Of Mr. Finley's sincerity and enthusiasm there can be no question: of his taste there is a good deal to be said. Many books have been written about the Holy Land; but surely none before which deliberately puts the history and the personages of Palestine into the background of a picture whose foreground is occupied with the events of the recent campaign. Mr. Finley has no hesitation in viewing sacred history sub specie temporis hodierni. For him Allenby's battle at Armageddon is "the beginning of the end of the battle with the Beast." The German is not, however, only Anti-Christ: he is also Judas. Here are Mr. Finley's meditations over the Holy City:
I was an ashamed spectator, standing there at the Gethsemane Gate, feeling that we had been sleeping when we should have been watching, when we should have been preparing for defence against the German Judas who had professed devotion to the teachings of Him who spoke the Sermon on the Mount. Did not the great German Hospice stand most conspicuously on the Mount, that its pilgrims might dip their bread in the very sop of the Master's dish? And do not the towers of the German churches stand out most prominently (and offensively) in the Inner City?
Most of his book is like that: and if you cannot see history in quite the startling black-and-white of Mr. Finley's imagination you had better leave the book unread. Mr. Finley was with the American Red Cross, and he tells one happy story of himself, which it is only fair to quote. He was worshipping in the Russian Church of the Ascension on the Mount of Olives:
A woman of sharp, eager face, as of a zealot, with a grey shawl over her head, seeing me standing near the door, approached me and said, in rather sharp voice, "Quelle croix?" I did not at first understand the import of her inquiry, though I realised that she was putting to me an all-important question: "Quelle croix?—grecque ou latine?" ... My answer was "La Croix Rouge."
If the soil of Palestine be favourable for legends, no doubt a tale will arise of a strange religion whose devotees cross themselves neither in the Western or Eastern manner, but in some strange, "red" mode which Mr. Finley's zealot was probably eager to see.
ADDRESSES IN AMERICA. By John Galsworthy. Heinemann. 6s. net.
Generalisation, which used to be a philosophy, is rapidly becoming little more than a hobby. During the war it was a hobby savagely or amiably ridden by those who sought to explain the mentality of the Allies or the Enemy. Gradually individuals learnt that not every Belgian was Belgium, nor every German Germany: but for propaganda purposes we still used great typical figures. It saved thought, and it flattered either our own pride or that of our friends. The propagandists' most delicate task was always to explain Great Britain to the United States of America: and certainly it was a wise thing to send Mr. Galsworthy across the Atlantic. Surely he, if anyone, might be able to justify the ways of the country house to Boston and New York, to Washington and even to Chicago. Here we have his addresses delivered during 1919 in the United States. In his paper on America and Britain he takes the line that by words we are saved:
The tie of language is all-powerful—for language is the food formative of minds. Why a volume could be written on the formation of character by literary humour alone.
It sounds not unconvincing, until one remembers that French is not the language of Alsace; that English is spoken by most of the inhabitants of Ireland; or, to go further back, that the possession of a common language did not prevent Athens and Sparta from indulging in the Peloponnesian War.
We like Mr. Galsworthy better when he leaves his generalisations and tells stories. In the paper "Tallary at Large" he displays that sweet-naturedness, that mellowed irony which never lapses into satire, that humour which is always aware that a sense of pity is invaluable in comedy. Here is the true Galsworthy: