Page:Men of Letters, Scott, 1916.djvu/153

COMMONSBNSE OF MR. ARNOLD BENNETT 127 freshly does it serve up Mr. Bennett's last experiences. Sir John Pilgrim will be recognized ; so will Miss Rose Euclid ; Denry's eyes are his maker's. Mr. Bennett has just been to New York ; Denry goes there too. " I like New York irrevocably," said the former when he landed there ; " This is my sort of place," announces Denry. The coincidence is nothing : it is the canny economy that is unmistakable. All very well for Mr. Bennett to assure us that the Card was '* utterly indifferent to aesthetic beauty," that his " passion for literature was frail," and that the work of art he most admired was an oil-painting of a ruined castle, " in whose tower was a clock, which clock was a realistic timepiece whose figures moved and told the hour." These things do not deceive us. Little though it may appear to resemble it, that oil-painting is really a red-herring. And if anybody asks sceptically why, if all this is thus, Mr. Bennett doesn't devote this conquering gift of savoir-faire to pulling off the great golden coups in reality instead of simply explaining how they could be done, the answer is easy. He does. Read his auto- biography. The Truth about an Author ; remember the straight road he has trod ; remark how it is set with gilded Milestones. Denry Machin came up from the Potteries and took theatrical London by storm ; it is merely because Mr. Bennett had already done the same. Denry Machin built a theatre, which he called "The Regent," that proved one of the most effective and profitable and intelligent undertakings of the year. Mr. Bennett has written a book, with exactly the same title, which is now going to do precisely the same. Ill Mr. Arnold Bennett's book about America ^ does not make us see Stars and Stripes : that is its charm. The ' Those United States. By Arnold Bennett (Martin Seeker).