TIGERS AND CURATES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20520, 22 March 1930, Page 8 (Supplement)

TIGERS AND CURATES.

A NOVELIST'S LAMENT. Mr. Hugh Walpole, speaking at Carlisle, said that at tho ago of 45. after writing books for 20 years, ho had a sense of desperate disappointment. , According to a wireless talk which he gave, Air. If. G. Wells, who was 20 years older than himself, had reached the ago when he passionately desired to rid himself of himself. Mr. Walpole agreed that the supreme lesson of lifo was to learn how to despise and discard one's abominable personality. He looked back on 22 or 23 books, and ho felt that the original creative impulse was always fresh and strong, bilt ono's personality was always the same. " You desire to get new ideas," said Mr. Walpole. " You get tired of writing about curates. You hate curates. You want to write about lions and tigers. When you finish you think you have created a splendid tiger. You show the book to a friend, and he says, ' This is the best curate you have ever drawn.' " Mr. Walpole added that lie found himself living in a period which was rushing with ferocious speed to every kind of discovery about the outside of man, but was more perplexed about tho inside of man than at any period in tho last 1000 vears.