Gentle Rambler
Walk With Me. By Katherine Everett. (Constable. 525. 6d.) I SHOULD call this book old-fashioned—using the phrase in an altogether laudatory and agreeable sense. It might have been written, or something very like it might have been written, 50 years ago by the 'well-bred, slightly daring, observant and literary daughter of a country clergyman. Indeed, one could go much further: some of it, with the addition of a little didactic morality, might have been written by Maria Edgeworth.
It seems to me thoroughly enjoyable, having a ladylike avoidance of affectation which, in the present unhappy indulgence of our scribbling females, is a thing to be noted with gratitude. Mrs. Everett has written a series of stories (very queerly headed as " chapters " in the list of contents) which illustrate the characters and lives of the Irish peasantry, the Irish landowner and a number of her personal friends. Her writing beguiles the reader, even the
reader who generally finds dialect a nuisance, and- him pleasantly along from page to page: it.is not the writingof a stylist, but the writing of honesty, good sense, imaginative insight and a genial disposition, presenting with ease and obvious. enjoyment the fruits of memory and experience. Not always of direct experience, One may suppose, but of experience mellowed or translated by the story-teller's gift.
To make a selection from these admirable pictures would be difficult. All have the qualities of lively portrayal and of shrewd though kindly understanding, and all of them convey the engaging personality of the author. As one with an appreciation of the sly and ironical nature of the Welsh, who in this respect at least
resemble the natives of Ireland, I have been vastly entertained by the doings of Tommy McQuirk, an ingenious and lovable rogue if ever there wiles one, related by his widow. I find the middle-class Irish—the Duggans for example—a little less convincing ; but that is probably the fault of the middle:class Irish, not of their delineator. The story called " The Witch," though depending upon a somewhat uncritical belief in clairvoyance, is excellently narrated: the weird Celtic fantasy of " Deer upon the Mountains " is a great deal -more than this—it draws the imagination towards the ghostly pagan world of legend; where strange transmuted forms leap in the mist and the , moonlight.
But in every story the characters are vital and interesting, and Mrs. Everett has the power of describing landscape as well as the power of conveying the essentially personal quality in a dialogue or narration. Indeed, she is at her best when she places herself in _ a cottage, or by the sedge of a placid lake, or in the little parlour of the lodge, or the yard of "the old house," and lets the characters tell their stories in their own way. It matters not whether these interviews are real or imaginary ; the sense of life and reality is always present, the knowledge that we are being brought into contact with much that is both simple and infinitely mysterious in the nature of man. And it is not among the least of Mrs. Everett's many excel- lences that she maintains with admirable skill the difference between her own personality, her own rather formal and even disapproving dialogue, and the characters and utterance of her subjects. Aurelia, the fantastic mother-in-law, provides the last two stories ; but she is too much like one of the most awkward of my cousins for me to find her particularly amusing. Dreadful woman !
A really first-rate book, very unhandsomely presented by the publisher:printed in the dullest way on paper of the most horrible description. I am aware of the difficulties which, if we are to believe them, beset the publisher in these chaotic days, but surely it is possible to do better than this. I wish the book and its author the good luck which they undoubtedly deserve. C. E. VULLIAMY.
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