To all those who have not yet read a single work by our author, I would counsel them to begin with The Squire's Daughter, and then take up—with particular care to preserve the correct sequence—The Eldest Son, The Honour of the Clintons, The Old Order Changeth [English title, Rank and Riches]. These four stories deal with the family and family affairs of the Clintons, and together with a separate book, The Greatest of These [English title, Roding Rectory], belong to Mr. Marshall's best period, the years from 1909 to 1915. When I say the best period, I mean the most fruitful up to the present moment in 1918. He is in the prime of life, and it is to be hoped that he may yet surpass himself; but since 1915, perhaps owing to the obsession of the war, he has not done so. Watermeads (1916) is a charming story, and in Abington Abbey (1917), and its sequel, The Graftons (1918), he has introduced us to another interesting family; but neither of these books reaches the level main Mr. Marshall began The Squire's Daughter as a long "short story," starting with what is now Chapter XII, Food and Raiment. He fell in love with his characters, as many a novelist has done, and expanded the narrative. Then he wrote The Eldest Son, which is the best of the four books. Yet it was not a success in England, and at present both The Squire's Daughter and The Eldest Son are out of print in their home country; they are, however, having a daily-increasing circulation in America, which is bound to resurrect them in Great Britain. For that matter most of Mr. Marshall's novels are more widely known and certainly more appreciated in the United States than in the land of their nativity. In The Honour of the Clintons, the author's intention was to "take up the old Squire, see what all his generations of gentility and honour, and all his conviction that he is of superior clay, amount to when he is touched with personal disgrace." He discovered, as Dickens must have discovered in writing the Pickwick Papers, that his The final novel in the Clinton family, The Old Order Changeth, shows the effect produced on both Rank and Riches by the Great War. Mr. Marshall began this story with many misgivings, and it is still not one of his favourites, chiefly because "there are so many beastly people in it." But so long as I live it will hold a secure place in my heart, for this is the first work of the author's that I saw. Indeed I had never heard of him until I picked up The Old Order Changeth. I started to read it with no conception of the keen delight in store; after finishing it, I wrote to the publishers, "Who on earth is Archibald Marshall? There is no one like him in the world. Send me everything he has written." Since that moment of exaltation, I have read and reread the Clinton books, and each time they seem better. To read the Clinton stories is to be a welcome guest in a noble old English country house, to meet and to associate on terms of happy intimacy with delightful, well-bred, clear-minded men and women; to share the outdoor life of healthful sport, and the pleasant conversation around the open fire; to sharpen one's observation of natural scenery in summer and in winter, and in this way to make a permanent addition to one's mental resources; to learn the significance of good manners, tact, modesty, kindly consideration, purity of heart—not by wearisome precepts, but by their flower and fruit in human action. To read these books is not to dodge life, it is to have it more abundantly. If, as Bacon said, a man dies as often as he loses his friends, then he gains vitality by every additional friendship. To know the Clinton family and their acquaintances is not merely to be let into the inner circle of English country life, to discover for ourselves exactly what sort of people English country folk are, to understand what family tradition and ownership of the land mean to them—it is to enlarge our own range of experience and to increase our own stock of genuine happiness, by adding to our Why should we always select acquaintances in fiction that we always avoid in real life? Is it the same instinct that makes so many persons love to go slumming? There is perhaps rather too strong a flavour of tea in these stories, but that no doubt is a legitimate part of their realism. The sacred rite of afternoon tea plays fully as big a part in English fiction as it plays in English life. Tea—which would be an intolerable interruption to business or to golf among normal Americans—is never superfluous to the British. Among the hundreds of English novels that Two months after writing the above paragraph, I received testimony which delightfully supports the view expressed. An Englishman informs me, that after the big sea-fight of Jutland, he had the privilege of conversing with an English blue-jacket who was perched aloft during the whole of that terrific experience. There he remained under orders, in the thick of the battle, with the bolts of death flying all about him. On being asked how he felt, the young Not since Fielding's Squire Western has there been a more vivid English country squire than Mr. Marshall's Squire Clinton. The difference between them is the difference between the eighteenth and the twentieth centuries. He is the man of the house, the head of the family, and it is not until we have read all four of the stories that we can obtain a complete view of his character. He is a living, breathing man, and we see the expression on his face, and hear the tones of his voice, which his daughters imitate so irresistibly. With all his pride and prejudice, with all his childish irritableness, he is the idol of the household. His skull is as thick as English oak, but he has a heart of gold. He is stupid, but never contemptible. And when the war with Germany breaks out in 1914, he rises to a magnificent climax in the altercation with Armitage Brown. We hear in his torrent of angry eloquence not merely the voice of one man, but the combined voices of all the generations that have developed him. Yet while Mr. Marshall has made an outstanding and unforgettable figure of the fox-hunting Squire, it is in the portrayal of the Of all his characters, perhaps those that the reader will remember with the highest flood of happy recollection are the twins, Joan and Nancy. In the first novel, this wonderful pair are aged thirteen; in the second, they are fifteen; in the third, they are twenty-one. Mr. In The Eldest Son, which of the four delightful books dealing with the Clinton family, I find most delightful, there is a suggestion of the author's attitude toward humanity in the procession of candidates for governess that passes before the penetrating eyes of Mrs. Clinton. Her love for the old Starling—one of the most original of Mr. Marshall's creations—has not blinded Mrs. Clinton to the latter's incompetence for the task of training so alert a pair as the twins. Of the women who present themselves for this difficult position, not one is wholly desirable; and it is plain that Mrs. Clinton knows in advance that this will be the case. Her bedroom was in the front of the house, and she had heard, without much heeding them, the wheels and the beat of horse-hoofs and the voices outside. Now she began to be a little curious as to what was going on, and rose and drew up her blind and looked out. The scene was quite new to her, and in spite of herself she exclaimed at it. Immediately beyond the wide gravel sweep in front of the house was the grass of the park, where the whole brave show of the South Meadshire Hunt was collected. It is doubtful if she had ever seen a pack of hounds in her life, and she watched them as if fascinated. Presently, at some signal which she had not discerned, the huntsman and the whips turned and trotted off with them, and behind them streamed all the horsemen and horsewomen, the carriages and carts, and the people on foot, until the whole scene which had been so full of life and colour was entirely empty of all human occupation, and there was only the damp grass of the park and the big bare trees under the pearly grey of the winter sky. She saw the Squire ride off on his powerful horse, and admired his sturdy erect carriage, and she saw Dick and Virginia, side by side, Humphrey, the pink of sartorial hunting perfection, Mrs. Clinton in her carriage, with Miss Dexter by her side and the |