New-York tribune., 1920-10-17

Englishman on an Easter eve in Spain.
We are going to write long story on
the short story writers of the year,
and this brilliant builder Of dminu-
tive plots will receive her just credit.
We have given her a paragraph here,
as many Americans will be interested
in knowing the place of her habitat.
Sussex's Two Interpreters
For contrasts in novelists that abide
on the hills Of eminence in the world
Of fiction we commend the two domi-
nant figures of Sussex Archibald Mar
shall and Sheila Kaye-Smith. 1t can
be said, with a full need of truth, that
no two British writers of fiction of
this century move within orbits more
distinct in sweep and foreign in con-
tent than do these twain; and one
small county holds them close TO its
soil as surely as Philpotts is gripped
in the thrall of Devon and Wooden in
that Of Midland England.
Marshall is an heir of the old order
he has been called modern Trollopc
and he leads us in his quiet but
capturing novels through the ordered
hours and days Of typical English
rural aristocracy or leisured class. One
reads him and wonders at his utter
lack Of pose, his refusal to strike the
str!dent note Of stressed situation.
The best approach to the little world
Of this novelist Is through the series
on the fortunes Of the Clinton fam
lily. Each story in the sequence is
complete In itself, and the opening VOL
ume is The Squire's Daughter. This
authors contribution to the 1920 gem
eral list of fiction is Many Junes
(Dodd, Mead & Coz. written some
years ago and recently revised 1t is
an indication that there are Ameri-
cans of good, sound sense III picking
their novels, when we learn that Mar
shall IS obtaining q strong foothold and
loyal following in the United States.
Sheila Kaye-smith uses words az
Hobbema did his brush. She carves
her creatures from the very clod of
the earth and tints them with the hues
of thicket and farmland. Her people
are not paltry yokels. They are veri-
table types of the brawn of England's
clay, men and women who toll and
suffer, who clutch like Reuben Back
field in Sussex Gorse, at every shilling
that rolls their way, or, like the hero
of that fine novel of the late war, The
Four Roads, live to die and. diving
catch vision of the majesty. the
meaning of England.
An Almost Pagan Worship
And who that reads and revels in
the freedom, the almost wild. untamed
ease with which Miss Kaye Smith EN-
bodies in prose the ways Of the wind
and the whisperings of the trees. can
ever forget her pagan worship Of the
heavens at night? To her, Sirius.
Aldebaran, Polars and the Pleiades
are not remote, austere wanderers of
the armament. They are CLEANS that
beckon US 10 let thought fly and range
far. Miss Kaye Smith has gone back
to the SOS Of the last century, to the
period of her novel The Challenge to
Sirius, in her Tamarisk Town (Dut-
tom. 1t is the story of strong-willed
man who builds town OF the cliffs Of
Sussex, throwing into it all Of his force
and the spur of his ambition and then
meets a woman whom he loves and who
wages war on his old hopes, even on
his fruits Of toll We agree with W
L. George that Sheila Kayo-Smith Will
lear watching and study. She is one
of u fascinating little group Of modern