And how misleading she is even in her portraits. The plump, soft, wistful wench with the murmuring eyes and sensual mouth, in Opie’s painting, does not look like the dazzler of the great. The humorous, blunt-faced, double-chinned sexagenarian of D’Anger’s medallion does not look like the spiritualised creature which his ecstatic letters describe What was it that got them all? Was it the famous technique, the flattery of the perpetual promise? Or the most flattering of all flatteries, the most active and subtle of the social arts (as indeed the last of her “unredeemed” novels suggested), the art of listening? For one cannot, one must not, believe that the title of the first book, written after her redemption, offers the clue. It was a didactic work entitled Lying, In all its Branches.
1 Oxford University Press.
By the same Author
DEAD MAN LEADING
NOTHING LIKE LEATHER
YOU MAKE YOUR OWN LIFE
This electronic edition published in 2011 by Bloomsbury Reader
Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP
Copyright © 1943
The moral right of author has been asserted
All rights reserved
You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise
make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means
(including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying,
printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the
publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages
ISBN: 9781448201044
eISBN: 9781448202362
Visit www.bloomsburyreader.com to find out more about our authors and their books
You will find extracts, author interviews, author events and you can sign up for
newsletters to be the first to hear about our latest releases and special offers
In My Good Books Page 18