Fiction
By L. A. G. STRONG THE work of Miss E. M. Delafield derives from two causes, indignation and an acute embarrassment. The indignation, directed against all conventions which harm the free develop- ment of the individual, and particularly those of which women are the victims, is responsible for such work as Turn Back the Leaves and for the story now before us. The embarrassment is due to a realization of the inadequacy of most human gestures when compared with that which they are intended to express. This realization Miss Delafield has in very high degree. Luckily, she has also a very lively sense of the ludicrous, which enables her to laugh it off. To this faculty we owe the Diary of a Provincial Lady, The Way Things Are, and the whole array of inimitable books which have so steadily and surely endeared her to her public. These butts of hers reflect her own embarrassments. She knows just how they feel, and she is too kind-hearted not to pity them. As for poor George, that solemn effigy of Everyhusband—it is precisely because she loves him that she chastens him with such delicious energy. The sources of her work are true and sound. It has been uneven ; but in purpose, and, in her best books, in achievement, she is a delicate and serious artist. And—was ever serious artist so readable ?
Thank Heaven Fasting (a brilliant title) is the story of a roan-hunt. Its scene is not Dartmoor, but the Edwardian drawing-room. Some readers may object that nowadays the matron does not set out with such grim determination to find a husband for the maid. In London, she may not : but in the provinces, as Miss Delafield well knows, the man-hunt goes on as fiercely as ever, and the penalties of failure are as severe. Monica Ingram had to know the right people, talk to the right young men, and do all that Mamma told her. Christopher Lane did not fit into Mamma's scheme of things. He was, from her point of view, no good." Carol Anderson, as odious a prig as Miss Delafield has ever disliked, was no good either, and it was left to the prosaic and ample Mr. Pelham to provide the happy ending. This ironic story is technically the best thing Miss Delafield has given us. It is most cleverly and smoothly told. The only criticism that may be made is that she tends just a little to " plug " her theme, and that perhaps a little relief might have brought home her point even more sharply.
Mr. Rogers' Albert is an American version of Miss Delafield's generic George. The Birthday is my first introduction to Mr. Rogers, and it reveals him as sensible, capable, and intelligent. Katherine loved Gabriel, but was separated from him : loved and married Albert : and went on happily loving the dream which Gabriel represented. Mr. Rogers tells his story in the fashionable manner, showing us first what one person thought, then what the next person thought, and so on. This method is effective at the dance, and at Katherine's wedding : it is effective at Albert's dinner table in the last part of the book : and it is more than effective on Katherine's wedding night, when she stands at a window in Matunuck while Gabriel drives a lorry in France. Many of the incidents are well described, particularly the girls bathing in the rain, and there is some crisp portraiture— Cousin Cassie and Mrs. Harding, for example. Yet, somehow, the book's very up-to-date-ness, the fashion by which its good qualities are conditioned, makes it faintly depressing. It is so good, yet not quite good enough : the product and victim of its period.
Babylon on Hudson also comes from America. It is a pitiless, methodical dissection of modern New York, a direct and humourless narrative which blazes up every now and then into an outburst. There is an outburst on " the drag of moribund old-world traditions,- and another on democracy. There is the outburst of Miss Carpenter, the misfit ; a pro- longed general outburst upon pp. 276-277 ; and another on the " vice racket of the police courts." The story, which is complicated, is neither here nor there. It concerns the troubles of Clara, Jim, and the other young people to whom
the lawyer Henry Gibbon is guardian. Henry's practice takes him among people of all kinds, fellow-lawyers, artists, financiers, racketeers, &c., and he finds rottenness every- where. Without being in any particular sense well written, the book is unusually interesting and compelling. It should be read.
It was a happy thought to reissue Major Geoffrey Moss's Defeat, a book of short stories describing the French occupation of Germany after the War. I read these stories when they first appeared, and every one of them remains clear in my memory, They are on a different plane from Major Moss's other work. Inspired by a profound indignation, based upon observed fact and, in one case at least, upon observed incident, they make uncomfortable reading : and Mr. Harold Nicolson, in his introduction, does not hesitate to point the moral. The title piece, Lottchen of the Nacht-Lokal, and Mai, je suis francais, are stories of which any modern author might be proud : and the rest are almost as good.
Another exceptionally interesting reprint is of Mr. James Hanley's first novel, Drift. Mr. Hanley has disappointed some of his admirers of late by harping rather too crudely upon a single note : but this, we trust, is only temporary, for in Drift he shows great sincerity and power, reinforced by a real perception of spiritual values. Those who have not yet made his acquaintance, or who suppose him only capable of violence, are recommended to purchase this novel, which is issued at a most reasonable price and in very pleasing format.
The next few books must, alas ! receive less space than they deserve. There is a type of mind, far commoner than is supposed, which has received much less than its due in modem fiction. This is the ordinary, decent, public-school mind, plus a strong tinge of idealism, even of mysticism, which it does not readily express, but which is the leading motive of its thoughts and actions. To this type Mr. Graham Seton gives, in Life Without End, almost lyrical expression. His tale of the curate who went to the War as a combatant, and returned with mind and spirit enriched, should meet a ready response from thousands who will echo its sentiments and be grateful to him for expressing them. It is a frank and courageous book, the proclamation of a credo, and however one may differ individually from the author on this point or that, one must respect his purpose and applaud his sincerity.
Equally sincere, but less experienced and technically less successful, is Mr. John Fumill. In Culmination he has heroically attempted too much. To blend a philosophy with a story requires a very old hand—unless, perhaps, the philosophy is implicit in the story. Mr. Furnill's originality and courage command all our sympathy, but his big book cannot quite carry its load. Ship in the Night, on the other hand, is but lightly freighted. The Decameron formula has been overworked of late years, and I cannot quite see what the fable of the ship with its crew of mutineers adds to the smart collection of tales and scraps which Mr. Neumann has assembled. Several of the episodes are good and striking, but they are hardly a bookful.
Mr. John Lindsey is a novelist of real promise. He is generously indignant, and Stricken Gods is in consequence flavoured by an overdose of propaganda. The antithesis between the wicked aristocrat and the starving labourer is not new, however newly discovered ; and the qualities Mr. Lindsey makes us respect in him have not been altogether good for his book ; but he has more than a touch of the grand manner, he knows and loves his country, and at least one countryman lifts a friendly and respectful glass to him.
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