PICKTHALL) of the landowning class
that he evidently considers ripe for abolition. As propaganda to
that end he conducts his hero through the usual career of the
pre-war aristocrat, sending him to public school and Varsity (those
sufficiently broad targets), giving him a marriage, strictly _de
convenance_, with the daughter of a peer, and finishing him off as a
member of the Government, alarmed at Socialist hecklers and welcoming
the War as likely to give a new direction to forces that threaten to
become too strong for his well-meaning incompetence. "It would rouse
the ancient spirit of the people and dispel their madness.... Even
defeat as a united nation would be better than ignoble peace with the
anarchic mob supreme." Of course this may be highly amusing, but--
The fact is that, with a disappointment the greater from having genial
memories of a former book of his, I have to confess myself one of
the dullards for whom Mr. PICKTHALL'S satirical darts fall apparently
pointless. I am sorry.
* * * * *
I am feeling a little peevish about _Ladies in Waiting_ (HODDER AND
STOUGHTON), because Miss KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN has often charmed me by
her writing in the past, and now she has disappointed me.
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