i8 
LAND & WATER 
August 30, 1917 
Books to Read 
By Lucian Oldershaw 
IN matters of conviction, political, economic and religious, 
most jx'ople appear to find in the war precisely what they 
expect to find. Thexe are some exceptions. I have known 
some believers who became unbelievers and some unbe- 
lievers who became behevcrs, but for the most part men find 
evervwhere evidence for what they believed before the war. In 
The War Pilgrim (Bums and Gates, 2s. 6d. net), a Danish 
traveller, Johannes Jorgensen, sees everj^where in France the 
triumph of the Church, and indeed almost represents the war 
as something planned by his friends of L' Action FranfCiise 
in honour of St. Joan of Arc and for the glory of the faith; 
his faitli, of course. Yet the book's sincerity is pleasant ; 
it is all interesting, both the point of view and the pictures 
themselves, especially those of the little strip of land which 
is still Belgium. . 
* * * * ■ * ■ 
Faith is also the dominant note in the story — which M. 
Reynes-Monlavr. who tells it, claims is an absolutely authentic 
stor\' — of Sister Clare (Burns and Oates, 2s. 6d. net). Cer- 
tainly it is very beautiful, this tale of a little Franciscan 
Nun, the sudden and terrible dispersal of her House on the 
German ontrv into Dinant, of the horrors of the flight- to 
France, and of her work and testimony in Rheims. Occa- 
sionally the author is tempted to point, the moral and adorn 
the tale. He i* so full of the urgency of its message that he . 
can scarcely avoid this over emphasis. But for the most 
part he tells his moving story simply and naturally, especially 
in its most poignant moments. I do not know of anything 
more touching in all the literature of the war than the con- 
versation here recorded between P^re Jean and Sister Clare 
during the hazardous flight from Siirices, nor anything more 
tragic than the murder of the saintly Father which followed 
it. Whatever the creed of the reader, he can scarcely fail to 
pay homage to the sincerity and beauty of this book. 
" ™ V V V 
Here is a book by a Protestant writer of a fervour and 
sincerity equal to that of the two I have just noticed, though 
the author is not so gifted a writer as Jorgensen, nor has he 
such a talc to tell as that of Sister Clare. There are two interest- 
ing and curious points to be noted about Jottings by a Gunner 
and Chaplain (Kelly, is. netl, by John A. Boullier. The 
one is that the author rose from the ranks — to be a chaplain. 
The other is what may be called his purely professional point 
of view. He is out as a saver of souls, and is never so happy 
as vvhen he is counting his " bag." 
* m * ^t * 
K. G. Ossiannilsson is a Swede, who holds firmly that the 
Allies are fighting for Freedom, and has already made a 
valuable contribution to war literature in Who is Right in 
the World War ^ Now we have translations of two more of 
liis books. The one Militarism at Work in Belgium and 
Germany (T. Fisher Unwin, 2s. (id. net), is a damning ex- 
posure, carefully based on documentary evidence, of the 
German policy of deporting Belgian workmen and the 
working of the Preventive Arrest Law in Germany. Tlie 
other is a more remarkable book. Sven Hedin : Nobleman. 
(T. l-isher Unwin, ;s. Od. net), is really a creative psychological 
study of thf) type of mind that takes to Prussianism. Ossian- 
nilsson was oiice the author of a poem in honour of Sweden's 
great explorer. He explains how he first saw his idol's feet 
pf clay, and proceeds to topple him off his pedestal. There 
is some striking irony in this description of a " nobleman." 
t ***** 
If there is still anything in America's attitude and spirit 
x^liich needs clearing up for English readers, it should be 
explained in Mr. Frederick Palmer'.s With our Face in the 
Light (Jolui Murray, 2s. 6d. net). This little book is written 
primarily. I take it, for Americans, to crystallise the public 
opinion that has brought them into the war. It will serve also, 
as its author hopes, to explain that public. opinion, and how 
it came to he formed, and how enduring it is in consequence 
likely to be, to the English people. We alreadv know Mr. 
Palmer in England. He has been a War Correspondent in 
France, and has published two books in which he has been 
generous in his praise of our armies. We listen to him, 
therefore, with the respect due to a tried friend, and he ex- 
plains clearly to us the meaning of America's long hesitation to 
take sides, and why it was she eventually came to do so. He 
also explains why Prussia will find Jicr a dangerous and 
determined enemy. 
***** 
I turned to a novel, the Safety Candle, by Miss E. S. Stevens 
(Cassell and Co., 6s. net) for recreation this week, but scarcely 
found it. The book is a study of two types of women, with a 
rather shadowy man, the same man, intervening in the lives 
of each. One of these women, the widow of forty-five, who 
marries the young man of action after being further aged by 
a railway accident, is the so-called '! Safety Candle," a 
feminine designation intended to imply that 'She does not 
singe the wings of the moths she attracts. She is rather a 
clever study and almost convincing, but her preoccupation 
with her age, though natural, bores one, and we are not 
made sufficiently to imderstand her attractiveness. The 
other woman, a young protegee of the former's, is even more 
elusive. She has moments of chafm, especially when she is 
wandering with her elderly Italian admirer among the anti- 
quities of Sicily, but I do not think Miss Stevens, though she 
is plausible, quite sufficiently explains her habit, for it almost 
amounts to a habit, of having babies without the intervention 
of matrimony. The book is provocative, and to me pro- 
voking, but may have more appeal to women readers. 
***** 
Picking up another novel, The Fortunes of Richard Mahoney 
by H. H. Richardson (Heinemann, 6s. net), with better 
hopes, I encountered a long and photographic study of life 
in Ballarat and Melbourne in the late 'bo's. Arfirst the, book 
bored me, but the characters were so real that, although they 
never did or said anything particularly interesting. I got 
fascinated by the book. Ruskin somewhere objects to one of 
George Eliot's novels, that the people in it are " the sweep- 
ings of a Pentonville omnibus," but if one could treat with 
sympathy and illumination the life history of an omnibus 
load of people, why should it not be of the profoundest interest 
and value ? Unfortunately, Richard Mahoney is out of 
sympathy with his surroundings. He is impatient of the over- • 
crowding and vexed with the vulgarity of the people in the 
omnibus in which fate has placed him. Consequently, tlie 
story of his fortunes is written in a monotone of querulousness, 
and were it not tor the changing portraiture of Mrs. Mahoney 
one would be inclined to regard the contents as a mere c\'nic 
with no feeling at all for the people he makes to live. As it 
is I suspect the author of having more affection for the 
creatures of his fancy than he allows, andcannot Iselleve that 
the obvious moral of the book, that the only thing to be done 
with Australian society of the 'Go's was to get away from it, 
is the real moral. I am quite curious to know if Mahoney- 
finds life in England any more to his liking. 
A valuable collection of TFa^ Speeches 1914-1917 has been 
made by Mr. Benedick W. Ginsburg (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 
2s. 6d.) They include, among others, those delivered by Sir 
F'dward Grey in the House of Commons on August 3rd, 1914, 
by Mr. Asquith and Mr. Bonar Law at the Guildhall on 
September 4th, 1914, and by Mr. Lloyd George, then Chancellor 
of the Exchequer on' September 8th, 1914. The notorious 
speech of the German Chancellor (Bethmann-Iiollweg) in the 
Reichstag on December 2nd, 1914, endeavouring to throw 
on Britain the blame for the war is also here, as well as the 
Speech by President Wilson to Congress — certainly quite one 
of the most famous utterances the war has called forth — 
when he appealed to the United States to join the Alliance 
in the cause of humanity. Mr. Ginsberg contributes an able 
and eloquent foreword explaining the circumstances under 
which these speeches were delivered, and also adding certain 
facts which give to them peculiar point and emphasis. This 
is a book that every publicist should have in iiis library, and 
which no educated person can overlook who desires to keep 
himself well infoi"med on the true circumstances which have 
surrounded this life and death struggle of c'vilisation. 
COCCLES 
Wt NO- SCREENS 
&WINDOW5 
^^^^ Jf^ ' 
^ THE ONUY 
SAFETY GLASS 
