(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)
How you regard Miss MAY SINCLAIR'S latest story, _The Romantic_
(COLLINS), will entirely depend upon your attitude towards the
long-vexed question of the permissible in art. If you hold that all life
(which in this association generally means something disagreeable) is
its legitimate province and that genius can transmute an ugly study of
morbid pathology into a romance, you will admire the force of this vivid
little book; otherwise, I warn you frankly, you are like to be repelled
by the whole business. The title, to begin with, is an irony as grim as
anything that follows, in what sense you will find as the story reveals
itself. _The Romantic_ is a picture--what do I say? a vivisection--of
cowardice, seen through the horrified eyes of a woman who loved the
subject of it. The scene is the Belgian battlefields, to which _John
Conway_, being unfitted for active service, had taken out a
motor-ambulance, with _Charlotte Redhead_ as one of his drivers. All the
background of this part of the tale is wonderfully realised, a thing of
actual and unforgetable experience. Here gradually the first tragedy of
_Conway_ is made clear, though shielded and ignored as long as possible
by the loyalty of fellow-workers and the obstinate disbelief of the
girl. Perhaps you think I am making too much of it all; treacherous
nerves were the lot of many spiritually noble men in that hell. But
little by little conviction of a deeper, less understandable, horror
creeps upon the reader, only to be explained and confirmed on the last
page. To be honest, _The Romantic_ is an ugly, a detestably ugly book,
but of its cleverness there can be no question.
* * * * *
It would appear that Mr. A. E. W. MASON is another of those who hold
that the day of war-novels is not yet done. Anyhow, _The Summons_
(HODDER AND STOUGHTON) shows him dealing out all the old familiar cards,
spies and counter-spies, submarines and petrol bases and secret ink. It
must be admitted that the result is unexpectedly archaic. Perhaps also
Mr. MASON hardly gives himself a fair chance. The "summons" to his hero
(who, being familiar with the Spanish coast, is required when War breaks
out to use this knowledge for submarine-thwarting) is too long delayed,
and all the non-active service part of the tale suffers from a very dull
love-interest and some even more dreary racing humour. Archaic or not,
however, _Hillyard's_ anti-spy adventures, in an exquisite setting that
the author evidently knows as well as his hero, are good fun enough. But
the home scenes had (for me at least) a lack of grip and conviction by
no means to be looked for from a writer of Mr. MASON'S experience. His
big thrill, the suicide of the lady who first sends by car to the local
paper the story of her end and then waits to confirm this by telephone
before making it true, left me incredulous. I'm afraid _The Summons_ can
hardly be said to have found Mr. MASON in his customary form.
* * * * *
"To write another person's life-history in the first person, and yet
give to it the verisimilitude of a genuine autobiography, would under
ordinary circumstances be a difficult if not impossible undertaking." So
Mr. C. E. GOULDSBURY tells us in a note to _Reminiscences of a Stowaway_
(CHAPMAN AND HALL), and most of us will cordially agree with him. But,
after reading this volume of reminiscences, I think you will also agree
that Mr. GOULDSBURY has acquitted himself admirably of a most difficult
task. The man into whose skin, if I may so express it, he has
temporarily tried to fit himself was Mr. ALEXANDER DOUGLAS LARYMORE, who
started his adventurous career as a stowaway in an "old iron tub," and
eventually became Inspector-General of Jails in India. For nearly forty
years Mr. GOULDSBURY was Mr. LARYMORE'S intimate friend, and has had
sufficient data at his disposal to do justice to what was a remarkably
full and interesting life. Possibly those of us who retain a tender spot
in our hearts for stowaways may regret that Mr. LARYMORE grew tired of
the sea; but his adventures were as numerous and amusing on land as on
water, and they are also valuable for the strong light they throw on the
India of some years ago. Mr. GOULDSBURY has at once provided a lasting
tribute to the memory of his friend and written a book which both in
style and matter would be hard to beat.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _The King._ "LOOK HERE--THIS THRONE WON'T DO; IT IS
IMPOSSIBLE FOR US TO LOOK DIGNIFIED IN IT."
_The Artificer._ "I'M SORRY, YOUR MAJESTY. THERE MUST BE SOME MISTAKE. I
GOT IT IN MY 'EAD THAT YOUR MAJESTY ORDERED A _LOUNGE_ THRONE."]
* * * * *
Are you a victim to the _Tarzan_ habit? Perhaps your eye may have been
caught by the word on bookstalls as the generic title of an increasing
pile of volumes; but knowing, like myself, that all things explain
themselves in time, you may have been content to leave it at that.
Meanwhile, however, the thing has continued to spread, till on the
wrapper of _Tarzan the Untamed_ (METHUEN), which now at last finds me
out, its publishers are able to number its devotees in millions. Well,
of course the outstanding fact about such popularity is that in face of
it any affectation of superiority becomes simply silly. One has got to
accept this creation of Mr. EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS as among the definite
literary phenomena of our time. In the immediate spasm before me
_Tarzan_ (who is, if you need telling, a kind of horribly exaggerated
_Mowgli_ after a diet of the Food of the Gods) is represented as placing
himself at the disposal of the British forces in East Africa, and
attacking the Germans with man-eating lions. The rather chastening
feature of which was my own unexpected enjoyment of the idea. Even, for
one disconcerting moment, like the persons in the admonitory anecdotes
who taste opium "just for fun," I began to feel that perhaps.... However
it passed, and the temptation has not returned. Meanwhile the real
nature of Tarzanism, whether some sinister possession or simply the
age-long appetite for the monstrous, just now a little out of hand,
remains as far from solution as ever.
* * * * *
Mr. HORACE BLEACKLEY, whose last excursion into political fiction was a
description of an opera-bouffe Labour Government in action, addresses
himself, in _The Monster_ (HEINEMANN), to a more serious theme. His
monster is the factory system, and if I say that this witty novel will
provide the ignorant and comfortable with instruction as well as
entertainment I hope I shan't have done him any harm. The author, while
making his points against the system, notes truly enough that the risen
ranker, the one who had been through the dreadful mill, with its
ninety-hour working week for children, became the hardest master during
that wonderful period of the Manchesterising of England which laid the
train for the explosions of our present discontents. He reminds us also
of that admirable speech, made about every ten years for the last
hundred or so in the House with the same fervour and conviction, to the
effect that any change in conditions or wages would surely mean the
complete ruin of the country. A comforting speech, that! Perhaps Mr.
BLEACKLEY, presenting three generations from Peterloo to the Jubilee of
QUEEN VICTORIA, covers too much ground for full effect, but he has
pleasantly gilded a wholesome pill for pleasant people. Good luck to
him.
* * * * *
I did not take the publishers' statement that _Pengard Awake_ (METHUEN)
was "entirely unlike Mr. STRAUS'S previous stories" as a recommendation,
however alluring it was intended to be, for he has good and enjoyable
work to his credit. I doubt, indeed, if he has yet written a book more
acceptable to the novel-reading public than this tale of "action,
mystery and wonderful adventures" (again I quote from the paper
wrapper). Possibly in a so-called mystery book the author ought to have
his readers guessing all the time, but if I was not perpetually engaged
in this rather exhausting pursuit I was, at any rate, intrigued.
_Pengard_, who is also _Sylvester_, and yet is neither the one nor the
other, may be too much for your saner moments of credulity. But Mr.
STRAUS tells his queer story so plausibly and with so light a touch that
even though you may affect to scoff at his dashing improbabilities you
cannot escape their attraction. Indeed Mr. STRAUS'S adventure into
fields hitherto strange to him has been so successful that I am inclined
to ask him to continue cultivating them.
* * * * *
Life's Little Contradictions.
"Now mind, you know, if I kill you it's nothing, but if you kill me, by
Jingo, it's murder." This remark was put by JOHN LEECH into the lips of
a small Special Constable, represented as menacing a gigantic ruffian,
and was not, as you might think, addressed by a Sinn Feiner to a member
of the Royal Irish Constabulary.
* * * * *
Messrs. W. H. Smith & Son.
Mr. Punch wishes to offer the most sincere congratulations to his old
friends on the occasion of the centenary of their firm.