I: Palliation of the Gambit explained

What happens

Themes in this chapter

• The Power of Storytelling

  The chapter emphasizes the importance of dreams and storytelling as a means to approach assurance that life is not blind or aimless.

• The Search for Meaning

  Kennaston's transformation and the narrator's quest to explain it reflect a search for meaning beyond the mundane.

Characters to notice

• Felix Kennaston

  The central figure whose unexplained transformation from a tolerable poet to a genius is the subject of the chapter.

• Dick Harrowby

  The narrator and author of the biography, who collected Kennaston's story and introduces the chapter.

• Mrs. Kennaston

  Mentioned as part of the Kennastons, the couple known to the narrator through shallow intimacy.

• Count Emmerick

  Referenced as the fourth Count Emmerick reigning in Poictesme in the world's youth, part of the dream-stuff opening.

Key passages

• “Much has been written critically about Felix Kennaston since the disappearance of his singular personality from the field of contemporary writers; and Mr. Froser's Biography contains all it is necessary to know as to the facts of Kennaston's life.”

  Many critics have discussed Felix Kennaston since he vanished from the literary scene, and Mr. Froser's biography covers the basic facts of his life.

  Introduces Kennaston as a notable figure whose life is well-documented but whose inner change remains mysterious.

• “Yet most readers of the Biography, I think, must have felt that the great change in Kennaston no long while after he 'came to forty year'—this sudden, almost unparalleled, conversion of a talent for tolerable verse into the full-fledged genius of Men Who Loved Alison—stays, after all, unexplained.”

  Most readers of the biography likely feel that Kennaston's sudden transformation around age forty from a mediocre poet to a genius remains unexplained.

  Highlights the central mystery of Kennaston's creative leap.

• “I do not know but that in hunting down one enigma it raises a bevy; but it, at worst, tells from his standpoint honestly how this change came about.”

  I'm not sure if solving this mystery creates more questions, but at least it honestly presents Kennaston's perspective on how the change happened.

  The narrator acknowledges the complexity of the story but commits to telling it truthfully.

• “You must permit that I begin it in my own way, with what may to you at first seem dream-stuff. For I commence at Storisende, in the world's youth, when the fourth Count Emmerick reigned in Poictesme, having not yet blundered into the disfavor of his papal cousin Adrian VII.”

  Allow me to start in my own manner, with what might seem like dream material, beginning at Storisende in ancient times when Count Emmerick ruled Poictesme before falling out with his cousin Pope Adrian VII.

  Sets the stage for a fantastical opening that may initially confuse readers.

• “With such roundabout gambits alone can some of us approach—as one fancy begets another, if you will—to proud assurance that life is not a blind and aimless business; not all a hopeless waste and confusion; and that we ourselves may (by-and-by) be strong and excellent and wise.”

  Only through such indirect approaches can we come to believe that life has purpose and that we can eventually become strong, excellent, and wise.

  Explains the narrative strategy of using dreams to find meaning.

• “Meanwhile, I can but entreat you to remember it is only by preserving faith in human dreams that we may, after all, perhaps some day make them come true.”

  I urge you to remember that only by keeping faith in our dreams can we hope to realize them someday.

  Concludes with a plea for the power of dreams.