We came level with the sentries at the gate. One of them took a step forward, as if to ask Robin a question. Then he looked at us again, and changed his mind. I have a sort of idea that my white waistcoat and ornamental watch chain saved the situation. No one with such belongings could fail to be a personage of clerkly habit.
In that instant, however, faith had almost faltered, and the temptation to quicken one's pace had been almost irresistible. To bolt into the comparative freedom of the main square was now quite feasible, but we had to remember that once there, our difficulties were only half over. Every gate was guarded: the same high railings as we had already negotiated formed its perimeter, and there was a battalion of soldiers in the square itself. Therefore until we were out of the Seraskerat, we had to proceed with caution.
Lethargically and nonchalantly we drew away from the restaurant. Although time was now a factor of importance (for at any moment the sentries in the garden might miss us), we dared not hurry our steps.
"There are no cars about. Are we going into the garage?" I murmured doubtfully to Robin.
At that moment an individual came up behind us, who settled the question out of hand. He was a Turkish officer. After passing us, he turned round to stare.We returned his scrutiny with careful composure, but it was quite obvious that he did not like the look of us. Yet our appearance was none of his business: he hesitated a moment and then decided to do exactly what one might do oneself if one saw a suspicious-looking individual in a public place: he went and told a policeman. We saw him hurrying to the main gate, where he called out the sergeant of the guard. We, meanwhile, were slinking diagonally across the square, as if bound for the side gate. To go to the garage now, as if approaching it from the Ministry of War, was impossible, as we were being watched. We whispered together, making new plans.
It was almost past twilight, but the electric light over the main gate showed us the Turkish officer in confabulation with the sergeant of the guard. No doubt he was saying that our passports should be scrutinised before we were allowed to pass. The sergeant saluted as the officer left, and then stood in the circle of light, a burly and menacing figure, peering into the gathering darkness.
We had now reached the middle of the Seraskerat and saw that the side gate was shut, and sentry-guarded. There was also a sentry in the adjacent shed. The main gate was impossible of access. So also was the garage. Our only chance lay in going forward.
We went on, past the shed, until we reached some small trees by the side of the outer railings. We tried to put our heads through, but owing to a slightdifference of spacing, we found this could not be done. We would have to climb over them.
A couple of people were crossing the square. The sergeant stood blinking at the entrance. Else all was quiet.
The railings were only some twelve foot high, so they did not form a serious obstacle, but on their other side there was a drop of ten feet, into a crowded street. That someone would raise an alarm seemed very probable.
From the top of the railings I looked back to the prison where I had passed the last two months, and then forward to the street.
Two little girls stood hand in hand, gaping up at me. A street hawker glanced in my direction. Except for these, no passer-by appeared to notice us.
I dropped in a heap on the pavement. Next moment Robin landed beside me.
We were free once more, this time not to be recaught.
The two little girls clapped their hands with glee when they saw us drop. As to the street hawker, I daresay he thought we were robbers, and as such, people not to be interfered with. The other passers-by merely edged away from us. No one, in Constantinople, will involve himself in any civil commotion if he can avoid it. Whether the disturbance be a fire or theft, the procedure is the same. If your neighbour is being robbed, you look the other way. If your house is being burnt, you bribe the fire brigade notto come near it, for it they do, they will assuredly loot everything that the flames do not consume. Hence the sight of two wild men dropping into a crowded street stirred no civic conscience. No one asked who we were.
We crossed the tramway lines unmolested, and dived into a narrow street leading down the hill. Then we ran and ran and ran.
That our escape would be instantly reported we did not doubt. That Galata Bridge would be watched and all our old haunts also seemed certain. The care with which we had been guarded showed that the Turks set a value on keeping us out of harm's way. At large in the city we would be factors of unrest.
Avoiding main streets, we toiled on and on, through dark by-ways where the moonlight did not come, until we reached the old bridge across the Golden Horn. Here we decided to separate for the time, so that if one of us was caught by the toll-keepers, the other could still make good his escape.
But the toll-keepers took their tribute of a stamp without demur. They knew nothing of British prisoners.
Crossing, we turned right-handed, passing behind the American Ambassador's yachtScorpion, at her berth near the Turkish Admiralty, and then went up into the European quarter. In Pera we knew a score of houses, between us, that would be glad to give us lodging, and it only remained to choose the most convenient.
It is late at night, some days before the Armistice. I am in the gardens of the British Embassy, with a certain Colonel, an escaped prisoner of war like myself, who is in close touch with the political situation. We had come here, in disguise, to be out of the turmoil of the town.
Outside, in the unquiet streets, men talk of revolution. Gangs of soldiers are under arms for twenty-four hours at a stretch. Machine guns are posted everywhere. The docks are an armed camp. Detectives and informers, the prison and the press-gang are at their old work. All is still dark in Constantinople; but we, fugitives at present, and meeting by stealth, speak of the day so soon to come when the barren flagstaff on the roof of the Embassy will carry the Union Jack.
Below us, as we walk on the terrace, lies the Golden Horn, silver in the starlight, and across its waters the city of Stamboul stands dim, forlorn, and lovely. The slip of moon that rides over San Sofia seems symbol of the waning of misery and intolerance. Soon that sickle will disappear, and when the moon of the Moslems rises again and looks through the garden where we talk, she will see all round it a happier city. . . . Let us hope so, anyway.
Of the maze of plot and counterplot in the city, of the death-throes of the old régime, and of our own small part in the history of that time, this record ofmoods and misadventures is not the place to write. My life as a prisoner was finished: my brief career as a minor diplomat, keeping his finger on the feverish pulse of Turkish politics, had only just begun, and the story of those crowded weeks would fill a volume.
Up to the last moment, the Government, in the person of Taalat Pasha, hoped to hold the real, if not the ostensible, reins of power. Until the flight of the Union and Progress triumvirate, the average Turk affected a certain lightheartedness about his country's losses. True, huge territories were lost to the Ottoman revenue, but on the other hand they had gained the Caucasus. So long as there was taxable territory, what did it matter whence the tribute came?
One night, when my newspaper work permitted, I visited a friend of Taalat Pasha, without disclosing my identity.
"Nobody but Taalat can possibly manage Turkey," he told me—"and the English, if they come, will be well advised to deal with him."
"It is not the English only," I suggested modestly, "but the whole world-set-free, that is coming to Constantinople."
"Then the world must deal with Taalat. His party has all the money, and all the brains and energy as well."
"Everything except imagination," I replied.
But I did not myself imagine that only thirty-six hours later Taalat, the fat telegraphist whom Fatecaught in her toils, and Enver, with his peacock-grace and peacock-wits, and Djemal, with cruelty stamped on him like the brand of Cain, would pass disguised, and in darkness, and in fear of death, through the city they had ruled as kings.
Neither did I imagine that in another fortnight the streets of Pera would be decked with banners, and the capital of the Turks a playground for the peoples against whom they had lately been at war. Nor did I know that I should soon be listening to the strains of "Rule Britannia," at the Pera Palace Hotel, while an enthusiastic crowd showered confetti on the bald head of the Colonel who had just arrived as the first British representative. Nor did I know that I should telephone to the papers to stop their press, while I motored down with the first interview from our delegate. Nor, again, could I realise that the pomp of the Prussians would be so suddenly replaced by pipes and walking-sticks and dogs. Nor did I even dream that the fifty-sixty horse-power Mercédès car in which General Liman von Sanders was still racing through the streets would soon be my property, bought and paid for in gold, complete with all accessories, including even the chauffeur's diary, and that I should garage it in a garden where a performing bear stood guard against any attempt at theft by the disorderly and demoralised Germans. These things are another story.
Telegrams: "Scholarly, London." 41 and 43 Maddox Street,Telephone: 1883 Mayfair. Bond Street, London, W. 1.October, 1919.
The "History of John Redmond's Last Years," by Stephen Gwynn, is in the first place an historical document of unusual importance. It is an account of Irish political events at their most exciting period, written by an active member of Mr. Redmond's party who was in the confidence of his chief. The preliminary story of the struggle with the House of Lords and the prolonged fight over Home Rule is described by a keen student of parliamentary action. For the period which began with the war Mr. Gwynn has had access to all Redmond's papers. He writes of Redmond's effort to lead Ireland into the war from the standpoint of a soldier as well as a member of parliament. The last chapter gives to the world, for the first time, a full account of the Irish Convention which sat for eight months behind closed doors, and in which Redmond's career reached its dramatic catastrophe.
The interlocking of varying chains of circumstance, the parliamentary struggle, the rise of the rival volunteer forces, the raising of Irish divisions, the rebellion and its sequel, and, finally, the effect of bringing Irishmen together into conference—all this is vividly pictured, with increasing detail as the book proceeds. In the opening, two short chapters recall the earlier history of the Irish party and Redmond's part in it.
But the main interest centres in the character of Redmond himself. Mr. Gwynn does not work to display his leader as a hero without faults and incapable of mistakes. He shows the man as he knew him and worked under him, traces his career through its triumphs to reverses, and through gallant recovery to final defeat. A great man is made familiar to the reader, in hiswisdom, his magnanimity, and his love of country. The tragic waste of great opportunities is portrayed in a story which has the quality of drama in it. Beside the picture of John Redmond himself there is sketched the gallant and sympathetic figure of his brother, who, after thirty-five years of parliamentary service, died with the foremost wave of his battalion at the battle of Messines.
Sir David Hunter Blair, late Abbot of Fort Augustus, in the first part of these fifty years' recollections, deals with his childhood and youth in Scotland, and gives a picture full of varied interest of Scottish country house life a generation or more ago. Very vivid, too, is the account of early days at what was then the most famous private school in England; and the chapter on Eton under Balston and Hornby gives thumbnail sketches of a great many Etonians, school-contemporaries of the writer's, and bearing names afterwards very well known for one reason or another. Eton was followed by Magdalen; and undergraduate life in the Oxford of 1872 is depicted with a light hand and many amusing touches. There was foreign travel after the Oxford days; and two of the most pleasantly descriptive chapters of the book deal with Rome in the reign of Pius IX. and Leo XIII., both of which Pontiffs the author served as Private Chamberlain. There is much also that is fresh and interesting in the section treating of the lives and personalities of some of the great English Catholic families of by-gone days.
Sir David entered the Benedictine Order at the age of twenty-five; and the latter half of the book is concerned with his life as co-founder, and member of the community of, the great Highland Abbey of Fort Augustus, of which he rose later to be the second abbot. The intimate account given in these pages of the life of a modern monk will be new to most readers, who will find it very interesting reading. The writer's monastic experiences embrace not only his own beautiful home in the Central Highlands, but Benedictine life and work in England, in Belgium, Germany and Portugal, and in South America. One of the most novel and attractive chapters in the book is that dealing with the work of the Order in the vast territory of Brazil.
The volume is illustrated with an excellent portrait, and with some clever black-and-white drawings, the work of Mr. Richard Anson, one of the author's religious brethren, and a member of the Benedictine community at Caldey Abbey, in South Wales.
Among the many "side-shows" of the Great War, few are so difficult for the average reader to understand as the operations in Northern Persia, an offshoot of the Bagdhad venture, which had for their object the policing of the warlike tribes in an area almost unknown to Europeans, and included the various attempts to reach and hold Baku, and so get command of the Caspian and Caucasia.
The story of these operations—carried out by little, half-forgotten bodies of troops, mainly local levies who broke at the critical moment and left their British officers and N.C.O.'s to carry on alone—is one of the most amazing of the whole War, and comprises many episodes that recall the most stirring events of the Empire's pioneering days.
By happy chance, Major M. H. Donohoe, the famous War Correspondent, whose work for theDaily Chroniclein all the wars of the past twenty years is well known, was in this part of the world as a Major on the Intelligence Staff, work for which his knowledge of men and languages off the beaten tract peculiarly fitted him. He has written the story of these operations as he saw them, chiefly as a member of the Staff of the Military Mission under General Byron, known officially as the "Baghdad Party," and unofficially as the "Hush-Hush Brigade," which set forth early in 1918 to join the Column under General Dunsterville. Though there is little of fighting in the story, the book gives an admirable picture of the Empire's work done faithfully under difficulties, and glimpses of places and peoples that are almost unknown even to the most venturesome traveller. Indeed, it is largely as a book about an unknown land that this volume will attract, together with its little pen-portraits of men and little pen-pictures of adventures, that Kipling would love.
How the war, as seen at close quarters, struck a man eminent in another profession than that of arms is the distinguishing feature of this volume of personal impressions. It is not, however,merely the outcome of a few weeks' sojourn or "trip to the trenches," with one eye on an expectant public, for the author has four times seen autumn fade into winter on the flat countryside of Flanders, and, when the war ended, was still at his post rendering invaluable services amidst unforgettable scenes. The author's comments on the day-to-day happenings are distinguished by a tone that is at once manly, reflective, and good-humoured. Medical questions are naturally prominent, but are dealt with largely in a manner that should interest the layman at the present time. Sir Wilmot was with Lord Roberts when he died. A very pleasing feature of the book is the constant revelation of the author's love of nature and sport, and his happy way of introducing such topics, together with descriptions of the country around him, makes a welcome contrast to the stern events which form the staple material of the book. There are some very amusing stories.
This book embraces so much more than the ordinary war story that we have a peculiar difficulty in describing it in a few chosen words.
The curtain lifts the day after the battle of Sheria, one of the minor fights in General Allenby's first campaign—those movements of troops which came only to a pause with the capture of Jerusalem. Gaza has just been taken. You are introduced to one of the companies of a London battalion serving in the East, of which company the author is commander. The reading of a few lines, the passing of a few moments, causes you (such is the power of right words) to beattachedto that company and to move in imagination with it across the dazzling plain. When you have tramped a few miles you begin to realise, perhaps for the first time, the heat and torment of a day's march in Philistia. It is not long before you feel that you, too, are adventuring with the toiling soldiers; with them you wonder where the halting place will be, what sort of bivouac you are likely to hit upon. By this time you will have met the officers—Temple, Trobus, Jackson—and are coming to have a nodding acquaintance with the men. Desire to compass the unknown, and sympathetic interest in the experiences of a company of your own country-men, Londoners footing it in a foreign land, now takes you irresistibly into the very heart of the tale, and you become one with the narrator. With him you wander among the ruins of Gaza, pass into southern Palestine, andcome to the foot-hills of Judea. With him you slowly become conscious that the long series of marches is planned to culminate in an assault upon Jerusalem. Now you are part of a dusty column winding up into Judea by the Jerusalem road, looking hour by hour upon those natural phenomena that suggested the parables. "London Men in Palestine" brings all this home to you as if you were a passer-by. Next, the massing of troops about the Holy City is described, and you are given a distant view of the city itself. A chapter follows that describes the coming of the rains. Then you spend a night in an old rock-engendered fortress-village while troops pass through to the attack, the storm still at its height. A chapter follows that tells of a crowded day—too complex and full of incident here to be described. The book closes with an exciting description of a fight on the Mount of Olives.
The writer of these remarkable memoirs, whose anonymity will not veil his identity from his friends, is a man well known, not only in England, but also abroad, and the pages are full of the writer's charm, and gaiety of spirit, and "courage of a day that knows not death." Day by day, in the thick of the most stirring events in history, he jotted down his impressions at first hand, and although parts of the diary cannot yet be published, enough is given to the world to form a graphic and very human history.
Our author was present at the most critical part of the Retreat from Mons. He took part in the dramatic defence of Landrecies, and the stand at Compiegne. Wounded, and a prisoner, he describes his experiences in a German hospital and his subsequent recapture by the British during the Marne advance.
The scene then shifts to Gallipoli, where he was present at the immortal first landing, surely one of the noblest pages of our history. He took part in the fierce fighting at Suvla Bay, and, owing to his knowledge of Turkish, he had amazing experiences during the Armistice arranged for the burial of the dead.
Later, the author was in Mesopotamia, where he accompanied the relieving force in their heroic attempt to save Kut. On several occasions he was sent out between the lines to conduct negociations between the Turks and ourselves.
"Mons, Anzac, and Kut" . . . A day and a day will pass, before the man and the moment meet to give us another book like this. We congratulate ourselves that the author survived to write it.
Major Turner served in the flying arm throughout the great conflict, chiefly as an instructor of officers of the Royal Naval Air Service, and then of the Royal Air Force in the principles of flight, aerial navigation, and other subjects. He did much experimental work, made one visit to the Front, and was mentioned in dispatches. The Armistice found him in the position of Chief Instructor at No. 2 School of Aeronautics, Oxford.
The classification of this book explains its scope and arrangement. The chapters are as follows:
Capabilities of Aircraft; Theory in 1914; The flight to France and Baptism of Fire; Early Surprises; Fighting in the Air, 1914-1915; 1916; 1917; 1918; Zeppelins and the Defence; Night Flying; The Zeppelin Beaten; Aeroplane Raids on England; Bombing the Germans; Artillery Observation; Reconnaissance and Photography; Observation Balloons; Aircraft and Infantry; Sea Aircraft; Heroic Experimenters; Casualties in the Third Arm; The Robinson Quality.
This book contains a full measure of adventure and excitement. The author, who is a Captain in the Indian Cavalry, was serving in the Air Force in Mesopotamia in 1915, and was captured through an accident to the aeroplane while engaged in a hazardous and successful attempt to cut the Turkish telegraph lines north and west of Baghdad, just before the Battle of Ctesiphon. Then came the horrors of the journey to Constantinople, during which the "terrible Turk" showed himself in his worst colours; but it was in Constantinople that the most thrilling episodes of his captivity had their origin. The story of the Author's first attempt to escape (which did not succeed) and of his subsequent lucky dash for freedom, is one of intense interest, and is told in a most vivid and dramatic way.
This book is the life-story of a young New Zealander who was killed in action at the Dardanelles in June, 1915. It is told mainly in his own letters and diaries—which have been supplemented, so far as was needful, with the utmost tact and discretion by his sister—and falls naturally into three principal stages. Allen spent four very strenuous years, 1907-1911, at Cambridge, where he occupied a prominent position among his contemporaries as an active member, and eventually President of the Union. Though undergraduate politics are not usually taken very seriously by the outside world, yet this side of Allen's Cambridge career has an interest far transcending the merely personal one. Possessed, as he was, of remarkable gifts, which he had cultivated by assiduous practice as a speaker and writer, and passionately interested in all that concerns the British Empire, and the present and future relations between the United Kingdom and the Overseas Dominions, his record may well stand as representative of the attitude of theéliteof the New Zealand youth towards these vital matters in the period just preceding the war.
After Cambridge, he returned for a time to New Zealand, where he resolved to make his permanent home, but came back to England in December, 1913, to complete his legal studies and get called to the bar, and was still in England when the war broke out. Consequently the second stage is the story of seven months' experience as a lieutenant in the 13th Battalion of the Worcesters, and his letters of this period give an attractive, and intensely graphic account of the making of the new army. Finally, he was despatched, with a few other selected officers, to the Dardanelles, arrived on May 25th at Cape Helles, and was attached to the Essex regiment. The last stage, brief, glorious, and terrible, lasted only twelve days but, brief as it was, he had time to draw an enthralling picture of the unexampled horrors of this particular phase of trench-warfare. The book is steeped, from beginning to end, in a sober but fervent enthusiasm; and the cult of the Empire, in its noblest form, has seldom been as finely exemplified as by the life and death of John Allen.
A series of charming sketches by a young New Zealander, who died in December, 1917, on the threshold of a brilliant literary career. Noël Ross was one of those daring Anzacs who made the landing on Gallipoli. Wounded in the early days of the terrible fighting there, he was discharged from the Army, came to London, rejoined there, and obtained a commission in the Royal Field Artillery. Afterwards he became a valued member of the Editorial Staff ofThe Times, on which his genius was at once recognized and highly appreciated. Much of his work appeared inThe Times, and he was also a contributor toPunch. In collaboration with his father, Captain Malcolm Ross, the New Zealand War Correspondent, he was the author of "Light and Shade in War," of which theDaily Mailsaid: "It is full of Anzac virility, full of Anzac buoyancy, and surcharged with that devil-may-care humour that has so astounded us jaded peoples of an older world."
His writings attracted the attention of such capable writers as Rudyard Kipling, and Sir Ian Hamilton, who said he reminded him in many ways of that gallant and brilliant young Englishman, Rupert Brooke.
In this volume Colonel Picot tells us, in simple and lucid fashion, how some thousands of our much tried and suffering countrymen were transferred—to the eternal credit of Switzerland—from the harsh conditions of captivity to a neutral soil, there to live in comparative freedom amid friendly surroundings. He describes in some detail the initiative taken by the Swiss Government on behalf of the Prisoners of War in general, and the negociations which preceded the acceptance by the Belligerent States of the principle of Internment, and then recounts the measures taken by that Government for the hospitalization ofsome 30,000 Prisoners of War, and the organization of a Medical Service for the treatment of the sick and wounded.
Turning, then, more particularly to the group of British prisoners, he deals with their discipline, their camp life, the steps taken for spiritual welfare, and the organization of sports and recreations, and an interesting chapter records the efforts made to afford them technical training in view of their return to civil life.
The book also comprises a resumé of the formation and development of the Bread Bureau at Berne, which ultimately, in providing bread for 100,000 British prisoners of war in Germany, doubtless saved countless lives; and a description of the activities of the British Legation Red Cross Organization, both of which institutions were founded by Lady Grant Duff, wife of H.M.'s Minister at Berne.
Colonel Picot throws many interesting sidelights on life in Switzerland in war-time—diplomatic, social, and artistic—and his modest and self-effacing narrative dwells generously on the devotion of all those who, whether by appointment or chance, were associated with him in his beneficent labours.
It is hoped that this account of a special phase in the history of our countrymen will prove of interest to that large public who have shown in countless ways their sympathy with all that concerns the welfare of Prisoners of War.
With exquisite literary art which the reading public has recognised in "Tante" and others of her novels, the author of this book tells of a great lady's childhood in picturesque Brittany in the middle of the last century. It covers that period of life around which the tenderest and most vivid memories cluster; a childhood set in a district of France rich in romance, and rich in old loyalties to manners and customs of a gracious era that is irrevocably in the past.
Charming vignettes of character, marvellous descriptions of houses, costumes and scenery, short stories in silhouette of pathetic or humorous characters—these are also in the book.
And through it all the author is seen re-creating a background, which has profoundly influenced one of the finest literary artists of the last century.
The present volume, which is beautifully got up and illustrated, deals with form and line in the garden, a subject comparatively new in England.
Lady Wolseley's book suggests simple, inexpensive means—the outcome of practical knowledge and experience—for achieving charming results in gardens of all sizes. Her College of Gardening at Glynde has shown Lady Wolseley how best to make clear to those who have never before thought about garden design, some of the complex subjects embraced by it, such as Water Gardens, Rock Gardens, Treillage, Paved Gardens, Surprise Gardens, etc. The book contains many decorative and imaginative drawings by Miss Mary G. Campion, as well as a large number of practical diagrams and plans, which further illustrate the author's ideas and add to the value of the book.
It is some years since the fifth series of "Memories of the Months" was issued, but the demand for Sir Herbert Maxwell's charming volumes continues unabated. Every year rings new changes on the old order of Nature, and the observant eye can always find fresh features on the face of the Seasons. Sir Herbert Maxwell goes out to meet Nature on the moor and loch, in garden and forest, and writes of what he sees and feels. It is a volume of excellent gossip, the note-book of a well-informed and high-spirited student of Nature, where the sportsman's ardour is tempered always with the sympathy of the lover of wild things, and the naturalist's interest is leavened with the humour of a cultivated man of the world. This is what gives the work its abiding charm, and makes these memories fill the place of old friends on the library bookshelf.
The contents of this volume being based upon the author's many years' practical experience of single-handed sailing, are sure to be acceptable to those who, either from choice or necessity, make a practice of cruising alone. Of the four thousand or more yachts whose names appear in Lloyd's Register, quite a considerable proportion are small craft used for the most part for week-end cruising, and single-handed sailing is a proposition that the owner of a week-ender cannot afford altogether to ignore. To be dependent upon the assistance of friends, who may leave one in the lurch at the eleventh hour, is a miserable business that can only be avoided by having a yacht which one is capable of handling alone. The ideal arrangement is to have a vessel of sufficient size to accommodate one or two guests and yet not too large to be sailed single-handed at a pinch. In this book Mr. Cooke gives some valuable hints on the equipment and handling of such a craft, which, it may be remarked, can, in the absence of paid hands, be maintained at comparatively small cost.
The author is well known as one of the leading authorities on road-making, and he deals at length with Traffic, Water-bound Macadam Roads, Surface Tarring, Bituminous Roads, Waves and Corrugations, Slippery Roads, Paved Streets (Stone and Wood, etc.), Concrete Road Construction, etc.
The Provost of Eton needs no introduction as a past master of the art of making our flesh creep, and those who have enjoyed his earlier books may rest assured that his hand has lost none of its blood-curdling cunning. Neither is it necessary to remind them that Dr. James's inexhaustible stories of archæological erudition furnish him with a unique power of giving his gruesome tales a picturesque setting, and heightening by their literary and antiquarian charm the exquisite pleasure derived from thrills of imaginary terror. This latter quality has never been more happily displayed than in the stories contained in the present volume, which we submit with great confidence to the judgment of all who appreciate—and who does not?—a good old-fashioned hair-raising ghost story.
The present age is seeing an unprecedented advance in educational theory and practice; its whole outlook on the ideals and methods of teaching is being widened. The aim of this new series is to present the considered views of teachers of wide experience, and eminent ability, upon the changes in method involved in this development, and upon the problems which still remain to be solved, in the several branches of teaching with which they are most intimately connected. It is hoped, therefore, that these volumes will be instructive not only to teachers, but to all who are interested in the progress of education.
Each volume contains an index and a comprehensive bibliography of the subject with which it deals.