OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)
Those who like to read familiar letters—and I confess it is one of my favourite literary distractions—will find matter very much to their mind in Some Hawarden Letters (NISBET), compiled by L. MARCH-PHILLIPS and BERTRAM CHRISTIAN. It is a collection of letters addressed to Miss MARY GLADSTONE before and after her marriage to Mr. DREW. Sitting at the centre she seems to have held together her circle by golden threads of confidence and intimacy. Here you will learn how RUSKIN was brought to visit Hawarden, and how he entirely altered his views on Mr. GLADSTONE, going so far as to suppress a number of Fors Clavigera in which slighting allusion had been made to him. Here, too, you will find Lord ACTON, who deeply disapproved of Mr. GLADSTONE'S conduct in paying a memorial tribute of respect and eulogy to Lord BEACONSFIELD. ACTON'S list of the hundred best books (or, to be strictly accurate, of ninety-nine of them) is also given. It provides heavy reading for a hundred years at the very least. As a set-off to this ponderosity there are the letters of BURNE-JONES, fresh, amiable and delightful, as also those of Professor JAMES STUART, which are among the best in the collection. Mr. A.J. BALFOUR appears as the owner of four concertinas, on which he was willing "to play with anyone who would accompany him through any of the oratorios of Handel." RUSKIN writes to CARLYLE, addressing him as "Dearest Papa," and signing himself "Ever your faithful and loving son." The letters of GEORGE WYNDHAM are a charming collection, shining with hope and idealism yet never losing their touch of the firm earth. This book was nearly completed by the late Mr. MARCH PHILLIPS, and after his untimely death the task was brought to a conclusion by Mr. CHRISTIAN. On the whole the work has been done with great discretion, but there is a passage relating to GEORGE ELIOT on pp. 193, 194 which ought to have been omitted.
Miss MILLS YOUNG tells us that John Musgrave, the middle-aged hero of Coelebs (LANE), "was not a prig, but he came perilously near to being one at times." Well, if anyone ought to know, it is his creator, so I will accept her word for it, though for myself I should have called him a first-class prig. The little village in which he lived his bachelor existence was invaded by some up-to-date people who took the Hall, and proceeded to liven up things. Mrs. Chadwick freely shocked the poor man; she smoked, was a reckless conversationalist and had modern ideas, all which disturbed the decorous manner of his life. Moreover, she had taken upon herself the heavy task of finding him a wife, and John's phlegmatic heart began to flutter when he saw Peggy, her lady-gardener and niece, standing on a ladder, in blue trousers. He was incensed by such apparel, but he was also intrigued. From that moment his number, as they say, was up. Apart from a dog-incident, which is far too prolonged, and some rather cheap sarcasm at the expense of a wretched spinster, this tale of John's conversion from something drier than dust to a human being is neatly told. All the same I prefer Miss YOUNG'S South African stories.
My conjecture about The Magic Gate (HUTCHINSON) is that its author, MAUD STEPNEY RAWSON, found herself with two stories to choose from, one of the Gate itself, and another of the romance of Lydia and John Wodrush. In my opinion she chose the wrong one. The history of the Wodrush elopement, compressed to a couple of pages, seems to me far more original and interesting than the present rather unwieldy tale. The Magic Gate is a war-novel confessed, and I can only fancy that the thronging new sensations of the past three years have proved a little too much for Mrs. RAWSON'S sense of form. She is so anxious that her heroine and her readers shall miss nothing of it all that in the result the plot is lost in a maze of incidents that lead nowhere. The effect produced on a small country society by the early phases of the War is shown deftly enough. But perhaps posterity will find in such a record a more compelling interest than we can to whom it is still so familiar in every unforgettable detail. One other ground of complaint I have against the book is that its most original and attractive character, the American woman to whose generosity Jennet owes her occupancy of Fullbrook Manor, is banished at an early page, and submarined just when I was looking for her reappearance. Hers is yet another story with which Mrs. RAWSON might have entertained me better than by this of The Magic Gate, which I found a trifle creaky on its hinges.
Senlis (COLLINS) is one of the many places that have been systematically destroyed by the Germans. It is difficult for anyone who has not seen the results with his own eyes to realise the business-like thoroughness which the Hun brings to this congenial task. That a part (and the most beautiful) of the town still stands does not imply that he yielded either to slackness or to æsthetic refinement. True that Miss CICELY HAMILTON relates a pleasing story that Senlis was saved from utter destruction by the entreaties of the curé, but, all the same, I think the real reason why the Bosch did not complete his work was that he was bundled out bag and baggage before he had time to add the finishing touches. Miss HAMILTON clearly and soberly states the case against him, and makes it all the more damning by her frank recognition that many of the horrors of war, whoever makes it, are inevitable. Her delightful account of Senlis itself, admirably illustrated with photographs, is certain to appeal to all lovers of the charm of old French towns; and the more poignantly when they recall how narrowly the best of its beauty escaped from the hand of the spoiler.
