(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)
The title of a book should be a guide to its contents, a simple enough
rule which some authors overlook in their anxiety to start being clever
and eccentric on the very outside cover. The book-buying public will
appreciate Miss M. BETHAM-EDWARDS' title, _From an Islington Window,
Pages of Reminiscent Romance_ (SMITH, ELDER), and will gather from it
that this is a book for those who prefer a long life and a quiet one to
the short and thrilling. Incidentally I am relieved from divulging any
of the plots in order to demonstrate the nature of the twelve short
pieces embodied; enough to quote two typical sub-titles, "Mr. Lovejoy's
Love-story" and "Miss Prime," and to put upon the whole the label of the
author's own choice, "Early Victorian." Everybody knows where and what
Islington is and the sort of minor tragedy and comedy that would be
likely to occur in the lives of its inhabitants in the last reign but
one. No one would look there for epoch-making crises, but many will find
a longed-for relief from the speeding-up tendencies of modern romance.
Lastly, but for a tendency at times to affectation, the style of the
writer is as graceful and elegant as her themes are homely and serene,
and that, I think, is all about it.
* * * * *
Mr. W. E. NORRIS is subtle; at least if my idea of the genesis of
_Barbara and Company_ (CONSTABLE) is the right one. I believe, then,
that Mr. NORRIS found himself possessed of plots sufficient for a number
of agreeable short stories, but that, knowing short stories to be more
or less a drug in the market, he very skilfully united them into one by
the simple process of making all their characters friends of _Barbara_.
Nothing could be more effective. For example, Mr. NORRIS thinks what fun
it would be to describe a race ridden by two unwilling suitors, the
prize to be the lady's heart, which neither in the least wishes to win.
Promptly _Miss Ormesby_, the heroine, is asked down on a visit to
_Barbara_, and the story is told, most amusingly and well, in a couple
of chapters. Again, the pathetic and moving tale of _Miss Nellie
Mercer_, the nameless companion, who blossomed into fierce renown as
_Senorita Mercedes_, the dancer, and died of it. Why should not this
same _Barbara_ have adopted the parentless girl in childhood? It is all
simplicity itself. Perhaps you may object that the useful _Barbara_
shows some signs of being a little overworked, and that few women are
likely to have had quite so adventurous a company of friends. In this
case I shall have nothing to urge, except that, so far as I am
personally concerned, Mr. NORRIS has such a way with him that if he
chose to people _Barbara's_ drawing-room with the persons of the
_Arabian Nights_ he could probably convince me that there was nothing
very much out of the ordinary in that assembly. And, after all, pianists
and writers and actors, all the kind of folk with whom _Barbara_
surrounded herself, are precisely those to whom short stories should,
and do, happen. Next time, however, I hope Mr. NORRIS'S inspiration will
be less fragmentary but equally happy.
* * * * *
_Johnnie Maddison_ (SMITH, ELDER) was nice. And here and now I wish to
propose a vote of thanks to Mr. JOHN HASLETTE for having the uncommon
pluck to create a hero neither handsome nor strong. Brave of course he
had to be, or how should that which is written in the proverbs have
been fulfilled, but "he was slight," "he stooped a little," "he had an
ordinary face." (What hopes that brings to the hearts of some of us!)
For the rest, he lived in Sta. Malua, to which tropical port came _Molly
Hatherall_, intending to be married to a handsome scamp who spent all
his salary as a mining engineer and all the money he could borrow from
friends in losing games of poker to a man who made a profession of
winning them. Why he should have wanted to do this (for it seemed to be
his solitary serious vice) in a place like Sta. Malua I cannot imagine.
But there it is. For one reason or another the marriage was delayed, and
after a long mental struggle _Jno. Maddison_, who had fallen in love
with _Molly_, decided to tell her what kind of man her idol of romantic
chivalry really was. It raises, you see, a nice point of ethics, since
_Edmund Serge_ was popular at the club and, except for the brand of the
poker on his forehead, a pretty good fellow. Unfortunately Mr. HASLETTE
rudely slices the knot of his difficulty by making _Edmund_ embezzle
money and abscond at the critical point of the story. The telling of the
yarn is a little humdrum, but gains from a comparative leniency in the
matter of local colour--for I feel that Sta. Malua is the sort of place
which might have been rather ruthless about this--and the suspended
banns keep the interest fairly warm. But I am not sure that _Johnnie
Maddison_ might not have been nicer if he had escaped a suspicion of
priggishness and lost a trifle now and then at progressive whist.
* * * * *
In Miss ELEANOR MORDAUNT'S new volume called _The Island_ (HEINEMANN)
all the tales have a common interest through their association with a
corner of Empire easily recognisable by those who have ever seen it. I
remember how greatly I have already admired Miss MORDAUNT'S power of
vivid and picturesque scene-painting; there are several stories in this
book that show it at its best. I wish I could avoid adding that there
are others that seem to me entirely unworthy of their author, at least
for any other purpose than that of boiling the pot. One of the best of
the tales, "A Reversion," is both dramatic and realistic; it bears a
strong resemblance to a sketch that recently made a successful
appearance at the Hippodrome; indeed the good qualities of Miss
MORDAUNT'S stories are precisely those that would help their development
into excellent little plays. One thing that I cannot help wishing is
that the writer had trusted a little more to my imaginative
intelligence. There is a certain kind of detail that is best confided to
this sanctuary, and Miss MORDAUNT'S difficulty seems to have been in
realising when all the sayable things had been said. At least one of the
stories plunges considerably beyond the limit of discretion and even
good taste. But the heat and the colour, the thrills and the devastating
_ennui_ of life for the English in the island, are as well rendered as
anything I remember in the fiction of Empire. For this alone there
should be a warm welcome for the collection, with all its faults, both
from those who know the original and those who need help in imagining
it.
* * * * *
_The Purple Frogs_ (HEATH, CRANTON AND OUSELEY) I can only describe as
the most exasperating, not to say maddening, product of modern fiction.
What on earth Messrs. H. W. WESTBROOK and LAWRENCE GROSSMITH, the joint
authors, mean by it I have not the ghost of an idea. Occasionally signs
are detectable that the whole thing is a practical joke; still more
occasionally it even promises to become mildly amusing; and then again
one is confronted with an incident (such as the visit of the armed
maniac to the house of _Isambard Flanders_) serious to the point of
melodrama. Not for pages and chapters did I discover any excuse for the
title; and even then not much. But it appeared eventually that _Isambard
Flanders_ was jealous of the friendship between his wife, _Cicely_, and
_Stephen_, a young man who produced film-dramas; and that in order to
score off them he wrote a novel called _The Purple Frogs_, in which he
embodied his suspicions. The last half of the volume is occupied with
this tale within a tale. Here possibly we have a key to the purpose of
the collaboration. Anyhow, I permitted myself to form a theory that Mr.
WESTBROOK (or Mr. GROSSMITH) had written a novel too exiguous for
separate publication, and in this dilemma had appealed to Mr. GROSSMITH
(or Mr. WESTBROOK) to provide a setting. But which wrote which, and
why--these are problems that remain inscrutable. Yet another is
furnished by the fact that Miss ELLA KING HALL has composed for the main
story six "illustrations in music," duly reproduced. You may with luck
be able to smile a little at the quaintness of these. But on the
title-page they are said to be "arranged from the MS. notes of _Botolf
Glenfield."_ And _Glenfield_, being only a character in the novel
written by _Flanders_, couldn't possibly ... Help!
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE CUBIST PHOTOGRAPHER.]
* * * * *