n the contrary, I told myself that "Mr. JOHN
AYSCOUGH" had been betrayed by his own appreciation of beautiful phrases
into an indulgence in "style," a deliberate arrangement of his war-pictures
that was somehow out of harmony with the stark and horrible simplicity of
their subject. But I hasten to make confession that this was but a passing
and, I am convinced, a wrong judgment. Indeed, the abiding impression that
the book has left upon me is one of enormous sincerity. Both as a soldier
and a priest, the writer enjoyed (as his publishers quite justly say)
special opportunities for getting into touch with men of all sorts and
conditions. This, aided by his own gift of sympathy and comradeship, has
resulted in a book that is very largely a record of fleeting but genuine
friendships, made with individual soldiers, both French and English, in the
Western battle. Many of them contain portraits and character-studies (a
pedantic term for anything so sensitive and sympathetic as these tributes
to nameless heroes, but I can find no better) that linger in the memory. I
defy you, for example, to forget soon the story of that winter walk taken
by the writer and certain officer-boys of his unit to the Cistercian
Monastery, and what _Chutney_ said by the way; and what happened
afterwards. For the sake of such sincere and memorable sketches as this I
am more than ready to forgive what seemed like a touch of artifice
elsewhere.

* * * * *

Mr. GEORGE MOORE, continuing his labours as reviser and editor-in-chief of
the Moorish masterpieces, has now directed his attention to _A Modern
Lover_. Finding this (presumably) not modern enough, he has refashioned and
republished it under the admirably comprehensive title of _Lewis Seymour
and Some Women_ (HEINEMANN). Not having the original at hand, I am unable
to indulge in comparisons; but there seems good reason to suppose that
_Lewis Seymour's_ relations with the three amiable ladies who assist his
artistic and amatory career remain very much what they probably were in the
beginning. As for the tale itself, that too will hardly belie your
expectation, being full of cleverness, carried off with an infectious
gaiety, and boasting (I use the word advisedly) more than a sufficiency of
that rather assertive and school-boy impropriety which the charitable might
quote as evidence of our author's perpetual youth. It is an interesting,
though perhaps futile, speculation