(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)
Undeniably Mr. CARADOC EVANS is the bold boy. No doubt you remember (since
they are so difficult to forget) the two volumes in which he dealt
faithfully (and a bit over) with the manners of his countrymen in the land
of their fathers. I have heard, and can well believe, that some of Mr.
EVANS' own people were moved by this tribute even to the extent of
threatening its author with personal violence. And now he has turned from
Welsh Wales to English London, and gives us in _My Neighbours_ (MELROSE) a
further collection of sketches pleasantly calculated to prove that the
general detestability of his compatriots remains unchanged by their
migration from a whitewashed cottage to a villa in Suburbia. Whatever you
may think of Mr. EVANS' work, whether it attracts or violently repels,
there can be no question of its devastating skill. His sketches, no more
than a few pages in length, contain never an idle word, and the phrases
bite like vitriol. Moreover he employs an idiom that is (I conjecture) a
direct transcription from native speech, which adds enormously to the
effect. Understand me, not for worlds would I commend these volumes
haphazard to the fastidious; I only say they are clever, arresting and
violently individual. Also that, if you have not so far met the work of Mr.
EVANS, here is your opportunity, in a volume that shows it at its best, or
worst. Half-an-hour's reading will give you an excellent idea of it. At the
end of that time you will probably send either to the chemist for a
restorative or to the bookseller for the two previous volumes. Meanwhile,
if I were the writer, I should purchase a bulldog.
* * * * *
Mrs. GEORGE WEMYSS has for some time past specialised in spinster-aunts,
bachelor-uncles and charming nieces. In _Oranges and Lemons_ (CONSTABLE)
she introduces us pleasantly to some more. The plot, in fact, is chiefly
concerned with the violent squabbles of an uncle and aunt, who belong to
different sides of the family, for the good graces of _Diana_ (who is
nineteen, or thereabouts, and radiant), and _Shant_, (who says so--just
like that--and is five). There are also several young men. To test his
abilities in the _Admirable Crichton_ line _Diana_ maroons the most
favoured of these, together with three other aspirants to her hand, and her
bachelor uncle, on an island in a Scottish loch, hamperless, on a soft day.
As the affections of all the lovers remain undimmed, you can guess what
kind of a girl _Diana_ must have been. _Shant's_ even more responsible job
is to tumble off a pony and allay the temporary tartness which existed
between her two elderly admirers, so that nothing but oranges and
orange-blossoms remain. Really, of course, none of the story much matters.
But if you want the sensation of having stayed with delightful people in
delightful places, where rising prices are not even mentioned or thought
of, Mrs. WEMYSS can give it you all the time.
* * * * *
_Night and Day_ (DUCKWORTH) is the title of VIRGINIA WOOLF'S last book; but
there is no night for the author's clarity of vision, or her cleverness in
describing every detail she has seen, or her delicate precision of style;
there is only daylight, temperate, pervading, but at times, I am afraid,
almost irritatingly calm. "Give me one indiscretion of sympathy or emotion
on behalf of your characters," the reader is tempted to implore her; "let
me feel that you are a little bit excited about them and I shall feel
excited too." The story, after all, is the simple one (to put it in the
shudderingly crude language of former days) of a girl's change of heart
from an unreal love to one of whose sincerity she eventually convinces
herself. _Katharine Hilbery_, the granddaughter of a great poet, brought up
by a father whose only interest is in literature, and a charming mother who
wanders in fields of Victorian romance, breaks off her engagement with a
civil servant who has more taste than talent for letters, and chooses
instead a man slightly below her in social position, but with firmness and
decision of character and genuine skill in--what? Ironmongery? No,
literature. All through the book I found myself wondering whether a mind so
finely tempered as _Katharine's_, a perception so acute, was really fitted
for anything so commonplace as, after all, love is. And I longed for the
authoress, who explained every mood so amazingly well, to explain this too.
* * * * *
Mrs. NORRIS is evidently a specialist in unconventional situations. In her
last novel her theme was the intrigue between a man and his step-mother. In
_Sisters_ (MURRAY) it is the passion of a man for his living wife's married
sister, and in neither case does the author seem to be conscious of
anything out of the ordinary. Not that there is any air of naughtiness
about the business. _Peter_, a rich cripple, loved _Cherry_, the youngest
and prettiest of the three _Strickland_ girls. But _Martin_, a casual
impecunious stranger, stepped in and took her in one bite before _Peter_
could quite realise she was no longer a child. So in default he married
_Alix_, who was, incidentally, worth six of her. Meeting his _Cherry_,
disillusioned about an unsatisfactory and unsuccessful _Martin_, he reaches
out his hand for this forbidden fruit. Whereupon _Alix_, the selfless,
drives herself and _Martin_ over a cliff by way of making things smooth for
_Peter_ and _Cherry_, which was inconsiderate, if resourceful; for, while
_Alix_ is happily killed, poor _Martin_ only breaks his back, so that all
may end with the balance on the credit side of the Recording Angel's ledger
with _Cherry_ nursing her hopeless invalid. An unlikely story, pleasantly
and competently told.
* * * * *
My appreciation of _The Ancient Allan_ (CASSELL) may be measured by my keen
disappointment on finding that the concluding pages of the book were absent
in the copy vouchsafed to me, and that (apparently) in their place a double
dose of pages 279-294 was offered. Nevertheless I can safely assert that
you will find this a yarn worth reading, for here Sir RIDER HAGGARD is in
as good form as ever he was, when both he and _Allan Quatermain_ were
younger. _Lady Ragnall_, who is an old friend to readers of _The Ivory
Child_, reappears here, having in her possession a mysterious and potent
herb, which she persuades _Allan_ to inhale. Then the fun takes on a great
liveliness. _Allan_ is wafted back to the days when Egypt was under the
domination of the Persians, and he in his ancient existence performed some
of the very doughtiest of deeds. No one living can tell such a tale with a
greater dexterity and zest than Sir RIDER. And at that I will leave it,
with one more regret that I was not allowed to be present when _Allan_
recovered from the effects of Taduki (the herb that did it).
* * * * *
I find that when the medicine of thought is wrapped up in the jam of
fiction I generally take both more willingly than either alone. But if my
author, holding out the spoonful, protests that the jam isn't jam at all
but part of the dose, then my mouth does not open with quite its usual
happy confidence. Miss W.M. LETTS has said something of the sort about her
great little book, _Corporal's Corner_ (WELLS, GARDNER, DARTON), and I wish
she hadn't. It is cast in the form of letters written by a soldier in
hospital to a nurse who has been good to him and whose lover has been
killed at the Front. Miss Letts introduces it with a foreword which conveys
the impression that a real _Corporal Jack_ wrote these letters to a real
nurse; but the letters themselves convince--or very nearly convince--me
that the foreword itself is a mere device of authorship, and one which
defeats its own intention of adding weight to the wise and tender and often
humorous things the writer has to say. From his own death-bed _Corporal
Jack_, together with his own love-story and that of his chum _Mac_, writes
what he can of comfort to his friend, and whether his hand or Miss LETTS'S
held the pen the book is the work of someone who knows all about sorrow,
and only the initiated--who must be many for a decade to come--will know
quite how well it is done.
* * * * *
Of the late Mr. NOEL ROSS, who, to the infinite loss of British journalism,
died at the early age of twenty-seven, Mr. Punch cannot trust himself to
speak with the cold detachment of the critic. He saw life with the clear
eye of happy youth and set it down with the easy pen of a ready writer.
Coming from New Zealand, through the War, to England, his natural talents
were at once recognised, and he won a position for himself on the staff of
_The Times_. In the leisure moments spared from the service of the Old Lady
of Printing House Square, he would crack a jest, now and then, with the Old
Sage of Bouverie Street. Mr. EDWIN ARNOLD now publishes a collection of his
writings under the title, _Noel Ross and His Work_, and Mr. Punch confines
himself to commending the volume to his readers.
* * * * *
[Illustration: SOUVENIR-HUNTERS OF THE PAST.