New-York tribune., 1919-05-24
A Modem Irollope
English Life Meticulcusly
Presented by Marshall

THE CLINTONs AND OTHERS. BY Arch
ibad Marshall. Pubishee by Dodd,
Mead & Co. 407 pages Price. $1.75
Archibald Marshall is a young Eng
lish novelist of note--a realist who
takes an English butler or country
squire or lady or title and a manor,
and so presents them in a leisurely,
careful fashion, with due and meticu-
lous care to their setting, their fashion
of drinking tea or conducting a con-
versation that the reader becomes in
timately one of them.
He never is tiresome-as a novelist
Nor is he ever exciting. In fact, he
affects the reader precisely as does
sultry summer day with faint breeze
blowing across a meadow. You know
there lis a COW somewhere about, and
because the day is an attractive one
you take a comfortable interest in the
COW. Satisfied, you stretch luxuriously
and nap off, contented with life and
leisure. SO with Marshall.
But Marshall the novelist is more
entertaining than Marshall the short
story writer "The Clintons" is collec-
English life, representing English pre-
cision, English lack of haste and Eng
lish dogmatism. You forgive Marshall
the writing of "Audacious Ann" a de-
cdedly trivial story of an immature
English schoolgirl, because he wrote
"A Son of Service" In fact, re-remem-
bering his carefully presented tale of
boy who was born of butler-father
and maid mother-a boy whose great
est ambition was to be house seward to
lord-we retract our statement about
the meadow, the cow and the nap. For
the story rouses the reader either to
h,.i-l ,oy1Io
proval. The boys playmate was the
son of Rat Catcher Joe-a youngster
who wanted to command position and
wealth. How the two attain their de-
sires through toll and a path of non
divergence from anything irrelevant to
their goal constitutes a story of keen
interest, with a denouement which ex-
cites the readers admiration and
thought. This is, we think, the best of
the collection, and alone worth any
boredom which any other in the book
may elicit.
"Kencote," "The Little Squire" and
The Squire and the War" deal with
different branches of English souires-
the Clintons. The first is almost bril-
liant, if Marshall ever could be called
that. 1t is perfect in its simplicity.
The second is mediocre, and the third
interesting in its analysis of wars eff
feet upon a absorbed country gem
tleman.
In "The Bookkeeper" we were a bit
disappointed in Marshall, for he slipped
into the usual, with no apparent effort
to sustain his own excellence as a
writer of real people who act and re-
suit IN the only way possible for them
to act or result. But in this story the
daughter of bookkeeper, reared in
the most sheltered protection, becomes
the mistress of wealthy man for no
other apparent reason than that she
hrst becomes a lady of the chorus
quite of her own volition-and doesn't
like it. Marshall took so much pains
to tell us her father feared the worlds
finger under his daughters chin that
we knew from the beginning what the
author was going to have the daughter
DO And she really didn't have to.
" In That State of Life" was inter
estlng as a picture Of rather thin
blooded English family of rank; but
our sympathies remained with the
wrong party throughout. The other
two stories are fair. We are glad to
meet Marshall, the short-story writer.
because we know him as a novelist of
more than mild distinction. Some of
the stories grouped in the present col
lection are more character studies than
well-rounded interweavings of incident
and type. They are like the unfinished
pencil sketches in an artists sketch
book. But they have charm and are
written by no mean craftsman. N. M.