FICTION.
PILOT.* Tucen is a widely current notion, springing from a narrow application of an old proverb, that people who have succeeded in one line ahonid be content with their achievement, and avoid breaking now ground— that singers, for example, should only sing, or write about singing. We are very glad that Mr. Plunket Greene has been bold enough to defy this oonvention. We knew that he could write both eloquently and helpfully on the art of which he has for so long been a brilliantinterpreter, but the publio whom he has so often charmed from the concert platform hardly expected to encounter him in the new role of a storyteller. Yet after all he is only exercising an hereditary gift. It .must be nearer fifty than forty years since the present reviewer made acquaintance with a tale of boys and girls entitled Cushions and Corners, one of the very best of mid-Victorian children's books, which he links in grateful recollection with a series of magenta-bound volumes called "The Magnet Stories." Cushions and Corners had an excellent moral, but it was not aggressively edifying. It was a kindly, sensible, and lovable book, and the annals of the delightful young people who formed the dramatis personae and lived near Darlington—or was it Doncaster tare still a fragrant memory. Why the book never has been reprinted is to us a mystery, but presumably publishers may be supposed to know their business, and the taste of the present generation might pronounce it old- fashioned. But we mention it not merely for its own merits, but booausei the author of Pilot is the son of the authoress of Cushions and Corners. Students of heredity will recognize the qualities which endeared the Victorian tale to readers in the " sixties " in these delightful studies of tho children of to-day and of their four-footed companions. The environment has changed, but the spirit is the same. There are motors cars and dry-fly fishermen and other modern improvements, but the eternal attributes of the human child remain. "Be not angry with the little ones," says an old Greek writer, "for charm accompanies them"; and the children in these stories, though at times greedy and mischievous, are adorable companions. They aro happy in their surroundings ; they have not suffered from the experiments of the paodologist, or been educated out of their belief in fairies. They are sometimes terribni. like " the Pariah," a little boy with a genius for practical joking, who waged unending warfare on all the servants of the household. And yet when he went to school the cook and the kitchenmaid oriod all day long, and the •butler, the footman, and the coachman were so cross that nobody could speak to thorn for weeks. But then, as the author observes, this was in Ireland, and " they're funny people there." For the most part the scene is laid in the valley of a famous Hampshire trout stream, a land of water-meadows ; and one of the best stories in the collection—and at the same time one of the most exciting angling stories we have over read—describes how a little boy, from having been bored by his father's passion for dry-fly fishing, became infected by the virus, was instructed in the art, and after landing his first fish promptly determined that he would not return to school but would devote the rest of his life to fishing. " Latin and Greek were all very well in their way, and of course Shakespeare was not be sneered at, and mathematics undoubtedly did come in useful in after-life, but, after all, fish were food and the real problem of life was to provide food." But a still greater excitement came later when. by the self-sacrifice of his father, he was allowed to have the first favourable chance at the trout named Balaolava, and, thanks to the timely intervention of that fine sportsman, Joyce, the assistant-postman, bagged that tremendous monster after a prolonged and nerve-racking duel. This is a story to enchant the initiated, to inspire the novice, and to convert the indifferent. On a 'higher plane of imagination, however, are the two beautiful excursions into the fairyland of childhood—the story of the little girl who ran away to Kew Gardens, lost herself at closing time, and was comforted and lulled to sleep by the magi* music of the bluebells ; and the fantasy of the young dreamer who, for befriending an imprisoned Lepracaun, was guided by him to the fairy lake, where all the beasts and birds live in amity, and presented with a magic purse and pair of shoes. The idea is borrowed from "Moira
" exquisite poem of Loughareema, but the prose idyll into which it is expanded adds new glamour to the original. We have left to the last the story which gives its name to the collection, and relates the exploits of the Labrador retriever "Pilot," who "if he had been a man would have been a great explorer or a brigand or a distinguished naturalist." We are more than content that he was only a dog—and a consummate actor into the bargain—since he enabled Mr. Phmket Greene to give us a study of animal psychology at once novel and enthralling.
Our notice must not end without a few words of praise for the admir- able illustrations of Mr. IL J. Ford, so long and honourably associated with the Fairy Books of the late Andrew Lang. Here, however, he shows a maize and versatility for which we were hardly prepared, and has collaborated with the author with most delightful results, whether his aim has been realistic, grotesque, or fantastic. Mr. Plunket Greene has always been fortunate in his accompanists. and the sympathetic pictorial accompaniment furnished by Mr. Ford greatly enhances the charm of his triumphant excursion into the realm of romance.
• Pilot, and other Stella& By Harry Plunket Greene. illustrated by IL AT. Ford. London : Afacinillan ant co. Os. net.i
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