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Fall,' as Pas Paradise Lost,' in the comfort and profit to them. Such readtrenches; General Smuts in that same ing as the Psalms, certain prayers for campaign read Kant's 'Critique of Pure peace, certain passages of Wordsworth, Reason.' Harvey at Edgehill, Archi- may well serve to heighten and steady our medes at Syracuse, distracted their at- thoughts. tention from warfare by the weighty authors to whom they devoted their equally weighty intellects. Others had even written while the very din of battle their was echoing in Marcus Aurelius, Julius Cæsar, and Julian the Apostate, who warmed his hands over his philosophic tablets beneath the bedclothes. Plato, most severe of all intellectual physicians, prescribed literary austerity as the finest safeguard for the wandering minds of his self-prisoned guardians.

ears:

THE WAR AND READING. How far mental concentration and stress of temperament go together was well illustrated in a paper read last week, by Dr. Sadler, Vice-Chancellor of Leeds University, before the National Home-Reading Union, at the Clothworkers' Hall. Dr. Sadler took for his subject 'Reading and the War.' He pointed out how thought and expression had been, in what might seem a most unexpected manner, keyed up to an abnormally high pitch of dignity and emotion by the pressure of vital responsibilities. He indicated in proof of this certain public dispatches, such as the White Paper, Mr. Asquith's two speeches, Lord Kitchener's letter to the troops, a sermon by the Archbishop of Canterbury, one of the intercession prayers, articles in various papers, and, above all, that moving and solemn letter in which the President of the United States designated October 4th as a day for general and special prayer.

Dr. Sadler then turned his attention to the other aspect of the question: What should we read in war-time? History, ancient and recent, affords many examples of the companionship of books on such occasions. The late Lord Carlisle found the quietude of Jane Austen (purposely dispassionate and alien to warfare) peculiarly apt to South Africa during our struggle with the Transvaal, our Colony of to-day; similarly a Wykehamist of distinction, eighty times under fire, read right through Gibbon's Decline and

The other point is the respite sought, the strength and support attained by a natural process of mental economy. Every worker knows the meaning and value of a change of work. The mind, excited to unusual activity, must turn that activity to some use; appetite stimulated, even goaded to avidity, must find some form of satisfaction. The excitement and stimulus are due to one form of diet; a change of diet alone will restore them to the normal, and will keep the machine at work, but with legitimate and useful purpose, no longer in danger of wearing itself to pieces by its own energy.

The standard of mental diet adopted by minds of mark in times of danger and trial reveals the height and nobility of those minds; they knew the need of diversion, and they recognized as by instinct in what spheres of thought they could find its most satisfying, soothing, and fortifying form.

Dr. Sadler pointed the moral for those who are not actively engaged in the defence of our country; for those also, who can but stand and wait, have full need of all that may afford their minds such occupation as shall be of the greatest

It is certain that the mind under this same stress of emotion and grandeur does rise to heights of sanity, stoicism, and even beauty. The letters we read sent from the trenches by men who are actually suffering every trial that could tame and daunt human energies—what a contrast do they present to the flowery emotionalism of those whose sole experience of battle is some seaport base! The higher the tax on those energies, the more solid are the goodwill, the resolution, the quiet heroism, with which that tax is met: those who are facing facts have no will for fantasy of phrase.

Those at home need sanity and stoicism, just as they need beauty in a time when their imagination is assailed, if not by lamentable horrors, too often by rancour, vengeance, impatient resentment, and querulous anxiety. Those who are not directly confronted by that miracle of courage and death which alone can refine their souls must needs find for themselves some standpoint, some calm eminence of the intellect, high above the littlenesses of panic or passion.

a

There are already instances of this: three cases from humble life were quoted in the meeting. A signalman, his usual responsibility doubled, sought recreation and strengthening in Maeterlinck's 'Wisdom of the Bee'; a milkwoman studied Nasmyth's steam-hammer; school-teacher devoted himself to Smiles's Self-Help.' We may feel amused at the choice, but we must admire the effort, the will to concentrate and educate self, and we must feel that such an effort is incumbent upon all during these days that are alive with temptation to impulse.

Detachment, elevation, and mental economy-those are the three essentials that work to one and the same end; and that end is the preservation and accentuation of the sense of proportion that must accompany us through this time of trial, and remain with us when it is past, the stronger for the trial.

Where shall we find these essentials except in that intense and selfless mental devotion that is exacted as their due merit by the written thoughts of great men who have themselves laboured through their own trial? So only shall we preserve that balance of mind too easily lost under the glamour of ambition, the sting of revenge; and so we shall face the problems that will arise, the more undeniable in the strength of their claim upon us; and so-fulfilling the spirit of the great words spoken by Lincoln at Gettysburg when he commemorated the death of those brave men by whose blood the stain on North and South alike was washed away-we shall do honour to more than self, to the memory and the lives and deaths of those who have stood, and who now stand, in the forefront of the battle which is this day being waged between life and death.

Italy's Foreign and Colonial Policy: a Selection from the Speeches delivered in the Italian Parliament by the Italian Foreign Affairs Minister, Senator Tommaso Tittoni, during his Six Years of Office (1903-1909). Only Authorized English Translation, by Baron Bernardo Quaranta di San Severino. (Smith, Elder & Co., 7s. 6d. net.) WHEN the history of the present century comes to be written, Italy will probably be pronounced to have been better served by her diplomatists than any other Power. Their policy may have been narrow, seldom rising above an enlightened selfinterest, but then the position of their country has been one of delicacy. Tried by the supreme test, that of fitting means to ends, they have, at all events, emerged with unfailing success. Italy has gone her own way, undisturbed by the shocks around her, and without making, so far as we can tell, a single false step. The quality of quiet tenacity which is conspicuously hers is well shown in this selection from the speeches of Signor Tittoni, Foreign Minister from 1903 to 1909. Those years, as we now perceive, were years of suspense and preparation for supreme issues. We are not surprised, therefore, to find Signor Tittoni very much on his guard-always plausible, seldom definite.

An Italian statesman has often to speak with the knowledge that he has no united body of public opinion behind him. There are those-they are few-who object altogether to foreign and colonial enterprise, because moneys are diverted thereby from measures of domestic reform. There were others, even before the war, who profoundly resented the Triplice, especially because it tied up Italy in an unholy connexion with Austria. For all such Signor Tittoni had a consoling formula:

To maintain and consolidate the Triple Alliance, to maintain and consolidate our friendship with England and France." That formula is quoted with delight by Senator Ferraris in a Preface evidently composed before last August, and no doubt it has served its turn. In its application Signor Tittoni displayed fine dialectical skill, talking always as a business man rather than a maker of phrases. His favourite method was to pounce on some extravagant statement, whether in the journals or in the utterances of the Hon. Barzilai or the Hon. Romussi, and demolish it.

That must have been an awkward moment when the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austria confronted Signor Tittoni, but he was equal to the emergency. He began by admitting the seriousness of Count Aehrenthal's stroke of statecraft. He proceeded to demonstrate at great length that the action of his predecessors in office had left him no foothold for resistance to it. He ended by showing that, Austria having relinquished her pretensions to Salonika, Italy was rather the stronger than otherwise for the aggression. It is in reading soft answers such as these that we realize the

wisdom of Disraeli's gibe at the sending of that worthy Englishman, Lord Minto, to teach diplomacy "in the country where Machiavelli was born."

Signor Tittoni's colonial policy was sufficient for the day of small things. He advocated Argentina as a field for Italian emigration rather than the United States, where, as Senator Lodge impressed upon him, the Italians were unpopular because they herded in towns, and on becoming naturalized plunged into internal affairs which they did not understand. But the bulk of Signor Tittoni's colonial speeches dealt with Italian Somaliland and the Benadir. It was greatly to his credit that he should have persuaded his fellow-countrymen to take interest in possessions which some of them would have relinquished altogether-that he should have got rid of an incompetent Chartered Company, and prepared the way for State-aided settlement. Here again he had his formula ready : "Reorganization of the colony; no increase of burden for the taxpayers." Another formula, that of "peaceful penetration," sufficed for Tripoli, but Signor Tittoni was careful to point out that Turkey must keep her officials in check, or trouble would ensue. In Italy's good time it did.

The Mürzsteg programme and other attempts to settle the Balkan Question by concerted action have become dim history, and we cannot help feeling that Senator Ferraris's eloquent Preface scarcely supplies the reader with a sufficiently clear explanation of the diplomatic coil. The translator has done his work adequately, though he splits his infinitives like haddocks.

Days of my Years. By Sir Melville L. Macnaghten. (Arnold, 12s. 6d. net.)

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As the keen face of the late Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department at Scotland Yard confronts his readers at the beginning of his volume of reminiscences, he seems to tell them : 'Remember that whatever you may say here will be taken down, and may be used in evidence against you." Seldom have we come across a more enthusiastic record of an official career. We can well believe that, as a boy, Sir Melville Macnaghten delighted in haunting the old Chamber of Horrors in the Baker Street Bazaar; and several gruesome details go to show that he has brought a sportsman's zest to bear throughout upon his murderers and burglars. But there is another and more elevated side to these agreeable pages. Sir Melville left behind him at the "Yard " the reputation of a man who trusted his officers, and whom his officers in consequence implicitly trusted. There have been, if we may say so, greater policemen than he; there have been few more competent chiefs of a department, and the loyalty to the "force" which is such a conspicuous feature in these Days of my Years' explains the reason why.

Sir Melville writes from memory, and his memory is no doubt tenacious. Still,

it is not impeccable. Farnara, not Ferrara," was Polti's accomplice in the Anarchist attempt to blow up the Stock Exchange in 1894. Judge Hawkins sentenced the pair to twenty and ten years' imprisonment respectively, and Sir Melville might have rounded off his story by relating how, on a November night, a violent explosion occurred near that stern functionary's house, though the miscreants were stupid enough to place the bomb on a neighbour's doorstep.

Days of my Years' is chiefly concerned with murders, and murders are what the public wants. Even so, Sir Melville has missed Devereux, who disposed of the bodies of his wife and two children in a trunk; and he would have relieved our feelings if he had explained that the truly British alias, George Chapman, stood for Severino Klosowski, the name of a Slav prisoner with broad cheekbones, a flat nose, and sunken eyes. Some of his readers, however, may wish that he had not harped so persistently on one class of crime, but had written with a fuller pen on the duties of the C.I.D. as a whole. The Whitaker Wright case may not have been particularly interesting to the Yard, but that extraordinarily able band of Bank-note forgers, Bernstein and the Barmashes, must have closely occupied its attention, and Sir Melville's account of the gang would have been well worth reading.

We offer these remarks in no carping spirit, but because Days of my Years is such a capital book that we wish it was just a little bit better. Sir Melville Macnaghten justly claims for the C.I.D. that it can stand comparison with any detective service in the world; only it has peculiar difficulties in its way because it is forbidden to set any kind of trap for a suspect. Thus we are told that the supposed murderer of Miss Camp was consigned to a lunatic asylum because the police were not permitted to equip him with a false moustache for purposes of identification, though he admitted that he had worn one. But the Yard, when put to it, can bring wonderful patience and acuteness to bear on а criminal problem. The most famous instance, with the possible exception of the Orrock case, in which a murder was brought home to its perpetrator through "rock

being found scratched on his chisel, is the tracking down of Mill som and Fowler through the piece of a child's frock used for the wick of the lantern they carried. Sir Melville's description of the Muswell Hill crime is excellent, though he omits that compact phrase of Fowler's which so delighted W. E. Henley. "It's outing dues," Fowler said, when captured, meaning that his dues," or deserts, would be an outing," or the death penalty.

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66

The fascinating topic of crimes of undiscovered authorship is discreetly handled by Sir Melville Macnaghten. He generally contrives to let his readers know his own opinion; yet it is difficult to lav hold of any definitive expression. We

cannot exactly follow him, however, in his analysis of the mysterious Anderson case, in which a strolling player was "done in," as Sir Melville puts it, off the Battersea Park Road. Anderson, it will be remembered, was put to death in an empty flat, while himself on deeds of violence intent, and within a few minutes of the crime a man scrambled over a wall separated from the back of the flat by four gardens, and made off after nearly falling on a passing baker. Sir Melville scoffs at the theory that this man was the member of a gang of German burglars who were known to have been at work on the Surrey side, and that, having been surprised by Anderson, he shot his antagonist. Burglars," he writes, "don't start business at 9.30 on a summer's night, nor do they crack cribs which contain nothing." True, but a burglar might use an empty flat as a place of concealment or observation; and the fact that the man took the trouble to climb over four garden walls on his way both to and from the flat proves that he was no law-abiding citizen.

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Sir Melville Macnaghten writes of the laily press in appreciative terms, though the activities of certain journals during the Crippen affair were by no means to be commended, and there have since been other deplorable developments. But they mostly came after his time. Detection by finger-prints has in him a most informative advocate, and he deserves all credit for his scepticism on another point -attempted detection by means of bloodhounds. We note with amusement that he describes the Sidney Street siege without once mentioning Mr. Winston Churchill by name.

Adventures with a Sketch Book. By Donald Maxwell. With over 200 Notes in Line and Colour reproduced in Facsimile from the Original Sketches. (John Lane, 12s. 6d. net.)

MR. MAXWELL is a most original traveller. The reviewer has pleasant memories of his voyages in the Griffin and the Walrus, those eccentric craft which he navigated through various inaccessible regions of Europe with a persistent light-heartedness worthy of Stevenson. In his latest book of adventures Mr. Maxwell tells of many experiences both by land and water. He turns over the leaves of his sketch-books, and gaily invites us to accompany him in his vagabond wanderings. He is the true Bohemian on a holiday. After reading his chapters some of them short impressionist word - pictures, others describing in more leisurely style a voyage from the Belgian Ardennes to the Rhine-we feel that if there is one thing more than another that stands out in Mr. Maxwell's work, it is his positive genius for doing odd things. Who else would think of organizing a bumping" match between two barges floating down a waterway in the heart of the Vosges ? Who else would walk to Canterbury by the Pilgrims' Way, starting at 10 o'clock on a wild February might, and armed with a bag of potatoes

66

and a pound or two of uncooked sausages? Yet Mr. Maxwell does these odd thingsas he has done other odd things in the past-not from any desire to seem clever and eccentric, but simply because an idea comes into his head and he immediately proceeds to act upon it. That is what gives his travel-books such a peculiar charm. The would-be original traveller is a a terrible fellow. Mr. Maxwell is original by nature therefore we enjoy reading him.

Of his adventures we like best those of The Unseen Sunrise,' the Canterbury Pilgrimage, and the voyage by barge from Belgium to Germany. The last named, of course, claims one's sympathy at the present time, for it leads us through fair Lorraine, past Sedan and Toul and Verdun and Dinant. It is a reminder that once these places led suave, prosperous lives, forgetting that the Prussian was all the time near at hand, and that however cleverly he might feign to be asleep, he was only waiting his chance to spring out and roar far more terribly than in 1870. Mr. Maxwell describes the field of Sedan (original as usual, he got up at half-past 3 in the morning to see it), and tells how he was nearly arrested as a spy in consequence. The subsequent wanderings of the barge on bridge canals and through mysterious tunnels enable the traveller to ripple along in his engaging style, and when the Rhine and the Black Forest heave in sight we are almost as sorry as the bargees must have been when they lost their cheerful visitor.

We have said so much of Mr. Maxwell the writer and traveller that there is a danger of forgetting Mr. Maxwell the artist. There are over two hundred sketches in line and colour in the book, to say nothing of numerous plates in colour and monochrome. Mr. Maxwell has dipped into his portfolios with a

liberal hand. All the work has character; most of it has that delicacy of colour and outline which we have learnt to associate with the author. If some of the plates and sketches appear a little vague and unsatisfactory, it is but evidence that the artist is only carrying out the theory expounded in his Preface, namely, that the rough sketch made on the spot is of more living interest than the carefully finished water-colour.

derive a benefit which should be even more welcomed than the conquering of enemies.

The Rev. William Temple, in the first of these pamphlets, the publication of which stands to the credit of the Oxford Press, points out that what has broken down is not Christianity, but a civilization which was not Christian.' As he says:

66

' in our industrial system [!] we have let loose the spirit of grab and push, the oppression of the weak and the admiration of mere success, as scarcely any other land has done."

What is the result? A relatively small number have become so wealthy that they have lost all direct control of their stewardship. Again the only answer to the indictment in the present pamphlet against the press would probably be the excuse that individual responsibility is impossible, owing to the wide range of indirect control.

There is, we think, one point that Mr. Temple has omitted to make in combating the arguments of those who aver that Christ refused to employ force. The indisputable case to the contrary, when he drove out those who were desecrating a place formally exempted by men from the results of their greed, may well appeal to those who fight on behalf of Belgian neutrality.

66

Mr. Roberts, in the second pamphlet, asks, from the national standpoint, Are We Worth Fighting For?' Individually, when they remember the cost in the lives of men with the highest ideals of sacrifice, some may sorrowfully answer No." Fortunately, those who thus honestly answer can put aside the despair which might benumb their efforts because they can "But the National Ideal is worth add: For many, we fear, it is a matter of greater congratulation that our interest runs concurrently for once with our duty. We doubt if some of Mr. Roberts's encomiums on the British Empire are true in fact as yet. The war has already done much, but an easily secured success may be as bad for a nation as it is for an individual.

it.'

Mrs. Paget embraces some most trenchant sayings in her pamphlet. We are inclined to deprecate the restrictive title. It is certainly not "the Woman's Part" only to recognize that "if we have accounted leisure as our own, we can do so no longer. Every moment is redeemed for us by the Fleet and the Army." men and women both must come the

To

question: Who am I to sit at ease while others suffer?" When that question is properly answered war will end. If the true economy urged in this pamphlet had been the system of the day, the war might never have occurred. As Mrs. Paget says: God may never be so entirely absent as amidst a materialistic peace.' If those against whom we are fighting had had reason to believe in our willingness to sacrifice to the uttermost on be

half of what we consider right, bloodshed

would not have been needed to convince them of the spirit of the nation.

Socrates: the Man and his Mission. By R. Nicol Cross. (Methuen & Co., 58. net.)

WE welcome this volume as an agreeable change from the usual academic textbook. It is addressed, as Mr. Cross tells us in his Preface, not to experts and scholars, but to the ordinary reader, " in order to tempt the average Englishman of culture to hold company for a little while with one of Earth's most elect spirits and leaders." In spite of this modest disclaimer, Mr. Cross's book is one that should not be neglected, even by the expert. It contains a convenient collection in English dress of most of the available material concerning the life and teaching of Socrates; this material is arranged and classified with considerable skill, and, what is more, many of the stock subjects of controversy among the experts themselves are handled with freshness and

frankness.

war books 18 un

abated. We have fresh descriptions of the Kaiser and his Prussians; stories of the Fleet; accounts of the British, French, and other armies from within; a recital of Japanese emotions in 1904; sensations of a war correspondent, and the diary of What English girl in Belgium. exactly are the objects and aims of such literature is not clear to us. At any rate,

an

we see some result in the redoubled efforts of Callisthenes and his friends; the novel trade-inciting posters in the shops; and the increased sale of flags, special editions, and all that can flaunt the appearance of war in England before the eyes of the thousands of eligible, able-bodied men who walk the pavements of London as usual. The question is: Can such books transform, to the imagination of their readers, appearance into reality? The authors have done their best. The Real Kaiser' is a sound picture of the "Man Responsible," his influence and his methods-just those methods (the author does not seem to realize this fully) that are bound to have full effect in his empire. His undoubted capacity for business of many kinds, peaceful and warlike; his rhetoric; his taste for the sudden, the inopportune, the dramatic; even his heavy practical jokes, and his care for the tablemanners of his subjects-not to mention his calculated and masterly handling of the "Divine Right" idea-all these have served to galvanize into activity a nation that might otherwise slumber peacefully, after its Mittagessen, over a Bach Fugue, murmuring at moments ecstatic approval.

Where the Kaiser relaxes his efforts, a worthy substitute is found in the person of his son. The writer of the book insists that the Crown Prince is even more responsible than his sire for the fostering and final outbreak of the spirit of "militarismus."

The two are ably supported by the "Unspeakable Prussian in general, as Mr. Sheridan Jones calls him. Mr. Jones piles up facts and fancies in the correct Fleet Street proportion; he knows his readers and how to present before them his case, whether it concerns Home Rule, Capitalism, or Anti-Semitism, or (as now) Prussia. But he has an omission here and there. He says (p. 126): "The Legacy Duty was raised in some cases as high as twelve per cent"; in England the Legacy and Estate Duties have reached 14 and 15 per cent on their due occasions.

He

Controversial argument, however, is the least part of Mr. Cross's business. He is no pedant writing about abstract historical problems. Rather he is a live man writing about a live man for the benefit of live men. He tells the story of Socrates with the ardour of a disciple preaching the gospel of his master. In this spirit of infectious enthusiasm lies the main merit of the book, a merit which more than outweighs some faults of style and diction. No mere dryasdust appeal to the intellect will gain recruits to any The Unspeakable Prussian. By C. Sheridan cause the flags must be seen flying, and the drums must be heard beating, if the ranks are to be filled. Mr. Cross adopts, we believe, the right method for gaining recruits to the army of the great Athenian among average Englishmen of culture.' Slips in revision occur on pp. 2, 52, 70, 240, 268; and the date assigned to the Clouds on p. 274 does not tally with that on p. 8.

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The Real Kaiser. (Melrose, 1s. net.)

Jones. (Cassell & Co., 2s. net.) Human Bullets.

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First from the Front. By Harold Ashton.

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An Englishwoman's Adventures in the German Lines. By Gladys Lloyd. (Same publishers, 1s. net.)

Following the Drum. By Horace Wyndham. (Melrose, 1s. net.)

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only by exacting a punishment so severe as to be felt by every man, woman, and child in Germany, can we protect civilisation against another visitation of such horrers

but he fails to add that we must first be in a state to justify our power to exact he ranges himself punishment; in a word, with the crowds who were reconstituting the map of Europe in the first week of August. Are we yet out of the wood? Finally he, as well as the author of The Real Kaiser,' forgets that, if the Kaiser had kept quiet, we might have been more on our guard; that very bluster and movement" Sturm und Drang und Plötzlichkeit "-put us off our guard.

Lieut. Sakurai's Human Bullets,' which we are glad to see once again, reveals a national sentiment of a very different order. Naive and emotional as the language must seem to most readers, it conveys the feeling universal in Japan that the country was in danger, and that nothing else counted-money, business, friendships, family, wife and child, all were subordinate to this; and the one and only defect (if defect it were) was the reluctance to retreat when retreat was necessary; but then skilful and efficient retreat is the hardest of all tasks for armies and generals. The book shows, as clearly as words can, the actuality of the RussoJapanese War, and the spirit that animated both sides; no horror is minimized, no thrill forgotten.

Mr. Harold Ashton is not a combatant, but a correspondent, and he uses, in all conscientiousness, every device of imagery and wording known to his trade. His voyages to Esbjerg, to Chantilly, to Gournay, Beauvais, Lagny, Senlis, are vivid to the utmost; he can write a "special article against any one, and has studied G. W. Steevens and Julian Ralph to some purpose; perhaps he has also studied Mr. G. K. Chesterton and the inimitable "war" article straight from Notting Hill; in any case, he has searched the Scriptures and the seas for phrases and similes. But he fails-and probably he knows it-to make the impression achieved by the plain soldier's letter from the trenches.

Miss Lloyd's Adventures in the German Lines' has, perhaps, a better chance of success. She describes in the simplest way her experiences in Belgium, her talks. with the villagers and the Uhlans; frightened, but resolute to hide all show of fright, she stands up splendidly to them, and speaks her mind at the very muzzles of their revolvers; she is struck by one of them, arrested, cross-examined, bullied, searched, but she never loses. her courage, her resolve to protect her beloved villagers and conceal all useful information from the invaders; nor does she lose her sense of humour, when for