(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)
Mr. H.G. WELLS also among the New Theologians is not an entirely
unexpected event. We have all had intimation in his later writings of
the coming of some such thesis as _God, The Invisible King_ (CASSELL). I
can see the deans making mincemeat of the rash author. All's well if
they'll eat some of the meat. And they may. At least this is no
super-subtle modernist divine dealing out old coins surreptitiously
stamped with a new image and superscription, but a plain blunt heretic
who knows his mind (or, rather, mood). But it is a reverent, indeed, I
dare to say, a noble book. The sanely and securely orthodox may read it
with profit if with shock. It should brace their faith, and will rob
them of nothing but a too-ready doubt that so forthright a house-breaker
may be a builder in his own way. There is indeed more faith in these
honest denials than in half the assents of the conformists. Just because
it is not a subtle book it should not be "dangerous." It is romantic,
rather; inspired, you might loosely say. The _Index Expurgatorius_ will
of course list it when they learn of it; but foolishly, because while
the philosophy, the cosmology, the metaphysics may be advanced (so
advanced as to be called hasty and apt to run into the theological
barrages), the religion, the mysticism, the "conviction of sin," the
vision of the invisibles, the perception of the imponderables, are
positive, vivid, sincere, passionate in phrasing and in intention.
Sincere as Mr. WELLS is always sincere; sincere rather than stable,
patient, learned and so forth. I rather wonder that he insists so much
on his _finite_ God. The postulate hardly touches his real thesis. And I
find it easier to believe that there may be some things behind "this
round world" that Mr. WELLS cannot fully understand because he (the
author) is finite--and busy--than accept what seems a contradiction in
terms to no particular end.
* * * * *
The author of _Grand Chain_ (NISBET) is profoundly aware that man is not
the master of his fate (though he may be the captain of his soul, which
is quite a different matter), and that the claim so universally put
forward, that the leopard can change his spots, is simply an excuse for
criticising the superficial pigmentation of other leopards. _Dermod
Randall_, Miss G.B. STERN'S hero, is certainly not the master of his
fate, which is inexorably moulded by the belief of his relatives,
ascendant and descendant, that he must inherit the vices of his father,
a particularly pard-like specimen, and may be expected at any minute to
come out in spots himself. As a matter of fact his only failings were a
young heart and a sense of humour; but, as these qualities were as out
of place in the _Randall_ family as a hornpipe at a funeral, _Dermod_
lives under a perpetual cloud of unmerited suspicion. How he is
compressed into a life groove, of which an ineffably turgid
respectability provides the chronic atmosphere, is the theme of _Grand
Chain_. And because the author possesses a wonderfully delicate gift of
satire and a power of character delineation that never gets out of hand,
she has written a novel deserving of more praise than the usual
reviewer, all too timid of superlatives, may venture to give.
Comparisons in criticism are dangerous, but Miss STERN'S philosophy
strongly calls to mind BUTLER'S _The Way of All Flesh_. At least there
is the same mordant and rather hopeless analysis of the power for evil
in a too complicated world of impeccable people with no sense of humour.
And in _Dermod's_ case the effect is heightened by the feeling that if
he had really been the irresponsible creature he was suspected of being
he would have come much nearer to controlling his own destinies. He
sowed a decent regard for his obligations, and reaped a perfect
whirlwind of well-to-do respectability. _Grand Chain_ is a really
remarkable novel, and no discriminating reader will overlook it.
* * * * *
Was it not Mr. ALBERT CHEVALIER who used to sing some hortatory lyrics
upon the inadvisability of introducing your donah to a pal? Something of
this sort, _mutatis mutandis_ in the matter of sex, might stand as the
moral of _That Red-headed Girl_(JENKINS). Because no sooner had _Julia_,
the heroine, got herself engaged to _Dick_ than the arrival of
auburn-tressed _Sheila_ so dazzled the youth that in less time than it
takes to write he had called the engagement off and prepared to marry
the new-comer. However, to square matters, _Sheila_ now jilted him;
whereupon he fled back to _Julia_ (meanwhile, though he knew it not,
legatee of twelve thousand a year) and promptly married her. Which was
entirely satisfactory, save from the view-point of Miss LOUISE HEILGERS,
who was left with her hero and heroine united and the whole affair at an
end before she had passed Chapter XII. Here however intervened a very
touching instance of filial piety. Springing to the rescue of her
author, and with no other possible motive or excuse than that of helping
Miss HEILGERS towards a publishable six-bobs-worth, the resourceful
_Julia_ determined to think that _Dick_ had married her for the money of
whose existence he was palpably unaware. He, on his part, not to be
outdone, played up to the situation thus created with a lunatic
behaviour that gave it the support it wanted. I need not, of course,
insult your intelligence with any indication of the end. A happy,
flagrantly artificial little comedy of manners, as exhibited by the
characters in polite pre-war fiction, and nowhere else.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Resigned Patriot_. "DO WE DRAW FOR THIS, MY DEAR?"]
* * * * *