(1892)”—­describes a tour through America and Canada, with a rather too obvious bias against the habits and institutions of the former, but with so eloquent a presentation of the dream and fact of imperial pioneering service that it might draw even from a Little Englander, “Almost thou persuadest me!” “Letters to the Family” deals with the Canada of 1907, a very different entity from the Canada of to-day after the later Imperial Conferences and five years’ trial of war, but none the less interesting to hear about.  A voyage in 1913, undertaken “for no other reason but to discover the sun,” is the begetter of the third group, “Egypt and the Egyptians,” the first letter of which will not, I imagine, be reprinted and framed by the P. and O. Brilliant word-pictures of things seen, thumbnail sketches of odd characters, clever records of remembered speech, intelligent comment from a well-defined point of view—­these you will have expected, and will get.

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Lady DOROTHY MILLS, who has already made some success as a holder of the mirror up to a certain section of ultra-smart society, continues this benevolent work in her new novel, The Laughter of Fools (DUCKWORTH).  It is a clever tale, almost horridly well told, about the war-time behaviour of the rottenest idle-rich element, in the disorganised and hectic London of 1917-18.  Perhaps the observation is superficial; but, just so far as it pretends to go, Lady DOROTHY’S method does undoubtedly get home.  Her heroine, Louise, is a detestable little egoist, whose vanity and entire lack of moral render her an easy victim to the vampire crowd into which she drifts.  The “sensation” scenes, night club orgies, dope parties and the like will probably bring the book a boom of curiosity; but there are not wanting signs, in the author’s easy unforced method, that with a larger theme she may one day write a considerably bigger book. The Laughter of Fools, one may say, ends tragically; Louise, after exhausting all her other activities, being left about to join a nursing expedition to Northern Russia.  Which, judging by previous revelations of her general incompetence, is where the tragedy comes in—­for the prospective patients.  A moral rather carefully unmoralised is how I should sum up an unpleasant but shrewdly written tale.

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To The Diary of a U-Boat Commander (HUTCHINSON) “ETIENNE” adds an introduction and some explanatory notes.  In one of these notes we are told that the Diary was left in a locker when the Commander handed over his boat to the British.  We are all at liberty to form any opinion we like on the use made of this Diary and I am not going to reveal mine.  For, after all, it is the book itself—­however produced—­that matters, and even those of us who are getting a little shy of literature connected with the War will find something original and intriguing