Mr. Charles Inge has brought to the shaping of Square Pegs (Methuen) some good and healthy thoughts about life and love and the waste of both, so that you get a wholesome impression of soundness and sincerity. And there's a dedication which makes one think the author is writing of realities which have been seen at close quarters. Bernard Farquharson, the big-hearted colonial, returning to England and seeing the waste of potentially good men in preposterous casual jobs which cannot lead anywhere, longs to give them the chances of the big spaces in South Africa (where, of course, there are no Labour troubles and a man's a man for a' that!). He ventures his capital in The Dictator, a Fleet Street derelict, in order to promote his emigration scheme, and his capital departs before either his public or the big-wigs are convinced. I can't think that Bernard had really thought out his scheme. And I wonder what he would have done if the little band of square pegs he got together in desperation hadn't had the sense to refuse his offer to ship them over to South Africa with his few remaining sovereigns. They would certainly have been in a fine round hole at the other side. But Bernard did a better thing. The only emigrant in his party was Leonora, and I like to think they lived happily ever after on his little orange-farm. I can only hope that his rival, Pike-Sarpe, a horrible little unctuous cad of a solicitor, will shortly do something to attract the official attention of the Law Society.
There will, I have no doubt, be joy in many a gentle heart over the glad news that Mrs. George Wemyss, whose Professional Aunt made for her so many friends, has created yet another charming relation. Grannie for Granted (Constable) is the story of a delightful old lady who from her country home takes a placid and grandmaternal interest in the affairs of her descendants—their love affairs mostly, of course, or the engaging chatter of the smaller third generation. Some of the sayings of the latter are worthy examples of the "good enough for Punch" variety, which, as most persons with married friends know too well, is a phrase covering a wide range of quality. Most of them, however, are excellent and ring true. Of the love-affairs I feel myself a less competent judge, but I should fancy their appeal will be compelling to the expert. It is perhaps impossible for a book of this type wholly to avoid the charge of being sugary or pretty-pretty, but with my hand on my heart I can declare that Mrs. Wemyss has done less to deserve it than most other writers would. I shudder, for example, to imagine what certain Transatlantic novelists would have done with the same material. In fine, here is as pleasant and likeable a treatise on l'art d'être Grand'-mère as anyone need wish to read. I am uncertain as to the precise significance of the title, which may refer to the fact that you have only to ask a grannie and get what you want, or to the equal truism that grandmotherly devotion is often accepted as a matter of course. However it doesn't really matter. The important thing is that the public have asked Mrs. Wemyss for "another of the same," and the request has been appropriately "granted."
I happen to have incontrovertible proof (of the external kind) that the one and only Mr. G. K. Chesterton is the author of The Flying Inn (Methuen). Otherwise I should have judged, by internal evidence, that it was the work of an inferior writer of the same name as himself, and, curiously enough, the same initials. Though hesitating to encourage litigation I should have been inclined to recommend Mr. Chesterton to apply as soon as possible for an injunction to restrain this person from doing anything further to damage the real G. K. C.'s reputation. I should have hinted that every now and then I had come upon a passage which might well be the work of the author of Heretics and Tremendous Trifles, and that only the intolerable dulness of the book as a whole persuaded me that it had been written by another hand. It deals with the adventures of Lord Ivywood and Captain Dalroy, men of opposite views on the subject of temperance. Lord Ivywood, having by some mysterious means (not explained) acquired despotic power in England, issued an edict that all inns should be abolished. At the same time he decreed that alcoholic liquor might be sold wherever an inn-sign stood. Captain Dalroy accordingly stole the sign of "The Old Ship," and carried it about with him, setting it up wherever his fancy dictated. And that, on my honour as a Learned Clerk, is the whole plot of a fat, closely-printed book of more than three hundred pages. I hope I have a fairly catholic appreciation of humour; certainly, I can enjoy most things, from Meredith to the American coloured comic supplement; but The Flying Inn was too much for me. It cannot have been easy to write, even given useful characters like Lord Ivywood and Captain Dalroy, whose remarks can be made to run into three or four pages; but it is considerably harder to read. There are good things in it, just as there is gold (I understand) in sea-water, but the process of extraction is tedious.
Miss Una Silberrad's novels are invariably good, and Cuddy Yarborough's Daughter (Constable), is among the best of them. Cuddy himself is delightfully irresponsible, and I felt a pang of disappointment when he disappeared from the scene, although, considering that he became increasingly lazy and comatose as he grew older, his decease, perhaps, was not premature. Apart from his affability, Cuddy's only claim to distinction lay in the fact that he was the father of his daughter. Violet's lot fell in rather stony places; as a child she was practically the guardian of her own father, and after his death she was governess to the child of a woman as irresponsible as Cuddy, but not half so comfortable to live with. Men swarmed round this Lady Lassiter, and she loved most of them. Under the circumstances it was fortunate that she had a most unsuspicious and tolerant husband. With no hesitation I recommend the tale of Cuddy and his daughter to the notice of all except the ultra-moderns. But, lest I should fail as a critic if I did no carping, I will say that, though I do not belong to any Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Infinitives, I should like Miss Silberrad to look at page 94, where she will find one that is not only split but split to smithereens.
On the paper wrapper of Sarah Eden (Mills and Boon) the publishers themselves call it "a novel of great distinction." Filled as I am with the natural lust of the reviewer to contradict a publisher about his own wares, I am bound to admit that I can find no phrase more apt for the impression this book has made upon me. There is exceptional distinction in the scheme of Miss E. S. Stevens' story, and there is even more in the grave charm and dignity of its telling. It is the record of the development of a singular and beautiful character; "a spiritual adventure" might have been its sub-title, for the events in Sarah Eden's life were those of mind rather than body. There are two main divisions of the story: in the first we watch Sarah from her beginnings as a quiet introspective child in her Devon home, and through the short course of her unsatisfactory married life. With considerable skill the author has here shown the various forces that were at work building up the heroine's character, and that strange blending of a practical and commanding efficiency with the idealism of a dreamer that exactly fitted her for the part she plays in the second half of her story. The change comes with the sudden death of her husband, and the first of the ecstatic visions that compelled Sarah Eden to leave her native country and prepare a place for her Divine Master in the home of His first coming. Thenceforward the scene is in Jerusalem, where Sarah establishes herself at the head of her strange little company of fanatics. You can see how large is the plan of such a tale; it is one of which you could not reasonably expect a wholly satisfactory ending, and to my mind the latter portion is the weaker. But there are some delightful scenes of life in modern Jerusalem. And Sarah Eden herself remains always a profoundly moving personality. For her alone the book deserves to be called "a novel of great distinction."