Mr. Walpole's New Novel IN his solidly built new novel
Mr. Walpole tries to see his way through the tangle of post-War customs and morals ; and his own outlook is what we should expect of him-urbane and sensible.
Rosalind Grandison is his type of the " modern girl " ; bright, feverish and egotistic ; without standards, and without insight into other human beings ; meaning well, but terrified into senselessness by a fear of being dull. She marries a rather nice and rather old-fashioned young man, Tom Seddon, out of pity and affection ; she finds the situation intolerable and makes no real attempt to carry it through. She takes to a flirtation with a bitter, unpopular and unmannerly young intellectualist : her husband shoots himself • and she is left to face life with no more guidance than her own feather-brained insistence on having her own way.
Opposed to Rosalind is her elder sister, Janet, more modest, more capable and more considerate of others. She, too, marries without love ; but she marries to free her sister from poverty, and with as honest an arrangement with her husband as the two of them can construct. Her husband, Wildherne Poole, is himself in love with another woman, but he keeps himself loyally to his bargain.
In the course of time Janet falls in love with her husband. It is a most desolating circumstance for her : Poole's kindliness and loyalty serve only to exasperate her feeling of emptiness in their relations. And when they have a child and Poole, overjoyed, spends all his time with the boy, Janet finds in herself unsuspected jealousies and evil feelings. In the end, Poole is wakened to his wife's love ; and after they have borne together a period of grief for the death of their child, they begin their married life again from the beginning with new trust and confidence.
The background of the story is the life of the most ancient and venerable London clubs, and the most ancient and venerable houses of the peerage ; and here Mr. Walpole is at his best. In the midst of so much sensationalism, BO many sex stories, it is indeed a relief to come upon such a strong yet simple book and one written in such beautiful style. Mr. Walpole has long been a master of his craft, but in this book he excels himself. It is one of the most delightful stories we have read for a long time.
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