September 25, 1.915. 
LAND AND WATER 
THE TRAGEDY OF EUROPE. 
By The Editor. 
OWEN WISTER is one of the best known 
novelists in America. He wrote " Tlie 
Virginian," which promises to be a future 
classic in the literature of the United .States; 
it is a book for which many British readers 
haye cause to be grateful, for it has carried them to a 
new world vivid with old humanity. Now he has 
brought out a little volume (Macmillan, 2s.) dealing 
with the war and entitled The Pentecost of Calamity, 
Emerson's couplet being quoted at the head of the 
opening chapter : 
Ever the fiery Pentecost 
Girds with flame the countless host. 
There are in this country (and we respect them 
when we meet them) certain gentle souls who, amid all 
the carnage and horror that rages round them, still cling 
to their old ideal of " peace on earth, goodwill toward 
men." They are not political persons with axes to 
grind, nor yet faddists, but very earnest men and women 
who will not lightly forego their belief in the goodness 
of human nature, and who reproach themselves in secret 
for not entertaining towards their enemies the love 
which they hold should include all mankind. To these 
idealists do we particularly commend Mr. Wister's 
volume ; they will find much to comfort them here. 
He comes forward asan admirer of German waysand 
methods before the war. Not the least charming of his 
pages contain a sketch of the pleasant life at Nauheim 
in the early summer of 1914. " Everything was well 
planned and everything worked. I thought of America, 
where so many things look beautiful on paper and so 
few things work, because nobody keeps the rules. . . . 
In Nauheim everybody kept the rules. There was no 
breakdown, no failure." He and his fellow-countrymen 
were all struck with the contentment in the German face. 
It seemed to them the dominating note among the old 
and young of both sexes. One Sunday afternoon, on a 
chance visit to Frankfurt, the Opera House was entered ; 
it was found to be full of children — nearly 2,000 between 
the ages of ten and fifteen. The little old opera " Czaar 
und Zimmermann " was given. The cost of each seat 
was sixpence. He learnt that it was an experiment to 
interest young school children in classic music. 
Nothing can efface this memory, nothing can efface the whole 
impression of Germany; in retrospect this picture rises 
clear — the fair aspect and order of the country and the 
cities, the well-being of the people, their contented 
faces, their grave adequacy, their kindliness; and, crown- 
ing all material prosperity, the feeling for beauty shown 
by their gardens, and, better and more important still, 
the reverent value for their great native poets and 
musicians, so attentive, so cherishing, seeing to it that 
the young generation began early its acquaintance with 
the masterpieces that are Germany's heritage. 
The end of this part of the .story is told in these words : 
" It was on the 7th day of June, 1914, that Frankfurt 
assembled her school children in the Opera Hou.se to 
further their ta.ste and understanding of Germany's 
supreme national art. Exactly eleven months later, on 
May 7, 1915, a German torpedo sank the Lusitania; and 
the cities of the Rhine celebrated this also for their school 
children." 
" Nothing in the whole story of mankind is more 
strange than the case of Germany — how Germany 
through generations has been carefully trained for this 
wild spring at the throat of Europe which she has 
made." Mr. Owen Wister diagnoses the disease skil- 
fully but in such quiet phrases. " Germany's mania," 
he says, " is analogous to those mental epidemics of the 
Middle Ages when fanaticism, usually religiou.s, sent 
entire communities into various forms of madne.ss." 
" -With America and France war made way for indepen- 
dence, liberty, and freedom^ political and moral; Ger- 
many would establish everywhere her absolute military- 
despotism." He states that " the case of Germany is 
the Prussianising of Germany," and gives his rea.sons 
in a few clear and succinct paragraphs. (The whole 
book, let us state here, can be read in a couple of hours.) 
Two or three illuminative anecdotes are given, of which 
the most remarkable is the following : / 
Like the bewitched dwarfs in certain old magic tales, whose 
talk reveals their evil without their knowing it, 
Germans constantly utter words of the most naif and 
grotesque self-betrayal — as when the German Ambas- 
sador (Prince Lichnowsky) was being escorted away 
from England and was urged by his escort not to be so 
downcast, the war being no fault of his. He 
answered in sincere sadness : 
" Oh, you don't realise! My future is broken. I was sent 
to watch England and tell my Emperor the right 
moment for him to strike, when England's internal dis- 
turbances would make it impossible for her to fight us. 
I told him the moment had come." 
And so we arrive at the war itself, with all its death, 
torment, suffering, and untold misery. " But Calamity 
has its Pentecost. When its mighty wind rushed over 
Belgium and France, and its tongues of fire sat on each 
of them, they, too, like the Apostles in the New Testa- 
ment, began to speak as the Spirit gave them utterance. 
Their words and deeds have filled the world with a 
splendour the world had lost. The flesh, that has domi- 
nated our day and generation, fell away in the presence 
of the Spirit. I have heard Belgians bless the martyrdom 
and awakening of their nation. Frenchmen have said 
to me : ' For forty-four years we have been unhappy, in 
darkness, without health, without faith, believing the 
true France dead. Resurrection has come to us.' Every 
MR. JOHN LANE'S NEW BOOKS. 
PIERRE MILLE. barnavaux. 
Translated from the French by B. URiLLIEN. 
With 8 Illuslrations in Colour by Hki.en McKik. Crcwn Svo, 3/6 net. 
" Uarnavau.\ is certainly one of the most fascinating ch.iraci ers in con- 
temporary fiction. . . . Evciy pnge is worth rtadinf; for the lighi it throws 
on France, hsr soldi: rs, and her colonial policy and ideals." — Slaiidird. 
PIERRE MILLE. joffre chaps. 
Translated from the Freitch by B. DRILLICN. 
Cloth. Crown Svo, I/- not. yhiimediatcly. 
FRENCH NOVELISTS OF TO DAY 
(Second Series). 
By WINIFRED STEPHENS. 
The Novelists discussed in this volume are M ARCEI.LE TIMAVKE, 
ROM.\IN ROLLAND, JERO.ME and JEAN TIIARAUD, KEN']': 
BOYLESVE, PIERRE MILLE, and JEAN AICAKD. 
N EW NOVELS 6s. Each. 
CRAINQUEBILLE - By Anatole France. 
Translated by Winifred Stephens. 
THE ASHIEL MYSTERY By Airs. Charles Bryce. 
LOOKING FOR GRACE By Mrs Horace Tremlett. 
THEODORA _ - - By Frances Feawxk WilHa-ns 
JAFFERY . - - By WiKiam J. Locke. 
THE GREAT UfJREST - By F. E. Mills Yoan^. 
MARIA AGAIN (3 6 net, 3rJ Edifio.i) By Mrs. John Lane. 
JOHN LANE : THE nODLEY HEAD, W. 
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