MORE LIGHT FROM OUR LEADERS.

"Ladies' Self-trimmed Velvet Hate for One Shilling."—North-Country Paper.

The latest fashion in Berlin.

Byway of a supplement to the Candle-shade epigrams recently contributed by various distinguished men and women of light and leading, we have been fortunate to secure the following sentiments for St. Valentine's Day from several luminaries who were conspicuously absent from the list.

Mr.Harry Lauder, the illustrious comedian, poetizes as follows:—

"Let those wha wull compile the nation's annals, And guide oor thochts in strict historic channels; Ma Muse prefers, far fra these dull morasses, To laud the purrrple heather and the lassies."

Mr.Stevenson, the incomparable cueist, sends this pithy distich:—

"Big guns are useful in their way, 'tis true, But nursery cannons have their uses too."

MissCarrie Tubb, the famous soprano, writes:—

"Butt me no butts. Though carping critics flout us, What wouldDiogeneshave done without us?"

A distinguished actor gives as his favourite quotation the couplet fromGoldsmith:—

"A man he was financially unique, And passing poor on forty pounds a week."

Mr.Bernard Shawcontributes this characteristic definition of genius:—

"Genius consists in an infinite capacity for giving pain."

The Air Candidate for Mile End sends the following witty and topical epigram:—

"Mid war's alarms there is no time for cooing, ButBillingmay prevent our land's undoing."

"We are all familiar with the poetic words: 'There's many a gem that's born to blush unseen, and waste its fragrance on the desert air.'"—Kilmarnock Herald.

Our own ignorance of this gem makes us blush (unseen, we hope).

"How To Keep Warm.—In Great Britain I think a shirt, vest and coat enough covering for the ordinary man. I wear no more."

Reynolds Newspaper.

No one who follows this advice need fear a chill. The police are sure to make it warm for him.

"When Sir Stanley (now Lord) Buckmaster succeeded Mr. (now Sir) F. E. Smith in the chief responsibility for the Bureau he made a point of betting on friendly terms with the representatives of the Fourth Estate."

Bristol Times and Mirror.

Several of them, it is well known, have been charged with book-making.

"Lady(Young) seeks Sit. in shop; butcher's preferred; would like to learn scales."

Morning Paper

Why not try a piano-monger's?

She. "And are you only just back from the trenches? How interesting! You will be able to tell us the real truth about the Kaiser's illness."She. "And are you only just back from the trenches? How interesting! You will be able to tell us the real truth about the Kaiser's illness."

She. "And are you only just back from the trenches? How interesting! You will be able to tell us the real truth about the Kaiser's illness."

Ourbutcher's name is Bones. Yes, I know it sounds too good to be true. But I can't help it. Once more, his name is Bones.

There is something wrong with Bones. Mark him as he stands there among all those bodies of sheep and oxen, feeling with his thumb the edge of that long sharp knife and gazing wistfully across the way to where the greengrocer's baby lies asleep in its perambulator on the pavement. Observe him start with a sigh from his reverie as you enter his shop. What is the matter with him? Why should a butcher sigh?

I will tell you. He has been thinking about theKaiser, theKaiserwho is breaking his heart through the medium of the greengrocer's baby.

As all the world knows, between the ages of one and two the best British babies are built up on beef tea and mutton broth; at two or thereabouts they start on small chops. No one can say when the custom arose. Like so many of those unwritten laws on which the greatness of England is really based it has outgrown the memory of its origin. But its force is as universally binding to-day as it was in Plantagenet times. Thus, though numerous households since the War began have temporarily adopted a vegetarian diet, in the majority of cases a line has been drawn at the baby. That is why butchers at present look on babies as their sheet-anchors. It is through them that they keep the toe of their boot inside the family door. The little things they send for them serve as a memento of the old Sunday sirloin, a reminder that while nuts may nourish niggers the Briton's true prerogative is beef.

The greengrocer has given up meat. But he has done more than this. He has done what not even a greengrocer should do. He has broken the tradition of the ages. He is feeding his baby on bananas.

At first the greengrocer's baby did not like bananas and its cries were awful. But after a while it got used to them, and now even when it goes to bed it clutches one in its tiny hand. It is not so rosy as it was, but the greengrocer says red-faced babies are apoplectic and that the reason it twitches so much in its sleep is because it is so full of vitality. He is advising all his customers to feed their babies on bananas. Bones does not care much what happens to the greengrocer's baby, but he says if it lasts much longer he will have to put his shutters up. He is growing very despondent, and I noticed the other day that he had given up chewing suet—a bad sign in a butcher.

It is a duel of endurance between Bones and the greengrocer's baby. I wonder which will win.

"Mr. Buxton was severely heckled at the outset from all parts of the room. Each time he endeavoured to speak he was hailed with a torrent of howls, hoots and kisses."

Provincial Paper.

A notoriously effective way of stopping the mouth.

From the Lady's column inThe Cur:—

"Now about this word 'damn.' Of course you all think it is a good old Saxon word! Well, prepare for a surprise. It is derived from the Latin damnere."

Well, we are—surprised.

Motto for the next Turkish Revolution:Enver Renversé.

Householder. "But, hang it all, I can't see why that bomb next door should make you want to raise my rent!" Landlord. "Don't you perceive, my dear Sir, that your house is now semi-detached?"Householder. "But, hang it all, I can't see why that bomb next door should make you want to raise my rent!"Landlord. "Don't you perceive, my dear Sir, that your house is now semi-detached?"

Householder. "But, hang it all, I can't see why that bomb next door should make you want to raise my rent!"Landlord. "Don't you perceive, my dear Sir, that your house is now semi-detached?"

"Oh, dear," said Francesca, "everything keeps going up." She was engaged upon the weekly books and spoke in a tone of heartfelt despair.

"Well," I said, "you've known all along how it would be. Everybody's told you so."

"Everybody? Who's everybody in this case?"

"I told you so for one, and Mr.Asquithmentioned it several times, and so did Mr.McKenna."

"I have never," she said proudly, "discussed my weekly books with Messrs.AsquithandMcKenna. I should scorn the action."

"That's all very well," I said. "Keep them away as far as you can, but they'll still get hold of you. TheChancellor of the Exchequerknows your weekly books by heart."

"I wish," she said, "he'd add them up for me. He's a good adder-up, I suppose, or he wouldn't be what he is."

"He's fair to middling, I fancy—something like me."

"You!" she said, in a tone of ineffable contempt. "You're no good at addition."

"Francesca," I said, "you wrong me. I'm a great deal of good. Of course I don't pretend to be able to run three fingers up three columns of figures a yard long and to write down the result as £7,956 17s.8d., or whatever it may be, without a moment's pause. I can't do that, but for the ordinary rough-and-tumble work of domestic addition I'm hard to beat. Only if I'm to do these books of yours there must be perfect silence in the room. I mustn't be talked to while I'm wrestling with the nineteens and the seventeens in the shilling column."

"In fact," said Francesca, "you ought to be a deaf adder."

"Francesca," I said, "how could you? Give me the butcher's book and let there be no morejeux de motsbetween us."

I took the book, which was a masterpiece of illegibility, and added it up with my usual grace and felicity.

"Francesca," I said as I finished my task, "my total differs from the butcher's, but the difference is in his favour, not in mine. He seems to have imparted variety to his calculations by considering that it took twenty pence to make a shilling, which is a generous error. Now let me deal with the baker while you tackle the grocer, and then we'll wind up by doing the washing-book together."

The washing-book was a teaser, the items being apparently entered in Chaldee, but we stumbled through it at last.

"And now," I said, "we can take up the subject of thrift."

"I don't want to talk about it," she said, "I'm thoroughly tired of it. We've talked too much about it already."

"You're wrong there; we haven't talked half enough. If we had, the books wouldn't have gone up."

"They haven't gone up," she said. "They're about the same, but we've been having less."

"Noble creature," I said, "do you mean to say that you've docked me of one of my Sunday sausages and the whole of my Thursday roly-poly pudding and never said a word about it?"

"Well, you didn't seem to notice it, so I left it alone."

"Ah, but I did notice it," I said, "but I determined to suffer in silence in order to set an example to the children."

"That was bravely done," she said. "It encourages me to cut down the Saturday sirloin."

"But what will the servants say? They won't like it."

"They'll have to lump it then."

"But I thought servants never lumped it. I thought they always insisted on their elevenses and all their other food privileges."

"Anyhow," she said, "I'm going to make a push for economy and the servants must push with me. They won't starve, whatever happens."

"No, and if they begin to object you can talk to them about tonnage."

"That ought to bowl them over. But hadn't I better know what it means before I mention it?"

"Yes, that might be an advantage."

"You see," she said, "Mrs. Mincer devotes to the reading of newspapers all the time she can spare from the cooking of meals and she'd be sure to trip me up if I ventured to say anything about tonnage."

"Learn then," I said, "that tonnage means the amount of space reserved for cargoes on ships—at least I suppose that's what it means, and——"

"You don't seem very sure about it. Hadn't you better look it up?"

"No," I said. "That's good enough for Mrs. Mincer. Now if there's an insufficiency of tonnage——"

"But why should there be an insufficiency of tonnage?"

"Because," I said, "the Government have taken up so much tonnage for the purposes of the War. How did you think the Army got supplied with food and shells and guns and men? Did you think they flew over to France and Egypt and Salonica?"

"Don't be rude," she said. "I didn't introduce this question of tonnage. You did. And even now I don't see what tonnage has got to do with our sirloin of beef."

"I will," I said kindly, "explain it to you all over again. We have ample tonnage for necessaries, but not for luxuries."

"But my sirloin of beef isn't a luxury."

"For the purpose of my argument," I said, "it is a luxury and must be treated as such."

"Do you know," she said, "I don't think I'll bother about tonnage. I'll tackle Mrs. Mincer in my own way."

"You're throwing away a great opportunity," I said.

"Never mind," she said. "If I feel I'm being beaten I'll call you in. Your power of lucid explanation will pull me through."

R.C.L.

Elder to Beadle. "Well, John, how did you like the strange minister?" Beadle. "No Ava, Elder—he's an awfu' frichtened kin' a chap yon. Did ye notice how he aye talked aboot 'oor adversary, Satan'? Oor own meenister just ca's him plain 'deevil'—he doesna care a dom for him."Elder to Beadle. "Well, John, how did you like the strange minister?"Beadle. "No Ava, Elder—he's an awfu' frichtened kin' a chap yon. Did ye notice how he aye talked aboot 'oor adversary, Satan'? Oor own meenister just ca's him plain 'deevil'—he doesna care a dom for him."

Bronco dams they ran by on the ranges of the prairies,Heard the chicken drumming in the scented saskatoon,Saw the jewel humming-birds, the flocks of pale canaries,Heard the coyotes dirging to the ruddy Northern moon;Woolly foals, leggy foals, foals that romped and wrestled,Rolled in beds of golden-rod and charged to mimic fights,Saw the frosty Bear wink out and comfortably nestledClose beside their vixen dams beneath the wizard Lights.Far from home and overseas, older now—and wiser,Branded with the arrow brand, broke to trace and bit,Tugging up the grey guns "to strafe the bloomingKaiser,"Up the hill to Kemmel, where the Mauser bullets spit;Stiffened with the cold rains, mired and tired and gory,Plunging through the mud-holes as the batteries advance,Far from home and overseas—but battling on to gloryWith the English eighteen-pounders and the soixante-quinzes of France!

Far from home and overseas, older now—and wiser,Branded with the arrow brand, broke to trace and bit,Tugging up the grey guns "to strafe the bloomingKaiser,"Up the hill to Kemmel, where the Mauser bullets spit;Stiffened with the cold rains, mired and tired and gory,Plunging through the mud-holes as the batteries advance,Far from home and overseas—but battling on to gloryWith the English eighteen-pounders and the soixante-quinzes of France!

"Mrs. Pretty and the Premier."

FIRST LOVE; OR THE JEUNE PREMIER. Bill the Premier Mr. Arthur Bourchier. Mrs. Pretty Miss Kyrle Bellew.FIRST LOVE; OR THE JEUNE PREMIER.Bill the Premier Mr. Arthur Bourchier.Mrs. Pretty Miss Kyrle Bellew.

Bill the Premier Mr. Arthur Bourchier.Mrs. Pretty Miss Kyrle Bellew.

I amnot sure that I didn't find Mr.Bourchier's"Foreword" or Apologia (kindly given away with the programme) rather more entertaining than the play itself. As long as the dramatist (a New Zealander) concerned himself with the delightfully unconventional atmosphere of Antipodean politics he was illuminating and very possibly veracious. But the relations between thePremierand the widowPretty, which promised, as the title hinted, to be the main attraction, were such as never could have occurred on land or sea. It was impossible, with this farcical element always obtruding itself, to take the political features of the play seriously, as I gather that we were intended to do; and we got very little help from Mr.Bourchier'sown performance, which was frankly humorous. In his brochure he tells us with great solemnity that he is "more than pleased to think that the play may help to demonstrate to those of an older civilisation how truly the best of the so-called Labour politicians strive to serve their country and their fellow men.... Premier 'Bill' demonstrates vividly enough that, heart and soul, the Australian politician devotes himself to the uplifting of the great Commonwealth." Mr.Bourchier'stongue may or may not have been in his cheek when he penned these lofty sentiments, but anyhow it seemed to be there during most of the play.

He is on safer ground when he tells us that "in curiously vivid and pungent fashion this little play outlines the breezy freshness and the originality of outlook which almost invariably characterise the politicians and statesmen of the Prairie, the Veldt and the Bush, and which more than anything else perhaps differentiates them from the men of an older land, hampered as these latter often are by long and stately traditions." Certainly, in the matter of addressing its Premier by a familiar abbreviation of his Christian name (an authority who has travelled in these parts assures Mr.Bourchierthat he is "quite right:" that "people would call this Premier 'Bill' in Australia") the new world differs from the old. I cannot so much as contemplate the thought of Mr.Asquithbeing addressed by theMinister Of Munitionsas "Herb," or even "Bert."

But we have difficulties again with the Foreword (for I cannot get away from it) when we come to the question of the hero's virility. In the play his secretary says of him, "Bill's not a man, he's a Premier. A kind of dynamo running the country at top speed." Yet the Foreword, after citing this passage, goes on to insist upon his "tingling humanity" and hinting at the need of such a type of manhood at the present time. "After all," concludes Mr.Bourchierin a spasm of uplift—"after all, what is the cry of the moment here in the heart of the Empire, but for'a Man-Give us a Man!'" But even if we reject the secretary's estimate of his chief as a dynamo we still find a certain deficiency of manhood in the anæmic indifference of thePremier'sattitude to women; an attitude, by the way, not commonly associated with Mr.Bourchier'simpersonations on the stage.Mrs. Pretty'stastes are, of course, her own affair, and we were allowed little insight into her heart (if any), but I can only conclude that her choice was governed by political rather than emotional considerations ("Let us rememberWomen Have the Vote In Australia" is the finale of the Foreword) and that what she wanted was a Premier rather than a Man.

Of the play itself one may at least say that it kept fairly off the beaten track. There was novelty in its local colour, its unfamiliar types and the episode, adroitly managed, of a pair of gloves employed to muffle the division bell at the moment of a crisis on which the fate of the Government depended. But the design was too small to fill the stage of His Majesty's and it left me a little disappointed. I was content so long as Mr.Bourchierwas in sight, but the part ofMrs. Prettyneeded something more than the rather conscious graces and airy drapery of MissKyrle Bellew. The rest of the performance was sound but not very exhilarating; and altogether, though I hope I am properly grateful for any help towards the realisation of "Colonial conditions," I cannot honestly say thatMrs. Prettyand thePremierhas done very much for me (as Mr.Bourchierhoped it would) by way of supplementing the thrill of Anzac. O.S.

Edward Brown's official sheet,Humble though his station,Showed a record which the FleetViewed with admiration.Fifteen stainless summers boreFruit in serried cluster;Conduct stripes he proudly wore,One for every lustre.Picture then the blank amazeWhen this model ratingSuddenly developed traitsMost incriminating.Faults in baser spirits deemedMerely peccadillosIn that crystal mirror seemedVast as Biscay billows.Cautioned not to over-runNaval toleration,He replied in language un-Fit for publication.When the captain in alarmStrove to solve the riddle,Edward slipped a dreamy armRound that awful middle.Such a catastrophic changeSet his shipmates thinking;Rumour whispered, "It is strange;Clearly he is drinking."Ever more insistent gotThis malicious fable,Till he tied a true-love's knotIn the anchor cable.

Edward Brown's official sheet,Humble though his station,Showed a record which the FleetViewed with admiration.

Fifteen stainless summers boreFruit in serried cluster;Conduct stripes he proudly wore,One for every lustre.

Picture then the blank amazeWhen this model ratingSuddenly developed traitsMost incriminating.

Faults in baser spirits deemedMerely peccadillosIn that crystal mirror seemedVast as Biscay billows.

Cautioned not to over-runNaval toleration,He replied in language un-Fit for publication.

When the captain in alarmStrove to solve the riddle,Edward slipped a dreamy armRound that awful middle.

Such a catastrophic changeSet his shipmates thinking;Rumour whispered, "It is strange;Clearly he is drinking."

Ever more insistent gotThis malicious fable,Till he tied a true-love's knotIn the anchor cable.

"During December, 1661, meals for necessitous school children were provided at Chorley at a cost of 4d. per meal per scholar."

Provincial Paper.

In gratitude for the Restoration, we suppose. Hence the watchword, "Good old Chorley!"

"Summoned for permitting three houses to stray on Stoke Park on the 19th inst ... defendant admitted the offence, but said that some one must have let them out by taking the chain off the gate."—Provincial Paper.

It seems a reasonable explanation.

Officer (to Tommy, who has been using the whip freely). "Don't beat him; talk to him, man—talk to him!" Tommy (to horse, by way of opening the conversation). "I coom from Manchester."Officer (to Tommy, who has been using the whip freely). "Don't beat him; talk to him, man—talk to him!"Tommy (to horse, by way of opening the conversation). "I coom from Manchester."

Officer (to Tommy, who has been using the whip freely). "Don't beat him; talk to him, man—talk to him!"Tommy (to horse, by way of opening the conversation). "I coom from Manchester."

(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)

Thelatest of our writers to contribute to the growing literature of the War is Mr.Hugh Walpole. He has written a book about it calledThe Dark Forest(Secker), but whether it is a good or a bad book I who have read it carefully from cover to cover confess my inability to decide. It is certainly a clever book, and violently unusual. I doubt whether the War is likely to produce anything else in the least resembling it. For one thing, it deals with a phase of the struggle, the Russian retreat through Galicia, about which we in England are still tragically ignorant. Mr.Walpolewrites of this as he himself has seen it in his own experience as a worker with the Russian Red Cross. The horrors, the compensations, the tragedy and happiness of such work have come straight into the book from life. But not content with this, he has peopled his mission with fictitious characters and made a story about them. And good as the story is, full of fine imagination and character, the background is so tremendously more real that I was constantly having to resist a feeling of impatience with the false creations (inMacbeth'ssense) who play out their unsubstantial drama before it. Yet I am far from denying the beauty of Mr.Walpole'sidea. The characters ofTrenchard, the self-doubting young Englishman, who finds reality in his love for the nurseMarie Ivanovna, and of the Russian doctor,Semyonov, who takes her from him, are exquisitely realized. And the atmosphere of increasing mental strain, in which, afterMarie'sdeath, the tragedy of these three moves to its climax in the forest is the work of an artist in emotion, such as by this time we know Mr.Walpoleto be. The trouble was that I had at the moment no wish for artistry. To sum up, I am left with the impression that an uncommonly good short story rather tiresomely distracted my attention from some magnificent war-pictures.

As Field-Marshal SirEvelyn Wood, V.C., inOur Fighting Services(Cassell), begins with the Battle of Hastings and ends with the Boer War there is no gainsaying the fact that his net has been widely spread. To assist him in the compilation of this immense tome the author has a fluent style and—to judge from the authorities consulted and the results of these consultations—an inexhaustible industry. The one should make his book acceptable to the amateur who reads history because he happens to love it, and the other should make it invaluable to professionals who handle books of reference, not lovingly, but of necessity. And having said so much in praise of SirEvelynI am also happy to add that he is, on the whole, that rare thing—an historian without prejudices. Almost desperately, for instance, he tries to express his admiration ofOliver Cromwellas a soldier, although he quite obviously detests him as a man. I find myself, however, wondering whether SirEvelyn, were he writing ofCromwellat this hour, would say, "For a man over forty years of age to work hard to acquire the rudiments of drill is in itself remarkable." Even when allowance is made for the differences between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries there would seem to be nothing very worthy of remark in such energy if one may judge from the attitude of our War Office to the Volunteers. Naturally one turns eagerly to see what this distinguished soldier has to say about campaigns in which he took a personal part, but, although shrewd criticism is not lacking, SirEvelyn'ssword has been more destructive than his pen. In these days of tremendous events this volume may possibly be slow to come to its own, but in due course it is bound to arrive.

"I haven't had any address for the last few months, so the authorities have overlooked me. I'd like to join all right, but the missus can't spare me. I'm a bit of a fisherman and I play the concertina. Now, what sort of an armlet do I get?""I haven't had any address for the last few months, so the authorities have overlooked me. I'd like to join all right, but the missus can't spare me. I'm a bit of a fisherman and I play the concertina. Now, what sort of an armlet do I get?"

I find, on referring to the "By the same Author" page ofThe Lad With Wings(Hutchinson), that other reviewers of "Berta Buck's" novels have been struck by the "charm" of her work. I should like to be original, but I cannot think of any better way of summing up the quality of her writing. Charm above everything else is whatThe Lad With Wingspossesses. It is a perfectly delightful book, moving at racing speed from the first chapter to the last, and so skilfully written that even the technically unhappy ending brings no gloom. WhenGwenna WilliamsandPaul Dampier, the young airman she has married only a few hours before the breaking out of war, go down to death together in mid-Channel after the battle with the German Taube, the reader feels withLeslie Long, Gwenna'sfriend, "The best time to go out! No growing old and growing dull.... No growing out of love with each other, ever! They at least have had something that nothing can spoil." I suppose that when Mrs.Oliver Onionsis interviewed as to her literary methods it will turn out that she re-writes everything a dozen times and considers fifteen hundred words a good day's work; but she manages inThe Lad With Wingsto convey an impression of having written the whole story at a sitting. The pace never flags for a moment, and the characters are drawn with that apparently effortless skill which generally involves anguish and the burning of the midnight oil. I think I enjoyed the art of the writing almost as much as the story itself. If you want to see how a sense of touch can make all the difference, you should study carefully the character ofLeslie, a genuine creation. But the book would be worth reading if only for the pleasure of meetingHugo Swayne, the intellectualdilettantewho, when he tried to enlist, was rejected as not sufficiently intelligent and then set to painting omnibuses in the Futurist mode, to render them invisible at a distance. A few weeks from now I shall take downThe Lad With Wingsfrom its shelf and read it all over again. It is that sort of book.

When oldLady Polwheleasked theReverend Dr. Gwynto let his daughterDeliago with her as companion to a very smart house party, I doubt whether the excellent man would have given so ready an assent had he known what was going to come of it. For my own part I suspected we were in for yet another version ofCinderella, withDeliasnubbed by the smart guests, and eventually united, as like as not, to youngLord Polwhele. However, MissDorothea Townshend, who has written about all these people inA Lion, A Mouse and a Motor Car(Simpkin), had other and higher views for her heroine. True, the house party was ultra-smart; true also that there was one woman who spoke and behaved cattishly; but it was a refreshing novelty to find that throughout the tale the ugly sisters, so to speak, were hopelessly outnumbered by the fairy godmothers. Later, the visit led toDelia'sgoing as governess to the children of a Russian Princess, and finding herself in circles that might be described as not only fast but furious. Here we were in a fine atmosphere of intrigue, with spies, and Grand Dukes, and explosive golf balls and I don't know what beside. It is all capital fun; and, though I am afraid the political plots left me unconvinced, the thing is told with such ease andbonhomiethat it is saved from banality; even when the amazing cat of the house-party turns up as a female bandit and tries to holdDeliaand her Princess to ransom. And of course the fact that the period of the tale is that of the earliest motors gives it the quaintest air of antiquity. Somehow, talk of sedan chairs would sound more modern than these thrills of excitement about six cylinders and "smelly petrol." In short, for many reasons MissTownshend'sbook provides a far brisker entertainment than its cumbrous title would indicate.

Mr.Stephen Grahamis fast becoming the arch-interpreter of Holy Russia. InThe Way of Martha and the Way of Mary(Macmillan) he returns with even more than his customary zeal to his good work, wishing herein specifically to interpret Russian Christianity to the West. A passionate earnestness informs his discursive eloquence. I cannot resist the conviction that he has the type of mind that sees most easily what it wishes to see. He moves cheerily along, incidentally raising difficulties which he does not solve, ignoring conclusions which seem obvious, throwing glorious generalisations and unharmonised contradictions at the bewildered reader, too bent on his generous purpose to glance aside for any explanations. Perhaps this is the best method for an enthusiast to pursue. He certainly creates a vivid picture of this strangely unknown allied people, with its incredible otherworldliness, its broad tolerant charity, its freedom from chilly conventions, its joyous neglect of the hustle and fussiness of Western life, its deep faith, its childish or childlike superstitions, the glorious promise of its future. An interesting—even a fascinating—rather than a conclusive book.

"In his seventy-third year the Earl of —— has made his third matrimonial venture this week."—Yorkshire Evening Post.

Back to Index Next