VICTORIAN SUNSHINE
Time Gathered. By W. B. Maxwell. (Hutchinson. zos. 6d.)
MR. W. B. MAXWELL'S autobiography has the air of being written with genial enjoyment ; and if its readers do not enjoy it also, they have only themselves to blame, for the book overflows with friendly, companionable entertainment. As an historical or human document, perhaps, it need not be taken too seriously. Its map of life is rather superficial than subtle ; until the closing chapters there is scarcely a date to guide ; the chronology tacks and wanders at will ; and here and there the names of old friends are misremembered and misspelt. But any pedant can verify his references ; it needs a man of sensibility and heart to create and sustain the atmosphere of a period and the movement of a generation. And here Mr. Maxwell succeeds
to perfection. His stage is full, and all his actors live. A fresher collection of good stories has not appeared these many years ; the kindliness of the author's remembrance is delectablb. The Victorian sunshine of his boyhood has survived into the twilight of these greyer, indeterminate years. Such quality is a tonic better than all the prescriptions of the pharmacist.
The son of a successful publisher and of the most popular woman-novelist of her day, Mr. Maxwell was born into a world of comfort, and had the gift of appreciating his good fortune. He adored his mother, and loved his home. Indeed, he had reason ; for Miss Braddon seems to have been a wonder- ful woman, whose inexhaustible capacity for work still found time to devote to her husband, her children and the pleasures of hospitality. Their house at Richmond was the resort of all the best-known people of the day, politicians, artists, writers, soldiers, sailors, " society beauties," wits and even prelates. Mr. Maxwell marshals them all with the novelist's sense of character and colour. Now and again there comes a pungent touch—Lecky, " a weak, skinny, overgrown, non- conformist clergyman "—George Moore, " the effigy of a man made out of dough and barley sugar " ; but for the personalities that lay behind these quaint exteriors their memorialist has nothing but respect. The variety of his appre- ciation and sympathy is astonishing ; no doubt it was the granary from which he drew the rich material of his novels.
He did not easily settle down to work. Encouraged by W. P. Frith and other artist-friends of his parents, he left school at 14 to " commence " as an art-student, but he soon failed to satisfy his own standards. On his twenty-first birthday his father gave him the copyright of an annual called The Mistletoe Bough, of which he was to be editor and general manager. It was wilting when he took it over, and was not long in shedding its last leaves. Meanwhile, he was making the best of the amusements of Victorian London, falling in love with pantomime fairies, attending brilliant parties, and bandying pleasantries with famous hostesses, skating on the ice of journalism, and penetrating into the slums in search of character and revelation. Then one day a young publisher—Mr. Grant Richards, the
discoverer " of so much new talent—urged him to try his luck as a novelist. The rest of his story is written in shining characters on the honour-roll of the circulating library.
Not quite all, however. When the Great War broke out, Mr. Maxwell was close upon fifty, and the victim of a physical disability ; but he managed to evade the doctors, and was one of the first civilians to join up. His military reminiscences are particularly vivid and unusual ; they bear witness to remarkable resource and pluck. He returned from the War, his sense of responsibility sharpened, to take command of the Society of Authors, and render honourable service to the interests of the literary world at large. Looking round him today, he notes disquieting changes from the standards of his mother's generation ; but he declines to waste regret upon the past. Conditions of life have improved ; there is " unceasing spiritual progress " ; " the courage shown by young men nowadays is overwhelming." So, with a final exhortation to kindliness of heart, this happy optimist " greets the unseen with a cheer." " The kind people," he says, " are the happy people." And
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