from the author’s competence. And when I say competence, I am not
thinking only of the writing, which is admirable, but of the wisdom in
human nature which underlies the tale. Every woman will be charmed with
this novel because it is veracious in its feminine psychology, as most
novels by men are not—and as most novels by women would be if women
could avoid sentimentality as cleanly as Miss Ertz does. Yes, women
will be engrossed by _Nina_ because they will find in it those accents
and indications which are their tests of the reality of men and women in
intimate relation to each other, especially in the relations of love and
marriage.
The depths of feminine psychology have been delicately sounded many times
by Robert Hichens, whose new novel, _After the Verdict_, is of great
length and painstaking detail. Here also we have an extremely dramatic
story. Clive Baratrie, as the story opens, is on trial for the murder
of Mrs. Sabine, a woman older than himself with whom he had a prolonged
affair that began when Clive was a patient in her nursing home after the
war. The young man is engaged to marry Vivian Denys, a girl of his own
age, a splendid, fresh, outdoor person and one of the best tennis players
in England. Miss Denys has stuck to Clive through his ordeal, and after
his acquittal they are married. Clive’s mother, who lives to see him
acquitted and for some time afterward, is the only other person of first
importance in the 500-odd pages.
Is Clive guilty or innocent? He has been acquitted, true. And if
innocent, of what avail to him? Must not his whole life be lived under
the dark shadow of the crime? Must he not suffer as surely one way as the
other? One goes four-fifths of the way through this novel in a state of
tortured suspense. One does not know what to think as to Clive’s guilt
or innocence, nor is there a definite clue in his uncertain behavior.
The fact, when revealed, stuns by its impact. Mr. Hichens tells me that
he had long had it in mind to study a man resting under the cloud of a
murder charge; but he had another and greater thing in mind. “I wanted,”
he says, “to show that in such a marriage as Clive’s and Vivian’s an
absolute sincerity must exist between the two people.” But it is the
studies of the women in _After the Verdict_ which will impress and
entrance the reader.
[Illustration: SUSAN ERTZ]
Ruth Comfort Mitchell, whose popular novels have been of a light
character, has also been led to a study of a woman capable of ordering
her world and ruling it. The title of her new novel, _A White Stone_, is
from the second half of the seventeenth verse in the Book of Revelation:
“To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will
give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man
knoweth saving he that receiveth it.” To Joyce Evers, the white stone
at first was her diamond engagement ring. Later it is the great rock
on the mountain where she takes her woes for quieting and consolation.
It is long before she finds the unseen, intangible white stone of the
mystical passage. A homely little girl, she had been the center of a
marvelous romance when Duval, one of the world’s great pianists, asked
her to marry him. In the chapters which show the gradual increase in
Joyce of that power which is to be her salvation, Ruth Comfort Mitchell
has done much abler work than in any story of hers before. Two somewhat
unusual characters—Hannah Hills Blade, a novelist, and Chung, a Chinese
servant—do a good deal to differentiate _A White Stone_ from the run
of novels. Chung is picturesque and is an excellent example of a
certain fresh invention which is felt throughout the book. There is a
strongly-written love story.
iii
In an interesting article on the work of Concha Espina,[60] Mr. James
Fletcher Smith speaks of _Dulce Nombre_ as “such a notable novel that it
cried for instant translation.” The translation has been accomplished and
under the title, _The Red Beacon_, this impressive story is now available
to English readers. (The Spanish title is the name of the heroine,
simply—Dulce Nombre de Maria, Sweet Name of Mary, which was shortened by
use to Sweet Name.)
Who is Concha Espina? The question does us no credit, but our general
lack of information about European writers makes a brief answer
necessary. Concha Espina was born at Santander, Spain, in 1877. She
is therefore of the Northern seaboard and the mountain country. _The
Red Beacon_, for instance, is laid in the Cantabrian Mountains. Concha
Espina’s title to be considered the foremost living woman novelist of her
country seems to be undisputed. Possibly her two finest works are _The
Red Beacon_ and an earlier novel, _La Esfinga Maragata_ (_The Maragatan
Sphinx_; it was brought out in English as _Mariflor_). Although she has
lived for some years in Madrid, Concha Espina remains unmistakably a
Northerner. She married very young and went to South America (Chile)
where affairs went badly and where she began writing as a newspaper
correspondent to earn money.
_The Red Beacon_ is a dramatic and somewhat tragic story of the people
of her native region. Dulce Nombre, the heroine, is the daughter of a
miller and the godchild of an hidalgo or nobleman, Nicolas Hornedo.
Nicolas’s interest serves to educate her above her own station but not
up to his; yet when she falls in love with a countryman, a lad named
Manuel, Nicolas, distressed, aids a rich man in buying the young fellow
off and getting him out of the country. The rich man, much older than
Dulce Nombre, succeeds in getting her in marriage. His hope is that she
will come to love him, but she does not. The marriage is the beginning of
a long ordeal for the girl, an ordeal of waiting which nothing can hasten
nor prevent. The story proceeds with well-sustained interest to a crisis
supervening some years later, when with her husband’s death Dulce Nombre
is again confronted with a difficult choice and a situation provocative
of final despair. But happiness is in her destiny; Concha Espina shows us
how it is realized at last.
A story written with an intimate knowledge of the heroine and with great,
though restrained, feeling. It will be of more than ordinary interest to
watch its reception by American readers.
NEW AND VARIED FICTION
_A Conqueror Passes_, by Larry Barretto. An after the war story—perhaps
the best of them all—showing the reactions in business and social life
of the returned soldier, restless, discontented, missing the excitement
and tension of war. Told without either hysterics or despairing cynicism.
A noteworthy book and a first novel by a writer who deserves close
attention.
_The Book of Blanche_, by Dorothy Richardson. The love story, half
earthly, half spiritual, of a beautiful violinist and a hospital surgeon;
unique for its word pictures of the psychic phenomena of anæsthesia, and
introducing a new American novelist of brilliance.
_Blue Blood_, by Owen Johnson. The story of a reckless society girl who
sold herself to save her father’s honor—then waited in suspense for the
order to deliver herself.
_Pandora Lifts the Lid_, by Christopher Morley and Don Marquis. An
extravagant, light romance which opens with the kidnapping of six
daughters of the rich from a girl’s seminary on Long Island and continues
with a dashing yacht.
_Semi-Attached_, by Anne Parrish. A more serious novel than _A Pocketful
of Poses_, but told with the same lively sense of the humorous moments
in life. The story of a delightful girl who had to be converted to the
idea of marriage.
_The Show-Off_, by William Almon Wolff, from the play by George Kelly.
Aubrey Piper, the show-off, with his wing collar and bow tie, flower in
his button-hole and patent leather shoes, is a character who will appeal
universally because we all know him and laugh at him in everyday life. A
realistic American novel, a satire that is full of humor and pathos.
_Rôles_, by Elizabeth Alexander. What happened when a discontented
wealthy young wife changed places with her double, a hard-working
actress—the kind of story one reads at a sitting, anxious to find out
“how it will all come out,” and very much surprised by the dénouement.
Witty.
_Deep in the Hearts of Men_, by Mary E. Waller. A story of the deeper
human interests, especially of a man’s coming into spiritual light out of
darkness, its scenes laid chiefly in a New Hampshire manufacturing town
and the coal fields of West Virginia.
_Tomorrow and Tomorrow_, by Stephen McKenna. A novel of English inner
political circles after the war, in which some of the characters of the
author’s famous novel, _Sonia_, make their final appearance.
_Humdrum House?_ by Maximilian Foster. An exciting mystery story with
both serious and farcical complications. You won’t, however, for a
considerable time know which is which!
_The Brute_, by W. Douglas Newton. A mystery-adventure story of rapid
movement with scenes in South America and a beautiful and wealthy English
girl as the heroine. By a novelist who writes with more than ordinary
skill in characterization.
_The Thirteenth Letter_, by Natalie Sumner Lincoln. Opens with a strange
midnight marriage followed soon by a mysterious murder, and centers
around the disappearance of a famous diamond worth $250,000. The author
is an experienced hand in stories of this type, and the final solution
depends upon a remarkable cipher.
_The Laughing Rider_, by Laurie Yorke Erskine. William O’Brien Argent,
otherwise Smiling Billy Argent, is the central figure of this romantic
adventure story which runs from the Texas plains to the Canadian
Northwest.
_A City Out of the Sea_, by Alfred Stanford. The story of Michael
Ballard, who is a lawyer for the people of New York’s waterfront,
and who is attached to them because he finds them “hard and fair and
wild.” His growth through certain violent episodes until the love of a
beautiful woman matures his personality and power as an artist is the
theme. The novel is the work of a young writer whose work is stamped with
distinction. The story suggests Jack London, but is written with more
finesse if with no less power.
_Cuddy of the White Tops_, by Earl Chapin May. An exhilarating tale of a
college boy who discovers, on his father’s death, that the family fortune
is all invested in a circus. He quits college and takes charge of the
show—and finds he has a three-ring performance on his hands. Good love
story.
_After Harvest_, by Charles Fielding Marsh. An English love story of the
wind-swept Norfolk country, contrasting with, but of the same type as,
Sheila Kaye-Smith’s Sussex stories. In Priscilla, John Thirtle of Brent
Fen Farm, and the shepherd, Reuben Gladden, the author exhibits something
common to all humanity and clearly expressed in the simple lives and deep
passions of country folk.
_Many Waters_, by Elinor Chipp. A love story of present-day New England
which begins when Marian Pritchard, Mark Wetherell, and Donald Callender
are playmates. Marian, however, and Mark as well have a great ordeal to
undergo before achieving mutual happiness.
_The Quenchless Light_, by Agnes C. Laut. A novel based on the lives
of the Christian Apostles, vividly written, and of the general type of
Sienkiewicz’s _Quo Vadis_ and F. Marion Crawford’s _Via Crucis_.
_Low Bridge and Punk Pungs_, by Sam Hellman. Mirth-provoking stories for
bridge fiends and mah-jongg fans by the newest popular American humorist.
With pictures by Tony Sarg.
11. Cosmo Hamilton’s Unwritten History
i
Cosmo! He meets ’em one and all,
The Douglas Fairbanks in his hall,
The Lloyd George in his den!
Cosmo! He meets ’em low and high;
He holds ’em with his glittering eye
And draws ’em with his pen.
...
Cosmo! He meets ’em in the flesh!
All his celebrities are fresh!
No has-been like Frank Harris!
He keeps his contacts up to date!
Cosmo! The great and the near-great
From Hollywood to Paris!
_—Keith Preston in the Chicago Daily News._
He was the brother to whose early literary success Philip Gibbs looked
up with admiration; while Philip Gibbs grew more and more to look like
an ascetic, “a tired Savonarola,” Cosmo Hamilton (Gibbs) continued to be
impressively good-looking, so that today he is not infrequently called
the handsomest of male authors. And his looks are no deception, for in
ease, urbanity, savoir faire few authors excel him—perhaps none. He can
make an agreeable speech, talk interestingly, write a play or a novel
with dexterity and a finished effect. It is true that in his lively
memoirs, _Unwritten History_, he has embedded an occasional groan about
the labors of authorship, and tells of one instance in which an indolent
writer was led back to the paths of virtuous industry. But for all that,
in his own case, it has probably never been as hard work as sometimes it
seemed to himself; while as for anyone else, the association of Cosmo
Hamilton with toil must forever be an act of mental violence.
No! No photograph exists showing him with the dampened towel binding his
brows, the cup of strong black coffee at his lips. It is even doubtful
if, were one produced, any but Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would accept its
authenticity.
The fact that he made a success so young—he was scarcely twenty-one
when his first novel was published—and the fact that this success
was immediately followed by others more marked is, no doubt, as much
responsible as anything. But the feeling that he managed easily what most
men contrive with the most desperate struggle is not lessened by such
words as these of his brother’s:
“Among my literary friends as a young man,” writes Philip Gibbs in his
_Adventurers in Journalism_,[61] “was, first and foremost—after my
father, who was always inspiring and encouraging—my own brother, who
reached the heights of success (dazzling and marvelous to my youthful
eyes) under the name of Cosmo Hamilton.[62] After various flights and
adventures, including a brief career on the stage, he wrote a book called
_Which Is Absurd_, and after it had been rejected by many publishers,
placed it on the worst possible terms with Fisher Unwin. It made an
immediate hit, and refused to stop selling. After that success he went
straight on without a check, writing novels, short stories, and dramatic
sketches which established him as a new humorist, and then, achieving
fortune as well as fame, entered the musical comedy world with ‘The Catch
of the Season,’ ‘The Beauty of Bath,’ and other great successes, which
he is still maintaining with unabated industry and invention. He and
I were close ‘pals,’ as we still remain, and, bad form as it may seem
to write about my brother, I honestly think there are few men who have
his prodigality of imagination, his overflowing storehouse of plots,
ideas, and dramatic situations, his eternal boyishness of heart—which
has led him into many scrapes, given him hard knocks, but never taught
him the caution of age, or moderated his sense of humor—his wildness of
exaggeration, his generous good nature, or the sentiment and romance
which he hides under the laughing mask of a cynic. In character he and I
are poles apart, but I owe him much in the way of encouragement, and his
praise has always been first and overwhelming when I have made any small
success. As a young man I used to think him the handsomest fellow in
England, and I fancy I was not far wrong.”
[Illustration: COSMO HAMILTON
_Photograph by Lewis Smith, Chicago._]
ii
When Cosmo Hamilton was eighteen, he hid himself in Dieppe, France, for
a month. It was necessary to convince his family, and most particularly
his father, that he meant to write and could make some kind of figure at
writing. There, in the Hotel of the Chariot of Gold, he did the story,
_Which Is Absurd_, and saw occasionally Edward VII., then Prince of
Wales, who was enjoying a vacation as plain Mr. Smith. After he had lost
money he could ill spare one night, a dazzling person with large violet
eyes told him to follow her, and he did with a five-franc piece, winning
back all he had lost and 100 francs besides. She was Lily Langtry.
Back in London and waiting for the publication of his story, he seized
on a novel of Robert Barr’s and made it into a four-act play. Compton
Mackenzie’s father, the actor, Edward Compton, played it in the English
provinces for a year (after drastic alterations) and it made enough money
to enable Hamilton to take rooms in London. Whereupon, for a while,
everything he wrote came back with a rejection slip.
_Which Is Absurd_, whatever its demerits, had the quality of provocation.
An evening paper, reviewing it, asked: “Who is Cosmo Hamilton?” and
answered: “Either a very bitter old man who is bankrupt of every hope,
or an unkissed girl in a boarding school who ought to be spanked with a
brush.” Now with the fewest exceptions, book reviews do not sell books;
but this is the type of review that infallibly sells a book. And shortly
Mr. Hamilton found himself writing for the Pall Mall Gazette, along with
Mrs. Humphry Ward, Alice Meynell, and others well-known and doing a
syndicated London letter which required his presence in the high places.
His play, “The Wisdom of Folly,” lived two weeks, and after a spell as
editor of a short-lived weekly paper he became one of a brilliant company
of contributors to the World. William Archer as dramatic critic, Richard
Dehan as fictionist, Robert Hichens as dialogist, Gilbert Frankau, Philip
Gibbs and Max Beerbohm were some of the staff. Before Cosmo Hamilton was
thirty he was to become editor of this paper. But meanwhile a variety of
fates awaited him. He dramatized Kipling’s _The Story of the Gadsbys_
in a fashion satisfactory to the author; had a close shave from dishonor
as one of the directors of a speculative mineral exploration enterprise
which had trapped various well-known names to aid it; and faced
bankruptcy. This last adventure resulted from the failure of his first
wife, the actress, Beryl Faber, in a theatrical season; and after Mr.
Hamilton had taken on the debts he retired to the country to cope with
them by writing.
What then occurred was dramatic enough, as life has a fashion of being.
A telegram came from a man Hamilton didn’t know. It read: “Kindly see me
tomorrow twelve o’clock Savoy Hotel Charles Frohman.” Mr. Hamilton kept
the appointment, which marked the beginning of a long association with
the famous American theatrical manager. In five consecutive years there
was no time when one or more of his plays was not running in London.
Probably the best-remembered is “The Belle of Mayfair,” in which Edna May
was succeeded by Billie Burke, and which ran for three years.
iii
At a time when he most urgently needed money, Mr. Hamilton had had a
series of conversations with an actor manager known on both sides of
the Atlantic. This man needed a new play and Hamilton had the necessary
idea, but there was a difficulty. “If I were prepared to give him all the
best scenes, all the best lines and build the play not round the boy and
girl but all about himself, make him suffer as the boy was to suffer,
love as the girl was to love, and, as he was to be a clergyman, undergo
a momentary shattering of faith which would give him a first-class
opportunity to show how supremely he could touch the tragic note, a
check on account of royalties would be paid at once and a contract
signed.” Mr. Hamilton refused, thereby sacrificing all future chances
in this quarter, but “when that play was offered to the public in 1911
word for word as I had described it to the man who subsequently forgot my
face, it was called ‘The Blindness of Virtue.’ Can’t you imagine how I
love to say that it has been running ever since?”[63]
It was first written as a novel, however, under that title. The novel was
well-received and when Mr. Hamilton’s younger brother, Arthur Hamilton
Gibbs, came down from Oxford for some golf he suggested that a play be
done from the novel. Cosmo’s reply can be imagined, but the old idea took
instant hold, and the manuscript of the play was ready precisely when an
actor who had taken the lease of the Adelphi Theatre, meeting Hamilton
on the street, asked: “Why don’t you make a play of _The Blindness of
Virtue_?” C. H.’s reply was to hand him the typed play.
This novel and play mark a decisive point in the author’s career. It
appeared in 1911 and the following year Mr. Hamilton made his first visit
to America. On his return he was inevitably asked: “Are you going to
use your novels for the ventilation of vital questions or are you going
to revert to the entertaining novel of society life?” He answered: “I
believe that I have now lived long enough, suffered enough, observed
enough and studied enough to try and rise a little above the level of a
merely entertaining writer,—one content to give his readers satirical
pictures of men and women of the world, their surroundings, their little
quarrels and their little love affairs. I believe that I have it in me to
put into my work something that is of value apart from any pretensions
to literary merit that it may have; that will cause the people who
read it to ask themselves whether the world and the social system is
as perfect as they imagined it to be, if they ever thought about these
things. I don’t think I can better describe my intentions than by saying
that I am going to write human stories for human beings and no longer
light sketches of people who are afraid to think and do not desire to
remember their great and grave responsibilities.”
Book, play and motion picture must have made everyone familiar with _The
Blindness of Virtue_ as a sermon on sex education powerfully implied by
the engrossing story of an innocence that was merely ignorance. A glance
at Mr. Hamilton’s succeeding novels will show how consistently he has
stuck to his determination not to write mere light fiction.
_The Door That Has No Key_ (1913) is a story of married life. A man has
given a woman his name but has never found the key to her mind. _The
Miracle of Love_ (1915) is the story of an English duke with a conscience
and a sense of duty. He faces the necessity of marrying for money in
order to restore family fortunes, although he is already in love with
a girl whom it is quite impossible for him to marry, even though he
sacrifice, for her sake, title and estates. _The Sins of the Children_
(1916) is more strictly in succession to _The Blindness of Virtue_.
This is a novel of American family life illustrating the danger to
young people coming from ignorance of sex truths, and showing that the
children’s sins are principally due to the failure of parents to tell
them what they should know.
_Scandal_ (1917) is an exceptionally good illustration of Cosmo
Hamilton’s ability to write a dramatically interesting story, freighted
with moral and ethical teachings, but fictionally buoyant, and with
the story uppermost all the time. Beatrix Vanderdyke is the beautiful
daughter of wealthy parents. She is also the typical American spoiled
child. A flirtation in which she throws conventions aside gives the
occasion for scandalous talk; and to enable her to cope with the
situation she asks Pelham Franklin, an acquaintance, not to show her up
when she announces that he and she have been secretly married. Franklin
has his own idea as to the lesson she needs; he at once acknowledges her
as his wife and proceeds to treat her as if she were. It is the way, with
such a girl, to a happy ending.
_Who Cares_ (1919) is the story of a boy and girl, high-spirited,
healthy, normal and imaginative, flung suddenly upon their own resources,
buying their own experiences, and coming finally out of a serious
adventure hurt and with a price to pay, but not damaged because of the
inherent sense of cleanness that belongs to both. _His Friend and His
Wife_ (1920) describes the tragic repercussions in tranquil homes of one
moral misstep. _The Blue Room_ (1920) is the story of a young man whose
reformation took place too late to avoid giving a shock of keen mental
anguish to his prospective bride on the eve of their marriage. These two
people achieve happiness not without scars, and the novel is a sharp
stroke at the double standard of morality or sex ethics.
_The Rustle of Silk_ (1922) is a presentation of political and social
life in after-war London. Lola Breezy, a reincarnation in a shabby, lower
middle class environment of the famous and alluring Madame de Breze of
eighteenth century France, lifts herself out of her surroundings by sheer
force of personality and becomes the friend and confidante of England’s
Home Secretary, the “coming” statesman.