(_BY MR. PUNCH'S STAFF OF LEARNED CLERKS._)
Not for a great while have I met a story at once so moving and so
simply made as _Summer_ (MACMILLAN). Of course at this time the art
of EDITH WHARTON is no new discovery; but to my thinking she has never
done better work than this tale of a New England village, and the
wakening to love of the girl who was drowsing away her youth there.
It is all, as I say, so simple, and written with such apparent economy
of effort, that only afterwards does the amazing cleverness of Mrs.
WHARTON'S method impress itself upon the reader. _Charity Royall_ was
a waif, of worse than ambiguous parentage, brought up in a community
where her passionate and violently sensitive nature was stifled. Two
men loved her--dour middle-aged Lawyer _Royall_, whose house she kept,
and _Lucius Harney_, the young visitor from the city, the fairy-prince
of poor _Charity's_ one great romance, through whom came tragedy. You
see already the whole stark simplicity of the theme. What I cannot
convey to you is that secret of Mrs. WHARTON'S that enables her by
some exquisitely right word or phrase so to illuminate a scene that
you see it as though by an inspiration of your own, and feel that
thus and thus did the thing in fact happen. There are episodes in
_Summer_--for example the Fourth of July firework evening, or the
wildly macabre scene of the night funeral on the mountain--that seem
to me to come as near perfection in their telling as anything I am
ever likely to read, and when you have enjoyed them for yourself I
fancy you will be inclined to join me in very sincere gratitude for
work of such rare quality.
* * * * *
Those who admired (which is the same as saying those who read) that
excellent book, _The Retreat from Mons_, will be glad to hear that
its author, Major A. CORBETT-SMITH, has now continued his record in a
further volume, called _The Marne and After_ (CASSELL). In it you will
find all those qualities, a sane and soldier-like common-sense, an
entire absence of gush, and a saving humour in the midst of horrors,
which made the earlier installment memorable. Above all else I
have been impressed by the first of these characteristics. Major
CORBETT-SMITH writes from the viewpoint of one to whom even this
ghastliest of wars is part of the day's work. That he sees its human
and hideous sides by no means impairs this quiet professional outlook.
I recall one phrase in his chapter on the secret agents of the enemy:
"At the Aisne German spies were a regular plague"--just as one might
speak of wasps or weather--which somehow conveyed to me very vividly
the secret of our original little army's disproportionate influence
in the early weeks of the War. The operations which we call the
actual Battle of the Marne (surely fated to be the most fought-again
engagement in history) are here very clearly described, with
illustrative plans; while one other chapter, called suggestively
"_Kultur_," may be commended to those super-philosophers amongst us
who are already beginning an attempt to belittle the foul record of
calculated crime that must for at least a generation place Germany
outside the pale of civilization. For this grim chapter alone I should
like to see Major CORBETT-SMITH'S otherwise cheery volume scattered
broadcast over the country.
* * * * *
_June_ (METHUEN) is saturated with the simple sentimentality in which
American authors excel. I do not know whether British novelists could
write this sort of book successfully if they would, but I do know that
they don't. Miss EDITH BARNARD DELANO, however, succeeds in getting
considerable charm into her story, and if it leaves rather a sweeter
taste in the mouth than some of us relish there are others who like
their fiction to be strongly sugared. _June_, an orphan child, was
looked after by nigger servants, and by one, _Mammy_, in particular.
She possessed a house and a valley; and a young man prospecting in the
latter met with an accident and was discovered by the child. Hence
complications, and the removal of _June_ from her home to be educated
with some cousins. Then poverty, hard times and plenty of pluck.
But the clouds began to lift when _June_ discovered that an emerald
cross of hers was worth four thousand dollars; and finally the sun
burst forth when, through the agency of the accidental young man,
her property was found to be very valuable, and she more valuable
still--to the young man. It sounds ingenuous, doesn't it? But not
nearly so easy to write as it seems, for to produce anything as
artless as _June_ is an art in itself.
* * * * *
In _The Book of the Happy Warrior_ (LONGMANS) a chivalrous modern
knight holds up to our youngsters the patterns of an older chivalry
to teach them courage, clean fighting and devoted service. Sir HENEY
NEWBOLT claims that the tradition of the public schools is the direct
survival of the mediæval training for knighthood, and incidentally
defends flannelled and muddied youth from hasty aspersions. ROLAND and
his OLIVER, RICHARD LION-HEART, EDWARD the Black Prince and CHANDOS,
DU GUESCLIN and BAYARD, if they revisited this tortured earth, would
be dismayed by the procedure and the chilling impersonality of modern
war. Perhaps in the glorious single combats of the Flying Corps they
might recognise some faint semblance of their ancient method. Sir
HENRY, rightly from his point of view, chooses to ignore the wholesale
horrors of to-day's warfare and to emphasize the ideal of fighting
service as a fine discipline and proof of manly worth. He shows an
obvious, honest, aristocratic bias, but he does not forget another
side of the matter, as a fragment of an imaginary conversation
between a young lord and a squire present at the great tourney at St.
Inglebert's between the Gentlemen of England and of France pleasantly
shows. The Englishmen were worsted and took their defeat in a fine
sporting spirit. "How is it we're beaten? We always win the battles,
don't we?" asks the boy. "The archers win them for us," says the
Squire. Quite a characteristic little touch of subaltern modesty! One
thought occurs to me especially. It is unthinkable that a book like
this should appear in the Germany of to-day. It will be worth your
while giving it to your boy to find out why.
* * * * *
Since the practice of writing first novels is becoming increasingly
popular with young authors it was inevitable that a "First Novel
Library" should find its way on to the market. Whether the
classification is to be construed as an appeal for forbearance for
the shortcomings of the neophyte, or as a warning which a considerate
publisher feels is due to the public, is not for me to say. But the
policy of charging six shillings for these maiden efforts--all that
is required of us for the mature masterpieces of our MAURICE HEWLETTS
and ARNOLD BENNETTS--is open to question. _The Puppet_, by JANE
HARDING (UNWIN), is not without merit, but the faults of the beginner
are present in manifold. The heroine tells her story in the first
person--a difficult method of handling fiction at the best--and in the
result we find a young lady of no particular education or apparent
attainments holding forth in the stilted diction of a rather prosy
early-Victorian Archbishop. The effect of unreality produced goes far
to spoil a plot which is wound and unwound with considerable skill.
Miss HARDING will write a good novel yet, but she must learn to make
her characters act the parts she assigns to them.
* * * * *
We all must be writing books about the War. It is natural enough to
suppose one's own share of war-work is worthy of record, and indeed,
when we come to think of it, the historian of the future will get his
complete picture of the time only when he realises how every scrap
of the national energy was absorbed in the one master purpose. That
being so it is arguable that Mr. WARD MUIR was thinking far ahead in
compiling his hospital reminiscences, _Observations of an Orderly_
(SIMPKIN). One hastens to make it clear that the last thing intended
or desired is to disparage the usefulness or the stark self-sacrifice
of the men who are serving in menial capacities in our war hospitals,
but to tell the truth this account of sculleries and laundry-baskets,
polishing paste and nigger minstrels, bathrooms and pillow-slips, has
not much intrinsic interest about it, nor are the author's general
reflections very different from what one could supply oneself without
much effort. His notes on war slang are about the best thing in
the volume, and I liked the story of the blinded soldiers--feeling
anything in the world but mournful or pathetic--who played pranks on
the Tube escalator; but on the whole this is a book which will be of
considerable interest only to the writer's fellow-labourers. They,
beyond any doubt, will be glad to read this history of their familiar
rounds and common tasks.
* * * * *
_Wanted, a Tortoise-Shell_ (LANE) would have made an excellent short
story, but to pursue its farcical developments through three hundred
pages requires a considerable amount of perseverance. The scene of Mr.
PETER BLUNDER'S book is laid in tropical Jallagar, where the British
Resident was keener on cats than on his duties. A male tortoise-shell
was what he fanatically and almost ferociously desired, and to obtain
it he was ready to barter his daughter to one _Kamp_, who is tersely
described as "a fat Swede." I conceived a strong distaste for this
large and perspiring man, and can congratulate Mr. BLUNDELL on having
created a character odious enough to linger in the memory. For the
rest there are some gleams of real fun where a beach-comber tries to
palm off a dyed cat as the long-deferred tortoise-shell, and the exit
of this animal from a world too covetous to hold it is thoroughly
sound farce. But on the whole I failed to get many of those quiet
gurgles of delight which are the best tribute one can pay to a funny
man's work.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Chairman at Farmers' Ordinary._ "NOW, GENTLEMEN, FILL
UP YOUR MATCHBOXES TO THE VERY GOOD HEALTH OF THE CATERER."]