England; behind England, the world, all moving toward set purposes.

The four parts of the novel markedly resemble, in structure, acts of a
play; in particular, the striking third part, entirely concerned with the
events of a week and full of flashing pictures, such as the scene of the
Town Ball. But the culmination of this part, indeed, the climax of the
whole book, comes in the scene of the Fair, with its atmosphere of
carnival, its delirium of outdoor mood, and its tremendous encounter
between Brandon and his wife. The novel closes upon a moment both fugitive
and eternal--Brandon watching across the fields the Cathedral, lovely and
powerful, in the evening distance. The Cathedral, lovely and powerful,
forever victorious, served by the generations of men....

=ii=

Courage, for Hugh, must have made its demand to be exercised early. We
have the "Hugh Seymour" of _The Golden Scarecrow_ who "was sent from
Ceylon, where his parents lived, to be educated in England. His relations
having for the most part settled in foreign countries, he spent his
holidays as a minute and pale-faced 'paying guest' in various houses where
other children were of more importance than he, or where children as a
race were of no importance at all." It would be a mistake to confer on
such a fictional passage a strict autobiographical importance; but I think
it significant that the novel with which Walpole first won an American
following, _Fortitude_, should derive from a theme as simple and as strong
as that of a classic symphony--from those words with which it opens: "'T
isn't life that matters! 'T is the courage you bring to it." From that
moment on, the novel follows the struggle of Peter Westcott, in boyhood
and young manhood, with antagonists, inner and outer. At the end we have
him partly defeated, wholly triumphant, still fighting, still pledged to
fight.

Not to confuse fiction with fact: Hugh Walpole was educated at Kings
School, Canterbury, and at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. When he left the
university he drifted into newspaper work in London. He also had a brief
experience as master in a boys' school (the experiential-imaginative
source of _The Gods and Mr. Perrin_, that superb novel of underpaid
teachers in a second-rate boarding school). The war brought Red Cross work
in Russia and also a mission to Petrograd to promote pro-Ally sentiment.
For these services Walpole was decorated with the Georgian Medal.

What is Hugh Walpole li