Chapter II: Part 2

"Mr. Dillon harangued the House for three-quarters of an hour on
militarism, _The Daily Mail_, Suvla BaBy, and sundry other
topics."

_Daily Mail_.

An extended report of his remarks on this interesting infant would have been welcome.

* * * * *

ON THE CARDS.

To many people wholly free from superstition, except that, after spilling the salt, they are careful to throw a little over the left shoulder, and do not go out of their way to walk under ladders, and are not improved in appetite by sitting thirteen at table, and much prefer that may should not be brought into the house--to these people, otherwise so free from superstition, it would perhaps be surprising to know what great numbers of their fellow-creatures resort daily to such black arts as fortune-telling by the cards.

Yet quite respectable, God-fearing, church-going old ladies, and probably old gentlemen too, treasure this practice, to say nothing of younger and therefore naturally more frivolous folk; and many make the consultation of the two and fifty oracles a morning habit.

And particularly women. Those well-thumbed packs of cards that we know so well are not wholly dedicated to "Patience," I can assure you.

All want to be told the same thing: what the day will bring forth. But each searcher into the dim and dangerous future has, of course, individual methods--some shuffling seven times and some ten, and so forth, and all intent upon placating the elfish goddess, Caprice. There is little Miss Banks, for example, but I must tell you about her.

Nothing would induce little Miss Banks to leave the house in the morning without seeing what the cards promised her, and so open and impressionable are her mind and heart that she is still interested in the colour of the romantic fellow whom the day, if kind, is to fling across her path. The cards, as you know, are great on colours, all men being divided into three groups: dark (which has the preference), fair, and middling. Similarly for you, if you can get little Miss Banks to read your fate (but you must of course shuffle the pack yourself) there are but three kinds of charmers: dark (again the most fascinating and to be desired), fair, and middling.

It is great fun to watch little Miss Banks at her necromancy. She takes it so earnestly, literally wrenching the future's secrets from their lair.

"A letter is coming to you from some one," she says. "An important letter."

And again, "I see a voyage over water."

Or very seriously, "There's a death."

You gasp.

"No, it's not yours. A fair woman's."

You laugh. "Only a fair woman's!" you say. "Go on."

But the cards have not only ambiguities, but strange reticences.

"Oh," little Miss Banks will say, her eyes large with excitement, "there's a payment of money and a dark man."

"Good," you say.

"But I can't tell," she goes on, "whether you pay it to him or he pays it to you."

"That's a nice state of things," you say, becoming indignant. "Surely you can tell."

"No, I can't."

You begin to go over your dark acquaintances who might owe you money, and can think of none.

You then think of your dark acquaintances to whom you owe money, and are horrified at their number.

"Oh, well," you say, "the whole thing's rubbish, anyway."

Little Miss Banks's eyes dilate with pained astonishment. "Rubbish!"--and she begins to shuffle again.

* * * * *

_Nurse._ "Oh, come! I say! That's not very polite to us."

_Tommy._ "Never mind, Nurse, put it down. It'll please her!"]

* * * * *

From "Notes for the Use of New Chaplains," by an Indian Archdeacon:

"I have only given advice on matters where, to my own knowledge,
an ignorance of procedure has led to adverse criticism with
regard to breeches of etiquette."

Somebody seems to have been making fun of the venerable gentleman's continuations.

* * * * *

UNWRITTEN LETTERS TO THE KAISER.

No. XXXIII.

(_From Theodore Roosevelt, U.S.A._)

It's bully to live in a country where you can say what you like about the bosses, and that, Sir, is what I've been doing and mean to go on doing to you. There's no manner of question about it, you're the biggest boss and the most dangerous that we in this country have ever come up against, and if our Government had only got a right idea of its bounden duty we should have protested against your conduct, yes, and backed our protest by our deeds long before this; but the fact is there's too much milk and water in the blood of some of our big fellows. They whine when they ought to be up and denouncing, and they crouch and crawl instead of standing upright like free and fearless men, and giving the devil's agent the straightest eye-puncher of which the human arm is capable. I thank Heaven, Sir, that I'm not made on that plan. I'm out to fight humbug and hypocrisy, even when they masquerade as friendship and benevolence; and when I see a fellow coming along with hundreds of pious texts in his mouth, and his hands dripping with the blood of innocent women and children, why, I've got to say what I think of him or die. For my own part--

"On Bible stilts I don't affect to stalk,
Nor lard with Scripture my familiar talk;
For man may pious texts repeat
And yet religion have no inward seat."

A man called HOOD wrote that nearly eighty years ago, but it's quite true still. I wonder what he would have written if he'd had the bad luck to know about you and your disgusting appeals to the Almighty, whom you treat as if He were always waiting round the corner to be decorated with the Iron Cross.

Now mind, I don't want you to deceive yourself. If I dislike you and feel as if I'd sooner kick you than shake hands with you, it isn't because I'm a peace-at-any-price man. No man can say that about me without qualifying for a place within easy reach of ANANIAS; but when I decide to take part in a scrap--and there's few scraps going that I don't butt into sooner or later--I like to feel that I've got a bit of right on my side. But how can _you_ feel that when you over-run Belgium and burn down Louvain--that's the place that made your heart bleed, bah!--and when you shoot down Belgian hostages and do to death an English nurse? All that never seems to strike you. You go on thinking of yourself as a holy humble man whom everybody wilfully mistakes for a bully and a tyrant. Well, you can't fool everybody all the time, you know, and in this case it happens that everybody has got some sound horse-sense in his head. Who wanted to hurt you? You'd put together a great army and your commercial prosperity was a pretty good business proposition. You'd got a navy and you'd got a very meek and submissive people, which didn't prevent them from being harsh and domineering and cruel so far as other peoples were concerned. If you wanted to have folk afraid of you there were plenty to humour you by pretending to tremble when you frowned and shook your head. But you weren't going to be satisfied. You must have a war so as to show what a great general you were, and you shoved on the old man FRANCIS JOSEPH and kept urging him from behind until everyone got tired by the impossibility of making you come out fair and square on the side of peace.

Well, you've got your war, and I hope you like it. This isn't one of your military promenades. This is hard, long fighting against men whose only wish was to be left alone. You've forced them to form a trust for the purpose of trust-busting, and in the end they'll wear you out and have you beaten to a frazzle in spite of all you can do. You've lost millions of men and millions of money, and you don't seem to get on with your final and decisive victory, and you're still the vainest and the loudest man on earth. Isn't it just about time you saw yourself as the rest of us see you, an irritable lime-light hero, whose favourite effort is to sink a _Lusitania_ and pretend he had to do it because he didn't think she'd go down or because there were too many women and just enough children in the world? All I can say is that I've had more than enough of you.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

* * * * *

BEYOND THE LIMIT.

[The German General Staff declares that for air-warfare there
are still lacking international laws of any kind.]

When Peace lured the Powers to her House at the Hague
With promises specious and welcome though vague
Of a time when the terrors of war should lie hid
And the leopard fall headlong in love with the kid,
She drew up a set of Utopian rules
For the guidance of all the best bellicose schools.

Among the more notable schemes that she planned
She fashioned them bounds to their methods on land,
Taught the whole of them, too, how humane they could be
If a scrap should occur, as it might, on the sea--
In a word, pruned the pinions of war everywhere
Save the one place that war could fly into--the air.

But the Hun, he forswore what he vowed at her shrine,
And behaved like a fiend on the soil and the brine;
Then he turned to his Zepps, and remarked, "I can fly,
And she never laid down any law for the sky;
Here's a chance for some real dirty work to be done;"
And he did it by simply out-Hunning the Hun.

* * * * *

How to Save Your Teeth.

From the Soldiers and Sailors Dental Aid Fund (43, Leicester Square), which has done exceptional service during the War, comes the story of an old lady who applied for a set of teeth for her soldier grandson. When asked if he would know how to take care of them, she replied that she would give him the benefit of her own experience, having always made it a rule to remove her artificial teeth at meal times.

* * * * *

Two cuttings from one issue of _The Egyptian Mail_:--

"TREMENDOUS INCREASE IN RECRUITING.

ANOTHER 1,000,000,000 MEN WANTED."

"WANTED proof-reader for the Egyptian Mail."

It certainly does want one; but for the sake of the gaiety of nations we trust it won't get him.

* * * * *

"With regard to the expeditionary force, the unexampled heroism
and determination of our troops enabled them to establish a
foothold on the tip of the peninsula, but photographs confirm
the reports of eye-witnesses that they were literally holding on
by their eyelids to the positions they had occupied."--_Sunday
Times._

And the subsequent abandonment was performed like winking.

* * * * *

From a draper's notice:--

"On Friday and Saturday the shops will be open until the usual
hours, although lights will not be visible outside. Customers
are requested to open the doors to obtain admittance."

_Rugby Advertiser._

And not to climb through the windows, or come down the chimney, please.

* * * * *

TOUJOURS LA POLITESSE.

_French ditto_ (_with only momentary hesitation_). "Mais oui, Monsieur."]

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)

I forget just how long it is since Mr. ARNOLD BENNETT united _Edwin Clayhanger_ and _Hilda Lessways_ in the bonds of matrimony. Time goes so fast these days that I met them again, and _Auntie Hamps_, and _Maggie_, and _Clara_, and the rest of the Three Towns company, as after an enormous interval. They themselves however have changed in nothing, except perhaps that the habit of introspection and their phenomenal capacity for self-astonishment have become more pronounced. "He thought, 'I am I; this wife is my wife; and if I put one foot before the other I shall go inevitably forward.' And it seemed to him stupendous." I do not say that this is a quotation, but it represents a habit of mind that is in danger of growing, upon _Edwin_ especially. He seems never able to share my own entire confidence in Mr. BENNETT'S efficiency as creator. Of course nothing very much happens in the course of _These Twain_ (METHUEN). It is simply a study of conjugal existence in its effect upon character; briefly, how to be happy though married. In the end _Edwin_ seems to hit upon a sort of solution with the discovery that injustice is a natural condition to be accepted rather than resented. So one leaves the two with some prospect, a little insecure, of happiness. Needless to say the study of both _Edwin_ and _Hilda_ is marvellously penetrating and minute, almost to the point of defeating its own end. I had, not for the first time with Mr. BENNETT'S characters, a feeling that I knew them too well to have complete belief in them. They become not portraits but anatomical diagrams. But for all that the accuracy of his observation is undeniable. One sees it in those minor personalities of the tale whom he is content to record from without. _Auntie Hamps_, for example, and Clara are two masterpieces of portraiture. You must read _These Twain_; but if possible take time over it.

* * * * *

American improvements are the wonder of the world. America seems to have the knack of taking hold of old stuff and turning it into something full of pep and punch. You remember a play called _Hamlet_? No? Well, there is a scene in it, rather an impressive scene, where a man chats with his father's ghost. Mr. ROBERT W. CHAMBERS, America's brightest novelist, has taken much the same idea and put a bit of zip in it. In his latest work, _Athalie_ (APPLETON), the heroine, who is clairvoyant, sees the ghost of the hero's mother, who prevented the hero from marrying her, and cuts it. "A hot proud colour flared in her cheeks as she drew quietly aside and stood with averted head to let her pass." In all my researches in modern fiction I cannot recall a more dramatic and satisfying situation. It is, I believe, the first instance on record of a spectre being snubbed. SHAKSPEARE never thought of anything like that. As regards the other aspects of _Athalie_, the book, I cannot see what else a reviewer can say but that it is written by Mr. CHAMBERS. The world is divided into those who read every line Mr. CHAMBERS writes, irrespective of its merits, and those who would require to be handsomely paid before reading a paragraph by him. A million eager shop-girls, school-girls, chorus-girls, factory-girls and stenographers throughout America are probably devouring _Athalie_ at this moment. My personal opinion that the book is a potboiler, turned out on a definite formula, like all of Mr. CHAMBERS' recent work, to meet a definite demand, cannot deter a single one of them from sobbing over it. As for that section of the public which remembers _The King in Yellow_ and _Cardigan_, it has long ago become resigned to Mr. CHAMBERS' decision to take the cash and let the credit go, and has ceased to hope for a return on his part to the artistic work of his earlier period, when he wrote novels as opposed to Best Sellers.

* * * * *

Let me heartily commend to you a book of stories by doughty penmen turned swordsmen for the period of the War--A. E. W. MASON, of the Manchester Regiment; A. A. M., of the Royal Warwicks; W. B. MAXWELL, Royal Fusilier; IAN HAY, A. and S. HIGHLANDER; COMPTON MACKENZIE, R.N.; "Q.," of the Duke of Cornwall's L.I.; OLIVER ONIONS, A.S.C.; BARRY PAIN, R.N.A.S.; and just short of a dozen others. Published by Messrs. HODDER AND STOUGHTON, under title, _The Red Cross Story Book_, to be sold for the benefit of _The Times_ Fund. It's the sort of book about which even the most conscientious reviewer feels he can honestly say nice things without any too thorough examination of the contents. With that thought I started turning over the pages casually, but found myself dipping deeper and deeper, until, becoming entirely absorbed, I abandoned all pretence of professional detachment and had a thoroughly good time. I should like to be able to state that the quality of these stories of humour, adventure and sentiment was uniform, if only for the sake of this appropriate word. But I can say that the best are excellent, the average is high, and the tenor so varied as to suit almost any age and taste.

* * * * *

* * * * *

Mr. B. G. O'RORKE, Chaplain to the Forces, has written a short account of his experiences in confinement--_In The Hands of the Enemy_ (LONGMANS). Seeing that he was allowed, as a minister of religion, unique opportunities of meeting our officers (though not men of the ranks) shut up in different fortresses, and particularly because he has been thoughtful enough to mention many of them by name, his narrative is one which nobody with near friends now in Germany can afford to miss. The general reader, on the other hand, may have to confess to some disappointment, since the foggy shadow of the Censor, German or English, still looms over the pages here and there, blotting out the sensational episodes which we felt we had reason, if not right, to expect; and if their absence is really due to Mr. O'RORKE'S steady refusal to indulge us by embellishing his almost too unvarnished recital the effect is just the same. Or perhaps the suggestion of flatness is to be ascribed to the enemy's failure on the whole to treat certain of his victims in any very extraordinary manner, and if so we can accept it and be thankful. There are lots of interesting passages all the same, such as the account of the specially favourable treatment of officers from Irish regiments, accorded in all Teutonic seriousness as preparatory to an invitation to serve in the ranks of Prussia; or the pathetic incident of the white-haired French priest sent to the cells for urging his congregation to pray _pour nos âmes_. Nowhere outside the Fatherland, I should imagine, would prisoners be forbidden to pray even _pour nos armes_, and the stupidity of the misunderstanding is typical enough. The cheerful dignity shown by prisoners under provocation makes a fine contrast to such pitiful smallness, and of that this little book is a notable record.

* * * * *

I suppose it would not be possible to travel in the Pacific without a fountain-pen and a note-book. At all events this seems a privation from which the staunchest of our literary adventurers have hitherto shrunk. Do not however regard this as anything more than a casual observation, certainly not as implying any complaint against so agreeable a volume as _Voyaging in Wild Seas_ (MILLS AND BOON). There must be many among the countless admirers of Mr. JACK LONDON who will be delighted to read this intimate journal of his travellings in remote waters, written by the wife who accompanied him, and who is herself, as she proves on many pages, one of the most enthusiastic of those admirers. You may say there is nothing very much in it all, but just some pleasant sea-prattle about interesting ports and persons, and a number of photographs rather more intimate than those that generally illustrate the published travel-book. But the general impression is jolly. Stevensonians will be especially curious over the visit to Samoa, concerning her first impressions of which Mrs. LONDON writes: "As the _Snark_ slid along, we began to exclaim at the magnificent condition of this German province--the leagues of copra plantation, extending from the shore up into the mountainous hinterland, thousands of close-crowded acres of heavy green palms." This was in May, 1908. Vailima was at that time the residence of the German Governor (a desecration since happily removed); but the LONDONS were able to explore the gardens and peep in at the rooms whose planning STEVENSON had so enjoyed. Later of course they climbed to the lonely mountain grave of "the little great man"--a phrase oddly reminiscent of one in an unpublished letter of RUPERT BROOKE (about the same expedition) that I had just been reading. Mrs. LONDON deserves our thanks for letting us share so interesting a holiday in these restricted days.

* * * * *

N MEMORY OF "MARTIN ROSS"

(Violet Martin).

With _Flurry's_ Hounds, and you our guide,
We've learned to laugh until we cried;
Dear MARTIN ROSS, the coming years
Find all our laughter lost in tears.