Page:The Yellow Book - 07.djvu/161

 addressing you. And surely a style ought to be personal, or else style's not the man.

The question of style apart, however, what makes Celibates an impressive book, very nearly a great book, is its insight, its sincerity, its vividness, its sympathy. If Mildred Lawson were only decently written—if only some kind soul would do us a decent rendering of it into English—Mildred Lawson would be a story that one could speak of in the same breath with Madame Bovary. Yes. The assertion is startling, but the assertion is an assertion my prize-critic must boldly hazard and proceed to justify. Mildred Lawson is one of the most interesting and one of the most complex women I have ever met in fiction. Her selfishness, her weakness, her strength, her vanity, her coldness, her hundred and one qualities, traits, moods, are analysed with a minuteness that is scientific, but synthesised with a vividness that is entirely artistic, and therefore convincing, moving, memorable. John Norton, structurally, is not quite so faultless as Mildred Lawson, but it is still a very notable achievement, a very important contribution to the English fiction of our day; and I don't know whether, on the whole, Agnes Lahens isn't the best piece of work in the volume.

However, these are questions for my prize-critics to discuss at length—Mr. Moore's execrable, excellent style; how, as it were, one would imagine he wrote with his boot, not with his pen; his subtle lack of grace, of humour; his deep, true, sympathetic insight; his sincerity, his impressiveness; and what his place is among the four or five considerable writers of fiction now living in England—I, sir, have already too far trespassed upon your valuable space.

I have the honour to be, Your obedient servant, .