Soldier (on leave from the trenches visiting the sights of London—before enlarged model of common flea). "Yes, that's it, father! That's the kind I was tellin' you about. But it ain't much of a specimen."
The name of the author of Youth Unconquerable (Heinemann) is given on the title-page as Percy Ross. But I would willingly take a small wager on the probability that this name conceals a feminine identity. For one thing, no mere man surely would attempt the task of depicting the sweet girl graduate in her native lair, often as the converse has been done. Certainly it is improbable that he would manage to convey such an impression of actuality. For I am sure the life of an Oxford ladies' college must be, for many, very much what it was for Cherry Hawthorn. But I am afraid this is about all that I can honestly say in praise of the story. Cherry was a young woman with red hair (it is bright vermilion in the ugly picture of her on the cover) and no fortune. Her late father had made her the joint ward of two young men, one an Italian prince, and one a semi-insane Welshman. Cherry accepted this provision with a promising placidity. She, and I, anticipated marriage with one or other of the guardians. But that was before we had seen them. The Italian turned out to be silly, while the Welshman recalled the gloomier imaginings of the Brontës, and in the event came by an appropriately violent end. However there was a third suitor, a Scotch Duke, so all was well. Perhaps the tale may have more success with others than with me. But I am bound to warn you that the style of it is a wild and wonderful thing. One is, for example, unprepared to find a gentleman's hat and stick referred to as "his extra-mural accoutrements." And this is no rare example. The whole thing, in fact, seems more suitable to a very popular magazine than to the dignity of that exclusive little windmill that forms the Heinemann hall-mark.
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