And at his second best, or less,
His graceful manner still redeems
With easy charm and cheerfulness
More hackneyed, less seductive themes;
Each page has something witty, wise,
Well-turned, fantastic or jocose—
Each page of Breadandbutterflies,
From Mills and Boon, six shillings (gross).
Even though it has been seared by the tragic end of a youthful liaison ("It was in France, you know," and that seems to explain all to Minella Drake, daughter of the Vicar of Goldringham) the heart of a Sussex taxidermist appears to be exceptionally tender. Seldom can Tom Murrow, through whose eyes we view the scenes and incidents of Mr. Tickner Edwardes' Tansy (Hutchinson), have sealed up badger or squirrel in its glass morgue without shedding on the fur some glistening tribute of tears over a village sorrow. So much of his time in fact is occupied by conversations of a sentimental nature with the two Wilverleys (whose aged father, Mark, by the way, having retired from active life on his farm, habitually talks in rhymed couplets) that he can have had as little leisure for stuffing specimens as he had to discern the love gradually growing up for him in the bosom of Minella, his guileless confidante. The background of Tansy consists in the shepherd's seasons of the Sussex downs (for Tansy, a splendid type of advanced though rustic womanhood, is a shepherdess), and the plot of the story is that of Tess of the D'Urbervilles, with the convenient variation that the villain of the piece, having his pockets stuffed with cartridges, disappears (as villains should) in a cloud of malodorous smoke. Mr. Tickner Edwardes' knowledge of rural life and scenes is as thorough as his description of them is charming, and, if the general impression conveyed by Tansy is a little too idyllic for those who have been brought up in the rough school of Wessex agriculture, it is pleasant for a moment to lend ourselves to the illusion of his sunny romance.