(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)
If, as is just conceivable, the Teuton braggart fails to convert the
universe into a German empire, his downfall will be partly due to his
lack of humour. Among the things that go to make this saving grace are
an agile imagination and a nice sense of proportion, and it is when a
man starts lying about himself that he shows most clearly whether or not
he has it. Some weeks ago an "Honorary Committee of thirty-four
distinguished" (or, if you will, notorious) "Germans and a Board of
Editors," eleven strong, gathered together to concoct an epoch-making
fib, which, upon completion, was labelled "The Truth about Germany:
Facts about the War", and was circulated, secretly but thoroughly,
throughout the United States. The Forty-five Liars content themselves
with a methodical misstatement of every fact, disregarding all the
evidence, and, indeed, their own diplomatists' admissions, to the
contrary. There is no ingenious perversion of the truth, no subtle
invention of argument and no appeal whatever to the intelligence of the
reader; it is from beginning to end heavy and quite incredible bosh.
Though it was never intended to be read in this country, Mr. DOUGLAS
SLADEN has been lucky or clever enough to secure a copy of it, which he
reproduces cheaply under the title _Germany's Great Lie_ (HUTCHINSON). I
congratulate him upon having obtained such excellent copy, but I think
he has somewhat spoilt the effect of it by the manner of his annotations
interposed in italics. His facts and quotations are apt and useful, but
his indignant denials and sarcastic epithets run to excess; every time
one reads the emphatic assertion that black is white one does not want
to have also to read that this is an amazing lie. I recommend the public
to consume every word of the text, but to omit the larger part of the
notes.
* * *
In the nature of things it is possible that the 1914 crop of gift-books
for boys may not be a bumper one as far as quantity is concerned, but
Mr. HENRY NEWBOLT has already removed any danger of a famine. Indeed, he
has done more than that, for, if quality can (as it should) be
considered a satisfactory substitute for bulk, there is no reason why
1914 should not be remembered as a year in which the palates of
discerning boys were most delightfully tickled. I find a difficulty in
preventing my congratulations upon _The Book of the Blue Sea_ (LONGMANS)
from being fulsome. To begin with, the title itself is simply
irresistible. Then, before you even get to the preface, there are some
verses, "The Song of the Larboard Berth," which cry "halt" so
arrestingly that after I had got by them and was fairly revelling in the
entrancing pages that follow I kept on going back to have another look
at
"When moonlight flecks the cruiser's decks
And engines rumble slow ..."
To a nicety Mr. NEWBOLT knows how to reproduce the spirit of the sea and
of adventure thereon, and whether he is writing of EDWARD PELLEW, JOHN
FRANKLIN, DAVID FARRAGUT, or of Trafalgar, it is only possible to escape
from his grip when he endeavours to be a little edifying. Boys may
conceivably resent this tendency to point out what they can see
extraordinarily well for themselves, but all the same they will admit
their heavy debt to him. _The Book of the Blue Sea_ (I must write that
again), excellently illustrated by Mr. NORMAN WILKINSON, had better be
confiscated forthwith by parents who do not wish their sons to become
sailors. And in the end I am left wondering whether the Admiralty,
overburdened by clamorous applicants, would not be wise to intern Mr.
NEWBOLT in one of those camps where no ink or paper is provided,
because, if he repeats this performance, we shall want a dozen new naval
colleges and hundreds and hundreds more ships.
* * *
_Shifting Sands_ (LANE) reads like a book with a purpose from which the
purpose has been by some oversight omitted. When a young person fails to
"find herself" (as the phrase used to go) there should surely be
provided some foil to her instability, either implicit in the behaviour
of other characters or expressed in the meditations of the author. Even
if the author only means to tell us that human life is all like this,
she ought at least to let us know that she means it. _Gabrielle Brenda_
is presented to us by ALICE BIRKHEAD as a girl brought up in the remoter
parts of Cornwall by a father who was a semi-retired doctor and
something of a dreamer. She develops dramatic talent, and having become
engaged to her instructor gives him up to her younger sister for no
better reason apparently than that she has always been accustomed to
give that sister everything she wants. Afterwards _Gabrielle_ becomes
the secretary of a domineering little manufacturer in the Black Country
with expensive sons and daughters. She resists his proposals of marriage
and also the temptation to purloin his eldest daughter's _fiancé_, and
then reverts to her original vocation, without finding on the stage
either satisfaction or any remarkable success. For I see no indication
that the offer of a fairly lucrative engagement in America, with which
the book ends, is regarded by the author as the golden moment of her
heroine's career. Altogether I am at a loss whether to learn from
_Shifting Sands_ the disadvantages of a haphazard education, the unfair
position of woman in the labour-market, or merely the irony of fate. And
this is a pity because, though the manner of the story is very episodic,
there are scenes and conversations of considerable vivacity and truth.
* * *
BARONESS ORCZY is to be congratulated on a distinctly ingenious idea.
Searching about her, no doubt, for a successor to the famous
_Pimpernel_, her attention was caught by a certain picture in the
WALLACE Collection, a picture everyone knows and admires for its
rollicking and adventurous high spirits. "Capital!" said she (as I
imagine it); "why not trace back the line of _Blakeney_, and make the
subject of this picture the ancestor from whom he inherited his
endearing qualities?" _The Laughing Cavalier_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) is
the result. Having thus divined the origin of the hero, I feel that any
further indication of his character would be almost superfluous. You
will certainly not find this new _Blakeney_ unworthy of his house. It is
perhaps something of a surprise to find him a mercenary in
seventeenth-century Holland; but the old touch is there. Thus, having
been hired by a gang of conspirators to abduct the sister of one of
them, who has overheard their plans for the slaying of the Stadtholder,
and keep her prisoner till the deed be done, what more _Blakeneyish_
than that he should recognise in his captive the particular object of
his affections? or that, having abducted the girl according to
instructions received, he should presently be offered untold gold by her
distracted parent for her discovery and return. A faintly embarrassing
situation this, even for an ancestor of the elusive _Pimpernel_. How he
manages to turn it all to favour and romance you must allow Baroness
ORCZY to tell you herself. Incidentally, the appearance of the book at
this particular moment, and in spite (so the publishers inform me on a
slip) of the author's first resolve to postpone it, proves her to
possess something of the sporting spirit of her creation. Hero's luck to
them both!
* * *
A novelist creating a novelist-hero is on dangerous ground. If he be a
little less than perfectly sincere he runs risk of being pretentious,
fatuous even. But sincerity is just Mr. CHARLES MARRIOTT'S conspicuous
quality, and here in _The Unpetitioned Heavens_ (HUTCHINSON) it commands
a dexterous and fastidious workmanship. You'll find, if you read a scene
over again, that there's more, not less, in it than you thought. Mr.
MARRIOTT makes his characters alive by realisation of their subtleties
rather than of their obviousnesses, and that's a feat to which I doff my
beaver. The main theme, sensitively felt and developed, is a delicate
one--the love of a middle-aged woman for a man who is rapt in worship at
a distance of a younger woman, the other's friend. The manoeuvring of
the elder, which might easily have been vulgarised on the one hand or
devitalised on the other, just remains refreshingly and believably
human. Mr. MARRIOTT'S story is not a yarn, but a brocade of intricate
design and exquisite colouring. Let justice be done and _The
Unpetitioned Heavens_ fall to a wide circle of perceptive readers.
* * * * *
Illustration: _Amateur Constable_ (_Policeman's son_). "I ARREST YER ON
SUSPICION O' STEALIN' A RESERVOIR. ANY 'OLLERIN' 'LL BE TOOK DAHN AGIN
YER."
* * * * *