story
of _Sabine Fane_, who, loving _Mark Vallance_, persuaded him to pass
a honeymoon month with her before he went to the Front, though his
undesirable wife was still alive. In allowing her heroine to suffer
the penalty of this action Miss HINE would appear, as far as plot is
concerned, to discourage such adventures. But _Sabine_ is so charming,
her troubles end so happily and the setting of West Country scenery is
so beautiful that, taken as a whole, I should expect the book to have
the opposite effect. The picture of a tall green wave propelling
a very solid rainbow, which adorns the paper wrapper and as an
advertisement has cheered travellers on the Tube for some weeks past,
has no real connection with the story, but perhaps is meant to be
symbolical of the book, which, clever and well written as it is, is
almost as little like what happens in real life.

* * * * *

_The Uses of Diversity_ (METHUEN) is the title of a little volume in
which Mr. G. K. CHESTERTON has reprinted a selection of his shorter
essays, fugitive pieces of journalism, over which indeed the casual
reader may experience some natural bewilderment at finding, what is
inevitable in such work, the trivialities of the day before yesterday
treated with the respect of contemporary regard. Many of the papers
are inspired by the appearance of a particular book or play. I can
best illustrate what I have said above by a quotation from one of
them, in which the author wrote (_a propos_ of the silver goblets in
_Henry VIII._ at His Majesty's) that he supposed such realism might
be extended to include "a real Jew to act _Shylock_." For those who
recall a recent triumph, this flight of imagination will now have an
oddly archaic effect. It is by no means the only passage to remind us
sharply that much canvas has gone over the stage rollers since these
appreciations were written. Unquestionably Mr. CHESTERTON, with the
unstaled entertainment of his verbal acrobatics, stands the ordeal of
such revival better than most. Even when he is upon a theme so outworn
as the "Pageants that have adorned England of late," he can always
astonish with some grave paradox. But for all that I still doubt
whether journalism so much of the moment as this had not more fitly
been left for the pleasure of casual rediscovery in its original home
than served up with the slightly overweighting dignity of even so
small a volume.

* * *