Chapter 3

I am not sure that I didn't find Mr. Bourchier's "Foreword" or Apologia (kindly given away with the programme) rather more entertaining than the play itself. As long as the dramatist (a New Zealander) concerned himself with the delightfully unconventional atmosphere of Antipodean politics he was illuminating and very possibly veracious. But the relations between the _Premier_ and the widow _Pretty_, which promised, as the title hinted, to be the main attraction, were such as never could have occurred on land or sea. It was impossible, with this farcical element always obtruding itself, to take the political features of the play seriously, as I gather that we were intended to do; and we got very little help from Mr. Bourchier's own performance, which was frankly humorous. In his brochure he tells us with great solemnity that he is "more than pleased to think that the play may help to demonstrate to those of an older civilisation how truly the best of the so-called Labour politicians strive to serve their country and their fellow men.... Premier 'Bill' demonstrates vividly enough that, heart and soul, the Australian politician devotes himself to the uplifting of the great Commonwealth." Mr. Bourchier's tongue may or may not have been in his cheek when he penned these lofty sentiments, but anyhow it seemed to be there during most of the play.

He is on safer ground when he tells us that "in curiously vivid and pungent fashion this little play outlines the breezy freshness and the originality of outlook which almost invariably characterise the politicians and statesmen of the Prairie, the Veldt and the Bush, and which more than anything else perhaps differentiates them from the men of an older land, hampered as these latter often are by long and stately traditions." Certainly, in the matter of addressing its Premier by a familiar abbreviation of his Christian name (an authority who has travelled in these parts assures Mr. Bourchier that he is "quite right:" that "people would call this Premier 'Bill' in Australia") the new world differs from the old. I cannot so much as contemplate the thought of Mr. Asquith being addressed by the Minister Of Munitions as "Herb," or even "Bert."

But we have difficulties again with the Foreword (for I cannot get away from it) when we come to the question of the hero's virility. In the play his secretary says of him, "Bill's not a man, he's a Premier. A kind of dynamo running the country at top speed." Yet the Foreword, after citing this passage, goes on to insist upon his "tingling humanity" and hinting at the need of such a type of manhood at the present time. "After all," concludes Mr. Bourchier in a spasm of uplift--"after all, what is the cry of the moment here in the heart of the Empire, but for 'a Man-Give us a Man!'" But even if we reject the secretary's estimate of his chief as a dynamo we still find a certain deficiency of manhood in the anæmic indifference of the _Premier's_ attitude to women; an attitude, by the way, not commonly associated with Mr. Bourchier's impersonations on the stage. _Mrs. Pretty's_ tastes are, of course, her own affair, and we were allowed little insight into her heart (if any), but I can only conclude that her choice was governed by political rather than emotional considerations ("Let us remember Women Have the Vote In Australia" is the finale of the Foreword) and that what she wanted was a Premier rather than a Man.

Of the play itself one may at least say that it kept fairly off the beaten track. There was novelty in its local colour, its unfamiliar types and the episode, adroitly managed, of a pair of gloves employed to muffle the division bell at the moment of a crisis on which the fate of the Government depended. But the design was too small to fill the stage of His Majesty's and it left me a little disappointed. I was content so long as Mr. Bourchier was in sight, but the part of _Mrs. Pretty_ needed something more than the rather conscious graces and airy drapery of Miss Kyrle Bellew. The rest of the performance was sound but not very exhilarating; and altogether, though I hope I am properly grateful for any help towards the realisation of "Colonial conditions," I cannot honestly say that _Mrs. Pretty_ and the _Premier_ has done very much for me (as Mr. Bourchier hoped it would) by way of supplementing the thrill of Anzac. O. S.

* * * * *

A NAVAL REVELATION.

Edward Brown's official sheet, Humble though his station, Showed a record which the Fleet Viewed with admiration.

Fifteen stainless summers bore Fruit in serried cluster; Conduct stripes he proudly wore, One for every lustre.

Picture then the blank amaze When this model rating Suddenly developed traits Most incriminating.

Faults in baser spirits deemed Merely peccadillos In that crystal mirror seemed Vast as Biscay billows.

Cautioned not to over-run Naval toleration, He replied in language un- Fit for publication.

When the captain in alarm Strove to solve the riddle, Edward slipped a dreamy arm Round that awful middle.

Such a catastrophic change Set his shipmates thinking; Rumour whispered, "It is strange; Clearly he is drinking."

Ever more insistent got This malicious fable, Till he tied a true-love's knot In the anchor cable.

* * * * *

"During December, 1661, meals for necessitous school children were provided at Chorley at a cost of 4d. per meal per scholar."

_Provincial Paper._

In gratitude for the Restoration, we suppose. Hence the watchword, "Good old Chorley!"

* * * * *

"Summoned for permitting three houses to stray on Stoke Park on the 19th inst ... defendant admitted the offence, but said that some one must have let them out by taking the chain off the gate."--_Provincial Paper_.

It seems a reasonable explanation.

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)

The latest of our writers to contribute to the growing literature of the War is Mr. Hugh Walpole. He has written a book about it called _The Dark Forest_ (Secker), but whether it is a good or a bad book I who have read it carefully from cover to cover confess my inability to decide. It is certainly a clever book, and violently unusual. I doubt whether the War is likely to produce anything else in the least resembling it. For one thing, it deals with a phase of the struggle, the Russian retreat through Galicia, about which we in England are still tragically ignorant. Mr. Walpole writes of this as he himself has seen it in his own experience as a worker with the Russian Red Cross. The horrors, the compensations, the tragedy and happiness of such work have come straight into the book from life. But not content with this, he has peopled his mission with fictitious characters and made a story about them. And good as the story is, full of fine imagination and character, the background is so tremendously more real that I was constantly having to resist a feeling of impatience with the false creations (in _Macbeth's_ sense) who play out their unsubstantial drama before it. Yet I am far from denying the beauty of Mr. Walpole's idea. The characters of _Trenchard_, the self-doubting young Englishman, who finds reality in his love for the nurse _Marie Ivanovna_, and of the Russian doctor, _Semyonov_, who takes her from him, are exquisitely realized. And the atmosphere of increasing mental strain, in which, after _Marie's_ death, the tragedy of these three moves to its climax in the forest is the work of an artist in emotion, such as by this time we know Mr. Walpole to be. The trouble was that I had at the moment no wish for artistry. To sum up, I am left with the impression that an uncommonly good short story rather tiresomely distracted my attention from some magnificent war-pictures.

* * * * *

As Field-Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood, V. C., in _Our Fighting Services_ (Cassell), begins with the Battle of Hastings and ends with the Boer War there is no gainsaying the fact that his net has been widely spread. To assist him in the compilation of this immense tome the author has a fluent style and--to judge from the authorities consulted and the results of these consultations--an inexhaustible industry. The one should make his book acceptable to the amateur who reads history because he happens to love it, and the other should make it invaluable to professionals who handle books of reference, not lovingly, but of necessity. And having said so much in praise of Sir Evelyn I am also happy to add that he is, on the whole, that rare thing--an historian without prejudices. Almost desperately, for instance, he tries to express his admiration of Oliver Cromwell as a soldier, although he quite obviously detests him as a man. I find myself, however, wondering whether Sir Evelyn, were he writing of Cromwell at this hour, would say, "For a man over forty years of age to work hard to acquire the rudiments of drill is in itself remarkable." Even when allowance is made for the differences between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries there would seem to be nothing very worthy of remark in such energy if one may judge from the attitude of our War Office to the Volunteers. Naturally one turns eagerly to see what this distinguished soldier has to say about campaigns in which he took a personal part, but, although shrewd criticism is not lacking, Sir Evelyn's sword has been more destructive than his pen. In these days of tremendous events this volume may possibly be slow to come to its own, but in due course it is bound to arrive.

* * * * *

I find, on referring to the "By the same Author" page of _The Lad With Wings_ (Hutchinson), that other reviewers of "Berta Buck's" novels have been struck by the "charm" of her work. I should like to be original, but I cannot think of any better way of summing up the quality of her writing. Charm above everything else is what _The Lad With Wings_ possesses. It is a perfectly delightful book, moving at racing speed from the first chapter to the last, and so skilfully written that even the technically unhappy ending brings no gloom. When _Gwenna Williams_ and _Paul Dampier_, the young airman she has married only a few hours before the breaking out of war, go down to death together in mid-Channel after the battle with the German Taube, the reader feels with _Leslie Long, Gwenna's_ friend, "The best time to go out! No growing old and growing dull.... No growing out of love with each other, ever! They at least have had something that nothing can spoil." I suppose that when Mrs. Oliver Onions is interviewed as to her literary methods it will turn out that she re-writes everything a dozen times and considers fifteen hundred words a good day's work; but she manages in _The Lad With Wings_ to convey an impression of having written the whole story at a sitting. The pace never flags for a moment, and the characters are drawn with that apparently effortless skill which generally involves anguish and the burning of the midnight oil. I think I enjoyed the art of the writing almost as much as the story itself. If you want to see how a sense of touch can make all the difference, you should study carefully the character of _Leslie_, a genuine creation. But the book would be worth reading if only for the pleasure of meeting _Hugo Swayne_, the intellectual _dilettante_ who, when he tried to enlist, was rejected as not sufficiently intelligent and then set to painting omnibuses in the Futurist mode, to render them invisible at a distance. A few weeks from now I shall take down _The Lad With Wings_ from its shelf and read it all over again. It is that sort of book.

* * * * *

When old _Lady Polwhele_ asked the _Reverend Dr. Gwyn_ to let his daughter _Delia_ go with her as companion to a very smart house party, I doubt whether the excellent man would have given so ready an assent had he known what was going to come of it. For my own part I suspected we were in for yet another version of _Cinderella_, with _Delia_ snubbed by the smart guests, and eventually united, as like as not, to young _Lord Polwhele_. However, Miss Dorothea Townshend, who has written about all these people in _A Lion, A Mouse and a Motor Car_ (Simpkin), had other and higher views for her heroine. True, the house party was ultra-smart; true also that there was one woman who spoke and behaved cattishly; but it was a refreshing novelty to find that throughout the tale the ugly sisters, so to speak, were hopelessly outnumbered by the fairy godmothers. Later, the visit led to _Delia's_ going as governess to the children of a Russian Princess, and finding herself in circles that might be described as not only fast but furious. Here we were in a fine atmosphere of intrigue, with spies, and Grand Dukes, and explosive golf balls and I don't know what beside. It is all capital fun; and, though I am afraid the political plots left me unconvinced, the thing is told with such ease and _bonhomie_ that it is saved from banality; even when the amazing cat of the house-party turns up as a female bandit and tries to hold _Delia_ and her Princess to ransom. And of course the fact that the period of the tale is that of the earliest motors gives it the quaintest air of antiquity. Somehow, talk of sedan chairs would sound more modern than these thrills of excitement about six cylinders and "smelly petrol." In short, for many reasons Miss Townshend's book provides a far brisker entertainment than its cumbrous title would indicate.

* * * * *

Mr. Stephen Graham is fast becoming the arch-interpreter of Holy Russia. In _The Way of Martha and the Way of Mary_ (Macmillan) he returns with even more than his customary zeal to his good work, wishing herein specifically to interpret Russian Christianity to the West. A passionate earnestness informs his discursive eloquence. I cannot resist the conviction that he has the type of mind that sees most easily what it wishes to see. He moves cheerily along, incidentally raising difficulties which he does not solve, ignoring conclusions which seem obvious, throwing glorious generalisations and unharmonised contradictions at the bewildered reader, too bent on his generous purpose to glance aside for any explanations. Perhaps this is the best method for an enthusiast to pursue. He certainly creates a vivid picture of this strangely unknown allied people, with its incredible otherworldliness, its broad tolerant charity, its freedom from chilly conventions, its joyous neglect of the hustle and fussiness of Western life, its deep faith, its childish or childlike superstitions, the glorious promise of its future. An interesting--even a fascinating--rather than a conclusive book.

* * * * *

* * * * *

A Super-Bridegroom.

"In his seventy-third year the Earl of ---- has made his third matrimonial venture this week."--_Yorkshire Evening Post._

* * * * *