place in the author's scheme. How
remote is its banishment you may judge when I tell you that the Divine
message is represented as given to mankind in the form of a wonderful
play, which instantly achieves world-wide fame, being performed by no
fewer than fifty companies in America alone. The problem (to name but
one) of the resulting struggle between plenary inspiration and the
conditions of a fit-up tour is only another proof of my contention
that there are more things in heaven and earth than can be treated
in realistic fiction, and that Mr. SNAITH'S good intentions have
unfortunately betrayed him into selecting the least possible.

* * * * *

If _Humphrey Thorncot_ and his sister _Edith_ had not bored one
another and grown touchy--I judge by their reported conversations--in
a house with green shutters in Chelsea, they would never have gone
to St. Elizabeth, which is a Swiss resort, and would never have met
the East-Prussian family of the _von Ludwigs_ in the year before the
War. And _Humphrey_ would never have fallen (temporarily) in love
with _Hulda von Ludwig_, nor would _Karl von Ludwig_ have fallen
(permanently) in love with _Edith Thorncot_. The troubles and miseries
of this latter couple are related by Mr. HUGH SPENDER in _The Gulf_
(COLLINS). Papa _von Ludwig_ objects so violently to all this
love-making that he eventually succumbs to a regular East-Prussian
stroke of apoplexy which all but leads to a charge of parricide
against _Karl_ by his base brother, _Wilhelm_. _Karl_ is really too
good for this world. He objects to atrocities and refuses at the risk
of his own life to shoot innocent Belgian villagers. Being imprisoned,
he escapes by means of a secret sliding panel and an underground
passage which leads him, not immediately, but after many vicissitudes,
to America. There he is joined by his faithful _Edith_, who defies the
Gulf caused by the War, and marries him. Mr. SPENDER appears to have
been in some doubt as to whether he should write the story of two
souls or the history of the first few weeks of the War. Eventually
he elects to do both, and his novel consequently suffers somewhat in
grip. He certainly paints a very vivid picture of events in the first
period of active operations. May I hint a doubt, by the way, whether
in 1913 a French Professor would have mentioned HINDENBURG as one of
Germany's most important men? Whatever he may have been in Germany,
HINDENBURG