I mean "Marie Claire." Frankly, I did not anticipate
this triumph. For, of course, it is very difficult for an author of
experience to believe that a good book will be well received. However,
"Marie Claire" has been helped by a series of extraordinary reviews. No
novel of recent years has had such favourable reviews, or so many of them,
or such long ones. I have seen all of them--all except one have been very
laudatory--and I am in a position to state that if placed end to end they
would stretch from Miss Corelli's house in Stratford-on-Avon across the
main to Mr. Hall Caine's castle in the Isle of Man. This may be called
praise. One of the best, if not the best, was signed "J.L.G." in the
_Observer_. It is indeed a solemn and terrifying thought that Mr. Garvin,
who, by means of thoroughly bad prose persisted in during many years, has
at last laid the Tory Party in ruins, should be so excellent a judge of
literature. Mr. Garvin made his debut in the London Press, I think, as a
literary critic; and it is a pity (from the Tory point of view) that he
did not remain a literary critic. I am convinced that Mr. Balfour and Lord
Lansdowne would personally subscribe large sums to found a literary paper
for him to edit, on condition that he promised never to write another line
of advice to their party.
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