i8 
Land & Water 
The Reader's Diary 
July 25, 1 9 1 8 
Recent Novels 
PSYCHOLOGY is the child of the novelists ; but 
like so many modem children she has taken her 
parents in hand and is bringing them up to date. 
This i*; wh\' novelists need now such an alarmmg 
apparatus "of inhibitions, obsessions, suppressed 
wishes and other terminological wild-fowl to record, not for 
the first time, the fact that '■the heart's a wonder But 
Mr 1 I) Bcresford, though he psychologises with the best 
of them is too good an artist to make his work seem alto- 
gether like case 207 in a pathological treatise ; and his new 
book God's Counterpoint (Collins, (>s. net), is well among the 
best 'tiiat he lias wtitten. I cannot say that it is pleasant 
to read the storv of Philip Maning's appalling ideal of punt\% 
„{ the wreck it' made of iiis marriage, of his conversion and, 
of the consequent salvage of his own and his wife's happiness. 
It is in fact, definitely unpleasant ; and none could derive 
unmixed enjoyment from it save those happy souls who 
find so much "to interest them in vivid and easy treatment 
that they can pass over unnoticed any theme. Mr. Beres- 
ford's treatment is certainly admirably full and convincing. 
I'hilip himself, of course, until his conversion, is a moral 
lunatic ; and Mr. Beresford shows genius in making him 
neither ' incredible nor repellent. Evelyn, his wife, is an 
excellent creation ; and the minor characters, Helene, the 
Mraquce, who awakens Philip, Georgie Wood, his stolid 
friend. Edgar Blenkinsop, the writer of sentimental novels, 
Mr. Wing, the publisher, are all persons of independent 
existence Whom, one feels, one has now met. I think that 
possibly in the first half of the story Mr. Beresford fumbles 
a little'in the dark places of Philip's mind and does not make 
ifclear enough that his "purity" was due, not to the absence 
of natural instincts, but to "a panic-stricken repression of 
them. But this fault, if it be indeed in Mr. Beresford and not 
in my own want of subtlety, is amply made up for in the 
second part, where the extremely difficult development, 
crisis and solution are presented with verisimilitude, lucidity, 
and force. I do not recommend the book for light reading, 
and the theme, I repeat, is nasty ; but those who can sur- 
mount this obstacle will be moved to admiration, if not to 
liking. 
Mr. M. T. H. Sadler's The Anchor (Constable, 6s. net), 
is a flimsier piece of work, less terrible in subject, less pro- 
found in treatment. The hero. Laddie Macallister, is a 
young man who finds in himself a dangerous instability, 
' caused not by subservience to, but by reaction from, 
his immediate circumstances. Mr. Sadler is of that modern 
school which cannot dispassionately expose the mentality 
of its heroes, but chooses rather to nag at them con- 
tinuously ; aiid this method, while it does produce some 
acute criticism of motive, becomes a little wearisome to the 
reader. The most serious fault in the book, however, is that 
Laddie's search for an anchor and his eventual finding of 
it neither produce, nor correspond to, any development in 
his character ; and it is a pity that the reader has simply 
to accept, on Mr. Sadler's assurance, without evidence, the 
fact that Janet, the "anchor," is now doubtful of her love 
for Laddie, now certain of it. The book contains amusing 
descriptions of the "young intellectuals" in London before 
the war ; but the minor characters are merely clever sketches, 
not, as with Mr. Beresford, the persons themselves. And 
surely, in a novelist of Mr. Sadler's cleverness and pretensions, 
the wicked Mrs. Cartmel, the gold safety-pin, which Laddie 
left in her flat and with which she sought to poison Janet's 
mind, and the forged telegram, by which she tried to delay 
Laddie in Berlin, when war was' threatened, are a trifle 
crude. 
There is no psychology to speak of in The Secret of the Marne, 
by Marcel and Maude Berger (Putnam, 7s. 6d. net). This is 
a tale of a French sergeant who penetrated to German head- 
quarters, kidnapped von Kluck, impersonated him at the 
Supreme War Council, and so secured the adoption of a hare- 
brained plan of campaign which had been prepared by the 
Kaiser in collaboration with von Tirpitz. Thus Sergeant 
Fritsch arranged the Allied victory on the I\Jarne and saved 
Europe. One of the best minor incidents is the capture of 
the German spies in Paris. They had all, very conveniently, 
obtained posts in the same Government Department ; and 
there, presumably under the cloak of traditional official in- 
activity, they had established their carrier pigeons and the 
other amenities of the life of espionage. This book I do un- 
reservedly recommend. 
The Greater Patriotism 
Mr Tohn Lewis Griffiths, until his death in May, 1914, 
was Consul-General for the United States in London, and he 
was says Mr. Belloc, in an introduction to a volume of his 
collected speeches (The Greater Patriotism, L»ne, ^s net) 
"the most completely successful of those who established 
personal relations between Englishmen and Americans. 
This appears to be very high praise when we remember all 
the great and friendly speakers who have been sent to us, 
either officially or unoflicially, by the United States ; but 
the speeches "which are collected here do indeed deserve 
very high praisi. And when we remember how often the 
orator's fame depends on his utterance and personality alone, 
and not at all on the quality of his words, and when we add 
to this Mr. Belloc's tribute and the tributes made by others 
who knew him, it begins to be po.ssible to understand the force 
of Mr. Belloc's pronouncement. The addresses and speeches 
cover a wide range of ground— from Abraham Lincoln to 
Mr. Birrell, from Samuel Johnson to "The Trained Nurse.'| 
from Nathaniel Hawthorne to "The American in Fiction." 
But all are composed in a manner that is singularly graceful 
and engaging. "1 was so interested in listening to the 
American Consul," said Mr. Birrell, after his praises had been 
comprehensively sung by Mr. Griffiths, "that I forgot of 
whom he was speaking " ; and the remark has every appearance 
of having been true as well as appropriate. But those speeches 
in which Mr. Griffiths approached the particular problem of 
the relations between England and his own country are 
something much more than graceful and engaging. They 
are full of an earnest friendliness which gives them a real 
nobility ; and they represent so well the ideal for which 
Mr. Griffiths was striving as to justify the title of this volume. 
Reminiscences of a Socialist 
Mr. E. Belfort Bax apologises for his modest volume of 
memories, Reminiscences and Reflections of a Mid and Late 
Victorian (Allen and Unwin, los. bd. net), by the plea that 
"the historian, who has made it his task to resuscitate for 
his contemporaries a period of the past, can never have too 
much contemporary' material of this kind at his disposal.'' The 
historical argument is sound enougli ; but it happens in this 
particular instance to be unnecessary. It is true that Mr. 
Bax, as he confesses, has damped down somewhat the tone 
of his recollections, has avoided the piquant revelation, 
and has painted in rather neutral tones both his own 
personality and the personalities of those with whom he has 
come into contact. Yet there is in the book something real 
and solid, the soberly stated observations of an acute' and 
careful observer, which are in themselves enough to give 
pleasure, since Mr. Bax has moved all his life among interesting 
persons and events. He was one of the first members of 
the Social Democratic Federation ; and he followed Morris 
and was one of that majority on the executive which, oddly 
enough, resigned in order to allow the minority to carry out its 
own policy. He was also acquainted with all the leaders 
under whose hands during the nineteenth century the Socialist 
movement solidified and took definite shape. He gives short, 
clear pictures of each of these men, which are none the less 
valuable because of their restraint and deficiency in high 
lights. He seems never much to have liked the German 
leaders ; and he unhesitatingly condemns the action of the 
present German party in supporting the war. But he seems 
to regard this action as the inevitaljle outcome of their recent 
increasing opportunist, or " revisionist " tendencies ; and he 
feels that their predecessors would have shown themselves 
worthier of their internationalist principles. In another chapter 
he describes his own literary career and explains and defends 
his unremitting hostility to the Feminist Movement. In this 
connection it is amusing to note that the most vivid 
character sketch in the book is that of Miss Helen Taylor, 
the stepdaughter of John Stuart Mill. She was a member 
of the executive of the S.D.F., and much annoyed him by 
her sense of her own importance. She succeeded, how- 
ever, in impressing tb'» members of the executive to such 
an extent that they were accustomed to rise from their 
seats when she entered the room. This touched Mr. Bax's 
sensibilities on the raw and he was more than ever annoyed 
by the fact that even Morris joined in the senseless practice. 
He, therefore, pointed out how wrong it was ; and Morris 
obligingly promised to desist. 
Peter Bell. 
