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Chapter 7: Project Cost Management
TRUE/FALSE
1. Overrun is the additional percentage amount by which estimates exceed actual costs.
ANS: F
Overrun is the additional percentage or dollar amount by which actual costs exceed estimates.
PTS: 1 DIF: Difficulty: Easy REF: p.272

OBJ: LO: 7-1 NAT: BUSPROG: Technology
TOP: The Importance of Project Cost Management KEY: Bloom's: Knowledge
2. The primary output of the planning cost management process is a change request.
ANS: F
The main output of the planning cost management process process is a cost management plan.
Planning cost management involves determining the policies, procedures, and documentation that will
be used for planning, executing, and controlling project cost.

3. IT project managers must be able to present and discuss project information both in financial and
technical terms.
ANS: T
Most members of a company’s executive board have a better understanding of financial terms than IT
terms, and are more interested in finance. Therefore, IT project managers need to be able to present
and discuss project information both in financial terms and technical terms.

TOP: Basic Principles of Cost Management KEY: Bloom's: Knowledge
4. Project managers must conduct cash flow analysis to determine net present value.
ANS: T
Cash flow analysis is a method of determining the estimated annual costs and benefits for a project and
the resulting annual cash flow. Project managers must conduct cash flow analysis to determine net
present value.

5. Intangible costs can be easily measured in monetary terms.
ANS: F
Intangible costs or benefits are difficult to measure in monetary terms. Conversely, tangible costs or
benefits can easily be measured in dollars.
OBJ: LO: 7-2 NAT: BUSPROG: Analytic
6. When deciding what projects to invest in or continue, one should include sunk costs.
ANS: F
Sunk cost is money that has been spent in the past. When deciding what projects to invest in or
continue, one should not include sunk costs.
PTS: 1 DIF: Difficulty: Moderate REF: p.278

TOP: Basic Principles of Cost Management KEY: Bloom's: Comprehension
7. It is important for project managers to focus on indirect costs because they can be easily controlled.
ANS: F
Direct costs can be directly related to creating the products and services of the project. Project
managers should focus on direct costs because they can be controlled.

8. If an important supplier goes out of business, management reserves can be set aside to cover the
resulting costs.
ANS: T
Management reserves allow for future situations that are unpredictable. For example, if a project
manager gets sick for two weeks or an important supplier goes out of business, management reserves
could be set aside to cover the resulting costs.

9. Contingency reserves are also known as unknown unknowns.
ANS: F
Contingency reserves allow for future situations that may be partially planned for. They are sometimes
called known unknowns.

10. A cost management plan can include organizational procedures links, control thresholds, and process
descriptions.
ANS: T
In general, a cost management plan includes level of accuracy, organizational procedures links,
process descriptions, control thresholds, and rules of performance measurement, among others.
OBJ: LO: 7-3 NAT: BUSPROG: Technology TOP: Planning Cost Management
KEY: Bloom's: Knowledge
11. A budgetary estimate is the most accurate of the three types of estimates.
ANS: F
A definitive estimate provides an accurate estimate of project costs. It provides details for purchases
and estimates actual costs.

OBJ: LO: 7-4 NAT: BUSPROG: Technology TOP: Estimating Costs
12. Budgetary estimates are made even before a project is officially started.
ANS: F
Budgetary estimates are made one to two years prior to project completion.

13. Definitive estimates are made one year or less prior to project completion.
ANS: T
Definitive estimates are made one year or less prior to project completion. They provide an accurate
estimate of project costs.

14. Estimates should become more accurate as time progresses.
ANS: T
Estimates are usually done at various stages of a project and should become more accurate as time
progresses.

15. Supporting details for an estimate include the ground rules and assumptions used in creating the
estimate.
ANS: T
In addition to creating cost estimates for the entire project and activity cost estimates, it is also
important to provide supporting details for the estimates and updates to project documents. The
supporting details include the ground rules and assumptions used in creating the estimate, a description
of the project used as a basis for the estimate, and details on the cost estimation tools and techniques
used to create the estimate.

16. Analogous estimates are called activity-based costing.
ANS: F
Analogous estimates are also called top-down estimates. Such estimates use the actual cost of a
previous, similar project as the basis for estimating the cost of the current project.

17. Analogous estimates are the most accurate technique to estimate costs.
ANS: F
Analogous estimates requires a good deal of expert judgment and is generally less costly than other
techniques. However, it is also less accurate.

18. In a bottom-up estimate, the size of the individual work items is one of the factors that drives the
accuracy of the estimates.
ANS: T
The size of the individual work items and the experience of the estimators drive the accuracy of the
estimates. Using smaller work items increases the accuracy of the cost estimate because the people
assigned to do the work develop the cost estimate instead of someone unfamiliar with the work.

19. Parametric models are reliable when the models are flexible in terms of the project’s size.
ANS: T
Parametric models are most reliable when the historical information used to create the model is
accurate, the parameters are readily quantifiable, and the model is flexible in terms of the project’s
size.

KEY: Bloom's: Comprehension
20. One of the reasons why project cost estimates are inaccurate is because human beings are biased
toward underestimation.
ANS: T
One of the reasons why project cost estimates are very inaccurate is because human beings are biased
toward underestimation. It is thus important for project managers and top management to review
estimates and ask important questions to make sure the estimates are not biased.
21. It is important for project managers to understand that every cost estimate is unique.
ANS: T
Every cost estimate is unique, just as every project is unique.

22. Determining the budget involves allocating the project cost estimate to individual work items over
time.
ANS: T
Determining the budget involves allocating the project cost estimate to individual material resources or
work items over time. These material resources or work items are based on
the activities in the work breakdown structure for the project.

OBJ: LO: 7-5 NAT: BUSPROG: Technology TOP: Determining the Budget
23. The project management plan and project funding requirements are inputs of the process of controlling
costs.
ANS: T
The project management plan, project funding requirements, work performance data, and
organizational process assets are inputs for controlling costs.

OBJ: LO: 7-6 NAT: BUSPROG: Technology TOP: Controlling Costs
24. The formulas for variances and indexes start with EV, the earned value.
ANS: T
The formulas for variances and indexes start with EV, the earned value. Variances are calculated by
subtracting the actual cost or planned value from EV, and indexes are calculated by dividing EV by the
actual cost or planned value.

25. If cost variance is a positive number, it means that performing the work costs more than planned.
ANS: F
Cost variance (CV) is the earned value minus the actual cost. If cost variance is a negative number, it
means that performing the work costs more than planned. If cost variance is a positive number,
performing the work costs less than planned.
26. A negative schedule variance means that it took lesser than planned to perform the work.
ANS: F
A negative schedule variance means that it took longer than planned to perform the work, and a
positive schedule variance means that the work took less time than planned to perform.

27. If the cost performance index (CPI) is less than 100 percent, the project is under budget.
ANS: F
If the CPI is less than one or less than 100 percent, the project is over budget. On the other hand, if the
CPI is greater than one or more than 100 percent, the project is under budget.

28. A schedule performance index of one means that the project is on schedule.
ANS: T
The schedule performance index (SPI) is the ratio of earned value to planned value; it can be used to
estimate the projected time to complete the project. A schedule performance index of one means the
project is on schedule.

29. In an earned value chart, when the actual cost line is right on or above the earned value line, it
indicates that costs are less than planned.
ANS: F
Viewing earned value information in chart form helps in visualizing how a project is performing. If the
actual cost line is always on or above the earned value line, it indicates that costs are equal to or more
than planned.

30. Spreadsheets are a common tool for cost estimating, cost budgeting, and cost control.
ANS: T
Most organizations use software to assist in various activities related to project cost management.
Spreadsheets are a common tool for cost estimating, cost budgeting, and cost control.

TOP: Using Project Management Software to assist In Project Cost Management
MULTIPLE CHOICE
1. _____ includes the processes required to ensure that a project team completes a project within an
approved budget.
a. Project scope management c. Project time management
b. Project quality management d. Project cost management
ANS: D
Project cost management includes the processes required to ensure that a project team completes a
project within an approved budget. Project managers must make sure their projects are well defined,
have accurate time and cost estimates, and have a realistic budget that they were involved in
approving.

2. Which of the following involves developing an approximation of the costs of resources needed to
complete a project?
a. Determining the budget c. Controlling costs
b. Finalising the cost baseline d. Estimating costs
ANS: D
Estimating costs involves developing an approximation or estimate of the costs of the resources
needed to complete a project. The main outputs of the cost estimating process are activity cost
estimates, basis of estimates, and project documents updates.

TOP: The Importance of Project Cost Management KEY: Bloom's: Comprehension
3. _____ involves allocating the overall cost estimate to individual work items to establish a baseline for
measuring performance.
a. Determining the budget c. Controlling costs
b. Finalising policies for project costs d. Estimating costs
ANS: A
Determining the budget involves allocating the overall cost estimate to individual work items to
establish a baseline for measuring performance.

4. One of the main outputs of the _____ process is a cost baseline.

a. cost controlling c. cost budgeting
b. cost estimating d. cost planning
ANS: C
Determining the budget involves allocating the overall cost estimate to individual work items to
establish a baseline for measuring performance. The main outputs of the cost budgeting process are a
cost baseline, project funding requirements, and project documents updates.

5. The process of controlling costs primarily involves:

a. determining the policies for project costs. c. finalising the procedures for project costs.
b. managing changes to the project budget. d. determining a basis for estimates.
ANS: B
Controlling costs involves controlling changes to the project budget. The main outputs of the cost
control process are work performance information, cost forecasts, change requests, project
management plan updates, project documents updates, and organizational process assets updates.

6. Work performance information and cost forecasts are main outputs of the _____ process.
a. cost budgeting c. cost control
b. cost estimating d. cost pricing
ANS: C
Controlling costs involves controlling changes to the project budget. The main outputs of the cost
control process are work performance information, cost forecasts, change requests, project
management plan updates, project documents updates, and organizational process assets updates.

7. Profits may be defined as:

a. expenses plus net income. c. revenues plus expenses.
b. costs plus revenues. d. revenues minus expenditures.
ANS: D
Profits are revenues minus expenditures. To increase profits, a company can increase revenues,
decrease expenses, or try to do both.

8. _____ helps develop an accurate projection of a project’s financial expenses and benefits.
a. Critical path analysis c. Life cycle costing
b. Fast tracking d. Crashing
ANS: C
Life cycle costing helps develop an accurate projection of a project’s financial costs and benefits. It
allows one to see a big-picture view of the cost of a project throughout its life cycle.

9. _____ is a method for determining the estimated annual costs and benefits for a project.
a. Critical path analysis c. Present value analysis
b. Cash flow analysis d. Requirements analysis
ANS: B
Cash flow analysis is a method for determining the estimated annual costs and benefits for a project
and the resulting annual cash flow. Project managers must conduct cash flow analysis to determine net
present value.

10. Which of the following is true of tangible costs?

a. They cannot be calculated in monetary c. They are difficult to quantify.
terms.
b. They can be easily measured. d. Their examples include goodwill and
prestige.
ANS: B
Tangible and intangible costs and benefits are categories for determining how well an organization can
define the estimated costs and benefits for a project. Tangible costs or benefits can easily be measured
in dollars.

11. _____ are those costs that are difficult to measure in monetary terms.
a. Intangible costs c. Tangible costs
b. Direct costs d. Fixed costs
ANS: A
Intangible costs or benefits are difficult to measure in monetary terms.

12. Newtech Inc. hires John for the position of a software programmer to work on their new project.
Salary paid to John by Newtech Inc. would be an example of _____ costs.
a. direct c. sunk
b. indirect d. intangible
ANS: A
Direct costs can be directly related to creating the products and services of a project.
For instance, direct costs include the salaries of people working full time on a project.
PTS: 1 DIF: Difficulty: Challenging REF: p.278

OBJ: LO: 7-2 NAT: BUSPROG: Reflective Thinking
TOP: Basic Principles of Cost Management KEY: Bloom's: Application
13. Indirect costs are:
a. directly related to performing the project. c. those that can be easily controlled by
managers.
b. those that cannot be allocated to projects. d. not directly related to the products or
services of a project.
ANS: D
Indirect costs are not directly related to the products or services of the project, but are indirectly related
to performing the project.

14. Soles is a footwear company which has recently set up its store in Ambrosia. To manufacture its
products, Soles incurs a range of different costs. Which of the following would be an example of an
indirect cost?
a. Cost of machines to produce shoes c. Electricity used to run its factories
b. Salary paid to factory workers d. Cost of leather used to manufacture shoes
ANS: C
Indirect costs are not directly related to the products or services of the project, but are indirectly related
to performing the project. For example, indirect costs would include the cost of electricity, paper
towels, and other necessities in a large building that houses 1,000 employees who work on many
projects.

15. Good Earth, a company manufacturing packaged food products, sets up its stores in Baltonia.
However, a year later, the company closes the store down due to high operating costs. In such a
scenario, the money spent in paying for the rent of the store in Baltonia would be an example of _____
costs.
a. recurring c. sunk
b. direct d. intangible
ANS: C
Sunk cost is money that has been spent in the past. When deciding what projects to invest in or
continue, one should not include sunk costs.

16. Which of the following is true of contingency reserves?

a. They allow for future situations that can c. They are not included in a cost baseline.
be partially planned for.
b. They are also known as unknown d. They allow for dollar amounts to be used
unknowns. to cover existing, fixed costs.
ANS: A
Contingency reserves allow for future situations that may be partially planned for (sometimes called
known unknowns) and are included in the project cost baseline.
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17. Which of the following reserves allows for future situations that are unpredictable?
a. Contingency reserves c. Known unknowns
b. Management reserves d. Cost baseline reserves
ANS: B
Management reserves allow for future situations that are unpredictable. They are sometimes called
unknown unknowns.

18. The first step in project cost management is:

a. to allocate project cost estimates to c. to control project costs and monitor cost
individual material resources. performance.
b. to plan how costs will be managed. d. to develop several estimates of costs for
different types of resources.
ANS: B
The first step in project cost management is planning how the costs will be managed throughout the
life of the project. The project manager and other stakeholders use expert judgment, analytical
techniques, and meetings to produce the cost management plan.

OBJ: LO: 7-3 NAT: BUSPROG: Analytic TOP: Planning Cost Management
19. Which of the following is true of a rough order of magnitude estimate?

a. It is used to allocate money into an c. Its timeframe is always less than a year
organization’s budget. prior to project completion.
b. It provides an estimate of what a project d. It is a type of estimate that is done in the
will cost. final stages of a project.
ANS: B
A rough order of magnitude (ROM) estimate provides an estimate of what a project will cost. This
type of estimate is done very early in a project or even before a project is officially started.

20. A rough order of magnitude estimate can be referred to as a _____ estimate.

a. definitive c. final
b. budgetary d. ballpark
ANS: D
A rough order of magnitude (ROM) estimate provides an estimate of what a project will cost. A ROM
estimate can also be referred to as a ballpark estimate, a guesstimate, a swag, or a broad gauge.

21. A cost estimation tool which is used to allocate money into an organization’s budget is known as a
_____ estimate.
a. budgetary c. rough order of magnitude
b. definitive d. ballpark
ANS: A
A budgetary estimate is used to allocate money into an organization’s budget. Budgetary estimates are
made one to two years prior to project completion.

22. A _____ estimate is used for making many purchasing decisions for which accurate estimates are
required and for estimating final project costs.
b. definitive d. final
ANS: B
A definitive estimate provides an accurate estimate of project costs. Definitive estimates are used for
making many purchasing decisions for which accurate estimates are required and for estimating final
project costs.

23. Which of the following types of estimate use the actual cost of a previous, similar project as the basis
for estimating the cost of the current project?
a. Definitive estimates c. Bottom-up estimates
b. Parametric estimates d. Analogous estimates
ANS: D
Analogous estimates use the actual cost of a previous, similar project as the basis for estimating the
cost of the current project. This technique requires a good deal of expert judgment and is generally less
costly than other techniques, but it is also less accurate.

24. Analogous estimates are also known as _____ estimates.

a. bottom-up c. parametric
b. top-down d. budgetary
ANS: B
cost of the current project. They are also called top-down estimates.

25. Which of the following is true of analogous estimates?
a. Their main disadvantage is that they cost c. They are most reliable when previous
more than other techniques. projects are similar in fact with current
projects.
b. They are the only technique which do not d. They use project characteristics in a
require expert judgement. mathematical model to estimate project
costs.
ANS: C
cost of the current project. They are most reliable when the previous projects are similar in fact, not
just in appearance.

26. A cost estimation tool which involves estimating individual work items or activities and summing
them to get a project total is known as a(n) _____ estimate.
a. budgetary c. bottom-up
b. parametric d. analogous
ANS: C
Bottom-up estimates involve estimating the costs of individual work items or activities and summing
them to get a project total. This approach is sometimes referred to as activity-based costing.

27. Which of the following is true of bottom-up estimates?

a. They are based on the actual cost of a c. They are most accurate when they involve
previous, similar project. large, extensive work items.
b. They are also known as parametric d. They are time-intensive and expensive to
estimating. develop.
ANS: D
Bottom-up estimates involve estimating the costs of individual work items or activities and summing
them to get a project total. The drawback with bottom-up estimates is that they are usually
time-intensive and therefore expensive to develop.

28. _____ uses project characteristics in a mathematical model to estimate project costs.
a. Rough order of magnitude estimating c. Bottom-up estimating
b. Parametric estimating d. Analogous estimating
ANS: B
Parametric estimating uses project characteristics (parameters) in a mathematical model to estimate
project costs.
PTS: 1 DIF: Difficulty: Knowledge REF: p.283

29. Which of the following is most likely to be a reason for inaccuracies in information technology cost
estimates?
a. Estimates take a long time to be worked c. Human beings are biased toward
out. overestimation.
b. People lack estimating experience. d. Only software development provides the
scope for estimates to be accurate.
ANS: B
The people who develop software cost estimates often do not have much experience with cost
estimation, especially for large projects. They also do not have enough accurate, reliable project data
on which to base estimates.

30. If the cost estimate for a project is a basis for contract awards and performance reporting, it should be
a(n) _____ estimate and as accurate as possible.
b. definitive d. analogous
ANS: B
If the cost estimate for a project is a basis for contract awards and performance reporting, it should be a
definitive estimate and as accurate as possible.

31. The main goal of the _____ process is to produce a cost baseline for measuring project performance
and project funding requirements.
a. cost budgeting c. cost controlling
b. cost planning d. cost estimating
ANS: A
The main goal of the cost budgeting process is to produce a cost baseline for measuring project
performance and to determine project funding requirements. Determining the budget involves
allocating the project cost estimate to individual material resources or work items over time.

OBJ: LO: 7-5 NAT: BUSPROG: Analytic TOP: Determining the Budget
32. Which of the following is an output of the process of controlling costs?

a. Cost forecasts c. Basis of estimates
b. Project funding requirements d. Scope baselines
ANS: A
Outputs of the process of controlling costs are work performance information, cost forecasts, change
requests, project management plan updates, project documents updates, and organizational process
asset updates.

33. Which of the following is an input of the process of controlling costs?

a. Cost forecasts c. Change requests
b. Work performance data d. Scope baseline
ANS: B
The project management plan, project funding requirements, work performance data, and
organizational process assets are inputs for controlling costs.

34. The budget is one of the three values of earned value management and is also known as _____.
a. earned value c. indirect cost
b. actual cost d. planned value
ANS: D
The planned value (PV), also called the budget, is the portion of the approved total cost estimate
planned to be spent on an activity during a given period.

35. Which of the following is true of earned value?

a. It is the actual cost plus the planned cost. c. It is an estimate of the value of the
physical work actually completed.
b. It is based solely on the total cost estimate d. It is also known as the planned value.
to be spent on an activity.
ANS: C
The earned value (EV) is an estimate of the value of the physical work actually completed. EV is
based on the original planned costs for the project or activity and the rate at which the team is
completing work on the project or activity to date.

36. Variances are calculated by subtracting the actual cost from _____.
a. earned value c. planned value
b. schedule variance d. rate of performance
ANS: A
Variances are calculated by subtracting the actual cost or planned value from EV or earned value, and
indexes are calculated by dividing EV by the actual cost or planned value.

OBJ: LO: 7-6 NAT: BUSPROG: Analytic TOP: Controlling Costs
37. Cost variance is:

Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
LEONARD MERRICK
Leonard Merrick
Until a collected edition of his novels and stories appeared in
1918, Leonard Merrick had been writing for thirty years without
receiving a tithe of the recognition that was over-due to him. I doubt
whether even now he has such popularity as is enjoyed by many
novelists who have not half his capacity, his sure and delicate art, his
supreme gift as a story-teller. I can only explain this with a theory I
have sometimes played with that a book draws its life from its
author, and most books that are immediately and noisily successful
are written by men of robust and pushful personality; they impart
these qualities to what they write and so give their books an impetus
that carries them to success, makes them as pushful and aggressive
in the reading world as the personality behind them is in the world
at large.
This may be purely fantastic, but the fact remains that Leonard
Merrick is a personality of a gracious and retiring order; he is seldom
seen in literary circles, and has no skill in self-advertisement. Once,
not long ago, I told him I had often wondered that such stories as
his had not from the first taken the public by storm, and asked if he
could to any extent help me to understand why they had not done
so. He accepted the implications in my question with a smile and
said, in the quietest, most impartial fashion, “I don’t know. Of course
I have been disappointed when my books were freely praised by the
critics and did not meet with the large circulations I had hoped for
them, and sometimes, when I have thought about it, I have had a
suspicion that perhaps I wrote too much of artists—of novelists,
journalists, actors—and, moreover, too much about artists who
failed. I fancy the public are not particularly interested in the artist;
they prefer to read about people more like themselves—people with
whom and whose ways they are more familiar. Or if they are to be
told of the artist, they want him to be a hero—they want to be told
how he struggled through thrilling trials and difficulties to happiness
and prosperity at last—they don’t want to be saddened by a tale of
his failure; they don’t want to know about him unless he was the
sort of man who could conquer fate and circumstance romantically
and, as the Americans say, make good in the end. And I have seen a
good deal of the artist’s life, and seen how there is bound to be far
more failure than success in it, and I suppose I have tried to picture
it truthfully. Perhaps that was a mistake and I ought, in the language
of the theater, to have kept my eye on the box-office. I don’t know.
That is merely a casual notion of mine, and may not account for
anything.”
However that may be, and whatever it was that kept the large
public that has come to him by degrees from promptly appreciating
him, Merrick’s greatness as a novelist has from the beginning been
fully realized by his fellow-craftsmen; he has all along been the
novelists’ novelist, somewhat as Keats was the poets’ poet, and the
collected edition of his works bore testimony to this in prefaces to
the various volumes by Barrie, Wells, Locke, Chesterton, Neil Munro,
Neil Lyons, and other distinguished authors. None was more
generous in his acclaim than Barrie, who had long before greeted
him as a master of fiction and, in his introduction to “Conrad in
Quest of his Youth,” said, “I know scarcely a novel by any living
Englishman, except a score or so of Mr. Hardy’s, that I would rather
have written.” Allowing for his very different angle of vision, Merrick
is as true a realist as Hardy, but he touches in his characters and
incidents with a lighter hand, and has as shrewd a sense of the
comedy—the piteous comedy it may be at times—as Hardy has of
the tragedy of existence. He does not show his men and women as
the foredoomed and helpless victims of a blind, indifferent,
implacable life-force, but simply tells his story of them, what they did
and what they felt and said, and any spiritual, moral, or social
problem involved in their doings and sufferings is implicit in his
dramatization of their lives and characters; he does not take you
aside to expound it or dogmatize about it: there it is—that is how
things happen, and he is a showman, not a preacher. His prevailing
qualities are a Gallic sparkle and effervescence of wit and gaiety—
especially in such tales as make up “While Paris Laughed” and “A
Chair on the Boulevard”—a limitless charity and pity for the follies,
weaknesses, caprices of mankind, a charm of sentiment that just
stops short of sentimentality, a quick sensitiveness to the humor and
pathos of common life, the anxieties of living by precarious
employment; the tragedy of straitened circumstances; the sheer joy
of living in spite of everything.
He has experienced much of the life he has depicted, and has put
not a little of his personal experiences into “The Worldings,” into
“Laurels and the Lady,” one of the stories of “The Man Who
Understood Women,” and into other of his books. Usually there is
nothing to tell of a novelist’s early days, except that he went to
certain schools, practiced journalism for a while, then wrote a book
or two which found acceptance sooner or later and thereafter took
up permanent residence in the literary world. But Merrick’s career
has been less orthodox and more varied.
A Londoner born, he went with his people to South Africa when he
was eighteen and, entering the South African Civil Service, became
clerk in the Magistrate’s Court on the Diamond Fields. But he had not
the smallest intention of settling down to that. He was, as he told
me, born “stage-struck,” and his one ambition as a youth was to
tread the boards and achieve fame as an actor. In 1884 he returned
to England and obtained an introduction to Augustus Harris, who
gave him an engagement to act in a touring company that was
traveling the country with one of the big Drury Lane autumn
melodramas. He proved himself a thoroughly capable player, yet
would have lost his part, because the touring manager was bent on
pushing him out and supplanting him with a friend of his own, but
for the voluntary intervention of another member of the company
who wrote privately to Harris urging him to go down and see
Leonard Merrick’s acting for himself before making any change.
Harris did so, with the result that Merrick retained his position in the
company for two years, at the end of which period, his enthusiasm
for the actor’s life being cooled, he retired from the profession for
good. Not until some years later did he discover by chance that the
member of the company who, without his knowledge, had
befriended him and saved him from dismissal, was Arthur Collins,
who, in due season, was to succeed Augustus Harris as Drury Lane’s
managing director.
When the disillusioned mummer strutted his little hour before the
footlights for the last time he was twenty-three, and “The Position of
Peggy Harper” is by no means the only one of his books to which his
two years in motley have yielded a rich harvest. Since then, except
that he wrote “The Free Pardon” with F. C. Phillips and some very
popular dramas in collaboration with George R. Sims, the stage has
ceased to lure him and he has devoted himself to the writing of
stories.
Nor did he lose much time in passing from the one calling to the
other, for his first book appeared when he was twenty-four. His
second novel, “Violet Moses,” was rejected by Chatto & Windus, but
accepted by Bentley; and his third, “The Man Who Was Good,” was
rejected by Bentley as not up to the level of the other, but promptly
accepted by Chatto & Windus; one of life’s lighter ironies that
nobody—certainly not Merrick—would have wished to evade. He had
published some half dozen novels before he began to write short
stories. He confesses that he prefers to write these, and there are
stories in at least two of his volumes that for delicate satirical
comedy and subtle art of narration have not been surpassed by any
of his contemporaries.
From the outset, Merrick met with a more popular reception in
America than in this country; his books enjoyed a considerable
vogue there, and his short stories were soon in great demand with
the American magazines. This has happened to so many other of our
writers that one merely mentions it as a biographical fact and not as
matter for surprise. His first real success with short stories over here
came when his agent, A. P. Watt, handed one of his books to the
editor of the Bystander, urging him to read it and see whether its
stories were not of the sort he wanted. He read it, and
commissioned six, and before these had all appeared commissioned
a further twelve. Thereafter, the trouble was not to place such
stories but to write as many as were required.
While he was in his thirties Leonard Merrick lived for some time in
Paris, and Paris still draws him at intervals from the retirement of his
English home, for he finds there ideas and stimulation, and can work
there as he never can in London. As a rule, the Londoner born has a
sneaking regard for his city and cannot be long away from it without
feeling its intangible human hands plucking at his heart and its
multitudinous voices calling him back, but in spite of the fact that he
is a true-blue Cockney, born, in 1864, at Belsize Park, on the skirts of
Hampstead, Merrick tells you he does not love London. It is the most
comfortable of cities, he admits, but he finds it uninspiring and can
work better and more easily when he is almost anywhere away from
it—especially when he is in Paris.
ALAN ALEXANDER MILNE
Alan Alexander Milne

The tradition that the Scot has no humor still lingers among old-
fashioned people who don’t like changes, but of recent years Barrie,
Neil Munro (as Hugh Foulis), J. J. Bell, Ian Hay, A. A. Milne, and
some others have shaken it to such an extent that only the incurably
obstinate now attempt to maintain it.
But while the humor of the others smack finely of the north of the
Tweed, the humor of Milne seems to indicate that his spiritual home
is a much more frivolous place. There is something Irish or English
about its airy gaiety, its blithe, amusing flippancy. Dr. Johnson once
spoke slightingly about the art of carving faces on cherry-stones, but
if he had tried his hand at that work he would have realized that to
accomplish it successfully one must be born with a gift that is as rare
as the more impressive gift for writing serious prose. Our ancestors,
as a whole, realized that, and would exclaim with admiration at the
marvelous facility of Swift who could write you an essay off-hand on
anything or nothing. I remember how, when I was a small boy, a
bookish old gentleman informed me of this in his library and went on
to tell with bated breath the familiar yarn of how, to test the Dean’s
limitless capacity, a lady challenged him to write an essay on a
broomstick, and he at once sat down and did it. But we should think
little of that nowadays. Milne would not need so much as a
broomstick; he could do it on one of the bristles.
So could E. V. Lucas or Chesterton, or Belloc. But in the matter of
slightness of theme and the capacity for writing charmingly and
humorously on next to nothing at all Milne has closer affinities with
Lucas; they not only can do it but make a habit of doing it. Both
write light verse as well as light prose; both contributed to Punch
(Lucas contributes to it still), and as Anstey and many another, in
various forms, had practiced the same volatile literature in those
pages, it seems possible that the influence of Punch may have been
more or less responsible for developing likewise in them a
delightfully neat and sprightly vein of humor.
However that may be, Milne had begun to exercise his
characteristic style while he was at Cambridge, where he was made
editor of the Granta. He came to London in 1903, and settled down,
first in Temple Chambers, afterwards at Chelsea (where he still
resides, but not in his original two rooms) to make a living as a free-
lance author and journalist. His earnings through the first two years
were far below the income-tax level, but in the third year he was
appointed assistant-editor of Punch, to which he had already been
contributing largely, and the world in general began to be aware of
him from seeing the initials A. A. M. appearing in that periodical with
significant regularity. It not only saw them, but looked out for them,
and was soon betraying curiosity in public places as to the identity of
the person who owned them; an infallible sign that a writer is giving
the public what it wants as well as what it ought to want.
Between 1910 and 1914 he collected his Punch contributions into
three volumes, “The Day’s Play,” “The Holiday Round,” and “Once a
Week,” but was no sooner so established as an entertaining and
popular essayist than the War intervened to take him to fresh woods
and pastures that were new but not desirable. It is impossible to
unfold the record of any of our younger and few of our older
contemporary authors without coming up against the War. Milne
promptly withdrew from Punch, joined the Royal Warwickshire
Regiment, and was sent out to France. Here, in odds and ends of
leisure from military occupations, he found opportunity and the
moods for writing that quaint, whimsical story “Once on a Time,”
which was published in 1917; and then, too, he made a first
experiment as a dramatist with his shrewdly, cleverly satirical
comedy of “Wurzel-Flummery.” There is a new depth and maturity
under the humor of these things, and he said that in writing the
story he for the first time wrote in earnest.
By-and-by, after a breakdown which had put him in hospital for a
while, when he was sent to act as signaling instructor at a fort on
Portsdown Hill, he had an impulse to continue playwriting, and
would spend a long day at the fort teaching his class how to signal,
then go home to the cottage where he and his wife were living, a
couple of miles away, and dictate to her, until he had produced in
succession, “Belinda,” “The Boy Comes Home” and “The Lucky One.”
These were in due course presented on the London stage, and if
they had no success comparable with his later plays, they were
successful enough before the footlights, and in the book into which
he gathered them in 1919, to demonstrate that a new dramatist had
arisen, and one to be reckoned with.
There are plenty of signs of the potential dramatist in the pre-war
essays—in their easy and natural use of dialogue, and their deft,
vivid handling of incidents: and there is a bite of realism in their
genial satire and burlesque irony, which foreshadows the keener,
riper irony and satire of “Bladys.” For instance, there is the sketch of
“The Newspaper Proprietor,” that “lord of journalism,” Hector Strong,
who, to oblige a lady, saves her play from failure and forces it into a
raging success by the adroitness with which he booms it in his
numerous newspapers. It may seem ridiculous, and Milne may have
invented it all, but take away a few farcial details from his narrative,
and there are those behind the scenes who will assure you that this
deed was actually done. As for “A Breath of Life,” in which the actor
who plays the young hero falls really in love with the actress who
plays the heroine and on a passionate impulse finishes the play
triumphantly at the end of the third act to such thunders of applause
from the audience that the fourth is cut away for good—ask any
dramatist and he will tell you that his own plays suffered worse than
that at the hands of their producers until he became successful and
important enough to insist on the piece being acted exactly as it was
written.
Always there was this germ of truth in Milne’s earlier trifles and
flippancies. “A Trunk Call” is by no means such an irresponsible farce
as some may think it. Here, the dainty Celia buys a fancy knocker
and puts it on the door of her husband’s study, in order that she may
give him warning at any time before she comes to interrupt him. He
wants her to try it forthwith, but she demurs:
“‘Not now. I’ll try later on, when you aren’t expecting it. Besides,
you must begin your work. Good-bye. Work hard.’ She pushed me in
and shut the door.
“I began to work.
“I work best on the sofa; I think most clearly in what appears to
the hasty observer to be an attitude of rest. But I am not sure that
Celia really understands this yet. Accordingly, when a knock comes
at the door I jump to my feet, ruffle my hair, and stride up and down
the room with one hand on my brow. ‘Come in,’ I call impatiently,
and Celia finds me absolutely in the throes. If there should chance to
be a second knock later on, I make a sprint for the writing-desk,
seize pen and paper, upset the ink or not as it happens, and present
to any one coming in at the door the most thoroughly engrossed
back in London.
“But that was in the good old days of knuckle-knocking. On this
particular morning I had hardly written more than a couple of
thousand words—I mean I had hardly got the cushions at the back
of my head comfortably settled when Celia came in.
“‘Well?’ she said eagerly.
“I struggled out of the sofa.
“‘What is it?’ I asked sternly.
“‘Did you hear it all right?’
“‘I didn’t hear anything.’
“‘Oh!’ she said in great disappointment. ‘But perhaps you were
asleep,’ she went on hopefully.
“‘Certainly not. I was working.’
“‘Did I interrupt you?’
“‘You did rather; but it doesn’t matter.’
“‘Oh, well, I won’t do it again—unless I really have to. Goodbye,
and good luck.’”
The knocker may be an effort of the imagination, otherwise this
reads as if it were taken from life. It may even be true about Milne
himself, for he has said in print that his work comes easy to him;
and if you show the complete sketch to the wife of any literary man
of your acquaintance the chances are she will wonder how Milne got
to know so much about her husband. But his trim figure and alert,
clean-shaven face, apart from the quantity of work he has placed to
his credit, belie any suggestion that since he finds his work easy he
takes his ease, except when it is finished. He is restlessly alive, and
gives you the impression of being something of an out-door man, a
golfer probably, perhaps a cricketer, though you need not believe he
looks forward to the opening of the cricket season quite so
enthusiastically as he suggests in “The First Game”—
“It is the day that I watch for yearly,
Never before has it come so late;
But now I’ve only a month—no, merely
A couple of fortnights left to wait;
And then (to make the matter plain)
I hold—at last!—a bat again:
Dear Hobbs! the weeks this summer—think! the weeks I’ve
lived in vain.”
When he was demobilized, his old post of assistant-editor of
Punch was waiting for him, but he had formed other plans for his
future during the war, and arranged not to go back. He did not just
then intend to abandon the light essay, and in “If I may” (1920) his
hand for it is as cunning as ever; but the theater had got into his
blood, his ambition was taking higher flights, and “Mr. Pim Passes
By” (he wrote it also into a novel as quaintly humorous and
sentimental as the play) and the mordantly ironic “Truth About
Bladys” soared at once and almost simultaneously to such heights of
popularity that if the dramatist has not presently absorbed the
essayist altogether, it won’t be for want of an excellent excuse.
ALFRED NOYES
Alfred Noyes
Early in his career, being rash as well as young, Alfred Noyes made
the tactical mistake of writing poetry that became popular. He was
crowned with eulogy by leading critics who, naturally, could not
foresee that he would also win the applause of the multitude or, no
doubt, they would have been more careful. Meredith helped to
mislead them; he praised the beauty and finely restrained pathos of
“Michael Oaktree,” a narrative poem in Noyes’s very first volume,
“The Loom of Years.” But it was his third and fourth books, those
exquisite fairy tales in verse, “The Flower of Old Japan” (1903) and
“The Forest of Wild Thyme” (1905), that carried him right into the
popularity which disillusioned those self-centered experts who cling
to a narrow faith that poetry cannot be poetry if it makes a
triumphant appeal to the large world that lives and works in outer
darkness beyond the limits of their own select, small circle.
Noyes has always been reckless in these matters. He never took
the precaution to attach himself to any of our little groups of
poetasters who ecstatically give each other the glory the common
public with-holds from them. Before he made a book of his great
epic, “Drake”—and it is great not only by comparison with what has
been done by his living contemporaries—instead of treating it as
something too rare and delicate for human nature’s daily food, he
ran it serially in Blackwood’s Magazine, as if it had been a new novel.
No poem had ever appeared in that fashion before. I believe he had
not written more than half when the first instalment of it was
printed, and the orthodox could not be expected to approve of that
sort of thing. They began to say Noyes was too facile; wrote too
hurriedly and too much; began to take it for granted that no man
who wrote thus copiously and fluently could be an authentic poet,
when they might more reasonably have assumed that he did by a
certain native gift what was only possible to themselves by the
slower, sedulous exercise of an average talent.
Howbeit, from being lauded freely, Noyes is now more
misrepresented, by a group of poet-critics, whose judgments are too
often sound in the wrong sense, than any other poet of our day.
Whether anything less respectable than a restricted poetical outlook
can account for this misrepresentation I shall not attempt to guess,
but, noticing it, I have sometimes been reminded of lines he puts
into the mouth of Marlowe, in his “Tales of the Mermaid Tavern”—
“I tell thee ’tis the dwarfs that find no world
Wide enough for their jostlings, while the giants,
The gods themselves, can in one tavern find
Room wide enough to swallow the wide heaven
With all its crowded solitary stars.”
Unprofessional lovers of poetry read Noyes not because it is the
proper, high-brow thing to do, but solely because they enjoy reading
him. It is an excellent reason; and for the same reason Tennyson
and Browning are famous; so, in these times, are Masefield and
Davies; de la Mare and William Watson. Noyes differs from most of
his contemporaries in being at once, like Chaucer, a born story-teller
and, like Swinburne, an amazing master of meter and rhyme. He is
not alone in being able more readily and adequately to express
himself in meter and rhyme than in prose, and it is ridiculous to
assume that this ability indicates any shallowness of thought; it
indicates, rather, that he is really efficient in an art he has taken
pains to acquire.
It is equally ridiculous to dub him old-fashioned, as some of our
superior persons do, because he accepts the classical tradition in
poetry. He has not accepted it unintelligently or slavishly; if you look
through his books you will note how cunningly he makes old meters
new again, and that he has invented enough new meters or
variations in accepted metrical forms to give him a place even with
those who claim to be rebels against authority. One such rebel, a
prominent American poet, included the other day in his collected
works a goodly proportion of vers libre from which one of our
advanced critics chose two passages for admiring quotation. The
ideas in these passages were a mere repetition of two that are
expressed with higher art and deeper feeling in “In Memoriam,” yet
that advanced critic is one who dismisses Tennyson as out of date
and has hailed the American poet as the last word in modern
thinking. Perhaps he and his like have not troubled to read what
they consider old-fashioned. I mention the circumstance by way of
showing to what a pass some of our critics and poets have come.
If Noyes has any theories of poetry, I gather they are that the
poet is essentially one endowed with the gift of song; that all the
great poets, from Homer downward, have been great singers; and
that when he utters himself in meter and rhyme he is but putting
himself in tune with the infinite order of the universe—with the
rhythm of the tides, of the seasons, the recurring chime of day and
night, the harmonious movement of the stars in their orbits. He once
confessed to me that he was so far from fearing the possibilities of
metrical invention were exhausted that he was convinced we are still
at the beginning of them; they were exhausted, according to the
first disciples of Whitman, sixty years ago, but Swinburne arose and
invented so many new meters that he was considered more
revolutionary in his era than Whitman’s later disciples are in ours.
There is a virility and range of subject and style in Noyes’s work
that make a good deal of modern verse seem old-maidish or anæmic
by comparison. It is a far cry from the grace and tenderness and
dainty fancy of “The Flower of Old Japan”, “The Forest of Wild
Thyme”, and some of the lyrics in “The Elfin Artist”, and elsewhere,
to the masculine imaginative splendor in thought and diction, the
robust energy of his epic, “Drake”, or, though gentler moods of
pathos, humor, wistful fantasy are never absent from any of his
books, to the series of narratives that make up “The Torch
Bearers”—an ambitious succession of poems that reveal, with
dramatic power and insight and a quick sensitiveness to the poetry
of science, the progress of scientific discovery in the life-stories of
the great discoverers. None has pictured War in more terribly
realistic terms or with a more passionate hatred of its inhumanity
than he has in “The Wine Press”; and you have him in the breeziest,
most riotously humorous of his moods in “Forty Singing Seamen.”
But if I should single my own favorite from his books it would be the
“Tales of the Mermaid Tavern.” Here he finds full scope for his many-
sided gift; you can turn from the rollicking yarn of “Black Bill’s
Honeymoon” to the dignity and poignance of “The Burial of a
Queen,” from the anecdotal picturesqueness of “A Coiner of Angels”
to the fervor and glittering pageantry of “Flos Mercatorum,” from the
suspense and tragedy of “Raleigh” to the laughter and lighter tears
and buoyant tripping measures of “The Companion of a Mile,” telling
how Will Kemp, the player, danced from London to Norwich for a
wager, and passing through Sudbury met a young butcher who
offered to dance a mile with him—
“By Sudbury, by Sudbury, by little red-roofed Sudbury,
He wished to dance a mile with me! I made a courtly
bow:
I fitted him with morrice-bells, with treble, bass and tenor
bells,
And ‘Tickle your tabor, Tom,’ I cried, ‘we’re going to
market now.’
And rollicking down the lanes we dashed, and frolicking up

the hills we clashed,
And like a sail behind me flapped his great white frock a-
while,
Till with a gasp, he sank and swore that he could dance
with me no more;
And over the hedge a milk-maid laughed, Not dance with
him a mile?
‘You lout!’ she laughed, ‘I’ll leave my pail, and dance with
him for cakes and ale!
‘I’ll dance a mile for love,’ she laughed, ‘and win my
wager too.
‘Your feet are shod and mine are bare; but when could
leather dance on air?
‘A milk-maid’s feet can fall as fair and light as falling dew.’
I fitted her with morrice-bells, with treble, bass and tenor

bells:
The fore-bells, as I linked them to her throat, how soft
they sang!
Green linnets in a golden nest, they chirped and trembled
on her breast,
And faint as elfin blue-bells at her nut-brown ankles rang.
I fitted her with morrice-bells that sweetened into

woodbine bells,
And trembled as I hung them there and crowned her
sunny brow:
‘Strike up,’ she laughed, ‘my summer king!’ And all her bells
began to ring,
And ‘Tickle your tabor, Tom,’ I cried, ‘we’re going to
Sherwood now!’”
This, and the rest of it, is very typical of Noyes in his lighter vein,
and if you can’t see the poetry that twinkles through the deft, airy
gallop of the verse we won’t talk about it; typical of him too is the
pathetic aftermath of the dance, so delicately touched in that the
pathos is almost lost in the beauty of it, till the motley epilogue
strikes the deeper note of sadness through the loud laughter of the
fool.
Noyes was born in Staffordshire in 1880, and I know nothing of
his doings at Oxford, except that he rowed in the Exeter College
Eight. He is nowadays an Hon. Litt. D. of Yale University, and since
1914 has been Professor of Modern English Literature at Princeton
University, in America, and divides his time between that country
and this. He is the most unassuming of men, looking much younger
than his years, and of a sturdy, robust, serious aspect that (till his
genial laugh, when he breaks silence, spoils your calculations) seems
more in keeping with the vigor of his epic narratives, or with the
noble rhetoric of such as that most impressive of his shorter poems,
“The Creation,” than with the fairy fancies, the butterfly blitheness
and laughing music of “Come down to Kew at lilac time” and other
of his daintier lyrics. Like most true poets who have not died young,
he has become popular in his lifetime; and if he were not so
versatile less versatile critics, instead of panting after him in vain,
would be able to grasp him and get him under their microscopes and
recognize him for the poet that he is.
E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM
E. Phillips Oppenheim
Even if we grant that there is a wide world of difference between
imaginative and inventive fiction, and that the way to immortality is
only open to the former, there is still so much to be said in praise of
the latter that, if the verdict rested with his contemporaries instead
of with posterity, the inventive author would often go permanently
crowned with the fame that is now reserved for his more imaginative
rival. Within my own recollection Wilkie Collins was the most popular
novelist of his day; Meredith and Hardy had their thousands of
readers and Collins his tens of thousands; everybody read him then,
but hardly anybody reads him now. He used to complain, as Hall
Caine records in “My Story,” that the reviewers were all along
disposed to sniff and qualify their appreciation, but he boasted that
the public always received him with enthusiasm and overwhelmed
him with grateful and adulatory letters. Moreover, his brother
novelists admired and lauded his amazing ingenuity; Dickens
collaborated with him, and his influence is perhaps traceable in “The
Mystery of Edwin Drood”—in the unusual dexterity and subtlety with
which its plot is constructed.
His own formula for holding the reader’s attention was “make him
laugh; make him weep; or make him wait”; and he devoted himself
almost exclusively to the third of these methods. Character is of
quite minor importance in his stories—Count Fosco was his one
masterly creation; the only one of all his dramatis personæ you
recall without effort—there is little humor in them, and little pathos.
For him, the plot was the thing, a cunningly contrived, carefully
dovetailed plot, with a heart of mystery and sensation that should
hold the reader in suspense till it was unraveled and cleared up in
the last pages. His justification was that he thrilled and delighted
enormous multitudes. It is enough that he did triumphantly what he
set himself to do; the best and most precious things in life are not
often the most lasting; and whether or not his work is immortal, it
was great in its kind and an art beyond the genius of novelists who
seem destined to outlive him.
And, as a form of literature, the novel of sensation, crime, mystery
is immortal if its authors are not. Collins has been dethroned, but his
successors are legion, and none has made out a stronger title to the
inheritance of his mantle than Phillips Oppenheim. For the skill with
which he constructs a baffling plot, intrigues his readers from the
opening, and keeps them in suspense till it is time, at last, to give
away his secret, none of them excels—I am not sure that more than
one of them equals him. I don’t think he aims to be anything but
entertaining, and how many of our novelists who claim to be much
more are not even that! Two of our most distinguished critics have,
at different times, confessed to me that with the passing of years
they have lost their taste for fiction; the modern psychological novel
seems pretentious and bores them; they are no longer young
enough to be susceptible to romantic adventure; they can learn
nothing and get no amusement from the crudeness and boyish or
girlish naïveté of the latter-day sex novel, but they do find interest,
excitement and a tonic recreation in novels such as Oppenheim
writes. “I suppose I have seen too much of actual life,” said one of
them, “to be startled or particularly interested in what I am told
about it by a novelist who knows no more of it than I know myself. I
like Oppenheim because he takes me outside my personal
experiences; he does not appeal to my memory but to my
imagination; he tells me a tale that is new to me, that rouses my
curiosity, keeps me guessing, makes me forget everything else in my
keenness to follow up the clues to his mystery and see how he
solves it. I don’t care whether it is good literature, I know it is a
good story, and that’s what every novel ought to be and few are. I
sometimes think we take our novelists and they take themselves and
their function too seriously. The old troubador, when he sang his
ballads and told his yarns in the street, didn’t do it for glory but for
the coppers the crowd, if he pleased them, would throw into his hat.
He was nothing but an entertainer; people didn’t want him to be
anything else—it is all I want his modern representative, the
novelist, to be, and it is what Oppenheim emphatically is. He simply
writes for the time, and the time is promptly rewarding him with
popularity and hard cash, while so many of our little artists will not
stoop to the present and are writing neatly for a future that will
never read them.”
He has written some sixty novels and books of short stories,
having seen his first novel published in 1886, when he was twenty. I
do not pretend to have read them all, but since I read “Mysterious
Mr. Sabin,” a good many years ago, I have never missed reading any
Phillips Oppenheim story that has come within reach of me. Read
“The Amazing Partnership,” “The Plunderers,” “A Prince of Sinners,”
“Mr. Lessingham Goes Home,” and you will find that while he is as
ingenious as Wilkie Collins at fashioning a plot that captures your
interest in its complexities, he gets more rapidly into his story,
handles dialogue more skillfully, unfolds his incidents as vividly but
with a lighter hand and loses no time on the way.
After he left school Phillips Oppenheim went into his father’s
leather business at Leicester, but he had started writing stories for
his own amusement before that. The leather business was so
successful that Blumenthals, the big American and Paris leather firm,
bought it up, and appointed Phillips Oppenheim their director at
Leicester. His experience in that trade has proved immensely useful
to him. It has not only helped him to material for his tales, but it was
through the American head of Blumenthals that he had his chief
incentive to the writing of the type of story that has brought him
such success as a novelist. This gentleman introduced him to the
proprietor of the Café de Rat Mort, the once famous Montmartre
haunt, for Oppenheim was frequently in Paris on the affairs of his
leather company, and at the Café he acquired his taste for the
mysteries of those international intriguings and rascalities that figure
so largely in several of his books, for the proprietor used to tell him
all manner of thrilling yarns about political and international
adventurers, some of whom had been among his customers, and his
listener formed a habit of weaving stories round the more striking
personalities in the cosmopolitan crowd that he met in the Rat Mort.
He assured me that however ingenious I might think them, he never
really constructs his stories but simply lets them grow. “Two or three
people in a crowded restaurant may arouse my interest, and the
atmosphere is compelling,” says he. “I start weaving a story round
them—the circumstances and the people gradually develop as I go
on dictating to my secretary the casual thoughts about them that
arose in me while I was looking at them and their surroundings. First
of all I must have a congenial atmosphere—then the rest is easy.”
Easy, that is, to him, partly from long practice but chiefly because
it was the method that came natural to him and suited his
temperament. There is no use in telling any one how to write a
novel, in laying down rules for doing it as if it were a mechanical
trade. James Payn’s plan was to prepare an elaborate synopsis,
divide this into chapters, then write down a description of each
character, and keep these details pinned on a screen where they
were handy reference while he was working. William De Morgan
would start with little more than a general idea of what was going to
happen in future pages; he would get his characters together and
give them their heads and let them develop the story as it went
along. Every way is the best way—for the author who finds it for
himself and can do as well in it as Phillips Oppenheim has done in
his.
He has traveled considerably; spent much of his time in America,
where he was married (and, by the way, large as his vogue is in
Great Britain, he is another of our authors whose vogue is even
larger in America); but for the most part he divides his days of work
and leisure now between his home in London and his other home by
the sea, in North Devon.
He is fond of the country, and of golf and all kinds of sports; he is
an equally keen theater-goer, but gets more enjoyment out of
writing stories than out of anything else, and since he draws more
inspiration for these from the town than from the country, he is
never happier than when he is in town. “The cities for me!” he said
to an interviewer. “Half a dozen thoroughfares and squares in
London, a handful of restaurants, the people one meets in a single
morning, are quite sufficient for the production of more and greater
stories than I shall ever write.” He wrote “Mr. Laxworthy’s
Adventures” while he was staying at a hotel in Paris; but though
Paris and New York attract him, London is his spiritual home and,
with its endless streets and motley crowds, is the chief begetter of
his sensational romances.
Yet his appearance is less suggestive of the city than of rural life.
Ruddy, genial, smiling, with his sturdy figure and bluff manner, it is
easier to fancy him, in gaiters, carrying a riding whip, as a typical
country squire, than as a brilliant imaginative author creating
fictitious villains and preoccupied with dreams of strange crimes and
the mysterious doings of lawless and desperate men. Which is to say
only that he no more gives himself away to the casual observer than
he gives away the secret of any of his plots in the first chapter of the
book.
MAY SINCLAIR
May Sinclair
In a rash moment, recently, Michael Sadleir committed himself to
the retrospective and prophetic assertion that there never had been
a great woman novelist and never would be. The first part of that
statement is, of course, open to argument; the second cannot be
proved. If he had said the greatest novelists, so far, have been men,
he would have been on safe ground; for I don’t think even the most
politely complaisant master of the ceremonies would suggest that
Fielding, Dickens and Thackeray should step back and allow Jane
Austen, Charlotte Bronte and George Eliot to lead this particular
procession of the immortals. Which is not to say that these last are
not great, but only that there have been greater.
Turning to living authors, if, so far as this country is concerned
(and here we are not concerned with any other), the same order of
precedence still obtains, the distance between the men in the first
rank and the women in the second has, at least, sensibly diminished.
Leaving Hardy apart in his incontestible supremacy, have we any
novelists alive who are, on the whole, superior to Wells, Conrad,
Bennett, Galsworthy? It is a question Time alone can decide with
certainty, but fallible men must needs, meanwhile, make up their
separate minds as best they can, and, for my part, I would answer
in the negative. But should any one claim that there are four women
novelists who, if they do not surpass, are equal in achievement with
the four men I have named, I could not begin to deny it until I had
read them all over again. So nice, so delicate a matter is not to be
settled off-hand. Even such godlike judges as Gosse and Squire
might well lay aside their thunder and lightning in face of it and be
disposed to temporize.
For, relegating to outer darkness (where many of us would be
willing to join them) all whose glory is nothing but a vast popularity
and its accessories—think what a galaxy of women novelists there
are and what sound and notable work the best of them have done.
Of course who have been longest before the public, you have Lucas
Malet, Sarah Grand, George Colmore, Mary Cholmondeley, Mary and
Jane Findlater, Mrs. W. K. Clifford, Mary E. Mann; of those who
began somewhat later, Elinor Mordaunt, Dolf Wyllarde, Violet Hunt,
Mrs. Henry Dudeney, M. P. Willcocks, Peggy Webling, Mrs. Dawson
Scott, Beatrice Harraden, Mrs. Belloc Lowndes, Phillis Bottome, Rose
Macaulay, May Sinclair, Sheila Kaye-Smith; and of a still later day,
Viola Meynell, Ethel Sidgwick, Dorothy Richardson, Virginia Woolf,
Mary Webb, Clemence Dane, Rebecca West, G. B. Stern, Storm
Jameson, M. Leonora Eyles, Stella Benson.... This by no means
completes the list, and there is no reason for ending it here except
that it is long enough and contains a sufficient number of names for
whomsoever will to select from it four whose work may fairly
challenge comparison with the greatest that has been done by
contemporary novelists of the other sex.
Any adequate survey of the modern English novel would, at all
events, have to take into account most of the women writers I have
mentioned, but for my present less ambitious occasions I am
contented to limit my record to two—May Sinclair and Sheila Kaye-
Smith—whom I take to be generally representative of such of them
as are still in the full tide of their careers: the latter as having
acquaintance with the larger variety of human character and giving
breadth, color and fullness of life to her stories out of a wider,
robuster interest in the multifarious affairs that absorb so much of
the thought and activities of men; the former as being the subtler
artist both in psychology and style.
As long ago as 1916, the distinguished American critic, Dr. Lyon
Phelps, described Miss Sinclair as “to-day the foremost living writer
among English-speaking women.” He rightly dated her rise to this
eminence from the publication of “The Divine Fire,” in 1904, and as
rightly reminded us that “the British audience for whom it was
intended paid no attention to it” till it had been acclaimed by critics
and read with enthusiasm by thousands of readers in America. Why
Miss Sinclair had to wait eight years for that recognition I cannot
explain. She adventured into literature in orthodox fashion by
publishing two volumes of verse early in the ’nineties. Her first novel,
“Audrey Craven,” appeared in 1896. Then came, with longish
intervals between, “Mr. and Mrs. Nevil Tyson” and “Two Sides of a
Question.” These three books were touched with something of the
grey realism that prevented Gissing from becoming popular with a
public which, then more than now, disliked novels of that hue and
preferred its fiction to be either elevating or pleasantly entertaining.
But if there was no run on these three books at the libraries, they
did not pass, unless my memory misleads me, without due meed of
praise from the more discriminating reviews; and, as Miss Sinclair
has done far finer work since “The Divine Fire,” so I think she did
truer, finer work before that in, at least, the second of her three
earlier volumes. It were harder to say why the laurels fell upon the
fourth than why they missed the second.
Rock Ferry, in Cheshire, was Miss Sinclair’s birthplace, but when
fame discovered her she had been living some years at Hampstead,
in London, and “The Divine Fire” moves among London literary
circles, sketches cleverly various literary types of character and life in
boarding-houses round about Bloomsbury, with for central figure a
young Cockney poet, a kind of new Keats, who worked as a shop-
assistant, wrote exquisite verse, had all the instincts of a gentleman,
but was afflicted with a deplorable habit of dropping his aitches. So
much is made of this weakness (which was really only as
superficially significant as was Stevenson’s inability to spell certain
words correctly) that the frequent insistence on it comes by degrees
to seem a little finicking, a little irritating. I do not share Dr. Phelp’s
fancy that Charlotte Bronte returned to earth to write “The Divine
Fire.” Miss Sinclair may have learned things from Charlotte Bronte;
she has written ably and searchingly of her in “The Three Brontes”;
but influence from that source—even from the Charlotte of “Shirley”
days—is scarcely traceable in any of her books and certainly does
not, in “The Divine Fire,” dominate her own quietly distinctive
personality.
Few authors owe their popularity to their best work, and, at the
risk of appearing heretical, I will admit I have always counted “The
Divine Fire” as one of Miss Sinclair’s unsuccessful experiments, and
“The Helpmate” as another. Both have charm and distinction of style,
but they have not the insight, the clearness of vision, that mark her
later novels. She is, especially in the second, like an artist drawing
without models and erring in small details, getting the anatomy of
her characters here and there out of proportion. The cleverness and
the interest of “The Helpmate” are undeniable, but its people do not
wear flesh about them; they are seriously presented, but one feels
they are as outside the world of actual humanity as are the brilliant
creations that play so deftly in some of the artificial comedies of the
Restoration.
“The Creators” is another tale of literary life, and one in which you
are not always sure whether the author wishes you to take her poets
and novelists in dead earnest or whether she is secretly laughing at
them and touching off their idiosyncrasies with a covert irony, the
latter suspicion finding encouragement in the neat realism and hard-
cut brilliance with which the whole thing is done. Some have
complained that several of her novels are too preoccupied with the
mysteries and intimacies of sexual relationship, but you might as
reasonably complain that other authors exclude these from their
scheme of things and are too preoccupied with other and less vitally
human experiences. There is no forbidden tree in the garden of
literature; all the world is the artist’s parish and he is justified of any
theme so long as he can handle it with such artistic success as Miss
Sinclair does in “Kitty Tailleur,” in “The Combined Maze,” and in that
tragically poignant short story “The Judgment of Eve.”
Perhaps she reaches the highest expression of her genius in this
and other of her short stories (“The Wrackham Memoirs” is a little
masterpiece of ironic comedy) and in the shortest of her novels,
“The Life and Death of Harriet Frean”—the detached pity, the
insight, the minute, illuminating realism with which the whole feeble,
self-sacrificing, sentimental little soul of Harriet is revealed, and the
perfect technique with which it is all set down, give power and
beauty to what in less skilled, less sensitive hands might have been
a frail, wistful story of no particular significance.
Miss Sinclair is more erudite than the majority of novelists and,
outside the world of fiction, has proved herself a suggestive and
original thinker in such philosophical subtleties as “A Defence of
Idealism.” She worked, during the early stages of the War, with the
Red Cross, recording her experiences in “A Journal of Impressions in

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PTS: 1 DIF: Difficulty: Easy REF: p.272

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5. Intangible costs can be easily measured in monetary terms.

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9. Contingency reserves are also known as unknown unknowns.

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14. Estimates should become more accurate as time progresses.

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16. Analogous estimates are called activity-based costing.

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4. One of the main outputs of the _____ process is a cost baseline.

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5. The process of controlling costs primarily involves:

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7. Profits may be defined as:

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10. Which of the following is true of tangible costs?

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PTS: 1 DIF: Difficulty: Challenging REF: p.278

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