DELAINE. A term which applies strictly to an all-woollen fabric of light and fine texture and constructed with the plain calico weave. The fabric may be all white or piece-dyed, i.e., dyeing the cloth in the "piece," after weaving, as distinct from coloured cloth woven from warp and weft yam dyed previous to weaving. Delaine fabrics are also sometimes figured with pat terns in various colours. The pattern may be printed on the warp, before weaving, after the manner adopted in chintzes and cre tonnes (q.7.,.) and in Chine silk fabrics, while others are printed with patterns after weaving, as in calico printing. One quality of delaine is made with 54 warp ends per inch, of 46's, and 64 picks per inch of 64's Botany wool.
Delaine union fabrics are also produced from a cotton warp and Botany weft, with 3o's counts of yarn for both warp and weft, and with 64 warp threads and picks per inch. Some fabrics described as "delainettes" are produced from all-cotton both for warp and weft of soft spun yarn, and finished with a soft finish similar to that of the lighter and finer textures of flannelette (q.v.). (H. N.) DE LA MARE, WALTER JOHN ), British poet and novelist, of Huguenot descent, was born on April 25, 1873, at Charlton, Kent, and educated in London at St. Paul's Cathedral Choir school. From 1889 to 19o8 he was engaged in business in London, but he had already printed poems and prose, writing as "Walter Ramal" in The Cornhill and other magazines, and in 19or his Songs of Childhood appeared, his novel Henry Brocken following in 1904. A grant from the Privy Purse enabled him to devote himself fully to literary work, and he gradually found a growing audience for his delicate and highly individual work. The Return (I 9I o) won the Polignac prize. The Listeners and other Poems (1912), Peacock Pie (1913), Motley and Other Poems (1918) brought him to the front rank of his contempo raries, and his Collected Poems, 196.i-1918, appeared in 192o. A fairy play, Crossings, was published in 1921, and also further poems, The Veil. The long novel, Memoirs of a Midget (1921), showed his prose gifts at their highest; it also showed him to be a master of fantasy (he gives substance and verisimilitude to the fantastic) and of symbolism, and the critics have seen in him the heir of Maeterlinck tradition. Later books were volumes of stories: The Riddle (1924), Broomsticks (1925), The Connoisseur and other Stories (1926). De la Mare was a close friend of Rupert Brooke, and wrote an interesting essay on him in 1919.
See R. L. Megroz, Walter de la Mare (1924)•