AMONG THE BOOKS

Sun (Christchurch), Volume III, Issue 882, 7 December 1916, Page 3

AMONG THE BOOKS

THE KOHENZOLLERN FLEDGELINGS.

REVIEWS AND NOTES I ___

STORY OF THEIR ENGLISH GOVERNESS. Here is a book which should be more popular with the "flapper," her elder sister, her girl cousin, and her mother, than' Charles Garvice or Ethel M. Dell could ever be. It is E. L. Brimble's story of how she, an English governess, had the care of the children of the German Crown Prince for three years, and it carries the apt and fascinating title of "In the Eyrie of the Hohenzollern Eagle." In such days as these, when Germany is anathema to decent folk and the Crown Prince one of the most execrated of the enemy, that title is no less than an inspiration. Miss Brimble's chatty little record of her sojourn in the Imperial looter's home should have an unusual interest for her own sex, whether they live in Barbadoes Street or Merivale Lane. The domestic history of princes anywhere and at any time is an entrancing subject for the plain citizen, but when that royalty belongs to the Hohenzollern line. . . . Miss Brimble was not only governess to the two elder lads, Prince Wilhelm and Prince Louis-Ferdin-and, she also laboured under the impressive designation of "Director and Head of the Crownprincely Children's Department." The Royal Villa at Danzig—the Crown Prince had been banished from Berlin because of his misdeeds—was not very capacious, and as the rooms led into each other, there were at times embarrassing scenes. The raconteur has several pretty stories concerning the Crown Princess Cecilie, who is known as "The Smile of Berlin." Some personal details for the women folk: The first days of her married life were decidedly happy—"such kissing I never did see!" remarked one observer. . . . Cecilie is tall,

youthful of face and figure, her complexion is transparent . . . her walk is ugly, but she has well shaped hands, is decidedly musical, and knows how to dress. Miss Brimble records a mild protest against the unreasonableness of her Imperial employer at times; "even the children hated to ask her anything, knowing thev would get an impatient answer." Still—"her pretty deference to her husband's parents was good to see, and she got on capitally with all her brothers-in-law." For all her kind words, however, the author unconsciously conveys the impression that the Crown Princess was rather eccentric.

santrics as smearing tin boys' heads with potato puree or asparagus sauce, pouring their cups of cocoa over them, or rubbing the whipped cream from a sweet dish all over their faces. His plastering of the ceiling with plovers' eggs and a boiled potato fight with a high-spirited mutual friend in the royal kitchen.

were speciality extras. Now we can belter understand the Crown Prince's reputation for versatility!

Back to the youngsters once more —here is the breakfast menu on every day of the year: Fruit, porridge, eggs, rolls and butter, and the inevitable zurieback or rusks, honey or jam. Lessons began at 0 o'clock in Ihe schoolroom. Both boys, says Miss Brimble, were extraordinarily interesting to teach. After lessons (an hour and a-half), a drive, and during the drive possibly a bout of fisticuffs, with the footman and palace detective to keep the canaille from approaching too nigh. After lunch a siesta, tea at '1 p.m., prep, (as the college boys would term ii), then supper, and prayers and bed at 7.30 in the presence of the Crown Princess. That the Englishwoman grew very fond of her charges, is made very clear in the intimate little anecdotes she recounts of them. Lulu was a real boy, without a doubt, and Wilhelra was keen on the Boy Scouts. The vignettes are many and mostly unusual. We have, for instance, the Crown Prince in abbreviated sleeping gear, and again, parading before an admiring crowd on the beach clad in nothing more than his red (red!) bathing drawers. The description of the christening at the palace in Berlin, the picture of King George and Queen Mary at the Royal Opera House, the Aladdin's cave-like Christmas tree ceremony, the winter frolics with "High Papa" and "High Mamma," the whooping cough epidemic among the young princes—these and a hundred other matters are to be found within this very, entertaining volume. Then came the explosion at Serajevo, and for Miss Brimble it was not a question of annual leave at Home, but a permanent severance of relations with the Crown Prince's household. For all the terrible things that have happened since Lilian Brimble prefers to remember the "many sunshiny hours spent with boys, who, to whatever family they belonged, were to me just children, loving and beloved." Which is spoken like a true and good English woman. "In the Eyrie of the Hohenzollern Eagle" is published by Hodder and Stoughton, and is forwarded by Whitcombe and Tombs.

Miss Brimble devotes a couple of chapters to the solendid failure whose remnant of military reputation was obliterated on the Meusc heights. The Kaiser's eldest son, we are told, is exactly like his portraits. The best Miss Brimble can say for him is that lie has a super-abundance of purely physical courage. He takes a profound interest in Napoleon—the candle aspiring to be a star—believes (of course) in the divine right of kings, and (of course) is impatient to rule. Most people inside and outside Germany are well aware of the other and more disagreeable side of the Crown Prince's character. He adds to his sins by playing the violin badly and the fool ably—with his youngsters. He was fond of telling his wife that her rooms "smelt of the zoo," and delighted in calling people (even his own sons) "idioten, ox, kamel," etc., or engineering a rough-and-tumble fight in the nursery between the princelings and his dogs. Usually this perfect royalty and doting father finished up by emptying a bedroom jug of water over the fiery Prince Lulu. His innate refinement was also exhibited on occasion during luncheon when he indulged in such plea-

"The Perils of Peace."

Mr Cecil Chesterton is a controversialist of very decided opinions and the strength and weakness of this and other of his estimable qualities arc well illustrated in this, his latest book, "The Perils of Peace," in which he sets out to prove that any peace which leaves the present German Empire in existence with its centre in Berlin would be a mere truce. Mr Chesterton deals uncompromisingly with pacifists be they politicians, editors, or just plain illinformed sentimentalists whose war perspective is all awry. Such people and certain newspaper proprietaries are dealt shrewd knocks by this unequivocal antagonist of the Prussian. Generally Mr Chesterton may be said to have made out a strong case, though few would go so far as he in the matter of penalties to be imposed on a crushed foe. So long as Prussian power endures among the Germans, declares the writer, so long will the Germans continue to obey her will, and so long will she plot and plan for revenge against England. Therefore, that the evil thing be quieted for all time, this hateful and ferocious Prussia must be shorn of her strength.

She must be made to disgorge all her stolen goods—Alsace and Lorraine, the Polish provinces. England must get back Heligoland, relain the German colonies, and secure either the demolition of the Kiel Canal or its transfer to Denmark. The German Navy must either be sunk or divided among the Allies, Austria dismembered, and Prussia reduced to her original territory of sand and marsh —"a reserve of barbarism where the Prussians could be allowed to live under a Hohcnzollern Prince if they please, but closely watched, forbidden to arm, and isolated." Drastic measures, surely, but then Mr Chesterton is not a man of half measures. His

One of the most suggestive pages in Mr Harold Spender's book, "General Botha: The Career and the ■ Man," records a frank admission of Sir Starr Jameson when taken to task for his close political alliance with Botha:—"Are you aware that Botha wanted you shot after the raid?" "Ah," replied Jameson, with ! a smile, "Botha was always right," I Though a few days later, in an I electioneering speech, Jameson injsisted that the real intention of the ! raid was "to unite the Dutch and [British races!" That it did lead to I this ultimately through the war it I helped to provoke was, perhaps, due more to Louis Botha than to any - oilier man.

arguments are pleasantly suggestive and stimulating and vigorously expounded—but the bear must be killed before his skin is divided.

! Alfred Ollivant's "Bob, Son of .Battle," is a classic in canine literaj tine. In fact, it is such a classic that lone had a hazy notion that Alfred Ollivant had lived his life. He is still ! writing, though. "The Brown Mare," a simple tale of rural England in war I lime, is his latest book.

Our copy of "The Peril of Peace" is from Whitcombe ami Tombs. The publishers are T. Werner Laurie, Ltd., London.

A BOOXFELLOW'S GOSSIP. The '"Age" employs a couple of novelists as leader-writers and a third to attend to the Stale departments, says the "Bulletin." Of the leader-writers Ambrose Pratt has published at least four yarns in London, and George Cokerill has already been convicted of "The Convict Pugilist." The most promising novelist of the trio is the youngest, Roy Bridges, who, in the intervals between asking Peacock questions about his alleged policy, has found time to write five good Australian novels, four of which have been published in London and one locally. His latest, "Dead Man's Gold," has just been issued by Hodder and Stoughton, and is well spoken of by some of the Bull critics. The atmosphere of the "Age" seems favourable to the growth of imagination. All' Buchanan, who was the Syme daily's star reporter until lately, when he took over the editorship of Brisbane "Daily Mail," is another whose fancy lightly turned to novel writing, and three of his essays in cultured fiction have found ready publication in J. Bull's capital. Good news for those who believe that W. H. Hudson, author of "Green Mansions," is to the land what Conrad is to the sea, as many people have said. "Tales of the Pampas," a volume of Hudson short stories, none of which has appeared in this country, is awaiting you, says an American scribe. Edward Garnett declares that one of the stories in the new volume, "El Ombu," is the finest short story in English, and a judgment from Edward Garnett is a judgment of weight. By the way, did you know that both Conrad and Galsworthy had dedicated books to Hudson? Conrad's "The Nigger of the Narcissus," and Galsworthy's "The Man of Property," both have his name on the page of dedication. The Omar Khayyam Club once endeavoured, through Sir Mortimer Durand, then British Minister at Teheran, to induce the late Shah of Persia to repair the tomb of the Master. "Do you mean to tell me there is a society in London connected with Omar Khavyam?" demanded the Shah, and leaned back in his chair laughing heartily. "Why, he has been dead a thousand years," he said. "We have many better poets than Omar. Indeed, I myself -" and then he stopped. But he did not repair the tomb.

Mr E. F. Benson has an autumn novel appealing with Fisher Unwin, "Mr Teddy." "He is a man of 40, a wealthy amateur artist who iives with his entirely selfish mother. When he was 30 he would have liked to marry Miss Daisy, of 25. lie didn't, perhaps because his mother stood in the way, and at 40 he feels something of a love tragedy. A volume has been published containing the letters of Harold Ghapin, who was fast making a name for himself as actor, stage producer, and dramatist, joined the Royal Army Medical thorps in September, 1914, and fell in action at I.oos on September 20 1915. His friend Mr Sidney Dark says in a prefatory biography that Ghapin was an American citizen, born in 1880 of New England Unitarian stock that had Huguenot and Indian blood in it; but he had lived in England since he was two years old, and was English enough to give himself speedily to the task of opposing England's enemies. Mr Dark tells a significant story:— One of his mother's old friends wrote a letter, in which she said how noble it was of her son "to fight for king and country." Harold laughed when he was shown the letter. "I'm fighting for no king," he said, "and the best of this king is that he knows we are not fighting for him." "There speaks the American citizen!" is one's first reflection (observes ''The Times"), but the next moment suggests that, bating its republican form, Ghapin's remark is typical of the sentiments of many, perhaps most, of that new army which is fighting, not for a man, but for an idea. An anthology of verse depicting melancholy in various guises has been compiled by Mr Andrew Macphail, under the title "The Book of Sorrow." His classification includes "sweet sorrow" and "bitter sorrow," and he has unearthed some delightfully simple and touching verse by poets all but forgotten. One true little lyric of this type is by Thomas Ashe, who died in 1889. It js called "A Machine Hand," and Charles Lamb (remarks "The Times") would have loved it:— My little milliner has slipp'd The doctors, with their drugs and ways, Her years were only twenty-two, Though long enough her working days.

At eight she went through wet and snow Nor dallied for the sun to shine, And walk'd an hour to work and home, Content if she was in by nine.

She had a little gloomy room, Up stair on stair, within the roof; Where hung her pictures on the wall Wherever it was weather-proof.

Mr Shane Leslie in his reminiscences recently publish 2d derives an admirable store of anecdotage from his grandfather, Sir John Leslie, who only died this year, says an exchange. He remembered, as a schoolboy, being taken to see the Iron Duke—and getting no tip! Also—

She held her head erect and proud. Nor ask'd of man or woman aid, And struggled, till the last; and died But of the parish pit afraid.

Jennie, lie still! The hair you loved, You wraps, unclipp'd, if you but knew! We by a quiet churchyard wall, For love and pity buried you!

That brilliant young literary critic, Mr Dixon Scott, gave his life for his country at the Dardanelles. This, like the death of Mr Rupert Brooke, meant a real loss to contemporary letters. A volume of his critical essays is announced by Hodder and Stoughton, with an introduction by Mr Max Beerbohm. Dixon Scott was not only a critic, he .was a born essayist, with a sparkling, sensitive style.

My grandfather saw Talleyrand on the steps of Hertford House when Ambassador of France to St. James's.

... As a boy travelling in Scotland, undefiled by railways, he once listened to a kind old gentleman who entered the coach at Edinburgh and explained the antiquities as they passed. It was Sir Walter Scott in his anecdotage.