18 OCTOBER 1924, Page 36

THE PRESBYTERIAN CHILD.

MOST novelists begin their careers by writing their remini- scences; it says something for Mr. Hergesheirner's restraint that the impulse "to write the story of a Presbyterian child" should be one which he has hitherto resisted. The result is all to the good ; instead of the fevered and unskilful remem- brances of the first-novelist, lie is able to give in this little essay a quiet and accomplished conjuring-up of the ghost of his childhood ; and at a stage of his career when most novelists have more trouble with their invention than their technique, he is able to draw from the large and orderly store of memory, and commit all his energies to the matter of reproducing it in as orderly a fashion.

One is thus able to examine his style, almost in vacua; to perform the rare and dangerous experiment of divorcing the writing from the nature of the matter ; I mean, in a gentle reminiscence of this sort, as in a volume of letters, one sees the reproductive side of his technique isolated—like a kitten playing with its own tail.

That Mr. Ilergesheimte is a writer of considerable skill, that he has reputable artistic impulses, that in this case at any rate he has written for the love of writing, no one could deny ; but that the result is great literature it would be equally difficult to affirm. It is very pleasant reading, vivid and balanced ; but there is a deadly innocuousness about it which puts it right out of court. It is too much an example of how to write, too general ; whereas, every work of art should create its own style of presentation, never used either before or after, even by the same artist. The Presbyterian Child is written in exactly the manner in which one expects works of this particular kind to be written ; the manner which is appropriate in the sense of being appro- priate to the category, not to the individual ; it has that deadly thing Style (as opposed to a style).

Perhaps cavilling of this sort is a little high-falutin' ; but a piece of prose of about ten _thousand words, beautifully printed, alone, in a small edition autographed by the author, rather asks for it. It suggests that this is not the Mr. Herge- sheimer whose stories figure in the vast American Prints, but the Mr. Hergesheimer readers may have amused them- selves by conjuring out of his earlier works, before he had so successfully shed his faults and his virtues. And, indeed, some readers may find the Mr. Hergesheimer of their dreams in this quiet and faultless prose ; perhaps it is partly the chagrin of unfulfilled prophecy which has set the present writer against it—for at one time he certainly expected of Mr. Hergesheimer something very different ; not nearly so faultless.

Or is one misled by the respectable form a its publication ? Is it a mere by-the-way, indicative of nothing in particular.?