Jane Admires 



Yes, Jane. That's the bath-room ; nice and 

 cool with its white tiled walls and green-lined bath. 

 And you can't go in there, because that's the man's 

 dressing-room, and he may be hiding, as he often 

 does when visitors come. 



I have difficulty in bringing Jane back to the 

 study, where she does not show all the respect that 

 one would like. She is not at all impressed when 

 I tell her that books are written at the desk, and 

 I am afraid that the old superstitious reverence for 

 literature is dying out, which is no bad thing, for 

 I am sure it is good for both parties for men of letters 

 to realise that they have a great deal in common 

 with their audience. . . . And she is almost in- 

 different when I lead her to the bookshelves and 

 show her the august company gathered there, with 

 a few interlopers : Shakespeare, and Meredith, and 

 the New Dramatists, all rather hurt by J. M. Synge's 

 preface to " The Tinker's Wedding," with its dis- 

 respectful reference to their Ibsen. And Kipling 

 hobnobs with H. G. Wells, while Tennyson shudders 

 as far away from Swinburne as he possibly can. 

 " Jean Christophe " denounces mountebanks, and 

 protects himself from Stendhal on the one hand 

 and Balzac on the other, with the lives of Beethoven 

 and Tolstoi written by his godfather, Romain 

 Rolland. "Don Quixote " finds himself sandwiched 



39 



