FICTION.
INTELLECT VERSUS EMOTION.*
MANY dangers beset the writer who dabbles in the uncanny. The very fact that the uncanny is that which is outside of ordinary experience implies that it demands special treatment if it is to be made convincing. The first thing that the uncanny story must do is to appeal to the reader's emotions : without that it fails immediately. But this, precisely, is what the writer is in perpetual danger of forgetting ; for he is so occupied in elucidating and making credible his incredible story that he is apt to fall into explaining, into trying to justify his story to the reason, and to forget that it is only through the emotions that he can " get at " his reader. And the more elaborately uncanny his story is, the more it is likely to become simply a " stunt."
There is yet another prank that the uncanny story plays upon its writer. In proportion as it becomes more uncanny it cuts him off from psychology, for psychology is concerned with the human and the real. H the writer is a bad psycholo- gist, or is not primarily interested in human character, this effect of the uncanny will, of course, be an advantage to him ; but the limitation will be unfortunate if the writer is notably a psychologist, as Miss Sinclair is. In fact, almost all the qualities which we value most in Miss Sinclair militate against her bringing off a really uncanny story. She is too definite, too actual, too intelligent ; she has too little of the vagrant and morbid fancy which the subject demands.
And so, in these stories of Miss Sinclair's, we find her at her best when she is not being uncanny at all, and good only when the uncanniness is simple—little mom, in fact, than the symbolization of an emotion. How excellent, for example, is the story called " If the Dead Knew," in which Wilfrid Hollyer, divided between his love for his mother and the sweetheart whom he will never be able to marry until his mother dies, kills his mother, who is suffering from a severe • 77nosnny Stories, By May Binclair, London: Hutchinson. ga, Od. nets
attack of influenza, by almost unconsciously withholding the wish that she may recover. After her death her ghost—a very gentle ghost—returns to haunt the house because her son's love has (owing to certain circumstances) been alienated from her. As soon as that love is restored, she returns to " her place among the blessed," leaving Wilfrid happy in his home and his wife. " The Finding of the Absolute," on the other hand, is, as the summary on the wrapper informs us, " a masterly metaphysical phantasy." That, precisely, is what is the matter with it. It argues, explains, arranges philosophical and scientific ideas into a picture-puzzle which leaves the imagination somewhat cold. " Where Their Fire is Not Quenched," too, is a story which does not completely succeed, though it does so to a much greater extent than " The Finding of the Absolute." It is full of excellent stuff, but its excellence very perceptibly flags in the presence of the uncanny The account of Harriott Leigh's three love affairs is extremely effective. It is simple, almost bare ; and in the bareness there is a touch of cynicism which contributes subtly to the sense of monotony and pathos in. Harriott's life. Her first innocent experience ends thus :-
" • • • he never came back. There was something wrong with the engines of his ship, the ' Alexandra.' Three weeks later she went down in the Mediterranean, and George with her. Harriott said she didn't care how soon she died now. She was quite sure it would be soon, because she couldn't live without him.
Five years passed."
In the second, the young man from whom she is expecting a proposal tells her of his engagement to another girl :—
" Oh, Harriott, do you know what it's like to be terribly happy ' She knew. She had known just now, the moment before he told her. She sat there, stone-cold and stiff, listening to his raptures ; listening to her own voice saying she was glad.
Ten years passed."
The last affair is a more sordid story. Harriott, middle- aged and disappointed, yields to Oscar Wade, whom she does not really love. Then, after another lapse of years, she dies, and, as one untrue to her ideal love, finds herself in hell. Hell consists in ceaseless endeavours to go back to the innocent and happy moments of her life, and just as each is on the point of achievement it ends in an encounter with Oscar Wade.
Now, after Harriott dies, our conviction, our belief in the story, perceptibly slackens. The purely descriptive passages are real and touching, but we are pulled up and chilled by intellectual intervals such as this, which contribute nothing to the story, and, by contributing nothing, actually hamper it :-
" The strange quality of her state was this, that it had no time. She remembered dimly that there had once been a thing called time ; but she had forgotten altogether what it was like. She was aware of things happening and about to happen ; she fixed them by the place they occupied, and measured their duration by the space she went through."
All the later part of the story, so good in parts, so close to success, fails because Miss Sinclair keeps pulling up and trying to intellectualize what she has already so admirably presented directly and poetically.
The book as a whole, in fact, does not represent Miss Sinclair at her best. But Miss Sinclair, after all, is a fine artist : her second-best is infinitely superior to the average
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