MR. COPPA.RD, MR. BULLET'r AND KATHERINE MANSFIELD.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—It was an excellent notion on the part, of your literary editor to get Mr. A. E. Coppard, himself a very fine writer of short stories, to review, even if somewhat belatedly, what:, is perhaps the most brilliant volume of short stories this past autumn season has given us—Mr. Gerald Bullett's Street of the Eye. As an admirer of both men's work, I must confess I was surprised to discover that Mr. Coppard, while praising Mr. Bullett's narrative power, seems to think that the volume as a whole is spoilt, or, at least, weakened, by what he would call its author's " subjective " manner. The greater artists, he tells us, have been " objective," while Mr. Bullett is " subjective." As an example of the " objective " writer, he puts forward the name of that delightful artist, Katherine Mansfield. Now, in what sense Katherine Mansfield can be called " objective " when Mr. Bullett can be called " sub- jective " passes my understanding, for Miss Mansfield's chief asset was her ability to give everything she touched a delicate, and yet vivid, subjective colouring ; she was, above all, the artist of tiny but significant flashes of mental experience ; and I think it would not be difficult to prove that she worked best when she was using, in, of course, some slightly disguised form, her own experiences and memories. In invention-and observation (beyond that of her own mental reactions), the marks of an. objective writer, she was not above the average ; but she carried subjectivity as far as it would go, and even too far for many people's tastes. As I am sure Mr. Coppard does not wish to give a wrong impres- sion of Mr. Bullett's delightful volume, and as he generally
uses words with extreme care, I, and no doubt many other of your readers, would be glad to learn exactly what he did mean by this strange contrast.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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