So many battle books have been pouring from the press lately that it is difficult to keep pace with them, and harder still to find something fresh to say of each; but quot homines tot points of individual interest, and for those whose concern lies more especially with the New Zealand Forces and their campaigns I can very safely recommend a volume which the official war correspondent to that contingent and his son have jointly published under the title of Light and Shade in War (ARNOLD). Whether it is Mr. MALCOLM ROSS who supplies the light, and Mr. NOEL ROSS the shade, or vice versa, we are given no means of ascertaining. Between them they have certainly put together an agreeable patchwork of small and easily read pieces, most of which have already appeared in journalistic form. It is perhaps parental prejudice that makes Mr. Punch consider the best of the bunch to be "Abdul," one of three slight sketches that originally saw the light in his own pages. Abdul is a joy, also a thief, a society entertainer, and a Cairo hospital orderly. I can only hope that the story of how he displayed his patient's sun-browned knees as a raree show to the convulsed G.O.C. and lady, who were visiting the hospital, is at least founded on fact. The publishers are entirely justified in saying that these impressions, made often under actual fire, have both colour and intimacy. So I wish them good luck in the campaign for popular favour.
François Villon, His Life and Times (HUTCHINSON) is one of those fortunate volumes that arrive to fill a long vacant corner. So far as I know, with the exception perhaps of STEVENSON's study, there has been no means by which the casual reader, as apart from the student, could correct his probably very vague ideas about the Father of Realism. Mr. H. DE VERE STACPOOLE, approaching the subject not for the first time, here essays a brief life and appreciation of the poet, told in picturesque but simple style. Sometimes indeed the simplicity is apt to appear overdone, so that one gets a suggestion that the story is being presented to us in thoughts of one syllable. Apart from this, however, there is much to be said for Mr. STACPOOLE's vivid reconstruction of mediæval France, and the Paris that sheltered VILLON himself, TABARY, MONTIGNY and the others—that group of shadows whom we see only by the lightning of genius. They and their contemporaries pass before us here like a pageant woven upon tapestry. Occasionally indeed Mr. STACPOOLE looks suddenly round the tapestry, even (one might say) tears a hole in it and pushes his head through, with a startling effect. But as he has always the good excuse of sympathy with his subject one easily forgives him these generous impulses. As I said before, a book that has had its place long reserved.
If you happen to remember that most excellent book, Brother-in-Law to Potts, you may recall that the principal motive in it is the spiritualising influence of a certain Lady Beautiful, very lightly and even intangibly presented, on the lives of some other persons of a more material clay. In Obstacles (CHAPMAN AND HALL), Mrs. "PARRY TRUSCOTT" has returned to her previous subject, but with the notable difference that she now traces the influence brought in turn to bear upon the lady herself, who emerges from her semi-divine obscurity to become the heroine of the story. If in her background sketch of the munitions factory where Susannah elects to work the writer does not trouble much about technical detail or even attempt to suggest any particular acquaintance with such matters as lathes or shell bodies, yet she does convey, with striking simplicity and naturalness, the impression of a world at war, and for the rest she is content to bring her heroine in contact with the lives that are to affect her and the environment of comparative poverty that is to help her to a decision. What that decision was, and how unnecessary too, is sufficiently indicated if I say that she was blessed with most understanding parents, who positively preferred that her suitor should be a poor man. And so the happy future that surely no authoress and most certainly no male reader could have the heart to refuse to so delightful a Susannah is available to complete a picture touched throughout with singular grace and charm. In particular the little snap-shots of two ideal family households, the one that includes the heroine, and another, much humbler, which she enters as an honoured guest, go to make this volume, all too short though it is, one that I can recommend with quite unusual pleasure and confidence.
Our Citizen Soldiers.
"Lord George H. Cholmondeley, M.C., Hotts Royal Horse Artillery, who has just been promoted to the rank of mayor in that Territorial Corps."—Cheshire Observer.