18 
LAND 6? WATER 
October 17, 1918 
Recent Novels 
IT is not very long since Miss E. M. Delafield startled 
and delighted a number of weary reviewers and, I 
hope, a considerable section of the less weary but no 
more easily surprised novel-reading public with a very 
. remarkable first novel called Zdla Sees Herself. In 
this she made a detailed and exceedingly acute stud}- of a 
young girl whose sincerity was open to suspicion — even to 
her own suspicion. She followed tiiis with an equally clever 
study of insincerity called The War Workers, in which, 
however, it seemed that she was developing a feeling of dis- 
like for her own characters which might eventually >;poil 
her talent. The opening chapters of her new book, The 
Pelicans (Heinemann, 6s. net), appears to invite the same 
criticism ; but as the story proceeds the conception surT 
prisingly develops and reveals in Miss Delafield much more 
than the cleverness of observation and expression whicli 
one knew her to possess. 
It would be a poor compliment to her, perhaps, to suggest 
that the purport of her story could be conveyed in a single 
sentence. But I think she has written from the novel and 
useful theme that the affected parade of virtues does not 
necessarily indicate a complete lack of them. We may at 
least draw this lesson from her book as we should draw it 
from life ; but she gives us, of course, a good deal more 
than the illustration of an abstract proposition. The story 
of the two orphan children, Rosamund and Frances, who 
are adopted by the domineering, affected, kind-hearted, and 
able Bertha Tregaskis contains too much life and movement 
to be merely the clothing of a thesis. It is in her exposition 
of "Cousin Bertie's" character and of the relations between 
her and Rosamund that Miss Delafield scores her most 
remarkable triumph. Rosamund is a sensitive, secretive 
child, who is devoted only to her younger and weaker sister 
Frances, and who suffers passionately under what she con- 
siders Bertie's failure to "understand" either of them. But 
Frances, who has an inflexible religious sense under a timid 
exterior, deserts Rosamund to follow her vocation into a 
convent, and there dies, her end being hastened by the 
severity of the convent life. Rosamund, thus desolate, 
turns instinctively to Bertie ; and the story closes with 
Bertie still parading her efficiency and her unselfishness and 
her comprehension. of the young, and finally convincing the 
reader, as well as Rosamund, that her persistent claims are 
perfectly justified. 
Perhaps a recapitulation of the story does not convey 
very much. But I must record my impression that I have 
not in recent years read any novel by a new writer in which 
there were so many charac,ters so completely and subtly 
realised. Rosamund is perhaps the least satisfactory ; but 
the interest of the story does not really centre in her. Bertie 
Tregaskis is done to the life ; and the portrait of Frances, 
the young predestined religieuse, is admirable. Minnie 
Blandflower is an excellent oomic — or, perhaps, farcical — 
character. Nina Severing and her son Morris are persons 
in the best vein of high satirical comedy. A less discerning 
writer would have given Nina a son who would have been 
a foil to that accomplished />oseMse. But Miss Delafield has 
given her the son she would have had ; and the duels between 
the two are delightfully described. I find the book, in 
short, that rare thing, a novel which leaves the reader's 
powers of attention and apprehension satisfied. The persons 
are solid and whole, not sketchy ; and every , episode is 
worked up to its full value — not least, the very fine descrip- 
tion of Frances's novitiate. 
Mr. Sax Rohmer has been known hitherto as the author 
of lurid and enjoyable shockers about Eastern magic and 
villainy. His new volume, Tales of Secret Egypt (Methuen 
6s. net), departs rather from this genre, and is made up for 
the most part of stories of more or less humorous intrigue 
in Cairo. Some of Mr. Rohmer's admirers will perhaps be 
disappointed by this, though sorcery pokes up its head here 
and there. For my part, I found the book very entertain- 
ing ; and the last story- in the book, "Pomegranate Flower," 
is a comic invention of really high merit,, which actually 
survives the comparison it challenges with The Arabian 
Nights. 
Clive 
"What I like about Clive," says the poet, "is that he is 
no longer alive" ; but, though there is indeed a great deal 
to be said for being dead, I conceive it to be the biographer's 
duty to present his readers with something more than a book 
about a corpse. I cannot say that I think that Sir George 
Forrest has wholly fulfilled this duty in his new Life of Clive 
(Cassell, 2 vols., 36s. net). And yet surely it must, require 
an unusual degree of perversity to write a dull account of 
Clive's careers and adventures. He was much more than 
a mere Empire-builder. He was a daemonic genius of a 
'type which has figured little in English history. Nelson is 
the nearest parallel to him that I can think of ; and in neither 
of these heroes is our interest exhausted when we have learnt 
what battles thej' fought and how their victories affected 
the history of the time. We very rightly want vivid and 
life-like pictures of the men themselves. It is not enough 
to tell us that Clive defended Arcot for so many days under 
overwhelming difficulties or that he defeated the army of 
Surajah-Dowlah against absurd and incredible odds. We 
want to know what sort of a man he was to be able to do 
these things ; and it is just this that Sir George Forrest 
seems unable to tell us. But it must be admitted that he 
allows Clive and his contemporaries to tell us as much as 
they can, though he himself adds no reconciling interpreta- 
tion of the evidence. Certainly, from the human point of 
view, the most valuable part of tliis book lies in its great 
wealth of quotation from letters and from • contemporary 
and native narratives and documents, some of these excerpts 
containing passages of extraordinary force and vividness. 
These alone make it worth the attention of the general reader 
and atone for the dryness and dullness of Sir George's con- 
necting narrative, which, however, is very full and pains- 
takingly drawn from the original sources. 
Women 
I do not know who can be the anonymous author of Women 
(Seeker, 5s. net) unless it be the ghost of Stendhal. It is 
true that some of Stendhal's decisions are here disputed^ 
but it is not to be expected that he would not have altered 
his opinions in some particulars in the time that has elapsed 
since his death. I do not mean, of course, that this essay 
is really equal in wisdom to De I' A niour ; but it would take, 
I imagine, no less than Stendhal's enterprise to wTite so 
simple an essay on so large a subject. And though Stendhal, 
if it be he, is not now the man he was, this jeu d' esprit is not 
witl^out its merits. The generalisations are, of course, all 
of them WTong ; and nearly all of them contain a good deal 
of common sense. One cannot, after all, make generalisa- 
tions which will satisfactorily cover the larger half of the 
world's population ; and this is not so much a giving of 
judgment as the first speech in a debate. One is thankful, 
at least, that it avoids undue solemnity, and is neatly and 
wittily written. 
Various Volumes 
The Last of the War Lords (Grant Richards, los. 6d. net) ; 
is a series of anecdotes (all unpleasant) about the Kaiser, 
designed for lovers of scandal. I love scandal myself, and 
I dare say that many of these stories are true ; but I find 
that gossip, to thrill me, must have at least a semblance 
of substantiation. This collection has pot even the writer's 
name. The memoirs of the Due de Saint Simon contain 
scandal which, while it is not so up to date, is of a better 
authenticated sort. The concluding volumes (the fifth and 
sixth) of an abridged translation have just been published 
(Stanley Paul, 12s. 6d. each' net). These cover the period 
1714-23 at the Court of France, and make a very agreeable 
field for browsing and a pleasant contrast to the "Criminal 
Queens Series," which forms so much of the historical reading 
of the library subscriber. The Duke's parting remark : 
" My readers will have no difficulty in finding cases in which 
I have been grossly taken," will show perhaps what a 
charming fellow he really was. The author of The Last 
of the War Lords is hardly capable of so convincing a confession. 
