Page:Men of Letters, Scott, 1916.djvu/146

120 COMMONSENSE OF MR. ARNOLD BENNETT The Metropolitan view-point in these matters (as every day makes plainer) is inevitably as oddly askew as London itself is on the map ; the Londoner sees life, England's life, at an angle, fore-shortened, as from a stage-box ; instead of taking to it gradually, breast-on, from the primitive beach, every step an adventure, he nips into it aslant, deep water at once, from the door of his sophisticated bathing-van — a solid half of experience irrecoverably missed. And thus, as a consequence, the provinces are always for him a kind of vague hinterland, protoplasmic and grey, an illimitable East End somewhere at the back of the shires ; and even if he doesn't actually ask wearily, with Mr. Walkley, " What are the Five Towns any- way ? " he does feel that the proper tone to speak of the provinces artistically is a sort of Gissing greyness, as who should talk of Soup Kitchens and the Sub- merged. A Pottery II Penseroso he can understand, but not a Pottery L' Allegro. In Clayhanger, where spades were called spades, he thought he detected the sombreness — did indeed (positively !) praise that san- guine and romantic book for its unflinching austerity. But in The Card, where, though spades are still trumps, the game goes undisguisedly allegretto, he suspects mere unreality and loud farce. "What's he done ? What great Cause has he ever been identified with ? " asks a virtuous old Councillor indignantly on the last page of the book. He is speaking of Denry Machin, the Card, the man who bluffs his way to funds and favours by dint of cheek and mother-wit. It might be Mr. William Archer solemnly reproving the author. And the stout, sensible Staffordshire reply, on which the curtain comes down, " He's identified with the great cause of cheering us all up," is perhaps one that, as a defence of Mr. Bennett, only a born provincial can properly understand. For it is probably true that to enjoy The Card