(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)
It is strange to find the inexhaustible Mr. W.E. NORRIS turning towards the
supernatural. Yet there is at least more than a flavouring of this in the
composition of _Brown Amber_ (HUTCHINSON), which partly concerns a
remarkable bead, having the property of bringing good or evil luck to its
various owners. As (after the manner of such things in stories) the charm
was for ever being lost, and as the kind of fortune it conferred went in
alternations, possession of it was rather in the nature of a gamble. All I
have to observe about it is that such hazards consort somewhat better with
the world of HANS ANDERSEN or the _Arabian Nights_ than with those quiet
and well-bred inhabitants of South-Western London whom one has learnt to
associate with the name of NORRIS. Thus, in considering the nice problem of
whether _Clement Drake_ (as typical a Norrisian as ever buttoned spats)
would or would not escape the entanglements of _Mrs. D'Esterre_, it simply
irritated me to suppose that the event might be determined by the
machinations of djins. In a word, East is East and S.W. is S.W., and never
the twain shall, or should, be mixed up in a novel that pretends to
anything more serious than burlesque. I am not sure also that, for
different reasons, I did not regret the introduction of the War; though as
a grand climax it has, I admit, a lure that must be almost irresistible to
the novelist. For the rest, if you do not share my objection to the (dare I
say it?) amberdexterity of the plot, you will find Mr. NORRIS as pleasant
as ever in his scenes of drawing-room comedy.
A volume of remarkable interest is _In Ruhleben _(HURST AND BLACKETT), into
which Mr. DOUGLAS SLADEN has gathered a variety of information concerning
the life of the English civilian prisoners in Germany, its many hardships
and few ameliorations. The greater part of the book is filled with a series
of letters sent by one of these prisoners to his mother. Perhaps (one
suspects) the writer of these was not altogether an ordinary young man.
From whatever reason, the fact remains that his letters are by no means
uncheery reading; his books and study, most of all his friendships (with
one fellow-captive especially), seem to have kept him contented and even
happy. Of course some part of this may well have been coloured for the
maternal eye; it is clear that he was greatly concerned that she should not
be too anxious about him. A more impartial picture of the conditions at
Ruhleben is given in the second part of the volume, and in a letter by Sir
TIMOTHY EDEN, reprinted from _The Times_, on The Case for a wholesale
Exchange of Civilian Prisoners. I should add that the book is illustrated
with a number of drawings of Ruhleben made by Mr. STANLEY GRIMM, an artist
of the Expressionist School (whatever that may mean). These are vigorous
and arresting, if, to the unmodern eye, somewhat formless. But they are
part of a record that all Englishmen can study with quickened sympathy and
a great pride in the courage and resource of our race under conditions
needlessly brutal at their worst, and never better than just endurable.
* * * * *
Nothing will ever persuade me that _This Way Out_ (METHUEN) is an
attractive title for a novel, however effective it may be as a notice in a
railway station. The book itself, however, is intriguing in spite of its
gloominess. The grandfather of _Jane_ and _John-Andrew Vaguener_ committed
a most cold-blooded murder--this in a prologue. Then, when we get to the
real story, we find _Jane_ tapping out popular fiction at an amazing pace,
and her brother, _John-Andrew_, living on the proceeds thereof. _Jane_ is
noisy, vulgar, and successful in her own line, and gets on _John-Andrew's_
nerves; and when he discovers that she has for once turned aside from
tawdry fiction and written a play that is really good he decides that he
can stand it and her no longer. While she was pouring out literary garbage
he could just manage to endure his position, but the thought that she would
be hailed as a genius while he remained an utter failure was the final
stroke that turned him from a mendicant into a madman. I am not going to
tell you exactly what happened, but _Jane_ found a "way out," and with her
departure from this life my interest in the book evaporated. Mrs. HENRY
DUDENEY has notable gifts as a descriptive writer, and my only complaint
against her is that vulgar _Jane_ was not allowed to live, for in the Army
or out of it she was worth a whole platoon of _John-Andrews_. The
_Vagueners_, I may add, were not a little mad, but then they were Cornish,
and novelists persist in treating Cornwall as if it were a delirious duchy.
* * * * *
I don't think I can honourably recommend Mr. HUGH ELLIOT'S volume on
_Herbert Spencer_ (CONSTABLE) as light reading, though the ungodly may wax
merry over the philosopher's first swear-word, at the age of thirty-six, in
the matter of a tangled fishing-line, and may be kindled at the later
picture of a middle-aged sportsman shinning, effectively too, after a
Neapolitan who had pinched his opera-glasses. Fine human traits these in a
character which will strike the normal man as bewilderingly unlike the
general run of the species. The serious-flippant reader, tackling Mr.
ELLIOT'S elaborate and acute analyses, may get an impression of an
obstinate old apriorist, a sort of White Knight of Philosophyland, with all
manner of reasoned-out "inventions" at his saddle-bow (labelled
"Homogeneity-Heterogeneity," "Unknowable," "Ghost Theory,"
"Presentative-Representative"), which don't seem, somehow, as helpful as
their inventor assumes. And 'tis certain he took tosses into many of the
pits of his dangerous deductive method. I don't present this as Mr.
ELLIOT'S view. He is respectful-critical, and makes perhaps the best case
for his old master's claim to greatness out of the assumption that SPENCER
himself, stark enemy to authority and dogmatism, would have preferred his
biographer's critical examination to any mere "master's-voice" reproduction
of Spencerian doctrine. I wonder if he would!
* * * * *
Miss F.E. MILLS YOUNG'S newest story has at least this much merit about it,
that no one who has seen the title can complain thereafter of having been
taken unawares by the course of the narrative. That is perhaps as well,
for, having discovered in the opening chapters a sufficiently charming
_Pamela_ living in perpetual honeymoon with a partner rich, good-looking
and with no particular occupation to interfere with unlimited motor trips
and dinner parties, we might have imagined the tale was going to remain a
jolly meaningless thing like that all through, and so have been as much
shocked as the heroine herself on reading the fatal letter. But, since we
knew the book to be called straight out _The Bigamist_ (LANE), we could
have no possible difficulty in foreseeing the emergence of that other wife
from the buried past ready to pounce down on poor little _Pam_ at her
happiest. And of course she duly appeared. Not that such happiness could in
any case have lasted long, for the man was, flatly, a cur, not deserving
the notice of any of the rather foolish women he managed to attract--there
were three of them--and not particularly worth your attention either for
that matter. Having said so much I can gladly leave the rest to your
perusal, or, better perhaps, your imagination, only hinting that the
conclusion has something of dignity that does a little to redeem the
volume. But when all is said this is not Miss YOUNG at her best, the
characters without exception being unusually stilted, the plot unpleasant,
and the South African atmosphere, for which I have gladly praised her
before now, so negligible that but for an occasional name and a page or two
of railway journey the yarn might as well have been placed in a suburb of
London or Manchester as in the land of delectable sunshine.
* * * * *
Mr. JOHN S. MARGERISON, in _The Sure Shield_ (DUCKWORTH) sees to it that
our national pride in our Fleet is thoroughly encouraged. Whether he is
describing a race against the Germans in times of peace, or a fight against
odds with them in these days of war, we always come out top dog. Very good.
But, at the same time, I am bound to add that some of his stories compelled
me to make considerable drafts on my reserves of credulity before I could
swallow them. So improbable are the incidents in one or two of them that I
am inclined to believe that they must be founded on fact. However that may
be, their author is an expert in his subject, and writes with a vigour that
is very bracing and infectious.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Tactful Customer (forestalling a rebuff at a coal order
office)._ "OF COURSE, MISS, I DON'T EXPECT THAT YOU REALLY _SELL_ COALS,
BUT I SUPPOSE YOU WOULD HAVE NO OBJECTION TO MAKING THEM A SUBJECT FOR
CONVERSATION?" ]
* * * * *
Music in Mesopotamia.
Among the songs which have recently exhausted their popularity in the
music-halls of Baghdad is:--
"Come into the Garden of Eden, MAUDE."
* * * * *
"The White Star Company, the Dominion Shipping Company, and other
Atlantic lines are now arranging to employ a certain number of Sea
Scouts on their boats. The shipping companies will certainly be
ducky."--_Manchester Guardian._
Or perhaps they may even happen upon a DRAKE.