(_BY MR. PUNCH'S STAFF OF LEARNED CLERKS._)
There is at least one thing that will surprise you about _It Happened
in Egypt_ (METHUEN), and that is that, although C.N. and A.M.
WILLIAMSON are the writers, motor-cars are hardly so much as mentioned
throughout. It is a tale of the Nile and the Desert, of camels and
caravans, told with a quite extraordinary power of making you feel
that you have visited the scenes described. But this, of course,
if you have any previous experience of the WILLIAMSON method, will
not surprise you at all. As for the story that strings the scenes
together, though it promised well, with almost every possible element
of fictional excitement--buried treasure, and spies, and abductions,
and secrets--somehow the result was not wholly up to the expectation
thus created. To borrow an appropriate simile, the great thrill
remained something of a mirage, always in sight and never actually
reached. Also I wish to record my passionate protest against stories
of treasure-trove in which the treasure is not taken away in sacks and
used to enrich the hunters; I am all against leaving it underground,
for whatever charming and romantic reasons. No, it is not so much as
a novel of adventure that might have happened pretty well anywhere
that I advise you to read this book, but as a super-guide to scenes
and sensations that happen in Egypt and nowhere else. From the moment
when, as one of the WILLIAMSON party, you sit down to breakfast on the
terrace of Shepherd's, till you take leave of your fellow-travellers
in the mountain-tomb of QUEEN CANDACE, you will enjoy the nearest
possible approach to a luxurious Egyptian tour, under delightful
guidance, and at an inclusive fare of six shillings.
* * * * *
Mr. SETON GORDON is a bold man. It is one thing to call a book
_The Charm of the Hills_ (CASSELL) and quite another to succeed in
conveying that charm through the medium of the printed word. Perhaps,
however, he was encouraged by the success that has already attended
these pen-pictures of Highland scenes in serial form; certainly he
knew also that he had another source of strength in a collection of
the most fascinating photographs of mountain scenery and wild life,
nearly a hundred of which are reproduced in the present volume. So
that what Mr. GORDON the writer fails to convey about his favourite
haunts (which is not much) Mr. GORDON the photographer is ready
to supply. The papers, which range in subject from ptarmigan to
cairngorms, are written with an engaging simplicity and directness,
and show a sympathetic knowledge of wild nature such as is the
reward only of long familiarity. The glorious mountain wind
blows through them all, so that as you read you feel the heather
brushing your knees, and see the clouds massing on the peaks of
Ben-something-or-other. Perhaps Mr. GORDON is at his most interesting
on the subject of the Golden Eagle. There are many striking snapshots
of the king of birds in his royal home; and some stories of court
life in an eyrie that are fresh and enthralling. One thing that I was
specially glad to learn on so good authority is that the Golden Eagle,
so far from being threatened with extinction, is actually increasing
in the deer forests of the North. This is intelligence as welcome as
it is nowadays unusual. The book, which is published at 10s. 6d. net,
is dedicated "to one who loves the glens and corries of the hills";
and all who answer to this description should be grateful to the
writer for his delightful record.
* * * * *
Goodness knows that of all London's teeming millions I am the
possessor of the most easily curdled blood, but my flesh declined
to creep an inch from the first page to the last of _Animal Ghosts_
(RIDER). I think it was Mr. ELLIOTT O'DONNELL's way of telling
his stories that was responsible for my indifference. He is so
incorrigibly reticent. His idea of a well-told ghost story runs on
these lines:--"In the year 189--, in the picturesque village of
C----, hard by the manufacturing town of L----, there lived a wealthy
gentleman named T---- with his cousin F---- and two friends M----
and R----." I simply refuse to take any interest in the spectres of
initials, still less in the spectres of the domestic pets of initials.
I am no bigot; by all means deny your ghost his prerogative of
clanking chains and rattling bones; but there are certain points on
which I do take a firm stand, and this matter of initials is one of
them. Not one of these stories is convincing. Mr. O'DONNELL taps
you on the chest and whispers hoarsely, "As I stood there my blood
congealed, I could scarcely breathe. My scalp bristled;" and you,
if you are like me, hide a yawn and say, "No, really?" There is a
breezy carelessness, too, about his methods which kills a story. He
distinctly states, for instance, that the story of the "Headless Cat
of No. ----, Lower Seedley Street, Manchester," was told to him by a
Mr. ROBERT DANE. In the first half of the narrative this gentleman's
brother-in-law addresses him as _Jack_, and later on his wife says to
him, "Oh, _Edward_." What a man whose own Christian name is so much a
matter of opinion has to say about seeing headless cats does not seem
to me to be evidence.
* * * * *
There seems to be an increasing public for the volume of reflections.
At all events Mr. REGINALD LUCAS, who has already two or three
successes in this kind to his credit, has been encouraged to produce
another, to which he has given the pleasant title of _The Measure of
our Thoughts_ (HUMPHREYS). It is, of course, difficult to be critical
with a book like this; either it pleases the reader or it doesn't, and
that is about all that can be said. One reason for my belief that Mr.
LUCAS's _Thoughts_ will please is that he has put them into the brain
of a definitely conceived and very well drawn character. They are told
in the form of letters by this character to his old tutor. The writer
is supposed to be the rather unattractive and self-conscious eldest
son of a noble house, who suffers from the presence of a father and
sister who think him a fool, and a brother whose charm is a continual
and painful contrast to his own lack of it. The special skill of the
letters is their self-revelation, which brings out the pathos of the
writer's position, while at the same time showing quite clearly the
defects that explained it. Mr. LUCAS, in short, does not commit the
error of making his hero merely a mute, misunderstood paragon, whom
anyone with common penetration must have recognised as such. On the
contrary, we sympathise with him, especially in the big tragedy of
his life, while quite admitting that to any casual acquaintance he
must have appeared only a dull and uninteresting egoist. This I call
clever, because it shows that Mr. LUCAS has created a real thinker,
rather than striven to give him any unusual profundity of thought. An
agreeable book.
* * * * *
In the sixteenth chapter of the First Part of _The Rocks of Valpré_
(FISHER UNWIN) _Trevor Mordaunt_ married _Christine Wyndham_, and on
the last page (which is the 511th) of the book, "she opened to him the
doors of her soul, and drew him within...." Granted that _Mordaunt_,
with the eyes of steel, was not exactly an oncoming man and that when
he married _Christine_ he received, as wedding presents, two or three
brothers-in-law who sponged hopelessly upon him, I still think that
Miss ETHEL DELL has given us too detailed an account of the domestic
differences between _Mordaunt_ and his wife. For my own part I became
frankly tired of the pecuniary crises of the _Wyndhams_ and of their
incurable inability to tell the truth. Had _Mordaunt_ got up and given
these feckless brethren a sound hiding I should have been relieved,
but he preferred to make them squirm by using his steely eyes. In
the future I suggest to Miss DELL that she should leave these strong
silent men alone. They have had their day and gone out of vogue. The
best part of this book, and indeed the best work Miss DELL has yet
done, is her treatment of the romantic friendship between _Christine_
and _Bertrand de Montville_. It is handled so touchingly and so
surely that I resent with all the more peevishness the banality of the
steel-eyed one.
* * * * *
[Illustration: ONE OF THE FEW HISTORIC MANSIONS OF ENGLAND WHERE QUEEN
ELIZABETH DID _NOT_ SLEEP.]
* * * * *
"His lordship dismissed the application, with costs, and the
jury found in his favour, assessing the damages at £1,000."
We should like to be a Judge. It seems to be easy and well-paid work.
* * * * *