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Page 17
The conscientious objector doesn't seem to be having such a soft time
after all.
* * * * *
TYRT�US.
When Sparta's heroes, tired of truce,
The fires of battle woke,
TYRT�US sang them golden lays
And bravely on their marching days
His queenly Muse outspoke.
TYRT�US' name's come down the years
And did deserve to do,
For so he dried men's eyes of tears,
So loosed their hearts from idle fears,
Stouter they thrust their ashen spears,
Their javelins further threw.
In those fair days TYRT�US' song
Was all men had to trust,
But while he hymned the coming fight
They did not wail, "He can't be right,"
They heard and cried, "He must!"
When men of craven soul came in--
Which now may Heaven forbid--
Then stout TYRT�US would begin:--
"Mere argument can be no sin,
But whining is; we're going to win."
And so, of course, they did.
TYRT�US' heart has ceased to beat,
But still his measures run,
And still abides the British Press,
Which men must credit, more or less,
To tell how things are done.
So by all bards with hearts of fire
Cheerfully be it sung,
That still our people may not tire
In doing well, but yet aspire;
Let these renew TYRT�US' lyre,
Let others hold their tongue.
* * * * *
OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
(_BY MR. PUNCH'S STAFF OF LEARNED CLERKS_.)
A volume called _Curious Happenings_ (MILLS AND BOON) can boast at
least a highly attractive, open-and-see title; to which is added, in
the present instance, a wrapper-picture of the most intriguing brand.
Perhaps not quite all the contents of Miss MARJORIE BOWEN'S book
of short stories fully live up to the promise of its outside (what
stories could?), but they have amongst them one, from which both title
and picture are taken, of very unusual and haunting quality. So, if
you should only be able to snatch so much time from work of National
importance as suffices to read a single tale, begin at the start, and
be assured of having the best. Not that the others are without their
attractions, though one is rather gratuitously revolting. Laid in the
picturesque eighteenth century, they all exhibit Miss BOWEN'S very
pretty gift for costume-drama at its happiest. The trouble is that,
with a volume of such short tales, stories of situation, one gets too
familiar with the method--as, for example, in "The Folding Doors,"
where a lady's husband and lover had played out their scene before the
closed doors (with an alleged cut finger for the husband), and I
knew only too well in what state the flinging open of the doors would
reveal the lady herself. But perhaps I am exceptionally cursed in this
matter; and, anyhow, a volume that contains even one story so good as
"The Pond" is a thing for gratitude and rejoicing.
* * * * *
I may have been wrong in turning to a novel for mental relief; anyhow,
I have just come through one of the toughest bouts of relaxation I can
remember, and my only solace for the slight weariness of such repose
is the thought how much more tired the author, Mr. BASIL CREIGHTON,
must be. With such a hail-storm of metaphor and epigram constantly
dissolving in impalpable mist of mere words has he assaulted _The
History of an Attraction_ (CHATTO AND WINDUS) that the poor thing,
atomised, vaporised and analysed to the bone, lies limp and lifeless
between the covers, with hardly a decent rag of incident or story to
cover it. And there one might perhaps be content to let it rest, but
for the fact that _Anita_, the lady of the "Attraction," is worthy of
a better fate. The principal man of the book, who, after much wobbling
consideration, and in spite of his quite fortuitous marriage with some
one else in the meantime, discovers at last that he does love _Anita_,
is the merest peg on which to hang endless philosophisings; and so
is his impossible wife _Janet_ herself, the lady who, after having
accepted his dubious courtship for no particular reason, fortunately
deserts him without any better excuse, thus clearing the way for a
most decorous divorce and readjustment. Neither is the writer's inner
thesis--the immoralness of ordinary morality, so far as I can make
out--particularly agreeable; but _Anita_, though far from being the
sort of person one would look to meet in real life, is intriguing
after a fashion, and just possibly repays the hard work needed for the
making of her acquaintance.
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