(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerics._)
In _The World Set Free_ (Macmillan) Mr. H. G. Wells has seen a
vision--the vision of a world plunged into blazing and crumbling chaos
by the ultimate logical issues of military violence. Defence, becoming
always less and less effective against attack, which is always more and
more a matter of the laboratory, finally succumbs before _Holsten's_
discovery of "Carolinum" and its final disastrous application in the
"atomic bombs." Romancing on a theme out of Soddy's _Interpretation of
Radium_, Mr. Wells, with those deft strokes of allusive and imaginative
realism--so convincing is he that realism is the only apt word for his
daring constructions of the future--depicts the shattering of the
headquarters of the War Control in Paris, followed by a swift
counterstroke against the Central European Control in Berlin by the
aviation corps, the destruction of capital after capital, and the final
great battle in the air, with the bombing of the Dutch sea walls.
Thereafter comes the attempt at reconstruction by the Council of
Brissago, a convention of the governing folk of the world--the dream and
deed of the Frenchman _Leblanc_, "a little bald, spectacled man," a
peacemonger whom, till that day of ruin, everyone had thought an amiable
fool. One monarch, "The Slavic Fox," sees in the assembly a chance to
strike for world sovereignty, and the failure of his bomb-fraught planes
and his final undoing in the secret arsenal are breathless pieces of
description.
A subject for wonder is the astonishing advance in the author's
technique. _The World Set Free_ is on an altogether different plane from
_The War of the Worlds_ and those other gorgeous pot-boilers. It
combines the alert philosophy and adroit criticism of the _Tono Bungay_
phase with the luminous vision of _Anticipations_ and the romantic
interest of his eccentric books of adventure. The seer in Mr. Wells
comes uppermost, and I almost think that when the history of the latter
half of the twentieth century comes to be written it will be found not
merely that he has prophesied surely, but that his visions have actually
tended to shape the course of events. Short of _Holsten's_ "atomic
bombs" (which may or may not be developed) Mr. Wells makes a fair
foreshadowing of the uprush of subliminal sanity which may very well be
timed to appear before 1999. I can't take my hat off to Mr. Wells
because I've had it in my hand out of respect for him these last few
years. So I touch my forelock.
* * * * *
_Roding Rectory_ (Stanley Paul) is in many respects the best novel Mr.
Archibald Marshall has written. Those who remember _Exton Manor_ and the
three books dealing with the lives and deeds of the _Clintons_ will
consider this to be high praise, as, indeed, it is meant to be. Mr.
Marshall preserves the ease and amenity of style which we have learnt to
expect of him; he creates his characters--ordinary English men and
women, animated by ordinary English motives--with all his old skill, and
he sets them to work out their destinies in that pleasant atmosphere of
English country life which no one since Trollope's death has reproduced
with greater truth and delicacy than Mr. Marshall. This time, however,
the clash of temperaments and traditions is more severe, the story cuts
deeper into humanity, and the narration of it is, I think, more closely
knit. The Rector of Roding, the _Rev. Henry French_, is a fine figure of
a man honourably devoted to the duties of his parish and abounding in
good works. It is sad to see him cast down from his pride of place by
the sudden revelation of an ill deed done in his thoughtless youth at
Oxford. In an interview managed with an admirable sense of dramatic
fitness he is faced by a son, the living embodiment of his
all-but-forgotten sin, and soon the whole parish knows of it. But the
Rector, with the aid of his wife, fights his fight and in the end wins
back his self-respect and the respect of his neighbours. He is helped,
too, by _Dr. Merrow_, the Congregational minister, a beautiful character
drawn with deep sympathy. Indeed, it is _Dr. Merrow_ who has the _beau
rôle_, and, I must add, deserves it. For the rest I must let Mr.
Marshall's book speak for itself. He has written a very powerful and
interesting story.
* * * * *
Among reviewers of books there is a convention by which the matter of a
first edition--whether a single story or a collection of stories--which
has been reproduced from a magazine or magazines, is treated as if it
were a novelty. It is a sound and benevolent convention, because the
stuff of magazines only receives at best a very sketchy notice. Miss May
Sinclair, however, is apparently prepared; to risk the loss of any
advantage to be derived from it, for her collection of short and
middle-sized stones republished under the title of the first of them,
_The Judgment of Eve_ (Hutchinson), is prefaced by an article in which
she replies to those critics who took notice of some of them at the time
of their appearance in magazine form. By this recognition of judgment
already passed she sets me free to regard her stories as old matter, and
to confine myself to a review of her introduction. In this answer to her
critics I cannot feel that she has been well advised. Even in a second
edition critics are best left alone, unless the author can correct them
on a point of fact or interpretation of fact. Here it is on a matter of
opinion that she joins issue with them. They seem (the misguided ones)
to have rashly said that "The Judgment of Eve" was "a novel boiled
down," and that "The Wrackham Memoirs," on the other hand, was "a short
story spun out." But Miss Sinclair is very sure that she knew what she
was about. She can "lay her hand on her heart and swear that 'The
Judgment of Eve' would have lost by any words that could conceivably
have been added to it;" she is certain that "Charles Wrackham required
the precise amount of room that has been given him." I dare say she is
right, but I wish she could have left someone else to say so. For myself
I should have thought it obvious that a story dealing with character and
its development by circumstance demanded more room in which to spread
itself than one that dealt with a situation, dramatic or psychologic;
yet "The Wrackham Memoirs," which, whatever its complexity, belongs to
the latter type, takes up very nearly as much space as "The Judgment of
Eve," which belongs to the former. Of course no critic of even moderate
intelligence would propose to fix a limit of length for every type of
story, but it may safely be said that, if you take Maupassant for a
standard, the best short stories have concerned themselves with
situation rather than with character; and, though I have not had the
privilege of reading the criticisms which are the subject of Miss
Sinclair's rebuke, I can easily believe that they were governed by this
elementary reflection. It must have occurred to Miss Sinclair herself,
even if she did not find it convenient to take cognisance of it in her
reply. Perhaps she will have something to say on this subject in some
future edition of her very interesting book, and I should indeed be
flattered if she would consent, in a brief phrase or two, to review my
review of her review of her reviewers.
* * * * *
[Illustration: The new Cash Register as used at the Royal College of
Music for calculating the value per minute of voices in the vocal
training department.]
* * * * *
Good costume novels are not so common nowadays that I can pass _Desmond
O'Connor_ (Long) without a most hearty welcome. For it is an excellent
example of its class--full of rescues, of swashbuckling and of midnight
escapes; with a gallant hero (and Irish at that), a lovely heroine, two
bold bad villains and a sufficiency of kings and other historical
celebrities to fill the background picturesquely. In fact Mr. George H.
Jessop has seen to it that no ingredient proper to this kind of dish
shall be wanting, and I have great pleasure in congratulating him upon
the result. _Desmond_ was a soldier of fortune, a captain in the gallant
Irish Brigade that served King Louis XIV. against the Allies. During the
siege of Bruges the young captain chanced to see one morning at mass the
fair _Margaret, Countess of Anhalt_. She had lately fled to the town to
frustrate the intentions of _Louis_, who would have given her hand to an
equally unwilling suitor. There was also, hanging about, a certain _De
Brissac_, who in the event of the countess's death or imprisonment would
succeed to her estates. So off we go, cut and thrust, sword, cloak and
rapier, all to the right jingle of tushery, till the last chapter, in
which _King Louis_ relents and does what kings (of France especially)
always do in the last chapters of historical romances. Really it seems
sometimes as though the Louvre under the Monarchy must have been run as
a kind of superior matrimonial agency in a large way of business. Anyhow
he rings down the curtain upon a bustling tale that should add to the
reputation of its author.
* * * * *
The Conqueror of Ouimet.
As the grief of a lioness reft of her cubs,
Or a general ragged by the rawest of subs,
Or a rigid supporter of temperance clubs
Accused of frequenting the lowest of pubs,
Or a burglar defied by the skill that is Chubb's,
Is America's grief at the triumph of Tubbs.