I have often wondered why so few novelists select the English Lake District as a fictional setting. I wonder still more after reading Barbara Lynn (Arnold), in which it is used with fine and telling effect. Miss Emily Jenkinson's previous story showed that she had a rare sympathy with nature, and a still rarer gift of expressing it. Barbara Lynn does much to strengthen that impression. It is a mountain tale, the scene of which is laid in an upland farm, girt about by the mighty hills and the solitude of the fells. Here, in the dour old house of Graystones, is played the drama of Barbara and her sister Lucy; of Peter, who loved one and married the other; of the feckless Joel, and the old bed-ridden great-grandmother, who is a kind of chorus to it all. Practically these five are the only characters. Of them it is, of course, Barbara herself who stands out most prominently, a figure of an austere yet wistful dignity, of whom any novelist might be proud. I should hazard a guess that Miss Jenkinson writes slowly; one feels this in her choice of words and her avoidance (even in the final tragic catastrophe) of anything approaching sensationalism or melodrama. When all, is said, however, it is for its descriptions that I shall remember the book. The hot summer, with the flocks calling in the night for water; the storm on the slopes of Thundergray; and the end of all things (which, pardon me, I do not mean to tell)—these are what live in the reader's mind. Barbara Lynn, in short, is an unusually imaginative novel, which has confirmed me in two previous impressions—first, that Miss Emily Jenkinson is a writer upon whom to keep the appreciative eye; secondly, that Westmorland must be a perfectly beastly country to live in all the year round. Both of which conclusions are sincere tributes.
I was at school, some years ago, with two brilliant twins called Duff, who between them captured, amongst other trifles, the Porson, two Trinity scholarships, a Fellowship, and first place in the examination for the Indian Civil Service. I mention them here as an example of the minute care with which Alistair and Henrietta Tayler have compiled The Book of the Duffs (Constable). For I find their names and achievements duly recorded in the list of (I should think) every male Duff born of the stock of Adam of Clunybeg, temp. 1590, from, whom the present Duchess of Fife is ninth or tenth in descent. And that is only one branch of the clan, only one of the numerous family-trees that make these two bulky volumes a perfect forest of Duffs. I know now exactly how Macbeth felt when he saw Birnam Wood descending on Dunsinane. No wonder he exclaimed, "The cry is still, They come." When I looked at all these genealogies and lifelike portraits I had an appalling vision of this great army of Duffs of Clunybeg and Hatton and Fetteresso and the rest advancing towards me solemnly waving their family-trees. In the van, with his Dunsinane honours thick upon him, marched Macduff—Macduff, you know, who was also "Thane of Fife, created first Earl, 1057, m. Beatrice Banquo." Then followed a long train of other warriors—General Sir Alexander, who fought in Flanders; Captain George, who was killed at Trafalgar; Admiral Norwich and Admiral Robert, also contemporaries of Nelson; General Patrick, who slew a tiger in single combat with a bayonet; General Commander-in-Chief Sir Beauchamp of our own day—and I was afraid. Not, you understand, of their swords, but of their trees. And then suddenly the spirit of Macbeth came upon me again. With him I shouted, "Lay on, Macduff; and damn'd be he that first cries, Hold, enough." But, luckier than he, I have lived to tell the tale, or rather to tell about it, and to recommend it to all those who have arborivorous tastes. I can promise them that they will heartily enjoy a good browse in the Forest of Duff.
When a book is called The Sea Captain (Methuen) I do not think that the hero ought to be the driest of dry-bobs for nearly a quarter of it. If, however, Mr. H. C. Bailey is a slow starter he knows how to make the pace when he once gets going; indeed, he travels so fast and so far that merely to follow him in fancy is a breathless business. When I have told you that Diccon belonged to the spacious times of Elizabeth, I need hardly add that his methods of winning fame and fortune on the sea were as rough as they were ready. Mercifully he had a steady head and a very strong back, or something must have given way under the strain that his creator puts upon him. No hero in modern fiction has jumped so frequently from the frying-pan into the fire with so little injury to himself. But if I cannot altogether believe in Diccon I admit an affection for him. He was as loyal a lover and friend as could be found in the Elizabethan or any other age, and although he treated troublesome men without mercy his behaviour to women was marked by the extreme of propriety; so, though you may insist that he was merely a pirate, I shall still go on calling him a gentleman-adventurer, and leave him at that.
The Barbados Standard on an approaching Royal visit:—
"The visit it is understood is fixed to begin on April 29 and to last until April 25. The visit is probably unprecedented."
It is.