Lieut.-Colonel John Buchan, in his now familiar rôle of the serious historian, has been officially commissioned to tell a tale more thrilling in heroisms, if perhaps a trifle less madcap, than anything his unofficial imagination has given us. His latest volume, The South African Forces in France (Nelson), though naturally it does not break much new ground, still contains a good deal that was well worth sifting from the mass of war history and is written with a vigour that could not be excelled. The proudest claims of the South Africans are, it seems, that they finished "further East" when the cease-fire sounded (I wonder if this will go unchallenged), that they were three times practically exterminated, and that they were the most modest unit in the field—the author of course being solely responsible for letting us know this last. Their terrible fights, not only at Delville Wood, but even more at Marrière Wood and Messines, are beyond question amongst the greatest feats of arms of the War, and on the last two occasions their stand in the face of odds went far to save the Allied cause in the black months of 1918. Since, as the author joyously notes, Dutch and English elements in the South African forces lived and died on the field like brothers, we may all agree with him, politics or no politics, that there has been something fundamentally right for once about the Empire's treatment of their country. This alone would give the book importance and interest outside the Southern dominions to which it is first addressed. In Capetown and Pretoria it will be the history of the War.
In John Bull, Junior (Methuen) Mr. F. Wren Child sets out to record the difficulties which a "home-trained boy encounters at a public school." Whether his picture of school-life as it was some years ago is true or not, it is unlikely that there will be keen competition among public schools to claim the original of St. Lucian's; and I do not think that tender-hearted mothers need fear that their own children will be beset by the temptations which Brant had to encounter, for in his hectic career he was unfortunate enough to have card-sharpers, whisky-drinkers and other unusual types of boyhood among his fellow-pupils, and with such company it is not to be wondered at that he was more often in than out of trouble. But, since he helped to solve the mystery which was perplexing St. Lucian's, it would seem that whatever happened to his soul he contrived to keep his head. Boys with a taste for amateur detective work might derive enjoyment from this tale, and to them I recommend it.
The Novice. "I am a little absent-minded, so you must give me a shout if I prove to be a winner."
Stephen Manaton, heir to great possessions, found that his wealth and worldly position were slipping away from him, but as compensation against his losses he had the supreme satisfaction of discovering that the girl of his choice loved him solely for himself. So with the best will in the world I could not shed tears over The Manaton Disaster (Heath Cranton), though I admit that Miss Phillippa Tyler does her strenuous best to set my sympathy in motion. Possibly she tries a shade too hard, and in future I hope that she will cut shorter—or even cut out completely—the soliloquies of her heroes. Miss Tyler has the dramatic sense, and an author who can write over a hundred-and-fifty words without a full-stop is not to be thwarted by trifles; but she dissipates her forces and fails to reach the catastrophic climax at which she apparently aimed.
The ways of the humorist are hard indeed, and it must be particularly exasperating, even if you are a clergyman, to be told by some disgruntled reviewer, as "George A. Birmingham" must, I am afraid, here be told, that his latest, Good Conduct (Murray), is not up to standard. Virginia Tempest, the tomboy, the extremely unworthy recipient of the good conduct prize at Miss Merridew's academy, has her points, but her pranks are played with or against such dull folk: an editor and assistant editor for whom I blush; an emporium owner who is kinder and wealthier and stupider than he is diverting; an assistant schoolmistress, a surgeon, a Futurist-painter, a bishop. None of these worthy people commands my respect or laughter. The high spirits seem not entirely genuine. A casual lapse into Brummagem, I take it.