ely seen. To those who dare look at war with open eyes
and who take pleasure in sincere and beautifully-phrased writing I commend
Mrs. HELEN MACKAY'S book without reserve.

* * * * *

_Somewhere in Christendom_ (ALLEN AND UNWIN) is somewhat embarrassing to a
reviewer, for it has the theme of a great book with the manner of a trivial
one. It is the history of a very much smaller nation, Ethuria, left
despoiled and starving at the end of a nine-years' war, in which its great
neighbours have used it as a battle-ground. Revolution begins, but a woman
prophet steps in and switches it off in an unusual direction. The Ethurians
perfect among themselves that fellowship which is the nice ideal behind
many nasty manifestations in the real world, and, when next they are
invaded by neighbouring nations anxious to use them as an excuse for
belligerency, they resolutely stick to their guns (only the metaphor is
most unsuitable), refuse to find any cause of quarrel with their "foreign
brothers," and finally persuade them to abandon the ideals of war, so that
peace on earth becomes a reality at last. Here is the book's theme; its
working out allows for a boxing match between the President of Hygeia and
the Foreign Secretary of Tritonia as the minimum of hostilities; a wicked
newspaper lord, who pulls strings in both countries, and a faithful butler
to the Royal Family, who becomes assistant state nursemaid and cleans
silver as a hobby. Though I quite agree with Miss EVELYN SHARP and the
Ethurians that it _is_ love that makes the world go round, I am not so sure
that either hers or theirs is the best way of advocating their common
cause.

* * * * *

You may remember an original and striking book of papers about the theatre
under the title of _Buzz-Buzz_. Its author, JAMES E. AGATE, has now
followed it with another, called, rather grimly, _Responsibility_
(RICHARDS). You will be absolutely correct in guessing that this is not a
treatise on revue, being indeed an autobiographical novel of (I feel bound
to add) precisely the same calibre as, in the sister realm of drama, made
the name of Manchester at one period a word of awe. Why do these young
Mancunians recollect to such stupendous purpose? Here is Mr. AGATE, with an
introduction of forty-four pages, all about time and infinity, before he
can get his protagonist so much as started anywhere at all. It is a little
like one o