OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.
Looking about among the very best clichés (my own and others)—"supersubtle analysis," "intimate psychology," "masterly handling," "incomparable artistry"—I found nothing that it didn't seem a sort of impertinence to apply to Joseph Conrad's Chance, which Methuen has just had the good luck to publish. For the whole thing is much nearer wizardry than workmanship. I put the book down with a gasp, so close had I been to realities as conjured up by one to whom realism is a servant and not a master. I had come to know, in that piecemeal way in which one actually gets to know one's fellows—waiting for later experience to confirm or modify earlier impressions—the hapless, tragic Flora; her father, de Barral, the pseudo-financier, fraudulent through unimaginative stupidity rather than criminal intent; the kindly-cruel pair of Fynes; that perfect, chivalrous knight of the sea, Captain Anthony, Flora's fiery-patient lover; his splendidly staunch second officer, Powell, and the analytic Marlow, also a sailor-man, who acts in the capacity of ultra-modern chorus to this tragedy of chance. The central idea is the old wonder that such vast issues can hang upon such trivial happenings, not merely in the outer realm of fact but on the inner stage of character. And, this being his theme, perhaps Mr. Conrad ought to have been more scrupulously careful to use no such strained coincidence as Powell's detection of de Barral's attempt at revenge on his fancied enemy, Anthony. But this is indeed a slight defect in a work of brilliantly sustained imagination and superb craftsmanship. I wonder if the author's magic has so seduced my judgment as to make me feel that the somewhat shadowy characters of Captain Anthony and de Barral are deliberately suggested in fainter outline just because Marlow has in fact not known them personally, but only through the reports of others. I am prepared to believe the author of Typhoon subtle enough for that, or for anything else, and I have this only grudge against him, that he intrigued me to the point of feverishly "skipping," out of sheer excitement to know if and how the deplorable misunderstanding between Flora and her quixotic Captain Anthony was to be cleared up, just like any ordinary decent library-subscriber, instead of the case-hardened critical fellow I naturally take myself to be.
There are two things for which I have a special affection. One is an old friend who has often persuaded me that this world is rather a place for smiles than for gloom; and the other is a new book of stories which have life in them, which make their effect with a seemingly artless certainty and leave the pleased reader with the impression that they are, if anything, a shade or so too short. Both these things I have obtained in One Kind and Another (Secker), by Mr. Barry Pain. "The Journal of Aura Lovel," with which Mr. Pain leads off, is a delightful performance. It has freshness and charm and its sentiment seems to me to be exactly right—the sentiment of an eager and attractive young girl relating the feelings of her heart in the tenderest and prettiest style as far removed from preciosity as it is from a silly simplicity. All the stories have the essential merits of brightness and lightness, and most of them have that peculiar kind of ingenuity which is one of Mr. Pain's strong points. Suddenly they land you at a point which is nowhere near to that to which you thought you were travelling. The characters, even when they are engaged in paradoxical and preposterous actions, are real men and women, such as you could meet almost anywhere in a day's walk, and they are set off with Mr. Pain's fancy so as to become additionally lifelike. Many things have struck me in the reading of this book. One is that Mr. Pain's new novel is overdue. Another is that he has an uncanny familiarity with the ways of solicitors. "There is," he says, "no historical instance of a solicitor after the age of forty having made any change whatever in the manner of his clothing."
I will confess that it took a little time—say four chapters or so—for the peculiar charm of Simple Simon (Lane) to take hold upon me. It is not, I quite honestly think, that I object to being laughed at. Goodness knows we ordinary folk get enough of that nowadays at the hands of these clever young satiricals; and most of us have enough common honesty to appreciate our tormentors. It is that, just for a time, I was troubled with a genuine doubt whether Mr. A. Neil Lyons was not becoming too satirical to be sincere, and allowing his gift for facetiousness to betray him. The device of inventing a simple-minded young enthusiast, and making him ask perpetual questions to the undoing of all those who accept blindly the beliefs which Mr. Lyons is out to ridicule—well, there was nothing specially enlivening in that. Briefly, young Simon Honeyball in his parents' home threatened to weary me. But later, when he had migrated with his money and his extraordinary collection of protégés to Silverside, E., and there set up his preposterous household, and become a Guardian (with what devastating municipal results you may guess!) I found myself the grateful admirer of both Simon and his creator. Mr. Lyons' sympathetic drawing of certain odd London characters is a thing that I have often admired; he has no better portraits in his gallery than these of the quaint objects of Simon's Silverside hospitality. Specially did I like Margaret, the wholly ungrateful young woman whom he had befriended, and the trenchant speech with which she expressed her resulting opinion of his sagacity. She and others are also depicted in some very attractive drawings which illustrate (for once the right word) a book that, while perhaps not for every reader (parents please take note), will certainly delight those who can appreciate it.
Lean, clean, brown Englishmen bear the stamp of the Public Schools upon them and have made England what she is. Smug-faced missionaries grow fat on the spoils they have collected from smug-faced church-and-chapel-goers at home. Labour Members are in the pay of Germany and frequent infamous flats in the West-End. Liberal Cabinet Ministers—sometimes, more shame to them, of decent birth—wince consciously when reminded of the taint of their association with plebeian colleagues. These things, and many more of equal moment, I have learnt from Mr. Stanley Portal Hyatt, who in The Way of the Cardines (Werner Laurie) describes how Sir Gerald, of that famous family, captured, with reckless profusion of local blood, the independent island of Katu. Katu is in the Malay Archipelago. Of vital importance as a key to the Eastern trade route it is eagerly sought after by Germany, and to Germany's protection, after Sir Gerald's exploit, a pusillanimous and almost more than Liberal English Government basely ceded it. But what could you expect when Sir Joseph Darkin, smug-faced hypocrite (I am sorry, but almost everybody in this book except the Cardines had a smug face), was a member of our Cabinet? Were it not that Mr. Hyatt writes with a distinct sense of style and some power of narrative, I should boldly label The Way of the Cardines as one of the most amazingly humorous books I have read for a long time. In the circumstances my amusement was mingled with a certain amount of respectful sorrow. Sir Gerald Cardine took morphia tablets freely; on the essence of what strange herb Mr. Stanley Portal Hyatt had been browsing before he began to write The Way of the Cardines I simply dare not think. I should recommend readers to mitigate the crudity of his opinions, as I did, by softening the C of Sir Gerald's perpetually reiterated surname all through. The story sounds even more beautiful so. And I like to think that, when the hour of England's need comes, a Sir Pilchard of the historic house, and reared in some famous school, will not be found wanting.