ternal eye; it is clear that he was greatly concerned that she should not
be too anxious about him. A more impartial picture of the conditions at
Ruhleben is given in the second part of the volume, and in a letter by Sir
TIMOTHY EDEN, reprinted from _The Times_, on The Case for a wholesale
Exchange of Civilian Prisoners. I should add that the book is illustrated
with a number of drawings of Ruhleben made by Mr. STANLEY GRIMM, an artist
of the Expressionist School (whatever that may mean). These are vigorous
and arresting, if, to the unmodern eye, somewhat formless. But they are
part of a record that all Englishmen can study with quickened sympathy and
a great pride in the courage and resource of our race under conditions
needlessly brutal at their worst, and never better than just endurable.

* * * * *

Nothing will ever persuade me that _This Way Out_ (METHUEN) is an
attractive title for a novel, however effective it may be as a notice in a
railway station. The book itself, however, is intriguing in spite of its
gloominess. The grandfather of _Jane_ and _John-Andrew Vaguener_ committed
a most cold-blooded murder--this in a prologue. Then, when we get to the
real story, we find _Jane_ tapping out popular fiction at an amazing pace,
and her brother, _John-Andrew_, living on the proceeds thereof. _Jane_ is
noisy, vulgar, and successful in her own line, and gets on _John-Andrew's_
nerves; and when he discovers that she has for once turned aside from
tawdry fiction and written a play that is really good he decides that he
can stand it and her no longer. While she was pouring out literary garbage
he could just manage to endure his position, but the thought that she would
be hailed as a genius while he remained an utter failure was the final
stroke that turned him from a mendicant into a madman. I am not going to
tell you exactly what happened, but _Jane_ found a "way out," and with her
departure from this life my interest in the book evaporated. Mrs. HENRY
DUDENEY has notable gifts as a descriptive writer, and my only complaint
against her is that vulgar _Jane_ was not allowed to live, for in the Army
or out of it she was worth a whole platoon of _John-Andrews_. The
_Vagueners_, I may add, were not a little mad, but then they were Cornish,
and novelists persist in treating Cornwall as if it were a delirious duchy.

* * * * *

I don't think I can honourably recomm