13 JANUARY 1933, Page 18

NO PATHETIC FALLACY

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,-1Vhile extremely grateful for your generous review of Violante, might I, in no carping spirit, point out that the " atmospheric devices "'are authentic ? The events of which I write were really accompanied by thunder, flood, earthquake; &c., as contemporary chronicles testify. I should not have " invented " these so lavishly—but, as they were an integral part of the story, I felt that it would be insincere to reject them through fear of being considered " melodramatic," that modern bugbear. Incidentally this raises a nice question:: Should a writer be afraid of using the melodrama there is in nature and in life because of a literary fashion for under-

statement and all action " oft " am, Sir, &c.,