Fiction
HARMER JOHN. By Hugh Walpole. (Macmillan. 7s. Gd. net.)—Anyone who has read The Passing of the Third Floor Back or any of its numerous offspring will fear the worst when a childlike stranger turns up late one night at a boarding house in a cathedral town, and charms every man, woman, and child to sudden friendship, a sudden quickening of mind or emotion. Harmer John, the hero, is a sort of heavenly emissary, too. He does want to make life more beautiful. But he behaves so charrningly and Mr. Walpole thioivs in so clear an 'imaginary picture of his milieu that to read of his struggles. is undoubtedly pleasant. The good are too good, in this novel, the bad too bad. One excuses the moral exaggerations, -however, for the sake of Harmer John's gymnasium, a most diverting and novel kind of background for a hero's conflicts. . Harmer John is a Scandinavian, once an artists' model. now an expert in physical training. When he settles is England and starts his gymnasium,. his success is immense. The town, led by the church, takes him up and exercises become quite a craze. Unfortunately for, him and for the course of his love .affair with a pretty but empty-headed girl, John gradually becomes convinced that it is his mission to get the local slums reformed. He makes enemies : he makes -errors of tact because he is too innocent to see BM `cause of offence- in the truth.
Gradually feeling is, roused against ,hini ;and his campaign ends in disaster. Or rather, it ends in his own death, though his reformative efforts &Wei- after his Minder and 'he-becomes the tutelary saint. of a..better_ municipality. While this muscular hero's wholesomeness, singleness of purpose and extreme unsophistication are perhaps a trifle laboured, Mr. Walpole manages with singular. skill to make them credible and engaging. - He displays his customs*: power in describing the more dramatic portions of the Mk and a real- senile. of dismay is, evoked by his description of Harmer John's final rout andlgony, while there-is irony and fnree in the final- rihnr)ter. - • - - - -
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