OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)
Inevitably you will find a sad significance in the title of Harvest (Collins), the last story, I suppose, that we shall have from the pen of Mrs. Humphrey Ward. It is a quite simple tale, very simply told, and of worth less for its inherent drama than for the admirable picture it gives of rural England in the last greatest days of the Great War. How quick was the writer's sympathy with every phase of the national ordeal is proved again by a score of vivid passages in which the fortunes of her characters are dated by the tremendous events that form their background. The story itself is of two women in partnership on a Midland farm, one of whom, the senior, has in her past certain secret episodes which, as is the way of such things, return to find her out and bring her happiness to ruin. The character of this Janet is well and vigorously drawn, though there is perhaps little in her personality as shown here to make understandable the passion of her past. All the details of life on the land in the autumn of 1918 are given with a skill that brings into the book not only the scent of the wheat-field but the stress, emotional and economic, of those unforgettable months. Because it is all so typically English one may call it a true consummation of the work of one who loved England well. In Mrs. Ward's death the world of letters mourns the loss of a writer whose talent was ever ungrudgingly at the service of her country. She leaves a gap that it will be hard to fill.
In some ways I think that they will be fortunate who do not read A Remedy Against Sin (Hutchinson) till the vicissitudes of book-life have deprived it of its pictorial wrapper, because, though highly attractive as a drawing, the very charmingly-clad minx of the illustration is hardly a figure to increase one's sympathy with her as an injured heroine. And of course it is precisely this sympathy that Mr. W. B. Maxwell is playing for—first, last and all the time. His title and the puff's preliminary will doubtless have given you the aim of the story, "to influence the public mind on one of the most vital questions of the day," the injustice of our divorce laws. For this end Mr. Maxwell has exercised all his ability on the picture of a foolish young wife, chained to a lout who is shown passing swiftly from worse to unbearable, and herself broken at last by the ordeal of the witness-box in a "defended action." Inevitably such a book, a record of disillusion and increasing misery, can hardly be cheerful; tales with a purpose seldom are. But the poignant humanity of it will hold your sympathy throughout. You may think that Mr. Maxwell too obviously loads his dice, and be aware also that (like others of its kind) the story suffers from over-concentration on a single theme. It moves in a world of incompatibles. The heroine's kindly friend is tied to a dipsomaniac wife; her coachman has no remedy for a ruined home because of the expense of divorce, and so on. To a great extent, however, Mr. Maxwell's craft has enabled him to overcome even these obstacles; his characters, though you may suspect manipulation, remain true types of their rather tiresome kind, and the result is a book that, though depressing, refuses to be put down. But as a wedding-present—no!
The Underworld (Jenkins) describes life round about and down below a small coal-mine in Scotland something near thirty years ago. Its author, James Welsh, tells us in a simple manly preface that he became a miner at the age of twelve, and worked at every phase of coal-getting till lately he was appointed check-weigher by his fellows, and therefore writes of what he knows at first hand. Here then is a straightforward tale with for hero a sensitive and enthusiastic young miner who draws his inspiration from Bob Smillie, loses his girl to the coal-owner's son and his life in a rescue-party. The villain, double-dyed, is not the coal-owner but his "gaffer," who favours his men as to choice of position at the coal-face in return for favours received from their wives. The chief surprise to the reader will be the difference between the status and power of the miner then and now. The writer has a considerable skill in composing effective dialogue, especially between his men; gives a convincing picture of the pit and home life, the anxieties, courage, affections and aspirations of the friends of whom he is "so proud." Nor does he cover up their weaknesses. Purple passages of fine writing show his inexperience slipping into pitfalls by the way, but his work rings true and deserves to be read by many at the present time when miners are so far from being victims of "the block"—the employers' device for starving out a "difficult" man—that they look like fitting the boot to another leg. One is made to realise their anxiety to get rid of that boot.
How They Did It (Methuen) may be regarded as a novel with a purpose, and, like most such, suffers from the defects of its good intentions. The object is "an exposure of war muddling at home," and it must be admitted that Mr. Gerald O'Donovan gives us no half-measure; indeed I was left with the idea that greater moderation would have made a better case. To illustrate it, he takes his hero, David Grant, through a variety of experiences. Incapacitated from active fighting through the loss of an arm, he is given work as a housing officer on the Home Front. His endeavours to check the alleged extravagance and corruption of this command led to his being "invalided out"; after which he wanders round seeking civilian war-work (and marking only dishonesty everywhere), and ends up with a post in the huge, newly-formed and almost entirely farcical Ministry of Business. This final epithet puts in one word my criticism of Mr. O'Donovan's method. Everyone admits the large grain of truth in his charges; the trouble is that he has too often allowed an honest indignation to carry him past his mark into the regions of burlesque, and in particular to confuse character with caricature. But as a topical squib, briskly written, How They Did It will provide plenty of angry amusement, with enough suggestion of the roman à clef to keep the curious happy in fitting originals to its many portraits. I should perhaps add that the plot, such as it is, is held together by a rather perfunctory and intermittent love-affair, too obviously employed only to fill up time while the author is thinking out some fresh exposure. This I regretted, as Mary, the heroine, is here a shadow of what seems attractive and original substance. I wonder that the author did not invent for her a Ministry of Romance. He is quite capable of it.
Among the writers who have established stable reputations for themselves during the War "Klaxon" is in the very front rank. This is partly due to an easy natural style, but most to a sound judgment and an amazingly clear eye for essentials. To those (not myself) who want to forget the last few years it may seem that we have already been given enough opportunities to read about our submarines. Well, I have read nearly everything that has been written on this subject and could yet draw great delight from The Story of Our Submarines (Blackwood), a most informing and fascinating book. "Whatever happens," says "Klaxon," "the German policy of torpedoing merchant ships without warning must be made not only illegal but unsafe for a nation adopting it.... If these notes of mine serve no other purpose, they will, at any rate, do something towards differentiating between the submarine and the U-boat." By which it will be seen that to his many other claims on our regard "Klaxon" adds the gift, not always found among experts, of modesty.
DISGUST OF AN ARTIST ON FINDING HIS ACADEMY SUCCESS OF 1899 AT AN AUCTION OF MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES LEFT BEHIND IN RAILWAY CARRIAGES.