e seventeenth and twentieth centuries there would
seem to be nothing very worthy of remark in such energy if one may judge
from the attitude of our War Office to the Volunteers. Naturally one
turns eagerly to see what this distinguished soldier has to say about
campaigns in which he took a personal part, but, although shrewd
criticism is not lacking, Sir Evelyn's sword has been more destructive
than his pen. In these days of tremendous events this volume may
possibly be slow to come to its own, but in due course it is bound to
arrive.

* * * * *

I find, on referring to the "By the same Author" page of _The Lad With
Wings_ (Hutchinson), that other reviewers of "Berta Buck's" novels have
been struck by the "charm" of her work. I should like to be original,
but I cannot think of any better way of summing up the quality of her
writing. Charm above everything else is what _The Lad With Wings_
possesses. It is a perfectly delightful book, moving at racing speed
from the first chapter to the last, and so skilfully written that even
the technically unhappy ending brings no gloom. When _Gwenna Williams_
and _Paul Dampier_, the young airman she has married only a few hours
before the breaking out of war, go down to death together in mid-Channel
after the battle with the German Taube, the reader feels with _Leslie
Long, Gwenna's_ friend, "The best time to go out! No growing old and
growing dull.... No growing out of love with each other, ever! They at
least have had something that nothing can spoil." I suppose that when
Mrs. Oliver Onions is interviewed as to her literary methods it will
turn out that she re-writes everything a dozen times and considers
fifteen hundred words a good day's work; but she manages in _The Lad
With Wings_ to convey an impression of having written the whole story at
a sitting. The pace never flags for a moment, and the characters are
drawn with that apparently effortless skill which generally involves
anguish and the burning of the midnight oil. I think I enjoyed the art
of the writing almost as much as the story itself. If you want to see
how a sense of touch can make all the difference, you should study
carefully the character of _Leslie_, a genuine creation. But the book
would be worth reading if only for the pleasure of meeting _Hugo
Swayne_, the intellectual _dilettante_ who, when he tried to enlist, was
rejected as not sufficiently intelligent and then set to painti