DOI Artikel:
Books: a letter to the editor and an offer of a prize
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27806#0143
From “ The Yellow Dwarf”
139
very daring and original indeed ; and the characters are distinctly
individualised. They are characters, they are human people, they
are persons, they aren’t mere personages, mere types. Had Gallia
been a roman-a-clef, I think I could have named Dark Essex ; I
think I could have named Gurdon, too ; I’m sure I could have
named Miss Essex. As for Bobbie Leighton, little as we see of
him, he is a creature of the warmest flesh and the reddest blood ;
and I, for my part, shall always remember him as a charming
fellow whom I met once or twice, but all too infrequently, in
Paris, in London, and whose present address I am very sorry not
to possess. But Gallia herself I could not have named, though
she is as real to me now as she could have been if I had actually
known her half my life. If Miss Dowie had, in this book, accom-
plished nothing more than her full-length portrait of Gallia, she
would have accomplished much, for a more difficult model than
Gallia a portraitist could hardly have selected. Gallia—so terribly
modern, so excessively unusual—a prophecy, rather than a present
fact—a girl, an English girl, who declares her love to a man, and
yet never ceases to be a fresh, innocent, modest, attractive girl,
never for an instant becomes masculine, and never loses her hold
upon the reader’s sympathy !
A writer of fiction could scarcely propose to himself a riskier
adventure than that which awaited Miss Dowie when she set out
to write the chapter in which Gallia roundly informs Dark
Essex that she loves him. Failure was almost a certainty ;
yet, so far from failing, Miss Dowie has succeeded with apparent
ease. The chapter begins with a very fine and delicate observa-
tion in psychology. The blankness, the vague pain, rhythmically
recurring, but for the specific cause of which Gallia has to pause
a little and seek—that is very finely and delicately observed. “c I
remember; there was something that has made me unhappy :
what
139
very daring and original indeed ; and the characters are distinctly
individualised. They are characters, they are human people, they
are persons, they aren’t mere personages, mere types. Had Gallia
been a roman-a-clef, I think I could have named Dark Essex ; I
think I could have named Gurdon, too ; I’m sure I could have
named Miss Essex. As for Bobbie Leighton, little as we see of
him, he is a creature of the warmest flesh and the reddest blood ;
and I, for my part, shall always remember him as a charming
fellow whom I met once or twice, but all too infrequently, in
Paris, in London, and whose present address I am very sorry not
to possess. But Gallia herself I could not have named, though
she is as real to me now as she could have been if I had actually
known her half my life. If Miss Dowie had, in this book, accom-
plished nothing more than her full-length portrait of Gallia, she
would have accomplished much, for a more difficult model than
Gallia a portraitist could hardly have selected. Gallia—so terribly
modern, so excessively unusual—a prophecy, rather than a present
fact—a girl, an English girl, who declares her love to a man, and
yet never ceases to be a fresh, innocent, modest, attractive girl,
never for an instant becomes masculine, and never loses her hold
upon the reader’s sympathy !
A writer of fiction could scarcely propose to himself a riskier
adventure than that which awaited Miss Dowie when she set out
to write the chapter in which Gallia roundly informs Dark
Essex that she loves him. Failure was almost a certainty ;
yet, so far from failing, Miss Dowie has succeeded with apparent
ease. The chapter begins with a very fine and delicate observa-
tion in psychology. The blankness, the vague pain, rhythmically
recurring, but for the specific cause of which Gallia has to pause
a little and seek—that is very finely and delicately observed. “c I
remember; there was something that has made me unhappy :
what