The Charwoman's Shadow
by New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. 1926. 12mo. viii+292pp. $2.00.
I KNOW of nothing more delightful and more difficult than to attempt a criticism of a new Dunsany book. Fox I am shameless in my admission that before I open the volume ‘criticism’ becomes simply a synonym of ‘praise.’ And, as I wrote of If, even the praise is redundant, as would be ‘commending a sunset as a satisfactory event, or expressing a favorable opinion of the beauty of flowers.’
Dunsany has told another tale of the Golden Age ot Spain and has even introduced a Duke of Shadow Valley — quite other, however, than the one in The Chronicles .of Rodriguez. Again we have a magician, a graduate of the University of Saragossa . But with this all similarity ends, and the rest is as original as it is charming, full of useful morals and worthy suggestions if you wish to imagine so, or, as some of us think, just a tale of tales to be read with laughter, or with here and there a misty eye. I shall not spoil it by any skeleton résumé, but opening at random I read:—
‘In the heavy shade they laughed or talked continually, while all around them Spain slept through the middle hours of the day. And many a tale they told of surpassing lightness, too light to cross the ages and reach this day, even if they were worthy; but lost with all the little things that founder in the long reaches of Time, to be cast on the coasts of Oblivion, amongst unrecorded tunes and children’s dreams and sceptres of unsuccessful emperors.’
Shadows are the protagonists of this tale, and their presence or absence, or, most terrible of all, their inability to grow with the lowering sun, affords considerable of the action. As to the ultimate power of a man’s shadow, kindly Father Joseph tells us: ‘On Earth the shadow is led hither and thither, wherever he will by the man; but hereafter it is far otherwise, and wherever his shadow goes, alas, he must follow; which is but just, since in all their sojourn here never once doth the shadow lead, never once the man follow.’ From such fantasy Dunsany slips into a description of the teaching of the magic of the alphabet and of reading, with no loss of charm and of mystery.
Although, for certain more or less sane moments of my life, I am a material scientist, yet in others it seems quite as important to give myself completely over to imaginative appreciation, and I do not remember to have read any more wholly delightful bit of writing than the chapter entitled ‘The Wonderful Casting,’ where Ramon Alonzo gives back to Anemone, alias Dock weed, her youthful shadow, and before his eyes the aged, wrinkled charwoman changes — shadow, for once, casting a substance.
A technical essay on which I am at work has gone much better because I have stopped several times to read The Charuoman’s Shadow twice through. For this Aid to Science my thanks go to my friend, Lord Dunsany.
WILLIAM BEEBE