(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)
MR. HENRY HOLIDAY'S _Reminiscences of my Life_ (HEINEMANN) will show you
a kindly simple soul who had an extraordinarily nice time, met all kinds
of interesting folk, and had a generous devotion to any number of
unpopular causes, such as Women's Suffrage, the futuristic socialism of
BELLAMY'S _Looking Backward_, Home Rule in Ireland, healthy and artistic
dress, good music, the abolition of war. Whatever capacity of expression
his successful and not undistinguished career as a painter (amongst
other things, of BEATRICE cutting DANTE on the bridge), stained-glass
worker and mural decorator proves him to have had in his proper medium,
the gift of pointed literary expression and appropriate selection seems
to have been withheld from him. But he has little reason to complain.
Some, at least, of his causes are appreciably nearer victory than when
he espoused them; we are even a little nearer looking backwards. One
small point in these discursive memoirs will especially delight the
mildly cynical--that this worthy pre-Raphaelite, who with his friends
had suffered so much from the limitations of view of a mid-Victorian
Royal Academy, should be so maliciously ready to have all modern rebels
in paint, their milestones hung about their necks, sunk in the
nethermost deeps with all their works! One can find diversion, too, in
the decorous story of Mr. HOLIDAY'S nude statue of _Sleep_, rejected
(according to a message from G. F. WATTS) on account of its nudity in
1879 by that same Academy, and accepted in 1880 when the artist with
laborious modesty had modelled for it a plaster-of-paris nightgown. The
author claims some share, through the Healthy and Artistic Dress Union,
in the changes towards rational beauty which women's dress has lately
shown. And that surely, is by no means to have lived in vain!
* * * * *
There are few Memsahibs who know India and can write about it as well as
Mrs. ALICE PERRIN, so that when she calls her new book _The Happy
Hunting Ground_ (METHUEN) she sets you thinking. And when you begin to
think, you see that that really is the meaning of those tearful
farewells at Victoria and Charing Cross, that heavy-hearted cheering and
waving of handkerchiefs as the liner puts off from the docks, which are
for us who stay at home the symbol of our share in the burden of empire.
When our sisters and our daughters (and our cousins and aunts) sail away
to Marseilles and the East they go to find husbands, largely because for
many of them there is in this country little prospect of marriage with
men of their own class. But that is only half the story. They go in
search of mates. They stay to play, as helpmeets, the woman's part in
carrying on the high tradition of the British Raj. With this fundamental
truth as her background, Mrs. PERRIN has drawn, simply but with
practised skill, the picture of a young girl who leaves the dull
security of Earl's Court to go a-hunting in the plains and the hills,
obedient to the call of India, which is in her bones. There, like many
another before her, she loves and suffers, and makes sacrifices and
mistakes, and (I am glad to say) finds happiness at the last. The
strength of Mrs. PERRIN'S book, apart from the value of its background,
lies in the reality of its characters. If you have a drop of
Anglo-Indian blood in your veins you will know what it means. You will
greet them as blood relations, and take a kinsman's interest not only in
their joys and sorrows, but in their whole attitude towards life, and
even their little tricks of thought and speech.
* * * * *
About a year ago Mr. JOSEPH KNOWLES began to think that "the people of
the present day were sadly neglecting the details of the great book of
nature," and asked himself if he could not do something to remedy
matters. His answer to this question was to take off all his clothes,
and, on August 4, 1913, to enter the wilderness of Northern Maine, and
live like a primitive man for two months. On page 12 of _Alone in the
Wilderness_ (LONGMANS) he is to be seen taking off his coat (and posing,
I feel bound to add, very becomingly), and eight pages farther on you
can see him divested of his clothing and "breaking the last link." As
used to enforce a primitive ideal, the modern art of photography seems,
if I may say so, a little out of this picture; but, anyhow, into the
forest Mr. KNOWLES went with "nodings on," and there he stuck out his
time, speaking to no one, scarcely seeing a human being, and
proving--well, I don't honestly think that he proved much. But at least
he was not what he calls a quitter, and as more than once he had an
intense desire to return to civilisation, he deserves much credit for
carrying out his resolution. But, difficult as he found it to remain for
the two months, he has found even greater difficulty in writing
interestingly about his experiment. Apart from his account of a great
moose-fight, the fascinating scenes in his book are those in which his
former experiences as a trapper and hunter are described. But Mr.
KNOWLES has not finished with his adventure; he is going to live
stark-naked in the wilderness for another two months, but this time
under inspection, so that the unbelievers can be convinced. I am not
among the unbelievers--indeed, I am convinced of the absolute truth of
every statement he makes--but I doubt if a repetition of his performance
is the best way to help on the College of Nature which he hopes to
start. Why, in short, pander to the unbelievers?
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