FICTION.
THE GARDEN PARTY.*
IVTISS MANSFIELD has an exquisite touch. The short stories which make up the present volume are all superficially about quite ordinary people taken at ordinary moments of their lives. There is Miss Brill, the governess, deciding that it is cold enough to wear her fur ; there is a day out of the life of a family who live by the sea in. Tasmania (or is it New Zealand ?) ; there is the account of a little girl and her grandmother making a crossing in a packet boat ; there is a girl's first dance and a garden. party.. Nothing happens in. any of the stories, if indeed they can be called stories;, and beside its companions the study called "The Daughters of the Late Colonel," in which the colonel himself has died just before the story opens, seems almost melodramatic. This shows & surer self-knowledge than the author displayed in Bliss, where events were often allowed to intrude. It is, of course, easy to imagine how such material would be treated by Miss Dorothy Richardson and her followers ; but though Miss Richardson's work has, one imagines, not been, without its influence on Miss Mansfield, still her touch is entirely different. In a sense her work may be said to create a sort of liaison 'world between that of everyday and that of Miss Richardson. Her world is real enougk but is only experienced by the ordinary person at times of extraordinary tension, say when just going off under an anaesthetic or in the last few minutes of anxious waiting for some piece of news. Then our sense perceptions are quickened, until for a short time we see the world as Miss Richardson always sees it.
But if one wanted to introduce a new reader to Miss Richardson's work, this book of stories would be a very good first step, though we must reiterate again that we do not in the least mean to imply that Miss Mansfield is in any sense
The Garden Parisi, By Katherine Mansfield. London: Constable. ris. 6d. net.j i a, paler reflection of Miss Richardson. In, many ways she writes much better. There is a delicate clearness about the palette she uses, her colours are those of a clear March sky* ! her characters all stand out with a. certain soft distinctness, whereas in Miss Richardson's work events and persons seem often to coagulate after the manner of pieces of damp brown toffee. Or, again, Miss Richardson sees the unrolling of the scroll of time through a microscope ; tiny events are huge and complex, large events cannot be got within her field of vision at all. But Miss Mansfield's view of life is rather stereo- scopic; like Miss Richardson she sees a great deal that we miss, but as often as not she sees these things with a simplified outline, through half-closed eyes, taking in the subtle aspects of the curves of differences and distinctions rather than the minutiae of texture.
Turning from the scale of her work to its quality, she has a fund of delicate humour. The Colonel was a heavy old. martinet, and his two daughters elderly and terrified. They are meditating after his death as to whether the trained nurse ought not to have left the room at the last :—
"Supposing father had wanted to say somothing—something private to thorn. Not that he had. Oh, far from it ! He lay there, purple, a dark, angry purple in the face, and never even looked at them when they came in. Then, as they were standing there, wondering what to do, he had suddenly opened one eye. Oh, what a difference it would have made, what a difference to their memory of him, how much easier to tell people about it, if he had only opened both ! But no—one eye only. it glared at them a moment and then . . . went out."
Mr. Farrow is the curate who has come round to comfort the bereaved ;— " ' And about the funeral,' he said softly. 'I may arrange that—as your dear father's old friend and yours, Miss Pinner— and Miss Constantia ? ' Josephine and Constantia got up too. 'I should like it to be quite simple,' said Josephine firmly, and not too expensive. At the same time, I should like—' 'A good one that will last,' thought dreamy Constantia, as if Josephine were buying a nightgown. But of course Josephine didn't say that. One suitable to our father's position.' She was very nervous."
' It was over, and they had got back to the house with the ' drawn blinds :— "Neither of them could possibly believe that father was : never coming back. Josephine had had a moment of absolute I terror at the cemetery, while the coffin was lowered, to think that she and Constantia had done this thing without asking his permission. What would father say when he found out ? For he was bound to find out sooner or later. He always did.
'Buried. You two. girls had me buried She heard his stick thumping; Oh, what would they say ? What possible excuse could they make 1' It sounded such an appallingly heartless , thing to do. Such a wicked advantage to take of a person I because he happened to be helpless at the moment. The other people seemed to treat it all as a matter of course. They were I strangers ; they couldn't be expected to understand that father : was the very last person for such a thing to happen to. No, the entire blame for it all would fall on her and Constantia. And the expense, she thought, stepping into the tight-buttoned cab. When she had to show him the bills. What would he say
• then ? "
It is difficult to leave off quoting this most admirable of static narratives, the most considerable piece in the present collection. What a pleasure to think that Miss Mansfield has years of writing before her !
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