ves it. Lord Ernest is the author of _Forty Years On_, a new
book quite as engaging as _Here, There and Everywhere_, and the rest of
Sir Frederic's. Word from London is that Sir Frederic will have no new
book this year; he steps aside with a gallant bow for Lord Ernest. I have
been turning pages in _Forty Years On_ and reading about such matters as
the Copley curse, school life at Harrow where Shifner and others bowed the
knee to Baal, bull fights in Peru and adventures in the Klondike.
Personally the most amusing moments of the book I find to be those in
which Lord Ernest describes his experiments in speaking ancient Greek in
modern Greece. But this is perhaps because I, too, have tried to speak
syllables of Xenophon while being rapidly driven (in a barouche) about
Patras--with the same lamentable results. It is enough to unhinge the
reason, the pronunciation of modern Greek, I mean. But maybe your hobby is
bathing? Lord Ernest has a word in praise of Port Antonio, Jamaica, as a
bathing ground.

What he says about hummingbirds--but I mustn't! _Forty Years On_ is a mine
of interest and each reader ought to be pretty well left to work it for
himself.

CHAPTER IX

AUDACIOUS MR. BENNETT

=i=

Mr. Bennett's audacity has always been evident. One might say that he
began by daring to tell the truth about an author, continued by daring to
tell the truth about the Five Towns, and has now reached the incredible
stage where he dares to tell the truth about marriage. This is affronting
Fate indeed. It was all very well for Arnold Bennett to write a play
called _Cupid and Commonsense_. Perhaps, in view of the fact that it is
one of the great novels of the twentieth century, it was all right for him
to create _The Old Wives' Tale_; but it cannot be all right for him to
compose such novels as _Mr. Prohack_ and his still newer story, _Lilian_.

Think of the writers who have stumbled and fallen over the theme of
marriage. There is W. L. George ... but I cannot bring myself to name
other names and discuss their tragic fates. There are those who have
sought to make the picture of marriage a picture of horror; but that was
because they did not dare to tell the truth. That marriage is all, no one
but Mr. Bennett seems to realise. No one but Mr. Bennett seems to realise
that, as between husband and wife, there are no such things as moral
standards, there can be no such thing as an ethical code, there can be no
interposition of