FICTION.
MISS MAPP.*
A EarErrn of the present writer's, who had been ill, said that the worst of having to stay in bed was the amount of Light Literature that was lent him. " And Light Literature," he complained, " is always such d—d hard stuff to read." Miss Mapp is light literature : a sentence or two, that is to say, is amusing, but its cumulative effect is one with which only a mind of immense vigour could grapple. Not even the smart and natty writing of Mr. Benson can galvanize any life into the futilities of his Sussex Tilling. Individual passages are often amusing : he describes the members of a shocked and speechless tea-party, for instance, as " incomplete wireless instruments, capable of receiving, but not of transmitting " ; but they are generally overdone.
Quotation, however, is the sincerest form of criticism : this is the most amusing passage the present writer has been able to find. Mrs. Poppit has been to receive her M.B.E. from the King. " Well, it was very gratifying," said Mrs. Poppit,
" he whispered to some gentleman standing near him, who I think was the Lord Chamberlain, and then told me how interested he had been in the good work of the Tilling hospital, and how especially glad he was to be able—and just then he began to pin my Order on to be able to recognise it. Now I call that wonderful to know all about the Tilling hospital. And such neat, quick fingers he has : I am sure it would take me double the time to make a safety-pin hold, and then he gave me another smile, and passed me on, so to speak, to the Queen, who stood next him, and who had been listening to all he said."
" And did she speak to you too ? " asked Diva, quite unable to maintain the right indifference. " Indeed she did : she said, ' So pleased,' and what she put into those two words I am sure I can never convey to you. I could hear how sincere they were : it was no set form of words, as if she meant nothing by it . . ."
And so on. But the humour is generally not so subtle as this.
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