The Spanish farm

THE SPANISH FARM At the Sign of THE CUPID AND LION ——— THE APPLE OF THE EYE by Glenway Wescott THE LAND OF THE FATHERS by Sergey Gussiev Orenburgsky THE SPANISH FARM by R. H. Mottram STORIES FROM THE DIAL ——— 1924
By R·H·MOTTRAM With a Preface by JOHN GALSWORTHY LINCOLN MACVEAGH THE DIAL PRESS NEW YORK · MCMXXIV Copyright, 1924, by DIAL PRESS, INC. Printed in the United States of America by J. J. LITTLE AND IVES COMPANY, NEW YORK TO MY WIFE


“THE Spanish Farm” attracts a preface because it exhibits a new form, distinct even in this experimental epoch; and because one has not before met with such a good realization of French character by an Englishman, unless Renée, in “Beauchamp’s Career,” be excepted.
For four years and three months the British Army was in France, many thousands of educated Englishmen were in touch with French character, and, so far as I know, Madeleine in this book is the only full, solid, intimate piece of French characterization which has resulted from that long and varied contact. Madeleine is amazingly lifelike. I suspect her to be a composite creation rather than drawn directly from one living prototype; however that may be, there she is, an individual Frenchwoman of the North, firm as ever stood on excellent legs—no compromise about her outlines, nothing fluffy and nothing sketchy in her portrait from beginning to end. She imposes herself, page by page, with her tenacity, her clear knowledge of what she wants, her determined way of getting it, her quick blood, her business capacity, and once more, her tenacity—the tenacity which has kept the Spanish farm in her family since the days of Alva. Besides being a warm-blooded, efficient, decisive human being, with a wonderful eye to the main chance, she is evidence on French character extremely valuable to those among us who really want to understand the French.
And the minor portraits, of her lover Georges, and his old parents, of her father, her sister, and the housekeeper at the château, with the young English officer as foil, fill in a convincing picture of French life and atmosphere in the war zone.