Once taken by an idea for a novel, he has always burned with it as if it were as new to the world as to him. Here lies, without much question, the secret of that genuine earnestness which pervades all his books: he writes out of the contagious passion of a recent convert or a still excited discoverer. Here lies, too, without much question, the secret of Mr. Churchill’s success in holding his audiences: a sort of unconscious politician among novelists, he gathers his premonitions at happy moments, when the drift is already setting in. Never once has Mr. Churchill like a philosopher or a seer, run off alone.
Even for those, however, who perceive that he belongs intellectually to a middle class which is neither very subtle nor very profound on the one hand nor very shrewd or very downright on the other, it is impossible to withhold from Mr. Churchill the respect due a sincere, scrupulous, and upright man who has served the truth and his art according to his lights.... The sounds which have reached him from among the people have come from those who eagerly aspire to better things arrived at by orderly progress, from those who desire in some lawful way to outgrow the injustices and inequalities of civil existence and by fit methods to free the human spirit from all that clogs and stifles it. But as they aspire and intend better than they think, so, in concert with them, does Mr. Churchill.
Bibliography
- *The Celebrity. 1898.
- Richard Carvel. 1899.
- The Crisis. 1901.
- Mr. Keegan’s Elopement. 1903.
- The Crossing. 1904.
- The Title-Mart. 1905. (Play.)
- *Coniston. 1906.
- *Mr. Crewe’s Career. 1908.
- A Modern Chronicle. 1910.
- *The Inside of the Cup. 1913.
- A Far Country. 1915.
- The Dwelling Place of Light. 1917.
- A Traveller in War-Time. 1918.
- Dr. Jonathan. 1919. (Play.)
Studies and Reviews
- Cooper.
- Harkins.
- Underwood.
- Bookm. 27 (’08): 729 (portrait); 31 (’10): 246 (portrait); 41 (’15): 607.
- Bookm. (Lond.) 34 (’08): 152 (portrait).
- Collier’s, 52 (’13): Dec. 27, p. 5 (portrait).
- Cur. Lit. 27 (’00): 108; 52 (’12): 196 (portrait).
- Cur. Op. 55 (’13): 122, 341 (portrait).
- Ind. 53 (’01): 2097; 61 (’06): 96. (Portraits.)
- Lit. Digest, 47 (’13): 250, 426, 1278.
- Nation, 112 (’21): 619. (Carl Van Doren.)
- Outlook, 90 (’08): 93.
- R. of Rs. 24 (’01): 588 (portrait); 30 (’04): 123 (portrait); 34 (’06): 142 (portrait); 37 (’08): 763 (portrait); 48 (’13): 46; 58 (’18): 328 (portrait).
- Spec. 93 (’04): 124.
- World’s Work, 17 (’08): 10959 (portrait), 11016.