Page:Punch Vol 148.djvu/414

free of the widow Cliquot and others. This, I suppose, is a concession to the molasses formula, though our author is too sincere a person to accept it, and hints in an epilogue that burnt salamanders don't dread the fire as much as it would be comforting to their converted husbands to believe. This clever novel hasn't the air of caricature which the subject might seem to invite. Doré herself is made plausible enough—no mean feat. Salamanderism is presented as a phase of the new feminism in U.S.A. An allied species has been reported in Chelsea by detached observers.

In Mr. P. W. Wilson's War study, The Unmaking of Europe (Nisbet), there is presented, together with a broad statement of the circumstances leading up to the final crash, a narrative of the events of the first five months of the struggle. The author's work has this to recommend it, that he has really succeeded in his effort to be fair (the effort is almost too visible at times), and that his manner of writing is nearly always sufficiently flowing to carry one without impatience over ground that is necessarily quite familiar. Not only does one naturally remember all the incidents related, but even the phrases in which they are told come forward, time and again, with something of an air of old acquaintanceship; yet this lack of novelty, inevitable, I suppose, in a history made by the week, seems to detract very little from the strength or even from the vividness of the book. Perhaps the impression of freshness is derived a good deal from those pages in which Mr. Wilson, leaving the plain pathway of official reports to wander among the philosophies, comes to matters that are intriguing because they are controversial. His suggestive analysis of the reasons for our attitude towards Russia, for instance, is well worth study, and I should not have grumbled at rather more of this sort of thing, which indeed the title had made me expect; but I suppose it really could not be done in the time. We should all have listened with attention to P. W. W. commenting, say, on the uncanny inactivity of the House of Commons, a subject that must have had a certain painful attraction for him. His work is to be continued, and I should like to think he will find material for only one more volume, but I shall look out with interest for as many as his subject gives him.

The excellent message which Mr. Justus Miles Forman attempts to convey in The Blind Spot (Ward, Lock) is that all movements for social amelioration must be inspired by love and compassion, and that the mere brainy organiser will fail. Arthur Stone, taking an exactly opposite view, affirms that it is the emotional element which has been so disastrous and sterile in progressive movements, that common-sense alone is the essential factor; and even goes so far as to denounce the self-sacrifice of those brave souls in the wreck of the Titanic who made way for the saving of useless steerage lives which would likely enough be perpetual charge on the state! Also, when a chance offers to save a beggarman from a runaway van he deliberately refuses to risk a life so valuable to the community as his own, and leaves the rescue to his rival, Coppy (who carries off the girl in the end); and when Stone, following up these two unpopular adventures, lets himself go bald-headed at a public meeting for all the things that simpler folk reverence he gets the push direct from his immense body of supporters and goes out a broken man. Perhaps Mr. Forman makes him rather too blind and too spotted for plausibility, while Coppy Latimer, occasional abstainer and delinquent, had the turning over of his new leaf made rather too easy for him. Still, both Coppy and his author have their hearts in the right place, and even Mr. Sidney Webb would have lost patience with Stone.

Though one may be inclined to think that Cornwall is in danger of being written to death, a welcome can still be offered to Cornish Saints and Sinners (Lane), which (as I discovered rather cleverly, for the fact, though stated, is not exactly proclaimed) is a "new edition." Mr. J. Henry Harris has a real love for his subject and a true understanding of the Cornish people; and as his book has the additional advantage of numerous drawings by Mr. L. Raven Hill I can recommend it emphatically to those who seek Cornwall not only for its golf and its cream and its alleged resemblance, in climate, to the Riviera, but also for the charm of its legends. I could wish that Mr. Harris had confined himself to a mere narration of the tales he has collected, for some of the comments made upon them and put into the mouth of Guy Moore are terribly facetious without being funny. This, however, does not materially affect the value of a praiseworthy and successful attempt to do justice to the Duchy.

"'Arf a pound of steak, an' mother says, please cut it tough, as we've got one of Kitchener's armies billeted on us!"