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On the second page of The Secret City (MACMILLAN) Mr. HUGH WALPOLE (or, to be meticulously correct, Durward, into whose mouth the story is put) says that “there is no Russian alive for whom this book can have any kind of value except as a happy example of the mistakes that the Englishman can make about the Russian.”  Well, after finishing the book, which is in some ways a sequel to The Dark Forest, I felt so very disinclined to believe this statement that I consulted a Russian, who is very much alive, and received the opinion that, if Mr. WALPOLE has not succeeded in drawing the real average Russian, he has given us a type whose faults and virtues sound the keynote of the situation as it is to-day.  Such an opinion is worth a thousand times more than any judgment of mine, and I am glad of the opportunity to record it.  From a literary point of view it seems to me that Mr. WALPOLE, in allowing Durward to tell the tale, has created innumerable difficulties for himself—­difficulties which to a great extent have been cleverly overcome, but which nevertheless make the story wobble dangerously and once or twice threaten it with devastation.  To me, however, the interest never really flagged, for granted that one has a sympathy with Russia one feels acutely what Mr. WALPOLE is aiming at and how wonderfully he succeeds.  It is not difficult to find faults:  to complain, for instance, that a strong man like Semyonov would not have taken such elaborate measures to get himself killed; but these points are trivial in a book which is not to be read so much for its story as for its idea.  And the idea is great.

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Rollo Johnson was incautious enough to be born the natural son of a peer.  This fact caused just sufficient complications to keep MARY L. PENDERED’S latest story, The Silent Battlefield (CHAPMAN AND HALL), from any threat of stagnation while she was developing the theme that really intrigued her.  This was the struggle between increasing wealth and early-acquired Socialism as it arose in the mind of a hero working his way up from poverty to millionairedom, a seat in the House and the opportunity of hobnobbing with lords, suffragettes and other notables.  When I say that the two sides of the Socialist case are presented with rather uncommon fairness you may think that is only because my own particular creed is upheld; but really and truly I was frowning quite as much as purring while the silent battle proceeded, and the end is neutral enough to bring despair to all true believers.  Lest you should suppose the book all made up of election addresses I hasten to add that, in the quiet and thoughtful way one expects of the author, the story is a good one, the pictures of a small country town are true to life, and the characters without exception real creatures of flesh and blood.  Remembering the puppets that so often have been made to represent their country in a political novel, this is saying more than a little, and if it is true that, among the ladies of the cast, one still finds those the most attractive who have no pronounced opinions to speak or vote about, no doubt this is just old prejudice, and, anyway, the book is one that can be heartily commended.