New-York tribune., 1922-11-19
lr1bune>s News and Reviews Of Books and Authors
mr.. Walpole's 's1'he Cathedral
By Frances Newman

head and tossed into the air
by an elephant.
On page ninety-two the archdeaconss
patient Amy Of wife, who had con-
sotously hated her magnificent lord
since tae day five yeara before when
he publicly told her that she knew
nothing whatever about primroses, fell
in love with another lonely and un-
satisfied soul, On page one hundred
and fourteen Canon Ronder began his
weil-bred plotting. And in the rest of
the pages Falk Brandon eloped with
puhiican's daughter, the publican
gave the archdeacon q public thrash
ing, drunken painter cursed him In
his own cathedral, his wife left him.
his candidate for the living OF Pybus
st. Anthony was defeated--aud he sat
down and died.
All of this might seem to indicate
chat Mr.. Waipole wrote his book TO
prove, In spite Of ali the evidence to
the contrary, that pride still goes be-
fore fall. But Archdeacon Brandon
Is not the hero of this story; neither,
although his clever seifshness is ex-
tremeiy we'll done, is Canon Ronder:
and neither is Joan Brandon it's hero
inc, for all that she acquired a belted
earl and thereby increased the like
ness of her fathers portrait to the
portrait Anthony Trollope drew of
Archdeacon Grantly, Of Plumstead, In
Barchestershire, father to Lady Dunn
bello, who did not converse.
The cathedral is the protagonist-
and the cathedral is not merely Pol
chester Cathedral, which Mr.. Walpole
seems Co have created in the image
of Durham Cathedral even to q recon
struction of the blue marble tomb
which once inclosed the sacred duet
Of the Venerable Bede; it is the church
of pomp and power which is always
| threatening the church of the spirit,
the church of CATERS and niters
Steps: the church which creates dean
cries and bishoprics and even arch
bishoprics. and then, as Trollope Gays,
forbids its young curates the very
human ambitions which nature gives
alike TO attaches, to barristers, and to
the clergy.
The only Canon whose witticisms
have crossed the Atlantic-the Rev.
Sydney Smith--once told kind little
girl who was etroking turtles shell
to please the turtle that she might as
we'll stroke the dome OF st. Paui's to
please the dean and chapter. And Mr..
WaipolS attentions TO mis- cathedral
leave one reader Gas Mr.. Walpoie would
say) unmoved by all Of this scheming
in a precinct.
It seems impossible that any one
should be seriously concerned over the
living of Pybus St. Anthony, and the
consequence is that, although MIR. Wal
poles prose is not too unworthy of
Cambridge, the book is undoubtedly
dull reading. The writing between the
lines gets in the way OF whatever in
terest one might feel in the unfortu-
nate Miss Milton, whom the Archdeacon
dismissed from her library post be-
cause she sat on Sentimental Tommy.
when his wife sent for 1t so that she
might saw 1t for old Lady st, Leath.
and who by very strange coincidence
happened to have rooms with a window
looking on the house Of Mrs. Brsndon's
lover.
Now that people can scarcely nut up
with any plot In literary novel, such
Iago-like chieanery and revenge make
a book date terribly. And, despite Mr..
Walpole's famous atmosphere" the
cathedrais towers are too tall and zoo
solfdly rooted for one to feel even g
symbolic tenderness for It.