Page:Men of Letters, Scott, 1916.djvu/159

MR. GRANVILLE BARKER AND AN ALIBI One of the chief joys of criticism is the joy of detec- tion — detection not merely of some secret of style, some technical trick or caprice, but an actual hounding- down of a live human being, a regular, ding-dong, Dartmoor hue-and-cry. It is the greatest of games. I know nothing like it. Here in your hand you hold a book — a little cabinet of mimic scenes ; it is a magic box into which, by the aid of the talisman of letters, you can positively creep and then go roaming through as in a world. Well, all the sights that now spread round you, all the landscapes, gardens, groves, and all the flitting figures who pass to and fro and talk there, are simply parts of a private kingdom, a sort of Xanadu retreat, built by the artist for his perfect habitation — a secret place where he can fling off all disguise and live completely, with a sincerity impossible outside. There alone his soul, escaped, can frame a world to fit its needs ; there only does he dare to be himself. And there only, accordingly, can you hope to hunt him down, and catch him with his character unmasked. From the clues of dropped metaphors — by the trails of well-used rhythms — from scraps of conversation heard by eavesdropping among his char- acters — in and out, ruthlessly, you track him through the maze, until the last barrier breaks, and you are on him. A queer moment, that ! One never quite 133