April 12, 1 91 7 
LAND & ,. WATER 
Books to Read 
By Lucian Oldershaw 
17 
THE livrc fl' occasion ha.s naturally been very 
prominent during the stupendous happenings 
of the past three years, but surely, no books 
have appeared more promptly to the instant 
than Rnssian Court Memoirs I<)i4-i6 (Herbert Jenkins, 
lis. 6d. net), published in the week of the Revolution, 
and Fresidciit Wilson, His Problems and Policy, by H. 
Wilson Harris (Headley Bros., 5s. net), just published. 
The former book is particularly interesting in the light 
of what has happened since it was written. Its anony- 
mous Russian author, who is full of information, as to 
the personalities of the ancicn regime of his country, is a 
Monarchist who, while he < clearly foreshadows and, to 
an extent that is surprising under the conditions imder 
which he was writing, gives good ground for the coming 
catastrophe, seems to hope that the Court will be able to 
purge itself. For the rest, there arc the usual " revela- 
tions " and spicy gossip that one expects from a lackey 
in a disorganised household, who pities " poor master," 
but " does not hold with his goings on." , 
^ ^ ^ SfC T)! 
Mr. Wilson Harris's book on President Wilson is a,n 
interesting and digniiied piece of work. It gi\es a full- 
length portrait of its subject and will enable people in 
this country to correct the natural tendency to regard 
Woodrow Wilson simply from the point of view of their 
own great preoccupation. There has been a leaven of 
righteousness — the disgruntled party boss would say of 
self-righteousness — at work in the political life of the United 
States during the last two decades and Wilson, first 
Professor then President of a great American University, 
author of one of the best text-books of pohtical science 
and of several important books on the history and con- 
stitution of his own country, Democrat and Radical, 
has been, pace Mr. Roosevelt, the most successful 
protagonist of the new mox'ement. We should all do 
well to learn more than we think wc know of the great 
country which, after long weigliing the cost and ex- 
hausting all honourable means of arbitrament, has 
decided that the ideals which it has so clearly defined 
are in a jeopardy that can only be met in arms. And 
one of the best ways to attain knowledge of America is to 
study the character and aims of her first citizen; 
***** f 
Another book that comes at an opportune moment is 
N. Le\i's Jan Smuts (Longmans, Green and Co., 7s. 6d. 
net.). Here is another portrait of a man among men, a 
portrait not carried out in bold outline, like that of 
Woodrow Wilson at which we ha\'e just been looking, 
but rather, as indeed befits the subject, an elaborate 
painting of the Dutch school, intimate and detailed. 
Mr. Levi perhaps [dwells too much on details, as when he 
summarises at considerable length the contents of his 
hero's library, but there does emerge from the mass of 
particular points a clear and consistent image of a man, 
a man who would seem to his detractors even more 
essentially of the student type than President Wilson, 
but who disproves once again the popular fallacy (which 
ignores the cases of Ctcsar and Napoleon), that the man 
of books and ideas cannot be a man of action. It is not 
the time to appraise fully the work of our distinguished 
South African visitor, but no one can read this study 
without realising his all-round ability or without wonder- 
ing what part his country would have played in the 
present crisis had it not been for the dogged character, 
the unswerving loyalty to his own people as well as to 
the Empire, and the high, consistent and unshakcable 
ideals of Jan Smuts. 
***** 
There are few, if any, of our yaunger novelists who 
have a keener sense of • intellectual values or a greater 
power of presenting the fine shades of a social relationship 
than Mr. J. D. Beresford. His novels are extraordinarily 
stimulating to the mind, but emotionally they leave one 
cold, or with an imagined or false sensation of warmth 
such as doctors say is produced by drinking whisky. 
All these characteristics, good and bad (if they should be 
so labelled), arc to be found in his new no\<A Ilousc- 
Maies (Casscll and Co., 6s.) I read the early stages 
of the autobiography of this young architect with interest, 
recognising, as one always does in a true presentment of 
3'outh, traits and sensations which I had thought quite 
peculiar to myself. I read the later section describing 
the varied inmates of the ciueer iiouse in Bloonisbury, of 
which the police rightly had their suspicions, with an 
admiration of Mr. Beresford's powers of characterisation 
that was little short of enthusiasm, and I got so interested 
in his hero's " inculjation " that I looked forward to a 
happy ending for his promising little love affair, with an 
anxiety that was almost personal. Then the war came, 
and though my friend went oh to fight and came back 
wounded, he did it all with such an insufferable air of 
superiority and aloofness that somehow even retros- 
pectively I lost interest in him. 
***** 
I must confess to approaching Miss Elinor Mordaunt's 
new book, Before Midnight (Cassell and Co., 6s.), with 
some prejudice. I had disliked what I had previously 
read of the author's, and had formed a conception of 
her as one for whom the ugly things of life loomed so 
large that she could not view them in proper proportion. 
I mention this prejudice that readers may, an they will, 
discount in virtue of it my opinion of her present volume. 
This consists of a series of what may be called psychological 
ghost stories, powerful, arresting, well told and for the 
most part extremely hoiTible, especially the Zolaesque 
tale of lust and witchcraft called The Countryside. I 
see that the publishers say that " each story has a dis- 
tinctive asmospherc of its own." In a sense that is 
true. There are varying shades of murkiness. 
•l* f "I* T* -fS 
There is true melody to be found in The Lamp of 
Poor Souls and Other Poems, by Marjorie L. C. Pickthall 
(John Lane, 5s. net). The poems express, with dis- 
tinction, the half-tones of twilight, early morning and 
tender pity, and can best be illustrated by a stanza of 
the exquisite little ode that begins, " O, keep the world 
forever at the dawn." 
Keep all things hushed, so hushed we seem to hear' 
The sounds of low-swung clouds that sweep the trees ; 
Let now no harsher music reach the ear. 
No earthlier sounds than these, 
When whispering shadows move within the grass, 
.And airy tremors pass 
Through all the world with life awakening thrilled. 
And so forever stilled. 
Too sweet in promise e'er to be fulfilled. 
* * * * ;<; 
Here is a poignant tale of the wai". Forced to Fight, by 
Erich Erichsen (Heinemann, 2s. 6d. net), tells the story 
of a " Silent Dane " living in those provinces of Denmark 
occupied by the Germans and reminds us of a grievance 
sometimes forgotten among the many that are cherished 
against the criminal of Europe. The story is written in 
a minor key, a pathetic book, hauntingly plaintive. 
Let us see if we can forget the wail of war in the excite- 
ment of a brisk detective story. Readers of such tales 
know that they can count on a book by Arnold Fredericks 
for movement and ingenious complication. These we 
certainly get in The Blue Lights (Simpkin, Marshall, 
Hamilton, Kent, 6s<), in which we meet once more the 
American detective, Duvall, and Ins your^ bride, who 
bustle about with an animation that reminds us just 
a little too much of figures in a cinema. 
***** 
The War is ^\■ith us once more in The Tale of a Tank 
and other Yarns, by Harold Ashton (Sampson Low, 
Marston and Co., 3s. 6d. net), but it does not accompany 
us much beyond the title of the first story, which is a 
rollicking bit of farce quite in the spirit of the ('ockney 
Tommy. There is also a lively account of a visit to the 
Fleet. For the i-est the book contains some amusing, 
but sometimes rather long-winded, sketches of the 
humours of village life, some studies of types of character 
and other miscellanies from a clever journalist's scrap- 
book — an entertaining \olumc for odd momcutsi.. 
