his trouser pockets._)

HOST (_loudly_). Lost it?

YOUTH (_pettishly_). I did not say I had lost it! I said I hoped I
had not.... (_Feels in his great coat pocket, and pulls out an
envelope._) Ah! Here it is! (_His face clouds over._) No, that is
the message to Mrs. George, telling her the time has come to get a
wig ... (_Hopelessly_.) Do you know I am afraid I have lost it! I
am really very sorry--I cannot wait. (_He goes off._)

That passage would appear to confute a quite common notion to the effect
that Mr. Belloc, who can and does write nearly everything else, does not
write a play because he cannot. It is not for the purpose of arguing
such a highly abstract point that we must call attention to the exact
way in which it conforms to the necessities of this kind of expression
without losing its character, its vividness, or its rhythm.

It is admirably moulded in its expression of a feeling or a sensation,
and, in this way, Mr. Belloc's style comes very nearly as close to
perfection as can be expected of a human instrument. He renders his
moods, the fine shades of a transitory emotion, the solid convictions
that make up a man's life with spirit, with humour, with beauty, but,
above all, with _accuracy_.

He builds up his sentences and paragraphs with the beauty and permanency
of the old barns that one may see in his own country. He does this
through his sincerity. He does not exaggerate an emotion to catch a
public for the space of half an hour: he does not, in the more subtle
way, affect a cynical or conventional disregard of the noble feelings
and fine motives which do exist in man. It has been his business with
patience and fidelity to seize, with skill to make enduring and
comprehensible in words, the things which do exist.

His style is a weapon or an instrument like one of those primitive but
exquisitely adapted instruments which are the foundations of man's work
in the world. With his use of words, he knows how to expose the
technicalities of a battle or the transformations of the human heart.

CHAPTER IV

THE POET

So much for Mr. Belloc's most copious revelation of his personality. But
this is true--that the most personal expression of all for any man is in
verse: even though it be small in quantity and uneven in quality. It is
as though, here, in a more rarefied and more complex form of
composition--we will not say "more difficult"--some kind of effort or