(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks_.)
_Alfred Lyttelton: An Account of his Life_, by EDITH LYTTELTON (LONGMANS),
is a most fascinating book. Mrs. ALFRED LYTTELTON might perhaps have
contented herself with writing a formal biography of her husband. It would
have been difficult for her, but she might, as I say, have done it. Instead
of this she takes her readers by the hand in the friendliest manner and
admits them with her into the heart and soul of the man with whom she was
for twenty years associated. She shows him as what he was, a noble and
upright English gentleman, straightforward and tender-hearted, and beloved
in a quite exceptional measure by all who were privileged to be his
friends. I can only be grateful to Mrs. LYTTELTON for having interpreted
her duty in this manner, and for having carried it out with so sure a hand.
As I read her pages I saw again in my mind's eye the loose-limbed,
curly-headed young son of Anak as he swung down Jesus Lane, Cambridge, or
as he witched the world with noble cricketing at Fenner's or at Lord's. It
is good to be able to remember him. His Eton tutor described him as being
"like a running stream with the sun on it," and there was, indeed, a charm
about him that was irresistible. Mrs. LYTTELTON devotes a beautiful chapter
to the memory of ALFRED'S first wife, LAURA, who died after one short year
of happiness. "She was a flame," says Mrs. LYTTELTON, "beautiful, dancing,
ardent, leaping up from the earth in joyous rapture, touching everyone with
fire as she passed. The wind of life was too fierce for such a spirit--she
could not live in it. Surely it was Love that gathered her." I have only
one little bone to pick, and that not with Mrs. LYTTELTON, but with Lord
MIDLETON, who in a page or two of reminiscences describes as one of
ALFRED'S triumphs at the Bar his appearance as counsel for the Warden of
Morton, Mr. GEORGE BRODRICK. The Warden, having said something offensive
about Mr. DILLON, was hailed before the Parnell Commission for contempt of
court. ALFRED put in an affidavit by the Warden, in which the whole thing
was said to be a joke, and in his speech he chaffed Mr. REID (now Lord
LOREBURN), who was counsel for Mr. DILLON, for being a Scotsman, with a
natural incapacity for seeing a joke. So far Lord MIDLETON; but he omits
Mr. REID'S crushing retort. "Even a Scotsman," said Mr. REID, "may be
pardoned for not seeing a joke which has to be certified by affidavit."
* * * * *
Mr. JEFFERY E. JEFFERY has been playing cheerful tricks on the British
public. We must forgive him, because he has for a long time been doing far
worse than that to the Huns; but it is undeniable that in following the
winding trail of his beloved guns we are in no small danger of losing our
sense of direction. This is because along with imaginary tales, some of
them written before August, 1914, when of course he could not fix precisely
the chronology and locality of his fights, he has mixed almost
indiscriminately the record of his own actual experiences during two
distinct phases of the War. Not until the last page does he abandon the
jest to explain--with something of a school-boy grin--just where fact and
fiction meet, and so enable me to recover from my bewilderment and pass on
a word of warning. Once on your guard, however, you will find his story of
the _Servants of the Guns_ (SMITH, ELDER), and more especially the first
half of it (dealing, in diary form, with his recent adventures as an
officer of Artillery--he does not state his present rank), as vivid and
real as anything of the sort you have seen. Field-gun warfare of
to-day--mathematics, telephones and mud--with little more of old-time dash
and jingle than the hope that some to-morrow may revive them in the Great
Pursuit--this is his theme; and above all the loyalty of the gunner to his
guns. Even the story-book part in the middle of the volume speaks of this
finely and movingly; but here and there amongst his personal experiences
comes a passage less consciously composed that tells it even better in the
bareness of a great simplicity.
* * * * *
Mr. J.D. BERESFORD'S new story, _House-Mates_ (CASSELL), might be regarded
as an awful warning to young gentlemen seeking bachelor-apartments.
Because, if the hero had been a little more careful about his
fellow-lodgers at No. 73 Keppel Street, he would not, in the first place,
have been defrauded of a large sum of money, or, in the second, have been
involved in a peculiarly revolting murder. (The special hatefulness of this
murder strikes me as rather superfluous. But this by the way.) On the other
hand, of course, he would never have married the heroine, and we should
have missed a very agreeable study of expanding adolescence. This, I take
it, is the real motive of Mr. BERESFORD'S story, as exemplified by his
pleasant introductory metaphor of the chicken and the egg. From the
feminine point of view, indeed, the tale might be not inaptly labelled
"Treatise on Cub-hunting." Anyhow, what with strange actresses and I.D.B.
criminals and painted ladies and reviewers (they _were_ a queer lot at No.
73!) the hero completes his tenancy with enough experience of life, chiefly
on its shadowy side, to last him for some time. An original and rather
appealing story, told with a good deal of charm.
* * * * *
I was waiting for it, and now, behold, it has come. In _The Shining
Heights_ (MILLS AND BOON) the War is over and we have to do with some of
the results of it. Unfortunately Miss I.A.R. WYLIE is very chary about
dates, and she is not encouraging about the changes which most of us hope
will come with peace. "Social conditions indeed," she writes, "had scarcely
moved. Universal brotherhood was not ... and, for the vast majority of men
and women it had been easiest to go back to the old work, the old pleasure,
the old love and the old hate." Well, I don't know much about universal
brotherhood, but for the rest I sincerely hope that these gloomy
prognostications are wrong. As for the story, laid in the Delectable Duchy,
no one needs to be told that Miss WYLIE is a novelist of considerable power
and capacity, and here she has chosen a theme of very real interest. It is
the rivalry of two men, one of whom had returned from the War with wounds
and a V.C., while the other had never taken part in it because he believed
(with justification) that he was on the point of making a discovery of
value to humanity. The story is well constructed and well told, but I am
beginning to think that it is time for Cornwall to be declared a prohibited
area for all novelists except Mr. CHARLES MARRIOTT and "Q."
* * * * *
Yet more theatrical recollections. The latest volume of them is _My
Remembrances_ (CASSELL), in which Mr. EDWARD H. SOTHERN recounts, with the
pleasant humour to be expected from him, what he quaintly (and quite
unjustifiably) calls "The Melancholy Tale of Me." One has heard that Mr.
SOTHERN, now that he has retired from the stage, proposes to live in
England; the book explains such an intention by its evidence of the
writer's intense love for this country. Naturally he has a rich stock of
good stories, amongst which I was delighted to welcome yet once again that
old favourite about the departing spectator who, on being told that two
Acts remained to be performed, said briefly, "That's why I'm going!" Newer
(to me) was the _Dundreary_ tale that told how the elder SOTHERN'S triumph
was actually the result of JEFFERSON'S partiality for horse-exercise. The
connection I leave you to find out. Like all volumes of its kind, _My
Remembrances_ abounds in photographs. At times, indeed, you may be tempted
to consider that the domain of the family portrait album has been too
largely usurped. But there is even about this a friendliness which, coupled
with the brisk style of its writing, will give the book a popularity as
wide as that of its author.
* * * * *
We all know that Mr. WILLIAM CAINE has a gay humour, and he indulges it
liberally, sometimes rollickingly, in _The Fan_. With a candour which I
warmly commend he states conspicuously that most of these stories have
appeared before, and he expresses his acknowledgments to various Editors
over a widish range--from _Macmillan's Magazine_ to _London Opinion_, and
from _The English Review_ to _Answers_. It would be an innocent diversion
to have to guess which story was written for which Editor. But for whatever
public the author caters he is, with only one or two exceptions, out for
fun, and he gets it. Some of his stories are pure extravaganzas, but they
are written in a style unusually good for this kind, and by a very shrewd
observer of human foibles. Messrs. METHUEN tell us that Mr. CAINE "views
life from an angle all his own," and although I do not often find myself in
agreement with publishers' opinions of their own wares it is to me a right
angle.
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE ECONOMIC ERA.