Chapter 3

Now at the small farm which I recommend, but the address of which I am not going to give away, you may lie and bask by the duck pond and be quite in the picture. Further, if a sudden irresistible desire for something--a hoe or a cow, for example--should come over you, you have only to put out your hand and grab it. There is a compactness about the place. They do not put the cattle in odd fields five miles apart, but leave them to lounge round the duck pond or sit in the front garden, where they can be collected without effort. There are no energetic squads of farm-labourers; no bustling battalions of land-girls with motor-plough attachments. The outdoor staff is generally to be found sitting on a bucket by the duck pond rubbing at a bit of harness and looking decently rural. When he has rubbed the harness he stands up and looks at the young wheat. Then he turns round and glances at the mangel-wurzel field. If the appearance of it displeases him he reaches out for a rake and puts it right. Then he sits on the bucket again and has lunch.

When you go to bed at this farm you knock your head against the lintel of the sitting-room with a force corresponding to your height and vitality. Then you hit your head a second time when ascending the stairs and again on entering the bedroom. If you are a heavy breather you sweep the ceiling clear of flies and cobwebs while you sleep. At dawn, or possibly an hour or so before (for he is a nervously conscientious bird), the farm cock steps off the roof of the cow-shed on to your window-sill and bursts into enthusiastic admiration of himself and things in general. Some people of an egoistic and unimaginative temperament get up at once, in order that they may spend the rest of the day telling you how much they enjoyed the sunrise and what a fool you were to miss it. The true basker, on the other hand, declines to be a party to a procedure which destroys the whole poetry of dawn and reduces the proud chanticleer to the sordid status of an alarum-clock. He simply pushes the bird off the window-sill with his foot, turns over and goes to sleep. And later on, when the sound of other people knocking their heads against various portions of the building arouses him, he goes to sleep again.

* * * * *

* * * * *

"COUNTRY JOINER Wanted."

_Advt. in Provincial Paper._

To work on the Channel Tunnel?

* * * * *

BRIDGING THE LITERARY GULF.

(_Famous Publisher's Great Scheme of Reconciliation._)

Hearing on good authority that Mr. Blinkingham, the well-known publisher, was about to launch an enterprise of a magnitude only comparable with that of the _Ency. Brit._ or the _D.N.B._, Mr. Punch hastened to headquarters for confirmation of the report, was graciously admitted to his presence and furnished with the following interesting details. Mr. Blinkingham, it may be mentioned, is at all points a finely equipped representative of his class, handsome, well-groomed and wearing his monocle with distinction. His sanctum is furnished with delightfully catholic taste--Louis Quinze furniture, a Japanese embossed wall-paper, pictures by BOTTICELLI and Mr. WYNDHAM LEWIS and statuettes of PLATO, VOLTAIRE and Mr. WELLS (the Historian, not the Bombardier).

After some preliminary observations on the deplorable condition of the pulp industry, Mr. Blinkingham unfolded his colossal scheme. "By way of preface," remarked the great literary _impresario_, "let me call your attention to the momentous statement made by the Editor of _The Athenæum_ in the issue of May 7th: 'We doubt whether there has ever been a generation of men of letters so startlingly uneducated as this, so little interested in the study of the great writers before them.' The Editor of _The Athenæum_ takes a most gloomy view of the situation, which is fraught with an atmosphere of hostility and suspicion inimical to a revival of criticism. Yet he sees in such a revival the only way of salvation, the only means of healing the internecine feud which is now convulsing the young literary world.

"For my own part I am convinced that a better way is to lure back the modernists to a study of great writers by presenting them in a more palatable form, not by compressing or abridging them--for that has been tried before--but by having them re-written in conformity with present-day standards by eminent contemporary writers. This notion had been germinating in my head for some time past, but I did not see my way clear until I read the luminous and epoch-making remark of Mr. C. K. SHORTER, that he would sooner have written _Tom Jones_ than any book published these two hundred years. In a moment, in a flash, my scheme took shape. 'He shall write it, or rather re-write it,' I said to myself, and I have already submitted to this eminent man of letters my rough _scenario_ of the lines on which FIELDING'S novel should be brought home to the Georgian mind. In reply he has made a counter-suggestion that the characters should be rearranged on a Victorian basis, CHARLOTTE BRONTË replacing _Sophia_, THACKERAY _Mr. Allworthy_, while the title-rôle should be assigned to an enterprising publisher. But I am not without hope that he will adopt my plan.

"The revival of interest in the works of RICHARDSON, the other great eighteenth-century novelist, is, I think I may safely say, a foregone conclusion. Miss DOROTHY RICHARDSON has enthusiastically welcomed the proposition that she should reconstruct the romances of her illustrious namesake, and confidently expects, on the basis of the method employed by her in _The Tunnel_, that she will be able to excavate at least a hundred volumes from the materials supplied in _Sir Charles Grandison_ and _Clarissa Harlowe_.

"Nor shall we overlook the earlier masters. Professor CHAMBERLIN, whose thrilling lectures on QUEEN ELIZABETH and Lord LEICESTER have been the talk of the town for the last fortnight, has kindly undertaken to organise a new _variorum_ version of the Plays of SHAKSPEARE, with the assistance of Mr. LOONEY, the writer of the recently-published and final work on the authorship of the plays. MILTON will be presented in both verse and prose, Mr. MASEFIELD having promised to re-write his epic in six-lined rhymed stanzas, shorn of Latinisms; while a famous novelist, who does not wish her name to appear at present, has consented to recast it in the form of a romance under the title of _The Miseries of Mephistopheles_.

"Returning to the eighteenth century, I am glad to be able to say that a brilliant reconstruction of POPE'S _Dunciad_ is promised by the SITWELL family, in which the milk-and-water school is held up to ridicule, with TENNYSON in the place of dishonour formerly occupied by THEOBALD. With a magnanimity that cannot be too highly commended, the staff of _The Times_ has undertaken to adapt another forgotten work under the title of _Grey's Eulogy_, with special reference to the work of the League of Nations.

"I confess to feeling rather doubtful as to the possibility of reviving any interest in the works of SCOTT, DICKENS and THACKERAY. They are at once too near and too far. Still I hope to persuade Miss REBECCA WEST to try her hand at _Vanity Fair_. Then there is GEORGE ELIOT, another uncertain quantity, though perhaps something might be made of _The Mill on the Floss_ if it were renamed _Tulliver's Travels_, and given an up-to-date industrial atmosphere by Mr. ARNOLD BENNETT. I have my eye on Mr. LYTTON STRACHEY as the man who could make a fine modern version of _Tom Brown's Schooldays_. At the moment he is too busy with his _Life of Queen VICTORIA_, but I feel sure he will not lightly abandon so splendid an opportunity of unmasking the pedantry and pietism of Dr. ARNOLD and throwing the white light of truth on 'Rugby Chapel.'"

* * * * *

BIRD CALLS.

III.

The robin helps to brighten Winter days And, if you listen carefully, he says, "Oh please, oh please do leave some crumbs for me;" It's greed, but still he says it cheerily.

The starling rolls his "r's" with unctuous joy And, preening, wonders whom he may annoy, Then imitates a hen, a water-fowl And next the "Be quick" of a white barn-owl.

The heron has a fierce and yellow eye And eats up all our fishes on the sly; There seems to be but one he deigns to like, For all I hear him say is simply "Pike."

Tree-creepers, like some busy brown field-mice, Unwearying chase the furtive fat wood-lice, Then round the oak-tree's bole they slyly peep And tell you what you thought you knew--"We creep."

This is the way the sparrow calls his mate; He says it early and he says it late, He says it softly, but he says it clear: "Come unto me, come unto me, my dear."

* * * * *

DRESS AT THE CURZON WEDDING.

"Princess ---- wore a black hat, a cloak of tailless ermine, and a black and silver toque."

_Daily Telegraph._

"Then came Mrs. ---- in a dull golf hat."

_Daily Graphic._

As a protest, we suppose, against the other lady's extravagance in wearing a couple of hats.

***

"John ----, a coloured man, was charged with using obscure language in Maria Street. The magistrates fined him 5s."--_Welsh Paper._

Most unfair! Lots of men do the very same thing in Parliament and get paid four hundred pounds a year for it.

***

Heading from pp. 516, 517 of _Punch's_ official rival, _The Telephone Directory_:

"SUBSCRIBERS SHOULD NOT ENGAGE ****** THE TELEPHONISTS IN CONVERSATION."

We should ourselves have placed the asterisks after the word "THE."

* * * * *

ROYAL ACADEMY--SECOND DEPRESSIONS.

* * * * *

AT THE PLAY.

"WHY MARRY?"

This is a protracted discussion of a venerable topic and takes place in a sun-parlour, which I regret to say is the brightest thing about it.

_John_ is a dollar-snob--it is _John's_ parlour--and has two sisters, _Jean_ and _Helen_. _John_ is easily the heavy-weight champion in stage brothers. Sister _Jean_, who is entirely dependent on _John_, loves a poor man, but under _John's_ guidance traps a rich one. Sister _Helen_ (who has a job) also loves a poor man, but thinks marriage not good enough. This was, I imagine, due chiefly to living with _John_ and _Mrs. John_. She may have got a touch of the sun-parlour. Her man is a terrific young scientist, who once with four colleagues deliberately let a dangerous Cuban mosquito nibble his arm. The colleagues died while _Ernest_ survived, which I regretted. However he became demonstrator at the Institute of Bacteriology, with _Helen_ as his assistant, and in the excitement of the imminent discovery of his new bacillus the two spend the night in the laboratory totally unchaperoned. The discovery saved thousands of American babes, but it ruined _Helen's_ reputation.

Here the narrative becomes confused, but anyhow _John_, who was a trustee of the Institute, spent the three Acts in alternately sacking and reinstating _Helen_ and _Ernest_, in thinking of a salary, doubling it, adding thousands of dollars to it and taking away the salary first thought of, together with the additions (and so _da capo_), according as he wished to prevent the marriage because of _Ernest's_ poverty, or bring it off because of _Ernest's_ disposition to take _Helen_ to Paris (France) and dispense with empty rites, or postpone it to gain time, or, on the contrary, have it celebrated between the dressing and the dinner gongs in order to announce it to important members of the family, who, if I understood the butler aright, had already fallen on their food while host and hostess, two pairs of lovers, Uncle _Everett_ and Cousin _John_ were bickering in the sun-parlour.

Cousin _Theodore_, a guileless and dollarless clergyman, padded about on the outskirts of the discussion, making obvious remarks about the sanctity of marriage and enunciating the highest principles, which he promptly swallowed. But it was Uncle _Everett_, the judge (the only human figure in the bunch), who grasped the fact (long after I did, but let that pass) that the two principal young egotists simply loved being talked over at such gross length. To put an end to the business he used a trick whereby, apparently according to the law of the unnamed State in which the parlour was situate, the two were legally married without intending it. They had the tact to accept this solution, and this softened my heart towards them for the first time.

It was amusing to see Mr. AUBREY SMITH wondering how on earth he had got into this play, and Mr. A. E. GEORGE prowling about the stage intent apparently on showing how many ways there are of uttering "Pshaw!" and "Tut-tut!" or noise to that effect. It isn't as easy as it ought to be to do justice to players playing impossible parts; to Miss HENRIETTA WATSON struggling pluckily and skilfully with her _Mrs. John_; or to Mr. COWLEY WRIGHT or Miss ROSA LYND, so perfectly appalling did _Ernest_ and _Helen_ seem to me and so anxious was I to get them off to Paris respectably or otherwise. They never, by the way, gave me the faintest impression that they could ever have done work of any value in their laboratory.

I have no idea what the moral of this modern mystery play may be, but I did gather that the authoress was seriously perplexed, not perhaps in any startlingly new way, about the difficulties of marriage and the conventional hypocrisies that hedge round that honourable institution, but just forgot that serious argument cannot easily be conveyed through the medium of fantastically impossible and uninteresting people in an extravagantly farcical situation. The play was kindly received.

T.

* * * * *

* * * * *

THE MADNESS OF THE MACNAMARA.

(_From the Gaelic--with apologies to BON GAULTIER._)

Weefrees swore a feud Against the clan McGeorgy; Marched to Leamington To hold a pious orgy; For they did resolve To extirpate the vipers With thirty stout M.P.s And all the Northsquith "pipers."

"Lads," said HOGGE and BENN To their faithful scholars, "We shall need to fight To retain the dollars; Here's MHIC-MAC-NAMARA Coming with his henchmen, HEWART, KELLAWAY And several Front-Bench men."

***

"Coot-tay to you, Sirs," Said MHIC-MAC-NAMARA In a voice that reached From Leamington to Tara; "So you'd drum us out To enjoy your plunder, Adding to a crime Suicidal blunder."

But the brave Weefrees, Heedless of his bawling, Drowned him with the storm Of their caterwauling; So MHIC-MAC-NAMARA And the valiant KELLAWAY Gave some warlike howls And in haste got well away.

In this sorry style Died ta Liberal Party, Which in days of old Had been strong and hearty; This, good Mr. Punch, Is ta true edition; Here's your fery coot health And--bless ta Coalition!

* * * * *

Another Impending Apology.

"We are glad to be able to state in reference to our Pastor that, though much improved in health, he is still unfit to resume his work amongst us."-- ---- _Congregational Magazine._

***

"This should bring joy to the heart of every resolutionary Socialist."

_The Workers' Dreadnought._

All the Socialists we have met answer to this description.

* * * * *

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

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

I should certainly call Mr. COMPTON MACKENZIE our first living expositor of London in fiction. Indeed the precision with which, from his Italian home, he can recapture the aspect and atmosphere of London neighbourhoods is itself an astonishing feat. In _The Vanity Girl_ (CASSELL) he has happily abandoned the rather breathless manner induced by the migratious _Sylvia Scarlett_, and returns to the West Kensington of _Sinister Street_, blended subsequently with that theatrical Bohemia in which _Jenny Pearl_ danced her little tragedy. There is something (though by no means all) of the interest of _Carnival_ in the new stage story; that the adventures of _Dorothy_ lack the compelling charm of her predecessor is inevitable from the difference in temperament of the two heroines and the fact that Mr. MACKENZIE with all his art has been unable to rouse more than dispassionate interest in what is really a study of successful egotism. From the moment when, in the first chapter, we encounter _Dorothy_ (whose real name was _Norah_) washing her hair at a window in Lonsdale Road, an eligible _cul-de-sac_ ending in a railway line, beyond which a high rampart marked the reverse of the Earl's Court Exhibition panorama, to that final page on which we take leave of her as a widowed countess, sacrificing her future for the sake of an Earl's Court of a different _genre_, her career, sentimental, financial and matrimonial, is told with amazing vivacity but a rather conspicuous lack of emotional appeal. It is perhaps an unequal book; in parts as good as the author's best, in others hurried and perfunctory. One of our more superior Reviews was lately debating Mr. MACKENZIE'S command of the "memorable phrase." There are a score here that I should delight to quote, even if the setting is not always entirely worthy of them.

***

So long as "BERTA RUCK" will write for us such pretty books as _Sweethearts Unmet_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON), we need never feel ourselves dependent on America for our supply of sugary novels. This home-grown variety is just as sweet, and really, I think, may be guaranteed not only harmless but positively beneficial. The authoress has evidently a tender pity for the young men and women whom our social conditions doom either to have no companions among their contemporaries or only the wrong ones. Her heroine represents the too-much-sheltered girl alone in an elderly circle, her hero the lonely young man who has no means of getting to know people of his own sort (I can't say class, because the authoress seems rather uncertain about that herself). Her story is written in alternate instalments by "the boy" and "the girl," a method which encourages intimacy in the telling as well as a sort of gushing attention to the reader not so pleasant. Miss NORA SCHLEGEL has drawn a pretty picture of _Julia_ and _Jack_ to adorn the wrapper, and I can assure everyone who cares to know it that they are just as nice as they look; _Jack's_ passion for abbreviation ("rhodos" for rhododendrons) being the only ground of quarrel I have with them or their creator.

***

In _Passion_ (DUCKWORTH) Mr. SHAW DESMOND desperately wants to say something terrific about love, money and power. His violence makes one feel that one is reading under a shower of brickbats, and it is the effort of dodging these which perhaps distracts the mind from his message. (Is he a Marinettist, I wonder?) There are not enough words in the language for him, so he invents fresh ones at will; while as for grammar and syntax he passionately throttled them in Chapter I.; nor did they recover. I will own that notwithstanding all this the author has a way of making you read on to find out what it is all about. You don't find out; but there, life's like that, isn't it? The author's ideas of the operations of high finance are ingenuous. The _Mandrill_ (do I rightly guess this to be a portrait distorted from the life?), who is out to corner copper and "do down" the _Squid_ (head of the opposing copper group), is, if you are to judge by his passionate exuberance at board meetings, about as likely to corner the green cheese in the moon. I imagine the author saying, "_Mandrills_ mayn't be like that, but that's how I see 'em. It's my vision and mood that matter. Take it or leave it." Well, on the whole I should advise you to take it, first putting on a sort of mental tin hat. You'll at least have gathered that Mr. DESMOND is a lively writer.

***

Of a war-story reviewed in these pages some months ago I remember taking occasion to say that the author had damaged his effect by a too obvious wish to injure the reputation of a certain cavalry brigade (or words to that effect). Well, a book that I have just been reading, _The Squadroon_ (LANE), might in some sense be regarded as a counterblast to the former volume, since its writer, Major ARDERN BEAMAN, D.S.O., has admittedly intended it as a vindication of the work of the cavalry in the Great War. I can say at once that the defence could scarcely have found a better advocate. Major BEAMAN (who, I think superfluously, figures in his own pages in the fictional character of Padre) has written one of the most interesting records that I have read of personal experience on the Western Front. Partly this is explained by his fortunate possession of a style at once sincere, sanely balanced and always engaging. Also his story, apart from the matter of it, reveals in the men of whom he writes (and incidentally in the writer himself) a combination of just those qualities that we like to call essentially British. Cavalrymen of course will read it with a special fervour; but I am mistaken if its genial temper does not disarm even so difficult a critic as the ex-infantry Lieutenant--than which I could hardly say more. In short, _The Squadroon_ is a belated war book in which the most weary of such matters may well recapture their interest.

***