The Parts Men Play

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The Parts Men Play

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Baxter, et al
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Title: The Parts Men Play
Author: Arthur Beverley Baxter

Release Date: January 9, 2006 [eBook #17481]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PARTS
MEN PLAY***
E-text prepared by Al Haines

THE PARTS MEN PLAY
by
ARTHUR BEVERLEY BAXTER
Author of "The Blower of Bubbles"
With Foreword by Lord Beaverbrook

McClelland & Stewart Publishers ======== Toronto Copyright,
Canada, 1920 By McClelland & Stewart, Limited, Toronto

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED
TO THE MEMORY OF MY FATHER
JAMES BENNETT BAXTER
WHO BELIEVED THOUGHT TO BE MORE IMPORTANT THAN
THINGS, AND WHO WENT THROUGH THIS WORLD
DISPENSING GENIAL PHILOSOPHY AND KINDLY HUMOUR
TO ALL WHO CAME WITHIN HIS CIRCLE

FOREWORD.
Mr. Baxter is my countryman, and, as a Canadian, I commend The
Parts Men Play, not only for its literary vitality, but for the freshness of
outlook with which the author handles Anglo-American
susceptibilities.
A Canadian lives in a kind of half-way house between Britain and the
United States. He understands Canada by right of birth; he can
sympathise with the American spirit through the closest knowledge

born of contiguity; his history makes him understand Britain and the
British Empire. He is, therefore, a national interpreter between the two
sundered portions of the race.
It is this rôle of interpreter that Mr. Baxter is destined to fill, a rôle for
which he is peculiarly suited, not only by temperament, but by reason
of his experiences gained from his entrance into the world of London
journalism and English literature.
I do not know in what order the chapters of The Parts Men Play were
written, but it seems to me that as Mr. Baxter gets to grip with the
realities of his theme, he begins to lose a certain looseness of touch
which marks his opening pages. If so, he is showing the power of
development, and to the artist this power is everything. The writer who
is without it is a mere static consciousness weaving words round the
creatures of his own imagination. The man who has it possesses a
future, because he is open to the teaching of experience. And among
the men with a future I number Mr. Baxter.
Throughout the book his pictures of life are certainly arresting--taken
impartially both in Great Britain and America. What could be better
than some of his descriptions?
The speech of the American diplomat at a private dinner is the truest
defence and explanation of America's delay in coming into the war that
I remember to have read. The scene is set in the high light of
excitement, and the rhetorical phrasing of the speech would do credit to
a famous orator.
But I fear that I may be giving the impression that The Parts Men Play
is merely a piece of propagandist fiction--something from which the
natural man shrinks back with suspicion. Nothing could be farther from
the truth. Mr. Baxter's strength lies in the rapid flow and sweep of his
narrative. His characterisation is clear and firm in outline, but it is
never pursued into those quicksands of minute analysis which too often
impede the stream of good story-telling.
I am glad that a Canadian novelist should have given us a book which

supports the promise shown by the author in The Blower of Bubbles,
and marks him out for a distinguished future.
If in the course of a novel of action he has something to teach his
British readers about the American temperament, and his American
public about British mentality, so much the better.
BEAVERBROOK.

CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
I.
LADY DURWENT DECIDES ON A DINNER II. CONCERNING
LADY DURWENT'S FAMILY III. ABOUT A TOWN HOUSE IV.
PROLOGUE TO A DINNER-PARTY V. THE OLYMPIANS
THUNDER VI. A MORNING IN NOVEMBER VII. THE CAFE
ROUGE VIII. INTERMEZZO IX. A HOUSE-PARTY AT
ROSELAWN X. GATHERING SHADOWS XI. THE RENDING OF
THE VEIL XII. THE HONOURABLE MALCOLM DURWENT
STARTS ON A JOURNEY XIII. THE MAN OF SOLITUDE XIV.
STRANGE CRAFT XV. DICK DURWENT XVI. THE FEMININE
TOUCH XVII. MOONLIGHT XVIII. ELISE XIX. EN VOYAGE XX.
THE GREAT NEUTRAL XXI. A NIGHT IN JANUARY XXII. THE
CHALLENGE XXIII. THE SMUGGLER BREED XXIV. THE
SENTENCE XXV. THE FIGHT FOR THE BRIDGE XXVI. THE
END OF THE ROAD XXVII. A LIGHT ON THE WATER

THE PARTS MEN PLAY.
CHAPTER I.
LADY DURWENT DECIDES