Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/103

 RECENT FOREIGN LITERATURE. 91 4 Village Songs/ all characterised by the simplicity of great art and a haunting melody, the following will serve as an example : C L,ES DEUX ENFANTS DE ROI. Que separaient les eaux profondes ; Et rien la-bas, qu'un pont de bois, La-bas, tres-loin, au bout du monde. c Us s'aimerent. Sait-on pourquoi ? Parce que, 1'eau coulait profonde, Et qu'il etait, le pont de bois, Si loin, la-bas, au bout du monde.' A somewhat remarkable novel, ' Der Tunnel/ by Bernhard Kellermann, deserves mention here. It is assumed that the Channel Tunnel was finished and successfully working. It occurred to MacAllan, an American who had invented Allanite, a specially hard kind of steel, that a tunnel might be made from America to Europe, using that steel for the tubes, and that trains might run through in twenty-four hours. The book relates the carrying out of the scheme through all its vicissitudes, financial and other, to its happy conclusion when the first train from America reaches Europe only twelve minutes late. I happened to see something of the Simplon tunnel while it was in course of construction, and allowing for the added difficulty of working under water, it seems to me that Kellermann has grasped in marvellous fashion the main facts of such an undertaking. These of course could have been set forth in a technical treatise, but I take it Kellermann chiefly wished to show
 * 11 etait deux enfants de roi