(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)
In _The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman_ (MACMILLAN) that impenitent
pamphleteer, H. G. WELLS, returns yet again to the intriguing subject
of marriage, and in a vein something nearer orthodoxy. Not, certainly,
that worthy stubborn orthodoxy of accepted unquestioned doctrine, or
that sleeker variety of middle-aged souls that were once young, now
too tired or bored to go on asking questions, but an orthodoxy rather
that is honest enough to revise on the evidence earlier judgments as
too cocksure and hasty. _Sir Isaac Harman_ was a tea-shop magnate, and
a very pestilent and primitive cad who caught his wife young and poor
and battered her into reluctant surrender by a stormy wooing, whose
very sincerity and abandonment were but a frantic expression of his
dominating egotism and acquisitiveness. Wooing and winning, thinks
this simple ignoble knight, is a thing done once and for all. Remains
merely obedience in very plain and absolute terms on the part of lady
to lord, obedience which, in the last resort, can be exacted by
withholding supplies--not so uncommon a form of blackmail as it suits
the dominant sex to imagine. _Lady Harman's_ emancipation does not
take the conventionally unconventional form, for some deeper reason, I
think, than that her sententious friend and would-be lover, _George
Brumley_, could not altogether escape her gentle contempt; indeed, she
recognises _Sir Isaac's_ claims upon her for duty and gratitude in a
way which modern high-spirited priestesses of progress would scarcely
approve. She fights merely for a limit to the proprietorship, for the
right to a separate individuality, the right to be useful in a wider
sphere (a phrase that stands for so much that is good and less good).
Mr. WELLS has realised this gracious, shy and beautiful personality
with a fine skill. It is no mean feat. He might so easily have made a
dear mild ghost. And oh! if ladies of influence who regiment their
inferiors in orderly philanthropic schemes had some of the wisdom and
tolerance of _Lady Harman_ in her dealings with the tea-shop girls.
You see one instinctively pays Mr. WELLS the serious compliment of
assuming that he has something material to say about the things which
matter.
* * * * *
As a demonstration of the irony of history, I can hardly imagine a
better subject for romance at the present moment than the fortunes of
WILLIAM OF ORANGE, and if Miss MARJORIE BOWEN'S _Prince and Heretic_
(METHUEN) shows some traces of having been rather hastily finished it
is easy to pardon this defect. The alchemist's assistant, part seer
and part quack, whom she introduces into the earlier part of the story
foretells the violent deaths of the young princes of the house of
Nassau and the ravaging and looting of the Netherlands by ALVA,
Defender of the Catholic Faith and servant of the House of Hapsburg;
but he cannot conjure up out of his crystal the sight of a Catholic
Belgium suffering these things, three hundred and fifty years later,
at the hands of a Lutheran King allied with a Hapsburg and fighting
for the sake of no cause but his own vanity. Most of the action takes
place in Brussels--a Brussels placarded with squibs against CARDINAL
GRANVILLE; and the final retreat of WILLIAM, ruined in everything
except his spirit, to join the army of the PRINCE DE CONDE, has a
pathetic significance to-day that not many historical romances can
claim. Miss MARJORIE BOWEN has a remarkable gift for the presentation
of a number of lifelike portraits against a vivid and gorgeous
background, and the successive pictures of the Dutch and Flemish
Schools which she creates in _Prince and Heretic_, make it, if not
quite so successful as _I Will Maintain_, at least a book which no
lover of the Lowlands can afford to miss.
* * * * *
_Our Sentimental Garden_ (HEINEMANN) is one of the very pleasantest
garden-books I have encountered. One reason for this is that it is
about such a lot of other things besides gardens. Volumes that are
exclusively devoted to what I might call horticultural hortation are
apt to become oppressive. But AGNES and EGERTON CASTLE are persons far
too sympathetic not to avoid this danger. Instead of lecturing, they
talk with an engaging discursiveness that lures you from page to page,
as it might from bed to border, were you an actual visitor in the
exquisite Surrey garden that is their ostensible subject. One thing
with them leads to another. "Lilacs," they say. "Ah, lilacs--" and
immediately one of them is started upon a whole series of rambling, DU
MAURIERISH recollections of school-days in Second Empire Paris.
Kittens and Pekinese puppies, village types, politics (just a little)
and Roman villas--all these are the themes of their happy talk. "The
Garden Garrulous" they might have called the book; and I for one have
found it infinitely charming. Not that shrewd hints upon the choice of
roses, the marshalling of bulbs, and other such aspects of the theme
proper are wanting. Moreover, what they tell of garden triumphs is at
once realised for you by a prodigality of drawings scattered among the
text, some glowing in a full page of colour, others in line alone,
from the pencil and brush of Mr. CHARLES ROBINSON. Altogether a very
gentle book, of which one may echo the hope expressed by the writers
in their graceful preface that "some unquiet heart, labouring under
the strain of long-drawn suspense," may find in it "a passing
relaxation, a forgotten smile."
* * * * *
Ernest students of military history should be grateful to Mr. EDWARD
FOORD for the patient labour and perseverance he has spent on the
compilation of _Napoleon's Russian Campaign of 1812_ (HUTCHINSON). The
book appears at a most opportune date, for most of us nowadays are
military critics, and here we can, if we like, compare the Russian
methods of 1812 with those of 1914. On the other hand, in these
strenuous days we may not have the time, even if we have the
inclination, to devote ourselves to campaigns a hundred years old. For
my own part, while frankly admitting the value of this book, I confess
that I had sometimes to skip in an endeavour to avoid being bewildered
by names and numbers. Using this desultory mode of progression I was
still abundantly informed and profoundly interested. Mr. FOORD is out
to give facts, however tedious, and I agree with him that it is the
business of an historian to be accurate before he is entertaining. Yet
I could have wished that he had been less parsimonious with his human
appeals, for whenever he unbends he can be at once interesting and
informing. The struggles of BARCLAY DE TOLLY against jealousy and
intrigues are vividly told, and nothing could be more graceful than
the tribute Mr. FOORD pays to the memory of that great soldier,
General EBLE. It is impossible to read the history of this disastrous
campaign without being impressed by the terrible penalties of
overweening arrogance and ambition, and without realising the flaming
spirit of patriotism that has glorified, and will always glorify, the
Russians in time of national peril.
* * * * *
In _A Morning In My Library_ ("TIMES" BOOK CLUB), Mr. STEPHEN
COLERIDGE has put together an anthology of English prose which has
some high advantages to recommend it to popular favour even in what
the compiler calls "these tumultuous times." It is a small book and
fits easily into a coat pocket; it is well and clearly printed, and,
best of all, the selection is admirably made and does credit to Mr.
COLERIDGE'S taste. Every extract bears the stamp of inspiration, a
quality difficult to define but unmistakable. RALEIGH'S invocation to
Death; JOHNSON'S preface to the Dictionary; NAPIER'S description of
the battle of Albuera; RICHARD SHIEL'S appeal on behalf of his
fellow-countrymen, and ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S immortal speech at
Gettysburg--all these are to be found, and many more; and all go to
show the might, majesty, dominion and power of that great language
which it is our privilege to speak. I think we shall value that
privilege a little more highly and shall endeavour to place a more
careful restraint on our tongues and our pens after we have dipped
through Mr. COLERIDGE'S little book. He is a judicious guide, and such
explanations as he adds are always short and never tiresome. Yet it
must in fairness be added that KING CHARLES'S head, in the shape of an
anti-vivisection footnote, has once, but only once, crept into the
"memorial." However the fault is such a little one that those who love
noble English prose will easily forgive it.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Old Lady (to wounded Officer)_. "OH, SIR, DO YOU 'APPEN
TO 'AVE 'EARD IF ANY OF YOUR MEN AT THE FRONT 'AS FOUND A PAIR OF
SPECTACLES WOT I LEFT IN A 16 'BUS IN THE EDGWARE ROAD?"]
* * * * *