pole's creative methods, or rather his

methods of work; but we can form a pretty fair guess as to how "The Dark Forest" was written a personal record of his doings and experience with the Russian Red Cross. It was no doubt a happy break from the monotonous horror of his ghastly war work; every day bringing its rich but unripe crop of incident; every day adding its little bit, page on page, till the final achievement and "finis" was written to the fair manuscript. But we do not think he would have written about some of the characters as he does on calm reflection; the revolutionary student, for example, missing a great opportunity, we think, remembering Dostoevsky's treatment of Raskolnikov, and Marmeladov or Tolstoy's divinely human Prince Pierre; or thought it worth while to retain the somewhat hysterical episode of the fly; humorous but grave; although we would not wish him to withdraw one iota of its mellow charm of atmosphere; its serene beauty and Flaubertian rhythm of narrative. There is more repose and balance in "Fortitude" and "Maradick at Forty"; more sanity of outlook; more maturity. We can well understand that Russia could have but little charm for one so completely English as Hugh Walpole, who sets the scenes of his best books in picturesque nooks along the Cornish coast-ah, would we were there!-weaving dreams of wonder and delight about his countrified prodigies like Tony Gale and Peter Westcott who set out to trudge the rough highway of the world and stir the dull heart of London with their dreams. England of maypole and morrice dance; the cheer and color of the village inn; the hawthorn lane; the lazy port and shimmering sea; it is all caught with a master hand in "Fortitude" and "Maradick at Forty"; a soothing, plastic, clean-cut picture.

"Fortitude" a genre study in atavism, despite its occasional crudities; its vague hovering between romance and realism, is by far the best of the trio; more skillfully wrought; more concise; with a broader sweep and movement; and, better still, a deeper reverence for life. Although one or two of the episodes are crude and unreal; and as perilously near to melodrama as probably Mr. Walpole ever got in the whole course of his artistic career, it is crudeness and unreality that promise more than the loftily correct attitude that prevails in "Maradick at Forty," or the intolerant outlook of "The Dark Forest." This little bit from "Maradick at Forty" is not quoted so much as an example of Mr. Walpole's scrupulous narrative style, but rather to illustrate our own point of view and what we want so much to say not only to Mr. Walpole, but to that little clique of brilliant young novelists now writing kinetographic studies instead of giving us a real interpretation of the human drama, who alternately amuse and baffle, and solicit our appreciation, if not our actual homage:

Maradick . . . sank down with his eyes for the moment on the burning sky, and then gazing through depths of green water. As he cleaved it with his arm it parted and curled round his body like an embrace; for a moment he was going down and down and down, little diamond bubbles flying above him, then he was up again, and, for an instant, the dazzling white of the cove, the brown of the rocks, the blue of the sky encircled him. Then he lay on his back and floated. His body seemed to leave him, and he was something utterly untrammeled and free; there were no Laws, no Creeds, no arguments, nothing but a wonderful peace and contentment, an absolute union with something that he had been searching for all his life and had never found till now.. Then he

struck out to sea. Before him it seemed to spread without end or limit; it was veiled in its farthest distance by a thin purple haze and out of this curtain the blue capped waves danced in quick succession towards him. He struck out and out, and as he felt his body cut through the water a great exultation rose in him that he was still so strong and vigorous. Every part of him, from the crown of the head to the soles of his feet, seemed clean and sound and sane. Oh, Life! with its worries and its dirty little secrets and its petty moralities, and the miserable pessimistic sauntering in a melancholy twilight through perpetual graveyards! Let them swim, let them swim!

This is, besides being a luminous picture of Maradick having a morning swim, rather we choose to think a symbol of what Mr. Walpole would like to be and would like to do in his work as a novelist; to strike out with the joy and freedom of a finely-conceived and sympathetic character, no longer hugging the shore but swimming far and beyond the narrow world where his feet have been so firmly and so perilously set. We feel perhaps more in Mr. Walpole than in his fellow craftsmen as of one perpetually on the brink of "striking out" and doing something really great or worth while; eager not only to adopt a point of view, but to take the plunge right off without more ado; but we also feel contrarily just when he has made up his mind on this bold stroke comes The Bookman.

the fear or distrust of his own strength; or perhaps it is the fear or distrust of his own weakness; held perpetually in leash by academic considerations of one kind or another; an artistic anxiety on the one hand to avoid over-emphasis or sentiment; and on the other a curious solicitude in one so artistic to placate the proprieties, to strike a strong, individual note, and at the same time to hit the happy medium in tone and expression.

Mr. Walpole can look back, midway in his career, with conscious pride on a genuine achievement in letters; but we admire less the actual achievement than the promise of greater fruition. He has now attained an easy and dexterous control of his instrument; a sense of the wonder and gladness of life; courage and ideals; but he has a long way still to travel before he finds himself in close touch or complete communion with the spirit of life. He has been happily chaperoned by Flaubert, but he may safely discard this master now, and go forward not chaperoned any more but hand-inhand in fellowship with Dostoevsky or even Tolstoy; or, if he chooses, Scott, or Balzac; and then we feel we may look to him as we look to his fellow craftsmen, who have raised the novel in our day to a high, unprecedented art, to give us something that will not only charm or astonish but touch and ennoble; the stubborn heart of man still waits as it has always waited for the great interpreter.

Robert Birkmyre.

Will the week-end habit survive the war? Between motors and railways locomotion had become so easy and quick that people got into the habit of running out of town on Fridays to spend Saturdays and Sundays at the

houses of such of their friends as lived within fifty miles or so of Hyde Park Corner. This fashion had worked itself into the life of the upper class; and those who were unfortunate enough to live beyond a reasonable

radius lamented their lot, swore their houses in Wilts or Salop were white elephants, and tried to sell or let them. These week-end visits were characteristic of the restlessness of modern manners. Golf, and bridge, and gossip, and too much food for forty-eight hours, and off again on Monday morning to town! It may be doubted whether this whirling form of amusement will continue after the war. The entertainment of a modern crowd and their servants, even for two days, is a costly business, and will be more costly after the war both for hosts and guests. We are about to taste the blessings of Protection, and everything will be dear. We have been wont to curse the high prices when we traveled in Canada or the United States and to sneer at the domestic discomforts of our transatlantic cousins. We are going to pay those prices and to endure those discomforts, not only whilst the war lasts--that would be nothing-but for the next halfcentury. Servants will be few, incompetent, and exorbitant. Motoring, in the matter of petrol, tires, and chauffeurs, will be twice as expensive as before, and will probably be beyond the reach of all except army contractors and Americans. Cooking has never been the forte of an imperial race; but with all our cooks carried off by Canadian and Australian warriors, my stomach trembles at the prospect of post-bellum dinners. With the railways in the grip of the State, which will have to find the interest on the scrip issued for the purchase, fares will be high, carriages overcrowded, and porters scarce. We shall have to bear the high prices of protective tariffs accompanied by crushing taxation, while the scale of official salaries fixed in the days of Free Trade will remain the same. In these adverse conditions it is difficult to see how the great

country houses-the Chats

worths, Blenheims, Welbecks, and Longleats can be run at all. As for the smaller week-end houses, it looks as if they would be obliged to relapse into the repose of the old world, unless indeed our modern arrivistes, who are nothing if not energetic, should adopt the system of paying guests. A set, or clique, might agree to run a weekend house on joint account. The paying guest, who is supposed to be a modern invention, is really one of the oldest of English institutions.

It is interesting to trace the development of the national habit of hospitality and to note the dwindling through centuries of the country-house visit from two or three months to two or three weeks, and finally to two or three days. As I have said, the paying guest is one of the oldest sort of visitor. In the reign of Elizabeth, one Mr. More, justice of the peace, had proposed to pay a visit to his friend, Mrs. Ursula Worseley (afterwards the wife of Sir Francis Walsingham), who lived at Appuldercombe, in the Isle of Wight. Mistress Worseley, who probably knew her More, thereupon. writes to her father, Mr. Mills, in the following terms:

"ffather Mills, after my hartye comendacions, theis are desieringe you, that when Mr. More and Mr. Cress well cometh into the Ile, and as I suppose first to yo'. house, to have me in remembrance to them on theis points following, w'ch I trust shall seme bothe reasonable and requisite to be considered of, that is, first to have my chambre fre to mye selfe, allso to have part of the chardges borne for the keeping of the howse and the whole familie fro' the deathe of my late husband until this present, and parte of the serv'nts wages due at this feste of St. Michell, and I trust allso uponn yo'r remembraunce, theye will so consider that I shall have a geldinge free to mye self; theis points I thought hit good to remembere you of, to the

intent that through yo' communicac'on had with them, whose frendshippe I nothing doubte, theye maie the better throughlie conseder of hit, so that at their cominge hether they maye be the less troubled, and the better quieted and contented what ordre soever they shall take in the premisses, etc.

What robust common sense the Elizabethans had! Suppose a modern hostess were to write to a modern couple: "Of course, I shall be delighted to have you from Friday to Monday. But you must clearly understand that I am to have the morning-room to myself and that you cannot have the use of the motor. It goes without saying that you must pay for your feeding and that of your maid and valet. And really, as I have had to pay death-duties and this odious income-tax, I think you might contribute to my servants' wages and the household books up to next quarterday." Such a plain statement of the case would keep away many tiresome visitors who do not earn their keep. Of course, it must be remembered that the country-house visit in the sixteenth century never lasted less than a month, and sometimes extended to three months.* Let us stride forward a hundred years and see what country-house visiting was like in the gorgeous times of the Restoration. The Stuarts were fond of countryhouse visiting. The first James, who came up from Edinburgh totally ignorant of the world, took a boyish delight in seeing the inside of an English nobleman's house. Charles I was too austere to be an easy guest. But Charles II was in his element in a romping house-party. Of all the "smart houses" of his reign, Euston was the smartest. It was within an easy ride of Newmarket, which Charles patronized as heartily as Edward VII.

Charles liked Euston for the *The Losely Papers, passim.

same reason that the late king liked certain houses-because he was allowed to do exactly as he pleased by his host. Poor John Evelyn once found himself in a very uncongenial house-party at Euston. Most men have experienced the annoyance (at least once in their lives) of being isolated in the wrong company at a country house. A man who neither shoots nor hunts nor fishes amongst men who have no other subjects of conversation; an elderly bachelor amongst ballyragging boys and girls; a newcomer who finds himself between a cross-fire of esoteric jokes; a woman-hater in a party where flirtation is the only business-such an unhappy individual is described by the French as dépaysé, a better word than "out of it." Evelyn was the best educated man of his day. He had traveled all over the Continent at a time when such traveling was rare, and he could talk to you about astronomy, chemistry, coins, cameos, pictures, horticulture, architecture, forestry, music, or dynamics. But he was pious (very High Church) and domestic; his dress was plain and his countenance dour. The width of his culture just saved him from being a prig; but he was decidedly dépaysé in a royal house party at Euston at the age of fifty-seven. After describing "the autumnal sports" at Newmarket, "where I saw the greate match run between Woodcock and Flatfoot, belonging to the king and Mr. Eliot of the Bedchamber, many thousands being spectators," he goes

on:

This over, I went that night with Mr. Treasurer to Euston, a palace of found Lord Arlington's, where we Monsieur Colbert (the French Ambassador) and the famous new French Maid of Honor, M'lle Querouaille, now coming to be in greate favor with the King. Here was also the Countess of Sunderland, and severall Lords and

Ladies who lodg'd in the house. During my stay heere with Lord Arlington neere a fortnight, his Majesty came almost every second day with the Duke, who commonly return'd to Newmarket, but the King often lay here, during which time I had twice the honor to sit at dinner with him, with all freedome. It was universally reported that the fair Lady- -was bedded one of these nights, and the stocking flung, after the manner of a married bride; I acknowledge she was for the most part in her undresse all day, and that there was fondnesse and toying with that young wanton; nay, 'twas said I was at the former ceremony, but 'tis utterly false; I neither saw nor heard of any such thing whilst I was there, tho' I had been in her chamber, and all over that apartment late enough, and was myself observing all passages with curiosity enough. However 'twas with confidence believed she was first made a Misse, as they call these unhappy creatures, with all solemnity at this timə. On Sunday a young Cambridge divine preached an excellent sermon in the Chapell, the King and the Duke of York being present. Came all the great men from Newmarket, and other parts both of Suffolk and Norfolck, to make their court, the whole house fili'd from one end to the other with lords, ladys and gallants; there was such a furnished table as I had seldom seene, nor anything more splendid and free, so that for fifteen days there were entertained at least 200 people and half as many horses, besides servants and guards at infinite expence. In the morning we went hunting and hawking; in the afternoone, till almost morninge, to cards and dice, yet I must say without noise, swearing, quarrell, or confusion of any sort. I, who was no gamester, had often discourse with the French Ambassador Colbert, and went sometimes abroad on horseback with the ladys to take the aire, and now and then to hunting; thus idly passing the time, but not without more often recesse to my pretty apartment, where I was quite out of all this hurry, and LIVING AGE, VOL. VIII, No. 395.

had leasure when I would, to converse with bookes, for there is no man more hospitably easy to be with than my Lord Arlington.

Poor Evelyn! Though he puts a good face upon the matter, we may be sure he was not sorry when the Treasurer carried him off in his coach to Bishop Stortford, "where he gave us a noble supper. Next day to London, and so home." But he paid a second visit to Euston, when there were no royalties there, of which he records a more pleasant impression. He dwells particularly on the fact that "strangers are attended and accommodated as at their home, in pretty apartments furnish'd with all manner of conveniences and privacy. There is a library full of excellent books. There are bathing-romes, elaboratorie, dispensatorie, a decoy, and places to keep and fat fowl in." That was indeed the perfection of country-house visiting, when guests had suites of their own to retire to. But it requires a palace, and an army of retainers, and an income such as the Ministers of Charles II enjoyed. The palaces indeed remain, but the retainers and the incomes have vanished forever. Euston passed from Lord Arlington to his son-in-law, the Duke of Grafton, and it was there that a century later the third Duke placed Nancy Parsons at the head of his table to the scandal of his friends and neighbors.

A pleasanter and quieter picture of a great country house towards the end of the following century is drawn by Bentham in his letters from Bowood. The example of the Court has some influence on the manners of country houses. Charles and the gallery of Whitehall with its splendid rabble had old disappeared as completely as London after the Fire. Farmer George, with his neck of mutton and dumplings, and his frumpy Charlotte, sat