LAND AND lW.ATER. 
July. 17, 1915. 
BOOKS OF THE WEEK. 
A LITERARY REVIEW. 
••Sobjecti •! lilt Day " By Earl Carxoa ol KedleiUa. With latro- 
dgctioa by lh« E«rl of Cremer. (VIlea and Unwia.) lOs. M. ntt. 
?• War Poenu, and Other Traaslations." By Lord Cnrzon o! Kedleston. 
(tane.) 4>. 6d. net. 
The speeches collected in this volume afford a fair oppor- 
tunit-7 of judging the oratory of Lord Curzon. They are 
worthy of a oeromouial order, on non-party questions, and 
designed perhaps to conceal as much as they reveal. They 
are fluent, rhythmical, apt. They show sometimes the adroit 
debater, sometimes the man skilled in saying sweet nothings 
with an oxquisit-e grac«. There is never discernible any trace 
of pas-sion. The kid-gloved manner is seldom laid aside. 
The same qualities appear in his verse translations from 
French, Belgian, Latin, and other poets and in his neat 
renderings of modern poems into Latin elegiacs. He can give 
us a very graceful rendering of Fran9ois Coppee's "Euiues 
du C'cBur' and a cheerful translation of M. C'ammaerts' 
plainer patriotic poems; but he fails completely when he 
seeks to reproduce the intensity and the suppressed passion 
of Verhaerhen's " Agonie de Moine." He speaks of the 
readiness with which " the ideas and even the phrases of one 
language discover their equivalent in another"; but his 
translation of " Agonie de Moine " is sufficient to show that 
for translation of poetry, when poetry is inspired, something 
more i."; required than equivalent idea^ and phrases. How- 
aver, there is much in this little volume which should give 
pleasure; and it should be mentioned that the proceeds are to 
be devoted to the Belgian Relief Fund. 
»'£mma Oarwio : \ Century of Family Letters. 17911896" Edited 
Ijy Her Daughter, Henrietta LitchflclJ. (Murray.) 2 Vols. 
2U. net. 
Tiie earlier lett.ers in this collection are written by 
members of Mrs. Josiah Wedgwood's circle. The later lett-ers 
are those preserved among the friends of her daughter, Emma 
Darwin. The correspondence is of primary interest to the 
member.? of the family, but there is so much of more general 
conoern that Mrs. Litchfield hM been well advised in offering 
ihe work to a larger public. Mrs. Josiah Wedgwood was a 
beautiful and clever woman, and there is charm and humour 
In her letters. Emma Darwin, or " Little Miss Slip-slop," 
»3 she wa.1 called in her childhood because of her untidiness, 
had, in the author's words, " a large-minded, unfussy way 
of taking life which is more common amongst men than 
among.st women. My father . . . would say the only 
jure p!ac^ to fiud a pin or a pair of scissors was his study." 
Bhe was highly intelligent, but not intellectual. Sh? finds 
" Sartflr Resartus " too difficult to read, and declares that 
" we find ' Pickwick ' not at all too low for our taste." She 
liked Thomas Carlyle, but Jane Walsh had "an hysterical 
•ort of giggle. ... I cannot think that Jenny is either 
quite natural or ladylike." 
Charles Darwin was not of a sociable disposition. Ha 
eschewed dinners and parties, though Emma tried to indued 
fcim to like the theatre. " He is the most open, transparent 
man I ever saw," she writes at the time of her engagement. 
•" Ho is particularly affectionate and very nice to his father 
and sisters, and perfectly sweet t-empered." Mrs. Litchfield 
fcas evidently taken great pains in the sorting and arranging 
of the correspondence, and has added interesting biographical 
notas. 
"The Blue Horizon." By H. de Vere Stacpoole. (Hufchiason.) 6s. 
Mr. Stacpoole made a popular success with his clever 
I>ook, "The Blue Lagoon." Th» present volume, which 
beara a similar title, is written in the same highly-coloured, 
^yescriptivo style, and has many of the same romantic qualities! 
jfft consists of several stories, tlie scene of which is laid in 
pi'lorida, or on other tropical coasts. His model is Robert 
ffjouis Stevenson, and in on» of th« stories the lure of 
,'" Treasure Island " leads his persons into an advontur&— 
itreasure is found, not in the form of " pieces of eight," but 
of a lovely American maiden. That is like Mr. Stacpoole. 
He can paint a picture; he can line out a character with some 
ribtlety; he adores romance and adventure; but he cannot 
resist the pretty-pretty conclusion wliich Stevenson 
ichjeved. However, it is all very agreeable for a summer 
uteraoom ^ 
menta, we find ourselves drawn into an inlaresting discussioa 
of the proper relations between the arcliitact and tha sculp- 
tor; and lie impresses upon us in another place that we must 
guard even the ugliness of old memorials — "our churches, 
great and small, are frozen history." Tho illustrations ar* 
numerous and sumptuously reproduced. 
" The House of Many Mirrors." By Violet fluut. (Stanley Paul.) 6s, 
A perfunctory word of praise can do little to convey th» 
quality of Miss Violet Hunt's novel. It is clever, but it is 
not to cleverness that it owes its distinctive character. It is 
not very neatly composed, and yet it concludes with the full, 
final effect of a drama. It seems to be made up of scores of 
little pettifogging, often sordid, incidents, and yet we are 
left with the full, rounded impression of authentic tragedy. 
The woman herself, Rosamond, is not an altogether likeable 
person. Miss Hunt is quite unsparing in showing all her 
heroine's little meannesses, her \nilgaritie3, her checrviiess, 
if the expression may be used. We are told how she sells 
her old clothes, " her misfits," to her friends (what friend.<» !). 
We see her always making little plots, and seeing before her 
" vistas of chicanery, of counter-plotting." She is always 
thinking that someone or other is "spying" on her or ou 
someone else; and such-and-such an acquaintance is aa 
antagonist who "shows her hand." 
We arrive at the conclusion that Mi^s Hunt, witli her 
mordant pen, her ruthless niceties, her flagrant derelictions 
of taste, has achieved an effect strikingly real — ironically 
tragic and poignant. 
"JaHery." By William J. Loclve. (Lane.) 6». 
Mr, Locke has undoubtedly mastered the art of writing 
a certain kind of novel. The kind of novel we mean is aptly 
described by one of the persons in this story. 
It deserved the liijhest encomiuraa by the most enthasiastis 
reviewers. It was ono of the most irresistible l>ooks I had ever read. 
It was a modern high romance of love and pity, of tears iridescent with 
laughter, of strong and beautiful though erring souU; it was at once 
poignant and tander; it vibrated with drama; it was instinct with calm 
and Itindly wbdom. 
The reader v/ill find that " Jaffery " fits most wonderfully 
into this mould. The plot, perhaps, is merely ingenious. 
A young man has published a novel which takes the reading 
public by stonn. His publishers, his wife, and the public 
eagerly expect his new book. Unfortunately he war, not the 
real author of the work which won him fame, and the effort 
to produce a sequel kills him. A gallant friend, who loves 
the widow, steps into the breach, and produces the requisite 
masterpiece. Too late the widow, discovering the sacrifice, 
offers her love. His passion has been deviated from her to a 
wild Albanian lady, who accompanies him in his picturesque 
adventures as a war correspondent. 
Tenderness, high romance, calm and kindiv wisdom — 
they are all here, and here to excess. In most of the books 
that Mr. Locke has written there figures a certain suave, 
erudite, mildly humorous, sententious man who provides an 
atmosphere of unruffled calm; and through the eyes of such 
a hero we watch the careers of a number of amiable, loving, 
" erring," and rose-watery persons who are at length dis- 
missed with that smiling tear of which Mr. Locke and Mr. 
J. M. Barrie are bofli alike masters. 
Memorials and Monaments." By Lawrence Weaver. 
Life" Offices.) 12s. 6d. net. 
*' Country 
" In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries," says 
Mr. Weaver, " there was a sound tradition whicli gav'6 
pleasant shape to divers sorts of memorials, whether brasses, 
incised slabs, wall tablets, tombs, or headstones. To-day 
many of the persons who are curiously called ' monumejital 
masons ' bring to their task neither ediicat-ed taste nor the 
knowledge of good historical examples." His own ta.^k is to 
"focus att-ention on good examples, old and new." His 
book is mainly devoted to describing and criticising chosea 
examples— two hundred subjects selected from seven cen- 
turies; but he has brought so much enthusiasm and appre- 
ciation into his criticisms that he has avoided the dulness of 
a more catalogue. For instance, in treating of church monu- 
18 
