l6 
LAINU & WATER 
October i«, .1,917. 
He: Iflce \ft. Hewlett. <Ti(l^ with the war-and th« tfan^giira- 
tiiin «f the common disinhijritod man /called iiRon at 4ast to ■ 
confront the nation which alxnc an others hidTaccn praised 
by his professors and his politicians as a pioneer.of ciyih^ition.. 
I-Ic in whose honour all has been said and sung stirred and 
stepped across the border of Belgium. Then were spread out 
before men's eves all the beauties of his culture and all the 
lanetits of his 'organisation ; then we beheld under a lifting 
daybreak what light we had followed and after what image 
we had laboured to refashion ourselves. Xor in any stor\- 
of mankind has the ironv of Cod chasen the foolish things so 
catastrophicallv to confound the wise. For the common 
crowd of poorand ignorant Knglishmen. because they only 
knew that thev were fCnglishmen. burst through the hlthy 
cobwebs of four hundred vears and ktood where their lathers 
stood when thev knew that thev were Christian men. 1 he 
j:nglish poor, broken by everv revolt, bullied by everv 
lashion, long despoiled of propertv. and now being despoiled 
of libertv. entered history with a noise of trumpets, ami 
Inrnerl themselves in two vears into one of the iron armies ot 
the world. And when the critic of politics and literature. 
Iceling that this war is after all heroic, looks around him to 
hnd the hero, he can point to nothing fjut a mob. 
This also the scientific materialist will,call rhetoric, and look 
for his explanations elsewhere, not seeing, or blind to their 
beauty if he does sec them, the multitudinous idealisms and 
loves "and lovalties in the host of inarticulate breasts whose 
only speech is action -and a misleading jest, lint there is 
truth in the rhetoric, and tlie truth will be told about no 
large movement of humanity unless the imagination and the 
emotions a^re brought to bear upon the facts. ^Vat Tyler s 
followers, usually described as "a peasantry resentful of an 
unjust poll-tax,'"' cannot be comprehended by that phrase , 
a whole novel would not be too long to display the confused 
minds of those resentful and then briefly exhilarated men 
who, though illiterate and not capable no doubt of foimu- 
lating a system which would establish and secure what they 
wanted, had a Utppia of a sort in their hearts and knew 
what thev immediately wanted, and that in justice they should 
liave it, and were prepared to risk their lives that their class 
mi.ght have it. Mr. Chesterton's short passage on, the Pil- 
grimage of (irace.lets far more light in on the state of mind 
behind that rebellion than anv amount of " facts " about it 
backed by lifeless references to'" those whose sympathies still 
clung to "the old regime." But one might come nearer. I 
. happen to remember the 1906 election and the campaign 
in the .rural constituencies of which 1 saw a good deal. A 
great and successful appeal was made to the agricultural 
labourer. The outcome of it was a largely unworkable and 
unworked Small Holdings Act. The Act will get a few lines 
in the histories : the appeal will probably get none at all. 
Moreover few, even of the men who made that appearand 
dangled before the labourer the realisation of his age-long 
hojw of work in liberty with a proper reward on the land 
which is in his bones, exercised their imaginations sufficiently 
to realise what the promise and the disappointment meant 
to him. For he does not write books, he is slow of speech, 
he can only vote, after all, for one side 01 the other, and — 
in the end— centuries of frustration have made him resigned, 
and he is quite prepared, as often as necessary, to submerge 
his useless aspirations in a pint of beer. H the history of 
England still remains unwritten Mr. Chesterton's book will 
teach the next generation of historians their business. 
Books of the Week 
A Literary Pilgrim in England. By Edward Thomas' 
(Methuen, 7s. 6d. net.) 
Tommy's Tunes. By 2nd L,ieutenant V. T.. Nettleingham, 
RF.C. (Erskine Macdonald, 2s. 6d. net) 
NEVER has there lived a more devout lover of 
England thaii Edward Thomas, that shy man of 
letters who, putting behind him all that had 
hitlierto attached him most closely to life. joine<l 
the Royal Regiment of Artillery and gave his life for England. 
ifis greatest joy was to wander about the country-side \yith a 
friend — one of those rare companions with whom a man 
communes more in silence than in speech. To recline upon a 
Wiltshire down on a summer day and watch the play of sun 
and shadow, of breeze and cloud, was to him exquisite 
pleasure. This sense of happiness finds reflection in these 
essays on men of letters. But it is a work that suggests a 
weakness in the character of Edward Thomas. Diffident of 
his own powx^rs, he turned to others for that expression which, 
in truth, he was perfectly adequate himself to utter. And one 
cannot help feeling passing regret that he did not in his brief 
life read less and write more. These few words, from his 
essay on Meredith, may be said to define his own attitude. 
Nature to him was not merely a cause of sensuous pleasure, 
! nor oil the other hand an inhuman enchantress ; neither was 
she both .toKclher. When he spoke of earth, he meant more 
than most men who speak of God. He meant that power 
which in the open air, in poetry, in the company of noble men 
and women, prompted, strengthened, and could"fi>lfil thedesue 
of a man to maka himself, nio't a transitorj? member of a 
parochial species, but a citizen of the earth. 
The truth enshrined here has been made manifest in the finest 
poetry uttered by our fighting men during the war. 
* « * * * 
The title is a bad one. A pilgrim is one mainly concerned 
with the object of his journeying, not with the incidents 
surrounding it. It is one of those- curious silences in the 
F^nglish language, as it were a dumb note on the key-board of 
our speech, that we have no one word to denote a human 
lieing who uses his own muscles to explore the glories and 
mysteries of the earth's surface. To speak of such a one as 
a tramp connotes dirt and vermin, a pedestrian is impossibly 
horrible, perhaps a wayfarer comes nearer the mark, but 
hints at dust and highways, and so it would have been better, 
had this title not attempted an accurate description but had 
followed the example of Borrow, with The Bible in Spain, 
and left to the imagination of the reader its true import. 
The book itself is a series of essays on literary men, mostly 
poets, living and dead, who had shown special interest in 
Nature. How varied is its character may be judged from 
the fact that it includes William Blake, Shelley, Tennyson, 
John Clare, Matthew Arnold, Keats. Meredith, also Thomas 
Hardy, W. H. Hudson and Hilaire Belloc. 
***** 
Belloc was evidently Thomas's favourite living writer; 
his essay on him is the most -intimate in the book. Nor 
does he hesitate to chasten him mildly even while he praises. 
" He (Belloc) is just too much concerned with what England 
has been and may he again ... to leave us quite a 
clear vision of F2ngiand as he has known it." Not a bad fault, 
seeing it arises from the faith that earth was made for 
man, not man for earth. Tnomas quotes these pregnant 
sentences of Belloc, " The love of England has in it 
the love of landscapes as has the love of no other country ; 
it has in it as the love of no other country, the love 
of friends." Most true, but one who has found this same 
love of landscape and of friends in lands other than 
England questions whether it arises from Jingland herself 
but is not rather due to a deeper cause. This reviewer 
attributes it to the Authorised Version of the Bible. It is 
through the poetry of the English Bible that Englishmen's 
eyes and hearts have been opened to the soul of earth. Take 
the 23rd Psalm, easily the best known and most popular 
poem in our tongue. For the dullest brain that has once 
mastered it. the least meadow ever afterwards is touched by 
the light of heaven. Belloc is indubitably right when h? attri- 
butes to Englishmen a deeper love of Nature than to men of 
other countries ; but oijie who has recognised this truth and 
in exile sought to probe it, has always found beneath this 
deep devotion early delight in the rhythm and the Nature 
pictures that abound in the Bible. We should like to have 
seen this discussed by Edward Thomas in this volume, to 
which all lovers ot England will turn with gratitude. 
* * « * * 
It is possible that in course of time books may be made over 
the already disputed place of Tipperary as //(^marching song 
of The Old Contemptibles. There are soldiers who declare 
its position "in the popular mind is justified by facts ; others 
assert it was fictitious, accidental. Press-created. Of such 
is Lieutenant Nettleingham who m Tommy's 7' ;m« derides 
Tipperary as a marching song, and declares that .innic 
Laurie and Home Sweet Home have from first to last been 
most popular songs in the British Army on active service. 
It is a big score for the Early X'ictorians. This little volume 
is a really valuable collection and will no doubt be added to 
and amplified as time goes on. Would that we kpew^ equally 
well what our soldiers sang in Flanders in my l.'ncle Toby's 
days, or again when they crossed the Pyrenees under Welling- 
ton, for no doubt they sang as well as swore. Certain ballads 
and tunes seem to be endued with immortality. Sullivan's 
" Onward Christian Soldiers" is an example "of the latter; 
any doggerel is good enough to carry its swinging music ; and 
of the former there is no better example than The Dyim^ 
Lancer. Where did it originate ? There is not a spot on earth 
where the English tongue has spoken which has not listened 
to its mournfid tones. And now the Royal flying Corps 
has adapted it and the new version echoes the splendid 
spirit of that gallant band of brothers. This is how it runs , 
A handsome young airman lay dymg (Chorus : Lay dying); 
.\nd as on the aer'drome he lay (he lay). 
To the mechanics who round him came sighing (came sighing) 
These last dying words he. did say (he did say', : 
"Take the cylinder out of my kidneys (of "his kidneys). 
The connecting rod out of my brain '(of his brain). 
The cam box from under mv backbone (liis backbone). 
And assemble the engine again (again)." 
