There was a hard-swearing old sailorWhose speech might have startled a jailer;But he frankly avowedThat the charabanc crowdWould not be allowed on a whaler.
There was a hard-swearing old sailorWhose speech might have startled a jailer;But he frankly avowedThat the charabanc crowdWould not be allowed on a whaler.
There was a hard-swearing old sailor
Whose speech might have startled a jailer;
But he frankly avowed
That the charabanc crowd
Would not be allowed on a whaler.
Though a West-End physician of repute, he must, I think, have had a course of American training, if rapidity of action be any indication thereof.
Scarcely had the maid ushered me into his study and I had taken a seat than he came forward brusquely, looked at me with the glowering eye of theSecond Murderer, grasped a large piece of me in the region of the fourth rib and barked, "You're too fat."
Having been carefully bred I refrained from retaliation. I did not tell him that his legs were out of drawing and that he had a frightfully vicious nose. But before I had time to explain my business he had started on a series of explosive directions: "Eat proper food. Plenty of open air. Exercise morning, noon and night and in between. Use the Muldow system. You need a tonic."
He turned to his table and was, I suppose, about to draw a cheque for me on the local chemist's when I decided to say my little piece.
"Excuse me, Sir," said I mildly, "I am not a patient."
The combination fountain-pen and thermometer almost fell from his hand.
"I am," said I, "the sole proprietor and sole representative of the Physicians' Supply Association. I gave your maid my card. I have called with a thrilling offer of magazines for your waiting-room."
"What dates?" said he, a gleam of interest in his dark eye.
"All pre-war," said I proudly; "none of them are later than 1900 and some go back to 1880."
"Notb.c.?" said he, with a look in which hope and disbelief were mingled.
"No," said I. "All area.d.; but they include two Reports of Missions to Deep Sea Fishermen in 1885—very rare. I'm sure they would match splendidly the Proceedings of the Royal Commission on Aniline Dyes which you have in the waiting-room."
"No," said he firmly. "I have one of the most important practices in Harley Street. I likewise possess one of the finest collections of old magazines in the profession. That blue-book on Aniline Dyes is barely fifty years old. It was left me by my father, and I retain it simply through affection for him in spite of its modernity. But the rest go back to the Crimean vintage and earlier. When you have something really old, come to me. But"—and he threw in a winning smile in his best bedside manner—"not till then."
I am now in search of a young practitioner who is merely starting a collection.
How can you tell what century he is, Mother? He's got no clothes on.Scene.—A Flower Show: Garden Ornament Section.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."
Scene.—A Flower Show: Garden Ornament Section.
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."
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 forThe Crisis of the Naval War(Cassell), the large and dignified volume in which Admiral of the Fleet ViscountJellicoe 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 ViscountJellicoeavoids 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 ofThe 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 Hergesheimeris already something of a landmark in the publishing season. To this reputeLinda 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 ofLinda, 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.Hergesheimerhas above all else the gift of suggesting atmosphere and colour (ought I not in mere gratitude to bring myself to say "color"?); his picture ofLinda'samazing 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 sculptorPleydon(in whose fate the curious may perhaps trace some echo of recent controversy), the story ofLindabecomes inevitablyless 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.Hergesheimerbe 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 thatSniping in France(Hutchinson) will still be available in libraries in the year 2020a.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 LordHorne, 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."
SeñorIbañez' new novel,Mare Nostrum(Constable), is ostensibly a yarn about spies and submarines, its hero a gallant Spanish captain,Ulysses Ferragut, scion of a long line of sailormen. And there can be no doubt of the proper anti-German sentiments of this stout fellow, even though his impetuous passion forFreya Talberg, a Delilah in the service of the enemy, did make him store a tiny island with what the translator will persist in calling combustibles, meaning, one supposes, fuel. But more fundamentally it is an affectionate song of praise of the Mediterranean and the dwellers on its littoral, especially the fiery and hardy sailors of Spain, and of Spaniards, in particular the Valencians and Catalonians. SignorIbañez' method is distinctly discursive; he gives, for instance, six-and-twenty consecutive pages to the description of the inmates of the Naples Aquarium and is always ready to suspend his story for a lengthy disquisition on any subject, person or place that interests him. This puts him peculiarly at the mercy of his transliterator, who has a positive genius for choosing the wrong word and depriving any comment of its subtlety, any well-made phrase of its distinction. Even plain narrative such as the following is none too attractive:—"The voluminous documents would become covered with dust on his table and Don Esteban would have to saddle himself with the dates in order that the end of the legal procedures should not slip by." What ingenuous person authorises this sort of "authorised translation"?
If I may say so without offence, Mr.Edgar Rice Burroughsreminds me a little of those billiard experts who, having evolved a particular stroke, will continue it indefinitely, to the joy of the faithful and the exasperated boredom of the others. To explain my metaphor, I gather that Mr.Burroughs, having "got set," to an incredible number of thousands, with an invention calledTarzan, is now by way of beating his own record over the adventures ofJohn Carterin the red planet Mars. Concerning these amazing volumes there is just this to say, that either you can read them with avidity or you can't read them at all. From certain casual observations I conceive the test to be primarily one of youth, for honesty compels my middle-age to admit a personal failure. I saw the idea; for one thing no egg was ever a quarter so full of meat as the Martian existence of incomprehensible thrills, to heighten the effect of which Mr.Burroughshas invented what amounts to a new language, with a glossary of its own, thus appealing to a well-known instinct of boyhood, but rendering the whole business of a more than Meredithian obscurity to the uninitiate. I have hitherto forgotten to say that the particular volume before me is calledThe War Lord of Mars(Methuen). I may add that it closes with the heroicCarterhailed as Jeddak of Jeddaks, which sounds eminently satisfactory, though without conveying any definite promise of finality.
Courage, sweet lady! You are practically saved.The Knight."Let's see. We have already overcome the chief jailer and his ten assistants, and slain the fearsome hound which guarded the courtyard. We have now to destroy the one-eyed giant and the bean-fed dragon, scale the outer wall, swim the moat and then to horse. Courage, sweet lady! You are practically saved."
The Knight."Let's see. We have already overcome the chief jailer and his ten assistants, and slain the fearsome hound which guarded the courtyard. We have now to destroy the one-eyed giant and the bean-fed dragon, scale the outer wall, swim the moat and then to horse. Courage, sweet lady! You are practically saved."
"Six Hens for sale, some laying 7s. each."—Local Paper.
"Six Hens for sale, some laying 7s. each."
—Local Paper.
You will find three of them as good as a guinea-fowl.
"But the germ of Socialism or BZolshevism—however you like to call it—has hardly entered the Polish working-class blood."Provincial Paper.
"But the germ of Socialism or BZolshevism—however you like to call it—has hardly entered the Polish working-class blood."
Provincial Paper.
We fear, however, that it has got into our contemporary's composing-room.
Page 116 corrected old typo: changed "Encylopædia" to "Encyclopædia".