Where are the Snows of yesteryear?(LIFE & LETTERS)

Some years ago I bought a little book by Arnold Bennett from a stall at a church fete. It cost only a few pence, a real bargain, for this collection of pieces written for The New Age magazine between 1908 and 1911 is full of interest and good sense. Bennett used a pseudonym, Jacob Tonson, for his column, and, if I had Margaret Drabble's fine biography to hand, I might know why. Perhaps it was to allow him to be outspoken. But I doubt if this was the reason. There can have been few in literary London who didn't recognise Bennett's style.

Much is still to the point. Bennett quotes a letter from a publisher to an unnamed author: 'I am awfully sorry that we can't take …