Mr. John Galsworthy’s short stories and studies in Tatterdemalion (Heinemann) are divided into “of war-time” and “of peace-time.” I think the greater part of the author’s faithful company of readers will prefer the latter. Mr. Galsworthy has less than most men the kind of mind that can put off the burden of the suffering of war or submit easily to the difficult need for us all to think one way in a time of national crisis. But “Cafard,” study of a poilu in the despairing depression that comes of the fatigue and horror of long fighting, who is lifted back to courage by a little frightened beaten mongrel whose confidence he wins, so forgetting his own trouble, was written, one can feel, because the author wanted to write it, not because he felt it was expected of him. Of the peace-time sketches “Manna,” with the theme of a penniless and eccentric parson charged with stealing a loaf of bread and acquitted against the evidence, is as admirable as it is unexpected in flavour. For the rest there is good Galsworthy, if not of the very best, and but little that one would not praise highly if it came from an author of lower standards.
Dear Old Soul. “Thank you very much for bringing me across. I do so hope you’ll get safe back again.”
Three members, quite immune to scowl or snub,
Disturbed the quiet of the selfsame club;
The first in resonance of snore surpassed,
The next in raucousness, in both the last.
Patience, exhausted, heaved a futile sigh;