_(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)_
Generally speaking, stories left unfinished because of the death
of the writer in mid course can only be at best an uncomfortable,
exasperating legacy to his admirers. But by a thrice happy chance this
is not the case with the two novels upon which the late HENRY JAMES
was engaged at the time of his fatal illness. This good fortune comes
from the fact that it was the writer's habit "to test and explore," in
a written or dictated sketch, the possible developments of any theme
before embarking upon its treatment in detail. I get the phrase "test
and explore," than which there could be no better, from the brief
preface to the volume now before me, _The Ivory Tower_ (COLLINS). It
exactly suggests the method of this preliminary study, doubly precious
now, both as supplying the key by which we can understand the fragment
that has been worked out, and as in itself giving us a glimpse,
wonderfully fascinating, of its evolution. _The Ivory Tower_ (called
so characteristically after an object whose bearing upon the intrigue
is of the slightest) is a study of wealth in its effect upon the
mutual relations of a small group of persons belonging to the
plutocracy of pre-war America. Its special motive was to be a
development of situation as between a young legatee, in whom the
business instinct is entirely wanting, and his friend and adviser,
whom he was presently to detect in dishonest dealing, yet refrain from
any act of challenge that would mean exposure. "Refrain"--does this
not give you in one word the whole secret of what would have been a
study in character and emotion obviously to the taste of the writer?
For itself, and still more for the glimpse of what it was to become,
_The Ivory Tower_ must have a place in every collection where the
unmatchable wit of HENRY JAMES is honoured as it should be.
* * * * *
Something less successful perhaps for itself, though even more
absorbing technically, is the volume containing the unfinished
fragment of another HENRY JAMES novel, to be called _The Sense of the
Past_ (COLLINS). Here especially it is the preliminary study that
furnishes the chief interest; the spectacle of this so-skilled
craftsman struggling to master an idea that might well, I think, have
been found later too unsubstantial, too subtly fantastic, for working
out. Very briefly, the theme is to treat of a young American, in whom
this "Sense of the Past" is all-powerful; whom the gift of an old
London house and its furnishings enables to transport himself bodily
into the life of 1820. More than this, he lives that life (and it
is here that one suspects the idea of becoming unmanageable) in the
person of an actual youth of that time, in whom a corresponding Sense
of the Future has been so strong that he has answered the curiosity of
his descendant by an exchange of personalities. Of course the dangers
and confusions of the plan, a kind of psychological version of one
often used in farce (except that it precisely wasn't to be any manner
of dream), are such as might well alarm any writer--and, one might
add, any reader also. It is a further misfortune that the style of
what is actually written should be in the master's most remote and
obscure manner, so much so that one is forced to wonder whether,
without the notes as guide, it would be in any sort clear what the
whole thing was about. The transition, for example, from the actual to
the supernatural event is so abrupt that it might well have left the
uninformed helplessly befogged. But this very fact again, as supposing
some further treatment only now to be guessed at, helps to make the
unique fascination of the book as revealing the difficulties and
rewards of letters.
* * * * *
Whatever Mr. ERNEST THOMPSON SETON cares to write I am glad to read,
but there were moments in _The Preacher of Cedar Mountain_ (HODDER AND
STOUGHTON) when the great moral lesson of the story was as much as I
could bear. The tale reveals the spiritual and moral development of
_Jim Hartigan_. The author assures us that most of the characters are
drawn from life, and that some of the main events are historical. All
which I can easily believe, for Mr. SETON'S blunt method of describing
_Jim Hartigan's_ evolution from an unhallowed stable-boy to a muscular
Christian continually suggests reality. It is not a stylish method,
but it gets home, and in a tale of this kind that is the main, if not
the only, matter of importance. _Jim's_ besetting weaknesses were
drink and an overwhelming love for horses. The former he conquered
fairly soon, but the latter tripped him up more than once, and if he
had not been guided by the wisest woman who ever came from the
West his end would have been chaotic. The races at Fort Ryan are
excellently described, and as a picture of the West of America some
forty years ago you will find this story of _Jim's_ conversion both
instructive and intriguing. All the same Mr. SETON has so often
delighted me by his tales of the animal world that I hope this
excursion is merely a holiday from the work for which he has a real
genius.
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE ABOVE GENTLEMAN IS SUPERSTITIOUS ON THE SUBJECT OF
WALKING UNDER LADDERS.]
* * * * *
Up to the present time the crop of German spy-stories has been
distinguished by quantity rather than by quality. Possibly the
authors, realising that the wildest flights of their highly-trained
fancies could never match the actual machinations of the German Secret
Service as revealed in the official news, have not put their hearts
into the work. In _The Lost Naval Papers_ and other stories (MURRAY)
Mr. BENNET COPPLESTONE has shown unusual boldness in connecting the
activities of his super-policeman, _Dawson_, with the more prominent
events of the War. Indeed, I am not sure that the terror he professes
to feel in the presence of the Scotland Yard official (for he tells
his stories _in propria persona_) is not to some extent justified.
"Dora" is very sensitive and six months ago would never have permitted
Mr. COPPLESTONE to reveal to our enemies either the bumptious egoism
of a nameless First Lord or the platitudinous vacillations of an
anonymous Premier, even in the interests of popular fiction. Though
we concede his audacity in allowing his superlative sleuth to stop a
general strike of engineers by threatening them with martial law and
to tempt the German fleet to come out by sending it false news of our
battleship strength, or to enable the battle of the Falkland Islands
to be won by piling dummy battle cruisers up outside Plymouth harbour,
the merit of Mr. COPPLESTONE'S book does not lie in the complexity or
vitality of his plots. It lies in a keen sense of humour and clever
character suggestion, and the recognition that the thing written about
is of less importance than the manner of writing. We earnestly desire
that Mr. COPPLESTONE should devote another volume--a whole one--to the
inimitable _Madame Guilbert_; but whatever he writes about will be
welcome, provided it be written in the vein of the volume before us.
* * * * *
Out of such workaday elements as the hypnotic fascinations of a
sleek music-master, the follies of a runaway schoolgirl and the
well-disciplined affections of a most superior young gentleman, Mr.
W.E. NORRIS has contrived to create yet another new story, without
infringement of his own or anyone else's copyright. Thanks to the
incidence of War and the author's skilful manipulation of Europe's
distresses (for once the KAISER'S intrusion into the middle of a
peaceful--almost too peaceful--narrative is not unwelcome), the second
half of _The Fond Fugitives_ (HUTCHINSON) is better than the first.
Not, indeed, that such a wary hand as the writer has been so
ill-advised as to follow his hero to Flanders, or even to let his
heroine do so; but his wounded soldier, come home with sympathy
and understanding grown big enough to realise that a girl, though
indiscreet once, may yet be adorable ever after, is certainly more
to one's taste than the philanderer about town, admiring other men's
wives, in July, 1914. And so the story, slight though it is, ends on a
strong note and with fair hope of happiness for two wiser and not much
sadder people. Some of the minor characters are quite capitally drawn,
particularly the old father and mother in pathetic flight before the
shadow of their daughter's disgrace; but it is the freshness of the
heroine herself, outraging all tradition by refusing, though without
bravado, to remain for ever in the gloom of a childish error, that one
likes to remember. Altogether, the author's friends will find this
book not at all below the level of his best work.
* * * * *
_Small Craft_ (ELKIN MATTHEWS), by Miss C. FOX SMITH, contains several
poems that have appeared in Punch over the initials "C.F.S." They
should receive a fresh welcome from all who share her understanding
of the ways of seafaring men, and from the larger public that is
beginning to appreciate the gallantry and devotion of our Merchant
Service.
* * * * *