sking to
dinner the seventeen managers who rejected the play, but realising that no
man enjoyed being reminded of a lost opportunity he decided to forgo the
pleasure.

The circumstances in which _Caroline_ was written give an interesting
reflex on Maugham as an artist. This delicious comedy was put on paper
while Maugham was acting as British agent in Switzerland during the war.
Some of its more amusing lines were written in some haste while a spy (of
uncertain intentions toward Maugham) stood outside in the snow.

=vii=

Someone, probably the gifted Hector MacQuarrie, whom I fear I have
guiltily been quoting in almost every sentence of this chapter, has said
that Maugham writes "transcripts, not of life as a tolerable whole, but of
phases which suit his arbitrary treatment." It is an enlightening
comment.

But Maugham himself is the keenest appraiser of his own intentions in his
work, as when he spoke of the stories in his book, _The Trembling of a
Leaf_, as not short stories, but "a study of the effect of the Islands of
the Pacific on the white man."

The man never stays still. When you think the time is ripe for him
triumphally to tour America--when _The Moon and Sixpence_ has attracted
the widest attention--he insists on going immediately to China. This may
be because, though well set up, black-eyed, broad-framed and excessively
handsome in evening clothes, he is rather diffident.

BOOKS BY W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM

NOVELS:
LIZA OF LAMBETH
THE MAKING OF A SAINT
ORIENTATIONS
THE HERO
MRS. CRADDOCK
THE MERRY-GO-ROUND
THE LAND OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN
THE BISHOP'S APRON
THE EXPLORER
THE MAGICIAN
OF HUMAN BONDAGE
THE MOON AND SIXPENCE
THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF
ON A CHINESE SCREEN

PLAYS:
SCHIFFBRUECHIG
A MAN OF HONOUR
LADY FREDERICK
JACK STRAW
MRS. DOT
THE EXPLORER
PENELOPE
SMITH
THE TENTH MAN
GRACE
LOAVES AND FISHES
THE LAND OF PROMISE
CAROLINE
LOVE IN A COTTAGE
CAESAR'S WIFE
HOME AND BEAUTY
THE UNKNOWN
THE CIRCLE
EAST OF SUEZ

SOURCES ON W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM

Who's Who [In England].

Somerset Maugham in Tahiti: Hitherto unpublished article by Hector
MacQuarrie.

THE BOOKMAN (London).

Private information.

CHAPTER XVIII

BOOKS WE LIVE BY

=i=

_The Parallel New Testament_ is by Dr. James Moffatt, whose _New
Translation of the New Testament_ has excited such wide admiration and
praise. _The Parallel New Tes