some other women), father also of that Count Emmerich who succeeded
Manuel as ruler at Bellegarde and Storisende--around the reigns of
Manuel and Emmerich the various sagas of Mr. Cabell principally revolve.
Scandinavia, however, conveniently impinges upon their province, with
Constantinople and Barbary, Massilia, Aquitaine, Navarre, Portugal,
Rome, England, Paris, Alexandria, Arcadia, Olympus, Asgard, and the
Jerusalems Old and New. As many ages of history likewise converge upon
Poictesme in its ostensible thirteenth or fourteenth century, from the
most mythological times only a little this side of Creation to the most
contemporary America of Felix Kennaston who lives at comfortable
Lichfield with two motors and with money in four banks but in his mind
habitually bridges the gap by imagined excursions into Poictesme and the
domains adjacent.

Nothing but remarkable erudition in the antiquities as Cockaigne and
Faery could possibly suffice for such adventures as Mr. Cabell's, and he
has very remarkable erudition in all that concerns the regions which
delight him. And where no authorities exist he merrily invents them, as
in the case of his Nicolas of Caen, poet of Normandy, whose tales
_Dizain des Reines_ are said to furnish the source for the ten stories
collected in _Chivalry_, and whose largely lost masterpiece _Le Roman
de Lusignan_ serves as the basis for _Domnei_. One British critic and
rival of Mr. Cabell has lately fretted over the unblushing anachronisms
and confused geography of this parti-colored world. For less dull-witted
scholars these are the very cream of the Cabellian jest.

The cream but not the substance, for Mr. Cabell has a profound creed of
comedy rooted in that romance which is his regular habit. Romance,
indeed, first exercised his imagination, in the early years of the
century when in many minds he was associated with the decorative Howard