(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)
The title, somewhat puzzling at first, which Miss F.E. MILLS YOUNG has
given to her latest story, _The Almonds of Life_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON),
turns out to be based upon a Chinese proverb to the effect that "almonds
came to those who have no teeth." This rather devastating sample of
philosophy (which I have put by for use against the next person who
attempts to work off upon me the adage about those who wait) forms the text
of a well-told tale of misplaced affections. As you may expect, if you know
Miss YOUNG'S former work, it is a South African story, not concerned
however with Boers and natives and the trackless veld, but with coastwise
civilization and suburban garden-parties. As before, the author excellently
conveys the place-feeling, so well indeed that I was sorry when the love
intrigues of the two protagonists necessitated their quitting Africa for a
more conventional Italian setting. I may summarise the plot by telling you
that the particular almond that fell too late to the heroine was somebody
else's husband. But it wasn't so much that she was unable to eat him as
that he proved indigestible when swallowed. The lady was _Gerda_, young and
dazzling bride of the middle-aged _Fred Wooten_, and the gentleman one of
her husband's closest friends, also (before the arrival of _Gerda_) happily
married to a wife whom I found the most attractive person in the book. I
need not further detail the crooked course of untrue love, though I may
hint at a fault in balance, where your sympathy, previously and rightly
enlisted for poor betrayed _Fred_, is demanded for _Gerda_ in her
difficulty with the almond. As usual, Miss YOUNG unfolds her plot with
admirable directness, chiefly through a natural and unforced dialogue, so
easy that it disguises its own art.
* * * * *
If any reasonable man still possesses a grain of sympathy with Bolshevism I
invite him to purge himself by reading _With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia_
(CASSELL). In August, 1918, Colonel JOHN WARD, M.P., reached Vladivostok in
command of the 25th Battalion Middlesex Regiment, and from the time of his
arrival until his departure nearly a year later his position was almost
grotesquely difficult. Of our Allies in Siberia and of their policy he
writes with justifiable frankness. Our own is not excused, but he lets us
clearly see that however ineffectual it may have been there was honesty of
purpose underlying it. In the medley of confusion which prevailed we were
lucky to have in Colonel WARD as senior British officer a man who was not
afraid to shoulder his responsibility. Under conditions so exasperating
that anyone might have been excused if he had been overwhelmed with anger
and bewilderment he was resolved to uphold our prestige. Upon the
Bolshevist horrors in Siberia he does not dwell, but he says enough in
passing to make one shudder. Colonel WARD is a true friend of Russia. "This
great people are bound to recover, and become all the stronger for their
present trials," are the concluding words of his preface. That this
prophecy may come true must be the prayer of all of us who remember what we
owed to Russia during the earlier part of the War.
* * * * *
It was perhaps my misfortune that, not having read the book in which Mr.
EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS recorded the earlier adventures of his hero, _John
Carter_, in the red planet Mars, when that gentleman precipitated himself
thither (from the banks of the Hudson, of all places), I found myself in
more senses than one out of my element. Not that it really matters; since
the Martian existence of _Mr. Carter_ was apparently of that wild and
whirling character, familiar to patrons of the Continuous Programme, in
which one thrill follows upon another so fast that their precise order
becomes of small moment. When I tell you that the opening chapters of this
remarkable nightmare--_The Gods of Mars_ (METHUEN)--contain monsters with
one white eye and mouths in their hands, flying pirates, an air-ship that
sinks down a volcano, an ageless witch who--but why continue? The
publishers call these happenings "bold;" but this is a pitiful
understatement. Really they are of a character to make the wildest
imaginings of JULES VERNE, friend of my youth, or Mr. WELLS, companion of
my riper years, read like the peaceful annals of a country rectory. To
quote again from the publishers, "only the man who created _Tarzan_ could
write such stories." If _Tarzan_ were in any way comparable with the
present volume, it would perhaps not be unfair to add the corollary that
only those readers who appreciated the one could swallow the other.
Mercifully, Mr. BURROUGHS writes so continually at the top of his voice
that after a time the clatter comes to have an effect merely soporific.
* * * * *
Since Major-General Sir C.E. CALLWELL has, in _The Dardanelles_
(CONSTABLE), added a volume to a series called _Campaigns and Their
Lessons_, it is clear that he is writing mainly for military students, but
none the less at least one man in the street--meaning myself--has been
glad, after reading plenty of merely descriptive accounts of the Gallipoli
affair, to find a book that frankly and justifiably does lay claim to
technical proficiency. The exponents of vivid narrative, modestly
disclaiming expert knowledge, have been painfully liable to break off just
short of what one wanted most to know. They told us how things happened,
or, at any rate, how it seemed they happened, but the reason why of things
they had to leave to others. In this book we really do get at the why, and
even more the why not, of the magnificent failure. Of actual incident and
human interest General CALLWELL'S account, which in a sense is only
supplementary to the others, adds little to our previous knowledge. The
only point of the sort I picked up is his notice of the characteristic
reluctance shown by Anzacs to report themselves as sick when urged to do so
with a view to the gradual removal of troops without withdrawal of entire
units. It is hardly necessary to add that the author is an old literary
hand, with a pleasantly clear and luminous style of his own, though one is
free to admit he splits his infinitives almost as much as Sir IAN HAMILTON
split his forces, and with less justification.
* * * * *
In the very improving books which I had to read long ago the hero or
heroine usually had a cross to bear. They bore it with great fortitude, and
frequently died young. When therefore I opened Mr. JEROME K. JEROME'S _All
Roads Lead to Calvary_ (HUTCHINSON) I fancied I knew what to expect. I read
that _Joan Allway_ was possessed of remarkable beauty, a "Stevensonian
touch" and suitable introductions to editors and newspaper proprietors, and
that from the pulpit of a column in the evening Press, with her photograph
at the top, she attempted to reform the world. I don't know how the
photograph came out, but there was apparently no martyrdom so far.
Afterwards she began to encourage and inspire _Robert Phillips_, a Labour
M.P. and future Cabinet Minister, and at the same time to be kind to and
educate _Mrs. Phillips_, who was good-natured, vulgar and middle-aged.
Falling gradually in love with the politician, she withdrew only just in
time, nursed in a French hospital, married a journalist friend and settled
down happily with him to reform a little bit of the world at a time, and
that the part nearest to hand. And now I am left wondering what _Joan
Allway's_ cross was. Would avoiding the Divorce Court be counted the
roughest path of self-denial in a moral anecdote of to-day?
* * * * *
_Running Wild_ (SIMPKIN) is the expressive title of a collection of
child-memories by the late Mr. BERTRAM SMITH, whom readers of _Punch_ will
remember by the pseudonym "BIS." They can here learn from a sympathetic
little introduction by Mr. WARD MUIR under what conditions of a brave but
losing battle with ill-health this delicate and vivacious work was written.
When I say that these recollections (which I decline to call by any word
implying more artifice) illustrate their author, I give you their measure
for honesty and charm combined. Honesty first of all; Mr. SMITH'S young
barbarians running wild and, one conjectures, rapidly reducing their elders
to a like condition, have the compelling effect of unsentimental truth. Few
clouds of glory, for example, trail about the protagonists of "A Day," a
tribute to the joyous intoxication of a day-long orgie of naughtiness
deliberate and wholly unrepented. You will find much in these pages to
waken half-forgotten and perhaps secret pleasures. Thus there was for
me a personal echo in the rejection as a seaside entertainment of
castle-building and the ordered sequence of the tides in favour of the
infinitely more variable delight of running water and a sufficiency of mud.
Perhaps I have said enough to suggest the charm of an engaging volume,
itself a memorial of one whose kindly laughter will be missed by many.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Young Alf._ "CHUCK IT, JIMMY. 'E AIN'T GOT A KIND FACE."]