(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)
The publishers of _Peter Jackson: Cigar Merchant_ (HUTCHINSON) seem in
their announcements to be desperately afraid lest anyone should guess it to
be a War book. It is, they suggest, the story of the flowering of perfect
love between two married folk who had drifted apart. It is really an
admirable epitome of the War as seen through one pair of eyes and one
particular temperament. I don't recall another War novel that is so
convincing. The almost incredible confusions of the early days of the
making of K.'s army; the gradual shaping of the great instrument; the
comradeship of fine spirits and the intrigues of meaner; leadership good
and less good; action with its energy, glory and horror; reaction (with
incidentally a most moving analysis of the agonies of shell-shock and
protracted neurasthenia) after the long strain of campaigning--all this is
brought before you in the most vivid manner. Mr. GILBERT FRANKAU writes
with a fierce sincerity and with perhaps the defects of that sincerity--a
bitterness against the non-combatant which was not usual in the fighting-
man, at least when he was fighting; or perhaps it was only that they were
too kind then to say so. Also as "one of us" he is a little overwhelmed by
the sterling qualities of the rank-and-file--qualities which ought, he
would be inclined to assume, to be the exclusive product of public-school
playing-fields. I haven't said that _Peter Jackson_ gave up cigars and
cigarettes for the sword, and beat that into a plough-share for a
small-holding when the War was done. A jolly interesting book.
* * * * *
I found the arrangement of _The Clintons and Others_ (COLLINS) at first a
little confusing, because Mr. ARCHIBALD MARSHALL, instead of keeping his
_Clinton_ tales consecutive, has mixed them democratically with the
_Others_. Our first sight of the family (and incidentally the most
agreeable thing in the volume) is provided by "Kencote," a brightly-
coloured and engaging anecdote of Regency times, and of the plucking of an
honoured house from the ambiguous patronage of the First Gentleman in
Europe. I found this delightful, spirited, picturesque and original. Thence
we pass to the _Others_, to the theme (old, but given here with a pleasant
freshness of circumstance) of maternal craft in averting a threatened
mésalliance, to a study of architecture in its effect upon character, to a
girls' school tale; finally to the portrait of a modern _Squire Clinton_,
struggling to adjust his mind to the complexities of the War. This last, a
character-study of very moving and sympathetic realism, suffers a little
from a defect inherent in one of Mr. MARSHALL'S best qualities, his gift
for absolutely natural dialogue. The danger of this is that, as here in the
bedroom chatter of the Squire's daughters, his folk are apt to repeat
themselves, as talk does in nature, but should not (I suppose) in art.
Still this is a small defect in a book that is sincere in quality and
convincingly human in effect. _The Clintons and Others_ is certainly miles
away from the collections of reprinted pot-boilers that at one time brought
books of short stories into poor repute. Mr. MARSHALL and Others (a select
band) will rapidly correct this by giving us in small compass work equal to
their own best.
* * * * *
_Shuttered Doors_ (LANE) is what you might call a third-and-fourth-
generation story--one of those books, so rightly devastating to the
skipper, in which the accidental turning of two pages together is quite
liable to involve you with the great-grandchildren of the couple whose
courtship you have been perusing. Observe that I was careful to say the
"accidental" turning, though I can picture a type of reader who might soon
be fluttering the pages of _Shuttered Doors_ in impatient handfuls. The
fact is that Mrs. WILLIAM HICKS BEACH has here written what is less a novel
than a treatise, tasteful, informed and sympathetic, on county life and
manners and houses. The last of these themes especially has an undisguised
fascination for her. When _Aletta_, the chief heroine, was left pots of
money by a Dutch uncle (who was so far from filling his proverbial _rôle_
that he hardly talked at all) she spent it and her enthusiasm, indeed her
existence, in restoring two variously dilapidated mansions--Graythorpes,
her husband's home, and Doller Place, left her by an appreciative aunt.
When not thus employed she would be reading a paper on Homes (given here
_in extenso_), or comparing those of other persons with her own. I don't
want you to get the impression that _Shuttered Doors_ is precisely arid; it
is too full of ideas and vitalities for that; but it does undoubtedly
demand a special kind of reader. Incidentally, Mrs. HICKS BEACH should
revise her chronology. For _Aletta_, who was married at twenty-eight and
died at sixty-two, to have had at that time a grandson on the staff of the
Viceroy of India, he must have received his appointment before the age of
fifteen--which even in these experimental days sounds a little premature.
* * * * *
Do not allow yourself to be misled by the fact that the portrait on the
paper cover of _Maureen_ (JENKINS) does, I admit, remarkably suggest a lady
whose mission in life is the advertisement of complexion soap. You probably
know already that the methods of Mr. PATRICK MACGILL are made of sterner
stuff. This "Story of Donegal," which I have no intention of giving in
detail, is the history of the course of true love in an Irish village, full
of types which, I dare say, are realistically observed; verbose in places
to an almost infuriating degree (not till page 61 does the heroine so much
as put her nose round the scenery), but working up to a climax of
considerable power. _Maureen_, I need hardly say, was as fair as moonrise,
but suffered from the drawback of an irregular origin, which took the poor
girl a great deal of living down. Nor need I specify the fact that most of
the male characters in the district are soon claimants for her hand. Really
this is the plot. Having betrayed so much, however, nothing shall persuade
me to expose the bogie scenes on the midnight moor, where the villain
combines his illicit whiskey manufacture with his courtship, and where
finally the three protagonists come by a startling finish. _Maureen_ is not
a story that I should recommend save for readers with abundant leisure; but
those whose pluck and endurance carry them to the kill will certainly have
their reward.
* * * * *
In _Memories of a Marine_ (MURRAY) Major-General Sir GEORGE ASTON records
for us, cosily and anecdotally, a life spent in service, not only of the
active kind--in Egypt and South Africa--but also as a Staff College
Professor, and, more intriguingly, as an expert in Secret Intelligence in
the cloisters of Whitehall or up and down the Mediterranean. If his book is
not so sensational in the matter of revelations as the current fashion
requires, it has a restful interest all its own, varied here and there with
some very attractive stories. To give just one example, the author, when
setting out to co-ordinate the work of various authorities in a certain
harbour, found a signal buoy, a torpedo station, a fixed mine and a boom,
each under separate control, all included in the defences. But the torpedo
could not be launched unless the buoy were first cleared away, and the
mine, if fired, would blow up the boom. One would have welcomed more of
this sort of thing, for the truth is that even restfulness may be overdone
and discretion become almost too admirable. Occasionally too the writer
enlarges a little on--well, he enlarges a little, as anyone would with half
his provocation. Still, for all comrades of his service, at any rate, every
word he has written will be of interest; and perhaps he does not really
mind so much about the general public, though he has had the good sense to
crown his work with an apposite quotation from _Punch_.
* * * * *
_The Specials_ (HEINEMANN) is the story of the Metropolitan Special
Constabulary, and it would have been a thousand pities if it had not been
told. Colonel W.T. REAY'S book will stand as a record of invaluable service
performed by a devoted body of men, service for which the whole nation--and
London in particular--has every reason to be grateful. If I understand
Colonel REAY rightly he doesn't wish bouquets to be thrown at the Specials,
but he would not, I think, discourage me from saying that they performed
dangerous and ticklish work with unfailing resource and tact. All of us
know that they desire no other reward for their services than the
satisfaction of having done their duty; but our gratitude demands to be
heard; and I for one take this occasion to trumpet forth the "All clear"
signal with feelings of affectionate pride.
* * * * *
If _By Way of Bohemia_ (SKEFFINGTON) is a fair sample of Mr. MARK
ALLERTON'S work I have been missing a number of very readable stories. His
hero, _Hugh Kelvin_, a journalist (they must be rare) who had no very good
conceit of himself, married a barmaid, and she ran his house as if it were
a third-class drinking saloon. She was one of those women who for want of a
better word we call impossible; but she found _Hugh_ as unsatisfactory as
he found her. In the circumstances the union had to be dissolved, and,
although I suspect Mr. ALLERTON'S tongue of being very near his cheek when
he contrived _Hugh's_ escape from a life of sordid misery, I admit that his
solution of the difficulty is cleverly told. And, after all, coincidences
do happen in real life, and it would be unfair to Providence to suppose
that they were not put there for a useful purpose.
* * * * *
[Illustration: "COME AWAY, ROBERT. YOU DON'T SUPPOSE THEY PUT CHEESE IN
THERE JUST FOR FUN AT TWO SHILLINGS A POUND?"]
* * * * *
"Gentleman washes to be received as Paying Guest."--_Daily Paper._
A very proper preliminary.