B. PERFECT DAY. By Bohm Lynch. (Collins. 5s. net.)
A writer may exercise the emotion of sentiment either as a weakness or as a strength. In the one case the result will be sentimentality, in the other—literature. But it is always a dangerous pastime, and of all forms: in which sentimentality spay manifest itself conjugal felicity carries the maximum bathos. Here is Mr. Lynch, an adept in the art of boxing and other athletic pursuits, out-Heroding Dickens. " Polly is coming—oh, Polly is coming—Polly is coming to-day." This lady is the spouse of the sentimental Joe, from whom she has been absent a long time, a long, long time she has been away, and so the writer gives a minute description of the circumstances of her return, Joe's feelings, Polly's doings, her gifts, his surprises. Often he is put to some hard shifts to eke out his matter to the length of a'book ; and a short book it inevitably and graciously is, in spite of a lengthy description of Northampton which has nothing to do with Polly or Joe or the reader ; the interpolation of a short story cunningly read to Polly which might have come from the back pages of a parochial magazine ; and sundry other devices which are either tiresome or momentarily distracting, as when someone says -that " he could not decide which were the three most beautiful words in English= God is Love,' or ' Lunch is ready." For the rest, Joseph, who tells his own story, puts us in possession of his philosophy of life. We conduct an ante-mortem inquest into the contents of Joseph's mind and discover a passion for flamboyant drinks, luscious meals, the simple life old furniture, and Polly, with a distaste for gluttons, drunkards and trippers. Our verdict is that such a mind may be very well equipped to confront the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, but it would be rash to expect the reading public to keep awake at night reading this rather agitated account of it.
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