January ii, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
Books to Read 
By Lucian Oldershaw 
17 
LET us wander for a change in the peaceful heart 
of England and discuss the while some of her 
legends and traditions. Nottinghamshire is 
essentially a pleasant county, as old Fuller of 
" The Worthies," was the lirst to point out, and Mr. J. 
'^', Firth has written and Mr. Frederick L. Griggs has 
!-austrated a pleasant book about the count}^ of Robin 
Hood, the Byrons and the Dukeries. Their Highways 
and Byways in Nottinghamshire takes an honourable place 
in Messrs. Macmillan and Co.'s well-known " Highways 
and Bywaj'^s " Series (6s. net), Mr. Firth is the kind of 
guide one wants on such rambles as he takes \is. He 
does not stop to descant at length on beauties we can see 
for ourselves, but, from his vast store of information, gives 
us the historical and biographical associations of each 
place we pass. " To my way of thinking," he says in 
comparing Sherwood with the New Forest, " a place 
which has little recorded history is cold, whatever its 
charm, compared with those which are indirectly linked 
to our regard by a long chain of human associations." 
I am inclined to agree with him but, all the same, I think 
Mr. Griggs' admirable architectural drawings might 
have been supplemented with more pictures, giving the 
natural beauties of the county. His one study in Sher- 
wood Forest is an inadequate performance. 
As a chronicler of county history Mr. Firth is discreet 
and judicious. He takes perhaps more pleasure in 
dcstroj'ing .than in repeating legends. This is well 
enough when he is pointing out that Byron's orgies at 
Ncwstead Abbey wei^c probably not so red as they have 
been painted, or ^^•hen he is clispelling the myths that 
long surrounded the name of the fifth Uuke of Portland, 
but he need not, perhaps, have been so solemn and critical 
over the stories of Robin Hood. He might even have 
been despoiled by this " meditcval Socialist," he is so 
heavy-handed on the subject. However, apart from this 
and a somewhat annoying habit of alluding to a story as 
too familiar to tell, while T in my ignorance, know 
nothing of it, I have found great interest and entertainment 
in this learned guide-book. The studies of family history 
are particularly good, and the book is packed with little 
character-sketches, delightful in their variety and liveli- 
ness. One might well do worse than spend an hour or 
two in Mr. Firth's company, recalling cricketing days at 
Trent Bridge, or visiting at Bunny the pugilist philan- 
thropist Sir Thomas Parkyns, or discussing at Langar, 
where his father was rector, the unfortunate childhood of 
Samuel Butter, or making the acquaintance of the 
" Duchess Robin Hood." There is a short itinerary for 
the reader, but it might be extended to ten times its 
length and the whole ground of the book would yet 
remain untraversed. 
My war-books this week include two by women on their 
war-work, the one dealing with work "on the Western 
Front, the other with work chiefly on the Eastern Front. 
Miss Kate John Finzi's Eighteen Months in the War Zone 
(Cassell and Co., 6s. net.), is a record, in the form of a 
diary, of hospital and canteen work on the Western Front 
from October 1914, to February 1916. It tells, with 
good sense, a story that is fairly familiar now, and is 
best described in the words of Major-General Sir Alfred 
Turner, who writes an introduction : " Miss Finzi's 
book is quite unpretentious, and is a simple record of 
facts which bring home vividly to our minds the sickening 
horrors of war and the awful sufferings that our gallant 
defenders have had to undergo in doing their duty." 
It should also be added that it shows how those 
sufferings are alleviated. 
***** 
In The Flaming Sword\.i Serbia and Elsewhere (Hodder 
and Stoughton, 6s. net), Mrs. St. Clair Stobart nas written 
a far more ambitious book than Miss Finzi's. It is not 
merely that it deals with the sensational episodes of the 
Serbian retreat, in which Mrs. Stobart played so prominent 
a part, but because it. is wriUcn to prove something or 
rather to prove two things. The one is that the Woman's 
Movement is more than ever needed in the world for 
" militarism is maleness run riot." The other is that the 
Serbians are a great people. On both these subjects 
Mrs. Stobart is entitled to speak with authority, for 
she and the devoted band who have worked with her have 
shown what women can do " along the line of life," and 
she has come into contact with all classes of the Serbian 
people. Her book is naturally most interesting, though 
perhaps a little overcrowded with unilluminating details, 
introduced apparently for the sake of making the record 
as complete as possible. It is also unique, as being the 
work of the lust woman in history to take command of a 
field hospital in war-time. The most enthralling part of 
the book is Part III., which is a diary of the Serbian 
retreat, but I rather fancy that it is not the story it has 
to tell, wonderful as this is, so much as the intensity ol 
its author's personality and convictions that will attract 
some readers — perhaps repel others. 
•I* !(• ?J* ^ 9jfi 
I have just been reading to my great profit a little 
brochure by Mr. Norman R. Byers, entitled World 
Commerce in its Relation to the British Empire (P. S. 
King and Son. is. net). Mr. W. R. Lawson in introducing 
the work, is hardly guilty of hyperbole when he says : 
" It is a book for. the man in the street and the man at 
the m ichine, as well as for the man in business. It is so 
clear and simple even when treating of absolute economic 
subjects that it might almost be recommended for use 
in schools. The book is written to advocate the keeping 
of the British Empire economically self-contained — ^an 
excellent theme in itself, but it can be, and indeed often 
has been most ineffectually treated. Mr. Byers' treatment 
deserves the praise which Mr. Lawson gives it. Both the 
exposition of the resources of the Empire and the handling 
of such difficult subjects as the relation of Capital and 
Labour and the proper uses of the Surplus Profit Tax 
are admirable, not only in their freshness and clearness, 
but also in the spirit of sweet reasonableness with which 
they are presented. Mr. Byers' appeal for the proper 
attitude of disinterested enquiry at the present moment 
would disarm the bitterest economic controversialist and 
make him reopen several closed doors in his brain. 
3|C 3|C 3|% ^ ^ 
Fiction this week must be represented by Mrs. Hodgson 
Burnett's pretty little Miracle tale, The Little Hunchback 
Zia (Heinemann, is. net). This should have been bought 
at Christmas, for the story is of the Holy Birth. But it is 
equall}^ readable at any other time,' and is rendered by 
Mr. Charles Robinson's pictures an attractive gift book. 
Mr. Eden Phillpotts' story, The Girl and. the Faun has been 
published with coloured plates by Frank Brangwyn (Cecil 
Palmer and Hayward, 6s. net), and tlie combination of this 
author's and artist's work makes one of the best colour books 
of the season. The delicate fantasy of the story is well 
caught in Brangwyn's pictures, and both from the literary 
and artistic points of view, the book is admirable. 
That wonderful reference book Who's Who (Adam and 
Charles Black, 20s.), is now published for 1917. It gets 
bulkier and bulkier as the years go by and tlie wonder 
is when it will cease to grow. In another fifty years it 
promises to be a library in itself. Accompanying it is the 
Who's Who Year Book, only one shilling, and filled witli 
information about people generally which one finds nowhere 
else. Another of Messrs. Black's publications, The Writers' 
and Artists' Year Book 1917 is also issued. This is a directory 
for the use of writers, artists and photographers. 
The January issue of the Asiatic Review, which brings the 
review to its thirty-first year of publication, is, as usual, 
mainly devoted to Eastern questions and subjects. In addi- 
tion to a fairly exhausti\c study of the present position in 
India, there are a very interesting sketch — written with first- 
liand knowledge — of the President of the Chinese Re- 
public, a stud}' of Germany's methods of peaceful penetration 
as applied to the Near East, and a Russian section to which 
the present Consul-General for Russia contributes an article. 
