New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1920-05-02
England's New Novelist
j. Colrnore Has Written a Book of Great
Emotional Intensity

that it places the author with tn. FORE
most of English novelists.
Satire is large part of the inpre-
dent of "The .Thunderbolt"-a LIGHT
sharp, swift irony which picks out and
sets IN relief the people and the con-
ditions of the story. It irrad;a+e. ~.
face of the social life of Stottleham. 80
rigldly preserved in the amber Of its
smail-town typicalness. It follows
1eorglna Bonham like spotlight. dis
closing her pretensions and prejudices,
the quality of her leadership of Stottle-
nam society. 1t lights on DR.. Ravke
the intellect of stottleham, and on the
vicar, its spiritual leader, and on +he
ladies' OF the Needlework Guild. who
Practice Its faith and charity. Never
theless, at the close Of the story. satire
is discarded. When the story comes
into its true tragic significance it
comes into superb simplicity and
sincerity.
Few characters in modern fiction have
been nodded more firmly than Georeina
bonham. She is the sublimated figure
OF the middle-class British matron-
OF Its virtues and Gaults, its narrow
ness and limited imagination, and vet
Its substantial good sense and hatred
OF shoddiness. People liked to 90 to
tea with Mrs. Bonham because thew
SAID she had such nice teas. and they
liked talking to her because she had
such nice ideas" For Mrs Rom
nam was an optimist; assuming that
God was in his heaven, she assumed
also that all was right with the world
In this, as in everything else, expert
ence-her own experience-was her
guide.
The Thunderbolt" is, however. at
bottom the story of Mrs. Bonham's
child, Dorrie. Notwithstanding that
Dorrie is her own child, Mrs. Bonham
has had to struggle for her possession
with Nurse Hannah, who holds the child
IN fierce, intuitivc, unreasoning love.
1t is necessary to denote nurse into
housemaid, and to inaugurate nursery
governess before Mrs. Bonham can re- /
gain real possession of Dorrie. It is |
IN the long procession of nursery gov
ernesses that pass through Mrs. Bon
hams house that Stotteham becomes
shudderingly aware of the heresies of |
the outer world. There is the eoverness
VINO has walked in suffrage parade,
and one who smokes, and another who
permits the child to know the facts of
life Stottleham is most shocked by
her and deeply admiring of Mrs. Bon
hams way of dealing with her. Ulti- |
mately there is the perfect, nondescript
Miss Kimmidge.
But always there is the figure Of |
nurse, watching over Dorrie, matching
the crumbs of affection that are per-
mitted her. yearning over her as she
grows into beautiful girlhood-the
fine flower Of that culture which Mrs.
bonham represents. In that scheme in
which all the mystery of life is so |
carefully stlfled, in the complacent Sc
curlty of which all the exits seem
guarded, in the narrow, safe confines
In which Georgina Bonham has ALWAYS
moved with such an arrogant assur-
ance, there suddenly comes the uphe avail
of pain and suffering-all that Mrs.
Bonham's religion have taught her to
ignore and her good breeding to stihe.
There comes the kind Of calamity to
her child in which life breaks through
the limits of decorum and overfows the
stakes that her religion and her class
have set for it. 1t becomes again i'm
mense, menacing, inexplcable.
1t is nurse. the spiritual mother of
Dorrie, who brings the chid's fate to
its swift, inevitable climax Mr.. Col
more has made this character of Han
nah the nurse a figure of true tragic
intensity. She is magnificent figure
deep, intuitive, elemental as figure
in a ballad.
"The Thunderbolt" is written with
an extraordinary sense of form. From
discursive beginning it contracts to
a swift, compact ending. Three figures
only make the final groupings of the
story-the mother the child and the
nurse, and they are unforgettable in
the simplicity and intensity of the
emotion they evoke