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SINISTER STREET


BY

COMPTON MACKENZIE

SOME PRESS OPINIONS OF OTHER BOOKS BY COMPTON MACKENZIE


SOME PRESS OPINIONS OF

Kensington Rhymes

_By_ COMPTON MACKENZIE

_SATURDAY REVIEW:_

     "These are particularly jolly rhymes, that any really good sort of
     a chap, say a fellow of about ten would like. Mr. J. R. Monsell's
     pictures are exceptionally jolly too.... If we may judge by
     ourselves, not only the children, but the grown-ups of the family
     will be enchanted by this quite delightful and really first-rate
     book."

_DAILY MAIL:_

     "Among the picture-books of the season, pride of place must go to
     Mr. Compton Mackenzie's 'Kensington Rhymes.' They are full of quiet
     humour and delicate insight into the child-mind."

_OBSERVER:_

     "Far the best rhymes of the year are 'Kensington Rhymes,' by
     Compton Mackenzie, almost the best things of the kind since the
     'Child's Garden of Verse.'"

_ATHENAEUM:_

     "Will please children of all ages, and also contains much that will
     not be read without a sympathetic smile by grown-ups possessed of a
     sense of humour."

_TIMES:_

     "The real gift of child poetry, sometimes almost with a
     Stevensonian ring."

_OUTLOOK:_

     "What Henley did for older Londoners, Mr. Compton Mackenzie and Mr.
     Monsell have done for the younger generation."

_STANDARD:_

     "Our hearts go out first to Mr. Compton Mackenzie's 'Kensington
     Rhymes.'"

_SUNDAY TIMES:_

     "Full of whimsical observation and genuine insight, 'Kensington
     Rhymes' by Compton Mackenzie are certainly entertaining."

_EVENING STANDARD:_

     "Something of the charm of Christina Rossetti's."

_VOTES FOR WOMEN:_

     "They breathe the very conventional and stuffy air of
     Kensington.... We are bound to say that the London child we tried
     it on liked the book."


MARTIN SECKER, NUMBER FIVE JOHN STREET, ADELPHI


SOME PRESS OPINIONS OF

The Passionate Elopement

_By_ COMPTON MACKENZIE


_TIMES:_

     "We are grateful to him for wringing our hearts with the 'tears and
     laughter of spent joys.'"

_SPECTATOR:_

     "As an essay in literary bravura the book is quite remarkable."

_COUNTRY LIFE:_

     "In the kindliness, the humour and the gentleness of the treatment,
     it comes as near to Thackeray, as any man has come since
     Thackeray."

_DAILY CHRONICLE:_

     "Thanks for a rare entertainment! And, if the writing of your story
     pleased you as much as the reading of it has pleased us,
     congratulations too."

_GLOBE:_

     "A little tenderness, a fragrant aroma of melancholy laid away in
     lavender, a hint of cynicism, an airy philosophy--and so a wholly
     piquant, subtly aromatic dish, a rosy apple stuck with cloves."

_GLASGOW NEWS:_

     "Fresh and faded, mocking yet passionate, compact of tinsel and
     gold is this little tragedy of a winter season in view of the pump
     room.... Through it all, the old tale has a dainty, fluttering,
     unusual, and very real beauty."

_ENGLISH REVIEW:_

     "All his characters are real and warm with life. 'The Passionate
     Elopement' should be read slowly, and followed from the smiles and
     extravagance of the opening chapters through many sounding and
     poetical passages, to the thrilling end of the Love Chase. The
     quiet irony of the close leaves one smiling, but with the wiser
     smile of Horace Ripple who meditates on the colours of life."

_WESTMINSTER GAZETTE:_

     "Mr. Mackenzie's book is a novel of genre, and with infinite care
     and obvious love of detail has he set himself to paint a literary
     picture in the manner of Hogarth. He is no imitator, he owes no
     thanks to any predecessor in the fashioning of his book.... Mr.
     Mackenzie recreates (the atmosphere) so admirably that it is no
     exaggeration to say that, thanks to his brilliant scene-painting,
     we shall gain an even more vivid appreciation of the work of his
     great forerunners. Lightly and vividly does Mr. Mackenzie sketch in
     his characters... but they do not on that account lack
     personality. Each of them is definitely and faithfully drawn, with
     sensibility, sympathy, and humour."


MARTIN SECKER, NUMBER FIVE JOHN STREET, ADELPHI


SOME PRESS OPINIONS OF

CARNIVAL

_By_ COMPTON MACKENZIE

_ATHENAEUM_:


"Mr. Mackenzie's second novel amply fulfils the promise of his first....
Its first and great quality is originality. The originality of Mr.
Mackenzie lies in his possession of an imagination and a vision of life
that are as peculiarly his own as a voice or a laugh, and that reflect
themselves in a style which is that of no other writer.... A prose full
of beauty."

_PUNCH_:

"After reading a couple of pages I settled myself in my chair for a
happy evening, and thenceforward the fascination of the book held me
like a kind of enchantment. I despair, though, of being able to convey
any idea of it in a few lines of criticism.... As for the style, I will
only add that it gave me the same blissful feeling of security that one
has in listening to a great musician.... In the meantime, having
recorded my delight in it, I shall put 'Carnival' upon the small and by
no means crowded shelf that I reserve for 'keeps.'"

_OUTLOOK_:

"In these days of muddled literary evaluations, it is a small thing to
say of a novel that it is a great novel; but this we should say without
hesitation of 'Carnival,' that not only is it marked out to be the
leading success of its own season, but to be read afterwards as none but
the best books are read."

_OBSERVER_:

"The heroic scale of Mr. Compton Mackenzie's conception and achievement
sets a standard for him which one only applies to the 'great' among
novelists."

_ENGLISH REVIEW_:

"An exquisite sense of beauty with a hunger for beautiful words to
express it."

_ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS_:

"The spirit of youth and the spirit of London."

_NEW YORK TIMES_:

"We hail Mr. Mackenzie as a man alive--who raises all things to a
spiritual plane."

_MR. C. K. SHORTER in the SPHERE_:

"'Carnival' carried me from cover to cover on wings."

_NEW AGE_:

"We are more than sick of it."

MARTIN SECKER, NUMBER FIVE JOHN STREET, ADELPHI




SINISTER STREET

_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_

     CARNIVAL

     THE PASSIONATE ELOPEMENT

     KENSINGTON RHYMES

                 For some press opinions, see preceding pages

     SINISTER STREET: VOLUME II

     METROPOLITAN NIGHTS

                    These volumes are in preparation




SINISTER STREET

_By COMPTON MACKENZIE_

LONDON: MARTIN SECKER

NUMBER FIVE JOHN STREET ADELPHI MCMXIII


TO
THE REVEREND
E. D. STONE


_My dear Mr. Stone,_

_Since you have on several occasions deprecated the length of my books,
I feel that your name upon the dedicatory page of this my longest book
deserves explanation, if not apology._

_When I first conceived the idea of 'Sinister Street,' I must admit I
did not realize that in order to present my theme fully in accord with
my own prejudice, I should require so much space. But by the time I had
written one hundred pages I knew that, unless I was prepared against my
judgment to curtail the original scheme, I must publish my book in a
form slightly different from the usual._

_The exigencies of commercial production forbid a six shilling novel of
eight or nine hundred pages, and as I saw no prospect of confining
myself even to that length, I decided to publish in two volumes, each to
contain two divisions of my tale._

_You will say that this is an aggravation of the whole matter and the
most impenitent sort of an apology. Yet are a thousand pages too long
for the history of twenty-five years of a man's life, that is to say if
one holds as I hold that childhood makes the instrument, youth tunes the
strings, and early manhood plays the melody?_

_The tradition of the English novel has always favoured length and
leisure; nor do I find that my study of French and Russian literature
leads me to strain after brevity. I do not send forth this volume as the
first of a trilogy. It is actually the first half of a complete book. At
the same time, feeling as I do that in these days of competitive
reading, the sudden vision of over a thousand pages would be inevitably
depressing, I give you the opportunity of rest at the five-hundredth
page, which reaches a climax at least as conclusive as any climax can be
that is not death. I do not pretend that I shall not be greatly
disappointed if next January or February you feel disinclined to read
'Dreaming Spires' and 'Romantic Education,' which will complete the
second volume. Yet I will be so considerate as to find someone else to
bear the brunt of dedication, and after all there will be no compulsion
either upon you or upon the public to resume._

_Yours ever affectionately,_

_Compton Mackenzie._

_Let me add in postscript that 'Sinister Street' is a symbolic title
which bears no reference to an heraldic euphemism._

_Phillack, August 3, 1913._




VOLUME ONE

CONTAINING

I. THE PRISON HOUSE

II. CLASSIC EDUCATION

     "_The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature imagination
     of a man is healthy; but there is a space of life between, in which
     the soul is in a ferment, the character undecided, the way of life
     uncertain, the ambition thick-sighted._"

     JOHN KEATS.




CONTENTS


_Book One: The Prison House_

PAGE

I. THE NEW WORLD                     1

II. BITTERSWEET                     20

III. FEARS AND FANTASIES            39

IV. UNENDING CHILDHOOD              46

V. THE FIRST FAIRY PRINCESS         70

VI. THE ENCHANTED PALACE            85

VII. RANDELL HOUSE                  97

VIII. SIAMESE STAMPS               113

IX. HOLIDAYS IN FRANCE             129


_Book Two: Classic Education_

I. THE JACOBEAN                    141

II. THE QUADRUPLE INTRIGUE         159

III. PASTORAL                      176

IV. BOYHOOD'S GLORY                188

V. INCENSE                         208

VI. PAX                            232

VII. CLOVEN HOOFMARKS              248

VIII. MIRRORS                      262

IX. THE YELLOW AGE                 281

X. STELLA                          308

XI. ACTION AND REACTION            321

XII. ALAN                          346

XIII. SENTIMENT                    355

XIV. ARABESQUE                     378

XV. GREY EYES                      397

XVI. BLUE EYES                     416

XVII. LILY                         427

XVIII. EIGHTEEN YEARS OLD          447

XIX. PARENTS                       469

XX. MUSIC                          479




BOOK ONE

THE PRISON HOUSE

    _"What youth, Goddess--what guest_
    _Of Gods or mortals?"_

    MATTHEW ARNOLD.


    _"Slow on your dials the shadows creep,_
    _So many hours for food and sleep,_
    _So many hours till study tire,_
        _So many hours for heart's desire."_

                     ROBERT BRIDGES.




Chapter I: _The New World_


From a world of daisies as big as moons and of mountainous green
hillocks Michael Fane came by some unrealized method of transport to the
thin red house, that as yet for his mind could not claim an individual
existence amid the uniformity of a long line of fellows. His arrival
coincided with a confusion of furniture, with the tramp of men backwards
and forwards from a cavernous vehicle very dry and dusty. He found
himself continually being lifted out of the way of washstands and
skeleton chests of drawers. He was invited to sit down and keep quiet,
and almost in the same breath to walk about and avoid hindrance.
Finally, Nurse led him up many resonant stairs to the night-nursery
which at present consisted of two square cots that with japanned iron
bars stood gauntly in a wilderness of oilcloth surrounded by four walls
patterned with a prolific vegetation. Michael was dumped down upon a
grey pillow and invited to see how well his sister Stella was behaving.
Nurse's observation was true enough: Stella was rosily asleep in an
undulation of blankets, and Michael, threatened by many whispers and
bony finger-shakes, was not at all inclined to wake her up. Nurse
retired in an aura of importance, and Michael set out to establish an
intimacy with the various iron bars of his cage. For a grown-up person
these would certainly have seemed much more alike than even the houses
of Carlington Road, West Kensington: for Michael each bar possessed a
personality. Minute scratches unnoticed by the heedless adult world lent
variety of expression: slight irregularities infused certain groups
with an air of deliberate consultation. From the four corners royal
bars, crowned with brass, dominated their subjects. Passions, intrigues,
rumours, ambitions, revenges were perceived by Michael to be seething
below the rigid exterior of these iron bars: even military operations
were sometimes discernible. This cot was guarded by a romantic
population, with one or two of whose units Michael could willingly have
dispensed: one bar in particular, set very much askew, seemed sly and
malignant. Michael disliked being looked at by anybody or anything, and
this bar had a persistent inquisitiveness which already worried him.
'Why does he look at me?' Michael would presently ask, and 'Nobody wants
to look at such an ugly little boy,' Nurse would presently reply. So one
more intolerable question would overshadow his peace of mind.

Meanwhile, far below, the tramp of men continued, until suddenly an
immense roar filled the room. Some of the bars shivered and clinked, and
Michael's heart nearly stopped. The roar died away only to be succeeded
by another roar from the opposite direction. Stella woke up crying.
Michael was too deeply frightened so to soothe himself, as he sat
clutching the pointed ears of the grey pillow. Stella, feeling that the
fretful tears of a sudden awakening were insufficient, set up a bellow
of dismay. Michael was motionless, only aware of a gigantic heart that
shook him horribly. At last the footsteps of Nurse could be heard, and
over them, the quick 'tut-tut-tuts' that voiced her irritation.

"You naughty boy, to wake up your little sister."

"What was that noise?" asked Michael.

"Your own noise," said Nurse sharply.

"It wasn't. It was lions."

"And if it _was_ lions, what next?" said Nurse. "Lions will always come,
when little boys are naughty. Lions don't like naughty boys."

"Michael doesn't like lions."

He took refuge in the impersonal speech of earlier days, and with a
grave obstinacy of demeanour resisted the unreasonableness of his nurse.

"What was that noise, Nanny? Do tell me."

"Why a train, of course. There's a molly-coddle. Tut-tut!"

"A train like we rode in from down in the country?"

"Yes, a train like we rode in from down in the country!" Nurse mimicked
him in an outrageous falsetto.

"Not lions at all?"

"Not if you're a good boy."

"Nor bears--nor tigers--nor wolverines?"

The last was a dreadful importation of fancy from some zoological
gift-book.

"Now that's enough," Nurse decided.

"Nor laughing hyenas?"

"Am I to speak to you