(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks_.)
Undeniably ours is an age in which fond memory fills not only the heart of
man but the shelves of the circulating libraries to a degree bordering upon
excess. But, let reminiscences be even more frequent than they are, there
would yet remain a welcome for such a book as Mr. W.H. MALLOCK'S attractive
_Memoirs of Life and Literature_ (CHAPMAN AND HALL). The reason of this
lies not more in the interest of what is told than in the fact that these
memories have the advantage of being recalled by one who is master of a
singularly engaging pen. Nothing in the book better displays its quality of
charm than the opening chapters, with their picture of an old-world
Devonshire, and in particular the group of related houses in which the
boyhood of the future anti-socialist was so delightfully spent. Gracious
homes have always had a special appeal to the author of _The New Republic_,
as you are here reminded in a score of happy recollections. Then comes
Oxford, and that meeting with SWINBURNE in the Balliol drawing-room that
seems to have been the common experience of memoir-writers. Some
entertaining chapters give a cheerful picture of London life when Mr.
MALLOCK entered it, and Society, still Polite, opened its most exclusive
doors to the young explorer. The rest of the book is devoted to a record of
friendships, travel, an analysis of the writer's literary activities, and a
host of good stories. Perhaps I have just space for one quotation--the
prayer delivered by the local minister in the hall of Ardverike: "God bless
Sir John; God bless also her dear Leddyship; bless the tender youth of the
two young leddies likewise. We also unite in begging Thee to have mercy on
the puir governess." A book of singular fragrance and individuality.
The Victorians used to talk, perhaps do still, about the lure of the stage;
but I am inclined to suppose this was as nothing beside the lure of the
stage-novel. All our writers apparently feel it, and in most cases their
bones whiten the fields of failure. But amongst those of whom this
certainly cannot be said is Mr. HORACE A. VACHELL, whose new book, _The
Fourth Dimension_ (MURRAY), has both pleased and astonished me by its
freedom from those defects that so often ruin the theatrical story. For one
thing, of course, the explanation of this lies in my sustaining confidence
that I was being handed out the genuine stuff. When a dramatist of Mr.
VACHELL'S experience says that stage-life is thus and thus, well, I have to
believe him. As a fact I seldom read so convincing a word-picture of that
removed and esoteric existence. The title (not too happy) means the world
beyond the theatre, that which so many players count well lost for the
compensations of applause and fame; and the story is of a young and
phenomenally successful actress, _Jess Yeo_, in whom the claims of
domesticity and the love of her dramatist husband are shown in conflict
with the attractions of West-End stardom and photographs in the illustrated
papers. Eventually--but I suppose I can hardly tell that without spoiling
for you what goes before the event. Anyhow, if I admit that the ending did
not inspire me with any sanguine hope of happiness ever after, it at least
put a pleasant finish on an attractive and successful tale.
* * * * *
_In the Mountains_ (MACMILLAN) is one of those pleasant books of which the
best review would be a long string of quotations, and that is a very
complimentary thing to say about any novel. Written in diary form, on the
whole successfully, it tells little of doing and much of being, and a great
deal more of feeling than of either. It is scarcely necessary after that to
add that it is discursive. As a matter of fact I found that for me that
half of its charm which did not lie in being whisked off, as it were by
magic, to sit in the sunshine of Switzerland lay in its author's
reflections upon subjects quite unconnected with her story, and as far
apart from each other as LAW'S _Serious Call_ and the effect of different
kinds of underclothing on the outward demeanour of the wearer. From the
human document point of view it is as a picture of the convalescence of a
soul sick with grief that _In the Mountains_ deserves attention. I cannot
imagine that anyone who has ever got well again after sorrow will fail to
recognise its truth. The little mystery and the slender love-story which
hold the discursiveness together are just sufficient but so slight that
they shall not even be hinted at here. For the rest the book is whimsical,
thoughtful, sentimental by turns and, in spite of its tolerance, a shade
superior; with now and then a phrase which left me wondering whether a
blushing cheek would deserve the Garter motto's rebuke; in fact it
resembles more than anything else on earth what the "German garden" of a
certain "Elizabeth" might grow into if she transplanted it to a Swiss
mountain-top.
* * * * *
_Peregrine in Love_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) is a story whose sentimental
title does it considerably less than justice. It gives no indication of
what is really an admirably vivacious comedy of courtship and intrigue,
with a colonial setting that is engagingly novel. Miss C. FOX SMITH seems
to know Victoria and the island of Vancouver with the intimacy of long
affection; her pen-pictures and her idiom are both of them convincingly
genuine. The result for the reader is a twofold interest, half in seeing
what will be to most an unfamiliar place under expert guidance, half in the
briskly moving intrigue supposed to be going on there. I say "supposed,"
because, to be frank, Miss FOX SMITH'S story, good fun as it is, hardly
convinces like her setting. You may, for example, feel that you have met
before in fiction the lonely hero who rescues the solitary maiden, his
shipmate, from undesirable society, and falls in love with her, only to
learn that she is voyaging to meet her betrothed. At this point I suppose
most novel-readers would have given fairly long odds against the betrothed
in question keeping the appointment, and I may add that they would have won
their money. Not that _Peregrine_ was going to find the course of his love
run smooth in spite of this; being a hero and a gentleman he had for one
thing to try, and keep on trying, to bring the affianced pair together, and
thus provide the tale with another than its clearly predestined end. Of
course he doesn't succeed, but the attempt furnishes capital entertainment
for everybody concerned, and proves that Mr. Punch's "C.F.S." can write
prose too.
* * * * *
The title of _Gold Must be Tried by Fire_ (MACMILLAN) might be called
axiomatic for the precise type of fiction represented by the story.
Because, if gold hadn't to be tried by fire, you might obviously marry the
hero and heroine on the first page and save everybody much trouble and
expense. Mr. RICHARD AUMERLE MAHER, however, knows his job better than
that. True, he marries his heroine early, but to the wrong man, the Labour
leader and crook, _Will Lewis_, who vanishes just before the entrance of
the strong but unsilent hero, only to reappear (under an alias) in time to
get shot in a strike riot. Mr. MAHER'S book comes, as you may already have
guessed, from that great country where they have replaced alcohol by sugar,
and where (perhaps in consequence) heroines of such super-sentimentality as
_Daidie Grattan_ have no terrors for them. Personally I found her and her
exploits on burning ships, besieged mills and the like a trifle sticky. For
the rest you have some interesting details of the workings of the paper
industry; a style that to the unfamiliar eye is at times startling (as
when, on page 282, the hero's head "snapped erect"); and lots and lots of
love. As for the ending, to relieve any apprehensions on your part, let me
quote it. "Taking her swiftly in his arms, he questioned: 'Has the gold
come free from the fire at last, my darling?' 'Gold or dross,' she
whispered as she yielded, 'it is your own.'" _Ah!_
* * * * *
_Love's Triumph_ (METHUEN) is concerned to a great extent with the
development of a raw Kentucky lad into an attractive and resourceful man;
but its chief interest lies rather with his trainer. When _Victor
McCalloway_ arrived in Kentucky and took _Boone Wellver_ under his wing it
became obvious enough that he was bent on reconstructing his own life as
well as moulding _Boone's_. _McCalloway_, when the seal of his past is
broken, turns out to be _Sir Hector Dinwiddie, D.S.O., K.C.B._, a
tradesman's son who was generally believed to have killed himself in Paris.
I must assume that Mr. CHARLES NEVILLE BUCK intended us to recognise in
_Sir Hector_ a certain General whose name acquired a painful notoriety not
so long ago. The reader may form what opinion he likes of the good taste of
all this, but there can be no question that the author has drawn a fine
character. At the outset his style is so jumpy that the story is difficult
to follow, but presently its course grows clearer and I fancy that you will
follow it keenly, as I did, to the end.
* * * * *
[Illustration: WORRIES OF THE DARK AGES.
_Peaceful Knight_ (_who has called to ask his way at a strange castle_).
"OH, CONFOUND IT! I WISH I'D READ THE NOTICE BEFORE I BLEW THE HORN. I
DON'T FEEL A BIT LIKE FIGHTING GIANTS TO-DAY, AND BESIDES I PROMISED TO BE
HOME EARLY FOR DINNER."]
* * * * *