Chapter L: M. B

_A Son at the Front._ By EDITH WHARTON. (Charles Scribner’s Sons.)

As the most and vagueness surrounding the late war are slowly cleared away by passing time and subsiding emotions, and the conflict settles into a semblance of perspective, the more recent books that deal with it show an increasing grasp of its essentials, and a higher understanding of its trials and lessons. Where once were only trees, we can see a forest now, whose outlines are becoming more distinct as the shock of the cataclysm becomes a memory. It is past, now, and irrevocable, open to description or interpretation.

Speaking sincerely from the depth of her own experience, Edith Wharton here gives us a faithful picture; not of the mechanics of the war, but of general and specific reactions to it. Paris is the setting almost throughout the narrative, that of an American painter whose son, born in France, is drawn by the logic of his instincts and sympathies into the struggle. The scenes and events of the war, its growing tragedy and sternness, and their gradual effect on John Campton, are recorded with an insight and understanding that fascinate, while their subject-matter grips. The author shows a keen grasp of small details, as well as of large issues and their significance. Her style is delightful--a silver rapier that here waves benignly, and there strikes humorously or satirically, with great precision. Several delicate threads of narrative underlie and emphasize the main theme--Campton’s art, Paris visibly changing, and the younger Campton’s love affair. The story never falters as it traces out that “huge mysterious design which was slowly curving a new heaven over a new earth”. The author, in that design, points us to a philosophy of the war, a personal moral, comprehending its soul.

Our growing literary heritage from the World War contains few contributions more authentic or more inspiring than “A Son at the Front”.

R. P. C., JR.

_The Dove’s Nest._ By KATHERINE MANSFIELD. (Boni & Liveright.)

Here are stories that are literature: they move us by the presence of the genuine elements of literature, and not by the elements of painting, music, or any other art. Their language is neither colorful nor melodious, but it is significantly expressive, related inextricably to the subject matter. They help make the short story as distinct a literary form as a landscape by Cezanne or a sonata by Beethoven. Katherine Mansfield, scarcely a year after her death, has come to be regarded as one of the most finished artists that ever worked with the short story as their medium.

The present collection includes several unfinished fragments which are invaluable to anyone interested in her art or in the short story as a whole. They are cross-sections of her method which enable us to see the processes that produce the half-dozen little masterpieces at the beginning of the book.

“The Doll’s House” is at once the best and the most typical of all the stories she has written. It shows us in an unforgetable manner her complete mastery of the difficult trick of epitomizing the whole of life in a minute and almost ridiculously petty episode. All the aspirations of the many, all the heartless prejudice of the few, are concentrated in a toy lamp in one of the little rooms of a doll’s house. It might easily be sentimental, and very likely ridiculous, if it were not for the implacable aloofness of her art. Again, in “A Cup of Tea” we have a bitter, though inoffensive, exhibition of the quality of mercy by somewhat the same whimsical concentration on little things. A lady of high degree is accosted on Bond Street by another lady of lesser degree who requests the price of a cup of tea. The first lady, thinking it would be a charming adventure, takes the pathetic creature into her own home for her cup of tea. She is impressed by her own magnanimity, even considers doing something more worthwhile for the stranger, when the great lady’s husband appears. Because the latter ventured the remark that the visitor is really quite pretty, because the great lady suddenly detects the shadow of age on her face as she passes the mirror, the visitor is forthwith despatched with a few shillings, and the great lady asks her husband that evening, “Do you think I’m pretty?”

All the stories of Katherine Mansfield are more or less like that, displaying the difficult accomplishment of a worker in miniature, and, like the art of the miniature, possessing a rare and almost forgotten spirit.

W. T.

_The Lyric._ By JOHN DRINKWATER. (Martin Secker.)

None of the “sound and fury” of modern literary theories (signifying nothing?), and little that is arresting is to be found in this essay on the lyric; its argument has a stately conservatism with enough that is fresh and new to make the whole of interest.

Drinkwater pins much faith on Coleridge’s definition of poetry: “poetry--the best words in the best order”. After declaring this to be the one and only true definition, later in the text he admits that there can be no proper definition of poetry, since so much depends on the individuality of the poet. So perhaps we can forgive him the contradiction on the score that he relieves us of the necessity of having our ideals of poetry destroyed forever.

The author advances an interesting theory of poetic “energies”, the forces that cause the creation of verse. He classifies these into several types that cast a new light on the whys and wherefores of poetry. The lyric itself is well defined. Perhaps the most interesting passage is his clever answer to the accusations against form made by the sponsors of free-verse. Their own lack of form, however, he treats not with diatribe, but interested tolerance.

A. M.

_Within These Walls._ By RUPERT HUGHES. (Harper & Bros.)

It is the natural tendency of every generation to consider much less vivid and wicked those that have come before. We still hear of the “old-fashioned” mothers in sentimental appreciation or pity--as contrasted with the obstreperous rising generation.

In this light, it is interesting to read Mr. Hughes’ novel, which has as an obtrusive background the very vital and naughty New York of 1825-1875. With a slight hesitation for touches that obviously cater to our surprise, we would class the bulk of this background as authentic. It is the main theme of the book. A restless melodramatic movement of indifferently drawn characters across this setting gives the author his excuse for it. The action is too stereotyped in its thrill to be in itself worth while, and it is given the reader as substitute for an ability to define the characters into lasting silhouettes. Mr. Hughes’s _forte_ is a running-fire, rat-tat-tat description of stirring events (as the great fire of 1837) which never fails to work one up, and is thus highly effective.

However, the author does hew to the line of his purpose, and gives us an interesting (however faithful) picture of the growing New York, and its groping fight for an adequate water supply. Daniel Webster enters in two places--once as toper, once as orator--with doubtful appropriateness.

One does not for the most part feel in sympathy with the book.

R. P. C., JR.

_The Powder of Sympathy._ By CHRISTOPHER MORLEY.

_The Powder of Sympathy_ is a collection of whimsical, verbal morsels, colyumistic in length, but not for the most part in character. Discourse upon the shortcomings of the Long Island Railroad, or upon the vicissitudes of mongrel dogs in pedigreed kennels no doubt is admirable colyum copy; but Mr. Morley has included in his latest book an equal quantity of semi-serious discussion about books and about authors. We can think of no one who can impart to the reader his own genuine enthusiasm for good books so well as Sir Kenelm Digby’s publicity agent. (Incidentally, we consider Mr. Morley’s observations on Sir Digby’s character, habits, and work as the most titillating particle of sympathetic powder to be found in the whole book.)

It is a book for every mood. If you feel the need of a laugh, pick up this salmon-colored work and choose at random from the forty odd titles that speak for themselves. If you are beginning to wonder whether you will ever again find prose that will thrill you with its bold and powerful use of the strong red roots of our English vocabulary, read “Santayana in the Subway”. If you still have a morbid interest in the higher side of the culinary art known as distillation, you will find enlightening Sir Kenelm’s directions for making “ale drink quick and stronger”. In any case once you open this book you will forget where the blues begin.

M. T.

_Editor’s Table_

One by one the Editors appeared, grim with the prospect of renewed and unremittent editing. It was hours before Cherrywold, the verbal Valentine, could sufficiently cast off the burden of his perpetually broken heart to enter the conversation, but the others gradually warmed to the task of post-vacation badinage.

“How were the girls at Grosse Pointe Village?” inquired Han solicitously of the pagan Rabnon.

“How was _the_ girl, you mean!” chirped Aerial. “Why, along in August he telegraphed me, ‘A girl has been seen in Grosse Pointe Village. What shall I do?’”

“What did he dew?” inquired the scandal-seeking Mrs. Stephens.

“Don’t know,” said Aerial. “I telegraphed back, ‘Compromise’, and let it go at that!”

“How shiffless!” cried Mrs. Stephens. And at the same moment the deep base roar of Mr. Stephens was heard calling for water, for she had fainted from the shock of Aerial’s remark, being a perfect lady.

“Why pick on me?” countered Rabnon, when the excitement had subsided. “The girls of Grosse Pointe Village are all right. One of them entertained me this summer with an account of how an empty taxi-cab once rolled up to Dobbs Ferry, and Cherrywold got out. You can’t beat that for a masterly bit of description!”

Thus roused from thoughts of “all for love and love for all”, the slandered Cherrywold girded himself against the powers of cynicism.

“You are a pack of blasphemous cowards all!” he cried. “It has been alleged that Mr. and Mrs. Stephens are the only people in the world who still believe in fairies, and that Jonah was swallowed by the whale, but I believe--”

“‘What troubles you, my little one? The dawn is far away,’” soothed Han. But, refusing to be calmed by a snatch of one of his own lullabies, Cherrywold was only prevented from assaulting his Oriental acquaintance by main force.

“You! You c-can’t SPELL!” he thundered. And the office crashed in ruins.

* * * * *

“That’s what they all say--when they can’t think of anything else. And so say I--when I can’t think of anything else,” remarked

HAN.

* * * * *

Transcriber’s note

Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.