March 8, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
Books to Read 
By Lucian Oldershaw 
17 
ONE of the three ionncf , no\'els by Stephen 
McKenna did not come my way, so that I am 
speaking without a book when I say that in 
Sot2ia : Between two Worlds (Methuen, 6s. net), 
Mr. McKenna has fovmd himself after two interesting 
experiments in writing^ fiction. In his former works 
T thought him gay, witty and sympathetic, but a Uttle 
imcertain as to what he wanted to say or how to say it. 
In Sonia his style has become mature. His wit has 
developed into something very like wisdom. Always 
clever at sketching a portrait of an individual in a 
characteristic pose, he is here prodigal in type and super- 
type, and has one or two effective studies in the dynamics 
of character. The novel, too, is well contructed, ,with 
clean-cut worksmanship from beginning to end. It 
should establish an already growing reputation. 
* * * * * 
I have laid stress in the first instance on the art of Mr. 
McKenna's new novel, because its matter is likely to 
attract attention on its own account. Its " two worlds " 
are the England before the war, and the England of the 
future. It is written from the point of view of a member 
of " the governing class," and contains very vivid pictures 
of public-school, imiversity and London life which are 
made the more real as a background to the exotic figure 
of the hero, David O'Rane. It is the creation of this 
amazing adventurer which gives Sonia a distinction as a 
novel far greater than any photographic description of 
personages and events during the past dozen years or so 
based on its author's presumed knowledge of the politics 
of that period. It brings . into its proper prominence 
something that Mr. Wells, with all his insight, left out of 
Mr. Britling Sees it Through, the romantic hopes raised 
by the war, even in those who hate it. It enables Mr. 
McKenna to end with perfect artistic propriety on a 
high note of optimism as to the purged and cleansed 
England of the future. It would be easy to write on the 
book solely from the point of view of political gossip, but 
Mr. McKenna has raised it above this plane. He appears 
as a lively and well-informed ally of the angels. 
5j! * :i! * * 
If wc are ever to achieve that elimination of suffering 
from our social fabric dreamt of by Mr. McKenna's 
hero, we must try to understand the causes and consider 
the proposed remedies for such suffering. I do not know 
any book that puts the case for the workmen, their 
women and children, more clearly and forcibly than 
George Lansbury's Your Part in Poverty (Allen and 
Unwin, is. net). The Bishop of Winchester, who writes 
a Preface for the book, does not go the whole way with 
the author, but he demands " not only a fair, but a ready, 
openhearted and brotherly hearings" for " a man with 
the integrity and enthusiasm of George Lansbury." I 
think there are more people now than before the war 
who will be ready to grant that hearing. I imagine, too, 
that granted the frame of mind that desires a change in 
our social conditions and a proper knowledge of what 
those conditions are, it will be possible to arrive at 
some solution of the difficulties, whether it be Mr. 
Lansbury's or another. Mr. Lansbury's picture of the 
rich woman giving joy rides to soldiers with his pertinent 
question : " Are the favours poured out on the soldier 
or the man? " and his suggestion that these soldiers have 
mothers and wives who 6nly occasionallyrget the delight 
of a trip in a crowded tram-car with children, should 
fix in homely fashion one obvious moral on our half- 
awakened sympathies. It is only extending that idea 
from the particular to the general to consider whether 
when so great resources can be concentrated for purposes 
of destruction, something more than previously cannot 
be found after the war for a policy of social reconstruction. 
Meanwhile, it is the business in hand that chiefly 
occupies our attention and absorbs our sympathies. We 
do think chiefly of the soldier as a soldier, because it is 
in that capacity that he jeopardises the most valued of 
all human possessions. To risk one's life is the only true 
touchstone of courage. Our sympathies go out to all 
our fighting soldiers, birt our imaginations • are naturally 
most of all stirred by the flying men. They seem to us 
the great adventurers of the present war, and we eagerly 
gather what knowledge we can of them. Such a book 
therefore, as War Flying (John Murray, is. net), in 
which a pilot describes in letters home his experiences in 
training and in fighting is sure of an eager welcome. 
It is pleasant reading, the record of a young man with his 
heart and brains in his work. Much might be written 
from the text of this little book about the psychology of 
the . flying-man, about methods of training, about 
" stunts," and about various technical aspects of the 
subject. It is all extremely interesting. But the thing 
that strikes the imagination of one who has never risen 
from the ground in a heavier-than-air machine as most 
clearly reveahng the conquest of the air, is that one, if 
not more of the letters, was actually .written while 
" Theta " was in flight. Certainly the human race has 
grown its wings. 
***** 
I am reminded immediately what a foolish thing it is 
to try and weigh and measure ''heroism by reading 
With a Reservist in France, by F. A. Bolwell (Routledge 
and Sons, 2s. 6d. net). Surely if ever men as a group 
earned the title of heroes, it was our "Old Contemptibles." 
Here is the modest story of a man of the Loyal North 
Lanes, who went over with the First Division on August 
nth, and did one year and 246 days of active service 
before being invalided out of the' army. The jam in 
which this reservist slept in a boat going over clothed 
him when it dried in the sun in the armour of a veritable 
knight. I hke to read at first hand of the doings of 
these men. They do not see much, but there was more 
to see at Mons and the Marne, and the author is an intelli- 
gent observer — even if he has not the " literary touch." 
***** , 
■WTiat romance lurks in the story of the seed carried by 
an ocean current from one continent to another to repro- 
duce its kind amid new surroundings and to baffle the 
botanist and the geologist in search of simple theories of 
evolution ! What humour, too, in the idea of an orchid 
seed tossed up nine miles in the air to make an aerial 
voyage similar to that which a mushroom spore can make 
from the altitude of a few hundred feet ! Yet romance 
and humour will not be the first qualities which strike 
the reader of Plants, Seeds, and' Currents in the West 
Indies and Azores CWilHams and Norgate, 25s. net), in 
which Mr. H. B. Guppy has compiled a painstaking 
record of patient investigation and such as, we imagine, 
no one interested in the problem of plant distribution 
can ignore. For the reader who is not first and foremost 
a botanist we recommend the fascinating chapter on 
" Bottle-Drift;," in which the author proves how much 
quicker the currents carry articles from East to West 
than from West to East, and the chapters in wliich he 
leaves for a while his bewildering mass of details to deal 
with the general problems of Differentiation and Distri- 
bution. Otherwise anything that lightens the ponderous 
learning of the book will be of the reader's own bringing 
to a fascinating subj,ect. 
A SUGGESTION 
OFFERED BY AN AMERICAN. 
VIA PAGIS 
HOW TERMS OF PEACE CAN BE AUTOMATICALLY 
PREPARED WHILE THE WAR IS STILL GOING ON, 
By HAROLD F. McCORMICK, 
Crown 8-vo., 1/- net. 
LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN, LTD., 40, MUSEUM STREET, W.C 
