Fiction

Good and Middling Good

The Meeting Place, and Other Stories. By J. D. Beresford. (Faber and Faber. 7s. 6d.) TIIE stories that novelists write about novelists are generally bad. In Mr. J. D. Beresford's new book there seem to be

quite too many stories about novelists—a poor little gentle mug of a novelist, who wrote a best-seller, and felt ashamed of it until a high-brow lady essayist told him it was very good, and married him ; a confused little private secretary of a novelist, who wrote a best-seller, and felt ashamed of it until the great writer for whom she worked told her it was very good and married her ; a novelist at the Judgment Day who found he had nothing to say for himself ; a novelist who felt so small, when he found a set of people who had never even heard of him, that he vanished out of sight altogether. There is good, firm work in the book ; but Mr. Beresford, somehow or other, seems to be suffering from an uneasy con- science. In the Epilogue the problem before him takes form. Here Mr. Beresford gives English authors his advice on How to Succeed in the American Market ; in other words, How to write Pot-boilers. America has become the patron of pro- fessional letters ; a patron, however, whose favours are hard to win. Mr. Beresford confesses that, in spite of " endless patience, consideration and re-writing," he does not always succeed in meeting the demands of the ten million readers of an American magazine. There is no doubt that he is serious in the attempt.

One result of this desire to satisfy an alien standard is that

Mr. Beresford's stories are laboured. None of them contains' unexpected and astonishing touches of life. The characters are thin and conventional types. The plots are all ready- made. They are all built round an " idea." None of them grew. There is no spontaneity. We can perhaps sympathize with Mr. Beresford in his anxiety to be. on good terms -with; Mammon. There are bound-to be consequences, however,

in the quality of an artist's work if he washes his hands of the responsibility for it ; and in his Epilogue Mr. -Beresford, in the subtlest manner, is disowning his stories. In writing them, he remarks, " my own interest lags." Does he despise his readers so much that he expects them to be inferior to him in this point, too ?

Mr. Ikugh Walpole has written of a novelist himself ; but his story is shapely and full of life. Indeed, Hans Frost is one of the best pieces of work that Mr. Walpole has given us ; all the better through having been conceived in a cheerful mood. Sometimes Mr. Walpole gives the impression of stolidity ; and even in Hans Frost he is not always beyond the

suspicion of teaching us what the best people eat and drink, or how to form a cultivated taste in the fine arts. These passages of instruction—or display—are not prominent in the new novel ; and the whole atmosphere of the story is light and enjoyable. • Hans Frost is a famous old writer, already an undeniable classic. His wife, Ruth, has devoted herself to his comfort and his fame ; she is the most admirable, gracious, and serene of helpmates that a public figure could hope for. And for years Hans has allowed himself to be treated as a public figure ; to be coddled, supported and managed the whole day long. His seventieth birthday, however, brings him a shock ; he sees how much he has been sacrificing for the myth of Hans Frost. It brings him, also, the acquaintance of a young girl, Nathalie Swan, his wife's niece. In the love of her fresh and ardent spirit he gains courage to take up his life for himself ; to leave the social bonds which he had multiplied around him. The most acute part of the novel is Mr. Walpole's study of Ruth ; her cold and easy charm, and the depth of self-love which underlay her devotion to Hans.

There is brilliance also in Mr. Capek's short stories. " They are penetrating," writes Mr. Galsworthy, " they are unusual,

they have power, and they have flavour." All of them show human beings quite stripped of magnificence, but the lack of lustre is compensated .by Mr. Capek's _humour. The last story in the book, At the Castle, is especially memorable ;

it describes the fatigue, helplessness and ennui of a governess to a noble family, a girl who hai not yet learned liolv little site is expected to do.

The two historical novels on our list provide a queer con: trast. Miss Heyer's story is a pure fantasy, an Elizabethan adventure story with the most romantic ingredients. The detail is not free from anachronism. Did Elizabethan gallants go on the Grand Tour, as Miss Heyer asserts ? The story.

is none the worse for these doubts ; its rapidity carries us along as though enchanted. Queen Dick, on the other hand, is a slow story ; and its erudition is great. It is a most well- supported biography of Richard Cromwell, the mild and decent

son of the Protector, a good deal over-cast as his successor. Readers who are in no hurry and can savour a book at their'

ease will find Queen Dick most enjoyable. The whole age of the Protectorate is here, Cromwell himself is here, the English' countryside is here ; and Mr. Sheppard has breathed into the

documents which he has consulted exactly the amount of spirit

which will bring them to life. ALAN PORTER.

THE FIVE FLAMBOYS. By Francis Beeding. (Hodder and Stoughton. 7s. 6d.)—The latest of Francis Beeding's, political thrillers preserves the Quixotic quality and maintains the high standard of The Six Proud Walkers, The Seven Sleepers, etc. The author makes one gasp at his adroitness in ravelling' and unravelling the strands of his international " rope," white at the same time conveying the impression that he is merely indulging in the most delicious parody. Writing in the first- person as John Baxter, a member of the League of Nations Secretariat, " a recording secretary or precis-writer," he. naturally enough chooses for his set-piece the opening of the Assembly. There is a dramatic scene at the Salle de la Reformation by way of denouement when M. Radulara, the' Prime Minister of Rumania, announces from the rostrum the dastardly abduction of the child-King Peter, and is on the point of revealing the inner significance of the coup-d'etat engineered and supported by- ' " At that moment there was a flash of light from the gallery . . . he had fallen across the ballot-box, and from above nis collar grotruded the black handle of a knife which gleamed in the light from the upper windows."

This is in the best tradition, and, needless to say, Soviet Russia is- the missing word ; but it is nothing compared with the dazzling pyrotechnics of the story which make John Baxter, Ann, the young king's governess, and the debonair scoundrel-adventurer, Francis Wyndham, unforgettable figures. The dialogue throughout is lively and maintained just at that tone which distinguishes fiction from nature. "I travel with the body," " I take to the bottle : here are two chapter headings which in themselves have the effect of an appetiser.