HIS FIRST PATIENT.HIS FIRST PATIENT.Persia."THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR ADVICE."Dr. Curzon."NOT AT ALL. THANKYOUVERY MUCH FOR ASKING FOR IT."
Persia."THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR ADVICE."
Dr. Curzon."NOT AT ALL. THANKYOUVERY MUCH FOR ASKING FOR IT."
Monday, June 14th.—As an Ulster Member, Mr.Lindsayprotested against the availability of return-tickets between Ireland and England having been reduced from six months to two. SirEric Geddesexplained that the change had been made to stop the illicit traffic in return-halves, though he hastened to disclaim any suggestion that Members of Parliament were concerned in it. The grievance is probably not of large dimensions. It is difficult to understand why anyone leaving Ireland in these days should want to go back there.
ThePrime Ministerdid not seem to favour the suggestion, pressed upon him from many quarters, that the Government should cause an estimate to be made of the national income, and then limit public expenditure to a definite proportion of that amount. A private person may cut his coat according to his cloth, but the Government, he argued, is unfortunately obliged by circumstances to reverse the process. Even so the taxpayer may be forgiven for thinking that the State costume still bears some superfluous trimmings.
When economy is proposed, however, it is not always popular. SirJohn Butcher, in protesting against the Government's proposal to sell theBrussels, the late CaptainFryatt'sship, was expressing a wide-spread feeling. But ColonelLeslie Wilsondisarmed criticism by pointing out that if all British vessels with heroic associations were to be kept as exhibition-ships a large proportion of the British mercantile marine would be laid idle.
A few years ago the General Manager of one of the English railways—the late SirGeorge Findlay, I think—declared that he could look after the whole of the Irish railways and have three days a week left for fishing. Nowadays, I suppose, the Irish lines are not laid in such pleasant places. At any rate the best part of two days has been occupied in deciding whether in the new scheme for the government of Ireland they should be administered by the Central Council or the two Parliaments, and under the compromise eventually reached they will be more or less subject to all three authorities.
The debate was chiefly remarkable for the evidence it provided that the Ulstermen are developing into the strongest of Home Rulers—almost Sinn Feiners, according to one of their critics—where their own province is concerned.
THE BUTTON EXPERT.THE BUTTON EXPERT."About twenty minutes, and I speak from experience."—MrBilling.
"About twenty minutes, and I speak from experience."—MrBilling.
Tuesday, June 15th.—Mr.Churchillhad again to withstand attacks upon his Army uniform proposals, this time on the ground that the reversion to scarlet and pipeclay would entail extra labour and expense upon the private soldier. His confidence that Mr. Atkins would not grudge the short time spent on cleaning his full dress, so closely bound up with regimental traditions, was endorsed by Mr.Billing, who said, "The time occupied is about twenty minutes, and I speak from experience."
A statement that the issue of bagpipes to certain Irish regiments was under consideration brought protests from Scottish Members, who evidently thought that their own national warriors should have a monopoly of this form of frightfulness. But Mr.Churchillpointed out that the Irish Guards were already provided with bagpipes, and Lt.-CommanderKenworthyhorrified the Scots by declaring that the pipes were not an indigenous product of their country, but had been imported from Ireland many centuries ago.
Further progress was made with the Government of Ireland Bill. A proposal to strengthen the representation of the minority in the Southern Parliament was sympathetically received by Mr.Long, who thought, however, that the Government had a better method. As that consists in a proposal to exact the oath of allegiance from every candidate for election and to give theKingin Council power to dissolve any Parliament in which more than half the members have not taken the oath, it is sufficiently drastic. Having regard to the present disposition of the Sinn Feiners there seems to be mighty little prospect of a Parliament in Dublin before the date known in Ireland as "Tib's Eve."
Wednesday, June 16th.—In both Houses Addresses were moved praying His Majesty to appoint two additional Judges of the King's Bench Division. The motions met with some opposition, principally on the score of economy, and it was suggested that no additions to the Bench would be required if the existing Judges resumed the old practice of sitting on Saturdays. This drew from theLord Chancellorthe interesting information that the Judges devoted their Saturdays to reading "the very lengthy papers that were contained in their weeklydossier." It is no doubt the great length of these documents that accounts for the peculiar shape of the bag that Mr. Justice ——'s attendant was carrying when I met him at Sandwich a few Saturdays ago.
LordBirkenheadsoothed the economists by pointing out that the new Judges would probably more than earn their salaries of five thousand pounds a year. In accordance with the prevailing tendency court-fees are to be raised, and at Temple Bar as in Savile Row our suits will cost us more.
MR. ASQUITH IS DEEPLY STIRRED.MR. ASQUITH IS DEEPLY STIRRED.
Until ColonelLeslie Wilsonmoved the Second Reading of the Nauru Island Agreement Bill I don't suppose a dozen Members of the House of Commons had ever heard of this tiny excrescence in the Western Pacific with its wonderful phosphate deposits. Captured from the Germans during the War, it is now the charge of the British Empire, and the object of the Bill was to confirm an arrangement by which the deposits should be primarily reserved for the agriculturists of Australasia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. It produceda debate of extraordinary ferocity. Young Tories like Mr.Ormsby-Gorevied with old Liberals like Mr.Asquith(on whom the phosphates, plus the Louth election, had a wonderfully tonic effect) in denouncing the iniquity of an arrangement by which (as they said) the principles of the League of Nations were being thrown over, and this country was revealed as a greedy monopolist. Thus assailed both by friend and foe Mr.Bonar Lawrequired all his cool suavity to bring the House back to a sense of proportion, and to convince it that in securing a supply of manure for British farmers the Government were not committing a crime against the comity of nations.
Answering questions for the Irish Government in these days is rather a melancholy business, but theAttorney-GeneralforIrelandresembles Dr.Johnson'sfriend, in that "cheerfulness will keep breaking in." Thus he excused the Government's non-interference with the Sinn Fein "courts," whose writ now runs over half Ireland, on the ground that for all he knew they might be voluntary courts of arbitration; and when MajorO'Neillexpressed the hope that he would at least take steps to protect the British public from the criminals "transported" by sentence of these mysterious tribunals he blithely disclaimed responsibility, and said he was quite content that they should be out of Ireland.
Considering the counter-attraction of the Ascot Gold Cup, Mr.Balfourhad a surprisingly numerous audience for his discourse on the League of Nations. His enumeration and analysis of the League's various enemies were in his happiest vein of philosophical humour. His conclusion was that the League had much less to fear from its avowed foes than from its fanatical friends, who were already attempting to put upon it tasks for which it was unfitted, and even to supply it with an International Police Force. Its proper weapons were not armies and aircraft, but Delay and Publicity.
This formula, so reminiscent of Wait and See, did not prevent Mr.Asquithfrom hinting in the politest manner that the League was not likely to prevent the wars of the future unless it made some effort to stop those now in progress.
Nephew (after several hair's-breadth escapes).Nephew(after several hair's-breadth escapes). "Not feeling nervous, are you, Auntie?"Aunt."I am, rather. You see, this is only my third experience of a motor-cycle."Nephew."Well, you've beat me; it's only my first."
Nephew(after several hair's-breadth escapes). "Not feeling nervous, are you, Auntie?"
Aunt."I am, rather. You see, this is only my third experience of a motor-cycle."
Nephew."Well, you've beat me; it's only my first."
I don't think I have ever read a short story about a film, so I have made one up myself.
I don't think I have ever read a short story about a film, so I have made one up myself.
Viviana Smith was born in Battersea. At twelve years old she ran about the streets with holes in her stockings and played a complicated game with chalk squares and a stone. She had the accent of London streets, which is the only accent that can pierce through the noise of London traffic. But she had hair the colour of marsh-marigolds, a Vorticist mouth and patent enlargeable eyes. In the street she made eyes at errand-boys, and at school she made eyes so large that there was no room to dot them.
At the age of seventeen she went in for the Purple Pomegranate film competition, and was selected from five hundred thousand candidates to be a motion-picture star. She starred some. At the beginning she played in romantic comedy films with woodland scenery and rustic bridges and pools where she tickled for trout. She tickled so well that one could almost hear the troutlaugh. Later she played in "crook" melodrama, where somebody was always peeping through the door when the secret patent was being taken out of the office safe, and where men always kept arriving in motor-cars and going up flights of steps with their faces turned to the audience and going down flights of steps with their faces turned to the audience and getting into motor-cars again. They never missed a step. There is something about this feat which holds a cinema audience spellbound.
Later she rode on untamed mustangs and fell over cliffs gagged and bound, and sometimes she was even promoted to slide or twirl into a bakehouse and tumble with a talented cast of actors and actresses into a large trough of dough. When they had wiped the dough off they all came back into the bakehouse one after another and tumbled into the dough-trough again. Repetition is the soul of wit.
One day Viviana met Ignatius Vavasour, the poet. For two years he had worshipped her afar on the screen. He had seen her in so many reels that she made him giddy. He had seen her inYouth's Yodelling May-tide Hour, length five reels, and inHate's Hideous Hand of Crime, length six reels, and inGertie Flips the Flap-jack over, length seven reels and a half. He had never heard her speak, but he had seen her beautiful lips ripple into a thousand artless expressions of grief and joy. He did not know whether he loved her most when she was tripping through a silvan glade, with meadow-sweet in her hand, or when she was gliding gracefully over Niagara Falls in a tar-barrel; when she was cracking the door of a strong room with a jemmy or when she was getting the dough out of her hair with a rake. But as soon as he had seen her out of the pictures he knew that he loved her best as she was. He knew that he could not live without her. He told her so.
"But, Mr. Vavasour," she protested.
"Call me Iggie," he cried.
"But you have only known me such a short time," she said. "You have seen me, you say, a hundred times on the films, and I daresay you admired me immensely, but tell me this, Iggie, Is it my real character that you love?"
"No, no! A thousand times no!" he exclaimed.
"Then I cannot marry you," she answered coldly, turning away.
Crushed with disappointment Ignatius staggered from the room. He had no thought for poetry now, but wandered feverishly about the streets, searching for some mad excitement to stifle his despair. He played billiards andvingt-et-un. He took to drugs and to drink. He even had thoughts of standing for Parliament. But he soon found that the sorrow, gnawing at his heart was one that politics could never assuage nor alcohol drown, not at least at the present price of green Chartreuse.
One day as he slouched miserably along the pavement he saw the advertisement of a lecture outside the door of an institute. "The Ideal in Philosophy and Art," said the placard; and, scarcely knowing what he did, Ignatius went in. But the lecturer had barely begun to expound his theme, which he did in the following forcible words: "The categorical subjectivity of all intuitive apperceptions of the ideal"—when a wild light flashed in the poet's eyes and he started from his seat and rushed madly from the room. The lecturer wondered mildly what had happened, but blinked and went on. What had happened was that Ignatius Vavasour was pounding like a prize American trotter to the nearest telephone box.
"Viviana," he cried an hour later, when he had got through, "you remember what you said the day we met? Is it your real character that I love? And I said 'No.'"
"Yes, Iggie," she said with a catch in her voice.
"Did you mean Rabbits, Eggs, Eggs, Lloyd, or Babbits, Eggs, Albatross, Lloyd?"
"Albatross," she moaned.
"Well, it is. I mean, I do," he cried.
"Viviana, will you marry me?"
"Sure, Iggie," she answered softly. "Good-bye."
And now that I have written this story I am going to get it filmed.
And now that I have written this story I am going to get it filmed.
Evoe.
Oh, yuss, they're very grand now. They dine late and low."Oh, yuss, they're very grand now. They dine late and low."
"Oh, yuss, they're very grand now. They dine late and low."
"Could we gather grapes from thorns or pigs from thistles?"—Report of Lecture delivered by the Astronomer-Royal of Scotland.
"Could we gather grapes from thorns or pigs from thistles?"—Report of Lecture delivered by the Astronomer-Royal of Scotland.
As far as English thistles are concerned (we cannot speak for Scotland) the answer is in the negative.
When the club secretary first wrote and told me that it was proposed to acquire two pictures (one Naval and one Military), which were to hang in the club as worthy reminders of the Great War to future generations—when he wrote and told me this, and suggested (apparently as an afterthought) that a cheque from me would further the project, I was content to keep the matter in view.
When he wrote, some months later, and told it me all over again, accompanying the afterthought on this occasion with a printed subscription form, I took the trouble to reply, letting him know that I was keeping the matter in view.
When he wrote a third time, affording me a glimpse of the guileless faith he had in me, I felt genuinely sorry for the poor chap.
He said there were many possible reasons to account for the non-arrival of my cheque. I might, for example, be abroad, somewhere out of reach of postal facilities, or perhaps the cheque had been lost in the post. Of one thing only he was sure—there had been no parsimonious intent on my part.
I was able in some sort to relieve his mind of anxiety by mentioning that I was still a resident at the address in Cheshire under which I last wrote to him. I even assured him that, so long as my tailor did not forsake his present attitude of friendly remonstrance, it was improbable that I should proceed abroad. Nor had I as yet any reason to suspect that great public institution, the post. The fact was that I still had the matter in view.
As regards the pictures, I said that I had a friend who was in love with the daughter of an A.R.A., and who, in telling me about a financial controversy between himself and his prospective father-in-law, had let slip the information that a slump in artists' prices was imminent. In view of this I suggested that the agreement with the artists commissioned by the club should for the present be a verbal one and elastic in its wording.
In the last part of my letter I reviewed the history of my own connection with the club, covering a period of five years. I recalled the epoch-making day when I received my first letter from Mr. Secretary—a letter acquainting me of the fact that I was a full-blown member—all but, at least. What was thirty guineas? And each year since then, I reminded him, I had disbursed a further ten guineas without a murmur.
On the other side of the account I showed in tabulated form all the change the club had given back:
I pleaded a moral right to dispose of the balance. I suggested that seventy-three pounds nine shillings and twopence three-farthings (waiving the question of interest) might be sufficient to buy a third War picture, the interior of a Government office during the tea-hour, or something of that sort. I begged that he would lay the matter before the Committee.
I am not very hopeful about my letter. Probably he has spent that seventy-three pounds odd already on stationery and postage-stamps.
I think that, if it finds its way into print, I may send him half the proceeds of this article. No harm in keeping the matter in view, at all events.
A certain amount of dissatisfaction has been expressed with the Negro Rhapsody by Mr.John Powell, performed by the New York Symphony Orchestra, at their concert last week. According to the analytical programme the composer has soughtinter aliato depict "the degenerative frenzy of a Voodoo orgy" and "the physical impulses of the adult human animal," culminating in "a flood of primal sensualism." Yet, if the Press is to be believed, the performance fell lamentably short in the epileptic quality so finely displayed by many of the coloured Jazz-band players now in London. None of the audience had to be removed;The Morning Postonly speaks of the "becoming picturesqueness of design" of the Rhapsody; whileThe Times'critic did not care much for it because it took too long to get to business, and adds that he was not very sure what its business exactly was. This, in view of the extremely explicit statement of the composer's aim given in the programme, seems to us most unjust.
Here is a gifted composer with high and serious aims—for what could be more instructive or spiritual than a musical rendering of "the degenerative frenzy of a Voodoo orgy"?—and the musical critics either evade the issue by talking vaguely of picturesqueness or deny that he means business. Verily the lot of the composer is hard. Quite recently I heard of a native British symphonist who had composed a remarkable orchestral Fantasy dealing with the psychology of members of the N.U.R. engaged in the railway transport of fish and milk. I have not heard the music, because unfortunately it has not yet been performed, but I have read the programme, and nothing more stimulating can be imagined than the final section, in which a terrific cannonade of milk-cans is combined with a marvellous explosion of objurgation from the fish-porters on strike. Yet if it were to be performedThe Morning Postwould probably dismiss it with a few polysyllabic platitudes andThe Timesaffect ignorance of what it was all about!
In view of the misconceptions and misinterpretations to which serious composers are subject, we are not surprised to hear that a society has been formed for the purpose of giving "silent auditions" of modern masterpieces. No orchestra nor any instrument will be employed, but each member of the audience will be provided with a full score. The first hour will be devoted to the study of the music; the audience will then write down their impressions for half-an-hour; subsequently the composer will expound his aims from the platform; and the price of admission will be returned to the student whose impressions accord most closely with the composer's "programme." In this way the cost of concert-giving will be considerably reduced, and it is also hoped that the consumption of sedative tablets, which has reached formidable dimensions amongst frequenters of symphonic concerts, will be rendered unnecessary.
Our only criticism of this admirable scheme is this—that the number of amateurs who can read a modern full-score at sight is still somewhat limited. The view that "heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter" might be quoted in support of "silent auditions" were it not for the unfortunate fact thatKeats, who expressed it, is now completely out of fashion with our emancipated Georgians. But the broad fact remains that the forces of reaction are by no means crushed. The Handel Festival has been revived at the Crystal Palace; and Handel-worship is anathema to the Modernist, as redolent of roast-beef, middle-class respectability and religious orthodoxy. Only recently a brilliant writer compared his oratorios to mothers'-meetings. The revival of these explosions of pietistic jumbomania is indeed a sad set-back to those ardent reformers who seek to elevate and purify public taste by the musical delineation of "the degenerative frenzy of a Voodoo orgy."
I want to talk to you about insurance."I want to talk to you about insurance.
I won't keep you a momentI won't keep you a moment
Have a cigar?Have a cigar?
Now what provision are you makingNow what provision are you making for the future?
Think of your little ones.Think of your little ones.
You are a healthy man, but----You are a healthy man, but——
You may fall ill----You may fall ill——
Or the worst might----Or the worst might——
Sign here.Sign here."
This is a play about a Northampton shoe-manufacturer of Scottish nationality. There is, of course, nothing quite like leather, and I can well believe that the lucrative properties of the boot trade (notwithstanding its alleged association with atheistic principles) must at one time or other have attracted this prehensile race; yet I doubt if Northampton, home of the cobbling industry, ever encouraged a Scot to penetrate its preserves. Mr.Louis Anspacher, who wrote the play, may have some inside knowledge denied to me, though his name does not vividly indicate a Scots origin; but it is certain, if hisWallace Craigiereally came from over the border, that he was no true Scot, for his dialect showed obvious traces of Sassenach pollution.
I have a mind that moves slowly and I hate to be hustled at the opening of a play. I hate an author to plunge me into a whirl of movement and a medley of characters as if he assumed that I was intimate with circumstances known only to himself and his cast. I want to be told, very quietly, where I am, and if he does not tell me I become peevish. But, even if I hadn't been put off at the start, I don't think my sympathies would ever have been very deeply engaged. I soon saw that, whatever happened to anybody, I should easily bear up. Mr.Louis Calvertdid all that was humanly possible to correct my indifference, but hisDaddalums(as you might gather from such a name) was not one of those heroic figures whose struggles against the perversity of fate are apt to melt even the cold hearts of the gods (Olympian). This old cobbler, suddenly grown rich, whose one ambition was to make his son "Tammas" a gentleman (as he understood the term), at any cost to the boy's soul, was asking for trouble from the beginning. And when he got it I was far less sorry for the old fool than I was pleased at the chances which this turn of fortune gave to the versatility of Mr.Calvert.
But the interest of the play lies not so much in the plot—worked out mechanically, with one or two saving touches of ingenuity, to a conventional conclusion—as in the character of this lovable old boot-maker, whose single aim in life was to give his son the best that money could buy. His heart, I think, began by being fairly large, but got contracted through specialising in this passion. Snobbery is alien to his nature, but he becomes a snob forTammas'ssake. Stubborn and domineering with others, he is as putty in the boy's hands. He has no use for his other child—a girl. She, like himself, must be sacrificed if it suits the young gentleman—as it did.
I won't say that any very nice psychological subtlety was needed for the portrayal of a character whose ruling motive was so clearly advertised, but it had its lights and shadows, responsive to changing conditions, and Mr.Calvertwas quick to seize them all.
The boy's part was too unsympathetic to be played easily. But he had one saving virtue; he never practised his snobbery on the old man who encouraged it. He still called him "Daddalums," and that, I take it, was what the papers would call an "acid test" of his piety. As his fortunes declined Mr.Listerrose to the occasion. The tighter the corner the better he coped with it.
Mr.Hendrie'sFergus McLarnie, whose people must have migrated to Northampton from the neighbourhood of Thrums, was an admirable crony; but he insisted too much and too deliberately on a Scottish accent that made for obscurity. In a broader vein MissAgnes Thomasplayed the part ofEllen, the Maid(another Scot), with a humour which even an Englishman (like myself) found no difficulty in appreciating. MissEdyth Olive, as the hero's neglected daughter, acted with a very nice self-repression, which was all that could be expected of her rather colourless part.
The first-night audience was very warm in its appreciation. Yet I must doubt whether a play that is chiefly concerned with the highly-developed paternity of a boot-manufacturer will make a very poignant appeal to the sentiment of the public.
For one thing they may find the love-interest too sketchy. Of the boy's two fiancées one was impossible, and the other (Rose) just a perfunctory phantom that flitted vaguely from time to time across the stage. She must have known it was a play of father and son, where girls didn't really count. PoorRose, so unassertive! How modestly she kept herself in the background in that last scene whereTammas, having "dreed his weird" (as they would say in Northampton) and redeemed his past, comes back from Canada, flings himself into his father's arms, remains there listening to a sustained exposition of parental loyalty, and only after a considerable interval remarks the presence of his future wife. She took it very well, but if I know anything of the British public it won't be so easily pleased.
O. S.
SCOTS WHA HAVER.SCOTS WHA HAVER.Wallace Craigie. . . . . .Mr. Louis Calvert.Fergus McLarnie. . . . . .Mr. Ernest Hendrie.
Wallace Craigie. . . . . .Mr. Louis Calvert.
Fergus McLarnie. . . . . .Mr. Ernest Hendrie.
A Matinée in aid of the Housing Association for Officers' Families, of which theQueenis a Patron, will be held at the Winter Garden Theatre on Thursday, June 24th, at 2.30P.M.The programme includes a Mime play, for which Mr.Eugéne Goossenswill conduct Mr.Arthur Clarke Jervoise'smusic. Mrs.Christopher Lowther, who appears in the play, is also arranging "An Elizabeth Episode," in which theStuart-WilsonSextette will sing.
"Wanted, Lad, about 14 or 15, for telephone. Good wages; good opportunity to learn confectionery."—Local Paper.
"Wanted, Lad, about 14 or 15, for telephone. Good wages; good opportunity to learn confectionery."—Local Paper.
We often wondered how these telephonists occupy their time.
"Shop Window Wanted within stone's throw of Brook Street and Bond Street."
"Shop Window Wanted within stone's throw of Brook Street and Bond Street."
Daily Paper.
With so many Bolshevists about we think the advertiser should have used a less provocative phrase.
Tommy. 'That's the sort of dog I'm havin'Tommy."That's the sort of dog I'm havin'."Nurse."Tommy, you're forgetting the 'g' again."Tommy."Gee! That's the sort of dog I'm havin'."
Tommy."That's the sort of dog I'm havin'."
Nurse."Tommy, you're forgetting the 'g' again."
Tommy."Gee! That's the sort of dog I'm havin'."
The Secret Corps(Murray) is the title of a book on espionage, before and especially during the War, every page of which I have read with the greatest possible entertainment—the greatest possible, that is, for anyone at home. To get the real maximum out of CaptainFerdinand Tuchy'sastonishing anecdotes one would, I suppose, need to be under a table in Berlin while they were being perused by the ex-chiefs of Intelligence on the other side. It is a book so stuffed with good stories and revealed (or partly revealed) mysteries that I should require pages of quotation to do it anything like justice. It can certainly be claimed for CaptainTuchythat he writes of what he himself knows at first hand, and that his knowledge, like that of another expert, is both extensive and peculiar, gleaned as it was from personal service in Russia, Poland, Austria, Belgium, France, England, Italy, Salonica, Palestine, Mesopotamia and several neutral States. Still, absorbing as his book is, it suffers perhaps from being what its publishers call "the first authentic and detailed record." One feels now and then that posterity (which gets all the good things) may score again in the revelation of yet more amazing details for which the hour is not yet. Meanwhile, here to go on with is a fund of thrilling information that will not only hold your delighted interest, but (if you make haste before it becomes too widely known) ensure your popularity as a remunerative diner-out.
One after Another(Hutchinson), by Mr.Stacy Aumonier, is a tale of social progress: of the steps—I imagine this is where the name justifies itself—by which the son and daughter of a Camden Town publican rise to higher or at least more brilliant things. You might suppose this plan to promise comedy, but the fact is otherwise. Really it is an angry book, and though there is laughter in places it is mostly angry laughter, with a sting in it. Somehow, whether speaking in his own person or through the voice of his hero, Mr.Aumoniergives me here (perhaps unjustly) the impression of having a grievance against life. Yet it cannot be said thatTomandLaura Purbeckfound their climb from Camden Town unduly arduous, since in a comparatively short time one has made a position and pots of money as a fashionable house-decorator, and the other is a famous concert star and the wife of a marquis. I think my impression of unamiability must be derived from the fact that the entire cast contains not one really sympathetic character. OldPurbeck, who ruled his bar like an autocrat and believed in honest alcohol (and fortunately for himself died some years ago), comes nearest to it.Laura, of whom the author gives us spasmodic glimpses, is vividly interesting, but repellent.Tom, the protagonist, I found frankly dull. Perhaps I have dwelt overmuch on defects. Certainly the story held my attention throughout, even after my-disappointment at finding nobody to like in it.
A lot of diaries make very poor reading, because people who are conscientious enough to keep them at all keep themconscientiously and fill them with nothing but facts. Mr.Maurice Baringof course has no empty scruples of this kind, andR.F.C. H.Q. 1914-1918(Bell and Sons), though it has plenty of statistics in it and technical details as well, is in the main a delightful jumble of stunts and talks and quotations from Mr.Maurice Baringand other people, culinary details, troubles about chilblains and wasp-bites, and here and there an excellently written memoir of some friend who fell fighting. The main historical fact is, of course, that our airmen from small beginnings reached a complete ascendancy at the end of 1916, and then suffered a set-back, reaching their own again when the mastery of the Fokker was overcome. The author himself wasliaisonofficer and interpreter at H.Q., and stuck to GeneralTrenchardthroughout, although he was urgently requested to go to Russia. Scores of eminent people make brief appearances in his book, and the following is a fair sample of his method:—"January 3rd, 1917.—An Army Commanders' Conference took place at Rollencourt. My indiarubber sponge was eaten by rats." Happily his diary escaped.
Lieut.-ColonelJohn Buchan, in his now familiarrôleof the serious historian, has been officially commissioned to tell a tale more thrilling in heroisms, if perhaps a trifle less madcap, than anything his unofficial imagination has given us. His latest volume,The South African Forces in France(Nelson), though naturally it does not break much new ground, still contains a good deal that was well worth sifting from the mass of war history and is written with a vigour that could not be excelled. The proudest claims of the South Africans are, it seems, that they finished "further East" when the cease-fire sounded (I wonder if this will go unchallenged), that they were three times practically exterminated, and that they were the most modest unit in the field—the author of course being solely responsible for letting us know this last. Their terrible fights, not only at Delville Wood, but even more at Marrière Wood and Messines, are beyond question amongst the greatest feats of arms of the War, and on the last two occasions their stand in the face of odds went far to save the Allied cause in the black months of 1918. Since, as the author joyously notes, Dutch and English elements in the South African forces lived and died on the field like brothers, we may all agree with him, politics or no politics, that there has been something fundamentally right for once about the Empire's treatment of their country. This alone would give the book importance and interest outside the Southern dominions to which it is first addressed. In Capetown and Pretoria it will bethehistory of the War.
InJohn Bull, Junior(Methuen) Mr.F. Wren Childsets out to record the difficulties which a "home-trained boy encounters at a public school." Whether his picture of school-life as it was some years ago is true or not, it is unlikely that there will be keen competition among public schools to claim the original ofSt. Lucian's; and I do not think that tender-hearted mothers need fear that their own children will be beset by the temptations whichBranthad to encounter, for in his hectic career he was unfortunate enough to have card-sharpers, whisky-drinkers and other unusual types of boyhood among his fellow-pupils, and with such company it is not to be wondered at that he was more often in than out of trouble. But, since he helped to solve the mystery which was perplexingSt. Lucian's, it would seem that whatever happened to his soul he contrived to keep his head. Boys with a taste for amateur detective work might derive enjoyment from this tale, and to them I recommend it.
The Novice. 'I am a little absent-minded,...'The Novice."I am a little absent-minded, so you must give me a shout if I prove to be a winner."
The Novice."I am a little absent-minded, so you must give me a shout if I prove to be a winner."
Stephen Manaton, heir to great possessions, found that his wealth and worldly position were slipping away from him, but as compensation against his losses he had the supreme satisfaction of discovering that the girl of his choice loved him solely for himself. So with the best will in the world I could not shed tears overThe Manaton Disaster(Heath Cranton), though I admit that MissPhillippa Tylerdoes her strenuous best to set my sympathy in motion. Possibly she tries a shade too hard, and in future I hope that she will cut shorter—or even cut out completely—the soliloquies of her heroes. MissTylerhas the dramatic sense, and an author who can write over a hundred-and-fifty words without a full-stop is not to be thwarted by trifles; but she dissipates her forces and fails to reach the catastrophic climax at which she apparently aimed.
The ways of the humorist are hard indeed, and it must be particularly exasperating, even if you are a clergyman, to be told by some disgruntled reviewer, as "George A. Birmingham" must, I am afraid, here be told, that his latest,Good Conduct(Murray), is not up to standard.Virginia Tempest, the tomboy, the extremely unworthy recipient of the good conduct prize atMiss Merridew'sacademy, has her points, but her pranks are played with or against such dull folk: an editor and assistant editor for whom I blush; an emporium owner who is kinder and wealthier and stupider than he is diverting; an assistant schoolmistress, a surgeon, a Futurist-painter, a bishop. None of these worthy people commands my respect or laughter. The high spirits seem not entirely genuine. A casual lapse into Brummagem, I take it.
"Wanted, for 3 months, nice Bedroom and small paddock for pony.""Six Acres Freehold Land, with Two Cottages, near Southampton; suitable pigs and poultry."
"Wanted, for 3 months, nice Bedroom and small paddock for pony."
"Six Acres Freehold Land, with Two Cottages, near Southampton; suitable pigs and poultry."
Provincial Paper.
With bedrooms for ponies and cottages for pigs, what chance has a human of getting housed?