Book: Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 24, 1917
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Various >> Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 24, 1917
_The Sultan_. The Americans--
_The Kaiser_ \ _(together)_.
_The Tsar_ / Oh, curse the Americans!
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Postlethwaite (keenly appreciative of hum of Gotha
overhead)._ "LISTEN, AGATHA! EXACTLY B FLAT." {_Strikes note to
establish accuracy of his ear._}]
* * * * *
STANZAS ON TEA SHORTAGE.
[Mr. M. GRIEVE, writing from "The Whins," Chalfont St. Peter, in
_The Daily Mail_ of the 12th inst., suggests herb-teas to meet
the shortage, as being far the most healthful substitutes. "They
can also," he says, "be blended and arranged to suit the gastric
idiosyncrasies of the individual consumer. A few of them are
agrimony, comfrey, dandelion, camomile, woodruff, marjoram,
hyssop, sage, horehound, tansy, thyme, rosemary, stinging-nettle
and raspberry."]
Although, when luxuries must be resigned,
Such as cigars or even breakfast bacon,
My hitherto "unconquerable mind"
Its philosophic pose has not forsaken,
By one impending sacrifice I find
My stock of fortitude severely shaken--
I mean the dismal prospect of our losing
The genial cup that cheers without bemusing.
Blest liquor! dear to literary men,
Which Georgian writers used to drink like fishes,
When cocoa had not swum into their ken
And coffee failed to satisfy all wishes;
When tea was served to monarchs of the pen,
Like JOHNSON and his coterie, in "dishes,"
And came exclusively from far Cathay--
See "China's fragrant herb" in WORDSWORTH'S lay.
Beer prompted CALVERLEY'S immortal rhymes,
Extolling it as utterly eupeptic;
But on that point, in these exacting times,
The weight of evidence supports the sceptic;
Beer is not suitable for torrid climes
Or if your tendency is cataleptic;
But tea in moderation, freshly brewed,
Was never by Sir ANDREW CLARK tabooed.
We know for certain that the GRAND OLD MAN
Drank tea at midnight with complete impunity,
At least he long outlived the Psalmist's span
And from ill-health enjoyed a fine immunity;
Besides, robust Antipodeans can
And do drink tea at every opportunity;
While only Stoics nowadays contrive
To shun the cup that gilds the hour of five.
But war is war, and when we have to face
Shortage in tea as well as bread and boots
'Tis well to teach us how we may replace
The foreign brew by native substitutes,
Extracted from a vegetable base
In various wholesome plants and herbs and fruits,
"Arranged and blended," very much like teas,
To suit our "gastric idiosyncrasies."
It is a list for future use to file,
Including woodruff, marjoram and sage,
Thyme, agrimony, hyssop, camomile
(A name writ painfully on childhood's page),
Tansy, the jaded palate to beguile,
Horehound, laryngeal troubles to assuage,
And, for a cup ere mounting to the stirrup,
The stinging-nettle's stimulating syrup.
And yet I cannot, though I gladly would,
Forget the Babylonian monarch's cry,
"It may be wholesome, but it is not good,"
When grass became his only food supply;
Such weakness ought, of course, to be withstood,
But oh, it wrings the teardrop from my eye
To think of Polly putting on the kettle
To brew my daily dose of stinging-nettle!
* * * * *
AT THE PLAY.
"DEAR BRUTUS."
There are great ways of borrowing, as EMERSON said, and in his new
Fantasy Sir JAMES BARRIE has given us a very charming variation on
_A Midsummer Night's Dream_ (with echoes of _Peter Pan_ and _The
Admirable Crichton_). Certainly I got far more fun out of his deluded
lovers in the Magic Wood than I ever extracted from the comedy of
errors which occurred between the ladies and gentlemen of the Court
of _Theseus_.
In _Dear Brutus_ the contrast between real life and the life of
Magicland is sharply accentuated by the fact that there is not a
separate set of characters for each; the same men and women figure in
both, making abrupt transitions from one to the other and back again.
We have a house party of actual humans (not too obtrusively actual),
most of whom, including the butler, imagine that if they could have a
Second Chance in life they would not make such a mess of it as they
did with the First. One of them thinks he would never have taken to
drink and lost his self-respect and his wife's love if he had only had
a child; one that he would not have become a pilferer if he had stuck
to the City; others that they would have done better to have married
Somebody Else. Well, they are all whisked off into the Magic Wood, and
there they get their Second Chance. The pilferer becomes a successful
tradesman in a large and questionable way; the tippler finds himself
sober and attended by the daughter of his heart's desire; various
married folk get re-sorted; and so forth.
The moral purpose (if any) of the author, as conveyed to us through
the mouth of the leading humourist of the party, is to show that a
man's nature would remain the same even if he got a Second Chance.
Unfortunately--but what can you expect in the realm of Magic?--the
scheme does not work out with any logical consistency. It is true
that the philanderer and the pilfering butler show little promise of
making anything out of their Second Chance; but, on the other hand,
the childless tippler seems to have gone reformation and recovered
his wife's regard; and if I rightly interpret certain delicate
indications, they propose to have a pearl of a daughter later on. Also
the dainty and supercilious _Lady Caroline_, who in the wood becomes
enamoured of the butler-turned-plutocrat (_cf. Titania_ and _Bottom_)
and subsequently returns to her sniffiness, cannot be said to have
lost much by failing to utilise her Second Chance.
However, one might never have troubled about Sir JAMES'S logic if he
had not declared his moral purpose in set terms. I suppose he had to
explain his title, which was sufficiently obscure. It comes, as Mr.
SOTHERN kindly informed us, from the lines:--
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves."
_Brutus_, in fact, is the famous general to whom certain things were
caviare. He is the typical man in the audience, to whom Sir JAMES
says: "You, too, Brutus; I'm talking at you."
[Illustration: IN AND OUT OF THE WOOD.
_Mr. Purdie_ MR. SAM SOTHERN.
_Mr. Coade_ MR. NORMAN FORBES.
_Mr. Dearth_ MR. GERALD DU MAURIER.]
Happily (for my taste, anyhow) the humour of the play dominates its
sentiment. And where the sentiment of the child _Margaret_ threatens
to overstrain itself we had always the healthy antidote of Mr. DU
MAURIER'S practical methods to correct its tendency to cloy. He was
extraordinarily good both as himself and, for a rare change, as
somebody quite different. Miss FAITH CELLI as his daughter--a sort of
_Peter Pan_ girl who does grow up, far too tall--was delightful in the
true BARRIE manner. It was a pity--but that was not her fault--that
she had to end her long and difficult scene on rather a false note.
I am almost certain that no child (outside a BARRIE play), who is
left alone in a Magic Wood, scared out of her life, would cry aloud,
"Daddy, daddy, I don't want to be a Might-have-been." The sentiment of
the words was, of course, part of the scheme, but it was not for her
to say them.
Mr. NORMAN FORBES, in the Wood, was an elderly piping faun and
performed with astonishing agility a sword-dance over a stick crossed
with his whistle. Elsewhere as _Mr. Coade_ he played very engagingly
the part of the only character who had made such good use of his First
Chance that he really didn't need a Second. Both in name and nature he
brought to mind the late Mr. CHOATE, who gallantly declared that if he
had not been what he was he would have liked to be his wife's second
husband. And no wonder that _Mr. Coade_ wanted nothing better than to
remain attached to so adorable a creature as his wife, played with a
delightful homeliness by Miss MAUDE MILLETT, who has lost nothing of
that charm to which, with _Mr. Coade_, we retain the most faithful
devotion.
Mr. WILL WEST was admirable as a _Crichton_ gone wrong; and Mr.
SOTHERN, as the philanderer _Purdie_, took all his Chances of humour,
and they were many, with the greatest aplomb. They included some very
pleasant satire on stage manners. I have only to mention the names
of Miss HILDA MOORE, Miss JESSIE BATEMAN, Miss DORIS LYTTON and Miss
LYDIA BILBROOKE for you to understand how excellent a cast it was,
both for wit and grace.
Finally, Mr. ARTHUR HATHERTON, as _Lob_, the host of the party, a kind
of hoary old _Puck_ who had a _penchant_ for filling his house every
Midsummer Eve with people who wanted a Second Chance, interpreted Sir
JAMES'S whimsical fancy to the very top of freakishness.
I hope, but doubtfully, that there are enough Dear Brutuses in London
(so many aliens have lately fled) to do justice to BARRIE at his best.
O.S.
* * * * *
LE MOT JUSTE.
"Tea is very scarce and that to Irish folks, who like it black
and strong, with always 'one more for the pot,' is a source of
damentation."--_Liverpool Daily Post and Mercury_.
* * * * *
"Another Army Order provides that an officer while undergoing
instruction in flying shall receive continuous flying pay at
the rate of 4s. a day in addition from the public-houses of the
town."--_Provincial Paper_.
Very generous of them; but what will the Board of Liquor Control say?
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Vicar._ "AND WHAT WERE YOUR SENSATIONS WHEN YOU WERE
STRUCK?"
_Wounded Tommy._ "WELL, IT WAS LIKE WHEN THE MISSIS COPS YEH BEHIND
THE EAR WITH A FLAT-IRON--_YOU KNOW_."]
* * * * *
OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
(_BY MR. PUNCH'S STAFF OF LEARNED CLERKS._)
I have often pitied the lot of the costume novelist, faced with the
increasing difficulty of providing fresh and unworn trappings for his
characters. Therefore with all the more warmth do I congratulate those
seasoned adventurers, AGNES and EGERTON CASTLE, on their acumen in
discovering such a setting as that of _Wolf-lure_ (CASSELL). The name
alone should be worth many editions. Nor do the contents in any sort
belie it. This remote country of Guyenne, a hundred years ago, with
its forests and caves and subterranean lakes, with, moreover, its
rival wolf-masters, Royal and Imperial, and its wild band of coiners,
is the very stage for any hazardous and romantic exploit. It should
be added at once that the authors have taken full advantage of these
possibilities. From the moment when the wandering English youth who
tells the tale wakes on the hillside to find himself contemplated
by a lovely maiden and a gigantic wolf-hound, the adventure dashes
from thrill to thrill unpausing. One protest however I must
utter. The conduct of the young and lovely heroine (as above) and
her single-minded devotion to her lover may be true to nature,
but somewhat alienated my own sympathies, already given to the
first-person-singular English lad who also adored her, and whom both
she and her chosen mate treated abominably. To my thinking, unrequited
devotion has no business in a tale of this sort. Realistic pathos may
have its _Dobbin_ or _Tom Pinch_, but the wild and whirling episodes
of tushery demand the satisfactory finish hallowed by custom.
With this reservation only I can call _Wolf-lure_ about the best
adventure-novel that the present season has produced.
* * * * *
Since the opening pages of _Calvary Alley_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) are
concerned with choir-boys and a cathedral and a rose-window, things to
which one gives, without sufficient reason, an association exclusively
of the Old World, I was a little startled, as the action proceeded,
by the mention of cops and dimes and trolly-cars. Of course this
only meant that I had forgotten, ungratefully, the country in which
any story by ALICE HEGAN RICE might be expected to be laid. Anyhow,
_Calvary Alley_ proves an admirable entertainment, a tale of a girl's
expanding fortunes, from the grim slum that gives its name to the
book, through many varied experiences of reform schools, a bottling
factory and membership of the ballet, up to the haven of matrimony.
Through them all, _Nance_, the heroine, carries a very human and
engaging personality, so that one is made to see the young woman
who is clasped to the heroic breast on the last page as the logical
development of the ragged urchin stamping her bare foot into the soft
cement of _Calvary Alley_ on the first. Moreover--wonder of wonders
for transatlantic fiction!--the author is able to write about
children, and the contrasted lives of rich and poor city dwellers,
without lapsing into sentimentality, _O si sic omnes!_ But either
American bishops are strangely different from the English variety,
or Mrs. RICE, following Mr. WELLS'S example, has permitted herself
an episcopal burlesque. In either case the resulting portrait is
hardly worthy of an otherwise admirably-drawn collection of original
characters.
* * * * *
_Christine_ (MACMILLAN) contains a very illuminating picture of
Germany in the months immediately preceding the War; but I am
perplexed--and a little provoked--by the way in which it is presented.
The book opens with a pathetic foreword, signed by Miss ALICE
CHOLMONDELEY, in which we read: "My daughter Christine, who wrote
me these letters, died at a hospital in Stuttgart on the morning
of August 8th, 1914, of acute double pneumonia.... I am publishing
the letters just as they came to me, leaving out nothing.... The
war killed Christine, just as surely as if she had been a soldier
in the trenches.... I never saw her again. I had a telegram saying
she was dead. I tried to go to Stuttgart, but was turned back at
the frontier." Then follows a Publishers' note to the effect that
some personal names have been altered. After this one is naturally
surprised to find the book advertised as a "new novel." All I can
say is that, if Miss CHOLMONDELEY'S preface is true, her book is not
a novel, and that, if it is untrue, I do not think the foreword is
fair or in good taste. My opinion, for what it is worth, is that Miss
CHOLMONDELEY was herself in Germany during the summer of 1914, and
has chosen this way of telling us what she saw and heard. Anyhow the
letters are undoubtedly the work of someone who knows Germany and the
inhabitants thereof. And for this excellent reason _Christine_ should
not be missed by anyone who wants to know in what a state of militant
anticipation the Germans were living. The strongest searchlight
has been thrown over the Hun, from the habitues of a middle-class
boarding-house to members of the Junker breed. Whether these letters
ought to be classed as fiction or not they contain facts, and as they
are written in a style at once vivid and engaging my advice to you is
to read them and not worry too much about the foreword.
* * * * *
_The Four Corners of the World_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) is emphatically
what I should call a fireside book. On these chill Autumn evenings,
with the rain or the dead leaves or the shrapnel whirling by outside,
you could have few more agreeable companions than Mr. A.E.W. MASON,
when he is, as here, in communicative mood. He has a baker's dozen of
excellent tales to tell, most of them with a fine thrill, out of which
he gets the greatest possible effect, largely by the use of a crisp
and unemotional style that lets the sensational happenings go their
own way to the nerves of the reader. As an example of how to make the
most of a good theme, I commend to you the story pleasantly, if not
very originally, named "The House of Terror." Before now I have been
ensnared to disappointment by precisely this title. But Mr. MASON'S
House holds no deception; it genuinely does terrify; and when at the
climax of its history the two persons concerned see the door swing
slowly inwards, and "the white fog billowed into the room," while
"Glyn felt the hair stir and move upon his scalp," I doubt not that
you will almost certainly partake of some measure of his emotion.
Naturally, in a mixed bag such as this, one can't complain if the
quality of the contents varies. Not all the tales reach the level of
"The House of Terror"; but in every one there is enough artistry to
occupy any spare half-hour you may have for such purposes, without
letting you feel afterwards that it was wasted. And as a hospital
present the collection could hardly be beaten.
* * * * *
Miss MARJORIE BOWEN'S historical romances usually have the merit of
swift movement, and that is precisely the quality I miss in _The Third
Estate_ (METHUEN). It does not march--at least not quick enough.
You will not need to be told that Miss BOWEN has saturated herself
conscientiously in her period--an intensely interesting period
too--and has contrived her atmosphere most competently and plausibly.
But for all that I couldn't make myself greatly interested in the bold
bad Marquis DE SARCEY in those anxious two years before "the Terror,"
with his insufferable pride, his incredible elegance, his fantastic
ideas of love and his idiotic marriage, the negotiations for which,
with the resulting complications, take up so large a space in a
lengthy book. It gives one the impression of being written not
"according to plan" but out of a random fancy, with so hurried a pen
that not merely have irrelevant incidents, absurdities of diction, and
indubitable _longueurs_ escaped excision, but such lapses from the
King's fair English as "save you and I" and "I shoot with my own hand
he who refuses." Even a popular author--indeed, especially a popular
author--owes us more consideration than that.
* * * * *
_The Fortunes of Richard Mahony_ (HEINEMANN) is one of those pleasant
books in which the hero prospers. True, the process as here shown
is very gradual; so much so that the four hundred odd pages of the
present volume only take us as far as "End of Book One." Clearly,
therefore, Mr. H.H. RICHARDSON has more to follow; and, as one should
call no hero fortunate till his author has ceased writing, it is as
yet too early for a final pronouncement upon _Richard Mahony_. My own
honest impression at this stage would be that he is in some danger of
outgrowing his strength. This pathological phrase comes the more aptly
since _Richard's_ fortune, though begun in the goldfields, was not
derived from digging, but from the practice of medicine, and from a
lucky speculation in mining stock (I liked especially the description
of the day when the shares sold at fifty-three, and _Richard_ "went
about feeling a little more than human"). The end of the whole matter,
at least the end for the present, is that, with his wife, and what he
can get together from the remains of the mining _coup_, and the sale
of a somewhat damaged practice, _Richard_ sets forth for England.
Obviously more turns of fortune are in store there for him and _Mary_
and that queer character, his one-time inseparable, _Purdy_. That I
anticipate their future with much interest is a genuine tribute to
the humanity in which Mr. RICHARDSON has clothed his cast. _Richard
Mahony_, in short, is a real man, whose fortunes take a genuine hold
upon one's attention; though I repeat that I could wish his author had
told them less wordily, and--in one glaring instance--with a greater
respect for the decencies of medical reticence.
* * * * *
[Illustration: USING PETROL FOR PLEASURE.
JOY-RIDERS CAUGHT RED-HANDED.]
* * * * *
LONG-DISTANCE MEDICAL TREATMENT.
"A telephone massage was received last night by the Scotland
Yard authorities."--_Bristol Times and Mirror_.