When Winter Comes to Main Street Part 24

"The book, on the whole, is worthy of its subject. It is written with warmth, subtlety, and considerable humour. Smiles and thoughts lie hidden within many of its pregnant lines. One of the biographer's very strangest suggestions is never made concrete at all, so far as I can discern. The figure of the literary discoverer of the South Seas emerges perhaps a bit vaguely, his head in the clouds, but there is no reason to believe that Melville's head was anywhere else when he was alive. Hawthorne is at last described pretty accurately and not too flatteringly. _The Scarlet Letter_ was published in 1850; _Moby d.i.c.k_ in 1851. It is one of the eternal ironies that the one should be world-famous while the other is still struggling for even national recognition. There are long pa.s.sages, well-studied and well-written, dealing with the whaling industry and the early missionaries, which will be extremely helpful to any one who wants a bibliographical background for the ocean and South Sea books. Melville's London notebook is published for the first time and there is a nearly complete reprint of his first known published paper 'Fragments From a Writing Desk,' which appeared in two numbers of The Democratic Press and Lansingburgh Advertiser in 1839 (not 1849, as the bibliography erroneously gives it). Mr. Weaver is probably right in ascribing Melville's retirement from literature to poverty (it was a fortunate year that brought him as much as $100 in royalties and his account at Harper's was usually overdrawn), to complete disillusionment, which made it impossible for him to say more than he had already said, even on the subject of disillusionment, and to ill-health.

"It is a pleasure, moreover, to find that Mr. Weaver has a warm appreciation of _Mardi_ and _Pierre_, books which have either been neglected or fiercely condemned since they first appeared, books which are no longer available save in early editions. They are not equal to _Moby d.i.c.k_, but they are infinitely more important and more interesting than _Typee_ and _Omoo_, on which the chief fame of the man rests. It is to his credit that Mr. Weaver has perceived this, but a great deal more remains to be said on the subject. _Mardi_, _Moby d.i.c.k_, and _Pierre_, as a matter of fact, form a kind of tragic trinity: _Mardi_ is a tragedy of the intellect; _Moby d.i.c.k_ a tragedy of the spirit, and _Pierre_ a tragedy of the flesh. _Mardi_ is a tragedy of heaven, _Moby d.i.c.k_ a tragedy of h.e.l.l, and _Pierre_ a tragedy of the world we live in.

"Considering the difficulties in his path, it may be said that Mr. Weaver has solved his problem successfully. The faults of the book, to a large extent, as I have already pointed out, are not the faults of the author, but the faults of conditions circ.u.mscribing his work. At any rate, it can no longer be said that no biography exists of the most brilliant figure in the history of our letters, the author of a book which far surpa.s.ses every other work created by an American from _The Scarlet Letter_ to _The Golden Bowl_. For _Moby d.i.c.k_ stands with the great cla.s.sics of all times, with the tragedies of the Greeks, with _Don Quixote_, with _Dante's Inferno_ and with Shakespeare's _Hamlet_."

=v=

A man who is certainly an authority on naval subjects tells me that _The Grand Fleet_ by Viscount Jellicoe of Scapa is the masterpiece of the great war. He does not mean, of course, in a literary sense; but he does most emphatically mean in every other sense. I quote from the review by P. L.

J., of Admiral Jellicoe's second book, _The Crisis of the Naval War_. The review appeared in that valuable Annapolis publication, the Proceedings of the United States Naval Inst.i.tute for April, 1921:

"This interesting book is the complement of his first volume, _The Grand Fleet,1914-16_. Admiral Jellicoe, the one man who was best situated to know, now draws aside the curtains and reveals to us the efforts made by the Admiralty to overcome the threat made by the German submarine campaign. The account not only deals with the origin ash.o.r.e of the defence and offence against submarines, but follows to sea the measures adopted where their application and results are shown.

"The first chapter deals at length with the changes made in the admiralty that the organisation might be logical and smooth working to avoid conflict of authority, to have no necessary service neglected, to provide the necessary corps of investigators of new devices, and above all to free the first Sea Lord and his a.s.sistants of a ma.s.s of detail that their efforts might be concentrated on the larger questions.

"The appendices are of value and interesting because they show the organisation at different periods and emphasise the fact that the Naval Staff at the end of the war was the result of trial and error, natural growth, and at least one radical change adopted during the war.

"Chapters II and III deal with the Submarine Campaign in 1917 and the measures adopted to win success. The gradual naval control of all merchant s.h.i.+pping with its attendant difficulties is clearly shown. The tremendous labour involved in putting into operation new measures; the unremitting search for and development of new antisubmarine devices is revealed, and above all the length of time necessary to put into operation any new device, and this when time is the most precious element, is pointed out.

"That a campaign against the enemy must be waged with every means at hand; that new weapons must be continually sought; that no 'cure-all' by which the enemy may be defeated without fighting can be expected; that during war is the poorest time to provide the material which should be provided during peace, the Admiral shows in a manner not to be gainsaid.

"Chapters IV and V deal with the testing, introduction, and gradual growth of the convoy system. It is shown how the introduction of this system was delayed by lack of vessels to perform escort duty and why when finally adopted it was so successful because it was not only defensive but offensive in that it meant a fight for a submarine to attack a vessel under convoy.

"Chapter VI is devoted to the entry of the United States. The accurate estimate of our naval strength by both the enemy and the allies, and our inability upon the declaration of war to lend any great a.s.sistance are shown--and this at the most critical period for the Allies--a period when the German submarine campaign was at its height, when the tonnage lost monthly by the Allies was far in excess of what can be replaced--when the destruction of merchant s.h.i.+pping if continued at the then present rate would in a few months mean the defeat of the Allies."

=vi=

I will give you what Admiral Caspar F. Goodrich said in the Weekly Review (30 April 1921; The Weekly Review has since been combined with The Independent) regarding _A History of Sea Power_, by William O. Stevens and Allan Westcott:

"Two professors at the Naval Academy, the one a historian, the other a close student of Mahan, have written a noteworthy volume in their _History of Sea Power_, published in excellent form, generously supplied with maps, ill.u.s.trations, and index. The t.i.tle suggests Mahan's cla.s.sic which is largely followed in plan and treatment. It will be remembered that his writings covered in detail only the years from 1660 to 1815. While not neglecting this period, this book is particularly valuable for events not within its self-a.s.signed limits. Practically it is a history of naval warfare from ancient times to the present day. Each chapter deals briefly, but ably, with one epoch and closes with an appropriate bibliography for those who care to go more fully into the question; a commendable feature.

The last chapter, 'Conclusions,' deserves especial attention. Naturally, considerable s.p.a.ce is devoted to the story and a.n.a.lysis of Jellicoe's fight. Few will disagree with the verdict of the authors:

"'It is no reflection on the personal courage of the Commander-in-Chief that he should be moved by the consideration of saving his s.h.i.+ps. The existence of the Grand Fleet was, of course, essential to the Allied cause, and there was a heavy weight of responsibility hanging on its use.

But again it is a matter of naval doctrine. Did the British fleet exist merely to maintain a numerical preponderance over its enemy or to crush that enemy--whatever the cost? If the Battle of Jutland receives the stamp of approval as the best that could have been done, then the British or the American officer of the future will know that he is expected primarily to "play safe." But he will never tread the path of Blake, Hawke, or Nelson, the men who made the traditions of the Service and forged the anchors of the British Empire.'

"One factor in the success of the antisubmarine campaign is not mentioned, important as it proved to be. This was the policy adopted by the Allies of not giving out the news that any U-boat was captured or otherwise accounted for. Confronted with this appalling veil of mystery the morale of the German submarine crews became seriously affected; volunteering for this service gradually ceased; arbitrary detail grew necessary; greatly lessened efficiency resulted.

"The authors are to be congratulated on producing a volume which should be in the hands of all naval officers of the coming generation; on the shelves of all who take interest in the development of history; and of statesmen upon whom may eventually rest the responsibility of heeding or not heeding the teachings of Mahan as here sympathetically and cleverly brought up to date."

CHAPTER XXI

THE CONFESSIONS OF A WELL-MEANING YOUNG MAN, STEPHEN MCKENNA

=i=

In a sense, all of Stephen McKenna's writing has been a confession. More than any other novelist now actively at work, this young man bases fiction on biographical and autobiographical material; and when he sits down deliberately to write reminiscences, such as _While I Remember_, the result is merely that, in addition to confessing himself, he confesses others.

He has probably had more opportunity of knowing the social and political life of London from the inside than most novelists of his time. In _While I Remember_ he gives his recollections, while his memory is still fresh enough to be vivid, of a generation that closed, for literary if not for political purposes, with the Peace Conference. There is a power of wit and mordant humour and a sufficiency of descriptive power and insight into human character in all his work.

[Ill.u.s.tration: STEPHEN McKENNA]

_While I Remember_ is actually a gallery of pictures taken from the life and executed with the technique of youth by a man still young--pictures of public school and university life, of social London from the death of King Edward to the Armistice, of domestic and foreign politics of the period, of the public services of Great Britain at home and abroad. Though all these are within the circle of Mr. McKenna's narrative, literary London--the London that is more talked about than seen--is the core of his story.

=ii=

Mr. McKenna's latest novel, _The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman_, is a series of monologues addressed by one Lady Ann Spenworth to "a friend of proved discretion." I quote from the London Times of April 6, 1922: "In the course of them Lady Ann Spenworth reveals to us the difficulties besetting a lady of rank. She is compelled to live in a house in Mount street--for how could she ask 'The Princess' to visit her in Bayswater?--and her income of a few thousands, hardly supplemented by her husband's directors.h.i.+ps, is depleted by the disburs.e.m.e.nts needed to keep the name of her only son out of the newspapers while she is obtaining for him the wife and the salary suited to his requirements and capacities. Mr.

Stephen McKenna provides us with the same kind of exasperating entertainment that we get at games from watching a skilful and unscrupulous veteran. Her deftness in taking a step or two forward in the centre and so putting the fast wing off side; her air of sporting acquiescence touched with astonishment when a penalty is given against her for obstruction; her resolution in jumping in to hit a young bowler off his length; the trouble she has with her shoe-lace when her opponent is nervous; the suddenness with which every now and again her usually deliberate second service will follow her first; the slight pucker in her eyebrows when she picks up a hand full of spades; the pluck with which she throws herself on the ball when there is nothing else for it; her dignified bonhomie in the dressing room! We all know Lady Ann and her tricks, but nothing can be proved against her and she continues to play for the best clubs.

"In this story Lady Ann is playing the social game, and it is a tribute to the skill of Mr. McKenna that at the end we hope that the Princess will be sufficiently curious about her new 'frame and setting' to continue her visits.... We have used the word 'story' because Lady Ann reports her machinations while they are in progress and we are a little nervous about the issue. Her main service, however, lies in the pictures she draws of her own highly placed relatives and of a number of people who at house parties and elsewhere may help ladies of t.i.tle to make both ends meet.

Chief among them is her son Will, who even as seen through her partial eyes, appears a very dishonest, paltry boy. Her blind devotion to him humanises both her shrewdness and her selfishness. It is for his sake that she separates her niece from the fine young soldier she is in love with and that she almost succeeds in providing the King's Proctor with the materials for an intervention that would secure to him the estates and t.i.tle of his fox-hunting uncle. There is always a plain tale to put her down and always the friend of proved discretion is left with the impression that the tale is the invention of malice; at least we suppose she must be, for Lady Ann is allowed by people to whom she has done one injury to remain in a position to do them another. The difficult medium employed by Mr. McKenna ent.i.tles him, however, to count on the co-operation of the reader; and it is to be accorded the more readily that to it we owe the felicity of having her own account of the steps she took to prevent an attractive but expensive widow from running away with her husband, and of the party which she gave, according to plan, to the Princess and, not according to plan, to other guests let loose on her by her scapegrace brother-in-law."

=iii=

Stephen McKenna, the author of _Sonia_, not to be confused with Stephen McKenna, the translator of Poltinus, belongs to the Protestant branch of that royal Catholic sept which has had its home in the County Monagham since the dawn of Irish history. Some members, even, of this branch have reverted to the old faith since the date of Stephen McKenna's birth in the year 1888 in London.

He was a scholar of Westminster and an exhibitioner of Christ Church, Oxford. After he had taken his degree, his father, Leopold McKenna, an elder brother of the Right Honourable Reginald McKenna, K. C., the last Liberal Chancellor of the British Exchequer, made it possible for him to travel desultorily and to try his luck in the great literary adventure.

On the outbreak of the war, as his health, which is delicate to the point of frailness, debarred him from entering the army, Stephen McKenna first volunteered for service at his old school, and, after a year, joined the staff of the War Trade Intelligence Department, where he did valuable war work for three and a half years. He represented his department on the Right Honourable A. J. Balfour's mission in 1917, to the United States, where he enjoyed himself thoroughly and made himself very popular; and he did not sever his connection with the government service until February, 1919, four months after the conclusion of the armistice.

Stephen McKenna's first three novels--_The Reluctant Lover_, _Sheila Intervenes_ and _The Sixth Sense_--were written and published before their author was 27 years of age! But _Sonia_, the story that made him widely known, was written entirely during the period of his activities on the staff of Westminster School and at the War Trade Intelligence Department.

The book won the public favour more quickly than perhaps any other novel that has appeared in our time.

The success of _Sonia_ was largely due to its description in a facile, popular and yet eminently chaste and polished style, of the social and political situation in England for a half generation before and during the early stages of the war. This description Stephen McKenna was peculiarly well-equipped to produce, not only as the near relative of a prominent cabinet minister, but also as an a.s.siduous frequenter of the leading Liberal centre, the Reform Club, on the committee of which he had sat, despite his youthful years, since 1915. The political interest, indeed, is revealed in the subt.i.tle, _Between Two Worlds_, which was originally intended for the actual t.i.tle.

McKenna's next book, _Ninety-Six Hours' Leave_, appealed to the reader's gayer moods and _Midas and Son_, with its tragic history of an Anglo-American multimillionaire, to the reader in serious temper.

In spite of certain blemishes due to Mr. McKenna's unfamiliarity with American life, I should say that _Midas and Son_ is probably his ablest work so far. I think it surpa.s.ses even _Sonia_. Mr. McKenna returned to Sonia in his novel, _Sonia Married_. His work after that was a trilogy called _The Sensationalists_, three brilliant studies of modern London in the form of successive novels called _Lady Lilith_, _The Education of Eric Lane_ and _The Secret Victory_.

=iv=

Writing from 11, Stone Buildings, Lincoln's Inn, London, in 1920, Mr.

McKenna had this to say about his trilogy:

"_Lady Lilith_ is the first volume of a trilogy called _The Sensationalists_, three books giving the history for a few years before the war, during and immediately after the war, of a group of sensation-mongers, emotion-hunters or whatever you like to call them, whose principle and practice it was to startle the world by the extravagance of their behaviour, speech, dress and thought and, in the other sense of the word, sensationalism, to live on the excitement of new experiences. Such people have always existed and always will exist, receiving perhaps undue attention from the world that they set out to astonish. You, I am sure, have them in America, as we have them here, and in the luxurious and idle years before the war they had incomparable scope for their search for novelty and their quest for emotion. Some of the characters in _Lady Lilith_ have already been seen hovering in the background of _Sonia_, _Midas and Son_ and _Sonia Married_, though the princ.i.p.al characters in _Lady Lilith_ have not before been painted at full length or in great detail; and these princ.i.p.al characters will be found in all three books of the trilogy.

"_Lady Lilith_, of course, takes its t.i.tle from the Talmud, according to which Lilith was Adam's first wife; and as mankind did not taste of the Tree of Knowledge or of death until Eve came to trouble the Garden of Eden, Lilith belongs to a time in which there was neither death nor knowledge of good or evil in the world. She is immortal, unaging and non-moral; her name is given by Valentine Arden, the young novelist who appears in _Sonia_ and elsewhere, to Lady Barbara Neave, the princ.i.p.al character in _Lady Lilith_ and one of the princ.i.p.al characters in the two succeeding books."

=v=

In person, Stephen McKenna is tall, with a slender figure, Irish blue eyes, fair hair, regular features and a Dante profile. He has an engaging and very courteous address, a sympathetic manner, a ready but always urbane wit and great conversational charm. He possesses the rare accomplishment of "talking like a book." His intimates are legion; and, apart from these, he knows everyone who "counts" in London society. He is known never to lose his temper; and it is doubtful whether he has ever had cause to lose it.

His one recreation is the Opera; and during the London season his delightful chambers in Lincoln's Inn are the almost nightly scene of parties collected then and there from the opera house.

=vi=

A sample of _The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman_: