is, if we may take the word "prophecy" in the
sense of forth- telling, not of foretelling. She makes her readers understand the West Country and its inhabitants as viewed from the inside and not from the outside,—a feat of which she has reason to be proud. Her present book is a collection of short stories, which are even better from the point of view of comprehensive description than her novels. In some of these sketches Mrs. Blundell has succeeded in illuminating the characters of these dwellers in the West Country in one revealing flash of light, which enables the reader to grasp the innermost workings of their minds. From the point of view of Dorsetshire, the most successful stories in the book are " Mrs. Angel," " Patchwork," and " Mrs. Gradwell's Piano." In these a certain quality of good-humoured irony rivets the reader's attention, though the sympathetic insight with which Mrs. Blundell reveals the standpoint of her characters does not always leave him with dry eyes at the end of the story. When Mrs. Blundell does not write about the West Country she becomes much more commonplace, but this is to be expected from an author who has found the medium in which she can best develop her talent. There is so much variety possible in portraying the life and mode of living of one part of England, that we may be allowed to hope that Mrs. Blundell will continue to give us the prose annals of the country loved by the poet Barnes.
Previous page
