(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)
In fiction it is certainly true that nothing succeeds like success.
There is a sure and very understandable charm in a story of climbing
fortunes. Therefore it may be that part of my pleasure in _Tasker
Jevons_ (HUTCHINSON) was due to sympathy with the upward progress of its
hero. But much more was certainly due to the art with which Miss MAY
SINCLAIR has written about it. _Tasker Jevons_ is a book, and a
character, that will linger pleasantly in my memory. He was a little man
with a great personality, or rather I will say a great purpose, and that
was to approve himself in the eyes of the wife whom he worshipped, and
her perplexed, slightly contemptuous family. The trouble was that
_Tasker_ was in the beginning a hack journalist, socially and personally
impossible; and that _Viola Thesiger_, whom he married, belonged by
birth to the rigidest circle of Cathedral society (Miss SINCLAIR,
scorning subterfuge, calls it quite openly Canterbury). So you see the
difficulties that beset the _Jevons_ pair. Their story is told here,
very effectively, through the mouth of a third person, a
fellow-journalist and admirer of _Jevons_--but quite respectable--the
rejected suitor of _Viola_, and eventually the husband of her sister.
Through his clever and observant eyes we watch the progress of _Jevons_,
see him prospering materially, becoming famous and rich and vulgarized.
It is an unusually close and rather subtle study of the development of
such a man. Eventually there happens that for which the date, Midsummer
1914, will have prepared you, even if you had forgotten that Miss
SINCLAIR had herself served in Belgium with a field ambulance. So the
end of the book gives us some vivid War pictures. Taking it all round, I
am inclined to consider _Tasker Jevons_ the best of the 1916 novels that
has yet come my way.
* * * * *
When, in the first chapter of _Moll Davis_ (ALLEN AND UNWIN), you find
the heroine having a very pretty dispute with the landlord of the
Mischief Inn, and a gallant blade of a fellow coming to her rescue, you
will guess what fare is to follow. And, provided that your taste is for
diet of the lightest, you will not be disappointed, for no one is more
capable than Mr. BERNARD CAPES of making it palatable. Here we are then
back in the year 1661, and in a maze of intrigue. Wit, if we are to
believe the novelist, was as plentiful in those days as morals were
scarce, and Mr. CAPES is not the man to spoil tradition for lack of
colour. He calls his book a comedy, but he should have called it a
comedy with an interlude; and the part I like best is the interlude.
Possibly because he was weary of plots and counterplots he suddenly
breaks loose, and with a warning to those who have "an unconquerable
repugnance to sentiment" tells a moving tale that has nothing to do with
the main narrative. I can thank him unreservedly for this, and for the
crop of words which he has added to my vocabulary. "Bingawast,"
"gingumbobs," and "fubbs" have the right ring, and after a little
training I hope to use them with telling effect on my platoon.
* * * * *
_Edith Ottley_ cherished a passion for _Aylmer Ross_; to such an extent
indeed that she came within an ace of eloping with him. However, the ace
wasn't played; and in due course _Aylmer_ went to the War and became a
captain. Unfortunately he also became much more interesting by reason of
a wound; and, when this brought him back to England, the passion also
returned, stronger than ever. This, of course, is why their story is
called _Love at Second Sight_ (GRANT RICHARDS). I have now a small
surprise for you, namely that _Edith_ was already married, and owned a
charming house, a valetudinarian husband and two pleasant children. So I
quite expected that _Aylmer_, in the fulness of time, would either (1)
be removed by the enemy, or (2) marry a delightful little Red-Cross
nurse who adored him. But the author, Mrs. LEVERSON, had other views.
Instead therefore of ending her heroine in the expected mood of
conventional reconciliation she sends the objectionable husband off with
somebody else, and leaves us to a prospect of wedding-bells with the
divorce court as a preliminary. Which is at least original. But
throughout I had the feeling that a great deal of bright and clever
writing was being wasted on a poor theme. The characters are brilliantly
suggested, but--with perhaps one exception, forgetful _Lady Conroy_, who
is an entire delight--they seem altogether unworthy of it. In fact I
came away from the book with the impression of having attended a
gathering of somewhat shoddily smart people, and sat next to a clever
woman who had been witty about them. The worst of the matter is that
they are all so real. This is a tribute to the author, but a most
unpleasant reflection for everyone else.
* * * * *
[Illustration: The Rector. "Well, William, you ought to be proud and
happy to know you have four sons serving their country with His
Majesty's Forces."
William. "I am proud and happy, Sir, but the old woman she do fret
somethin' terrible because none of 'em ain't got no Victoria Cross
yet."]
* * * * *
My attention was first attracted to _The New Dawn_ (LONG) by the fact
that the plot starts at Euston Station. That interesting, not to say
romantic, line, the L. & N. W. R., is usually shunned by our novelists.
But although "GEORGE WOVIL" takes his characters to the furthest North,
even beyond Glasgow, their sympathies, like, I think, those of their
creator, remain behind in fair and false and fickle Wimbledon. This at
least was where _Halvey Brown_ wished himself as the train glided over
the best laid track in Europe towards dour Bartocher. And _Brown_,
though he knew the natural drabness of his destination already, had at
that time no information as to all the unpleasing events that were to
happen there; that, for example, the minister's new wife would turn out
to be a lady with a past that he himself had shared, or that the
fair-haired young man in the same compartment was the assistant
minister, who would fall in love with the said wife and eventually slay
her, the minister, and himself. I find I have been led into betraying
for you the outline of the story. Perhaps, however, this does not
greatly matter. The value of the book lies in its very natural and human
characters. All four of them--there are only four who really matter--are
admirably drawn, so that the tragedy of their lives holds and convinces
you. My complaints against the author are, first, the excess of emphasis
that he gives to the physical unpleasantness of his background;
secondly, the loose construction that allows the tale to be continually
turning back to look behind it. He would keep a lover in the act of
embracing the lady of his heart while he explains what the parents of
each died of, and all that has happened since. Still, _The New Dawn_
remains an unconventional and strongly written story, which will
certainly interest though perhaps hardly enliven you.
* * * * *
There is something very soothing in the peeps into dusty family papers
and the faint echoes of departed gossip which Mrs. STIRLING provides in
_A Painter of Dreams_ (LANE). These pleasantly amateurish historical
studies go back a century and a half. A commonplace book from which are
quoted many diverting and incredible things; a chapter in which those
queer Radicals, HORNE TOOKE, COBBETT, Sir FRANCIS BURDETT and bluff
Squire BOSVILLE, are chiefly concerned; a sketch of the fourth Earl of
ALBEMARLE, keen farmer and friend of COKE of Norfolk, Master of the
Horse to WILLIAM IV. and QUEEN VICTORIA (it is to ALBEMARLE in this
capacity that the IRON DUKE said: "The Queen can make you go inside the
coach, or outside the coach, or run behind it like a d----d tinker's
dog"), winner of the Ascot Gold Cup three years running and stiff-backed
autocrat; an account of the beautiful Misses CATON of Baltimore and
their matrimonial adventures--the American invasion of brides bringing
money and beauty in exchange for titles thus dating back to 1816; some
details of the lives of two artists, JOHN HERRING, animal painter, and
RODDAM SPENCER STANHOPE, one of the lesser pre-Raphaelites and the
painter of dreams referred to in the title--these all make up an
agreeable pot-pourri with an old-world fragrance which ought to be able
to charm you out of the preposterous nightmare of the present. But it
makes one feel old to see that the conscientious author thinks that
DICKY DOYLE now needs a footnote to let the present generation know who
he was.
* * * * *
From the Catalogue of a V.T.C. Tailor.
"'I am,' a V.T.C. Secretary writes, 'in correspondence with the
undertaker, and hope at last to induce the War Office to
recognise us by sending a representative to attend our funeral
rites.'"
* * * * *
"One man of four who escaped the bombs."--_Morning Paper._
A little too old for the baby-killers.
* * * * *
"Lord Sumner on the Need for Self-Sacrifice.
'If the House of Lords and the House of Commons could be taken
and thrown into a volcano every day the loss represented would
be less than the daily cost of the campaign.'"--_The Times._
It sounds a drastic remedy, but might be worth trying.
* * * * *
"Lemons, used largely for making demonade, have a medicinal
value."--_Daily Paper._
We know nothing of the drinks popular in the lower regions, but have
always heard that the nectarines used for making nectar have a strong
tonic effect.