i8 
LAND & WATER 
•\pi"il J'l. loi; 
Books to Read 
Bv Liician Oldershavv 
THOl'GH not ciiaiiii;^ui>lii-(.l bv yi.in' <ii liuuiui 
or marki-d originality of tliouglit William the Second, 
by S. C. Hammer (Heinemann, 3s. iit-t), is a capable 
and interesting jncce of lx)ok-makin|t;. It is a 
studv of the Kaiser " as seen in contemporary documents 
and judged on I'vidence of liis own speeches." The author's 
conclusion after a careful and cahnly critical study of the 
life of W'ilHam the Problem nuiy l)o summarised in his own 
words : " We fully agree with those wlio maintain- -even 
in England- that William II. never consciously willed the 
war ; but it is equally certain that he has btvn unconsciously 
working up to it over since his first threats on the eighth 
anniversafN' of Mars Lji Tours. Tiic German people share 
his guih indirectly — lx;cause they did not protest against the 
ImjK'rial declamations, because for twenty-si.K years they 
allowed him to trifle with war and with the thoughts of war, 
in tiie midst of a jjerfect torrent of assurances of peace, so 
that by degrees a confusion was established between dreams 
and realities, between theory and fact." Such confusion as 
a symptom of madness and insanity is the easiest solution of 
the " Problem. " Such is the solution which is put forward 
in C. Sheridan Jones's The Story of the HohcnzolUrn, whicli 
may well Ix? read as a corollary to William the ,Sccund. It 
has just been reissued in a cheap edition (Jarrold, 2s. 6d. net). 
* « * • • 
The man of letters at the front has a reputation to sustain, 
and he must be a very great man indeed if he does not reveal 
in his work some of the effort of sustaining it. Here are two 
lx)oks whicii 1 have grouped together, because of a certain 
similarity of subject ami treatmeait. They are lirst-hand 
studies taken chiefly among the wounded auci dying, and they 
give us pictures of one of whom we can iie\er heaV too much, 
the gallant French soldier. They are written by authors of 
some distinction- ]l'ar ( T. Werner Laurie. 2s. Od.) net is a 
translation bv the l-rench naval officer, so well-known to 
fame as " Pierre I.oti." and AVc-m/f Windoies (Kdward .\rnold, 
5s. net), is by the iCiiglisli novelist who calls himself " John 
Ayscough." Both books distress one at first by a certain 
air of self-consciousness. l)ul both win one in the end by their 
sincerity and sympath\. 
***** 
Pierre Loti dwells chietl\- on the things that arouse one's pity. 
Pity is an emotion whicli he presents, if it may be so said, as 
an expert. In the end he rises above pity to a fierce and 
righteous anger against those who have caused so much 
suffering in France and Belgium. " Oh, everywhere let the 
tocsin clang, a full jieel. ringing from end to end of the earth ; 
let the supreme alarm ring out and let the drums of all the 
armies roll the charge ! And down with the German Beast I 
John Ayscough is able to interpret for us, as few other English 
writers can, the religious spirit in the French peasant soldier. 
This will give these papers their special value to English 
readers, also, as the author hopes, of any French men or 
women who may read them, " will find in them a \-ery 
humble, but very reverent, act of love and veneration for the 
great heart of the French people." 
***** 
Much has now been written from difl'erent points of view, 
official and other, of the great adventure of GalUp<jli, but 
there is still room for such personal narratives as The Straits 
Impregnable, by Sydney de l.oghe (John Murray, 5s. net.) 
This manly and straightforward narrative grips one from 
its oi)ening .scene, when Gunner Lake answers the "call" 
on the Australian farm where Jie is hoping soon to rea]) the 
fruits of liis labour. It holds one in tlie descriptions of the 
early days of training, the voyage and the camps under tiic 
Pyramids, and Jt reaches a crescendo of interest when it 
reaches the deathless ston,' of the Peninsula. All lovers of 
the Empire should read this book. 
* * * * * 
Charles Macfarlane's Reminiscences of a Literary Life 
(Ji>lin Murray, 10s. Od. net), is a book of unusual interest, 
rescued from the waste-jiaper basket by a ])erl>y bookseller 
and giv("n to the world with an account of the author by 
Mr. John F. Tattersall. I must confess that without that 
little biography I should not have ha<l the slightest idea who 
Macfarlane was, though it so hapjiens that many vears ago 
J. read one of his books. The ('amp o/ Refuge, or The Last of li.r 
Saxons. He appears to have been a most voluminous writt r 
during the first half of the nineteenth century and, though he 
died a " Poor Brother of the Charterhouse," to have achieved at 
one time some considerable success with his \^o\\. That he 
iiud u multitude uf acquaintances and friends, and a li\ el\- and 
.ii;iL(.able style, is prmed bv these fveiiiiniscences, 111 winch 
he writes in a discursive manner about pi-oplc lie has met, 
starting with an accidental meeting with Shellev', in 
the Museum of Naples, and ending with another chance 
encounter that brought with it the ac'iuaintanceship of Sir 
Isambard Bnmel. 
¥ * * t 
< )ni- of lui f.;M,ii ili.uin-. "f .Ma;hirlaii> > ImnK i-> that ln' 
nianages to give us living pei-sonalities not dead names. In 
his pages Shelle\-, Keats, old Samuel Rogers, i)oor HartU\ 
Coleridge, Tom .Moore, Horace Smith, Leigh Hunt and lll-^ 
sponging wife, and a host of other well-known writers of tin: 
period appear to us at dinner parties, on country walks, in 
their homes, with as great a sense of re;dity as they did to 
liini. The reader will naturally turn his attention first of 
all to these well-known names, but he will not so exhaust all 
the interest of tlu.' book. He may not have heard, for ex- 
ample, of Tom Gent, but let him not neglect the entertaining 
chapter about this engaging old rascal, who contrived, among 
other things, to make a reputation on jwems which he got hi 
friends to write for him. " Boozing Tom (jent, roguish 
Tom (ient, witty Tom (Jent, Falstaft' Tom Gent," is a new 
portrait for tlie gallery of immortal humbugs. It is tempting 
to (jiiotc from such a book as this, and be interesting at serond- 
liaml, but I am fortunately delivered from tlu- temjjtation 
by lack of space. It is a book that all interested in literaix 
matter will soon be reading. It has its appeal, too, to tli' 
.student of manners. Let me give one instance. ili 
assassination of Spencer Perceval was always associated in 
Macfarlane's mind with the smell of cigar smoke, becaiis' 
the day on which it occurred was tlu' first day he ever saw .1 
gentleman smoking a cigar in the jiublic street. 
* * * * * 
.After Macfarlane's Lively Recollections Canon Shcanm - 
Reminiscences (John Lane, 5s. net), is rather small beer. \'' 
it Jias its ])oints of interest and is a friendly, readable bonl;. 
Morwenstow, with stories of Hawker, Holmbury St. Mar\ , 
with its artistic and literary inhabitants, and Ryde, witi 
glimpses of Queen Victoria at Osborne, are tlie chief centr> 
of interest in the book. If for nothing else, the book won! 
be worth while for having jirescrved this neat epigram on .i 
gentleman of the name of Wellwood, who was addicted to the 
habit of exaggeration ; 
" You double eadi tiilo that you tell, 
You, double each sight that you see. 
Your name it is W, V., double L 
W, double (), J)." 
* * * , ♦ * 
Of all difficult positions that of being chaplain at a gaol 
must be one of the most difficult. One would imagine that 
those who were able to continue the work for any length of 
time were of two kinds, the man with little imagination who 
conducted his job in a purely perfunctory manner, and the 
man with a large jjowor of symi)athy that required no illn- 
sions to sustain his charity. " .\ Hall-Tinier " belongs 
to the latter class, and consequently his Prison Reminis- 
cences {EUiot Stock, 2s.6d. net), liave value and interest, and 
his plea for a wiser and more humane treatment of ex- 
criminals deserves consideration. The sort of jocularity 
which is thought necessary in a book like this will be for- 
given by those whom it does not amuse, because this follower 
of Saint Koch, the Patron Saint of Prisoners, to whom he 
addresses an ode by way of epilogue to the book, is no jxi- 
lunctory parson, but a man of understanding and insight. 
He is a good shepherd to his black sheep. 
***** 
The story of the unfortunate artist— King Ludwig II. m 
Bavaria, is retold in sensational lines by Madame Hildegartle 
Ebenthal in The Tragedy of a Throne (Cassell and Co., i^s. 
net) . WTiether we agree or not with the author's psychologicaV 
interpretation of lier subject, the bare facts of her narrative , 
set out though they are without nmch art, are sufficiently ab- 
sorbing. Pnissia is, of course, th<! arch ^■illain in this talc 
of the demoralization of a King and the destruction of a free 
country. Madame Ebenthal .sees in Wagner simply an 
emissary from Berlin sent to Munich with the express in- 
tention of debauching the larrouche and sensitive Wittels- 
bncli and unhinging his intellect ! The most interesting 
and si'emingly the best informed part of the book is that 
which deals with Ludwig's behaviour while the (ierman 
Empire was being created in 1871. Here we seem to see a 
natiim on the rack in the [XTSon of tlie hapless but high- 
minded degenerate who ruled it. 
