G. P. R. James, and the most unreal portions of
IVANHOE. The bait is so palpably artificial that the most
credulous gudgeon turns away." Now, my dear, I don't see overmuch
to complain of in that. It proves that you were clever enough to
make him think of Sir Walter Scott, which is a great deal.'
'Oh yes; though I cannot romance myself, I am able to remind him
of those who can!' Elfride intended to hurl these words
sarcastically at her invisible enemy, but as she had no more
satirical power than a wood-pigeon, they merely fell in a pretty
murmur from lips shaped to a pout.
'Certainly: and that's something. Your book is good enough to be
bad in an ordinary literary manner, and doesn't stand by itself in
a melancholy position altogether worse than assailable.--"That
interest in an historical romance may nowadays have any chance of
being sustained, it is indispensable that the reader find himself
under the guidance of some nearly extinct species of legendary,
who, in addition to an impulse towards antiquarian research and an
unweakened faith in the mediaeval halo, shall possess an inventive
faculty in which delicacy of sentiment is far overtopped by a
power of welding to stirring incident a spirited variety of the
elementary human passions." Well, that long-winded effusion
doesn't refer to you at all, Elfride, merely something put in to
fill up. Let me see, when does he come to you again;.
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