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MISS COLERIDGE 43
without demur that which from another
would not have passed unchallenged. Miss
Coleridge bewitched us with her personality ;
we knew that her poems were slight, we felt
that they revealed a part of her only, we had
suspicions, but we held our peace.
Had we
turned to her novels, in spite of the brilliancy
of one of them " The King with Two Faces "
our suspicions would have been strengthened.
But we did not turn ; or if we did, they
forced us into no questioning mood. It was
left for this tell-tale volume of " Gathered
Leaves " to press the question insistently, and
to answer it. The spell is broken. We know
now both why the poems are good and why
they are not better.
No one will blame Miss Sichel for setting
the truth before all things :
clearly, by
publishing these stories and essays she supplies
an opportunity of correcting a too
flattering estimate ; but, foreseeing, no doubt,
that we shall avail ourselves of it, she supplies
also a memoir of fifty pages on which our
final estimate is to be based. That this
memoir is a competent piece of work need
hardly be said. Miss Sichel's competence is
notorious ; as an efficient biographer her
reputation is secure. Not every subject, however,
is suited to her pen. Miss Coleridge did
not develop along conventional lines ;
in fact,