and _Lucius Harney_, the young visitor from the city, the fairy-prince
of poor _Charity's_ one great romance, through whom came tragedy. You
see already the whole stark simplicity of the theme. What I cannot
convey to you is that secret of Mrs. WHARTON'S that enables her by
some exquisitely right word or phrase so to illuminate a scene that
you see it as though by an inspiration of your own, and feel that
thus and thus did the thing in fact happen. There are episodes in
_Summer_--for example the Fourth of July firework evening, or the
wildly macabre scene of the night funeral on the mountain--that seem
to me to come as near perfection in their telling as anything I am
ever likely to read, and when you have enjoyed them for yourself I
fancy you will be inclined to join me in very sincere gratitude for
work of such rare quality.

* * * * *

Those who admired (which is the same as saying those who read) that
excellent book, _The Retreat from Mons_, will be glad to hear that
its author, Major A. CORBETT-SMITH, has now continued his record in a
further volume, called _The Marne and After_ (CASSELL). In it you will
find all those qualities, a sane and soldier-like common-sense, an
entire absence of gush, and a saving humour in the midst of horrors,
which made the earlier installment memorable. Above all else I
have been impressed by the first of these characteristics. Major
CORBETT-SMITH writes from the viewpoint of one to whom even this
ghastliest of wars is part of the day's work. That he sees its human
and hideous sides by no means impairs this quiet professional outlook.
I recall one phrase in his chapter on the secret agents of the enemy:
"At the Aisne German spies were a regular plague"--just as one might
speak of wasps or weather--which somehow conveyed to me very vividly