There was at first a little danger of my being put off Fruit of Earth (METHUEN) by the uneasy manner of its opening chapters and a style that it is permissible to call distinctly "fruity." Thus on page 5 J. MILLS WHITHAM is found writing about "an astonishment that nearly smudged the last spark of vitality from a hunger-bitten author," and a good deal more in the same style. But I am glad to say that the tale subsequently pulls itself together, and, despite some occasional high-falutin, becomes an interesting and human affair. It is a story of country life, the main theme of which is a twofold jealousy, that of the chronic invalid, Mrs. Linsell, towards the girl Mary, whom she rightly suspects of displacing her in the thoughts of Inglebury; and that of Amos, who marries Mary, towards Inglebury, whom he rightly suspects of occupying too much room in the reflections of his wife. In other words, the simple life at its most suspicious, with the rude forefathers of the hamlet supplying a scandalous chorus. The strongest part of the story is the tragedy, suggested with a poignancy almost too vivid, of the wretched elder woman, tortured in mind and body, morbidly aware of the contrast between her own decay and the vitality of her rival. As to Inglebury and Mary, the causes of all the pother, they struck me as conspicuously unworth so much fussing over; and, when their final flight together landed them—well, where it did, I could only feel that the neighbourhood was to be congratulated. But, as you see, I had by this time become unwillingly interested. So there you have it; an unequal book, about people unattractive but alive.
When the literary Roll of Honour of all the belligerents comes to be considered quietly, in the steady light of Peace, not many names will stand higher in any country than that of our English writer, HECTOR HUGH MUNRO, whose subtle and witty satires, stories and fantasies were put forth under the pseudonym "SAKI." I have but to name The Chronicles of Clovis for discriminating readers to know what their loss was when MUNRO (who, although over age, had enlisted as a private and refused a commission) fell fighting in the Beaumont-Hamel action in November 1916. Mr. JOHN LANE has brought out, under the title The Toys of Peace, a last collection of "SAKI'S" fugitive works, with a sympathetic but all too brief memoir by Mr. ROTHAY REYNOLDS. Although "SAKI" is only occasionally at his very best in this volume—on the grim side, in "The Interlopers," and in his more familiar irresponsible and high-spirited way in "A Bread-and-Butter Miss" and "The Seven Cream Jugs;" although there may be no masterpiece of fun or raillery to put beside, say, "Esmé;" there is in every story a phrase or fancy marked by his own inimitable felicity, audacity or humour. It is good news that a complete uniform edition of his books is in preparation.
I can't help feeling that ISABEL ECCLESTONE MACKAY'S chief aim in Up the Hill and Over (HURST AND BLAOKETT) was to write a convincing tract for the times on a subject which is achieving unhappy prominence in America as in our own police-courts. A worthy aim, I doubt not. One of the chief characters is a drug-taker; and as if that were not enough another is "out of her head," while a third, Dr. Callandar, the Montreal specialist, is in the throes of a nervous breakdown. This seems to me to be distinctly overdoing it. It is the doctor's love-story (a story so complicated that I cannot attempt a précis) which is the designedly central but actually subordinate theme. I have the absurd idea that this might really have begun life as a pathological thesis and suffered conversion into a novel. The author has no conscience in the matter of the employment of the much-abused device of coincidence. And I don't think the story would cure anyone of drug-taking. On the contrary.
The Three Black Pennys (HEINEMANN) is a story that began by perplexing and ended by making a complete conquest of me. Its author, Mr. JOSEPH HERGESHEIMER, is, I think, new to this side of the Atlantic; the publishers tell me (and, to prevent any natural misapprehension, I pass on the information at once) that he belongs to "a Pennsylvania Dutch family, settled for many generations in Philadelphia." Which being so, one can enjoy his work with a free conscience. It certainly seems to me very unusual in quality. The theme of the tale is the history of the Penny family, or rather of the periodical outcrop in it of a certain strain that produces Pennys dark of countenance and incalculable of conduct. This recurrence is shown in three examples: the first, Howart Penny, in the days when men wore powder and the Penny forge had just been started in what was then a British colony; the next, Jasper, involved in a murder trial in the sixties; and; last of the black Pennys, another Howart, in whom the family energy has thinned to a dilettante appreciation of the arts, dying alone amongst his collections. You can see from this outline that the book is incidentally liable to confound the skipper, who may find himself confronted with (apparently) the same character tying a periwig on one page and hiring a taxi on another. I am mistaken though if you will feel inclined to skip a single page of a novel at once so original and well-told. As a detail of criticism I had the feeling that the "blackness" of the Penny exceptions would have shown up better had we seen more of the family in its ordinary rule; but of the power behind Mr. HERGESHEIMER'S work there can be no question. He is, I am sure, an artist upon a quite unusual scale, from whom great things may be anticipated.
If neither book of short stories before me is what Americans call "the goods," I can, at any rate, say that Ancient Mariners (MILLS AND BOON) does infinite credit to Mr. MORLEY ROBERTS'S imagination. These yarns of seafaring men are salt with the savour of the sea and with the language thereof. Of the seven my favourite is "Potter's Plan," which not only contains the qualities to be found in the other half-dozen, but also has an ingenuity all its own. But perhaps you will prefer "A Bay Dog-Watch," as coming home to the general bosom, for it deals with a ferocious hunt after matches which recalls the deadly days of the shortage. Of the five stories in Mr. WARWICK DEEPING'S Countess Glika (CASSELL) the best is "Bitter Silence." Here the author deals with essentials, and gives us a tale entirely free from artificiality. The remaining stories are marred by their lack of naturalness; but Mr. DEEPING is never at a loss for incident, and he can write dialogue which is often gay and sometimes witty.