Books from the publishing house of FISHER UNWIN are always goodly to
look upon, the public having to thank him for something new in form,
binding, and colour, in other series than the Pseudonym Library. In a
new edition of _The Sinner's Comedy_, just issued at the modest price
of Eighteenpence, he has solved a problem that has long baffled the
publisher, and bothered the public. Few like the appearance of a book
with the pages machine-cut; fewer still can spare the time to cut a
book. Mr. FISHER UNWIN compromises by presenting this dainty little
volume with the top pages ready cut, the reader having nothing to
do but to slice the side-pages, a labour which no book-lover would
grudge, seeing that it leaves the volume with the uncut appearance
dear to his heart. The story, told in 146 pages, is, my Baronite says,
worthy the distinction of its appearance. The characters are clearly
drawn, the plot is interesting, the conversation crisp, and the style
throughout pleasantly cynical. The author, JOHN OLIVER HOBBES, has a
pretty turn of aphorism. "A man's way of loving is so different from
a woman's"; and again, "Genius is so rare, and ambition is so common."
Here be truths, old enough perhaps, but cleverly re-set.
Some people complain that politics are dull. They should read the
parliamentary and extra-parliamentary utterances of the Member for
Wrottenborough. They appear weekly in that rising young paper, the
_Sunday Times_, and an extremely readable selection of them has lately
been published "in book form," for the enlivening of the Recess.
Adapting the Laureate's lines, the Baron would say,--
"They who would vote for an M.P. whose sense with humour chimes,
Will read the Member for Wrottenborough, all in the _Sunday Times_--
A paper our sires paid Sevenpence for, along of its grit and go,
Seventy years ago, my Public, seventy years ago!"
For whimsical audacity, and quaint unexpectedness. Mr. PAIN, in his
latest book, _Playthings and Parodies_, would be hard to beat. In this
there is a good back-ground of shrewd observation. He does not
propose to make your flesh creep, or your eyes run torrents. He simply
succeeds in making you laugh. In "The Processional Instinct," Mr. PAIN
informs us that he has discovered that our private life is circular,
and our public life is rectilineal. SHAKSPEARE, who, being for all
time, and not merely for an age, recommends this author to the general
public when he says that everybody "should be so conversant with
PAIN."
_The Memories of Dean Hole_ is rather a misleading title; "but," says
the Baron, "I suppose the term 'Reminiscences' is played out. The word
'Memories' seems to suggest that someone, whether Dean HOLE, or Dean
CORNER, or any other Dean, had more than one memory, as indeed those
persons appear to possess who mention their 'good memory for names,'
and their 'bad memory for dates,' and _vice versâ_. _Soit!_" quoth
the Baron, in excellent French, "you may take it from me (if I'll part
with it) that the Hole book is by no means a half-and-half sort of
book, but is vastly entertaining." The stories of "The Cloth" form the
most entertaining part of the work. The Baron wishes success to this
work of the Dean in Holey Orders, and suggests that the volume should
be re-entitled _Gathered Leaves from Dean Hole's Rose Garden_, a
better title than "Reminiscences."
MARION CRAWFORD'S _Don Orsino_ (published by MACMILLAN & CO.) would
be worth reading were it only for the colour of its word-painting,
and for its high-comedy dialogue. Yet is Mr. CRAWFORD rather given
to pause in his story, for the sake of moralising on the tendencies
of the age; and the reader, patient though he may be, when he has
become interested in the personages of the novel, does not care to be
button-holed by a digression. MARION CRAWFORD'S recipe for commencing
an amorous duologue (early in Vol. III.), which is to lead up to a
declaration of love, is deliciously ingenious. It begins with the
gentleman taking a seat, and his first remark is upon the chair. Mr.
CRAWFORD evidently remembers the old story of how the tenor who knew
but one song, "_In my Cottage near a Wood_," used to introduce it into
any scene of any Opera by the simple process of making his entrance
alone and finding a chair on the stage. "Aha!" quoth he. "What's this?
A chair? and made of wood! Ah! that word! how it reminds me of my
'umble home, 'my cottage near a wood.'" Cue for band; chord; song.
In this instance, the love-scene, admirably led up to on the above
plan, is strikingly powerful; it is the work of a master-hand. The
_dénoûment_ is both artistically original and, at the same time,
ordinarily probable. May all readers enjoy this excellent novel as
much as has the sympathetic