Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 18, 1917 by Various
V >>
Various >> Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 18, 1917
When that inveterate cynic, _Anthony Clifton_, made a will (it is not Mr.
MILNE'S fault that, since he wrote his play before going out to the Front,
we have had two others turning on eccentric bequests) leaving L50,000 each
to two perfect strangers on the condition that they adopted the
preposterous name of Wurzel-Flummery, he hoped to have the grim
satisfaction of witnessing, from the grave, an exhibition of human
weakness. Of the two legatees--politicians on opposite sides of the
House--_Crawshaw_, whose whiskers gave him the air of a successful grocer
of the mid-Victorian period, found reasons sufficiently convincing to
himself for accepting the testator's terms; while _Richard Meriton_, who
had little besides his salary as an M.P., took the high line of proper
pride and declared his determination to refuse. Mr. MILNE, by the way, did
not specify the respective politics of these two, but I judge, from my
knowledge of his own, that _Crawshaw_ was meant to be a Tory and _Meriton_
a Liberal.
The latter eventually succumbed to pressure on the part of _Crawshaw's_
daughter, who cared nothing for names so long as she could marry the man of
her choice--a prospect denied to her by her father, who thought little of
poor men. Meanwhile _Meriton's_ lofty attitude of general contempt for
money, and particular contempt for it when offered on degrading terms, gave
scope for a little serious relief.
[Illustration: THE POLITICIAN AT HOME.
_Robert Crawshaw, M.P_ ... MR. NIGEL PLAYFAIR.
_Mrs. Crawshaw_ ... MISS HELEN HAYE.]
There are, of course, more ways of viewing the question than could be
compressed into so short a play. Myself, I confess to a sneaking sympathy
with the standpoint of _Crawshaw_. Money for him did not mean mere
self-indulgence; it meant outward show--a house in a better neighbourhood,
a more expensive car, a higher status in the opinion of his world--all the
things that somehow help in what is called a career. By accepting the fifty
thousand pounds he would gain something in the public eye; by assuming the
name of Wurzel-Flummery he would lose something. He weighed the two against
one another, and concluded that he would gain more than he would lose. This
argument furnished a good enough motive according to his lights.
_Meriton_, on the other hand, after professing to prefer a clean heart to
filthy lucre, is persuaded by _Violet Crawshaw_, who argues that he would
surely make any sacrifice to save her from starving, and she was starving
for love. So he yields, saying, in effect, to Honour, "I love thee, dear; I
love thee much; but I love _Violet_ more." Incidentally he takes care to
overlook the fact that he was not nobly suffering an indignity for the sake
of a great cause--such, let us say, as the founding of a hospital--but that
he himself stood to gain at least as much as the girl. I am almost afraid
that _Meriton_ was a bit of a hypocrite. Certainly, in view of his exalted
standards, he came out of the business worse than _Crawshaw_ did. Perhaps,
after all, Mr. MILNE meant him to be a Tory.
But I must not exploit the pleasant field of casuistry opened up by the
author's theme, but content myself with complimenting him very heartily on
his share of this triple bill, in which, at the first attempt, he held his
own in the company of so experienced an artist as Sir JAMES BARRIE. I ought
to add that he had an excellent cast, very quick to appreciate and
reproduce the iridescent gaiety of his humour.
O.S.
* * * * *
"MOTORS & CYCLES.
Wanted to purchase a few good 1916 laying Pullets."--_South Bucks Free
Press._
Having regard to the second item in the heading a correspondent suggests
that "Pullets" is a misprint for "Pushits."
* * * * *
From a feuilleton:--
She had not wanted to come at all, for she avoided everyone now. But
Olive had begged her, with ears in her eyes."--_Daily Paper._
If _Olive_ was, as we are inclined to suppose, a flapper, she was
remarkably well equipped.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _The Padre._ OWING TO A COLD, PRIVATE STAYER WILL NOT BE
ABLE TO SING 'FROM SATURDAY NIGHT TILL MONDAY MORNING' AS INTENDED, BUT
SERGEANT STICKETT HAS KINDLY CONSENTED TO PLAY 'FOR ALL ETERNITY,' AND AS
IT WILL THEM BE GETTING! RATHER LATE WE WILL CONCLUDE WITH THE NATIONAL
ANTHEM."]
* * * * *
OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned, Clerks._)
_The Life of Algernon Charles Swinburne_ (MACMILLAN) is a book that may be
regarded as filling, at least partially, what has long been an aching void
in our biographical shelves. I say partially, because the time has not
perhaps fully come for an unreserved appreciation of a character whose
handling must present exceptional difficulties. One cannot but notice how
many obstacles Mr. EDMUND GOSSE has had to overcome, or avoid, in the
present volume. The result inevitably is a certain sense of over-discretion
that makes the whole study so detached as to be at times lacking in
vitality. Even, however, with these reservations the figure of the poet
stands out, bewildering as it must have been in life, with its strange
blend of frailty and genius. Stories abound also (sometimes one suspects
Mr. GOSSE of having fallen back upon anecdote with an air of relief); they
range from the early days of brilliant "failures" at Eton and Balliol to
those when in the watchful security of Putney the lamp was guarded by hands
so zealous that its flame was ultimately extinguished. Two of the tales
remain pleasantly in my memory, one of them describing how young ALGERNON,
lately sent down from Oxford and a pupil at the rectory of the future
Bishop STUBBS, scared away his host's rustic congregation by leaning upon
the garden-gate one Sunday morning, looking, with his red-gold hair and
scarlet dressing-gown, like some "flaming apparition." The other, less
picturesque but more credible, has also a bishop in it, and concerns an
untimely recitation of _Les Noyades_. I will leave you to find this for
yourself in a book that forms at least an interesting, if not altogether
final, study of a fascinating subject.
* * * * *
For an old hand BENJAMIN SWIFT shows a poor discretion in crowding too many
characters into his pages to allow of anything like adequate
characterisation, and indeed, in _What Lies Beneath_ (CHAPMAN AND HALL), he
is too much concerned with his main purpose of tract-making to be
sufficiently interested in the subsidiary business of good story-telling. A
_Mr. Ravendale_, an unpleasant, hoary-bearded patriarch and opulent seller
of Bibles, who has buried three wives and lives in a fat Bloomsbury house
with the collected offspring of his three marriages, and one or two
step-children thrown in, is haunted by a doubt as to whether the beautiful
_Ruby Delmore_, daughter of the widow _Delmore_, his second wife, is also
the daughter of the late _Mr. Delmore_ or of himself, whose attitude
towards _Mrs. Delmore_ had not been as correct as that of a seller of
Bibles is reasonably expected to be, especially by people like the author
who don't believe in Bibles. At any rate _Sebastian_, son by the first
marriage, is desperately in love with _Ruby_--so, you see, the old man had
something to worry about. However, it all turns out to be, in fact, mere
illusion, developing into a fatal monomania, and the family business is
left to be carried on by such of the next generation as have not been
convinced by the formidable array of evidence, anti-Theistic and anti-
Christian, of two of the characters (who, it is clear, have sedulously read
the same books). _Sebastian_ loses his faith apparently because he has been
distressed by the sight of a wounded horse in the great War, as if it were
necessary to wait for the great War for this kind of a difficulty! A
certain rough earnestness lies beneath this rather crude presentment of a
world-old problem. But I wonder how much of the honest patriotism which
fills the book would survive a rationalism as perverse and shallow as Mr.
SWIFT applies to traditional faiths. Does he imagine they have no better
defences than those which he puts into the weak mouth of silly _Mr.
Teanby_, the parson?
* * * * *
The arrangement of Lady POORE'S new volume of recollections, _An Admiral's
Wife in the Making_ (SMITH, ELDER), reminded me quaintly of certain
romances familiar to my boyhood, in which the fortunes of the hero were
traced from cadetship in aspiring sequence. Because, of course, this is
exactly what happens to the hero of the present book; the chief difference
being that he himself makes only a brief personal appearance therein
(though the chapters in question, formed from letters and diaries of
Commander POORE during the Nile Expedition of '85, are by no means the
least interesting part of the volume). For the rest, one might perhaps call
it a draught of Naval small beer, but a very sparkling beverage and served
with a highly attractive head upon it. To drop metaphor, Lady POORE has
brought together a most entertaining collection of breezy reminiscences of
life ashore and on the ocean wave. There is matter to suit all tastes, from
her recollections of economies in a furnished villa at Parame, where
chickens were to be bought for thirty-two sous, to more exalted anecdotes
connected with the time when her hero had been advanced as far as the post
of Commander of the Royal Yacht _Victoria and Albert_. It is all kindly
gossip, not ill suited to the best-tempered service in the world.
Especially did I like Lady POORE'S gently maternal attitude towards the
many junior officers who figure very attractively in her pages (_e.g._ the
jovial pic-nic party in the Blue Mountains, who slaked their thirst from
the Government rain-gauge, and thereby disorganised the meteorological
records of Jamaica). Certainly the book could not have appeared in times
more apt to give it a hearty welcome.
* * * * *
_The Stars in their Courses_ (UNWIN) is not, as you might possibly suppose,
a work of theatrical history, but just the latest volume in that admirable
series, the First Novel Library. While I am not claiming for it any
startling pre-eminence, it is at least a story of more than ordinary
promise, and one that easily contrived to hold my interest. This is,
perhaps, the more odd, since Miss HILDA M. SHARP has apparently of
deliberate intent called in every one of the three conventions that all
good young novelists are bidden to avoid--the long-nourished revenge, the
missing will, and the super-quixotic self-sacrifice. Naturally the last is
the worst. Thus when old _Mr. Yardley_ (who had, I fancy, more than a touch
of the melodramatic habits of the late _Mr. Dombey_) planned to revenge
himself upon a faithless wife by bringing up his and her son with
extravagant tastes, and leaving him penniless, I winced but endured. When,
repenting of such inhuman intentions, he revoked them by a will, carefully
placed, for subsequent discovery, between the pages of a put-away book, I
still held an undaunted course. But, when _Patrick_, the disinherited
spendthrift, took upon himself, for the thinnest reason, all the blame of
his supplanter's evil doing and kept up this idiotic fraud till the girl of
his heart, and indeed everyone who cared for him, turned their backs in
disdain, then I confess to having felt that Miss SHARP was trying my
forbearance too high. But even so the fact that I could not throw the book
down unfinished seems to show that whoever selects Mr. UNWIN'S _debutantes_
has spotted another winner. If, in short, Miss SHARP will forget all the
novels she may ever have read, and choose for her next story something a
little nearer to life, I believe the result may be remarkable.
* * * * *
_Nursing Adventures_, with its sub-title, _A F.A.N.Y. in France_, is a
notable addition to the series of War-literature which is bringing grist to
Messrs. HEINEMANN'S windmill. F.A.N.Y., in case it has you puzzled, means
First Aid Nursing Yeomanry. Starting from one woman this corps now has over
fifty members working in the zone of the armies, and I shall believe that
no one can read of their efficiency and courage without genuine admiration.
This is not an official account of the F.A.N.Y. Corps--that is to come when
the Hun is beaten--but the author has told enough to convince us of the
sound work that has been and is being done by these brave and gentle-
hearted women. Fortunately she has the gift of selection, in spite of a
rather breathless style, which however goes excellently well with a
narrative full of excitement and danger. Here too once more a fine tribute
is paid to the incorrigible courage of the Allies in face of an enemy that
has forgotten the elementary rules of humanity.
* * * * *
Those who have sampled any reasonable selection of the eighty or so
published works of "KATHARINE TYNAN" will know what pleasant fare to expect
in _Kit_ (SMITH, ELDER). _Kit_ is a pretty, red-haired, peasant girl
approved for her gentle ways and honest breeding by Madam of the big house,
and sent, on the advice of one of Mrs. HINKSON'S nice, human, friendly
priests, to a convent for the higher education. She stirs the sentimental
soul of one of the English quality, _Captain Guy Dering_; is plunged into,
and rather chilled by, high-life in the modern English manner, and
eventually goes back to her own people and her girlhood's friend, _Donal
Sheehy_, who returns from America a made man. 'Tis not a chronicle to set
the Liffey afire, but it is wholesome, escapes being mawkish, and may be
confidently recommended for an anxious old person to give to sensitive
young persons--if there be still any such. Mrs. HINKSON, though she loves
her own, is no blind partisan and does not spare her criticism. So that you
get a plausible picture of a kindly decent native Irish folk of all sorts,
not a little helpful in these days of stress and promise.
* * * * *
[Illustration: A MODEL FOR THE HUNS IN BELGIUM.
HENGIST AND HORSA KINDLY CONSENT TO TAKE PART IN A THREE-LEGGED RACE AT THE
SPORTS IN AID OF THE WIDOWS AND ORPHANS OF THE BRITONS.]
* * * * *
"The bride was attended by her sister and Miss ---- as bridesmaids, all
being very strongly under the influence of drink.
Very choice--Brothers' Coffee."--_Provincial Paper._
The last line is reassuring. We were afraid for the moment that it was
something stronger.