"A LAUGHING MATTER."
[To THE EDITOR Or THU " SFRCTATOR."3 SIE,—In the kindly and discriminating review of my novel, "A Laughing Matter," printed in your issue of Septem- ber 5th a very interesting point is suggested. Whilst generally admitting the truth of my picture of suburban life, your reviewer feels bound to decide that, with one exception, "the characters are not merely undistinguished, but unim- pressive." It is likely that your reviewer's decision is correct. Indeed, I feel that in making it he, whilst unwillingly marking a fault in the book, was in effect, perhaps, commending both it and me. Because "A Laughing Matter," though a mere trifle, is nevertheless, so far as it goes, a somewhat serious study of a section of suburban life, and in writing it I tried first of all to be truthful. If, therefore, the story itself should be somewhat quiet in tone and subject, and if most of its characters should appear "not merely undistinguished, but unimpressive," is not that almost exactly the result of what I am glad to have you call my "habitual sincerity" ? Should I, for example, have been sincere had I made my suburban comedy a tissue of excitements, full of verve and actuality and most distinguished characters ? .Astute, yes; but surely not sincere. Peasants and their kind I have found generally interesting, seldom vulgar, and frequently distinguished. But after a long experience of city folk, chiefly Londoners, I find it difficult to recall many who, so far as the purposes of the honest novelist are concerned, in themselves or their lives were anything but undistinguished and unimpressive. Excellent folk in the main, but overcivilised and materialised into a uniform drabness and a certain deadly form of quite respectable, but entirely hopeless, vulgarity. Here, then, is the interesting point. Should a novelist at all costs remain true to the life he depicts, or should he, for the sake of himself and his readers, or for any reason of money or art, keep his attention always on the abnormal and the ideal?—I am,
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