NEW BOOKS.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 16436, 1 February 1919, Page 7

NEW BOOKS.

THE KAISER AS KNOWN BY HIS

DENTIST.

Mr Arthur N. Davis, an American dentist, who had the Kaiser as a patient for.fourteen years, has written an extremely interesting book entitled '"The Kaiser I Knew." It throws a great deal of new light on the character of the Gsrman ex-Emperor. Mr Davis confirms the view as to the exKaiser being a man of great ability, an excellent linguist, and possessing a large fund of information. At the same time he had fome curious limitations. He was very talkative, and some of his remarks set down in this book ate distinctly ' puerile. In spite . of his enormous wealth he was essentially a mean man. Perhaps the most striking instance of his mingled stinginess and megalomania was afforded *by the letter he is reported to have sent to the German woman who had, ,lost nine sons in the war, in the course of which he expressed his "gratification," and in token of it forwarded a picture of himself framed and autographed! At first Mr Davis followed the example of his predecessor, and proposed to regard the honour of treating the Kaiser as sufficient payment; but at the request of the Kaiser's household doctor ho submitted a very moderate bill for his first year's work, charging only his regular fee for the treatments he had given the Kaiser dnring the year. On this occasion the Kaiser paid him double the amount, but some years later, when Mr Davis J submitted* his bill for professional services to one of the Kaiser's sons, his Majesty sent him a postal order in payment, but deducted the cost of the order. The Kaiser's personal vanity, as shown by his fondness for appearing in' uniform, and his megalomania, are very clearly brought out in this book. As Mr Davis said, he regarded the German people as his own property, to do with as he liked. He was fully aware of the value of his patronago to Mr Davis from a professional point of view. "When he was walking along the Tier Garten he used to wave his hand at Mr Davis ff he saw him at the window. "It is a good advertisement for you, Davis," he said on one occasion, "the people see me wave to you and they know you must be a good dentist or I would not come to you. It will help your business." Mr Davis attended most of the members of the Royal Household, and give? a very unflattering portrait of the Crown Prince. What chiefly impressed Mr Davis on his first visit was his excessive nervousness. He trembled all over, and it was plainly to bo seen that he was dreadfully afraid of pain. He evidently realised that Mr Davis had noticed his condition. "I suppose the Crown Prince and tho future ruler of Germany ought to be brave at all times, he remarked, "but. I just hate to have to go to a dentist!" The remarks he made "during his. visits say very little either for his intellect or his heart. " The Allies think we will run • short of man-power,' h® said, for ex-

ample, 'bat we've got two million youths growing up, and we'll soon bo able to put them in the war. There's no danger of our running J short of men. But, really, vou know, J 1 wish it were all over. This war is a | lot*of damned nonsense, you know!' I ' ; 'We've got two million youths | growing up' .. .! As if the youth of Germany were born for the Hohen- ; zollerns to use at their sweet plea- < suro! Another remark he made which indicated how sadly he misconceived the epoch-making significance of the great war in which the whole world was involved was quite characteristic: 'With so many men at the front, the men at home ought to be having a fine time with the women, eh, what? Do you see many good-look-ing girls in Berlin now?' Many of the more serious-minded offirers told me they were disgusted with the manner in which the Crown Prince was aciing at his headquar- " ters. 'It is really a disgrace,' said more than one, 'for the Crown Prince to have so many questionable women visiting him. * It certainly doesn't set much of an example for the rest of the staff.' " During his fifteen years in Berlin Mr Davis had good opportunities for studyi ing the German people, and apparently ! the more he saw of them the less he : liked them. On this point he says:— I "The Germans are the most quar- ; relsome people in the world. It is • misleading to speak of the 'German j militarists.' All Germans are miliI tarists. The records of their civil i courts tell the story. In 1913 there were no fewer than five million petty crises tried in the courtSi and as every case naturally involved at least two parties, the astonishing fact is disclosed that some ten million Germans, or one-seventh of the entire population, appealed to the courts in a single year! The bellicose character of the people is evidenced in countless other ways. It is the natural expression of what I believe to be the most pronounced national shortcoming—selfishness. The average German is the most selfish individual in the world. He thinks of himself and his own comfort first, last, and all fEe time. I have noticed it on the street-cars, in the theatres, on the public highways, in the restaurants . and hotels, wherever people congregated. Everyone looked out for himself first and pushed aside those who stood in his way. In civil life, just as in a state of war. the Germans practised the principle that might makes right. Chivalry, oourtesy>, magnanimity are as foreign to the German make-up as they are charae- ; teristic of the French." j Mr Davis adds that a keen desire to make something out of nothing is another national trait of the Germans. What is commonly referred to as German thrift, he says, is only a polite name for German stinginess. By way of example he mentions that one Christmas he presented his wife with a set of furs, and had . them sent to the house of a friend with whom his wife was staying for the holidays. He afterwards learnt that his wife's hostess had'ferreted out the name of the furrier from whom he had purchased the furs, and had demanded a commission on the sale, telling the furrier that she had sent him there, and through her tno sale had been made. Mr Davis tells an interesting story, and the information he gives is not without value at the present time. (London: Hodder and Stoughton.) "RUSSIA IS TRAVAIL." Under this title Miss Olive GHbreath, an American lady, gives a brightlywritten account of her recent experiences in Russia. She had been travelling in China,. and with some difficulty obtained permission to travel across the trans-Siberian'railway at a time when the railway Was blocked with military trains. A general and his attache acted as escort. The chief interest of the book" lies in its description of Russian character, and the general and the attache formed an excellent foil and counter-foil. The general, it turns out, has'a Gorman strain in'his blood, and comes to a bad end. Of his attache we get the following portrait:— "M. Novinsky is finely modelled; face narrow, eyes with-more than a tinge of Eastern inscrutability, skin fine in texture, fingers intelligent. In the canine world he would be a Borzoi. The cigarettecase he has just laid down is shagreen because he likes the. feel, and stamped with a tiny monogram in gold. A piece of peach-blow or san de bceuf he handles as if he were worshipping. He has a passion for French novels. The stoiy he told me yesterday of a Japanese girl near whom he stood for morning ablutions at an inn in Tokio was related with the sublety of a Frenchman and the naivete of an Italian, and no one but a Russian could, have given it point in so many different languages. The flower of an extremely sophisticated civilisation, superficially everything that'-the peasant is not, he is. Russia, with all her sullen monotonies, offers the most brutal of contrasts. And yet, between M. Novinsky and the muzhiks I feel an indefinable something in common; perhaps only a simplicity." l)f the Russian peasant we have a very sympathetic and kind description. -"How is it possible for the Russian to make a good soldier?" .the authoress once asked M. Novinsky. "His nature melts away into kindness like butter oh bleeni, as the plain flattens awav from the horizon." " 'No Russian positively enjoys fighting: except the Cossack,' answered M. Novinsky with an amused smile. 'The Russian is as unmilitary as the • Chinese, but the world does not know it. It is the one factor to be considered when the bogey of Pan-Slavism is held before Europe. The Germans? Of course the German knows this! and laughs contemptuously up his sleeve. But it is part of his game holding the Slavic peril over Europe. The peasant will fight, if ho must, stubbornly, and without squeamishnoss. It is for the Little Father. But his idea is always to be killed rather than kill. And zest? He has no zest for a firht as a fight. The Russian peasant harbours far less animal resentment than he is credited with; he is too much a "brother" to all the world to hold a grudge; he has no logical mental insistence on right. The only resistance be shows consistently is" a fatalistic lethargy. Do you know, if the truth were known, what everyone of those _ fellows is dreaming of? A little izba under the birches. A Cossack Europe, did Napoleon say? Russia might roll on Europe in her sleep, but sho would never have the desire ( or the collected energy to step on

Our readers will not be surprised to learn that Miss Gilbreath has included a touch of romance in her book, which would be better if she had avoided a tl^ me WBa kness of sprinkling scraps of French and Russian through her apparently under the delusion i"nt this is necessary in order to give joenl colour. The effect is really to irritate the reader. (London: John -Murray, Albemarle street. W. Christchurch: TV hiteombe and Tombs, Ltd.)

RECENT FICTION. In ''Young Diana," Miss 'Marie Corelli revorts to the supernatural element to be found in some of her earlier novels. The root-idea is to be found in "Faust. The heroine was the only child of a somewhat commonplace

not to say vulgar couple- She came out" at eighteen, as a graceful, pretty girl of the freshest type of English beauty, but had given her mother the bitterest disappointment. ''The 'com-ing-out' business, the balls, the racenieetings, and other matrimonial traps had been set in vain; the training, the music, the dancing, the 'toilettes' had failed to attract —and Diana had not married." She was a dutiful daughter, devoted to her parents, but discovered one day that even they did not want her. So she left them; it was believed she had been drowned, but in reality she made her way to Switzerland, in response to an advertisement. There she gave herself into the hands of a Professor—a sort of modern Rosicrucian, who had discovered the art of making middle-aged people young and beautiful once more. He succecded transforming her into a young worn Ml of rare beauty, who turned the beads of all who met her, among them tne lover who had jilted her many yeare before. But the process left her without the vestige of a heart, without tne least capacity for loving another. Ine verdict of most readers will be that the last stage of this young woman was worse than the first, but apparently this is not the view of Miss. Corelli. An taking farewell of her heroine, she tells us that —"She lives —fair and emotionless, as all may live who master the secret of living—a secret which, though now apparently impregnable, shall yioia itself to those who, before very Jong, will grasp the Flaming Sword, and taKe and eat of thn fruit of the Tree of Life.' The Sword tunis every way, but the blossom is behind the blade. And, in this great effort, neither the love of man, nor the love of woman has anv part nor any propagation or an imperfeot race —for those who would reach the goal must relinquish all save the realisation of that new heaven and new earth, .of Bplendid and lasting Youth and vitality when old things arc passed away." (London : Hutchinson and Co., Paternoster Row. Christchurch: L. M. Isitt, Ltd.). "The Woman of the Horizon : a Romance of Ninexeen-Tlurteen, by Gilbert Frankau, is the story of a journey round the world by a young widower, poet and satirist, lately, it would seem in search of consolation for that whico. he has lost. He has many flirtations and adventures, some of them not of the most reputable kind. When at last he meets with a pearl of great pnee, a .'gtfrl whom he had seen as in a dreani" at the Taj Mahal, before he met her in real life, he feels that marriage to her was forbidden: "he oould not come to her single-hearted as a Harry might have done; ho had not dealt . cleanhearted as a Hibbcrt. Between him and the roses of the white garden the desire of dead days flamed like a sword. He had hankered after the women or earth, bought them for a price—and the price vms still unpaid, ior already he saw that each of those dead women had given him something of his body, something of his mind; and although—looking back from the vantage-ooign _of knowledge—he could not but think kindly of them, could not but recognise that in each had been something fine, decent, better than himself; yet neither that body nor that mind could be made worthy of Beatrice." . And so they part. It is powerfully written./ The travel descriptions are much more accurate than one usually finds in a novel. New Zealand is among the places visited, and it Is evident the author is a close observer and writes from personal knowledge. He is the eldest son of "Prank l>anby," to whom—"finest of women, truest of friends, staunchest of mothers'' —he dedicates this, his first "novel in prose." (London: Chatto and Wlndus. Christchurch: L. M. Isitt, Ltd.) I I "Sniper Jackson," a fictitious, yet curiously realistic story of war, shows us how Second-Lieutenant Ronald Jackson and his men comported themselves through all the.extremely risky adventures that occur to a sniping section. The writer, Frederick Sleath, has certainly a first-hand knowledge of this special service, and carries his readers along with unfailing interest as "Sniper Jackson" adds to the successes of his section, or defeats the plans of a sniping Hun. What is fair fighting, and what cold-blooded murder, becomes very clear during these experiences. The story of little Goo-Goo is a tragic side-interest, and there is enough of the sniper's love story to give an element of romance. . But . the greatest emotion in the book appears in the relation that gradually grows between officer and men. -(London: Herbert Jenkins' Colonial Library.) BRIEF NOTICES. "80-Peep," the "Picture Book for Little i'oiKs," so eagerly looked ior oy those for whose benefit it is intended, is as good as ever, in spite of . war conditions. It oontauis over thirty colour pictures and many biack and white illustrations. (Jjondon and Melbourne: Uassell and Co. Christchurch: Craig and Co.) Tile secret story of Rasputin, that sinister figure in the recent history of Russia, is told by Mr W. Le (Jueax with oil his customary. dramatic power in "The Monster of Evil." (London and Melbourne: Cassell and Co., Ltd. Christchurch: Simpson and Williams, Ltd.) The latest to reach us of Cassell's useful "Work" series of handbooks is entitled "Gilding, Silvering, and Bronzing." The instructions are very clear and practical. (London and Melbourne : Cassell and Co., Ltd. Christchurch: Simpson and Williams, Ltd.) Now that the question of the Pacific Islands is coming into so much prominence at the Peace Conference, works of reference dealing with, the islands are in request. "The Pacific Islands," by Mr Percy S. Allen, and published by McCarron, Stewart and Co., Ltd., will be found very useful. The compiler has not only had access the official reports, etc., but has visited th© principal groups. We are glad to learn that it is intended to publish a fresh edition every year. (Sydney: McCarron, Stewart and Co., Ltd.)

"Letters to the People of India on Responsible Government," by Mr Lionel Curtis, have now reached a second edition. 'Within a brief compass this little volume contains a quantity of most valuable information about India, and it is no secret that the views of the writer are being very largely adopted in the proposals brought forward recently for reforming the Government of India. (London: Alacmillan and Co., Ltd.) "Winter's Pie" this year proves to be as full of good things as any of its predecessors. Among the artists are Lawson Wood. Heath Robinson, Harry Rountree, while the letterpress includes contributions by Pett-Ridge, G. B Burgin, and Sir Henry Lucy. (London : Published at 6 Great New street, E.C. Christchurch: Whitcombe and Tombs, Ltd.) , ~ , "Hospital Sketches,' by Frances Lvndall, are- charming little character studies of soldier patients and tLofr wavs We read of "Temperatures, Pulses, and Respirations;" of "The Swhllow " so called because, with both feet amputated, ho still could still flit ko ranidlv from place to place in his imie wheel chair; of "Our Italian Orderlv." whose gifts as a thief and a liar merely enhanced his charm, and of that curiously difficult patient, who was "The Protege of a Princess." An amusing sketch describes how the night mira on holiday, obtained permission to induct "A Charlie Chaplin Party" to crood places at the cinemas—not to speak of an afternoon tea afterwards liV»M Tinder some diet restrictions, for the 'convalescents' sake. The-writing is crraceful, simple, unaffected, and, slight as it is, the book achieves a sincere record of passing interests in hospital lifo. (London: George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 25.)