FICTION.
JITNY AND THE BOYS.t
TEE merits and defects of Mr. Copplestone's book are equally obvious, and 83CM to lie in distinct patches. We do not often • Isabella d'Este, Marchioness of Mantua : a Study of the Renaiseante. By Julia Cartwright (Mrs. Ady). 2 vot3. London: John Murray. Ma. net.) t Jilny and the Boys. By Leanet Copp!eatono. London: EmltL, Eider, and Co. Ds. not.]
come across a story in which the strength and weakness of an author so seldom fuse to produce something worse than his beet or better than his worst. " Jitny " is the nick- name of a cheap but highly serviceable motor-car. The boys aro Big Peter, who begins at the end of his school life, and by the last page of the book has reached a com- mission in the Blue Marines ; Tony, who at the age of fourteen is mainly conscious of being divided by aeons from the possibility of possessing a commission and a licence to drive motors ; and Wee Roddy, who is a shrewd, calculating little chap, vastly more amiable than this description would make him seem, and perhaps the most " individual " character in the story. " Dad " is thoir dad, and " Mother " is their mother. Let the reviewer got the defects off his conscience and have done with them. Besides, he has to deal hero, he apprehends, with a very real family that exists som.owhero, and if ho makes too much of the defects that robustious fellow Big Peter is quite capable of bursting into his house as he sits quietly writing reviews some day, and handling him with a hefty motor-spanner as he handled the suspected spy found tapping the messages on the telegraph-wires in the Isle of Wight. The narrative has the air of being a transcript from life. It seems as though a log or diary of motor tours had been expanded by a brain with a memory for picturesque detail and a vast capacity for enthusiasm ; but unfortunately the author's power of selection from the diary wo are imagining is not subject to any scrupulous rules of art. Here and there an itinerary is given which is really little more than an itinerary. Some of the episodes lead nowhere. Again, the pontifical language in which Dad addresses Mother and the boys is humorously intended, but does not always justify itself. In its particular setting it is, in fact, often burdensome and too sententious. As a literary device it might work admirably, but one cannot believe in, or at all events sympathize with, literary devices which flow from the mouth of Dad in the ordinary relations of family life. This is a pity, as the author really has much humour.
So far for the defects. Place them in a balance with the merits, and the latter weigh down the scale handsomely. We did not feel sure that this would be so at first, but as wo read the story grow upon us. There is no doubt that it has a jolly character of its own. You have here a healthy modern sporting family with whom a formula of disrespect in talking to one another—boys to parents, as parents to boys—thinly disguises a deep devotion. You have complete candour in their outlook on life. You have a passion for the freedom of the open road which is sung by the humming mechanism of the well-tuned-up motor ; and this has not often, we think, been described better. This aspect of motoring needs its prophets. We hear much of the ugliness, the noise, the smell, and the bad manners. But the family in this story receive the boon of modern science with gratitude and intelligence. The author knows the thrill of starting for a holiday, carrying his own luggage, and independent of railways—a true freeman of the roads of England ; and he can convey that thrill. He has, moreover, always an objective. He is looking for a " cottage in the country,"- and he knows exactly the kind of cottage he wants, the kind of country in which it must lie, and the amount of land that must go with it. One who has been through, and is still going through, the same experience may be allowed to commend and esteem the taste the author shows in making particular mention of Beaulieu. There you have mellow country, an antique air, sea, an estuary, a forest, and all kinds of wild natural life close together. But really these secrets should be exchanged in private. Finally, the playtime of the first part of the story is an excellent foil to the work described in the second part, when the Groat War takes England unawares, and the family put their whole heart and soul into the business of war, and give with pride, without hesitation, and without repining the,best that they have to give to the cause. These are things that have the power to move, and they do not fail to move us in this narrative. Thousands of English families have faced the war in just this unquenchable spirit, forgetting, or at least hiding, the bruises dealt to intense affection in the Roman joy of serving the State without question. If Big Peter is not a first-rate officer of the Royal Marine Artillery, we should not know where to look for one. A reckless, dashing lad who cannot refrain from driving at top speed every kind of motor-car and motor-bicycle which he lights upon, just as a good horseman itches to try the mouth of every kind of riding horse, has the mechanical inspiration for his profession in his sport. God-speed to
such a boy, and may the Huns, for their own sake, keep out of his way !
We are not sure that the disparaging view of the Scottish people, put into the mouth of a French officer, is characteristics enough to be quite fair. Possibly the French still retain some tradition of the old association with Scotland and all her Quentin Durwards. But (again remembering Big Peter and his hefty spanner) we must not end on that note. We shall quote from a passage which describes how a very old New Forest farmer was taken for a drive in " Jitny "—his first drive in a motor-car- and only say that in our opinion the whole account is perfectly delightful: " Jitny ran quietly down a slight slope and then Peter opened her out. Away she leapt, rejoicing in her new-found freedom ; up the easy hill she flew with a deep-throated roar of the exhaust, on and up and then stretched out with whirring wheels upon the long, hard trail which her brave soul loves. In a moment the old man's hat was gone—happily caught by Tony, who from behind crammed his own cap upon the Farmer's scanty locks. He rolled dizzily in his place, but only for a moment. As the speed gathered, his back stiffened, his crippled frame cast off the bonds of rheumatism, ho laughed, shrill, jerky cacklings ; from his throat, too, came strange weird calls, the hunting cries of a forgotten generation ; he beat with his stick upon the floor. Peter, alarmed, checked Jitny, but the old man called lustily upon him to hasten to give her the spur, to keep her head to the fences, not to lose sight of the pack—' Forrard, forrard, forrard, yoicks, hark away, hark away, hark away !' He was drunk with the wine of. speed. Presently he grew more quiet, muttering and chuckling happily to himself, arousing only to storm at Peter if the speed of the car sensibly diminished. When Jitny slowed down on a hill he was bitterly resentful, holding Peter to blame for robbing him of the last fleeting joys of life."
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