 counts for these books of mine. I have tried to 
 
 [64] 
 
STEWART EDWARD WHITE 
 
 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." 
 
 John Palmer Gavit tells how once, when hunt- 
 ing, 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 him- 
 self 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 
 
 [65] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 with- 
 out fear, with eyes open to see in the next undis- 
 covered 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 (With Samucl Hopkins Adams) 
 
 ARIZONA NIGHTS 
 
 CAMP AND TRAIL 
 
 THE RIVERMAN 
 
 THE RULES OF THE GAME 
 
 THE CABIN 
 
 [66] 
 
STEWART EDWARD WHITE 
 
 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 (In The Chroniclcs of America 
 Series) 
 
 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 (pub- 
 lished in 1913) by Eugene F. Saxton, 
 
 DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY. 
 
 Stewart Edward White, by John Palmer Gavit. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC LEDGER, May 20, 
 1922. 
 
 [67] 
 
Chapter IV 
 WHERE THE PLOT THICKENS 
 
 SCARCELY anyone is there, now writing 
 mystery stories, who, with the contbination 
 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 en- 
 gaged in engineering work for some years and be- 
 gan 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 en- 
 thusiastically 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 
 [68] 
 
WHERE THE PLOT THICKENS 
 
 will denude the book counters of Jimmie Dale 
 and The Phantom Clue this autumn. 
 
 Packard differs from his fellow-writers of mys- 
 tery 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 pur- 
 poses 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. 
 
 [69] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 11 
 
 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 sev- 
 eral 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 Wode- 
 house'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 sus- 
 ceptibility 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 pre- 
 pared. An intermediate book, The Man in Rat- 
 catcher, 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 de- 
 struction ; the man who staked his happiness on a 
 half forgotten waltz ; the man who played at cards 
 
 [70] 
 
WHERE THE PLOT THICKENS 
 
 for his wife; the man who assisted at suicide. 
 Neither 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. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Black Casar's Clan is the good title of Albert 
 Payson Terhune's new story in succession to his 
 Black Gold, a mystery story that was distin- 
 guished by the possession of a Foreword so un- 
 usual 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. No- 
 body 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 
 
 [71] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 bet- 
 ter can you ask; in a story that is frank melo- 
 drama? 
 
 "The scene, by the way, is laid in Northern 
 California; a beautiful and strikingly individual- 
 istic 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- 
 assoi-ted 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 
 
 [72] 
 
WHERE THE PLOT THICKENS 
 
 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 coun- 
 try 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 com- 
 mon 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 
 
 [73] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 
 Sellers, 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. 
 
 [74] 
 
WHERE THE PLOT THICKENS 
 
 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 pre- 
 sented 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 excur- 
 sion 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 ! 
 
 The peculiarity about Gold-Killer is the mys- 
 tery 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 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 word "twins." I know that there is no John Pros- 
 per — 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 sur- 
 pass 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 Charts. 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 secre- 
 tary. 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 unex- 
 pected. 
 
 The Vanishing of Betty Varian restored to 
 readers of Carolyn Wells a detective whose ap- 
 pearance in The Room with the Tassels made that 
 story more than ordinarily worth while. I do not 
 
 [76] 
 
WHERE THE PLOT THICKENS 
 
 know, though, whether Penny Wise would be in- 
 teresting 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. Had win Houghton) is, to me, 
 as extraordinary as her stories. All those books ! 
 She herself says that "having mastered the psy- 
 chology of detachment" she can write with more 
 concentration and less revision than any other pro- 
 fessional 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 espe- 
 cial attention from those periodicals and persons 
 interested in psychic matters. Here was a woman 
 whose husband had died from poison — self -admin- 
 istered, 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. 
 
 [77] 
 
Chapter V 
 REBECCA WEST: AN ARTIST 
 
 TT7HETHER Rebecca West is writing re- 
 W views 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 
 3tevenson 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 
 
 [78] 
 
MBECCA WEST 
 
 [79] 
 
REBECCA WEST: AN ARTIST 
 
 the valley the tenements of the Royal Mile lifted 
 themselves up — the Royal Mile, which runs al- 
 ways uphill from the Palace that is Holyrood to 
 the height that is the Castle. Talk about ges- 
 tures ! The whole city of Edinburgh is a match- 
 less gesture. 
 
 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 extrava- 
 gantly 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 twi- 
 light, 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 
 
 [81] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 dis- 
 content 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 sur- 
 face, 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 fore- 
 gather about the rotting doors of dead men's man- 
 sions 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. . . ." 
 
 11 
 
 The Judge is certainly autobiographical in 
 some of the material employed. For instance, it 
 is a fact that Miss West went to school in Edin- 
 burgh, attending an institution not unlike John 
 Thompson's Ladies College referred to in The 
 Judge (but only referred to). It is a fact, as every- 
 one who knows anything about Miss West knows, 
 that Miss West was an ardent suffragette in that 
 time before suffragettes had ceased from troubling 
 [82] 
 
REBECCA WEST: AN ARTIST 
 
 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 annual Index 
 to Periodical Publications did Miss Amy Well- 
 ington 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 sturmed everybody by her 
 early articles written under the name of one of 
 Ibsen's most formidable heroines; but unfortun- 
 ately 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 con- 
 sulting. This estimable authority says that Re- 
 becca West was born on Christmas in 1892, and 
 is the youngest daughter of the late Charles Fair- 
 field 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 Free woman as a reviewer in 191 1. 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 leg- 
 
 [83] 
 
IVHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 ends. 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 terri- 
 fyingly sane criticisms is a notable thing; but to 
 "write novels of tender insight and intimate revela- 
 tion is a far more convincing thing. The Judge is 
 such a novel. 
 
 Ill 
 
 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. Yaver- 
 land'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 pic- 
 ture of Ellen Melville, the girl in Edinburgh, the 
 
 [84] 
 
REBECCA WEST: AN ARTIST 
 
 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 ad- 
 mired and studied. She perceives the immense 
 value of introspection, but is not lost in its quick- 
 sands. 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 se- 
 quence of thoughts in the mind of Richard Yaver- 
 land; 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 imderstand the behaviour 
 of these two young people. 
 
 All the first half of the book is a truly marvel- 
 ous 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. 
 
 [85] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 Of subsidiary portraits there are plenty. El- 
 len'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 but 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 stead- 
 fastness of women." 
 
 Books 
 by Rebecca West 
 
 THE RETURN OF THE SOLDIER 
 THE JUDGE 
 
 [86] 
 
REBECCA WEST: AN ARTIST 
 
 Sources 
 on Rebecca West 
 
 Who's Who. [In England]. 
 
 Rebecca West: Article by Amy Wellington in the 
 
 LITERARY REVIEW OF THE NEW YORK EVE- 
 NING POST, 1921. 
 
 Articles by Rebecca West in various English pub- 
 lications, frequently reprinted by the living 
 AGE. See the annual index to American 
 periodical publications. 
 
 [87] 
 
Chapter VI 
 SHAMELESS FUN 
 
 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 back- 
 wards, 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 Sat- 
 urday 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 every- 
 thing that anybody can ask on this or other trans- 
 continental subjects. Mr. Lorimer will publish, 
 [88] 
 
SHAMELESS FUN 
 
 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 Maga- 
 zine." 
 
 "Yes, I thought I would join the autobiogra- 
 phists — 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 IsrCt 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 din- 
 ing-room no matter if all my friends suffer with 
 him the rest of their lives. He was a male dol- 
 
 [89] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 phin; 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-1-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 Madi- 
 son, 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. Laugh- 
 ter 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 
 
 [90] 
 
SHAMELESS FUN 
 
 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 any- 
 thing 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 ex- 
 perience 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 con- 
 trary, only modesty and good manners forbids me 
 pointing, even at myself. I am also sure that the 
 checks these hoUerers 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 
 
 [91] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 inter- 
 rupted 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 tjie 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 deliv- 
 
 [92] 
 
SHAMELESS FUN 
 
 ered, 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." 
 
 11 
 
 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 ob- 
 stacle 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 Pitiquette. 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 
 
 [93] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 con- 
 stantly in demand until society is abolished. 
 Then, too, there is that new behaviouristic psy- 
 chology. 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. Re- 
 sponse to the Parody Outline of History was im- 
 mediate, 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 
 
 [94] 
 
SHAMELESS FUN 
 
 best seller. It remains one. The thing that it 
 accomplished is not likely to be well done again 
 for years. 
 
 ill 
 
 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 illus- 
 trations 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 ap- 
 preciation on the part of the American people 
 was touching, but exhausting. Yet my publish- 
 ers 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 
 
 [95] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 ^ 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 sight- 
 seeing 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 niay 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 num- 
 ber of motors are employed. Add to this pursuing 
 motorcycle policemen, and the sight is most im- 
 
 'The relationship was on my husband's father's side. The 
 Turbots were never so closely connected with the bourgeoisie. 
 
 [96] 
 
SHAMELESS FUN 
 
 pressive. 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 j 
 but the Social Register was of no assistance in this 
 case.^ 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 difScult 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 
 
 ' We, of course, had entree to all the best Fifth Avenue homes, 
 but since we have now become literary folk, we chose to re- 
 main so. We therefore avoided the better classes. 
 
 [97] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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/ 
 
 "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 fa- 
 miliarity — 'so refreshing,' I remember she said) 
 'sit right down and I'll tell you all about litera- 
 ture in this here New York.' " 
 
 ... I have always been meaning to read 
 Tubby's novels — so like those of Archibald Mar- 
 shall and Anthony TroUope, I understand — ^but 
 have never got around to it. Now I feel I simply 
 must. 
 
 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 
 
 'Indeed Mr. Vernajr 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. 
 Yernay. This, I did not consider an objection. 
 
 [98] 
 
SHAMELESS FUN 
 
 Trade," "Repertory Drama, How They Do It 
 and How They Would Have Done It," "Imag- 
 inary Reviews and Speeches" and "The Aspir- 
 ant's Manual." 
 
 The great source book of fun in rhyme, how- 
 ever, 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 whim- 
 sical, satiric, narrative, punning — there is no con- 
 ceivable 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 musi- 
 cal plays in England, interpolating one or two in 
 existing successes. Then he came to America and 
 began writing lyrics, interpolating them in musi- 
 cal comedies over here. Then he began inter- 
 polating 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 t3^ical : 
 
 "Mrs. Hignett was never a very patient woman. 
 
 " 'Let us take all your negative qualities for 
 
 [99] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 impor- 
 tance. What is it, if you have no objection to con- 
 centrating 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 daugh- 
 [loo] 
 
SHAMELESS FUN 
 
 ter 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.' 
 
 "Tine!' 
 
 " '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 Mor- 
 timer, '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 nut- 
 shell.' " 
 
 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!" 
 
 [101] 
 
Chapter VII 
 
 THE VITALITY OF MARY ROBERTS 
 RINEHART 
 
 THE total result . . . after twelve years is 
 that I have learned to sit down at my desk 
 and begin work simultaneously," wrote Mrs. Rine- 
 hart 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. 
 
 "I have words, but fewer ideas to clothe in 
 them. And, coming more and more often is the 
 [102] 
 
MARY ROBERTS RINEHART 
 
 [103] 
 
VITALITY OF MARY ROBERTS RINEHART 
 
 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 pub- 
 lished 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 capti- 
 vating a quality as had this war story. But I wish 
 to emphasise again what I felt and tried to ex- 
 press 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 in- 
 deed. It is not all, nor half. 
 
 Dr. Richard Livingstone, just past thirty, is 
 supposedly the nephew of Dr. David Livingstone, 
 
 [105] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 person- 
 ality — 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 mo- 
 ments in which he recalls with a painful and un- 
 satisfactory vagueness some manner of life that 
 he once had a part in. But in his young man- 
 hood, 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 untroub- 
 ling. 
 
 The casual visitor's surprise and the undercur- 
 rent 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 Liv- 
 ingstone'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. 
 [106] 
 
VITALITY OF MARY ROBERTS RINEHART 
 
 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 sec- 
 ondary personality gives way. The first, sub- 
 merged or walled-off personality may step across 
 the levelled barrier. That extraordinarily dra- 
 matic 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 con- 
 sidered Mrs. Rinehart's most satisfactory story. 
 If I may venture a personal opinion, The Break- 
 ing Point is a much stronger novel than K. To 
 me it seems to combine the excellence of char- 
 acter delineation noticeable in K with the dra- 
 matic thrill and plot effectiveness which made 
 The Amazing Interlude so irresistible as you 
 read it. 
 
 11 
 
 To say so much is to bear the strongest testi- 
 mony to that superb vitality, which, characteristic 
 of Mrs. Rinehart as a person, is yet more charac- 
 
 [107] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 teristic of her fiction. There is, I suppose, this 
 additional interest in regard to The Breaking 
 Point, that Mrs. Rinehart is the wife of a physi- 
 cian and was herself, before her marriage, a 
 trained nurse. The facts of her life are interest- 
 ing, 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 Car berry, the 
 stories collected under the title of Tish and the 
 novel K. She became, at nineteen, the wife of 
 Stanley Marshall Rinehart, a Pittsburgh physi- 
 cian. 
 
 "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 hap- 
 pened 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 
 [108] 
 
VITALITY OF MARY ROBERTS RINEHART 
 
 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 sum- 
 mer (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 fore- 
 fingers 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 chil- 
 dren. 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 de- 
 sertion of her family made a trip to New York. 
 
 [109] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 She made the weary rounds in one day, *a heart- 
 breaking 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 pub- 
 lishing 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 $1,200. She was sur- 
 rounded 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 be- 
 lief in me, his steadiness and his sanity and his 
 humour have kept me going, when, as has hap- 
 pened 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 oflSce build- 
 [no] 
 
VITALITY OF MARY ROBERTS RINEHART 
 
 ing 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 Se- 
 wickley, 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, in- 
 volving business details, foreign rights, copy- 
 rights, moving picture rights, translation rights, 
 second serial rights, and dramatisations, had made 
 from the small begirming 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 op- 
 posing 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 in- 
 dex systems. To glance into my study after work- 
 ing hours was dismaying." 
 
 More recently, Mrs. Rinehart has become a resi- 
 dent 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 Pen- 
 rose of Pennsylvania. 
 
 [Ill] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 at- 
 tempted to reconcile my private life with niy 
 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 in- 
 terests 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 ca- 
 
 [112] 
 
VITALITY OF MARY ROBERTS RINEHART 
 
 reer, we have been ccanpelled to work apart. But 
 we have relaxed, rested and played, together. 
 
 "And this rule holds good for the family. Gen- 
 erally 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 every- 
 thing 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 
 'ihings. 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 
 
 [113] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 imag- 
 ine a manufacturer turning out something differ- 
 ent all the time? And his income stopping if he 
 has a sick headache, or goes to a funeral *?" 
 
 Next to the vitality, the variety of Mrs. Rine- 
 hart'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, ccmtinued 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 im- 
 pression 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 mys- 
 
 [114] 
 
VITALITY OF MARY ROBERTS RINEHART 
 
 tery novels. My own theory is that Mrs. Rine- 
 hart's indubitable gift for the creation of mystery 
 yarns has been responsible for the facts. I imag- 
 ine that the haunting of the houses has been a pro- 
 jection into some physical plane of her busy sub- 
 consciousness. I mean, simply, that instead of 
 materialising as a story, her preoccupation in- 
 duced 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 be- 
 fore her unpredictable performances, Tish is 
 funny beyond all description. 
 
 Just as diverting, in a quite different way, is 
 Bab, the sub-deb and forerumier 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 Lin- 
 coln 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 
 
 [115] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 and to fall in love with Henri. . . . But one 
 could go on with other samples of Mrs. Rinehart's 
 abimdant variety. I think, however, that the vi- 
 tality of her work, and not the variety nor the 
 success in variety, is our point. That vitality has 
 its roots in a sjTnpathetic feeling and a sanative 
 humour not exceeded in the equij)ment 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 
 
 [116] 
 
VITALITY OF MARY ROBERTS RINEHART 
 
 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. 
 "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. 
 
 [1173 
 
Chapter VIII 
 THEY HAVE ONLY THEMSELVES TO BLAME 
 
 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 con- 
 cerns Sir William George Granville Venables 
 Vernon Harcourt, who was bom 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 Ex- 
 chequer 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. 
 [118] 
 
ONLY THEMSELVES TO BLAME 
 
 He wrote in the London Times under the signa- 
 ture of "Historicus" a series of letters on Inter- 
 national 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, Eng- 
 land !" and deals with most of the prominent so- 
 cial names of the end of the last and commence- 
 ment 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 sports- 
 men. 
 
 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 proba- 
 bility 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 to-day 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 
 
 [119] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 Soviet Russia are the persons principally por- 
 trayed. 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 au- 
 thor's revelation of the role played in the war by 
 Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, so lately assas- 
 sinated 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. Ray- 
 mond's Mr. Lloyd George: A Biographical and 
 Critical Sketch. The author of XJncensored 
 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. 
 
 [120] 
 
ONLY THEMSELVES TO BLAME 
 
 Mr. Raymond does not begin with the "little 
 Welshman" but with a Roman Emperor, Diocle- 
 tian, our first well-studied exemplar of the "coali- 
 tion 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 im- 
 parted, in a black time, when it appeared but 
 too likely that the Alliance might falter and suc- 
 cumb 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 digni- 
 fied place in the gallery of history; and some 
 future generation will probably recall with aston- 
 
 [121] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 ishment that it was considered unfit to adorn the 
 dining-room of a London club." 
 
 And here are two new books by Margot As- 
 quith! 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 im- 
 pressions 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 person- 
 alities of the distinguished people whom she met 
 in America. The continuation of her Autobiog- 
 raphy 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 
 igi3-2i will be found the recollections of a man 
 who was successively Military Governor of Con- 
 stantinople, Minister of Public Works and Naval 
 Minister and who, with Enver Bey and Talaat 
 Bey, formed the triumvirate which dictated Turk- 
 ish policy and guided Turkey's fate after the coup 
 d'etat of 1913. I believe these memoirs are of 
 extraordinary interest and the greatest impor- 
 [122] 
 
ONLY THEMSELVES TO BLAME 
 
 tance. 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 re- 
 verses in the two battles of Gaza. Further im- 
 portant sections are devoted to the revolt of the 
 Arabs and the question of responsibility for the 
 Armenian massacres. 
 
 The value of Miscellanies — Literary and His- 
 torical, 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 spell- 
 bound by sheer personal charm the guests of the 
 tavern. There are papers on Burke, on Dr. John- 
 son, 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 
 
 [123] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 associations as Eton and the Turf. The sort of 
 book one returns to! 
 
 11 
 
 I was going to say something about Andrew 
 C. P. Hazard's book, Madame de Stael: Her 
 Trials and Triumphs. But so profoundly con- 
 vinced 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 Ox- 
 ford, 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 be- 
 coming 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 Dejrverdun he workedj and 
 in his company Edward Gibbon also played. 
 After visiting frequently at the house of the cele- 
 
 [124] 
 
ONLY THEMSELVES TO BLAME 
 
 brated Voltaire at Monrepos, and after being 
 present when the distinguished French philoso- 
 pher played in his own comedies and sentimental 
 pieces, the young fellow's thoughts soon turned to 
 the theme which was the continual subject of con- 
 versation 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 so- 
 ciety, the theme of love. 
 
 "As it happened, there was in the habit of visit- 
 ing 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 French- 
 woman. 
 
 "Very handsome and sprightly in appearance, 
 the fair Suzarme 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 connec- 
 tion existed between Edward Gibbon and her- 
 self; he frequently accompanied her to stay at 
 her mountain home at Crassy, while at Lausanne 
 also they indulged in their dream of felicity. 
 Edward loved the brilliant Suzanne with a union 
 of desire, friendship, and tenderness, sad was in 
 later years proud of the fact that he was once 
 capable of feeling such an exalted sentiment. 
 
 [125] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 There is no doubt that, had he been able to con- 
 sult 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 autobiog- 
 raphy, '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 un- 
 married young ladies who, without any chaperons, 
 mingled with a crowd of young men of all na- 
 tions, also 'lost many hours in dissipation.' 
 
 "He was not long in showing Suzanne that he 
 no longer found her indispensable to his happi- 
 ness, with the result that she assailed him, al- 
 though in vain, with angry reproaches. Notwith- 
 standing 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 
 [126] 
 
ONLY THEMSELVES TO BLAME 
 
 declined to return, to his old allegiance, coldly re- 
 plying: 'I feel the dangers that continued corre- 
 spondence may have for both of us.' 
 
 "It is impossible to feel otherwise than sorry 
 for the brilliant Suzanne at this period, as al- 
 though from her subsequent manoeuvres it be- 
 came evident that her principal object in life was 
 to obtain a rich husband, from the maimer 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 Suzarme 
 Curchod.' 
 
 "Had the pair been imited, one wonders what 
 would have been the characteristics of the off- 
 spring of an English literary man like Gibbon, 
 who became perhaps the world's greatest his- 
 torian, and a beautiful woman of mixed nation- 
 ality, whose subsequent career, although gilded 
 with riches and adorned with a position of power, 
 displays nothing above the mediocre and com- 
 monplace. 
 
 "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 Suzarme Curchod rests 
 upon two circumstances — the first that she was 
 
 [127] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STKJiJ^i 
 
 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 mer- 
 cenary as herself, for he threw her over for a lady 
 with a large fortune. After this failure to estab- 
 lish 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 estab- 
 lished 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, re- 
 turned to the side of his former love when she was 
 at length safely married to another man. We find 
 hirn writing in 1765, to his friend Lord Sheffield, 
 formerly Mr. Holroyd, that he had spent ten de- 
 licious days in Paris about the end of June. 'She 
 was very fond of me, and the husband was par- 
 ticularly civil.' He continues confidentially: 
 'Could they insult me more cruelly? Ask me 
 [128] 
 
ONLY THEMSELVES TO BLAME 
 
 every evening to supper, go to bed and leave me 
 alone with his wife — what an impertinent se- 
 curity i' 
 
 "It was in the month of April in the following 
 year, 1766, that was bom 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 admira- 
 tion at an early age is sure. Michelet informs us 
 that owing to the praises showered upon the his- 
 torian by M. Necker, Germaine was anxious, as 
 her mother had been before her, to become Gib- 
 bon's wife. She was, however, destined to have 
 another husband — or rather we should say two 
 other husbands." 
 
 m 
 
 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 ran- 
 dom memories of lords and ladies, sportsmen, 
 
 [129] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 love-making, 
 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 RossIjti 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 surroui^ded him daily. Baron von 
 Margutti met all the distinguished European fig- 
 ures, such as Edward VII, Emperor Wilhelm, 
 Czar Nicholas and the Empress Eugenie who 
 came to Austria to visit. He watched from a par- 
 
 [130] 
 
ONLY THEMSELVES TO BLAME 
 
 ticularly 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 Abercom, was edu- 
 cated 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, be- 
 sides being in Parliament, was editor of the Pall 
 Mall Magazine till igoo. The popularity of his 
 books of reminiscences is explained by the fasci- 
 nating 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 Hamil- 
 ton'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 
 
 [131] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 in Forty Years On and reading about such mat- 
 ters 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 Klon- 
 dike. 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 be- 
 cause I, too, have tried to speak syllables of 
 Xenophon while being -rapidly driven (in a 
 barouche) about Patras — with the same lament- 
 able results. It is enough to uiihinge 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 0« is a mine of interest 
 and each reader ought to be pretty well left to 
 work it for himself. 
 
 [132] 
 
Chapter IX 
 AUDACIOUS MR. BENNETT 
 
 MR. BENNETT'S audacity has always been 
 evident. One might say that he began by 
 daring to tell the truth about an author, con- 
 tinued 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 cre- 
 ate The Old Wives' Tale; but it cannot be all 
 right for him to compose such novels as Mr. Fro- 
 hack 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 
 
 [133] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 truth. That marriage is all, no one but Mr. 
 Bennett seems to realise. No one but Mr. Ben- 
 nett 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, com- 
 fort, wishes, doubts, dissimulations; the jealous- 
 ies, the happiness or the fancied happiness, and 
 the exterior appearances of the woman who was 
 his wife abolish, for practical purposes, every- 
 thing else. It is due to Mr. Bermett more than to 
 anyone else that we now understand that while 
 "husband" may be a correct legal designation, 
 "lover" is the only possible esthetic appellation 
 of the man who is married. If he is not a lover 
 
 [134] 
 
ARNOLD BENNETT 
 
 [135] 
 
AUDACIOUS MR. BENNETT 
 
 he is not a husband except for statutory purposes 
 — that is all. 
 
 11 
 
 It is hard to describe Lilian. I will let you 
 taste it: 
 
 "Lilian, in dark blue office frock with an em- 
 broidered 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. Type- 
 writing 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 
 
 [137] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 Lilian certainly so regarded it. She pictured the 
 shut shops, and shops and yet again shops, filled 
 with elegance and costliness — robes, hats, stock- 
 ings, shoes, gloves, incredibly fine lingerie, furs, 
 jewels, perfumes — designed and confected for the 
 setting-oif pf just such young attractiveness as 
 hers. She pictured herself rifling those deserted 
 and silent shops by some magic means and emerg- 
 ing safe, undetected, in batiste so rare that her 
 skin blushed through it, in a frock that was price- 
 less and yet nothing at all, and in warm marvel- 
 lous 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 typewrit- 
 ing 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 ac- 
 quaintance 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 
 
 [138] 
 
AUDACIOUS MR. BENNETT 
 
 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 an- 
 cient 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 adven- 
 turous investment that which the sea had swal- 
 lowed 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 generosi- 
 ties. 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 pros- 
 titution. 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 
 
 [139] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 horrid furnace, and if by chance Lionel Share 
 leaned out from the gold bar of heaven and no- 
 ticed it, the sight must have turned his thoughts 
 towards hell for a pleasant change. She was 
 saved from disaster, from martyrdom, from igno- 
 miny, 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 en- 
 gaged 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 
 stnmg for one thing. You aren't like Miss Jack- 
 son, 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 impor- 
 tant thing. You'd make a success of marriage 
 [140] 
 
AUDACIOUS MR. BENNETT 
 
 because of that and because you're adaptable and 
 quick at picking up. '^ost women when they^re 
 married forget that their job is to adapt them- 
 selves and to please. That's their job/) They 
 expect to be kowtowed to and spoilt and hu- 
 moured and to be free to spend money without 
 having to earn it, and to do nothing in return ex- 
 cept just exist — and perhaps manage a household, 
 pretty badly. They seem to forget that there are 
 two sides to a bargain. IJ:^s_iiash.edJiard-work, 
 pl easing is. sometimes. I know that. But it isn't 
 sohardas earning mraiey, believe me ! Now you 
 wouIHin'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.' " 
 
 111 
 
 It will be seen that Lilian has all the philoso- 
 phy 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, at- 
 tractive, helpless girl, who has her way to make 
 in the world. And yet, I love Mr. Prohack. I 
 
 [141] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 think I have by heart some of the wisdom he 
 utters; for instance — 
 
 On women : "Even the finest and most agree- 
 able women, such as those with whom I have been 
 careful to surround myself in my domestic exist- 
 ence, 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 hatd 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 pleas- 
 ure 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 ex- 
 posed throat and her fur stole, and she was so 
 [142] 
 
AUDACIOUS MR. BENNETT 
 
 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 daugh- 
 ter and he has kissed her for the first time. It is 
 monstrous that any girl, and especially my daugh- 
 ter, should be kissed for the first time. ... It 
 amounts to an outrage." 
 
 On parenthood: "To become a parent is to ac- 
 cept 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 responsi- 
 bility 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 shortcom- 
 ings 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 
 
 [143] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 dis- 
 honest 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." 
 
 Qn history: "Never yet when empire, any em- 
 pire, 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 'bolshe- 
 vik.' 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 Cun- 
 lifFe, with the aid, of course, of Bennett's own 
 story, The Truth About an Author, writes as 
 follows : 
 
 [144] 
 
AUDACIOUS MR. BENNETT 
 
 "He was born near Hanley, the 'Hanbridge' of 
 the Five Towns which his novels were to launch 
 into literary fame, and received a somewhat lim- 
 ited 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 inclina- 
 tion, 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 Lon- 
 don, where he was soon earning a modest liveli- 
 hood 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 de- 
 voured 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 colo- 
 phons, registers, water-marks, and fautes d'im- 
 pression.' It was when he showed a rare copy of 
 Manon Lescaut to an artist and the latter re- 
 marked 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, con- 
 
 [145] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 ducted 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 'gorg- 
 ing' on English and French literature, his chief 
 idols being the brothers de Goncourt, de Maupas- 
 sant, 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 in- 
 stalments 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 Tell- 
 wright.' 
 
 "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 
 [146] 
 
AUDACIOUS MR. BENNETT 
 
 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 Mau- 
 passant's 'Une Vie' he determined to make it the 
 life-history of two women instead of one. Con- 
 stance, the more ordinary sister, was the original 
 heroine; Sophia, the more independent and at- 
 tractive 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 
 
 [147] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 July, 1908. It was published the same autumn, 
 and though its immediate reception was not en- 
 couraging, before the winter was over it was rec- 
 ognised 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 pro- 
 fesses nothing of the kind; but with quiet smiling 
 patience, with a multitude of impalpable touches, 
 clothes his scene and its humble figures in an at- 
 mosphere of pity and understanding. These little 
 people, he seems to say, are as important to them- 
 selves 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 charac- 
 ter and experience, there is even a sort of beauty 
 in them if you will but look for it.' " 
 
 [148] 
 
AUDACIOUS MR. BENNETT 
 
 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 
 
 [149] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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, I9II. (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 Fol- 
 lett and Wilson FoUett. henry holt & 
 
 COMPANY. 
 
 Arnold Bennett, by J. F. Harvey Darton, in the 
 
 writers of THE DAY SeticS. 
 
 [150] 
 
AUDACIOUS MR. BENNETT 
 
 The critical articles on Mr. Bennett and his in- 
 dividual books are too niimerous to mention. The 
 reader is referred to the New York Public Li- 
 brary or the Library of Congress, Washington, 
 D. C., and to the Annual Index of Periodical 
 Publications for the last twenty years. 
 
 [151] 
 
Chapter X 
 A CHAPTER FOR CHILDREN 
 
 I KNOW of only one book which really aids 
 parents and others who have to oversee chil- 
 dren'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 op- 
 portunity 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 draw- 
 ings is best imparted by exposure rather than by 
 insistence upon a too rigid selection. "What I 
 like about these papers," said one young mother, 
 
 [152] 
 
A CHAPTER FOR CHILDREN 
 
 "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 develop- 
 ment." 
 
 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, concern- 
 ing 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. More- 
 over, there are end papers and the binding has a 
 picture in colour that begins on the back and ex- 
 tends all the way around in front. Naturally 
 they are for very young children — shall we say up 
 to seven years old? 
 
 [153] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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! 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 ex- 
 citing and you do not have to write on the type- 
 writer 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 plenti- 
 ful 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 chil- 
 dren'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 
 
 [154] 
 
A CHAPTER FOR CHILDREN 
 
 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 par- 
 ents 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 de- 
 velopment. 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 primi- 
 tive ancestors did these things. He should be 
 helped to trace the route they followed with in- 
 telligence and understanding, he should be en- 
 couraged to know the woods, and all the great 
 world of out-of-doors, to make and use the primi- 
 tive 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 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 mis- 
 sionary 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, su- 
 perstition 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 fol- 
 lows a string of degrees — "David Davies Pro- 
 
 [156] 
 
A CHAPTER FOR CHILDREN 
 
 fessor 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; Lieu- 
 tenant-Colonel, 1915; Colonel, 1918; served Nile 
 Expedition, 1898 (medal with clasp, despatches) ; 
 Sudan 1900, 1902; Sudan, 1904 (Clasp); Osma- 
 nieh 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 Colo- 
 nel Cummins wrote Plays for Children, in three 
 volumes. I suppose it was in consequence of an- 
 other fact which the English Who's Who men- 
 tions (very briefly and abbrfeviatedly) as "four c." 
 
 The possession of four children is a natural ex- 
 planation 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 fre- 
 quently an undercurrent of philosophy, truth, 
 satire — what you will — which, unappreciated by 
 the youngsters themselves, will make these house- 
 hold 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 
 
 [157] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 arid 
 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 thei;: 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 Conti- 
 nent on horseback, lived with the Indians of the 
 plains and lived with the Indians of the Pueblos, 
 
 [158] 
 
A CHAPTER FOR CHILDREN 
 
 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 RiflF. He is studying Arabic and Mohamme- 
 dan customs to prepare himself for this latest ad- 
 venture. He writes boys' books. 
 
 Can he write boys' books? If a man of his ex- 
 perience 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 Gar- 
 field'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, ex- 
 plicitly, 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 
 
 [159] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 compara- 
 ble with the Phoenician and Egyptian; the conti- 
 nent 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 allu- 
 sions to the adventurings of earlier navigators. 
 Dr. Rolt- Wheeler has written a book which goes 
 back to the days of Tyre and Sidon, which in- 
 cludes 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 to-day." 
 
 And now two new Rolt-Wheeler books are 
 ready ! Heroes of the Ruins, the third volume of 
 [160] 
 
A CHAPTER FOR CHILDREN 
 
 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 authori- 
 ties 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 sepa- 
 rated 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. 
 
 Olive Roberts Barton is a sister of Mary Rob- 
 erts Rinehart. When she taught school in Pitts- 
 burgh 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 no- 
 where 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 mar- 
 
 [161] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 ried life I went back to the schoolroom for com- 
 fort. 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 sto- 
 ries published by syndicates, and magazine arti- 
 cles have appeared from time to time, but gradu- 
 ally I realised that I wanted children for my au- 
 dience. 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 I 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 accom- 
 plished bookseller, Candace T. Stevenson: 
 
 "I have just finished all of the books by Olive 
 Roberts Barton. They are truly spontaneous and 
 [162] 
 
A CHAPTER FOR CHILDREN 
 
 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 un- 
 dercurrent 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 foimd my group not only seri- 
 ously discussing them but putting them into prac- 
 tice. 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 col- 
 lect 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 
 
 [163] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 shoes on is entrancing, and poor Mrs. Fr(^ 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 chil- 
 dren; 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 conse- 
 quence 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. 
 [164] 
 
A CHAPTER FOR CHILDREN 
 
 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 imagina- 
 tive worth. 
 
 [165] 
 
Chapter XI 
 COBB'S FOURTH DIMENSION 
 
 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 (respon- 
 sible for the manufacture of Dor an 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 manufac- 
 turer of books with a correctly written title page, 
 a correctly written copyright page, the exact word- 
 ing of the dedication, an accurate table of con- 
 tents, and so on, all the way through the manu- 
 script. 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 re- 
 [166] 
 
IRVIN S. COBB 
 
 [167] 
 
COBB'S FOURTH DIMENSION 
 
 dound to Cobb's credit in the eyes of a literary 
 critic. 
 
 And to return to the subject of the fourth di- 
 mension: 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 auto- 
 biographer"? 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 sticl^." 
 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 
 
 [169] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 one of the chapters of Stickfuls tells of famous 
 trials he has attended. 
 
 11 
 
 Now about this novel of Cobb's: Jeff Poin- 
 dexter 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 after- 
 wards, 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 
 [170] 
 
COBB'S FOURTH DIMENSION 
 
 with money coining in steady. He says to me he 
 will fix up the spelling wherever needed and at- 
 tend 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 work- 
 ing 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 ac- 
 count 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 coimtry 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 
 
 [171] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The biographer of Cobb is Robert H. Davis, 
 editor of Munsey's Magazine, whose authorita- 
 tive 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 cate- 
 gorical 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. 
 [172] 
 
COBB'S FOURTH DIMENSION 
 
 "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 propo- 
 sition 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 inex- 
 pressible sadness. The corners of the mouth were 
 drooped, heightening the whole effect of incom- 
 prehensible depression. Quickly I turned to the 
 next page among the stock quotations, where I got 
 my depression in a blanket form. The concen- 
 trated 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 wit- 
 ness stand and swear that the photograph was 
 made when he was witnessing the Custer Massa- 
 cre 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 writ- 
 ten by San Franciscans who knew him when he 
 first put in an appearance on the Pacific Coast. 
 
 [173] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 One contemporary described minutely how Bret 
 would ccfflne silently up the stairs of the old Alta 
 office, glide down die dingy hallway through the 
 exchange room, and seat himself at the now his- 
 toric 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 im- 
 perishable 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 peo- 
 ple 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 Pio- 
 neers. I know of no single instance where one 
 
 [174] 
 
COBB'S FOURTH DIMENSION 
 
 man has shown such fecundity and quality as Irvin 
 G)bb 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 bom 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 be- 
 cause 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 stock- 
 holders 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 
 
 [175] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 cov- 
 ered 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 sto- 
 ries 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 tremen- 
 dous power of his tragic conceptions and his art 
 in dealing with terror. There appears to be no 
 phase of human emotion beyond his pen. With- 
 out an effort he rises from the level of actualities 
 [176] 
 
COBB'S FOURTH DIMENSION 
 
 to the high plane of boundless imagination, in- 
 voking 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 Demo- 
 crat got on his nerves and, after a comparison of 
 the Paducah school of journalism with the metro- 
 politan 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 in- 
 tellectual 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 Con- 
 ference convened, and The Sun sent the Paducah 
 party to help cover the proceedings. Upon arriv- 
 ing at Portsmouth, Cobb cast his experienced eye 
 over the situation, discovered that the story was 
 already well covered by a large coterie of compe- 
 tent, 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 
 
 [177] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 re- 
 ported the Thaw trial in long-hand, writing nearly 
 600,000 words of testimony and observation, es- 
 tablishing a new style for reporting trials, and 
 gave further evidence of his power. That per- 
 formance will stand out in the aimals of Ameri- 
 can 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 
 [178] 
 
COBB'S FOURTH DIMENSION 
 
 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 pub- 
 lication, in which he said that Mr. Cobb had re- 
 ported with marvelous accuracy and fulness a 
 murder trial at which His Honour had presided. 
 
 "Gelett Burgess, in a lecture at Columbia Col- 
 lege, 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 ex- 
 traordinary 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 grue- 
 some quality, the blackness of despair and the fear 
 
 [179] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 ndvel 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 Pu- 
 litzer, 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 peo- 
 ple 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 
 [180] 
 
COBB'S FOURTH DIMENSION 
 
 get tired and go down again, and finally pass out 
 to sea. It is the same with real rivers. They do 
 not flow up-hill.' 
 
 "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 
 bom 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?' 
 
 [181] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 " '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 swimg into the cross-current of an- 
 other 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,' re- 
 plied 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 fig- 
 ure is undecided, but might be called bimchy in 
 places. He belongs to several clubs, including 
 [182] 
 
COBB'S FOXmTH DIMENSION 
 
 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 evi- 
 dence for the following box score : 
 
 1st 2nd 
 
 Best Writer of Humour Cobb 
 
 Best All-Bound Beporter Cobb 
 
 Best Local Colourist Cobb 
 
 Best in Tales of Horror Cobb 
 
 Best Writer of Negro Stories Cobb 
 
 Best Writer of Light Cobb and 
 
 Humorous Fiction Tarkington 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 pop- 
 ular writers. It was decided that each man pres- 
 ent should set down upon a slip of paper his first, 
 
 [183] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 second and third choices in various specified but 
 widely diversified fields of literary endeavour, and 
 that then the results should be compared. Ad- 
 mirers of Cobb's work will derive a peculiar sat- 
 isfaction 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 descrip- 
 tion, 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. Alto- 
 gether his name appeared on eight of the ten lists." 
 Cobb lives at Ossining, New York. He de- 
 scribes 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 
 
 [184] 
 
COBB'S FOURTH DIMENSION 
 
 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 
 
 [185] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 foF April 23, 
 1922. 
 
 Robert H, Davis, 280 Broadway, New York. 
 
 [186] 
 
Chapter XII 
 PLACES TO GO 
 
 THE book by Thomas Burke called More 
 Limehouse Nights was published in Eng- 
 land 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 
 
 [187] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 aber- 
 rations. I cannot see the romance of the mer- 
 chant 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 
 Common-sense. These people thwart themselves, 
 while my people are thwarted by malign circum- 
 stance. 
 
 "Often I have taken other men to the dire dis- 
 tricts about which I write, and they have re- 
 mained unmoved ; they have seen, in their phrase, 
 nothing to get excited about. Well, one cannot 
 help that kind of person. One cannot give under- 
 standing 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 anec- 
 dotes. 
 
 "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 miss- 
 ing 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. 
 [188] 
 
PLACES TO GO 
 
 "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 
 
 [189] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 chil- 
 dren of the poor." 
 
 Thomas Burke was bom 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 wan- 
 dering about London. 
 
 iii 
 
 There is very little use in doing a book about 
 China now-a-days unless you can do an unusual 
 book about China; and that, precisely, is what 
 E. G. Kemp has done. Chinese Mettle is an un- 
 usual 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 
 [190] 
 
PLACES TO GO 
 
 to cover all the usual ground and, as Sao-Ke Al- 
 fred 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 il- 
 lustrations, what every good book of its sort 
 should have, an index. 
 
 In view of the title of this chapter I have hesi- 
 tated 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 stand- 
 point 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 
 
 [191] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 pass- 
 port 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 assist- 
 ance 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 
 [192] 
 
PLACES TO GO 
 
 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 trav- 
 els, 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 de- 
 scribed 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: i822-ig22, 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 chap- 
 ter 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 
 
 [193] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 para- 
 mount throughout the book. 
 
 I go back almost four years to call attention 
 again to Frederic A. Fenger's Alone in the Carib- 
 bean, 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. 
 
 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 "classifi- 
 cation," 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 
 
 [194] 
 
PLACES TO GO 
 
 Journal and a writer of distinction upon philo- 
 sophical subjects. I should say his specialty is an 
 ability to relate philosophical abstractions to prac- 
 tical, 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 mem- 
 orable as a satirist. It brings philosophy down 
 from the air, like a peaceful thunderbolt, to shat- 
 ter 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 read- 
 ing, worth reading again. 
 
 [195] 
 
Chapter XIII 
 ALIAS RICHARD DEHAN 
 
 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 
 [196] 
 
ALIAS RICHARD DEHAN 
 
 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 what- 
 ever the cause the result was the distinct emerg- 
 ence 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 valu- 
 able 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 bom at Bar- 
 racks, 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 An- 
 thony 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 
 
 [197] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 architect. Admiral Sir Anthony Deane, one won- 
 ders if Sir Anthony were not the sum of the ad- 
 mirals 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 re- 
 lated 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 theatri- 
 cal company. In 1888 her first chance as a 
 dramatist came. She was again in London, work- 
 ing vigorously at journalism, when some one was 
 needed to write extra lyrics for a pantomime then 
 in preparation. A letter of recommendation from 
 
 [198] 
 
ALIAS RICHARD DEHAN 
 
 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 pub- 
 lished 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 pro- 
 posed reissue would not be more indefensible than 
 the act of a publishing house in bringing put 
 posthumous "books" by O. Heniy 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 an- 
 other 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, ob- 
 serve 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 character- 
 
 [199] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 istics 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 mar- 
 vellous story for children — an airplane flight in 
 [200] 
 
ALIAS RICHARD DEHAN 
 
 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 
 €arth 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 tenac- 
 ity and surprising ardour the French master 
 studied the subject of ancient Carthage, grubbing 
 like the lowliest archseologist to get at his finger- 
 tips all those recondite allusions so necessary if he 
 were to move with lightness, assurance and con- 
 summate 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. Never- 
 theless the erudition is all here. From this stand- 
 point. 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, 
 
 [201 J 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 splendid even though her broken canals and Aque- 
 ducts had never been repaired, and part of her 
 western quarter still displayed heaps of calcined 
 ruins where had been temples, palaces and acad- 
 emies, 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 san- 
 dals, keeping account of the laden panniers, roped 
 upon the backs of diminutive asses and carried 
 to the winepresses as fast as they were filled. 
 [202] 
 
ALIAS RICHARD DEHAN 
 
 "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 ne- 
 gro 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 jug- 
 glers and jesters and Jewish fortune-tellers of 
 both sexes, assailed the workers and the merry- 
 makers 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 ele- 
 ments that would ordinarily be called melodra- 
 matic — events which are focussed down into real- 
 ities 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 Eng- 
 
 [203] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 lish 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. 
 
 ui 
 
 Miss Graves, of whose antecedents and educa- 
 tion we already know something, is a Roman 
 Catholic in faith and a Liberal Unionist in poli- 
 tics. She lives at The Towers, Deeding, 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 ex- 
 traordinary 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 
 [204] 
 
ALIAS RICHARD DEHAN 
 
 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 imper- 
 turbable 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 indus- 
 triously 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, to- 
 ge^iher 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-respect- 
 able 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 
 
 [205] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 vthe 
 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 por- 
 phyry 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 Chi- 
 nese 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 tar- 
 bush 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. 
 [206] 
 
ALIAS RICHARD DEHAN 
 
 "'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 sug- 
 gested 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 observ- 
 ant 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 re- 
 ceive her the master of the hive. . . . 
 
 "The light beings behind him may have exag- 
 gerated 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-chirmed, with a 
 
 [207] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 shy- 
 ness, as he advanced to Miss Forbis, plainly un- 
 conscious of any presence save hers, Trixie's ob- 
 servant green eyes saw him bend his towering 
 head, and sweep his right arm out and down with 
 slow Oriental stateliness, bringing back the sup- 
 ple 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 com- 
 plicated 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 
 [208] 
 
ALIAS RICHARD DEHAN 
 
 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, Beed- 
 ing, it will bear a double signature, like this : 
 
 RICHARD DEHAN 
 CLOTILDE GRAVES 
 
 Clotilde Graves has become a secondary per- 
 sonality. 
 
 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 pre- 
 sented 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 Franken- 
 stein'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 
 
 [209] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 is now the master. It is, intellectually and spiritu- 
 ally, 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 
 [210] 
 
ALIAS RICHARD DEHAN 
 
 A MATCHMAKER 
 THE bishop's eye 
 THE FOREST LOVERS 
 A MAKER OF COMEDIES 
 THE BOND OF NINON 
 A TENEMENT TRAGEDY 
 
 Sources 
 on Richard Dehan 
 
 Who's Who [in England]. 
 
 THE BOOKMAN for Fcbraaiy, 1913 (Volume 
 XXXVI, pp. 595-6), also brief mention in 
 THE BOOKMAN foF September and October, 
 1912. 
 
 Private Information. 
 
 [211] 
 
Chapter XIV 
 WITH FULL DIRECTIONS 
 
 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, prac- 
 tically 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 con- 
 sisting of: 
 
 FORE I GOLF STORIES 
 
 SCORE BY innings: baseball STORIES 
 OLD MAN curry: RACETRACK STORIES 
 TAKING THE COUNT: PRIZE RING STORIES 
 BUCK PARVIN: STORIES OF THE MOTION PIC- 
 TURE GAME 
 [212] 
 
WITH FULL DIRECTIONS 
 
 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 wiimer 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 Laivn Tennis, published in 1921, was 
 republished in 1922. The revised edition includ- 
 ed chapters on the winning of the Davis cup and 
 on the world's and the United States champion- 
 ships, on Mrs. Mallory's play in the women's 
 world championship games in France and Eng- 
 land, and on Mile. Lenglen's play in America. 
 Mr. Tilden also added an estimate of the prom- 
 ising 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 inter- 
 esting 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 re- 
 markable 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, 
 
 [213] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 there is text interesting to everyone familiar 
 with golf; for Vardon gives personal reminis- 
 cences covering years of play and illustrative of 
 his instructions. 
 
 11 
 
 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 mag- 
 pie'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, any- 
 way, 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 sur- 
 rounded by magnificently coated collies. You 
 will also find, if you stray into a bookstore this 
 autumn, a book with a jacket drawn by Charles 
 [214] 
 
WITH FULL DIRECTIONS 
 
 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-bom 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 ram- 
 shackle crate behind him had a ridiculous air of 
 chrysalis from which some bright thing had de- 
 parted. 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 
 
 [215] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 car- 
 riage, the smoulder in the deep-set sorrowful dark 
 eyes. To the casual observer, he was but a beau- 
 tiful 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 bet- 
 ter 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 
 [216] 
 
WITH FULL DIRECTIONS 
 
 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.' " 
 
 111 
 
 Not content with being the husband of Mar- 
 garet Sangster, C. M. Sheridan has written The 
 Stag Cook Book. I would have it understood 
 that this is an honest-to-goodness cook-book, al- 
 though 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 
 
 [217] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 recon- 
 dite substance which Mr. Benda, probably under 
 the terms of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, surren- 
 dered to Mr. Sheridan. The pastry in question has 
 to be executed with the aid of geometrical de- 
 signs. 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 Whai to Eai 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, 
 [218] 
 
WITH FULL DIRECTIONS 
 
 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 con- 
 venience of those already owning Ice Breakers. 
 Miss Geister's latest bctok, // 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 // Is to Laugh can 
 be used for children. There are games for large 
 groups and small groups, games for the family, 
 for diimer parties, for community affairs and for 
 almost any kind of social gathering, with one 
 chapter devoted to out-of-door and picnic pro- 
 grammes. 
 
 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 Eng- 
 lishman. In fact, he married in 1907 the Hon- 
 ourable Dorothea Mackenzie, daughter of Lord 
 Muir Mackenzie. And the pair have four daugh- 
 ters. Mark Hambourg was a pupil of Leschetit- 
 zky in Vienna, where he obtained the Liszt schol- 
 arship in 1894. He has made concert appearances 
 all over the world, his third American tour falling 
 
 [219] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 prac- 
 tical illustrations and diagrams and a complete 
 compendium of five-finger exercises, scales, ar- 
 peggi, thirds and octaves as practised by Ham- 
 bourg. 
 
 Those who read The Bookman will not need 
 to be told that the articles by Robert Cortes Hol- 
 liday on Writing as a Business: A Practical 
 Guide for Authors, will constitute an exceptional 
 book. The great point about Mr. HoUiday'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 in- 
 dividuals anxious to earn "commissions," and 
 sometimes individuals who purported to be pub- 
 lishers have for many years carried on a continu- 
 ous 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 
 [220] 
 
WITH FULL DIRECTIONS 
 
 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. HoUiday'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 Double- 
 day, Page & Company at Garden City; he was 
 with George H. Doran Company, serving not only 
 as editor of The Bookman but acting in other edi- 
 torial 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 book- 
 selling, 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 disinter- 
 ested, 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, con- 
 fronted with the facts, the literary aspirant of 
 ordinary intelligence must and should reach his 
 own conclusions as regards what he wants to do 
 
 [221] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 and how best to essay it. This is a sample of the 
 kind of straightforwardness to which Mr. Hol- 
 liday 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 con- 
 sider 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 mis- 
 conception 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. Usu- 
 ally 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 ex- 
 ceedingly rare. A book is regarded by the pub- 
 lisher 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 
 [222] 
 
WITH FULL DIRECTIONS 
 
 as 1,500 copies. Many far less. A recently pub- 
 lished 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 ex- 
 cellent story published something over a year ago 
 which was much praised by many reviewers. It 
 took the author probably the bettef 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 $1 10." 
 
 Mr. Van Rensselaer has greatly enhanced the 
 usefulness of Writing as a Business by the addi- 
 tion of very complete bibliographies. 
 
 Illumination and Its Development in the Pres- 
 ent 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, 
 
 [223] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 Mr. Farnsworth breaks new ground in many di- 
 rections; he treats the matter from the modern 
 standpoint in a manner which makes his work in- 
 valuable 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. 
 
 [224] 
 
Chapter XV 
 FRANK SWINNERTON: ANALYST OF LOVERS 
 
 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 some- 
 times this is interestingly varied, as in Bept ember, 
 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 
 
 [225] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 Swin- 
 nerton, 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 hovers, that I should now prefer to say to 
 anyone unacquainted with Swinnerton: "Begin 
 with The Three hovers" 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. 
 
 11 
 
 The Three hovers, 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 
 [226] 
 
FRANK SWINNERTON 
 
 [227] 
 
SWINNERTON: ANALYST OF LOVERS 
 
 through its earlier chapters of introduction and 
 growth to a climax that is both dramatic and mov- 
 ing. 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 win- 
 dow-panes; soot fell down all the chimneys; 
 trees continuously rustled as if they were try- 
 ing to keep warm by constant friction and move- 
 ment." 
 
 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.' 
 
 [229] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 " '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 recon- 
 struct 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 encour- 
 age 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' 
 
 [230] 
 
SWINNERTON: ANALYST OF LOVERS 
 
 " 'Jack insist !' Amy was again scornful. 'Not 
 he!' 
 
 "There was a moment's pause. Innocently, 
 Patricia ventured upon a charitable interpreta- 
 tion. 
 
 " '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 her- 
 self 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 mo- 
 ment of her day. 
 
 "Presently Amy returned, and sat in the big 
 armchair, while, seated upon the podger and lean- 
 ing 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. 
 
 [231 J 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 " 'I shouldn't like that,' she said. 'I don't 
 think the man would either.' 
 
 " 'Bless you, the men all do it,' cried Amy, con- 
 temptuously. '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 
 
 [232] 
 
SWINNERTON: ANALYST OF LOVERS 
 
 kissed. I've never seen anything in all the flirta- 
 tion 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.' " 
 
 lU 
 
 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. 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 His people are not splashes of appearance, but 
 living minds. Jenny and Emmy in this book are 
 realities inside and out; they are imaginative crea- 
 tures 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 touch- 
 ingly 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 skat- 
 ing 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 sentimen- 
 tality, the tear of conscious tenderness, the re- 
 deeming 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 'na- 
 ture's gentleman' or a 'nature's lady' show 
 through and demand our refined sympathy. It is 
 only by comparison with this supreme conversa- 
 tion that the affair of Keith and Jenny seems to 
 fall short of perfection. But that also is at last 
 
 [234] 
 
SWINNERTON: ANALYST OF LOVERS 
 
 perfected, I think, by Jenny's final, 'Keith . . . 
 Oh, Keith! . . .' 
 
 "Above these four figures again looms the ma- 
 jestic invention of 'Pa.' Every reader can appre- 
 ciate 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. Swin- 
 nerton has written four or five other novels before 
 this one, but none of them compares with it in 
 quality. His earlier books were strongly influ- 
 enced by the work of George Gissing; they have 
 something of the same fatigued greyness of tex- 
 ture and little of the same artistic completeness 
 and intense vision of Nocturne. 
 
 "This is a book that will not die. It is per- 
 fect, 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 be- 
 come no more than fading names." 
 
 [235] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 iv 
 
 Arnold Bennett has described Swinnerton per- 
 sonally 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 mar- 
 ried, 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 inter- 
 esting to know that Floyd Dell was the first 
 American to appreciate Swiimerton. I make way 
 for Mr. Bennett, who says : 
 
 "One day perhaps eight or nine years ago I re- 
 ceived 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 let- 
 ter 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 
 
 [236] 
 
SWINNERTON: ANALYST OF LOVERS 
 
 the delicate cogwheels of my programme of read- 
 ing? 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 hun- 
 dred 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 origi- 
 nal, 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 Swinner- 
 ton. 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, me- 
 dium 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 im- 
 
 [237] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 pressions of the interview were rather like my im- 
 pressions of the book : at first somewhat negative, 
 and only very slowly becoming positive. He was 
 reserved, as became a young author; I was re- 
 served, 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 pub- 
 lisher's office during the day and wrote for himself 
 in the evenings. 
 
 "Then I saw no more of Swinnerton for a rela- 
 tively 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 com- 
 monplace crowd walking around a bandstand 
 
 [238] 
 
SWINNERTON: ANALYST OF LOVERS 
 
 which brought me to a real decision as to his quali- 
 ties. 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 ermobled, mag- 
 nified, 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 
 
 [239] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 for the army. He is still in the business of pub- 
 lishing, 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 manu- 
 scripts, 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 par- 
 ticular 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 pub- 
 lisher 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 
 [240] 
 
SWINNERTON: ANALYST OF LOVERS 
 
 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 funda- 
 mental 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 Swinner- 
 ton excels in fiction he also excels in literary criti- 
 cism. The fact that the literary editor of the 
 Manchester Guardian wrote and asked him to 
 write literary criticism for the Manchester Guar- 
 
 [241] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 dian 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 fastidi- 
 ous 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 ambi- 
 tion to be an author. The officer gave me a manu- 
 script 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 Swirmerton's work on 
 R. L. Stevenson that made the trouble in London. 
 It is a destructive work. It is bland and impar- 
 tial, 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 
 [242] 
 
SWINNERTON: ANALYST OF LOVERS 
 
 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 Overton. 
 
 Booklet published by george h. doran 
 
 COMPANY, 1920. 
 Private Information. 
 
 [243] 
 
Chapter XVI 
 
 AN ARMFUL OF NOVELS, WITH NOTES ON 
 THE NOVELISTS 
 
 THE quiet, the calm, the extreme individual- 
 ism, 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 yoimger 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 ex- 
 cessively, 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 so- 
 
 [244] 
 
AN ARMFUL OF NOVELS 
 
 daily for two reasons. I had inherited my fa- 
 ther'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 Coun- 
 try 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 Manag- 
 ing Editor. Two years ago I resigned my edito- 
 rial 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. 
 
 [245] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 "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 prize- 
 fights, and dancing, and Spanish shawls, and look- 
 ing 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 let- 
 ters 'Dear Lady,' and long earrings, and intoler- 
 ance." 
 
 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 can- 
 not 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 
 [246] 
 
AN ARMFUL OF NOVELS 
 
 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 cur- 
 rent 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 Mary- 
 land'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 htunour and skill, the mellowness of 
 the scene; even such a detail as the culinary tri- 
 umph 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 
 loveiand hate, of bitter unyielding hardness, and 
 
 [247] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 of melting pity and tenderness. It begins with 
 the Robin, age seven, with burnished curls, view- 
 ing 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 wel- 
 come Nicoletie. 
 
 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 con- 
 trast between the prosperity of Jaume Deydier, a 
 rich peasant-proprietor, and the grinding poverty 
 
 [248] 
 
AN ARMFUL OF NOVELS 
 
 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 daugh- 
 ter 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 de- 
 scribed the lot of herself and her brothers whom 
 she mothered in the Scottish cottage; but mat- 
 ters were somewhat changed when romance 
 crossed the threshold in the person of the Hon- 
 ourable 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 sur- 
 pass The Garden of Allah. In Lady Sellingworth, 
 Mr. Hichens is dealing with a brilliant woman. 
 
 [249] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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, attrac- 
 tive and decidedly a somebody. But inexplicably 
 — at any rate without explanation — Lady Selling- 
 worth retired from society when Craven appeared. 
 
 Tell England by Ernest Raymond is a novel 
 which has been sensationally successful in Eng- 
 land. 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 Eng- 
 land, 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 
 
 [2'50] 
 
AN ARMFUL OF NOVELS 
 
 those boys whom I met in their youi^ 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 ideal- 
 ised 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 re- 
 torted. '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 modem 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 read- 
 ers 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 char- 
 acter 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 
 
 [251] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 peo- 
 ple. 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 dis- 
 cord or a factor for mutual support into modem 
 marriage? The household of the George Flan- 
 dons 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 
 
 [252] 
 
AN ARMFUL OF NOVELS 
 
 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 under- 
 standing 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 Ire- 
 land. On the other side there was a Colonel Cul- 
 kin, 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 pro- 
 ducers 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 esti- 
 mated. These were seen to be exceptionally good. 
 
 [253] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 Here was a story of young American boys travel- 
 ling in Japan and coming upon a still younger 
 Japanese girl, threatened with cruelty and unhap- 
 piness. 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 her- 
 self 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 en- 
 thusiasm 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 Nightin- 
 gale, her interest is really centred at present in 
 Canada, its people and backgrounds. 
 
 [254] 
 
AN ARMFUL OF NOVELS 
 
 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 sell- 
 ing at a great rate, and that David Belasco should 
 demand a play constructed from the novel is alto- 
 gether 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 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 Her- 
 mit 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 profes- 
 sional 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 
 [256] 
 
AN ARMFUL OF NOVELS 
 
 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 won- 
 der 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 man- 
 ners 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 
 
 [257] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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, be- 
 cause 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 Eu- 
 rope and America as well. 
 
 It is interesting that her father was an Ameri- 
 can, although after his marriage to an English- 
 woman, he settled in England. Later Mr. Bot- 
 tome 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, 
 [258] 
 
AN ARMFUL OF NOVELS 
 
 recovering from dangerous wounds in the war, has 
 been serving as passport ofBcer 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 friend- 
 ships 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 sugges- 
 
 [259] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 tion 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 King- 
 fisher. 
 
 "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 re- 
 reading 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 hav- 
 ing read the book. I do not consider The King- 
 fisher 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 
 [260] 
 
AN ARMFUL OF NOVELS 
 
 Return of Alfred, by the anonymous author of 
 Patricia Brent, Spinster, is the diverting narra- 
 tive 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, in- 
 deed. And there was, as might have been feared 
 (or anticipated), a girl to complicate matters 
 tremendously. 
 
 E. F. Benson's Feter is the story of a young 
 man who made a point of being different, of keep- 
 ing 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 audi- 
 ence! In Peter he shows an exquisite under- 
 standing 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, gentle- 
 ness and a quiet shafting of the human depths. 
 There is his novel, Mr. Pirn. Old Mr. Pim, in 
 his gentle way, shuffled into the Mardens' charm- 
 ing household. Mr. Pim said a few words and 
 went absentmindedly away, — ^leaving Mr. Mar- 
 den 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 
 
 [261] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 been living in sin for five years ! Then Mr. Pirn 
 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 inno- 
 cent 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 dis- 
 honour 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 some- 
 what stultifying quietude of a small Peimsyl- 
 vania town. A mysterious Mrs. Ventress is the 
 centre of its rapidly imfolding 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 yoimg 
 girls in fiction. Dr. Gedne/s real daughter had 
 [262] 
 
AN ARMFUL OF NOVELS 
 
 disappeared years before. Why? What has be- 
 come 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 pas- 
 sion to tatters. The author's touch is light, the 
 variety of his characters furnish him much diver- 
 sion. The amusing side of each situation does 
 not escape him. His style has a certain efferves- 
 cent quality, but, for all that, the tragic develop- 
 ments of the story are not shirked. 
 
 Another treatment of a problem of marriage, a 
 treatment sympathetic but robust, is foimd 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 entangle- 
 ments in the cause of a necessary personal inde- 
 pendence. This is the attitude expressed in 
 Richard Blaker's novel. The Voice in the Wilder- 
 ness. 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 an- 
 
 [263] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 noying 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 will- 
 ing sacrifice to her mother. Richard Blaker is new 
 to America, a novelist of acutely pointed char- 
 acterisations and careful atmosphere. 
 
 Vlll 
 
 Nene, the work of an unknown French school 
 teacher, a novel distinguished in France by the 
 award of the Goncourt Prize as the most distin- 
 guished 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 coun- 
 try less than 3,000 copies. 
 
 I am glad to say that it was sufficient to draw 
 to the attention of Americans this deplorable dis- 
 crepancy 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 LeGallierme have been at pains to ex- 
 press the feeling to which Nine has stirred them. 
 I have not space to quote them all, and so select 
 [264] 
 
AN ARMFUL OF NOVELS 
 
 as typical the comment of Walter Prichard 
 Eaton : 
 
 "I read Nene with great interest, especially be- 
 cause 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 con- 
 stant 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, 
 Flasher'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 Eng- 
 
 [265] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 land 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. Macken- 
 zie 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 mcaithly letter 
 from London appearing in The Bookman (and 
 whose identity is a well-known secret!) thus de- 
 scribes, 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, 
 [266] 
 
AN ARMFUL OF NOVELS 
 
 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 be- 
 fore our eyes. They glittered under a brilliant 
 sun. There came hurried disembarking, a trans- 
 ference (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 sub- 
 merged 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 delight- 
 ful. The island is really magnificent. Short of 
 a stream, it has everything one could wish for in 
 
 [267] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 Mac- 
 kenzie 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 ob- 
 ject 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 
 [268] 
 
AN ARMFUL OF NOVELS 
 
 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." 
 
 [269] 
 
Chapter XVII 
 
 THE HETEROGENEOUS MAGIC OF 
 MAUGHAM 
 
 NOW, I don't know where to begin. Prob- 
 ably 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. 
 
 ii 
 
 Theodore Dreiser reviewed Of Human Bond- 
 age for the New Republic. I reprint part of 
 what he said : 
 [270] 
 
W. SOMERSET MAUCHAM 
 
 [271] 
 
HETEROGENEOUS MAGIC OF MAUGHAM 
 
 "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 un- 
 derstand, but which we are compelled to confess 
 a work of art. It is at once something and noth- 
 ing, a dream of happy memory, a song, a bene- 
 diction. In viewing it one finds nothing to criti- 
 cise 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 bom with a club 
 foot, and in consequence, and because of a tem- 
 perament delicately attuned to the miseries of life, 
 suffers all the pains, recessions, and involute self 
 tortures which only those who have striven handi- 
 capped by what they have considered a blighting 
 defect can understand. He is a youth, therefore, 
 with an intense craving for sympathy and under- 
 standing. 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. 
 
 [273] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 To some it has apparently appealed as a drab, un- 
 relieved narrative. To me at least it is a gor- 
 geous 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 wonder- 
 ful series of portraits and of incidents. There 
 are a series of men friends of a peculiarly inclu- 
 sive range of intellectuality and taste, who lead 
 him, or whom he leads, through all the in- 
 tricacies of art, philosophy, criticism, humour. 
 And lastly comes life itself, the great land and 
 sea of people, England, Germany, France, bat- 
 tering, 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 Athenteum and the Saturday Review, it 
 would be adequately appreciated. Imagine my 
 surprise to find that the English reviews were al- 
 most uniformly contemptuous and critical on 
 moral and social grounds. The hero was a weak- 
 ling, not for a moment to be tolerated by soimd, 
 right-thinking men. On the other hand, in Amer- 
 ica the reviewers for the most part have seen its 
 true merits and stated them. Need I say, how- 
 
 [274] 
 
HETEROGENEOUS MAGIC OF MAUGHAM 
 
 ever, that the New York World finds it 'the senti- 
 mental servitude of a poor fool,' or that the Phila- 
 delphia 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 fre- 
 quently 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 rup- 
 tures, 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 s3Tnpathy, 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 
 
 [275] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 individuals 'tempering life with rules agreeable 
 to themselves' or could follow Mildred Rogers, 
 waitress of the London ABC 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 
 S3rmpathised with Faimie 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-advance- 
 ment; or Dr. South, the vicar of Blackstable, and 
 his wife — these are masterpieces. They are mar- 
 vellous 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 photo- 
 graphically at times. He is by no means a brood- 
 ing 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, how- 
 ever crude or embarrassing, has been shirked. In 
 the matter of the process by which he arrived at 
 the intimacy which resulted in her becoming preg- 
 nant not a word is said. All at once, by a slight 
 [276] 
 
HETEROGENEOUS MAGIC OF MAUGHAM 
 
 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, respond- 
 ing 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 hetero- 
 geneous magid 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 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 charm- 
 ing 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 pleas- 
 antness, I opened the book with happy anticipa- 
 tion. Therefore — and the title of the book, The 
 Moon and Sixpence, gave a jolly calming reac- 
 tion — I was surprised and frankly annoyed when 
 I found myself compelled to follow the fortunes 
 of a large red-headed man with mighty sex ap- 
 peal, 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 prob- 
 lems, 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 
 [278] 
 
HETEROGENEOUS MAGIC OF MAUGHAM 
 
 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 cab- 
 bages; her face, broad and fleshy, gave you an 
 impression of almost indecent nakedness and vast 
 chin succeeded vast chin.' 
 
 "This may seem a srhall 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 re- 
 garded 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 (per- 
 fect!) 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 
 
 • [279] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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: 
 
 [280] 
 
HETEROGENEOUS MAGIC OF MAUGHAM 
 
 '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 gargon-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 gargon.' 
 
 " '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 Mom,' said Lavina. 
 
 " 'Oh !' thought I ; 'if she respects him, then 
 I'm not going to get much.' 
 
 " 'His French is not mixed,' she continued, re- 
 ferring 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 di- 
 
 [281] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 reeled at Maugham's stutter, which seldom es- 
 capes 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 insuffi- 
 ciently 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 fimny.' 
 
 "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 denoue- 
 ment made by Manu, the sister, was uncalled for 
 [282] 
 
HETEROGENEOUS MAGIC OF MAUGHAM 
 
 at the death bed, since the trae 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 for- 
 gets, certainly not the kind of joy she embodies 
 in her national songs and himines. Such are the 
 merry drunkards, inefBcient though earnest white 
 hulahula dancers and the plain (more than every- 
 day) 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, 
 
 [283] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 he saw them all right, and clearly, since the clos- 
 ing 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 curi- 
 ously on a man who stood on a narrow bamboo 
 
 [284J 
 
HETEROGENEOUS MAGIC OF MAUGHAM 
 
 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 be- 
 fore the smouldering joss-sticks. She bowed her- 
 self 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 pro- 
 pitiated, and like an old peasant woman in 
 France, who has satisfactorily done her day's 
 housekeeping, she went about her business." 
 
 [285] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 founda- 
 tion 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. Per- 
 sons 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 pro- 
 cession 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. 
 [286] 
 
HETEROGENEOUS MAGIC OF MAUGHAM 
 
 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 at- 
 tention 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, consid- 
 ering 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 por- 
 traiture 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 classi- 
 
 [287] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 fying everything by means of labels and of 
 making everything so classified stick to its label 
 like grim death. Yet the unclassified may flour- 
 ish, 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 modem 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 bet- 
 tered 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 fail- 
 ings of her class, rising again, from a self-tortur- 
 ing 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 
 [288] 
 
HETEROGENEOUS MAGIC OF MAUGHAM 
 
 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 ex- 
 cellent 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. How- 
 ever, it might conceivably be the last port of call 
 for a worn manuscript. 
 
 It so happened that Athole Stewart, the man- 
 ager of the Court Theatre, found himself needing 
 a play very badly during one season. The the- 
 atre 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 ask- 
 ing to dinner the seventeen managers who re- 
 jected 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 writ- 
 ten give an interesting reflex on Maugham as an 
 artist. This delicious comedy was put on paper 
 
 [289] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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. 
 
 Vll 
 
 Someone, probably the gifted Hector Mac- 
 Quarrie, 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 com- 
 ment. 
 
 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 Amer- 
 ica — when The Moon and Sixpence has attracted 
 the widest attention — ^he insists on going imme- 
 diately to China. This may be because, though 
 "well set up, black-eyed, broad-framed and exces- 
 sively handsome in evening clothes, he is rather 
 diffident. 
 
 [290] 
 
HETEROGENEOUS MAGIC OF MAUGHAM 
 
 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: 
 
 SCHIFFBRUCHIG 
 A MAN OF HONOUR 
 LADY FREDERICK 
 JACK STRAW- 
 MRS. DOT 
 THE EXPLORER 
 PENELOPE 
 SMITH 
 
 THE TENTH MAN 
 GRACE 
 LOAVES AND FISHES 
 
 [291] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 the land of promise 
 caroline 
 love in a cottage 
 Cesar'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 unpub- 
 lished article by Hector MacQuarrie. 
 
 THE BOOKMAN (Lohdon). 
 
 Private information. 
 
 [292] 
 
Chapter XVIII 
 BOOKS WE LIVE BY 
 
 niHE Parallel New Testament is by Dr. 
 
 S James Moffatt, whose New Translation 
 of the New Testament has excited such wide ad- 
 miration and praise. The Parallel New Testa- 
 ment presents the Authorised Version and Pro- 
 fessor 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 chap- 
 ter and then — and not before! — read the same 
 account from Dr. Moifatt'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 
 
 [293] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 ap- 
 proached the village to which they were going. 
 He pretended to be going further on, but they 
 
 [294] 
 
BOOKS WE LIVE BY 
 
 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 van- 
 ished from their sight. And they said to one an- 
 other, '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 I'] . 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 
 
 [295] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be 
 fulfilled.' Then he opened their minds to under- 
 stand the scriptures. 'Thus,' he said, 'it is writ- 
 ten 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, bless- 
 ing 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 tre- 
 mendously 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 pub- 
 lished studies in Bible literature, I now speak 
 only of TJie Approach to the New Testament, 
 which he modestly describes as "a brief statement 
 of the general situation created by historical criti- 
 cism," aiming to "bring out the positive value of 
 the New Testament literature for the world of 
 today as a source of guidance in social reconstruc- 
 [296] 
 
BOOKS WE LIVE BY 
 
 tion, so that readers might be enabled to recover 
 or retain a sense of its lasting significance for per- 
 sonal faith and social ideals." 
 
 11 
 
 With Alfred Dwight Sheffield's Joining in 
 Public Discussion was begun publication of a 
 unique collection of books suitable alike for gen- 
 eral 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. 
 
 [297] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 This obstacle the Workers' Bookshelf over- 
 comes. 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 in- 
 formation. 
 
 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 vol- 
 umes on vocational guidance, nor any books which 
 give "short cuts" to moneymaking success. 
 
 The series will not be limited to any set num- 
 ber 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 
 [298] 
 
BOOKS WE LIVE BY 
 
 our understanding. The worker finds it increas- 
 ingly 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 
 
 [299] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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. 
 
 Co-operative Movement, by Dr. James B. 
 Warbasse, president of the Co-operative League 
 of America and instructor at the Workers' Uni- 
 versity. 
 
 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 — per- 
 haps 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 introduc- 
 tion, 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 
 [300] 
 
BOOKS WE LIVE BY 
 
 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 re- 
 ceiver, for forty years or sixty, what particular 
 economic laws decree that Poles should be gov- 
 erned 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 dis- 
 tribution of colonies should be interpreted as 
 meaning the appropriation of the whole of them 
 by the victors — all these things are held by uni- 
 versal 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 
 
 [301] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 gen- 
 eral 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 deli- 
 cate 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, at- 
 tractive 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- 
 
 [302] 
 
BOOKS WE LIVE BY 
 
 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 per- 
 haps 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 Dis- 
 armament 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 trench- 
 ant advice to which it is a pleasure again to call 
 attention. Of all Mr. Bennett's pocket philoso- 
 phies — Self and Self-Management, Friendship 
 and Happiness, The Human Machine, Mental 
 "Efficiency and Married Life — How to Live on 
 
 [303] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 Twenty-four Hours a Day is easily of the greatest 
 service to the greatest number of people. 
 
 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 sin- 
 cere 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 prac- 
 tical usefulness is concerned. Either it degen- 
 erates into a purely technical treatise or it be- 
 comes lost in a mysticism which is to the average 
 
 [304] 
 
BOOKS WE LIVE BY 
 
 reader incomprehensible. What has long been 
 needed has been a book like Self-Healing Simpli- 
 fied, 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 be- 
 lieve that he can do his part by cheerful resolu- 
 tions 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 con- 
 fidence 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, Foets 
 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 
 
 [305] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 Mon- 
 taigne said about Plutarch, men 'cannot do with- 
 out' it; why it is that in a world, where every- 
 thing 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. 
 
 [306] 
 
BOOKS WE LIVE BY 
 
 "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 under- 
 stand, 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 begirming. 
 That is my experience. I would not say that I 
 know these men, of y^hom I have written, thor- 
 oughly — 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. 
 
 [307] 
 
Chapter XIX 
 
 ROBERT W. CHAMBERS AND THE WHOLE 
 TRUTH 
 
 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 audi- 
 ence. 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 rnistaken. 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 
 [308] 
 
ROBERT W. CHAMBERS 
 
 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 re- 
 main. 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 pin- 
 nacle, 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 transcrip- 
 tion 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 mortient it amuses me 
 to write; I trust to luck that it may also amuse 
 the public. 
 
 [309] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 "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 some- 
 thing else. I suit mysdf 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 ac- 
 cepted 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 collec- 
 tion of medieval armour for the Metropolitan 
 Museum of Art, New York. 
 
 [310] 
 
ROBERT W. CHAMBERS 
 
 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 dif- 
 ferent parts of the world — Paris, Petrograd — is 
 not usual. 
 
 Will you believe me if I add that he is some- 
 thing 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 with- 
 out extrusion. 
 
 ii 
 
 And here is the newest Robert W. Cham- 
 bers 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, direct- 
 ing 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 de- 
 lousing." 
 
 [311] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 Aiuian 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 modem 
 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 indi- 
 vidual 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 
 
 [312] 
 
ROBERT W. CHAMBERS 
 
 that seeps through the pages of periodical publi- 
 cations, was already requesting his autograph. 
 Clipping agencies began to pursue him; film com- 
 panies wasted his time with glittering offers that 
 never materialised. Annan was on the way to 
 premature fame and fortune. And to the after- 
 math 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 halfpast ten. 
 
 "Re-reading it, he realised it had all the con- 
 centrated 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 specula- 
 tion; the reassuring caress as reward for intellec- 
 tual penetration; that inborn cleverness that 
 makes the reader see, applaud, or pity him or her- 
 self in the s5Tnpathetic role of a plaything of 
 Chance and Fate. 
 
 "And always Barry Aiman left the victim of 
 his tact and technique agreeably trapped, suffer- 
 ing gratefully, excited by self-approval to the 
 verge of sentimental tears. 
 
 [313] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 " '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, unsus- 
 pected, 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 mirids he titivated, whose reason he juggled 
 with and whose heart-strings he yanked, his 
 tongue in his cheek." 
 
 And this further on : — 
 
 [314] 
 
ROBERT W. CHAMBERS 
 
 "He went into his room but did not light the 
 lamp. For a long while he sat by the open win- 
 dow 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 in- 
 teresting 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 ruth- 
 
 [315] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 lessly 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 sun- 
 shine 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, ingen- 
 iously he extracted every atom of that beauty, 
 sanity, inspired imagination which makes the im- 
 perfect more perfect, creates better than the ma- 
 terials permit, forces real life actually to assume 
 and he 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 thie dreary, hopeless, malformed, starving 
 minds you analyse. . . . My God, Mr. Annan — 
 are there no wholesome brains in the world you 
 write about?' " 
 
 [316] 
 
ROBERT W. CHAMBERS 
 
 I think these citations interesting. I do not feel 
 especially competent to produce from them infer- 
 ences regarding Mr. Chambers's own attitude 
 toward his work. 
 
 Eris will be published early in 1923, following 
 Mr. Chambers's The Talkers. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Mr. Chambers was bom in Brooklyn, May 26, 
 1865, the son of William Chambers and Carolyn 
 (Boughton) Chambers. Walter Boughton Cham- 
 bers, 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 ap- 
 pearance, Robert W. Chambers became a name 
 of literary importance. 
 
 Curiously enough, among the things persist- 
 ently 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. 
 
 [317] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 "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 Ellan- 
 gowan, a drama produced at Daly's Theatre. 
 His lole 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 
 
 [318] 
 
ROBERT W. CHAMBERS 
 
 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 
 
 lOLE 
 
 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 
 
 [319] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 
 
 Robert W- Chambers: Article by Rupert Hughes 
 in the cosmopolitan magazine for June, 
 1918. 
 
 The Men Who Make Our Novels, by George Gor- 
 don. MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY. 
 
 Who's Who in America. 
 Private Information. 
 
 [320] 
 
Chapter XX 
 UNIQUITIES 
 
 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 Nizvy at War by Josephus 
 Daniels. W. B. M'Cormick, formerly of the edi- 
 torial staff of the Army and Navy Journal, re- 
 viewing 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 
 
 [321] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 autobiog- 
 raphy, namely, that 'Secretary Daniels impressed 
 me as being a Christian gentleman.' 
 ' "In its general outlines and in many of its de- 
 tails 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 opera- 
 tions. For example, his chapter on the extraor- 
 dinary 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 ac- 
 count 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 ma- 
 rines in Belleau Wood and elsewhere, and the 
 work of our destroyers and submarines in Euro- 
 pean 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 
 
 [322] 
 
UNIQUITIES 
 
 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." 
 
 Ill 
 
 Leslie Haden Guest, a surgeon of wide experi- 
 ence and secretary of the British Labour Delega- 
 tion to Soviet Russia, is the author of The Strug- 
 gle for Power in Europe {igi'^—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 un- 
 disclosed to the world. He has met and inter- 
 viewed 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 undiscov- 
 ered country, and shows us the new Poland, its 
 aims and its struggles to emerge from a state al- 
 most of anarchy into one of a rational democ- 
 racy. 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 
 
 [323] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 Haps- 
 burgs, 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 af- 
 fected 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 con- 
 ditions of success of a democracy are peace, edu- 
 cation 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." 
 
 [324] 
 
UNIQUITIES 
 
 iv 
 
 Of Herman Melville: Mariner and Mystic, by 
 Raymond M. Weaver, Carl Van Vechten, writ- 
 ing in the Literary Review of the New York 
 Evening Post (31 December 1921), said: 
 
 "No biography of Melville, no important per- 
 sonal memorandum of the rnan, 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 ap- 
 peared. 
 
 "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 Haw- 
 thorne, 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 mem- 
 ories 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 Sted- 
 man; but both these men, perhaps the nearest 
 to Melville in his later years, were agreed that he 
 
 [325J 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 ceased to be an artist when he deserted the pre- 
 scribed field of Typee and Omoo, and they har- 
 assed 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 com- 
 poser 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 investi- 
 gator, 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 sub- 
 ject. It is written with warmth, subtlety, and 
 considerable humour. Smiles and thoughts lie hid- 
 den 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 
 
 [326] 
 
UNIQUITIES 
 
 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 ac- 
 curately and not too flatteringly. The Scarlet 
 Letter was published in 1850; Moby Dick'm 
 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 Writ- 
 ing Desk,' which appeared in two numbers of 
 The Democratic Press and Lansingburgh Adver- 
 tiser in 1839 (not 1849, as the bibliography er- 
 roneously gives it). Mr. Weaver is probably 
 right in ascribing Melville's retirement from liter- 
 ature 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 
 cdmplete disillusionment, which made it impos- 
 sible 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 
 
 [327] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 fiercely condemned since they first appeared, books 
 which are no longer available save in early edi- 
 tions. 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 intel- 
 lect; 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 Scar- 
 let 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" 
 
 [328] 
 
UNIQUITIES 
 
 A man who is certainly an authority on naval 
 subjects tells me that The Grand Fleet by Vis- 
 count 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 re- 
 view 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 Insti- 
 tute for April, 1921 : 
 
 "This interesting book is the complement of his 
 first \o\ume.. 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 over- 
 come 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 organisa- 
 tion might be logical and smooth working to avoid 
 conflict of authority, to have no necessary service 
 neglected, to provide the necessary corps of inves- 
 tigators of new devices, and above all to free the 
 first Sea Lord and his assistants of a mass of de- 
 
 [329] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 tail that their eiforts 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 un- 
 remitting 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 weap- 
 ons 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, intro- 
 duction, and gradual growth of the convoy sys- 
 tem. It is shown how the introduction of this 
 system was delayed by lack of vessels to perform 
 
 [330] 
 
UNIQUITIES 
 
 escort duty and why when finally adopted it was 
 so successful because it was not only defensive but 
 oifensive 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 con- 
 tinued 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. Good- 
 rich 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 Ma- 
 han, have written a noteworthy volume in their 
 History of Sea Power, published in excellent 
 form, generously supplied with maps, illustra- 
 tions, and index. The title suggests Mahan's 
 
 [331] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 classic which is largely followed in plan and treat- 
 ment. 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 his- 
 tory 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 at- 
 tention. Naturally, considerable space is de- 
 voted 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 ex- 
 istence 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 prepon- 
 derance over its enemy or to crush that enemy — 
 whatever the cost*? If the Battle of Jutland re- 
 ceives 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, 
 
 [332] 
 
UNIQUITIES 
 
 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 af- 
 fected; volunteering for this service gradually 
 ceased; arbitrary detail grew necessary; greatly 
 lessened efficiency resulted. 
 
 "The authors are to be congratulated on pro- 
 ducing 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 sym- 
 pathetically and cleverly brought up to date." 
 
 [333] 
 
Chapter XXI 
 
 THE CONFESSIONS OF A WELL-MEANING 
 YOUNG MAN, STEPHEN McKENNA 
 
 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. 
 
 While I Remember is actually a gallery of pic- 
 tures taken from the life and executed with the 
 
 [334] 
 
STEPHEN MCKENlfA 
 
 [335] 
 
STEPHEN McKENNA 
 
 technique of youth by a man still young — ^pictures 
 of public school and university life, of social Lon- 
 don from the death of King Edward to the Armis- 
 tice, 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. McKerma's narrative, literary Lon- 
 don — 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 W ell-Meaning Woman, is a series of mono- 
 logues 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 com- 
 pelled to live in a house in Mount street — for how 
 could she ask 'The Princess' to visit her in Bays- 
 water? — and her income of a few thousands, 
 hardly supplemented by her husband's director- 
 ships, is depleted by the disbursements needed to 
 keep the name of her only son out of the news- 
 papers while she is obtaining for him the wife and 
 the salary suited to his requirements and capac- 
 ities. Mr. Stephen McKenna provides us with 
 the same kind of exasperating entertainment that 
 we get at games from watching a skilful and un- 
 scrupulous veteran. Her deftness in taking a step 
 
 [337] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 oif 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. Mc- 
 Kenna 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 
 
 [338] 
 
STEPHEN McKENNA 
 
 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 al- 
 most 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-hunt- 
 ing 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 in- 
 vention 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 em- 
 ployed 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 expen- 
 sive 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 Soma, not to 
 be confused with Stephen McKenna, the transla- 
 tor 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 
 
 [339] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 exhi- 
 bitioner of Christ Church, Oxford. After he had 
 taken his degree, his father, Leopold McKenna, 
 an elder brother of the Right Honourable Regi- 
 nald McKerma, 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 
 voliuiteered for service at his old school, and, af- 
 ter a year, joined the staff of the War Trade In- 
 telligence 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 con- 
 nection with the government service until Febru- 
 ary, 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 
 
 ' [340] 
 
STEPHEN McKENNA 
 
 Westminster School and at the War Trade Intel- 
 ligence Department. The book won the public 
 favour more quickly than perhaps any other novel 
 that has appeared in our time. 
 
 The success of Soma was largely due to its de- 
 scription in a facile, popular and yet eminently 
 chaste and polished style, of the social and politi- 
 cal situation in England for a half generation be- 
 fore 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, Betiveen Two Worlds, which was 
 origffially intended for the actual title. 
 
 McKeima'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 seri- 
 ous temper. 
 
 In spite of certain blemishes due to Mr. Mc- 
 Kenna'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. McKeima 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 succes- 
 
 [341] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 sive novels called Lady Lilith, The Education of 
 Eric Lane and The Secret Victory. 
 
 IV 
 
 Writing from ii, 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 sensa- 
 tion-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 nov- 
 elty 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 
 
 [342] 
 
STEPHEN McKENNA 
 
 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 knowl- 
 edge of good or evil in the world. She is immor- 
 tal, 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." 
 
 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 man- 
 ner, a ready but always urbane wit and great 
 conversational charm. He possesses the rare ac- 
 complishment of "talking like a book." His in- 
 timates 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 rause to lose it. 
 
 His one recreation is the Opera; and during the 
 London season his delightful chambers in Lin- 
 
 [343] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 coin'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-Mean- 
 ing Woman: 
 
 'Xiady Ann i^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 prom- 
 ises 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 thank- 
 ful to be well again that I would put up with al- 
 most any imposition. . . . 
 
 "Everything went off too wonderfully. Per- 
 haps 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 
 
 [344] 
 
STEPHEN McKENNA 
 
 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, let- 
 ters, telephone-messages. Like Royalty in ex- 
 tremis. . . . And I never pretended that the oper- 
 ation was in any sense critical. . . . 
 
 "Do you know, beyond saying that, I would 
 much rather not talk about it? This very modem 
 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 ad- 
 ministered 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 
 
 [345] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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. 
 
 [346] 
 
Chapter XXII 
 POETS AND PLAYWRIGHTS 
 
 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 
 
 [347] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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. 
 
 [348] 
 
POETS AND PLAYWRIGHTS 
 
 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 temp- 
 tation 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: 
 
 [349] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 "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 pub- 
 lication of Reynard the Fox. Candles That 
 Burn created her audience and Vigils has been 
 that audience's renewed delight. From Vigils I 
 take the poena "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, 
 
 [350] 
 
POETS AND PLAYWRIGHTS 
 
 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 begin- 
 ning 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, 
 
 . [351] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 espe- 
 cially to readers of The Bookman, whose verse has 
 appeared in various magazines. A Russian, Mil- 
 ton 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: 
 
 [352] 
 
POETS AND PLAYWRIGHTS 
 
 "There is a Latin sharpness of mentality mani- 
 fested in these clearly, sardonically etched por- 
 traits 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 in- 
 fluence 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 catastro- 
 phic 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 jou "Vision" : 
 
 [353] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 hav- 
 ing been published, more people now know Wil- 
 liam 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, Shel- 
 ley's 'Adonais' ; Wordsworth's 'Intimations of Im- 
 mortality'; Milton's 'L' Allegro' and 11 Pense- 
 
 [354] 
 
POETS AND PLAYWRIGHTS 
 
 roso' ; 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 the- 
 ories 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 con- 
 trary, 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 
 
 [355] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 •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 ro- 
 mantic poem tnat doesn't 'get there.' And to us, 
 at least, there is nothing as thrilling as the authen- 
 tic voice of romance, the genuine utterance of the 
 soul that walks in communion with beauty. 
 Moons of Grandeur is a ringing bell and a glim- 
 mering tapestry and a draught of sparkling wine. 
 
 "A certain rich intricacy of pattern distin- 
 guishes 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 maga- 
 zine 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. 
 
 [356] 
 
POETS AND PLAYWRIGHTS 
 
 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 col- 
 lected 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 broad- 
 ening literary tendencies; and, perhaps most im- 
 portant of all, to present you to the poets them- 
 selves as I know them by actual meeting or cor- 
 respondence." 
 
 I will choose what Mr. Farrar says about Hilda 
 Conkling, prefacing her poem "Lonely Soiig"; 
 and then I will quote the poem : 
 
 "A shy, but normal little girl, twelve years old 
 now, nine when her first volume of verses ap- 
 peared, Hilda Conkling is not so much the infant 
 prodigy as a clear proof that the child mind, be- 
 fore 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 
 
 [357] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 specu- 
 lation 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 
 
 [358] 
 
POETS AND PLAYWRIGHTS 
 
 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 ! 
 Se,en 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. 
 
 [359] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 11 
 
 The matter of playwrights Is much more diffi- 
 cult 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 ob- 
 jections (on the part of the producer) to any ex- 
 cerpts at all appearing in advance. The publica- 
 tion 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 sub- 
 ject, 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 pro- 
 duction of the play for the Fireside Theatre is 
 hereby guaranteed. The Fireside Theatre, blessed 
 institution, has certain merits. The actors are al- 
 ways ideal and the performance always begins on 
 time, as a letter to the New York Times has 
 pointed out. 
 [360] 
 
POETS AND PLAYWRIGHTS 
 
 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 re- 
 
 [361] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 dines at his feet.) I wonder why women nowa- 
 days are so fond of the floor. 
 
 Russ. Because they're oriental, of course. 
 
 Nina. But Fm not oriental, Hughie ! {Look- 
 ing 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 al- 
 ways 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 appe- 
 tite for life. You want to taste everything, en- 
 joy 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 eat- 
 ing and drinking. You couldn't be still. To- 
 morrow night it'll be something else. There's no 
 end to what you want, and what you want tre- 
 mendously, and what you've jolly well got to 
 have. You aren't a woman. You're a hundred 
 women. 
 
 [362J 
 
POETS AND PLAYWRIGHTS 
 
 Nina. Oh! Hughie. How well you under- 
 stand ! 
 
 Russ. Yes, don't I? 
 
 Nina {tenderly). Do I make you very un- 
 happy? 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 
 
 [363] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 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 pro- 
 curable 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 every- 
 one 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 mo- 
 ment to speak of Sidney Howard's four act 
 play, Swords. I think the best thing to do is to 
 give what Kenneth Macgowan, an exception- 
 ally 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 inspira- 
 tion 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 host- 
 age 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 trium- 
 
 [364] 
 
POETS AND PLAYWRIGHTS 
 
 phant 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 produc- 
 tions which ended only with his death in 1917 
 in Paris. These two volumes, very beautiful ex- 
 amples 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. Gor- 
 ringe's Necklace, and Lady Epping's Lawsuit. 
 Hugh Walpole has contributed a very touching 
 introduction. 
 
 [365] 
 
Chapter XXIII 
 
 THE BOOKMAN FOUNDATION AND THE 
 BOOKMAN 
 
 THANK you very much for the May Book- 
 man," 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 personal- 
 ity 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 lit- 
 erary 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 enthusi- 
 [366] 
 
THE BOOKMAN FOUNDATION 
 
 asm," 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 en- 
 tertaining, 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 oc- 
 curred in a discussion of the future of the maga- 
 zine and the ampler purposes it was desired to 
 have The Bookman serve. The idea had been ad- 
 vanced that more than the future of the maga- 
 zine should be considered ; those to whom the wel- 
 fare of the magazine was a most important con- 
 sideration distinctly felt that welfare to depend 
 upon a healthy and thriving coridition of Ameri- 
 can 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 Book- 
 man 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. Fundamen- 
 tally The Bookman Foundation is Jbeing estab- 
 lished to stimulate the study of American litera- 
 
 [367] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 ture 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 tiie 
 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 Founda- 
 tion will be published in book form by The Book- 
 man in a handsome and uniform edition. Mem- 
 bership in The Bookman Foundation will be by 
 invitation. All members of the Foundation will 
 be entitled to receive the published lectures with- 
 out charge and they will also have the privilege 
 of subscribing for certain first and limited edi- 
 tions 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 
 [368] 
 
THE BOOKMAN 
 
 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 new- 
 comer among American periodicals. It has a rea- 
 sonably 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 begin- 
 ning 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 con- 
 temporary American and English literature. I 
 will give a few: 
 Joseph Hergesheimer 
 Amy Lowell 
 Siegfried Sassoon 
 James Branch Cabell 
 Mary Roberts Rinehart 
 Zona Gale 
 
 [369] 
 
WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET 
 
 Fannie Hurst 
 WiLLijyvi' 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 
 
 [370] 
 
THE BOOKMAN 
 
 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 Book- 
 man's regular reviewers are Louis Untermeyer, 
 Wilson Follett, Paul Elmer More, H. L. Menc- 
 ken, 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 Aus- 
 tin, 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 edi- 
 tor of The Bookman once or twice will know 
 explicitly just what I mean. 
 
 [371] 
 
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 
 
 [372] 
 
INDEX 
 
 A^te, James E., 49; Alarums and 
 Excursions, 49^ dramatic critic, 
 50; Responsibility, So; review 
 by The Londoner, in The Book- 
 man, 50 
 
 Alarums and Excursions by James 
 E. Agate, 49 
 
 Alone in the Caribbean, by Fred- 
 eric A. Fenger, 194 
 
 Altar Steps. The, by Compton 
 Mackenzie, 265, 266 
 
 Amazing Adventures of Letitia 
 Carberry^ The, by Mary Roberts 
 Rinehartj loS, X15, 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 Wil- 
 liam T. Tilden, 213 
 
 Asquith, Elizabeth (Princess An- 
 toine Bibesco), daughter of Mar- 
 got Asquith, 47 
 
 Asquith, Margot, 89; mother of 
 Elizabeth, 47; My Impressions 
 of America, 122; The Autobi- 
 ography of Mar got Asquith, 122 
 
 Autobiography of Margot Asquith, 
 The, by Margot Asquith, 122 
 
 Bailey, Margaret Emerson, Robin 
 Hood's Barn, 194 
 
 Balloons, by Princess Antoine Bi- 
 besco, 47 
 
 Banning, Margaret Culkin, Half 
 Loaves, 253 ; Spellbinders, 252; 
 This Marrying, 253 
 
 Barton, Olive Roberts, Cloud Boat 
 Stones, 162 ; Column, 162 ; re- 
 view 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 Suther- 
 land, 262 
 
 Belloc, Hilaire, 23, 77 
 
 Benet, William Rose, Moons of 
 Grandeur, 354, 355; review by 
 Don Marquis, 354, 355; Ben^t, 
 William Rose, The First Person 
 Singular, 262, 263, 354 
 
 Bennett, Arnold i33t I34f 144. 
 14s, 147. 148, 149. ISO, 151; A 
 Man from the North, 146, 149; 
 Anna of. the Five Towns, 1461 
 149; article on Hugh Walpole, 
 22, 23; booklet by George H. 
 Doran Co., 150; books by, list 
 of, I49i 150; Clayhangerj 148, 
 149; comments of Frank Swin- 
 nerton's Books, 225; comments 
 on The Casement, by Frank 
 Swinnerton. 236-242; criticism 
 by New York Evening Post, 
 1 48 ; Cupid and Commonsense, 
 "^ZSt 150; descrmtion 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 'Man- 
 agement. 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. I49; The 
 Truth About an Author, 144, 150 
 
 Benson, E. F., Peter, 261 
 
 Between Two Thieves,- by Richard 
 Dehan ( Clotilde Graves) , 1 98, 
 200, 210 
 
 Bibesco, Princess Antoine (Eliza- 
 beth Asquith), 47; Balloons, 47; 
 I Have Only Myself to Blame, 
 47 
 
 Birds and Other Poems, The, by 
 J. C. Squire, 351 ; Quotation 
 from, 3Si; 
 
 Black Gang, The, by Cyril Mc- 
 Neile, 70 
 
 [373J 
 
INDEX 
 
 Black Casar^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 
 
 £ooknian, The; articles by Robert 
 Cortes Holliday, 221; Comment 
 on Richard Defaan, 198, 21 z; 
 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; Acquaint- 
 ances, 259 ; The Kingfisher, 
 260 
 
 Boy Journalist Series, by Francis 
 Rolt-Wheeler, iS9, 161 
 
 Breaking Point, The, by Mary 
 Roberts Rineuart, 105; resume 
 of, 105-7, 117 
 
 Broome Street Straws, by Robert 
 Cortes Holliday, 52 
 
 Broun, Heywooci, 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 Limehbuse Nights, 1 87 ; 
 Nights in London, 190; Re^ons 
 given for his characters, 187, 
 x88. 189; The London Spy, 189 
 
 Byron, May, Billy Butt's Adven- 
 ture, 1 s 3 ; Jack-a-Dcmdy, 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 Blade 
 
 Prize, 1920, 30 
 
 Carnival, by Compton Mackenzie, 
 26 s 
 
 Casement, The, by Frank Swin- 
 nerton, 236, 242 
 
 Cathedral. The, by Hugh Wal- 
 pole, 19, 31; at Folchester, 19; 
 review of, 19 
 
 Century of Backing in New York, 
 i8s3-ig23. A, by Henry Wysham 
 Lanier, 193 
 
 Chambers, Robert W., article on, 
 by Rupert Hughes, 320 ; Eris, 
 311, 317, 330; In the Quarter, 
 Z17* 318; lole, 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 Al- 
 fred 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, no, 114, 
 1X6 
 
 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 Occur- 
 rence up a Side Street, 176, 
 180; as a humorist, 179; at 
 Portsmouth Peace Conference, 
 ^77t 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; /. Pein- 
 dexter. Colored, 169, 185; lec- 
 ture by Gelett Burgess, 179 ; 
 Plays by, 185; report of Thaw 
 Trial, 178; Sources on, 186; 
 Stickfuls, 160, 18s; The Belled 
 Buzsard, 170, iSo; 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, i6x 
 
 [374] 
 
INDEX 
 
 Confessions of a Well-Meaning 
 Woman, The, by Stephen Mc- 
 Kenna, 337. 344, 346; Quota- 
 tions 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 Vis- 
 count Jellicoe of Scapa, 329 ; 
 review of, in Proceedings of 
 the United States Naval Insti- 
 tute, 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 Ar- 
 nold 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 Wal- 
 pole, 16, 28, 31 
 
 Davey, Norman, 36, 37; Guinea 
 Girl, 36, 37; The Gas Turbine, 
 37; The PUgrvm 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 
 
 Dc^s Before Yesterday, by Lord 
 Frederic Hamilton, 131 
 
 de Stael, Madame, 128 
 
 "Death of LuUy,'* 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, 21 z; Between Two 
 Thieves, 198, 200, 210; books 
 by, 210; Comment by The Book- 
 man. 198; sources on, 211; 
 Th4a 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, 
 
 2IO 
 
 Denham, Sir James, Memoirs of 
 the Memorable, 119 
 
 Dennis, Mrs. A. £. Forbes, see 
 Phyllis Bottome, 258 
 
 Dircks, Helen, Passenger, 236 
 
 Dj emal Pasha, Memoirs of, 1 22 
 
 Doors of the Night, by Frank L, 
 Packard, 68, 69 
 
 Dop Doctor, The, by Richard 
 Dehan (Clotilde Graves), 196, 
 200, 210 
 
 Dos Passos, John, 356; A Push- 
 cart at the Curb, 347; de Una- 
 muno, Miguel, 39; Manrique, 
 Jorge, Ode, 39; Kosvnante 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 Re- 
 public, 273-277 
 
 Duchess of Wrexe, The, by Hugh 
 Walpole, 19, 31 
 
 Earth's Story, The, by Frederic 
 
 Arnold Kummer, 155 
 East of Sues, by W. Somerset 
 
 Maugham. 284, 202, 360 
 Education of Eric Law, The, see 
 
 The SensationtUists, by Stephen 
 
 McKenna, 34^, 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,' Z44, 150 
 
 [375I 
 
INDEX 
 
 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, 
 
 2S7-8 
 
 Facing Reality, by Esme Wing- 
 field-Stratford, 300; Chapter 
 titles, 300; introduction, ex- 
 tracts from, 300, 301 
 
 Fairies and Chimneys, by Rose 
 Fyleman, 158; Quotation from, 
 158 
 
 Fairy Flute, The, by Rose Fyle- 
 man, 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, 
 15S 
 
 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 Deaiies 
 AWair, 75; The Owl Taxi, 74. 
 
 Forbes, Lady Angela, Memories 
 and Base Details, 130; Memo- 
 ries 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. Pack- 
 ard, 68, 69 
 
 Further Adventures of Lad, by 
 Albert Payson Terhune, 215; 
 extracts from, 216 
 
 Fyleman, Rose, Fairies and Chim- 
 neys, 158; The Fairy Flute, ' 
 158 
 
 Gabriel, Gilbert W., 53; Jiminy, 
 novel by, 53; music critic, N. 
 Y. Sun, S3; Novelist, 53; sub- 
 stitute 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 Var- 
 don, 213 
 
 Giving and Receiving, by E. V. 
 Lucas, 307 
 
 Glover, . T. R., Essays on Re- 
 ligioti, 305; Jesus in the Ex- 
 perience of ■ Man, 305; Poets 
 and PUgrims, 305; Poets and 
 Puritans, 305; The Jesus of 
 History, 305; The Nature and 
 Purpose of a Christian Society, 
 305 J The Pilgrim, 305 
 
 Gods and Mr. Perrin, The, by 
 Hugh Walpole, 22, 27, 31 
 
 Gold, by Stewart Edward White, 
 61, 67 
 
 Golden Scarecrow, The, is, 27, 
 31 
 
 Gold-Killer, by John Prosper, 7s 
 
 Grand Fleet, The, by Viscount 
 Jellicoe of Scapa, 329 
 
 Graves, Clotilde (Richard De- 
 han), Z96, 197, 198, 199, 200, 
 204, 209, 210, 2iz; 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 
 
 [376] 
 
INDEX 
 
 Half Loaves, hj Margaret Culkin 
 Banning, 253 
 
 Hatnbourg, Mark, How to Play 
 the Piano, 219, 220 
 
 Hamilton, Lord Ernest, Forty 
 Years On, 131 
 
 Hamilton, Lord Frederic, Days 
 Before Yesterday, 131; Diplo- 
 matic Services, 131; Education, 
 131; Here, There and Every- 
 where, 131; The Vanished 
 Pomps of Yesterday, 131 
 
 "Happy Families," in Limho, 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 Poem^s, by J. C. Squire, 
 35i» 3S2 _ 
 
 Harp of Life. The. by J. Hartley 
 Manners, 363 
 
 Harris, Corra, 257. 264; A Cir- 
 cuit Rider's Wife, 257; The 
 Eyes of Love, 257 
 
 Harrison, Marguerite E., Ma- 
 rooned in Russia, 192 
 
 Hawthorne, Nathaniel, A Won- 
 der Book, 165 ; The Scarlet 
 Letter, 327, 328 
 
 Hayhurst, Dr. Emery, Labour 
 and Health, 299 
 
 Henry, Alice, Women and the 
 Labour Movement, 2gg 
 
 Here, There and Everywhere, by 
 Lord Frederic Hamilton, 13X 
 
 Herford. Oliver, Neither Here 
 Nor There, 95 
 
 Hergesheimer, Joseph, Apprecia- 
 tion of Hugh Walpole, 15, 2g, 
 30, 31 
 
 Herm, home of Compton Mac- 
 kenzie, 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 Maugh- 
 am^ The, 270 
 
 Hichms, Robert, The Garden of 
 Allah, 249; December Love, 249 
 
 History of Sea Power, A, by Wil- 
 liam O. Stevens and Allan West- 
 cott, 331; Admiral Caspar F. 
 
 Goodrich, review of, in The 
 Weekly Review, 331-3331 Ex- 
 tracts from, 332, 333 
 
 HoUiday, Robert Cortes, 52; busi- 
 ness connections, 22 1 ; 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 Peo- 
 ple, 52; praise by James Hun- 
 ecker, 52; Study of Booth Tark- 
 ington, S3; Turns About Town, 
 52; Walking Stick Papers, 51; 
 Writing as a Business; A Prac- 
 tical 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 Ben- 
 nett, 303 
 
 How to Play the Piano, by Mark 
 Hambourg, 219, 220 
 
 Howard, Sidney, Swords, 364 
 
 Hughes, Rupert, article on Rob- 
 ert W. Chambers, 320; on Rob- 
 ert W. Chambers.' 311 
 
 Hugh Walpole Anthology, A, by 
 Hugh Walpole, 27, 32; divisions 
 of, 27; Country Places, 27; Lon- 
 don, 27; Men and Women, 27; 
 Russia, 27- Some Children, 27; 
 Some Incidents, 27 
 
 Hunting Hidden Treasure in the 
 Andes, by Francis Rolt-Wheel- 
 er, 159 
 
 Huxley, Aldous, 34, 35, 36; 
 Beauty, 36; Comment by Miiphael 
 Sadlier, 34; Crome Yellow, 34; 
 Disciple of Laforgue, 35; 
 L'Apres-Midi-d'un Faune, trans- 
 lation by, 35; Limbo, 34, 36; 
 Mortal Coils, 34, 35; "Permu- 
 tation among the Nightingales," 
 play by, 35; poet and writer of 
 prose, 35; Quotations from Mor- 
 tal Coils, 35; Splendour, by 
 Numbers, 36; the sensualist, 36; 
 Translator of Xaforgue, 35; 
 translation of The Walk, 35 
 
 / Have Only Myself to Blame, 
 by Princess Bibesco, 47; ex- 
 tract from, 47, 48, 49 
 
 [377] 
 
INDEX 
 
 lee-breakers and the Ice-Breaker 
 
 Herself, by Edna Geister, 219 
 Illuminatton 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, 3x8 
 lole, 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 
 /( Is to Laugh, by Edna Geister, 
 
 2x9 
 
 Jacks, L. P., editor of Hibbert 
 Journal, 195; The Legends of 
 Sntokeover, X94 
 
 Jameson, Mrs. Falconer, see /. 
 E. Buckrose 
 
 Jellicoe, Viscount, of Scapa, The 
 Crisis of the Naval War, 329; 
 The Grand Fleet, 329 
 
 Simmy .Dale and- the Phantom 
 Clue, by Frank L. Packard, 69 
 
 Joining in Public Discussion, by 
 Alfred Dwight Sheffield, 297; 
 sections of, 209 
 
 Judge ^ The, by Rebecca West, 78; 
 dedication and review, 84, 8s, 
 86; extract from, 81, 82; ma- 
 terial 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, 20S, 210 I 
 
 Jungle Tales, Adventures in In- 
 dia, by Howard Anderson Mus- 
 ser, 156 
 
 K, by Mary Roberts Rinehart, 
 107, 108, 1x6 
 
 Kemp, E. G., Chinese Mettle, xgo 
 
 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, Es- 
 says 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 Bot- 
 
 tome, 260 
 King in Yellow, The, by Robert 
 
 W. Chambers, 317, 318 
 Knight Among Ladies, A, by J. 
 
 E. Buckrose, 251 
 Knight. CapUin, C. W. R., Wild 
 
 Life in the Tree Tops, 214 
 Kummer, Frederic Arnold, The 
 
 Earth's Story, 155; The First 
 
 Days of Man, X55, 156 
 
 Labour and Health, by Br. 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 au- 
 thor, 342, 343, 346 
 
 Lamp of Fate, The, by Margaret 
 Pedler, 256 
 
 Land of Footprints, The, by Stew- 
 art Edward White, 55, 67 
 
 Lanier, Henry _Wysham, A Cen- 
 tury of Banking in New York: 
 iSei-igee, X93 
 
 Lardner, Ring W., appreciation 
 of Charles E. Van Loan, 212; 
 Sport, 2x2 
 
 Laughter, Ltd., by Nina Wilcox 
 Putnam, 90 
 
 Legends of Smokeover, The, by 
 L. P. Jacks, X94 
 
 Life and Letters^ by J. C. Squire, 46 
 
 Life of Sir Wtlliam Vernon Har- 
 court. The, xi8 
 
 Lilian, by Arnold Bennett, 133. 
 X37-X4X, 149; extract from, I37- 
 14X, X49 
 
 Limbo, by Aldous Huxley, 34. 36; 
 Death of LuUy, 36; Happy Fam- 
 ilies,' 36 
 
 Literary Spotlight, The; The 
 Bookman, 37 x 
 
 Little Essays of Love and Virtue, 
 by Havelock Ellis, 302 
 
 Little Jumping Joan, by May By- 
 ron, X53 
 
 Liza of Lambeth, by W. Somer- 
 set Maugham, 286, 287, 291 
 
 Lloyd George, critical sketch, by 
 E. T. Raymond, 121 
 
 Lodge, Sir Oliver, 1x5, 301 
 
 London Mercury, edited by J. C. 
 Squire 
 
 [378] 
 
INDEX 
 
 London Spy, The, by Thomas 
 Burke» 1S9 
 
 Long Live the King, by Mary 
 Roberts Rinehart» 115* 116 
 
 Love Match, The, by Arnold Ben- 
 nett, 361, 364; Extracts from, 
 361-363 
 
 Lowndes, Mrs. Belloc, apprecia- 
 tion of Hugh Walpole» 23, 24; 
 What Timmy Did, 77 
 
 Lucas, E. v., Giving and Receiv- 
 ing, 307; Roving East and Rov- 
 ing West, 307 
 
 Mackenzie, Compton, Carnival, 
 265; Flasher'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. Som- 
 erset Maugham, 277, 2S4. 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 Ar- 
 nold Bennett, 146, i49 
 
 Man in Lower Ten, The, by Mary 
 Roberts Rinehart, xi4f 116 
 
 Man in Ratcatcher, The, by Cyril 
 McNeile, 70 
 
 Manners, J. Hartley, The Harp of 
 Life, 363 
 
 Maradick at Forty, by Hugh Wal- 
 pole, 26, 31 
 
 Margutti, Baron von. The Em- 
 peror Francis Joseph and His 
 Times, 130 
 
 Marooned in Moscow, by Mar- 
 guerite 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 SueZf 284, 292, 360; 
 education of, 286; father of, 
 286; wife of, 286; Lady Fred- 
 erick, 289, 291; Lisa of Lam- 
 beth, 286, 287. 291; Mrs. Crad- 
 dock. 287, 288, 291; Mrs. Dot, 
 289, 291; Of Human Bondage, 
 zyoj 273-77, 287, 291; On a 
 Chinese Screen, 2S4-285, 291; 
 playright. 288; sources on, 292; 
 The Circle, 289, 292; The hetero- 
 geneous magic of, 270; The 
 
 Moon and Sixpence, 270, 277, 
 278, 2^9, 284. 2S7, 291 
 
 McCormick, W. B., Army and 
 Navy Journal, Editor of, 321; 
 Comment on Josephus Daniels' 
 Our Navy at War, 321, 322, 323 
 
 McFee, William, 37 ij Extracts 
 from preface to Spindrift, by 
 Milton Raison, 352, 353 
 
 McKenna, Stephen, 334, 337, 33S, 
 339» 340, 341, 342, 343. 345. 
 346; Between Tx/vo Worlds, 34^» 
 346; Books by, 34S» 346; Com- 
 ments on Lady Lilith, 342. 3435 
 education of, 340; Lady Lilith, 
 342, 343, 346 ; Leopold Mc- 
 Kenna, father of, 340; Midas 
 and Son, 341, 346; N%nety-Six 
 Hours' Leave, 341, 346; person- 
 ality, 343; Sheila Intervenes, 
 
 340, 345: Sonia, 339, 340, 341, 
 342, 343, 346; Sonia Mamed, 
 
 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. 
 34S; Translator of Poltinus, 
 339; war service, 340; While I 
 Remember, 324, 346 
 
 McNeile, Cyril, Bulldog Drum- 
 mond, 70; The Black Gang, 70; 
 The Man in Ratcatcher, 70 
 
 Melville, Herman, Mardi, 327; 
 Moby Dick, 3^7 ^ 328 ; Omoo, 
 326; Pierre, 327; Typee, 32S 
 
 Memoirs of Djemal Pasha, The, 
 122 _ 
 
 Memoirs of the Memorable, by 
 Sir James Denham, 119; Bea- 
 consfield, Lord, 119; Beresford, 
 Lord Marcus, 119; Bishop of 
 London, 119; Bishop of Man- 
 chester, 119; Browning, Robert, 
 X19; Byron, Lord, 119; Carroll, 
 Lewis, 119; Dunedin, Lord, 119; 
 Gladstone, 119; Howard, Car- 
 dinal, 119 
 
 Memories and Base Details, by 
 Lady^ Angela Forbes, 130 
 
 Memories Discreet and Indiscreet, 
 by Lady Angela Forbes, 129 
 
 Men and Books and Ctties, by 
 Robert Cortes Holliday, 52 
 
 Men Who Make Our Novels, The, 
 by George Gordon, 55. 67, 320 
 
 Merry Heart. The, by Frank Swin- 
 nerton, 236, 242 
 
 [379] 
 
INDEX 
 
 Midas and Son, by Stepben Mc- 
 Kenna, 341, 342> 346 
 
 Milestones, by Arnold Bennett 
 and Edward Knoblauch, 364 
 
 Milne, A. A., Mr. Pirn, 261 
 
 Miracle Man, The, by Frank L. 
 Packard, 68 
 
 Miscellanies — Literary and His- 
 ■ toricttl, by Lord Ro'sebery, 123 
 
 Moffatt, Dr. James, The Approach 
 of the New Testament, 296; 
 New Translation of the New 
 Testament, 293; New Transla- 
 tion of, the Old Testament, 296; 
 The Parallel Testament, 293 
 
 Mollusc, The, by Hubert Henry 
 Davies, 365 
 
 Monaghan, Elizabeth A., What to 
 Bat 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 Mar- 
 garet Pedler, 256 
 
 Moons of Grandeur, by William 
 Rose Benet, 354, 355; X^on 
 Marquis, review of, 354; Quo- 
 tation from, 355 
 
 Moore, Annie Carroll, Roads to 
 Childhood, 1^2 
 
 More Indiscretions, by .Lady An- 
 gela 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. Xloyd George: A Biographi- 
 cal and Critical Sketch, by E. 
 T. Raymond, 120 
 
 Mr. Pimi by A. A. Milne, 261 
 
 Mr. Prohock, by Arnold Bennett, 
 133. i4i» ^49i extracts from, 
 , 141-144, 149 
 
 Mrs. Craddock, by W. Somerset 
 Maugham, 287, 288, 291; ex- 
 tract from, 288, 291 
 
 Musser, Howard Anderson, Jungle 
 Tales, Adventures in India, 156 
 
 My Creed: The Way to Happi- 
 ness — As I Found It, Mary Rob- 
 erts Rinehart, 117 
 
 My Impressions of America, by 
 Margdt Asquith, 122 
 
 Myers, A, Wallis, Twenty Years 
 of Lawn Tennis, 213 
 
 Neither Here Nor There, by Oli- 
 ver Herford, 95 
 
 Nine, 264; Comment by Walter 
 Fnchard Eaton, 265 ; Goncourt 
 Prize, won by, 264 
 
 New Revelation, The, by Sir Ar- 
 thur Conan Doyle, 302 
 
 New Translation of the New Tes- 
 tament, by Dr. James Moffatt, 
 293; extracts from, 293-296 - 
 
 New Translation of the Old Tes- 
 tament, 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 Hour^ Leave, by Ste- 
 phen McKenna, 341, 346 
 
 Nocturne, by Frank Swinnerton, 
 225, 233, 235, 239, 243; Com- 
 ment by H. G. Wells, 233-235 
 
 Of Human Bondage, by W. Som- 
 erset 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 Ar- 
 nold Bennett, 133, 149; inspira- 
 tion of^ 147, 149 
 
 On a Chinese Screen, by W. Som- 
 erset Maugham, 284, 291; ex- 
 tract from, 284-285 
 
 On the Staircase, by Frank Swin- 
 nerton, 226, 243 
 
 On Tiptoe: A Romance of the 
 Redwoods, by Stewart Edward 
 White; 59, 67 
 
 One Thmg 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 Da- 
 vies, 365 
 
 Orczy, Baroness,' Nicolette, 24S 
 
 Owl Taxi, The, by Hulbert Foot- 
 ner, 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, 695 The 
 Wire Devils, 68 
 
 Painted Meadows, by Sophie 
 Kerr, 246 
 
 [380] 
 
INDEX 
 
 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 Comp- 
 ton Mackenzie. 266 
 
 Passenger, by Helen Dircks, 236 
 
 Patricia Brent, Spinster, anony- 
 mous, 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 Splen- 
 did Folly, 256 
 
 Peeps at People, by Robert Cortes 
 Holliday 
 
 Penny Plain, by O. Douglas, 249 
 
 Perfect Behaviour, by Donald Og- 
 den 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 Night- 
 ingales," by Aldous Huxley, 35 
 
 Peter, by E. F. Benson, 261 
 
 Pieces of Hate, by Heywood 
 Broun, 41 
 
 Pilgrim of a Smile, The, by Nor- 
 man Davey, 36 
 
 Plays for Children, by Col. Ste- 
 venson I^le Cummins, Z57 
 
 Plays of Hubert Henry Davies, 
 The, 365 
 
 Plotting in Pirate Seas, by Fran- 
 cis Kolt- 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, i8s; extract from, 
 170-171, 185 
 
 Pomp of Power, The, anony- 
 mous, Z19 
 
 Preston, Keith, Sflinters, 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 Head- 
 ings 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, 34S 
 
 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 Judg- 
 ment of Charts, 76 
 
 Riddell, Lord, Some Things That 
 Matter, 303 
 
 Rinehart, Mrs. Mary R., 89; books 
 bjr, 116; K.,^107, 108, 116; Long 
 Live the King, 115, 1x6; meth- 
 ods of work. III; My Creed: 
 The Way to Happiness, 117; 
 My Public, 117; parents of, 108; 
 quotation from, 102- 103; Sources 
 on, 117; The Amazing Adven- 
 tures of Letitia Corberry, 108, 
 115, 116; The Amazing Inter- 
 lude, 105, us, 116; The Bat, a 
 collaboration with Avery Hop- 
 wood, 114; The Breaking Point, 
 105, 117; The Circular Stair- 
 case no, 114, 116; The Man 
 in Lower Ten, 114, 116; Tish, 
 108, 115, X16; vitality of, 102 
 
 Roads to Childhood, by Annie 
 Carroll Moore, 152 
 
 Robin Hood's Barn, by Margaret 
 Emerson Bailey, 194 
 
 Rocking Horse, The, by Christo- 
 pher Morley, 34S; Quotation 
 from, 348 
 
 Rolt - Wheeler, Francis, "Boy 
 Journalist Series," 159, 161; He- 
 roes of the Ruins, 160; Hunt- 
 ing Hidden Treasures in the 
 Andes, 159; In the Days Be- 
 fore Columbus, 160; Plotting in 
 Pirate Seas, 159; The Coming 
 
 [381] 
 
INDEX 
 
 of the Peoples, i6i; The Quest 
 of the Western , World, 160; 
 wanderinn of, 158 
 
 Roseberjr, Lord, Miscellanies — Lit- 
 erary and Historical, 123 
 
 Rosinanie to the Road Again, by 
 John Dos Fassos, 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 Mc- 
 Kenna, 342, 346 
 
 SeW Healing Simplified, by Dr. 
 George L. Perin, 304 
 
 Sensationalists, The, by Stephen 
 McKenna, 341; Lady Lilith, 342; 
 The Education of Brie 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 ffwin- 
 nerton, 226, 243 
 
 Sixth Sense, The, by Stephen Mc- 
 Kenna, 340, 345 
 
 "Social Amenities' in "Soles Oc- 
 cidere 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, ar- 
 ticle, by Hector MacQuarrie, 
 292 
 
 "Song for a Little House," from 
 The Rocking Horse by Christo- 
 pher Morley, 348 
 
 Sonia, by Stephen McKenna, 251, 
 
 „ 339. 340, 341, 342, 343, 346 
 
 Soma Mamed, by Stephen Mc- 
 Kenna, 341, 342, 346 
 
 Speare, Dorothy, 2fti^\ Dancers in 
 the Dark, 255, 256 
 
 Spellbinders, by Margaret Culkin 
 Banning, 252 
 
 Spindrift, by Milton Raison, 352; 
 extracts from preface by Wil- 
 
 liam McFee, 353; quotation 
 from, 354 
 
 Splendtd 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 paro- 
 dies, 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, 35'; 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, descrip- 
 tion of Edinburgh, 86: in Mis- 
 cellanies, 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, 
 i8s 
 
 Struggle for Power in Europe 
 (1917-11), by Leslie Haden Guest, 
 323 
 
 Sunny-San, by Onoto Watanna, 
 253 
 
 Sutherland, Jean, BeoAity for 
 Ashes, 262 
 
 Swinnerton, Frank, Analyst of 
 Lovers, 225; Arnold Bennett's 
 Comments, 225; Coquette, 226, 
 243; criticism of R. L. Steven- 
 son, 242; list of books, 242, 
 243; literary critic, 241; Noc- 
 turne, 225, 233, 235, 239, 243; 
 On the Staircase, 226, 243: 
 Personal Sketches by Arnold 
 Bennett, Grant Overton, H. G. 
 Wells, 243; publisher, 240; Sep- 
 tember, 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 
 
 [382] 
 
INDEX 
 
 Swords, by Sidney Howard, 564; 
 Kenneth Macgowan's critiasm, 
 364, 365 
 
 Taggart, Marion Ames, 164; At 
 Greenacres, 164; Poppy's Fl«ck, 
 164; The Bottle Imp, 164; The 
 Queer Little Man, 164 
 
 Tahiti Days, by Hector McQuar- 
 rie, 270 
 
 Tales Told by the Gander, by 
 Maude Radford Warren, 153 
 
 Talkers, The, by Robert W. Cham- 
 bers, 317, 320 
 
 Tarktngton, Booth, box score, 183, 
 184; study of, by Robert Cortes 
 Holliday, 53 
 
 Tell England, by Ernest Ray- 
 mond, 250; Prologue, by Fadre 
 Monty, 250, 251 
 
 Terhune, Albert Payson, Black 
 Cesar s Clan, 71; Black Gold, 
 71; Further Adventures of Lad, 
 215; home of, 214; Lad: A Dog, 
 214 
 
 That Which Hath Wings, by Rich- 
 ard Dehan (Clotilde Graves), 
 200, 210 
 
 They Have Only Themselves to 
 Blame, 118 
 
 Thirty-nine Steps, The. by John 
 Buchan, 249 
 
 This Marrying, by Margaret Cul- 
 kin 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-iox 
 
 Three Soldiers, by John Dos Passos 
 
 Tilden, William T., The Art of 
 Lawn Tennis, 213; tennis cham- 
 pion, 2J3 
 
 Timothy Tabby's Journal, extracts 
 from, 95, 9^, 97, 98 
 
 Tish, by Mary Roberts Rinehart, 
 108, 115, 116 
 
 Tomorrow We Diet, by Nina Wil- 
 cox 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; Quo- 
 tation from, 349 
 
 Trees and Other Poems, bij 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 Hamil- 
 ton, 131 
 
 Vanishing of Betty Varian, The, 
 by Carolyn Wells, 76, 77 
 
 Van Loan, Charles E., Buck Par- 
 vi/n: Stories of the Motion Pic- 
 ture Game, 212; Fore! Golf 
 Stories, 212; Old Man Curry: 
 Racetrack Stories, 212; Score by 
 Innings: Baseball Stories, 212; 
 Taking the Count: Prise Ring 
 Stories, 21a 
 
 Van Rensselaer, Alexander, 220; 
 bibliographies by, 223 
 
 Van Vechten, Carl, New York 
 Evening Post, review of Her- 
 man Melville: Mariner and Mys- 
 tic, 325-328 
 
 Vardon, Harry, The Gist of Golf, 
 213 
 
 Vigils, by Mrs. Kilmer, 350; Quo- 
 tations from, 350, 351 
 
 "Vision," from Spindrift, by Mil- 
 ton Raison, 354 
 
 Vital Message, The, by Sir Ar- 
 thur Conan Doyle, 302 
 
 Voice in the Wilderness, The, by 
 Richard Bicker, 263 
 
 Walking Stick Papers, by Robert 
 Cortes Holliday, selection from, 
 5^ 52 
 
 Walpole, Hugh, 15, 27, 28, 29. 31, 
 32; A Hu^h Walpole Anthology, 
 32; American following of, zi; 
 appearance, 22; article on, by 
 Mrs. Belloc Loundes, 23; birth- 
 place, 15; Books of, 31; com- 
 ments on The Bookman, 366 ; con- 
 nection 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 Dur- 
 ing the Last Half Century, 32; 
 father of, 15; Fortitude, 21; 
 goes to England^ 16; Hugh Wal- 
 pole, an appreciation, 31; Hugh 
 Walpole, Master Novelist, 32; 
 life in New York, 16; London 
 
 [383] 
 
INDEX 
 
 scenes pictured by, in Anthology, 
 28; Moradick at Forty, 26; Note 
 by Joseph Conrad, 28; Navels, 
 list of, ^i; optimist, 23; Ro- 
 mances, list oi 31; Service in 
 Great War, 16; Selections for 
 Anthology, 27; Short Stories, 
 list of J 31; Sources on, 31; su- 
 perstitions, 24: reader, 24; Tait 
 Black Prize for best novel of 
 year, 30; won by, 30 j The Cap- 
 tives, 24; The Cathedral, 19; 
 The Dark Forest, 16; The Duch- 
 ess ofWrexe, 19; The Gods and 
 Mr. Perrin,2i; The Green Mir- 
 ror, 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 Night- 
 ingale, 254; Sunny-San, 253 
 
 Warbasse, Dr. James B., Coopera- 
 tive Movement, 300 
 
 Weaver, Raymond M., Herman 
 Melville: Mariner and Mystic, 
 325, 326, 327, 328 
 
 Wells, Carolyn (Mrs. Hadwin 
 Hqughton), 77; Book of Hu- 
 morous Verse, 99; The Room 
 with the Tassels, 76; The Van- 
 ishing of Betty Parian, 76, 77 
 
 Wells, H. G., 94; Comments on 
 Frank Swinnerton's Nocturne, 
 233, 234, 235; Soviet Russia, loa 
 
 Westcott, Peter, in Fortitude, by 
 Hugh Walpole, 22 
 
 West Broadway, by Nina Wil- 
 cox Putnam, 88, 90 
 
 Westerners, The, by Stewart Ed- 
 ward White, 55, 63, 66 
 
 West, Rebecca, books by, 86; ar- 
 ticle 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 Pow- 
 er, 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, 32^, 346 
 
 Whispering Wmdows, 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, ss, 
 63; boat and books, 56, 59; 
 books of, 66; by John Palmer 
 Gavit, 67; education of, 61; 
 Cold, 61, 67; in France, 56; 
 military service, 61; On Tip- 
 toe: A Romance of the Red- 
 woods, 59, 67; parents, 60; Sim- 
 ba, 55, 67; sources on, 67; The 
 Claim Jumpers, 53, 63, 66; The 
 Land of Footprints, 55, 67; The 
 Westerners, 55, 63, 66 
 
 Wild Life in the, Tree Tops, by 
 Captain C. W. S. 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, R9bert, 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 Rine- 
 hart, X09, 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 Prac- 
 tical Guide for Authors, by Rob- 
 ert Cortes Holliday, 220; Ex- 
 tracts from, 222, 223 
 
 Wylie, Elinor, 357 
 
 Young, F. E. Mills, 263; Almonds 
 of Life, 263; Imprudence, 263 
 The Stronger Influence, 3G3 
 
 [384] 
 
lli 
 
 El