18 
LAND 6? WATER 
November 14, 1918 
».) 
Recent Novels 
IT is a platitude of criticism that it is almost impossible 
to depict credibly a genius as the hero of a novel. 
Even a genius cannot do it, as a rule. But Aliss Romer 
Wilson has undoubtedly achieved the remarkable feat 
in Martin Schiiler (Methuen, 7s. net). Some objections 
have been raised, I believe, to the fact that the scene of the 
novel is placed in Gennany and that all the characters are 
Germans. This may have been because the author thought 
that it would be hard enough to make her readers believe in 
a musical genius anyway, and that to ask them to believe in 
an English musical genius was asking for the impossible. 
Whitever the reason, the genius, his works, his life, and his 
surrnmdings are all almost perfectly done. The novel is 
short— perhaps a little too short. Martin Schiiler dies 
^ suddenly in his bo.x at .the opera house at the end of the 
" •'■formance of his last and greatest work ; and the end of 
the V ^°°^ might have been better if this somewhat dramatic 
■clim'HL "^^^ ^'^^^ avoided. But, apart from this, the con- 
structiott ^"*^ proportions of the book are admirable. We 
see MartJn ^'^'^"'^'' ^* the age of twenty dreaming over his 
music and de ^'^'"^ '" sudden flashes the details of the opera 
which is to be "^'^ masterpiece. We see his music gradually 
improving as he (l """^^ ''^^'"'TTa T Y'Z^ '" 't^improve- 
ment-until hi. V ''"!hl ""f ^?'^- )^' '"' .^^ ^V'' 
afTairs. and believe }« ^^^f.""' ''"^ '""^'T from judgmg h,m 
^»- •■' JV^ 1 vft?cf7^»- ^tion, and his feverish work upon 
..sretm'rttoh/*{I^fCc«.«e^ ;„ his youth. In addition to 
the opera which he pla«i^'^ .^jeh he outgrew one by one 
this, we see the various circte V ^^j,^ ^^^.^^ ^ 
and discarded. All these pebp e ■ . ^ who wrote 
are real-Steinbach, who launct^^ h. "^ \^^^^^^;^ m strSses 
his libretto ; Lili, Hella, and Sophie, '"y"'^^ Z 'f i 
He is not an altogether admirable cham ^er. and the people 
who befriend him and whom he uses » "°* altogether 
admirable. But he and they are, in a qt«e.t unemphasised 
way astonishingly alive. Some of them apP'v'''^ °"'y ^^^ ^ 
few pages. Some, like Hella von Rosenthal', fill .t'^e scene 
for a while and then disappear altogether, as happens n? life. 
But there are no degrees in their verisimilitude ; and aJl piSV 
their part in exhibiting and defining the personality oi Martiit 
himself. And the setting, briefly, casually described, now 
Heidelberg, now Leipzig, Switzerland, Ber in, the Black 
Forest, is exquisitely done and exquisitely appropriate. 
There is a genius in Mr. Ludovici's Mansel Fellowes (Grant 
Richards, 6s. net) ; but I cannot say that I believe in him. 
But, then, Mr. Ludovici has written to illustrate a thesis — a 
thesis which I judge, not only from this but from Mr. 
Ludovici's other works, to be derived from the teaching of 
Nietzsche. The entanglements of Latimer and the two 
young women to whom he allows himself with reprehensible 
carelessness simultaneously to be affianced, together with the 
admonitions of the Jewish physician, Dr. Me hado, are 
supposed to convey to the reader a doctrine which is not 
very clear, but which insists at least on the degeneracy and 
ansemia of these days and on the nobility of yielding to 
physical passion. No better proof of greatness of soul can 
be asked for, Mr. Ludovici thinks, than that one should die 
for love ; and his heroine become tubercular in disappoint- 
ment and suicidal in despair. His hero is a young intellectual 
author who writ -s a successful play unveiling the soul of a 
.flapper. He questions heaven and earth unafraid ; but 
under the pressure of his amatory complications he feels 
the need of guidance and joins the Catholic Church. This, 
according to Mr. Ludovici, caused a sensation, and Latimer's 
photograph appeared in the illustrated papers ; but I feel 
that, even had I seen the photographs, he would still have 
appeared unreal to me, just as unreal as the wisdom of his 
mentor, Dr. Melhado. Miss Romer Wilson allows us to 
judge from indications that Martin Schuler'is a genius ; and 
she wisely withholds his music from us. Mr. Ludovici tells 
us outright that his characters are wise and witty ; and 
then he puts speeches in their mouths that are neither. He 
would do better as an imaginative artist, perhaps, if he 
could leave his doctrine on one side for a little ; and I have 
no doubt that his doctrine would be more useful if the imagina- 
tive element in it were somewhat reduced. 
Alpha of the Plough 
May I begin by saying that I do not think " Alpha of the 
Plough" the best essayist that ever lived ? I do not think 
him as good as Charles Lamb or even as Mr. E. V. Lucas. 
But though the chorus of praise which his first volume 
received (helped a little, perhaps, by his penetrable pseu- 
donymity) elicits this apparently gratuitous remark, I do 
think him among the most charming and companionable 
writers of. the day ; and his new collection Leaves in the 
Wind (Dent, 5s. 6d. net) has helped me to pass a very pleasant 
hour. The subjects on which he writes are such as essayists 
always have chosen and, one supposes, always will choose 
— "On Talk and Talkers," "On a Vision of Eden," "On 
Early Rising," "On the Indifference of Nature," and so on. 
But these .are no more than pegs for agreeable discursions. 
Each of tliem is loosely enough devised to afford an ample 
range for rambling ; and Alpha rambles or ambles with a 
comfortable grace that is all his own. This is a book to be 
picked up when one is at a loose end. You can begin it at 
either end or in the middle. You can begin almost any 
essay in the middle and go backwards or forwards as the 
fancy takes you. You will find Cheek by jowl things that 
you know very well and things you have never heard before. 
And you remember [Alpha says] that whimsical story 
of Lamb cutting off the coat-button that Coleridge held 
him by in the garden at Highgate, going for his day's -work 
into the City, returning in the evening, hearing Coleridge's 
voice, looking over the hedge, and seeing the poet with the 
button between forefinger and thumb still talking into space. 
You do rememoer, of course ; but AJpha is wise enough to 
know that his reader will like to be reminded of the tale. 
But have you ever heard the verse, which Alpha quotes 
with obvious pleasure, about the great Mr. Sholes : 
Whenever down Fleet Street he strolls 
The pohcemen look hurriedly up 
And say "There's the great Mr. Sholes, 
Who writes such delectable gap." 
It is jiew fo me, and so is the valuable last word ; but ootiii 
have now become part of my mental equipment. Nor is it 
widely known that in the time of Giordano Bruno it was- 
ordained at Oxford by tlie University statutes that " Bachelors- 
and Masters who did not follow Aristotle faithfully were 
liable to a fine of five shillings for every point of divergence 
and for every fault committed against the Logic of the- 
Organon." These are the things you find in "Alpha of the' 
Plough"; and they are gently b^roling. 
Comic Verse and Cookery 
Mr. C. L. Graves is an established and distinguished 
member of the Punch school of humorous verse ; and, as is 
the way of this school, having reached his level of accomplish- 
ment and competence, he does not rashly experiment or 
deoart from the ways in which he has already learnt, to 
please. His new volume, therefore, Lands and Libels 
(Sidgwick & Jackson, 3s. 6d. net), is, so to speak, another 
quart out of the same barrel and well up to the standard of 
the last. .It is only natural that the versifier should in these- 
days be obsessed by the thought of food and should call a 
section of his book "Lavs of the Larder." My heart gnes 
out to Mr. Graves when he writes : 
A i ocular burden rings in my ear 
Of Butter and eggs and a pcftrnd of cheese:^ 
It tells of good cheer ere food was dear. 
Of a time of plenty and peace and ease. 
But I find nothing in his book quite so amusine as the follow- 
ins; recipe from The Victory Cookery Book, by Mrs. C. S. Peel 
and Mr. 'wan Kriens (Lane, =;s. net) : 
To Prepare Dried Eggs. 
Prepare according to directions on~the b^x. * 
Rut it would be unfair to give the impression that this volume 
is merely a humorous compilation. It has been carefully 
written in order to show how we can make the most of our 
rations ; and I can vouch for its usefulness. Its recipes do 
n^f hefirin, as did one I saw in a so-called war cookerv book 
of meatless dishes with the maddening adjuration : "Take 
half a pint of cream. . . ." Peter Bell. 
