Jan. 6.'14.
Dear Garnett
The Book you sent, Major's Early-Sussex has an appetising look but I hav'nt been able to look at it yet (except the preface) so must lie on the table until I can take it up or until you want it back to lend to someone in a hurry. The Mrs. Wharton[1] I've also put down after a few chapters—for the present. You didn't say enough in your review: you damned the people described in the book—the social state that can produce such creatures—and they certainly are detestable, or would be if one could believe that Mrs. Wharton is a true seer. Nothing in any of them to love or reverence or pity or forgive; no beauty, sweetness, pathos; but they are all like people made of zinc with their characters painted in big black letters on their surfaces so that there shall be no mistake. To read her book is like coming into a drawingroom, such as are common nowadays, overlighted with dozens of electric lights—all a hard blinding glare with no faintest spot of shade anywhere. I was going to say the only writer in England she could be likened to is Frank Danby. But it would be an insult to Mrs. Frankau: detestable as most of her people are they are human, and even Dr. Phillips of Maida Vale, the worst of the lot who poisons his invalid wife for the sake of his mistress, moves one's compassion as any real human being does. However I can't suppose you had any motive in sparing her notwithstanding her dog-like fidelity (if that is the right word) to the master Henry James. To go back to the subject I started with: I’ve had too many books tumbled upon me the last few days, including Frazer's last two vols—Balder the Beautiful. (You may want to read it some day.) But I've neglected them all to read a 3 penny book I picked up on a cheap stall a few days ago—Leigh Hunt's autobiography. Oddly enough I've known L. H. since I was fourteen or fifteen, when owing to being struck down with a fever which made me a prisoner for a couple of months, I first began to look at books. Some of his books were on the shelves. But I never knew till now that he had written his own life. As an autobiography it has serious faults but it charms and disarms me especially the early chapters and most of all those about his mother. What a marvellously beautiful picture he gives
- ↑ The Custom of the Country. By Edith Wharton.—E. G.
