Really we have here the old antagonism between the upholder of one school of Imperial thought, fortified by many years’ experience of it’s successful application, and the theories of a newer and more experimental age.  Without attempting a judgment on its conclusions, I can safely agree with the publishers that this is a book that “will be read with special interest in military, diplomatic and Government circles”; also—­my own postscript—­more vociferously debated in certain club smoking-rooms than almost any volume of recent years.

* * * * *

A “Literary Note” thoughtfully inserted in the fly-leaves of The Elstones (HUTCHINSON) informs me that it will “make a strong appeal to all those who have experienced the suffering caused by religious conflict.”  It is not entirely because it has been my lot to escape the ordeal in question that Miss ISABEL C. CLARKE’S latest book failed to make the promised appeal.  She takes two hundred and odd pages of peculiarly eye-racking type to convert the Elstone family to Catholicism without indicating in any way how or why her solemn puppets are inspired to change their beliefs.  Now and again a completely nebulous cleric happens along to perform the necessary function of receiving a moribund neophyte into the Church; otherwise the conversion appears to take place as it were by spontaneous combustion and not as the result of any visible proselytising agency.  However the Elstones bear no resemblance to real human beings—­you can hardly expect it of people called Ierne and Magali and Ivo and Elvidia and names like that—­so perhaps it doesn’t matter how they came to see the great light.  The important thing obviously from the authoress’s point of view is to get them into the fold; and good Catholics who look at the end rather than the means may enjoy The Elstones.  As a novel it will try them hard.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Manager of Gasworks (to aeronaut who has just had his balloon inflated).  “EXCUSE ME, SIR, BUT I WOULD LIKE YOU TO UNDERSTAND CLEARLY THAT OUR TERMS FOR GAS ARE STRICTLY CASH.”]

* * * * *

HOW THE SECRETS OF ROYAL HOUSEHOLDS LEAK OUT.

    “‘SO HOMELY AND NICE.’

    WHAT THE PRINCE SAID WHEN TOLD THERE WERE NO
    BATHROOMS.”—­Daily Mirror.

* * * * *

    “It is a trifle, perhaps, that the author mispels the name of
    Varden in ‘Barnaby Rudge,’ and the name of Bucket in ’Bleak
    House.’  Spelling is not of much consequence.”—­Mr. Arthur
    Machen in “The Evening News.”

So we observe.