THE MEN FROM ANZAC. A foreigner described the Greater Jubilee of Queen Victoria as a pageant in devout patriotism. On that splendid day, when the Empire marched with her chosen men through London, a chivalry of armed youth attending the aged Queen-Empress, the crowd was a poet in feeling, and a difficult ceremony passed through pomp and triumph into devotion. Who can weigh and measure the permanent good done to the Empire by Queen Victoria's Greater Jubilee? A creed is nothing until it builds a fane for itself, and the creed of Imperialism had no august presence in a fane of visible certainty until the Jubilees of Queen Victoria made it real as a bond of union at millions of local celebrations. Then it was that the Empire became conscious of her unity in the world's affairs. Leaders everywhere perceived distinctly for the first time that the Empire, like a masterpiece of art, must be preserved as a whole. At the beginning of Queen Victoria's reign the Empire was a farscattered vagueness that utilitarians treated with contempt; during the last months of her life the promise of the Greater Jubilee was active in brave deeds done in battle. has been a free and natural growth in those reciprocal interests that enable an Empire gradually to bring her collective force to bear upon the same problems. Hence it was inevitable that the British Empire, when threatened in war by Germany, should turn her unity into army corps. There are persons who talk as if this natural act were almost supernatural; but those who value the past in the present, as all true Conservatives ought to value it, know that the Jubilees of Queen Victoria foretold the militant loyalty of India and the soldierly good fellowship of all the Dominions. And on Anzac Day, the spirit of Since then there the Greater Jubilee returned to London. Once more the crowd was a poet in feeling, and a public ceremony became an act of devotion. Other aspects of Anzac Day stir the imagination. A wounded New Zealander, after the service in the Abbey, related how the troops turned their eyes towards the altar when the first notes of the National Anthem were heard: "They saw there the simple khaki-clad figure of the only man in our Empire who does not stand when the Anthem is sung. And they wondered what he thought. Surely he saw, as they did, that every man in whose company he worshiped would lay down his life to uphold his sovereignty. The service closed with a quiet almost uncanny, and then the silver-throated trumpets rang out the soldier's saddest notes-the 'Last Post.' I do not know who wrote that call, but, whoever it was, he put into it all the pathos, all the hope of resurrection, and all the triumph that man knows. It ended, and for a while longer there was silence." Could any words show more clearly that the spirit of Anzac Day wasand should remain-not a festival for the living, but a commemoration of the dead? Thackeray used to complain-and Gardiner after him, in a noble passage of history-that the rank and file who died in war were forgotten at once; that their names were never recorded, even on monuments. The public has changed greatly during the present war; it is far more grateful than it has ever been to its soldiers and sailors; it is learning to appreciate discipline and self-sacrifice. But the spirit of Anzac Day has to be extended to all the brave men who have passed from life into the undying traditions of their regiments. Every British county should commemorate the deeds of its troops once a year. We will not emphasize the heroic note, because brave soldiers do not like it. Sir William Birdwood set a very useful example in his brief speech. He told his men always to pay attention to training and discipline, these qualifications being quite as important as fighting determination. When civilians give way to heroics they exercise their gratitude and make soldiers feel uneasy, for true valor is shy in the presence of praise. Besides, Englishmen knew that the Australasian troops would be magnificent and would turn courage into a national heirloom. The speech of Mr. Hughes, as a whole, was great in statesmanship. "Not The Saturday Review. contempt of death in even its most awful forms," he said, "nor dash, nor resource, not all these things would have sufficed the men of Anzac had the divine spirit of self-sacrifice been absent... It is upon this foundation of self-sacrifice that true patriotism rests. Who shall say that this dreadful war is wholly an evil?" The noble demeanor of London on that day is a proof that the better qualities of our race are being renewed. And it is heartening to remember also that the New Zealand troops, by placing before the altar a wreath in memory of the 29th Division, united many dead British comrades to the homage they paid to their own fallen. BOOKS AND AUTHORS. "The Finding of Jasper Holt" by Grace Livingston Hill Lutz is the story of a girl who is rescued from death in a train wreck by a man whom she recognizes as one of the world's good men. The society of the Western town to which Holt belonged and where Jean Grayson was going to visit her married sister at the time of the accident judged him far otherwise. Holt's love for the girl brings about his determination to live up to the best that is in him and at last the town's acknowledgment and acceptance of his worth. It is a simple love story with plenty of action, but no subtlety and is charming in its directness. J. B. Lippincott Company. The title of Dorothy Canfield's latest volume of short stories, "The Real Motive" (Henry Holt & Company) is not taken, as is the wont of such collections, from the opening story, but is intended, in a general way, to characterize all the stories in the book as studies of the motives which prompt and explain conduct. Except for this, there is no connecting thread which links them. They are varied in scene and character. One or two are laid in Hillsboro' and introduce the reader to more "Hillsboro' People"; and one or two in Paris, amid the scenes which helped to make "The Bent Twig"; but it does not matter much where the scene is-each story is of independent interest, and all are true to life, sweet, and subtle without vagueness. There are fourteen of them, altogether, the garnering of contributions to various magazines during the last few years. Scattered through them-as in "Hillsboro' People"-are several poems by Sarah N. Cleghorn. To readers who are unfamiliar with the delicate and mystical writings of the woman who chose to disguise her identity under the pseudonym of "Michael Fairless," the dainty little book of daily readings arranged by Mildred Gentle, and published by E. P. Dutton & Co. under the title "The Roadmender Book of Days," would have been more readily understood if it had been prefaced with some ac count of the author of "The Roadmender" and the other books from which the selections are taken. To those who do know "The Roadmender," it will be a surprise that "Michael Fairless" was the author 9966 also of "Pilgrim Man," "The Gray Brethren,' Rest and Unrest," "Magic Casements," "A Modern Mystic's Way," "Winter and Spring" and other books and booklets which are drawn upon for these quotations. The selections here grouped-one for each day in the year-cover a wide range of thought and reflection, and are richly and reverently suggestive. The title of Professor James A. B. Scherer's "The Japanese Crisis" (Frederick A. Stokes Co.) will surprise a good many Americans, who do not realize that there is any Japanese crisis; yet it is only a few weeks since Japanese sensitiveness was so aroused by the form of the pending immigration bill in Congress as to compel a modification of the bill, and intelligent Japanese have not forgotten, if Americans have, that for three years a formal note of the Japanese Government upon this question has remained unanswered. Professor Scherer is no alarmist, but he has spent years in Japan and has had the best of opportunities for studying the Japanese character, and becoming acquainted with Japanese ideals. His book, modest in size as it is, is a valuable contribution to the discussion of a subject which may yet become of acute importance-the more valuable because the fruit of personal observation. A brief review of the circumstances which led to the opening of Japan serves as preface for chapters on the coming of the Japanese to California, the assumed militancy of Japan, the assimilability of the Japanese and the effect of the Alien Land Law. It would be folly to ignore the facts and conclusions which Professor Scherer presents. Arthur Ruhl, author of "Antwerp to Gallipoli" (Charles Scribner's Sons) is an American journalist who had the unusual good fortune to witness some of the most important incidents of the great war, as he expresses it in his sub-title, ❝on many fronts—and behind them." He was in Courtrai when the German cavalry entered it; along the Marne, after the desperate fighting there; in Antwerp during the German bombardment; in Paris and Bordeaux when the Germans were in retreat; later, in the German prison camps and in the German trenches; then, through Roumania and Bulgaria on the way to Constantinople; and afterward with the Turks at the Dardanelles; in Hungary, at the "correspondents' village" of Nagybiesce; in the hospitals at Budapest; through Austria-Hungary to the Galician front; and along the line of the Russian retreat. Of his experiences on these many fronts, and as an observer of many armies and peoples, he writes with freshness and vigor, and with a surprisingly broad sympathy and appreciation of the best qualities in all. His narrative is not over-loaded with detail, nor is it encumbered with discussions of causes or of international politics. It is intensely interesting-the more so because it covers operations and incidents which, while they have figured conspicuously in the press dispatches, have not been hitherto included in any single narrative by an eye-witness. Thirty illustrations from photographs serve to make more real the scenes and incidents described. |
