SKETCHES IN CHINA.*
On a Chinese Screen gives something of the impression of a portfolio of sketches. We find in it little jottings (so brief
and so slight that only a certain quality in the treatment and the fact that they contribute just another pinch of flavouring warrant their inclusion) and also finished drawings— landscapes in delicate water-colour or strongly characterized portraits in charcoal—which arrest the attention and make us step back from them with an exclamation of satisfaction. The book has the merit—and we sometimes forget, nowadays, that it is an indispensable one—of being extremely readable. Even in the slightest of the sketches the reader may be certain of finding entertainment : he is never bored, never surfeited, and if his excitement seldom becomes acute his pleasure never degenerates below a highly respectable level. And
the reader will find, too, here and there, an unobtrusive cynicism which brings a welcome astringence among the other flavours : in fact, it would have been better to compare Mr. Maugham's work to the art of the chef rather than to that of the water-colourist and draughtsman, for the secret of the book's appeal lies, we suspect, to a large. extent in the subtle blending and alternation of flavours ; each little article reinforces or corrects the previous one. One of the most amusing of the cynical variety occurs near the beginning
in "My Lady's Parlour," a perfectly straightforward account, without any comment, of how a certain English lady in China made shift to turn an old, disused Chinese temple into a suitable home for herself :—
" I really think I can make something of it,' she said. She looked about her briskly, and the light of the creative imagination filled her eyes with brightness."
And thereupon she set about obliterating the rich old beauty of the place. She knocked windows in the walls, covered walls and pillars with a nice paper which really did not look at all Chinese, and put in an American stove.
"She was obliged to buy her carpet in China, but she managed to get one that looked so like an Axminster that you would hardly know the difference. Of course, being hand-made, it had not quite the smoothness of the English article, but it was a very decent substitute."
When the place was finished, she had every reason to be satisfied with it :—
" Of course, it doesn't look like a room in London,' she said, 'but it might quite well be a room in some nice place in England, Cheltenham, say, or Tunbridge Wells.'" It is a delicious story, and though it represents only one of a variety of flavours, it may tempt the reader to look into a very attractive book from which emerges a vivid impression of a country and civilization strangely remote from our own.
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