LIBER'S NOTE BOOK

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2988, 27 January 1917, Page 13

LIBER'S NOTE BOOK

My Experiences on Three Fronts,

Sister Martin-Nicholson, the author of ."My Experiences on Throe Fronts (Allen and Unwin) has written an exceptionally interesting narrative of her adventures, as a nurse, in Belgium. Germany, and Russia, and later on on the Western front. She was in Brussels when the Germans occupied the city and had some unpleasant experience's of German, brutality before_sffo was allowed to leave for Russia. Disguised as a peasant woman, she vrxtecl Louvain, and there saw some terrible sights: Dead bodies, many charred beyond recognition, lay everywhere, and upon the walls were the dark red splashes of the blood which had beer, wantonly spiled, there, were marks of the same colour on tho pavements. ... On turning a corner 6 omeway back from *** ] »»**U.Stor. tion I tripped over something lying }eij rtffl'in the eummer sun, Golden-haired, with her little face buried in the, dust, and -the- tiny ■ fingers piteously outstretched, la/a little baby girl of about six dead. Not dead from a passing bullet or fallen 'stone, but dead because between the little shoulder blades shone a inife-edged bayonet. ,^ e H, at .. hcil lM "drew out the blade, turned J*e :™° e ' overi and cleaned her blood-stained face. I- searched, but I could not find a trace of anything that would tell me to,whom she .belonged, .poor little fragile butterfly, crushed in the coarse lenton fingers, so covering- her with an old sack, 1 gently laid her to rest among some bushes at'the end of a^arden. The author gives an interesting description of her trip across Germany to Denmark, whence she made her way to Petrograd, but by a.sad slip of the pen she alludes to changing at Ham , bl and then passing through Essen with a great red flare in the sky, belching furnaces, a town awake and at worli throughout the night." Now, Essen'is in Rhenish Prusaia, and she would pass it a very few hours after leaving Cologne, whereas Hamburg— by this time everyone tnows where hamburg is on the map. Miss IS who son warmly praises the patience with which the wounded. Russian bears his sufferings in hospital. He never grouses. Incidentally, she says she marvelled when noticing the .wretched boots worn by-so many of the men at the comparative absence of foot troubles. Ttt*s explanation lies in the fact that'tne Russian soldier never wears a sock. Ho takes long strips of fine linen, soaks them in.oil and fat, and binds them round'and round his feet and ankles: "After some months nursing : at*-pefro'grad; the author .had to re-; 'turn to' England,* on urgent 'private; business, and gives an interesting description of her journey home through Sweden arid Norway. After a brief sojourn in England she took up work on the Western front. The concluding chapter of a. very readable volume, is devoted to a comparison of the leading characteristics of soldiers of various races, - especially as the author studied them in the course of her woi.v. Next to the British Tommy she pilts the Russian as, being the most goodhumoured of soldiers. But Tommy is. clearly her favourite:

His endurance! It will bring linn through" anything. Grouse! . Oh, he will groirce; ho wouldn't be Tommy if lie didn't. His grousing is like the imperceptible Jayer of water on the 6urface of a groat block of ice: It makes no difference 'to the great chunk beneath, though only let the great warmth of kjndness sl'ine full upon it, and agony, pain, endurance, an grousinir will melt into o.io vast sea of gratitude.' Many are the anecdotes which tho author tells to illustrate the; leading characteristics of the various races; representatives of which she has nursed, and most of them are exceedingly well told. As a series of pictures of life as seen by our nurses Miss Nicholson's book is a valuable addition to war literature. (N.Z. price, 6.). "Cod's Minute." "God's Minute" is the title of a neatly produced little book (the Vir Publishing Company), containing" 365 daily prayers—sixty seconds long—arranged in calenda-r form, each . page having a verse of Scripture at the top —an encouragement to worship.. The prayers were written expressly for the book by 365 of the most eminent evangelical clergymen and laymen in the English-speaking world, the- English and Canadian contributors including: Wilfred T. Grenfell, Professor W. H. Griffith Thomas, Professor Thomas Trotter, Sir Robert Anderson, R«v. Frank Ballard, Rev. John Clifford, Rev. F. B. Meyer, Rev. W. Graham Scroggie, Canon ;Girdlostone. Among the American contributors are: Rev. Washington Gladden; Hugh Black, Timothy Stone, Bishop Quayle, and many others eminent in the American pulpit. The idea of the book was suggested by ' the thought that so many Christian people offer as an excuso for not having family devotions that they "haven't timo." This spiritual contribution to the Christian world's literature proves that only a minute daily devoted to tho worship of God can bo made an inspring one to begin the duties of the day.

The Song of the Plow. Maurico Hewlett's epic poem, "The Song of tho Plow," being the English chronicle, is an attempt "to retell English history from the point of view of the men on whoso elemental and essential labours the whole strncturo of Court and Kingdom, of wars and arts, is based; namely, "tho man on the soil," whoso destiny it is, he says:— A. thousand years to plow the earth, And be worse off at journey's end.

Tho author states that Tils subject, "which a sense of decorum, but not common-sense," forbade him to call "The Hodgiad." is "an epio subject, perhaps the only real one left." In his proluuo lie draws a picture of "Tho Man on the Hill," who

Under tho eun on the gray hill, At breakfast campt behind the hedge,There ate he, there eats ho still,' Bread and bacon on tho knife's edge. . . . His eyes, Seeing all things, and seeking none, Are very patient and weather-wise. The clearest eyesight under the sun He has, and holds the ancient way': The "way his forefathers have'gone.

Mr. Howlett traces the story of British Hodge right through tho centuries, and closes bis poom with a vision of "A Now Domesday"—a dream of a namoless and God-liko king appor-

tioning rewards to wounded soldiers of bo many roods of land: — Youcs by the sword from coast to coast, As I decree so he it done; A tithe of hie land let each man spare, In giving bo lie debonair, As if his left served his right hand, And fcar'd to be Hie lust to share. Thus Hodge shall win at last his land— You,' Earl of forty thousand acres, Give your four thousand; you who stand I Master of five, for the new takers Give your two roods, to avoid tho shame That England scorns her Empire-makers. Time -will tell whether Mr. Hewlett's vision may be realised. .The'countryhred soldier may be only too glad to turn to the land when the war is over, but I fear that many of the -urban-born returned warriors will be hard to place on tho land, even were a new Domesday Book to render it possible. Stray Leaves,. As a type of Prussianism in its most objectionable form we have all heard, and read much ' of the Junker the landocrat of Northern and North-East-orn Germany. It appears, however, from what I read in Sir Charles Waldstein's "Aristodemocracy"—a title which recalls memories of the last Lord Randolph Churchill's much-discussed term "Tory Democracy"—that there is a now tjpo in modern Hun life even more hateful than the selfish and truculent Junker. This is tho Streber. Tho author says:

. The English and the Americans hare their "climbere" and "pushers," and the Trench have their "strtiglifers" and their "arrives."' But these repulsive offshoots of modern commercialism aro with us free from cant and self-decep-

tion; they are clear-cut types who openly, and often with coarse cynicism, repudiate all higher professions. But tho German Streber uses great phrases; he plays the part of the poor man of science or scholar, nobleman or diplomat, or even soldier. . In the spirit of these individual Streber the nation as a whole, which aims at power and nothing more, whose professed goal is ooiumorcial and financial expausion, will poso before the world as the champion of Kultur; and, a revolver in the ono hand, raises high with the other the sclioolmaster'e birch, threatening the world with pedagogic chastisement to improve its mind and manners; while speedily dropping the friendly swish, it grasps at the money-bags of its recalcitrant puAnothor autobiography which should have a big vogue will bo "Charlie Chaplin's Own Story," which Mi-. Werne'r Laurie will publish.' As a rulo, these' theatrical memoirs are written up for'their alleged authors by some hack writer, who discreetly remains behind the scenes. If Charlie Chaplin only tells his'own story himself it should be highly diverting, for common report credits the hero of the "movies '. with being a "decidedly racy raconteur. A London firm of publishers announces an edition de luxe of "The Book of Job," with an introduction by Mr. G. K. Chesterton, and spmo illustrations by a Mr. C. M. Tongue. Why Mr. Chesterton should imagine . that the Book of Job requires an "introduction" by him or any other modern writer I fail to understand. These "introductions" are becoming a positive nuisance.

Apropos to tho bringing down and destruction of tho last Zeppelin at Potter's Bar, a crrespndent _ of a London paper suggests that this wellknown London suburb should bo rechristened "Potter's Bar," as being the culminating point of arrest for enomy aircraft bent on attacking the metropolis. Potter's. Bar was a favourite resort of Charles and Mary Lamb. . "Do you remember," says Bridget Elia (Mary Lamb), in that most delightful of the . '.'Essays of Elia,". "Old China," "our pleasant walks to Enfield and Potter's Bar and Waltham, when wo had liolyday?" Their starting-placo then was Islington, and they walked all the way; for Mary Lamb regretfully contrasts those good former,days--with the later degenorato

.timorwheri'th'fey rode-.for a part of their, day's pleasurings, and their former pleasant habit of taking their own

food and picnicking in some little inn with tho later practice of going to some fine establishment and ordering a regu-

lar dinner. What, I wonder, would the "gentle Elia" have tliongh't of the murderous airships of tho Huns?

SOME RECENT FICTION

Pincher Martin, O.D. Readers of The Dominion who wish to know and thoroughly understand the daily life of His Majesty's seamen in peace and war, how they are trained, fed, amused, what is the daily rou-' tino of duty, and so forth, cannot do better than go straight away to ,the nearest bookshop and purchase a copy of the- latest hook by that entertaining writer whose nom-de-plume is "Taffrail." Iu "Pincher Martin, 0.D." (W. and It. Chambers, Ltd.), "Taflirail" has written a book which is equal to the very best of Captain Marryatt's once-fam-ous and still very readable sea stories. Wβ follow the career of the redoubtable Pincher from the grey and drizzling morning when he first joins H.M.S. Belligerent, .a pro-Dreadnought, at Portsmouth, a puny, undersized little rat of a- man, with a. pallid, freckled faco and a crop of -sandty hair, to the day when he takes part in the famous battle of Jutland, and (blossoms forth 1 into a full-blown A.8., a fine, hefty lump of a. fellow, wounded, it is. true, but not soriouslyV and fated, after his discharge from hospital, to be united to his faithful Emmoline. The earlier, portion of the book is devoted to Pincher's experiences of the making of a British seaman. Some of those experiences are disagreeable, but a stout heart, good mates, and officers whose firmness of discipline does not prevent them being very genial, kindly friends to tiheir men when off diity, combine to make a new man of Pincher. A healthy lifo, good food, and wisely directed recreation goes to improve his physique, and he soon finds that tße lot of the O.D.—the navy name for nn ordinary seaman—is by no means an unhappy one. "Taffiail" is most ingenious in the way he conveys the information as to the seaman's Me with which his pages are packed. The narrative is so cleverly punctuated by humorous incidents and episodes, plus, too, a- slight admixture of the sentimental, that the story as a story, makes excellent reading, quite apart Irani its informative interest. A better book for a boy could not well be imagined, and at least one adult reader must testify as to its fascination.

"Damaris," by Lucas llalet (Mrs. St. Leger Harrison), (Hutchinson and Co.; per AVhitcombe and Tombs), is an Anglo-Indian story, the principal figures, in which nro Charles Verity, a. middle-aged administrator of an Indian province, a widower: his littlo daughter. Damaris, a highly emotional child, and Henrietta Pcreira. a married woman, whom Verity ought to have married, instead of the woman who became liis wife, and who died after two or three years of unhappincss. Mrs. Pereira comes a second time into Verity's lifp, intending for a time,- at- all hazards, to recapture his love. Verity is on the point of giving way to her fascinations, although' he irr-cogiiises tliat surrender would snoll tho ruin of liis official career. Suddenly, however, im is called away to suppress a riot. The woman then- "thinks it over." and takes refuge from a position which slio sees is fraught with danger, in ignominious flight. For neither the man nor the woman can the reader feel any pitv. but, alas, the poor little nejrlec-ted chihl, Dnmaris, has conceived a nassion.ito attachment for tho pretty Mrs. Pereira, and the departure of tbn latter comes perilously near to spelling a tragedy in the Verity palace. The minor characters, especially a grimly Pnri-

tanical old Lancashire woman, the child's nurse, arc strongly drawn, and the social lifo of the station is described witli piquancy, plus, perhaps, a soupcon of ill-nature. In "Damaris" tho author of ."Richard Calmady" is scarcely at her' best, but it is a novel very well worth the reading.