Page:Punch (Volume 147).pdf/597

December 23, 1914.]

General.

Recruit.

General.

Recruit (after some consideration).



I am sorry that I cannot now be the first to call King Albert's Book The Golden Book. But, since this term has already been applied, I can only applaud it. I suppose never in the history of books had such an one as this been put together, just as never in the ilne of kinds has monarch received, under such circumstances, so rare a tribute. If in the Belgian heart, from ruler to refugee, there is room for more pride than should of right be there already, surely these pages, voicing the homage of all that counts in the world to-day, will bring it. We are all men now, and in this book we have a welcome chance of proving our fealty. You will observe that I say nothing about the volume as commercial value for the three shillings that it costs to buy. One glance at the list of those who contribute (a kind of international supplement to Who's Who) is all that is needed to satisfy you on this point. The Daily Telegraph is primarily responsible for gathering together a greater assemblly of the names that matter than was ever collected between covers. To the proprietors, to Mr., who edits the book, and to the printers (especially for the illustrations in colour, which are triumphs of reproduction) I can only offer my thanks and congratulatory good wishes. Certainly, The Daily Telegraph Belgian Fund, to which will go the entire proceeds of the sale, deserves well the shillings that this splendid effort will bring to it. King Albert's Book is indeed a noble tribute to nobility—ont that for every sake will become an historic souvenir of the Great Days. And (if I may confess the secret wicketness of my heart as I read) how I should love to see the Berlin Press notices!

When Mr. Author:Theodore Roosevelt stated on page 25 of Through the Brazilian Wilderness that his was not a hunting-trip, but a scientific expedition, I winked solemnly, so often have I read books in which science is used as an excuse for a slaughter that to the unbloodthirsty seems to be more than a little indiscriminate. Now, however, there is nothing to do but to withdraw that wink and to say that Mr. and his companions killed only for the sake of food and speciments, though on one very exciting occasion a man called displayed a most unwholesome desire to slay anybody or anything. This renegade's lust for murder was merely a side-show, but it serves vividly to illustrate the dangers and risks that the travellers took as they fought their way along the River of Doubt. No escape is possible from the buoyancy of Mr. style; as frankly as any schoolboy enjoying a holiday he revelled in the ups and downs of his adventures; and if his enthusiasm for the important work that he was helping to accomplish occasionally leads him to relate trivialities, and also prevents him from advancing a few kilometres without adding up the total number he had travelled, the essential fact remains that his tale of exploit and exploration is told with a joie de vivre that carries everything before it. Among the many discoveries that he made is one from which time has taken away any cause for surprise. "There was," he says, "a German lieutenant 