The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-11-19

{ than that The scene is Matching 1 Easy" an Essex country village, in which is typified the old England. Here 1 MT Britlng lives and here he sees the ! changes which the war brings which are again typical of the changes, social and economic, which are being wrought
 through the empire All of this is set i forth in as dramatic and fascinating ! book as any MT. Wells has written, 8 : book of varied incident and striking : characters.
 ! If this story could be represented by sketches of pictures the central figure, says MT. Wells, would be MT. Britling.
 now sitting at his desk by day or by , night and writing first at his tract And 1 Now War Ends and then at other things, now walking about his garden or ! in Clavering Park, or going to and fro in London in his club reading the ticker, 1 or in his hall reading the newspaper, with ] ideas and impressions continually cluster 1 ing expanding, developing more and more abundantly in his mind. arranging them selves reacting upon one another, build ing themselves into general occasions and conclusions"
 Mir. Wells tells his story with such art and with such enthusiasm that the reader 1 feels himself to be actually a part of the little group described. From the moment when Mir. Direck, secretary of
  of Contemporary Thought, arrives at the village of Matching's Eeasy, to be the guest of MT Britling and to ask that dis tinguished philosopher to come to Amer ica and give lectures, to the last chapter of the book, in which MT. Briting, whose son is dead in the trenches, sits in his room all night writing an infinitely trag ic letter to the father of young Ger
 man who had been a member of his household, the reader is keenly in sym pathy with the people about whom he is reading And therefore the book is not
 readily forgotten, therefore he who has read it seems to have passed through a
 strange emotional experience rather than | merely to have enjoyed work of fiction. 1 Speaking of the war In one part of the 1 book, MT. Britling, who has not had q letter from his son in three weeks, goes 1 to see his American friend, Direck, and
 among other things says;
 'I am sick of this high thin talk of yours about the war. You are nation of ungenerous onlookers-watching us throttle or be throttled You gamble
 on our winning. And we shall win we shall win. And you will profit. And when we have won a victory only one shade less terrible than defeat, then you think you will come in and tinker with our peace Bleed us a little more to please your hyphenated patriots. You talk of your new ideals of peace. You
 say that you are too proud to fight. But your business men in New York give the show away There is a little printed card now in half the offices in New York which tells of the real pacifism of America. They're busy, you know. Trades real good. And so as not to in- terrupt it they stick up this card: Nix on the War!" Think of it!--"Nix on the Warp Here is the whole fate of man. kind at stake, and Americas contribu- tion is a little grumbling when the Germans sank the Lusitania, and no end of grumbling when we hold up ship or two and some fool of harbor master makes an overcharge. Other wise-"Nix on the War;
 MT. Wells rampant hunor and fasci- hating charm revel in flashes though out the clever story and the book is interesting, not so much for the things that happen in 1t and for the things that are said in it, but for the mar veous character delineation and the remarkable phases of MT. Brittling's mental processes as depicted by the au- thor.