Eleanor Farjeon

“ The Peter of the play is not the Peter of the book, and the play has so outdistanced the book in its power of appeal, that the name of Peter Pan now instantly calls to mind, not Kensington Gardens, but the Never-Never Land.
Yet it is impossible to say that the chance of a permanently haunted Kensington Gardens has quite been let slip. Arthur Rackham has many times put a fine imagination to the service of the finest imaginations that have set the earth aglow —he has created kingdoms of humorous goblins and fairies with rainbow-colored wings: of two-headed ogres with knotted clubs ”

“ In one corner there ’s a wooden door sunk under an arch, and if you open it unexpectedly, you may find yourself looking over the world in sudden light, on a giddy little platform with a spiral stair running down as fast as it can into the garden. In another corner of the room, almost as far away as possible from the daylight door, the Wizard keeps a second door, up a dark stair. I have n’t had the courage to mount that stair and discover the mystery behind that door, that, as behind the first door the Wizard keeps his brightest spells, so behind the second he keeps his blackest. ”

“ But if the unexplained charm of the garden is due to the Wizard’s influence, it is the Wizard’s wife who is responsible for the unexplained charm of the house. She really ought to have an article all to herself, but she is as shy and elusive as the little green people of her native Irish hills, so I ’ve small hopes of catching her. In the little house in Chalcot Gardens, the sweet fellowship of daily life is made perfect by the fellowship of work. Under that roof Mrs. Rackham has her own studio ”

“ There ‘s magic, too, in the green carpets on the stairs. They are the color of grass-rings after fairies have danced in a meadow, so it is not hard to guess what takes place up and down the Rackham staircase after the lights are out. The very stairs are tricksy things, branching different ways like forked twigs on a tree: I am never certain that it 1s always the same fork which leads me to the Wizard‘s studio. It is a big room, Innocent enough at first sight, but it has its surprises. ”

“ He is to be found almost as often in the garden, where, in his own words, he is “continually moving paths and flower beds”—a process that entails long expostulations with a robin, who insists on coming and getting in the way of the spade and the rake whenever there is the chance of a grub turning up. ”

“ The studio.
It is one of his peculiarities that, like his own house, Arthur Rackham steps back a little in the corner off 1he highway the moment you try to come and find him. I don’t mean by this that he literally shuts his mouth and runs away. On the contrary, his instincts are social. He likes company, and he likes fun. And he is far from locking himself up in his studio. ”

“ But he must have music at any price, and he has confessed that he is incapable of playing common time with one hand and triple time with the other, so. for once, he has had to fall victim to a machine. I suppose he has been seen in a taxi in his day, but I am sure he would prefer to amble across London on a camel; and I know from experience that a magic carpet is kept in the house for personal use. ”

“ He watches you from behind the Spectacles of Cunning, and there ’s a whimsical line m his face that can translate itself into the kindliest of smiles. He is light and spare and alert, so that I imagine his favorite form of transformation to be some kind of a bird. ”