(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned, Clerks._)
_The Life of Algernon Charles Swinburne_ (MACMILLAN) is a book that may be
regarded as filling, at least partially, what has long been an aching void
in our biographical shelves. I say partially, because the time has not
perhaps fully come for an unreserved appreciation of a character whose
handling must present exceptional difficulties. One cannot but notice how
many obstacles Mr. EDMUND GOSSE has had to overcome, or avoid, in the
present volume. The result inevitably is a certain sense of over-discretion
that makes the whole study so detached as to be at times lacking in
vitality. Even, however, with these reservations the figure of the poet
stands out, bewildering as it must have been in life, with its strange
blend of frailty and genius. Stories abound also (sometimes one suspects
Mr. GOSSE of having fallen back upon anecdote with an air of relief); they
range from the early days of brilliant "failures" at Eton and Balliol to
those when in the watchful security of Putney the lamp was guarded by hands
so zealous that its flame was ultimately extinguished. Two of the tales
remain pleasantly in my memory, one of them describing how young ALGERNON,
lately sent down from Oxford and a pupil at the rectory of the future
Bishop STUBBS, scared away his host's rustic congregation by leaning upon
the garden-gate one Sunday morning, looking, with his red-gold hair and
scarlet dressing-gown, like some "flaming apparition." The other, less
picturesque but more credible, has also a bishop in it, and concerns an
untimely recitation of _Les Noyades_. I will leave you to find this for
yourself in a book that forms at least an interesting, if not altogether
final, study of a fascinating subject.
* * * * *
For an old hand BENJAMIN SWIFT shows a poor discretion in crowding too many
characters into his pages to allow of anything like adequate
characterisation, and indeed, in _What Lies Beneath_ (CHAPMAN AND HALL), he
is too much concerned with his main purpose of tract-making to be
sufficiently interested in the subsidiary business of good story-telling. A
_Mr. Ravendale_, an unpleasant, hoary-bearded patriarch and opulent seller
of Bibles, who has buried three wives and lives in a fat Bloomsbury house
with the collected offspring of his three marriages, and one or two
step-children thrown in, is haunted by a doubt as to whether the beautiful
_Ruby Delmore_, daughter of the widow _Delmore_, his second wife, is also
the daughter of the late _Mr. Delmore_ or of himself, whose attitude
towards _Mrs. Delmore_ had not been as correct as that of a seller of
Bibles is reasonably expected to be, especially by people like the author
who don't believe in Bibles. At any rate _Sebastian_, son by the first
marriage, is desperately in love with _Ruby_--so, you see, the old man had
something to worry about. However, it all turns out to be, in fact, mere
illusion, developing into a fatal monomania, and the family business is
left to be carried on by such of the next generation as have not been
convinced by the formidable array of evidence, anti-Theistic and anti-
Christian, of two of the characters (who, it is clear, have sedulously read
the same books). _Sebastian_ loses his faith apparently because he has been
distressed by the sight of a wounded horse in the great War, as if it were
necessary to wait for the great War for this kind of a difficulty! A
certain rough earnestness lies beneath this rather crude presentment of a
world-old problem. But I wonder how much of the honest patriotism which
fills the book would survive a rationalism as perverse and shallow as Mr.
SWIFT applies to traditional faiths. Does he imagine they have no better
defences than those which he puts into the weak mouth of silly _Mr.
Teanby_, the parson?
* * * * *
The arrangement of Lady POORE'S new volume of recollections, _An Admiral's
Wife in the Making_ (SMITH, ELDER), reminded me quaintly of certain
romances familiar to my boyhood, in which the fortunes of the hero were
traced from cadetship in aspiring sequence. Because, of course, this is
exactly what happens to the hero of the present book; the chief difference
being that he himself makes only a brief personal appearance therein
(though the chapters in question, formed from letters and diaries of
Commander POORE during the Nile Expedition of '85, are by no means the
least interesting part of the volume). For the rest, one might perhaps call
it a draught of Naval small beer, but a very sparkling beverage and served
with a highly attractive head upon it. To drop metaphor, Lady POORE has
brought together a most entertaining collection of breezy reminiscences of
life ashore and on the ocean wave. There is matter to suit all tastes, from
her recollections of economies in a furnished villa at Paramé, where
chickens were to be bought for thirty-two sous, to more exalted anecdotes
connected with the time when her hero had been advanced as far as the post
of Commander of the Royal Yacht _Victoria and Albert_. It is all kindly
gossip, not ill suited to the best-tempered service in the world.
Especially did I like Lady POORE'S gently maternal attitude towards the
many junior officers who figure very attractively in her pages (_e.g._ the
jovial pic-nic party in the Blue Mountains, who slaked their thirst from
the Government rain-gauge, and thereby disorganised the meteorological
records of Jamaica). Certainly the book could not have appeared in times
more apt to give it a hearty welcome.
* * * * *
_The Stars in their Courses_ (UNWIN) is not, as you might possibly suppose,
a work of theatrical history, but just the latest volume in that admirable
series, the First Novel Library. While I am not claiming for it any
startling pre-eminence, it is at least a story of more than ordinary
promise, and one that easily contrived to hold my interest. This is,
perhaps, the more odd, since Miss HILDA M. SHARP has apparently of
deliberate intent called in every one of the three conventions that all
good young novelists are bidden to avoid--the long-nourished revenge, the
missing will, and the super-quixotic self-sacrifice. Naturally the last is
the worst. Thus when old _Mr. Yardley_ (who had, I fancy, more than a touch
of the melodramatic habits of the late _Mr. Dombey_) planned to revenge
himself upon a faithless wife by bringing up his and her son with
extravagant tastes, and leaving him penniless, I winced but endured. When,
repenting of such inhuman intentions, he revoked them by a will, carefully
placed, for subsequent discovery, between the pages of a put-away book, I
still held an undaunted course. But, when _Patrick_, the disinherited
spendthrift, took upon himself, for the thinnest reason, all the blame of
his supplanter's evil doing and kept up this idiotic fraud till the girl of
his heart, and indeed everyone who cared for him, turned their backs in
disdain, then I confess to having felt that Miss SHARP was trying my
forbearance too high. But even so the fact that I could not throw the book
down unfinished seems to show that whoever selects Mr. UNWIN'S _débutantes_
has spotted another winner. If, in short, Miss SHARP will forget all the
novels she may ever have read, and choose for her next story something a
little nearer to life, I believe the result may be remarkable.
* * * * *
_Nursing Adventures_, with its sub-title, _A F.A.N.Y. in France_, is a
notable addition to the series of War-literature which is bringing grist to
Messrs. HEINEMANN'S windmill. F.A.N.Y., in case it has you puzzled, means
First Aid Nursing Yeomanry. Starting from one woman this corps now has over
fifty members working in the zone of the armies, and I shall believe that
no one can read of their efficiency and courage without genuine admiration.
This is not an official account of the F.A.N.Y. Corps--that is to come when
the Hun is beaten--but the author has told enough to convince us of the
sound work that has been and is being done by these brave and gentle-
hearted women. Fortunately she has the gift of selection, in spite of a
rather breathless style, which however goes excellently well with a
narrative full of excitement and danger. Here too once more a fine tribute
is paid to the incorrigible courage of the Allies in face of an enemy that
has forgotten the elementary rules of humanity.
* * * * *
Those who have sampled any reasonable selection of the eighty or so
published works of "KATHARINE TYNAN" will know what pleasant fare to expect
in _Kit_ (SMITH, ELDER). _Kit_ is a pretty, red-haired, peasant girl
approved for her gentle ways and honest breeding by Madam of the big house,
and sent, on the advice of one of Mrs. HINKSON'S nice, human, friendly
priests, to a convent for the higher education. She stirs the sentimental
soul of one of the English quality, _Captain Guy Dering_; is plunged into,
and rather chilled by, high-life in the modern English manner, and
eventually goes back to her own people and her girlhood's friend, _Donal
Sheehy_, who returns from America a made man. 'Tis not a chronicle to set
the Liffey afire, but it is wholesome, escapes being mawkish, and may be
confidently recommended for an anxious old person to give to sensitive
young persons--if there be still any such. Mrs. HINKSON, though she loves
her own, is no blind partisan and does not spare her criticism. So that you
get a plausible picture of a kindly decent native Irish folk of all sorts,
not a little helpful in these days of stress and promise.
* * * * *
[Illustration: A MODEL FOR THE HUNS IN BELGIUM.
HENGIST AND HORSA KINDLY CONSENT TO TAKE PART IN A THREE-LEGGED RACE AT THE
SPORTS IN AID OF THE WIDOWS AND ORPHANS OF THE BRITONS.]
* * * * *
"The bride was attended by her sister and Miss ---- as bridesmaids, all
being very strongly under the influence of drink.