(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)
Some part of the fascination that I found in _Tributaries_ (CONSTABLE)
was perhaps due to the interest of a problem. On the cover I am told
that the author "chooses to be anonymous in order that his story should
not suffer from the least suggestion of a party bias." And of course,
after reading this, I simply had to discover who it was. By the time I
reached the last page I had formed a tolerably confident guess. But I
will not commit myself further than to say that no one, however
"well-known in Great Britain and America" (the publisher again is my
authority), need be ashamed to own up to _Tributaries_, which is quite
one of the best written novels of the year. It is the story of a modern
demagogue, a young apostle of political nonconformity, part charlatan,
part zealot, who comes to town from a provincial chapel, and ends up a
glorious failure as a soured and unpopular Cabinet Minister. There is an
unusual quality in the characterisation and humour of this story of
_Maurice Sangster_. Page after page abounds with touches of observation
which betray the practised hand. The end, in its dry, unemotional
justice, approaches real tragedy. One small point. _Maurice's_
father-in-law, who hates and wishes to humiliate him, finds his
opportunity when a turn of the party wheel throws the Minister out of
office and into poverty. Her father thereupon allows _Mrs. Sangster_
fifteen hundred a year for household expenses on condition that
_Maurice_, who is scraping a bare hundred by his pen, shall not learn of
this help till the old man's selected moment for abasing him. An
intelligent woman who read the tale objected that no man, even a
journalist, could long remain ignorant that he was spending fifteen
hundred pounds more than he earned. I think she had a case. But the book
remains a remarkable one.
My own feeling about _A Soldier of the Legion_ (METHUEN) is that it
suffers from some excess of plot. That clever couple, C. N. and A. M.
WILLIAMSON, can handle a complicated intrigue better than most; but here
their battle-front, so to speak, is of such extent that even they seem
to have found it impossible to sustain the attack at every point. We
began splendidly. When _Max Doran_, rich, popular and just betrothed to
a star of musical comedy, hears suddenly that he isn't _Max Doran_ at
all, but a pauper changeling, and that the real child of his parents (if
I make myself clear) is a dull-witted girl who has been spirited away to
Africa--I said to myself, now there is an exciting time ahead. So there
was, but not in the way I had expected. For when _Max_ goes out to
Africa to find the missing one he finds her all right, but himself gets
involved in a totally different and not so promising complication. The
consequence is that the career of the enriched _Josephine_ and her union
with the wicked lawyer (all things about which I greatly wanted to hear)
have to be dismissed in a few lines. As compensation we get some good
desert pictures and a moving description of life in the Foreign Legion,
of which _Max_ becomes a member. But his other African adventures, and
the sub-sub-plot of the abduction of a Moorish maiden by her Spanish
lover, left me disappointed and detached. Of course _Max_ embraces the
heroine on the last page; and I could not but admire the resource with
which, having dropped the curtain upon this climax, the authors ring it
up again for an added paragraph (my metaphor is getting somewhat
uncertain, but no matter), which brings the story to the warlike
present. On the whole a readable book, but not quite equal to the best
from the same firm.
* * * * *
Since the short prefatory note to _Raymond Poincaré_ (DUCKWORTH) tells
me that the book was not hastily mobilised and sent into the firing line
earlier than its author had intended, I must conclude that he is
prepared to meet the onset of the critic. I will therefore suggest to
him--and this the more boldly because he is anonymous--that he sometimes
treats French politics, both international and domestic, with an
allusiveness rather tantalising to the average English reader. "The
events of 1904," he says airily, and expects us to remember them at
once. This is a Gallic trait which would have caused us, I suppose, had
we possessed it here, to allude to the open space at the top of
Whitehall as "the square of the 21st of October." There is a supreme
interest for us at the present moment in this study of the man whose
dignified attitude towards Germany during the Moroccan crisis, and
support of the _entente_ with ourselves, has gone far to alter England's
traditional policy in European affairs. It is noteworthy that the writer
takes a very firm line about our duty in this respect, and gravely
deprecates the then growing feeling of friendship with Germany. It is
his opinion that M. POINCARÉ probably "exercises more influence in his
own country ... as regards foreign policy than did any of his
predecessors." He would also have us appreciate the French PRESIDENT'S
many-sided ability as a lawyer, financier, and educationalist. Indeed,
his proposed Budget of 1906 might well have earned him a reputation as
formidable as that of one whom I will not name. They tell me that M.
POINCARÉ has been to the front. I hope I he saw there some worthy fruits
of his strong policy in time of peace.
* * * * *
I have not before met with a book by A. S. M. HUTCHINSON, the author of
_The Clean Heart_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON). That is my loss, for he has a
curious intensity of vision, an arresting way of making objective his
thoughts by a sort of nervous battering emphasis of repetition. And he
has things to say. A curious theme and painful. One _Wriford_, editor
and novelist, breaks down from overwork and hovers about the ineffably
dread borderline, crossing and recrossing. And first that grotesque
tramp, _Puddlebox_, drunken, devout, affectionate optimist, with his
"Oh, ye loonies of the Lord, bless ye the Lord: praise Him and magnify
Him for ever;" then the oldest sea-captain living, with his "portograph"
in _The Daily Picture_; then a preparatory school, full of boys; last,
and most effectively, simple, sweet laughing _Essie_, daughter of the
cert. plumber--all help variously to win him out of his morbid wrestling
to mental and spiritual health. A live book this, and to be commended
very warmly. But there are one or two difficulties. Those grotesqueries
of the tramp and the fantastically laughable adventures of _Wriford_ in
his company--do they mingle quite smoothly with the painfully realistic
manifestations of poor _Wriford's_ state? Can so dreadful a theme ride
off successfully on so bizarre a steed? And then again, was not the
whole agony of the man on the physical and mental, not the spiritual
plane? For did not _Wriford_ before his illness give many obvious signs
of unselfishness? Is there not in effect a certain confusion of the
clean heart with the unclouded mind? I suspect the author has some
subtle sufficient answer. And anyway I urge everyone to make
acquaintance with two very lovable folk, the tramp and little _Essie_,
among many others.
* * * * *
_Ape's Face_ (LANE) takes its title from the name bestowed by her family
upon the heroine. It is not, you will admit, either a usual or an
attractive name; but then Miss MARION FOX is by no means a usual writer,
though she is in many ways a strangely attractive one. Perhaps you
recall certain earlier tales of hers which displayed the same
characteristics that you will find in this, though I think they were not
perhaps quite so definitely bogie. I used a wrong qualification there.
Definite is exactly what Miss FOX'S bogies are not, and in this they
show their own good sense, and hers. She knows quite well that to define
a supernatural element is to lessen enormously its flesh-creeping
capabilities. Your flesh will creep all right over _Ape's Face_ several
times; though perhaps you may agree with me at the end that the book is
really an enlarged Christmas tale, and would gain by being reduced to
magazine dimensions. I have I not yet told you what it is all about.
Very briefly, there is a family and a curse. This curse--with regard to
the exact details of which I still find myself a little vague--used to
express itself by causing murders from time to time among the brothers
and sisters of the House. The tale is told in a detached and purposely
elusive way that adds much to its effect, chiefly as it is felt by one
_Armstrong_, a stranger who comes to stay with the _Mortons_ at a time
when their very unpleasant family habit was due to manifest itself. "You
cannot move about the house without feeling that the thing has nearly
_broken through_." The italics in this chance quotation are mine, and
used to emphasize a rare feeling for the most haunting phrase, a feeling
which gives distinction throughout to the story.
* * * * *
Illustration: _Special Constable_ (_to suspicious lounger_). "NOW, LOOK
HERE, IF YOU DON'T CLEAR OFF, I'LL--TELL YOU WHAT I'LL DO--I'LL CALL A
POLICEMAN!"
* * * * *
"Experienced Chauffeur wants situation; careful diver."
_Advt. in "Gloucester Citizen."_
A useful man in a whirlpool of traffic.
* * * * *
"When the foe was announced, the country men did open the doors of
their stables to let the beasts over run in the neighbourhood.
Amongst them was a bull, who came out in the street, similling,
bending his hocks and waiterig anxious.
At this time, the gun started to boom. The beast, then, urshed and
gone away from the village. On the knoll a german section had just
taken place. The bull fell amongst, his horns forward, fool of rage.
He knocked down the Germans like skittles."
_"Démocratie de L'Ouest (English-French edition)."_
This is almost as picturesque as some of the work of the "Eye-witness at
General Headquarters."
* * * * *