THE HERRIES CHRONICLE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 249, 21 October 1933, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE HERRIES CHRONICLE.

END OF A NOTABLE SERIES. The Herries Chronicle, which Hugh ; Walpolo completes with "Vanessa" (Macmillan), is not as widely known as the "Forsyte Saga," but there may be some who will prefer it. The four volumes of the Chronicle —"Rogue Ilerrics," "Judith Paris," "The Fortress," and "Vanessa"—arc a major achievement in the record of modern English novels, the more remarkable as they were all written within live years, 1927-1932. Yet "Vanessa" alone runs to 850 pages. The Herries are a remarkable family. Representative of the best in the upper middle-class of England, they are of course patriotic, solid citizens, independent, intensely family-proud, and — unimaginative. Their vices are complacency and' conventionality. They are apt to gaze around at the family and see that it is $ood. But in every generation there arc one or two Herties who do not conform to type. There was, for example, Judith Paris, and in this book there arc Vanessa, Judith's granddaughter, and Benjie. Benj'c is an outcast from the family, but he lives a fuller, if less useful life than any of them. He fights the family all his life, the while lie sees quite clearly "their integrity, their wholesome common sense, their loyalty to their own beliefs." Vanessa is his. childhood playmate. They arc made for each other, but through circumstances and Benjic's wildness they are separated for all but a few years of their lives. Mr. Walpole devotes the whole of this long volume to the vicissitudes of their love, but it is not too long, for it rivals some of the finest love stories in the language. Mr, Walpole has not the modern manner. He does not present his characters pityingly, as odd biological specimens. Love stories of his kind' arc supposed to bo out of date, but the reader of this one may reflect that they will never be out of date so long as we have novelists who know how to write them. The book is interesting also as s-oeial history, and for the emphasis the author gives to the English love of the country. C. E. Montague (in "Little England") has pointed out that' "the love which is wholly love clings instinctively to things that are within the reach of sense, and small enough to be held in one grasp." You cannot, he said, be in love jwith a continent. But it is possible to love a county, and Vanessa and Benjie are in love with Cumberland. "The sights of 'er, and the sounds of 'er" are part of their being. For people who know Cumberland this will give "Vanessa" additional charm, but such knowledge is far from being indispensable to thorough enjoyment of the bock.