FICTION.

AN ORDER TO VIEW.

Arrnouon this very delightful novel may not from a literary point of view be quite so delicate a piece of work as A Grave Impertinence, many readers, like the present writer, will find it even more absorbing to read. The book is a very careful study of two men—James Wedmore, an architect, who is the

chief figure of the story ; and Martin Woodruff, a musician— and the fundamental likenesses and superficial differences which distinguish them are ably contrasted. Besides this, Mr. Marriott gives us not only a most attractive study of old Bristol and Clifton—these places being thinly disguised under the names of Barstow and Cleeve—but also an interesting plot and a study of a fifteenth century manor-house which will make the reader feel that he, too, would find in Moorend the house of his dreams. It is, indeed, fitting that a book with an architect as its chief figure should have as its most attractive feature a study of one of those small, perfectly proportioned manor-houses of which, as all dwellers in Somersetshire and Gloucestershire know, there are so many examples in those delightful counties. Here is Mr. Marriott's description of Moorend :—

" The wooded cliff on his right fell away to form the gentle slope of a green basin, and the lake bordered a lawn. Across the lawn, backed by woods, there was Moorend. The effect upon Wedmore was that of coming home. All that he meant by good building was here confirmed with a modesty which left him strangely sobered. The house was, indeed, not large, nor had it any striking originality of design. It was all a matter of perfect proportion and, so far as the distance allowed him to see, perfect finish. The central tower and part of the front were mantled with close-growing ivy, which blurred without effacing the discreet relief of string-course and dripstone, and only enhanced the pale, clean curves of the doorway, sharply defined by the shadow below. Except for the battlements of the tower, the diagonal setting of the chimney-shafts, and the inverted finials on the gables, there was no ornament save that afforded by the trefoil-headed windows and the rosettes of their hood- mouldings. Facing a little to the west of south, the house took the level sunlight of the hour with delicate advantage to all its details."

The necessity of fitting a house to its environment, and further of harmonizing a house and its inhabitants, is assumed by Mr. Marriott to be essential. Only thus can the artistic soul rest in peace, and thus does the architect of the story find " the lineaments of satisfied desire' in stone." Mr. Marriott describes with subtle humour Wedmore's journey through the outskirts of Bristol :-

"these irrelevant inventions of brick and barge-boarding, in a land where stone was plentiful, whose perky gables wounded the green or the blue, were infinitely worse than the drab out- skirts of London, for example. What was there a necessary dullness was here a gratuitous affront. As Wedmore sat, in the middle of the seat, upright as if to avoid the shocks into which the sights were translated by his unwilling eyes, his look of peculiar stillness, due to his broad head, short neck, and fiat brow, was disturbed at intervals by a fine flicker of pain. A close observer, taking in the shrapnel scar on his left cheek, which was his only relic of the war, might have supposed him to be suffering from neuralgia. For the first half-mile or so, after alighting, there was little to compose him. It was now, though a main road, a country road ; but the longer intervals of green and grey, so far from relieving, intensified the wrongness of the houses ; for it was wrongness rather than ugliness that Wedmore felt in his nerves. The houses affected him like ill-fitting clothes."

If we accept the author's point of view, it is inevitable that Wedmore, meeting at Moorend a woman who is in perfect sympathy with her background, should find that his artistic soul has fallen deeply in love with her, although his more practical affections are already engaged by a charming and vigorous young woman. Later on Wedmore finds the proper expression of Hilda Pumphrey, his betrothed, in a neo-Georgian house in Cleeve. This house also is delightful in its own style, being airy and dignified, ivith big windows and wide views over flats leading to the sea, and Wedmore thinks it suitable for Hilda " because he brought to her, and could only bring to her, the love which did not pass understanding ; and she, if he knew her, wanted nothing more, and had no more to give." Hilda, however, has a great deal more to give when she finally finds the man who needs it. Her soul finds its true expression not in the figurative arts but in the "more fluid art" of music, in which, as Wedmore surmises, are to be found "solutions which could not be expressed in words ; which were, indeed, beyond reason." But here, unfortunately, the reader will discover that Mr. Marriott hardly

• An Order to View. By Charles Marriott. London : Hutchinson. Os. ed. net.1

achieves the same certainty of touch when he is writing about music as that with which he deals with architecture. Indeed, it may be doubted whether any literary artist has over succeeded in giving a convincing account of musical expression. The feat has, of course, been many times attempted, but, to the mind of the present writer, all literary descriptions of music suffer from the solid medium in which that " fluid art " must be translated. Martin Woodruff's symphony, for example, seems so definitely literary in form that the reader will have the gravest doubts as to its being as artistic an achievement as the author would have him believe. The work "opened with the familiar ' quarters ' of Saint Michael's, followed by an effect of change-ringing on bells ; which, however, though remaining strongly diatonic, soon broadened in character until it seemed to embrace by suggestion all the noises of the city—street cries, the rumbling of wheels, the clang of cars, the ' trip, trip' of passing feet, and even scraps of chanties from the harbour," and ended with " almost articulate cries of victory, mingled with the clashing of bells."

It is true that modern instrumental music often needs to be illuminated by supplying the audience with a " book of the words." But it may be doubted whether the musical description of a building, such as " St. Michael's and All Angels," can ever be successful. The expression of a passing mood, such as Mr.

Arthur Bliss's exposition of a night of carnival in Rout, just because it is evanescent and, therefore fluid, lies more within the possibilities of musical achievement. A building, even if it

holds concentrated within its walls the soul of a city, is fixed and unmovable, and therefore musically inexpressible.

The novel is enlivened by a very entertaining description of the nouveau riche family of Pumphrey and by a speaking portrait

of Stuckey, the contractor, who is building the Technical Insti- tute of which Sir John Pumphrey is the donor and Wedmore the architect. The Pumpbreys live in a house at Cleeve (Clifton) :—

" The long room, lit by concealed electric bulbs above the cornice, and a little aware of its own proportions, was furnished rather sparingly but expensively with exclusively modern pieces in precious woods, with a notable absence of upholstery. A few bright cushions were placed with evident intention, as were the flowers ; and the pictures, including two little panels of single figures in landscape, by Mr. Augustus John, bespoke a dis- criminating selection from the New English Art Club. In these considered surroundings, Lady Pumphrey, in her black lace gown, looked rather like a nervous passenger sitting by her luggage. While the three were talking about Hilda's golf that afternoon, Sir John came bouncing in. ' Here—you are, then,' he said, beginning on a high note and ending on a low one, with a slight pause in the descent, as if for rapid observation. His prominent eyes gleamed for a moment behind his gold-mounted pince-nez in support of this idea. . . . Sir John Pumphrey was a stoutish man of about sixty ; bald, but with a closely- trimmed, very strongly-growing dark beard. . . . He moved with short, quick steps, his pointed shoes twinkling in response to his eyes. As usual, he carried a small black portfolio of papers, and he crackled."

Stuckey, the contractor, " a hard-shell Radical with uncom- promising views about the British working-man," and his son,

just down from Oxford, " a high-nosed youth of languid manners and extremely aristocratic appearance," are equally well realized, the father being specially well sketched in an amusing scene at the auction of Moorend, at which Stuckey appears " in his usual depressed attitude, in a mackintosh, with pince-nez at the end of his nose, and both hands resting on his umbrella planted before him."

If one were to put the message of the book into one word, that word would be " harmony." The harmony of man with his environment—the man to seek and find his proper environ- ment, not to change his soul,to fit his circumstances—is necessary for the full development of the human being. The adequate expression of this fundamental idea in a novel which entertains as well as instructs, is a feat upon which the author is most sincerely to be congratulated.