Chapter 4

At first sight, perhaps, _Nothing Matters_ (CASSELL) may sound to you a somewhat, shall I say, transatlantic title for a book published in these days, when we are all learning how enormously everything matters. But this emotion will only last till you have read Sir HERBERT BEERBOHM TREE'S disarming little preface. Personally, it left me regretting only one thing in the volume (or, to be more accurate, outside it), which was the design of its very unornamental wrapper--a lapse, surely, from taste, for which it would probably be quite unfair to blame the writer of what lies within. This is almost all of it excellent fooling, and includes a brace of longish short-stories (rather in the fantastic style of brother MAX); some fugitive pieces that you may recall as they flitted through the fields of journalism; with, for stiffening, a reprint of the author's admirable lecture upon "The Importance of Humour in Tragedy." This is a title that you may well take as a motto for the whole book. It will have, I think, a warm welcome from Sir HERBERT'S many friends and admirers, even should it turn out to be the case that some of his plots have been (in his own quaintly attractive phrase) "prophetically plagiarised" by other writers. Certainly this welcome will not be lessened by the knowledge that all profits from the sale of the volume are to go to support a cause that, to all who love the Stage, will be far indeed from not mattering--the fund to supplement the incomes of the wives and families of actors at the Front. You may regard it therefore as the lightest of comedies played, like so many others, in the cause of charity, and put down your money with an approving conscience.

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Let no one whose heart has been touched beyond mere vicarious pride in the achievement of our brothers-in-arms at the gate of Paris allow himself to miss the detailed narrative of HENRI DUGARD in _The Battle of Verdun_ (HUTCHINSON). A good translation by F. APPLEBY HOLT, rather exceptional in these days of hurried conveyancing, does not detract from the vigour and movement of the story. We, who only saw the long agony through the medium of the always inadequate and discreet technicalities of the _communiqués_, could form no real impression of the kind of fighting or of the results of each phase of it. The author has collected the accounts or reports, so that the strokes and counter-strokes (for there was nothing passive in this siege) of the epic combats round Douamont, Fort Vaux, the Woevre, Malancourt, Avocourt and the Mort Homme are intelligibly reconstructed. Comment in the form of personal anecdotes of individual heroism is added. Perhaps the most illuminating touch is in the letter of poor Feldwebel KARL GARTNER, which was to have been despatched to his mother by a friend going on leave, so as to escape the Censor's eye. It began in a mood of robustious confidence and ended (or rather was interrupted by GARTNER'S capture) on the most despairing note. And this was seven months before the most brilliant counter-attack in the history of the War slammed the door once for all in the face of the enemy.

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"The scheme of utilising vacant spaces in London is being taken up enthusiastically in the provinces."--_Evening Standard_.

At the same time the scheme of utilising vacant spaces in the provinces is being welcomed with similar enthusiasm in London.

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"Vigorous complaints against the proposal to establish an overhead electric system of tramways in Edinburgh were made this afternoon.

Lord Strathclyde declared that the overhead wires proposal had electrified the citizens."--_Scottish Paper_.

There must be something seriously wrong with the insulation.

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--> NOTICE.--Rejected Communications or Contributions, whether MS., Printed Matter, Drawings, or Pictures of any description, will in no case be returned, not even when accompanied by a Stamped and Addressed Envelope, Cover, or Wrapper. To this rule there will be no exception.