Chapter 4

I want to give the epithet "lush" to _The Breathless Moment_ (LANE), and, although the dictionary asks me as far as in me lies to reserve that adjective for grass, I really don't see why, just for once, I shouldn't do what I like with it. Lush grass is generally long and brightly coloured--"luxuriant and succulent," the dictionary says--and that is exactly what MISS MURIEL HINE'S book is. She tells the story of _Sabine Fane_, who, loving _Mark Vallance_, persuaded him to pass a honeymoon month with her before he went to the Front, though his undesirable wife was still alive. In allowing her heroine to suffer the penalty of this action Miss HINE would appear, as far as plot is concerned, to discourage such adventures. But _Sabine_ is so charming, her troubles end so happily and the setting of West Country scenery is so beautiful that, taken as a whole, I should expect the book to have the opposite effect. The picture of a tall green wave propelling a very solid rainbow, which adorns the paper wrapper and as an advertisement has cheered travellers on the Tube for some weeks past, has no real connection with the story, but perhaps is meant to be symbolical of the book, which, clever and well written as it is, is almost as little like what happens in real life.

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_The Uses of Diversity_ (METHUEN) is the title of a little volume in which Mr. G. K. CHESTERTON has reprinted a selection of his shorter essays, fugitive pieces of journalism, over which indeed the casual reader may experience some natural bewilderment at finding, what is inevitable in such work, the trivialities of the day before yesterday treated with the respect of contemporary regard. Many of the papers are inspired by the appearance of a particular book or play. I can best illustrate what I have said above by a quotation from one of them, in which the author wrote (_a propos_ of the silver goblets in _Henry VIII._ at His Majesty's) that he supposed such realism might be extended to include "a real Jew to act _Shylock_." For those who recall a recent triumph, this flight of imagination will now have an oddly archaic effect. It is by no means the only passage to remind us sharply that much canvas has gone over the stage rollers since these appreciations were written. Unquestionably Mr. CHESTERTON, with the unstaled entertainment of his verbal acrobatics, stands the ordeal of such revival better than most. Even when he is upon a theme so outworn as the "Pageants that have adorned England of late," he can always astonish with some grave paradox. But for all that I still doubt whether journalism so much of the moment as this had not more fitly been left for the pleasure of casual rediscovery in its original home than served up with the slightly overweighting dignity of even so small a volume.

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In _A Tale That Is Told_ (COLLINS), Mr. FREDERICK NIVEN throws himself into the personality of _Harold Grey_, who is the youngest son of an "eminent Scottish divine," and constitutes himself the annalist of the family, its private affairs and its professional business in the commerce of literature and art. The right of the family to its annals, notwithstanding that its members are little involved in furious adventures or thrilling romance, is established at once by the very remarkable character of the _Reverend Thomas Grey_. The duty upon you to read them depends, as the prologue hints, upon whether you are greatly interested in life and not exclusively intent on fiction. When I realised that I must expect no more than an account, without climax, of years spent as a tale that is told, I accepted the conditions subject to certain terms of my own. The family must be an interesting one and not too ordinary; the sons, _Thomas_ (whose creed was "Give yourself," and whose application of it was such that it usually wrecked the person to whom the gift was made), _Dick_ the artist, and _John_ the novelist, must be very much alive; if the big adventures were missing the little problems must be faced; the question of sex must not be overlooked; and of humour none of the characters must be devoid, and the historian himself must be full. Mr. NIVEN failed me in no particular.

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Miss F. E. MILLS YOUNG, in _Imprudence_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON), is not at the top of her form, but a neat and effective finish makes some amends for a performance which is, like the wind in a weather report, mainly moderate or light. The heroine, _Prudence Graynor_, was the child of her father's second marriage, and she was afflicted with a battalion of elderly half-sisters and one quite detestable half-brother. This battalion was commanded by one _Agatha_, and it submitted to her orders and caprices in a way incomprehensible to _Prudence_--and incidentally to me. The _Graynors_ and also the _Morgans_ were of "influential commercial stock," and both families were so essentially Victorian in their outlook and manner of living that I was surprised when 1914 was announced. The trouble with this story is that too many of the characters are drawn from the stock-pot. But I admit that, before we have done with them, they acquire a certain distinction from the adroitness with which the author extricates them from apparently hopeless situations.

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=Praise from "The Times."=

"The Chancellor of the Exchequer, with that absence of commercial training which is essential to one occupying such a position..."

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=Another Sex-Problem=.

"WANTED.--Six White Leghorn Cockerels; 6 Black Minorca Cockerels. Must lay eggs."--_Times of Ceylon._

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"A dreamy professor in a dim romantic laboratory may light upon a placid formula and, like Aladdin, roll back the portals of the enchanted fastness with a tranquil open sesame."--_Magazine._

But why should his laboratory be dim when he has _Ali Baba's_ wonderful lamp to light it?

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