OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)
In the war-after-the-war, the bombardment of books that is now so violently raging upon all fronts, any contribution by a writer as eminent as Lord Haldane naturally commands the respect due to weapons of the heaviest calibre. Unfortunately "heavy" is here an epithet unkindly apt, since it has to be admitted that the noble lord wields a pen rather philosophic than popular, with the result that Before the War (Cassell) tells a story of the highest interest in a manner that can only be called ponderous. Our ex-War Minister is, at least chiefly, responding to the literary offensives of Bethmann-Hollweg and Tirpitz, in connection with whose books his should be read, if the many references are properly to be understood. As every reader will know, however, Lord Haldane could hardly have delivered his apologia before the accuser without the gates and not at the same time had an eye on the critic within. Fortunately it is here no part of a reviewer's task to obtrude his own political theories. With regard to the chief indictment, of having permitted the country to be taken unawares, the author betrays his legal training by a defence which is in effect (1) that circumstances compelled our being so taken, and that (2) we weren't. On this and other matter, however, the individual reader, having paid his money (7s. 6d. net), remains at liberty to take his choice. One revelation at least emerges clearly enough from Lord Haldane's pages—the danger of playing diplomat to a democracy. "Extremists, whether Chauvinist or Pacifist, are not helpful in avoiding wars" is one of many conclusions, double-edged perhaps, to which he is led by retrospect of his own trials. His book, while making no concessions to the modern demand for vivacity, is one that no student of the War and its first causes can neglect.
It is not Mr. L. Cope Cornford's fault that his initials are identical with those of the London County Council, nor do I consider it to be mine that his rather pontifical attitude towards men and matters reminds me of that august body. Anyone ignorant of recent inventions might be excused for thinking that The Paravane Adventure (Hodder and Stoughton) is the title of a stirring piece of sensational fiction. But fiction it is not, though in some of its disclosures it may be considered sensational enough. In this history of the invention of the Paravane Mr. Cornford hurls a lot of well-directed bricks at Officialdom, and concludes his book by giving us his frank opinion of the way in which the Navy ought to be run. It is impossible, even if one does not subscribe to all his ideas, to refrain from commending the enthusiasm with which he writes of those who, in spite of great difficulties, set to work to invent and perfect the Paravane. If you don't know what a Paravane is I have neither the space nor the ability to tell you; but Mr. Cornford has, and it's all in the book.
A stray paragraph in a contemporary, to the effect that the portrait of the heroine and the story of her life in Baroness von Hutten's Happy House (Hutchinson) is a transcript of actual fact, saves me from the indiscretion of declaring that I found Mrs. Walbridge and her egregious husband and the general situation at Happy House frankly incredible. Pleasantly incredible, I should have added; and I rather liked the young man, Oliver, from Fleet Street, whom the Great Man had recently made Editor of Sparks and who realised that he was destined to be a titled millionaire, for is not that the authentic procedure? Hence his fanatical obstinacy in wooing his, if you ask me, none too desirable bride. I hope I am not doing the author a disservice in describing this as a thoroughly wholesome book, well on the side of the angels. It has the air of flowing easily from a practised pen. But nothing will induce me to believe that Mrs. Walbridge, putting off her Victorian airs, did win the prize competition with a novel in the modern manner.
Mr. Alexander Macfarlan's new story, The Inscrutable Lovers (Heinemann), is not the first to have what one may call Revolutionary Ireland for its background, but it is by all odds the most readable, possibly because it is not in any sense a political novel. It is in characters rather than events that the author interests himself. A highly refined, well-to-do and extremely picturesque Irish revolutionary, whom the author not very happily christens Count Kettle, has a daughter who secretly abhors romance and the high-falutin sentimentality that he and his circle mistake for patriotism. To her father's disgust she marries an apparently staid and practical young Scotch ship-owner, who at heart is a confirmed romantic. The circumstances which lead to their marriage and the subsequent events which reveal to each the other's true temperament provide the "plot" of The Inscrutable Lovers. Though slender it is original and might lend itself either to farce or tragedy. Mr. Macfarlan's attitude is pleasantly analytical. It is indeed his delightful air of remote criticism, his restrained and epigrammatic style queerly suggestive of Romain Roland in The Market Place, and his extremely clever portraiture, rather than any breadth or depth appertaining to the story itself, that entitle the author to a high place among the young novelists of to-day. Mr. Macfarlan—is he by any chance the Rev. Alexander Macfarlan?—may and doubtless will produce more formidable works of fiction in due course; he will scarcely write anything smoother, more sparing of the superfluous word or that offers a more perfect blend of sympathy and analysis.
Susie (Duckworth) is the story of a minx or an exposition of the eternal feminine according to the reader's own convictions. I am not sure—and I suppose that places me among those who regard her heroine as the mere minx—that the Hon. Mrs. Dowdall has done well in expending so much cleverness in telling Susie's story. Certainly those who think of marriage as a high calling, for which the vocation is love, will be as much annoyed with her as was her cousin Lucy, the idealist, at once the most amusing and most pathetic figure in the book. I am quite sure that Susies and Lucys both abound, and that Mrs. Dowdall knows all about them; but I am not equally sure that the Susies deserve the encouragement of such a brilliant dissection. Yet the men whose happiness she played with believed in Susie's representation of herself as quite well-meaning, and other women who saw through her liked her in spite of their annoyance; and—after all the other things I have said—I am bound, in sincerity, to admit that I liked her too.
You could scarcely have given a novelist a harder case than to prove the likeableness of Cherry Mart, as her actions show her in September (Methuen), and I wonder how a Victorian writer would have dealt with the terrible chit. But Frank Swinnerton, of course, is able to hold these astonishing briefs with ease. Here is a girl who first turns the head of Marian Forster's middle-aged husband in a pure fit of experimentalism, and then sets her cap with defiant malice at the young man who seems likely to bring real love into the elder woman's life. And yet Marian grows always fonder of her, and she, in the manner of a wayward and naughty child, of Marian. Insolence and gaucherie are on the one hand, coolness and finished grace on the other, and, although there are several moments of hatred between the two, their affection is the proper theme of the book. As for Nigel, he is impetuous and handsome, and falls in love with Marian because she is sympathetic, and with Cherry because she is Cherry, and also perhaps a little because the War has begun and the day of youth triumphant has arrived. But he does not make a very deep impression upon me, and as for Marian's husband, who is big and rather stupid, and always has been, I gather, a bit of a dog, he scarcely counts at all. Marian, however, is an extremely clever and intricate study, and for Cherry—I don't really know whether I like Cherry or not. But I have certainly met her.
Mr. Punch has pleasure in calling attention to two small volumes, lately issued, which reproduce matter that has appeared in his pages and therefore does not need any further token of his approbation: to wit, A Little Loot (Allen And Unwin), by Captain E.V. Knox ("Evoe"); and Staff Tales (Constable), by Captain W.P. Lipscomb, M.C. ("L."), with illustrations, now first published, by Mr. H.M. Bateman. Also to A Zoovenir (Dublin: The Royal Zoological Society of Ireland), by Mr. Cyril Bretherton ("Algol"), a book of verses which have appeared elsewhere and are being sold for the benefit of the Dublin Zoo.
The Fool. "Good master carpenter, I am in great need of wit for tonight's feast. Hast thou any merry quip or quaint conceit wherewith I might set the table in a roar?"
The Carpenter. "Nay, Master Fool, I have but one which I fashioned myself with much labour. It goeth thus: 'When is a door not a ——?'"
The Fool." Enough! That Joke hath already cost me two good situations."