BOOKS OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2976, 13 January 1917, Page 13

BOOKS OF THE DAY

Glory that is France." infi'-;?!?' -Glory that .is Franco" ({Eyeloigh Nash), Mr; Sidney Dark, a Well-known English journalist and Novelist, who has a long and intimate personal knowledge of France and' French life, has penned an eloquent testimony to the splendid ; qualities, ■which our gallant Alhos have displayed during the war. Before the war it is .'notorious that France presented to her Jfellow nations a picture of political and eocial discord which augured ill for her future. There was an open and -deep rift between, the State and the Church, Sooialism was aggressively defiant of law and order, and financial corruption was disagreeably prevafient. Onco, however, the tocsin sounded, and Franco found hearself attacked ,oy a powerful and unscrupulous foe, all party and sectarian differences seemed to disappear as if by magic. Every Frenchman at once recognised that ho bad now but one duty, one object in -life—tri, bring about, as far as.hi 3 own individual. endoavour might assist the Government in so doing, the defeat of i his country's foes. Take, for instance, +he story of Gustav Horve, as told in Mr. Dark's book: . Before the war Hervo was a virulent anti-militarist. He jeered at the idea of patriotism. Ho persuaded himself that the influence pf the German Social Democrats, whose psychology 'he had failed to understand, would be sufficiently strong to prevent tho carrying out of Prussian designs. When the German army moved, Hervo discovered that he was a Frenchman, and that this fact was tho one thing that really mattered to him. The Fatherland' was in 'danger, and the wraith of Danton called to'thu sons of France. It was no longer' 1 of importance whether a man was workman or bourgeois, Socialist or loyalist, ■priest or atheist. They wore all Frenchmen, and thoir business was to shoulder a rifle and rush to tho frontier. This extraordinary unanimity of purpose made it possible for France to reorganise her army softer the declaration of war, and with the German legions already ovor hey "borders. I am inclined to believe that when tho history of this great struggle is written this reorganisation will appear more splendid and an even greater achievement than the immortal defence of Verdun. An interesting feature of Mr. Dark's book is the clever contrast ho makes between the individual character and sooial life of the French and English. Because tho Frenchman can never be persuaded that it is •iv.ortii while pretending that ho is anything but what he is, the Englishman is apt to regard' him as a very blatant fellow. There is something to tho English mind curiously improper in the way in which tho French live and movo and have their being in the public streets. To an Englishman the street is merely a road between two •houses, and he never allows himself to be real and individual until ho has arTived inside his own front door and carefully locked and bolted it behind him. The Frenohman actually lives in cafes and Testaurants. He takes his wife and children with him. He laughs in public and talks loudly, and thoroughly enjoys himself, and the stiller, self-conscious Englishman, looking on with half-apolo-•getic j admiratiop,,;trie6)to find some':cold'1 -comfort'inHhe reflection that > .mail has no home; and;indeed thatthere ■ is 110 word for home in the French language. - No idea could be falser. In France far more than in England a man's home Is his castle. You may tnoi* a Frenchman for years, you may meet him continually. you may sit- next , to him at cafes, but it would never occur to him ,to open tho sacred portals and invite jovi into his family circle. That is a rare compliment and a final expression of friendship and regard. The French intense individualism is nowhere expressed more finely and more completely than in the French family. I regret that space limits forbid quotation from the chapter headed "France and ,the Church," which contains a singularly fair exposition of the old difficulties between Church and State, and sets forth-the author's confident hope that after tho war the old misunderstandings and bitterness will he far less evident in Franoh politics and the lifo of the country generally. The book is one which well deserves to be widely read. (N.Z. price, 4s. 6d.) The Rhymes of a Red Cross Man. Serving on the Western front with the Red Cross, Mr. Robert W. Service (tho "Canadian Kipling"), whose "Songs of a Sourdough," "Ballads of a Cheeehako," and ' '"Rhymes of a Boiling. Stone" liayo made famous the na.nio of the ex-Kloudyke bank clerk, now gives his admirers, in -his "Rhymes of a Red Cross Man" ;(T. Fishor Unwin), a volume of war verse, all of .which has the fascinating lilt and entrain- of liis earlier work, and some oE which reflects that, deeper eenso of tho mystery of life and death which is engendered by daily experience of tho pathos and tragedy of war. Thoro arc some horrible things in this book of Mr. Service's, but the horrors of war are inevitably a part of tho Red Cross worker's environment, ' and it is not good for the world—outside the war zone—that they should be ignored -or disguised. In others of the poems a touch of comedy agreeably diversifies the dramatic and tragic. _ The Kipling inspiration is clearly visible in such verses as those entitled "Funk," the opening lines of which run: Whon your marrer bone seems 'oiler, 'And you'ro glad you ain't 110 taller, And you're all a-shakin' liko you 'ad the chills; , When your skin creeps like a pullet's, .And you're ducking all the bullets, .And vou're green as gorgonzoli round the ■gills; When your legs scorn made of jelly, And you're squeamish in tho belly. And you want to turn about and do it bunk; For Gawd's sake, Kid, don't show it! Don't let your mateys know it— ■You're just suflerin' from funk, funk, funk. In "The Odyssey of 'Erbcrt 'Iggins," the story of a Red Cross Bearer, who, himself wounded, hangs 011 to . his wounded mate, wo got a realistic little picture of Hun treachery: j Me and Ed and a stretcher Out on tho nootral ground. (If there's one (loud corpse, I'll botchor There's a hundred emellin' around.) Mo and Eddie O'Brien, Both of the R.A.M.C. "It's u 'ell of a night For a soul to take flight," 'A3 Eddie remarks to me. ; Me snd Ed crawlin' 'omeward, Thinking our job is done, When sadden and clear, Wot do wu hear? 'O.vl of a wounded 'Un. "Got lo take 'im,"'snaps Eddy; "Got to take ali we cud. 'E may be a Germ Wiv the 'eart of a worm, Bat, hlarst 'im! ain't 'en man?" , So '0 sloshes out fixin' a dresein' ■ (E'd always a medical knack), •When that wounded'On 'E rolls to 'is gun . j , And 'c plugs me pal in the back. wot wo".}ld you do? I arflk you;... There was me slaughtered mate, There was that 'TJn (I'd collared 'is gun) ■ n' fjg .'.'.Yarn of ■ Ate, - < ,

t "Wot did I do?" 'Ere, whisper. ~ . 'JEM a shiny bald top to liis 'ead, But when I got through, Between .me and you, It was 'orrid and jaggy, and red. Others of the poems reflect- that dominating tenderness to a stricken fallen foe of which so many instances have been recorded hv the ivar correspondents. Singularly pathetic are tho verses ontitled "My Foe —A Belgian. Priest-Soldier Speaks," so pathetic, indeed, that I cannot copy out even a lew illustrative ■ lines. There is a fine humanity in many of these poems, a humanity which the author evidently thinks is that of the great majority of the French and British trijops, and bound to bear golden fruit once peace falls on "the blood-stained fields of Flanders." Common suffering, even amongst foeß, makes all men akin. Here are some lines from "Only a Bocho": - It gives one a kind of a turn, you know, to come on a thin» like that, It's just as if I were lyin' there, with a turban of hlood for a hat; Lying there in a coat _gTey-green instead of a coat grey-blue". With one of my eyes all shot away and • my brain half : tumbling through; Lying there with a chest that heaves like a bellows up and down, And a cheek as white as snow on a grave, and lips that are coffee-brown. And round the dying Gorman's neck is a locket, with a woman's face, and on the other side the faces of threo children. Clustered together, cherub-like, three little laughing girls, With the usual tiny rosebud, mouths and the usual silken curls. "Zut," I say, "he has beaten me; for me I have only two," And I .push the locket beneath his shirt, feeling a little bine. And then how natural the comment: Oh, it isn't cheerful to see a man, the marvellous work of God, Crushed in the mutilation, mill, crushed to a smeary clod; Oh, it isn't cheerful to hear him moan, but it isn't that I mind, It isn't the anguish that goes with him, it's the anguish he leaves behind. For his going opens a tragic door that gives on a world of pain. And the death he dies, those who live and love will die again and again. Perhaps the best of all Mr. Service's rhymes are those entitled "The Man from Athabaska," which tells how a stalwart Canadian, an ex-trapper from the wild northern forest and lake country of his birth, and now serving in the French Foreign Legion, sits round the camp fire with his comrades, the poilus, and "blows" of the wondrous sights of his native land: . And I tell of lakes fish haunted, Where the big bull moose are calling, And forests still as sepulchres with never trail or track; . And valleys packed with purple gloom, and mountain peaks appalling, And.l tell them of my cabin on the shore at Fond du Lac; And I find myself a-thinking: Sure I wish that I was back. And they listen to my stories, seven poilus in a row, Seven, lean and lousy poilus with their " ; cigarettes aglow. And-I tell'them when it's over how I'll hike for Athabaska. And those seven greasy poilus they are .crazy to go, too. And I'll give the wife the "pickle-tub" I promised, and I'll ask her The price of mink and marten, and the run of cariboo. And I'll get my traps in order, and I'll start to work anew. For I've had my fill of fighting and I've seen a nation scattered And an army swung to slaughter, and a river red with gore,. And a city all a-smoulder, and ... as if it really mattered, For the lako is yonder dreaming, and my cabin's on the shore; And the dogs are leaping madly, and the wife is singing gladly, And I'll lest in Athabaska, and I'll leave it never more. , Many of Mr. Service's verses are exceptionally suitable' for recitation purposes, especially the really fine poem, entitled "Jean Desprez." the story of a French peasant boy's heroism. (New Zealand price 4s. 6d.)