LIBER'S NOTE BOOK

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2884, 23 September 1916, Page 6

LIBER'S NOTE BOOK

Nelson's History of the War. The twelfth volujne of Mr. John Buchan's excellent "History of the War" (Nelson's, per Whitcombe and Tombs), is mainly devoted to the re-' treat from Bagdad, the evacuation of Gallipoli, and the Derby Report. The chief events of the second winter on both the Eastern and Western fronts (ire also described with all Mr. Buchan's clarity and vigour. As with the previous volumes, there are several oxcel'ent sketch maps. Mr. Buchan's History is easily first amongst the many connected narratives of the war whioh are being published, and no.one who desires to 'understand the general courso of the various campaigns or the details of the leading battles can afford to disregard it. (N.Z. price, 15..6 d.). The Jewish Future. What is known as the Zionist movement, tlio well-known, scheme for tbs establishment of Jewish colonies in Palestine, is the main subject of a numbor of essays, by prominent English and foreign Jews, *editcd' by H. Sacher, and collected under, the title "Zionism and the Jewish Future" (London, John Murray). After the war there can be little doubt that tho Jewish, problem will largely occupy the attention, of European statesmen. Tho essays here' collected' represent the opinions of more than one section of Jewish people, and are full of suggestive thought and useful statistics. A perusal of these thoughtful and valuable essays will show there is .another and very different side to tho Jewish question than that'set forth in -Mr. Foster Fraser's carelessly .written and misleading work on the same subject. (N.Z, price, 3s. 6d.).-' Learning to Fly. The .enormously increased interest taken in aviation owing to the war is responsible for quite a.flood of litera-: ture on tho subject. _ A specially useful; and moderately priced -handbook- on aviation is "Learning to Fly, a, Practical Manual for Beginners" (Ti "Werner Laurie). The authors, Claude Grahame-White and Harry Harper, deal with their subject from A to Z, viz., tho theory of tuition, the temperament of the aviator, the control of aeroplanes, tie seven'stages of instruction 'as they are in operation at modern ■flying, schools, the perils of the -air, the factors that .make y for safety, the methods of some' of the more famous pilots, and finally the future of aviation as a profession. A number of excellent illustrations add to the interest and value of the text. (N.Z. price/ '3s. 6d.). v ■ I Stray Leaves, Mrs. Henry Ihideney, who has given; us so many excellent novels—"The Se-; tiret Orchard" and "Tie Maternity-of; Harriott Wicken" will be specially re-i memberod—-lias completed, so I read, a! new story entitled This Way Out."' Usually Mrs. Dudoney makes more of; her women than of her men. charac- j ters, but in this/story,, which ./.deals' with.tho life of a brother and, sister who shares chambers iu Gray's Jim, tho man. is the principal figure. Methuoiis will publish the book. That industrious bookmaker, Douglas Sladen, has produced, a timely potboiler in "From Boundary Ridor to Prime Minister,'" a study of the life and personality of the now famous Mr. "Billy Hughes." There is a biographical sketch—ratlier poor stuff—and tho' rest of the -book consists mainly of Mr. Hughes's speeches. I learn from ./the fourth' volume d. "Lord Beaconsfield's Life" that it was; not "Dizzy" but Lord Derby who, 1 used the much-quoted phrase "dishing, the Whigs." Not only did Disraeli shrink, early in 1867, from pressing home 1 his old idea of a safeguarded household suffrage, but he wanted Lord Derby to finish matters immediately by a moderately reduced franchisp,' of course on the rating basis. t : Landor is, I am afraid, not much read nowadays, yet he wrote 'sonio very beautiful lines and the best of his' "Imaginary Conversations"will 'sure-' ly, livo. • The; July "Bookman" (Hoddter and Stoughton) has an excellent ortiole on Landor by Mr. Stephen, Wheeler,' who on the personal Itari-j dor, so much misunderstood, and by: Dickens (in Lawrence Bqythorn of "Bleak House") so oruelly caricatured quotes with approval Sbuthey's estimate •.—"Never did man represent himself in'his writings so much less generous, less just, less compassionate, less-noble in all respeots than he really is." Mr. AVheeler, I notice, omits any reference to those splendidly eloquent lines in which the old lion on his seventy-fifth birthday drew' his own portrait: ,1 strove with none, for none was worth iny strife, Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art; I warmed both hands before the fire of life, ■'.• • ••"■■, ft sinks and I am ready -to depart. But he lived to see his eighty-fifth birthday. There is a bandy little volume of selections from Landor in Macmillan's "Golden Treasury" Series (2s. 6d,), and the "Imaginary Conversations" have recently been republished iu> a cheap edition by the Oxford Press. •■' - I am glad to see in the list of new Stanley Paul novels, a story by Mr.. Archibald Marshall, "Watermeads." Mr. Marshall's earlier stories, "Exton Manor," "The Honour of tho Clintons," and others, will be remembered by many of my readers as giving peculiar!)' pleasant pictures of English country, especially English country society. ' Mr. Marshall is a second Trollope, without Trollope's too frequent longueurs. A fourth series of August StrindbergVplays, in an .English translation, !"has fust been published by Duckworth's. Personally, I confess to finding Strindberg's writings as dull Ihey. are too often dirty. His brain, it, seems to me, must have been paclced full of morbid and unwholesome ideas. But, chacun a son gout, and Strindberg's English public is said to ho steadily growing. An American lady, Frances Wilson Huard (whoso husband is Charles Huard, tho plover French artist who has recently illustrated! a complete and definitive, editiou of Balzac) has written a book, "My Homo in tho Field of Honour." The Huards had a summer hoine on the Marne and when the Hun advance came it engulfed _, the pleasant little chateau. After .Bri' tish and French had rolled the Hun flood back again Madame Huard, after many weeks of absence, was able to find her home. But what a homo) The chateau had been occupied by Von ..Kluck.and.his staff. Madame. Hiiard's 'account ofVhat she found, especially her story of a certain vilely desecrated American flag in which sho bad wrapped up her private letters, imagining that tho Stars and Stripes would serve as a protection, makes curious reading. In no uncertain words does the .Amen? can lady pay her tribute to Kultui'.

Tho war has, so far from decreasing fcho annual crop of poetry, given rather a decided spurt to the versifying art. Most of tho poets are quite young. Rupert Brooko and Charles Sorley have often been quoted,, but a writer ■quite new to me—and naturally so, for although now an officer in'the New Army, bo was but a year ago a schoolhoy at Christ's Hospital—is Mr. E. C. Blundon. Young as he is ho has a graceful pen. One of his most pleasant sonnots deals, as does so much of tho vorso by soldier-poets of the day, with tho chnrm and love of England: 1 do not' know for sure h'onv much I droam, But 5. am sure of this: that if I stray By rickyard or by meadow or by brae, Or by tho quiet sedges of the stream, Dear figures stand and watch the toiling team. Tho sparrows fluttering in the sandy way, Or minnows in the shallows at their play, Or roach whose silvern sides' and red fins gleam. And words come clear, as hands are laid in mine: ' "We saw it all; we see it all with you, 1 This is our England, whom we loved and sung. Our songs aro mute, but she is stil] divine, . Sho is tho perfect poem and the true, Our fame is past, our love of her is -'■', young."