(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)
The long-promised _Herbert Beerbohm Tree_ (HUTCHINSON), than which I
have expected no book with more impatience, turns out to be a volume
full of lively interest, though rather an experiment in snap-shot
portraiture from various angles than a full-dress biography. Mr. MAX
BEERBOHM has arranged the book, himself contributing a short memoir of
his brother, which, together with what Lady TREE aptly calls her
_Reverie_, fills some two-thirds of it with the more intimate view of
the subject, the rest being supplied by the outside appreciations of
friends and colleagues. If I were to sum up my impression of the
resulting picture it would be in the word "happiness." Not without
reason did the TREES name a daughter FELICITY. Here was a life spent in
precisely the kind of success that held most delight for the
victor--honour, love, obedience, troops of friends; all that _Macbeth_
missed his exponent enjoyed in flowing measure. Perhaps TREE was never a
great actor, because he found existence too "full of a number of
things"; if so he was something considerably jollier, the enthusiastic,
often inspired amateur, approaching each new part with the zest of a
brief but brilliant enthusiasm. I suppose no popular favourite ever had
his name associated with more good stories and wit, original and
vicarious. Despite some entertaining extracts from his commonplace book
I doubt if this side of him is quite worthily represented; at least
nothing here quoted beats Lady TREE'S own _mot_ for a mendacious
newspaper poster--_Canard à la Press_. Possibly we are still to look for
a more official volume of reference; meantime the present memoir gives a
vastly readable sketch of one whose passing left a void perhaps
unexpectedly hard to fill.
* * * * *
In the prefatory chapter of _Our Women_ (CASSELL) Mr. ARNOLD BENNETT
coyly disclaims any intention of tackling his theme on strictly
scientific principles. The warning is perhaps hardly necessary, since,
apart from the duty which the author owes to his public as a novelist
rather than a philosopher, the title alone should be a sufficient guide.
One would hardly expect a serious zoologist, for instance, in attempting
to deal with the domesticated fauna, to entitle his work _Our Dumb
Friends_. The book is divided in the main between adjuration and
prophecy. As a result of their emancipation from economic slavery, Mr.
BENNETT expects women--women, that is to say, of the "top class," as he
calls it--to adopt more and more the _rôle_ of professional
wage-earners; but at the same time he insists that they do not as yet
take themselves seriously enough as professional housekeepers. How the
two functions are to be combined it is a little difficult to see, but
apparently women are to retain a profession as a stand-by in case they
fail to marry or to remain married. At the same time Mr. BENNETT takes
it for granted that woman will never relinquish her position as a
charmer of man, or even the use of cosmetics and expensive lingerie.
Speaking neither as a novelist nor as a philosopher, I cannot help
feeling that Mr. BENNETT is too apt to consider the things he
particularly likes about women to be eternal, and those that he does not
like so much to be susceptible of alteration and improvement. Anyhow, it
looks as if Our Men were going to have rather a thin time.
* * * * *
Miss BEATRICE HARRADEN calls her latest story _Spring Shall Plant_
(HODDER AND STOUGHTON). She might equally well have called it _The
Successes of a Naughty Child_. Certainly it is chiefly concerned with
the many triumphant insubordinations of _Patuffa_ (whom I suspect of
having been encouraged by her too challenging name) both at home and at
the various schools from which she either ran away or was returned with
thanks. This is all mildly attractive if only from the vivacity of its
telling; but I confess to having felt a mild wonder whether a child's
book had not got on to my table by error--when the grown-ups suddenly
began to carry on in a way that placed all such doubts at rest. There
was, for example, a Russian lady, godmother of _Patuffa_, who escaped
from somewhere and established herself, with others of her kind, in an
attic in Coptic Street. My welcome for this interesting fugitive was to
some extent shaken by a realisation that she was (so to speak) a refugee
from the other side and, in a sense, a spiritual ancestress of
Bolshevism. Miss HARRADEN would however object, and justly, that the
clean-purposed conspirators of the earlier revolution had little in
common with the unsavoury individuals who at present obscure the Russian
dawn. Soon after this, _Patuffa's_ papa begins to go quite dreadfully
off the rails, even to the extent of wishing to elope with her governess
and eventually losing all his money and shooting himself. There was also
a famous violinist--well, you can see already that _Patuffa's_ vernal
experiences were on generous lines. It is to the credit of all concerned
that she and her story retain an appreciable charm under adverse
conditions.
* * * * *
Nothing, one would imagine, could promise much more restful reading than
a book that concerns itself with such things as christening robes for
caterpillars, the dyeing blue of white chickens and searches among
Californian lilies and pine-trees for the soul of a hog unseasonably
defunct. But, since this most uncharitable age refuses to believe
anything just because it is told it should, the peaceful pages of _The
Diary of Opal Whiteley_ (PUTNAM) are unfortunately fussed over with a
controversy that no one who reads them can quite escape. Miss WHITELEY'S
diary is presented with every circumstance of solemn asseveration as the
unaided work of a child of seven, only now pieced together by the writer
after quite a number of years. If you care to throw yourself into the
argument you will certainly find heaps of reasons for thinking unkind
thinks, as the writer would say, of the truth of this claim,
particularly in the completeness with which every incident is carried
through various stages to its literary finish; but, if you will be ruled
by me, you will try to forget anything but the book itself, with its
quite charming pictures of many animals and one little girl, their
understanding friend. The quaint idiom in which the diary is supposed to
have been written (or, of course, was written) adds to the delight of a
rather uncommon feeling for nature at its simplest, while the scrapes
for which the small heroine receives (or, you may say, is alleged to
receive) well-deserved punishment preserve the book from ever dropping
into mere mawkishness. A great pity, I think, that it was not published
rather as based on childish memories than as the actual printed script
of a prodigy.
* * * * *
_Moon Mountains_ (HURST AND BLACKETT) is a story which with the best
will in the world I found it impossible to regard wholly seriously. The
greater part of the scene is laid in Darkest Africa, where the father of
the hero, _Peter_ (my hope that the _Peter_ habit had blown over appears
to have been premature), disappears at an early stage. The subsequent
course of events reminds me of the words of the musical-comedy poet,
popular in my youth, who wrote, "It were better for you rather not to
try and find your father, than to find him"--well, certainly better than
to find him as _Peter_ found his. Perhaps it would not be unfair to
suppose that Miss MARGARET PETERSON had at this point her eye already
firmly fixed upon her big situation. Certainly the course of _Peter_ is
rather impatiently and spasmodically sketched till the moment when
matters are sufficiently advanced to ship him also to Africa, in company
with an elderly hunter of butterflies named _Mellis_. Their adventures
form the bulk of the tale (filled out with some chat about elephants,
and a sufficiency of love-making on the part of _Peter_), and I suppose
I need hardly tell you how one of them, poor _Mellis_, is immediately
captured and brought before the terrible white king of the hidden lands,
nor how this same monarch, a really dreadfully unpleasant person, turns
out to be--Precisely. So there the tale is; little more incredible than,
I dare say, most of its kind; and if you have no rooted objection to
characters all of whom behave like persons who know they are in a book
there is no reason why you should not find it at least passably
entertaining.
* * * * *
Mr. F. BRETT YOUNG'S manner of presenting _The Tragic Bride_ (SECKER) is
not free from affectation, and this is the more irritating because his
literary style is in itself admirably unpretentious. But having recorded
this complaint I gladly go on to declare that his tale of _Gabrielle
Hewish_ has both charm and distinction. I protest my belief in
_Gabrielle_ both in her Irish and English homes, but my protest would
have been superfluous if Mr. BRETT YOUNG had not almost super-taxed my
powers of belief. So also with _Arthur Payne_; he is a fascinating lad,
and the battle between his mother and _Gabrielle_ for possession of him
was a royal struggle, fought without gloves yet very fairly. All the
same I caught myself doubting once or twice whether any boy could at the
same time be so human and so inhuman. It is to Mr. BRETT YOUNG'S credit
that these doubts do not interfere with one's enjoyment of his book, and
the reason is that he is first and last and all the time an artist.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _New Clerk._ "BEG PARDON, SIR, BUT THERE'S A GENTLEMAN
OUTSIDE WHO SAYS THAT YOU'VE ROBBED HIM OF ALL HE HAD."
_Turf Accountant._ "WELL, WHAT'S HIS NAME? ASK HIM TO GIVE YOU HIS NAME.
HOW AM I TO DISTINGUISH HIM IF HE DOESN'T SEND HIS NAME IN?"]