However, I couldn't proceed with it. In brief,
for me, it was dull. Probably the latter half was much better, but I
couldn't cut my way through to the latter half.
MR. A.C. BENSON
[_1 Sep. '10_]
I am indebted to Mr. Murray for sending what is to me a new manifestation
of the entirely precious activity of Mr. Arthur Christopher Benson. Mr.
Benson, in "The Thread of Gold," ministers to all that is highest and most
sacred in the Mudie temperament. It is not a new book; only I have been
getting behind-hand. It was first printed in 1905, and it seems to have
been on and off the printing-presses ever since, and now Mr. Murray has
issued it, very neatly, at a shilling net, so that people who have never
even been inside Mudie's may obtain it. I have read the book with intense
joy, hugging myself, and every now and then running off to a sister-spirit
with a "I say, just listen to _this_!" The opening sentence of one of the
various introductions serves well to display Mr. A.C. Benson at his
superlative: "I have for a great part of my life desired, perhaps more
than I have desired anything else, to make a beautiful book; and I have
tried, perhaps too hard and too often, to do this, _without ever quite
succeeding_" [my italics]. Oh, triple modesty! The violet-like beauty of
that word "quite"! Thus he tried perhaps too hard and too often to
produce something beautiful! Not that for a moment I believe the excellent
Mr.
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