The reviews of "The Cliff End," almost unanimously laudatory, show in a
bright light our national indifference to composition in art. Some
reviewers, while stating that the story itself was a poor one, insisted
that Mr. Booth is a born and accomplished story-teller. Story-tellers
born and accomplished do not tell poor stories. A poor story is the work
of a poor story-teller. And the story of "The Cliff End" is merely absurd.
It is worse, if possible, than the story of Mr. Maxwell's "Vivien," which
reviewers accepted. It would appear that with certain novels the story
doesn't matter! I really believe that composition, the foundation of all
arts, including the art of fiction, is utterly unconsidered in England. Or
if it is considered, it is painfully misunderstood. I remember how the
panjandrums condescendingly pointed out the bad construction of Mr. Joseph
Conrad's "Lord Jim," one of the most noble examples of fine composition in
modern literature, and but slightly disfigured by a detail of clumsy
machinery. In "The Cliff End" there is simply no composition that is not
clumsy and conventional. All that can be said of it is that you can't read
a page, up to about page 200, without grinning. (Unhappily Mr. Booth
overestimated his stock of grins, which ran out untimely.
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