OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)
MR. E.F. BENSON, seizing occasion as it flies, has given us, in Across the Stream (MURRAY), a story on the very topical subject of spiritualism and communication with the dead. As a practised novelist, with a touch so sure that it can hardly fail to adorn, he has made a tale that is interesting throughout and here and there aspires to real beauty of feeling; though not all the writer's skill can disguise a certain want of unity in the natural and supernatural divisions of his theme. The early part of the book, which tells of the boyhood of Archie and the attempts of his dead brother Martin to "get through" to him, are admirably done. As always in these studies of happy and guarded childhood, Mr. BENSON is at his best, sympathetic, tender, altogether winning. There was lung trouble in Archie's record—Martin indeed had died of it (sometimes I wonder whether any of Mr. BENSON'S protagonists can ever be wholly robust), and there is a genuine thrill in the scene at the Swiss sanatorium, where the dead and living boys touch hands over the little cache of childish treasure buried by the former beneath a pine-tree in the garden. Later, when Archie had recovered from his disease and grown to suitor's estate, I could not but feel, despite the sardonically observed figure of Helena, the detestable girl who nearly ruins him, that the whole affair had become conventional, and by so much lost interest for its creator. Apart, however, from the bogie chapters of Possession (which I shall not further indicate) the most moving scenes in this latter part are those between Archie and his father. I have seldom known a horrible situation handled with more delicate art; it is for this, rather than for its slightly unconvincing devilments, that I would give the book an honourable place in the ranks of Bensonian romance.
I quite agree with Mr. HAROLD BEGBIE, whose Mr. Sterling Sticks it Out (HEADLEY) is a generous attempt to put into the form of a story the case of the conscientious objector of the finest type, that, when we are able to think about this matter calmly, we shall have considerable misgivings at least about details in our treatment of this difficult problem. I also agree that the officials of the Press Bureau don't come at all well out of the correspondence which he prints in his preface, and, further, that the Government ought to have had the courage to alter the law allowing absolute exemption rather than stretch it beyond the breaking point. But I emphatically dispute his assumption that the matter was a simple one. It was not the saintly, single-minded and sweet-natured C.O.'s of Christopher Sterling's type that made the chief difficulty. There were few of this literal interpretation and heroic texture. The real difficulty was created by men of a very different character and in much greater numbers, sincere in varying degrees, but deliberately, passionately and unscrupulously obstructive, bent on baulking the national will and making anything like reasonable treatment of them impossible. It would require saints, not men, to deal without occasional lapses from strict equity with such infuriating folk. Mr. BEGBIE'S book is unfair in its emphasis, but it is not fanatical or subversive, and I can see no decent reason why it should have been banned. I certainly commend it to the majority-minded as a wholesome corrective.
That the reviewer should finish his study of the assembled biographies of twenty-four fallen heroes of this War with a feeling of disappointment and some annoyance argues a fault in the biographer or in the reviewer. I invite the reader to be the judge between us, for The New Elizabethans (LANE) must certainly be read, if only to understand clearly that there is no fault in the heroes, at any rate. Mr. E.B. OSBORN describes them as "these golden lads ... who first conquered their easier selves and secondly led the ancestral generations into a joyous captivity" (whatever that may mean), and maintains, against the father of one of them apparently, that he is apt in the title he has given to them and to their countless peers. I agree with the father and think they deserve a new name of their own; such men as the GRENFELL brothers, HUGH and JOHN CHARLTON and DONALD HANKEY did more than maintain a tradition. There is about DIXON SCOTT, "the Joyous Critic," something, I think, which will be recognised as marking a production and a surprise of our own generation—the "ink-slinger" who, when it came to the point, was found equally reckless and brave in slinging more dangerous matter. Again, I feel that there is needed a clearer motive than is apparent to warrant "a selection of the lives of young men who have fallen in the great war." Selections in this instance are more odious than comparisons; there should be one book for one hero. Thirdly, I disapprove the dedication to the Americans; and, lastly, I found in the author's prose a certain affectation that is unworthy of the subject-matter. An instance is the reference to HARRY BUTTERS' "joyous" quotation of the quatrain:—
Every day that passes
Filling out the year
Leaves the wicked Kaiser
Harder up for beer.
I like the quatrain, of course; who, knowing the "Incorrigibles," doesn't? But I did not like that reiterated word "joyous."
I should certainly have supposed that recent history had discounted popular interest in the monarchies of make-believe; in other words, that when real sovereigns have been behaving in so sensational a manner one might expect a slump in counterfeits. But it appears that Mr. H.B. MARRIOTT WATSON is by no means of this opinion. His latest story, The Pester Finger (SKEFFINGTON), shows him as Ruritanian as ever. As usual we find that distressful country, here called Varavia, in the throes of dynastic upheaval, which centres, in a manner also not without precedent, in the figure of a young and beautiful Princess. This lady, the last of her race, had been adopted as ward—on, I thought, insufficient introduction—by the hero, Sir Francis Vyse. The situation was further complicated by the fact that in his youth he had been the officer of the guard who ought to have prevented the murder of Sonia's august parents, and didn't. Quite early I gave up counting how many times Sir Francis and his fair ward were set upon, submerged, imprisoned and generally knocked about. You never saw so convulsed a courtship; for I will no longer conceal the fact that, when he was not more strenuously engaged, he soon began to regard Sonia with a softening eye. And as Sonia herself was growing up to womanhood, or, in Mr. WATSON'S elegant phrase, "muliebrity claimed her definitely"—well, he is an enviable reader for whom the last page will hold any considerable surprise.
"ETIENNE," in an introductory note to A Naval Lieutenant, 1914-1918 (METHUEN), gives an excellent reason for wishing to record his impressions of the "sea affair." He was in H.M.S. Southampton during the earlier part of the War, and "on all the four principal occasions when considerable German forces were encountered in the North Sea, her guns were in action." Very naturally he desired to do honour to this gallant light cruiser, and I admire prodigiously the modest way in which he has done it. "ETIENNE" is not a stylist; a professor of syntax might conceivably be distressed by his confusion of prepositions; but apart from this detail all is plain sailing—and fighting. I have read no more thrilling account of the Battle of Jutland than is to be found here. The author does it so well because he tells his story with great simplicity and without what I believe he would call "windiness." Best of all, he has a nice sense of humour, and would even, I believe, have discovered the funny side of Scapa, if there had been one. "ETIENNE," whose short stories of naval life were amusing, makes a distinct advance in this new work.