ilt some fine day on a site that has to be prepared by filling up a
marsh with clay and sand. In the meantime, until the day and the town
arrive, she rightly describes herself as _A Woman in the Wilderness_
(CHAPMAN AND HALL). Civilisation is turned back to front out there, for
although such comforts as refrigerators and electric light are a matter
of course, there is still lacking to _Mrs. Henry de Jan_ and her rather
shadowy _William_ anything, for instance, in the nature of a road on
which to walk, or indeed any approach to their own verandah except,
floating on the clay, a narrow plank gangway that has to serve as a
hustling high-road for a mixed and dusky populace. Under the
circumstances she has done nobly well to arm herself with the twin
defences of cheerfulness and humour; and if the cheerfulness comes at
times near to being that of a martyr on the rack, while the fun is
perilously apt to swing from themes that are nice for a lady's wit to
others that are not so nice, and back to sheer triviality, what, in the
name of a population of sand-flies and negroes, can you expect? It is
much that so lifelike a picture of a region so desolate should be
presented on the whole with sweetness and charm, when no better material
is available than the myriad misdeeds of her coloured servants, the
antics of her puppies and an occasional reminiscence of home.

* * * * *

Certainly VIOLET HUNT and FORD MADOX HUEFFER have one achievement to
their credit. They have evolved an entirely new and original setting in
which to bring together a number of short stories. What is supposed to
happen is that sundry persons who did not feel exactly drawn towards bed
before 2 A.M. on those summer nights when Zeppelins were about, meet for
bridge and sandwiches and incidentally to listen to certain stories read
aloud by their author. In this way they are able to forget their
apprehensions of the gas-bags (dare I put it that they lose Count?) and
spend a pleasant series of evenings with history. For the stories in
_Zeppelin Nights_ (LANE) are all historical of a kind. Mostly they deal
with the byways of history, or rather with the emotions of ordinary
people who are just on the outer edge of historical happenings. For
example, the central figure of the first is a slave whose basket of figs
is upset by PHEIDIPPIDES running from Marathon; while the last concerns
an insignificant little anti-militarist who finds himsel