Mother. "I don't care for that little figure. He's too eighteenth-century for my taste."
Critical Little Girl (who has lately taken part in tableaux-vivants). "How can you tell what century he is, Mother? He's got no clothes on."
OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)
If sorrow's crown of sorrow is as the poet says, it should be equally true that there is enough satisfaction in remembering unhappier things to ensure success for The Crisis of the Naval War (Cassell), the large and dignified volume in which Admiral of the Fleet Viscount Jellicoe of Scapa, G.C.B., O.M., G.C.V.O., reminds us how near the German submarines came to triumph in 1917, and details the various ways by which their menace was overcome. It is a solid book, written with authority, and addressed rather to the expert than to the casual reader; but even the latter individual (the middle-aged home-worker, for instance, remembering the rationed plate of beans and rice that constituted his lunch in the Spring of 1917) can thrill now to read of the precautions this represented, and the multiform activities that kept that distasteful dish just sufficiently replenished. I have observed that Viscount Jellicoe avoids any approach to sensationalism. His book however contains a number of exceedingly interesting photographs of convoys at sea, smoke-screens, depth-charges exploding, and the like, which the most uninformed can appreciate. And in at least one feature of "counter-measures," the history of the decoy or mystery ships, the record is of such exalted and amazing heroism that not the strictest language of officialdom can lessen its power to stir the heart. Who, for example, could read the story of The Prize, and the involuntary tribute from the captured German commander that rounds it off, without a glow of gratitude and pride? Do you recall how we would attempt to stifle curiosity with the unsatisfactory formula, "We shall know some day"? Here in this authoritative volume is another corner of the curtain lifted.
Although he is still comparatively a newcomer, a book with the signature of Mr. Joseph Hergesheimer is already something of a landmark in the publishing season. To this repute Linda Condon (Heinemann) will certainly add. In many ways I incline to think it, or parts of it, the best work that this unusual artist has yet done. The development of Linda, in the hateful surroundings of an American "hotel-child," through her detached and observant youth to a womanhood austere, remote, inspired only by the worship of essential beauty, is told with an exquisite rightness of touch that is a continual delight. Mr. Hergesheimer has above all else the gift of suggesting atmosphere and colour (ought I not in mere gratitude to bring myself to say "color"?); his picture of Linda's amazing mother and the rest of the luxurious brainless company of her hotel existence has the exotic brilliance of the orchid-house, at once dazzling and repulsive. Later, in the course of her married life, inspiring and inspired by the sculptor Pleydon (in whose fate the curious may perhaps trace some echo of recent controversy), the story of Linda becomes inevitably less vivid, though its grasp of the reader's sympathy is never relaxed. In fine, a tale short as such go nowadays, but throughout of an arresting and memorable beauty. The state of modern American fiction has, if I may say so without offence, been for some time a cause of regret to the judicious; let Mr. Hergesheimer be resolute in refusing to lower his standard by over-production, and I look to see him leading a return towards the best traditions of an honourable past.
It is not an impossible conception that Sniping in France (Hutchinson) will still be available in libraries in the year 2020 a.d., and I can imagine the title then catching the eye of some enthusiastic sportsman, whose bent for game is stronger than his knowledge of history. Feeling that here is a new class of shooting for him to try his hand at, he will hasten to acquaint himself with the details and will discover that the first of the essentials is a European war in full blast. Whether or not he will see his way to arrange that for himself, I don't know and, since I shall not be present, I don't care. But in any case he will be absorbed in an eminently scientific and indeed romantic study of perhaps the most thrilling and deadly-earnest big game hunting there has ever been, and he will be left not a little impressed with the work of the author, Major H. Hesketh Prichard, D.S.O., M.C., his skill, energy and personality. As to this last he will find a brief summing-up in the foreword of General Lord Horne, and he will be able to visualise the whole "blunderbuss" very clearly by the help of the illustrations of Mr. Ernest Blaikley, of the late Lieut. B. Head, and of the camera. There is undoubtedly much controversial matter in the book, which must necessarily give rise to the most remarkable gun-room discussions. I can well imagine some stout-hearted Colonel, prompted by his love for the plain soldier-man and his rooted dislike of all "specialists," becoming very heated in the small hours of the morning about the paragraph on page 97, in which a division untrained in the Sniping Schools is in passing compared to a band of "careless and ignorant tourists."