(_BY MR. PUNCH'S STAFF OF LEARNED CLERKS_.)
MR. COMPTON MACKENZIE gives us in _Sylvia and Michael_ (SECKER) a
continuation--I hesitate to say a conclusion--of the adventures of
that amazing heroine, _Sylvia Scarlett_, which, being not a sequel but
a second volume, needs some familiarity with the first for its full
enjoyment. Not that anyone even meeting _Sylvia_ for the first time
in mid-course could fail to be intrigued by the astounding things that
are continually happening to her. The variety and piquancy of these
events and the general brilliance of Mr. MACKENZIE'S colouring must
keep the reader alert, curious, scandalized (perhaps), but always
expectant. His scheme starts with an invigorating plunge (as one might
say, off the deep end) into the cabaret society of Petrograd in 1914,
where _Sylvia_ and the more than queer company at the pension of _Mère
Gontran_ are surprised by the outbreak of war. Incidentally, _Mère
Gontran_ herself, with her cats, whose tails wave in the gloom "like
seaweed," and her tawdry spiritualism--"key-hole peeping at infinity"
the heroine (or the author) rather happily calls it--is one of the
least forgettable figures in the galaxy. I have no space to indicate
what turns of this glittering kaleidoscope eventually bring _Sylvia_
and _Michael_ together during the Serbian retreat, though there are
scenes upon which I should like to dwell, notably that of the death
of _Guy Hazlewood_, an incident whose admirable restraint shows Mr.
MACKENZIE at his best. One question I have to ask, and that is how
has _Sylvia_ learnt to imitate so bewilderingly the mannerisms of
_Michael_? Her soliloquies especially might have come straight from
the first volume of _Sinister Street_, so much more do they suggest
the cloistered adolescence of Carlington Road than a development from
her own feverish youth. While I cannot pretend that she has for me the
compelling vitality of _Jenny Pearl_, her adventures certainly make
(for those who are not too nice about the morals or the conversation
of their company) an exhilarating, even intoxicating entertainment,
the end of which is, I am glad to think, still remote.
* * * * *
The publishers, in their preface to Mr. HUGH SPENDER'S new novel, _The
Seekers_ (COLLINS), led me to believe that it was written with the
object of denouncing the dangers and the frauds of spiritualism. This,
however, is by no means the case. To be sure the first few chapters do
contain an account of a _séance_, which serves not so much to lay
bare the mysteries of spiritualism as to bring together a few of the
characters in the novel. From that point onward there is nothing
more about spooks, save for an occasional reference. It is when the
_dramatis personæ_ have been well collected in and about a Yorkshire
vicarage that things really get a move on and begin to hum. No reader
is entitled to complain of a lack of excitement; the mortality,
indeed, is almost Shakspearean. _Rudge_, a medium, who must not be
confused with our old friend, _Mr. Sludge_, perishes in a snowstorm.
_John Havering_ batters in the head of _Hubert Kenyon_, and later
on commits suicide, while _Beaufort_, a Labour leader, is wrongfully
charged with the murder of _Hubert_ and barely escapes with his life.
Everything however ends comparatively well, owing to a strong female
interest. Mr. SPENDER is usually a careful workman, but sometimes his
sentences get the better of him. Here is one such: "She wondered if
Peter, who must have seen Mary as he came into the vicarage disappear
into the study, had gone in, hoping to find her there as he left the
house." It is not often however that Mr. SPENDER leaves his clauses to
fight it out together like that.
* * * * *
In _The Golden Rope_ (LANE) Mr. J.W. BRODIE-INNES has tried to combine
a tale of mystery and murder with the love-story of a man of fifty;
and, on the whole, it is a fairly successful effort. _Alan Maclean_,
the middle-aged one, who tells the tale, was a celebrated artist, and,
when he made his way to Devon to paint Pontylanyon Castle, he little
expected to find himself involved in a maze of intrigue and adventure.
The castle, however, was owned by a lady of great but unfortunate
possessions. In the first place she had a dual personality (and,
believe me, it is the very deuce to have a dual personality); and,
secondly, she possessed a crowd of relatives (Austrian) who wanted her
estate and were ready to remove mountains and men to get it. I know
nothing of _Mr. Maclean's_ pictures except that I am assured by the
author that they were exquisitely beautiful, but I do know that Mr.
INNES'S own canvas suffers from overcrowding, and, although I admire
the deft way in which he handles his embarrassment of figures, his
task would have been less complicated and my enjoyment more complete
if he had managed to do with fewer. Otherwise I can recommend _The
Golden Hope_ both for its exciting episodes, lavish of thrills, and
for the warning it gives to men of fifty to stick to their pigments,
or whatever their stock-in-trade may be.
* * * * *
_The Cinderella Man_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON), "a romance of youth,"
by HELEN and EDWARD CARPENTER, is more suited to the ingenuous than
the sophisticated reader. Its hero is a poet, _Tony Quintard_, very
poor and deathly proud. The scene is set in New York and largely
in _Tony's_ attic verse-laboratory, which _Marjorie_, the rugged
millionaire's daughter, visits by way of the leads in a perfectly
proper if unconventional mood. The idiom occasionally soars into
realms even higher. Thus when _Tony's_ father dies he is "summoned, by
the Great Usher of Eternity." When the gentle _Marjorie_, reading out
one of _Tony's_ efforts--
"Love whose feet are shod with light
Lost this ribbon in her flight;
Rosette of the twilight sky,
Waft to me Love's lullaby!"
(the note of exclamation is _Tony's_), says, "Anyone who can write
songs like that ought to write an opera," you realise that her
heart is sounder than her pretty head. Anyway _Tony_, who needed no
encouragement, wrote his opera and landed a ten-thousand dollar prize
for same, together with the daughter of the millionaire, who began to
see, no doubt, that there might be something in poetry after all.
* * * * *
_Indian Studies_ (HUTCHINSON) one may call a work partly descriptive
and historical, partly also polemic. Its author, General Sir O'MOORE
CARAGH, V.C. (and so many other letters of honour that there is hardly
room for them on the title page), writes with the powerful authority
of forty years' Indian service, five of them as Commander-in-Chief.
His book is, in compressed form, a survey of the Indian Empire that
deserves the epithet "exhaustive"; history, races, religious castes
and forms of local government are all intimately surveyed; the
chapters on the India Office and (especially) the army in India will
command wide attention both among experts and the general public.
Naturally the word "experts" brings me to the controversial side of
the subject, the much discussed Montagu-Chelmsford Report, concerning
which the late C.-in-C. holds views that might fairly be described
as pronounced. Where authorities differ the honest reviewer can but
record impartially. Really we have here the old antagonism between the
upholder of one school of Imperial thought, fortified by many years'
experience of it's successful application, and the theories of a
newer and more experimental age. Without attempting a judgment on its
conclusions, I can safely agree with the publishers that this is a
book that "will be read with special interest in military, diplomatic
and Government circles"; also--my own postscript--more vociferously
debated in certain club smoking-rooms than almost any volume of recent
years.
* * * * *
A "Literary Note" thoughtfully inserted in the fly-leaves of _The
Elstones_ (HUTCHINSON) informs me that it will "make a strong appeal
to all those who have experienced the suffering caused by religious
conflict." It is not entirely because it has been my lot to escape the
ordeal in question that Miss ISABEL C. CLARKE'S latest book failed
to make the promised appeal. She takes two hundred and odd pages
of peculiarly eye-racking type to convert the _Elstone_ family to
Catholicism without indicating in any way how or why her solemn
puppets are inspired to change their beliefs. Now and again a
completely nebulous cleric happens along to perform the necessary
function of receiving a moribund neophyte into the Church; otherwise
the conversion appears to take place as it were by spontaneous
combustion and not as the result of any visible proselytising agency.
However the _Elstones_ bear no resemblance to real human beings--you
can hardly expect it of people called _Ierne_ and _Magali_ and _Ivo_
and _Elvidia_ and names like that--so perhaps it doesn't matter how
they came to see the great light. The important thing obviously from
the authoress's point of view is to get them into the fold; and good
Catholics who look at the end rather than the means may enjoy _The
Elstones_. As a novel it will try them hard.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Manager of Gasworks_ (_to aeronaut who has just had
his balloon inflated_). "EXCUSE ME, SIR, BUT I WOULD LIKE YOU TO
UNDERSTAND CLEARLY THAT OUR TERMS FOR GAS ARE STRICTLY CASH."]
* * * * *