The Happy Garden 



in between " Roderick Hudson " and " The Blue 

 Bird," and never dreams that they are anything 

 but books of chivalry. . . . Stevenson and Henley 

 are united in wondering when literature is going to 

 digest the mess of sociology which it gulped down 

 so hastily as soon as their protecting presences were 

 removed. And Robert Burns roars at them all : 



"Man to man, the tcorld o'er, 

 Shall brithers be for «,' that." 



But Jane is not stirred. She has no feeling 

 for it all : dramatists, poets, preachers, teachers, 

 knaves, fools, hypocrites, angels and glorious man, 

 she lumps them all together, and she sees a copy 

 of " Richard Feverel," and says : "I think that 

 is such a pretty story." 



That is the limit of her criticism. She asks for 

 a story. If it can be called " pretty " she likes it ; 

 if not, not. It is not that she has no power of 

 appreciation so much as that she has only a limited 

 power of expression. If by any chance she were 

 to read "King Lear, '"and were held by it, she 

 would call it " pretty " ! . . . She is never likely to 

 read " King Lear," however, for she has taken her 

 Shakespeare as read, and has dismissed him long 

 ago, though she would be quite angry if she 

 ever heard the supremacy of his genius called in 

 question. 



40 



