Chapter 4

Mr. JOHN MASEFIELD has brought together in _St. George and the Dragon_ (HEINEMANN) a speech "given" by him in New York on last St. George's Day, and a lecture on The War and the Future which he delivered up and down America from January to August of last year. Since then many things have happened. But nothing has happened that can make Mr. MASEFIELD other than proud of the part he has played in explaining and glorifying his country's cause and commending it to the hearts and minds of all good Americans. I confess that when I took up the book and read the first few lines I was afraid that Mr. MASEFIELD had yielded to the temptation of delivering his speech in poetical prose of a faintly Biblical character, as thus: "Friends, for a long time I did not know what to say to you in this my second speaking here. I could fill a speech with thanks and praise--thanks for the kindness and welcome which have met me up and down this land wherever I have gone, and praise for the great national effort which I have seen in so many places and felt everywhere." Mr. MASEFIELD however soon abandoned this manner and made the rest of his way in a good solid pedestrian style. But he did not disdain to go so far in flattery of the Americans, his audience, as to use the word "gotten" for the past tense of the verb "to get."

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There can be few Irishmen who look at their England with such affectionate eyes as Lord DUNSANY. _Tales of War_ (FISHER UNWIN) is full of this sweet theme. The first of the tales is a fine story of the Daleswood men who, cut off from their supports and worried because there would be none left in their native village to carry on the Daleswood breed, were for sending out their youngest boy to surrender. But, deciding that that wasn't good Daleswood form, they (for their last hours, as they thought) fell to recalling the familiar beauties of their old home and to cutting in the Picardy chalk the roll of their names for remembrance. You get it again, that calling-up of the home memories, when, in another marooned party, the Sargeant that was keeper begins with a vision of sausages and mashed and goes on to the birds and beasts and flowers and soft noises of English woods at night. And in a half-dozen other sketches. And it is good to find an Irishman and a poet to say things which stick on our embarrassed tongues. Lord DUNSANY has a happy trick of compressing a great deal into a little space, and his vignettes, sketched in with a conscious art, should find a place on our shelves among the war records which our children are to read.

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"When the wife of President Wilson was in London she spent hours shopping in Regent Street and other quaint sections of London."--_Daily Gleaner_.

Regent Street _will_ be pleased.

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"Captain Hayes, of the Olympic, in receiving a loving cut from Halifax citizens, described how the Olympic sank the U-boat 103, a few months ago. The liner cut through the submarine without losing a single revolution of the propellers."--_Australian Paper_.

One good cut deserves another.

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THE INFLUENZA-MASK.

"Shall I," he cried, "who made the Hun skedaddle And caused the _Wacht an Rhein_ to lose its job, Taught Johnny Turk the use of boot and saddle And fetched out FERDINANDO for a blob-- Shall I allow each little grinning urchin To move me from my purpose? Shall I shrink For fear of idle Rumour wagging her chin? No, no! I do _not_ think.

"My high emprise may set the suburbs hooting And lay me under Balham's local curse; There be--I know it--those in Upper Tooting Would lynch the prophet and insult his hearse; But when my feet have kicked this mortal bucket Millions will bless me!--more I cannot ask; So, John, distract me not! Jemima, chuck it! And, Jane, bring forth the mask!"