(_BY MR. PUNCH'S STAFF OF LEARNED CLERKS_.)
The idea of publishing _Frederick the Great: The Memoirs of his
Reader, Henri de Catt_ (_1758-1760_) (CONSTABLE) was that we are all
so passionate against Prussianism that we want to plank down our money
for two volumesful of observations at first hand about the man who was
the source and origin of that dark and swollen stream. Personally,
we doubt the general zeal in this matter--not of Prussianism but of
FREDERICK. However, DE CATT, looking at a king from a queer angle,
is extraordinarily diverting. "Reader" was a euphemism for a patient
audience, including _claque_. FREDERICK, _incognito_ on a Dutch barge,
picked up the young scholar and marked him down as one who could be
induced by florins and flattery to take on the job of listening to
his patron's bad French verses and his after-dinner flutings of little
things of his own, his approving observations on his own conduct, his
battles, his philosophy of life and politics, no doubt calculating
that it would all be jotted down on fateful scraps of paper and given
a favourable colouring for the edification of the world. Well, the
great FREDERICK put it over me all right. Frankly I rather liked the
old fellow, his old clothes (there was at least no shining armour
swank at Potsdam in those days), his practice of solemnly cutting
capers for the benefit of his "reader," though I know not explicitly
what a caper is, his Billingsgate language, his real opinion of
VOLTAIRE, his charming, if possibly rare, acts of magnanimity, his
moderation in war, which was not all hypocrisy. In fact, if you
expect an ogre you will be disappointed. He could give the latest
Hohenzollern points in a good many directions. I ought, of course,
to add that a learnedly allusive preface by Lord ROSEBERY graces the
volume, and that the very competent translation is by F.S. FLINT.
* * * * *
These are days when the more we know about Russia and things Russian
the better. Specially timely, then, is the appearance, in an
English translation, of _The Fishermen_ (STANLEY PAUL), by DIMITRY
GREGOROVITSH. It is a wonderfully appealing story, which has been put
into English--presumably by Dr. ANGELO RAPPOPORT, though he is only
credited on the title-page with the authorship of the Preface--in such
a way that the spirit of the original is admirably preserved. I had
not read a couple of pages before the charm of the style laid hold
upon me. The story is quite simple, concerned only with a group
of peasants, fisher-folk, living on the banks of a great river.
GREGOROVITSH is like TOURGENIEV in his devotion to peasant and country
types, but otherwise more akin to our own younger school of realists
in the minuteness of his observation. Throughout the story abounds in
character-study of a kind that, while building up the figure with a
thousand details, will add suddenly some vivid touch that brings the
whole wonderfully and unforgettably to life. An example of this is
_Akim_, that perfect type of the hopeless incompetent, whose very
futility, while it rightly exasperates his fellows, makes him a
delight to the reader; so that his death, at the end of the first
part, comes with an effect of personal loss. For my own part, as poor
_Akim_ had never once before accomplished what he set out to do, I
was quite expectant of his recovery, and proportionately disappointed.
Throughout also there are pen-pictures of Russian scenery, full of
vivid colour; while the story itself, though inevitably in a somewhat
minor key, is never sordid or pessimistic. Emphatically therefore a
book for everyone to read who cares to know the best in the literature
of our great Ally.
* * * * *
MARGARET DELAND'S well-proved pen gives us a spirited sketch of a
modernist American woman in _The Rising Tide_ (MURRAY). I don't quite
know how this enigmatic sentence, which 1 have long puzzled over and
frankly given up, came to escape both author and reader: "Once Mrs.
Childs said to tell Fred her Uncle William would say it was perfect
nonsense." I feel sure it is not good American. However, _Freddy
Payton_ is a young girl who tells the inconvenient truth to everybody
about everything, and you may guess that such candour does not make
for peace. _Mrs. Payton_ elects to keep her idiot son in the house,
and _Freddy_ thinks an asylum is the proper place for him, and
says so. The late _Mr. Payton_ was a rake, and _Freddy_ derides her
mother's weeds on the ground that the widow is really in her heart
waving flags for deliverance, but daren't admit it. _Freddy_ offers
cigarettes to the curate, which is apparently a much greater crime
over there than here. _Freddy_ finally, carried along by the rising
tide, asks the man she loves to marry her, mistaking his friendship
for something stronger, and learns that, as the old-fashioned people
like her mother realise, men are essentially hunters and "won't bag
the game if it perches on their fists." I wonder! But _Freddy_ got
a better man--the diffident elderly man who was waiting round the
corner. In fact, _Freddy_ is rather a sport, and if Mrs. DELAND
intended her as a tract for the times, in the manner of Mrs. HUMPHRY
WARD, her shot has miscarried--at least so far as I am concerned.
* * * * *
[Illustration: FORCE OF HABIT.