multiple existence--one life for work; one for
the machinery of life, housekeeping, getting clothes made, shopping; one
for seeing my friends, travel, visiting; one life for the other diversions
such as music, the theatre, clubs, politics, one life for just plain
loafing. Now that would be wonderful. But to crowd it all into twenty-four
hours a day--no, too much of it gets squeezed out.

"What do I like the most? Comfort, I think. And old painted satinwood, and
cats and prizefights, and dancing, and Spanish shawls, and looking at the
ocean, and having my own way. And I dislike argument, and perfume, and fat
women, and people who tell the sort of lies that simply insult your
intelligence, and men who begin letters 'Dear Lady,' and long earrings,
and intolerance."

All of which is excellent preparation for the reader of Sophie Kerr's new
novel, _One Thing Is Certain_. Those who read her _Painted Meadows_ will
expect and will find in this new novel the same charming background, but
they will find a much more dramatic story. Since the novel is one of
surprise, with an event at its close which throws everything that went
before in a new, a curious, a startling and profoundly significant light,
I cannot indulge in any further description of it in this place. But I do
wish to quote some sentences from a letter Sophie Kerr wrote me:

"I wanted to show that when lives get out of plumb, the way to straighten
them is not with a violent gesture. That when we do seize them, and try to
jerk them straight again, we invariably let ourselves in for long years of
unhappiness and remorse. Witness Louellen. In two desperate attempts ...
she tries to change the whole current and colour of her life."

So much for the essential character of the story, but there is a question
in my mind as to what, in the story, readers will consider the true
essential! I think for very many it will not be the action, unusual and
dramatic as that is, but the picture of a peculiar community, one typical
of Maryland's Eastern Shore, where we have farmer folk in whom there lives
the spirit and tradition of a landed aristocracy. The true essential with
such readers, will be the individuals who are drawn with such humour and
skill, the mellowness of the scene; even such a detail as the culinary
triumph that was Louellen's wedding dinner. A marvellous and incomparable
meal! One reads of it, his mouth watering and his stomach crying out.

=ii=

_The House of Fiv