(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)
Not every regiment has the good luck to find for chronicler one who is not
only a distinguished soldier but a practical and experienced man of
letters. This fortune is enjoyed by _The Gold Coast Regiment_ (MURRAY) in
securing for its historian Sir HUGH CLIFFORD, K.C.M.G., from whose book you
may obtain a vivid picture of a phase of the Empire's effort about which
the average Briton has heard comparatively little. The very strenuous
compaigns of the G.C.R., the endurance and achievements of its brave and
light-hearted troops, and the heroism and fostering care of its officers,
make an inspiring story. Almost for the first time one gains some real idea
of the difficulties of the East African campaign, that prolonged tiger
hunt, in which every advantage of mobility, of choice of ground, ambush and
the like lay with the enemy; and over very tough physical obstacles, as,
for example, rivers so variable that, in the author's incisive phrase, they
"can rarely be relied upon, for very long together, either to furnish
drinking-water or to refrain from impeding transport." It is interesting to
note that Sir HUGH, while giving every credit to the remarkable personality
of the German commander, entirely demolishes the theory, so grateful to our
sentimentalists, that the absence of surrenders on the part of the enemy's
black troops was due to any devotion to VON LETTOW-VORBECK as leader; the
explanation being the characteristic German dodge of creating from the
natives a military caste so highly privileged, and consequently unpopular
with their fellows, that surrender, involving return to native civilian
life, became a practical impossibility.
* * * * *
Much the best part, and a good best, of _Sir Harry_ (COLLINS) is the
opening, which is not only delightful in itself but contains almost the
sole example of a chapter-long letter (of the kind usually so unconvincing
in fiction) in which I have found it possible to believe as being actually
written by one character to another. The explanation of which is that this
one is supposed to be sent to his wife by the new _Vicar of Royd_, himself
a successful novelist, on a visit of inspection to his future parish. The
efforts of _Mrs. Grant_, at home, to disentangle essential facts from the
complications of the literary manner form as pleasant and human an
introduction to a story as any I remember. The story itself is one highly
characteristic of its author, Mr. ARCHIBALD MARSHALL, both in charm and
truth to life, as also in one minor drawback, of which I have taken
occasion to speak before. Nothing could be better done than the picture of
the household at Royd Castle, the boy owner, _Sir Harry_, sheltered by the
almost too-encompassing care of the three elder inmates, mother,
grandmother and tutor. When the fictionally inevitable happens and an Eve
breaks into this protected Eden there follow some boy-and-girl love-scenes
that may perhaps remind you--and what praise could be higher?--of the
collapse of another system on the meeting of _Richard_ and _Lucy_. I will
not anticipate the end of a sympathetically told story, which I myself
should have enjoyed even more but for Mr. MARSHALL'S habit (hinted at
above) of following real life somewhat too closely in the matter of
non-progressive discussion. How I should like him to lay his next scene in
a community of Trappists!
* * * * *
_The Haunted Bookshop_ (CHAPMAN AND HALL) is a daring, perhaps too daring,
mixture of a browse in a second-hand bookshop and a breathless bustle among
international criminals. To estimate the accuracy of its technical details
the critic must be a secret service specialist, the mustiest of bookworms
and a highly-trained expert in the science and language of the American
advertising business. Speaking as a general practitioner, I like Mr.
CHRISTOPHER MORLEY best when he is being cinematographic; he hits a very
happy mean with his spies and his sleuths, giving a nice proportion of
skill and error, failure and success, to both. There is a strong love-
interest which will be made much of and probably spoilt by the purchasers
of the film-rights; and, though strong men will doubtless applaud hoarsely
and women will weep copiously, as the bomb in the bookshop throws the young
lovers into each other's arms, I feel that the book gives a more attractive
portrait of _Titania Chapman_, the plutocrat's daughter, than ever can be
materialised in the film-man's "close-up." I am afraid that Mr. MORLEY will
not thank me for praising his brisk melodrama at the cost of his ramblings
in literature. But, if he has the knowledge, he lacks the fragrance; not to
put too fine a point on it, he is long-winded and tends to bore in his
disquisitions upon books and bookishness; which is no proper material for a
novelist. The story is all about America and is thoroughly American;
inevitably therefore there is some ambitious word-coining. The only novelty
which sticks in my memory and earns my gratitude is the title for the
female Bolshevik, to wit, Bolshevixen.
* * * * *
Wayward and capricious heroines who marry young are entitled, I think, to a
certain amount of introspective treatment by their authors. Without some
knowledge of their mental working it is not very easy for the reader to
have patience with them. I was introduced to _Anne_ (HEINEMANN) when she
was fifteen, and in the act of snatching a loaf of bread from a baker's
cart and running away with it merely to annoy the baker; and, as she had
large blue eyes and two young men as self-appointed guardians, I was
prepared for a certain amount of heart trouble later on. One of these
heroes she married at the age of seventeen, and, after various innocent but
compromising vagaries (including a flight to Paris after the death of her
son in order to study art), she followed the other one, still innocently,
to Ireland, because he had been in prison and she was sorry for him. Both
these guardians discharged their duty to _Anne_ at least as well as OLGA
HARTLEY, who chronicles but does not explain; and this is a pity, for with
a rather different treatment she might have made her heroine a very
likeable person. Looked at from another point of view, _Anne_ may be taken
as a mild piece of propaganda against divorce. I am glad it didn't come to
that, of course, but I do feel that a cross-examining K.C. would have
discovered a good deal more about Anne's soul for me than I learnt from the
writer of her story.
* * * * *
_John Fitzhenry_ (MILLS AND BOON) is one of those pleasant stories about
people who live in big country houses, a subject that seems to have a
particular attraction for the large and ungrudging public which lives in
villas. We have already several novelists who tell them very ably, and I
feel that some one among them has served as Miss ELLA MACMAHON'S model. The
tale deals with the affairs of a showy fickle cousin and a silent constant
cousin who compete for the love of the same delightful if rather nebulous
young woman, and moves to its _dénouement_, against a background of the
great War, which Miss MACMAHON has very sensibly decided to view entirely
from the home front. It contains some fine thinking and some bad writing
(the phrase telling of the middle-aged smart woman who "waved her foot
impatiently" gives a just idea of the author's occasional inability to say
what she means), some quite extraneous incidents and some scenes very well
touched in. The people, with a few exceptions, are of the race which
inhabits this sort of book, and, as we have long agreed with our novelists
that "the county" is just like that, I don't see why Miss MACMAHON should
be blamed for it.
* * * * *
Mr. COSMO HAMILTON lays the scene of _His Friend and His Wife_ (HURST AND
BLACKETT) in the Quaker Hill Colony of Connecticut, the members of which
were typically "nice" and took themselves very seriously. So when one of
them brought a divorce suit against her husband there was a feeling that
the colony's reputation had been irremediably besmirched. Mr. HAMILTON can
be trusted to create tense situations out of the indiscretions of an erring
couple, but he also contrives, in spite of its artificial atmosphere, to
make us believe in this society, though he tried me rather hard with a
scandalmongress of the type we happily meet less often in life than in
fiction. I hope he will not be quite so dental in his next book. I didn't
so much mind _Mrs. Hopper's_ teeth, which "flashed like an electric
advertisement," but when he made two golfers also flash "triumphant teeth"
I recoiled.
* * * * *
_The Golden Bird_ of Miss DOROTHY EASTON (HEINEMANN) is indeed lucky to set
out on its flight with a favouring pat from Mr. JOHN GALSWORTHY. He asserts
that these short studies of people and things in England and France are
very well done indeed; that moreover, though the short sketch may look, and
the bad short sketch may be, one of the easiest of literary feats, the good
short sketch is in fact one of the most difficult. Now who should know this
if not Mr. GALSWORTHY, and who am I that I should presume to disagree? As a
matter of fact I don't. Quite the contrary. But naturally I shall get no
credit for that. I will only add that Miss EASTON has not a majority mind,
that she sees the sad thing more easily than the gay, that I like her work
best in her more objective moods, and that, like so many writers of
perception, she finds the quintessence of England's beauty in happy Sussex.
* * * * *
[Illustration: IN OLD VERSAILLES.
_Mother._ "GOOD NEWS, MY SON! EVEN AS I PONDERED WHETHER I SHOULD EAT OUR
LAST CRUST THE EVER-KIND ABBÉ CALLED TO SAY HE HAD FOUND THEE A HIGHLY-PAID
APPOINTMENT AT COURT."
_Son._ "YES--BUT DID HE TELL YOU IT WAS AS FOOD-TASTER TO HIS MAJESTY, WHO
DAILY EXPECTS TO BE POISONED?"]