His books, from the first to the last, have not become antiquated; they are as fresh to-day as they were at any time through the past ten or twelve years; the people in them, true in costume and speech to their various moments, are equally true to that which in man is changeless. They, the novels, are at once provincial, as the best novels invariably are, and universal as any deep penetration of humanity, any considerable artistry, must be. Never merely cosmopolitan, never merely smart--even in his knowledge of smart people--they are sincere without being stupid, serious without a touch of hypocrisy; and on the other hand, light without vapidity, entertaining with never a compromise nor the least descent from the most dignified of engagements. All this, on the plane to which I am confined--the pleasure to be had from accumulated words--is as rare as it is delightful. The world, particularly the world of novel-writing, is choked with solemn pretensions and sly lies; it, the latter, is the fertile field of all the ignorances--the dogmatic, the degenerate, the hysterical, the venal. And, unhappily, there seems to be very nearly a public for each; unhappily the deeply bitten prejudices of men, the secretive hopes of women, control to an amazing degree their opinions of the one medium--the written story--that should be kept superior to all pettiness as a resource solely of alleviation. Usually great creative writers--gifted, together with pity, with clarity of vision--have dealt in a mood of severity with life; they are largely barred, by their covenant with truth, from the multitude; but Mr. Walpole, not lacking in the final gesture of greatness, has yet the optimism that sees integrity as the master of the terrors. Literature, different from painting and music, serves beauty rather by the detestation of ugliness than in the recording of lyrical felicities. But, again, Mr. Walpole has countless passages of approval, of verbal loveliness, that must make him acceptable not only to a few but to many. In reading, for example, The Secret City, there is the satisfaction of realizing that the consequent enjoyment rises from an unquestionably pure source. It is a preoccupation to be followed with utter security--for once an admirable thing, a fine thing, is altogether pleasurable. II