he time he begins to write his book lies before him like a
map. 'I could tell it you now, practically in the very words in which I
shall write it,' he has said. Nevertheless, he takes infinite trouble with
the work as it progresses. A great reader, Hugh Walpole reads with method.
Tracts of history, periods of fiction and poetry, are studied seriously;
and he has a really exhaustive heritage of modern poetry and fiction."

Perhaps since Mrs. Lowndes wrote those words, Mr. Walpole has departed
from his Christmas Eve custom. At any rate, I notice on the last page in
his very long novel _The Captives_ (the work by which, I think, he sets
most store of all his books so far published) the dates:

POLPERRO, JAN. 1916,
POLPERRO, MAY 1920.

=iii=

The demand for the exercise of that courage of which we have spoken can be
seen from these further details, supplied by Arnold Bennett:

"At the age of twenty, as an undergraduate of Cambridge, Walpole wrote
two novels. One of these, a very long book, the author had the
imprudence to destroy. The other was _The Wooden Horse_, his first
printed novel. It is not to be presumed that _The Wooden Horse_ was
published at once. For years it waited in manuscript until Walpole had
become a master in a certain provincial school in England. There he
showed the novel to a fellow-master, who, having kept the novel for a
period, spoke thus: 'I have tried to read your novel, Walpole, but I
can't. Whatever else you may be fitted for, you aren't fitted to be a
novelist.' Mr. Walpole was grieved. Perhaps he was unaware, then, that a
similar experience had happened to Joseph Conrad. I am unable to judge
the schoolmaster's fitness to be a critic, because I have not read _The
Wooden Horse_. Walpole once promised to send me a copy so that I might
come to some conclusion as to the schoolmaster, but he did not send it.
Soon after this deplorable incident, Walpole met Charles Marriott, a
novelist of a remarkable distinction. Mr. Marriott did not agree with the
schoolmaster as to _The Wooden Horse_. The result of the conflict of
opinion between Mr. Marriott and the schoolmaster was that Mr. Walpole
left the school abruptly--perhaps without the approval of his family,
but certainly with a sum of L30 which he had saved. His destination was
London.

"In Chelsea he took a room at four shillings a week. He was twenty-three
and (in theory) a professional author