OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)
From Friend to Friend (Murray) is the name given, from the first of them, to a collection of eight fugitive papers, prepared for republication by the late Lady Ritchie during the last months of her life, and now edited by her sister-in-law, Miss Emily Ritchie. Fugitive though they may have been in original intent, these pages are so filled with their writer's delicate and very personal charm that her lovers will be delighted to have their flight thus pleasantly arrested. Lady Ritchie was above all else the perfect appreciator. Horas non numerat nisi serenas; the gaze that she turns smilingly upon old happy far-off days looks through spectacles rose-tinted both by the magic of retrospect and her own genius for admiration. London, Freshwater, Paris, Rome—these are the settings of her memories; and we see them all by a light that (perhaps) never was on land or sea, in whose radiance beauty and wit and genius move wonderfully to a perpetual music. In truth, however, these eminent Victorians of Lady Ritchie's circle must have been a rare company; I have no space for even a catalogue of them—Mrs. Cameron, with her vague magnificence, pouring letters and an embarrassment of gifts upon her dear Tennysons; the Kemble sisters, Lockhart, Thackeray himself, a score of great and (to the kindly chronicler) gracious personalities live again in her pages. I should add that the volume is rounded off by a short story, a late addition to the Miss Williamson series, which might be called a pot-boiler, were it not somehow incongruous to associate so gentle a flame with any such activities. Slight as it is, From Friend to Friend forms an apt and graceful finish to the work of one whose life was given to the claims of friendship.
Fanny goes to War (Murray) should be read by those who also went and those who didn't. It is a chronicle of the adventures of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry in Belgium and France—vivid; inviting wonder, laughter and sometimes tears; fresh and delicious. The account of the first visit to the trenches awakens memories. Viewed from this distance it seems all to have been so picturesque, such fun! The humour of Thomas, the intelligence and tact of the good French poilu, the awful moments and the wild jests in between—these are all shown. The splendid humour with which "Pat Beauchamp," the author, bravely endured her own casualty with its distressing effects is typical in itself of that spirit in the Anglo-Saxon race which made the Teuton race wish it hadn't. In my view, the obiter dictum of an anonymous Colonel sums up the values of this ladies' contingent better than does the preface of the distinguished Major-General: "Neither fish, flesh nor fowl," said the Colonel on having the constitution of this anomalous unit explained to him, "but thundering good red herring!" Time was, I believe and hope, when I myself, passing through the Base Port on leave and being full of life and daring, have sighted a lady-chauffeur of a motor-ambulance and have thrown a friendly glance, even a froward smile, at her. Waiving all questions of propriety, I hope that this was so, and that the lady-chauffeur was no less than "Pat Beauchamp" herself, in the later stages of her career overseas. Though her only response may have been to splash mud over me, I should feel happy, now, thus to have paid my respects to this gallant and high-spirited lady. I count myself among the company, battalion, division, corps and army of her admirers.
It certainly does not seem eight years, yet it must be fully that, since Joseph Conrad in The English Review lifted a veil that lay between his admirers and an interesting personality with the pleasantly discursive papers which form the basis of the re-issued A Personal Record (Dent). Between then and now Chance, that masterly but difficult book, has by a curious freak of public taste given Mr. Conrad, hitherto the well-loved favourite of the relatively few, a much wider constituency. To these late comers, rather than to the older (and of course superior) Conradists, who know it already, let me recommend this rambling, which is by no means to say aimless, account of the wanderings of the MS. of Almayer's Folly, some queer entertaining scraps of the author's family history, a description of the encounters with the original Almayer, and those vignettes of Marseilles which obviously were used as the background of The Arrow of Gold. This record is one of those quiet friendly books that flatter the devotee by a sense of peculiar intimacy with his hero. It is also engagingly characteristic. Mr. Conrad here unravels the fine threads of his personal history and philosophy with the same artful reserve and exquisite elaboration with which he evolves the creatures of his resourceful imagination.
The Life of Liza Lehmann (Unwin), written by herself, and finished, as her husband tells in a pathetic foot-note, "scarcely two weeks before her death," is a book holding many special bonds of association with Punch, not least the fact that her father-in-law, Deputy J.T. Bedford, was the author of that Robert, the City Waiter, who was among the most famous and popular of Mr. Punch's early creations. The volume that the writer has put together is the record of a busy, successful and, on the whole, happy life, passed in the company of interesting people, about many of whom Madame Lehmann has remembered some entertaining story. Chiefly, as is natural, the persons recorded are the musical folk of the last half-century, from Jenny Lind to Sir Thomas Beecham; though in the allied Arts I was taken by a pleasing and new anecdote of Robert Browning reciting How they Brought the Good News into an Edison phonograph, and overcome by loss of memory halfway through the ordeal. One wonders if this rather surprising record exists to-day. I am not going to assert that the non-technical reader may not find the pages devoted to reprinted criticism rather over-numerous; old newspaper files, like old theatrical photographs, too quickly fade. But the author's humour endured; and I like to think that she could appreciate a joke made at her own expense; witness her quotation from the gushing friend who, at the moment of the first triumph of The Persian Garden, overwhelmed the composer with the tribute, "Do let me thank you! The local colour is too wonderful. I simply felt as if I was at Liberty's!"
To the jaded reader I recommend The Road to En-Dor (Lane) as a book which should undoubtedly stir him up. It is the most extraordinary war-tale which has come my way. With such material as he had to his hand Lieutenant E.H. Jones would have been a sad muddler if he had not made his story intriguing; but, anyhow, he happens to be a sound craftsman with a considerable sense of style and construction. And he has a convincing way of handling his facts that compels belief in the most incredible of stories. Lieutenant Jones was a prisoner in the hands of the Turks at Zozgad, and to amuse himself and his fellow-prisoners he raised a "spook" which in time gained such a reputation that it had the Turkish officials almost hopelessly at its mercy. From being merely a joke his spook soon began to suggest, to him a way of escaping from the camp, and then, in conjunction with Lieutenant C.W. Hill, he worked it for all it was worth. His record of their adventures and of the sufferings, physical and mental, which they had to face is really astounding; but I fear it will be received coldly by the psychist. Spiritualism, indeed, is treated with scant respect, and whatever our own view of this vexed subject may be most of us will admit that Lieutenant Jones has considerable reason for his strong opinion.
In The Green Shoes of April (Hurst and Blackett) Miss Rachel Swete Macnamara has got together quite a lot of people and situations that other novelists have used before. There is the fine young Irishman soldiering in India, the soulless actress who marries and leaves him, and the splendid Irish girl, his true mate, whom he weds in happy ignorance of his first partner's continued existence. But the hero has a maiden aunt, with a story of her own, and the heroine a terrific grandmother who are Miss Macnamara's creations, and as she makes wife number one lie like a trooper in order to preserve the happiness of wife number two a soupçon of freshness is imparted to the réchauffé. Of course the well-meaning first wife is not allowed to succeed in her efforts, and Beau and Perry (you would never guess from that which was which, but in this case it doesn't matter) have a very bad time indeed until, reassured by a friendly barrister, they settle down again into wedded happiness. These are the confiding souls whom novelists and lawyers love, and I can see Miss Macnamara, by-and-by, getting quite a nice story out of someone's attempt to oust their eldest son from his inheritance. I hope she will.
