In a book store."HERE'S ONE I'M SURE YOU'LL LIKE, TREVOR.""WHAT IS IT?""ROBINSON CRUSOE.""IN WHAT LANGUAGE?"
Just as one may say of certain novelists that they write at the top of their voices, so, I think, one might describe Miss VIOLA MEYNELL as writing in a whisper. This certainly is the effect thatModern Lovers(SECKER) produced upon me. The gentle method of it invested the story—which of itself is a very slight thing—with an odd significance almost impossible to communicate in criticism; but the reading of a few pages will show you what I mean. The title is apt enough, for the tale is about nothing but love, as it affects a group of five young people, three men and two girls. Of the girls, who are sisters,Effie Rutherglenis the more important and detailed figure.Effie, in the time before the story opens, had an affair withOliver Bligh; then, summoned North to live with her futile and uncomprehending parents, she fell (as did her sisterMillyand most of the local spinsters) under the fascination of oneClive Maxwell, who was an author and had appealing eyes and obviously a way with him. ThenOliverturned up again, and poorEffiedidn't know which of them she wanted. I speak lightly, but, if you think all this made for comedy, your conception of Miss MEYNELL's methods is very much at fault. Love to her is very much what it was toPatiencein the opera—by no means a wholly enviable boon. I can hardly praise too much the exquisite refinement and restraint of her treatment of commonplace things. But one small point baffled me:Oliverappears to have been a professional diver and bath-keeper—we are told, indeed, that he had occupied that position at Rugby (a statement that I have private and personal reasons for discrediting)—yet we find him staying as a welcome and honoured guest in the house of theRutherglens, whom I take to be more or less "county." Surely this, though of no real importance, is at least remarkable?
"What," I asked myself, "is just the matter with this apparently quite nice book?" (It wasJoan's Green Year, and written by E.L. DOON and published by MACMILLAN.) It is the kind of book that grows out of a romantic disposition and an assiduously stuffed commonplace book. It consists of letters fromJoan, a paying guest in the Manor House Farm at Pelton, to her brotherKeith, a soldier in India, telling him all about her year of holiday and "soul discipline" in the country, the village gossip, her proposals and her one acceptance, and giving a sort of farmer's calendar of the seasons as interpreted by the guileless amateur.Joanhas what is known as a nice mind. But to tell truth she has chosen a difficult and dangerous if alluring art form. Of course letters enable you to evade some of the difficulties of the novelist's task, to be discursive, allusive and incomplete. But you can't be let off anything of the precision and subtlety of your characterisation. On the contrary. AndJoanmakes everyone in Pelton (except the rustics, whose authenticity I gravely suspect) talk asJoanwrites. They have nearly all seen her commonplace book, I judge. Then, again, you must not have (likeJoan) a large list of acquaintances, or you breed confusion and dissipate interest accordingly.Joanis very young in many ways. She is extravagant in the matter of the equipment of her heroes.Bob Ingleby, the farmer (a gentleman, because he had been at Winchester), is a "great comely giant," yet wins events one and three of the Hunt Steeplechase, though thrown badly in number two. I have a suspicion that this work is reallyJoan'stee shot, and that after a notable recovery, which on the best of her present form I can safely prophesy, she will reach her green year next time.
Mrs. T.P. O'CONNOR has written a fascinating book.My Beloved Southshe calls it, and PUTNAMS publish it. There is not a lifeless page in the 427 that make up a bountiful feast. Every one contains vivid reproductions of incidents in social life in the South "befo' de wa'" and after. At the outset we make the acquaintance of a typical Southron, Mrs. O'CONNOR's grandfather, Governor of Florida when it was still a Territory, with native Indians fighting fiercely for their land and homes. Mrs. O'CONNOR was, of course, not to the fore in those early days. But so steeped is she in lore of the South, much of it gained from the lips of nurses and out-door servants, so keen is her sympathy, so quick and true her instinct that she is able to revivify the old scenes and reproduce the atmosphere of the time. The darkey nurse of earliest childhood lives again, sometimes bringing with her plantation songs like "Voodoo-Bogey-Boo," quaintly musical. Many passages of the grandfather's conversations are preserved, in which we may detect the voice of the gifted granddaughter. But the influence of heredity is strong, more especially "down South." Also there are many charming stories redolent of the South. I was about to mention the page on which will be found the thrilling history of a mule aptly named "Satan." On reflection I won't spoil the reader's pleasure in unexpectedly coming upon it somewhere about the middle of the book. Nobody—man or woman, girl or boy—who begins to readMy Beloved Southwill skip a page. So the story cannot be overlooked.
InLost Diaries(DUCKWORTH) Mr. MAURICE BARING travels by an easy road to humour, and he does not pound it with too laborious feet. This is perhaps a fortunate thing, for a farcical reconstruction of history in the light of modern sentiment and circumstances might easily tire; a Comic History of England, for instance, is stiffer reading to-day than GARDNER or GREEN. Sometimes, however, Mr. BARING seems to carry to extreme lengths his conscientious avoidance of efforts to be funny; and in the imaginary records of one or two of his subjects there is little more to laugh at than the unaided fancy of the student has long ago perceived.Tristramloved twoIseults, and JOHN MILTON was an exasperating husband; but these things I knew, and the author ofLost Diarieshas made no more capital out of the situations than the eternal merriment which the bare statement of the facts inspires. But where Mr. BARING, pleasantly disdainful alike of consistency and taste, examines the pocket-book of the "Man in the Iron Mask," and finds him complaining of the noise and disturbance in dungeon after dungeon until he is removed at last to the lotus island of the Bastille; or records the blameless botanical pursuits of TIBERIUS in seclusion; or the first consumption of the Colla di Gallo by COLUMBUS in the newly discovered West, he is, for all the simplicity of his methods, amusing enough. Yet even so I am inclined to think that the first of his essays, which reads like an actual transcript from the jottings of a nineteenth-century private-school boy, is the diary which I most heartily congratulate Mr. BARING on having rediscovered, and which I should be least willing for him to lose again.
With the Land Question staring us in the face,Folk of the Furrow(SMITH ELDER) should attract the attention of those who wish thoroughly to understand what the agricultural labourer wants and why he wants it. Mr. CHRISTOPHER HOLDENBY is no amateur, for as Mr. STEPHEN REYNOLDS has lived with fishermen and shared their daily lives so he has lodged in labourers' cottages and hoed and dug with the best (and worst) of them. The result is a book that is stamped with the hall-mark of a great sincerity; and three facts at least can be gathered from it by the very dullest of gleaners. First, and I think foremost, that the decencies of life cannot be observed if children of very various ages are to be crowded into cottages too small to hold them; secondly, that it is useless to expect morality from youths who have few or no amusements provided for them; thirdly, that the passing of the old families and the advent of the week-end "merchant princes" do not make a change for the better. All which may be stale news, but after reading this book I think that you will admit that Mr. HOLDENBY has contrived to make an old tale very impressive. In some instances it is true that I could bring evidence directly in opposition to his, but on the whole he deserves well for the way in which he has won the confidence of a class naturally suspicious and silent, and for his manner of stating his case. Had I for my sins to cram our M.P.'s for the debates that lie before them, I should feed them liberally uponFolk of the Furrow.
Conscientious referee.CONSCIENTIOUS REFEREE ORDERING HIMSELF OFF THE GROUND FOR BEING HASTY TO AN IMPERTINENT PLAYER.
Not yet the end; only the end of strife.But now—while still the brave unwearied heart,Fixed upon England, fain to keep its partIn her Imperial life,Beats with the old unconquerable pride—Now leave to younger limbs the dust and palm,And let the weary body seek the calmThat comes with eventide.There take your rest within the sunset glow,All feuds forgotten of your fighting days,Circled with love and laurelled with the praiseOf friend and ancient foe.O.S.
Not yet the end; only the end of strife.But now—while still the brave unwearied heart,Fixed upon England, fain to keep its partIn her Imperial life,
Not yet the end; only the end of strife.
But now—while still the brave unwearied heart,
Fixed upon England, fain to keep its part
In her Imperial life,
Beats with the old unconquerable pride—Now leave to younger limbs the dust and palm,And let the weary body seek the calmThat comes with eventide.
Beats with the old unconquerable pride—
Now leave to younger limbs the dust and palm,
And let the weary body seek the calm
That comes with eventide.
There take your rest within the sunset glow,All feuds forgotten of your fighting days,Circled with love and laurelled with the praiseOf friend and ancient foe.
There take your rest within the sunset glow,
All feuds forgotten of your fighting days,
Circled with love and laurelled with the praise
Of friend and ancient foe.
O.S.
O.S.