(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks_.)
When the eminent in other branches of art take to literature, criticism
must naturally be tempered with respect. This is much how I feel after
reading Sir WILLIAM RICHMOND'S _The Silver Chain_ (PALMER AND HAYWARD).
Probably, however, I should have enjoyed it more had not the publishers
indulged in a wrapper-paragraph of such unbounded eulogy. If anybody is to
call this novel "a work of great artistic achievement," and praise its
"philosophy, psychology, delightful sense of humour, subtle analysis" and
all the rest, I should prefer it to be someone less interested in the wares
thus pushed. For my part I should be content to call _The Silver Chain_ by
no means an uninteresting story, the work of a distinguished man, obviously
an amateur in the craft of letters, who nevertheless has pleased himself
(and will give pleasure to others) by working into it many pen-pictures of
scenes in Egypt and Rome and Sicily, full of the glowing colour that we
should expect from their artist-author. But the tale itself, the unrewarded
love of the middle-aged "Philosopher" for the not specially attractive
heroine _Mary_, and the subordinate very Byronic romance of _Herbert_ and
_Annunziata_, quite frankly recalls those early manuscripts that most
novelists must have burnt before they were quit of boyhood, or preserved to
smile over. Still, in these winter days, when only Prime Ministers go to
Rome (and then not to bask) and Luxor is equidistant with the moon, you may
well find respite in a book so full of sunshine and memories of happy
places; but I am bound to repeat my warning that your fellow-travellers
will perhaps not be quite such stimulating society as the publishers would
have you expect.
* * * * *
Sir THEODORE COOK has already done sound work in dealing with German
methods, and in _The Mark of the Beast_ (MURRAY) he pursues his labours a
step further. So careful is he to give incontestable proofs for the charges
he brings against the Huns that even the most anæmic neutrals must find a
difficulty in reading this volume without recognising the truth. Especially
he emphasizes the dangers of peace-making with an enemy whose whole policy
and programme have been based on lies. And if he insists many times and
again upon this point he has his excuse in the fact that some of us are so
extraordinarily forgetful and forgiving that we cannot be reminded too
often of what the future has in store for us if we do not now remember the
past. With such an absolutely flawless case in his hands I find myself
wishing sometimes that Sir THEODORE had been less prodigal of the
denunciatory language which he hurls at Teutonic heads. Not for a moment
would I suggest that the Hun does not deserve vituperation, but I am
inclined to think that a less violent manner of attack is more effective.
In his own way, however, Sir THEODORE is inimitable, and I can pay no
higher praise to his book than to say that I know of no War-literature so
admirably calculated to make BETHMANN-HOLLWEG ("more double than his name")
really sorry for himself.
The War has not been lacking in fine memorials of the dead. To what extent
the Germans have commemorated the fallen I have no notion; but in France
and Italy the papers constantly print tender and eloquent tributes, usually
to the young. And in England we have the same thing too, touchingly,
proudly and generously done. For the most part such tributes are mere
records, but now and then they reconstruct; and the most remarkable example
of such reconstruction--to the world at large, absolute creation--is the
memoir of _Charles Lister_ (UNWIN), which his father, Lord RIBBLESDALE, and
some devoted friends have, with perfect biographical tact, prepared. But
for CHARLES LISTER'S untimely death, leading his men against the Turks in
July, 1915, most of the letters in this book would never have been printed
at all; for whatever his career might have become--and he was a man apart
and bound for distinction--and however great a record were his, the early
years could not be thus liberally illumined. But since death decreed that
these early years--he was not quite twenty-eight when he was wounded for
the third time and succumbed--should constitute all his career, we have
this notable and beautiful book. If one had to put but a single epithet to
it I should choose "radiant." At Eton, at Balliol, at the Embassies in Rome
and Constantinople, and in the Army, CHARLES LISTER shed radiance. All his
many friends testify to this. As for his letters, they are clear and gay
and human; and they have also a sagacity that many older and more
determined observers of life might envy; while that one to Lady DESBOROUGH
upon the death of his great friend, JULIAN GRENFELL, is literature. Every
page is interesting, but some are far more than that; and at the end one
has almost too moving a concept of an ardent idealistic English gentleman
met too late.
* * * * *
At first sight, perhaps, _Nothing Matters_ (CASSELL) may sound to you a
somewhat, shall I say, transatlantic title for a book published in these
days, when we are all learning how enormously everything matters. But this
emotion will only last till you have read Sir HERBERT BEERBOHM TREE'S
disarming little preface. Personally, it left me regretting only one thing
in the volume (or, to be more accurate, outside it), which was the design
of its very unornamental wrapper--a lapse, surely, from taste, for which it
would probably be quite unfair to blame the writer of what lies within.
This is almost all of it excellent fooling, and includes a brace of longish
short-stories (rather in the fantastic style of brother MAX); some fugitive
pieces that you may recall as they flitted through the fields of
journalism; with, for stiffening, a reprint of the author's admirable
lecture upon "The Importance of Humour in Tragedy." This is a title that
you may well take as a motto for the whole book. It will have, I think, a
warm welcome from Sir HERBERT'S many friends and admirers, even should it
turn out to be the case that some of his plots have been (in his own
quaintly attractive phrase) "prophetically plagiarised" by other writers.
Certainly this welcome will not be lessened by the knowledge that all
profits from the sale of the volume are to go to support a cause that, to
all who love the Stage, will be far indeed from not mattering--the fund to
supplement the incomes of the wives and families of actors at the Front.
You may regard it therefore as the lightest of comedies played, like so
many others, in the cause of charity, and put down your money with an
approving conscience.
* * * * *
Let no one whose heart has been touched beyond mere vicarious pride in the
achievement of our brothers-in-arms at the gate of Paris allow himself to
miss the detailed narrative of HENRI DUGARD in _The Battle of Verdun_
(HUTCHINSON). A good translation by F. APPLEBY HOLT, rather exceptional in
these days of hurried conveyancing, does not detract from the vigour and
movement of the story. We, who only saw the long agony through the medium
of the always inadequate and discreet technicalities of the _communiqués_,
could form no real impression of the kind of fighting or of the results of
each phase of it. The author has collected the accounts or reports, so that
the strokes and counter-strokes (for there was nothing passive in this
siege) of the epic combats round Douamont, Fort Vaux, the Woevre,
Malancourt, Avocourt and the Mort Homme are intelligibly reconstructed.
Comment in the form of personal anecdotes of individual heroism is added.
Perhaps the most illuminating touch is in the letter of poor Feldwebel KARL
GARTNER, which was to have been despatched to his mother by a friend going
on leave, so as to escape the Censor's eye. It began in a mood of
robustious confidence and ended (or rather was interrupted by GARTNER'S
capture) on the most despairing note. And this was seven months before the
most brilliant counter-attack in the history of the War slammed the door
once for all in the face of the enemy.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Theatrical Manager_. "THIS WON'T DO, YOU KNOW. IT'S NOT A
LAUGH--IT'S A YAWN!"
_Poster Artist_. "WELL, THAT'S BECAUSE YOU WERE IN SUCH A HURRY FOR THE
SKETCH THAT YOU WOULDN'T GIVE ME TIME TO LET THE IMPRESSION OF THE PIECE
WEAR OFF."]
* * * * *
"The scheme of utilising vacant spaces in London is being taken up
enthusiastically in the provinces."--_Evening Standard_.
At the same time the scheme of utilising vacant spaces in the provinces is
being welcomed with similar enthusiasm in London.
* * * * *
"Vigorous complaints against the proposal to establish an overhead
electric system of tramways in Edinburgh were made this afternoon.
Lord Strathclyde declared that the overhead wires proposal had
electrified the citizens."--_Scottish Paper_.
There must be something seriously wrong with the insulation.
* * * * *
--> NOTICE.--Rejected Communications or Contributions, whether MS., Printed
Matter, Drawings, or Pictures of any description, will in no case be
returned, not even when accompanied by a Stamped and Addressed Envelope,
Cover, or Wrapper. To this rule there will be no exception.