FICTION.
THE EXTRA DAY.t No reviewer, however hard he tried, could ever succeed in making clear to the general public what Mr. Blackwood's new story is all about. It is so insane, yet so entirely self-confident, so mocking, yet so close to the serious things of life : to define it would be to outline a colour-wash, to criticize it even is more or less to misunderstand it. You see, Daddy was always talking about " some day "—a sort of extra day which should come, if not now, then later, a day which should be behind, and freed from, Time, Time which "was a nuisance always: it either was time to go, or time to stop, or else there was not time enough." So when Uncle Felix was all alone with the children, and Tim's clock stopped by itself at 4 a.m., of course the extra day dawned with the hush and the expectancy of the rising of a stage curtain, came while they slept:— " Moored outside against the walls an Extra Day lay swinging from the stars. The waves of Time washed past its sides, yet could not move it. The wind was in the rigging—it lay at anchor, filling the sky with a beauty of eternity. And above the old Mill House the darkness, led by the birds, flowed on to meet the quivering Dawn."
But it is impossible to explain it all, for it was born of Wonder, whose seed is Fancy and whose blossom Imagination. Here is the wildest fantasy, madder than Mr. Chesterton in his maddest moments; yet a delusion of a still wilder dream is the Tramp (and, when you are discussing Mr. Blackwood's work, you must be generous with your capital letters), who, in the vague parable which runs through the whole story, stands for • The New Testament in the 7'wentistli Century, a Surveil of Resent Christ*. logical and Historical Criticism of the New Testament. By the Rev. Maurice Jones. London: Macmillan and Co. [10e. net.] t The Bxtra Day. By Algernon Blackwood. London, Macmillan and Co, [Os.]
real and untrammelled wonder, as opposed to the respectable and well-meaning uprightness of the Policeman.
Mr. Blackwood observes the rules of the game of Imagining—that is to say, he takes care that all these incredible adventures shall happen to real people. Nothing could be more solidly real than the children : they have nothing in common with the sentimental cherubs beloved of novelists, they are living children with all the subtlety and infinite incomprehensibility of a child. We are amazed, again and again, by the truth of them—of Judy, who is vivid
and introspective: "I've got an Apocalypse," says she; " it's simply frightfully exciting "; of Tim, whose mind is touched with materialism : " Why," he asks, " why does the butterfly By so dodgy P "; above all, of Maria, who is stout and uncom- promising, to whom "the entire universe belonged, because
she sat still and with absolute conviction—claimed it." But the children are surely not as old as their author would have us believe. Nowadays, when "education considers childhood a disease to be cured as hurriedly as possible," a child of twelve gives her heart to nothing less prosaic than the routine of her school life, and would certainly despise Uncle Felix ; and her parents would consider that he had a morbid influence on the young people.
There is one unkind criticism which must be passed on this most delightful book. Mr. Blackwood, as was almost inevit- able, lets himself go now and then too fur. It is so infinite a pity that, with all his understanding, he should ever be affected or exaggerated: we are sorry for the extravagant emotions of the catching of the Night-Wind and of Tim's particular adventure in the wood. When Mr. Blackwood acknowledges no limits and presses us too bard with his fanciful notion of wonder, when the children debate among themselves the why and whence of the whole cosmos, we are conscious of a shameful and Philistine desire to enforce on them some sound, old-fashioned religion, and even to say that children should be seen and not heard; for a while our sympathy is alienated, our interest is gone. Still, it is true that what is in the mind of a child is regulated by what is expected of a child, and the fact that Mr. Black-
wood expects a great deal only increases our enjoyment of his work. Of the skill of his technique there can be no doubt: it is self-evident, since in the first sixty pages we follow in breathless excitement three separate nonsense stories told to the children, and we will forgive him all literary excess for the sake of the exuberant happiness of his book, the eternal happiness of youth, the intimate happiness of a home where, after the birth of Wonder, the children see Mother " in another light, touched with the wonder of the sun and stars. It was proper, of course, for her to have children, but they realised now that she contrived to make the whole world work somehow for their benefit. Mother not only managed the entire Household, from the dinner-ordering slate at breakfast to the secret whisper- ing with Jackman behind the screen at bedtime, or the long private interviews with Daddy in his study after tea: she led a magnificent and stupendous life that regulated every smallest detail of their happiness. She was for over thinking of them and slaving for their welfare. The wonder of her enormous love stole into their discerning hearts. They loved her frightfully, and told her all sorts of little things that before they had kept concealed. There were heaps and heaps of mothers in the world, of course; they wore knocking about all over the place; but there was only one single Mother, and that was theirs."
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