Page:Men of Letters, Scott, 1916.djvu/99

THE AMBITIONS OF SIR JAMES BARRIE 73 drive a shaft up into the Gardens after closing-time, instead of clattering into London (as once he had hoped) along the Great North Road of real romance. But he learned a lot while he was there, his art acquired many graces, taking lessons in deportment from Phoebe, improving on the Hanky School code, and, generally, preparing itself unconsciously for the great day when it would be entrusted with the tender character of little David. And it was very happy. In and out the little houses, in and out Miss Phoebe's curls, in and out the vastly s and devoutly s, the quiz- zings and the 'twas s, it darts and struts and tumbles with the utmost innocence of zest. Nor, given such an opportunity, does it fail, you may be sure, to play its master's favourite game of Lost Identities. You know that game, of course ? It is played in all Barrie's books. Somebody pretends to be somebody else, or pretends that nobody is somebody — with the result that there is always a redundant identity, a spare alter ego, a mysterious, invisible Being wandering round, that has somehow, with laughter and cunning, to be dodged or reconciled or explained. It was playing this game so hard that made Captain Hook's voice (if you remember) sound so remarkably like Wendy's father's. It was over this game that Miss Irene Vanbrugh, in Rosalind, doubled her charms by being two people at once. Then there was Peter Pan's shadow; there was the disembodied Timothy ; there were William Paterson, and Tink-a-bell, and "my brother Henry" in My Lady Nicotine — Beings, alter egos, every one. Little Mary herself (or itself ?). The wistful girl in Grizel's mirror. Captain Stroke. The face that haunted Marriot. The second Sir Clement Dowton. And now, in Quality Stj^eet, a heroine who does not exist, the lovely but non-existent Livvy. It would be strange, indeed, if such a foible did not betoken something deeper — and we readers who are