I^ovember 23, 1916 
LAND & WATER 
Books to Read 
By Luciau Oldershaw 
15 
LET us give place of honour this week to the 
work of a veteran ! General Sir George Higginson, 
wlio in the summer of this year reached his 
ninetietli birthdaj-, has by his long years of. loyal 
and useful service earned the right to become reminiscent. 
His Sevoity-Onc Years of a Guardsman's Life (Smith, 
Elder and Co., los. 6d. net), will be received therefore 
with respectful interest, not only by those who are striving 
as he did continually to maintain the reputation of the 
Guards Brigade, but also by all, an extended number 
nowadays, who are anxious to learn all they can about tl e 
traditions of our national services. General Higginson, 
who can recall meetings with George IV. and William 
IV., with Jackson, the prize-lighter, and Beau Brummel, 
and who, as the last chapter of his book testifies, can also 
review current events with sound, albeit somewhat 
bewildered, judgment and with helpful suggestions for 
the future, is, in the language which made Pius IX. 
laugh when the General used it of the Pope's Chamber- 
lain, un cxccUentc cicerone for certain aspects of military 
history in the past century and makes clear to us, with- 
out ever pointing a moral, what is implied in that thread- 
bare, and much-abused phrase, " an officer and a gentle- 
man." There is much to be learned from a sympathetic 
reading of this book, even by the newest-joined subaltern. 
***** 
It is always easy to b? superior in tone about a book of 
reminiscences, I0 talk about garrulity and the pleasure 
of posing for a photograph, but tliese are superficial 
matters at the worst. General Higginson disarms at the 
outset the more serious criticism of self-exultation. He 
putsforward no claim for great achievements, but, in this 
rnodest fashion, juakes clear the scope and purpose of 
his book : " I am venturing to trace in rapid succession 
the events of a very long life, chequered by no special 
evidence of success and failure ; and I am inspired solely 
by the hope that the descendants of those with whom I 
was associated in my early life may be reminded how true 
and faithful t\-as the regard our forefathers cherished for 
that ' httle company of soldiers ' who, for more than two 
hundred and fifty years, have, as the First Regiment of 
Guards, served their King with undeviating loyalty." 
***** 
I have indicated above that the gallant author of these 
memoirs has achieved more than he set out to do. 
Numerous as are princes and potentates and generals he 
has met, and interesting as are his first-hand and con- 
temporary impressions of his one period of active service, 
the' Crimean War, it is not so much in the persons he met,' 
clnefly on ceremonial occasions, or in the events he took 
part in that the true vahie of his book lies. The picture 
as a whole is greater than its details. It is a picture of a 
loyal gentleman of the Ciuards. 
****** 
One particular detail of General Higginson's book I 
should like to call attention to, as it has a moral of special 
application at the present day. There is evidently no 
point in the whole duty of an officer that the General has 
paid more attention to than that of consideration for the 
comfort and welfare of the men under his command. 
We find him continually, wherever he is, concerning 
himself with all movements for providing institutions, 
convenient married cpiarters or the like, for his soldiers. 
He has been, since its institution, on the committee, and 
IS perhaps best known to the present generation as the 
Chairman of the Committee, of the Gordon Boys' Home. 
There is no passage in his book, save perhaps that in 
which he describes the saving of his Regiment's Colours 
at Inkerman, more marked by depth of feeling than that 
m which he tells of his work on the Board for discharging 
a thousand men of the Brigade after the Crimean War. 
It was sad to have to sit day by day for upwards of a 
fortnight, signing documents which turned loose upon 
tlie world, without pension or gratuity, men who had 
bec^omc fully qualified to take the field anywhere as tried 
^"'diers. Before many weeks were over, many of these 
good fellows ^^•cre wandering penniless and without 
employment throughout the country, illustrating with 
painful accuracy the truth of the bitter reflection with 
which Sir \\^illiam Napier concludes his story of the 
Peninsular AVar." This must never happen again. 
***** 
It is well to go back to the past every now and then to 
regain a sense of continuity and proportion, but we 
cannot stay there long. The present and its problems 
are all-absorbing. We are recalled very vividly to the 
present by the striking story and the urgent appeal of 
The Cellar-House of Pervyse'(A. and C. Black, Ltd., 6s. 
net). This book is compiled from the letters and journals 
of Baroness T'serclaes, and Miss Mairi Chisholm, the two 
Englishwomen who have devoted themselves almost 
since the beginning of the war to the service of the Belgian 
soldiers ; who established a posfe dc secours two years ago 
in the ruins of Pervy.se, who are the only wonien per- 
mitted by the Council of the Allies to remain in the firing 
line, and who have been made by King Albert Chevaliers 
of the Order of Leopold II. It is hard to realise that this 
is a sober record of fact, especially as like a veritable 
romance it ends with a wedding, the lady who began the 
work as Mrs. Knocker ending as the wife of a Belgian 
flying officer. But it is real fact authenticated by 
much unimpeachable evidence, and it is published to raise 
funds for the continuance of the work. And not only 
for that. The Baroness looks to the future of the people 
that are now her people. " At the end of the war the 
need will not cease. Men maimed and crippled, robbed 
of every relation, and all they called home, must be 
cared for." If we learn nothing else from the record of 
these brave women— and I cannot trust myself to express 
in drab prose to those who have not yet read the book 
all I felt on reading it— we learn at least that these men 
are worth caring for. That is what the Two particularly 
want us to learn. So buy this book. Only I warn you 
that, having read it, you will want other copies for your 
friends and will probably be moved also to send a hand- 
some donation to " the Cellar-House Fund." 
***** 
To adjust one's emotions to actual fiction after The 
Cellar-House of Pervyse is at first a matter of some diffi- 
culty. But The Old Blood (John Murray, 5s. net), soon 
holds one's attention and interest. This is not entirely 
on account of the story, though Mr. Frederick Palmer, 
already well-known to English readers as the American 
correspondent who wrote My Year of the War, has con- 
siderable narrative power. It is also bscause of the 
theme of the book which is suggested in the title. The 
hero is a young American, one of whose ancestors fought 
in the War of Jndependence, and who now iights " for 
the same kind of a cause that the ancestor fought for, 
this time with the British." Mr. Palmer makes things a 
little too easy for every one all round. 
***** 
With the present lively demand for good detective 
stories, there should be no doubt of the success of Tlie 
Hampstead Mystery, by Watson and Rees (John Lane, 
6s.) This is a murder mystery constructed on an orthodox 
plan, but worked out with considerable ingenuity and 
with several novelties, both in incident and treatment. 
The detective work is quite good, and the familiar con- 
trast between the police and the private detective is 
given a new lease of life by the latter's clever essays in 
deductive psychology. It is no mere fairy story that the 
authors tell, but a novel distinctly for the " grown-ups." 
***** 
Whatever else may be said of American novels, they 
no longer bear, as a rule, the old reproach of being " dry 
gpods." Wi7idy McPhcrsons Son (John Lane, 6.s.), is a 
typical American novel on the difficulty of serving God 
and mammon. It tells of a newspaper boy whose acute 
business sense made him a multi-milHonaire, while he 
starved his feeling for poetry and his sense of morality-. 
The author gets all the poss'ible excitement out of both 
of his hero's pursuits, and thus succeeds with some skill 
in making the best of both worlds. 
