The Judgment Books

Fiction ~ novella
First serialized in The Graphic November 1894
Published in full 1895
24,405 words

A very posh portrait-painter paints a self-portrait, neurotically.
When you boil all the rotting flesh off this bloated carcass of a story, that's all you're left with.
Even if Benson had told it at his customary short-story length (5-6,000 words), it would still have been vastly overlong.
The author doesn't blush to mention that he's been inspired by (voir plagiarized) Stevenson's Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886); what he singularly does fail to mention is that the yarn owes as much to Wilde's Dorian Gray (1890/91).  At the exact time The Judgment Books was being published in full, Wilde was engaged in his idiotic trials.  So that might have had something to do with the omission.


A truly mind-blowingly atrocious piece of writing.

QUOTABLES
There's one very brief interlude in all the tedium.  Our toff hero and his toff wife have invited the vicar and his wife to dinner ~ for no reason other than to have a break in the tedium, it seems.  The vicar's wife, Mrs Greenock, is ceaselessly inquisitive:

[Asking questions of everyone], she was persuaded, was the best way of improving an

 already superior intellect, as hers admittedly was.  There is a great deal to be said for

 her view—there always was a great deal to be said for her views, and she usually said

 most of it herself.

Now that you've read the one good line in this yarn, please forget about it.  Under no circumstances should you attempt to read it.

THE CRITICS

An odd, suggestive story … The tale is well told, the conceit a striking one.

~Hartford Courant, quoted in front endpapers of The Vintage

Mr. Benson is at his best thus far, in this new book rather than in Dodo, and that best is excellent.

~Boston Advertiser, quoted in front endpapers of The Vintage

The new work of the author of Dodo is much less ambitious and somewhat better written than that amusing story. It is hardly long enough to be called a novel, and treats of a single episode in the life of a portrait-painter. This gentleman, who is not very strong in the mind, reads Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde whilst he is casting about for a new piece of work, and it fires his imagination to “put his Jekyll and Hyde on the canvas for men to wonder at and be silent before.” He would paint himself, he decided, “as the husband and lover of Margery, the Jekyll of himself who had known and knew the best capabilities for loving in his nature; and he would paint his Hyde, the man who had lived as other men live in Paris, a Bohemian, careless, worthless, finding this thing and that honey in the mouth, but to the soul wormwood and bitterness.” Unfortunately Margery, who was not only his wife, but his backbone, went away on a visit, and the consequence was that Hyde got the upper hand on the canvas. One is then led to expect a sort of Dorian Gray transformation, but nothing comes of it. The wife returns home, the picture is destroyed, and everything goes on as before. There is a good deal of moralising about the immortality of all our deeds, and how they are inscribed in the 'judgment books', but it is not particularly new. One is left with a distinct feeling that in this little work Mr Benson, to use an expressive American phrase, “has bitten off more than he can chew.”

~The Glasgow Herald, 18/07/1895

The Judgment Books, by E. F. Benson, tells the story of an artist who painted himself as he was, influenced by the story of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. It is rather horrible, but the conception is well carried out. Frank Trevor had “lived the life of a man,” in Paris too, and his wife accepted him, declining to hear his story. She was consistent, however, and when he had painted a terrible picture of himself as he was (or, rather, of the 'Mr Hyde' part of him), she saved him by her love from madness, and accepted him as he was, good and bad. A book like this cannot be read without one gaining an impression not merely of its cleverness; the brief, concentrated story is one that haunts the imagination and awakens thoughts which the best of men would willingly let die out of his memory.

~The Leeds Mercury, 31/07/1895

A curious, imaginative, introspective study of character. An artist of singularly sensitive temperament paints a portrait of himself, and knowing of certain dark passages in his life is driven to express them in his picture. The result is a 'horror' that terrifies his wife and well-nigh deprives him of reason. How he is saved by her courage and devotion must be learnt from the book itself, which is well worth reading from more than one point of view.

~The Liverpool Mercury, 28/08/1895

The Judgement Books [sic] is Fred's attempt to emulate Dorian Gray, and was published in the year of Wilde's disgrace (1895 also saw The Importance of Being Earnest). The hero, Frank, is an artist who believes that each time he paints he loses part of himself which is, as it were, kidnapped and absorbed by the picture in hand. He is now embarked upon a self-portrait, but is frightened by the prospect that he may paint himself as he really is ~ dissolute and depraved ~ and not as the good and decent man his loving wife Margery sees. For Frank, before he married, had been rather a cad and risks raising the ghost of that past life. Indeed, as the picture progresses, it grows more vicious and reveals a loathsome personality, which Margery flees from in fear. Eventually, Frank persuades Margery to help him, to rescue him from himself, and the painting is dramatically ripped to pieces.

Not only is the theme Wildean, but there is a Wildean principle at stake which Fred seems to question. The preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray makes the famous claim, “There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written.” Benson has Frank make an analogous point about art:

You call one thing pretty, another ugly. Believe me, art knows no such terms. A

thing is true, or it is false; and the cruelty of it is, that if we have as much as grain

of falsehood in our measure of truth, the thing is worthless. Therefore, in the

picture I am now painting, I have tried to be absolutely truthful; as you said at

dinner, I have tried to paint what I am, without extenuation or concealment. Would

you like to see it? You would probably call it a hideous caricature, because in this

terrible, cruel human life, no man knows what is good in him, but only what is bad.

It is those who love us only, who know if there is any good in us.

In other words, a portrait may be well-painted (honest) or ill-painted (deceitfully), but it cannot be accused of evil. It can only depict what is, and not be blamed for failing to depict what ought to be. With the denouement of the story, however, it is clear that Benson is challenging this view. He does not believe the artist has a responsibility towards his audience as well as towards his art, that there is evil in the world and the artist must neither glamorise nor excuse it. Fred's moral view is simple, and it occurs again and again in his work. It is this: evil can be banished by good, and salvation is always possible, but the struggle, the conflict, are unceasing. In The Judgement Books it is Margery who saves Frank. […] Since many of Fred's books are made of incidents in his life, stitched together in varying ways, or reflect moments in his intellectual and moral development, we are bound to ask, who was it who saved Fred from himself.

The Judgement Books was a dismal flop …

~Brian Masters in The Life of E. F. Benson, 1991

Paul

Fiction ~ novel
Published October 1906

I haven't read such a poor novel since ... well, since 40 or so of the other E F Benson novels I've read.
The whole of this story could have been told in the space of a novella (20-30,000 words); instead EFB stretches it out to mind-boggling proportions, until you can see right through it to the void beyond.
The only things to recommend it are two rather brief comic interludes which have little to do with the turgid, preposterous, and unbelievably boring 'romantic melodrama' going on in the foreground: these have echoes of the funnier bits of An Act in a Backwater ~ themselves few and far between.

Few writers of fiction give so much hope to its readers as Mr. E. F. Benson. His versatility is unquestioned, and his style is ever attractive. No other novelist is quite his equal in word-painting of the rarer phases of Nature, and the back-grounds of his works are always admirable. In analysis of a character he is able and convincing, while his men and woman act on each other in a most logical manner. Nevertheless, Mr. Benson has not yet found a subject quite worthy of his powers. In the present case, the mis-mating of a gifted girl with a vampyre-like, loathsome man of wealth, we have unquestioned power, but despite the clever development of the plot, we have a suspicion that a better might well have been found.

[Here I’ve omitted a fairly detailed description of the plot.] Unquestionably there is power in the story, and some of its passages are redolent of beauty. The comparison and analysis of character are excellent, both in Paul, Norah, and Beckwith, while in such minor skethces as Mrs Mundy, Archdeacon Harold and his wife, and Lady Anstruther, the humour is unfailing. Paul's temptation suggests that of Gwendolen in Daniel Deronda, but there is no plagiarism.

~The Manchester Courier, 16/10/1906

The amazing power and subtlety of Mr E. F. Benson's Paul […] almost takes one's breath away. It is a novel which the reader can never forget. Theodore Beckwith is a very wealthy young man, with a withered and contorted frame, but with a gift of insight and a strength of personality which are both entirely out of the common. He marries Norah Ravenscroft, a bright and buoyant girl, who has, in the spirit of good comradeship, a healthy and sun-browned friend, Paul Norris. The motives which inspire Norah to accept Beckwith are difficult to state in brief, but her mother's unfortunate speculations are no small factor. The motives which inspire Beckwith are equally compounded of different elements, but among them is the desire of a morbid soul to have brightness and cheerfulness near to him. He is delighted when he sees Paul and Norah together; their natural chaff, the joy of their sunny friendship, their infectious hilarity, all have their influence upon him. So he invites Paul to become his secretary, and Paul, at Norah's express wish, accepts the position. Soon Beckwith discovers that Paul loves Norah, and that Norah loves Paul; indeed, he is the witness, with his eerie insight, of their own silent discovery of the fact. Then he begins to play upon their passions, flinging them together, playing wild music, to which he bids them dance, acting, in short, a diabolical part with a friendly face. One time he plays eavesdropper, and hears that spoken which was inevitable. With the utmost calmness he speaks to Paul. No, Paul must not go away; he must stay to be forced “to dance on a hot plate.” It is a terrible situation, and the portrayal of the three characters is beyond praise. Here, indeed, is fine psychology, with admirable restraint, relieved by dialogue between the subsidiary characters which never poses as brilliant, but is joyful and bright as the sunshine itself. On the day after Norah has communicated the fact of her impending motherhood to Beckwith he is killed by a motor-car which Paul, in a frenzy of hatred, is driving at his master's behest. Once again subtle questions enter. Was it murder? The line is difficult to draw, and the remorse-stricken Paul spends agonised months in drawing it, nor does he find peace until one morning he attends a Communion service at St Paul's, and the 'comfortable words' go home to his heart. Then he goes and confesses his murderous hatred of Beckwith to Norah, taking his courage in both hands. In itself this chapter is a triumph of spiritual analysis; it brings Mr Benson to us on an astonishing plane of achievement. Of course, afterwards, he wins Norah. We have no compunction in telling the plot. It is of the smallest consequence. That which matters in this remarkable novel is the analysis of complex motives, the laying bare of abortions in psychological structure and of unusual subtleties in the affections, such as most of us have found in practical life, the deep and even profound realisation of the meaning of sin and of its awful Nemesis. In the school of the psychological novel, which in our days seems to be the conquering form, not even Mr Henry James, with all his precision of subtle analysis, has carried the art farther than Mr Benson in this book. It is a novel which will abide in the hearts of readers with some half-dozen, and no more, of the hundreds which have appeared in the last few years.

~The Liverpool Daily Post and Mercury, 17/10/1906

The author of Dodo and The Challoners has a talent curiously feminine, by which we do not mean precisely effeminate. He does not mince in his gait or speak in falsetto; but his progress is attended by a kind of emotional frou-frou. His characters are always in a flutter of spirits, whether high or low; it is hard to take such volatile persons with becoming seriousness, however grave the predicament into which the author may for the moment immerse them.

There are really only four persons in this present story: an Englishwoman of pleasant manners and a ruinous passion for stock-gambling, who is kept pretty well in the background; her daughter Norah, who loves Paul, but does not know it; Paul, who loves Norah, but does not know it; Theodore Beckwith, the villain, a loathsome person who naturally marries the heroine. Beckwith is a kind of vampire; physically a weakling, with the monstrous power of feeding his strength by contact with youth and vigor. His chief pleasure is in the exercise of a wanton malice. Having married Norah, he induces Paul to become his secretary, thus securing the companionship of two healthy young creatures whom he may feed upon and in due time torture. He sees to it that they remain in no doubt of their feeling for each other, taking pains to throw them literally into each other's arms. The disappointing thing about the tale is that it is only striking, and not moving at all. The villain is too villainous to be true, and the hero too amiable to engage sympathy; the heroine is simply a nice girl in an awkward position. Paul respects the rights of the husband. Eventually, however, he crushes Beckwith under a motor-car, nearly killing himself in the desperate attempt to save the vampire. But he really does kill the other man, and he really has had a momentary impulse to do it deliberately. This fault-preys on his mind for over a hundred pages, during which he takes to drink, and otherwise enjoys himself very little. Finally he atones by rescuing Beckwith's child from being run over by a train. This makes everything as comfortable as possible.

~The Nation, 13/12/1906

There is just a tinge here of that diabolism toward which Mr. Benson seems to have a bent. It is seen in the malignant and superhumanly clever creature who, himself all but a cripple, thrives in a ghoulish sort of way on the good health and spirits of others. This distressful person pervades the book. His tragic taking off by an automobile steered by an enemy, who is never quite sure whether or not the killing was intentional, gives an opportunity for some dexterous juggling with questions of conscience, remorse, and love. Mr. Benson always makes his books readable, and this is no exception.

~The Outlook (US), 15/12/1906

Some dozen years ago when his Dodo appeared it was realized that a writer of more than ordinary ability had entered the field. In the years that lie between that relatively crude effort and the work

under notice there is evident an improvement both in literary style and conception of plot. The individuality and distinction of phrase are maintained, but the obtrusive 'smartness' which marred the first novel has been carefully eliminated.

Paul is a modern love-story, the scenes of which are laid in Italy and England. The principal characters, Paul and Norah, are healthy, normal, English

types, who from the first are attracted to each other and in the natural course of events should have married and been happy ever after. A very different destiny, however, has been ordered for them.

Their Eden has an intruder in the person of Theodore Beckwith, one of the strangest and most sinister characters that ever issued from the brain of a novelist. Puny, anemic, irritable, and a victim of insomnia, he presents a sufficiently striking contrast with the handsome young athlete who is the hero of the drama. Tho[ugh] the novel ends happily and the true lovers come by their own the reader can hardly forgive the author for the untimely death of the best-drawn character in the book.

~The Literary Digest (US), 19/01/1907

Another novel of the month which has Italy for a setting is Paul, by E. F. Benson, best remembered as the author of Dodo. Frankly, it is a purposeless book and an unpleasant one. Its interest suddenly drops at the half-way point, like an underdone loaf of cake, and what is meant to be its most solemn chapter is more apt to provoke a desire to laugh. Norah Ravenscroft would have married Paul Norris if her mother had not gambled away her money. As it was, she married Theodore Beckwith instead. Mr. Benson expects us to like Norris; he is just a strong, clean-limbed, clean-minded young Englishman, a good-natured, grown-up boy, and on the whole rather colourless. Beckwith, on the contrary, we are expected to dislike; he is a weak, undersized, obnoxious little animal, almost uncanny in his ability to gather strength and energy from those around him, sapping their vitality in a manner almost vampire-like. But unpleasant as he is, Beckwith has the merit of being original, and when, half way through the story, the author strikes off his head with a sweep of his pen, the

interest of the book dies with him. A husband who is not only devoid of jealousy, but actually foresees that his wife is likely to fall in love with another man, and makes that man his secretary

so as to secure his constant presence in the house, and amuse himself by watching the struggles of the luckless couple against their growing infatuation, is at least a novelty in fiction, although a rather morbid one. But after Paul has simplified the situation by running an automobile over Theodore, there follows a wearisome delay while Paul is mentally outgrowing his boyhood and becoming enough of a man to decide whether he really meant at the last moment to run over Theodore, and if he did mean to do so, whether it is his duty to confess to Norah that he is the murderer of her husband. And when he finally does muster up the courage to tell her, she just looks at him and intimates that she has known it all the time and loves him all the better for it. This ought to satisfy Paul, but it doesn't. He continues to feel that he ought to make some sort of atonement for his sin. The idea stays by him, even after he and Norah are married. But the dead Theodore has left behind him a constant reminder in the shape of an infant son; and after the manner of infants, it learns in time to use its feet, and one day manages to toddle away from its mother across the railway tracks, directly in the course of an oncoming express train. Paul knows at once that the hour for his atonement has come. He flings himself before the train, fishes Theodore's child from under the engine's wheels and tumbles headlong beyond the tracks. Then the train is gone, and Norah is saying to him, "You gave your life for the child. You gave it to Theodore!" And Paul answers in all seriousness, "Yes, at least I meant to." Mr. Benson must have lost the last vestige of that sense of humour which he apparently possessed when he wrote Dodo.

~Frederic Taber Cooper in The Bookman, 01/1907

In Paul, Mr. E. F. Benson shows himself one of the most daring of modern novelists. I do not use this epithet in the cant sense of the term, as denoting that he deals with subjects that it would be more wholesome to leave alone, for we have here no example of tainted or neurotic fiction. He is a daring writer because of his extraordinary presumption upon the confidence and good-will of his readers. He deliberately constructs the first half of his plot in such a way as to produce the maximum of irritation, not to say resentment. Our natural impulse at the end of this section of the book is to throw the whole thing aside and refuse to allow our patience to be abused any longer. The picture of the physically puny but intellectually formidable Theodore Beckwith is too cleverly wrought to be incredible and too subtle to be disgusting, but we feel as though the writer were taking an unfair advantage of us in compelling us to make the acquaintance of so abnormal a creature. If he had not established a claim upon our attention by his previous work, we should ask indignantly whether our imaginations were given us to conceive such a ghoulish figure as this, and should joyfully accept the killing of Beckwith as liberating us from an evil dream and exempting us from the necessity of pursuing the fate of the other characters any further.

But Mr. Benson goes placidly on with his story in the conviction that we shall hear him out, and we do. We then find that the grewsome Beckwith episodes are the fitting and necessary background for a character study of remarkable power and thrilling interest. At first we had thought that the book should properly have been entitled Theodore, for until the end of the thirteenth chapter he was the outstanding figure and Paul Norris merely one of many victims of his ingenious cruelty; but from this point onward we recognize that what has gone before is preparing the way for the great conflict between inclination and duty that has been fought out in the soul of Paul.

A young man of much personal charm and of habitual gayety of spirit is suddenly staggered by a tragedy in which his own share is so strangely complicated that it is impossible for us who know all to pronounce him either innocent or guilty. It was an accident and no murder, an accident in which Paul even risked his own life to save that of his enemy; yet, paradox though it may be, there was in the deed a sufficient element of murderous intent to plant a sting of ceaseless self-reproach in the

conscience of the unhappy cause of it. This agony of the man who cannot acquit himself, though the world holds him blameless and even admires his magnanimity, presents to the novelist a much more intricate problem than that familiar subject, the inexorable remorse of the undetected criminal.

The terror of Paul Norris is not that of Bill Sikes. But the alleviation which is open to the most brutal offender against the laws of society tempts him also. There is one unfailing means of expunging the sense of evil and of removing what its victim persuades himself is a morbid sense of responsibility. The alternate exhilaration and despair, the comfort and the burden, the valorous resolutions and the ingenious self-deceptions of the secret drinker are here portrayed with graphic

power. The steady degradation of character that we are watching is the result not of sensual self-indulgence — for Paul does not drink for drink's sake — but of an almost panic-stricken impulse to snatch at anything that promises an anodyne for the poison of remembrance. Until within a few pages of the close, we are kept in suspense as to whether Paul's enemy and persecutor, by the mere memory of the tragedy that cut him off, is to work more havoc after death than in life and is to drive

him to utter collapse, body and soul.

It is no small triumph for a writer to make us admit, when so near the denouement, that we have not the least idea how it will all end and that whether Paul goes to the bad or pulls himself together the conclusion will in either case be entirely credible. The passage in which the crisis is reached and Paul is delivered at one stroke both from his mental obsession and from his debasing habit is, for its dramatic interest, the culmination of the whole story. If we laid the book aside now it would be with the satisfaction that comes from the relief of an almost personal anxiety. Yet. the two chapters that remain by no means produce the effect of an anti-climax. For one moment we apprehend that we were over-hasty in our anticipation of a 'happy ending,' and that though Paul has been saved from the curse that has been dogging him, he is to have but a brief enjoyment of the expected boon. The apprehension passes and the incident that has caused it is found to be the one thing that was needed to complete and assure the happiness that it threatened.

A book which appeals so strongly to the deepest emotions requires a considerable intermingling of lighter elements if it is not to produce at times a sense of unbearable strain. This need is supplied by the cleverness of the dialogue, the variety of the minor characters, and the artistic quality of the descriptions of Italian and English scenery. The figure of Mrs. Mundy shows that a cheerful contribution to the general effect of a story may be made by the introduction of a person who is incurably pessimistic. Such is her habit of mind that as she is engaged on a watercolor of the Bay of Salerno she manages to infuse into the radiant Italian sunshine something of her own melancholy. "One felt that it might begin to rain any minute." The Archdeacon's wife also adds much to our pleasure, as does Lady Ravenscroft, who "did not like money in the least — she only disliked the absence of it, which is a far different matter."

~Herbert W. Horwill in 'Present-day Tendencies in Modern Fiction', The Forum, 04/1907

A genuinely fine novel; a story marked by powerful workmanship and glowing with the breath of life.

~Daily Telegraph, 1907

It is a fine study of a soul stricken with remorse, brought through the depths to God's peace at last. It is marked by a high seriousness, and an understanding and sympathetic tact.

~The Guardian, quoted in endpapers of Sheaves

Written with uncommon intensity and brilliance. Somehow it has presented to him a problem that has appealed to all that is warm and human within the sphere of his own gifts, and the result has been that he has given us a novel that is marked by deep thought, clever construction, and a most intimate knowledge of the play of emotion between real men and women. He has achieved a triumph.

~The Standard, quoted in endpapers of Sheaves

The lighter side of the story is characteristic of Mr. Benson at his best and gayest. Nothing could be more natural or more amusing than most of the dialogue, and a whole handful of the subsidiary figures; it is full of admirable portraiture and an abundance both of humour and of humanity.

~The Outlook (UK), quoted in endpapers to Juggernaut and Sheaves

[…] another story of salvation [is] Paul […] in which the eponymous hero has an affair with a married woman, murders her husband, repents, and finally saves her child from being squashed by a train.

~Brian Masters in The Life of E. F. Benson, 1991

The Climber

Fiction ~ novel
Published 1908
Approx. 138,000 words
Available online here

THE CRITICS

From certain points of view the heroine of Mr. Benson's new novel, The Climber, may be likened to the immortal figure of Becky Sharp. Like Becky, Lucia is absolutely unscrupulous, cold-hearted, and selfish. Like Becky, she is brilliantly successful in the early part of her career, and, again like Becky, she comes to absolute grief in the end. She has not, however, Becky's financial excuses for her downfall, her brilliant marriage and subsequent magnificent establishment being extremely unlike Becky's elopement and the house in Curzon Street owned by Mr. and Mrs. Rawdon Crawley. The whole of Mr. Benson's story is occupied with the figure of the heroine; and if it is necessary to portray in great detail so unattractive a figure, it must be acknowledged that Mr. Benson's study

is eminently successful. But this is where we find the great difference between clever modern novels and that great classic to whose heroine we have compared Lucia. In Vanity Fair Becky Sharp, though marvellously drawn, is only one figure in a gallery of masterly portraits. In a modern story, if the author takes the trouble to give one character drawn in careful detail, he builds up the whole structure round this figure and makes the rest of the book entirely subsidiary to it. Therefore, while Vanity Fair is read with ever-renewed pleasure, books like The Climber are merely painful and morbid studies of social disease. Mr. Benson has his good heroine ~ her name is Maud ~ but she is only drawn in outline, the one attractive figure in the story being Lucia's aunt Cathie. The Climber is not an immoral book in the sense of vice being triumphant, but, inasmuch as the overthrow of the heroine is due to the imprudence of being found out, it can hardly be said to what our forefathers would have called “improving reading.”

~The Spectator, 21/11/1908

Mr. Benson evidently believes there is still a serious novel-reading public. He has written a solid book which refuses to be skimmed, and which might even bear a second reading. Yet it exploits no virgin field, has no dubious scene, no purple patches, and no apparent purpose other than the dramatic representation of character. The social group to which most of the persons belong is a cultivated section of the English upper class, or—more democratically speaking—of the 'smart set.'

The Climber, Lucia Crimson, is a near spiritual relative of Mr. Pinero's Iris and Mrs. Wharton's Lily Bart. Living in quiet boredom with her two tea-drinking, patience-playing maiden aunts—capitally drawn and differentiated—she nourishes a dream of luxurious self-realization. She finds her opportunity in the priggishly æsthetic, very correct young Lord Brayton, who is not only affected by her personal charms, but is also persuaded that she can make his home the centre of a 'New Set' devoted to a very refined type of culture. This æsthetic lord seeks the beautiful in life and art with curious self-conscious and humorless gravity. Lucia, clear-headed and hard-hearted, conducts a Napoleonic social campaign, winning every battle, fulfilling every self-indulgent desire, till at last real passion touches her. Then, relentlessly, as she took Lord Brayton from her best friend, she takes away her best friend's husband. High tragedy cannot befall the two diversely fervid egotists of the drama; but such disaster as their souls are capable of comes swiftly upon them.

No other novel of Mr. Benson's shows such sobriety and maturity of workmanship. The story moves firmly, harmoniously, if somewhat slowly, forward under the conduct of a critical intelligence. The earlier chapters, indeed, make one a little impatient. The author is in no haste to get into action. He describes his field with excessive particularity as if assured of an attentive hearing. He has the bad habit of explaining the precise significance of every important speech, and he gives the reader a sharp nudge when the speech is clever. He has worked with such laborious conscientiousness that he cannot bear to let any good stroke pass unnoticed. Yet his characters are complexly alive, they develop, and they meet in sharp dramatic conflict. One may detest them all; but they survive the closing of the book.

~The Nation, 25/02/1909

Formerly the social climber was the parvenu, the vulgar person, recently enriched, who sought by means of her wealth to associate with people of position. That is the class of person held up to ridicule in such books as The Yellow-plush Papers, Ten Thousand a Year, and The Potiphar Papers. Nowadays the social straggler must enter the fray with a far more complete outfit than that of mere money, or she stands no chance of success. Intelligence, a certain amount of culture, real or imitation, never-ending perseverance and a goodly proportion of that cleverness that is quick to perceive and profit by the weaknesses of others—these are the weapons with which the climber of to-day seeks to capture the desired position.

In describing the career of Lucia Grimson Mr. Benson has given us one of his best stories and drawn some of his best characters. First of these is Lucia herself, beautiful, clever and condemned to that hopelessly dull existence which is the lot of the British alone among the nations of the earth, and from which matrimony seems to offer the only escape. Lord Brayton appears upon the scene, and to secure this eligible husband Lucia exerts every effort and ruse. Brayton is something of a prig, but a good fellow withal, desirous of doing his duty as a citizen, and sincere in his wish to have his influence, his house, and his name stand for something higher than mere fashion. His appreciation of culture is real, though perhaps a little conscious and laboured, and it is by playing skilfully upon this trait of character that Lucia wins him, and deliberately, although she knows that her best friend, Maud, is in love with him.

After a few years of married life she begins to find her husband rather tiresome and realises the difficulty of keeping up her pose of caring only for the higher things of life, but she has gained so much by her marriage that these are but trifles. Up to this time her heart, such as it is, has been entirely untouched when, suddenly, comes her emotional experience. Maud has married a cousin of Lord Brayton's and is very happy. Charlie is attracted by Lucia, as all men are; she begins by liking to exert her power over him, and before she knows it, the mischief is done and each is aware of the other's sentiments. No feeling of loyalty to the man who had given her so much, no touch of pity for the woman whom she is again robbing, assails Lucia. She encourages Charlie and draws him on, with the usual result of detection, exposure, and the Divorce Court. Maud sends her husband away for six months, at the end of which time he is to choose between his wife and Lucia. Should his choice be the latter, Maud will do what she can to make their marriage possible; should he decide in favour of his wife, she will take him back. Lucia goes back to the dull home in Brixton to await her sentence, which comes, six months later, in the form of a paragraph in the paper announcing that Mr. and Mrs. Charles Lindsay are in town for the remainder of the season. Her doom is sealed, and from thenceforward her life stretches on before her like a dusty road, dull and hopeless.

Lucia is plainly the descendant of Dodo, the author's earlier creation, though a little more modern, a little better educated, and far more of a manoeuverer. Her selfishness is a little more decently covered, but she is just as hard and worthless. The characters of the two old aunts are wonderfully well drawn: Aunt Cathie, with the severe appearance and demeanour and the tender heart, and Aunt Elizabeth, soft in manner, but really as hard as nails. Mr. Benson is a very prolific writer, but it is long since he has given us as good a story as The Climber.

~Mary K. Ford in The Bookman, 03/1909

Mr. Benson's book is a study in selfishness. One Lucia Grimson, poor, discontented, but ambitious, schemes deliberately to 'grab' the things in life that she considers worth while. Her wants are insatiable. To quote her own extravagant language, "I want the Pleiades to wear in my hair; I want to wear the moon as a pendant round my neck; I want Saturn and Jupiter to shine in my girdle; I want Venus." By ingenious deception, a titled husband, wealth, and social standing are secured, but these are not enough. Finally, the dangerous experiment of winning the affections of her friend's husband is tried, and this marks the beginning of the end.

The theme is not a pleasant one. The book contains few lovable or interesting characters with the exception, possibly, of the ridiculous but whole-souled Aunt Cathie with the queer dress and manners of a dim past. Even the goodness of the wronged wife is of the milk-and-water variety and calls forth little admiration.

The end of the story finds several lives wrecked and Lucia back in the small world with its round of monotonous duties from which she had struggled so frantically to escape. The outlook is hopeless for all, and it is with a sense of dreariness that the reader closes the book with the question in his mind if the society life of to-day is really as bad as it is painted.

~The Literary Digest, 06/03/1909

 

In his latest novel Mr. E. F. Benson shows himself in a graver and sterner mood than is habitual with him. The Climber is a merciless and very clever vivisection of an utterly unscrupulous and self-centred nature.

~The Outlook, quoted in endpapers to Juggernaut

In all the people whom he introduces he interests us, and his story is written with striking effect. It contains many passages one would like to quote, there are some fine descriptions in it, and those little Bensonian touches which reveal the author's wonderful power of observation are to be found on almost every page.

~The World, quoted in endpapers to Juggernaut

An unsparing analysis of an ambitious woman's soul ~ a woman who believed that in social 
supremacy she would find happiness, and who finds instead the utter despair of one who has 
chosen the things that pass away.

~?, quoted in endpapers of In the Morning Glow by Roy Rolfe Gilson

In The Climber by E F Benson, we are pleased to welcome the author in familiar mood. Lucia Grimson, who lives in comparative poverty with her two aunts, deliberately sets herself to capture the wealthy Lord Brayton, with whom she knows her friend Maud to be in love. Having climbed, her business [is] to keep waving the flag her husband hoists. But after two or three years with a man whom she does not love, and to whom she is opposed in all her tastes, she is quite ready to yield to the passion she feels for her husband's cousin, Charlie Lindsay, even though she is the husband of the friend she wronged so deeply before. She is divorced by Lord Brayton, Charlie Lindsay returns to his wife, and Lucia goes back to live with Aunt Cathie. This is the bare outline of a story that is full of good things. Vividly interesting characterisation which touches many sides of life, brilliant dialogue, and well pictured scenes all contribute to make this one of the most realistic and excellent of Mr Benson's novels. No one is more adept at unfolding a tale than this author, and, though there is no striking originality of plot in The Climber, the book holds attention from the first page to the last.

~The Manchester Courier, 06/11/1908

The Life of Alcibiades

Non-fiction ~ biography/Ancient Greece
Published 1928
Approx 82,000 words 
(First read 14/10/2016)

There are things of EFB's that I will never ever read, that wild horses armed with Kalashnikovs couldn't induce me to read.  This is one of them.  If you have the stomach for this kind of thing, the whole book is available online here.
STOP PRESS!
Yes, I actually read it.
And, would you believe, I actually quite enjoyed it.

THE CRITICS

Athens of the fifth century B.C. is an episode of human history of which the world is never likely to grow weary, and, as long as people care more for brilliance than for stability, Alcibiades is sure to be the most attractive figure in the latter half of that century. We are well informed as to his character and works, chiefly by Thucydides, who wrote as his contemporary, and by Plutarch, the professional biographer, to whom the fifth century was already ancient history. No one, perusing those two sources, could fail to have a vivid impression of Alcibiades, favorable or otherwise; but, of course, the readers of Thucydides and Plutarch are no longer common, and Mr. Benson has decided to publish a biography combining the evidence of antiquity with the inferences which he thinks may fairly be drawn from that evidence.

Now the first question that presents itself is "How far should such a biography be supplemented by imagination?" And this is a question of considerable importance. Alcibiades is exactly the kind ofperson whose mental processes one longs to know. He was a roué, a spendthrift, and a traitor, yet he exerted an almost magic fascination over his contemporaries. For these facts we have plenty of evidence, implicit or explicit; but for the actual emotional texture of his life we must rely largely on our imaginations, and their contributions are, of course, fiction.

Either the fact or the fiction might dominate: Mr. Benson has tried to hold the balance even, and the result is neither a good novel nor a good biography. It is not a good novel because the fiction is too scanty and generally too slight to add very much to what is contained in the historical sources or to create a character which is a true work of art. Moreover, the style is repetitious and hyperbolic and sometimes cheap. We are told half a dozen times that Alcibiades advised the fortification of Decelea; the superlatives in the language not sufficing, the word 'supremest' is created, and 'superbest' (!); and it is charitable to suppose that such a phrase as "the Bolshevist committee (the Council of Four Hundred!) must commit hari-kari" is due to haste of composition.

 

~Alfred R. Bellinger in The Saturday Review, 20/07/1929 [much abridged: the original is 1,315 words]

Lovers and Friends

Fiction ~ novel
Published 1921
Approx. 84,000 words
Available online here

THE CRITICS

One wishes that Mr. E. F. Benson would devote less time to plot in his stories and more to the delineation of character, for in that line he has an able touch. His latest book Lovers and Friends [...] opens with an enchanting sketch of a well-born egoist who might have proved a dangerous rival of 'Queen Lucia' had he moved in the same circle with that delectable person. Philip Courthope is a man of good family who in early life had studied art in Paris. Altho[ugh] not especially gifted he had a distinct knack at catching a likeness that stood him in good stead, and it was while painting the portrait of a rich American woman some eight years his senior that he decided to make himself comfortable for the rest of his life by a rich marriage. The lady was the widow of a Prussian Junker, and in spite of a dreadful experience with one husband she was soon in love with the good-looking young artist whose portrait of her was so flatteringly like. They were married, but in two years her fire had quite burned out and she was ready to pay him two thousand pounds a year and give him the care of their infant daughter Celia on condition that he did not interfere with her in any way. The arrangement was made with equal satisfaction to both.

Courthope settled in the little watering place of Merriby where, at the opening of the story he is a person of importance in all social affairs. President of the County Club, Treasurer of the Golf Club, and Secretary of the Lawn Tennis Club, his position is sufficiently important to satisfy even his vanity, while his 'Soirées d'Ennui,' given every other week during the Merriby season, with music, dancing and supper so carefully thought out as to seem unpremeditated, are a great success. In the meantime Mrs. Courthope is enjoying herself tremendously in London where she is achieving the main object of her life, which is to know every one. Finally it dawns on her that her daughter is among the few desirable persons whose acquaintance she has not yet made, so she writes to Courthope and proposes to drop in on him shortly for dinner on her way to Exmouth, and see for herself what Celia is like. The inspection proves so satisfactory that she instantly suggests to her husband that Celia shall come to her for an indefinite stay, and offers to make it so well worth his while financially that he consents, tho[ugh] this part of the negotiation is not made public.

From this moment the interest in the book begins to wane. Philip, with his vanity, his egotism and his amusing affectations, gives place to Celia, a modern young woman; a tribe of rattle-pated friends, and her serious-minded lover, Lord Matcham. Like so many present-day heroines, Celia's idea is to take all she can get without much thought as to any return being made. Lord Matcham has a good deal to offer beside his love and devotion and Celia accepts all without caring much for the giver. The usual result follows. She finds her husband rather a bore and bestows her affections on a handsome young materialist who is frankly out for the best he can get in life. It would not be fair to the author to say how the book ends—as a matter of fact the closing scene leaves the reader a good deal of liberty to settle things for himself, but as a story it drags, one reason being that it is impossible to feel much enthusiasm for Celia in spite of her beauty and unhappiness. In fact, the modern heroine is getting to be something of a nuisance with her general crabbedness and discontent. Insisting upon having a child if she is single, refusing to bear one if married, never in love with her husband, no matter what his merits, and generally attaching herself to the most worthless man of her acquaintance, she is rapidly becoming a bore of the first water. Lord Matcham is faintly reminiscent of Lord Brayton in The Climber, tho[ugh] he is not such a prig; Mrs. Courthope is an inconsequent person, and her conversation recalls that of the gifted Dodo, only it is more foolish, less pretentious and consequently more amusing. In Philip Courthope Mr. Benson has given us another of those characters whom he sketches so well, and our chief regret is that there is not more of him in the book and less of the tumultuous Celia.

 

~The Literary Digest, 28/01/1922

Sir Francis Drake

Non-fiction ~ historical biography
Published May(?) 1927

The Weaker Vessel

Fiction ~ novel
Published March 1913
Approx. 138,000 words 




















THE CRITICS

Mr Benson has written his latest novel in a serious mood. There is little of his usual froth and bubble, and no Lady Sunningdales enliven the pages. Nor does the story possess the vitality and delightful humanness of The Challoners and some of his fellows. Eleanor and Harry Whittaker are very interesting to read about, but the Eleanor of the first few chapters who peruses The Second Mrs Tanqueray in secret, and rebels against her duty loving stepmother is much nearer the reader's heart than the Eleanor who says “I forgive you, Harry dear,” at frequent intervals. Harry is often in need of forgiveness. When, as tutor in the house where Eleanor is governess, he wins her love, he possesses good looks, qualified by a weak mouth, and a gift for play writing. Unfortunately this gift requires to be stimulated to do its work well. Half a glass of whisky will enable it to achieve in a couple of hours, what a whole day's solid work has left undone. “From habit, just as people will take a little more bread at breakfast which they do not want, in order to put on it the butter on their plates, which they do no want either,” he gets into the way of finishing the glass. As a matter of course the habit grows. Eleanor discovers it some time after a successful play enabled Harry to marry her. Then the fight begins ~ Eleanor's love versus the drink which gives Harry such happy moods of inspiration. The battle is fierce, for a long time the enemy, reinforced by the actress Maria Anstruther, is victorious, and it is only a chance street accident that gives Eleanor the final victory. In The Weaker Vessel the author displays all his delightful insight into human nature and the little trivialities of life, and while this quality continues to pervade his books they will never contain an uninteresting page.

~The Manchester Courier, 07/03/1913

There are many people, we imagine, who will consider Mr E. F. Benson's latest story, The Weaker Vessel […], the best he has yet written, and certainly its character-studies very nearly approach the high-water mark in modern fiction. Eleanor Ramsden, daughter of a clergyman of peculiarly lovable character, leaves home owing to a disagreement with her stepmother, and accepts a position as governess in the family of an acquaintance. In this same family Harry Whittaker, son of Lord Prinstead, a drunken peer, is acting as tutor, and in and between his tutorial duties is engaged upon the writing of a play, the composition of which owes a good deal to Eleanor's criticism and suggestion. The play is produced, makes a sensation, and Whittaker and Eleanor are soon afterwards married. For a time they are blissfully happy, until at last the young wife discovers that the brilliant passages of her husband's plays ~ written always after she has retired for the night ~ are induced by alcoholic over-indulgence. She exerts herself to save him, and only partially succeeds. While under the spell of her wonderfully subtle influence Whittaker is enabled to ward off the demon but presently another equally potent and less beneficent influence enters his life in the person of the leading actress for whom his play has been written, but whose influence is eventually conquered by the splendid patience and tactful winsomeness of his wife. The character of Eleanor Ramsden is indeed a magnificent creation, and one upon which its creator may well be congratulated. The conception is striking and is the more convincing on account of its very unconventionality, and it is no small tribute to Mr Benson's literary skill that even the wayward Harry Whittaker, with all his faults and with all his failings, never for one moment exasperates or forfeits the sympathy of the reader. The book, indeed, is in every sense so far removed from the commonplace and so brilliantly written throughout that it must be reckoned certainly amongst the most important novels of the present publishing season, and is, moreover, probably one of the few novels of modern production for which the discriminate reader is likely to find a permanent place in his bookshelf.

~ The Liverpool Echo, 08/03/1913

Mr E. F. Benson has perhaps been more praised and more blamed than any other living novelist. He has, of course, the defects of his qualities, and it is impossible for any of us to be always on the heights. But despite occasional adverse criticism, each of Mr E. F. Benson's novels is eagerly welcomed, for in certain senses he gives us what no other writer can do. His latest book, The Weaker Vessel, is one of his longest novels, and he gives a powerful picture of the heights of heroism and unselfishness to which a woman can rise to shield and help her 'Weaker Vessel'. Harry, with his brilliant brain and wholly unbalanced temperament, would not retain the tolerance, far less the love, of any ordinary woman, but Mr Benson's unerring skill makes Eleanor's attitude and large-heartedness simply the outcome of a natural soul. No one can describe London life and society with a wittier and happier pen than Mr Benson, and the creation of Mrs Ramsden along would make the book a joy. Who does not recognise in her the patient, exasperating, unselfish, posing martyr who renders life intolerable to those round her. The Weaker Vessel is distinctly one of Mr E. F. Benson's typical and excellent novels.

~Aberdeen Daily Journal, 10/03/1913

Mr E. F. Benson has made wonderful strides as an author since he wrote the story of undergraduate life at Cambridge, Babe B.A. [sic]. That was bright enough in its way, but it scarcely foreshadowed the brilliant work which was to follow. To-day Mr Benson is unquestionably one of our most popular novelists, and a new work from his pen is eagerly welcomed. It is not difficult to discover the reason for this popularity. Mr Benson's novels depict life [as] it really is; his characters are so thoroughly human. His heroes and heroines are not those perfect beings whom one so frequently finds in the realms of fiction, but ordinary, everyday people, with faults and failings like the rest of mankind.

In The Weaker Vessel, his latest novel, Mr Benson is at his best. The character who furnishes the title is Harry Whittaker, an amiable but weak young man, who when we first make his acquaintance is acting as a private tutor, but soon afterwards blossoms forth into a successful playwright. There is, however, one great drawback. He finds he can only do good work under the stimulus of alcohol. “He had no craving for alcohol in itself, he merely employed it as a means towards an intellectual end, to give him the sparkle and freedom of brain that were necessary to the creation of incisive dramatic writing.” Time and again he resolves to do without it, and to use no spur except that of his own desire, but in the end it proves too strong for him.

Acting as governess in the same house as Whittaker is Eleanor Ramsden, a high-spirited girl, with whom he finds he has many traits and tastes in common. While his ambition is to write a play that shall be accepted by a great actor-manager, she is tremendously keen on becoming an actress, and has already given proof of her talent. Their marriage follows the production of Harry's first play, and for a time there seems nothing to mar their happiness, but it is when her husband is at work on his second play that Eleanor discovers his weakness. To his wife he explains the position:

“There's nothing to be said of the habit I have got into. But the matter is that I can't write unless I've been drinking. Drink ~ I don't mean getting drunk ~ sets something loose in my brain, that which we used to call the elf or the Uncontrollable. And when it's loose ~ very often just one whisky and soda lets its loose ~ I get so keen about my work that I just must keep it loose. And that means drinking more. So it goes on, I drinking instinctively and working, utterly happy because I know I am doing good work, and that the best part of my brain is active. You remember my reading you The Dilemma in the schoolroom at the Wilkins? And how you put your finger on certain bits of slack stuff? All that, just that, and nothing else, was written without ~ without help. All that you thought was good was written with help. In consequence, I did no good work. Of course, it was a rotten plan to trifle with such methods at all, but it was so easy to persuade myself that I would just finish this act, or just finish this play, and that then I would give it up.”

This is what Harry is always saying: “I will give it up when I have done this,” but he has not the strength of will to leave it alone for long. Through it all, however, Eleanor is his good angel. He repeatedly falls away, but she never turns from him, even when faced with a worse trial in the form of a dangerous intimacy between her husband and a leading actress for whom he was been writing a play. She is ever striving to lift him up to higher things, and in the end she has her reward.

The Weaker Vessel, while quite unlike the customary stage novel, gives one an interesting glimpse of the work involved in the writing and production of a play, and reveals something of the terrible nervousness experienced both by dramatist and actor on a first night.

~The Cambridge Independent Press, 14/03/1913

There is a world of irony in the title Mr E. F. Benson has chosen for his latest novel. Eleanor [Ramsden] marries a man who has made a brilliant success of his first play, and is proud of her husband and his work. The awakening comes when she learns that the cannot write save under the stimulus supplied by intoxicants. He is, indeed, the weaker vessel, but her large-hearted love prevents the catastrophe that seems inevitable. Worse is to come, but still she sacrifices herself for the sake of the man she loves. Mr Benson has given us a masterly analysis of temperament and character. He probes the full depths and measures the heights of human nature, and in both he is equally successful.

~The Courier [Dundee], 20/03/1913

This is a contrast in its quietness to the liveliness of the book which first attracted attention to Mr. Benson as a novelist. Dodo had more sparkle, but The Weaker Vessel has far more fidelity to life. It is a serious and truthful study of social conditions and of individual temperament. Particularly exact in its realism is the character of the self-sufficient and narrow-minded rector's wife who makes miserable the life of her cheerful, ambitious, and gifted stepdaughter. Equally good in its depiction is the character of the man the girl marries—a genius as a writer of plays only when he is under the inspiration of alcohol, and therefore inevitably a weak though lovable character, whose life trends naturally downward. While his power weakens, his wife's strengthens; and she becomes a fine embodiment of honor and faithfulness.

~The Outlook (US), 05/04/1913

In Mr. Benson's new novel he draws five admirably contrasted principal characters. The father of Eleanor, the heroine, Mr. Ramsden, a wise and benevolent country clergyman, has that knowledge of the world which comes from the Church not having been his first profession. In striking contrast to him is his well-intentioned wife, who succeeds in being the most disagreeable person who has appeared in fiction for a long time past. The other three characters are the gentleman who enacts the name part of the piece (the novel is so concerned with theatrical matters that it is impossible to help slipping into theatrical language); Eleanor, his wife, who, besides being by far the better man of the two, is a heaven-born genius on the boards; and the Circe of the book, who leads Harry Whitaker astray. She, however, is a far more conventional figure. Harry himself is a striking study, and Mr. Benson almost persuades his readers that his hero was right in yielding to the temptation of giving way to drink when it enabled him to write such admirable dramas. Eleanor Whitaker is herself a well-drawn and credible figure, though the reader would like to hear the opinion of a professional actor-manager on the possibility of her taking the town by storm on the stage without ever having learned the rudiments of her art. The book cannot be called epoch-making, but it is pleasant reading, though the unfortunate Harry is obliged to be half-paralysed before his moral character can be rescued.

~The Spectator, 26/04/1913

In this novel there are two weaker vessels, namely, the father and the husband of the heroine; and for some time we were unable to make up our minds which weaker vessel was intended to give the title to the book. If this were a play, the leading female part would not be that or the heroine, but that of her step-mother—the very virtuous, correct, and managing clergyman's wife. A clever actress might make a great deal of the character. Whether the story would make a play we are not so sure. The vicar's wife gave much of her goods to feed the poor; and she once cheerfully gave her body—at least, her hands—to be burned, by putting out the flames in the clothes of a little boy, who had set himself on fire at a Christmas tree. "The child was not hurt at all, so prompt was her aid ; but he was hurt afterwards when Mrs. Ramsden repeated the occurrence to his mother, adding that she had repeatedly warned the children not to touch the candles. But in no reasonable mind could there be any doubt as to the overwhelming weight that duty occupied in the spiritual economy of Mrs. Ramsden. She put out the small male infant, with risk to herself, as cheerfully and as ungrudgingly as she repeated his misconduct afterwards to his mother." This is the key to her actions and sayings, whenever she comes on the stage; and they usually "bring down the house." As to the lengthy descriptions of the married hero's gradual falling in love with an objectionable actress, and his equally gradual taking to drinking, we found them dull, although cleverly described. By the way, the hero's wife was also an actress, and a very fine one. After seeing her perform, in her greatest character, Mrs. Ramsden said: "The audience were very much pleased, but to me she did not seem to be acting at all. She spoke and did things as she might have in the vicarage at home." And when told that this was the highest tribute she could give her, Mrs. Ramsden replied: "You mean that Harry wrote the part for her, so that there was no acting to be done. I am sure that was very clever of him." The woman is really splendid all through.

~The Tablet, 14/06/1913

E. F. Benson, who customarily avoids problems, presents in The Weaker Vessel an extraordinarily strong and searching study of the man who yields to the devil and the flesh. Whoever desires, without personal experiment, familiarity with the mechanism of surrendering to temptation, cannot do better than to consider the ways of the hero.

~The Atlantic Monthly [US], 11/1913

The Weaker Vessel (1913) contains two women characters who are essentially Bensonian: they may be copied from life, but they do not live. One is the daughter of a viscount and the wife of a country clergyman, and she has all the aggressive qualities that one expects of such women. She lives in an atmosphere of Sunday schools and choir practices, and she is convinced of her absolute righteousness. She exhibits a monumental lack of humour, and her bright, hard verbosity has a stunning effect both on the reader and on Eleanor, her step-daughter. Eleanor is the heroine who, rebelling against her narrow life in the parsonage, marries Harry Whittaker, an alcoholic playwright who has leapt to fame with his first play. Without any training or experience of life Eleanor becomes a famous actress, portraying subtle and varied parts with consummate triumph, taking London by storm. Also among the characters is Marian Anstruther, the stage siren, who wears rose-madder cloaks, and Louis Grey, a high-minded actor-manager who is in love with Eleanor, but at a respectful distance. Not only is Eleanor a great actress, she is wise, large-hearted and loving, and when she discovers her husband's shameful secret she sets out to save him; and she does not desert him even when the siren influences him to descend even further into the depths of degradation.

Harry injures his spine in a motor accident and will never be able to walk again, and Eleanor gives praise to God for delivering him into her hands ~ no more naughtiness for Harry, and no more rivals for her. Marian disappears into outer darkness, though not before Eleanor forgives her for being Harry's mistress. The book ends with a hint of spring in the air after a bitter winter. Harry is about to start another play and Eleanor to resume her acting.

~Geoffrey Palmer and Noel Lloyd in E. F. Benson As He Was, 1988

Typical of the notices [E. F. Benson was getting in the pre-war years] are those which greeted The Weaker Vessel (1913), whose characters include an alcoholic playwright, a temperamental actress, and the stock clergyman's wife stuffed with nauseating piety. The Gentlewoman wrote, “They are essentially Bensonian creations. They might quite possibly be copied from life, but they do not live.” The reviewer went on to lament Fred's 'surface polish, the Benson Brilliantine', because it obscured the talent beneath. New Age, having depicted Fred as 'a servile scribbler', wondered whether he was not, in fact, a satirist in disguise, which was true though not generally acknowledged. Similarly, the Western Gazette remarked that “Mr Benson attacks no problem, but merely paints portraits remorselessly; but the problem nevertheless peeps through between the lines.”

~Brian Masters in The Life of E. F. Benson, 1991