Various

“ Poor Harold, consumed at once by a zeal which makes him long to save Elaine's soul and a passion which makes him embrace a parcel of her lingerie, very naturally loses the remains of his reason and paves the way for her marriage with her lover by obligingly pushing the elderly husband into the jaws of a crocodile. ”

“ If you want to get at the true flavour of Cornwall you have only to open The North Door.
A young clerk in an insurance office, who wanted to go as a missionary to India, is the hero, if there is one, of Mrs. Alice Perrin's latest novel, The Vow of Silence (Cassell) . I have never read a book about India which made such an ambition seem more courageous, for it gives such a hot and thirsty picture of that country when Harold Williams at last reaches it that it is positively uncomfortable to read it in Summer weather. ”

“ I was bidden to study the penalties laid down for those who do not proceed to the destruction of their rats. When I weighed my landlord rat against five treasury notes I confess that in an hour of meanness I permitted the notes to tip the scale. I prepared phosphor paste and laid a trail of this loathsome condiment upon the path trodden every afternoon by my rat. ”

“ John, on whose steps we were sitting, felt the need of speech.
"I have often wondered," he said, turning to Miss Davies, "how your brother ever got into such a nice family as yours. How do you keep so cheerful with it always about?"
"One gets used to it in time," said Miss Davies.
"I suppose so," said John. "After all, we have the same sort of family disaster in Alan, but we manage to bear up."
Davies rose.
"You and I don't seem popular here," he said to me. "Will you conduct me to the billiard-room or the smoking-room? I am in need of a wash." ”

“ Each village hints that it has gained the greater number of victories; each is inclined in its heart to believe that the other one has actually done so—because, as I suppose, the agony of defeat leaves a more lasting impression than the joy of victory. But I digress. We have not even got to Rankin's mannerism yet.
Rankin's mannerism is the habit of plunging his hands into his trouser pockets. A very ordinary one, you will say; but not when carried to the extent to which Rankin carries it. It is useless for Rankin to field at short slip, for instance. ”

“ Undeniable that she has a smiling way with her, and a gift of sympathetic enjoyment that carries off the old, old dialogues, even imparting freshness to the tale of the patient in extremis who persuades his attractive nurse into a death-bed marriage, treatment that the slightest experience of fiction should have warned her to be invariably curative. Perhaps the best of the tales is "Jane," which tells very amusingly the results of a hospital strike that in actual life would, I imagine, have provided little humorous relief. ”

“ Do a murder get commit, we hear and tell of it. Do a mighty chief die, we publish it in borders of sombre. Staff has each one been college and writes like the Kipling and the Dickens. We circulate every town and extortionate not for advertisements. ”

“ It is beautiful weather and the simple life out-of-doors contents him.
He is a brown rat. I write of his sex with confidence because his urbanity is that of a polished gentleman of the world; no feminine creature could ever display it. A female rat who had bought the house would eagerly try to get in and drive us forth. But not so my rat. He discharges the function of a landlord as considerately as he can; after all, even a landlord must be allowed the rights of inspection of his own property. ”

“ An Editor of thirty years' experience as a journalist, first-rate linguist, deeply versed in geography, Central European politics, etc., will give five hundred pounds to any mental specialist, registered or unregistered, who will cure him of an irresistible temptation on all occasions, with or without provocation, to utilise every incident, occurrence, calamity or disaster as a means of assailing and undermining the position of the Coalition Government in general and the Prime Minister in particular. ”

“ With a stolen invention, an old gentleman found shot in his room, and a son under a vow to avenge his father, the story provides plenty of thrills, and the "Silver Tea-shop" itself has the fascination that business ventures in books often exercise. ”

“ Twenty-four hours later, when duty summoned him once more at the hour of tea, his eye was dim and he staggered slightly in his gait. He was still able to go his rounds, but since that tragic afternoon I have seen him no more.
My family eyes me with suspicion. They look for the rat, which no longer arrives at his accustomed hour. My cook has given notice. I alone bear the burden of the fatal secret.
Saved! What care I for five paltry pounds now that our rat has recovered from his indisposition and has hastened to re-visit his property? ”

“ Some men can be knocked prostrate by the most trifling disappointment, while others can extract comfort or even positive benefit from what looks like complete disaster—such as the Cambridge youth I met last week, raving about Turner's "Fighting Téméraire." ”

“ When Diana came back she asked where the clock was. I said it had gone. "Gone where?" asked Diana. I said I didn't know; the man had taken it. "What man?" asked Diana. I was trying to move the sofa at the moment and I was inclined to be short-spoken. I said that the man who had taken it was, no doubt, the man whom Diana had gone forth to find and bid take away our clock. Diana said that, if the man had said that she had said that he might take our clock away, the man was a liar. Had the man said that she had said he might take the clock away? ”

“ A Peer of great wealth, striking physiognomy, affectionate disposition and wonderful general knowledge will pay the sum of twenty thousand pounds to any psychiatric practitioner who succeeds in eliminating from his system the microbe of filmolatry, the ravages of which have latterly threatened to infect his monumental mind with histrionic monomania highly deleterious to the best interests of the community. ”

“ An unprejudiced man, I take it, is a man whose sentiments are the same as mine, and I happen to disagree with Mr. Willoughby as profoundly as possible on several of the themes he has chosen. On fox-hunting, for instance, which he considers a more decadent sport than bull-fighting; and on Ulster, which he attacks bitterly by comparison with the rest of Ireland, for cherishing antiquated political animosities and talking about the Battle of the Boyne. But will Mr. Willoughby not have been hearing of "the curse of Cromwell"? ”

“ Miss Davies sighed heavily.
"If you two are going to sit here thinking of clever remarks to make about each other I shall go home. For goodness' sake let's pretend we are enjoying ourselves."
"I am enjoying myself," said John plaintively; "I've been wanting to say what I really think of your brother for years."
"Well, don't do it now. Things are miserable enough without having discussions on Arthur. Let's all have a game at something, shall we?"
"Splendid idea," said her brother. "What about tennis?" ”

“ As a matter of fact, human nature being what it is, I have little doubt that Mrs. Mary Roberts Rinehart has hit upon a distinctly profitable title. Indeed I believe that this has already been proved in the Land of Freedom, from which the work comes to us, where (I am given to understand) the vogue of sentimental fiction is even greater than with ourselves. [pg 40] What the name does nothing to indicate is that the stories are almost all of them laid in or about hospital wards. ”

“ Lysander said his bit of seaweed which he brought from Bognor was as dry as parched peas and he would back it against any fool barometer. Cocklewhite, our prompter, said he didn't want to depress the company, but he had a leech in a bottle of water which rose for fine weather and sank for wet, and he was bound to tell us it was like lead at the bottom at the present moment. Hermia pointed to the heavens, 'Red sky at night shepherds' delight,' she quoted. There was no getting away from the swallows; they were nose-diving to a bird. 'Hang swallows,' Oberon said; 'put your trust in mosquitoes. ”

“ A neo-Georgian poet, disciple of Freud, pacificist and vegetarian, will gladly pay five pounds to any psychopathic suggestionist who will extirpate from his subconsciousness the lingering relics of an antipathy to syncopated rhythms which retard his progress towards a complete mastery of the technique of amorphous bombination. ”

“ Take the words 'fire' and 'nigger.' A good chain would be 'fire—coal—black—nigger.' Do you see?
John and I made sounds expressing that we thought we did. Davies just went on groaning.
"Very well," said Miss Davies, "we'll begin. Now don't forget. We start with 'margarine' and try to get to 'hippopotamus.' The great thing is to keep the word 'hippopotamus' in your mind all the time and keep trying to work towards it. Are you ready? Right! I'll start with 'grease.'"
"Greece?" said John, looking startled. ”

“ Harold and his brother and sister missionaries live in a state of stuffy discomfort which soon undermines his health and leaves him no defence against the charms of Elaine Taverner, who has a large cool drawing-room and dainty frocks, and a young soldier lover and an old scholar husband, and all the other things we expect of pretty young women in Anglo-Indian novels. ”

“ Wives, said the Judge of the Clerkenwell County Court recently, are not so ignorant that they do not know what their husband's earnings are. There is no doubt, however, that many workmen's wives simply pocket the handful of bank-notes their husbands fling them on Saturday night without stopping to count them. ”

“ The setting is the shallow seas of the Malay coast, where Lingard, an adventurer (most typically Conrad) whose passion in life is love for his brig, has pledged himself to aid an exiled young Rajah in the recovery of his rights. At the last moment however, when his plans are at point of action, the whole scheme is thwarted by the stranding of a private yacht containing certain persons whose rescue (complicated by his sudden subjection to the woman of the party) eventually involves Lingard in the loss of fortune and credit. ”

“ A Member of Parliament, formerly attached to one of His Majesty's services, is prepared to offer fifty pounds to any phrenologist who without inflicting undue pain will reduce or remove the Bump of Curiosity which at present impels him without rhyme or reason to bombard Ministers with irrelevant questions contrary to the public interest and calculated to produce the maximum amount of irritation even amongst Members who sit on the same side of the House. ”

“ A market-gardener in Surrey is said to be the double of Mr. Winston Churchill. Since this announcement it is stated that the poor fellow has been inundated with messages of sympathy.
"The secret of success," says Mr. W. Harris, "is hard work." Still, some people would scorn to take advantage of another man's secret. ”

“ He's our stage-manager and we know his arrangements in case of rain. They're the only arrangements possible in our little village, and it's going to be a nightmare instead of a dream if they have to be carried out. But we can depend upon Bottom to make a wise decision. He'll notify us and the boy-scouts will notify the audience. All we've got to do is not to grouse.'
"Cocklewhite said he would phone me the position of his leech at 9 a.m., and Lysander promised to report any change in the condition of the seaweed. ”

“ Undeterred by his failure over tea, Commander Kenworthy next attacked the duty on films, complaining inter alia, "Mr. Chaplin is taxed twenty pounds for every thousand feet." Mr. Chamberlain defended the tax on general grounds, but wisely avoided Mr. Chaplin's feet, over which it is notoriously easy to trip. ”

“ Hinkson will make a novel about these two admirable people some day soon. Denys makes his own and his patron's fortune and I am sure lives happily ever after with Dawn, who is the palest wraith of a girl, owing to the shameful neglect of her author, who is too busy putting large sums of money into the pockets of the principal puppets. Indeed, for a West Coast of Ireland story a demoralising amount of money is going about.
The principal scenes of The North Door (Constable) are laid in the Cornwall of some hundred-and-thirty years ago, and I welcome Dr. ”

“ Then the Summer began in real earnest. We got in extra gardeners, worked like niggers ourselves, and when the turf was in perfect condition and the thyme was coming up on Titania's bank we fixed the date and billed the county.
"After that we all got nervous and went about consulting weather forecasts. Old Moore prophesied heavy rains. The Daily Mail said a cyclone from New York was on the way. The weather-glasses jumped about and seemed to know their own minds even less than usual. Three days before the date thunderstorms were reported all over the country and a fowl was struck by lightning. ”

“ Members who thought with Sir Edward Carson that General Dyer had not been fairly treated resented Mr. Montagu's insinuation that in that case they were condoning "frightfulness." Mr. Churchill was more judicious, and Mr. Bonar Law did his level best to keep his followers in the Government Lobby. But Sir A. Hunter-Weston's reminder that by the instructions issued by the civil authority to General Dyer he was ordered "to use all force necessary. No gathering of persons nor procession of any sort will be allowed. ”

“ Arrangements, we hear, are now being hastily made to offer her the whole of Ireland if she will take it away during this month.
According to a local paper a lawyer living in Birmingham, returning unexpectedly from the theatre, discovered two burglars at work in his library. It is reported, however, that the intruders with great presence of mind immediately retained him for their defence.
Several workhouses in the South of England now possess tennis-courts and bowling-greens. It is satisfactory to note that preparations are at last being made to receive the New Poor. ”