(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)
The latest of our writers to contribute to the growing literature of the
War is Mr. Hugh Walpole. He has written a book about it called _The Dark
Forest_ (Secker), but whether it is a good or a bad book I who have read
it carefully from cover to cover confess my inability to decide. It is
certainly a clever book, and violently unusual. I doubt whether the War
is likely to produce anything else in the least resembling it. For one
thing, it deals with a phase of the struggle, the Russian retreat
through Galicia, about which we in England are still tragically
ignorant. Mr. Walpole writes of this as he himself has seen it in his
own experience as a worker with the Russian Red Cross. The horrors, the
compensations, the tragedy and happiness of such work have come straight
into the book from life. But not content with this, he has peopled his
mission with fictitious characters and made a story about them. And good
as the story is, full of fine imagination and character, the background
is so tremendously more real that I was constantly having to resist a
feeling of impatience with the false creations (in _Macbeth's_ sense)
who play out their unsubstantial drama before it. Yet I am far from
denying the beauty of Mr. Walpole's idea. The characters of _Trenchard_,
the self-doubting young Englishman, who finds reality in his love for
the nurse _Marie Ivanovna_, and of the Russian doctor, _Semyonov_, who
takes her from him, are exquisitely realized. And the atmosphere of
increasing mental strain, in which, after _Marie's_ death, the tragedy
of these three moves to its climax in the forest is the work of an
artist in emotion, such as by this time we know Mr. Walpole to be. The
trouble was that I had at the moment no wish for artistry. To sum up, I
am left with the impression that an uncommonly good short story rather
tiresomely distracted my attention from some magnificent war-pictures.
* * * * *
As Field-Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood, V. C., in _Our Fighting Services_
(Cassell), begins with the Battle of Hastings and ends with the Boer War
there is no gainsaying the fact that his net has been widely spread. To
assist him in the compilation of this immense tome the author has a
fluent style and--to judge from the authorities consulted and the
results of these consultations--an inexhaustible industry. The one
should make his book acceptable to the amateur who reads history because
he happens to love it, and the other should make it invaluable to
professionals who handle books of reference, not lovingly, but of
necessity. And having said so much in praise of Sir Evelyn I am also
happy to add that he is, on the whole, that rare thing--an historian
without prejudices. Almost desperately, for instance, he tries to
express his admiration of Oliver Cromwell as a soldier, although he
quite obviously detests him as a man. I find myself, however, wondering
whether Sir Evelyn, were he writing of Cromwell at this hour, would say,
"For a man over forty years of age to work hard to acquire the rudiments
of drill is in itself remarkable." Even when allowance is made for the
differences between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries there would
seem to be nothing very worthy of remark in such energy if one may judge
from the attitude of our War Office to the Volunteers. Naturally one
turns eagerly to see what this distinguished soldier has to say about
campaigns in which he took a personal part, but, although shrewd
criticism is not lacking, Sir Evelyn's sword has been more destructive
than his pen. In these days of tremendous events this volume may
possibly be slow to come to its own, but in due course it is bound to
arrive.
* * * * *
I find, on referring to the "By the same Author" page of _The Lad With
Wings_ (Hutchinson), that other reviewers of "Berta Buck's" novels have
been struck by the "charm" of her work. I should like to be original,
but I cannot think of any better way of summing up the quality of her
writing. Charm above everything else is what _The Lad With Wings_
possesses. It is a perfectly delightful book, moving at racing speed
from the first chapter to the last, and so skilfully written that even
the technically unhappy ending brings no gloom. When _Gwenna Williams_
and _Paul Dampier_, the young airman she has married only a few hours
before the breaking out of war, go down to death together in mid-Channel
after the battle with the German Taube, the reader feels with _Leslie
Long, Gwenna's_ friend, "The best time to go out! No growing old and
growing dull.... No growing out of love with each other, ever! They at
least have had something that nothing can spoil." I suppose that when
Mrs. Oliver Onions is interviewed as to her literary methods it will
turn out that she re-writes everything a dozen times and considers
fifteen hundred words a good day's work; but she manages in _The Lad
With Wings_ to convey an impression of having written the whole story at
a sitting. The pace never flags for a moment, and the characters are
drawn with that apparently effortless skill which generally involves
anguish and the burning of the midnight oil. I think I enjoyed the art
of the writing almost as much as the story itself. If you want to see
how a sense of touch can make all the difference, you should study
carefully the character of _Leslie_, a genuine creation. But the book
would be worth reading if only for the pleasure of meeting _Hugo
Swayne_, the intellectual _dilettante_ who, when he tried to enlist, was
rejected as not sufficiently intelligent and then set to painting
omnibuses in the Futurist mode, to render them invisible at a distance.
A few weeks from now I shall take down _The Lad With Wings_ from its
shelf and read it all over again. It is that sort of book.
* * * * *
When old _Lady Polwhele_ asked the _Reverend Dr. Gwyn_ to let his
daughter _Delia_ go with her as companion to a very smart house party, I
doubt whether the excellent man would have given so ready an assent had
he known what was going to come of it. For my own part I suspected we
were in for yet another version of _Cinderella_, with _Delia_ snubbed by
the smart guests, and eventually united, as like as not, to young _Lord
Polwhele_. However, Miss Dorothea Townshend, who has written about all
these people in _A Lion, A Mouse and a Motor Car_ (Simpkin), had other
and higher views for her heroine. True, the house party was ultra-smart;
true also that there was one woman who spoke and behaved cattishly; but
it was a refreshing novelty to find that throughout the tale the ugly
sisters, so to speak, were hopelessly outnumbered by the fairy
godmothers. Later, the visit led to _Delia's_ going as governess to the
children of a Russian Princess, and finding herself in circles that
might be described as not only fast but furious. Here we were in a fine
atmosphere of intrigue, with spies, and Grand Dukes, and explosive golf
balls and I don't know what beside. It is all capital fun; and, though I
am afraid the political plots left me unconvinced, the thing is told
with such ease and _bonhomie_ that it is saved from banality; even when
the amazing cat of the house-party turns up as a female bandit and tries
to hold _Delia_ and her Princess to ransom. And of course the fact that
the period of the tale is that of the earliest motors gives it the
quaintest air of antiquity. Somehow, talk of sedan chairs would sound
more modern than these thrills of excitement about six cylinders and
"smelly petrol." In short, for many reasons Miss Townshend's book
provides a far brisker entertainment than its cumbrous title would
indicate.
* * * * *
Mr. Stephen Graham is fast becoming the arch-interpreter of Holy Russia.
In _The Way of Martha and the Way of Mary_ (Macmillan) he returns with
even more than his customary zeal to his good work, wishing herein
specifically to interpret Russian Christianity to the West. A passionate
earnestness informs his discursive eloquence. I cannot resist the
conviction that he has the type of mind that sees most easily what it
wishes to see. He moves cheerily along, incidentally raising
difficulties which he does not solve, ignoring conclusions which seem
obvious, throwing glorious generalisations and unharmonised
contradictions at the bewildered reader, too bent on his generous
purpose to glance aside for any explanations. Perhaps this is the best
method for an enthusiast to pursue. He certainly creates a vivid picture
of this strangely unknown allied people, with its incredible
otherworldliness, its broad tolerant charity, its freedom from chilly
conventions, its joyous neglect of the hustle and fussiness of Western
life, its deep faith, its childish or childlike superstitions, the
glorious promise of its future. An interesting--even a
fascinating--rather than a conclusive book.
* * * * *
[Illustration: "I haven't had any address for the last few months, so
the authorities have overlooked me. I'd like to join all right, but the
missus can't spare me. I'm a bit of a fisherman and I play the
concertina. Now, what sort of an armlet do I get?"]
* * * * *
A Super-Bridegroom.
"In his seventy-third year the Earl of ---- has made his third
matrimonial venture this week."--_Yorkshire Evening Post._
* * * * *