Potterism | Page 3

quite creditably. They
were pleasant to many, readable by more, and quite unmarred by any
spark of cleverness, flash of wit, or morbid taint of philosophy. Gently
and unsurprisingly she wrote of life and love as she believed these two
things to be, and found a home in the hearts of many fellow-believers.
She bored no one who read her, because she could be relied on to give
them what they hoped to find--and of how few of us, alas, can this be
said! And--she used to say it was because she was a mother--her books
were safe for the youngest _jeune fille_, and in these days (even in
those days it was so) of loose morality and frank realism, how
important this is.
'I hope I am as modern as any one,' Mrs. Potter would say, 'but I see no
call to be indecent.'
So many writers do see, or rather hear, this call, and obey it faithfully,
that many a parent was grateful to Leila Yorke. (It is only fair to record
here that in the year 1918 she heard it herself, and became a
psychoanalyst. But the time for this was not yet.)
On her right sat her eldest son, Frank, who was a curate in Pimlico. In
Frank's face, which was sharp and thin, like his father's, were the marks
of some conflict which his father's did not know. You somehow felt
that each of the other Potters had one aim, and that Frank had, or,
anyhow, felt that he ought to have, another besides, however feebly he
aimed at it.
Next him sat his young wife, who had, again, only the one. She was
pretty and jolly and brunette, and twisted Frank round her fingers.
Beyond her sat Clare, the eldest daughter, and the daughter at home.

She read her mother's novels, and her father's papers, and saw no harm
in either. She thought the twins perverse and conceited, which came
from being clever at school and college. Clare had never been clever at
anything but domestic jobs and needlework. She was a nice, pretty girl,
and expected to marry. She snubbed Jane, and Jane, in her irritating and
nonchalant way, was rude to her.
On the other side of the table sat the twins, stocky and square-built, and
looking very young, with broad jaws and foreheads and wide-set gray
eyes. Jane was, to look at, something like an attractive little plump
white pig. It is not necessary, at the moment, to say more about her
appearance than this, except that, when the time came to bob the hair,
she bobbed it.
Johnny was as sturdy but rather less chubby, and his chin stuck out
farther. They had the same kind of smile, and square white teeth, and
were greedy. When they had been little, they had watched each other's
plates with hostile eyes, to see that neither got too large a helping.
4
Those of us who are old enough will remember that in June and July
1914 the conversation turned largely and tediously on militant
suffragists, Irish rebels, and strikers. It was the beginning of the age of
violent enforcements of decision by physical action which has lasted
ever since and shows as yet no signs of passing. The Potter press, like
so many other presses, snubbed the militant suffragists, smiled half
approvingly on Carson's rebels, and frowned wholly disapprovingly on
the strikers. It was a curious age, so near and yet so far, when the
ordered frame of things was still unbroken, and violence a child's
dream, and poetry and art were taken with immense seriousness. Those
of us who can remember it should do so, for it will not return. It has
given place to the age of melodrama, when nothing is too strange to
happen, and no one is ever surprised. That, too, may pass, but probably
will not, for it is primeval. The other was artificial, a mere product of
civilisation, and could not last.
It was in the intervals of talking about the militants (a conversation

much like other conversations on the same topic, which were tedious
even at the time, and now will certainly not bear recording) that Mrs.
Frank said to the twins, 'What are you two going to play at now?'
So extensive a question, opening such vistas. It would have taken, if
not less time, anyhow less trouble, to have told Mrs. Frank what they
were not going to play at.
The devil of mischief looked out of Johnny's gray eyes, as he nearly
said, 'We are going to fight Leila Yorke fiction and the Potter press.'
Choking it back, he said, succinctly, 'Publishing, journalism, and
writing. At least, I am.'
'He means,' Mr. Potter interpolated, in his small, nasal voice, 'that he
has obtained a