[_24 Oct. '08_]
It is a long time since I read a new book by Mr. Kenneth Grahame, but the
fault is his rather than mine. I suppose that I was not the only reader
who opened "The Wind in the Willows" (Methuen, 6s.) with an unusual and
apprehensive curiosity. Would it disappoint? For really, you know, to live
up to "The Golden Age" and "Pagan Papers" could not be an easy task--and
after so many years of silence! It is ten years, if I mistake not, since
Mr. Kenneth Grahame put his name to anything more important than the
official correspondence of the Bank of England. Well, "The Wind in the
Willows" does not disappoint. Here, indeed, we have the work of a man who
is obviously interested in letters and in life, the work of a fastidious
and yet a very robust artist. But the book is fairly certain to be
misunderstood of the people. The publishers' own announcement describes it
as "perhaps chiefly for youth," a description with which I disagree. The
obtuse are capable of seeing in it nothing save a bread-and-butter
imitation of "The Jungle Book." The woodland and sedgy lore in it is
discreet and attractive. Names of animals abound in it. But it is
nevertheless a book of humanity. The author may call his chief characters
the Rat, the Mole, the Toad,--they are human beings, and they are meant to
be nothing but human beings. Were it otherwise, the spectacle of a toad
going through the motor-car craft would be merely incomprehensible and
exasperating. The superficial scheme of the story is so childishly naïve,
or so daringly naïve, that only a genius could have preserved it from the
ridiculous. The book is an urbane exercise in irony at the expense of the
English character and of mankind. It is entirely successful. Whatever may
happen to it in the esteem of mandarins and professors, it will beyond
doubt be considered by authentic experts as a work highly distinguished,
original, and amusing--and no more to be comprehended by youth than "The
Golden Age" was to be comprehended by youth.