(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerics._)
THE evolution of the long novel appears to be following that of the
human race. Instead of the individual, the family now threatens to
become the central unit. I confess that this prospect, as evidenced by
_Three Pretty Men_ (METHUEN), fills me with some just apprehension. Mr.
GILBERT CANNAN has set out to tell how a Scotch family, three brothers,
a mother, and some sisters in the background, determines to make its
fortune in a South Lancashire city (very recognisable under the name of
_Thrigsby_), and how eventually all but one of them succeed. It is a
long book and a close; and the dialogue (which of its kind is good
dialogue, crisp and illuminating), being printed without the usual
spacing, produces an indigestible-looking page that might well alarm a
reader out for enjoyment. The book, in its record of the progress of the
three, _Jamie_ and _Tom_ and _John_, is really more a study of social
conditions in mid-Victorian Manchester than a work of imagination. But
there is clever character-drawing in it, especially in _Jamie_, who from
a worldly point of view is the failure of the group, making no money,
and drifting through journalism to emigration; and in the finely
suggested figure of _Tibby_, the ill-favoured kitchen drudge, who is his
real centre of inspiration. But first and last it remains a dull
business, partly from an entire lack of humour, partly from the absence
of any settled plan that might help one to endure the dreariness of the
setting. Mr. CANNAN certainly knows his subject, and few novels indeed
have given me, rightly or wrongly, a greater suggestion of
autobiography. But for once the art of being exhaustive without being
exhausting seems to have eluded him.
* * * * *
If you want really to get a picture of war as she is waged by an obscure
unit in the thick of the dirtiest, dampest and most depressing part,
read PATRICK MACGILL'S _The Red Horizon_ (JENKINS). Here we meet the
author of _The Children of the Dead End_ and _The Rat Pit_ as Rifleman
3008 of the London Irish, involved in the grim routine of the firing
line--reliefs, diggings and repairs, sentry-go's, stand-to's, reserves,
working and covering parties, billets; and so _da capo_. With a rare
artistic intuition, instead of diffusing his effects in a riot of
general impressions, he has confined himself to a record of the doings
of his section, and I have read nothing that gives anything near so
convincing an impression of the truth, at once splendid and bitter. It
is a privilege to be shown, through the medium of an imaginative
temperament, the fine comradeship of the trenches, the heroism that
shines through the haunting fear of death, mostly conquered with a
laugh, but sometimes frankly expressed in the pathetic desire for a
"blighty" wound--a wound just serious enough to send the envied hero
home. You won't get much of the Romance of War out of this strong piece
of work, except the jolly sort of romance of the little Cockney, _Bill_,
who, when the regiment in reserve was crouching in the trench under
heavy shelling, cheered it by delivering himself characteristically as
follows: "If I kick the bucket don't put a cross with ''E died for 'is
King and Country' over me. A bully beef tin at my 'ead will do,
and--''E died doin' fatigues on an empty stomach.'"
* * * * *
If you were the hero of a novel, the only possible mate for the heroine,
and, in short, taking you all round, an important sort of person, would
you not consider yourself hardly treated if you were not allowed to make
the girl's acquaintance till page 311, when you knew there were to be
only three hundred and thirty-two pages in the book? I disagree entirely
with _Roger Quinn_, in Miss BEATRICE KELSTON'S _The Blows of
Circumstance_ (LONG), when, reviewing the affair, he writes to a friend:
"It's amazing that we fell short of perfect understanding." My opinion
is that _Roger_ did extremely well in the little time he was given. Of
course he had conducted the case for the Crown when she was in the dock,
charged with murder, and that formed a sort of bond between them; but
even so I don't see how he could have got much nearer to a complete
understanding, considering that the girl dashed off and committed
suicide almost before he could get a word in. If my enjoyment of _The
Blows of Circumstance_ waned towards the end and the book seemed to me
to lose grip, it was because the sudden discovery on the part of _Quinn_
and _Amalie Gayne_ that they were soul-mates was too sudden to convince
me. Up to the beginning of the trial the story has vigour and an air of
probability, with its careful building-up of _Amalie's_ curious
character and the vivid description of her life on the stage and off it
in the society of a drug-taking husband; but from that point on it
seemed to me to fail. In real life all might have happened just as it is
set down, but real life is sloppily constructed. A novel must obey more
rigid rules. Miss KELSTON writes extremely well, if a trifle too
gloomily for my personal taste, but she cannot afford to ignore the laws
of construction and hurl her big situation at the reader with an abrupt
"Take it or leave it!"
* * * * *
For _Thirteen Stories_ I've nought but praise,
Although you'll find when you overhaul them
They're best described, in the author's phrase,
As "sketches, studies or what do you call them?"
Per DUCKWORTH forward and back you trek;
You may book right through or choose between a
Peep at Perim or Chapultepec,
Sahara, Hampstead or Argentina.
You may halt, if you will, at phalansteries,
Where Mescaleros on maturangos
Eat or drink (whichever it is)
Baked tortillas and twang changangos.
Suchlike things come easy as pie
To the author, Mr. CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM,
And I quite like 'em so long as I
Have only to read and not to say 'em.
* * * * *
If 'tis love that makes the world go round, it is certainly the same
force that maintains the circulation of the libraries. So it is safe to
assume that such a title as _The Little Blind God_ (MELROSE) is itself
enough to preserve the volume that bears it from any wallflower
existence on the less frequented shelves. But as for the story to which
Miss ANNE WEAVER has given this attractive name I find it very difficult
to say anything, good or bad. Only once did its placid unfolding cause
me any emotion, even the mildest. Old _Lady Conyers_ had adopted as
companion one _Mistress Barbara Cardeen_ (need I interpolate that the
time is the eighteenth century? O brocade and lavender! O swords and
candle-light and general tushery!), whom she found playing a violin in
the streets of Bath--I should say _the_ Bath; let us above all things be
atmospheric! As her ladyship had a most eligible son, and as
_Barbara_--the chit!--naturally hadn't a guinea, I own I was slightly
astonished to find the dowager positively hurling the young couple at
each other's heads. However, doubtless _Lady Conyers_, as herself a
novel-reader, knew that the thing was inevitable anyway. But before this
there were of course the misunderstandings. _Mistress Barbara_ had, in
the violin days, a half-brother and this gentleman very obligingly turns
up _incognito_ at Conyers End, and even goes to the expense of hiring
rooms in a cottage on the estate, for no other purpose in life than that
his conspicuously clandestine meetings with the fair _Barbara_ should be
misconstrued as an assignation. Ha! out, rapiers! and let us be ready
for the moment when _Barbara_, rushing between the combatants, receives
in her own bosom the blade intended for ----, etc. But of course not
enough blade to endanger the happy ending. So there you are. A placid,
undistinguished tale, that may be commended as nourishment or soporific
according to the taste and fancy of the reader.
* * * * *
[Illustration: ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF PRUSSIAN EFFRONTERY.
_Officer of Zeppelin_ (_in perfect English._) "WOULD YOU
KINDLY DIRECT ME TO THE WAR OFFICE?"]
* * * * *
An Optimist.
"Gentlewoman, bright, owing to War, offers Companionship
in Return for hospitality, laundry, and travelling
expenses."
_Morning Paper._
* * * * *
"An attack on the compulsory vice bill now before the
House of Lords was made by the president of the
conference, William C. Anderson."--_New York Globe._
Our American contemporary is misinformed. The measure in question seeks
to make virtue compulsory--the virtue of patriotism.
* * * * *
"The following French official communiqué was issued
this afternoon:--3.25.--Bouton Rouge 1, Dordogne 2,
Kitch 3. Eight ran."--_Evening Times and Echo._
We are sorry that K. OF K. didn't do better.