Welsh Journals

rectangular cottages to of cheap brick, dumped naked on to the bare landscape, each with its patch of cabbage-stumps between it and the highway. Two sordid-lookiny public houses-one could not call them inns-flanked a patch of scurfy grass, and a rusty pump. Ye village green quoth George. Ugh It's got ringworm A little way off stood the church, a rambling, dilapidated pile of freestone, the upper windows covered with dirty sacking. That church looked dispirited, and no wonder. For just opposite, stariny it out of countenance, as it were, stood a chapel. It was, without exception, the ugliest and most depressing chapel I have ever seen just a little jerry-built oblong of unrelieved and rain- smirched brick. Yet it seemed to fancy its tawdry self. For, let into the front was a tablet, a very big tablet, which proclaimed to all the world that it had been built in 1830, rebuilt in 1893, and "re- decorated," yes, re-decorated in 1902 Nay, more, such was its concern that posterity should labour under no possibility of error as to its imposing history that a big Anno Domini had been pre- fixed to all three dates. We shook the dust of Throssle off our tyres, and were glad. Thus it was after passing through the wilderness that we entered the Promised Land. For, some miles away was a hill, and we made for it. It was a real hill we should have called it a hill in the west; for the Central Plain it was an Alp. And at its foot was a real English wayside inn with a cool, dim, old-world interior that smelt faintly of scrubbed deal and potted geraniums. And they could rise to real English ham and eggs, too We began to think better of the Midlands, especially when the next stretch of road brought us to an avenue of fine old beeches. And there was a church, too, with a splendid Saxon tower, from whose ancient battle- ments anxious eyes long ago had watched the distant We welcome the appearance of Mr. J. D. I. Hughes as one of a number of Essayists in International Relations. (Macmillan, 2s. net.) He writes cautiously on International Law. and shows how easy it is to formulate rules and how difficult to make them bear the strain of war. Mr. P. H. Kerr of the Round Table discusses the complex relations of advanced and backward peoples, and Mr. Greenwood describes the interdependence of Economics and politics in world-commerce. The volume forms an admirable introduction to some of the main problems raised by the war. It does not deal with the religious aspects of these problems. For a stimulating treatment of these we may turn to Religion in Europe and the World Crisis by C. E. Osborne (Fisher Unwin. 7s. 6d. net). It is a study of the Church and Democracy in the furnace of war. The author who is Vicar of Wallsend, would Ouse for the first glimpse of Danish prows. Here at last was the England of our dreams, and we forgave Throssle. Poor old Throssle I After all, perhaps it couldn't help itself. Evening brought with it a swinging open road and pines and a sunset. Surely, of all the heart-entangling sights in nature, there is nothing quite so vaguely poignant and picturesque as the black silhouette of a draggling pine athwart a great red sun just where the road dips into the mysterious beyond of evening even a blackbird's lonely piping in the gloaming is not so mellow. We forgot our khaki, forgot the clash of accoutrements and the steady purposeful tramp of marching feet, forgot all that strange six months of alien work and din. Here at least were wedded silence and peace, tho' a peace as fleeting as the magenta tints beyond the sun. And our thoughts went homing westwards with the rolling sun. Just such pines are there on the Menai where the blue waters lap the bluffs, and George's eyes grew grave in reminiscence as he lit his pipe. Just so the sun looks as it sinks into the Cardigan Bay beyond the Teify estuary amid great headlands, lovely, mysterious and portentous. Yes, the Midlands have their Throssles, but they can also atone for them. I don't know whether the Baby has found that Rectory or got that early game of tennis yet. But it is a solemn fact that he went out for a ride on his own last Saturday and was late for roll-call. He has also developed an aspect of subdued melancholy and an abstracted manner-duly and pungently noted of the Sergeant-Major. George and I con- sidered his case at dinner. Is it love, d'you think or "-{here George stirred a judicial spoon in the Gippo ") — indigestion?" I don't know. As George says, it gives to think." Anyway should he report sick on it, I wonder. EJt.W. SHORT NOTICES fain see the Church walk in the spirit of Maurice and Democracy in that of Mazzini. There are two illuminating chapters on The Russian Spirit." Readers who feel depressed by the Euro- pean conflict may draw some confort from Mr. F. S. Marvin s Living Past, the second edition of which we are glad to welcome. (Clarendon Press. 3s. 6d.). The author reviews in a fascinating way the great civilizations of the past and their contributions to the growth of a common humanity and the increasing application of organized knowledge to social ends. Students who are apt to lose their way in the detail of ordinary histories should turn to this delightful volume for a clue through the labyrinth. Inventors and Money Makers, by the well-known American Economist, Professor Taussig (Macmillan, 4s. 6d.) is a study of the psychology of money-making. We must ask Lord Rhondda to review it