_(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)_
MR. H.M. HYNDMAN brings to _Clemenceau: the Man and his Time_ (GRANT
RICHARDS) a specialised knowledge of the intricacies of French
politics, personal friendship with his subject and a sympathy not
discounted by profound differences of opinion. Here is one veteran
fighting man writing a brilliant (I don't use the word as a _cliché_)
chronicle and commentary of the battles of another, battles which
cover the same period and were fought broadly for the same causes. But
the French Radical extremist could never see his way to subscribe
to the Socialist creed. His stalwart individualism, in part
temperamental, was also as a political working faith the result of a
distrust of logic divorced from the experience and responsibility
of actual administration. Somewhat similarly the English Socialist
refused to let logic press him into the premature Internationalism of
so many of his associates, nor did he share their trust, so ruthlessly
betrayed, in German Social Democracy as having either the power or
the serious intention of thwarting German Imperialism. If a man's
achievement be rightly gauged by the difficulties he has overcome,
then M. CLEMENCEAU, called unwillingly and unwilling at the most
desperate crisis of the destiny of a distracted and dispirited France
hammered by the enemy's legions and with the pass ready for sale by
false friends, may well justify Mr. HYNDMAN'S verdict on him as _the_
statesman of the Great War. The man who came into the War a mere Tiger
will go out of it an authentic Lion.
* * * * *
"Miss BERTA RUCK" is among the few writers from whom I can really
enjoy stories about the War. She has an engaging way with her that can
turn even that (at least the more endurable aspects of it) to favour
and prettiness. And in _The Land Girl's Love Story_ (HODDER AND
STOUGHTON), a theme after her own heart, she has given us what is, I
think, her best achievement so far. It is an excellent slight tale
of two heroines who took their patriotic turn at the work of the land
army on a Welsh farm, and the adventures, agricultural and (of course)
amorous, that befell them there. It is all the best-humoured affair
imaginable, refreshingly full of country airs and brisked up with a
fine flavour of romance. "Miss RUCK" has the neatest hand for this
kind of thing; she permits no loose ends to the series of love-knots
that she ties so amusingly. So the finish of the comedy deserves the
epithet "engaging" in more senses than one: with a Jack to every Jill,
and the harvest moon (as promised in the cover picture) beaming upon
all, the couples paired off to everyone's entire satisfaction. A tale
that will be safe for a _succès fou_ with all who have worn the
smock and the green armlet; while I can well imagine that ladies
less fortunate may find their enjoyment of it tempered with a certain
wistfulness.
* * * * *
_German Days_ (MURRAY) is a plain tale of everyday life in Germany
before the War, with just those gaps in it which would naturally occur
in the narrative of any one observer who also hadn't been aware at the
time that she was observing. "A POLISH GIRL (C.B.)" has written
this account with an engaging frankness and an apparent lack of
exaggeration which distinguish it among books of its kind. It is
largely a record of school days, and "C.B.," as the child of a Polish
Jew of good standing living in Posen, suffered slights and insults
and met with injustices which a "true German" would not have had to
endure; but she does not seem embittered. Her picture of the German at
home has not made me yearn to renew my acquaintance with him, but it
seems to explain the origin of some of his most unpleasant qualities.
Since, as "C.B." and other writers would have us know, the German
soldier was cowed by physical suffering in peace-time it is small
matter for wonder that he became a brute in war, or that the citizen,
to whom everything used to be _verboten_, has, since the bureaucracy
which regulated his smallest actions went to pieces, shown very little
ability to regulate them for himself. The terrible pact, by which
in the ten years preceding the War thousands of German women bound
themselves to combat the predominance of the landed classes, which
was making life for ordinary people a slow starvation, is one of the
things which I am induced to believe, because "C.B." has dealt so
faithfully with others of which I knew already. Of books on Germany
from within there have been very many, but there is still room for
such books as this.
* * * * *
You must not be shocked to find that Captain HARRY GRAHAM has
(apparently) abandoned the lighter fields of literature for the heavy
plough-land of Biography. What is, I believe, his initial venture of
this kind lies before me in _Biffin and His Circle_ (MILLS AND BOON),
a record of the career of _Reginald Drake Biffin_, that eminent
author with whose works (_The Bolster Book_, and others) the public
is already familiar; though, by a pardonable confusion, they are more
usually associated with the name of the present biographer. It may be
said at once that, if a life of _Biffin_ had to be written, Captain
GRAHAM was emphatically the man for the task; indeed, from the
preface, with its absorbing account of the inception of the work in
certain alleged convivialities between author and publishers, to the
final chapter, there is not a page that is not calculated to
inspire the reader with profound (and in my own case frequently
uncontrollable) emotion. Nor is the work valuable for the central
figure alone. Of each member of the _Biffin_ circle Captain GRAHAM
tells (nay, repeats) some anecdote that forms a tribute at once to the
fertility of his research and the industry of his invention. I should
not omit to add that the volume is enriched with some admirably
reproduced portraits of members of the _Biffin_ circle, as also by an
index that is itself a monument of inaccuracy so subtle that it must
be traced to be appreciated.
* * * * *
Mr. REGINALD BLUNT has scored another brilliant success with _The
Wonderful Village_ (MILLS AND BOON). It is one of his Chelsea books
of anecdote, gossip and good talk of which he possesses the secret. He
knows how to create the right Chelsea atmosphere and he is most artful
in leading his readers on, just as a little dog shows himself every
now and then at a decoy and thus draws the inquisitive ducks after
him till they drift in with all exit cut off. At one moment Mr. BLUNT
gives you a glimpse of that bloodthirsty butcher, KING HENRY VIII.
Then you pass to ANNE BOLEYN, CATHERINE PARR and the PRINCESS
ELIZABETH. Further on there is a delightfully humorous account by
WILLIAM DE MORGAN of his attempt to induce CARLYLE to become a member
of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings: "He promised
to think it over, chiefly, I think, because Sir JAMES STEPHEN had
rather implied that the Society's object was not worth thinking over.
He added one or two severe comments on the contents of space." The
various Chelsea potteries are not omitted, and there is an account
of the wonderful set designed and executed by the WEDGWOODS for the
EMPRESS CATHERINE OF RUSSIA. Of this, in 1909, about one thousand
pieces were surviving. Who shall say where those are now? I may
add that the author's profits on this book are to be given for the
assistance of our blinded soldiers and sailors at St. Dunstan's.
* * * * *
The title of Miss F.E. MILLS YOUNG'S _The Shadow of the Past_ (HODDER
AND STOUGHTON) does not refer to the youthful transgressions of any of
her characters, but to the cloud which the Boer War left behind it, to
burst ultimately in rebellion. I do not know any novelist who brings
to her work a greater sympathy with or a finer feeling for South
Africa than Miss YOUNG, and if her moderate methods do not find favour
the reason can only be that for the moment moderation is a rather
unpopular quality. As regards the actual story given to us here I
find myself unable to accept the hero, _Guy Matheson_, with any great
enthusiasm. Fresh from the kissing of one girl, he at once falls
heavily in love with another. Number One, however, secured him in the
end, for he discovered that his feeling for her was real affection,
while passion had been responsible for his affair with Number Two. But
I fancy that he would still need a little watching. Intermingled with
his love affairs is a tale of racial prejudice and intrigue which
is told with restraint and skill. _Holman_, a German agent who had
dropped an "n" for his better security, is an obnoxious person, in
whose underhand work I can quite readily believe.
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE ABSENT-MINDED STRAPHANGER.]