(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)
If sorrow's crown of sorrow is as the poet says, it should be equally
true that there is enough satisfaction in remembering unhappier things
to ensure success for _The Crisis of the Naval War_ (CASSELL), the
large and dignified volume in which Admiral of the Fleet Viscount
JELLICOE OF SCAPA, G.C.B., O.M., G.C.V.O., reminds us how near the
German submarines came to triumph in 1917, and details the various
ways by which their menace was overcome. It is a solid book, written
with authority, and addressed rather to the expert than to the casual
reader; but even the latter individual (the middle-aged home-worker,
for instance, remembering the rationed plate of beans and rice that
constituted his lunch in the Spring of 1917) can thrill now to read of
the precautions this represented, and the multiform activities that
kept that distasteful dish just sufficiently replenished. I have
observed that Viscount JELLICOE avoids any approach to sensationalism.
His book however contains a number of exceedingly interesting
photographs of convoys at sea, smoke-screens, depth-charges exploding,
and the like, which the most uninformed can appreciate. And in at
least one feature of "counter-measures," the history of the decoy or
mystery ships, the record is of such exalted and amazing heroism that
not the strictest language of officialdom can lessen its power to stir
the heart. Who, for example, could read the story of _The Prize_, and
the involuntary tribute from the captured German commander that rounds
it off, without a glow of gratitude and pride? Do you recall how we
would attempt to stifle curiosity with the unsatisfactory formula, "We
shall know some day"? Here in this authoritative volume is another
corner of the curtain lifted.
* * * * *
Although he is still comparatively a newcomer, a book with the
signature of Mr. JOSEPH HERGESHEIMER is already something of a
landmark in the publishing season. To this repute _Linda Condon_
(HEINEMANN) will certainly add. In many ways I incline to think it, or
parts of it, the best work that this unusual artist has yet done. The
development of _Linda_, in the hateful surroundings of an American
"hotel-child," through her detached and observant youth to a womanhood
austere, remote, inspired only by the worship of essential beauty, is
told with an exquisite rightness of touch that is a continual delight.
Mr. HERGESHEIMER has above all else the gift of suggesting atmosphere
and colour (ought I not in mere gratitude to bring myself to say
"color"?); his picture of _Linda's_ amazing mother and the rest of
the luxurious brainless company of her hotel existence has the exotic
brilliance of the orchid-house, at once dazzling and repulsive. Later,
in the course of her married life, inspiring and inspired by the
sculptor _Pleydon_ (in whose fate the curious may perhaps trace some
echo of recent controversy), the story of _Linda_ becomes inevitably
less vivid, though its grasp of the reader's sympathy is never
relaxed. In fine, a tale short as such go nowadays, but throughout
of an arresting and memorable beauty. The state of modern American
fiction has, if I may say so without offence, been for some time a
cause of regret to the judicious; let Mr. HERGESHEIMER be resolute in
refusing to lower his standard by over-production, and I look to see
him leading a return towards the best traditions of an honourable
past.
* * * * *
It is not an impossible conception that _Sniping in France_
(HUTCHINSON) will still be available in libraries in the year 2020
A.D., and I can imagine the title then catching the eye of some
enthusiastic sportsman, whose bent for game is stronger than his
knowledge of history. Feeling that here is a new class of shooting for
him to try his hand at, he will hasten to acquaint himself with the
details and will discover that the first of the essentials is a
European war in full blast. Whether or not he will see his way to
arrange that for himself, I don't know and, since I shall not be
present, I don't care. But in any case he will be absorbed in an
eminently scientific and indeed romantic study of perhaps the most
thrilling and deadly-earnest big game hunting there has ever been, and
he will be left not a little impressed with the work of the author,
Major H. HESKETH PRICHARD, D.S.O., M.C., his skill, energy and
personality. As to this last he will find a brief summing-up in the
foreword of General Lord HORNE, and he will be able to visualise the
whole "blunderbuss" very clearly by the help of the illustrations of
Mr. ERNEST BLAIKLEY, of the late Lieut. B. HEAD, and of the camera.
There is undoubtedly much controversial matter in the book, which must
necessarily give rise to the most remarkable gun-room discussions. I
can well imagine some stout-hearted Colonel, prompted by his love for
the plain soldier-man and his rooted dislike of all "specialists,"
becoming very heated in the small hours of the morning about the
paragraph on page 97, in which a division untrained in the Sniping
Schools is in passing compared to a band of "careless and ignorant
tourists."
* * * * *
Señor IBAÑEZ' new novel, _Mare Nostrum_ (CONSTABLE), is ostensibly a
yarn about spies and submarines, its hero a gallant Spanish captain,
_Ulysses Ferragut_, scion of a long line of sailormen. And there can
be no doubt of the proper anti-German sentiments of this stout fellow,
even though his impetuous passion for _Freya Talberg_, a Delilah in
the service of the enemy, did make him store a tiny island with what
the translator will persist in calling combustibles, meaning, one
supposes, fuel. But more fundamentally it is an affectionate song
of praise of the Mediterranean and the dwellers on its littoral,
especially the fiery and hardy sailors of Spain, and of Spaniards, in
particular the Valencians and Catalonians. Signor IBAÑEZ' method
is distinctly discursive; he gives, for instance, six-and-twenty
consecutive pages to the description of the inmates of the Naples
Aquarium and is always ready to suspend his story for a lengthy
disquisition on any subject, person or place that interests him. This
puts him peculiarly at the mercy of his transliterator, who has a
positive genius for choosing the wrong word and depriving any comment
of its subtlety, any well-made phrase of its distinction. Even
plain narrative such as the following is none too attractive:--"The
voluminous documents would become covered with dust on his table and
Don Esteban would have to saddle himself with the dates in order that
the end of the legal procedures should not slip by." What ingenuous
person authorises this sort of "authorised translation"?
* * * * *
If I may say so without offence, Mr. EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS reminds me
a little of those billiard experts who, having evolved a particular
stroke, will continue it indefinitely, to the joy of the faithful
and the exasperated boredom of the others. To explain my metaphor, I
gather that Mr. BURROUGHS, having "got set," to an incredible number
of thousands, with an invention called _Tarzan_, is now by way of
beating his own record over the adventures of _John Carter_ in the red
planet Mars. Concerning these amazing volumes there is just this to
say, that either you can read them with avidity or you can't read them
at all. From certain casual observations I conceive the test to be
primarily one of youth, for honesty compels my middle-age to admit
a personal failure. I saw the idea; for one thing no egg was ever a
quarter so full of meat as the Martian existence of incomprehensible
thrills, to heighten the effect of which Mr. BURROUGHS has invented
what amounts to a new language, with a glossary of its own, thus
appealing to a well-known instinct of boyhood, but rendering the whole
business of a more than Meredithian obscurity to the uninitiate. I
have hitherto forgotten to say that the particular volume before me is
called _The War Lord of Mars_ (METHUEN). I may add that it closes
with the heroic _Carter_ hailed as Jeddak of Jeddaks, which sounds
eminently satisfactory, though without conveying any definite promise
of finality.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _The Knight._ "LET'S SEE. WE HAVE ALREADY OVERCOME THE
CHIEF JAILER AND HIS TEN ASSISTANTS, AND SLAIN THE FEARSOME HOUND
WHICH GUARDED THE COURTYARD. WE HAVE NOW TO DESTROY THE ONE-EYED GIANT
AND THE BEAN-FED DRAGON, SCALE THE OUTER WALL, SWIM THE MOAT AND THEN
TO HORSE. COURAGE, SWEET LADY! YOU ARE PRACTICALLY SAVED."]
* * * * *
=Do Poultry Pay?=
"Six Hens for sale, some laying 7s. each."--_Local Paper._
You will find three of them as good as a guinea-fowl.
* * * * *
"But the germ of Socialism or BZolshevism--however you like to
call it--has hardly entered the Polish working-class blood."
_Provincial Paper._
We fear, however, that it has got into our contemporary's
composing-room.
* * * * *
Transcriber's Note:
Page 116 corrected Typo: changed "Encylopædia" to "Encyclopædia".