Whitten is to state formally, and
with a due sense of responsibility, that he is one of the finest prose
writers now writing in English. His name is on the title-pages of several
books, but no book of his will yet bear out my statement. The proof of it
lies in weekly papers. No living Englishman can do "the grand
manner"--combining majestic dignity with a genuine lyrical
inspiration--better than Mr. Whitten. These are proud words of mine, but I
am not going to disguise my conviction that I know what I am talking
about. Some day some publisher will wake up out of the coma in which
publishers exist, and publish in volume form--probably with coloured
pictures as jam for children--Mr. Whitten's descriptions of English towns.
Then I shall be justified. I might have waited till that august moment.
But I want to be beforehand with Dr. Robertson Nicoll. I see that Dr.
Nicoll has just added to his list of patents by inventing Leonard Merrick,
whom I used to admire in print long before Dr. Nicoll had ever heard that
Mr. J.M. Barrie regarded Leonard Merrick as the foremost English novelist.
Dr. Nicoll has already got Mr. Whitten on to the reviewing staff of the
_Bookman_. But I am determined that he shall not invent Mr. Whitten's
prose style. I am the inventor of that.
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