look back on the finished chapters and see how much Mr. SWINNERTON has
told you in how few strokes, and you will realise the fine and precise
artistry of this attractive volume. I can see the lights, the silver
and the red glow of the wine; and I follow the flashes and pouts
and tearful pride of _Jenny_, and _Keith's_ patient, embarrassed,
masterful wooing as if I had been shamefully eavesdropping.

* * * * *

_Fool Divine_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) stands to some extent in
a position unique among novels in that its heroine is also its
villainess, or at least the wrecker of its hero. _Nevile del Varna_,
the lady in question, is indeed the only female character in the
tale, and has therefore naturally to work double tides. What happened
was that young _Christopher_, a superman and hero, dedicate, as a
volunteer, to the unending warfare of science against the evil goddess
of the Tropics, yellow fever, met this more human divinity when on
his journey to the scene of action, and, like a more celebrated
predecessor, "turned aside to her." Then, naturally enough, when
_Nevile_ has gotten him for her husband and when love of her has
caused him to abandon his project of self-sacrifice, she repays
him with scorn. And as the unhappy _Christopher_ already scorns
himself the rest of the book (till the final chapters) is a record
of deterioration more clever than exactly cheerful. The moral of it
all being, I suppose, that if you are wedded to an ideal you should
beware of taking to yourself a mortal wife, for that means bigamy.
Incidentally the book contains some wonderfully impressive pictures of
tropical life and of the general beastliness of existence on a rubber
plantation. At the end, as I have indicated, regeneration comes for
_Christopher_--though I will not reveal just how this happens. There
is also a subsidiary interest in the revolutionary affairs of Cuba,
which the much-employed _Nevile_ appears to manage, as a local Joan of
Arc, in her spare moments; and altogether the book can be recommended
as one that will at least take you well away from the discomforts of
here and now.

* * * * *

[Illustration: TALE OF A GREAT OFFENSIVE.

"'E SEZ TO ME, 'YOU'LL GET A THICK EAR!' I SEZ, 'WHO?' 'E SEZ, 'YOU!'
I SEZ, 'ME?' 'E SEZ 'YUS!' I SEZ 'HO!'"]

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol.
153, August 1, 1917., by Va