A SONG OF YOUTH AND WAR.
Roving along the King's highway
I met wi' a Romany black.
"Good day," says I; says he, "Good day,
And what may you have in your pack?"
"Why, a shirt," says I, "and a song or two
To make the road go faster."
He laughed: "Ye'll find or the day be through
There's more nor that, young master.
Oh, roving's good and youth is sweet
And love is its own reward;
But there's that shall stay your careless feet
When ye come to the Sign o' the Sword."
"Riddle me, riddlemaree," quoth I,
"Is a game that's ill to win,
And the day is o'er fair such tasks to try"—
Said he, "Ye shall know at the inn."
With that he suited his path to mine
And we travelled merrily,
Till I was ware of the promised sign
And the door of an hostelry.
And the Romany sang, "To the very life
Ye shall pay for bed and board;
Will ye turn aside to the House of Strife?
Will ye lodge at the Inn o' the Sword?"
Then I looked at the inn 'twixt joy and fear,
And the Romany looked at me.
Said I, "We ha' come to a parting here
And I know not who you be."
But he only laughed as I smote on the door:
"Go, take ye the fighting chance;
Mayhap I once was a troubadour
In the knightly days of France.
Oh, the feast is set for those who dare
And the reddest o' wine outpoured;
And some sleep sound after peril and care
At the Hostelry of the Sword."
For our "National Lent"—the War Loan.
Pet of the Platoon. "I DIDN'T HALF TELL OFF OUR SERGEANT JUST NOW. I CALLED HIM A KNOCK-KNEED, PIGEON-TOED, SWIVEL-EYED MONKEY, AND SAID HE OUGHT TO GO TO A NIGHT-SCHOOL!"
Ecstatic Chorus. "AND WHAT DID HE SAY?"
Bill (after a pause). "WELL, AS A MATTER OF FAC', I DON'T THINK HE QUITE HEARD ME."
OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)
When the eminent in other branches of art take to literature, criticism must naturally be tempered with respect. This is much how I feel after reading Sir WILLIAM RICHMOND'S The Silver Chain (PALMER AND HAYWARD). Probably, however, I should have enjoyed it more had not the publishers indulged in a wrapper-paragraph of such unbounded eulogy. If anybody is to call this novel "a work of great artistic achievement," and praise its "philosophy, psychology, delightful sense of humour, subtle analysis" and all the rest, I should prefer it to be someone less interested in the wares thus pushed. For my part I should be content to call The Silver Chain by no means an uninteresting story, the work of a distinguished man, obviously an amateur in the craft of letters, who nevertheless has pleased himself (and will give pleasure to others) by working into it many pen-pictures of scenes in Egypt and Rome and Sicily, full of the glowing colour that we should expect from their artist-author. But the tale itself, the unrewarded love of the middle-aged "Philosopher" for the not specially attractive heroine Mary, and the subordinate very Byronic romance of Herbert and Annunziata, quite frankly recalls those early manuscripts that most novelists must have burnt before they were quit of boyhood, or preserved to smile over. Still, in these winter days, when only Prime Ministers go to Rome (and then not to bask) and Luxor is equidistant with the moon, you may well find respite in a book so full of sunshine and memories of happy places; but I am bound to repeat my warning that your fellow-travellers will perhaps not be quite such stimulating society as the publishers would have you expect.
Sir THEODORE COOK has already done sound work in dealing with German methods, and in The Mark of the Beast (MURRAY) he pursues his labours a step further. So careful is he to give incontestable proofs for the charges he brings against the Huns that even the most anæmic neutrals must find a difficulty in reading this volume without recognising the truth. Especially he emphasizes the dangers of peace-making with an enemy whose whole policy and programme have been based on lies. And if he insists many times and again upon this point he has his excuse in the fact that some of us are so extraordinarily forgetful and forgiving that we cannot be reminded too often of what the future has in store for us if we do not now remember the past. With such an absolutely flawless case in his hands I find myself wishing sometimes that Sir THEODORE had been less prodigal of the denunciatory language which he hurls at Teutonic heads. Not for a moment would I suggest that the Hun does not deserve vituperation, but I am inclined to think that a less violent manner of attack is more effective. In his own way, however, Sir THEODORE is inimitable, and I can pay no higher praise to his book than to say that I know of no War-literature so admirably calculated to make BETHMANN-HOLLWEG ("more double than his name") really sorry for himself.
The War has not been lacking in fine memorials of the dead. To what extent the Germans have commemorated the fallen I have no notion; but in France and Italy the papers constantly print tender and eloquent tributes, usually to the young. And in England we have the same thing too, touchingly, proudly and generously done. For the most part such tributes are mere records, but now and then they reconstruct; and the most remarkable example of such reconstruction—to the world at large, absolute creation—is the memoir of Charles Lister (UNWIN), which his father, Lord RIBBLESDALE, and some devoted friends have, with perfect biographical tact, prepared. But for CHARLES LISTER'S untimely death, leading his men against the Turks in July, 1915, most of the letters in this book would never have been printed at all; for whatever his career might have become—and he was a man apart and bound for distinction—and however great a record were his, the early years could not be thus liberally illumined. But since death decreed that these early years—he was not quite twenty-eight when he was wounded for the third time and succumbed—should constitute all his career, we have this notable and beautiful book. If one had to put but a single epithet to it I should choose "radiant." At Eton, at Balliol, at the Embassies in Rome and Constantinople, and in the Army, CHARLES LISTER shed radiance. All his many friends testify to this. As for his letters, they are clear and gay and human; and they have also a sagacity that many older and more determined observers of life might envy; while that one to Lady DESBOROUGH upon the death of his great friend, JULIAN GRENFELL, is literature. Every page is interesting, but some are far more than that; and at the end one has almost too moving a concept of an ardent idealistic English gentleman met too late.
At first sight, perhaps, Nothing Matters (CASSELL) may sound to you a somewhat, shall I say, transatlantic title for a book published in these days, when we are all learning how enormously everything matters. But this emotion will only last till you have read Sir HERBERT BEERBOHM TREE'S disarming little preface. Personally, it left me regretting only one thing in the volume (or, to be more accurate, outside it), which was the design of its very unornamental wrapper—a lapse, surely, from taste, for which it would probably be quite unfair to blame the writer of what lies within. This is almost all of it excellent fooling, and includes a brace of longish short-stories (rather in the fantastic style of brother MAX); some fugitive pieces that you may recall as they flitted through the fields of journalism; with, for stiffening, a reprint of the author's admirable lecture upon "The Importance of Humour in Tragedy." This is a title that you may well take as a motto for the whole book. It will have, I think, a warm welcome from Sir HERBERT'S many friends and admirers, even should it turn out to be the case that some of his plots have been (in his own quaintly attractive phrase) "prophetically plagiarised" by other writers. Certainly this welcome will not be lessened by the knowledge that all profits from the sale of the volume are to go to support a cause that, to all who love the Stage, will be far indeed from not mattering—the fund to supplement the incomes of the wives and families of actors at the Front. You may regard it therefore as the lightest of comedies played, like so many others, in the cause of charity, and put down your money with an approving conscience.
Let no one whose heart has been touched beyond mere vicarious pride in the achievement of our brothers-in-arms at the gate of Paris allow himself to miss the detailed narrative of HENRI DUGARD in The Battle of Verdun (HUTCHINSON). A good translation by F. APPLEBY HOLT, rather exceptional in these days of hurried conveyancing, does not detract from the vigour and movement of the story. We, who only saw the long agony through the medium of the always inadequate and discreet technicalities of the communiqués, could form no real impression of the kind of fighting or of the results of each phase of it. The author has collected the accounts or reports, so that the strokes and counter-strokes (for there was nothing passive in this siege) of the epic combats round Douamont, Fort Vaux, the Woevre, Malancourt, Avocourt and the Mort Homme are intelligibly reconstructed. Comment in the form of personal anecdotes of individual heroism is added. Perhaps the most illuminating touch is in the letter of poor Feldwebel KARL GARTNER, which was to have been despatched to his mother by a friend going on leave, so as to escape the Censor's eye. It began in a mood of robustious confidence and ended (or rather was interrupted by GARTNER'S capture) on the most despairing note. And this was seven months before the most brilliant counter-attack in the history of the War slammed the door once for all in the face of the enemy.
Theatrical Manager. "THIS WON'T DO, YOU KNOW. IT'S NOT A LAUGH—IT'S A YAWN!"
Poster Artist. "WELL, THAT'S BECAUSE YOU WERE IN SUCH A HURRY FOR THE SKETCH THAT YOU WOULDN'T GIVE ME TIME TO LET THE IMPRESSION OF THE PIECE WEAR OFF."
"The scheme of utilising vacant spaces in London is being taken up enthusiastically in the provinces."—Evening Standard.
At the same time the scheme of utilising vacant spaces in the provinces is being welcomed with similar enthusiasm in London.
"Vigorous complaints against the proposal to establish an overhead electric system of tramways in Edinburgh were made this afternoon.
Lord Strathclyde declared that the overhead wires proposal had electrified the citizens."—Scottish Paper.
There must be something seriously wrong with the insulation.
NOTICE.—Rejected Communications or Contributions, whether MS., Printed Matter, Drawings, or Pictures of any description, will in no case be returned, not even when accompanied by a Stamped and Addressed Envelope, Cover, or Wrapper. To this rule there will be no exception.