* * * * *
[Illustration: _Sportsman (who has mounted boy for his first hunt in
Ireland_). "WELL, HOW DID YOU GET ON?"
_Boy._ "FIRST-RATE, THANK YOU. I'LL GO IN A HARD HAT NEXT TIME,
THOUGH. A FELLOW CAME UP TO ME AT THE MEET AND SAID, 'CAP,
HALF-A-CROWN, PLEASE.'"]
* * * * *
=OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.=
(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)
A new novel by ANTHONY HOPE certainly deserves in these days to
be considered a literary event of some importance. His _Lucinda_
(HUTCHINSON) seems to me both in plot and treatment equal to the best
of his work; as dignified and yet as lightly handled as anything
he has given us in the past. The plot (which I must not betray) is
excellent. From the moment when _Julius_, the narrator, making his
leisurely way to the wedding of _Lucinda_, is passed by her alone in a
taxicab going in an opposite direction, the interest of the intrigue
never slackens. Into an epoch of rather "over-ripe" and messy fiction
this essentially clean and well-ordered tale comes with an effect very
refreshing and tonic. ANTHONY HOPE'S characters as ever are vigorously
alive; in _Lucinda_ herself he has drawn a heroine as charming as any
in that long gallery that now stretches between her and the immortal
_Dolly_. In short, those novel-readers who are (shall I say?)
beginning to demand the respect due to middle age will enjoy in these
pages the threefold reward of present interest, retrospection and a
comforting sense that the literary judgment of their generation is
here triumphantly vindicated in the eyes of unbelieving youth. What
could be more pleasant?
* * * * *
It is a delight to welcome the _Life of Mrs. R. L. Stevenson_
(CHATTO AND WINDUS), not only for the exceptional attraction of the
environment in which she lived for many years, but because under any
circumstances she would have been a remarkable woman. Once, when asked
to write her own life, she refused because it seemed to her like "a
dazed rush on a railroad express;" she despaired of recovering "the
incidental memories." So it fell to her sister, Mrs. VAN DE GRIFT
SANCHEZ, to undertake the task. A difficult one, for there was always
the fear that the personality of Mrs. STEVENSON might seem to be
overshadowed by that of her husband. But the author, in giving us many
interesting details about ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, has been careful
to select for the most part only those in which his wife was closely
concerned. "In my sister's character," she writes, "there were many
strange contradictions, and I think sometimes this was a part of her
attraction, for even after knowing her for years one could always
count on some surprise, some unexpected contrast which went far in
making up her fascinating personality." Contradictions undoubtedly
were to be found in her; thus during her later years Mrs. STEVENSON
intensely desired quietness and peace, and yet her love for change of
scene never seemed to abate; but she was constant in her devotion as a
wife and in her staunchness as a friend. Some excellent illustrations
are included in this volume, and the only fault I have to find with it
is that it lacks an index.
* * * * *
In selecting his hero for _No Defence_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) from
the mutineers at the Nore, it may be admitted that Sir GILBERT PARKER
displayed a certain originality. With regard, to the _clou_ of his
plot, however, I can hardly say so much. Melodramatic young lovers
have (in fiction) gone to prison and worse rather than employ a
defence involving distress to the ladies of their choice, from ages
untold. _Dyck Calhoon_ did it when he was wrongly indicted for the
killing of _Erris Boyne_, who was a traitor in the pay of France and
incidentally the father of the heroine _Sheila_; though she knew
nothing of this and would have been badly worried if the hazards of a
defended murder case had brought it to light. Do you call the motive
sufficient? No more do I. However, _Dyck_ goes to prison, emerging
just in time to join the fleet and became a successful rebel under the
Naval soviets established by RICHARD PARKER. Subsequently he takes his
ship into action on the legitimate side, earns the quasi-pardon of
exile on parole in Jamaica, finds a fortune of Spanish treasure,
quells a black rising, is cleared of the murder charge (by the wholly
preposterous arrival in the island of the now aged lady who had really
done the deed--exactly like the _finale_ of a GILBERT and Sullivan
opera) and marries the heroine. A breathless plot, by which, however,
my own pulse remained unquickened. To be brutally frank, indeed, the
telling seemed to me wholly lacking in precisely the qualities of dash
and crescendo required to carry off such a tale. Costume romance that
halts and looks backward soon loses my following.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI._]
* * * * *
Airedales and collies, according to Lieut.-Colonel E. H. RICHARDSON,
are notable for a truly remarkable and admirable characteristic. They
would honestly rather be at work than just playing round. All the
same, no one guessed before the War what they, and many other kinds of
dogs, were able and willing to do for their country in emergency on
guard and sentry duty, and, most of all, as battle-field messengers.
Moreover it took the genius of the man who of all the world knows
most of their mind to discover it. His book, _British War Dogs_
(SKEFFINGTON), is neither very brilliantly written nor particularly
well arranged (it contains quite a lot of repetitions and a system of
punctuation all its own), but it is of more than average interest.
The author details the training of war-dogs--literally "all done by
kindness"--and records many thrilling exploits and heroisms of his
friends. Further, he states at some length some rather attractive
views on dog metaphysics, of which one need say no more than that, if
you wish to believe that your four-footed pal has a soul to be saved
as well as a body to be patted, here is high authority to support
you. I think what one misses all through these pages is the dog's
own story. Without it one never seems to get quite to grips with the
subject. What were _Major's_ thoughts and feelings, for instance, when
carrying a message twelve miles in an hour over all obstacles, dodging
the shells as he ran? Not even Colonel RICHARDSON can find a way to
get a personal interview out of him.
* * * * *
All the Scandinavian countries have in the last twenty-five years
produced novel-writers of power and distinction, but with the single
exception of the Swedish authoress, SELMA LAGERLÖF, whose great novel,
_Gosta Berling_, was awarded the Nobel Prize, and the Norwegian, KNUT
HAMSUN, whose extremely unpleasant book, _Hunger_, was published in
this country a score of years ago, few if any of them have been made
accessible to the average English reader. Now the Gyldendal Publishing
Company of Copenhagen has undertaken the neglected task of producing
English translations of the best Scandinavian fiction, the latest
of which is _Guest the One-Eyed_, by the Icelandic novelist, GUNNAR
GUNNARSSON. It is not a particularly powerful narrative, and is
marked by the characteristic inconsequence that tends to convert the
Scandinavian novel into a mélange of family biographies; yet the
author has been successful in weaving into his chapters some of the
beauty and magic of his native land, lovely and forbidding by turns,
and the charm and simplicity of its people. So when he makes _Ormarr
Orlygsson_ fling away the strenuous work of ten years and a promising
career as a great violinist to return to a pastoral life on his
father's Iceland estates, the step seems neither strange nor
unnatural. So with the perfectly villainous _Sera Ketill_, who at the
culmination of unparalleled infamies suddenly repents and becomes
the far-wandering and well-beloved _Guest_, we do not feel anything
strained in the author's assumption that in Iceland, at any rate, such
things easily happen. _Guest the One-Eyed_ is not a noteworthy novel
in the sense that _Gosta Berling_ was. Yet one would not have missed
reading it.
* * * * *
It is interesting to watch heredity at play. Given the inclination to
write, what kind of a first book should we get from the son of one of
the most cultured and sensitive classical scholars and translators of
this or any day and from the grandson of the painter of the Legend of
the Briar Rose? The question is answered by Mr. DENIS MACKAIL'S _What
Next?_ (JOHN MURRAY), which on examination turns out to be a farcical
novel. The story has certain technical weaknesses, but these are
forgotten in the excitements of the chase, for the main theme is the
tracking down of a coarse capitalist who defrauded the hero of
his fortune and did something very low against England. With the
assistance of a new character in fiction, a super-valet, justice
is done and we are all (except the coarse capitalist and his son)
extremely happy. Mr. MACKAIL has invented some excellent scenes and he
carries them off with gaiety and spirit. In his second book (and for
the answer to _What Next?_ we shall not, I imagine, have long to wait)
he will amend certain little faults, not the least of which is a
tendency to give us the most significant events in the form of
retrospective narrative instead of letting us see them as they occur.
* * * * *
"Bedroom Suite and a reasonable Piano Wanted."--_Provincial
Paper._