(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerics._)
Has Mr. W. J. LOCKE'S hand--the hand that created vagabond _Paragot_ for
tears and laughter, and the resourceful _Aristide_--has it lost its
particular cunning that he should begin his romance of _The Fortunate
Youth_ (LANE) in a mood of heavy and misplaced facetiousness, and drift
by way of Family Heraldry into an atmosphere of sham politics and a
bright general glow of ineffectual snobbery? _Paul Savelli_, the
fortunate youth, with his incredible beauty, his dreams, his
accomplishments beyond all discernible cause, his faintly Disraelian
airs, never once carried me out of my chair. And to what other end is
romance ordained? Nor did his Princess, with her mastery of the easier
French idioms; nor _Barney Bill_, the kind-hearted stage-tramp. Indeed,
I found Mr. LOCKE constantly making statements about his people that
were not substantiated, as about _Ursula Winwood_, the egregiously
competent, the _confidante_ of troubled ministers, bishops and generals.
_Jane_ alone, an early simple friend of _Paul_, I found credible and
charming, and thanked heaven for her sake that _Paul_ married his
Princess. It is indeed a romance gone wrong. Perhaps it is a more
difficult thing plausibly and readily to sustain one's fancy in a modern
setting, with modern folk, than in the fair realm of Tushery with
rapier-wielding demigods. Yet I think that the dead HARLAND and the
living HOPE (himself no mean Tusher) might have brought off their
_Paul_. As a matter of fact, so I believe could Mr. LOCKE; that is just
the pity of it. I merely record the fact that he has not done so.
* * * * *
There are, of course, short stories and short stories. On a perusal of
those that Mr. RICHARD DEHAN has collected in volume form under the
title of _The Cost of Wings_ (HEINEMANN), I am bound to record my
conviction that most of them are profoundly unworthy of the author of
_The Dop Doctor_. Few of them even aspire to anything beyond "first
serial" quality; and though there is often present a certain easy
flippancy of phrase it impressed me only as the crackling of thorns in a
pot-boiler. Perhaps the best is the first or title tale, which tells of
a young wife goaded to hard words by her constant anxiety for an
aviator-husband. There is some genuine feeling here; but the climax, in
which the pair decide only to fly in company, was dangerously like the
end of a stage duologue. Moreover, so swift now-a-days is the flight of
time--or the time of flight--that aviation stories very soon come to
sound antiquated. Still, after all, there is at least plenty of variety
in this volume, and it will be hard if, in a collection of twenty-six
brief tales, you do not come upon something to your individual taste.
But one word of gentle protest. I fancy the stage has at last agreed
upon a close time for supposed infants, against whose arrival from India
nurses and rocking-horses are engaged, and who turn out on appearance to
be young persons of mature years. Well, I am convinced that it is high
time for a similar prohibition in fiction. Mr. DEHAN at least has proved
himself far too clever for me to tolerate this threadbare theme, not
very illuminatingly treated, from his valuable pen.
* * * * *
_Mr. Anthony Venning_ was a young man of remarkable tact. Taking
advantage of his position as a consultant engineer, at the beginning of
_The Sentence Absolute_ (NISBET), he pocketed an advance commission for
recommending the tender of a certain firm of contractors to the Welsh
mill-owner who was employing his professional services. Whether this
practice is common amongst engineers, as the authoress would seem to
suggest, I cannot say, but at any rate it was hardly to be expected in
the circumstances that _Mr. Venning_ should not fall in love with _Mr.
Powell's_ extremely beautiful daughter, or that the boilers in _Mr.
Powell's_ mill should hesitate in the fulness of time to explode. But
the lover had the native good sense to be present at the moment of the
inevitable catastrophe and to be the only person seriously damaged; and
since it was his first real lapse from the paths of rectitude, and he
was otherwise amiable, athletic, presentable and brave, who shall
complain if, after confessing in a manly way and being put into a state
of thorough repair, he found happiness in the end? Miss MARGARET
MACAULAY tells her story in a pleasant enough way, and describes with
some skill its idyllic setting (for _Mr. Powell_ was first a country
squire, and only secondly a manufacturer); but since she neither
indulges in satire, social and economic speculation, nor any pretence of
subtlety in psychological probings, there is a curiously old-fashioned
air about her novel. And when I mention that _Mr. Venning_ and _Miss
Powell_ were actually cut off by the tide on a treacherous reef of the
Cambrian coast it will be realised that _The Sentence Absolute_ is a
book for one of those softer moods in which we do not desire to be
startled or stung to profound meditation on the meaning of life.
* * * * *
[Illustration: OUR CURIO CRANKS.
THE MAN WHO TAKES EVERY OPPORTUNITY OF ADDING TO HIS GALLERY OF HATS OF
FAMOUS MEN.]
* * * * *
I hope that Mr. VAUGHAN KESTER, author of _John o' Jamestown_ (HODDER
AND STOUGHTON), is innocent of intent to do the dreadful thing that he
has done. With the book itself I have no fault to find; it is quite a
good historical novel, and tells with a fair amount of excitement the
story of _Captain John Smith_ and the early settlers in Virginia, not
omitting _Pocahontas_. Mr. KESTER'S crime consists not in his novel, but
in the fact that he has probably plunged America into all the horrors of
a new outbreak of historical fiction. A few years ago every adult in the
United States was writing historical novels. Those were the black days
at the beginning of this century, still spoken of with a shudder from
Maine to Tennessee. Gradually the horror spent itself; the country
became pacified. Except for an occasional sporadic outbreak, the plague
was stamped out. It got about that the historical novel was "a dead
one," and young America turned to something else. Now you begin to see
what Mr. KESTER has done. While Messrs. HODDER AND STOUGHTON are
publishing _John o' Jamestown_ over in England, another firm is flooding
the States with it. Mr. KESTER is a confirmed "best-seller" on the other
side of the Atlantic. Probably his American publishers have issued a
first edition of a hundred thousand of this story. The result may be
imagined. Wild-eyed literary agents will carry the fiery cross
throughout the country, crying that the historical novel is not dead
after all, that there is still money in it; and thousands of estimable
young men who might have been turning out quite decent stories of
American life will thrust paper into their typewriters and begin, "Of
the days when I followed my dear lord through many a hard-fought fray it
ill becomes me, plain rude man that I am, to speak...." And it will be
Mr. KESTER'S fault. It would not matter so much if the great army of
American writers could do the thing even half as well as he has done it
in _John o' Jamestown_; but they cannot. I know them, and that is why a
great trembling runs through me so that I can scarce hold my pen to
complete this review.
* * * * *
The name of Mr. GORDON GARDINER is unfamiliar to me; but I have little
doubt that if _The Reconnaissance_ (CHAPMAN AND HALL) is a first novel
its author will improve upon work that struck me as at present somewhat
ingenuously conventional. There are two parts to the tale; the first
shows how _Leslie_ earned popular applause and the V.C. by remaining
with a wounded comrade whom he was actually too frightened to leave.
That was a good beginning, and I said to myself that Mr. GARDINER was of
the right stuff; he had a vigorous, incisive style that suited well the
matter of pain and anguish that he had in hand. But, alas! in its hours
of case the story became much more uncertain. All the characters,
including the involuntary hero and the man he rescued (now a lord), turn
up at an hotel on the Lake of Como. There is some mild word-painting
that may remind you pleasantly of pleasant places; and a
disproportionate pother because in one of the sudden lake storms
_Leslie_ dashes for shelter into what he supposes to be his own bedroom
(actually the heroine's) and is imprisoned there by the sticking of a
shutter. An awkward incident, of course, especially as it occurred in
the dead of night, but scarcely enough to make half a novel out of.
Naturally, in the end _Leslie_ owns up about the heroism, and goes away
to justify his unearned credit upon the stricken field; but I am afraid
I must confess that the prospect of his return left me indifferent. I
understand that _The Reconnaissance_ originally appeared in _The Daily
Telegraph_; this being so, the persistence with which its characters
quote extracts from _The Times_ savours almost of filial ingratitude.
Seriously, the first part of the novel was a promise which the second
left unfulfilled. Mr. GARDINER is still in my debt.
* * * * *