18 SEPTEMBER 1909, Page 24

NOVELS.

ORPHEUS IN MAYFAIR.* WHEN the writer of this notice took up this volume, the first thing he did was to see whether it contained " A Luncheon- Party." That fantasia, when it originally appeared in the columns of the Morning Post, he had cut out and lent to a friend—with the usual result. He then purchased another copy, and when that also disappeared consoled himself with the reflection that the sketch was too good to remain buried in the files of a daily newspaper, and would in due course be reprinted with other work from the same pen. That anticipation has now been happily fulfilled, and a further reading—the third—only confirms the original opinion of its distinguished humour. To speak crudely, "A Luncheon-Party" is alone worth the money demanded for the book. But there are many other pieces, if not so exhilarating, almost as enjoyable as the whimsical record of the party at which Airs. Bergmann entertained Shakespeare unawares. Though the sketches are almost kaleidoscopic in their variety, ranging from sheer fairy-tales to studies of modern schoolboy life, from " reconstitutions "of the Homeric period to transcripts from Russian life of to-day, they are animated throughout by the same poetic and uncon- ventional spirit. Mr. Baring is not in the least interested in success, prosperity, or efficiency. If he writes about school. boys, it is to express his vivid sympathy with those who suffer for their disregard of good form. He satirises the excesses of a cast-iron esprit de corps, whether it is shown by school- masters or dons. He pictures to us soldiers yielding to the passion of nostalgia ; artists who scorn short cuts to popularity ; thieves who sacrifice their lives to save the children of their enemies. He is attracted by the misfortunes of the insignificant, and by all failures,—witness in particular the admirable sketch of the man who invariably gave good advice to others, from which they profited hugely, but could never help himself ; e.g., "He frequently spotted winners for his friends and for himself, but any money that he won at a race meeting he invariably lost coming home in the train on the Three Card Trick."

The plain matter-of-fact person will find several loopholes • • Orphans in Mayfair, and other Stories and Sketcher, By Maurice Baring. London : Mills and Boon. 168.1 for criticism, in Mr.. Baring's work. ,'For. instance, it may be urged that in his clever study of the last days of Edward II. in Berkeley Castle he ought not to represent the King recalling his splendid achievements in the lists, because the authorities expressly say that he had no taste or nerve for tournaments. Also that it is absurd to mention Piers Gaveatou as using " heated words" of the Queen's actions, seeing that Gaveston had been done to death some fourteen years previously. The matter-of-fact person, again, will be somewhat perplexed by Mr. Baring's deliberate anachronisms, —e.g., when he makes King Edward's minstrel in 14'17 sing of "Drake upon the sea." Then, again, this prosaic critic will be somewhat puzzled by Mr. Baring's practice of double dedication, the sketches being in many cases inscribed to various friends, while the book as a whole is dedicated to a distinguished musical composer. But this sort of criticism is distinctly to be deprecated. Poeta ought not to be put into the witness-box, and Mr. Baring's eccentricities are for the most part perfectly harmless and engaging. It is, however, quite legitimate to point out that he is somewhat overfond of the device of reincarnation, which recurs in three at least of his stories, and that some of the sketches are so slight and fragmentary as to be hardly worth reprinting. But when criticism has done its worst, there are many qualities about the book which lift it high above the average collection of short stories. His trick of giving a twist to some old legend or myth is nowhere better illustrated than in " The Flute-Player's Story," where Marsyas in the very hour of his defeat arraigns Apollo for his cruelty:— "Presently all was still, but the dark cloud remained, and she heard a mocking laugh and the accents of a clear, scornful voice (she recognised the voice, it was the voice of Albrecht), and the voice said : 'Thou hast conquered, Apollo, and cruelly halt thou used thy victory ; and cruelly bast thou punished me for daring to challenge thy divine skill. It was mad indeed to compote with a god ; and yet shall I avenge my wrong and thy harshness shall recoil on thee. For not oven gods can be unjust with impunity, and the Fates are above us all. And I shall be avenged ; for all thy sons shall suffer what I have suffered; and there is not one of them that shall escape the doom and not share the fate of Marsyas the Satyr, whom thou didst cruelly slay. The music and the skill which shall be their inheritance shall be the cause to then of sorrow and grief unending and pitiless pain and misery. Their life shall be as bitter to them as my death has been to me. Their music shall fill the world with sweetness and ravish the ears of listening nations, but to them it shall bring no joy ; for life like a cruel blade shall flay and lay bare their hearts, and sorrow like a searching wind shall play upon their souls and make them tremble, even as the scabbard of my body trembled in the breeze ; and just as from that trembling husk of what was once myself there came forth sweet sounds, so shall it be with their souls, shivering and trembling in the cold wind of life. Music shall come from them, but this music shall be born of agony ; nor shall they utter a single note that is not begotten of sorrow or pain. And so shall the children of Apollo suffer and share the pain of Marsyas:"

The flute-player, we may add, is the guest of an exiled foreign ex-Prime Minister who had taken up his abode in a country inn in the South of England, where he entertained his friends on condition that they told him stories ; and the opening of the narrative is thoroughly characteristic of Mr. Baring's method :—

" On this particular Sunday, besides myself, the clerk, the flute. player, the wine merchant (the friends of the ex-Prime Minister were exceedingly various), and the scholar were present. They were smoking in the tower room. It was summer, and the windows were wide open. Every inch of wall which was not occupied by the windows was crowded with books. The clerk was turning over the leaves of the ex-Prime Minister's stamp collection (which was magnificent), the flute-player was reading the score of Handel's flute sonatas (which was rare), the scholar was reading a translation in Latin hexameters of the Ring and the Book' (which the ex-Prime Minister has written in his spare moments), and the wine merchant was drinking generously of a curious red wine, which was very old."

Of the ," reconatitutions," none is more successful than the sketch of the environment in which Rufinus composed his

immortal epigram : laii•rta ref, P A--K—E12, T--E TTIA 01. Lastly,

Mr. Baring is one of the very few writers who know how to reproduce the clever talk of educated people with the requisite idealisation. To justify this view of his talent we may quote a passage from " A Luncheon-Party " :—

", Shakespeare understood love,' said Lady Herman, in a loud voice; 'he knew how a man makes love to a woman. If Richard III. had made love to me as Shakespeare describes him doing it, I'm not sure that I could have resisted him. But the finest of all Shake- speare's men is Othello. That's a real man. Desdemena was a fool. It's not wonderful that Othello didn't see through Iago ; but Desdemona ought to have seen through him. The stupidest

woman can see through a clever man like him ; but, of course, Othello was a fool too.'—'Yes,' broke in Mrs. Lockton, if Napoleon had married Desdemona he would have made Iago marry one of his sisters.'—' I think Desdemona is the most pathetic of Shake- speare's heroines,' said Lady Hyacinth; ' don't you think so, Mr. Hall P Its easy enough to make a figure pathetic, who is strangled by a nigger, answered Hall. 'Now if Desdemona had been a negress Shakespeare would have started fair.'—'If only Shake- speare had lived later,' sighed Willmott, 'and understood the con- dition of the modern stage, he would have written quite differently.

If Shakespeare bad lived now he would have written novels,' said Faubourg.—' Yes,' said Mrs. Baldwin, feel sure you are right there. —` If Shakespeare had lived now,' said Sciarra to Mrs. Bergmann, we shouldn't notice his existence ; he would be just on monsieur comme tout le monde—like that monsieur sitting next to Faubourg,' he added in a low voice.—' The problem about Shakespeare,' broke in Hall, is not how he wrote his plays. I could teach a poodle to do that in half an hour. But the problem is—What made him leave off writing just when he was beginning to know how to do it ? It is as if I had left off writing plays ten years ago.'—' Perhaps,' said the stranger, hesitatingly and modestly, he had made enough money by writing plays to retire on his earnings and live in the country.' Nobody took any notice of this remark. If Bacon was really the playwright,' said Lockton, the problem is a very different one.'—' Bacon had written gloake- speare's plays,' said Silvester, 'they wouldn't have been so bad.'— 'There seems to me to be only one argument,' said Professor Morgan, in favour of_the Bacon theory, and that is that the range of mind displayed in Shakespeare's plays is so great that it would have been child's play for the man who wrote Shakespeare's plays to have written the works of Bacon.'—' Yes,' said Hall, but because it would be child's play for the man who wrote my plays to have written your works and those of Professor Newcastle—which it would—it doesn't prove that you wrote my plays.'—' Bacon was a philosopher,' said Willmott, and Shakespeare was a poet—a dramatic poet ; but Shakespeare was also an actor, an actor- manager, and only an actor-manager could have written the plays.'—' What do you think of the Bacon theory ? ' asked Faubourg of the stranger.—' I think,' said the stranger, that we shall soon have to say eggs and Shakespeare instead of eggs and Bacon. This remark caused a slight shudder to pass through all the guests, and Mrs. Bergmann felt sorry that she had not taken decisive measures to prevent the stranger's intrusion."

There is nothing wonderful in imagining Shakespeare at a modern luncheon - party where no one recognised him. But it is an inspiration to represent Shakespeare as a normal, perfectly commonplace country gentleman who had come up to London, not to hear the Wagner Cycle, but to see the Horse Show at Olympia. Other writers would have endeavoured to make him talk up to the level of his plays, and perished in the attempt.