_(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)_
_Within The Rim_ (COLLINS) is, I suppose, the last of the posthumous
volumes of Mr. HENRY JAMES. It is a short book, produced with the
beauty that I have already grown to associate with the imprint of its
publishers, and containing five occasional pieces. Of these the first,
which gives its title to the whole, is the most considerable: an essay
of very moving poignancy, telling the emotion of the writer during
the earliest months of the War, in "the most beautiful English summer
conceivable," months that he "was to spend so much of in looking over
from the old rampart of a little high-perched Sussex town at the
bright blue streak of the Channel ... and staring at the bright mystery
beyond the rim of the farthest opaline reach." In the thoughts to
which HENRY JAMES here gives expression one may find much of the love
and sympathy for this country that subsequently led to that assumption
of British citizenship which he intended as their demonstration to the
world. Of interest also in this same paper is the revelation of a mind
that knew already by a personal experience (of the American Civil War)
"what immensities our affair would carry in its bosom--a knowledge
that flattered me by its hint of immunity from illusion." I would not
be understood that this is a volume for the casual reader, or even for
one desirous of making a first acquaintance with the Master, since
much of it exemplifies not only the beauty but the perplexities of
his later style; but it is certainly one which his disciples will not
willingly be without.
* * * * *
_Notebooks of a Spinster Lady_ (CASSELL) is smallish talk about
biggish wigs of the Victorian era, but not on that sole account to be
condemned. Perhaps rather wholesome as showing how little distant we
are from an age of government of the people by superior people for
superior people. The notebooks cover the years 1878-1903, but the
anecdotes have a much wider range, are often indeed of a venerable
antiquity. The lady of the notebooks was not, I fancy, of a critical
temper, and versions not too credible of well-known _contes_ figure in
her quiet kindly pages. There are moreover stories which I should not
hesitate to describe as of an appalling banality if they were not
concerned with such very nice people. On the whole I don't think it
quite fair to the spinster lady to have published her notes. They may
well have been painstaking jottings to provide material for polite
conversation and have sounded much better than they read in cold
print. For myself the real heroine of the book is _Maria_, the poet's
wife, who, on being waked and adjured by her spouse to get up and
strike a light for that he had just thought of a good word, replied
in un-Victorian mood, "Get up yourself! I have just thought of a bad
one."
* * * * *
_Love--on Leave_ (PEARSON) is the sufficiently expressive title that
Miss JESSIE POPE has chosen for a small book of little courtship
tales. You never saw a volume of its size, more packed with love,
which is shown leaping walls, laughing at locksmiths and generally
making the world go round in its proverbial fashion. The pace of the
revolutions may be found a little disconcerting. You will perhaps be
inclined to amend the title and call the collection "Love on _Short_
Leave," to mark the regularity with which the respective heroes and
heroines fall into each others' arms at the end of every dozen pages
or so. As a matter of fact, the incident that is to my mind the best
of the bunch is an exception to this rule of osculation--a happily
imagined little comedy of a young wife who thought to avoid the visit
of a tiresome sister-in-law by betaking herself for the night to
the branches of a spreading beech. Whether in actual life this is a
probable course of conduct need not exercise your mind; at least not
enough to prevent your enjoyment of her arboreal adventure, which
comes, as I say, with the more freshness as a break in what might else
be a surfeit of proposals. In effect, a gallant little florin's
worth of _fiançailles_; though, if you wish to avoid feeling like a
matrimonial agency, you will be well-advised to take it by instalments
rather than in bulk.
* * * * *
Among the pacific warriors in the great 1914-18 struggle there is
probably none who did better work, often under conditions of the
gravest peril, than Mr. G.M. TREVELYAN for the Red Cross in Italy.
Disqualified both by age and health from joining the army of attack,
he threw himself into the task--a labour of love--of tending the
sick and wounded of that country which he knows so well and of whose
greatest modern hero he is the classic biographer. That the eulogist
of GARIBALDI should hasten to the succour of Italian soldiers was
fitting, and how well he performed the task the records of the Villa
Trenta Hospital, near Udine, and of the ambulance drivers under his
command, abundantly tell. The story of this beneficent campaign and of
much besides is told with too much modesty by Mr. TREVELYAN himself,
in a book entitled _Scenes from Italy's War_ (JACK), which gives a
series of the vividest impressions of the Italian effort, and is
remarkable for the best analysis that I have yet seen of the causes
that led to the disaster of Caporetto. The pages in which Mr.
TREVELYAN paints the portrait of a typical Italian soldier, home sick
and perplexed, are likely to be borrowed by many more pretentious
historians of the War for years to come.
* * * * *
Mr. JOHN HARGRAVE, the author and illustrator of _The Great War Brings
It Home_ (CONSTABLE) has already a wide reputation in the world
of Scouts, gained not only by his enthusiasm but by his profound
knowledge of scout-craft. Here he tells us very plainly that the War
has brought home to us the fact that, if we are to make good our
losses in the ranks of the young and the fit, we have got to give our
children a better chance of living healthy, wholesome lives. He urges
the need of more outdoor education and as many open-air camps as
possible, and shows that, if we are to carry out such a scheme as he
lays in detail before us, scoutmasters and still more scoutmasters are
wanted. With reason he complains that none of these good fellows is
paid one halfpenny, and that nearly all of them are young men who have
to get a living. "Offer them," he says, "a living wage and how gladly
would they become national scoutmasters in charge of national camps."
You may, if you are on the look-out for it, find much that will seem
fantastic in Mr. HARGRAVE'S ideas; his appeal, however, is not to
those of us who, even in a case of great national urgency, cannot get
away from the tyranny of convention. Intrinsically his idea is sound,
and I plead with all my heart for a fair consideration of his schemes
and for help in their development.
* * * * *
Mr. REX BEACH is one of the few prolific writers whose stories
increase in power as they increase in number, and this though they are
essentially novels of action rather than novels of thought. Of his
latest effort, _The Winds of Chance_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON), one may
say that there is not a tedious page in it. The scene is laid in
Yukon, a very vortex of life and colour and excitement in fiction,
whatever it may seem to the actual inhabitants. The true hero of the
story, _Napoleon Doret_, the French voyageur, wins his heart's desire
in the end and we breathe a sigh of relief. The other hero is left
the accepted swain of the daughter of the Colonel of the North-West
Mounted Police at Dawson, and this we find a little hard to swallow,
seeing what shady, not to say immoral, company, male and female, he
had just been basking in. He is a weak creature and certainly should
have married the _Countess Courteau_, an Amazonian lady, who would
have kept him in order. But that is to be fastidious. The story is
crisp and vivid, and, anyway, those ancient prospectors, _Tom Linton_
and _Jerry McQuirk_, are worth twice the money.
* * * * *
Mr. Punch has great pleasure in commending to his readers two volumes
of verse--_Rhymes of the Red Ensign_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON), by Miss
C. FOX SMITH, and _The Poets in Picardy_ (MURRAY), by Major E. DE
STEIN--in which they will recognise many poems that have appeared in
his pages.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Master_. "BUT, JENKINS, THE NAME OF THE COMPLAINT IS
NOT PEWMONIA. SURELY YOU'VE HEARD ME AGAIN AND AGAIN SAY 'PNEUMONIA'?"
_Man_. "WELL, SIR, I 'AVE; BUT I DIDN'T LIKE TO CORRECT YOU."]
* * * * *