“The book has all its old charm … especially as one can’t help hoping all the way through — yes, though it were at the 20th reading — that Barrie will ‘find a way’ to end it happily. Barrie has to a superlative degree the power of creating atmosphere and character, so that his books give us the sensation of reading about people and places we have known well, and consequently have all the charm of a newsy letter from home. In a much smaller degree, I have the same knack myself.
I cannot help thinking that it was a great pity that Barrie forsook writing books and took to writing plays … He has cheated the world.
Somehow I can never rid myself of the idea that Barrie was depicting himself in Tommy. And was his wife drawn from Grizel? She divorced him — why, has never been satisfactorily explained.”
