Lady (in small Irish hotel). "Waiter, take away that bottle and put some clean water in it."
Waiter. "Faith, Mum, the wather's all right; 'tis the bottle that's dirty."
OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)
"Anyhow, I can remember this Court and can tell a tale it plays a part in, only not very quick." Thus Mr. William De Morgan, introductory, on the fourth page of his latest novel, When Ghost meets Ghost (Heinemann). Before it ends there have been as near nine hundred pages of it as makes no difference; and the things that the author remembers in the course of the tale, and the not-very-quickness with which he tells it, must be seen to be believed. The main outline of this more than leisurely plot is concerned with the coming together of two aged twin sisters, each of whom has been living for years in ignorance of the other's existence, so that they meet at last almost as ghosts. Hence the title. But you will not need to be told that there is ever so much more in the nine hundred pages than this. There are the children Dave and Dolly, for example; likewise Uncle Mo', and any quantity of humble London types; not to mention the group that includes Lady Gwen, and Adrian Torrens, and a score of others, all drawn with that verbal Pre-Raphaelitism in which the author takes such obvious delight. For myself I must honestly confess that I have found it a little overwhelming; but that, after all, is a question of individual taste. I suppose there is one comparison that is inevitable. I had meant to say never a word about Charles Dickens in this notice, but, like the head of another Charles, it would come; and when the chief house in the story began to rumble and finally collapsed in a cloud of dust—well, could anyone help being reminded of how the same incident was handled by the master of such terrors? In brief, this latest De Morgan left me with a profound and increased respect for the author; some little envy for the reader whose time and taste enable him to enjoy it as it should be enjoyed; and, for proof-readers and reviewers, a very pure sympathy.
The Duchess of Wrexe (Secker) is, I think, the longest as it is certainly the most substantial novel that Mr. Hugh Walpole has yet given us. It is the work of one who has already made himself a force in modern fiction, and after this book will have more than ever to be reckoned with. Whether the reckoning will be to all tastes is another matter; I incline to think not. Four hundred closely printed pages, in which hardly anything happens to the bodies of the characters, but a great deal to their spirits—this perhaps is toughish meat for the ordinary devourer of fiction. But for the others this study of the passing of an epoch, the time of the Old Society, as symbolised by the figure of the Duchess, will be a delight. You might suppose from this (if you were unfamiliar with your author) that we had here a social comedy. Nothing in fact could be further from Mr. Walpole's design. For him, as for his characters, there is almost too haunting a sense of the tragedy of trivial things. No one in the book is happy. The Duchess herself, stern, aloof, terrible, broken but never bent by the oncoming of the New Order; the various members of the family whom she terrified; Rachel, the granddaughter, between whom and the old woman there exists the bond of one of those hatreds in which Mr. Walpole so exults; the secretary, Lizzie Rand—all of them are tremendously and miserably alive. I think the matter is that they have too much sensibility, of the modern kind. They see too many meanings. A primrose by a river's brim, or more probably in a flower-seller's basket, is not for them a simple primrose, but a portent of soul-shaking significance. To make up for this the author has gifted them with his own exquisite sense of colour and words, and especially a feeling for the beauty of London that at times almost reconciles them to life. But I could wish them merrier.