16 
LAND & WATER 
Books to Read 
By Lucian Oldershaw 
May 31. 1917 
I AM tempted to forget for a while the hooks I have 
been reading and t6 talk of Oxford revisited in this third 
vear of war now drawing to its murderous close. It 
should be Eights Week here l youth's most splendid 
■evel in the joy of life. The weather' is providing a perfect 
jetting for merry scenes on the river, and in the college 
quadrangles. But the barges are silent and deserted and 
there are no window boxes in Peckwater or down the High. 
This golden frame of sun and buttercups encloses a very 
different picture from that of other ^Vhitsuntides. The 
bright muslins and flannels that then made gay the Meadows 
are now represented bv khaki and white-banded caps. In 
ttie quads tht- voice of the undergraduate calling to his friend 
is replaced by the staccato word of command and the pande- 
monium of whistle, rattle and shouting on the tow-path by 
the heavy drone of aeroplanes. 'A changed Oxford in a 
changed world. " 
• » » ♦ . • 
• All change is sad, especially to anyone who lias absorbed, 
however imperfectly, the intense cbnsen'atism of Oxford. 
Sad thoughts must perforce crowd out all others on first 
revisiting Oxford is war-time. At every other oak it seems 
one is reminded of a friend that is no more, and clubs and 
'■ digs " have the same poignant memories. The Steward 
at the Union tells one of other names in the casualty lists 
that 1 had not noticed. . . . But there is another side— 
the right side— to the tapestry. Mr. C. L. Graves had some- 
thing- to say in his recent volume of verse about this other 
side in two graceful poems contrasting Oxford before the 
war with Oxiord to-day. The growing (Towd of cadets 
which is taking the place of the fast dwindling band of under- 
graduates are carrying on — aye, and adding to — ^^the traditions 
of the place. 1 have with me my small .son, who is visiting the 
University for the first time, and I want to find him a book 
to remind him of this first visit and to impress on his mind 
the link between the old-world and the new. WitJi such an 
object I can think of no better book to give a boy than that 
early romance of " Q.'s " The Splendid Spur. Do you 
remember Master Tucker's " dying councell to way far- 
dingers," that sounds the motive of the romance ? It ends : 
" This nrh — this round 
Of .sight and sound, 
fount it the lists that (lod hath built 
For haughty hearts to ride a-tilt." 
• » • *■''.• 
Thas I come back from sentimentalising — may I be for- 
given for it ! — to books and my duty^ and the transition is 
made the easier in that I have before me a volume of poems 
by a daughter of Oxford, who expresses with grace and 
feeling the University's response to the call of the war. Miss 
May Cannan gives evidence in her book, In Wur Time (B. H. 
Blackwell, 2s. (xl. net), fif a grievous personal loss, but the 
clarion note of Jiigh endeavour sounds above the suffering. 
Thus she testifies in her dream of England's victory : 
Remember they 
• Gave of their best. Kriendship they gave;' the love they 
hardly knew ; 
All the dear little f(X)lish things of earth. 
And all tlie splendid things they meant to do : 
Siin.sets, and dawns, and grey skies breaking blue, 
.\11 undiscovered worlds, and fairy seas, 
■ And the lips of their girl-lovers. 
Her love of English ground, learnt on the river of Oxford, is 
prettily expressed in a pre-war poem, " The Song of a Canoe," 
W'hich recalls Belloc's "unforgettable lines on the " tender 
Evenlode," while the scorn for the baser England, which 
Oxford and all else that is true English should make stand 
against, is expressed in " Kitchener of Khartum " : 
You— you took all he gave ; he who took up 
Burden ot Iimpire that was yours to bear, 
And walked through hills you'll never know to find 
The hard-won wisdom of a soldier there ; 
And went out into .silence on the sea, 
And left his meraon,' to your keeping here. 
You that are each this JCngland, you who live 
As England lives, by such great travailing. 
Have yon at this high hour no better gift 
Than your safe smug disparagement ran bring ? 
He that died, died for England ; ]'2ngland lives, 
• And you are England ; that's the bitter thing." . 
*' • * ' * It 
In The London NigMs of Belsize (John Lane, Gs.), Vernon 
Rendall invents a new type of amateur detective with un- 
limited wealth (of which he is somewhat boastful), some of 
the methods of Sheriock Holmes and an affectation of literary 
knowledge that sometimes bores one. His golden rule of 
life comes to him, with his wealth, from an uncle, a silk- 
merchant, in the form of an Oriental proverb : " Patience 
and a mulberry-leaf will make a silk gown." The stories of 
ffelsize's adventures are occasionally witty, often ingenious 
and always entertaining. 1 particularly en)oyed the com- 
paratively boisterous humour of " The Elimination of RoUin- 
son," a stor>' rif how he rid his club of a bore, and the clever 
analysis of a Sherlock Holmes tale, " The Adventure of 
the Three Students," which is made to appeiit* as in reality ' 
a triumph, not for Holmes, but for Dr. 'VVatson. 
• » • * » 
Away with fictional psychologists and all other intellectuals '. 
Here is one wlio can tell a tale after my own heart. 'J'he 
Smaslier (John Lbng, 6s.), shows that the hand of the veteran 
Nat Gould has not lost its cunning. It is a tale, with an 
Australian setting, of gold-hunting, racing and love. The 
real heroine of it is a mare, Silver Tail, and its jeune premier 
is undoubtedly that lady's foal, Silverton. Of course, it 
follows the good conventional lines. Virtue— or comparative 
virtue — in the person of Pedrick, " the Gold King," is trium- 
phant, and undoubted vice, in the. person of Asher Kitz 
comes to a bad end. No teller of tales need be ashamed if 
he can prove himself as good as Gould. 
• • ♦ • • 
The full schettie of Lord Bryce's committee is to be found 
detailed and explained in Proposals in the Prevention of 
future Wars (Allan and I'nwin, Ltd., is. net). All those who 
look forward' to a rule of right among the nations, even those 
who believe that war never can be prevented entirely, should 
study these proposals carefully, for they are the most weighty 
at present in the field, and they difler little from the proposals 
(»f the American ' League to Enforce Peace," which are also 
summarised in this volume. Such proposals must have the 
sense of the nation behind them if they are to be effective, 
and should therefore be well considered before they are sprung 
upon the peace congress that may come some day. 
The articles on banking and trade problems which Mr, 
Arthur Kitson has from time to time contributed to these 
columns have atrracted a great deal of notice, especially in 
the commercial world, and at the request'of numerous readers 
of L.AND & W.^TER, he has now collected and revised them 
and published them in volume form under the title Trade 
Fallacies (P. S. King and Son, 5s.) The first chapter is on 
the psychological factor in war and the last pn the psychology 
f)f the workshop, and intervening ones deal with capturing 
(ierman trade, the inadequacy of our banking system, Lon- 
don's gold market, etc., etc. Mr. Kitson brings to bear on 
these subjects exceptional experience, for he has been a 
manufacturer both in the United States and England, has 
had important business connectiofis on the Continent, is 
himself an inventor, and has experienced the difficulties of 
trade development under our banking system in the past, 
(iifted with a fluent pen, he has been able to utilise his excep- 
tional e.xperiences to the advantage of manufacturers and 
traders who have had to face similar difficulties. 
THE 
NINETEENTH CENTURY 
AND AFTER 
Italy, Auitria and Europe. Jl'M'. uy ENRICO Cor.UADIXI. 
New Ligm on Cermany'a Treachery: A remarkable French Indictment. 
By H. W. WILSON. 
The {4ew Departure in Balkan Oiplomaoy. B> NOKI, lU \'IX>N. M.P. 
Monarchy and •' Democraoy." Hy WAl.TliR SICHKI-. 
Thinking and Aeting at the Admiralty. By .lOHX I£YI<AM). 
The BueincM ot Ocvenimein oon.'luded). Uy EiUWARtX liI'X>K(:K HAiKMAM, 
C.B. (foTTiifrh a HriiH-ipal ( Itrk in thv Treurtury). 
Church and Slate: A Reply to eonw Criticisms on the Report. 
\^\ tlh- lli^lrt Hi>n^ tlie I'.AtU. ol" .*KUi(kRiNE. K.G. 
The German Menace to Antiq«ities B> M'.TIII r. i:. I>. WKIiiAIX (lute 
In^pfct<»r (jfiitral.'cf .\11li1411itifs, l',K>ptiuii (ifivcnwii-pnl). 
The Nation's Children and our Duty towards them. 
By Ur. MARY SCttARLIEB. 
On Fifth Avenue in 1917. .:. By URKTRUDF; KreOSTON. 
The Future o4 Eduoation; T 
(I) A Birds-Eye View of Educational Reform.' 
Hv rU)ri>ESLFV BRFHiETON'. 
(7) Education in our Public Sdiools: A Critical Defence of the Present 
System. B» (VIMl, 1:. IIOBIN.SOX 1 A^ivi^tajit \1.i»Ut at Wiinlif ^t«.n. 
<J) Educational Ideals- the Way of Peace, l-.v Sir PHIIJI* MAU.Vir.s, M.P. 
The Psal Shakespeare Problem: A Reply to Mr. Cordon Crosse. 
Hv Sir <;E(>R<:i, OUCTr^WOOD. M.P. 
A Conspiracy ot Silence. Bv ARTBUJl B. KOPB.S. 
War Finance: the F.Tth War Budget. By .1. A. R. MAIUUOTT, M.P. 
Sketches in England and Cermany— 1914. II. 
Bv tlie Hon. .Mr.'. WAITER FOiiBES 
Commecourt. By" IJeuteiiaBt OlX»mu-:V l>li.AK.M>Ji . 
londoo: SpotUswoode, Ballantyna * Co., Lt4.. 1, New 6tre«t Square. 
