Chapter 4

_Shuttered Doors_ (LANE) is what you might call a third-and-fourth- generation story--one of those books, so rightly devastating to the skipper, in which the accidental turning of two pages together is quite liable to involve you with the great-grandchildren of the couple whose courtship you have been perusing. Observe that I was careful to say the "accidental" turning, though I can picture a type of reader who might soon be fluttering the pages of _Shuttered Doors_ in impatient handfuls. The fact is that Mrs. WILLIAM HICKS BEACH has here written what is less a novel than a treatise, tasteful, informed and sympathetic, on county life and manners and houses. The last of these themes especially has an undisguised fascination for her. When _Aletta_, the chief heroine, was left pots of money by a Dutch uncle (who was so far from filling his proverbial _rôle_ that he hardly talked at all) she spent it and her enthusiasm, indeed her existence, in restoring two variously dilapidated mansions--Graythorpes, her husband's home, and Doller Place, left her by an appreciative aunt. When not thus employed she would be reading a paper on Homes (given here _in extenso_), or comparing those of other persons with her own. I don't want you to get the impression that _Shuttered Doors_ is precisely arid; it is too full of ideas and vitalities for that; but it does undoubtedly demand a special kind of reader. Incidentally, Mrs. HICKS BEACH should revise her chronology. For _Aletta_, who was married at twenty-eight and died at sixty-two, to have had at that time a grandson on the staff of the Viceroy of India, he must have received his appointment before the age of fifteen--which even in these experimental days sounds a little premature.

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Do not allow yourself to be misled by the fact that the portrait on the paper cover of _Maureen_ (JENKINS) does, I admit, remarkably suggest a lady whose mission in life is the advertisement of complexion soap. You probably know already that the methods of Mr. PATRICK MACGILL are made of sterner stuff. This "Story of Donegal," which I have no intention of giving in detail, is the history of the course of true love in an Irish village, full of types which, I dare say, are realistically observed; verbose in places to an almost infuriating degree (not till page 61 does the heroine so much as put her nose round the scenery), but working up to a climax of considerable power. _Maureen_, I need hardly say, was as fair as moonrise, but suffered from the drawback of an irregular origin, which took the poor girl a great deal of living down. Nor need I specify the fact that most of the male characters in the district are soon claimants for her hand. Really this is the plot. Having betrayed so much, however, nothing shall persuade me to expose the bogie scenes on the midnight moor, where the villain combines his illicit whiskey manufacture with his courtship, and where finally the three protagonists come by a startling finish. _Maureen_ is not a story that I should recommend save for readers with abundant leisure; but those whose pluck and endurance carry them to the kill will certainly have their reward.

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In _Memories of a Marine_ (MURRAY) Major-General Sir GEORGE ASTON records for us, cosily and anecdotally, a life spent in service, not only of the active kind--in Egypt and South Africa--but also as a Staff College Professor, and, more intriguingly, as an expert in Secret Intelligence in the cloisters of Whitehall or up and down the Mediterranean. If his book is not so sensational in the matter of revelations as the current fashion requires, it has a restful interest all its own, varied here and there with some very attractive stories. To give just one example, the author, when setting out to co-ordinate the work of various authorities in a certain harbour, found a signal buoy, a torpedo station, a fixed mine and a boom, each under separate control, all included in the defences. But the torpedo could not be launched unless the buoy were first cleared away, and the mine, if fired, would blow up the boom. One would have welcomed more of this sort of thing, for the truth is that even restfulness may be overdone and discretion become almost too admirable. Occasionally too the writer enlarges a little on--well, he enlarges a little, as anyone would with half his provocation. Still, for all comrades of his service, at any rate, every word he has written will be of interest; and perhaps he does not really mind so much about the general public, though he has had the good sense to crown his work with an apposite quotation from _Punch_.

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_The Specials_ (HEINEMANN) is the story of the Metropolitan Special Constabulary, and it would have been a thousand pities if it had not been told. Colonel W.T. REAY'S book will stand as a record of invaluable service performed by a devoted body of men, service for which the whole nation--and London in particular--has every reason to be grateful. If I understand Colonel REAY rightly he doesn't wish bouquets to be thrown at the Specials, but he would not, I think, discourage me from saying that they performed dangerous and ticklish work with unfailing resource and tact. All of us know that they desire no other reward for their services than the satisfaction of having done their duty; but our gratitude demands to be heard; and I for one take this occasion to trumpet forth the "All clear" signal with feelings of affectionate pride.

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If _By Way of Bohemia_ (SKEFFINGTON) is a fair sample of Mr. MARK ALLERTON'S work I have been missing a number of very readable stories. His hero, _Hugh Kelvin_, a journalist (they must be rare) who had no very good conceit of himself, married a barmaid, and she ran his house as if it were a third-class drinking saloon. She was one of those women who for want of a better word we call impossible; but she found _Hugh_ as unsatisfactory as he found her. In the circumstances the union had to be dissolved, and, although I suspect Mr. ALLERTON'S tongue of being very near his cheek when he contrived _Hugh's_ escape from a life of sordid misery, I admit that his solution of the difficulty is cleverly told. And, after all, coincidences do happen in real life, and it would be unfair to Providence to suppose that they were not put there for a useful purpose.

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"Gentleman washes to be received as Paying Guest."--_Daily Paper._

A very proper preliminary.