Scene: A Recruiting Station in Ireland. In order not to lose a stalwart recruit who happens to be under the standard height measurement the examining officer makes a brilliant suggestion to Sergeant O'Flanagan—
—which suggestion Sergeant O'Flanagan carries out with a highly satisfactory result.
(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)
Coasting Bohemia is the attractive title of a series of essays upon men and matters by Mr. Comyns Carr, issued in a portly volume published by Macmillan. During the last forty years Mr. Carr, eminently a clubbable man, has made the acquaintance and enjoyed the friendship of a galaxy of painters, authors and actors. He was equally at home with Millais, Alma-Tadema, Rosetti, Burne-Jones, Whistler, George Meredith, Henry Irving and Arthur Sullivan. A shrewd observer, quick in sympathy, apt in characterisation, he has much that is interesting and informing to say of each. Perhaps the chapter on Whistler is the most attractive, since in some respects his individuality was the most pronounced. In a couple of brief sentences, pleasing in the slyness of their gentle malice, Mr. Carr hits off a striking quality in the character of the Whistler we most of us knew. "At times," he writes, "Whistler was even greedy of applause, and, provided it was full and emphatic enough, showed no inclination to question its source or authority. There were moments indeed when, if it appeared to lack volume or vehemence, he was ready himself to supply what was deficient." Mr. Carr has in his time played many parts. He made a start at the Bar, but did not get further than the position of a Junior, which suited him admirably. As a critic, he cannot plead in extenuation the dictum of Disraeli that critics are those who have failed in Literature and Art. He has written several successful plays, was English editor of L'Art, was among the founders of the New Gallery, and remains established as one of our best after-dinner speakers. Of such is the kingdom of Bohemia. From these various sources he draws a stream of reminiscence that runs pleasantly through many pages. The only drawback to the delight with which I read them arose from the circumstance that the volume was uncut. Why should a harmless reviewer be compelled to "coast Bohemia" armed with a paper-knife, interrupted, when he comes to an exceptionally interesting point, by necessity for cutting a chunk of pages? R.S.V.P., Messrs. Macmillan.
In Yankee-land is severed—such is
The underlying theme of what
The Letter of the Contract touches;
So, but that Basil King has brain
And uses it when he is writing,
The book (from Methuen) might contain
Little that's novel or inviting.
I rather fear, the approbation
Of folk who hope such books as this
May help the cause of reformation;
For, if divorce in U.S.A.
Inspires such work, it stands to reason
To change the law in any way
Amounts to literary treason.
In contemplating the present season's output of fiction I have been impressed by the number of novels that might apparently have been written with an eye to the conditions that attended their publication. Which, unless one credits our romancers with much further sight than is commonly supposed to be their portion, is absurd. The thing is a coincidence; and of this there is no more striking example than the story that Anne Douglas Sedgwick has prepared for the world this autumn. She calls it The Encounter (Arnold), and it is all about the struggle between "the Nietzschean attitude of mind in Germany," as exemplified in an egotistical, crack-brained genius named Ludwig Wehlitz, and the ideals of civilized Christianity exemplified in several
