Page:Punch Vol 148.djvu/290

The only thing that I didn't admire about Red Hair (Methuen) was the publisher's puff, describing it as a book "with a particular appeal to everybody who was ever called carrots or ginger." What I mean is, if this system of specialisation in literature is to be continued, why not "Fiction for the Freckled," or "Love-Lyrics of the Left-handed"? And anyhow Mr. Robert Halifax has written a story that stands in no need of any such appeal. Since he wrote A Whistling Woman I have always taken a very special pleasure in his work. Red Hair shows him with the same delicious humour sparkling upon a sombre background of mean circumstance, the same sympathy (perhaps a little nearer to sentiment than it used to be) and the same sureness of character-drawing. As with his other books, this is more a collection of happenings in one London neighbourhood than an ordered and arranged novel. There is little except geographical association between the episode of Kate Whirl's love-affair and that of Mr. Bastable's ejectment campaign for defaulting tenants. In this Islington district indeed Mr. Halifax finds every variety of material, from farce to the most searching and poignant pathos. His dialogue is (there is no other expression for it) a fair treat. I defy you to read Mrs. Gundy, for example, unmoved by laughter; Mrs. Gundy, whose oratorical flights were hampered by ill-fitting front teeth and an internal malaise which compelled her to the frequent apology of "Manners!" Then turn from this to the affair of the lodger's mother, so human and direct in its appeal; or to the whole treatment of Mr. Whirl, a beautifully drawn character; and you will understand why I venture to put Mr. Halifax at the head of our mean street realists.

In Russia and the World (Cassell) Mr. Stephen Graham tells us much of our Eastern Allies, whom he knows and loves as friends, which it is good and heartening for us to know. If the book has the scrappiness inherent in detached articles written on the march, it has also the freshness of unstudied impressions conveyed at random by a sincere observer. Mr. Graham had the first news of war from a mounted courier spurring through a Cossack village on the Mongolian frontier, crying "War! War!" and trailing a blood-red flag. The men of the village were all eagerness to go, but none had the faintest notion as to who was the enemy. China? Japan? England? Verily a ready-made sermon for pacifists! Only some days after came an approximate version of the truth. Friendliness, simplicity, obstinate courage, a deep mystical piety—those characteristics Mr. Graham finds pre-eminently in the Russian common soldier. Of course there's a reverse to the medal—but the medal itself is of pure gold. He gives a general impression of men fighting splendidly but without malice. You get a confirmation of what is perhaps the most dastardly of all the German systematised villainies—the teaching of their soldiery that the Russians would torture and kill their prisoners. So that the kindly captors, offering tea, are asked, "Is it not vitriol?" and "When are we to be hanged?" Unforgivable devil's work this, surely! again, you find the very methodically organised loot, the loaded plunder waggons in long columns creeping Kulturwards; and such imaginative pleasantries as the cutting of a famous Madonna out of her ikon frame and the substitution of the Kaiser. When our author turns from impressions to reflections he is, perhaps, less happy. Much may be forgiven to a maker of books on so arduous a trek. But there's a sort of Pleasant-Sunday-Afternoon air about the later chapters that seems out of keeping with the rest. Still a welcome and informing work.

An exasperating person, Robert MacWhinnie, one of those strong, patient, big-souled men who go about asking for trouble and then bear up against it bravely. There were at least a dozen easy ways in which he could have avoided the tragedy which spoiled ten years of his life, and he deliberately selected the course which involved the most certain unhappiness. And even as regards the professional side of his life he showed no better judgment. He was the owner of engineering works on the Thames, and had the misfortune to have a brother who was a professional agitator. Did he say to him, "Thomas, old lad, blood is thicker than water and all that but business is business. Much obliged if you wouldn't come round every day urging my men to strike?" No, he gave Thomas the run of the place, with the natural results. You cannot sympathise with a man like that. Pity is wasted. The Robert MacWhinnie type of man could not turn round without bumping into himself. It is true that Mr. Andrew Soutar ends Charity Corner (Cassell) on a note of optimism ("'Yesterday's gone.' He stooped and kissed her. 'And thus thus we await to-morrow'"), but one knows perfectly well that Robert's troubles are not ended. Frankly he irritated me. Towards Mr. Soutar my feelings are more mixed. He has tried to write a bigger book than he has it in him to write, and he has failed. But whether he is to be blamed for having failed, or praised for having made a plucky attempt, to soar above his limitations, I do not know. The problem is one which must exercise the mind of every critic who wishes to be fair. And as I wish to be very fair I will confess that my verdict on Charity Corner may have been influenced by the fact that one of the characters uses expressions like "Hoots, hinny!" Constitutionally I am incapable of standing that kind of thing.

The following tribute to the value of a recent work on "Pulpit and Platform Oratory" seems worthy of a wider publicity:—

"Rev. J. Howl—'For four years I suffered from periodic loss of voice, and without Dr. ———'s instructions should never have been able to enter the Ministry.'"

"Why do people stay from church? Dr. ———'s book is an answer."

Expository Times.