as one might speak of wasps or weather—­which somehow conveyed to me very vividly the secret of our original little army’s disproportionate influence in the early weeks of the War.  The operations which we call the actual Battle of the Marne (surely fated to be the most fought-again engagement in history) are here very clearly described, with illustrative plans; while one other chapter, called suggestively “Kultur,” may be commended to those super-philosophers amongst us who are already beginning an attempt to belittle the foul record of calculated crime that must for at least a generation place Germany outside the pale of civilization.  For this grim chapter alone I should like to see Major CORBETT-SMITH’S otherwise cheery volume scattered broadcast over the country.

* * * * *

June (METHUEN) is saturated with the simple sentimentality in which American authors excel.  I do not know whether British novelists could write this sort of book successfully if they would, but I do know that they don’t.  Miss EDITH BARNARD DELANO, however, succeeds in getting considerable charm into her story, and if it leaves rather a sweeter taste in the mouth than some of us relish there are others who like their fiction to be strongly sugared. June, an orphan child, was looked after by nigger servants, and by one, Mammy, in particular.  She possessed a house and a valley; and a young man prospecting in the latter met with an accident and was discovered by the child.  Hence complications, and the removal of June from her home to be educated with some cousins.  Then poverty, hard times and plenty of pluck.  But the clouds began to lift when June discovered that an emerald cross of hers was worth four thousand dollars; and finally the sun burst forth when, through the agency of the accidental young man, her property was found to be very valuable, and she more valuable still—­to the young man.  It sounds ingenuous, doesn’t it?  But not nearly so easy to write as it seems, for to produce anything as artless as June is an art in itself.

* * * * *

In The Book of the Happy Warrior (LONGMANS) a chivalrous modern knight holds up to our youngsters the patterns of an older chivalry to teach them courage, clean fighting and devoted service.  Sir HENEY NEWBOLT claims that the tradition of the public schools is the direct survival of the mediaeval training for knighthood, and incidentally defends flannelled and muddied youth from hasty aspersions.  ROLAND and his OLIVER, RICHARD LION-HEART, EDWARD the Black Prince and CHANDOS, DU GUESCLIN and BAYARD, if they revisited this tortured earth, would be dismayed by the procedure and the chilling impersonality of modern war.  Perhaps in the glorious single combats of the Flying Corps they might recognise some faint semblance of their ancient method.  Sir HENRY, rightly from his point of view, chooses to ignore the wholesale