(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)
Mr. Belloc can, I am sure, write entertainingly about any phase of the French Revolution on his head, and in The Last Days of the French Monarchy (Chapman and Hall) he has apparently done so. I cannot think it will add to his reputation. It will be something if it doesn't hurt it. He has taken a short story, and by a process of dextrous padding and the practice of a method, which is becoming an obsession with him, of going deep into the obvious with much industry and circumstance, he has contrived, with the addition of a number of plates—some of singular irrelevance—a fattish book. Even ignorant persons like this Learned Clerk are apt to be chagrined by being so obviously written down to. On the other hand, naturally, an author who knows his intriguing subject so well and drives so forceful a pen cannot fail to be interesting. The historian seems most concerned to prove, by his familiar and plausible method of going over the ground "in the same season, in the same weather, after the same rains, in the same mist," that the Prussian charge by Valmy Mill miscarried only because the infantry got bogged in marsh that looked like stubble. So now we know!
From the list of books already published by Mr. Cecil Headlam it is easy to see that he is by choice a topographer rather than a novelist. Indeed the fact is made sufficiently obvious to the reader of Red Screes (Smith, Elder). Its sub-title is A Romance of Lakeland, and so strongly developed is the place-spirit in its author that he is constantly breaking the rather tenuous thread of his story to introduce long descriptions of Cumberland scenery and people, and as this is most easily done by sending his chief characters for walks in the districts that Mr. Headlam wishes to talk about the result is that I seldom read a novel in which the protagonists were kept so sternly on the move. But I am far from saying that the result is not happy enough, especially for those readers who already know and love the neighbourhood that the author handles so well. As for the tale, that, as I have hinted, is nothing to keep you awake o' nights. There is a millionaire in it, with one daughter (whom he hates) and a very unpleasant secretary, who loves the daughter for her prospects and a country lass for her looks; and there is a great deal of the most unconvincing finance that ever I read, even in fiction. As for the secretary's end, it wouldn't be fair to give that away, as it is really the only point at which the plot quickens into sufficient vigour to hold its own with the setting. Mr. Headlam obviously both knows and loves the land of red screes; I am doubtful whether he is as much at home with the stock-manipulators of Wall Street or their emotional offspring. And I don't like his introduction of the second heroine—"The girl's head was bare, save for the crowning glory of womanhood." What I mean is, if it hadn't had that much covering——
The King's Men (Secker) are just our friends, yours and mine and Mr. John Palmer's, who have exchanged their tools and toys, their pens, wigs, brushes, books, spats and dreams for stars (one, two or three) and scars; all drawn into the Great Adventure which began on that 4th of August so many long years ago. Dilettante Pelham, prig and pacificist not from passion but from detachment, always so unbeatable in argument and always so wrong; sportsman Rivers, seeing simply and straight; crank Smith; comfortable Baddeley in his snug Government berth; poser Ponsonby, always doing the thing that's the thing to do; exquisite Graham, with his fair lodge in the wilderness—all hallowed by the great consecration. There are, too, the King's women and an unhappy necessary stay-at-home or two, and a big and rather crude contractor, who will be master in his own works. But the young men are the folk Mr. Palmer best understands and presents in turns of clever and vehement talk. I beg you to read this book for these good things and for a tender love of England which shines nobly between the lines of it.
Perhaps Fauvette, the heroine of The Green Orchard (Cassell), was too modern to have much acquaintance with the works of the late William Black. Which was a pity, as a recollection of A Daughter of Heth might have withheld her from her impulsive marriage with Martin Wilderspin, or from feeling so much like a gold-fish out of water when he took her away from Paris to share a life that was a dreary contrast to all her previous experience. In any case I cannot hold her blameless for the resulting shipwreck. A bride who comes down late for a most critical little dinner to her husband's family, and attires herself (see cover) like a circus-rider, simply is not giving matrimony a fair chance. Moreover I seem to observe that Mr. Andrew Soutar thinks this was rather sporting in his heroine. He certainly loads the dice in her favour, for, when the inevitable had happened and Martin and Fauvette had separated, the lady sought the consolations of literature and became (as heroines will) the sensation of the hour. Though The Green Orchard is a brisk easy-running tale fidelity to life is hardly its strong point. Of course it was not to be expected that Fauvette would escape being adored by Martin's best friend; the real touch of originality is the final reward of this kind gentleman. For my own part I certainly expected—but to tell you that would be to betray what doesn't happen. The whole affair is a pleasant respite from actuality: more, I fear, it would be impossible to say.
