(_BY MR. PUNCH'S STAFF OF LEARNED CLERKS._)
I wonder if I am alone in a feeling of impatience and bewilderment
over what I may call half-fairy stories. Magic I understand and love;
but this now diluted form of it leaves me cold. Take for example the
book that has occasioned this complaint, _The Curious Friends_ (ALLEN
AND UNWIN), an unconventional and perhaps just a little silly tale
about a secret association of children and grownups, pledged to mutual
help and a variety of altruistic aims--a scheme, with all its faults,
at least human and understandable. But Miss C.J. DELAGREVE has chosen
to complicate it by (apparently) a dash of the supernatural, in the
person of a character called _Saint Ken_, about whom we are told
that he lived in a tunnel on the Underground and employed himself in
helping distressed passengers. Well, what I in my brutal way want to
know is whether this is a joke, or what. Because if I have to credit
it, over goes the rest of the plot into frank make-believe. And
fantasy of this kind consorts but ill with a scheme that embraces
such realities as heart-failure and typhus. Not in any case that Miss
DELAGEEVE'S plot could be called exactly convincing. "Preposterous"
would be the apter word for this society of the Blue-Bean Wearers, in
which vague elderly persons wandered about with sadly self-conscious
children and talked like the dialogue in clever books. This at least
was the impression conveyed to me. I may add that I was continually
aware of a certainty that Miss DELAGREVE will do very much better when
she selects a simpler and less affected subject.
* * * * *
In _Douglas Jerrold_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) Mr. WALTER JERROLD has
executed a pious task. He has written the life of his grandfather, and
has done it with great enthusiasm. The work is in two volumes, one
thick and the other thin, and sometimes I cannot help feeling that
one volume, the thin one, would have been enough. DOUGLAS JERROLD'S
reputation depends upon his work in _Punch_ and his writing of plays,
of which nearly seventy stand to his credit. To _Punch_ he contributed
from the second number and soon became a power by means of "Mrs.
Caudle's Curtain Lectures," "The Story of a Feather" and countless
other articles which suited the taste of the public of that day. Of
his work for _Punch_ there is only the barest mention in this book,
for that story has already been told at some length by the same
author. In the present book Mr. WALTER JERROLD devotes a large amount
of space to a review of DOUGLAS JERROLD'S theatrical pieces. Where
now is a five-act comedy, entitled _Bubbles of the Day_, which at the
time of its production was described as "one of the wittiest and best
constructed comedies in the English language"? I am afraid that this
comedy, and even _Black-eyed Susan_, JERROLD'S greatest triumph, have
passed away into the limbo of forgotten plays and can never return
to us. Another drama had in it as one of the characters "a certain
cowardly English traveller named Luckless Tramp," a name, I should
have thought, quite sufficient in itself to swamp every possible
chance of success; yet our forefathers seem to have had no difficulty
in accommodating themselves to it.
* * * * *
In an author's note to _Moon of Israel_ (MURRAY) Sir H. RIDER HAGGARD
tells us that his book "suggests that the real Pharaoh of the Exodus
was not Meneptah or Merenptah, son of Rameses the Great, but the
mysterious usurper, Amenmeses ..." I am not a student of Egyptology,
and in this little matter of AMENMESES am perfectly content to trust
myself to Sir RIDER, and, provided that he tells a good tale, to
follow him wherever he chooses to lead the way. And this story, put
into the mouth of _Ana_, the scribe, is packed with mystery and magic
and miracles and murder. For fear, however, that this may sound a
little too exhausting for your taste, let me add that the main theme
is the love of the _Crown Prince of Egypt_ for the Israelite, _Lady
Merapi, Moon of Israel_. Sir RIDER'S hand has lost none of its
cunning, and, though his dialogue occasionally provokes a smile when
one feels that seriousness is demanded, he is here as successful as
ever in creating or, at any rate, in reproducing atmosphere. I hope,
when you read this tale of the Pharaohs, that you will not find that
your memory of the Book of Exodus is as faded as I found mine to be.
* * * * *
Mr. CHRISTOPHER CULLEY, whom you may remember for a bustling, rather
cinematic story called _Naomi of the Mountains_, has now followed this
with another, considerably better. _Lily of the Alley_ (CASSELL) is,
in spite of a title of which I cannot too strongly disapprove, as
successful a piece of work of its own kind as anyone need wish for,
showing the author to have made a notable advance in his art. Again
the setting is Wild West, on the Mexican border, the theme of the tale
being the outrages inflicted upon American citizens by VILLA, and what
seemed then the bewildering delay of Washington over the vindication
of the flag. The "Alley" of its unfortunate name is the slum in Kansas
City where _Dave_, stranded on his way westward, met the girl to whom
the laws of fiction were inevitably to join him. I fancy that one of
Mr. CULLEY'S difficulties may have lain in the fact that, when the
tale, following _Dave_, had finally shaken itself from the dust of
cities, the need for feminine society was conspicuously less urgent.
Even after a rescued and refreshed _Lily_ is brought up-country,
she is kept, so to speak, as long as possible at the base, and
only arrives on the actual scene of _Dave's_ activities in time to
be bustled hurriedly out of the way of the final (and wonderfully
thrilling) chapters. The explanation is, I think, that the cowboy,
whom he knows so well, is for Mr. CULLEY hero and heroine too. _Dave_,
round whom the story revolves, is a pleasant study of a type of
American youth which we are coming gratefully to estimate at its true
worth; but in the development of the theme _Dave_ soon becomes
almost insignificant beside the greater figure of the cowboy, _Monte
Latarette_. For him alone I should regard the book as one not to be
missed by anyone who values a handling of character at once delicate
and masterful.
* * * * *
_Keeling Letters and Recollections_ (ALLEN AND UNWIN) is a book that
will perhaps rouse varied emotions in those who read it. Regret
there will be for so much youth and intellectual vigour sacrificed;
admiration for courage and for a patriotism that circumstances made by
no means the simple matter of conviction that it has been for most;
and vehement opposition to many of the views (on the War especially)
held by the subject of the memoir. By sympathy and environment KEELING
was, to begin with, a wholehearted admirer of Germany. Strangely, in
one of his social views, he carried this admiration even to the extent
of advocating a Teutonic control that should include Holland. To such
a mind the outbreak of war with Germany may well have seemed the last
horror. But he admitted no choice. Within a few days he was a private
soldier; he was killed, as sergeant-major, while bombing a trench on
August 18, 1916. The spirit in which he entered the War is shown in
an extract from a letter: "What we have got to do in the interest of
Europe is to fight Germany without passion, with respect." How grimly
those last two words sound now! Through everything KEELING held with a
generous obstinacy to his original prejudices. Germany remained most
tragically his second fatherland. Somewhere he writes, "I expect I
shall be a stronger Pacifist after the war than any of the people who
are Pacifists now. But I don't feel one will have earned the right to
be one _unless one has gone in with the rest_." The italics are mine.
Before a vindication so unanswerable criticism has no further word to
say.
* * * * *
Extract from collected works, of Viscount HALDANE OF CLOAN, O.M.,
K.T., Op. 3001, Minister of Reconstruction. Report of the Machinery
of Government Committee (Cd. 9230), par. 12:--
"We have come to the conclusion, after surveying what came
before us, that in the sphere of civil government the duty of
investigation and thought, as preliminary to action, might
with great advantage be more definitely recognised."
"That's the stuff to give 'em."
* * * * *
"Every boy in the street knows that all component factors in
Jugo-Slav countries have proclaimed the union of Jugo-Slavia
under the sceptre of the Karagorgjevic dynasty, and that the
jurisdiction of the new Jugo-Slav Government extends over
Belgrade and Nish, as well as over Zagreb, Sarajevo, Spljet,
or Ljubljana."--_Letter to "Manchester Guardian."_
Then why all this talk about the necessity of higher education!
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Cophetua's Queen (on her first visit to a new royal
residence)._ "OH, COPH! AIN'T IT A DINK!"
_King Cophetua_. "My DEAR CHILD, BEFORE REMARKING THAT IT IS ALL YOURS
AND NOT GOOD ENOUGH, I WOULD LIKE TO POINT OUT THAT YOUR LANGUAGE,
THOUGH EXCUSABLE, IS NOT QUITE IN KEEPING WITH YOUR ELEVATED
POSITION."]