The Parts Men Play by Baxter, Arthur Beverley, 1891-1964

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The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Parts Men Play, by Arthur Beverley

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 r le of interpreter that Mr. Baxter is destined to fill, a

\ufffd

r le for which he is peculiarly suited, not only by temperament, but by

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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.

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