"Tre Home Lar or Swixsurne." By!
Clara Watts-Dunton. London: A. M, Philpot, 15/- net.
To those who, like the present writer, have an ardent desire toj know, in the words of the Just So Stories, what the crocodile had for dinner," Mrs, Watts-Dunton's book will be a delight. It will also please those more sophisticated people who are best amused by the exercise of reading between the lines. This record in its shrewd artlessness is as informing and almost as entertaining as Mr. Max Beerbohm's exquisitely artful essay on what he saw at The Pines." What a subject for a comedy—a very sympathetic comedy—this society of three! Here is Mr. Watts-Dunton in a sentence:
"Such was the daily routine, and my husband was anxious that is should be! them. observed with the most religious parti-clarity. Any slight departure from the! daily round affected Walter more than it affected his friend. My husband never exhibited any signs of annoyance or im-! patience, but I, who read him, knew. For himself it mattered nothing. All his fear was lest the Bard should be put out? by any slight departure from the appointed happenings."
Then there was Swinburne who, in pursuance of this carefully planned daily routine, went out in all weathers, but never would take an overcoat, umbrella or gloves:— umbrella to an antelope or mountain "One might aa well have offered
goat.
And then the author of the present book, who, out of her bound less admiration, married Mr. Watts. Dunton from her school-room when the "routine" had already been decided upon, and who was so sweetly good-natured that when she found that he enjoyed it, she punctually sat down every evening at six o'clock to hear the poet read Dickens aloud for an hour and a-alf:
"Next to that of his mornin; vi walk, six o'clock was the hour he anticipated with the greatest delight."
Here are a few trivia—typical plums from this fresh and delightful pie:— tag Rout anything of a mechanical. na-! ure Swinburne had th primitive most primitive in y safety, I succeeded i releasing
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.