OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)
Countless readers, fusionists and others, will be glad to have Mr. Harold Spender's sparkling abstract of the more romantic passages in the life of The Prime Minister (Hodder and Stoughton). The first half of the book describes the upbringing and early battles of this man of peace, Rose Cottage at Llanystumdwy with "Uncle Lloyd"—there is a touching picture of the courage, wisdom and unselfishness of this grand old man—the little attorney's office at Portmadoc, squire- and parson-baiting passim, capture of Carnarvon Boroughs, guerilla tactics in the House, suspension, recognition, pacifism, office, original budgeting, Limehousing (very reticently indicated), social reform. Then War and the supreme opportunity for the energy, persuasiveness, adroitness and determination which must extort even from opponents the tribute of admiration. Not a dull page; occasionally an obscure one. None of your cold and calculated criticism for Mr. Spender. Have idols clay feet? Well, not this one, thank you. And it is an attitude which enables him to convey to the reader something of the irresistible personal magnetism of his distinguished friend, and the courage which delights in riding the storm and is at its best in the tight corner (one might suspect the Premier of holding the view that if there were no tight corners it would be necessary to invent them). The summary of the War period is admirably done. The history of events leading to the formation of the second Coalition Government—and the third—is again tactfully presented. It would be unreasonable to suppose that all of Mr. Spender's verdicts and estimates will be unchallenged by historians. But it is unlikely that the Premier will find a more competent hagiographer.
A story that so far violates the conventions as to start with a mother whose moral instability is a worry to her children, and a hero who longs to be a practical builder despite a parental command to follow art—such a tale can at least claim the merit of originality. Mr. J. D. Beresford would be fully justified in claiming this and much more for An Imperfect Mother (Collins). Here is an interesting, fascinating and certainly unusual story, in which only two characters are of any real moment, Cecilia, the imperfect mother, embodiment of the artist temperament, egotistical almost to inhumanity, who abandons her dull husband and boring daughters to "live her own life"; and Stephen, the son, who alone can give her a half-sympathetic, half-resentful understanding. You see already the cleverness of Mr. Beresford's conception. Really, it is just this that works (at least for me) its undoing. His characters are fashioned with the nicest ingenuity; the positions into which he so dextrously manipulates them compel your interest and delighted wonder; but never once do they touch your emotions, and never once can you see them as anything but the creations of a highly talented brain. This is the more strange because Mr. Beresford's people are as a rule so convincingly real. Perhaps to some degree the effect of artifice is due to the author's exclusive preoccupation with his central character. Cecilia's husband, her daughters, the home of her early married life, are shown to us only by the light of her flashing personality; this withdrawn, they simply cease to exist. On the whole, therefore, I should call An Imperfect Mother a highly entertaining example of pure intellect, admirable but uninspired, which for my own part I enjoyed amazingly.
Though "E. H. Anstruther" (Mrs. J. C. Squire) has called her latest story The Husband (Lane) one can hardly resist the feeling that this is rather a generous description of the central character, who indulged in so much philandering with one person or another that it is difficult to regard him as more than a husband in, so to speak, his spare time. Richard Dennithorne, I must believe, was a "ladies' man" in two senses, since he is undeniably a very womanly conception of the all-conquering male, with indeed more than a little of Mr. Rochester in his composition. The story tells how Penelope, the heroine, comes to live with her adopted aunt Margery, of whom Richard was the spouse intermittent); how Richard, at the moment absent upon amorous affairs, returned, and so fascinated Penelope with his masterful ways that she fled to London; how, almost immediately after, she stultified her precautions, but saved the plot, by becoming Richard's secretary at his office in that city; and how, finally, poor Margery (who throughout monopolised my sympathy), having generously expired, Penelope and the ex-husband fell into each other's arms. Of course there is a lot more than this really, so don't think that I have spoilt the fun for you. As for the quality of the tale, this, I fancy, may be better appreciated by women than men, since, as I have hinted, its outlook is so essentially feminine. Mrs. Squire writes with sincerity and brings her characters to life. She needs, however, to remember that words unwatched are dangerous. Such slipshod phrasing as "young muscular youth" must grieve the judicious, while the effect of the sentimental interview on p. 99 was simply ruined for me through the unfortunate suggestion conveyed by "her blood rose in a boil to her face." The italics are mine, but the proof-reading is (or should have been) the author's.
Miser's Money (Heinemann) brings Mr. Eden Phillpotts back to Devonshire, and I wave my little flag to welcome him. Of late he has sometimes been a shade too didactic for my liking, but here he gives us yet another plain tale of his beloved moor, and he is instructive only in showing the danger of too much money—a danger at which most of us can in these days afford to smile. The Mortimers were, one would have supposed, a clan unlikely to be moved from their native soil by anything less convulsive than an earthquake. But money did it. One of them was a miser, and when he died—after a terrific gorge at his brother's expense—he left trouble behind him. Some of his relations wanted more of his money than was good for their souls, and one of them (actually) fought shy of receiving her proper share. Altogether a pretty tangle, which was not unravelled until the Mortimers had resolved to try new pastures. True, they did not go very far, but the disturbing influence of money is sufficiently illustrated by the fact that it induced such deeply-rooted folk to move at all. If the theme of this story is a little sordid it is relieved by its treatment from any reproach, and faithful followers of the Phillpotts' trail will enjoy every word of it.
All that we ever hoped—some day, when the War was over—to hear about those most fascinating mysteries, the Tanks, has been put together by Major C. and Mr. A. Williams-Ellis, under the title The Tank Corps (Country Life Offices). Here are genuine uncamouflaged pictures of all kinds of tanks, with detailed maps and descriptions showing their operations, as well as stories not only of those that walked in orthodox fashion through enemy villages "with the British army cheering behind," but of others that disappeared entire in mud, or drove themselves unaided back to our lines when too full of gas to be occupied, or scrunched up batteries of field-guns, or cruised alone for hours, like the famous one called Musical Box, among the enemy's communications, or crossed vast trenches over bundles of faggots carried upon their backs. Every boy of the right kind who inherits the proper zeal for mechanisms will certainly find in this book the most absorbing of yarns. Not that the subject is treated in the least lightly or frivolously, but, since the barest truth is here incredible romance, the authors, soberly collecting materials from despatches, diaries and so on, as well as drawing on their own obvious first-hand knowledge, have achieved a fairy-tale of mechanics. That the crews were no less wonderful than their machines we knew before, but the writers' modest yet illuminating account of the difficulties under which they worked is none the less welcome.
If you decide to go on Circuits (Methuen) with Mr. Philip Camborne you will find him an interesting and informing companion. His hero and heroine are a Wesleyan minister and his wife, so completely out of tune with the usual heroes of contemporary fiction that they are actually shameless enough to be in love with one another from the first page to the last. Though he shows a remarkable insight into the lives of Wesleyan ministers, Mr. Camborne declines the popular methods of sectarian fiction and refrains from any attempt to proselytize. Instead we are simply given a clear and often amusing account of what Mark Frazer had to put up with in his wanderings from circuit to circuit. Mr. Camborne is modern in confining himself to the history of a single family, but in outlook he belongs to a past century. And I mean that for a compliment.
UNRECORDED HISTORICAL SCENE.—ROMULUS HEARS FROM HIS CONTRACTOR THAT ROME CANNOT BE BUILT IN A DAY.
Motto for the Wee Frees when attempting to conciliate the Labour Party: Lib. and let Lab.