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the unusually childish habit of sulking when spoken to crossly. Altogether it is a most refreshing yet quite legitimate neighbourhood, my only complaint against it being that it did one or twice remind me rather too closely of that other island which Barrie's Admirable Crichton so competently ruled. Be it noted, however, that Mr. Adams is not out for satire or any other latent purpose; his simple object is to entertain, and, in my common judgment, he has not failed.
We can't get to know half enough about the Navy these great days, and perhaps many of us are something stricken in conscience because (when we come to think of it) it was little enough we had learnt and a good deal too much we had taken for granted about the ships and the men that fight the ships. Mr. L. Cope Cornford, in Echoes from the Fleet (Williams and Norgate), presents various aspects of Naval life and work through the pleasantly refractive medium of sketches and stories, and no less a person than Lord Charles Beresford vouches for the accuracy of the presentment. So I merely hand on to you his recommendation. I can, indeed, well imagine that gallant Admiral particularly approving the prologue with its suggestion that all ministers hide a cloven hoof and all (well, nearly all) sailormen a halo. And if the half be true of what the author relates of H.M.S. Cresset (a pseudonym for discretion's sake) and its hazardous cruise, with a rotten bottom and a wobbly screw that finally dropped off, so that her captain had to hoist sail, then some cheeseparer in authority badly needs impeaching. (Early eighties? No: 1912, by the guns of the Lion!) Yes, surely we ought to know about such doings and about the pleasanter and sterner things that Mr. Cornford tellls us with a fine enthusiasm and no very carefully weighted phrases for those who are not of his school.
The Great White Army (Cassell) you
Must turn your mind about, and go
To where, beneath the blinding snow
From Moscow France's arms recoiled
And staggered back to Paris foiled.
That is the period whereon
The author, Mr. Pemberton,
Has turned the searchlight of his brain
To wake it into life again.
Of smaller, not less deftly planned—
Of gay young guardsmen, debonair,
Who succour ladies, passing fair;
Of various plottings and such things
As lovers' gentle whisperings;
All with the jaunty skill which he
Draws from some secret recipe.
God knows, of serious facts, you still
Would turn for solace (as is right)
To fiction not too deep nor light,
Well woven, not too closely knit,
With humour and a touch of wit,
Urbane and expert—this is it.
The reading of Enter An American (Methuen), by E. Crosby-Heath, leaves me under the impression that the writer is an American lady who has spent some days in London. No English writer, I think, would have been capable of making the American hero so unobtrusively and yet so genuinely American in his externals as is Spencer K. Wallace, who intrudes as an earthly providence into the sacred circle of female paying guests assembled at Carabas Court, Carabas Square, and immediately sets to work to compose quarrels, bring parted relatives together, save wastrels, make marriages (his own fourth marriage, incidentally), and gencrally to confer upon sufering humanity such benefits as may spring from the possession of unaffected kindliness and unlimited wealth. The nationality of the writer is further indicated by the use, in her narrative and in the mouths of British characters, of such expressions as "stopped off," "to take around," "she was named for her aunt," and others of a similar nature. As for the sex, I think only a woman could have described with so much insight and shrewdly malicious humour the distinguishing characteristics of Mrs. Golling, Mrs. Curran, Mrs. Bannister and Miss Spink, the guests who adorn Carabas Court, and of Miss Pewsey, their landlady and about such host. Having accomplished this piece of detective work, I confidently expect to be assured on authority that E. Crosby-Heath is an Englishman who has never been out of London and has evolved his American out of his own inner consciousness. Be that as it may, the book itself, so long as it remains in the region of Carabas Court, is very bright and entertaining. I like particularly the passage in which Mr. Wallace describes the merits of his three deceased wives to the astonished "guests" of Miss Pewsey. If I might hint a fault it would be that the long arm of coincidence must be tired out by the work put upon it; that the flats are, perhaps, inadequately "jined," and that the sentiment is too freely sugared. I should add that Mr. Spencer K. Wallace has his moments of human weakness. As expectant Governor of his native State he promises benefits to one of his numerous protégés: "I shall fill my office but poorly," he says, "if I can't shake a few plums into your pocket." Nothing could well be franker as an avowal of political principles.
How to fill up a Leisure Hour.
"Portsmouth, 20 Feb., '15.
Dear Mother,—I was married yesterday. The weather is a bit too stormy for mine sweeping.
Your affectionate son, Jim."
OUR VETERANS' CORPS.
Sergeant (to learned professor, greatest living authority on Greek particles, who has turned to the right instead of the left.) "Use your brains, Sir! use your brains—if you've got any."