New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1918-01-13
"The Green Mirror" by Hugh Wal
pole, published By George II. Doran
Company, Ne'o York. $3.50.
VT IS strange" declares Franci.

G 10 slraIlge' declares FRANCIS
Hackett in 1.-The New Republic"
chat Mr.. Walpole should describe
his novel as old-fashioned and uneventful
simply because it was finished in August,
1914" Strange, this reviewer thinks, be-
cause while 'the war may change many
things, break up many of the moated Eng
hsh homes of which he has chosen an ex-
ample, it barely touches the instincts that
are in leash behind the portcullis of the
family"
AS for this book, the reviewer Just
under quotation discusses it in these
words:
"The excellence Of Mr. Walpole's novel de-
ponds largely on the fact that his mind is not
saturated with the newspapers. If he has
come to give us the Trenchards it is not be-
cause his ears are ringing with birth con-
troll, eugenics, the Oedipus complex, sex edu-
cation, the equal standard, freedom for wom-
en-, and the rest Young Mark the intruder
who loves Katherine Trenchard, isn't quite
an Engllshman. you know. Been abroad so
long But everything that makes him Diff
ferent that clashes him against Mrs Trench
ard and Aunt Aggie and Glebeshire and
Garth, that makes him ruffe the English
lawn, is summed up in his affinity for Rus
STA. 1t is, of course. a symbol. His forme
mistress Anna, of Moscow, is also almost a
SYMBOL suggestion of that other self in
Philip Mark which is just utterly impossible
to the teaNllke solidlty, imperviousness,
stanchnoss OF the Trenchard stock One
may say that Russia could not, after all
even to man so TREMENDOUSLY imaginative as
Philip can be-represent such a loose invit-
ingness as its merest mention appears to ex-
@anH To RYtt .e
fne name for all that expansiveness of
human nature. that uncalculating life, at
which 1renchard jerks away like deere
brated frog from electric shock. 1t ex-
presses in a term of actuality something
that would otherwise have the shrllness OF
q theory untred.
"Philps relinqushment of Russia and
Anna, his accidental visit to the Trenchards
in London, the blooming of love between
himself and the measurable English Kathe-
rine-these early steps of The Green Mirror
are taken with the security of one who
writes what he abundantly knows The be-
ginning : self-conscious and overweight,
but Mr.. Walpole is too good a novelist to
keep nigglng with his material; and when
he warns up he writes with masters
source. He is after the real thing in his
novel, the account of personal significance
in situation that is movable and enforced
in the ordinary run of human affairs. He
builds for it honestly and admirably, and if
it were not for certain deep reluctance to
assume too much authority in speaking of
inexpensive English people, resulting in a
psychological feebleness, The Green Mirror
could stand up with the best. That feeble
ness, it seems to me- is immaturty. 1t is
the one inadequacy in Mr.. Walpole's revela-
tion-a failure to dredge the depths Of his
well-imagined theme"
After q careful analysis of theme and
character, Mr.. Hackett concludes:
"tThe Green Mirror a little inadequate
hs to Anna and Katherine, little mechanical
to Phil, has not touch of anilne in all
its warm colors and rich presences and faith
full portraiture. 1t is fine novel, graphing