(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)
Miss VIOLA MEYNELL brings to her analysis of character an astonishingly
acute observation and insight, an intimate sympathy, a quiet, leavening,
sometimes faintly malicious, humour; and to her synthesis a
conscientious and dexterous artistry in selection and arrangement which
gives a vividly objective reality to her creations. So that you may put
down her _Columbine_ (SECKER) with something like the guilty feeling of
an eavesdropper. Love in its effect upon three girls is her main theme,
and it is difficult to overpraise her skill and restraint in the
handling of it. _Lily Peak_, the actress, beautiful, passionless,
incompetent, with her irrelevant banality, and her second-hand
philosophy of living, is a veritable _tour de force_ of characterisation
which cleverly avoids the easy pit of caricature. And between this
pretty nonentity and _Jennifer_, the competent, the loyal and the deep,
with her occasional flashes of beauty and her innocent provocativeness,
_Dixon Parrish_, one of those self-analytic, essentially cool-blooded
modern young men, wavers to the tragic hurt of all the three. _Alison_,
his sister, full of moodiness and passionate preoccupations, moves
unquiet on the well-planned background which holds that genially absurd
pseudo-intellectual, her father; the kindly negative _Mrs. Parrish_;
_Gilbert_, _Alison's_ lover (the least satisfactory of the portraits);
the pleasantly pretentious _Madame Barrett_ of the elocution classes;
and "that _Mrs. Smith_," who is only (but adroitly) shown through
_Lily's_ artless chatter. Miss MEYNELL chooses to write chiefly of
little moments in little lives. But she has adequate reserves of power
for bigger work, as passages of warm colour placed with a fine judgment
on her low-toned canvas abundantly prove, and meanwhile she has shown
herself mistress of a method singularly skilful and restrained. She does
not describe or explain or soliloquise. All her points are made through
the speech, the actions or the expressed thought of her characters--the
manifestly excellent way which so few have the wit or the courage to
follow.
* * *
_Mr. Leo Brandish_, so Miss PEGGY WEBLING assures me, intends to write
the professional biography of their mutual hero, that notable actor and
admirable gentleman, _Edgar Chirrup_ (METHUEN). In the meantime she has
told us all about the man himself, at least as far as the last page that
he has turned, the one where the dogs and the rocking-horse are included
in the family portrait, with his children and the wife whom you and I,
and everyone else for that matter, realised was the one for him long
before he did. Some of the other pages in his life were less
satisfactory, more particularly those on which Fate had inscribed, not
in the most convincing fashion (but perhaps the authoress jogged Fate's
elbow), the history of his sudden unworthy infatuation. If I could not
forget or ever quite understand this episode, neither could "_Chirps_"
himself in the years that followed, when the lovableness and loyalty
that had already won my affections were pleading for his release, with
the ladies (Fate and Miss WEBLING, I mean) collaborating over his
destiny. It would indeed be pitiful if any but the happiest of endings
had been in store for the hero and his _Ruth_, for sweeter and simpler
folk have seldom been persuaded by any writer to smile a genial public
into arm-chair content. And the secret of their charm would seem to be
just that they have been able to catch the qualities of sympathy and
sincerity that belonged in the first case to the manner of the telling
of their story; so perhaps, after all, nothing but good was meant them
from the start. At any rate from first to last there is not a page in
this book that is not sweet, wholesome and entirely readable. Here is
tenderness without mawkishness, humour without noise, a sufficiency of
action without harshness of outline; most surprising, here is a story,
in which many of the characters are of the Stage, presented with an
entire absence of limelight or any other vulgarity. All this, indeed,
one expects from the title-page; but none the less it is no mean
achievement. And so--my congratulations.
* * *
_Through the Ages Beloved_ (HUTCHINSON) might be fairly described as an
unusual story. I am bound to say that I both admired and enjoyed it; but
at the same time a more tangled tale it was never my task to unravel.
For the benefit of future explorers I will say that the motive of the
plot--whose scene is laid in Japan--is reincarnation. Consequently,
though the hero, _Kanaya_, begins as a modern student who has fought
through the Russo-Japanese war, you must be prepared to find him and
yourself switched suddenly without any warning into the remote past. I
am not quite sure that Mr. H. GRAHAME RICHARDS has been playing the game
here. So unheralded is the transference that even the close and careful
reader will experience some bewilderment; as, for example, when the
heroine, whose own name remains the same in both ages, re-enters with
different parents. As for the skipper, his doom will be confusion
unmitigated. However, once you have found your bearings again, there is
much to admire in the treatment of a time and a place so eminently
picturesque. Mr. RICHARDS' pen-pictures of Japanese scenery have all the
delicate beauty of paintings upon ivory. The clear, clean air, the
colour of sunrise flushing some exquisite landscape, a flight of birds
crossing a garden of azaleas--all these are realized with obvious
knowledge and enthusiasm, and more than compensate for the intricacy of
the plot. But this is certainly there. Once only was I myself near
vanquished. This was when the _Kanaya_ of the past, himself the result
of the modern _Kanaya_ hitting his head on a stone, began to hint of
uneasy visions pointing to a remote Port-Arthurian future. Here I
confess that (like _Alice_ and _The Red King_) I longed for some
authoritative pronouncement as to who was the genuine dreamer, and who
would "go out." Still, an original story, and one to be read, even if
with knitting of brows.
* * *
[Illustration: THE PASSPORT WITH ACCOMPANYING PHOTOGRAPH SOMETIMES
AROUSES SUSPICION. ONE SELDOM LOOKS LIKE ONESELF IMMEDIATELY AFTER A
ROUGH CHANNEL CROSSING.]
* * *
There seems some lack of proper respect in describing as a pot-boiler a
story that, when no longer in its first youth, can enjoy a second
blooming at ten shillings and sixpence net, in its own cardboard box,
and embellished with any quantity of the liveliest coloured pictures.
Yet I fear that this is my impression about _The Money Moon_ (SAMPSON
LOW). I have liked Mr. JEFFREY FARNOL'S other work too well to be able
to accept this at its present sumptuous face-value. You remember no
doubt how _George Bellew_, having been jilted by the girl of his
original choice, set out upon a walking tour; how on the first day of
this expedition he fought a bloody battle with a carter, about nothing
in particular, and arrived at a village with the significant name of
Dapplemere. You will not have forgotten that at Dapplemere there lived a
small boy, who talked as boys do in books but nowhere else; a lavendery
old lady-housekeeper whose name (need I remind you?) was _Miss
Priscilla_; and a maiden as fair as she was impoverished. You recall too
how all these charming people took _George_ to their expansive hearts,
and welcomed him as the ideal hero, without apparently once noticing
that he must at the moment (on the author's own showing) have had a
swollen nose and probably two black eyes. No, I repeat my verdict. The
whole thing is too easy. I understand, however, that in America, where
_The Money Moon_ is at present shining more brightly than with us, there
exists a steady demand for this rather saccharine fiction. So let us
leave it at that.
* * *
There must be many persons (I am one of them myself) who, when
confronted with a topical burlesque of _Alice in Wonderland_, would
confess to a little regret. The book is such a treasured joy that one
hates to have any hands, even the cleverest, laid upon it. Yet the deed
is so often done that there is clearly a large public that does not
share this view. Therefore a welcome seems assured for what is
certainly, so far, the wittiest of the attempts, _Malice in Kulturland_
(THE CAR ILLUSTRATED), written by HORACE WYATT, with pictures by TELL.
The ingenuity with which the parodists have handled their task makes me
wish that my personal prejudice had allowed me to appreciate it more
whole-heartedly. Especially neat is the transformation of the _Cheshire
Cat_ into a _Russian Bear_, seen everywhere in the wood (there is a
clever drawing of this). You remember how, at _Alice's_ request, the
_Cat_ kindly obliged with a gradual disappearance from tail to grin? The
_Bear_ does the same, "beginning with an official statement, and ending
with a rumour, which was still very persistent for some time
afterwards." Mr. WYATT has certainly a pretty turn of wit, which I shall
look to see him developing in other and more virgin fields.
* * * * *
"CAN WINKLES BE ELIMINATED?"
_Bristol Observer._
They can be withdrawn with a pin.
* * * * *
"An ewe, owned by Mr. Sydney Crowther, of Oak View Farm,
Plompton, near Harrogate, has given birth to a lamb."
_Yorkshire Evening Post._
One would have expected a lion in these martial days.
Transcriber Notes:
Passages in italics were indicated by _underscores_.
Passages in bold were indicated by =equal signs=.
Small caps were replaced with ALL CAPS.
Throughout the dialogues, there were words used to mimic accents of
the speakers. Those words were retained as-is.
The illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up
paragraphs and so that they are next to the text they illustrate. Thus
the page number of the illustration might not match the page number in
the List of Illustrations, and the order of illustrations may not be the
same in the List of Illustrations and in the book.
Errors in punctuation and inconsistent hyphenation were not corrected
unless otherwise noted.
On page 127, a quotation mark was added after Newcastle United.
On page 140, a quotation mark was added before "It must be four".