_(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)_
_The Safety Candle_ (CASSELL) might have been called, but for the fact
that the title has been used already, A Comedy of Age. For this is what
it is--only perhaps less a comedy than a tragedy. _Agnes Tempest_ was
called the Safety Candle, for the ingenious reason that, though
attractive, she burnt nobody's wings. Returning as a middle-aging widow,
after an unhappy wifehood in Africa, she meets on the boat two persons,
_Captain Brangwyn_, a young man, and a girl-mother calling herself
_Antonina Pisa_. Hence the tears. _Brangwyn_ she marries, doubtfully,
half-defiantly, despite the difference in years between them; _Antonina_
is taken as a companion and very soon developes into a sick-nurse. For
in the space between the ship-board engagement and the wedding a railway
accident changes poor _Agnes_ from a still beautiful and active woman to
a nerve-ridden invalid. But in spite of this she and _Brangwyn_ marry;
and (with the much too attractive _Antonina_ always in evidence) you can
guess the result. One odd point; you will hardly get any distance into
Miss E.S. STEVENS' exceedingly well-written story without being struck
by its resemblance to one of Mr. HICHENS' romances. The relative
positions of the members of the triangle, middle-aged wife, young
husband, and girl are exactly those of _The Call of the Blood_; while
the Sicilian setting is identical. But this of course is by no means to
accuse Miss STEVENS of plagiarism; her development of the situation, and
especially the tragedy that resolves it, is both original and
convincing. The end indeed took me wholly unawares, since as a hardened
novel-reader I had naturally been expecting--but read it, and see if you
also are not startled by a refreshing departure from the conventional.
* * * * *
If there still linger in the remoter parts of Cromarty or the Balls Pond
Road certain unsophisticated persons who believe that the stage is one
long glad symposium of wine, woman and song they will be interested to
know that Mr. KEBLE HOWARD has written his latest novel, _The Gay Life_
(JOHN LANE), with the express object--or so he says--of disillusioning
them. He has no use for the cynic who declared that there are three
sexes, men, women and actors. His Thespians are gay because they are
happy, and happy because (though poor) they are virtuous. The crowning
ambition of their lives of honest toil is not unlimited silk-stockings
and champagne suppers, but the combined and unqualified approval of Mr.
GRANVILLE BARKER and Miss HORNIMAN. I fear the Philistines will not be
much impressed with Mr. KEBLE HOWARD'S championship. In the first place
he selects for his heroine a girl of what used to be known as the "lower
orders." Yet it is more than doubtful if the lower orders have ever done
anything for Mr. KEBLE HOWARD except open his cab-doors and bring his
washing home on Saturday night. Otherwise he would not make his East End
of London heroine talk an argot of which fifty per cent, is pure East
Side Noo York. True, "the curtain" finds her in New York in the arms of
a faithful and acrobatic American, so perhaps it doesn't matter much.
Meanwhile she has become the idol of the Manchester School, enjoyed an
unsuccessful season in partnership with the late Sir HERBERT BEERBOHM
TREE, and signed a contract with the SCHUBERTS to tour the States, and
all without any apparent diminution of the guileless flow of
"Whitechapel" with which she won the hearts of her first employers. It
is courageous of Mr. HOWARD to place on record his apparent belief that
a total absence of the three "R's" and any number of "h's" cannot debar
a strong-minded daughter of the slums from the higher rungs of the
histrionic ladder.
* * * * *
When a warm-hearted and law-abiding gentleman, who has kept open-house
for many guests, suddenly discovers that these guests have plotted
against him, have read his private correspondence, have caused
explosions in his garden, have attacked his neighbours from the
vantage-ground of his house, and altogether have behaved as if he didn't
exist, he is not unlikely to be both shocked and angry, and to denounce
to the world the crew of traitors and assassins who have imposed on his
kindness and hospitality. This is what happened to Uncle Sam at the
hands of the German conspirators for whom he had unconsciously provided
a base of operations. A full account of the doings of this poisonous
gang is given in _The German Spy in America_ (HUTCHINSON), by JOHN PRICE
JONES, a member of the staff of the New York _Sun_. It is not easy for
anyone, least of all for a good American, to refrain from indignation at
the baseness of the rogues who thus battened for many months on the
United States and their people. The book is soberly and clearly written,
and is commended by Mr. ROOSEVELT in a Foreword, to which are added
another Foreword by the Author, and an Introduction by Mr. ROGER B.
WOOD, formerly U.S. Assistant-Attorney in New York.
* * * * *
With whatever sharpness of criticism I had approached _Ma'am_
(HUTCHINSON), the edge of it would have been turned by the statement
upon the fly-leaf that the author, M. BERESFORD RYLEY, died while the
novel was still in manuscript, and that it has been revised for the
press by her friend, Mr. E.V. LUCAS. As things are, having before me
only the pleasant task of praise, I am the more sorry that I cannot
increase that pleasure by telling the writer how much I have enjoyed a
wholly admirable story. She had above everything the rare art of writing
about homely and familiar matters unboringly. _Ma'am_ (a not too happy
title) begins in a dull parish, where its heroine is the newly-wedded
wife of the curate. You will have read no more than the opening pages
(descriptive of the terrible Sunday evening supper which the pair took
at the Vicarage--a supper of cold meat and a ground-rice mould, whereat
four jaded and parish-worn persons lacerated one another's nerves)
before you will have realised gratefully that the story and its
characters are going to be alive with a very refreshing and unpuppetlike
vitality. Eventually, of course, more happens than Vicarage suppers. An
old lover of _Griselda_ (Mrs. Curate) turns up, and many most
unparochial events follow upon his arrival. The scene shifts to Naples,
and we meet a villaful of men and women, all of them admirably original
and human. Not for a great while have I read a story so unforced and
appealing. It is indeed a sad thought that this graceful pen will give
us nothing more of its quality.
* * * * *
When you hear the title or see the cover of _The Heel of the Hun_
(HODDER AND STOUGHTON) your blood may begin to curdle and your flesh to
creep. Be assured. When I think of some of the war-books vouchsafed to
us Mr. J.P. WHITAKER'S is almost tame, and I venture to say that it
might be read out loud at a party of sock-knitters without a stitch
being dropped. Mr. WHITAKER was in Roubaix and, presumably because he
was believed to be an American, was allowed considerable freedom. So,
before he escaped into Holland, he saw some things which were not for
British eyes, and he tells us about them with a staidness altogether
unusual in this kind of book. Although he forgets to mention the fact,
his articles have already appeared in _The Times_, and I can see no
particular reason why they should have been gathered together in this
brief volume. Anyhow, I must believe that the Hun's heel fell less
heavily on Mr. WHITAKER than upon most people who have had the
misfortune to be introduced to it.
* * * * *
An author who can choose so fascinating a title as _The Way of the Air_
(HEINEMANN) certainly has much in his favour, and this not only because
of the more or less temporary connection between aeronautics and
victory, but because just lately we have all been talking large and free
about peace-time developments of the craft in the near future.
Personally I have already arranged to take my wife's mother for a short
week-end in the Holy Land in the Spring of 1920; and a forty-eight
hours' mail service to Bombay is an event of to-morrow. Thus, if Mr.
EDGAR C. MIDDLETON'S book fails to secure general appreciation, he must
place the blame elsewhere than with his subject, and it is a fact that
by some repetitions and contradictions, as well as by a tendency to let
one down at what should be the critical point of his yarns, he has done
something to alienate a public--such as myself--entirely predisposed in
his favour. It remains to say, all the same, that this little volume is
in the main a sincere and obviously well-informed account of the doings
of the men of our air services, full of incident and achievement utterly
beyond belief an unbelievably short time ago. In the pages he devotes to
prophecy--an irresistible temptation--he is on controversial ground, and
his apparent preference for the "gas-bag" as the principal craft of the
future will certainly not find general acceptance. Much more to my
liking is his suggestion that duck chasing and shooting from an
aeroplane--it has already been done at least once--may become a
recognised sport.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Barber_. "MY TONIC 'AIR-RESTORER IS TO THE BALD 'EAD
WHAT THE BENEFICENT SPRAY IS TO THE BLIGHTED TOOBER."]