The Green Mirror
A QUIET STORY
BY
HUGH WALPOLE
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1917,
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
THE GREEN MIRROR
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TO
DOROTHY
WHO FIRST INTRODUCED ME
TO
KATHERINE
“There’s the feather bed element here brother, ach!and not only that! There’s an attraction here—hereyou have the end of the world, an anchorage, a quiethaven, the navel of the earth, the three fishes that arethe foundation of the world, the essence of pancakes, ofsavoury fish-pies, of the evening samovar, of soft sighsand warm shawls, and hot stoves to sleep on—as snugas though you were dead, and yet you’re alive—theadvantages of both at once.”
Dostoeffsky.
My dear Dorothy,
As I think you know, this book was finished in the monthof August, 1914. I did not look at it again until I revisedit during my convalescence after an illness in the autumn of1915.
We are now in a world very different from that with whichthis story deals, and it must, I am afraid, appear slow indevelopment and uneventful in movement, belonging, in styleand method and subject, to a day that seems to us alreadyold-fashioned.
But I will frankly confess that I have too warm a personalaffection for Katherine, Philip, Henry and Millicent to beable to destroy utterly the signs and traditions of their existence,nor can I feel my book to be quite old-fashioned whenthe love of England, which I have tried to make the text ofit, has in many of us survived so triumphantly changes andcatastrophes and victories that have shaken into ruin almostevery other faith we held.
Let this be my excuse for giving you, with my constantaffection, this uneventful story.
Yours always,
HUGH WALPOLE.
Petrograd,
May 11th, 1917.