c in Mr. Barrie's humour, but I confess that I am
not wholly clear as to his meaning. I find it characteristically Scotch,
and perhaps at bottom we mean the same thing. It is often sly, and so
conscious in its enjoyment of itself as to be content to remain unseen.
Often it lies in a flavour of the mind, as in whole pages of 'My Lady
Nicotine,' where it is a mere placid, lazy acquiescence in the generally
humorous aspect of things. Here the writer finds himself amused, and so
may you if you happen to be in the mood. At other times the fun bubbles
with pure spontaneity, as in the courtship of 'Tnowhead's Bell, which
is, I make bold to believe, as good a bit of Scotch rural comedy as we
have had for many a day. The comedy is broad, and touches the edge of
farce at times, but it is always kept on the hither-side by its droll
appreciation of character, and an air of complete gravity in the
narrator, who, for any indication he gives to the contrary, might be
dealing with the most serious of chronicles.

As I write I have before me a letter of Mr. Barrie's, written to a
fellow-workman, in which he speaks of the 'almost unbearable pathos'
of an incident in one of the latter's pages. The phrase seems to fit
accurately that chapter in the 'Window in Thrums' where Jamie, after his
fall in London, returns to his old home, and finds his own people dead
and scattered. The story is simple, and the style is severe even to
dryness, but every word is like a nail driven home. It would be hard
to find in merely modern work a chapter written with a more masterly
economy of means, than this. And this economy of means is the most
striking characteristic of Mr. Barrie's literary style. It is as
different from the forced economy of poverty as the wordy extravagance
of Miss Corelli is different from the exuberance of Shakspeare. It is
a reasoned, laborious, and self-chastening art, and within its own
limitations it is art at its acme of achievement What it has set itself
to do it has done.

These two, then, Dr. George Macdonald and Mr. J. M. Barrie, are the
men who worthily carry on, in their separate and distinct fashions, the
tradition which Sir Walter established. In a summary like this, where
it is understood that at least a loyal effort is being made to recognise
and apportion the merits of rival writers, the task of the critic
occasionally grows ungrateful. Nothing short of sheer envy can grudge
to Mr. Barrie a high meed of praise, but I