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231, 1. Partie carrée. A party of four.
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237, 1. L'homme c'est rien—l'œuvre c'est tout. Man is nothing, his work is everything.
SIR JAMES MATTHEW BARRIE (Page 238)
Sir James Matthew Barrie, one of the best loved of contemporary novelists and dramatists, was born in 1860 in Kirriemuir, Scotland. His formal education was completed at Edinburgh University. And although his mature life has been spent largely in England, his stories reflect the village and country life of his native and beloved Scotland.
J. M. Barrie, as he is usually called, is a person interesting but difficult to know because of the reserve and shyness of his race. He has a sweetness of nature and a joy in life born of sympathy and faith. All these characteristics, together with his whimsical humor, are part of his great charm. One cannot help loving the man as one reads about him or reads his stories. The mental picture of him which one receives is of a shy and meditative little man, inconspicuous of dress, getting over the ground with strides almost as long as himself, and with a face that one cannot meet without stopping to look after it.
Barrie's mother, Margaret Ogilvy, is really the heroine of practically all of his stories and plays. From her, this man, shy of women, has learned all he knows of her sex. This accounts in part for the goodness and purity in his works. From his mother, too, he inherited his whimsically gay vision of life. Thus, his plays and novels, so much purer than those of many of his contemporaries, are never dull, for they are lightened by his wit, his fanciful humor, and his love for humanity.
The man's genial satire and kindly humanity may be distinguished in the selection, "The Inconsiderate Waiter," which you will read in this collection. The lovable Barrie, with his tenderness for child life, his poetic fancy and whimsical invention, will be revealed to you more truly when you have read his novels, Sentimental Tommy, Tommy and Grizel, The Little Minister, The Little White Bird, and his play Peter Pan.