* * * * *
A Matinée in aid of the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children
will be given at the Garrick Theatre on Wednesday, November 17th,
at 2.30, when a comedy by Mr. LOUIS N. PARKER will be presented,
entitled, _Pomander Walk_ (period 1805).
It is hoped that at the Alhambra Matinée on November 16th one thousand
pounds will be raised to complete the special pension fund for actors,
which is to be a tribute of affection to the memory of Mr. SYDNEY
VALENTINE, who, in the words of Mr. MCKINNEL, "did more for the rank
and file of the theatrical profession than any actor, living or dead."
* * * * *
="The Dog it was who Died."=
"At Dovey Board of Conservators at Barmouth it was decided
to ask Major Dd. Davies to hunt the district with his otter
hounds, and failing this the water bailiffs themselves should
attempt to stamp them out."--_Welsh Paper._
Major DD. DAVIES' answer is not known to us, but we assume that he
said, "Well, I'm Dd."
* * * * *
"Royal Surrey Theatre. Grand Opera. To-night, 8, Cav. and
Pag."--_Daily Paper._
More evidence of the paper-shortage.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Affluent Sportsman (after a long blank draw)._ "NOW I
BET YOU WE'LL FIND AS SOON AS I LIGHT ONE OF MY HALF-DOLLAR CIGARS."
_Friend._ "DON'T YOU THINK WE MIGHT MAKE A CERTAINTY OF IT IF I LIT
ONE TOO?"]
* * * * *
=OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.=
(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)
I do not think that even the most phlegmatic of Englishmen could
read _Francis and Riversdale Grenfell: a Memoir_ (NELSON) without a
quickening of the pulses. This is not to suggest that Mr. JOHN BUCHAN
has sought to make an emotional appeal--indeed he has told the tale
of these devoted brothers with a simplicity beyond praise--but it is
a tale so fine that it must fill the heart, even of those who were
strangers to them, with joy and pride. I beg you to read the memoir
for yourselves, and see how and why it was that these twin brothers,
from Eton onwards, radiated cheerfulness and a happy keenness wherever
they went. "Neither," Mr. BUCHAN writes, "could be angry for long, and
neither was capable of harshness or rancour. Their endearing grace of
manner made a pleasant warmth in any society which they entered; and
since this gentleness was joined to a perpetual glow of enthusiasm
the effect was triumphant. One's recollection was of something lithe,
alert, eager, like a finely-bred greyhound." Those of us who were not
personally acquainted with FRANCIS and RIVERSDALE GRENFELL will, after
reading this Memoir and the Preface by their uncle, Field-Marshal Lord
GRENFELL, seem to know them intimately. FRANCIS won the first V.C.
gained in the War, but when he read the announcement of it in _The
Gazette_ his brother was already killed and his joy of life was
quenched. "I feel," he wrote to his uncle, "that I know so many who
have done and are doing so much more than I have been able to do
for England. I also feel very strongly that any honour belongs to my
regiment and not to me." In that spirit he met his death a few months
later. In work and sport, in war or peace, the twins were ardent,
generous and brave, and their deaths were as glorious as their lives
were gracious and radiant. The profits of Mr. BUCHAN'S book are to
be devoted to the funds of the Invalid Children's Aid Association, in
which the brothers were deeply interested.
* * * * *
There are certain tasks which, like virtue, carry their reward with
them. No doubt Miss ELEANOUR SINCLAIR ROHDE would be gratified if
her book, _A Garden of Herbs_ (LEE WARNER), were to pass into several
editions--as I trust it will--and receive commendation on every
hand--as it surely must--but such results would be irrelevancies. She
has already, I am convinced, tasted so much delight in the making
of this, the most fragrant book that I ever read, in her delving and
selecting, that nothing else matters. Not only is the book fragrant
from cover to cover, but it is practical too. It tells us how
our ancestors of not so many generations ago--in Stuart times
chiefly--went to the herb garden as we go to the chemist's and the
perfumer's and the spice-box, and gave that part of the demesne much
of the honour which we reserve for the rock-garden, the herbaceous
borders and the pergola. And no wonder, when from the herbs that grow
there you can make so many of the lenitives of life--from elecampane
a sovran tonic, and from purslane an assured appetiser, and from
marjoram a pungent tea, and from wood-sorrel a wholesome water-gruel,
and from gillyflowers "a comfortable cordial to cheer the heart," and
from thyme an eye-lotion that will "enable one to see the fairies."
Miss ROHDE tells us all, intermingling her information with mottoes
from old writers and new. Sometimes she even tells too much, for,
though she says nothing as to how lovage got its pretty name, we are
told that "lovage should be sown in March in any good garden soil."
Did we need to be told that? Is it not a rule of life? "In the Spring
a young man's fancy...."
* * * * *
To my mind, amongst the least forgettable books of the present year
will be that to which Mr. SETON GORDON, F.Z.S., has given the title
of _The Land of the Hills and the Glens_ (CASSELL). Mr. GORDON has
already a considerable reputation as a chronicler of the birds
and beasts (especially the less approachable birds) of his native
Highlands. The present volume is chiefly the result of spare-moment
activities during his service as coast-watcher among the Hebrides.
Despite its unpropitious title, I must describe it without hyperbole
as a production of wonder and delight. Of its forty-eight photographic
illustrations not one is short of amazing. We are become used to fine
achievement in this kind, but I am inclined to think Mr. GORDON goes
one better, both in the "atmosphere" of his mountain pictures and in
his studies of birds at home upon their nests. To judge, indeed,
by the unruffled domesticity of these latter, one would suppose Mr.
GORDON to have been regarded less as the prying ornithologist than as
the trusted family photographer. I except the golden eagle, last of
European autocrats, whose greeting appears always as a super-imperial
scowl. Chiefly these happy results seem to have been due to a triumph
of patient camouflage, concerning which the author suggests the
interesting theory that birds do not count beyond unity, _i.e._,
if two stalkers enter an ambush and one subsequently emerges, the
vigilance of the feathered watchers is immediately relaxed. Should
this be true, I can only hope that Mr. GORDON will get in another book
before the spread of higher education increases his difficulties.
* * * * *
I should be inclined to call Mr. NORMAN DOUGLAS our only example of
the romantic satirist, though, unless you have some previous knowledge
of his work, I almost despair of condensing the significance of this
into a paragraph. For one thing the mere exuberance of his imagination
is a rare refreshment in this restricted age. His latest book,
with the stimulating title of _They Went_ (CHAPMAN AND HALL), is an
admirable example of this. Certainly no one else could have created
this exotic city with its painted palaces and copper-encrusted towers,
a vision of sea-mists and rainbows; or peopled it with so iridescent a
company--the strange princess; the queen, her mother; the senile king
who should have been (but wasn't) her father; _Theophilus_, the Greek
artist; the philosophic old Druidess, and the dwarfs who "chanted
squeaky hymns amid sacrifices of mushrooms and gold-dust." Perhaps
this random quotation may hint at the fantastic nature of the tale;
it can give no idea of the intelligence that directs it, mocking,
iconoclastic, almost violently individual. Plot, I fancy, seldom
troubles Mr. DOUGLAS greatly; it happens, or it does not. Meanwhile
he is far more concerned in fitting a double meaning (at least) to the
most simple-sounding phrase. To sum up, _They Went_ is perhaps not
for idle, certainly not for unintelligent, reading; for those who
can appreciate quality in a strange guise it will provide a feast of
unfamiliar flavours that may well create an appetite for more.
* * * * *
That clever writer, Mr. A. P. HERBERT, would lightly describe his
story, _The House by the River_ (METHUEN), as a "shocker." But
there are ways and ways of shocking. He might wish to show us the
embarrassments of a fairly respectable member of the intellectual
classes, living in a highly respectable environment, when he finds
that he has committed homicide; and he might make the details as
gruesome as he liked. But there was no need to shock the sensitive
when he made his choice of the circumstances in which the poet,
_Stephen Byrne_, inadvertently throttles his housemaid. It is a
fault, too, that his scheme only interests him so far as it concerns
_Stephen_ and his society, and that the horror of the tragedy from
what one may loosely call the victim's point of view does not seem to
affect him at all. Otherwise, even for the sake of brevity, he could
not so flippantly refer to the body, sewn in a sack and thrown into
the river, as just "Eliza." He may argue that he never thought of the
corpse as a real one and that the whole thing was merely an experiment
in imaginative art; but his details are too well realised for that,
and so is his admirable picture of the society of Hammerton Chase,
W., a thin disguise for a riverside neighbourhood easy to recognise.
I could never get myself quite to believe that _Stephen's_ friend,
_Egerton_, accessory after the fact, would so long and so tamely have
borne the suspicion of it; but for the rest Mr. HERBERT'S study of his
milieu shows a very intimate observation. If his _Stephen_, in
whom the highest poetic talents are found tainted with a touch
of coarseness, may not always be credible, the passion for
self-expression which leads him on to versify his own experience in
the form of a mediæval idyll, and so give himself away, is true to
life. But my final impression of Mr. HERBERT'S book--he will perhaps
think I am taking him too seriously--is that his many gifts and
notably his humour, whose gaiety I prefer to its grimness, are here
exercised on a rather unworthy theme.
* * * * *
[Illustration: MARTYRS OF SCIENCE:--THE INVENTOR OF TOFFEE.]
* * * * *
=Fashions for Proxy-Fathers.=
"The bride entered the church on the arm of Mr. T. ----, of
Happy Valley (who acted in loco parentis and was charmingly
attired in crepe-de-chine)."--_South African Paper._
* * * * *
"Is there anyone amongst the thousands of men who will benefit
who will be some an (please let the word remain, Mr.
Editor) as not to show his appreciation in the same
way?"--_Educational Paper._
Personally we think the Editor was a little too complaisant.
* * * * *
[Transcriber's Note: