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Title: Hans Frost
Author: Hugh Walpole (1884-1941)
First Published: 1929
Date first posted: March 18, 2014
Date last updated: March 18, 2014
Faded Page eBook #20140317
This eBook was produced by: David T. Jones, Paul Ereaut, Al Haines & the
online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net
HANS FROST
A NOVEL
BY
HUGH WALPOLE
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON
1934
COPYRIGHT
_First published 1929_
_The Cumberland Edition March 1934_
_Reprinted May 1934_
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
BY R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, EDINBURGH
FOR
ADA AND JOHN GALSWORTHY
A SMALL EMPHASIS ON THE
HAPPINESS OF
TWENTY YEARS’ FRIENDSHIP
‘All the windows were broken. . . . The sun streamed in, and the
statues, the rare editions and the cabinets of precious stones
faded and deadened before the splendid blaze.’–_The Duchess of
Paradis._
* * * * *
_No Portrait of any living person is intended in the pages of this
Novel._
PREFACE
I like _Hans Frost_ very much the best of my London novels, but it
has been far from the most popular of them. For one thing, nobody
ever seems to be greatly interested in novels about novelists. I
don’t wonder at this. There was, of course, a comparative exception
to this in Somerset Maugham’s _Cakes and Ale_, a very amusing book
but successful largely because it was said to contain caricatures of
recognisable figures. Whether it did or no it’s not for me to say!
People in general are not interested in the queer things that
happen to a novelist when he writes his novels. They are not
interested in artists unless, sexually, they are dramatic. This is
something of a pity, because the subject of an artist struggling to
make something of his art is a fine subject, not because the artist
is interesting but because creation is. Then I hampered myself by
choosing an old man for my hero, and I endangered myself by
emphasising his love for a young girl. It is true that the girl was
his niece, but that did not, in the eyes of some readers, make the
theme any the less complicated.
The difference, I feel, between _Hans Frost_ and _The Duchess of
Wrexe_ and _Wintersmoon_ is that _Hans Frost_ is not artificially
constructed. The subject also is simple and direct. An artist is
muffled against the cold by kind hands. Someone tears the mufflers
away. The fresh air rouses him and he is an artist again.
Henry James, of course, did this kind of thing better than anyone
living or dead. It is the fashion at the moment to disregard Henry
James because, it is said, he cared so much more for art than life
and, to-day, life is all that matters. But did he? No one felt the
actual horror and brutality of the War more than he did, no one
cared more directly and passionately for his friends than he did.
And where can life be found more sharply and movingly depicted than
in ‘The Turn of the Screw,’ the death of the heroine of _The Wings
of the Dove_ or the sufferings of the child in ‘What Maisie Knew’?
There will be a time when all this will be apparent again.
It will be noticed that once more in this book I reintroduced my
Trenchard family. I have already, in other prefaces, apologised for
this reprehensible habit–but why should I apologise? I write for my
own pleasure and my books are all contained within one and the same
imaginary world. It does not seem to me illogical that a writer like
Peter Westcott should meet, on occasion, one of the captains of his
craft. _Moi qui parle_ . . . Well, for the satisfaction of any idle
reader I direct him to the story of ‘Mr. Oddy’ published in my
volume _All Souls’ Night_.
H. W.
CONTENTS
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