POINTED ROOFS
POINTED ROOFS
BY
DOROTHY M. RICHARDSON
LONDON: DUCKWORTH & CO.
3, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN
TO
WINIFRED RAY
All rights reserved
Second Impression, 1921
INTRODUCTION
I have read “Pointed Roofs” three times.
The first time it came to me with itsoriginal wardrobe, a different dress for everymood; and in some places the handwriting ofthe manuscript clothed the thought with theragged urgency of haste; and in others it worean aspect incredibly delicate and neat, as if thewriter had caressed each word before setting itdown. I decided then that “Pointed Roofs”was realism, was objective. The influence of thevarying moods I inferred from the vagaries of theholograph, inclined me to believe that the bookpresented the picture of a conscious artist, outsideher material, judging, balancing, selecting.
The second time the novel came to me intypescript, in the formal, respectable dress ofthe applicant for a clerkship. It was there toanswer questions; willing to be examined butreplying always in a single manner. I changedmy opinion after that interview. I thoughtthat I had a clearer sight of the method and Iswung round to a flat contradiction of myearlier judgment. This, I thought, is the mostsubjective thing I have ever read. The writerof this has gone through life with eyes thatlooked inward; she has known every personand experience solely by her own sensations andreactions.
And, now, I have read “Pointed Roofs” athird time in the form of a printed book; suddenlyranged alongside all the other books, littleand great, and challenging comparison with them.I am no longer prejudiced by the guise in whichit comes; I have been able, within my limits,to judge it as I would judge any other novel....
That final judgment I hesitate to set down inany detail. I do not wish to annoy either criticor public by a superabundant eulogy. I havetoo great faith in the worth of Miss Richardson’swork to fall into that extravagant praise whichmight well be understood as the easy escape ofthe bored friend taking the line of least resistance—mainlyin clichés.
But there is another side to the question dueto the fact that “Pointed Roofs” cannot beranged either with its contemporaries or withthe classics in this kind. And I have volunteeredto prepare the mind of the reader for somethingthat he or she might fail otherwise properly tounderstand, even as I, myself, twice failed.
This statement need not provoke alarm. Thepossible failure to understand will not arise fromany turgid obscurity of style, but only from apeculiar difference which is, perhaps, the markof a new form in fiction. In the past, we haveattempted a separation of two main categoriesin fiction, and in most cases the description ofrealist or romantic has been applicable enough.Neither can be applied in their ordinary usageto Miss Richardson. The romantic floats onthe surface of his imaginings, observing life froman intellectual distance through glasses speciallyadapted to his own