i8 
LAND & WATKR 
June -'I, KJ17 
Books to Read 
By Lucian Oldershaw 
Al'REX'IOl'S edition gave ino an opiioitunity to- 
cxprcss in tlicst; ci)lumns my opinion of the cs^nys 
and addresses of Dr. James M. Beck collected in 
The War and Humanity (I'utman. Si.so net). 
A new edition, revised, with additional material, enables me 
once more to commend to Knglisii readers this reasoned 
examination of the ethics of the war by an eminent jurist and 
a 1,'ood friend of France and England. " It is the kind of 
book," says Mr. Roosevelt, " which every self-respecting 
Americanj who loves liis country', should read. I believe that 
its circulation throughout the whole land would ha\e a very 
real effect in educating public opinion to the duty of America 
in this great world crisis." American readers have now 
sifted and given judgment on what Dr. Beck, in a previous 
volume, called J he Evidence in the Case, but neither to 
American nor to Englishman does it come amiss to have 
tontinualh' before him a clear view of the ethical grounds on 
\yhich he is fighting. Such books strengthen resolutions and 
destroy cobwebs and " sinister iutrigdes." 
If others are, like myself, avid of all that concerns our 
" Old Contemptibles," they will not need from me any 
introduction to ("apt. R. V. Dolbey's book other than a bare 
statement of what it contains. Part of this is conveyed in 
the title, .1 Regimental Surgeon in War and Prison (John 
Murray. 5s. net), and part in this restrained note by the 
publisher : " Graphic descriptions of the tiring line in France 
m the early da\s of the war, as seen by a doctor, and of the 
conditions in four (ierman prisoners-of-war camps." It only 
remains for me to underline the word " graphic," and to add 
that Cajit. Dolbcy was not taken prisoner till after the lirst 
battle of Vpres. So that his book coveni the turning point of 
the Marne as well as the Retreat, and theautjior has opinions 
•o express on men and things t]iat are individual and virile. 
The reast)n for the publication of such a book as .1 General's 
Letters to his Son on obtaining his Commission (Cassell and 
Co., is. net), is well put in General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien's 
preface. After alluding to the large numbers of young 
officers who have to be trained in a short time, he goes on : 
" Owing to the paucity of officers versed in the traditions 
of the Service and lack of time, it is impossible to provide the 
guidance for these young fellows which is necessary if they are 
to conduct themselves and carry out their duties up to the 
high standard of officers of pre-war armies." In short, 
this book is to make up in part either for the training in 
tradition that comes from Sandhurst and the mess of a Service 
regiment or from (what is perhaps even more valuable) a 
family influence that cherishes the ideals of the Service ; in 
fact, such a father as this son is fortunate to possess. Much 
of this advice in points of honour, money matters and the 
like will necessarily be Polonius-likc in its obviousness to such • 
a <me. But there are many young officers who do not know 
and who would really like to know, and to them I cannot do 
better than repeat the words of General Smith-Dorrien ; 
" These letters give all necessary information ; and if young 
otticers will only study them carefully and shape their conduct 
accordingly, they need have no fear of proving unworthy of 
liis Majesty's Commission." 
Somi' many years ago (it nnist have been shortly alter he 
."eached his majority). John Buchan abanrloncd a fairly success 
ful career as a novelist (begun presumably hi his teens) and 
turned his attention to sterner work. It must have been 
even carUer, to judge from internal evidence derived from 
Poetns Scots and English (T. C. and ¥.. C. Jack, Ltd., 3s. 6d. 
net), that he gave up the pleasant habit of writing those easy- 
flowing verses which gained so much when he read them at the 
Horace Club at Oxford from a certain tang in the voice that 
was not got this side of the Tweed. And now in war time, 
while his work grows more strenuous and is crowned with 
achievement, he seems to be returning with zest to the 
pursuits of his youth. He has written a successful novel and 
he has published this volume of poems and, most signilicant 
of all, the poems written during the last three years (and they 
appear to form the bulk of the volume) are written in the Scots. 
As the hero of his beautiful ballad. " On Leave," made his 
peace with God in the places he " had kenned as a bairn," 
so Colonel Buchan seems to be finding himself in a resumption 
of old habits, never perhaps completely abandonefl. 
Throughout the book the note ia brave and debonair, but I 
like cspeciall\' the recent Scots poems, more particularly those 
that have to do with the war. They express with real ease, 
Jiot mere fluent facility, the individual thoughts of a man about 
nun facing the great adventure. Let me give an e.\amplc 
from the poem I have already mentioned in which a soldi(>r , 
home for a week's leave, goes out from burying his child to 
ivander among the hills : 
A' the hills were graves. 
The graves o' the dcid laiigsyiic, 
\\\i somewhere <iot in the West 
Was the grummhn' battle-line. 
But up frae the howc o' the glen 
Came the waft o' the simmer een. 
The stink gacd oot u' my n^>sc. 
And I sniffed it, caller and clean. 
The smell o' the simmer hills. 
Thyme and hinny and heather, 
jenipcr, birk and fern, 
Kose in the lown.Junc weather. 
It minded mc o' auld days. 
When I wandered baretit there, 
Guddlin' troot in the burns, 
Howkin' the tod frae his lair. 
if a' the hills were graves 
There was peace, for the folk aneath 
And peace for the folk abune, 
.\nd hfe in the hcrt u' death. . , . 
To one who never uses a l)icycle except for the dire necessity 
of catching a train or some other necessary business, tliere 
is something faintly Iiumorous about such books as Sir Frank 
Bowdcn's Cycling for Health and Points for Cyclists (The 
Criterion Press, is.) It is a very serious, almost solemn, 
little book, and every point about such things as oiling and 
c eaning the cycle and feeding and clothing the cyclist is 
gone into with the earnestness of the enthusiast. But I am. 
far from despising such enthusiasm. I am quite sure the book 
will be extremely useful to those for whom it is meant. 
* * * • • 
The short story is beginning to be popular again, and to 
.America, the home of the raconteur, must l^e allowed the 
leadership of the linglish speaking peoples in this particular 
branch of fiction. On this side of the Atlantic we should 
find it difficult to name more than one author to balance 
against Edgar Allen Poe, Bret Harte, Frank Stockton and 
" O. Henry," and here is a new writer, Jack Lait, who seems 
to me likely to take rank among the best of them. Beef, 
Iron and Wine (Heinemann, 3s. 6d. net), a collection of some 
of this author's tales, almost justifies this extravagant praise 
of him by the author of the Chicago Herald. " I always think 
of him as the Human \-ray. He is the interpreter of the 
subcutaneous of life. He seems to divine in all manner of 
folks the exact emotions which generate there. He surprises, 
even embarrasses us, often, by his frank, plain exposition of 
what we have been thinking, and what we have been thinking 
no one knew we were thinking. And Lait not only sees 
below the surface, but also illuminates the little "things 
which really arc the big things of hfe. He analyses the very 
commonplace, and we wonder why we have found no novelty 
in that which is old." Certainly the.se tales of Chicago 
crooks, chorus-girls and cinema actors are full of entertainment 
and told with coiusunmiate art. He is not so good at begin- 
ning a tale as at ending it, and both his weakness and his 
strength may be summed up by saying that ho out-Heurys 
O. Henry, 
Village of Messines 1914—1916 
ON the opposite page we arc enabled to print some in- 
teresting pictures of the village of Messines, which 
were published as post-cards for the German nth 
Reserve Infantry Regiment by " Edit. S.D." 129 
rue Rogier, Brussels ; they are bound into a red cover with the 
title " Messines, 1916 : Einst und jetzl " (" once and now."). 
Messines before the war was so small that Baedeker does not 
even acknowledge its existence in his " Belgium and Holland," 
but this month Sir Herbert Plumer has made it almost as big 
as Waterloo. Poor little place, it boasted an ugly httlc street 
which it called Rue courte cl belle (the street which is called 
short and beautiful). Its town hall was a very real Hotel dc 
Villc. as will be seen in the first picture. J.H- 
