July 5, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
Books to Read 
By Lucian Oldershaw 
15 
W-HEn July comes we begin to think of summer 
holidays — even in war time — and to nine people 
out of ten the light literature to make holiday 
with consists of a good novel or two. Many 
people will be taking no holidays this year or keeping them 
at home. I recommend such people a judicious course of 
hction as a restful and rela>dng alternative to crowded hotels 
or uncomfortable lodgings at tlie sea-side. Several readable 
novels have come my way lately, and they arc of styles to 
suit a variety of tastes. 
* * * * « 
Let me first welcome Mrs. Flora Annie Steel in a kind 
of romance that I fancy she has not done at full length before. 
Marmaduke (Heinemann, 5s. net), is a story of the middle of 
the nineteenth century with scenes laid partly in Scotland and 
partly in the Crimea. The hero is heir-presumptive to a 
Scottish barony, and its heroine is the granddaughter of his 
father's head-piper. The father, Lord Drummuir of Urum- 
muir, a remarkable old rake, is the presiding genius for 
evil and good, of an extremely entertaining talc. I do not 
' beheve that an officer in the '50's would have spoken of a 
cigarette as a " fag," but otherwise there is nothing that 
offends against one's liistorical sensibilities in the setting of 
tlie book, and the description of the old reprobate's court at 
his Castle of Drummuir, is a very skilful piece of worK. Mrs. 
Steel does not disdain the somewhat melodramatic use of 
coincidence to round off a tale which has in it all the 
elements of a {,Teat popular success. 
***** 
.'•liss F. Tennyson Jesse's Secret Bread (Heinemann, Gs. net), 
claims our attention as something more than a pleasing 
diversion. It is an attempt, often powerful, always arresting 
and, in its total impression, extremely sad, to express the 
passing of the generations. The scene of it is laid in a Cornish 
manor-house and the plot of the story arises from the devilish 
revenge taken by the eldest son of a family of bastards against 
the youngest who had become heir to the estate by their 
father's death-bed marriage with their mother. This youngest 
son, Ishmael, who comes into the world in the first chapter and 
goes out of it, a ■ grandfather, in the last, is the leading 
character, but his personality, which is at first extremely 
\"ivid, seems to fade into insignificance before the idea of the 
march of the generations which gradually dominates the book, 
even ousting from it the promising theme of " the bread 
eaten in secret." This theme is expanded by Parson Boase, 
young Ishmael's guardian and tutor, who is, as it were, the 
chorus of the earlier part of the book, in this fashion : "There's 
only one thing certain — that we all have something, some 
secret bread of our own soul, by which we live, that nourishes 
and sustains us. It may be a different thing for each man 
alive." Ishmael thinks he knows what his secret bread is 
and believes he will cherish it* to the end. It seems to have 
Jast Ready. 
Price 3/6 Net. 
THE LAST DAYS 
OF FORT VAUX 
By HENRY BORDEAUX. 
READERS will welcome the appearance in book form of llio 
account of " The La.st Days of Fort Vaux," from the pen 
of the well-known French novelist, M. Henry Bordeaux, 
which attracted so much attention when it came out in serial 
form in the Rtvue dea Deux Monde.f. M. Bordeaux draws from 
his own experiences, for he is serving at the front ax Staff 
Captain, and has access both to French official documents and to 
many German papers taken from the enemy. His work is a well- 
merited tribute to the heroism of the French soldiery, and its 
weird, lively, and at the same time thoughtful picture of the three 
months' siege that formed one of the most conspicuous episodes 
of tha great Battle of Verdun has an enduring interest a« a record 
of events that well deserve commemoration. 
NELSONS' 
AT ALL BOOKSELLERS 
AND BOOKSTALLS. 
been the autlior's intention to show how far he did so but, if 
so, the bigger and less manageable idea overwhelmed it, and 
the result is one or two loose threads in a novel for the most 
jjart well constructed in spite of its wide scope. There is in 
the book, as in many books written by women, an element of 
hardness, that is almost cruelty (tlievice they most detest in 
certain of its manifestations) "in dealing with some subjects, 
but there is also an extraordinary knowledge of life and a 
vivid insight into the mainsprings of human action. Secret 
Bread is a very remarkable, if rather depressing, book. 
* * * * * 
And now for what Stevenson would haVe called a " tale of 
tushery." With Gold and Steel, by Cecil Starr Johns, (John 
Lane 6s.) is quite an excellent tale of the type that Mr. 
Stanley Weyman brought into fresh vogue some score of years 
ago, and that never quite lost its admirers, even when the 
costume play ceased to fill the theatres. Although one would 
think that the age and personality of Henry IV of France 
had been worn threadbare by English novelists, Mr. Johns, 
by admirably contrived adventure, a gay sense of humour 
and a Dumaesque prodigality of romantic swagger, manages 
to bring fresh life into an old theme. He has a most chivalric 
hero in the Breton Le Pouldu, a spirited comrade for him in 
Armand dc Bourlay, a thorough-going and dangerous enemy 
in de Vaarg, and a winning heroine in lionise de Marmont. 
Many old friends of historical fiction, besides Navarre, make 
their appearance in these crowded pages, but Mr. Johns writes 
with the freshness of one telling such a tale for the first time, 
and I for one read With Gold and Steel from start to 
finish with much the same eager interest as that with which as 
a boy 1 devoured for the first time The Three Musketeers. 
***** 
We come again to problems in Mr. Horace Vachell's latest 
novel. Fishpingle (John Murray 5s. net.) is a novelised 
version of the author's play of that name, or is it the novel on 
which the play was founded. Mr. Vachell challenges the critic' 
to say which was written first, the novel or the play. I never 
saw the play so that I do not feel very competent to judge, but 
the novel, finished though it is with the almost too complete 
smoothness which is so characteristic of its author's work, 
bears some traces of attempts to underline points, which 
suggests that it was written subsequently to the play. In 
any case it is a pleasant and easy book to read. It raises a 
question of extreme interest at the present moment. How is 
all that is good in the old country life of England, its sport 
and its conscientious landowners, to be saved in the necessity 
of making it justify itself economically ? Mr. Vachell has a 
tenderness for the Squirearchy, but I am not sure that he does 
full justice to his case in the presentation of his typical English 
country gentlemen. He himself sees so clearly the good points 
of Sir Geoffrey Pomfret that he rather neglects to emphasise 
them and so leaves the reader with the opinion that he was 
merely an obstinate old fool, who in the last resort could be 
managed by those round him, and especially by the mysterious 
and melodramatic butler, Fishpingle. Still the book puts the 
problem quite clearly and fairly and may start some people 
facing it who would not otherwise have given it a thought, 
except from some extravagantly prejudiced point of view 
THE 
NINETEENTH CENTURY 
AND AFTER 
JULY. 
An Irish Settlement?: 
(1) Is it wise to establish Home Rule before the End of the War7 
Hv ]>rolesi«)r \. V. I>1CEY. 
(2) A Southern Unioflisfs View. Bj Sir HIONRY BL.VKK, G.C.M.G. 
Air Raids and the New War. By HAROLD F. WYATT. 
The Coining Revolution. By Dr. AUTHLR SHAD WELL. 
The Return of Religion. By tlie Very E«v. Canon WILLI.AJI BARRY, D.D. 
German Warnings to Germany. By GEORGE SAUNDERS. 
Sketches in England and Germany— 1914, III. 
By "the Hon. Mrs. WALTER FORBES, 
industrial Organisation and Empire. By Sir GEORGE MAKGILL, Bart. 
The Saving of Child Lite. By .1A5IES CCSSAR EWART. M.D., F.R.S. 
(l!(-!!iu.3 Professor of KutuT.lI Hiitorv. EdlubiirRli Umiversity). 
After "the Great Days" of the Revolution: Impressions from a recent 
Visit to Russia. By Prof<i.'isor ,1. Y. SIMPSON. 
Sea-Power and the Armed Neutralities. II. By Sir FRANCIS FIGGOTT 
(lati? CUet .lustioo of Hons Kons). 
The Nav", the Army, and Jane Austen. 
liv LII,IAX i;o\VLANDBROW\ (Rowland Grey). 
Public Morality: Some Conetructlve Suggestions. By Mis3 M. H. MASON. 
The Health of the Nation and the National Insurance Act. 
Ily Miijor wn.LlAM A. BRBND, M.D. 
Balkan Unity and the "New Departure" : A Reply to Mr. Noel Buxton. 
By A. F. WHYTE, M.F. 
London: Spottiswoode, Biilliint.ino & Co., LUI., 1, New Street Squnre. 
