io8 JUNE 



When these three speak seriously and there is a 

 good deal of serious speaking in the book you 

 would not know, if you shut your eyes, which of 

 them is addressing you. Lamia, to be sure, has 

 her frivolous moments, when for a brief space she 

 makes a possible third ; but when she is rhetorical 

 she is one with the gardener and the poet. 

 Veronica, on the other hand, has a separate 

 identity ; she is a simple being, and if she has 

 views she keeps them carefully to herself. There 

 is something very lovable about Veronica. She 

 listens patiently for hours to all that the others 

 have to say, and then she goes away and makes 

 tea for them. She knows how exhausted they 

 must be. They get rid of so many treasures of 

 thought that they must necessarily be left swept 

 and empty ; the need of sustenance is plainly in- 

 dicated, and Veronica supplies it. 



Perhaps, however, the exhaustion is less than 

 it might have been if certain circumstances had 



o 



not come to their aid ; and herein is manifest 

 the wisdom of the Pooh-Bah arrangement. The 

 chronicler can give us treasures of verse as from 

 the mouth of the poet, paragraphs of floricultural 

 details through the lips of the gardener, and gems 

 of general utility from the irresponsible Lamia. 

 The talents of the three if displayed in one person 

 would invite incredulity. We should think it im- 

 possible that one small head could carry all the 

 aphorisms and gnomic sayings which the three 

 are anxious to distribute. We might begin to fear 

 cerebral congestion. So to spare ourselves distress 

 and anxiety we allow the writer to persuade us 



