Chapter 4

I think that Mr. W. R. TITTERTON is a little late in the day; his book, _Me as a Model_ (PALMER), recalls happy memories of that past and already romantic period when _Trilby_ was the talk of the hour and Paris the centre of all Bohemian licence. Mr. TITTERTON has the DU MAURIER manner, but his jocular skittishness, aided by asterisks, exclamation marks and suspensive dots, has curiously little behind it. It is not enough to-day to paint the gay impropriety of models and the devil-may-care penury of lighthearted artists. _Trilby_ began the movement, _Louise_ ended it, and Mr. TITTERTON is behind his day. I am glad, however, to learn that he was so splendid a model. The students at JULIEN'S fall back aghast before his magnificent figure, and now, in every gallery in Europe, sculptures and paintings of Mr. TITTERTON are to be seen by the vulgar crowd, very often for no charge at all; and that, of course, is delightful for Europe. And, according to his title, that is doubtless the final impression that the author wishes to convey. I intend on my next trip abroad to search for Mr. TITTERTON in all the galleries. My only means of discovery are the pictures of the author with which his book is filled, and here, if the illustrator (a very clever fellow) is to be trusted, I am frankly puzzled by the attitude at JULIEN'S towards their model. There is very little in these illustrations to justify it.

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If I am not mistaken, _The Jam Queen_ (METHUEN) marks the first incursion of Miss NETTA SYRETT into humorous fiction. In that, or any, case, she has written a story which deserves a considerable success. _The Jam Queen_ is to a large extent what would be called in drama a one-part affair. There are plenty of other characters, many of them drawn with much unforced skill, but the personality of the protagonist, the Jam Queen herself, overshadows the rest. _Mrs. Quilter_ is an abiding joy. There have been plutocratic elderly women, uneducated but agreeable, in a hundred novels before this; but I recall few that have been treated so honestly or with so much genuine sympathy. Mind you, Miss SYRETT is no sentimentalist. Ill-directed philanthropy, Girtonian super-culture, the simple life with its complexities of square-cut gowns and bare feet--all these come beneath the lash of a satire that is delicate but unsparing. Yet with it all she has, as every good satirist should have, a quick appreciation of the good qualities of her victims. Even _Frederick_, the pious, as contrasted with the flippant, nephew of aunt _Quilter--Frederick_, with his futile institute for people who want none of it, his blind pedantry, and his actual dishonesty in what he considers a worthy cause--even he is punished no further than his actual deserving. Perhaps in telling you that _Mrs. Quilter_ has two nephews, an idle and an industrious one, I have told you enough of the scheme. It is, after all, no great matter. _Mrs. Quilter_ must be the reason for your reading the book, and your reward. She is real jam.

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The tales Miss ETHEL DELL includes Within _The Swindler_ (UNWIN) pleased me,

Not by their thrills or interludes Of tenderness--these hardly seized me; Not by their people, though the pack Were amiable and pleasant creatures, Barring the villains who were black And villainous in all their features.

By none of these my pulse was jerked Out of its normal calm condition, But by the plots, with which I worked A quite exciting competition; A point was mine if, at the start, I guessed the way a yarn was tending; Miss DELL'S, if by consummate art She failed to use the obvious ending.

The first two tales she won on; three And four were mine; five hers; six, seven And eight I got hands down; and she Got square with nine and ten. Eleven Is still unwritten, and I bide Impatiently its birth, for that'll Finally, so I trust, decide The issue of our hard-fought battle.