i8 
LAND & WATER 
October 5, 1916 
Some Novels of Note 
Gradually the British people is beginning to compre- 
hend the character of the modern German. It is a slow 
process because by temperament the Anglo-Saxon is 
not a psychologist ; he prides himself on taking men 
as he finds them, which in practice too often means 
accepting men at their own valuation. Now Mrs. Alfred 
Sidgwick, who knows Germany thoroughly, in her new 
book, Sa/t and Savour (Methuen. 5s.), has set out to 
bring home to English readers the manner of creature the 
modem German is in his own home, and in doing so she 
has rendered a great service to the country, for 
henceforth we see him in a new and clearer light. 
Brenda, the daughter of old-fashioned Germans 
settled in London, "who had not bred their children in 
an atmosphere of national pjejudice," marries a Prussian 
cou'iin, Lothar, who is in the German .\rmy. spends 
much of his leisure spying in England, and is eventuall\' 
shot as a spy. Brenda goes to live in Berlin among her 
husband's people, and while the story, as told by Mrs. 
Sidgwick, is full of her usual charm and skill in characterisa- 
tion, it is her shrewd delineation of the German character 
which makes this novel one of the outstanding publica- 
tions of the season. 
Here is a thumbnail description of this German officer 
when he was Staying in London before the war : 
His information about England was both pedantic and 
grotesque. Slie liad never met anything quite so puzzling, 
He collected facts as industriously as a beaver builds a 
dam, but he seemed incapable of forming judgments. Mi- 
could remember names and hgures, but he could not sec 
tendencies, and he was so busv despising the want oi 
system he found everywhere that he forgot to ask iiimself 
whether a prosperous and powerful nation is not bound 
to have qualities a shrewd enemy will take care not to 
despise. Germany had made up its mind that England 
was decadent, and hke Herr Erdmann shook its ftst and 
refused discussion. 
This vivid little sketch is completed by the following 
account of Brenda's visit to her Berlin flat after it had 
been .shut up when the war had broken out and her 
husband, Lothar, had left to join his regiment in Belgium : 
She puzzled over things, and all through her flat she found 
cases of what puzzled her in Germany. The Germans 
were the most efficient, civilised, moral and industrious 
people on earth ; she had their word for it. They were 
the salt of the earth, 'l^ieir Kaiser told them so. Botli 
men and women in their respective and sharply separated 
spheres had reached heights of perfection from which tli(\ 
looked down at decadent races like the P2nglish and the 
French. Why then had the kitchen saucepans been 
put away in such a state of grease ? Why were end^ 
of food left in the food cupboards, and condiments in 
the cruets ? Why was the linen in a state of confusion, 
and Lothar's dressing-room still strewn with the debii> 
of his hasty packing . . . Why praise yourself si> 
loudly and so much for what after all you have not dom- 
over well. 
We continue to hear much in the German Press about 
British hypocrisy. Mrs. Sidgwick shows cleverly how 
the German is just as much bound down by his own 
conventions as we are by ours. Lothar is discussing the 
woman problem with liis cousin before he falls in love : 
" Every day boys and girls are born," said Lothar bluntly. 
"That is the beginning and the end for a woman. All Un- 
rest is nonsense. The world belongs to men." 
In his mouth such an outlook sounded dreary and Brendi 
turned from it with aversion 
" Ach was," he cried. " You Enghsh are always shocked. 
One may not say that children are born into the world 
then 1 What a country. In Germany we are natural 
and honest." 
Now for the other side of the picture. Lothar has 
become engaged to Brenda, then on a visit to Germany: 
"This is Germany ! " she cried. "I'm English and yet 
I adore Germany. I should like to live in an old gabled 
house that has low eaves and a stork's nest on the ru)f. 
Lothar smiled because in his ears what she said was 
rather indelicate. In Germany the stork brings the baby 
and no well-conducted German girl w'ould allude to tiiis 
domestic bird at the moment of betrothal, when the 
female mind is supposed to be in moonlight regions, 
unreal and rapturous 
" Little cousin," Lothar said, as they came in sight of 
the restaurant, " Sweet little bride ! I have a request 
to make. . Speak not to Sic be t of storks." 
During her residence in Berlin Brenda is constantly 
made aware of German hatred and jealousy of the English, 
who " give themselves airs, although their day is over. 
A nation of vagabonds who pretend to be something 
great. Rotten to the core ! " The speaker is her brother- 
in-law. a Berlin Professor of no note. Brenda " often 
wished she could convey her impressions of the national 
mood to English people. But they would never believe 
that here in Berlin whole tribes of unconsidered Germans 
were boiling over with hatred for them." This was 
before the war. After the war begins the Professor gives 
a lecture in Berlin, " which was really a tirade against 
England coupled with a deification of Germany." There 
have been numberless lectures of this kind all over Ger- 
many in the last t\yo years. And everywjiere the same 
lie is repeated : " England had attacked Germany be- 
cause she was smitten with envy and wished to destroy 
her most powerful rival. Brenda knew as little about 
history and politics as most young women, but it struck 
her that the average German opinion was inconsequent. 
If Britain possessed the -"Tld why did she want to 
destroy Germany ? " 
Here we must put down this achnirable work, excellent 
as a novel but beyond praise for the light it throws on 
the private character of modern Germany. We may 
end with this final puzzle : " .\fter living a -whole year 
in Germany, Brenda could not explain it. Although all 
Germans would assure j'ou that they were the salt of the 
earth she had never met one yet who liked to hear that 
he was a recognisable German." 
Mr. S. P. B. Mais' novel, April's Lonely Soldier (Chapman 
and Hall. 6s. net), is in the form of letters, mainly between 
the lonely soldier and April Trefl'ry, who, as one might guess, 
marries the lonely soldier at the book's end. This is in- 
evitable, and the main interest of the work lies not so much 
in the fates of these two, as in the commentary of a scholarly 
man on current literature and kindred topics. There is 
enough of story to thread a series of criticisms together, and the 
criticisms, quite apart from the story, are well worth perusal. 
Mr. Herbert Jenkins, pubhshcr, is responsible for the pro- 
duction of a number of interesting books ; not content with 
publishing, however, he has turned author as well, and in 
Bindle, which he both wrote and published (5s. net.) he has 
made a very successful entry to the ranks of writers who put 
amusement before instruction. Joseph Bindle, furniture 
remover, will make the glummest reader laugh at his " little 
jokes," whether they be essays in the gentle art of burglary 
mixing numbers on hotel bedroom doors and watching the 
results, or helping his niece to get engaged. Mr. Jenkins does 
not disdain sage epigram, but for the most part his book is 
broad farce, and Joseph Bindle is a character who will give 
joy to many. One's only regret is that there is not more 
of him and it is to be hoped that, as a recreation from 
publishing, Mr. Jenkins will — some day — provide us with 
another Bindle book. 
In his latest novel, The Green Alleys (Heincmann, 6s.net.), 
Mr. Eden Phillpotts deserts his West Country for the hop- 
growing districts of Kent, a change of scene which gives him 
opportunity for some of the fine descriptive work in which 
he is so skilled. His main characters are two brothers, 
Kentish farmers, both in love with Rosa May Witherden, and 
differing in the matter of temperament as brothers often 
differ ; the elder and stronger of the two men is an exceed- 
ingly fine character, and Nicholas, the younger, makes a 
good contrast. Witherden is another clever study on the 
part of the author, a man who has come down in the world, 
and cannot forget it, while there is delightful humour in the 
" chorus " of farm hands and hop ])ickers. The book has 
atmosphere, and " grijjs " from beginning to end ; in common 
with the author's studies of West Country life, it is free of 
any taint of parochialism— the characters are used to reflect 
life as a whole, not to specify and delineate a limited com- 
munity. The work is more that of an artist than of a mere 
craftsmen, and as such will be warmly welcomed by its 
author's many readers. 
