THE AGREEABLE MR LUCAS

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 21010, 11 November 1933, Page 15

THE AGREEABLE MR LUCAS

Saunterer's Rewards. Bv E. V. Lucas. Methuen. 211 pp. <6/- net.).

In a world that changes, and too often for the worse, one man stands like stone, the agreeable Mr E. V. Lucas. For him the years go by, too many young men say "Sir," too many seats are offered in the omnibus, too often he visits dentist and oculist. He is brave enough to deny the so-called compensations of age : the indisputable right to proclaim the superiority of " W.G." over Sutclifl'e, of Fred. Archer over Gordon Richards, of a pair of finestepping bays over a Rolls-Royce. What are these to one risk, one adventure of youth ? Mr Lucas is more than agreeable, more than an amiable maker of bricks with miraculously little straw. It is easy to think too little of him who suavely blends the useful and the pleasant. It is easy to underrate the philosophic mind, the smile that is never bitter, the taste that is always dignified as well as natural, the tolerance that is more than easy acceptance, the knowledge that is not only a collection of pieces of scholarship but a desire to share good English things.

Is there another writer who for so many years has spun his own web so assiduously and with as much art in its fabrication and placing ? The world will always hold something fresh for Mr Lucas. He is pleased to learn what a delicacy can be confected of the leaves of the broad bean before the bean itself is ripe; he discovers the Benjamin from whom Big Ben was named ; he still defends warmly, his Elia against the Carlyle who called him " a pitiful, ricketty, gasping, staggering, stammering Tomfool." He is delighted to learn that Brillat-Savarin was born in Belley and is prepared to interrupt a dissertation on hymnwriters to describe the whereabouts of a horse-box that carried a Derby winner in 1857. Mrs Beeton was not a buxom, competent-looking matron, but a girl, gay and charming, who died before she was 30. All these reminiscences and curiosa come flowing freely from that easy pen which, better than any other, has learnt the art of graceful, apposite illustration. Mr Lucas is now an English institution, and this 1932-1933 vintage is as mellow and leaves as memorable a taste as the earlier brands that appeared under the names that express the winemerchant's personalitv, "Traveller's Luck," " Loiterer's Harvest," and " Turning Things Over."

CZECH FAIRIES Fairy Talcs. By Karel Capek. Illustrated by Joseph Capek. Allen and Unwin. 288 pp. (5s net.) Those fairy tales are more easily applicable to human circumstances than Grimms' or Andersen's, but they are equally preternatural. They will not implant in the most timid child any fear of the trolls and sprites that personify such mundane things as a letter-box, nor will fhey establish psychoses against the uncles and policemen and chimneysweeps who usually typify the avenging powers. Retribution is rarely needed here and vengeance never. All the tales are gentle and kindly. If they have a general fault it is that here and there the allegorical element is a little too plain. In so far as the stories are parables (and they are for the most part sheer entertainment), they mock with genial satire the stupidity of doctors, magistrates, detectives, storytellers—men who arc not always devoid of excessive solemnity. In addition, to remarking upon the sometimes too conspicuous parable, detraction could go no further than to observe, captiously indeed, the frequent use of stupendous figures, and lists of mildly Rabelaisian synonyms and terms of'abuse. Such unfavourable comments are quite borne down by the positive qualities of the tales. A kind fancy that makes even the magician an amiable philanthropist, and an understanding observation that makes dogs and cats talk like dogs and cats are the qualities most representative of the brothers Capek. (Their collaboration in this work is very happy, for, as well as helping Karel by his funny drawings, Joseph has been allowed to write an extra story "as £i makeweight." And very good it is.) Some of the stories answer piously and gracefully the unanswerable questions that all children ask. The child will be pleased to learn why dogs should be found in Heaven, how birds learn to fly, and what is the meaning of the chattering of running water. He will learn why Dick Turpin and Jack Sheppard did not wash their ears, and he will chuckle long over the story of the tramp, the runaway hat, and the white crow. He will laugh out loud at the perplexed but kindly policemen, who, in their station, supplied a newly-hatched hydra with seven slices of bread crumbled into seven pints of milk. Individual hydra heads, it appears, are as emulous over their food as so many sucking-pigs. The translators, M. and R. Weatherall, have done well to give English names to places, rivers, and other pieces of setting. They have imported into their translation as much fun and defimteness as there must be in the Czech original. The following sentence will illustrate their ease:

The puppy didn't even know how to sit on his haunches properly, and he used to try to sit on his head, and then looked astonished because it hurt him; he didn't know what to do wilh his tail, and because he could only count up to two, he mixed up all his four legs: and in the end he flopped down in amazement, and stuck out his little tongue like a tiny slice of ham.